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I’m often intrigued by the way every community tells its own stories – the mythic accounts they tell and retell that define who they are as a people. We Jews, of course, have been a story-telling people from time immemorial. We certainly do not lack for tales – which taken together, reflect a great deal about our collective sense of ourselves, what we hold sacred, how we understand our place in the world.

Every one of us has our personal favorites. There are the well-known ones, of course: the Exodus, the covenant at Sinai, the return from Babylonian exile.  But beyond the Jewish People’s “Greatest Hits,” there are a myriad of other important, central stories to choose from. They may not be as popular or recited nearly as often, but in their way, I believe they can illuminate just as much, if not more, about our own sense of our collective Jewish self.

I’ve been thinking about this lately – mainly because lately I seem to find myself returning again and again to one particular story. I’d like to share it with you today – along with a few thoughts as to why I love it so much – and why it’s my choice as the “defining Jewish story.”

It’s the story of Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai and the founding of Yavneh. Many of you may be familiar with this particular story, or at least parts of it. It comes primarily from Talmudic sources and is essentially a mix of historical events and popular legend.

Yohanan ben Zakkai was a leading Jewish sage in Jerusalem who lived during a pivotal moment in Jewish history: before, during and after the destruction of the Temple in the year 73 ACE.  Ben Zakkai was a pupil of the great Rabbi Hillel and one of the rabbinical authorities responsible for transmitting the chain of Jewish law and tradition.  He was a Pharisee, but he also came from a priestly family – and he was known for admonishing his fellow priests for putting themselves above the common people.

Ben Zakkai was one of the central Jewish leaders during the Roman siege of Jerusalem. If you’ve studied this period, then you know there was a great deal of conflict in the Jewish community over how to  respond to the Roman threat. Leading rabbis such as Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel actively advocated armed revolt against Rome. There were also various sects of zealots who were also proliferating around this time. They viewed this crisis in apocalyptic terms, seeing it as a precursor to the coming of the Messiah.

Yohanan Ben Zakkai, was Ben Gamliel’s deputy, but he pointedly refused to take part in the revolt. For his part, Ben Zakkai counseled moderation in the face of what he considered to be growing fanaticism and over-confidence. In reaction to the rebels who were gaining control of the country and destroying non-Jewish shrines, he was quoted as saying, “Do not hasten to tear down the altars of gentiles, lest you be forced to rebuild them with your own hands.” He also spoke out against rising messianism with this famous quote: “If you hold a sapling in your hand and someone says the Messiah has come, plant the sapling first, then go to welcome the Messiah.”

Ben Zakkai lived trapped in Jerusalem along with many other Jews at the time of the siege. As the Romans prepared to breach the city walls, Jewish zealots were guarding its gates to prevent anyone from leaving. And so, with the help of his pupils, Ben Zakkai was smuggled out of Jerusalem by hiding in a coffin. Shortly thereafter, as Jerusalem fell, he appeared before the Roman commander Vespasian and asked him to allow the surviving Jewish religious leadership to reconstitute itself in a small town called Yavneh.

The destruction of the Temple was a cataclysmic event in Jewish history. The center of Jewish life had now been ripped away and by all rights, this would have been the moment that the party was over: the moment in which Judaism now became just a mere footnote in a history book. But Ben Zakkai refused to accept that the end of the Temple necessarily meant the end of Judaism itself. According to a famous midrash:

Once when Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai was leaving Jerusalem, Rabbi Joshua was walking behind him and saw the Temple in ruins. Rabbi Joshua said, “Woe to us that this has been destroyed, the place where atonement was made for the sins of Israel.” Rabbi Yohanan responded, “No, my son, do you not know that we have a means of making atonement that is just like it? And what is it? It is deeds of love and mercy, as it is written: ‘For I desire kindness, and not sacrifice.’” (Hosea 6:6)

And so, under Ben Zakkai’s leadership, Judaism transformed fundamentally: from a cultic system that revolved around a central sacrificial system, to a full-fledged religion based on sacred deeds: based on worship, study, and acts of lovingkindness.

Ben Zakkai proceeded to reconstitute the Sanhedrin – the central Jewish court – in Yavneh, which now become the new spiritual center of learning for the Jewish people. The new leadership in Yavneh proceeded to proclaim new moons and holidays and they instituted numerous changes in Jewish law that had now become necessary with the destruction of the Temple. In short order, Yavneh had filled the void that had been created by this tragic cataclysm.

I will confess to you: the more I think of this story – the more I study it – the more sacred it becomes for me. I’m comfortable in saying Ben Zakkai is one of my huge Jewish heroes. I believe his story is a quintessential, perhaps the quintessential, Jewish story. And though it is certainly a historical account from a very unique place and time, I believe his story has lost none of its immediacy or urgency for us today.

I find this story to be relevant to us for three essential reasons. The first has to do with some of the things I spoke of on Rosh Hashanah: I believe Ben Zakkai’s actions during this crisis powerfully models the sacred Jewish imperative of pursuing peace at all costs. As I pointed out last week – and as Ben Zakkai demonstrates – “Seek Peace and Pursue It” is not simply a moral platitude.  It’s an eminently practical and effective form of direct action that has the power to save lives.

As I pointed out, Ben Zakkai was well known in his day as a vocal proponent for peace and was not among the rabbis who advocated rebellion. Those who did are today considered to be heroes by Jewish tradition. In fact, their legacy has actually been enshrined in the Martyrology section of the traditional Yom Kippur service. This is the section that recalls, in very vivid detail, the tragic torture and executions of the ten rabbis who led the rebellion against Rome – including Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Shimon be Gamliel.

I understand why we honor these heroic rabbinic martyrs as part of our liturgy – but I’ve often been puzzled why we don’t honor the other side of the equation: Rabbi Yochanan, and ones who chose life. After all, isn’t “choose life” one of the most basic imperatives of our tradition?  To be sure, Ben Zakkai’s choice to sneak out of Jerusalem to strike a deal with a Roman commander might seem cowardly to some – especially when compared to the story of the ten rabbis or the martyrs of Masada – another oft told story from this period. Nevertheless, it was this “cowardly” action that ensured life for the Jewish people and Jewish tradition. After all, none of us present here today are actually the heirs to the Jews of Masada – the ones who chose to take their own lives rather than surrender to the Roman army. We’re the ancestors, literally and spiritually, of the ones who chose Yavneh. At the end of the day, we’re the heirs of the ones who chose life.

If relatively few Jews know much about Rabbi Ben Zakkai, I’m sure even fewer know of Rabbi Isaac Nissenbaum. During the Holocaust, Rabbi Nissenbaum was a prominent rabbi in the Warsaw ghetto who advocated a concept he called “Kiddush Hachayim,” which literally means “sanctification of life.”  In doing this, he was providing a pointed alternative to the classical notion of Jewish martyrdom known as “Kiddush Hashem.”  Rabbi Nissenbaum rejected the idea of dying for a sacred cause. As he saw it, remaining alive at any cost was viewed a way of denying the Nazi’s intention to physically annihilate the Jewish people. Remaining alive was a sacred form of resistance in its own right. As I see it, this is one of Ben Zakkai’s most sacred legacies to us as well.

The second reason I find this story compelling: it demonstrates Judaism’s miraculous power to respond when the world around it changes. As I mentioned before, the destruction of the Temple was a true turning point – perhaps the turning point in Jewish history. It could well have become the moment in which Judaism called it a day and said, “Well, it’s been a nice run, but the party’s over. That’s it. We’ve reached the end of the road.” And there were many in the Jewish community like the Saducees and other sects who said precisely that.

But Ben Zakkai and his followers modeled a different approach: an approach that responded to crisis with creativity and innovation. We can’t offer sacrifices? That’s OK. We’ll look to prayer and good deeds to be the functional equivalent of sacrifice. And, at the end of the day, what is sacrifice, but the outer ritual: the medium, rather than the sacred message. At the end of the day, the essential message, the essence of Judaism goes much deeper than the ritual acts themselves.

No more Temple in Jerusalem? That’s OK, synagogues and houses of study will now become the communal centers of Jewish life. Judaism does not have to be geographically specific. We don’t need to live in or around Jerusalem to be a player. Jews can create community, worship God, perform sacred acts anywhere in the land of Israel – or anywhere in the world for that matter. Judaism will now become a religious tradition for a nation of wanderers – a sacred system designed to be taken on the road.

No more priests to lead the people of Israel? Not a problem. Rabbis will now constitute the new leadership model for the Jewish people: leaders who achieve their position through study and learning, not through their family line. Jewish life will flourish wherever there are Jewish leaders learned enough to rule on matters of Jewish law.

I personally believe this is the sort of spiritual creativity that has enabled the Jewish people to survive as long as they have. We’ve historically greeted change in a spirit of openness and innovation – and in this way we’ve allowed Jewish tradition to evolve and thrive over the centuries. And isn’t this what we Reconstructionists say about the inherent strength of Jewish civilization: that it is a dynamic and ever-evolving organism?

Perhaps it’s a bit self-serving to say, but I believe Rabbi Ben Zakkai one of the first great Reconstructionists. In a time of crisis and change, he respected the dynamism of Judaism enough to not only survive, but to flourish. And in many ways, I believe he helped set the stage for the future evolution of Jewish civilization.  Over the centuries Judaism has always emerged from these critical historical turning points – and has found itself better and stronger for it.

Indeed, many historians have pointed out that the most important and creative chapters in Jewish history have invariably come out of crisis. And by crisis I do not simply mean historical tragedy. As Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan has pointed out, the onset of modernity has been welcome for the Jewish community in so many ways – but it has also has presented us with huge challenges, some in their way as transformative as the ones faced by Ben Zakkai’s generation.

How will Judaism face the theological challenges of our day? How will it grow in consonance with contemporary democracy and egalitarian ideals? How will it grow to incorporate the growing diversity of the Jewish community? Can Judaism evolve out of its historically insular, tribal nature and respond to the world’s new globalized reality?  We will only really live to know the answers if we choose to respond as Ben Zakkai, by engaging these challenges with open mindedness and creativity.

Which leads me to the third and final reason why I consider Ben Zakkai’s story so compelling. In short: it affirms hope and rejects despair. This is, I believe, the quintessentially Jewish way of living in the world. For beyond the historical and political implications of this story, it contains a profoundly spiritual message: we must respond to upheaval and uncertainty with hope and faith. And in the end, can there be any better way to live our lives?

It is important to note that Jewish tradition does not simply view the destruction of the Temple as a historical moment: on a much deeper level, it is a mythic event that represents the existential ruptures in our own lives and our world. When a bride and groom break a glass at a Jewish wedding, for instance, they aren’t simply marking an event that occurred thousands of years ago. As they leave the sacred protection of their wedding canopy, they do with the acknowledgement that the world they are entering is not a perfect world. It is a world that will be filled with challenge, with struggle, and yes, even with pain. But by breaking the glass, they are demonstrating, just like Rabbi Yohanan Ben Zakkai and the Jews of Yavneh, that they have the commitment and faith to face up to the challenges of the outside world together.

And so too with all of us, on each and every day of our lives. Sooner or later, the jagged edges of this broken world will enter our lives. The real question is not if, or even when, but how? How will be respond to the brokenness? By fighting a futile fight in the hopes that we can somehow change the inevitable?  By ignoring the pain, or burying it deep down? Or by greeting these challenges with openness and love, knowing that in the end, they are opportunities for transformation?

This is also why we all gather here year after year on Yom Kippur. Because the challenges, the changes, the transformation of the past year still weigh heavily upon us. A year yet to be revealed lies before us. What else can we do but send our prayers and hopes and dreams for another year of life, of health, of peace?

But at the same we know that despite our prayers, it will be for us a year of challenges and losses both large and small.  That’s why we say every year, when we pray the Unetaneh Tokef: “U’teshuvah, U’tefillah, U’tzedakah ma’avirin et ro’ah ha’gezeyrah.” “Repentance, prayer and tzedakah lessen the severity of the decree.”  When we sing out these words every year, I can’t help but think of Rabbi Yohanan Ben Zakkai’s consoling words to Rabbi Joshua: “No we’ve lost the Temple, and that is a huge loss indeed. But we need not despair. Because we still have the power to bring holiness to our lives and to our world through other forms of sacred action: through love, through kindness, through acts of mercy. And these actions will always hold the key to our redemption.”

This, more than anything, is why I seem to keep returning again and again to this amazing story. Because it teaches me the most Jewish of lessons: despair is not an option. No matter how painful the challenges or how cataclysmic the losses that enter our lives. Our tradition is a tradition of hope in the future. Not a future we can predict, or necessarily even the future we would ideally wish for ourselves, but still the future that is ours’ to claim. If, like the good rabbi, we choose to respond to the all of life with open arms.

May we all be blessed with a year of life, health and peace.

Amen.

If the Torah teaches us that human beings are made in the image of God, which image of God will we proclaim? The God of fear or the God of forgiveness? The God of hatred or the God of compassion? The God of xenophobia or the God of justice? And if our answer is indeed the latter, then we must affirm it. We must bear witness to this image of God in no uncertain terms. History teaches all too well what the God of hatred can do in our world. Those of us who reject this theology must be ready to do so without hesitation – to actively promote the God of compassion.

Click below to read the entire sermon:

Those who come to Torah study will know this phenomenon well: we’re reading our weekly portion, I’ll share a rabbinic insight or two, things will be going along quite nicely…

… and then we’ll read a passage where God behaves really, really badly.

It occurs almost on a weekly basis. Out of nowhere God will act like an abusive parent or a jealous crusher of other gods, or as angrily punishing authority figure. And inevitably, our discussion flies off in a very familiar direction: this is my most sacred of texts? This is the God Jews are being asked to worship? This is the God I’m supposed to teach to my children?

It’s often even more confusing because there are also times in the Torah where God appears as the epitome of tolerance and compassion: the God that liberates the enslaved, who cares for the sick, who shows kindness and loyalty throughout the generations. This God usually prompts far less discussion – except perhaps for the comment that we wish God could always appear this way in the Torah.

To make matters even more confusing, sometimes these two Gods will appear back to back within the very same Torah portion. In Parashat Ki Tisa, for instance, we read the infamous incident of the Golden Calf.  In response to this act of disloyalty, God becomes infuriated and threatens to wipe all of the Israelites. Though Moses eventually gets God to back down, God later sends a plague upon the people as punishment.

A little later on, however, God is appears to have reformed completely. When God passes by Moses on the top of Mt. Sinai, God’s essential divine attributes are described: “compassionate and slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin.”

So which God is the real God? The punishing authority figure or the unconditionally loving parent? The angry warrior who demands that we crush the inhabitants of Canaan or the compassionate exemplar who commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves?

As I grapple with this question, myself, I’ve come to accept that whether we like it or not, both of these “Gods” represent aspects of our tradition. As much as we’d like to, we can’t wish away or surgically excise the nasty God from our sacred texts. On the contrary: if we really intend to be serious about Jewish spiritual life, I believe we need to be prepared to confront the more disturbing theologies in our tradition.

For me that means asking this question openly and unflinchingly: if the Torah teaches us that human beings are made in the image of God, which image of God will we proclaim? The God of fear or the God of forgiveness? The God of hatred or the God compassion? The God of xenophobia or the God of justice? And if our answer is indeed the latter, then we must affirm it. We must bear witness to this image of God in no uncertain terms. History teaches all too well what the God of hatred can do in our world. Those of us who reject this theology must be ready to do so without hesitation – to actively promote the God of compassion.

Of course, this is not only a Jewish problem – it’s a challenge to all people of faith. I’m often struck that Judaism is routinely stereotyped as the religion of the “intolerant Old Testament God” and Christianity as the religion of the “merciful New Testament God.” If truth be told, Christianity has been as responsible as any other faith for bringing religious intolerance into the world. No, this is not the problem of any one religion. It’s a universal challenge. At the end of the day, religion is only as redemptive or destructive as the human beings who practice it.

Last year I taught an Adult Ed series at JRC called “God Talk” – and the central premise of the class was that Jewish tradition does not have a central theological dogma.  Jewish theology has always evolved as Jewish history has evolved. The God concepts of the Bible, for instance, differ that the Rabbinic theologies of the Talmud, which in turn differs from the God of the medieval philosopher Maimonides or the Lurianic kabbalists, or modernist theologians, etc.

Any one of these theologies is important and edifying as far it goes, but in the end, I believe the continuum they represent is much more important.  We can learn a great deal by studying the tensions between these views of God, because I think ultimately these contradictory concepts reflect our own struggles to live up to our highest selves. I guess all this is my fancy way of saying that in the end, I’m not so interested in having a theologian tell me what God is. Like Jacob, I believe that God is meant to be personally wrestled with – not studied in a theology book.

In this regard, I want to share with you a taste of what I consider to be among the most exciting theological work being done today. Interestingly enough, it’s not being created by philosophers or theologians, but actually by scientists and neurologists. Over the past decade or so, physicians have been investigating the ways in which spirituality is rooted in the biology of the brain. By combining the fields of neuroscience and religious studies, they’re helping us to actually understand how the neurological makeup of our brains influences the ways we experience God.

I’ve been particularly fascinated by the research of radiologist Dr. Andrew Newberg, who is the founder of the Center for Spirituality and the Mind at the University of Pennsylvania. I first discovered his work several years ago when I read the book, “Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief.”  This is Dr. Newberg’s basic premise:

Every event that happens to us or any actions that we take can be associated with activity in one or more specific regions of the brain. This includes, necessarily, all religious and spiritual experiences. The evidence further compels us to believe that if God does indeed exist, the only place he can manifest his existence would be in the tangled neural pathways and physiological structures of the brain.

Of course philosophers have held for centuries that our perception of reality is just that: our “perception.” There is no such thing as a “direct,” “objective” experience of reality.  In the field of religious studies, social scientists have been helping us understand the ways we construct our religious realities; today, physical scientists are increasingly weighing in on the God question as well.  As they are finding, the more we learn about how our brains perceive reality, the more we learn about how and why God is revealed to us.

For me, the most amazing findings of this research demonstrate the way God has evolved neurologically over the centuries. In his newest book, “How God Changes Your Brain,” Newberg makes the claim that different experiences of God actually correlate to the development of the human brain. Neurologically speaking, researchers have located the angry, authoritarian God in the limbic system, which houses the oldest and most primitive structures of the brain. This includes the amygdala – the little almond-shaped organ that generates our “fight or flight” response. The benevolent, compassionate God, on the other hand, can be found in our frontal lobes, and particularly in a structure known as the anterior cingulate. These are the parts of the brain most primarily associated with our experience of compassion and empathy. Compared to the ancient limbic system, these structures are the most recently evolved parts of our brain and they appear to be unique to human beings.

This is how Newberg puts it:

Something happened in the brains of our ancestors that gave us the power to tame this authoritarian God. No one knows exactly when or how it happened, but the neural structures that evolved enhanced our ability to cooperate with others. They gave us the ability to construct language and to consciously think in logical and reasonable ways…Without these new neural connections, humans would be limited in their ability to develop an inner moral code or a societal system of ethics.

And so the $64,000 question: does this research teach us how we can keep the more destructive God at bay?  Can we actually train our brains to favor the God of compassion?  Newberg answers this question by quoting a classic Cherokee folktale:

Once upon a time a young Indian boy received a beautiful drum as a gift. When his best friend saw it, he asked if he could play with it, but the boy felt torn. He didn’t want to share his new present, so he angrily told his friend, “No!” His friend ran away, and the boy sat down on a rock by a stream to contemplate his dilemma. He hated the fact that he had hurt his friend’s feelings, but the drum was too precious to share. In his quandary, he went to his grandfather for advice.

The elder listened quietly and then replied. “I often feel as though there are two wolves fighting inside me. One is means and greedy and full of arrogance and pride, but the other is peaceful and generous. All the time they are struggling, and you, my boy, have those same two wolves inside of you.”

“Which one will win” asked the boy.

The elder smiled and said, “The one you feed.”

Newberg suggests that much like the two wolves, there are two Gods competing with one another deep within our brains: the authoritarian, punishing God vs. the compassionate forgiving God. Which one will win? It all depends upon which one we feed.  Indeed, neurological research demonstrates that whenever we let our anger or fear overpower us, we tend to shut down the brain activity in our frontal lobes. When this happens, our “fight or flight” response is generated and it spreads rapidly throughout our brains.

We’ve long known that excessive anger or fear can cause problems like high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. Studies also show that extreme anger can permanently disrupt structures in both our brains that control basic functions like memory storage and cognitive accuracy. In other words, when we indulge our anger, we feed the more ancient, authoritarian God.

When I read this research, I’m reminded of the central divine attributes in Torah known as “erech apayim” – being “slow to anger.” It also brings to my mind the famous dynamic between the Yetzer Hara (“the bad inclination”) and the Yetzer Hatov (“the good inclination.”) The rabbis made sure to point out that the Yetzer Harah was an essential aspect of our humanity. Whether we like it or not, these impulses are a part of us – much like our limbic system is an essential and necessary part of our brain. The point is not to deny or repress our Yetzer Hara, but to channel and master it. As the verse from Pirke Avot teaches: “Mi hu gibor? Mi’she kovesh et yitzro” – “Who is mighty? The one who masters one’s (bad) inclination.”

And how do we feed the God of compassion? At the risk of sounding too Pollyannaish, the answer is really quite simple: we need to consciously exercise our capacity for kindness. Believe it or not, science itself is proving that compassion and empathy can be neurologically contagious. Studies demonstrate conclusively that there is increased activity in the compassion center of the brain whenever we perceive others as being sensitive to our needs. Scientists have also concluded through research that the more positive contact we have with members of other different religions, cultural, and ethnic groups, the less prejudice we tend to harbor in our brains.

Another very effective way to feed the God of compassion is through the practice of meditation and contemplation. Many of you know, I’m sure that back in the 1970’s Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard presented his first findings on what he called “The Relaxation Response,” demonstrating the power of meditation to reduce stress and lower our “fight or flight” response. More recent studies have shown that the meditation can enhance the neural functioning of the brain enough to impact its capacity for empathy, openness to different points of view, and tolerance for those who are different.

I want to say that up until now, I’ve been referring somewhat flippantly to these two different Gods.  I don’t want anyone to think that I’m a theological dualist – that I’m reducing the world essentially a battle between a force of good and a force of evil. What I am suggesting is that what we call God is something we perceive on a continuum – we experience a more ancient, primitive God concept at one end, and a more evolved, exalted form at the other. I would suggest that God isn’t really identified with either one of these poles, but rather in the forward momentum that moves us from one end of the continuum to the other.

And the way we attain this forward motion – the key to living a sacred way of life – is the same as it ever was: by mastering our baser impulses and nurturing our most exalted selves. By refusing to indulge our fear and anger and opting instead to feed our capacity for kindness and compassion. By being actively involved in the care and feeding of God’s growth in ourselves and in our world.  This is how we ultimately make God manifest in the world.

I can’t help but think that this is yet another way might understand the Torah’s concept of Tzelem Elohim – the Divine Image. Perhaps our innate neurological capacity to grow in compassion, to empathize with others, to exercise kindness, to promote fairness and justice for people we might not even know personally – maybe this is all just science’s way of saying that we’re all made in God’s image.

It seems somehow appropriate to be having this discussion on Yom Kippur: the day in which we pray openly and unabashedly for God’s compassion in the coming year.  Perhaps on a very real level, this could mean that we are praying for the strength to grow the capacity for goodness in ourselves. To find the wherewithal to feed our capacity for kindness, to make the time to calm our minds and souls so that we might become vessels for compassion in our own lives. Because then, and only then will our prayers have a chance of coming true.

On this Yom Kippur, may we all find a measure of kindness in our lives. May it make all the difference for us, for those around us, and for our world.

Amen.

I included this reading in our service for Shabbat Shuvah yesterday: an excerpt from a 1999 commencement speech by one of my favorite writers, Anna Quindlen. I believe it’s about as wonderful a Yom Kippur message as you will find.

I’ll be offline until Monday evening. May we all be sealed for health, meaning, peace and life in the coming year…

So here’s what I wanted to tell you today: get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house. Do you think you’d care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast?

Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze over Seaside Heights, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water gap or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a Cheerio with her thumb and first finger.

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure; it is work. Each time you look at your diploma, remember that you are still a student, still learning how to best treasure your connection to others. Pick up the phone. Send an e-mail. Write a letter. Kiss your Mom. Hug your Dad.

Get a life in which you are generous. Look around at the azaleas in the suburban neighborhood where you grew up; look at a full moon hanging silver in a black, black sky on a cold night. And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted.

Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around. Take money you would have spent on beers and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister. All of you want to do well. But if you do not do good, too, then doing well will never be enough.

It is so easy to waste our lives: our days, our hours, our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the color of the azaleas, the sheen of the limestone on Fifth Avenue, the color of our kids’ eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. It is so easy to exist instead of live.

I learned to live many years ago. Something really, really bad happened to me, something that changed my life in ways that, if I had my druthers, it would never have been changed at all. And what I learned from it is what, today, seems to be the hardest lesson of all.

I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get.

I learned to look at all the good in the world and to try to give some of it back because I believed in it completely and utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned.  By telling them this: Consider the lilies of the field.  Look at the fuzz on a baby’s ear. Read in the backyard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy.

And think of life as a terminal illness because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived.

Well, you can learn all those things, out there, if you get a real life, a full life, a professional life, yes, but another life, too, a life of love and laughs and a connection to other human beings. Just keep your eyes and ears open. Here you could learn in the classroom. There the classroom is everywhere. The exam comes at the very end.

The actions of the Jewish State ultimately reflect upon the Jewish people throughout the world. We in the Diaspora Jewish community have long taken pride in the accomplishments of the Jewish State. As with any family, the success of some reflects a warm light on us all. But pride cannot blind us to the capacity for error on the part of the country we hold so dear. We cannot identify with the successes, but refuse to see the failures.

As we approach Yom Kippur, I call on America’s Jews to examine the Goldstone findings, and consider their implications. In the spirit of the season, we must consider the painful truth of Israel’s behavior in Gaza, and understand that we must work, together, to discover the truth — and then urge on all relevant parties in the search for peace.

Is there a place in Judaism for pacifism? Is it in fact possible – or desirable – as a Jew, to walk the path of nonviolence?

Click below to read my answers…

Whenever Jewish tradition’s views on War and Peace are being discussed, you’ll often hear some version of this statement: “Judaism is not a pacifist religion.”  I’ve made this claim myself on more than one occasion.  In fact, before I begin this year’s sermon, I’d like to read you an excerpt from the sermon I gave on Rosh Hashanah, 2003.   If you think back on that time, you’ll remember: 9/11 was still fresh on our souls, the war with Iraq had begun a few months earlier, and I had decided to make a sharp statement against our nation’s increasingly militaristic foreign policy.

I’ll quote from my sermon verbatim:

I suppose the place to start is to point out that Judaism in not a pacifist tradition and it never has been. From its Israelite origins until present day, Jewish tradition has viewed war as something that is occasionally permitted and in some circumstances, even necessary.

Now, I’m not here to retract this statement. But I would like to explore it a bit more deeply.  I’d like to revisit this comment because I’m increasingly struck by how easily Jews stereotype pacifism – how we tend to set it up as a kind of over-idealistic straw horse that we can easily knock aside.  And in the end, I’m not sure that’s such a good thing. Because when we dismiss the work of nonviolence, I fear that we end up becoming jaded and cynical over the very prospect of peace itself.

It’s now six years since I’ve given that sermon, but I believe the issue is germane as ever. As 2009 draws to a close, our country is still engaged in two foreign wars, neither of which show any sign of ending soon. Though our new administration is now making what I consider to be valiant attempts at diplomacy, the challenges are daunting and the prospects for failure are terrifying, particularly in the Middle East.  In so many ways, the threat – and the tragedy – of war is still very much a part of our times.

And yet perhaps it ever was thus. It would be foolish to deny that war has been an indelible aspect of human history from time immemorial.  Though most of us consider peacemaking to be an important value, it’s a value we seldom honor all that well. War is what we know. It’s what we’ve always known. The pursuit of nonviolence is also a part of our history, certainly, and we love to invoke it from time to time – but I’d say we rarely stop to consider it seriously. When push comes to shove, most of us consider pacifism at best to be a lovely, if somewhat naïve little dream. We’re great at paying it lip service, but how often do we seriously consider its meaning? How often do we really, truly attempt to walk the walk?

The way we commemorate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is a prime example of this phenomenon. Truly, there are few more beloved and celebrated contemporary national heroes than Martin Luther King. Indeed, we’ve devoted a national holiday to his memory and he is taught in our schools nearly as much as our country’s founding fathers. But rarely during our annual MLK celebrations do we explore how his sophisticated and challenging philosophy of nonviolence informed the struggle for civil rights in our country.

On MLK day, we’ll inevitably hear his “I Have a Dream” speech quoted repeatedly. But I doubt our nation would ever invoke – let alone seriously conisder – a quote such as this, which he wrote in an article shortly before he was assassinated:

I’m committed to nonviolence absolutely. I’m just not going to kill anybody, whether it’s in Vietnam or here. I’m not going to burn down any building. If nonviolent protest fails this summer, I will continue to preach it and teach it…I plan to stand by nonviolence because I have found it to be a philosophy of life that regulates not only my dealings in the struggle for racial justice, but also my dealings with people, with my own self. I will still be faithful to nonviolence.

So as a Jew who is also deeply inspired by teachings such as this – as someone who struggles to remain faithful to these kinds of values, I ask: is there a place in Judaism for pacifism? Is it in fact possible – or desirable – as a Jew, to walk the path of nonviolence?

I’d like to start out by clarifying our terms.  Up until now I’ve been using the terms “pacifism” and “nonviolence” somewhat interchangeably, but I should be more precise. Generally speaking, the term “pacifism” refers to a psychological state or a state of mind. Pacifism is a value, an ideal – a moral belief that rejects war and violence as a means for resolving conflict. 

Nonviolence, on the other hand, is a way of life. I think one of the biggest misconceptions about nonviolence is that is essentially passive. Perhaps this is because the term defines itself by what it isn’t. In fact, nonviolence is inherently activist.  In truth, it is actually as active as violence itself inasmuch as they are both forms of persuasion.  They both seek to change or transform the status quo. Nonviolence is essentially rooted in essentially a pragmatic approach – but it is committed to resolving conflicts peacefully. It is based on the core belief that is eminently practical in nature: that nonviolence is simply more effective than violence. That war does not work.

This idea is, in fact, deeply embedded in Judaism.  Through the maze of Jewish tradition’s myriad of confusing and often seemingly contradictory commandments, we are repeatedly reminded that Torah’s essential purpose is peace. Every time we return the Torah scroll to the ark we do so with these Biblical words, “Torah is a Tree of Life… all its ways are ways of peace.” The Talmud (Chapter Gittin) drives this idea home in a very straightforward manner: “The whole of Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace.”

 But peace, we are taught, must be continually sought – it will not come naturally to us.  In Psalm 34, another important part of our liturgy, we read “Seek peace and pursue it.” In Pirke Avot, Rabbi Hillel teaches, “Be students of Aaron: love peace and pursue peace.” Now these are lovely words, but they are more than just moral platitudes. Over and over in our tradition we are taught that  peace is not simply a value to be cherished – it is a goal to be actively sought out. Peace will not, it cannot come to us all by itself. Peace will only come to us if we ourselves see fit to work for it. Otherwise, war and bloodshed will continue to be our default status quo.

Those who deny pacifist values in Jewish tradition often point to its complex laws of warfare. And it’s true: Jewish law spends a great deal of time discussing when we are and aren’t justified in going to war. In halacha, this is embodied by the concept of Milchemet Mitzvah (or a “commanded war.”) Under this category are two instances in which we are literally obliged to go to war. One is the commandment to fight the so-called seven pagan nations that occupied the ancient Land of Israel as well as the enemy tribe known as the Amalekites.  What do we make of this commandment today? Many Jewish commentators suggest that this category belongs to an ancient Near Eastern setting that is simply no more. That is to say, since these nations no longer exist, this particular commandment is now null and void.

However, the rabbis also applied the concept of Milchemet Mitzvah to any war of self-defense. A famous law from the Talmud rules that a one is commanded to kill a pursuer (“rodef”) who is threatening your life.  So too are nations given the responsibility to defend themselves against who attack them.  However – and this is a big however – before we go to war, we are commanded to seek peace at all costs – to exhaust every possibility for peaceful resolutions to conflict.

That is because war and violence have an irrevocable impact on our lives and on our world. Another classic Jewish teaching, the Mechilta of Rabbi Ishmael, teaches: “When an arrow leaves the hand of a warrior he cannot take it back.”  From this we learn that once we resort to war, we unleash a myriad of consequences that we can neither control nor reverse.

Jewish tradition also teaches us that violence is a form of moral pollution that stains our world indelibly.  The most famous example of this occurs in Genesis. After Cain kills Abel, God says to him “Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. Therefore, you shall be more cursed than the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.” I understand this to mean that when the violence does not only cause personal suffering and loss – it transforms our collective world forever. 

Indeed, war has a way of unleashing hatred into the world in a profound and indelible manner. It invariably creates cycle of violence that compound pain and division – and by so doing these cycles render the prospect of peace infinitely more difficult, if not impossible.  This is the tragic irony of war: it is virtually always justified in terms of self defense. But inevitably, war creates an endless reality of its own in which each side ends up defining the other in terms of its latest attack.

An orthodox rabbinic colleague once put it this way to me: “According to Jewish law, a Milchemet Mitzvah – a commanded war – is a war of self defense. That essentially means that war is always justified or war is never justified.”  With all due respect to “just war” theory, I tend to agree with my colleague. It often seems so very ironic that war, the most extreme and horrific manifestation of human violence, also tends to be the easiest for us to excuse, rationalize and explain away. But those who have fought in wars will attest that there is nothing moral or good about them. According to international law, there are “legal” and “illegal” ways of waging them, but most who actually see the field of battle report that in the fog of war, the fine points of battlefield morality invariably become blurred, often to the point of meaninglessness.

Though I respect the opinions of those who feel otherwise, I have personally come to believe that the shades of gray are merely a delusion. At the end of the day we will have to choose: do we believe that war is an acceptable way to settle conflicts, or do we believe that it is simply unacceptable? And if our answer is the latter, then what are we prepared to do about it?

I know that this is an enormously difficult issue for Jews in particular. I think there is a good reason why you rarely hear the words “Judaism” and “pacifism” mentioned together – and I’m not sure it has ultimately has anything to do with religious ideology. We Jews have been a historically vulnerable people. We’ve been the literal object of violence for centuries. And of course there is no getting around it: to be a Jew today means to live in traumatic aftermath of the Holocaust – to know all too painfully the costs of not being able to physically defend ourselves. I know this is why Israel represents what it does for so many Jews. In a very deep way, it represents our Jewish empowerment after having been so vulnerable for so long – and especially following the most tragically powerless chapters in our history. For the first time in centuries, we now have their own nation with their own army, prepared and ready to defend the security of the Jewish people.

But now, sixty years after the founding of Israel, it is well worth asking: has Israel solved what Theodor Herzl called “the Jewish problem?”  When Herzl developed political Zionism, he truly believed that the founding of a Jewish state would end anti-Semitism once and for all. And yet, for all its formidable, state-of-the-art military might, Israel has found neither safety nor security. This is the great tragic irony of our time: the place in the world where the Jewish people is ostensibly the most powerful is the place where endless war has become its lot.  Of course, we could analyze the history of the Israel-Palestinian conflict and debate its causes as long as we like, but again, the larger question remains: has Israel’s military power brought the Jewish people the peace and stability for which we have prayed for so long?

Many of you know that I speak out very publicly when I believe Israel uses its power in a manner that I consider oppressive – and I know it is difficult for many in the Jewish community to hear me criticize Israel in such a public way.  There will be time to debate into the specifics of the Mideast conflict – and as a congregation we should.  We should share openly and honestly our beliefs, our concerns and our fear over this painful and challenging and tragic situation. But for now I will only say that when I speak out, please know I do it as a matter of personal conscience. I do so out of a deep and abiding love for the Jewish people. And I do so out my belief that the use of overwhelming military power to solve political problems is not making Israel more secure, but precisely the opposite.

Frankly, I believe the same thing about the US and our own militarized foreign policy as well. Believe me, I have no illusions about the so-called military-industrial complex (or as it’s often referred to today: the “corporate-industrial complex.”)  This is how the world works. War today is big business. It has been observed that war will be with us as long as there are those who can make good money off of it. I’m not so naïve as to say we are going to fundamentally turn around the scourge of war from our midst. But I do also know that history is replete with examples in which nonviolence has stared down the advocates of war and violence and have succeeded. It is not just a naïve dream. People such as Ghandi and King and Mandela are the most prominent examples of this, but there are many, many more heroes who have changed the world in large and small ways through the path of nonviolence.

And for those who scoff that ivory tower morals can never change the scheme of things, I submit the words of Vaclav Havel, the Czech essayist and playwright who helped to bring down an oppressive regime and eventually became President:

Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance.

Does Judaism believe in nonviolence?  For me, at least, it comes down to this: I believe that our spiritual tradition teaches that the pursuit of peace is an absolutely sacrosanct value; that this is an ideal that we are commanded to put into action, and that it does indeed have the power to change the world. I also know that it is enormously challenging to belong to people with a legacy of victimization – and remain committed to a path of nonviolence.  But today, in this age of unprecedented Jewish power, I also believe in my heart that physical power will not ultimately bring us the security that we seek. And in my darkest moments, I fear that, God forbid, it could even prove our downfall.

As I mentioned last night, Rosh Hashanah is a time in which we publicly ackowledge the limits of human power – the one time of year in which we literally bow to the ground to a Power that ultimately transcends us all. I’ve often believe that in its way, this is an ironically empowering moment. For its only when we affirm the limits of our own power that we understand what we are truly capable of in this world. I hope this Rosh Hashanah, we can begin to discover the true source of our power: not by wielding it against others, but by choosing another means of affecting change in the world:  the path of nonviolence, which is just as effective, but infinitely more sacred.

I hope it is a path we can search for and struggle toward together. May it make a difference in our lives and world – and may we all live to see that day.

How do we discover the true meaning of spiritual commitment in our lives? Perhaps the first step is simply taking a closer look at our lives themselves. Maybe, just maybe, the source of our emunah is much closer than we think.  On Rosh Hashanah we say in our liturgy “Hayom Harat Olam” – on this day the world is born.  Your entire life has been leading up to this moment. Take the time to look back. What has led you here to this place tonight? Who are the people who have helped to guide you on your journey? What are the memories and experiences that you continue to hold sacred? And, finally, how will you transform them into faithful action? How will you commit to them honor them in the coming year and the years after that?

Click below for the entire sermon:

Every Friday morning, in the Broadview neighborhood on the west side of Chicago, a group of nuns gathers in front of an Immigration detention center.  It’s an unremarkable brick building – nothing about it would tip you off to its actual purpose. The Broadview center is the last stop for undocumented immigrants. This is where they receive their final processing before they are sent to O’Hare airport to be deported.

Friday is deportation day.  And so every Friday, the Sisters of Mercy come to the facility. They begin to arrive at about 6:45 or so.  As they arrive, they congregate with others on the sidewalk in front of the center. At 7:15 sharp they take out their beads and begin leading the assembled in the rosary. At least once during their vigil, a large barbed wire-topped gate will roll open and a bus will pull away from the center.  As this happens, the Sisters pause in their prayers, look up, and wave with a smile to the passengers inside.

The Sisters of Mercy gather at Broadview every week without fail. It doesn’t matter if the rain is pouring down, if there’s a blizzard, if the wind is whipping in off the lake. Every Friday morning at 7:15, this is where they can be found.

It seems to me they do it for several reasons. They do it because they want to convey to these prisoners, most of whom are being separated from their families, to know that they are not forgotten. They do it to voice their prayerful protest against our nation’s broken and unjust immigration policy. Mainly, though, I think they do it because they don’t believe that they have a choice.

From time to time, I’ll join the Sisters in their prayer vigil – often bringing several JRC members along with me. But I will confess to you: there have been more than a few Friday mornings in which I’ve had every good intention of going, but just couldn’t quite pull myself past the snooze alarm. Yes, it’s true: there have been times in which the prospect of an extra forty minutes in my cozy bed actually trumped driving to the West Side to stand in the freezing rain with the Sisters of Mercy.

Now don’t get scared. My Rosh Hashanah message this year is not that we should all leave at the end of services tonight and join a nunnery.  However, I am interested in what is takes to demonstrate this level of faith. I’d like to explore the unique kind of faithfulness that is modeled by people such as the Sisters of Mercy. I want to examine the meaning – and the challenges – of spiritual commitment. And most importantly, this Rosh Hashanah, I’d like to ask if this level of faith something we might aspire to together.

I’d like to start by taking a closer look at the word “faith” itself. What are we actually talking about when we speak of our faith?  Does it merely refer to our denominational affiliation and nothing more? Is faith about the official tenets of organized religion? Is it only about what we believe – or is faith something else entirely?

I would personally argue that faith has less to do with religious belief than it does with how our beliefs inform our commitment. After all, when we say that someone did something “faithfully” (or “religiously”), we mean that it was done in a regular, dependable manner. If we say that someone is being “faithful” to his/her spouse, we’re talking about the active upholding of a marital commitment.

I would suggest that being religiously faithful is not about signing on to a set of religious beliefs. Religious dogma may differ from tradition to tradition, but true religiosity, it seems to me, is universal. It resides not in faith, but faithfulness. It’s less about what we believe than how we act upon our beliefs. In the end, I think, living lives of faith means making and following through on the most essential commitments in our lives.  It means having the willingness to devote our lives to spiritual values that are greater than ourselves.

Jewish tradition, as you might expect, has a great deal to say about faithfulness. The Hebrew word for faith is “emunah.”  Many scholars, however, have pointed out that a more appropriate translation of this word isn’t “faith” but “trust” or “trustworthiness.”

There are, for instance, numerous Biblical examples in which God is held up as a paragon of emunah – instances in which God demonstrates God’s commitment to us.  It also abounds in our liturgy. In the Modeh Ani, for instance, the traditional prayer that we say every morning as we awake, we end with the words, “rabbah emunatecha” – “how great is your emunah.”  Whenever we say this prayer, we make a daily acknowledgement about God’s faithfulness to us and to the world.  In other words, as we awaken each and every morning, we thankfully affirm the divine rhythm that dependably rouses us to new life.

There are also descriptions in the Torah of human emunah – human faithfulness toward God.  Abraham, in particular, is typically held up as a paragon of faith.  As you may remember, when we first meet Abraham, he demonstrates his emunah by following God’s instructions to leave his family home and head out to parts unknown with nothing but the promise of future blessing.

We often laud Abraham for his unshakable belief in God – and particularly for his recognition that there was only one God in the universe.  However, I would claim it goes even deeper than this. I would say that Abraham’s greatness doesn’t come from passive belief, but from his willingness to transform his faith into action. To put his trust and allegiance in something beyond himself, beyond his family, beyond anything he could see or hear or touch or feel. Something truly transcendent.

It is this very same challenge that is laid before us every Rosh Hashanah.  So as we gather to greet another year together, let’s give ourselves the space, the permission to explore these questions honestly and openly. What is going to get us out of our cozy beds at 6:00 in the morning?  What are the values, what is the purpose to which we are prepared to be faithful no matter what?  What are the commitments that we have no choice but to commit to? And perhaps most important: where will we find the strength to follow through on them?

There are, of course, no simple answers to questions like these – but I’d like to make a few practical suggestions that might help us get started.  One thing that occurs to me is that our faith often seems to be connected to our own life’s journeys in ways we don’t often fully understand.  Think about it for a moment. As you look back over the course of your own lifes, doesn’t it often seem as if it was just one simple experience: an interaction, a meaningful relationship, a chance encounter, that gave you a sudden sense of purpose – maybe without you even realizing it at the time?

Of course many of us don’t have to look too far to discover such moments. Some of these turning points are patently – or even painfully – obvious. Too often, these turning points are the result of crisis or loss.  I’m sure we all know of numerous instances in which individuals were able to find meaning in their own personal tragedy by transforming it into a commitment to a higher purpose.

It’s certainly not something we would wish on ourselves, but I do believe that if there can be any meaning at all in the tragedies that befall us, it is in the way our pain can make us more faithful people – the challenges in our lives can commit us that much more deeply to making a difference in our world and in the lives of those around us.

No, at the end of the day, I don’t believe that our faith is a product of conscious choice. More often than not, I think faithfulness is something that finds its way to us. The sources of our devotion seem to be indelibly wrapped up in the places from which we come, the families to which we are born, the people we are fated to meet, the seemingly random occurrences that befall us along the way.

How do we discover the true meaning of spiritual commitment in our lives? Perhaps the first step is simply taking a closer look at our lives themselves. Maybe, just maybe, the source of our emunah is much closer than we think.  On Rosh Hashanah we say in our liturgy “Hayom Harat Olam” – on this day the world is born.  Your entire life has been leading up to this moment. Take the time to look back. What has led you here to this place tonight? Who are the people who have helped to guide you on your journey? What are the memories and experiences that you continue to hold sacred? And, finally, how will you transform them into faithful action? How will you commit to them honor them in the coming year and the years after that?

Tomorrow is the only time of the year in which we will be asked to proclaim our ultimate faithfulness. At the end of the service will come our acknowledgement of Malchuyot: God’s sovereignty over the Universe. This is the moment in which we are commanded to literally get down upon our knees, and show our faith in a Power that exists far beyond our own. This is the challenge we will present to ourselves: Where do our ultimate loyalties lay? To what higher purpose will we be faithful?

I truly believe you don’t have to live in a nunnery or be an Abraham or a Sarah to aspire to this level of faith. Rosh Hashanah comes every year to remind us that we all carry this potential within ourselves.  We just need to remember the things in life that are truly worthy of our loyalties.  To hold tight to what makes a difference in our lives; to what ultimately matters in our world.

But Rosh Hashanah offers us the reminder – the rest will be up to us. It will be up to us to drag ourselves out of bed when we’d rather just hit the snooze. Or, to go forth into an unknown future when it would be much more comfortable to stay home with everything we already know.

Hayom Harat Olam. Today the world is reborn. Let us greet it with faith and renewed commitment. And may we give one another the strength to remain true to all that is good and right and enduring in our world.

Amen.

Friends,

On this Rosh Hashanah our brothers and sisters in Israel face the threat of a nuclear Iran – a threat to Israel’s very existence.

Today, we Jews around the world also confront the anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment of the Goldstone report which blames Israel disproportionately for the tragic loss of human life incurred in Operation Cast Lead, which took place last winter in Gaza.  This unbalanced United Nations sponsored report portends serious consequences for Israel and the Jewish people.

On this holy day, which is not only Rosh Hashanah, but also Shabbat, the Shofar is silent in the face of this spurious report, the world is far too silent.

Today the state of Israel needs us to be the kol shofar, the voice of the shofar!

We ask you to write to our governmental leaders and call upon them to condemn the Goldstone report and to confront the threat of a nuclear Iran.

While the shofar is silent today, all Conservative rabbis, cantors and congregations have been asked to sing Hatikvah at this moment in the service.

We rise in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Israel.

What troubles me most about this suggestion is how profoundly it flies in the face of the very meaning of the festival itself. On Rosh Hashanah, we affirm Malchuyot – God’s sovereignty over the universe. Rosh Hashanah is the only time of the year that Jews are commanded to bow all the way to the ground and pledge our allegiance to God and God alone. We acknowledge that our ultimate fealty lies with a Power beyond ourselves, beyond any mortal ruler, any government, any earthly power.

Beyond the political arguments over such a statement, it strikes me as something approaching idolatry.

I’m curious to know your reactions, particularly in regard to its religious implications.

One of the holiday season’s key lessons is that it’s never too late for reconciliation: between humanity and God, between loved ones, between bitter enemies. We see this later in Genesis when Abraham dies, and Isaac and Ishmael bury him together. Our rabbis teach us that the brothers had put aside their differences and reconciled – but only a fool would presume that it had been easy for them.

 As we greet our new year, President Obama is preparing a new peace initiative, intent upon bringing Israelis and Palestinians back to negotiations. Unlike his predecessor, Obama understands what so many of us know: Achieving a real Israeli-Palestinian peace will require painful compromise and difficult decisions. It will be hard. But it is doable.

Click here for the full article.

Indeed,  politicians are notoriously bad at the art of the public apology.  Witness this whopper from Assistant US Attorney Kenneth Taylor who referred to potential jurors in the eastern Kentucky mountains as “illiterate cave dwellers” back in 2003:

The comment was not meant to be a regional slur.  To the extent that it was misinterpreted to be one, I apologize.

(BTW: If this kind of thing is your cup of tea, I highly recommend the book “My Bad: 25 Years of Public Apologies and the Appalling Behavior That Inspired Them” by Paul Slanksy and Arleen Sorkin.)

Though Wilson’s outburst was undeniably appalling, I would personally say that his subsequent apology actually ranked fairly high on the ”Elul-scale:”

This evening I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the President’s remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health care bill. While I disagree with the President’s statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the President for this lack of civility.

As I see it, Wilson gets high marks for apologizing immediately (the same evening), for apologizing directly to Obama, and for not equivocating (i.e. “I’m sorry if I offended.”)  I would also add, though, that he brought down his score somewhat for the qualifier: “while I disagree with the President’s statement…”

Saying “I’m sorry” isn’t as easy as it seems. If you’re looking for some good straightforward guidelines for Elul, here are some tips from ethicist Bruce Weinstein (aka “Bruce the Ethics Guy”):

• Admit your mistake quickly and take personal responsibility for it. Don’t say “We made a mistake” when you mean “I made a mistake.”

• Apologize first to the person you have wronged. That is the person who matters most.

• Speak from the heart. An insincere apology is as bad as no apology at all. People can tell when you really mean it, even if you think you’re a good actor and can fool everyone.

• Realize that “sorry” is just a word. For that word to be meaningful, you must do your level best to avoid repeating the mistake. This means coming up with a strategy and sticking to it.

• Understand that a meaningful apology is a sign of integrity, not weakness. Anyone can blame others, or deny that he or she did anything wrong, or lie about what really happened. Only a strong, self-possessed person can own up to their mistakes, and only such a person commands true respect.

• Don’t be afraid to ask for help. If you can’t do something well on your own, invite others to work with you on the problem. If the problem is beyond your grasp, consider asking someone else to take it on, if it is appropriate for you to do so.

This one should deepen your spiritual prep for High Holidays: Leonard Cohen performing his “Who By Fire” with able assistance from the great Sonny Rollins on shofar (I mean tenor sax…) I believe it was taped on “Night Music with David Sanborn” back in 1989.

(Tip of the hat to JRC Prez Josh Karsh for directing me toward this transcendent clip.)

And who by fire, who by water,
Who in the sunshine, who in the night time,
Who by high ordeal, who by common trial,
Who in your merry merry month of May,
Who by very slow decay,
And who shall I say is calling?

And who in her lonely slip, who by barbiturate,
Who in these realms of love, who by something blunt,
And who by avalanche, who by powder,
Who for his greed, who for his hunger,
And who shall I say is calling?

And who by brave assent, who by accident,
Who in solitude, who in this mirror,
Who by his lady’s command, who by his own hand,
Who in mortal chains, who in power,
And who shall I say is calling?