Shabbat Sermon: Wine from Seder Cups

Why do we take out wine from the cups at Seder

When Mentioning the Plagues?

[Adapted from the Bulletin column 'From the Heart' April, 2012]

March 30, 2012

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

 

Since I never drank grape juice I thought it was a waste of good wine to take it out of my cup and put in on my plate when we read the ten plagues. And then three times more for the acrostic of the names of the plagues! I would rather have drunk the wine! And yet, the reason for this custom is more important every day; perhaps especially today, in the aftermath of the tragedy in Florida.

 

If ever there were a people whom we should have hated, at least before the Holocaust, it was the Egyptians.

If ever there were a people who perpetrated genocide upon us, it was the Egyptians.

If ever there were a people who dismissed our God, who denied His reality, it was Pharaoh and the Egyptians.

If there ever were a people who relished in the second chance to annihilate us, at the 'Red' Sea (really Yam Suf, Sea of Reeds), it was Pharaoh and the Egyptians.

If ever there were a people whom we should have hated, at least before the Holocaust, it was the Egyptians.

 

And yet, there is no echo of hatred of the Egyptians in all of our sacred literature. That is incredible. It is unbelievable. Contrary to even everything else in the world, even the political venom in the current presidential primary campaigns, the Torah, Tankah, Talmud, Midrashim, never espouse hating the Egyptians.

 

The reverse is true.

There is a Midrash connected to the episode at Yam Suf when the Israelites witness the drowning of the Egyptians (we never say that the bad guys should win), that the Israelites want to sing and God says: "My children are drowning and you want to rejoice!" What a statement! The Egyptians are God's children, too? After what they did to us? After their denial of our God? And God says that they are His children! Where does that leave us?

 

The Rabbis answered: We, too, are certainly God's children. But our message to the world, is that everyone is God's child, unqualified, unrestricted, unlimited. That means that everyone is created in God's image, which means that everyone is holy. When someone dies, of any faith, of any color, of any ethnicity, of any creed, something Godly has been damaged, diminished, lessened. Even the Egyptians at Yam Suf.

 

And so the Rabbis created a custom that when we read the plagues and their acronym, we diminish the cup of wine, symbol of our joy, happiness and celebration, not to waste the wine but rather to elevate the demand for our humanity, our respect of the "God part" in every person. By honoring others, we honor, show love and respect God. We recognize that in order for us to be free God had to bring the plagues and through them, because of Pharaoh's stubbornness, Egyptians, men, women and children suffered, were in pain. We understand that. We sympathize for them. We do not relish in their agony. They are human, thus they are God's children. So we lessen our joy and learn this lesson.

 

What was going through the mind and heart of both tragic participants in the terrible event in Florida? Especially that of George Zimmerman: Did he see another human being? I don't know. Did he see an "Egyptian" whom he should hate, or an "Egyptian" that also suffered and also is a child of God? Will we ever know?

 

Maybe both needed to have made a Seder, read the Haggadah and took out wine from their cups. Then strangers would have known each other and this catastrophe would have been avoided.

 

I also return to theme which I wrote about extensively in January: what was he doing with a gun? Why not just have a radio with which to summon the police? Guns coupled with hatred spell death. Even if there is justification for a neighborhood watch, even when there are fears, rational or not, Guns are not necessary. Guns do not solve problems. Guns kill. Hatred is multiplied. Pain increases exponentially!

 

The most important cup of wine on the table is that of Elijah.

We use the number four because the Rabbis identified four specific languages of redemption. Therefore there are four children and four cups of wine. Yet there is a potential fifth word of redemption – "v'hay'vayti" – "And I will bring you (to the land of Israel)." The Rabbis could not decide what to do, so they utilized their Rabbinic tradition to say that when Elijah comes – he returns to announce the coming of the Messiah – Elijah will answer this question. Until then, we put the fifth cup on the table and don't recite a blessing over it, and if and when Elijah comes, he will drink from it and recite its blessing. Elijah's cup is the Passover symbol of our belief in the ultimate coming of the Messiah, which will usher in a time of peace, a time without killing.

 

May Elijah come soon.

 

Shabbat Shalom

 

 

 

 

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

Temple Beth-El

3330 Grove Avenue

Richmond, VA 23221

Phone 804-355-3564

Fax 804-257-7152

www.bethelrichmond.org

 

Rabbi Gary Creditor: "Purim: The truth behind the mask"

Purim: The truth behind the mask

By: RABBI GARY S. CREDITOR | Times-Dispatch
Published: March 07, 2012 Updated: March 07, 2012 - 12:00 AM

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/oped/2012/mar/07/tdopin02-the-truth-behind-the-mask-ar-1745380/

Purim is an intriguing holiday. Purim is a holiday that transcends its biblically appointed time and place. Its story is totally contained in the scroll of Esther in the section of the Bible named "The Writings," yet its messages concerning hatred, personal responsibility and the hidden hand of God speak with contemporary urgency and immediacy.

I remember first encountering the Megillah (scroll) of Esther in my youth. It read like sound history. Later I would learn that biblical scholars cannot make its details fit into the vast knowledge available about the Persian kingdom. I celebrated the holiday of Purim with the public reading of the Megillah, making noise to drown out the mention of the villain's name (Haman), and dressing up in costumes. Only later could I comprehend the exquisite dance of meaning in each.

The Megillah purports that after living tranquilly for some time in the Persian Empire, a recently appointed second-in-command to the king accuses the Jewish population of two crimes: being different, with their particular laws and unique customs; and not following the laws of the Persia. The former was true and did not threaten King Ahashverosh. The empire of 127 provinces contained many different peoples. But the latter was false. In the atmosphere of "hatred of the other" the distinction between the two was lost, and the groundless, baseless hatred of the Jewish people led to a decree for their extermination. What started this devolution into insanity? Mordechai would not bow down to Haman. We don't bow to humans. We bow only to God. Only God is the ultimate reality. For this, Haman hated Mordechai with great enmity, and from this he hated Mordechai's people.

The Megillah is a particular story inside the history of the Jewish people, a people charged by God to deliver His message of the sanctity of each human being, of the demand for a moral and ethical life, of the holiness of life itself, of animal as well as human, of every age, every color, and every creed. The bearers of that message are a hardy stock, and we have withstood attempts from Pharaoh to Haman to Hitler to Ahmadinejad to destroy us. We survive and flourish.

From this story the Megillah proclaims the rejection of hatred-of-the-other as a core religious value. That message is relevant today, applicable to those in our society, our community who look different from us, who speak a different language, whose sexual preference is different, who worship God by a different name and with a different theology. Hatred leads to murder. It is plain and simple. It doesn't matter if it is ancient Persia or modern Richmond. The hatred of Amalek in the book of Exodus carried down to their descendant Haman in the Megillah is found on our streets. With a gun in the hand, hatred leads to murder. It leads to the demonization of the other. Hatred only breeds hatred.

In the narrative, Esther, Mordechai's relative, becomes queen but must keep her identity secret. She wears a mask that hides her true self. Yet as the story unfolds, there ultimately comes that pivotal moment when only she can save her people. Mordechai informs her of the desperate situation. She can no longer wear the mask. She must risk her comfortable position in the palace; she must endanger her very life. Esther must strip off her mask and reveal herself, her true being, her inner self. Mordechai sends her a message: "Perhaps it is just for this moment you have risen to this position." And further: "If you keep silent in this crisis, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another quarter."

The Megillah proclaims the potency of any individual to change the course of history if we but rise up to accept the challenge, if we dare strip off the mask of indifference, if we have the courage to confront hatred, if we have the faith to commit ourselves totally. Mordechai challenged Esther in no uncertain terms. Her inaction would doom her and her family, even if everyone else was saved. The Megillah dares us to remain silent in the face of poverty, of hatred of homosexuals, of the proliferation of murder by handguns, of unequal education. The Megillah challenges us in our comfortable hiddenness to speak up and speak out.

Yet Mordechai had an inner confidence that behind the visible scenes of human history there worked the divine hand that would not allow the Jewish people to be destroyed by Haman. This is the one biblical book in which God is not explicitly mentioned or named. Yet when Mordechai told Esther that help would come "from another quarter," the Hebrew text says "Makom Acher." In this context "Makon" means "Place," a synonym for God. The Megillah proclaims that while there is much we cannot see and know, we must live with the faith that there is a God, that God loves and cares for us, and in that ultimate hour of need, in ways we cannot fathom nor predict, God will help us, the hidden hand of God will somehow cause events to occur for our salvation. It is a faith for all people and for all time.

In various ways on Purim we drown out Haman's name while publicly reading the Scroll of the Megillah, for we denounce and renounce the evil of hatred for us and for all people, for all time. Hatred must end. From Genesis we learn the divine demand that we are our brothers' and sisters' keepers. We wear costumes to remind us about hiding and revealing our true selves. We give gifts of food to others as they are part of the community. We give charity to the poor because no one is saved while others are hungry.

Purim is a fascinating holiday, and the Scroll of Esther is a complex text. I learned long ago not to worry about its historicity. Surely it is grounded in a kernel of historical truth. Yet its message, of the disease of hatred, of the necessity to accept personal responsibility, of stripping off the mask of hiddenness and indifference and faith in the hidden hand of God are values that are the hallmarks of the Jewish observance of this holiday and are eternal values, needed ever more so here and now. Chag Sameach! A happy holiday!

Gary S. Creditor is rabbi at Temple Beth-El in Richmond.

 

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

Temple Beth-El

3330 Grove Avenue

Richmond, VA 23221

Phone 804-355-3564

Fax 804-257-7152

www.bethelrichmond.org

 

What Do Teenagers Owe and To Whom?

What Do Teenagers Owe and To Whom?

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

February 4^th, 2012

 

Last week I wrote about what we as parents and grandparents owe to our children and grandchildren. They did not ask to be born. We created them, and in that instant is the origin of our obligation.

 

Our children and grandchildren also don't begin as equals. There are differences in home environment, in financial support, in innate abilities, in desires. They don't go to equal schools, which don't receive equal funding. The world isn't equal and the world isn't fair. In this world of ours we as parents and grandparents owe many things to our children, our grandchildren, our teenagers.

 

Tonight I address the flip side of that equation. What Do Teenagers Owe and To Whom? They owe many things: to themselves, to their families, to their communities, to the world. Nothing comes easy. There are no free lunches. There is no gain without pain. All the clichés are true, for all sides of the equation in life.

 

I also acknowledge that any set of generalities cannot necessarily be appropriate to any particular situation. Yet there is no other way to speak. Again, I write because I share these words in realms far wider than our sanctuary. I hope and pray that they make a difference in lives.

 

Following our Talmud class this week Dr. Richard Schieken pointed out to me that while society thinks and speaks of "rights," "entitlements," Judaism speaks in terms of chiuv, obligation. It is not what we get, but what we give. It is this Jewish mindset that proscribes these remarks.

 

Teenagers owe it to themselves to take care of their bodies so that they serve them well, serve them adequately for the long run of their lives. Society is not obligated to fulfill or repair what they do to themselves. It is their chiuv to protect themselves from the consequences of tobacco, alcohol, sex – disease, unwanted pregnancy, speeding and bodily harm.

 

Teenagers owe it to themselves to learn as much as they can, widen their minds, add to the repertoire of skills, steep themselves in culture and imbibe wisdom from every source. They owe it to themselves to develop their minds. The goal is not get many "shingles" on the wall. The goal is to widen their perspective of the world so they can gain a better perspective of themselves.

 

Teenagers owe it to themselves, their families and to society to learn and adopt the rules of the road and play by them. We owe honesty. We owe integrity. We owe righteousness. We owe courtesy. Rules and laws structure how people interact with each other so that everyone will have good, happy and productive lives. Even when life isn't fair, our – their obligations don't change.

 

Teenagers owe it to themselves to be prepared to take personal responsibility for their lives and stand on their own two feet. While my parents never said it to me, never, ever, I felt it inside of me, without words, that some day, however distant, I would have to be responsible for myself to myself. Somewhere on a continuum my parents' responsibility for me would phase out and I would have to take over. I owed it to myself to be prepared.

 

Teenagers owe it to their families to be good people, cooperative, involved, sharing the load, the chores. The family is society in the microcosm. Here is where we learn how to be partners with everyone and in everything we do.  Being a teenager is not easy. It is hard to figure out life in the changing landscape of raging hormones and the demands of school and social networks. But home is the nest. They owe to the rest in the nest, loyalty, responsibility and truth. They will grow and leave the original nest and create their own. The noun becomes a verb. They owe to themselves and to their partners/spouses to nest well.

 

Teenagers owe to society to be responsible citizens of the world, good stewards of the environment, and involved in a good greater than themselves. The world doesn't owe them. They owe the world. We all do. There is no doubt that the world is a crazy, insane place. It is hard to understand it. Yet Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote the following:

 

"I would say to young people a number of things…I would say let them remember that there is meaning beyond absurdity. Let them be sure that every little deed counts, that every word has power, and that we can, everyone, do our share to redeem the world in spite of all absurdities and all the frustration and all disappointments." His words are good for us, too.

 

Teenagers owe it to themselves, to their families, to society and to the world to be exemplars of the core teaching of faith. It has direct implication and application in every corner of life:

 

hazing in college fraternities,

cheating on tests,

proper behavior to people of differing sexual orientations,

the proverbial "helping little old ladies cross the street" which stands for so much more,

and, to shun and reject hate, guns and violence in any form:

 

"Love thy neighbor as thyself." "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

 

What do teenagers owe to God? To seek Him. To ask questions. To look at the heavens, at newborn babies, and stand in awe of all existence. I don't worry about God. I worry about them.

 

With all of this I do not intend to write a manifesto, some creed for teenagers. I write for all of us. With last week's sermon and this, living when each daily newspaper reveals tragedy after incomprehensible tragedy, sorrow heaped on sorrow, we, adult and youth, need to face each other as ask:

                        How can we live?

                        How should we live?

                        How can we be happy?

                        What do we do to help each other?

                        What do we owe to each other?

                        What do we owe to the world?

                        What do we owe to God?

 

In the interpersonal dialectic of person to person, person and community, we each need to find our personal answers. It is not about how much money we earn. It is not about the house or the car. It is not about title and status. It is about our personal holiness, our sacred person, our very soul. In typing this sermon I once mistyped owe and in its place I typed woe.

Woe is to us if we cannot learn what we owe to each other.

 

Knowing my fondness for country music because it talks about us, here and now, our joys and sorrows, life and death, a song that has echoed in my heart was written by Randy Travis and is entitled:  Three Wooden Crosses. In it he sings about a farmer, teacher, hooker and a preacher. The bus they were riding on was hit by a truck. Of the four, only the hooker survived. He sings of the other three:

 

"That farmer left a harvest, a home and 80 acres

The faith and love for growin' things in his young son's heart

And that teacher left her wisdom in the minds of lots of children

Did her best to give 'em all a better start"

And that preacher whispered, "Can't you see the promised land?"

As he lay his blood stained Bible in that hooker's hand."

 

Yet it is the punch line of the chorus that stands out:

 

"It's not what you take when you leave this world behind you

It's what you leave behind you when you go"

 

Shabbat Shalom

What Do We Owe (Parents) Our Children?

What Do We Owe (Parents) Our Children?

January 27^th, 2012

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

 

Perhaps it is my heightened sensitivity in these recent weeks, but I found myself intently following the details of the tragic death of sixteen year old Brett Wells, shot in his home in Mechanicsville. As events would unfold, I was invited to join other clergy in a meeting at his high school yesterday (Thursday), even though there are but a few Jewish students. As this subject transcends all boundaries, and because it again was a death caused by a gun, I felt compelled to attend, despite only receiving the invitation on Wednesday afternoon. I had no idea how or if I could personally contribute to the conversation.

 

Indeed I had little to say other than introducing myself and our synagogue and thus bringing our faith community to the meeting. The students are predominantly Christian and Hanover Country does not have a pronounced Jewish population or any synagogue. Yet it is vital that we participate.

 

There was much said at the meeting. The faith communities want to somehow assist the students, parents and faculty to come to grips with this tragic death, the issues that it raises, for their community, their school, and to console each other in their grief. The school needs the faith community's help. It is a formidable task for the local churches. I pray that God will give them the strength and the insight to raise up the broken hearted, soothe their spirits and point to a better way.

 

Particularly because the electronic world allows me to send these words far beyond those in this sanctuary who can hear me deliver them, I want to focus on two thoughts that came to me as I listened to the conversation Thursday afternoon. As I sat to compose this, I chose the title: "What do we – the parents – owe our children?"

 

My first thought is that even if parents do everything right, and I mean everything and I mean absolutely correctly in raising their children, there remains an element of luck, mazal that plays an undetermined role. I don't envy our son raising our grandchildren. How can you possibly protect and insulate them from all the elements of the world, good and especially the bad, that incessantly bombard them? From a commercial from long ago: there is no Gardol shield. No one lives in a vacuum. We need God's invisible help. We need good fortune. We need luck.

 

My second thought, with all the need of luck, we as parents, even as grandparents owe many things to our children. None of my list is creature comforts. None of this is monetary. The list begins the moment are children are born. It continues with decreasing ability to enforce it as they grow older. Our obligation lasts for as long as we live. We teach to our dying breath.

 

We owe our children a value system. The world mitzvah is not translated as "good deed." It is "commandment." There are things that are right and there are things that are wrong. It is not negotiable. It is absolute. We cannot be wishy-washy. We must enunciate that value system clearly, concisely, and consistently.

We owe our children to speak with integrity. It cannot be "do as I say and not as I do." Our word and our action must be synonymous, harmonious, unanimous. We cannot talk about honesty if we are not honest. We cannot demand respect if we don't give respect. We cannot make demands on our children if we don't make demands upon ourselves.

 

We owe our children to be exemplars. There is a song by Rodney Atkins entitled "Watching You." How perfectly does it speak to us today.

"Watching You"

Driving through town just my boy and me
With a happy meal in his booster seat
Knowing that he couldn't have the toy
Till his nuggets were gone
A green traffic light turned straight to red
I hit my brakes and mumbled under my breath
His fries went a flying and his orange drink covered his lap
Well then my four year old said a four letter word
That started with "s" and I was concerned
So I said son now now where did you learn to talk like that

[Chorus one]

He said I've been watching you dad, ain't that cool
I'm your buckaroo, I wanna be like you
And eat all my food and grow as tall as you are
We got cowboy boots and camo pants
Yeah we're just alike, hey ain't we dad
I wanna do everything you do
So I've been watching you

We got back home and I went to the barn
I bowed my head and I prayed real hard
Said Lord please help me help my stupid self
Then this side of bedtime later that night
Turning on my son's Scooby Doo nightlight
He crawled out of bed and he got down on his knees
He closed his little eyes, folded his little hands
And spoke to God like he was talking to a friend
And I said son now where'd you learn to pray like that

[Chorus two]

He said I've been watching you dad, ain't that cool
I'm your buckaroo, I wanna be like you
And eat all my food and grow as tall as you are
We like fixing things and holding mama's hand
Yeah we're just alike, hey ain't we dad
I wanna do everything you do
So I've been watching you

[Bridge]

With tears in my eyes I wrapped him in a hug
Said my little bear is growing up
He said but when I'm big I'll still know what to do

[Chorus three]

Cause I've been watching you dad, ain't that cool
I'm your buckaroo, I wanna be like you
And eat all my food and grow as tall as you are
By then I'll be as strong as superman
We'll be just alike, hey won't we dad
When I can do everything you do
Cause I've been watching you

 

We owe our children to give them a strong, enduring, edifying, comforting and demanding faith. Faith gives us a vision of the world, of others, of ourselves. Faith gives us a perspective in order to comprehend a crazy, complicated and incomprehensible world. Faith gives us a community which helps us maintain our balance along the journey, to share our joys and our sorrows, temper the highs and elevate the lows. Faith gives expectations for us to fulfill. We owe something to others. We owe something to our families, our communities and ourselves. Faith sets the bar. Faith gives us a voice outside of ourselves, the voice of the universe, the voice of eternity, the voice of God. It gives us His teachings and His love. How dearly we need them both.

Being a parent never was and never will be easy. It isn't easy being a grandparent, watching from a distance and having to trust your son and daughter to raise your destiny, and be just a presence for them as they face the challenges, different and same that we did. Maybe someday I will write a sermon what grandparents owe.

I pray to God for strength to all those facing adversity, sadness and grief.  

I pray that those who bring lives into this world and those who shepherd them along the way will realize how much we owe them so that they will have long, happy, productive and blessed lives. This is priceless.

 

Shabbat Shalom

Who are We? What are We?

Who are We? What are We?

January 20^th, 2012

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

 

In response to my sermon last Friday, Erev Shabbat, entitled "Bonnie's Law," I received an email from one of our congregants informing me of a rally held last Monday at the Capitol, sponsored by the Virginia Council for Public Safety. It is a small, long standing, dedicated voice for gun control in our Commonwealth. After articulating my feelings last Shabbat, Ruby and I felt the necessity to attend and be counted. It was regretful that this was not known sooner and wider so that more people could have attended, something that I will work to emend. The man who leads the organization took this on because his son was shot at Virginia Tech, and while surviving, thank God, the event changed both their lives.

 

He said publicly and to Ruby and me privately afterwards: "You think that if you lead a clean life, no guns, no alcohol, no drugs, live in a good neighborhood and go to a good school, nothing like this will happen to you. And then one day…" He is a very good, dedicated man, who is knocking his head against the wall. We joined him.

 

At the ceremony, people were invited to write the names of those killed by guns on hearts and put them in baskets. Ruby and I each wrote Robby and Bonnie's names on hearts and put them, heartbrokenly, into the basket. It is still surrealistic that all this has and continues to happen.

 

Then we went to visit our representatives in the General Assembly. It was disheartening. I met another wall. I indicated the litany of numbers needed to observe a myriad of laws in the Commonwealth of Virginia required to own and operate a car – the paste on tag on the license plate, the license plate, registration, inspection sticker, property tax, insurance policy – and we are breaking the law if we violate any one of these requirements, and they can arrest, fine and/or revoke our license, suspend registration. And a car, while it can kill, is not intended for that purpose and usually not used that way. And yet it is so easy, because of the lack of laws or because of the loopholes in the laws to illegally obtain and own a gun; and despite having a number on its barrel, so many of these guns of so many calibers are illegally in the hands of individuals and criminals resulting in so many deaths that nary a day goes by without the reporting of such tragedies. When I recited this litany the response was: "A car is not protected by the second amendment." While not allowing this to go unchallenged, it basically ended the conversation. Did he not see my point? Why didn't he get it?  Do they think that the writers of the Constitution specifically put in a self-destruct clause that protected/enabled people to take up guns to overthrow the very government that they were just establishing? How many dead does it take? Someone special? Someone personal? Someone rich? We will need to keep knocking our heads against the wall; even for a long time.

 

A second congregant wrote me in response to the sermon and reflected on my remarks about when we used to "put up our dukes" and now that we just shoot them dead, and about my list of heroes and how they were portrayed as not killing the opponents and the righteous use of guns. He globalized my thoughts about society and I would like to share a few feelings developed from much reading and personal observations.

 

We live in a world that is violent, that espouses violence, that glorifies violence and rewards violence. It is on the television, the computer games, the movies, the magazines, and the sports field. It is aided and abetted by the enhanced electronic techniques that enable the presentation of explosions and destructions of every nature, from buildings to objects, to people. I cringe when the movie theatre runs the promotions of other movies because I am trapped and can't get out and have to witness the most vicious, violent and malevolent acts, accompanied by the staccato drumbeat of ear-shattering music. And while my Atari computer had programs for science, math, it also had programs for basketball and football, but without the senseless violence. Where is "Pong" when I need it? What sells at the football game? The brutal collisions of beast-like men, the violent sacking of the quarterback, the ripping of the ball from the carrier, and then the manic dancing over the fallen opponent! Is there anything human about locking two men in a cage until one beats the other one to near death? I am almost ready to thank God that FIOS will fill the empty time with golf and tennis! Is there anything left to blow up? Is there anyone left to shoot? Is there anyone that hasn't been hated, hunted, and hounded left on the face of the earth? Any arm not shot with drugs, any liver not saturated with alcohol, that the media has not yet glorified, and the actors and players not walk away with titanic sums of money? Fire them all!!

 

            Is this the society we want?

            Is this the world we want to live in?

            Is this why God put us on this earth?

 

I want to elect an official, local in Richmond, state in the Legislature, regional to the Senate and House of Representatives and to the Presidency who will enunciate a vision of society that will be just and honest, that will struggle with all presentations so to reduce the vision and thus the reality of violence in this country. All the candidates parading before us are parodies of leadership. We need real, brave and courageous leadership at every level. It is more than "jobs." It is more than "the economy." It is about us! Our nature! Our essence! Violence occurs everywhere, and our society propagates it.

 

We need to reshape the nature of society itself, to recreate the vision of what we are supposed to be, how we are supposed to live, how we are supposed to talk to each other, at work, in school, in our homes.  Our faith provides many answers; provides much guidance and direction. From just one source: Micah the prophet (6:8):

 

"He has told you, O man, what is good,

And what the Lord requires of you:

Only to do justice

And to love goodness,

And to walk modestly with your God."

 

And (4:3-4)

"However distant:

And they shall beat their swords into plowshares

And their spears into pruning hooks.

Nation shall not take up

Sword against nation;

They shall never again know war.

But every man shall sit

Under his grapevine or fig tree

With no one to disturb him.

For it was the Lord of Hosts who spoke."

 

Borrowed from the man murdered by the gun, "I have a dream."

 

Shabbat Shalom.

 

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

Temple Beth-El

3330 Grove Avenue

Richmond, VA 23221

Phone 804-355-3564

Fax 804-257-7152

www.bethelrichmond.org

 

Bonnie’s Law

Bonnie's Law

January 13^th, 2012

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

 

Within two weeks, national data, not local, of severely contradictory nature has been published that has painfully intersected with our personal and congregational experience. At the end of December the Times-Dispatch published an article that indicated the immense number of inquiries concerning the number of people buying guns at Christmas time. It is equally clear without publication that the number of guns purchased illegally severely compounds the number of guns sold legally.  Yesterday's paper published an article that homicides – by any manner - are no longer among the top fifteen causes of death in the United States. And yet, virtually every day that I open our newspaper there is another death, or at least severe injury, that is caused by handguns. I must imagine, I cannot consider otherwise, that our experience is not duplicated over and over again throughout this country. It does not matter in what segment of our population this is occurring. It does not matter in what part of town it is happening. Each and every one is a tragedy that compounds grief with grief, misery with misery, loneliness, pain and anguish to their family and friends. Society as a whole is mutually wounded by each death. We in our congregation know firsthand of what I speak, in the murder a year and a half ago of Bonnie Marrow's son Robby, and on December 20^th the past, her murder. I confess that when I have seen the title of an article of such a crime, not knowing the participants, I am quick to avert my glance to something else. No more. The particulars do not matter. We are members of one human family. The death of any, diminishes us all.

 

In the brevity of this d'var Torah, it my intention to just establish the basis of my appeal to our civil authorities to enact a law, I call it "Bonnie's Law," to address this plague, this disease, that of illegal hand guns in our population and to end the scourge of death that they inflict. How many deaths of sweet, good, honest, loving people will it take? How much pain must we collectively suffer? When will segments of our populace stop saying, "It doesn't occur in my backyard?"

 

Our Judaism is certainly not pacifistic. The Torah and the rest of the Tanakh is filled with military exploits. Their weapons were no less lethal. Abraham will save Lot with an armed militia that will overthrow numerous kings. In tomorrow's Torah portion Moses will kill the Egyptian beating a Hebrew. Joshua conquers the land of Israel by force. David and Solomon will also use deadly force in uniting and maintaining the kingdom. Israel fights the Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans, long before the twentieth century, those who fought to build the State of Israel and those who fought in the sewers and bunkers of the Warsaw Ghetto and other such places during the Holocaust. We are not a bunch of patsies. Judaism is not a pacifistic religion. I don't propose that society should roll over and play dead.

 

Our Judaism does not make anyone's blood redder than another's. As there is One God, One Creator of the Universe, then all men and women are brothers and sisters, all children are cousins, all are grandparents, and all are children. Judaism does not draw lines and say, "over there, for them, we don't care." God asks Cain: "Where is your Abel your brother?" Cain denies, refuses to accept any connection to Abel with the spiteful, pitiful words that echo through the centuries: "Am I my brother's keeper/guardian/protector?" In its literary structure God in the Torah thunders: "Of course you are!" That is the essence of our human condition! Judaism demands that we care whether the murdered is a member of our congregation or not, whether they are Jewish or not, of any color, of any faith, of any race.

 

Most of us in this room are old enough to recall instantaneously our emotions when, in an era before the speed of our current electronic gadgetry, we heard that JFK was murdered. First shot, then dead, and then the funeral. Of all the pictures that I carry in my mind and heart it is that of his son standing and saluting his father's casket. It is the child in all of us who did not yet realize what he had lost. We are all that child. And not so many years later was the murder of MLK, commemorated this weekend. Is it not possible to dream that we can all die in our beds of the natural causes of old age and even disease? But not from guns? Is it not possible to dream that we can go to work, go to school, go to the mall, and not be afraid? Are we so forgetful that shortly after MLK was murdered RFK was murdered too? Has that shock to our moral compass passed out of our consciousness and out of our conscience? Not mine. While all those initials might just seem like an alphabet soup to others, I carry them right next to my heart. How dare we do otherwise? In the course of human events, the next generation will only learn it from the media, Kindles and Nooks if not from books. I have the drying pages of the newspapers. But my memory doesn't fade.

 

Through the precepts of Kashrut, our Judaism rejects hunting animals of any sort because it brings them pain and rejects killing animals except for food. But lest supporters of the NRA surmise that I have gone over to the Dark Side, let me say, that I don't care about game hunters, duck shooters and the sort. When I was a child I had my cap guns and air rifle. In the changing of the times, our children did not. I am unsettled by the presence of guns of any sort. They are not a sport. They are lethal and instruments of lethal force. But I am not appealing to restrict legitimate citizens who follow the laws from owning guns. My personal view is that they don't make us safer. When I was a kid if you wanted to fight you said: "Put up your dukes" or something of the sort. Today they pull out a gun and shoot you dead. Which would you prefer? My heroes are the Lone Ranger, Roy Rodgers, Gene Autry and Hopalong Cassidy. While they all carried guns, they never shot them dead. It was only in defense, self defense and in the cause of justice. Today the images are gruesome, ghastly and horrific. Which society should we be?

 

In "Bonnie's Law" I call upon all our authorities, local, state and federal to close all the loopholes that allow for illegitimate and illegal obtaining of guns of any sort. I call upon the manufacturers of guns in cooperation with civil authorities to create a comprehensive system of documenting and registering every single gun and rifle they make. You mean to tell me that I have to go through so many rules and regulations to register, inspect, insure, tag, decal and pay tax on my car with a myriad of different numbers – Go forbid you mess up, and I can buy a gun with impunity at a gun show? That all the pieces of my car have VIN numbers hiding someplace and when I sell it I have to go through more hoops to make sure that the authorities know who owns it or what has happened to it, but not for a gun? Are we so insane?

In"Bonnie's Law" I want stiff penalties, not a slap on the wrist, for those who violate these laws, who smuggle in guns, who sell them under the counter, who remove numbers, and those who use them to murder and maim. Enough is enough.

 

I will circulate these remarks and my eulogy for Bonnie to our authorities at every level.

 

I want "Bonnie's Law" as a measure of justice not only for Bonnie Marrow but for all the Bonnie's of the world and for all the children of the world, and for the child that must reside inside the human heart, the pure, innocent, the just, the righteous child who does not know right or wrong; who only knows love.

 

Only then will we all rest in peace. In life and in death.

 

Shabbat Shalom.

“Yes, Sarah, There is A God”

"Yes, Sarah, There is A God"

From The Heart

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

 

At the second night of shiva for our dear Bonnie Marrow, several of her daughter Angel's classmates from Confirmation class came to be with Angel and the family. Others came the next night. It was most meritorious of them to be present in such a heart-rending circumstance. They each fulfilled a great mitzvah.

After tefilot was over, one of them said to me: "I am having a problem with God." I was caught in that moment, in that place, after what had occurred to talk about God. What could I say to this young woman who grew up in our shul, was Bat Mitzvah and Confirmed on our bemah, and now in college was absorbing sophisticated learning? And to do it on one foot!

I cannot recall all that I said in that precious moment, but to whatever I did say, I want to add the following. Borrowing a literary phrase from a totally different origin:

"Yes, Sarah, there is a God" who is responsible for all existence and that it contains, good and bad. I marvel daily, never taking for granted, this planet, the life of every plant, animal and human. In our totality, we are too magnificent to be the result of chance. While I would like to "see" God, to prove God, to have Him/Her pop out and say "Here I am" [that would be neat], our very existence proves God.

"Yes, Sarah, there is a God" because there is an 'unseeable' force that is greater than the entire cosmos. I am intrigued by science, but science can only answer the question "how" and I ask "why?" Science says "Because…" but I seek that which lies behind the 'how.' The answer is God. Why does my heart beat with pain in the face of tragedy and why does heart throb when I see my grandchildren, when I see toddlers running around in shul? Because God made me that way. God is responsible that there is life itself. All the discoveries of science, attest to God.

"Yes, Sarah, there is a God" who presence is attested to by every sunrise, sunset and constellation of stars in the sky. The beauty isn't God. God lies behind; God is responsible for the beauty. The radiance of the universe attests to God.

"Yes, Sarah, there is a God" because in the moment of pain, we all stepped into the breach, because we felt someone else's pain. I said to you: we proved God. For our faith posits critical values/characteristics/traits of our God that we are supposed to emulate: love, mercy, compassion, honesty, integrity. When you and your classmates came to the Marrow home, a place of tears and grief, motivated by the core values that we posit as divine, you proved God existed.

"Yes, Sarah, there is a God" who allows us to do wrong, sin the most grievous of sins, murdering another human being. There are times when I wish that God was like the Superman show I watched when I was very young. I had to come to grips with the truth that Superman was fiction. That was very difficult. On this planet human beings are able to do good, to do the best, and to do bad, do the worst. In the opening chapters of Genesis, in the Garden story, God endows us with autonomy and responsibility. That is how and why we are human.

"And, Yes, Sarah, there is a God" to whom I cling to, to whom I turn to with copious tears, when life is unfair, unjust, and tragic. I turn to God for strength, for courage, for a power more than I think that I can have on my own. I turn to God who I believe is eternal, with the faith, the hope, the belief, that life doesn't end with death. That He/She gathers up the incorporeal soul, the life-animating force, and brings it close to the source of all existence, to a glow that radiates in a way that will never be detected by any antenna, any radar, any telescope, yet is as real as the ache in my heart. I can't prove it, but I believe it. There is a God, who enables us to triumph over despair and raise our heads up again.

"Yes, Sarah, there is a God." Your question is veritably the proof.