A Troubling Thought on the Death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg זצ''ל

.תני רבן שמעון בן גמליאל אומר אין עושין נפשות לצדיקים דבריהם הן הן זכרונן
Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel taught:
We do not need to make monuments for the righteous—
their words serve as their memorial. (Talmud Yerushalmi, Shekalim 11a)

Like many of us, I’m grieved by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg זצ''ל (the memory of a righteous person is a blessing) on Erev Rosh Hashanah. She was everything people are saying about her: an icon of justice and equality, a shatterer of glass ceilings, and a role model for all Americans. And like others, I gape at the transparent hypocrisy and ethical hollowness of the GOP seeking to fill her seat six weeks before the election: We remember Merrick Garland.

For Jewish Americans in particular, her stature was enormous. Which is why the decisions around her funeral are burial are so unfortunate and saddening.

As has been widely reported, Justice Ginsberg* will receive national honors, with public viewings and opportunities for admirers to pay their respects. First her body will lie “in repose” at the U.S. Supreme Court, and subsequently it will lie “in state” in at the Capitol building. Amazingly, she will be the first woman in American history to lie in state. Second, the funeral and burial will be held after Yom Kippur—more than ten days after her death.

These national rites are intended to honor her in a manner befitting her stature, to be sure.

But these secular honors contravene Jewish tradition and values, and that’s a shame—especially for a person who carried her Judaism as proudly and confidently as Justice Ginsberg.

Two Jewish laws in particular are in play here. First, Judaism rejects “viewing” the deceased. Second, Judaism urges that a body should be buried as quickly as is feasible. Each of these traditions are rooted in two thousand years of practice.

The overarching principle for these laws is the idea of k’vod ha-met, which literally means “the honor/dignity accorded to a dead body.” In Judaism, the body is considered a holy container that once held a person’s spirit. After death, that container is washed and purified with love and respect. And it is to be lovingly returned to the earth from which it came. 

But that container is not the person who died. “Viewing” is not the Jewish way of showing honor or respect. We maintain that kavod—honor and dignity—means that people don’t view you when you have no control over your appearance. Kabbalah refers to the countenance of a dead person as a mareh litusha, or “a hammered image,” a grotesque distortion of the human being, made in the Image of G-d.

We bury quickly for the same reason: that Divine Image should be restored to the earth as promptly as is feasible. Sometimes there is a delay, when we honor a person by making appropriate arrangements for a Jewish burial, but Jewish law emphasizes that praise and honor require a quick burial (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De’ah 357:1-2).

But here’s what troubles me the most: Those who justify these violations of Jewish tradition by saying, “Yes, but she was important.” I’ve seen that argument in print—and even from rabbis. Yet the glory and beauty of Jewish burial practices is precisely this: we are all important, and we are all equal, in death.

A short excerpt from the Talmud’s laws of burial should make this principle clear:

At first, they would uncover [for “viewing!!”] the faces of the deceased rich people, but they would cover the faces of decease poor people, because the faces of the poor were often blackened by famine. The Sages established that every cadaver’s face should be covered—for the honor of poor people.

At first, deceased rich people were carried out for burial on an elaborate bier, and deceased poor people were carried out on a plain bier. The Sages established that every cadaver should be taken out on a plain bier—for the honor of poor people. (Talmud, Mo’ed Katan 27a-b)

And most striking of all:

At first, burying the dead was more difficult for relatives than the death of a loved one itself (because of the great expense of funerals)!  It got so bad that relatives would sometimes abandon the corpse and run away. Then Rabban Gamliel came and set some of his own honor aside, and instructed that he should be buried in plain linen garments. And the people adopted this practice after him, that the dead should be buried in plain linen garments.

Rav Pappa said: And now, everyone (!!) follows the practice of burying the dead in rough, cloth garments that cost only a zuz. (Ibid.)

All the Jewish funeral symbols—pocketless shrouds; a plain pine casket; no viewing; a speedy burial—emphasize humility and the idea that we are all equal in death. They even teach us about economic justice: there is no “rich” and “poor” when it comes to facing the Angel of Death.

Surely Justice Ginsberg, whose legacy is so bound up with the principle of equality, would have appreciated these extraordinary and powerful ideals.

I fear that when rabbis say, “Yes, but we make an exception for her—she was important,” they are not only denying these ideals; they are setting a bad precedent for the future. What happens when some super-wealthy financier dies and the rabbi is told, “Look, he was important, so we’re going to have a viewing, an extravagant casket, and bury him in a $10,000 suit”? Or some big donor says, “Rabbi, you have to make an exception to Jewish custom for my mother; she was important”? It’s a dangerous precedent—precisely what Rabban Gamliel was trying to save the Jewish community from so long ago.

It is a sublime religious ideal that even in death, we can still teach our family, friends, and students, by dying according the ideals that we lived by.

I concede there are more important issues to focus on right now, like stopping Mitch McConnell’s hypocritical crusade to fill her seat before the election. But imagine how rousing it would be to Jewish people—including all those young girls whom Justice Ginsberg so inspired!—if they said, “We appreciate the state honors, but she lived and died as a Jew, and we will honor her according to Jewish values.”

Justice Ginsberg taught and inspired us in so many ways with her life. I’m saddened that she did not choose to teach and inspire us in her death.

* I’ll refer to her as Justice Ginsberg in this essay. Out of deep respect, I’ll avoid calling her “RBG”, even though I appreciate her iconic status to liberals everywhere, who affectionately say “RBG speaks for me” and humorously call her “Notorious R.B.G.” And I won’t call her “Ruth,” as if I knew her personally. While she did have a public image that made people feel affectionate towards her, there is a casual sexism in referring to her by her first name or nickname, while similar men would be afforded the respect of title and surname.

Have We Forgotten What Good News Looks Like?

Today there was good news in the world. After months of unremitting bad news, I fear we may have forgotten what good news looks like.

Watching the historic peace treaty signings today between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, I felt detached and dispassionate about the proceedings. I’m usually much more emotional when it comes to these things. I have strong memories of September 13, 1993, when the Oslo Accords were signed on the White House lawn. I was alone in my apartment in Jersey City, NJ, with tears streaming down my cheeks as Yitzhak Rabin z”l intoned, “Oseh shalom bim’romav…”

And I still have hanging over my desk a large photo of Rabin and King Hussein lighting each other’s cigarettes on the occasion of the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan in October 1994. It makes me melancholy and wistful when I look at the faces of these leaders from a different era. I take these things personally.

Today: no tears, and no goosebumps. Maybe that’s because Trump and Netanyahu are a different species of leader: unvarnished opportunists with grotesque records when it comes to promoting democracy. Or maybe because the UAE and Bahrain have abysmal human rights records, and it feels a bit like making friends with the nasty kid on the playground—he’s cool as long as he picks on others, not us.

But my own sentimentality doesn’t matter. To tell the truth, I am well aware that this is, in fact, a momentous occasion.

I’ve had conversations with lefty friends in recent days who scorned this turn of events. They’ve said that Trump is a self-serving narcissist, and doesn’t care about peace, and this is all about his reelection. They point to his unabashed statement this summer, when he admitted that the relocation of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem in 2018 was “for the evangelicals”—recalling Secretary of State James Baker’s “F—k the Jews, they didn’t vote for us.” They argue that Bibi, too, is an autocrat who is solely bent on self-preservation.

To all of which I say: Point taken, but so what?  It’s not exactly breaking news to say that politicians act in their own political interests.

But I fear there’s something dangerous in my friends’ opposition to these peace deals. I think that they would unequivocally support the exact same deals if they were marshaled together by an American president whom they respected. I think that some left-leaning, pro-Israel people oppose this deal because Trump himself is so noxious, and they imagine that anything that makes Trump look good—anything that he can put in his “win” column—makes his prospect for reelection go up, G-d forbid.

In other words, they say: if it’s good for Trump, we oppose it.

That’s a pretty disastrous way of thinking. It’s just like hoping that the economy will tank, because presidents tend not to be reelected in a bad economy. Or hoping that there won’t be a coronavirus vaccine until after the election. It’s a manner of thinking that says: Trump is so grotesque that I don’t care how many people suffer in the short term, as long as he is booted out decisively in November.

I, for one, hope that in the short term, bad things won’t happen: that the economy won’t completely implode; that there won’t be more slayings of innocent black people by police; that there won’t be any more school shootings; that the fires ravaging the American West will stop.  (Can you imagine someone saying, “I want the fires keep burning until after the election?” That’s just sick.)

And I can hope for all these good things while campaigning with vigor for Trump to lose. You know what they say about broken clocks… 

In that spirit, I can rejoice that finally Israel is normalizing relationships in its “neighborhood.” This is what we’ve been yearning for since at least the Six Day War, when people prematurely fantasized that, due to Israel’s victories, the Arab nations would accept the fact that Israel was a permanent part of the modern Middle East. To hold otherwise is to play right into the hands of those who believe that what is good for them is what’s good for the world—and vice-versa.

What about the Palestinians? Yes, they are going to be the losers here—because of precisely this same logic. People who say, “You shouldn’t be allowed to engage with Israel until there is progress with the Palestinians” miss the whole point. When the PA and its enablers give up the pipe dream of “from the River to the Sea”, and engage with Israel as a permanent neighbor, there will be progress. I’m not absolving Israel of its responsibilities toward the Palestinians—Israel’s policies of dissembling and humiliation have been disastrous. But, frankly, I think that the deals with the UAE and Bahrain (and others that have been whispered) show that this has nothing to do with the Palestinians. Or, if anything, that the Arab world is nearly as exhausted with Palestinian rejectionism as Israelis are.

And while these protagonists make it impossible to feel unmitigated happiness, we should be able to recognize good news when it comes our way. At the end of a year’s ceaseless flow of bad news, this is indeed good news. Kein Yirbu—may it grow and expand in the New Year ahead.

A Day of Communal Compassion and Grief

As of 7:13 this morning, 132,237 Americans have died from Covid 19.

Five of the past nine days, including yesterday, have set records for new cases of the virus—so that number of deaths is certain to rise. 

And of course, this isn’t just in America—the devastation is happening in countries the world over, and especially in developing nations, as my friends from Tevel b’Tzedek report from the frontlines.

Today, the Boston Jewish community will pause for a communal day of reflection and mourning to mark all of this. The program will be broadcast live on YouTube from 12:00-12:15 EDT (and of course it is available for viewing later as well). At the centerpiece of the program will be the unveiling and dedication of a memorial that will stand for generations to come, in the heart of one of Boston’s largest Jewish cemeteries, marking the massive amount of loss in this year of pandemic.

Why now, while the pandemic is sure to continue? Two reasons:

First, we undertook this effort because of the astonishing absence of empathy and compassion coming from the highest office in the land. 132,237 dead Americans—and yet there has been no national reflection or words of comfort?

And, for that matter, there are all those who have lost loved ones in the past few months not due to Covid—but who have been restrained or limited in their mourning rituals because of the necessary distancing. For many, this is a terribly lonely time. Real leaders need to acknowledge that. In the national vacuum of compassionate leadership, we’ve had to take it on ourselves.  (No, the Boston program will not say any of this. The political commentary is strictly my own observation.)

Second, in the Jewish calendar, today is 17 Tammuz, a minor day of fasting and solemnity, commemorating events that led up to the Tisha B’Av fast three weeks from now. Here’s what I’ll say at the Boston commemoration:

In the Jewish calendar, these Three Weeks are known as Bein Ha-Metzarim: the tight period in between narrow straits.

And Bein Ha-Metzarim is surely how so many of us feel at this time. All our Jewish instincts feel so constrained. We desire to reach out and be present for one another. And it’s so hard to do at this time of distancing and quarantine.

G-d willing, someday soon we will be liberated from these narrow straits. When that day comes, I pray we’ll carry forward the lessons we’ve learned during these trying times about compassion, empathy, and love.

An Antidote to Cynicism

Book Review: Dreams Never Dreamed, by Kalman Samuels (Toby Press, 2020)

We live in strange and cynical times. It’s an era of discord and polarization, on the precipice of what will be the nastiest, most divisive political season in American history, exacerbated by the centrifuge that is social media. It’s difficult to escape, but we should do our best to protect ourselves: Cynicism, after all, is spiritual poison.

The antidote to cynicism arrived in my mailbox in the form of Dreams Never Dreamed, a memoir by Kalman Samuels, the founder of Shalva, the Israel Association for the Care and Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities. It looks like a generic feel-good memoir, and to be honest, I was unprepared for how deeply and profoundly I was moved by the story of the Samuels family.

The book works on a variety of levels. It is an Erin Brockovich-style saga of perseverance against entrenched and moneyed bureaucracies. It is also the story of a husband and wife, and a father and son. And it is the diary of one man’s spiritual journey and faith.

Kalman Samuels was born Kerry Samuels, raised in Vancouver in a normative suburban Jewish lifestyle. He was a jock, an inquisitive pupil, and a student leader. In young adulthood, he traveled to Israel, where his intellectual curiosity and openness brought him into the orbit of baal teshuvah-Jewish outreach. Incrementally he left the promise of university life behind for the life of a full-time Talmud student. No doubt that some members of his former circles were dismayed. But part of the sweetness of this book is that, unlike other memoirs of people who embrace haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Judaism, Kalman’s writing is open and affectionate about his youth. He doesn’t seem to have any regret or resentment about his upbringing; in fact, his teenage skills as a golfer, for instance, will help build important bridges much later in his life. Like I said, there is no cynicism to be found here.

Given the remarkable experiences that befall Kalman throughout the years, it’s hard not to be drawn into his faith, and to sense that something behind the scenes is pointing the way for him. Time and time again, as he becomes one of Israel’s leading advocates for disabled children and their families, an angel seems to lift him over yet another insurmountable obstacle. I kept thinking of the biblical Joseph, who constantly reminds others that his successes are not his own, but attributable to G-d whose hand is hidden behind the scenes.

It is also to Kalman’s great credit as a writer that he never sermonizes and these religious details are never heavy-handed. Nothing about the book is conversionary. He simply shares the elements of his deep faith that are germane to the astounding story he has to tell. That is refreshing, too.

Kalman and his wife Malki began to build their family in Israel in the mid-1970s. In autumn 1977, their one year-old son Yossi received a routine DPT (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus) vaccination that all babies receive. And that is the moment the family’s life changed. Later they would discover that the pertussis element of that batch of vaccinations was corrupted. Soon their sweet and alert boy would begin having seizures, and he was becoming blind. By the time he was three years old, they realized he had become deaf as well.

Yossi Samuels eventually would become known as the “Helen Keller of Israel.”

For Kalman and Malki, Yossi’s disabilities  launched a years-long battle in the courts against those who negligently—and ruthlessly—permitted the faulty vaccines to be distributed to Israeli families. Entrenched corporate forces and the Kafkaesque Israeli health system denied culpability at every turn. Kalman tells the story of his family’s pursuit of accountability in direct and compelling terms. The setbacks are excruciating. The denouement, when it comes, is exhilarating. 

Yossi Samuels and Shoshana Weinstock, in an image from the book.

The emotional center of the book is Yossi’s emergence into the world. Just as Helen Keller had a teacher, Annie Sullivan, whose painstaking efforts finally broke into her world, Yossi had a teacher named Shoshana Weinstock. Shoshana does the work of teaching Yossi by fingerspelling letters into the palm of his hand. Here is the moment of breakthrough:

In the course of one such lesson, Shoshana suddenly appeared at our house with Yossi, knocking loudly at our door, breathless with excitement. “He got it! He got it!” she cried. “His life has changed forever!”

Malki and I had no idea what she was talking about. We looked at his hands to see what he had “got.” “No! No!” Shoshana shouted. “He got it! He understands that I’m signing letters in his palm. His entire world has just opened.”
…
“We were sitting at the table in my house and I was fingerspelling the five symbols that spell the word ‘table’ [shulchan in Hebrew] into the palm of his hand, while his other hand rested on the table.” She continued excitedly, “I have done this for the past few lessons but Yossi didn’t respond. Today,” she said, “a smile suddenly lit up his face and he began to touch the table deliberately, and we both knew that he’d understood I was spelling shulchan. We did it over and over and he smiled again and again, touching the table every time. He has a new life. I can teach him all twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet and give him language.”

We were all sobbing as Shoshana began to demonstrate on the palms of Yossi’s sister and brothers how to spell shulchan and how to sign the other letters. She told them: “You, too, are going to learn the letters, and you’ll at last be able to speak to your brother.” (p.94-95)

Excuse me for a moment, I have something in my eye.

Yossi’s widening horizons and development into a passionate, active young man is thrilling, to say the least. Just as inspiring, however, is Malki Samuels’s relentless vision. She is the catalyst behind Shalva. She knows firsthand how caring for a disabled child can be physically and spiritually exhausting for an entire family. The original vision was to create a center for children with disabilities that would provide love, care, and growth—and which would give parents a much needed respite, to focus attention on the rest of their families, or to reenergize themselves. These are lessons that could only come from parents who have experienced the challenges of raising disabled children themselves.

Shalva opens in the apartment building next door to the Samuels’ home. But this book is really about Shalva’s exponential growth, thanks to two factors: (1) Malki’s crystal-clear vision for what disabled children and their families need—which is not always in sync with what “the experts” believe; and (2) Kalman’s indefatigable, serendipitous, and often comic ability to make things happen or to raise the necessary funds. You root for them, even as you are certain that their efforts will be successful. (As Joseph would remind us, “Not me! But G-d…”)

The final battle is to find Shalva’s permanent home in central Jerusalem, on a vast campus with an amphitheater, public café, and an enormous array of amenities for the development or simple of joy of the children and their families. Shalva is even more than that: It’s a portal that welcomes visitors to Jerusalem as they enter the city from the west. For Jerusalem is not meant to (merely) be a place of politics and business. It is also supposed to be a gateway to more supernal dimensions, and that gateway is channeled through chesed / compassion and love. Do go visit the Shalva campus, it’s an essential part of understanding what Jerusalem is about.

And if you’re still not convinced, spend a little time with the astonishing Shalva Band. You’ll come around.

I got to know Kalman back in the 1990s, during my summers in Israel with Danny Siegel. Indeed, a chapter about Yossi and Shoshana is included in Radiance, the new anthology of Danny’s writing that I edited. Kalman’s book fills in lots of the gaps that I didn’t know and brings his story to a remarkable and heady fulfillment.

If you’re looking for a little inspiration—never maudlin nor cliched, but honest, touching and often very funny—read Kalman’s joyful, uplifting book. 

Quite simply, it’s the antidote to cynicism.

Lag BaOmer: The Day the Curve Flattened

Today is Lag BaOmer, the 33rd day in the 50-day stretch between Passover and Shavuot.

Lag BaOmer has always been shrouded in mystery. Why are these days, when spring is sprouting, considered to be a time of semi-solemnity? And why is there a little oasis in this melancholy time—the 33rd day—for joy and celebration? 

The Talmud only speaks about this with riddles. Apparently there was some sort of enigmatic plague that struck the students of Rabbi Akiva in the 2nd century CE, at the time of the Bar Kokhba revolt against Rome. The nature of the plague is obscure (askara, says the text: croup, or diphtheria), leading some commentators to speculate about whether or not it was a literal plague (i.e, that the Romans were the plague):

אמרו שנים עשר אלף זוגים תלמידים היו לו לרבי עקיבא מגבת עד אנטיפרס וכולן מתו בפרק אחד מפני שלא נהגו כבוד זה לזה…תנא כולם מתו מפסח ועד עצרת אמר רב חמא בר אבא ואיתימא ר' חייא בר אבין כולם מתו מיתה רעה מאי היא א"ר נחמן אסכרה

Rabbi Akiva had 12,000 pairs of students from Givat to Antipras, and all of them died in a single period of time—because they did not treat one another with respect.  It was taught: All of them died between Passover and Shavuot.
Rabbi Hama bar Abba, and some say Rabbi Hiyya bar Avin, said: All of them died a terrible death. What was it? Rabbi Nachman said: askara.
—Yevamot 62b

Note that there’s nothing here about the 33rd day. Lag BaOmer only appears in later texts. According to post-Talmudic sources, the plague “ceased” or “ebbed” on the 33rd day in between Pesach and Shavuot; it’s still not clear. But the tradition arose that it should be a minor holiday, a mini-day of joy in the midst of a more sober time. 

From there, the tradition piled on. For Kabbalists, Lag BaOmer became a day of celebration for its mystical significance, including its connections to Rabbi Akiva and his premier student Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, both of whom are considered mystics par excellence. And like virtually every other holiday, modern Israel has invested this day with new meanings and customs—especially, in normal years, building bonfires in the fields.

Frankly, all this has always seemed rather obscure to me. Don’t get me wrong, I celebrate Lag BaOmer and love it. But the reasons are still bewildering. What really happened during the days of Rabbi Akiva? Why a happy day in the middle of the period?  Who knows? 

But this year, it seems to me that the original meaning of the season has a new resonance. 

Imagine that in Rabbi Akiva’s time, there was a real, literal plague that ravaged the countryside.

And imagine, too, that the suffering was exacerbated by those who blamed others for the plague, who spread conspiracy theories, who mocked their neighbor’s fears and concerns, and who scorned those who tried to take public health seriously? Is this so far removed from the Talmud’s assertion that “they died because they did not treat one another with respect”? 

And what if Lag BaOmer was the day that the plague’s “curve was flattened,” so to speak? The day when finally people were able to see that there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and these days of sickness would eventually come to an end, as long as personal responsibility and ethical leadership were allowed to prevail?

Imagine Lag BaOmer as tradition’s way of saying: keep up the good practices that you are observing and this plague won’t last forever. Keep counting the days, each one is a precious step towards a cure.

Note that the plague didn’t end on the 33rd; there were still weeks to go of thoughtful containment and protection from whatever was devastating the community. But it was a day of hope: a time to realize that, in a few weeks’ time, the barley would be harvested, people would be fed, and life would someday go on—hopefully, not “back to normal”, but with lessons learned. 

When the light is visible on the horizon, it is appropriate to pause and celebrate. It’s even appropriate to kindle our own fires, bonfires in the fields to light up the darkness.

Where is the Pandemic in the Seder? Lots of Places—But Please, Not in the 10 Plagues

וְכָל הַמַּרְבֶּה לְסַפֵּר בִּיצִיאַת מִצְרַיִם הֲרֵי זֶה מְשֻׁבָּח

The more you embellish the Passover story,
the more commendable you are. (Passover Haggadah)

Where are the connections and lessons about Coronavirus in the Passover Haggadah? Lots of places, naturally. But please—not in the “Ten Plagues!”

This year’s Seder will be unlike any that we have experienced in our lifetimes. Seders will be small and isolated; some people with whom we share every Pesach will only be able to participate through videoconferencing; and many of us will find it a challenge to do the typical food shopping and preparation that we’re accustomed to at this season.

But there are certain truths with which we’ve already become acquainted during this strange time of physical distancing, and many of them are germane to Seder Night:

1.     Pikuach nefesh / preserving life takes precedence to virtually every Mitzvah;

2.     We must learn resilience and adaptability from our accepted routines;

3.     We have to build bonds of community and love in creative ways when we can’t be physically close to one another;

4.     It is imperative to care for the most vulnerable among us;

5.     Things we’ve long taken for granted can be amazingly fragile.

Where might we encounter these ideas in the Seder? Lots of places. Here are some preliminary thoughts:

·      URHATZ/RACHTZA: WASHING YOUR HANDS! – There have already been lots of internet memes about this in a humorous vein. But it is notable that at a time of crisis, one of the first lines of defense is to wash our hands constantly, many times throughout the day. In my Seder, the handwashing has always been a section we passed over quickly, to get to more substantial sections. But perhaps this year we should do it more methodically, and ask: Why this ritual? What does it have to do with the preparations of freedom?

And we note that in the 19th century, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865) noticed that doctors were going directly from working with cadavers to treating their patients; he urged them to wash their hands. Dramatically, the number of deaths—especially among women giving birth—plummeted. And now? Can you imagine medical professionals scoffing at washing their hands? Can you imagine anyone (cough, cough) mocking the consensus of the medical community about the precautions we need to observe to stay safe?

·      YAHATZ – As we break the middle matzah in half, we should pause and reflect on the fragility of things we’ve taken for granted for so long; and how easily shattered our daily routines can be by an unexpected crisis.

·      KOL DIKHFIN / “LET ALL WHO ARE HUNGRY COME AND EAT, LET ALL WHO ARE IN NEED COME AND SHARE THE PESACH MEAL” – Will this line just be bitterly ironic this year? I hope not. Perhaps our observance—and our inconvenience—can remind us of those who are perpetually hungry (and not just for food). Perhaps our Seder at this point should pause while we make a group commitment to Tzedakah that supports the most vulnerable people in our midst.

And this is one of many points in the Seder when we can appreciate how we’ve learned to use contemporary tools, such as Zoom technology, to bring together virtual communities during this crisis.

·      MAH NISHTANA / “WHY IS THIS NIGHT DIFFERENT FROM ALL OTHER NIGHTS?” – All of our days and nights are so different now than they were just a few weeks ago! And yet, there is a spiritual truth uncovered by being disrupted from work and school: Take nothing for granted, so much of life can change in a heartbeat. This is a good time to ask: How have we learned resilience and adaptability from our routines?

·      RABBI ELAZAR: “Here I am, like a man of 70…” A lot of people who thought of themselves as fit and healthy have suddenly discovered that they are considered “at-risk.” Who at the Seder has taken extra-special precautions? What have we learned?

·      THE FOUR CHILDREN:  Let’s note that the chacham, the wise one, asks specific questions and receives specific answers—as all wise citizens will do to make reasonable, sober decisions during the pandemic. But it’s the rasha, the wicked one, who says, “What is this to you?” and writes himself out of the story, as if there are no interconnections between us, as if his behavior couldn’t possibly affect another person, and vice-versa. We know that Covid-19 has been spread by fools who don’t consider the possibility that their behavior could carry the virus to others. It seems to me that a whole lot of evil comes into the world because of this attitude.

·      MIRIAM’S CUP:  Miriam teaches us a profound lesson about caring for the sick. When she was stricken with tzara’at, a terrifying biblical disease, she was quarantined outside the camp of the Israelites. But the text (Numbers 12:15) is careful to note that the camp doesn’t move on until Miriam is readmitted. Can we say the same – that our society will not neglect or abandon those who are most stricken? (Not sacrificing MY elders to the economy!!)

·      PESACH AL SHUM MAH? / WHAT DOES THE SHANKBONE REPRESENT? When we consider the story of the Destroyer passing over the Jewish homes, we recall how the Torah demanded of the Israelites, “…None of you shall go outside the door of his house until morning” (Exodus 12:22). The first example of physical distancing at a time of pandemic!

·      ELIJAH: Why is Elijah at our door at this time of distancing? Because he’s a symbol of hope, that things will get better. And because someday in the near future we’ll show we learned our lesson by flinging our doors wide open to anyone in need.

Or is it because Elijah, in the rabbinic imagination, tends to the sick and hurting? He’s the first responder and the frontline health care professional. And this is a moment in the Seder to remember those who put themselves at risk to make sure that all the rest of us are as safe and secure as possible.

In other words, ANYWHERE IN THE SEDER—BUT PLEASE, NOT THE 10 PLAGUES!

It’s not that coronavirus isn’t a plague—it certainly is. But linking it to the so-called 10 Plagues is a superficial, failed analogy. Here’s why.

The so-called 10 Plagues are called in Hebrew ‘eser makkot, “10 strikes.” The word “plague” is only used by the Torah in regard to the 10th (Exod. 11:1), the slaying of the Egyptian first-born, and it’s the exception that proves the rule.

These were the tools of divine deliverance that brought us from slavery to freedom. They are the “signs and wonders” to which the final words of the Torah (Deuteronomy 34:11) allude when eulogizing Moses. They were the tools of battle in G-d’s war with Pharaoh, who would not let the people go. They were miracles from G-d that were the tools of redemption.

Coronovirus isn’t that. It’s indeed a real plague, and a challenge to each of us individually and as a collective society. Pesach is a reminder of all the ways in which we are gloriously free, and the manner in which all of us are hopelessly (or hopefully) interconnected, and that we’re only as free as the most vulnerable among us.

The pandemic has amplified those messages—and the Seder can and should be a spiritually uplifting reflection on how we’re different this year, and how we will be liberated from these narrow straits as we have in the past.

Some RADIANCE for Dark Times - New Book!

Dear Friends,

I hope you and your family are safe and sound during these trying times. I hope that with this note I can share a little bit of light.

I’m pleased to announce that the book I edited—after more than 3 years of work—is now available:  RADIANCE: Creative Mitzvah Living—The Selected Prose and Poetry of Danny Siegel, just published from the Jewish Publication Society. It’s available now from jps.org, and—even though the sites say May 1—I understand it is now available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and elsewhere. Perhaps someday soon you’ll see it in your local bookstore (here’s a prayer that bookstores will still exist when this is all over).

 It’s an anthology of the most important writings by Danny Siegel, the noted Jewish educator, essayist, Torah teacher, and poet. Rabbi David Ellenson, President Emeritus of HUC-JIR, calls Radiance “A spiritual masterpiece!” and Professor Deborah Lipstadt calls it “a welcome volume that continues to challenge and teach us today.”

Danny Siegel’s teachings have shaped modern Jewish education with his urgency about how to do acts of Tzedakah, Tikkun Olam, and deeds of compassion and generosity. My experiences with Danny have very much shaped the person, professionally and personally, that I’m trying to become, and that’s a big reason why I wanted to create this book.

His prose essays are filled with translations and interpretations of texts from Jewish tradition—including many off-the-beaten track and unusual selections. Ideas for personal Mitzvah Projects fly off the page, and inspire readers to think creatively about how each of us is poised to personally make a difference in the world. And it’s not meant to be a period piece; there are five new essays where Danny takes his insights into the 2020s.

The poetry is saturated with Jewish spirituality—its history, pain, exhilaration, and hope. Many of these poems have been incorporated into Jewish liturgies over the years.  Some are ripe for rediscovery; I think he should be recognized as one of the most sublime Jewish poets of our generation.

I realize that there are other, greater concerns at this time. But it also strikes me that much of this book is about how to hold together as a community (especially at a time like this), and how to carry compassionate responsibility for the most vulnerable among us (now more than ever)—and in that way, it may be especially poignant today. 

For Jewish community leaders:  I’d like to suggest that this book may be especially useful to you as a gift for faculty and staff, for executive boards and volunteers, and for anyone involved in the work of building communities based upon Jewish values.

I hope you’ll check it out. Danny and I are available to speak to you or your community about  the ideas both in and beyond the pages of this new anthology.

With Gratitude,

Neal

Esther: A Brilliant Satire of Jewish-Diaspora Relations

In the Hasidic tale “The Humble King,” Rebbe Nachman of Bratzlav wrote, “If you want to understand the nature of a community, understand its humor.” 

The Scroll of Esther—which is, among other things, a brilliant satire of Jewish life in the Persian Empire from about 2,300 years ago—offers a similar challenge: If you want to understand the Jews of Shushan, understand the Megillah’s humor. But who, exactly, is the object of the book’s satire?

In the second chapter of the book, we meet Mordecai, who is introduced to readers with a brief genealogy. We are told that Mordecai’s great-grandfather had been “carried into exile along with King Jeconiah of Judah, who had been driven into exile by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon” (Esther 2:5-6). This verse may seem innocuous at first glance, but the satirical aim of the entire book emerges right here.

A little biblical history is called for in order to understand this. Jeconiah was the 18 year-old king of Judah who reigned for a mere three months in 597 BCE before he and his courtiers were conquered and deported eastward to Babylonia. They were the first of the Jewish exiles in Babylonia, and soon many more would follow them, in the wake of the destruction of the Temple in 586 BCE. The exile would remain a deep and traumatic memory for the Bible.

But just a few decades later—in 539 BCE—King Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylonia. Cyrus’s policy towards vanquished peoples was surprisingly liberal; he permitted the Jews to return home and rebuild their destroyed Temple. This, too, is an enormous event in the Bible’s mindset. Psalm 126, for instance, gushes: When G-d brought back the returnees to Zion, we were like dreamers!

This is the historical background of Esther and Mordecai. Their saga takes place in Susa (Shushan), the capital of Persia, a century and a half after Cyrus’s edict that permitted the exiles to return home. 

All of which points us towards an uncomfortable question. Mordecai and Esther belong to a generation when Judea was reborn, and the Second Temple was standing. So what were Jews living doing living in the Persian diaspora—after they miraculously had been permitted to return to their homeland?

The answer is: In fact, only a small minority of Jews returned home. Susa/Shushan was the cosmopolitan capital of the world’s most vast empire; Yehud/Judea was, by contrast, a small backwater, and the rebuilding effort was not easy. The returnees were not immediately successful in rebuilding the Temple; their economy was weak, their will was depleted, and (wait for it…) there was ugly infighting about which Jews were the most “authentic”! (That’s right—the painful history of “Who is the real Jew?” begins here. We can read about the Jewish infighting in the biblical book of Ezra.)

This was the situation of the Jews of the Megillah. They were the ones who, when offered the opportunity to go, said… “Thanks, but we’re good.” Instead, they embraced the relative prosperity and comfort of the world’s most cosmopolitan society of the day. They were the ones who opted to stay right where they were.

All this should give us some perspective. Esther is a satire about Jewish lives and mores in a diaspora. Now, that satire can be viewed from two perspectives.

On one hand, it can be read as a celebration of the diaspora’s triumphs. After all, the Jews of Shushan have risen to the very halls of power. And when they are threatened by an antisemitic monster, they take action. From this point of view, the Megillah is a story of empowerment and heroism. As Bible scholar Adele Berlin has written, Queen Esther’s courage “strengthens the ethnic pride of Jews under foreign domination.”[1] For many of us, that’s the way Esther was learned.

But on the other had, from a satirical point of view, the author pokes great fun at these Diaspora Jews. Sure, they’re successful and proud; but still, the reader might wonder, what kinds of Jews are these? After all, they’re not very pious; G-d’s name is never invoked in the entire book, even with impending disaster. They don’t seem to keep kosher. (What, pray tell, did Esther eat in the king’s harem—tuna salad?). They take on fashionable local names. (Esther has a perfectly beautiful Hebrew name—“Hadassah”—but travels in Persian circles by her more familiar moniker, evoking the Babylonian deity Ishtar.) Yet they certainly can shrey gevalt: when calamity arrives, they fast for three days! (Nowhere in Jewish literature are we ever instructed to fast for three days, no matter how severe the crisis.)

None of this should be offensive or insulting; there is a difference between laughing at and laughing with. Part of the book’s brilliance is to make us grin at these recognizable stereotypes, and to see a bit of ourselves in its caricatures. The humor of Esther is broad, but it isn’t cruel. Instead, like Purim itself, it takes aim at established pieties and deflates them. We can imagine an ancient reader smiling, thinking, “Of course—these are the Jews who had the opportunity to go home, but didn’t!” We know these people. 

And perhaps we can recognize a bit of ourselves in this story as well. 

This is all a very good and spiritually healthy thing. Purim reminds us that there is a big difference between righteousness and self-righteousness.

When we consider our own self-image, as well as the relationships between the Jews of today’s Diasporas and the State of Israel, more righteousness and less self-righteousness is extremely valuable. To rediscover how to speak, to learn, and most especially to laugh with one another would be the greatest Purim gift we could give one another.

[1] Adele Berlin, The JPS Bible Commentary: Esther (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2001), p.xxxv.

On the Death of an Indigent Jew

At first, burying the dead was more difficult for families than the death itself—because of the enormous expense. Family members even abandoned the bodies and ran away.
That changed when Rabban Gamliel adopted a simple style, and the people carried him to his grave in plain linen garments. Subsequently, everyone followed his example.
—Talmud, Ketubot 8b

Today I stood by an open grave as we lay to rest a certain Mr. Cohen, with the honor of Jewish rite and ritual to which every Jew is entitled.

With me at the graveside were the gentile funeral director and four members of the staff of the Jewish Cemetery Association of Massachusetts (JCAM). And that’s it. There were no mourners; no family to say the Kaddish, no friends or acquaintances to pay their respects.

I was invited to be there, because for the past few months I’ve been part of a quiet but important conversation here in Greater Boston: How our community can create a policy for burying indigent Jews—for people who have nothing; no assets, no money to pay for funeral costs or burial plots, and often no family.

You may think that it’s rather astounding that a Jewish community like this one does not have a strategy in place to bury extremely poor Jews. And you’d be right.

For decades, the burden of burying Jews without money here has fallen on the shoulders of whoever happened to be there. Sometimes that’s the funeral homes; other times, it’s the fine people at Jewish Family Services, or Yad Chessed, the important Boston-area Tzedakah collective.

More often than not, the burden of providing a dignified burial falls upon JCAM, a non-profit organization which owns and manages 124 Jewish cemeteries throughout Massachusetts. My friend and colleague Jamie Cotel, the Executive Director of JCAM, estimates that they are called upon to provide approximately thirty to forty burials a year for people who have little or no funds. JCAM’s already thin budget is stretched to provide a free grave, to pay the facilities crew to open and administer the burial plot, to arrange for the ritual, to provide a gravestone, and more. 

That’s thirty-to-forty times a year. And that’s just the cases that come into JCAM’s domain. It doesn’t include those desperate poor who simply disappear beneath the communal radar screen. Our Mr. Cohen’s body, for instance, was alone in a local hospital for a distressingly long time before being turned over to a local Christian funeral home. They were prepared to bury his body in a pauper’s field in a Christian cemetery—until JCAM became aware of the situation, and advocated to bury him in one of their Jewish cemeteries, with full Jewish ritual and honor.

But JCAM has limited funds and staff. This crisis—and it is a crisis, if you believe that Jewish burials aren’t just for the rich—demands a systematic, community-wide effort to share the responsibility and the cost. I’m glad we’re working on it, even while I’m ashamed that it hasn’t happened until now.

We buried Mr. Cohen, but we knew almost nothing about him. The only family Jamie could identify was a distant and estranged cousin in another state, who could provide her with no further family information and certainly wasn’t offering to share the cost of a funeral.

Here’s a part of the eulogy I gave:

Our tradition says that the day of death is like the Day of Atonement, and optimally we go to our Final Reward in the spirit of humility, purity, and atonement for all the sins we committed in our lifetime. I pray today that his passing does indeed bring atonement for his sins, and peace to his soul, and comfort to those whose lives he touched during his years on earth.

….There’s another dimension of atonement that I’m thinking of today as well. We, too, need atonement. We, too, must ask for forgiveness—of Mr. Cohen, for our sins. We have sinned by living in a self-absorbed society where he found himself so alone at the end of his life; where he lingered so long in the hospital morgue.

Chattanu – we have sinned. Please forgive us, sir. You, and all of G-d’s children, deserve better.

I believe that the measure of a community’s integrity is the degree to which it cares for the most desperate, hurting, and defenseless members in it. The enormity of its bank accounts, the hugeness of its homes and synagogue buildings, and the grotesque assemblage of automobiles in its parking lots are not signs of moral grandeur—and they just may indicate the exact opposite.

May Mr. Cohen rest in peace. And may his memory, such as it is, give us no peace, until we are able to do far better for those like him, the living and the dead.

Tu BiShvat: How Israel Planted New Seeds in the Jewish Soul

When the Zionist movement was newly blossoming in the early 20th century, a prominent group of cultural-spiritual Zionists insisted that it was not only Jews who would be saved by a return to the Land of Israel; Judaism itself  had to be renewed as well. A return to the Land would inevitably impact the ways in which Judaism was expressed – not just in the Palestine, but in Jewish communities everywhere.

Therefore, one task of the pioneering olim was to infuse the Jewish calendar with new meaning.

The tens of thousands of pioneers who immigrated to the Land in the Second Aliyah (1904-1914) and onward were largely secular people, moved by a mixture of socialism and Jewish nationalism to develop a new Jewish identity in their historical homeland. Yet the boundary between what’s “religious” and what’s not becomes fuzzy when we consider these revolutionaries.

Even though most of them weren’t particularly interested in rite and ritual, many truly were convinced that with their lives they were writing a new chapter of the Bible and the history of the Jewish people.

The Jewish holidays, in particular, they infused with new meanings. Hanukkah, for instance – a relatively minor winter holiday back in the Old Country – became a national festival, emphasizing the Maccabees’ rejection of foreign tyranny in their homeland and expressing Jewish strength and vigor. In the words of a famous early Zionist Hanukkah song:

No miracle ever happened for us
No vessel of oil did we find.
Rather, we descended to the valley
And we climbed the mountain.
We discovered wellsprings
Of hidden light!

Other festivals, too, were given a new national spirit. Passover Haggadahs from the early kibbutzim emphasized springtime planting and renewal as flowers bloomed in the Galilee. Lag BaOmer became a time of bonfires and archery, celebrating ancient rebellions against Roman (and all) oppression. Shavuot festivities on the kibbutz deemphasized the rabbinic theme of the giving of the Torah and reasserted the day’s biblical meaning of harvesting the first fruits of the season (bikkurim).

Most of all, the minor day of Tu BiShvat became a new celebration of national rebirth. Tu Bishvat historically was slight date in the Jewish calendar; it was mostly commemorated in the Diaspora with minor liturgical changes in the daily prayers. In late medieval times, Kabbalists gave Tu BiShvat new mystical meaning and created accompanying rituals, such as a mystical Tu Bishvat seder – but these celebrations were largely confined to an elite minority of mystically inclined communities.

The Zionist pioneers changed all that.

Tu BiShvat became a celebration of the land and their connections to it. They composed new songs and festivities. On those early agricultural settlements, Tu BiShvat became a day to celebrate the renewed intimacy of a people and its land.

And they planted trees.

Trees became a crucial part of the building-up of those early settlements. Trees would help drain the malaria-infested swamps, and protect crops from the wind, and provide relief to the Middle Eastern heat. Planting itself is a religious act, an emulation of God:

“The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east” (Genesis 2:8). — So, too, when you enter the land of Israel, you should first occupy yourselves with planting. — Vayikra Rabbah 25:3

And this new definition of Tu BiShvat spilled over into Diaspora communities.

One ubiquitous item in the Jewish home of the 20th century was the Jewish National Fund pushka: a Tzedakah box devoted to collecting money that would go toward planting trees in Israel.

Tu BiShvat became a season when schools and synagogues participated in planting whole forests in newly blooming land, giving the season an entirely new ritual dimension. One could be forgiven for thinking, “Tu BiShvat? Oh, that’s the holiday the JNF invented.” After all, given the astounding numbers of trees planted over the past century, they virtually did!

Today, three themes come together for our renewed Tu Bishvat: our connections to the Land of Israel; the mystical-spiritual metaphor of a tree; and our responsibility to protect and preserve the environment. A meaningful 21st-century Tu Bishvat creates a thoughtful meditation on the interplay between these ideas.

Our ancestors of just a few generations back may not have recognized our celebration; it is a case-in-point of how Jewish life and observance has been transformed in our day – in no small part thanks to the successes of the State of Israel. Even for those of us who live in our various Diasporas, Tu BiShvat is a time for reasserting the countless ways in which Israel nurtures our own Jewish spirits, and the ways in which we can be part of making literal and spiritual deserts bloom with new life.

One immediate expression of this renewal is to vote for ARZA in the World Zionist Congress elections today. It’s simply one more dimension of how we can express our connection to the land in 5780 – and how a verdant and blossoming culture in Israel is an essential component of sprouting Jewish souls everywhere.

This essay originally appeared on reformjudaism.org on February 5, 2020.
Tu BiShvat begins on Sunday evening, February 9.