7.31

This Shabbat our hearts our heavy.  Our challah won't taste as sweet and our Shabbat candles won't shine as brightly as a result of the brutal stabbings that took place during the Israeli Pride parade.

"Truth"

This was the theme of the day at "Kids4Peace" camp.  Everyone was asked to share his/her truth throughout the day.  And everyone was asked to receive truth without judgement and with an open heart.

Here's what truth sounds like from a group of 13 year old Christians, Muslims and Jews:

"My family's house has been sprayed with "stinky" water by Israeli soldiers." (Palestinian boy)

"My family was not accepted by the community in Texas because my father is Cuban and my mother is Jewish.  Eventually we moved." (Jewish American girl)

"People make fun of me because of the way I dress." (Jewish American girl)

"I am embarrassed because I know Israelis are staring at Arabs in the mall in a way that says "you don't belong here."(Jewish Israeli boy)

"My community gives me a very hard time because I go to a mixed school." (Palestinian and Jewish Israeli boy)

"I don't have many friends, well real friends because I am weird."(American Jewish boy)

"People think I am a Japanese tourist."(Israeli girl)

The conversation was hard.  The kids held each other in their vulnerability and in their pain.  Some tears were shed and spontaneous hugs were shared.  

And what do you think happened after all of these truths (and many others) were shared?  The kids went and swam in the lake, played basketball and "Four Square" (still a fanatasticly fun game 40 years later).

"Holy Holy Holy" - a level of connection and closeness was achieved and a bond forged that could potentially last a lifetime.  And maybe, just maybe, relationship between "others" moves from impossible to possible.

I continue to be in awe of these incredible teens.  It's a privilege to be included in their journey.

Mekor HaChayiim (Source of Life), as we move into Shabbat may we have the courage to speak our truth and stand up for truth.  May we do what we can to honor the "other" and move impossible to possible.

Shabbat shalom u'mevorach,

Laurie

7.24.15

דע לפני מי אני עומדת
"Dah Lifnei Mi Ani Omedet"
Know Before Whom I Stand

Where? Camp Bob" - Hendersonville, North Carolina
When? 7.21-8.4
What? Working on staff with "Kids4Peace" 6th/7th grade camp
Who? Christians, Muslims and Jews from Jerusalem and America - 60 campers, 40 staff
Why? Doing what I can to learn and grow and build relationship

I arrived excited and with very little knowledge of what would happen over these next two weeks.  And I have known I wanted to be here for a very long time now.

I have the tremendous fortune and privilege to be born into a family that valued relationships over everything.  Throughout my entire life my parents worked hard to cultivate meaningful relationships with each of us, with friends and co-workers.  From a very young age, my parents made sure that we knew our grandparents and cousins.  We drove hundreds of miles every winter break to be with our family in Minnesota (and you thought NYC's winters were brutal).  My parents also believed that it was important for us to establish a relationship with our school, our synagogue and with Israel.  They were actively engaged with their synagogue (which meant so were we), formed a chavurah (still exists 42 years later), and made sure we spent time in Israel.

My first encounter with Israel, was when I was 11 and my father volunteered as a dentist on kibbutz Nachshonim where we lived for 2 months.  For me, a girl growing up in the suburbs, it was heaven! I could do everything with friends and without parents.  As a result, I became fluent in Hebrew.  My sister and I returned the following summer in lieu of attending Jewish summer camp.  She worked with the cows and I worked with the two year olds.  We lived in heaven for another summer.

Since then, I have had the tremendous privilege returning to Israel over 25 times.  Visits have been as short as 4 days and as long as 12 months.  There are still aspects of Israrl that feel like heaven to me.  I love the language, the pace, the sights and the sounds.  I tell my husband that Israel is my mistress.  But there are also aspects that do not feel like heaven.

Israel is a real country with real problems. There are deep struggles around economics, race, safety, equality, religion and health.  These issues also exist in America and while this also troubles me, my heart hurts more when Israel is involved.  The issues are incredibly complex and all I know for certain is that there isn't a simple solution.  I do believe that at the purest level people want to live in a safe place where they are treated with dignity and respect.

So what can I do?  Most of the time, I feel there is very little I can do to change the situation.  This feeling of inadequacy makes me feel defeated and often hopeless that the situation will ever be one of peace.  But, at this moment (I am writing this at 11:30pm after a very long and intense day) I feel like the thing that I can do is actually quite huge.  I can build meaningful and lasting relationships with others who are interested and invested in that same goal of wanting to live in a safe place and be treated with dignity and respect.  Today I am incredibly hopeful.

For two weeks I am spending my days eating, learning, laughing, praying and playing with Christians, Muslims and Jews.  Each of these kids has parents who want to create real change through real relationships.  Each of these kids comes from families who are willing to be open to the other.   Each of these kids and each staff person (many of whom risk personal safety and possibly being ostracized from their community in order to participate) carried the hopes that their effort, their openness to the other will bring change (and dare I say, bring about a new relaity a new narrative).

Kids4Peace, (celebrating 10 years) does not ask kids to leave their identities at home or set them aside for a greater cause.  Kids4Peace wants people to come as they are and wants people to share who they are with the other.  Over time, deep and meaningful relationships are established through the sharing of beliefs, ideas, practices, questions and challenges with one another.  We just completed day 3 and am already in awe of every camper and every staff person.  I have already learned a lot and I have already been permanantly impacted.  I feel like I am experiencing a new kind of heaven.  One where differences are valued and actually contribute to creating meaningful relationship and real community.

One day all of these kids will be adults.  Imagine the possibilities?

Mekor Ha'Chayiim, Source of Life, as we move into Shabbat, let us check in with the teaching at the beginning of this Torah.  Let us ask "Who am I?"  "Who is the other?"  "What can I do to create meaningful relationship that will lead to a new reality?"  And after we ask, let us have the desire, the strength and the courage to act.

Shabbat shalom u'mevorach,
Laurie

7.17.15 Matot-Masai (double portion)

FROM AMERICAN JEWISH WORLD SERVICE:  

INVITATION (or challenge - depending on your perspective):  This week be a teacher of Torah.  Here is everything you need.  

Parashat Matot opens with a list of the laws governing vows—in particular, vows made by women. The basic principle that underlies these laws is that if a woman makes a vow, her husband or father can nullify the vow. However, if her husband or father is aware of the vow and voices no objection, his silence signals his consent and her vow stands. While the power dynamics with regard to gender are certainly troubling, the principle expressed in these laws—that silence means assent—suggests a powerful lesson about using our voices as we work to build communities committed to the pursuit of justice.¹

The Torah summarizes the legal principles that govern a woman’s vow as follows:

Numbers 30:14-16 Every vow and every sworn obligation of self-denial may be upheld by her husband or annulled by her husband. If her husband offers no objection from that day to the next, he has upheld all the vows or obligations she has assumed: he has upheld them by offering no objection on the day he found out. But if he annuls them after [the day] he finds out, he shall bear her guilt.

Guiding Questions (These are just suggestions.  Feel free to come up with your own):

• After learning of his wife’s vow, how much time does a husband have to annul it before it goes into effect? Why do you think the time frame is so short?
• In the last verse, the text states that if the husband delays his objection, his wife’s vow stands and he bears her guilt. Why do you think the guilt is borne by the husband and not the woman who made the vow?
• Although this text is specifically about annulling vows, the principles articulated in this text could be applied to speaking out against injustice. What lessons can you draw about when and how to object to injustice? What lessons can you draw about who bears responsibility for injustice?

Several verses from the book of Proverbs explicitly demand that we speak out against injustice:

Proverbs 31:8-9 Speak up for the mute, for the rights of all the unfortunate. Speak up, judge righteously, champion the poor and the needy.

Guiding Questions

• According to this text, for whose rights and needs are we required to speak up? In what ways do you speak up for the rights and needs of these groups of people? If you don’t, what holds you back?
• How do you understand the command to speak up “for” others? What is the difference between speaking up “for” others and “with” them? Do you usually speak up “for” or “with”? Why?

Speaking up when injustice occurs can be a risky proposition—one that requires moral courage, or the willingness to act on our convictions regardless of the consequences. Writer Salman Rushdie articulates the importance of cultivating and supporting this kind of courage:

Salman Rushdie, “Whither Moral Courage?”2 It’s a vexing time for those of us who believe in the right of artists, intellectuals and ordinary, affronted citizens to push boundaries and take risks and so, at times, to change the way we see the world. There’s nothing to be done but to go on restating the importance of this kind of courage, and to try to make sure that these oppressed individuals . . . are seen for what they are: men and women standing on the front line of liberty. How to do this? Sign the petitions against their treatment, join the protests. Speak up. Every little bit counts.

Guiding Questions

• What contemporary examples, either in your own life or in the public sphere, can you think of in which people exercising moral courage have faced harsh consequences? How have you responded to those incidents?
• In what ways can you nurture your ability to exercise moral courage and speak up when you learn about or encounter injustice?
• What is the implication for not exercising moral courage and speaking up?  Is that the same as acting unjustly?

Conclusion

Parashat Matot reminds us of the dangers of silence and also of the power of words. The very institution of vows, described at the beginning of the parashah, underscores that our words matter and have concrete consequences. As we read this parashah, and contemplate the lesson above from Proverbs, let us commit to exercising the courage to raise our voices to protest injustice. May we also heed the words of activist writer Audre Lorde: “And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.”

This piece was originally published in 2013.

¹ This Dvar Tzedek was inspired by “No Neutrality: Silence Is Assent” by Rabbi Bradley Artson. Available athttp://myjewishlearning.com/texts/Bible/Weekly_Torah_Portion/mattot_artson5762.shtml?p=1.
² Salman Rushdie, “Whither Moral Courage?” The New York Times, 27 April 2013. Available athttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/opinion/sunday/whither-moral-courage.html?pagewanted=all.

7.10.15

Hello from Israel -

For nearly two weeks I have had the privilege of studying at the Shalom Hartman Institute (google it.  It's a great place.) with 150 North American rabbis.  The theme this year is Tzedek/Righteousness and Mishpat/Justice (What are they? Are they the same? How are they achieved?).  What do you think about these two categories?  

The wide array of texts have been thought provoking, and challenging. Many big questions have been raised.  I will share more details in the coming weeks as I begin to reflect and process.

This week's little Torah comes from the organization "T'ruah" (Google it!) with the same focus.  

Wishing everyone a Shabbat shalom.  May it be filled with rest, joy and compassion.

Laurie

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Believing in Things We Have Never Seen

A d’var Torah for Parashat Pinchas by Rabbi Hannah Orden

“Hope is essential to our capacity to create justice. We have to believe in things we have never seen.” These are the words of Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, an advocacy group that opposes mass incarceration and racial injustice.

In the face of the racially motivated murder of nine innocent people at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C. last month, mass incarceration of young men of color, and the ongoing shooting of unarmed black men by law enforcement, it is understandable that many feel hopeless about achieving racial justice in the United States.

The daughters of Zelophehad provide us with an inspiring example of women who believed in something they had never seen. Women in ancient Israelite society had no power or status, yet these brave women stood up in front of the male leaders of the community and demanded justice.  They did not beg or plead.  They said:  “Let not our father’s name be lost to his clan just because he had no son. Give us a holding among our father’s kinsmen.”  

Moses took their case to God, who responded, “Their plea is just; transfer their father’s share to them.”  God enacted this as a general law: “If a man dies without a son, his property will be transferred to his daughters.”   

By their actions and their words, the daughters of Zelophehad brought Torah into the world.  This magnificent story about the ability of human beings to demand justice and create change became part of our sacred text, so that we too can believe in our power to create justice that we have never seen.

Autherine Lucy believed in something she had never seen. The daughter of a Black sharecropper in Alabama, Lucy applied to the University of Alabama in 1956. A year earlier Brown v. the Board of Education had determined that segregated schools were illegal, and Lucy became a test case.  She was admitted to the university and attended for three days before a mob threatened to kill her.  The university’s response was to expel Lucy “for her own protection.” 

Many people said that the racist mob had won, and at the time it did seem to be a victory for injustice.  But even though this young woman did not achieve her immediate goal, her belief in justice that she had never seen opened the door to enormous changes.  Today, the University of Alabama has the largest percentage of Black students of all the Southern universities.  

There is also a personal postscript to Autherine Lucy’s story.  In 1988 she was invited to speak to a history class at the University of Alabama. A student asked, "Did you ever try to re-enroll?" When she replied that she might consider it one day, two faculty members asked the university to overturn her 1956 expulsion. In April of 1988, 32 years after she was expelled, Lucy received a letter inviting her back. The next year she enrolled in a master's degree program in elementary education.  One of her daughters entered the university as an undergraduate at the same time. Four years later, when Lucy attended her daughter’s graduation, she was greeted with a standing ovation. A $25,000 endowed scholarship was created in her name and a portrait of her was unveiled on campus, which reads, "Her initiative and courage won the right for students of all races to attend the University."     

Rabbi Silvina Chemen, who serves Congregation Beth El in Buenos Aires, Argentina, writes: “Perhaps the most important legacy of Zelophehad’s daughters is their call to us to take hold of life with our own hands. When we believe in our capacity to shape history, to the point of being able to change even a law that came from the Revelation at Sinai, then we pay tribute to the daughters of Zelophehad.”1     

Like the daughters of Zelophehad, like Autherine Lucy, our capacity to create justice in our world depends on believing in things we have never seen. 

1.The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, URJ Press, p. 986.