Service and Sacrifice (Vayikra)

The book of Leviticus (Va-yikra), which we begin this week, can be difficult for contemporary Jews. While we generally find it easy to relate to the stories, ethics, and teachings of the rest of the Torah, the sacrifices and laws of ritual impurity that take up much of Leviticus strike our modern sensibilities as profoundly strange, alien, and archaic.

Yet Leviticus sits both literally and metaphorically at the center of the Torah scroll. For most of our history—and still today in more traditional settings—young children begin their Jewish studies with this, the third of the Five Books of Moses. For centuries, then, our people have found wisdom and inspiration in Leviticus. What, then, does it offer us?

My Israeli colleague, Rabbi Micky Boyden, draws a lesson from the opening of this week’s parashah. Leviticus 1:2 commands: “When a person brings from you (mikkem) an offering to the Eternal One, he shall choose the offering from the herd or from the flock. “ The word order here is unusual; one would have expected, “When one of you brings an offering. . . .” Rabbi Boyden suggests that the odd phrasing comes to teach a lesson: the real sacrifice is not the animal on the altar but our ability to give of ourselves.

Conservative rabbi and commentator Baruch Levine draws on this same rationale in his explanation of why Torah learning classically starts with Leviticus. He proposes that by beginning with this challenging book, with its long and detailed prescriptions for animal sacrifices, we teach our children, from the outset, that life inevitably demands sacrifices of them.

This lesson is timely, indeed. So many of our current crises spring from a collective reluctance to make sacrifices for the common good. The future of our nation, our species, and all of life on earth really depends on our willingness to overcome our resistance to such sacrifice. If we wish to preserve our planet’s magnificent but fragile ecosphere, we must learn—quickly—to live with less. If we seek economic recovery, we must once again recognize that those blessed with great abundance have a moral obligation to share it with those less fortunate. And if we are to create peace, both within and between nations, all sides will have to acknowledge the essential need to compromise, to give ground on important principles and resources in exchange for tranquility and security.

Like most liberal Jews, I neither pray for nor desire the rebuilding of the Temple and restoration of the sacrifices. But I struggle daily to learn to give more of myself, to sacrifice my individual desires for the benefit of the community. This is very difficult and I often fail. Still, I am grateful that a contemporary reading of Leviticus continues to offer both a reminder and path toward this end.

The Gods We Worship: The Idaho State Budget

If you wish to know the true nature of any organization or institution, study its budget. Impressive mission statements and public relations rhetoric generally espouse noble ideals, but they are often skin-deep and deceptive. Budgets, by contrast, do not lie.

The ways we choose to apportion our hard-earned resources always reveal our real priorities.

By this measure, consider the budget and education reform plans put forth by our governor, legislative leaders and state superintendent of education. These politicians pay lip service to compassion, fairness and the value of learning, but their fiscal and pedagogical policies belie their carefully chosen words.

While we could raise the revenues we need by an equitable tax increase or even temporarily reducing tax exemptions for well-heeled corporate interests, our misguided state leadership chooses to brutally slash services for people with disabilities, and short-change our children by replacing their teachers with computers.

This ugly choice lays the burden of the current recession on the shoulders of our most vulnerable citizens. Our leaders are filling the coffers of the rich and powerful (like out-of-state online education companies) at the expense of struggling, ordinary Idahoans.

Sadly, this is not a new phenomenon.

The prophet Isaiah railed against such unjust, greed-based policies nearly 3,000 years ago. He directed his harshest criticism toward those who presented themselves as paragons of pious virtue even as they oppressed their workers and ignored the plight of the poor in their midst. Indeed, the social ethic of the Hebrew Bible is unsparing in its condemnation of such abuses of power. Torah repeatedly teaches that a society is ultimately judged on the basis of how it treats its most defenseless members. If this is the case, our current leaders are moving Idaho into a state of moral bankruptcy.

The great American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson noted, “The gods we worship write their names on our faces, be sure of that. And a man will worship something — have no doubt about that, either. ... That which dominates will determine his life and character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshiping we are becoming.”
God forbid what we might become should we follow our governor, state superintendent of education and legislative leaders in worshiping greed and ignorance over community, compassion and wisdom.

In Praise of Dissent

A recent CABI guest speaker, Yishai Fleisher, of Israel National Radio, began his talk with a plea for Jewish unity. With passion and eloquence, he urged us to set aside our differences and stand together, behind Israel in general and the West Bank settler movement in particular.

I strongly and unequivocally support Israel. Love of Zion is at the heart of my daily life, permeating everything from my morning prayers to my regular perusal of the on-line Israeli press. I, too, therefore, recognize the need for unity. When we face existential threats, as Israel often does, there is great value in doing so undivided.

But I do not believe that criticizing particular policies of the Israeli government and the settlers is tantamount to aiding and abetting the enemy, any more than I hold that my American patriotism requires me to support everything that our nation does. Indeed, I believe that the right to dissent, out of love, is a greater virtue than unity. Integrity is an end in and of itself. Unity, by contrast, is only a means: whether it is good or bad depends entirely upon what we are being asked to unify around. All too often, calls to unity are bandied about as a weapon to stifle dissent. This happened all too often after 9/11, when it was not-so-subtly insinuated that if you were not with us (the administration and its policies), you were against us (America).

In this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tissa, we find another concrete example of unity’s dark side. When Moses comes down from Mount Sinai, he finds the people celebrating as one—dancing around the Golden Calf. There is unity in abundance—but a serious dearth of integrity. Midrash even suggests that at least one brave person, Moses’ brother-in-law, Hur, did dare to speak out—at the cost of his life at the hand of the unified angry mob.

In the end, calls to unity almost always favor the status quo. Most great social movements, by contrast, begin with acts of dissent. Disunity, by definition, launches the revolutions that change the world. If people had always chosen unity over integrity, we would have had no civil rights or gay rights movements. Women would still be locked out of the workplace. The state of Israel would not exist. And there would be no Reform or Conservative synagogues. Tikkun olam—healing what is broken in God’s world—often requires the courage to break with the established order and ignore the reactionaries’ calls to unity.

I love Israel. I also believe that annexing the West Bank and ruling over hundreds of thousands of Palestinians denied citizenship as “resident aliens” would poison the Jewish soul of our homeland. Contrary to Jimmy Carter’s anti-Semitic posturing, Israel is not an apartheid state—but if it followed this course, it would become one.
Part of Israel’s remarkableness lies in the fact that it embraces disagreement and gives voice to its critics. I see this as a strength, not a weakness.

If this be disunity, consider me a proud and patriotic dissenter.

Being There (Portion Tetzaveh)

Long before rabbis, the leading figures in Jewish life were the cohanim—members of the priestly class descended from Aaron. They were responsible for offering up sacrifices on behalf of all the Israelites, first in the portable sanctuary that we carried on our journey through the wilderness, and later in the Temple in Jerusalem.

This week’s portion, Tetzaveh, presents a job description for the cohanim. It describes their assigned tasks, their special garments, and the design of the tabernacle in which they will serve. It is, therefore, filled with intricate and sometimes (at least for us) esoteric details and lists: pure pounded gold, aromatic incense, yearling lambs, ritual libations, fringed tunics, fine linen, olive oil for lighting, and lots and lots of cubits.

Interestingly, after taking note of all these concrete measurements and materials, the Rabbis of the Talmud veer off and pose a curious theoretical question: If a priest’s body is inside the tabernacle but his head remains outside, is he considered to have entered the sanctuary, and may he perform his priestly service? (Zevachim 26a)

What conditions might create such a scenario? Why would a priest take up his sacred work with his head still poking out the tent flaps? Might he be gazing at something unrelated to his priestly service, perhaps checking out the weather, or the goings-on in the camp?

Surely this not so hard for us inveterate multi-taskers to imagine. I long for the all too rare occasions when my head and my body are, metaphorically speaking, in the same “space.” We check our calendars, text on our cell phones, and type on our keyboards at the same time—all in the course of meetings or meals or classes (or, God help us, driving).

Yet the Talmud warns against this compulsion to take on too many things at once. It rules: unless the priest is totally within the tent, he does not fulfill his duty. In other words, our Sages teach: you have to have your head in the game, to do your job with proper intention and concentration. Any serious task worth doing is worth doing well.

The contemporary Buddhist teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn echoes this advice in his book, Wherever You Go, There You Are. He suggests: “At multiple times during the day, just stop whatever you are doing and ask: “Am I awake now?” After all, the present moment is, really, all we ever possess.

God says very much the same thing to Moses. In calling him to receive the Torah, God commands, “Ascend to the mountain, and BE THERE—v’heyey sham.” Well, duh. If Moses climbs the mountain, where else would he be? As Rabbi Lawrence Kushner notes, God is essentially asking Moses to be there not just in body, but with all of his mind and heart and soul, in full attentive awareness.. In other words, as he sits on the mountain listening for God’s Voice, Moses must, metaphorically speaking, keep his head inside the tent.

Although the priestly service ended long ago, God still dwells in our midst, everywhere and always. But if we are constantly preoccupied with our telephones and i-pods and laptops, scrambling from task to task to task, we experience nothing.

This week try, like Moses, to heed God’s word: “V’Heyey Sham—Be there.”

Dessert and a Side of Cynicism (New York reflections)

I spent most of this week in New York. I went to accompany Rosa on the first leg of her journey to Jerusalem, where she is now starting a semester of high school on NFTY’s Eisendrath International Exchange (EIE) program. I will be writing more on this in the weeks to come; it’s a fabulous adventure for her, and for me, a taste of life as an empty-nester. But that is a much longer story for another day.

After the big farewell at JFK airport, I spent the rest of my time in New York wandering the city, enjoying its abundant sights and unique vitality, and the company of my cousin Liz, who hosted me. She has a beautiful apartment on the Upper East Side and is currently covering the crime beat for the New York Times, so I got to see quite another side of the city through her eyes.

Today, though, I want to write about two things: dessert and rock opera.

First, dessert.

For lunch on Wednesday, I went to a superb sushi place in a hard-to-find basement near the UN building. The meal was terrific, but the most memorable part of the experience began when the server asked if I wanted dessert. I’d spent much of the morning walking—probably three or four miles—in bitterly cold temperatures, so I figured I had earned the right to finish with something rich and sweet.

The server mentioned a special, not on the menu, and strongly endorsed it. I couldn’t figure out exactly what it was (it had a long Japanese name), but I decided to give it a try. After such a tasty meal, I thought I couldn’t go wrong with her recommendation.

Well, as soon she brought my order out, I realized that I had unwittingly entered into a different world, a haute cuisine realm of dessert, that I had recently read about in an Adam Gopnik piece in the food issue of the New Yorker. Gopnik describes new trends in desserts, originating with several young chefs in Spain but now making their way to America (OK, not the Boise part of America, but New York and LA). The gist of his piece: according to these pioneering Spanish chefs, dessert has, for far too long, been limited to butter and chocolate and cream and sugar and eggs—in other words, sweets. Today, finally, edgy and radical pastry chefs are experimenting with different tastes and textures.

Now it was my turn to experience that experiment because my “special” dessert at Sakagura turned out to be a cup of piquant chili-inflected, sake-flavored sorbet surrounded by mounds of transparent peppery, semi-sweet gelatinous stuff. Last month, when I read about this trend, it struck me as silly. I thought to myself, “This foodie fad will never come to Boise—and I won’t miss it” (unlike many New York culinary tends that I do, indeed, miss). Well, it turns out first hand experience confirms my initial instincts. All in all, I must say, following a gorgeous lunch with a rice-wine and hot pepper flavored sorbet with mucous-like accompaniment does not really seem like such a good idea. I’m glad I got to try it, but let’s face it: there is a reason that, for centuries, people have loved things like cheesecake and torte and chocolate ice cream and cupcakes and crème brulee.

The lesson I draw from this: while the courage to take risks is generally a laudable thing, not all change is good. Some things—classic desserts among them—are just fine as they are and need not be tampered with, thank you. I am an unrepentant liberal—in my Judaism and in my politics and even in my food choices (I am a pescetarian who is very thankful for advances in healthy eating—my grandfather’s steady diet of high-fat Ashkenazi Jewish food probably contributed to his dying of a stroke at the age of 69). But there are occasions when the conservatives are right, and the best thing we can do is conserve venerable traditions. I want change that I can believe in—but I also like a nice piece of pie every now and then.

Now, on to Rock Opera. . .

Later that same evening, I went to the 7pm show of American Idiot at the St. James Theater. I’m not normally a big Broadway musical fan, but this was something different—a rock opera based on the eponymous smash hit album by the band Green Day. I love that record, and have been a big Green Day fan for many years. Best of all, the band’s guitar player, singer/songwriter, and kohl-eyed charismatic front man, Billie Joe Armstrong is playing lead role in the show this month. He is “St. Jimmy,” a malevolent modern pied piper dispensing drugs and sexual favors—and his rock star verve infuses the show.

American Idiot is esentially a rock opera in the style of The Who’s Tommy or even the later play, Rent—which is to say, almost all music with very little dialogue. That is fine by me. The plot tells the story of three budding anarchist kids, who are deeply disaffected by the culture of their suburban parents in the aftermath of the election of George W. Bush and 9/11. The narrative is, by all accounts, a bit thin in places, but the show is fantastically staged and explodes with energy.

Mostly, as I watched it and then reflected on it afterwards, it struck me that American Idiot is this generation’s equivalent of Hair. Both are anti-war, coming of age stories filled with sex and drugs and rock and roll. But an abyss stands between these two plays, and that abyss reflects the enormous changes that have occurred in the four decades that have passed between them.

In Hair, sex is liberating, and drugs open and expand the mind. In the much bleaker American Idiot, sex leads to teen pregnancy and a kind of dead end life, while drugs bring death and disaster. But the biggest difference lies in the contrasting endings of the shows. Hair is about the power of youth to change the world, and it concludes with an enormous gathering of anti-war protesters singing: “Let the sun shine in. . .” (as a high school student, I dressed up in “hippy clothes” and hung out at the Mall in Washington, DC for the filming of the movie version of that scene). Today, Hair seems—sometimes it is—naïve and simplistic. And yet, in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, the young protestors really did help stop the war.

By contrast, in American Idiot, there is no concerted political action—just anarchy, anger, and cynicism. Kids rage against the system, but they are, ultimately, helpless. Sex and drugs consume them, and the play ends with the heroes—anti-heroes, really—returning home jaded and broken. Hair is an optimistic play about the power of youth, while American Idiot is a deeply pessimistic parade of the wounded, of young people coming to see themselves are powerless in the face of grim conformist forces. Hair, for all of its youthful hubris, is about changing the world; American Idiot, for all of its edginess, is about being crushed by it.

And yet. . .after watching American Idiot, I left the theater feeling exuberant and startlingly alive. Somehow, the force and vitality of the music, with its thrashing chords, booming bass and drums, and exuberant hooks touched me deeper and lingered longer than the despair of the lyrics and the plot. It struck me that in this manner, rock opera is very much like classical opera, in which the plots are similarly tragic—and secondary. In American Idiot, as in Aida or Madame Butterfly, the music is the thing. I don’t like classical opera at all—I find the style of the singing pretentious and, ultimately, highly irritating (much as classical opera fans would loathe the power chords and distortion of American Idiot). But the two art forms have, I think, more in common than one would suppose at first glance.

And in this, they are like prayer. Rabbis spend inordinate amounts of time debating over tiny disparities in the liturgy, pinning great importance on subtle variations of phrasing. Meanwhile, the people in the pews could care less. They mostly don’t understand the Hebrew anyway, and they find the English translation boring. What moves them is the music—and I’m with them. Words speak to the rational brain but music goes deeper; we feel it in our bodies and it moves our souls.

The music is the thing.

For a great clip from the Broadway show version of American Idiot, see:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGkclalr4fU

The Door (portion Mishpatim)

The opening section of our Torah portion, Mishpatim, raises some serious challenges for contemporary readers. Last week, we marked the pivotal moment in our people’s history, as we received the Torah at Mount Sinai. What a let down, then—at least at first glance—to pick up just a few lines later with legislation dealing with the treatment of slaves. True, the bondage described here is not the same as that which we endured in Egypt (or that African-Americans suffered in this country), as much as a kind of indentured servitude in which people find themselves obliged to sell their labor for a fixed time to repay their debts. Even so, the opening of the parashah is not what we expect from Torah, and it can be jarring to modern sensibilities.

What, then, do we make of this section? My own inclination is to recognize and celebrate the fact that, on a literal level, these verses point to a notable case of genuine moral progress—and then to re-read the passage metaphorically in search of meaning for today.

Our section starts with Exodus 21:15, which deals with the end of the slave’s prescribed period of servitude: If the slave declares, “I love my master, and my wife and children: I do not wish to go free,” his master shall take him before God. He shall be brought to the door or the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall then remain his slave for life.

This raises an obvious question: why would someone voluntarily choose to remain a slave? Perhaps the prospect of freedom is just too frightening. As miserable as bondage may be, some may choose it over the heavy burden of autonomy, which entails accepting responsibility for one’s own choices. The Israelites of the wilderness generation fall victim to exactly this fear: terrified by their hard-won liberty, they spend forty years whining to Moses about their desire to return to Egypt.

In light of this, Rashi’s commentary on the beginning of our parashah is fascinating:
Why are those who decide to stay branded in the ear? Because it was the ear that heard God declare at Sinai, “I have brought you out of the house of bondage.”
To which a later commentator, K’li Yakar, adds: And why a doorpost? Because a door was opened for him to go free and he refused to go.”

Who among us has never succumbed to such fear, and thus turned away from a door into great possibilities? All too often, we choose the cage that we know, the prison that has become comfortably familiar, over passing through the portal to unmapped promised lands. Our challenge is to muster the courage to move forward into the unknown. This is terribly difficult, but if we learn from our past and listen, with our ears, for the encouragement of the Holy One, we can enjoy freedom’s fruits.

Let me conclude with a poem by Adrienne Rich, which can also be found in our siddur, Mishkan Tefilah:

Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go through.
If you go through
there is always the risk
of remembering your name.
Things look at you doubly
and you must look back
and let them happen.
If you do not go through
it is possible
to live worthily
to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position
to die bravely
but much will blind you,
much will evade you,
at what cost who knows?
The door itself
makes no promises.
It is only a door.

Leap Before You Look (portion Yitro)

While reading this week’s Torah portion, Yitro, I recalled a recent article by Rush Limbaugh entitled, “The Answer is Conservatism.” The entire piece is, as one would expect, highly critical of President Obama and congressional Democrats, but it was one small detail in his attack on the president’s health care legislation that struck me in light of the parashah. Mr. Limbaugh mocks former Speaker Nancy Pelosi for saying, last March, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” For Rush Limbaugh, this is the height of absurdity.

But is it, really? The notion that we can make important decisions without fully understanding their ramifications is deeply rooted in the Torah; indeed, it is at the heart of our tradition. In Yitro, we reach the climactic moment in our people’s history: the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. As Moses prepares the Israelites for that historic event, he asks them if they are read to commit to following God’s teaching. In an exceptional instance of supreme faith, the people respond in unison: “Na’aseh v’nishmah—We will do it and then we will understand it.” As all of the classic commentators note, the doing comes first. We freely take on the obligations of Torah before we can really comprehend what those obligations entail. We sign the contract without reading the fine print. We pass the bill so that we can find out what is in it.

I suspect that while this modus operandi may, at first, strike us as unusual and even problematic, upon reflection we find that in our own lives, this is how it works with nearly every major decision that we make. Selecting a college, getting married (or not), having (or not having) children, taking (or leaving) a job, moving to a new house or city, choosing to have (or to forego) a major medical procedure—in each of these cases, and in countless others, we make crucial life choices without really grasping their long term consequences. No matter how much we plan, or how much research we do before we act, we simply cannot know what we are really getting ourselves into. Our course at Sinai, Na’aseh v’nishmah—to act, and only afterwards, gradually, come to understand the full implications of our actions—remains the only way to move forward in our personal, professional, and communal lives. In the end, there is no path that does not demand significant leaps of faith.

Our portion, Yitro, reminds us that most of the time, when we proceed with integrity, our leaps will land us on solid ground. While we may wish that this reminder might relieve us of all of our fear at critical junctions, this is, alas, simply not the case. Sometimes, our challenge is to find a way to make the leap despite the fear. But one thing is certain: the only alternative to that frightful leap is a life of utter paralysis. If we cannot muster the courage to act on faith, we end up failing to act at all. To trust in God, in compassionate community, in family and friends, and in ourselves is the only way to grow.

I conclude with two modern takes on Na’aseh v’nishmah. First, an excerpt from W. H. Auden’s magnificent poem, “Leap Before You Look”:

The sense of danger must not disappear:
The way is certainly both short and steep,
However gradual it looks from here;
Look if you like, but you will have to leap.

A solitude ten thousand fathoms deep
Sustains the bed on which we lie, my dear;
Although I love you, you will have to leap;
Our dream of safety has to disappear.

And for an inspiring rock and roll slant from one of my favorite teachers, Bruce Springsteen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouWEZPkbznQ