Sermon on Remembering the Difficult Journeys
May 8, 2009
Rabbi David Kaufman
This week’s Torah portion, Emor, continues the explanation of what it means to be Holy. Specifically, it concentrates on the priests maintaining a status of purity. Emor also contains the liturgical calendar including all of the festivals. Missing on that calendar are two events marked in the Jewish world recently, Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Heroes and Martyrs Remembrance Day, and Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day. I thought of talking about those modern Jewish holidays tonight.
I also considered talking about the hate-filled protest against the Jews and Gay and Lesbian community of Des Moines this week by a handful of crazy people from Westboro Baptist Church and about the fact that their pitiful protest paled in comparison to the opposition against it. Had we wished to allow them a modicum of attention, we could have arrayed hundreds of people standing on our side of the street, shouting in our support.
I thought about talking about the AIPAC Policy Conference and about the relationship between Israel and the United States today and the threats and challenges that Israel faces. I’ll leave that for some other time as well.
I actually began the day with the idea that I would discuss the dramatic changes that the financial crisis has brought to the Union for Reform Judaism and the threats that it poses to my beloved Hebrew Union College. I have spent no little time in the past couple of weeks working with other rabbis, lay leaders, and faculty members in the defense of the Cincinnati campus which was threatened with closure, but another thought came to mind.
I even thought of doing a sermon on the now widely circulating joke:
“They said that a black man would become President of the United States only when pigs fly and now, 100 days into his administration: Swine Flu!”
I thought to myself about all of the major changes that are going on in the world, all of the major issues, all of the sands that seem to be shifting beneath our feet. Then I decided to tell another story.
Dafer’s family’s story is like many in places where Jews were tolerated in the best of times and threatened during the worst. His mother’s family lived in Baghdad until the great Exodus of Jews from the Arab world to Israel from 1948 to 1952.
Once the nation of Israel was created, Jews living in Arab lands suffered tremendous persecution. The Iraqi government forced most of the Jewish population to leave the country. The majority fled to Israel but others went to any nation that would accept them.
Dafer was an exception. His mother had married an Iraqi Muslim and the government did not force them to leave. When the rest of the family was forced to flee with no notice, his mother and father were not, and did not find out that the family had gone to Israel until it was too late to keep in contact.
Why did they lose touch? Because anyone trying to reach out to someone in Israel from Iraq after that time would have been seen as a spy or traitor and been executed. They could possibly have contacted their relatives in other nations such as in Britain, but Dafer’s family didn’t have relatives or friends who could serve as bridge contacts with them to Israel.
Ammar, Dafer’s niece, relates in a letter that Dafer carries with him, that after the death of Dafer’s father in 1967, Farha, his mother, tried to reconnect the family with Judaism. The Baath party started to monitor them, no doubt wondering whether or not they were Israeli agents, and in order to protect her family, Farha had them once again stay away from the Jewish community.
After a long hiatus from Judaism, Ammar and Dafer’s family was emboldened after the 2003, US invasion to once again pursue rejoining the Jewish community. The guard at the Temple there told them that once there is a new government, they would reopen the Temple. Then new problems faced Dafer and Ammar’s family. The Mahdi Militia and Bader Militia, both Iranian backed organizations, found out that their family was Jewish and persecuted them, forcing them from their homes.
They ended up in Syria, where they sought out the Jewish community in El Hara El Yahodia, but the government of Syria had ordered the synagogue closed. Finding out that they were Jewish, the Syrian Intelligence Services then hounded them. Some Jewish people in Syria who heard of their plight then suggested that they escape to Jordan. The Jordanians refused to accept them because of Jordan’s own security problems with the Iraqis, so the family was sent back to Baghdad.
Back in Baghdad, the family was attacked by the militias that threatened them before. Two members of the family were killed and two others kidnapped and held for ransom.
At that point the family decided to appeal to go to Israel. They were eventually able to get to Turkey and Dafer made it to Des Moines, how and why I still do not know, where a Bus Trainer, someone who trains refugees in how to use the local buses to get around, brought him to Temple B’nai Jeshurun on a Friday afternoon.
When I arrived at Temple this afternoon, we had three guests. Two were from Lutheran Refugee Services and a third was an Iraqi Jewish immigrant who spoke almost no English, but knew enough to have his helper bring him here.
“We need someone who speaks Arabic!” Kathy, a volunteer at the Temple, told me as she spoke with the volunteers. “Arabic?” I thought. “Arabic?”
I thought of two people to call: my Sudanese friend, Francis, who works with Arabic speaking refugees, and Nashi K., who is a member of Tifereth. I called them both. No answer. Mark Finkelstein of JCRC helped me tracked down Nashi while I spoke with the aid worker.
While we were talking, Dafer, handed me the letter written by his niece Ammar, that told the story of their plight.
Then Nashi arrived.
I cannot begin to tell you just how strange a place Des Moines is. Nashi, as far as I know the only Arabic speaking Jew in Iowa, happens to also be a Baghdadi Jew and has relatives who may know Dafer’s relatives in Israel. He promised to speak to them about Dafer’s family. Nashi was able to talk to Dafer and to relate to him in ways that no refugee aid worker could. Dafer now had a Jewish friend and an Iraqi Jewish friend at that! Talk about Mazel!
Three weeks ago, we were visited by Shlomo Molla, a Member of the Knesset of Israel who immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia. He talked of literally walking hundreds of miles to be able to be flown to Israel, to freedom. Two weeks ago, we heard from Marion Blumenthal Lazan about her journey during the Holocaust, eventually coming to this country. Hopefully, all of us have heard the story of our own Peter Pintus.
I was struck as I thought about all of these stories, just HOW easy, HOW good, HOW blessed my life has been and continues to be.
I live in a place where when hateful people come to protest against me because I am a Jew, more people come to my defense and virtually everyone considers the hateful people to be ignorant idiots. I live in a place that is not threatened by war or sectarian violence. I live in a place where a wandering Jew from a foreign land is brought to synagogue by helpful Christians wanting to aid him in his practice of Judaism! I live in a place and in a time when I truly need to seek out stories of those Jews who were not and are not so fortunate.
I truly need to remember. We need to remember.
It was not long ago that Jews faced tremendous discrimination in this country.
It was not more that two generations ago that Jews marched alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and sat with members of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee at lunch counters where they were refused service and forcibly removed.
It was not long ago that virtually every country club not founded by Jews denied their admittance as members.
It was not long ago when indeed people would have thought that pigs would fly before America would elect a President from a racial minority.
It was not terribly long ago that in every Jewish gathering could be heard the accents of Eastern Europe. It was not long ago. But today, my friends, it is too easy to forget.
The stories of the journeys from oppression to freedom become almost mythical, something that happened THEN to THEM, not NOW and not to US.
This afternoon, I was reminded of just how special it is to live in this nation of freedom and security.
At the AIPAC Conference, I had the opportunity to hear from Clarence Jones, who was Martin Luther King’s attorney and a close friend. Clarence Jones related Dr. King’s story of his visit to a Conference with Conservative Rabbis in honor of Abraham Joshua Heschel’s birthday. Dr. King said that as he and Rabbi Heschel entered the room, the convention, 1,000 rabbis began chanting, “We shall overcome” in Hebrew.
The words are:
Anu nitgabeir, anu nitgabeir, anu nitgabeir bevo hayom.
Ani ma'amin be'emunah shleimah, nitgabeir bevo hayom.
The last verse combining the principles of Maimonides with the anthem of the Civil Rights movement.
“I believe with perfect faith that we shall overcome someday.”
I thought that it would be appropriate to conclude with those words.
[Sing]
Anu nitgabeir, anu nitgabeir, anu nitgabeir bevo hayom!
Ani ma'amin be'emunah shleimah, nitgabeir bevo hayom!
We shall overcome, but we still have a lot of work to do.
Shabbat Shalom
-D
Friday, May 8, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
On Marriage Equality in Iowa
[As of November 2011 just shy of two years after this article originally appeared in April 2009, I have now performed multiple same sex unions here in Iowa for male and female couples from around the nation. May I continue to have the ability to do so for a long time to come!]
Shalom All,
I would like to comment on the arguments made in opposition to same-sex marriages in Iowa and in so doing will explain my views. As you likely know, I am an advocate for marriage equality and more specifically for the government to get out of the marriage business altogether. The only role for the government should be in creating civil unions or civil partnerships in which people who live together and/or share expenses and property in a significant way are allowed to pay taxes together, share benefits, and dispose of jointly owned property. The government has no business enforcing religious views.
“The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it!” is NOT a legal argument. Some of us, who know the first part, disagree with the latter two parts of that statement.
The arguments presented by Polk County lawyers as the rationales for banning same-sex marriages follow.
They argued that a ban was needed:
1. To maintain traditional marriage,
2. To promote the optimal environment for raising children,
3. To promote procreation,
4. To promote stability in opposite-sex relationships and
5. To conserve state resources such as tax breaks.
Let me go through them one by one.
"To maintain traditional marriage" is a religiously based argument. Maintaining religious traditions is not at all the role of the government. Maintaining the religious traditions of some, even if the large majority, of religious traditions is even less so its role.
"To promote the optimal environment for raising children" is questionable. With exceedingly high divorce rates and more than a few children living in "traditional" homes being abused, one can hardly make a blanket statement that children are always better off in the home created through a heterosexual marriage. One can argue whether or not the statement that a random heterosexual marriage is the "optimal environment" at all. The optimal environment in which to raise children is one in which there is a stable loving relationship between parents and their children.
"To promote procreation" is no longer true. It certainly was at one point in time. Lesbian couples often have children through artificial insemination and same sex couples of both sexes can adopt children. Additionally, many bisexuals bring children from heterosexual relationships into same sex households after a divorce. What our society sorely lacks is not the production of children, but good homes with loving and capable parents in which they might be raised.
"To promote stability in opposite-sex relationships." I do not even understand what this means. Is the argument that the existence of same sex marriages somehow threatens heterosexual relationships? Why? Because one partner is really a homosexual and might prefer to be in a same sex relationship? This is an exceedingly weak argument.
"To conserve state resources such as tax breaks" makes a lot of sense to me. This is exactly the argument that the state should make. The problem is that it should not be offering tax breaks for reasons based in religion. The legitimate reason that there is a marriage tax break is that couples share expenses and property. This is equally true of same sex couples. The real fear is that same sex couples who are platonic will be able to file for these tax breaks. Regardless of the extent of this occurrence, however, this is something easily dealt with by the legislature as it sets taxation rates.
With our society changing and especially with people living much longer lives, one can easily envision friends of the same sex living together and looking after one another long after their spouses have died, perhaps longer than a decade or even two decades. Why should they not be able to receive a tax break? We should have civil unions based upon arrangements of shared expenses and property as opposed to having the government only recognize familial based relationships to begin with.
Nothing at all says that religious institutions that oppose same sex marriage will now be forced to practice it. Nothing says that religious institutions in Iowa must stop preaching what they believe about the necessity of heterosexual marriage. Today’s court ruling did not change any of those rights. Religious education is not the obligation of the government, much less enforcement of it. Those responsibilities rest with parents and religious institutions. Let us not pretend that we can pass off our responsibilities as parents to the government.
As a Reform Jew, I believe that God created all of us the way that we are and that homosexuality is not a choice, but a biological reality. It is gratifying to me to know that our state will allow those who, in loving relationships, have chosen to devote themselves to one another exclusively in a manner binding them not only emotionally and spiritually, but legally as well.
In a society in which the fabric of family life is eroding, with ever increasing divorce rates, Iowa has now taken a step toward strengthening the family unit.
For those interested, I both support Civil Marriage and have performed a same sex commitment ceremony. My requirements for so doing are EXACTLY the same as for a non-homosexual couple. Someone has to be Jewish and the couple must either be prepared to raise the children that they may have as Jews or have discussed it and not decided.
I do not act as "Justice of the Peace" in a secular capacity. When I do weddings of any kind, I represent the Reform Jewish tradition in general and my beliefs as a Reform Jewish Rabbi in particular. I am there as a Rabbi, not as Justice of the Peace.
-David
Shalom All,
I would like to comment on the arguments made in opposition to same-sex marriages in Iowa and in so doing will explain my views. As you likely know, I am an advocate for marriage equality and more specifically for the government to get out of the marriage business altogether. The only role for the government should be in creating civil unions or civil partnerships in which people who live together and/or share expenses and property in a significant way are allowed to pay taxes together, share benefits, and dispose of jointly owned property. The government has no business enforcing religious views.
“The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it!” is NOT a legal argument. Some of us, who know the first part, disagree with the latter two parts of that statement.
The arguments presented by Polk County lawyers as the rationales for banning same-sex marriages follow.
They argued that a ban was needed:
1. To maintain traditional marriage,
2. To promote the optimal environment for raising children,
3. To promote procreation,
4. To promote stability in opposite-sex relationships and
5. To conserve state resources such as tax breaks.
Let me go through them one by one.
"To maintain traditional marriage" is a religiously based argument. Maintaining religious traditions is not at all the role of the government. Maintaining the religious traditions of some, even if the large majority, of religious traditions is even less so its role.
"To promote the optimal environment for raising children" is questionable. With exceedingly high divorce rates and more than a few children living in "traditional" homes being abused, one can hardly make a blanket statement that children are always better off in the home created through a heterosexual marriage. One can argue whether or not the statement that a random heterosexual marriage is the "optimal environment" at all. The optimal environment in which to raise children is one in which there is a stable loving relationship between parents and their children.
"To promote procreation" is no longer true. It certainly was at one point in time. Lesbian couples often have children through artificial insemination and same sex couples of both sexes can adopt children. Additionally, many bisexuals bring children from heterosexual relationships into same sex households after a divorce. What our society sorely lacks is not the production of children, but good homes with loving and capable parents in which they might be raised.
"To promote stability in opposite-sex relationships." I do not even understand what this means. Is the argument that the existence of same sex marriages somehow threatens heterosexual relationships? Why? Because one partner is really a homosexual and might prefer to be in a same sex relationship? This is an exceedingly weak argument.
"To conserve state resources such as tax breaks" makes a lot of sense to me. This is exactly the argument that the state should make. The problem is that it should not be offering tax breaks for reasons based in religion. The legitimate reason that there is a marriage tax break is that couples share expenses and property. This is equally true of same sex couples. The real fear is that same sex couples who are platonic will be able to file for these tax breaks. Regardless of the extent of this occurrence, however, this is something easily dealt with by the legislature as it sets taxation rates.
With our society changing and especially with people living much longer lives, one can easily envision friends of the same sex living together and looking after one another long after their spouses have died, perhaps longer than a decade or even two decades. Why should they not be able to receive a tax break? We should have civil unions based upon arrangements of shared expenses and property as opposed to having the government only recognize familial based relationships to begin with.
Nothing at all says that religious institutions that oppose same sex marriage will now be forced to practice it. Nothing says that religious institutions in Iowa must stop preaching what they believe about the necessity of heterosexual marriage. Today’s court ruling did not change any of those rights. Religious education is not the obligation of the government, much less enforcement of it. Those responsibilities rest with parents and religious institutions. Let us not pretend that we can pass off our responsibilities as parents to the government.
As a Reform Jew, I believe that God created all of us the way that we are and that homosexuality is not a choice, but a biological reality. It is gratifying to me to know that our state will allow those who, in loving relationships, have chosen to devote themselves to one another exclusively in a manner binding them not only emotionally and spiritually, but legally as well.
In a society in which the fabric of family life is eroding, with ever increasing divorce rates, Iowa has now taken a step toward strengthening the family unit.
For those interested, I both support Civil Marriage and have performed a same sex commitment ceremony. My requirements for so doing are EXACTLY the same as for a non-homosexual couple. Someone has to be Jewish and the couple must either be prepared to raise the children that they may have as Jews or have discussed it and not decided.
I do not act as "Justice of the Peace" in a secular capacity. When I do weddings of any kind, I represent the Reform Jewish tradition in general and my beliefs as a Reform Jewish Rabbi in particular. I am there as a Rabbi, not as Justice of the Peace.
-David
Friday, March 20, 2009
A Dvar Torah on the Amidah
From a Traditional perspective, when we recite the Amidah prayer, we remind God of the merits of our ancestors and the blessings that they earned for us. This is the essence of Avot v’Imohot prayer. We do not pretend that we have earned God’s blessings ourselves, but that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Leah and Rachel earned them for us. We present ourselves humbly before God and hope that by mentioning them God will apply the blessings that our ancestors earned to us.
Then having reminded God of those blessings that they earned, we remind God of the form that those blessings may take. God grants life, including prominently in the Traditional blessing, eternal life in the form of resurrection at the time of the coming of the messiah. God lifts the fallen, heals the sick, and feeds the hungry. In essence, we hope that our prayers will remind God to do those things.
My professor at Hebrew Union College, Rabbi Moshe Ziberstein called this audacious covenant theology. It is as if we said, “God, remember our ancestors whose descendants you promised to bless and agreed to do so through covenants? Here we are! Bless us!”
As I have taught many times in the past, as modern Jews we believe that when we talk about God lifting the fallen or feeding the hungry, when we talk about these things, it is we who do them. God acts through us.
Looking at the Amidah from this perspective, when we recite Avot v’Imahot, while we may be remembering our distant ancestors, the Patriarchs and Matriarchs of our people, we also remember the Patriarchs and Matriarchs of our families. We should remind ourselves about all that we owe to those who came before us, those who suffered through times of trial and tribulation, those who ventured forth from places known to unknown, who came upon these shores often with little more than what they could carry, so that their descendants, us, could live in freedom and prosperity.
While Traditionally, we remind God of the blessings that they earned for us. In essence, we remind ourselves of the responsibility we have to their memory and the responsibility that we have to others. Because of them, because of those who came before us, the fallen have been lifted, the captives freed. Our people, suffering persecution and subjugation were often impoverished. They lifted themselves up, fought against grave odds, and granted us the blessing of living in this country, in freedom.
While Traditionally, we pray that God owes US for the merits of our ancestors, in essence we pray that we may have the strength do what we owe THEM, to work for the betterment of others, to improve the lives of those who come after us.
-D
Then having reminded God of those blessings that they earned, we remind God of the form that those blessings may take. God grants life, including prominently in the Traditional blessing, eternal life in the form of resurrection at the time of the coming of the messiah. God lifts the fallen, heals the sick, and feeds the hungry. In essence, we hope that our prayers will remind God to do those things.
My professor at Hebrew Union College, Rabbi Moshe Ziberstein called this audacious covenant theology. It is as if we said, “God, remember our ancestors whose descendants you promised to bless and agreed to do so through covenants? Here we are! Bless us!”
As I have taught many times in the past, as modern Jews we believe that when we talk about God lifting the fallen or feeding the hungry, when we talk about these things, it is we who do them. God acts through us.
Looking at the Amidah from this perspective, when we recite Avot v’Imahot, while we may be remembering our distant ancestors, the Patriarchs and Matriarchs of our people, we also remember the Patriarchs and Matriarchs of our families. We should remind ourselves about all that we owe to those who came before us, those who suffered through times of trial and tribulation, those who ventured forth from places known to unknown, who came upon these shores often with little more than what they could carry, so that their descendants, us, could live in freedom and prosperity.
While Traditionally, we remind God of the blessings that they earned for us. In essence, we remind ourselves of the responsibility we have to their memory and the responsibility that we have to others. Because of them, because of those who came before us, the fallen have been lifted, the captives freed. Our people, suffering persecution and subjugation were often impoverished. They lifted themselves up, fought against grave odds, and granted us the blessing of living in this country, in freedom.
While Traditionally, we pray that God owes US for the merits of our ancestors, in essence we pray that we may have the strength do what we owe THEM, to work for the betterment of others, to improve the lives of those who come after us.
-D
Friday, February 20, 2009
Sermon for Jewish Disabilities Month 2009
Sermon for Jewish Disability Awareness Month
Rabbi David Kaufman
February 20, 2009
Tamara Green entered the world of chronic illness and disability, unexpectedly, one morning over 40 years ago. "I woke up feeling like I'd been pushed down a flight of stairs," she says. "Every part of me was charley-horsed. I was nauseous."
Years of misdiagnoses of her severe disease of the connective tissue were followed by decades of treatment (drugs, crutches, feeding tubes, physical therapy). Now a professor of classics at Hunter College, she is a founder of the Jewish Healing Institute.
Tamara Green wrote a little over a decade ago that:
For nearly thirty years I have lived with a debilitating chronic illness, sometimes with detachment, sometimes with an amorphous sense of unease, and sometimes with a great deal of rage. It is not immediately life-threatening, although there have been moments when it has been, but it is life-encompassing; and one of the most painful lessons I have learned from this illness is that what is most difficult to come to terms with is not the possibility of dying from it, but living with it.
According to the National Organization on Disability, 54,000,000 Americans have a significant disability. The logo for accessibility that you see on signs around the country depicts an individual in a wheelchair, yet only 1.4 million of that 54 million use wheelchairs or scooters. Nearly 26 million have hearing impairments and others have needs that may not be easy to spot or even to describe. The 54 million Americans with disabilities constitute one in six Americans.
They are not “the other.” They are US. Most of us here tonight will fall into the category of “people with disabilities” at some point in our lives. We will wake up in the morning one day and realize that we too have to come to terms with “living with it.”
This year, for the first time, many in the American Jewish community recognize February as Jewish Disability Awareness Month. While many Washington D.C. area synagogues have observed this event for the past eight years, this year is the first time the event is being recognized on a national level.
Jews around the United States are looking for new ways of inclusion and welcoming for those with special needs already inside of—or perhaps excluded from—our communities.
A friend of mine from rabbinical school, Rabbi Heidi Cohen of Temple Beth Sholom in Santa Ana, California wrote in a sermon about welcoming in her congregation that:
Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5 teaches that "A human being mints many coins from the same mold, and they are all identical. But the Holy One, Blessed be God, strikes us all from the mold of the first human, and each one of us is unique." Each of us is a bearer of the Divine image although we come in an infinite variety of sizes, shapes, abilities, and disabilities. Therefore, each of us must be treated with kavod, with respect.
The Jewish Tradition offers some thoughts and advice about how to go about doing that. Let me begin with the most well known, yet perhaps most difficult of all to accomplish.
In Leviticus 19:14, we find “You shall not insult the deaf, or place a stumbling block before the blind.” It seems easy enough to do. We tend to look at this verse, particularly the second part as if all we have to do is not go out of our way to make things difficult. Yet what is the verse really telling us?
This is a directive that is literally applicable on a playground. Children often treat those who are different in not-so-nice ways. They may well tease someone who is deaf by talking behind their back, by ridiculing and then acting as if nothing happened. They could well find it amusing when someone blind would be made to trip. One can envision these things. We may even remember seeing similar behavior on the playgrounds of our youth.
Adults certainly could do these things as well, but generally learn over time that we ourselves come to be treated in the way that we treat others. In fact, one of the best measures of what kind of person we are is the way in which we treat those with less power than we have. We learn not to commit overt acts that result in ridicule of others, at least those who are innocent and do not deserve it.
Those who are more worldly come to realize that, as it is said in the Talmud, K’dushim 70a, “When a person insults someone else it is his own defect that he is revealing.” And those who a bit more life experience come to agree with the words of Ben Azzai in Pirkei Avot 4:3:
Do not disdain any person; Do not underrate the importance of anything—For there is no person who does not have his hour, and there is nothing without its place in the sun.
Our Tradition teaches us that people who are disabled can do wonderful things, not only for themselves, but for our people. Someone who is impaired of speech can even speak as God’s own mouthpiece.
And Moses said unto Adonai: “Adonai, I am not a man of words, either in the past, nor now, since you have spoken unto Your servant; for I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.’ (Exodus 4:10)
Our Tradition teaches us that Moses was not the swiftest of learners either.
In commentary to the Talmud Yerushalmi, Masechta Horayot, the following Gemara appears (Horayot 3:5):
Rav Yochanan said: ‘During the entire forty days and nights that Moshe Rabbeinu spent on Har Sinai, he kept learning the Torah and forgetting it. Finally, it was given to him as a gift. Why did this happen? To provide an answer, a motivation, for the slow learners. The P’nai Moshe explains: “Why,” the Gemara asks, “was the Torah not given to Moshe as a gift at the outset?” To provide an answer for the slow learners who forget whatever they learn. When they ask, “Why should we labor for no purpose?” the answer will be from Moshe himself, who learned and reviewed even though it was all forgotten, until finally it was given to him as a complete gift.
Our Tradition speaks of the deaf, the blind, those with speech impediments, those with learning disabilities and in every instance we are encouraged to help the person with the disability to overcome it.
We read in Deuteronomy, “If there be among you a needy person, you shall not harden thy heart, but shall surely open your hand.” It is a statement about giving to the poor, but just as certainly it is a statement about reaching out to lend a hand. It is a statement about our need not just to avoid placing stumbling blocks, but to look ahead and make sure that stumbling blocks are not already there. We need to actively help, not merely to avoid causing problems.
Yet, too often we do place stumbling blocks and put forth insults because we are not conscious of the needs of those around us. We simply are unaware that we offend, cause discomfort, or even harm. Our access doors and aisles are not wide enough, our thresholds too high. Our ramps too steep or too narrow. Our texts too small. Our amplification too low. Our patience too short.
As a congregation, we have tried in recent years to be more accommodating, but our building is hardly completely accessible. Staff offices and meeting rooms are on different levels without an elevator and the most easily accessible doors are not opened by our buzzer, but require someone to physically unlock them.
That said, we have also removed pews in our sanctuary to make it easier for those in wheel chairs to be seated comfortably and we have a ramp that allows those in wheel chairs to access the bimah that we bring out whenever it is needed. We have also worked on improving our sound system so that everyone can hear clearly.
We have tried and we continue to try to make the Temple a welcoming place for everyone who wishes to be in our midst.
When her Jeep wrapped around a tree off an icy road a decade ago, Rabbi Lynne Landsberg's world was shattered. The 30th woman ordained by Hebrew Union College, Rabbi Lansberg was the Mid-Atlantic Regional Director for the Union of American Hebrew Congregations at the time of her accident. The accident left her in an almost six-week coma that turned into a prolonged, but dramatic recovery.
Now Senior Advisor and Activist for People with Disabilities at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Rabbi Lansberg came to the L’taken Seminar that we attended three weeks ago and spoke with us about her life and the lives of Americans with disabilities. She told us about her brain-injury and her now decade long struggle for independence. The students and their chaperones were spellbound by her strength, her spirit, and her zeal for life as she uttered words that she has spoken to many an audience over the past few years:
"Before my injury, I belonged to one minority that was cohesive, strong and articulate—the American Jewish community. Now I belong to a second minority that is often unseen and unheard—persons with disabilities."
We read in this week’s Torah portion, “You shall not oppress the stranger, the one who is different, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.”
This month and going forward, let us SEE and let us HEAR the needs of those with disabilities. Let us pay attention. Let us reach out our hands. Let us speak up and let us speak out.
After Moses questioned God about his difficulties with speech, God responded.
“And God said to Moses: Who gives man speech? Who makes him mute or deaf, seeing or blind?” (Exodus 4:11)
The answer in the Book of Exodus is God. Yet my friends, WE are God’s instruments. Let us do our best to help improve the lives of all of those affected by disabilities.
Kein yehi ratson! May it be God’s will!
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi David Kaufman
February 20, 2009
Tamara Green entered the world of chronic illness and disability, unexpectedly, one morning over 40 years ago. "I woke up feeling like I'd been pushed down a flight of stairs," she says. "Every part of me was charley-horsed. I was nauseous."
Years of misdiagnoses of her severe disease of the connective tissue were followed by decades of treatment (drugs, crutches, feeding tubes, physical therapy). Now a professor of classics at Hunter College, she is a founder of the Jewish Healing Institute.
Tamara Green wrote a little over a decade ago that:
For nearly thirty years I have lived with a debilitating chronic illness, sometimes with detachment, sometimes with an amorphous sense of unease, and sometimes with a great deal of rage. It is not immediately life-threatening, although there have been moments when it has been, but it is life-encompassing; and one of the most painful lessons I have learned from this illness is that what is most difficult to come to terms with is not the possibility of dying from it, but living with it.
According to the National Organization on Disability, 54,000,000 Americans have a significant disability. The logo for accessibility that you see on signs around the country depicts an individual in a wheelchair, yet only 1.4 million of that 54 million use wheelchairs or scooters. Nearly 26 million have hearing impairments and others have needs that may not be easy to spot or even to describe. The 54 million Americans with disabilities constitute one in six Americans.
They are not “the other.” They are US. Most of us here tonight will fall into the category of “people with disabilities” at some point in our lives. We will wake up in the morning one day and realize that we too have to come to terms with “living with it.”
This year, for the first time, many in the American Jewish community recognize February as Jewish Disability Awareness Month. While many Washington D.C. area synagogues have observed this event for the past eight years, this year is the first time the event is being recognized on a national level.
Jews around the United States are looking for new ways of inclusion and welcoming for those with special needs already inside of—or perhaps excluded from—our communities.
A friend of mine from rabbinical school, Rabbi Heidi Cohen of Temple Beth Sholom in Santa Ana, California wrote in a sermon about welcoming in her congregation that:
Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5 teaches that "A human being mints many coins from the same mold, and they are all identical. But the Holy One, Blessed be God, strikes us all from the mold of the first human, and each one of us is unique." Each of us is a bearer of the Divine image although we come in an infinite variety of sizes, shapes, abilities, and disabilities. Therefore, each of us must be treated with kavod, with respect.
The Jewish Tradition offers some thoughts and advice about how to go about doing that. Let me begin with the most well known, yet perhaps most difficult of all to accomplish.
In Leviticus 19:14, we find “You shall not insult the deaf, or place a stumbling block before the blind.” It seems easy enough to do. We tend to look at this verse, particularly the second part as if all we have to do is not go out of our way to make things difficult. Yet what is the verse really telling us?
This is a directive that is literally applicable on a playground. Children often treat those who are different in not-so-nice ways. They may well tease someone who is deaf by talking behind their back, by ridiculing and then acting as if nothing happened. They could well find it amusing when someone blind would be made to trip. One can envision these things. We may even remember seeing similar behavior on the playgrounds of our youth.
Adults certainly could do these things as well, but generally learn over time that we ourselves come to be treated in the way that we treat others. In fact, one of the best measures of what kind of person we are is the way in which we treat those with less power than we have. We learn not to commit overt acts that result in ridicule of others, at least those who are innocent and do not deserve it.
Those who are more worldly come to realize that, as it is said in the Talmud, K’dushim 70a, “When a person insults someone else it is his own defect that he is revealing.” And those who a bit more life experience come to agree with the words of Ben Azzai in Pirkei Avot 4:3:
Do not disdain any person; Do not underrate the importance of anything—For there is no person who does not have his hour, and there is nothing without its place in the sun.
Our Tradition teaches us that people who are disabled can do wonderful things, not only for themselves, but for our people. Someone who is impaired of speech can even speak as God’s own mouthpiece.
And Moses said unto Adonai: “Adonai, I am not a man of words, either in the past, nor now, since you have spoken unto Your servant; for I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.’ (Exodus 4:10)
Our Tradition teaches us that Moses was not the swiftest of learners either.
In commentary to the Talmud Yerushalmi, Masechta Horayot, the following Gemara appears (Horayot 3:5):
Rav Yochanan said: ‘During the entire forty days and nights that Moshe Rabbeinu spent on Har Sinai, he kept learning the Torah and forgetting it. Finally, it was given to him as a gift. Why did this happen? To provide an answer, a motivation, for the slow learners. The P’nai Moshe explains: “Why,” the Gemara asks, “was the Torah not given to Moshe as a gift at the outset?” To provide an answer for the slow learners who forget whatever they learn. When they ask, “Why should we labor for no purpose?” the answer will be from Moshe himself, who learned and reviewed even though it was all forgotten, until finally it was given to him as a complete gift.
Our Tradition speaks of the deaf, the blind, those with speech impediments, those with learning disabilities and in every instance we are encouraged to help the person with the disability to overcome it.
We read in Deuteronomy, “If there be among you a needy person, you shall not harden thy heart, but shall surely open your hand.” It is a statement about giving to the poor, but just as certainly it is a statement about reaching out to lend a hand. It is a statement about our need not just to avoid placing stumbling blocks, but to look ahead and make sure that stumbling blocks are not already there. We need to actively help, not merely to avoid causing problems.
Yet, too often we do place stumbling blocks and put forth insults because we are not conscious of the needs of those around us. We simply are unaware that we offend, cause discomfort, or even harm. Our access doors and aisles are not wide enough, our thresholds too high. Our ramps too steep or too narrow. Our texts too small. Our amplification too low. Our patience too short.
As a congregation, we have tried in recent years to be more accommodating, but our building is hardly completely accessible. Staff offices and meeting rooms are on different levels without an elevator and the most easily accessible doors are not opened by our buzzer, but require someone to physically unlock them.
That said, we have also removed pews in our sanctuary to make it easier for those in wheel chairs to be seated comfortably and we have a ramp that allows those in wheel chairs to access the bimah that we bring out whenever it is needed. We have also worked on improving our sound system so that everyone can hear clearly.
We have tried and we continue to try to make the Temple a welcoming place for everyone who wishes to be in our midst.
When her Jeep wrapped around a tree off an icy road a decade ago, Rabbi Lynne Landsberg's world was shattered. The 30th woman ordained by Hebrew Union College, Rabbi Lansberg was the Mid-Atlantic Regional Director for the Union of American Hebrew Congregations at the time of her accident. The accident left her in an almost six-week coma that turned into a prolonged, but dramatic recovery.
Now Senior Advisor and Activist for People with Disabilities at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Rabbi Lansberg came to the L’taken Seminar that we attended three weeks ago and spoke with us about her life and the lives of Americans with disabilities. She told us about her brain-injury and her now decade long struggle for independence. The students and their chaperones were spellbound by her strength, her spirit, and her zeal for life as she uttered words that she has spoken to many an audience over the past few years:
"Before my injury, I belonged to one minority that was cohesive, strong and articulate—the American Jewish community. Now I belong to a second minority that is often unseen and unheard—persons with disabilities."
We read in this week’s Torah portion, “You shall not oppress the stranger, the one who is different, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.”
This month and going forward, let us SEE and let us HEAR the needs of those with disabilities. Let us pay attention. Let us reach out our hands. Let us speak up and let us speak out.
After Moses questioned God about his difficulties with speech, God responded.
“And God said to Moses: Who gives man speech? Who makes him mute or deaf, seeing or blind?” (Exodus 4:11)
The answer in the Book of Exodus is God. Yet my friends, WE are God’s instruments. Let us do our best to help improve the lives of all of those affected by disabilities.
Kein yehi ratson! May it be God’s will!
Shabbat Shalom
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