THE
PULPIT
FROM THE DESK OF RABBI
SCHWAB
For the last several weeks, the Jewish community in the United States has been reminded regularly that a world wide Jewish election - for delegates to the upcoming World Zionist Congress - is upon us and that we need to register to vote. I spoke about the work of the World Zionist Congress and the February election in one of my High Holiday sermons, wrote about it in the bulletin two months ago (a registration form for the election was included in that bulletin), wrote about it again for the November edition of the Federation paper We Are One, and mention registering every Shabbat morning during the announcements. Registering for the WZC election shows our support for the embattled State of Israel and gives us a chance to influence the direction of the moneys spent by the World Zionist Organization through the Jewish Agency for Israel. For us as Conservative Jews, that influence is important, for the Jewish Agency has begun to help fund programs of our Movement - Israel trips by our teens, educational opportunities for our community in Israel - precisely because of the number of delegates the Conservative Movement has elected to the World Zionist Congress meetings through MERCAZ, the Zionist arm of the Conservative Movement. Just this past week one of the leaders of the world wide Conservative Movement sent an e-mail to all Conservative rabbis urging us to make sure that every member of our congregations aged 18 and over register for the election. Which is why another copy of the registration form appears in this month's bulletin. (This form may be duplicated for other members of your family.)
So who is running in this election? The way the election works mirrors the way elections to the Knesset in Israel works. Each organization competing for votes in the World Zionist Congress election submits a list of possible delegates to the Congress; the list reflects that organization's order of preference. Voters are given a list of those organizations competing in the election, along with their platforms, and cast a vote for an organization. After the votes are tabulated, each organization is allotted the number of delegates that reflects the percentage of votes it has received in the election. The organizations then send individuals from their list to fill their delegate slots, starting from the top of the list. So if organization A gets 10% of the vote, which allows them 50 delegates, the individuals on their list down to the 50th name get to go to the World Zionist Congress meeting in June, while name number 51 does not.
So how does an individual get his/her name on the list of a particular organization? Well, often the organization's list is drawn from the organization's Board of Directors, along with the names from the boards of other affiliate organizations. So the list for MERCAZ starts with the members of the board of MERCAZ, and then includes names drawn from Women's League (the national organization of synagogue Sisterhoods), the Rabbinical Assembly and United Synagogue. As it happens, MERCAZ has a policy of making sure that its Board of Directors includes Conservative Jews of all ages, down to those in their early 20's. And, as it happens, one of those young Conservative Jews who serves on the Board of Directors for MERCAZ is a local kid named Yoni Schwab. Which is why Yoni Schwab is on MERCAZ's list for election to the World Zionist Congress!
Which makes this election quite personal for us. Yoni, as a junior member of the MERCAZ list, is not very high up, so his election is far from guaranteed. But if Conservative Jews throughout the United States - starting with the members of Temple Sinai - register to vote in the WZC election and then cast their ballots for MERCAZ, he might actually be one of those delegates to the 34th World Zionist Congress, following in the footsteps of Theodor Herzl, Chaim Weizmann, and David Ben-Gurion! (Well, sort of.) You can help elect him! And if he is elected and attends the Congress, he has promised to come back to his home synagogue to tell us all about it! Which I think is a pretty exciting prospect, even if I might be a bit biased.
So make sure to register using the enclosed form, and then vote for MERCAZ when you receive your ballot. You can help send a local boy to Congress!!
THE NEW KABBALAT SHABBAT IS SWEEPING THE JEWISH WORLD
Four hundred years ago the mystics who lived in Safed in northern Israel came up with a new conception of Shabbat as a beautiful bride coming to town each Friday afternoon to be wed to the Jewish people for the day of rest. And since the only right thing to do with a bride is to escort her to her huppah, they literally walked out into the fields surrounding the city in order to escort the Shabbat bride to the synagogue for the Shabbat evening service. As they did so, they chanted six Psalms representing the six days of the workweek, and concluded their service with the nine verses of the newly written hymn L'cha Dodi. Their conception and their set of prayers spread throughout the Jewish world, and within 50 years the Kabbalat Shabbat service had become the standard way of welcoming Shabbat in synagogues from Baghdad to Bordeaux and from Fez, Morocco to Frankfort, Germany.
But just reciting a bunch of verses of Psalms and a beautiful poem is not enough when one is escorting a bride. Weddings are full of music to enhance the joy, and so countless Jewish musicians throughout the ages have composed joyful or stately or energetic or lilting tunes for the prayers of the Kabbalat Shabbat service. The Kabbalat Shabbat service at Temple Sinai is full of such melodies, and there is nothing like singing the familiar tunes of Kabbalat Shabbat in the midst of hundreds of young people at summer camp or at a USY weekend.
Probably the best Jewish composer of folk melodies in the last half-century was Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. His lively tunes added to familiar biblical verses and rabbinic phrases have become standard songs sung from Israeli kibbutzim to American summer camps. And now his melodies for Kabbalat Shabbat have begun sweeping the Jewish world. I was first introduced to the Carlebach-style Kabbalat Shabbat when Ami took me to an apartment in Jerusalem that was converted every Friday night into a synagogue just so that hundreds of young people can fill the room with the lively, joyous sounds welcoming Shabbat. Since then I have enjoyed the moving, enthusiastic, hand-clapping, feet-stomping, easy-to-learn melodies of the Carlebach-Kabbalat Shabbat in synagogues in Manhattan and Riverdale, and in our own living room when our children have hosted their friends for a "Schwabbaton" in our home. This is a Kabbalat Shabbat that truly makes it feel that the Shabbat bride is present in our midst.
And now it is time for this rejoicing to be given an airing at Temple Sinai. So on Friday night, November 30, in conjunction with a congregational dinner, we will greet Shabbat with these new melodies for the familiar words of the Kabbalat Shabbat service. At 6:30 p.m. in our Sanctuary, we will welcome the Shabbat bride with the enthusiasm she deserves, and then join in a wonderful Shabbat dinner in our Social Hall. If you would like to join in this joy, please send in the enclosed invitation reserving your seat for Shabbat dinner. And if you would like to learn the melodies for the Carlebach-Kabbalat Shabbat before November 30, let me know and I will supply you with an audio tape of the Kabbalat Shabbat service as we will sing it on that Shabbat. It will be a true oneg Shabbat, a real Shabbat pleasure, for all who attend.
HAVE YOU REGISTERED TO VOTE YET?
The election campaign is about to begin. Ballots are ready to be printed, and we go to the polls in February, 2002. It will be a crucial election, for the results will help to determine the policy on a number of divisive issues for many years to come, anywhere from 5 to 10 years! But to vote you have to be registered - and that takes some attention and effort and knowledge of what to do. So here is the lowdown.
Of course, I am not talking about local or school board or state or national elections here; as important as they are, those elections are not being contested in February, and, besides, I trust everyone reading this message is already registered for those votes. The election I am talking about is the election which will determine the make-up of the American delegation to the 34th World Zionist Congress, set to convene in June, 2002. The World Zionist Congress (WZC) is the convention of the World Zionist Organization (WZO), and as such it is as close to a worldwide Jewish parliament as we get. The World Zionist Congress is the international expression of the Jewish idea that we are all part of the Jewish homeland, that we have a stake in the well-being of the State of Israel. And, more to the point, it is the deliberations of the WZC that sets the parameters for spending the moneys collected by Jewish Federation and its national parent, United Jewish Communities (UJC --formerly UJA).
And we have a stake in those deliberations, in those decisions about spending, because moneys from the WZO help to support some of the most basic programs in our relationship with Israel. For example, the WZO's education department helps to subsidize the Israel Experience trips our young people take every summer. USY Pilgrimage and Ramah Institute are partially supported by our Federation moneys - and that was not always the case in the past. For in previous years the WZO was mostly controlled by the delegations from Israel, and they regularly ignored requests from Conservative and Reform programs in favor of funding Orthodox programs in the Diaspora. Only in the last decade has that attitude changed, and it changed precisely because non-Orthodox voters in the United States began electing delegations from MERCAZ (the Conservative Movement's Zionist group) and ARZA (the Reform Movement's Zionist entity). In fact the World Zionist Organization has ended up representing the American world of religious pluralism in the worldwide Jewish community, and has had a major effect on the perception of Judaism in the world. That is why it is so vital that as many members of Conservative synagogues as possible vote for pluralistic candidates in the coming WZC election. But even more - as Israel faces its most serious challenge since the Yom Kippur War, it is even more vital that we express our solidarity with the Zionist enterprise of today through our participation in this election. Our participation shows our continued support for our embattled cousins in the Jewish homeland.
Registering to vote is quite simple. Inserted in this bulletin are 2 copies of the registration form. Fill out a form for each member of your family aged 18 and older (you may copy the form if you need more than two) and mail them along with a $4 check for each form to the address at the bottom of the page. (I will have extra forms, if you mislay these.) In February you will then receive your ballot, which will allow you to vote for the organization of your choice. The votes will then be tabulated and each organization will be given the number of seats at the World Zionist Congress corresponding to the percentage of votes that organization received. I would urge a vote for MERCAZ, the Conservative Movement's organization, so that our ideas will be heard at the Congress. And I further urge that you become a member of MERCAZ, for its influence depends also on the number of members it has enrolled. A form for joining MERCAZ can also be found in this bulletin. Every one of us can - must - be a part of the Zionist idea; Israel is too important to us as Jews for us to remain unengaged.
It is time to register to vote.
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MERCAZ USA - 155 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, NY 10010
YES! I want to support MERCAZ USA and become a member:
___$36 Family ___$25 Individual ___$10 Student ___$50 Sponsor
Last Name (print) First Name Spouse's Name
Signatures Telephone Number
Permanent Address City State Zip+4
Congregation City State Zip+4
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From the very beginnings of our people - from the time of Abraham himself - the center of our existence has been our search for our relationship with G-d. The Torah makes the revelation of G-d to the people on Mt. Sinai the crucial event in our history, for it was at Sinai that our people agreed to a covenant with G-d which created us as a people. The children of Israel, our ancestors, are quoted as saying, "Everything that G-d tells us we will do." And throughout most of Jewish history it was the doing of the things we understood G-d had told us that displayed our allegiance to G-d and to our people. It was learning and following the commandments, the mitzvot, which were "our wisdom and our understanding of life", which gave the Jewish people's very existence meaning. We had a purpose; we existed so that we could connect with G-d by following G-d's Torah. Shabbat, holidays, kashrut, tzedakah, prayer, deeds of lovingkindness - these were the essential behaviors of a people connecting them with their G-d and giving meaning to national existence in the face of almost continuous oppression.
Those individuals who decided, for whatever reason, that they did not feel themselves bound to those mitzvot simply left the community; there was no point in being a Jew if one were not acting according to the covenant.
But that definition of "What is a Jew?" changed dramatically over the last two centuries. A new idea of what it meant to be a Jew took hold, the idea that a Jew was someone who cared about the Jewish people, who identified himself or herself as being a part of the Jewish people, who participated in the life of the Jewish people in some way of other. One could be an upstanding member of the Jewish community by helping one's fellow Jews, by supporting Jewish communal organizations, by participating in Jewish culture. Guiding new immigrants, working against anti-Semitism, helping to create the State of Israel, supporting the synagogue and the local and national Jewish communities, even singing Yiddish and Hebrew songs or writing stories about Jews - these things define upstanding members of the Jewish community as much as observance of the mitzvot ever did in the past. Observance, far from being the linchpin of the Jewish community's expectations, has become a private matter for each individual Jew; instead of seeing observance as essential for membership in the Jewish community, as a command from the Eternal One, it has become just another lifestyle choice for those who happen to be Jews.
Still, there is a crucial similarity in the two definitions. Both require action. Just as the Jew of 1000 years ago had to display loyalty to their conception of what made them a Jew by behaving in certain prescribed ways - following the mitzvot - so too do modern day Jews need to display loyalty to the Jewish people through their actions. Giving both time and tzedakah to Jewish causes - the synagogue, the Federation, the welfare of Jews wherever they might be found - are the basic requirements for maintaining membership in the Jewish people. The proliferation of organizations in the Jewish world - HIAS, UJC (formerly UJA), JFS, B'nai B'rith, ORT, Hadassah, JDC, and on and on and on - are a testament to the drive of Jews to maintain Jews and the Jewish community through concrete actions. The idea has been that wherever and whenever Jews are in need, other Jews must help, must be available, must give of time and resources for the protection of our fellow Jews and the continuation of our people.
One of the great triumphs of this commitment to the Jewish people is the creation of the State of Israel. In the aftermath of the greatest massacre of Jews ever in a history filled with massacres, the rise of a sovereign Jewish country after 2000 years borders on the miraculous. And it was accomplished because Jews throughout the world, identifying with their fellow Jews as part of the same people, united in supporting and defending the cause of Zionism with time, effort, money and lobbying, with letters to the editor and public marches, with a constant awareness that we are all parts of the same family and whenever one part of the family is in trouble, we are all in trouble. That is the modern definition of being a Jew - to see oneself as part of the Jewish people and to act on that vision.
Israel today faces one of the greatest crises in its 53 year history as a State. Though it is certainly true that, unlike 1948 and 1967, the very existence of the State is not at stake, it is equally true that suicide bombs and drive-by shootings have made Israelis - our Jewish cousins - more anxious about their security than they have been in a long time. They need our support and help. And if being a Jew means anything at all, it means that we must respond. And that response cannot simply be in the form of words of sympathy, though such words can also be of help. We also must act. Our resources - our money - must be available, through Federation, which is being asked to take over from the State of Israel the costs of the continuing aliyah from Russia and Ethiopia, or in any other way you might know, to pay for medical care for the injured (don't forget: to help Monique, send a check made out to Masorti Foundation to the synagogue office) and to support normal daily living for all Israeli citizens. Our voice must be heard - through letters to the editor or our representatives in Congress, and through conversations with our neighbors so they will understand what is at stake. Even our bodies must be counted. Anyone who has the opportunity to go to Israel must take up that opportunity, to show our solidarity with our family. (As for the danger: know that there are 4 times as many murders per year in New York City as there are in Israel, and most of us still go the City anyway.) Further, there needs to be an overwhelming crush of bodies at the community rally on Sunday, September 23, in New York City. The Jewish Federation of Orange County is providing buses for the 1:00 p.m. event; call them at 562-7860 to reserve your seat on the bus.
Being a Jew requires that we act, that we display our connection with our heritage and our people through our behaviors. Our fellow Jews need us - our money, our voices, our presence. The September 23 rally is a good place to start. Plan to be there.
One of the signal events in Middletown over the last 20 years or so has been the Orange Classic, the 10k road race run on the second Sunday in June. Sponsored by the Times Herald- Record, the race has been run through the streets of Middletown during the mid-morning hours on that Sunday, bringing thousands of people together to test themselves athletically and/or to cheer on those participating. But because of the necessity to block off the streets along which the contestants have run, the race has also served to cut off the center of Middletown from any car traffic for about an hour each time, disrupting church services in the downtown area of the city, preventing our Sunday minyanaires from going home after services, and leading Tempe Sinai to avoid scheduling programs on that Sunday, from Sunday School to youth bus trips.
This month things will be different. Hospice of Orange County-Hospice of Sullivan County has taken over sponsorship of the race, and one of its conditions was that the race be moved to Saturday morning so as not to disrupt downtown church services. Instead the race will be held on Saturday morning, June 9 - a switch which, all things being the same as in past years, would mean that we would be surrounded by racers and closed streets precisely at the times when people would be trying to reach the synagogue for Shabbat morning services. Perhaps most inconvenienced would be the family of the B'not Mitzvah celebrants for that Shabbat morning. But not all things will be the same as in past years. Hospice, in a wonderful gesture of sensitivity and understanding, has arranged for the race course to be changed so that we will not be surrounded by closed streets this year. Those who live or travel to shul on the south side of Middletown, around the college and along Wawayanda Avenue and Mt. Hope Road/West Main Street, may need to figure out a different route to the synagogue for that morning, but for the most part we will not be affected by the race this year. And for that we have expressed - and will continue to express - our gratitude to Hospice for its sensitivity.
But our gratitude to Hospice should not stop at its understanding oversight of a race. For Hospice as an organization, and the people who work and volunteer for Hospice, do an incredible and wonderful service for the people in our communities, including the members of the Jewish community. Focusing on comfort care for those diagnosed as terminally ill, the case managers and volunteers of Hospice work to enable patients to live at home, amongst their loved ones, so that their lives can be lived to the fullest possible extent under such difficult circumstances. Hospice arranges for home health care, nursing care, pain control, clergy visits (I am asked often to visit Hospice clients), and emotional and spiritual help for the families of the ill. Hospice will even teach family members and friends how to give the kinds of simple medical care which help the patients retain a semblance of dignity and normality even in the most trying of circumstances. In short Hospice focuses on the quality of life for those whose quantity of life is circumscribed, helping to treat the whole person rather than the disease. We as a community and as individuals are much in debt to the work of Hospice.
Given the double gratitude we in the Jewish community and we in the general community have towards Hospice, it would only be right for us to be helpful to Hospice in its work. Donations to defray the costs of providing services for those who do not have medical coverage can be sent to Hospice of Orange and Sullivan Counties, 800 Stony Brook Court, newburgh, 12550. And volunteers to do Hospice's wonderful work are always needed; you can call Hospice at 561-6111. Finally, all of us can spread the word about Hospice in the community, especially for those individuals and families who could use Hospice's compassionate care. Hospice is helping make life - and its loss - easier for so many. Let us join in their wonderful effort.
In the first chapter of the section of the Mishnah (the first book of Jewish law) known as Pirkai Avot (a series of rabbinic statements on morality, theology and right living sometimes called Ethics of the Fathers), Shimon Ha-Tzaddik summarizes the worldview of Judaism with his famous statement, "The world rests on three things: on Torah, on service to G-d, and on deeds of lovingkindness." This early Sage, who lived 2200 years ago, accurately summed up the essence of Judaism as encompassing three equal areas: learning G-d's expectations, connecting with G-d through prayer and holiday (especially Shabbat) observance, and helping our fellow human beings with their lives. In his view - in Judaism's view - all three parts are essential to live life correctly as a Jew. But for some reason, in our time there has been a tendency for most Jews to think of Judaism as containing only the first two areas. We have a tendency to think of the synagogue as a place to learn our heritage - Torah, customs and ceremonies, Hebrew - and then to perform the rituals - holiday observances, prayer, life-cycle events - which make us distinctly Jewish. Too often we forget about the third leg of Judaism's essence - the expectation, the requirement, to reach out to our fellow human beings as Jews to help them in their lives.
It is that third requirement that has led our Jewish Federation to establish Mitzvah Day in our community, to create and organize a day in which the members of Orange County's Jewish community can do acts of gemilut hasadim, deeds of lovingkindness. It is that third requirement that has led to the expectation that we will give 10% of our yearly incomes to tzedakah, to acts of charity for the benefit of the poor in our midst and for the benefit of organizations which strengthen community and help those in need. It is that third requirement which has led Jews of all kinds to be active in social concerns in our country, like civil rights (two of the three young men killed in the famous case that inspired the movie Mississippi Burning were Jewish) and help for the mentally impaired. But, like the study of Torah and the service of G-d, doing gemilut hasadim becomes part of a Jew's life only if he/she sees it as a value to be incorporated, only if it is modeled in his/her life, only if he/she participates actively in such work through the organized Jewish community.
Which is why I am so impressed by the activities that are now becoming an embedded part of the structure of the Hillels on college campuses. Most of us who attended universities with a good-sized Jewish presence know of Hillel as the campus synagogue, a place to go for services on Shabbat or on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, or as a rallying point for support for Israel, or - if we really wanted to get involved - as the location for Jewish social events or lectures. Just like the synagogue we left back home. Today Hillels have changed dramatically, and one way they have changed is through the addition of programs of gemilut hasadim. The national Hillel organization has even begun designating individual campus Hillels as Tzedek Hillels if they meet the criteria of sponsoring a certain number of gemilut hasadim projects. Amongst those Tzedek Hillels is the Hillel we know best - the one at Columbia University/Barnard College in New York City - which has established both a food kitchen (in connection with a local Presbyterian church) and a clothing pantry for the use of needy people in the community around the schools (Columbia and Barnard are located in Morningside Heights, just a few blocks south of Harlem), both of which were conceived of and run by Jewish students from the two schools. In addition, the Columbia/Barnard Hillel sponsored ten students to spend their spring break in El Salvador helping the local population overcome the aftereffects of the two devastating earthquakes that have made one-third of the population of El Salvador homeless. The spirit of the young Jewish students on campus is revealed in the fact that Hillel received over 40 applications from students willing to give up their spring breaks to do this mitzvah of tikkun olam, of helping to make a better world, through this act of gemilut hasadim. Our son Ami was selected as one of the ten who went on this mission co-sponsored by the American Jewish World Service, a Jewish organization which organizes gemilut hasadim projects for non-Jews around the world. (As an aside: the very fact that he wanted to go, when he could have taken a well-deserved break from the pressures of academic life, certainly provided his parents with nachas.) Ami spent his week building pre-fabricated homes for homeless families and tearing down uninhabitable and dangerous structures in a small village, while observing kashrut and davening in tallit and tefillin every morning. He reports that those he helped were extremely grateful, which gave him a real sense of accomplishment, a reminder that doing good feels good as well, which is a great motivation for doing acts of gemilut hasadim.
The work of these Jewishly motivated young people is a reminder to us of the requirement to help others that Judaism promotes in our lives. Along with learning our sacred texts and sustaining our relationship with G-d through prayer and observance, our covenant asks us to help out. Even in our stressed lives, where time is at a premium, we are commanded to find a few hours a week or a month to do some gemilut hasadim. There are organizations within the Jewish community - the synagogue, Jewish Family Service, Jewish Federation, the Community Relations Council - and outside - Emergency Housing Group, Mental Health Association, volunteer fire departments and ambulance corps, the Interfaith Council, the soup kitchen - who need volunteers and board members, who need more hands to do their gemilut hasadim. Let us take a cue from the busy students at Hillels around the country and strive to find the time to do good in our community as part of our lives as Jews.
Note: If you would like to help the work of the national organizations mentioned above, donations may be sent to:
Columbia/Barnard Hillel American Jewish World Service Mazon
606 West 115th Street 989 6th Avenue, 10th Floor 12401 Wilshire Blvd.,# 303
New York, NY 10025 New York, NY 10018 Los Angeles CA 90025-1015
WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT TO SAY
Imagine your car breaking down on the way to work. Imagine the hassle that getting it towed entails, the worry at the money you may need to expend to fix the vehicle or even purchase another, and the upset at being late for work and missing an important client or at courting the wrath of a boss or letting down the people at your workplace. Imagine then venting your frustration and fears to a co-worker. And now imagine your feelings if your well-meaning co-worker responded to your anguish with, "Oh, everything will be all right," or "Don't worry about it," or "The same thing happened to me, and I .......". I suggest that none of those responses would be in the least comforting: the first two because they essentially deny your feelings, dismissing your frustrations as temporary and so unreal, and the last one because it ignores you and your pain completely.
Those co-worker statements are common examples of what are known as "closed responses". They are the kind of statements which seek to convey some overarching truth or piece of wisdom, but which end up simply stopping conversations in their tracks. For how does an upset and angered person respond to "It'll be all right"? By saying, "No, it won't!"? Or by admitting, "I'm sure you're right. Let me stop being so emotional."? We are much more likely simply to stop talking to that person who has minimized our upset and who is trying to tell us what to do. It may be true that things will be all right, or that worrying is not a good thing, or that what happened to them was worse. But at that moment of difficulty in our lives, we want to vent, and that person is intent on trying to short-circuit our venting. We perceive them as uncaring about our true emotions, as being insensitive to our pain. Their well-meaning comments only make us feel worse, because they are closed responses, ending the conversation before we have truly expressed ourselves.
But despite the negative feelings we experience when presented with such closed responses, we tend to use them ourselves all the time. And the reason we give closed responses in difficult situations is mostly, I think, because those are the standard comments made in difficult situations in our society. We learned to use closed responses because that is what we have heard used before, and so we hardly think twice about it. I am particularly conscious of the use of such pat phrases at that most difficult and emotional moment any human being can experience, at the time of the death of a loved one. Well-meaning friends approach the mourners with a stock litany of closed responses: "It's a blessing"; "You have to be strong, especially for the children"; "You were lucky you had him/her this long"; "Time will heal"; "Think of all your precious memories"; "Life goes on"; "Don't cry; don't be sad." In every one of those cases we are telling the mourners how to feel, and so minimizing or negating the feelings that they have. Of course if the mourner expresses those ideas - "You know, it was a blessing"; "I am so glad we had him/her for so long"; "I have such good memories" - we could certainly agree with them, but that would be because those statements would be what the mourner is truly feeling, and not something we are trying to place in them. But even worse than such attempts at telling mourners how to feel are the blasphemous attempts we make at theology - "It was G-d's will and everything happens for a reason"; "You're young, you'll have more children" - or comments directed at or about child mourners - "You're too big to cry"; "You're the big man of the family now"; "Children are flexible, they'll bound back". Mourners do not need theological lessons at a time of loss, and children do not need to be told the frightening news that they have to take over their deceased parent's role in life. Nor do mourners appreciate hearing about how you handled a situation - "Well, I'd do it this way" - nor do they want your judgment about their behavior - "I know just how you feel"; "You should be over it now". All of these comments are closed responses; none is comforting for a mourner unless the mourner specifically asks for your theological opinion or advice.
So what should we say to a mourner? Kari Connors, a member of our congregation who has recently suffered a deep loss in her life, sent me a list of wonderful approaches to the recently bereaved which she saw distributed at a funeral chapel in New York City. I am deeply appreciative of her taking the time in this difficult hour of her life to send me that list, and I heartily endorse the ideas contained in that funeral home's message. Heading this list are the things we can say at a time of loss: "I'm so sorry"; "There's nothing I can really say right now to make things better ... just know that I am here for you". Then there is the traditional Jewish response to mourning, which is to say nothing at all until the mourner speaks, and then simply to listen attentively. And then there is a whole group of things to do: to give the mourners a chance to talk about their loved one, to ask them to share their memories; to share your memories of the deceased; to provide a squeeze of the hand, or a touch on the shoulder or a hug; to send a "thinking of you" note in the weeks ahead; to offer to help with something specific, like a meal or a ride for the kids; to include the widow(er) in your social circle; to pick a day (e.g. the 1st of the month) and call to say, "You're in my thoughts"; and, best of all, simply to cry with the mourner. Let us not forget, also, that depression and/or unusual behavior can be normal grieving, so we need to avoid be judgmental, and, further, that holidays and special days (like birthdays and anniversaries) are particularly difficult times for the mourners. The point of all this is to be open to the feelings of the mourners, to allow them to tell us what they are experiencing, rather than for us to tell them how we think they should be feeling.
If we learn to listen rather than advise, to act rather than simply to talk, to wait for the mourners to tell us what they are experiencing rather than telling them what we think they should be experiencing, we will not only have helped them through a most difficult time in their lives, but we will also have encouraged them to turn to us as people open to them rather than to avoid us as people trying to tell them what to do. It can be our greatest gift to them. Let us seek to respond openly rather than with the closed responses which do not comfort.
SOME THOUGHTS TO PONDER ON A WINTERY EVENING
I don't know about you, but I get a lot of material over e-mail forwarded to me by family and friends. Most of that material, it turns out, is worth the perusal; I guess my correspondents must know my taste pretty well. What follows is one of those e-mails, which I thought deserved wider circulation. I wouldn't attest to the exact accuracy of the statistics offered, but the sentiment is on the mark. May these thoughts serve as a framework to your day.
If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead, and a place to sleep...you are richer than 75% of this world
If you have money in the bank and in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace...you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.
If you woke up this morning with more health than illness...you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.
If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation...you are ahead of 500 million people in the world. (Rabbi's note: this number clearly understates the worldwide population which has experienced such insecurity.)
If you can attend a synagogue service or other form of worship without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death...you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.
If you can read this message...you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world who cannot read at all.
If you can hold up your head with a smile on your face and are truly thankful...you are blessed because the majority could, but most do not.
In the weekday Amidah we ask G-d for health, food, and security, both for ourselves individually as human beings and for us as Jews. We then thank G-d for all those things which we have received. How fortunate we truly are to have those basics of life, and, even more incredibly, to be able to take them for granted. Let us remember how lucky we are to live in a place and in an era when our hard work can indeed gain us those basics, and let us do our part in this world to extend those benefits to the billions who do not have them.
One of the most important parts of Jewish identity in modern times is our connection with Medinat Yisrael, the State of Israel. For 1900 years we have been a people without a country, maintaining a common identity as a nation without having a place to call our own. By some incredible miracle our people has returned to our ancestral homeland and reclaimed our sovereignty through the creation of a new Jewish State, and as a result identifying with Israel has become an essential part of what it means to be a Jew in the modern era. For us as Jews, Israel cannot be apprehended on the level of foreign countries like England or France, but she must be seen as the bearer of our hopes and dreams, a center of our Jewish lives, a place which must legitimately claim our attention and a piece of our hearts.
Which is why the latest struggle in Israel, which began just before Rosh Hashanah, should have claimed a significant part of our attention. We should not be viewing the latest violence there as something happening to someone else, something on a par with the struggle between Kosovars and Serbs, or the difficulties between Sudanese Christians and Sudanese Muslims. What happens in Israel concerns us as Jews, and we need to be aware of and involved in the events in the Jewish State. That is particularly true because, astonishingly enough, once again the world seems to be lining up against us as a people, seeming to deny the reality of the situation in a rush to heap the blame for the violence in the area disproportionately on Israel. I would be the last person to claim that Israel has done no wrong - in fact, I have regularly pointed out where Israel has been mistaken in the past in her treatment of the Arab population both inside Israel and outside. But those mistakes are not the major cause of the violence that has been occurring the last three months, and it is crucial that we as Jews be able to articulate that truth. We are involved in what is happening, and so we need to be able to tell our friends and our enemies what is true and what is not.
Please be aware of the following:
1. Following the collapse of the ill-planned (on the part of the United States) Camp David summit in July, Palestinian television began showing footage of the 1986-1993 intefadah almost as if there was a plan to use violence as a negotiating ploy. The response to the Israeli offers should have been some counter-offer, not a return to violence in order to gain more sympathy around the world through the deaths of children. And don't be fooled by the claim that the whole thing started because Ariel Sharon decided to take a stroll on the Temple Mount to show its importance to Jews as well as to Muslims. That act of stupidity simply played into the Palestinians' hands, giving them the excuse they were looking for. Know that Jews had been walking on the Temple Mount for the last 33 years without it being considered a provocation of some sort.
2. While the United Nations has condemned Israel for its overreaction to the "mere" stone-throwers (as if a barrage of stones were not dangerous), it is clear that if Israel had not been restrained in its attempt to protect itself, its soldiers and its citizens, the death toll (at over 300 already much too high), could easily be ten times worse. Whenever Israel has used major weaponry - helicopter gunships, rockets of various sorts - she has always warned the Palestinians ahead of time to clear the area so that there would be no casualties. And the patience with which Israel has responded to continuous sniper fire directed from Beit Jalla to Gilo (both are suburbs of Jerusalem, one Arab, one Jewish) has been remarkable and even over-cautious; by rights Israeli troops should have seized Beit Jalla to prevent the shooting on Jewish families.
3. By far the most disturbing part of this entire scenario has been the lionization of the young "martyrs" killed or wounded in the clashes. Those shot by Israeli soldiers for stoning Israeli positions have been made into heroes - by the Palestinian Authority (who give money to the families of the wounded and dead), by their classmates, even by their own parents proud of their sons' actions - which only serves to encourage 12 and 14 year olds to defy death over and over by confronting well-armed soldiers. There is a sense that individual lives have meaning only when they are sacrificed in the great national cause. And so dozens of kids confront small Israeli patrols, threatening them with rocks as they come closer and closer, until the soldiers, trying to protect themselves, shoot back. And so the cycle of violence continues.
4. And the most depressing aspect of the situation is the religious rhetoric heard from the Palestinian side which denies both history and Jewish sensibilities. While Arabs have always been allowed to pray in Arab holy sites under Israel control, Palestinians are now denying that the Temple Mount ever had a Jewish structure on it, and that the Tombs of Joseph (since destroyed) and Rachel (under constant attack by rifle-toting Palestinian militiamen - Rachel's Tomb is in actuality under siege) are really ancient mosques which the Jews have appropriated. If peace is to occur, it can only happen when each side seeks to understand and accept the other's sense of history and religion, and that very sensibility has become a casualty of this round of violence.
As Jews tied inextricably to the fate of our cousins in Israel, we need to know how to respond to the exaggerations and outright untruths being presented as fact in the media and in small groups of people everywhere. Israel has not been without its faults in this whole affair, but the tendency to equate the two sides has ended in an acceptance of Palestinian aggression as proper because the Israeli response is more powerful. Everyone seems to favor David, even when Goliath is just defending himself.
This really does concern us.
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