Yeshaya Douglas Ballon
  • SPIRITUAL MENTOR
    • Spiritual Direction
    • Jewish Spiritual Direction
    • J. Article
    • INDIVIDUAL
    • GROUP
    • Sage-ing Mentorship
  • AUTHOR/POET
    • Unthinkable Dreams
    • A Precious Heritage
    • Cutting Room Floor
    • The Blog
    • ETHICAL WILLS
    • Poetry
  • ARTIST
  • BAKER
    • Recipe
    • References >
      • A brief history of challah
    • "Challettes"
    • Babka!
    • Bagels >
      • Claire's Bagel Recipe
    • Pizza
  • Contact

Cutting Room Floor

In 2017, I published A Precious Heritage: Rabbinical Reflections on God, Judaism, and the World in the Turbulent Twentieth Century, composed of thirty-six selected sermons written by my father, Rabbi Sidney Ballon. There were dozens of other excellent sermons that could just as easily been included in the limited volume, but for various reasons were left on “the cutting room floor.” Here are thirty of those in reverse chronological order dating from 1974 back to 1937. Much as the sermons in the book, these provide real time glimpses of bygone eras and, in some cases, sadly demonstrate how little things have changed. Select a sermon to read by clicking on the titles below.

Scans of dozens of additional sermons and writings may be accessed here: CLICK
NEXT PAGE

​Things to Remember
The Jews and Nixon — One Year Later
Rabbis Debate Mixed Marriages
Who is a Religious Jew
The Twenty-third Psalm
Judaism & Ecology
The Mets and the Moratorium
Birth Control
​
Salute to Denmark and Sweden
God Is
Jews Without Problems
I Have a Dream
Remember Amalek!
Sentencing Adolf Eichmann
​
Thou Shalt Tell
Ben-Gurion
Open Hearts and Open Minds
This I Believe
Communism and the Rabbis
Art in the Synagogue
The Jewish Meaning of the Czech Purge
Public School Prayer
The Crime of Genocide
Peaks Mill H.S. Commencement Address
​
Dayenu
Israel's Secret Weapon
The Battle Cry of the Shofar
Hast Thou But One Blessing?
Liberal Rabbis and Jewish Nationalism
A Song of Joy​​​​
NOTE: Bear in mind, my father’s drafts for oral presentation don't always meet the standards that are usually demanded of the printed page. The sermons published here have not gone through the rigorous editing process to correct for that as did the ones in the book. There may also be some transcription errors where my dictation software misinterpreted my reading of a sermon. Forgive me for not scrutinizing these texts as much as they deserve, but I hope you get the gist of these such as they are. I'd be happy to receive any suggested corrections you may offer. Moreover, these sermons include some statements that do not meet twenty-first century standards of sensitivity with regard to race, gender, and ecumenism. Rather than sanitizing this language, I have left these words and ideas as written, if for no other reason than to reveal the norms of another era. Often, the underlying message is acceptable if one is willing to disregard these anachronistic flaws.

Things to Remember

3/1/1974

0 Comments

 
Separating fact from fiction with regard to territory rights in Palestine has never been an exact science. We continue to hear conflicting stories about who has rights to which lands in the Middle East. In his era, my father perhaps felt he had a very clear understanding of the so-called facts, though this understanding was not shared by all then nor is it now.
We need to remember, therefore, and we need to remind others that there are myths and facts pertaining to the crisis in Israel today, and we need to be able to tell one from the other.
TONIGHT IS SHABBAT ZACHOR, the Sabbath of Remembrance, the Sabbath before Purim, which this year will be celebrated next Thursday evening. Each year on this Sabbath the traditional Torah reading includes the statement in Deuteronomy, "Remember what Amalek did unto you by the way when you came forth out of Egypt.[1]" Jews have, indeed, remembered through the centuries. They have remembered Amalek, and also Haman,[2] one of his descendants, and all too often they had reason to think at the same time about enemies that were current rather than ancient. The present time is no different. We, too, think of Amalek and of Haman, but we are far more concerned with Sadat[3] and Assad[4] and Hussein[5] and their friends. We hardly need a commandment to remember. They impinge on our consciousness without effort day by day.
 
There are some things about them, however, which are often overlooked; things we ought to remember and that we ought to be sure the world at large remembers. It is distressing to note how much the world forgets with regard to the situation of Arabs and Jews in the Middle East, and it is distressing to note how much even worse those who profess a passionate concern for justice forget. It is distressing how much even Jews, especially those in the radical movements, overlook. We need to remember, therefore, and we need to remind others that there are myths and facts pertaining to the crisis in Israel today, and we need to be able to tell one from the other.
 
Perhaps the greatest myth of all that the Arab world tries to circulate is that they have a long-standing claim to the so-called occupied territories. In almost every discussion of the problem there seems somehow to be implied that Israel is extremely unreasonable in holding onto any areas which were taken either in the Yom Kippur War or the Six-Day War before that. The principle is set forth that any acquisition of territory by force is inadmissible. It is a miracle that the Arabs can say that with a straight face. It sounds pretty and just, but it is a brand new doctrine, discovered only now in order to justify the hostility against Israel and to make Israel look unreasonable and stubborn. Soviet Russia strongly supports this new Arab theory, but she is, perhaps, the one nation in the world that is most guilty of acting to the contrary. Without going too far back into history we have only to think of the territories taken from Finland, Germany, Poland, and Japan, while Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have been completely deprived of independence. And as for the Arabs, the very areas that they now demand to be returned to them were acquired by them only a short time ago by force. The West Bank did not belong to Jordan. In 1948 the UN intended the West Bank to become part of an independent Palestinian Arab state, but it was attacked by the Arab Legion and annexed to Transjordan, which then changed its name. The Old City of Jerusalem which was to be a part of an internationalized Jerusalem also became a part of Jordan by force. The Gaza Strip did not belong to Egypt. It, too, was to be part of an independent Palestinian Arab state according to the UN partition plan, but this, too, was taken by force. The Sinai was not taken by force, but, this, too, is not basically Egyptian territory. The Sinai had belonged to the Ottoman Empire. With its defeat, control passed over to Great Britain which also controlled Egypt as a protectorate. Egypt had been asked to administer the Sinai on behalf of Great Britain. When Great Britain withdrew from the middle east, Egypt claimed the Sinai as its own. But it never did treat the Sinai as if it were Egypt proper, and its inhabitants were never considered Egyptian citizens. The legal status of the Sinai may be today in some doubt, but Egypt has no more claim than anyone else. Thus the claims of Jordan and Egypt for the return of territories are based on myth and not fact.
 
Even the Arab claim to Palestine, in general, is also somewhat of a myth. We often hear that all of Palestine was stolen from the Arabs and settled by alien Jews. The fact is that no Arab nation ever lived in this area we have known as Palestine, and no national claim was ever made to this territory other than by Jews. Jews have a history of continuous residence in Palestine from biblical times on. Sometimes the community was larger than at others, but always there were Jews in the land. Arabs first came to Palestine in the seventh century and were always governed by various caliphate's from outside the land. Arab rule lasted for a bit over four centuries, but it was always foreign rule. There was no native government. When this foreign Arab rule came to an end in 1072, other foreign elements took control over the area thereafter up to the time of the Jewish State. The Arab nationalism we now hear so much about did not exist at all until after World War I, when a number of Arab states were created anew to satisfy their aspirations and the Jews were given an opportunity under a British mandate to establish a Jewish homeland in what was only a part of the original Palestine. Palestine was thus never an exclusively Arab country nor was there ever an Arab state there or an Arab nation. In fact for many years it was very sparsely populated altogether. Its land was neglected and its marshes breeded disease. It was only after the European Jews began coming to the land to build it up that great numbers of Arabs also came in from the outside. The large Arab population today has its origins to a great extent in 20th century immigration very much like the Jewish population. And Jews did not displace Arabs when they settled. They rather developed the land and made it possible for more Arabs also to come in.
 
What applies to the Arab claim to Palestine, also extends to their claims on the City of Jerusalem. They will tell us it has always been an Arab city, but Jerusalem has one important Arab shrine and that is all the significance has. It has never been a Muslim capital. Nothing significant was ever established or accomplished there. For the past century the Jews have even far outnumbered the Arabs there and during most of that time have been an actual majority of all the inhabitants of the city.
 
The Arabs elaborate on the myth of Jerusalem by maintaining that Jerusalem must not remain Jewish lest the holy places of Jerusalem be violated. This is sheer chutzpah. We know how well Jordan protected the holy places and how freely non-Moslems were able to visit. Although the 1948 armistice provided that Jews might have access to the Western Wall, no Jews ever were allowed to come. And what is even worse, most of the old synagogues of the Old City were destroyed. The cemetery of the Mount of Olives was desecrated by the building of a road over its graves and the gravestones were removed and used for construction purposes. Israel, on the other hand, has been most scrupulous since the Six Day War in caring for the holy sites. Every one is marked by a warning that their sanctity must be respected and freedom of access to all is granted. During the war itself, Israel sustained far more casualties than necessary because it refrained from attacking the holy places with bombs or with artillery. Many Christians have testified to this concern, and even though Israel will not permit Jerusalem to be divided again, it is quite prepared even now to relinquish to each religion the control over its own holy places.
 
There are many other myths which the Arabs trying to circulate. Let us examine just one more. The Arabs claim that they are only anti-Israel and anti-Zionism and are not anti-Jewish. If this is so, however, it becomes very difficult to explain why the Jewish population has decreased to such a large extent in Arab lands. Every Arab country that can be named has made its Jewish citizens so uncomfortable that in almost every one of them at least ninety percent of the Jews fled — in only one, less than ninety percent; in some, one hundred percent. Jews in Arab countries have suffered from pogroms; homes and other properties have been confiscated, many choose to have been imprisoned and tortured, some have been falsely accused and executed, and yet the Arabs persist in the claim that it is only Jewish nationalism in Israel they oppose and that they are otherwise unprejudiced against Jews. And the world which seems to be so disturbed by Arab refugees has not uttered a single cry about vast numbers of Jewish refugees that have been created by the Arabs. Israel is told it must compensate Arab refugees and repatriate them. Israel is also told it ought to send back to their country of origin those Jews who came into Israel since World War II. Are the Arabs ready to take back Jews into their own countries, assuming the impossible, that the Jews would consider going? Are the Arabs ready to compensate? They do not even have consideration for their fellow Arabs, let alone the Jews. They have used them rather merely as political pawns to cast aspersions upon the Jewish State. It is of interest to note that those Arab refugees who fell into Jewish hands after the Six Day War have found themselves much better off under the Israelis than they were under their own people. They live more comfortably and are employed more gainfully, and they themselves testify that it was Israeli occupation that made them feel once more that they are human beings and citizens.
 
There are times perhaps when even we Jews are overwhelmed by the propaganda we hear, and are tempted to wonder if the Arab accusations do not have some merit after all. It was so in Hitler's time, when the oft-repeated lie began to take on the appearance of truth and even many Jews began to believe it. It is so now when the Arab myths are widely circulated and give the impression that they have some basis. We must, therefore, remember —  remember and proclaim the truth. We must not let the world forget, and we must know and make known the difference between the myth and the fact.


[1] Deuteronomy 25:17-19 “Remember what Amalek did unto thee by the way as ye came forth out of Egypt; how he met thee by the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, all that were enfeebled in thy rear, when thou wast faint and weary; and he feared not God. Therefore it shall be, when the Lord thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget.”

[2] Haman is the main antagonist in the Book of Esther, who, according to the Hebrew Bible, was a vizier in the Persian empire under King Ahasuerus. In the story, Haman and his wife Zeresh instigate a plot to kill all of the Jews of ancient Persia. The plot is foiled by Queen Esther, the king's recent wife, who is herself a Jew.

[3] Muhammad Anwar El Sadat (1918 –1981) was the third President of Egypt, serving from 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers in 1981. He led Egypt in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 to regain Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had occupied since the Six-Day War of 1967. Afterwards, he engaged in negotiations with Israel, culminating in the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty; this won him and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize. The peace treaty was also one of the primary factors that led to his assassination.

[4] Hafez al-Assad (1930 – 2000) was a Syrian statesman, politician and general who was President of Syria from 1971 to 2000. He sided with the Soviet Union during the Cold War in turn for support against Israel. While he had forsaken pan-Arabism—or at least the pan-Arab concept of unifying the Arab world into one Arab nation—he did seek to make Syria the defender of Arab interest against Israel.

[5] Hussein bin Talal (1935 –1999) was King of Jordan from the abdication of his father, King Talal, in 1952, until his death. Hussein's rule extended through the Cold War and four decades of Arab–Israeli conflict. He recognized Israel in 1994, becoming the second Arab head of state to do so (after Anwar Sadat in 1978/1979).
0 Comments

The Jews and Nixon — One Year Later

10/26/1973

0 Comments

 
The confluence of several deeply troubling current events one year after President Richard Nixon's reelection caused Sidney Ballon to evaluate whether the benefits to the State of Israel were worth the liabilities of having Nixon in the White House
What is not good for America may not be good for the American Jewish community. …if we are to have a president who fancies himself to be above the law … [who] disregards basic ethical and more principles, then how can this be good for the Jewish community of America, and how can it be good for Israel?
THERE IS HARDLY ANYONE OF US who has not been emotionally drained by the events of the past few days. The attack upon Israel[1], the resignation of the vice president[2], the ongoing Watergate controversy[3], the threat of impeachment of the president, the suggestions of additional wrongdoing on his part have aroused us and angered us. The military alert yesterday[4] worried us. We feel frustrated and bewildered. We feel deceived and betrayed. One of the radio commentators a few days ago said it was all like watching a fast tennis match. The ball bounces quickly from one court to the other; our head bobs back and forth, and we can scarcely keep pace with all the action.
 
For us as Jews I think the mental and emotional strain has been greater than for anyone else. We are affected by the issues differently than non-Jews. The non-Jew is not moved as we are by the most important consideration of life and death for the State of Israel. The attack upon Israel was something that in itself was not so surprising. That the Arabs might want to lash out some day was not altogether unforeseen. But the timing was a surprise, and the strength of the Arab blow was a surprise. Israel had been overconfident, and the brevity of the Six-Day War was not equaled. The power of the Arab attack and Arab resistance to counter attack, even though now under control, was, indeed, frightening and was very costly. Israel could not afford to lose. One major defeat and Israel ceases to exist. For the Jew this was an intolerable situation — again a matter of life and death of the Jewish State. For the non-Jew all this was simply another phase of the global political competition being carried on between the Soviet Union and the United States. The reaction was inevitably more of the mind than of the heart.
 
The Jew has had a special problem also with respect to the Watergate developments and the presidential reaction. Watergate has disturbed the entire nation. At the climactic moment just after the president had fired Archibald Cox[5] and the Attorney General and his assistant had both resigned, and just before the president had yielded with regard to submitting the tapes to the court, even members of the president's own party wanted to proceed with his impeachment. The country seems to have been shaken as never before by what was considered the arrogant and high-handed action of the president, but for the Jew there were overtones to this problem unlike those which troubled the non-Jew. And the reason for the special reaction to the problem was the influence upon Jewish thinking of the Middle East War. Whatever else we may want to say about President Nixon, the Jewish community had to be pleased with his response to the plea to send help to Israel. To be sure he hesitated a day or so, but he came through in time with the sorely needed supplies and equipment that offset the Russian airlift to the Arabs. That left the Jew with a question in his mind. What deserves prior consideration? Shall the president be condemned for his Watergate maneuvers or shall he be praised for his help to Israel? There may be a few non-Jews who felt that it was inadvisable to think of impeachment while the international situation was fraught with so much peril, but even if they did so, it was not the same emotional question that it was for the Jew. For the non-Jew it was because of a logical weighing in the balance of the possibility of weakening national leadership, even if, perhaps, only temporarily, as the United States confronted the Soviet Union and the Arab world and the Middle East. For the Jew it was, as we noted a moment ago, the passionate concern for the survival of Israel. For the Jew, the conflict was, “Shall we punish Nixon, or swallow Nixon for the sake of Israel?”
 
The issue of the past week brought to mind the argument of a year ago. You will remember the division in the Jewish community just before the election. By far the majority of Jews normally vote the Democratic ticket. But now the story was that the Democratic candidate[6] might not be favorable enough to Israel, whereas Nixon was a much more reliable friend to the Jewish State. And so large numbers of Jews were switching party loyalty. They overlooked their normal political inclinations, and they overlooked the things they disliked about Nixon generally, and made their decision for him based on what they thought about his attitude toward Israel. About 35% of the Jews of the country, it is estimated voted for Nixon. We shall not debate the question of whether they were right or wrong. On the one hand you can say now they were right. He did come through in an emergency. On the other hand, you can also say that we do not really know whether the Democratic candidate might not have done the same thing, while those who voted for Nixon against their normal political convictions by so doing may also have helped to bring about the shameful Watergate crisis in our national government. You might even say that in so doing they even contributed to the Arab attack upon Israel because it is possible that this crisis deceived the Russians and the Arabs into thinking that Washington's attention had been diverted away from the Middle East, and so was a factor in the decision to attack. This of course is all speculation and cannot be proved. But right or wrong the same problem is with us today in different form. Fortunately the president has taken the pressure off the impeachment problem for the moment by changing his mind with regard to the tapes, but this may not end the matter. There are those who still think of impeachment and there are yet problems that may arise that may force the issue to the fore once again. Suppose there does come to light other evidences of wrongdoing that would justify impeachment. Suppose there is evidence of payoffs with respect to the dairy industry[7]. Suppose there was some manipulation with regard to the Russian wheat deal[8]. Suppose there is uncovered some proof of unethical procedure with regard to the $100,000 payment by Howard Hughes[9] or with regard to the purchase of the presidential estates. Suppose there are other examples of open and flagrant violation of the law. Shall we favor impeachment or shall we forgive because the president supplies Israel?
 
My immediate reaction is to answer as I believe most Jews will answer this question. In these dark days for Israel whatever tends to be good for Israel is what we want. That is emotional answer, but if we stop to think, a different way of looking at it may be worth our consideration. It may be that in the long run what is not good for America may not be good for Israel after all. What is not good for America may not be good for the American Jewish community. If we are confronted by a trend in our national government toward fascism, if we are to have a government oblivious to civil liberties with leadership concerned only with acquiring power, if we are to have a president who fancies himself to be above the law and believes that he alone knows what is best for us, if we are to have a president who thinks he has the right to conceal the facts and to lie to the public if he chooses to do so, if we have a government that believes the end justifies the means, that attempts to control the press, to practice dirty tricks, that disregards basic ethical and more principles, then how can this be good for the Jewish community of America, and how can it be good for Israel? Indeed, how can it be good for America itself and how can Jews flourish if democracy is throttled and we begin to drift slowly and unwittingly into dictatorship? Our record in fascist countries is not a good one.
 
This present administration in Washington has probably degraded the presidency to a greater extent than ever in American history. No prior administration has been accused to such a degree of immoral, unethical, and cynical practices. Other presidents have also been open to criticism at times, but no president has tried to accumulate as much personal power as the present one. If the trend he represents continues we shall bring our democracy to an end, and only if the American public is aroused and does something about it, can democracy survive. We, perhaps, cannot afford to overlook presidential wrongdoing, even if it seems Israel will benefit.
 
We Jews are, therefore, in a state of tension. Do we forgive Nixon everything if only he helps Israel or will the Jew and Israel be served best if we consider the total welfare of the United States? Each of us will have to answer for himself. The issue is not clear cut. In the meantime we may be grateful that the final decision has been postponed by giving up the tapes, and perhaps the shock of an aroused public will turn the tide and enable us to endure the problem until the next election. The total Watergate experience, as bad as it has been, may result in some good if it provokes us into a spiritual renewal, if it reminds us once again that “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,”[10] if it motivates us to a new concern for democracy and the freedoms embodied in the Constitution of our country.
 
In the Torah portion we read the story of Noah and the flood. It is much more than a myth from ancient times about a worldwide flood and a righteous man. It is a message on behalf of morality and justice. God saw the earth, we are told, and it was corrupt. It was corruption which lead to destruction. Our society, like that of Noah's time, will be destroyed if the corruption that now fills it will continue. Noah was saved because he was said to be righteous and wholehearted. Let us also cherish the ideals of righteousness and with whole heart be committed to God's moral law. That is the only way to national salvation.
 
 


[1] The Yom Kippur War, also known as the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, was a war fought by the coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria against Israel from October 6 to 25, 1973. The war began with an Arab surprise attack on Israeli positions in the Israeli-occupied territories on Yom Kippur. Both the United States and the Soviet Union initiated massive resupply efforts to their respective allies during the war, and this led to a near-confrontation between the two nuclear superpowers.

[2] On October 10, 1973, Spiro Agnew (1918 – 1996), the Vice President of the United States from 1969 to 1973 under President Richard Nixon, resigned and then pleaded no contest to criminal charges of tax evasion, part of a negotiated resolution to a scheme wherein he was accused of accepting more than $100,000 in bribes during his tenure as governor of Maryland.

[3] The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal that occurred in the United States in the 1970s as a result of the June 17, 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and President Richard Nixon's administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement. When the conspiracy was discovered and investigated by the U.S. Congress, the Nixon administration's resistance to its probes led to a constitutional crisis resolved by Nixon’s resignation August 8, 1974 more than nine months after this sermon was delivered.

[4] In the early morning of October 25, 1973, at the height of the Arab-Israeli War, the Nixon administration put U.S. military forces on higher alert — DEFCON 3. Defense Secretary James Schlesinger and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger ordered the DEFCON to deter a feared Soviet intervention in the Middle East conflict. The Nixon White House could not keep this a secret and news of the alert soon reached the national media.

[5] On October 20, 1973 President Nixon ordered U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire the top lawyer investigating the Watergate scandal, Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. Richardson had promised Congress he would not interfere with the Special Prosecutor, and, rather than disobey the President or break his promise, he resigned. President Nixon subsequently asked Richardson's second-in-command, Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, to carry out the order. He too had promised to not interfere, and also tendered his resignation. The third in command, Solicitor General Robert Bork (in 1987, to become a Ronald Reagan Supreme Court nominee who was rejected by the Senate), also planned to resign, but Richardson persuaded him not to in order to ensure proper leadership at the Department of Justice during the crisis. Bork carried out the President's order, thus completing the events generally referred to as the Saturday Night Massacre. The showdown occurred in response to Cox's insistence that Nixon comply with a court order to produce audio tapes of his conversations in the White House that could be incriminating.

[6] George Stanley McGovern (1922 –2012) was a U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party presidential nominee in the 1972 presidential election.

[7] Ralph Nader, Public Citizen Inc. and other consumer groups charged that a controversial 1971 increase in milk price supports was a payoff for early contributions to President Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign. The White House denied any connection between the milk support decision and the fact that dairy industry groups contributed $427,500 to the Nixon campaign in 1972.

[8] The "Russian wheat deal" generally refers to the July-August 1972 sale by the United States to Russia of about 440 million bushels of wheat for about $700 million. The Russians had previously bought a relatively small quantity of U.S. Agricultural Products. U.S. grain exporters benefited heavily from the deal, dividing among them a $300 million taxpayer subsidy. The U.S. General Accounting Office released a report in July of 1973 saying that the sale had been mishandled and helped push food prices up, and that taxpayers paid unnecessary subsidies. The GAO said that Russia would have paid higher prices for the grain, reducing the subsidies paid to grain companies, and that farmers did not profit from the wheat deal; only exporters did.

[9] Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. (1905 –1976) was an American business tycoon, entrepreneur, investor, aviator, aerospace engineer, inventor, filmmaker and philanthropist. During his lifetime, he was known as one of the wealthiest self-made people in the world. Hughes vowed that he would pick a pliable president. "I am determined to elect a president of our choosing this year," he wrote in one 1968 memo, "and one who will be deeply indebted and who will recognize his indebtedness." To that end Hughes donated $100,000 to Hubert Humphrey's campaign and $100,000 to Richard Nixon,
a bribe that may have led to the break-in that started the chain of events that culminated with Nixon's resignation.
 
[10] Source unknown, attributed to Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and others.
0 Comments

Rabbis Debate Mixed Marriages

1/14/1972

0 Comments

 
I have no doubt that my father's views on this controversial issue would come down in favor of what he once opposed a generation ago.  Even in that era he offered a fairly evenhanded and rational exposition of the merits of each side of the debate. In the intervening decades thinking among the Jewish community has greatly evolved providing a more ecumenical attitude toward interfaith marriages.

That said, it is still quite jarring to read my father's suggestion that mixed marriages are akin to doing “Hitler's work.” With apologies to those who find his choice of words offensive, I, nonetheless, feel compelled to include this sermon as an important component of my father philosophy of that era.
There are compelling arguments on both sides and no rabbi believes that the weight of the argument is 100% in his favor, but the majority of us do believe that there must be standards in Jewish life and that we cannot countenance an attitude that almost anything goes even in an all-Jewish marriage.
​THE ASSOCIATION OF REFORM RABBIS of New York and Vicinity had a double length meeting this past week, in the course of which several speakers presented papers directed to the question, “Shall Reform rabbis officiate at mixed marriages?”—a very delicate subject. This program was scheduled because of what happened at the last meeting of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), the national body of the Reform rabbinate. There the proposal had been made by the outgoing president that the Conference go on record as opposing mixed marriages and, being opposed, also to any of its members performing a mixed marriage. By mixed marriage or inter-marriage, another term that is used, is meant the marriage of a Jew to a non-Jew, who has not converted. If the partner to the marriage who was originally non-Jewish has converted to Judaism, then there is no problem involved. Both parties are Jewish, and it is a Jewish marriage in all respects. The question applies only when the non-Jew does not convert.
 
When this matter came up before the last conference, it was voted that no statement be passed at that time, in order to avoid hasty action. It was suggested that the matter be held over for the next conference and that in the meantime it be discussed during the year at the various regional meetings that members of the Conference hold throughout the country. And so it was done. And so it came to pass that we in this area devoted a special session to the subject this past week.
 
The question has a history. This was not the first time the matter had been brought up at a session of the Conference. In 1909 the Conference had considered the matter, and the following resolution was adopted:
The CCAR declares that mixed marriages are contrary to the tradition of the Jewish religion and should, therefore, be discouraged by the American rabbinate.
The matter was again brought up at least twice in subsequent years. There have always been those who wanted the Conference to say bluntly that a rabbi ought not to officiate at such a marriage rather than merely try to discourage. But each time, after discussion, a change was rejected and the 1909 resolution remained the official position of the Conference.[1]
 
It is interesting to note that in 1947 a committee report recommended there being no change in the Conference stand and said that:
…if the Conference were to state that no rabbi ought to officiate at a mixed marriage, it would imply that rabbis actually do officiate at a considerable number of such marriages and that we are trying to put an end to an evil situation. But that is not so. It rarely happens that one of our colleagues officiates at such a marriage. When it does happen it is under unusual circumstances. What should we do when under unusual circumstances which seem justifiable to him, one of our colleagues does officiate at a mixed marriage? Would we expel him from our conference, or in some other way discipline him? Surely it is sufficient if the Conference declares its unequivocal opposition to mixed marriages and calls upon its members to discourage them.
The question arises again, however, in the 1970s because some new changes are taking place in American society. The statement just read, that it “rarely happens that one of our colleagues officiates at such a marriage,” is no longer true, even if it were true then. There is an increasing incidence of mixed marriages and more rabbis perform them, possibly as much as a fourth or even a third of the Reform rabbinate. According to one estimate, mixed marriages have increased as the American Jewish community has become more acculturated and such marriages are less objectionable to non-Jews than they used to be. There have been increased opportunities for young people of different faiths to meet. In years gone by mixed marriages more often involved a Jewish boy and a girl of lower social and economic level, and she was generally agreeable to conversion to satisfy the boy’s family. More recently there is no difference in social and economic level, and more frequently Jewish girls are marrying non-Jewish boys. There seems to be less pressure for conversion. The non-Jew often does choose to convert but not necessarily because pressured into it. More and more, also, there is a desire on the part of young people themselves to have a religious ceremony even though there is no conversion. They do not want a civil ceremony and so many come to a rabbi. Another significant change today has been in the attitude of the Catholic Church. The church now permits mixed marriages without any prior conditions, and even welcomes other clergy to stand with a priest in performing the ceremony. This is quite different from what used to be, and it applies pressure to the rabbinate. Previously it was more or less accepted that rabbis would not perform a mixed marriage. Neither did the Catholic priests, but now, because the church has yielded, the public feels that rabbis ought to yield also. And something else seems to be happening in some places. Whereas, previously, it was the rabbi who performed a mixed marriage who was considered out of step. Today, some congregations are actually specifying to the rabbinic placement committee that they want a rabbi who will perform mixed marriages. It is not the rabbi who performs the mixed marriages who is on the defensive. It is the rabbi who does not, who is often called upon to defend his stand.
 
In view of what has just been indicated, there are some in the Conference who would like to make the Conference statement on mixed marriages a bit stronger. They want to make the fact of opposition clearer and to forbid members of the Conference to perform such ceremonies. This really would not make much difference to the individual rabbi who still wants to perform such a ceremony because the Conference has no binding authority, but it would strengthen the hand of those who do not perform the ceremony if there should be some conflict with congregations. Congregational members would understand that the rabbi’s position is not an unjustifiable rigidity on his part, but is the standard of the Reform rabbinate.
 
What is the reasoning for and against? First of all, it must be pointed out that both sides agree that it is preferable that Jews marry within the faith, and both sides are realistic enough to know that in an open society such as we presently live in a certain number of mixed marriages are inevitable.[2] Where there is frequent social contact, and our college campuses, in particular, provide such contact, then it is inevitable that such contacts lead to marriages, some of which will cross religious lines. Both sides agree that the perpetuation of the Jewish faith and the Jewish people is a desirable goal and that mixed marriages threaten this perpetuation. I think also that both sides agree that the chances for a happy marriage are greater if husband and wife come from a similar background. The disagreement is which course of action with regard to officiating best serves these purposes and to whom the rabbi has a greater responsibility, to the individuals concerned or to the Jewish people at large.
 
Those who would perform mixed marriages suggest that to say that mixed marriages are contrary to Jewish tradition is no real argument for Reform rabbis. We do go contrary to tradition in many other ways. How, therefore, can we appeal to tradition on this point. I am inclined to agree with this. The very nature of Reform is such that it is guided by tradition but not bound to it. Therefore, to say that we must do anything solely because it is traditional has no force. We have gone against tradition in other important respects, such as kashrut or the wearing of the hat at services or the use of the ketuba at a wedding and if deemed advisable we could choose to go against tradition in this matter as well. It is further suggested that we may gain more for Judaism by performing the ceremony than by refusing. The non-Jew who is willing to be married in a Jewish ceremony is already somewhat receptive to Judaism, and it may be that after marriage and after more contact with Jewish life, the non-Jew will come forward voluntarily and ask for conversion. We would be helping a couple maintain a relationship with the Jewish community rather than sending them, perhaps, into the church, for their ceremony. If conversion is demanded in advance of the ceremony, it is argued, we are taking advantage of the non-Jew by making conversion the price of the ceremony and bringing about a conversion under pressure, which in the long run may prove meaningless. It may be something ignored immediately after the ceremony because there was no sincerity in the first place. We, as rabbis, if there is a conversion, may be therefore helping someone violate his own integrity. If we refuse to marry without conversion we may be driving away a couple from Judaism who otherwise might have become part of it. Most rabbis who do perform mixed marriages do demand that a promise be made that the children will be brought up as Jews. Some do so without any conditions. But by asking that the children be brought up as Jews, the rabbis who asked for this promise feel that they are assuring Jewish survival and fulfilling their obligation to the Jewish future.
 
Rabbis who refuse to officiate at mixed marriages look at it differently. It is recognized that any individual has the right to arrange his life as he chooses. If he chooses to marry outside of the faith that is a decision the individual has a right to make, but if he does so, he must accept the consequences and not ask a rabbi to give it his blessing and thereby imply that nothing contrary to Jewish standards or Jewish interests has taken place. The rabbi is not denying marriage to such a mixed couple, only a ceremony according to a religious procedure which one of the partners to the marriage does not accept. In this country a couple may have recourse to civil marriage, and those who choose to go against their religious norms may avail themselves of it. When a rabbi performs a ceremony, he gives the impression that what he is doing is completely acceptable from a religious point of view. The function of the rabbi is to preserve Judaism and by his own life to set an example of what is best for Judaism. He ought not do what he believes in the long run is harmful to the preservation of the Jewish people. The rabbi may know that such a stand, to be realistic, will not stem the tide of mixed marriage, and he may have the utmost sympathy and understanding for individuals who find themselves in love and are impelled to enter into a mixed marriage. He knows that not every such marriage represents a loss to Judaism but he is a rabbi. He has a responsibility to Judaism in general and he must fulfill this responsibility in the manner he deems best. By asking for conversion in advance of a ceremony one does not necessarily contribute to hypocrisy. Conversion is after study and it is hoped that after studying Judaism, the non-Jew may come to a sincere acceptance. The rabbi who feels that he is fulfilling his responsibility to the future merely by asking that the children be brought up as Jews has no more assurance that this will be done sincerely than the rabbi who asks for conversion. As a matter of fact, a non-Jewish parent will surely make it psychologically, if no other way, more difficult to raise a child as a Jew than would a unified household. And surely to ask a non-Jewish groom to say to a bride or to ask a Jewish groom to say to a non-Jewish bride, "Behold, thou art consecrated unto me in accordance with the laws of Moses and Israel" is also to run the risk of hypocrisy.
 
As you are no doubt aware my own position in this matter is with those who do not perform mixed marriages. I confess to you that it is not an easy decision to make. No rabbi makes his decision as to where he will stand without deep thought, and even pain. There are compelling arguments on both sides and no rabbi believes that the weight of the argument is 100% in his favor, but the majority of us do believe that there must be standards in Jewish life and that we cannot countenance an attitude that almost anything goes even in an all-Jewish marriage. We are pained by the seeming disintegration of Jewish life in America, by the great apathy that exists among Jews with regard to their Jewishness. What Hitler failed to do under Nazism, what Russia is trying to do under communism, we are doing to ourselves in a democracy. As rabbis we feel that we cannot even indirectly seem to give it our acquiescence.
 
What kind of statement the CCAR will make at its next meeting is uncertain, but one thing is certain. The Conference is in for a very warm session.

[1] July 3, 2012  "The movement has 'moved away from the debate of whether we should or should not officiate,' said Steven Fox, chief executive of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the rabbinic arm of the Reform movement that represents 1.5 million Reform Jews in North America. 'It's part of the world we live in. The question is how do we engage these families into our synagogues,' he said. CCAR does not have statistics on how many of its 2,000 Reform rabbis in North America officiate at intermarriages, but when pressed, Rabbi Hara Person, director of CCAR Press, said it's about half."

[2] According to the General Social Survey, 15 percent of U.S. households were mixed-faith in 1988. That number rose to 25 percent by 2006, and the increase shows no signs of slowing. The American Religious Identification Survey of 2001 reported that 27 percent of Jews, 23 percent of Catholics, 39 percent of Buddhists, 18 percent of Baptists, 21 percent of Muslims and 12 percent of Mormons were then married to a spouse with a different religious identification. If you want to see what the future holds, note this: Less than a quarter of the 18- to 23-year-old respondents in the National Study of Youth and Religion think it's important to marry someone of the same faith.
 
According to calculations based on the American Religious Identification Survey of 2001, people who had been in mixed-religion marriages were three times more likely to be divorced or separated than those who were in same-religion marriages.

0 Comments

Who Is a Religious Jew?

9/29/1971

0 Comments

 
This is an important statement of Sidney Ballon’s religious values and his understanding of the place of Reform Judaism.
It is easy to say what we must do when it is precisely written down. It is more difficult to have to make decisions and to determine for ourselves what character we shall give our Jewish life.
Yom Kippur

A major question often discussed especially in the State of Israel is the question, “Who is a Jew?” However, when the Central Conference of American rabbis met in Israel 18 months ago, the president of the Conference, then Rabbi Roland Gittelsohn[1] of Boston, made the observation that,
More pressing and persistent and than the question “Who is a Jew?” is the question “Who or what is the religious Jew?”
Although Rabbi Gittelson raised this question, he did not at the moment attempt to give a full answer. He did say that Judaism must be intertwined with Jewish nationalism, that Judaism need not be interpreted in precisely the same way by every Jew, and probably mostly for the benefit of the Israeli public, that Judaism has been and must always be dynamic, developing, and growing from age to age to meet the rapid and radical change taking place in our society. But his main point was that the question is a difficult one and Jews must do a lot more thinking and searching before they come up with the answer. This morning let us try to add just a little bit to this thinking and searching.
 
In broaching the question, “Who is a religious Jew?” two opposite extremes come immediately to mind. One extreme is the attitude of the kind of Jew who stones buses on the Sabbath in Jerusalem. In his mind a religious Jew can be only one who fulfills completely the ritual rules and regulations that have come down to us from the past. There can be no deviation. To depart from the Halacha[2], from the Law of Torah, Talmud, and Shulchan Aruch[3] is to depart from the principles of Judaism, and anyone who so deviates may not be recognized as a proper Jew. Such an extremist cares not whether the deviant calls himself Reform, or Conservative, or even Modern Orthodox — he is not a good Jew, and he is even to be shunned. All too often, however, these proponents of tradition seem to overlook the fact that there are many laws which are part of Judaism and which are not ritual, but which have to do rather with the relationships between people, with concern and respect for one’s fellow man, with ethics and morals. We shall read this afternoon from the Torah an especially significant passage which culminates with the admonition, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” In the stoning of buses there would appear to be very little such love. When the Reform rabbinate met in Israel they were denounced on the floor of the Knesset[4] by one of the ultra-Orthodox rabbis, who was also a member of the Knesset. He threw a Reform prayer book to the floor in his anger, even though also in the Reform prayer book the name of God was printed. Here again it seems there was very little respect for one’s fellow man and this Rabbi was very self-righteous even though it has been reported that this same man has had some business associations with an American racketeer.
 
Unfortunately, this definition of a religious Jew as one who is faithful to the traditional ritual law is often accepted even by those who do not believe in keeping this law. Again, to use Israel as an example, many Jews there do not believe in religion at all, but they insist, nevertheless, that the only way to be religious is to be fully orthodox and to fulfill the traditional requirements. Otherwise, one must consider himself nonreligious. They cannot understand how there can be any middle way, and this is one of the reasons that liberal Judaism makes such slow progress in Israel. Israelis generally do not accept the possibility of being religious other than in orthodox terms, and since they do not want to be Orthodox, they abandon religion altogether.
 
The opposite extreme, to which I referred, is an attitude which is often expressed by non-synagogue Jews, and, perhaps, sometimes even by those who do belong to a synagogue. The religious man according to this view is one who has religion in his heart. The implication seems to be that contrary to the view which holds tradition to be everything, ritual and formalities really count for nothing. What matters is only that one’s heart be in the right place, that one is presumably good, moral, and ethical. I hear this about the heart frequently when trying to convince someone about the significance of the synagogue and the need for attendance. Also at times at a funeral when I triy to find out something about the deceased, I may be told that he did not belong to a synagogue, he was not active in anything Jewish, but, nevertheless, he was a very religious person — he had his religion in his heart.
 
A variation of this is also that “He lived by the Ten Commandments; that was his religion.” The Ten Commandments for some people are a catch-all. To live by the Commandments is a symbol of the perfect life, and if you do so, you do not need the synagogue and need not be concerned with any of the formal aspects of religion. Of course, I sometimes wonder whether the person in question really knew what  was in the Ten Commandments, because these commandments do say something about observing the Sabbath, and Sabbath observance must very definitely be considered ritualistic. I am moved to be somewhat skeptical about this type for other reasons as well. It surely is possible to live in accord with a humanistic philosophy of life and be quite moral and ethical and decent, but when there is talk about religion being in the heart, I wonder if  this is not just a euphemism for indifference to the Jewish people, whether it does not really mean that the individual did not choose to give in support of a synagogue, whether it does not really point up a lack of concern for Jewish values. Very often people pretend to be above the performance of ancient rituals, but they never fail patriotically to salute the flag. They do not question the ritual procedures of their fraternal orders or lodges. It is only the ritual of Judaism that is naïve and passé.
 
No, I do not believe the meticulous follower of Halacha is necessarily a religious Jew, but neither do I believe that the man who disparages the formalities of religion completely and emphasizes the power of his heart can be called a religious Jew. The religious Jew, I believe, stands at neither extreme but must take a stand somewhere in between, and Reform Judaism today is in search of just such an appropriate stand.
 
There are some who want to equate Reform with the religion of the heart, of which I have just spoken, but this is wrong. Because Reform did rebel against the rigidity of the tradition and did try to adapt to the times, many people think it is automatically opposed to or indifferent to rules and regulations, to rituals and ceremonies, but it is not ritual and rules as such with which Reform has quarreled, but rather with the attitude toward them that orthodoxy has had. If one regards these rituals as unyielding and unchanging because commanded by God on Sinai, then Reform dissents, but if one regards them as a guide, as a desirable norm of conduct for the Jewish people or as practices which must be capable of meaningful interpretation, subject to selection and variation, then this is the Reform point of view. But Reform does not mean to cancel them all out and to leave ourselves without any Jewish distinctiveness whatsoever.
 
To suppose that Reform is some kind of system of Jewish thinking which did away with all rules and regulations is a totally unfounded notion. In Reform Judaism there is still a religious calendar which we are bound to honor if we consider ourselves religious Jews. That is the reason we are here today. Our calendar commands it. It is the most sacred day of the year and we may not ignore it. The Sabbath is still very much a part of that calendar and the other holidays as well. The Union prayer book and the Rabbi’s Manual[5] also defined procedures of ritual which make up Reform Judaism. No one can say that Reform implies religious anarchy. It does not mean that every man may do just as he pleases. There is, indeed, room for experimentation and selectivity, but within the framework of procedure as outlined by our literature and the religious leaders of our time. It is true that much of the past has been more or less officially discarded in Reform, but this is essentially when what is involved has lost its meaning and its usefulness, and even this is not necessarily a break with the past. Change was also a principle of the past. Our teachers did not regard the Halacha as fixed or permanent. They constantly reinterpreted it according to the need. The Halacha of the Mishna[6] was based on the Halacha of the Bible, but it is not the same, and the Halacha of the Gemara[7] was based on the Halacha of the Mishna, but it is not the same. We are acting today in the true spirit of the rabbis of old when we adapt according to need. What we must remember, however, is that this change must be responsible, not haphazard. It must be improvement, not abandonment. It must enhance our Jewishness, not diminish it. Dr. Jacob Lauterbach[8], who was one of my teachers at the Hebrew Union College wrote:
The modern Halacha just as the ancient Halacha aims to preserve Israel as the priest teacher of the nations. The ancient teachers of the Halacha realize that if Israel was to accomplish this task of spreading the knowledge of God on earth, they must preserve the agent who is to do this work, they must see to it that Israel should not become submerged among the nations of the world, and we, today, whose task is to continue to do the work of the prophets and of the ancient teachers realize likewise, that in order to carry out our mission it is absolutely necessary that we preserve our Jewish religious individuality.”
Our purpose and the purpose of the ancient teachers of Jewish law is the same. Hence also our continued concern for ritual, though it may be in a different form. We still desire to preserve our Jewish religious individuality.
 
What we lack in Reform, of course, is the compulsive nature of orthodoxy. This has its advantages and disadvantages. It means, of course, there is the danger of ignoring what we do not feel absolutely compelled to do, but on the other hand it gives us the freedom to create new practices and customs, to express our faith in modern terms. It means we are not stifled by dogmatism and not pinned down to what no longer has meaning. But it leaves us with greater responsibility. It is easy to say what we must do when it is precisely written down. It is more difficult to have to make decisions and to determine for ourselves what character we shall give our Jewish life. There is a sense of responsibility needed that keeps us from abusing our freedom and neglecting everything. We should be moved to use ritual in a meaningful way to Judaize our lives, to symbolize the ideas of our faith.
 
It should hardly be necessary, but sometimes we do need to be reminded, that Reform Judaism, of course, also lays stress upon the ethical, both personal and social. We, too, have our adherents who think their religious obligations are fulfilled when the Temple is visited and their prayers are said. To define a religious Jew without reference to personal and social ethics is an impossibility. Because we disparage the so-called religion of the heart does not mean to imply that we turn away from it all together. From its very inception Reform called for a heightened emphasis on prophetic teaching with its call for integrity, social justice, and peace. I referred before to the Torah reading of the afternoon. Let me now call your attention to the Haftara reading of this morning. “Wherefore have we fasted?” the people ask. “Wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and Thou hast taken no knowledge?”[9] And the prophet answers:
Behold in the day of your fast, ye pursue your business, and exact all your labors. There has been no sincerity, no integrity. Will thou call this a fast and an acceptable day unto the Lord? Is not this the fast I have chosen, to loose the fetters of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free….Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? When thou seest the naked that thou cover him, that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?[10]
A deep social concern is at the heart of prophetic teaching, and this surely cannot be ruled out as an ingredient of Reform Judaism, and we must remember this especially when our leadership speaks up on social issues.
 
Who then is a religious Jew? We still have not defined him precisely. We still have undoubtedly left some questions open, but he is neither the fanatic inherent of tradition nor is he the indifferent scoffer at ritual. He must combine in some acceptable manner respect for the formalities of Judaism and concern for his fellow man. The Jew who shuns the ritual and the Jew who neglects the ethical are both alike disqualified from being called a religious Jew.
 
 
 


[1] Rabbi Roland B. Gittelsohn (1910-1995), a scholar on religious and governmental issues, served the Central Synagogue of Nassau County in Rockville Centre, Long Island from 1936 to 1953 and  Temple Israel in Boston from 1953 to 1977.

[2] Halacha (Hebrew: הֲלָכָה) is the collective body of Jewish religious laws derived from the Written and Oral Torah.

[3] The Shulchan Aruch (Hebrew, literally: "Set Table") with its commentaries, is the most widely accepted compilation of Jewish law ever written. It was authored in Safed, Israel, by Yosef Karo in 1563 and published in Venice two years later.

[4] The Knesset is the name for Israel's parliament, located in the capital Jerusalem.

[5] Published by the Central Conference of American Rabbis, The Rabbi's Manual contains traditional and innovative services, ceremonies and prayers for life cycle events, times of illness, conversion, and significant moments in life.

[6] Mishna (Hebrew: מִשְׁנָה, "study by repetition") is the first major written redaction of the Jewish oral traditions known as the "Oral Torah". It is also the first major work of Rabbinic literature.

[7] Gemara (גמרא noun - from Aramaic verb gamar, literally, "study") is the component of the Talmud comprising rabbinical analysis of and commentary on the Mishnah.

[8] Jacob Zallel Lauterbach (1873–1942) was an American Judaica scholar and author who served on the faculty of Hebrew Union College and composed responsa for the Reform movement in America. He specialized in Midrashic and Talmudical literature.

[9] Isaiah 58:3

[10] Isaiah 58:3-11
0 Comments

The Twenty-third Psalm

12/4/1970

0 Comments

 
This is not necessarily what I would call one of my father's greatest sermons. Nonetheless, I transcribed it and annotated it more to honor my brother who in our last conversation together asked me to open up Psalm 23 and to study it not only with him, but for some reason with our friend Rabbi Adam Stein. Even with his garbled speech, Jeffrey proclaimed repeatedly and unequivocally, “Lo eerah (I will not fear)!
My father reminds us:
Psalm 23 does not deal with the theme of death. It is rather an expression of confidence and faith in the providence and protection of God.
PSALM 23 IS ONE OF THE BEST KNOWN and best liked of the biblical psalms. If people do not know it, they, at least, know of it. It is possibly the only psalm that many people can identify by number. They may not know it well enough to recite it all by heart, but they do, at least, know its first words, "The Lord is my Shepherd." There is, nevertheless, a great deal of confusion also about this psalm. For example, I was once in a funeral Chapel, and there was a plaque on the wall with Psalm 23 written upon it, and one of the mourners expressed his surprise at finding such a thing in a Jewish funeral chapel. When I asked, “Why so?” he said The Lord's Prayer[1] had no business in a Jewish chapel! He had confused the Psalm of David from our Bible with the words of Jesus in the New Testament. Psalm 23 is such a favorite also among Christians, and he had probably heard it so often under Christian auspices, that he did not even realize it was Jewish in origin, and thought this was The Lord's Prayer. It is testimony to the kind of ignorance which exists today among our people.
 
Another erroneous assumption is that The 23rd Psalm is exclusively a funeral psalm. Many people do not like to hear it on any other occasion because it reminds them of death and funerals. The truth of the matter is that it is, indeed, used often during a funeral service, by Jews and Christians, but it by no means deals with the subject of death. It is rather an expression of deep faith. It is like the Kaddish[2] in this respect, which is also associated with death, but which makes no reference to death and is rather an expression of faith in God. The fact that the most common English translation has in it the phrase "the valley of the shadow of death" reinforces the mistaken notion, but when we analyze the psalm, as we shall do in a moment, we shall see that this phrase, as poetic as it may sound, has been questionably translated. Psalm 23 does not deal with the theme of death. It is rather an expression of confidence and faith in the providence and protection of God. As such it is appropriate to recite it in a time of mourning, but to consider it all together a death psalm is to misunderstand its true meaning.
 
Let me now refresh your minds with regard to the entire psalm. I shall read it first in the English version we have been accustomed to and then let us analyze its meaning in segments.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul; He guideth me in straight paths for His name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; Thou hast anointed my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
Now let us look at this a bit more closely. The Lord is my shepherd is an expression of complete trust. It is a phrase used elsewhere in the Psalms and Jacob also, when he blessed Joseph's sons referred to God as his shepherd. It is an expression particularly suitable to David, who was himself a shepherd and who may have written the Psalm. The Psalms are traditionally considered to be the product of David, but certainly not all of them were, and it is difficult to say which, if any. This one, however, does reflect the experience of a shepherd and could well have been.
 
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. Here is an example of a translation that needs to be changed. Want today means to desire something. The Hebrew really says, “I do not lack anything.” Years ago "want" was correct, but now the correct translation of the verse is, "The Lord is my shepherd; I lack nothing." This thought, incidentally, must have bothered the rabbis. If we are like sheep, cared for by a shepherd and lack nothing, what happens to personal initiative? Therefore, one rabbi comments and says,
Lest I think that God will bless even him who sits in idleness, Scripture reads, “The Lord, thy God, will bless thee in all the work of thy hand,” implying that when a man works, behold he is blessed, but if he does not work, he is not blessed
We continue — He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters. — Some translate refreshing waters — He restoreth my soul — some translate simply He brings me back. He leads me to refreshing waters, he brings me back. The rabbinical commentary however, liked the reference to restoring the soul. They were reminded by this phrase to a similar one from Psalm 19 with which you are familiar — the Law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul.[3] The psalmist meant that with rest and refreshing water God revived his strength, but because of the connection in the other psalm of restoring the soul with Torah, the Rabbi said that here also it was really Torah that was meant. And since the Jew had long ago forsaken his pastoral background, as he recited Psalm 23 through the years he accepted this rabbinic interpretation and understood the verse to be a declaration that God through Torah sustained and refreshed his creatures.
 
He guideth me in straight paths for His name's sake. There are some who tell us that the words translated for His name's sake are really incapable of being translated and would rather leave a blank where this phrase goes. It is, indeed, not easy to understand what is meant if we do translate for His name’s sake. It may possibly mean that God keeps us in a straight and narrow path so that the other people who see how good care God takes of us will be impressed and will think highly of our God. But others translate not straight paths but paths of righteousness or paths of mercy, and the rabbinical interpretation is that God deals with us mercifully and graciously and thus bestows favor upon us not because any merit that we have but rather for His name's sake, out of his own graciousness, for the greater glory of His own name.
 
And then comes the dramatic phrase we referred to previously. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me. The words are poetic and beautiful, but have you ever stopped to think of what they mean? The New English Bible[4] just published gives it as Even though I walk through a dark valley as death. Dr. Orlinsky[5], who is editor-in-chief of the new JPS Bible translation, tells us that the Hebrew words mean simply through a valley utterly dark. A resemblance to the Hebrew words for shadow and death caused the translation with which we are so familiar. Basically, the psalmist is saying that even though he walks in a dark valley which is dangerous because of the wild beasts or robbers that may be lurking there, he fears no evil. It is not a reference to death itself. It is an expression of utmost confidence that will protect him even as a shepherd protects his flock. The faith of the psalmist as is here expressed is complete and unconditional. Later on, as in the book of Job, there would be questions raised about evil. Though such thought disturbs the psalmist. He is confident that God protects. The rabbis who commented later on this psalm did not see it as such a simple matter. They imply that God does not always protect from evil, but their answer to the problem was that when God afflicts, his chastisements are also for the benefit of the receiver. The psalmist says Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me meaning the shepherd’s rod and staff, but the rabbis add the rod is the rod of God's chastisements and the staff is the Torah. By chastisements and Torah God comforts man. Or perhaps it is even better to accept the suggestion made that the word comfort is also one of those words that are garbled and that we should use the word direct instead. In other words, Thy rod and Thy staff, they direct me. It sounds reasonable. Or as the rabbis would interpret it Thy chastisements and Thy Torah, these are what give us a sense of direction in life and are both intended for our good. We don't solve completely the problem of good and evil in the world by such thinking, but it nevertheless is at least partially true that often the things we find burdensome are what do help us find a sense of values and to refine our character. However, this is rabbinic commentary and not implied by a literal reading of the psalm itself.
 
The psalm continues now with a change in the metaphor. God is not spoken of anymore as a shepherd. He is pictured as a gracious host. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies…. One translator suggests we read despite my enemies, which would seem to make better sense. God is a gracious host and does not cooperate with the enemy. He sustains us in spite of their desire to see us defeated. Thou hast anointed my head with oil; my cup runneth over. It was an ancient practice to anoint the body with oil and God provides all things necessary for a festive meal. And the psalmist is confident that goodness and mercy will be his lot all the days of his life and he shall dwell — where? — in the house of the Lord forever.  But what does that mean? And here's another problem. The House of the Lord is literally the Temple, but one does not dwell in the Temple forever. Or perhaps, and this is good, the house of the Lord refers to the world in general, to living in the presence of God which is everywhere. Psalm 90 speaks of the Lord as a dwelling place in all generations.[6] This may be similar. The word forever here is also a problem. Is the House of the Lord the future life? The rabbis, with their way of interpreting, take it that way. In this case forever would be a suitable word, but the Hebrew does not really say forever, after all. It says simply length of days which means a long time, but not forever. Therefore, the first interpretations are not ruled out. There is however another suggestion which says the Hebrew for House of the Lord here is possibly garbled and what is meant is, therefore, I shall live in my home for a long time to come. We cannot be altogether sure but to take it as living in God's presence seems in keeping with the mood of the psalm and that is what I prefer. Let us sum up. The 23rd Psalm is a beautiful and poetic piece, but in the version we have become accustomed to there are some inaccuracies. If we were to translate correctly we may perhaps not find the English quite so lyrical but we would gain a more logical interpretation of what the psalm says. Thus we would read:
The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in grassy meadows. He leads me to refreshing waters. He restores my soul. He guides me in right paths for His name's sake. Even though I walk through a dark valley, I do not fear evil for you are with me. Your rod and staff — they direct me. You set the table before me despite my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup is filled to overflowing. Surely goodness and loving kindness shall attend me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the House of the Lord for many days.
There is no doubt that when we create a new translation some of the beauty and poetry of the old English translation is lost, but what do you want — good poetry or good sense?


[1] The Lord's Prayer is a venerated Christian prayer that, according to the New Testament, was taught by Jesus to his disciples. There are several versions, the following being one of the most popular: “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.”

[2] Kaddish is a hymn of praises to God found in the Jewish prayer service, the central theme of which is the magnification and sanctification of God's name. The term "Kaddish" is often used to refer specifically to "The Mourner's Kaddish", said as part of the mourning rituals in Judaism in prayer services, funerals, and memorials.
 

[3] In returning the Torah to the Ark during the Shabbat morning service, on p. 149 of the Union Prayer Book in use at the time, the Reader would recite: “The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing in the heart; the judgments of the Lord are true; they are righteous altogether. Behold, a good doctrine has been given unto you; forsake it not.”

[4] The New English Bible was a translation undertaken by the major Protestant churches of the British Isles. Scholars translated from the best Hebrew and Greek texts, aiming to present the full meaning of the original in clear and natural modern English. The translation was published jointly by the University Presses of Cambridge and Oxford.

[5] Harry M. Orlinsky (1908 –1992) was the editor-in-chief of the New Jewish Publication Society (NJPS) translation of the Torah (1962). He was also instrumental in helping to get The Prophets (1978) and The Writings (1982) published as well. Orlinsky helped move the translation of the Bible away from the literalism of the Kings James Version to the exegesis that was the hallmark of JPS’s 1917 translation and Orlinsky’s earlier translation work.

[6] Psalm 90:1
0 Comments

Judaism & Ecology

10/23/1970

0 Comments

 
1970 was the dawn of the environmental movement in the United States and the world at large. My father uses the story of creation to remind us of the gift that was entrusted to mankind as stewards of the Earth. He sees our failure to take care of the planet as a lack of social responsibility.
We got into this state because we failed to realize the effect of our advanced technology, but what we sometimes fail to realize, however, is that this whole question of the degradation of our environment is…perhaps, even more significantly a question of values.
THIS IS THE WEEK WHEN WE BEGIN AGAIN to read the Torah from its very beginning[1] — and as was alluded to in the brief excerpt that we read a few moments ago, the Torah begins by speaking to us of the creation of the world. The concept of creation that we are given by the Torah is that the world is the handiwork of God. The Torah has no uncertainty about the beginning of this planet or of the beginning of life. It states very positively that the world was created from nothingness by the divine command, and that God also placed upon it the various forms of life that exist, and that the last form of life to be created was man who was considered the highest form of life and who was commanded to populate the earth and to rule over the earth and all that is therein.[2]
 
Throughout the centuries it has been generally accepted that man was, indeed, the highest and most intelligent form of life and that he did, indeed, have the capacity to rule over the earth. It is only quite recently that we have begun to have our doubts.[3]  It is not only that man does not get along with his fellow man that is the problem. That is after all an old story. That problem was foreseen even in these very first chapters of the Torah in the story of Cain and Abel.[4] From the very beginning we have seen how man could be cruel to his fellow man, but what is comparatively a new development is that we have become aware that man does not seem able or does not seem to be willing to take care of the world itself in a proper manner, and that man is abusing the planet and may perhaps even ultimately render it unfit for habitation and choke out his own life by his foolish ways.
 
Suddenly the word ecology has become important to our vocabulary. We have become aware that the dominion over nature, which the Torah tells us that God gave to man at the very beginning, is something that can end in disaster. God, we are told, looked upon the world which he created and he found that it was good, but then he turned it over to man and he did not realize that perhaps this was not so good.
 
What has been happening? A new pamphlet entitled The Crisis of Ecology—Judaism and the Environment has just been published by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. It was written by Albert Vorspan[5] and is intended to be a supplement to his book used in religious school classes entitled Jewish Values and Social Crisis. This pamphlet begins with a mock obituary notice written by a student at the University of Illinois as follows:
​
Michigan, Lake.[6] Memorial services for Lake Michigan will not be held as such; however, visitation will remain in effect indefinitely. The lake, aged 23,031, died recently after many years of abuse, stemming primarily from pollution. The lake, once a popular sports and recreation area for millions of people, is survived by the Lakes Superior and Huron. Lake Michigan was preceded in death by Lakes Erie and Ontario
This sounds humorous, of course, and it might be funny if it were not so tragic and if it were not part of a greater picture of deterioration in our own environment which does, indeed, threaten the survival of mankind in the not too distant future.
 
The pamphlet, Judaism and the Environment, goes on to point out a few more of the disastrous things that have been happening such as the fact that the State of California is suffering from a constant increase of nitrogen acid in the air which could eventually filter out all sunlight, the fact that Lake Erie is so polluted that there is even the fear that it might catch on fire; the fact that Santa Barbara's beautiful beaches have been so damaged by oil leakage that the beaches and all fish and wildlife in the area have been tremendously damaged; the fact that more than 140 million tons of smoke and noxious fumes are belched into the air over the United States in a year; 7 million automobiles are discarded, 20 million tons of paper, 48 billion cans, 28 million bottles and jars; 50 trillion tons of hot water bearing various kinds of acids and muck are poured into our rivers and other waters, and even more. Insecticides have penetrated virtually the entire fish and animal population of the world. And it might also have mentioned that we, in this area, are also suffering constantly from the air pollution in New York City which is seldom at a satisfactory level; and we read regularly of the industrial pollution of the shoreline of Long Island, and the horrible state of the Hudson River, and so on.
 
What a mess we are making of this world that God saw was good! We got into this state because we failed to realize the effect of our advanced technology. But what we sometimes fail to realize, however, is that this whole question of the degradation of our environment is not merely a technological issue. It is not merely a question of how do we prevent the pollution that is taking place. It is, perhaps, even more significantly a question of values. Religious and theological and moral questions are also involved here. Vorspan puts it very meaningfully. What is man? Is he inherently greedy? What is man's relationship to nature? Has God endowed man with dominion over nature? Is competition or cooperation the nature of man's relationship to man? What does it mean to be human? How can human life be made precious once again in an age of onrushing technology and crushing population pressures?
 
The question might well be raised whether the Torah reading tonight does or does not sanction what man has been doing. We have read,
Be fruitful and multiply and populate the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the heavens and over all living things on earth.[7] 
It seems to imply that man is to be the master and that he is given the authority to do as he well pleases with the natural world that God has put at his disposal. This is not, however, how Judaism has interpreted these words. Against the statement that man has dominion over all must be balanced the words of the psalmist, "The Earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof; the world and all that is therein."[8] Man has power but it is God's world nevertheless, and man is responsible to God for what he does with it. The prayerbook reads, "We are the stewards of what we possess." This applies to nature as well. We are the stewards of the natural world, and we have no license to slaughter its creatures indiscriminately or to abuse the environment. Man, as far as Judaism is concerned, has a social responsibility.
 
The rabbis offer a number of statements in this vein. Here is one that should interest our armed force in Vietnam as well as those lumber companies who thoughtlessly denude our forests.
When you besiege a city, you shall not destroy the trees by wielding an ax against them, for is the tree of the field a man that it should be besieged?[9]
That would seem to object to a scorched earth policy.[10] We read also:
Woe to the man who stands on earth and does not see what he sees, for in every drop of water in the sea and every grain of dust in the earth have I created its own image... Of everything God created, nothing was created in vain, not even the things you may think unnecessary such as spiders, frogs or snakes... Man was not created until the sixth day so that if his pride should govern him, it could be said, “Even the tiniest flea preceded you in creation...."[11]
Also another statement most pertinent today:
When God created man he showed him everything in the Garden of Eden and said to him: "See my work, how good it is. Know that everything which I have created, I have created for you. And now take care, lest you spoil and destroy my world, for if you spoil and destroy it, no one will rebuild it after you."
It is almost as if the rabbis foresaw the problem of today and were trying to influence us with regard to it, and remind us that our dominion is not the right to run wild, but is power to be used with intelligence.
 
Much of our ecological problem today is due to the fact that each industry thinks in terms of its own selfish interests and there is a blindness to the welfare of the group or society as a whole. A utility that wants a power plant will think only of its own interests in the production of power. A factory that produces harmful waste material will think only of how it can most cheaply and easily dispose of it by dumping it into the river. A builder that wants to develop an area will not concern himself about wildlife or centuries old trees. Examples could be multiplied. Judaism believes in freedom of action but not in that way. The greedy were condemned by the prophet Isaiah when he spoke up against those who "join house to house and field to field and are unconcerned about their fellow man."[12] You will recall there was even a provision for a sabbatical year for the ground. Once in seven years the ground was not to be tilled or sown[13] lest it be drained of its fruitfulness by overproduction. The individual would seem to be the loser by this rule but it was thought that in the long run society as a whole would benefit.
 
The rabbis called not only for social responsibility, but for reverence for all of nature which was God's creation. “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork,"[14] sang the psalmist. Nature reflected God's majesty and man was to act accordingly in his relationship to nature. In fact, man was to act in concert with nature in giving homage to God, if we may again quote the psalmist:
​Praise the Lord. Praise Him sun and moon. Praise Him all you shining stars... Mountains and all hills and all cedars. Beast and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds... Kings of the earth and all peoples... Young men and maidens together, old men and children.[15]
Man and beast and inanimate nature altogether are called upon to pay their homage to God. And man is hardly fulfilling this ideal when he destroys the beauty of nature and is careless with respect to the life that is part of nature both wildlife and human.
 
A major problem in curing the situation that now prevails is the cost which would, indeed, be astronomical for many years. Some experts say we need to spend about $25 billion a year if we want to reverse the trend. But what is perhaps more significant than the tremendous cost is the need of recapturing our sense of values. We need an economic system that will control the greed that now makes for pollution. We need less rugged individualism and more cooperation. We need again to recapture a reverence for life and a sense of awe as we confront nature. We need a reaffirmation of the biblical concept of social responsibility. Technology and money can solve many problems, but only if there are also the will and the motivation to do so. Man who was given dominion over all nature according to the Bible and who has indeed asserted his dominion in so many magnificent ways, is now challenged to discipline his powers and to apply his intellectual resources not to the shortsighted accumulation of material benefits that tend ultimately to destroy him, but rather to the farsighted consideration of the problem of his own survival.

[1] Simchat Torah, lit., "Rejoicing of Torah") is a Jewish holiday that celebrates and marks the conclusion of the annual cycle of public Torah readings, and the beginning of a new cycle. It follows immediately after the festival of Sukkot in the month of Tishrei (occurring in mid-September to early October on the Gregorian calendar).

[2] Genesis 1:28 “And God blessed them; and God said unto them: 'Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth.'  And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; swarm in the earth, and multiply therein.'”

[3] Spurred by a devastating oil spill on the beaches of Santa Barbara, and by the Cuyahoga River in Ohio catching fire, 1970 became the year the environmental movement really took off and began to have an impact on our national policy and our daily lives. The first Earth Day took place on April 22, 1970.

[4] Genesis 4:1-8 “…And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.”
 
[5] Albert Vorspan (born 1924) is an author and long-time leader of Reform Judaism. He is director emeritus of the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism.

[6] During the 1970's, the use of the Great Lakes as a disposal site for agricultural, industrial and domestic wastes became an increasingly widespread concern due to detrimental effects on fish and wildlife, and the potentially adverse effects on human health.
 
[7] Genesis 1:28

[8] Psalm 24:1

[9] Deuteronomy 20:19

[10] A scorched earth policy is a military strategy which involves destroying anything that might be useful to the enemy while advancing through or withdrawing from an area. Throughout the 1960s, the US employed herbicides (chiefly Agent Orange), as a part of its herbicidal warfare program Trail Dust to destroy crops and foliage in order to expose possible enemy hideouts. Agent Blue was used on rice fields to deny food to the Vietcong. Napalm was also extensively used for such purposes.

[11] Sanhedrin 38a

[12] Isaiah 5:8 "Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no room, and ye be made to dwell alone in the midst of the land!"

[13] Exodus 23:10 “And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and gather in the increase thereof; but the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie fallow….”

[14] Psalm 19:2

[15] Psalm 148

 
0 Comments

The Mets and the Moratorium

10/17/1969

0 Comments

 
I can only imagine the glee with which my father came up with his sermon topic for this particular week in October 1969. To look at the day’s events and find the common thread between the unpredictable victory of the New York Mets and the unprecedented demonstration of antiwar sentiment evidenced in the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam reflected his understated sense of humor as well as his serious concern for the moral fiber of the country.
The pent-up emotions which the country feels, therefore, broke out … in … the Vietnam Moratorium. And if anything was more amazing than the “Amazin’ Mets” it was the amazing moratorium.
​

IN THE PAST FEW DAYS TWO EVENTS COMPETED for public interest and produced tremendous outpourings of public emotion and sentiment. The uniqueness of these events and their impact on almost the whole country, and especially upon almost everyone who lives in and around this metropolitan area, justifies, I believe, my postponement of the topic originally announced for this evening so that I may make a few remarks which might be entitled, if I need a subject title, as The Mets[1] and The Moratorium[2]. At first glance it might seem that these two items are vastly different from each other, so tremendously different in their significance that there could not possibly be any relationship between them, and perhaps you will say I am, indeed, straining by linking them together, but the dramatic climax to the efforts of what has been called a team of destiny and the unprecedented outpouring of individuals from coast-to-coast on behalf of the Vietnam Moratorium did at least come together in time. Both happenings alike have left ever so many people filled with amazement and surprise, and I think that we may find something else they share in common.
 
First of all, a word about the Mets. Not everyone is a sports fan, and my own mild interest is limited to baseball, but I think everyone has paid at least a little bit of attention this past week, if not before, to the victories the Mets have achieved. The mere fact that any rabbi might want to mention them in a Friday evening sermon is in itself proof that they must have done something unusual. Here was a team that last year was among the worst.[3] This year it was expected to be a bit better, but still was rated only a 100 to 1 chance to win a pennant, and yet it made it all the way to number one. No one on the team, except perhaps two of the pitchers, had been considered to be a star performer, yet it was able to win out in its division and in the playoffs,[4] and in the World Series over a team that was considered unbeatable. How did it happen? I think there was a clue as to how it happened about two or three weeks ago one day when they were playing the St. Louis Cardinals, and they were still counting down the magic numbers. Perhaps some of you will remember the game in which the Cardinal pitcher[5] set a new baseball record by striking out the Mets 19 times, but the Mets won the game nevertheless on a home run by Swoboda.[6] What I found interesting about this was the comments made after the game by the Cardinal pitcher and the Met home run hitter. The Cardinal pitcher was asked how he felt about losing it after such a great pitching performance, and his reply was something to the effect that he would rather win, but losing did not disturb him too much. He had the record, and win or lose they could not take it away from him. He was quite satisfied with himself for having struck out the 19th man. When Swoboda, on the other hand, was asked to comment on his home run, he said all he could think about was that he wished he were already in the dugout instead of running the bases, because he wanted to share together with his teammates the delicious moment when they were taking the lead in the game. He did not like being out there running alone. And there is the key to success. In one case there was a selfish individual concern. In the other there was no individual pride, but only a feeling of being part of the team. And I suspect it was the wonderful team spirit that brought the Mets their victory when perhaps individual talent might not have carried them so far.
 
There is a bit of a moral in this incident about how much individuals can accomplish when they cooperate and act together, but that is not really the main point to be made. What was of interest was not merely that the Mets won, but the reaction of New Yorkers to their winning. After all, sports are fun, and what happened with the Mets was dramatic and perhaps more fun than usual, but how important in the scheme of things is it after all, and what difference would it make if the Mets had lost or even if they were the same old Mets as before? Why should New York have followed the progress of the Mets so nervously? Why should they have torn up the stadium after the playoffs and after the Series and filled the streets of Manhattan with paper as if there had been a tickertape parade? The players are, after all, professionals reaping the monetary rewards involved, and what does it benefit us if they win?
 
I think it was more than baseball that was involved. I think New York was reacting not only to the Mets, but to the problems of the day — to the very unhappy political and social situation in which the whole country finds itself. New Yorkers and perhaps people all over were longing for some fun, for a lighter touch. We are so tired today of racial conflict. We are so concerned today about our young people. We feel beaten down by the rising cost of living and the effects of inflation. And we especially have had our fill of the Vietnam War. This, more than any other problem, worries us and depresses us and pricks our conscience as Americans. I think the Met-mania was a temporary release, a momentary conquest of our frustrations. It was a chance to forget for a few happy and delirious moments the serious problems that the television newscasts constantly remind us about, and to indulge in the fantasy, even if briefly, that all is well and life is a pleasant game. And this, perhaps, is what the Mets have in common with the Moratorium. The public enthusiasm for the Mets was also to some extent a product of our times, a symptom of our distress. It was an escape valve for the emotional pressure we have been feeling.
 
Baseball, however, can provide a pleasant release, but it obviously does not solve the social problem. The pent-up emotions which the country feels, therefore, broke out also in a more constructive way — the Vietnam Moratorium. And if anything was more amazing than the “Amazin’ Mets” it was the amazing moratorium. To think that an idea thought up for students on the campus could spread to such an extent and involve so many hundreds of thousands of people on campus and off, ordinary citizens and political figures of prominence as well! A few weeks ago the odds would have been more than 100 to 1 that such a widespread, vociferous, but peaceful demonstration could have taken place! It can only be that the weariness with the war and the discontent and feelings of guilt that it has aroused among us are much more deep-seated than the Administration in Washington and some other people are ready to believe, that even though we have our fun with sports there is a gnawing feeling of despair within us that we can not altogether escape.
 
Of course, there are differences of opinion with regard to the Moratorium. It does not represent the protest of the entire American people. Arguments pro and con have been given, arguments on both sides which merit consideration. In the past few days, I am sure, you have heard them and read them in abundance, and I do not propose to review them again, but when all is said and done, it is my feeling that this protest is inevitable and right.
 
When the history of this period is written sometime in the future, I think that these years of our involvement in Vietnam will prove to be the most embarrassing and disgraceful period in American history. We have in the course of the past several years lent all our strength and all our prestige to the support of dictatorship and corruption. We have acquiesced in the imprisonment of those who dared to voice reasonable opposition to these high-handed political leaders in Vietnam. We have helped to bring death and destruction to Vietnam and have devoured our own young. We have let ourselves be dominated by the military minds in our own country, and have failed to pursue opportunities of peace which have presented themselves in the past. We have squandered our resources in Vietnam and neglected to deal with the social and moral decay here at home.

​It took time for all of this to seep into the awareness of the American people at large, although there were voices of warning from the very beginning. Now that we are more aware, it is unrealistic to expect the people to be silent. Both our personal well-being and conscience are involved, and the counsel that we must be patient and wait is no longer acceptable. The American people disposed of one president in office because he failed to end the war in Vietnam.[7] They elected another president[8] who said he had a plan. This president was given a time of grace to make known his plan and to act upon it. But so far we have nothing to show that his direction is any different than his predecessors. All that he has done is take small steps which he naïvely has thought would silence his critics, but has done nothing to give us any confidence that we are really on the way to peace. We are now offered the hope that the war will be over in three more years, and we are abruptly dismissed with the declaration that he will be utterly unaffected by what the people of the country have to say. Under such circumstances it is inevitable that the voice of the people will be raised and our young men whose lives are at stake in this cannot be blamed for their impatience and their protest. And to say that those who do protest are unpatriotic is the most provoking aspect of it all. It is to avoid the issue and to attempt to muzzle the public with a wave of the flag. It can be said with perhaps even more logic that those who have cost us our honor among the nations and who allow themselves to be dictated to by the government in Saigon are the ones who are lacking in patriotism.
 
The Administration may belittle the Moratorium and suggest that it will not be influenced by it, but the cry for peace is coming from all parts of the country and is drawing many different types of people together. It cannot and must not be ignored. And as Tom Seaver[9] has said, "if the Mets can win the Series, the United States can end the war." Let us hope and pray that his political predictions are as good as his pitching.


[1] The 1969 New York Mets or the "Miracle Mets" as they became known had never had even a winning record in their previous seven seasons as a Major League Baseball franchise, yet, on October 16, 1969 they clinched the World Series in five games, beating the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles who were considered to be one of the finest teams ever.

[2] The Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam was a massive demonstration and teach-in across the United States against the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. It took place on October 15, 1969, followed a month later by large Moratorium Marches in Washington and San Francisco (where, incidentally. I met my wife, Debbie, then a UCLA student).

[3] The 1968 New York Mets season was the 7th regular season for the Mets. They went 73–89 and finished 9th in the National League, one game ahead of the 10th place Houston Astros. This was the last year before the leagues created smaller regional divisions.

[4] The 1969 National League Championship Series was a best-of-five match-up between the East Division champion New York Mets and the West Division champion Atlanta Braves. The Mets defeated the Braves three games to none. Nolan Ryan was the winning pitcher of game 3.

[5] September 15, 1969, Steve Carlton set the major league record with 19 strikeouts in a nine-inning game. The Mets won the game on a pair of 2-run homers by Ron Swoboda in a 4-3 Mets victory in St. Louis.

[6] Outfielder, Ron Swoboda had a few flashes of brilliance in an otherwise unremarkable career.

[7] In 1968 American public opinion had turned against the war effort. Demoralization about the war was everywhere; 26% then approved of Johnson's handling of Vietnam; 63% disapproved. On March 31 Johnson announced to the nation an immediate unilateral halt to the bombing of North Vietnam and announced his intention to seek out peace talks anywhere at anytime. At the close of his speech he also famously announced, "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President".

[8] Richard Milhous Nixon (1913 – 1994) was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974 when he became the only U.S. president to resign the office. It would 1973 before U>S. troops were withdrawn from Vietnam and 1975 before the North Vietnamese conquered the South Vietnamese who continued fighting.

[9] George Thomas "Tom" Seaver (born 1944). In 1969, on their way to the Mets’ first World Series championship, Seaver won a league-high 25 games and his first National League Cy Young Award. Seaver was the winning pitcher of Game 4 of the Series on Wednesday, October 15, 1969, the day of the Moratorium. Controversy arose when Seaver's photograph was used on some anti-war Moratorium Day literature being distributed before the game outside of Shea Stadium in Flushing, New York. Seaver claimed that his picture was used without his knowledge or approval.
 
0 Comments

Birth Control

11/22/1968

0 Comments

 
It's understandable, with the burgeoning sexual revolution on college campuses in the 1960s, and after Pope Paul VI issued an encyclical on the subject of birth control earlier in 1968, that my father would give a Jewish perspective on the subject. That he did so by dusting off and revising a sermon originally given in 1951 in Lexington, Kentucky is more perplexing — it is unclear what would have motivated him to speak on what must have been a sensitive topic in the South in that era. Regardless, even with some editing in the 1968 version, it's clear that the opinions expressed herein preceded full awareness of the nascent Women's Liberation movement in that the sexual biases of the Torah and the ancient rabbis are reported without apology. On the other hand, that anachronistic rhetoric notwithstanding, one could argue that Jewish law has always been relatively progressive in regard to birth control.
Most Jewish leaders today see themselves as acting in accord with Jewish tradition when they are advocates of Planned Parenthood and birth control. Like the opponents of birth control, they do stress the importance of the family unit, but they feel the welfare and happiness of that family unit is best served by intelligently determining the size and spacing of the members of that unit. 
WE LIVE NOW IN A TIME OF TENSION AND REBELLION. One of the most surprising rebellions is what we see within the Catholic Church. After long consideration Pope Paul finally issued a statement of Church policy with regard to birth control, and it has not been to the liking of many Catholics both laymen and priests. The opinion of the Church is that "each and every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life."[1] Thus the implication is that no artificial means of birth control is permissible. This attitude is not really surprising if we remember the traditional attitude of the Church toward marriage in general. According to Paul the Apostle[2] celibacy was preferable, but marriage was acceptable only as a concession to human weakness. "It is better to marry than to burn with passion[3],” was his statement. Within such a context the physical relationship between the sexes would more likely be considered justifiable only if associated at least with procreation, and its fulfillment out of any other motive such as a physical need or as an expression of love would not be considered commendable.
 
What about Judaism in this respect? Judaism's attitude toward marriage has been quite the opposite. It has never considered celibacy a virtue and has regarded marriage as highly desirable because divinely ordained. We read in the Bible in the creation story, "it is not good for man to be alone, I will make him a helper fit for him."[4] "A man who has no wife is not a complete man," said the rabbis. Marriage is a highly desirable relationship and even the relationship between God and Israel is often described in terms of a marriage. This is not to say, however, that Judaism therefore wholeheartedly favors birth control because of its favorable attitude toward the marital relationship, but it creates a more favorable setting. Actually, there has, in the course of the years, been some difference of opinion in Jewish circles with both opponents and proponents of birth control going back to the classic Jewish sources to support their arguments and giving varying interpretations to passages of the Bible and Talmud which are considered to have some bearing on the question. The most significant of these passages is the biblical commandment in Genesis to man "to be fruitful and multiply."[5] This is the very first commandment in the Bible and throughout the ages it has been considered by Judaism as one of the prime duties of man to continue the human race by leaving offspring behind them. The Shulchan Aruch[6], most honored code of traditional law, states that,
Every man is obligated to marry in order to be fruitful and multiply, and he who does not fulfill this obligation is as though he were spilling blood and diminishing the Divine image, and he causes the Divine presence to part from Israel.
Other passages also are used by the opponents of birth control, such as the story of Onan[7] in the book of Genesis and a rabbinic comment in the Talmud which is interpreted to mean that the generation of the flood was destroyed among other reasons for their practice of preventing conception.
 
Many Jewish opponents of birth control, however, do at least concede that Talmudic authorities have permitted it when the life and health of the woman or child is endangered and also in cases where previous children of the marriage have been born with mental or physical problems. According to Rabbi Immanuel Jacobovitz,[8] who is noted for his book on Jewish medical ethics,
…the opinions for and against the use of some artificial methods to prevent conception where danger to life may otherwise ensue are about equally balanced​
Of course, those who did not favor the practice of birth control where health was concerned would certainly not favorite it when health was no problem. Thus there has been indeed some Jewish opinion that would agree with the point of view of the Church.
 
However, perhaps the best statement on the Jewish view has been made by a now deceased teacher of Talmud at the Hebrew Union College, who some years ago examined the question at the request of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and it was his finding that on the basis of his study of the classic sources that birth control was by no means contrary to the Jewish tradition. He points out — and anyone familiar with Hebrew can verify this easily — that some of the passages used by the opponents have not been given a proper interpretation and are really irrelevant to the question.
 
To understand the Jewish position fully, however, we must be careful to distinguish between planning parenthood or limiting the number of offspring, and absolute prevention of any offspring altogether. The Jewish point of view definitely does not sanction childless marriages when it is physically possible to have children. To this extent the principle which is founded on the biblical commandment "be fruitful and multiply" is accepted both by those who support as well as oppose birth control on the basis of Jewish tradition. In Jewish thought marriage is a consecrated union of a man and woman that must find its fulfillment, whenever possible, in having children and reproducing the race. The bearing of children is a moral and religious obligation. There are, however, some exceptions stated in rabbinic law. When the woman is in capable, when it might endanger her life, and one more — a man may delay marriage or remain unmarried altogether if he is engaged in some noble or moral pursuit like the study of Torah. If he is so engaged in study and he fears that having a family would interfere with his studies, then he may remain a bachelor, or if he marries, he may refrain from having children. And in this event, the rabbis preferred that he marry, even if he does not have children, rather than to suffer ungratified desires.
 
The rabbis did not glorify total abstinence. From the rabbinic point of view this was wrong. They were in accord with modern psychological teachings. They recognized the significance of the sex impulse in man, and they favored a normal marriage for every man even if the basic purpose of rearing children could not be achieved. Marriage was not an inevitable concession to the flesh as the Catholic attitude has it, and they did not look askance at the sexual relationship.
 
Although there was an obligation to have children, in Jewish thinking that obligation has been fulfilled when a couple has reproduced a boy and a girl in their family. The Shulchan Aruch says, ​
When a man has a boy and the girl, he has fulfilled the commandment to be fruitful and multiply. Then there no longer remains any moral compulsion to bring more children into the world.
Although the rabbis feel it is desirable to have more children, nevertheless, there is no obligation to do so and there is nothing immoral about preventing further conception, as long as husband and wife both agree on the matter.
 
In Dr. Lauterbach’s[9] article several items of interest with regard to birth control are noted. He points out that several cases are mentioned in rabbinic literature when the practice of birth control was even mandatory. The medical facts upon which the law was based were not always as we understand them today, but the principle behind them is what is of interest. When there is danger of harm to the wife or what the rabbis considered danger either to an infant already born or yet unborn, then birth control was mandatory. Other cases are mentioned where the matter is optional and Dr. Lauterbach concludes from these facts that there is no difference in principle between what the rabbis had in mind and in practicing birth control today to protect the health of the wife or to protect children today from the economic difficulties that are inherent in families with large numbers of children. Most Jewish leaders today see themselves as acting in accord with Jewish tradition when they are advocates of Planned Parenthood[10] and birth control. Like the opponents of birth control, they do stress the importance of the family unit, but they feel the welfare and happiness of that family unit is best served by intelligently determining the size and spacing of the members of that unit. They see no difference between the Talmudic examples of protection for the mother and children when health is involved in the protection that is needed today from poverty, overcrowding, and other environmental difficulties. Opponents of birth control speak of violating the will of God. But proponents of birth control point to the fact that high birth rates bring high infant mortality rates which inflicts suffering and the danger of infectious diseases. And they believe it is the will of God who gave man intelligence that man should use his intelligence with relation to his own creative powers just as he is expected to use in relationship to the powers of nature. In days gone past it was argued that many of the human inventions were contrary to the will of God. God did not want men to travel at such great speeds and so on. And the argument against birth control is considered just as relevant.
 
The CCAR is on record as follows:
We recognize the need of exercising great caution in dealing with the delicate problem of birth regulation in view of the widespread disregard of the old sanctions affecting the institution of marriage and the family. We honestly desire to guard against playing into the hands of those who would undermine the sanctity of these time-honored institutions through reckless notions and practices. We are especially mindful of the noble tradition obtaining among the Jewish people with respect to the holiness of domestic relations. But at the same time we are keenly aware of the many serious evils caused by a lack of birth regulation among those who by reason of lack of health or of a reasonable measure of economic resources or of intelligence or of all of these, are prevented from giving to their children that worthy heritage to which all children are entitled. We therefore urge the recognition of the importance of intelligent birth regulation as one of the methods of coping with social problems.
The Rabbinical Assembly,[11] the Conservative group, has spoken out even more strongly:
Careful study and observation have convinced us that birth control is a valuable method for overcoming some of the obstacles that prevent the proper functioning of the family under present conditions. Hence we urge the passage of the legislation by the Congress of the United States and the state legislatures to permit the dissemination of contraceptive information by responsible medical agencies. We maintain that proper education in contraception and birth control will not destroy, but rather enhance the spiritual values inherent in the family and will make for the advancement of human happiness and welfare.
So often it has happened that traditional Jewish teaching with regard to certain principles have found their justification in that they blend with modern psychological knowledge and sociological considerations. In this matter also I think we may pride ourselves that even traditionally our approach to the problem has left the door open for reasoning that is enlightened and humane. I think it is unfortunate in the extreme that such a powerful influence as the Catholic Church does not see it in the same light that we do.


[1] Humanae vitae (Latin Of Human Life) is an encyclical written by Pope Paul VI and issued on July 25, 1968. Subtitled On the Regulation of Birth, it re-affirms the orthodox teaching of the Catholic Church regarding married love, responsible parenthood, and the continued rejection of most forms of birth control.

[2] Paul the Apostle (c. 5 – c. 67), originally known as Saul of Tarsus, was an apostle (though not one of the Twelve Apostles) who taught the gospel of Christ to the first-century world. Paul took advantage of his status as both a Jew and a Roman citizen to minister to both Jewish and Roman audiences.

[3] 1 Corinthians 7-9: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.  But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. … Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all of you were as I am. … Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.”

[4] Genesis 2:18

[5] Genesis 1:28

[6] Authored in Safed, Israel by Yosef Karo in 1563 and published in Venice two years later, the Shulchan Aruch, together with its commentaries, it is the most widely accepted compilation of Jewish law ever written.

[7] Genesis 38:3-10 Onan was a minor Biblical figure. After Onan's older brother Er was slain by God, his father Judah told him to fulfill his duty as a brother-in-law (levirate marriage) to Tamar, by giving her offspring. When Onan had sex with Tamar, he withdrew before climax and "spilled his seed on the ground", since any child born would not legally be considered his heir. God slew Onan in retribution for being "evil in the sight of the Lord" through being unwilling to father a child by his widowed sister-in-law. This suggests how important it was for a woman to conceive and how objectionable it was for Onan to practice this form of birth control.

[8] Immanuel Jakobovits, Baron Jakobovits (1921 – 1999) was the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth from 1967 to 1991. He was regarded as an authority in medical ethics from a Jewish standpoint.

[9] Jacob Zallel Lauterbach (1873–1942) was an American Judaica scholar and author who served on the faculty of Hebrew Union College and composed responsa for the Reform movement in America. Among his scholarly publications was "Talmudic-rabbinic view on birth control" [A responsum] (1927), C.C.A.R. Yearbook 37:369–384.

[10] Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), usually referred to simply as Planned Parenthood, is a non-profit organization that directly provides a variety of reproductive health services, is involved in sexual education efforts, contributes to research in reproductive technology, and engages in legal and political efforts aimed at protecting and expanding reproductive rights.

[11] The Rabbinical Assembly (RA) is the international association of Conservative rabbis around the world.
 
 
0 Comments

Salute to Denmark and Sweden

10/18/1968

0 Comments

 
This sermon marks the 25th anniversary of the rescue of thousands of Danish Jews from Nazi deportation and probable extermination in World War II. In noting how few people came to the aid of Jews during the Holocaust, Sidney Ballon feels a greater need to recognize the few who who risked their lives to save others.
Their courage [is] all the more noteworthy for their defiance of the cruel, barbarous, and overwhelming Nazi power to save sometimes a large group of Jews or sometimes but a single life. We must remember and be grateful to them for saving to some extent at least the honor of man.
ONE OF THE MAJOR POINTS OF INTEREST in Jerusalem to which tourists are frequently taken is the Yad V’Shem, the memorial to the six million who perished at the hands of the Nazis. Leading up to the entrance of the Yad V’Shem is a long tree-lined path to which has been given the name, The Avenue of the Righteous Gentiles. Each tree along this path has a marker in front of it bearing the name of some individual non-Jew who is known to have defied the Nazis and helped save the lives of Jews. A visit to the Yad V’Shem is a most disturbing and heart rending experience, but the horrifying impact is, perhaps, to a small degree softened by passing, as you go in and come out, all these trees bearing testimony to the fact that there were, indeed, some courageous souls during World War II to whom the brotherhood of man was more than a phrase, and who risked their own lives because they felt a sense of personal responsibility for what was happening to their Jewish neighbors.
 
The Avenue of the Righteous Gentiles contains trees dedicated to individuals of a number of different nationalities, but the nation that deserves to be singled out perhaps more than any other for its historic help to Jews is Denmark, and along with Denmark we must mention Sweden. The reason for this is not to minimize the effort of other people who helped, but the Danes were the only nation to do it as a nation rather than as individuals. There were very few Danes who were Nazi collaborators, and there were very few who were merely indifferent. The Danes rose officially and spontaneously as a people to help their Jewish neighbors when the moment of need came, and the Swedish people to whom the Danes brought their Jews, even though they were neutral in the war, received them willingly with open arms and sheltered them until it was possible to return home or go elsewhere.
 
I make mention of this extraordinary display of humanitarianism tonight because this weekend has been designated by Jews in America as Salute to Denmark and Sweden weekend, and it has been so designated because this month marks the 25th anniversary of the rescue of the Danish Jews.[1]
 
The period of the Holocaust was so horrible a period of Jewish history, so utterly unbelievable not only for the magnitude of the calamity that happened to the Jewish people, but also for the degree of indifference on the part of the rest of the world including our own government here in the United States, as we learned much later, that we Jews perhaps could not be blamed if we tended to overlook the comparatively few in the world who were moved to do something about it, but it ought to be the other way. Because the situation was so unbelievably horrible, we ought all the more to remember those who were our friends. Their deeds become all the more heroic. Their courage also becomes all the more noteworthy for their defiance of the cruel, barbarous, and overwhelming Nazi power to save sometimes a large group of Jews or sometimes but a single life. We must remember and be grateful to them for saving to some extent at least the honor of man.
 
To come to know more about the achievements of these Danes and Swedes and other righteous Gentiles I would suggest the reading of two books which we do have in our own temple library. One is factual and one is fiction, which is however, based on fact. The first was published a number of years ago. It is entitled Their Brother's Keeper and was written by Philip Friedman.[2] It gives us a documented account of non-Jews in every land that fell to Hitler, who helped save the lives of Jews and smuggled them away to safety. It was no simple thing to hide out a Jew. It took ingenuity in camouflaging hiding places, in supplying food, in taking care of personal needs, in keeping babies quiet when Nazi searchers were nearby. Often the cooperation of a number of Christian families was necessary to take care of a single Jew. Yet in Germany itself, in France and Italy, in the Balkans and Greece, in Holland and Belgium, in the Scandinavian countries — there were to be found in all of them non-Jews, farmers, workers, merchants, clergymen who risk their lives in the effort to foil Nazi efforts to solve “the Jewish Problem,”[3] as they put it. Many of these Christians themselves went to the concentration camps and perished as a result of their activities, but a good percentage of the million Jews who survived in Europe owe their lives to the self-sacrificing efforts of these men and women, not all of whom, of course, are known to us.
 
We are remembering this weekend especially the Danes and the Swedes. Who were some of these wonderful people who helped? In the book Our Brother’s Keeper we read for example of Peter Freuchen who a number of years ago was made well known by the $64,000 Question TV program[4]. He owned an island in the Baltic Sea. When World War II broke out he and some friends organized the Society to Help Nazi Victims. They did this even before Hitler invaded Denmark. He personally also engaged in some rescue work of which the rest of his committee was not even informed. German excursion boats would frequently sail into the Baltic near his island. He alone would approach the German boats in a speedboat. It often happened that passengers on seeing him would jump overboard and use this means of escaping from German control. He would pick them up in his speedboat and either take them back to his island or see that they reached Sweden. He stayed in Denmark and joined the underground. He was captured, escaped, and recaptured. The Nazis even took away his wooden leg to make sure he would not escape again.
 
But as I noted a moment ago, the story of Denmark is not merely one of individuals. The whole country was involved. In 1943 the Danish government was ordered to enact anti-Jewish legislation, establish a ghetto, and enforce the wearing of the Jewish badge. King Christian[5] refused and said if the Jews had to wear a yellow star, he would also.[6] The Bishop of Zealand issued a pastoral letter which was read in all the churches of the country, and protested, in the name of Christianity, these humiliating anti-Jewish measures. The entire Danish government was dismissed, and the King dethroned as a result. The Nazis then prepared to do it and worse. They planned on Rosh Hashanah night in 1943 — that year it was the night of October 1 — they planned on that night when they thought they would find most of the Jews together in the synagogue to round them up and deport them to the concentration camps. Out of almost 8,000 Jews that were in Denmark, however, they managed ultimately did take about 475. The secretly leaked out, quite possibly betrayed by a somewhat compassionate Nazi — there seems to have been even some of those — and the Danish underground went into action. The storm troopers, to their amazement, found very few Jews in the synagogues. They were in hiding in the homes of their Danish neighbors. And they were smuggled by sea into Sweden in small fishing boats past the German patrol boats and gunboats who blocked the way. Gerda Bertelsen, wife of a group leader named Aage Bertelsen[7] who engaged in rescue operations, was arrested by the Gestapo and forced to confess her part in the smuggling of Jews, and when asked why she did it replied bravely, "All decent people do."
 
Among the Swedes the two best-known names are perhaps Raoul Wallenberg[8] and Count Folke Bernadotte[9]. A great deal of mystery surrounds the name of Wallenberg. He was a Swedish nobleman and was attached to the Swedish Embassy in Budapest. His letters of protection and forged documents helped to save thousands. When the Russians took Budapest he was for some reason taken under protective arrest and disappeared from view. Later it was established that he died in a Russian prison camp. How and why remains a mystery. It is not known why the Russians should have had anything against a representative of a neutral power who was engaging in anti-Nazi activity, but since the Russians had no love for Jews, it may conceivably had something to do with his pro-Jewish actions.
 
Bernadotte was a member of the royal family of Sweden and a high Red Cross official. He is known for his prolonged negotiations with Himmler[10] and is credited with saving a great many of his prisoners. He too received an ill reward for he was assassinated later on by a fanatic when he went to Palestine as a representative of the United Nations[11] during one of its difficult periods.
 
The second book that you ought to read is the new novel entitled A Night of Watching, by Elliott Arnold.[12] I assure you, you will find it difficult to put down once you start it. It is fiction, but it's events and characters are based on real people and real events. As its story of October 1943 unfolds it has all the suspense and thrills of an exciting spy story or Western thriller, except in this novel good guys also get hurt and hurt bad. We get a glimpse of the underground network, the unlikely people who are part of that underground, the almost full cooperation, not quite of the Danish people as a whole, the ingenuity that was necessary in foiling the Nazis, of successes and failures also. We see the reactions of the Jews themselves, some of whom thought it could not possibly happen that the Nazis would dare do this in Denmark, where Jews were accorded full Danish citizenship. We read of a Kol Nidre service begun in darkness on a beach, interrupted by the machine gun fire of the patrol boat which discovers this attempt to escape and then concluded in the hold of a fishing boat reeking with the smell of fish. We have a picture of the viciousness of some of the Nazis particularly of the SS troopers and of the dismay of other Nazis who could not see the necessity for such inhumane treatment. One Nazi officer cannot stand it all and commits suicide. Others go long unwillingly because ordered to do so. But the leak which gives the Jews a chance to escape comes in the novel from a German; one Nazi officer after he overtakes a Danish fishing vessel full of refugees, pretends that he does not see them and lets it get away. And in the background is the problem of what the necessity to act against the Nazis has done to a group of otherwise quiet, mild, and peace-loving people.
 
Why is it the Danes and the Swedes could have distinguished themselves so magnificently in this most severe test of character and morality, and so many others have failed? Why is it that they at the continuous risk of life and overpowering retribution, dared to be decent and dared to be rescuers when other peoples with no risk at all could have saved many lives chose not to, when the Allied powers including our own State Department, debated and procrastinated and doomed many who might have lived? We do not know, but we do know that in a time when human beings sank to their lowest level of degradation, and when so many individuals and other nations did not stop the German furnaces and gas chambers, there were at least some men of courage — the Danish and Swedish people as a whole among them. The remembrance of their deeds keeps alive in us faith in the potential goodness of man, and we bless them. Dr. Nahum Goldman[13] once said, "People like these have saved the record of the human generation in this period.”
 


[1] The rescue of the Danish Jews occurred during Nazi Germany's occupation of Denmark during World War II. On October 1, 1943, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler ordered Danish Jews to be arrested and deported. Despite great personal risk, the Danish resistance movement, with the assistance of many ordinary Danish citizens, managed to evacuate 7,220 of Denmark's 7,800 Jews, plus 686 non-Jewish spouses, by sea to nearby neutral Sweden. The rescue allowed the vast majority of Denmark's Jewish population to avoid capture by the Nazis and is considered to be one of the largest actions of collective resistance to aggression in the countries occupied by Nazi Germany. As a result of the rescue, and the following Danish intercession on behalf of the 464 Danish Jews who were captured and deported to Theresienstadt transit camp in Bohemia, over 99% of Denmark's Jewish population survived the Holocaust.s

[2] Philip Friedman discusses the rescue of Jews during WWII throughout German-occupied Europe, but especially Poland. Unlike most Holocaust materials written today, Friedman usually puts Jewish suffering within the broader context of non-Jewish suffering.

[3] In 1919, Adolph Hitler issued his first written comment on the “Jewish Problem,” more commonly and euphemistically known as the “Jewish Question,” in which he defined the Jews as a race and not a religious community, characterized the effect of a Jewish presence as a “race-tuberculosis of the peoples,” and identified the initial goal of a German government to be discriminatory legislation against Jews. The “ultimate goal must definitely be the removal of the Jews altogether.”

[4] Lorenz Peter Elfred Freuchen (1886 –1957) was a Danish explorer, author, journalist and anthropologist. He won $64,000 on The $64,000 Question, an American TV quiz-show on the subject The Seven Seas. During World War II, Freuchen was actively involved with the Danish resistance movement against the Germans, despite having lost a leg to frostbite in 1926. He was imprisoned by the Germans, and was sentenced to death, but he managed to escape and flee to Sweden.

[5] Christian X (Christian Carl Frederik Albert Alexander Vilhelm; 1870 – 1947) was the King of Denmark from 1912 to 1947

[6] This incident may be apocryphal, the result of a political cartoon in a Swedish newspaper of the day, specifically on January 10, 1942 by the prominent anti-Fascist Norwegian artist Ragnvald Blix and spread across the USA by Danish-American propaganda efforts, and again later by it’s inclusion in the Leon Uris novel and film Exodus.

[7] Aage Bertelsen (1901 – 1980) visionary, pacifist, civil resister, educator and philosopher, who, with his wife Gerda, was a prime mover of one of the groups, the Lyngby Group, which organized the rescue of Danish Jews into safety in Sweden.
 
[8] Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg (1912 – disappeared 1945) was a Swedish architect, businessman, diplomat and humanitarian. He is widely celebrated for saving tens of thousands of Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary during the Holocaust from German Nazis and Hungarian Fascists during the later stages of World War II.

[9] Folke Bernadotte, Count of Wisborg (1895 –1948) was a Swedish diplomat and nobleman. During World War II he negotiated the release of about 31,000 prisoners from German concentration camps including 450 Danish Jews from the Theresienstadt camp.

[10] Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (1900 – 1945) was was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and one of the people most directly responsible for the Holocaust.

[11] Bernadotte was the United Nations Security Council mediator in the Arab–Israeli conflict of 1947–1948. He was assassinated in Jerusalem in 1948 by a militant Zionist group.

[12] Elliott Arnold (1912 – 1980) was an American newspaper feature writer, novelist, and screenwriter.

[13] Nahum Goldmann (1895 –1982) was a leading Zionist and the founder and longtime president of the World Jewish Congress from 1948 to 1977.
0 Comments

God Is

9/2/1966

1 Comment

 
In the turbulent late ‘60s even theologians were expressing doubt in the very existence of God. Returning to his pulpit in New York after a six-month sabbatical in Jerusalem, and despite his dismay over the perplexing problems of the day, my father's belief in God never wavered. Societal challenges only served to reinforce in his mind the need to be conscious of the moral order of the universe that Judaism not merely offers, but demands
...we must live in the faith that there is a Divine standard by which all human actions must be criticized and judged. We as Jews must bear in mind the special obligation that falls upon us by virtue of our unique place in history...
​

THIS SERVICE ON THE EVE OF THE NEW YEAR is a truly gratifying occasion for me. Rosh Hashanah Eve is always exhilarating, but this Rosh Hashanah, in particular, is all the more a joyful experience for me because of the fact that I was away for so long in the year that has ended. I have, of course, been back for some time, but because I returned during the summer lull in activity, I have as yet not had the opportunity of seeing most of you again, and it does feel as if this evening constitutes our official reunion. It was good to be away and to study and work in such an exciting environment as Israel. It is good to be back. I am humbly grateful that our long journeys were safely completed and happy to be again in the midst of the congregation.
 
And yet, together with the joy that I now feel there is also a deep sense of frustration. The rabbis of old made the statement, “Avir Eretz Yisroel machkim—the air of the land of Israel makes one wise,”[1] but I must confess to you, I do not feel too wise this evening. We stand at the beginning of a new year. We try to take stock of the old, and if we do any serious thinking at all we cannot help but be a bit disquieted. We look back upon a year of escalation of a so-called “undeclared war” in Vietnam.[2] We seem to have slipped into a predicament that nobody wants to be in, but neither can anybody figure a way out. We look back upon a year of increased tension in our big cities.[3] We once told ourselves smugly that it was only the South that had a racial problem and now it is even greater in the North. We look back upon a year of economic stress. There were more strikes in the country than in any other previous year and inflation[4] threatens us ever more seriously. It was a year also with a spotlight on spiritual confusion, as demonstrated best by the time magazine cover that proclaimed in bold lettering that God is dead. [5]
 
There were, indeed, many things to disturb us during the past year, and you, the congregation, have gathered here now for some direction and reassurance. You have come to be uplifted and to be filled with hope. I, as a rabbi, wish that I could fulfill your need, that I could stand before you and with a wave of my hand make our problems magically disappear. I wish that I, as preacher, could glibly pronounce the formula that would provide the solution to all fears and doubts. There was, indeed, much wisdom to be gained in Israel, but not the kind that I wish I now possessed. I remain troubled about many things even as you are, and have no easy answers to give you.
 
All that I can do is to try to interpret for you what this festival of Rosh Hashanah stands for, and what it tries to say to us, and hope that this will enable us to find some comfort, and that it will point the way meaningfully in these days of crisis.
 
The festival of Rosh Hashanah makes no direct pronouncements with regard to contemporary questions of politics or economics, but it does make a simple and direct statement of a spiritual nature having to do with God. We referred a moment ago to the sensational proclamation that God is dead. Rosh Hashanah agrees with this statement two thirds of the way. Two of its three words are acceptable. The message of Rosh Hashanah is not that God is dead, but rather more simply that God is! "Thou didst lay the foundations of the earth,” says the prayerbook, “and the heavens are thy handiwork."[6]
 
This does not mean that Judaism ignores or is unaware of the problems that trouble modern theologians and that have caused them to decide on deicide and declare God is dead, but Judaism has simply not been strapped by the kind of theological rigidity which has brought these theologians of another faith to theological disaster. Judaism has been aware from the very beginning that man's relationship to God would often be frustrating and that his understanding of Him must necessarily be limited. Jewish tradition has very clearly warned us that our perception of God might vary from time to time, that sometimes He seems close and at other times very remote, and always our knowledge of Him can only be partial. 

The rabbis said that we speak in our prayers of the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob because in each generation the conception of God was somewhat different, and the God of Abraham was different from the God of Isaac which in turn was different from the God of Jacob. The Bible approach raised Moses as being closer to God than any other human being, but he is, nevertheless, told that he cannot see God, but only God's goodness will pass before him. The prophets and psalmist spoke of a God that hides. Job protested to God that he was suffering innocently. A Chassidic rabbi once called God to trial to justify why His people Israel were suffering. There were no sure descriptions of God. There were questions about God, and yet the faith persisted that there is, nevertheless, design and intelligence in the universe. The death of God theologians would not accept this statement without scientific proof, but there are many scientists who would assert that there may be dimensions to reckon with beyond the reach of science and physical measurement. For Jewish tradition there is intimation of divine power in the miracle of creation, in man's perception of moral law, in the existence of the people of Israel. “The rhythm of the seasons and the stars in their heavenly courses,” to quote the prayerbook, “the manifestation of conscience in the heart of man, the unique historical experience of the Jewish people” validated its faith.
 
What is more significant, however, for us is not merely the faith that God is, but the implications of that faith. Granted that God is—what does it mean to us? Rosh Hashanah also tries to tell us this, and does so best, perhaps, in the three parts of the shofar service to be read tomorrow morning. 

The first of these three sections is known as Malchuyot. Roughly translated this means sovereignty or kingship. One of the thoughts emphasize most on Rosh Hashanah is that God is King. Adonoy Melech. It is He who is Moshail b’chol ha-aretz—the ruler over all the earth. In an age when kings are discredited, it may not seem very meaningful to describe God as King, but let us not take this anymore literally than was intended. We are dealing with a figure of speech, not a description of fact. Our tradition tells us that no human word or combination of words is adequate in explaining the infinite God. All we do when we try to describe God in human terms, when we say He is Father or Creator, Teacher or Lawgiver, Judge or Redeemer is to convey to the best of our feeble human ability some small impression that we have of the Divine that we cannot fully or accurately describe. 

Thus, when we say that God is King, we are not saying He is a sovereign in the earthly sense of the term. We are, perhaps, not even saying anything at all about God but rather more about what we expect of man. When we say that God is King we are saying that man must be cautious with respect to what he considers worthy of his ultimate allegiance. We are saying that man must not let his own instinctive desires for pleasure or power or profit rule over him, but must subject himself to a higher divine demand for doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly. When we say that God is King, we mean that no human government or political system is justified except that it governs in terms of itself being subject to moral law. When we say that God is King it means that the vast body of new scientific knowledge that man has acquired must not lead to arrogance and self-glorification on the part of man but must rather be subject to a deep sense of responsibility and be directed toward the benefit of mankind and not its destruction. When we say God is King, it means that we must question every human purpose and loyalty and determine whether there is not a higher godly standard with which they must be brought into harmony.
 
The second part of the shofar service is called the Zichronot. Roughly translated this means remembrance. God remembers all that ever takes place, but most especially He is Zocher Habrit, the one who remembers the covenant with Israel. Again, this phrase tells us not so much about God but rather about what we expect of the people of Israel. If God remembers His covenant with Israel then we, His people, are obligated also to remember, to remember the heritage of our past, the unique origins of our people and our commitment to be coworkers with God in the building of His kingdom, words you will recall from one of our Friday evening services. According to the Bible when the patriarch Abraham was called upon to leave his homeland and to go forth to become the father of a new people he was charged with the words, “Be thou a blessing.”[7] When Israel stood at Sinai we were charged to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.[8] When we say God remembers the covenant, we say that the obligations of this covenant still hold for the Jew. The Jew must take his history seriously, and his thoughts and actions of today must be considered in the light of his mission to be a blessing and a holy nation, which is the special religious destiny imposed upon him by the past.
 
And the third part of the shofar service is called Shofarot. Again, roughly translated this means shofar calls. They remind us, we are told, of the trumpet blowing at Sinai when the commandments were proclaimed to Israel, and Israel was called by the shofar blasts to fulfill them. Israel was then, in effect, admonished that it was not enough in this world to think and to talk, but one must also act. The God who is King and the God who remembers is also a God who calls to action. There are things to be done in this world. God's law is to be fulfilled. A way of life is to be lived. In the Ethics of the Fathers[9] we read, “Not the teaching is the essential, but the doing.[10] Other rabbis said that if God had to make a choice between people who merely believed in Him and people who merely performed His commandments, the choice would be clear. He would say," would that they would forsake me, if only they would keep my Commandments." The rabbis did not mean to belittle the importance of belief in God, but they did want to emphasize that meaningful belief entails action. It is not enough for anyone to say, “I believe, I agree.” He must also do. It is not enough to say we are a people that believes in God. We must also act like a godly people. Individuals and families, nations and societies must, in the words of our prayerbook, always rouse themselves from indolence and in difference, from selfish ease and be moved to serve under the banner of truth and love, of justice and peace.
 
Here then is the message that Rosh Hashanah brings to us once again this evening. Are we dissatisfied with ourselves and with the world when we take stock? Would we like to improve our own ways and contribute to the betterment of society? Then we must live in the faith that there is a Divine standard by which all human actions must be criticized and judged. We as Jews must bear in mind the special obligation that falls upon us by virtue of our unique place in history, and we must be mindful that lip service to personal virtue and social ideals is not enough, but that we must be prepared to act in accordance with our words. As we begin, now, this New Year, may this be the spirit in which we confront the problems that beset us. May this be our resolution and our way of life in the year to come, and may we be rewarded for our effort with a good year that shall see faith restored, world peace renewed and the dignity of all men upheld.
 

[1] Jewish Babylonian Talmud, Baba Batra 168b.

[2] In 1966 public dissatisfaction was growing against Johnson administration policies in Vietnam as was skepticism about what the American people were being told about it, commonly referred as the “credibility gap.”

[3] For example, in July 1966, in North Omaha, Nebraska more than 500 black youth gathered to protest the absence of recreation programs and jobs, and stormed a local business district, throwing rocks and bricks at Jewish-owned businesses in the area. The National Guard was called in after three days of random violence and organized raids.

[4] 1966 started as an economic boom year. However, market pressures caused by a full employment economy, plus increased spending on the military in Vietnam put great demand on capital resulting in rising inflation.

[5] The cover of the April 8, 1966 edition of Time magazine asked the question "Is God Dead?" and the accompanying article addressed growing atheism in America at the time.
 

[6] Psalm 102:25, "Of old You established the earth; the heavens are the work of Your hands.

[7] Genesis 12:1-2, God said to Abram, 'Go away from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father's house, to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you great. You shall become a blessing.

[8] Exodus 19:5-6, God speaks to Moses: “Now therefore, if ye will hearken unto My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be Mine own treasure from among all peoples; for all the earth is Mine; and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.”

[9] Pirkei Avot often translated as the Sayings or the Ethics of the Fathers, is a compilation of the ethical teachings and maxims of the rabbis of the Mishnaic period

[10] Perhaps not surprisingly, this was a tenet Ballon spoke to a year earlier on Rosh Hashanah morning 1965 (viz., http://harav-shimon.blogspot.com/2012/08/jews-without-problems-rosh-hashanah.html)
1 Comment

Jews Without Problems

9/27/1965

0 Comments

 
In some ways this sermon provides a bit of a departure from my father's frequent hand wringing over the apathy and ignorance of modern American Jewry. While he does not sugarcoat his concerns in this regard, he concludes, nonetheless, that even in the worst case Judaism will survive the mixed blessing of religious freedom in America.
What to do, then, about being a Jew in America? Study as a Jew. Act as a Jew. Be emotionally involved with the Jewish people the world over, and join actively in the expression of Judaism through the life of the synagogue.
​

RECENTLY, TIME MAGAZINE PUBLISHED AN ARTICLE in its pages entitled, The New American Jew.[1] It was, perhaps, a much better article on Jewish life than might have been expected in this particular periodical. It was in some respects incomplete, but apparently Time went to reliable sources for the information that it did present. It was understanding and discerning, and its insight was especially evident in its statement that Jewishness is “far more than religion; it is an inextricable mixture of faith, nationhood and culture." This is a thought that non-Jews very often cannot grasp, and even some Jews refuse to accept it. There is often the tendency to think of the Jew in terms of religion only and to overlook the aspects of peoplehood and culture. 
 
The main purpose of this article in Time was to describe the effect of Americanization on the Jew. It points out that Jews in the past have miraculously survived many eras of hostility directed at them from a number of sources, but today it suggests, that they are going through a new and different kind of testing time. The problem today, says Time, is that there is no problem. The Jew lives in peace and enjoys the benefits of a congenial environment as never before, but strangely enough this also threatens the survival of Judaism. Today the American Jew enjoys freedom—freedom to adhere to his faith or abandon it, to emphasize his differences or become invisible. But the question is whether he can endure his present freedom as well as he has survived his past oppression. In previous ages, regardless of how pleasant or not the conditions of life might be, the Jews were a separate community with their own distinctive faith and traditions. The mass absorption of Jews into the mainstream of the life of any country with a consequent loss of separate identity was unthinkable. But in today's American society, the Jew becomes more and more like his neighbor, he is integrated and acculturated, and what was previously unthinkable becomes a distinct possibility. Therefore, implies Time, our sense of Jewish identity is weakened and the increasingly urgent questions that we Jews ask ourselves are “What is a Jew?” and “What do I do about it?”
 
I am not sure that it is really of importance to us to have a precise answer to the first of these questions--What is a Jew?—but I do believe it is of importance to have an answer to the second question--What to do about it?—if we do consider ourselves Jews—whatever definition we may want to use. There have been a number of attempts at creating an all-embracing definition of the Jew, but it has proven to be an exceedingly difficult task. For our purpose it would seem to me to be better to concentrate our attention on the other question--What do I do about being a Jew? It may well be that in spelling out what one does about being Jewish, we will have gone a long way also toward saying What is a Jew? 
 
The things that ought to distinguish the Jew are not really new. They are a carryover from the Jewish traditions of the past. They are actions which stem from certain concepts which have always been a part of the Jewish heritage through the years. It may be that we shall find some variation in their expression because of changing conditions, but in essence these concepts remain the same. If Judaism is to survive freedom, then Jews must choose to incorporate these concepts in one way or another into their pattern of thinking and living. These concepts are four in number and they may be divided into pairs, within which the two individual parts complement each other. 
 
The first of these pairs are Torah and mitzvah—Jewish learning and Jewish action. Torah was always the primary Jewish characteristic. Without knowledge of the tradition one could not be expected to function according to its spirit. And the most serious challenge we face in American Jewish life today is the reestablishment of some acceptable standard of Jewish knowledge. The interesting fact about modern Jewish life is that the traditional respect for learning has not disappeared, but it has been redirected. Two thirds of Jewish young people of college age are attending college, a far higher percentage than any other group. Jews have not given up their regard for the intellect, but in our eagerness to take our place culturally in the world at large, Jewish knowledge has been neglected, particularly at the college and adult level.
 
We do send our younger children for Jewish training, but even less than half of these children attend a Jewish school of any kind in any one year and very few of our children receive any instruction above the elementary level. Just think if our general education stopped at the elementary level what kind of a nation we would be. We would barely be a literate people. And so our Jewish community today may fairly be said to be, Jewishly speaking, a barely literate community. 
 
I think it is sad that there is no great Jewish university where at least some of our college young people could go to acquire the general knowledge that is necessary in our day, and at the same time be trained in Judaism, and be inspired to lead a full Jewish life. There is Yeshiva University which is, however, a small school with limited resources that is strictly Orthodox. And there is Brandeis University a great school which, however, prides itself on being Jewishly sponsored but nonsectarian. Can you picture the supporters of Fordham or Notre Dame taking pride in being nonsectarian! At the last convention of Conservative rabbis one of the speakers made mention of Brandeis University as having provided us with twin blessings—Jewish self-hatred and the beatnik center of New England. He may have been a bit harsh, but I for one would be happier if all this Jewish money were poured into some good school with the academic excellence of Brandeis but which did not retreat into neutrality, and which was positively dedicated to the goal of deepening Jewish knowledge and strengthening a love for Judaism. Such a school would go far to enrich the Jewish community and increase our spiritual strength. The transmission of a heritage depends upon education. 
 
The values and ideals and hopes of a people cannot be preserved in ignorance. If we want to do something about being Jewish, we must cultivate a Jewish mind. Young and old must be mindful of the ideal of Torah.
 
Now the other half of the pair--mitzvah. Learning alone is insufficient. The rabbis said, "Study is important, but the deed is more important."[2] Jewish life must be filled with proper deeds. It must be lived in response to godly commandments. Mitzvah is both the commandment and the deed. Jewish commandments traditionally are many in number, but our rabbis long ago summed them all up in the prophetic verses
--
 
It hath been told thee, O man, what is good, and what the Lord doth require of thee: only to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.[3]
 
And in the words of Hillel:
What is hateful to thee do not do unto thy fellowman. The rest is mere commentary. Go study.[4]
 
If Judaism has any meaning or purpose it is as a commitment to the personal and social ethic taught by our prophets and sages. There are also ritual commandments of Judaism, and we do not mean to minimize them, but even the ritual commandments in Judaism were not mysterious sacraments which defy rational explanation but the intelligible symbols of high moral and ethical ideals. Judaism stands for wholesome relationships between man and his fellowman. It stands for marital fidelity and family responsibility. It stands for decent concern for the stranger, the laborer and the poor, for honesty and integrity, for peace among men.
 
We live today in a society which unfortunately has a split personality. We ascribe to one standard of ethics in theory, but we justify another standard in practice. We proclaim religious ethics as a reference guide, but in the marketplace or in the political field with scarcely a twinge of conscience many of us not only practice but defend a totally contrary way of life. We talk glibly about the brotherhood of man, but it is a brotherhood preferred all too often in someone else's neighborhood, not our own. We admire and speak of moral discipline, but too many of us do so providing it does not interfere with personal pleasure or advancement.
 
We plead that it is most difficult to adhere to the kind of moral principles that we know are really decent and right when all around us is the competition that seeks to beat us and the example of the crowd that is guided only by what is expedient. But this is precisely the Jewish challenge. “Do not follow after a multitude to do evil,” says the Bible.[5] “In a place where there are no man, strive thou to be a man,” are the words of Hillel.[6] What to do about being a Jew? Live with a constant concern for mitzvah. Accept the moral discipline of a Jewish conscience.
 
The second pair of complementary concepts which must remain in Jewish life are those of Klal Yisroel[7] and Mikdash Yisroel,[8] the idea of relationship with the total community of the Jewish people and the holy place in which people express themselves, the synagogue. A Jew even though he lives in America of the present time must be emotionally linked with the communities of Jews that exist now throughout the world or have existed in the past or will exist in the future, and he must be mindful that they are bound together by a common spiritual tradition and a mutual responsibility that cuts across space and time.[9] There are common roots and a common destiny and an historic continuity that tie us together. Meaningful Jewish life in America calls also for a concern with Jewish life elsewhere, whether it be in Israel with its very special importance as a center of Hebrew culture old and new, or whether it be Russian Jewry, with its past glories and its present dangers, or whether it be other smaller groups throughout the world which look particularly to the United States for both material and spiritual comfort.
 
Last summer there were ten thousand Jews in Washington at the vigil on behalf of Soviet Jewry,  but I'd venture to say there were more than that in Washington about two years ago on the march for civil rights on behalf of Negroes.[10] Jews are, generally speaking, liberals. Our tradition and experience move us to recognize a responsibility for our fellowman whoever they may be. But do we not owe our own people at least the same concern, our people who share with us this tradition out of which our liberalism springs? We have seen in our day six million Jews destroyed. We have seen communities that were a thousand years in the making wiped out. We see two million Jews in the Soviet orbit in danger of spiritual death. Does this leave us untouched? Has not history imposed upon American Jewry some kind of responsibility for the Jewish future? Have we a moral right to be unconcerned with our fellow Jews elsewhere? The Jews who were in Washington who heard the closing words movingly proclaimed by Theodore Bikel,[11] “Shomer Yisroel, shmor sh’erit Yisroel—Oh Guardian of Israel, guard the remnant of Israel.” The Jews in Washington who heard the sound of the shofar in Lafayette Square across from the White House, who witnessed the kindling of the eternal light, while the ten thousand present cried out in unison, “We shall live in dignity!”—those Jews who experienced this will know how to answer. Those who were there could not fail to be touched and will not forget. I wish only that more of you had permitted yourselves that experience.
 
And finally the community of Israel must find its expression through the sanctuary of Israel, the synagogue. It was through the synagogue that our heritage has been transmitted in the past in its various capacities as a place of prayer, study, and assembly. And it is only through the synagogue that our heritage can be preserved for the future. There are Jews who are indifferent to the synagogue and others who try to escape it all together, but today in our American environment there is no meaningful identification as a Jew without it. To be aloof from the synagogue is in effect a vote against Jewish survival.
 
We said at the outset that being Jewish was more than religion and so some may use this thought to refute the necessity of synagogue affiliation for the expression of Jewishness. But though Judaism is more than religion it cannot exclude religion and remain authentically Jewish. Whatever aspects of nationhood Judaism implies and whatever elements of culture are involved, they are, nevertheless, interwoven with religion and cannot justifiably be separated. Even though we may be concerned today about some aspects of synagogue life which deserve criticism it is, nevertheless, true that whatever hope there may be for the survival of Judaism in this country lies in strengthening the synagogue and in improving the quality of Jewish experience to be enjoyed within it. Without the special character which the synagogue imparts to Jewish life, all other Jewish interests, be they cultural, ethical, ethnic or political, will be assimilated and will disappear under the impact of American life in general. Being Jewish will become only a faint memory which some Americans will have just as other Americans have of other ethnic origins. The thought of the poet Bialik[12] is still valid. It is the synagogue which is the spring from which we draw our strength of soul.
 
What to do, then, about being a Jew in America? Study as a Jew. Act as a Jew. Be emotionally involved with the Jewish people the world over and join actively in the expression of Judaism through the life of the synagogue.
 
Having said this I may still be asked, "But nevertheless, what are the chances of Jewish survival in America?" To describe what ought to be done is one thing. To bring people to do it is another. Suppose the drift continues and these necessary actions are not pursued. To this I can only answer that I have faith the American Jewish community will not disappear. I would like it to survive in great numbers and great strength, but if not, then I believe the idea that has always played a role in Jewish history will operate, the idea of the remnant. In Isaiah, in biblical times, it is written, she'ar-yashuv[13]—a remnant shall return”—and so it has always been. We Jews have often sustained losses in the course of our history in our effort to overcome both the physical and spiritual attack of the environment, but always the remnant at least has returned. The remnant has carried forward the tradition of our people, and carried on the continuity of its history. I have faith that in the present also the remnant shall keep the glory of Judaism alive and the question that each of you must answer for yourself is, "Will you be part of that glorious remnant!"
 

​
[1] TIME Magazine, U.S. Edition, June 25, 1965, Vol. 85, No. 26

[2] There is much debate among the rabbis as to the relative importance of study and deeds, and many writings favor study. Ultimately, one may conclude that since the purpose of study is practical application, it would appear that performance of deeds is more important.

[3] Micah 6:8

[4] Hillel (ca. 60 B.C.-A.D. ca. 10) was a Jewish scholar and founder of a dynasty of patriarchs who were the spiritual heads of Jewry until the 5th century. A popular anecdote from the Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Shabbat 31a tells of the heathen who asked Hillel to teach him the entire Torah in the time he could stand on one foot. Unperturbed, Hillel answered, "What is hateful to thee, do not do unto your neighbor. This is the whole Torah and the rest is commentary; go and study it further!" This version of the golden rule is believed by many to be a less utopian and more practical precept than the affirmative one to love one's neighbor as oneself (Leviticus 19:18).

[5] Exodus 23:2

[6] Pirke Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) 2:6, “Hillel used to say: A brutish man dreads not sin; an ignorant man cannot be pious, nor can the diffident man learn, or the impatient man teach. He who engages excessively in business cannot become wise. In a place where there are no men strive you to be a man.”

[7] Klal Yisroel (Yisrael in modern Hebrew transliteration, lit. "All of Israel") is an expression developed since the 1880s among Orthodox Jews of the Hibbat Zion movement to describe and promote a sense of shared community and destiny among all Jews, in Palestine, in the diaspora, and later in Israel and the USA.

[8] Exodus 25:8-9 “And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I show thee, the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the furniture thereof, even so shall ye make it.” The Mishkan (Tabernacle) was the portable sanctuary that accompanied the Children of Israel in the wilderness. Once they entered and conquered the land of Israel, this Tabernacle was replaced by a permanent structure. This structure was the Mikdash—the Sacred Temple—constructed by King Solomon.

[9] Reminiscent of Ballon’s sermon An Ethical Will -- 3/26/48 in which he addressed key traits to be a “good Jew.” http://harav-shimon.blogspot.com/2012/04/ethical-will.html

[10] Viz., Blowin’ In the Wind — Rosh Hashanah morning 9/19/63, Ballon’s sermon on the burgeoning civil rights movement, included in the volume A Precious Heritage, 2017 and on the blog My Father's Words.


[11] Theodore Bikel (1924-2015) was a Jewish character actor, folk singer and musician.

[12] Chaim Nahman Bialik (1873–934) was a Jewish poet who wrote primarily in Hebrew but also in Yiddish. Bialik was one of the pioneers of modern Hebrew poetry and came to be recognized as Israel's national poet. He wrote:
If you wish to know the fortress
to which your fathers bore their treasure,
their scrolls of Torah, their Holy of Holies….
if you would find the refuge
which kept your people’s mighty spirit safe…
turn to the ancient house of prayer….
Your heart will tell you:
your feet touch the threshold of our house of life,
your eyes behold the storehouse of our soul.


[13] Isaiah 7:3 "And God said to Isaiah, Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and She'ar-yashuv your son ("the remainder will return").


0 Comments

I Have a Dream

9/27/1963

0 Comments

 
By calling this his, I Have a Dream speech, my father created a medley of his favorite pulpit topics such as holiness, Jewish education and Jewish life in the home, the synagogue and in the larger community.  Overlooking, if you will, the anachronistic model of the Jewish home once defined by stereotypical roles of mother and father, one can find herein some inspiring challenges for strengthening individual and collective Jewish practice.
If we cannot yet achieve all we hope for, then let each of us alone and all of us here together as a congregation make our own small contribution toward sanctity and sanity. We may not be able to realize the whole dream, but let us who are here now each try to kindle a spark of holiness in his own life.
​

ON KOL NIDRE EVE THE JEW RESPONDS MORE DEEPLY to the call of his faith than at any other time of the year. On this sacred night we flock in greater numbers than on any other occasion to join our fellow Jews in the synagogue. We are eager to hear again the haunting strains of the Kol Nidre melody. Its nostalgic tone sets our hearts beating faster. A sense of awe and solemnity overcomes us, and we have the feeling we are, indeed, standing on holy ground and sharing in a significant religious experience. Rosh Hashanah calls to us and challenges us to think, but Yom Kippur speaks to us in accents that stir our emotions. We find ourselves in a deeply spiritual mood. It is a mood of sincere regret for our weaknesses whatever they may be, a mood of prayer for strength that we may overcome them in the future, a mood of humility before the divine mystery upon which our life depends.
 
On such a night when the congregation is full before him, a rabbi shares in the sentiment of his people, but sometimes he is carried just one step further. His mood becomes a dreamy one. He thinks of his own congregation and of the whole Jewish community. He sympathizes with them in their effort to meet the demands of life. He is mindful of the pressures that are upon them which cause them to deviate from the ideal Jewish pattern, but he dreams of what Jewish life would be like, if only we all would come closer to this ideal, if every Jew were really to attain the spiritual strength for which he now prays. Mindful, therefore, that I may be accused of imitating to some extent a widely publicized address recently delivered in Washington,[1] and mindful also that I shall be indeed more or less guilty of the charge, I shall, nevertheless, try to tell you of the dream that I now have under the spell of this sacred evening.
 
I have a dream that the aura of holiness which so many of us experience unfortunately only on Yom Kippur Eve, will linger with all of us throughout the entire year, and that our lives will be influenced accordingly. The most important single word of our religious vocabulary is this word holiness, in Hebrew, kedusha. Tomorrow afternoon we shall open our Torah reading with the commandment, "K’doshim Tihyu, ki kadosh ani Adonoy Elohaychem.  Ye shall be holy for I the Lord your God am holy."[2] This is the most sublime commandment to be found in the Torah. It reflects the major ideal of the Jewish way of life. And do not think that kedusha—being holy— implies some mystic or ascetic way of living that is out in left field. It is a concept that applies to normal everyday life and involves the daily routine of very normal people. You have only to look into the rest of the Torah reading to find out that holiness implies godliness, but it is also very much down to earth, and it concerns the virtues that every man ought to possess—respect for parents, appreciation of what is sacred, sympathy for the underprivileged, fair treatment of the laborer, justice and love for one's fellow man. This is how holiness is defined in our Torah.
 
We hear a great deal today about motivation. Educators, advertisers, employers are all concerned with how to motivate people to get the best results for their purpose. However, whatever the area of activity, the strongest motivation for most of us is to be found in the drive for status, for pleasure, for wealth. This is what dominates us in today's materialistic environment. And most people take it quite for granted that these are the only reasonable motivations that a man can have. But think for a moment of the line we shall read in the Memorial Service tomorrow. "…endless are the desires of the heart; no [man] had enough of riches and honor when death ended his career."[3] Obviously, if these are our only goals, we can never experience contentment or fulfillment. The envy we have of others, the self-dissatisfaction that gnaws at so many of us, the depressions we suffer are testimony to that truth. Judaism suggests a different motivation, if we are to find life worthwhile. It is the goal not of status or pleasure or wealth, but that intangible something we feel here tonight--kedusha, holiness. This is what is supposed to be the distinctive goal of a Jewish life, and only as we introduce this element of the holy into our way of living can we lift ourselves above the level of the animal, can we regain a measure of dignity and self-esteem.
 
And so I have a dream of people whose motivation in life is kedusha, who are concerned with holiness.
 
This dream, however, is but the general introduction to thoughts of more specific areas of activity which might be influenced if we aspired to kedusha. I, therefore, have a dream also about the Jewish home. The Jewish home was always both the expression of holiness and our inspiration toward it. In Jewish tradition every home was a small sanctuary. The table was considered an altar, and husband and wife were the priests who ministered there. In a Jewish home there were prayers which expressed thanks to God and conveyed to children an awareness of the Divine. And so I have a dream of a Jewish home which has recaptured its spiritual character. It is a home in which a stranger will not mistake the religious affiliation of its residents. If his eye misses the mezzuzah[4] as he walks through the door, he surely sees Jewish books and Jewish art and Jewish ritual objects distributed appropriately about the house and that testify to the identity of its occupants. In that home there is mutual respect between parents and children, fidelity and love between husband and wife. And in that home sacred Jewish moments command attention. In that home, in particular, there is Shabbos. Father has enough Jewish conviction to be home in time to sit with his family for candle lighting and kiddush, and even go to a service afterwards. Mother struggles, perhaps, but nevertheless, manages to get her work done, so that there is no need to violate the spirit of the Shabbos by going shopping on that day or getting her hair done or doing the laundry. The Sabbath is a day of delight because mother truly enjoys her day of rest and imparts to the home a spirit not found on any other day.
 
And I have a dream about the synagogue. The synagogue was always the partner of the home as the source of inspiration for kedusha. It is in my dream a building that does not need to tolerate that incriminating device—that slap in the face to Judaism—the folding door which enables the sanctuary to expand for the High Holy Day throng, because the members of the synagogue are seen in great numbers throughout the year as well. The synagogue in my dream is an institution supported by all the Jews of the community as an act of unquestionable Jewish loyalty, and its people have not waited for children to become of proper age, however that may be construed. It has a membership who show a sense of personal responsibility and do not wait for high pressure before contributing a fair share—whether it be for building fund or normal administration expense. Nor do they show resentment when overworked and self-sacrificing committees, usually composed of only one or two people, remind them to discharge the obligations for which they have committed themselves to the congregational treasury. It houses a congregation so sensitive to the purposes of the synagogue and so jealous of its dignity that it does not permit within its walls activities that detract from this dignity even if financial benefit is derived.[5] It is a congregation, furthermore, not supported by set dues or assessments, but by voluntary contributions which are always conscientiously given in adequate proportion to the need and the ability of the donor to give. In this way its doors are kept open to all people, and nobody is inhibited from joining or embarrassed because he truly cannot meet the prevailing schedule of fees.
 
I have a dream about Jewish education. I have a dream that when the word education is use it is not automatically associated with children. Of course, it does involve children, too. In my dream parents come to me and say that our educational program is not extensive enough, and they demand deeper content. Some of them, instead of saying to me [voiced with sarcasm], "What do you think! My son wants to become a rabbi?" Are saying to me [voiced with pride], "What you think! My son wants to become a rabbi!  We must do more to prepare him!" In this dream the kindergarten, confirmation, and high school classes have as many peoples as the bar mitzvah grades. There are no phone calls which ask, “What is the deadline for entering my boy in school so that he can be bar mitzvah?” There is no need for reminders that these boys must return to the religious school after bar mitzvah.
 
But the dream goes further and includes the adults. In my fantasy there are as many adults in the adult education classes as there are children in the religious school. There are as many faculty members for these adult classes as there are in the children's grades. There is a budget for adults which equals the budget for the children. The traditional abhorrence of Jewish ignorance has been restored.
 
I have a dream that Jews will be responsive in yet another way, and that is that their Jewish horizon will not be limited to their local community. The Jew will be very much aware of what is going on in the Jewish world at large. He is mindful of his obligation to charitable organizations. He is concerned that Jewish life will be strengthened by a strong congregational union and a strong rabbinical seminary. He knows that if Israel is to stay afloat in the sea of hostility in which it finds itself, he must not hide when called upon. In my dream it is not always the faithful few that are working and contributing. There is a surplus of workers. There is no need for fancy dinners and testimonials. The call goes out. The meeting is full. The quota is subscribed.
 
There are obviously many directions in which one's dreams can take him if he lets his mind wander about, and many more details could be added, which you can perhaps even guess for yourselves. But there is just one more dream that I would like to mention, and not leave for you to guess at. In this dream we, as a Jewish community, have rid ourselves of all the crassness and vulgarity that is so often displayed particularly in this metropolitan area. In this dream no Jew any longer debases himself on these High Holy Days by running to the hotel resorts to spend these sacred hours. Newspapers no longer carry the hotel advertisements which announce their phony cantors and choirs together with the entertainment in their cocktail bars. Everyone realizes that there is a time for all things, that there is a time to consider physical comfort and seek relaxation at a resort, but that the High Holy Days are a time for spiritual discomfort, and the plush resorts are the very antithesis of the kind of environment in which one should pray and meditate. In this same dream we are rid also of the vulgarity which accompanies so many celebrations of supposedly sacred personal occasions of life. Bar Mitzvah ritual no longer includes the busy bar, the raucous orchestra, the rhumba and the twist. We have eliminated the crude floor shows and the late, late parties at which the children are the guests of honor. As a matter of fact, we have brought to an end all lavish Bar Mitzvah entertaining altogether, and use the money perhaps to send the boy to a summer camp in Israel instead. We are also no longer attracted to the package deals of the circus-like catering establishments for the celebration of weddings. We have brought this sacred moment into the sanctuary where we can preserve its dignity and its sanctity. We have, in general, recaptured our sense of propriety and restored our good taste.
 
Perhaps, my friends, all of what I have been saying has, indeed, been too much like a dream, for dreams have a way of rambling on and often in disconnected fashion. Dreams are often incomplete and unreal and impossible. But some dreams need to be cherished, nevertheless, and need to be proclaimed. “If you will it,” said Herzl,[6] “it will not remain merely a dream.” His dream of a Jewish state was also fantastic, but it happened. Perhaps our dreams can also happen. But even if we cannot expect to change the whole community, let us at least change ourselves. When our service is over tonight, our mood will be broken, but let us be determined that it shall not be forgotten. If we cannot yet achieve all we hope for, then let each of us alone and all of us here together as a congregation make our own small contribution toward sanctity and sanity. We may not be able to realize the whole dream, but let us who are here now each try to kindle a spark of holiness in his own life. Let us as a congregation maintain a sense of values. This will, in itself, be a big step forward.
 
“Lo alecha ham’lacha ligmor, v’lo atta ven chorin l’hibatail mimena. It is not incumbent upon thee to complete the work, but neither art thou free to desist from it altogether.”[7]


[1] I Have a Dream was a public speech delivered by American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. on August 28, 1963, in which he called for an end to racism in the United States. Delivered to over 250,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington, the speech was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement. The speech was ranked the top American speech of the 20th century in a 1999 poll of scholars of public address. Given the fiery rhetoric of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the quiet demeanor of Sidney Ballon, it’s not likely that he would be accused of imitating Dr. King in anything other than the theme of the address.

[2] Leviticus 19:2

[3] Union Prayer Book II, Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1945, p310  “The eye is never satisfied with seeing; endless are the desires of the heart. No mortal has ever had enough of riches, honor and wisdom, when death ended his career.”

[4] A mezuzah (Hebrew for "doorpost") is a piece of parchment, typically contained in a decorative case, inscribed with specified Hebrew verses from the Torah that compose the Jewish prayer Shema, affixed to the doorframe of Jewish homes to fulfill the Biblical commandment to inscribe these words "on the doorposts of your house."

[5] By this, he no doubt was referring to bingo, which to my knowledge the Nassau Community Temple managed to avoid.

[6] Theodor Herzl (1860–1904), was an Austro-Hungarian journalist, playwright, political activist, and writer. He was one of the fathers of modern political Zionism. Herzl formed the World Zionist Organization and promoted Jewish migration to Palestine in an effort to form a Jewish state.

[7] Pirke Avot 2:16
0 Comments

Remember Amalek!

3/8/1963

0 Comments

 
In recent years, the term ”evildoers” was used by George W, Bush to rouse the passions of the American people to wage war in the Middle East. It almost gave confronting evil a bad name. Consequently, with Bush’s jingoism still ringing in our ears, it may be jarring to hear my father's use of the word “evildoer” in the following pre-Purim sermon. In Jewish history, however, genuinely evil Hamans and Hitlers have too often conspired against the Jewish people. Remembering these perpetrators, and combating evil is an essential component of Jewish life in all ages. In this sermon, delivered during the relatively benign era of the early 1960s, the ”evildoer” in question is a Biblical character by the name of Amalek. My father asserts that it is not for the sake of blind vengeance that we are commanded to remember his name.
...the pleas to “Remember Amalek” can have a very positive meaning for us. It is a command not to hate the enemy more, but to remember the evil of prejudice and oppression which he fosters and to fight this evil with all our strength in whatever form it appears.... it is a plea for a greater sense of personal responsibility in the building of a better world....
​TONIGHT IS THE SABBATH BEFORE PURIM, and it is traditionally given the special name of Shabbos Zachor, which we usually interpret as Sabbath of Remembrance. This title comes to it because it has been customary in congregations other than Reform to read on this Sabbath not only the regular Torah portion of the week, but also an additional paragraph out of the book of Deuteronomy, which begins with the word Zachor and which reads, according to the new Torah translation,
Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt—how, undeterred by the fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear. Therefore, when the Lord grants safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget.[1]
We read this passage just before Purim because the villain Haman[2] has always been associated with Amalek. In the Book of Esther, Haman is called as Agagite, and Agag was the King of the Amalekites, therefore, Haman and Amalek were considered somehow to be related, and both of these names became equally symbolic of all enemies of the Jewish people.
 
As we think of this passage, however, which tells us to remember what Amalek has done, two questions come to mind. First of all we wonder at the contrast between the spirit of these words and the spirit with which we deal with Haman on the day of Purim. Purim is such an easy going holiday, a day of merriment and joy. We hardly take Haman very seriously, and we laugh at him and all that he stands for. But when we speak of Amalek, it seems to be in a rather vindictive tone and totally without humor. This is not at all in keeping with the spirit of Purim. And so we may question why our tradition called for us to go out of our way and engage in this extra reading from another section of the Bible in connection with Purim, when its spirit is so different.
 
And secondly we may well ask why we read this passage when it differs not merely from the spirit of Purim, but also seems to be at odds with the spirit of Judaism in general. The bible speaks so often of love and forgiveness and mercy. It tells us not to seek vengeance and to love they neighbor as thyself. The rabbis speak of the children of Israel as merciful children of merciful fathers. There seems to be a striking conflict between this ideal and the injunction to remember what our enemy has done to us in the past and never to forget.
 
And yet the idea of remembering the Amaleks and Hamans of history can be justified. And we might note first of all, even though we remember, we Jews do not have to defend ourselves against any charge of being vengeful or vindictive. The antagonism of the Jew through the centuries against those who oppressed him found its release for the most part in a harmless Purim spiel.[3] We speak gleefully about hanging Haman and we stomp when his name is mentioned as we read the Megilla,[4] but that is the end of the matter. We have talked about our hates, but it has ended with the talk. On Passover, also, for example, the traditional Haggadah, when the door is opened for Elijah, implores God to pour out his wrath upon the nations who oppose Him, but the emotion dissipates itself with the utterance. I am reminded of the childish refrain, “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” Jews have generally called names but have not thrown sticks and stones and so have not caused harm.
 
Recently, Jews may seem to have taken vengeance of a sort when Eichmann[5] was put on trial and condemned. But if we examine this matter carefully we see that what was done to him was not done in blind anger or in a vengeful spirit, but rather in accordance with the due process of law as it might concern any other criminal who had to be called to account for his violence against society. The long suffering patience of the Jew stands in sharp contrast to the hateful and vengeful spirit of his persecutors and the Jew need not feel squeamish about his own feelings and reactions.
 
Remembering Amalek and all that he symbolizes, therefore, is not for the purpose of obtaining vengeance or of seeking retaliation. It serves rather several other purposes of a positive nature, which make it advisable to say, “Remember!”
 
We remember Amalek not merely because he was an evildoer who did harm to the Jewish people but because he has become the personification of evil itself. Likewise, Haman is not merely the foolish prime minister who managed to get himself hanged, but he has become for us the very symbol of evil in general, of evil which can possibly occur again and again, and to remember this evil is to be on guard against it. Our rabbis said that one should not hate evildoers, but should be constantly on guard against and actively in combat with evil itself. To hate evil is a principle of Judaism.
 
Many people asked during the days of the Eichmann trial, if we may refer to it again, “Why have this trial”--and thus reawaken all those horrible memories which are so disturbing particularly to those people who had personal memories of the concentration camps. “Better,” they said, “that we should forget and let the memory of this bitterness die out.” But it was important, both for us and all the world, not to forget in the hope that this will prevent a recurrence. If we keep this memory alive, and remind the world what compromise with dictatorship can lead to, perhaps it will prevent the kind of drift that made Hitlerism possible and make people a bit more zealous in the defense and preservation of freedom. President Adenour,[6] a few days ago, made the statement that the German people are not to be held responsible for what happened to the Six Million. It is only the Hitler leadership that is to be blamed. We cannot blame him for saying this. The guilt of the German people is so monstrous it cannot be endured. It must be rationalized and excused if they are to live with themselves. But we must remember. A people who could tolerate such leadership and provide the grounds upon which it grew is suspect. Today Germany is perhaps the most prosperous nation in Western Europe.  What will she do with this prosperity? Will it lead again to arrogance and destruction? We need to remember and we need to be on guard.
 
There is another virtue to remembering. Jewish life comes easy today, for us, at least, in America. And consequently we hold in light esteem the heritage that is ours. But we need to remember the great cost of preserving this heritage in the past, the sacrifice that was required, the courage and faith that had to be displayed. When we realize the cost of something, we are more likely to treat it with respect and to be reluctant to let it slip easily away. When we realize the odds against which Jews had to combat, perhaps we can better appreciate the wonder that is involved in Jewish survival.
 
According to all normal patterns of history, the Jew should long ago have disappeared. By some act of Divine providence he continues to play a significant role on the stage of history, but if we were to repress the memories of an Amalek or of a Haman, of a Titus[7] or a Torquemada,[8] of a Hitler or an Eichmann, or a host of others who have sought to destroy us we could not fully understand how phenomenal it is that the Jew persists. And it is the awareness of this mystery of Israel that serves as much as anything else to cement a bond among the Jewish people throughout the world.
 
What has happened in Israel recently tends to bear this out. In Israel, since the establishment of the state, there has been a tendency to ignore, in education, the history of our people between the time when the Jews were dispersed by the Romans and the time when the Jews have returned to the land. As a result there has been a lack of identification on the part of Israelis with other Jews outside of Israel, and a feeling of estrangement has been setting in. Ben Gurion[9] has noticed this and has been disturbed by it.  He has decreed that schools now have content which he calls Jewish consciousness. He wants Israelis to remember what has happened to Jews in all times and all places, because he knows that to forget would sever the ties that exist among us. To forget would mean failure to understand even how the State of Israel came to be, failure to comprehend the historical and idealistic forces that contributed to it, the very miracle of its existence. The same thought applies to us. The struggles of the past must be remembered if we are to value our heritage, to preserve our identity, and to maintain our sense of unity with all of Jewry throughout the world.
 
And finally, when we remember Amalek and what he stands for, we are individually more likely to remember the needs of those who have suffered because of the modern Amaleks and Hamans. We will remember our obligation to help. This very weekend has been designated by the New York Board of Rabbis as the occasion for recalling that the United Jewish Appeal is observing its twenty-fifth anniversary as the relief organization of American Jewry. Over these years the UJA has compiled a remarkable record of providing rescue and relief and rehabilitation for over three million Jews all over the world, but unless we remember, the strength of this work may be weakened. The history of he UJA shows that it is only at a time of actual dramatic crisis that the response to its call is at its best. At moments such as the present, the needs of the UJA are still tremendous as it tries to cope with continued immigration to Israel, refugees from North Africa, particularly in France, unrest in South America and problems elsewhere, but the sense of urgency that comes in moments of acute crisis is not present and so the Appeal suffers. We, therefore, need to remember what our enemies have done to us, whether Amalek or Hitler or the lesser adversaries of the present moment in order that we may be reminded of our ever present obligation to response to the needs of our fellow Jews, who are still in distress.
 
Thus the pleas to “Remember Amalek” can have a very positive meaning for us. It is a command not to hate the enemy more, but to remember the evil of prejudice and oppression which he fosters and to fight this evil with all our strength in whatever form it appears. It is a call to remember the difficult days of our people, to sense the wonder of Jewish survival and to cherish what has been so miraculously preserved. It is an admonition to remember those who have suffered at the hands of Amalek and to ease their pain. When we hear the word, “Remember” it is a plea for a greater sense of personal responsibility in the building of a better world, in creating a stronger Jewish life, in providing for our fellow Jews who are uprooted. May we dedicate ourselves to this effort with vision, and may we be rewarded with the strengthening of freedom and peace for all our own people and all the world.
 

[1] Deuteronomy 25:17-19

[2] Haman, also known as Haman the Agagite, or Haman the evil, is the main antagonist in the Book of Esther, who, according to Old Testament tradition, was a 5th Century BCE noble and vizier of the Persian empire under King Ahasuerus.

[3] A Purim Spiel, or Purimshpil, meaning a Purim play—shpil means “game” or “(stage) play” in Yiddish.

[4] A scroll of the Book of Esther, read on the festival of Purim

[5] Adolf Otto Eichmann, 1906-1962) was a German Nazi and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust. After the war, he fled to Argentina until he was captured and taken to Israel to face trial for crimes against humanity and war crimes. He was found guilty and executed by hanging in 1962.

[6] Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer (1876–1967) was a German statesman who served as the first post-war Chancellor of Germany (West Germany) from 1949 to 1963.

[7] Titus Flavius Caesar Vespasianus Augustus, 39-81, was Roman Emperor from 79 to 81. Earlier in his career he was in charge of the military operation against the Jews in Judaea. Infamously brutal toward the vanquished Jews, his most notorious act was to have the Great Temple of Jerusalem destroyed in 70 CE.

[8] Tomás de Torquemada, 1420-1498, a fifteenth century Spanish Dominican friar, first Grand Inquisitor in Spain's movement to restore Christianity among its populace in the late fifteenth century. He is notorious for his zealous campaign against the crypto-Jews and crypto-Muslims of Spain.

[9] David Ben-Gurion, 1886-1973) was a founder and the first Prime Minister of Israel until 1963.
0 Comments

Sentencing Adolf Eichmann

1/12/1962

0 Comments

 
My father weighs the political and moral arguments for and against capital punishment of this contemptible war criminal, ultimately registering more concern for the collective guilt of society and the need to eliminate the conditions that allow for genocide.
The elimination of one psychotic monster will not protect the world from future disaster. There must be an awareness of the need for constant vigilance on the part of nations as a whole. There must be the realization that guilt is widely distributed and not confined to an Eichmann or a Hitler alone.
A SUBJECT THAT SEEMS TO HAVE AROUSED much more than ordinary interest is the question of what Israel should do with Adolf Eichmann[1] now that he has been found guilty as charged. Several weeks ago I conducted a question and answer period with our Temple-Teens and the very first question asked of me was, "What do you think of the death penalty for Eichmann?" The announcement of this topic, at least the first time — as you know, I postponed the discussion then because of a guest who addressed us — seems to have brought a bit better attendance at the service than might have been there otherwise. And this interest is, of course, not merely because of the nature of Eichmann's crimes, but also because of our interest in the question of capital punishment which in recent years has been an issue amongst us.
 
There is no difference of opinion about the court's verdict of guilty. There seems to be very little continuation of the old dispute as to whether Israel should try Eichmann in the first place. A Christian clergyman living in Jerusalem reports that people who told him originally they thought it was a mistake and should not be done, now come to him and tell him that it was a good thing. The most important Christian Arab religious leader says, "We never realized how appalling were these atrocities that happened to the Jews. The trial has helped us to understand how Israel and why Israel was created." But there is some difference of opinion as to carrying out the sentence that has just recently been imposed.
 
Those who favor the death penalty for Eichmann say that it is totally unrelated to the question of capital punishment in general. They point out that according to Israeli law capital punishment is banned, but that the death penalty is permitted, nevertheless, when a man is pronounced guilty of what is not the murder of an individual, but genocide, crimes against a whole people. And the Rev. William Hull,[2] a Christian clergyman living in Jerusalem, says that "nothing short of the death penalty is justified."
 
There are also those who say that Israel, having tried Eichmann, now has no alternative but to put him to death, not only because of the enormity of the crimes committed, but also now to keep the peace. They are convinced that if Eichmann is permitted to live, it will enable some of his sympathizers to hope that he may be set free and even invite them to attempt to set him free by force. Perhaps Arabs might want to do that as a gesture of defiance to Israel. Thus if he lives, he may be a source of great agitation and disturbance, whereas once he is put to death, the matter is at an end. His sympathizers will not have any reason to cause trouble.
 
And there is also the opinion that in trying Eichmann, Israel showed great strength as a nation, but if he were now not punished by death, this might be interpreted as a sign of weakness after all, and the respect previously gained might be dissipated.
 
In contrast to these feelings there is the attitude of Martin Buber,[3] famed Israeli philosopher and theologian, who has stated that he would ask the President of Israel[4] to commute the sentence to life imprisonment. He explained that this is not out of sympathy for Eichmann, but because he was opposed in principle to capital punishment, and he applied the principle even to the Eichmann case. Society simply does not have the right to kill, according to him, under any circumstances. Many rabbis in this country have also expressed similar feelings and the New York Times, too, has editorially favored life imprisonment.
 
My own feelings lie in the same direction. I cannot build up any too strong a fighting spirit about it, but I believe Israel might do well not to insist on the death penalty. I must agree with Martin Buber when he speaks of the sanctity of human life. And even though we may not be able to see much sanctity in a life such as Eichmann's, he is, nevertheless, one of the species, and if it is wrong to take human life, then we may well question whether there may be exceptions.
 
But even if an exception is justified, it seems to me that Israel might serve a higher good by refraining from executing the sentence. After all, Israel, too, is in principle opposed to capital punishment. It is a principle that has not yet everywhere been established, as we know from circumstances even in our own country. And this may possibly be an opportunity to exert some influence with respect to this issue. It might be helpful in the fight against capital punishment if it could be said in the future by those who oppose it, that Israel, even with the greatest provocation that could possibly come to pass, did not exact the death penalty from Eichmann, monster though he was. Israel would be showing in this event a kind of moral leadership that would make it outstanding among the nations of the world.
 
Of course, there are many who see in the trial and in the sentence the virtue that Israel shows itself not different from the other nations of the world, but like them after all. It tries those who are its criminal enemies as any proud and independent people would, and it imposes penalties upon the guilty as any other nation would. For some this ability of Israel to function like the other nations is the supreme glory. But somehow, although I like to see Israel have the power to function like the other nations, I think the supreme glory would be if on certain occasions it would forbear to do so, that it discipline itself in the use of power, and demonstrate to the world that its Jewish heritage makes it different from other nations after all, and that one need not expect from Israel a conventional view on moral questions.
 
There is yet another reason that makes the death penalty not seem right. There is no punishment whatsoever that could possibly be appropriate to the crime. The magnitude of what was done can scarcely be comprehended, and man's imagination cannot possibly envisage a penalty that would be commensurate. And yet, even though there is no possible atonement on this earth for that which has been done to the Jewish people, in the minds of the world I am afraid that when and if the trap of the gallows is sprung, the accounts will be considered square. The world will be all too ready to say, "yes, there was a great crime committed, but the man responsible was apprehended and convicted and punished and now let us forget the whole thing." It might even be better not to punish at all as a symbol that no punishment can possibly be inflicted that makes sense or measures up to the horror of what was done, and as a symbol that the guilt involves many more than Eichmann.
 
There is a danger, in any case, that Eichmann’s trial may backfire and his execution may heighten that danger. It may be that too much attention has been turned to Eichmann, and that the purpose of the trial itself will fade from mind. The trial was held because Israel wanted the world not to forget what had been done to the Jewish people. The trial was held because Israel felt that the exposure of Nazi beastiality might so stir the conscience of the world that a similar catastrophe could not ever happen, that the world might be made more sensitive when human beings find themselves in distress. As Judge Landau[5] himself put it in his rendering of the verdict, the trial raised the questions of how this could happen in the light of day, how much guilt did nations other than Germany have, and what lesson can be learned for the future. The world did learn a lot about what happened under Nazi direction, and the facts could no longer be denied by reasonable men. The record was made very clear. But in the process of making the record clear the center of attention was always Eichmann. It was Eichmann on trial — not the Nazis or the German people or the world as a whole that sat idly by. It was Eichmann who was convicted — not the Nazis or the German people or the world as a whole. And that is the danger — that he become the scapegoat for all the guilty, and the blame for the whole mess be shifted onto him. He will be considered guilty, and with his hanging the score is even and everyone else smugly satisfied that justice is done. But if the trial leaves the impression that Eichmann is thus mainly responsible, then the main lessons of it all, of collective guilt, may be lost — the lesson of what can happen in this world even at the hands of a supposedly civilized nation, the lesson of how seemingly cultured people can be misled and can contribute to injustice and cruelty, of how a whole nation can become morally diseased and do evil. That lesson is needed for the sake of the future. The elimination of one psychotic monster will not protect the world from future disaster. There must be an awareness of the need for constant vigilance on the part of nations as a whole. There must be the realization that guilt is widely distributed and not confined to an Eichmann or a Hitler alone. The very nature of the trial, however, because only one man was sitting in court and being judged, already tends to give the impression of a single man being guilty. But perhaps in being circumspect about the punishment we can yet demonstrate to the world that the punishment of one man does not yet wipe the slate clean, that Eichmann condemned does not absolve the world and has not eliminated the danger, and that it is our total society that must learn to discipline itself.
 
This is my reaction to the death penalty imposed upon Eichmann and in keeping with this line of thought there is a suggestion that has been made that bears consideration. The Arab Greek Catholic Archbishop in Israel is reported as suggesting that Israel might give Eichmann a life sentence and then send him back to Germany where he ought to be put on trial again and punished. “If the death sentence should be given, let it be given in Germany not in Israel.” It strikes me as a wonderful idea. Israel has now tried Eichmann and brought out the facts. There is no possible way of punishing him or his fellow Nazis. But sending him to Germany for another trial which the German government would have to order, would be to make the German people that much more aware of their own guilt. Let them hear recounted among themselves what they have done and let them sentence the beast. They could hardly try to whitewash him before the world as matters stand, and in trying him and punishing him themselves perhaps the realization of what they have done would be driven home sufficiently to achieve some kind of repentance among them. What happens to Eichmann really matters very little. And if Germany even let him go what does it matter? He will at best walk this earth with the mark of Cain on his brow, and be a constant reminder to all of the evil we must guard against. And perhaps some lasting good for the world will come out of the challenge to Germany to punish their own and expiate their own guilt.
 
Having said all this, I am content to let the matter rest. I do not think there should be any extensive public debate or outcry concerning this. The less attention we call to Eichmann the better. The problem is not Eichmann but man's inhumanity to man. And the attention of the world should not be diverted from the major problem. If Israel chooses to change the sentence — well and good. If not, I regret it but am willing to leave it to the judgment of the Israeli court and to the people who suffered at his hand to make the final decision without complications from the outside.
 
It is the guilt of Nazi-ism and the world that tolerated it that must be emphasized, not the punishment of Eichmann. It is not the fate of one man but the innocent six million that should concern us. And what is important about the trial and its outcome is only that there must be a heightened determination to keep the peace of the world in the future and to prevent a recurrence of the sadism which degraded the dignity of man, the persecuted and the persecutor alike.
 

[1] Otto Adolf Eichmann (1906 – 1962) was a lieutenant colonel in the German Nazi SS and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust. Eichmann was charged with facilitating and managing the logistics of mass deportation of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps in German-occupied Eastern Europe during World War II. In 1960, he was captured in Argentina by Mossad, Israel's intelligence service. Following a widely publicized trial in Israel, he was found guilty of war crimes. On December 15, 1961, about a month before this sermon was delivered, Eichmann was sentenced to death, but the verdict was under appeal until the end of May 1962. Eichmann was hanged on June 1, 1962.


[2] William Lovell Hull (1897 – 1992) was a Canadian minister who moved to Jerusalem, Palestine in 1935 devoting the next 27 years to missionary. In 1947, he influenced the Canadian member of the UN Special Committee on Palestine to support the UN Partition Plan for Palestine, which was among the factors in the creation of the State of Israel. In 1962, Hull was the spiritual counselor for Adolf Eichmann.


[3] Martin Buber (1878 – 1965) was an Austrian-born Israeli Jewish philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism centered on the distinction between the I–Thou relationship and the I–It relationship.

[4] Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (1884 – 1963) was a historian, Labor Zionist leader and the second and longest-serving President of Israel, serving from 1952 to 1963.

[5] Moshe Landau (1912 – 2011) was an Israeli jurist. He was the fifth President of the Supreme Court of Israel, and one of three judges, including Benjamin Halevy and Yitzhak Raveh, who presided over the Eichmann trial.
0 Comments

Thou Shalt Tell

4/17/1959

0 Comments

 
The rabbis of the shtetl used to give but two sermons a year. One of these was on the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur—Shabbat Teshuva—the Sabbath of Return. The other, as is the case with this sermon, was on the Shabbat preceding Passover—Shabbat Hagadol—the Big Sabbath. It might have seemed big because traditionally the rabbi would give lengthy detailed instructions on Passover observance.
 
My father—a modern suburban American rabbi—delivered a sermon virtually every week,  and rather than to burden the congregation with details of Passover kashrut, he  drew from the holiday liturgy another reminder of one of his favorite sermon topics. Based on the Biblical injunction to teach our children the story of our redemption from slavery at the Passover Seder each year, this Shabbat Hagadol sermon emphasizes the need for education in and commitment to living a full Jewish life—not only for our children’s sake, but for ourselves as well.
If Jewish life is to continue meaningfully we shall have to overcome this tendency to live our Judaism by proxy and restore our individual selves to the center of Jewish living.
TONIGHT, IN JEWISH TRADITION, is one of the most important Sabbath Eves of the year. It is the Sabbath before Passover and is known as Shabbos Hagadol, the Great Sabbath. On this Sabbath all good Jews looked forward to the holiday to come and the rabbis reminded their people of the proper manner of observance and the meaning of the festival. Of course, we hardly need to be reminded of the basic significance of Passover. Its main theme is fundamental in Jewish thinking. Passover brings us a glorious story of a people’s march to freedom, of the birth of a nation, and this episode, with the preceding centuries of slavery, is the sharpest memory that Jews have preserved from the past. Over and over again the Bible refers to it, and because of this experience Jews are urged to treasure freedom and to oppose oppression not only for themselves but for everyone.
 
But there are also other implications of the festival that can be found, certain minor themes which form the background for the major one. And one of these is the reminder of the role of the individual in keeping and transmitting our faith. In the Passover story in the Book of Exodus we read,
V’higadta l’vanecha—thou shalt tell thy son in that day saying: It is because of that which the Lord did for me when I came forth out of Egypt.[1] 
Here is a commandment [that places the emphasis on][2] the individual Jew to tell his offspring the story of the Jewish past, and not only that but a reminder that what happened to the Jewish people collectively must also be considered as something done for each and every Jew personally. There is a personal involvement reflected in both the responsibility for transmitting the story of the Passover and in our concept of its significance. The Jew is not told to send his child to school for Jewish information; he is not to send his child to the priest or to the temple for instruction. Thou shalt tell him. And this does not just mean a responsibility for telling or giving information. Transmission of our Jewish heritage is more than a telling. It is a living. It is setting an example. It is the creating of a home with Jewish atmosphere and Jewish feeling. This is the primary means we have of influencing our children.

To bear this out we have but to note that the most important aspect of Passover observance is the Seder,[3] a home ceremony which is celebrated in intimate family surroundings—a ceremony which creates a special Jewish atmosphere in the home—a ceremony which emphasizes the role of the parents and encourages the child to ask questions so that the father may the better be able to instruct. To be sure this is a ceremony for the first nights of Passover only. We do not duplicate the procedure on any other occasion of the year, but its spirit is one which is basic to Jewish life at all times. Where is the child to get his Judaism? In the religious school? Of course, we must send children to school. In the temple?  Of course, we must train children in the art of worship and teach them to bow before the Almighty. But most important of all, the child must get his Judaism in the home. Thou shalt tell thy children. The power of home example determines more often than not whether a child will be responsive to temple and school. The attitude of the home will determine whether or not the child will take his temple and school seriously. The kind of Judaism that is practiced in the home determines the importance of Jewish attitudes and Jewish practices in the mind of the child. We see this all the time in our own school. Where parental attitudes are positive toward Judaism our children are susceptible to what we try to give them, and where we have problems with the children the likelihood is the parental attitudes are negative.[4]

This personal involvement, however, is not merely a matter of influencing children. It is important for our own personal religious development and satisfaction—that a Jew functions best and assumes his Jewish responsibilities best when he feels himself personally involved in the Jewish story. The Haggada[5] for Seder tells us that each Jew must feel as if he himself had come forth out of Egypt. In the story of the Four Sons,[6] as a matter of fact, that son who does not feel personally concerned with the proceedings is called a rasha, a wicked one, and he is told that if he had been in Egypt he would not have been considered worthy of being redeemed. The Jewish story is not to be considered dry history out of the past. It is to be considered the story of our personal family tree. It is not just the collective ancestry of the Jewish people that was redeemed from Egypt, but our grandfathers, our fathers, even us, ourselves. This is the ideal Jewish attitude. And when we have such a close personal involvement with our tradition, then we are much more apt to exert ourselves with our Jewish responsibilities for the present. A man can sympathize with the needs of other families but he usually exerts greater effort and is ready to sacrifice for his own. We need, therefore, not just a warm feeling in our hearts for the collective entity of which we are a part—the Jewish people. We need a sense of family belongingness, of personal involvement in all that the Jewish people have accomplished or hope to accomplish in the present. We cannot say the Jewish people are the people of the book and shirk our own responsibility for studying that book. We cannot say the synagogue is important as a house of worship and then withdraw ourselves personally from participating in that worship. We cannot say the Jewish people need Israel or must maintain philanthropies and Jewish institutions, and forget our own personal responsibility for what the Jewish people must accomplish. We, the individuals, are the Jewish people. The Jewish people as a whole cannot accomplish more than any of its individuals is willing to do.

It is one of the problems of our time that Jewish loyalties and obligations are thought of in a collective sense, and we seem to forget the significance of the individual. Collectively we create synagogues and schools and are proud of Jewish causes and institutions, but personally we permit ourselves to be assimilated into the manner of the environment and homes are losing their Jewish stamp, our pattern of life is losing its Jewish flavor, and we think our Jewish institutions—religious, charitable, and Israel—can run without us. We want the synagogue to observe the Sabbath and the home is entirely wochidig.[7] We want prayer in the synagogue, but the home is never humble and thankful. We want to teach Jewish ideals to our children, but in the home and marketplace it is what is practical and what is pleasurable that is most often followed.
Judaism was not meant to be compartmentalized. There is no such thing as a Jewish way to be followed in the synagogue and the school and a different standard for the home and the world at large. Everything we do is to have a background of Jewish meaningfulness, a unity of spirit.

Passover, through the Seder and its ritual, dramatizes the need for a personal Judaism as well as a group loyalty—the importance of a sense of personal involvement and commitment, a readiness to give to Jewish living and thinking a high priority in the scheme of things and not to make them secondary to convenience or conformity to the standards of the crowd.

Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan[8] once pointed out that in former years each Jewish home hired a Shabbos goy[9] who was supposed to be helpful around the house so that the family might keep the Sabbath without violation. Now he says, Jews hire rabbis who are supposed to keep the Sabbath for them so that families can break it without being troubled. If Jewish life is to continue meaningfully we shall have to overcome this tendency to live our Judaism by proxy and restore our individual selves to the center of Jewish living.
 

[1] Exodus 13:8

[2] Ballon typically typed every word of his sermons, double-spaced, allowing for insertions and corrections in the spaces between lines of text. Regrettably, some of his insertions are hand written and undecipherable, or on occasion the sense of the edit is clear even if the complete text has not been entered. In these cases I provide brackets to indicate that I have had to exercise some editorial judgment to make the language flow as it might have as he spoke the words from the pulpit.

[3] The Passover Seder ("order, arrangement") is a Jewish ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover. The Seder is a ritual performed by a community or by multiple generations of a family, involving a retelling of the story of the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt.

[4] This begs a personal note: there were notable exceptions to this rule. It no doubt was a source of much frustration that Ballon’s two sons were often among the worst offenders when it came to religious school diligence and cooperation. Fortunately he did see the day when his first born, Rabbi Jeffrey Ballon ז״ל, became an ordained rabbi. I can only hope that he had the vision to foresee the day when I too would find deep meaning in so many of his words, and the heritage he so fervently tried to impart. Of course, our sister, Martha, was always well behaved!

[5] The Haggada(h) is a Jewish text that sets forth the order of the Passover Seder.

[6] The traditional Haggadah speaks of "four sons"—one who is wise, one who is wicked, one who is simple, and one who does not know to ask. Each of these sons phrases his question about the Seder in a different way. The Haggadah recommends answering each son according to his question, using one of three verses in the Torah that refer to this exchange.

[7] A simple translation from the Yiddish is "weekday" meaning, in this context, that Shabbat is no different than any other day of the week.

[8] Mordecai Menahem Kaplan (1881-1983), was a rabbi, essayist and Jewish educator and the co-founder of Reconstructionist Judaism.

[9] A Shabbos goy, (Yiddish) is a non-Jewish individual who regularly assists a Jewish individual or organization by performing certain acts on the Sabbath which are forbidden to Jews within Jewish law. The phrase is a combination of the word "Shabbos" meaning the Sabbath, and "Goy", which literally means "a nation" but colloquially and practically means a "non-Jew."
0 Comments

Ben-Gurion

2/8/1957

1 Comment

 
My father provides a sympathetic biography of the founding father of the State of Israel, and in so doing continues to assert his understanding of the difference between Israel and her hostile neighbors.
We can consider it fortunate, indeed, that the State of Israel for most of its brief existence has had as its leader a personality as forceful and as dedicated as David Ben-Gurion. …. Not everyone has agreed with him… but everyone has respected him, and … has been grateful for his leadership.
​

A FEW MONTHS AGO A MAN APPLIED TO THE ISRAELI AIR CORPS for training as a parachutist. He was rejected, but it took a lot of convincing before the man would accept the rejection and peaceably go his way. He could not be convinced that it was medically unsound. He could not be convinced that he was overage. He did finally listen to the argument that the time it would take to train was more than he could spare from other important duties he had to fulfill. This man was David Ben-Gurion,[1] Prime Minister of Israel, who just recently celebrated his seventieth birthday.
 
The anecdote illustrates very well how young in spirit this leader of Israel is despite his three score and ten, what energy and enthusiasm he possesses for his task, how anxious he is to set a personal example of courage and hard work before his people. The order had gone out that everyone connected with the parachute outfit had to be able to jump, not only the combatants but the medics and the chaplains and other noncombatants as well. The man who had already given his people a lifetime of effort felt obligated to obey the order himself and show the way.
 
We can consider it fortunate, indeed, that the State of Israel, for most of its brief existence, has had as its leader a personality as forceful and as dedicated as David Ben-Gurion. He has had opposition to be sure. Not everyone has agreed with him politically. He has not always been careful of what he has said from the standpoint of public relations. He has even entered into controversy with American Zionists, but everyone has respected him, and perhaps even though they may have opposed him, has been grateful for his leadership.
 
Ben-Gurion has been above all a man of strong will and action. Hertzl[2] also long before had said, "If you will it, it is no dream." In doing so, however, he was merely expressing optimism about the possibilities of the future. When Ben-Gurion willed something, it was connected with immediate action. There are three crucial decisions in particular when Ben-Gurion’s assertion of will may possibly have changed the whole course of events in Israel. The first of these came in his espousal of a policy to ignore the British decrees to stop emigration into Palestine in the months before the establishment of the state. There were those who, with good reason, warned that all the achievements in Palestine up to that time might be destroyed in the effort to challenge the might of Great Britain, but Ben-Gurion could understand only that Jews who were fleeing the specter of Hitlerism must be admitted to the Jewish homeland whatever the consequences. If there was a risk involved it had to be taken.
 
A second decision of crucial significance was the declaration of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948. There was great reluctance on the part of many. There was good reason to fear that the inevitable Arab attack which would follow would swallow up the Jewish community. But Ben-Gurion's philosophy was if you want to be a people, you have to act like a people. If you want to function as a Jewish homeland and must assume complete political authority in order to do so, then it has to be assumed. Others wanted to wait for a more favorable international climate, but Ben-Gurion seized the opportune moment, and who knows whether or not Israel would have come into being at all if he had not done so. His insistence that Israel must be always open to the ingathering of the exiles is another such crucial decision. In a land beset with political and economic problems, in a land dependent for so much upon outside aid, it might have been smarter to limit immigration, to lighten the problem of absorption of so many newcomers, and particularly so many newcomers of cultural backgrounds so different from the Jews already in the land. But an Israel closed to any Jew made no sense to Ben-Gurion, and so the people sacrificed and kept the doors open in spite of the difficulties. If not for Ben-Gurion anyone of these decisions might have been different. His stubborn will has made Israel what it is today.
 
The most dramatic act of Ben-Gurion was perhaps his retirement into the desert as a humble worker. In December 1953 after five and a half years as leader of the Israeli government, Ben-Gurion decided to retire to a collective settlement in the desert of the Negev, Sdeh Boker. There were some rumors that he did so because of political disagreements within his party. He himself denied this firmly and wrote that he retired because of "extreme weariness" and "mental strain" after so many years of working at high tension. Regret was voiced on a nonpartisan basis. Everyone looked upon him as a national leader rather than as a party man, and they knew his counsel and his daring would be missed. It took great courage and character to step out of a position of authority when there was no pressure upon him to do so. It took a great sense of dedication to retire not to a comfortable residence in Jerusalem, but to a hut in an isolated Negev settlement. It was an inspiring example of selfless pioneering which he set before his people when he was already at an age far beyond that associated with pioneering. Ben-Gurion's retirement was not complete. His home became a shrine visited by many. His advice was still sought out. He had time now to think, to read, to write, and he made his influence felt. After fourteen months his successor Moshe Sharett did not handle it to everybody's satisfaction, and so Ben-Gurion returned to the cabinet as the Minister of Defense. A bit later in the summer, after a new election was held, he returned to his old post as the Prime Minister.
 
Israel only a few weeks ago found itself at war with Egypt, and the effects of that war are still being dealt with by the great powers. And yet, even though Ben-Gurion sparked the invasion of the Sinai peninsula, he may nevertheless be labeled a man of peace, a man whose philosophy bears the stamp of the prophets of old, and whose thinking and writing shows deep attachment to the Bible. In this respect he stands in striking contrast to the leader of Egypt[3] whose ideal is Hitler's Mein Kampf, and the guest of our president[4] who said he was willing to sacrifice thousands of Arabs if he could only wipe out Israel.
 
One of the striking quotations of Ben-Gurion, often referred to, comes from the early days, and reads, "It is not that we regard the Mandate[5] as our Bible; it is that the Bible is our Mandate." For Ben-Gurion the ancient past reflected in the Bible and the Messianic future spoken of are directly related to the present. He wrote in 1952:
The State of Israel will be judged not by its wealth or military strength, not by its technology, but by its moral worth and human values … Merely to be like other peoples is not enough. We may aspire to fulfill the words of the prophet, “I the Lord give thee for a covenant of the people to the nations.” … We shall be untrue to our national purpose if we do not hand on to our youth the great vision of the prophets…. The People of the Book, which today is renewing its national independence, will be required for a long time to come to concentrate its utmost efforts on the building of the Land, the fostering of its economy, its security and international status. Security and economy, however, are only the means not the end. We are building the state with prophetic vision and messianic longings, to be an example and guide to all men. The words of the prophet remain true for us: "I will give thee for a light unto the nations, that thou mayest be my salvation onto the end of the earth.[6]
​We said he was a man of peace. On his seventieth birthday, just a short time before the invasion of Egypt, Ben-Gurion told a newspaperman, "As long as it is for me to decide, we shall have no war." He always spoke out against those who advocated a preventive war against the Arabs. Why then the invasion? One of his own speeches in the summer of 1956 to a labor convention gives the answer, and explains the decision he so regretfully had to take to invade.
Our will to peace does not in itself guarantee peace, and we shall endanger our very existence if we fall prey to vain delusions and false imaginings. We must not ignore the bitter truth that our neighbors, headed by the Egyptian dictator, are preparing for the second round, and they are now being assisted by Soviet arms, after previously receiving British and American arms, which some of the Arab countries still continue to receive. … There is perhaps no other people in the world so deeply interested as ourselves both for moral reasons and for the sake of their own survival in increasing the authority of the U.N. to maintain world peace. But in the Security Council and the General Assembly, there is a struggle for influence and power between rival and competing forces and blocs. We must realize therefore that Israel's security depends first and foremost — if not solely — on her own power and her capacity to deter aggressors and defeat them if they try to attack us.
Events have proved Ben-Gurion correct. He is a lover of peace, but not a pacifist. When the survival of Israel is at stake he is a man of action. He knew the risk of alienating world opinion in the attack on Egypt, but he knew that if he did not run that risk, Israel would be doomed by an invasion for which Egyptians were amassing their military strength in the desert. Ben-Gurion by his action saved Israel at that moment, but unfortunately his problems are not at an end. The United Nations and the United States unfortunately cherish the disciples of Hitler and the slaveholding Arab princes above a man whose sincere desire is peace and democracy. They think nothing of asking Ben-Gurion to put his head again into an Arab noose. But he can refuse their immoral demands with a clear conscience. Ben-Gurion is the symbol of peace and justice, and it is the diplomats with oil on their hands who must search their hearts.
 
The people of Israel have faith in their leader. Even in stress and sorrow they honor his judgment. Just recently it was reported that an Israeli writer who lost his only son in the war of independence sent a volume of memoirs about the boy to Ben-Gurion with the inscription: “At your command he went; at your command he fell. Blessed be your name.” He spoke for the people of Israel and we, too, pray for the continued health of Israel's leader. May he be spared with full vigor for many additional years to guide his people in these crucial times.

[1] David Ben-Gurion (1886 –1973) was the primary founder of the State of Israel and the first Prime Minister of Israel. He was the first to sign the Israeli Declaration of Independence, which he had helped to write. He led Israel during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and united the various Jewish militias into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Posthumously, Ben-Gurion was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Important People of the 20th century.

[2] Theodor Herzl (1860 –1904), was an Austro-Hungarian journalist, playwright, political activist, and writer. He was one of the fathers of modern political Zionism. Herzl formed the World Zionist Organization and promoted Jewish migration to Palestine in an effort to form a Jewish state.
 
[3] Gamal Abdel Nasser

[4] US President Eisenhower had been conducting meetings that week with His Majesty Saud ibn Abd al-Aziz Al-Saud, King of Saudi Arabia.

[5] Mandatory Palestine was a geopolitical entity under British administration, carved out of Ottoman Southern Syria after World War I. British civil administration in Palestine operated from 1920 until 1948. During its existence it was known simply as Palestine, but, in retrospect, as distinguishers, a variety of other names and descriptors including Mandatory or Mandate Palestine, also British Palestine and the British Mandate of Palestine, have been used to refer to it.

​[6] Isaiah 49:6

1 Comment

Open Hearts and Open Minds

11/4/1955

0 Comments

 
Is this a monumental sermon? Not really, and maybe that's the point. I transcribed it, perhaps, for the sweet, straightforward message about hospitality that my father offers as much as anything else. It also includes a favorite parable, "What kind of a town is this?"
Thus the lack or presence of a spirit of hospitality within the family circle can mold its individual members. It can create individuals who are withdrawn and shrink back upon themselves, or it can create individuals who are outgoing personalities interested in humanity about them, and carried to its extreme conclusion can influence the character of our entire social order.
​

THE TORAH PORTION OF THIS WEEK[1] GIVES US a picture of Abraham in the role of host. We read of the three men who approached his tent, and Abraham received them hospitably, and provided them with water to wash their dusty feet and with a lavish meal with which to refresh themselves. Of course, these men, according to tradition, turned out later to be messengers of God, but Abraham did not know that when he received them into his home. It may be argued that Abraham did nothing exceptional by thus offering these men of his hospitality, because in the pastoral society of those days, it was the customary thing to do. Hospitality was a matter of sheer self-interest. As the shepherd wandered about land and frequently strayed from his own group to points far off, he never knew when he himself would be dependent upon someone for hospitality. There were no restaurants for him to drop into, and he was completely dependent upon the strangers dwelling in tents along the way. If one wanted always to receive hospitality when in need, he also had to provide it. It became, out of sheer necessity, the code of the desert. It indicated a generous heart, but it was also a selfish virtue as well.
 
Nevertheless, the rabbis tell us that Abraham's hospitality was something special. He ran forth to meet the strangers, and did not merely sit idly and wait for them to reach him.[2] He only offered them a morsel of bread when he was speaking to them, but he later put before them a wonderful meal, and he stood by them as they ate, ready to be of further service to them. In the rabbinic mind, therefore, Abraham became the symbol of the utmost in hospitality, and his character in this respect is offered to us as an ideal that we, too, should measure up to.
 
Hospitality is, after all, for us too, not merely a pleasant virtue that we ought to practice out of a sense of duty, but something which, as in ancient times, is also dictated by enlightened self-interest.
 
Psychologists today lay great stress upon the importance of the shared experience of eating together. During the High Holy Days I made mention of eating together as one of the important family experiences that makes for greater devotion and greater solidarity within the family. Its benefits extend, however, beyond relationships within the immediate family. Karl Menninger[3] points out that being given food is the first expression of love which the child understands, and thereafter in the unconscious, food is equated with love. For that reason a dinner party or a social luncheon is a perpetual medium of expressing and building friendship. "Good bread, well beaten, in company" to use a phrase of Stephen Vincent Binet,[4] thus becomes a source of great emotional as well as physical comfort, and a builder of goodwill. Bonaro Overstreet[5] also points out how the practice of such hospitality in the home can affect the attitudes in later life of the individual members of the family who live in that home. She quotes the reports of two adult students with regard to their childhood experiences. One student wrote, "Whenever the doorbell rang in our house, we heard Grandma from one room or Mother from another saying, 'Don't open the door unless you know who it is!'" As a result the student reported that even a telephone bell was now startling. The other student wrote:
In our house it was always bedlam when the doorbell rang. We converged on the door from all parts of the house. Even the peddlers were welcome…. If we bought nothing, we always gave them some fried cakes or cookies. I still retain an interesting curiosity about strangers.
Thus the lack or presence of a spirit of hospitality within the family circle can mold its individual members. It can create individuals who are withdrawn and shrink back upon themselves, or it can create individuals who are outgoing personalities interested in humanity about them, and carried to its extreme conclusion can influence the character of our entire social order. It is a sad and lonely person whose psychological makeup is such that he withdraws from friendly and trusting contact with others. And there are more such people among us then we might suspect, who are either conditioned by their past to follow such a pattern or who thoughtlessly and selfishly drift into it. There are too many of us whose lives fall into a routine which centers only about our immediate family circle and perhaps a few limited chosen friends with whom leisure time is spent, and that becomes the extent of close acquaintanceship with other people. We close ourselves off from close contact with others who for some reason or other are considered not our type, and no effort is made to cultivate strangers either from an attitude of superiority or from sheer laziness to make the effort. We ourselves are consequently the losers. We lose the spice that comes from meeting faces that are new, and coming into contact with new ideas, new thoughts, and new manners. We lose the opportunity of bringing variation into the monotonous patterns of living into which so many persons carelessly fall. The old proverb, "Variety is the spice of life," is trite, but exceedingly true. Very often those people upon whom we look with askance and those strangers that we think are so dull that it doesn't pay to bother with them, may surprise us with their cleverness and their interests. Thus, hospitality is not only good for the person upon whom it is bestowed, but upon the bestower as well.

Hospitality applies to organizations as well as individuals. Just as the individual grows in character and in maturity if he has learned to draw close to other people, so an organization also will grow and prosper only if it cultivates a similar spirit. Quite naturally, I have congregational life, in particular, in mind, and especially our own congregation. From time to time we hear the report brought back to us that people have not become interested in the congregation because it is cold and unfriendly. Frankly, I don't always put too much credence in these reports. Very often such a report merely reflects the state of mind of the person who makes the complaint. The following story, for example, which I've told on other occasions, will illustrate what I mean by this.
A man moved to a new town and went into one of the local merchants and said to him, "What kind of a town is this? Is it friendly? And the merchant answered, with a question, "What kind of town do you come from?" The man said, "It was a terrible place. The people there were very unfriendly and cold and paid no attention to anyone.” In the merchant said, "You will find this place the same way." A second newcomer came a few days later to the same merchant with the same kind of query. Again the merchant replied with his question, "What kind of town do you come from?" This time the newcomer said, "I come from a very friendly place. The people there were just wonderful." And a merchant said to him also, "You will find this place the same.
A great deal of so-called coldness depends on the newcomer, his attitudes, his willingness to come half way and to throw himself into the activities of the community. This is not merely a story, but the fact that I know from personal experience with newcomers to communities through the years. The same community which to one family seems cold, is declared by another to be warm and friendly. However, a congregation must not content itself with placing the burden upon strangers. The congregation must also make every effort to make the newcomer feel at home. It must receive him hospitably and show interest in him. When a congregation is new, there is no question about its hospitality. It seizes eagerly upon every new hand, because everyone is conscious of the need to grow and the need to acquire interested helpers. When a congregation has become more or less settled, however, those who have been with it through its early stages tend to forget the continuous obligation on the part of such a group to welcome the stranger. Sometimes it is because they have acquired a certain sense of ownership, which they do not altogether want anymore to share with others. Sometimes it is pure inertia or weariness. But the same thought applies to an organization as it does to the individual. If we want people to take to us, we must take to them. If we want to draw people into our activities, we must disarm the hesitancy with which they sometimes approach us by running forth to meet them. Our own open and outgoing manner must be infectious, and we must fill them with enthusiasm for us. After all, the stranger that comes to our door, no longer comes to us from the desert and he no longer is dependent upon us alone. There are many doors upon which he may knock, if indeed he decides to knock on any. Our hospitality and our friendship must, therefore, influence him to be with us and to remain with us. We need the help that these newcomers can give us now just as much as when we were beginning. We need their energy and their new thinking. We need their freshness. We need their stimulation and their challenge, and we offer something worthwhile in return. I should like every member of this congregation to be an Abraham running forth to greet every strange face he may see sitting in this auditorium at our service, and running forth to greet the stranger that may come into his neighborhood to bring him into our midst.
 
The Talmud tells us that the action of fathers is a guide to the life of their sons. In the pattern set by our father Abraham in the Torah portion of this week we have a guide well worth following. It is worth following because of the noble ideal that it represents, but it is also worth following because hospitality extended is one of the very few things of which we may say the more we give away, the more we receive in return.

[1] Va-yera, Genesis 18-22

[2] Genesis 18:2. My father chose not to mention that this act of kindness was all the more commendable in that 
Abraham was circumcised in the previous biblical scene. Presumably he was sitting in his tent in some discomfort when he ran to greet the strangers.

[3] Karl Augustus Menninger (1893 – 1990) was an American psychiatrist and a member of the Menninger family of psychiatrists who founded the Menninger Foundation and the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas.

[4] Stephen Vincent Benét (1898 – 1943) was an American author, poet, short story writer, and novelist. Benét is best known for his book-length narrative poem of the American Civil War, John Brown's Body for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1929, and for two short stories, The Devil and Daniel Webster and By the Waters of Babylon
​
[5] Bonaro Wilkinson Overstreet (1902-1985), an author, poet and psychologist. For more than three decades, Mrs. Overstreet and her husband, Harry A. Overstreet, lectured widely on adult education, mental health, social psychology and political philosophy. Outspoken defenders of civil liberties and academic freedom, they co-wrote many books.

 
0 Comments

This I Believe

4/9/1954

0 Comments

 
This sermon came in the midst of the hysterical period of anti-Communist accusations and investigations instigated by Senator Joseph McCarthy. It was a period when speaking one’s mind could result in severe consequences. Edward R. Murrow, the renown broadcast journalist distinguished himself, not only for confronting McCarthy and exposing his demagogic tactics, but also for celebrating free expression via a radio series and subsequent book, This I Believe. My father was unafraid of stating his beliefs. In a way, there is one line in this sermon that summarizes the entire collection of sermons.
It might be good if all of us sat down and tried to write out in a few hundred words just what it is that we believe.
THE MOST IMPORTANT JOB A PERSON HAS TO DO is to run his own life. Everyone of us is constantly making conscious or unconscious decisions as to what we are to do with our time and our talents, what shall be our relationship with our family and with other peoples,  how much of our energies shall we devote to selfish pursuits or to the good of greater numbers. Some people make these decisions as the result of serious thinking and planning. Other people merely drift into what amounts to a decision as a rudderless boat is carried by the wind and tide. The decisions we make—or fail to make—depend entirely upon what the moral and spiritual standards are that we have set for ourselves, what are our aims in life, what are our beliefs, and by this we mean not the things we merely we pay lip service, but what we really feel deep down in our hearts.
 
I wonder how many of us know exactly what we believe? In the rush and struggle of our modern life very few of us take time to sit quietly and meditate about a philosophy of life for ourselves. We live in an age of fears. And added to the fears that were brought to our attention by our President[i] a few evenings ago—communism, the atom bomb, war, unemployment and so on—added to these is perhaps the fear of ourselves. We are constantly running away from ourselves as if we were afraid of the conclusions that we come to if we paused for any length of time to take stock. This is an age of pleasure seeking. We are a generation of escapists.  The majority of us do not care to look at our own lives or life in general from a long-range point of view. We grasp primarily at only what the moment will bring us. We drink unprecedented amounts of alcohol. We form great crowds to look at sports spectacles. Dollars go into pleasure seeking which we would not dream of using for substantial causes. It takes an immediate and acute crisis to sober us up and carry us above our selfish thoughts.
 
It is precisely because our times are so materialistic and life so confused and hectic that people ought to take inventory of themselves. The happiness and moral strength of ourselves as individuals, of our families, and our nation, depend on knowing what we believe and on our being able to believe in values that will lift us up and give us a sense of security and commitment to noble purposes.
 
It was to help people with this important need that Edward Murrow began his radio series, This I Believe. Murrow’s courageous indictment of Senator McCarthy[ii] is not the only noteworthy broadcasting achievement to his credit. 
This I Believe was also a contribution that had the public benefit in mind. A number of people who were known to be successful in their chosen profession and in their adjustment to the problems of life were invited by Murrow to appear on a five minute program and give their personal philosophy and to lay down the rules by which they direct their own lives. One hundred of these personal philosophies have also been gathered in book form, which some of you may have seen, and make interesting reading, and if we ponder over them can perhaps help us think through for ourselves the question of what we believe.
 
The manner of reaction of different people to the topic "this I believe" will quite naturally be varied, but it is interesting to note how often similar thoughts are reflected in this collection. One such thought that many of us ought to ponder is the comparative unimportance of material wealth in achieving peace of mind. Listen to what Alexander Bloch has to say. Bloch is a conductor of a symphony orchestra. His parents had not approved of a musical career for him. For that and economic reasons he was compelled to enter upon a business career and was quite successful. He might have been a well-to-do person had he stayed in business. But his love of music dominated him and he finally gave up his business position and embarked on a musical career. To his family and friends the thought of giving up a good position for a chance at music seemed a little short of insane, but if so he says:
Gee, it's good to be crazy. {Otherwise,] I would have given up all those intangibles, those inner satisfactions that money can never buy and that too often are sacrificed when a man's primary goal is financial success.
Or read the thought of Elmer Bobst who was honorary chairman of the American Cancer society. He speaks of a number of his acquaintances who gather in a well-known golf club frequently, and he says:
If material prosperity were the chief requisites for happiness, then each one should have been happy. Yet it seemed to me something important was missing, else there would not have been the constant effort to escape the realities of life through Scotch and soda. They knew, each one of them, that their productivity had ceased. When a fruit tree ceases to bear fruit it is dying, and it is even so with man.
Another thought which some of these selected men share, is the feeling that we are not victims of chance and circumstances, but that we, ourselves, share in the fashioning of our own destiny, in building our own happiness. "Nothing that can happen to you is half so important as the way in which you meet it,” is the sentiment of a professor of anthropology.

​Are you envious of other people’s talents? Then listen to Mauritz Melchior, who says that:
Talent in a person is indeed a touch of God’s finger, yet any artist must work hard and a human being can do a lot himself to shape his life.
Do physical handicaps disturb us? Then what of the quiet confidence of Helen Keller who feels that:
Fate has its master in the faith of those who surmount it, and limitation has its limits for those who, though disillusioned, live greatly. True faith is not a fruit of security. It is the ability to blend moral fragility with the inner strength of the spirit. It does not shift with the changing shades of ones thought.
And do the blows of life overwhelm us? Then hearken to Dr. Nelson Glueck’s[iii] discovery in a thunderstorm. Once on a bicycle trip when he so much wanted good weather a heavy rain fell. He was disturbed until he became aware that in the midst of the storm there were colors and contours of the landscape that appeared totally different from their appearance in the bright light, but out of which he also could draw beauty and inspiration. And he says it helped him realize that,
There is no sense in attempting to flee from circumstances and conditions which cannot be avoided, but which [one] might bravely meet and frequently mend and often turn to good account.
And yet, another belief often mentioned is the faith in a power higher than ourselves which works through the world. This faith can come in many ways. Dr Robert McIver of Columbia University finds it in the wonder of all.
We learn more and more about things. We learn about the atom and about energy. But we do not learn about causes. We do not know about first things, and we can only wonder about last things. The wonder is in me, and encompasses me, and lies forever beyond—and knowing no name for it, I call it God.
​A physician, Dr. Edmund Brasset of Rhode Island, sees God in the mechanism of the human body.
It is the most ingeniously contrived mechanism on earth, a masterpiece of architectural design, a marvel of efficiency, but for all man’s knowledge of it today, he has just scratched the surface, and there is a non-mechanical and non-material element in it that we cannot see and cannot begin to understand, but it is there and raises man to dignity above the brute.
​And Professor Harry Overstreet once stopped at a collector’s shop where stones and minerals of many kinds were on display. He was taken into a small room where there were some ordinary looking rocks, which he would not have given a second thought, until the man closed the door, cast the room in darkness, and turned on an ultraviolet lamp. Suddenly brilliant colors of indescribable beauty were before their eyes. Similarly he feels that, as he looks upon the universe and walks among his fellow human beings:
Hidden realities are all about us, and we simply do not see all that there is to be seen before our eyes whether in the physical or the human world. And when we become aware that there are glories of life still hidden from us, we walk humbly before the Great Unknown.
​How to find the switch that will give us the hidden meanings of life is the major problem that confronts us all—how to cultivate the patience that we need to solve this problem, how to conquer the arrogance of human beings who feel that only what they can see immediately before them with their limited and finite senses is truth that can be relied upon and is worth having. Many of us pay lip service to the type of ideals which we have just described, but the tragedy of our times is that we do not really feel them or believe in them deeply enough so that our lives are influenced. It is not that we disbelieve. Our problem is that we neither disbelieve nor believe. We are drifting and are not being moved by moral compulsions.
 
It might be good if all of us sat down and tried to write out in a few hundred words just what it is that we believe. The very expression of our thoughts would do us good. And if we found the writing difficult I would suggest a few moments of heartfelt worship, a few glimpses of the majesty of nature, a few acts of kindness done for others, a few reflections of the good things of life we take for granted, a few moments of study of the resources that lie at our disposal in the Jewish heritage that has been given us.
 
The rabbis once said, “All is in the hands of God except the fear of God—that man must obtain for himself.”[iv] Believing is not something that will merely happen to us. Belief must be searched for and acquired. We must be willing to do the things which lead to belief, to make the effort on our own part. And if we would make such an effort we would be rewarded by the joy that comes when we can say with conviction, “This I believe!”



[i] April 7, 1954 President Dwight D. Eisenhower coined one of the most famous Cold War phrases when he suggested the fall of French Indochina to the communists could create a "domino" effect in Southeast Asia. The so-called "domino theory" dominated U.S. thinking about Vietnam for the next decade.


[ii] Edward R. Murrow’s weekly television show, See It Now, focused on a number of controversial issues in the 1950s, but it is best remembered as the show that criticized McCarthyism and the Red Scare, contributing if not leading to the political downfall of Senator Joseph McCarthy. Murrow used excerpts from McCarthy's own speeches and proclamations to criticize the senator and point out episodes where he had contradicted himself.


[iii] Dr. Nelson Glueck, eminent Biblical archeologist and president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.


[iv] Rabbi Chanina explained: "Everything is in the hands of Heaven except the fear of Heaven." Babylonian Talmud, Niddah 1 6b 5.
 
 

 
 
0 Comments

Communism and the Rabbis

10/2/1953

0 Comments

 
This sermon might have been more properly entitled Anti-un-Americanism and the Rabbis, because it's really less about communism and more about the witch hunt perpetrated by Senator Joseph McCarthy and his ilk in the early 1950s. Here, my father expounds on the idea of freedom of the pulpit.
For it is the great tragedy of our nation today that anyone with a liberal thought, anyone who dares to think in an original manner is damned with the label of communist.
​

A FEW WEEKS AGO IT WAS REVEALED that testimony before the Velde[1] Committee[2] of the House of Representatives that has been investigating un-Americanism linked the names of two prominent rabbis with communist activity in this country. These men, both now dead and unable to defend themselves personally, are Judah L. Magnes[3] and Stephen Wise[4]. It is not my purpose tonight to offer any defense of these men. The charges, are preposterous. They have, in any case, been challenged and answered by able Jewish spokesmen, among them the president of our own Union of American Hebrew Congregations[5], and fortunately I do not think that any responsible person took them very seriously. I would like, however, to point out briefly the character of these two men and their interests, because I think that this will give us an insight into the significance of these charges and help us understand better why the McCarthy[6]-Velde type of investigating committee is not a defense of but a threat to the American way of life.
 
The name of Judah L. Magnes is possibly not too familiar to most of you in spite of the fact that he was a prominent rabbi. His career, however, was an interesting and a significant one. Magnes was a graduate of the Hebrew Union College in the class of 1900. Following his graduation he studied abroad, was instructor at the Hebrew Union College for a while, held a position in a congregation in Brooklyn, and in 1908 became Rabbi of Temple Emanuel of New York. He did not last long there, because he advocated a more traditional manner of worship than Emanuel was prepared to accept, and he resigned in 1910 and went to another New York congregation.[7] Magnes was active in many cultural movements in the city and help to establish the JDC[8] to bring relief to distressed Jews in Europe following World War I. During that war he was a pacifist, and he maintained his pacifist philosophy up to 1939 when the terrors of Hitlerism led him to change his stand. Magnes was very active in the Zionist movement, and particularly in the early years of his career when such activity was detrimental for a Reform rabbi, and perhaps, this too, hastened his departure from Temple Emanuel. In 1925, when the Hebrew University was founded in Jerusalem, he was made its first Chancellor, and in 1935 assumed the title of its first president. He thus lived out the remainder of his life in Jerusalem. Next to being president of the Hebrew University, Magnes, I believe, will be remembered chiefly for his espousal of a bi-national state in Palestine. In spite of his early Zionist activity, and his belief in the need of a Jewish homeland, he founded the so-called Ichud Party[9] or Unity Party in Palestine, and in the years when the controversy with Britain of how to settle the problem of Palestine was at its height, Magnes advocated that the Jews and Arabs cooperate in the joint management of a bi-national state on equal terms. He had a very meager following in this thought, and was denounced by Jews and Arabs alike. His plan was impossible of achievement, but he was never convinced that it was not in the best interests of both Jews and Arabs. Magnes was an energetic man and a great organizer. He was stubborn and a stickler for principle. He has been called a champion of lost causes, and even from the brief biography I have given, it is apparent why. But he did not hesitate to speak his mind on anything, even though his point of view did not have popular approval. When he passed away he was mourned in the words of The Reconstructionist magazine, as a “soul whose virtues one rarely encounters in our times.” He was hailed as a courageous exemplar of the ethical idealism that is characteristic of the Jewish tradition at its best. He was said to have given not mere lip service to the Jewish ideals, but to have sought to give them concrete embodiment. He was described as one with a passionate devotion to justice, great intellectual integrity, love for humanity, and a prophetic zeal in creating better human relations — as one who was kin to the prophets of Israel and who shared with them an uncompromising attitude toward that which seemed evil and unrighteous.
 
The name of Stephen Wise is more familiar to us. He too was cut in the prophetic pattern, and was a man of great principle. In 1906 before Magnes had come to Emanuel, Stephen Wise had been offered the position. He stipulated, as one of the conditions, that he would have the right to speak freely on any subject, but he was told that the pulpit of Emanuel was subject to the control of its Board of Trustees. He, thereupon, refused the offer of the most important Reform congregation in the country, and founded the Free Synagogue, which was free not in the sense, as many think, that there is no dues, but in the sense that it's rabbi is free to preach as his conscience dictates. Stephen Wise's action at that time had a profound influence upon congregational life, and today the principle of the freedom of the pulpit is fairly well-established in Jewish life. Stephen Wise is remembered as a great Zionist, but he did not confine himself to Jewish affairs alone. His energy was inexhaustible and his activity varied. He was a crusader in many causes, and became involved in many public controversies. He was active in politics, and he helped in the downfall of the corrupt city administration of Mayor Walker.[10] He was devoted to the labor movement, and campaigned for shorter hours for women and against the evils of exploitation in the needle trades. Once when he lashed out against the injustices in the steel industry, many resignations from his congregation followed. He thought then it would be better, perhaps, for the congregation if he resigned, but his board refused to accept his resignation, even though a million dollars were lost to his Temple building fund because of the cancellation of pledges that had been made. This was Stephen Wise, a fearless fighter for what he believed right, a man who minced no words. His philosophy of preaching was that, as a rabbi, he was not supposed to please the congregation but to wake them up.
 
These descriptions of Rabbi Magnes and Rabbi Wise give the clue as to why the investigating committee would be delighted to smear them. For it is the great tragedy of our nation today that anyone with a liberal thought, anyone who dares to think in an original manner is damned with the label of communist.
 
We scoff at the communist world because it is saddled with a party line. We have here, however, an element which by the process of intimidation in our own country is trying to cram a party line down the throats of Americans, a party line which stems from political and economic reaction. McCarthy and Velde are not sincere in their search for un-American influence, nor can they be, because they themselves are un-American. They are taking advantage of the crisis in world affairs, due to communist aggression, to sow the seeds of suspicion in this country against anything that is of a liberal tendency. They foster the creation of anti-communist hysteria in the name of a pseudo-patriotism which ignores the difference that exists between really destructive communism and a healthy progressive liberalism which is the sustaining power of a democracy.
 
Magnes had been a pacifist. Magnes had supported a movement in Palestine for a bi-national state, which it so happens the communists did favor, but not for the same reasons as Magnes who had only the best interests of the Jews at heart, which the communists did not. Wise was a crusading liberal outspoken in the cause of labor, a friend of FDR.[11] Thus these two men made perfect targets for the un-Americanism committee just as some of the leading liberal Christian clergymen have also been under fire. But these men were certainly not communists. Liberal, yes, idealistic, yes, outspoken, yes, but as rabbis who spoke in the name of the prophetic Jewish tradition, they certainly could not be subscribers to the godless philosophy of communism. But anyone who speaks in prophetic terms is suspect to Velde and McCarthy and by smearing the liberal [personalities] they hope to strike fear into all the clergy, and to influence the pulpit to confine itself to the preaching of harmless religious platitudes instead of a challenging social message.
 
It's interesting to note that by the standards of the Velde committee perhaps the entire Central Conference of American Rabbis[12] ought to be judged communistic. Although not all individual rabbis have the talent or the temperament to be so outspoken as Wise, nevertheless, the conference as a whole has passed a number of resolutions and made a number of pronouncements which the un-Americanism committees would surely identify with communism. In recent years the CCAR has called for strengthening of the international authority of the UN. It has condemned all forms of discrimination against minority groups. It has defended the union shop and collective bargaining. It has supported compulsory health insurance. It was against the Mundt-Nixon bill and the McCarran Act. [13]It is for the FEPC[14] and action on civil rights. It is against the Taft-Hartley[15] bill, and has spoken out against the greed which it says the profit system makes inevitable. It has called for specific disarmament plans, a UN police force, and urged the US government to consider every proposal made for peace and good faith. And McCarthyism itself has been condemned.
 
There may be disagreement agreement among us about these issues, but none of these things represent communism. There is no thought to overthrow the government of the United States. There is only a deep prophetic concern for the welfare of our people as a whole, and the welfare of our people cannot be served by the stifling of such free thought even if these ideas should happen to be all wrong. We have come to a point where our people are becoming afraid to think at all or to express themselves at all. It has been pointed out that young people whose refreshing idealism is indispensable are today afraid to think or to join organizations, which later on they fear may cost them their livelihood. We are witnessing an attempt at thoughts control which can be every bit as dangerous as that imposed by Hitlerism. Once we succumb to the McCarthy/Velde philosophy then we too are in the grip of fascism which has sneaked in on us under the guise of anti-communism.
 
If the effort of McCarthy and Velde to intimidate the clergy should succeed, then democracy in America would indeed be at a very low ebb. The CCAR, however, has declared that:
The equation of all criticism and reforms with communism represents a vicious obstacle to all social progress in a democracy. There is reason to suspect that this may have been a conscious device to intimidate the spokesmen of liberal religion, and to discourage their communicants from following them. Because we believe this to represent a very real danger to the freedom of American thought we urgently recommend… that members of this conference refuse to abdicate their prophetic responsibility to expose political, social, and economic corruption wherever they may be found. Especially in such times as these when so many other voices have been silenced, is it incumbent upon us not to be intimidated. We reaffirm the sacred duty of religious leaders and teachers to act as the conscience of society.
​
It may well be that in trying to control the pulpit these groups have finally dashed themselves against the stone wall which will destroy them. In spite of seeming indifference to religion in America today, and in spite of the crass materialism of the American way of life, there is a deep regard for the pulpit, and the attack upon the pulpit may cost our so-called un-American committees their public support. This we fervently hope will come to pass.



[1] Harold Himmel Velde (1910 –1985) was an American political figure from Illinois. While United States Congressman for Illinois' 18th congressional district he was chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee between 1953 and 1955.

[2] The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. It was well known for its role in investigating alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having ties to the Communist Party. The committee's anti-Communist investigations are often compared with those of Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy, as a U.S. Senator, had no direct involvement with this House committee.

[3] Judah Leon Magnes (1877 –1948) was a prominent Reform rabbi in both the United States and Mandatory Palestine. He is best remembered as a leader in the pacifist movement of the World War I period, his advocacy of a binational Jewish-Arab state in Palestine, and as one of the most widely recognized voices of 20th century American Reform Judaism.

[4] Stephen Samuel Wise (1874 –1949) was an Austro-Hungarian-born American Reform rabbi and Zionist leader. In 1906,  Wise made a major break with the established Reform movement over the "question whether the pulpit shall be free” and in 1907 he established his Free Synagogue, starting the "free Synagogue" movement. In 1914 Wise co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1922 Wise founded the Jewish Institute of Religion, an educational center in New York City to train rabbis in Reform Judaism.

[5] The Union for Reform Judaism (until 2003: Union of American Hebrew Congregations), is the congregational arm of Reform Judaism in North America, founded in 1873 by Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise.

[6] Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy (1908 – 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread Communist subversion. He was noted for making claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the United States federal government and elsewhere. Ultimately, his tactics and inability to substantiate his claims led him to be censured by the United States Senate.

[7] From 1911–12 Judah L. Magnes was rabbi of the Conservative Congregation B'nai Jeshurun.

[8] American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC)is a welfare organization that offers aid to the many Jewish populations in central and eastern Europe as well as the Middle East through a network of social and community assistance programs. In addition, the JDC contributes millions of dollars in disaster relief and development assistance to non-Jewish communities.

[9] Ihud (Hebrew: איחוד‎, 'Unity') was a small binationalist Zionist political party founded by Judah Leon Magnes, Martin Buber, Ernst Simon and Henrietta Szold in 1942. The party was dedicated to Arab–Jewish reconciliation, and advocated an Arab–Jewish state that would be part of a broader Arab Federation.

[10] James John Walker, often known as Jimmy Walker (1881 – 1946), was Mayor of New York City from 1926 to 1932. A flamboyant politician, he was a liberal Democrat and part of the powerful Tammany Hall machine. During a corruption scandal he was forced to resign.

[11] Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882 –1945), commonly known as FDR, served as the President of the United States from 1933 to 1945. A Democrat, he won a record four presidential elections, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic depression and total war.

[12] The Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), founded in 1889 by Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, is the principal organization of Reform rabbis in the United States and Canada. The CCAR is the largest and oldest rabbinical organization in the world.

[13] The Mundt-Nixon bill was a proposed law that would have required all members of the Communist Party of the United States register with the Attorney General. It was passed by the United States House of Representatives, but not the United States Senate. Later, Sen. Pat McCarran then took many of the provisions from the bill and included them in legislation he introduced that became the McCarran Internal Security Act, which passed both houses of Congress in 1950.

[14] Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) was created in 1941 in the United States to “[ban] discriminatory employment practices by Federal agencies and all unions and companies engaged in war-related work." It also required Federal vocational and training programs to be administered without discrimination. The FEPC was intended to help African Americans and other minorities obtain jobs in the homefront industry during World War II. In practice, especially in its later years, the Committee also tried to open up more skilled jobs in industry to minorities, who had often been restricted to the lowest-level work.

[15] The Taft–Hartley Act, enacted in 1947, is a United States federal law that restricts the activities and power of labor unions. The act, still effective, was called the "slave-labor bill" by labor leaders.
0 Comments

Art in the Synagogue

5/1/1953

0 Comments

 
I find this sermon somewhat surprising in that this is a passionate statement about the role of art in the synagogue, and, as an artist myself, I was unaware of my father’s feelings in this regard. My mother, Jean Ballon, was a gifted artist in almost any medium she chose to use. Perhaps this is a reflection of her influence.
The presence of fine Jewish art in a synagogue reflects the faith and inspiration of its builders and in turn is an inspiration to all who come to worship therein.
​

WE READ FROM THE TORAH THIS EVENING the commandment given to the children of Israel long ago to kindle a perpetual light in their sanctuary throughout their generations. The special service we have tonight is a climax to the efforts of our own congregation to fulfill this ancient commandment. The art project, of which we have now completed the first stage, began almost fifteen months ago when an interior decorator was about to select an eternal light to be hung permanently upon this platform before our ark. At that time I had been here only a few short weeks. I did not yet feel that I could make demands upon the congregation, but there was something about that procedure that did not appeal to me. To permit an interior decorator, who may have perhaps been an expert in her line, but who did not know and did not have the feel for synagogues, who perhaps knew style, but for whom Jewishness was entirely foreign — just another lamp fixture, however pretty it may be, to hang here as the symbol of our eternal faith, did not seem to me to be suitable or proper.
 
True, that such a procedure, however improper it may be, is the manner in which many, many congregations do select the lamp that is to burn perpetually before their Holy Ark, But it is a reflection of a lack of understanding and a lack of maturity with regard to synagogue decoration, and often strange things result. I know of one decorated with the Moslem Crescent — hardly appropriate. I hoped that we here would be able to rise above that level and do something more imaginative and more creative. There was one important problem which caused some hesitation, on my part, in suggesting a different procedure to the committee in charge of decorating our building. It was the same problem which has come up many a time since, when any forward step must be taken — the problem of funds. But fortunately the committee was very understanding and sympathetic when I finally dared put the matter before them. They were willing at least to explore the idea of having a creative Jewish artist provide our ceremonial objects, and we turned to the Union of American Hebrew Congregations for advice, With their help we made contact with Mr. A. Raymond Katz merely for the purposes of consultation. His reputation in the field of Jewish art was already known to me for he had already many synagogues to his credit and the HUC[1] Chapel.
 
When Mr. Katz visited us and presented to us his suggestions not only for the eternal light, but also for additional things that would enhance the beauty of our building, give it a warmer atmosphere, and above all make it Jewish, then our committee was excited with the opportunity not only to beautify this building in a modern manner befitting both its use as a synagogue and the unusual character of its architecture, but also to make an important contribution to synagogue art through the creativity of Mr. Katz. I should like to express appreciation particularly of our chairman for all his effort and understanding of our objective.
 
It has been one of my happiest experiences in this congregation thus far to have gained acceptance for a project of this type. I hope that it signifies that beneath that allegiance which altogether too many of us today pay to material things, there is an awareness of higher values; there is an appreciation of the intangibles, of truth and beauty and Jewish integrity.
 
It is of utmost importance today for synagogues to have as much of beauty about them as possible. It was not always quite so necessary as it is today. In years gone by Jewish symbolism was centered in the rites of synagogue rather than in art forms. Jewish emotions were expressed throughout the many observances which had been faithfully handed down through the years. We live now, however, in a time when rites have assumed less importance. Even with the so-called return to ceremonialism that we hear about, ritual does not have the place in Jewish life it once had, and art forms are all the more necessary as a replacement to provide the symbolism that people have a need for, the "aesthetic and Jewish conditioning[2]" that makes for perpetuation of Jewish faith and the Jewish group.
 
In the Psalms we read, "Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.[3]” It is perhaps equally as meaningful to speak of the holiness of beauty. The beauty of a sunset is far more convincing of God than are a thousand rational arguments. And there can be perhaps more inspiration in sitting in a synagogue that reflects beauty and Jewishness than in the mechanical repetition of the prayers or in listening to the sermon. The presence of fine Jewish art in a synagogue reflects the faith and inspiration of its builders and in turn is an inspiration to all who come to worship therein.
 
Synagogues should not only be beautiful they should be Jewishly beautiful. Up to this time we Jews have not created a great tradition of synagogue art. There is, for example, no particular type of building that is Jewish and that characterizes a synagogue. Jews have always built synagogues under the influences of the contemporary architecture in the places they have lived. They have been Greek and Roman and Byzantine and sometimes even Gothic, and today where turning to our own contemporary style, the modern and the functional. The art of the synagogue has likewise, with some few exceptions, also reflected the same influences. For the most part the synagogue has borrowed Hindu, Moorish, Greek, or Gothic art styles, and put a Mogen David on top to make it Jewish. And the Jewishness of the Mogen David is not as traditional as you might think. Today, more of an effort is being made on the part of some artists to create a truly Jewish art. The things we dedicate tonight represent the work of a pioneer in this effort, one who has been called, as you perhaps have noticed in the notes of your program, the creator of the first authentically Jewish art. It is his use of ancient Hebrew symbolism, particularly the alphabet, that makes it so.
 
Such creations not only contribute to the beauty of the synagogue, but to enforcing its Jewish character, and its potential for Jewish inspiration. And we, by making this work possible, may pride ourselves on the fact that we have not only enhanced the Jewishness of our own temple, but have advanced the development of Jewish art, and have helped set an example which may have an influence on other congregations as well.
 
Therefore, my friends, this service tonight, I say, is a significant occasion not merely because that is the conventional manner in which to describe a special occasion, but because we have indeed accomplished something that a short time ago may have seemed impossible, because we have indeed stamped our Temple with a firm Jewish character, and because we have been privileged to be a vehicle of expression of a new Jewish art.
 
Baruch atto…she-ecḥeyanu….
 
[1] The Hebrew Union College (HUC)-Jewish Institute of Religion (JIR) is the oldest extant Jewish seminary in the Americas and the main seminary for training rabbis, cantors, educators and communal workers in Reform Judaism. In 1938 Sidney Ballon was ordained at HUC in Cincinnati. In 1950, a second campus was created in New York City through a merger with the rival Reform Jewish Institute of Religion. Additional campuses were added in Los Angeles, California in 1954, and in Jerusalem in 1963.

[2] The text has a handwritten note that implies that this phrase may have been attributed to a David Schwartz in The Reconstructionist journal.

[3] Psalm 96:9
0 Comments

The Jewish Meaning of the Czech Purge

12/26/1952

0 Comments

 
​My father's assessment and prediction of the fate of Jews in the Soviet Union and in the bloc of nations in their influence is accurate in that the Jews did become increasingly oppressed and deterred from practicing an open and active Jewish life. The one glimmer of hope that he cannot see in 1952 is that eventually the doors would open to mass Jewish emigration to the United States and Israel.
Once again we face a period of Jewish history when the loss of a large segment of the Jewish people is threatened. There are almost two million Jews in the Soviet Union, and about 600,000 in the satellite countries who seem now to be doomed.
​

A SHORT TIME AGO THE SHOCKING NEWS CAME OUT of Czechoslovakia telling us of the conviction of ranking officials of the communist regime there for treason, and the speedy execution of eleven of the accused, and the sentencing to life imprisonment of three others. The news of communist purges is not particularly new. We have become used to the manner in which communist differences of opinion are settled, and ordinarily do not care much when rivals are eliminated. But this particular purge was different. First of all, because it happened in Czechoslovakia. Here, after the First World War, had been established  under Masaryk and Benesch, the highest standards of freedom and liberty, and it was now sad to think to what extent this small but glorious nation had succumbed to the Soviet pattern.[1][2] And secondly, because of something new that had been introduced into the purge, the very deliberate and open anti-Semitic, anti-Israel propaganda introduced into the so-called trial. The chief charge against the accused, and one to which Rudolph Slansky supposedly confessed, was that of conspiring with Israeli and American officials to use Zionism as a tool of Western imperialism contrary to the interests of the Communist government of Czechoslovakia[3]. And here we see evidence of how quickly the Soviet line can do a turnabout. In 1948 Russia was among the active supporters of the establishment of the Jewish state, and Czechoslovakia openly and officially sold arms to the Israelis that they might defend themselves against the Arabs. At that time Russia presumably wanted to embarrass the British and weaken their position in the Middle East, and so it supported the new state and its satellites sold it arms. But today neither Russia nor the Russian dominated government of Czechoslovakia seems to be concerned about the contradiction involved in condemning some of its past leadership for being pro-Israel. Ironically enough, it may even be pointed out that the Jews now blamed for being pro-Israel were actually anti-Zionist and had put their faith for the future in the new communist order.
 
Although this is the first public outburst of anti-Semitism, let it not be supposed that anti-Semitism is completely new to Russian policy. Russia was, of course, from the very beginning opposed to any religious life among Jews. It opposed Zionist activity and it forbade completely the study of Hebrew and the reading of Hebrew books. It did outlaw anti-Semitism in the sense of discrimination or prejudice against Jews as individuals, and it did pretend to treat Jews on equal terms with any of its other citizens, and conceded the Jews national status within the Soviet Union with Yiddish as the basis of Jewish culture. Gradually, however, even the Yiddish cultural base of the Jews fell into disfavor and Jews as individuals also came to be discriminated against. Jewish writers and artists were deported. Anti-Jewish purges are reported in the Soviet Army, and the Christian Science Monitor published the report that all Jewish officers and most soldiers have been removed from the Soviet occupation zone of Germany. Many Jewish servicemen, when demobilized, were not permitted to go back to former jobs as guaranteed by law, but rather forced to take menial positions. Some who objected were arrested and forced to work in uranium mines or were deported to Arctic slave labor camps. Biro Bidjan
, the Jewish autonomous province we heard so much about a few years back, is reported as liquidated. A new Soviet encyclopedia omits all the names of Jewish writers, artists, and thinkers that had been listed in the 1927 edition[4]. On the other hand, the Ukrainian leader Chmielnicki, famous for pogroms which slaughtered thousands of Jews is glorified.[5] A former Hungarian minister in Moscow, named Nyaradi , reports that in high Soviet circles anti-Semitism is rampant.[6] The word Zhid  is outlawed, but every high communist he reported used it, and once when he was introduced to Ilya Ehrenburg , a Soviet writer, who is one of only two Jews who have remained in good standing with the government, the introduction was made with the comment, "you know he is a zhid, but a good communist patriot in spite of it."[7][8] The other Jew in high circles is Lazar Kaganovich, Stalin’s brother-in-law. All others have now been purged as cosmopolitans who are apt to betray the Fatherland. Nyaradi also reported 400,000 Jews deported to Siberia and the far north in 1947.[9]
 
In the satellite countries 
the process has been similar. Jewish community life had also been completely destroyed, but at first individual Jews who were loyal to the regime still had an opportunity to obtain positions of influence.[10] But the situation now has also changed in the satellites as dramatically evidenced in Czechoslovakia. There has now been a thorough purge and almost all persons of Jewish origin have been expelled from the Communist Party and jailed for treason, in a campaign against so-called Jewish nationalists and rootless cosmopolitan's.
 
For about a year the Czech press has been engaged in a campaign against Jews. The general tenor of their remarks is summed up in the following quotation from the Communist Party paper:
Zionism is the ideology of Jewish bourgeois nationalism. It is in the service of the class enemy, in the pay of American imperialism, that the Zionists have wormed their way into the communist parties in order to disrupt and undermine them from within.
 
Seemingly the problem was only the Zionists, but the accusations were hurled against victims who had nothing to do with Zionism and had been Communists and opponents of Zionism, and it is evident that all Jews are included in the terms Zionists and cosmopolitans.
 
Up to this point, however, there has been an attempt to hide anti-Semitism and to explain away what seemed like anti-Semitism on other grounds, but it has now burst into the open and is undisguised. Two plausible suggestions are advanced by observers for this new trend. First, it may be the expression of a desire to win over the support of the Arab states. The Russians are happy for any political situation which they can create or maintain that will be disturbing to the Western powers. In 1948 it was the creation of Israel which would help bring unrest to the Middle East and rouse the Arabs. But as time has gone by, hopes of achieving an Arab-Israel peace, particularly with the Egyptian revolution, have arisen and this would undoubtedly benefit the Western powers, and so Russia has made its move to keep the waters troubled. By picturing in its trials a conspiracy between Western powers and Israel to dominate the Middle East, by attacking the Jews in their midst for helping in this conspiracy, and by indulging in a bit of anti-Semitism for its own sake, the Arabs would be encouraged in their defiance of Israel, and in their distrust of the Western powers. The Arabs would be deluded into thinking they had found a friend in Russia and whatever possibilities of peace had come into being would be sabotaged.
 
There seems to be another reason for this new anti-Semitism, one which as dark as it may be, perhaps, also offers a ray of hope in the long run. Anti-Semitism has always been a part of a technique whereby dictators distracted the attention of their people away from their own failures. In times of trouble dictators need scapegoats and what better scapegoat could suggest itself to a European dictator than the Jew. The reports are that there is a great deal of discontent in Czechoslovakia. The Czechs were accustomed to a high standard of living, but under the new regime much of the country’s industry has been diverted to the support of the Soviet’s armed might rather than to provide the needs of the Czech people. By making the self-confessed traitors responsible, and by identifying them with Western imperialism and Jewish conspiracies, the anger of the people is diverted, as so often has happened in other lands at other times.
 
Not only does there seem to be discontent in Czechoslovakia, but in the Soviet Union itself. In the magazine United Nations World there is a most interesting article entitled Stalin is a Failure. It is written by a Bulgarian now living in Yugoslavia, where the Tito regime refuses to be dominated by Russia. In this article the writer analyzes the Bolshevik Congress held this past fall and the speeches and writings of Stalin in connection with this Congress. He points out how Stalin made some serious miscalculations with regard to the collapse of capitalism, and his ability to control all of his satellites, and how he was forced to change some of his line because of these errors. What is more significant for us at the moment, however, are the references that are made to the dissatisfaction of the peoples of the Soviet Union. Russia is referred to as a land of shamefully low standard of culture, material as well as spiritual. Instead of an earthly paradise, Russia remains gray and impoverished and has not even provided the workers and peasants with enough bread. The Soviet leaders, we are told, have sensed the mistrust of their own people and therefore have sought to strengthen their bureaucratic controls and the party apparatus. This article does not tell us anything on the subject of anti-Semitism, but the report of failures and difficulties that is presented, added to the story of the completely undisguised anti-Semitic character of the Czech purge make it seem quite possible that anti-Semitism is now the technique used by the Russian government to cover up for its own failures and its own crimes.
 
The fact that Russia may need anti-Semitism to cover up its weaknesses is in a sense encouraging, for perhaps it forebodes the disintegration of the Soviet system. Unfortunately, that is something that is not likely to happen anytime soon.[11] For the Jews involved, there can be little comfort in such a far-off possibility. Once again we face a period of Jewish history when the loss of a large segment of the Jewish people is threatened. There are almost two million Jews in the Soviet Union, and about 600,000 in the satellite countries who seem now to be doomed. Although they may not be as dramatically put to death as the victims of Nazism were, nevertheless, culturally and economically they will be crushed. The prediction has long ago been made that the eventual disappearance of the Jews in the Soviet Union as a distinct people seems inevitable. This prediction was made, however, only with regard to the Jews as a cultural entity. It was thought that physically they would suffer comparatively little. Now, however, it seems that the destruction of the Jew may be physical as well. We shall probably see more purge trials, and Jews generally are being cut off from gainful employment. Numerous suicides are being reported, and the escape path to Israel is blocked. In the New York Post several days ago a columnist quoted the prediction that “It will take time, but the Jews will be annihilated. They cannot survive."[12]
 
The trials of Prague are the shadow of things to come, and unfortunately no one knows how the Iron Curtain ​
 can be pierced to prevent the tragedy.[13] Only if the Russian system collapses can there be much hope, but even with the Russian collapse, if it is too long delayed, even if Jews survive physically, they will be so spiritually pulverized that it will be too late to reclaim them. The consciousness of being Jewish and the desire to be Jewish will have been beaten out of them. The outlook for Jews behind the Iron Curtain for the immediate future is indeed a very dark one.


[1] Jan Garrigue Masaryk (1886 –1948) was a Czech diplomat and politician and Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia from 1940 to 1948.

[2] Edvard Beneš (1884 – 1948) was a Czechoslovak politician who served as the President of Czechoslovakia twice, from 1935–1938 and 1939–1948. He was also the President of Czechoslovakia in exile (1939–1945).

[3] The Slánský trial was a show trial against elements of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) who were thought to have adopted the line of the maverick Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito (later first President of Yugoslavia). On 20 November 1952, Rudolf Slánský, General Secretary of the KSČ, and 13 other leading party members, 11 of them Jews, were accused of participating in a Trotskyite-Titoite-Zionist conspiracy and convicted: 11 including Slánský were hanged in Prague on December 3, and three were sentenced to life imprisonment.

[4] Birobidzhan is a town and the administrative center of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Russia, located on the Trans-Siberian Railway, close to the border with China.

[5] Bohdan Zynoviy Mykhailovych Khmelnytsky (c. 1595 – 1657) was the military commander in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (now part of Ukraine). Jewish history's assessement of Khmelnytsky is overwhelmingly negative because he used Jews as scapegoats and sought to eradicate Jews from the Ukraine. Between 1648–1656, Khmelnytsky's rebels murdered tens of thousands of Jews. Atrocity stories about massacre victims who had been buried alive, cut to pieces or forced to kill one another spread throughout Europe and beyond. The pogroms contributed to a revival of the ideas of Isaac Luria, who revered the Kabbalah, and the identification of Sabbatai Zevi as the Messiah.

[6] Miklós Nyárádi (1905 - 1976) was a Hungarian politician, who served as Minister of Finance between 1947 and 1948. On November 1948 he did not return to home from his official visit. He settled down in the United States around 1949.

[7] The word “Zhid” (the insulting form of the word Jew) has been expunged from the Russian dictionary.

[8] Ilya Grigoryevich Ehrenburg (1891 –1967) was among the most prolific and notable authors of the Soviet Union; he published around one hundred titles. The Black Book, edited by him and Vassily Grossman, the first great documentary work on the Holocaust, detailed the genocide on Soviet citizens of Jewish ancestry.

[9] Rootless cosmopolitan was a term used during the anti-cosmopolitan campaign in the Soviet Union after WWII. Cosmopolitans were intellectuals who were accused of expressing pro-Western feelings and lack of patriotism. The term "rootless cosmopolitan" is considered to specifically refer to Jewish intellectuals.

[10] The political term satellite state designates a country that is formally independent in the world, but under heavy political, economic and military influence or control from another country. The term is used mainly to refer to Central and Eastern European countries of the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War. As used for Central and Eastern European countries it implies that the countries in question were "satellites" under the hegemony of the Soviet Union.

[11] Sidney Ballon was quite correct in this assessment. The dissolution of the Soviet Union was formally enacted in 1991 after Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, the eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union, resigned, declared his office extinct, and handed over its powers – including control of the Soviet nuclear missile launching codes – to Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

[12] Between 1970 and 1988, some 291,000 Soviet Jews were granted exit visas, of whom 165,000 immigrated to Israel, and 126,000 immigrated to the United States. More than 1.6 million Jews left the former Soviet Union after 1988, and another 300,000 - 500,000 are still there in 2016, depending how one counts.

[13] The Iron Curtain was the physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolized efforts by the Soviet Union to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the west and non-Soviet-controlled areas. On the east side of the Iron Curtain were the countries that were connected to or influenced by the Soviet Union. The term's use as a Cold War symbol is attributed to its use in a speech Winston Churchill gave in March 1946 in Fulton, Missouri.


0 Comments

Public School Prayer

1/4/1952

0 Comments

 
In this sermon my father spoke out against the institution of prayer in public schools, and the issue he described eventually became part of a landmark Supreme Court ruling prohibiting this practice. Even though he had no objection to the specific nondenominational prayer being suggested by the New York State Board of Regents, he nonetheless felt that any prayer was a violation of the separation of church and state. He had no objection to schools educating students in the moral values inherent in most religions as long as they resisted specific religious indoctrination.
Although religious values as such are not taught, yet through the social experience of the classroom there arises the opportunity to inculcate the values of religion indirectly, and that, perhaps, is the more effective manner
WITHIN RECENT WEEKS, THE PROPOSAL has been made by the New York Board of Regents[1] that the daily sessions of our public schools be opened each morning with a few words of prayer. A standard prayer has been proposed which has been timed as an eight-second prayer and its text is as follows:
Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessing upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country.[2]
Offhand this prayer seems innocuous enough. The writers included members of various denominations and the finished product reflects a sincere and successful attempt to find a common denominator of prayer which would be acceptable to all religious groups and offensive to none. And yet the introduction of such a prayer is not as simple a question as it may seem and is one which deserves a great deal of thought. At its last meeting the New York Board of Rabbis[3] voted with only one dissenting vote, its disapproval of the introduction of such a prayer period in the public schools regardless of the acceptable nature of its content, and it discussed the measures to be taken to make its point of view prevail.
 
Why should religious groups interested in prayer, nevertheless, oppose this prayer? First of all if we are to view the problem objectively we must recognize that there are, after all, many people in the community who are completely nonreligious, and even if the prayer to be recited is strictly nondenominational, yet it is religious in character; if we pray at all, we pray to God. While as Jews and members of the synagogue, we can find no objection to this for ourselves and may think it highly desirable, nevertheless, from the broader standpoint of human rights, it is not just that we compel those who have no religious beliefs or who may be actively opposed to any religious practice to do as we want them to do and compel their children to participate in religious prayer.
 
The famous McCollum case[4] recently in Illinois was an effort to prevent released time education in the public school because it discriminated against a child whose parent was an atheist. We as Jews find ourselves yearly in an awkward position during the Christmas season because of the traditional Christmas observance in the classrooms. This is another aspect of the problem of religion in the schools, which is even more complicated than the one we are speaking of, and which we shall not enter into at the moment, but I mention it merely to point out that bringing of even a nondenominational prayer into the school is the same in principle, as far as nonbelievers are concerned, as compelling Jews to participate in the Christmas observance. In a fully democratic society the rights and feelings of everyone should be considered regardless of religious belief or the lack of it.
 
Furthermore, even though we may not be inclined to fight the battle of the atheist, and even if the particular prayer is not objectionable from a Jewish standpoint, the fear is justified that the effort to bring some religion into the school system may not stop with this neutral prayer, but that we shall set a precedent that will cause school boards to want to carry the religious program still further, and we shall find that we have permitted an entering wedge to other less desirable features of such a program. One of the Board of Regents in fact was quoted in the papers as saying angrily to someone who debated the matter with him, "Wait, this is only the beginning!" It is considered essential, therefore, that no retreat from the basic principle of keeping religion out of the schools be permitted. And out of a determined stand in this matter of the prayer which can be opposed successfully because it has not yet become a deep-rooted practice, and out of the searching analysis of the whole problem which is bound to result, there may develop even an understanding and awareness of other aspects of the problem, also, such as the Christmas problem and perhaps we may ultimately achieve some improvement in that regard as well.
 
But what should concern us even more than these reasons — that it is a violation of the rights of nonbelievers and possibly an entering wedge to more religious activity in the schools — is the question of what after all is the motive for bringing such prayer into the school system.
 
The motivation, I believe, is twofold. First of all, there has been a general concern recently with the question of character training for young people. In thinking of the problems which are posed by our juvenile delinquents, by the increased use of narcotics by young people, by the widely publicized basketball scandals, many of our leaders have been inclined to advance the easy answer that what our young people need to cure these evils is more religion in their educational program, and that if the public schools also had a religious element in their program, the character of our young people would be improved. It is difficult to see, however, how an eight-second prayer, which very soon would turn into a mechanical mumbling rather than a heartfelt prayerful expression would cure any of the character defects of our children and make them more useful and cooperative members of a society than they are without it. There is a challenge to religion in the character problems of our children, but it is not so much a question of giving our children more religion by adding it to their public school program as it is of improving the quality of the work already being done by our religious schools themselves. It is rather surprising to learn that some scientific studies made of problem children have shown that there is no connection between the amount of Sunday school training they have had and the development of their character and good citizenship. A child with supposedly good religious training is just as apt to develop character defects as one without it. We are not in need, therefore, of more religion in the public schools. We need rather to concern ourselves with the improvement of our private religious schools. We need the use of more child psychology in the classroom, and more effective techniques of teaching ethical and moral concepts. We need, in all denominations, to avoid teaching the kind of religion that leaves the child filled with fears and feelings of guilt and inadequacy that help bring the delinquent behavior. We need to avoid the kind of religious teaching that will lead children to belittle the beliefs of others and harbor prejudices, and we need the support of the parents for the religious school program. Parents so often feel that their religious obligations to their child are discharged once they have led him to the religious school door, and then they stand back with a defiant spirit and challenge the religious school to make a man out of him. Religious homes would be a far more effective tool in producing adjusted children than the religion either of the public school or the Sunday school. Religious homes with a spirit of love, with tolerance and respect for all others, with a sense of relationship to the church or synagogue is what our children need, and eight-second public-school prayers are no substitute.  
 
And the second motivating factor in introducing prayer into the public school that has to be considered is that public school officials may be doing this because they fear the accusation that has been hurled at them that the public school is a godless institution. The public school, it is said, is raising a generation that lacks the understanding of what religion has contributed to civilization in general and to our American democracy in particular. In these times it, is further argued, our civilization is threatened by the godless society of communism, and the cure for the world's evils is a return to religion on the part of our nation and all the world. And to keep our children in the religious fold, and to prevent them from becoming prey to anti-religious philosophies, it is important to bring religion into the daily instruction of our children, and not rely merely on the church schools, which have our children, for the most part, only one day a week. By beginning our classes with morning prayer, a crumb is thrown to those who hold these thoughts and criticize the public school for being godless, and it is hoped that they will be silenced.
 
To this we must answer that this crumb will hardly satisfy those who want to mix religion and the school system, and, it has been noted, it will indeed amount to an opening wedge which will encourage them to look for further gains that would become increasingly more obnoxious too many of us. But more important, perhaps, it must be pointed out that our public schools are not as godless as some of its critics would have us believe. Although there may be some human failing involved here and there, by and large the public school system is the strongest force in our country today for the teaching of moral principles which are hardly godless in their character or implication. In the public school, children of all denominations and groups within a community gather in an atmosphere where they must learn to work and play together in mutual respect. The public school offers the best opportunity for developing healthy human relationships, friendly cooperation, appreciation of home, and a desire to be a useful member of society. Although religious values as such are not taught, yet through the social experience of the classroom there arises the opportunity to inculcate the values of religion indirectly, and that, perhaps, is the more effective manner. Such is the nature of our democracy that the public school could ignore every religious festival and yet by its activities in observance of our national holidays, it would indirectly serve a religious purpose. The observance of Washington's Birthday[5], Lincoln's Birthday, the Fourth of July, Armistice Day[6], Thanksgiving Day are certainly not devoid of religious implications. And the American heritage as such, although we call it democratic rather than religious, is certainly not godless in origin or present significance. It was biblical inspiration and a desire to put God's natural law into practice that created American democracy, and the child who learns Washington's first inaugural address in which he says,
…it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official Act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the Universe… [7]
or Lincoln's words,
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right…[8]
such a child certainly becomes aware of the meaning and significance of religious ideals in the molding of America. The charge that our public schools are godless comes from sources either ignorant or prejudiced or with ulterior motives.
 
We do need to teach our children and our people to be more religious in these times of crisis, but eight-second prayers are not the answer. We need to give them practical religion and not [handwritten insert illegible]. We need determination on the part of all of us to take the practical ideals of religion more seriously, to weave them into the pattern of our daily living. We need to stop paying mere lip service to religious principles and build them into the pattern of social order and political and international relationships. When our children perceive in their parents the reflection of love and sincerity, when they see in our national leadership the reflection of integrity and truth, when they see in their communities and school, democracy at its finest in action, then we shall not have to fear for their religious appreciation or be concerned about the development of their character.
​
EDITOR'S NOTE: June 25, 1962, the U.S. Supreme Court declared school-sponsored prayers unconstitutional in the landmark case Engel v. Vitale. Public outrage was immediate and widespread. For millions of Americans, the Court had “kicked God out of the schools,” to use a phrase that entered the culture-war lexicon
​
[1] The Regents are responsible for the general supervision of all educational activities within New York State, presiding over The University and the New York State Education Department.

[2] In 1951, the Regents had approved this short, “nondenominational” prayer which they offered to school districts for voluntary classroom use, believing that a connection to the nation's “spiritual heritage” could help instill civic values and fight communism. The Union Free School District No. 9 in New Hyde Park directed the local principal to have this prayer “said aloud by each class in the presence of a teacher at the beginning of the school day.” A group of parents, backed by Jewish and Ethical Culture groups, brought a lawsuit against the district in 1960, saying that the prayer was not in line with their and their children's religious beliefs. The law was upheld in the state courts, but after arguments on April 3, 1962, the landmark Supreme Court decision Engel v. Vitale declaring even non-denominational school prayer to be unconstitutional was handed down, with a decision of 6 to 1, and established a major precedent in the limiting of prayer in schools.

[3] The New York Board of Rabbis is an organization of Orthodox, Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist rabbis in New York State and the surrounding portions of Connecticut and New Jersey. The roots of the New York Board of Rabbis date to 1881 with the establishment of the New York Board of Jewish Ministers by rabbis from differing branches of Judaism, hoping to work together to foster Jewish education and advance Judaism. The New York Board of Rabbis was formally adopted as the organization's name in 1946.

[4] McCollum v. Board of Education, was a landmark 1948 United States Supreme Court case related to the power of a state to use its tax-supported public school system in aid of religious instruction. The case was an early test of the separation of church and state with respect to education. The case tested the principle of "released time", where public schools set aside class time for religious instruction. The Court struck down a Champaign, Illinois program as unconstitutional because of the public school system's involvement in the administration, organization and support of religious instruction classes.

[5] Washington's Birthday The federal holiday honoring George Washington was originally implemented by an Act of Congress in 1879 for government offices in Washington and expanded in 1885 to include all federal offices As the first federal holiday to honor an American president, the holiday was celebrated on Washington's actual birthday, February 22. On January 1, 1971, the federal holiday was shifted to the third Monday in February by the Uniform Monday Holiday Act. Colloquially, it is widely known as "Presidents Day," a term coined in a deliberate attempt to change the holiday into one honoring multiple presidents.

[6] Armistice Day is commemorated every year on November 11 to mark the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiègne, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front of World War I, which took effect at eleven o'clock in the morning—the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918. The date was declared a national holiday in many allied nations. The United States previously observed Armistice Day. The U.S. holiday was renamed Veterans Day in 1954, honoring all persons who served in the United States Armed Forces.

[7] On April 30, 1789, George Washington took the oath of office as the first president of the United States and delivered his first inaugural address at Federal Hall in New York City, then the first U.S. Capitol and the first site where the 1st United States Congress met. Fully half of his First Inaugural Address gives thanks to Almighty God.

[8] Abraham Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address on March 4, 1865, at a time when victory over the secessionists in the American Civil War was within days and slavery was near an end. Lincoln used this address to touch on the question of Divine providence. He wondered what God's will might have been in allowing the war to come, and why it had assumed the terrible dimensions it had taken.
0 Comments

The Crime of Genocide

12/30/1949

0 Comments

 
In 1949 the wounds of the Holocaust were still quite raw. Despite that there was a reluctance by many in the United States to support United Nations legislation to outlaw genocide. My father introduces the term genocide to his congregation and urges support for U. S. Senate approval of the U.N. convention on genocide.
We have indeed advanced a step on the path of moral progress when we refuse to turn our backs on the slaughter of human beings simply because they live on the other side of a line which divides us into nations. The age old cry, "Am I my brother's keeper?" is answered here with a strong affirmative….[1]
​
PROBABLY VERY FEW JEWS THESE DAYS ARE AWARE OF IT, but today was traditionally a fast day of a minor nature on our religious calendar.[2]  And the rabbinate of Israel and the Synagogue Council of America have taken this fast and proclaimed it as an international day of mourning for the recent victims of European atrocities.[3]  And the Synagogue Council of America has further suggested that this occasion would be an appropriate one to call to the attention of our congregations that awaiting action by the U.S. Senate, when it convenes, is the matter of ratification of the U.N. convention on genocide, and it is the hope of the Synagogue Council that our people will be moved to express themselves to their senators in favor of Senate approval of this convention to help bring this ratification about.[4]
 
Genocide 
is a new word in the English language. It was coined after the war to describe the crime of attempting to annihilate entire peoples or groups of people because of race, nationality, religion, or culture. [5] It is a new name but it is an old crime. It goes back to the days of the Bible where we read that Pharaoh ordered all the male children of the Hebrew people to be destroyed.[6] It has been attempted many times since. The Romans committed genocide against Carthage.[7] It was committed against various Christian sects. The Turks tried to do away with the Armenians[8]. The Jews in particular have suffered from it, and were the victims of the most flagrant case of genocide attempted in all history in the last war when over six million Jews were lost. Never, however, has it been a specified crime under international law, until the U.N. in 1946 declared it so and called for a convention — a law — to be drawn up which would define it and provide for its prevention and punishment. In December 1948 the U.N. finally, after almost 3 more years, passed a resolution accepting the convention which had been drawn up, but since the Senate must pass on every international agreement entered into, it must come before them in order to be officially accepted by the United States.
 
The crime of genocide is something like sin. Everybody is against it. Yet the adopting of a law against genocide has met with considerable opposition, and its ratification by the U.S. Senate is opposed by many. Although it was February 1946 when the U.N. called for the drafting of the genocide convention, it was not until December 1948 that such a convention was finally accepted. It might have possibly died altogether were it not for the fact that an intergovernmental committee was formed by a number of people who wanted the convention, who went back to leaders of public opinions in various nations, and who managed to get a petition signed by 166 organizations in 28 countries representing 250 million people, and thus, with the help of such pressure, was able to put the convention through the United Nations and obtain a unanimous vote in the General Assembly in spite of a great deal of legal quibbling that was going on.
 
Russia, for example, had argued that since genocide had been committed in the last war only by the Nazis, and since Germany was destroyed, there was no longer any need for genocide [legislation]. And yet, strictly speaking, the Russians also are guilty of genocide against the Jews. Although they do not kill them physically, the suppression of Judaism and of Hebrew culture, has the effect of obliterating Jewish identity and this too comes under the definition of genocide. The American Bar Association opposed not only the law concerning genocide, but the entire international Bill of Rights, and is opposing U.S. ratification very strongly. Human rights, they claimed, were a domestic matter, and the U.N. should concern itself with international matters and not the internal affairs of any nation. The law against genocide, they said, was an invasion of national and state sovereignty, and they are afraid of legal complications. There seems to be reflected here on an international scale the internal argument we have within the United States as to States’ Rights versus Federal law.

There was a hesitancy with regard to definition of genocide. As finally set down, the definition included not only the outright physical killing of members of a group simply because they belong to that group, but also the causing of serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, and also imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group. And so it was pointed out that perhaps segregation as practiced in the United States might also come under the heading of genocide since it might be said to cause mental harm to the members of the segregated group. And giving out birth control information might technically be called genocide since that would tend to diminish the group. Senate ratification of the genocide convention means that the U.S. not only recognizes the law internationally, but that it also becomes the law of the land, and any local or state law that is contrary to the convention is superseded, and there could be quite a legal problem developed because of ratification. It would be very interesting to see segregation challenged on this basis.
 
Regardless, however, of the legal technicalities on which opposition to the law has been based, it would seem that the placing of a law against genocide in the books of international law could do little harm, may do some good, and is certainly an indication of a broadening moral sense among the nations of the world. We have indeed advanced a step on the path of moral progress when we refuse to turn our backs on the slaughter of human beings simply because they live on the other side of a line which divides us into nations. The age old cry, "Am I my brother's keeper?
" is answered here with a strong affirmative and not the closing of our eyes.[9] Think back on what happened to the Jews in Germany. How little protest there was from the world, and how much damage the Nazis were permitted to do because of that lack of protest. Not all of this [lack of] protest was due to indifference. To a great extent there was, before war actually broke out, the fear on the part of other governments of interfering in the internal affairs of another nation. But with genocide declared by the U.N. and accepted by its member states as an international crime, there would be much less hesitancy in speaking up should such a situation occur again, and there would be a much greater moral compulsion in speaking up.
 
There are some who idealistically feel that the new law will prevent genocide all together or make certain the punishment of those who attempted. In the magazine The United Nations World the editor states that,
Had such a convention outlawing genocide been in existence and ratified by most of the governments of the earth, many of the unspeakable acts of torture and mass murder committed by the Nazis and fascists would never have taken place…. Anyone participating would have known that he was committing a crime against humanity and that he would be punished for it by an international court.
I am inclined to agree with those who challenge this statement and think it questionable that such a law would have deterred Hitler from his abominable path. No law prevents a crime altogether, but I do think, on the other hand, that the United States might have been much more active in its protest against Hitler's actions had there been an established principle in international law giving it, in common with other nations, the legal right to interfere in the affairs of a foreign power because of the horrors that this power was perpetrating upon a segment of its citizenry. Not because of his own conscience, but because of world protest, Hitler might have been stopped and millions of lives saved. But Hitler gambled on the world not doing much about the Jews, and he was right. State departments are much more concerned with protocol than they are with morals, and if we can give them the legal technicalities they feel they must have perhaps we shall save many future lives by so doing. The United States Senate should therefore by all means ratify the convention with regard to prevention and punishment of genocide, and we should urge our senators to assist in this ratification.
 
I would like to add to this just one more thought which is only indirectly concerned with the subject. I think we will all agree with regard to the horror of genocide, and we were considerably disturbed in the days when our people was undergoing the horrors of Hitlerism. We are ready to cry out when the world hurts us, but we ought also to give some consideration to our own possible complicity in the crime of Jewish genocide. There are more ways than one of killing Jews and Judaism. And I refer to our own neglect of our cultural life, our institutions, our synagogues, and our Jewish responsibilities. When we think of the losses we have so recently suffered it ought to hurt the conscience of any Jew in this country who by his indifference in a land of peace and plenty adds to those losses already suffered because of bigotry and brutality. It would be all too easy to add spiritual disaster here to physical disaster abroad. Let us therefore, be opposed to genocide and write our senators, and let us also be opposed to sui-genocide, if I may coin still another term, and tend our own vineyards.


[1] Genesis 4:9 And the LORD said unto Cain: 'Where is Abel thy brother?' And he said: 'I know not; am I my brother's keeper?'
 
[2] The tenth day of the Hebrew month of Tevet, is a fast day in Judaism. It is one of the minor fasts observed from before dawn to nightfall. The fasting commemorates the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylonia—an event that began on that date and ultimately culminated in the destruction of Solomon's Temple (the First Temple) and the conquest of the Kingdom of Judah.

[3] The Synagogue Council of America was an American Jewish organization of synagogue and rabbinical associations, founded in 1926. The Council was the umbrella body bridging the three primary religious movements within Judaism in the United States. The organization dissolved in 1994, facing financial difficulties and fractiousness among its members.

[4] The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948. The convention entered into force on 12 January 1951. It defines genocide in legal terms, and is the culmination of years of campaigning by lawyer Raphael Lemkin. All participating countries are advised to prevent and punish actions of genocide in war and in peacetime. The number of states that have ratified the convention is currently 147. [2015]

[5] Genocide (n.), apparently coined by Polish-born U.S. jurist Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959) in his work Axis Rule in Occupied Europe [1944, p.19], in reference to Nazi extermination of Jews, literally "killing a tribe," from Greek genos "race, kind" + -cide. According to Lemkin, genocide was defined as “a coordinated strategy to destroy a group of people, a process that could be accomplished through total annihilation as well as strategies that eliminate key elements of the group's basic existence, including language, culture, and economic infrastructure.”

[6] Genesis 1:15-16 And the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives … and he said: 'When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, ye shall look upon the birthstool: if it be a son, then ye shall kill him; but if it be a daughter, then she shall live.'

[7] The Roman genocide against Carthage during the Third Punic War (149 B.C.E. to 146 B.C.E.) constituted a remasculating effort following the humiliating losses suffered during the Second Punic War (218 B.C.E. to 202 B.C.E.)
 
[8] The Armenian Genocide was the Ottoman government's systematic extermination of its minority Armenian subjects inside their historic homeland, which lies within the territory constituting the present-day Republic of Turkey. The total number of people killed as a result has been estimated at between 800,000 and 1.5 million. The starting date is conventionally held to be 24 April 1915, the day Ottoman authorities rounded up and arrested, subsequently executing, some 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople.
 
[9] Genesis 4:9 "And the LORD said unto Cain: 'Where is Abel thy brother?' And he said: 'I know not; am I my brother's keeper?'"

 
0 Comments

Peaks Mill High School Commencement Address

5/17/1949

2 Comments

 
To begin with, one has to wonder how it happened that a high school in a small rural Kentucky village happened to have a rabbi from a city probably an hour away come to deliver an address to fourteen graduating seniors. Whatever the answer to that mystery may be, his remarks are no less passionate than had they been delivered to hundreds. His thoughts about living in a complex modern world are as relevant today as they were in 1949 — the need for independent thought, for tolerance, for service, and for valuing the freedoms of democracy.
We are free to think as we please, but if our freedom is to be preserved we must all accept the freedom of others to do the same. 
​

Picture
I CONSIDER IT A GREAT PRIVILEGE to have been invited to be with you on this important milestone of your lives. Anyone who is asked to present a message on an occasion like this has had a great honor conferred upon him and a great responsibility also. I think back, as I stand before you this evening, to the day when I, like you, was waiting for an old-timer to speak words of wisdom and, like you, I was hoping he would hurry and get it over with so I could get that bit of paper for which I had labored so long. One feels a certain amount of regret when he notices how many years have gotten away from him, but this regret is balanced by the thought that comes to me of how much easier it must have been for me to go to school than for you. For look what has happened in the last several decades. Look at the tremendous advance in all branches of knowledge. Look at the complicated pages that have been added to the history books, look at how many developments have occurred in all the sciences. No twenty-five years in all the history of mankind has shown such an amazing tempo of development in every field that affects the life of man as has the last twenty-five years. It was, therefore, much simpler, I think, for me to graduate school than it was for you, and for this, at least, I can be thankful.
 
Because, however, the world is so much more complicated, it is important that we go out into it with more than a satisfaction that we have passed the final examinations and have acquired a diploma. I hope our education has meant something more than a few facts of knowledge stored away and “readin’ and writin’ and ‘rithmetic” mastered. I hope, along with these, certain attitudes have also been acquired which I believe are indispensable to being a valuable citizen in the world of today—attitudes which were always desirable and important, but which we today, in an atomic age, need more than ever.
 
These are, first of all, a desire to think for ourselves. The rabbis of olden times said that there were four types of students, and these were a sponge, a funnel, a strainer, and a sieve. A sponge which sucks up everything, a funnel which lets in at one end and out the other, a strainer which lets the wine pass out and retains the dregs, and the sieve which lets out the coarse bran retains the fine flour.[1] It is obvious which type is to be preferred. We must be able to sift what comes to us, reject what is coarse, and retain only the fine flour. We must be able to show some discrimination in judgment or else the whole educational process has served no purpose.
 
We are faced today with an overwhelming abundance of the printed word, and with a constant barrage of the spoken word from the radio. A multitude of thoughts and ideas are available for anyone who would consider them, and this makes it all the more important for us to be able to sift and to select for ourselves those worthy of our attention. The same facility which exists for many people to express themselves also makes it possible for a few energetic people to dominate our thinking. We are in danger today of letting newspaper editors think for us, of letting the book clubs select our reading for us, of digests choosing our magazine articles. It is altogether too easy for anyone skilled in propaganda techniques to take hold of and to mold the opinions of large segments of our population. We must, therefore, always be alert to preserve our independence of thinking. If we fall into the habit of always accepting the thoughts of others what virtue is there to living in this great democracy rather than in a fascist or communist nation where thought control is of the very nature of things. In a democracy we believe in independent thinking and we must not unconsciously sacrifice this cherished principle.
 
It is not always easy to think for one's self and to refuse to follow subserviently the thoughts of others. In extreme cases men have suffered greatly for daring to be independent in thought. Think of Socrates, of the great Hebrew prophets, of the Founder of Christianity, of Galileo. They were not encouraged in their thinking and yet how different the world would have been had their thinking been lost to us. Such men are rare in history and the chances are that none of you will attain their stature, but the world, nevertheless, will be different, will be better or worse, depending upon the thoughts you think, depending on whether or not you will use your own minds or follow blindly after others. And so whatever question we consider, whether it be political, or economic, or social, or religious, I pray for you the courage of independent thinking and the courage of your convictions.
 
Secondly, what we need more than ever in this complicated world is the attitude of mind which leads us to seek more friendly and tolerant human relationships, with whatever individuals or groups the business of life brings us into contact. If we have learned to think for ourselves and not take for granted all we hear from others, this second attitude will be simpler to acquire. If we have learned anything in the past few years with regard to the human race it is how varied it is and how interdependent it is despite these variations. The world has been so narrowed down by our great advances in transportation, by our ability to jump from one corner to another, that we have to know more intimately men of different nationalities and of different racial strains and of different creeds. And we have to accept them and respect them for what they are rather than expect to make them over in our own image. And in a democracy this applies to our neighbors also, not only to those who live far off. As the world stands today, we must take the knowledge we all have of each other and build it into something good, for if we draw apart from each other in disdain and distrust we shall undoubtedly all suffer alike. In these critical days it makes no sense to be thinking in terms of our own individual superiority and to look down on our fellow man, to spurn him because his religious thinking or his skin is different, or because he does not accept certain other principles which we hold so dear. We must learn the good qualities of our neighbors, to expect human differences as something natural and desirable, and to learn to work together in one world despite these differences.
 
This does not mean that we are to be self-effacing before others in order to curry favor. It does not mean that we are to abandon all principal in the effort to keep peace. But it does mean that to all men of good will, to all who are willing to live and let live, we shall extend a hand of friendship. We may each feel that our own way of thinking or living is most desirable, yet at the same time we must accord to others the right to the very same feeling, and we must each go our way with tolerance and respect for each other. We are free to think as we please, but if our freedom is to be preserved, we must all accept the freedom of others to do the same. I
n a world as interdependent as ours has become, there is no alternative to such procedure, but chaos. The seeds of prejudice and intolerance whether they be directed toward one person, or a group, or a nation as a whole, can only scar our own souls and disturb our own peace of mind. The ancient rabbis asked, “Why did God create only one man at the beginning instead of a number at one time?” And they said because God wanted to show that all men have a common ancestor and all are brothers in the sight of God. Without the development of such a sense of brotherhood among men we cannot hope to clear the world of its problems.
 
Thirdly, we must not only think for ourselves, and be tolerant of other people's thinking, but we must also have a desire to be of service to others. Education is supposed to help us make our way in the world. Through education we presumably equip ourselves with the knowledge which gives us earning power and helps us make a living so that we may have a home and a family and enjoy the pleasures of life. But we dare not let ourselves be overwhelmed with the thought that all there is to living is the acquisition of material goods for ourselves alone. We cannot ignore all others but ourselves. There are individuals with stricken lives who need us. There are community projects that depend on us. We must be ready at all times to think in terms of the good of large numbers and not merely of ourselves. Selfishness is not even a good policy from a selfish point of view. Emerson once said, “The selfish man suffers more from his selfishness then he from whom that selfishness withholds some important benefit.”
 
Bruce Barton 
once told this parable about two seas.[2]  
There are two seas in Palestine. One is fresh and there are fish in it. Splashes of green adorn its banks. Trees spread their branches over it. The River Jordan makes this sea with sparkling water from the hills. Men build their houses near it and birds their nests, and every kind of life is happier because it is there.  The River Jordan flows south into another sea. Here is no splash of fish, no fluttering leaf, no song of birds. The air hangs over its waters and neither man nor beast nor fowl will drink. ‘What makes this mighty difference in these neighbor seas?’ the parable asks. Not the river Jordan. It empties the same good water into both. But this is the difference—the Sea of Galilee receives but does not keep the Jordan. For every drop that flows into it another flows out. The giving and receiving go on in equal measure. The other sea is shrewder, hoarding its income jealously. It will not be tempted by any generous impulse. Every drop it gets it keeps. The Sea of Galilee gives and lives. The other sea gives nothing. It is named “The Dead.”
There are two seas in Palestine. There are two kinds of people in the world. And the concluding question is,  “Which kind are we?” That is a question that we ought to ask ourselves frequently in checking on ourselves. Only a Cain asks, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” But if we want to live meaningfully, if we want really to feel the joy of living, then we must be ready to assume our responsibility in being of service to others whenever we are called upon.
 
One last thing that I hope you have gained from your education and if you have this, perhaps, all the others will come naturally. And that is a proper appreciation and understanding of the greatest form of government history has ever produced, the democratic form under which we live today in these United States. It may sound strange, but I don't really think that all Americans understand fully what democracy means. They know it has something to do with everybody voting, but I don't think they have all caught the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, which says,
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men….
These words are from a political document, but are they not what the Bible meant when it said, “Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” Democracy is after all the political expression of religious truths which both Judaism and Christianity have taught, that human personality and human dignity must be respected at all times, that all men are children of the same God and therefore brothers. And this means all men regardless of race, religion, or social standing. Democracy is the American ideal. We know that in some respects we fall short of the ideal, but we ought, at least, always be aware of it so that we may constantly strive to improve ourselves and to come closer to it. The great hope of the world today is democracy, an upsurge of a truly democratic spirit and conscience.  And the more effectively we practice democracy here, the less will be our danger from other sources. In the early days of our country a noted Frenchman 
once asked the poet Lowell how long he thought the American Republic would endure.[3][4] He replied, “As long as the ideas of its founders remain dominant.” Our national security more than on anything else depends on our devotion to democracy. And I hope that out of your schooling has come to you an understanding of what life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all men really means, and that you will hereafter be moved by these ideals in your own participation as citizens in the political life of this land.
 
Let me conclude with a story. Pierre van Paassen 
tells the following story.[5] His grandfather was a clergyman in Holland. Every so often it was his grandfather’s custom to go to the village tailor and order himself a new pair of trousers. On one occasion when he did so, he waited for the tailor to inform him that that the trousers were ready, but he did not hear from him at all. And so he went back to the tailor shop to inquire. The tailor put him off. Just a few more days, he said. A few days later the clergymen came back, but still the trousers were not ready. The man’s patience was at an end, and so he rebuked the tailor and said, “How is it that God created the world in only six days, but you have not been able to finish these trousers for so many weeks?” “You are right,” said the tailor, “ God created the world in six days, but look at what a mess it’s in!”
 
The world is not in very good shape. Many problems face us in the future, but you today go forth in common with thousands of others of graduates and will give this world new blood, new manpower, and new ideas. And so we take hope and we pray that you will go forth to take your place in this world with free minds, with tolerant spirits, with a desire for service, and a devotion to the American ideal. We pray also that God’s blessing will be upon you, that your contribution will be a noble one, and that success and happiness will be yours.
 
 


[1] Pirkei Avot 5:15

[2] Bruce Fairchild Barton (1886 –1967) was an American author, advertising executive, and politician. He served in the U.S. Congress from 1937 to 1940 as a Republican from New York.

[3] François Pierre Guillaume Guizot (1787–1874) was a French historian, orator, and statesman.

[4] James Russell Lowell (1819 – 1891) was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat.

[5] Pierre van Paassen (1895 –1968) was a Dutch–Canadian-American journalist, writer, and Unitarian minister.

2 Comments

Dayenu

4/15/1949

0 Comments

 
WE JEWS HAVE CELEBRATED PASSOVER THIS YEAR probably with a greater joyful spirit than ever before. Passover is known as the Zman Cherusenu, the season of our freedom. And today not only is a season of freedom that we recall from ancient times, but it is the first Passover since our modern deliverance as well. Today the people of Israel have marched forth from oppression and cruelty and to a newly acquired freedom in the Promised Land. And therefore our joy is exceptionally great.
 
But precisely for this very reason, because our joy is so great, and we have modern achievements also to our credit, we must remember now more than ever that the Passover is not merely a festival of great joy but one also of great challenge. To observe the Passover festival as merely one of joy over victories either in ancient or in modern times lays us open to the charge of smugness, and self-glorification. It has not been characteristic of Judaism to gloat over the downfall of its enemies and to celebrate its own victories with unrestrained joy. It has always been the custom for example on the last days of Passover to curtail the Hallel Service, the chanting of joyous psalms because, the rabbis of old told us we must remember also the sorrow of the Egyptians defeated at the Red Sea. It is not the spirit of Jewish tradition to rejoice in victory or self-glorification without an awareness also of the responsibilities of the victory and the challenge that goes with it.
 
The Dayenu
[1] section of the Haggadah[2] service, which we chat so merrily, is an excellent illustration of this thought. It begins with the introduction, "How manifold are the favors which the Lord has bestowed upon us…” And then there follows a list of the many favors which the Holy One had bestowed upon His people. After the recital of each one, we all joined the refrain, “Dayenu!” — it would have been sufficient. It would seem offhand that this is nothing but the boastful proclamation of a people glorying in these manifestations of divine favor which had been conferred upon it. Any one of these favors, might be the interpretation, would have been sufficient to show the superiority of Israel over the nations in the eyes of God, and to endow Israel with a deep-seated pride and reason for self-glorification. How much more so when so many favors have been conferred! But we must remember the conclusion of the passage. After the repetition of all the favors bestowed upon Israel comes the greatest of them all. "And he made us a holy people to perfect the world under the kingdom of the Almighty in truth and in righteousness!" Thus the consciousness of Divine favor was not to lead to arrogant pride, but rather carried with it a sense of responsibility and implied consecration to Divine ideals. Not self-glorification, because of the past, but self-consecration to the demands of the future is its result. And this is the emphasis in our Passover celebration. It is a proclamation of future responsibilities which come as a result of God's favor. Each favor of the past is turned into a spiritual challenge, any one of which would in itself be sufficient incentive to high moral responsibility, but how much greater is this moral responsibility when we have been the recipient of all these favors combined.
 
“He brought us out of Egypt,” reads the Haggadah, and to this we chant “Dayenu!” -- it would have been sufficient. In our own personal experience of the bitterness of physical and spiritual bondage, we mean to say, there was sufficient inspiration in the generations that followed for Israel to become the champion of all the enslaved and the oppressed. The exodus from Egypt was a challenge calling forth the noblest and the best in the Jew. And we see, indeed, in many places in the Bible this episode is referred to as the basis of an appeal to Israel to cherish freedom and liberty and to respect the dignity of all men. “Remember ye were slaves in Egypt,” we hear, when we are commanded to rest on the Sabbath[3] and to give rest to our servants and animals. "For ye were strangers in the land of Egypt," we read, when we are enjoined to treat the stranger as the home born and to love him as thyself. And many a time the experience in Egypt is given as the reason for maintaining a spirit of sympathy and helpfulness of the underdog, a spirit of revolt against political tyranny and economic oppression. And today also this memory should be sufficient to make the Jew mindful of the challenging implications of Passover for our own day and our responsibility to speak up at all times whenever the dignity of man and the principles of liberty and freedom are being challenged.
 
But if this were not challenging enough, there were still other experiences of Israel to call forth in him a sense of responsibility. “He divided the Red Sea for us,” continues the Haggadah. Here is the historic example of the power of faith, the miracle of courage in the face of crisis and seeming disaster. The people wanted to turn back when confronted by the sea. "Are there not enough graves in Egypt?[4]" they asked, but they yielded to exhortation and they went forward nevertheless and left us the classic example of courage and endurance, to which our people have measured up so well in the past few years and which Passover has become a symbol. “This would have been sufficient,” we say. “He brought us to Mount Sinai and gave us the Torah," is another Divine favor of which we make mention. And this experience has been interpreted not merely as the gift of a loving father to a favorite child, but as a challenge to make obedience to the moral law the primary influence in Jewish life. And this is what we mean when we speak of the Divine election of Israel, of Israel as the chosen people, not a people chosen for special favor, but a people who has chosen to dedicate itself as a kingdom of priests to the service of God, who has made of the folk memory of the most inspiring event of human history an incentive to ethical conduct and high personal morality. This would too have been sufficient, but he led us into the land of Israel where our national experience showed us the wisdom of righteousness and justice and the folly of despotism, and he gave us prophets of truth who preached the message of universal brotherhood and love. And these favors too would have been sufficient to make us eager to serve in the task of establishing justice among men.
 
To all of these favors and others we have said, “Dayenu,” not in smug pride that we are God's favored people who will be miraculously kept alive forever, but with a consciousness of the moral lessons and obligations which these experiences of our forefathers have bequeathed to us. And our celebration of the Passover today is the reaffirmation of our acceptance of this challenge. Passover speaks to us of human freedom, of faith and courage, of a moral law by which alone man can survive, and its celebration is Israel's assurance that it has dedicated itself to the service of these ideals and looks forward to the great day of the future when the world will be perfected under the kingdom of the Almighty in truth and in righteousness.


[1] Dayenu (Hebrew) is a song that is part of the Jewish holiday of Passover. The word "Dayenu" means approximately "it would have been enough for us", "it would have been sufficient."

[2] The Haggadah is a Jewish text that sets forth the order of the Passover Seder. Reading the Haggadah at the Seder table is a fulfillment of the Scriptural commandment to each Jew to "tell your son" of the Jewish liberation from slavery in Egypt.

[3] Deuteronomy 5:11-14

[4] Exodus 14:11
0 Comments
<<Previous

    Archives

    March 1974
    October 1973
    January 1972
    September 1971
    December 1970
    October 1970
    October 1969
    November 1968
    October 1968
    September 1966
    September 1965
    September 1963
    March 1963
    January 1962
    April 1959
    February 1957
    November 1955
    April 1954
    October 1953
    May 1953
    December 1952
    January 1952
    December 1949
    May 1949
    April 1949
    March 1944
    September 1942
    November 1941
    March 1937
    January 1937

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

    NEXT PAGE
CLICK for an introductory spiritual mentoring session
Picture

Yeshaya Douglas Ballon 
Spiritual Mentoring 

  • SPIRITUAL MENTOR
    • Spiritual Direction
    • Jewish Spiritual Direction
    • J. Article
    • INDIVIDUAL
    • GROUP
    • Sage-ing Mentorship
  • AUTHOR/POET
    • Unthinkable Dreams
    • A Precious Heritage
    • Cutting Room Floor
    • The Blog
    • ETHICAL WILLS
    • Poetry
  • ARTIST
  • BAKER
    • Recipe
    • References >
      • A brief history of challah
    • "Challettes"
    • Babka!
    • Bagels >
      • Claire's Bagel Recipe
    • Pizza
  • Contact