This week's 10-Minute Torah (08/17/2019): Parashat Vaethanan 5779 #ParashatVaethanan5779 #TorahCommentary #TorahPortion

Friday Night Sermon (08/09/2019): "Helping others to prevent violence" In a closed system, if everything is intact, whatever the system is carrying will flow smoothly. Your plumbing, for example, carries water. The water in the system is under some pressure, which is what makes the water flow smoothly. If the system develops a breach, water now leaks out of the system and the pressure drops, slowing or impeding the flow. Consider this as a metaphor for society. As long as everyone is having a smooth life and things are going fairly well (nothing’s perfect, right?), society functions. If someone has issues or challenges with which are difficult for them to cope, they will feel stress. The less unable they feel to cope with these challenges, the more stressed they will be. We’ve all experienced times during which we felt overwhelmed. Either we had what we felt was more than our fair share of problems, or problems that themselves seemed near insurmountable. Somehow, however, we ultimately figured it out and got it resolved, one way or another. And life went on. When people overcome their challenges, the level of stress they feel dissipates. They are now feeling calmer and can go on with their lives. Some people, for whatever reason, didn’t make it work. They either felt the pressure from the challenges were too much to handle or couldn’t muster the mindset to overcome the challenges. These other people are stuck and are probably now seeing life as hostile. It’s against them and too much. Their pressure is building. When people leave problems alone, they typically build; one thing leads to another. Now instead of having maybe one or two things to resolve, they have a host of problems. Their frustration level builds like the top of pressure cooker. With no way to alleviate the pressure, the top blows. These people are now a ticking time bomb looking for a way to act out their frustration. Within the past two weeks, we’ve seen three situations of mass killings. People armed themselves and took out their frustrations on complete strangers. Perhaps the above discussed scenario is what led them to these heinous and horrific acts of terror. We don’t know. Maybe we can deduce from past experiences and our knowledge of human behavior what led to these horrible acts of acting out. The foregoing is not meant to place blame on society and see these people as helpless victims. These were adults and so far it seems each perpetrator was completely cognizant of what they were doing. They made decisions and acted on them and now have to bear the consequences, whatever they may be. As far as intervention and prevention, though, we can look at these instances in a more problem-solving manner. Let’s turn to Torah. The other week, we talked about how each Jew is responsible not just for themselves, but for others as well. We talked about the paragraphs of the Shema and how the first paragraph talks about performing commandments in the singular and the second paragraph talks about performing commandments in the plural. There are other commandments that address group consciousness as well. At the very top of the list we are commanded to love our fellow as ourselves. Taking a practical approach to this commandment, it would be good to start with respect; respect others. We are also commanded—commanded—to help our fellow who is stranded by the road. If we have a choice of helping someone we like vs. someone we don’t like, according to the sages, we help the person we don’t like first. We are commanded to help people who are in financial straits and not worry about any compensation because Hashem says He will compensate you for your generosity. Our society has become a dog-eat-dog world. Good paying jobs are few and people are very competitive. Opportunity has diminished over the years and feels like while wages stagnate, taxes keep increasing. In Washington, it seems like nothing gets done and each faction is always blaming the other. Society is not really an entity unto itself. Society takes on the character of the individuals that make up the society. A forest is lush because each tree is beautiful. If you have one bad tree, or one bad apple in the bunch, what do people notice? And it also spoils the whole picture, doesn’t it? You want to make the forest look beautiful again? Nurture the weak tree. It’s really up to us. When people feel like they live in a society in which they matter and resources are available, sure, there are still challenges. But there is hope and more of an expectation that their challenges will be resolved. Otherwise, there becomes this mindset that to succeed in a hostile environment, you have to be hostile. Only the strong survive and take what you can while you can. Again, this is not blaming society as a whole, but rather a way to alleviate some societal stress so the next potential terrorist may not feel that they have to act out. Let’s take our lesson from the Torah and spend more time considering the person next to you. #FridayNightSermon #PreventingViolence

Parashat Devarim 5779

Presentation of sermon This week we finish up the book of Numbers with the double portion of Mattot-Matei. The Israelites are on the verge of being led by Joshua into the promised land. Moshe Rabbeinu is getting ready to leave the physical plane. Preparations are being made for colonization. One of the issues that Moses needs to address is the request by the tribes of Reuben and Gad. They passed through the east side of the Jordan River before undertaking settling the promised land and saw land that is ideally suited for animal grazing. They requested of Moses that be allowed to settle there to take advantage of those conditions. Moses set down a few conditions. First of all, he thought it might be a good idea to have an additional tribe settle there since there was perhaps too much land for just two tribes. Two of the clans of Manasseh accepted his offer. Second, they can settle there on condition that they send warriors to help the rest of the Israelites conquer the land. In various places in the Torah, there are commandments to help each other. These range from loving your neighbor as yourself to helping someone with a stranded animal get back on the road to financial assistance to someone down on their luck and the widows, orphans and proselytes that are challenged to support themselves. With this in mind, the tribes gladly offered to send men to help the effort. We are a community. We are mandated to help each other. As the song goes, no person is an island, no one stands alone. This is Judaism. In the flow of our Holy Scriptures, after the Torah, we have the book of Joshua and then Judges. After Joshua died, there was no national leader. This presented a problem as the tribes had settled into their new home and their focus and therefore their loyalty was to their clans and their tribes. Surrounding peoples saw this and the Israelites were vulnerable. During times of aggression then, there would arise a Judge, part prophet and part warrior to gather the fractured tribes together and lead them to successful military campaigns and ward off attacks by foreign aggressors. After the period of the Judges came the Kings as the national leader. The first three kings were more or less able to lead the people, but with the death of Solomon, the tribes once again became fractured as the Kingdom split in two. The Northern Kingdom, not following Torah was ultimately conquered and those tribes captured and led into oblivion. Divide and conquer. Today there is still some fracturing going on. Religiously, we have the fundamentalists (Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox) who feel that other Jews aren’t as observant and thus not honoring the covenant and cleaving to Torah. On the other side of the scale are the liberal progressives that feel that’s too much and separates them from their mother country. Politically many issues center around Israel. There is talk that some American Jews don’t support Israel and even some that agree with such efforts as the BDS campaign and denigrate Israel as oppressive. At the other end of that scale are those that believe that Israel should be a true Jewish state run by Torah and no non-Jews in positions of prominence. Once again, fractured. And we know throughout history what happens when our people become fractured. As all of this is going on, antisemitism is rearing its ugly head and incidents are on the rise. We’re a people. While there are those that support our cause, we have to look after each other. We have to respect each other’s opinions and points of view and understand that united we stand, divided we fall. Hashem has commanded us to love our neighbors as ourselves. We don’t have to like, but we really should love. And respect. At the end of the day, we have all spawned from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, our patriarchs and Sara, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, our matriarchs. So let’s all at least work together and make our parents proud.

Parshas Matos-Masei 5779 08/03/2019 #ParshasMatosMasei5779 #TorahCommentary #TorahPortion

Sermon: Following the Crowd There’s a joke about rice, and the punchline is: “A billion Chinese can’t be wrong”. The point is that the majority is always right. In the real world, however, this is not always the case. The corollary to this is that just because everyone says it, doesn’t make it so. This week’s Torah portion is “Pinchas”. Pinchas was the grandson of Aaron, the first chosen high priest. His father, Elazar, was the successor to Aaron. When Aaron went off to the cave to join Hashem, Elazar accompanied him and Moses. Before Aaron laid down to be taken, Moses helped him disrobe his priestly garments and put them on Elazar as the confirmation that he was now taking his place. However, there was—at this point—no formal line of succession of high priests. In the last portion, we see how Balak worked to defeat the Israelites on a spiritual level by conscripting Bala’am, the prophet/wizard/sorcerer to curse them. When that didn’t work, they tried to demoralize them by seducing them with the daughters of Moabite and Midianite chieftains. They knew that the Israelites’ strength was Torah, and if they could corrupt them on that level, overtaking them militarily would be easy. Pinchas was a righteous man and adhered to Torah. He drew his sword and made quick work out of those that succumbed to the immorality. This caused a backlash of some of the clans of those whom Pinchas attacked and they wanted retribution for what they saw as murder. G-d and Moses intervened told the people that Pinchas had acted justly. So justly had Pinchas acted that G-d decided that the lineage of the High Priest would continue with Pinchas when the time came and thus be handed down to his children and children’s children. Many of us go through life making decisions based on what other people do. They don’t want to feel left out or let alone be the oddball, so they go along. Some younger people get in trouble because of their desire to be accepted. If the crowd does something wrong, like drugs or pilfer, they join in because they want to fit in and be part of the crowd. People will sometimes laugh at or make fun of those that go their own way. Anyone who doesn’t go along with the crowd or do what everyone else is doing is ostracized and sometimes bullied. Peer pressure at its height. It’s tough to stand your ground when you know you’re right while everyone around is going alone. It takes a lot of backbone to confront the crowd when you feel they’re in the wrong for fear of getting attacked by those in cahoots. It takes a lot of integrity to stand up for what you believe in. In fact, the Torah supports this. One of our commandments is not join with others in a false report. Hashem understands that just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t make it right. He knows how hard it is to go against the crowd. There are times in our lives when we have to face injustice. Even though at times “majority rules”, it doesn’t mean that the majority is right. In fact, many people will use that as an excuse to get their way. Many people don’t confront injustice because they’re afraid of the backlash. And rightly so. When you have someone who by virtue of a position or strong personality forcing their opinion, and everyone else going along because they just don’t like confrontation, it’s tough to be that lone voice of righteousness. The thought of everyone being against you for standing up for what you believe is right is very intimidating. Some might contend that if the majority isn’t always right, the minority isn’t either. That’s true. Here’s the difference: someone who is fair and just will not be afraid to hear a dissenting opinion. This is why boards and governments have a plurality, so that there is enough of a diverse input to arrive at a fair conclusion. Anyone who tries to stop that process, by virtue of their response, is wrong because of that alone. Yes, it takes a lot of strength of character to face a consortium. Phinehas had that and didn’t care about any backlash. As his reward, the High Priesthood was cemented into his family. We may not always get such a reward for doing what’s right, but let’s follow his lead. #FridayNightSermon

This week's 10-Minute Torah: "Parashat Pinchas 5779" 07/27/2019 #ParashatPinchas5779 #DvarTorah #TorahCommentary

Presentation of Sermon Balak was a good strategist and tactician. He saw that the Israelites had Hashem on their side and thus had what he perceived to be a distinct spiritual advantage. He considered that might alone wasn’t going to do anything so he decided he would level the playing field. He sent for this wizard he knew from his days in Mesopotamia. He knew that the sorcerer or prophet (depending on your point of view) Bala’am was the man for the job. Bala’am had studied some ancient texts (some thought he was one of three of the Pharaoh’s advisers in Egypt) and knew what time of the day G-d was “angry”, and judged people. Bala’am would then curse people at that specific time since people would be spiritually vulnerable. Others give Bala’am more validity and refer to him as a prophet. They say that G-d gave all the 70 nations a prophet so no one people could complain that it wasn’t fair that Israel had a spiritual advantage by being so close to Hashem. So as Bala’am was traveling to Balak to negotiate, G-d intervened. He told him that He (G-d) would put the words in his mouth of what he should say about the Israelites. G-d did this by sending an angel to block his path. This angel was standing in his way and had sword drawn. The Hebrew states that he encountered an obstruction in his path or—you guessed it—a satan. In the Middle Ages, parts of Judaic culture succumbed to superstition. There are references in the Talmud about not taking specific paths at certain times because demons were out and would possess you. There are references in the Zohar that state that you bring good or evil influence upon yourself by whether you do good or evil. Demons are part of the latter choice. So since the text in the Torah describes an angel blocking Bala’am’s path, and the Hebrew word to describe it was “satan”, then that angel was Satan. And therefore arose up a whole discussion of this antagonizing angel. Yes, it was Satan who disguised himself as a snake to test Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. And it is Satan that will tempt you to see how strong your integrity is. And it is Satan that will be G-d’s prosecuting attorney on the Day of Judgement. As other religions and cultures arose out of Judaism, Satan took on a more distinct evil persona. He was now a “fallen” angel; his agenda was to destroy goodness and take over the world. Like an evil banker, his mission was to collect souls for an eternity in hell. Clearly, this mythology got out of control. Contrary to the late, great Mr. Wilson’s rants, in Judaism, the devil doesn’t make you do anything. Thanks to Adam and Eve (with a possible assist from the serpent), we now have free will. We can decide whether to be good or evil. And let’s face it, it’s not so distinct. We make good and evil choices. Good people can do evil things every now and then, and bad people will do good things. There’s some of each in all of us. On a spiritual level, you attract the forces that you put out. When you put out good vibes, good comes back to you. When you put out bad vibes, you become surrounded by evil. Of course, you can change, midstream even. If you see that your path is fraught with difficulty, consider what energy surrounds you. Sometimes, of course, when we’re stressed, we want to do evil. We want that vengeance to alleviate the stress of these difficulties. That’s when it’s time to revert back to the good character. It’s like the cartoons where the hero has an angel on one shoulder and a “satan” on the other. It’s your choice. And by the way, that’s the Jewish concept of the good and bad forces. #FridayNightSermon

This week's 10-Minute Torah: "Parashat Balak" #ParashatBalak #DvarTorah #TorahCommentary

Presentation of sermon about "More about Anger" “Who is strong? He (she) who controls their passions” so said King Solomon is Proverbs (Chapter 16, verse 32). Throughout the ages, the sages have warned us to control our passions. That’s why, after all, we have commandments. Just wear the fringes, obey the commandments, and you’re fine, right? If only…. Probably the strongest “passion” is anger. Anger is a drug. It gives you, sometimes, superhuman strength and endurance. It gives you courage when you are faced with a daunting situation. Anger scares the people who aren’t angry and motivates them to retreat rather than face your venom. It’s the ultimate fight when you can’t flight. And it’s quite the high, isn’t it? But like all drugs, there is a downside. It can become addicting and used when it’s not needed. Years ago when I worked in mental health, I spent a year working in an adolescent dual diagnosis unit. This was specifically for teenagers who not only had behavior problems, but also problems with chemical dependency. At that time, the facility was undergoing evaluation to be part of the JCAAH which would allow us more latitude in billing insurance. Part of that process involved not discriminating specific patient populations in our units. We took in a young kid who was thirteen years old and had never seen a drug, let alone used. The problem became coordinating his treatment with the rest of the kids so he could participate in groups. The treatment team considered how to best apply his issues to the 12-step program, one of the main modalities. I asked him what issue he thought he might be so caught up in that it served as an addiction. He said he had a problem with anger. We had him work the 12-step process using anger. It was amazing how well that process worked. In this week’s Torah portion, the children of Israel are out in the wilderness and Aaron—everybody’s favorite high priest—dies. There is now no water. G-d tells Moses to talk to the rock and water will be plentiful. Moses loses it; perhaps all the whining and sniveling got to him. He tells the “rebels” to behold water and strikes the rock. Water pours forth, but G-d tells him that because he didn’t sanctify His name in front of the congregation, he will not go into the promised land. The moral of the story: anger has its consequences. In the wrong application, it will do more harm than good. Moses did not control his passions. Many of us don’t. Our cable is out, and we spend however many minutes sitting on the phone waiting for that hapless customer service person to be our scapegoat. We are on the road in rush hour and protected by a covering of armor we will display obscene gestures at nameless strangers who commit the horrible offense of pulling in front of us. Moses was supposed to know better. He was a prophet’s prophet. Other prophets have glimpses of the ultimate; he had a front row seat to Hashem. That connection must have given him insight into the structure of Reality, and yet in one unfortunate moment, he threw it all away. Such is the danger of anger. In fact, “anger” is “danger” without the “d”. Like any drug, it gives you a marvelous high and a horrible comedown. The morning after is not unlike any hangover. And, like drugs, we seem to regret what we did and how we acted while under the influence. The sages recognized this. They looked at Moses’ behavior and must have thought, hmmm, if he succumbed, we’re doomed! To moderate our most violent emotion, they ended our thrice daily “tefillah”, or Amidah, with “Oh L-rd, guard my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking falsehood”. We know what we can say while in the throes. G-d recognized this as well. One of our commandments is to not take vengeance. Easier said than done. Consider that anger is a lot like pain; it’s telling us that there’s something amiss. What gets you angry? Certainly, some of the little annoyances we face each day, like when the car won’t start or when we get to the store and find they’re out of our favorite whatever, or our electric bill is higher than we thought. Those things typically come and go. But maybe there are things we face in our daily lives that seem to keep coming up. Maybe our job or associates or acquaintances are too much for us to handle and we wish they’d go away. Sometimes it seems like we face the same conflicts and/or situations over and over. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Like pain, anger is a warning. It’s telling us that we need to remove the offending circumstance. We need to look deep into ourselves and see what need we have that is not being fulfilled, and what change do we need to make to fulfill it. And part of that is thinking out of the box—the box we’ve locked ourselves into in which we play out the same scenarios over and over. Anger is not about just controlling passions, though. We’ve tried that and tried that and it seemed to work until the pressure cooker blew. It may also not be about changing our situation either. It may be about how we deal with things. You want a different result, try a different tactic. #FridayNightSermon #Anger

This Week's 10-Minute Torah: "Parashat Chukkat" 7/13/2019 #ParashatChukkat #DvarTorah #TorahCommentary

Friday Night Sermon: "Concentration camps vs detention centers" 7/5/2019 Usually for sermons, I take the current Torah portion and expand on how some of the points relate to our daily current lives. This is how we imbue spiritual inspiration and make Torah relevant. It’s also how we enhance our Shabbat experience with thankfulness for Hashem’s involvement in our lives. Today I feel a need to depart from that usual structure and talk about current events. The political landscape has become more and more unfriendly to us Jews and this latest incident, in my opinion, just continues the downhill slope towards disrespect. I feel that it is important to address these issues every now and then when they come up because awareness may help us to intervene before they become more prominent. In our current political environment, it has become a strategy to present or “spin” certain situations in a certain way to demean opponents to gain political advantage. Conditions at these detention centers have been allegedly exaggerated for that purpose. Here’s where we Jews become involved. Many of you are probably aware of a certain freshman Congresswoman comparing the detention centers holding the influx of people seeking a better life in our country and concentration camps in the 1940’s that facilitated the murder of our people. In using that language, she is insinuating a comparison between our government’s attempt to manage the flow of people to the Nazi’s organized efforts to house Jews during the 1940’s and find ways to mass exterminate us. Obviously, she was using the hyperbole to make a point. As a side note, as Jews we believe in helping the downtrodden achieve fulfillment so we, as a people, would generally be sympathetic to their cause. Unfortunately, the sheer number of people seeking asylum is overwhelming our immigration system. Our government agencies have been doing what they can to accommodate these people, but because of the volume, resources are stretched thin and people are suffering. Her comparison upset some Jewish agencies, like the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai Brith and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. They came out and expressed their dismay and outrage at the comparison. Instead of making an apology or at least an explanation, this congresswoman rationalized her points by “doubling down” and looking to justify her points. Other congresspeople came to her defense. Some even went so far as to try to define “concentration camp” in terms that would support and justify her claims. The real height of this offense came with a letter signed by hundreds of historians, self-proclaimed experts in the Holocaust and mostly from academia, to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum asking them to reverse their opposition to those comparisons. The tragedy is that while some of these historians were not Jewish, some were. A few even teach at universities in Israel. It is outrageous, however, that these people would challenge an organization that is specifically set up to commemorate and educate about the Holocaust! To quote another famous Jew, Rodney Dangerfield, we get no respect. Yes, we get no respect. Many people are familiar with a current situation of a sneaker manufacturer issuing, for the 4th of July, a special commemorative sport shoe with the first, original flag of the United States, “Old Faithful”, on the sneaker with the original thirteen stars. An African American football player became incensed that the company would post such an offensive gesture considering that this country was founded on the backs of the slave labor of his people. Outrage by minorities is commonplace. College students dressing up for Halloween are excoriated for wearing a sombrero and a fake bushy mustache. Some political figures were called out for using black face as a gag during their college days (reminiscent of a popular black comedian in the 1970’s saying he used white shoe polish to infiltrate white society) as a stunt. With all this sensitivity towards disadvantaged people, one would think that it would apply to all minorities. This congresswoman who started this is, in fact, a minority herself. For some reason, people take issue whenever we get sensitive about a topic. And isn’t it interesting that as barely two per cent of the US population, we aren’t considered a minority, let alone disadvantaged. A 93-year-old Holocaust survivor offered to take said congresswoman on a tour of Auschwitz. This would be the same tour that a certain congressman from Iowa, himself castigated for outlandish remarks about minorities, took. She declined. Many pictures have been published on media about the overcrowding of these immigration facilities. We see many people sitting around looking pretty forlorn. Wouldn’t it be interesting to put some of these pictures side-by-side with pictures of victims and survivors from the Holocaust, emaciated people, clearly undernourished in squalid conditions? One would think the contrast would quiet even the most stubborn critics. Then again… So how do we as Jews overcome this disrespect for our tragedies? Simple: we need to stick together. While there are indeed groups of people who are sympathetic to our cause—and we appreciate that—we are our best reinforcement. Stay close to your synagogue and get involved with your people. Perhaps not all of the time or even a majority of the time because we all live in a secular world, but we have a distinct identity and we need to sustain that. We have survived oppression for 1800 years. We’ve done it by sticking together and keeping to our heritage. In our more liberal society, we can let our elected officials know how we feel. To paraphrase Hillel: “If {we} are not for {ourselves}, who will be for {us}. If not now, when?” #FridayNightSermon