Before Shabbat

Our little street in Newton Corner, right off the Mass Pike, has become a must go Halloween spot. Last year we went through over 30lbs of various goodies.  This year I’m expecting even more trick or treaters.

I’ve always loved Halloween. Collecting candy at night with friends, laughing, and having a great time: what could be better? It’s a wonderful American secular tradition, one I have always participated in. Now, to be perfectly honest, I don’t like wearing costumes. I don’t know why that’s the case. Maybe it’s the squeamish little boy in me who also hates to dance. But I love looking at the kids, and the occasional matching parent in full regalia when they come to the door for candy.

Given Halloween’s thoroughly secular character, it’s always surprised me that there are Jews who believe Halloween to be a treif (unkosher) day. As it says on the website kveller.com:

“ To many, if not most, American Jewish parents, participating in Halloween revelries is considered harmless fun. Increasingly, however, rabbis and educators have challenged Jewish participation in Halloween activities. To be fair, the holiday does have pagan origins, and it was later adopted by the Catholic Church.  So it is understandable why some Jews would be tepid about celebrating a religious holiday that was never their own.”

First of all, I would challenge the assertion that rabbis and Jewish educators have stepped up anti-Halloween rhetoric. I would bet that most Jewish professionals have no real problem with Halloween.

Second of all, for Jews to ban something because of its pagan origins seems ludicrous at best. Do you really think a lulav and an Etrog are not ancient pagan symbols of fertility? That the Urim and the Thummim, divination stones used by the priests, do not predate the First Temple? Acknowledging the pagan roots of a particular practice or custom is not idolatry if it has no current currency as a pagan ritual symbol.

Third, and most importantly: Contrary to Kveller’s assertion, Halloween is not a religious holiday! It’s only about having a good time. Period. There’s no religious imagery or content: Unless you worship sugar.

The Chabad website suggests “Make your kids feel that they are the vanguard. They belong to a people who have been entrusted with the mission to be a light to the nations–not an ominous light inside a pumpkin, but a light that stands out and above and shows everyone where to go. Forget about Halloween and wait for Purim to turn the neighborhood upside down!”

I would remind the author of that paragraph that Purim hardly shines a light of virtue and goodness. Remember the abiding obligation of Purim is to get drunk! Offering Purim as a substitute is a rather paltry offering. Purim is a Jewish holiday. Halloween is not a religious holiday for anyone.

As I advised last year, get out there and enjoy! With all of the trouble and pain and fear in the world, how nice to have a fun set of customs to share with others.

I’m lucky to have a sukkah here at the temple. I like to walk into it and sit, have a nosh, shake my lulav and then go back into my office. It’s not that I’m such a stickler for performing mitzvoth; it’s just that Sukkot and some of its traditions are so evocative.

On the simplest level, Sukkot is a nostalgic holiday. It reminds me of the old days. Every year Liza and I would build a sukkah in our backyard and then encourage our kids and their friends to do Sukkot stuff. They’d decorate the sukkah with fruit and construction paper chains and pictures they’d draw with crayons and markers.

Every year we’d have a neighborhood party in the sukkah, asking folks to come over and enjoy the Fall colors and to have the fun of hanging out with a purpose. I’d make stews and chili and soups, gladly feeding anyone who came by. It was always so much fun and so fulfilling.

But when my nest emptied out, I stopped building a sukkah. It just didn’t feel right to have a lonely sukkah sit empty except for an occasional visit from me. That’s why I’m so happy to have a temple sukkah that’s filled with kids and grown-ups.

I rarely see the neighbors who used to come over for the Sukkot celebration at our place. It’s sad. I only have myself to blame for not keeping up the connections. This gradual self-isolation as one ages is pernicious. I didn’t realize that this is how it happens. As life circumstances change, where one intersects with others changes too. I like my neighbors a lot. Without the added effort, relationships fade away – not in anger or malice, but rather due to benign neglect. Things happen over time.

The sukkah reminds us that our ancestors wandered in the wilderness, dwelling in temporary shelters. The roof is purposely open to the heavens. In fact, if the stuff used for covering the sukkah roof is so thick that it protects sukkah dwellers from rain, then it is not kosher. In other words, we’re supposed to feel vulnerable.

We are not invincible. We’re not immortal. So every day that we have is a gift. As long as we can keep breathing, we can keep celebrating, thanking God for the frankly miraculous truth of being alive. Of course, we don’t need a sukkah for that… but it helps.

From the month before Rosh Hashanah to the day after Yom Kippur, I am deluged with words. Hebrew words. English words. Transliterations from Hebrew to English characters. Prayer words. Poem words. Sermon words. If I had hair, I’d be tempted to tear it out…

At least I’m not a native Khmer speaker. Their alphabet contains 72 letters; an On Beyond Zebra phenomenon brought to life! Maybe I’d be better off in Suriname where about 400,000 people speak a Creole dialect called Sranan. There are 340 vocabulary words in Sranan, which is also called Taki Taki. How much can you say with 340 words? Apparently, enough.

So many words! Haim Nachman Bialik, the national poet of Israel, once wrote, “Every day, consciously and unconsciously, human beings scatter heaps of words to the wind, with all their various associations; few men indeed know or reflect on what these words were like in the days when they were at the height of their power.. . .”  And then there’s Flaubert’s heartbreaking truism from Madame Bovary, “Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.”

Even as I write this critique of language and the excesses it engenders, I am aware of the fact that I’m using, well, words! It’s like if you watch yourself driving and then start to wonder, “How do I know I’m supposed to speed up or slow down? Am I sure this is the gas and not the brake?” Observing muscle memory can be disorienting.

Bialik and Flaubert were right. Words are cheap and often inadequate. They rarely match what we are really feeling. Then there is the endless bloviation of political hacks and cable’s talking heads. And I suppose it would be bad form not to admit, particularly on this Shabbat Shuva, the weekend between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, my tendency to talk too much, and pollute the air a la Bialik, with heaps of words… It feels increasingly difficult to sift through all this verbiage for words that matter. It feels increasingly difficult to discern the difference between sincerity and spin – even in our speech, let alone the speech of others.

But what else are we to do? Most of us aren’t artists. Most of us aren’t poets. So all we have are words. Words are imperfect creations, just like us. With these imperfect tools, we are asked to do our best between now and Kol Nidre to ask those we have sinned against for forgiveness. We are also called upon to listen to the words of others, to forgive those who come to us with a truly repentant heart.

With my meagre words, I ask for your forgiveness if I have in any way let you down or hurt your feelings. It is a true blessing in my life to serve as your rabbi. I hope my words resonate with the gratitude I feel in my heart. Have a sweet and healthy new year and an easy fast.

Shabbat Shalom,

rebhayim

I was up at 6 this morning. I’m not an early riser by choice, so being awake before dawn was not what I’d call a welcome situation. The bedroom was a bit chilly with the windows wide open. I truly wanted to fall back asleep, but it was very clear that this would not happen. I was conscious.

You know how sometimes when you wake up you have a particular thought in mind. It’s not disturbing, and may, in fact, be pleasant or calming. Maybe it’s the remnant of a dream or due to the music that’s playing as you rise. It’s a gentle way to start the day.

That wasn’t my experience. My eyes opened after 6 am and that was it. It was as if my brain were a chainsaw and somebody yanked on the starter cord.

Schedules, appointments, things that must be done, worries about people I care about, will I or won’t I get to the gym, sermons, High Holy Days, what about dinner… it all came crashing in on me. At once. Was I going to fall back asleep? Not this morning I wasn’t.

So I got up to make the coffee. And as I stood there the aroma of fresh coffee began to caress my olfactory nerves. All of a sudden, I wasn’t obsessing about the 25 things that had to happen immediately! At once! Right now! I was smiling about how good Peet’s Major Dickason’s Blend smells as it brews, which led me to remember my first taste of Major Dickason’s Blend at the Peet’s on Union Street in San Francisco 37 years ago which led me to remember the months I spent with Liza before we got married and how sweet and romantic a time that was, which led me to smile some more…

I could’ve stood there, working myself into a frenzy of anxiety. I chose, instead, to just stop it. I chose to chill. Will all of these things get done? Maybe yes, maybe no. Does anyone’s life hang in the balance over anything I am required to do today? No. Will my staff slash my tires? I don’t think so. Will my wife and kids and grandkids still give me a hug at the end of the day? So far so good.

Look: life is so very precious. Not just at the 30,000-foot spiritual overview general statement of principle level. But perhaps more importantly, at the up close granular level. Every little thing we do, every decision we make impinges on the sacredness of our lives.

Spending time planning one’s day is a wise and mature thing to do. Spending time slapping oneself upside the head and repeatedly saying “Gevalt!”, does nothing but waste time. It reminds me of a famous rabbinic quote (which rabbi? I’m still looking it up…), which I paraphrase: “One who obsessively talks about their flaws and failures and sins thinks only about their flaws and failures and sins and soon becomes their flaws and failures and sins. Stir filth this way it’s filth; stir it that way and it’s still filth. And during all this time of brooding, I could be stringing pearls for the Holy One. You’ve done wrong? Who hasn’t! Now turn away from the brooding and start doing good!”

All I can do is the best that I can do. And that has to be enough.

And now it’s time to string some pearls for the Holy One.

We all grew up with guys like Ryan Lochte: handsome, popular jocks who always had an entourage of dudes and girls. They were usually not the sharpest tools in the shed, but this didn’t seem to matter much to the adoring students and teachers who fawned over their athletic accomplishments and good looks.

They got away with all kinds of pranks and class disruptions while other less popular kids were slapped down. The excuse for these golden boys, no matter what they did, from being terribly rowdy at parties, not doing homework, or losing their car, was something like International Olympics Committee spokesman Mario Andrada’s statement.  “We need to understand that these kids were trying to have fun…“But let’s give these kids a break. Sometimes you take actions that you later regret. Lochte is one of the best swimmers of all times. They had fun, they made a mistake, life goes on.”

That notion of a chosen few to be judged differently due to their popularity or social standing has long been a part of American life. Celebrities often seem to benefit from a pernicious double standard. They “nudge-nudge, wink-wink” with all sorts of authority figures in thrall to their patina of fame.

But there is a flip side to this worship of the rich and famous. Woe to the celebrity who gets caught doing something ridiculously foolish or criminally egregious. In such cases, the public giveth and the public taketh away. Not to mention corporate sponsors…

I am not the first person to note that original IOC apologia for Lochte et al rings hollow. First and foremost, Andrada calls them kids. Only Lochte is 32. Which means the statute of limitations for kid behavior is in effect. It is true that to vandalize a service station bathroom is not a capital crime. But to lie about it and then get caught on video is an invitation to a real multimedia frenzy.

I’m trying to separate my schadenfreude (pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune), from the facts in regards to Ryan Lochte. Which is not easy. But his sudden plummet from lovable rascal to pathetic, fixated adolescent has a kind of justice to it.

Our tradition teaches us that everything we do has consequences. Coming up to the High Holy Days we are particularly cognizant of this time period as the commencement of a judgment process that culminates on Yom Kippur when God decides who shall live and who shall die. The evidence that God reviews is not our thoughts, but our deeds. It’s not what we meant to do or not do. It’s only about what choices we made.

There is no book of life and a book of death. God does not punish the evil and reward the innocent. Those are metaphors, images to help us feel more deeply about the dimensions of our own choices. But I do think God cares about our behavior. I do believe that any one person’s bad choices have implications for them and for others far on down the line. This notion of the deep reach of our actions is why repenting and forgiving are so crucial to the High Holy Days.

We are called upon to examine our behavior over this past year and acknowledge where we’ve fallen short. We are reminded of the implications of our misdeeds in regards to others. And we are called upon to surmount our own rush to judgment and forgive those seeking pardon.

So far, Ryan Lochte hasn’t apologized: to the Brazilian people, to the service station owner, to the other guys who were with him and got thrown under the bus, or to the American people whom he is supposed to be representing. All he’s done so far is to say he’s sorry for “not being more careful and candid in how I described the events of that early morning.” By me, that doesn’t count for much at all.

As one the people who watched the “popular” guys get it all, a la “Revenge of the Nerds”, I am happy to see a 2-dimensional punk laid low. But as a rabbi in his 60s, I think I’m ready to let it go. I hope and pray it’ll be that easy to find forgiveness for others – and for myself – this coming High Holy Days.