February 14, 2013 | 11:46 am

Justice in this World!

Posted by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

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Where do we look for justice?

The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, the 19th century work of Jewish law by Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried, teaches that “it is prohibited for a person to appeal for judgment from Heaven (i.e., Divine retribution) against his fellow who wronged him. This prohibition applies only if he has recourse to attain justice here on earth. And anyone who cries out to Heaven about his fellow, he is punished first” (29:14).

The lesson we take from this law is that while it is true that there is an ultimate judge after this life, during this life we must do the hard work to make peace and pursue justice in the here and now. Throughout history, there were times where we had no access to fair procedural justice, but today we live in a different era. We have religious courts, secular courts, and effective grassroots justice potential.

However, there are times when even wise people in authority make the wrong decision. There is a tragic Talmudic episode where the sages decreed after the destruction of the Temple that Jews should no longer marry, since it was the end of the Jewish people. The people, however, ignored this decree and were insistent on continuing to build their families (Bava Batra 60b).

There are other times when we must defy decrees because they do not represent true justice. The Talmud tells a story about how Moshe’s sister Miriam convinced their father, Amram, to have children with her mother, Yocheved, in spite of Pharaoh’s decree that all Hebrew male children were to be killed at birth. Amram had insisted that they should have no more children to avoid more death. However, Miriam rebuked him, saying that even worse than Pharoah’s decree was a decree that children should not be given life at all (Sotah 12a). The government was extremely unjust, and the Hebrews were determined to win out in this world over that injustice. This concept was expressed in the modern era by Henry David Thoreau, in his 1849 essay on civil disobedience, who wrote that if injustice “is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law.” From Mohandas Gandhi’s campaign for Indian independence to civil rights struggles in the United States, millions have been stirred by this idea in the fight for social justice.

In the United States, racial segregation was the law of the land for over fifty years starting in 1896. During the last century, courageous people on multiple levels, from lawyers working within the system to nonviolent demonstrators who were arrested, beaten, and even murdered, worked to change the law. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 eradicated many of the obvious abuses; however, the recent election, in which voters in predominantly black areas had to wait up to 8 hours to vote due to state government efforts to discourage them from voting, illustrates that the struggle is far from over. In President Obama’s 2013 State of the Union address, he cited the case of Desiline Victor, a 102-year-old black woman from North Miami, Florida, who endured a wait of 6 hours to vote in 2012, and then proudly wore a sticker that said, “I Voted.” She attended the President’s address and received a standing ovation for her determination to stand up for justice. Today, we look to our government to uphold the right of all Americans to vote, but we reserve the right to challenge a government that does not respond to demands for justice.

The “Torah is not in heaven” (Torah lo bashamayim hi), and the sages taught that we must accept human responsibility for law and ethics in our lives (Bava Metzia 59b). When the Hebrews arrived at the sea, there were four choices: 1) Go back and become slaves again; 2) fight; 3) commit mass suicide; or 4) pray to G-d for salvation. None of these were the right answer; Nachshon ben Amminadav’s response, “go forward, into the sea!” was the right one. From G-d’s response to the Hebrews’ prayers, “Why do you cry out to me?” (Exodus 14:15), we see that this was not the right course, and we learn the important lesson that we must take human responsibility and go forth with courage.

We take responsibility and pray for strength from our Creator, but we do not cry out to G-d for justice. We must take issues of justice to our religious courts and secular courts, we organize on a grassroots level for change, and we do the hard intellectual and spiritual work to take courageous responsibility for injustice in our society. Sometimes that is in line with law and sometimes it is acting against the legal system. In either case, pursuing justice in this world today is the value that wins out.

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!"
 

February 13, 2013 | 9:16 pm

A Reflection on the Actualization of Human Potential

Posted by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

Our work is never done! This is what makes Jewish activism so intimidating and also so invigorating. We never complete the larger goals. We are never whole. Until the day that we pass from the earth, we are unable to fully step back and “throw the towel in.” The Maharal M’Prague taught:

Man is not created in his final wholeness. Man was created to actualize his wholeness. That is the meaning of the verse ‘Man was born to toil.’ Man is born and exists for the aim of this toil, which is the actualization of his potential. He can, however, never attain the state of actualized being. He must toil forever, to actualize his wholeness. That is the essence of his final wholeness. Even when he attains a certain level of actualization, he still remains potential, and will forever have to go on actualizing himself, (Tiferet Yisrael).

Born to toil, we must constantly strive to actualize our wholeness. I would argue that this human need for a sense of completion and wholeness can only be achieved through partnership where finite souls embrace in search of love, care, and justice. Wholeness is found in the uniting of disparate souls. 

James Fowler attempted to articulate the highest faith stage of human development that one could reach (stage 6) in one’s spiritual growth:

Fascinated with the charisma, the authority and frequently the ruthlessness of such leaders, we must not fail to attend to the descriptions of Stage 6 to the criteria of inclusiveness of community, of radical commitment to justice and love and of selfless passion for a transformed world, a world made over not in their images, but in accordance with an intentionality both divine and transcendent.

In addition to working to improve the world, as spiritual wrestlers, we can also crave feeling whole and spiritual fulfilled. This spiritual yearning should further our attachments to justice. The Gemarrah says (Avoda Zara 19a) that Ain adam lomeid Torah ella mee’makom sh’libo chafaitz. One only learns Torah in areas where one’s heart has desire (interest). So too in our leadership-justice work! Too often, we choose service that deadens us rather than awakens us. Awaken! Awaken today! Awaken everyday! There is no time to wander or escape! It lies right before us! We must pursue the work that our souls crave. We must build our spiritual activist communities around an inclusion that allows for this diversity of desire.

This spiritual hedonism may be justified when the radical joy produced from is converted back into more freedom fighting. This is the underlying value of what Rav Soloveitchik argued (Out of the Whirlwind, 206):

Compassion is the socialized expression of joy. A person is summoned to serve G-d by serving his fellow man when he is least inclined to place himself at the disposal of others, when he is preoccupied with himself and the only service to which he attributes any value is self-service. He is contented with himself; he has been successful, he rejoices at his own great achievements, and he is ready to shut out the world in his exultation over his marvelous self. Exactly then, the call to service sounds.

This is complex and contrary to what we’ve been taught! There is virtue that can be produced from egocentrism, self indulgence, and perhaps even arrogance (obviously within limit). Perhaps it is even the ideal religious path? When spiritual fulfillment and self actualization is sought and elevated to the most pressing moral tasks, even via taking one self too seriously, perhaps some of the most holy work can be done. The other should still remain our primary focus but, at times, we must embrace what enables our actualization to properly reach the other. Let’s go to it!
 

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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February 12, 2013 | 6:45 pm

A Reflection on the Pursuit of G-d in Justice

Posted by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

“Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human and have prevailed,” (Bereshit 32:29). Yaakov Avinu is blessed with a new name only once he has struggled both with G-d and humanity together. The Jewish people are named Israel only after existential encounters with divinity and humanity!

There is a religious crisis in our age! Many seek closeness to G-d but not to assist man in a rigorous fashion. Others seek to help people but abandon the Ribbono Shel Olam. Jewish social justice makes the radical claim that one only comes closer to G-d by seeking justice for G-d’s creatures. Heschel said it quite simply: “Seen from the perspective of prophetic faith, the predicament of justice is the predicament of God,” (Religion and Race, 93).

Rav Yisrael Salanter argues that another’s physical needs are our own spiritual needs. For us to stand with integrity before the Abishter, we must be helping those who are sick, mourning, in poverty, or oppressed. Rav Shlomo Carlebach poetically inspired:
 

What is it really to have a covenant with God? A lot of people have a covenant with God and they are God drunk. They are completely with God, but they are not world drunk. They don’t see the people anymore, especially if the people are pagans, according to their theory. A person who has a true covenant with God has to be completely aware of every little pagan in the world. If Abraham would not have welcomed the three angels who were disguised as pagans, he would never have had Isaac and there would never be a Messiah, and whole world most probably would be destroyed one way or another! (Holy Brother, 19).

One cannot achieve religious virtue without developing sustainable and developing midot of chesed and tzedek. In Derech Hashem, Rav Luzzatto explains that the soul has 5 parts: “nefesh (soul), ruach (spirit), neshama (breath), chayah (living essence) and yechidah (unique essence),” To ensure the vitality of each part of the soul, one must seek out different ways of giving. Which type of tzedek and chesed work do you propose gives life to each spiritual compartment of the self? How can we do our social justice work and our activism in a way to ensure that we are coming closer to G-d and closer to becoming G-dly?
 

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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February 12, 2013 | 10:29 am

A Reflection on Messianic Yearning

Posted by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

Religious Jews are taught at a young age to yearn for the geulah (redemption). With sophistication, the student comes to learn that messianism is not just about seeking an end but is also a worldview, a process of living with a vision and with a dream. What is one to do if they lack this excitement for life, drive to make change, idealism to envision a better world? Rabbi Luzzatto (Mesillat Yesharim, Chapter 7) writes:

The best advice for the person in whom this desire does not burn is that he consciously enthuse himself so that enthusiasm might eventually become second nature to him. External movement arouses the internal, and you certainly have more of a command over the external than the internal.

Yearning for a better world, for a messianic age, is seen as a Jewish foundational concept. In fact, the Gemarrah, says that whether or not one was “tzipita lishua” (waiting with hope for redemption) is one of the first questions that an individual will be asked on their judgment day. Did one yearn for a world devoid of poverty, human suffering, hate, and cruelty? Did one act to bring this dream into reality?

Today, due to extremists, notions of messianism have become unappealing for many, but we can not lose the inner human emotional need for a notion of salvation and the fruits that that impulse can produce. Discussing the successes of the Zionists’ building and founding of Medinat Yisrael, Rabbi David Hartman z’l writes that

If the messianic vision is abandoned, the resultant anchorage exclusively in the world of immediacy and everyday concerns may lead to cynicism or despair regarding the possibility of achieving anything radical in human history and may discourage responsible action by the halakhic community, (A Living Covenant, page 288).

We need more balance in our lives as justice seekers but we also need more radical visionaries! Becoming one who yearns for and works tirelessly for redemption may be a necessary trait for one who wishes to profoundly shape the world. As Rav Luzzato recommends, we should take on spiritual practices which help to cultivate the internal desire for an ideal world and external practices that help to be makriv the geulah (bring near an ideal human society). May we be blessed with success!

 

Rabbi Dr. 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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February 11, 2013 | 10:03 pm

A Reflection on the Pace of Life: Patience vs. Alacrity

Posted by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

Activism requires a very calculated and sensitive balance between patience and alacrity. On the one hand, one must have the patience for teaching and engaging the apathetic and the uninformed. On the other hand, one must also have the alacrity to respond to crises and injustices at the most crucial time. Most often the precise timing that necessitates immediate action precedes the completion of the essential education and mobilization of the public. This is one of the reasons why the uninformed segments of the public at times view the activist as radical. One must have the courage to act in the name of shalom and tzedek while maintaining patience and respect for more passive critics from one’s own constituency.

Rabbi Preida (Eruvin 54b) used to teach his student who was slow to learn the lesson 400 times in one day in order that he would properly learn. This savlanut (patience) is required for one who believes deeply enough in their convictions and also cares enough about his or her students and constituents joining to pursue justice for social change.

Pinchas (Bamidbar 25:8) and Moshe Rebbeinu (Shemot 2:12) serve as our quintessential Jewish models of kina (zealotry) and zrizut (alacrity). Moshe’s core identity and community were transformed by his courageous decision to protect the abused. The way that Avraham Avinu greeted his guests (Bereshit 18:2 ) teaches us that one must develop the emotional intelligence to be in touch with another’s needs to the point that one can respond to situations that demand immediate and urgent responses with care.

Leo Tolstoy, the great Russian writer, famously noted that “The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.” There is a time for savlanut and a time for zrizut. Acquiring the warrior traits to balance these traits requires self awareness, courage, partnership, and sensitivity. With experience and partnership may we develop this necessary balance to lead and create social change.
 

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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February 10, 2013 | 10:06 pm

A Reflection on Humility

Posted by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

Anivut (humility) has a very special priority in Jewish positive self-development. Rav Kook wrote (The Moral Principles, page 174) that “Humility is associated with spiritual perfection. When humility effects depression it is defective, when it is genuine it inspires joy, courage, and inner dignity.” In short, humility should not diminish our special personality traits; rather it should help us to become unique moral courageous agents of change.

Benjamin Franklin famously said that “to be humble to superiors is duty, to equals courtesy, to inferiors nobleness.” The impulse to extend humility to all relationships is perhaps most imperative in our activist work. One who is organizing against the perpetuators of injustice can easily lose one’s sense of perspective while rallying in front of the morally “inferior.” It is at these moments, raising the prophetic voice for social change and justice, that humility is perhaps the most important for the Yid committed to tikkun olam.

This does not mean, G-d forbid, that humility should restrain someone from fully expressing their obligations as an activist. As Rambam pointed out (Shemoneh Perakim 4, p. 67), humility and self esteem are necessarily complimentary. One is to believe in one self and in one’s convictions while simultaneously expressing those beliefs and convictions in a way that acknowledges the infinite presence of the Ribbono Shel Olam in all of one’s work. For Rambam, humility is a moderate trait that should prevent one from acting arrogantly or from acting in a self deprecating manner.

May we all be blessed to take on practices that assist us in becoming beings of progress that stand on the “shoulders of giants,” as Newton famously articulated, while also maintaining consciousness of our human frailties and imperfections.

 

Rabbi Dr. 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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February 10, 2013 | 7:36 pm

A Reflection on Responsibility

Posted by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

Responsibility is one of the most important midot (character traits) to cultivate in one’s soul. Acharayut (responsibility in Hebrew) comes from the root “acher” (other). To take responsibility means to cultivate the “ability” for response” to an “other.” This responsibility to another is born in the moment where no one else is present to assist. As Hillel said (Avot 2:6) “uveemkom sh’ain anashim hishtadail lihiyot ish:”in a place where there aren’t people of moral courage taking responsibility, one needs to step up. The Rabbis learned this lesson from Moses himself (Shemot 2:12). He looks both ways to see if someone will help and when he sees that there is no one he takes responsibility.

Rather than look to others to create our meaning, our opportunities, or our missions, we are charged to be proactive. Gandhi famously said “Be the change you want to see in the world.” G-d comes to love Avraham Avinu because he and his children are “Shomru Derech Hashem Laasot Tzedakah u’Mishpat” (Genesis 18:18), guardians of the way of G-d to do justice. Here we learn that the Jewish people are born in our becoming shomrim (guards of the good).

Viktor Frankl, the great Jewish psychoanalyst, once said that “Being human means being conscious and being responsible. By becoming responsible agents for social change we actualize not only our humanity but also our mission as Jews.

May we all meditate on the midah of responsibility and set up rituals to grow in our ability to act as moral agents of responsibility.

 

Rabbi Dr. 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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January 31, 2013 | 10:53 am

Immigration Reform: A Jewish Imperative

Posted by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

This week, a bipartisan group of eight U.S. senators announced a new immigration reform effort. The next day, President Barack Obama gave a speech outlining his own plan for immigration reform. We hope these comprehensive efforts help resolve the continuing confusion over this issue; in just the first half of 2012, hundreds of bills and resolutions, often contradictory and misguided, were adopted by 41 state legislatures addressing immigration. Anti-immigrant extremists around the country are moving to amend the 14th Amendment to the Constitution’s guarantee of citizenship to anyone born in the United States, recognizing only those born of citizens. This would affect the 350,000 children born in the United States each year to at least one undocumented immigrant parent. With an estimated 11.5-12 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States today, who face deportation regardless of how long they have been here, change in our country is long overdue.

Contrary to popular perception, President Obama stepped up the detention of undocumented immigrants during his first term. In 2011, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed nearly 400,000 undocumented immigrants from the country, and nearly 55% were convicted of felonies or misdemeanors; in 2012, ICE detained 410,000 undocumented immigrants. However, on January 29, 2013, President Obama acknowledged that this situation should not continue. He proposed a legal procedure by which undocumented Americans could register and, once passing a background check, gain provisional legal status, and eventually permanent resident status and citizenship. The one potential hold-up is border security issues: Republican leaders may insist that the borders be absolutely secure before implementing the policy, while the President wants to implement the procedure earlier.

Oddly, this is occurring at a time when immigration to the U.S. is decreasing. The Pew Hispanic Center announced in April 2012 that the net migration from Mexico to the United States has stopped and possibly even reversed. They note that from 2005 to 2010, about 1.4 million Mexicans immigrated to the United States while the same number of Mexican immigrants and their U.S.-born children moved from the United States to Mexico. Asians, not Latinos, are now actually the largest group of new arrivals in the United States.

While there is mostly speculation on the effect of undocumented Americans on employment, it has been shown that more than 50 percent of them pay taxes. As with other Americans, they pay sales tax (for a total of more than $8 billion annually). In addition, in 2007 they and their employers were responsible for an estimated $11.2 billion in Social Security and $2.6 billion in Medicare contributions, in addition to other taxes and unemployment insurance payments. Since these workers use fake identification to obtain work, they can never receive unemployment insurance, Social Security, or Medicare, so they actually pay into our system without receiving benefits from it. In 2006, when Texas conducted the first comprehensive economic review of the impact of undocumented Americans, it was discovered that while these Americans produced $1.58 billion of revenue, they only received $1.16 billion in state services, so Texas made $462 million in profit from undocumented Texans.

Critics of immigration reform have used outlandish and false statements to justify their positions, echoing the bigotry against Italian and Jewish immigrants a century ago. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer said this in 2010: “The majority of the illegal trespassers that are coming into the state of Arizona are under the direction and control of organized drug cartels and they are bringing drugs in.” On January 29, 2013, the influential conservative radio pundit Rush Limbaugh made this outrageous statement concerning Hispanic immigrants: “I've seen…research data which says that a vast majority of arriving immigrants today come here because they believe that government is the source of prosperity, and that's what they support.”

No one has ever presented credible evidence to back either of these false claims. Most of these undocumented immigrants are from Mexico (59%, 6.8 million) and are fleeing poverty back home, yet most still live in poverty and insecurity here. About 3 million live in California and about 2 million in Texas, close to the border. Their life in the homeland they are fleeing is one of pain and sorrow and they must leave behind their families and all they know to try to survive. Their stories are tragic; at “My Immigration Story,” you can read their stories of anxiety over coming to the United States at an early age, but still subject to being deported to a country they never knew; of trying to comply with, and work within, the legal framework but being stymied by decades of bureaucratic foot-dragging; of relatives separated by a border, of loved ones’ burial places that cannot be visited.

We must remember as a nation the timeless rabbinic teaching, “Do not judge your fellow until you stand in his place” (Pirke Avot 2:4). We must not attack undocumented workers with the harmful, hateful rhetoric that many use today as they are stuck in a very challenging predicament that few can related to. The rabbis even promoted immigration: “He who has not made good in one place and fails to move and try his luck in some other place has only himself to complain about” (Bava Metzia 75b). One cannot remain stuck in an underprivileged region if it is a clear dead end for oneself and one’s family. In the Torah, there is a positive commandment to love the foreigner in our midst (Deuteronomy 10:18), and a negative commandment against oppressing or perverting justice for them in any way (Exodus 22:20, Deuteronomy 24:17). The rabbis elaborated on this prohibition: “You shall not wrong or oppress the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall not wrong with words, and you shall not oppress financially” (Mekhilta d’Rabbi Yishmael Mishpatim). We not only owe them basic human rights; we also have specific religious obligations to go above and beyond to protect them from harm. We should be grateful that America is a desired home for those fleeing dire straits and be proud of what we have to offer. 

Significant numbers of Jews immigrated (and continue to immigrate) to the United States without documentation. We also needed a safe refuge like many others fleeing poverty and persecution today. Our responsibility to the vulnerable immigrant (and heroic journeyer) requires that we honor the image of G-d in all people. Perhaps Emmanuel Levinas, the French Talmudist and Jewish philosopher, said it best: “The respect for the stranger and the sanctification of the name of the Eternal are strangely equivalent” (Nine Talmudic Readings: “Toward the Other,” p. 27).

Now is the time to hear the eternal calls of our religious traditions and of human conscience to ensure the dignity of all humans by providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants currently in the United States. We are long overdue but sure to prevail, since our commitment is steadfast and justice is on our side.

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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