You know this story? Back in Eastern Europe, sometime during the nineteenth century, there was a small village that had a Police Chief who found great pleasure in persecuting the Jews who lived there. One morning, the Police Chief encountered the village rabbi, who was carrying his tallit. It was, of course, obvious that the rabbi was on his way to the synagogue, but the Police Chief, to annoy him, asked, “Where are you going, rabbi?” “I don’t know,” came the reply. The Police Chief, angered by the rabbi’s insolence, shouted, “It is perfectly clear that you are going to your morning prayer service at the synagogue! So why don’t you admit it?” And he gave orders for the rabbi to be arrested. “You see,” said the rabbi to the Police Chief, “I did tell the truth. Was I quite certain where I was going? I had certainly intended to go to the synagogue, but now I find myself in prison. So I never really know where my journey is taking me.”

It being the week before New Year’s, and its attendant resolution-making, I’ve been wondering: What would you do if you were truly free to do whatever you want? If there were no constraints and the possibilities were unlimited, where would you go, who would you look up, what would you do, what mark would you leave?

I thought it might be fun (or depressing, I suppose) to think about our undone work, and to ponder what we might be able to actually get done in the year ahead. And to maybe articulate some of the things we likely won’t get done but wish we could just the same. Some may think this exercise a waste of time, but I believe it’s helpful to orient our souls and, at the very least, point them in the direction we wish we were going just in case the opportunity arises to move even a tiny bit in that direction.

A cursory look online reveals that a lot of people write lists of hoped-for accomplishments. Some do it for themselves; many do so to teach others (or to get you to buy whatever life-improvement product they’re peddling). I looked over some of these lists and pulled out some that I thought were worth mentioning here.

One guy listed his top one hundred life goals. They included everything from owning a yacht and a Tesla, to doing a lot of reading and exploring the ocean floor. Near the top of his list, I’m pleased to report, are finding love, building a family, and helping others.

On another list, it wasn’t until item 50 that there was even mention of another human being. It wasn’t until item 73 that this person wanted to do anything for a family member. And in the entire list of 130 goals, not once did the writer express interest in improving another person’s life without seeking something in return (ie, giving away a product in exchange for some good PR). I don’t know when this list got started, but it’s been updated annually since 2006. In 2019, there’s finally mention of helping others in ways that don’t bring more professional success. Excellent – finally growing up.

I remember making lists of my own in college, of where I wanted my life to take me. I wish I’d saved them because life has taken so many interesting turns before settling into a rabbinic career.

I did save a list I made back in 1989. I was two years a rabbi and had moved with Ellen and Katie to Cleveland. It was a huge congregation – some 2300 families – and I think I feared I’d be swallowed alive by them. So I was trying to articulate what life I wanted to live rather than simply get pulled into the vortex of the lives of the eight thousand souls who belonged there.

Top of the list? “Be a mentsch, to yourself and to others.” Nice start, eh? That wasn’t easy to achieve, by the way. I was so busy there, I felt like I didn’t have time to breathe. I remember marching into my senior rabbi’s office one morning and telling him, “I just walked the length of this building (it was a big place) and didn’t have time to say hello to anyone I saw along the way. I don’t ever want to be so busy to think that’s somehow acceptable behavior.” So I could articulate my goals; I’m just not sure I could live by them.

The next five items on my 1989 list were in a similar vein. “Be ethical. Maintain your integrity. Be honest. Be fair. Be a person of your word. Be free of hypocrisy. Work to change the world, to better it.” And then my favorite: “Remember: you are a child of the 60’s — act on your idealism, and take others with you.”

Item #7 finally got around to the most important people in my life: “Spend more than enough time with your family.” I was never really expert at that. Although, as far as clergy go, I might have done pretty well. But I was always leaving them, always going to be with someone else’s family. And while that fit items one through six, number seven has always seemed to come up short.

What’s on your list?

One article I found online, written by a psychologist rather than a business professional, suggested that life-goals are important because they provide focus and bolster self-esteem. I do, in fact, remember those college lists, not only how excited I was to pursue what was written there, but how enthused and empowered I felt in doing so. Yes, the list might change, but I had every confidence my life was going forward in positive, rewarding directions.

Which brings me to 2019. What dreams do you have for the coming year? Many if not most of us have recently experienced national and world turmoil we’ve not seen before. Any lists we make this year – in addition to goals for personal well-being and family wholeness – must inevitably include a powerful longing for political turns that will bring restful nights to so many groups currently under fire: immigrants, Muslims, women, the LGBTQ community, our own Jewish community, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Israel and so many, many more.

There’s a lot to wish for. A lot to work for.

In this week’s Torah parashah, Shemot, which begins the Book of Exodus, our ancestors who had gone down to Egypt fleeing famine found themselves in the grips of new political leadership “asher lo yada et Yosef … who did not know Joseph.” The 16th century Italian commentator Ovadiah ben Yaakov Sforno noted that all of the Israelites’ previous accomplishments benefiting Egypt could not save them from becoming enslaved. Today, we cannot help but wonder with concern what the future will bring for us here in America, for all who have relied upon enshrined American values that, for more than 200 years, have protected the rights of minorities and provided every opportunity for us and them to thrive.

My favorite list!

I do not despair. Not yet anyway. I believe the Constitution will hold. I believe goodness will yet win out. I believe that if we make our lists, if we resolve to engage and to fight to preserve the soul of this great nation, all will come out right in the end. This is not ancient Egypt. This is not Nazi Germany. You may think me naive but on my updated list will be continuing outreach to minorities, continuing efforts to secure their rights so that ours will be secure as well. And I urge each of you to do the same.

I don’t believe we need be fearful, but I do believe we need to get involved and stay involved. Choose your issue, put it at or near the top of your list, and make sure you’ve done something each week to help. Donate to support legislative advocacy, show up for marches, contact your elected representative, volunteer to help. And do what you can to assist those who are now struggling to find safety and security. Let them know, firsthand and in-person if at all possible, that you’re one of the good guys.

The story of Israel’s enslavement in Egypt jumps from them being free to them being oppressed. It probably didn’t happen that way. It takes time for rights to be destroyed. It takes public approval or, at the very least, public apathy for these things to happen. We mustn’t allow that to happen here. While we are free, we must work to remain free, to help others remain free. Thus far, America’s institutions still retain the possibility for achieving that. As proud Americans, we simply must do what we can to keep American institutions strong.

Abraham ibn Ezra, who lived and taught in 12th century Spain, identified one passage in the Torah as the number one ingredient to purposeful and worthwhile living. From Exodus 23:25, “Va’avad’tem et Adonai Elohekha … you shall serve Adonai your God.” For some, this works. Do God’s will and all will be well. For others, it works to view this figuratively: think, identify life’s highest goals, and pursue them with vigor, with passion, with a sense that everything depends on this. Because these days, it just might.

Once upon time, an anonymous rabbi was walking in the woods behind the dog park with his best pal, Charlie. He was soon joined by a man who lived nearby but who was born and raised in Ireland. The man was planning to go back and visit his brothers, two of a total of seven, who still live in Cork. But he couldn’t decide which brother to stay with. The very wise rabbi suggested he stay with whichever one will be less bothered by his choice. The man said that neither brother would be happy. The exceedingly wise rabbi suggested he invite both brothers to come stay with him. The man said that would never work. The increasingly impatient rabbi asked why. The man said, “Because my brothers haven’t spoken to each other in years.” The rabbi thought, “This is why I like dogs – they may never speak but they never stop loving either.”

We have so much to learn, don’t we? It’s a new year. May 2019 be one in which the lists we make include the value of letting go of petty disappointments, and of embracing the larger and more important connections in our lives life … between brothers, between neighbors, between everybody.

Happy new year. Shabbat shalom.

Billy

Four weeks ago, 39 members of our temple registered to travel to Atlanta, Birmingham, Montgomery and Selma. Our objective was to retrace the steps of America’s Civil Rights Movement and ask ourselves, as Jews and as human beings, what those moments in American history teache us and what they challenge us to do with our own lives in the months and years ahead.

Of the 39, however, only 16 of us actually got there. We had traveled (or tried to, anyway) the day of a big snowstorm that shut down most of our roads and airports here in New York. And since I’d told everyone to travel on their own, that we’d meet up at 9:00 pm that evening at Baggage Claim in the Atlanta airport, some of us got there and, sigh, some of us didn’t.

It is truly a bizarre notion that any of us should think our experience stranded in the Westchester Airport could come anywhere close to having as much meaning and significance as our compadres who spent their weekend down south. But what can I say? We were moderately stunned and utterly delighted by what transpired in all those hours waiting for a plane that never appeared.

We were having such a good time not flying to Atlanta (which, you should understand, was not simply about being grounded but about enduring a dozen or so 45-minute delays in our flight, kind of like slowly boiling a frog). Anyway, we were having such a good time with each other – talking, snacking, musing at the odds of our actually getting where we were going – that some people nearby asked if we were having a family reunion. When they were informed we were a synagogue, they responded that their synagogue isn’t nearly as much fun. I made a bee-line over to them and for the next half-hour regaled them with my best recruitment strategies.

But here’s the thing. It wasn’t just us. Everybody was calm and relaxed. We were all just waiting, perhaps grateful that during all of the truly miserable weather we were in the airport and not out in traffic trying to get to the airport. At any rate, something very special happened in that terminal, and it became a metaphor for a very similar “something” we wish we could see happen across our nation.

Twice this week, someone has said to me, “You see the way people are behaving? That doesn’t have to happen. Something’s definitely taken hold of our country. Suddenly, it’s more acceptable to behave like that.” In the one case, it was a comment on the rise of bigoted speech and hateful acts toward people of color. In the other, it was how men treat women. Because the leader of this country behaves in such an immature, selfish, and abusive manner, his actions are being seen as granting permission to do the same elsewhere.

Which is exactly the opposite of what we were supposed to have learned from the Civil Rights Movement. So much blood was shed, so many good lives ruined, because people thought it was acceptable to treat people this way. It took decades and decades but finally, laws were passed, and standards of human behavior were imposed upon even the basest of our citizens, and life got better everywhere.

It’s not that the problems ended, but we made a lot of good progress. More was needed. God knows, far too many white people find it acceptable to treat those of color disrespectfully. Far too many straight people object to providing equal treatment under American law to lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transvestites, those who are questioning their gender or the sexual identity, and more. Far too many men find it acceptable to mistreat women.

At our borders, America’s persistent racism and xenophobia not only block the way for those who are seeking a better life for themselves and those they love, but we are actively mistreating them, taking children away from parents, turning people away without the due process that even non-citizens are promised in our Constitution, and generally expressing the unfounded, distasteful assertion that America is better off without immigrants.

Finally, or at least for the purposes of tonight, there is the issue of voting rights. This primary and most important expression of citizenship is being hindered by those who seek, under the guise of protecting the integrity of America’s election process, to suppress the ability of the working middle class and of minority communities to either qualify to vote or to be able to get to the polls during working hours.

The current administration, in the White House and in Congress, have amply demonstrated that the Civil Rights Movement is nowhere near conclusion. Like becoming B’nai Mitzvah, in which no 13-year old has actually reached adulthood but we celebrate that their journey toward adulthood has just begun, we should take pride in the advances our country made with the passage of the Voting Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 and other laws that help end discrimination, but we must understand that the journey has only just begun.

This morning, with a lively group of students over at the Shames JCC, I rehashed the Brett Kavanaugh Senate confirmation hearings. Someone asked what good it does, two months later, to look at any of these materials. My response was that I doubt any of us would have any impact on the aftermath of those hearings, except that (and this is important) we might go home and not only live lives of more determined commitment to fairness and truth, but we might teach a bit more of that to our children and grandchildren, and we might share these ideas, or simply model them, in our interactions with our community. In that respect, our learning is not only worthwhile, it’s vital to the increasing well-being of our nation.

Back on our (alleged!) Civil Rights Journey, at Friday around noon, when the airline finally committed to canceling our flight, we slowly made our way to the exit doors, weaving our way through the many individuals and groups still hoping that their wait would result in getting someplace else that wasn’t where they’d just been. I needed to break through a row of passengers who were hoping that the line in which they were standing would actually lead to a seat on an airplane, and I asked one woman to allow me through, explaining to her, “I’m trying to get home.” And for the first in nearly twenty-four hours, the response was impatient, nasty and devoid of sympathy as she hissed, “We’re all trying to get home!”

And with that, I remembered the real world, one that disappoints with all-too-customary regularity but that often pleasantly surprises us with the large number of good, fair, understanding men and women who won’t ever give up on efforts to create and maintain civilized communities for everyone.

This week, commenting on Vayeshev (Genesis 37:1–40:23), my beloved teacher Rabbi Larry Hoffman wrote about a particularly favorable view of Jacob’s seemingly preferential treatment of his son Joseph. The preference, rather than the usual (!) gift of a technicolor dreamcoat, involved Jacob’s teaching his son the wisdom of our Jewish tradition. According to 13th century Spanish commentator Jacob ben Asher, Joseph was instructed by his father in five of the six sections of Mishna, our earliest Torah commentary. “But why only five,” Rabbi Hoffman asks. “Because purity (the topic of the sixth tractate) cannot be learned through classroom study; it comes from within and requires lifelong practice.” [“A Nuanced Approach To Conversion,” The Jewish Week, Nov 30, 2018]

Purity, he says, is “the effort to lead a stainless existence.” A wholesome existence, one devoted to goodness and to love. And for that, one must see such values in action.

America is a bold experiment in “purity,” in building a world based on mutual understanding and respect, and the right to live freely without fear of restrictive government. At its best, America has fostered community after community where people of differing backgrounds can live together in security and peace. At its worst, that definition of community has been reserved only for some and has excluded others.

Each time that members of our synagogue — whether teen or adult — participate in the Civil Rights Journey, we retrace the steps of America’s struggle to build such communities, and strengthen (we hope) our shared passion for, and commitment to, this great American experiment.

That lady who snapped at me at the airport, she was right. In the end, we really are all just trying to get home. May we choose the paths, the journeys, that lead homeward for the greatest number of us. It’ll take hard work; no one’s ever been naive about that. But in the end, it’s the greatest and most important journey of them all.

Shabbat shalom.

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Words to close out the service:

Rabbi Joseph Edelheit, Professor of Religious and Jewish Studies at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, wrote a commentary on Vayigash that centers around Judah’s efforts to save the life of his youngest brother, Benjamin.

Once, Rabbi Edelheit explains, we were called Hebrews, literally, “the other,” the people from over there, from the other side of the tracks. Then we became Israel, descendants of Jacob, the God wrestler. In time, however, we identified ourselves, and still do, as Jews, the descendants of Judah.

Why? Because in Vayigash, Judah, who had formerly joined his brothers in rage against Joseph, here he engages in an act of profoundly selfless initiative to save his family. “Judah is our namesake,” Rabbi Edelheit writes, “because he understood that he could not repeat the indifference that had defined him” — indifference horrifyingly expressed when the brothers threw Joseph into a pit and then sold him into slavery.

While we are the descendants of some who have behaved appallingly, committing crimes of jealousy and abandonment, we’re also the descendants of those who have performed great acts of contrition and humanitarian excellence. It is because of those deeds, noble conduct that conquered the worst that was in us and honored the best that is in us, we became Jews.

It is our sacred honor – as members of this Jewish people – to live lives dedicated to fighting indifference wherever we find it, and to never again stand by when others are thrown into a pit.

Everyone is just trying to get home. Life works best when we help each other do just that.

Billy