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Three Things to Get you through the Coronavirus Quarantine

4/9/2020

Originally published in the Erie Times-News, April 4, 2020

https://www.goerie.com/entertainmentlife/20200404/rabbi-mark-asher-goodman-things-to-get-you-through-coronavirus

It is doubtful any of us has experienced anything quite as challenging as quarantining ourselves at home in an effort to combat a global pandemic.

The monotony of confinement behind the four walls of our homes is starkly contrasted against the terrifying news we read around the worldwide epidemic of COVID-19.

We are all experiencing a pair of human emotions, boredom and fear, that are rarely paired together. These are trying times for all of us, for so many reasons.

The wisdom of different spiritual traditions has carried their practitioners through all kinds of crises; disasters ranging from national to personal, and illnesses of the body, the mind and the soul. Here are a few suggestions from my own faith tradition that might help folks of any faith get through these difficult times a little easier.

Practice selflessness

In times of fear, it is a natural human reaction to put ourselves first over all else. The spiritual person resists this impulse and remembers that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. Quarantining ourselves is an example of this principle – we avoid others in efforts to stop the spread and keep our neighbors alive. But we must also remember those around us in need – the elderly folks on our own block that might need help shopping or our local food bank that is seeing increased demand because of all the laid-off workers. The Jewish tradition demands of us to do acts of kindness – “Gemilut Hasadim” – and give monetary donations – “Tzedakah” – as basic components of our faith. We must put the needs of others on par with our own needs.

Make time for a spiritual practice

Take time away from the news on TV and from computer screens and take a moment to yourself, every day. Go someplace quiet – or just put on some headphones. Clear your mind. Just breathe, and think about your breath. Focus on a tree or an image out your window and hold that image. Take a phrase that is calming and uplifting – maybe the same one all week or all month, maybe a new one every day. and repeat it softly. Do this every day for 10 minutes. Make time and space to just be, and to be calm.

Call at least one person each day

Being alone in a crisis can be awfully scary. Now is the time to reach out to friends, acquaintances, and family members, if only to check in and say, “I’m thinking about you.”

We must all put forth more effort to care for ourselves and for others right now. We will get through this together, even if we are socially distanced.

Reflections is a column by religious leaders in the region. Rabbi Mark Asher Goodman is the spiritual leader serving Brith Sholom Congregation, 3207 State St.

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Universal Compassion

2/12/2020

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Originally published by the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle on January 15, 2020
https://jewishchronicle.timesofisrael.com/universal-compassion/

A fundamental struggle of the Jewish people, and truthfully, of all ethnically and religiously distinct peoples, is striking a balance between parochialism and universalism — taking care of our own versus taking care of everybody, regardless of who they are.

Of course, it makes sense to take care of our own first — to see our brothers and sisters across the world that say the same prayers and pray to the same God and feel an obligation to help them in times of need. And, of course, that does not absolve us in any way for being compassionate and caring for all humans when we are in a position to be helpful and compassionate.

This tension comes into high relief in this week’s parsha of Shemot — Exodus. The Israelites have grown into a large people, living in a land not their own and finding themselves under the thumb of a tyrant who not only enslaves them all, but eventually resorts to infanticide to try and control their numbers.

Israel emerges as a nation unto itself, but that emergence occurs in a foreign land — the first real Jewish nation emerges in exile. That first Jewish nation also begins to understand itself through interactions with the Egyptian nation. We learn who we are by being in relation to another nation, and not just on our own in isolation. These lessons are learned one interaction at a time, from Egyptian to Israelite, and Israelite to Egyptian.

We see it four times in this parsha.

In the first instance, Pharaoh declares that all the Hebrew firstborn males should be killed. But the women responsible for carrying out the decree, the midwives to the Hebrews, refuse to do it. They take on great personal risk to defy a tyrant on behalf of a group of foreigners — out of compassion, and because it is the right thing to do. It is important to note that the ethnic identity of the midwives is somewhat unclear — the Torah calls them “Hebrew midwives,” but might mean “midwives to Hebrews.” The famous 15th-century commentator Abarbanel (and I) think it means they were Egyptians.

The second occurrence of universal compassion is when Pharaoh’s daughter draws the Hebrew infant from the water and calls him Moses. Again, why would a royal princess feel the need to raise an orphan, a foreigner, a discarded child that was literally refuse of the river? She knows Moses is an Israelite. She could have certainly turned a blind eye and said, “This child is not of my people — this baby is not my problem.” But she did the right thing for a person from a completely different ethnic clan out of pure sympathy and love.

The third time is when the royal prince Moses goes out to see the state of his empire, and witnesses a taskmaster beating an Israelite. Moses steps in to protect the Israelite, and in doing so, kills the taskmaster. It is unclear at this moment whether Moses knows that he is a Hebrew — the Torah doesn’t have an instance of Moses being addressed as a Hebrew until God speaks to him at the burning bush — but I prefer to see this as a moment, again, of a person doing the right thing for a foreigner at great personal risk for themselves.

And finally, Moses flees Egypt for the Land of Midian, where he finds Tzipporah and her sisters at the well, being harassed by shepherds. Moses takes on great personal risk and drives off the shepherds. It is not the safe thing to do, or the self-interested thing to do; it is the right thing to do. But just as non-Israelites saved him, here we find Moses stepping in to save non-Israelites.

The Torah’s message in Shemot is abundantly clear: yes, you should take care of your own. But the entire story of Moses’ redemption is filled with peoples of different backgrounds — Israelites, Midians, and Egyptians — looking out for each other. Moses learns those lessons and returns the favor when given the chance to stand up for others who do not look like him or speak his language.

Our tradition hardwires the idea of universal compassion into the story of our specific national salvation and redemption, and we are expected to continue that tradition. From the Central Americans who risk their lives to escape poverty and violence, to local Pittsburghers who struggle to pay the heating bill throughout the winter, we are expected to take care of our neighbors, whether they look like us or not. As the descendants of Moses and as the recipients of generations of kindness and salvation in exile, we are expected to extend universal compassion to those around us who are experiencing hardship, and to do it without regard for our own personal self-interest. pjc

Rabbi Mark Asher Goodman is rabbi at Brith Sholom Jewish Center in Erie, Pennsylvania. He lives in Pittsburgh.

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Why Abraham? Parshat Lech Lecha 5780

11/9/2019

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Normally I like to ease into words of Torah with the classic rabbinic entry point of a story or a joke or something to wet your intellectual appetite, but with this week’s parsha, parshat lech lecha, there’s been a deep and fundamental question that has been on my mind for weeks, and I have to just start right in the meat of things.

The question is simple: why Abraham?

God could choose any human being to be the progenitor of the Jewish people. God could select any set of qualities and attributes to lay down as the fundamental building blocks of a people - by selecting a person with the exact right characteristics and values that would inspire the tribe of Israel. God, a theoretically all-powerful and all-knowing being, would know exactly what Abraham would do in the future - what his future acts would be, and why those acts would inform the next 3,000 years of Jews in how they ought to act in the world. So, why Abraham? What were the qualities that made him worthy to be the patriarch of the world’s oldest monotheistic religion?

The first and simplest answer was that he answered the call. God said ‘lech lecha - go, go yourself’, and Avraham went. He was willing to give up everything and start over on a whim; God said ‘I will make your name great’ and Abraham said ‘Ok. Sounds good.’ How many other people in a similar situation would have lacked the bravery, the faith, the sheer madness to simply say ‘yes’ to an adventure into the unknown at the urging of an unseen deity? Perhaps this is the embodiment of the phrase ‘Fortune favors the brave’, or maybe better the quote from Aaron Sorkin- ‘decisions are made by those that show up’. Abraham showed up, and that level of boldness and initiative is a characteristic that God desires in the creator and first CEO of Judaism.

So for one, a central characteristic of Abraham is that he is brave.
There are a couple of paradigmatic stories of Abraham’s life that give us some of his other key characteristics, and hint for us at the answer of ‘why Abraham?’

There’s the story of the Akeidah, which we all know well from its recitation on the second day of Rosh Hashanah - of Abraham bringing his only son, Isaac, up the mountain to be sacrificed. This story displays Abraham’s faithfulness in God, that he would sacrifice his only son because he believed so completely in God.

There’s the story of Abraham purchasing the tomb of the Machpelah, in which they offer to give him the land but he insists on paying for it, showing him to be both honest and shrewd, since he wants to be able to rightfully claim ownership to the tomb in perpetuity.

There’s the story of Sarah asking Abraham to expel Hagar, and Abraham asking God what to do, and God instructing Abraham to do it. This is a problematic story for another sermon. But I think here we can use it in one small respect to show that Abraham, although we might ultimately conclude he is flawed, is certainly obedient.

There’s Abraham circumcising himself as a sign of the covenant between him and God, showing that following Mitzvot - commandment - is another characteristic he has.

There’s the story of Abraham opening his tend to strangers and feeding them, demostrating his kindness and hospitality.

So we’ve got that Abraham is faithful; he is obedient; he is bold; he is brave; he is shrewd; he is obedient; he is kind.

But, here’s the thing - none of that is special. Noah was obedient - God told him to build an ark, and he did. Rebecca is kind * and * bold- she gives water to Abraham’s servant Eliezer and then waters Eliezer’s camels. Jacob is shrewd - he deceived both Esau and Laban and ended up with wealth and flocks. Leah is faithful - she suffered greatly and yet stay steadfast in her faith in God. Joseph has the power of prophecy. Isaac was a peacemaker that settled a dispute with Avimelech.

All of these people would make great first Jews - intrepid pioneers - paradigmatic individuals that broke the mold and in so doing become the mold by which we measure who we are as a people. None of them are the first Jew, and none of these characteristics, as I have described, are special enough to merit them being the first Jew.

There is a story that I left out, and it is a virtually unique story. It is the story of a man speaking truth to power.

In next week’s Torah portion we will read in parshat vaerah about Abraham at Sodom and Gomorrah. We will learn that God is anxious - a strange thing for an all power Divine being to feel, but perhaps if Jews are a nervous and anxious people it’s only because God Godself can sometimes be a bit of a nebbishy Woody Allen / Jerry Seinfeld style worry wort - but I digress. We learn that God is worried about revealing to Abraham that he is going to destroy the cities. That’s because of what Abraham ultimately does - he stops God. He stops God by asking the simple but critical question ‘Is this justice?’

Abraham has the brazenness and the temerity to question God’s actions - a moment that is nearly unprecidented in Torah. In fact the medival commentators note it when we look back several weeks to parshat Noach when they ask the question ‘why is Noach called ‘righteous in his generation’, and not simply righteous?’ Because when Noah was told of the destruction of others, he simply built a boat and saved himself. Abraham, on the otherhand, when told of the destruction of others at the hand of God, stopped and said, ‘really? Is this really how it’s going to be?’
I’m not the only one who notices how exceptional and out of character this moment is in Torah.

Abraham’s unique characteristic in this instance is defiance; it is questioning; it is fearlessness - on behalf of others that he doesn’t even know - in fealty to a principle, and against his own best interest.

It is this notion that the great hasidic master Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Pshischa notes in his comment to this story in the Torah. He writes

‘It is not enough for the righteous to park themselves on the benches of the Beit Midrash - the house of study. Instead the righteous must find themselves in the middle of the city, mixed in with the people, inextricably involved in the actions of the world. This is what a tzaddik is. As such, God will raise up and forgive the whole of the city on behalf of their actions.

For good or for ill, this characteristic resonates me on a deep level, because throughout my rabbinic career, it has come to define me.

It is why, in my first rabbinic interview at a synagogue in Dallas, I told the interview committee that I would perform gay and lesbian weddings even though I knew that was likely to be an unpopular position. It was a really good paying job. The senior rabbi didn’t like that I said that. I didn’t get that job.

It is why, when a wealthy parent at the day school leaned on me and my boss and his boss to get me to change her daughters grade in my class from a B+ to an A-, even though she didn’t deserve it, I said no.

It is why I took political positions in Denver on important moral issues regarding Israel that did not toe the party line or endear me to certain elements of the community - elements that eventually went on a full-blown organized campaign to get me fired, a campaign that ultimately succeeded if only because the head of the day school got tired of fielding complaints from members of the far-right who did not think I was suitably pro-Israel enough, because I had the temerity to express the moral opinion that perhaps the Palestinians deserve to be treated like human beings.

It is why, in 2016 in a sermon exploring the topic of the moral imperatives a Jew should carry into the voting booth, a certain multi-millionaire member of my congregation in Steamboat Springs gathered his family in a huff and walked out because he found the sermon too pointed and too political, although I merely recited some of the key imperatives of our religious doctrine - truth, morality, and the importance of caring for the stranger and the immigrant.

It is also why a few months ago I was extremely proud of our own Rabbi Adelson. In a follow up to another sermon, he noted that some members of the congregation were upset with him because he was, on occasion, too political. This specific occasion was in regard to immigrants and how they should or should not be treated when they enter the US seeking asylum. Rabbi Adelson expressed the position that Torah is a book of action and doing right by the other - it is a religion that commands us to get off the benches of the beit midrash and take to the streets to demand justice in the face of wickedness.

Let me say it another way. We are a sacred moral community. Our Torah is a book of actions, not a rallying point for mumbling in an ancient tongue while wearing the garb of our grandfathers and gathering for a shtickle of herring afterwards.

If a congregant does not believe in taking action against moral outrage, what they seek is not religion but a yacht club that serves herring.

I choose to be a part of a community of values and spiritual uplift.

A community that also serves herring.

And finally, all of that is why I was arrested three weeks ago at a protest downtown against the racist and bigoted rhetoric of our president. It was to counter the message we hear of blame and hate and scapegoating that has been spread for the past three years. I and my fellow protestors wanted to send a clear message to this president: until you denounce racists rather than call them very fine people; until you change your ways and stop stoking the flames of hate and division; you are not welcome in Pittsburgh. We are a city of bridges, not walls. This town lives by the values of Fred Rogers, not Steve Bannon.

We do not trade in the petty politics of fear and mistrust of our neighbors. Our president panders to the worst impulses of the human psyche - anger, and hate, and fear. He is the moral antithesis of all things Torah.

Rather, we love our neighbors.

His actions cannot be dismissed or ignored. It is why I was willing to go to jail - my first arrest - in order to send a message.
We as Jews choose to elevate, not denigrate our fellow human. To glorify and not belittle. And we desire at our very foundations to spread that love, trust, and positive energy to everyone while simultaneously counteracting all forces of negativity. We will stand up to the powerful, to God Godself, to make ourselves heard and stand for absolute justice, even if there might be great personal risk.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not Abraham. I’m just a guy that seeks to follow the path of Abraham, and has occasionally been bitten in the tuchus for it. Because I think that’s the only path; the path that our entire religion was created for.

To conclude, really, only two characters in the Torah have that story of being individuals that stood up to the most powerful - Abraham, and Moses. Moses, who saw a taskmaster beating a slave and would sooner commit murder than let injustice proceed. Moses, who stopped a genocide because a flaming bush told him to, and who went before the most powerful person on planet earth with nothing more than a promise from God and a nifty stick that could turn into a snake. Two humans that stood against injustice, and who become respectively the first Jew and the greatest prophet of our religion - by virtue of the example they set. Let’s walk in that path - the path of defiance, of questioning, of fearlessness. Shabbat Shalom.

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Divrei Torah

A 'Dvar Torah'; literally a 'word of Torah', is an explanation of a verse or a concept from the Torah. Enjoy Rabbi Goodman's takes on the weekly Torah portion, the holidays, or a matter of Jewish ethics here.

Three Things to Get you through the Coronavirus Quarantine

Universal Compassion

Why Abraham? Parshat Lech Lecha 5780

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