D'var Torah - Post-Election

Friday, November 11, 2016, at Temple Sinai, Brookline MA

Parashat Lech L'cha 

This Shabbat, we find ourselves facing a future filled with uncertainty, and we are entering into a world in which we do not know what may face us.

In the days after the election, both Rabbi Shoshana and I have been approached by members of our community who are deeply shocked by the results, people who are stunned and confused, people who are fearful for the future, who are experiencing anxiety about what lies ahead.  Almost everyone we’ve spoken to had a strong emotional reaction.

The road ahead is uncertain, and we don’t know where it will lead.  We truly don’t know. 

We face an important personal and spiritual challenge in these days when we’ve been cast into a period of deep uncertainty, anxiety and even fear for ourselves, for the Jewish people, for those people in our world who are of color, or immigrants, or religious and ethnic minorities – the whole world, in fact, is walking into a place of deep uncertainty, into the unknown.

The week of the election fell during the Torah portion of Lech L’cha, with God’s words to Abraham:  “Go, you, from your land, from your parents’ home, from the place of your birth, to a land that I will show you… and I will make you a great nation… I will make your name great.”  (Genesis 12:1-3)

I can imagine Abraham’s reaction: “Lech L’cha” – what?  Go where?  Go where?  Abraham did not know the land to which God was leading him towards.   God said: “I will show you the place, but not now.”  Abraham was told by God to go to a place, from that which was comfortable, to a place indeterminate and unknown. 

The Sefas Emes, Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Lieb of Ger, the Gerer Rebbe, 19^th century, taught that as human beings, each one of us is a “walker” – we are all travelers on a road.  None of us ever knows where we are going, none of us ever knows what lies ahead.  There is always an aspect of life which is hidden from us, and which we cannot see on our own.

But he taught:  Two things made Abraham different, and gave Abraham a certain greatness.

First, Abraham recognized that there is no other choice but to go forward.  Abraham found a source of resilience to keep on truckin’ when faced with uncertainty.  That source is available to us, as well.  By accepting the reality that we have to go forward toward uncertainty, by standing up straight, upright, and just walking forward greeting that uncertainty with openness, we grow. 

Second, Abraham lived out the quality of chesed, loving-kindness.  In the mystical-symbolic tradition of Judaism, Abraham is associated with chesed, which is care and concern within the framework of relationship.  He personified love and compassion, listening, understanding, seeing the downtrodden and the outcast, and responding to them with a whole heart.  This was not just Abraham’s way of dealing with others, it was the way in which Abraham served God:  with full-hearted love.  Abraham’s chesed was his way of living even when he was walking toward the unknown, to “the place that I will show you.”  While he was traveling to this undetermined place, the place-to-be-named later, Abraham treated everyone he met softly, carefully, gently, lovingly. 

What made Abraham great?  For the Sefas Emes, “greatness” is living our lives with the quality of chesed – opening your heart to others and approaching them with compassion on their journeys, even when you don’t know exactly where your journey is taking you.

I share the deeply worry and concern at what it seems the future may hold for us.  Those of us who are still stunned by the election’s results do need some time to get over our shock.  But like Abraham, it will soon be time to embrace the future, to stand up, and to keep walking forward.  If we can adopt Abraham’s stance of chesed, of loving-kindness as a basic and fundamental way for conducting ourselves, being sensitive to the pain and suffering of others around us by responding to them, we, too, can bring healing and repair into the world, which the world sorely needs.

-        Rabbi Andy Vogel

Interfaith Clergy Letter, November 2, 2016

"Rejecting Hate: Statement of Interfaith Solidarity Against Islamophobia in Massachusetts"


As Boston-area religious and cultural leaders, we are committed to building a community that embraces people of different beliefs and practices, including our Muslim neighbors and friends. This work is particularly important in the present political climate, in which some public figures are voicing messages of intolerance and xenophobia, pitting segments of the American populace against one another.

It is for this reason that we are deeply concerned to learn of an event scheduled for November 2nd in Stoughton featuring three speakers whom the Southern Poverty Law Center has identified as anti-Muslim extremists or hate group leaders. Jerry Boykin, Frank Gaffney, and Tom Trento cast Islam as an inherently immoral faith, and spread conspiracy theories that Muslims are secretly infiltrating US and European governments as a “fifth column.”

For example, Mr. Gaffney has claimed that “most of the Muslim-American groups of any prominence in America are now known to be, as a matter of fact, hostile to the United States and its Constitution,” and Mr. Boykin has argued that “We need to realize that Islam itself is not just a religion - it is a totalitarian way of life. ... It should not be protected under the First Amendment, particularly given that those following the dictates of the Quran are under an obligation to destroy our Constitution and replace it with Sharia law.” This inflammatory rhetoric has no factual basis and directly fuels anti-Muslim discrimination and hate crimes.

Our houses of worship should be spaces for prayer, reflection, study, and community building. While free political debate is a vital element in our democracy, voices that demonize ethnic, racial, or faith groups have no place in our sanctuaries.

As clergy and organizational leaders seeking to cultivate a shared ethos of interreligious and cross-cultural cooperation, we the undersigned reach out to and call on Congregation Ahavath Torah to revoke their invitation to these individuals, all known purveyors of vitriol and acrimony. They, and the gross misinformation in which they traffic, are not deserving of a platform in our community.

In Peace,

Rev. Lois Adams - First Baptist Church of Sharon
Professor Rachel Adelman - Hebrew College
Fr. Jack Ahern – St. Mary Parish in Randolph
Rev. John Allen - First Congregational Church of Milton
Rabbi Katy Z. Allen - Ma'yan Tikvah - A Wellspring of Hope
Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld, Dean, The Rabbinical School of Hebrew College
Rev. Dr. Jim Antal - Minister and President, Massachusetts Conference, UCC
Marya Axner - New England Jewish Labor Committee
Dr. Angela Bauer-Levesque, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean; Harvey H. Guthrie Jr. Professor of Bible, Culture, and Interpretation Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Rabbi Howard A. Berman, Central Reform Temple, Boston
Rev. Eliza Blanchard - First Parish of Brookline
Rev. Beverly Boke – First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church of Canton
Rev. Dr. Christian Brocato - Rector, Saint Peter's Episcopal Church, Cambridge
Rev. Jeffrey Brown – Twelfth Baptist Church
Sister Marie-Thérèse Browne, SCN, Roman Catholic Sister
Rev. Rebecca Bryan - First Parish in Brookline
Rev. Dr. Karin Case - First Church in Cambridge, Congregational, UCC
Rev. Arrington Chambliss - Executive Director, Episcopal City Mission
Rev. Rebecca Cho - First United Methodist Church, Stoughton, MA
Fr. Brian Clary - Saint Mary of the Assumption, Brookline
Rev. Rainey G. Dankel - Associate Rector, Trinity Church in the City of Boston
Rev. Dr. Christopher Duraisingh - Professor Emeritus, Episcopal Divinity School
Rev. John Edgerton – Old South Church, Boston
Cantor Roy Einhorn - Temple Israel, Boston
Michael Felson - Executive Director Emeritus, Boston Workmen’s Circle
Rev. Kent French, Senior Pastor, The United Parish in Brookline
Rabbi Ronne Friedman - Senior Rabbi Emeritus, Temple Israel of Boston
Rabbi Shoshana Meira Friedman - Temple Sinai of Brookline
Joseph Gerson - American Friends Service Committee, New England Region
Rev Marlene Gil - Associate Executive Minister for Church Relations, American Baptist Churches of Massachusetts
Rabbi Neal Gold - Temple Shir Tikva
Rabbi Eric Gurvis – Senior Rabbi, Temple Shalom
Rev. Dr. Ray A. Hammond - Senior Pastor, Bethel AME Church
Rev. Wendy Vander Hart, Associate Conference Minister, MA Conference, United Church of Christ
Rev. Kim K. Crawford Harvie - Senior Minister, Arlington Street Church (Unitarian Universalist)
Rabbi/Cantor Anne Heath - Congregation Agudath Achim
Rabbi Suzie Jacobson - Temple Israel, Boston
Rabbi David Jaffe, The Kirva Institute, Sharon, MA
Rabbi Howard L. Jaffe - Temple Isaiah, Lexington
Rev. Laura Ruth Jarrett - Senior Pastor, Hope Central Church, Jamaica Plain
Rev. Edwin Johnson – St. Mary's Episcopal Church of Dorchester
Rabbi Randy Kafka - Temple Kol Tikvah, Sharon
Alice Kidder, Clerk, Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries
Rev. Dr. David A. Killian - President, Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries
Jen Kiok – Executive Director, Boston Workmen’s Circle
Idit Klein, Executive Director, Keshet
Rabbi Claudia Kreiman - Temple Beth Zion, Brookline
Rabbi Judith Kummer - Jewish Chaplaincy Council of Massachusetts
Rabbi Allan Lehmann - Hebrew College
Rabbi Ben Lanckton - Community Tikkun Leil Shavuot
Rabbi David Lerner, Temple Emunah, Lexington; President, Massachusetts Board of Rabbis
Rev. Rosemary Lloyd – The Conversation Project
Rev. Samuel T. Lloyd - Rector, Trinity Church in the City of Boston
Rev. Rob Mark - Church of the Covenant, Boston
Rabbi Emily Mathis - Temple Beth Avodah
Rev. Michael McGarry, C.S.P. - Director, The Paulist Center
Rev. Kathleen McTigue – UU College of Social Justice
Rabbi Bernard H. Mehlman, Senior Scholar, Temple Israel, Boston,
Rabbi Margot Meitner - The Meeting Point, Jamaica Plain
Rev. Jeffrey W. Mello, Rector, St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Brookline
Rabbi Jeremy S. Morrison - Temple Israel of Boston
Fr. Jerry Morrow SCP -- Rector, Saint John's Episcopal Church, Sharon
Dr. Vito Nicastro, A.D., E.&I. - Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston
Professor Padraic O’Hare – Founder, Center for the Study of Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations at Merrimack College
Rev. Gerald J. Osterman – Immaculate Conception Parish
Riva Pearson - President, Boston Workmen’s Circle
Rabbi Barbara Penzner - Temple Hillel B'nai Torah
Rev. Mary Perry – First Congregational Church of Stoughton, UCC
Rev. Oscar J. Pratt, II - St. Katharine Drexel Parish
Fr. Rocco Puopolo, s.x. - Xaverian Missionaries
Rev. Cristina Rathbone - Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Boston
Rabbi Victor Reinstein – Nehar Shalom Community Synagogue
Rev. Don Remick, Associate Conference Minister, Massachusetts Conference UCC
Rev. Doug Robinson–Johnson – United Parish of Auburndale
Rev. Dr. Rodney Petersen – Executive Director, Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries
Rabbi Or Rose – Miller Center for Interreligious Learning and Leadership, Hebrew College
Rabbi Sonia Saltzman - Temple Ohabei Shalom
Scott Schaeffer-Duffy - Saints Francis & Thérèse Catholic Worker Community
Rabbi Rachel Schoenfeld - Shir Hadash
Rabbi Michael Shire - Hebrew College
Rev. Dr. Paul Shupe, Hancock United Church of Christ (Congregational), Lexington
Rev. Daniel Smith, Senior Minister, First Church in Cambridge, Congregational, UCC
Rabbi Matthew Soffer - Associate Rabbi, Temple Israel, Boston
Rabbi Toba Spitzer - Vice President of the Massachusetts Board of Rabbis
Rev. Burns Stanfield - President, Greater Boston Interfaith Organization and Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church, South Boston
Rabbi Keith Stern, Temple Beth Avodah
The Very Rev. John P. Streit, Jr. - Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Boston
Cantor Jodi Sufrin - Temple Beth Elohim, Wellesley
Rev. Stacy Swain - Union Church in Waban
Rev. Nancy Taylor – Senior Minister and CEO, Old South Church, Boston
Rabbi David Thomas - Congregation Beth El
Rabbi Andrew Vogel – Temple Sinai Brookline
Rabbi Moshe Waldoks - Temple Beth Zion
Rev. Liz Walker – Roxbury Presbyterian Church
Joanna Ware - Director of Special Projects, Keshet
Rev. Gretchen Weis – Murray Unitarian Universalist Church
Rev. Margaret L. Weis – Bell Street Chapel
Rabbi Ora Weiss - Congregation Beth Hatikvah
Rev. Dr. Donald A. Wells - Theologian in Residence, Old South Church, Boston
Rev. Joseph M. White - St Joseph Catholic, Boston
Sr. Ann Whittaker - Sister of Charity of Nazareth
Rev. Elizabeth Williams - Pastor, Wollaston Congregational Church, United Church of Christ
Rev. Jay Williams - Union United Methodist Church, Boston
Rabbi Elaine Zecher - Senior Rabbi, Temple Israel, Boston

* Please note: The institutional listings are for identification purposes only, and do not necessarily represent organizational endorsements. While many other individuals expressed interest at signing on, the list was limited to those in local leadership roles.

Shabbat sermon, Friday, March 18, 2016

Sermon / D’var Torah for Parashat Vayikra

Rabbi Andy Vogel

Erev Shabbat: Friday, March 18, 2016

Temple Sinai, Brookline MA

Shabbat shalom.  As you know, I don’t usually give a formal sermon, and prefer to engage on most Shabbat evenings with you in a conversation about the ideas that emerge from the week’s Torah portion.  But this week, tonight, I’m particularly concerned about the state of politics in our country, and I feel the need to share with you my thoughts in a little bit more of a formal way. 

I want to be upfront with you: I'm troubled by what's happening in our political world, I'm very troubled by the messages and values coming from Donald Trump and many of the things that he has said in the political sphere.  I’m particularly concerned that so many American voters have supported his world-view, a world-view that provokes and inflames and increases bigotry, hatred and xenophobia, especially against Hispanics and Muslims and other minorities. He has made offensive comments about women, people of color, and other groups – and he was very slow to distance himself from former Klansman David Duke.  And I’m deeply concerned about the way he has condoned violence, and incited violence at his rallies and campaign events – and hinted at “riots” at the Republican convention later this summer if he is not nominated. 

As you know, we at Temple Sinai, and I personally, are always very careful not to endorse or oppose any particular political party or political candidate. That's consistent with the IRS tax code rules, and it's also consistent with what's appropriate. It wouldn't be right for a house of worship to endorse any particular person or party, or to engage in partisan politics, because we stand for values, and ideas, and sacred teachings that guide our way, not for individuals or parties.  To take sides with or against any party or individual violates our own internal guidelines as well as federal rules.  I want to remain consistent with that guideline of the past.  It is appropriate for a synagogue or a rabbi to speak out about values, ideas, general policies and attitudes, and that’s what I intend to do.

What I want to address is the deeply disturbing trend across America today – a values and attitudes – that I feel the need to speak out about, about which I can’t be silent.  As always, this week’s Torah portion speaks exactly to the particular moment we are living in in our lives.  In Parashat Vayikra, Leviticus chapter 5 verse 1 says:

וְנֶפֶשׁ כִּי-תֶחֱטָא וְשָׁמְעָה קוֹל אָלָה

וְהוּא עֵד אוֹ רָאָה אוֹ יָדָע אִם-לוֹא יַגִּיד וְנָשָׂא עֲו‍ֹנוֹ

“If a you hear a public statement that involves sinful or harmful behavior, and you are a witness to it – that is, you see it, or you know that something is amiss, and you don’t speak up,

– אִם-לוֹא יַגִּיד,  you bear your responsibility.”  (Lev. 5:1)

That verse instructs us that we cannot remain silent when something terribly wrong is going on.  It reminds us that spiritual leadership needs to be vocal, we must play a role when moral values are at stake – and that there is a spiritual obligation to do so. 

After all, to be Jewish is to engage in the world.  Judaism is deeply concerned about the state of the world.  As one of the great Reform leaders, Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf, taught: “The Jewish religion is politics.  From its roots in creation to its ultimate working-out in the Messianic redemption, Judaism is about the human community.  … A ‘good Jew’ [in quotes] rejoices to find that he/she is obligated to humanity.”[1]  We must be engaged in the world.  It is deeply Jewish to work to make our world a better place, and the most powerful way to do that is through public policy, in the public sphere, through government which can better society, and through politics.

This week, the leadership of the Reform movement issued a very strong statement in response to the news that AIPAC, the large Israel lobby group, will have Donald Trump speak at its convention on Monday.  (By the way, I am not addressing tonight the larger issues of AIPAC and its agenda – that’s a whole different discussion.)  The leaders of the Reform movement spoke out – not to endorse or oppose Trump’s candidacy – but to address the very serious and grave effects that he is having upon the political discourse in our country, to express their own opposition to certain positions of his:  his support of the use of torture, his proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the country, his anti-immigrant rhetoric, his demonization of African-Americans and women.  The URJ statement reminds us of the values that we as Reform Jews “hold most dear – justice, mercy, compassion, peace.”  And, finally, the Reform movement statement urges us all to make our voices heard. It concludes with the words: “We will find an appropriate and powerful way to make our voices heard.”  That, to me, is also the meaning of the verse from this week’s Torah portion:  וְהוּא עֵד אוֹ רָאָה אוֹ יָדָע אִם-לוֹא יַגִּיד וְנָשָׂא עֲו‍ֹנו  If we do not speak out when something is wrong, we bear our own responsibility for not doing so. 

I believe that many of us in this Sanctuary this evening, if not all of us, share similar values, and similar concern about the state of recent political discourse.

But now, I want to say that it is time to speak out.  It is time for all of us to speak out, and not to remain silent.  We have seen the effects of remaining silent, when a population assumes that the storm will pass, or that “the annoying little man” will go away.  This is not a situation in which we have the luxury of that assumption.  Leaders have power, and their power has far-reaching ramifications. 

I’m obviously concerned about who becomes president, the most powerful public office in the world.  But the phenomenon of Donald Trump is about something bigger than even that.   Perhaps you saw the article in the Boston Globe today about the woman who wrote a letter to the editor a few weeks ago in opposition to Trump – this week, she received in the mail an anonymous letter containing the KKK symbol, a clear threat.  This woman is a Jewish woman, an Austrian refugee from the time of Hitler[2] – and the letter she received in the mail is being treated as an act of hate, clearly incited and encouraged, by Donald Trump and his rhetoric. 

This example is just one of many, many of the ripples emanating forth from a presidential campaign season laced everywhere with bigotry and incitement.

When any public figure – no matter who, whether a candidate for public office, a current office-holder, a celebrity, or anyone – speaks to the public in the language of hate again and again, whenever a public figure inspires acts of hate among the general populace, we need to speak out. 

We need to speak out.  Not just the leaders of the Reform movement in New York, not just me, your rabbi, not just the newspaper writers on editorial pages, but all of us.  It’s our moral duty.  In appropriate ways, within the guidelines of the federal tax code, I’m speaking out tonight, against hatred, and for a better vision of our world.  I am a member of the Brookline Clergy Association, along with rabbis, priests and minsters from other houses of faith, and I expect that that interfaith association will issue our own statement sometime soon.  We create real power when we come together to build alliances and coalitions with others who share our vision, vision inspired by the spiritual values of our tradition.

I encourage you to share your feelings, concerns, and values appropriately – as a Jew connected to a spiritual vision and connected with spiritual leadership – and that you do so out loud, in print, on traditional media and on social media, at the oneg downstairs, on your way out of the oneg, et cetera (!), so that people can hear, and so that you can be part of a movement for the best values of our society, a movement inspired by the spiritual vision of Judaism.

Shabbat shalom.

---

[1] Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf (1924-2008), in The Condition of Jewish Belief (originally published in 1966 as an issue of Commentary magazine), Aronson Press (1989), p. 272.

[2] https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/03/17/arlington-woman-who-wrote-letter-denouncing-trump-gets-kkk-symbol-mail/iNLaDWKGAONY2y2U7jm7KM/story.html

Dr. Borowitz's "Inner World": 

To remember our teacher Dr. Eugene Borowitz, ז"ל, who passed away on Friday, January 22, 2016, I'm posting his beautiful September 1984 article from Sh'ma Magazine (which he founded and edited for many years), in which he describes his "inner world," his personal spiritual Jewish journey and struggles. This brief article continues to inspire. 

To download, click to http://tinyurl.com/borowitz-my-inner-world

(Other Sh'ma articles of his are available on the Sh'ma website.)