October 16, 2015 - Righteous in a Generation

Parashat Noah - October 16, 2015
Rabbi Julie Pelc Adler, Congregation Am Echod in Lindenhurst
 

In surfing the internet, I recently came upon a website called “Mentsch-craft”, a site designed to explain and clarify what it means to be a mentsch.  On this website, a ‘Mentschcraft Manual’ is available with suggestions and examples of what a mentsch might do or say in complicated moral or ethical scenarios. What would a mentsch do in such a situation?

Mentsch is a Yiddish word for a person who thinks and acts in ways that make the world a little more just, good, and compassionate. Mentschen aren’t born, they are made—self-made. The philosophy of the website is that everyone has the ability to be a mentsch.

It asks:  What is the most difficult situation you have faced lately?  How did you handle it?  What would a mentsch do in that situation?  Were you a mentsch then?

In our Torah portion this week, we are introduced to a character who may or may not qualify as a mentsch according to the standards of the Mentschcraft website.  We are told,

“This is the line of Noah -- Noah was a righteous man; he was blameless in his generation” (Genesis 6:9).

The first line of this parsha is setting up a pretty big expectation.  The main character of this story is blameless?  What does it mean to be blameless?  What did this righteous person DO to deserve such a description?

God announces that God will end the world, and Noah is informed that he and his family will survive, while all other creatures will perish. God explains that Noah is the last remaining “righteous person”, and he alone merits survival.

Noah does not argue at all.  He simply begins work building the ark to save himself and his immediate family.

Does this mean that in Noah’s generation, there is truly no Godliness left on earth? 

What must God have told Noah about these people in order to convince him that he is truly the only one worthy of salvation? 

Ironically, God describes these supposedly wicked people with tenderness and sensitivity. God says to Noah, “for my part, I am about to bring the flood -- waters upon the earth -- to destroy all flesh in which there is a breath of life from under the heavens; everything that is in the earth shall expire” (Gen 6:17).

God is describing these creatures by saying that they have inside them a “breath of life from under the heavens”. When God tells Noah his plans to destroy the world, is God giving Noah a decree, or is God asking Noah a question?

It seems to me that God is asking Noah a fundamental identity question: what kind of man are you? 

Righteous and blameless in your generation? 

Will you be interested in your own self-preservation, or will you be concerned with all life -- all creation? 

Will you listen to the orders of others without asking questions or challenging assumptions, or will you forget that you, too, have “a breath of life from under the heavens” inside of you? 

Noah’s response to the flood is a telling answer to God’s question: “And Noah did according to everything God commanded him, so he did” (Gen 6:21). 

This statement of obedience is repeated a few lines later.  Interestingly, the second time this response appears, it, too, comes immediately following another of God’s threats to wipe out all creation.  God says: “I will blot out all existence that I have made from upon the face of the earth.” God is asking telling Noah again, this time in different language, “everyone else shall die and only you and your family will survive.  I will blot out everyone who is not in your immediate circle of responsibility.” 

Although God seems careful to rephrase God’s plan for the flood, Noah repeats the exact response as his last:  “And Noah did according to everything God commanded him” (Gen 7:5).  

We often have a choice between doing what others expect of us and choosing the path of resistance. 

We live in a world where decrees are given to us every day.  These decrees may not come directly from God’s mouth to our ears, but we are bombarded by messages in society, problems in our world, and other creations of God which need our attention and concern. 

We often dismiss God’s creatures, the other “flesh in which there is a breath of life from under the heavens” as not our responsibility. 

Noah set a precedent for walking past a homeless man without smiling or making eye contact.  Noah was the first to neglect the environment, dismissing it as “not his problem”.  Although he took two of each animal into the ark with him, he was not the first animal rights activist.  He was willing to walk away from every creature in the world, walk away from their pain and struggle without a backward glance. 

As long as his family, his life, his own needs were taken care of, there was no need for him to worry about saving anyone or anything else.

The first line of the Torah portion is “this is the line of Noah -- this is the legacy of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation.”  What does it mean that we are the offspring of Noah?  Are we righteous and blameless in our generation? 

It seems the text is pointing out the choice Noah made-- and asking each of us to give our own answer to God’s question.  What kind of creatures are we?  What does it mean to be human?  

My hope and prayer is that we learn from Noah’s example that being righteous and blameless is the minimum requirement for our standards of behavior. 

Each day, we are given opportunities to answer the question, “what kind of person are you?  How do you compare to those in your generation?” 

I believe that we can set the standard higher than did Noah.  I believe that we can, through acts of kindness, reaching out to others not in our immediate circle of responsibility, becoming active in our local, national, and religious communities, and working to repair the world -- we can truly transcend Noah’s limits and not only become righteous and blameless in our own generation, but become mentsches -- people who make the world a little more just, good, and compassionate.

Shabbat Shalom!

October 9, 2015 - The Obligation to Enjoy Pleasure

Parashat Bereishit - October 9, 2015
Rabbi Julie Pelc Adler, Congregation Am Echod in Lindenhurst
 

In the World to Come we will be held accountable for every pleasure we saw with our eyes in This World, but chose not to enjoy. (Jerusalem Talmud, Kiddushin 66d)  When I first heard this teaching I imagined God waging a divine finger and saying: “What about that organic kosher cream puff? I sent you a cream puff and you didn’t eat it, what were you thinking?”

A friend’s teacher taught me the full implications of this teaching. My friend tells the story about having used this quote from the Talmud in an academic paper he wrote in college. Many years later, after they had become friends, she told him that when she was reading his paper, she had she just met someone and fallen in love. Both of them were in their sixties and neither of them expected the intensity of the pull they felt towards each other at that moment in their lives. However her boyfriend had just been diagnosed with an advanced cancer and they both were unsure if it was wise to start a new relationship when it was unclear how long they would have together.

But when my friend’s teacher read these ancient words, she realized that it was a sacred obligation to seize the pleasure of each other's company; even if they only had one moment together. 

My friend talks about how his teacher’s boyfriend died less than two years after they met and that this teacher cared for her boyfriend through the last days of his illness and eased his death through extraordinary acts of kindness and radical compassion.

The Jerusalem Talmud tells us that we are accountable for shunned pleasures, because to ignore pleasure is also to shut ourselves off from the realty of pain and the obligations of caring for the world and each other. 

This week we begin to read the Torah anew with Parshat Bereshit.

There are two primary accounts of the creation of humanity in our portion.

In chapter one Adam is created by the abstract divine word in the image of God and commanded to have dominion over the rest of creation.

In chapter two “adam”, the earthling, is created out of the “adamah,” the dust of the earth and commanded to till and safeguard the Garden of Eden.

It is the Adam of chapter two who asks God for a partner to love and care for.

The great modern Jewish thinker, Rav Jospeh Soloveitchik, pointed out that the first Adam emphasizes humanity's creative God-like nature, capable of transforming the world. The second Adam reflects our animal-like side who seeks to delight in the pleasures of the world: freshly grown produce, love and companionship.

We often think about global social justice from the perspective of the Adam of chapter one – we see that the world is broken and feel compelled to fix it using our creative, domineering capacity to make change. 

 However, this way of working alone can easily lead to a sense of hopelessness. After all, despite how much we do or give, we know that next year when we come back to Parshat Bereshit the chances are high that the world will still need fixing. 

An 1880 report on famine in India notes: “There is an abundance of food procurable even in the worst districts at the worst time… they starve not from the impossibility of getting food but for the want of money to buy it.” A statement which is as frustratingly relevant today, as it was 136 years ago.

This year as we begin the Torah again, let us also think about world change from the perspective of Adam of chapter 2. 

What if instead of talking about justice work with the language of “what we ought to do…” we framed it in the language of being drawn to social change because of delighting in our world and its capacity for transformation? 

Yes, our world and the humanity that lives within it are broken but we are also startlingly resilient. 

The two sides of human nature described in our parasha cannot be separated.

As my friend’s teacher realized - to be open to the pleasure of the fullness of this world is also to be vulnerable to its pain.

To see and hear each pleasure that our world offers us naturally leads us to be compelled to care for and protect that world and one another. 

In the coming year, may we take pleasure in our world at the same time as we expose ourselves to its pain – so that in the World to Come we will not be held accountable for refusing to engage in the hard long-term work of global social justice or the divine delight of an organic, kosher cream puff!

October 2, 2015 - The Fall Holidays and the Hokey Pokey

Shabbat Chol HaMoed Sukkot - October 2, 2015
Rabbi Julie Pelc Adler, Congregation Am Echod in Lindenhurst

What if the hokey pokey is what it’s all about?

I saw this saying on a bumper sticker, and ever since then, I’ve been certain that this is a very wise, very Jewish idea.

Think about it:

You put your whole self in,

You put your whole self out,

You put your whole self in,

And shake it all about!

On Rosh Hashanah, we put our whole selves in: we reflect on our thoughts, behaviors, and relationships – we take an inventory of our whole selves.  Then, on Yom Kippur, it can be argued that we take our whole selves out – we don’t eat, we don’t drink, we don’t bathe or anoint ourselves; we don’t engage in physical or sexual activities.

And now, it is Sukkot, the next holiday in our busy autumn of Jewish festivals. 

Sukkot is all about turning ourselves around, shaking ourselves about.

On Sukkot, we leave the comfort of our daily lives and literally dwell outside in flimsy Sukkot, intentionally temporary and fragile compared to the temperature controlled, well-lit and insulated houses we normally choose.

On Sukkot, we invite neighbors and guests to our table – there is even a tradition of ushpizin – inviting unseen guests – like our ancestors, people from our collective and personal histories who are not physically alive anymore, into our Sukkot.

On Sukkot, we move from introspection, solitude, fasting, and theoretical new years’ resolutions to the realm of action.

We go outside to build Sukkot.

We are commanded to gather together the four different species of plants into our hands: the three branches of the leafy lulav is pressed against the skin of the etrog and (as we just did in the Sukkah outside the temple tonight) we shake it all about!

Tradition teaches that the etrog and lulav represent a person. The palm looks like a backbone, a spine. The myrtle leaves remind us of our eyes. The willow leaves appear like a mouth. And the etrog is shaped similar to a heart.

In the hokey pokey – we take one part of our bodies at a time: first one arm, then the other, then our legs, our front sides, our back sides, our heads, then finally our whole selves in.  If we were to follow the order of the spiritual interpretation of the significance of the parts of lulav and etrog, we would instead put our backbones in / then our eyes / our mouths / then, our hearts, before we’d shake it all about.

What would it mean to participate in life and in community with each of these parts of our bodies?  To really put our backbones, our eyes, our mouths, and our hearts in as we lived our daily lives?

1) What might it mean to put our backbones IN?

-     We’d better decisions

-     We’d have better boundaries with ourselves and those we love

-     We might give more to our community or we might give less!

-     We would use our strengths – that part of us which holds things together, our literal backbones -  for good in the community.

2) What might it mean to put our eyes IN?

-     We’d use our special skills to see things in a new way, enlightening those around us with our unique insights

3) What might it mean to put our mouths IN?

- We’d be more thoughtful about the words we speak, and the words we refrain from speaking

- We’d avoid gossip, we’d reach out to those in need, we’d offer words of kindness and support to our friends and neighbors.

4) What might it mean to put our hearts IN?

- We would love with our whole hearts, we’d “dance like no one was watching”, “love like we’d never been hurt”

- We’d give only as much as we received; we’d respect our emotional selves and care for our own hearts, never being reckless with our own hearts or the hearts of others.

What would it mean to shake them all about?

We would do everything completely differently than is usually our pattern!

I really think the hokey pokey is what it’s all about.

Other people seem to agree with me.  Down the street from where I used to live in Venice, California, there is a recovery house for people recovering from addictions.  Every morning, as I walked by, I could hear them singing the hokey pokey.  At first I thought it was just a kitchy part of their morning routine – or, as a fellow passerby remarked, “it must be an exercise in playfulness, or a way to get them all to practice following directions”.  But I now believe that these recovering addicts are coming to understand a fundamental truth about life, about change, about teshuvah.

You put your whole self in,

You put your whole self out,

You put your whole self in,

And shake it all about!

Shabbat Shalom!