September 25, 2012 | 1:46 pm

Yom Kippur: An Encounter with Death & Life!

Posted by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

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“Mitah v’Yom HaKippurim Michaprin.” The two ways to truly atone are Death and Yom Kippur. But are the two really so different? On Yom Kippur, we reject food and drink, similar to one close to death. We say vidui (our confessions) just like someone preparing to die. Many wear white on Yom Kippur—the kittel, the same plain shroud that one will be buried in. We remove ourselves from leather shoes, bathing, anointing, and marital relations on Yom Kippur again as though we are mourners.  Our lives are lived in our bodies. On Yom Kippur we step out of our bodies as if we were gone. We visit the cemetery at this time to honor those who have passed away and to soften our hearts to our mortality. We ask ourselves on Yom Kippur in Unetaneh Tokef: “who shall live and who shall die.”

One of the main goals on Yom Kippur is to encounter death. We spend one day reflecting on our mortality. When we fully embrace Yom Kippur, we have an encounter with death (a preparation for death). We are to be transformed by it; in preparing for death, we come to more deeply celebrate life. Even more, our transformation teaches us to reprioritize what really matters. As Sogyal Rinpoche once wrote: "Death is a mirror in which the entire meaning of life is reflected."

One day of the year we accept the reality of death, but we are not like Buddhists who willingly embrace death. On all other days of the year, we mourn those who have passed, we protest the taking of lives, we prevent death by seeking cures and healing. But protesting death must not overtake us. Rather, taking ownership of life must. As the great French existentialist Simone de Beauvoir, wrote: “We are having a hard time living because we are so bent on outwitting death” (The Ethics of Ambiguity, 120).

So only on this day we let our guard go and embrace the inevitable to remind us that although our death must come someday, today we must live. We can best perform the mitzvah of u'varchata b'chayim, to choose life, once we are aware of the alternative and that there is a choice to be made.

There is an intimacy we achieve with our Creator when we approach death just as those on their death beds who lose their theological skepticism. In fact, we learn from the Talmud (Shabbat 88b) that those who experienced the revelation at Sinai directly from the mouth of G-d died in that moment and were brought back to life. It is only in a life/death transcendental moment that we can truly grasp certain truths.

Longtime hospice worker Kathleen Dowling Singh lays out the stages of dying in her book, The Grace in Dying. They are, according to her: Chaos, Surrender and Transcendence. Yom Kippur can be modeled off these three. We are in chaos during the night, and the early morning of Yom Kippur hits us like a ton of bricks. Then we begin to surrender once we realize that we are able to transcend our hunger and personal desires. Finally, we may reach transcendence in the late afternoon when we tap into our deeper potential to understand ourselves and the world.

If we “die” on Yom Kippur, then we go to olam haba (the next world). That next world paradoxically is actually olam ha’zeh (this world). We learn to live in this world as if it were the next world (in our near-death experience). We encounter death in order to live.

The Talmud in Moed Katan teaches the following story: “When Rav Nahman was dying, he begged Rava to implore the angel of death not to torment him. Rava replied, ‘But, Master, are you not esteemed enough to ask him yourself?’ Rav Nahman considered this for a moment, and then pondered aloud, 'Who is esteemed, who is regarded, who is distinguished' in the face of Death Himself? Then, after he died, Rav Nahman appeared to Rava in a dream. ‘Master, did you suffer any pain?’ Rava asked. Rav Nahman replied, ‘As little as taking a hair from milk. Still, if the Holy One were to say to me, ‘Go back to that world,’ I would not consent, the fear of death being so great.’”

On Yom Kippur we learn that we need not fear death. Rather, we must embrace death in order that we can affirm life in the deepest sense. May 5773 be a year of life! May we rededicate ourselves to enhancing the lives of all those around us!
 

 

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder and President of Uri L'Tzedek, the Senior Rabbi at Kehilath Israel, and is the author of "Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century." Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the top 50 rabbis in America!"
 

September 23, 2012 | 7:05 pm

Yom Kippur: Expanding Our Communal Roles

Posted by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

The Jewish community at large is struggling to find common spaces where all can be together. After all, where can we be united as 21st-century Jews? In religious belief? On Israel? In Jewish education? On some type of mitzvah day or day of learning? Only a small fraction of the community shows up to anything or agrees to anything. We have become so fragmented.

If the Jewish community is merely a restaurant, then we come when we’re hungry and like what’s on the menu. We pay for our food, leave our trash, and go home. But if the Jewish community is more like a family, we show up to support things even when they do not totally speak to us, even when the meal being served is not what we would have ordered. Perhaps what has been most lost from Jewish community building is a sense of connection to the big picture, the whole, and the notion that we sometimes must sacrifice our desires for the well-being of the broader community.

In the Yom Kippur liturgy, before Vidui, we sing “Ki Anu Amecha” (because we are your people) and in this prayer we use 11 metaphors of our collective relationship to G-d (Nation before God, Child before Parent, Slave before Master, Congregation before Portion, Heritage before Lot, Sheep before Shepherd, Vineyard before Watchmen, Handiwork before Shaper, Beloved before Lover, Treasure before God, Designated before Designated). We are able to sustain as one people before G-d, since there are many Divine roles. Perhaps no one role could hold the attention and trust of us all.

And yet, there is an important growth opportunity for each of us hidden in this song. One aspect of teshuva we focus on at Yom Kippur is learning how to connect to all of these different Divine manifestations (G-d as shepherd, G-d as parent, G-d as watchman, etc.). By doing so, in addition to strengthening our personal connection to our Creator, we can learn how to emulate each of these roles and how we can broaden ourselves to play multiple communal roles. We do not come to shul just to see our three or four friends and achieve personal goals, but also to connect to the community as a whole and achieve communal goals. To do that, we must be broader in our vision.

As part of the philosophical mind-body problem, we know that we cannot know each other’s essences. We cannot know each other’s minds and hearts. We come to learn about each other through our actions. Someone smiles! Someone picks up a table to help! The way one walks and talks! One reveals oneself through actions. We relate to community not through our belief but by what we give, by what we do publicly, and sometimes just by showing up.

Elie Wiesel explained that we can connect to one another through our common history:

"We are bound by tradition to believe that together we have stood at Sinai, that together we have crossed the river Jordan, conquered the land of Canaan and built the Temple; that together we have been driven thence by the Babylonians and the Romans; that together we have roamed the dark byroads of exile; that together we have dreamed of recapturing a glory we have never forgotten—every one of us is the sum of our common history."

This is true, but we are also much more than a “sum of our common history.” We are the present as well.

The early 20th-century Jewish Russian philosopher Jacob Klatzkin wrote: "To be a Jew means the acceptance of neither a religious nor an ethical creed. We are neither a denomination nor a school of thought, but members of one family, bearers of a common history."

To be a family means to show up for one another and to support one another, to fulfill what the Talmud (Shavuot 39a) mandates as "Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh"—"All Israel is responsible for one another." We do that by broadening ourselves and by building bridges not through putting up walls.

Unfortunately, there are those who would reject this family. Recently, Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar stated that if a Jew should encounter only Reform Jews on Rosh Hashanah, “it is better for him to pray in his hotel and not go near them. Moreover, it is better that he not pray at all than pray with them.” In response, Reform Rabbi Uri Regev said: “It is sad that Rabbi Amar chooses the holiest time of the Jewish year, which should celebrate Jewish unity, to pursue his sectarian fundamentalist views.” Rabbi Regev added that “pluralism and diversity,” rather than seeking “fault with fellow Jews,” should be what Judaism stands for.

There are very valid disagreements about how we should practice Judaism today. We need not agree with one another but we must respect one another and find spaces for sharing, dialogue, cooperation, and support. We need not love everyone in our spiritual family but we must support one another nonetheless. 

One of the themes of Yom Kippur is that we enter alone. Each of us arises in fear for our lives, standing alone, feeble before the Creator without any good explanations for how we lived the previous year. Yet, we conclude by singing about our collective destiny, “L’Shana Haba B’Yerushalayim.” We enter as individuals, but if we truly internalize the day, we feel more connected to our whole community and people.

This Yom Kippur, may we emulate the Divine to become larger presences, playing greater roles in our communities to have our own unique impact in our magnificent national story.

 

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder and President of Uri L'Tzedek, the Senior Rabbi at Kehilath Israel, and is the author of "Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century." Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the top 50 rabbis in America!"

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September 21, 2012 | 1:18 pm

Runaway Slaves in the Torah and Today!

Posted by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

What would you do if an escaped slave showed up on your doorstep in Canaan in 1400 B.C.E., or in Memphis in 1810, or in Tel Aviv in 2012? The problem of the runaway slave is both ancient and modern.

Slavery plagued America for more than two centuries, beginning with its evolution in the British colony of Virginia. Many people are unaware that the proponents of slavery, beginning in the 1830s, actually increased their militancy and sought further legal sanctions for human bondage. From 1836-1844, Congress was under the “Gag Rule,” which effectively prohibited the discussion of slavery. Southern states routinely intercepted and burned anti-slavery tracts that were sent through the postal system.

The nadir of this movement occurred with passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which provided for the return of slaves who escaped from one state into another state or territory. The courts allowed an owner to use "reasonable force" to detain runaways and anyone who tried to help a detained slave escape would be subject to the scrutiny of a federal "grand inquest,” a grand jury. Not only were local sheriffs and other officials compelled to cooperate with the apprehension of runaway slaves under penalty of substantial fines, but the law stated that “all good citizens are hereby commanded to aid and assist in the prompt and efficient execution of this law.” Thus, all citizens were compelled to support slavery. While the Underground Railroad helped many escaped slaves, runaways were only safe when they reached Canada.

After the Civil War, only about 150 years ago, the fugitive slave laws ended along with slavery in America. In contrast, the Jewish tradition has been very progressive, as our holy Torah prohibited this 3,300 years ago!

As we learn in the Torah, if a slave from another town escapes, the Torah forbids the return of the refugee slave to his master (Deuteronomy 23:16).  The Torah could have gone in a very different direction, based upon contemporary values. For example, in the ancient law found in the Code of Hammurabi (which was issued before the Torah, about 3,800 years ago in Babylonia), Hammurabi legislated (16-17) that one who hides a refugee slave in his home should be put to death, while one who hands over the slave to his owner should receive a payment.

The Torah, on the other hand, ruled that it is forbidden to return a runaway slave. The Ramban makes clear that Jewish law does not view the runaway slave as a new slave, but as completely free. We are dealing with a human being, not property, the Torah insisted; to return one fleeing for his life would put him at grave danger. The Ha’amek Davar, Rav Naftali Tzvi Yehudah Berlin (1817-1893), taught that we must remember that the slave has not just run away from the rigors of slavery, but has chosen asylum specifically to be with you. He is searching for something more in life since he has chosen to run toward you. The Talmud explains that the Torah is dealing specifically with a case of a slave from another country fleeing to the state of Israel (Gittin 45a).

In July, I took a group of our students from the yeshiva in Efrat, Israel, where I was teaching, to Tel Aviv to meet with the African refugees sleeping in the parks. In Israel, great debates have emerged concerning what to do with the 60,000 refugees who have entered Israel since 2006 seeking asylum. Significantly, Israel is the only democratic state with a land connection to Africa, so it is inevitable that a large portion of African refugees would seek to go there. These undocumented migrants cross into Israel either looking for work or fleeing from severe persecution. They are essentially escaping slavery, extreme poverty, or death. The social and economic burdens are immense, and Israel overall is already struggling very nobly with very limited resources. Clearly, Israel cannot be a home for all refugees who wish to come. This is not a fair request of this tiny state already overwhelmed with social and economic issues. Many are pushing for the refugees to be deported, but Jewish law as we have learned is that we may not return a slave to their master. Israel, a nation of refugees itself, must develop a legal process for non-Jewish refugees. Defending the runaway slave is fundamental to our tradition.

Closer to home, today, we are unlikely to encounter literal “runaway slaves.” Nevertheless, do we not encounter those who have undergone traumatic experiences? Many have baggage and are running from it. Every day, we try to escape parts of our past that have confined us (failures, pains, losses). When we encounter another, do we return him or her to their master or are we a part of their liberation? How do we embrace those who have just filed for bankruptcy, completed their divorce, or come out of sitting shiva for a lost family member? They have been trapped in some misery, and when they reach our doorstep, how do we embrace them? In a sense we are all runaway slaves running out of fear from danger and even our inevitable death. We can never fully understand the emotions attached to one’s entrapment; we can merely open our arms.

According to the Talmud, one may not remind someone of their past (where they have run from) if they have changed their ways, and we may never do anything to block others from their own teshuva (repentance and transformation). This requires humility. In approaching others, we must remember that we do not stand in their shoes and we must not judge them.

In dealing with the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, fighting against slave owners, said: “my concern is not whether G-d is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on G-d's side.”

We do not know that the other is wrong. We just know that we must keep our eyes on the prize and do what is right.

The Torah’s mandate that we may not return a runaway slave still has relevance and far-reaching implications today.

 

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder and President of Uri L'Tzedek, the Senior Rabbi at Kehilath Israel, and is the author of "Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century." Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the top 50 rabbis in America!"

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September 21, 2012 | 4:00 am

The Mitzvah of Hakhel and A Call for Universal Education!

Posted by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

Over the last several years I have had the opportunity to teach in classrooms in villages around the world, from Central America to Southeast Asia, and from Africa to the former Soviet Union. One unexpected and saddening phenomenon I have encountered in several poorer countries is empty classrooms. Many students do not show up or are pulled from school by their families due to intense economic or social pressures. There is an education crisis around the world that is at the root of countless other social and economic problems.

In this week's Torah portion of Vayelech, we learn about the keen Jewish interest in public education, expressed by way of a fascinating communal forum called Hakhel. Every seven years, the king would come out of his palace to educate the public. This was in keeping with the command to "Assemble the people -- men, women and children, and the strangers living in your towns, so that they can listen and learn..."

According to the medieval commentator R. Abraham Ibn Ezra (31:10), this public learning event took place at a time when everyone -- even the slave or the stranger -- would be able to attend: the beginning of the Sabbatical Year, when working the fields is forbidden in Jewish law (other rabbinic authorities argue that it took place immediately after the Sabbatical Year). This ensured that everyone was able to break from the demands of work and have time for study.

Yet today, too many of the world's children lack the opportunity for intellectual growth. While the number of primary-school-age children who do not attend school has been reduced from 105 million in 1990 to 61 million today, the trend has slowed since 2005, and has remained virtually unchanged since 2008. More than half of unschooled children live in sub-Saharan Africa.

A key reason for this lack of progress is the effect of armed conflict, which prevents 28 million children from going to school, as schools are targeted for attacks, and girls in particular are subjected to physical and sexual abuse. In South Sudan, for example, families often marry their daughters off by age 15 in order to relieve the crushing economic pressures of recovering from civil war. In Pakistan, numerous girls' schools have been forced to close due to militant attacks on the facilities. Low education levels only heighten the risk of further conflict, as militancy become the only available "career" option for those who lack the training to earn a decent wage.

This should be a call to action.

Jewish law mandates that we not only teach where we can but that we appoint teachers to all of our cities. The Shulchan Aruch (a mainstay of Jewish legal codification) requires that "Every community is obligated to appoint teachers; a city without a teacher should be put under a ban until the inhabitants appoint one. If they continue to neglect to appoint a teacher, the city should be destroyed for the world exists only through the breath of school children" (Yoreh Deah 245:5).

Perhaps we should return to this Sabbatical Year ritual to remind us that we must seriously invest in the education of our children if we wish to move villages and nations out of poverty. Today, only 2 percent of humanitarian aid goes to education, which will not pull South Sudan or Pakistan out of their crises. The Talmud teaches that Jerusalem was destroyed "only because they neglected (the education of) school children." Further, "School children may not be made to neglect (their studies) even for the building of the Temple" (Shabbat 119b). We must heed this message before yet another generation is lost to ignorance, prejudice and war.

There are ways to improve education. UNESCO and the EFA Global Monitoring Report note that some policies have proven beneficial in areas where armed conflict has disrupted the educational system, including a shift from humanitarian aid to long-term investment with multi-year commitments and pooled resources to reduce bureaucracy and help the transition to government-run programs. In addition, if donor nations converted six days of military spending to education aid, they could make up the current $16 billion shortfall in education needs for poor nations. While well-planned military campaigns might reduce violence in the short term, in the long term an educational investment in the future of poor nations is a more certain route to peace and prosperity.

In the 21st century there is an endemic problem of placing immediate rewards over long-term gains. With education, we cannot afford to delay investing in the future. The Torah reminds us that we must put down our shovels to prioritize public education. We cannot expect struggling villages and nations to address this challenge alone. As Jews and as Americans who hold the value of education so highly, we must be at the forefront of the policies and financing of global education opportunities.

 

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder and President of Uri L'Tzedek, the Senior Rabbi at Kehilath Israel, and is the author of "Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century. Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the top 50 rabbis in America!"

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September 21, 2012 | 3:30 am

Where Are You? Keeping our Dreams Alive!

Posted by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

Jews (and the 3,300 year-old project of Judaism) are pretty meshugana! We believe in the most radical way that everything we do matters and that we can and must change the world. Even though there are only about 13 million of us, we believe that every one of us matters in our national and global commitments to transform the world. Is it okay that we are so radically hopeful?

Edgar Allan Poe once wrote: “Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence.” 

We, as a people, are ambitious and strive to excel beyond the norm, and sometimes we draw credit or blame where none is due. This is perhaps why, when 4 Americans are murdered in Libya, immediately there are accusations that it was a Jew behind the video that agitated the rioters and terrorists.

Albert Einstein once said, “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” We are a people with a bold task and the rigorous ethical and religious demands of the Torah. And we believe that we are free and capable of changing the world. Animosity from small minds will always assail us and others may remain aloof. Sometimes we may also be challenged by our own lack of personal autonomy and sense of responsibility.

Do you recall the infamous case of Kitty Genovese, who in 1964 was raped and murdered in New York City as dozens of people watched from their windows doing nothing? Social psychologists showed that the larger the number of bystanders, the less likely we are to intervene to help another. Perhaps we see that others are not helping so we need not help. Or perhaps we feel that someone else has probably responded or may be better equipped to help so we need not help. We are social beings, and at times social conformity can have disastrous results. Rather than live with the bold goal of actualizing our individual responsibility, too often we live with the goal of avoiding shame, avoiding doing anything new or different than what is done all around us, avoiding risk.

The shortest question in the Torah is, remarkably, G-d's first question in the Torah. It is a question asked in Genesis 3:9. Adam and Eve had just eaten some fruit from the forbidden tree and, sensing G-d's presence in the Garden of Eden, they hid among the trees. While they were hiding, G-d asked Adam a one-word question. Ayeka? “Where are you?”

This is a question only those with courage ask themselves each year: Where am I?  Am I just getting by? Eating, sleeping, working? Seeking instant gratification? Or am I driven by a greater purpose? Am I aware every day that what I do with my life truly matters? There is indeed an urgency to find ourselves. When we arise each day from bed, and we say “Hineni,” (here I am) we know that we cannot resolve all of the problems of the world, but we know we can try our best. As we learn in Pirke Avot (2:21), “It is not upon you to complete the task, but you are not free to desist from it.”

One of the great sicknesses thriving today in the 21st century is cynicism. Ever seen it? Someone who thinks that nothing is important and nothing matters and nothing needs to change. Things are really just fine as they are, or maybe terrible and not worth improving. It is perhaps the most un-Jewish approach to life and the most uninspired way to live. It is a sickness that spreads to all others around: where everything becomes a joke rather than a holy opportunity to engage.

Maimonides, the Rambam, teaches in Hilchot Teshuva (his work dealing with Rosh Hashanah and repentance) that we should view our lives as if we were standing on a scale and our next action will determine whether the world is redeemed or destroyed. Now how many of us really believe that our next action will have this impact? We need not believe it. But Rambam is teaching that this is a way to see the world and live our lives. We are to live as though everything matters. We live with hope and faith and possibility.

I think of my friend and teacher Oscar in Guatemala. Oscar lost all of his family in war. His friends, all around him, gave up. There was no more meaning, no more hope, no more purpose. Somehow, Oscar found the courage and inspiration to protest this mentality. Today, Oscar travels from poor village to poor village around his country helping the leadership to build their communities. Oscar saw the bait to deny hope and to be stuck in the past. He resisted, and is a faith hero!

Rav Hayyim, a close student of the Baal Shem Tov from the town of Krosno, used to love to watch the rope dancer with awe and attentiveness. One day, his students asked him why he spent so much free time watching the man on high dancing upon a rope. He responded that this person, while risking his life, could not be thinking for even a moment about the 100 gulden coins that he was going to make, because then he would fall. And that this is how we should view our lives—we are all walking on a very thin rope…at any moment, it could all be over for us. If we remember this, then we’ll always have to be focused on the big things that really matter. We should consider what Kafka once said—“the meaning of life is that it ends.” Our lives are deeply sacred!

Rav Shlomo Karlin, of the 18th century, once explained that the greatest yetzer hara (inhibition against doing good) is that we forget that we are the children of the King (we forget Avinu Malkeinu). We are not without value or purpose. We are here because G-d brought us into being with love and gave us work to do, saying in a quiet voice, “Bring a fragment of my presence into other lives.”

We are free to answer the question “Ayeka” with deep integrity as we say Hineni. We have the ability and freedom to choose our lives. After all, the absolute foundation of Jewish philosophical commitment is that we are free.

This message is not always clear because unfortunately, the 3 great advocates of determinism were Jews (Karl Marx, Baruch Spinoza, and Sigmund Freud). Karl Marx argued that our behavior is determined by structures of power in society, among them the ownership of property. This is called economic determinism. Baruch Spinoza argued that human conduct is given by the instincts we acquire at birth. This is called genetic determinism. Sigmund Freud argued that we are shaped by early experiences in childhood. This is called psychological determinism.

But determinism leads to excuses. We know that we are affected by our culture, by the economy, by our upbringing, by our genes, etc. But Judaism comes to tell the world that there are no excuses! You are free! You have choice. You are responsible. You can transcend your reality.  Adam’s first response is the denial of freedom: the woman gave it to me. And Eve’s first response also denies freedom—the serpent told me to do it. The Torah warns us that at the core of human nature is the need to give excuses and to deny our freedom for how we choose to live.

The Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, writes:

“There is no life without a task; no person without a talent; no place without a fragment of G-d’s light waiting to be discovered and redeemed; no situation without its possibility of sanctification; no moment without its call. It may take a lifetime to learn how to find these things, but once we learn, we realize in retrospect that all it ever took was the ability to listen. When G-d calls, He does not do so by way of universal imperatives. Instead, He whispers our name—and the greatest reply, the reply of Abraham, is simply hineni: ‘Here I am,’ ready to heed your call, to mend a fragment of Your all-too-broken world.”

This year, may we embrace our freedom in the deepest way and may we all respond “hineni, here I am, ready to heed your call, to mend a fragment of Your all-too-broken world.”

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Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder and President of Uri L'Tzedek, the Senior Rabbi at Kehilath Israel, and is the author of "Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century. Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the top 50 rabbis in America!"

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