In honor of tonight’s airing of the final episode of the TV series: The Good Place, I am posting a sermon I delivered before the Yizkor, Memorial Service on Yom Kippur 2010. I would love to read responses and your own stories! (There are no spoilers- you can read this before you watch the show.)

        

  Before I begin my remarks, I want to acknowledge my Rabbinic colleague, Rabbi Elie Spitz who was, I believe, the first Conservative Rabbi to address the issue I will address today. He relates that it took courage for him to do. I completely understand his feelings. 

I also wish to express my appreciation to a few friends in this congregation and beyond who also encouraged my thinking and my speaking and teaching about my thoughts. Thank you.

         Yizkor is a time for stories – those we tell with a smile or a tear, and those which, for whatever reason, we choose to keep to ourselves.

         This morning, I want to share a story with you. It has a few laughs, a few tears, and it is definitely a story that I cannot keep to myself. 

         I have told it to a few of you already and never really considered telling it in such a public way. However, the more I thought about the story and the impact it had on me, the more difficult I found it to speak on anything else this morning. 

         I am keenly aware that there is an inherent risk in my telling this story at this time. But the best sermons are the ones that come with a bit of risk and push all of our boundaries a bit. 

         My story is absolutely true in every detail and in every nuance. It is a story of an event which moved me this past year like none other did.  It is a story the likes of which, I am sure, many of you could tell and I want you to view my telling this story as encouragement for you to tell your story if you have been reluctant to do so. I certainly believe these stories are deeply “Jewish” stories, consistent with our tradition and our perspective on life and on death. I hope all of you will share your stories with me. 

         As you know, I received an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from the Jewish Theological Seminary this past May for serving more than 25 years in the Rabbinate. You may not know that my brother, Charley, received the same honorary degree for the same reason at the same ceremony. In March, two months before the convocation, Charley and I received an email from the public events office of JTS.

         The email was prompted by the fact that there was a discrepancy in the material that we had submitted for our diplomas. We had been asked for our parents’ Hebrew names and my brother and I had each spelled our mother’s name differently. My mother’s Hebrew name, or Yiddish name to be precise, was Ginessa and neither of us really knew how to spell it.  My brother and I had spelled it differently when we filled out the forms for our original diplomas two years apart in the 1980s and, although we had come to an agreement more than twenty years later on how to spell it on her headstone, this year, for some reason, we each used our original and inconsistent spellings of the name. JTS, known for its academic honesty and intellectual precision, wanted to know what to do. Could we possibly choose one of the spellings in order to be consistent?

         I found this extraordinarily funny and called my brother and he was already laughing hysterically for the same reason. We both kept picturing our father, alav hashalom, laughing at us for not checking with each other, and our mother, aleha hashalom, smiling with a bemused expression deriving great satisfaction from the fact that she was the subject of such a confusion. She would have thought it was so ironic, having the name she never liked as the issue of a great Jewish academic debate. 

My brother and I then spent some time reminiscing, laughing through a few tears because we knew the timing was perfect as the next night was Mom’s fifth yahrzeit.

         We decided to ask JTS to keep the machloket (an academic disagreement) going and to spell the name differently on the two diplomas. 

         As the day wore on my laughter began to turn to real and deep sadness. I have this midlife orphan stuff down pretty well; but every once in a while it gets to me, and this was one of those days. All that I kept thinking about, all day long, was that in the 5 years since her death, my mother had already missed 4 simchas: our kids’ bar and bat mitzvah and the weddings of my brother’s two daughters. And I realized she would not be present at the ceremony which, with all due respect to my kids and my nieces, would probably have meant more to her than any of the others – seeing her two “boys” together on the stage receiving these degrees.

         I couldn’t get this sadness out of my mind all day. It was a miserable day and just before I left for shul, I checked my email and read the response from JTS. They were willing to suspend academic correctness and glad to help continue the family tradition of different spellings. What a relief!

 I was about to turn off the computer when suddenly a word flashed into my head for the first time in years.

 The word will not be familiar to most of you, but those of you who grew up in Boston around the same time I did or before may recognize it so I will mention it for the sake of completeness and to show those of you who are familiar with it how unlikely a word it would have been to pop into my mind on a March afternoon in Ann Arbor in the year 2010. 

The word was Norumbega.

         Norumbega Park was an amusement park a few miles from where I grew up. Now there is a Marriott hotel there on the Charles River right near Brandeis University. I know I went to Norumbega when I was a little kid. We rode the merry go round and we fed the ducks on the river, but I don’t remember it well; the park closed when I was about 6 or 7. 

         As I sat at the computer I started thinking about one building at the park called the Totem Pole Dance Hall. I never went there of course, but I remember it because it had remained open – or at least the sign remained visible – after the rest of the park closed. I had a mental image of the sign on the front of the building and I wondered that afternoon whether it was as I remembered. So I went to Google and typed in Norumbega; and sure enough a few entries down the list, after the Norumbega Boy Scout Council and the Norumbega Apartments, I saw a website for “Memories of Norumbega Park”. I clicked on it and there were 6 or 7 different “folders” of material. I went to one randomly and it included a section called “Archival Pictures”. I clicked on that link and 5 thumbnail pictures came up, pictures so small you can’t really see too much detail.

         None looked like it was a picture of the Totem Pole and time was getting short, so I started to leave the website.  But then my attention was drawn for some reason to one of the pictures. I couldn’t figure out what was happening in the picture and it looked intriguing, so I clicked on it.

         The picture was of a woman looking at animals on display at the park’s small zoo.

         And I nearly fainted.

         For the woman in the picture was the exact double of my mother: the build, posture, the hair, the facial expression, the clothes, everything – absolutely uncanny similarity. 

         I was alone in the house and was frantic. I did not what to do or to say. I printed the picture out and took it and my hands were shaking. A few minutes later, Ellen walked in from walking the dog and I called her in and said: “Look at this”. She looked at the picture and said, and I quote: “I never saw this picture of Gert”.

         I sent it to my brother on email with a topic: “Sit down for this one.”

         He called me one minute later – a record for him – and said: “This is incredible. It isn’t her, is it?” I said: “I don’t think so, the dates don’t match”. But, then he said: “Either way, it’s incredible”.

         And then he asked me, as he always does when I send him unusual stuff from the Internet: “How did you ever find this?”

         And as one academically and rationally JTS-trained Litvak Rabbi would say to another, I answered him: “Who knows?”

But after I hung up the phone, I took a deep breath and admitted to myself that that wasn’t the right answer. 

There was only one right answer. 

I have no doubt whatsoever that this was not a coincidence. Ani Ma’amin b’emunah shlayma…I believe with perfect faith that in some way, my mother led me to find that picture.

I have always believed in existence after death and since my parents’ death, I have believed in it even more strongly. I have no idea what that existence is and I assure you I am in no hurry to find out.  I have felt my parents’ presence in dreams and, occasionally, in an unquantifiable feeling which I can’t describe. But now, after my Norumbega experience, I believe something else. 

I believe that in ways I wouldn’t even pretend to understand or even try to explain, those whom we love can and do occasionally let us know that they are still with us. 

I know some of you accept this- you’ve experienced it as I have. But I also know that many of you can’t believe what you are hearing. So be it. Last year, I would have been fascinated by the story, as I have been with stories of this kind for years; but I would have looked for other explanations or just chalked it up to coincidence or wish fulfillment. I no longer look for other explanations. I believe because it has happened to me. 

         I have not changed my beliefs about death and mourning since this experience. I still believe that death is an end. And it is still so very, very sad. There is nothing that can replace having our loved ones sitting beside us, living and breathing and smiling as they look into our eyes; that all ends with death.  And so despite what I have experienced, it has not changed the way I look at mourning or how I will guide you when, God forbid, you experience the death of a loved one The funeral will be just as difficult, the sadness just as intense, the goodbyes just as final and no anticipation of such a moment as I described will soften the blow of death. 

But I have taken tremendous comfort in this experience and I believe that if you are open to this type of experience and allow yourself the freedom of accepting something which can’t be explained but which feels so very real, you will know what it really means when we say the dead are with us bitzror hahayim, in the bond of life, and you will find it a comfort beyond any that you could have imagined. 

If it has happened to you, I would love to hear about it. 

To all of you, trust me, it happens. And I believe it is real. 

And maybe it has happened many more times, but in my rational stubbornness I missed it. Maybe you’ve missed it as well.          This year, starting now, open your eyes, your ears, your heart, your mind and see if it in fact happens to you. 

And maybe next year at Yizkor, when we say: “Our loved ones are with us in the bond of life”, you will quietly and simply nod your head through the tears and say: “Yes, they most certainly are … and I have a story to prove it”.  

In Parashat Vayechi, we read the story of the death of Jacob. Following his death, Joseph and his brothers return to Canaan from Egypt to bury their father in the Cave of Machpelah which Abraham had bought for a family burial plot. 

We read in the parashah that on their way back from Canaan, the brothers tell Joseph that their father Jacob had instructed them to tell Joseph to forgive them. There is a beautiful legend which teaches that they told Joseph this becuase they had seen Joseph slip away from the caravan as it passed the pit into which he had been thrown as a young man. According to the story, Joseph stood over the pit and said a silent prayer of thanks to God for having delivered him from the pit. The brothers, fearing that Joseph was standing in silence planning his revenge, concoct a story that their father had told them to tell Joseph that he should forgive them. 

The story of Joseph standing over the pit and thanking God for his salvation is a beautiful story indeed. It is a story which many of us can relate to. For many of us, we can easily think of a place in which we faced or overcame a great challenge or turned a negative into a positive. To return to that place with the satisfaction of having survived and thrived since leaving is a moving experience. To return to a place of pain and know that life has taken a more positive turn since we were last there is truly worthy of a prayer of thanks to God. 

But, some can not return to such a place. Some were not rescued from the pit. Some did not find salvation and had no ability to return. 

We are all too familiar with stories of this kind and we immediately consider the 6,000,000 who could not go back to the site of their pain. 

In June, 2011, I had the opportunity to travel to Latvia, the birthplace of my paternal grandfather. Just a few months before, we had learned that one branch of my grandfather’s brother and his children and grandchildren were killed in the massacre of the Jews of the town of Preili at the hands of the Nazis in 1941. 

I felt a need to go to the site of that massacre and stand at the memorial that had been built to the victims. As I stood at the monument, two feelings came to mind. 

I felt such deep sorrow and pain for my great uncle Shael and his family who suffered so horribly, who died al kiddush hashem. They never had the opportunity that Joseph had to celebrate coming out of the pit. 

But the other feeling that I experienced was thanks to God that my grandfather had, in fact, left Latvia and came to this great land of freedom. 

As I stood at the memorial, I said a prayer of thanks as Joseph must have said, for being saved. 

I have written extensively on my trip and you can find some thoughts on this website. But, the one thought that always has risen above the others and which I consider again as we read Parashat Vayechi this year is that thought about standing at the place of the deep pit my family members were thrown into and realizing how fortunate I have been.

The feelings are the same this year but with more than a bit of concern. We are all justifiably worried about the rise of Anti-Semitism in America in recent months but we can never lose hope that this land will always be that place of freedom and safety that it has been for our people.

As I said in concluding the sermon I gave on Rosh Hashana following my return: 

While I will never forget and never abandon my great-uncle and his family’s memory and will tell their story to my children, and God willing my grandchildren,  I will always be guided by the sunshine that has graced my life because my grandfather came here. 

And I hope and pray that all of those who have been as fortunate will be grateful to God for the sun that shines on us and will find ultimate meaning, Jewish self definition, obligation and challenge in that blessed light. 

May that light continue to shine.

Shabbat Shalom. 

It’s been quite a day trying to understand the implications of President Trump’s planned executive order and reading through various different perspectives from people and organizations I trust. I’m still trying to process this entire issue as I know many are. So, as everyone continues to discuss this from all sides, I’ll make some statements in principle.

First, while I am deeply concerned about anti-Israel statements and actions on campuses and throughout the country, I am opposed to any law (and many have been proposed) which would make some such statements illegal. I believe that in many cases, those who criticize Israel’s policies are doing so out of genuine love and concern for Israel. And, some who express the opinion that Israel is not a legitimate state or should not be a Jewish state are speaking from a political or philosophical, not an anti-Semitic perspective. Such political speech, as much as I oppose it and cringe when I hear it, should be protected. There are clearly those who are anti-Israel who are anti-Semites but not all are and to in any way limit anti-Israel sentiment limits free speech which is dangerous. It would be a double standard to prohibit such speech specifically against Israel.

Secondly, I am wary of any statement, and President Trump has made many such statements, which suggest that Jews’ connection with Israel constitute our principal loyalty. Such statements provide ammunition for those who are looking for reasons to consider Jews as “the other” when it comes to being Americans. I am loyal to my people but, as I have said many times including from the Bima, my principle political loyalty is to the United States. While I won’t deny my love for and concern for Israel, I am a loyal American. AAny statement which makes a point of clearly identifiying a Jew as a member of a “different nation” is of grave concern.

And, finally, after his statements of the past weekend and so many other divisive statements and actions of this President, I will admit to being skeptical about anything President Trump says or writes regarding Jews. I wish he would just stop talking about Jews and anti-Semitism because, frankly, I think a man who uses his pulpit to encourage divisiveness and bigotry in this nation is simply not to be trusted when he singles Jews out, even for good.

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This morning, I want to share with you a thought on Jacob’s dream and how it relates to our lives as Jews today as we approach the festival of Hanukkah.

One of the most prevalent traditional rabbinic interpretations of Jacob’s dream of angels ascending and descending a ladder is that Jacob was witnessing a “changing of the guard”. The angels who were assigned to protect him within the land of Israel were leaving him while those who were to protect him outside the land were coming down to take their place by his side.

Jacob was lying on the border of Israel, traveling back to the extended family in Haran in order to escape from the anger of his brother Esau. The interpretation underscores a revolution in Hebrew religion: Jacob’s god was also effective outside of his homeland. While the dominant idea of the time was that one would owe allegiance to the local deity of an area when one was traveling, Jacob was assured that God would protect him wherever he was. This truly was a revolutionary idea.

But, there is another transition that is taking place for Jacob besides a change of location. Jacob left home as a rather self-centered, overly confident individual. He was a man who, quite frankly, did not reflect the ethical life that we would like to associate with our heroes. His action of buying the birthright from his brother was in many ways an act of greed and opportunism. Then, while you can blame his mother, Rebecca, for arranging the ruse that fooled his blind father Isaac into giving him what was rightly Esau’s blessing, Jacob went along with it with apparently no compunctions.

But, Jacob is to change as he travels outside of the land. He becomes more a sensitive to others, able to think outside of himself. He falls in love with Rachel and he adores her. He refrains from taking revenge on his father-in-law Laban when he substitutes Leah on the wedding night but continues to work for him. While he is not immediately transformed to model husband and father, he is certainly moving in that direction and when we read the story, next week of his wrestling match with the angel and his reconciliation with Esau, we see a completely different individual, one with spiritual yearnings and a touch of humility which have become essential parts of his life.

Perhaps then, we can view the angels that descend upon Jacob as those who will be urging him to realize that it is the time in his life for spiritual considerations. At some point in our lives, we all become Jacobs, learning to balance our need for personal advancement, independence, security and survival with the demands for a more spiritual and ethical life.

But, it would be incorrect to describe this change simply as a rejection of a selfish youth and a sign of adulthood. For even adults need to keep that side of self-preservation with them as they grow. And, we will see that in next week’s parasha when we read that Jacob prepared for his reunion with Esau not only with gifts and with moments of prayer but also with preparations to defend himself and his family should Esau attack him. He knows that he must do what is necessary for his survival.

So, it is important to note that the Torah does not say that the ascending angels are leaving the scene and going “up to heaven”. Rather they are staying on the ladder, taking a backseat, or an upper rung, for a while as Jacob focuses on that spiritual aspect of his life. He will always need those other angels, the ones that represent his personal, physical needs but they can be in the background for a while as he contemplates who he is and what he brings to the world.

And, now, let’s turn to the holiday of Hanukkah.

While Hanukkah is a minor holiday in our tradition, it has many distinctions which are remarkable. One of those distinctions is the ability of Hanukkah to change its focus depending on the needs of the moment.  

Because Hanukkah is not a “Torah holiday” and because even traditional Jewish texts debate the reasons for lighting candles for 8 nights, Hanukkah has the unique characteristic among Jewish holidays to be able to change its message to fit the situation in which our people find ourselves.

Let me illustrate this with a story.

When I was a rabbinical school student in Israel, I worked at a wonderful institution called Neve Hanna, a home for children and youth in the city of Kiryat Gat. I was sent by the Jewish Theological Seminary to teach a bar/bat mitzvah class at Neve Hanna. The children all came from secular homes and our program was an attempt to bring spirituality and meaningful traditional rituals into their lives. By the way, this process has continued to this day and Neve Hanna has become a model for how to introduce meaningful Jewish experiences into a generally secular Israeli environment.

On one of my visits during December 40 years ago, I intended to discuss Hanukkah with the 13 year olds. I started by making a reference to the little jug of oil that burned for 8 days.

Are you ready for this? They had never heard the story. They laughed at it and mocked it.

So, I asked them what Hanukkah was about and I got the answer I expected: “the Maccabees”. Then, they jumped from their seats and dramatized, quite graphically, the military victory of the few against the many.

Twelve years after the Six Day War and with parents, older siblings and friends serving in the IDF, this was the story they related to. In their secular upbringing, it had been demonstrated to them, through silence, that there was no place for and no need for the story of the Divine miracle of the lights and any spiritual lesson one might learn from it.

As upsetting as that was to me, it certainly should not have been surprising for it should have been obvious that this was the story that resonated with them. And, my experience as a child should have prepared me for it.

For me, in Hebrew school, in Brookline, Massachusetts in the 1960s, there were no battles to be fought, no clear existential crises of the Jewish people that were shared with 10 year olds. So, our teachers talked much less about the Maccabees and largely as the story of the oil that inspires. They thought that that story would resonate more clearly with the goals of the synagogue and the Hebrew school.

And, what is demonstrated here has been true for two millennia, Jews have allowed Hanukkah to be what we need at any given moment and allowed it to change its entire message to be relevant. Even those who have sadly reduced Hanukkah to a “gift giving holiday” in the spirit of the “holiday season” have allowed it to “morph” into what they feel they and their families need.

So, what will Hanukkah 2019 represent for us?

As we approach the festival of lights, we are witnessing in words and in deeds, a horrifying increase in anti-Semitism, here and throughout the world. Our people are feeling more acutely in so many places the fear that we used to think of as being in the past. For that reason, the story of the Maccabees standing firm and standing strong against increasing threats resonates so much more deeply. In some ways, it seems poised to eclipse the spiritual, moral messages of the holiday which include freedom for all and bringing spiritual light to counteract the darkest days of the year.

That is the sad and scary reality in which we find ourselves as Jews here and around the world. The angels visiting us this Hanukkah may well be the ones that call us out to protect our people at all costs and stand strong, ready to do all we must do for our people’s survival.

This is not the time to analyze or quantify the threat. But, the rise in Anti-Semitism must be acknowledged and confronted.

However, it is imperative that we not let those angels that came down to Jacob get too tar away. We can’t let them retreat back up to the heavens because concern for ethics or an idealistic vision of the world gets in our way. We need them more than ever. Somehow, we need to keep both elements of the Hanukkah story, the protective and the spiritual, active in our lives. While, we must do what we must do to protect our people, I pray that in that fight, we will be joined with well meaning people from other communities who will stand us just as we must stand with those of other communities who are endangered by hate speech and acts of violence. Doing so will reflect the greater meaning of the holiday of Hanukkah as we attempt to bring light to all in the world who live in darkness.

While we commit ourselves to insuring our and our communities’ physical survival we can not turn away from the obligation to bring light, spiritual light, to our lives and to the world. Holding on to both goals is what truly make us mature human beings.

May we resist the temptation to turn this holiday and our entire mission as Jews into one purely of national survival.

 May we also welcome the light of the holiday into our homes and into our hearts and into our souls.

May we invite both sets of angels into our homes this Hanukkah season and always.

I’ll start by saying it unequivocally: It worked.

If anyone had told me that it was coming, I would have had my doubts and, in fact, probably would have vowed never to watch it.

But, I did watch it. And, it worked.

It made me smile. It made me cry. It brought back memories and made new ones.

I am referring to Xfinity’s four minute commercial featuring E.T., the Extra Terrestrial’s return to Earth. It is, in my opinion, an absolute masterpiece.

I have a strong connection with the movie because the first High Holy Day sermon I gave as a rabbi was based on E.T., which had just come out a few months before. So, I consider it, in a somewhat irreverent way, to be “kadosh”, to be holy and sacred. And, we shouldn’t tinker with sacred things unless we are really careful.

But, I think whoever was responsible for this idea and this four minute film really did it so well that it brought me to tears again after so many years.

So much of the video captured the spirit of the movie in a Midrashic way. So many of the scenes from the movie were recreated very briefly (the flower, the screaming, dressing E.T. up). But, those were supplemented by the updating of technology which made me stop and think about how so many things which would have seemed impossible 38 years ago are now taken for granted. The idea of combining the past with the present is a model for how interpretation of an ancient text can be relevant.

But, bringing the actor who played Elliot, Henry Thomas back to see E.T. again and to introduce him to his family was genius. Midor l’dor, from generation to generation, the scenes with the family were priceless.

My sermon on E.T. focused on the quote at the end of the movie: “I’ll be right here”. Just before leaving to go home, E.T. reached out and pointed to Elliot’s heart and told him, in words the boy had said to him earlier: “I’ll be right here.” I envisioned those words as words God might have said to the people at Mt. Sinai before the revelation ended: “Follow my Torah and you will always remember our time together. Follow the Torah and I’ll be right here”.

But, that thought only works if we imagine, as does Jewish tradition, that we all stood at Mt. Sinai and that we commit ourselves to passing down the words and the lessons to the generations to come.

From Generation to Generation…

As I watched this brilliant video, a thought came to mind.

Had Elliot told his children about E.T.?

I think it’s pretty clear from watching the video that he had.

Good for him.

And, how fortunate were his kids.

So, I started to think about all the time I have spent telling our kids (who are now in their mid 20s) the stories of my life. It is so important that we pass those stories down from generation to generation. Our children might have been at Mt. Sinai but they weren’t with us when we were growing up and they need to know where we, and they, came from.

In the end, the most important message of this video for me was: tell our kids our stories and let them use those stories to prepare them for the moments when “from generation to generation” suddenly becomes more than just a saying.

This is the second in what I plan to be a series of reminiscences of the year I spent as a student in Israel 40 years ago. I hope these posts will be interesting to those whose connection with Israel is more recent and will be nostalgic for those who lived in Israel or visited around that time.

When I began to plan for my year in Israel, I thought a great deal about what it would feel like to live in Jerusalem. The prospect of living in “the holy city” excited me but it also intimidated me more than a bit as I considered what it would be like to be immersed in this spiritual environment.

In fact, there were many aspects of daily life in Jerusalem which were unlike what they would be anywhere in the world. Riding on a bus and suddenly and unexpectedly seeing the walls of the Old City, discovering a significant historical site in the midst of a residential neighborhood, seeing the appearance of awe on the face of tourists who had recently arrived in the city, all of these and so many more were constant reminders of the fact that Jerusalem is like no other city in the world.

I’m sure I’ll write more about some of those experiences but one of the most surprisingly meaningful memories of that year for me is remembering the neighborhood I lived in and what daily life was like in “the holy city”.

I lived in the dormitory of Neve Schechter, the center of the Jewish Theological Seminary in Jerusalem. The school was located on a street called Neve Granot which was right behind the Israel Museum, across the ridge from the Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University and bordering the area called the “Valley of the Cross” (named for the 11th century monastery which still stands in the valley).

It was a quiet neighborhood and one which I grew to love. It was at the top of a hill and to get to the small neighborhood shopping area, one walked down a series of stairways down to Herzog Street. At the bottom of the hill there were a number of stores which made daily life interesting.

One was the local branch of Bank Hapoalim, where I had deposited my money. When I needed some money, I spoke with one of the bankers and he would take my handwritten “bank book” and subtract the money I was withdrawing. Of course, he had to check that the balance in the book was correct so first he would look at the daily computer print out sheets of how much every depositor had in the bank. He would look through them and then show me one entire page of the print out to ask me if this was, in fact, my name. Of course, while he was showing it to me, he was also showing me how much everyone else in the neighborhood whose name started with the letter D had in the bank. But, I guess that’s where the great expression that I learned very quickly comes in. “Kulanu Yehudim”, he would say: “We’re all Jews” which translates into; “it’s no big deal, it’s family.”

Then, a couple of doors down from the bank was the local “makolet”. A makolet is a small grocery store with all of the essentials for an Israeli diet: snack foods, fruit juices and every type of salad you could imagine. I would go there to purchase some hummus, “Turkish salad” (which was a spicy tomato based sauce- oh for the days I could eat it 😉 and my favorite grapefruit drink.

I bought that grapefruit drink several bottles at a time and would shlep the empties back to the makolet to get my deposit back. After a few weeks, I realized something strange. It seemed that no matter how many bottles I brought back and no matter how much inflation had devalued the lira (and later the shekel, the change in currency happened that year), the young boy who took my bottles would always say; “Sheva v’hetzi”, seven and a half. I could never figure out how it could always be sheva v’hetzi no matter how many bottles I brought back so I decided to try something.

One day, I gave him my bottles but kept one hidden. Of course, he said: “sheva v’hetzi” and then I said: “oh shachahti” (I forgot) and handed him the extra bottle. He looked perplexed for a moment and then began to count with his fingers and said: “oh achshav zeh sheva v’hetzi”, NOW it’s 7 and a half. He smiled a sly grin and all I could think was: “kulanu Yehudim”

Late in our year, there was a construction project going on across the street from the makolet. It turned out to be a “superpharm”, the chain of Walgreen’s like drug stores cropping up all over the country. It was followed by the appearance of signs for a “supersal”, part of the supermarket chain. I don’t recall if it was finished before I left the neighborhood to return to the States but I’ve always wondered what happened to the makolet. I assume people still shopped there to support the family that ran it but it was just a sign of the change.

One other aspect of the neighborhood comes to mind. I mentioned radio in my last posting. TV in Israel at the time consisted of only one station to watch (this was well before cable). So, there wasn’t much variety. But, I had the good fortune to have classmates and close friends who lived the next hill over towards the east. For some reason, they were able to receive TV from Jordan in addition to Israel TV which provided some American shows which were not available on Israel TV and also the “News at 10”, the English language news program

It is being, perhaps a bit charitable to call it “English”. Most of the time, it was understandable but sometimes the English was absolutely indecipherable and provided some comic relief.

The whole point of this piece is that one of the most enjoyable aspects of my year in Israel was just wandering around a neighborhood. I loved walking in Rechavia and the German Colony and of course, the Old City but I also loved to just walk around my little neighborhood. It was a simpler time and one which I remember with so many good, sweet memories.

I stopped in at the bookstore the other day looking for a book I could take on a plane trip and was fascinated by a book with the title: “The Soul of an Octopus” by Sy Montgomery. The cover read: “A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness”.

Since I am currently in my “animal phase” (don’t worry, I’m still interested in humans), l couldn’t resist it.

I began the book knowing very little about octopuses (the correct term the author assures us). I only knew that they were weird looking and could squeeze themselves through unimaginably small spaces to get where they wanted to go. I obviously had a lot to learn.

From the first page, I was absolutely fascinated by the book. The author describes the relationship that she developed with several octopuses at the New England Aquarium in Boston and her brief encounters with those she spotted while scuba diving. That anyone could even use the term “relationship” to describe a connection between a human and an octopus is hard enough to imagine but Ms. Montgomery is absolutely convincing that not only can one have a relationship with an octopus but that it can be extremely rewarding and meaningful for both parties.

The author describes her first meetings with an octopus named Athena as a life-changing experience. The octopus reached out to touch her as she reached towards the tank and she suddenly found herself engulfed by tentacles and suctions which are using the sense of taste, located in that part of the octopus body, to identify and get to know the person who is standing near them. She felt the octopus was pulling her into the tank with her and she felt she would have loved to have gone.

She then goes on to describe so many aspects of the octopus that are astounding: their ability to change color almost instantaneously not just for camouflage but also to indicate mood. She details their dexterity and problem solving ability which enable them to open jars in order to get at food. And, she points out in great detail that this ability can also spell trouble as octopuses often escape their tanks in aquariums and zoos and end up on the other side of a room or occasionally in the tank of another, and in this case, very unfortunate species.

But, it is the sense of “consciousness” that is most intriguing. Anyone who has a dog in their family knows that dogs “read” the behavior of the humans with whom they live. When I look into the eyes of the apes at the Toledo Zoo, I feel they are not only looking back at me but understanding that I am another species who is trying to make some meaningful contact with them.

But can this describe an octopus?

Ms. Montgomery makes it clear that the answer is yes. She claims that an octopus is able “to ascribe thoughts to others” and by doing so can avoid attacks by predators by understanding exactly what the predator intends to do. She writes: “Of all the creatures on the planet who imagine what is in another creature’s mind, the one that must do so best might well be the octopus- because without this ability, the octopus could not perpetrate its many self-preserving deceptions (through camouflage)… The octopus must assess whether the other animal believes its ruse or not, and, if not, try something different.”

There is so much more to the octopus than this aspect of consciousness. In addition, the author says, that the octopuses she has developed a relationship with remember her even if months go by between visits. She so beautifully and tenderly describes the dying days of an octopus named Karma who seemingly willed herself back to health for a brief time to greet her when she comes back to visit for one last time.

The book made me want to meet an octopus as she did and hopefully that day will come. But, the book made a greater impression on me than just a plan for a future octopean interaction . (I looked that word up by the way.)

Reading the book taught me once again about the surprises that the animal world, and our world in general, hold for us. It was another look into the unexpected places where we can find proof of the beauty and meaning of life itself. It’s easy to look into the eyes of a dog or a cat or a horse or an ape and feel a connection. But, an octopus? For those fortunate enough to experience it, the answer is yes. And, for all of us, therein lies the encouragement to continue to walk through this world with eyes open for new understandings and new miracles.

As I wrote last week, in the months to come I plan to share some memories of the year that I spent in Israel as a rabbinical school student. Some of these postings will address weighty issues of politics and philosophy. But, some will be much lighter and less serious reminiscences of Israel in the late 70s and very early 80s. These latter postings will, I hope, bring back some memories for those who spent some of those years in Israel and provide a contrast for the Israel of today. I’d love to hear your feedback about these memories if you lived in Israel at the time.

Since we are now in the intermediate days of Sukkot, it would seem appropriate to post some memory regarding the holiday, my first spent in Israel. But, while my story today begins with an experience over Sukkot, it has nothing to do with the holiday itself and fits more clearly into the second category I mentioned above but as I thought about this rather mundane issue, it reminded me once again of the question that I wrestled with during my entire year in Israel.

One of the things that I brought with me to Israel that year was a transistor radio (remember them)? Those who read my posts regularly know that I write a great deal about my love for classic TV but I also have been a regular radio listener through the years. Whether the top 40 station I listened to as a teenager of the more “grown up” stations I gravitated towards later, I always had the radio on and so it was natural to bring a radio with me to Israel.

But, the first days being as hectic as they were, it wasn’t until I took my first bus ride a few days after arriving that I actually heard a radio broadcast. The connection between a bus ride and the radio should be fairly clear to anyone who traveled on the public busses in Israel in the years before smart phones. The bus driver always had a radio on with the volume rather low until just before the “top of the hour” when he would turn up the radio and connect it to the PA system on the bus.

Everyone would grow quiet as they waited to hear the 5 beeps signifying the time and then would listen carefully to the latest hourly news bulletin. It may be a bit of an exaggeration but I remember how people would dramatically “shush” someone who was making too much noise during the news broadcast. It was a ritual that I experienced over and over again during my travels that year and one which reflects the tenuous reality of life in Israel in those days. People would listen to make sure they were aware of any security or economic issue which would clearly affect their lives.

Believe it or not, I actually remember something from that first broadcast that I heard 40 years ago. I don’t remember the news but I do remember the commercial that came on just before the news report. I think I only heard it once but I can remember part of it very clearly.

It was a jingle which contained these words:

Heenay hegeyu hachagim, hamishpacha bitiyulim, hamtzlema k’var muchanah: “The holidays have arrived, the family is taking a vacation, the camera is ready … Haolam mitzalaym bikodak, the world takes pictures with Kodak.

I heard that commercial once and it has stuck in my mind all these years. I was absolutely enthralled. I was glad I understood the Hebrew and realized that I could listen to the equivalent of catchy American commercials in Israel.

So, when I got back to my dorm room after that trip, I turned on the radio for the first time and became a real fan of Kol Yisrael, the Israel Broadcasting authority.

I listened to the Hebrew news and I loved the commercials, mostly for beer, banks and color TVs as I recall. But, I liked the programs too, particularly those on “Reshet Gimel”, the “third network” which played popular music and variety shows. One of my favorites was on from 8-9 a.m., a time I usually could find a few minutes to listen before class. It was called “Rock Etmol”, which is a nice Hebrew pun. The words Rak Etmol mean “only yesterday” and the DJ would play “oldies” from the rock era, a touch of “top 40” thousands of miles from home.

Then, there were the other programs: overnight call-in shows which featured opportunities for lonely people to share their problems with someone and shows which featured hokey contests- such as one which I taped and still have now on cd in which contestants had to read a column of names and numbers from the Tel Aviv telephone book as quickly as they could. Whoever read the most in 30 seconds won a prize. What memories!

And, I would listen to the news in English just to make sure I didn’t miss anything and occasionally would listen to Arabic music whether on the Kol Yisrael Arabic station or from Jordan. Occasionally, I would hear the unmistakeable sound of the chanting of the Quran from someplace far away.

The radio was my companion for some of the lonely times.

But, what I will never forget and still, to this day, listen to on youtube every once in a while was the opening of the broadcast day. The broadcast would start at 6 a.m. each morning with the recitation of the Shema and the V’ahavta (the central declaration of faith from Deuteronomy chapter 6) in the most beautifully pronounced Hebrew. The announcer would then read the first verse of the traditional psalm for each day of the week : Hayom yom…. This is the ___ day of the week on which the Levites would say…

It seemed odd to me that the radio broadcasts would begin with the recitation of a prayer as one of my observations about life in Israel that year which should have been obvious but surprised me was that not everyone in Israel was “religious”, according to my definition. I struggled through the year to figure out what was “Jewish” about some of what I experienced in Israel and the more I listened to the extremely “secular” broadcasts on the radio that followed each day, the more I struggled with that question.

But, two aspects of the radio in Israel that I have mentioned helped me understand it a bit more.

First, Hebrew. To me, the connection between Israel and all that I believed and felt as a Jew often came down to listening to and conversing in the Hebrew language and becoming more proficient in it as the year went along. I found a much deeper connection with Hebrew than I expected and find myself often listening to Israel TV and radio today online to keep that feeling fresh. Those times listening to the radio helped me practice my Hebrew listening skills but also reminded me of where I was and how living in Israel addressed a different part of who I am.

The second was the recitation of the Shema each morning. Even if what I saw in my day to day life out on the streets of Israel didn’t always reflect the faith that was at the core of my connection with Judaism and Jewish identity, the day had started with a clear, and public, statement of connection with our ancient tradition. I am an early riser anyway but I found myself making sure I woke up early enough to hear it. Even though I knew that I would be saying the Shema for myself later in the morning, hearing it publicly made such a strong statement for me and I loved it.

So, those are memories of listening to the radio in Israel. I’d love to hear other’s recollections!

It is difficult for me to believe but today marks the 40th anniversary of a very significant day in my life: my arrival in Israel for the first time.

On October 3, 1979 at about 6 p.m., I stepped off a plane at Ben Gurion Airport and onto the soil (or at least the tarmac) of the land of Israel to begin my year of rabbinical studies in Jerusalem.

I remember my first moments in Israel distinctly. I can still recall sitting with out luggage as my two friends, return travelers to Israel, arranged transportation to Jerusalem. I had never been in a tropical climate before and noted in a journal that I was seeing palm trees for the first time. I eavesdropped on conversations in Hebrew including listening to two children greeting their grandparents with the words (in Hebrew): “Guess what? It’s already rained”. Only later did I realize how significant it was that Israel had already seen rain even though Sukkot had not arrived. I felt strangely comfortable even though I felt so distant from everything I knew.

I did not continue writing in that journal after the first entry but the memories of that year are still so vivid. I remember much more from that one year than any other year of school. In the months to come, I want to share some of those memories on this blog. They are memories of a time when I- and Israel- were younger and I hope these memories, especially memories of Israel in the late 70’s will be interesting to those who have spent time in the country.

Israel was a simpler place back then and Jerusalem was certainly a smaller city. I remember distinctly the trip from the airport to Jerusalem and being truly shocked at the dark emptiness around me. Night had fallen and, unlike today, the view from the road to Jerusalem was not of billboards, malls and signs for fast food restaurants but was truly dark except for the flickering lights of villages along the route. Arriving in Jerusalem, there were no large hotels at the entrance to the city and the building that stood out was the Central Bus Station which one of my friends told me would be the most important place in the city as it offered a chance to get out of Jerusalem and see the country.

He was partially right. I enjoyed traveling around the country but I also found Jerusalem itself to be fascinating and almost from my first day living in the city, I loved walking through the neighborhoods, visiting the Old City both for the spiritual significance of the holy sites and for the bustling shuk, the market, which I never tired of exploring.

To this day, it is those trips around Jerusalem that I hold as one of my fondest memories of a very emotional year. I truly fell in love with the city and while I know it is completely unfair for me to say this, seeing Jerusalem grow and become more hectic and more devoted to tourism in my subsequent visits made me wish for one more opportunity to eat at the simple hummus stand we frequented which today has been swallowed up by the pedestrian mall of Ben Yehuda Street. It’s progress and makes the city more exciting but I still yearn for the “good old days”.

In my future postings, I’ll recall specific memories from that year. For now, though, I’ll share just one memory of a ritual I performed every Shabbat I was in Jerusalem.

Each Friday afternoon, I would go out to the balcony outside my dormitory room at the Jewish Theological Seminary campus behind the Israel Museum and overlooking the “Valley of the Cross” just before the sounding of the sirens indicating the beginning of Shabbat. I would turn on a cassette tape of one favorite American song or another. Then, I would stand looking out over the city and try to figure out how to balance the conflicting feelings of being so far, far away from home and yet recognizing the privilege I had to live in the city my ancestors had only dreamed of. It was a conflict I never really settled completely but it was- and is- a beautiful conflict to struggle with.

I have written a d’var Torah for T’ruah: the Rabbinic Call for Human Rights which was posted today. Below you will find the D’var Torah preceded by an introduction that I gave at Beth Israel before reading it this past Shabbat.

Each year it seems I discover that a somewhat “contemporary” song inspires me for the holy day season and I find a way to work it into a sermon or teaching around the holidays. I heard a song for the first time a few months ago and I immediately loved it. The song, called Roll Me Away, was written and performed by Ann Arbor’s own Bob Seger. It describes a motorcycle rider who decides to take off down the road in an attempt to be free of responsibilities towards thinking about what is right.

After hearing the song a few times, I realized that the final verse was perfect for the High Holy Day season.

Here is the first part of that verse:  
“Stood alone on a mountain top
Starin’ out at the Great Divide
I could go east, I could go west
It was all up to me to decide
Just then I saw a young hawk flyin’
And my soul began to rise
And pretty soon
My heart was singin’
Roll, roll me away
I’m gonna roll me away tonight
Gotta keep rollin’, gotta keep ridin’
Keep searchin’ till I find what’s right”

This is the essence of the High Holy Days. We stare at the great divide between last year and this year and realize we have choices to make. But, as important as it is to make the right choice between right and wrong, we must make choices which help our souls to rise l’ayla u’layla (higher and higher.

The song ends with these words which I used as the introduction to the T’ruah D’var Torah which follows:

As the sunset faded I spoke
To the faintest first starlight 
And I said: “Next time, Next time 
We’ll get it right.” 

Several years ago, while I was studying Parashat Kedoshim with my daughter for her bat mitzvah, she asked me an insightful question: “Why did the Torah command us not to put a stumbling block before a blind person? Couldn’t we have figured that one out on our own?” 

The rabbis obviously had the same question as they expanded the prohibition to include giving inappropriate advice and taking advantage of another’s weakness. 

This teaches us that when a Jewish text seems too obvious, we have to find another explanation. 

In this context, consider the statement in the Mishnah concerning teshuvah/repentance. The Mishnah warns us against saying: “Echteh v’ashuv, Echteh v’Ashuv”; “I will sin and repent, I will sin and repent”, teaching that teshuvah in that case would not be successful.

Clearly, this is meant to teach us that using teshuvah as an “escape clause” in order to justify pre-meditated sin doesn’t work. 

But, I think that should strike us as self-evident and too obvious to be the whole story. 

So, I have begun to think of this text differently. Why does the Mishnah repeat the phrase “I will sin and repent” when once would have been sufficient? 

The Mishnah could be describing a person who approaches the season of teshuvah with frustration, wondering what the point to repentance is since he or she would be right back in the same position the next year and every year after that: sinning and repenting over and over again. That person believes we are trapped in a cycle of disappointment that we can never escape. 

Seen this way, the Mishnah is warning us against believing that teshuvah is futile simply because we know that each year will bring some failure. If that is our attitude, then repentance can never work. We must believe the day will come when the cycle will be broken. 

And, what is true for us as individuals is also true as we consider the state of the world. 

This past year has been a frustrating one for so many of us. We have watched in horror and disgust as in the United States, Israel and throughout the world leaders spew rhetoric of division. We have been saddened to see the precious values of compassion and justice, values rooted so deeply in Jewish tradition, ridiculed and mocked.

Naturally, many of us are tired and justifiably have become more than a bit cynical. 

But it is at this moment that we have to look back at the warning of the Mishnah and realize that we have to rise above the frustration and cynicism and find the energy and the desire to continue to work for what we believe to be right, for right will triumph some day. We simply have to believe this. There is no other choice. 

In the haftarah reading for Yom Kippur, Isaiah teaches that “the fast God desires” is to do good in the world, to free the oppressed, clothe the naked, feed the hungry and bring the world closer to perfection. 

This beautiful haftarah begins with words which remind us of the Torah verse about the stumbling block: “hareemu michshol,” “remove the obstacles” in our path. 

Cynicism, despair and frustration are the most prominent obstacles preventing us from doing all we can to repair the world. We need to remove those obstacles from our path in order to fulfill our role. We need to believe that the world can return to the proper direction.

It has been a difficult year. We are tired. But the cries of children at the border, the cries of those who have been targeted because of color, the cries of families who have lost loved ones to gun violence, the cries of the earth begging us to make the changes necessary for us all to survive can not be ignored. Despite our fatigue, we can not despair. We can’t get caught in the trap of “things will never change”. We must believe they can and they will. 

While we admit that we are tired and frustrated, let us commit ourselves and our communities to continue the work. As sunset brings in the first Shabbat of the New Year, may we discover the light of renewed energy and passion to continue to work for what we believe. And, most importantly, may we always be inspired by absolute faith that the day will come when the world will “get it right”.