Rosh Hashanah (Day 2): High Holiday Sermon Series 5771 - #3

Sermon #3 – Reigniting Family Pride

A few nights ago, on Saturday, just after Shabbat ended, we gathered together here, along with members of Beth Israel in Media, for the Selichot service which introduces the High Holiday season.

Selichot is kind of like the pre-game warm up show, or the “Look-alive-people-the-holidays-are-around-the-corner” service. Either way, it’s an opportunity to brush up on some of the tunes that repeat themselves throughout the holidays; it’s a chance to start reflecting on where you yourself are, going into the holidays; and we usually include a study session to start thinking about the themes of the holidays.

So sure enough, we talked about Teshuva, repentence. No big surprise there. But we wanted to be a bit more focused than that, so Rabbi Linda Potemken of Beth Israel and I brought in the subject of the family. How do we ask forgiveness of our family members, and seek to repair relationships within our own families? To get the discussion started, we each selected a number of poems that focused on family issues, and that got our conversation going. I would like to share one of those poems with you right now.

To read the poem, “Family at War,” by Judy Karbritz, please click here.

Today’s sermon is the next installment in my High Holiday series on Pride. My vision for this series is that the word “Pride” is like a pebble, dropped in a body of water, and the different areas of Pride that I’ll be talking about are like rippling circles that expand and grow inside all of us. Each sermon is a new circle, that I hope can inspire you to think about how to make changes for yourself, your family, and your community in the year ahead. Yesterday we talked about how to feel pride in oneself, and today I would like to move outwards to what I consider the next essential ring; the family.

I can’t tell you how often I have already heard about family feuds – much like the one in Judy Karbritz’s poem – both in this congregation, in past congregations, among colleagues and friends, and seemingly wherever I go. It’s almost ubiquitous, with nearly every one of us having someone in the family we don’t talk to, or two family members who don’t speak to one another, or a black sheep whom everyone avoids! Why does this happen? Before we can speak about feeling pride in one another, let us examine what might cause the opposite emotions; envy, frustration, disappointment, and rage.

I want to begin back in our Torah reading this morning; the Binding of Isaac. Why is this story so disturbing to grapple with, yet so essential for us to read? Because it is about the damage we can cause one another within the family. We know each other so well, we grew up together, we cried in front of one another, and we’ve been our most immature, scared, humiliated, and embarrassing in front of each other. And we know, better than anyone else, how to push each other’s buttons! Family can be the source of so much joy, comfort, support, and love; but also so much pain, anguish, and heartache.

Even more so than for us today, Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac only had each other. Abraham had left his homeland, and his nephew, Lot, had moved on to greener pastures. So when Sarah saw her husband and son set off together, she felt certain they would take care of one another. And Isaac, leaving with his father on a hunting trip, felt he had nothing to fear, that he could always trust his father to shield him from harm.

But God had given Abraham different instructions. It turns out God could trust him, but Abraham’s family members, not so much. It’s almost unimaginable, putting yourself in Abraham’s sandals, knowing what is expected of you, having to look your wife and son in the eyes, and go through with God’s request. Our rabbis tell us that the hardest part of the entire ordeal for Abraham was having to walk back down off that mountain. Yes, they are all safe, but now he has to face his family and figure out how to rebuild these broken relationships.

Now perhaps some of you are thinking to yourselves, “Rabbi, come on! No one here is about to tie their child to an altar and offer them as a sacrifice to God!!” And I certainly hope you’re right. But let go of your literal-mindedness for a minute. Are you telling me parents never hurt their children today in pursuit of their own ambitions? No, they don’t physically tie them to altars, but they might bind them metaphorically to unrealistic expectations. They don’t turn them into offerings, but some use their children to try and realize unfulfilled dreams; to live vicariously through their successes in sports, or school, or in life...

Stop for a moment and realize that this story is truly speaking to us today. It reminds us how family members can injure one another, whether emotionally or otherwise, and that it can leave real and long-lasting scars.

So today I implore us all to begin to turn things around. Yes, we spend a lot of the holiday either praying or eating… after all, this IS a Jewish holiday. But it should also be a time for apologies and making changes. Judaism teaches us that we cannot apologize to God for the wrong we have done another human being; we have to apologize directly to that person. Or perhaps you genuinely feel that the wrong was done by the other person; then this season can be one of accepting apologies. This should be a season of letting go, freeing yourself and someone else of something that weighs down on you both; whether through offering, or accepting, a “sorry.”

Judy Karbritz’s poem was written in the third person – watching this happen between other people – which reminds us that everyone in the family is affected, even if the feud, the broiges, was only between two people. The next story in the Torah after ours tells us of the death of Sarah. The rabbis link it back to the Binding of Isaac, further supporting the idea that family members are all affected. Sarah was nowhere near the altar, but she was deeply impacted by this dramatic ordeal nonetheless, and the rabbis say it ultimately killed her.

On Saturday mornings, I read a small paragraph out loud in front of the Ark, right before the Cantor sings “Bei Ana Racheitz” and just prior to removing the Torah scrolls. Usually I just read the translation of the song we sing, but sometimes I substitute it with one or another English reading I find meaningful, and which also speaks about the Torah and our relationship to it. One of those readings is actually a personal, family meditation, but when I include it in the service, I make a few adjustments so it will apply to the congregation. In that prayer, the following phrase speaks directly to our topic this morning: “Save us from dissension and jealousy; shield us from pettiness and rivalry. May selfish pride not divide us; may pride in one another unite us.”

Can we learn to feel pride in one another again? How do we turn things around, teshuva (a word that literally means “turn around”), to start seeing that the successes of those closest to us are our successes as well? Jealousy, pettiness, rivalry - they are unfortunately easy to fall back into. Let us strive to claw our way out, and instead feel joy, excitement, and pride for our family members.

As I mentioned earlier, I compare these sermons on Pride to a pebble dropping in a pond, and the rippling circles that extend out from the center. How can we continue on to the next ring, to celebrate and enjoy the pride we feel for our community, the Jewish people, or our country, when we are carrying around strong negative emotions?

This High Holiday season, give yourself a gift. Reward yourself with the gift of forgiveness, of abandoning past grudges and ill-will.

In a few moments, Cantor Friedrich will once again share with us his beautiful rendition of the Hineni, the prayer that leads us into the Silent Amidah. Yesterday we spoke about how the Hineni is said in the singular, “Here I am.” Indeed, we do all stand before God as individuals. Our lives are unique, our perspectives are our own, and we will ultimately each make our choices and live with the consequences of our own actions. But look around the Sanctuary. We stand as individuals, but as a large group of individuals. So often we feel utterly alone, and believe that no one understands what we’re going through; when in reality we are dealing with the same challenges and struggles as the person sitting right beside us.

Judy Karbritz reminds us that the first step towards creating a world at peace can be the resolving of conflicts within the family. Let us learn from our history, from our religious texts, from modern poetry, and from one another - and thereby be united by pride in one another... and a reignited sense of pride in our families.

Shana Tovah U’metukah - May you all have a Happy, Healthy, and Liberating New Year.

Rosh Hashanah (Day 1): High Holiday Sermon Series 5771 - #2

Sermon #2 – Creating the First Ripple

“Drop a pebble in the water:

just a splash, and it is gone;

But there's half-a-hundred ripples

Circling on and on and on,

Spreading, spreading from the center,

flowing on out to the sea.

And there is no way of telling

where the end is going to be.”

Thus begins the poem, “Drop a Pebble,” by James W. Foley. This notion of rippling circles, going out from a locus point in the center was part of my inspiration for these High Holidays. The pebble that I have attempted to drop for all of us, as we begin this New Year, is just one word, “Pride.”

Again, I want to reiterate something I said last night, which is that I am reclaiming this word. I don’t want you to think of “Pride cometh before the fall” or Pride as one of the seven deadly sins. But rather the ability to be “proud of our own accomplishments,” or “feel a great sense of pride in our congregation.” One of our ancient books, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, contemporary with some of the later books of the Hebrew Bible, though it did not make it into the official canon, teaches us the following lesson:

“My son, in all modesty, keep your self-respect and value yourself at your true worth. Who will speak up for a man who is his own enemy? Or respect one who disparages himself?”

“Value yourself.” “Do not be your own enemy.” These are essential lessons for us to learn. And so I would like to move now from our initial pebble - the word “Pride” - to the first rippling circle: Pride in oneself.

I begin here because I think that in some ways it is the most difficult, but also the most essential. How can we reach out to other people, volunteer in our congregation, offer support and comfort to someone else; if we are experiencing inner turmoil? We begin inside, striving and struggling to understand ourselves better, and only then do we turn outwards to help those around us.

Now this is of course the ideal. But realistically it’s not at all easy. And I certainly do NOT mean to imply that if you’ve got any unresolved issues, we don’t want you offering any help in the community! That’s not it at all. It’s just that you will function better, with more happiness and fulfillment, and healthier, if you’re moving towards developing a sense of pride in yourself.

Let’s take a look at our Biblical models. Our Torah portion begins with Abraham and Sarah having a child despite being well beyond child-bearing years. Sarah calls her son “Isaac,” “Yitzchak,” which comes from the word for “laughter,” “Tzechok.” She exclaims that, “God has brought me laughter. Everyone who hears will laugh with me.” But as you know about me, and the way I study Torah, I cannot accept the words at simple face value; especially when you consider how this story plays out, the surrounding context of her statement. She says, “Everyone will laugh with me,” but the Hebrew is, “Yitzchak-Li.” It’s unclear whether she is saying that everyone will laugh “with me”.... or “at me.” Perhaps she is really wondering, “Are they laughing at me? The old woman with an infant?” She turns her own embarrassment and insecurity on her maidservant, Hagar, and has her thrown out and left for dead in the wilderness.

It is wishful thinking to say that Sarah felt nothing but great pride in herself, and in her accomplishments. Perhaps she felt elation as well, but she does project a lot of negativity onto Hagar, and I don’t think it’s crazy to suggest that it’s because she is harboring unresolved issues with herself.

Hagar, on the other hand, acts the heroine in our story, because she does the opposite. She is thrown out into the desert, spurned by her family, yet when death seems immanent, her only comment is, “Let me not look as the child dies.” No cursing Abraham and Sarah, no yelling at God. I don’t mean to say it is a moment of pride or self-confidence, but she DOES take responsibility for her predicament. She owns the moment and doesn’t cast blame on others.

The Biblical characters are simply older examples of human behavior; the same behavior we see in others... and in ourselves. Take a moment to acknowledge what a little bit of introspection, or a healthy dose of therapy, might have done for the people in the Torah. What about for all of us?

For some reason, we imagine that we understand ourselves well. “I’m me, right? I’ve lived with myself for every second of every day, how could anyone understand what I’m going through better than... ME???” But that is often a serious misconception. We don’t know how traumatic situations have affected us, we don’t always remember everything that has happened to us. If you have a hard time celebrating your own successes, or taking credit for things you genuinely did well, there’s a reason why that’s happening. And it’s a reason worth exploring. And when we understand our own behaviors better, the results can be quite dramatic.

So how do we begin? Let me take a page out of [the congregation’s past president] David Pollack’s playbook, and answer those questions with a story:

There once was a rabbi who said to his students: “we are as far from where God wants us to be as East is from West”? And then he said to them: “By the way, just how far is it from east to west? One of his students raised his hand and said: “11 thousand miles. I just heard that on NPR.” The rabbi said, “no, that is wrong.” Another student raised his hand and said: “25 thousand miles. That’s the circumference of the world.” The rabbi said, “no, that is wrong.” A 3rd student said, “6 thousand miles,” the rabbi said, “no, that is wrong.” The distance from east to west is one step. You are facing east, you take one step and turn around and now you are facing west. In the same way, teshuvah is not a change in personality, teshuvah is a change in direction.

In our Machzor, we read, “Hashiveinu Adonai Eilecha ve-nashuva,” which means, “Bring us closer to you, God, and we will turn around.” Change our orientation so that our growth in the coming year will be a growth towards you and not a growth in the opposite direction.

Speaking of the liturgy in our Machzor, I actually think the way our rabbis phrased the prayers speaks to my point as well. Some of our prayers use communal language:

“Elokeinu Melech Ha-olam,” “OUR God, King of the Universe”

“Aleinu Leshabeach L’adon Ha-kol,” “WE rise to OUR duty to praise the Master of all.”

And even the one I just quoted, “Hashiveinu... Ve-nashuva,” “Bring us closer to you, and we will turn around.”

But other prayers speak as individuals. Even in this room, as we all stand or sit together in communal prayer, we are also individuals. We take individual responsibility for our actions, and we each have the opportunity to speak to God. You need to pray for YOUR self. If you think I’m standing up here, in my personal Amidah, with my eyes closed, my tallit over my head, and speaking on YOUR behalf... well, I hate to break it to you, but... Many of our prayers use 1st person language:

“Adonai, Sefatai Tiftach, U’fi Yagid Tehilatecha,” “MY God, open up MY lips, and MY mouth will proclaim your glory.”

The prayer Cantor Friedrich will be teaching you later (with the melody he composed!), “Elokai, Netzor Leshoni Mei-ra,” “MY God, keep MY tongue from evil.”

And speaking of Cantor Friedrich, after my sermon, he will move to the center of the Sanctuary, and sing the Hineni prayer, with its beautiful liturgy about the humility of a Cantor singing on behalf of the congregation, and leading us all through these High Holiday services. So, yes, there are parts of the service where we pray FOR one another, but even THAT prayer is composed in the 1st person, singular; he is singing about himself.

So our liturgy urges us to contemplate our own situation. It’s not just about the communal, it’s about the individual as well. Where are you right now? What were you doing before you came here, what are you doing after you leave, and how do YOU feel about YOURSELF at this moment?

And I’ll push you once again: What will it take for you to feel a little more pride in yourself? What are the external factors that will bring about an internal shift, for you? Or perhaps put in another way, what is the pebble - not a boulder or a monolith, not a major, life-altering decision… just a pebble - that is going to start your own rippling effect?

Returning back to our original metaphor, it’s amazing to me how significant this phenomenon of the rippling circles truly is. The idea that one behavior or action has countless effects on other people, situations, and systems, sometimes totally unrelated to the starting point - this concept exists in economics, education, sociology, computer science, and in understanding charitable giving; all of them use the image of the circles expanding out from one, central point.

The main question is: How do you begin the ripple? You begin it by acknowledging that you can change, that there are changes that need to happen. Could Sarah admit that her grievances with Hagar were really just a symptom of a larger problem? Would she have been willing to change? In our own lives, do we act more like Sarah, projecting our frustrations onto others… or like Hagar, owning our own moments, whatever they may be?

Over these High Holidays, I will be delivering several more sermons on feeling a sense of pride. But it begins here, it begins for me by understanding myself, and taking greater pride in what I am able to achieve, and what I have achieved. That is a big part of Teshuva, of affecting a transformation inside each one of us.

If you can drop that pebble of Teshuva, of turning around and making a change inside yourself, there is truly, as James Foley wrote in his poem, no telling where the end is going to be.

Shana Tovah!

Rosh Hashanah (Erev): High Holiday Sermon Series 5771

Throughout the High Holidays, I am delivering sermons that are all connected in one, unified theme. For those of you who weren’t able to join us for Rosh Hashanah services, I thought I would give you an opportunity to see what I spoke about. If you are able to come for Yom Kippur, you’ll have a context for the next sermons in the same series. And if not, you’ll still know what I spoke about. May you continue to have a Happy and Healthy start to your New Year, and have an easy fast at Yom Kippur!

Sermon #1 – Introducing the Series

I’m going to try something different these High Holidays. This is my seventh year leading High Holiday services, so when I say it’s different, I don’t just mean different from last year. And when I’ve told other people about it, including rabbinic colleagues, I get a few raised eyebrows. But many of you might already know what I’m going to say, especially if you read my article in the Honey Jar this month.

I’m going to maintain a theme throughout my High Holiday sermons, beginning this evening, running through Rosh Hashanah, and continuing until the end of Yom Kippur. In my Honey Jar article, I wrote about the theme of “Pride,” which in fact is going to be the common word throughout these sermons.

Now the way I see it, you have one of two questions running through your mind right now, and I’m going to answer both. If your question isn’t one of these two, then perhaps sit back and bide your time, and see if your question gets answered in one or another of my upcoming talks.

Ok, so what are the two questions? 1. “Why have a theme for all your sermons?” and 2. “Why pride?”

During the years I spent in rabbinical school, my classmates and I became very close. We studied together, we traveled to Israel together, we spent an absurd amount of time with one another, and we relied on each other for advice, help and support, tips, and occasionally strategies, methods and suggestions for our future careers. Several times, I found myself even reading books based on recommendations from classmates.

And one book that a number of people were reading was “The Purpose-Driven Church” by Pastor Rick Warren. This may surprise you, because it’s not exactly a Jewish book, but what we found was that a number of books within the Jewish community - all talking about improving synagogues, reinventing the Jewish community, changing our focus, etc, etc - many of them were based on ideas found in Rick Warren’s book. SO, we went to the source.

And one of the things I found was that Rick Warren talked about consolidating your message, finding a “Purpose” that “Drives” your organization. As a religious community, we need to distill down what we want to do into simpler ideas. Not because people can’t handle more complex ideas, but because everyone should be able to grasp it, and it should be able to permeate different areas of the community. I want us all to be on the same page, so if the message is somewhat basic, it can run through the school, the Men’s Club, the Executive Board, the Social Action committee, the Ritual Committee, Sisterhood, the synagogue play, and the rummage sale.

Now I didn’t get the message itself from Rick Warren, just the concept. I hope it doesn’t make you uncomfortable to learn that we can “borrow” ideas from other religions, even what some people might call more radical groups. There is no sense in reinventing the wheel when someone else has found a system or principle that works. We just have to change the language, the players, and the theology; but some of the concepts are really, really good.

So in our case, I decided to do a test-run last year. Throughout my charges to B’nai Mitzvah students, speeches at social gatherings, talks to the religious school and various synagogue groups, and wherever else I could fit it in; I talked about “Journeys.” My thought was that we are all on our own Jewish Journeys, life-long “trips” of exploring our relationship to religion and God, and that the congregation can be there for each of us as we move along on that odyssey. It is, after all, both a personal AND a communal experience. I still like that message, so you may find lingering examples of it throughout the upcoming year, but as we begin 5771, I’m adding a second word: Pride.

The first thing I want to say about “Pride” is that I’m NOT talking about the negative kind, i.e. “Pride cometh before the fall,” or the Pride you’ve heard about as one of the seven deadly sins. In fact, it’s fascinating to me that it’s one of the seven worst sins in Christian dogma. (Pause) I think I understand what they were going for, namely hubris, thinking that you’re better than other people, or maybe stubbornness and unwillingness to admit fault, which can lead to self-destruction.

However, what bothers me about it, is that the word “Pride,” across the board, now sounds like something terrible. I feel like we’ve thrown out the baby with the bath water. What about when someone says, “I’m proud of you.” Or “I was filled with such pride when I saw my students succeed.” Is that also part of the seven deadly sins? So yes, I know it’s the same word, and some people might think of the negative examples before the positive ones, but I am reclaiming the word! Feeling a sense of pride – in others, in our community, and even in ourselves – I believe is very, very important.

I hope that throughout these High Holidays, I can convince you of the same. As we move through each of our services over these next couple of days and again during Yom Kippur, please think about what “Pride” can mean to you. At this season of self-improvement, making changes, and learning to understand ourselves better, I think that it can do us a lot of good to reflect on what makes us proud.

Let us begin simply with that. A thought to hold onto throughout the High Holiday season. I’m curious and excited to see where we, together, take it from here.

Shana Tovah!

Nitzavim-Vayeilech: Hide, but Go Seek!

Lately, when people ask me how I'm doing, I've been responding that the next few weeks for a rabbi are kind of like tax-season for accountants. Hectic, very, very hectic. Everything is about Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Simchat Torah; all the holidays that come in rapid succession throughout the month of September. So I was quite surprised when I heard my colleague, Cantor Steven Friedrich, mention the holiday of Purim (which doesn't come until March) in services on Monday morning. Who talks about Purim right now?

It turns out he was looking at this week's Torah portion, Nitzavim-Vayelech, and a specific verse in chapter 31 of the Book of Deuteronomy. God tells Moses he is about to die, and that the people will soon thereafter turn away from the commandments of the Torah. In verse 18, God says, "Yet I will keep my countenance hidden on that day, because of all the evil they have done in turning to other gods." The Hebrew phrase for the hiding of God's face is, "Haster Astir Panai," and Cantor Friedrich pointed out how similar the words "Haster" and "Astir" are to the name of the heroine on Purim, "Esther." And indeed, on Purim we find no mention of God's name in the Book of Esther, and Esther herself "hides" her identity from the king and his advisors, and ultimately it winds up saving our people.

While considering Cantor Friedrich's fascinating observation, I also read a commentary quoted in the Etz Chayim Torah Commentary about a rabbi named Dov Baer of Mezeritch who one day found his son crying. He asked him what was wrong, and the boy said, "I was playing hide-and-

seek with my friends, and I hid so well that they stopped looking for me and went away." Dov Baer goes on to say that God must feel the same way, having hidden so well that many of us now live our lives without God. I was intrigued by this story! Perhaps God did indeed choose to hide because human beings were being sinful, but the point was always for us to keep looking for God; to seek a relationship and try to be close. Where did we lose our way?

Some people shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, who needs God anyway?!" But it's also about finding a way back to ourselves, a way back to happiness, health, and striving to live a good life. In many ways, we have stopped looking for those things as well. The High Holidays, which are right around the corner now, allow us some time to resume the search. We take time out from work, stress, and ambition, and return to peace, reflection, and introspection.

But the answers are not just sitting there waiting for you, like a dog on the front step, anticipating your homecoming. If you want to return to a relationship with God, to explore existential questions and understand what's going on inside yourself, you will have to work a little harder to uncover it.

For me, the question still remains;

why do we stop looking? Why

do we often behave like the friends of the crying child, who give up searching all too soon? The answer to that question is different for each of us. And the time to start pursuing an answer begins right now.

Shana Tovah - Happy and Healthy New Year!

Ki Tavo: A Change Will Do You Good

Right now, we are in a transitional period. (dramatic pause...) I'm going to let that sink in for a minute, because I'm pretty sure that phrase means something different for each person. Are we talking about the Jewish community, Pennsylvanians, Americans, human beings, or TV fans waiting for the new season to begin?? Everyone reads something different into the word "transition," but we definitely all have one thing in common - we're going through changes.

When I first chose to focus on this topic, I was actually thinking about the seasonal shift; moving from summer to fall. But as I thought about it more, I realized the same thing is true for all kinds of transitions. We rarely see them as they are going on, we just realize it after the fact. Where did summer go? Weren't we just in the middle of it, and now it's nearly OVER?? At the same time, that's life. "Sunrise, sunset, quickly fly the years..." We see this happen over and over again. We cannot avoid or ignore these changes, we simply have to figure out how to respond to them, and how to move forward. That certainly is a central theme for the High Holidays; coming to terms with all that happened in the year that passed, and beginning to make plans for what lies ahead.

Just as the word conjures up different realities for each of us, so too we each have to figure out our own way of working through transitions. How do YOU face changes and incorporate them into your life? This week's Torah portion reminds us to stay rooted in the Jewish tradition and in our faith; that to face the future we must bring the past with us. But that might not be the

ideal solution for you. Perhaps you prefer to compose to-do lists or make resolutions. You may face every challenge differently, or you approach them all in mostly the same way. The only real mistake is pretending it isn't happening. Too often we numb our senses, focus on a symptom rather than the real issue, lay blame, or simply imagine the change isn't happening. Life is about facing our challenges and moving through them.

The fall is coming. The High Holidays are upon us. And the networks are getting ready to pitch their new shows. How are you preparing yourself? What is your strategy for the year ahead, and how will you remain flexible to face new challenges that may arise? I don't mean to sound alarmist, I just know that change can be frightening. If nature is teaching us anything right now, it's that change is inevitable. As we all move into this new season (of what we must each answer for ourselves), let us be as prepared as we can, and face the future with renewed energy, enthusiasm, and great optimism!

Ki Teitzei: Broad Insights from Traveling Abroad

Hello again, everyone!

Last week I was on vacation and didn't write a blog post, mainly because I was out of the country. I spent three days in Davao City, the Philippines, where my wife was finishing up a summer internship, and then we spent five days together in Hong Kong before returning to the US. It was a terrific trip, but it's GREAT to be home!

One of the things I always love about travel is the opportunity to see how other people live, and to gain a little insight into how they view the world. This was particularly true last week, as I was visiting a region I had never been to before, and one that is nearly half-way around the globe from Wallingford, PA. Experiencing a vastly different culture can open your eyes to something unfamiliar and exotic. Most importantly, however, it sheds a little light back on your own life, and allows you to see yourself with a new degree of objectivity and understanding.

A news story that really caught my eye while I was away was the controversy over the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero in New York. I was surprised to find that people abroad aren't nearly as upset as many Americans about the idea of something Islamic being built two blocks away from the 9/11 site. Now neither country we visited is predominantly Muslim, so that doesn't account for the discrepancy. And places like Davao are certainly no strangers to religious clashes with Muslim groups! So I wonder why Americans react so strongly to this controversial project. Perhaps it's specific to 9/11, but then I read about the Pew Research Center's new poll saying that 31% of Republicans still think President Obama is a Muslim. I wouldn't necessarily mind that so much (though the persistent ignorance of some people is truly disconcerting), except the poll also showed that more people who disliked the president believed he was a Muslim. Why are the two linked together? Politico.com writes that, "people who disapprove of Obama’s job performance are more likely to consider him a Muslim." What does that say about us, and our feelings about Islam?

This week, our Torah reading talks about returning lost property to our neighbors; essentially telling us to help the people around us who are in distress. The Torah specifically says, twice in fact: "Do not ignore it!" We know what it means to be oppressed, to have others criticize us and view us with distrust, simply because we are Jews. How can we do the same to someone else?

I felt very lucky, blessed in fact, to be able to travel half-way around the world and to see several different cultures, societies, and ways of life. We all have different ways of expressing ourselves religiously, politically, and emotionally (and don't even get me started on different foods!!), and if we want others to respect our rights to do so, we have to respect theirs as well. Each of us has to take responsibility to promote trust and communication, rather than suspicion and prejudice. And you don't even need to get on a plane, get vaccinated, or put up with jetlag for that insight. You'll just have better pictures to show for it!

R'eih: The Israelites and Hong Kong

There are certain themes that I like to write about, and to which I return on a regular basis. I have quite a few of them, as evidenced by the list of "Labels" included over on the right side of this blog post. One of the themes that I feel has fallen by the wayside of late is the notion of being on a journey. Perhaps it's because the Israelites at this point in the Torah are near the end of their Exodus, or because I myself have been somewhat stationary, but for whatever reason, I haven't written about journeys in a while.

Yet it is true that even though the Israelites are at the border of the Promised Land, the

toughest part of their trip is really just beginning. In the Torah portion this week, we read about many of the laws they are expected to observe when they enter the land. Moses tells the people that when they settle the land, "You shall not act at all as we now act here, every man as he pleases" (Deuteronomy, 12:8). He gives them a list of Holy-Land-specific mitzvot, like destroying idolatrous altars and images, establishing a place of worship, celebrating feasts, bringing sacrifices, offering tithes, taking care of the Levite-priests, and following certain laws of keeping Kosher. The Israelites have a lot of expectations hanging over their heads as they enter this new place!

Now if I'm going to be totally honest with you, the reason why journeys are on my mind right now is probably because I am about to embark on one of my own. I'll be leaving for the Philippines and Hong Kong on Sunday, to reunite with my wife who has been working in the Philippines all summer. And indeed, the biggest part of the journey was the 9+ weeks we spent apart, much like the Israelites' trek through the desert. The hard part should be over, but some of us have territory to conquer and Temples to erect (the Israelites, not me), while others have 16-hour flights to Hong Kong to endure (that one's me). Even after odysseys have been completed, there are often challenges remaining and tests to complete. We all go through this in our lives, whether metaphorically or quite physically, on Continental Airlines.

I imagine, though, that despite all their fears and concerns, the

Israelites were also quite exhilarated. New experiences come with both ups and downs, advantages and disadvantages, and the only real mistake is not taking the plunge and trying out something different and exciting. So now it's my turn to put this into practice, as I fly off to South East Asia. Next week I'll report back on where my journey has taken me, and we'll see if the Israelites can keep up!