Forgive Anyway, Rosh Hashanah 20

 

One thing about Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur has always bothered me.  And that is forgiveness.  In the way we teach it – everything is about teshuvah.  Teshuvah is returning, teshuvah is repentance.  For wrong-doings, sins, committed bein-adam-limkomo, God and People, God forgives if we atone.  Bein-adam-l’chavero, between People – we must atone to them.  How do we do teshuvah?  We must recognize we’ve erred, we must find the proper way to truly fix the mend in the relationship, seek out the offended party, and when placed in the same position not sin again – and only then have we done Teshuvah properly.  We can’t send a blanket email “hey sorry if I was a jerk this year.”  Most likely, we can’t even just say “sorry” for the stuff that really matters.  And yet we are all aspring to do teshuvah.

But the other side – the forgiving, that I feel is never addressed – unless I missed that day in rabbinical school.  And that disturbs me because with as high a standard for success as teshuvah requires, it seems obvious that a lot of needed teshuvah never happens.  And then if you’re the person who was hurt – it seems like you’re stuck.  Can you forgive people who are, by our definition, “still bad?”  Are we dummies for doing that?  Are we letting ourselves be taken advantage of or failing to help the wrong doer learn an important lesson?  Where is the lesson plan about that? 

Finally, I’m going to try and figure this out – that was my thinking coming to today.  Where is the wisdom in our tradition that would guide us to answers for all these questions?

To begin with, all these questions point to something great about Judaism.  Forgiveness matters.  Tremendously.  It is a treasure that can’t be given away for nothing.  And it can be abused.  It can lead to peace of mind; it can lead to peace between aggrieved parties.  And it can also be a tool maliciously used by those who hurt and who fail to think of others. 

 

It is perhaps one of the sources of antisemitism as well.  We don’t forgive easily.  Because sometimes justice is necessary, not forgiveness.  Our tradition believes there is evil in the world.  That evil exists even in our failure to take things seriously if doing so leaves others in the lurch or feeling neglected or overlooked.  And so, “justice, justice” we must pursue.  Not, “forgiveness, forgiveness.” 

 

A number of years ago, the store of a woman called Eva Korr became well known.  She was a Holocaust survivor, a twin who survived but whose sister didn’t.  As an elderly woman, she forgave all the Nazis for what they did.  And a big deal was made of this.  In part, I think, because this fit the prevailing American, Western, Christian, way forgiveness is understood. 

 

Vehemently, I disagree with her.   And I believe in the maxim that any Holocaust survivor is entitled to any opinion about anything related to God, religion, or evil that they want.  But the statement she made, about which I’m sure she did thoughtfully and with consideration, came across, at least in how it was reported in a way that was wrong.  One simply cannot offer forgiveness to people for crimes they committed against other people.  And for every Nazi, every collaborator, who murdered someone, halachah confirms for us there can be no forgiveness, as the only one who could give it is dead. 

 

Yet on one point she was right.  True to the notion that bearing a grudge is like stabbing yourself and thinking you’ll wound the other person, a woman like Eva Korr was on to something in doing what she did.  While I believe the extent to which she went was wrong because she forgave even those she never knew and whose crimes were committed directly against others if still indirectly against her -- if what she did freed her from the death camp in which she had remained even decades after having been liberated from Auschwitz, there was value in that. There was righteousness in that for her, and that is no insignificant thing.    

 

As we are told in the Talmud, if we can forgive others like this, “God in turn will dismiss our sins” (Talmud Bav’li, Rosh Hashanah 17a).  In a modern context, that may well mean freeing us of whatever may stunt us and embitter us, causing us to perpetuate problems.

 

And our tradition also teaches, the one who strives to be a good person runs the risk of injuring herself or himself if they seek too eagerly to punish even those who deserve it. 

 

What then is there to learn from all this about forgiveness?  It doesn’t feel like we’ve gotten very far at all in learning anything knew. 

 

That it seems, is the point.  Forgiveness is an important value in Judaism.  As we started by saying, it can free us from burdens that were placed upon us and that only hold us down – this is true regardless of what the one who has hurt us does or doesn’t do. 

 

Yet forgiveness cannot, must not, be celebrated as the highest virtue, as the chief-most virtue. 

In our tradition, justice must stand besides forgiveness.  Not forgiving or withholding forgiveness until the right time serves both justice and forgiveness.

 

Additionally, our emphasis on teshuvah throughout the holidays supports this as well.  The individual may be ennobled, may be freed, by an ability to forgive.  But a society cannot be.  It must not be cruel, but it must teach responsibility towards one another as the cornerstone for survival, as the key that opens the way for God’s presence to enter the world.  That is what the emphasis on teshuvah teaches us, as hard a lesson as it may be.  We can only but live surrounded by others and constantly in relationship to them.    

 

We Jews are called upon, at our best, to live lives of struggle with the highest of human ideals.  This understanding of forgiveness, as important but not paramount, not when placed besides justice and responsibility, that is the lesson we must live and teach through how we live.

L’shanah Tovah Tikateivu v’Tichatemu, Shabbat Shalom

Torah and Derech Eretz, Yom Kippur 20

 

What’s the right way to hold this [fork]?  Is there even a right way?  Americans are, or were, taught an additional step to make them slow down when eating, but the original method is to hold it like this, tines curving down, index finger pressing on the stem, and poke into your food while, holding your knife in the right hand in similar fashion, you slice, not saw, through your bite, and then lift it on your fork to your mouth – and then chew with your mouth closed!

Such is how one with “good manners” eats.  For many, the idea of “manners” in this sense can feel dated, antiquated – I really need more than one fork?  I really need a water glass and a wine glass (think of the “wrong glass, sir” scene in The Blues Brothers to imagine that one)?

Yet, as insignificant as it may seem, holding a fork in that way is “the best” way to manipulate such a tool.  Taking the time to learn, know and apply all the knowledge of fork-use is not only efficient, but is, or can be, a little gift you bestow, by acting your best even about small things, too. 

Once, when walking with my rabbi, Rabbi Schimmel, to synagogue, he stopped and sighed a little and, apropos of nothing said, “you know, Germany was such a wonderful place before the Nazis.”  He had grown up there, in Frankfurt am Main, and left around 1935.  Yekkes, German Jews, take the prize for being concerned with “manners,” or as we would say in Hebrew, derech eretz.

Derech eretz, “the way of the land,” like “manners” in English is inclusive of things like holding your fork, but also of so much more – which is why we discuss it now.  Part of why it is such an important feature related to German Jewry is the emphasis placed on it by Rabbi Sampson Raphael Hirsch, one of its great leaders in the 19^th century.  He wrote:

“Derech eretz includes everything that flows from the human need to perfect one’s destiny and life, together with society, through the medium of the earth’s bounty. Hence, the term is used in reference to earning a living,  establishing civic order, and to the paths of discipline, manners and refinement that social life require, as well as to everything that touches upon the development of humankind and civility.”

As we will attempt to see, understanding derech eretz is vitally critical to each of us not just surviving during this time in our country, but perhaps even saving it and ourselves. 

Even derech eretz when taken in the “prim and proper” sense teaches us something.  Rabbi Schimmel talked about how going to synagogue in Germany meant wearing a “cylinder,” a top hat.  Or how when Eastern European Jews came to shul with their tzitzit “indecorously” sticking out would be told to tuck them in, or how, when I became his intern, my choice not to wear a robe (as he did) for funerals disappointed some congregants.

All these may seem funny and anachronistic and out of date, but consider – was it trivial to the grieving family who felt their loved one was honored when “the rabbi” wore vestments even into the cemetery, regardless of whether it was dusty or muddy or rainy?  Or to express through how one dresses the importance we feel about some event? Or even as a reason to remember that showing off, even in a religious context, isn’t as pious as having a quiet dignity that doesn’t draw attention to itself? 

As much as all those examples demonstrate how the “small” features of derech eretz can make a difference in our lives, the next few will cement for us how, at a time in our country when all too many around us, when even “us,” are sorely lacking in derech eretz, that we need it. 

Rabbi Schimmel also taught me how, as a baker’s son, he learned the smile on a customer’s face when you gave them something they were sure to delight in was worth more than however many marks they might pay you. 

Or, how about their maid, a young German woman, his father, Elias, instructed my rabbi and his six siblings, “you are not to refer to her as ‘that girl’ and never as “the shikseh.”  She has a name and you will use it.” 

Or the story I’ve shared of how one night Elias found a Nazi party member passed out drunk on their front steps and brought him a blanket and pillow, only for the man, when he came to the next morning, to curse about a “Jew-boy” ever doing something as considerate as that. 

…I can’t comprehend how stories of true derech eretz true menschlichkeit, seem for so many in America today, as antiquated and out of date as the top hat one.  How did we come to live in a country as coarse as ours now?  Driven to our current low state by, of all things, politics. 

All us Americans – so carefully informed and following politics so closely.  Rooting for our side to win and your side to lose ignominiously.  No doubt that’s why House Resolution 5363, which became Public Law #116-91 just before the pandemic must frustrate you all so much.

You know, the one called, “Fostering Undergraduate Talent by Unlocking Resources for Education Act or the FUTURE Act,” permanently authorizing funding for minority-serving institutions of higher education?

How annoying that such a dastardly piece of legislation passed in the House with almost 400 votes and passed by unanimous consent in the Senate.  What were they all thinking to come together on something terrible like that? 

Are we even aware of such things?  And if we are, do they temper our views?  Certainly, there are issues of grave concern over which loyal and patriotic American differ mightily – but does that mean we need to hate each other because of it?  Use insults?  Cast aspersions?  Is it worth all that?  And even if the other side is doing it to you, does it make your side better to return fire? 

Isn’t doing so at least as bad as dressing slovenly to a wedding? Don’t let yourself be manipulated that way!  Whatever TV channel you’re watching, I suppose unless it’s CSPAN or you watch Canadian news or something, isn’t your network at least a little motivated to keep you glued to screen?  Is truth, is thoughtfulness, served by such a motive?

I truly worry for our country on this point.  I worry about this more than any other one thing.  As important as many of the issues we confront as Americans today mean to me, demonizing each other is not going to help achieve success in supporting them.  Is that naïve?  Probably.  Is the person who posts provocative stuff on Facebook any less naïve thinking someone somewhere is saying, “your all caps post has shown me the error of my ways?”

There is a famous saying about “derech eretz, derech eretz kadma la-Torah,” “Derech eretz precedes the Torah.”  How can it be that manners, civility, being a mensch, come before the Torah?  The rabbis explain it with a midrash about Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden: “God drove them out, and stationed east of Eden cherubim and the fiery ever-turning sword, to guard the way to the tree of life.” (Gen. 3:24) – The midrash is that “way” derech eretz, comes before “tree of life” which is the Torah. 

God gifted humankind civility, thoughtfulness, consideration towards others at the very start.  Torah wasn’t revealed to Moses for centuries after that. 

Just as Jeremiah tells us:  “For when I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not merely command them about burnt offerings and sacrifices, but I commanded them: Obey Me, and I will be your God, and you will be My people. You must walk in all the ways וַהֲלַכְתֶּ֗ם בְּכָל־הַדֶּ֙רֶךְ֙ I have commanded you, so that it may go well with you.”

If our own tradition teaches us that as important as our prayers and rituals are, at least as important, and maybe more so, is acting properly towards each other – how can you think that your identity as an American, as a Republican, as a Democrat, is ennobled through nasty, debasing words and deeds? 

My friends, I feel obliged to say all this to you.  To do what I can to correct a plague that I hope you will join me in fighting – that of belittling and demonizing others in this country, by treating them respectfully instead.

If Elias Schimmel, a Jew in the 1930s, could offer a blanket to a drunk Nazi, and feel he’d done the right thing even after being disparaged by the very man he helped, can we not bring ourselves to see those who oppose us as generously?  Even if you feel the people on the other side are as bad as Nazis, recall that if you want to put it that way, then both the “Nazis” and the “Bolsheviks” all voted for that FUTURE Act we were talking about.  Sometimes both sides aren’t that bad. 

We Jews brought Torah into the world.  We Jews are meant to be a light to the nations.  But according to the midrash, all human beings deserve the inheritance given to Adam and Eve which is derech eretz – proper, good, holy treatment by others.  And it is a tribute, an honor, a glory we bestow on our departed loved ones to live in such a way as does their spirits proud.  Let us make our success at spreading this universal value part of how we fulfill our particular, our Jewish, purpose in the new year that has just begun.

G’mar Chatimah Tovah!

Eternal Hope, Yom Kippur 20

 

I believe Messiah has already come.  Actually, two messiahs.  And no, not the loaves and fishes guy, and not, for those of you who like nerdy Jewish references, not Shabbetai Zvi. No, I believe they were Theodor Herzl and David ben-Gurion.  I can give the rest of that sermon another time – very quickly, Jewish tradition offers the idea that when the messiah comes, first there will be Moshiach ben Yosef, kind of a preliminary messiah, and then Moshiach ben David, the actual messiah.  Furthermore, it is not at all necessary that in coming the messiah does any miraculous things.  In fact, one of the key things the messiah needs to do is bring the Jews back to an Israel not subservient to any other power.  Hence – and truly, this is serious for me, they were the messiahs.  No fanfare, no smoke, but making the miraculous, the nearly impossible come to be. 

Because Israel is the realization of a dream.  A dream made reality.  Not always pretty, not always perfect, but a dream, that a miracle would come to pass.  And that miracles don’t require a thunderbolt from on high, they can be brought about by courageous and willing human hands.

The hands of those with dream.  For what do dreams do?  The best dreams inspire us.  Give us hope.   The world today needs more of it.  While Judaism shapes the outline of my dreams, looking to Israel reminds me dreams can become reality, with all that reality implies about being imperfect and in progress – but a dream realized, nonetheless.  That hope extends to my feelings about Israel and the Middle East, to the rest of the world, and back to us here, and even to withinside us – here. 

There is so much terrible in our lives now – the ongoing stress and danger of Covid-19.  The passing of an exemplary American Jew in Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  xamples of miscarried justice as we only just saw in the Breonna Taylor case.  The killing of police officers, civilians, rioting and destruction, that have marred what should have been the patriotic and time-honored American tradition of civil disobedience.  All terrible.  All can cause us to want to give up hope. 

It is said Franz Rosenzweig, the great German Jewish philosopher was on his way to convert to Christianity when he decided to attend Kol Nidrei services.  Hearing the prayer’s haunting melody and its message, directed precisely at Jews like him, who, for whatever reason may feel they had to hide or give up their Jewish identity, and declaring they, too, are beloved by God and part of the Jewish People – Rosenzweig abandoned his previous plan and had what would prove to be a historic change of heart. 

Kol Nidrei which we only just heard, is a call inviting us, however and whyever we may feel distanced from God, that even if we’ve suffered physically or emotionally, even if had to give up or hide our faith, that it is never too late. 

As Americans, this should offer us hope.  The very real troubles of our country can, with effort, with a dream, be overcome.  And yet, as challenging as the trouble in our lives may be, we mustn’t let them blind us to the truly horrible suffering of others around the world.  And for us as Jews, some of that suffering we should feel ourselves forbidden to ignore. 

Around the world in Asia, in a part of China the Han Chinese call Xinjiang, and which is locally called East Turkestan, the systematic persecution, oppression and even murder of the Uighur community is taking place, even right now.  Something like a million members of this Turkic ethnic group have been put in concentration camps.  Some have been sterilized.  Some have had organs taken from them.  Islam, the religion practiced by most of them, has been suppressed.  Mosques destroyed, Uighurs forced to eat pork and drink alcohol.  Han Chinese have increasingly moved into the area as part of an effort to erase the local culture. 

If you want to talk about modern-day parallels to the Jews’ experience in the Holocaust, this is it.  If you want to talk about a dream to help realize, to help make your own, this should be one of them.  And it is with pride we should note that various Jewish organizations, such as Jewish World Watch and the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice (named after and led by the family of Holocaust survivor, the late congressman Tom Lantos) along with others, are already working to help these people.  To devote even some of our energy, a part of our dreams for a better world to helping the Uighurs would be bringing a miracle into the world. 

And it needn’t be with despair that we look on such a situation in Asia, or any of the challenges we face here.  Wherever we look, we can find examples of hard-fought and hard-won hope worthy of inspiring us. 

We saw the Justice Ginsburg lying in repose at the Supreme Court and in state at the Capitol Building.  Saw for the first time a rabbi speak words of comfort and praise, recite prayers in Hebrew, in that most American of settings.  That should be a sign of hope – for any American Jew that should be stirring. 

And if you want to look for signs of large-scale, region-changing, dreams coming true on a historic scale – look to what has been happening with Israel, that constant source of hope for us as Jews.  While Israel struggles with internal political dissension, and a permanent peace with the Palestinians is yet to be had, it cannot be described as anything short of miraculous to see Israel open relations with the United Arab Emirates and with Bahrain.  To already be quietly achieving detente and even cooperation with Saudi Arabia.  And likely to open diplomatic ties with other Arab countries such as Kuwait, Oman, even The Sudan, if stories in the press are to be believed.  So many thought that such a normalization of relations with countries once pledged to Israel’s destruction would never come unless what’s always been called The Peace Process was resolved first.  Now it may very well be that what brings the Peace Process finally to a close, will be the normalization of relations between Israel and precisely those countries who once sought or supported efforts to destroy it. 

Now – the lesson we should derive from all this.  Has everything been perfect regarding the tributes to Justice Ginsburg, certainly as Jews, we can be proud to see how she has been honored, but as Americans we also all know that for such a public and influential person, political fighting would also be part of how she was eulogized and rembered.  Perfect?  Impossible for it to be.  Inspiring?  Certainly – that a woman and a Jew could be honored so, that’s a dream realized.

And the same is true regarding Israel.  Are these agreements ironclad?  Probably not.  Is it surprising how they came about?  Most certainly?  Are there others challenges and less than perfect aspects to these breakthroughs?  Without a doubt.  But even so, you cannot deny that for all who hope Israel can live in peace and with good relations to all those around it, we cannot but be hopeful. 

These then, are the lessons we must take away. Hope in difficult times springs from dreams of a better world, of our own better selves.  Dreams that we refuse to abandon no matter how long it takes to realize them or what challenges we must overcome.  Hope comes from fighting hard to make those dreams reality.  And dreams of hope may one day bring about reality changing miracles – that won’t make the world perfect but make it better.  That won’t happen through supernatural intervention but because some Austrian journalist (Herzl), some girl from Brooklyn (Ginsburg) some daughter of a congressman (Katrina Lantos-Swett) has the chutzpah to think they can make a difference in the world. 

Let all of us go forward from this place and into the New Year, and make our own chutzpadik dreams of miracles realized happen in our lives. 

G’mar Chatimah Tovah

Knives & Chicken Parmesan or Passion for Being Different

Knives & Chicken Parmesan or Passion for Being Different

Do the remarkable circumstances in which we find ourselves give us freedom to make any innovations we want in Judaism? Never would I have imagined streaming services for Shabbat - not that it couldn't be done, that's been possible since radios - no, I mean that it would seem acceptable to do so. I don't thin it's the circumstances though, I think it's how we understand what Judaism wants of us.

How great it was to find new strength and resolve for passionately observing the mitzvot in ways outside the norm addressed in the daily study of the Talmud. A few days ago the Talmud discusses how in one small community the rabbi allowed them to eat dairy and chicken together and how in another it was allowed to perform a brit milah on Shabbat even if it meant you had to smelt the iron for the knife on Shabbat to do it. Not only are we told that the other rabbis of the time, though they disagreed with these outlier positions, respected them; we are even told that these communities, because they were so careful and diligent in performing the mitzvot, even though they did so in ways others did not, their dedication was rewarded by God.

Let us never mistake a creative, innovative or lenient position with a half-hearted, apathetic or disdainful one. We will make it an integral part of who we are at NSJC to remain steadfast in our devotion to God, Torah and Judaism, even as I pray we never stop looking for new and relevant ways to connect our community members to them. While I won't see you this Shabbat in shul, I hope you'll be streaming and you'll see me as we all celebrate together!

To Err Constantly

When even making the right decisions about health and safety come at the expense of relationships, livelihood and sense of purpose, maybe we need to consider not the choices themselves but how to make them:

A Lesson from a Loaf of Bread

"If one forgot a loaf of bread baking in the oven as Shabbat began, it can be removed with a knife or in some unusual manner. This is allowed, even on Shabbat, because: שֶׁהִיא חָכְמָה וְאֵינָהּ מְלָאכָה - 'baking is an art not a labor.'"

(Shabbat 117b, today's page of Talmud Study/Daf Yomi)

The Jewish People have faced terrible, lonely, tragic conditions in our history with bravery and hope just as we must today. Our tradition has always been there as a source of strength and comfort, so let me share the following:

To all of you wearing masks, distancing, helping others, working under daunting conditions, and even joining us online or in the parking lot for services and programs, from the bottom of my heart,

you have my respect and love.

You are doing what Jews have always done, what God teaches us through a loaf of bread - to adjust in times like this with wisdom and creativity. To treat life not as a labor but as an art. Art which while it may reflect the times also helps us transcend them.

In the name of the sources of our strength, God, Tradition, and Community,

I bless you all to have creativity, strength and hope, Amen.

We Will Do for You - Parshat Behaalotecha

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר מֹשֶׁ֗ה לְ֠חֹבָב בֶּן־רְעוּאֵ֣ל הַמִּדְיָנִי֮ חֹתֵ֣ן מֹשֶׁה֒ נֹסְעִ֣ים ׀ אֲנַ֗חְנוּ אֶל־הַמָּקוֹם֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר אָמַ֣ר יְהוָ֔ה אֹת֖וֹ אֶתֵּ֣ן לָכֶ֑ם לְכָ֤ה אִתָּ֙נוּ֙ וְהֵטַ֣בְנוּ לָ֔ךְ כִּֽי־יְהוָ֥ה דִּבֶּר־ט֖וֹב עַל־יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃

Moses said to Hobab son of Reuel the Midianite, Moses’ father-in-law, “We are setting out for the place of which the LORD has said, ‘I will give it to you.’ Come with us and we will be generous with you; for the LORD has promised to be generous to Israel.”

וַיֹּ֥אמֶר אֵלָ֖יו לֹ֣א אֵלֵ֑ךְ כִּ֧י אִם־אֶל־אַרְצִ֛י וְאֶל־מוֹלַדְתִּ֖י אֵלֵֽךְ׃

“I will not go,” he replied to him, “but will return to my native land.”

וַיֹּ֕אמֶר אַל־נָ֖א תַּעֲזֹ֣ב אֹתָ֑נוּ כִּ֣י ׀ עַל־כֵּ֣ן יָדַ֗עְתָּ חֲנֹתֵ֙נוּ֙ בַּמִּדְבָּ֔ר וְהָיִ֥יתָ לָּ֖נוּ לְעֵינָֽיִם׃

He said, “Please do not leave us, since you know where we should camp in the wilderness and can be our guide.

וְהָיָ֖ה כִּי־תֵלֵ֣ךְ עִמָּ֑נוּ וְהָיָ֣ה ׀ הַטּ֣וֹב הַה֗וּא אֲשֶׁ֨ר יֵיטִ֧יב יְהוָ֛ה עִמָּ֖נוּ וְהֵטַ֥בְנוּ לָֽךְ׃

So, if you come with us, we will extend to you the same bounty that the LORD grants us.”

This is one of those stories, where, hesitantly, I read it as imbued, infused, with the kind of generosity and nobility of spirit, the recognition of what is right, that - as I say - almost feels suspiciously too good to be true.  The living out the value of loving one’s neighbor as one’s self.

Which isn’t to say there is nothing transactional happening here, I just don’t think that’s the main thing.  And that it’s not the main thing, is the lesson we need to heed this week.

The Jews certainly owe a debt to Jethro, one worth a trip to the Holy Land.  For one, Jethro believes in God and freely acknowledges God’s power.  Furthermore, being a nomad, the Jews recognize Jethro will have much wise counsel to offer for a nation who only recently were slaves and now find themselves in the wilderness.  Finally, Jethro is the one who saved and helped train Moses, the instrument of their salvation. 

But even with all that, even with the implication that Jethro will be their Bronze Age GPS, Moses’s offer doesn’t seem to stem so much from a calculation of what they can get off Jethro – Moses offers because they want to share God’s unbelievable blessings and favor with someone else.  Sure, Jethro is a good and righteous man, but he’s not a Jew, he wasn’t a slave, so his claim to God’s bounty is the not the same.  The Jews offer, I hope anyway, because they have learned the best way to express gratitude is to show it to others. 

The story though, of the Jewish People meeting Jethro, a tribal chief from the wilderness, and welcoming him with respect and equality, speaks to our present-day trouble in America.  We Jews today seem in danger of forgetting what it is to be the one Jethro before the multitude of Israelites. 

Often enough in our history, we have been that outsider.  And often enough, we were not welcomed generously, and certainly not on equal terms, either. 

Yet when our parshah this week takes the time to relate this story to us, and when our People’s history tells it to us over and over – at least in terms of how it can go wrong, how is it we aren’t keen to see it all around us in the United States today? 

For even though each of us may all be proper, kale-eating, NPR-listening, fabric shopping bag carrying, champions of human rights everywhere – we still seem to find ourselves in a society where a lot of racism and bigotry exist and go unchecked. 

And I say this as someone who sighs at the narrow-mindedness of those who believe equality means imposing damnatio memoriae on the accomplishments of the great men and women of history simply because they did not share the values of today – wishing I could remind them that today is not the 25^th of Prairial in the year 228 (the base 10, anti-royal, anti-church French Revolutionary Calendar date for today) for many and varied and good reasons, not least because it is a hubris to think we can curate history in that way. 

But that does not mean landmarks and statues dedicated to traitors to our country should dot our landscape.  

Nor should we use “well it’s always been like that” as an excuse not to scour court and custom for unseen bastions of prejudice -  we must - though with the thoughtful eyes of centuries and millennia, and not of news-cycles and elections.

And it must not lead us to stand by and not act.  Really act – which needn’t mean going as far as marching in the streets, but which equally doesn’t mean only grasping the lowest of all hanging fruit by changing your Facebook picture either. 

Through donations, voting, educating, and listening, and also soul-searching, we can also accomplish much.  Let us not be barriers to achieving the Torah’s ideal – because the danger that we are is real.

There is much more to say, but I’ll leave you with this from the Midrash on this passage.  While many believe (like I do) that our story conclude with Jethro’s unspoken agreement to go with the Israelites, we also encounter this version:

When they had eaten with him, he said: “Give me permission to go to my own place.” Moses said to him (in Numb. 10:32): “IT SHALL BE THAT, IF YOU COME WITH US, IT SHALL COME TO PASS THAT WHATEVER GOOD THE LORD DOES FOR US WE WILL DO FOR YOU.” Jethro said to him: “I want to go and utter the Holy One's praise in my own place.” Immediately (in Exod. 18:27): MOSES SENT HIS FATHER-IN-LAW AWAY…. Now when the Holy One does miracles for Israel, they praise God, and because of Jethro, the nations of the world praise God, too, as is proved by what it says in Psalms, (Ps. 138:4): THESE PEOPLES, ALL THE KINGS OF THE EARTH SHALL GIVE THANKS TO YOU, O LORD, FOR THEY HAVE HEARD THE WORDS OF YOUR MOUTH.

The impact our good deeds and good beliefs can have on others is clear – the knowledge of God spreads in the world when we act towards others in a way that conforms with God – they repeat and amplify it – but then the opposite must also be true.  Let us not send anyone away from hurting or hating – if we do not join together on our journey, at least let us part ways sharing our purpose to fulfill God’s will wherever we may be.