Who Do You Like for President? - Reflections on Parashat Ki Tissa 5776

(Exodus 30:11-34:35)

As a rabbi, I am careful to keep my political views to myself. I recognize that good people can differ on matters of public policy, and in any case, I subscribe to Daniel Patrick Moynihan's observation that culture, not politics, is far more important in determining the long-term success of a society. 

In spite of the foregoing, I ask: does the Torah have anything to say about the current US presidential race? 

I think it might. Come, let's learn a little Torah together.

First, let's set the stage:

Three weeks ago, in Parashat Mishpatim, we read how the Jews reached the highest of the high, communing with Gcd A-lmighty at Mount SInai, hearing the Ten Commandments from the mouth of Gcd, and declaring with one voice and one heart, "Na'aseh v'Nishmah, we will perform and listen to these commandments."

This week, we read how the Jews fell to the lowest of the low. Just a few weeks later, the Jews were worshiping and prancing around the golden calf like drunken Druids around a maypole.

[Um, sidebar: one of them thar Ten Commandments is a pretty clear prohibition against worshiping idols.]

So we blew it big time.

Moses, meanwhile, is oblivious to all this. He's up at the summit of Mount Sinai, enveloped as it was in fire and fog, faithfully transcribing the Torah from Gcd. The dictation suddenly stops, and Gcd says to Moses:

Go. Descend, because the people that you brought up from Egypt have ruined [our relationship]; they have quickly veered from the path that I commanded them, and fashioned for themselves a calf-idol, and are worshiping it and offering sacrifices to it, saying 'These are your gcds, O Israel, that brought you up from the land of Egypt.' (32:7,8)

Rashi, the greatest of biblical exegetes, reads the verse as follows: 

Gcd says to Moses, 'descend from your position of greatness, for I only made you great because of them.' At the very moment that the Jews began worshiping the idol, Moses was cast out before the Heavenly Court.

Rashi speaks across the centuries to tell us something fundamental about the nature of leadership: that leaders are, at best, a reflection of the people they lead.

I have read that most Americans find the current field of presidential candidates lackluster on both sides of the aisle. To be sure, there is no shortage of screaming and divisive rhetoric; boatloads of bombast, mudslinging, jingoism and sloganeering. And no doubt there is an obscene amount of money changing hands. But is there any great demonstration of leadership? of vision? of virtue?

Similarly in Israel: the consensus is that Netanyahu and Yaalon are not great leaders, but they're about the best we can hope for.

Maybe we're looking through the wrong end of the telescope: instead of expecting more of our leaders, we should be expecting more of ourselves, of our society, of our culture. Maybe we have no right to expect better of our leaders until we demand better of ourselves.

Perhaps if we hold ourselves to a higher standard of morality and ethics, we will have more ethical politicians. Perhaps if we hold ourselves to a higher standard of personal integrity, we will have more honest politicians. And perhaps if we hold ourselves to a higher standard of civility, we will have more civil political discourse.

The Torah is saying that virtuous cultures generate virtuous leaders, not the other way around. And for Moynihan's intellectual heirs, that is, any serious student of contemporary culture, that is a very sobering thought in this political season.

Shabbat Shalom.

Body Language - Reflections on Parashat Tetzaveh 5776

(Exodus 27:20 - 30:10)

For whatever reason, the A-lmighty has given me the ability for make friends easily. My wife and kids joke about it, saying that Abba (Father) can make friends with dryer lint, and they smirk every time a total stranger strikes up a conversation with me in the grocery store or on the street. 

So let me tell you about a man of my acquaintance whom we'll call "Joe." 

Joe is a big bear of a man with a long ponytail, the type who greets everybody with a broad toothy smile. He's funny, naturally friendly, and his booming, bellowing laugh is contagious. He is passionate about music and loves to sing. He's a good father and husband. He cooks for his kids, takes them to church, tries to teach them the rights and wrongs of life. In short, Joe is a simple, sweet, good-hearted man.

To look at him today, you wouldn't know that Joe had a very difficult childhood, plagued with many life-threatening illnesses which kept him in hospital for long periods of time. Later, in high school, his father became disabled and they lost their house. He and his family lived in a car for nine months until they found a homeless campground in the woods. Yet somehow, despite ongoing medical issues, he has managed to transcend all this adversity, to keep smiling and to build the life he has for himself today.

What is the connection between Joe and this week's Torah portion?

Put a pin in that question for just a minute.

We read this week of the priestly vestments to be worn by the High Priest of Israel: The linen breeches, the floor-length tunic, the robe, the apron, the belt, the breastplate, the turban and the headband. 

The Torah goes to great length to describe the design of these garments and the beautiful and precious materials used in their manufacture: gold, silver, scarlet wool, rare purple- and blue-dyed cloth, diamonds, rubies, sapphires.

The high priest in his resplendent uniform represents the ideal man: the person who has worked through his issues (with great effort and difficulty) to overcome the baser human instincts; the person who has emerged from the crucible of personal growth and development, clear of mind, healthy in body and pure of spirit, eager and dedicated in the service of Gcd. Indeed, we are taught that every garment he wore was deeply symbolic, and helped atone for some particular human character fault.

Take for example, the tzitz, the golden headband. On it was engraved the words "Kodesh L'ashem", Holy unto Gcd. We are taught that the headband atoned for any temple offering brought in a state of ritual impurity, either purposely or inadvertently; and more broadly, it corrected for the character flaw of azut metzach, of impudence and rebelliousness that could lead to the bringing of such a flawed sacrifice.

The high priest, then, was the great peacemaker, uniting Gcd above with His frequently wayward people below. 

So what does all this have to do with Joe? As I mentioned above, to look at him you would never guess at the difficult life Joe has led.

And to look at him, you would never guess that Joe is Jewish, born of a Jewish mother. 

He shared this information with me quite by accident one day. Of course he knows nothing of the tenets of Judaism, having not received a single hour of religious instruction in his life. But he knows he is a Jew nonetheless.

And then yesterday, I guess Joe felt he had gotten to know me well enough to share something deeply important to him. He pulled me aside, rolled up his sleeve, and showed me one of his tattoos. On his arm, in flawless Hebrew, was boldly engraved "Kodesh L'ashem."



What he didn't know was that he showed me his tattoo the very week that those words are read publicly in the annual Torah reading cycle in every synagogue on the planet. 

I asked if he knew what the words meant, and he said that he'd looked them up. Joe neither reads nor writes Hebrew, yet, of all the myriad tattoos one could commission, he chose to have engraved on his body, in Hebrew, "Holy unto the Lcrd." It spoke to him, but couldn't explain why.

Here's why: his Jewish soul, deprived as it has been of any traditional, healthy conduit of Jewish spirituality, found expression in this tattoo.

There are many many "Joe"s in the world; people who may not even consciously realize that they seek a path back home, who yearn for a connection with the higher spirituality that the High Priest of Israel represents, who have a deep-seated calling to be Kodesh L'ashem.

The messianic age approaches. We the cognoscenti, those who have been blessed with a Torah education, those instructed in the proper ways of devotion to Gcd, must (like the High Priest) overlook the inadvertent transgressions of our people, and pave the spiritual path back home with Torah Shel Ahavah - the Torah of Love and Kindness and Compassion. 

Shabbat Shalom.

Debate Teams - Reflections on Parashat BeShalach 5776

(Exodus 13:17-17:16)

Dennis Miller, the famed SNL comedian, once said about the Jews: "Left to themselves in a world of peace, the worst Jews would ever do to people is debate them to death."

But for the Jews that we encounter in this week's parashah, the world was anything but peaceful, nor was that angry world going to leave them in peace. Only seven days after the tenth and most horrible plague, the death of the Egyptian firstborn and the ensuing Exodus from Egypt, crisis returns with a fury:

"....And the Children of Israel looked up and Behold! Egypt was bearing down on them..."

Gcd had commanded Moses to shepherd the Children of Israel onto a peninsula jutting out into the Reed Sea; on the face of it, not the most clever of military strategies. Pharaoh quickly capitalized on this military blunder. The mighty Egyptian army, composed of thousands of foot soldiers, archers and lancers, plus hundreds of armored chariots pulled by massive war horses; indeed, the mightiest and most feared fighting force of its time, now choked off the neck of the peninsula. Check, and it certainly looked like checkmate.

The Children of Israel faced an immediate and existential crisis. How did we react to the blockade? True to form, we held a debate.

According to the Midrash there was a four way dispute: one group felt it was better to commit a Masada-style group suicide by drowning in the sea than to ever be taken back to Egypt in shackles; the second group argued that life as slaves was preferable to death as freemen and advocated surrender; the third group wanted to fight the Egyptians head-on; and the fourth group felt that prayer was the only option.

All four groups were yelling at Moses, each out-shouting the next one, each trying to convince him of the logic of their position. Finally Moses says:  "Do not be afraid. Stand your ground and see the salvation that the Lcrd will do for you on this very day; for that which you see the Egyptians today, you will never set eyes upon them again. Gcd Himself will fight your battle for you and you will remain silent."

The Midrash interprets these verses as a rebuke to all four camps: Stand your ground [meaning: don't jump in the sea and drown yourselves]...for that which you see the Egyptians today, you will never set eyes upon them again [meaning: no going back to Egypt under any circumstances.] Gcd Himself will fight your battle for you [meaning: you will not have to fight them] and you will remain silent [meaning: now is the time for action, not prayer.]

But...there was a fifth group, very small in number, perhaps just one person. (There is a dispute in the Talmud about who it was exactly, either Benjaminites or Nachshon the son of Aminadav from the Tribe of Judah.) They had the moral clarity to realize that Gcd had not led them this far only to abandon them at the eleventh hour. Pushed aside by the debaters who hogged center stage, these intrepid few bypassed the debate altogether and simply did what had to be done. 

There was no going back, to the right, or to the left, so they just moved forward, into the sea, trusting that Gcd would open the path at the moment that He chose as appropriate.

And the sea parted before them.

Today as well, diaspora Judaism faces an existential crisis. If establishment communal leaders acknowledge the problem at all, it is by engaging in vociferous yet inconclusive debate. I hear the echoes from the banks of the Sea of Reeds. 

Some tell me that the communal hari-kari to which we are witness is inevitable, and that the most we can hope for is to keep dancing until the music stops. Others say that embracing intermarriage and assimilation is the way solve the problem of intermarriage and assimilation. Yet others want to fight, and others argue the best course of action is to retreat and pray.

When, as a community rabbi, I propose solutions to the pressing problems of our community, I am lectured by well-meaning Jewish leaders about what is achievable, what is fundable, what will get through the communal debate process. 

That process is designed first and foremost to never offend the donor class; second, to mitigate liability; and third, to protect the bureaucratic mandarins and their petty fiefdoms who control the purse-strings and pick the winners and losers in Jewish communal life. 

All this results in stasis, in leadership by lowest common denominator, which usually shakes out to mean 'do nothing' or 'keep doing what we did before.'

Dennis Miller was yucking it up, but we are literally debating ourselves to death. 

Crisis requires true Jewish leadership, not technocrats; men and women who have the moral clarity of a Nachshon to step forward and take bold action when the situation demands. 

Torah-based leaders are not content to allow their fellow Jews to assimilate into oblivion. The commandment "Do not stand on the blood of thy neighbor" rings in their ears, and it motivates them to act. True leaders also understand that their initiatives will never be funded by the ossified Jewish establishment, because the establishment is part of the problem, not part of the solution. So they bypass it and move forward anyway.

Be the Nachshon in your family, in your community. Be that person. Ignore the naysayers, because they will always find fifty reasons not to do a good thing. Act. Take the first step, and Gcd will smooth the path before you.

Goethe expressed a similar sentiment when he wrote: "...the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no (human) could have dreamed would come his way."

As surely as the sea parted for the Children of Israel at the Sea of Reeds, the sea will part for the modern day Nachshons as well, and untold lives will be saved by their selflessness and heroism.

Shabbat Shalom.

The Salvation Cycle - Reflections on Parashat Shemot 5776

(Exodus 1:1-6:1)

What would you say is the defining event of the Book of Shemot/Exodus? The Ten Plagues? The Parting of the Red Sea? The Giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai? The building of the Tabernacle/Mishkan?

The Sforno (16th Century, Italy) says "None of the Above." He has a radically different perspective on this Book, which he sees as a cautionary tale on the future of the Jewish People. From his introduction to the Book of Shemot:

And it is related in Gcd's Second Book, that the Seed of Israel then began to violate the covenant of their forefathers in Egypt, as the prophet Ezekiel attests when he says, "...and they rebelled against me, and no longer desired to listen to Me, no one throwing away the abominations of his eyes, no one abandoning the Egyptian idolatries...[and I/Gcd resolved]...to pour out My wrath upon them, and to vent My anger on them in the Land of Egypt to work them with rigor." Until a small portion of them did teshuvah and prayed, and a messenger [Moses] came before them and saved them. 

The Sforno sees all the events we mentioned above in this context. Divine salvation from the ruinous famine led to relief for the clan of Jacob and relocation to Goshen; the Israelites became numerous and comfortable in Egypt, and once the generation of the twelve sons died, the old ways were quickly forgotten; punishment came in the form of enslavement to the Egyptians, until a core group did teshuvah and triggered Divine mercy and salvation, aka the Exodus from Egypt.

We can call it the Salvation Cycle:

Divine Salvation Leads to

Relief Leads to

Affluence/Complacency Leads to

Backsliding Leads to

Punishment/Enslavement/Exile Leads to

Teshuvah Leads to

Divine Salvation.

This is the grand leitmotif of all of Jewish History. Ma'aseh Avot Siman L'Banim: The events in the lives of our ancestors create precedents which we see played out in our own lives.

Fast forward to America, 2015: Hundreds of thousands of Jewish families left Eastern Europe between 1880 and 1920, thus being spared the fate of European Jewry in the flames of the crematoria. After relocating to America, the Jews became numerous and comfortable in their new land, and once the generation of religious Bubbies and Zaydes died out, the old Jewish ways were quickly forgotten. 

In this, the final spin of the Salvation Cycle, punishment now comes in the form of suicide-by-happy-pills. Judaism in America is dying out, but not because of murder or enslavement by Roman Legionnaires or Czars or Hitlers or any other external oppressor. This go 'round we are more like opium addicts, buzzed out and in a really good place, too high to realize that the opium is really poison: shutting down our organs, destroying our minds, and deadening our spirits. 

But those who are wise enough to learn the lessons of Jewish history recognize the pattern. It is said that a problem identified is a problem half solved, and we certainly know how to solve this one - we've done it over and over again for well on 4,000 years.

Indeed, there is hope for American Jewry:  Teshuvah - a return to what the Sforno calls the Brit Avot, the Covenant of Our Ancestors: Deepening our connection to Gcd through Torah study and performing mitzvot. Keeping the Shabbat. Keeping Kosher. Keeping the Laws of Family Purity. Educating our children in Torah.

But how to get there from here?

I am indebted to my friend and colleague, Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer, for bringing to my attention an recent newspaper article by Dr. Steven Cohen entitled, Lessons Learned from Orthodoxy's Dramatic Growth (New York Jewish Week, November 29, 2015). In it, he examines the root causes for the imperviousness of the Orthodox to what I have described above as the "Happy Pills":

The “secret” of Orthodox retention and expansion can be summarized by a five-letter acronym: PRICE. That is, they exhibit extraordinary Passion about Jewish norms and purpose. They perform numerous religious Rituals. They maintain high rates of Informal association (more spouses, friends, and neighbors who are Jewish). They engaged in Community — be it in synagogues, organizations, charities, or political-like activity. And they undertake Educational activities, be it learning groups for themselves or sending their children to day school, overnight camps or to Israel for a very influential gap year.

Similarly, non-Orthodox Jews who follow the same path exhibit extraordinary success in raising their children as committed and active Jews. [emphasis mine]

The Salvation Cycle doesn't care if you call yourself Reform, Conservative or Orthodox. Teshuvah applies to everybody, because despite these divisive labels, despite what the High Priests of Pluralism would have you believe, there is but One Gcd, One Torah, and One Jewish People.

As far back as 1933 Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook wrote:

The Jewish people have become divided into two camps, through the categorization of Jews as Charedi (religious) and Chofshi (secular). These are new terms, which were not used in the past. Of course, not everyone is identical, especially in spiritual matters; but there was never a specific term to describe each faction. In this respect, we can certainly say that previous generations were superior to ours.

By emphasizing this categorization, we obstruct the path toward improvement and growth in both camps. Those who feel that they belong to the religious camp look down upon the secular camp. If they think about teshuvah and improvement, they immediately cast their eyes in the direction of the secularists, devoid of Torah and mitzvot. They are confident that full repentance is required by the irreligious, not by them.

The secular Jews, on the other hand, are convinced that any notion of penitence is a religious concept, completely irrelevant to their lives.

It would be better if we would all concentrate on examining our own defects, and judge others generously. It could very well be that others have treasure-troves of merits, hidden from sight. We should recognize that there exists in each camp a latent force leading toward goodness. Each camp has much to improve upon, and could learn much from the positive traits of the other camp.

Let us be known to each other by one name — Klal Yisrael. 

I call upon every single congregational rabbi of every "denomination"; I call upon every local Jewish Federation, in this community and in every American community, to take a principled stand for Teshuvah.

To survive we must shake off our spiritual torpor, we must push harder, reach for a new goal. It's OK to sweat a little; to raise the bar in performing mitzvot, to stretch and struggle to reach the next milestone in Torah study. 

It is a matter of simple self-preservation that we must return to the standards of normative halachah in a way that is compatible with modernity, and in a way that preserves intellectual integrity and joie de vivre. It can be done and it must be done.

Are you willing to get out of your comfort zone and pay the "PRICE" necessary to ensure the perpetuation of Judaism as an organic and living faith system in your family? Or do we just continue passing around the opium bowl?

Shabbat Shalom.

[For an earlier blog post on this Parasha, click HERE.]

Don't Touch That Dial! - Reflections on Parashat Mishpatim 5775

(For an earlier blog post on Mishpatim, click HERE.)

Up till now, the Torah's narrative has been intense, dramatic, emotional: the Creation of the Universe, the Great Flood, the lives of the Patriarchs, the vicious enslavement of Joseph and his meteoric rise to Viceroy of Egypt, slavery and the Ten Plagues, the Parting of the Sea, the Revelation at SInai. Woof! What a ride! It's the kind of heady stuff that captures your imagination and keeps you glued to your seat.

But in Parashat Mishpatim, the Torah abruptly changes gears and deals with dry matters of law. Damages. Torts. Booooring!! Where's the passion? Where's the plot? Where's the conflict? So (true confessions) Mishpatim is where many people sort of...tune out, eyes glazing over. Ready to turn the dial to another channel. 

Consider the first case in our Parasha, the laws of owning a Jewish slave. We moderns shake our heads at these laws. Slavery? The entire civilized world has condemned slavery. A thing of the past, you'll tell me. Barbaric. How can these laws possibly have anything to say to modernity? Moving on.

But hold on to your hats: I'm about to argue that the Jewish laws of slavery are directly and immediately relevant and applicable to our lives, so don't touch that dial quite yet.

It is true that de jure slavery - the institution that permitted a human being to be the property of, and wholly subject to, another - has thankfully passed from this earth, or at least from open view. But there are other, less egregious, forms of slavery. Political slavery, for example. Or economic slavery.

A person working three part-time jobs just to make ends meet, because employers can no longer afford the onerous payroll burden of carrying full-timers - that person is a de facto slave. Part-time employees, in whom only a bare minimum of training or skill development is invested, who are treated as disposable - those people are economic slaves. An employee who can't speak freely for fear of being fired is a slave. 

The working poor are America's most vulnerable underclass, no different than coal miners or piece workers in the needle trades a century ago. (Right now, you are probably wearing clothes make by someone in a third-world country working for about a dollar a day.) And like the slaves of yore, today's workers are grateful for the few crumbs they are thrown, because they are all too aware that many have even less.

The threat of job loss is a form of slavery through economic intimidation, because you are wholly subject to the whims of another human being. Being economically dependent on another is a form of slavery, because your personal autonomy has been effectively stripped from you. "Work or starve" is not a meaningful choice.

Now I'm not going all Che Guevara on you, I'm simply trying to disabuse you of the notion that slavery doesn't exist in the United States of America today. 

And it was to this kind of slavery which Rav Avraham Isaac HaCohen Kook was referring when he said that slavery is part of the human condition. 

Whether we like it or not, slavery exists, and since it exists, the Torah deals with it, insisting that it be humane, limited, regulated; that the slave be given rights under the law; that his servitude is a form of indenture for which he is entitled to compensation. The Torah's conception of limited slavery was a method of economic rehabilitation through which the servant could learn a trade at the side of his master, and upon his emancipation in six years (or less), be self-supporting. 

And how could a Jew become a slave to another Jew anyway? In only one of two ways: either, due to his desperate circumstances, by offering himself into servitude in exchange for room and board, or else a thief who cannot make restitution is sold to his victim to repay his debt through labor. A thief, who stole out of dire necessity. Do you see any passion here? The conflict behind the law? 

The verse later states, "And when you lend money to My people, the poor in your midst, don't constantly dun them for payment..." (Shmot/Exodus 22:24) Rashi states that "Gcd's people" are defined by the next phrase: the poor, the oppressed, the widow, the orphan, the disadvantaged. "Gcd is close to the brokenhearted, and those who have had their spirits crushed, He saves." (Psalms 34) "The outcry of the poor You surely hear; the moans of the indigent You pay close attention to, and save them."

The grand, unifying theme throughout all the 53 laws laid down in our Parasha is how we, as individuals, must treat the poor. We dare not avert our eyes to their plight, or leave it to others to deal with it. Not to be treated as pitiable charity cases, but whenever possible, helping them grow out of slavery and into more productive, more enriching, more ennobling work.

That is why the Parasha opens with a case deliberately designed to shock us out of our complacency: a person so desperate, he is willing to ransom his very liberty for a mere crust of bread. 

It's easy to profess love of Gcd, to declare from the mountaintops your belief in the Ten Commandments which immediately precede our verses. But if you truly wish to "Seek out Gcd where He is to be found," Parashat Mishpatim gives you a pretty strong hint where to look. 

Shabbat Shalom.

The Super Bowl Challenge - Reflections on Parashat BeShalach 5775

(To read an earlier blog post on this parasha, click here.)

Unless you live under a rock, you know that this weekend is Super Bowl Sunday - the culmination of a football season that began last August; the match up of the two best teams in football, both vying for the rarefied title of champion.

Americans can't get enough of pro football, and they spend insane amounts of time and money on this pastime. Devotees spend twenty hours a week or more watching games during the regular season, and hours more analyzing the games, studying the stats, and preparing for the next Sunday. 

This obsession makes the NFL a lot a money - annual revenues of $10 billion, while the 32 NFL franchise teams themselves are worth a cumulative $45 billion. Beer-bellied Joes who will never throw a real football in competition fuel the 
$70 billion fantasy football industry.

Then consider a few stats about the Super Bowl itself:

- An estimated 120 million people will watch the game on Sunday - 40% of the entire country.

- A stadium seat costs upwards of $4,000; tickets on the 50 yard line, a cool $10,000.

- The airtime cost of a 30-second commercial is $4.5 million. 

- More food and alcohol are consumed in the United States on Super Bowl Sunday than on any other day of the year save Thanksgiving.

The numbers are so large that it is hard to wrap your brain around the enormity and impact of football in American life.

But what on earth does the Super Bowl have to do with the parting of the Reed Sea? 

Shemot/Exodus 14:2: "Speak to the Children of Israel and have them turn back and encamp before Pi-HaChirot, between Migdol and the Sea, opposite Baal-Zephon."

For a week after leaving Egypt, the Pillar of Cloud/Fire led the Jewish People on a seemingly random perambulation through the northeastern approaches to Egypt. Now they were instructed to encamp on a peninsula, surrounded on three sides by water, opposite Baal Zephon. 

Earlier, Gcd had promised to render judgment against the deities of Egypt, that is, to expose them all for the frauds that they were. And during the Ten Plagues, He had systematically done so, except for one: Baal Zephon, the last Egyptian god standing...

...and perhaps their most important deity. And so it was arranged that the ultimate smackdown between Gcd and Pharaoh, Israel and Egypt would take place at the foot of the shrine to Baal Zephon. The Egyptians took heart: if all the other Egyptian deities had failed them, surely Baal Zephon would rescue them in their hour of need!

What did this supremely important deity represent to the Egyptians?

Our sages teach us that Baal Zephon was the god of money. This shrine was placed on the northern trade routes into Egypt; all caravans entering Egypt had to pay heavy tribute to this god. (Can you see where I'm going with this?)

For all the talk about the game itself, the NFL is big business. Stripped of all the pageantry and accoutrements, it's all about the money. 

Now there's nothing wrong with making money. But when the profit motive is unalloyed with social and ethical considerations; when the relentless quest for short-term gain blinds the entrepreneur to long-term consequences, strategy and planning, then slash-and-burn capitalism can become idol worship, Baal Zephon.

Usually, the higher interests of ethical behavior can run together with the interests of profit. But occasionally those interests diverge, and when they do, there are decisions to be made. Each individual has to evaluate their priorities for themselves. When your boss asks you to bend the rules, to maybe cheat or steal a little to close the big sale, what will you do? Character is destiny, and lives are established or shattered on decisions such as these.

The NFL's reaction to the recent spate of player indiscretions, cheating allegations and other misbehavior clearly establishes that, so far as the NFL is concerned, that which bolsters the bottom line is to be condoned, and that which damages it is to be condemned. 

Baal Zephon. The almighty dollar is king.

Now I'm not being prudish here; I enjoy football and will probably watch the game myself. But the Super Bowl presents an opportunity to make a statement about your priorities. I wonder if the people who can find twenty hours a week for the games spend an equal amount of time studying Torah? Communing with Gcd through prayer? Doing kindnesses for their fellow man? Where do these imperatives rank in comparison to football? Where you spend your time is the truest indicator of what is really important in your life.

Here is the Super Bowl Challenge: for every hour you spend watching football, spend ten minutes studying Torah. It doesn't matter which book: pick any subject that intrigues you. The key thing is to make a statement about priorities: that however much fun football is, there are other things that are more important, more enduring, more meaningful.

Hit me up if you accept the challenge, and let me know how you do. 

I'm rooting for you.

Shabbat Shalom.
Yehoshua

Let's Hear It for The Girls - Reflections on Parashat Shemot 5775

If Bereishit/Genesis, the first book of the Torah, is the story of the Patriarchs, then we must say that Shemot/Exodus is, by and large, the story of Jewish women.

In the very first narrative of the book, we find the Pharaoh bribing the Jewish midwives to accidentally (on purpose) kill the newborn Jewish boys, and let the newborn Jewish girls live. These brave Jewish women defy the Pharaoh, and save the Jewish babies alive.

It is a woman who puts her baby - the future redeemer of Israel - in a waterproof basket to float down the Nile; and it is a young girl who risks her life to keep an eye on that basket from the bulrushes.

Who fishes the baby out of the water and gives him a chance at life? A woman.

Who saves Moses' life by performing an emergency circumcision of their son? A woman.

We are taught that the more the Egyptians tortured and enslaved the Jews, more they increased and multiplied. How so? Because of the self-sacrifice of the Jewish women, who dolled themselves up and shlepped out to fields to consort with their broken, exhausted husbands, reduced as they were to sleeping in the killing fields.

It was the Jewish women who, confident of a great salvation, stood ready at the Reed Sea with musical instruments in hand, while their men were bickering among themselves, bellyaching about surrender.

It was the Jewish women who refused to participate in the death folly of the Golden Calf. It was Jewish women who rejected the report of the cowardly spies, and later on, it was Jewish women who marched right up to Moses and his Council of Sages and made an eloquent plea for the preservation of their family's inheritance in the Land of Israel.

Moses, the Ten Plagues, the Parting of the Red Sea - these are almost side shows compared to the accomplishments of these incredible Jewish women. At every turn of Jewish history, women save the day.

So we must ask: why isn't Shemot called "Jewish Women"? And don't you find it curious that the names of these great women aren't revealed until much later? (PS: The names of the midwives, Shifra and Puah, are a feint, mere noms de guerre.)

Answer: because modesty is the defining characteristic of Jewish Femininity. Jewish women have always eschewed the spotlight, preferring to make their influence felt behind the scenes.

Consider the relationship between  power and influence. Untamed power is raw, capricious, dangerous - like lightning. However, power, if refined, directed, controlled, can be a tremendous force for good - like electricity. 

It is but a small leap to conclude that influence is ultimately more powerful than power itself. Who is more powerful: the king or the kingmaker?

The Author of Life has engineered us such that, in the main, men possess power, and women have influence - meaning the vision, the moral clarity and the ability to direct that power for the Higher Good. 

Jewish history has demonstrated over and over again that when Jewish men ignore the guidance of their wives, they get themselves into serious hot water. "And Gcd said to Abraham: pay heed to whatever your wife Sarah tells you." She had clarity of vision where his perspective was clouded. And Jewish wives have never let us down since.

Like the Yin and the Yang, when men and women work symbiotically, great things can be accomplished in the world, because women's strengths complement men's weaknesses and vice versa. We neither of us can do it on our own.

Judaism is all about balance, about finding the middle path, about holding the center. Tragically, there are strong centrifugal forces pulling Judaism towards the extremes. 

On the right, we are witnessing the islamization of Judaism, with the voice, and indeed, the presence of women, banished from public life. Kol B'Isha Ervah has been rigidly construed to mean that women have no role in Jewish life outside the home: witness the segregated buses, the segregated wedding feasts, the segregated kiddushes, the suffocating neo-Puritanical dress codes of which our grandparents never knew. 

On the left, we have seen the christianization of Judaism, wherein Judaism resembles Unitarianism, only with Jewish stars instead of a crosses; a mitzvah-less, Gcd-less, feel-good Judaism replete with synagogues arranged like churches, women clergy, women cantors, and women serving as lay leaders. Mazal tov! Jewish feminists have proven what we have known anyway for four millenia: that women and men are equally capable. But in arrogating men's power to themselves, they have abdicated their critical role to influence, to guide, to teach, to nurture. And Judaism is immeasurably poorer for it.

Both approaches are fatal. We must look to the Yocheveds, the Miriams, the Zipporahs and the Batyas for guidance. No doubt the greatest accomplishments of Jewish women have yet to be made. And no doubt that they will most assuredly be made by holding the Jewish center; by working together with their husbands, supporting one another, guiding one another, helping one another, to perfect the world for the Kingdom of Heaven.

Shabbat Shalom.