Idolatry and the Confederate Flag - Huqqat 5775

About a month ago, I was in Budapest with my family to celebrate my sister’s having given birth to a baby girl, her first child. We did not have a lot of time for sightseeing, but I did do something there that I had not done before: I went to the municipal flea market. It was a weekday and deep into the afternoon, so not many stalls were open. But of the handful that were, several had Nazi items on display for sale: SS pins, swastika rings, standard-issue helmets, a soldier’s jacket. Some of these items were, perhaps most jarringly, for sale alongside Soviet memorabilia and Judaica items as well.

Now I suppose that finding WWII-era military paraphernalia is nothing unusual, particularly at flea markets. But the fact that these things were casually, non-judgmentally on display, merely for sale next to Jewish odds-and-ends was particularly jolting, since it suggested that Hungarians do not quite appreciate how deplorable these symbols are, how they stand for hatred and killing and the worst that humanity has to offer.

I found it utterly fascinating this week that in the wake of the horrible killings at the Emmanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina, a number of southern states are finally, 150 years after the end of the Civil War, moving to remove the Confederate flag from their public spaces. Yes, it is “only” a symbol, and removing symbols means nothing if it does not change the content of our hearts and minds. Taking down the flag at the South Carolina capitol building will not cure the problem of white supremacist activities in that state or anywhere else. But it is a step, and, at least with respect to Jewish tradition, a significant one. Allow me to explain:

We read today in Parashat Huqqat that might give us some insight into the scourge of hatred.

God was angry at the Israelites for complaining their way across the desert, speaking out against God and Moshe, and so, for inexplicable reasons, God sends serpents to bite them. What do the Israelites do? They apologize, but then ask for Moshe to intercede with God to get rid of the serpents. So God has Moshe build a seraph / winged serpent figure out of copper and mount it on a flagpole, and when anyone is bitten by a serpent, he or she is instantly cured.

But later there is a problem. This seraph-on-a-pole stays with the people for hundreds of years, and they forget its original purpose, but it continues to be revered. So later, as recounted in the book of II Kings (18:4), King Hezekiah destroys it as part of his anti-idolatry reforms.

Idolatry is one of the biggest no-nos of the Torah. The Talmud counts it among the three biggest sins, the three that Jews are forbidden to violate, even to save a life (the other two are murder and sexual impropriety). We are told in our halakhic codes that we must stay far away from anything that is in any way connected to idolatry. (The Hebrew term is avodah zarah, “foreign worship”).

So for example, we cannot eat foods produced by idolaters, or drink wine made by idolaters, lest these items may have been used in some idolatrous ritual. We cannot enter a temple containing idols. We cannot have business dealings with idolaters in the days immediately before one of their festivals because we may make them more happy and hence more likely to praise their idols. And so on. (It’s worth noting that true idolaters are hard to find today: Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, and many contemporary pagans do not fall into this category.)

Why is avodah zarah / idolatry so reviled by Jewish text and tradition? Why must we avoid it so zealously? Because it corrupts us, it leads us astray. When the Israelites are told that they will enter the land of Canaan to possess it, one of the first obligations they are given is to destroy the bamot, the unholy altars of the Canaanites, lest they be tempted to worship. Throughout the Prophetic books, the Israelites struggle with the influence of Canaanite gods. And our tradition teaches us that the First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians due to the Big Three transgressions identified earlier. Idolatry is an infection that proves hard to remove, even though King Hezekiah tries valiantly.

So why am I telling you this? Because in the public discourse this week surrounding the church shooting and the removal of Confederate flags, all I could think about was avodah zarah. That flag is a symbol of a particular kind of idolatry: the idolatry of institutionalized racism.

Symbols are used precisely because they have the power to inspire for good or bad.  But hatred corrupts, just like idolatry. It leads people astray, to do things that are violent and disgusting, acts which damage people and society. And although defenders of the Confederate flag might claim that it is merely a symbol of Southern pride and/or culture or the principles of “states’ rights,” we know better. The flag is a symbol of slavery, of racism, of hatred.

And furthermore, it is clear that even if all the Confederate flags in America were to magically disappear, it would not cure the pernicious problem of racism. It might drive it further underground. (Think of the worldwide collective guilt inspired by the Shoah; it drove anti-Semitism into the shadows for decades, but we see it now begin to re-emerge in all its insidious forms.)

But our tradition teaches us something very important here: that the way to eliminate a problem is to distance yourself physically from all of its trappings. We the Jews are still around, thousands of years after the idol-worshipping Canaanites, Babylonians, Hellenists and Romans are all gone. The strategy worked; you don’t find too many Jews today seduced by the appeal of Ba’al or Zeus.

And that brings us to an essential principle in Jewish tradition: that symbolic acts ultimately lead to a change in one’s behavior and/or beliefs. That idea is encapsulated in the following passage from the Talmud, Sanhedrin 105b:

אמר רב יהודה אמר רב: לעולם יעסוק אדם בתורה ובמצווה, אפילו שלא לשמה, שמתוך שלא לשמה - בא לשמה. שבשכר ארבעים ושתים קורבנות שהקריב בלק, זכה ויצאה ממנו רות.

Rav Yehudah said in Rav's name: One should always occupy oneself with Torah and good deeds, though it may not be for their own sake; because when one does something not for its own sake, eventually it comes to be for its own sake. For as a reward for the forty-two sacrifices offered up by Balaq, he was privileged that Ruth should be his descendant.

To explain, a midrash suggests that Balaq, the Moabite ruler who appears in next week’s parashah, and, by the way, is also mentioned in today’s haftarah. Balaq hires Bil’am ben Be’or to curse the Israelites, but Bil’am blesses them instead. So Balaq makes restitution by offering sacrifices to the Israelite God.  After doing so symbolically 42 times, his heart had truly changed, and thus he ultimately became the grandfather of the Moabitess Ruth, who is largely considered the first convert to Judaism, and is the subject of her own book of the Tanakh.

Judaism has always highlighted deeds over beliefs, because the performance of a deed, even without the proper kavvanah / intention, will ultimately change one’s motivation behind it. Do we all necessarily understand why we pray daily, wear curious ritual items during prayer, eat only kosher foods, abstain from certain creative or destructive acts on Shabbat? No. But we encourage fellow Jews who do not do those things regularly to do so. Why? Because after doing something 42 times, you will come to understand how the act improves your life, how it makes you a better person.

Our tradition teaches us that symbolic behavior, even if there is nothing behind it, leads one to change.

That is why we teach our children tefillah / prayer, or how to sing Shabbat songs, or how to participate in the Passover seder, etc. Because although we know that they will someday make their own choices about whether or not to be involved with Jewish life, the basis of having done something at least a few times will make the chance that they will embrace these rituals as adults much greater. Furthermore, the more often our children have participated in these rituals, the greater their chance of embracing their heritage for the rest of their lives.

If Rav Yehudah were here to counsel us on how to end the scourge of hatred, he would probably suggest that the way to cure racism is to compel everybody to seek out somebody of a different racial group, or even a different ethnic group, each day, and talk to that person, to spend some time getting to know him/her, to hear his/her story, to try to understand. You all know that each of us carries with us a certain amount of prejudice, a modicum of opinions that we form about people that are different from ourselves. But when we meet and get to know people from another group, those prejudices break down. The individual relationship outweighs any other opinions. And at first, while these inter-group conversations would be entirely symbolic, soon the symbolism would be replaced by genuine trust and admiration.

Now Rav Yehuda’s (theoretical) plan of action might be a little impractical. But we have to start somewhere, and the disappearance of the symbols of slavery might be a good start. Although, as many commentators have observed, taking down the Confederate flag flying over the South Carolina capitol building will not change what is in people’s minds, it will certainly change the perception of what is tangibly acceptable, and what is not. And that will go a long way toward changing people’s thinking and behavior.

Hatred is idolatry. Racism is idolatry. We have to distance ourselves from the trappings of racism and hatred. Only that will cure us as a society.

Perhaps only with the coming of the mashiah / messiah will we eliminate hatred, racism,  anti-Semitism, and any other form of “my-people-are-better-than-your-people-ism.” But we CAN purify our hearts by working harder to lead more haters away from their idolatry. Let’s take down those Canaanite bamot. Remove the idols.

Shabbat shalom.

~

Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck, Shabbat morning, 6/27/2015.)

Responding Jewishly to Terror and Grief - Balaq 5774

It was about 9 PM in Israel when I heard the news. My 13-year-old son and I were on Highway 90, just north of Beit She'an, driving south to Ben Gurion Airport for our 12:45 AM flight to JFK. He heard it several minutes before it came over the radio, because he was in communication with his friends via his smartphone. He announced, almost too casually, “Abba, did you know about the three kidnapping victims?” “Yes,” I said. “They found their bodies.”

I gasped audibly. So loudly, in fact, that he jumped. “Why are you so shocked?” he asked.

Why indeed? I must confess that this was not the outcome that I had expected. A living Israeli is worth far more to Hamas than a dead one. Gil'ad Shalit was exchanged for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners. I figured that somebody in the territories had masterminded a plan to get 3,000 or 5,000 more. But no – the original plan seemed to have backfired.  

My son further asked me, “Why do you care so much? You're not Israeli.”

“But I'm Jewish,” I replied. “I don't live in Israel, and about half of the Jews in the world do not live in Israel. But we are all one people. And when members of Am Yisrael, the nation of Israel, feel pain, whether they are citizens of the State of Israel or France or Canada or Argentina or India, we all feel that pain.”

“Oh,” he said, and that proceeded to think quietly about this revelation.

And while we continued to drive in silence and my thoughts went to the parents of Eyal, Naftali, and Gil’ad, I could feel the tears welling up behind my glasses, threatening to obscure my view of Highway 90, which is a voluptuous stretch of highway with an eternally gorgeous view of the Jordan valley. Even at night, the mountains just across the Jordan valley, referred to as the Gil’ad (an ironic view for the piece of news which had just arrived) were distant, haunting, calling to me across an ancient river and a modern and much-politicized border.

What can we do in times of loss like this? Are we helpless?  How should our faith help us in times like these both spiritually and practically?  What is the appropriate Jewish response?

One answer is to gather solemnly to recite words from our tradition. I think the experience that many of us had this past Tuesday evening, when members of this community came to Ma’ariv to memorialize the three slain young men, was cathartic.  We need to be among our own, we need community, to surround ourselves with those who understand our grief, who understand why we are so personally moved by a tragedy so far removed from us physically.

As Oryah and I drove through the center of Israel Monday night, Israelis interviewed on the radio said things like, let’s let Tzahal / the IDF do what we know they can do - i.e. root out all the Hamas terrorists hiding in the territories and kill them as enemy combatants or round them up and imprison them.

Unfortunately, over the course of the week, the situation worsened. Ladies and gentlemen, we are entering very dark times. As of yesterday, the Israeli police had not declared who killed Muhammed Abu Khdeir, the 16-year-old resident of Shuafat who was murdered and whose body was desecrated following the revelation about the three Israelis, and I am really, really hoping that it was not one of us.

We are not a bloodthirsty people. We are not hooligans. We are not terrorists.

The response, ladies and gentlemen, should be to draw on key Jewish values. We cannot allow the purveyors of terror to pull us down into the swamp with them. We must abide by the law and our morals.  We should not ignore or forgive, but we should respond as Jews.   

On Thursday, I was on a conference call organized by the Rabbinical Assembly, the international organization of Conservative rabbis. Rabbi Brad Artson, who teaches at American Jewish University in Los Angeles, shared some thoughts about how we should respond to the tragic slaying of Naftali, Gil’ad, and Eyal. His position is that we need to reiterate our commitment to four general principles highlighted in the Torah. They are:

1. Ahavat Tziyyon, love of Zion and Israel.

2. Kevod HaBeriyyot, maintaining human dignity.

3. Tzedeq, Tzedeq Tirdof, valiantly pursuing justice.

4. Rodef Shalom, pursuing peace.

Ahavat Tziyyon. We are one nation, and we share a destiny with the State of Israel, built on the Land of Israel. We all agree that we have a natural, historical right as Jews to our own self-determination, and therefore our own state, which the world must acknowledge and support.

Kevod HaBeriyyot. The first time that the word “Torah” appears in the Torah (Ex. 12:49) is a statement that you shall have one Torah for you and for the non-Israelites in your midst. That is, everybody is subject to the same laws, the same equal treatment, the same rights, the same ability to pursue life, liberty, and happiness, and that goes for all people between the Jordan and the Mediterranean.

Tzedeq Tzedeq Tirdof. We have an obligation to seek justice in all its forms. On a micro level, that means that murderers should be prosecuted. On a macro level, that means that we are obligated to protect ourselves when necessary, including taking out terrorist infrastructure. When we must go to war, the Torah is clear: we must go to war. But ultimately our goal is to arrive at peace, which brings us to…

Rodef Shalom. It is our obligation to seek peace, and we should work hard to bring it about. Working toward peace - treaties, security arrangements, trade, international borders, all of the thorny issues that this implies - is a positive mitzvah in our tradition. That does not imply that we merely have to roll over and be passive and give away huge chunks of land and security for peace. But it does mean that we are commanded to work towards peace tirelessly and wisely.

Peace must be just, must reflect our values, must include safety and security for all citizens, and must maintain human dignity for all.

Those are the four principles. But how can we put them into practice?

There are some in the Jewish world who feel that the only way to ensure that justice is served is through military engagement. Certainly, when there are rockets being launched from Gaza into Israel, the Jewish state has no choice. As I wrote this, the New York Times reported that Israel was massing troops on the border of Gaza, perhaps for some kind of “operation.”  This should not, of course, be understood as revenge, as some reports implied, but as security. Israel needs to make sure her citizens are safe.

We should be extremely careful not to allow our grief to cascade into angry calls for revenge. Regarding the use of force, we should always be on the defense, not on the offense. Great military minds may disagree; there are legitimate times when you must strike first. But the complicated nature of this situation calls for caution. At the negotiating table, however, we should leap into battle and not wait for something to happen. In my mind, that would strike the correct balance between the four values that Rabbi Artson raised.

We are a people that prays for peace daily. Oseh shalom bimromav, hu ya’aseh shalom. And more “operations” will not bring us more peace. On the contrary, we need not only to pray for peace, but to work at it with all of our being. Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, an Israeli Chabad rabbi generally recognized as the greatest living Jewish scholar, suggested the following response:

It is true that we do have the right to fight in order to protect our lives, and to kill in a war of self-defense, as well as to punish the perpetrators.

But while revenge responds to a human need (however natural and normal the impulse), it is not in our hands: "Vengeance is Mine, and recompense," says the Lord (Deuteronomy 32:35)...

What, then, can and should we do?

We should do Kaddish.

In saying Kaddish over the dead, we promise to fill the gaps created by their passing, and to continue doing whatever we can so that "His great Name may grow exalted and sanctified."

But saying that is not enough: each and every one of us should also act as best he or she can in order to do Kaddish – by studying more Torah, by fulfilling one more mitzvah, by our physical actions or by giving of our time and money to those in need. Our acts do not serve to elevate the souls of these boys – for they are in a supreme spiritual level that needs no further elevation. Our acts elevate our own souls, curing all the lacks that were and still are in our world.

Rabbi Steinsaltz says that we should focus our energies not on revenge, but on returning to tradition, on improving ourselves, on elevating our souls. I would add that we should return to the negotiating table.

Furthermore, I would also add that we should draw inspiration from the prophet Micah, whose staggeringly-beautiful words we heard chanted this morning. The haftarah concluded with (6:8):

הִגִּיד לְךָ אָדָם, מַה-טּוֹב; וּמָה-יְהוָה דּוֹרֵשׁ מִמְּךָ, כִּי אִם-עֲשׂוֹת מִשְׁפָּט וְאַהֲבַת חֶסֶד, וְהַצְנֵעַ לֶכֶת עִם-אֱלֹהֶיךָ

He has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you:Only to do justice, and to love goodness, and to walk modestly with your God.

We have to walk modestly with God, and not speak arrogantly of violence. We have to maintain our principles: Jewish nationhood, human dignity, justice and peace. And we have to seek to elevate our souls. As painful as this episode has been, we cannot call out for revenge. We need to take care of our people, to bring the guilty to justice, and seek a solution for all the young men and women of this world.

Am Yisrael Hai. The nation of Israel lives.

~
Rabbi Seth Adelson
(Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck, Shabbat morning, July 5, 2014.)

Balaq 5772 - Talking Donkeys and Cursing Rabbis: The Importance of Being Civil

Shabbat shalom. It’s good to be home. (I was in Israel for eight days.)

Woody Allen once quipped that the Jewish history of persecution armed our people with the ability to talk their way out of a tight spot. I like to see Jewish history as somewhat more positive: the rabbinic tradition of learning and commentary, arguing and revisiting and re-commenting has, if nothing else, endowed us with an appreciation for the power of words and speech.

Parashat Balaq could be either the world's oldest known satire, or the silliest piece of cheap fiction ever written. A talking donkey? Try selling THAT in Hollywood. Here's the elevator pitch:

“A goyish prophet is hired to curse the Jews. While on his way, his donkey keeps seeing an angel, so he beats him, until the donkey talks back. That's right! Then the prophet opens his mouth and tries to curse, but blessings come out instead. Whaddaya think?”

But in all, this parashah may be the greatest commentary ever on the importance of words. In broad strokes:

1. Bil'am's donkey is given an opportunity rarely afforded to animals: to express what he or she is feeling. This is a miracle that we humans all enjoy daily, and we should never forget the value of such a commonplace miracle.

2. When Bil'am arrives to perform his task of cursing the Israelites, he opens his mouth, and words of hatred become words of love and admiration. Don't you wish that this happened more often?

A few weeks back, a video surfaced on YouTube that “went viral.” Last I checked, there were over 8 million views. It featured a 68-year-old grandmother, Karen Huff Klein, who works as a bus monitor for a school district in upstate New York. 

Ms. Klein is shown sitting on her bus, and for ten excruciating minutes is seen being verbally abused by seventh-grade boys. They taunt her with horrible, disgusting words, calling her fat, stupid, poor, smelly, and other mean insults coupled with the most colorful four-letter expletives imaginable, causing her to cry. The fact that these boys know and choose to use such words is disappointing; the fact that they are engaged in what amounts to torture is shocking.

Yes, the proliferation of cameras today has enabled us to see many things that may have always taken place. For sure I was teased when I rode the schoolbus, as I am sure that many of us were, although perhaps not with language as pungent as what may be heard in this video. But I have never seen such unrelenting torture. The good news is that people responded to the video by raising over $650,000 dollars so Ms. Klein can retire and never have to ride the bus again with such savages.

But here is a question we must ask ourselves: what have we done to create this? Yes, that's right. You and me and everybody else in this nation. How are we at fault?

If this incident had happened (has veshalom / God forbid) in Great Neck rather than the town of Greece, New York, would we acknowledge personal responsibility? That's not my kid, we would say. My child is not cruel. My child would never use language like this. That was somebody else's kid.

New York Times columnist Charles Blow, in his own commentary on this incident, suggests that we are all to blame.

“Those boys are us, or at least too many of us: America at its ugliest. It is that part of society that sees the weak and vulnerable as worthy of derision and animus. This kind of behavior is not isolated to children and school buses and suburban communities. It stretches to the upper reaches of society — our politics and our pulpits and our public squares.”

Think about it for a moment: we live in a society obsessed with youth, beauty, and success. We spend inordinate amounts of money on products that claim to make us look younger or more attractive, on dieting, on cosmetic surgery, on status symbols that suggest success or power or virility. It is only logical that the messages that we send to our children are that the opposite of these things are bad, that those of us who are old, not attractive, or not successful deserve scorn.

Some of us do this explicitly, and some implicitly. (And believe me, I have spent enough time around children in this community to know that we are not immune to the kinds of teasing to which Ms. Klein was subjected on that bus.) How many of us have found ourselves making any kind of generalizations, positive or negative about any group? Those of a different ethnicity, or color, or sexuality, or religion?

We hear politicians attack each other personally rather than argue relevant issues.  We hear religious leaders denigrate other groups. I know Rabbi Stecker spoke last week about how one of Israel’s Chief Rabbis, Rabbi Shlomo Amar sent a letter to all ofhis colleagues in the Israeli rabbinate (who are all Orthodox, because non-Orthodox rabbis are not recognized by the Israeli rabbinate as rabbis). In this letter, he called for attendance at a rabbinic protest rally in Jerusalem against the Israeli Supreme Court's recent decision that the Israeli government should pay 15 non-Orthodox rabbis for work in their communities, just like it pays Orthodox rabbis. In this letter, he let loose an invective in rabbinic Hebrew that gravely insulted me and every other non-Orthodox rabbi in the world: he called us "uprooters of Torah" who had "visited disaster upon the Diaspora” and “terrorists” who trample on our holy traditions.

His words are saddening at best, dangerous at worst. Part of the story here is that the Israeli Rabbinate feels that it is losing its hegemony over the spiritual lives of Israelis, and indeed as it has moved rightward and become more Haredi, it has managed to alienate not only secular Israel (which is nearly half of the country) and those who belong to Reform or Conservative congregations, but also much of Diaspora Jewry and swathes of Modern Orthodoxy as well. So the Rabbinate is lashing out, attempting to draw on whatever power it still holds.

What kind of spiritual leader can say such things about another? And what sort of message does that send to all of his followers? That it is OK to bash non-Orthodox Judaism.  That we are not just impostors, but actively working to destroy Judaism as they see it, and therefore we are dangerous and worthy only of derision.

One of my rabbinic colleagues and current president of the Rabbinical Assembly, Rabbi Gerald Skolnik of the Forest Hills Jewish Center, recently wrote in the Jewish Week, sees this statement as not merely insulting, but potentially dangerous:

“Did Rabbi Amar fail to learn anything from Yigal Amir's murder of Yitzchak Rabin?  Does he not know that the repeated references in extremist religious circles in Israel to the law of rodef [one who is chasing after you to kill you, about whom the ancient rabbis gave us permission to violently defend ourselves], essentially characterizing Rabin's willingness to sacrifice portions of the land of Israel as presenting an imminent danger to Israel's citizens, constituted in Amir's demented mind enough of a rationale to justify murdering him?”

Ladies and gentlemen, in Israel and here, civil discourse is broken. It's not civil. And these messages reverberate in the ears of our children. Every time that we denigrate another, every time we open our mouths even to curse the guy who just cut you off on the road, or to say something nasty about somebody else, in their presence or otherwise, the barriers to lashon hara, the evil tongue, get just a little lower. And we all lose.

And it's not just what we say. It's also what we don't say. Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky was convicted this week on 45 counts of child sexual abuse, despite the fact that bits evidence against him had appeared from time to time over the last few decades. Those around him were willing to excuse him because he was Jerry – well loved and trustworthy, right?

In discussing this trial, the NPR morning program The Takeaway featured Harvard business ethicist Max Bazerman, author of Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What's Right and What to Do About It, says that in polls, most people say that they would intervene if they heard somebody say something that denigrates others. But studies have shown that very few of us actually do so. How many of us in this room have heard friends and family members make racist remarks and let them pass? Even worse, how many of us have allowed our children to hear such things without correcting their impressions?

Ladies and gentlemen, the first step to fixing society is in fixing ourselves. Consider carefully what you say; if it isn't something that you'd like to see in print with your name attached to it, or in a viral video on YouTube, then don't say it, no matter who you're talking to. And when you hear somebody say something or see somebody do something that you know is wrong, don't let it go by.

God won't always be there to turn curses into blessings, or to prevent gangs of seventh-grade boys from teasing senior citizens or each other. Only you and I can make sure that our every single utterance is laced with holiness.

Shabbat shalom.


~
Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck, Shabbat morning, July 7, 2012.)

Balaq 5771 - Lighten up!

(Originally delivered at Temple Israel, Shabbat morning, July 9, 2011.)

A story is told of three Jews who are comparing the holiness of their rabbis.

The first says, “My rabbi is so close to God, he trembles all the time.”
The second says, “My rabbi is so close to God that God trembles for fear of displeasing him.”
The third says, “Well, first my rabbi trembled. Then God trembled. Then my rabbi said to God, ‘Look, why should we both tremble?’”

OK, so maybe that’s not so funny. My wife Judy often reviews my sermons on Fridays, and she’s a tough critic. Some of you have told me that I should tell more jokes from the pulpit, that I am too serious. So I searched for a good joke to tell today, but none of them passed muster (i.e. the Wife-Laugh-O-Meter), and it occured to me that, there are no good jokes about the Torah that I have not already used. That’s right, I’m out of good jokes. Funny how Rabbi Stecker never seems to run out of material.

Another struggle that I have as a rabbi is the healthy tension regarding how I spend my time. This question is wrapped up in the larger question of what the role of a synagogue is. Is this building, this community center, primarily:

1. A place where people come to pray
2. A school for teaching children about Judaism
3. A learning institute where adults can discover their own path (perhaps not having found it as a child; refer back to number 2)
4. A place to celebrate benei mitzvah, weddings, and so forth
5. A community gathering place, where people come to meet others, to participate in social activities, etc.

Of course, it is a little of all of these, and many more as well. Given that Rabbi Stecker and Cantor Frieder and I only have a limited number of hours, how should we spend them?

And it's not just the clergy, of course. It's also how you, the active members of the laity, spend your time here as well. Participating with the Board of Trustees, the various arms and committees, the volunteer opportunities, helping those in need, and so forth. The tasks associated with community-building are effectively endless.

It is sometimes easy for the clergy, through various forms of work-based myopia, to miss the forest for the trees. So considering today's parashah, in particular, we might think about the message of Bil’am’s donkey. Or his apparent change of heart, turning curses into blessings. Or Balaq's foolishness.

And in doing so, we might miss the fact that THIS IS COMEDY! The aton, the she-donkey opens her mouth to speak! This was hysterical to our ancestors! And it might be to us as well, if only we did not take the Torah so seriously. Not only that, but Bil’am, who is a seer of some note, fails to see the angel by the side of the road, which even the dumb ass sees. The “seer” is blind, a witty trope that appears throughout Western literature.

Furthermore, Bil’am is supposedly so powerful that his mere pronouncements can change the course of history, but he is powerless in the face of his disobedient donkey! He needs a sword to kill it?! Ridiculous!

Bil’am is a comic figure; Balaq, who sent him, merely foolish, and the donkey comes off as the cleverest one of the bunch. Makes an ass out of all the others, you might say.

Not all of our commentators seem to be in on the joke; Pirqei Avot (5:8), from the first or second century CE, indicates that pi ha-aton, the “mouth of the ass,” was created on the sixth day of Creation just before Shabbat, grouping it with other very serious miracles.

Writing a millennium later, however, Rashi sees the irony. Here is his comment to Numbers 22:29 (לו יש חרב בידי; “If I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now.”):

גנות גדולה היה לו דבר זה בעיני השרים,
זה הולך להרוג אומה שלמה בפיו, ולאתון זו צריך לכלי זיין
“It is a great disgrace in the eyes of the Moabite dignitaries [with whom he is traveling] - Bil’am is going to kill an entire nation with his words, but for a donkey he needs weapons of war?!”

The authors and editors of the Torah intended it to be eclectic and entertaining. It contains a wide variety of material: history, folktales, law, poetry, songs, love stories, erotic material, and, yes, humor.

And yet, we read the passage with Bil’am's talking donkey about a half-hour ago, and I did not hear a single person laugh.

OK, so it's in an ancient language which is nearly impossible to understand, even if you speak Hebrew. OK, so te'amei ha-miqra, the cantillation melody, is not conducive to comedic timing.

We simply do not expect to read the Torah in a way that is allows us to laugh. We take it awfully seriously. And frankly, that’s how we approach much of Jewish practice - anytime we are in the sanctuary, for example.

Yes, of course we need to be serious during tefillah. We read in Mishnah Berakhot (5:1):

אין עומדין להתפלל אלא מתוך כובד ראש.
One must not stand up to pray without deep earnestness (literally, “heaviness of head”).

One cannot truly approach the Divine without being quite serious. Furthermore, says the Mishnah, some of our very pious ancestors used to sit in silence for one hour beforehand in order to prepare for prayer.

However, let me counter this with a quote from Voltaire:

"Dieu est un comédien, jouant devant un public trop effrayé pour rire."
“God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.”

We are taught that holiness means to tremble before God, to feel that this is serious, and not to laugh. And yet, sometimes the higher truths can be told with levity, speaking the truth in jest, you might say. We need not fear laughter and joy in the pursuit of holiness.

That is one of the primary lessons to be gleaned from Parashat Balaq: The Torah uses comedy to relay a very serious message. As Marc Zvi Brettler put it in his Jewish Study Bible:

“At times amusing, and somewhat mocking of the non-Israelite prophet [i.e. Bil’am], the message of this pericope is serious: The intent of the Lord reigns supreme and cannot be superseded. Even the powers of a well-known non-Israelite prophet are ultimately controlled by God.”

And hence the need to think about this in the context of this particular community. Rabbi Stecker, it’s true, is funny - far funnier than I am, as we have already established. But it’s not just us, the clergy. It’s all of us. We are the ones who make this place welcoming, a synagogue where all will want to gather and feel at home, where joy and levity are an integral part of the synagogue experience.

Services should be respectful, but not dour; we can find that sweet spot that incorporates levity and joy and yet still play by the rules.

To that end, I would like to offer a few suggestions for making this sanctuary and the rest of this building more welcoming to all:

Smile and greet people who you don’t know.

If somebody looks lost, find a gentle way to help him/her out.

If others are talking and it’s making it difficult for you to find your prayer space, please find a playful way to quiet them.

If a visitor is in “your” seat, use it as an opportunity to give a friendly smile and graciously sit somewhere else.

If somebody is speaking on a cell phone in the building on Shabbat or holidays, or texting, or taking photos, find a cheerful way to inform them that we discourage that. (Of course, if they’re reading my blog, let ‘em continue. Talmud Torah keneged kulam.)

Yes, we can have intellectual rigor and dignified worship and decorum. But let’s face it, folks: this community is about families! It’s about bringing people together for the sake of raising our stake in holiness. All of the things that we do, all of the ways that the clergy and everybody else devote their time, they contribute to this bottom line. And we need to go about this in an easygoing manner to do so effectively.

And yes, that’s just one more button that we have to hit as a community, one more task on an ever-growing stack - it’s not just the rabbi who can be light-hearted up here on the bimah; it’s all the rest of us as well. As we go about doing the work of building community in the pursuit of holiness, we have to do it with a smile.

Good spirits lead to a more serious understanding of what it is that we do as Jews, how we sanctify time. The donkey speaks the truth, and we only need to tremble so much.

Shabbat shalom!