Remarks on Ukraine from 2/25/22 & Ways to Help

 

My Remarks on Ukraine from Friday, February 25th:

“If you see your enemy’s ass sagging under its burden, you shall not pass by. You shall surely release it with him.” Exodus 23:5

In World War II, 250,000 Ukrainians served Nazi Germany; SS employed Ukrainians at a rate of 16 to 1 with Germans in the East. 

The Ukrainian Auxiliary Police, U People’s Militia, U National Army all served to persecute Jews and served in the massacre at Babi Yar and in many other parts of the country.

And while Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the U President is Jewish, his popularity before the invasion was on the decline. Now, of course, he is seen, rightly, as a hero, not just in Ukraine but around the world.

The Jewish community in Ukraine numbers around 40,000 “active” members of Jewish communities with as many as 200,000 people with “Jewish roots.” By and large, Jews are Russian speaking even in Western Ukrainian cities such as Kiev and Lvov (Kyiv and Lviv) where you have more Ukrainian speakers and ethnic Ukrainians than in the east where there are more Russian speaking, ethnic Russian Ukrainians. 

My fears as this conflict unfolds and escalates, as we see the brutal images and reports of the Russian assault –  are that even while Jews in the country are defending their homeland and suffering and dying with their fellow citizens, the risks that both an occupying Russian army might single out Jews as “conspirators” and that similarly Ukrainians could well do the same, seeing Jews as a “fifth column” and giving vent to historical tendencies of antisemitism - neither are fanciful possibilities.

Yet - when we see the bravery of the Ukrainians, when we see their recent history since the fall of the Soviet Union and their acts of civil unrest to bring democratic government prevail, when they have chosen the West over Russia in numerous ways these last thirty years, even as other former Soviet states have gone with Putin – see Byelorussia as just one example – then we must rethink our preconceived opinions. Or at least I must. 

The current situation arises out of several sources. Putin’s megalomania and desire to recreate a Russian Empire, another USSR. Out of the fact that Ukraine, the name of the country meaning “border,” would serve as a buffer state between Russian and the West. Ukraine’s sea ports and rich agriculture. And the fact that there are historical ties between the two countries. Russia’s origins were in Kiev with the state of Kievan Rus. 

Yet none of that excuses the current Russian aggression. Nor does any of that, nor even a past containing the antisemitism that Ukraine’s has, mean we should want to see Ukraine destroyed as is now the case. 

In fact, if anything, we Jews should be the ones who can most sympathize with the history and the current plight of Ukraine.

Going back to our opening verse. The Targum, the Aramaic translation and commentary on the Torah, interprets that famous verse as, “You shall surely let go of the hate you have in your heart towards him.”

And as Maimonides further explains:

You shall blot [any offences against you] out of your mind and not bear a grudge. For as long as one nurses a grievance and keeps it in mind, one may come to take vengeance. The Torah therefore emphatically warns us not to bear a grudge, so that the impression of the wrong should be completely obliterated and no longer remembered. This is the right principle. It alone makes civilized life and social interaction possible. Hilchot Deot 7:8

We as Jews cannot be imprisoned by our past, even as we are commanded to learn from it. 

We must help our brothers and sister in danger, we must help the innocent, AND we must even help those who would not help us! 

We must stand up against violence and intolerance and murder and hate because we know all too well what these things are. We must show ourselves ready, more than ready but willing and able to help those in need whoever they are. 

And even if in doing so NOBODY changes their opinions about Jews. Even if people still hate us. 

If nothing else, God has not made it our fate to win many beauty or popularity contests. That is precisely the point. We do what is right even if it means scorn and cynicism. 

Because right is right. And because we never give up hope that just possibly, as the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote: 

The Hebrew Bible is not a code for Utopia. That is a prophetic dream, not a present-tense reality. In the here-and-now, however, the Torah tells us something not without its moral grandeur, namely that small gestures of mutual assistance can in the long run transform the human situation. At the heart of the law of the overladen ass is one of Judaism’s most beautiful axioms (Avot de-Rabbi Natan, 23): ‘Who is a hero? One who turns an enemy into a friend.’

If want a world of peace and understanding, even if we want a world only slightly better than it is at present, then someone, somewhere, must be the first to step forward and do what is right and help those in need. Perhaps to make them friends and even if they remain our enemies, because it is the Godly thing to do. 

And why shouldn’t we Jews be the ones in this situation and all others, to lead the way?

WAYS TO OFFER ASSISTANCE IN UKRAINE:

 

UJA FEDERATION

Right now, your gift will help enable UJA to support the critical work that we and our partners on the ground are doing to meet the urgent and mounting humanitarian needs in all of Ukraine – including food, shelter, transport, and emergency medical units for all citizens. https://www.ujafedny.org/

JOINT DISTRIBUTION COMMITTEE

As conflict erupts across the country, Ukraine’s most vulnerable Jews are in distress and JDC has launched an emergency campaign to meet their spiking humanitarian needs.

In more than 1,000 locations across Ukraine, JDC provides a lifeline for an estimated 40,000 Jewish elderly and 2,500 poor Jewish children and their families through its network of care services, Jewish community programs, and Jewish leaders — and today, they need our help. https://www.jdc.org/

 

MASORTI OLAMI

The international community of Conservative Judaism calls upon all of our friends and supporters worldwide to give generously to our emergency campaign for the Masorti/Conservative communities in Ukraine. We are in close contact with our communities in Kyiv, Chernivtsi, Odessa, Kharkov and Dnipro who report that they are currently safe and at home but are worried about the future and are in a state of uncertainty, not sure when an invasion could occur or how it would play out. They have conveyed to us their current fears and needs, and we have created this campaign, calling on the assistance of our supporters around the world, to help them.  https://masortiolami.org/one-time-donation/

Angels and America’s Broken Glass: the George Floyd Case

 Angels and America’s Broken Glass: the George Floyd Case

“The creations of My hands are drowning in the sea and you wish to sing songs?” - Talmud, Megillah 10b

Even if you’ve never been to a Jewish wedding you know that a glass is broken to complete the ceremony. This is done to remind us that others are suffering even when we are at ease, even when we are rejoicing. And because we are all tied to each other, seeing as we are all alive at the same time on this absurd little speck in the cosmos, we cannot act as if deep down we don’t know that the conditional and temporary joy I may feel at any given point negates my obligation to those still in need.

With the defendant found guilty on all counts over the killing of George Perry Floyd, today such a glass was shattered in America.

When a great wrong has been committed and the evildoer brought to justice, that is right. It is even good. But it is not a time for rejoicing. Not when we remember all the suffering that even justice does not alleviate.

The racial tensions and civil unrest in our country which must be addressed are far from quelled tonight and that is no source for joy.

Neither does the conviction of one wrongdoer here mean that now no other in a place of authority will transgress in the future.

Nor can we be glad knowing that for all those who do faithfully concern themselves with the law and with our protection, even at the risk of their own lives, that their duty to us is now made any easier.

But most of all, George Floyd is still dead. Is still murdered. Justice does not bring him back and rejoicing certainly cannot either.

When the Israelites crossed the Red Sea and the Egyptian army was drowned in their pursuit of them, the Jews broke into song upon being saved from their clutches.

Yet when the angels did as well, God stopped them. Could they not see it? God does not rejoice when evildoers are punished, when humans die. God finds no pleasure in it. And neither should we. Achieving justice and peace in a society all too often means precious things like the glass at the wedding, like a man’s life, are shattered in the process. All our joy is tempered in this way.

So why then were the Israelites allowed to sing at the deaths of the Egyptians? And if they could, why couldn’t we? Or if not us, somebody today must surely be like the Israelites, right?

The Israelites were the ones whose lives were in danger, and the drowning of the Egyptians saved them. The only person in the analogous place here was killed. So there is no one who can sing today.

And furthermore, even if there were today, like the Israelites, someone who could rightly sing, that would not be the conclusion of the story. On the other shore of the Red Sea, the Jews still had forty years and a wilderness to cross before they reached the promised land.

In our own community here, there are civic, faith, and law enforcement partners with whom we must continue to work.

We have it in our power to bring about the more perfect union our country can be. We Jews can live and teach the rule not to do to others what we wouldn’t want done to ourselves. We can see to it that our county’s laws and law enforcement, which every democratic country seeking to create a fair and just society emulated, that they function for all the people of this land as they were intended to do.

But doing so means we have no time for singing. The journey is far from over and we must get on our way.

Rabbi Aaron Benson

Demons & Passover – You Really Need to Drink Four Cups!

 Demons & Passover – You Really Need to Drink Four Cups!

We wrap up with a discussion from the Talmud, Pesachim 109-110, about drinking the four cups of wine at Passover and the dangers related to drinking (or doing anything) in even amounts.

While our ancestors’ beliefs about demons (and witches, I couldn’t resist including that one), the lesson for us comes from how the rabbis explain the drinking of the four cups.  Their interpretations of the four cups’ meanings can apply to our sedarim now. 

Pesachim 109b:  We learned in the mishnah that even regarding the poorest of Jews, the charity distributors should not give him less than four cups of wine.

The Gemara asks: How could the Sages establish a matter through which one will come to expose himself to danger [from demons, who attack you when you do things in pairs]?  Wasn’t it taught in a baraita: A person should not eat pairs, i.e., an even number of food items; and he should not drink pairs of cups; and he should not wipe himself with pairs; etc.? 

Looking ahead a page in the Talmud, we learn more about demons and “evens.”

Pesachim 110a:  אָמַר רַב יוֹסֵף, אָמַר לִי יוֹסֵף שֵׁידָא: אַשְׁמְדַאי מַלְכָּא דְשֵׁידֵי — מְמוּנֶּה הוּא אַכּוּלְּהוּ זוּגֵי, וּמַלְכָּא לָא אִיקְּרִי מַזִּיק. אִיכָּא דְּאָמְרִי לַהּ לְהַאי גִּיסָא: אַדְּרַבָּה, מַלְכָּא [רַתְחָנָא הוּא], מַאי דְּבָעֵי עָבֵיד, שֶׁהַמֶּלֶךְ פּוֹרֵץ גָּדֵר לַעֲשׂוֹת לוֹ דֶּרֶךְ וְאֵין מוֹחִין בְּיָדוֹ.

Rav Yosef said: Yosef the Demon said to me: Ashmedai, the king of the demons, is appointed over all who perform actions in pairs.  Can you call a king a harmful spirit?  Would he cause harm?  Rather, some say this statement in this manner: On the contrary, he is an angry king who does what he wants, as the halakha is that a king may breach the fence of an individual in order to form a path for himself, and none may protest his action. Similarly, the king of demons has full license to harm people who perform actions in pairs.

Rav Pappa said: Yosef the Demon said to me: If one drinks two cups, we demons kill him; if he drinks four, we do not kill him. But this person who drank four, we harm him. There is another difference between two and four: Regarding one who drinks two, whether he did so unwittingly or intentionally, we harm him. About one who drinks four, if he does so intentionally, yes, he is harmed; if he does so unwittingly, no, he will not be harmed.

The Gemara asks: And if one forgets and it happens that he goes outside after having drunk an even number of cups, what is his solution? The Gemara answers: He should take his right thumb in his left hand, and his left thumb in his right hand, and say as follows: You, my thumbs, and I are three, which is not a pair. And if he hears a voice that says: You and I are four, which makes a pair, he should say to it: You and I are five. And if he hears it say: You and I are six, he should say to it: You and I are seven. The Gemara relates that there was an incident in which someone kept counting after the demon until he reached a hundred and one, and the demon burst in anger.

Ameimar said: The chief of witches said to me: One who encounters witches should say this incantation: May hot feces and dates be in your mouth, witch, and may your hairs fall out, and may your crumbs be scattered to the wind. 

Now that we’ve seen the dangers one might encounter from demons when doing things in pairs or in even combinations, let us consider how this applies to our four cups of wine on Passover – seeing as four is a dangerous number of cups to drink, what do the rabbis say we should do?

Rav Naḥman said the verse: “It was a night of watching to the Lord” (Exodus 12:42), which indicates that Passover night is a night that remains guarded from demons and harmful spirits of all kinds. Therefore, there is no cause for concern about this form of danger on this night.   אָמַר רַב נַחְמָן, אָמַר קְרָא: ״לֵיל שִׁמּוּרִים״ — לַיִל הַמְשׁוּמָּר וּבָא מִן הַמַּזִּיקִין

Rava said a different answer: The cup of blessing for Grace after Meals on Passover night is used in the performance of an additional mitzvah and is not simply an expression of freedom. Therefore, it combines with the other cups for the good, i.e., to fulfill the mitzvah to drink four cups, and it does not combine for the bad [blessing a cup of wine as part of grace after meals is an “extra” mitzvah that when joined to the others for Passover makes a “good” set of four].

[And/or] About the danger of drinking pairs of cups, it is as though one drinks only three cups. [Rava adds another thought which could be another interpretation on its own, namely that the third cup drunk as part of Grace after Meals, only occurs since you’re eating anyway, so it is like an “extension” and so it doesn’t count as a totally separate cup.]

Ravina said: The Sages instituted four separate cups, each of which is consumed in a manner that demonstrates freedom. Therefore, each one (110a) is a distinct mitzvah in its own right. In other words, each cup is treated separately, and one is not considered to be drinking in pairs.

Think about the four positions presented by the three rabbis here.  Is there one that speaks to you about the meaning of your seder?  Is Passover mainly about the miracle of the Exodus as Rav Nahman suggests?  Does Passover augment and enhance our regular Jewish observances and practices as Rava seems to be saying?  Or is there something to Ravina’s view that each cup, like each mitzvah we do at any time, has its own meaning and deserves its own attention?  

Demons and Elijah – Cups, Doors and Curses

 

Demons and Elijah – Cups, Doors and Curses

Introduction:

Even if you don’t come back after dinner to finish up all of the seder, one post meal ritual that is likely to take place is opening the door for Elijah.  Actually, it’s not just one ritual, it’s two, pouring a glass for Elijah is, as we’ll see, a ritual unto itself.  And then there is a third, the recitation of the prayer, shefoch chamatcha or “pour out Your wrath.”  It’s a harsh passage that might seem at odds with the messages of freedom and concern for the stranger and the other which fill the Haggadah, but it is yet another piece, though combined with the other two Elijah rituals, add yet another piece to this portion of the Seder. 

 

Three Separate Rituals:

As we’ll see, the cup is there to welcome Elijah, and maybe even to encourage him to come, so that he will bring the Messiah.

Opening the door is a demonstration, as we will see, that Passover night is a leil shimurim a protected night, and we Jews show that we are safe from the evils and dangers of the world with this act.

Doing so while mentioning Elijah and then reading shefoch take full advantage of the protection the Seder night offers – we curse the demons and dangers of the world on this night when God’s power is all the more potent.  This way, we should not suffer at their evil hands in the future. 

These rituals were not there in the Torah’s description of Passover.  They weren’t even there as the basic structure of the seder was laid out in Roman times.  Reciting the prayer as the door is opened is a custom only about 500 years old and the others seem to date to the Middle Ages. 

Yet these customs are not just odd add-ons but superstitious ancestors.  They were ways to ritualize and to gain power over a world in which Jews all too often suffered at the hands of unseen demons like plague and famine, and demons personified by those who sought to kill them.  Praying the night of freedom, the protected night of the Exodus would be their night of rescue was a brave act of faith and defiance.  An act that can still have meaning for us today. 

 

Leil Shimurim:

Exodus 12:42 introduces us to this concept, using the term twice, it is a night that is guarded by God to take Israel out of Egypt, this night is to God a night that is guarded throughout the generations.

God guarded the Jews that original Passover night in two ways, just like the verse alludes to:  the Jews were protected from losing their first-born and the Jews were protected from the interference of the Egyptians in carrying out the night’s ceremonies. 

Additionally, we are taught that the two references mean for that time and place and for all other Passover nights everywhere else through time. 

Examples of this are that Esther and Mordecai overcome Haman on Passover night (see the dates mentioned in the Book of Esther), and the Messiah and Elijah are meant to come on Passover night (as referred to in the midrash, Exodus Rabbah).  And of course, Moses and Aaron and the original Passover.  It is interesting to note that in each case, a pair of heroes with a Mem name and Aleph name will be the ones to bring about God’s redemption. 

 

A Cup for Elijah:

Freedom from slavery is the key idea of the Seder.  Furthermore, telling the story every year undoubtedly leads us to think about the ways in which others in our history have been enslaved, how we and/or others may be or may feel enslaved today, and how the threats of various forms of slavery loom over the future.  Invoking Elijah’s name and praying that he and then the Messiah should come on this night is the natural evolution of these thoughts about slavery and freedom. 

Rabbi Israel Drazin teaches that if the Seder participants actually opened the door for Elijah and even poured him a cup of wine, and if they stood to welcome him and say words of greeting, their behavior would not be for naught; on the contrary, our ancestors would magically cause Elijah to appear. 

 

Opening the Door:

No doubt you are punctilious about reciting all three paragraphs of the Shema before you go to be each night.  Well, you get a break on Passover night.  The Shulchan Aruch tells us you need only say the v’ahavta paragraph – the other two aren’t needed because it is Leil Shimurim.  The “Bedtime Shema” as it is sometimes called makes overt reference to “the evil forces that surround us.”  Clearly a connection exists between the danger of demons on any other night and the fact that on this night, you have freedom from their influence. In fact, if you wanted, you could even unlock your door and fling it open, because you would be safe – and so we do!

The commentator Magen Avraham notes that while we can and should unlock our doors on this night to show our faith in God and our belief we cannot be harmed, we needn’t overdo it – if you live in a place or have some reason to fear a true threat, unlocking your door but not opening it is okay. 

Leaving our doors unlocked or opening them altogether allows us to get out to welcome the Messiah quickly as well.

And, another bonus that comes with all the extra protection, we can drink (Pesachim 109b) four cups of wine on this night, even though normally that might get you into trouble, it doesn’t at the Seder.

 

Shefoch Hamatcha:

The actual text of the prayer/curse is, “Pour out your fury on the nations that do not know you, upon the kingdoms that do not invoke your name, they have devoured Jacob and desolated his home.” (Ps. 79:6,7)

“Pour out your wrath on them; may your blazing anger overtake them.” (Ps. 69.25)

“Pursue them in wrath and destroy them from under the heavens of the Lord!” (Lam. 3:66)

As we’ve seen, the ritual regarding the door and mentioning Elijah had to do with scaring away demons.  It would seem then, that this prayer is not so much about God destroying non-Jews, but rather a use of biblical quotations to scare away “the nation of demons.”

 

Conclusion:

We may not believe in demons at all, yet there is still meaning in these three separate yet related rituals for us.  For the goal of the seder is to feel as if we are there in Egypt preparing to leave with Moses.  Calling to mind those threats to our own lives and in our own times help us to achieve that bond with the past and help us realize that like the Israelites, while God may send a prophetic messenger to guide us, we are still the ones who have to get up and open the door. 

Purim, Magic, Demons and More

 PURIM, MAGIC, DEMONS AND MORE

   

From left to right: firecrackers for Chinese New Year; Isabella and Pantalone, two Commedia dell'arte stock characters; Nuo "exorcism" masks; a 9000 year old prehistoric stone mask.  

 Masks have always been a part of human culture.

One use of masks is to scare away bad spirits.

Making noise is another universal way to drive out evil spirits. 

Pagan Europe, East Asia, Christianity and of course Judaism all have celebrations and ceremonies using masks and noise as well as indulging in food and drink to clear out bad spirits before a period of cleansing to enter the new year “clean.” 

Among these, the Commedia dell’arte masked plays, associated with the Christian springtime ritual of Carnival, may have influenced the sorts of costumes we wear, see the chaste maiden and the scheming villain above. 

The new year was traditionally marked in the spring as a time of rebirth after winter.  The Chinese New Year is like this as is Nowruz the Persian New Year.  Notably, (the Islamic calendar, which is entirely a lunar calendar, does not have a fixed season for the new year).  Throughout Western history, the new year began on March 25th.  Even after the introduction of the Gregorian calendar when January 1st became the new year, the spring date remained in use.  The American colonies continued to observe March 25th as the new year until 1752! 

Rosh Hashanah marks the change in years on the Jewish calendar, the first month on the calendar is Nissan (Passover).  Purim is compared to Yom Kippur and further supports the idea of Purim as a new year holiday. 

As in all the other cultures with a spring new year, Purim is a time to use up and chase out the bad and the unwanted to prepare for the spring.  This is one reason why we drink liquor on Purim as much of it will not be acceptable for Passover in another month.  It also explains the connection to demons and evil spirits in Purim!

Further comparisons with Yom Kippur reveal the demonic nature of our Purim antagonists:

The Yom Kippur ritual of the scapegoat was also a lottery, goral, like Haman casting lots pur, to determine the day to attack the Jews.  Putting lots into a container, the high priest would shake them [a noisemaker!] and one goat would go to God, the other to Azazel. 

Azazel probably referred to a place of wilderness, but came to be a name for Samael, the chief demon in Jewish lore.  Samael is the most like the Christian Satan, and among other things, was the guardian spirit of Esau and Esau’s descendants, including Amalek and Haman.  (Mishnah Yoma 3 & 4, Yalkut I:110)

The two goats are twins, like Jacob and Esau, and just like the two of them, represent the struggle between good and evil. 

But Haman isn’t just evil like his forebears Amalek and Esau.  According to the Talmud (Chullin 139b) he is the Serpent of Eden, "And God said: Who told you that you are naked? Have you eaten of the tree, ha-min ha-etz, from which I commanded you not to eat?" (Gen. 3:11) In the same place we are told how Esther is in the Torah when God is referred to as hiding God’s face haster astir (Dt. 31:17)

Regarding Esther, we find a shedim, demons, helping her out, not just fighting with her:  “[Lest you think Esther cohabitated with him] the Shekhinah hid Esther from Ahasuerus and gave him a [shapeshifting] shedah instead while she returned to Mordecai.”  While demons are bad, unlike in other traditions, for us, nothing is outside God’s ultimate control. 

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS:

·        Around the world, springtime marks the start of a new year and rebirth after winter. 

·        Festivals for “finishing off” the evil spirits of winter, food “leftover” at the end of the outgoing year, and releasing pent up energy from being stuck inside, take place before the start of the spring new year (Nuo before the Lunar New Year, Mardi Gras/Carnival before Lent and Easter, Purim before Passover). 

·        These festivals involve making noise to scare off the evil and demonic, masking oneself to hide from the evil, as well as to “get the jump” on nefarious forces which may seek to destroy us.

·        It is possible that some of the sumptuary queues Purim offers as well as the notion of putting on a shpiel, were borrowed from stock characters in the Commedia dell’arte performance tradition.  

·        Rather than see these similarities as taking away from our Jewish practices and beliefs, they should reinforce the “truth” of these rituals as somehow essential to humanity – historically, culturally, and psychologically if not literally.

·        The Rabbis have long remarked on the connection between Yom Kippur and Purim.  We can see why this is so given the themes of leaving behind the evil of the old year and cleansing oneself, revealing what is hidden, in both holidays. 

·        The connection between the scapegoat, the demon Azazel/Samael, the Serpent, Esau, Amalek, and Haman, vs. the sacrificial goat, God, Jacob, Esther and Mordecai speak to Purim as being a cataclysmic clash between the forces of good and evil.

·        Humans must themselves struggle to defeat God’s adversaries and prepare the way for the coming redemption, which we experience at Passover. 

Go Forth and Vote, Lech Lecha 2020

 

"Mutual Support"

Ein kol chadash tachat ha-shamesh – “there is nothing new under the sun.”  That was going to be my start to this sermon on the importance of voting, as well as the limits to that importance.  And further, to ask why our political affiliations and even the political goals we would see achieved should define who we are so much, shape our identities to such a degree, that they can lead us to the bitterness and division we have now in our country.  Are there no other things more important that could connect us to others? 

I would still like to give some of that sermon, but as I worked on it, it didn’t end up where I thought it would – proof, if you were looking for it, that it’s not always, “come up with an idea, sprinkle in Torah verses that justify your position, make it sounds like what you thought was Jewish all along.” In fact, sometimes a sermon really has something to say.  And I pray this is one of those times.

In order to confront one’s anger or fears or anxiety (in the general sense of anxiety), a therapist might ask you to imagine what the worst that could happen would be if your fear, anger, anxiety were to be realized?  You get fired.  You miss the flight.  In these and even more extreme cases, the results are that you would still be alive, and you would need to, have to, be forced to, find a way to go forward.  And, like countless others who’ve experienced the same and worse, forward you would go. 

We modern Americans suffer from three plagues (separate from Coronavirus) that are, nevertheless, just as deadly.   One, we have no sense of history.  Not just who the twelfth president was (Zachary Taylor), but that any idea, any norm, any issue, might not have been, and thus might not really be, as important as we believe it to be based on our own narrow understanding of reality.

Secondly, we today suffer from a total lack of perspective.  What do I mean by this?  When you’re taught that the next most important thing in terms your identity after your political affiliation is which sports team you like, and that there is nothing more important than political party affiliation – you are sorely lacking in having a well-rounded character.

Even so, we consume American culture, where politics and political affiliation dominate all that we hear and see, and so they are become the most important.  So much so that you may really start to question why you spend so much time on your model trains if everyone else on the block has election signs galore sprouting from their lawns but you  - why aren’t you “on board” with everyone else?  (Sorry.)

Finally, and I repeat this all the time because I find it to be so true: Americans are blessed and cursed with the idea that everything will work out okay in the end.  The good guy will win, they will all live happily ever after.  And because deep down we all know that really isn’t true, anything that would make us rip off the Band-Aid hiding reality we recoil at and fight against.

You might challenge me and say – but the makeup of the Supreme Court, or the ability to have private insurance, or knowing the point at which a human life begins – these are history-making issues of life and death!  How can you not think so?!

Because they really aren’t.  They really aren’t.  Sure, if you take the perspective of the four years until we can pick a new president, sure they seem colossal.  And if you look at the next twenty years of your life, yes, still pretty big.  But all of American history?  Compared to all the suffering in the world today?  The span of human civilization?  Why aren’t those the terms by which we measure?  What would be wrong with that if we did? 

You know, Supreme Court justices all get replaced eventually.  They die, they retire.  And looking at actuarial tables, pretty much all of them are closer to the retire or die side of things than not. 

But why stop there?  Whether we “repeal Obamacare” or move to a single payer system, I feel emboldened to say that it will be true either way that almost all Americans will still live longer and healthier lives than billions of other people on the planet today.  Not to mention better lives than just about every other member of our species who has ever lived before now. 

Finally, even if all the political issues break your way – there will still be people who will die, who will fail, who will lose their jobs or their money or their freedom because we humans, try as we might, cannot escape the fact that even the best things we design and make are always in human hands and therefore we are the design flaw in everything we attempt to achieve. 

How then can we hate each other – not want to talk to each other – not want to be family with each other anymore?  Because your answers for how you want to avoid pain and death are different than my answers for how I want to avoid pain and death?   Life’s already hard enough.  Are we so far away from each other that our scared, narrow-view, incomplete answers make us enemies?

Now I had had it in mind to pretty much wrap up at this point.  A neatly packaged, contrarian, sermon, about taking it a little easier and with some more perspective on things.  We’re all stumbling around in the same dark room, no need to be kicking your legs all over, too.

But then there’s Abraham.  We’ve already met Abraham, Abram as he is at this point in the narrative, but out of respect for the name God gives him, we should really refer to him by the preferred name.  He, his father Terach, his brothers Nahor and Haran, their wives and Haran’s son, Lot, are all introduced at the end of last week’s reading.  We even learn that Haran died during his father’s lifetime and that Sarah (Sarai) is barren. 

Abraham – who has watched his brother die.  Seen his nephew, Lot, become an orphan.  Seen his father Terach suffer the loss a son which the Torah’s narrative flow, the ages given notwithstanding, suggests leads to Terach’s own death.  And though he and his wife desire children they are childless.  That sounds like a miserable life. 

And so, it may come as a surprise, at least to one reading this afresh, that the barren grieving couple are given the mission they receive as we begin today.  To bring God’s presence into the world through their own righteous deeds and those of all the descendants they will have.  They are told,  “go forth… to the land that I will show you… to your offspring I will give this land.” Lech lecha… el ha’aretz asher areka…l’zaracha eten et ha’aretz ha-zot. 

Avivah Zornberg quotes from Henri Bergson in describing all that “is not” in the lives of Abraham and Sarah when we start the parshah, “in nature… there are no negative conditions; only in the realm of consciousness, of desire and expectation… every human action has its starting-point in a dissatisfaction, and thereby in a feeling of absence.”

She goes on to say that their suffering might in fact have conditioned Abraham and Sarah, to be just the right couple to be successful in going forward when that seems the last thing they should be able to do.  Their experiences making them the saviors of others. 

I can’t argue with Zornberg.  She’s reading the truth here about Abraham and Sarah.  And us.  And, if we were to look to Heschel, about God, also.  God, out of a yearning, a need, not to be alone, made all of this, and all of us.  And as big a mess as we are, keeps us around and doesn’t give up on us.  Abraham and Sarah bring God’s attitude towards the world to realization.  Caring, helping, even when it seems futile, is what we are here to do.    

Now I find myself saying, you know what – you do need to go out there, lech! Lechu! Go!  Vote, protest, advocate, volunteer.  You might be just the person whose own suffering makes you exactly the right person to alleviate that of others.

Yet, the things I said at the start, they are also true.  It can’t be good to let our political identities and causes override the rest of who we are for ill.

And so, we must look back to what Abraham and Sarah are told.  They are grieving, feeling loss, pain, fear, anger, resentment.  All the things we share with them.  And then God tells them to go.  Just as we must “go” in our efforts to make the world better for ourselves and others around us – by voting and being kind, and by so much more. 

For additionally, they are told the key and final part, vehyeh brachah, “and you shall be a blessing.”  Because all our going is coming from lacking, needing – and because everyone else’s is too.  We must go out and do in a way that is a blessing.  The world is populated only with broken and hurting people who hope something can happen to make them suffer a little less.   Please God let it be, that if we are the ones blessed to have the antidote to that suffering that we, in administering it, do so in a way that shares our blessings, too. 

Shabbat Shalom.  Go forth.  And vote.