Living as an Innocent

I recently read a news item where it was reported that the noted basketball super-star Lebron James paid a rabbi, reputed to have mystical abilities, a 6 figure fee so he would advise him on business decisions. According to the article, the rabbi, who heralds from Israel, and speaks no English, sat-in on investment proposals made to James and counselled him on where to place his money.

Making use of religious personalities,symbols,and amulets as a means to discern the future and influence the course of our lives is not new. But is it kosher? Just because we make use of items within the tradition rather than say tarot cards and rabbis instead of fortune tellers, does that in itself make it okay?

The Talmud teaches that one is not permitted to use 'psukim', verses in the Torah,repeated over and over, as a kind of religious device to, by dint of the 'magic' in the verses, bring about healing and prosperity.

This week the Torah is explicit in forbidding us from making use of soothsayers and fortune tellers to predict our future. But the Torah goes one step further. It tells us "Tamim t'hiyeh eem Hashem Elokecha", freely translated that means "You shall be innocent with the L-rd your G-d". The Haamek Davar explains the Torah's call to be 'tamim' by saying that even where we feel the need to know, we should remain innocent and trusting. And G-d will do as He sees fit for us.

The implication of the Hamek Davar's understanding of the verse is that its not enough that we do not make use of secular powers to know and direct the future. Even utilizing sources within the faith towards that end compromises our challenge to be 'tamim' and trusting in G-d and His direction.

So many who embrace the outer clothes of religion do so with the idea that religion will serve as some kind of magical potion to ward off evil and protect.They use prayer, study, rabbis, as if they are simply charms to guarantee against unwanted things. Sometimes they even become passionate in observance and most meticulous. Yet their practice feels almost primitive in its expectation that somehow if one does this or that one can be certain of his/her future.In their minds, Judaism provides the ingredients, which if rightly combined, can control the course of events.

Now its true that the Torah itself encourages us to pray for our needs. But prayer is not meant to manipulate the heavenly forces but rather to put ourselves in a new place with G-d, so that his mercy will devolve on us. Prayer is never meant to force the hand of G-d. And so too when we seek the counsel and prayers of great Rabbis. We do not expect them to be witch-doctors, with the powers of demi-gods. We simply ask for their prayers to be added to our own in beseeching G-d's, in whose hand our future rests, help.

Neither of the above practices compromises Hashem's call to us to be 'tamim'. We remain innocent and trusting in Hashem's will and decision. We simply are doing what He told us to do, appealing to Him so that he may give us the 'good' He intends for us.

Lebron James's Rabbi seems a far stretch from the 'tamim' of which we speak. The rabbi is not giving a 'bracha' to this Black basketball super-star. He is using his mystical powers to tell him what he otherwise would not know. And not about his moral conduct, but about investments that will make him money.It seems to me, he is using religion as a magical tool rather than as away to enhance one's spiritual self and draw near to Hashem. It is using religion against itself and its purpose.

It is not easy to be a 'tamim'. It is not easy to surrender ones natural instinct to want to both know and predict the future. The Torah tells us that in the ideal we will be given a 'Navi', a prophet so Hashem can tell us what we need to know. But for the rest, for all those personal matters of consequence not on the national agenda, we need to find the courage and faith to let go and let G-d be G-d.

Religion practiced as a means to manipulate the forces out of our control that they be good to us is a tainted religion.In the ideal, the goal of the religion we practice should be to give us the strength to live with all the unpredictability of life as an innocent, as a 'tamim', and be happy with our G-d.

Shabbat Shalom

Are the Religious Happy?

Gene Simmons, a lead vocalist with the rock band Kiss, and one who in both lifestyle and music gave expression to the joys of hedonism, was born in Israel. He emigrated to the United States while still a boy. Nearly all of his mother's family perished in the Holocaust. Once when interviewed, he acknowledged that growing up he had considerable contact with the Orthodox Jewish community in Israel. Yet he rejected religious life entirely in favor of the totally secular which he came to represent with his gaudy costumes and shameless antics. When asked why, he responded by noting that for all the certainty and fervor in the Orthodox Jewish world there was a noticeable lack of joy! How could he believe in Torah values and be part of a Torah community absent of joy!

Is he right? Do the religious experience less joy than the secular?
Do those who follow worldly pleasures, like they use to say about blonds, indeed have more fun?

Some years ago I attended a Siyum Hashas, a celebration of the completion of learning through the entire Talmud, together with near 20,000 men who completed the 7 year cycle of Daf Yomi study.
It was held in the largest indoor venue in New York, the fabled Madison Square Garden. It was an awesome spectacle. All these men, and many more who could not attend or could not get tickets, studied a page of Talmud a day. They were not rabbis or scholars. They were accountants and plumbers, diamond merchants and teachers. In short they were every-day people. Yet they were devoted to studying Torah, so much so that they gave at least an hour a day to learn Talmud and the daily page. Here they were in the home of the New York Knicks, and concert venue for the Grateful Dead, and they filled it, not to cheer or smoke pot,but to celebrate the gift of Torah study.

The evening was punctuated by addresses from the leading Roshai Yeshiva in America, scholars all and most revered. Yet as I sat and listened to address after address it was not the profundity of the remarks that struck me. Rather I was struck by how little spontaneous joy seemed evident in each speech. Encouragement? Yes! Challenge? Yes! Admonishment not to forget the learning? Yes! There was lots of those themes in the addresses. But where was the joy? I thought the Roshai Yeshiva should be dancing with glee. What a Kiddush Hashem, a sanctification of G-d. Committed Jews filled the Garden, the bastion of the secular! A cycle of learning was completed by more Jews than ever before in Jewish history. Why were there so few smiles on the faces of the spiritual leaders? Why did the ambiance feel more serious than happy!

I repeat my earlier question. Are those who take the Torah lifestyle seriously less happy than those who reject it? Does observance compromise our joy?

Its worth noting that in this weeks parsha, that of Re'eh, whilst we are charged in no uncertain terms to a total commitment to keeping the commandments and embracing the life of Torah, we are also mandated to be joyous. No less than 7 times in this week's portion we are charged with the call to be happy.

But lets be honest here. All the expectations that we keep the mitzvot, and they are many and intricate, and that we dare not sin gives us reason to be serious and hesitant to rejoice. If we take the Torah and our G-d given obligations to heart we are more likely to forever be concerned if we are getting it right! We are likely to be more anxious than happy, more sober than exuberant. With all the details of proper observance from the complexities of the laws of Shabbat and making the right bracha to having true 'kavana' when we daven we are forever likely to be self-doubting. Self-doubt rarely leads to joy.

And the confessions we make in our own prayers seem to mitigate against us feeling happy. If one davens nusach Sefarad, twice a day one recites the 'ashamnu' list of sins. And even if one does not, over and over we recite that we are essentially unworthy of the kindnesses we receive from G-d. All that we get and all that we ask for we do acknowledging we are undeserving.If one believes that even the blessings in his/her life come to him/her undeservedly, its hard to be happy. Grateful, yes! But happy, no! In the end, no one can be truly happy with gifts that come to him/her if s/he feels s/he is not really deserving of them.

And yet the Torah commands us to be happy. How can that be?

There is a brilliant and pithy model that someone once used to describe levels of spiritual maturity. They divided the process into 4 components. When one has a totally undeveloped spiritual sense they live life for their own sake. When they get early spiritual yearnings, in the second stage, they pursue G-d centered ends but for their own sake and benefit, meaning because of the rewards G-d promises for keeping and/or the punishment for neglect. At the third level, one pursues a G-d-centered agenda, that means the focus of one's life is on the spiritual, and for G-d's sake. At this level, one's desire to do mitzvot is so as to bring nachas to G-d. And mitzvot are indeed the center of one's life's work. I would think this is the highest level. But there is one stage yet beyond.
And that is to pursue one's own life's agenda, not G-ds, but not out of selfish motives. On the contrary, if you were choosing you would pursue the spiritual agenda entirely. Rather you choose what is good for you, even though you prefer to focus on G-d, because Hashem wants you to, that is Hashem wants your pleasure and joy!
The highest level is choosing to do what is for you but for G-d's sake!

It is in this context that even the most religious person can know,and indeed must know,total simcha. Rebbe Nachamn taught "mitzvah gedola l'hyot b'simcha", "its a great mitzvah to be happy always". What did he mean its a "mitzvah"? Mitzvah is a commandment! Rebbe Nachman should simply challenge us to be happy.
The answer is that Rebbe Nachman knew that for the truly spiritual person its so hard to be happy. S/he knows how lacking s/he is and how undeserving. If one simply is seeking to serve G-d for G-d's sake one is more likely to be serious than joyous, and self-doubt will reign. But simcha is a mitzvah. G-d wants us to be happy! We need to be happy not for our sake but to do G-d's will for us.
That kind of happiness can happen even for the one most skeptical of his/her worth, because that happiness is not about them but about Hashem's desire for them.

Gene Simmons was right. Religious people, those who take their obligation to Hashem most seriously tend not to be as naturally happy as their counterparts who are secular. How can we be truly happy when we feel ourselves so lacking.

But we are called upon to be happy. Its a mitzvah oft repeated in the Torah. It takes a level of great spiritual maturity to forgo our own self critique and be happy because Hashem wants it for us.
Yet that is our mandate. To be candid,I think even great Roshai Yeshiva miss this call. They remind us of our limitations. They talk to us at stage 2 and 3 of our spiritual continuum. But they do not challenge us to attain stage 4 nor do most in themselves reflect the joy it should auger. Too bad!

You and I will have to get it on our own....To be spiritual and full of joy is not only not inconsistent. They go hand in hand. To the extent we lack the joy is to the extent we have not yet matured sufficiently in our spiritual process.
True we have no right to be happy. All we are given is a gift undeserved. But G-d wants us to be happy...And even if I feel unworthy I need be happy because He wants me to know joy!
"Mitzvah gedola lhyot b'simcha tamid!

Shabbat Shalom

Paying the Price

What does it mean to be an adult? In what way is the grown-up different from the child? How do we recognize emotional maturity?

We may have many answers to those questions but surely any will include the idea that to be grown-up, to attain maturity means to recognize that all our actions have consequences. In the life of the child mistakes are made and forgiven with a simple "I am sorry".
S/he realizes that at times s/he has done the wrong. But nothing is so consequential that it is beyond redemption with an apology and, perhaps, a parental punishment. What s/he does not realize is that his/her actions have enduring consequences. S/he,as a child, does not yet know that one's actions can never be undone no matter how many apologies. We pay for what we take in life. Nothing is really free !

Truth be told, many of us, as would be adults, have yet to fully accept the same lesson. We go through life often realizing we are making mistakes, but we are unwilling to pay the price for them.Like children, we assume we can just say we are sorry or that we try our best and that will be enough. If you doubt the truth of what I say, just ask the smoker who is surprised to get lung cancer as if s/he didn't think s/he would ever pay the price for his/her choices. Or ask the person who does not exercise and over-eats and too early in life has a heart attack. Or the parent who fails to discipline his/her child when they are young and then finds him/herself with an unruly teen. Its not that the choices we make guarantee the consequences but they make them both predictable and likely.

The Torah this week in the parsha of Eikev makes clear that our choices have consequences. From the portion's beginning where Moshe tells the Israelites that if they keep the Torah and do the commandments they will be blessed with prosperity and peace to the end of the reading and the second paragraph of 'shma', the theme of action and consequence is repeated over and over. Indeed this is the recurring theme of the entire book of Devarim.

But we might ask, if G-d loves us why isn't it enough that He reward us for our commitment to Torah. Why does He need to punish us if we fail to observe? The Rabbis taught "The Holy One Blessed be He wanted to merit Israel therefore He gave us Torah and Mitzvot." We can understand that we are given the many many mitzvot so we can earn reward. But why punish us if we fail. True there are many opportunities to earn blessings, but one might wonder if its worth it with all the waiting reproof when we fail and, with all the commandments, there is so much opportunity for failure!

I was thinking about this when I went to visit an elderly and infirm man whom I learn with each week. You may recall him from an earlier blog. Well, I had called his wife earlier in the week and advised that I needed to reschedule our learning time. She said the new time was perfect for him and they would be delighted to see me.
When I got to the apartment I discovered, to my surprise, that he was not home. He had an eye doctors appointment and they had forgotten about our learning appointment. She apologized to me several times for the error and repeated over and over how meaningful the learning time was for her husband!

Now why did the wife of my weekly chavruta need to repeat over and over that the learning time her husband and I shared was so important to him and her? She could have just explained the mistake, as she did, and moved on?

The answer is that she knew what we all know. We don't forget things that have consequences for us. When my chavruta, even at 91 years, has a physicians appointment, he writes it down in his little book. He will neither forget it nor miss it. But our learning does not have that kind of 'chashivut', importance to him. It does not get noted in the book. And do you know why? Because it does not have immediate consequence in his mind. I do not get paid to learn with him. Our learning is a gift! When anything is a gift, with no apparent cost, no matter how precious, in the end it goes unappreciated and typically it gets neglected.

Please don't misunderstand.I am not meaning to be critical of my chavruta. On the contrary, my chavruta taught me something about me, and you, a lesson perhaps more valuable than the hour we would have spent learning. He helped me understand why it is that Hashem had to not only attach reward to keeping the mitzvot, but also attach punishment for failing to keep. If mitzvot only engendered reward with no negative consequence they would go under-valued and neglected. We simply would prioritize our lives so that other things, things that have negative consequences, would dominate our routine. We would miss our purpose in life!

I suspect that its for this reason the father makes the blessing of 'baruch she'ptarani', blessed is He who freed me from the consequences of the punishment for my son's 'avairot', sins, at his son's Bar Mitzvah. The blessing seems most peculiar for a happy time and one filled with hope for the future. Yet, in accord with what we have come to see, the blessing makes sense. To become a Jewish adult is to take responsibility for the consequences of one's actions, to be what is called in tradition a "bar onshin", someone who will be punished for his/her failures. No acceptance of mitzvot can be real and meaningful without knowing that it does not come free! The bar mitzvah, the boy, now man, son of commandments must accept that reality lest all the promise be lost in neglect.

The father makes the blessing so the son can hear! He makes the blessing so his son can fully comprehend that from now on he, the boy, is liable for his own deeds. If all Bar Mitzvah meant was reward and blessing then mitzvot would become cheap and observance a nicety, rather than a commitment. In this backdrop, is it any wonder that for so much of the Jewish world bar,bat Mitzvah makes so little impact on a boy's or girl's life. No matter how big the splash of how lavish the gifts if the young adult does not accept consequences for being a Jew the rite of bar/bat mitzvah will be empty of impact.

Whether in our own lives or in the lives of the children we are raising we must come to terms with the reality that our actions have enduring consequences. Its not enough to just claim the blessing in doing the right. We must acknowledge and accept that failure is more than sad, warranting an apology. Failure is tragic!

Whether in saying the hurtful word to another or failing to keep Shabbat as we need to, we must know that its not enough to mean well.
Meaning well does not help if you drive under the influence and harm someone. Meaning well does not undo the wrongful spiritual act either, whether to another or to Hashem. Knowing that, for sure does not make life easier. But it does make it more likely that we will toe the line and indeed live a life that will be called blessed rather than tragic!

Shabbat Shalom

Some Thoughts on Hate and Redemption

We have just passed the period of mourning on our national calendar. Tisha B'Av 5770 is a memory. We enter the weeks of 'nechama', consolation. Yet we remain as a people mired in the 'galut' and painfully incomplete. The yearning for Mashiach is as compelling as ever.

In the search for comfort, this week I want to look back with you at what got us here. How have we gotten stuck for so long in this state of brokenness? What can we do to finally bring it to an end?

The Talmud teaches us that the sins of our People committed during the time prior to the destruction of the second Temple were more severe than the sins committed at the time of the destruction of the first. We know this because the first exile lasted but 70 years, while we remain 2000 years later waiting for the culmination of the current exile.

How surprising that is, when we we know the first Temple was destroyed because the Nation violated the three cardinal sins, idolatry, murder, and sexual lasciviousness. The Jews of the second Temple, in the period prior to its destruction, kept the Torah and even were learned. Their sin, the cause of the destruction was, according to the Talmud, that of 'sinat chinam' unwarranted hatred one Jew for another. Could the sin of 'sinat chinam' be more pernicious than the sins of totally forsaking the principles of the Faith?

The mystery goes further. The Talmud also teaches that the power of Torah learning is so great that it can save a person/nation from the awful consequences due them because of commission of the three cardinal sins. Torah protects! If the Jews of the first Temple had studied Torah, even with their terrible 'aveirot', they would have been spared destruction. Yet, the Talmud notes, that as great as the power of Torah to protect is, it cannot protect nation or person from the consequences of the sin of 'sinat chinam'.

Why is this sin of hatred undeserved so consequential as to be irredeemable? What makes it beyond pardon?

I think if we reflect on the sin of hating another we may find clues to the answer. Lets explore hatred. The Talmud calls the 'avaira', "'sinat chinam'",literally that means "hatred for no reason". We might ask, is there such a thing? Does anyone hate for no reason. I mean lets think about the worst kind of hate, say
racism. Every racist has a reason for his/her hate. Hitler, in his own mind, evil as it was, thought he was doing the world a favor in getting rid of the Jews. He perceived us as a blight on humanity.
Those who hate always have reasons.

When the Talmud gives us the famous story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza and how the host of a major event who thought he invited one, his friend, and to his chagrin found that mistakenly he had invited the other, his enemy, refused to allow this enemy any saving dignity, and caused his humiliation by throwing him out, did that host have no reason to hate one of the Kamtzas? I bet you if you gave the host half an hour he would fill you with reasons why the Kamtza he hated was slime and totally undeserving of compassion.
He would tell you why he was right to expel him from the party, maybe even a mitzva.

Ask anyone why they hate someone and they always have a reason. In their own minds the hatred is justified. No, more than justified, typically they will tell you the hatred is indeed a mitzvah. Moreover they will tell you that you too should hate the other.

So then why does the Talmud refer to this sinful hatred as 'sinat chinam' "hatred for nothing". Its not a hatred with no reason? All hatred has a 'reason'. And how can we distinguish this 'sinat chinam', the hate which brought about our destruction and continues to cause us to languish in the galut from hatred that may truly be warranted?

I would like to suggest that the 'chinam', the "for nothing" that the Talmud uses to characterize this hate has not to do with the motivation for the hatred. All hatred has a basis and for that matter a cause, if not a reason. When the Talmud refers to the sinful hate as 'baseless' it means that the base for the hatred is rooted in the hater not in the hated. 'Sinat chinam' is when we hate another not for who they are, but rather because of who we are!

Yes, Hitler would tell you he had a reason to hate the Jews. He would name all our vile characteristics. It was not a hatred with no base. Problem was that the base for his hatred of the Jews lay inside his psyche, not in us. That's the problem with all prejudice. Sure we may give it reasons. But the essential source of our prejudice is rooted inside us, not in the other. No matter how hard we may try to project the reasons for our hate on the other, at the deepest level the hate starts with us, our issues our baggage, our fears.

The reason 'sinat chinam' is so irredeemable, beyond even the worst sins in our Tradition is because we think our hatred is not only not a sin, but, in fact, a good and noble thing. We idealize our hatreds. No matter how bad the sin of idolatry and murder etc are, no one makes them into Torah values! To sin in them is horrific. But the perpetrator knows he has gone against his/her Faith. Bring him/her back to the fold and s/he will do teshuva.

Hatred is not like that. We hate while we eat our b'datz meat. We hate while we learn hours each day. We hate while go make extraordinary sacrifices to raise our children frum and committed.
We hate and never feel guilty about it. We hate and believe our hatred a mitzvah !

We fool ourselves to believe the hatred is deserved and based on the wickedness of the other. We never see that core source of the emotion emanates within us. Perhaps the other is not perfect either. But the hate for them is not earned by them but rather the product of our projections, rooted in our fears and anxieties!

The sad part of the story is that now 2000 years after the Temple's destruction we are no closer to remedying the causes that brought it about. Learn more Torah? That won't help. They were learned then!
Daven more? observe more? None of that will help. We pale before the generation of the Destruction in our Jewish observance.

Its 'sinat chinam' we need to remedy. That's the only way to bring about the 'g'eula', redemption. Yet we remain self-righteous in our prejudices, believing them not only warranted but in-fact mitzvot to maintain!
When we will ever learn?

Are we at least on the road to the true 'nechama', consolation? I fear we have taken every road but the one that leads to the promise of our destiny!

Lets you and I ask ourselves, where does 'sinat chinam' reside in us? Who do we hate where the basis for the hatred is not in them but in our fears, anxieties, and at times self-loathing. Be honest with yourself! If we are, I will guarantee that 90% of the hatred we carry is 'sinat chinam". Oh sure the other isn't perfect! But 'hate', that comes from us!

The first step in the teshuva process is recognizing the sin! That's the one we miss entirely here. And that's the one redemption calls for. Simply recognizing that the hate we carry for another is a sin, and that it is rooted in our flawed character will speed the arrival of Mashiach and make real 'nechama' possible.
Oh when will we ever learn!

Shabbat Shalom

Our Standard Deviation

In recent years there has been much debate around Global Warming. No one disputes the fact that in recent decades the average temperature on our planet has increased. No one disputes the fact that if the trend continues warming temps can have devestating consequences on the eco system and on life in general. What is at issue is whether the increased temperatures we are seeing reflect a new reality perhaps caused by the infamous Greenhouse Effect or whether what we are seeing is simply within what statisticians call the Standard Deviation. By Standard Deviation we mean that in the course of any length of time, say perhaps 250 years, we may see fluctuations in temps for a period, either up or down. Those deviations from the average are normal and not reflective of any change in pattern. To us it may look like a significant move, but thats because we are looking at the temps within too limitted a time frame. If we had a larger perspective we might see that the rise or fall is normal within the larger cycle of years and not reflective of a real deviation from the mean. And so the debate rages.

Why do I share this here? I do so because standard deviation, in contrast to real change, is as much an issue in our personal lives as it is operational in global conditions.

This week we begin the 5th book of the Torah, the one we call Devarim. Unlike the other books, Devarim is not the word of G-d transmitted through Moshe but the words of Moshe spoken to the People of Israel in the month before his death and mandated by Hashem to be written as Torah. While the Book has many components, essentially it is a book of Musar, admonishment and challenge. Moshe reviews the journey of the people through the wilderness with the goal of making the people conscious of their vulnerabilities and strengths.

The great Hassidic Rebbes would talk of Devarim as this indespensable guide to living. One Rebbe made it his practice to read each day from it as his source for Musar. What's the magic in the text? Why is it so profound and important?

The answer I believe is that in speaking the message of Devarim to the nation Moshe gave us the greatest of gifts. After all who were those enterring the Promised Land? A whole new generation. They were the children of those who left Egypt. The story of their parents was not theirs. They did not refuse the Land of Israel. They did not worship the Golden Calf. They did not partake of rebellion and murmur. Why should they be reminded of these stories?
Why does Moshe review the past with them as if it belongs to them?

The answer is because indeed it does belong to them! True, they did not commit the sins mentioned. But its part of their legacy, indeed our legacy! If we contextualize the sins in the framework of standard deviation Moshe might say, "Yes you did not sin. Your parents did. But you are just as capable of sin as they are. Its just that in the pattern of life, in the cycle of events, your temptation was not theirs, your circumstances not theirs. But if their situation arose for you, you might fail just as miserably.
You have not outgrown the issues that they succumbed to. You simply are living in a different part of the cycle of the nation's story."

To see this in perspective we might talk of the pattern of relationship between husband and wife. Sometimes the husband (simply used as an example here) may get angry at his wife. He will shout or be mean verbally. Shortly thereafter he will be full of remorse and apologize to his wife with a deep sincerity. He says "I am so very sorry. I won't behave that way again. I am changed."
But has he, really? His 'change' lasts all of three weeks.Then something triggers his rage and again he has an explosion. And again, shortly therafter, he does the apology routine with heartfelt sincerity.

What happened here with the husband (and wife, who is part of the story). Did he change and regress? Did he actually become different and then lapse? The answer is "not at all". While it looked like teshuva,his outburst and apology is part of the pattern, part of the standard deviation. Its the story of his life (and hers). Sometimes the 'change' may last for a few weeks longer or even last a few months longer, but in reality its no change at all. Its simply part of the pattern.

I dare say if most of us had a real perspective on our lives we would sadly see that so much of what we consider growth and change is nothing but playing out a life pattern within our standard deviation. Rav Eliyahu Dessler in his classic Michtav Mai'Eliyahu talks about real change. Real change moves us up to a higher plateau so that we are no longer vulnerable to the same 'nisyanot'.
When we really have grown that which once could tempt us no longer has influence over us. Indeed we have a whole new subset of issues to confront, but they are not the ones we had prior, or at least not in the same way as prior.

Only when the husband in our story above stops entirely from acting out his tantrum on his wife would say he has changed. Though now, at his new level, he might be tempted to be less giving to his wife in moments that formerly made him wrathful. He remains challenged. But at a higher level. Indeed he has changed.

Thats the gift Moshe gives Clal Yisrael in the Book of Devarim. He offers them the perspective that helps them see where they have changed and where their behaviors still fall within the standard deviation and they remain vulnerable. True, they did not commit the sins of the Golden Calf and the 'Meraglim'. But inasmuch as Moshe knew them and saw their patterns he knew the sins belonged to them as much as to their parents.

If an issue like Global Warming about which we have data and some distance engenders such heated debate and remains obscure as to whether we are seeing real change or a recurring pattern, how much more so is real change obscure to the individual who seeks to gain perspective on his/her life. Who of us can be certain if they have really grown or simply are living out the pattern of their life with its ups and downs over and over.

Alone, without the help of another who knows our life and story and who we confide in, its near impossible to have a true perspective. Sadly, without help, all our lives we may go around the same bush, never having made progress despite our intentions. We, like the husband in our story, have much drama, but no change.

Its not enough to be mindful of our individual behaviors. We cannot make improvement unless we know our patterns as well in all their subtlety and complexity.

Moshe gave a gift to our ancestors. He provided them the pespective to see themselves with clarity. We need a husband, a wife, a Rebbe, a friend, another. We need someone who we can tell our stories to and who can speak to us with the straightforwardness of Moshe. We need to ask for our truth.

Shabbat Shalom

Contrast vs Conflict

"...And he will turn the hearts of the fathers back to their children and the hearts of the children will reconcile with their fathers". So says the Prophet Malachi in the haftorah we read on the Shabbat prior to Pesach, Shabbat Hagadol. Who is he speaking about? Who will bring about this wonderful sense of family renewal?
In the end of days, prior to the arrival of the Mashiach, Malachi tell us, it is none other than Eliyahu the Prophet who will bring about the healing and restoration of shalom bayit, peace in the home and within the family.

That Eliyahu, as we know, is the messenger meant to herald the arrival of Mashiach I understand. After all he has lived, according to tradition, throughout our long and horrific national struggle. He knows our pain. He has witnessed it. It is for him to be the voice proclaiming the redemption. But what has Eliyahu to do with family reconciliation? After all he was the prophet who is most known for zealotry in the name of G-d. According to the Book of Kings, he is the prophet who championed the cause of true faith at a time when there were none to listen and virtually a whole nation worshipped Baal. Reconciliation is about compromise. Eliyahu disdained compromise. Reconciliation puts the focus on the persons, it augers a willingness to negotiate the ideal. Eliyahu was driven by the ideal. He had little use for negotiation.

And besides, we might well wonder, what gifts does Eliyahu have to bring about the family healing.

If we are going to understand the role of Eliyahu as the restorer of harmony between the generations I think we will have to look back to an earlier identity of the Prophet. According to tradition Eliyahu, at one time, had a different name. He was none other than Pinchas for whom we title this week's parsha and whose story is told therein. What do we know about Pinchas?

We know, of course, that Pinchas was the zealot who saved the People of Israel from an even greater catastrophe when he slew the Prince of the tribe of Shimon, Zimri, and the Princess of Midian, Kozbi as they publicly engaged in indecent acts. But what about Pinchas in the context of his family?

Pinchas was the grandson of Aharon, the first Kohen. And the son of Elazar, who took over as High Priest after Aharon died. Yet Pinchas was clearly unlike his ancestry. Aharon pursued peace even at the expense of compromise. We are told that he would reconcile enemies estranged by lying to each party about the desire of the other to plead for forgiveness, thereby bringing them together. He was the one who went so far as to collaborate with the People invested in the worship of the Golden Calf when he thought he might thereby minimize the damage. Aharon was one who always saw the 'ends' and would at times justify the 'means' to achieve them.

Pinchas was the opposite. First, he never really was a Kohen. He did not get status as a Priest until after the incident with Zimri and Kozbi. His father was a Kohen. His grandfather was a Kohen, indeed the first.But initially, he,Pinchas, was not. Elazar, his father, in tradition, married a convert. That alone would have rendered him unacceptable as a Kohen were it not for the special blessing of the Divine in this weeks reading.

But even more importantly, Pinchas's personality was different than those who preceded him. He would never compromise the 'means' no matter how noble the 'ends'. He was a 'kanai', a zealot. He was militant and fierce in pursuit of the ideal. When the Israelites go to war against Midian, (next week's parsha), its Pinchas who is commanded to lead them into battle. Elazar, his father, and Kohen Gadol, stays back in the camp, waiting to greet the returnees from war and instruct them. Its Pinchas who goes to fight.

Pinchas was oh so different than his fathers. So much so that we might have wondered if he was ever meant to be part of the priesthood they represented. Yet Hashem names him in the beginning of the parsha of this week "Pinchas son of Elazar son of Aharon the Priest...." Different yes! But still very much a part of the family and its calling!

Many years ago, when I was in my mid 30s, I had a personal crisis. I felt what seemed to be so many conflicting emotions inside. I could not reconcile the many forces that seemed to be vying for preeminence within. All I wanted was to find one simple truth that was mine to guide me. Instead I found complexity within and much ambivalence.

I was living in the States then and I decided to take a trip to Eretz Yisrael for a week in the hopes of finding an answer to my internal 'conflictedness'. I spent the week walking the streets of Yerushalayim waiting and hoping. And sure enough, unbidden, an answer came. And what it was took me by surprise.

I noticed as I walked how everything in Yerushalayim, and particularly in the Old City, is filled with complexity. The streets cover homes and communities destroyed thousands of years ago. They are cherished for their antiquity. Yet today new homes, raising families of the future sit on those ruins as if oblivious to the fact that they once belonged to the past. Stones that were laid by men and women with an agenda and a purpose then, now serve as playground for children playing soccer with no more purpose than to have fun with peers. The Old City contains the most fiercely committed religious groups, the four quarters of Christian, Muslim, Armenian and Jew, all in such close proximity. They live, not as one, on the contrary they are divided at the core, yet they live side by side.

I kept experiencing the dynamic of seeing things, which seemed so starkly different, co-existing in virtually the same space. And I came to realize that contrast is not the same as conflict. Things can be radically different from each other and yet be contained within the whole. I came to understand that I can have many strong and varying components within me and not need to reconcile them. On the contrary,the message of Yerushalayim is that the contrast gives the city its beauty. The work for me is, not to try to homogenize myself, but rather to learn to contain and celebrate the variety within and be at peace with it.

That to me is the story of Pinchas and his family. Pinchas was indeed unlike his father and grandfather, but that did not make him any less worthy to be the heir to the Priesthood and their family name.He evidenced that contrast does not indicate conflict. We can be different from each other, even in the most polar ways, and yet be part of the same community or family.

Its this Pinchas who is Eliyahu.Itsthis message that he will bring in the times of Mashiach to heal the wounds between parents and children. By dint of personal example, Eliyahu will teach parents and children that their differences do not reflect conflict. Rather they reflect the diversity of contrast, that which beautifies a people and a family.

In accepting that those, even if not like us, are part of us, we open the door for Mashiach. We engender the true Shalom, wholeness, balance, alignment, peace!

Shabbat Shalom

"What Me Worry?"

The Talmud tells us of the great Amora Rav that he often frequented the cemetary there to commune with the dead. He would ask them of what did they die. In 99 out of a hundred cases the dead told him that they died as a result of the 'ayin hara', the evil eye. Only one in a hundred died due to the natural course of events (Bava Metziya 108b).

We know the 'ayin hara' is put on us by others, often those envious of us. In virtually all cases, neither the one causing the 'ayin hara' nor the one affected by it is aware of the dynamics.Those envious of us most often don't mean us harm. They are not wishing for bad to befall us. The 'ayin hara' is simply the result of their feeling of envy. And we who suffer from it have no idea that the source of our distress is the 'ayin hara'of another. The 'ayin hara' effect operates in the shadow of our lives. Red strings aside, essentially the 'ayin hara' is something we can neither control nor prevent.

And yet Rav informed us that 99% of people's death is because of it!

This week we read in the Torah the parsha of Balak. It tells the story of the non-Jewish prophet Bilam, and his attempt to curse the Israelites in the service of Balak the king of Moab. Each time Bilam attempted to utter curses, G-d protected us and turned the words of Bilam into blessings. The Israelites never knew they were at risk. The whole drama happens in the shadows. Yet clearly we, the Israelites were vulnerable. Were it not for the Divine protection, unknown to us, we might have sustained harm.

On a basic level the Torah tells us the story because it reveals to us how much we are loved and protected by Our Father in Heaven. Like our ancestors in the wilderness, we too are often protected from harm unknown to us by Hashem's care and intervention. So much of G-d's gifts to us go unrecognized because they, like the danger of Bilam and our rescue, live in the shadows.

Yet the lessons here are not only about our relationship to our G-d. I think there are intrapersonal lessons here as well.

Many of you, like me, may have read MAD Magazine as adolescents. You then will recall the main character, a nerdy looking kid named Alfred E. Newman. His signature line was "What me worry?". Now whats funny is that if anyone had to worry it was Alfred E Newman. He was not a strapping, good looking. robust 6ft2 jock. He was freckeled faced and awkward looking. He was very much the wimp. If a 'jock' said "what me worry" we would understand, but Alfred E Newman?

Yet with all we have been discussing Alfred E Newman's lack of worries makes total sense. Worrying ruins our lives. Its causes us to live in the future at the expense of enjoying our present. We are anxious over things that have not yet happened and may never. The worry diminishes our capacity to make choices helpful to us. It causes us lack of sleep, prevents us from experiencing the gift of the moment. The fear of what may be takes up our time and energies. It depletes us and robs us of our capacity to maxamize the here and now opportunities.

Typically we may try to mitigate our fears. We try to contain the things that may harm us in the future.In a limitted way we do that successfully when we take out life insurance.But many people spend their whole lives trying to protect themselves from the future, living life as if they were paying insurance to protect against loss. Forever cautious, forever ruled by fear, they think that if they live a regimented life they can prevent the harm from coming.
They live live protectively.

Rav already taught us that's a fools game. Ninety nine out of a hundred people die from 'ayin hara' One can't protect oneself from 'ayin hara'. The story of the parsha tells us similarly that those things that really threaten us live in the shadows, like Bilam's curses. We all have our Bilams. They are the dangers that threaten us far more than that which we know about and worry over consciously.

No, the response to worry can not be a life devoted to mitigating threats. The only true response is to recognize that we are all no better protected than Alfred E Newman. We have no immunity to the dangers that are ever-present and menacing. No insurance can safeguard us. Once we accept that, once we truly realize at a deep level that our vulenrability is as inevitable as life itself, we have no choice but to live with our uncertainties and to let go of the worry to no useful end.

The dangers for us are always present and mostly unknown. I dare say that what we thought when we were young would be the threats in our lives turned out not to be the ones we, in fact, had to confront. We had no way to anticpate what to worry over. And that remains as much true today.

We cannot make ourselves into supermen and superwomen,beyond the dangers, especially those that lurk in the shadows. We all are very much like Alfred E Newman.In the face of that which can harm us we are all wimpy adolescents. Our life work is not about self protection. Rather it is about trusting in Hashem and in the face of the ever-present dangers saying "What me worry!"

Shabbat Shalom