Celebrate Away!

There is a truism that we always remember where we were and what we were doing when we heard about certain pivotal events. Those who were around on the day of the assassination of President Kennedy, for example, remember where, when and how they received word. I was only a very small child in first grade in Queens, New York on that day, but I remember a sudden change in the school schedule, with an assembly being called at the end of the day to inform us of the events in far-away Dallas before dismissing us for the weekend. I have a similarly vivid memory of where I was and what I was doing when I heard about a much more recent event – the attacks on our country on September 11th, 2001.

I’m sure that many of you experienced one of those ‘pivotal events,’ as I did, last Sunday night, the First of May, 2011. I was sitting on the sofa downstairs in the family room, listening to the TV. I say ‘listening’ because I was soaking my eye with a warm compress and had my glasses off. Geraldo Rivera was on the tube, interviewing someone about something; I was paying scant attention. Then, suddenly Rivera’s voice went up an octave as he stopped in mid-sentence and began talking about the killing of Osama Bin Laden. This will be one of those moments etched in time for me; glasses off and the TV all fuzzy in front of me, and all of a sudden a clarity as reportage of the raid on that compound in Pakistan began to unfold.

I was happy, to be sure. Why would one cry crocodile tears over the death of such an evil man as Bin Laden? Even so, I was impressed when President Obama came on TV a while later, that he effected a serious and semi-somber tone. This, although I did imagine that the corners of his mouth were tending to curl upward as he made the announcement. But when I saw the video images of the crowds that had spontaneously gathered in front of the White House and in Times Square and at Ground Zero, celebrating jubilantly, I did feel some sense of disdain. Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, Proverbs 24 admonishes us. I cannot count the times I have heard that scripture quoted, or quoted it myself.

I’ve thought about that admonition quite a few times over this week as I’ve contemplated the reality that is the evil Bin Laden unleashed. I’ve thought about it as I’ve gone about my business in the days since Sunday. I’ve thought about it as I’ve seen everywhere faces full of new hope. Even in the cell blocks of the ‘Supermax’ prison in Florence, Colorado, where I went for my monthly visit with Jewish inmates, I noticed a more upbeat mood than usual. This, among the inmates as well as the staff!

I realize that this new hope, this jubilation at the killing of Bin Laden, is far more than gloating over the death of a bad man. It is an affirmation that, in addition to Evil, there is also Good in this world…and sometimes, Good wins. It is the same rejoicing that we experience – rightly so – when a serial rapist, or child molester, or murderer, is caught and brought to justice. We grouse when we see injustice; why shouldn’t we rejoice when we see justice?

On Monday night I received a mass e-mail from ‘Rabbi’ Michael Lerner, the publisher of the Jewish magazine Tikkun. In it, he cautioned us from rejoicing over the death of Bin Laden. He invoked the act we perform in the Passover Seder, spilling a drop of wine for each of the Ten Plagues visited upon the Egyptians. Just as our joy over our own deliverance is tempered by knowledge of the suffering of others, we should stifle any jubilation we may feel over the death of Bin Laden. So Lerner wrote, and he was not the only Jewish voice to express such sentiments. On Monday, Rabbi Shmueley Boteach posted similar sentiments in his blog on the Huffington Post.

Of course, in recent days I also heard the voices of a number of Christians who reminded their community of the admonition of Jesus that one must love one’s enemy. Rabbi Boteach reminds us that Judaism makes no such demand. He wrote the following:

Judaism stands alone as a world religion in its commandment to hate evil. Exhortations to hate all manner of evil abound in the Bible and G-d declares His detestation of those who visit cruelty on His children. Psalm 97 is emphatic: "You who love G-d must hate evil." Proverbs 8 declares, "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil." Amos 5 demands, "Hate the evil and love the good." And Isaiah 5 warns, "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil." And concerning the wicked, King David declares unequivocally, "I have hated them with a perfect hatred. They are become enemies to me." (Psalm 139) Hatred is a valid emotion, the appropriate moral response, to the human encounter with inhuman cruelty. Mass murderers most elicit our deepest hatred and contempt.

Even so, Boteach went on to invoke the spilling of wine for the Egyptians at the Passover Seder, as well as the aforementioned admonition of Proverbs 24, as well as the Talmud’s rebuke of the people Israel dancing over the demise of the Egyptians in the Red Sea, to caution us against rejoicing over the death of Bin Laden.

By the time I read all this, I had long since gotten over the initial disdain I’d felt toward the celebrants on the night of Sunday, the First of May. I had decided that they’d been right in following their instincts to spontaneously express their joy. The death of Osama Bin Laden is something over which to rejoice. For how many deaths has this man been responsible? Thousands directly, and many thousands more indirectly. We should spill out drops of wine for Bin Laden’s victims, not for him. Remember, at the Passover Seder we’re acknowledging the suffering of the Egyptians brought upon them by their ruler, the Pharaoh. We’re not crying for the fate of Pharaoh himself.

Rather than mute our celebration at the demise of one who caused so much evil, we should express solidarity with his victims. Our tears should be for the victims of evil, not its perpetrators. If we expressed a uniform regret at the loss of any human life, we would be in the position of equating an evil person with his victim. That for me is the supreme irony of the statement of Federico Lombardi, a spokesman for the Vatican. On Monday, he declared: “A Christian never rejoices in the death of any man, no matter how evil.” So for a Christian – at least according to this view – the value of one life is the same as another. I wonder how many Christians really believe this? Probably more than a few, since many Jews believe this also.

But the absurdity of this concept – that we should mourn the death of the evildoer just as we mourn the death of his victim – seems incredibly ironic in that it was published on Yom Hashoah, the day on which we memorialize the victims of the Holocaust. While not having been around then, I can’t imagine having felt anything other than jubilation at the news of Hitler’s death or that of the surrender of Germany in 1945.

What I’m trying to say, dear Jews, is that if you felt any sense of elation upon hearing the news of the demise of Osama Bin Laden, you needn’t feel any shame whatsoever. No, your happiness only indicated a moral clarity that enabled you to differentiate between an evil man and his victims. You should be proud that you possess such clarity. If that clarity enabled you to spontaneously rejoice – even loudly shouting U-S-A, U-S-A! then I hope you enjoyed the emotional release. It’s okay to celebrate raucously upon reading in the Megillah of Esther on Purim of the downfall of the evil Haman. So too it would have been okay to join the raucous crowds in New York, Washington and elsewhere on Sunday night in celebrating the downfall of an evil man. Or, to quietly say a shehecheyanu, as I did.

We don’t spill ten drops of wine over the death of Hitler, and we certainly shouldn’t do so over Bin Laden. We might spill wine, or simply express solidarity, with the people of Afghanistan whom Bin Laden and his allies the Taliban imprisoned in a prison of medieval hate.

I actually had an opportunity to do that in a very small way on a trip to New York in December, 2001. I was wandering around Times Square looking for a place to eat when on a side street I spied an Afghan kabob restaurant. Still wearing my Air Force uniform after the trip from Colorado, I marched in and sat down. It was a small place; the somewhat flabbergasted owner walked over to my table and stood over me with a questioning look on his face.

“It’s not your fault,” I told him, referring to his native country’s providing a base for Al Qaida. “Hopefully, this scourge will pass soon.”

I don’t remember the name of that little restaurant off Times Square where I ate that night. I do, however remember the smiles of the owner and the delicious kabobs I ate. And of course, that brings to mind the old joke about the common theme that runs through many Jewish holidays: They tried to kill us all, they didn’t succeed, let’s eat.

Bin Laden is dead. Let’s celebrate without guilt.

Take Time to Mourn

This week’s portion Acharei Mot, begins with an instruction for Aaron concerning the things he must not do immediately after the loss of his two sons. G-d tells Moses to instruct his brother not to enter the Holy of Holies until a period of time has passed. Aaron must allow his grief to pass before he can resume his duties as High Priest. He must give himself time to recover lest he enter the presence of G-d with thoughts of his own loss rather than of the needs of his people. He must take a Time Out. When he is ready to resume his duties, he must bring a sin-offering to atone for himself.

Two weeks ago, in Parashat Tazria, we similarly read that a woman, having given birth, must also wait a prescribed period and then bring a sin-offering.

But wait a minute – what is the Torah trying to tell us? Does having a baby, or losing one’s children, make one stained by sin? Is the implication tantamount to ‘blaming the victim’? In a word, no.

Ibn Ezra explains concerning the woman giving birth: the offerings are for any bad thoughts she might have had toward her husband while in the throes of labor. In other words, this acknowledges that when we experience trauma, we may think, or even say out loud, oaths that we will regret later. The sin-offering is the ancients’ way to move beyond our thoughts and words, and get on with our lives despite them.

Today, absent the Beit Miqdash, we don’t have such a neat way to turn from anything we may have said at a bad moment. Instead, we must get together with the one against whom we have said the negative things, and beg their forgiveness. Some Jews ritually go around among family and friends immediately before Yom Kippur and ask for a blanket forgiveness “for anything bad I might have said to you, deliberately or inadvertently, in the past year.” Perhaps there is some value in such statements. They remind us that we often do have loose tongues and do say negative things – knowingly or not – to and about those who are closest to us. But the ritual falls far short of what we would ideally do. And that would be to recognize immediately or soon after we have attacked someone with our words, and beg forgiveness then.

But I want to return to the premise in the opening verses of this week’s Torah portion. That Aaron must take deliberate steps, and allow some time to elapse, between losing his two sons, and the resumption of his duties.

In normative Jewish practice today, we have certain ritual behaviors that are prescribed when we lose a close relative. Most of you know the term, shiva, as in sitting shiva. Of course, the word is Hebrew for ‘seven’ and it refers to the practice of remaining in one’s house for seven days after burying a loved one. Some of you know some details of the practice. The mourners sit on low stools and do not groom themselves. Mirrors are covered. Friends and acquaintances come to the house of mourning, bring food, sit with the mourners and provide a minyan for thrice-daily prayers so that the mourners can say Kaddish.

In our contemporary world, many Jews eschew these practices. Those who generally see themselves as being not-very-religious, or not religious at all, see them as a burden. In our go-go world, the idea of stopping all activity for seven days to mourn seems out of synch and will only push back other daily needs that do not stop. Just as an example, if you’re working, your employer is unlikely to grant you a week off to sit shiva. Instead, you’ll have to take a week of paid vacation, a precious commodity for most working Americans. But when we fail to mourn effectively, we rob ourselves of an important tool that can help us to come to terms with our loss and help us to contextualize it and move on with our lives.

Yesterday was the yahrzeit for my own father, who passed away six years ago. I did not observe shiva, nor did I observe sheloshim, the second stage of mourning for the remainder of the first month. Clara, the kids and I travelled from Germany where we were living then, to Virginia as my father was dying. The day after the burial, we were winging our way back to Germany. Two days later, I was on my way to Kuwait to help our troops there celebrate Passover. I’m not trying to make myself a hero. The trip had been planned for months and I was loath to cancel it in order to observe shiva. But the truth is really more wrapped up in our go-go lifestyle and buying into the mentality that I did not need to sit for seven days to Get Over It. I buried myself in my work, especially the important work of helping deployed troops celebrate a major holiday. That would be more therapeutic than taking a week of my life to sit and mourn. I fell for the mentality that has, and will overcome many of you when you experience a loss. Let me get up, dust myself off, and get on with my life. But that is exactly what our mourning practices are designed to achieve. To balance this need, with the need to remember, and honor, the one whom we’ve lost.

Over my rabbinic career, including my three years here at Beit Torah, I have officiated at many funerals and tried to help many families through the mourning process. As a liberal rabbi, I’ve never ‘pushed’ families against their inclination to do the traditional Jewish funerary practices. A time of loss is, after all, not a time of judgment; it is not a time to give even the appearance of trying to use guilt to make someone do what they’re not inclined to do. But in all honesty, as I think back upon the experiences of those whom I’ve served – as well as my own experience of loss – I don’t think I’ve done them a favor by not suggesting the traditional mourning practices, at least in some modified way.

In our contemporary world, it is indisputably difficult to stop our busy lives for a time to observe shiva and sheloshim. In the same way, it is against the grain of our mentality to stop our busy lives every Friday evening to observe Shabbat for a day. All these practices feel burdensome in the context of our rational mindsets. But in eschewing them, we rob ourselves of something precious. We transgress traditional Jewish practice, and that is unlikely to trouble us. But we also deny ourselves important and therapeutic tools for living lives of balance.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a column in the congregational bulletin on the importance of being present here on the weeks of your yahrzeits. To have the opportunity to say the Kaddish prayer in the embrace of community. To spend just a moment remembering and honoring the one whom you’ve lost. Most of the congregation did not take my words to heart. I continue to read the weekly list of names for Kaddish and note that few of the families are represented here in our sanctuary. One member actually took me to task about my column; she telephoned to tell me that she was “offended” that I should suggest that mourners have an obligation to be present for the weeks of their yahrzeits. That’s very sad. I wasn’t trying to lay guilt, but to use my knowledge – both the theoretical and my personal experience – to help you to work through your respective losses.

Aaron is told to put aside his duties for a period of time, to give himself time to breathe, time to mourn. The message isn’t that his duties aren’t important – he is, after all, the High Priest. Rather, the message to take away is that his own mental health is important if he is to continue to serve in his vital role on behalf of the People Israel. But you don’t need to take it from the text, take it from me: it’s important for each one of us to find the time to honor both the memory of the dead, and our own need for context and closure. Jewish practice provides us with tools to achieve these ends. They are not intended to be burdensome. They are there for your benefit.

Vayechi - And He Lived

I was thinking about the recent and tragic death by suicide of Mark Madoff, the son of convicted Ponzi Schemer Bernard Madoff, while studying this week’s Torah portion. The younger Madoff, a 46-year-old father of four, hanged himself with a dog leash in his Manhattan apartment last Saturday while his wife and children were out of town. The day on which Madoff killed himself was the second anniversary of his father’s arrest. Mark Madoff and his younger brother Andrew were the ones that turned their father in, after he had confessed his crimes to his family. The entire Madoff case is a tragedy: for the Madoff family, for the many individuals and charitable foundations whose investments were lost, and for the entire Jewish community. The specter of an obviously-Jewish crook defrauding so many of billions of dollars should be a source of shame for every Jew. And one would have to be heartless to not sympathize with the many who feel the pain that his crimes spread, including his family. For an intelligent young man of 46, a father of four and apparently uninvolved in his father’s crimes, to take his life in such a way, can only be heart-rending.

This week’s Torah portion opens with the words, “Vayechi Ya’akov – And Jacob lived in the Land of Egypt 17 years.” Jacob tells his son Joseph of his wishes for arrangements after his death. He knows that his death is approaching. He is happy that he was able to live out his final years in Egypt, under the protection of his son with whom he was miraculously reunited after many years apart. Jacob doesn’t want to be buried in Egypt; he instructs Joseph that, when he dies, he wishes for his remains to be taken back to Canaan, to be interred in the burial place of his father Isaac and his grandfather Abraham. Recognizing that the family will eventually leave Egypt and return to the land promised to them by G-d, Israel does not wish for his remains to spend eternity in the soil of a foreign land. Israel’s swearing his favored son to carry out his wishes as to what to do after his death, serves as a leitmotif for following generations.

Joseph himself, having taken his father’s bones back to Canaan for burial, makes the same request of his sons. Eventually, when the people Israel leaves Egypt, they carry Joseph’s bones with them for re-interment in Canaan. But the practice of making known one’s final wishes has become commonplace and normal. We instruct our loved ones as to where we’d like to be buried, or if we prefer some other method for our remains to be dealt with, we make that known. And it is an important ethical principle that one carry out your relative’s dying wishes.

But beyond expressing our wishes as to what we’d like done to our remains after we die, we also express our preferences as to he circumstances of our dying. Thanks to the incredible technology that can keep us legally alive long after we’ve reasonably expired, we often give advance notice as to our wishes with regard to so-called heroic measures being taken, or not, which will determine when and how we die. In recent years, the idea of palliative care to ease our death, rather than heroic measures to prolong our life, has become more popular and compelling. I have to say that the availability of palliative care is a good thing and has allowed so many to die with some dignity intact.

But the ultimate level of taking control of the circumstances of one’s dying, is achieved by taking one’s own life – by suicide. In recent years, there has been a movement to allow physicians to assist terminally ill patients to take their own lives. As you remember, Doctor Jack Kevorkian – dubbed ‘Dr. Death’ by some – elicited both praise and condemnation for his illegally assisting, by his own claim, 130 people to commit a painless suicide. He served eight years in a Michigan state prison for his efforts.

Now I’m astute enough – and compassionate enough – to know that some reading this will think of Jack Kevorkian as a hero. I think I understand how painful it can be to be in the throes of a terminal illness. I watched my father die a somewhat messy death from multiple myeloma, and before that my maternal grandfather from colon cancer. A prolonged death from a terminal illness robs the dying patient of his last scraps of dignity, causes his loved ones pain to see him suffer so, and can bring financial ruin to those responsible for his care. Even so, I have to tell you that the slippery slope that assisted suicide opens up, gives me some pause. Some people have famously expressed a desire to die for what can only be termed trivial reasons. It is natural for someone facing a life of severe disability to think themselves better off dead. Someone who has lost his sight, or ability to walk, or ability to control his bowels, could be forgiven for thinking that suicide offers a release from the indignity of continuing to live. My point here is not to condemn those who would wish to take control of their life by determining the time and manner of their death. Rather, my point is to offer a contrasting viewpoint. It is only natural to feel despair when faced with a life in which one will be denied some activity, some talent that is important to one’s self-definition.

Most of us have activities that we love to do. Golf, tennis, running, skiing…our favorite sports and activities give us untold amounts of pleasure and help us through the difficult times. But while these things are fun and bring joy, we should not measure our lives by these things. If we do, then our lives will seem far more shallow and vapid after they’re over. We should be able to drift in and out of these activities, because our lives’ meanings should be far deeper than these things. If we think that our lives are no longer worth living because we’ve lost the ability to play some sport, then we’ve lost sight of what the real meanings of our lives are. We should think of those whose spirits have been able to soar despite our trials and setbacks. Of, for example, the wounded warriors who have found the emotional strength to live on despite losing one or more limbs in battle. Of those whose fighting spirit makes them see that their worth as individuals, far exceeds the sum of what they’re capable of doing. What a tragedy if someone thinks that, because they can no longer perform some accustomed physical feat, that their life is no longer worth living. Of if a terminally ill person frets over the way his protracted treatment is eating up the estate he might leave to his heirs. Another hint of misplaced priorities.

And how about a relatively-young man, with many years of health, happiness and yes, productivity ahead of him, so despairing because of his father’s crimes that he feels he must ‘check out’ prematurely? Perhaps it is unseemly to reflect on these things as we inaugurate the Shabbat, the day of rest and renewal of spirit that is G-d’s greatest gift to the Jewish people and the Jews’ greatest gift to humanity. But my purpose is not for us to despair, rather to learn an important lesson. And that lesson is that we must, while we have control of our faculties, take stock of what’s most important in our lives. Although evil surely does exist in our world, I’m guessing that just about everyone reading my words today has spread far more good than evil in his or her lifetime. Perhaps you have not given yourself the credit you deserve for the good you’ve spread. We frequently think more harshly of our lives than we should, because we focus far to much on achievements, than goodness. Mark Madoff, according to those close to him, was not a man in his crooked father’s image. Rather, he was a relatively unassuming man who helped many with his expertise in investments, who prospered at least in part because of his hard work, and who cared deeply about those closest to him. It is a tragedy that he ended his own life so ignominiously, leaving a widow and four orphans, because of the shame his father’s crimes caused him to endure. How tragic when any human being feels his life has lost its meaning, whether because of a broken relationship, because he must endure a protracted illness, or because some new disability has robbed him of some activities that brings him joy. In all these cases, from the famous to the anonymous, the tragedy is that we find it difficult to see the true value of our lives.

Jacob’s life was supremely valuable, although he had a rocky beginning. As his death approached, he might have been forgiven for thinking that he had outlived his usefulness. He might have thought he would be unduly overburdening his son by making him swear to carry his bones back to Canaan for burial. But Jacob’s greatness, through all his foibles, was that he understood the values that make life worthwhile. He therefore felt free to burden Joseph with his request to return him to Canaan for burial with his fathers. And Joseph’s greatness is amply displayed in the fact, chronicled later in this week’s Torah portion, that he indeed carried out his dying father’s request.

“Vayechi – and he lived.” May we find the strength and resolve to live out the fullness of our years. And may we be blessed to understand the true worth of our lives, and those of the ones closest to us.