from the pages of Kadima, the newsletter of Congregation Adas Emuno:

From the desk of …                    

 Rabbi Barry Schwartz

    

A TRIBUTE TO OUR PRESIDENT
 

…to the president of our Congregation, that is

As Lance Strate steps down from the helm, our thanks are due.

I will leave it to future historians to assess his legacy, but allow me to point out that Lance:

• Served three terms (six years) as our president
• He did so while maintaining a demanding academic career
• He did so while meeting demanding family responsibilities
• He gave witty weekly greetings and announcements
• He wrote wise and wonderful bimonthly bulletin columns
• He enhanced our community profile with articles in the Jewish Standard
• He ran our blog spot
• He coordinated our poetry garden meetings
• He wrote four Purim spiels
• He brought many an intriguing speaker (and a musical ensemble) to our Congregation
• He read Torah each Rosh Hashanah
• He offered a passionate High Holy day appeal

With all due deference to Sir (and later Saint) Thomas More, Lance was our “man for all seasons”. One did not have to agree with all of his views or methods to respect his dedication and learning. How many other congregations have a president who rolled up his sleeves to do all the committee and board work that is required, while writing blogs, columns, poems, spiels and appeals (not to mention several books in his own field of media ecology)?

I am very fortunate to have worked with Lance for the entirety of his term, and look forward to benefiting from his continued involvement as an “elder statesman” as we near (as Lance was fond of reminding us) our “sesquicentennial” (otherwise referred to as 150th anniversary) just three years from now.

Our heartfelt thanks must also go out to Barbara, Ben and Sarah for allowing Lance to dedicate such time and effort to our congregation.

And to Lance we say, hazak v’amatz—be strong, and may you go from strength to strength.

Homo Moralis

We recently posted Rabbi Schwartz's Sermon for Kol Nidre 5778, which was entitled "Homo Moralis" and included a discussion of two books by Israeli history professor Yuval Noah Harari, and we are pleased to share with you that he followed this up with a book review in Tikkun, also entitled "Homo Moralis" and subtitled "A Review of Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow" dated October 11th.

Based as it is on his sermon, there is much in one that bears repeating in the other. And so, here now is the review:

A child asked his mother, “Where do people come from?”

“Well,” the mother said, “Adam and Eve were the first parents on earth. They had babies who became grownups. Then those grownups had babies who eventually became grownups, and so on and so forth, until today.”

Later, the child decided to ask his father the same question. The father had a different explanation. “Long ago, there were no people on earth-just monkeys. Slowly the monkeys developed and changed into people. We call this process ‘evolution.’”

The children ran back to his mother and tearfully blurted, “You lied to me! You said people came from Adam and Eve, but Dad just old me that people came from monkeys!”

“I did not lie,” the mother replied calmly. “Your father was talking about his side of the family.”

Where do we come from? And where are we going? Those are two really big questions.. And the buzz these days is about a pair of books written to answer these questions that have become global bestsellers.

Yuval Noah Harari is a 40 something year old professor of history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem… and now an international celebrity. His first book is called Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. His new book is called Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. Both are on the short list of many a world leader, from Bill Gates to Barak Obama. You need a good block of time to read and digest these formidable tomes. But the writing is surprisingly accessible and the discussion provocative. The author pulls no punches and tells you where he stands. Soon enough you will discern that Yuval Harari is a secular Jew and a skeptical academic. He is a student of Spinoza, a devotee of Darwin, and an acolyte of Einstein. Harari has little use for the Bible in particular and religion in general.

א א א א א א א א א א א א א א   א א א א א א 

Harari’s provocative thesis about the future is embodied in the title of his second work: Homo Deus. To explain: The first humans on the evolutionary tree were homo habilis, “handy man” if you will, who mastered primitive tool making. They were followed by homo erectus, “upright man”, who not only walked solidly on two feet, but mastered fire. A long time later we finally arrived: homo sapien, “wise man” (or is it “wise guy”), who mastered language and writing and computer science. It is Harari’s belief that we will soon become homo deus, “god-man”; super-human, god-like creatures, part carbon, part silicon; part man, part machine; an indistinguishable blend of human and robot. This revolutionary-evolutionary great leap forward will ironically lead to the extinction of the human race as we now know it. As Harari says in his attention grabbing quote at the top of his website: “History began when humans invented gods, and will end when humans become gods.”

What does Harari mean when he says we will become gods? He explains that “The upgrading of humans into gods may follow any of three paths: biological engineering, cyborg engineering and the engineering of non-organic beings.” The first will involve the intentional rewriting of our genetic code and the altering of our biochemical composition. The second will involve the intentional merging of our organic body with non-organic devices such as bionic hands, artificial eyes, and nano-robots infused into our bloodstream. The third will involve the supplementing and eventual replacement of our neural network, meaning our brain, with artificial intelligence.

The reason we will want to do all this, according to Harari, is that it will be the final fulfillment of humanity’s three deepest desires: immortality, bliss and omnipotence. We want to live forever, we want to be happy forever, and we want to be all powerful. Harari points out that that the march toward this holy trinity is unstoppable. The desire is unquenchable. The progress is inexorable. The technology is inevitable. After all, Harari grandly notes, over the past century humankind has managed to do the impossible: turn the uncontrollable forces of nature-namely famine, plague and war, the big three scourges of human history, into manageable challenges. Today more people die from eating too much then from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases, and more people commit suicide than are killed by war or crime.

Harari cheerfully cautions against calling this future world populated by homo deus dystopian. He emphasizes how homo deus will alleviate human suffering, enable us to survive on Earth, and embolden us to populate the planets. But in the process Harari does admit that freedom and equality, humanism, liberalism, rationalism- all the isms we cherish, will collapse and disappear. He further concedes that the rate of change is accelerating so quickly that we have no idea how society will truly function by the end of the century. Homo deus will be more different from homo sapien than we were from homo erectus. In the pursuit of health, happiness and power we will upend every assumption about human life that you can possibly make.

Harari has a sub-chapter heading “Can Someone Please Hit the Brakes?” Then he proceeds to say, um, no we can’t. Firstly, nobody knows where the brakes are. And secondly, our economy and society will crash if we try. It’s that first contention, I would offer, that reveals his not-so-hidden bias, or moral blind-spot; the malady of many a great thinker. Harari is heir to a great religious tradition even if he downplays it to a point just short of denial. Why do I say this about someone of such astute intellect and passion? Not because Harari doesn’t believe in God. He’s entitled, and anyway, Judaism is a big-tent religion that has room for believers and non-believers alike. Not because he is, evidently, a non-practicing Jew. He’s entitled, and anyway, Judaism is a big tent ethnicity that has room for secular Jews, cultural Jews, and Jews who, like Harari, embrace Eastern meditation. And not because Harari agrees with Marx that religion is an opiate for the masses, and the faithful simply deluded followers of now discredited myths.

Harari’s blind-spot is that he chooses to ignore the great ethical revolution of ancient Israel, known as Prophetic Judaism, which changed the course of Western Civilization. The Prophets who gave to the world a moral imperative that is as essential today as it was two millennia ago; who gave us the Golden Rule that we should do unto others as we would others do unto us; who gave us the Great Commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves; who gave us the Ten Commandments that forbid murder and theft; who gave us the charge to love the stranger, the widow, the orphan…those most vulnerable in our society; those without a voice; who gave us the demand “to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly”.

We do well to ponder anew that old and famous distinction between Athens and Jerusalem. The Greeks gave us reason and science, the Hebrews gave us compassion and ethics. Leo Strauss opined that “Western man became what he is, and is what he is, through the coming together of biblical faith and Greek thought”. Matthew Arnold wrote that “Hebraism and Hellenism are the two essential philosophies of life between which civilized man must choose.” 

Solomon Freehof clarified that, “The Greek is interested in nature’s law; the Hebrew in nature’s lawgiver. The Greek is interested in peace of heart; the Hebrew in progress of character. The Greek said: Seek harmony and your will find serenity; the Hebrews said: Seek holiness and you will find nobility.”

As we hurtle toward the future we need Athens and we need Jerusalem. We need the Greek sensibility that the unexamined life is not worth living, and we need the Hebraic sensibility that the immoral life is not worth living. We cannot fear the advance of science, and anyway Harari is right that it will speed ahead whether we like it or not. But neither should we abandon the insights of religion that will tap the brakes, and slow us down just enough to temper knowledge with wisdom. It’s a touch ironic that the brave new world depicted by Harari was in a way anticipated by the opening myth of Genesis. Adam and Eve want to eat not just from the Tree of Knowledge but also from the Tree of Life; they want to be omniscient and immortal. That is why God says in Gen.3:22, “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and bad, what if he should stretch our his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever!”

But remember that the full name of the second tree is The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad. Humankind is unique in its moral discernment. That is why it God can pose the question to Adam and Eve, “What is this you have done?” (Gen. 3:13). And that is why the question is repeated to Cain (Gen.4:10), after he is explicitly warned, “Sin crouches at the door; its urge is toward you, yet you can be its master.” (Gen.4:7)

It makes no sense to judge ourselves if we don’t know right from wrong or to warn ourselves if we can’t control our actions, or to even question ourselves if we can’t take responsibility for those actions. When Cain asks, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” the answer is yes! “Your brother’s blood cries out to me!” (Gen.4:9-10). If we are going to reprogram our brains the software package better contain an ethical decision making file, or we will not become homo deus, but homo roboticus, mere robotic drones in human look-alike costume.

Read Harari. Take all the time you need; it’s worth it. You will feel challenged and exalted…but by the end of the second work, you will also be depressed. But remember that if we are truly homo sapien/wise the next stage of human evolution will not be homo deus, but homo moralis, moral man. And perhaps our brave new world will be not a nightmare, but a dream. Or as the poet Judy Chicago penned it, “And then everywhere will be called Eden once again.”

Rabbi Schwartz's Sermon for Kol Nidre 5778

HOMO MORALIS

EREV YOM KIPPUR 5778

RABBI BARRY L. SCHWARTZ

A child asked his mother, “Where do people come from?”

“Well,” the mother said, “Adam and Eve were the first parents on earth. They had babies who became grownups. Then those grownups had babies who eventually became grownups, and so on and so forth, until today.”

Later, the child decided to ask his father the same question. The father had a different explanation. “Long ago, there were no people on earth⏤just monkeys. Slowly the monkeys developed and changed into people. We call this process ‘evolution.’”

The children ran back to his mother and tearfully blurted, “You lied to me! You said people came from Adam and Eve, but Dad just told me that people came from monkeys!”

“I did not lie,” the mother replied calmly. “Your father was talking about his side of the family.”

Where do we come from?

And where are we going?

Those are two really big questions.

And the buzz these days is about a pair of books written to answer these questions… that have become global bestsellers.
Yuval Noah Harari is a 40 something year old professor of history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem… and now an international celebrity. His first book is called Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. His new book is called Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. Both are on the short list of many a world leader, from Bill Gates to Barak Obama. I decided to tackle them this summer. You need a good block of time. But the writing is surprisingly accessible and the discussion provocative. The author pulls no punches and tells you where he stands. For me this was at once delighting and disconcerting.

⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪

You see, Yuval Harari is a secular Jew and a skeptical academic. He is a student of Spinoza, a devotee of Darwin, and an acolyte of Einstein. Harari has little use for the Bible in particular and religion in general. He would certainly side with the father in my opening story.

Harari’s provocative thesis about the future is embodied in the title of his second work: Homo Deus. To explain: The first humans on the evolutionary tree were homo habilis, handy man if you will, who mastered primitive tool making. They were followed by homo erectus, upright man, who not only walked solidly on two feet, but mastered fire. A long time later we finally arrived: homo sapien, wise man (or is it wise guy), who mastered language and writing and computer science.

It is Harari’s belief that we will soon become homo deus, god-man; super-human, god-like creatures, part carbon, part silicon; part man, part machine; an indistinguishable blend of human and robot.

This revolutionary, evolutionary great leap forward will ironically lead to the extinction of the human race as we now know it. As Harari says in his attention grabbing quote at the top of his website: “History began when humans invented gods, and will end when humans become gods.”

What does Harari mean when he says we will become gods? He explains that, “The upgrading of humans into gods may follow any of three paths: biological engineering, cyborg engineering and the engineering of non-organic beings.”

The first will involve the intentional rewriting of our genetic code and the altering of our biochemical composition.

The second will involve the intentional merging of our organic body with non-organic devices such as bionic hands, artificial eyes, and nano-robots infused into our bloodstream.

The third will involve the supplementing and eventual replacement of our neural network, meaning our brain, with artificial intelligence.

The reason we will want to do all this, according to Harari, is that it will be the final fulfillment of humanity’s three deepest desires: immortality, bliss and omnipotence. We want to live forever, we want to be happy forever, and we want to be all powerful.

Harari points out that that the march toward this holy trinity is unstoppable. The desire is unquenchable. The progress is inexorable. And the technology is inevitable.

After all, Harari grandly notes, over the past century humankind has managed to do the impossible: turn the uncontrollable forces of nature⏤namely famine, plague and war, the big three scourges of human history, into manageable challenges. Today more people die from eating too much then from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by war or crime.

Harari cheerfully cautions against calling this future world populated by homo deus dystopian. He emphasizes how homo deus will alleviate human suffering, enable us to survive on Earth, and embolden us to populate the planets. But in the process Harari does admit that freedom and equality, humanism, liberalism, rationalism⏤all the isms we cherish⏤will collapse and disappear. He further concedes that the rate of change is accelerating so quickly that we have no idea how society will truly function by the end of the century. Homo deus will be more different from homo sapiens than we were from homo erectus. In the pursuit of health, happiness and power we will upend every assumption about human life that you can possibly make.

Harari has a sub-chapter heading, “Can Someone Please Hit the Brakes?” Then he proceeds to say, um, no we can’t. Firstly, nobody knows where the brakes are. And secondly, our economy and society will crash if we try.

Well, I can hit the brakes. With my remaining five minutes. So here goes.

Yuval Noah Harari is heir to a great religious tradition. I feel badly that he scorns his birthright.

Not because he doesn’t believe in God. He’s entitled, and anyway, Judaism is a big-tent religion that has room for believers and non-believers alike.

Not because he is, evidently, a non-practicing Jew. He’s entitled, and anyway, Judaism is a big tent ethnicity that has room for secular Jews, cultural Jews, and even Jews who, like Harari, embrace Eastern meditation, call them Bu-Jews (or is it Jew-bus).

And not because he agrees with Marx that religion is an opiate for the masses, and its adherents deluded followers of now discredited myths.

No, what makes me sad is that Harari ignores the great ethical revolution of ancient Israel, known as Prophetic Judaism, which changed the course of Western Civilization.

The Prophets gave to the world a moral imperative that is as essential today as it was two millennia ago… and maybe even more so.

They gave us the Golden Rule that we should do unto others as we would others do unto us.

They gave us the Great Commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves.

They gave us the Ten Commandments that forbid murder and theft.

They gave us the charge to love the stranger, the widow, the orphan… those most vulnerable in our society, those without a voice.

They gave us the demand “to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly”.

While the Greeks gave us reason and science, the Hebrews gave us compassion and ethics.

Leo Strauss said that “Western man became what he is, and is what he is, through the coming together of Greek thought and biblical faith” [emphasis and order mine].

Matthew Arnold wrote that “Hebraism and Hellenism are the two essential philosophies of life between which civilized man must choose.”

Solomon Freehof clarified that, “The Greek is interested in nature’s law; the Hebrew in nature’s lawgiver. The Greek is interested in peace of heart; the Hebrew in progress of character. The Greek said: Seek harmony and your will find serenity; the Hebrews said: Seek holiness and you will find nobility.”

As we hurtle toward the future we need Athens and we need Jerusalem.

We need the Greek sensibility that the unexamined life is not worth living, and we need the Hebraic sensibility that the immoral life is not worth living.

We cannot fear the advance of science, and anyway Harari is right that it will speed ahead whether we like it or not.

But neither should we abandon the insights of religion that will tap the brakes, and slow us down just enough to temper knowledge with wisdom.

It’s a touch ironic that the brave new world depicted by Harari was in a way anticipated by the opening myth of Genesis. Adam and Eve want to eat not just from the Tree of Knowledge but also from the Tree of Life; they want to be omniscient and immortal. That is why God says in Gen.3:22, “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and bad, what if he should stretch our his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever!”

But remember that the full name of the second tree is The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad. Humankind is unique in its moral discernment. That is why God can pose the question to Adam and Eve, “What is this you have done?” (Gen. 3:13). And that is why the question is repeated to Cain (Gen.4:10), after he is explicitly warned, “Sin crouches at the door; its urge is toward you, yet you can be its master.” (Gen.4:7)

It makes no sense to judge ourselves if we don’t know right from wrong.

It makes no sense to warn ourselves if we can’t control our actions.

If makes no sense to even question ourselves if we can’t take responsibility for those actions.

When Cain asks, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” the answer is yes! “Your brother’s blood cries out to me!” (Gen.4:9-10).

If we are going to reprogram our brains the software package better contain an ethical decision making file, or we will not become homo deus, but homo roboticus, mere robotic drones in human look-alike costume.

The clock is ticking… but my time is up. This leaves me only a minute for a shameless promotion. After you read Homo Deus you need to read one volume on the prophetic revolution of Ancient Israel that I have posited as the ethical antidote to unbridled technology.

Have no fear… that book has now been written, and will appear this spring. It is called, Path of the Prophets: The Ethics Driven Life. It is five years to a lifetime in the making. It is written by yours truly. I will even give you a good discount on the work, and sign it for free.

You see, if we are truly wise the next stage of human evolution will not be homo deus, but homo moralis, moral man.

And our brave new world will be not a nightmare, but a dream. In the words of the poet:

And then all that has divided us will merge
And then compassion will be wedded to power
And then softness will come to a world that is harsh and unkind
And then both men and women will be gentle
And then both women and men will be strong
And then no person will be subject to another's will
And then all will be rich and free and varied
And then the greed of some will give way to the needs of many
And then all will share equally in the Earth's abundance
And then all will care for the sick and the weak and the old
And then all will nourish the young
And then all will cherish life's creatures
And then everywhere will be called Eden once again. (Judy Chicago, 1979)

Rabbi Schwartz's Sermon for Rosh Hashanah Morning 5778

OUR COUNTRY

ROSH HASHANAH 5778

RABBI BARRY L. SCHWARTZ

This summer a new chapter in an old debate erupted in the American Jewish community.

Rabbi David Wolpe of Temple Sinai in Los Angles, among the best known congregational rabbis in the country, published a column, Why I Keep Politics off the Pulpit. In it he says that he is "endlessly besieged by requests to take on this or that political or social issue." He remarks that, “with each new presidential administration the pressure grows greater." Rabbi Wolpe then explains why he avoids talking about politics from the pulpit. He concludes, “don’t tie your Torah to this week’s headlines. We are better, bigger and deeper than that.”

The reaction was fast and furious, in defense of Rabbi Wolpe and opposed to Rabbi Wolpe. The most talked about rebuttal was from Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, our movement. He begins, “There are few colleagues for whom I have more respect than Rabbi David Wolpe.… I count him as both a teacher and a friend. Which is why I was struck by… [his] recent op-ed… How could someone who is usually so right be so wrong on something so important?”

Rabbi Jacobs entitled his piece, A Politics Free Pulpit is an Empty Pulpit. He distinguishes between partisanship and politics. While maintaining that the former has no place in the pulpit, he argues that the latter is indispensable. According to Jacobs we have both the right and responsibility to speak out on the moral issues of our day. So whereas Wolpe claims that, “what you may not do, if you are intellectually honest, is say the Torah points in only one political direction,” Jacobs counters that “although once can certainly love Torah and follow different political paths, one cannot claim to be a lover of Torah and nor care about how our society treats those in need, the weak, the vulnerable, the stranger and the oppressed.”

Jacobs continues, “the Judaism that I believe in does not limit Torah lessons to the parchment of our… scrolls… The Judaism that I live compels me to use those lessons to understand the most urgent challenges we face." He goes on to quote Rabbi Stephen Wise, perhaps the most influential rabbi of the early 20th century, who said, “the pulpit of the synagogue is charged with the responsibility of… prophetic memories and prophetic aspirations… pledged to… truth- speaking under freedom… a most solemn and inescapable duty. I could not with self-respect remain silent.”

Indeed, we studied Rabbi Wise in our History of Reform Judaism course at our Shabbat morning Torah study this past year. In 1905 Wise turned down the most prestigious pulpit in the country, Temple Emanu-El of New York, over the issue of freedom of the pulpit. He wrote a scathing letter to the chairman of the synagogue board, the famed industrialist Louis Marshall: “Dear Sir: If your letter of December first be expressive of the thoughts of the trustees of Temple Emanu-el, I beg to say that no self-respecting minister of religion, in my opinion, could consider a call to a pulpit which, in the language of your communication, shall always be subject to, and under the control, of, the board of trustees.” Wise went on to establish the Free Synagogue of NY, and spoke out on the great issues of the day. In 1919 he took on the steel industry, siding with the striking workers. A group of prominent trustees and members connected to the industry were outraged. They withdrew their building pledges and many resigned. Wise later recalled that “the ideal of pulpit freedom was put to the test, and the ideal was sustained. But the [new] building was lost.”

I don’t think it is hard for you to guess where I stand on this debate. Stephen Wise is one of my heroes for the moral courage he showed in his generation, like Rabbi David Einhorn showed in his generation, when he spoke out so strongly against slavery and for abolition that he was forced to flee his pulpit in Baltimore. More recently another of my heroes, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel spoke out for Civil Rights and against the Vietnam War, and so did my own rabbi Michael Robinson, in Croton-on-Hudson, NY.

All of them were inspired by the prophets of ancient Israel, who understood that religion and politics are inseparable; that ethics is the essence of piety, not ritual; that truth must confront power.

All of this is prelude to the point I make now. If what is happening in Washington now is the number one subject on my mind (and maybe yours); if what is happening to our country has been on my mind non-stop since November; if I cringe at the news night after night after night… how can I not talk about what is going on… from the pulpit, here at the High Holidays? Where do I begin?

I will take just one issue: healthcare. You will remember that is was the primary issue in the country… before Charlottesville.

National health insurance is considered a right, not a privilege, in first world countries around the world.

Here, the hard-won mandate to cover all in need, this summer’s debacle notwithstanding, is under constant threat of being repealed but not replaced.

Let’s not forget that at least 23 million Americans may yet lose their health care.

Let’s not forget that hundreds of thousands of the working poor may yet see their Medicaid program disappear.

Let’s not forget that hundreds of thousands of the elderly may yet see their Medicare program premiums skyrocket.

Let’s not forget that hundreds of thousands of the disabled may yet see their benefit slashed.

Many experts say that medical debt will surge. Untreated conditions will surge. Bankruptcy will surge. Extreme poverty will surge. The Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman calls the proposed repeal and the new budget lethal, and its effect, “apocalyptic.”

Paul Krugman puts it starkly: “Losing health care is a nightmare… tens of millions… [may] soon find themselves living this nightmare.”

What is happening? Who are we?

Look at what we have seen during and after this election.

I call this sad and cruel time, “the closing of the American heart.”

Make no mistake about it: the so called “America First” narrative is in reality an “America Divided” narrative.

As National Book Award Winner George Packer acerbically notes, “America First is the conviction that the country has lost its traditional identity because of contamination and weakness—the contamination of others, foreigners, immigrants, Muslims; the weakness of elites who have no allegiance to the country because they’ve been globalized.”

“This narrative,” Packer continues, “has contempt for democratic norms and liberal values, and it has an autocratic character. It personalizes power, routinizes corruption and destabilizes the very idea of objective truth.”

Is giving tax breaks to the rich while breaking the backs of the poor “America First”?

Is sowing fear among our immigrant population while quashing their entrepreneurial spirit “America First”?

Is blaming “both sides” for injustice while implying a repugnant moral equivalency between racists and those protesting racism “America First”?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

In American Covenant, his magisterial new study of civil religion in America, historian Philip Gorski notes how the Book of Exodus inspired our founding fathers. It speaks, of course, of the revolt against tyranny, the traverse of the wilderness, the making of a covenant, and the journey on to the Promised Land.

The Exodus saga inspired John Winthrop and Roger Williams. It inspired Benjamin Franklin, who wanted to depict Moses on the Great Seal of the United States. It inspired Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. It inspired Martin Luther King Jr. It should inspire us anew.

At its heart and essence, the Torah is a prophetic narrative. All stand equal before God. All stand at the Mountain. All pledge loyalty to the covenant and to each other. As we will read on Yom Kippur, “You stand this day, all of you, before the Lord your God, your tribal heads, your elders and your officials, all the men of Israel, your children, your wives, even the stranger within your camp, from woodchopper to water drawer, to enter into the covenant"(Deut. 29:9-10).

A true American Covenant ethic, in contrast to a pseudo America First manifesto, promotes unity, not division. It promotes equality, not inequity. It promotes compassion, not cruelty.

A true American Covenant ethic does not build walls, but opens gates. It is not a fortress but a beacon. It cares for the widow, the orphan, the poor and the stranger… because it feels commanded to do so.

A true American Covenant faces out, like Lady Liberty.

And in the words of Emma Lazurus’ famous poem at her base, “From her beacon-hand glows world-wide welcome.”

This is our country.

This is our Promised Land.

This is the place where we reject division and defamation.

This is the place where say no to collusion and confusion.

This is the place where we speak truth to power.

This is the place where we say, “Dissent is patriotic.”

This is the place where we say, “Hate has no home here.”

This is the place where we sing, “My country, tis of thee, sweet land of liberty.” 

This is our country!

 

From the pages of Kadima, the newsletter of Congregation Adas Emuno:

A Message From Our President

Dr. Lance Strate

What's Your Metaphor?

What's your metaphor for our congregation? What would you say if I asked you to fill in the blank in the following statement: "Adas Emuno is like…"

Would you say that it's an obligation to fulfill, like paying your taxes? A tradition to honor, out of respect to parents and grandparents? A chore, like doing the laundry, shopping, taking out the trash? A box to check off, like filling out a form?

Would you say that it's like going to work, or going to school? A social activity, like going to a party, or a wedding or bar or bat mitzvah? Or a funeral? An entertainment, like going to the movies, or a show?

What does Adas Emuno mean to you?

And what can Adas Emuno mean to you?

Let me suggest one answer: A source of inspiration.

Inspiration has a spiritual connection, of course. In the past, people believed inspiration came from outside of themselves, from a divine source. The word inspire has Latin roots, the original meaning being to breathe into. You may recall that the Torah describes God's creation of Adam as follows: "God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul" (Genesis 2:7). In this sense, the opposite of inspire is expire.

For the most part, we don't have to take the meaning of inspire literally nowadays, which means that it actually is a subtle metaphor for anything that we consider to be a breath of fresh air, and a spur to creative thinking. And we certainly can recognize the importance of religion and spirituality for the arts. So much of the history of painting, sculpture, and music is dominated by depictions and expressions of the divine, the transcendent, and spiritual communion. The Torah, Tanach, and Bible is the basis of much of western literature. Theater and dance has its roots in ritual drama.

Thinking of individuals who found inspiration for creative expression through Judaism, here are a few of the many names that might come to mind: J. J. Abrams, Woody Allen, Marc Chagall, Leonard Cohen, E. L. Doctorow, Will Eisner, Nora Ephron, Lillian Hellman, Franz Kafka, Jack Kirby, Stanley Kubrick, Emma Lazarus, Stan Lee, Felix Mendelssohn, Amos Oz, Cynthia Ozick, Phillip Roth, Joe Shuster, Jerry Siegel, Art Spiegelman, Steven Spielberg, Gertrude Stein, and the list goes on and on.

But inspiration is not limited to those fields of human endeavor that we designate as the arts. There are creative possibilities in all of our activities, an art to bowling, and automotive repair, and accounting, and going to the supermarket. And every activity can benefit from a source of inspiration. This is especially true when it comes to finding solutions to whatever problems may plague us, when we are looking for a source of inspiration for creative problem-solving.

What our congregation offers is a way to step out of the box of everyday life, and into an experience of something different and unbounded. Out of the pressure of rushing here and there and always living in the present moment, and into an experience that is timeless and potentially transcendent. Out of the constant barrage of noise and distraction, and into an experience of quiet meditation and mindfulness. Out of the routines that deaden the mind and dull the senses, and into an experience that can give us a new sense of openness, that can rejuvenate, and elevate.

If you are looking for a source of inspiration, have you tried to find it at Adas Emuno?

And whether you have or have not, what is your metaphor for our congregation? Let us know!

from the pages of Kadima, the newsletter of Congregation Adas Emuno:

From the desk of …                    

 Rabbi Barry Schwartz

    

OUR TALENTED PRESIDENT

No, I‘m not talking about the leader of the free world, but the president of our shul.

It’s not every day that a rabbi writes about his president, but Lance Strate is so talented that I’m moved to do so.

What other Temple president enlivens announcements with a witty comment on my sermon week after week?

What other Temple president writes a Temple blog complete with links to entertaining YouTube videos?

What other Temple president writes a column for the local Jewish newspaper (see the Jewish Standard for his latest, Zayde for President) that offers provocative commentary on the media and current events?

What other Temple president convenes a monthly “Poetry Garden” that includes readings of his own charming verse?

What other Temple president writes his own Purim spiels, including last year’s off­-off-­Broadway hit The Schnook of Esther and this year’s Shalom Shushan? The latter premiers in its entirety on Wednesday evening, March 23 at 7:00 pm­ don’t miss it!

What other Temple president has not only written several books, but contributed to a new one with his rabbi? You can find both our pieces in Touching the Face of the Cosmos: On the Intersection of Space Travel and Religion (which you can find by visiting my Amazon authorpage). And look for information on a temple program about the book on Saturday, April 9 at 10 AM in a future post.



*   *   *   *   *   *   *      *   *   *   *   *   *   *

 
What other Temple president manages to do this while juggling more than his share of family responsibilities and a professorship at Fordham University?

Lance is completing his second term as Temple president, and without term limits I do not know if he will remain in office or anoint a successor. If the former, we will continue to benefit from his dedication and wisdom. If the latter, then may this column serve as a word of gratitude and appreciation.

And let’s remember that the talents of our volunteers run wide and deep. Whether on the board, on a committee, in the school... in a small congregation such as ours, your contribution makes a difference. My highlighting our president is really a salute to all who lend a hand in sustaining our special community.

Our Sorry State of Debate

In keeping with the political theme of our last two posts, did you catch the op-ed by Rabbi Schwartz in the February 19th issue of the Jewish Standard? Entitled, Our Sorry State of Debate, Rabbi Schwartz addresses one of his favorite themes, and you can read the piece over on the Standard's Times of Israel site by clicking on the title, or read it right here on our Adas Emuno congregational blog:

The bedrock of a flourishing democracy is the informed consent of the governed.

If Sy Sym’s slogan that “an educated consumer is our best customer” is true for business, then “an educated civilian is our best citizen” is true for politics.

If the Talmud famously teaches: “Every debate that is for the sake of heaven”—machloket l’shem shamayim—“will make a lasting contribution,” it also warns that “Every debate that is not for the sake of heaven will not make a lasting contribution.” Our sages understood that debate for the right reasons enhances the community. Debate for the wrong reasons diminishes us.

That is why I so lament the sorry state of debate in our nation. It seems like things have gone from bad to worse. I’ve watched every debate, and my sinking feeling at the beginning of each televised travesty generally ends in depression. Millions of Americans are tuning in hungry for elevated conversation, only to walk away sated by a meal of junk food.

As Fergus Bordewich writes in America’s Great Debate, his book on the lofty abolition arguments of the mid-19th century, “The pool-tested, spin-doctored, shoddily argued and grammatically challenged ‘messaging’ that today passes for political communication is pathetic and often incoherent by comparison.” And that was before the spectacle that passes for debate this election cycle.

....................

The media is complicit in the farce. Candidates are given 90 seconds to make their case. In the Lincoln-Douglas debates each man spoke for 90 minutes! The moderators often pose inane questions that goad the debaters to attack each other rather than speak affirmatively about their platforms. When the candidates regurgitate their talking points rather than answering their questions, the response is mostly: “moving on….”

At their first debate, more than 10,000 people stood listening to Lincoln and Douglas for the entire three hours—there were no seats or bleachers. Similar crowds showed up for the next six debates, which were of such national interest that they were “broadcast” live by stenographers, who raced from the debates at set intervals with transcripts made in shorthand, which were then written out and conveyed by telegraph. Douglas began by acknowledging how significant debate was for addressing “the leading political topics which now agitate the public mind.” Abraham Lincoln opened his reply in feisty style: “When a man hears himself somewhat misrepresented it provokes him, but when misrepresentation becomes very gross and palpable, it’s more apt to amuse him.” Then, though, he got down to the serious business of educating the electorate about the ethical ills of perpetuating slavery.

Wael Ghonim, whose Facebook posts helped spark the Tahrir Square uprising that toppled a president but ultimately failed to bring democracy to Egypt, recently acknowledged that the Arab spring was aborted when true debate failed to materialize. Instead, he laments, social media “only amplified [the polarization] by facilitating the spread of misinformation, rumors, echo chambers and hate speech.” He concludes that “Today, our social media experiences are designed in a way that favors broadcasting over engagements, posts over discussions, shallow comments over deep conversations…. It’s as if we agreed that we are here to talk at each other instead of talking with each other.”

Contrast that with the Talmud’s description of Beit Hillel, who is said to prevail in its ongoing debates with Beit Shammai “because the followers of Hillel were gentle and modest, and studied both their own opinions and the opinions of the other school, and always mentioned the words of the other school with great respect and humility before their own.”

Likewise, as Bordewich avers on abolition: “Something else intrigued me, too, the more I read the records of the debate itself: never did American politicians speak to the nation more honestly, more persuasively, more provocatively and more passionately, in language that was often so splendid it nearly reached the level of poetry… men who believed in slavery said so, as did those who hated it, no matter how much odium their words attracted. By listening in on the debate, we can learn… not only about the profound ways in which slavery warped our political system, and about the creative craft of compromise, but also about how to talk politics to each other so that we actually listen.”

The lost art of debate is not lost entirely. An impressive organization called Intelligence Squared, begun in England, now hosts high-level debates on national issues in New York. Its mission statement proclaims: “From Socrates to the First Amendment, progressive democracy has relied upon civility, respect and understanding in public discourse. Debate is the cornerstone of American progress, the vehicle for new ideas and the platform for the synthesis of two opposing points of view.”

How interesting that the centrality of debate was expressed in very similar terms by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, when he wrote of Hillel and Shammai that “both views will have permanent value because… [they] shed new light on the issue under debate, and will have contributed to the attainment of the proper understanding of the question discussed. They shall be remembered as… advancing the cause of the genuine knowledge of truth.” Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav went even further, calling debate a holy form of communication because it echoes the divine process of tzimtzum, making space for the creation of something new. Just as God enters into an act of self-limitation in order to make possible the created world, so worthy debaters restrain themselves in order to make room for opposing viewpoints. As Rabbi Or Rose comments on this teaching: “When we disagree with one another, when we take sides, we create the necessary space for the emergence of new and unexpected ideas. Without machloket… the horizon of human discovery would be severely limited.”

..........

As a high school student, my experience on a nationally ranked debate team was profoundly enlightening. As a rabbinical school student, I learned to cherish the passion for debate that courses through our tradition, and years later it prompted me to write a book on the subject. As a student of American history, I know that worthy debate does not weaken but instead strengthens us.

We may need campaign finance reform, banking reform, immigration reform—but how about starting with presidential debate reform? The kind of reform that goes beyond sound bites and sniping to affirmation, in the words of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, of “the dignity of difference.” Who knows—in the process we may not only gain a greater appreciation our marvelous diversity, but also the realization that what unites us is greater than what divides us.

Yiddish Speaking Socialists of the Lower East Side

The previous post on our congregational blog, America's Zayde, featured my op-ed from the February 12th issue of the Jewish Standard, where it appeared under the title of Zayde for President. And in the post, I made reference to another Sanders, Edward Sanders, no relation to Bernie, and not to be confused with the English movie star. The Ed Sanders I'm talking about is described on Wikipedia as, "an American poet, singer, social activist, environmentalist, author, publisher and longtime member of the band The Fugs. He has been called a bridge between the Beat and Hippie generations. Sanders is considered to have been active and 'present at the counterculture's creation'."

Originally from Kansas City, Sanders took up residence in Greenwich Village towards the end of the fifties, and among his many other activities, opened the Peace Eye Bookstore on the lower east side in the early sixties, an important center for the local counterculture. He also is the founder of the investigative poetry movement in the seventies. I pick out these points from his biography, which in truth are overshadowed by many other achievements, because they are relevant to the point at hand.been active and 'present at the counterculture's creation'."

The point being one of his poems in particular, "The Yiddish Speaking Socialists of the Lower East Side," which I quoted a few lines from in my op-ed. The poem tells the story of an important chapter in the history of the United States, New York City, American politics, and the Jewish-American experience. The focus is on the first two decades of the 20th century, and the rise and fall of a democratic socialist movement spearheaded by the Jewish immigrants living on the lower east side.

The poem concludes with the failure of that movement, but its influence was felt, in part through the participants that were still alive in the postwar period, in the protest and counterculture movements of the sixties, especially as one of the main centers of the movement, as it was called back then, was in Greenwich Village and New York's lower east side. Perhaps these things run in cycles, so we're seeing a revival of that sensibility from the turn of the 20th century and mid-20th century today in the teens of our new century.

Whether that's the case or not, the poem provides a quick and easy way to understand the milieu that Bernie Sanders come from, both the politics of his parents' generation and the political movement that he took part in as a young man.

The poem also communicates in a clear and stylish manner what democratic socialism is, and was, about. Not communism, socialist dictatorships, or totalitarianism. It was about human rights, many of them rights we take for granted today, rights denied to working people at the beginning of the century. I would suggest that it is vital to avoid having knee-jerk reactions to particular words, and instead try to understand what people really mean by them, and that includes socialism. From that perspective, I find it personally heartening to see how that term has been rescued and resuscitated in Bernie's election campaign. In the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (who many believed to have been a socialist), "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself," and that is especially true when it comes to words.

So, now, I am pleased to give you two options for accessing "The Yiddish Speaking Socialists of the Lower East Side" right here and now. You can read the poem on the online Woodstock Journal that Sanders maintains, here's the link: The Yiddish Speaking Socialists of the Lower East Side.

<Or you can listen to a semi-musical recording of Sanders reading the poem, accompanied by an electronic instrument of his own invention, the Bardic Pulse Lyre. The recording was originally put out on vinyl, but there is a nice YouTube version with the printed words as the visuals, so you can enjoy the best of both words worlds.





I would suggest that this poem is quite helpful in understanding where Sanders the candidate is coming from, and perhaps also why his campaign is not reducible to simply winning or losing caucuses and elections.Whatever your own political views may be, I think it is important to understand this chapter in American and Jewish history, and to understand the background that the first major Jewish candidate for President of the United States comes from.

Of course, the views I've expressed here are my own, and not the views of Congregation Adas Emuno.