The Dream of Jerusalem:To Dwell Is To Make Peace Where We Dwell

      It is not what I had planned to write about as my Shabbat letter that week. It is not what I wanted to write about. It hurts, bringing tears, to feel enmeshed in the raw politics that swirl in the world around us. I am not a political commentator, but a lover of Torah, of people, of my people, of all people. I am called to respond when people are hurting. I look to Torah as a lens through which to look more clearly, at times as a telescope to see distant realities, and at times as a microscope to reveal what is right in front of us. Jerusalem is a magnet that calls us whether we want to be called or not. We cannot engage in Jewish prayer without speaking of Jerusalem. We cannot learn our holy texts without encountering, without entering the courtyards of Jerusalem. We cannot follow the cycle of the Jewish year and not be among the pilgrims making their way to Jerusalem, bearing gifts of field and flock. We cannot attend a Jewish wedding and celebrate the continuity of our people through one couple’s love without remembering Jerusalem, her destruction and her rebuilding.

        Memories flow unbidden. My first time in Jerusalem, the first morning, a Friday, walking in the streets and suddenly pausing, thinking it all seemed so familiar, taking in the scent through open windows and thinking, it all smells like Bobi’s kitchen. On a sabbatical, approaching the Kotel with my children, pointing out the site of the Holy Temple above. It was during Chanukkah and four year old Yossi rose up in ancient revolt, calling out to an imaginary Syrian-Greek soldier, “there is only one God!” It is the miracle that we emphasize, Yossi, the miracle that happened then, the right to be who we are, for all to be who they are, and the miracle that is still waiting to happen, waiting for us to bravely kindle the light and make peace.

      We had a house guest that week from Jerusalem, Rabbi Arik Ascherman, indefatigable, prophetic campaigner for justice and human rights, rights due to Jews, to Muslims, to Palestinians, to Israelis, to all people because they are people, human rights for all because they are human. It was late at night when he arrived. We began to speak of the day’s events, the day on which it was announced, the United States would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to the ancient city at the center of our people’s story. We began to talk, and then it seemed too heavy, too much. We turned to Torah. Rav Arik spoke of his favorite midrash on the week’s Torah portion, the portion called Vayeshev. As in the world, so in the Torah portion, itself a reflection of the world, so much of the mourner’s sackcloth and fasting, Yaakov for the loss of his beloved son, for Yosef now sold into slavery, torn from his family, for Reuven as eldest brother on failing to protect the younger brother. And what is the Holy One doing, the midrash asks, creating the light of the King Messiah/boreh oro shel melech ha’moshi’ach (B’reishit Rabbah 85:1). Before the Messiah will come, though, the Holy One is waiting for us to also kindle light.

     For some there was light on that day of the announcement, for others only darkness. If we would bring the peace and wholeness of the day that is neither day nor night, as we sing of Messianic time at the Pesach Seder, then there needs to be light for all. The miracle cannot be limited, its light constricted. As we stood in the kitchen late at night, two rabbis sharing words of Torah, knowing we were really talking about the events of the day, I shared an insight that came to me long ago on the first word of the portion Vayeshev. There is a fateful dynamic and challenge in that one word. Vayeshev ya’akov/and Jacob settled. With a slight grammatical shift, we have va’y’yashev ya’akov/and Ya’akov made peace. A phrase emerges in Hebrew, yishuv sich’such/to settle conflict. There is a strange rabbinic teaching on the word vayeshev: Every place it says ‘vayeshev,’ it is not but the language of pain/kol makom she’ne’emar vayeshev eyno eleh lashon tza’ar (Sanhedrin 106a).

          It is a teaching that has guided my life, to truly dwell, to settle in a place, we need to make peace in the place we dwell. And if not, then, alas, there shall be only pain. The rabbis say further that Ya’akov sought to live in tranquility when it was not yet time, failing to recognize the needs and realities that swirled around him. Offering commentary through the lens of his own gentle soul, the Torah T’mimah, Rabbi Boruch Ha’levi Epshtein (19th century), teaches of the responsibility of those who would walk among the righteous, there is not complete rest for them in this world because it is their duty only to repair the world and to fill its deficiencies/rak l’taken et ha’olam u’l’malei chesronote’ha.

     We were as Jacob that week, and so we are, as he was in that moment of seeking to dwell in the way he wished to before it was time, when there was yet too much work to do to dwell in tranquility. However much we wish to dwell at the intersection of the ideal and the real, it is not that time yet; there is too much work to do. In the relationship of Jews to Israel, in the way of day-to-day details of modern statehood, Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish state. We know only too well, though, when we allow it into our consciousness, that another people is still waiting for their state. Palestinians wait for the day when they too will dwell in a way that honors their love for the same city. In our shared love is a glimmer of hope, however hidden the light that the Holy One weaves, each strand touched with God’s tears. It is not yet time to proclaim and to act in a way that threatens the dwelling of others in the sharing of holy space. If only the proclamation had specified West Jerusalem, offering hope and shared yearning for the day when the capital of Palestine would rest in East Jerusalem, when the stories of two peoples would be told in the City of Peace/Ir Shalom. To dwell is to make peace where we dwell. If not, there shall only be pain.

          Whether in communal statements or in private conversations, to be true to the very meaning of Jerusalem there needs to be recognition of each one’s dreams. The flowering of the Jewish dream of Jerusalem internationally recognized for what it is as the capital of the Jewish state of Israel depends on equal recognition for the flowering of Palestinian dreams, of East Jerusalem as the internationally recognized capital of Palestine. The needs of Palestinians cannot be as an afterthought in communal, political, and religious statements. The weight of fifty years of occupation will only be made heavier if the fulfillment of one people’s dreams appears to defer yet longer the dreams of the other. If we do not make peace where we dwell, we shall only dwell in pain.

         The dream of Jerusalem has been deferred before, waiting for the right person, the right time. King David desperately wanted to build God’s house, the Temple in Jerusalem, but it was not yet time, as recorded in the Book of Chronicles: And David said to Solomon, My son, as for me, it was in my mind to build a house to the name of God my God; And the word of God came to me, saying, You have shed abundant blood, and have made great wars; you shall not build a house to my name, because you have shed much blood upon the earth in my sight. Behold, a son shall be born to you, who shall be a man of tranquility; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about; for his name shall be Sh’lomo/Solomon, and I will give peace and quietness to Israel in his days. He shall build a house for my name… (First Chronicles 22:7-10).

The Torah portion Vayeshev is one of warning, of challenge, and hope, with its gentle teaching that to dwell means to make peace where we dwell, seeds of the future planted amidst the pain of the present. David was not fit to build the Temple because of the blood on his hands, and yet the twisting line to the Messiah begins in this portion, rising from out of the breach. The line of the Messiah begins with the birth of Peretz, born to Tamar and Yehuda, as we see later in the Book of Ruth. Peretz means breach, as a furrow in the ground, a seed of hope planted in the furrow of despair.       The Slonimer Rebbe teaches, a new flowering begins with the blossoming of the light of the Moshiach/she’tatchil tz’micha chadasha tz’michat oro shel Moshiach.

     As Jews everywhere pray for Jerusalem on Shabbat evening, may it be for all who dwell there and for all of the dreams and dreamers that yearn for tranquility. May we breathe in all of the stories that are carried in Jerusalem’s rarefied air, that are held in her ancient stones, that rise in the swirling of her dust. There is more work to be done now, but that is what we are called to do, to repair the world and fill its deficiencies. Not simply to dwell or to declare a dream fulfilled before its time, may Jerusalem yet be Ir Shalom/City of Peace. Blessed are you, God, who spreads the sukkah of peace over us, over all the people Israel, and over Jerusalem…,and over the hopes and dreams of all of her people and peoples, that together we shall make peace where we dwell.

 Rabbi Victor Reinstein

With Apologies to Lawrence Ferlinghetti

On this Sunday in Advent, in the Year of our Lord 2017, I have been inspired by Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s poem “I am waiting,” and the story of Jesus’s birth as told to us in the Gospel of Matthew:

It’s four in the morning, and

I am waiting for my case to come up

and I am waiting

for a rebirth of wonder

and I am waiting for someone to really discover America

and wail,

and I am waiting

perpetually and forever

for a new rebirth of wonder

and I am waiting

and I wonder if you are wailing and waiting too

I wonder if Joseph wailed when Mary told him she was with child and he was not the father

and I wonder if Mary wept knowing that her fate was in a man’s hands and he had the power of life and death over her and her child

and I wonder if like me they too were waiting for a new rebirth of wonder

and I wonder why God chose some no-count couple like Mary and Joseph,

living in some backwater hamlet named Bethlehem

to make his grand divine entrance onto the world stage

when Caesar lost his cool and Herod sent his soldiers

to slaughter every Hebrew boy child under the age of two

and I wonder if the real point of the Christmas story

isn’t to shake us loose from the powerful paradigms of disbelief

that pull us away from acknowledging the presence of God

in this and every other place on this this blessed planet

we call our home

or is it really God’s home and

there is nothing that is not holy

and no one who is not sacred and God comes in this most peculiar way

just to say, “Hello”

and in the soft innocence of a child to tell us

now is not the time to surrender to the

lethargy of indifference

or the dullness of disbelief

or the safety of the status quo

for you too have found favor in the eyes of God

and in the wildness of holy love

there no is shelter from the storm

no room in the inn

no safe routines of convention and common sense

for now, today, you must choose

between the hopes and fears of all the years

and the only compass God will give you or me or any Mary or Joseph is

love

which God promises is wiser than the wisdom of humankind

and stronger than the strength of the all the armies of all the empires

that ever marched

and all the bombs that ever fell on upturned faces

then or now  or ever

so go with Mary, be a Joseph,

let your love loose in some

new derring-do

and experience your own

rebirth of wonder

Rev. David Hansen

The Promise of Peace

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

So begins Charles Dicken’s story, The Tale of Two Cities. I ask you, on this second Sunday in the season of Advent, are these not the times in which we live.

         Some men like our president speak in superlatives. Others like Senator Grassley deride the “little people” whom he accuses of spending “too much money on booze, women, and movies” while he and others in some brazen act of reverse Robin Hood steal from the poor and give to the rich.

 People living in high places have no qualms about transferring billions of dollars to the wealthiest one-percent, or discrediting and desecrating sacred institutions of democracy, or exploiting their power for personal pleasure, or waging preemptive wars in the name of peace, or inflaming Jerusalem in some new orgasm of violence. “We will bomb you into oblivion,” Donald says. And he means it. As if to reward him the stock market climbs to new heights. These are the best of times. These are the worst of times. It is an age of wisdom and an age of foolishness.

Stay woke my friends. Stay woke. Can you hear the voice of John crying in the wilderness? After the killing of Trayvon Martin the black community’s response was “stay woke.” Become aware. Be aware of the ways which racism, sexism, class-ism, militarism, economic and environmental violence, and the desecration of sacred places like Bears Ears National Monument affect the way we live. Stay woke to what is happening in our communities and the world in which we live. Stay woke.

Developing a healthy paranoia doesn’t mean you’re crazy. Maybe it’s just you trying to be healthy. Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight a highway for our God in this moral desert. Stay woke until every valley is lifted up, and the crooked places made straight, and the glory of the Lord is revealed in some shimmering moment of truth. Stay woke.

The birth of Jesus is not about a strange event that happened once upon a time in village far, far away, long, long ago, when a child was born. The birth of Jesus is the story of the enfleshment of God. That is what the word “incarnation” means. It means “going into flesh.” The Spirit going into flesh. And, Mary’s flesh magnified the Lord.

Robert Frost gave voice to this powerful promise of hope in a poem in which he wrote:

But God’s own descent

into the flesh meant

as a demonstration

that the supreme merit

lay in risking spirit

in substantiation.

Spirit enters flesh

and for all its worth

charges into earth

in birth after birth

ever fresh and fresh.

We may take the view

that it’s derring-do

thought of in the large

was one mighty charge

on our human part

of the soul’s ethereal

into the material.

Frost, a prophetic poet, believed the greatest enterprise of life is our penetration into matter, carrying spirit deeper and deeper into matter.

The meaning of the incarnation and the doctrine of transubstantiation is the celebration of the mighty charge of the ethereal into the material. The Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us full of grace and truth.

What does all this mean to you and me in practical terms? What am I trying to tell you about the promise of peace? We have just witnessed seven murders in ten days in Wichita. The habits of violence are deeply ingrained in our culture and in us. It is fair to ask if peace is possible. Like the prophet Habakkuk we stand on the ramparts of the besieged city and ask, “Is there any word from the Lord?”

My friends in the Satyagraha Institute tell me there is. They offer these three steps, which they call three key principles for peace:

1.     Change happens one person at a time. A community will change only to the extent that individuals in the community are willing to change. And we, each one of us, can be instruments of change. We can create ripples of change that will alter the nature of our relationships and our communities and our nation and the world.

2.     The path to change requires face-to-face interaction, meeting, and dialogue. If we want to

      be agents of change we need to spend quality time with others who can help us work through difficult questions. Nothing can replace the power of studying, eating, reading, talking, walking, working and relaxing with others.

3.     Deep change, like fast-acting yeast, takes time.

So stay woke, my friends. Even now God’s spirit is charging into earth in birth after birth. And you are a child of God. And that is amazing and wonderful and very good.

Rev. David Hansen

Among the Trees and Grasses, Finding Solace and Strength

From words of Torah, prayers form, words become vessels to fill with our soul, Torah filling us, each of us filling Torah. It is the way of sacred scripture in every tradition, encountering God and ourselves in the seeking, in the shimmering union of text and context. As we make our way along the path of Torah from week to week, wooded glens open before us, places to pause and rest, oases from the strife and struggle along the way of life. There is succor for the weariness and worry held in the details of our own lives, and for the collective worry from all that assaults us in the political climate of these times. Given the gentle beauty of our sensibilities, we can’t in conscience put aside our awareness of those who suffer, or not consider the ways we might help to meet their needs. Yet even here, there are times when we need to pause, to sigh, to breath deeply, to remember the beauty of the world all around us and within us. There are times when we may recall places of beauty we have been, that gave of their gifts to us and helped us to relax.
             Perhaps a pond deep in the woods, a beautiful flower we saw along the path to get there. Perhaps it was a mountaintop and all the beauty along the way of hiking higher and higher. Perhaps we didn’t have to go very far to come to such a place, delighting with the flowers and bushes that grow along the sidewalk, roots of trees breaking through the cement that invades their space. And in the changing of seasons, now to stop in the midst of all that swirls and see our breath that comes from within and reminds of a place even deeper where our very soul abides. Seasons continue to turn in their way, snowflakes then to melt upon our skin. We hold the memories of what has been, sensing the beauty, seeing it with eyes closed with all the freshness and clarity of when we were there, of when it was new and now, time and place shimmering, gifts of forest and field continuing to touch, to inspire and infuse.

It is the essence of an exquisite teaching of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov (1772-1810) that is rooted in the Torah portion Chayei Sarah/the Life of Sarah (Gen. 23:1-25:18). Following the trauma of the Akedah, the binding of Isaac, of father’s intended sacrifice of son, Yitzchak goes out into the field to meditate, va’yetze Yitzchak lasu’ach ba’sadeh lifnot arev/and Yitzchak went out to meditate in the field at the turning of evening (Gen. 24:63).  It is the same root, whether of language or spirit, la’su’ach/to meditate, to pray, to converse, and so too the root of si’ach/a bush, a shrub, green and verdant growing things. So from his own traumas, so much pain and sorrow in his life, Rebbe Nachman would go out each day to be alone in nature, among the trees and grasses, finding solace and strength in field and forest. From words of Torah he formed words of prayer, May I merit to make it my custom to go out each day to the field and be among the trees and grasses and every shrub of the field. And there may I merit to be alone and to increase in conversation between me and the one to whom I belong (Likutei T’filot 2:11).

It is all in the way of Yitzchak going out into the field that Rebbe Nachman teaches, words of Torah become prayers, become vessels, become places of respite, of sanctuary. I share his teaching as I translated it long ago while sitting in the woods of a Jewish summer camp, children’s voices all around, laughter and joy to inspire, Shabbos coming near.

             Know, that when a person prays in a field, then all of the grasses come within the prayer, and aid the one praying, and give to the one praying strength in their prayer. In this way, prayer is called “sicha” (in all of its layers of meaning, prayer, meditation, and shrub). This is in the aspect, derived from B’reishit 2:5 which says “si’ach ha’sadeh/shrub of the field.” Every shrub of the field gives strength and aids one in their prayer. This is the aspect of B’reishit 24:63, “And Yitzchak went out to meditate in the field,” that his prayer would be with the aid and strength of the field, that all of the grasses of the field would give strength and aid to his prayer. For this reason, prayer is called “sicha,” as explained above. Therefore, in the curse in D’varim/Deuteronomy 11:17 (which is in the second paragraph of the Sh’ma) it is said, “and the ground will not give its produce/v’ha’adamah lo titen et y’vulah,” for all of the produce/herbage of the earth needs to give strength and aid within prayer. And when there is a defect or barrier concerning the earth’s giving aid to prayer, of this it says, “and the ground will not give its strength. And even when one is not praying in a field the produce of the earth still gives aid to their prayer. That is to say, all that supports a person, for example, eating and drinking, goes forth to provide such support (as eating and drinking support the body, so the produce of the earth also supports the soul and aids one’s prayer). When one is in the field, however, then nature’s support for their prayer is greater, then all of the grasses and all of the produce of the ground give strength to their prayer, as explained above. And this word “produce/yivol” can be derived from the first letters of the verse (Gen. 24:63), “and Yitzchak went out to meditate in the field/Va’yetze Yitzchak La’su’ach Ba’sadeh…, for all of the produce of the field prayed with him, as explained above… (Likutei Moharan Tinyana 11).

        As we go out each week to meditate in the Sabbath field, L’cha Dodi/Come Beloved, so may we find beauty and rest among all the delights of Shabbos.     Aid and support given to our prayer, continuing then to inspire and nurture as we re-enter the world of time, may we merit to remember what we have seen and known, strength given to body and soul, renewed and refreshed.

Rabbi Victor Reinstein

An American Thanksgiving

     This Thanksgiving, some things I saw on the internet made me think more seriously about the first inhabitants of this land. One writer told the traditional Thanksgiving story of friendship and a shared meal with the usual characters like Squanto, helping the early settlers plant and harvest their escape from starvation.

     Another told the story about how the first Thanksgiving was proclaimed by then Governor Bradford of the Plymouth Bay Colony, as a celebration for massacring the Pequot people. The Governor wanted prayers of gratitude in the churches for this great victory. One commentator of the day remarked, "Let the whole Earth be filled with his glory! Thus the Lord was pleased to smite our Enemies in the hinder Parts, and to give us their Land for an Inheritance." Another said God had destroyed the enemies of his people; "Thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen, filling (Mystic) with dead bodies." 

       A third video shows some young Native American women telling the story of theft, pillage, rape and terror and then turning over a laden Thanksgiving table.

      Different people see history through different eyes. But European Americans should all be able to recognize three things: we stand on stolen land that belonged to someone else; the original Americans are still with us; the first inhabitants continue to petition for recognition of their rights, like clean water and sustainable economies

     And although there are still Christians who stereotype all tribal peoples as pagan or heathen, the informed are aware of the deep spirituality and sacred traditions that have been carried on, even in the face of government prohibition and attempted genocide. 

     For fifteen years I coordinated a program in reservation communities where people came from many different countries and across the U.S. to immerse themselves in traditional and contemporary Native American life. We carried our home, a couple of tipis, on the top of our vans and without watches or rigid plans camped on the property of hosts and welcomed visitors as resource persons. As often happens in Indian country, people heard of our interest in learning and wonderful elders and teachers found their way to us.

     During and after these programs I was sometimes invited to ceremonies, including the sweat lodge ceremony. It's not my place to say too much about sacred ceremonies of Indian people. But as a Christian pastor, I must say that the sweat lodge experience for me was like a whole body experience of baptism, of being born again.
       One is cleansed not only of the bodily toxins but through prayer, of the emotional and spiritual toxins as well. If the arrogant and self righteous in the Christian community could give up their sense of superiority for just a moment, to truly learn of this sacred ceremony, they  might recognize that other traditions have similar and just as meaningful ways of approaching the Creator.

      Some Indian people have confessed that when they first heard about Jesus from the early missionaries, they understood. Their culture encouraged them to be willing to suffer for others. They were schooled in the value of generosity. There was an emphasis on the common good. So when they heard about this person who went to his death for others, it fit with their traditional understandings. Their sun dance ceremony represented something similar. It was about purification and sacrifice. 

     What those same Indian people didn't understand was all the baggage that came with Jesus. Baggage that eventually resulted in the destruction of indigenous people and the outlawing of their most meaningful ceremonies. Those of us of European descent would do well to confess it. It was the self righteousness and manifest destiny of those early pilgrims that resulted in the elimination of the Pequot people. It was the papal declaration of the Doctrine of Discovery that set the stage for stealing land and exterminating resisters. The Christian religion brought colonial baggage to this continent, conquering for Christ. 

      And in many ways, that nativist spirit is still too prevalent in the land. The cartoon of Indian people cutting off new immigrants from Europe is altogether appropriate in a Trumpian climate. One cartoon has the picture of an Indian man with the words,  "So you're against immigration? Splendid! When do you leave?"

     We need to work harder in this culture to incorporate some traditional indigenous values. We're in relationship, with all that is. When you enter the sweat lodge ceremony, you remind yourself of this reality. You are also reminded of the elements of all life: water, fire, air and earth. You are reminded we can't treat the earth like a thing and expect it to give fruit in its season. We can't treat the waters like our toilet and expect to be healthy. We can't use and misuse the others around us and expect mutual aid.

     Religious leaders from all across the country disowned the Doctrine of Discovery at Standing Rock last year. They confessed God did not give anyone a right to take lands occupied by others. Now it's time to give flesh to that confession. A good first step would be respecting Native sovereignty and Native values when it comes to pipelines.

Carl Kline