Instead of Arguing over Semantics, We Must Act

Controversy took over the headlines this week – you know, not real controversy, but the type of controversy that we’ve come to expect in a 24-hour news cycle where every tweet, comment, and quote get over analyzed and twisted out of context. This week, in reference to the detention facilities that the Trump administration has set up on the US-Mexico border, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez referred to them as concentration camps. Many of her political opponents were quick to criticize her, suggesting that one cannot use Holocaust allegory to condemn the human rights violations happening right now in our country, as if we say “never again” but don’t actually mean it, like it only means never again to us.

I understand that using the term concentration camps is a trigger. I understand that doing so suggests that the actions of the Trump administration are no different than Nazi Germany. I would never say that or suggest that. But we have been so consumed over the last several days by whether or not these are concentration camps,  and ignored the half a dozen children – CHILDREN – who have died in these detention facilities for lack of care, or the babies born prematurely in these internment camps without being seen by a medical professional. We’ve debated appropriate analogies instead of highlighting the reports that a traumatic and dangerous situation is unfolding for some 250 infants, children, and teens at the border who have been locked up for 27 days without adequate food, water, or sanitation.

And it doesn’t matter that there are those historians who say that concentration camps is the appropriate term, because I am not sure it is the appropriate term. But we get consumed and distracted by those arguments, by those who are trying to prove that concentration camps is an appropriate term, or those who suggest that using such a term minimizes the actual horrors of the Holocaust. We end up ignoring the President’s promise of a modern-day Kristellnacht – yes, I too used such an analogy — reporting that he will soon be demanding that ICE begin rounding up millions – MILLIONS – of residents to arrest them, detain them, and deport them, because of their immigration status, and will question those based on how they look or the languages they speak.

The 24-hour news cycle has forced us down this narrowly-focused path where we only have tunnel vision, where we are arguing over semantics, and ignoring the actual problem, refusing to act entirely. It’s as if only certain people can say certain things, like decrying human rights violations can only be done by those who they themselves have suffered such violations, like using the term concentration camp is reserved only for survivors of the Shoah. Unfortunately, as there are fewer and fewer survivors left, it is up to those who only learned about such atrocities and thank God, didn’t live through them, to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself. Or even worse, it is up to us to make sure society doesn’t turn a blind eye, when history does repeat itself.

In Parashat Behaalotecha, we are introduced to Eldad and Meidad, two individuals who we only hear of for the very first time in Numbers 11:26. The text tells us that vatanach aleihem haRuach, that God’s divine spirit rested on them, and they offered prophecy. When a young man runs out to complain to Joshua and Moses that two random men are prophesizing and speaking truth to power, Joshua freaks out, but Moses puts him in his place. He says: It should be that all of God’s people are prophets, and that God’s spirit rests with everyone.

It is on all of us to speak up when we see the atrocities going on all around us. And maybe we are overly hyperbolic. But maybe, just maybe, such analogies are appropriate. And most definitely, such analogies bring attention to the problem – to kids locked in cages, to ICE agents raiding apartment buildings and elementary schools, to families being separated, to children being denied safety and sanitation by this supposed land of the free. We all have an obligation to be that prophetic voice – not just our leaders. And especially when one attempts to silence another for calling out such atrocities, or for the imagery they use when doing so, we must speak up and be reminded that God’s divine spirit rests on all of us. We are all prophets. We must all speak truth to power.

-Rabbi Jesse M. Olitzky

To be a Person of God, you must see your Fellow as a Person of God

Congregation Beth El began our celebration of Pride month with beautiful Torah written by my rabbinic colleague, Rabbi Rachel Marder.

 

This teaching of Rabbi Simcha Bunin, the reminder that the world was created for our sakes, is found in Tractate Sanhedrin 37a of the Babylonian Talmud. The mishnah where this appears comes to this conclusion following the reminder that each of us was created from the same being, each of us are descendants of Adam HaRishon, the first human. The mishnah clarifies that each of us was created from a single being for the sake of peace, so that no single person can say, I am greater than you, or you are less than I am, because of how you look,  how you speak, how you dress, how you identify, or how you love.

The haftarah reading for Parashat Naso  introduces a woman who desperately wants to be a mother, and vows to become a Nazarite so that the message from an angel of God that she will have a child will come true. Once that child was born, at the end of the haftarah, he becomes the most well-known of all the Nazirites in our Bible, Samson.

The text tells us that a Malach Adonai, an angel of God comes to Manoach’s wife to give her this prophecy. But when she describes what happened to Manoach, she says something different. She refers to this beings as an Ish Elohim, a man or person of God. She was able to see the being who came to speak to her, and saw the divine nature of that person. She saw his very essence. And that was enough.

Ultimately during Pride month, and each and every day, that is what we are to do. We must see each individual — gay and straight, bisexual and  pansexual, transgender and cisgender, queer, and ally, as an Ish Elohim, an Isha Elohim, a person of God> We must see each person as an individual whose words are those of prophecy, whose voice matters, whose presence matters, whose life matters. For we are all unique. We are all different. And yet we are all the same, created form the same Adam HaRishon.

As this same mishnah on Sanhedrin 37a notes, while we are all fashioned, each human being, form the very first stamp of the very first human, not one of us resembles our fellow. We are each different. We are each unique. Therefore, we each must say that the world was created for my sake. And we must see each of us as an Ish Elohim, as an Isha Elohim. We must see each other as more than just an angel. We must see each other as a person of God, made in God’s Image.

-Rabbi Jesse M. Olitzky

Lost, and Found, in the Wilderness

The book of Numbers – Sefer Bamidbar – begins with Parashat Bamidbar, literally meaning “in the wilderness.” The book begins with God speaking to Moses, and in turn the Israelites, in the wilderness of Sinai. With no word in the Torah being insignificant, Midrash comes to understand that this must mean that Matan Torah, revelation at Mount Sinai, when the Israelites received the Torah, intentionally happened bamidbar, in the wilderness.

Numbers Rabbah explains that if the Israelites received the Torah once they entered the Promised Land (which was the whole purpose of their wandering in the wilderness in general and their ultimate destination) then only the inhabitants of Israel would feel connected to Torah. However, midrash stipulates that Torah was given in the wilderness so that all Jews should feel connected to Torah and should experience revelation, no matter where we reside, including right here at this moment in South Orange, New Jersey. The Mechilta clarified further that every Jewish persion has an equal share and obligation to uphold the values of Torah, to cling to it as a tree of life. No Jews is more connected to Torah than another.

Each and every Passover, we read the words of the Haggadah: In every generation we are to see ourselves as if we left Egypt. Each and every Shavuot, we also see ourselves as if we stood at the foot of Sinai, as if we received the Torah. Because each and every Shavuot, we do receive the Torah, anew. And whenever we feel lost bamidbar, in the wilderness,  the lessons of Torah help us feel found.

The wilderness represents something else as well – humility. Tractate Nedarim 55a in the Babylonian Talmud explains that the wilderness represents more than just the diaspora, more than just not Eretz Yisrael. The wilderness is not actually a part of any place. It is ownerless. When one wanders in the wilderness one doesn’t belong anywhere or to anything. We understand the importance of community, of Jewish community. We  know that you can’t be a Jew on a deserted island because Judaism is not just about belief, but it is about community. Midrash teaches that the reason Moshe Rabbeinu shattered the tablets of the covenant when he saw the Israelites building the Golden Calf was not out of anger or disappointment. It was not because he was mad. Rather, it was because the Torah was too “heavy” – metaphorically speaking – for him to carry on his own. He was only able to carry the responsibility and burden of Torah because he thought that community, that B’nai Yisrael, was carrying it with him. This in essence is Torah.

Yet, Midrash speaks about the wilderness being ownerless, being alone. Rashi explains that if the wilderness is ownerless, then it is free for all who wish to step on it. So too, one must be like the wilderness, must be bamidbar, to receive Torah – humble. The Talmud continues that humility is a necessary part of receiving Torah – Torah cannot be understood, appreciated, or transmitted if one is not humble. Let us always be humble enough to receive the Torah anew. Let us be humble enough to ask more questions, to appreciate that we don’t have all the answers, and yet still, we come to grasp Torah. For it is only a Tree of Life if we hold fast to it.

-Rabbi Jesse M. Olitzky

You Shall Lie Down and No One Will Terrify You

In Memory of Rashad Jones

Parashat Bechukotai, the last Torah portion of the book of Leviticus, begins with the promise that those who follow God’s ways will be blessed. And then goes into detail about the blessings that they will receive:

I will grant your rains in their season, so that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit… You shall eat your bread and be satisfied… I will grant you peace in the land. You shall lie down and no one shall terrify you (Lev. 26:4-6).

Rabbinic commentary is clear that these are three separate blessings, even if each comes one right after the other. The Sifra, midrash on the book of Leviticus, explains that the reason we are told that we will eat and be satisfied immediately after being told that we will have an abundance of food is to teach us a lesson that abundance doesn’t equal satisfaction. It is only after the over abundance that we realize that although our natural instinct is to always want more, to always strive for more, we should realize that the blessings that we already have in our lives are enough.

But then the midrash continues: it doesn’t matter what we have, and it doesn’t matter if we are satisfied with what we have, if we don’t have peace, if we don’t feel safe in this world and we don’t feel like we are protected.

The Torah is quite specific in what this means:

v’cherev lo ta’avor be’artzeichem. And no weapon shall pass through this land (Lev. 26:6).

The Torah is suggesting that we will only achieve peace when we rid our world and ourselves of weapons of murder. This week, at the entrance to Congregation Beth El, we have orange lawns signs posted out front, with the word #ENOUGH written on them. Tree branches hang over these signs, each with orange ribbons tied to them. This week, we observe Gun Violence Awareness Day and wear orange to say enough is enough. This week, we declare that the blessings in our lives don’t matter, that being happy with what we have doesn’t matter, as long is we don’t have peace in our lives, as long as approximately 100 Americans are killed by guns every day.

Why orange? Because that was Hadiya Pendleton’s favorite color – and that is what her friends wore in her memory. She was shot in the back, and murdered in 2013, while on a playground in Kenwood, Chicago, with friends, after taking a school exam; she was murdered one week after performing at President Obama’s second inauguration.

Just this past weekend, a disgruntled former employee walked into the Virginia Beach Municipal Building, the Town Hall where the Mayor’s office is, and starting shooting, killing 12 people in an officie complex that housed 400. This mass shooting is the deadliest in our country this year. We might focus on the tragic mass shootings that cause us fear, school shootings like at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High school in Parkland, or synagogue shootings like at Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh, but we cannot forget the daily losses of life by gun violence. The loss of life that becomes just a number, those who are victims of this epidemic that kills 36,000 Americans a year. Like Hadiya Pendleton. Or like Rashad Jones.

Anita Pittman, a wonderful person and a dear member of our community and professional team, works as Beth El’s Financial Administrator. As we gathered for Shabbat services last Shabbat to read Parashat Bechukotai, she was burying her 20-year-old godson and cousin, Rashad Jones. He was shot and murdered just miles from here, sitting on his front stoop, in Newark last week. An innocent soul. And just one of the over 36,000 that are victims of gun violence every year. We cannot just be fearful of mass shootings. We need to end the gun violence epidemic that ends the life of a child on their front porch on a warm spring weekend evening.

We can wear orange. We can put up ribbons. We can post lawn signs that say #Enough. But that really isn’t enough. And we can be thankful for all the blessings we have in our lives. And believe that they are enough. But they aren’t. Because it won’t be enough until we stop bury children. It won’t be enough until our elected officials stop participating in avodah zarah, until they stop worshipping AR-15s like they are idols. It won’t be enough until our elected leaders are beholden to voters, to their constituents, instead of the gun lobby. And it won’t be enough until we pass federal laws to reduce gun violence.

And we will not stop fighting this epidemic until we see God’s blessings – God’s promise — of cherev lo taavor b’artzeichem, of no weapons of murder in our land, come to fruition. May the memory of Rashad Jones be for a blessing. And may we finally see God’s promise in our lives. May the prophecy of Isaiah become reality as we turn our swords into plowshares, and spears into pruning hooks, as we plant flowers in our gun barrels. Because we cannot truly be satisfied, until we can build a world where we are all safe. May it be so. May it happen speedily in our day. And may we do the holy work, the necessary work, to make it happen.

-Rabbi Jesse M. Olitzky

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