Rabbi Mark Fasman

My laptop is dead. Or so I was informed this evening. Great. This is in addition to my iPhone that has recently messed up my calendar and contacts, and that has somehow resisted more than twenty hours of time with tech support specialists, both online and by phone. My hands-free Bluetooth system that I had recently installed in my car does not want to work properly. Currently it doesn’t work at all. At least my printer, which hasn’t worked in over a week, now works…but only because I purchased new ink cartridges that cost me more than a new printer would cost!

Failures of technology can be aggravating, annoying, infuriating. Our inability to fix or reset these devices can make us feel incompetent and outdated. Remember when you had to find a child to set your VCR? That child is now in college and VCRs are extinct. So are floppy discs, landlines, Walkmans, and even DVDs. Wristwatches, typewriters, and film cameras are quaint vestiges of the old days. I purchased the first IBM desktop computer the week it was released in the mid-1970s. When I left for rabbinical school in 1995, I had to pay to get rid of that computer, useful only as a paperweight. Before that desktop computer, I had built a computer terminal and I had worked with punch cards. When I was a junior in college slide rules were still the only way to make quick scientific calculations. Two years later, the calculator was in general use and I couldn’t remember how a slide rule worked.

Not so very long ago, we used to have access to only three network channels (plus public television). Our phones were rotary, not cell. We had to pay for long distance. Away from home, we had to find a payphone (remember those?). If we had a question, we had to use dictionaries or encyclopedias or go to our local library. Now there are billions of questions asked each week—and answered—on Google.

And if we wanted to engage in serious Jewish learning, we needed to go to a yeshiva or a Jewish day school or find a teacher or take an adult education class at a local synagogue. For Jewish ritual, there was no real option other than the synagogue. For creation of Jewish community, again we had access to the synagogue or the JCC.

Now it is possible to learn a page of Talmud every day—downloaded onto our cellphones or computers—taught by Orthodox or Conservative rabbis. We can download weekly sermons delivered by the greatest Jewish orators of our day. We can create “virtual” communities, interacting with hundreds of like-minded Jews, none of whom we have ever met face-to-face. Same with virtual classrooms. Driving on Shabbat? Why does one even have to leave home in order to participate in a live worship service, streamed over the Internet?

Baby boomers and their parents are wringing our hands over the fact that our children and grandchildren are not joining synagogues. Rabbis and synagogue leadership are engaged in a process of contraction and intense competition for an ever-smaller pool of potential members for our synagogues. What is with all those empty seats on Kol Nidre or even Yizkor? Synagogues are closing, or merging. Federations have task forces to respond to the enormous challenges of Jewish identity and affiliation. It seems as though we are experiencing the end of the Jewish people, at least here in America.

As reported by Jonathan Sarna, a leading scholar of American Jewish history, every generation of American Jews has considered themselves the last generation of American Jews. Their own Jewish institutions and modes of Jewish expression were rejected by Jewish youth. And yet, the truth is that the youth of each generation of American Jews has reinvented Judaism. They have expressed their Jewish identity in ways that were foreign to their parents and grandparents. The melodies changed. The services changed. The community structures changed.

And the Jewish people continued to live on. Change is terrifying to many. When time-honored practices are discarded, the end appears to be near. But it is precisely that change that assures the Jewish future. Maybe not our Jewish future, but certainly the Jewish future of our descendants.

Compelling evidence demonstrates that young Jews are engaging seriously and enthusiastically with their Jewish identity and with Jewish learning. However, they are not engaging with the synagogue. They are engaging electronically: articles, podcasts, chat rooms, blogs, texting, Twitter, YouTube–and who knows what the technology will be next month?

Today, our challenge is to help our children create Jewish communal structures that support the needs and expressions of their generation. Institutions have a specific address; they are resistant to change, to being moved in any way. I try to imagine the synagogue not as a building but as a houseboat. The institution needs to preserve its essence, but it needs to be able to move. We need to preserve the core of our millennia-old tradition, but we need to be constantly in motion. Our houseboat is now moving through rapids. It will be the current teenagers, 20-somethings, and 30-somethings who will help us to navigate safely into an as-yet-unknown (and unimaginable) future. Those who choose to remain on that houseboat will carry Jewish tradition into the generations ahead. Ours is a people that has wandered through the wilderness since Abraham and Sarah responded to the original divine call: Lekh lekha. That call may arrive digitally, but it is always present. We Jews “always have a bag packed.” We are survivors, not because we are rigid enough to resist change, but because we were flexible enough to embrace it. Change makes for creativity and strength.

Our greatest challenge today is that the rate of change in our society is so rapid that it is impossible to predict where we might be in just a few years. The majority of our college students today are preparing for jobs that do not currently exist. But they will succeed in doing those now-unimagined jobs. Thus, they aren’t so much learning jobs, but rather learning how to learn. They are learning how to adjust to the world that they and their children will inhabit: post-Internet, post-flat screen televisions, post-traditional models of education. Their children will look back on our world the way we remember rotary dial phones, record players, wristwatches, and board games.

Scary, I suppose. But at the same time, I find it very exciting. It may be disturbing to have to rely on “children” to map the Jewish future. But we Jews are an historical people. And if our history teaches us anything, it assures us that Judaism will survive and grow and flower into something currently unimaginable. Even if we wouldn’t recognize it, we can be confident that the Jewish world of the future will be as authentically Jewish as ours. Our task is to pass to our children the Torah that we received from our parents. They will carry our Torah into their world and make it their Torah. Thus the Torah that speaks to us today (differently than Torah spoke to our ancestors) will speak to our descendants as well.

Ken yehi ratzon – May this be God’s will. May this be our will.

Tikkun Leil Shavuot

We all know how important education is to Jews.  How far back does this go?  Beginning with our Exodus from Egypt, our survival as a people has depended upon our success in transmitting culture, history, and behavioral norms to the next generation.  Torah commands us to teach our children.  For example, we are obligated to respond to our children’s questions about the Passover seder.  And the most explicit commandment to teach our children is found in the first paragraph of Shema [Deut. 6:6-7]:

Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day.

Impress them upon your children….

“Impress them upon your children” – if Torah is our eitz chayim (our tree of life) then the Jewish people will continue to live only as long as we transmit Torah to the next generation.  But notice that before we are commanded to teach, we are commanded to learn – “Take to heart these instructions.”

As important as it is to teach our children, it is also our obligation to learn.  How else will we know what to teach our children?  How else will we be able to impress upon our children the importance of teaching their children?  In his last oratory [Deut. 32:7], Moses charges us:

“Remember the days of old, consider the years of ages past;

ask your father, he will inform you, your elders, they will tell you.”

Again, we are enjoined to learn – “ask your father” – and we are also enjoined to teach – “he will inform you.”

Teaching is a relationship; it requires both teacher and student.  We teach in various ways – as mentors, as role models, as authors, as artists.  Of course, we can be unintentional teachers and learners, but the intention to teach is about transmission of knowledge from one person to another.

Many years ago, I participated in a program designed to teach professors how to teach our students to write.  At the beginning of the first session, we were told to write a couple of paragraphs in answer to the question, ‘Why can’t our students write?’  It was a logical way to begin, and we all began writing our answer.  I had written about half a sentence when the instructor said, “Oh, we will be reading these aloud.”  My writing changed mid-word.  Suddenly, I was writing to someone.  I had an audience.  I had “students.”  My ideas were now framed within the context of a relationship.

A couple of years ago, I purchased an outdoor grill.  It came with instructions.  I read it as a simple list of parts, steps for assembly, and diagrams that are addressed: “To whom it may concern.”  The “author” is both invisible and irrelevant.  The “author” is no longer connected to the teaching.  We don’t know anything about the author; we don’t care to know anything.  The author isn’t speaking to us.

“Torah” means instruction.  But it is not a simple instruction manual.  It is a conversation.  It is a relationship.  Torah wasn’t given; Torah is given – the blessing before and after a Torah reading concludes with identifying God as Notein HaTorah – “the One who gives Torah.”  This is not accidental.  The blessing could have been written Natan HaTorah – “the One who gave Torah.”  That would have been fine if we Jews read our Torah as a historical document, an ancient text, a set of stories and rules written for our ancestors.  Even if we believe that there are important lessons to be learned from this ancient text, it is still just an instruction book – a book we read and interpret without any thought of being in relationship with the Author.

On Shavuot, we commemorate the giving of Torah (the festival is referred to as z’man matan Torateinu – the season of the giving of our Torah).  Why is the festival that is arguably the most important festival of the Jewish year the least observed major festival?  It isn’t even on many of our calendars – or else it carries the same weight as Tu B’Shevat.  If Torah is our lifeline, shouldn’t this festival be more important than Pesach or Sukkot?

If Torah is just an instruction manual, it doesn’t make much sense to devote much energy to celebrating its “date of publication.”  If Torah is just a historical document – and if Torah is at the center of Judaism – then Judaism belongs in a museum or in a library.

But Torah is not just an instruction manual or a historical artifact.  The Torah, as read by Jews, is a living document, a living curriculum in which we engage with a living Teacher (God) or “living” teachers (the Sages who have interpreted this text though the ages).  Let’s get back to reading Torah as a conversation – a living, dynamic conversation in which we engage seriously and joyously in learning with our teachers.

Now that is worth celebrating.

And celebrate we did, with a wonderful night of learning at our annual Tikkun Leil Shavuot.  Thanks to Sydney Farber and Karen Rader for coordinating an event co-sponsored by nine institutions, with fourteen different classes.  These were in addition to our dairy dinner and our annual “staged” reading of the Book of Ruth (with a Powerpoint presentation updated by Mark Weinstein).  We learned, all told, from 6:30 until 3:00 AM!

Of course, serious Jewish learning is not limited to one day a year.  We are bright enough to know that the “pediatric education” of our youth – through Bar/Bat Mitzvah or Confirmation – was just that: kid’s stuff.  Judaism has so many exciting and stimulating things to learn.  Forget about the kid’s stuff.  Judaism is for adults.  If you have any ideas for classes or programs, talk to Sydney Farber (chair of Adult Education) … better yet, come to me directly.  That’s what I’m here for!  Let’s learn something together in the coming year.

This month begins with Pesach. It is a great story, the story that is at the very foundation of Jewish identity. The haggadah makes it very clear that all of the events of the exodus from Egypt are because God made them happen. The Egyptians are punished. The sea splits. We are free. We are safe. We are fed. We have water. Our clothes don’t wear out. And all of this comes about because God is our redeemer and our protector.
It is a stirring narrative. And one of its important subtexts is that God watches over the Children of Israel. God punishes those who harm us. We are special to God, chosen. What do our children learn from this story? God punishes the wicked. God protects the Jews. God causes miracles to happen. God speaks to Moses and dictates the rules by which Jews live.
And then, seventeen days after the first seder, we observe a contemporary addition to the Jewish calendar: Yom HaShoah. And we ask: Nu, where was God? Why didn’t God protect us from the Nazis?
There are many books written on this subject. These are books of serious theology struggling to answer the ultimately unknowable answer to one of the “big” questions: how do we understand a God who is all- just and all-good and yet permits evil in the world?
I will not try to answer that question here. In part, any answer I would give would be incomplete. And more importantly, the answers that work for us in almost all situations often break down when we are faced with national or personal tragedy.
What I really want to convey is that we need to get past the theology of our youth. To believe simply that God rewards the good and punishes the evil, to believe that God is just and good, to believe that God protects the Jews is to place us in a theological crisis when we encounter the Shoah. How can we reconcile the God of the Exodus with the God of the Shoah? God is One. Thus the One we celebrate at Pesach is the same One with whom we struggle on Yom HaShoah.

Early in my Israel year of rabbinical school, I was at the Kotel (Western Wall) in Jerusalem one morning. I was trying to daven, to recapture the experience of my first visit five years earlier. Every couple of minutes a man in a black hat (a different man each time) would come and stand next to me, with his hand outstretched towards me. It was not to offer me a handshake, but to ask for tzedakah. I had a number of coins in my pockets, so I would give a very modest amount, typically a shekel (worth 20-30 cents) or less to each of these men.
And I was annoyed each time that I was interrupted, particularly by these shnorrers.
And then a little old man came to me with his hand outstretched. With a sigh I reached into my pocket, and found that all that remained was a 10-shekel coin. I placed it into his hand. He smiled and walked away. I returned to my davening.
About a minute later, there was this same man again. He was still smiling as he took my hand and placed some coins into it – 9 shekels and 90 agorot. That is, he returned everything but about 2-3 cents. I told him that he could keep the entire amount.
He smiled. And he said to me, in broken English, “You don’t understand. I don’t want money. I am just giving you the chance to fulfill the mitzvah of tzedakah.”
I was very moved (and a little ashamed). This simple act, at the most sacred place in the Jewish world, taught me an important lesson: all Jews have an obligation to give tzedakah regularly, whenever asked. The amount is not important. The act is.
One of the obligations of Purim is to send gifts to at least two families (mishlo’ach manot). As part of your mishloach manot “basket” this year you received a gift from me: a tzedakah box, a pushke. You may not consider this a gift – after all, this is a gift that will cost you money. In my own way, I am trying to remind you that the amount of tzedakah is not important. But the act is. As far as I am concerned, the tzedakah box is a gift … no less a gift than given to me by that old man at the Kotel.
At my ordination, Rabbi Harold Kushner spoke. Among other things, he said that contemporary American Jews do not understand the concept of commandedness (mitzvah). We do not have a king. We are not slaves or servants to any master; we don’t have to serve a master who has ultimate authority over our behavior. We are Americans. That’s just not the way we think or the way we behave.
Thus it is difficult to understand the concept of mitzvah (divine commandment) in the sense in which it was understood by our ancestors. And it is difficult therefore for us to truly understand the Jewish concept of tzedakah as mitzvah – as divine imperative. We Jews are very generous, very philanthropic. However, at best we give because we should, not because we have no choice.
And that’s really not so terrible.
Giving is not natural. We have to learn to give. We learn from our parents – putting tzedakah in the pushke every Friday evening, just before lighting the Shabbat candles. We learn from our teachers. We learn from our community.
It is important that we treat tzedakah as an obligation, a core principle in living a Jewish life, in expressing our Jewish identity. Even for secular Jews, giving tzedakah is one of the main things that define who we are (more than going to synagogue). We need to practice giving. I don’t think that it ever gets easy to give money away. But it does become more meaningful when we understand that the money is ultimately not ours. Ten percent of what we earn belongs to the deserving poor. We have the choice as to how much we will give to whom. But we do not have the choice whether or not to give.
So perhaps the tzedakah box you received in your Purim basket will remind you of what it means to live with Jewish values. Place it somewhere that you will see it regularly. And put money into it – not just as a place to collect spare change, but as an act of tzedakah (your coins now belong to others). Put money into your pushke in front of others, especially children and grandchildren. Put money into it each time you do something Jewish (going to the synagogue (except on Shabbat, of course), going to a USY event, socializing with Jewish friends). Make tzedakah part of your life. Make it a habit. Make it something that defines who you are.
Tzedakah is given to others, but it is important to remember that the recipients do not owe us thanks; rather, we should thank them. They give us the opportunity to give, and thus they remind us what it means to be Jewish.

Why did my parents’ generation so believe in public schools? They were a gateway into American culture and opportunity. And these first-generation American children (the “greatest generation”) succeeded beyond anything in Jewish history.

Their success was due in large measure to the public schools.

But that generation grew up in Jewish neighborhoods. All of their friends were Jewish. They went to cheder four times (or more) a week (after school). They learned with their grandparents as well as their parents and friends.

After the Second World War, this “greatest generation” moved to the suburbs and raised the baby boom generation. We “boomers” had Hebrew school three or four times a week, including Shabbat morning, of course. They hoped that these supplemental schools would teach their children all they needed to know to live a meaningful Jewish life.

The baby boomers went to public schools – their parents believed in public education. It had worked splendidly for them. Along with their Jewish neighborhoods, cheder was enough to have connected them to Judaism and the Jewish community. They learned everything they needed to learn to be successful Jewish adults through a combination of public school and cheder. And most hoped that public school and cheder would be enough for their suburban children.

Unfortunately, for many of us born after 1945, we grew up with an impoverished sense of Jewish identity. Cheder wasn’t enough; not without a Jewish neighborhood. We are proud Jews, but we don’t really know much about Judaism. And most don’t even know what they don’t know.

We know that Jewish identity is more than Bar/Bat Mitzvah skills. Now that there are virtually no social barriers between Jews and non-Jews, what do our children say to their friends and potential life-partners when asked what it means to be Jewish? What do we hope they will say to a potential spouse when asked why they should make a Jewish home for their family? What do we answer them when they ask us why they should remain Jewish, or do traditional Jewish things (such as observing Shabbat, kashrut, and Jewish holidays), or affiliate with a synagogue (especially a Conservative synagogue)?

We did the best we could. We are still doing the best we can. Or perhaps there is more that we could do to them to understand why they should keep a committed, joyous, Jewish home as adults.

This is the season when we need to be thinking seriously about the two most effective ways we have to help our children experience a rich Jewish experience, filled with learning and filled with Jewish community – their Jewish peers in a Jewish setting.

Our first opportunity is Jewish day school. We have access to a wonderful local Solomon Schechter Day School, one of a network of schools created by the Conservative Movement designed precisely to give our children the best of public school education and the best of Jewish education. (The argument of the value of diversity in the classroom is more than balanced by our children’s need to learn what it means to be Jewish; they will have plenty of exposure to our diverse world, through Internet, and through the culture in which we live.) Day school education is not just about Hebrew language skills and Jewish history and Jewish culture; it is also a place where our Jewish children will learn to be Jewish along with their Jewish friends. It may be an artificial “neighborhood” but it is the closest thing we have to providing an environment in which our children can experience Judaism as a way of life within a Jewish community rather than through isolated experiences in synagogue and Hebrew school.

Synagogues do the best they can to provide supplemental Jewish education. The problem is that the less-than-150 hours a year that they actually get can’t possibly create a strong core Jewish identity. And in a way, supplemental Jewish education is a way of reinforcing the idea that Judaism is only a supplemental component of their overall identity. Again, we do the very best we can.

Our second opportunity is Jewish summer camp. Camp Ramah was created for the express purpose of immersing our children in a fun, stimulating, educational, and recreational Jewish world – 168 hours a week. To experience Shabbat for the full 25 hours, more than once. To learn that keeping kosher is possible. To learn that Jewish learning can be exciting, especially when it takes place all day instead of just two hours three days a week.

Times are hard. Many can no longer afford day school or summer camp. So grandparents may need to help out (even more than they already do). The Solomon Schechter Day School and Camp Ramah are two treasures of the Jewish world – we need to consider them as more than “luxuries.” They need to be higher on our priority list – either for our children or grandchildren, or for other people’s children and grandchildren. There are no guarantees; this we all know. But these day school and summer camp are the two most effective ways we have to create a positive, strong, knowledgeable Jewish identity.

Think seriously about day school and summer camp. Either for your children or for your grandchildren. Or think about the next generation of American Jews. For those without children of this age, think about how worthy these places are for our charitable dollars. It is an investment in the future of American Judaism.

You may be surprised to find out how much the good folks at the Solomon Schechter Day School are willing to do to help you make this possible. The same is true for Camp Ramah.

Is it more important that your child carries into his or her adult life a solid background in soccer and gymnastics or in his or her Jewish identity?

And if not now, when?

The Maccabees live. At least, their battle goes on.
Here are two passages from the First Book of the Maccabees (as translated in the New English Bible):
At that time [after the ascension of Antiochus IV to the throne in 175 BCE] there appeared in Israel a group of renegade Jews, who incited the people. ‘Let us enter into a covenant with the Gentiles round about,’ they said, ‘because disaster upon disaster has overtaken us since we segregated ourselves from them.’ The people thought this a good argument, and some of them in their enthusiasm went to the king and received authority to introduce non-Jewish laws and customs. They built a sports-stadium in the gentile style in Jerusalem. They removed their marks of circumcision and repudiated the holy covenant. They intermarried with Gentiles, and abandoned themselves to evil ways….
When the king’s officers come to Modin, Mattathias (a priest), along with his five sons, refused to submit to their authority.
[After Mattathias finished speaking] a Jew stepped forward in full view of all to offer sacrifice on the pagan altar at Modin, in obedience to the royal command. The sight stirred Mattathias to indignation; he shook with passion, and in a fury of righteous anger rushed forward and slaughtered the traitor on the very altar…. ‘Follow me,’ he shouted through the town, ‘every one of you who is zealous for the law and strives to maintain the covenant.’
As a child, I learned the heroic tale of Judah Maccabee, leader of the fight of the Judeans against the Syrian Greeks. But the real battle that was taking place was internal, a struggle between Judaism and Hellenism within the Jewish population itself.
What is the difference between Greek culture and Jewish culture?
Rabbi Ken Spiro has written: “To the Jews, human beings were created in the image of God. To the Greeks, gods were made in the image of human beings. To the Jews, the physical world was something to be perfected and elevated spiritually. To the Greeks, the physical world was perfect. In short, to Greeks, what was beautiful was holy; to the Jews, what was holy was beautiful.”
There is much to be said of Greek culture, an ancient culture that is the basis of Western Civilization, and in particular, the humanistic foundation of our contemporary enlightened society. Our lives would be dramatically different if not for the gifts of the ancient Greeks. The Greeks brought their culture to all the lands they conquered, Judea included. That culture included philosophy, art, architecture, history, literature, and athletics. They celebrated the human being, glorifying the beauty of the human body and human intellect.
These things are all part of our culture today. They are how we spend our money and our time, particularly our leisure time. Just think of much of our time we invest in sports – both spectator and participatory. All those hours enjoying literature and the arts. All of our intense focus on the pleasures of the body, from food to sex to spas to vacations in “paradise.” I cannot think of a human pleasure that is discouraged in our society. Other than incest or hurting another person (against their will), is there anything taboo any more?
One of the most significant “discoveries” that marked the beginning of the Renaissance, a period in which classical Greek culture was re-awakened in Western Civilization, was that Earth revolves around the sun, and not vice versa. How curious that just as we came to understand that Earth is not the center of the universe, we also began to think and behave as though the human being is.
Judaism itself is a rejection of the idea that the universe revolves around us. We don’t set the standards. For if we place human beings at the center, if everything revolves around us, then it is also true that God revolves around us – we end up creating our gods (if any) in our image. And when it comes to behavior, Judaism believes in righteousness, not self-righteousness.
The core values of Judaism are often in conflict with core values of our secular society. And since Judaism makes so many demands on our time and our behavior, we often find ourselves having to choose between “Greek” pastimes and Jewish obligations. We Conservative Jews are committed to both Jewish tradition and secular society. We live with one foot firmly planted on the side of an enlightened secular society based upon Greek ideals, and the other foot trying desperately to establish or preserve a foothold in Jewish tradition. It’s hard to be enlightened in public and Jewish in shul.
The Maccabees understood how hard it was to navigate between Hellenism and Judaism. For them, it was black or white. In our time, too, there are those who choose one or the other. But we try to live with both black and white. We want both. We are unwilling to give up either. The trick is not to end up with neither.
It is not so difficult to blend Jewish values with secular values. What is tough is to try to blend Jewish behavior with secular behavior. When it comes down to what we are going to do on Saturday, we have to choose one or the other. We could go to a football game, while keeping in mind that it is Shabbat; or we could observe Shabbat and keep in mind that there is a football game. We know what secular Jewish football fans would do. And we know what orthodox Jewish football fans would do. But what do Conservative Jewish football fans do? Do we go to shul and record the game, or do we watch the game and daven at halftime (or do we just pray that our team wins)?
We Conservative Jews are the “Chanukah Movement” – we continue to fight the Maccabees’ battle every day of our lives. As such, perhaps we need to give a new meaning to the candles we light each of the eight nights of Chanukah. If each candle represents doing Jewish things, then adding one candle a day is a reminder that Judaism is not all-or-nothing for us. It is possible to increase our Jewish behavior incrementally, mitzvah by mitzvah. With each added mitzvah, repeated day after day, we experience an ever brighter Jewish enlightenment.
Chag ha-urim same’ach – have a joyous “Festival of the Lights.”

With the possible exception of the first part of Exodus, the Genesis stories are probably the best known texts of the Torah (and perhaps, of the entire Hebrew Bible). In Sunday school and at bedtime we tell our children these stories: Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Ark, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah and Rachel, and the Joseph narratives. We tell them as stories, as fantasies, as Jewish mythology. Once our children enter adolescence, the stories of Genesis get filed away under the category of children’s fiction, along with other fairy tales and children’s stories.

So many adult Jews read Genesis as if it is the Jewish version of Grimm’s Fairy Tales or Aesop’s Fables: nice moral lessons, packaged for simple minds. Too many read these stories as oral traditions that happened to be written down a long time ago. Thus, the actual biblical text itself is not so important. We read the stories in simplified versions, in sanitized versions, in “improved” versions. We find them in cartoons, Broadway musicals, coloring books, children’s books, novels, poetry, music, art work, and comic books. No wonder it is so easy to dismiss Torah. No wonder so many take Genesis about as seriously as they take Goldilocks and the Three Bears or The Tortoise and the Hare.

Does Genesis deserve the serious attention of serious Jewish adults? Do the Genesis narratives have something important to teach us about humanity, God, and the nature of our world?

To put it simply, yes.

If we are to read Genesis (and the rest of Torah, for that matter), then we must take the text seriously. Above all, the actual text matters, not just a paraphrased version. The text should be read ideally in the Hebrew, but at the very least one should use a good translation. It is important to look carefully at what the text actually says (and what it doesn’t say). Individual words matter, as do individual phrases.

Of course, we each bring a different perspective to the text. But we can also read it through the eyes of Jewish scholars from different disciplines. For example,

Gerald Schroeder’s Genesis and the Big Bang demonstrates how current scientific knowledge verifies the accuracy of the first chapter of Genesis;
Daniel Matt’s God and the Big Bang explores the way in which the Genesis narratives are the basis of Jewish mysticism;
Daniel Hillel’s A Natural History of the Bible reads the texts through the eyes of an environmental scientist;
Bruce Feiler’s Abraham: a Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths is a more in-depth look at our patriarch, explored through the eyes of a Jewish novice. His Walking the Bible takes us to the very places mentioned in Genesis;
Alan Dershowitz’s The Genesis of Justice frames the Genesis stories in terms of legal cases, and concludes that the narratives of Genesis demonstrate why Sinai (i.e., the giving of law) was necessary;
Lawrence Kushner’s God was in this Place & I did not know is a reading and re-reading of the account of Jacob’s ladder (Genesis 28:10-19) through the eyes of Rashi, Menachem Mendl of Kotzk, Dov Baer (the Maggid of Mezritch) and four others;
Rabbi Francis Nataf’s Redeeming Relevance in the Book of Genesis is a contemporary rabbinic exploration of text and meaning; and finally,
The Diaries of Adam and Eve: Translated by Mark Twain [not Jewish!] is a delightful and insightful reading of the beginning of Genesis through the eyes of the first man and woman.

There are also many traditional commentaries and midrashim on the Book of Genesis. Rashi explicates the p’shat, or surface level of the text. Other commentators explore deeper meanings of the text at the level of derash. And much of the Zohar, the primary text of Jewish mysticism, is a commentary on Genesis, reading the text allegorically.

Personally, I have spent a great deal of time over the last five years or so looking closely at the first three chapters of Genesis. In particular, I find that (some) answers to the “big questions” are contained within the Creation narratives. What is the nature of our universe? What/who is God? Why was the universe created? What does it mean to be a human being? What is the existential condition of the human being? What does it mean that we are created in God’s image? What is the relationship between male and female? What is a human being’s proper relationship to the world, to animals, to the environment, to each other? Does life have a purpose? Does my life have a purpose? Why is there evil in the world? Where am I? Am I my brother’s keeper?

One reason that the world needs the Jews is because there Judaism has a particular way of framing these questions and a particular way of answering them. Contemporary science is not the only source of questions and answers. Neither is popular culture. Issues of public policy are approached differently by Jewish tradition differently than the way they are framed in our public discourse.

If the reason for Judaism to survive is because we brought Torah to the world, then we are no longer needed. It isn’t just that we gave Torah to the world; it is that we continue to bring Torah to the world. That is, the Torah is not just a text – we gave that text to the world well over two millennia ago. The Torah that we bring to the world is an attitude, a Jewish perspective on the world, a Jewish way of asking important questions, a Jewish way of framing the discussion of these questions, and a rich treasury of Jewish answers to these questions.

If all that we know of Torah is the Bible stories we learned in Sunday school, then we have nothing uniquely Jewish to bring to the world. The world doesn’t need our stories (it already has them). The nations of the world don’t need our holidays (they have their own). They don’t need Jewish culture (they have their own cultures). They don’t need our history. They don’t need our best and our brightest. They don’t need our money. They don’t (really) need our land.

The world needs our Torah. It always has, and it always will. It needs our questions. It needs our answers. The world doesn’t need the text of Torah; it needs the people of Torah. But if we are going to bring our Torah to the world, then we had best bring it to ourselves first. The stories of Genesis are not just “kid’s stuff.” If they are, then who needs them?

We just began a new year. We just completed and re-started reading Torah. Every year, we have another opportunity to engage seriously with Torah. Every year, we have the possibility of enriching our lives with a serious study of Torah. Every year brings us new opportunities to bring our Torah to the world. The more we study Torah – through Jewish eyes, the more our attitudes towards all of life’s big questions will be reflected in the ways in which we think, behave, speak, and teach.

If we just re-read the stories of Torah this year, then next year we will be no better equipped to bring Torah to the world than we are today. But if we read Torah more deeply and more seriously and more Jewishly this year, then next year at this time each of us will bring a little more Torah to the world. The world still needs our Torah, perhaps now more than ever.

Recently a woman came to my office to ask me a question regarding the upcoming birth of her first child, a son. She is not a member of any congregation, but was hoping to speak with a rabbi about brit milah (that is, ritual circumcision; Ashkenazi pronunciation is bris). She explained to me that she is Jewish and her husband is not. They are both scientists. Her husband is an atheist; she is agnostic. The woman told me that she had always assumed that her son would be circumcised … but then her husband told her that he did not want his son circumcised. In America, circumcision is the norm for baby boys, but in Europe (he is Italian) the percentage of circumcised males is much lower. Why, he asked, should they do this to their son? Why, when both of them do not believe in God and neither is a practicing Jew, should they subject their son to this procedure? It is a reasonable question.

So the woman did her research. She is, after all, a scientist. She discovered that circumcision is only marginally more effective in reducing the incidence of certain forms of cancer and other disease. She discovered that the option of circumcision is increasingly rejected by Jews and non-Jews alike. She discovered that the only truly compelling reason to circumcise her son is Jewish tradition. So if she does not practice Judaism in other ways, why should she adhere to Jewish practice in this case?

I hope that I was able to convey to her the following: brit milah is what Jews do; it has been what her ancestors have done since Abraham circumcised his sons Ishmael and Isaac (and also himself). So if she wanted her son to identify as a Jew as he grew into adulthood he should have a bris.

According to Jewish law, the obligation to ritually circumcise Jewish boys falls on the father. (It is one of five (or six) obligations that fathers have regarding their sons.1) If the father is unable or unwilling (or, in this case, un-Jewish), the obligation falls on the beit din (that is, the local rabbis – not the mother). The beit din steps in to make the bris possible. It would be my honor and pleasure to schedule and pay for a mohel.

However, we live in an age in which Jewish law has no binding force on Jews, nor do rabbis have the coercive power to force anyone to do anything. Furthermore, we live in an age in which opting out of Judaism and the Jewish community is entirely possible.

What would you say to this Jewish mother-to-be?

Brit milah is not only a minor surgical procedure. Brit means “covenant.” (Milah is the word for circumcision.) The circumcision of Jewish boys is a statement by parents that their son is a member of the covenantal Jewish community.2

The covenant of Abraham is the basis of brit milah. This covenant is God’s promise to Abraham that he and his descendants are given the land (of Israel) in perpetuity.

But the covenant with Abraham has come to mean much more than a memory of God’s promise to our forefather. It is a promise to all of his descendants that they, too, are part of this covenantal relationship. Thus, as a descendant of Abraham the covenant is not “between God and me,” but rather “between God and us.”

Like the other covenants between God and the Jewish People, the covenant with Abraham creates a Jewish community, a Jewish extended family. It creates a “we” – the entire Jewish world. Thus, there is the rabbinic principle: kol Yisrael areivim zeh ba-zeh – “All Israel is responsible one to the other.”

Women are born into the covenant, but for boys it is not automatic. Parents have to make a commitment to raise their child to be part of “all Israel.” Boys are halakhically Jewish if they are born to a Jewish mother. But they are part of the Jewish people only if they have been circumcised according to Jewish law.

I hope that this mother-to-be heard this message. I hope that she understands that even if she spurns her birthright, her son may not. If she wants him to identify as a Jew (even a non-practicing Jew) she really has no choice in the matter. To force him to either separate himself from the Jewish people or to be circumcised as an adult is an act of cruelty; why would an otherwise ethical mother be intentionally cruel to her child?3 Most Jewish men presume that they have been brought into the covenantal community by their parents. Why would you raise your son to know that he definitely isn’t part of that community?

As adult Jews in America it can be challenging to live a Jewish life. Our identity is not forced upon us; we are all, in a sense, Jews by choice. A bris celebrates bringing one more child – filled with countless possibilities – into the Jewish community. Maybe that is why brit milah takes place on the eighth day (unless a doctor says it should be delayed) – even when the eighth day is Shabbat, even when it is Yom Kippur.

Community is one of our highest values. To be part of our covenantal community, both with God and with each other, is our birthright. It is also a great privilege. How sad it is for any Jew to spurn his or her birthright. But how tragic it is when parents spurn their child’s birthright.

What would you have said to that mother?

Notes
1. In Tractate Kiddushin (29a), we learn that a father is obligated (1) to circumcise his son (brit milah); (2) to redeem him if he is a firstborn (pidyon ha-ben); (3) to teach him Torah (to make sure that he gets a Jewish education); (4) to take a wife for him (to insure that his son is able to make a family of his own); and (5) to teach him a craft (insure that he has the proper education needed to support himself). Some say that (6) the father is even obligated to teach him to swim (to teach him real world life skills).
2. A covenant is a general obligation concerning two parties. Covenants can be established between individuals, between states, or between a king and his subjects. It is not always a mutual agreement; sometimes it represents a relationship between a more powerful party (such as God) that makes a pact with an inferior one (anyone else) freely and out of good will. God’s covenant with Noah, that He will never again bring a flood to destroy the world, is an example of one such covenant.
3. Yes, I know that circumcision hurts – but eight-day-old boys usually cry for less than a minute when the milah is done by an experienced mohel. Not so with a 25-year-old man.

Buckle up! In the coming weeks, we will be moving through the heart of our primary Festival season. Two days of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, two days of Sukkot, and two days of Shemini Atzeret (the second of which we call Simchat Torah)—and we get off lucky this year as six of those days fall on weekends. All of these are days in which, by Jewish law and tradition, we abide by nearly the same restrictions as we do on Shabbat. Then there the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (Shabbat Shuvah) with full Shabbat restrictions, as well as the five intermediate days of Sukkot during which time there are special additional rituals (not the least of which is Hoshanna Rabbah).

What is the point of all this ritual? Is it merely a reenactment of ancient priestly ritual? Is it in hopes that our presence in the synagogue will somehow tip the divine scales of life and health and success in our favor? Is it just something that Jews do? Is it a chance to break our normal routine? Or perhaps an opportunity to catch up with friends? Is it an opportunity to express our thanks to God for another year of life and for all that we have? Is it the way in which we teach our children what it means to live an observant Jewish life? Are we perhaps in synagogue simply because we are obligated by Jewish law to fulfill the mitzvot of these Festivals (such as hearing the sound of the shofar, or reciting the Musaf Amidah, or fasting, or waving the lulav and etrog or rejoicing in the completion and restarting of our Torah reading cycle? Is it our reserved time to honestly evaluate our lives, to apologize to God (and ourselves) for our failings, and to resolve to live differently in the coming years? Is it to feel the power of Jewish community in a world in which we can often feel isolated within the secular world in which we live and work? Is it a time to remember our loved ones no longer here? Is it a response to the same kind of instinct that causes salmon to return to the place of their birth and that causes birds to begin their migration?

Yes. And more.

For some, this season is a burden. For others, this is a season of opportunity. Many have never really thought about it—it’s just we do every fall. However, if nothing else, Jewish tradition demands that we live a reflective life, that we are aware of the “what” and the “why” of our behavior, both in and out of the synagogue.

All of us lead lives filled with rituals. Many are personal or interpersonal. Many of our rituals connect us to specific institutions (such as colleges, professional organizations, sports teams, political parties, synagogues, fraternal groups). All societies and cultures depend upon shared rituals for stability and strength, for expressing shared values and for transmitting those values through the generations. Rituals are the medium through which we become part of existing groups and through which others become part of our groups.

How did I know that I was Jewish? My parents told me that I was. How did I learn what it meant to be Jewish? Not from a book (not even from Torah). I learned how to be Jewish through home rituals and synagogue rituals. Those who choose to become Jewish as adults may begin their journey privately. There is much to learn about Jewish history, beliefs, and practices. But one can have a Ph.D. in Jewish studies and not be Jewish. It is not enough to know about Judaism; one must do Jewish in order to be Jewish. And we do Jewish through Jewish ritual.

So it is that this season is a particularly important time to reinforce our Jewish identity, immersing ourselves in Jewish time and Jewish space – Shabbat and Festival meals rather than simply dinner, marking time based on the Jewish calendar rather than the secular calendar, in shul rather than in school or at work or at play, speaking and thinking and doing Jewishly. For us, September 19, 2009 is not just Saturday, not just the day of the Great Forest Park Balloon Race or the Missou-Furman football game. For us, that day is the first day of Tishre, 5770, Shabbat and the first day of Rosh Hashanah. For us, that day is a day to be with other Jews celebrating the beginning of another year, reflecting on our lives, rejoicing in our community, remembering who we are and why.

We enter a season when we must make choices concerning what we value most. What are we a part of? What are we apart from? With whom will we share rituals? I hope that you will choose to celebrate your Jewishness here at Shaare Zedek, as part of a community, as part of Jewish history, as part of the Jewish People. Be a part of us, not apart from us.

As always, the choice is yours.

L’shanah tovah u’metukah – May you be inscribed for a good and a sweet year.

Message from March 2009
Message from February 2009
Message from January 2009
Message from December 2008
Message from November 2008
Message from October 2008
Message from July & August 2008
Message from March 2008
Message from February 2008
Message from December 2007
Message from November 2007
Message from October 2007
Message from September 2007
Message from August 2007
Message from June 2007
Message from May 2007
Message from April 2007
Message from March 2007
Message from February 2007
Message from January 2007
Message from December 2006
Message from November 2006
Message from October 2006