Vayetze

1. SHABBAT SHALOM


2. The difference between Jacob at the beginning of our Parsha and Jacob at the end is as different as night and day. By the end of Vayetzi, Jacob is the father of 12 children, 11 boys and one girl (he will have one more boy later), he is the husband of two sisters and he is a very wealthy man, having acquired many sheep and goats. He is a man of means and power. He has an entourage of many shepherds and servants and although he has to flee from the presence of his father-in-law when he is pursued, he stands his ground and defends his family.

3. At the end of the parsha, Jacob is a strong and powerful man. At the beginning he is alone and weak. He is sleeping out under the stars, fleeing from his angry brother and certain he will never see his family again. Without the protection of his family, he worries about bandits robbing him, he worries about where his next meal will come from and he wonders who will hire someone with the kind of reputation for deceit and deception that he carried in his character.

4. It is the weak, defenseless and alone Jacob that goes to sleep and dreams of a ladder spanning earth and heaven. It is the scared and worried young man that hears God's voice in a dream telling him that he is destined for greatness. In the morning, armed with nothing more than this promise, he vows that “IF God will protect me and give me the food and necessities that I need, THEN I will be loyal to God and will give God a tithe of all that I have.” We have to ask, why does Jacob make such a vow to God when God has already promised him divine protection? Is this Jacob, the deceiver, once again trying to manipulate someone to do what Jacob wants? Does Jacob ask for too much or does he only ask for what he needs? Just what kind of a man is Jacob? Has he learned the lesson from his deceit of his father or is being a con man, now going to be a part of his character? Jacob has a difficult journey ahead of him, as Jacob slowly but surely rebuilds his character, hour by hour one day at a time.

5. Character is not a word that we hear about very often. In fact, the only time we really hear about it is when someone is questioning the character of someone else. We endured a political season when everyone was disparaging the character of his or her opponent; each thought that they would build up their own character by tearing down the character of their opponent. But the reality is that when we try to destroy the character of someone else, we are, in reality only destroying our own character. Our character is the only real thing that we own. And no matter what someone else says, nobody can take it away from us. It can only be tarnished by our own deeds and the way we conduct our own lives.

6. Usually we talk about the “worth” of a person. When we talk about how much a person is “worth” we think we are talking about net worth, the amount of money that man or woman earns and how well they have invested their savings. By this gauge, Jacob, at the beginning of the Parsha, is not worth very much. He has no money, no valuables and no real job training. Shepherds were the low wage earners in his day. How much training does it take to watch sheep? Jacob has never hunted nor has he had any job outside the family chores. But if we only see Jacob's net worth, we miss the most important part of the story.

7. As the Parsha unfolds, we see that Jacob is not all that bad a guy. When he alone moves the rock from off the well, a rock that usually needed four or five men to move, we see that he is not as weak as we were led to believe. He proves to be kind and sensitive, a rare trait in ancient days for men, and it will be a trait that serves Jacob well. While he has a reputation for defrauding others, we find him now honest and, if anything, a bit too trusting of his father-in-law. He is a good husband, a good father and a really good shepherd.

8. Net worth is really not a very good indicator of character. Sam Waltman, who became one of the richest men in the world, on his death, left a legacy of his children fighting over his fortune. All of his wealth did not prevent his family from unraveling after his death. Or perhaps we should look at Microsoft's founder, Bill Gates. For a while, it seemed that his legacy would be a company that devoured all the competition. Who would have guessed that Bill Gates would retire so that he could manage the charitable foundation he founded, a foundation that gives away more money than some countries have in their national budget! Bill Gates no longer stands for the corporate boss; he is now one of the world's premier philanthropists. It is not about how much money one has, it is about what we do with whatever money we have.

9. Newsweek recently reported that the amount of money it takes to make people happy in the United States of America, is $75,000 a year. More than that does not make anyone any happier. Even Warren Buffet, the man who is the most successful investor in the country, wants to be remembered as the man who encouraged others to give away part of their wealth. “Who is rich?” asks the Mishna, “The one who is satisfied with what he has.” The person who only wants more, who only wants everything that everyone else has, will never be happy. Being rich is a state of mind, not a balance in a checkbook. What is important is character.

10. We can say the same thing about fame as we say about fortune. The many famous people who have checked themselves into Rehab for drugs and alcohol grows longer every year. Movie stars and athletes rise fast and fall even faster. Tabloids feed us a constant stream of lurid affairs and nasty divorces, of families touched by tragedy and disaster because the famous think that fame will protect them. They get invited to all the fanciest parties but they can't take control of their lives. “Who is honored?” asks the Mishna, “The one who honors others.” it is not what you get but what you give that matters.

11. Paul Newman had a long and storied career. He was an actor who was in great demand his whole life. He had his choice of what roles he would play and had so many awards for his acting that he became a legend in Hollywood. He was also married to only one woman his whole life. Apparently, he didn't let his fame intrude on his love of family. He made a living acting, so when he decided to go into business and use his name and face to sell groceries, all the proceeds of those sales, all the profits that they generated, went directly to charity. While others wanted to wax rich through their endorsements, Paul Newman used his endorsements to make the world a better place. It is all about character.

12. I like to tell the story of a young girl who listened in as her mother entertained an elderly woman known for her kindness and concern for others. When the elderly lady left, the little girl said to her mother, “If that is what being old is all about, I wouldn't mind getting old at all!” The mother watched the gentle lady walk down the street and said to her daughter, if you want to be like her, you better get started right away. She does not impress me as someone who became that kind and gentle overnight.”

13. Character is not something that we can obtain at a store. We can't order character on the internet and have it delivered right to our home. Character is something that we build, every day we are alive. It is the result of a lifetime of good decisions, of kind responses and being open and honest with others. Character is not only what we give, but what we forgive. Character is not just about what we get, but what we choose to forget. Character is knowing that “nice guys finish last” and still being nice – and realizing that being first is not always that important.

14. A person of character understands that real “net worth” is not about money but in how much we give of ourselves to our community. A person of character understands that business is not as important as family. A person of character does not assign value to things, but assigns the highest value to his or her relationship with others. The late Rabbi Bernard Raskas once wrote, “it is not what we have but what we are that makes life worthwhile. All the riches in the world cannot gild poverty of character. The worth of a person is determined by the way he relates to his responsibilities in life. We should measure worth not in financial terms, but in spiritual terms, in all major areas of personal responsibility.”

15. Everyone here knows that retirement can be just one long vacation, days spent lounging and gossiping at the pool, nights spent eating out and being entertained at the clubhouse. But that kind of retirement is not the life of a man or woman of character. Even in retirement, the time we donate to good causes, the time we spend helping our neighbors and extending our hands to those in need, giving rides to those who don't drive, giving comfort to those who are alone, sick or grieving, and standing up for those who can't speak for themselves, these actions are the building blocks of a person of honor. If we make these actions a part of our lives, the actions will then speak of our character.

16. Jacob has some serious flaws in his character, flaws about deceit and fraud that will follow him his whole life. But he learns to grow beyond his flaws and, in the end, it is not his flaws that we remember. It will not be Jacob the trickster who will become famous; it will be Israel, the Man Who Struggled with God, who will be the patriarch of the People of Israel. Therefore, we have no need to worry that we are not perfect and that we may have made some terrible decisions in our lives. We should not dwell on the mistakes that we have made, but we should focus on how the lessons of our failures can help us grow in the future. We can still leave a legacy of kindness and compassion, but only if we start today. Character is not something that can be built overnight. It is built, one deed at a time, day by day, hour by hour until the day that we die.

May we all live good, honest and faithful lives, lives decorated with kindness and caring, and may we leave that as our most precious legacy to our children and grandchildren. As we say,

Amen and Shabbat Shalom.

Lech Lecha

1. Shabbat Shalom


2. At the very beginning of this week's Parsha, God, out of the blue, tells Avram to leave his home country and go to a different land that God will show him. God makes all kinds of promises about what will happen to Avram when he and his family get to this unknown land, but the reason Avram has to leave the land of his birth, the land of his ancestors is never mentioned in the text of the Torah.

3. One reason that Avram might want to leave his home country is because he lived in a world where people worshiped local gods. The only way to teach people to worship the one God of the universe, the God who will be the focus of Judaism in later centuries, is to be in a country where one can see the hand of God clearly. For Avram and for us, that land is the land of Israel. For over 4000 year, from the moment that Avram first set his sights on the land, Israel has been the one place in the world where Jews have gone to find a personal connection to God.

4. I usually don't speak about Israel from the pulpit for the same reasons I don't do most news stories, current events or political positions. We live in a world of 24 hour, seven day a week news cycles. There are many really famous television, radio and cable personalities who have a small army of researchers who make sure that each broadcast is completely up to date and ready for intelligent conversation. OK, maybe some of it is not so intelligent, but for me, a pulpit Rabbi in a large congregation with many pastoral and spiritual responsibilities, I just don't have the expertise to argue policy from the Bima. My duties are to teach Jews the spiritual and moral direction of their lives. I have never seen my role in a congregation to be the mouthpiece for Israel to the exclusion of everything else.

5. But that does not mean that Israel is not important. In fact, Israel is one of the really important parts of being a Jew. The Jewish Federations had a campaign recently that put their message on T-shirts and banners all over our community. It said, “Wherever I stand, I stand with Israel”. And that is something we must always feel every day we speak out in the world. It does not matter if we stand on the left or on the right. It does not matter if we are Democrats, Republicans or Independents. It does not matter if we are Conservative, Reform, Orthodox or Reconstructionist. If we are Jews, we must stand for Israel. God knows that there are certainly plenty of other people, who, for all kinds of reasons, don't understand why Israel, even with all her imperfections, is important to Jews, to the Eastern Hemisphere and to the world. If we don't speak out about Israel, then who will support the Jewish state?

6. Russel Robenson, the CEO of the Jewish National Fund, the organization that literally owns the land that Israel is built on, recently said in a report to Rabbis, “Any Jew in the world who wants to go to Israel can now go to Israel. And they have a place called Israel to go to. We have won even more than we had hoped to win. There are over 15 Israeli companies now on Wall Street. Israel is an economic miracle. All the detractors and boycotters can do what they will but at the end of the day, we are here and we are strong.” There may be many countries and world leaders who do not like Israel but Israel is not going anywhere. And we don't need to have the constant siege mentality. We only need to do our part to keep Israel strong.

7. I received from many people here, a sermon from the internet, from Shelomo Lewis. That is actually an error. Rabbi Sholom is a long time friend of mine in Atlanta. He too is a strong supporter of Israel. That fact is clear from his long time stance in support of Israel and you can't read the sermon and not believe that his heart is with Israel constantly. I had only one problem with his sermon. While it is passionate and articulate, it does not tell anyone what they can do to support Israel. He gets everyone fighting mad but never gives any guidance about what we can do to keep Israel strong. That is an argument I have will all my colleagues who speak about all the terrible things others say about Israel and all the terrible things that others want to do to Israel. Just what do they expect us to do about it?

8. So I say today, if anyone here wants to be a REAL supporter of Israel, these are the five things that everyone should do to show that their support of our Jewish homeland is more than just angry words.

9. First of all, if we are to be a supporter of Israel, we need to buy Israel Bonds. The most basic bond is only 100 dollars. It has a return on investment that makes it secure enough to place our retirement accounts. The money that we are lending Israel with those bonds goes directly to building the Jewish state. It goes to roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, railway stations, transportation, the electrical grid, and thousands of other basic requirements of a modern country. There are many good causes in Israel to donate our money, but if we are to be real Israel supporters, we need to invest our money in the basic structure of the state.

10. This means that we should buy at least one bond every year. It is not enough to say I bought them last year, or the year before. If we can afford to, we should reinvest our bonds as they become due. The State of Florida invests in Israel Bonds. The pension accounts of dozens of cities and counties in south Florida also are heavily invested in Israel bonds. They see these bonds as safe investments for their future retirees. But if Jews don't invest in Israel bonds, then how can we say that we believe in what Israel stands for? Warren Buffet has said that one should never invest in a company that you don't understand. We Jews understand the importance of Israel and that these investments are safe and secure. We will have a breakfast for Israel Bonds here at Temple Emeth in February. You don't have to wait that long if you don't want to. You can find out about Israel Bonds at the local Israel Bonds office or online. Don't call yourself a supporter of Israel unless you are buying Israel Bonds every year.

11. The second way we must show our support for Israel is to join Mercaz, the Zionist party of Conservative Judaism. American Jews should not be telling Israeli political parties how to run their country. But we can tell them how to spend the money we send to Israel every year. This allocation is done through the World Zionist Congress. Our representatives to the World Zionist Congress are from Mercaz. We support pluralism, freedom of religion, equal funding for all religious organizations, support for Jews with disabilities and special needs, education for all citizens and a center political course for Israel. Membership in Mercaz is only $36 dollars per person. We are given votes in the World Zionist Congress based on how many members our organization has. Just by joining, we strengthen our representation in the Congress and enable us to work in coalition with other parties that have similar agendas. Mercaz works closely with Reform Judaism, Hadassah and many Israeli parties to plot a course for Israel that is for a state that represents all of the citizens, not just the most radical positions on either the left or the right.

12. Since the day I came to Temple Emeth, Mercaz information has been in our lobby. Joining is as simple as sending in a check or using a credit card online. It is the best $36 dollars you will ever spend. As a member of their national board I donate to Mercaz far more than regular dues. It is a vital part of my identity as a Jew and a show of my support of Israel. If you are an active Israel supporter, then you should also be a member of Mercaz.

13. The third thing all Israel supporters must do is to join an Israel advocacy organization. A real supporter of Israel must be politically active in this country on behalf of Israel. It is not enough to just vote for the candidate who says that he or she is pro Israel. We need to lend our voices to the ongoing lobbying effort to provide security and political support from the United States to Israel. The two largest Israel advocacy organizations in this country are AIPAC and J Street. I know that it is strange to mention them in the same breath; they are very different but they both work hard to show us how we can lobby our representatives in support of Israel. I am a member of AIPAC. You can like what J Street stands for or not but the discussion is important, and joining one or the other is important. AIPAC will be holding is Fall Conference in Hollywood, FL in just two weeks. There are fliers in the lobby about a special community forum on Monday evening, October 25, at 7:00 pm. The cost is reasonable and the support we show is vital for Israel. If we get ten of our members to attend we can have our own table. If we get more than 20 to attend, we can talk about getting together and renting a bus to take us to the Westin Diplomat Hotel for the program. To be a supporter of Israel, one must be involved.

14. The fourth duty of being an active supporter of Israel is to visit Israel, at least once every three years. Change happens so fast in Israel that after three years there is more to see than what we saw before. It is not enough to have a member of our family live in Israel. That is very good and also important, but that is how they show their support for Israel. To show our support, we need to visit Israel for ourselves. Every year, I have many families tell me that they would have visited Israel if only the economy would be better, if the terrorism was not so bad, if the Arab situation was not so scary, etc. etc. Our parents would have given anything to visit Israel even once in their lives. How can we show our support for Israel if we never go there? There are many ways to visit Israel even if we have all kinds of special needs. Israel is one of the most accessible countries in the world. To be a true Israel supporter, we need to visit the land we love or send a member of our family to the land at least once every three years. For over a decade one or more members of my family have been in Israel every year. If this is a year you would like to go to Israel let me know by sending me an email or a letter. If we get just 20 people who want to go, we will call a meeting and organize a Temple Emeth trip to Israel.

15. Finally, if we really want to show our support of Israel, we need to stop waiting for the Rabbi to tell us what to do, and we must organize an Israel Committee at Temple Emeth. This committee would create at least one important program for Israel for the congregation each year and would be the source of information for all our members on how each of us can do something for the Jewish State. The members of this committee would represent our congregation at Israel events in the community and help organize advocacy on behalf of Israel. Our members don't need me to speak every week about Israel; the greatest support for Israel will come from those in our congregation who will create the forum to keep Israel always on the minds of our members, in the bulletin, in our programming and in our wider community. How can we say we support Israel if we don't serve on a committee for Israel right here in our own congregation?

16. These are the five things that a supporter of Israel must do: Buy Israel bonds, Join Mercaz, Join AIPAC or J Street, Visit Israel AND (nor or) AND serve on our own Temple Emeth Israel committee. Sitting at the Kiddush and commenting on the Rabbi's sermon may be OK when we are talking about our moral obligations in the community. But if we are to call ourselves Supporters of Israel, we need to offer our hearts, hands and voices on behalf of the state that we love. For thousands of years, Jews longed to return to Israel and spoke about it on Shabbat, holidays and at Seder. What Herzl did was to stop talking and DO something about it, and within 50 years Israel was born. Imagine what a wonderful state Israel will be fifty years from now.... Let us go out and work to make that dream a reality. I could give a thousand sermons and not make one bit of a difference. But if each of us does each of these five things this year, we will affect life in Israel for years to come. I am waiting to hear from you after Shabbat.

 Shabbat Shalom

Toldot

1. Shabbat Shalom


2. If we were to examine the life of Isaac, we would be hard pressed to find incidents in his life that are his alone. More often than not, Isaac is part of the story of his father Abraham or part of the story of his son Jacob. It is really hard to find something that is unique to the life of Isaac.

3. The one story that is Isaac's alone; is the story of Isaac and the digging of the wells. In Genesis Chapter 26, we find Isaac and his family locked in a struggle with the people of Gerar over water rights in the area around the city. At first, the people of Gerar try to drive Isaac and his family away by stopping up the wells he needs to water his flocks. When Isaac moves away and discovers new wells, the people of Gerar drive him away from those wells also. Finally, as he moves closer to the desert and Beer Sheva, he finally finds the water that he needs for his family and his flocks without having to fight for them. He is then able to make a treaty with the King of Gerar that will insure that there will no longer be trouble between Isaac and Gerar.

4. Isaac is so good at finding water because he is retracing the steps of his father Abraham. Each time he re-digs a well that was once his father's, he does not rename the well, but calls it by the same name Abraham gave it. This is how he stays connected to the memory of his father. Later biblical commentators draw connections between the water that Isaac finds and the “water” that is Torah. In the Talmud, Rabbi Akiva teaches that just as a fish cannot live without water, so too a Jew cannot live without the life-giving words of Torah. Just as Isaac knows where to find the water because of the work of his father, so too do we know where to find Torah, by following the example of our parents, grandparents and great grand parents.

5. Our patriarchs were models of prayer. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are given credit for creating the Shacharit, Mincha and Maariv services. Living a nomadic life, worrying about where the next watering hole will be, and if there will be enough food for the flocks and if there will be enough food and water for the family, all of these can help make a person very spiritual. Living out in nature, surrounded by trees, grass, mountains, animals and the wide open sky, it is not hard to feel connected to God. But for those of us who do not live out in nature, those of us who live in cities, with lots of people, lots of traffic, lots of noise and lots of urban congestion, it is much harder to find God.

6. There are some who say, that the last place they would look for God is in the synagogue. They might go to the beach, to the forest, out under the stars or in some other beautiful place in nature and there they would feel God's presence. In synagogue there are too many people, too much talking, a lot of speed reading and too many distractions. How could Jews even think to find God in a synagogue? And yet, for me and for many others, a synagogue is a natural place to draw closer to God, as long as we don't let the distractions hamper our search.

7. What does it really mean to pray? Is it just reading the words? Is prayer reciting a Hebrew text that we don't understand? Is it prayer to read the English text even if that does not seem too traditional? Is prayer being on the right page? Or is prayer something altogether different? Rabbi Sharon Braus, one of my colleagues in Los Angeles has written, “A few months after I had become a rabbi, a terrible tragedy occurred in my congregation in New York. An active member of the synagogue, a junior in college, was crossing the street in her university after finishing a final exam when she was struck by a car and left in critical condition for a week, with little chance of survival. The whole community was paralyzed and devastated. “What can we do?” I asked my Rabbi. “Pray,” he said, “Pray with all our heart, pray as if there is no such thing as a medical certainty. Pray as if anything is possible. Pray without ambivalence, Pray without doubt in God's capacity to heal. Pray as if the whole world depends on your prayers.” That Shabbat, I closed my eyes and sang out with all of my heart. Halfway through Kabbalat Sabbat I realized that I was no longer singing – I was praying. I was soaring. That experience changed my life. It is when I realized that prayer can be a moment in which we suspend doubt and disbelief, in which we allow ourselves to hope and to believe that anything is possible. Since then, I don't sing, I pray.”

8. Temple Emeth can provide many ways for us to find prayer. We have a wonderful cantor, we have a congregation that loves to sing. We have many people who know the prayers and have prayed on Shabbat almost all of their lives. But in the end, nothing we can do will make prayer possible. In the end, the final boundary has to be crossed in our own hearts and souls.

9. I think that one of the barriers to prayer is the way we conduct the service. Maybe because I was a fidgety little boy, my mother and father were always trying to get me focused on the prayers. They asked me multiple times, “What page are we on?” trying to get me to keep up with the rest of the congregation. But I have discovered that being on the right page is not a good way to pray at all. When I am really praying, I may stay on one page long after everyone else has moved on. Something on that page has inspired me and I don't want to leave it until the feeling is gone. I have responsibilities during the service to help the congregation find their way to their own prayers. This means that I have moments of deep prayer between long stretches of trying to catch up. But I have to try very hard not to get in the way of other people here who are trying to pray.

10. Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, from Massachusetts and now living in California, writes, “I'm always struck when the leader of the service says, 'We now rise for the Shema'. Why are you telling me that? I've been coming to services here for thirty years. I know we stand up for the Shema. Only Jews tell one another when to stand. People in every other religion assume you know what to do, and if you don't, you're smart enough to watch and see what everyone else is doing?”

11. Just think about what Rabbi Kushner is saying. Do we really need to be told when to stand and when to sit? Some of you have been coming to shul longer than I have been alive. Does it really help when the Rabbi tells everyone to stand? This is supposed to be our spiritual home but when we are home do we need someone to tell us when we should stand and when we should sit? Or take a different example. I know that we are new to this prayer book, but do we really need anyone to tell us what page we are on? We know the basic order of the service. Borchu, Eyl Adon, Shema, Mi Chamocha, Amida, Kedusha, Kaddish Shalem, Torah Servcie, Sermon, Musaf and closing. If someone puts a different Ashkenazi siddur into our hands, how long would it really take us to figure out where the service is and to sing along with the rest of the congregation?

12. I often find myself agreeing with Rabbi Kushner. We are dumbing down our service. Making our congregations feel as if they are infants who need guidance to know how to pray. The fact is; our ability to pray is tied closely to our sense of spirituality, the needs that weigh heavily in our hearts and the sense of gratitude for all of God's gifts in our lives. It is not so much about the words, but about how we feel in our hearts. At this week's Sisterhood meeting I talked about the partnership between humanity and God to provide food for the world. As I walked around the room, a woman said to me, “After all these years, I never saw the Hamotzi that way. You are right; we lose sight of the human and divine elements in the food we eat.” She will never pray in the same way again.

13. Another Rabbi I know was told that his services were not very spiritual. He had to remind the person that a synagogue cannot make a person spiritual. We have to do that work ourselves. Every time I call out a page number, it is as if I am forcing everyone to be on the same page I am on. That is not how you find your way closer to God. If you are on a different page, then there must be a reason to be on that page. Being on my page will not help connect you to God. If it does anything, it moves us away from finding that religious space in our hearts. In our attempt to make things uniform, we have lost our spiritual way.

14. This is also the same dance that we do with the Torah Service. People tell me every week that they NEED me to tell them the page in the Humash where the Torah reading begins. And they tell me all kinds of reasons why I have to tell them. They tell me they don't know Roman numerals. They tell me they don't understand chapter and verse. Rabbis have so trained our congregations that we cannot even do what any Christian or Muslim can do, find their place in scripture by chapter and verse. I can also point out that there is another clue as to where the Torah reading will begin... The page number is printed in your Shabbat announcement sheet. Why do we have to break up our study of Torah to give a page number that everyone knows anyway?

15. In my daughter's shul, everyone does not use the same siddur. They provide a guide, given out by the usher at the door, of the different books they use and on what page important prayers can be found. These are young Jews, not all of whom have had strong Jewish backgrounds, but they are smart enough to figure out, when they need to, where the congregation singing is in the Siddur.

16. So, as of today, I give everyone permission to be on a different page if it will help you in your search for God on Shabbat. If your heart is heavy with pain, worry or trouble, then you don't need any page or prayer to pour your heart out to God. Don't be on the same page. Find a word, a sentence, an idea, in Hebrew or in English, and examine it deeply as to why, at this moment, these are the most important words in your life. Close your eyes and see the words dancing inside your mind. Send the letters soaring to God, either above you or inside you.

17. The Siddur is not a cookbook. You can say all the words and still not have a cake to show for it when you are done. The siddur is a road map, a guide, an inspiration. Just as it inspired generations of Jews to reach higher and higher toward God, our liturgy can do the same for us if we only free the words from the burden of being correct, and instead see them as calling us to consider the deeper implications of what they have to say.

18. You don't need me to tell you what page we are on. You probably, right now, have your finger in the place in the Siddur that you know we are going to turn to when this sermon is over. And you know that you will have to stand for the next prayer. What is the next prayer?

What page is it on?

Why in the world do you need me to tell you? How about we do without the page numbers and the interruptions, and let's you and I, with all our heart, soul and might, stand up and pray together the Musaf service. And I mean REALLY pray it.

SHABBAT SHALOM

Hayye Sarah

1. Shabbat Shalom

2. I have to say that I envy Abraham in this week's parsha. There were many times I would have loved to choose a spouse for my children; I thought I had found just the right person and I wanted nothing less then having both of them spend the rest of their lives together in love and in happiness. Alas, that is not the way of our world. Actually, my children made really good choices, so I can't complain. I love their spouses as if they were my own children. But even for those of us who live in a world where our children pick their spouse for themselves, there still are important lessons for all of us, parents, grandparents and even for children and grandchildren in the story of Isaac and Rivka.

3. Abraham's servant, we call him Eliezer but he is unnamed in our text, sets out to find just the right girl for Isaac. He could have taken an easy road in this task. He could have gone straight to the home of Abraham's family, to Bethuel's home and stated his purpose for the trip. If he would have done this, what do you think might have happened? Let us remember the setting. The servant comes with gifts of gold and cattle for the family of the girl that he selects to marry Isaac. I am sure that Bethuel would have wanted his daughter to marry this distant relative and keep the wealth for himself. He would have praised the beauties and virtues of Rivka and maybe even denigrated some of the other local girls. After all, Rivka had to be the perfect choice for the son of his cousin Abraham.

4. I can even hear the conversation. “Eliezer, I know the perfect girl for Isaac. There are lots of girls here in the city, but you really couldn't do better than my daughter Rivka She is beautiful, kind and has all the skills Isaac would need from a wife living at the edge of the wilderness in Canaan. She knows her way to tend to the herds, for cooking and weaving. She is not like the other girls who waste their time at the watering hole. She is not like them at all. They all gossip constantly and make fun of the other shepherds. They all like to spend their days putting on makeup and fixing their hair, not the kind of girl a sheik of the desert would want for a wife. Those other girls are too spoiled living in the city to want to go an live in a tent. No, Eliezer, you could not find a better girl suited for Isaac than our Rivka

5. Of course, we know that the servant was not in a hurry to go to the home of Abraham's family. Instead he stopped at the well so he could see for himself how the local girls went about their daily tasks. At the well, he could observe how they reacted to a stranger with his animals at the well. By the time he gets to Bethuel's home, he knows that Rivka is the right girl for Isaac and the rest is all in the negotiation. It turns out to be a good match and while their life is not easy, Isaac will come to love Rivka.

6. So here we are, on the eve of the midterm elections, and we face a dilemma very similar to Abraham's servant. For months, we have endured the constant barrage of campaign promises that predict the future if only we vote for the right candidate. I guess that I would not mind the constant advertising if it were not so negative all the time. I find myself paying attention to those ads that speak to what one candidate will do, and I try to ignore the ads that put down the competition.

7. I am reminded of the Rabbi who watched two brothers arguing over which boy was taller. The older boy wanted to stand back to back with the other one and measure their height. But the younger boy insisted that they needed to correct for the older age of his brother. He came upon a plan to have his brother stand in a ditch when they were back to back, to compensate for the age difference. The Rabbi admonished the younger brother, “Why is it always to build yourself up you have to lower your brother? You could achieve the same effect if you were to raise yourself up on a stone.

8. I never understand why candidates have to tear down their opponents rather than build themselves up. Actually, I do know WHY they do it. They do it because it works. Survey after survey shows that we voters don't always remember the good candidates, but we always remember the names of the bad ones. So to win, it is not enough to speak praises of your own accomplishments, but you have to make sure that your opponent is remembered in a negative way. Just think about this for a moment. If we want to we can remember all the negative ads we have seen. But we hardly can recall the positive sides of the candidates. We would not be so far off the mark if we think that the candidates for office are all the same. Their promises are also field tested to resonate with the voters. There is often not too many real differences between the campaign platforms.

9. None of the candidates are for higher taxes. None of them want larger deficits. All of them want Americans to have better health care. All of them want to clear out the corruption and end the back room deal making that is so much a part of government. Nobody is going to end Social Security. President Obama and Nancy Pelosi are not on the Florida ballot, even though they are in almost half of the ads on TV. And, did you notice, that the bad guys are always in black and white, while the good guys are always shown in living color. Everyone wants there to be more jobs and they are in favor of getting our economy moving again. They may disagree on HOW they will do all of these things, but they all agree on what is important to voters. After all, they have had months of polling data to show just how you are all thinking and what the candidates need to say to get your vote.

10. So the real test for a candidate is not to get you to agree with him or her. The real job is to get you to believe that the opponent is NOT for these important issues. Every day I  listen to the fact checking organizations and they say over and over that the negative ads are false, lies and smears. In the end, it doesn't matter if they are true or not. If they can make us suspicious, that is all they need to do. If you are unsure, you will hesitate before marking your ballot.

11. Like Bethuel, we are getting only a daily dose of what the candidates want us to hear. We don't buy cars based on the advertising, we only pay attention to the nature of the sale. We don't plan our vacations based on what the country or resort looks like on TV, but if travel is 50% off, then we might look deeper. Why then would we vote based on campaign ads without looking deeper?

12. Eliezer's approach is better. We need to go out and do our own research. Guess what? There are many non-partisan groups who have done all this research for us and are happy to give us side by side comparisons of all the candidates for office. And they give out this information for free! They only want voters to have all the REAL information before going to the polls. With all that information, we can be ready to make up our own minds. It is like going to the well to see what the candidates are really like in their usual situations.

13. In preparing to vote, Michelle and I first went to the website of the League of Women Voters. Virtually all the candidates had filled out position papers on questions that the League had supplied knowing that the answers would be listed side by side with their opponents. Stripped of all the hype and scare tactics, it was not too hard to see which positions held by the candidates were closest to what we would like to see in government. The League of Women Voters did not tell us how to vote, but it did give us insight into how each one would perform in office. The Jewish Journal, in this week's edition, included as a pull out section, the information from the League of Women Voters. Take a good hard look at it and you will quickly see the importance of this section in helping to determine how we should vote.

14. For the Judicial retention votes, I like to check out the rankings of the judges on the Bar poll. Lawyers appear before these judges and they are asked to rank how fair and impartial they are. It is rare that a judge has a 100% rating, but if the majority of lawyers who appear before these judges are unhappy, there must be something wrong. In choosing between judges in a non-partisan race, it is not so difficult to find a list of each one's experience and compare who might be the best given the kinds of cases that will appear in that court. This information is always reported in the newspapers and if you miss it, you can get the information online at the newspaper's website.

15. Michelle and I also like to check out the endorsements of local newspapers. This is often not very helpful but sometimes there are issues that are not readily apparent. This is particularly true when it comes to the ballot initiatives. From the ads, you might never know what the ballot questions are really about. Between the endorsements and the information from the League of Women Voters, you can clearly see what the ballot questions are trying to accomplish and who is sponsoring them (or who is opposing them) it is not too hard to figure how to vote on these issues.

16. How long does all of this take? On the Sunday after we receive our sample ballots (I always wait for the sample ballot since I don't want to waste time on a candidate or an issue that is not on my ballot) Michelle and I spend a couple of hours in the afternoon doing our research and by dinner we are pretty set on who are the best candidates for us and how we would vote on the ballot questions. And No, we don't always vote the same way. We share most of our values but sometimes we do disagree. We mark our ballots and unless something changes, that is who we vote for. From that point on, when the negative commercials come on the TV, we go and get a snack.

17. So who are we voting for? That my friends is a secret. I can only tell you that we take voting very seriously and, in some cases thought long and hard about who would earn our votes. I can tell you however, who YOU should vote for..... You should vote for any and all candidates that stand for positions with which you agree. That is how I vote and it is how you should vote as well.

18. And remember, if you don't vote, I don't want to hear your complaints about how awful our representatives are. If you don't like who I voted for, then get out and vote. It is a duty and a responsibility for every citizen. The Polls open at 7 am on Tuesday.

Shabbat Shalom.

Vayera

1. SHABBAT SHALOM

2. Although I am thoroughly disgusted with the advertising for all the candidates for political office today, I have noticed one thing in all the mud slinging that it going on. I have discovered that politicians have to be either perfectly good or else they are perfectly evil. There is no middle ground. There is no category of a politician who is “good enough” to represent us. Now more than ever we live in a world of dichotomies, a world of extreme positions and no middle ground.

3. Have you noticed that you have to be either secular or a religious fundamentalist? You have to be community oriented or else you must be an aspiring individualist. Even for Jews, we have to either be concerned with Jewish identity or else we think that only Jewish survival is important. And we either have to be true to our ethnicity or else we are pluralists; there is no middle ground. There is nothing really new in the parameters, In the 1950's, at the Jewish Theological Seminary, students were either followers of Professor Mordechai Kaplan and his understanding of Judaism as a society, a religious community, or else you followed the mysticism of Abraham Joshua Heschel, and understood that the basic unit of Judaism is the individual who aspires to draw closer to God. What was true then is true today, there must always be a middle ground.

4. It does not matter if we are talking about politics or religion, whenever we are presented with these kinds of dichotomies, we should know that they are all false choices. There is a path in between. Conservative Judaism, the Judaism that we practice here at Temple Emeth, is all about finding the proper path between extreme choices. Maimonides taught that one must walk a path that is midway between fire and ice; if we stray too far in either direction, we will either freeze or get burned. Finding our way on that middle path means learning to make important choices in how we live our lives.

5. The Middle Way is not about making final decisions. It is about the journey through life, and deciding what kind of a person we want to be. We have to place ourselves on a path that leads from somewhere and goes somewhere – lest we discover that we are stuck in our position and really going nowhere. The current Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Chancellor Arnold Eisen would have us chart our lives in the space between the extremism of our age. We don't have to look far to see the problems of fundamentalism, in the Christian world and its right wing agenda, with Moslem extremism,  and the excesses of the Haredim in the United States and in Israel.  And we don't have to look far to see the problems of the rampant secularism that is promoted in movies, television and in our literature. If all points of view are equally valid, what kind of a “moral compass” can we hope to acquire in life?

6. There have been many who have tried to find the middle way in Judaism. There are those who talk about Jewish Identity, that we should identify ourselves in a Jewish way, but it never really tells us what it is that we need to do. We say that we are ethnically Jewish, in that we eat Jewish foods and use Jewish lingo in our speech. And yet, these days are times in which ethnic lines are more blurred and ideas of ethnic purity are seen as racist. We talk about Jewish survival but is it really enough just to survive? If we don't set some parameters, then everyone will do what they want and then what will happen to Jewish traditions?

7. In our Parsha, Abraham faces similar problems. He is a man of faith but his survival is not assured because he has no son or heir. He wanted to do the right thing, and even insisted that God must also do what is right and just, but we see that Abraham sent away Hagar and Ishmael, and he tried to sacrifice his only son. He was identified as a Hebrew but he was never clear about what the obligations were. Did it require fighting with his allies to protect his family? Did it require him to lie, that his wife was his sister, when he went down into Egypt? For Abraham, finding the right path was not easy. We can not expect it to be any easier for us either.

8. I can tell you that I believe, with all my heart and soul and might, that Judaism would have us do the right thing in every aspect of our life. It is not about being a fundamentalist or nothing; that is a false dichotomy. Judaism gives us a wide range of actions that we can bring into our lives and the only real question we have to confront is just how Jewish do we want to be? That seems to be the underlying question as I go around asking my friends and students about how we decide what we will do in our religious Jewish lives. The question always boils down to how public we want to make our observance of Judaism? Are we afraid of what people will do to me or what they will say about me if they find out I am Jewish?

9. We insist that all who worship with us in synagogue should wear a Kipah when we pray. Even non-Jews are asked to cover their heads when they come here to join us for Shabbat or daily services. But what would happen if we were to wear a Kipah when we are not in shul? Should we wear it all the time? Even if we eat in trayf restaurants? Even if we eat trayf in trayf restaurants? We all agree that it is important to have a Seder on Pesach, but why don't we take Matzah with us for lunch for the rest of the week, when we go out to lunch with our friends? Judaism today is asking us about what is distinctive in our lives that identifies us as Jewish and still allows us to be accepted by the rest of society. And when I talk about the “rest of society” here in Delray Beach, I understand that I am talking about the other non-observant Jews in the community who may be living in fear that others may find out just how estranged from the Jewish community and from Jewish observance they are. So they ridicule any Jew in their social circle who would “dare” to act “more Jewish”. Should we allow these self-hating Jews the right to tell us how Jewish we should be?

10. Once we ask ourselves what is the religious meaning in my life that comes from being a Jew, we understand that being Jewish also implies a certain number of responsibilities. We call these responsibilities, “Mitzvot”, commandments from God about how we should live our lives. We all know that tradition tells us that there are 613 Mitzvot that are contained in the Torah. The reality is, however, that there are less than half of them that are even possible to perform in this modern age, and there is nobody, in any branch of Judaism, who performs all the Mitzvot. We need to establish the importance of Mitzvot in our lives and then work to bring those that we consider most important into the fabric of how we live every day. Chancellor Eisen has written, “By opening up the possibility of what Mitzvah can mean, and how people can apply it in their Jewish lives, we begin to  generate a new vocabulary of practice which suits both a deep reverence for tradition and the creative individuality of our constituents.”

11. Let me give an example. One of the Mitzvot that has been a signature in my life is walking to shul on Shabbat. I have done it since I was a child, walking with my parents. When we first moved to Florida, and lived in what was a very Southern Baptist neighborhood, my parents were concerned how our neighbors would feel seeing Jews walking to synagogue on Shabbat. I have to tell you, our neighbors had no idea about who Jews were and what we believed. But they clearly understood a family that would go to pray together on the Sabbath, even if it was a different Sabbath than they observed. We were always treated with friendship and respect. Just this week, an employee at Delray Hospital mentioned that he saw me walking to synagogue one Shabbat and realized that she knew me from my work at the hospital. She was rather proud that one of the people she knows and works with take religion seriously.

12. The focus of my Lunch and Learn sessions on Tuesday Morning (not the one today, which has a different topic) will be bringing Mitzvot into our lives. Chancellor Eisen calls it “The Mitzvah Initiative”. It is a world wide movement that is not about Halacha, Jewish Law, but it is about our response to the commandments of the Torah. How we fulfill them can be a matter of personal choice, THAT we fulfill them is a Mitzvah, a religious obligation. The discussion about choosing our own signature Mitzvah and how we will bring it into our life can be one of the most important discussions we can have. Mitzvot are a challenge to us, in how we can use them to bring spirituality and faith into our lives. Abraham did not have Mitzvot to guide his life and so he struggled every day to live a life of faith. We have Torah to guide us in how we can live our lives with meaning and purpose.

13. I invite everyone to join us for lunch on Tuesday mornings, beginning in just two weeks. We will not be discussing the importance of Mitzvot; rather we will be identifying those practices that are already a part of our lives, identifying them as mitzvot. We will explore how these religious commandments that are already a part of our lives  can help us  travel from where we are today to the goal of feeling closer to God and more in tune with the music of the universe. Make your reservation for class and for lunch (there is a nominal charge for the lunch) and let us begin together to find the right path to grow spiritually and to make our lives better every day. I look forward to having you all join me.

May God be with us as we set out on the journey of discovery and faith as we say... Amen and Shabbat Shalom