December 19, 2009
Miketz – Anshe Shalom
Hanukkah
Prologue: On Rosh Hashanah 5770, Rabbi Lopatin gave a sermon about “Being a good Jew” meant to be good neighbors and specifically how Abraham “made it work”. This sermon was a response.
THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH
The views you are about to hear are not necessarily the views of the rabbi, or the Board of Anshe Shalom Synagogue – but are my own views and interpretations of our Torah’s relevance to our Jewish world of today. As I have done in the past, I wish to thank my patient editor and accomplice… my wife Ana and I thank Rabbi Lopatin for giving me material this year to reflect on. And finally I want to thank my G-d for allowing me the unique privilege of being one of His chosen people.
Mrs. Cohen went to visit her son Howard, who lived with a female roommate named Rebecca. During their dinner, his mother couldn’t help but notice how pretty Howard’s roommate was and she started to wonder if there was more between Howard and his roommate than he had told her. Reading his mom’s thoughts, Howard volunteered, “I know what you must be thinking, but I assure you, Rebecca and I are just roommates.”
A week later, Rebecca came to Howard saying, “Ever since your mother came to dinner, I’ve been unable to find the silver sugar bowl. You don’t suppose she took it, do you?” and Howard replied, “I doubt it, but I’ll email her, just to be sure.”
“Dear Mom, I’m not saying that you ‘did’ take the sugar bowl, I’m not saying that ‘did not’ take it, but the fact remains that it has been missing ever since you were here for dinner. Love, Howard”. Several days later he received a reply: “Dear Howard, I’m not saying that you ‘do’ sleep with Rebecca, and I’m not saying that you ‘do not’ sleep with her. But the fact remains that if she was sleeping in her own bed, she would have found the sugar bowl by now - Love, Mom.
Never underestimate the love and wisdom of a Jewish parent and our G-d is the ultimate Jewish parent. They often know more than we will ever understand. Sometimes we Jews, like Howard, find it uncomfortable to make commitments. Commitments come with both responsibilities and consequences. Commitments take self confidence and sometimes even courage. Our festival of Hanukkah is about courageous Jewish heroes and their commitment to our G-d, our people and our story… their silver bowl was a cruse of oil, and we learn about the difficulties with commitments from our first Jewish hero a man named Abraham for if not for Abraham’s commitment there would have been no Judah Maccabee, no Hanukkah and no us. Along the way our G-d – in teaching His love to His children Israel… has hidden many silver sugar bowls just to keep the story exciting…
Too often chazal’s focus has characterized Abraham solely as a humble Jew, yet we Jews are known as incredible risk takers and Abraham is in fact, our very first courageous risk taker. Separating himself from the pagan society in which he lived, our Torah tells us of his struggles, his insecurities and challenges that were to become the struggles and challenges of the historic Jew.
Abraham leaves his home and journeys to a land that he is shown by G-d, but just as in 1948, the land was not empty but populated with a number of tribes led by a variety of kings. A struggle for the land would become part of our eternal conflict… After Abraham defeated the four kings and rescues Lot , he is honored as a great prince by the King Melechzedek, yet he is not confident enough to protect his wife Sarah and asks her to pretend to be his sister. Later when he meets Abimelech, Abimelech too believes that Abraham is a great prince yet again he asks Sarah to pretend to be his sister. Abraham had defeated the armies of the four kings and Abimelech affirms, “G-d is with you in all that you do, now swear to me by G-d that you will not deal falsely with me…” (Gen. 21:22-23) There was no need to make agreements with the Philistines but Abraham wanted / to quote a well-known rabbi / “to be a good neighbor”. He wanted to live in shalom yet G-d steps in to teach him an historic lesson for immediately after Abraham made the agreement with Abimelech, the Philistines steal his well and then lie to him. Not much has changed. Oslo, or Wye, Camp David or Annapolis, yet pitifully overlooking the slight, continuing in his quest to be a good neighbor, not quite confident of his standing, groveling for shalom, he makes a covenant and “Abraham sojourned in the land of the Philistines many years” (Gen 21:34) by some accounts for over 30 years.
And “It was after these things that G-d tested Abraham”. And it is the Rashbam who asks - what things? – Isaac was to be his favorite son. G-d had told him, listen to Sarah. The very future of the Jewish people rested with Isaac. Yet having watched the ways of the Philistines sacrificing children… it is Rashi, who comments that Abraham had in fact misunderstood G-d’s request, for the command was to bring Isaac up to pray… for having lived in the Diaspora “sojourning in the land of the Philistines” it was now time to rededicate Isaac to G-d. If you live in the Diaspora long enough, you may forget your roots and you might set aside your parents and your grandparents’ commitments. Assimilation has a way of seductively slipping into your daily consciousness. As it is written the Jews in Egypt were “weak of spirit and hard at work”… the same might be said of the Jews of America today.
And yet a most learned rabbi once said, (quote) “Being a good Jew is to be good neighbors, to live with… to be part of the society around us…” (Unquote)… so the rabbi has trudged to the edge of the slippery slope… for in living with others there is the danger that it may have worked for a time, but historically it never worked for long. Claiming that “Abraham made it work!” was wishful thinking… After living with the Philistines Abraham almost destroyed the future of the Jewish people by slaughtering Isaac / his beloved wife Sarah is taken from him / and perhaps most pointedly, G-d never speaks to him again. No, the truth is it really didn’t work out and an eternal lesson had been taught to both Abraham and Isaac… that we too should understand.
The lesson that G-d has been trying to teach his stiff-necked people over the last 2000 bloody years – since Jews may have spoken words of Torah but often didn’t hear, is that the entire Torah has only one point to make – to love G-d and to live in the Land He promised as an eternal inheritance. Abraham took his family to the land. Moses took his nation to the land – that’s the Cliff notes of the story. The rest is commentary!
As we know in our historic Diasporas our people have too often turned away from G-d, and as it is written… “Perhaps there is among you a man or woman or family whose heart turns away from being with Hashem… and it will be that when he hears the word of his own imprecation, he will bless himself in his heart saying, Peace will be with me, though I walk as my heart sees fit… Hashem’s anger will go against that man… and Hashem will erase his name from under heaven.” (Deut. 29:17-19)
The lesson has been that there always came a day when history tapped on our peoples’ windows and asked us to attend a slaughter being held by our good neighbors, for Jews only. Today you can hear Anti-Semitism coming from all over the world / where are our good neighbors / listen to their peaceful, neighborly words from the United Nations. Emil Fackenheim in his book “G-d’s Presence in History” states that a second Holocaust is in fact made easier by the reality of the first and that we owe it to the Anti-Semites to not act powerlessly… Did the world stand up after Oslo when Jews were slaughtered on the streets of Israel ? Who stood up for Israel when thousands of rockets were shot into Sderot after the Gaza withdrawal? Is the world standing firm against Iran as it develops a nuclear bomb and its leader rants about destroying Israel ? An awful lot of talk goes on as the centrifuges spin. On Chamberlain’s deathbed he reflected, “Everything would have been alright if only Hitler hadn’t lied to me.” An American senator declared in 1939, “The false comfort of appeasement has been repeatedly discredited by history!” If any people should have learned by now, weakness and appeasement are a provocation!
The obvious is that Jews have always tried to make relationships work, given much to the societies they lived in but while we tried to work on shalom in countries all over the world, a different lesson was being taught since maybe the lesson was that the majority society wasn’t interested in working for shalom. A crusade here, an inquisition there, a pogrom in Kishnev, and a Shoah from the most civilized, sophisticated and cultured country of Europe . Our people have worked on shalom all over the planet… and the peace we have made with our neighbors has always turned out to be worthless. The question for us and our children is - will America be different?
And it was one of my Zionist heroes the Rav, Rabbi Joseph Soloveichek, who spoke of the lesson finally learned by Abraham and Isaac after the A’ke’da, for the Rav reflects, “What is our position vis a vis civilization… and toward the countries in which we live? The answer is enshrined in the words of Abraham… to the children of Heth when He explains / certainly I am a resident. I am one of you. I engage in business as you do, I speak your language; I take part in your social and economic institutions… I work with you… and I produce and develop the country… I am a resident in the fullest sense of the word…” Yet rather than worrying about making shalom with his neighbors, Abraham, now the recommitted Jew confronts the historic tension that will be with us from that day until eternity...
“Yes, I am a resident, but at the same time I am also a stranger and in some sense a foreigner. I belong to a particular world, one that is completely foreign to you. It is a world that I am one with the Creator. It is a world populated by characters unknown to you with a tradition that you do not and would not understand… it is a world of Torah… I am a stranger in your world and you are a stranger in mine. A Jew dies and is buried differently, hence, give me a possession of a burying place that I may bury my dead… a Jew requires a cemetery of his own, a Jewish grave” (p. 74)
“The children of Heth and many civilizations after understood full well what he meant by resident but they refused to accept the concept of his being a stranger… “Hear us my lord, thou art a divine prince among us… none of us shall withhold from you his land… forget the strangeness and become a full resident in both life and after death…” Assimilate with us – “our sons will marry your daughters; our daughters will marry your sons…” The children of Heth wanted Sarah to be buried in their burial ground… to symbolize total residence, and assimilation with Hittite society…” but Abraham responds… “If you care for me… pay heed to my words, I am a stranger and a resident” / he re-emphasizes his separateness / I cannot renounce my commitment to my Creator… therefore I ask of you that Ephron sell me the cave of Machpelah as a possession for a burial place.” No longer would 30 years of living with the Philistines distract him from his commitment. No longer would he live comfortably as a resident… In putting his emphasis on the stranger… he recommitted himself to his G-d, his people and his place in history, and he committed us as well.
Yet…What do we say to the State of Israel? The same things – “I am a stranger and a resident among you – I belong to the United Nations… we endeavor to contribute in science, medicine, and in all fields… but on the other hand, the State of Israel remains a stranger.”
“(Israel is)… a stranger because it is a country that is alone and solitary, a nation apart. There are blocks of Christian (and Catholic) countries, Arab-Muslim countries… every country has a sister country except for one. The only one that is alone… one nation on earth, a people that dwells alone (Num. 23:9) is the State of Israel” (p. 75-76)… and yet we may be alone in the world of man, but from the covenant of Abraham and from our covenant at Sinai of Moses… we have never been alone. “It is the mystery of the stranger that we carry in our very souls…” This is the discomfort that too many of our Jewish leaders both here and in Israel feel today. They are uncomfortable as the stranger. They rationalize. They placate. They try to straddle the fence. They are terrified of Abraham’s words at Macpelah in our holy place of Hevron – they are terrified by the commitment and determination of the Jews in Hevron… You have heard them say, those Jews who live there are fanatics, they are not like us… but too many of our Jews have not learned the lesson that to be a Jew takes a bit of being a fanatic… it certainly would have been a lot less bloody to have assimilated.
Being a good neighbor is to make sure that our neighbors are not confused and understand that we are not like them. Our language here in America may be the same but our calendar and our hagiem are that of the stranger. Hanukkah and Christmas – no better examples, it demands not peace but respect - not kumbaya but commitment – and if a Jew wants respect, first he must have self-respect.
“There is only one answer to I am a stranger and a resident among you. The State of Israel is part of the Jewish mystery… for in Eretz Israel there is sanctity – and the Divine Presence is in the land.” (p.78) - the land that Judah Maccabbee fought for. The land our Sherrit Ha’Pleta – our remnants from the graveyards of Europe fought for… the land that gave strength and commitment and determination to our brothers and sisters who astonished the world and our good neighbors in 1948 and again in 1967… and again in 1973. A land that with G-d’s love astonishes the world each and every day…
And the Rav concludes, “If you asked me who is a Jew, I would answer, one who lives a life of heroism. In my eyes, a Jew is one who is ready to live heroically to be always in the minority, to fight at times against his own logic / and against the modern children of Heth / our good neighbors. Our existence and the existence of the Jew today, is (nothing short of) heroic” (p.104) end quote. Isn’t that what Hanukkah was and is all about – a commitment to the heroic?! There is nothing wrong with being a winner!
And so it was that Abraham at a place called Macpelah in a town called Hevron – defined for all time – our place as part of the world and it has nothing to do with shalom, but rather it was a clear unambiguous timeless statement of an uncompromising commitment to our G-d thru the words of Abraham… “I am a resident and a stranger…” and “I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and also… with Isaac, and I will remember My covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the Land” (Lev. 26:42)
Each year I think back to my childhood excitement of lighting my first Hanukkiah – then it was all about gifts, later it became for me the symbol of the heroism and the victory of the Maccabees over Helenized Jews’ assimilation, and today many years later I find comfort in the words of the prophet Samuel, “Netzach Yisroal lo yeshaker” – the splendor of Israel will not deceive… Israel is today the Greatest Show on Earth!
It was Mark Twain who wrote – “If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one half of one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of stardust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of… The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded… and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they… vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence… no weakening of his spirit, no slowing of his energies, and no dulling of his alert and creative mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?” this Twain asked in 1899 – If he were around today, he’d be toasting a l’chaim to our incredible people and our State of Israel!
We are the most privileged generation in 2000 years. We have been privileged to live at a time that our ancestors, our bubbies and zaydees could only pray for – could only dream of – could only give their blood, sweat and tears and too often their lives for – this miracle of humankind called the Jew. To the shock and awe of our good neighbors of peace, our people have returned home after many believed that all hope had been lost – returned home to create a miracle that has been and continues to be “a light unto the nations” Let’s be honest, has anything changed over the last 70 years in Europe / or at the United Nations of the ignorant and the depraved? / Actually one very important thing has changed – Jews are no longer being shoved into gas chambers. No more pious eulogies from our friends. I have not one problem with those obscene, despicable condemnations of Israel – from those deranged cesspools of malignant ignorance, whether it comes from Arabs or Europeans or from pathetic, opportunistic court Jews like Goldstone and it doesn’t take an Oxford graduate to figure out / although Rabbi Loptain’s shock and anger at fellow clergy at the opening of the Holocaust Museum in Skokie should have been an eye opener. / We’ve been in many promised lands, and each one turned out to be a bloody Diaspora delusion, a temporary stop on our journey – back to our homeland... Have our people learned the lesson yet… if not they will.
In this week’s portion of Miketz just as in Abraham’s time when Abimelech recognized that our G-d was great, when Joseph is brought from prison and Pharaoh asked – “I have heard you are the reader of dreams”, young, proud Jew Joseph with memories of his great grandfather Abraham, restates I am a stranger, when he says… “Dream interpretation is beyond me, it is my G-d who will respond…” and after deciphering Pharaoh’s dream, it is Pharaoh who pronounces … “Can we find another man in whom is the spirit of (the Hebrew) G-d… Since G-d has informed you of this… you shall be in charge of my palace and by your command shall all my people be sustained, only by the throne shall I outrank you.” - Pretty good for a 30 year old pisher… it took Shalom Ben Bernacke until he was 54!
Take your pick – the first Jewish Nobel Prize winner for economics, or our first Harvard Business School graduate, but with our pride in Joseph again comes our historic question – are you a resident or a stranger?... for Joseph is truly our first historic court Jew – who will be praised in his new land with his new position for a time, until there always arises a Pharaoh who knows not Josephs over the next 3500 years. The story has repeated itself in every generation and in every land… when our people have blessed themselves in their own heart… and have challenged history and forsaken our G-d.
And it has been that our G-d, our teacher, has painfully had to re-teach His stiff-necked children with the words “But for a brief moment I have forsaken you and with abundant mercy shall I gather you in. With a slight wrath have I concealed My countenance from you for a moment, but with eternal kindness shall I show you chesed (loyalty)…” and so He has. (Isaiah 54:7-8)
Now Rabbi Lopatin – who I have a most special relationship with did send me an interesting quote about peace from 1923 from another heroic Jew, Zev Jabotinsky, and the Rabbi underlined from Jabotinsky “… just because I want peace…” which was true, Jabo longed for peace, but the Rabbi was being a bit selective for the entire sentence was… “But until then / just because I want peace / the only task is to make them lose every vestige of hope that neither by force nor constitutional methods… can you prevent Palestine from getting a Jewish majority… thus we cannot promise anything to the Arabs of the Land of Israel… (but) an iron wall that the native population cannot break through. This is our policy towards the Arabs. To formulate it any other way would be hypocrisy.” You just gotta love Jabotinsky’s clarity on the subject of peace and thank you Rabbi Lopatin for your input.
And to show G-d’s chesed – His loyalty and His incurable love for His people… there is a modern story for which I would make the claim that the two greatest presidents of the United States for Israel, intentionally or unintentionally, were George Bush the first and George Bush the second. Now I know that that may discomfort some politically but I believe that G-d acts in mysterious and yet undeniable ways for some things just don’t make any sense.
Back in 1991, Bush the first had a Secretary of State who spoke the uncomfortable truth when he said “F—the Jews, they don’t vote for us anyway.” There was no great love between Bush and Jews and yet it was George Bush the first who for no apparent reason demanded – “Mr. Gorbachov, let these people go” – demanding that Russia open the gates for Russian Jews to go to Israel . It was to cost billions – the challenges would be enormous and I don’t believe Bush had any understanding of what he was asking… it was in some ways an adaption of the story in the Torah of Bilaam – How goodly (will become)… thy tents O Jacob, thy dwelling places O Israel. But - man plans and G-d laughs. Russia opened its doors and out poured a million Jews and many asked how could little Israel absorb an additional 20% to its population, but it did, and in the memorable words of David Ben Gurion – “The difficult we can do reasonably well, the impossible that takes a little longer.”
And it was George Bush the second – not just from a military standpoint, but from the economic standpoint who was responsible for Israel ’s next great miracle. The Camp David intifada of 2000 had been costly and by 2003 Israel was in a serious financial crisis. Sharon, who was then Prime Minister, had dismissively appointed Netanyahu to what he thought would be the thankless job of Minister of Finance and Netanyahu needed a miracle to stabilize Israel ’s economy… Netanyahu proposed to begin privatizing banks and other major Israeli corporations and faced strong opposition from the Histadrut labor union and its allies in the Knesset and quoting from the book / which every Jew should read / called The Israel Test, “… Netanyahu only managed to overcome the Histradut’s hostility to finance reform… with help from President George W. Bush and his Secretary of the Treasury John Snow… Netanyahu sought a loan guarantee from the United States that would give Israeli bonds the full faith and credit of the U.S. Treasury… in exchange for the American guarantees (Bush and Snow demanded)… Israel would privatize its nationalized banks and industries, its socialized insurance and pension systems… its double and triple taxes on foreign investment … and its obsessive welfare culture.” (The Israel Test pgs. 169-171)
“The privatization of Israel’s state owned industries reduced government ownership from 60% to 20% and permitted Israel to use its $300 million per month cash flow to begin a program of investment in its most important asset – the power of the Jewish brain.”
“At the same time a new immigrant, Morris Smith, who had just quit his extremely lucrative job as head of the number one venture capital fund in America, the Fidelity Magellan Fund, thought he had moved to Israel to retire (but G-d had other plans). Partnering with several other venture capitalists, including Michael Medved’s brother, Jonathan Medved, who had also made aliyah, they went to work at a newly formed company called KCPS - Israel’s transformation was put into fast forward and Israel’s high tech economy today is the fastest growing, most creative economy on the planet. Today 80 percent of Israel ’s customers come from all over the world.” (Ibid pg. 172-173)
Continuing from The Israel Test, “As America moves toward Socialism, Israel is moving in just the opposite direction, into the creative energy of the Jewish brain… and Israel and the Jewish people can take pride in Israel’s accomplishments and the world that benefits from Israel’s creativity...” The man who wrote The Israel Test is a non-Jew by the name of George Gilder, and yet his most profound words were from an interview he gave when asked why he believed Israel and Jews were different. Gilder explained: The world is made up to two types of people. The zero-sum gamers believe that it is a world of haves and have nots – that what one has comes from the pockets of those from who it is taken. The Jew comes at the world from their Bible and in the Bible is a most profound statement – “In the beginning G-d created the heavens and the earth”. G-d created ex nilhilo / from nothingness. / It was the act of creating that the world became and one certainly must acknowledge that the Jewish people are some of the most creative people on the planet. A people of less than one quarter of 1% of the world population who has received over 38% of the Nobel Prizes says something is going on that defy the laws of logic and nature.”
Can there be any doubt that Gilder is touching on the words of Abraham, “I am a resident, I share my creativity with you, I share my discoveries with you, I share my love of mankind with you, but at the same time I am also a stranger… it is a world where I am one with my Creator… it is a world of Torah… a world that is completely foreign to you – I am a stranger in your world and you are a stranger in mine”
The essayist Milton Himmelfarb once wrote, “Each Jew knows how thoroughly ordinary he is, yet taken together we seem caught up in things great and inexplicable.”
When we stand up as strong, proud, heroic Jews our neighbors may not celebrate a l’chaim with us, but they will respect us – and in respecting our people they will begrudgingly understand that our G-d, Creator of the Universe, is watching over us.
In 1948, the United States government was infuriated that the “damned Jews” won the war – especially since the U.S. had cut off all arms shipments to Israel by Truman’s orders! In 1967, the United States government was infuriated that Israel defeated the Arabs in the Six Day War. President Lyndon Johnson’s words were, “If Israel goes alone, it will be alone.” Quoting from the biography of Lyndon B. Johnson, Portrait of a President, by Robert Dallek, on May 23, after Egypt had closed the Straits of Tiran, “The Israeli government pressed Johnson for a public statement on the extent of America’s commitment to Israel’s security… the President warned that without prior consultation… Tel Aviv should not expect any commitment of support from the United States.” (p.283) And again in 1973, one can only think back to the animosity of the Nixon/Kissinger White House and the hostility the United States showed by withholding vital supplies after Israel had been attacked and the U.S. only began re-supplying Israel after General Arik Sharon crossed the Suez and was on his way to Cairo.
I’m sorry to say, all the congressional resolutions and all the letters of support, and all the glad-handing on Capital Hill is just eye candy. The reality has been that when the chips are down, we and our State of Israel have been and will be alone. As a Jew, I am not looking to be loved, for that I have Ana, my three beautiful daughters and my family, and even in a non-Biblical way, some members of this shul - but I’m not looking for Shalom or a l’chaim from my neighbors and I’ll be damned if another Jew will ever be shoved into a gas chamber – or a nuclear gas chamber as some are today planning as the world plays Neville Chamberlain again with Jewish lives. It may be the few against the many, but never be deceived – remember Hashem’s words to Abraham – I will be your shield Abraham – but you my most treasured people, I’m sorry to say, you may have to be the sword! Let’s be clear – what upsets our neighbors and some of our so called friends who had become too used to dining on powerless Jews is that they still won’t accept a Jewish boy piloting an F-16!
“Remember the days past; understand the years of generation after generation… Ask your father and he will tell you, ask your grandfather and he will explain it… for Hashem’s portion is His people… He preserved them like the pupil of his eye”. (Deut. 32:1-10) Since the days when Abraham took his first heroic step out of Ur , from resident to the stranger, with G-d’s eternal love for His people, we have been and continue unapologetically to be, the Greatest Show on Earth… Netzach Yisroal lo yeshaker – the splendor of Israel will not deceive… and we don’t have to apologize to anyone – we’ve more than paid our dues… so remember on this Hanukkah – one cruse of oil; eight days of light. A Jew who doesn’t believe in miracles is not a realist!
Hazak, hazak, ve nis ha’zek – Be strong and you will be strengthened!
Am Yisroal Chai – Hagsomayah! Shabbat Shal
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