The Nobel Al Gore

Parashat Lech Lecha 5768

October is a good time of the year. The High Holidays are over. The World Series is about to begin. The Cowboys are 5-1. Most important, the Michigan Wolverines seem to have reversed their early season disasters. And it’s awards season in Stockholm.

Last week saw the awarding of the Nobel Prizes in various disciplines. Of course, I could not tell you who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry or Economics but all of us know who won the Nobel Peace Prize, one of the most coveted prizes in the world. Former Vice President Al Gore was the recipient of this year’s Nobel, capping an extraordinary year in which he won two Oscars for An Inconvenient Truth and an Emmy for a similar themed program. If ever a politician attained rock star status, it would be Al Gore.

Now I know that many here may not like our former Vice President. Many think that his movie is full of half-truths and that he does not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. Fair enough. But the issue of climate change, also known as global warming, transcends a personal like or dislike of another individual. It is a fact accepted by the majority of responsible scientists around the world and it is even accepted, albeit grudgingly, by the White House and our current President.

In the year since I first spoke about global warming, the polar ice caps have melted faster than even the most pessimistic models predicted, polar bears are about to become an endangered species, the rainforests have continued to be destroyed, drought is forcing severe watering restrictions in the Southeast states and wildfires run rampant in much of the country. This is not the future that we desire for ourselves, our children or our grandchildren.

There is an interesting story in the Midrash, that great compendium of Jewish legend and lore, about our world. In the Book of Ecclesiastes, we read (Eccl. 7.13): “Consider the work of God; for who can make straight that which God has made crooked?” In the Midrash Ecclesiastes Rabbah, the story is told:

When the Holy and Blessed One created the first man, God took him and led him around all the trees of the Garden of Eden, and said to him, ‘Behold My works, how beautiful and commendable they are! All that I have created, for your sake I created it. Pay heed that you do not corrupt and destroy My universe; for if you corrupt it, there is no one to repair it after you.

If you corrupt it, there is no one to repair it after you. That is a sobering thought, one written about 2,000 years ago. Yet it still speaks to us today. We are the caretakers of the planet and we have not done a very good job of it.

When I was a kid, I went to a Jewish camp outside of Detroit. The highlight of each summer was the week-long trip to the outpost in Northern Michigan where we would spent about 5 days hiking and camping in the pine forests near Charlevoix. We would hike up and down steep hills, cross ravines, forage for wild foods and do all the great things that campers and backpackers do. It was a lot like the Boy Scouts but it was under Jewish auspices.

Like the Boy Scouts, we learned the basic rules of interacting with the environment, rules such as taking care of trash and, especially, leaving your campsite cleaner than how you found it. It was a valuable lesson for me to learn; how to live in harmony with nature. Not only did proper procedures keep the bears and raccoons at bay, we left little evidence that we had actually been visiting these places. And that is how it should be.

Had we accidently burned down a forest, we would have violated God’s command to Adam, to take care of God’s planet. After all, in the Psalms it says, “The earth belongs to the Eternal”. Who are we to destroy the planet if it belongs to God? We just do not have that right.

Last week, we read the story of Noah. We all know the story, God commanded Noah to build an Ark and Noah took the animals, two by two, into the Ark and set sail when God unleashed the Flood, whose rains lasted 40 days and 40 nights.

Looking at it from the perspective of an environmentalist, we can recast the story without changing its essence: God commanded Noah to build an Ark. Logic – and Jewish tradition – tells us that this building project took a long time. After all, Noah was working alone and he was also 600 years old. Why did God not just create the Ark – or get someone to help him? According to tradition, the reason that the Ark took so long to build was to encourage questions of Noah. If people would walk by his worksite and see him sawing and hammering, God wanted them to ask Noah why he was building the Ark. Noah’s answer was supposed to motivate the people to repent and change their wicked ways. That of course did not happen. Noah, according to the environmentalist Midrash, then collected samples of the planet’s biodiversity and placed them on the Ark, the greatest floating zoo and arboretum in all of history. He then rode out the “mother of all storms”, which cleansed the earth, and became the second Adam.

Now I am not saying that Al Gore is our generation’s Noah; mainly because I do not believe that he is a prophet in the wilderness. People are listening to him, and others, who worry about climate change and the impact that will have on our planet. And the little things that we are doing will indeed make a difference.

Last Yom Kippur morning, I showed you the cute little CFL light bulb. I urged this congregation to change out as many conventional bulbs as possible, not just to reduce energy use but also to save money. I only wish that we had followed up systematically to see how many bulbs were changed out. But after hearing from only about a dozen people, I can safely say that among this group, over 500 conventional light bulbs were exchanged for CFL bulbs, saving these congregants hundreds of kilowatt hours and, in the long run, hundreds of dollars. It is a small but important step forward.

At our house, we have learned to live with our thermostats set about two degrees higher than they were last summer. This alone has reduced our energy consumption and dramatically reduced our electric bill. Granted, this summer was much cooler than last summer but still, the savings were significant. We also purchased an energy reader so that we can track kilowatt usage on an immediate basis, without waiting for the monthly electric bill. At night, we can keep our electric bill anywhere from 6 – 15 cents an hour and, during the day, reduce consumption significantly as well – all by just looking at the meter, turning off lights and unplugging unused appliances and computers.

There are many more ways that we as individuals can work to save God’s world. There are many ways that we as a congregation can go green as well. We use CFL lights in this building and our air conditioners are on programmed thermostats. We are looking to recycle paper and other waste products and we have taken steps to reduce the heat generated by the large glass panels at the front door.

Ultimately, however, government and industry will have to step up and shoulder the greatest burden. The Detroit auto industry is getting creamed by the Japanese in part because Toyotas and Hondas offer better gas mileage. And while many Americans don’t buy a car based upon environmental factors, they do buy cars based upon miles per gallon. With gas being so expensive, an additional five or ten miles per gallon is often the deciding factor in a car purchase. That greater mpg rating is an environmental factor; when we purchase less gas, we are making the world a cleaner place.

This week, Ben will read about Avram, the first Jew. God commands him to go forward to a new place, where he will be a blessing. I have to think that Avram was lucky; things were not working out for him at home and he was able to leave and start over. But for us, where can we go? Where can we go if this planet becomes uninhabitable? The lunar colony is a century away, perhaps.

Fortunately, we have always seemed to solve these vexing problems and I am sure that we will solve the crisis of climate change. But it will take the effort and talents of all peoples, regardless of ethnic background, gender, religion or political outlook. Answers are coming, from Europe, Asia, Israel, America, everywhere. But it will take vision and commitment – and a whole lot of altruism – to turn the corner. For indeed, this is God’s planet and if we do not take care of it, there will be no one left to do so. On the other hand, if we do take care of it, our descendents will rise up and call us blessed, for centuries to come. May this come to be, for us and for generations to come. Amen.

RAMADAN MUBARAK V’SHANAH TOVAH

EREV ROSH HASHANAH 5768

When the Gates of Repentance was first published, my rabbinic colleagues and I were highly amused by the Ashamnu acrostic in the Yom Kippur liturgy. For the sins of arrogance, bigotry, cynicism, etc., is how the prayer begins. In the English rendition, the writers of Gates of Repentance created this English a-b-c. When they came to the letter ‘x’, they gave us a case of xenophobia; it was amusing because it was so creative. Xenophobia, the fear of strangers, became an important, if amusing, sin for which we repent.

But more on that later.

For millions of people around the world, tonight marks the beginning of a holy month. Believers will gather in prayer tonight – and often – for the next month. Fasting plays a central role in the ritual observances and houses of worship will be packed. Ramadan begins tonight, the month-long Muslim festival of fasting, feasting, prayer and introspection.

The history of the interaction between Jews and Muslims is complicated one. Both faiths trace their origins to Abraham; we of course are the descendents of his son, Isaac. Muslims, on the other hand, descend from Abraham’s older son, Ishmael, son of Hagar, Sarah’s handmaiden. In the Torah, Sarah forces Abraham to cast off Hagar and Ishmael, who is 13 years Isaac’s senior, because of something that Ishmael did to Isaac at Isaac’s weaning festival. They are banished to the desert but God intervenes and promises Ishmael – through HIS 12 sons – a parallel covenant.

In the Koran, however, it is Ishmael who Abraham almost sacrifices on the altar. When we read the Akedah tomorrow morning, Isaac is the central character. Both ancestors endure this test.

In 7^th Century Arabia, Jews played a prominent role in the economic and social life of the region; the Jews of Yemen were particularly wealthy and influential throughout the peninsula. Praying five times a day, in accordance with an ancient Jewish custom long discarded by the rabbis of Babylonia, they came in contact with Arab traders, including a man named Mohammed. So when Mohammed fled from Mecca to Yatrib, now called al-Medinah, and set in motion the great religious revolution known as Islam, he had a thorough knowledge of Judaism, our laws and our customs.

As Islam spread throughout the Western world, from the Pyrenees on the Spanish-French border through North Africa and the Middle East to India, from the steppes of Russia to the Balkans in Europe, Jews and Christians came to live under Muslim rule. For all those who were not Jewish or Christian, the Muslim conquerors offered a simple choice: Choose Allah or die. Most became Muslim. But Jews and Christians were called “People of the Book”, heirs to holy writ, precursors to the Koran, and so they were tolerated minorities in Muslim lands, often becoming privileged minorities, especially in Muslim Spain, North Africa and Baghdad during the 9^th – 13^th Centuries. This era became known in Jewish history as the Golden Age of Spain. During this time, we find Jewish personalities such as Yehudah HaLevi, Shlomo ibn Gabirol and Moses Maimonides; all giants of Jewish thought. We also find similar greatness among Christians and Muslims of that era.

But even more important, Jews lived in harmony with Muslims and Christians during the Golden Age. While many Jews rose to prominence as merchants, generals, scientists, philosophers and even as Prime Ministers, the average Jew in Spain lived humbly alongside Muslim and Christian neighbors. Life was good.

This was in marked contrast to the Jews of Christian lands. At about the same time that Jews were settled in Spain and North Africa, England and France were expelling their Jews. Germany was divided into hostile feudal states while Italy was under the thumb of Popes who routinely branded us as Christ-killers. This was also the time of the Crusades, a dark chapter indeed in Jewish history.

Jews lived peaceably in the Middle East for centuries, until the rise of Modern Zionism. The Ottoman Empire, which stretched from the Balkans to Baghdad, was also a haven for Jews; many Jews immigrated to the Ottoman lands when the Iberian Peninsula was united under Christian rule in 1492 and the Jews were forced to flee.

Never, I must add, was life perfect. Jews and Christians were always seen as tolerated minorities, worthy of protection and free from most economic restrictions, but still were not the equal to Muslims. In some places, at some times, life was tough. But overall, it was much better to be a Jew living in Medieval Spain than in Medieval Germany and better to be a Jew in 19^th Century Baghdad than in 19^th Century Poland.

So where did it go wrong? How could Jews and Muslims, who share so much in common, be such enemies today? How could Jews and Muslims, with their emphases on tzedakah and zakat, acts of righteousness both, be so uncharitable towards each other? How can Jews and Muslims, who are commanded to pray daily, pray for each other’s destruction? There is something terribly wrong here.

There are many reasons for the enmity but I think that it goes back to the three great –ism’s of the late 19^th Century: Zionism, nationalism and colonialism. And they are all related. Zionism of course, is our historical dream of a return to Eretz Yisrael. Nationalism is the philosophical school of thought that spawned Modern Zionism. And colonialism enabled the early Jewish settlers to establish a government under British rule at the end of World War I. Taken together, these three –ism’s led to the birth of the modern State of Israel.

From a Muslim perspective, however, these same three –ism’s, Zionism, Nationalism and Colonialism drove the Arabs off of the land and, just as important, put Jerusalem’s holy places in the hands of the Jews. The Dome of the Rock and the al Aqsa Mosque, both located on the Temple Mount, are two of the holiest sites of Islam – and they are located on top of the remains of the Second Temple, the holiest site to the Jews. With the rise of Arab nationalism, reclaiming these sites is both a political and a religious imperative. And so, because of these –ism’s, Jews and Muslims have been locked in a bitter struggle for the past century.

The truly sad aspect of our relationship with Muslims today is that whenever somebody says the word Muslim, the words “suicide bomber” often follow. And if they don’t, we often supply these words in our heads. Unfortunately, we have bitter reason to think this way; after all, Jews, Christians and Buddhists don’t blow themselves up in God’s name. It is a terrible aspect of Islam that suicide bombers are so prevalent. Israel has been the prime target of these bombers, as has the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, whose bombings we remembered yesterday.

But to characterize all Muslims as terrorists is wrong, and, at Rosh Hashanah, we can even say that it is a manifestation of the sin of xenophobia. If we paint all Muslims with the broad brush of xenophobia, we are no better than Christians who call Jews crooked, well-poisoners and Christ-killers. We become the bigots and the racists – and we of all people should know better.

Last year on Rosh Hashanah morning, Rabbi Sam Stahl of Temple Beth El of San Antonio spoke of this same issue. He said:

Many otherwise well meaning and intelligent Americans who consider themselves free of prejudice do not hesitate to defame Islam. They have accused Islam of fomenting violence. They have labeled every Muslim a terrorist. Even prominent religious leaders are now spreading obscenities about the faith of Islam and seem to be getting away with it.

Franklin Graham, son of the famed evangelist, Billy Graham, repeatedly charges that the Muslim religion is “wicked, violent, and not of the same God.” He argues that the Koran sanctions hating and killing people who are not Muslim. Similar poisonous words about Islam also hurl forth from the mouths of other prominent evangelists, both locally and nationally.

I would add a comment about another member of the cloth from San Antonio, Pastor John Hagee. Reverend Hagee is well-known in the Jewish community because he founded an organization called Christians United for Israel, or CUFI, for short. His organization has raised millions of dollars for Israel; they hosted an event in Irving last year that raised $35,000 that was deposited into the Federation coffers. His support for Israel is unequivocal.

It sounds great. But it comes with a price. Part of his theology is that Israel and the United States need to go to war with the anti-Christ in order to bring about the Rapture and the Second Coming of Jesus. In this case, the anti-Christ is Iran, allied with Russia.

Yet, Hagee depicted Jews as Christ-killers on the NPR program Fresh Air on September 18, 2006. And on this same show, he said, “Well, Islam in general, those who live by the Koran have a scriptural mandate to kill Christians and Jews.” This is the man who has the ear of the Federation world and of the Bush Administration. Muslims also listen to Hagee and look to us for a response – and we are either complicit or silent.

On August 31 of this year, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the President of the Union for Reform Judaism, our umbrella organization, made an historic speech before the 44^th Annual Convention of the Islamic Society of North America, meeting in Chicago. He stated:

There exists in this country among all Americans – whether Jews, Christian, or non-believers – a huge and profound ignorance about Islam. It is not that stories about Islam are missing from our media; there is no shortage of voices prepared to tell us that fanaticism and intolerance are fundamental to Islamic religion, and that violence and even suicide bombing have deep Koranic roots. There is no lack of so-called experts who are eager to seize on any troubling statement by any Muslim thinker and pin it on Islam as a whole. Thus, it has been far too easy to spread the image of Islam as enemy, as terrorist, as the frightening unknown.

Here is the point: Xenophobia, the fear of the stranger, is one of the greatest dangers – and most grievous sins – that we Jews face today – and this sin is directed most strongly against Muslims. All we know about Muslims and about Islam in general is what we see on television – and most of it is borne out of fear. It is a big deal that these terrorists and suicide bombers are Muslim but not all Muslims are terrorists and not all terrorists are Muslims. Sometimes we forget that in our panic over the Orange Alert that Fox News displays so prominently on television every day. After all, it was a Jewish terrorist who killed dozens of Muslims in Hebron in a Purim massacre and a Jew inspired by the hate coming from the mouths of West Bank settlers who murdered Itzhak Rabin.

But when we stop hating and start listening, great things can happen.

A case in point: Every year, the Mosque across the street has an open house, with talks about Islam, wonderful foods, tours of the Mosque and the like. Two years ago, I brought a group of our B’nai Torah High School students there for this wonderful event. I have to say, we were treated like kings and queens. There was true love and respect coming from the Muslim community. The next week, members of the Mosque come here and continued the discussion with our kids.

Never was there any hostility towards us. In fact, the opposite happened: there was only love and respect for two rich, vibrant and interrelated faith communities. In fact, we discovered that our Midrash and their Midrash were the same Midrash! One of their representatives quoted a saying of the Prophet Mohammed – and I cited its source in Pirke Avot! We learned on the spot that we have a lot more in common than we realized.

It is time to reach out to our brothers and sisters at the Islamic Association and work towards understanding and tolerance. It is time to begin a second Golden Age, this time among Jews, Muslims and Christians here in the United States. As Rabbi Yoffie said in his speech:

The time has come to put aside what the media says is wrong with Islam and to hear from Muslims themselves what is right with Islam. The time has come to listen to our Muslim neighbors speak, from their heart and in their own words, about the spiritual power of Islam and their love for their religion. The time has come for Americans to learn how far removed Islam is from the perverse distortions of the terrorists who too often dominate the media, subverting Islam’s image by professing to speak in its name. The time has come to stand up to the opportunists in our midst – the media figures, religious leaders, and politicians who demonize Muslims and bash Islam, exploiting the fears of their fellow citizens for their own purposes.

Now some of you may be thinking: Why would I want to sit down with a terrorist? I should be learning how to use a pistol instead. I can tell you, with great certainty, that the labeling of all Muslims as terrorists is a cause of great shame in the Islamic world. Just like we used to think that all Italians were linked to the Mafia and all blacks were inferior, and that others thought that all Jews were money-grubbers and goniffs, many – even among us here tonight – now think, explicitly or implicitly, that all Muslims are terrorists. It just is not true.

And so I return to my main point this evening: such xenophobia among Jews is sinful. At this time of the year, when God calls us to examine our hearts and our actions, can we truly say that we are blameless and without hate? Can we truly say that while there are evil Muslims in the world, there are far more Muslims who only desire to live in peace? Can we truly say that we have done enough to reach across the divide and begin to break down the walls that separate us?

As Rabbi Yoffie will undoubtedly say at the upcoming URJ Biennial in San Diego this winter, I now propose a dialogue with the members of the Mosque so that we can take a look at where our faiths converge – and where they diverge as well. Let us look at our prayers, our languages, our holidays and our cultures. Let us learn from each other. We can start with the easy subjects: Allah and Adonai, zakat and tzedakah, prayer and pilgrimage, kashrut and hallal. And let us discuss, after we have become friends, the most difficult issues of all: Israel, Palestinian nationalism, Iraq and suicide bombers. We have to become friends first because only friends can honestly speak to each other about tough issues. Muslims need to know why Israel is so vital to our existence – and we have to learn why Jerusalem is called in Arabic al kuds, the holy city. We need to work together for a two-state solution so that Israel and Palestine can live together, without fear and in security, so that, instead of being a model for hatred in the world, this twice-promised land becomes instead a model of co-existence, the best the world has to offer. Only Muslims and Jews can do this; after all, we have a long history of cooperation upon which we can draw.

And so we need to come together: on blood drives, as we have done in the past, on improving our schools – which is a concern for all of us, on access to health care and on global warming and other environmental issues. We can begin with issues of joint concern and proceed from there.

If you would like to participate in this program, please see me after the service and then we can take your ideas to the Social Action Commitee. We can plan any program in which you show interest. Together, we can change the world.

So let us begin with a simple gesture. The evening is getting late so we can’t do this tonight but I will be contacting the Mosque in the next few days in order to arrange a time when we can walk over there and offer greetings of shalom/salaam at this holy time. It will be a visit of peace, friendship and reconciliation. If you would like to join me, please let me know following the service.

Who knows, perhaps this visit will lead to a model for co-existence that will serve as the template for other communities in America. And perhaps, just perhaps, if we can make it work in America, it can work in Israel and Europe as well. People of faith must come together and declare an end to hatred and a beginning to love and respect. Only then can we even begin to solve the great problems of the world. It starts with a walk and ends with a new, world-wide Golden Age.

And so today, on Rosh Hashanah, the Birthday of the World, we can seize the moment and reach out to our Muslim brothers and sisters and say, “No more violence. No more sinning. It is time for the sons of Abraham to return to their father’s tent once again. While we will never agree on everything, let the search for common ground override the forces of hatred that can destroy us.”

May we as Jews pray for this reconciliation during our great holy days – and may our Muslim brethren pray for the same during theirs. We are praying at the same time so God/Allah must surely be listening with special intent. Let us take advantage of the opportunity. Amen.

Note: On September 19, 10 members of Adat Chaverim walked over to the Mosque for an informational program and to enjoy a wonderful dinner with the Islamic Association of Collin County. All of us were impressed by the beauty of Islam and the hospitality offered to us. We truly felt comfortable and, after the conclusion of Ramadan, will be working towards greater understanding between our two faiths and between our two congregations.

WHERE ARE THE MEN?

ROSH HASHANAH MORNING 5768

What interests me this year about the Akedah story is that it involves only men. We have a father and a son, servant boys, an angel whom the Torah commentators presume to be male and God defined in male terminology. In the male dominated society in which the compilers of the Torah lived, this testosterone-infused morality play would seem quite normal. Women do not have a role to play because revelation came only to men. Sarah is important to this story only because of her absence.

Today, under our modern labor laws, Abraham would have to have hired at least one female servant to accompany him – at equal pay. And the name of the angel would probably have been Michaela, not Michael, in the interests of gender balance. Such are the rules of modern Midrash.

In the liberal movements in Judaism, women have taken their rightful place alongside men at all levels of leadership, lay and professional. It is one of the most important developments in Judaism of the last century. We applaud this development and today it is almost uncontested in the Reform Movement. Our leaders rise to the top based on merit, not on gender, age or sexual orientation. This is how it should be.

Yet with all of the wonderful and positive changes that female clergy have brought to organized Jewish life, there is one gnawing question that the liberal movements have just begun to realize and address: where are the men? As women enter the professional Jewish workforce as rabbis, cantors and educators, the men are leaving. As women enter the Temple Board Rooms, the men are leaving. And as teenage girls become more active in youth groups, the teenage boys are leaving. The exodus of men from positions of leadership in the Jewish world has hurt the Jewish community and we need to find ways to reverse this trend so that both men and women can lead in the Jewish world.

Rabbi Elyse Goldstein has said:

The synagogue is no longer a proving ground for masculinity. Because of that it has also suffered. Many have noticed the “flight” of men from egalitarian synagogues as more and more women take leadership roles. What is this flight about? Is it about the last male bastion being stormed, or about the feeling of not being “needed” anymore, or about a male devaluation of something as soon as it becomes open to women, or about a genuine frustration with the “feminization” of today’s Judaism? These are questions that must be answered by the men who take their Judaism seriously and who wish the next generation of boys to do so as well.

--Fighting the Flight of Men (Doug Barden), p. 12

Here are some sobering statistics: in 2005, 88% of the 9^th Graders at URJ Kutz Camp in New York were girls. Also that year, 71% of the students admitted to the Rabbinical Program at Hebrew Union College were women. 66% of the students admitted to the Jewish Theological Seminary’s Rabbinical School, the flagship institution for Conservative Judaism, were women. And this coming year, Cantor Frommer tells me that the entering Cantorial class at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem is 100% female – as is the class one year ahead of him. No male Cantors; our Student Cantor may be like the modern-day polar bear, the last of a dying breed. I don’t want his species to become extinct.

It’s no better in the churches. According to the website churchformen.com, the typical US congregation draws a crowd that is 61% female across all age categories. As many at 90% of the boys raised in a church will abandon it by age 20, never to return. And while 90% of men believe in God, only 1 in 3 attend church on any given Sunday; those who do attend do so mainly to appease wives, mothers or girlfriends.

The men have, in large measure, turned away. Religion as a whole – and Judaism in particular – is becoming feminized. The rise of female clergy has not led to increased competition for the spaces in rabbinic and cantorial schools; rather, male applications have decreased dramatically. Jewish education, long dominated by male supervisors and female teachers, is now mainly a women’s field – with devastating results as boys have trouble finding Jewish role models in their classrooms. Without these male role models, religion becomes “woman’s work”, the equivalent of a chick flick in the theater, and boys drop out – which makes it so much more difficult to bring them back as adults. Brotherhoods, long the training ground for synagogue leaders, have withered as men choose not to climb the leadership ladder, perhaps out of fear that a woman will be on the rung above them. Nationally, the Men of Reform Judaism, as the NFTB is now called, is hanging by a thread; in a few years, we may have pockets of strong brotherhoods but the national umbrella organization might disappear. As Rabbi Stephen Pearce of Temple EmanuEl in San Francisco writes in the Spring, 2007 issue of Achim, the publication of Men of Reform Judaism:

The era of the temple brotherhoods and men’s club bowling leagues is long gone, but there must be a way to bring men back, not only into the religious landscape but also into family life and civic discourse.

Jewish overnight camps are reporting that significantly more girls than boys are applying to camp. As these children rise through the units and eventually become counselors, the competition for female counselor positions is more intense than for male counselors. So the girls get better counselors – and the cycle continues because they enjoy camp better than the boys, whose counselors – while decent – are not motivating them to take active roles in Jewish living. The male counselors are often the ones who sleep through the Jewish learning activities and relax the rules during worship. The boys see that their male counselors downplay the Jewish aspects of camp and they do likewise. And since the camps are the conduits to the seminaries, it is no surprise that the number of female applicants to HUC has risen as the number of male applicants has fallen. Such is the cycle in which we are in today.

As early as 1998, Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin wrote in Reform Judaism Magazine about the vanishing Jewish male:

Let’s face it. The great, unspoken crisis facing modern Judaism is the disengagement of its men. While no one mourns the exclusive male minyan, men increasingly see Judaism as being the province of women. Men are distancing themselves in ever growing numbers from synagogue life – as worshippers, as students of Torah, and as trustees and committee members….Men constitute only a tiny percentage of converts to Judaism…and every rabbi can testify to the frequent apathy of Jewish men when they join their partners at Introduction to Judaism classes as a prelude to conversion. Temple youth groups are increasingly filled with young Jewish women craning their necks and wondering, in the words of one Long Island teen, ‘Where are all the guys?’

--ibid.

Let me state for the record that the emergence of the female voice in Judaism is a wonderful development. Women have developed meaningful life cycle rituals, for example, that men would never dream of, rituals such as celebrating a girl’s first menstrual period, solemnizing a still-born or infertility, creating Rosh Chodesh celebrations or marking the onset of menopause. Ceremonies at the mikvah are more meaningful and weddings and baby namings have taken on new forms as women have added their creativity to the existing Jewish rituals. Prayer has taken on new meaning as we invoke the matriarchs – Sarah, Rebecca, Leah and Rachel – alongside Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Theology and Bible studies have gone in new directions as women have shed a light on traditionally male domains. There is no turning back to a male-dominated Reform or Conservative Judaism. Nor should we desire it. Nobody wants to exclude women from positions of leadership, lay or clergy; rather the challenge is how to involve men in Jewish life.

Let me also state that this phenomenon is not happening in all congregations. We have a male-dominated leadership, even if our President is a woman. We have many boys involved in CFTY and our Brotherhood is small but vibrant. But we are not exempt from the crisis. We have only two male teachers in our Religious School – and they are team teaching. We have a female educator and support staff. To be sure, I wouldn’t trade Valerie for anyone but we are subtly giving our boys and girls the message that Religious School is by and for girls – and that message will eventually come back to haunt us.

So how do we re-engage men in Jewish living and leadership without driving away the women? Drum circles and wilderness events are not enough. The emphasis on “men’s spirituality”, as opposed to “women’s spirituality”, is probably a non-starter. It’s next to impossible to define the term, much less affix a gender-based meaning to it. Men cannot expect to establish successful parallel groups that are prominent in feminist circles; men must develop their own models. We cannot expect men to attend a male-only kosher yoga class or find solace in a children’s play group. Frankly, men and women are wired differently; men and women will respond to different stimuli.

When we look around and see hordes of disengaged Jewish men – or don’t see Jewish men at all – we have to wonder when it began. Growing up and working professionally in a Reform Jewish setting, I would say that the disengagement begins at a very early age, when Jewish boys begin religious school. As I said earlier, when all of their teachers are women, when their school director is a woman and now, increasingly, when their rabbi is a woman, the boys learn early that Judaism is for and about women, not for and about men. Of course they are mistaken but there are no men around to correct them – they are all off playing softball.

I would propose that, starting in the 3^rd or 4^th Grade, every other Religious School teacher be male. Boys should know that in Grades 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12, for example, they can be in the presence of a man who can effectively teach and model Judaism. This is also good for girls; it gives them hope that there will be Jewishly involved men for them to date and marry when they grow up. There should also be at least one active male youth group advisor at every level of youth programming. Jewish couples actively engaged in youth activities provide a wonderful model of Jewish living to boys and girls alike. We are blessed with such a situation here at Adat Chaverim; perhaps that is why so many of our youth group leaders are boys.

Congregations need to recruit men for committees that are seen as “women’s work”, such as the Caring Congregation, Social Justice or especially the Religious School Committee. Our Religious School Committee has no men. That needs to change. Men need to make hospital visits and offer comfort, prayers and support. Synagogues need to ask men to bake for the Oneg Shabbat, Kiddush luncheons and other food events; the Brotherhood Bagel Brunch is wonderful but why should men be denied the opportunity to bake challah and rugelach? I do not mean this as a novelty act, to trot out the male bakers once a quarter so that we can laugh at their creations; I mean to say that men and women alike need to make the desserts on a regular basis.

We have to start raising our expectations of Jewish men. We have to stop thinking of Jewish men as Homer Simpson and start thinking of them as Ward Cleaver. The Jewish doofus has to return to being the Jewish sage.

And men need to learn again how to talk in a religious language. As Rabbi Pearce wrote:

“How do we help fathers and sons talk about God, faith, and Torah as easily as they do about football or golf. How do we get the message across that men who are drawn to faith are not sissies? How come fathers are present at soccer games but not at temple? How do we put an end to fathers’ drive-by-Judaism…?

Our most recent Bar Mitzvah boy asked the same question in his speech: why can’t we talk about God as easily as we talk about sports?

I don’t have any easy answers.

But I do know that in all faith communities, the responsibility for religious training in the home has long been the province of the mother. Jewish texts extol the role of the Jewish mother – all jokes aside – as the arbiter of what happens in the home. The father traditionally may be the boss at work but the mother is the boss in the house; she determines what is kosher and what is not.

So what happens when the mother is not Jewish? A Christian bride who promises to raise her children as Jews, when she receives little or no support from her Jewish husband, will often decide that no religious training is preferable to her own ignorance and isolation. Christian mothers should not be expected to raise Jewish children – unless the Jewish father is actively participating in the religious life of the family. It is an unfair burden.

Over the years I have often met with non-Jewish women trying to raise Jewish children. They are all sincere in their desire and I give them a lot of credit. I also offer a lot of help. But so often they tell me that the biggest hindrance to home observance is their Jewish husband, who just doesn’t care for these corny rituals or traditions. How hard is it to say HaMotzi at dinner? We Jews find it easy but, coming from the mouth of one who is not Jewish, it is a hollow blessing indeed. And if one is not Jewish, how can we expect her even to know that Jews should recite this prayer?

I would like to sincerely thank all the non-Jewish mothers here today for the wonderful work that they have done in raising Jewish children. The boys and girls whom I have known here at Adat Chaverim are admirable, well-mannered and morally centered. You have done a great job.

And so now, with a sense of gratitude, I hereby release you from the responsibility of raising Jewish children alone. I now place this responsibility upon the shoulders of your Jewish husbands, to take the initiative and to lead. And if both mom and dad are Jewish, I’m not letting these men off the hook either; it should be a joint effort in every household.

So how can we make this happen?

This will happen when men reengage in study and prayer. It is easier said than done. Softball and flag football are wonderful Sunday morning activities – but so is Torah study. Can we find a way to do both?

If we can set the expectation at a very young age that study is expected of Jewish men – and that Bar Mitzvah is a beginning and not an end to Jewish study – than the chances are greater that Jewish men will once again become learned. Once men begin learning again, they will begin to teach and pray again – and then they will lead again. We need to extend every opportunity to Jewish men to learn classical Jewish texts, to learn Hebrew and to learn about ritual; skills many men have lost.

And Jewish men especially need to learn our history. We have forgotten about all the wonderful male Jewish role models of times past, of people like Moses and Joshua, Hillel and Akiva, Maimonides and Luria. We need to encounter Moses Mendelson again and argue with Spinoza and Freud. When we reconnect with our past, we can lay the foundation for our future. It is not enough that men are skilled in finance; men must also be skilled in Torah if they are to be authentic leaders of our people. Throughout our history, the leadership of the Jewish community fell to the most learned; Torah, not financial acumen, is the key to leadership in the Jewish world.

Leadership in the Jewish community is not a male-female competition. Instead, it is a sacred partnership, where the best and brightest become our leaders. It does not matter in the liberal streams if that leader is a man or a woman. But we cannot replace 3,000 years of male-dominated Jewish leadership with a Golden Age of female-dominated leadership and expect to thrive. Instead, we need to replace the male-dominated leadership with quality leadership, male and female, skilled in Torah, so that all voices will be heard and so that we can fulfill our covenant with God, walking together – not to sacrifice our sons – but to help them to become learned and active Jewish leaders. When our Isaacs walk down the mountain, they need to be ready to lead. May there be men waiting at the bottom to guide them. Amen.

HOGWARTS OR B.R.A.C.H.A.?

KOL NIDRE 5768

This past Sunday, I witnessed one of the most remarkable lessons I have ever seen taught in a Religious School. Our Fourth Grade teacher, Ilana Steele, had decorated her classroom with silver tinsel and had hung moons and stars from the ceiling. On the table was a boiling cauldron of dry ice and all of the kids were wearing plastic glasses with round rims. The kids were dressed like Harry Potter and had been transported to Hogwarts Academy. The setting was amazing. The kids loved it; several of them were still wearing their glasses during Tashlich later that afternoon.

If that were all, it would have been a fun setting. But Ilana took the lesson further. She renamed Hogwarts and called it B.R.A.C.H.A., the Beginning Reflect And Consider How Academy. It was as if Harry Potter was learning Talmud.

Harry Potter is a great story. If you have not at least heard of Harry Potter, you probably have been searching for nargles during the last few years. It’s a story we have all heard before, just told in various ways. A young boy has a miraculous birth, is unaware of his origins and is given a mission by a wise mentor while still a lad. The mentor dies and leaves the boy – it’s always a boy – to fulfill the mission, and the boy redeems the world when he overcomes the evil forces that seek to destroy him.

This has been a common story for millennia. Whether that boy is Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter or King Arthur, the story is essentially the same; it is a cultural archetype.

The Harry Potter archetype is, of course, a very Jewish theme as well. While we shy away from the miraculous birth story, since it has such strong Christian overtones, we do have these stories in our tradition. Men such as Moses, Samuel, Sampson and even David are salvific figures, overcoming long odds to redeem our people.

The Fourth Grade teacher placed the Harry Potter story within the context of teshuvah, repentance, the very theme of the High Holidays. She asked the question: how do we overcome our yetzer hara, our evil inclination? She used several concepts from the Harry Potter series as the basis of teshuvah, of overcoming our evil inclination and achieving teshuvah, repentance. Three of these concepts are Transfiguration, Legilimency and the Pensieve.

In Harry’s very first lesson in Transfiguration, Professor Minerva McGonagall told the class that “Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts. Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned.” Transfiguration involves changing one object into another. It could be as simple as elongating a person’s ears or as complex as transfiguring a teenage boy into a ferret.

But in Jewish terms, tranfiguation involves prayer. Through prayer, and especially through the Ashamnu prayer, which Cantor Frommer chanted tonight – and which we will pray several times over the next 24 hours, we can begin to transfigure ourselves. Through prayer, we can overcome that which holds us back.

When I spoke about the sin of xenophobia on Erev Rosh Hashanah, I spoke of our relationship with our Muslim brothers and sisters. Wednesday night, a group of us met with members of the Mosque in peace and friendship; it was an amazing evening and one that broke down many walls of suspicion that had arisen between us. There is indeed a long way to go but we have begun the process of transfiguring our relationship with the Islamic world.

We started with the letter “x” in a prayer. But we can start with any letter, in English or in Hebrew in this acrostic masterpiece. And prayer will play a major role in this transfiguration of our relationship with the Muslim world. We can begin to transfigure ourselves with regards to arrogance, to lying, to theft – to a whole host of sins. Take your pick and meditate upon it. But on Yom Kippur, the process of transfiguration through prayer is essential; without transfiguration, our time spent together is useless.

Interestingly, we confess our sins in the plural. If it said, “I am arrogant; I am a liar; I am a thief,” we probably would not put any credence into the prayer. Instead, by couching our litany of sins in the plural, we know that even if we do not think that we did this particular sin, somebody among us might have – so we are giving that person cover to confess. And perhaps we did commit a sin and just don’t realize it. By reciting this litany in the plural, we confess sins that we don’t even realize that we have committed. The atonement process begins before we even know that there is a need to atone.

We do not make individual declarations in Jewish tradition; there is no private confession before a Priest, nor do we stand up and scream out our sins in public. When we confess our prayers in the plural, we are sure to cover our own sins and help others confess theirs, in a positive and life-affirming setting.

Parents always tell children to express themselves. We are not mind readers. Unless of course, we practice Legilimency. According to Harry’s Potter’s least favorite professor, Severus Snape, “The mind is not a book to be opened at will and examined at leisure. Thoughts are not etched on the inside of skulls, to be perused by any invader. The mind is a complex and many-layered thing. It is true, however, that those who have mastered Legilimency are able, under certain conditions, to delve into the minds of their victims and to interpret their findings correctly.”

As Harry Potter matured, he realized that he shared many character traits with the Dark Lord, the very embodiment of evil in the wizarding world. The Dark Lord, Lord Valdemort, often invaded Harry’s dreams. These dreams left him sweating and screaming, his jagged facial scar burning.

As he learned about the nature of these dreams, Harry gradually came to assume the personage of Valdemort; as Valdemort attacked somebody, not only did Harry witness it, Harry WAS Valdemort; he became the attacker. Certainly, he only dreamt of the event. Yet, he was also a participant. He was practicing Legilimency; he was looking into the Dark Lord’s mind and, unfortunately, becoming one with him.

In real life, we can see many examples of trying to be a mind reader. I only need to remind you of Idaho Senator Larry Craig. Senator Craig was arrested in a Minneapolis airport bathroom after he propositioned an undercover male police officer. Originally, he quietly pled guilty to the charge. But when the sordid affair came to light, he vigorously denied both the proposition – and being gay. In his words, “I am not gay. I have never been gay”. But really, what does it matter if he is or is not a homosexual? Yet we all assume he is gay – as if we could read his mind – and as if being gay were a crime.

Because of his repeated denials, and because of his recorded concerning gay rights in the Senate, and because as a rigid conservative fundamentalist, he has blasted the gay rights movement as a matter of party policy, many believe that Senator Larry Craig is indeed gay. He doth protest too much. The more that somebody attacks something, the more that person is attracted to that very same thing. Do goes the saying. But we cannot read his mind so we don’t know for sure. And if he had not been arrested, it really would have been none of our business.

This has happened time and again with the opponents of gay rights. People like Senator Craig, Congressman Mark Foley, who propositioned male House pages and Reverend Ted Haggard of Jesus Camp fame, who also was found to have had a homosexual relationship. While we are not wizards, it is not difficult to practice Legilimency in these cases. It is easy to see that often the thing that we hate most about others is what we hate the most about ourselves.

Now if one is an opponent of gay rights, whether for political or religious reasons, it is not a sin. But it is sinful, an abuse of the yetzer hara, to persecute gays and lesbians. And as I said, the greater the persecution of homosexuals, the greater the chance that the persecutor has latent homosexual tendencies or is indeed gay. It’s not necessarily true – but it does happen a lot. In other words: that which we loathe most is that which also attracts us most.

Like Harry Potter, the victim and the persecutor become one and the same. That is what happens when we project our own insecurities and prejudices onto others.

In the Mishnah, and in our Machzor, we read the following:

For transgressions between human beings and God, Yom Kippur atones. But between one human being and another, Yom Kippur does not provide atonement until one asks for forgiveness from the other.

I cannot read your mind, nor can you read mine. So we have to tell each other how we have wronged each other and then, only after asking forgiveness from one another, can we go before God. Now, our rabbis realized that this was very difficult so they created a formula, which we read earlier, which provides blanket coverage so we can assume that we have asked forgiveness of each other – and we have been forgiven in exchange. It’s not ideal but it recognizes human nature. It allows us to move forward.

The third idea from the Harry Potter story taught in the Fourth Grade last Sunday was the Pensieve. One of J.K. Rowling’s most complex devises for using memory is the pensieve. The idea of the pensieve is that a person can literally remove a memory stored in his or her brain and deposit it in the pensieve, a watery basin, for later viewing – by oneself or by others. This of course is completely foreign to our way of thinking.

But is it?

Moses Maimonides wrote:

What constitutes teshuvah (repentance)? That a sinner should abandon his or her sins and remove them from his or hear thoughts, resolving in that person’s heart never to commit them again.

What if we could put all of our sinful thoughts, our yetzer hara, into a pensieve, and choose never to encounter them again? All of our 23 sins of the Ashamnu, all of the sins listed in the Torah, all of the sins stated by the rabbis, all of the sins foisted upon us by society – and all of those sins which we choose to commit, even though we know better: what if all that temptation would just go away? Could it be as simple as taking a magic wand and pulling a strand from our temples; we would not have to come to Temple! It would certainly be easier than transfiguring that litany of sins into blessings.

Maimonides developed a four-part system of teshuvah, of repentance, that acts as our Jewish pensieve. The first step is to recognize that one had sinned. We need to identify and take responsibility for the action. The second is to express regret for the action. The third step is to apologize to oneself, to another or to God. The fourth and most difficult step is to commit to making a change in behavior. This process is both painful and rewarding. But if we are successful, we will rise above the ordinary wizard and transfigure our lives for the better. We will stop being ferrets and start becoming human once again.

I can imagine that Senator Craig would have welcomed a pensieve, a place to store his homophobic thoughts and homophiliac propositioning? Wouldn’t it be nice if he could simply have removed the evil from his brain and locked it away in a pensieve before entering that bathroom airport? I’m not speaking of his gay tendencies, mind you, just his unhealthy and illegal response to these tendencies.

But the world, alas, does not work that easily. Today, on Yom Kippur, we need to put our negative behaviors into the Maimonidean pensieve and lock them away. Of course, we can’t change everything at once. So let us resolve to change just one behavior today that we find personally distasteful. We can take one small step. What behavior do you find personally distasteful in others or in yourself? And how will you eliminate that behavior in your own life? How will you extract that negative behavior and subject it to the Maimonidean pensieve of admission, regret, forgiveness and permanent change?

SPOILER ALERT

The final idea of my talk, one which our Fourth Grade teacher did not include in her lesson, is the lesson of the horcruxes. Lord Valdemort desired immortality and so, before his confrontation with the infant Harry, had divided his soul and placed parts of it in seven different bodies, including a ring, a serpent and a tiara. These objects were called horcruxes. So if the Dark Lord died, parts of his soul would live on – and he would be reborn. And he was.

Harry’s mission, assigned by his mentor, the Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, who, faithful to archetype died in Book Six, was to destroy the horcruxes. Once they were destroyed, he could destroy Valdemort, the personification of evil in the world. Of course, he completed his task and saved the world. That is how the final book ends.

But Harry and his friends are mortified that Valdemort would destroy his soul for the sake of power. That was the essential difference between Harry Valdemort; Harry prized his soul. But Harry’s greatest realization came when he realized that he too was a horcrux! He possessed parts of the Dark Lord, parts of that evil soul resided within him.

And he knew that he had to eradicate this horcrux within himself in order to defeat the yetzer hara, the evil inherent in the Dark Lord. When he did that, he was whole and could move forward with his life. It almost cost him his very life – but that is the price we pay to conquer our greatest fears.

So we too need to eliminate the horcruxes from our lives, those evil parts of us, installed there by others or placed there by ourselves, so that we can move on. We need to acknowledge our shortcomings and not project them onto others. We need to stop scapegoating those who are not like us and start bringing the other back from the wilderness. We need to recognize that our childhood traumas, our tragic life experiences, our fears and our failures, are in our past. We need to put them into our Maimonidean pensieves to become whole again.

We can then live in concert with the demands of Judaism, a life of mitzvah and not sin, a life of light and not darkness, a life of good and not evil. We can then live in concert with the demands of our society, to judge each and every person on his or her merit, and not by color, gender, economic status or sexual orientation. We can then live in concert with our planet, aware of her fragility and responsive to her needs. We can then live in concert with our fellow Jews, always propelling each other forward instead of pushing each other away. We can then live in concert with our families, bringing out the Divine in each other instead of casting spells that petrify progress. And we can then live in concert with ourselves, expelling our horcruxes, subjecting our sins to the Maimonidean pensieve and transfiguring our lives through prayer and Divine service.

May we so transfigure our lives so that prayer becomes vital. May we peer inside our souls so that we can extract the evil and place it in a locked-away place, far removed from our hearts. And may we ultimately remove that which holds us back so that we can move forward, in love and in peace, to realize our Brit, our covenant with God, to be L’or Goyyim, a light to the nations, a model of how to conquer and control the yetzer hara. And may that journey begin now. Amen.

LET GO OF THE ROPE

YOM KIPPUR MORNING 5768

There was a man who had given much thought to what he wanted from life. He had experienced many moods and trials. He had experimented with different ways of living, and he had had his share of both success and failure. At last, he began to see clearly where he wanted to go.

Diligently, he searched for the right opportunity. Sometimes he came close, only to be pushed away. Often he applied all his strength and imagination, only to find the path hopelessly blocked. And then at last it came. But the opportunity would not wait. It would be made available only for a short time. If it were seen that he was not committed, the opportunity would not come again.

Eager to arrive, he started on his journey. With each step, he wanted to move faster; with each thought about his goal, his heart beat quicker; with each vision of what lay ahead, he found renewed vigor. Strength that had left him since his early youth returned, and desires, all kinds of desires, reawakened from their long-dormant positions.

Hurrying along, he came upon a bridge that crossed through the middle of a town. It had been built high above a river in order to protect it from the floods of spring.

He started across. Then he noticed someone coming from the opposite direction. As they moved closer, it seemed as though the other were coming to greet him. He could see clearly, however, that he did not know this other, who was dressed similarly except for something tied around his waist.

When they were within hailing distance, he could see that what the other had about his waist was a rope. It was wrapped around him many times and probably, if extended, would reach a length of 30 feet.

The other began to uncurl the rope, and, just as they were coming close, the stranger said, “Pardon me, would you be so kind as to hold the end a moment?”

Surprised by this politely phrased but curious request, he agreed without a thought, reached out, and took it.

“Thank you,” said the other, who then added, “two hands now, and remember, hold tight.” Whereupon, the other jumped off the bridge.

Quickly, the free-falling body hurtled the distance of the rope’s length, and from the bridge the man abruptly felt the pull. Instinctively, he held tight and was almost dragged over the side. He managed to brace himself against the edge, however, and after having caught his breath, looked down at the other dangling, close to oblivion.

Which end of the rope are you holding?

There are times in our lives when we are left holding the rope. All too often, we discover that we are responsible for the fate of the universe, whether we desire it or not. The best-laid committee plans fall onto the shoulders of one individual, who feels guilty not to complete the task alone – even though it is an unfair burden and the other members of the committee have let her down.

When a decision is pushed down the chain of command and, rather than delegate and assist, the superiors assign and forget, those at the bottom of the chain become resentful; they know that they are holding the wrong end of the rope.

When a Board makes unreasonable expectations about their CEO, it is as if they have just jumped off the bridge. The entire company is dangling and one person is left to pull it together, knowing how to do it is not enough; knowing that he is not going to get any help is the kiss of death.

“What are you trying to do?” he yelled.

“Just hold tight,” said the other.

“This is ridiculous,” the man thought and began trying to haul the other in. He could not get the leverage, however. It was as though the weight of the other person and the length of the rope had been carefully calculated in advance so that together they created a counterweight just beyond his strength to bring the other back to safety.

“Why did you do this?” the man called out.

“Remember,” said the other, “if you let go, I will be lost.”

“But I cannot pull you up,” the man cried.

“I am your responsibility,” said the other.

“Well, I did not ask for it,” the man said.

“If you let go, I am lost,” repeated the other.

He began to look around for help. But there was no one. How long would he have to wait? Why did this happen to befall him now, just as he was on the erge of true success? He examined the side, searching for a place to tie the rope. Some protrusion, perhaps, or maybe a hole in the boards. But the railing was unusually uniform in shape; there were no spaces between the boards. There was no way to get rid of this newfound burden, even temporarily.

“What do you want?” he asked the other hanging below.

“Just your help,” the other answered.

“How can I help? I cannot pull you in, and there is no place to tie the rope so that I can go and find someone to help me help you.”

“I know that. Just hang on; that will be enough. Tie the rope around your waist; it will be easier.”

Fearing that his arms could not hold out much longer, he tied the rope around his waist.

“Why did you do this?” he asked again. “Didn’t you see what you have done? What possible purpose could you have had in mind?”

“Just remember,” said the other, “my life is in your hands.”

Sometimes, we are ones at the end of the rope, dangling helplessly in the wind. Hopefully, there is a lifeline but the question remains: how do we get to safety – especially if we are the ones who have jumped? We dangle at many times in our lives: when we are born, when we are about to die, when we feel helplessly lost or hurt: these are times when we reach out for help. And well we should; usually there are people at the other end of the rope willing to help us.

But are we willing to help ourselves? Do we have the right, as sentient and virile human beings, as Jews charged with the fulfillment of the Brit, our Covenant with God, as ones who are supposed to be L’or Goyyim, a light unto the nations, do we have the right to dangle without coming to our own aid? Do we have the right not to help ourselves?

I would say that both our Torah and Haftarah portions this morning command us to pull ourselves up on the rope. Certainly we can expect that the person standing on the bridge should help us – but most of the work has to come from our own efforts. When we dangle and feign helplessness, do we really have the right to expect help?

In our Torah portion from Deuteronomy, God commands us to “Choose life so that we and our children may live.” In order to live, we have to choose to pull ourselves up on the rope; only then will the person at the top of the rope – or perhaps only then will God – pull on the other end.

And Isaiah commands us to do justice. If we do so, if we feed the hungry and clothe the naked, our light will shine forth; we will again climb the rope and embrace the person – or embrace God, if we dare say so – when we rise to the top.

What should he do? “If I let go, all my life I will know that I let this other die. If I stay, I risk losing my momentum toward my own long-sought-after salvation. Either way this will haunt me forever.” With ironic humor he thought to die himself, instantly, to jump off the bridge while still holding on. “That would teach this fool.” But he wanted to live and to live life fully. “What a choice I have to make; how shall I ever decide?”

Why do we reward dependency? Why are the dependent so often calling the shots? Why do we jump whenever somebody calls out for help, even when we know that they don’t really need it? Why do we come to resent ourselves in the end? It seems that the one who screams the most gets the most. That is not how life should be.

Often negativity is a form of dependency. Those who criticize the most are the most dependent. We have all known people who adore celebrity, who think Brittany, Paris and Lindsey can do no wrong – just because they are celebrities. This is a form of dependency. But just as insidious is the one who attacks a leader, simply because he or she is a leader. We do not often recognize this form of dependency but it is just as dangerous, perhaps even more dangerous, than celebrity dependency.

One of the important things that we as Jews must learn to do is to stop being enablers. We need to break the cycle of dependency and co-dependency. Now this is a very difficult task; we are wired to take care of others – and that of course is a good thing; our entire mitzvah-based religion has Divine service as its core belief. But there is a difference between doing a mitzvah and being an enabler. A mitzvah is taking a casserole to one who is sick; an enabler is buying an alcoholic a bottle of vodka – or making excuses for one who has done wrong. How many times have we heard the phrase, “I’m not making excuses for him but…” And then, we go on to make excuses for him and enable the behavior. There may be valid reasons why a negative behavior happens – an unhappy childhood, a setback at work, trouble at home – but while that may explain the behavior, it does not excuse the behavior. We should just stop at not making excuses and get our “but” out of there.

As time went by, still no one came. The critical moment of his decision was drawing near. To show his commitment to his own goals, he would have to continue on his journey now. It was already almost too late to arrive in time. But what a terrible choice to have to make.

A new thought occurred to him. While he could not pull this other up solely by his own efforts, if the other would shorten the rope from his end by curling it around his waist again and again, together they could do it. Actually, the other could do it by himself, so long as he, standing on the bridge, kept it still and steady.

“Now listen,” he shouted down. “I think I know how to save you.” And he explained his plan.

But the other wasn’t interested.

“You mean you won’t help? But I told you I cannot pull you up myself, and I don’t think I can hang on much longer either.”

“You must try,” the other shouted back in tears. “If you fail, I die.”

Such responsibility! How much responsibility has the man on the bridge taken for the other who is dangling? How much responsibility should he take? If he cannot pull the other up by himself, and if the other won’t help, what should he do to break the stalemate? After all, he has his own goals to fulfill, goals that are imminent, goals that will propel him forward. Can he afford to take responsibility for one so dependent that he cannot even help himself climb the rope of life?

The point of decision arrived. What should he do? “My life or this other’s?” And then a new idea. A revelation. So new, in fact, it seemed heretical, so alien was it to his traditional way of thinking.

“I want you to listen carefully,” he said, “because I mean what I am about to say. I will not accept the position of choice for your life, only for my own; the position of choice for your own life I hereby give back to you.”

“What do you mean?” the other asked, afraid.

“I mean, simply, it’s up to you. You decide which way this ends. I will become the counterweight. You do the pulling and bring yourself up. I will even tug a little from here.” He began unwinding the rope from around his waist and braced himself anew against the side.

“You cannot mean what you say,” the other shrieked. “You would not be so selfish. I am your responsibility. What could be so important that you would let someone die? Do not do this to me.”

If someone came up to you and said, “Hold the end or I’ll jump,” what would you do? By a show of hands, how many of you would instinctively take the rope? I know I would; it’s human nature to help somebody in need – or even just to respond to a simple request, such as holding the end of a rope. It’s really no different than a stranger asking you to hold her package at the counter at Nordstrom’s while she got a few dollars out to pay the cashier. We are programmed to do this kind of favor and if we don’t, we’re considered rude.

But think of the consequences. Think about how simple favors morph into major catastrophes – and we are left holding the rope. We curse ourselves for getting into these situations but then we do it again and again and again. We curse ourselves for dangling at the end of the rope, too but we do it again and again and again. We live at both ends of the rope, sometimes at the same time!

How should this story end? I’ll take four answers, one from each of the four sections here in the Sanctuary. You tell me how this story should end, and why. I’ll repeat it for the benefit of all of us and then I’ll tell you how the author of the story, Rabbi Ed Friedman, ends this fable. (Go down and solicit answers.)

Now I will tell you how the story ends:

He waited a moment. There was no change in the tension of the rope.

“I accept your choice,” he said, at last, and freed his hands.

Story is found in Friedman’s Fables, by Rabbi Edwin Friedman (Guilford Press, New York, 1990).