Balancing the Scales

Amidst hopes for a good and sweet new year, this week’s Torah portion (Ha’azinu) between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur brings the swan song of Moses as he prepares to die. It’s no coincidence that these two poignant moments come together now.

In a sense, Moses’ preparation to die evokes our own. Each year, tradition calls us to rehearse our death at Yom Kippur – a reminder of our mortality, arousing our courage to act, forgive, repair and transform our lives while we still live (B.T. Shabbat 153a).

For many of us, however, rehearsing death asks too much (its difficulty might distract or inhibit us) – or it asks too little (death is an easy way out: as “George Washington” sang in the musical “Hamilton”, “Dying is easy, young man. Living is harder”).

If “rehearsing death” seems too hard or too easy, then Ha’azinu offers two alternatives.

One is to write the poem of your life. That’s what Moses did: this week’s Torah portion is Moses’ poetic song of his life. We can do likewise not to prepare for death, but to launch the life we most yearn to live. This time is especially potent for its power to inspire transformation: why not now?

Another is to see in Ha’azinu a chance to re-balance our lives: the ideal life is lived in balance. Unique in the Torah, typographically Ha’azinu lays in two perfectly balanced columns, evoking the balance for which Moses yearns. Even the word Ha’azinu means balance: its Hebrew root also means to “balance the scales” (Lev. 19:36).

Now is when we balance the scales. We seek renewed balance in our lives. We balance the renewal of our lives with the poignant reminder that all human life is finite. Rebalanced within, we remember anew to treasure each day, that we may attain a heart of wisdom (Psalm 90:12).

L’shanah tovah tichateimun: may you and your loved ones be sealed for a renewed life of balance and goodness in the year ahead.

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Heaven is a place on earth

Two important new buildings opened in DC this September, the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Trump International Hotel. In its own way, each building provokes us to consider the goals of our actions. One stands as a reminder to transcend prejudice, showing us how far we can fall from a Heavenly standard. The other serves up a standard of luxury that is heavenly for well-heeled guests from a proprietor who offers his own temporal standards of behavior. Each building demonstrates how far we can deviate from God-inspired ideals.

Thinking about edifices as reminders, we could say that Jews have the Torah as a construction code. The instructions of the fifth book, Deuteronomy, read this time of year, serve as a blueprint to build a better world. Each individual is zoned for goodness as mapped out by the Creator. These Yamim Noraim, days of awe, are a chance to go before the review board. We renovate our spiritual real estate – gauge our actions, re-engineer our approach and open the doors of our souls to behavior inspired by Heaven. We even place mezuzas, like construction permits, on the doorposts of our buildings.

Detailed instructions are prominently etched in our memories by Torah: care for the widow and orphan, leave something for the poor, treat your neighbor just as you would want to be treated. Torah even teaches us to build a parapet around our roof so no one falls off.  The rules and regulations, we call mitzvoth, are not lofty ideals but daily practices to be observed.

In parashat Nitzvaim, which we read this week before Rosh Hashanah, God states that these instructions are for us to actuate. It is not only in Heaven for deeds of loving-kindness to be performed. It is not across the sea for others to follow this moral path. We are not to rely on others, no less heavenly intercessors, to improve this world. Rather, it is in our hands to build this world from love. Each of us is employed as a construction worker on this project .

We must learn to activate the words of Torah with boundless humanity and earth saving actions. There is no limit to the goodness we can each bring to the world if inspired by a Heavenly standard. A world that has transcended prejudice and ended all slavery. A world that values honesty, integrity, and charity along with comfort and freedom.

As a rabbi in this paradigm, I get to serve as spiritual property inspector. My question for you is what will you do to construct Heaven right here on this earth?  Start with your own soul renovation project and please start today.

R’ Evan J. Krame

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The Gratitude Virus

As we approach Rosh Hashanah, here’s a reminder that our spiritual ancestors knew what neurobiologists only recently figured out.

Emotion is catchy – and a good thing, too.

In the 1980s, scientists discovered that the brain is wired with mirror neurons that fire when we perceive others’ emotions. These neurons mirror in us what we sense others experiencing, a signal so strong that we can feel others’ emotions as our own. (It’s also why yawning is contagious.)

This week’s Torah portion (Ki Tavo) is full of what we should do and not do, and the consequences of our choices – subjects fitting enough for pre-Rosh Hashanah introspection. The portion begins, however, with words reprinted in the Passover Haggadah about expressing gratitude for our blessings. Torah mandates, as perhaps Judaism’s first fixed liturgy, that these prescribed words of gratitude must be spoken aloud (Deut. 26:3).

Why? Enter mirror neurons.

Abraham Ibn Ezra, the great medieval mystic, taught that gratitude’s words must be spoken aloud – not just felt or pondered within – precisely so they are heard. Hearing words of gratitude, ibn Ezra wrote, teaches others because we emulate what we hear. Children, he taught, learn gratitude when they hear adults express gratitude. Adults, he wrote, learn to keep promises when they hear others’ gratitude for promises kept.

What we say matters. Others naturally mirror how we are: their mirror neurons fire, and so do ours. The more we speak gratitude, the more we prime the pump of a virtuous cycle of gratitude. The same goes for any words we speak – whether grateful and loving, or sharp and judgmental.

That’s how all of us are collectively responsible, especially at this time of year. It’s why we stand together at Rosh Hashanah. It’s why we confess together our missed marks. It’s why we ask together for forgiveness. It’s why we reach together for repair and healing. It’s why we feel together a whole so much greater than the sum of its parts. The sense of all of us together at Rosh Hashanah is potent not only because Rosh Hashanah is a great spiritual re-boot, but also because of the raw and poignant power of everyone subtly affecting everyone else.

Gratitude, love, contrition, forgiveness, hope – they’re all catchy viruses, and at this time of year we’re especially prone to them, thanks to mirror neurons. So go catch some good viruses, and be sure to spread some. Shanah tovah.

Rabbi David Evan Markus

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Best Behavior

As I read this week’s portion, Ki Teitze,  I kept thinking over and over again, “it’s not about you.” This portion has the most mitzvoth in any single portion and most of them have to do with how we interact with others within our families or communities. These are laws, that if followed, can elevate human existence and create strong communities.

The Torah portion is reminding us to look outward and care about others, to protect them and to feed them. Care about their dignity, even if they have done something wrong. Generally speaking, the Torah does not contain laws that weren’t in response to the behavior at the time. For instance, if people always made serious attempts to return a neighbor’s lost cow, there would be no need for a mitzvah requiring it. How is though, that 2500+ years later, children have the chant, “Finders keepers, losers weepers or “possession is 9/10 of the law?

There is also a law about putting a parapet around your roof to ensure that no one accidentally falls off the roof. At the time, houses had flat roofs which were often used much like a patio or deck might be today. This law reminds me of the laws concerning locked fences around swimming pools today. In both situations it seems like a such an obvious thing to do, why would it need to be a law – in either situation? Both of these situations are protecting others from unnecessary preventable harm. It is not only the other person’s responsibility to be careful, but also ours to watch out for their safety.

The laws of “Peah and Leket” – leaving the corners of the field unharvested are repeated in this portion. In an agricultural society, not taking one’s full harvest but leaving it to be gleaned by the poor is an important act of generosity. It is not only providing necessary sustenance, but provides the gleaner with the dignity of providing for him/herself.

The portion closes, or culminates, with the reminder of how Amalek attacked the Israelites from behind. To many Jews, Amalek is the name of any enemy who wants to destroy us whether it is Haman in the Purim story or Hitler. The focus is on “our enemy.” But it is important to pay attention to the details of Amalek’s attack. Having no fear/awe of God, they attacked the stragglers at the back of the group. Amalek represents the opposite of what the laws in this portion are trying to instill as the way we should always behave – caring for the vulnerable, not attacking them. Amalek is not only our eternal enemy, but our internal enemy as well.

As we approach the Yamim Noraim, the High Holy Days, it is an appropriate time to review how we operate in this world. Do we look out for and provide for the needs of others? Do we treat all human beings with respect and dignity? Do we try to bring harmony and justice into our interactions with others? We don’t have to wait for Rosh Hashanah to return to living our lives to be best version of ourselves that we can be.

R’ JoHanna Potts

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Election Year Judaism

What does Judaism have to say about our current election cycle in the United States? So much! And I am excited by the fact that ideas recorded 3,000 years ago are relevant today.  Here’s some historical context before we shift to the text.

Imagine that you’ve been camping in the rocky desert for 40 years with a few hundred thousand friends.  The journey is nearly over. Before you move forward, there are a few hundred rules and regulations you need to know. Some of the laws might not be needed for centuries to come.  Some of the laws are still relevant millennia into the future, like the ones addressing leadership.

At a time when no king ruled the Israelites, Torah offered instructions on how a monarch was to rule. Anticipating change is a brilliant innovation of Torah that permits our tradition to continue guiding us today.  Here are some of those rules (in the order in which they appear in this week’s parasha Shoftim).  See if they continue to be applicable.

When you set a ruler over you, no one should be sent back to the land of oppression from which they came (i.e. Egypt).  The ruler should not have many spouses. Nor should the ruler amass gold and silver to excess. The leader should keep a copy of this teaching at their side.  And the monarch should not act condescendingly to the people.

Seems to me that these lessons are relevant today. These rules evoke some of the hot button issues of 2016. Do we send people who have stealthily entered this Promised Land back to places of oppression?  Do we care if our leaders have stable family relationships or if they have had many spouses? What if the leader has become quite wealthy – will a rich sovereign be as effective or fair?  Whatever the law of the land, shouldn’t the ruler be intimately familiar with the constitutional document?  Does the ruler respect the people or mock them with taunting phrases and offensive gestures?

[Any similarity between these Torah rules and current political candidates is either purely accidental or divinely ordered, but in any event this is not an endorsement or indictment of any candidate by the Jewish Studio or its leadership].

Judaism continues to be relevant by bringing the loftiest values to mind and calling upon us to act as our finest selves.  Our religion even speaks to our hearts and minds in the context of our current election drama. Torah implores us to pursue lives of moderation, caring, and respect. No one is more bidden to be temperate and benevolent than the ruler. What great lessons for our country’s political leaders; ancient as the Torah and still true today.

R’ Evan J. Krame

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The Power of Hope

This Too is For Good: The Power of Hope

Perhaps nothing seems more obvious than what’s “good” or “bad” – or, as this week’s Torah portion (Re’eh) puts it, what’s a “blessing” or “curse.” At this time in the Jewish calendar, when the approaching High Holy Days prod us to examine “good” and “bad” in our lives, a famous story challenges our sense of what “good” and “bad” are.

The great Akiva once traveled to a certain city. Finding nowhere to pass the night, Akiva slept alone in the woods. A lion devoured his donkey, a cat killed his rooster and the wind extinguished his candle – leaving him alone, in the dark without food or transportation. All throughout, Akiva insisted that all of this “bad” somehow was for “good.” The next day, Akiva found that robbers attacked the city and carried its inhabitants into captivity. Only Akiva escaped because his donkey and rooster weren’t around to make noise and his extinguished candle didn’t give away his location (Talmud, Berakhot 60b).

Akiva’s story reminds that everything can be more than it seems: even the most “bad” somehow can be for “good” – and we all can try living that way.

Naturally the mind conjures counter-examples. What’s the “good” of cancer? school shootings? refugees? genocide? It’d be cruel or dumb to blithely call disease and death “good”: suffering must galvanize us to seek healing and wholeness however we can. For that reason, we might read Akiva’s story as a call to action: “this too is for good” if we make “bad” into “good.”

Yes, we must act – but Akiva’s point goes deeper. The “bad” Akiva faced was beyond his control: he could only hope, in the words of his teacher Nachum Ish Gam Zu, that “this too is for good” (in Hebrew,gam zu l’tovah).

Before we can act, first we must hope. And if we can’t act, then we must hope. Either way, first we hope.

Hope powers possibility. Often we think we know every impact and meaning of events. But if we’re deeply honest, we must confess that we know far less about the world (and ourselves) than we may comfortably think. Hope asks humility of mind, to not assume we know more than we do. When we let go of over-sure knowing, naturally hope arises. Hope is our natural state – and when we hope, anything can happen.

Hope powers experience. When we think we know the future, patterns of mind shift into autopilot. Psychologists call them cognitive heuristics, mental shortcuts of assumption and habit that conserve brain power. Cognitive heuristics are why we can drive a car without thinking about every movement of eye, hand and foot (otherwise we’d be frenetic or paralyzed) – but cognitive heuristics also can lead us astray. Every phobia, every fixed judgment of another’s character, and every prejudice based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion or nationality, is a cognitive heuristic gone bad. When we let go of over-sure knowing, we see our mental shortcuts for what they are. Hope that’s truly open to the future helps us experience life full and fresh, without a dulled mind or straitjacketed heart coasting on autopilot.

Hope fuels resilience. Hope inspires audacity to defy darkness and courage to face fear. With hope, illness can bring healing (but not always cure). Injustice can prompt action (but not always justice). Destruction can lay new foundations. Hopes for healing, action and renewal are wellsprings of resilience.

Hope isn’t blind anti-intellectual comfort: it’s spiritual power. Hope doesn’t deconstruct “good” and “bad,” or relieve us of moral agency, but rather lifts our vision toward a view more expansive than mere eyes can see.

So what of life’s “blessings” and “curses”? What of accountability for our actions? Hope isn’t nihilism: we can’t behave however we want and pretend it “good.” This time of year especially calls us to examine choices, take responsibility for consequences, and renew our commitment to be as “good” as we can.

But when we’ve done our best, or our best seems not “good” enough, or there seems no way out, Akiva reminds us that everything can be more than it seems. We need the hope that we can’t see the whole picture. So even before we do all we can to make “good” from “bad,” first we summon hope – a hope that can remake the world.

R’ David Evan Markus

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Finding God

“Where do you find God?” my friend asked.  “I find God in you,” I answered. Finding God in you isn’t like Finding Nemo. It is not a journey travelled or a viewing experience. It is a deep sharing of self. I believe that I can get a glimpse of God if someone shares their soul with me.

You see, I really want to know who you are. Not your name, not your status, but your essence. I want to meet your soul. The problem is, many of us don’t take the time to know ourselves well enough. If you don’t know your own self, you will hardly be able to share your soul – that is, your whole self – with someone else. 

Here’s a tripping point of knowing who we are.  Many of us identify only by what we do. I’m a lawyer, I’m a teacher, I’m a student, I’m a parent. Those are my doings, not my being.  What if we each strip away our identity as a human doing and loosen up the constraints of who we are in relationship to others? What is the essential you?  Do you need an introduction to You?

In Torah portion va’etchanan Moses is giving instruction to the people as they prepare to enter the land of Israel. One phrase among many makes a powerful impression upon me. “Only take heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently.”  Before you can follow God’s laws and before you can move forward, you have got to pay attention to who you are. The essential human being that is you, remains vital and perhaps has been unheeded. If you haven’t regarded yourself then you haven’t cared for your soul. 

Step one: identify what makes you “you”. Here’s an exercise, to figure you out – see yourself through the eyes of someone who loves you.  Step two: be conscientious about your soul.  That means giving yourself the time to just be you without distractions; take long walks, meditate or keep a diary.

In the Jewish calendar the seven weeks preceding Rosh Hashanah, is a time for self-discovery. We re-ignite the engine of our internal processes in a process of teshuvah, returning to our core selves. Teshuvah, which we typically identify as repentance, is easily experienced as an adjustment of focus. The process demands a stripping away of the nonessential identities that cloud our inward vision. If we only examine ourselves by dint of our deeds, we can’t improve. First you have to figure out who you are and what you have to offer. Re-discovering yourself will give recognition to what God placed in you that is your essential self.

Maybe you’d like a partner in this process – a friend, a rabbi, or a spouse. This process of turning, will be more productive with someone to be a mirror or guide. Let someone else really get to know you, as you endeavor to heed yourself and tend to your soul. Relationships will be so much richer if you bring forward the essential you and strip away the roles you play and the accomplishments you’ve achieved.

You see, I really want to get to know you, because I believe that you are a portal to finding God. Aren’t you now curious to get to know yourself better?

 R’ Evan Krame

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It’s Your Turn

The secular calendar says mid-summer, and my Northeast home swelters for an umpteenth day above 90 degrees. The timing is right: on the Jewish spiritual calendar, the great gear shift has come. It’s time to start turning inward towards the heat of our hearts and souls.

Probably few of us instinctively respond with delight. After all, the journey inward can be hard – inconvenient, unpleasant, even painful. Already its hot outside: the national political climate is overheating, and the world seems to boil over. With heat seemingly everywhere, we can understand our ease-seeking instinct seeing the High Holy Days approach and wishing we might run the other way toward someplace cool and calm.

For this impulse to run, this week’s Torah portion (Devarim) gives a gripping reply. It comes just as we approach Tisha b’Av, Judaism’s bleakest day commemorating the Temple’s destruction, the Jewish exile and the seven-week journey to Rosh Hashanah. This spiritual synergy is poignant: only when we experience our own inner ruin for what it is, without protective walls, can we make the Rosh Hashanah journey of forgiveness, healing and renewal. So often in life, we must descend for the sake of ascent – in Hebrew, yeridah tzorech aliyah.

This turning, this descent for the sake of ascent, reveals a hidden meaning of our Torah portion. As R. Alan Lew observed in one of my all-time favorite books, This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared, this week’s portion proclaims four times that we must turn – turn away, turn toward, get up and turn, return. Repetition focuses attention: this is the moment of the great turning.

But turning toward what? Hearts and souls, yes – and something more. Torah pointedly begins this week that our ancestors reached this point after 40 years of wandering, reaching much the same proverbial fork in the road as when they were too afraid to enter the Land of Promise. Forced to wander 40 years to purge inner fear, they return to the same context 40 years later to try again.

As for them, so for us. We return to this place and time each year, with a key choice to make. We can turn toward inner truths and tend the inner repairs that we most fear, or we can go through the motions and spend more time wandering. The journey might be hard and hot – change often is – but the reward is an inner life flowing with milk and honey.

Now it’s your turn. Choose wisely, and let the great and timeless journey begin anew.

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Challenging boundaries

Boundaries and borders are set to provide order.  Yet, sometimes a challenge to the order or even a little disorder is required. Evidence of this is found at the end of the Book of Numbers which closes with the final resolution of the land inheritance of the daughters of Zelophehad and setting the stage for the Israelites transitioning from wandering in the wilderness to conquering and settling the land.

In this double portion, Matot v’ Ma’sei, there is a great focus on keeping everything orderly throughout the transition process. In the previous portion a census was taken to determine the size of each tribe for military purposes as well as land distribution. As you can imagine, there would be many opportunities for disputes – especially over boundaries – if things weren’t extremely well defined from the beginning. The case of the daughters only comes up because it is a request to alter the “order” of things – to make an exception to the inheritance rule that land passes onto sons not daughters. The initial decision to grant the daughters inheritance rights and the ability to preserve their father’s name needs to be emended to prevent tribal land from becoming part of another tribe’s through marriage. The fix to the request contains within it a way of keeping the order of things. The women must marry within their tribe and the tribal boundary is upheld to protect order. An exception is made albeit in limited form. It addresses the need to balance righting an injustice with the need to keep the peace.

Keeping the balance between those two goals is not easy and often it feels as if they are sorely out of balance. For those who crave order, it may seem that things are weighed too heavily toward righting injustices, for those who crave a just world, keeping the peace may seem to suppress voices of those who cry out for  justice. It is the tension between Shalom – peace – for the larger group (or the group in power), and Shalem – wholeness – of individuals being able to live to their fullest potential.

The story of the Israelites out of Egypt into Canaan is a journey of balancing group order and justice through the creation of norms, instructions, aspirations, and boundaries that if followed will help the ever evolving human enterprise manage more complexity and challenges with success. Stepping outside of those boundaries often resulted in plagues (e.g. the golden calf) staying inside them led to success or peace. The journey is one of learning and testing those boundaries over and over again.

In the bible, wars and plagues are often a punishment for overstepping boundaries that is supposed to lead to “getting back in line and putting things in order”. In our modern world, they are the very things that lead to disorder and the response is the same – “to get things in order”. Yet, how often is the “order for the greater good” used to ignore root causes of disorder?

For some, this disorder opens new possibilities as they are no longer constrained by the rules of an oppressive society.  For others the lack of order and boundaries is frightening. Just as the Israelites migrated to a new land to escape oppression and to become a new people, we have 65 million refugees in the world who have had to leave their homes and risk finding safety and hospitality elsewhere. What an amazingly brave and hopeful act. And we can celebrate that faith through welcoming immigrants, supporting organizations that work on behalf of refugees, and connecting their journey stories to our story of seeking justice and freedom.

JoHanna Potts

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What is on your computer screen?

The background image on my computer is a faded 1911 picture of my great grandmother, Anna, and four of her five then-surviving children. I know little about Anna but for her name and where she is buried. In that same picture, my grandmother, Sarah, is a girl of about seven years old.  She stands slightly behind her mother. Both Anna and Sarah are long gone. Their lives are rarely recalled but for conversation during annual visits to a vast cemetery in Queens, New York. The chiseled names of many women just like them beckon us to recall that while details of lives may be forgotten, important legacies continue. A fascinating example is offered in Parshat Pinchas.

At this point in Torah, forty years of travels and travails for the wandering Hebrews is nearing an end. Getting down to the business of appropriating and apportioning the promised land, Moses oversees a count of the remaining people. The count is conducted tribe by tribe. Carefully scanning the chapter long list comprised almost entirely of male heirs of male scions, I found the name, Serach, daughter of Asher. Haven’t heard of Serach? It turns out that this is not her first appearance in Torah as she was listed among those of Jacob’s descendants who went down to Egypt, about 250 years earlier. This makes Serach the longest-lived woman of the Torah.

As Serach’s name appears without embellishment, stories were later written to augment her biography. These midrashim offer snapshots of Serach. One is of a beautiful young harp player comforting her grandfather Jacob while he is mourning the loss of his son Joseph. Another midrash describes her as the memory keeper of Joseph’s burial site. When Moses is about to usher the people out from Egypt, he must first find the bones of Joseph to bury them in Canaan as promised generations earlier. The only person old enough to recall where Joseph’s bones are buried is Serach.

Mention of Serach’s name reminded me of my grandmother Sarah. Born in the Ukraine, she was part of an intrepid family who made their way to New York despite tragedy and hardship. She was the sole female among six siblings. Grandma Sarah served as the comforter of suffering siblings and the memory keeper for the family. Sarah’s apartment was the family meeting place on weekends, serving up instant coffee with powdered non-fat milk and healthful advice from Readers Digest. Her apartment (and fold out sofa bed) was also the refuge when her brother’s marriages were contentious. Sarah monitored the movement of extended family as they departed Brooklyn for far off New Jersey or the paradise that was Florida. Sarah knew where the bones were buried.

Parshat Pinchas and my computer screen, offer an image of ancestors whose life stories have faded but whose legacies remain. Each day, I feel inspired by the memory of a family matriarch who persevered, who sustained family, and preserved history. Who might be the Serach of your family? Can you conjure a sense of gratitude for what they offered by recalling the lives they had? And would you consider saving a picture of them onto your computer screen?

R Evan Krame

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