IF YOU CAN’T FORGIVE OTHERS, START WITH FORGIVING YOURSELF.

We all know the High Holy Days are a time for apologizing, asking for forgiveness, and finding the strength to forgive others. It is not such an easy thing to ask for forgiveness and it is not such an easy thing to forgive somebody that has hurt you and let you down. It is particularly challenging to forgive someone else for doing something you would never do, or can’t imagine you would ever do. It is particularly difficult to forgive someone else for doing something you would never be able to forgive yourself for doing.

THE LONELINESS OF BETRAYAL

Last night, I shared a story about when I was in India in 2013 and there was one of the first social media blow ups about Israel and Gaza, and I lost about 20 friends I thought were good friends in the span of two weeks. What I didn’t share was how it hit me in the moment and this morning, I want to start there.

The Metamorphosis of Antisemitism

When Gregor Samsa woke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed right there in his bed into some sort of monstrous insect. He was lying on his back – which was hard, like a shell – and when he raised his head a little he saw his curved brown belly segmented by rigid arches atop which the blanket, already slipping, was just barely managing to cling. His many legs, pitifully thin compared to the rest of him, waved helplessly before his eyes. “What in the world has happened to me?” he thought. It was no dream……

When I was an adorable, relentless very flouncy four-year-old, I insisted on wearing my sister’s cheerleading skirt to kindergarten every day for two years. I could not imagine then that when I was older, all my favorite sci-fi shows would feature openly trans characters, or that Laverne Cox would be the sexiest woman on Orange is the New Black, or that RuPaul Charles would be a national treasure.

Rabbi Hillel famously said: Al Tifros min ha Tzibur - Do not separate yourself from community.

הִלֵּל אוֹמֵר, אַל תִּפְרֹשׁ מִן הַצִּבּוּר

On June 19th, 1865, General Gordon Granger of the Union Army took control of the federal troops on Galveston Island and made this proclamation:  

"The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired laborer."

The celebrations that followed became what we now know as Juneteenth.

On June 19th, 1865, General Gordon Granger of the Union Army took control of the federal troops on Galveston Island and made this proclamation:  

"The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired laborer."

The celebrations that followed became what we now know as Juneteenth.

On June 19th, 1865, General Gordon Granger of the Union Army took control of the federal troops on Galveston Island and made this proclamation:  

"The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired laborer."

The celebrations that followed became what we now know as Juneteenth.

Upon my couch at night, in a dream

I sought the one I love—

I sought, but found him not.

“I must rise and roam the town,

Through the streets and through the squares;

I must seek the one I love.”

I sought but found him not. Song of Songs 3:1-2

Among the most famous of Jewish philosophers and theologians is Franz Rosensweig. Born in Germany in 1886 to an assimilated non-observant Jewish family, Franz was exposed to traditional Judaism by his uncle and asked for Hebrew lessons. He never became observant and went to medical school in Berlin. While there, he began to actively pursue conversion to Christianity, and committed to be baptized to his cousin who had converted, but first, he said he needed to delve into Judaism so he would at least know what he was giving up. In this mode, he went to High Holy Day services, and on Yom Kippur in 1913, had a powerful religious experience in synagogue, a revelation of some sort. It became clear to him that he was existentially and unchangeably a Jew and there was no leaving it. He decided that Judaism was rightly concerned about real life, this life and the way we can best live it. He became one of the most famous Jewish philosophers of the past several centuries, and was a star in the school of Wissenschaft der Judenthums, or the academic graduate study of Judaism that is the intellectual basis of what would become Reform Judaism.

This week’s portion, B’Chukotai contains a section of blessings and curses. The Torah sets it up as an either-or; either we will be good and be blessed or we will be bad and be cursed. I think as modern people, we know that blessings and curses don’t come so neatly separated in our lives, but often blessings and curses come at us together and in ways that are deeply entangled.

Many people, from Rabbi Hillel on, have tried to sum up Judaism in one sentence. Of course, when you try to boil down an ancient, evolving, complex tradition into one sentence, you inevitably leave something crucial out. If you focus only on tikkun olam or peace, you miss peoplehood. If you focus only on peoplehood, you miss our profound literary tradition. If you focus on Talmudic thinking and law, you miss Jewish secular culture. Even Hillel saying Torah could be summed up in the line, “that which is hateful to you, do not do to another,” really leaves out some crucial things that make Judaism, well, Judaism, and not some universalistic ethic or philosophy.

In Judaism, we believe that not doing something, standing by silently when action is needed – we believe that is just as wrong as doing a harmful action. The person who says nothing, does nothing is responsible along with the person doing the bad action in the first place.

This week’s Torah portion, Ki Tisa, is probably most famous for the story of the Golden calf, but after that, there is another scene in Ki Tisa that to me is one of the most poignant and emotionally honest moments in Moses’ life: Moses, in the midst of all that is happening, blurts out:

Hareini-na et k’vodcha Let me behold Your Presence!

I have a question for you: during COVID, what has been your guilty pleasure in TV watching? A show you that might judge others for watching, but there you are?

“Israel is bewildered; They have now become among the nations Like an unwanted vessel.” Hosea 8:8

This line from the prophet Hosea have rung hauntingly true of late. This week, Amnesty International issued a report declaring Israel to be guilty of the Crime of Apartheid and calling for action by the international community. This but a couple of weeks after the siege at Colleyville, and on the same day that Whoopi Goldberg declared that the Holocaust had nothing to do with racism because Jews are white. For me, this is also in the midst of training after training and meeting after meeting about synagogue security, live shooter trainings, and how we protect our Hebrew schools without scaring our kids.

As you know, I just got back from doing a wedding in Sicily, the first in this town since the Jews were expelled by Spain in the early 1500’s. There’s a long and surprising history of Jews in Sicily, and I’ll share some of that during the oneg, but first I want to say how good it is to be back home. I love travel, and I happen to be adaptable to new places, and I’m pretty comfortable in new situations. As it turns out, that doesn’t include driving in Sicily.

This week’s Torah portion, Vayigash, contains perhaps the most moving, emotionally raw passages in the Torah. Joseph, now viceroy of all Egypt, has now seen his brothers who came to Egypt to ask for food, but he has not revealed himself to them, has not spoken Hebrew to them, and has only been wearing his fine Egyptian clothing. Joseph is understandably distrustful of his brothers, since they did, after all, first plot to kill him and then instead throw him in a pit to be sold into slavery. My brother and I fought all the time, and we are not close, but the worst thing he did to me was break things my mother loved and then fame me for them. I have trouble forgiving him for that, so how Joseph comes to forgive his brothers is always a bit hard for me to understand.

Each Candle a Question In the Talmud, the rabbis ask what I think might be the purist distillation of a Jewish question about Hanukkah. They ask: What is this Hanukkah?

Two weeks ago, in our Torah portion, Jacob, fleeing from his brother who wants to kill him, from his father who is betrayed, and from his mother and the only home he ever knew, Jacob a homebody, is out in the desert, alone, heading on foot to a far-off place he’s never been. Everything he has ever known is gone and he has no idea what lies ahead or if he will survive. He is in-between, and it is twilight, an in-between time.