Archive for the '1.02 Noah' Category

The Right Dove: A Study in Empathy

Published October 28, 2022 1.02 Noah , 8.1.3 Yom Kippur , Uncategorized Leave a Comment
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A few weeks ago, at Mincha on the afternoon of Yom Kippur we read the book of Yonah. There we saw a recalcitrant prophet unwilling to carry out God’s bidding. He was directed to speak truth to the power of Nineveh. Yadda yadda yadda…he was being vomited by whale. Finding himself back on dry land he is called a second time to prophesize to the people of Nineveh. This time he carries out the task, walking across the large city proclaiming, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” (Yonah 3:4) I was always troubled by what happened next. There we read:

Now Yonah had left the city and found a place east of the city. He made a booth there and sat under it in the shade, until he should see what happened to the city.

Yonah 4:5

Maybe Yonah wanted to leave the city out of fear of what would happen when it was overthrown. But, then why did stick around to see what would transpire? It just seems cruel or at least insensitive. It is as if he were child watching ants getting burned by the sun being focused by a divine magnifying glass. What is the nature of Yonah’s character?

I was thinking about Yonah this week when reading Noah, this week’s Torah portion. Here we see that the world has been overthrown and Noah is trying to figure out when to leave the ark and return to the world. At first, he sends out a Raven, but it was to no avail. While the rain has finally stopped the water had not receded. And then he sends out a dove. That does not work either. There we read:

He waited another seven days, and again sent out the dove from the ark. The dove came back to him toward evening, and there in its bill was a plucked-off olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the waters had decreased on the earth. He waited still another seven days and sent the dove forth; and it did not return to him any more.

Genesis 8:10-12

So the dove came back and saved Noah, what is the connection with the story of Yonah? Well it turns out that Yonah- the name of the prophet means dove. One dove is sent by God to get them to leave their evil ways out of fear of destruction. After delivering the message he sits out to see if they will pass or fail this test. The other dove is sent by Noah who has seen the world destroyed to help him determine when he can re-enter the world. This dove could have just made it life on dry land, but instead returns to invite Noah and the rest of the Ark to join them.

The difference between these two doves reminds me of one of my favorite scenes from The West Wing. The context hardly matters:


Leo McGarry’s character says:

This guy’s walking down a street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep, he can’t get out. A doctor passes by, and the guy shouts up, “Hey you, can you help me out?” The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a priest comes along, and the guy shouts up “Father, I’m down in this hole, can you help me out?” The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a friend walks by. “Hey Joe, it’s me, can you help me out?” And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, “Are you stupid? Now we’re both down here.” The friend says, “Yeah, but I’ve been down here before, and I know the way out.”

West Wing

Like the doctor and the priest, Yonah the prophet is the classic consultant. He told the people of Ninevah what was wrong as if tossing down a script or prayer and then sat on the side to watch. The dove is very different. The dove shows Noah how to get out of the hole. He knows how to get out of the ark and live in the world. As if to say, “Yeah, but I’ve been out here before, and I know the way.”

This makes me pause and reread the story of the dove in a new way. Why did the dove carry the proof of land in its mouth and not in its talon? Just like the friend in Leo McGarry’s story, it is not about what you say that is important, it only matters what you do. Noah needed proof of land to leave the ark. The way out was not through words, but the doves actions of bringing back the olive branch in its bill. The world is sustained by empathy- our capacity to jump into hole.

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A Shabbat Thought For Camp Post Roe v Wade

Published June 24, 2022 1.02 Noah , Uncategorized Leave a Comment
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Note to Camp Director: I offer you this message which you might adopt/adapt/share with you staff this Shabbat.

Shabbat Shalom. Welcome back to camp. I pause at this moment of our coming together in this place we love with the people we love at a time we love to give space to what some of us might be feeling at this moment. 

For so many of us, camp is special because when we come here we get to explore our best selves. Here we try on new elements of who each of us might be or are becoming. Camp is not just a location, time of the year, or even a group of people. Camp is an educational philosophy. Camp is a way of thinking about how we might self actualize and, in the process, help our campers do the same. Camp is a home away from home. Camp is a bubble away from all of that stuff out there. For many of us camp is the Shabbat of our year. 

I pause at this moment to recognize that many of us feel at risk. We find ourselves amidst the storm of COVID, political upheaval in Israel, rising racism and anti-Semitism, gun violence, war in Ukraine, and shifting of who makes laws about our bodies at home. Today, June 24th, the US Supreme Court overruled the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case. To many of us this ruling seems like a trespass of people’s personal and religious rights to have agency over their own bodies. This may feel scary. While this may or might not directly impact you or people you love, this ruling represents a challenge to our sacred Jewish obligation to prioritize the life and health of the pregnant person. What could our camp’s role be in supporting our community members who may feel existentially threatened? What role does our community play in helping people regain personal agency and their capacity to self-actualize?

I find some comfort in the words from the chorus to Yom Shabbaton – The Sabbath Day, a song traditionally sung on Shabbat. Written by Rabbi Yehuda Halevi (1075–1141), this poem describes the complete rest and peace of Shabbat. As we sing:

Yonah matz’ah vo manoach v’sham yanuchu y’giei choach.

The dove does find her rest, and there rest those whose strength is spent.

The dove that rested on the Shabbat day is instantly identifiable as Noah’s dove. Sent from the ark to check if the flood had receded, the tired dove found rest on the dry land (Genesis 8:12). Hidden amidst the chaos of a world that is destructive and painful, Shabbat is a small island poking out from the vast and threatening sea. While the world stands shattered and torn, this small perch for the dove is the first glimmer of hope for all of us. 

But it is hard to have hope, when we are feeling grief and loss. One quote that speaks to this feeling comes from Martin Prechtel’s The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise. He writes:

Grief expressed out loud for someone we have lost, or a country or home we have lost, is in itself the greatest praise we could ever give them. Grief is praise, because it is the natural way love honors what it misses.

Before we run ahead to meet the demands of the day — and we will —  let’s reflect on this praise for what we may miss. We might miss ideas and ideals of our country’s “more perfect union”. We might be missing the feeling of autonomy and agency. We also might be missing the feeling we have of self-actualization. For many of us this is something that we discovered here at camp. In this moment of grief I want to take a moment to praise, honor, and love our camp community as a home.

In seeing how many people feel unsafe right now, I find hope right here right now with you. In our coming together to make Shabbat at our camp we can find respite from the storm out there. Together we need to make camp for ourselves, each other, and our campers. From that perch, our community will start to rebuild our broken world. In this way, Shabbat will provide us Shalom– peace. Welcome back home. Shabbat Shalom.

Note to Camp Director: Thank you for everything that you do for our community. If we can be helpful  in anyway do not hesitate to be in touch avi@jewishcamp.org Also please share any resources that you might have so we can share it with the field. We are curating content for camps here.

If you or your staff need immediate mental health supports beyond your community’s capacity, for any reason, here are some resources to share:

  • Text “HOME” to 741-741 for the Crisis Text Line
  • Text “START” to 678-678 for The Trevor Project LGBTQ support center
  • Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) for free, confidential 24/7 support

Babel on the Hill: We All Need an Audience

Published October 8, 2021 1.02 Noah Leave a Comment
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Zoom-fatigue is real. I need people. These screen and zoom boxes are not cutting it.

This reminds me of a troubling story told in the name of the Besht:

There was a king who loved music but his real passion was the violin. A fiddler was brought to him to play and one particular melody captivated him. He instructed the musician to play this melody several times a day. After a time the musician grew weary of the tune and found it hard to play it with the same passion as before. To rekindle the fiddler’s love for his favorite melody, the king was advised to summons a new audience every day. Strangers were brought into his palace who had never heard the melody.
This arrangement seemed to work. A new audience stirred the fiddler to play with enthusiasm again until there was no one left to invite. What to do?
It was decided to blind the musician so that he never see a human form again. He then sat before the king and whenever the king sought to hear his favorite tune he would simply say “Here comes someone new, One who has never heard you play before!”
And musician would play his tune with the greatest joy.

I will come back to violence another time. But it is clear that we need an audience. It is really hard to perform without one. I was thinking about this when reading John Winthrop’s, oft quoted homily, City on a Hill from 1630. He wrote: 

For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God’s sake. We shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going.

John Winthrop
Searching for the City on a Hill: Tracing the Roots of America's Metaphor

It is interesting that Winthrop and subsequently America has cast an imagination that the whole world is watching as they build this city perched on a hill. Our civilization is the stage and the world is our audience. It speaks to this basic need to be seen. And yes we will fail, but in having an audience we will always strive to become better.

I was considering all of this when thinking about the failure of the Tower of Babel. There we read:

Everyone on earth had the same language and the same words. And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there. They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them hard.”—Brick served them as stone, and bitumen served them as mortar.— And they said, “Come, let us build us a city, and a tower with its top in the sky, to make a name for ourselves; else we shall be scattered all over the world.”

Genesis 11:1-4

I offer for your consideration that they failed in building their Tower on a hill as an exemplary civilization precisely for the reason that ” everyone on earth” was involved in the project. They were all on stage. In not having audience they lacked motivation, inspiration, or accountability.

Do As I Say: On Role Models And Rainbows

Published October 23, 2020 1.02 Noah Leave a Comment
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It has happened more than once, I am mortified that one of my children is acting out and screaming and I want to communicate to them that this behavior is unacceptable. But instead of calmly telling them, I find myself losing my poop and screaming. Realizing the disconnect is simultaneously humbling and humorous. We all have these experiences as parents. Our intentions are good, but they just do not line up with our behaviors. “Do as I say, not what I do” never works. Our children learn from our example.

I was thinking about the idea of role modeling this week when reading Noah, this week’s Torah portion. After the flood Noah finally comes out of the ark and God gives him some directions. There we read: 

But for your own life-blood I will require a reckoning: I will require it of every beast; of man, too, will I require a reckoning for human life, of every man for that of his fellow man! Whoever sheds the blood of man, By man shall his blood be shed; For in His image Did God make man. (Genesis 9:5-6)

God tells Noah that the penalty for murder is the death penalty. Overlooking the fact that the Torah does not spell out that killing is a prohibited until Exodus, what are the implications of the court’s of the state doing the reckoning? Like a parent trying to quiet a child by screaming, how can the state stop someone from killing with the death penalty? Is this effective?

I was thinking about this idea of capital punishment when watching an extraordinary TED talk by Byran Stevenson. It really is a must watch:

The topic of how we need to talk about an injustice is very compelling. For me the most brilliant part of his talk is how he framed the conversation about the capital punishment around identity.

Once Stevenson was giving a lecture in Germany about the death penalty. About this he said:

It was fascinating because one of the scholars stood up after the presentation and said, “Well you know it’s deeply troubling to hear what you’re talking about.” He said, “We don’t have the death penalty in Germany. And of course, we can never have the death penalty in Germany.” And the room got very quiet, and this woman said, “There’s no way, with our history, we could ever engage in the systematic killing of human beings. It would be unconscionable for us to, in an intentional and deliberate way, set about executing people.” And I thought about that. What would it feel like to be living in a world where the nation state of Germany was executing people, especially if they were disproportionately Jewish? I couldn’t bear it. It would be unconscionable. In America we clearly disassociate ourselves from the law. It is unconscionable how these laws are radically unjust to people of color. And for many of us who are not subject to this discrimination we have the luxury of being unconscious about the impact of this legal system. Our laws should manifest our attempt to bring about justice in the world. What would it look like if we identified ourselves by our laws? It seems that our laws are mostly punitive. What would our laws look like if they were framed as an expression of love?

Is the law given to Noah punitive or an act of love? It is unconscionable for the state to kill someone for killing. It just does not work.

This is even more complicated by the fact that God instructs Noah about the death penalty after God just destroyed the world. God just committed mass genocide and God is tell us not to kill. Are we supposed to learn from God’s instruction or God’s behavior?

It is easy to dismiss this on theological terms because God is exceptional as , well, God. That said, there is still a question of its efficacy. Despite knowing the consequence of murder human beings killing each other has been a leitmotif of our history. How might we change this behavior and end murder?

One way to think about it might be in terms of the humbled parent. Is it possible that in saying this law to Noah God has a similar realization which is humbling? Right after communicating these rules God says:

I now establish My covenant with you and your offspring to come, and with every living thing that is with you—birds, cattle, and every wild beast as well—all that have come out of the ark, every living thing on earth. I will maintain My covenant with you: never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. ( Genesis 9:9- 11)

God goes on to establish the rainbow as a symbol of God’s promise that God will not destroy us again. There we read:

When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures, all flesh that is on earth. (Genesis 9: 16)

As much as we might take the rainbow as a sign for us, it seems more like a reminder for God. The rainbow actually serves as a mnemonic for God to remember to be a better role model. From this we learn that we can all strive to do better and live as examples.

-See another piece on Stevenson

Start With Why: On Noah, Avraham, and 10th Grade

Published November 1, 2019 1.02 Noah , 1.03 Lech Lecha Leave a Comment
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My son Yadid was asked to give a D’var Torah at his 10th grade Shabbaton. I love how he really thought about the best message for his peers. What does it mean to be in 10th grade? I love how deep and inspiring he is. I love that he is exploring his passions. Enjoy:

In the beginning of this week’s torah portion, Noah is described as a tzadik, perfect in his generations; Ish Tzadik Tamim Haya B’Doratav. Why does the Torah write, in his generations- B’Doratav ?

Rashi answers this question saying that in comparison with his own generation Noah was accounted righteous, but if he had lived in the generation of Abraham he would have been nobody of significance. So I had to ask, WHY is Avraham the model Tzadik and WHY is Noah sub par? 

I recently saw a Ted talk by Simon Sinek, that helped me answer that question. He drew this chart to answer his own question, WHY are some leaders able to inspire, while others aren’t? And he explained it in the following way:

The Golden Circle

Every single person, every single organization knows WHAT they do. 100 percent 

Some know HOW they do it 

But very, very few people, or organizations know WHY they do what they do. What is your purpose, what’s your cause, what’s your belief? 

He explained that most people communicate from the outside in, starting with the what, and ending with the WHY. We should be doing things in reverse, like Apple. As Simek says:

They begin by saying everything we do, we believe in changing the status quo. We believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use, and user friendly. We just happen to make great computers, want to buy one? There’s nothing that makes Apple structurally better than any other company, their competitors are all equally qualified to make these products. In fact DELL tried this. They released an mp3 player. they make perfectly designed, quality products and nobody bought one. We can’t even imagine buying a MP3 player from DELL, WHY would you buy a MP3 player from a computer company, But we do it every day. People don’t buy what you do, they buy WHY you do it. The goal is not to do business with everyone who needs what you have. The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe. 

So if Simon Sinek were to answer the question, WHY is Avraham the model Tzadik and WHY is Noah sub par? 

Noah is told to build an ark, that is the WHAT. He is given instructions, that is is the HOW. It is only after this that God even informs him of God’s plan to destroy the world. The WHY is to save the animals and humanity from the flood, but it comes after the WHAT and HOW. As we will see next week, Avraham starts with WHY. Lech Lecha– go to yourself, become your authentic self. HOW? Journey from your home of origin. WHAT? Build a great nation. Sinek would most likely say that Noah was like DELL. He went from the outside, in- WHAT, HOW, WHY whereas Avraham is like Apple- going from the inside out, WHY then HOW, then WHAT.

In preparing this Dvar Torah I thought to myself, what do all of us have in common, we are all in 10th grade. Last year 9th Grade was about orienting to high school. Next year is about the SATs and ACTs. And 12th grade is about college and Israel. But what is 10th??? It could be nothing, just a WHAT- going to class. This year could easily pass us by. Or, if we take advantage, 10th grade could be, no, should be the year we find our WHY!

I have been struggling to find my WHY, but after my dad pressured, day after day, I think I’m getting closer. My WHY is that I want to inspire people, my HOW is developing my public speaking skills, and my WHAT often is me talking with people, chilling, and right now, my WHAT is this Dvar Torah. Now I hope to inspire you to move beyond Noah, beyond the WHAT and HOW perspective, and think like Avraham, starting with WHY! 

Some of you might look at me asking “I don’t have my WHY, so what should I do?” My suggestion for you is to try one on! You might be worried that you will try out a WHY and realize it’s not for you, but as we learn from the sage, Rick Sanchez, from Rick and Morty, “It’s about the journey, not the destination” In the pursuit of our WHY’s, we will learn how to live passionately, inspiring others. 

Mark Twain said, “the two most important days in your life are when you are born and when you find out WHY.” so I ask of us, all of us, What is our WHY!??!   Thank you, and good shabbas. 

I am so proud of his guy. Clearly our family are Sinek Hassidim. Here are other pieces I have written over the years on his Torah:

The Nature of Human Nature : Noah and Positive Psychology

Published October 12, 2018 1.02 Noah Leave a Comment
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As I have written about in the past at the start of the summer I had the pleasure of going to the International Positive Education Network (IPEN) conference in Fort Worth Texas. IPEN aims to bring together teachers, students, parents, higher education, charities, companies and governments to promote Positive Education. The objective of Positive Education is not only to improve students’ well-being but also their academic performance. Positive Education is the programmatic/educational cousin of Positive Psychology. Positive Psychology is a branch of psychology that complements the traditional focus on pathology with the study of human strengths and virtues and the factors that contribute to a full and meaningful life. There at the conference I got to hear Dr. Martin Seligman , the father of Positive Psychology, explain the history of how the shift from focusing on pathology to building on strengths and how that opened up a whole scientific study of human flourishing.

At the conference I learned about a ton of compelling research proving the success of this work and many interesting strategies that people are employing to support their students’ flourishing. Hearing Seligman, I was moved thinking about how much of the shift from a pathology to strength based approach is actually determined by your fundamental understanding of the human condition. Our primary myth of who we are as people might itself set limits to our imagination and capacity to flourish and be successful. Since that time I have been giving a lot of thought to the stories we decide to tell that might help us flourish.

I was thinking about this shift this week when reading Noach, this week’s Torah portion. There after God flood Noah makes a sacrefice to God and in response God describes humanity. There we read:

The Lord smelled the pleasing odor, and the Lord said to God’s self: “Never again will I doom the earth because of man, since the devisings of man’s mind are evil from his youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living being, as I have done.” (Genesis 8:21).

While the result of not destroying the world is a good thing, what do we make of God’s assessment of human nature? The idea that we are evil from our youth implies a certain pathology of the human condition. When we are operating from this place of pathology our future is engraved and fixed in stone. How else might we understand our Torah portion?

On a related note in regard to the creation of human beings God remarks that we have become divine in nature. There we read, “Behold, man has become one of Us” (Gen. 3:22). When exploring this idea the Midrash says:

Scripture states elsewhere in allusion to this verse: Behold, this only have I found, that God made humanity upright (Eccles. 7:29); that is, the Holy One, blessed be God, who is called righteous and upright, created humanity in God’s own image so that humans might be upright and righteous like God. However, if you should ask: Why did God create the evil inclination, concerning which it is written: The inclination of man’s heart is evil from his youth (Gen. 8:21)?, you say thereby: Since humanity is evil, who can make humanity good? The Holy One, blessed be God, contends: You make him evil! Why is it that a child of five, six, seven, eight, or nine years of age does not sin, but only after he reaches the age of ten and upward does the evil inclination begin to develop in him? (Midrash Tanchuma, Bereshit 7:1)

This Midrash boldly seems to invert the idea from Noach as to the nature of humanities evil nature. According to this Midrash Human beings are actually born good and it is only later in life that they succumb to the evil inclination and sin. At the same time as a person grows in their practice they can build on our strengths and in so doing become truly free from sin. While fear of sin might be a good deterrent from destruction, we need a foundation of goodness upon which to build thriving lives.  Despite what others say about us or even what we say about ourselves we need to curate a positive understanding of the nature of human nature to help humanity thrive and manifest our divinity.

– Another blog post on Positive Psychology.

Memory Ark

Published October 20, 2017 1.02 Noah Leave a Comment
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What does it mean to lose your home?

Unfortunately millions of people face this reality after an earthquake rocked Mexico, and hurricanes ravaged Houston, Puerto Rico, Caribbean Islands, and southern Florida this past month. This week, the wild fires in North California have ravaged 5,700 houses and more than 213,000 acres. My heart goes out to the URJ Camp Newman family in Sonoma County, California, whose camp was destroyed in the fires. Millions have been left homeless in the wake of these natural disasters.

In this week’s Torah portion we learn of the devastation of the Flood and of the rainbow of rebuilding thereafter. God sends a flood to cover earth, taking with it families, homes, animals and habitats. After Noah does all that is asked of him, the animals are on the ark and the world is under water, we read:

And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged; the fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained.  (Genesis 8:1-2)

“God remembered” implies that God forgot Noah and all of creation while destroying the world. I think this part of the story plays on the human fear of being forgotten, the human need to be remembered, to know that we matter. Flood and fires have taken houses and buildings, but what about the memories of those homes? Where do they live?

It was with pride that we saw this human spirit thrive during the hurricane in Texas, when URJ Greene Family Camp and Camp Young Judaea Texas stepped up, opening their space to homeless, displaced families in need, even opening a day camp in Houston. Like Noah, they found a way to use their camp as an ark to help people that they needed shelter.

With the most recent news of the horrific fire that took URJ Camp Newman, we immediately saw the outpouring of support from the camp community. Alumni reminisced on Facebook, and shared photos. California campers from different movements started crowd-funding campaigns for their URJ friends. URJ Camp Newman’s year-round programming has been rescheduled to be hosted at local synagogues. For so many, Jewish camp is a second home, a sanctuary that helps us find shelter, comfort and spirit. The spirit of camp, the feeling of family and home reach far beyond the physical buildings they gather in.  The difference is that a home is a house with memories. God remembered Noah, and Noah had to remember the world. What is the ark for their memories?

The primary urgency is to find a place for Newman to run their program until they can rebuild their camp.   Like Noah they will need to rebuild society post destruction. In all of this I do not want to forget memory. In addition to the existing social media I think there is a great opportunity to create a website for Newman to store their collective memories in a more organized way. What would it look like to click on a map of camp and reconnect to the layers and generations of memories there? As a community, we cannot undo the damage of natural disasters but we can help keep the memories of these homes alive. Our support goes out to Newman community. If you want to support this project building them a memory ark please be in touch.

 

The Tower of Trump: On Civic Ignorance

Published November 4, 2016 1.02 Noah 4 Comments
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In a 2012 appearance in New Hampshire  former Supreme Court Justice David Souter made some striking and prescient remarks about the dangers of “civic ignorance”. This video has been circulating and worth seeing:

 I was most struck when he said:
I don’t worry about our losing republican government in the United States because I’m afraid of a foreign invasion. I don’t worry about it because I think there is going to be a coup by the military as has happened in some of other places. What I worry about is that when problems are not addressed, people will not know who is responsible. And when the problems get bad enough, as they might do, for example, with another serious terrorist attack, as they might do with another financial meltdown, some one person will come forward and say, ‘Give me total power and I will solve this problem.’… That is how the Roman republic fell. Augustus became emperor, not because he arrested the Roman Senate. He became emperor because he promised that he would solve problems that were not being solved.
Civics is important. We need to know who is responsible and then we can demand performance from those people. If we are ignorant of civics, we are at risk of peril. This is not a risk from the outside, but the inside. Like Augustus, with little regard for democratic norms and political institutions, Donald Trump has come forward seeking power, assuring the public that he’ll solve our problems, exploiting fears and civic ignorance. Trump will not make American great again. He is an outgrowth of our civic ignorance. Trump really just wants to make his name great.
I was thinking about this in the context of Noah, this week’s Torah portion, where we learn about the Tower of Babel. There is says:
And they said one to another: ‘Come, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly.’ And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said: ‘Come, let us build us a city, and a tower, with its top in heaven, and let us make us a name; lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.’ (Genesis 11: 3-4)
Modeled on his gauche Trump Towers his campaign is built on the disturbing idea of building a wall on the Mexican border.  Trump is not offering solutions to real problems, rather he is offering the confused ( read here mivubal) masses a just a place to  ” let us make us a name”.
In Souter ‘s remarks he references a quote from Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson said:
If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed.
I think we need to reflect on this before we vote on Tuesday. We need to vote against the bigoted  anti-Intellectualism of Trump.  I am not saying that Hillary is beyond critique, but she is no Augustus. To save our republic we need to elect Hillary and bring down this Tower of Babel on which Trump is trying to put his name. On Wednesday we will have to do the hard work of dealing with our widespread civic ignorance.

Looking for Noah: Prophesy for Our Times

Published October 16, 2015 1.02 Noah Leave a Comment
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When I stop to reflect on this last week and Noah, this weeks Torah portion, there are actually almost too many connection points. When we read :

And the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with hamas- violence. And God saw the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. (Genesis 6:11-12)

It is hard reading this without thinking of the situation in Israel right now with all of the stabbings and violence. As with the generation of Noah you have to ask what would make people act this way? There is no doubt that the status quo in Israel needs to change, but this will not make it change for the better. I am afraid it will take generations to heal from this pain and corruption.

And then you get to the flood itself and it is impossible not think about issue we have with climate change. It seems hard to argue with the fact that our treatment of the world has led to a situation in which we are putting our children at risk if not ourselves.

And then we get to the dispersion of the descendants of Noah after the destruction of the Tower of Babel. There we read:

And the Lord said: ‘Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is what they begin to do; and now nothing will be withheld from them, which they purpose to do. Come, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.’So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth; and they left off to build the city. Therefore was the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth; and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. ( Genesis 11:6-9)

It is impossible for me to read this without thinking about the current global refugee crisis. Europe is terrified that it will become confounded by the sudden influx of displaced Muslim and Arabs fleeing regimes that look to build up their control and their name.

With so many parallels between the Torah portion of Noah and the headlines it is easy to read it as some sort of cautionary prophesy. I am just looking for our generation’s Noah. He or she need not be perfect, but we desperately need leadership that will save our world for the next generation.

Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Mickey, Noah, and Gun Control

Published October 24, 2014 1.02 Noah Leave a Comment
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This past week I had the pleasure to take a group of camp professionals and educators to a backstage tour of Disney. We got to see how they “over-manage” the people, place, and policies of Disney to ensure spectacular costumer service and remarkable mission alignment. It was great, but a little scary that Mickey Mouse is everywhere. At night our group met under Mickey’s hat from Fantasia to go see the “town”. In the context of trying to learn about the magic of Disney it is not surprising to this iconic image of Mickey as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice all over the place.   images

So what is the story of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice? The scene starts with Sorcerer Yen Sid working on his magic and his apprentice Mickey doing the chores. After soindexme magic, Yen Sid puts his hat down and retires to his room. When he is out of sight, Mickey puts the hat on and tries the magic on a broom. He commands the broom to carry buckets of water to fill a vat. Mickey is satisfied, he sits on the chair and falls asleep. He dreams he is a powerful sorcerer high on top of the world commanding the stars, planets, and water. Mickey wakes up to find the room is filled with water, the vat is overflowing, and the broom is not stopping. Mickey tries to stop the broom but with no success. He grabs an ax and chops the broom into many pieces. Just when it seems that it is all over, the pieces grow into more brooms with buckets of water. The brooms keep going to the vat and fill it up. Mickey tries to get the water out but they were too many brooms. Mickey goes to a book and looks for a spell to stop the brooms. Mickey finds himself in a whirlpool. Just then, Yen Sid comes in and sees this and with a wave of his hands, the water descends and the army of brooms decreases to one broom. Yen Sid glares at Mickey who gives him back his hat back and the broom. He picks up the buckets and starts back slowly to finish his chores. At the end, Yen Sid whacks Mickey from behind with the broom and Mickey runs out.

As I was traveling around Disneyland I could not help thinking about Noah, this week’s Torah Portion. There we read about God cleansing the world from evil. There we read:

And the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah: ‘The end of all flesh is come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. ( Genesis 6:11-13)

On one level there is the interesting role that Noah plays as God’s loyal apprentice. But in this case, as compared to Mickey, Noah does his job well and actually saves humanity from God’s heavy duty water cleaning service. A more interesting connection is to the presence of Hamas– violence in the world. Why would otherwise good people act so poorly?

This is connect to a scene in Sorcerer’s Apprentice that you might have missed. As a mentioned above, Micbreakkey lost control of the broom and could not stop it. At a critical moment he takes out an ax thinking it will stop the broom. Instead of stopping the broom it increased his problem exponentially creating many more brooms flooding the room. This seems to connect to our cycle of violence and incarceration and the lack of gun control in this country. When someone does an offense we send them to prison which has not proven to rehabilitate them. Violence is met with violence increasing violence exponentially. All in the name of maintaining control. Why didn’t Mickey just remove the bucket from the broom?  Wayne Lapierre head of the NRA is oft quoted saying, The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun.” The answer to destruction cannot be violence which will make even more destruction in the world. Why is it normal for us to expect that Mickey would just take an ax to the broom? This points at the banality of evil both ancient and contemporary.

 

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