Shabbat VaYetze: Trans Torah on Trans Day of Remembrance

On Shabbat VaYetze we read of Jacob’s leaving his family under threat of death from his brother. His escape is hurried and frightened, and his path traces an ironic reversal of Abraham’s, as Jacob has to leave his family home, the homeland promised to his grandfather’s and father’s descendants, and his people just to survive.

At this point in the story, Jacob is alone, hunted, and vulnerable. He will survive and thrive, and he does so because he successfully transitions from who he thought he was to be, in order to find who he was really meant to be. In the process he will become so fundamentally different that he will become known by an entirely new name. But this new sense of self, and the ability it will bring with it to reconnect to family and to create his own family, is a long, difficult struggle.

It could have been much different. In his lonely vulnerability, Jacob could easily have been killed. This parashat hashavua is well suited to today’s date. Today, November 20, is recognized as International Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day set aside to commemorate and honor people who are murdered for being who they are – because their gender identities do not fit within the constrictions of their cultures. Although there are records of people throughout history and around the world who lived outside of the gender binary (a polarized construction of ‘masculine males’ and ‘feminine females’), in our own, less tolerant place and times, these people are subject to scrutiny, oppression, discrimination, assault, and sometimes even murder. 

Why take a day to focus on something so heart-wrenching, when there is so much to celebrate about transgender visibility and wellbeing? We can see famous actors, musicians, and athletes share their gender-variant lives. The White House hired the first openly transgender staff person, and President Obama included trans people in his ‘State of the Union’ address. This year Oregon became one of the first states to ensure that trans people can benefit from medical coverage they were previously excluded from receiving. Multnomah County made a commitment to gender-accessible bathrooms. And out and proud trans people play vital roles within our shul. 

But in 2015 alone, 24 trans people, disproportionately women of color, were murdered due to transphobic violence. Worldwide, one trans person is murdered every three days. In the United States and in other countries, the people who bear the brunt of societal discomfort with ‘atypical’ gender expression are overwhelmingly trans women, those who live partly or completely outside of the male sex they were assigned at birth. These women are often poor, often people of color, forced outside the safety networks that many take for granted. Trans and gender-variant people are more likely to be ostracized from their families, discriminated against at work and school, living in poverty, profiled by police and dragged into criminal systems. 

As we know, and can see playing out on the national stage, religious communities have a powerful opportunity to influence either the welcome and affirmation of trans and gender-variant people, or their rejection and marginalization. Our Jewish tradition recognizes the reality of people who lives outside of the gender binary – but most of us are never told those stories. Nor should we really need to hear them in order to finally learn the basic lesson that G-d created all of us, and we all reflect G-d’s image, equally precious beings, all needed to bring about the better world we long to live in.

According to our tradition, Jacob had to journey to Haran, where his grandfather lived (with a name which also means “anger” in Hebrew) and through Mt Moriah, where his father was almost killed by his grandfather. Although he may have left home to try to escape his family, Jewish teaching makes clear that we transition from who we are to who we are meant to be only by walking a path which leads through, not around, those from whom we inherit so much of the puzzle of who we are.

All of us transition in our lives; all of us weather changes in our world. Like Jacob, we have a long, difficult road before we truly become the Israel we are meant to be: unafraid to be compassionate, aware of our own strength, with no further need to be angry – and able to fully love.

Shabbat Hayye Sarah: A Mitzvah Abraham Overlooked

The strain of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac, in last week’s parashah, is too much for Sarah, according to the Midrash. This week’s parashah, named for her, 

begins with the announcement of her death. Immediately after the initial mourning which is Abraham’s purely human response, he has to pull it together. Why? Because after all these years living in the Land promised to their descendants, Sarah and Abraham apparently had never settled down. 

They didn’t own any land. As a result, in the midst of his mourning, Abraham had to set about identifying and purchasing a burial plot for Sarah. There is possibly nothing more stressful than trying to figure out burial arrangements for a loved one in the immediately aftermath of death. Why had Abraham and Sarah not considered this? True, Jewish law requires us to consider a person to be living in every way until the moment of death, and, also true, there’s a wide streak of superstition in our tradition. A people that won’t move the baby furniture in until after the birth is similarly, perhaps, disinclined toward planning ahead for death.

Yet Rabban Gamaliel, one of the greatest Rabbis of the Talmudic Era, did so in a very deliberate way, in order to make an ethical point. Funerals in his day were very showy, which caused financial strain and social resentment in his community. He – a rich man – mandated that he would be buried in an undyed linen shroud, in a plain pine box. He was able to discern the potential of a mitzvah not yet articulated, and his example echoes all the way to us, who still consider simple burial to be the highest form of dignity.

As well, there is potential for an overlooked mitzvah within the story of Abraham’s purchase of the Cave of Makhpelah for a burial place. It is the mitzvah of pre-planning. This mitzvah requires each of us to exercise our empathy. How will your loved ones feel when you die? How might they feel if they were to find that you had not left for them the questions “what would she want?” too often answered by “how should I know?” 

It is said that caring for our dead is the most altrustic mitzvah, since the dead cannot thank us. Similarly, taking care of our own after-death arrangements is perhaps the greatest gift we can send after we’re gone. 

On the 20th Yahrzeit of Yitzhak Rabin

SONG OF PEACE

On the death of Rabin

 

Death itself is no surprise, of course,

least of all my own –

oh, but I hear you crying out

as you take the wound with me,

you too,

bled by the years, a hundred,

a thousand years of war –

this madness that would breach the garden wall

and fire into the wedding feast.

 

How quickly hands forget their gifts –

empty of flowers, of poems, of candles

yet to be lit;

empty of emptiness,

again you carry fists, you shout,

you run to my body as if it were in pain,

or still belonged to me.

 

No.

Destiny has led me

to this ancient well, these stones washed clean,

this water cool and sweet, and flowing out

to any who thirst;

soon I will wet my face and hands,

and drink.

 

If only I could share the cup with you,

my people, all the world,

the cup of peace.

 

But I cannot and this is my sorrow.

And so I keep asking to return, I keep trying

to slip back into that broken body

even as death sinks deeper –

squeeze back in, like a child

who tries to crawl into his baby bed of years ago

and he cannot fit.

 

But know that I live, and so will you

in Jerusalem,

the holy dream made real

where we dwell together in peace,

all the sons and daughters of Abraham,

and all the children of God.

 

The new life opens with such welcome,

yet I would return, if I were allowed,

to the blood and dust of my ravaged land,

the struggle and the joy.

Death consumes only a particle of me;

my spirit goes on – sharing with you

the song of peace.

 

– Jane Galin

Shabbat Noakh 5776: Raging Seas

These are difficult days. The bad news from Israel, and from so many other places of hurting and hatred, seems to come in waves, deep ones. On such a day as this one feels as if one might drown. The imagery of Jonah’s cry is gripping: The waters compassed me about, even unto the soul; the deep was round about me; the weeds were wrapped about my head. (Jonah 2.6)

This is the week of parashat Noakh, the parashah of the Great Flood. We read that human beings have descended into a Hobbesian nightmare of khamas, anarchic, murderous, pointless violence. Regretting the creation of humanity, G-d chooses to erase the work, by eradicating human beings, and tells Noakh that the creation of humanity will then begin again.

Sometimes, reading this story can make one wonder if the khamas we have seen in our own time is not similar. Where do we rate, on a Flood scale? The Rabbis of antiquity had no doubt, and they formed our prayers and taught our myths accordingly: we should all be wiped out, if G-d were to adhere to the strict Divine attribute of Justice. 

Here is the prayer: During Yom Kippur, this is the essence of one of our most powerful prayers, in which we basically say: we know that we don’t deserve this world. We know that we are as guilty as the generation of the Flood, and You should wipe us out – but please don’t. Please forgive us; give us another chance to do better.

Here is the legend: The world would have been wiped out long ago because of our sins, if it were not for the presence of the Thirty-Six righteous ones, the Lamed-Vavniks. They do not know who they are, but it is for their sake that the world is allowed to continue.

Most of us may never meet a lamed-vavnik, and most of us most certainly are not of that number. But the Rabbis elsewhere assert that even if we are unable to complete the work of righteousness, we are nevertheless not free from doing our part. 

So when the days are difficult and the floodwaters of despair rise “even unto your soul”, consider one act which is always within your power, even in the midst of much violence, hatred, and despair:

And G-d said to Noah: “The end of all flesh is come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them” (6:13)

Why was the generation of the Flood utterly destroyed, but not the generation of the Tower? Because the generation of the Flood were consumed by robbery and violence, while amongst the generation of the Tower love prevailed.  – Bereshit Rabbah

Shabbat Bereshit: We’ll Keep the Light On

The earth was formless and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep (Bereshit 1:2)

First comes darkness, then light.  (Talmud Bavli, Shabbat 77b)

At the beginning, there is darkness. This is not only true of the account of Creation as we find it in the Book we call Bereshit, known in English as “Genesis”. It is true of life, as well – our own, as we are conceived, and of much of the rest of Existence.

Darkness is a challenge to those of us life forms which depend upon our eyes to navigate. In the light, we orient ourselves by looking around; we judge our surroundings by visual cues; we can assess threat or safety at a distance, and signal the same. But in darkness we wander, disoriented, perhaps even lost. We seek to relieve it by finding a source of light, and the relief you have felt when you realized that the batteries were still good in the old flashlight is recognizable to us all.

These days of our lives are meant to be so full of joy, as we have just come through our Days of Awe, our fall Sukkot harvest festival, and our yearly blowout with our beloved Torah. But there is increased violence here at home; today there are reports of more than one random shooting in a public place. And there are terrible reports coming in from Israel, where one act of violence after another has led to speculation in Israel’s newspaper of note of a third Intifada. And there are other sadnesses: medical workers come under attack in a bombing raid. Refugees face indifference, and worse. A homeless man begs on a street corner near you.

Here is the real challenge to our lives and the way we live them: do we really believe that the things we do bring light to this world of ours, which so desperately needs it? Jewish tradition urges us not to underestimate the power of the choices we make, and the acts by which we are known. Every small spark of kindness can add to the light in this world by which we find our way out of this terrifying darkness. But the challenge is to stay focused upon the power of a small act, when one might give in to the impulse to believe that there’s no use, that it doesn’t matter.

On this Shabbat, consider your own morale and your purpose in the world. Do you perhaps wonder about whether you can really make a meaningful difference in the misery you see all around you? If so, remember this: your own personal ethics either stay with you under this kind of stress, or they need an upgrade. To turn away and say that there is nothing you can do is to misunderstand your purpose in the world. As another teacher put it:

“Let there be light” was the first statement in Creation, because “light” is the true purpose of existence. To bring light is our purpose: that each of us transform our situation and environment from darkness and negativity to light and goodness. Through the study of Torah and the fulfillment of mitzvot, we strengthen the light of creation. 

It’s getting darker. It’s getting colder. And this is when you need the most support for your own ethical choices and your confidence in them. Refuse to give in to cynicism. Get that free upgrade by lending your presence and getting strength from your religious community. This is the village that devotes itself to keeping the light on – through davening, study, and the kindness that can be shown only through social justice work.

Rabbi Hayim of Tzanz used to tell this parable: a man, wandering lost in the forest for several days, finally encountered another. He called out: brother, show me the way out of this forest! The other replied, but I too am lost. I can only tell you this: the ways I have tried lead nowhere. They have only led me astray. Take my hand, and let us search for the way together. Rabbi Hayim would add: so it is with us. When we go our separate ways, we may go astray. Let us join hands and look for the way together.

Shabbat Shuvah 5776

How long does it take for a Jew to write the first sin of 5776 in the Book of Life? Sometimes, only as long as it takes to get from davening to tashlikh. We are meant to take the whole ten Days of Awe to work our way toward a sense of forgiveness toward others and atonement for ourselves. But there is another feeling – that of falling backwards even as we try to take a step forward. The hasidic masters call it the difference between katnut, feeling small and useless, and gadlut, feeling expansive and capable. 

This Shabbat is Shabbat Shuvah, the Shabbat of Return, between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. This Shabbat, as this season, is all about believing in our ability to turn toward the Oneness which is possible by making changes for the better in ourselves, and in the world. And all it takes to start feeling helpless about that ability is to realize how ingrained in us are our habits of speech and action – and a brief look at the daily news will finish the job. 

Lately the sense of katnut is hard to shake off. Several times in the past few weeks I’ve been reminded of a famous line from Yeats:

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

The parashah this week comes to encourage us – perhaps that’s one more reason why the Rabbis of the Talmud, in their wisdom, timed the Torah readings in such a way that we always read this parashat hashavua while we are struggling with the challenge of these High Holy Days.

VaYelekh is a Hebrew verb that refers to movement; it means to go forward. We read it directly after a parashah called Nitzavim, which refers to standing still.  This moment of contradiction is so human – and it is reminiscent of the moment when the People of Israel first began our journey forward, toward the Promise of home and wholeness that we still see before us (still, it seems, so far away!). That earlier moment happened when we stood at the shore of the Sea, stood still, terrified at the seemingly endless abyss of sea before us. Moshe prayed, and G-d responded, “Why are you praying? get going!” 

It was only when we got going that within the abyss we discovered a passage; muddy, difficult, but possible.

In these days of abysmal despair in so much of the world, we must remember that there is a time for prayer, but after that, we must get going.

The key is in going forward together. Judaism, after all, is a team sport. Together we will help each other out of the enervation of katnut and toward the joy of knowing that we’re doing something – it may be muddy and difficult, but it is possible to get going.

Seek Peace and Pursue It – Psalm 34.14

As a Rabbi and as a citizen of the United States, I support the agreement between the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, China, Russia and Iran– The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. I encourage the members of the Senate and the House of Representatives to endorse this agreement.

The Obama administration has successfully brought together the major international powers to confront Iran over its nuclear ambitions. The broad international sanctions moved Iran to enter this historic agreement. Should this agreement be rejected by the U.S. congress, those sanctions will end. There will be no new negotiations, as the other member countries are fully in favor of this agreement and have no desire to re-negotiate. The sanctions regime is falling apart even now.

I understand that while this agreement blocks Iran’s path to a nuclear bomb, we recognize it does not deal with Iran’s support for terror, but that was never the purpose of these talks. Now that a nuclear agreement has been reached, I join many others who call upon the United States and its international partners to strengthen their resolve and dedicate additional resources to confront Iranian threats to Israel and other states.

Most especially, I am deeply concerned with the impression that the leadership of the American Jewish community is united in opposition to the agreement. I, along with many other Jewish leaders, fully support this historic nuclear accord.

No country conducts its affairs in reaction to the political rhetoric of foreign leaders. Our foreign diplomacy is not an unsophisticated shouting match which reacts to national leaders who speak to their domestic concerns. A mature and rational approach must always put an intelligent struggle for peace first. War, with all its terrors and destruction, is not an “option”; it is a failure of diplomacy. It is, and must be, a last resort.

  מִי-הָאִישׁ, הֶחָפֵץ חַיִּים;    אֹהֵב יָמִים, לִרְאוֹת טוֹב. Do you want to live a good life, loving each day?
  נְצֹר לְשׁוֹנְךָ מֵרָע;    וּשְׂפָתֶיךָ, מִדַּבֵּר מִרְמָה. Then stop your mouth from words of evil and your lips from deceit.
  סוּר מֵרָע, וַעֲשֵׂה-טוֹב;    בַּקֵּשׁ שָׁלוֹם וְרָדְפֵהוּ. Turn away from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.

Shabbat Ki Tavo: The Butterfly’s Wing

How has the human race come to this, that human beings cause the suffering and death of other human beings, even unto a three year old, photos of whose dead body are now all over the Internet? 

To take our parashat hashavua at face value, the evil way that human beings treat each other is explained very succinctly, in two harsh verses:

Because you did not serve HaShem your G-d with joy and with gladness, realizing the abundance of your blessings, therefore you will serve your enemy whom HaShem shall send against you, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things; and one more powerful than you will coerce you until you are destroyed.  (Devarim 28.47-48)

Our modern problem in understanding this verse is in perceiving it to be applicable to individuals. We reject the concept of individual reward and punishment, because we have seen it demonstrated that evil does flourish in the world, and sometimes devours the good.

Our upcoming Days of Awe offer us deep wisdom of a different, more ancient understanding: we are not just individuals, even though we are, individually, precious and irreplaceable reflections of G-d. We are also part of a family, a tribe, a kinship group, and a nation, among other circles of community.  These two verses speak to that other aspect of our existence – our communal acts. We may not know how to understand this, we may feel helpless to influence the groups of which we are a part, but that does not mean that we are unaffected.  

We are often charmed by the idea of a small act leading, through a chain of events, to a large act – smile, we are told, because that ripple effect can, somewhere down a line you cannot see, influence someone’s life profoundly. Similarly, the butterfly’s wings can, under the right conditions, begin a movement of air that can end in a hurricane, so we are told, and we are fascinated by the idea.

Is there a link between my own personal selfish behavior and the death of an innocent child in Syria? How can there not be?

To refuse to serve G-d in joy, in realization of one’s blessings, is the Torah’s way of expressing the idea that I might develop a certain spoiled indifference to the great blessings I have, and blow off the requirement to serve G-d, that is to say, to carefully discharge my responsibility to uphold human decency and ethics, instead acting lazily or arrogantly as if I deserved my great luck. In so doing I create a small curdled airwave of unhappiness. Who knows where it goes? Who knows what power enough diffidence on the part of one community might have on others – what curses it might bring, finally, back upon that community? That enemy we will end up serving is us at our worst, and our society at its worst, G-d forbid; it leads to dead children who had no one to help them.

Remember Tevye’s line – we are to rejoice even when there’s not so much to be happy about. We are commanded, as Jews, to act generously even when we feel impoverished – that is, even the poorest of us is required to give tzedakah. The secret wisdom here is that to reach out even a little to others gives strength back to us; it reminds us of the power we do have to heal, to work for the good – to help the helpless.

On this Shabbat, count your blessings. Let the joy you feel in what you do have keep you intent on serving G-d by working for a better world. There are enough curses in the world, and there is great evil. To serve G-d is to continue to act as if it is not too late for this world of ours to move away from the curses we’ve caused, and toward the redemption we can, together, create.

כתיבה וחתימה טובה – May you be written and sealed for a good year

Shabbat Ki Tetze: You Can’t Choose Whether, but You Can Choose How

The title of our parashat hashavua is ki tetze, “when you go out”. The Torah is continuing to give instruction for how we shall behave when we go out from our place, and a number of possibilities are offered here. What we come to realize is that there is a Jewish ethic for any act. These ethics are context-bound in their particulars, but we are able to discern what the theologian Louis Jacobs called the meta-message of the Torah: treat others as you want to be treated yourself. 

It’s interesting to note that the words ki tetze make it clear that one has no choice; one does “go out” into the world, out of one’s place. As an ethical teaching, this teaches several lessons:

1. We don’t have a choice but to go out: none of us are able to create a place to be which encompasses all of life – we have to leave it sometimes, as a bird leaves the nest, perforce, to find food.

2. When we do go out into the world from our place, we must carry the teachings – the ethics – with us. As it is said, “in your home and on your way”.

3. We also “go out” from our place in other ways: to truly live in the world, we are sometimes forced to leave our “comfort zone”, whether that be a comfortable assumption about the world, a friend or family member, or the story we are telling ourselves about our place in reality. 

I knew a Rabbi once who said that after twenty years of work with a particular congregation, “I finally had them where I wanted them. But then things kept right on changing!” As long as we live, we don’t get to choose whether we are going to “go out” from the comfortable assumptions and arrangements we have made – change does happen. Our only choice is to decide how we will greet the changes in our lives, how we will “go out” from our places.

As Jews we are expected to use our power to choose to maintain a certain ethic in the world, no matter where we find ourselves or what happens to us. The only sure support we have in a changing world is Torah. Keep studying, and keep seeking understanding – it’s very different from gathering facts!

Let these words from near the end of the parashah help you consider just how much more there is to discover in your understanding. The following verses are the basis for much Jewish business ethics, but there is one more teaching hidden within them:

 

לֹא-יִהְיֶה לְךָ בְּכִיסְךָ, אֶבֶן וָאָבֶן:  גְּדוֹלָה, וּקְטַנָּה.

You shall not have in your bag diverse weights, a great and a small.

לֹא-יִהְיֶה לְךָ בְּבֵיתְךָ, אֵיפָה וְאֵיפָה:  גְּדוֹלָה, וּקְטַנָּה.

You shall not have in your house diverse measures, a great and a small.

אֶבֶן שְׁלֵמָה וָצֶדֶק יִהְיֶה-לָּךְ, אֵיפָה שְׁלֵמָה וָצֶדֶק יִהְיֶה-לָּךְ–לְמַעַן, יַאֲרִיכוּ יָמֶיךָ, עַל הָאֲדָמָה, אֲשֶׁר-יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן לָךְ.

A perfect and just weight you must have; a perfect and just measure you must have; that your days may be long upon the land which your God gives you.

כִּי תוֹעֲבַת יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, כָּל-עֹשֵׂה אֵלֶּה:  כֹּל, עֹשֵׂה עָוֶל. 

For all that do such things, each one that does unrighteously, is an abomination unto the LORD thy God. (Devarim 25.13-16)

The basic ethic here is that you must acknowledge the correct weight (that is, value) in buying and selling – whether in your traveling “bag” (laptop?) or at home. Notice the strong words of condemnation for one who acts unethically in this way. One who cheats is an abomination – the word in Hebrew refers to one who is not righteous, but the opposite. This word is much stronger than that used for homosexuality, which is to’evah, a word that relates to a local cultural norm. 

There is so much more in a sophisticated approach to the Torah than you can know – and more support for your ethical journey than you can imagine. Don’t go out there without it.

כתיבה וחתימה טובה – May you be written and sealed for a good 5776