Judaism for the Thinking Person

The Failing Language of Masculinity, For Moses and For Today

Moses, having been raised by a team of women, "goes out" to experience the world of men when he becomes a teenager.  He experiences fighting and injustice, and when he looks "to and fro" to see if any man is going to do anything about it, sees that no "man" is willing to step up.  So he steps up himself.  He then sees two Hebrew men fighting, one the aggressor and the other the victim, and he tries to engage them in conversation to stop the behavior.  But like a male locker room, rather than talk at all, they (even the victim!) threaten him.  The world of men does not allow for a conversation about abuse, dehumanization, and changed behavior.  So he must flee to Midian, where he then "rises up" in action to stop a group of young men from harrassing young women.  Though clearly 1) Moses knows what justice is, and 2) Moses is not afraid of action, just a few verses later 3) Moses says he is incapable of articulating either in words.  (This might indicate what the revelation of Sinai will be, by the way.)  This is remarkably similar to the recent book of Peggy Orenstein, who argues that young men today  1) know how they should be treating the world of women, 2) know what actions are the right ones, but 3) lack any language for explaining it all, for explaining what it means to be in the world of men (especially in any positive sense), and why they won't "rise up" in their lockerrooms or social groups to stop other boys from spreading offensive pornographic memes, sharing misogynist jokes, or encouraging conquests of women.  Such young men would have to risk their social capital, and even when willing to, don't have the language to persuade against the self-images of masculinity.  Like the Hebrew men threatening Moses for even beginning a conversation about their wrong, abusive behavior, Moses goes out to the world of men, sees the problems (including the treatment of women), but then tells God he would never be able to articulate true masculinity or the need for changed behavior in the world of men.

The Selfie and Your Halakhic Display

The Rabbis argue whether the first part of the Joseph saga displays Joseph's arrogance or whether he has no such intent.  I relate this to the act of taking a selfie, or posting successes and photos on social media... so similar to the Rabbis' concern that Joseph puts too much attention into his personal appearance and promise.  I then conduct an obscure halakhic exercise:  how do the legal codes understand "the right way to have an aliyah to the Torah?"  The Halakhic concern is that while a person who closes the scroll during their blessing might just be following the custom they learned growing up --since the majority of halakhic opinions is to leave the scroll open-- it sure looks like yoharah, a public display of one's higher personal piety.  Are we conscious of what we are doing with our customs, with our social media posts... are we at risk, as the Rabbis worry, of thinking we are "just posting" how we do things (which is really an act of NOT thinking), when we may be harboring the ambiguous, semi-conscious preciousness of the selfie?  

They Built the Tower of Babel with One Thought: Social Media Activism as Today's Tower of Babel

Using Shai Held's excellent article on the Rabbinic interpretation of the Tower of Babel as the builders having a mindless unanimity of thought, I ask us to consider the kind of Social Media Activism that Barack Obama recently criticized as the phenomenon the Rabbis were exactly worried about.

Desensitization, Jew Hatred, and the Hate of Cain: How To Love in the Face of Hate?

One year after the massacre of Jews at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, the Torah was rolled to the story of Cain and Abel.  A year earlier, I had spoken forcefully about our need to combat Anti-Semitism without mercy in our country, and I was criticized by many for not responding to Hate with "words of Love."  Again at the one year anniversary much of the blogosphere was filled with slogans and platitudes that we can combat hate with love, and yet I could not find specifics anywhere about how we do that.  In this 11 minute reflection, I try to answer what this really could mean, using the Cain and Abel text, and drawing on the research that says that many who become racist or anti-Semites have had an experience at one time in their earlier lives of feeling that what they deserve was robbed from them by a member or members of the group they come to hate.  I also consider social media conglomerates accomplices to the spread of hate. A key part of this teaching is the role desensitizing young white men to hate through videos and memes that mock political correctness. After I recorded this, the following article came out about the billions of downloads of Dennis Prager's conservative funded organization whose mission is to do this:  https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/josephbernstein/prager-university

FIXED: Anti-Semitism (Jew Hatred) & Gaslighting the Jews: Progressives Telling Us to "Go Fix Yourselves First"

I present new difficulties facing progressive rabbis from the Left, including a paucity of resources to even discuss the rise in anti-Semitic attacks because racism "cannot be perpetrated against people of privilege," by new progressive definitions.  This, combined with other progressive tropes, has created a situation whereby anti-Semitism can only be mentioned by white Jews of privilege (like rabbis like me) once we have "fixed ourselves" according to purity tests on the left, and which mainly mean leaving our Judaism and our Zionism behind.  In that sense, it's a "gaslighting" situation whereby every time we cry out for the injustice against ourselves, we are told first we must "get well" before anything will be addressed.

My reading of Jacob's Wrestling with the "Angel" is that it speaks to issues we are struggling with today around the prevalence and reality of depression and anxiety.  We want to say that Jacob overcame his fears in order to face his brother, when something closer to the truth is that Jacob only temporarily overcame his fears, but quickly returns to them (since he flees from his brother immediately after facing him and lying to him, and then he suffers great fear and depression ongoing in his life).  Similarly, we wish those who suffer depression and anxiety could overcome them in a way that we can celebrate, like the end of a Hallmark movie. I argue that this is a tendency to blame the victim, a tendency to say the problem is "in them" and must be "fixed" and "treated" in them, rather than consider that they, and many of us, live in a CRAZY-MAKING world, and the whole system needs to be fixed and addressed.  (In psychology, this is called the mistake of identifying "a target patient" rather than targetting the system.  Without acknowledging the system, we are "gaslighting" the victim when we tell them:  "Just get a better therapist, coach, self-help book... Learn to prioritize, do self-care, etc."  We do that to Yaakov/Jacob.

I never got to give a great sermon on this because there was a violent act of Anti-Semitism two days before.  And what I realized is that Jews are being told the problem is in many ways with themselves when it comes to Anti-Semitism.  We say, "We're anxious!  There is rising anti-Semitism!  The press isn't even covering the attacks!  I want to be able to be a public Jew!" and the reply from some progressive quarters is, "Well, maybe it's Israel's fault, or your own failing to reckon with your own racism or privilege, and maybe you could be cured by dropping your Judaism and by just voicing a fully secularized progressivism" which is another form of gaslighting, of telling Jews THEY NEED TO CHANGE rather than that THEY LIVE IN A CRAZY MAKING SITUATION.  I try to explore this comparison in this 16 minute teaching.

Change or Die: The Meaning of Lekh L'khah

In this 14 minute teaching, I use Alan Deutschman's book "Change or Die: The Three Keys to Change at Work and in Life" as the best explanation of the meaning of the famous command to Avrah and Sarai to "Lekh L'kha," to go for your own sake, or, in Deutschman's terms, to spiritually "Change or Die."  The thesis of the sermon is that the totality of Genesis/Bereishit is intended to tell God's story that change cannot be effected by an individual without a community of norms, positivity, and reinforcing habits.  The Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, Tower of Babel, and the Flood and Noah all teach us the futility that the world can change based on an individual transforming their own society.  Therefore the covenant with Avraham is that he must create a brand new society or tribe within which God's intended changes are possible.  This mirrors the precision with which Deutschman spells out change within our own lives:  what's holding us back from changing, and what might, if we are willing to have the faith to embrace a new community, make possible the leap forward to change. 

4 Minute Teaching: How to Be Mindful of the Stories You Tell in Relationships Over Time

As I've been reflecting on the relationship of the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Garden of Eden story, and as I've been working with staff on the role of one's personal stories in engaging people in a holy way, I offer this teaching on when one's stories keep a relationship fresh and when they are a hindrance.  Avoid pointing to the skin that is sloughing off even as you are so invested in it being your identity.

"What Kind of Relationship Do I Want to Be Having?" - Constructing Our Relationships Without Superiority and Inferiority

The signature prayers of Yom Kippur are confessionals whereby everyone says together lines including "We have been guilty of slander" and "We have sinned wittingly and unwittingly."  The language is often felt to be archaic.  What does it mean for someone to say "We've slandered!"  I use examples from my own life, starting with a congregational rabbi's relationship with my community, to make it real, and then I expand to other relationships in my life, and to The Choice we all have to make:  Can I live a life of relationships in which there is no "higher" and "lower" in the relationship?  Can I live in which we're all just travellers on the earth trying to relate to each other in a real way, with no "higher" and "lower" judgments?  Our greatest power in "teshuvah," changing our lives for the better, is to purposefully ask of our relationships, "Is this the kind of relationship I want to be having?"  And if the answer is no, then I try to give a guide for changing it.  My sources are the books: Tribal Leadership, The Choice, and the essays of Natalia Ginzburg ("The Little Virtues").

The Middle Way: Conservative Judaism Without Apology

Conservative Judaism is pretty much always on the defensive these days.  We live in a world where all the legitimacy is ascribed to the Left or to the Right, and the voice of the Middle Way is discounted, even by those who are living it!  In the sermon, I try to show that the deepest religious path of spirituality, wisdom, and practice is The Middle Way.  In a world where conviction is shown in the extremes, we ought to embrace the holiness of truly believing and practicing The Religion of Hillel, not of Shammai.

Judaism and Buddhism: Enlightenment, Nirvana, and Shabbat

This is a summary lecture from a lecture series I did in Ann Arbor on Judaism and Buddhism: Examining Jewish Mysticism and Philosophy through the 4 Noble Truths.   What if we understand "revelation" as "enlightenment" rather than miraculous supernatural dictation (which is, after all, a thoroughly incoherent concept)?  What if the entire "teaching" (Torah) of Shabbat has to do with bringing enlightenment to the masses?