Listen More

In heder (now called “Hebrew School”) the rabbi visited various classes.  The teacher wanting to please the head rabbi posed a simple question to one of the students.

“Shmuel, who wrote Psalms?”

Shmuel was very agitated and blurted out, “Teacher, I didn’t do it!”

The rabbi, sensing the boy’s angst said to the teacher,  “Why did you pick on that poor boy?”

The teacher, also a nervous wreck, answered, “I know he would not do such a thing.  I know his parents very well and they are respectable people.”

 

Sometimes it seems like we speak different languages.  We talk across one another, without really listening. Much the same has been mirrored by political leaders, the media and parroted by the public.  The pandemic has made life difficult but the attitudes of not listening and validating one another exacerbates the tension that is felt across America, perhaps the whole world.

 

Over the past few years we have seen and heard much screaming at and about one another; labeling others as inferior, not as smart or intellectually handicapped; refusing to hear the other… Arguing over who is right is most often inconsequential.  Ask yourself: How often have you changed someone’s mind because of your position and argument?  Not often is my guess and experience.

 

Yet we seem to not want to learn the lesson that life has tried to teach us time and again.  That is not to say we should remain silent when a wrong is being committed but most times we grow red in the face over opinions over who you voted for, support or issues of belief.

 

During these long months of insecurity with the pandemic raging we have all witnessed the fighting over diminishing crumbs of what we believe to be right and wrong. In the final analysis, those words will have no lasting positive impact.  That is not to say it will not have an impact, it just may not be a good one.

 

A person who tries to trust in God while leaving himself a backup plan is like a person who tries to learn how to swim but insists on keeping one foot on the ground.  –Rabbi Yosef Yozel Hurwitz

 

I often refer back to the famous words of King Solomon who, when conflicted by opposing ideas, uttered, “This too shall pass.” And so it has.  And so it will.  Just as surely as you are evidence of God’s providence so will the future be steered by something more powerful than us.

 

Children forever want to grow up so they can be independent and espouse and express their own ideas.  Closer to reality is that we all are still children in need to growing up, knowing that each person carries his or her own truth and we are not likely to change their mind.

 

Consider.  Many people want to know what the Talmud is.  It is the search for equality and balance that can only be achieved when we listen and respect one another.  It deals with such mundane subjects as lost objects, rental agreements, damages, speech, life cycle milestones and oaths.  The goal of the sixty tomes is hearing all sides of each issue.  That does not mean there is always agreement (in fact the opposite is closer to the truth) but it does demand listening and respecting.  

 

That is not difficult is it?   Yes, it is.  It is arduous to sublimate our yetser ha-ra, our egotistical sense of entitlement, and give others space to be heard, validated and witnessed.

 

If we have learned anything from these past months I hope that it is that we have gained a vital lesson about growing morally and spiritually by speaking and demanding less and listening and understanding more.

The Fight Endures, As do We

This is Hanukkah.

We recount the story of Matityahu and his five sons who we called the Maccabees. These untrained, but God inspired, zealots gathered around them a group of like-minded people who took up a struggle against overwhelming odds. Victory came to their hands, although at a high price.

In the struggle of the forces of good and evil, good ultimately wins even when the cause seems hopeless. The war of the Maccabean guerillas against the larger forces of evil is not an ancient event 2500 years old but a contemporary one. We have seen in our own lifetime the martyrdom of millions to a fight against unmitigated evil. The lives of men women and children were devoured in a savage attempt to destroy our people, faith and all that is humane.  In face of degradation and physical torture of six million martyrs, stories of immense strength appear.

 

The great Rabbi Leo Baeck was one of the leaders of the Jewish community in pre-war Germany.  As the head of the Reichsvertretung, the representative body of German Jews, he had the respect and admiration of the Jewish population.  Even through the beginning of the war, he received many invitations to serve as rabbi abroad, turning them all down.  With knowledge of what lay ahead, Baeck declared he would stay there as long as there was a minyan in Germany.  Ultimately, with his people, he was sent to Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1943.

 

At the beginning of the Nazi reign of terror, Dr. Baeck accepted the challenge of fighting for the lives and dignity of his fellow Jews.  He would staunchly remain with them, no matter what the consequences.  Their fate would be his fate; their story, his story.

 

When it meant death to ask one’s mind publicly, Dr. Baeck spoke of life and of determination  to survive. He composed prayer to be recited throughout Germany on Yom Kippur. Knowing full well that Gestapo agents were stationed at services he asked for prayer nonetheless be said everywhere on that holy night:

”Let us despise the slanderous and calumnies directed against us and our faith. We bow our head before God, and remain upright and erect before man…”

 

Good inevitably triumphs over evil. Rabbi Beck was a towering example of justice and faith in the midst of the inferno.

Rabbi Leo Baeck lived before the conflagration and survived the holocaust. The liberating forces found a week but still powerful man in Theresienstadt in 1945.

 

On Hanukkah we begin by lighting a single feeble flame. We continue throughout the next week to add more lights, one after the other, until we have a shining beacon. Isn’t this a wonderful symbol?  We demonstrate on Hanukkah the power of the Jewish spirit. It will not be quenched. It will only grow adding additional lights to causes all to glow with newfound strength. We had inspiration to inspiration until the light of the human soul glows with faith in God.

And has 50,000 Jews came out to greet Simhat Torah in Moscow in 1986, Jews always understand the powerful symbol that moves them. Defying the government, risking their livelihood, knowing informants alert in the crowd, they fought on. Jewish martyrdom is not over but we shall always triumph.

”Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit alone, says the Lord of Hosts.”