Throughout my entire rabbinic career, whenever Sukkot has arrived, I have enjoyed explaining that sukkot – the three-sided booths we erect following Yom Kippur and in which we spend a week visiting with friends, dining with family, and watching squirrels carry away its vegetative decor – are fragile! Without a whole lot of trouble, they can fall down. But I never actually thought I’d see one tumble!

My synagogue’s sukkah, lovingly constructed each year out of sustainable materials harvested and built by our sukkah team, crumbled to the ground on the first day of Sukkot.

And I just love that! What a powerful lesson for all of us. We told you it could come down. And lookee there, it did! The world is a fragile place. Things can break. And sometimes they actually do.

I can remember when I was a kid, that from time-to-time I’d get to bring home a model airplane made of balsa wood. These were really flimsy objects, but if you wound up its rubber band enough times, the propeller as it twisted back around would make the airplane really fly. But it would only last maybe fifteen minutes before a wing or the tail would break right off. And I was always devastated by that. Those things were cool!

But sometimes things just break.

Sometimes, we break them ourselves.

Once when I was practicing meditation (you’re gonna love this), I was maybe seventeen years old and sitting still for twenty minutes was, under the best of circumstances, not easy to do. It was a summer day, and I’d brought a glass of ice water to keep me from melting, setting it on the dresser just behind my chair, which was also where I placed my watch so I wouldn’t keep looking at it. But from time-to-time, I obviously did need to look at it to see if I was finished. So I reached back and, while feeling around for the watch, my hand found the iced water, knocking over the glass so that its entire freezing contents spilled right down my back. Furious, I jumped up, spun around, picked up my watch and proceed to smash it to smithereens.

Sometimes things don’t just break. Sometimes we take care of that ourselves.

Once a couple of weeks ago, nature did some of the breaking.

Hurricane Florence dumped up to three feet of water on cities and towns throughout North and South Carolina. The damage was estimated at $48 billion. But the image I will always remember of these two broken states is of a cow struggling to swim through the flooded waters inside and outside her barn and just keeping her head above water until being rescued by a passing boat. Its skipper wrapped a piece of rope around the cow’s nose and mouth, holding its head above water as they towed it to safety.

Sometimes the world breaks all by itself. And all we can do is hang onto each other and ride out the storm.

Then there’s the United States Congress, rendered almost completely ineffective by their refusal to work with people of differing political positions and points of view. That wasn’t what I thought I was voting for. People used to say that nothing except compromise ever takes place in the Senate and House of Representatives. Oh, how I miss those days.

Sometimes we deliberately sabotage ourselves and break things on purpose! On purpose!

Which makes our little sukkah seem pretty insignificant, don’tcha think? Which is what it was always meant to be. Because it’s just a symbol. The sukkah is supposed to remind us of how fragile our world is, that sometimes we have to endure what naturally happens, but that so much of the brokenness is in our control to fix. And when we stand up and angrily smash our watch to pieces, we’re in need of … well, we’re in need of, quite frankly, something we just spent the last few weeks talking about: teshuvah … changing our behavior for the better.

Throughout Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, reading after reading and sermon after sermon urged us to fearlessly examine our lives and to inventory where we have fallen short of our obligations to the human family. Some of us spent more than a dozen hours in ten different services engaged in this sacred process of heshbon nefesh, of figuring out where we could seriously improve ourselves in the year ahead.

Now it is the year ahead and the question before each of us is, “So what are we gonna do about it?” Have we simply packed away the makhzorim from our High Holy Days and moved on? Or are we going to take that list of ways we can be kinder and more generous, and actually try to change?

That’s why I love our fallen sukkah. If we’ll let it, it’s reminding us that there’s so much brokenness in our world, and while we may or may not fix our symbol of life’s fragile nature, we can certainly get to work trying to fix some of the real brokenness that’s all around us.

A week ago, members of the Peace Islands Institute, a Muslim community organization, came to visit our high school Academy and served them a homemade dessert called Noah’s Pudding. Premised on the supposition that when the Flood ended and the Ark landed, the community joined together for one last meal, a meal made from the last supplies that still remained on the Ark – Noah’s Pudding – and broke bread together one more time before journeying into their new and individual futures, Noah’s Pudding is an offering from one person to another, symbolizing a wish that whatever lies ahead will be filled with sustenance, sweetness and human companionship. Their sharing of Noah’s Pudding with these Jewish high school students was a powerful and unforgettable demonstration of friendship, of building up, not falling down. I have no doubt that on Monday evening, through the simple sharing of a humble Muslim tradition, we fixed just a tiny bit of the brokenness in our world.

Things break. That’s going to keep on happening. Our great gift is that we can be there for each other when they do. Sometimes we can rebuild; sometimes all we can do is offer a hug.

During the High Holy Days, we shared in the dramatic and, quite frankly, frightening words of Un’taneh Tokef, “Who shall live and who shall die?” When I encounter this reading, I no longer see it as God’s judgement of me or of others. Rather, I see it as a call to action. It reminds us that people do live and people do die. And sometimes, there’s nothing to be done, but sometimes, and perhaps far more frequently, there is something we can do; there’s much that we can do. Like helping a cow keep its head above the floodwaters, if we just keep our eyes and our hearts open, there are plenty of ways to fix things.

And then there’s Simkhat Torah. A simply wonderful celebratory holiday that wraps up this otherwise serious time period. A holiday that may be the most important of them all. It is a time when we dance with the Torah as a symbolic conclusion to these High Holy Days. The Torah is, of course, not only a symbol of our passion for learning right from wrong, it’s also a guidebook for doing so. We’re right to dance with our scrolls. In a world filled with brokenness, our communities must come together, with whatever ideas we can muster, and, like our friends from Peace Islands Institute, share in bringing hopeful change to everyone.

I imagine that I will never see a sukkah fall down again. But I will see children break some of their toys, adults break some of our communities, and nature break some of our homes. May we remember that each one of us is capable of doing something, maybe even a lot, to make things better. May these High Holy Days, and one broken sukkah, inspire us to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Billy

Postscript: On Thursday (Sep 27), many of us listened in as the Senate Judiciary Committee heard the testimonies of Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford. While there is much to criticize about what took place, whichever side of the aisle and/or the issue we’re on, there was also something very right happening. We may not like what we see going on in Congress, but we have a Congress. It may be damaged and in need of repair, but it’s still there. So register to vote, run for office, or help someone else run. If you see a sukkah that’s fallen, figure out if it needs picking up. And if it does, let’s do what we can do to lend a hand.

In case you didn’t know, it’s the Hebrew month of Elul. These are the four weeks leading up to the High Holy Days, a time when most Jewish families are thinking about, well, probably nothing having to do with the High Holy Days. Including this Labor Day weekend, it seems to be a time to squeeze out the very last minutes of summer fun and relaxation.

Rabbis and cantors, on the other hand, are pretty much thinking about nothing BUT the High Holy Days. There is music to prepare, sermons to be written, and a thousand other preparatory activities that must get done before any of you set foot in the tent next Sunday evening.

Let me give you one small example of how this season affects clergy. On Facebook (you know, where all serious work gets done), we Reform rabbis have a page all our own. It’s a place to discuss Torah, Talmud, and contemporary issues of import. This week, amidst the intense laboring to prepare our sermons, this most crucial posting was placed by a rabbi I know. He asked: What’s a “fun fact” that’s actually fun?

And that’s all it took. Dozens of rabbis, all with way more important things to do, began chiming in. Responses included:

• Ducks are the fastest flying birds.
• Your ears never stop growing.
• In Switzerland, it is illegal to own just one guinea pig.
• During our lifetime, each of us will produce enough saliva to fill two swimming pools.
• Escalators never actually break, they just become stairs.

I know you’re impressed by the width and breadth of knowledge that rabbis possess. You simply have no idea! By the way, I can’t verify that any of these are accurate, except maybe that broken escalators are stairs. I did learn that ducks are not the fastest flying birds. While the swiftest duck may clock in as high as 100 mph, the peregrine falcon flies double that!

All of this is to say: One never knows how someone is going to spend their summer vacation. Sure, there may be trips to exotic locales and sunbathing at the local pool, but those aren’t necessarily summer’s most indelible moments.

My summers, by the way, like yours, aren’t all vacation (tho I do remember those sublime years of youth when nothing needed to be accomplished between the last day of school in the spring and the first day back in the fall). My summer, slowed down as it was, included a half dozen funerals during which I was honored to share in the sacred act of saying goodbye to someone who was well-loved and will be much-missed. It’s always a privilege to be invited into these private, intimate, holy moments in people’s lives.

Other significant moments in my life this summer have included:

• Presiding over the demise of my kitchen stove and oven, during which Ellen and I had much fun picking out new appliances, but not quite so much fun having to spend lots of money hiring a carpenter to modify drawers and cupboards that no longer opened because the new units obstructed things deep inside our cabinetry. The lesson: Home ownership is really satisfying except when, like an aging body, it requires surprise visits and expenditures to keep things running.

• Speaking of which, earlier this summer I thought I was going deaf in one ear but, upon visiting the ENT doctor, I learned just how much wax can build up inside there. The lesson: Try to stop being so dramatic about physical demise. While we’re all definitely disintegrating, it’s probably happening at a much slower rate that we think.

• I got to visit my two now-pretty-well-grown children. Katie is married and an art educator living in Montpelier, Vermont. This summer, she returned to Eisner Camp after a 10-year hiatus, where she taught yoga, meditation and, of course, art. Aiden has gone what they call “adulting,” moving to Denver this summer, getting himself five part-time jobs, an apartment, and even a new dentist! The lesson: All that love we gave our kids when they were young? It really does serve as the foundation for them building lives that are vibrant, healthy and satisfying. And I have to say, I’m happier for my kids now than any report card or school concert ever made me feel!

• Lastly, bringing it all together, there’s Mars. Throughout June, July and August, the red planet came nearer to our earth than usual. Mostly residing about 140 million miles from Times Square, this summer Mars almost made it all the way up to Westchester, coming 100 million miles closer than ever! But what was most profound for me was that no matter where I was this summer: Massachusetts, Colorado or New York, there was Mars, shining brilliantly in the night sky. The lesson: Everything is connected, no one is alone, and we are all part of the same magnificent, unfolding story.

So while, yes, the White House continues to give us reasons to wonder if civilization is rapidly coming to an end, there remains so much that is good in our world. And even while we fret – concerned for immigrant children still living apart from their parents, Russian meddling in our democratic elections, genocide in Myanmar, North Korea’s nuclear weapons, and rampant gun violence – we can also rejoice – 12 boys and their coach successfully rescued after 17 days stuck in a cave in Thailand, the World Cup bringing us all together in global competition marked by shared friendship and excitement that transcended all ethnic and nationalist demarcations and, since the year 2000, 1.2 billion additional human beings on the planet have gained access to electricity, one of the first steps out of poverty.

There is still much reason to rejoice.

In this week’s parasha, Kee Tavo, we read (in Deut 26:11) Moses’ instructions to the Israelites as they prepare to conclude their 40 years of desert wandering and enter the Promised Land: “V’samakhta v’khol ha’tov asher natan lakh … you shall enjoy, together with the Levite and the stranger in your midst, all the bounty that God has bestowed upon you and your household.” This foundational value, shared as they readied themselves to go to war, serves as a profound reminder to us that human existence isn’t for the purpose of suffering; it’s to build lives that mean something, that provide sustenance and safety for all people, and ultimately to love and to laugh and to luxuriate in the simple joys of being able to have a place to live, enjoy one’s family, and even to chuckle at fun facts shared while avoiding matters of responsibility.

So I’ll leave you with two more fun facts and a wish.

1st fun fact: Banging your head against a wall for one hour burns 150 calories.

My wish: There are an infinite number of ways that we can spend the time allotted to us on this earth. Some of it should be spent helping make things better for everyone. And some of it should probably be spent fretting about how bad things are. But not only is it vital that we spend time with people we love and in activities we love, we ought also avoid, as much as possible, uselessly banging our heads against a wall, even if someone tries to convince us there’s a benefit in it.

The Israelites understood that joy was a fundamental component to life, and that all are commanded to enjoy, and to ensure others can do the same. From the dawn of Creation, a bounty has been bestowed upon us. It would be mean-spirited to squander that.

2nd fun fact: 7% of all Americans actually believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows. I don’t know if that’s true, but I’d bet it wouldn’t surprise many of you to learn it is (the 7% believing, I mean). This big, beautiful world of ours is filled with the full spectrum of humanity, including a few (what’s 7% of 325 million?) who think some pretty strange stuff. As the month of Elul nears its finishing line and we prepare to meet in the tent next Sunday to greet the New Year, may we embrace all of our human family, chuckling at those who subscribe to fun facts that are much more fun than fact, all the while extending our love and our compassion even to those from whom we differ immensely. Let’s resolve to make this New Year 5779 one of goodness, kindness, understanding, and the simple delight that comes from sharing the most magnificent fun fact of all: life.

That’s how I spent my summer vacation.

Ketivah v’khatimah tovah … may all soon be inscribed for blessing and peace. Shabbat shalom.

Billy

I have a story to tell you. It’s about a tiny bird. I’ll come back to that.

Tisha b’Av has been set aside as a day for the Jewish community to remember the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple two thousand years ago. Traditionally, this day is observed with fasting, prayers of lament and rituals of mourning. Two thousands years is a very  long time, however, and grief abates.

So if Tisha b’Av no longer compels, what’s to be done with it?

Earlier this week, while I was trying to figure this out, I took my dog for a walk. Not ten feet outside the front door, we encountered a baby bird on the ground. It was alive but I couldn’t tell by how much. I could only imagine it had fallen from its nest perhaps fifty feet above and that couldn’t have been good.

Charlie sniffed but respectfully backed away. Ellen came out and very gently carried the bird to the bottom of the tree from which it had fallen. It was out of direct sunlight and the possibility of getting stepped on. It laid its head on its wing to rest. Not thirty minutes later, we checked on it and it had died.

For a good while after, our home was subdued. Even Charlie seemed quiet. It was only a baby bird, but in the few minutes that it had entered our lives, it had evoked our sympathy and stolen our hearts. We grieved.

I wondered. Is this what we need in order to feel the pain of loss? If we are to act on human suffering, must we experience that suffering firsthand?

I have a handmade tallit that I purchased in Israel. Before completing the order, I was asked, “What text would you like embroidered on the atarah?” Well, that was going to take some thought and I returned home to America without completing the order. What text would I want to see every time I place that garment across my shoulders? Three weeks later, I sent them my response. It came from the Book of Job (38:35):

For me, this text, God’s response to Job’s asking what we all want to know, “Why?” Why has my health failed? Why has my loved one died? Why is my marriage over? Why did that earthquake have to cause so much destruction? How can that leader condone so much suffering?

God’s response to Job was that there is so much we can’t control. And there are questions for which we will never have answers.

We may not like that response, but it seems pretty accurate to me.

There is a passage, however, from Noah benShea’s Jacob the Baker that helps me live with this unsettling reality:

Watching a flotilla of small sticks and leaves dropped into a river race and tumble around one bend only to be caught in another, someone said, “Clearly we are not in control of where our lives are going.” But another responded, “We are nevertheless responsible for how we conduct ourselves as we are carried on.”

This is how I’ve tried to approach my life, which has been a pretty easy one compared to so many others, but I’ve had my share of sorrows. I don’t hide my grief, but I try not to be crushed by it either.

Here’s what I’ve been thinking about Tisha b’Av. Each of us quite likely has horrible moments that are ours. Not all are the result of evil people, but they are painful memories no less. Loved ones die. Natural disasters claim the lives of hundreds. Political disasters (like tearing immigrant children away from their parents) exact a different but no less painful price.

Tisha b’Av comes along. We allow our pain to reemerge, even after two thousand years. Or we just remember — we don’t own, or we don’t directly feel, that pain. The message in both cases, I believe, is that these memories and their concomitant feelings are valid but, if possible, they ought not end there. Painful memory can and should be used for good purpose.

Perhaps by limiting this communal grief to a single day, Jewish tradition is trying to say, “It doesn’t have to ever go away. But like that flotilla of small sticks and leaves, we need to choose how to live in its aftermath. Always always, choose life.”

We needn’t relinquish our sadnesses forever. The hurt might never fully go away. But if in addition to missing what has been lost, we can turn that grief (and our hearts) toward making the world a bit more hospitable for someone else, then our pain and the grief that comes from someone’s life having ended far too soon (or whatever it is that lingers on), perhaps we can turn it toward something of deepening value and even personal redemption.

That little bird haunts me. I think I’ll be carrying the image of its dying for a while yet. I don’t think I’m going to become a bird doctor, but my sadness did prompt me to write this. And perhaps, as Tisha b’Av approaches, that’s of some worth and a fine way to channel this loss.

For me, that seems like a good lesson learned.

Billy

A horrific story of the Holocaust to share with you. Many of you will know it. Young people might not. But it describes just one small, terrible moment during which only three people died, which was pretty benign for genocide. All you have to do is multiply this moment two million times, and that gets you six million Jewish lives murdered by the Nazis during World War II.

Here’s the story.

One day when we came back from work, we saw three gallows rearing up in the assembly place, three black crows. Roll call. SS all around us, machine guns trained: the traditional ceremony. Three victims in chains— and one of them, the little servant, the sad-eyed angel.

The SS seemed more preoccupied, more disturbed than usual. To hang a child in front of thousands of spectators was no light matter. The head of the camp read the verdict. All eyes were on the child. He was lividly pale, almost calm, biting his lips. The gallows threw its shadow over him.

This time, the Lagerkapo refused to act as executioner. Three SS replaced him. The three victims mounted together onto the chairs. The three were placed at the same moment within the nooses. “Long live liberty!” cried the two adults. But the child was silent.

“Where is God? Where is He?” someone behind me asked. A sign from the head of the camp. The deed was done. Total silence throughout the camp. On the horizon, the sun was setting. “Bare your heads!” yelled the head of the camp. His voice was raucous. We were weeping. “Cover your heads!”

Then the march past began. The two adults were no longer alive. But the third, he was too light; the child was still alive. For more than half an hour, he died so slowly under our eyes. Behind me, I heard the same man asking: “Where is God now?” And I heard a voice within me answer him: “Where is He? Here He is—He is hanging here on this gallows.”

The story appears in Night, a book written by Elie Wiesel describing his experiences as a sixteen-year old in Auschwitz. I first read Night when I was sixteen. Beyond the horror of that specific event, I often wondered deeply about Wiesel’s question, “Where is God?” What did it mean that God was hanging on those gallows? Was God then dead? I’ll come back to that.

First, come with me to a country that I imagine few of us have visited. It was once known as Burma. Today it’s also called Myanmar. It sits between China and India, with neighbors that include Laos, Thailand and Bangladesh. Late this past August, Muslim militants in Myanmar staged coordinated attacks on 30 police posts and an army base. 59 insurgents and 12 members of Myanmar security forces were killed. It represented an escalation of a conflict that had been simmering there since October 2016. For about a year, military sweeps against these insurgents were frequently followed by allegations of serious human rights abuses. Of Myanmar’s 51 million citizens, the treatment of approximately 1.1 million Muslim Rohingya had emerged as predominantly Buddhist Myanmar’s most contentious human rights issue. At that time, Reuters had reported their concern that the conflict might spark even more aggressive army responses and trigger communal clashes between Muslims and Buddhists.

Within days (perhaps hours) of those 30 coordinated attacks, on Aug 25, 2017, the Burmese army embarked upon a massive and deadly ethnic cleansing campaign targeting the Rohingya people. The Burmese army responded with what has been described as disproportionate violence, indiscriminate shooting, setting entire villages aflame, and violent assualts against women. Since last August, nearly 3/4 million Rohingya have fled their homes and made a perilous journey to crowded refugee camps in Bangladesh. Those who remained in Myanmar now live in danger of starvation and continued attacks.

The Burmese government denies that it’s carrying out human rights crimes against the Rohingya people. But it’s also prevented journalists, aid organizations, and U.N. officials from entering the Rakhine State, a long coastal region that borders the Indian Ocean, where the Rohingya reside, for any kind of follow-up investigation. The only available information has come from refugees who’ve fled to Bangladesh. Those reports have prompted U.N. Special Reporter Yanghee Lee to state that violent actions of Burmese military against the Rohingya present the “hallmarks of a genocide.” Other U.N. human rights experts have shared that the evidence “points at human rights violations of the most serious kind, in all likelihood amounting to crimes under international law.”

Who are these Rohingya people? They are a Muslim ethnic group that has lived in Burma for centuries. Before the violence and exodus of refugees this fall, there were an estimated 1.1 million Rohingya living in Burma. Most of them resided in the western Rakhine State, where historians trace their roots back as early as the 12th century. But throughout those centuries, the Rohingya people have long endured a history of persecution in Burma. Today, the Burmese government won’t even call them “Rohingya,” instead labeling them as illegal Bengali immigrants. They’ve been denied citizenship in Burma since 1982, effectively rendering them stateless. Their rights to work, travel, marry, and access health services are severely restricted, resulting in the Rohingya community becoming one of poorest and most oppressed in Burma.

The refugee settlements in Bangladesh that shelter some 600,000 people currently earns it the unwanted honor of having become the largest refugee camp in the entire world. 60% of those being sheltered there are women and girls, a large number of whom are malnourished. This month’s approaching monsoon season promises to make life there even more unbearable, with the U.N. reporting that 100,000 refugees are at risk from landslides and floods, as well as waterborne diseases that will be carried into camps already overpopulated and lacking proper sanitation, with one hospital facility for every 130,000 people.

A dire situation indeed, and probably one about which you’ve heard very little.

Return to the years of the Shoah for a moment. From 1933 to 1939, nearly 400,000 Jews fled Nazi Germany and Austria due to mounting physical violence and targeted legal repression. During that time, before the atrocities of the Holocaust were in highest gear, international authorities, including our U.S. government, were slow to speak out. And of those who did flee, most were caught and murdered as the Nazi war machine overwhelmed Europe. By war’s end, fully 2/3 of Europe’s Jewish population – six million men, women and one million children – was annihilated.

But here’s something worth mentioning. Between the years of 1939 and 1945, in the Republic of Albania, across the Adriatic Sea east of Italy, the Jewish population of only 200 grew ten-fold to 2000. Albania, you see, was one of very few countries that kept its doors open to Jewish refugees. And of those 2000, except for a single family, none died. Yes, the numbers are modest, but their success – rescuing more that 99% of those who had turned to them for help – is in no way modest.

And one more thing: Albania was, and to this day remains, predominantly Muslim.

Here’s what happened. The Nazis occupied Albania in September 1943. When Adolf Eichmann called for the Final Solution to be implemented there, the Albanian response was a uniform one: “Besa.” Besa is a word that means “faith,” or “to keep the promise,” “word of honor.” It reflects the Albanian Muslim idea that when you have welcomed a guest into your home, you provide that guest every kindness and honor, withholding nothing, including, if need be, the protection of their lives. This concept extended beyond the walls of their homes to include the very borders of their nation. So when the Nazis came hunting for Jews, Albanian Muslims embarked upon an ambitious national project: to hide every one of them (including the additional 1800 souls who had sought refugee status there). Two thousand Jewish men, woman and children were protected. And except for a single family, two thousand survived.

So during the Shoah, there were Muslims who rescued Jews. Perhaps now, we can do something for the Muslims of Myanmar?

This past February, the Jewish Rohingya Action Network was founded. Its aim is to create a united response to this crisis. Thus far, it has mobilized 72 American Jewish organizations, and 248 rabbis and communal leaders, who together have written and proposed that the United States Senate pass The Burma Human Rights and Freedom Act which would increase humanitarian aid, establish U.S. sanctions against the Burmese military, and create mechanisms to help provide accountability for crimes committed against the Rohingya people and other minorities in Burma.

As a significant aside, on March 6, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington took back its prestigious Elie Wiesel Award from Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi. They did so based on her failing to halt, or even acknowledge, ethnic cleansing happening in her country. Too small a consequence for her heinous behavior, but at least it’s a consequence.

The Burma Human Rights and Freedom Act (S.2060) was introduced by Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Benjamin Cardin (D-MD). This bipartisan bill would promote democracy and human rights in Burma, implement sanctions against ethnic cleansing practices taking place there, and hopefully begin to restore human rights for ethnic minorities still in Burma and those who would like to come back home. Here’s one place where you can play a role in stopping ethnic murder in Myanmar. We’ve placed a link at wct.org/burmahumanrights for you to urge our own senators Schumer and Gillibrand to support this bill.

You can also donate to the American Jewish World Service’s efforts to deliver humanitarian aid into those refugee camps in Bangladesh by visiting ajws.org/donate/rohingya.

You and I can’t stop genocide by ourselves. But as Rabbi Tarfon taught, “We are each obliged to do something.” And on this Shabbat Yom HaShoah, as we remember those of our own families who were forgotten or ignored in their cries for help, if we can do something to honor their memories, don’t you think this would be that something?

During and after the Holocaust, the question has been asked, “Where was God?” Many have abandoned their faith because their answer to this question was either “God chose not to help” or “There is no God.” May I humbly suggest another response to this question? Where was God during the Holocaust? God was indeed there. God was right there in Albania, when those Albanian Muslims opened their doors and their borders to save the lives of ten times their Jewish population. And where is God now, during the genocide in Burma? God is right here, with you and me, when we open our hearts, when we open our wallets, and when we open our consciences, refusing to stand idly by while the Muslim Rohingya people of Myanmar are terrorized by an uncaring, brutal and, thus far, unaccountable government of Burma.

On this Shabbat Yom HaShoah, on this Holocaust Remembrance Shabbat, let us remember. Let us remember loved ones forever lost because of the Nazi genocide. Let us honor their memories by doing what we can to prevent a new genocide in our own generation. The cry of “Never Again” is not just for the Jewish people to survive, but for us to ensure that survival is made available to all peoples, that never again will the world stand silently by, that God will never again be permitted to die on the gallows … anywhere.

This is how the memory of the Holocaust, of our six million dead, can be honored.

Ken y’hee ratzon … may these words be worthy of coming true.

A version of this sermon has been published online by the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism at https://rac.org/blog/2018/04/20/where-was-god-then-where-god-now.

There’s a story about a kid named Sammy who was walking along feeling sorry for himself because his family had recently moved to a new town, he hadn’t made any friends, and his parents seemed to be busy all the time. So when he saw an adult kneeling on the ground searching for something, he tried to tip-toe around the other side. There’s nothing worse when feeling sorry for yourself than some adult asking you to be useful. But as he passed the man, he saw a white cane on the ground and realized the man was blind. So down Sammy went and, together, they searched for the man’s lost key. Finding it, the man said, “Thank you. When you walk in the dark, sometimes you forget how kind people are.”

“I think I was lost too,” said Sammy, realizing he’d been lost in a locked-up world inside his head and heart. But now, as they walked together, Sammy knew his loneliness was growing smaller and smaller.

When we’re young, we’re at the center of our universe. We look out for our self. This is where learning begins. We discover where our self ends and the rest of the world asks things of us. In time, we slowly learn to reach out beyond ourselves and care for others. Often this blossoms during adulthood but, from time to time, it starts earlier. And sometimes the results can be astounding … and inspiring.

In November 1991, thirteen-year-old Elana Erdstein was visiting her grandmother and noticed a basket overflowing with toothpaste, soap and shampoo samples, all collected from many hotel stays. Elana began thinking about other travelers who probably had similar baskets stowed away, and having been encouraged by her synagogue to engage in a socially responsible community project enroute to her becoming a Bat Mitzvah, Elana began collecting supplies from others in her community. Boxes were set up at the library, the JCC, and houses of worship all over town. Ultimately, Elana collected 25,000 items, all donated to organizations that could get them into the hands of the needy. Elana said, “I learned that one person, even one who can’t drive yet and only has allowance and babysitting money, can make a difference.” Today, Elana’s a Reform rabbi at my childhood synagogue in Cincinnati, Ohio, continuing to make a difference in a whole lot of people’s lives.

In the 1990s in Homer, Georgia, when the doors to the new courthouse opened to the public, the old courthouse was scheduled for demolition. Sixteen-year-old John Clark Hill loved that old building and took action to save it. He wrote to local newspapers and gave speeches before any group that would listen, pleading for restoration. Today, that old courthouse, which John and his friends saved, houses art exhibits, a genealogy library, and serves as a civic center for plays and concerts. And Dr. J. Clark Hill lives in Commerce, Georgia, where he not only provides medical care but has served as mayor for the last seven years.

After the tragic events at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, students there and across the country have had enough. They’ve walked out of classes, stopped traffic, and made speeches calling on leaders local and national to finally do something about guns in this country. The conservative right-wing immediately set out to discredit them, even claiming they were actors hired to criticize second amendment rights. In words that could only have come from a teenager, 11th grader Cameron Kasky told CNN, “If you’d seen me in our school’s production of Fiddler on the Roof, you’d know that nobody would pay me to act for anything.”

This week, the Florida legislature passed a bill that imposes a three-day waiting period for most purchases of long guns, and raises to twenty-one the minimum age for purchasing those weapons. It provides nearly $100 million to improve school security and $67 million to fund a new sheriff program allowing school districts to voluntarily train and arm employees who do not exclusively teach in the classroom.

The legislation is modest. But it represents one of the first times that the voices of the NRA haven’t stopped a piece of legislation in its tracks. It’s a start. And that’s a great thing.

I couldn’t be prouder of the young people who stood up to demand that something change. And I pray, really, I pray that they will have the staying power to become the thorn in the side of our leadership that this country desperately needs. On Saturday, March 24 – our holy Sabbath, mind you – I urge you to support these kids who are organizing to march here in New York and down in Washington. Find a way for your own kids to participate. And write checks. Lots of them. Allowance and babysitting money might not be enough for this particular extracurricular activity.

Do you know the story of Bil-ahm’s donkey? Bil-ahm was a fortune teller, perhaps a prophet, but it’s his donkey that saw an angel and delivered God’s message. The donkey, not the prophet. The donkey! Considered to be among the least intelligent members of the animal kingdom, it’s the donkey who teaches a lesson to the man.

Great feats being performed by unexpected individuals is always surprising. Are not teenagers the donkeys of human civilization? And yet, here they are, working to make a difference in our world. And succeeding. Youth are perhaps the greatest source of unexpected contributions to society. A young girl in Canada began a recycling program that spread across her entire province. A 16-year-old boy invented a sophisticated piece of biomedical technology that’s used in hospitals to monitor heart conditions.

In the 1960s, it was young people who led our country into a new era of civil rights. In the 1970s, it was young people who embarrassed our government into ending the Vietnam War. In the 1980s, it was young people in Tiananmen Square, China, who called for greater democracy, and helped pave the way for economic and political reforms.

I don’t know what will come of these young people working to pass gun laws that will make our schools and our neighborhoods safer. But I do know two things. First, they deserve to be supported. They deserve to hear from the people they love and respect that we think they’re doing a great thing. And second, watch where they go. Some of these kids will stay the course and remain involved. And like those kids whose stories from twenty-five years led them to civic leadership today, some of these stories will lead to a lifetime of community service as well. God, I hope they change the gun laws! But if all they do is learn that there’s a world bigger than themselves out there, and that they can play a role in making it a little better for others, that’ll be plenty.

In the meantime, let’s be good allies. And who knows? Maybe we will get safer schools for them. But if not for them, then maybe for their children. If the course is a long one, and they want to stay on it, let’s do all we can to support them, now and always.

Shmuel Yosef Agnon, who wrote modern Hebrew fiction, penned a story called “The Kerchief” in which a young man’s mother, on the day he becomes a Bar Mitzvah, gives him a beloved kerchief as a token of her love. Later, as the boy returns home from temple, he passes a homeless person with outstretched swollen hands hoping for a bit of money. Having none, the boy hesitantly binds the person’s wounds with his mother’s kerchief. Apprehensive that his mother will be upset at his giving away her gift, he returns home only to find love in her eyes as she reassures him that his compassionate act was his initiation into adulthood.

With Purim only a week behind us, our holiday of fantastical stories where unlikely heroes save the day, may each of our lives be filled with people who perform unexpected acts of goodness. We’ve seen donkeys granted audiences with angels, and beauty queens muster the courage to speak truth to power — why not children who change our nation’s laws? Stranger things have happened, but none more important or more urgent.

In 1983, an 11-year old kid from Philadelphia named Trevor Farrell saw a news report on television describing the lives of people living on the streets of his town. Trevor asked his parents if he could bring the people on the streets some coats and blankets, to which they agreed. A few days later, Trevor was still handing out coats and blankets, now collecting them from his neighbors. Soon after that, people from all over his town were stopping by Trevor Farrell’s home to drop off coats and blankets. Nine years later, Trevor had opened a shelter for the homeless in his town. And today, a non-profit organization called Trevor’s Campaign is celebrating 32 years of advocacy to improve lives the of families in Philadelphia.

Children are children. They’re sweet, adorable, honest, uninhibited, and sometimes quite outrageous. Sometimes, as they grow up, they become kids of action – looking at their world, seeing a problem, and trying to fix it. These children do their parents proud. They do us all proud. May our world be filled to overflowing with them.

Shabbat shalom.

It’s the season of Jonah in our home – his birthday is February 14, his yahrzeit is March 5, and his Concert is March 10. Since he’s on my mind, no reason he shouldn’t be on yours as well. So here’s a Jonah story.

When Ellen and I were young parents, we decided to rear children who were free of gender stereotypes, unhampered by society’s expectations that they fit into certain roles and not into others. And so, our children, who never signed onto this platform, ignored our convention-defying instruction and did whatever they wanted. Katie adored Barbie dolls and all things girlish, while Jonah turned any object he picked up, benign or not, into a gun and battled his way through early childhood.

Ellen and I quickly learned we’d have to find another way to teach our children to respect and embrace the full spectrum of the human family. In time (including Aiden’s entrance into the story), we watched three wonderful young people grow in spirit and goodness.

Judaism has always taught the importance of beating swords into ploughshares. Yehuda Amichai suggested we keep going and beat those ploughshares into musical instruments, so that anytime we think about harming one another, we’ll need to beat our musical instruments back into ploughshares before we can turn them into weapons.

The world’s such a challenging place, and aren’t we humans fascinatingly complex? I’m grateful to be part of a tradition that calls us to struggle for freedom and peace.

Purim is upon us. This year, “A Hairspray Purimspiel” has taken over our celebration. We open with these reworked lyrics to “Good Morning, Baltimore” …

Queen Vashti woke up one day, feeling dismay, her nerves all frayed.
Her husband, Akhashverosh, had gone overboard, inciting the hoard.
With wine flowing free, the king did decree, “Six months of sensual debauchery!”
Queen Vashti took all the women and hoped that the men would not see.

Good God, Shushan’s laid low. Her good name’s received quite a blow.
Common sense and humanity were replaced by insanity.
Good God, Shushan’s laid low. Any semblance of grace is for show.
We’re falling apart by degree. Save us all, Vashti!

Purim is our annual send-up of life in ancient Persia, but it’s really a commentary on our own lives, right here right now. As we wrote new lyrics to the melodies of “Hairspray,” we soon realized these words could not have been written at any other moment in history. And while we did not set out to critique President Trump’s America, it was unavoidable.

Later in that same song, “Good God, Shushan’s Laid Low,” we sing:

Akhashverosh was incensed,
Who would dare stand against such a handsome guy?
Akhash proclaimed for himself
That throughout the land Queen Vashti was banned.
The courts said, “No way!” The king shouted, “Foul play!
It must be fake news from CNN!”
Our base is stronger than yours
And we will make Shushan great again!”

Depending on the theory to which you subscribe, you may attribute the current #MeToo movement of women pointing accusing fingers at sexual harassers everywhere to a critical mass of frustration and outrage at our president’s serial abuse of women (of all of us, really). “Critical mass” may be the operative term here as we witness a sudden flood of allegations against men who will no longer be silently endured by the double-X chromosomal half of the human family. We have reached some sort of watershed moment, and American society will hopefully be better because of it.

Before the February 14 shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, synagogues were wondering how to deal with the Esther story in light of the #MeToo movement. I’ll come back to the violence in Florida after we tackle this first challenge for a bit.

At this specific moment in American life, it’s important to take a closer look at Queen Vashti and Queen Esther.

First, Queen Esther. As a child, my friends and I all loved the celebration of King Ahashuerus’ “beauty contest” to find himself a lovely new queen. But the details of the biblical story don’t shine as kind a light on Esther, the surprising victor in that Olympic category. The women with whom she was competing for Vashti’s vacated queen-ship were judged not only on their looks (see chapter 2, “Each girl went to King Ahashuerus at the end of twelve months’ beauty treatment”), but on their sexual performance (see elsewhere in chapter 2, “She would go [to the king] in the evening and leave in the morning”). We don’t tell that to the kids, and you end up missing out on that detail as well.

Further, when Mordekhai begs Queen Esther to help rescue the Jews of their kingdom, she pleads powerlessness. After all, she’s only the queen. She sees the king only when he calls for her, which likely means for a sexual rendezvous. She can’t even imagine pursuing a relationship with him that goes any deeper; forget about actually leading her people.

Esther, at least as our Purim story gets going, is not much of a role-model for us today.

Then there’s Queen Vashti. When I was growing up, she was the story’s villain every bit as much as Haman. We couldn’t wait for justice to be served through her banishment. Disobeying her king — imagine! The Midrash, examining Vashti’s refusal to appear before the king and his pals, suggests that Vashti was in fact an immodest woman who would not have hesitated to appear before the boys buck naked (I’m sorry, “wearing her royal diadem”). The midrashic rabbis say she either had an embarrassing rash or had somehow sprouted a tail and, vain as she obviously was, wished to show neither in public. For those of you who find it difficult to swallow a tale about Vashti growing a tail, the Maharal of Prague (a 16th century commentator) agrees with you that’s ridiculous. He likens Vashti’s tail to my spare tire. She put on a lot of weight and, again in her vanity, refused to display her slothfulness.

Justice, I say! Good riddance, Queen Vashti!

And then I grew up. The first step was in noticing that hanging in my home on the dining room wall my entire childhood was a painting of Queen Vashti. Not Queen Esther, but Queen Vashti! Only later did it occur to me that I should ask my mom why she had a picture of this vile woman prominently displayed in our home. That was the beginning of my adult Jewish education. Vashti, she told me, was (in contrast to how Jewish tradition has treated her) a dignified woman. She’d stood up to a boorish king, and on behalf of women everywhere, told him she was no longer willing to merely be an object of his desire. As a result, Vashti may have disappeared from the Purim story, but beautifully, royally, and with great dignity, she lived in my home, and now in my soul. Thanks, Mom.

Vashti’s story was always one of resistance against sexual harassment. We can only wonder what she might have done for the oppressed elsewhere. Would she have stood up to Haman and his genocidal scheme? We don’t get to know that. We only get to wonder if we ourselves have the strength and the hutzpah to stand against bigotry in our own time.

Back to Esther. Her story, I think, is one of tremendous growth and maturing. Because she was anything but a hero when the story began, her evolution is remarkable, touching and inspiring. In the beginning, whether pushed by Mordekhai or eagerly signing up, she gave her body to King Ahashuerus. When it became clear that Esther was uniquely positioned to convey to the king the Jewish people’s plea for rescue, she wanted nothing to do with it. Esther had a sweet scam going and she had no interest in jeopardizing a good thing. Not until Mordekhai pointed out that Esther would likely also be caught in Haman’s net of destruction did she reluctantly offer to help.

Perhaps that’s how it is for many of us. We live out our years quietly enjoying life with family and friends. Then one day our life is upended. A loved one is struck by tragic illness or death, and we devote ourselves to seeing that others need not succumb to the same. Once we too have been caught in a net, we often turn our attention, energies and resources to making a difference. In this very way, Esther’s story is our story too.

Why our rabbis felt the need to castigate Vashti, I don’t know. It’s not like they had to protect the good reputation of King Ahashuerus. But castigate they did, and at every opportunity. In chapter one, we’re told the king had thrown a wild celebration for his administration and supporters (think Jared and Ivanka, and the NRA). Six months into that celebration, he held a week-long banquet, on the seventh day of which he ordered Vashti to do some pole-dancing for him and his buddies. The rabbis presumed this “seventh day” was Shabbat and that — because Vashti would frequently choose that day to summon Jewish women, strip them naked and make them work for her — it was therefore on Shabbat, they say, that Vashti was banished.

The world has changed. And not just in the Trump era. I’ve been a rabbi for thirty-one years. I wrote my first purimspiel twenty-eight years ago, in 1990. Riffing on the “Wizard of Oz,” I wrote:

Seven days into the celebrating, Ahashuerus called for his queen to come and display her beauty. Now Vashti was a good queen. What she wasn’t was someone who simply did what someone else told her to do, especially if she thought it was demeaning. And being asked by her husband to “display her beauty” for his pals … that was demeaning! So she said, “No.” She refused to appear.

Since I’m pretty sure I didn’t come up with that respectful perspective on Vashti by myself, I have to assume we Jews have matured a bit in the last thousand years. Treated poorly in their own time, both Vashti and Esther are now seen in noble light by our community. If all of us are part of the #MeToo movement, and we should be, our Purim story provides an annual reminder that people are people; we may not be born heroic but we can rise to life’s challenges and, doing so, we can bring honor to ourselves, to our families, and to our people.

Vashti was always about doing what is right. Her resistance against sexual harassment may have lost her a job, but it earned her an honored position in our people’s history (well, the made-up part of our history) as a model for consistently living a principled set of human values. Esther grew into her highly-regarded place in Jewish life. She didn’t start out that way, but grew stronger through adversity and, in the end, has become a model of strength and integrity for us all.

Let me come back to gun violence.

Purim has always been about social justice. Its message was never limited to gender issues alone, or to opposing the persecution of our people. The issue of guns being used to indiscriminately slaughter American citizens is a #MeToo movement no one should have to belong to and that all of us should belong to. The story of Purim is a violent one. A deranged individual has deadly force placed into his hands and he chooses to direct that force at the Jews of Shushan. And while they knew at what moment – the 13th of Adar – the violence would be unleashed, there was nowhere for them to run. The story resolves in a surrealistic bloodbath during which the Jews turn the tables on, and slaughter, their attackers. This was not, I believe, an endorsement for arming teachers. This was a perverse fantasy, for we know of far too many times in Jewish history when we were herded like sheep to the slaughter, unable to defend ourselves. There is hardly a Jew throughout history who wouldn’t have preferred the rule of law, not guns, to ensure the safety of their children.

When we gather on Purim – the 14th of Adar – we cheerfully recount the grotesque counter-offensive that killed 75,000 would-be attackers and saved the Jews of Shushan. But that’s not the resolution to conflict that we seek in real life. It’s not the message Judaism teaches us. Rather, we are, as much as humanly possible, encouraged to work through our differences, and to use acts of compassion that are undergirded by strong, effective laws to make our nation and our world safe and secure.

Will the Parkland shooting finally turn the debate on guns? I’m certainly not counting on Congress to offer solutions. But maybe those who say that young people can really make the difference this time are right, and I’m more than willing to cast my lot this Purim with them. So while yes, you and I need to remain involved in whatever efforts we find to curb gun violence, let us make certain that we are good allies and lend our support to any young person’s campaign seeking to effect these changes. One, they need to know we’re proud of their efforts. And two, we’re the ones to teach them how to open doors, how to speak truth to power and, frankly, to bankroll their efforts.

These young people are trying to write a new Purim story. They’ve identified their Haman and are reaching out to persuade the king to save their people. My prayer? That generations that from now, we’ll be retelling the glorious tale of how it was our kids who finally brought rational, compassionate action to this incredibly dark chapter in our nation’s history.

On Facebook, my daughter the art teacher posted the following: “Anyone who wants teachers to carry guns in the classroom should probably know that earlier this week I misplaced half a banana when I put it down to help a student, and forgot about it until three hours later when a very confused child found it on the clay cart.” Eloheinu v’elohei avoteinu v’imoteinu … dear God and God of our ancestors … we don’t know all the answers, but we’ve got some pretty strong instincts, and a couple thousand years of experience to help guide us. Still, now would be a great time for You to pop up in one of those pillars of cloud or fire and guide us the rest of the way. Or maybe that’s what You’ve just done by sending us these kids. May this year’s Purim celebration inspire us to work diligently for the betterment of women’s lives and of our children’s lives, to topple Haman wherever he appears and, in so doing, better the lives of people everywhere.

Of all the stories in the Torah, Noah’s is perhaps the most loved of them all. After all, who can resist the image of all those furry, adorable creatures ascending into the Ark, two by two, and living in harmonious tranquility for the duration of that epic boat ride all those thousands of years ago?

Noah and his family have also contributed to that great body of literature known as stand-up comedy. How fortunate we are to have classics such as these:

Noah’s wife, carefully monitoring the animals as they boarded the Ark turned to her husband and said, “I’d feel much safer if those two termites spent the boat ride inside of a metal box.”

And what if the Flood were to happen today? You may or may not recall that God gave Noah a year in which to build the Ark. After the twelve months had passed, God surveyed an empty yard in front of Noah’s house and asked, “Where’s the Ark?” To which Noah replied, “I did my best, but Your construction plans didn’t comply with local ordinances so I had to hire an engineering firm and redraw them. Then OSHA got involved demanding that we install fire sprinklers and flotation devices. My neighbor sued me for violating zoning ordinances by building the Ark in my front yard, and I had problems getting enough wood, let alone gopher wood, for the Ark. The U.S. Forest Service claimed I was endangering the Spotted Owl and I couldn’t convince them that I was saving the owls. Even when I finally got the wood, they wouldn’t let me bring two owls onto the Ark, so no owls. The labor union sued me for not using licensed carpenters. And when I started rounding up the animals, I was picketed by animal rights groups claiming animal cruelty by “imprisoning” (their words) animals on a boat. Then I was told I had to file a large-craft navigation plan and when I sent them a globe, they made me spend a few nights in jail. Now I can’t pay for all the food we’re going to need because the IRS has frozen my assets, claiming that I’m building the Ark to flee the country and avoid paying taxes. I really don’t think I can finish the Ark for another five or six years!”

At that very moment, the sky began to clear, the sun peeking out from behind the clouds for the first time in weeks, and a rainbow arching across the sky. Noah looked up, and with the first glimmer of hope that he’d felt in months, said to God, “Do You mean You’re no longer going to destroy the earth?” To which God replied, “I don’t have to. The government already has.”

That would be a funnier joke if so many of us weren’t as concerned as we are about the United States government. With issues like North Korea, Russia, global warming, the treatment of Muslims and the treatment of unauthorized immigrants so prominently and disappointingly in the news, it’s understandable when people express dismay to us about what awaits our nation just up ahead.

After forty day and nights of unceasing rain, and a full year of riding on the waters of a deluged planet, when Noah was finally able to disembark from the Ark, imagine what he saw all around him. Even though the future had been saved, even though his Ark contained everything that would be needed to rebuild the world, everywhere he looked was destruction and devastation. No creature save those on the Ark had survived. Plants and trees were only just beginning to grow anew. What do you suppose went through Noah’s mind?

It’s not so difficult to conjure up an image for ourselves. We need think only of hurricane-demolished Puerto Rico or fire-ravaged northern California, and we have some idea of how Noah may have felt as he returned home after the Flood.

It would fall to the next generation to renew their hope in the future. Noah’s children would carry the banner of life into a promising tomorrow. There would be bumps along the way – the Tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah – but there would also be Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah and Rachel, all giving birth to three great religions that would at times also stumble but would teach hope and human compassion to the peoples of the world.

Let me share with you a story, first shared with me by my friend, Rabbi Dan Geffen.

In Morocco, a country in northern Africa, there had been a significant Jewish population dating back to the Roman empire more than two thousand years ago. Despite periods of antisemitism, the Jews of Morocco mostly thrived. Even when the Nazis arrived in 1945, Sultan Mohammed V refused to comply with their demands, and protected his Moroccan Jewish community from the Final Solution. It was the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 that would cause a mass emigration and, by 1967, very few remained.

Harim Hassad, Muslim Caretaker of Synagogue in Arazan

Not too many years ago, a Moroccan Jewish tour guide traveled to a small village called Arazan in order to learn something about the history of the Jewish community there. Upon entering the village, he asked where he could find the local synagogue, but no one was able to tell him. After much searching, he found an elderly Muslim who, upon being asked this same question, reached into his pocket, removed a long, old-fashioned wooden key, handed it to the man and said (in Hebrew!), “Barukh haba … welcome!” And then he said, “Where have you been?” The tour guide, puzzled, asked what the older man had meant. “I have been waiting for you,” he replied, “for more than forty years.” The tour guide responded, “But I’m not even forty myself.” At which point he was told, “When the rabbi left here forty years ago, he gave me this key with the request that if a Jew ever comes to our village and asks for the synagogue, I should give this to him.”

This Muslim had understood that while we are of different religions, we all worship the same one God, and that makes us one family, one world.

It turns out, Arazan was not the only place where such behavior was found. All across Morocco, synagogues and cemeteries have been cared for even though Jews have not been seen there for decades. And while these communities may never see a Jewish presence again, they continue to watch over their brothers’ and sisters’ holy sites.

So in a world where we have to constantly assert that black lives matter, that refugees should be allowed in, that immigrants shouldn’t be kicked out, that girls and women shouldn’t need to proclaim #metoo, let’s remember the monumental decency of good people everywhere who continue to carry that banner of human compassion. Yes, everywhere we look we can see destruction and devastation, but we mustn’t miss the new life that’s blossoming as well, not to mention all of those incredible promises of hope and better tomorrows that walked off the Ark when the Flood had ended.

The world we live in is a difficult one. If we teach our children love and a whole-hearted devotion to building something better for their children, there is every reason for us to believe a better day is coming. We mustn’t ever forget Dr. King’s most powerful words, that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

One last story. Two little kids were discussing Noah and the Ark, wondering about the smell and the noise and the dirt, and who knows what else, that must have resulted from being cooped up there for a year. One of them said, “I just don’t think I could stand it.” The other thought for a minute, then replied, “Well, yes, it must have been awful. But it was still the best thing afloat.”

Eloheinu v’elohei avoteinu v’imoteinu … dear God and God of our ancestors … for thousands of years, You have taught the peoples of this planet about its extraordinary magnificence. And You have asked that we take care of it, the planet itself and everyone and everything that lives upon it. Be patient with us. We won’t ruin it. While voices of arrogance and brutality will have their moments, the arc of the moral universe is long. And your teacher, Reb Nakhman of Breslov taught us it is forbidden to stop hoping. Your world has taken quite a beating in recent times, but so long as there is an Ark in which we can protect and teach our young, we will not let You down. We will not let ourselves down. There are days of brightness up ahead. We will always steer our ship by the stars of goodness and love.

Shabbat shalom.

One more thought:

In August, when Hurricane Harvey struck Texas and people’s homes, and maybe their lives, were ruined, stories emerged of people who helped others. As just one example, a man was found clinging to a street signpost, surrounded by flood waters that threatened to sweep him away. When others spotted him, a human chain was formed to help bring the man to safety, just one among thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of selfless acts during a statewide disaster.

Somehow, when people’s welfare is at stake, there are almost always others who take notice and, even at the risk of personal harm, extend a hand and offer assistance.

This is the world that you and I live in. Not a world of resignation or despair, but one of resilience, of partnership, and of love. Noah may have given up, but we never will. That rainbow in the sky was put there for all of us. Never again will life be given over to destruction and despair.

When you go home tonight, keep your eyes open. You never know who you’ll find clinging to a signpost. Stop to help. You won’t be alone. We’ve got an entire ark full of good people ready to save our world.

Billy

I’ve been on the phone every day this week with my brother Jimmy. He was supposed to be here tonight, sitting with you and with his family at this service, and enjoying the Kabbalat ShaBBQ afterwards. But Jimmy lives in Fort Lauderdale and, together, we’ve been watching the weather and watching Hurricane Irma. I’ve been telling him to come up here and get out of the hurricane’s path, while he’s been stocking up on supplies and telling me he needs to be there to take care of the house.

What are you gonna do? I’m praying for him and I’m watching the TV very closely.

It was only a week or so ago that Hurricane Harvey unleashed 130 mph winds, dropped more than 50 inches of water, destroyed more than 1000 homes, damaged another 49,000 homes, and left 30,000 people homeless.

Amidst all of that, we heard remarkable stories of neighbors helping each other, of abandoned animals being rescued by strangers, of a world that on the surface appeared to be falling apart but at its core was stronger than ever.

All of this in the midst of a time in American history when politics have divided us in ways that none of us have ever seen before, ways that have made some of us feel like the atmosphere of the Civil War had returned.

Now I’m no advocate for natural disasters. God knows, I wish the weather would always be 75 and clear. But things happen. And they transcend everything. When people’s lives are endangered, social strata are transcended, economics are transcended and, yes, even politics are transcended. Look at the aid package just passed by Congress! The House passed it by a vote of 419 to 3. The Senate passed it, 80 to 17. Did you ever think you’d see Democrats and Republicans working together again?

I don’t mean to suggest that our country is past its recent strife. But look at what we can do when our eyes see the same facts and our hearts feel the same losses.

Charlottesville was only a month ago. Two weeks ago, transgender individuals were barred from enlisting. And only earlier this week, the Dreamers were told to go home.

As beautiful as the response to Hurricane Harvey has been, we have a long way to go. Hurricane Irma will no doubt release our better angels once again. But there’s so work to be done on America’s spiritual infrastructure.

That’s why Woodlands is hosting a Rivertowns Rally Against Hate, right here in our High Holy Days tent on Sunday, September 24, 4:00-5:00 pm. Because we believe in an America that always extends a hand in love and inclusion to all. Because we believe in an America whose citizenry isn’t closed to people who are different from us.

That banner hanging up in the parking lot, it reads, “All are welcome here!” It’s in four languages and could be in many more. We wanted to make a statement about Woodlands. But what we really want is to make that statement about America. We can do that on Sunday, September 24. Bring everyone, including your friends. It’s for everybody in the Rivertowns who wants to be part of an America that’s open, inclusive and welcoming.

In this week’s parasha, Kee Tavo, our Israelite ancestors are instructed to give thanks for the land in which they have settled, and to express that thanks, in part, by remembering that they too were once disadvantaged, and how lucky they are to dwell amidst all of these blessings.

Three thousand years later, you and I are still being taught to count our blessings, and to do so, in part, by looking out for the downtrodden elsewhere.

Right now my brother and his family are hunkering down in their home, hiding out from an approaching hurricane. They’re not hiding because they’re Jewish. They’re not hiding because of the color of their skin. They’re not hiding because of their sexual or gender identity. And they’re not hiding because of their immigration status.

As bad as it might be down there for my brother and his family, a hurricane should be one of the very few reasons that an American needs to go into hiding in the year 2017. We certainly need to do the work to prevent natural disaster and devastation. It’s a little difficult to control nature, although we certainly can do our part to reduce climate change. But what I know we can do is protect one another from hate. It’s an unfortunately urgent assignment as the New Year begins, but it’s one that every one of needs to sign onto.

In this High Holy Days season of choosing life, may we do so … for ourselves, for those we love, and for those who would do it for themselves but now need us.

Shabbat shalom.

Billy

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Here’s a great story from Hurricane Harvey. As the waters rose, and homes were abandoned, furniture businessman Jim McIngvale – also known as “Mattress Mack” – opened doors to two of his massive showrooms in Houston and turned them into shelters, providing probably most comfortable sleeping arrangements of any refuge that week. “I’m part capitalist and part social worker,” he told reporters.

I don’t have any idea what Jim McIngvale’s political leanings are. All I know is that, in a crunch, he never asked what anybody else’s were either.

Last weekend, Ellen and I traveled northward to Buffalo where Ellen was officiating at the 2nd wedding ceremony of two very dear men who wanted to marry under the newly-legal auspices of New York State. We joined them on a small boat that travels the famous lock-system of the Erie Canal. Ellen presided over the re-union of the two gentlemen while the boat was being lifted in a lock from one level of the canal to another. It was a beautiful, touching, incredibly loving celebration that, for many of us, was enhanced by the excitement, if not the symbolism, of rising up with the waters beneath us.

Afterwards, as the boat ride continued, family members handed out words to a Bruce Springsteen song about the Erie Canal. As they taught it to us, I couldn’t help but laugh, knowing that I had learned this song when I was maybe ten years old and Bruce was just learning how to play guitar.

“I’ve got an old mule and her name is Sal. Fifteen years on the Erie Canal. She’s a good old worker and a good old pal. Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal. Low bridge, everybody down. Low bridge cause we’re coming to a town. You’ll always know your neighbor and you’ll always know your pal, if you’ve ever navigated on the Erie Canal.”

It was written in 1905 and recalls a time when mules walked along the shoreline, pulling the barges along the canal. I happen to know this because, growing up in Cincinnati, it was perhaps the only part of the social studies curriculum that actually caught my attention. Why we studied a New York waterway in Ohio, that I never understood until I looked it up on Wikipedia this week and learned that my teacher had probably tried to get me to understand that Ohio also had a canal system that formed, along with New York and Pennsylvania, what must have been America’s “super-highway” system of the late-19th and early-20th centuries.

Riding that little boat through the old locks, albeit sans mule, was for me a nostalgic journey that filled my mind with wonder and my heart with a certain satisfaction that comes from climbing into one of those boats that had been described to me more than fifty years ago. I bet I’d ace that quiz if I could just take it once more.

Memories are an important part of what makes us who we are. Without memories, not only would we lose much of our personality, but we’d also be far less able to make good decisions about nearly anything. We wouldn’t know what tastes good to us. We wouldn’t know with whom we enjoy spending time, or how we enjoy spending time. And at a meta-level, without memory, our communities would be unable to learn from previous experience and prepare for what awaits us all down the road.

Part of the conversation taking place right now is how the city of Houston could have been so unprepared for the waters of Hurricane Harvey when, back in 2008, Hurricane Ike killed nearly a hundred people and caused $30 billion in damage. It was a dress rehearsal for Hurricane Harvey, and yet little was done in the years since. So while Houston has been experiencing incredible economic growth, it has also erased marshland after marshland, leaving few escape routes for the eventual floods that were coming. They were sitting ducks, they knew it, yet did nothing about it.

We’re all familiar with George Santayana’s prediction that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” But what about those who do remember the past and ignore it? Same thing, I guess. Except for the added characteristics foolishness and arrogance.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel taught, “The past defers to the future, but it refuses to be discarded. Only he who is an heir is qualified to be a pioneer.”

We learn perhaps the same lesson from the 25th chapter of Deuteronomy, in which the Israelites are told, “Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey out of Egypt, how, undeterred by the fear of God, he surprised you on your march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear. When God grants you safety from all your enemies around you in the land that God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!”

I suspect that “blot out the memory of Amalek” means precisely the opposite of how it sounds. Do not forget Amalek. Ever. And if he should reappear, remember what he did to your ancestors and act to prevent it from happening to you.

Memory is supposed to be our teacher. But like I tuned out during social studies and only learned a portion of what was being offered to me and to my fellow students, history – whether it’s retelling the story of a fascist dictator, or recounting the devastation caused by weather patterns (that are patterns, folks, and they will return) – there’s great wisdom in the past. It can help us determine best avenues for the journey ahead. But only if we study it.

I’m reading Dandelion Wine, one of the great narratives by Ray Bradbury of Fahrenheit 451 fame. It took a while for me to start enjoying it. I turned that corner when I realized that, with each chapter, the author was drawing these remarkable pictures of small-town life in 1930s America. And while these are not my memories, I’m loving the neighborhoods which Bradbury has invited me to visit with him.

Nostalgia is defined as a sentimental affection for the past. This visitation through Bradbury’s writing to Green Town, Illinois, may seem like it’s just for fun. But the author’s intentions go further. Bradbury wants to teach us about fears that we all must, at one time or another, face, and about the acceptance that is sometimes all we can offer in the face of our inability to change where things are headed. Memory may not provide the tools to win, but it can give us enough knowledge to equip us to live as gracefully and gratefully as possible. Technology, for Bradbury, is both the way forward and a door that sometimes shuts unceremoniously on ways of life that we have loved and must increasingly leave behind.

I have occasionally engaged in grieving for the ridiculous. A television series that’s come to an end. A food I can no longer find in the grocery store. Even this past summer, when a flood in my basement destroyed items long-stored, I was saddened to lose possessions that neither Ellen nor I were ever going to use again.

Still, those memories are pleasant ones. And life ought to include unsubstantial acts that bring us a bit of joy and contentment. We can’t always be saving the world. As Ray Bradbury would suggest, everyone should take the time to make some dandelion wine, that is, to capture one’s best summer memories in a bottle and, when winter has frozen the world around us, head down to the basement and take a sip every now and then to remember warmer times.

In this week’s parashah, Kee Taytzay, there is a passage in the 21st chapter of Deuteronomy (v14) about what to do with the women you capture when you’ve been victorious in battle. Apparently, you can bring one home to mom and dad, and make her your bride. Then, and I now quote, “Should you no longer want her, you must release her outright. You must not sell her for money. Since you had your way with her, you must not enslave her.”

Setting aside the awful way that people in the past, our ancestors included, sometimes comported themselves, I found myself reading this passage as if it were about memory. “Should you no longer want them, you must release them outright.” Some memories need to be let go. Their pain debilitates us and we are continually diminished by them. I’m thinking of memories about terrible ways some have been treated, and how long the memories of such moments last. Their pain can continue for decades. To move forward in a life that has been bruised by such experiences, it might be better to let go of these memories. To leave the traumas behind. Since there’s nothing but anger to fuel the way forward from them, it is better perhaps to abandon both the narratives and the emotions that go with them. We ought neither enslave those memories to us, nor become a slave to them.

It is the month of Elul. In three weeks’ time, we’ll gather here for our annual Days of Repentance, of turning, of doing the work to make our and others’ lives better. For that period of reflection to be a successful one, we are called upon to look back at the year just ending. We think of our actions, our deeds, where we stood tall and where we demeaned ourselves in order to engage in the unimpressive deeds that should be beneath us. But first comes memory. For memory is a sacred act. It is a holy act. During this High Holy Days season, may we do our remembering with humble yet insightful recognition that where we’ve been is a precious asset. For out of our past, we can plan a better future. In the new year 5778, may we succeed in making that so.

Shabbat shalom.

Billy