War and Peace in Jewish Tradition - Shabbat Hazon, 5774

My older son flew back to Israel on Thursday evening. After I dropped him at the airport, I received news of the 72-hour cease-fire, and you can imagine how relieved I was. That is, until yesterday morning, when we heard that the cease-fire lasted all of 2 hours before being broken by mortar fire from Gaza into Israel, and then there was the news of the captured IDF soldier, Hadar Goldin.

This is also Shabbat Hazon, the Shabbat right before Tish’ah Be’av, the saddest day of the Jewish year, when we commemorate all of the greatest losses that we have suffered as a people. As Israelis and Gazans mourn their dead, I think we can safely say that everybody in the world would agree that 72 hours of quiet would have been a good start, but that we need something longer, and ideally something permanent. And, of course, as we look backward over the arc of Jewish history, we may agree that there have been far more military losses and destructions and dispersions than any nation should be subjected to.

But the point on which the world disagrees is the why, the what, the when, and basically everything else. I must confess that it is very hard for me to be objective about this entire situation, with Hamas in control of Gaza and pouring all of its resources, its Israeli-made cement, its Israeli-supplied electricity and water, into building tunnels and terrorist infrastructure to destroy Israel. They could have been building greenhouses, or a nice waterfront park, or new residential buildings, or schools, or hospitals, or really anything positive. But no, they put their money on their primary objective, which is to wipe the Jewish state off the map.

So I must admit that I have a hard time seeing the other side, the side that only points to Israel’s destruction in Gaza and says, Israel is the aggressor, Israel is the sole guilty party, Israel is the murderous Zionist entity, Israel is the occupier (even though Israel has not occupied Gaza since they pulled out in 2005). And it really hurts to see that there are many people around the world who not only believe this, but chant it into microphones along with anti-Semitic epithets. That hurts. We, the Jews, deserve a land of our own, a nation that came from 2,000 years of hope and yearning, and that land deserves quiet, deserves freedom from rocket fire, freedom from enemies bent on its destruction.

While we all agree that peace should come soon, we may all not agree on Israel’s approach, even among Jews, even among Israelis. So I thought that it would be a good idea to take a look at some Jewish sources on warfare and peace, so that we can view this current conflict through the long-range scope of our ancient wisdom.

As a postulate, it must be acknowledged that Jewish tradition, as is always the case, never speaks with a single voice. So there is disagreement to be found even within these sources.

Rabbinic tradition separates wars into a couple of different kinds: mandatory and discretionary (source 2). Among the mandatory wars in the Torah are those against the seven Canaanite nations and against the Amalekites. These are called “hovah,” meaning obligatory. Maimonides tells us that these particular obligations no longer apply, because none of these people exist any more. (Even though every year Purim comes around, rabbis magically locate the spirit of Amaleq, for homiletical purposes.)

But also among the mandatory wars are those that are defensive, that is, responding to attack (source 1, below). These are in the category of milhemot mitzvah, commanded wars. The current Operation Protective Edge of course falls into this category. (There are disagreements between commentators on the Talmud about the pre-emptive strike; Rashi sides with the majority of commentators who agree that a pre-emptive strike is discretionary.)

The Sanhedrin (i.e. the representatives of the people) have the right to declare war, but they must consider the ramifications, including loss of soldiers’ lives. In the Talmud, Shemuel (source 3) condones the loss of up to one-sixth of the fighting force before charging a government with misconduct.

Philo of Alexandria (source 4), noted Jewish philosopher who lived in Egypt late into the Second Temple period, and Maimonides (source 5) as well as others were concerned for the welfare non-combatants, with the latter insisting that a siege must not prevent innocents from leaving the city.

Destruction is always a part of war, but it must be limited. See Deuteronomy 20:19-20, and Maimonides’ elaboration (sources 6 & 7). Why is this a concern? Because war has the tendency to allow for military excess (sources 8-10). See Ramban, comment to Deuteronomy 23:10 below, and also that the Torah “wants the soldier to learn to act compassionately with our enemies even during wartime.” (Ramban’s addendum to Sefer HaMitzvot).

Philo (sources 11), sees the Jewish military as being held to a higher standard, that we seek peace first, and do not slaughter indiscriminately during war.

We might conclude by noting that our inclinations to war and peace should be guided by the general principle, expressed so beautifully in Qohelet Rabbah (the standard midrash on Ecclesiastes, source 12), that this is the only world we have been given, and therefore we should do our best to minimize the damage that we cause. It is a reminder that in war, there are no winners.

***

And as we draw near to Tish’ah Be’av, we should remember that while the First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians due to our having committed the greatest sins (idolatry, sexual impropriety, and murder), the Second Temple was lost to the Romans due to sin’at hinnam, baseless hatred.

There are many lenses here through which to view the current conflict; I leave that to you.

Shabbat shalom. Let us hope and pray that next Shabbat will truly be a Shabbat of peace.

***

Sources

1. Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Berakhot 58a

והתורה אמרה: אם בא להרגך ־ השכם להרגו, מחייה בקולפא וקטליה.

If a man comes to kill you, rise early and kill him first.

2. Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sotah 44b

א״ר יוחנן: רשות דרבנן זו היא מצוה דרבי יהודה, מצוה דרבנן זו היא חובה דרבי יהודה. אמר רבא: מלחמות יהושע לכבש ־ דברי הכל חובה, מלחמות בית דוד לרווחה ־ דברי הכל רשות, כי פליגי ־ למעוטי עובדי כוכבים דלא ליתי עלייהו

R. Johanan said: A war which is discretionary according to the Rabbis is mandatory according to R. Judah, and a war which is mandatory according to the Rabbis is obligatory according to R. Judah.

Raba said: The wars waged by Joshua to conquer Canaan were obligatory in the opinion of all; the wars waged by the House of David for territorial expansion were voluntary in the opinion of all; where they differ is with regard to wars against heathens so that these should not march against them.

3. Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Shevuot 35b

דאמר שמואל: מלכותא דקטלא חד משיתא בעלמא לא מיענשא, שנאמר: כרמי שלי לפני האלף לך שלמה למלכותא דרקיעא, ומאתים לנוטרים את פריו למלכותא דארעא,

Shemuel said: A government which kills only one out of six is not punished; for it is said: “I have my very own vineyard: You may have the thousand, O Solomon” - for the Kingdom of Heaven; “And the guards of the fruit two hundred”— - for the kingdom on earth. (quoted verse is Song of Songs 8:12)

4. Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BCE - 50 CE), The Special Laws, IV, 224-5

The Jewish nation, when it takes up arms, distinguishes between those whose life is one of hostility, and the reverse. For to breathe slaughter against all, even those who have done very little or nothing amiss, shows what I should call a savage and brutal soul.

5. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Melakhim Umilhemoteihem, 6:7

כשצרין על עיר לתפשה, אין מקיפין אותה מארבע רוחותיה אלא משלש רוחותיה, ומניחין מקום לבורח ולכל מי שירצה להמלט על נפשו, שנאמר ויצבאו על מדין כאשר צוה ה׳ את משה מפי השמועה למדו שבכך צוהו.

When siege is laid to a city for the purpose of capture, it may not be surrounded on all four sides, but only on three, to give an opportunity for those who would avoid capture to escape.

6. Deuteronomy 20:19-20

יט כִּי-תָצוּר אֶל-עִיר יָמִים רַבִּים לְהִלָּחֵם עָלֶיהָ לְתָפְשָׂהּ, לֹא-תַשְׁחִית אֶת-עֵצָהּ לִנְדֹּחַ עָלָיו גַּרְזֶן--כִּי מִמֶּנּוּ תֹאכֵל, וְאֹתוֹ לֹא תִכְרֹת:  כִּי הָאָדָם עֵץ הַשָּׂדֶה, לָבֹא מִפָּנֶיךָ בַּמָּצוֹר.  כ רַק עֵץ אֲשֶׁר-תֵּדַע, כִּי-לֹא-עֵץ מַאֲכָל הוּא--אֹתוֹ תַשְׁחִית, וְכָרָתָּ; וּבָנִיתָ מָצוֹר...

When in your war against a city you have to besiege it a long time in order to capture it, you must not destroy its trees, wielding the ax against them. You may eat of them, but you must not cut them down. Are trees of the field human to withdraw before you into the besieged city? Only trees that you know do not yield food may be destroyed; you may cut them down for constructing siegeworks...

7. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Melakhim Umilhemoteihem, 6:10

ולא האילנות בלבד, אלא כל המשבר כלים, וקורע בגדים, והורס בנין, וסותם מעין, ומאבד מאכלות דרך השחתה, עובר בלא תשחית

And not only the trees, but also one who smashes household goods, tears clothes, demolishes a building, stops up a spring, or destroys articles of food with destructive intent, transgresses the commandment of bal tashhit (i.e. “Do not destroy”).

8. Deuteronomy 23:10

כִּי-תֵצֵא מַחֲנֶה, עַל-אֹיְבֶיךָ,  וְנִשְׁמַרְתָּ מִכֹּל דָּבָר רָע.

When you go out as a troop against your enemies, be on your guard against anything untoward.

9. Nahmanides, comment to Deut. 23:10

The most refined of people become possessed with ferocity and cruelty when advancing upon the enemy.

10. Rabbi Reuven Kimelman, “War,” chapter in Frontiers of Jewish Thought, Steven Katz, ed., B’nai B’rith Books, 1992, p. 319

These concerns for the moral quotient of the soldier and the life of the enemy inform the “purity of arms” [tohorat nesheq] doctrine of the modern Israel Defense Forces. The doctrine of purity of arms, an expression apparently coined by the Labor-Zionist idealogue Berl Katznelson, limits killing to necessary and unavoidable situations.

11. Philo, The Special Laws, IV, 224

All this shows clearly that the Jewish nation is ready for agreement and friendship with all like-minded nations whose intentions are peaceful, yet is not of the contemptible kind which surrenders through cowardice to wrongful aggression.

12. Qohelet Rabbah, Parashah 7, Siman 19

בשעה שברא הקב״ה את אדם הראשון נטלו והחזירו על כל אילני גן עדן ואמר לו ראה מעשי כמה נאים ומשובחין הן וכל מה שבראתי בשבילך בראתי, תן דעתך שלא תקלקל ותחריב את עולמי, שאם קלקלת אין מי שיתקן אחריך…

At the moment that the Holy One, Blessed be God created the first human, he took him and made him pass before all of the trees in the Garden of Eden. God said to him, “See how fine and praiseworthy My creations are! And everything that I have created, I have created for you. Consider this, so that you will not spoil and destroy my world, for if you do so, there will be nobody who will repair it after you.”


 ~
Rabbi Seth Adelson
(Originally presented and discussed at Temple Israel of Great Neck, Shabbat morning, 8/2/2014.)

Ten Days, Two Countries, 34 Teenagers: A Physical and Spiritual Journey with the Youth House to Prague and Israel

Two and a half weeks ago, on a Tuesday evening in the Negev desert, I was encamped with 34 teenagers from our Youth House and seven other staff members at Khan HaShayarot, a Bedouin tent complex. (Well, OK, so it’s not really a Bedouin tent - it’s for tourist groups. But it’s staffed by actual Israeli Bedouin Arabs, and it really does consist of a bunch of large tents in the desert adjacent to a camel pen.) We had already eaten dinner and were preparing for a campfire with guitar and singing and s’mores, which, as we all know, are a traditional Bedouin campfire snack.

The time had come for us to recite ma’ariv, the evening service, and we created for the group a decidedly non-traditional tefillah experience. We lined them up as quietly as possible by the entrance to the camp, and then walked them one at a time out of the camp to a slight hill overlooking the camp. Each person was placed far enough from anyone else, to allow them to find their own quiet inner-space, distant enough from their friends so as to be able to hear the special silence one only hears in the desert.  There was some light from the camp below us, and the moon offered us a shadowy sense of the hills around.

Silently, we took in the desert scenery, and I reminded everybody that we are a people that came from the desert, and that prophecy - the Torah, the words of the Prophets - has always been channeled to us in the desert. We then faced north, towards Jerusalem, and recited the words of the Shema and the silent Amidah. After yet more silent reflection, we returned, one at a time, to the camp and the campfire.

Danny Mishkin, director of the Youth House, asked our teens at this point, before the s’mores, to write down a few words about the importance of being on a journey and how that related both to our trip to Prague and Israel and to being Jewish in general. We sat quietly, and everybody spent a few minutes writing in their bound siddurim, which we prepared specially for the trip, incorporating open space for journaling along the way.  

The thoughts expressed were striking. One of the participants wrote the following:

“Tonight was THE most memorable experience thus far. I have never felt as connected to God. Standing in the desert at night with the stars, praying as one group, singing Oseh Shalom made me tear up.”

Another connected the experience to the departure from Egypt:

“As I was walking to the top of the hill, I couldn’t help but think of the Jews leaving Egypt. We have always been a moving people… never fully at home until we received Eretz Yisrael.”

A third related the struggle for the modern State of Israel to the long Jewish journey of the soul:

“It is obvious that in Jewish history, things did not always come easy, such as the land of Israel itself. Endless days of travel breeded an unexpected but needed bond between Jews with the same end goal. By experiencing the same emotions of joy, sorrow, and by just achieving a general sense of what our people collectively had to go through just for the sake of a religion makes this bond unbreakable.”

You might make the case that the essential message of the Torah is that being Jewish is about the journey. Think about it: Noah is sent on a journey by boat that will guarantee a future for humanity (and Noah’s ark does not actually GO anywhere - it has no steering mechanism). Abraham is called upon to leave his father’s house and his homeland to go on a journey to an unknown place, which will some day be called Israel (after his grandson Jacob). Joseph is sent on an unwilling journey to Egypt, and then the rest of his family follows him. Moses is tasked with leading the Israelites on the ultimate journey of redemption: up out of slavery, and back to the land of Israel. And on and on.

It is the journey that defines us as Jews.  In this day and age, when we are free to choose our identities, free to opt into or out of our tradition, it is the experiences, the memories, that will inform who we want to be, whether being Jewish matters and how we want our Jewishness to manifest itself in everyday life.  

Our parashah today, Parashat Vayiqra, is also about an ancient aspect of the Jewish journey. As our bar mitzvah, Yoel, pointed out, it is about a series of essential sacrifices. But all the more so, as Yoel also argued, the sacrificial system that is laid out in the Torah and that was practiced by Israelites for nearly 1,000 years in the First and Second Temple in Jerusalem, was only a point along the way to developing a much better system of accessing the Divine: tefillah, prayer. And he is in good company here. Maimonides, the 12th-century physician and commentator, one of the biggest names on the Jewish bookshelf, said the following about sacrifices in his philosophical work, Moreh Nevukhim, the Guide to the Perplexed:

“Sacrificial service is not the primary object, but rather supplications, prayers, and similar kinds of worship are nearer to the primary object.”

In other words, the Torah describes the sacrifices in detail. But that form of worship was not God’s ultimate plan for us. Maimonides, writing more than a millennium after the destruction of the Second Temple, believed that prayer was the higher goal. Sacrifice, after all, was limited; it only took place in the Temple, and was performed by an intermediary: the kohen, the priest, who took your sheep or ram and offered it up to God. “But,” Maimonides states, “prayer and supplication can be offered everywhere and by every person.”

So why did God give us all of these mitzvot if the higher goal was prayer? Because, said Maimonides, the Israelites needed to be weaned from the idolatrous ways of the Egyptians and the Canaanites in a way that did not challenge what they were familiar with too severely. God’s plan was that eventually we would offer the words of our hearts rather than the bounty of our flocks.

What we do today as Jews when we gather in synagogues, or when we offer berakhot before and after meals, or when we communicate with God alone, is the superior form of worship. The spiritual journey from sacrifice to prayer amounts to a democratization of our connection with God.

Vayiqra, ladies and gentlemen, is one leg of our spiritual journey. And we as a people, and as individuals, are on a constant journey. Every single one of us here.

Some of us might be aware of this - there are active seekers among us, looking for that next spiritual high, searching for meaning within and without. You know who you are.

Most of us, however, are probably not aware of our journeys. Our lives are complex - we are thinking about many things - the job, the family, the kids, the next vacation, or how am I going to make the next rent check, or how am I going to help my cousin who is battling drug addiction, or how on Earth am I going to broach the topic of end of life choices with my parents? We have too many things to worry about. Who has time to be concerned with our spiritual needs?

But we all have them. Jews and non-Jews. And, I think, Jews more than most, because, at least in the Diaspora, we have always been on the outside. We ask ourselves, what does it mean to be Jewish? How can I be both Jewish and American? Why should I care, and if I don’t care, what then is my relationship to this ancient tradition, handed to me by my parents and grandparents?

As Jews, we have always been on a journey, both physical and spiritual. The physical one was often forced upon us, and for our ancestors who suffered oppression and anti-Semitism wherever they went, it was this struggle that kept them Jewish. Today, in 21st century America, where our greatest enemy is indifference, we need to send ourselves on journeys to accomplish that task.

So where are we going? To quote the Hasidic Rebbe Nahman of Bratzlav, “Kol mah she-ani nose’a, ani nose’a raq le-eretz Yisrael.” Everywhere I go, I am going to Eretz Yisrael. Not physically, but with every step, we are moving closer to Israel in spirit.

All the more so regarding the trip that we took with 34 Great Neck teens. The mind of the average high school student is in a bunch of different places at any given moment - they are thinking far more about all of the uncertainty and awkwardness of being a teenager: How will I fit in with this crowd or that? How can I convince my parents that I am more mature than they give me credit for? How do I balance school work with time for myself?

And our job was to cut through all of that classic teen stuff and help them along their spiritual journey. Because that is what visiting Israel is all about.

What made this trip work was not just Israel. It was not the combination of Israel and the Czech Republic, although that was really cool. It was not the tefillah, or the Kotel, or the desert, or the Bedouin tent, or the guide.

More than any of those things, it was the journey itself. It was voyaging together from here to there as we reflected on our experiences, as we sang and danced and welcomed the Shabbat on a Jerusalem rooftop. It was how we marveled at the tenacity and the tenuousness of the residents of the Terezin ghetto, who created a secret synagogue in a barn, as we sang in that synagogue Hannah Senesh’s famous poem Eli, Eli to remember them and their striving to connect with their faith under such conditions.

What made the trip successful was the internal journey, the spiritual traveling that took us not from New York to Prague to Tel Aviv via Amsterdam, but from the Diaspora of the mind to the Promised Land of the heart, from the cool distance of the teenage identity struggle to the close connection with our ancient religious and national heritage.

We did that. And the greater we, the we of this community, should be proud of that. You gave these kids a series of memories that they will carry with them for the balance of their lives, that will always serve to reconnect them to Jewish life. So kol hakavod!


~
Rabbi Seth Adelson
(Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck, Shabbat morning, March 8, 2014.)

Can't Get No Satisfaction? Become a Spiritual Immigrant - Behar/Behuqqotai 5772

When I was in my early twenties, I interviewed my maternal grandparents, Rose and Eddie Bass, aleihem hashalom.  They were born around 1912.  My grandfather was happy to tell his story, which was, ironically, not too happy – his father had left his sick mother in charge of five boys, and my grandfather was taken at age 3 by the State of Massachusetts and placed in a foster home with a Jewish farmer outside of Boston.  Gramps spoke very fondly about the Slotnick family who took him in, his years on the farm, his pet cats, driving cars as a teenager, and so forth.
 
My grandmother, however, who had immigrated to the United States from what is today the Ukraine at age 8, kept trying to back out of the interview. “Why do you want to hear this?” she said.  “We were poor, we were miserable, and the non-Jews were horrible to us.”  As far as she was concerned, there was nothing to tell about her childhood.  She was glad that she had left the old country, but life was hard in America as well.  She never looked back.  

And yet, when I asked her about her teenage years, about meeting my grandfather, she would light up for a moment and give me a charming memory: “All the boys were after me,” she said.  “I didn’t like Eddie at first, but he grew on me.”  They were married in 1936, during the Great Depression, and were together for 66 years before my grandmother passed away in 2002.

Their lives were hard, marked by poverty, loss, and suffering.  I recorded some truly astounding stories.  But they were happy with what little they had.  And whatever small successes they had in life they relished, perhaps because they were achieved with their own hands.
 
****
 
When we read the Torah this morning, there was an extended aliyah of curses. That's right, good 'ol fashioned biblical curses.  You know the sort – if you don't walk in the way of the Lord, your enemies will conquer your land and scatter you amongst the nations and you will be desolate and hungry and barren and so forth.

Amongst these curses is one that I think speaks to where we are today, one of the greatest curses of contemporary America.  “You shall eat and not be satisfied.”  (Lev. 26:26).  Ladies and gentlemen, thank God, we have more today to eat than any previous generation.  When my mother was growing up, if you didn’t finish what was on your plate, my grandmother went into panic mode.  By comparison, my children, thank God again, are surrounded by food, clothes, many, many gizmos that make a cacaphony of noises (such that Abba tries hard not to replace batteries when possible).  They have a warm, loving home, and lack nothing.

We “eat” better today, here and now, than in any previous generation.  And “eat” here is in quotes, because we are blessed with many kinds of abundance, many things that were unavailable to our grandparents:

How many of us...
… Have more vehicles than drivers in the household?
… Could donate half of what’s in our closets and still have plenty of clothes to wear?
… Have the luxury of free time for overseas vacations?
 
We are healthy and comfortable.  Barukh haShem.  And yet, we all know that no matter how much we have, there always seems to be something else that we want or “need”.

In 1965, a mere forty-four years after my grandmother immigrated to the United States, Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones released a musical statement about satisfaction.  Mr. Jagger’s complaint was, as I'm sure you know, that he couldn't get any.  The song is a statement about class, about society, about wants vs. needs (and of course it's got a great beat and the kids can still dance to it).
 
Satisfaction has always been very hard to come by, but somehow, I think we are worse off in this regard than our grandparents were.  In this Goldene Medina (Yiddish for “Golden Land”) of plenty, satisfaction is in shorter supply than it ever was.  Perhaps this is an innate human reality.
 
Last week, Rabbi Stecker mentioned the opinion piece in the New York Times about the culture of outsourcing.  We don’t have the time to take care of all of the things that we used to do, so we pay somebody else to do them, and then must work more to pay for all of the things that we have outsourced.  For sure, today’s economy boasts hundreds of new types of employees -- life coaches, dating coaches, wedding planners, hired dancers for parties, wantologists (who help people determine what they really, really want) -- but what have we lost? The author of the article, Arlie Russell Hochschild, an emerita professor of sociology at UC Berkeley, observes the following:
 
“Focusing attention on the destination, we detach ourselves from the small — potentially meaningful — aspects of experience. Confining our sense of achievement to results, to the moment of purchase, so to speak, we unwittingly lose the pleasure of accomplishment, the joy of connecting to others and possibly, in the process, our faith in ourselves.”
 
We are so anxious about where we are going, says Dr. Hochschild, that we forget to enjoy where we are.  While we are busy farming out our daily tasks to professionals, the small successes of life go unnoticed, the holy moments unsavored, and the satisfaction of personal accomplishment unrealized.

Our grandparents had far fewer choices than we do.  Given that we are all pressed for time and faced with an inordinate number of options as to how to devote it, how do we find our way through life in such a way that maximizes our satisfaction?

This is, you might say, the 2012 reflex of the Rolling Stones’ very prescient question, nearly half a century ago.  

Well, I have an idea.  When the lack of satisfaction gets unbearable, it's time to leave. Emigrate.  Pick yourself up and move, spiritually, to a different place.

You can do it.  Some of us in this room are physical immigrants – some of us picked ourselves up and left our homes due to the various upheavals of the 20^th century – from Hitler's atrocities to Khomeini's revolution.  And those of us who are not immigrants are necessarily the children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren of immigrants.

But to immigrate spiritually is just as difficult, and yet there is a precedent in Jewish history: when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed nearly 2,000 years ago, the Jewish people immigrated spiritually from one way of worshiping God to another; our prayers today, specifically the Amidah but really all of them, replace the sacrifices that our ancestors offered in the Temple.  Instead of a priesthood offering the best of our flocks to God, we as individuals offer the best of our lips. Sometimes we in this building debate very subtle changes in what we do here in services; imagine replacing the whole system with something else entirely!

So how do you move to a place of satisfaction?  Maimonides, the most influential single rabbi in Jewish history, suggests the following:

צָרִיךְ הָאָדָם שֶׁיְּכַוַּן כָּל מַעֲשָׂיו, כֻּלָּם, כְּדֵי לֵידַע אֶת הַשֵּׁם בָּרוּךְ הוּא, בִּלְבָד; וְיִהְיֶה שִׁבְתּוֹ וְקוּמוֹ וְדִבּוּרוֹ, הַכֹּל לְעֻמַּת זֶה הַדָּבָר

A person should direct his heart and the totality of his behavior to one goal, becoming aware of God.  The way one rests, rises, and speaks should all be directed to this end. (Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot De’ot 3:2)

Maimonides gets even more specific: eating, sleeping, relationships, and every single action that we undertake should not be ONLY for the pleasure of doing so, but rather that all should serve the higher goal of making it possible for us to be holy vessels.  That is, we can and should take pleasure from our daily activities, but pleasure is not the end goal.  Judaism has never endorsed asceticism; on the contrary, it is a mitzvah to live well within a sacred framework.  But everything we do has a holy purpose: to make it possible to get in touch with God.  That is our bottom line, if you will.
 
This is spiritual immigration.  Maimonides wants us to re-orient our thinking, to make us conceive of our actions differently.  If we can successfully immigrate to this mode of thought, we have a much better chance of being satisfied, and to devote our energy to the Jewish values of learning, of repairing the world, of seeking peace between people, of treating each other respectfully in all our dealings.  
 
We need to think like spiritual immigrants.  We need to guard against the possibility that abundance, whatever form it takes, might breed apathy or discontent.  We need to stay “hungry” for challenge, for spiritual exploration, growth, and ongoing satisfaction.

My grandmother did not want to talk about her experiences, because she thought that her poor childhood reflected badly on her or made us uncomfortable.  As one who had come to this country to seek a better life, her perspective came from having found satisfaction in achievement.  That was the story that I wanted wanted her to tell me, and eventually she did.  Most of us do not face the physical challenges that she faced; we must therefore take up the spiritual challenge.

If we re-orient ourselves to focus on how to be holy vessels, to see our actions as serving this purpose, we might be able to manage successfully the challenge of want vs. need, and perhaps get some satisfaction.

~

Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck, Shabbat morning, May 19, 2012.)