Thursday, June 3, 2010

Another New Weis Man Blog

It has been a very productive week here in the Weis Man portion of the blogosphere. I am excited to welcome into the fold my old college buddy, James Schwartz, whose blog, "A Sporting Chance," is now appearing here under my banner.

Jim was the sports editor of our college paper, and brings the same passion today that he did all those years ago. Some of his postings will take on the sacred cows of sports -- the fat cats, the disproven mythologies, the unacknowledged weaknesses needing address. Others, as I belief his first effort here demonstrates, will help us regain prespective after significant sports events, and even draw from them valuable life lessons. Still others will be designed to provoke discussion and debate, even argument, among fans. All as a good sports blog should.

Please join me in welcoming and supporting my old and dear friend, Jim Schwartz, and his new blog! As with the other parts of the empire -- all are linked on the lower right hand of this page, and will eventually all be cross-linked to one another :)

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Responding to the "Gaza Flotilla" Situation

I thought long and hard about the word to follow the quotes in the title. I also wanted to wait and see what we would learn over time, before rushing in to respond in a difficult moment.

But then, a college student who received a significant amount of his Jewish education in our religious school posted the following status on his facebook page (in keeping with editorial policy of this blog, the names are removed to protect user privacy):

Dear Israel, I usually stand by your decisions but I have to say I think you may have jumped the gun on this one here. Just don't give hezzballah a reason to shoot up Haifa again. L'shalom me

To which I felt compelled to respond as follows:

...check your facts before jumping to conclusions -- take a look at the Ha'aretz article on my page in particular... it appears that, as usual, there are a lot of layers to peel away on this one to get to the truth. It is starting to look very much like many other recent decisions -- more blame is due to the inciters than to Israel (as usual), world ignores the depths of the incitement (as usual), Israel offers peaceful alternatives, which are refused/ignored (as usual), so Israel attacks and draws bad press (as usual). It remains to be seen a)whether the accusations of unnecessary force stand up to scrutiny (they usually don't), or b) whether Hizbullah or some other group uses this as the excuse they have been waiting for to attempt to open up a new can of w[orms] on innocent Israeli settlers near the borders. But remember, if not this, it will be the next "incident" precipitated by the other side that will be used against Israel...

And then I braced myself for the onslaught -- which thankfully has not yet come. But with the benefit of hindsight a day later, I do regret my use of the word "attack" -- the evidence is already fairly quickly coalescing, with plenty of visual evidence, that the Israelis boraded all 7 ships peacefully, for the purpose of inspecting the cargo. Only on the 7th ship, after significant physical provcation, did the Israelis use their arms.

So I was gratified today to see the following -- which I HIGHLY recommend -- from Daniel Gordis (with whom I do NOT always agree):

http://danielgordis.org/2010/05/31/facebook-meets-the-flotilla/

in which, still admitting that he is jumping into a response before all the facts are in, he comes to roughly the same place that I did, more eloquently, and in more detail. But, along the way, he also offers what appears to be a stinging indictment of many of us in America, that may deserve much more of our attention at another time...

I also provide for you these links to more details -- admittedly from the Israeli side, and not necessarily in an unbiased form:

http://virtualjerusalem.com/news.php?Itemid=2953

which reports that most, if not all of the aid that had been downloaded from the flotilla and brought to the Gaza border is now languishing there, as no one is coming to pick it up!

and

http://virtualjerusalem.com/news.php?Itemid=2954

for video and other factoids relating to this unfortuante circumstance;

and finally, in the interests of full disclosure, this is the Ha'aretz link I referred to in my initial response above (there are better pieces on the subject from Ha'aretz than this article -- it was the one I had just read when responding:

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-transfers-hundreds-of-gaza-flotilla-activists-to-airport-for-deportation-1.293634

For the record (not that most would care), here is my "official" response (as of today!):

As a Rabbi, and as a Jew, I mourn the deaths and injuries which occurred to both sides when the Israeli military attempted to board, for inspection, the ships of the so-called "Gaza Flotilla." It is sad, but hardly surprising, that so-called "humanitarian aid workers" on one of the ships attacked Israeli soldiers, whose arms were shouldered, immediately upon boarding, in some cases even taking the Israelis' weapons and using them against them. While others may choose to be unsurprised in support of those on the ship who are being cast as "defending themselves" from an "illegal" boarding in International waters, my lack of surprise stems from the common tactic of Hamas, Hizbullah and other anti-Israel terrorist organizations, who routinely hide behind innocent civilians and humanitarian efforts to gain access and cover to Israeli targets, knowing that Israel trains and practices far beyond ANY other military on the planet, to avoid injuries and damage to civilians, even to the point of endangering her own soldiers in the process. I note as well the failure, to date, of the Hamas regime in Gaza to pick up those humanitarian supplies that Israel has brought from the ships to the border.

As an American, I cannot fully understand the pressures, both internal or external, on the Israeli government and her people, which led the Netanyahu government to sanction this risky operation, that subjects Israel to tremendous external condemnation and pressure. However, I CAN understand that those who are rushing to condemn Israel for her actions have not had the chance to learn all the facts, and hardly rush to judgment with clean hands themselves, or in an unbiased manner.

I am saddened that the effort towards legitimate mutual recognition between Israel and her Palestinian neighbors, and towards true and lasting peace in that region of the Middle East, have taken a precipitous step backwards, and call upon all parties to reverse this course away from a negotiated peace that can be the only legitimate solution for all parties concerned. I condemn the calculated efforts of those who would use this conflict for their own perverse political ends, and those who rush to judgment without all the facts -- all of whom do more damage to the already wounded peace process than this incident itself.

I myself will look forward to learning the truth about this incident, as the facts become known, and will withhold all further judgments until the facts ARE known.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

The Power of Memory

Zikaron – The Power of Memory --
D’var Torah for Parshat B’ha’alotekha and Memorial Day Weekend
Rabbi Steve Weisman – Temple Solel, Bowie MD May 28, 2010

As we pick up our Torah portion for this Shabbat, the final details of serving the central, albeit movable, shrine in the Wilderness are put into place, and for the first time since God appeared to us all on Mt. Sinai to give us the Law, our ancestors are going on the move. It is the first day of a new year (counting from the spring), either the first celebrated in freedom, or the second. it is a fascinating thing about the dates during the Exodus – the dates, all counting from our escape, are not entirely clearly expressed, so both possibilities are reasonable.

By the end of the portion that starts so hopefully, the entire community has lapsed back into its all too familiar pattern – the people kvetched about EVERYTHING! There is a general outcry, and one that leads to the giving (again!?) of manna. This latter leads God to have Moses call together 70 elders, so God might call them on the carpet. But while this was happening, 2 others, left behind in the camp, start to prophesy. When Joshua, serving as Moses’ Rahm Emanuel, heard this, he became incensed. But Moses calmed him, and pointed out how great it would be if EVERY Israelite had the power of prophecy.

Then God provided quail, to further assuage the grumbling hunger of the people, who became so gluttonous, that a plague broke out against them. And finally, even Aaron and Miriam were moved to call out Moses publicly, allegedly over his marriage to a Cushite woman, but more likely as a challenge to his sole leadership. Interestingly, in this last incident, although clearly BOTH Aaron and Miriam were involved, only Miriam was punished by God.

It is already clear, well in advance of next Shabbat’s fiasco with the 10 spies, that our ancestors’ behavior was already questionable enough to make God consider killing them off as unworthy to enter the Promised Land. It is already clear that, beloved and respected though he was by his people, Moses’ leadership still left something to be desired. In other words, the Torah is painting us a picture of our ancestors that is anything BUT idealized or airbrushed to hide the human blemishes. They are depicted in startlingly real and honest terms!

And so it is on this Shabbat evening in our own place and time. As we gather on this night of significance in American tradition, things are very similar for us as they were for our ancestors. The need for change in our national life, and the concerns for our national leadership that allowed a charismatic candidate who spoke so eloquently of change to become our President are still very real tonight, and fueling other calls for change that may not be so positively inspired or intended. We literally tonight sit here as the worst oil spill in history continues to contaminate the Gulf of Mexico, as the smoldering question of immigration reform is being thrust to the forefront of our national consciousness, and as few, if any actual changes for the better have yet to occur.

It is easy and tempting to draw the same conclusions about our leaders as many draw from our Torah text. Easy, but not necessarily accurate, or even useful. Because the truth is, in difficult times, until we can look inside ourselves and be sure that we are not part of the problem ourselves, we really don’t have a right to point the finger of blame at others. Yet the truth is that all too often, we do!

It is easy to blame the oil industry in general, and their most ardent supporters, especially those who set policy during the presidency of JR Ewing, er, the second George Bush, in particular, for the disaster in the Gulf. But the truth is, while BP deserves much blame, as do the sub-contractors, including the same Halliburton Corporation that has such strong connections to Dick Cheney, who authored that energy policy after meeting with his oil industry cronies, and then refused to allow anyone to know what transpired in their meetings, that a significant cause for this all-too-extended environmental nightmare is the lack of oversight from the regulatory apparatus of our government. The process of neutering those agencies’ abilities to protect we the people began with Reagan, but was not reversed, and was, in fact, accelerated, by Bill Clinton. It is, therefore, truly NOT a partisan political issue, but indicative of the larger nature of the problem.

But a significant part of the blame also must sit squarely on the shoulders of we, the people! We have NOT done anything significant to cure our own chemical dependency on petroleum products, especially gasoline for our cars and trucks, and therefore encouraged our co-dependent partners in the oil industry. Even now, in the midst of the outrage directed rightly against BP, there are still a large number of people who, when asked, not only won’t boycott BP until they start cleaning things up effectively, but who have said that if BP’s prices are the lowest, they will reward the company by buying their product!

Compare that to the fallout from the Exxon Valdez spill not that many years ago, which did so much damage to Exxon’s sales that they eventually were forced into a buy-out by Mobil, which many believe never should have been approved on anti-competitive grounds – yet another example of oversight failings!

Friends, it seems to me there is a larger issue here, one that underlies all the challenges we face today in our country. One which is the central message of this weekend, if not this Shabbat (although I find hints of it in the Torah portion as well). We are, as a country, suffering a failure of memory, that is allowing mistakes of the past to be repeated, with far greater damage in our more complex world.

And it begins with Memorial Day itself. NO ONE needs to be reminded that the pools all open this weekend. NO ONE needs to be reminded that this weekend has come to mark the official beginning of summer. Yet, more and more each year, or so it seems, we feel the need to consciously remind ourselves that the Memorial in Memorial Day refers to those who gave their lives to defend our country, to find ways of acknowledging those for whom the very holiday was created!

Zikaron – the importance of memory. Our Jewish tradition is centered in this core concept. The response of the generation that survived the greatest atrocity in human terms in history – the Sho’ah, the Holocaust – has been to make even more sacred the idea of remembering. Remembering, not just for the sake of having a record of what happened in the past. But real, active remembering that leads to pro-activity in the present to avoid repetition in the future. The exact embodiment of the antidote to Santayana’s lament about those who fail to learn the lessons of history being condemned to repeat them.

And it starts in no less significant a moment for us as Jews than the theophany at Sinai – when God gave us the Law. According to the text of Exodus 20, the commandment given by God at Sinai regarding Shabbat was to REMEMBER it, not, as we might have expected, to KEEP Shabbat (although THAT IS the verb in the repetition that appears in Deuteronomy!). Shabbat, as important as it is in its own right – so much so that Ahad Ha’am, the Russian Jewish writer and Zionist philosopher of the late 19th century, so famously wrote “More than Israel has kept the Sabbath has the Sabbath kept Israel!” – is framed, from the start, as being a remembrance of something even more fundamental in our history.

Or, more exactly, a remembrance of two of the three core incidents that define Judaism – the Creation of the world, and the Exodus from Egypt (the third, of course, being the actual receipt of the Law at Sinai of which this verse is a part!). I deliberately held the recitation of Qiddush tonight for its former place in the service – following the sermon – to allow us all to focus on the words we recite each Shabbat.

Look carefully at the text we chant together – the Qiddush basically has 2 parts, the second of which is almost an exact repetition of the first! There are exactly 2 differences. The first is the person by which we refer to God – the third person in the earlier part, the more intimate second person – You – in the latter. The second is the rationale given for why we celebrate Shabbat – ziqaron l’ma’asei V’reishit , a remembrance of the Creation – in the first part, and zeicher litziyat Mitzrayim – to remember the Exodus from Egypt – at the close.

Clearly, memory matters in Judaism. The transmission to future generations of the events of previous ones, and an understanding of those events, is essential for Jewish survival. Even in the greatest attempt to end Judaism since the Exodus, the natural Jewish response has been – to REMEMBER. Not simply to retell the events, however tragic and ghoulish. But to remember for the purpose of doing our darnedest to make sure that no one else ever suffers as we were forced to!

It is this concept of proactive remembering that I find lacking in our day. Only in this generation could a phrase like “That is SO last year!” gain traction as a legitimate negative criticism of an idea or behavior. For all our pining for nostalgia, we strive in our lives for “new and improved.” How else do we explain the compulsive need of so many to be the first to have a new technology – even before it has been fully debugged, or to be the first to see the hot new movie, or read the hot new book, or download the hot new song.

And so, I propose tonight, a terribly Jewish response to the challenges of our day. I propose that we take this Memorial Day weekend, and declare an embargo against moving forward – whether precipitously or otherwise! That we agree that we will do NOTHING new, but revel in the present and the past. That REMEMBERING will be the challenge of the weekend – refocusing ourselves on our core ideals, and recommitting that when we do move forward after the weekend, our actions will be in consonance with those ideals. No more progress for the sake of moving forward. No more rushing to get something done ahead of others, without doing our fullest due diligence to avoid later problems.
Remember those Ozzie and Harriet, Andy Griffin days when quality mattered more than how quickly we got things done. Remember the days when workers didn’t have to be told to make sure they were doing things right – they did so automatically, because otherwise they’d be looking for a new job. Where did they go? We need them back!

If our ancestors had learned these lessons, they wouldn’t have kvetched about being hungry, and earned God’s wrath. If they had remembered being hungry, the manna would have been enough, and they wouldn’t have demanded more, wouldn’t have been guilty of the gluttony that led to plague.

If America had remembered the failures of Jimmy Carter as president, we might have been more careful about the kind of change and change manager we voted for as President. If we don’t learn the lessons we are facing now, I fear that the next time around, the groundswell for change will be far greater. And, as important as it is for us to change and fix what is wrong in our national life, too great an effort at change too quickly – the “revolutionary” approach being pushed by the “Tea-Party” movement, risks making a bad situation far worse. Memory teaches me that. Memory makes me concerned when I see the signs of past mistakes being repeated.

On this Shabbat of remembering that which SHOULD be important, we need to make sure the message of the importance and power of memory is what we stress.

2 exciting new Spin-Off Blogs

We here at the Weis Man Empire in the blogosphere are always looking for ways to expand our reach and our readership.

Today we are excited to announce the launch of 2 new blogs -- both linked here already thru my profile.

The first is called "The Driving Force" and is a very serious undertaking. Orange Vest Guy has come out of retirement, persuaded that he has, perhaps, found a meaningful way to help influence driving safety in and around Bowie for the better. Check him out, and help the cause, at http://drivingforcebowie.blogspot.com

The second is a much lighter effort, the undertaking of my old friend L.P. Trax, called "Old Guys Playin Rock and Roll." It will be a site for discussion and debate about music of the last 5 decades (ouch that hurt to write!), as well as a place for concert news and reviews. http://oldguysplayinrocknroll.blogspot.com

As always, enjoy all the offerings found here -- and spread the word -- these two new sites will work best with much larger readership!