A Time For Action

A Time For Action

July 27^th, 2024

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

Rabbi Emeritus, Temple Beth-El, Richmond, Virginia

 

Both we and this Torah portion of Pinchas live in tumultuous, difficult and dangerous times. Eerily, there are parallels between the time of Moses in the wilderness of Sinai and 2024. Maybe there is a divine hand orchestrating the timing, that this sedra comes after two such weeks. We need to look carefully at the end of last week's sedra of Balak coupled with the beginning of today’s sedra of Pinchas and the threat posed to existence of the Children of Israel. And in that moment we must reflect on the threat to our democracy.

            Will both threats be averted?

            Will they and we be saved?

            By whom?

            How?

 In this sedra Moses stands alone. Aaron and Miriam have previously died. He is being tested time after time after time. He even has to debate Korach. He is one hundred and twenty years old.

Will God change His mind and allow Moses to finish the job, bring the Israelites to their ancestral home?

Or will God adhere to what He had previously decreed, that Moses would die in the wilderness like his siblings?

If so, who will succeed Moses? Will it be Pinchas from our sedras who acted with zeal to thwart the threat? If not Pinchas, then whom?

 

Reading these Torah portions shake us; demands our attention; commands us to use its text as a mirror to understand what is at stake now! To think about these two episodes and that in neither could anyone just sit back and let events unfold.

            This Torah portion demanded engagement. It demanded action.

            And it does of us too!

As in the past, now, too, WE DARE NOT FAIL!

 

As I mentioned last week, the Egyptians tried to destroy us through slavery and Amalekites tried to do it militarily. Balak then uses Bilaam to curse us and with magic destroy us. That too fails. Yet with no external compulsion, the Israelite men start having sex with the Moabite women which leads them to idolatry, named after the place and its god “Ba’al Peor.” This behavior will abrogate the covenant and spell the end of Israelites! God commands the death of the ring leaders. But then, flaunting all convention, displaying utter vulgarity, Zimri the son of Salu, a chief in the tribe of Simeon, brings a Midianite woman, Cozbi daughter of Tzur, a Midianite chief, and flagrantly acts towards her in front of Moses and the people at the Tent of Meeting. The plague of God’s anger had already broken out. Everyone was paralyzed. Moses, the chieftains were frozen in place. The end was nigh!

 

Only one person had the courage, had the bravery, had the audacity to extinguish the threat to the existence of the Children of Israel. Pinchas picks up a spear and rams it through both of them. This is not a story for children. Maybe the sedra specifically ends here with us anxiously waiting what comes next. What will happen to Pinchas? The Rabbis are clearly unhappy with this scenario and its violence and make all kinds of excuses. They are not happy with God’s rewarding him with a special covenant and have to make allowances. He took the law into his own hand. He didn’t bring them to court. All kinds of excuses. But after 24,000 Israelites died – let us not get wrapped up in the exact number – no commentator suggests an alternative to save them! And if we would not condone violence, and I don’t suggest that we do, especially after the past Shabbat afternoon, and I suppose that most of us here remember JFK, RFK, MLK and Yitzchak Rabin,

then at least let us be stirred,

let us be inspired,

let us be motivated that someone stood up,

someone had the courage,

someone had the guts,

 someone cared enough to put it on the line,

to do something to save us!

 

Eschewing violence against others, abjuring hatred of those who hold alternate ideas, it is clear to me, that these are perilous times with the threat to our democracy being promoted and sponsored in every corner of social media and by political parties and on tv stations. The Southern Poverty Law Center publishes a yearly compendium of such groups and people. I read it cover to cover. The more I think of January 6^th, 2021 the more I am scared and concerned for January, 2025.

 

Will we be encouraged by Pinchas to use our civil rights, to protest, to vote, to donate, will we at least do something, or will we sit as Moses and all the leaders and the rest of the people, paralyzed and do nothing?

 

We as Jews are the proverbial “canary in the mine.”

We cannot forget Charlottesville.

We cannot forget the torches.

We cannot forget the chanting “You won’t replace us.”

There was nothing good there!!!

I have often wondered what it was like to be a Jew in Germany at the end of the 1920’s and the 1930’s. I know what is to be a Jew in the United States in 2024.

It is time to be like Pinchas.

 

We all know that God affirmed his judgement to Moses, that he would not lead the Children of Israel into Canaan. There is a most touching piece of our sedra, that after God reminds Moses and gives him a sneak preview, that Moses asks God for God to appoint a worthy successor. “Let the Lord, source of the breath of all flesh, appoint someone over the community who will go out before them and come in before them, and who shall take them out and bring them in, so that the Lord’s community may not be like sheep without a shepherd.” And the Lord answered Moses: “Single out Joshua son of Nun, an inspired man…Invest him with some of your authority…” We met Joshua previously at Mt. Sinai. He led the battle to defeat Amalek. He was Moses’ faithful and loyal servant. In these few verses in our sedra the peaceful and lawful transition of leadership was effected.

 

In Joshua there was no confusion, there was no hesitation, there was no question. It was a time for action! It was a time to accept the staff that Moses had carried since he stood before Pharaoh and go forth, as God had commanded.

            The past demanded it.

            The future commanded it.

            Our destiny was not to be and need not be denied.

Is our time any different?

 

The parallels from our past to our present are so eerily the same.

I see no other way but for us to act as the descendants of Pinchas.

I see no other way but for us to act as the descendants of Joshua.

The future of this democracy demands it.

The welfare of our people and all peoples commands it.

            No sitting on the sidelines.

            No after the fact “should’ve, could’ve would’ve.”

These days are A Time For Action, by us and by all.

The future of this democracy demands it.

The welfare of our people and all peoples commands it.

 

May God who stirred those leaders of our past inspire us now.

May God protect us, the United States, Medinat Yisrael, and the Jewish people throughout the world, now and “forever and ever.”

 

Shabbat Shalom

Why Do They Hate Us?

Why Do They Hate Us?

July 20th, 2024

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

Rabbi Emeritus, Temple Beth-El, Richmond, Virginia

 

Several weeks ago our son-in-law, Arsen, took his seven year old daughter, our granddaughter Yaara to the place in Tel Aviv called “Hostage Square.” The pictures of all the hostages appear there. Every Saturday night after Shabbat a demonstration is held there for their release and return. Our granddaughter is a very sensitive and insightful girl. She turned to her father and asked: “Why do they hate us?” It broke Ruby and my hearts to see that picture and to read his caption. It took all my strength not to break forth in a torrent of tears. Yaara could not know that she had asked the question of the millennium:

         Why Pharaoh?

         Why Amalek?

         Why Assyria?

         Why Babylon?

         Why Haman?

         Why Rome?

         Why the Crusades?

         Why the Pogroms?

         Why the Church?

         Why Hitler?

         Why the Arabs?

         Why anti-semitism?

         And in today’s Torah portion, why Balak?

A question worthy of a symposium, a year-long course, I will attempt to frame responses to my granddaughter. I am not sure that I can write it simply enough for her to understand now. Yet with her unique intelligence, she will soon enough. Maybe even too soon.

 

My first answer: In total honesty, I don’t know. We have just wanted to be left alone, just like Bilaam said. We didn’t seek to conquer the world. We didn’t seek to convert the world. We haven’t tried to make everyone be like us. And nothing that we did provided an acceptable answer. We were conquered and they deported us. We were conquered and they destroyed our Temple and homeland. We became second class citizens and they further subjected us. We converted to both Islam and Christianity and they didn’t believe it. We became patriotic citizens of France and they declared “Death to the Jews.” We became loyal citizens of Poland and they handed us over to the Nazis. We became devoted citizens of Germany and they killed us. We created our homeland so we could live in one place and get out of their way, and they put the remnant of the Holocaust in DP camps and they threw us out of every Arab country. Raise our heads. Lower our heads. Contribute to society. Live in a ghetto. They still hated us. And I earnestly ask you to read the Forward article by Jay Michaelson, “Project 2025 would be the end of the American Jewish dream.” To my dearest granddaughter my first answer is: I just don’t know.  And as the author of Lamentations wrote: My inwards burn, my heart is turned within me (1:20)” They hate us in places where we don’t even exist.

 

My second answer: We have a unique message that goes against the grain of the rest of humanity. This is our manifesto:

Every person, man, woman, child, old, young, of any faith, of every ethnic origin, of every color is inherently holy.

Every person deserves to be respected.

Every person should be treated with lovingkindness.

Every one. Every one.

Bar none.

Us, too.

That is not the way the world has operated. Conquest, murder, rape, subjugation, sublimation has been rule. Empires created by megalomaniacs rise and fall, but the price is paid by the common woman and man and child. If everyone who was ever killed and murdered was properly buried this entire planet would be one big cemetery.

 

And along comes the Children of Israel, the Jews, and we proclaim loudly and consistently “No. A thousand times, a million, a billion times NO! This is not the answer they want to hear. They want to believe that Might makes Right. And we say “That’s wrong. Everyone is equally created in God’s image. Thou shalt not murder. Thou shalt not covet.´ And then the Jewish people create a country, Medinat Yisrael which, while not perfect, mixes Ashkenazim and Sefardim and Edot HaMizrach, and Teamanim (Yemenites) and Ethiopians, lily white and dark brown, ultra-religious and ultra secular, in one microscopic corner of the earth that controls little natural resources in the only imperfect but democratic country for thousands of miles. This grandest experiment in humanity, in love of person and love of the earth, they have tried to destroy because it does not fit their version of control, of domination, of authoritarianism.

Yet this time, this time,

We - lo amut ke echyeh - we will not die but live.

We will not concede but be resilient.

We will not yield, but will remain strong.

We will stay faithful, elevate our flag, raise our voice and forever proclaim the message of the Jewish people, the State of Israel, loudly and forcefully to the world.

Lo Amut ke echyeh – we will not perish, but live.

 

My third answer: We must believe, I have no other way to understand our history and that of the world, that we are here because God wants us to be here, because God needs us here, because He told Abraham “this is your mission,” because the prophets said “you are a light to the nations.” If ever there was a people that should have rolled over and died, it is us. If ever there was a religion that should have yielded to larger religions, it is Judaism. If ever there was a faith and its adherents who were threatened with extinction time after time it is us. No matter how I think about our personal human strength I can’t imagine that we would be capable of surviving three thousand and five hundred years without God. It just can’t be. From Abraham He called us, and today He still calls us to be the bearers of His message. And despite our loses at any time and in any place, the body of the Jewish people lives. And with God’s assistance and ultimate protection, will continue to do so to the end of time, or until humanity embraces our message. That would be the Messianic times, with or without a Messiah.

 

I don’t know how to explain this simply to a seven year old and I don’t know what Arsen said to Yaara. I will give them this sermon in hard copy so that one day she will know that her question provoked my tears and directed my hands to pound the keyboard and write this sermon.

I believe that we must stay the course. Despite everything.

I believe in the ultimate victory of the mission of the Jewish people.

I believe that our young boys and girls in the Diaspora must learn and embody these Jewish values that are propagated by the rituals of our faith and not just slogans to mouth. We are the living representation of these eternal truths.

I believe that our collegiate youth can and will be courageous. They need to embody the pride of being a Jew. Despite everything. Despite anything said or done.

I believe in the generations of Israeli youth, who like our granddaughters will someday wear the uniform, madim, of the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, to protect our people, our homeland, our heritage, our State. Despite everything.

 

Af Al Pe Chen – Even Though, Even though they have hated us, and for those who still do,  I believe in ourselves, our God, our purpose as Jews on earth,

Af Al Pe Chen – Despite it all, Am Yisrael, The People of Israel, Torat Yisrael, The Torah of Israel, Elhay Yisrael, The God of Israel, Chay Vikayam. We have lived. We will live. We will exist. We will grow. We will be proud. Our heads will be lifted high, May atah v’ad olam, from now and to all eternity.

As Helen Zimm, may her memory be for a blessing, used to end her Aliyah:

For ever and ever!

 

Shabbat Shalom.

A Stranger in a Strange Land: The Fight For America

A Stranger in a Strange Land: The Fight For America

July 13th, 2024

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

Rabbi Emeritus, Temple Beth-El, Richmond, Virginia

In 1956 my family moved from the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York to Belleville, New Jersey, a small town north of Newark. Much in my life changed: now living in a garden apartment instead of a three floor walk-up; large areas of grass around the complex instead of city streets; driving to go shopping instead of the store across the street. And now, most of my classmates in public school were Christian instead of Jewish. I was only eight years old, had not yet attended Religious School and knew almost nothing about being Jewish, other than I was, and that my grandparents all were European born and spoke Yiddish. But this move changed my world and changed me.

On my third grade teacher’s desk and on every homeroom teacher’s desk through twelfth grade, there was, in addition to anything else, a Roget’s Thesaurus, a Webster’s Dictionary, and a King James edition of the Bible. This is how every single public school day began:

Up and down the rows each student had to select a Psalm to read out loud, except for a few that were too short or too long;

Then the class recited “The Lord’s Prayer” with some appending a few additional sentences, upon which they crossed themselves.
The Pledge of Allegiance.
Then we warbled the Star Spangled Banner.

It was quite startling for an eight year old to lose his innocence and naiveté.

I had never seen a Bible, never mind one so large.
I had never read Psalms. None of them.
I had no idea what was the “Lord’s Prayer,”
And had never seen anyone make the sign of the cross over their chest.

And this was in public school which I attended for all but one year from K to 12. Uneducated as I was, as young as I was, I was in culture shock. And I was totally unprepared to respond to my third grade teacher when she asked me: “Why aren’t you reciting ‘The Lord’s Prayer?” The best that this child could muster was: “It’s not mine.” I was never asked again.

This would not be the end of my transformational experience. Sometime in December a Christmas tree appeared in the corner of the room. All students were required to make decorations to hang on the tree. After a secret exchange of names, all students were required to bring Christmas presents. Then significant classroom time was devoted to learning and singing Christmas hymns, with a small selection of “seasonal” songs. I was asked, really told, to leave the high school choir when I refused to sing the hymns. And one day a classmate ran his hands through my hair asking: “Where are your horns?” I was perplexed, mystified, and ashamed.

I might have been born in America.
English might have been my native language.
I might have rooted for the Brooklyn Dodgers, though I was in Yankee territory.
My father also born in Brooklyn, New York served in World War II and was in the Philippines preparing to invade Japan.

But I was a stranger in a strange land.

I would eventually learn that my experience in Brooklyn, New York was the exception and not the rule. There were times I rued my parent’s decision. Many times in my seventy-five years I have had that feeling. The reverse feeling was landing in Ben Gurion airport, even the old, original one. Without explanation or contemplation, but with Hebrew language to see and hear, with and without kipot, I was home. Even if I knew nothing else, I was not a stranger any more. Everything could be unfamiliar, but at least it was mine.

It has been a long struggle for the United States to recognize and acclimate to the fact that this country is not a melting pot where everyone who is different is supposed to relinquish their original characteristics, cuisine, culture and faith. This country is a patchwork quilt of people from different places, with different faiths, with different customs, with different languages. It has taken a myriad of court cases to have all of us accepted as equal Americans, so no little third grade boy or girl would have to feel like I felt, experience what I experienced, and think that they were strangers in a strange land.

And our work is not done.

The United States is not a Christian nation, even if a majority of its citizens are of Christian faith. The founders of the country knew from experience that Christianity in not only not monolithic, but that the denominations of Christianity are highly antagonistic and even hostile to each other, fighting many wars, as was the experience of Europe. They wanted to keep that far, far away. George Washington deeply understood this when he wrote his famous letter to the Jews of Newport, Rhode Island. Due to continuing immigration to America, the different groups have multiplied and grown to our benefit. Asian markets, Halal markets exist alongside Empire Kosher in Trader Joe and Wegmans. A plethora of Kosher symbols are found on packaging. The Vice-President’s husband in Jewish!

There is no return to the supposed “good old days.”

The United States in not a nation founded on Christian faith. At best, they were tepid Deists, who believed in God who would bless their endeavors. There was no requirement to confess belief in Jesus when taking an oath, just the generic “God.” The founders drew their basic ideas from many philosophers who believed in Natural Law and not the Bible. In fact, it is easier to footnote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution from Jewish sources than any other. This nation is united not by any one theology, but rather by the crucial and critical beliefs in the holiness of every person, the right of everyone to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that we all live under the rule of law as I stressed last week. We are a nation where every difference is honored, respected and celebrated. We are a nation where a black man, Willie Mays, can be honored and adored by teammate and opponent, by Jew and Christian, from San Francisco to New York, because of the man he was, the moral exemplar he was off the field more than the athlete he was on it. We are a nation who believes in the goodness of humanity.

And now the torch is passed to us, to keep it this way and go further. People of every origin, every faith, and every color must unite to elect officials from the lowest to the highest who will respect all of us, who will unite us and not divide us, who will fight against hate of anyone, who will elicit from us dedication and patriotism to protect and defend our civil rights, our human rights.

America needs leaders with moral courage.

The torch to which President Kennedy referred in his only inaugural address is passed not only to a new generation, it is passed to all generations alive, so that it will illuminate the future generations of this great experiment in human history. The Lady in the Harbor beckons us with her torch,

Not to be silent
Not to be complacent
Not to be reticent
Not to be restrained.

It is the time for our voices.
It is the time for our votes.
It is the time for our financial support of candidates who will grasp this torch with us.

There is no time to waste. There is no time for delay.
Our children are watching us.
Our grandchildren are watching us.
Dare I say, God is watching us.

Let this torch of freedom, of democracy, of honor and respect, shine brightly, “From sea to shining sea.” And none shall make us afraid.

Shabbat Shalom

Equal Culpability Under the Law

July 6, 2024
Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

With more than tongue in cheek, I suggest to the members of the Supreme Court that they buy a copy of Mr. Trump’s newly published Bible, skip the rest, and turn directly to Deuteronomy 17:14-20 and read the verses very, very carefully. They refer to the establishment of the monarchy in ancient Israel. I can set aside all scholarly debates about when and by whom and for what purpose the Book of Deuteronomy was written and focus exclusively on the verses and their message.

If, after you have entered the land that the Lord your God has assigned to you, and taken possession of it, and settled in it, you decide, “I will set a king over me, as do all the nations about me,” you shall be free to set a king over yourself, one chosen by the Lord your God. Be sure to set as king over yourself one of your own people; you must not set a foreigner over you, one who is not your kinsman. Moreover, he shall not keep many horses or send people back to Egypt to add to his horses, since the Lord warned you, “You must not go back that way again.” And he shall not have many wives, lest his heart go astray; nor shall he amass silver and gold to excess. When he is seated on his royal throne, he shall have copy of this Teaching written for him on a scroll by the Levitical priests. Let it remain with him and let him read in it all his life, so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God, to observe faithfully every word of this Teaching as well as these laws. Then he will not act haughtily toward his fellows to deviate from the Instruction to the right or to the left, to the end that he and his descendants may reign long in the midst of Israel.

Adjacent to this passage in the same chapter is the injunction to take difficult cases to a higher court for adjudication. The existence of courts of law is rooted in episode of Jethro advising Moses to choose from the elders and establish a series of courts that could properly and in a timely fashion deal justice.

I am sure that the founding fathers of the United States knew these passages well. They also knew the horrible history of religion, i.e. Christianity in Europe, the wars, the deaths, the violations of human dignity, that led to the creation of a different place than Europe to live, a better place, a safer more humane place.  The courts of law and the rule of law became paramount in the colonies. While not including Native Americans and African Americans in their original vision, that which they did establish would lay the foundation for equal protection and equal culpability under the law. They assiduously refused to copy the European model of “divine right” and make George Washington a king. Instead he became president, addressed as Mister, without the trappings of the European kings and queens. Like the Biblical king, they reduced and contained his power and authority. And like the Biblical king, he was subject to the same laws as everyone else. Nathan called out David. Elijah called out Jezebel and Ahab.

No excuses!

No exceptions!

No exemptions!

No allowances!

No immunities!

Reading the Bible they understood the flaws and frailties of people elevated to position. They learned about the Israelite and Judean kings that the prophets railed against when they raised themselves and diminished the people, ignored the law and violated the law. With hubris they held themselves above the law.  What were the teachings that the king must follow?       

Justice, justice must thou pursue!

One law for the stranger and for the citizen!

Protect the poor, the widow, the orphan, the stranger!

Don’t lie!

Don’t covet!

Walk humbly before the Lord your God.

The United States has had a vast assortment among the presidents. Politics is a difficult business at best. Yet two who stood the test of time, whose monuments, built due the people’s affection, admiration and esteem, of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, command the District’s landscape, and compel our attention, for they, more than all the others, are exemplars of the presidency, the best of America, the litmus test of leadership. While Washington came from wealth and Lincoln did not, as the Biblical teaching, it did not lead them astray. They did not use the office to enrich themselves. They did not attempt to skirt the law, avoid the law, diminish the law, escape the law.

They saw themselves subject to the law just like the rest of us.

No excuses!

No exceptions!

No exemptions!

No allowances!

No immunities!

The Supreme Court, no matter how you read their statement, they missed all of this.

They missed the point that the president is just another citizen, albeit, with a very large responsibility.

They missed the point of equal protection and equal culpability.

They missed the point that higher office means higher responsibility.

They missed the point of the pursuit of justice.

They missed the point that if any of us had acted like that we would have long been in jail and they would have thrown away the keys.

They missed the point that without respect for the law, civilization can crumble.

Maybe we need the Jewish model of adding to the number of justices as per the severity of the case, reaching even to the seventy of the Sanhedrin. Maybe then there would be greater diversity, greater wisdom, and greater justice. I have a hard time thinking about this past July 4^th, thinking about this country, its current dynamics and its future. Currently I can scream “Gevalt,” share meaningful pieces on Facebook, and donate to people and causes that I believe will make a better America. I will send Menachem this sermon and let him post it in as many places as possible to amplify this message. Maybe in it will turn out well. Maybe people of love and kindness for others, for nature, for the world, will have their voices and their votes answered. As Rabbi Tarfon said in Pirkey Avot (2:21): “You are not called upon to complete the work, but you are not free to evade it.”

May we not desist in our duty to God, our country, our people.

May our prayers and actions be answered, Ba’a’ga-lah u-viz-man ka-reev, soon, in these days,

And as the authors of the Declaration of Independence closed the document:

“We mutually pledge to each other, our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

Shabbat Shalom