Drash for Installation of New Board of Management at Temple Shalom, 19 July 2013

The Challenge of Board Leadership

You have surely noticed that the challenge of leadership is one of the recurring themes in my speaking and writing.  Of course, this is because in the years of my military service I wrestled with these challenges.  But also in the years when I have not been serving, it has become clear that leadership is one of the biggest challenges in life generally.

          When we invoke the word ‘leadership,’ we are often thinking about positional leadership.  One leads because one occupies a position:  in the military, in government, in business, or in congregational life.  But we notice a huge discrepancy.  Those thrust into positions of leadership often do not lead.  And those who are not in positions of leadership…are often the greatest leaders.

          This is true because of the nature of leadership.  Leadership is not telling other people what to do.  That is…bossiness.  And I’m not putting down bossiness…at least not completely!  If it weren’t for bosses, most of us would wander around aimlessly, not knowing what to do from moment to moment, hour to hour.  Collectively, we would accomplish very little.  Bosses surely fulfil an important function by coordinating the actions of various people towards a common task or set of tasks.

          But leadership is something far more precious, far more sublime.  A leader sometimes directs the actions of others and sometimes does not.  But the constant of leadership, is the drawing from a well of values.  A true leader acts in concert with his or her values.  And the most important value is integrity.  It has taken me a lifetime to truly learn this lesson.  If there’s one lesson for which I will be remembered after I’ve left this place, I hope it is in the importance of integrity.  One who would aspire to leadership must act with integrity.  If he doesn’t, nobody will accept his leadership.  This, no matter what position he holds.

          From many of the episodes of the narrative contained in the Torah, I draw lessons in leadership.  I think that the meta-message of the Torah is about the importance of leadership.  Whether applied to relationships between siblings.  Or between parent and child.  Or between king and subject.  Or between God and His people.  As each new page in the Torah unfolds, we’re confronted with lessons on the importance of leadership.  And of leading with integrity.

          In the military, because of the nature of the military, poor leadership can and does lead to death and suffering.  That’s why the penalties for failure of leadership are harsh.  And those who aspire to leadership in the military in particular, do well to understand the unforgiving nature of the responsibility of leadership there.  But really, the same could be said for those in other endeavours.  In law enforcement.  In piloting aircraft.  In serving as captain of a yacht.  In all of these and other endeavours, there is a dimension of responsibility for life that cannot be denied.  Those who cannot bear up to the stress of that responsibility, wisely choose occupations and endeavours where there is not such responsibility.

          But the difference in the burden of leadership between those responsible for life and those not, is merely one of degree.  That’s why the leadership principles one learns in the military are applicable in any walk of life.  That’s why leadership is a ‘portable’ quality, and one who possesses it can assume leadership in any environment.

          The congregation is a more forgiving laboratory for learning leadership than, say, the military or…the Wilderness of Sinai.  Nobody’s very life is at stake in the event of a failure of leadership.  But that does not free us from the responsibility to lead well and effectively.  Is our purpose in organising and sustaining this congregation holy as we say it is?  If so, then the results of our leadership matter.  And the results of poor leadership are to be avoided.

          Tonight, we install and consecrate a new Board of Management for our temple.  It is my prayer that some of the lessons of effective leadership have taken root in the hearts and minds of these, the members of our new board.  Because our congregation will be best served it the new board leads.  They may manage.  They may direct.  But our congregation will only thrive if they find it within themselves to lead.  May they be given the strength and inspiration to do so.  And may we all be blessed as they succeed.  Shabbat shalom.  

This Week's Drash, for Parashat Ve-etchanan

The following is my drash for this week, which in addition to being posted here, appears on the Union for Progressive Judaism website here:

 http://upj.org.au/index.php/learning/parshat-hashavua.  

Accepting the Unwelcome Decree

A Drash for Va-etchanan

Because I’m an American, I have of course been closely following the trial of 28-year-old George Zimmerman who was charged with Second Degree Murder in the 2012 death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.  Zimmerman’s plea was Not Guilty, that the killing was in self-defence.  Because of the racial overtones of the case – Martin being African-American and Zimmerman being a white Hispanic – much of the American public took sides in the case long before the trial began.  As with the equally-sensational OJ Simpson murder trial back in 1995, public opinion was divided almost neatly along racial lines.  In the recent Zimmerman matter, the jury deliberated carefully, not rushing to conclusions, taking almost two days to reach their verdict on Saturday night which was Not Guilty.

          The voices who had already decided Zimmerman’s guilt began immediately crying foul and calling for intervention by the Federal Government. (The State of Florida was trial authority in the case.)  Protests sprang up in various US cities, turning violent in several places in California.  This, probably because it was late evening on the East Coast, but still daylight on the West Coast when the verdict was announced.

          On Sunday morning, President Obama to his credit appealed for calm.  While acknowledging the disappointment of those who were hoping for a Guilty verdict, Obama reminded the country that the USA is a “nation of laws” and concluded that in the case, “the jury has spoken.”  Those who had already decided that Zimmerman was guilty, were thus reminded by the President that sometimes it is necessary to subordinate our own desires for the Greater Good.

As this week’s sidra, Va-etchanan opens, Moses has clearly learned a difficult lesson about the subordinating of his own desires for the Greater Good.  He has been told that he will not lead the People Israel into the Promised Land, that he will die on the East Bank of the Jordan and Joshua Bin Nun will take over the reins of leadership for the conquest.  This has brought deep disappointment to Moshe Rabbeinu – Moses our Great Teacher.  Earlier in the text – and later – we see reflections of Moses’ bitterness.  While we are told that there will never again be a Prophet of Moses’ calibre, we also understand that this change of leadership is necessary as he has become progressively cynical about the people’s fitness for the task.  He has become something of a whiner, which is unbecoming of a great leader.

In this week’s reading, it appears that Moses has internalised this lesson.  Why do I say this?  Because he starts this discourse, in Chapter Four, verse 23 through 27, by recounting his complaint against God, how he cried out and asked God to relent, and that God wo9uld not soften His decree.  And then, as Chapter Four opens Moses launches into a sermon about how the people must obey God’s decrees if they are to successfully live in the land which God is assigning them.  In other words, all protestations are duly lodged; but then when the answer is received from ‘City Hall’ one accepts the decree and gets on with business.  Especially when ‘City Hall’ is the Divine Being.

Most of us are not used to receiving direct instruction, or clear responses to our pleas, from the Divine Being.  Even so, from Moses our Teacher we learn an important lesson about the acceptance of just decrees from ‘City Hall’ – even when they aren’t what we’d hoped to hear.  Moses has learned that the grand design of the People Israel inheriting the Land of Israel is bigger than his own personal aspirations.

How many times have each one of us reacted poorly to a decree, with which we disagreed?  Even when we must acknowledge that someone else has more complete information, not to mention the authority to decide, we sometimes protest and litigate and scheme to overturn the decree in question.  Moses at first reacts similarly to the decree that he will not enter the Promised Land, but in this week’s reading he has accepted this unwelcome decree and reclaimed his position, for the time being, as Israel’s Great Teacher.  My prayer is that we will all internalise this important lesson.  Including my fellow Americans who are not apt to accept the decree in the Zimmerman case.  Sometimes, our own desires or pre-conceived opinions notwithstanding, someone else with more complete information – and who has been duly empowered with the authority to decide – decrees other than the way we would have wanted.  When that happens, sometimes we just have to accept the unwelcome decree and get on with our lives.  Shabbat shalom.

Drash for Shabbat Morning

Moses the Whiner

As you may know, I have little patience for whining.  I don’t like to hear it from children.  But I especially don’t like to hear it from adults.  There are few things as discouraging as a whining adult.  And I know that I’m not alone.  People who agree with me, avoid whining adults.  But even whining adults, avoid other whining adults.  And that tells us two things.  One, that most people don’t like to listen to whining adults.  And two, that whining adults often don’t really hear themselves.  So I’m going to ask you this morning:  have you noticed that others avoid you?  Ask yourself, am I a whiner?  Be honest and take inventory.  Examine the conversations you have had recently with others.  And if there’s evidence that you are a whiner, then perhaps take my message to heart.

          So what’s so terrible about whining by adults?  Apart from that it’s annoying?  Well, it’s fundamentally unproductive.  The difference between a child and an adult is supposed to be that an adult takes his or her destiny into his own hands.  Adulthood is supposed to be about thoughts and action.  Not about woe to me!  It is unseemly for an adult to not take responsibility for their condition.  To not set about trying to making it what they want it to be.  And this is in direct opposition to a whining personality.  Now, does the former describe the personality of all adults?  Of course it doesn’t…if it did, I wouldn’t be, er, complaining to you right now…

          If whining among adults is difficult to tolerate generally, it is especially difficult to tolerate from those who position themselves as leaders.  Look, if you know me well, you know that I’m not a great fan of the current occupant of the White House…that is, President Obama.  I didn’t vote for him, because I am loyal to a political ideology that is very much in contrast to his.  But I have little patience for him, not because my own political philosophy is different, but because…well, because he’s a whiner.  He whines incessantly about anybody who opposes his political program.  He complains about any opposition to his legislative agenda.  If you know anything about American politics, you know that our system is unlike your Australian parliamentary system.  The American system has three distinct and independent branches of government which are precisely intended to serve as checks against one another.  America’s Founding Fathers planned for a president’s power to be limited.  For the sitting president to complain about the very system by which he governs, is quite breathtaking.  It’s not his job to whine about it.  It’s his job to work positively with the other branches of government, and the other parties, to create win-win policies that will fly and result in good things for the country.  I’m also not a big fan of Bill Clinton because he was another president of the ideological Left.  But Clinton was an effective president unlike President Obama, because he accepted and embraced the system under which he governed.  Instead of whining about it.

          So, my political rantings aside, I read this morning’s Torah reading with a bit of the rolling eyeball.  Moses opens the Book of Devarim with a rather whiney recounting of the behaviour of the People Israel in the wilderness.  He complains about how their behaviour caused a 40-year delay in their arrival at the moment of the present harangue.  This is the first of a series of sermons that serve as Moses’ valedictory address to the people.  His ‘swan song.’  Because the generation of Egypt is just about gone, and the people will enter the Promised Land imminently.  With Joshua bin Nun at their head, as Moses must die on the far side of the River Jordan.  We’ll talk more about it next week, when we read from the sidra Ve’etchanan where Moses cries out to God in protest of his fate.  Suffice it to say that, as this week’s reading opens, we hear a Moses who sounds more like a contemporary politician then, well…a Moses.

          Now before you chide me for being hyper-critical of Moses, let me tell you that I have a lot of tolerance for his whining.  As I have for any adult whose whining can be put in the perspective of a life of greatness…and goodness.  I’m not saying that Moses was not, as the Torah put it, the greatest of all the Prophets.  As we read in the closing verse of the Torah, Ve lo kam Navi od beYisrael keMosheh.  We aren’t to take these words lightly.  And yet, the Moses we see in the Book of Deuteronomy is a Moses who is disheartened and whiney.

          And this is at the heart of why Moses cannot be the leader to take the people across the Jordan to the Land of Israel.  It isn’t that God is angry at Moses.  It’s that Moses is not up to the task.  Because a leader must believe in himself, as well as in the ones he is leading.  That’s why Joshua bin Nun will be the one to carry the mantle.  Joshua proved that he possessed the power of the positive in the Incident of the Spies.  He and Caleb alone, took in the whining of the other ten spies who saw the conquest of the Land as an impossible challenge.  They said, sure it will be difficult.  But God will give us the strength to do it.  No general has ever won a battle without believing that the battle could be won.  How else would he convince the troops it could be won?  And no army ever won a battle when its troops lost heart.  The People Israel must not lose heart in the coming challenge.  They therefore need a leader who is positive and believes in his troops’ ability to carry out the campaign.  And Moses is no longer that leader.  We can – and should – have a lot of respect and affection for Moses for what he has done for the people up until now.  But we should also recognise that he is no longer fit for leadership.  And we should take to heart the lesson about the nature of the challenge of leadership.  And about the fitness of leaders.

          Perhaps that’s a good lesson on the day before Temple Shalom’s Annual General Meeting.  Not that there’s a choice in whom to vote for tomorrow.  All candidates for office are standing unopposed.  Your vote will be more an affirmation than a choice.  But it doesn’t make the election of a new President and Board of Management irrelevant.  It does, however, place more of the responsibility upon those who are standing for office.  Let me ask you:  do you stand for office with positive thoughts about the temple and its future?  Are you positive about what the temple stands for, about the fitness of its members?  If not, I pray that you will have the integrity to stand down.  Because leadership positions should not be the result of a popularity contest.  Nor should they be by default.

          In this week’s reading we see a Moses who has achieved greatness.  And that greatness can never be taken away from him.  But it’s time for the mantle of leadership to pass to someone else.  And so he begins his valedictory to the People Israel.  Who listen to him respectfully and hopefully, take to heart his words.  Listening ‘around’ his whining, as it were.  Because while his time for leadership is clearly past, he still has many important things to say.  Even to us, so many generations removed from the events.  Shabbat shalom.     

Drash for Shabbat evening

Light rail in Jerusalem

The Torah Train Awaits

We Jews love to laugh at ourselves.  Nothing brings a smile to a Jewish face faster than a good Jewish joke.  We tell them to one another with glee.  We receive them from our friends on e-mail.  We forward them to our friends on e-mail.  We frown and take umbrage when a gentile tells one.

Most of the jokes are at least mildly self-depreciating.  They speak of people who feel the sting of exclusion.  Who wish for better times.  Who feel powerless to help themselves overcome tides of events.  Who are clueless about male-female chemistry.  They speak of an angst about everything in life.  We can complain about all these things, so why not laugh about them?

If you know me, you know that I enjoy a good joke as much as the next guy.  And that includes good Jewish jokes.  At least, if told by Jews.  But I don’t have much patience for endless complaining, neither by Jews nor by gentiles.  And we Jews love to complain; we do it with the best of them.

It’s true that our history, especially the last 2,000 years, includes endless displacement, marginalisation, and persecution.  But the truth is that the last 2,000 years haven’t really been so kind to any of the peoples of the earth.  Misery loves company, and we Jews have not been alone in our suffering at the hands of others.  Life on earth has been no Garden of Eden since…well, the expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

It’s said that a clergyman’s job is to comfort the afflicted…and afflict the comfortable.  Tonight I’m going to do both, because in our own schizophrenic way, we’re both too afflicted…and too comfortable.

Judaism is going through an interesting, and challenging phase shift in this generation.  It is transitioning from a religion largely transmitted by heredity, to one adopted, chosen, by individuals.  And that’s a good thing; if it weren’t for that transition, we would be doomed to extinction, and not too far down the road. 

We can see why.  We make very few babies.  How many couples in this congregation have only one or two children?  Look, I’m not throwing stones; you know that Clara and I also have only two children.  Collectively, we aren’t even producing enough offspring to replace ourselves.  And many of our children have in effect quit Judaism.  Look around this room.  This is an ageing congregation.  Our children have largely opted out.  They mostly don’t belong, and those that do belong don’t attend.  Not because they’ve chosen another religion.  Contemporary society is such that one can comfortably live without religion altogether.  Just as young gentiles are dropping out of their respective religious faiths, young Jews are dropping out of Judaism.  And why shouldn’t they?  By and large, we have not made a compelling case as to why they need it.

Clara and I were talking the other day and agreed, in this congregation, Jews-by-choice make up a large proportion.  Probably larger than any other community we’ve served.  As I stand in this pulpit and look out over the room, I see a number of you whose lives’ spiritual paths led you to Judaism.  And a number of you who are now in the process of jumping through the various hoops that we place in your path if you want to convert.  A good portion of my time and energy on the job is devoted to those who are choosing Judaism.  Between teaching, and counselling, and befriending, I spend a lot of time guiding you along.  And this is not a complaint; guiding Jews-by-choice is one of the most satisfying parts of my rabbinate.

In the past month or so, I have begun working with no fewer than four conversion candidates who are starting their journeys.  This week alone, I have fielded no fewer than three enquiries from potential candidates who contacted me to express their interest and seek guidance.  Each story is different, but most are similar.  Each one rejected the faith in which they were raised, which for a variety of reasons did not ‘work’ for them.  Each one, as they read and considered, ultimately came to decide that Judaism sounded like the best ‘fit’ for them.

  So pointing to this trend, I want to comfort you.  Instead of shreying gevalt because we Jews are dying off, let’s rejoice that others are looking at what we have and saying, I want it, too.  And I’m willing to stand up to the challenges of getting it.  Because it’s worthwhile.  Yes, Judaism is worthwhile.  And no, not because we have some secret handshake that opens doors to riches and opportunities.  Except the ‘riches’ of the Torah.  If God is God, and the Torah is Truth, then becoming a Jew is a worthwhile quest.  And as you can see, many are deciding that it is a worthwhile quest.  So stop feeling alone.  Stop thinking that the world would rather we just go away.  Sure, there are those in the world who would rather we go away.  I have some definite thoughts on why that’s so, but that’s also another sermon, for another day.  Tonight, take heart that there are plenty in the world who see what we have and would like to be a part of it.  Despite all the ‘hardships’ we endure.  Because maybe the gift of Torah makes the ‘hardships’ endurable.  Or perhaps, maybe the ‘hardships’ are largely in our own minds.  So don’t worry…be happy!

Are you comforted?  I hope so, because now I want to afflict you.  These Jews-by-choice, they’re not flocking to our doors because they want to eat smoked salmon.  As you well know, the shelves in any supermarket are full of smoked salmon.  Do you think it’s Jews who buy and eat all that smoked salmon?  Of course not.  One does not need to be a Jew to eat smoked salmon.  And in truth, that’s why the under-50 crowd is largely absent.  Because we have, by and large, reduced Jewishness to eating smoked salmon.  And gefilte fish.  The under-50 crowd gets it that they can eat all the smoked salmon they want, even with cream cheese, without having any kind of meaningful connection to Judaism.  And gefilte fish?  Let’s just say that gefilte fish is not any kind of draw.

So smoked salmon, or any of our other quaint customs, cannot make Judaism compelling for our kids.  But Torah can.  And yet, Torah is the last thing on most of our minds.  Perhaps because it requires a commitment.  A much bigger commitment than smoked salmon.  And our Jews-by-choice know this.  And embrace the commitment that Torah presents.  When we think there are no Jews-by-choice listening, we shrey gevalt over that, too.  I mean, about how our Jews by conversion embrace the covenant with gusto, making the rest of us look more than a little diffident.  Some of us wish that Jews-by-choice would just chill out and take Torah for granted…as so many of us do.  That would solve the problem of the dissonance between the Jew-by-birth and the Jew-by-choice.

Or, there’s another way to ‘solve the problem’ of that dissonance.  And that is for us Jews-by-birth to stop taking Torah for granted!  We should rejoice that we have something precious.  So precious that gentiles would jump through multiple hoops to get a piece of it.  And we should allow ourselves to let their eyes open ours to how precious it really is.  And allow ourselves to take delight in it.

Because it’s about far more than eating smoked salmon.  And not eating prawns.  You can see Torah as a burden.  Or you can accept it as a precious gift.

This week, our reading of the Torah brings us to the start of the book of Devarim, Deuteronomy, its fifth and final book.  Deuteronomy is largely a summation of the experience of the People Israel from the exodus to the point of beginning the conquest of the Promised Land.  We come to the conclusion of a great adventure, as we prepare for yet another.  The train moves inexorably forward.  It’s not like the Goldlinq (the new light rail system, under construction on the Gold Coast), thus far accomplishing little more than snarling traffic in our city.  Perhaps a few of us will ultimately ride the Goldlinq.  Hopefully, we’ll all at least give it a try once it’s in operation.

For the Torah train we need not wait.  Although it’s constantly on the move, paradoxically it is also ever in the station, waiting for us to board.  At every moment in our lives we can give it a try and take a ride.  How about this moment?  All the Jews-by-choice among us have tried it and have bought lifetime passes.  We Jews-by-birth already have our passes.  How many of us let them sit in the drawer, unused and collecting dust?  Let’s dust them off and use them.  Let’s let the presence of Jews-by-choice in our midst remind us how precious is our legacy.  And let’s let it motivate us to take delight in it.  Shabbat shalom.

What are the Real Borders?

This?

Many of us are visual learners.  We are obsessed with the power of images.  There is no more powerful way to learn, than to see something represented visually.  And if a still image is powerful, a moving image is even more powerful.  We consumers tend not to be aware of the range of emotions with which we respond to images.

One time I had a lesson in this.  I had a task to create a four-minute video for screening at a program with several hundred people present.  Taking on the project, I thought it would be relatively easy.  I wrote a script conveying the message, and gathered more than enough video footage that, I thought supported the script.  And I gathered all my favourite CD’s with music from which I thought I’d choose a background score.  Relatively easy.  And I asked two friends, who worked at the local TV station, to help me put it together with the equipment at the station.

We did the project, and it came out just fine, but it wasn’t in any way easy.  And the reason was that, when creating a media presentation, you have to examine the emotions that you want to evoke in your audience every second of the running.  So I sat there behind the editing console whilst my two experts went through the script and the video and the music frame by frame, discussing how the audience might react emotionally to each new image and each sound and word.

Torah is not about images, still or moving; it is about narrative and evoking responses through the reading, or hearing of the text.  But sometimes, in reading a particular portion of text, it helps if we can see a visual representation of the information conveyed.

          You’ve heard me bemoan, a time or two, about how Israel’s detractors use terrible misrepresentations, if not outright lies, to paint a picture of a country to be feared and loathed.  A country that, uniquely in the world, is oppressive of people in its own orbit and possessive of other countries’ land.  And a good example of the latter is how they will explain the symbology found on the Israeli national flag.  As you know, the flag has a white background, with a blue Shield of David – a six-pointed star – flanked by two horizontal blue stripes. 

The Shield of David is, of course, a very popular and powerful symbol of Judaism.  Because it evokes David, it has messianic overtones.  It says that we Jews can and will be once again autonomous  under the sovereignty of God in our land.  The evoking of the Kingship of David, God’s chosen, implies Tikkun olam bemalchut Shaddai – the perfection of the world under the Kingship of God.  That we Jews, in seeking to re-establish our homeland, are participating in the effort to bring about an age that will benefit all of humanity.  That’s why the Shield of David has become the symbol of Judaism.

As to the two blue stripes, those who seek to delegitimise Israel will tell you that they represent the two great rivers of the near East:  the Euphrates and the Nile.  The implication is that Israel and her proponents think their state is destined to fill the lands between the two rivers.  And never mind that Israel, even including any and all disputed territory that she controls, fills only a tiny portion of that great land expanse.  The claim is used to impugn any legitimate defensive act, by asserting that the country aims to ultimately expend to the alleged biblical borders.  The top half of the pages I’m passing around right now (and the top of this blog entry) show the extent that the Jewish state supposedly desires to expand based on this claim, superimposed over a map of the modern Middle East.  The claim is that this is the Biblical Land of Israel that the modern state seeks to fulfil as its manifest destiny.

          But this week’s Torah reading describes the real Biblical Land of Israel.  The text describes something quite different from what the assertion and the picture depict.  Because I’m a visual learner myself, I sought and found a visual representative of what we’re about to read this morning.  And there it is, on the bottom half of the page (and at the bottom of this blog entry).  The borders described in the 34th Chapter of the Book of Numbers have been superimposed over a map of the Near East.  And you can see that they’re nothing like the assertion of Israel’s detractors.  They encompass most, but not all, of the land that comprises the State of Israel today.  And the lands known as the West Bank, which we Jews tend to refer to as Judaea and Samaria.  And most of what today is the State of Lebanon.  With a bit of south-western Syria thrown in.

          Now let’s dismiss the West Bank for the moment, if our Palestinian cousins will let us.  This is disputed land, never having legitimately belonged to a state since the early 20^th century.  It went from being part of the Ottoman Empire, to being part of British Mandatory Palestine.  To being occupied by Jordan without world sanction from 1948 to 1967.  To being occupied by Israel after the Six Day War.  It is now under a mixture of Israeli security control and a Palestinian civil administration until such time that Israel and the PA can come to some permanent accommodation.  So while it’s true that Israel maintains partial control over those lands, and there are Jewish settlements among the Palestinian villages, it’s complicated and is not the end of the story.

          So let’s look at the lands on the map on the bottom half of the page, which represent what are today other sovereign countries.  It includes almost all of present-day Lebanon.  And let me ask you; do you believe that Israel wishes to rule over Lebanon?  In 1982 Israel fought a war in Lebanon:  not against the legitimate government of the country but against a number of left-wing militias supported by the Soviet Union and dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish state.  These militias had carved out a series of rogue mini-states that were used daily to launch attacks on Israel.  For years after the war, the Israeli Army occupied a swath of Southern Lebanon as a ‘security zone’ but pulled out in the year 2000.  Today, there is a foreign power controlling most of Lebanon, but it isn’t Israel.  It’s Syria, which has long held that Lebanon is rightfully the 15^th province of the Syrian state.  Does Israel have any interest whatsoever in expanding to include Lebanon?  There’s no basis for this irrational fear.  Israel has not behaved in any way that could reasonably be interpreted as confirming the fear of that ambition.

          Likewise where Syria is concerned.  Israel has never made any move overt or covert to occupy or annex any of the heartland of Syria.  Yes, Israel occupied and subsequently annexed the Golan Heights, which used to be part of Syria.  But Syria used the Heights repeatedly to disturb the peace in Israel, using the high ground as a platform for keeping the Israeli Hula Valley under shellfire.  Israel’s taking over the Golan should be seen as a strategic move to defend her towns in the north-east.  The inhabitants of the Heights, in any case, were not Syrian Arabs but Druse, an oppressed minority in Syria…and a protected minority in Israel.

          So there’s no reasonable basis for believing that Israel desires to expand to cover all the ground between the Euphrates and the Nile.  And in any case, those are not the borders described in this week’s Torah reading.  The far smaller borders shown on the bottom picture are what is described in today’s Torah reading.  And there’s also no basis for believing that Israel has any intention of trying to rule even the much smaller the lands shown in that map.

          Visual learning is considered one of the most effective styles of learning.  Because visual representations of information can make that information more clear.  This morning we read a description of the borders of the Land of Israel in the written Torah.  And we saw how these borders would fit in the modern Middle East.  But we also considered the behaviour of the State of Israel from 1948 until now.  I hope you agree with me that there is no logical case to be made from that history that Israel has any designs on the lands of Lebanon and Syria.  Because there is no logical case to be made.  Indeed, there is no case to be made, beyond the disputed West Bank and the strategic Golan Heights, that Israel has any desire whatsoever to expand her borders at the expense of neighbouring states.  So we can now easily dispute any claim that Israel is a juggernaut, liable at any moment to swallow up her neighbours.  The description, the map, and Israel’s behaviour to this date prove that it’s just a bunch of rubbish.

          And by the way, what is the symbology of the two horizontal blue stripes on the Israeli flag?  They’re meant to represent the stripes of the tallit, the prayer shawl.  Although these garments sport all sorts of designs today, the traditional design of the tallit is two blue stripes.  These represent that every day in the Morning Service, where the adult Jew wears a tallit, a prayer is said for the re-establishment of the Jewish people in the land of Israel.  The modern State of Israel was established as a secular state under a non-ecclesiastical government.  But the symbology shows the importance of the sacred aspect of the quest for a Jewish homeland.

Or this?

Why does Israel have so many detractors, and why would they use such misinformation to spread their false message about Israel?  That’s another drash, for another day.  But the important thing relative to today’s Torah reading is the falsehood that is perpetrated by the lies about the symbols on the Israeli flag.  Those who wish to demonise the Jewish state, completely misrepresent the meaning of the symbols.  And they make an assertion regarding what the Torah says regarding the extent of the Land of Israel, that is totally false.  This week’s reading gives the real extent of the ‘biblical’ Land of Israel.  But any reasonable look at Israeli history, and the geopolitical situation in the modern Middle East, shows that Israel has no designs to expand to even those borders.  Shabbat shalom.  

Drash for this Friday night

Good from Bad

There’s an old song that declares, If it weren’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all.  And some of us, at least on some days, would make such a declaration.  Some of us even end up sounding like Eyore, the donkey in the Winnie the Pooh stories.  Surely you remember Eyore.  He’s the one who gave us such gems as:  End of the road.  Nothing to do.  And no hope of things getting better.  Sounds like Saturday night at my house.  And:  Not much of a house.  Just right for not much of a donkey.  Do I sound anything like that??!  If I do, please make me retire!

Just kidding…I can whine with the best of them, but I’m sure that unlike Eyore I’m upbeat sometimes!  As is just about everybody else.  We all have our down moments, but most of us balance those with up moments.  And that’s the way it should be.  Think about it; if we were cheerful all the time, people would get sick of us!

One way to get through down moments is to adopt the attitude that good things can – and often will – come out of them.  You know what I’m talking about.  I’ll give you a couple of examples from me personal experience.

I’ve learned over time that I’m a pretty good test-taker.  For whatever reason, I can instinctively pick the correct answer on a multiple choice test.  So over time, I became quite complacent about tests…tests for anything.  Then one time, because in my complacency I did not study for a test, I bombed it.  I mean really blew the test.  And it was an important test…for a promotion, no less.  So I learned from the experience.  Since then, whenever I’m facing a test, I always take the time to prepare.  And I’ve never failed another test…for anything.  And often did far better than I would have, had I not studied.  So my failing one test, taught me the importance of studying and preparing.

Another example.  When I feel exuberant about something, I start taking unnecessary risks.  Maybe it’s because I’m usually a careful person.  So when I feel really capable, I get exuberant and then I do whatever it is with abandon.  So one time, I crashed whilst skiing and broke my wrist.  Well, to be completely honest, it took two skiing injuries to learn that lesson.  The next season I fractured my shoulder.  So now, I’m deliberately more careful just when I start feeling exuberantly good at something.  Because there’s nothing worse than riding down the mountain on the rescue sled.

So a bad experience can, and often does, ultimately lead to something good.  And we know that this is true.  It makes bad things, easier to endure.  On out most optimistic days, it helps us to take adversity…and laugh in its face.  But there are limits, and you can surely probably think of a few.  In the camps of the Nazi Holocaust, doctors often performed bizarre experiments on inmates.  Often the experiments involved severe physical or psychological abuse of the subjects.  Even if such experiments could be shown to have yielded valuable insights, they are still atrocities…  So to justify such experiments on such a basis would be sick…and no court of law in the world would exonerate someone for culpability in such crimes if they used the ‘benefits to humanity’ as their defence.  

But when some good comes out of adversity a person has endured accidentally, then it is perfectly all right to see that person’s adversity as somehow redeeming.  And that has happened to me this past week.  Let me explain.

Last week I told you about the sadness I’d felt when burying a person who had lived in our midst, apparently quite a few years, and died all alone.  Not counting one of the Heritage Brothers and one of their employees, there were four people including me at the funeral.  And none of them knew the deceased.  And a week ago tonight I spoke about it here in this sanctuary.  And posted the drash with my thoughts on the event, on my blog as I do every week’s drash.

And as it happens, some very positive things happened.  A member of our community, responding to my sentiments, asked a friend with an interest in genealogy to do some research.  And they found some family belonging to the deceased.  And it was important to them, to know of the death of their uncle.  And one of the man’s nieces, having thus learned of her uncle’s demise, did some checking that uncovered my blog post in which she recognised her uncle’s story even though I didn’t mention him by name.  And that has been a very positive for both of us.  So yes, good things do come out of unfortunate circumstances.  And that’s not all.

I have had some conversations about with some of you about how we draw people in, and keep them in.  And about how we get the word out about events happening.  Including deaths and funerals.  But even that’s not all.

Several of you in this community came to me and told me that you took to heart things I said last Friday, and that you made an effort to get in touch with estranged relatives and to reconcile differences with them.  And all that gives me a sense that the things I say and do, sometimes, really make a difference.

I want to be clear that I’m not soliciting praise or thanks by mentioning this.  I’m not trying to take credit for making good things happen in this community.  I’m not trying to remind you of the value I provide for your money.  Okay, maybe a little bit!  But really, I’m only trying to make a point.  And that is, the way we react to bad circumstances, can and does lead to good result.  It isn’t the bad circumstance itself that is redeeming.  Rather, it is what we do with it…what actions it spurs us to take.  That’s where redemption comes.  It comes by our facing adversity, and deciding to do something positive.  Like study for the next test.  Or ski more carefully.  Or write something challenging but not discouraging to goad others to good acts.

We sometimes have a tendency to define ourselves by the ‘bad things’ that ‘happen’ to us.  And that’s unfortunate, because if we see life ‘happening’ to us then we tend not to take any of its lessons to heart.  It is my prayer that my sharing my experiences – of studying for test-taking, of skiing carefully, and of being willing to speak out – will cause you to take heart and understand how much you can bring good result.  And not just think gloomily, like Eyore, that it’s the end of the road…with nothing to do…and no hope of things getting better.  And if we hear such sentiments, we will have no cause to think:  Sounds like Friday night at our house.  Amen, and Shabbat shalom.