The Miracle of Peace

Sermon Israel Shabbat 5786, Shabbat Tazria-Metsora

Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon, Congregation Beit Simcha, Tucson, AZ

This is always an intriguing time in the Jewish year, between the major festival of Passover and the perhaps greater holiday of my father’s 100th birthday… true, but I mean in the early weeks of the period of the Counting of the Omer between Pesach and Shavu’ot we observe two special days, modern events that have their own observances associated with them.

Yom HaShoah and Yom Ha’atzma’ut were both established after World War II, which makes them, respectively, 75 and 78 years old.  In the grand sweep of Jewish history that is but yesterday, of course, and their significance to American Jewry waxed and waned over the years.  I can recall that some of the very first times I ever performed for audiences in public was singing Holocaust songs at Yom HaShoah events in Los Angeles, including for Survivor groups like the Vilna Ghetto Survivors.  It was a common thing growing up to see people reaching up to take a number in the local Jewish bakery on Fridays and to see faded numbers tattooed on their arms; they were concentration camp survivors, of course.  The need to remember, especially as the remaining survivors age and diminish, is powerful.  And so last week was Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. 

And then, exactly seven days later, on Tuesday, we will celebrate Israel Independence Day.  Now, it is not an accident that Yom HaAtzma’ut takes place just a week after Yom Ha’Shoah.  Historically speaking, the creation of the State of Israel was only possible because World War II ended in Allied victory with the defeat of the Third Reich, and the horrific magnitude of the destruction of the Jews of Europe, who had no country to flee to from the Nazis, was made explicit by the liberation of the death camps, and further publicized at the Nuremberg trials.  For a brief moment, an uncaring world realized that no one was going to save endangered Jews except other Jews who had their own Jewish State.  And in miraculous fashion, that tiny Jewish state survived, and grew and, eventually, thrived.

You are no doubt familiar with the complex history of the rapid development of the underdog state, which absorbed more Jewish refugees in its first decades of life than it had people when independence was won.  That included hundreds of thousands—perhaps over a million—Jews robbed and then expelled from Arab countries they had lived in for literally thousands of years.  It included Holocaust survivors and refugees from repressive regimes in Europe and South America and Africa and Asia and, well, everywhere on the globe.  Over time, that underdog nation won enough existential wars to become the most powerful military in the Middle East and grew to be a much larger but still tiny nation of nearly 10 million people.

We celebrate the survival and incredible development of Israel over the less than eight decades of its existence, how a mostly barren wasteland has been transformed into an incredible, dynamic country, how it has continued to welcome Jewish refugees in the ensuing decades—from Iran, from Russia, from Argentina, from Ethiopia, from Ukraine.  How it has created a dynamic, complex democracy that is also economically vibrant and innovative in so many extraordinary ways.  A nation that changes all the time, that constantly creates art, music, culture and intellectual accomplishments that are too numerous to name.

My friends, this is a complicated Yom HaAtzma’ut for many American Jews, I suspect.  Israel is engaged in war with both Iran and the Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, after over two years of war with Hamas in Gaza, and following last year’s battles with Hezbollah, Iran, and the Houthis in Yemen, plus its involvement in preventing Syria’s new government from massacring its Druze population.  While we understand that Israel is fighting genocidal, murderous terrorists, and horrible, evil regimes, and is accomplishing many of its tactical objectives in spectacular fashion, it is an uneasy feeling to see the only Jewish State in the world in what feels like a constant state of war.  Those of us who have friends and relatives in Israel know that they are still constantly dealing with sirens and bomb shelters on a regular basis, that nothing is really back to anything like normal. 

We also know that support for Israel in America has been dropping steadily, influenced in large part by a steady propaganda barrage from the progressive left that treats every Israeli defensive act instantly as evidence of genocide, and on the right by an isolationist element that is heavily tinged with antisemitism.  Both sides would like to see the only Jewish state in the world destroyed, to be honest, for very different reasons that somehow circle back to a foundational Antisemitism.

At a time when the American-initiated war with Iran seems to completely lack overall strategic vision, let alone an actual exit strategy, Israel is a convenient scapegoat, and its very unpopular Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu an obvious, and perhaps appropriate, target.  Now, make no mistake, what America and Israel have accomplished in a military sense in the last month is extraordinary: Iran’s nuclear program and ballistic missile capability have been severely degraded, much of its navy destroyed and its entire leadership killed.  In Lebanon, the hated Hezbollah terrorist network has been hammered, its leadership taken out, and its control of Southern Lebanon seriously diminished. 

We pray that the cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, just arranged yesterday, will lead to a productive settlement.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean the US and Israel has won this war, or that Iran’s regime will change, or the Straits of Hormuz are permanently open again to oil shipments, or that gas prices will immediately return to pre-war levels, or that Hezbollah will be expelled from all power in Lebanon.  When we celebrate Israel’s 78th birthday this coming week, we will do so with profound prayers not for victory but for the establishment of a durable peace, with security, for Israel and its troubled neighborhood.  And we pray, as well, that these three years of war will end with a better, more stable, healthier Middle East.  

You know, there has always been a certain rueful honesty in the way Israelis look at the world, and that impresses me as profoundly Jewish.  The Israeli jokes used to be things like, “How do you make a small fortune in Israel?  Come with a large fortune.”  And “Never say things can’t get worse; sure they can, just wait five minutes!”  Nowadays, that kind of cynicism can lead to a fatalism: “Peace with the Palestinians?  That will come just a little while after the Messiah arrives.”

The truth is, as Ben Gurion said, “In Israel, in order to be a realist, you must believe in miracles.”  This year, I think that is essential to understanding that this semi-permanent state of war is not the true destiny of Israel.  In fact, there will be a better time, and I firmly believe that eventually we will see something we never believed could be: that Israel will live in peace with all its neighbors.  And I believe that time is coming sooner than we might imagine.

After all, Israel’s very existence is a miracle.  It’s thriving culture and state is a miracle.  And its military power, which has protected all of that, is a kind of miracle as well.  Why not the miracle of peace, too? 

Yom HaShoah: A Reflection on Resilience

A Thought on Yom HaShoah Today: on Resilience

From Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon

There is no doubt that the destruction wrought on our people over the many centuries of persecution has taken a fearsome toll.  Demographers say that without the enemies who have tried to destroy us, in every generation, there would now be hundreds of millions of Jews in the world; today there are only 16 million Jews.  We have been brutally attacked by powerful empires, republics, kingdoms, sultanates, ​czars, cossacks, dictatorships, Reichs​, and jihadists, and it has always damaged us terribly. 

And yet, we Jews survive, and all those who sought our annihilation in the past are gone, afterthoughts of history.

That testifies to a profound and poorly recognized aspect of Jewish identity: resilience, the ability to rise from defeat and loss and destruction and to insist on living active Jewish lives.  As Jews, we always ​b​elieve that our amazing, ever-evolving tradition affirms life, ethics and holiness in unique and precious ways. 

And we know that each of us carries both the responsibility and the capability to continually renew Jewish life: through prayer, study, communal celebration and, most of all, righteous action.

Resilience is not a gift; it is a choice, a continual choice, to live our Judaism actively every day.

The Shoah was unique, an utter annihilation of the Jewry of Europe and half the Jews in the world in the early 1940s.  It is our responsibility as Jews to demonstrate the resilience that is ​so central to our tradition and our identity, and affirm “Am Yisrael Chai—the people of Israel live, and will always live.”

The Strength of Integrity - Gevurah

Sermon, Shabbat Shemini 5786, Rabbi Sam Cohon, Congregation Beit Simcha, Tucson, AZ

I must admit that my favorite Passover joke—perhaps not entirely appropriate from the bimah, but all those days of matzah have damaged my judgment—the story goes like this:

A rabbi brings his kosher for Pesach lunch to the park to eat, and he sits down on a bench.  Looking over, he realizes that the man on the other end of the bench is blind and apparently has no lunch to eat.  Feeling compassion for the blind man, the rabbi offers him a square of his matzah, which the guy accepts.  But a few minutes later the blind man reaches over, taps the rabbi on the shoulder and says, indignantly, “Who wrote this garbage?”

You see, the blind man tries to read the matzah, thinking it’s written in Braille… ah, never mind.

So, now that Passover is, well, past, and over, we are in the period of the Counting of the Omer, the time between the beginning of Passover and the holiday of Shavuot, the 7 weeks that extend from the 2nd night’s Seder of Pesach, the great festival of freedom, until the night of Shavu’ot, the holiday of receiving the Ten Commandments at Sinai.  As you know, each night of this period we perform the brief ritual, counting the Omer, reminding us of the ways our ancestors brought a special barley offering to the Temple in Jerusalem, connecting them especially closely with God in this period.  These subsequent seven weeks create a time for deepening the experience of freedom at Passover through the slow and steady work of self-exploration: examining the habits of thought and behavior that have kept us enslaved, seeking to jettison them and embrace liberation.

According to mystical tradition, each day of this seven-week period of the Omer is viewed as a time for spiritual and moral transformation.  Each of the 49 days is viewed as an opportunity to meditate on specific qualities through which we can refine ourselves during the journey back to Sinai, to prepare, if you will, to receive revelation once again.  It’s an opportunity for personal awareness and moral growth in this springtime period of the year.

The first week of the Sefirat Ha’Omer, the counting of the Omer, last week was focused on Hesed, love or kindness.  This week we are asked to focus on Gevurah, which is usually translated as strength, but which really reflects moral restraint and consistency in our good conduct.  Next week the quality we are to pay special attention to is Tiferet, harmony and beauty.  It’s a lovely way to seek greater human quality in your life, to reflect on how to improve your experience of those around you, and to make yourself a better person.

While this way of thinking about the period of the Counting of the Omer is usually called Kabbalistic, that is, mystical, and it certainly derives its ideas from the Sefirot, the spheres of divine energy in Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, I believe it is in fact much more oriented towards Mussar, the Jewish practice of practical morality, individual ethics and self-improvement.  Whatever the origins of this Sefirat Ha’Omer practice, the concept of focusing on internal growth in the season of natural growth surely can be a beautiful and meaningful process.

Now, focusing on Hesed, love or compassion, is an easy sell.  Everyone can use more love, and certainly our world would benefit for a great deal more focus on compassion, and much less on resentment and hatred.  Love is something we all can relate to, and compassion is something we all need.

But Gevurah, strength or justice, even divine justice?  That seems much less appealing, and a lot harder to relate to.  So, how might we think about Gevurah, the element of Divine energy, or personal character, that we are asked to reflect on this week? 

Yes, Gevurah means strength or power, and in Kabbalah the Sefirah, the divine orb associated with Gevurah, is also called Din, or judgment.  In general, Jewish mysticism seeks to show balance between various divine attributes, and Gevurah, power or strength and judgment, is always balanced by Chesed, love or kindness or compassion.  Both are essential elements of character, as they are believed to be integral aspects of God’s identity; chesed is the core of all religion, love for humanity and compassion for all creatures.  It must be balanced by gevurah, justice, without which love cannot flourish in society, supported by moral and inner strength. 

Generally, we associate the positive aspects of religion with love and compassion, the chesed aspects, and the negative ones with strength and judgment, the gevurah aspects.  In fact, that’s not entirely correct.  Love, of course, is profoundly important.  But striving to act well in the world, conducting ourselves as good people in challenging environments, takes strength.  And, in particular, it takes self-control. 

In considering Gevurah this week, in this spirit of the Omer counting, we might consider ways that we can control our actions and our intentions towards positive ends in a more directed, focused way.  It is not enough to intend to do good; it is essential that we actually do good.  Judaism certainly wishes to see us feel good about acting ethically.  But it cares a great deal more about us actually acting ethically.  For example, it is not enough to intend to give Tzedakah, or even to feel the need to give Tzedakah; it is far more important to give Tzedakah, no matter how you feel about it or how grudgingly you give it, than it is to have a good attitude about intending to give Tzedakah and then, well, not do it.

If this Omer association with Kabbalah, or Mussar, seems a little preachy, well, it is.  But that is not always a bad thing.  For the journey from the celebration of freedom at Passover to the celebration of covenant at Shavu’ot can be one of true personal growth.  It can make us better Jews and better people.  And to accomplish that we must choose to reflect on just how we might best successfully change over this period.

We always say when we do the short blessing for the Counting of the Omer, “we count each day so that we might make each day count.”  Perhaps the best way to do that during this spring season is to focus on how to use Gevurah, personal strength and integrity, to improve.

May this be God’s will, but more importantly, may this be our will.   

The Hearts of Children: A Great Sabbath

Shabbat HaGadol Sermon 5786

Rabbi Sam Cohon, Congregation Beit Simcha, Tucson, AZ

A story.  For my radio show and podcast, Too Jewish with Rabbi Sam Cohon and Friends, I always try to find new Jewish musical cuts to play, especially around holidays.  One year recently I found a remarkable English language version of the Chad Gadyo sung by actor and musician Jack Black.  It goes kind of like this: Then came a cat and ate the kid, that father bought for 2 zuzim, Chad Gadyo, only weirder and with a certain extremely crazy energy.

Jack Black is Jewish of course, and a famous actor and musician—he starred in movies like School of Rock, High Fidelity, and the Jumanji series, among many other comedies that required someone stocky, Jewish, brilliant, and crazier-seeming than Seth Rogen.  He is also half of the rock duo Tenacious D.  So, Jack Black recording Chad Gadyo is fun, a celebrity Jewish guy doing a Seder song with real innovative flair—if in slightly garbled Aramaic pronunciation at times.

The rest of the story is this.  I have a friend, Rabbi Joe Black, a past guest of Too Jewish, who is a Jewish music recording star—remember, that’s Jewish recording star, which means not giving up the day job because you can’t make a living at that.  He composed the music for the prayer we sing near the beginning of services, “May it be beautiful”, among many other pieces.  Rabbi Joe Black was also the rabbi of a big congregation in Denver, Colorado, and he and his wife visited us in Tucson not long ago.  Anyway, when I played the Jack Black song for my wife Sophie she commented that she was surprised that a rabbi like Joe had garbled the pronunciation of the Aramaic a few times.  Then she asked how that song would have sounded if Jack Black had sung it.

But of course, Jack Black had sung it!  Sophie thought that Rabbi Joe Black did the recording, not Jack Black… Which I immediately texted to Rabbi Joe Black.  Who laughed, by text.  You might say, I have it all there in black and white.  Sorry…

Anyway, Chad Gadyo and Jack Black—and Joe Black—aside, we are approaching the freedom festival, the great holiday of Passover, now just five days away, which means this Sabbath is Shabbat HaGadol, literally the Great Sabbath preceding Passover.  Pesach is perhaps the most observed of all Jewish holidays, and it is certainly ideologically central to Judaism: the Exodus from Egypt and the theme of liberation from oppression is at the heart of our understanding of how the world should be and has inspired countless movements for freedom around the world throughout history. 

This Sabbath before Passover is also a big Shabbat because it marks a time of preparation for a holiday that requires lots of getting ready: removing the leavening from our homes, doing a thorough spring cleaning, and then cooking and prepping all the food for the Seder and the week of Passover.  So, a Shabbat Ha,Gadol indeed, a big Sabbath in every way.

However, the name for this day comes not solely because it’s the Shabbat prior to Pesach, but from the words of a special Haftarah, the selection from the prophets, chanted during the Torah service.  This prophecy comes from a man called Malachi, who is known as the last prophet in Jewish tradition, the author of the final book in the middle section of the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible.  According to Judaism, Malachi—which means “my servant,” and is likely a description of his function, rather than his actual name—was the last person to receive direct communication from God commanding him to address the Jews. 

Malachi lived in the 5th century BCE, about 2400 years ago, when the Temple in Jerusalem had been rebuilt but religious motivation was waning.  As Rabbi Gunther Plaut put it in his commentary, “Malachi describes a priesthood forgetful of its duties, a Temple that is underfunded because the people have lost interest, and a society in which Jewish men divorce their Jewish wives to marry out of the faith.”

In other words, a time in some ways much like our own. 

In the special Haftarah chanted on this Great Shabbat, Malachi seeks to inspire the people of Israel to return to God and to worship, to connect again with their powerful ancient tradition.  He tells them, “For you who revere My name, a sun of righteousness will rise with healing on its wings… Remember the Torah of Moses, My servant, the ritual and practical laws I commanded him at Mt. Horev for all Israel.”  And then he concludes, “Here, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the hearts of children to their parents.”  In ritual tradition, part of that sentence is repeated, the coming of the great and awesome day, HaGadol v’HaNora.

I have always appreciated Malachi’s words: there will come a time when God will send Elijah the prophet, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the hearts of children to their parents, to bridge the great generation gaps and unite us across all that might otherwise divide us.

Malachi, prophesying in the 400s BCE, during the period of the Persian Empire, evokes the great, powerful, mystical hero prophet Elijah, his predecessor by some 300 years even then, saying, Hinei, Aochi sholeaich lachem et Eliyah HaNavi, lifnei bo yom Adonai, HaGadol v’haNora.  “Here, I will send you Elijah the Prophet, before the great and awesome day comes, to turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents.”  That beautiful sentence rings down to us through the ages.  What parent has not desired a greater closeness with his or her child, certainly at one point or another?  And what child has not desired greater closeness with her or his parent, certainly at some point?  Elijah must be something special to effect this great reconciliation, no?

Elijah of course figures prominently in the Passover Seder, theoretically visiting each table and drinking from the special kiddush cup set aside for him.  It is a beautiful, mystical moment in the later stages of the evening of Pesach: a time when we indeed can feel the closeness of reunited family at Passover.

I don’t know if your tradition for Elijah at the Seder is the same as my own family, but naturally we always have a large Elijah’s Cup, a Kos Eliyahu—or, depending on the number of Seder attendees and tables, sometimes multiple cups for Elijah.  When it’s time to invite him in we dim all the lights, and have children open the door, and add remembrances: of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising nearly 80 years ago that began on the night of the first Seder; of the sacrifices made by our brothers and sisters to establish the State of Israel and defend it; of the struggles for freedom that are taking place in our world today.  While the entire Seder—indeed, the whole holiday of Passover—is focused on reflecting the message of freedom by appealing to every one of the senses, and in many other intellectual and spiritual ways, it is this moment of Elijah’s cup that has perhaps the greatest emotional appeal.

There is a kind of magic that takes place, if you allow it to, with the lights dimmed and the wine of Elijah’s cup theoretically diminishing a little.  At the proper time, after the Birkat HaMazon, the Grace After Meals and the third of our four cups of wine, we open the door for Elijah, sing “Eliyahu HaNavi,” among the best-known of all Jewish melodies, and invite this symbolic man to join us for a few moments.

For children, especially, by this time well fed and a bit sleepy, it is a great opportunity to draw them in for this mystical moment.  Malachi’s words ring especially true today.  This is the time when parents’ hearts are turned to their children, and children’s hearts are turned to their parents.  It is when all of our hearts should open to those who still seek freedom, who cannot celebrate as we do at this special season.

One of my favorite stories about Passover is a Hollywood tale, and it comes from Sandy Hackett, writing about his father, the late, great comedian Buddy Hackett (“the guy with the marbles in his mouth”):

“Ever since I was a little kid, I remember Dad having an open house for Passover.  Actors, fellow comics, singers, they were all there for the Seders. One thing vividly stands out in my mind.  I went to open the door to let Elijah the Prophet in—and standing there was Gregory Peck.  He asked me if it was too late for the service, and I said ‘No, go right in; we’re all expecting you.’”

I guess if you open the door for Elijah the Prophet and Atticus Finch comes in, you are still doing pretty well.

And of course, at our first, very successful congregational seder at Beit Simcha, the children present rushed to open the door for Elijah—and saw a rattlesnake sitting just outside the door.  We chose to keep the door closed, called some animal handlers to pick up the snake, and instead of Eliyahu HaNavi we named him Eliyahu haNachash—Elijah the Snake.

We are thrilled that Wednesday night we will be able to hold a large public Seder—and we haven’t invited the snake to come back.

But what we have done, and encourage everyone to do, is to reach out to family, including those you haven’t seen for a while or may even be estranged from.  And see if a bit of that magic that Elijah conjures up at the Seder can enter your own life, and help bring about that magical turning—of the hearts of parents to children and the hearts of children to parents.  It is certainly worth making the effort at this Passover season, on this Shabbat HaGadol.  Even if you aren’t estranged from you kids, give them a call or a video chat and wish them a Chag Sameiach.  And then this will truly be a great Shabbat, and a holiday of blessing.

Freedom from Personal Enslavement

Sermon Shabbat Vayikra 5786

Rabbi Sam Cohon, Congregation Beit Simcha 

Pesach is coming up in just twelve days.  The theme of Passover is freedom, of course: Pesach is zman cheiruteinu, the season of freedom, the ultimate festival of liberation, a celebration of the great human need for freedom from slavery, constraint, and bondage.  It is woven into our entire Jewish tradition.

Repeatedly in Judaism we are given the mitzvah, the commandment, to view ourselves as though we personally had come out of Egypt.  That is, we are supposed to think of ourselves as genuinely having been slaves.  Usually, this is explained as the requirement to identify with the downtrodden in every society, to remember that we ourselves were once wretched slaves at the bottom of the heap.  That means that no matter how well we do we are obligated to help those in need, to try to liberate those who are our own generation’s versions of slaves.  Long ago God brought us to freedom, after 400 years of servitude.  Now, we must help those who are similarly in chains.

A great lesson.  But perhaps there is more here.

Repeatedly in the Torah and of course at Passover we are told that we must see ourselves as having literally been slaves.  That may seem like a far-fetched idea to those of us who have grown up and lived in freedom and comfort in a free country.  America is the land of the free, isn’t it?  After all, in practical reality we are not servants to anyone and can make our own decisions about our course in life.

Or can we? The truth is, we are all not really so free as we imagine that we are.  We may not be slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, we may not wear shackles on our ankles or wrists, but is it possible that we are all slaves to something? 

I remember the way a rabbi I worked with long ago used to explain what being a slave was when he spoke to preschool aged kids at Pesach time.  He would say, “Hold your hands super tight in front of you.  Pull very hard, but hold them so closely and strongly that you can’t get them out.  Keep trying; that’s what it feels like to be a slave.  Now, let them go!  That’s the difference between being a slave and being free.”

As a demonstration for preschool children, it sort of worked, provided the little kids’ hands didn’t fly out and whack the next kid in the nose…

But it was valuable because that’s more or less exactly what we are supposed to be doing this time of year: remembering what it was like to be a slave, the pain, the suffering, the struggle, the constriction.  We create that at the Seder: bitter herbs, memories of hard labor, the bread of affliction, lechem oni.  And always, the knowledge that you could never really just do what you wanted to do.

That sense of being limited, blocked, stuck is an underrated aspect of slavery.  Rabbi Arthur Waskow, of blessed memory, reminded us that the name for Egypt, Mitzrayim, includes the word Tzar, narrow, at its heart, a place of contraction and constraint. 

So, what does this mean for us today?

My friends, I’d like you to try a little thought exercise.  Imagine that you are a slave.  That is, what enslaves you, personally?

Is there something in your own life that holds you, personally, captive?  And what is it that keeps you there?

The physical, practical goal of the Exodus from Egypt was to free us from slavery.  But what God has Moses request from the Pharaoh initially is not physical freedom at all but spiritual freedom, the ability to go and worship God as the Israelites wished to do.  In other words, the real goal of the Exodus was spiritual, emotional, and psychological freedom.  Before the Israelites could value physical freedom, they needed to experience spiritual freedom.

In today’s world we may be physically free.  But by the standards that the story of Exodus establishes, in truth we may not really be so free.

So, I’ll ask again, what is it that enslaves you? 

We know that there are, in every community, people who are slaves to their addictions to alcohol, to prescription drugs, to illegal drugs.  We know that there are, in every community, those who are slaves to their addictions to food, to gambling, to other seriously damaging behaviors.  Less toxically, there are many who are addicted to social media or video games, to viral news feeds and other seemingly harmless but addictive behaviors.  Addiction is a kind of slavery, isn’t it?  

We also know people trapped in damaging relationships, in toxic work situations, in careers that are unfulfilling and unhappy.  And there are many people who are enslaved by financial pressures.  Others are workaholics, unable to free themselves from the prison of eternal obsession with their jobs and careers.  And we all know people who are slaves to physical illness or incapacity, trapped by their own body’s limitations. 

Then there are those people who remain in mourning after a great personal loss, unable to heal from it, still in servitude to grief.  We also know people who are slaves to their own dysfunctions: some who simply can’t show up on time, others who can’t make a simple decision, some trapped by their inability to tell the truth. 

So, as we approach Passover, when we will tell the story of the Exodus of our people from slavery, what is it that enslaves you, personally?  To be able to answer this question requires something akin to absolute honesty.  It can be hard to admit, but we must answer nonetheless: What traps you, controls you, chains you?  To what are you a slave?

It is possible that you can think of more than one thing that subjugates you and keeps you from being truly free.  But if you can focus on just one thing that makes a slave out of you, that is the crucial first step to becoming free. Because until you know what it is that enslaves you, what chains you, you can’t begin to try to become free.

To begin to seek liberation from that restricting enslavement, that challenging limitation, we each have the ability to imitate what our ancestors were supposed to do first: to seek spiritual liberation.  The first step is to realize that you are enslaved in some way.  The next step—and it’s a big one—is to free your spirit.  It is to realize that you are a unique and sacred image of God in this world, that you can to connect with the great power that belief and hope bring.  Because when you begin that process of freeing your spirit, you can begin to free yourself from the ways that you are enslaved.

That’s the true message of Passover, of our coming Pesach holiday: that each of us has the capacity to seek true freedom, in order to live a life of dedication not to habits or addictions or limitations, but to goodness and truth and love.  May this be God’s will; and ours.

Kein Yehi Ratson.

Generosity

Generosity

Speech by Rabbi  Cohon at “Prayer for Peace” Multi-Faith Service 3 10 26 held at the LDS (Mormon) North Stake, Tucson, AZ

There is a famous story about a rabbi who has a wonderful idea for how to fix the problem of poverty in his village.  He tells his wife, eagerly, ““All we need is to get all the wealthy people in town to give half their money to the poor, and we will be able to take care of the problem.”

His wife smiles indulgently and suggests he try to accomplish this.

Late that night the rabbi comes home, looking exhausted. 

“So how did you do?” his wife asks him.

“I’m halfway there,” the rabbi says.  “I have gotten all the poor people to agree to accept the money.”

Generosity is a funny thing.  We all know we should be generous and give to those in need, and we all do some of that.  But if we really were able to give enough to rectify the profound imbalances in our society, we would have a very different world.

The Hebrew word for generosity is tzedakah, which is also translated as charity.  But that is not an accurate translation.  Tzedakah has the root word of Tzedek, which means justice or righteousness.  In our tradition, the concept of generosity is not simply related to kindness or graciousness or sympathy of even empathy.  It is, at heart, the reestablishment of justice in a world that so often does not reflect that.  It is a profound commandment, very much at the heart of Jewish ethics.  Tzedek Tzedek tirdof, we are commanded in Deuteronomy: justice, justice you must pursue. Equity of opportunity, including financial opportunity, is a central aspect of justice.  And without justice, of course, there cannot be peace.  Which means that without the generosity that enables justice in our society and our world we will never be able to enjoy true peace.

In the Talmud, the great collection of law and lore, Judaism mandates tzedakah, generosity in charitable giving, to the level of 10% to 20% of your gross income.  The concept of tithing that is invented in the Torah was supposed to be the baseline, not the ceiling.  I wonder how many of us meet that standard today?

There is a well-known passage in the Mishna Avot, the ethics of the ancestors in the classic Jewish legal collection from the third century.  It reads:

אַרְבַּע מִדּוֹת בָּאָדָם. הָאוֹמֵר שֶׁלִּי שֶׁלִּי וְשֶׁלְּךָ שֶׁלָּךְ, זוֹ מִדָּה בֵינוֹנִית. ]וְיֵשׁ אוֹמְרִים, זוֹ מִדַּת סְדוֹם.[ שֶׁלִּי שֶׁלְּךָ וְשֶׁלְּךָ שֶׁלִּי, עַם הָאָרֶץ. שֶׁלִּי שֶׁלְּךָ וְשֶׁלְּךָ שֶׁלָּךְ, חָסִיד. שֶׁלִּי שֶׁלִּי וְשֶׁלְּךָ שֶׁלִּי, רָשָׁע:

There are four types of character in human beings: The first is the type of person who says: “what is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours”: this is an ordinary type of person…  A second is the person who says: what is “mine is yours and what is yours is mine”: this is a foolish person (am haaretz); third is the one who says, what is “mine is yours and what is yours is yours;” this is a pious person. And finally, there is the person who says: What is “mine is mine, and what is yours is mine”; that is a wicked person.

This is a pretty simple passage to comprehend, of course, and we can easily agree that someone who gives her or his possessions away to help others is some kind of saint; that someone who takes other’s needed possessions or funds is wicked, even evil.  We realize that most of us fall into the general category of “ordinary”: we protect our own stuff, but don’t give enough to others.

However, I’ve always been a little puzzled about that odd category of what is called in the Mishnah, “ignorant people”: those people who say, “what is mine is yours and what is yours is mine.”  I can’t say I know anyone like that, although I do remember the occasional neighbor who borrowed a tool or something and didn’t return it.  I’ve been that neighbor once or twice… But who thinks like that?  Who simple wants to just exchange all their stuff with other people’s stuff?

Odd solutions came to mind: was this some sort of ancient rabbinic objection to socialism or communism, over 1500 years before those concepts were ever conceptualized?  Were the rabbis warning us about the dangers of co-dependency nearly two millennia before Freud?

Or was there something else here? 

What is “mine is yours and what is yours is mine”: what if that means something quite different?

What if we think about that phrase as indicating that we are in society together, and that what you have, and what you need, is connected to what I have and what I need.  It is not a zero-sum game, as the rabbi in our first story believed.  It is much more a matter of how interconnected we all are, how we cannot see others fail without it impacting our own peace of mind, our own sense of justice and trust in our society.

Maybe the great scholars of our past were simply mistaken.  Sacrilege, I know, to say that, but the maybe the point of all this emphasis on generosity is to understand, acknowledge, and address the inequities in our society with our own generosity, because we are all connected.  We are all created in the image of the same God.  We are all responsible for each other.

4:3 הוּא הָיָה אוֹמֵר, אַל תְּהִי בָז לְכָל אָדָם, וְאַל תְּהִי מַפְלִיג לְכָל דָּבָר, שֶׁאֵין לְךָ אָדָם שֶׁאֵין לוֹ שָׁעָה וְאֵין לְךָ דָבָר שֶׁאֵין לוֹ מָקוֹם:

Ben Azzai used to say: do not despise any man, and do not discriminate against anything, for there is no man that has not his hour, and there is no thing that has not its place.

And there is no act of generosity you should not do, in the best way and to the best of your abilities.  Because only when we are truly generous to others will we see justice restored, and will we be able to enjoy true peace.

War with Iran

Sermon, Rabbi Sam Cohon, Congregation Beit Simcha, Tucson, AZ, Shabbat Ki Tisa 5786

Suddenly, the US and Israel are exactly one week into the war with Iran.  The Islamic “Republic” has widened the conflict by attacking the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, and even fellow Shi’ite nation Azerbaijan.  As the horrific extremist Shi’ite Islamist regime grows ever more desperate, it is striking out and has even attacked fellow terrorism sponsor and ally Qatar and closet ally Turkey.  The “Supreme Leader”—that is head murderer—is now dead, to be succeeded apparently by his son, who seems poised to be equally horrible, and the Iran regime’s proclamations about destroying its many enemies, and insane attacks on everyone in an effort to blow up the whole Middle East and interdict the flow of oil and gas to the world speak to a level of true desperation.

Iran’s next-to-last remaining ally in the region, Hezbollah in Lebanon, also sent missiles into northern Israel last week and was met with devastating strikes from the IDF.  Amos Harel, the military expert of Israel’s top left-wing newspaper, Ha’aretz, says that Hezbollah has actually played right into Israel’s hands, and with the Lebanese government actually trying to suppress it actively, and approving, to a degree, of the IDF’s attacks on Hezbollah in its Shi’ite enclaves, it may be possible for Israel to truly finish off Hezbollah as a threat.  

You know, a week ago Friday night I preached a sermon here for Shabbat Zachor, the Sabbath of Remembrance that preceded the festival of Purim, when we Jews in ancient Persia were saved from an evil man who sought to destroy us all.  In that sermon I traced the long history of those who sought to wipe the Jews from the face of the earth, the damage they have caused, and their failure to wipe us out.  In every generation this seems to occur, and we are still here, and they are all gone. 

In my talk I connected these ancient, medieval and modern attacks on our people to the current tyranny in Iran, which of course is the same country as Persia, and has some ethnic continuity with the ancient Persians.  And I noted that what was then an American military build-up in the Eastern Mediterranean and its environs was perhaps indicative of an attempt to finally topple the evil regime that has been murdering its own rebellious citizens en masse for months, and has fomented terror world-wide, and is responsible for the murder of many Israelis, Jews, and Americans over the nearly half-century of its evil misrule of a once-great nation.

Some of you came up to me the next day at Shabbat Torah Study and before and after morning services and told me that I was a prophet, able to predict the future; because of course that very night, perhaps beginning during my sermon, the American/Israeli joint attack on the Islamist regime in Iran began.  “You predicted it all, rabbi!” they said.  “And it’s happening on Shabbat Zachor and Purim—is that irony, intention, or destiny?”

Well, frankly, as Isaiah says in the Bible, I am not a prophet nor am I the son of a prophet.  In spite of your kind statements, I did not know that the attack on Iran would begin last Friday night, nor that the “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Khamanei, who ruled Iran with an iron fist, enforcing Sharia Law with incredible harshness for 37 brutal years, would be killed, as would most of the leadership of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who tortured and murdered any Iranian citizens who dared question the repressive regime.  While the apparent intent of the US military mobilization into the region was obvious to anyone, the actual attack being carried out effectively and with full intention wasn’t so easy to predict.

When I, or anyone is asked, what the end result of this current war will be, and we answer, please take it with a large shakersfull of salt.  Of course, no one knows if this will truly precipitate regime change in Iran or bring an end to the terrible rule of this extreme form of Islamist oppression.  We don’t know if Iran will cease using its oil money to sponsor terror groups all over the region and the world.  We don’t even know what the US goals are in this war.  But anyone who is upset that a vile, murderous theocratic dictator like Khamanei is gone is, well, quite muddleheaded, at best.  And anyone who protests in support of an Iranian regime that has systematically tortured and murdered women, LGBTQ members of society, and all potential political opponents, all while bankrupting a state rich in oil revenues and putting Teheran on the brink of running out of water before this war started is profoundly confused about what is right and wrong.

We don’t know what’s going to happen here; no one really does.  It’s not clear if there is any real organized opposition to take over even if this war “succeeds” in wiping out a substantial part of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s control of the country and of society.  And it’s hard to see how even that can be accomplished solely by airstrikes and missiles and drones, or through Kurdish militias.  But severely degrading the nuclear and missile and drone capacity of the madmen in Iran is an accomplishment in its own right.

So Purim is over, and Israelis continue to have to huddle in bomb shelters and hope the ballistic missiles don’t get through and make direct hits, which they did in killing 10 people, including a family at the synagogue in Beit Shemesh last week. US military personnel have died. Things were pretty weird here in America already, and war often accentuates the weirdest parts.  That execrable Antisemite Tucker Carlson claims that Chabad—Chabad!—drove the US military to this war in order to bring the Messiah and build a Third Temple, a conspiracy theory and blood libel I hadn’t heard before but have now.  The smoke of this war has again drawn our attention 10,000 miles away.  We hope for the fall of this horrifying Iranian regime, and we pray that civilians and innocents are kept out of the maelstrom of destruction that war always causes.

How long will this war last?  It is my hope that it concludes before Passover, now just three and a half weeks away.  Israelis spent this Purim in and out, but mostly in, bomb shelters; we pray that our brothers and sisters are able to celebrate the coming festival of freedom freely and openly.

If you consider the geopolitical situation of Israel on October 7th—or 8th—of 2023 and compare it to where it stands now, you can experience a kind of shock.  Because while Israel was then surrounded by a ring of fire, terrorists and hostile and powerful enemy nations and organizations bent on its destruction and the genocide of the Jews of Israel and the world, now, while again at war, it has vanquished all of its opponents in startling fashion.  It is not a time to gloat or feel great confidence; after all, this is the Middle East, and we are Jews, and both factors must influence us to be extremely cautious about ever feeling overly optimistic. But the change in the landscape is quite stunning.

There has been a high price paid.  But we can hope that perhaps by Pesach we will see a reason to celebrate the festival of freedom in a new Middle East in which Israel is far more secure and far better accepted as a powerful and positive force for good.

Kein Yehi Ratson; may this be God’s will.

Forgetting in Order to Remember

Sermon Shabbat Tetzaveh/Zachor 5786

Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon, Congregation Beit Simcha

It seems that the supreme leader of Iran is not feeling well and is concerned about his mortality. And so he goes to consult a psychic about the date of his death.

Closing her eyes and silently reaching into the realm of the future the psychic finds the answer: “You will die on a Jewish holiday.”

“Which one?’” he asks nervously.

“It doesn’t matter,” replies the psychic. “Whenever you die, it’ll be a Jewish holiday.”

If that’s the case, that holiday would certainly resemble Purim.  In fact, seeing that some view the leaders of modern-day Iran as kind of contemporary versions of Haman, the leading authorities in today’s Persia and totally obsessed with destroying the Jews, that holiday might well turn out to be Purim.  It happened that way once in ancient Persia, so why not again?  And if you remember, it also happened that way in 1991, when the Gulf War, and the awful, anti-Israel regime of another leader obsessed with Israel, Saddam Hussein, ended on Purim day, stopping the rain of Scud missiles on Israeli homes and the reign of a tyrant who also had many Haman-like qualities. 

So it goes with the season of Purim, when we Jews recall those who tried to destroy our people at this time of year in days gone by but failed to do so.  It is a related but rather different experience than all those other times of the year when we remember the enemies who sought to destroy us, and succeeded: Tisha B’Av, when we recall the destruction of both the First and Second Temples and the expulsion from Spain, or Yom HaShoah, when we remember the Holocaust victims, or Yom Kippur, when we recall all the martyrs of our long history.

But Purim falls into that sequence of festivals from Chanukah to Passover that can famously be summed up neatly in 9 words: they tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat…

In a larger, more serious sense, memory is truly a central part of Judaism.  In the Ba’al Shem Tov’s memorable phrase, “Memory is the source of redemption; exile comes from forgetting.”

But sometimes memory is a very curious thing indeed, and the very desire to remember seems paradoxical, even perverse.

This Shabbat we observe Shabbat Zachor, the Sabbath of Remembrance in Jewish tradition.  By custom, after reading the weekly Torah portion that falls just beore Purim we add a short section of text that recalls the attack by the enemy nation Amalek on our Israelite stragglers as we escaped Egypt during the Exodus.  This attack, considered both vicious and cowardly by the commentators, is memorialized each year on the Shabbat prior to Purim.  This short maftir section both begins and ends with words of memory: Zachor et asher asa lecha Amalek, it begins, “remember what Amalek did to you,” and it concludes with the powerful statement timcheh et zecher Amalek mitachat Hashamayim; al tishkach, “Obliterate the memory of Amalek under heaven; don’t forget!”   

We always read this section the week before the holiday of Purim, the fabulous festival that we will enjoy Sunsay night at our Wicked Purim for Grown Ups and Monday night at the Megillah Reading, commemorating the great salvation of the Jews of Iran in Mordechai and Esther’s time, 2400 years ago, because Haman, the villain of the Purim story, is supposed to be a descendant of the Amalekites.  By some other traditions, all deep enemies of Judaism and Jews are linked to Amalek and Haman, including, in some peculiar readings, Torquemada and even Hitler.  Perhaps strangest of all, the Nazis seem to have embraced this association.  After all, they considered themselves true Aryans, and ancient Persia was an Aryan nation as well.

Adolf Hitler even banned the observance of Purim throughout German-controlled territory.  In a speech made on November 10, 1938, the day after Kristallnacht, the Nazi anti-Semitism chief Julius Streicher, creator of Der Sturmer, surmised that just as "the Jew butchered 75,000 Persians" in one night, the same fate would have befallen the German people had the Jews succeeded in inciting a war against Germany; the "Jews would have instituted a new Purim festival in Germany."  To avoid such a possibility, of course, the Nazis moved first…

Nazi attacks against Jews often coincided with Jewish festivals, especially Purim.  On Purim 1942, ten Jews were hanged in Zduńska Wola to avenge the hanging of Haman's ten sons.  In a similar incident in 1943, the Nazis shot ten Jews from the Piotrków ghetto.  On Purim eve that same year, over 100 Jewish doctors and their families were shot by the Nazis in Czestochowa. The following day, Jewish doctors were taken from Radom and shot nearby in Szydlowiec, and again a conscious linkage was made with Purim by the Nazis.

Most ironically, just before he was hanged, Julius Streicher, that Nazi arch propagandist, called out "Purim Fest 1946!"  And in a speech by Hitler himself on January 30, 1944, he said that if the Nazis were defeated, the Jews could celebrate "a second Purim".  We don’t, but of course in the Purim story very few Jews were actually murdered by the descendants of Amalek.  On the other hand, no one thinks celebration has much to do with any commemoration of the Holocaust.  

There are many curious customs associated with this mitzvah, the very specific commandment issued in Deuteronomy to “obliterate Amalek.”  Some Jewish communities, on Purim, write the name “Amalek” on their shoes and then rub it off on the floor during the Megillah reading.  And a traditional sofer, a Torah scribe, will begin to write a new Torah by inscribing the name “Amalek” on a piece of parchment and then crossing it out.  And since Haman was an “Agagite,” descended from the king of the Amalekites, the whole custom of graggers and noisemaking to blot out Haman’s name comes from this same commandment.

All of this raises a very good question.  Amalek was a minor people, more a tribe than a nation.  As a distinct political or ethnic entity, it has long disappeared from the earth.  In fact, if we really want to obliterate Amalek’s name from under heaven, the easiest way would be for us Jews to stop talking about it.  No one else would ever mention it again.  Poof, Amalek is gone, blotted out!

And yet, instead, we read this passage twice a year in synagogues around the world, once in Deuteronomy during the regular Torah reading cycle and once just before Purim on this Shabbat Zachor.  Why the elaborate need to remember a truly ancient wrong done to us?

Psychologists could say that the profound emotional injury perpetrated on our people nearly at the very moment of redemption—we had just gotten out of Egypt after 400 years of slavery—was so painful that we Jews have never really gotten over it.  The catharsis of remembering and overcoming Amalek each and every year helps us move to a healthier, more holistically complete place.  We remember so that we can overcome.

Political scientists would look at this remembering differently.  They might suggest that the military and organizational weakness that allowed the straggling Amalek took advantage of must be remembered so that we avoid falling into that trap again.  Organization, preparation, a proper plan are all essential to being a real nation.

Others have seen this remembering as a motivation to action, a goad to prevent us from ever again allowing ourselves to fall under the power of hostile others.  As in the story of Amalek, and nearly so in the tale of Purim, Jewish weakness has allowed our enemies to attack, torture, and slaughter us throughout history.  Rabbi Yitz Greenberg has written movingly about the necessity for a contemporary, post-Holocaust ethic of Jewish power, the moral obligation for us to be prepared to have and utilize power to protect ourselves and our children in a world that has never respected our great Jewish religion or culture. 

And of course, when Iran—that is, today’s Persia—is in the news for its nuclear aspirations and vile hatred of Israel and all Jews, when US forces are massing in the Middle East perhaps to attack Iran, we do well to recall that we need the power to protect ourselves, and that in fact we Jews have a moral obligation to retain and, if necessary, use power for that purpose.  We pray that won’t be necessary ever again.  But we also know that we must retain that capacity or face the possibility of once again having the noose fitted over our necks.

This reminds me of the story that the Iranian president calls the US President and tells him, “I had a wonderful dream last night. I could see America, the whole beautiful country, and on each house I saw a banner.”

“What did it say on the banners?” the President asks.

The Iranian president replies, “The UNITED STATES OF IRAN.”

And the US President says, “You know, I’m really happy you called because, believe it or not, last night I had a similar dream. I could see all of Tehran, and it was more beautiful than ever, and on each house flew an enormous banner.”

“What did it say on the banners?” the Iranian president asks.

“I don’t know,” replies the President. “I can’t read Hebrew.”

So why else might we insist on remembering those we are simultaneously commanded to forcefully forget?  Moral experts, like those who learn and teach musar, might see this paradoxical need as a kind of davka experience: the commandment to exterminate actually forces us to remember our own failures, and thus our own failings.  If we recall Amalek, and Haman, and, I suppose, Antiochus and Titus and Hadrian and the Crusaders and Torquemada and Hitler and Nasser and Sinwar, and how close we often came to destruction, we can never become too confident of our own prowess or foresight and must remain humble. And then we will be able to personally improve. 

Or we can take this curious remembering in a different, sociological direction.  In order to rise, we must first bottom out.  You cannot realize your full potential unless you remember how far down you have been.  Only when we recall the near destruction we suffered at the hands of a small, hostile tribe, an attack that nearly derailed us before we got fairly started, can we rise to the spiritual greatness to which we aspire.

But we can also see this more simply.  Remembering might be the primary Jewish act of all.  We are commanded, using the same exact Hebrew word, zachor, to remember the Shabbat, an unalloyed good just as Amalek is considered an unadulterated evil.  Our existence as intelligent, informed, thoughtful people, as true Jews, is contingent on our ability to truly learn, to do Torah.  In order to do that well, we must exercise our memories vigorously and completely.  In remembering both the good and the bad we are achieving the highest level of serving b’tzelem Elohim, as imitators of God. 

By remembering we can learn. And in doing so, we can learn how to act now, and in the future, and for the future. 

Or maybe there is something else here.  The clue comes in another paradox, this one presented in an ancient commentary.

A Midrash comments on the fact that the same exact word is used in the commandment to remember Amalek and to remember Shabbat, that word “Zachor.”  In Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer it says, "Remember what Amalek did to you." How can one do that? The Torah says, "Remember the day of Shabbat." We can't remember both!

Ah, but perhaps we can.  For in order to observe a Shabbat of true rest, we must first remember.  And only after that memory has been served will be able to truly rest.

In all of this remembering we are obligating ourselves to understand that first we must recall, and then we may relax.

This is Shabbat Zachor, and Sunday and Monday we will celebrate the great victory of Purim.  May this be a Sabbath when we can relax, knowing our people not only will survive but thrive, and we can enjoy true spiritual rest.

Mishpatim and Freedom

Sermon, Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon, Congregation Beit Simcha of Tucson

The great 1960’s comedian, Alan Sherman, most famous for his song “Hello Muddah Hello Faddah”, once wrote a book about restrictions on human behavior. In it, he decided to invent a new religion, which would have only one commandment: “Thou shalt not stuff 37 tennis balls down the toilet.” In great excitement he went to a sign painter to create the tablet of this new covenant and asked him to make up a huge sign with that commandment on it. But the sign painter refused.

“Friend,” he said, “I’m going to do you a big favor. I’m not going to paint your sign. Because if I paint it, the day after the sign goes up, there will be a run on sporting goods stores. Tennis balls will sell like hotcakes, and plumbers will be working round the clock. The virtuous among us will only stuff 36 tennis balls down their toilets. Normal sinners will stuff 37 tennis balls down their toilets. And the truly wicked will stuff 38 tennis balls down their toilets. Friend, we human beings are many things; but we all of us are perverse.”

As we approach this week’s Torah portion of Mishpatim, we do well to remember that. The last few weeks we have seen magnificent Torah portion after magnificent Torah portion. Now, after B'shalach's great song of freedom, after the majesty of the Ten Commandments at Sinai, after the greatest events in the history of the Jewish people, we thump down to earth with a Torah portion full of laws, restrictions, norms and standards. In short, rules; and we American Jews just don't like rules.

We do like the unabridged freedom of the Exodus story. Americans believe in freedom of thought, freedom of conscience, freedom of choice, freedom of and in every particular of our decision-making. We choose our own course in life and vigorously resist anyone who tries to curtail our liberties. Nobody tells us what to think, or how to act. This is the land of the free! Antique laws decreed by an ancient autocratic god? Al achat kama v'chama, how much less will we like those! We refuse to be tied up by rules, because they bind us in like the tefillin we don't wear.  The idea that we are bound in leather straps to God, that we are supposed to say, as we wrap them around our arm and hand the prophet’s words, “I bind you to Me forever, I bind you to Me in justice and law and kindness and mercy, I bind you to Me in faith so that you will know that I am God”—this is far too constricting for us.

And perhaps we have good reason to dislike rules. As contemporary Jews, we do not believe we are marionettes controlled by a heavenly puppeteer; we do believe that we are free actors in the magnificent improvisation of life. Religion can encourage social action, but it has no right to control social interactions.

So what do we make of Mishpatim? The first part of our portion is called the “Book of the Covenant”, a listing of the laws that the people were supposed to observe. These are not chukim, religious laws describing our relationship with God, but person-to-person laws, mishpatlm, that affect our everyday, human interactions. According to some authoritative rabbis, like Maimonides,  these are so basic that they would exist even without the Torah.  What we have are a bunch of rules, and the bottom line is, most people don't like rules.

But, as Alan Sherman’s sign-painter didn't say, the fact is that whether or not we like rules, we need rules none the less. In our own lives we abide by all kinds of rules.  We drive our cars according to the Mishpatim of the motor vehicle department. We pay taxes at the command of the IRS tax code. We use forks, spoons and knives at the behest of Emily Post. We listen to music from the Torah of Spotify or Apple Music, buy books and watch movies according to the recommendations of Netlix and Amazon Prime, and have our social conduct governed by laws as intricate as any Jewish legal Halachic framework—send a thank-you note, call your parent or child, visit an ill friend, dress respectfully to services, more or less. Our cherished illusion of no norms, of unbounded freedom in our daily lives, is really just that—an illusion.

But when it comes to religion it's a different matter. Or, rather, it's a different choice: you see, in our spiritual lives we are free, but it is the freedom to choose for ourselves whom we will serve and which laws, rules, and ideas are boundaries for our lives.

It's no accident that our sedra, the Torah portion of Mishpatim begins with the laws of servitude, the Hebrew indentured servant, the eved ivri. For the Israelites, "freedom" didn't mean the absence of control; it meant a free-will choice between serving God and serving Pharaoh. In Bob Dylan’s immortal words, "you got to serve somebody”; we exist in a context. Our choice is whether to blindly accept society's norms, or choose our own, Jewish path. Do we adopt the cultural code of conduct, or do we engage our tradition actively—including those unattractive rules, these mishpatim?

There is an intriguing parallel here to game theory: you can't play a game if you don't accept that game's basic rules. You can't play baseball without foul lines; you can't play the Super Bowl without downs; you can't play chess if pawns can jump. As progressive Jews each of us has the personal power to decide what the rules are going to be for this crucial game of Judaism.

That is, we non-Orthodox Jews have the ability to decide what our own Judaism will be. So how exactly do we make decisions about our moral life? What mishpatim will we choose to observe, and why?

5Orthodoxy has always held up a model from our very own Torah portion:

na 'aseh v'nishma, we will do the commandments and then we will hear them. Reform Judaism in the past has said "nishma—we will hear; and then we’ll see."  Some of us engage the tradition actively, with knowledge, insight, and the commitment of kabbalat ol malchut shama yim b'ahavah, receiving the yoke of the kingdom of heaven in love. But many of us think we are being good Jews when we choose lo nishma v'lo na'aseh, we will neither learn nor act, a sub-minimalist version of Judaism that jumps completely off the game board.

Our own ability to engage it, to work at our Jewish identity, is what defines whether we will be Jews who make a difference, who carry on our faith for our children, or Jews who allow it to slip away.

My grandfather, Rabbi Samuel S. Cohon, was one of the great ideologues of classical Reform Judaism. The Foundation named for him and his wife will give an award next week to those who work for the good of the entire people of Israel, klal Yisrael.  Over sixty-five years ago he wrote: "a religion that does not seek to lead and to correct, that asks for nothing, that is soft and yielding, that is all things to all people, is in reality nothing to anybody in particular and of doubtful value to mankind." To paraphrase Hillel, if we have no standards, what are we?

So where do we find those standards? The great ideas of the Ten Commandments in last week’s portion are not enough, and the Torah sees this immediately. That's why we have these mishpatim, these norms. It's not sufficient to say, "you shall not steal"; we must also say "don't keep Your neighbor's ox."  Today, we need to say, “you shall not defraud others online” and “don’t engage in a Ponzi Scheme” and “you shall not do insider trading" and, "You shall not defraud a big company on a contract" and “You shall not cheat or stiff your subcontractors.”  It's not enough to say, "You shall have no other Gods before Me"; we must say "if you wish to be Jewish, or for your children to be Jewish, you must make your house an active, religious Jewish home" and “You must support your synagogue materially so it can be a home and source for real Judaism.”

Progressive Judaism is flexible, but flexibility is not fluidity; to be flexible you must first have shape. It is our individual job to define that shape, and the way we use these mishpatim will guide us.  But we must use them.

This has been a cold winter in most of the country, and in Israel, too, with snow in Jerusalem.  Images of Jerusalem with snow always reminds me of an experience I had in Yerushalayim on New Year's Eve 1992, now more than 30 years ago. That night the greatest snowfall in recorded history drifted gently but steadily down onto streets, roofs and treetops. Those magnificent Jerusalem pine trees, all those great trees in Israel that we paid the Jewish National Fund to plant through those blue and white pushkes—all those now magnificent pine trees had never been pruned, and they had grown and spread out over most of the city. As we watched from our mirpeset, our balcony, the soft snow accumulated, and then the pine branches began to snap loudly and collapse onto the power lines below, severing the lines. Within hours all electricity was gone, and a dark, frozen Jerusalem returned to the 19th century.

Those beautiful JNF trees, which bordered our paths, which gave us shade in the summer and shelter in the winter, which gave our lives beauty and fragrance and comfort—if only they had been pruned! Now they would be cut down and removed completely.

Halacha, Jewish law, is often compared to a living tree, an etz chayim, and over time it grew luxuriantly, even out of control. In the 19th and 20th centuries Reform Judaism pruned that tree back, so that we might have the light of modernity. We know that trees grow higher, straighter and truer when they are carefully pruned, and that the best fruit grows on the new branches. But to grow new branches, to nourish new shoots, we still need the roots of that tree. And those roots are in the mishpatim, the norms and rules of human interaction and religious commitment.

In Hebrew, the word for root is ikkar, which also means essence. Our job as Jews today is to find the ikkar, to see that the tree we nourish grows from essential Jewish tradition. Our inner lives flourish and grow only if we are firmly planted in the soil of that tradition, if we fertilize and weed and trim and care for the flowering of our own and our family's religion and morality. A regular, practical examination of what we do for our Judaism, how we incorporate it into our daily lives, how we choose to support it, a voluntary binding of our own lives to rules that have meaning and a basis in tradition—that is what will determine the ultimate quality of our existence, that is what will make our lives, and our Judaism, flourish.

We must begin to put together our own Jewish world, and we can only do it one practical little law, one mishpat at a time. Paradoxically, perhaps, that is where we will find our true freedom. To quote poet Adrienne Rich:

"These atoms filmed by ordinary dust

that common life…

Freedom.

It isn't once to walk out under the Milky Way,

feeling the rivers of light, the fields of dark—

freedom is daily, prose-bound, routine remembering.

Putting together, inch by inch

the starry worlds

from all the lost collections."

It is ultimately through these simple Mishpatim that we will come, freely, to reach God, and to know God; and to be bound to God in intimacy, forever. And then, inch-by-inch, this world may truly come to be a vision of justice, of peace, and of God's presence.  So may it be, bimheira v'yameinu, speedily in our day; kein yehi ratson.

Being Commanded for Reform Jews

Parshat Yitro Sermon 5786, Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon, Congregation Beit Simcha, Tucson, AZ

This Sunday is an American religious holiday. It’s called Super Bowl Sunday, and besides being the day on which 10% of the avocados eaten all year in the United States are consumed in guacamole—that’s true, by the way—it’s certainly the biggest day for football, commercials and betting pools.  It’s quite impossible to schedule anything else for that time, as even non-football fans—you know you who are—end up watching some or all of the televised event.  According to AI, which is always true and accurate, about three quarters of Americans watch the Super Bowl, or at least part of it.  These days you can’t get 75% of Americans to agree on anything, but that many of us agree to watch the same football game in February.   Even the half-time show—the half-time show!  When most of us who actually are football fans always plan to take an essential break—the half-time show is considered so important that it becomes a national news story for weeks beforehand, or at least it did this year.

In any case, Super Bowl Sunday is clearly the only Sunday of the year which has its own name for all Americans.  It’s very likely the single most observed US holiday of the year, or at least tied with Thanksgiving.  I’m pretty sure more Americans observe Super Bowl Sunday than the 4th of July, New Year’s Eve, or Valentine’s Day.

Well, if you were to rank Torah portions, this week’s Parshah of Yitro would certainly be in the discussion for the Super Bowl Sunday of all Torah portions.  In fact, since we are about to enter Oscar season too, Yitro would undoubtedly also be nominated for the Oscar for Best Torah Portion of the Entire Year, whether there were 5 nominees, as in the old days, or ten nominees, like we have now.  Because this week’s parshah includes the Ten Commandments, the Aseret HaDibrot, greatest direct communication that ever took place between God and human beings.  It is a portion of drama and power and, most of all, commandment.

For Orthodox Jews the notion of commandment is very clear.  God commands, and we obey—God is the m’tzaveh, the Great Commander, and we are the m’tzuveh, the commanded.  It all starts with this portion of Yitro, at Mt. Sinai: God literally commands us aloud to observe these 10 Statements, and then gives Moses the rest of the Torah and the Bible and the Talmud, which we then are equally obligated to follow faithfully.  Many more commandments, more mitzvot to observe, all directly commanded buy God. And since all of Judaism was what today we would call Orthodox Judaism until about the year 1800, what was good enough for Moses was also good enough for Moses Maimonides, and Moses Mendelsohn, and your great-great-grandfather Moses in the shtetl, too.  In fact, for Orthodox Jews, there were and are not 10 Commandments, but 613 commandments, the Taryag Mitzvot, the totality of the commandments given to us according to the rabbis. Our personal goal should be to successfully observe as many of them as possible, or at least all the ones we can do in the nearly 2000 years since the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed.

One Commander, God, commanding us what to do and what not to do.

But the concept of commandedness, for Reform Jews, presents a real problem. 

What exactly does it mean to be commanded when you aren’t so sure that the revelation at Mt. Sinai really happened as they say it did in the Torah, or if all those mitzvot weren’t necessarily all given directly by God—or if any of them perhaps weren’t given in the midst of a cloud of smoke and fire, with earthquakes and shofars blasting?

You can view this whole issue of mitzvah, of just what constitutes a commandment and just who is commanding us, as the central question that Reform Judaism, and Reform Jews need to address. 

Orthodoxy has always followed words from our very own Torah portion, the phrase the Israelites say to Moses and God before the Ten Commandments are even given: na 'aseh v'nishma, we will do the commandments and then we will hear them. Reform Judaism broke with that concept 200 years ago, by saying, "nishma-- we will hear and understand those commandments; and then we’ll see which ones we will do."  It insisted that Reform Jews study Judaism deeply and personally decide what kind of Jews they were going to be.

Now, some Reform Jews do indeed engage in our tradition actively, with knowledge, insight, and commitment, and make choices for themselves and their families based on their personal ethics and identity. But, if we are honest, many of us Reform Jews think we are being good Jews when we choose lo nishma v'lo na'aseh, we will neither learn nor act Jewishly.  Because if all those commandments don’t come directly from God, why should we even learn them or think about doing them?  Aren’t we just as smart and important as the people who thought up all these “commandments”?

My friends, you will hear it often said that being a good Jew means being a good person. This confuses a 3500-year-old tradition with the Boy Scouts of America.  Judaism is a particular, magnificently moral religious tradition. Our own ability to engage it, to work at our Jewish identity, is what defines whether we will be Jews who make a difference, who carry on our faith for our children, who preserve and evolve this amazing ethical and communal culture and civilization, or semi-Jews who allow it all to slip away.

My grandfather, Rabbi Samuel S. Cohon, was one of the great ideologues of classical Reform Judaism. Seventy years ago, he said: "a religion that does not seek to lead and to correct, that asks for nothing, that is soft and yielding, that is all things to all people, is in reality nothing to anybody in particular and of doubtful value to mankind."  To paraphrase Hillel, if we have no standards, what are we?

The authority for the Ten Commandments is in this simple statement: God exists, acts, and commands.  It is why they are not called the Ten Suggestions.  Or the Ten Recommendations.  Or the Ten Nice Ideas if You Can Manage Them.

It is only when we accept the existence of God, when we diminish our own elaborate sense of self, that we are able to partner with God to create a moral world.  Only when we engage with the Commander, however defined, do we find the Commandments.  

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the former head of the Union for Reform Judaism, made this point repeatedly over the years of his presidency.  Reform Judaism obligates us to study and then choose to observe both moral and ritual practices.  We are not commanded to follow everything in our tradition: but neither are we free to choose nothing and claim that we do so “because we are Reform.”  Quite the contrary.

At the very least we must seek, in these Ten Commandments and in our lives, to find a moral center for our lives, a way towards commandment that confirms the ethical nature of our very existence.

Perhaps the greatest of all the Jewish questions was asked in the Torah portion of Ekev in the Book of Deuteronomy.  It reads:

V’atah, Yisrael, mah Adonai sho’eil mei’imach?

Which means, “And now, Israel, what does God ask of you?”

The passage then answers, “That you have awe of the Lord your God, and walk in all of God’s ways and love God, and serve the Lord your God will all your heart and all your soul.”

It’s a clear and powerful list: fear God; walk in God’s ways; love God; serve God; follow the commandments.

Five hundred years later Isaiah distilled even these terse commands into a more concise version: Cease to do evil, learn to do good, he begins.  And then he lists: seek justice; relieve the oppressed; uphold the orphan’s rights; take up the widow’s cause.

A century later the prophet Micah refined the formula again: he asked, “What does the Lord your God seek of you? Only to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”

Finally, Hillel, four hundred years later, over 2000 years ago, said it most concisely.  “Do not do to others what is hateful to yourself.  All the rest is commentary.  Now, go and learn.”

I recommend that you personally adopt one of these magnificent formulas, and make it your own set of commandments.  Whichever one you choose, it will be a high standard for how to live life—but it’s one you, or I, or anyone can achieve, if we choose to do so.

After all, it’s what God wants… and so should we.

That is what it means to be “commanded” for a Reform Jew.

On this Shabbat, may we seek, and find, our own ethical center, and our own moral code.  And may those commandments bring you to honesty, holiness, and blessing.

Is It Time To Leave Now?

Is It Time To Leave Now?

Sermon Parshat Bo 5786

Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon, Congregation Beit Simcha, Tucson, AZ

This week, as Anastasha has told us, we read in Parshat Bo about how our ancestors packed their bags in haste and fled Egypt, after living there for over 400 years.  It was the first of so many Jewish exoduses in history, in which our people fled oppression in the land of our residence and headed for freedom in new and often distant lands.  Most of the ancestors of our congregants here at Beit Simcha fled Europe to come to America; others left other lands, seeking freedom of religion and success here.  This pattern has been repeated many times throughout Jewish history.  Today we seem to be facing, or at least beginning to explore, a relevant question.  Is it time to think  about moving on again?

There is an ancient Chinese curse with which you might be familiar; it goes like this: “May you live in interesting times.”  Well, my friends, we apparently live in interesting times.  Or, to put it another way, this is one of the stranger periods for American Jewish life that I can recall.  After over half a century of a golden age for Jews here in the United States, during which we reached heights of success and acceptance never before achieved in our long history outside of Israel, the US Jewish community is now experiencing rising Antisemitism on the left and the right, a dramatic increase in anti-Jewish violence, and a level of insecurity that we haven’t known in decades.  For the first time in my life, I have heard Jews saying, “We need figure out where we are going to go next.”

Now, this is an extraordinary turn of events.  America has proven over the past 250 years to be a true refuge for Jews from all over the world.  Nearly unique among nations, the US has given Jews full civil rights, and has never had any national anti-Jewish legislation, in part because we have to a large degree preserved the separation of church and state.  While antisemitism was prevalent in many parts of the country well into the 1960s, both obvious and subtle, it did not ultimately prevent Jews from rising in nearly every field of endeavor, and from inventing entire industries—like Broadway, Hollywood, the music industry, the comic book world, fashion, and lot of the high-tech industry—out of whole cloth.  It took some time, but Jews are well-represented in Congress, in the Judiciary and in the Executive branch, and have risen to the top of many name-brand companies.  Jewish creativity has long fueled much of America’s dynamic contributions to the arts, and in fields as diverse as medicine, sports, the military, and the environment Jews are leaders and innovators at the highest level. 

In our own Jewish institutions, too, we American Jews have developed an incredible religious and cultural infrastructure in the US that is without parallel in our 3800 years of history.  There are thousands of excellent synagogues in America serving the 6 million or so Jews who live here, of every denomination, as well as a wide array of Jewish Community Centers, Jewish Federations, Jewish day schools and supplementary schools, Yeshivot, Jewish preschools and early childhood centers, college and university Hillel Foundations, Jewish camps, Jewish retreat centers, Jewish museums, Chabad synagogues and centers, and Jewish universities and colleges.  There are rabbinical and cantorial seminaries preparing rabbis, cantors and educators for the next generations of religious leadership.  There are Jewish publishing houses as well as major Jewish research libraries.  You can find Jewish community campuses in a variety of urban centers all around the US, and Jewish institutions that provide charitable and communal support for Jews in need and for Jewish institutional development in every region and in every major metropolitan area.  A veritable fountain of Jewish books, Jewish music, Jewish films and Jewish art and Judaica pour forth every year to supply the needs and desires of this exceptional American Jewish world, and the curiosity of our neighbors and friends.

This is all an amazing accomplishment for a tiny minority population in our giant nation.  It is essentially without parallel in Jewish history; there have been great Jewish communities throughout the ages, including a huge, vibrant, and deep Jewish world in Europe that lasted for centuries until it was annihilated by the Nazis.  But what we have here in America is even more impressive, and is in fact, spectacular, and our level of acceptance has seemed always to be on a rising arc for decades.

Now, there was a long time when “unofficial” quotas in America blocked Jewish students from entering Ivy League schools, when Jews weren’t allowed into country clubs and when prestigious neighborhoods prevented Jews from buying homes and entire professions and industries were blocked for Jews.  There were restricted hotels and resorts—that, Jews weren’t allowed to stay there—until the 1970s in many parts of the country, including here in Tucson in such places as the Arizona Inn and the Lodge on the Desert.  But over the past forty to fifty years nearly all of those restrictions disappeared completely.  For goodness sakes, there are more—and better--Jewish TV shows and films easily available now on mainstream media than there were for perhaps the first century of these American popular entertainment vehicles.  We have risen to the very top of society in so many areas and been widely accepted for quite a long time now.

Has all this suddenly changed?  Are we now an endangered Jewish community, and do we anticipate that in the near future we will see Antisemitism drive us from this Goldene medinah, this golden land of America, as we were driven from Israel, Germany, Russia, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Argentina, Poland, Italy, and so many other centers of Jewish life throughout the world over the course of history?  Are we destined to see American Jews become Wandering Jews again, seeking a new homeland because of the terrible rise in Antisemitism and anti-Jewish hostility?

I guess, at this point, I don’t think so.  While the shocking atrocities of recent years—from the Tree of Life synagogue murders in Pittsburgh five years ago to the arson at the Jackson, Mississippi synagogue two weeks ago—are frightening and distressing, they do not, in my view, constitute a reason to start to figure out how to pull up stakes on this incredible American Jewish world.  The dramatic outpouring of vicious Antisemitism from the progressive world over the past couple of years has been traumatic, to be sure, and the harassment that Jews have experienced on college campuses since October 7th, 2023 is nearly without precedent.  The renewal of neo-Nazi style rhetoric and vitriol online, and by disgustingly popular ultra-right-wing bigots like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, is horrifying; so is the public validation by some of our leaders of scum like KanYe West and Nick Fuentes. 

I, personally, believe this all can and will be counteracted by some return to sanity here in America—our country is, well, a little bit insane right now, but we do always swing back to the center eventually—and through the kinds of actions being taken now, and being planned, by Jewish leaders and with the support of non-Jewish leaders and institutions, both fighting Antisemitism and in support of our vital American Jewish institutions.  

Being Jewish, I cannot say that I am unbridled optimist.  What is the old joke?  “The Jewish pessimist says, ‘It can’t get worse.’  And the Jewish optimist says, ‘Sure it can!’”  It can, and it might.  But I simply don’t think the eternal lesson of the history of Jewish persecution that teaches that we always have to be thinking about where we will need to go next applies here to America.  There is no better place for Jews in the world today, still, especially if you don’t speak Hebrew fluently.   And it is certainly debatable if it’s truly better in Israel now for Jews than it is here in America.

So don’t pack your bags just yet… don’t start baking matzah and filling up a sack, if you will.  We American Jews still have much to be grateful for as Jews in this nation, and we are by no means either powerless or under imminent threat of expulsion.  Sometimes the right thing to do is to double down on your commitments, to strengthen your dedication to your American Jewish identity and life.

This is the time to do that.  May the current madness pass, and may we remain committed to continuing to build our society, and our Jewish lives, for good.

Light the Lights

Sermon, Shabbat Mikets

Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon, Congregation Beit Simcha

Hanukkah is a time of celebration for Jews everywhere, commemorating the great victory of our ancestors over deadly religious persecution.  While not as theologically important as the High Holy Days or Pilgrimage festivals, historically it is the most important of all our holidays.  Without the victory of the Maccabees over the Seleucid Empire, Judaism would have disappeared 2200 years ago, and the belief in one God with it.  Without Hanukkah, Christianity would never have existed, and Islam would never have been created, since both religions emerged out of Judaism and incorporate many of our teachings, and our entire Bible, into their daughter faiths.

Hanukkah should be a time to rejoice, to bring light to a dark time of year, to celebrate the victory of faith over repression, belief over hypocrisy, good over evil.

This year the experience of Hanukkah has been severely damaged by the horrific Anti-Semitic Islamist attack at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia by radicalized Pakistani Muslims with connections to the Islamic State.  That attack was the worst antisemitic attack in Australian history, the culmination of a series of antisemitic attacks that the current government of Australia has been weak responding to.  On a personal note, I served as a rabbinic intern and cantor in Sydney for four months some years ago, not far from Bondi Beach, and the Australian Jewish community is quite wonderful.  This terrorist atrocity struck home.

The Bondi Beach attack took place at a Hanukkah event put on by Chabad.  The murderers took long guns and killed two rabbis, a Holocaust survivor, and a 10-year-old girl, among the 15 innocent people they deliberately shot to death.  This was pure anti-Semitic hatred, cold-blooded terrorist murder of Jews celebrating the holiday that guarantees religious freedom. 

This attack, like the murders in Manchester on Yom Kippur, and the attacks that take place all around the world, are supposedly a response to Israel’s war in Gaza.  That is a preposterous lie.  The entire world condemns Russia’s Putin-driven brutal invasion of Ukraine, yet no one deliberately murders Russians on the beach in Thailand or commits arson against Russian Orthodox churches. There are real genocides that have taken place all over the Muslim world, from Syria to Iraq to Iran, and genocidal mass murders are being perpetrated today by Muslims in Sudan and Nigeria, yet mosques are not routinely attacked or surrounded by protestors in London and Amsterdam and Toronto and Los Angeles and New York.  Christians are perpetrating genocide against Muslims now in the Central African Republic, but all churches don’t have full-time security forces to protect them from terrorism.  This has nothing to do with Israel or its military actions.  It is pure, unadulterated antisemitism, racism, terrorism.  Against people gathering to celebrate the festival of religious freedom from persecution. 

For goodness sake, Chabad adherents in Israel don’t even serve in the Israel Defense Forces.

Well, at Bondi Beach the Intifada has been “globalized,” as protestors of a concert in Amsterdam chanted on Hanukkah. “Intifada” means murdering innocent civilians living their lives, shooting them or blowing them up to cause chaotic destruction.  It is a hate-fueled effort to annihilate a people, we Jews, who constitute less than one quarter of one percent of the world’s population, homicidal actions taken by fanatics who seek to destroy civilization.   

It has nothing to do with protecting the Arabs of Gaza or improving their lives. 

We hoped the end of the Gaza War would bring sanity back to this planet.  But the end of the war wasn’t cheered by those who agonized about the Palestinian victims.  Strangely, the end of the danger to Palestinians brought no joy to those chanting for the destruction of Israel and Jews.  Because these protests were never about the suffering of Palestinians, or the evils of the Netanyahu government, which are real.  They were about destroying the only Jewish state on the planet and, along the way, all Jews.

After Bondi Beach, Jews in Australia were told not to hold public celebrations as a form of self-protection.  For a while all Jewish schools and synagogues were closed. 

That is the opposite of what Hanukkah represents.  It is a time to affirm our right to celebrate our heritage publicly and positively, to light bright lights on these darkest days. 

Antisemitism, oldest and most virulent form of racism in world history, is back now with a vengeance.  Which makes Hanukkah, and Jewish affirmation, ever more important: we must fight for our right to be Jews, and do so publicly, proudly and with great energy.  We must bring even more light into this dark time.

There have been some sparks of light in this challenging season.  I received a call yesterday from a non-Jewish Oro Valley resident who asked if it was OK to put a picture of a menorah in support of the Jewish community.  She was outraged at the attacks, and she is not alone.  We have many friends, and it is part our mission to continue to cultivate them.

So how does Judaism help us to hold on through life’s inevitable dark times?

In this week’s Torah portion of Mikets Joseph is in the depths of despair, forgotten, locked away in an Egyptian prison, then as now a terrible place.  He has fallen far and fast, betrayed by those he trusted most.  He has every reason to give up hope, to surrender to despair.

And yet he chooses not to.  Instead, the great dream interpreter tries to help his fellow prisoners, to stave off depression by caring.

In the darkness of a dungeon he lights a light.  It is the light of help and the light of hope.  And it banishes the darkness, truly.  That light will lead Joseph to save that country from famine, and then to save his own family from starvation, and finally catapult him nearly to the throne.  

During these shortest days of the year it is time that we rededicate ourselves to the real purpose of Chanukah. For the lights of Chanukah were meant to banish darkness from our world—our own human darkness, perhaps even the darkness of antisemitism.  With this light, we can emerge from these shadows and illuminate our world.

It is fascinating that the central prayer we say on Hanukkah, al hanisim, praises God for the miracles that were wrought for our ancestors in those days long ago.  In truth, those miracles were really a simple matter of a more deeply committed people fighting for their homes and their beliefs and culture against a larger, numerically stronger, better funded enemy.

Kind of what we are facing in many ways right now…

My friends, I can’t say that I enjoy talking about Antisemitism.  At one point in my rabbinate I believed that it had declined so much in popularity and virulence that I wouldn’t have to teach or preach about it for long.  I was wrong, of course.  When I interviewed Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League who will be on my Too Jewish Radio Show and Podcast this Sunday, he said that what he recommended for all Jews to do is to be more Jewish, more openly and publicly Jewish, to bring more light in these dark times.

I told him he sounded like a rabbi…

Because what we rabbis always say, correctly, is that the best response to antisemitic acts of violence and repression is to renew our own commitment to Judaism, and our own acts of Jewish observance. 

It’s what Joseph taught us; it’s what the Maccabees did.  Celebrate your Judaism, live it actively, and share it with your friends and neighbors.  Then you will be lighting these lights brightly when we most need them.

Chag Chanukah Samei'ach Amid Tragedy in Australia

As we celebrate the great festival of lights, we mourn with the Australian Jewish community over the murder of 15 people celebrating Hanukkah on Bondi Beach in Sydney.  At a time when we commemorate the ancient Hasmonean victory for religious freedom against brutal persecution, we know that there are those who seek to deprive us of the right to live our lives as Jews.  This terrible event in far-away Australia is not merely a tragedy: it is emblematic of the antisemitic efforts to attack and destroy Jews and Jewish life everywhere in the world.

Our hearts are torn by scenes from the perpetration of this crime: 15 dead, ranging in age from 10 to 87 years old, 42 people wounded, 27 of them hospitalized, simply because they had attended a Hanukkah event on the famous beach in midsummer Sydney.  Two Chabad rabbis, one the organizer of the event, were murdered, as was a Holocaust survivor, Alexander Kleytman, killed while shielding his wife.  At least four children were shot.

The murderers were Pakistani immigrants to Australia who were radicalized by Islamic State propaganda: an Islamic State flag was found in their car, as well as explosives.  One of the murderers was eventually stopped by a fruit shop owner named Ahmed al Ahmed, who tackled the killer and turned his own gun on him. Two police officers were critically injured.

Antisemitic acts, especially including violent ones, have been rising all around the world over the last several years.  This is not accidental, nor is it because of the actions the State of Israel has taken to defend itself from Islamists who seek to destroy it.  Jews have been physically attacked for being Jewish in New York, London, France, Los Angeles, Toronto, Melbourne, Manchester, Boulder, Switzerland, Harrisburg, Milan, and Athens, among other places.  Nearly every synagogue in the world now has armed security each Shabbat, as we do.

Tragically, Australia has seen a rising tide of antisemitic incidents over the past several years, and unfortunately its political leadership has consistently failed to aggressively counter the movements that are promoting them.  I had the privilege of serving as a rabbinic intern and cantor in Sydney, not far from Bondi Beach, for several months 30 years ago.  It is a lovely part of the world, and the Jewish community there is quite wonderful.  It is a wonderful place to live and work, and Jews have been part of Australian society since the First Fleet landed in the late 18th century.  And now that extraordinary Jewish community is attacked and endangered by the failure of the authorities to take seriously the rising danger of an ideological hatred of Jews that has taken root in society. 

Hanukkah celebrates the victory of the few over the many, the weak over the strong, the believers over the idolaters.  It is a holiday of true religious freedom, of the victory over the first documented religious persecution in human history, but of course not the last.  At this time of gathering darkness, we must affirm the glow of the light of courage and commitment, of dedication to our people, by proclaiming our devotion to our heritage, our values and our religion.

We mourn the latest victims of antisemitic violence.  Our most powerful response must be to more deeply affirm our Judaism at this Hanukkah season.

May it still be a Chag Urim Samei'ach, a festival of true light.

A Man in Full, Finally

Torah Talk on Vayishlach 5786, Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon, Congregation Beit Simcha, The Too Jewish Radio Show & Podcast

Recently in America we have been experiencing what can be most charitably described as a “reexamination” of what being an adult male should mean.  In some quarters, “true maleness” is defined by Barstool-Sports level crudity, rudeness and even violent behavior; in others, masculinity itself is demeaned as intrinsically destructive.  Meme-worthy ideas like “Real Men Do” or “Real Men Don’t” are pitted against concepts of “Toxic Masculinity” and “Hyper-Aggression and Dominance.”

So what truly marks a man as an adult?  How do we know when he moves from youthful immaturity to become a genuine grown-up, a man in full?

This week’s Torah portion of Vayishlach focuses on the man who is the true father of our nation, Jacob, and the way in which he becomes Israel. Throughout his colorful life Jacob has been less than a full man.  He is, in fact physically strong: he moves a giant rock off the mouth of a well by himself to impress the pretty Rachel.  He has been attractive to women—he has four wives by now.  He has been genetically prolific, having produced 12 children.  And he has acquired wealth: goats, sheep, cattle, livestock, real and valuable property.  He is a successful entrepreneur who has maximized his own return.

While he is a strong, able man, it is his brother Esau who has always been the athlete, the hunter, the toughest guy on the block.  Dad liked Esau best, and that wound remains for Jacob, even though clever Jacob conned gullible Esau out of both birthright and blessing.

Jacob has also long been a master manipulator, a trickster whose most important priority is always his own needs.  Jacob has never yet met a situation he will not try to turn to his own advantage, almost always at the expense of others, including his own immediate and extended family members.  Suddenly here in Vayishlach—admittedly in the face of threatened destruction—he realizes that it is more important to him to save others than it is to save himself. 

Jacob is returning to his homeland, Canaan, approaching the border, the Jordan River, when he is informed his estranged and wronged brother Esau is coming to meet him at the head of an army.  Forced to face Esau, he chooses to do perhaps the very first altruistic act of his entire life: he tries to save his family before he saves himself.  He divides his family into two camps, sets up a rich present—a bribe—for Esau.  And then he confronts his fears.

Jacob gets up in the middle of the night, terrified of the coming encounter with his well-armed and accompanied brother, and goes alone to an island in the river. 

We don’t know why he ends up in the most famous wrestling match, the cage-fighting-championship-of-Canaan, nor do we know against whom he is wrestling.  We only know that Jacob ultimately prevails, at the cost of serious physical injury, a limp that plagues him the rest of his life.  And we know that his name is changed to Israel, the name that becomes our name as a people, Am Yisrael, B’nai Yisrael, the People and Children of Israel, and the name of the land that will be ours, Erets Yisrael, the Land of Israel.

It is notable that Jacob, in this encounter, shows his physical prowess, as we are taught men must.  But it is perhaps most noteworthy that Jacob demonstrates his prowess over someone other than a human opponent, in “wrestling with God.”  For in Vayishlach Jacob overcomes his own Yetzer, his own nature, which has directed him towards selfishness and manipulation.   He becomes for the first time a man in full, understanding he must prioritize others before himself.  When he rises from this encounter to meet Esau, limping off to greet him, he does so with the deepest possible commitment to his children, his family, and the future of his people and his religion.

It is those commitments that mark how Jacob becomes an archetypal Jewish man, dedicated to the values that matter most.  And it is this moment, this transformative growth, that allows the brothers to surprisingly resolve their life-long differences and reunite.

It is that transformation of our own natures, the ways in which we grow from adolescence to maturity, that allow each of us to fulfill the commitments we make.  May we learn from Jacob’s struggles what it takes to truly be a man: caring about and acting for higher goals than our own narrow concerns: family, peoplehood, religion.  May we live for those great moral ideals, and so go from strength to strength as Israel’s descendants.

A Glimpse of Israel Now

Sermon, Shabbat Vayeitzei 5786

Rabbi Sam Cohon, Congregation Beit Simcha, Tucson, AZ

As most of you know, I returned eight days ago from a Zionist Rabbinic Coalition mission trip to Azerbaijan and Israel.  I spoke last week, primarily, about the Azerbaijan aspect of the journey. Tonight I’d like to address Israel today, as I found it on this recent experience.

It is an appropriate topic for this Shabbat of Vayeitzei, which begins with our ancestor Jacob, who will be renamed Israel in next week’s parshah, receiving a promise that his descendants will be numerous and inherit the land that will eventually be known as Israel.  According to tradition, the place that Jacob has that vision, the famous ladder climbing to heaven, was in the heart of Jerusalem, the place where the First and Second Temples would be built on what is now the Temple Mount.  Naturally, as I always do in Israel, I went to the Kotel, the Western Wall, last standing remnant of the holiest structure in our history, on a beautiful autumn night.  It is always a powerful, mystical gift to stand at the Wall, touch it, and pray.  According to Midrash, this place was where all creation began, where Abraham nearly sacrificed Isaac, where Jacob dreamed, where King David conquered, where our people’s worship has been centered and directed toward ever since the 10th century BCE.  It is a place of holiness and power, always, and a unique place in the world for all Jews.

This visit that experience was positively impacted by an earlier, almost casual visit our guide led us on while we were on the way to a meeting at the Begin Center.  As we walked past a corner I have traversed hundreds of times, dating back to my first visits to Israel many decades ago and while I lived in Israel and on many subsequent visits, a street corner quite near the old Turkish train station that is now an entertainment and shopping hub, our guide led us up a little path I had never before noticed.  Just above the street level there is a small park, or really, a monument called Ketef Hinom.  The archeological site was excavated back in the 1970s for its First Temple-era burial chambers dating back over 2600 years.  The archeologist Gabriel Barkay gave the site its name, based on the fact that it lies at the edge of Gay Hinom, the valley of Hinnom that gave its name to Gehenna, the Jewish word for hell, since children were sacrificed there by the ancient Canaanites to the fire god Molech; he combined that with the word ketef, meaning shoulder, since it’s the shoulder of that valley, the edge. 

The greatest discovery made there came in 1979, and it was made by a very irritating volunteer on the dig.  Gabriel Barkay was so irked at this nudnik, who kept asking dumb questions and not doing what he was told to do, that he directed him to dig far away from the main area of interest, where, it was believed, nothing valuable could be found.  Lo and behold, this “ultra-nudnik”, as Barkay describes him, discovered two delicate silver amulets. Written upon them was a version of the Birkat Kohanim, the Priestly Benediction, “May God bless you and keep you, May God’s light shine upon you and give you grace, may God’s countenance be turned to you and grant you peace.”  The text on the amulets, quite legible after they were painstakingly unraveled over the course of three years, is nearly identical to the famous formula in Numbers 6:24-26 that we use regularly to bless birthdays, anniversaries, wedding couples, new babies, conversion students, b’nai mitzvah and confirmands. 

That makes the discovery made at Ketef Hinnom the oldest textual form of the Hebrew Bible yet discovered, dating back to the 7th century BCE, First Temple times.  These silver amulets with the priestly blessings are 400 years older, at least, than the Dead Sea Scrolls.  And that also makes this blessing of God’s light and peace the most important element taken from the area of Ketef Hinnom, from the very “shoulder of hell,” as it were.

A popular interpretation of this, sometimes credited to Rabbi David Wolpe, although I have seen it ascribed to others, is that these last two years of Israel’s history, since October 7th, 2023, can be seen as the chance to find God’s light and peace emerging right next to the hellish disasters of that day and the subsequent war.  Out of Ketef Hinnom may come the blessings of God, of protection, light, and peace.  It may yet prove to be true.

For now, I can tell you that Israel once again feels like Israel.  When I visited in January of 2024 I found a country that in some ways seemed like the same place I have lived in and loved, but in other ways was in a kind of national PTSD experience.  Posters of the missing hostages were everywhere, video boards cycling through their faces and names and ages, billboards and bumper stickers and assembled monuments and performance art displays were constant reminders of the missing Israelis, as well as memorials to the murdered teens, elderly, children, mothers and fathers brutally killed by the Palestinian terrorists of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad on and after October 7th.

But almost all of us noticed as we landed in Jerusalem that Ben Gurion airport no longer had photos of the kidnapped hostages lining the arrival hallway as you entered.  And the plethora of posters and video boards calling for the immediate repatriation of the hostages are nearly all gone.  What an incredible relief…  Whatever the long-term impact of the cease-fire deal brokered by President Trump ultimately is, the return of the living hostages, and of the remains of the murdered Israelis and foreign nationals, has been a great accomplishment for Israel and Jews everywhere.  We now have just two bodies that remain in Gaza out of the 250 people brutally taken by the Hamas Palestinian terrorists over two years ago.

Our group from the Zionist Rabbinic Coalition gained a few additional participants for our two days plus in Jerusalem and most of a day in meetings and interactions in what is called the Gaza envelope area.  During our time in the capital we had lectures and discussions at the Foreign Ministry, met with Minister of Tourism Chaim Katz, MK Moshe Turpaz, a leader of the Opposition, visited the new Knesset Museum, toured the Gaza envelope with IDF representatives, and met with officials deeply involved in Israel’s current strategic and security situation.

At the Foreign Ministry we held a roundtable give and take with members of the department charged with public relations, hasbara, where we offered suggestions and feedback.  In another session we were briefed thoroughly on the regional challenges facing Israel by the impressive Director of that department, including how Israel plans to go forward in confronting Iran.  In a discussion with the minister in the Foreign Ministry charged with combatting the global rise of antisemitism, we discussed how we, as rabbis, can address the growing generational divide in attitudes toward Israel.  Complementing our sessions at the Foreign Ministry were impassioned talks by Michal Cotler Wunsh, who was the Antisemitism Director for Israel until about a month ago, and with British journalist and author Melanie Phillips about the state of Jewish and world affairs.

As the representatives as the Foreign Ministry explained, until now Israel has successfully battled a seven-front war: Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Syria first under Asad with deployed Iranian military units, and then against the post-Asad militias, the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the West Bank, Shiite militias in Iraq who fired missiles and drones at Israel, and finally Iran itself, of course, the malign supporter behind all of the fronts and then directly attacking Israel.  On all fronts, remarkably and in some cases nearly miraculously, Israel has triumphed.  That is the profound geostrategic difference between the Israel that I visited 21 months ago and the current version of Israel.

But Melanie Phillips and Michal Cotler-Wunsh spoke of the eighth front – the attacks on Israel in the media and public spaces, the efforts to ostracize Israel and intimidate and demonize all Jews.  The war being waged against Israel, Israelis and Jews in this sphere is well-organized, well-financed, and pervasive.  We rabbis of the Zionist Rabbinic Coalition were encouraged to have a greater understanding of our responsibility to lead in this all-important battle for public opinion. 

It became painfully clear in our meetings and conversations at the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Tourism, and the Knesset that the leaders of Israel, and in particular the Netanyahu government, have no overall strategy to address the virulent spread of antisemitism throughout the world.  They are, in many ways, just coming to terms with the virulent spread of this new pandemic, and the ways that Jews are being attacked and intimidated, including violently, all around the world today.  The department addressing Antisemitism at the Foreign Ministry is, well, one person, as she made painfully clear to us.  While the responsibility to address the many slurs, conspiracy theories, and waves of antisemitic hatred launched from the political left and right at Jews and Israelis everywhere is a shared responsibility with the Jewry of the Diaspora, here in Tucson just as in New York or Los Angeles, it certainly would seem that the Israeli government needs to focus on this issue in a serious way.  It has not done so yet, and we can only assume that now that the full-on war is definitively over—that’s how Israelis are looking at it—it is time for leadership on this crucial issue to come from the country with more than half of the world’s Jews and so much of its talent and leadership ability.

Our visit to the Gaza Envelope was painful, informative and inspiring. In a moving ceremony, we visited the site of the Nova Festival to recite Kaddish and Eyl Maleh Rahamim and quietly walked the sacred ground.  It is, as I noted, cleaned up now: in place of blood you see the photos and biographies of each of the young people murdered by Hamas Palestinian terrorists that awful Simchat Torah day in 2023, so many promising lives cut short in terrible ways.  It hurts the heart…  Over 5,000 people every day visit the Nova Festival site, just a couple of miles from Gaza, and the highway that became a death trap that day.  It has become the central memorial—there are others, of course, and we visited some—of October 7th.

Accompanied by a VIP escort from the IDF, we also went to areas not usually seen by the public.  We saw trucks lined up on both sides of the Keren Shalom crossing into Gaza, and learned from the old-timey Sabra Director of Operations that it takes 100 trucks a day filled with food to feed Gaza.  Israel sends in 800 trucks a day; these trucks originate in Jordan or Egypt, filled to the brim with supplies for Gaza.  Again, what is required to fee the population is 100 trucks daily.  800 trucks—we saw the enormous line of them ferrying food and medical supplies and clothing into Gaza, then unloading, with the material to be picked up by Palestinian trucks in Gaza.  The Israelis search every truck and confiscate contraband weapons, explosives, and chemicals that can be made into rocket fuel hidden in toys, food cans and packages.  We saw a display of some of these confiscated materials.  Still, a huge amount of supplies are pouring into Gaza, and have been pouring in all along, without cessation during the Gaza War.  Israel has not interdicted the food supply at any time, and starvation in Gaza was not the result of a lack of food trucks crossing through the Keren Shalom border post.

The problem is what happens once the aid gets to the other side, to Gaza, where the United Nations is anything but helpful and where Hamas, and to a lesser extent, Palestinian Islamic Jihad violently seeks to abscond and control the distribution, and to gouge its own Palestinian people for the food they then sell to them at usurious rates, or simply horde.   

Just ½ hour before we arrived, a terrorist who attacked one of the kibbutzim on October 7 and who was now part of a convoy driving the trucks was captured, using facial recognition.  It was a stark reminder that Israel remains vigilant and determined to apprehend any and every Gazan who participated in the October 7 invasion. 

A somber moment was when we were allowed to visit the Nahal Oz base where the female “tatzpitaniot: observers” was overrun and destroyed.  We heard the story and saw the site where brave young female IDF observers were murdered in cold blood and burned alive.  Others were violated and abused. Some were taken hostage.  Through our tears and deep sorrow, meeting the young soldiers stationed in the region and witnessing their idealistic determination to defend their country while desiring peace was inspiring.

We met as well with lone Israeli soldiers, young men and women who come from the Diaspora and have no immediate family in Israel but feel called to defend the Jewish people.  Most were combat soldiers who have served multiple tours in Gaza.  One of the most eye-opening observations came from an extremely bright and thoughtful young man from the United States, who said that what shocked him the most during the war was discovering that in the tunnels the most common book found amidst the Hamas terrorists’ possessions was the Arabic translation of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.  This has been confirmed broadly by both the IDF and international media and observers.  If there is any doubt about the motivations of the Islamists of Hamas, that should put it to rest.  Hamas’ goal is the destruction—the mass murder, the genocide—of all Jews in the world.  It is Nazi ideology turned into Islamist creed.

It was from these young people that the most hopeful note emerged.  It came, humorously, from a slight young blonde woman soldier who studied at a Jewish women’s high school quite near where I grew up and where my parents lived until 2019 in Los Angeles.  She could not be more than 5’2”, and when she volunteered for the Israeli military, she was worried that she would be considered underweight and not be accepted.  So, she actually took a couple of handweights and put them into her pockets when she went for her medical exam, trying to fool the scale and the tough IDF examiners.  When, in a long line of women, her turn finally came to step on the scale miraculously the scale didn’t work; they tried a few times and then just waved her on.  But it worked for the next young woman…  She took this as a sign that it was bashert for her to be there.

None of these young soldiers entered IDF service for anything but the motivation to protect Jews, the Jewish people, and the Jewish nation.  They ranged from Modern Orthodox to secular, serving in units ranging from intelligence to naval commandoes.  All stressed that in operations they were instructed to and acted to prevent civilian casualties at all times.  All were incredibly inspiring, idealistic but realistic, having faced hard combat but reflecting the values and energy that should make any Jewish person proud.

Like nearly every Jew in the world, I have relatives in Israel.  I stayed with some one night in Jerusalem and visited another in Tel Aviv, and I can tell you that none are fans of Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, that all of them believe there must be an independent Israeli inquiry into the responsibility for October 7th having occurred at all, and that some of them believe the war was carried on much too far and too long for political purposes.  That’s the point of a democracy: you get to disagree with the government, especially when you believe it’s in the wrong.  I hope we recover that ability here in America soon.

Look, it is Israel again: traffic jams and public rallies, high prices and great food, ancient archeology and the most advanced high tech, constant new building and infrastructure and transportation projects, magnificent new museums and endless remodeling, chaotic and beautiful and extraordinary.  May she see true peace soon, and always.

One more note: they say that tourism to Israel has declined to 30% of what it was before October 7th.  In my view, it’s time to go back to Israel, to make plans now to visit this amazing, incredible nation once again.  And if you haven’t gone until now, you are in for a truly magnificent experience…

Jacob woke up from the dream in our Torah portion of Vayeitzei and said, “Achei, Yesh Adonai bamakom hazeh va’anochi lo yadati—Look, God is in this place and I, I did not know it.”  God is in that phenomenal place, and it is time for us to realize it, and go back.

An Exceptional Friendship: Azerbaijan and Israel

Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon, Congregation Beit Simcha, Tucson, AZ

In our Sedrah this week, Toldot, twin brothers, Esau and Jacob, begin life in contested fashion, a rivalry that continues throughout the portion.  By the end of Toldot their contrasting personalities, and the manipulations of their parents and themselves seem to be directing them towards a violent collision.  But is that always the inevitable result of an ever-heightening sibling rivalry?  And what might it presage for their spiritual descendants? 

I returned yesterday from a whirlwind rabbinic visit to Azerbaijan and Israel with the Zionist Rabbinical Coalition, ten days packed with meetings, visits, briefings, discussions, and travel.  It was an exceptionally interesting experience, and it will take more time to process all that we heard and saw over these hyper-active days than the long flight home, and one jet-lagged day, have allowed thus far.  Overall, it was an exceptional trip, and completely packed; discounting the two days it took to travel to Baku, and one day flying home from Tel Aviv, we had 4 incredible days in Azerbaijan followed by two spectacularly full days in Jerusalem and one more in the Gaza envelope area in the south of Israel.  The journey felt more like a month than a week, and was productive and valuable in many different ways.

The meetings and briefings throughout the trip were at a very high level, including extended visits with both country’s respective Ambassadors, with prominent members of Parliament in both countries as well as government ministers in charge of major departments.  We met with perhaps the most important advisor to President Eliav in Azerbaijan, with the US Charge d’affaires in Baku, with outside experts in both countries, and then with Israeli soldiers and IDF representatives and others key people in the current situation in Gaza.  In Azerbaijan we also visited both of the Jewish Day Schools in Baku, prayed and enjoyed Shabbat with all three of the active congregations that flourish within a few blocks of each other—two share a building constructed by the government for the Jewish community, each with its own beautiful sanctuary—and traveled to the all-Jewish village in the mountains that was the homeland area for many of the Azerbaijanian Jews.  In Israel we spent time at the Foreign Ministry, visited the Knesset and the new Knesset Museum, and had extensive meetings and discussions on the subject of how Israel is trying to grapple with worldwide Antisemitism now, and how best we, as rabbis, can address the rising tide of Antisemitism and the generational divide we are all experiencing in support for Israel.  It was quite the journey… at times it felt like we were on a formal state visit of important dignitaries, whether rabbis ever qualify for that or not.

Now, mind you, when I told people I was going on a Zionist Rabbinic Coalition mission trip to Azerbaijan and Israel, the most common reaction was “Why are you going there?” meaning Azerbaijan.  The second most common response was “Where is Azerbaijan?”  Like most of you, I had very little idea as to where Azerbaijan is located, and why it might be interesting or important in the contemporary Jewish world, or involved in any way in the life of Israel.  I had a great deal to learn, and there is much to explain and explore about this Shia Muslim nation that is so far from us that its time zone is a full 11 hours later, two hours beyond Israel’s time zone.  A former republic of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan today is a first world, oil-rich country, and its capital city of Baku is impressive: magnificent ultra-modern architecture, restored early 20th century mansions, state of the art museums, a wonderful Old Town dating to the 12th century, and a terrific boardwalk along the Caspian Sea.  It even has an ancient Zoroastrian Fire Temple, which I managed to add onto the itinerary and visit, discovering it had also been a worship site for Hindus and Sikhs; it’s very cool, especially since I have long specialized in experiencing every holy place of every religion on the planet.  Azerbaijan in ancient Persian means something like “the land of the fire-worshippers,” and here indeed they were; the emblem of the country and many of its spectacular new buildings take the form of flames.  But today Baku is a modern city, clean and safe, with excellent roads and beautiful and well-maintained parks, especially when compared with American cities these days.  Now that I’ve seen it, I definitely want to return.  Baku is great.

But we American rabbis weren’t in Azerbaijan to enjoy the tourist sites.  This small nation of 10 million in the Caucasus has the distinction of being the largest Shiite nation with full diplomatic relations with Israel, and has a Jewish community that dates its origins to First Temple Times, perhaps 2700 years ago.  Our rabbinical group was in Baku to affirm, on behalf of Zionist American rabbis, our support for its close and positive connections with Israel, to find out more about a nation that might serve as a model for how a 95% Muslim country can establish a warm, mutually supportive bilateral relationship with Israel, and to interact with and learn about its active Jewish community.  When we traveled on to Israel part of our mission was to see the Israeli perspective on Azerbaijan.  There were some well-thought out parallel experiences on our trip: we had a wonderful meeting and dinner at the home of the Israeli Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Ronen Krausz, and in Jerusalem enjoyed a similarly warm and open discussion and dinner with the Azerbaijanian Ambassador to Israel, Mukhtar Mammadov.     

To oversimplify how Azerbaijan came to develop such a close relationship with Israel requires a little history.  Although it had a history of independence, until 1992, like its neighbors Armenia and Georgia, was a “republic” of the Soviet Union. When the USSR fell, it achieved independence.  Until then the substantial revenues for its huge oil and gas reserves had been siphoned off by Russia, and it was a pretty undeveloped nation.  All of that changed rapidly.  Azerbaijan became an independent nation, and this is important.  Although its population is almost all Shia Muslim—the same denomination as Iran—the nation was organized by its founding president, Hadar Eliav, the David Ben-Gurion of Azerbaijan, as a secular state, rather than an Islamic or Islamist republic. 

There were some severe growing pains, including a disastrous war with Armenia, which was supported by Russia, in which Ngorno-Karabakh, a region with an ethnic minority of Armenians and a majority of Azerbaijanis, was lost to Armenia.  The recent renewal of that war saw Azerbaijan recapture Karabakh. 

Azerbaijan has strong similarities to Israel, especially in one aspect in particular: it is located in a very, very tough neighborhood.  Their country borders Russia to the north and east, Iran to the south, and Armenia, their long-time enemy, both to the north and west and as a kind of inserted territory between the main country and Karabakh.  Their friendliest neighbor is Turkey.  Now that’s a tough neighborhood indeed, quite comparable to Israel’s challenges.  There are no open borders now for Azerbaijan.  They have gone to great pains to prevent Iranian mullahs from crossing into Azerbaijan spreading their doctrines of Shiite Muslim extremism.  Azerbaijan has developed a strong and independent military without receiving substantial help from the west, or the US.  Israel, however, has provided substantial support, and we were told often of the gratitude that Azerbaijan feels to the Jewish State for that support.  There is a strong commercial relationship with Israel: oil and gas—mostly oil these days; Israel has natural gas—flows by pipeline through Turkey to ports and then is shipped to Israel, which receives most of its oil these days from Azerbaijan.  Israel in turn exports technology and hi-tech talent and skills to Azerbaijan, as well as substantial military expertise. 

When we asked whether Azerbaijan was planning on joining the much-publicized Abraham Accords, we were told by everyone in Baku—members of the Azerbaijanian Parliament, heads of important committees and departments, the principal advisor to the President, the Israeli Ambassador, the US Charge d’Affaires—everyone said “the Abraham Accords would be a major downgrade in the Azerbaijan-Israel relationship.”  Both countries accord the other full diplomatic relations and have highly capable ambassadors in place.  There is already substantial trade between the countries, exchange of delegations, businesspeople from both nations in the other country, tourism, and significantly, close cooperation on intelligence, especially regarding their mutual enemy, Iran.  While no would substantiate it officially, there are rumors that the intelligence that allowed Israel to strike the Iranian missile and nuclear sites was spirited out through Azerbaijan.

It is important to understand that Iran and Azerbaijan both have populations made up primarily of Shia Muslims; they share many cultural similarities and traditions.  Yet Azerbaijan is much closer—MUCH closer, diplomatically, militarily, and commercially—to Israel, a nation that is 80% Jewish and has very few Shia Muslims, since Israeli Arabs are either Sunni Muslims, Christians or Druze.  This is highly significant and is recognized as such by Azerbaijanis and Israelis.  A Muslim country—officially secular, with separation between religion and state, but still, 95% Muslim—can indeed have an excellent relationship with Israel, one that is clearly mutually beneficial, and leads to improved security and prosperity for both nations. 

Is this a valuable model for other Muslim world countries considering improving their diplomatic relations with Israel?  A few days in Baku certainly made the possibility of other nations developing that kind of relationship with Israel seem likely, or at least not beyond facile imagination.  Azerbaijan already has that relationship.  Why would it not also be possible for other Muslim nations to imitate its success in connecting both with Israel and the rest of the Islamic world?  There are clearly mutual benefits to both countries, a fact that was emphasized repeatedly by everyone we spoke with, both in Azerbaijan and at the Israeli Foreign Ministry. 

We had one surprising bashert moment in Baku, a kind of gift of travel.  On our last full day in Baku, on Shabbat, after services and Shabbat lunch we had a walking tour of the magnificent Old City.  As we strolled along past residences, artist galleries and restaurants built into the ancient city walls and towers, I saw a mezuzah and Hamsa on the door of one building.  I wondered aloud to a colleague if someone Jewish still lived there; and an older man walking up to the place said, “Do you want to come inside?”  It is his house, and it turns out, he is an artist who paints portraits of the Jewish victims of terror and of IDF heroes who have died in fighting.  His portraits were exceptional—I have photos of some—and in our dialogue in Hebrew he explained that he is motivated to do this work not for money, which he apparently has plenty of, but as a tribute to the lives of these heroes of Judaism.  One of his portraits was of Daniel Pearl, the American journalist murdered by terrorists whose last words were “I am a Jew.” Rabbi David and Beverly Woznika, of Stephen Wise Temple in Bel Air, California, know and spend Shabbat often with Daniel Pearl’s, z”l, father, Judea Pearl in Los Angeles.  It was the kind of small, semi-miraculous thing that can raise a trip from outstanding to extraordinary.  The Jewish world can seem very small indeed sometimes…

Last Sunday we flew from Baku to Ben Gurion on one of 21 weekly flights between the countries.  My first observation is that there are no longer posters of the missing hostages as you walk through the airport, a welcome change from my last visit in January 2024, when their images—posters, bumper stickers, tableaus, video boards, buttons, and more—were everywhere. 

So, what is Israel like now that the cease-fire has been in place, the living hostages have returned home, and all but three of the bodies of Israelis murdered by Palestinian terrorists have come back and been buried? 

Frankly, it feels like Israel again.  People are more relaxed than they were when I visited in January 2024, in the midst of a dark time during the Gaza War when the return of the remaining hostages seemed impossible.  The sidewalks, museums, hotels and streets are crowded again—the traffic was often terrible, which in this case is a good thing indeed.  I had a great day hanging out with cousins in Jerusalem, taking the train to Tel Aviv, and spending time in parts of that busy city I had never been before.  There is great relief in Israel over the cease fire, and genuine hope for real peace, at least for many people, in the somewhat near future, even while there is tremendous criticism of the government, and a powerful demand for a committee of inquiry into what allowed October 7th to take place.  Still, it felt very normal. 

Mind you, Israel is an advanced, civilized, highly productive modern nation of 10 million people with a vibrant economy, almost no homelessness, and an active, engaged, highly educated, creative and innovative population.  It is also a place in which every person knows where the nearest bomb-shelter is, where most people have a ma’mad, a safe room in their homes that is well enough protected that it can survive all but a direct hit by an Iranian ballistic missile.  It is the same country in which construction cranes are present everywhere as Israel constantly builds more and better buildings, and transportation networks, a nation where new developments are everywhere, even while many of its young people joke that their full-time job is now their reserve service in the army, which has occupied nearly all their time and attention over the past two years. 

I will talk much more next week about the Israel part of our trip.  The meetings with Israeli officials were valuable, but it also seems clear that while they have strategies for dealing with the continuing threat of Iran, and with terrorism in general, it is also clear that the tremendous upsurge in antisemitism in America and throughout the world has shocked the Israeli establishment, and that they have no real idea of how to address it.  It is a crucial question going forward that hasn’t been a priority for this Israeli Administration until now, and that we here in the Diaspora are also challenged by in profound ways we haven’t had to deal with for decades.  It is also clear that Israel does not have a clear consensus on how to move forward in Gaza and the West Bank beyond the current Trump Administration plan, about which there is still controversy in Israeli politics and public opinion, even while there is great relief at the cease fire and the apparent end of the war.

Our visit to the Gaza envelope was powerful and painful, if also somewhat affirming.  Walking through the Nova Festival memorial site—which now sees 5,000 visitors a day—brought me to tears, even though it has been cleaned up and prepared to make it possible to see only the photos of the dead, not their blood.  Being in the room where the Israeli young women soldier observers died at the hands of the Hamas Palestinian terrorists touched, and hurt, the heart.  But hearing the energetic affirmations of young, idealistic Israeli soldiers—people younger than my own older children—who are profoundly committed to the mission of protecting the unified people of Israel restored faith and hope.

Again, I’ll talk more about Israel next week.  I can tell you that it is time to plan to go back to Israel and visit and revel in its incredible energy and accomplishments.  There is building going on all over the country, new housing, new businesses, new light rail lines, new museums, and on and on. 

I can see what the Azerbaijanis see: a terrific country to have as an ally.

In our Torah portion, Toldot, we see the initial and longer-term estrangement of two brothers, Jacob and Esau.  In a way, it often feels like that between the Jewish and Muslim worlds, sibling hostility that has degenerated to terrible and profound violence.  But this visit brought, to me, the hope that the reunification of family that has occurred between a Shiite Muslim nation, Azerbaijan, and a deeply Jewish nation, Israel, may serve as a true model of peace and cooperation for the future of the Middle East.  And who knows?  If Jews and Muslims can live in peace, why can’t the whole world?

You Shall Be a Blessing

Sermon Shabbat Vayeira 5786, Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon

There is an old cartoon that is really about the end of last week’s Torah portion of Lech Lecha, but it applies this week too, since both portions address covenants between God and us.  The cartoon shows Abraham staring up at the sky and saying, “You say we are going to be the Chosen People, and we are supposed to cut off the tips of what?”

Sorry. 

On that subject, sort of, I must note that when we closely study the Torah, especially Genesis, Breisheet, the earliest record of our first ancestors, we discover God made a series of promises to Abraham.  In the early covenants established in last week’s Torah portion of Lech Lecha and this week’s portion of Veyeira, God pledges to bring Abraham to a land flowing with milk and honey, erets zavat chalav ud’vash, to give him and his descendants the place then known as Canaan as an eternal, everlasting inheritance for all time.  In subsequent Torah portions that covenant will be reaffirmed with each of the subsequent patriarchs, Isaac and especially Jacob, and in Exodus it will again be established as a berit, a promise to land and success, with Moses and his generation of Israelites. 

There is no word in these covenants of rockets and missiles landing in this Promised Land, by the way, but neither are the borders specified in the Torah very precise.  In fact, the Biblical description of the land that will someday be known as Israel range widely.  In one place, the boundaries of the Hebrews’ nation ranges from the Nile River to the Euphrates, which encompasses most of the Middle East; in another place, the land promised to Abraham’s descendants is not much more than a couple of hilltops near Jerusalem.  And for those literalists who believe that every inch of the Biblical Land of Israel should be modern Israel today because we have a God-given right to it, we must note that this would require that modern Israel trade nearly its entire coastal region for the barren hills of Judea and Samaria, exchanging Tel Aviv, Herzliyah, Caesarea, Netanya, and Haifa, where 70% of Israelis actually live, for a bunch of rocky, barren, wind-swept West Bank mountains.   

In any case, whatever the exact, adjusted boundaries of the land of Israel eventually prove to be, it’s in these Torah portions that the Jewish claim to Israel is established.  And it’s notable that there is no attempt in the Torah to say that the lands are uninhabited.  While the various Canaanite tribes that filled the territory of today’s State Israel in Abraham and Sarah’s days, the Girgashites, Perizzites, Hivites, Hittites, and Jebusites, are not in any way related to today’s Palestinians, they clearly pre-date the Hebrews in living in the Holy Land.  And according to the tradition, it was God’s right to give us that land, provided we continue to fulfill our covenantal relationship responsibilities to God.

Which brings me to a lesser-known and rarely quoted phrase that is also central to these narratives in Genesis.  God tells Abraham this repeatedly, and reiterates it to Jacob: v’nivrchu v’cha uvizarecha kol mishpechot ha’adamah—through you and your descendants will all the families of the world be blessed.  That is, a large part of the Divine promise given to us in the Torah is that we, as a people, will bring goodness and blessing to the whole world.  In a way, this may be the more important promise: lots of different peoples in this world have a homeland, but how many can say that they have the responsibility to bring blessing to the whole world?

What does this mean, exactly?  What precisely is the blessing that our people has conveyed to this entire planet?  Is it the belief in monotheism, the oneness of God, the concept that if you have only one deity you therefore can have only one source for morality, one locus for truth and meaning?

About 25 years ago Tom Cahill wrote a book called, “The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels.”  Cahill, best known for his book about the Irish saving civilization, explored the sources of western civilization, and its beginning in the story of Abraham and the embrace of the belief in one God, a truly radical concept that changed everything.  Well, it didn’t change it immediately, of course.  After all, when Abraham came along absolutely no one believed there was only one God.  And today, if you survey the various beliefs of many religions and those who believe in none of them, you will find that the majority of the world still doesn’t believe in one and only one God.  But eventually, over time, the concept of one God began to transform the way many people thought about the world and our place in it. 

Is the great blessing of Judaism and Jews perhaps something beyond the Shema, the oneness of God?  Is it our deep commitment to constantly trying to learn more, to extend the boundaries of knowledge and education?  Is it our insistence on feeling a kinship with the downtrodden, the forgotten members of society, our ways of actualizing tikun olam?  Is it the Jewish commitment to trying to be a “kingdom of priests and a holy people,” the goal of living to a higher standard, as that old hot dog commercial asserted about Hebrew National?

Or is it some combination of all of these, plus more?  It is my sincere conviction that Judaism, properly experienced, is an incredible way to enhance life, that it adds deep meaning, spirituality, intellectual stimulation, ethics and great joy to each of our lives.  It is always fascinating to me how many of us American Jews don’t realize how great our own religious tradition is, and how much beauty and excellence it adds to what can otherwise be rather pedestrian existence.

Part of the pleasure of serving as a congregational rabbi is the opportunity to explore pretty much anything and everything about our religion and culture in a sermon every seven days, and somehow, having done this for many years, there is always something new and fascinating to discover.  That’s partly because we Jews have been around for 3800 years or so and have lived and had active Jewish communities in essentially every country on the planet at one time or another.  That diversity is a wonderful strength that is expressed in Jewish prayer, thought, music, food, art, clothing—and even in temperament.  And I love exploring the incredible range of Jewish life across the world, visiting different Jewish communities, learning and sharing their music and customs.  In the incredible variety of experience is a great richness indeed.

There are also many fascinating and not so well-known aspects of Judaism to investigate, many different areas of spiritual and intellectual excellence to explore.  Our Zohar Crown of Kabbalah class, now in its 7th year at Beit Simcha but in fact a class I’ve been teaching for more than 20 years, always provides the opportunity to learn and grow in the unique field of Jewish mysticism.  Our book of Samuel class, exploring an under-read part of the Bible, is always fascinating.  And of course, Torah Study each week, covering familiar ground, to be sure, is nonetheless inevitably surprisingly inspiring and exciting.  The highly intelligent and sophisticated class members take us in unexpected and valuable directions with their curiosity, broad knowledge and sharp observations. 

I must also note that the remarkable range of experience that the huge storehouse of Jewish life makes available to us is balanced by powerful, shared common elements of identity and character.  For we Jews, no matter how divergent our backgrounds, share many values: a deep dedication to family, reverence for the importance of education and learning, a profound connection to the Land of Israel, a vital commitment to the greater notion of klal Yisrael, the great, shared peoplehood of all Jews everywhere.  We are deeply committed to the greatest of Jewish ideals, the concept of justice, preserving it, seeking to see it in action in our world; we give tzedakah, the charity that goes towards righting the wrongs we see, and we work to help the downtrodden and the needy in our civilization.  Nearly all of us relate in very special ways to the wonderful, varied and fabulous Jewish holidays, and almost all of us celebrate a Seder or light Hanukkah menorahs or come to hear the shofar on Rosh HaShanah. 

And even when we celebrate the Sabbath to different degrees and in different ways, we retain an understanding of the meaning, beauty and purpose of this extraordinary Jewish invention, the day of rest and sanctity, of family, food and song.   

I am often asked to describe just what Judaism is.  You know, it’s not that simple to explain that; nor why this religion, culture and civilization unifies us through all of our amazing diversity.  It is a combination of many things, really, that connect us and help us fulfill that great Jewish goal of seeking to perfect the world under God’s rule—and this is a world that clearly needs some fixing, no?  

It is perhaps not a surprise that I cannot truly imagine Jews choosing to live life outside the realm of a supremely accessible religious tradition that inspires us to seek so many great ideals, and does so by insisting that we create practical means to make those ideals real in our own lives every day.

Now, of course, I am a rabbi and therefore somewhat biased towards appreciating the wonders of Judaism, and living out those ideals in my own life, and encouraging everyone to do so in his or her own life as well.  But in an America in which there are so many incredible ways to experience high-quality Jewish prayer, study, social action, music, food and humor, among many other possibilities, I would say that it’s incumbent upon every American Jew to take advantage of the amazing things that are offered—at our own synagogue, Congregation Beit Simcha, of course, but also throughout our community, and in every active Jewish community we visit. 

In 2025, Judaism offers hope, energy, beauty and meaning, as well as creativity, idealism and joy.  Isn’t that a great blessing, for us and the world?

Just as Abraham was promised… 

Halloween and Monotheism

Sermon Shabbat Lech Lecha 5786

Rabbi Sam Cohon, Congregation Beit Simcha, Tucson, AZ

I have to relate a funny incident we experienced at our daughter’s preschool early childhood education center last year at this time of year.  It’s at a Jewish institution, and more or less a Jewish preschool, even though many of the kids and teachers are not Jewish.  As October progressed, we received a few notices that Halloween wasn’t celebrated at our preschool, and that we weren’t to send our children in costumes nor would there be any type of encouragement of jack-o’-lanterns or pumpkin carving or that sort of thing.  Halloween is not a Jewish holiday, the notices said, and there are plenty of Jewish holidays to celebrate in the fall, of course.

Now, I’m comfortable with all of that, although I don’t have any strong objections to Halloween as it’s celebrated in America.  As kids, the children of a cantor and the grandchildren of a rabbi, we carved pumpkins and dressed up in costumes and trick or treated in our old neighborhood, and gave out candy, just like everyone else.  We even decorated the house a bit.  When my older children were little, we would have costumes and trick or treat, unless October 31st fell on a Friday night, and then we would go to services first and then trick or treat with them, or perhaps the other way round, depending on the timing of Shabbat services.  I don’t really have the strong negative reactions that some rabbis do to what is really a pretty innocuous festival, even if it has had terrible results for American teeth.  I mean, free candy!  How can you convince kids it’s not a good idea?

In any case, our preschool forbade any kind of Halloween celebrations, which was fine with me, since we have just finished a long run of Jewish fall festivals from Rosh HaShanah through Simchat Torah.  Good, let’s emphasize the Judaism, right?  Sounds good to me.

And then, just before Halloween, we received a note in our kid’s cubby that we should figure out what we wanted them to bring to put on the Dia de los Muertos altar in the hallway for Day of the Dead. 

Um… wow.  So Halloween, based on All Hallows’ Eve but basically a night to dress up and get candy and hear “Monster Mash” on the radio, is not OK in a Jewish setting.  But altars—altars!—dedicated to dead relatives for a Mexican Day of the Dead ritual, a kind of combined Christian and pagan “celebration” that includes giving people sugar candy skeleton heads is not only acceptable but encouraged?  Exactly how does that fit in a Jewish preschool?

And why was that pagan/Christian/ghoulish ritual allowed, while Halloween was identifiably not acceptable?

All of which brings me to comment a bit about assimilation, the gradual subsuming of Jewish identity into the American melting pot. 

Look, it’s pretty easy to disappear as a Jew in America.  Just stop going to synagogue, don’t join the shul, don’t wear a yarmulkeh, don’t celebrate Jewish holidays, don’t observe Shabbat, don’t study Jewish texts or subjects, and don’t worry too much about Israel or antisemitism.  Most Americans are a mix of ethnicities, and lots of them don’t have a strong sense of religious or ethnic identity.  In general, Jews can pass in America, particularly if they don’t do anything Jewish.  If you are at services tonight, or attending online—and, obviously, you are—you are already doing more to demonstrate your Judaism than lots of American Jews do regularly. 

Now I know that we don’t have altars dedicated to the souls of dead relatives; instead, we have living Judaism, energetic, active, and warm.  We do have goodies to eat after services—no Butterfingers, and no sugar candy skulls either, but tasty stuff still…

Which brings me to the remarkable Torah portion we chant this Shabbat, Lech Lecha. 

I’ve often wondered about the human experience of this call that Avram hears.  God tells him to leave his homeland, his birthplace, his father’s house, and go the land that God will show him, asher areka.  It’s certainly life-changing, but also super-ambiguous.  I can just visualize him going home to Sarai, his wife, and telling her the plan.  That conversation could not have gone well.

Avram tells Sarai: “God told us to leave here, right now, pack up and take everything.”

Sarai asks, “God told you?  Which God?” 

And Avram says “A God you have never heard of and can’t see.” 

So, Sarai answers, “Uh huh.  And where are we going?”

And Avram says, “I don’t know.”

That must have been a fun home life for a while, no?

Now, mind you, this command to leave everything behind a head out to a place he had never been was only the second craziest idea that had washed over Abram, Avram.  The craziest was the entire idea of monotheism.

To understand the drama of Abraham’s initial choice requires a bit of background, which begins with a simple question. What percentage of the world’s population believes in one God?  That is, what proportion of the 7.2 billion people on the globe today, in 2025, believe that there is one and only one God?

When I ask classes or other groups that question the answers range hugely.  Some people are sure that 90 or 100% of the world believes in one God—surely, everyone believes in one God, right?  Some people think it’s no more than 5 or 10%—almost no one believes in one God, right? 

The answer lies somewhere in between.  The word for belief in one God is monotheism, and when you start to survey world religions and how many official adherents they have it quickly gets interesting. 

Let’s start by looking at the major religions of the world and the number of people who belong to them.  While it’s hard to be exact, most studies agree that there are around one billion Hindus, the majority religion of India and a significant minority in Indonesia, and elsewhere.  Hindus believe in many gods, of course, so that means that 15% of the world’s population is not monotheistic.  Buddhists don’t have a god-concept at all, and therefore are definitely not monotheists, and they comprise somewhere around 500 million people—another 7%--which raises the non-believers in one god to 22%.  Atheists, those folks who religiously believe that God does not exist, total about 15-16%, raising the non-one-Godders to 38%.  A variety of African, Chinese, Southeast Asian, and Pacific Island tribal religions—the worship of fetishes, idols, local gods, cargo cults, folk heroes, and such—add in another 400 million people or so, an additional 5% or 16% who have multiple gods, raising our non-believers in one God to about 45%.

So who does believe in one God today? 

Well, certainly Moslems do.  Islam is a pristine form of monotheism that attracts the adherence of perhaps one and a half billion people, roughly 23% of the world’s population.  Whatever else people may say about Muslims, they surely believe in one God.  And of course, there are the Jews—after all, we invented monotheism—but we compose about 15 million people, just one fifth of one percent.  That makes, oh, on a good day, 23% who believe in one God.

What about Christianity, you say?   There are over 2 billion Christians in the world, and they believe in one God, right? 

Well, yes—and perhaps no.  The concept of the trinity is problematic if you are a monotheist.  One god in three parts, or three divine entities, including a human, walking manifestation of god, plus one in heaven, and one that is all spirit.  And that’s without accounting for the Virgin Mary or the many saints, which are so central to Roman Catholicism and Greek, Russian, and other forms of  Orthodox Christianity… 

To elide the controversy a bit, let’s just assume that Christians are believers in one God, Trinitarian or otherwise.  That still means that at most half the people in the world today believe in one God—and all of those folks are from what are sometimes called the Abrahamic faiths, spiritual descendants of our ancestor Abraham, the subject of this week’s great Torah portion. 

Now if today about half of the world believes in one God, 3800 years ago, when Abraham came along, no one believed in one God.  The very idea, in a world populated by gods for each town and city, gods for every mountain and river and sea, gods that represented every animal in the forest, gods for every natural process—wind, lightning, thunder, rain, volcano, and earthquake—in a world filled with gods, the idea that there was only one God in the universe was spectacularly revolutionary.  It was outlandish, crazy, beyond consideration.

One creator of goodness?  One source for justice?  One source for right and wrong?  No one except Abraham believed it then. And over half the world still doesn’t.

But without that great leap of Abraham’s there would be no way to develop a concept of universal morality, no way to have a single understanding that some acts are simply wrong, and that some responsibilities are universal.  Abraham’s brilliant, radical understanding of the oneness of God and the uniqueness of the divine underlies all morality, and all of western civilization. 

It is thanks to Abraham, and this week’s Torah portion of Lech Lecha, that we are able to live lives of holiness and purpose, and to seek justice and morality.  And it is belief in one God, no matter how marginally popular it is, that makes it all possible—today, just as it did nearly four millennia ago, in Abraham’s time.

No altars or sugar candy skulls.  Just one God.  One Source for morality and meaning.  A Jewish path to holiness, goodness, and meaning.

Basic Decency, the First Covenant

Shabbat No’ach, Rabbi Sam Cohon, Congregation Beit Simcha, Tucson, AZ

This week we chant No’ach, of course, one of the most famous of all Torah portions and the original great sea story of a truly ancient mariner.  At the end of the mabul, the flood, when Noah gets to leave the ark and go out on dry land, God gives a promise, the very first berit, the first covenant or contract that in Jewish tradition God makes with humanity.  The Creator vows never again to destroy the earth by water—we are able to do so, by the way, through, say, global warming, but not God—and we human beings are entered into a compact with seven specific rules. 

This Noahide covenant, the prime rainbow connection, has seven specific rules in it.  Mind you, these are not rules for Jews, or in the formal sense of the term mitzvot: they are the basic rules for civilized societies of any kind, of any religion or nation or peoplehood, the foundational laws that define whether a system, a culture, is good or evil.

While it can be a bit complex looking just at the literal text to discern where there seven rules are commanded, there is general agreement among rabbis and scholars that these are what God has Noah, on behalf of all humanity—after all, we may all be descended from Adam but we are also, according to the Tanakh, the Bible, also all descended from Noah—there is general agreement on the seven.  They are:

1.   Do not murder.

2.   Do not steal.

3.   Do not commit acts of forcible sexual violation.

4.   Do not cut the limbs off of a living animal, let alone a living human.

5.   Do not blaspheme.

6.   No idolatry.

7.   Have courts of justice.

These, it seems to me, are basic rules that define whether people are ethical or unethical, moral or amoral, good or bad.  Please note, again, this has nothing to do with whether people are worshipping the right god, or keeping a Sabbath, or even whether they are giving to charity.  They simply are there to teach us how to know who is essentially good and who just flat out is not.

Because in the Torah there is never an assumption that we will live in some bland, universally observant society or civilization.  There is always provision made for interacting with people and groups and nations and civilizations that think differently than we do.  And some of those will be good and deserving of respect and understanding.  Unfortunately, some will not.

Most of these rules seem so basic and essential, and we can scarcely argue about them: don’t murder, steal, rape, abuse animals; some are perhaps less obvious—do not attack the foundations of this code by claiming it has no moral source, that would be blasphemy; do not worship idolatrous gods that undercut the basic morality of this code, such as pretending that you, yourself, are above moral codes and laws.  And one of these Noahide rules, establish courts of justice, is there to make certain that the other six are maintained.

It is this B’nai No’ach covenant, this contract with God that we are glad to observe in the larger world, and that we should expect of any society or group with which we interact.

And yet—and yet, some societies fail to manage even this basic code.  We know that the Palestinian terrorists of Hamas intentionally, repeatedly and viciously violated the first four of these commandments two years ago, and now in a period of cease fire they are continuing to do so without Israeli intervention.  We know that there has never been a judicial system worthy of the name in the 20 years Hamas controlled Gaza, nor in the 29 years that the Palestinian Authority mostly controlled the West Bank. 

I want to go back to the least referable of these Noahide laws for a moment.  It’s easy to understand the commandment against committing murder, of course, and the laws against theft and rape and torturing animals.  It’s harder to relate to a law against blasphemy, isn’t it? 

I wonder if we should understand blasphemy a little differently than our ancestors did.  Because in our own contemporary world, restraints on the use of language in public forums—particularly on social media, on the internet, on the air, but really, in nearly every form of public expression—the use of language has been untethered from any restraint.  People attack their opponents in the harshest and often most vicious ways, using insults that used to be consigned to the lowest aspects of human interaction at all levels of society.  That kind of degradation of speech, it seems to me, is a new form of blasphemy.  It is a way of causing the divisions in our society to become chasms, of using language to destroy others and to humiliate and damage.  Isn’t that blasphemous by any reasonable definition? 

You see, the goal of these Noahide laws has always been to allow people of different belief systems, different ethnicities and cultures, different backgrounds and hopes and dreams to nonetheless live together in peace.  They allow diverse societies to reach across the boundaries of their differences to work towards a common goal.  The mishpetai b’nai Noach, the laws of the children of Noah—that is, the laws that apply to all of us human beings—are designed not to divide us, but to allow us to unite on the grounds of common decency.  It means that the real and even meaningful differentiations do not prevent us from achieving good in our civilizations when called upon to do so.

That principal is something that our US Congress apparently needs to learn… as does the entire governmental structure these days.

On this Shabbat No’ach, may we reinforce the lessons we have learned from this dramatic portion, and from our traumatic present, and grow to accept and understand others for their underlying goodness.  May we celebrate these differences, but base our larger actions on our foundational, covenantal similarity.

We are all human.  We all can seek to create goodness in our society and in our world.

Beginning Again, Once More

We are now officially through the mother of all Jewish holiday seasons, our fall fiesta of festivals, which ran from Selichot in mid-September through Simchat Torah Tuesday night, with full festivities and great joy, enlivened especially by the recent return of the 20 Israeli hostages to freedom on the 2nd Anniversary of October 7th, 2023.  This holiday season was a very good one, but as wonderful as each and every Jewish holiday is in its own right, it remains something of a relief for rabbis and cantors and we few, proud hybrid-types—non-plug-in variety—that the long lingering line of celebrations is finally over. 

Of course, that also means that we now have to begin to catch up on all the other work we neglected in the run-up to the holidays and the Selichot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah observances themselves.  And for that we have the new month of Cheshvan, which begins this coming week.  This Jewish calendar month is nicknamed Marcheshvan, literally “the bitter month” because it is the only one in the entire Jewish year during which we have no actual Jewish holidays; but following close on the heels of the festival frenzy of the Jewish month of Tishrei, that’s really not such a bad thing.

But before we leave the festival season in our rear-view mirror, I have one last Simchat Torah story.

This tale took place when I was a student at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, and I arrived there just before Simchat Torah evening services.  I was hired to be the cantor in the Chapel at HUC, but before assuming that role I had just conducted High Holy Days services in Vancouver, British Columbia.  New to Cincinnati and that campus of Hebrew Union College, I wanted to watch how things worked before leading any services myself.  To be honest, it was a pretty disappointing experience.  I sat through the first few Hakafot, the parades with the Torah, listening to the dull, boring songs they were doing and watching stiff, dutiful, lifeless processions around the sanctuary.  Finally I turned to the Dean of the College, Rabbi Ken Erlich, and asked him what was going on.  Like me, he is mostly descended from Eastern European Jews who do Simchas Torah by singing and dancing with great enthusiasm and energy—a nearly wanton celebration, like ours here at Beit Simcha last Tuesday night.  Dean Erlich explained to me that when he first came to Hebrew Union College the Torah hakafot for Simchat Torah were done in a slow, stately procession, accompanied by plodding organ music.  He himself had turned to a professor and asked "it's Simchas Torah--how come they are marching not dancing?"  And the professor answered "They are German Jews --they are dancing..." And apparently some of that heritage remained years later when I arrived in Cincinnati.

I guess marching is how Germans dance.

Anyway, speaking of Torah, now that the the final fall festival has passed we can return to concentrating on the Torah portions that begin our new cycle of readings.  These parshiyot are so remarkably rich and diverse that they invite investigation, probing and questioning.  Plus, they are genuinely fun to explore.

And this week, we begin with the very beginning, an exceptionally good place to start.

There is something exciting and new about starting over with Breisheet this Shabbat, rediscovering the tabula rasa, the Creation ex nihilo that commences our greatest textual creation as a people.  Genesis, at its inception, is all about the incredible promise and potential inherent in our universe.  It is a blank slate, a fresh page, a first kiss, the exciting start to a trip we will take together on a fresh, open road around an unturned corner.  It is discovering the world anew.

Poet Stanly Barkan puts it well in his verse, “As Yet Unborn”:

Oh to be Adam

Again

With all his ribs

Yearning for a woman

As yet unborn,

Mouth free

Of the taste of apples,

Ears without the hiss of snakes,

Mindless of nakedness and shame,

In the garden of gentle creatures

Waiting for a name.

Most of us have read this text of Genesis before, and we know that this creation epic doesn’t end as well as it begins.  Humans will be created, we will immediately make mistakes and transform this perfect creation into something much more recognizably flawed.  But still, there is something remarkably exciting, even thrilling, about the start of Breisheet, something extroardinarily energizing.  From nothing, something amazing is about to happen.  And that inherent, untapped potential makes this a narrative that has almost limitless ability to interest, inspire, confuse and tantalize the reader.

Take, for example, the first lines of Genesis, which describe the creation of light with God’s first words in the Torah, Yehi Or, Be, light!  We think of that as the great initial moment of singularity, the expansion of divine energy into a void that leads ultimately to the evolution of the universe we now know.  And it is that—but it is also an incredibly beautiful description of the holiness of beginning from one single, solitary point and moment.

It took a long time for contemporary cosmology to come to some level of agreement with Genesis on the conception of creation.  Only in the mid-20th century did physics produce the Big Bang theory—the scientific concept, not the TV show—and today it is among the most widely accepted ways to understand the creation of the universe.  In recent years the development of the Large Hadron Supercollider brought the possiblity of looking back to that moment ever closer, allowing us to see what happened just after the singularity, the moment creation took place, to observe the Big Bang, to voyeuristically gaze at Breisheet itself.  In recent years, the Webb super telescope sent back amazing, colorful images from almost the very beginning of time.

We are all interested, at least a little bit, in the beginning of everything, aren’t we? The dawn of creation.  The first single event in our universe’s history.  The instant of conception, or inception.  An amazing, holy moment.

The black zero of beginning.

From that inception point, in one singular event, everything starts.  According to physics, a great flash of energy expanded outwards.  One holy instant.  “Breisheet Bara Elohim… yehi or, at the beginning of God’s creating… there was energy.”

The power of that initial unity, what physicists call a “singularity,” is woven all through Judaism.  One beginning from God.  One source of morality and truth.  Oneness first, with rich diversity evolving from that initial Divine creative burst, born out of it to populate this gorgeous, complex world.

At the risk of overstating things, I also think of Breisheet, that moment of creation, when considering our young congregation, Beit Simcha.  We began almost exactly seven years ago, although since we began in October 2018 with the Torah portion of Lech Lecha, which is coming up in two more weeks, technically this is only our sixth Breisheet Shabbat.  That makes this our sixth Shabbat of creation, if you will, which seems a most appropriate time to give thanks for what we have: the opportunity and the reality of having created a community of love, joy, warmth and support, a shul that nurtures Jewish life and seeks to have it truly flourish.  While we don’t pretend to have created Gan Eiden just yet, a Garden of Eden, Beit Simcha’s course has already proven to be a wonderful journey, filled with growth, creativity and generative events and moments. 

The congregation we’ve been creating over these short years has proven to be many wonderful things, including resilient and resourceful.  I would hope that God approves of us and our work, and says about it in Genesis’ immortal lines, “It is good.”   And that our next chapter leads us to a permanent home filled with the same spirit of joy that we have nurtured here. 

In this week of beginning the Torah again, we celebrate with gratitude the many people we have welcomed here into our congregation and invite anyone who wishes to begin the joyous journey of membership as well. May we each find the wholeness, and holiness, that is an underlying truth present everywhere in the universe that God began to create in our Torah portion.  And may we seek, and find, good new beginnings in this post-holiday 5786 year, and great joy and creativity in the variegated patterns of our own lives.