Model and Mission (Portion Ki Tissa)

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” (Exodus 32:1)

In a very thought-provoking piece on the future of church attendance, Pastor Cary Nieuwhof draws a critical distinction between model and mission.  Models are, essentially, means, while missions are ends—which we confuse at our peril.  For as Nieuwhof notes: “The difference [between congregations that will ultimately succeed and those that fail] will be between those who cling to the mission and those who cling to the model.  Look at the changes in the publishing, music and even photography industry in the last few years.  See a trend? The mission is reading. It’s music. It’s photography. The model always shifts….moving from things like 8 tracks, cassettes and CDs to MP3s and now streaming audio and video. . . Companies that show innovation around the mission (Apple, Samsung) will always beat companies that remain devoted to the method (Kodak).  We need to stay focused on the mission and be exceptionally innovative in our model.”

This is as true for us in the Jewish world as it is for churches and corporations—and it always has been.  In this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tissa, Moses' prolonged time away atop Mt. Sinai throws the Israelites into a panic.  They fear that in the absence of the man who has led them out of Egypt, God will abandon them.  And so they commission Aaron to build them a golden calf.  Without the customary model—a powerful, charismatic leader—they forget the mission: the service of the Holy One.

As we move our CABI community forward, let us be careful to heed this warning.  Our mission is timeless: to empower our community to live richer Jewish lives grounded in Torah (life-long learning), Avodah (spiritual growth), and G’milut Hasadim (acts of lovingkindness).  But the way we achieve that mission requires innovation and creativity, so that we can remain relevant in a rapidly changing world.  In other words, we must be open to changing how we do things—in order to preserve the core of what we do.

This week, consider: How, in your personal and communal life, can you be more open to creativity in your model in order to better fulfill your mission?

Thank you to Rabbi Seth Goldstein for calling my attention to Pastor Nieuwhof's piece.

Calling Evil By Its Name (Shabbat Zachor)

Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt. When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and attacked all who were lagging behind; they had no fear of God. When the Eternal your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land God is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!  (Deuteronomy 25:17-19)

When we are confronted by genuine evil, it behooves us to muster the courage to speak its name and confront it honestly.

In the Harry Potter books, it is no accident that the villainous Voldemort is ultimately defeated by the only wizard who dares to refer to him directly rather than addressing him through euphemisms such as “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.”  JK Rowling reminds us that we cannot hope to triumph over that which we are afraid to name.  Only when we openly acknowledge the nature of what threatens us can we begin to make headway against it.

Thus the paradox at the heart of the special portion for this week, known as Shabbat Zachor, in which God commands us to blot out the name of our arch-enemy Amalek—for in order to blot out the name of those who prey on the vulnerable, we must, of course, first speak it aloud.  And so on Purim, we repeatedly speak the name of Amalek’s descendant, Haman—and raise a ruckus each time we do so.  It’s all in good fun, but it’s deadly serious, too.  We speak of the evil—and in doing so, destroy its power over us.

In a recent New York Times op-ed, columnist Roger Cohen critized President Obama for his failure to label the horrific acts of groups like ISIS and the murderers who struck in Paris and, most recently, Copenhagen, as Islamic extremism.  Cohen—who is a left-leaning journalist and frequent critic of Israel—speaks out here and argues:

“To call this movement, whose most potent recent manifestation is the Islamic State, a ‘dark ideology’ is like calling Nazism a reaction to German humiliation in World War I: true but wholly inadequate. There is little point in Western politicians rehearsing lines about there being no battle between Islam and the West, when in all the above-mentioned countries tens of millions of Muslims, with much carnage as evidence, believe the contrary.” (to see Cohen’s entire column, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/17/opinion/roger-cohen-islam-and-the-west-at-war.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Froger-cohen&_r=0)

I understand why many on the political left are wary of speaking of Islamic radicalism.  They are reacting to many on the political right who can be far too quick to label all of our adversaries as evil, and to castigate all Muslims for the sins of their most fanatical brethren.  Anti-Islamic bigotry is a real and present danger in our culture.

But so, too, is naïve vagary around an ideology that is currently behind so much brutality spreading around the globe.  If we are to defeat Islamic radicalism, we must first call it what it is—and enlist the support of anti-Islamist Muslims who are, in the end, the only ones who can save their tradition from the extremists who would use their tradition to terrorize and destroy.

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility (Talk given at the induction of newest members of Boise Police Department)

Note: I gave this talk to the newest members of the Boise Police Department at the invitation of Police Chief Bill Bones.  The setting was the Idaho Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial.  Other speakers were Chief Bones, who gave a powerful charge to his department, and Steve Martin, the director of the LGBTQ Pride Foundation.

Thank you, Chief Bones.

I am honored to be present as we celebrate the first class of police officers to be inducted under your tenure. 

It is a special privilege for me to be present with you in this place, which I take as holy ground.  This Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial is at the heart of our city—and not just geographically.  For our newest policemen and women to begin their service here is a remarkable and powerful thing.  I pray that the words of the courageous people of all races, creeds, nationalities, backgrounds, and origins will always be at the heart of your own mission as civil servants, as you strive to secure the safety and the general welfare of all of Boise’s residents.

I’d like to briefly share with you two charges today.  I offer them from a dual perspective, as a rabbi and as a father.

My first charge is straight off a poster that hangs on my son’s bedroom wall.  Its wisdom comes from Stan Lee, the creator of Spiderman.  Like most of the comic artists who invented our modern pantheon of superheroes, Mr. Lee is a Jew who drew on the teachings of my tradition. 

He reminds us: With great power, comes great responsibility.   

My friends, this is both your burden and your blessing.  For you to be able to protect us, we, the citizens, vest you with great power.  I urge you, now and always, to never forget from whence that power comes and why it is given to you.  I pray that you never use your badge and your force of arms to bully.  May your always remember that they are bestowed upon you by the people that you serve so that you can ably protect the vulnerable and make our community a kinder and more peaceful place to live.

This brings me to my second charge, which is really just a corollary of the first.

Once, while gazing at this poster on his wall, my son Jonah asked me, “Dad, are you afraid of bad guys?”

I told him, then, what I reiterate to you: that while there are, on rare occasions, real bad guys in this world, that’s not what we usually encounter.  What we see, far more often, are decent people who sometimes do bad things.

In the work that you do, you will see a lot of good people doing bad things.  And given the incredible stress that you will labor under, it can be all too easy to harden yourself and start to see your calling as an endless effort to contain the bad guys.  I pray that you never give reign to this impulse to see those you struggle against as evil.  Remember that even the people you are called to stop and contain and sometimes arrest are mostly not bad guys but decent people doing indecent things—even when they are acting very badly, indeed.  Deal with them justly and be firm as you must in order to do your duty—but do not write them off them as evil.  Do not let the hardships you will surely face wear away your compassion and empathy.  Do not harden your hearts.  For when you stop thinking of the people that you patrol—even the ones acting out in insidious and ugly ways—as fully human, then you lose your own soul.

With great power comes great responsibility. 

And with great responsibility comes the tremendous challenge of maintaining your humanity, your empathy and your compassion even when it seems undeserved.

May you serve and protect us all. 

And I thank you, with all of my heart, for your commitment to doing just that.

Tomorrow Begins Today (Portion Terumah)

Speak to the Israelites, so that they will bring for me an offering. . . This is the offering that you shall receive from them: gold and silver and brass, blue and purple and scarlet and fine linen. . . and cedar wood. (Exodus 25:2-5)

The seeds that we plant through our actions today largely determine the landscape that we will leave for future generations.

In this week’s Torah portion, Terumah, God asks the Israelites for free-will gifts of materials to be used in the building of the portable sanctuary they will carry through the wilderness.  Many of the items on the list are surprising; they are not things we’d expect to find in the possession of newly-freed Egyptian slaves.   

Perhaps the most unexpected of all is cedar wood.  Cedar (or by some translations, acacia) trees do not grow in the middle of the very barren Sinai desert.  Thus in his commentary, Rashi asks: “From where did they obtain this in the wilderness?”  He then provides an answer drawn from the fifth-century collection Midrash Tanchuma: “Our father Jacob foresaw by means of the Holy Spirit that Israel was destined to build a tabernacle in the desert, so he brought cedars to Egypt and planted them and commanded his children to take them along when they would leave.”

In other words, for the Israelites to accomplish their religious duties, they needed foresight. 

This message is timely for us, in both ecological and Jewish contexts.  By way of the former, let there be no doubt: we are living in critical days.  Even as we are enjoying the warmest February on record here in Idaho, new NASA data shows that by 2050, most of the western United States will enter a mega-drought, lasting up to forty years.  If we do not begin to deal with the forthcoming affects of climate change, the results will be disastrous for our children and grandchildren.

And in the Jewish world, we are witnessing enormous demographic shifts.  Our ability to sustain vibrant progressive Jewish life depends upon our capacity to act with foresight and creativity.  I heard much talk of this last week as I attended a conference of the Covenant Foundation, a leading source of innovation in the Jewish world and the source of our grant to hire a music educator this year.  Here at CABI, we are striving to act in this spirit, charting our course in a manner that we hope will lay a strong foundation for future generations. Our music educator will be a big part of this.   And I believe that our ongoing initiative toward a partnership with the Cooperative Pre-school is also a very significant step in this direction, and therefore core to our organizational mission of building enduring Jewish community.

In his commentary on Mishpatim, Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson concludes: “As with our ancestor Jacob, we too must rely. . . on insight, then translate that insight into action.  Tomorrow begins the moment today is finished.  And the work we do today will shape our children’s tomorrows.”

Our CABI community has a lot of sacred work to do.  It starts today—please join us.