Temple David

The tragedy happening in Afghanistan is on many levels. It is hard to know how to help, though personally, we decided to make a donation to HIAS and keep our eyes open as to how to help if Afghani refugees come to Pittsburgh.

Of the many angles that we see this tragedy unfold, one is the Jewish angle.  While once there were an estimated 40,000 Jews centered in Herat, along the Silk Road trading route, there were fewer than 5,000 by the middle of the 20^th century and now, there is a single Jewish Afghani,  Zablon Simintov.  We must know our people’s history.  40,000 down to 1.

The other worry is over important Jewish sites including the Yu Aw Synagogue.  The Forward writes: “Jewish sites received attention as part of a larger nation-building push to restore cultural landmarks of all kinds and make tangible the country’s claims to being a pluralistic democracy. The Yu Aw Synagogue’s restoration was funded in part by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, a Swiss foundation active in the Muslim world, which described it in a brochure as part of an effort to “celebrate, restore, and maintain Afghanistan’s cultural presence and identity in the modern world.”

It is a beautiful synagogue.

And yet…

Some of us just discussed the book Eternal Life by Dara Horn, which takes place in Jerusalem just before the Roman siege. The mother cannot understand how her son, Yochanan ben Zakkai – a historical figure per the Talmud – given his relationship to the incoming Roman emperor, made his choices. She challenged him: “Yochanan, you could have saved the country.  You could have saved the city.  You could have saved the Temple.  You could have saved the Holy of Holies, the House of God.  And instead you saved – a story.” (p. 193-4).

Of course, had he been able to save all of what she said, it would have been temporary.  It was a short term versus long term view.  Had he not saved our story – the Torah and its students and teachers, Judaism would not exist.  We would not exist.

Whether in Jerusalem 2000 years ago or Afghanistan now, the ultimate investment cannot be in a building.  It must be in lives – and not only Jewish lives.  The many thousands of dollars spent on restoring a synagogue which no longer had a local Jewish community could have been spent on helping human beings.  We cannot focus on sites.  Our sights must be on people.

https://forward.com/news/474297/taliban-jewish-heritage-afghanistan-herat/

Watching the Olympics was breath taking. Perhaps this year, without spectators, especially highlighted the athleticism, the team spirit, the grace of athletes who not only won but those who did not gain the podium. We saw both patriotism and participation in the world community as shown through how the athletes modeled respect of their opponents, also the best in the world, and how they entered the Opening Ceremonies and how they entered the Closing Ceremonies.

I cannot imagine what it takes to be not only so skilled in a sport but so focused as to be able to practice hour upon hour upon hour in order to compete for an even that may take less than a minute or may differentiate by a single point or even a hundredth of a second.

Enter the High Holy Days. Literally. As the new moon of Elul rose on Sunday, we have entered into the preparation period for the High Holy Days. Just as no athlete could hear the whistle, starter pistol, countdown clock or music and be their best without practice, so too must we practice being our best. The first step is to be aware of the lives we are leading. Enter Elul.

Elul is a time to live our lives–our interactions with family, friends and colleagues, strangers, at home, work, play, in the volunteer work we do–while watching ourselves closely. It is a time for inner reflection, for holding ourselves accountable, for being honest with ourselves in order to reach the starting line which we call Rosh HaShanah.

Ecclesiastes says, “There is a time for silence and a time to speak.” Agreed. There is a time for silence. Silence allows reflection; silence can speak louder than words. And while the boundaries of silence can be infinite, a moment of silence is finite, defined, focused… and has a different power.

It took 49 years to break the silence in order to have a moment of silence.

49 years ago in Munich, the Israeli Olympic team was attacked by the Palestinian terrorist group Black September, killing 6 coaches, 5 athletes and a West German police officer who tried to rescue them.

For decades, widows of two of the murdered athletes have advocated for the International Olympic Committee to acknowledge this during the opening or closing ceremony. The answer: no. Per the Forward (July 23, 2021), here is one reason why:

We must consider what this could do to other members of the delegations that are hostile to Israel,” an Israeli committee member told the BBC in 2004, when a small memorial was held at the Israeli ambassador’s house in Athens before the Olympics there.

In other words, there would be silence – not a moment of silence – so that terrorist actions are not remembered and so that delegations hostile to Israel won’t feel badly – and this from an Israeli. Oy Vey.

Elie Wiesel wrote: “I swore never to be silent whenever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lies are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Whenever men and women are prosecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must–at that moment–become the center of the universe.”

The spectators could not come to the Olympics. Yet for all that the bleachers are empty, the Olympics are still the center of the universe. And only a few days ago, there was not silence but a moment of silence during the opening ceremonies in Tokyo, which mourned the Israeli team and its rescuer and also included others who were killed during varying Olympics. The Olympic torch has become a Yizkor Candle, a candle of remembrance of how our world is interconnected.

Should Germany have a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council?

So what does the Security Council do? Per www.un.org:

The Security Council has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. It has 15 Members, and each Member has one vote. Under the Charter of the United Nations, all Member States are obligated to comply with Council decisions.

The Security Council takes the lead in determining the existence of a threat to the peace or act of aggression. It calls upon the parties to a dispute to settle it by peaceful means and recommends methods of adjustment or terms of settlement. In some cases, the Security Council can resort to imposing sanctions or even authorize the use of force to maintain or restore international peace and security.

The Torah teaches, “Seek peace and pursue it.” In order to actively seek peace, one must know what peace is; what peace looks and feels like. After World War I, Germany did not seek peace; Germany sought vengeance. After World War II and the Shoah, Germany sought peace and continues to do so through law, reparations, memorials, curricula. It welcomes refugees when once it murdered its own citizens. It has a strong economy and is an important member of the EU meaning that Germany has proven itself to be a strong international partner. Germany, quite simply and completely non-simply, recreated itself.

That is why I vote “Yes.” I believe it would serve the United Nations Security Council with integrity based on the strength of experience and the compassion of repentance.

The most elusive thing we have, the thing that we cannot slow down or pay more money for or invent is, of course, time. As much as the Covid interruption might have confused time–since many of us, myself included, often did not know the day of the week or the date–it did not necessarily slow down time. Where did those 15 months go?

I have often joked that I am trying to invent an eighth day of the week. But more than more time, it is how we spend our time that counts. Here is a good way to spend your time: invest in a short novel about Albert Einstein called Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman. In it, Einstein dreams dreams that conceptualize time in different ways and as Wikipedia describes, “The book demonstrates the relationship each human being has to time, and thus spiritually affirms Einstein’s theory of relativity.” I just know that I was moved by the book and considered it in ways more poetry than narrative.

So here we are in time, having just passed the summer solstice–the longest day of the year. We have almost 15 hours of sunlight (as opposed to the winter solstice which has about 9 hours and 15 minutes of sunlight). We might not have more time, but we have more sunlight. How will you use it?

Israel keeps getting labeled with generalizations and exaggerations and falsehoods. Just sign up for CAMERA or Honest Reporting, and based on the work they do as watchdog organizations, you will see how Israel gets, at minimum a bad rap and often much worse.

But not today!

Let’s label Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, as nothing less than a model of democracy–not only compared to her neighbors but compared to any democracy.

Allow me to pause to note that the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) structure is based on that of England since it was under the British Mandate that Israel became a modern state. Unlike American democracy, it is not a two-party system, but a multi-party system. In each election, each party has a slate of candidates and depending on how many votes a party gets, that percentage of its slate is elected. But that’s not all. Rarely does a party have enough votes to get the majority of the  120 seats in the Knesset and therefore coalitions between parties must be formed.

Today, more than any time in recent memory, Israeli parties from the far right, left, and center are coming together to form a coalition government–with the support of a small Arab Islamist party, no less. So let us celebrate democracy! Let those who spout incendiary and false name-calling such as “apartheid” or “colonialist” read and absorb this headline: “Israel: A Model of Democracy”!

I spoke with someone today who shared that she has been in recovery from alcoholism for 40 years. In addition to a decades-long full career as a singer songwriter, during the lock-down of Covid she worked to became a recovery counselor for song writers and artists. Her songs were already meaningful to me and I told her that knowing what she is doing to give back to the community only deepens their meaning. What a thrill and honor it was to speak with her and my star-struck eyes only widened upon learning of her latest chapter. And yes, I even asked if she would sing for me. She did.

While we spoke and while she serenaded me, I thought of Maimonides’ Ladder of Tzedakah since the Shabbat Morning worship community had spoken about it just days before. The Ladder is, from the lowest rung up:

1. Giving begrudgingly and making the recipient feel disgraced or embarrassed.
2. Giving cheerfully but giving too little.
3. Giving cheerfully and adequately but only after being asked.
4. Giving before being asked.
5. Giving when you do not know who is the individual benefiting, but the recipient knows your identity.
6. Giving when you know who is the individual benefiting, but the recipient does not know your identity.
7. Giving when neither the donor nor the recipient is aware of the other’s identity.
8. The Highest: Giving money, a loan, your time or whatever else it takes to enable an individual to be self-reliant.

When we aim for the top step: helping another person to become self-sufficient–whether that is through sobriety or literacy or business acumen, we have literally raised another person up. The prayer Gevurot describes God as “lifting the fallen;” when we do the same, we are shining in God’s image.

How can you use our time and invest our passions and talents to climb Maimonides’ Ladder of Tzedakah and escort another person alongside?

Thirteen months ago, I shared what it was like to return from the future. I had just traveled to New York as part of my sabbatical travels and was in Westchester County, the epicenter of American Covid-spread at the time. Things were closing down, restaurants were emptying, people were scared. Though I had travelled most of the distance, even my mother didn’t want me to visit.

Today (May 8) I am writing from the Kansas City, Missouri airport having just visited our daughter Aviva who moved here by herself ten months ago and whom we haven’t seen since. Ilana and Micah came as well. It was the first time we hugged our children since each left home after a 3-5 month Covid-related stay.

So much has happened during that time in the world, in our Eastern Suburbs corner of the world and in our families. Much related to Covid, much not.

Now I can write: I have been to the present. I have been on a plane, masked. I have eaten at restaurants, largely outside, masked until service. I have been to wonderful museums and spent more time outdoors on the balcony of our inn and in parks.

We may use phrases as “new normal” but I think they are not only disingenuous, they are unreflective and therefore not helpful. As Rabbi Jen Gubitz writes in ejewishphilanthropy.com: “We believe that re-emergence will be deeply challenging for many of us. We have gotten used to our isolation, with its quiet time and narrowed commitments. Our worlds have shrunk to a more manageable size. Our griefs have been private and profound. Experts suggest that every person who has died of COVID this year, leaves behind at least 9 newly bereaved loved ones. A grief pandemic is what comes next, they say. In a year that has been catastrophic, communal, profound, life changing and historic, grief abounds.”

Let us acknowledge that grief and simultaneously celebrate life. Let us hear Ecclesiastes, “A time for weeping and a time for laughing, A time for wailing and a time for dancing.” Which time are we in? Both. As the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai writes, “Ecclesiastes was wrong about that. A [person] needs to love and to hate at the same moment, to laugh and cry with the same eyes.” Let us challenge ourselves to laugh and cry and hug and social distance and wear masks and reveal our innermost selves at the same moment. Let us allow ourselves to be present.

On Sunday, we brought our 8^th-10^th graders to the Keeping Tabs Holocaust Structure in Squirrel Hill. We gave them three minutes of quiet time in each of the points of the Jewish star plus a few places outside of the structure for guided contemplation and reflection. Here were the questions we asked them to respond to:

• Why do you think the Jews didn’t react sooner and didn’t see the Holocaust coming? Why do you think the Germans went along with the Nazis and didn’t try to stop them?
• Take a full minute to look closely in the glass boxes and take in the enormity of 6 million people. What is the impact of collecting 6 million tabs to represent 6 million Jewish lives murdered?
• If you were creating a memorial would you have a specific focus on righteous gentiles and if so what would this look like?
• This was a school project started by one teacher with one class that grew to involve more classes, the entire community and even the world. Why do you think the teacher and students decided to make this exhibit public?
• What do you think Hanna (the main character upon which My Real Name is Hanna was based) would think and feel standing here right now?
• The real person that Hanna’s character is based on is Esther Stermer. Esther says, “Long ago, people believed that spirits and ghosts lived in the ruins and caves. Now we could see that there were none here. The devils and evil spirits were on the outside, not in the grotto (caves).” What are today’s evil spirits?
• If you could build a structure next to this structure to include the other 5 million people killed in the Holocaust, what would this look like?
• What would you hope that a non-Jewish person of your age would experience while standing here?
• The author Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust Survivor, wrote “The opposite of Love is not Hate, it’s indifference.” What do you think this means?

We wanted the students to explore in silence so the other teacher and I sat in the middle quietly. Prior to coming, I had thought about what I would do for that time – about a ½ hour to 40 minutes and I decided to bring a book. That may sound inappropriate. But I did not bring just any book. I brought Caste by Isabel Wilkerson.  I had already heard her speak and had read (p. 17) “Throughout human history, three caste systems have stood out. The tragically accelerated, chilling and officially vanquished caste system of Nazi German. The lingering, millennia-long caste system of India. And the shape-shifting, unspoken, race-based caste pyramid in the United States.”

I felt it was the right book to read sitting in the exact center of a Magen David, surrounded by 6,000,000 silenced voices calling out and a minyan of students and parents experiencing silence in order to find their voices.

The final question we asked the students was: How will you remember and never forget?” My answer, in part, is: to follow Elie Wiesel’s words from his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech: “Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Whenever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that must—at that moment—become the center of the universe.” Let us interfere.

Primarily still working from home, I am not out a lot and certainly not out in crowds. Except for last Friday. That was when I returned to Squirrel Hill to get my second vaccine. Due to social distancing, the line extended down the block – ages spanning adulthood, differing physical abilities, religions, skin tones, economic status. It was a sea of Americanism edging toward the door.

When I got to the door and then entered, I was focused on the process and following the procedure carefully. Don’t put anything on this table. Use this pen. Take your form off the paper. How many hundreds of time had he said that just that day? I thanked him, expressed my wish that he stay safe, and sat in my seat, studying “patience” as that was the next middah (soul trait) I was to teach the following week. Then I was called forward. The nurse checked in with me, I said the blessing to myself, and then she administered the shot. I thanked her and expressed my wish that she stay safe. Then I was directed where to sit and walked over, book in hand, ironically anxious to get back to “patience.”

And then she said “hello.” It was my friend from the Muslim Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh here in Monroeville. It was so nice to see each other; it had been so long and I had almost forgotten what I had been missing for over a year: all of the interfaith gatherings that were not only meetings. The small talk. The reminder that Ramadan was soon to start. Being welcomed into one another’s houses of worship with kindness, prayer, and traditional food. We wished each other well and I wished her a peaceful Ramadan and we each sat in our chairs and then went on our separate ways.

It took me a few days to think about how our encounter may have appeared to onlookers. Maybe it was not unusual for them or maybe it was: a traditionally-dressed Muslim woman and a kippah-clad Jewish woman so joyful to see one another.

In that room, so much had occurred: patience, gratitude, blessing, diversity, selfcare, equality, friendship. To me, it is a miracle that the vaccines have been developed, proven and administered so quickly. Can we take that idea forward and make our own miracles? If each of us would devote even a bit of our day to developing the soul traits that showed up in that room, we would each be doing our part to inoculate our world against the not-so-invisible viruses of hate, racism, inequality.