Fundraising, Social Justice and Relationships - they're really the same thing

It's been a very busy couple of weeks. Last week, I attended Shekels, a seminar on fundraising for Rabbis. I learned a lot, and it was surprisingly (if you're new to synagogue fundraising) meaningful. That is, it wasn't just about dollars and cents (actually, it was barely about that at all). It was about something much deeper.

This week, I was at the Brickner fellowship for Social Justice, run by the incredible RAC. It was about making us better Social Justice Rabbis. But, very little of it was about the mechanics of advocacy, or of synagogue programming. It, too, was about something much deeper.

I learned so much from both of these retreats, and I'm going to be unpacking all of that learning (here and elsewhere) for a long, long time. But, there was one thing which overlapped both seminars, and it's so obvious, once you've been through them.

It's all about relationships.

Everything that we do as a synagogue. It's all about relationships.

Like I said, I'm going to be saying a lot more about this. And, I don't really have time right now to say anything at all (Shabbat's a comin'!). But, if you want a wonderful taste of what I'm getting at, check out this post by a new dear friend and colleague of mine, Rabbi Elizabeth Wood.

We are obligated to help one another, our Jewish wisdom tradition teaches us that. And the paths that lead to righteousness and justice are varied and different. But in that obligation there is reward - connection, fulfillment, and kedusha. When we seek out the other, we seek out something greater than ourselves that helps us become infused with God's spirit and the spirit of humanity.

Shabbat Shalom!

Don't miss out on a holy moment

A teaching from Rabbi David of Kotzk

The rabbis of old (in Midrash Rabbah) taught that when the Israelites were getting ready to sing, after having crossed through the Red Sea to safety, the angels in heaven wanted to sing first. But, God wouldn't let them—God insisted that they wait for the Israelites to finish, and then take their turn to sing.

Why, Rabbi David asks, did God insist that the Israelites go first? Because, angels are perfect, holy beings, and so they are always ready for holy moments. But, not so with people. We're forgetful, and easily distracted*. Even though we were ready to praise God with a full heart at that moment, we couldn't be sure that we'd still be ready in a little while. And so, we had to take the opportunity, while was there, to sing, and to praise.

* squirrel!

Remember: don't let a holy moment pass you by. They don't come very often, and when they do, they often pass quicker than we can imagine. Take a moment, appreciate it, and praise it in your own way. It may be your only chance to do so.

Shabbat shalom!

Sam Harris and his own Fireplace Delusion

Sam Harris is one of the most prominent atheists in the public sphere (along with Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, z"l). As I've said before, I actually find much of what he has to say compelling. He makes extremely persuasive arguments against literalist and fundamentalist religion. Although he claims that he's attacking all religion, is really attacking one (admittedly widespread) type of religion. But, that's another matter*.
*by the way—if you want to learn more about a religious viewpoint which falls completely outside of Harris' worldview and attacks, I'm teaching a class on non-dual theology…
Anyway, in an article up on The Daily Beast, Harris talks about what he calls “The Fireplace Delusion.” In short, people of all stripes, and of all levels of intelligence and sophistication, are capable of denying some very disturbing facts about fires in our fireplaces. But, those facts are fairly clear, and pretty darn scary:

The unhappy truth about burning wood has been scientifically established to a moral certainty: that nice, cozy fire in your fireplace is bad for you. It is bad for your children. It is bad for your neighbors and their children. Burning wood is also completely unnecessary, because in the developed world we invariably have better and cleaner alternatives for heating our homes. If you are burning wood in the United States, Europe, Australia, or any other developed nation, you are most likely doing so recreationally—and the persistence of this habit is a major source of air pollution in cities throughout the world. In fact, wood smoke often contributes more harmful particulates to urban air than any other source.

Yet, despite a strong set of facts which support that conclusion (if you don't believe me, click through to the article), Harris finds that people are unconvinced:

I have discovered that when I make this case, even to highly intelligent and health-conscious men and women, a psychological truth quickly becomes as visible as a pair of clenched fists: they do not want to believe any of it. Most people I meet want to live in a world in which wood smoke is harmless. Indeed, they seem committed to living in such a world, regardless of the facts. To try to convince them that burning wood is harmful—and has always been so—is somehow offensive. The ritual of burning wood is simply too comforting and too familiar to be reconsidered, its consolation so ancient and ubiquitous that it has to be benign. The alternative—burning gas over fake logs—seems a sacrilege.

Of course, Harris isn't only talking about fires and pollution. He's talking about religion and, more specifically, religious people. And, even more specifically, the ability of religious people to delude themselves:

Of course, if you are anything like my friends, you will refuse to believe this. And that should give you some sense of what we are up against whenever we confront religion.

but, it seems that Harris is engaging in a logical fallacy of his own here. And, it's one which seems to be somewhat endemic among strident atheists. It actually shows up at the very beginning of this article:

It seems to me that many nonbelievers have forgotten—or never knew—what it is like to suffer an unhappy collision with scientific rationality. We are open to good evidence and sound argument as a matter of principle, and are generally willing to follow wherever they may lead. Certain of us have made careers out of bemoaning the failure of religious people to adopt this same attitude.Those who speak out most forcibly, and stridently, against religion are usually not claiming that religion fails to make us better people. They go much further than that, and they claim that religion actually makes us worse people. That religion is the source of most (often, it seems all) of the evil in the world.

Recently, there was a debate on the NPR program “Intelligence Squared,” an Oxford style debating program (which I highly recommend—you can subscribe to the podcast) on whether the world would be a better place if religion were to suddenly disappear. As one of the pro-religion speakers pointed out, the anti-religious people often act as if the world without religion would suddenly evolve into a kind of modern-day Eden*. As that speaker (Rabbi Wolpe, I believe) said, anyone who believes this has never seen children in a playground! Religion is not what makes us fight; being human is. Even if you don't believe that religion makes us better, it's hard to maintain that a world without religion would be perfect, or probably even substantially better than it is, right now.
* ironic use of religious terminology intended, of course
Harris is making a parallel mistake in his article, I think. He is saying, pretty explicitly, that religious people are prone to denial and self-delusion. But, in contrast, rational, scientific people are generally not. They (“we,” actually, but I don't want to offend him…) are intellectually rigorous people who base their worldviews on facts. Nonbelievers don't usually know what it's like “to suffer an unhappy collision with scientific rationality.”
Well.
The ability to be in denial about basic facts, especially when those facts will have a negative impact on us, on our lifestyles, and on our worldviews, is not a religious trait. It's a human one. We can probably all think of endless examples. My favorite is cell phones and cars: study after study shows that talking on a cell phone, even hands-free, while driving is incredibly dangerous. It increases your likelihood of having an accident at the same rate as being at the legal limit of blood alcohol content. But, people who would never think of driving while (barely) drunk will happily talk on their phones while driving. Busy traffic, kids in the car—it doesn't matter. Confront them with the facts of the matter, and they'll quickly explain them away. At least one of my friends was honest and, after admitting to me that who even e-mail on his iPhone while driving, concluded by saying, “denial is a strange thing.”
Want to have some fun? Tell a wine aficionado that it's actually impossible to meaningfully distinguish fine wine from “average wine.” They'll almost hurt themselves trying to prove you wrong. Magnetic bracelets. Birthers. People who think that Justin Bieber is good music*. The list goes on and on.
*okay. Technically that one might be an opinion, not a fallacy. Technically.
I know that this might be a strange defense of religion—it's no more insanely illogical than 1 million things that you believe! But, I'm not trying to defend religion, as such. I'm trying to make the point that, if we're going to have rational discussions about these things, we should all try to be rational. We should stop pretending that religion is flawed in ways that it isn't (because, all of us will admit that it has plenty of real flaws to deal with). And, we should probably dial down the nasty rhetoric. It might make for good copy, but it doesn't make for good thoughts.

Obama, Assassinations and Israel

As you may have heard by now, Andrew Adler, the owner of the Atlanta Jewish Times got himself into some hot water recently, by suggesting that Israel might consider assassinating President Obama, since he's such an obstacle to their security.

To say that this is disgusting is an enormous understatement. Thankfully, condemnation from around the Jewish world was swift and vehement. Adler has been forced to resign from his post as publisher, and has already put the newspaper up for sale. The buzz and expectation are that he's gotten himself into legal trouble, too, since threats against the President are criminal. No one that I've seen is supporting his loathsome "hypothetical."

But, the JTA published an interesting article today, asking why the Jewish world, even if it thankfully usually falls short of this kind of incitement, so often sees Obama as not just bad for Israel, but as outrightly sinister, and hell-bent on Israel's (and the Jews') destruction:

While few of those critics might go as far as Adler, it doesn’t take much discussion in certain Jewish circles to find those who see something far more sinister in Obama than a president whose policies are bad for the Jews and Israel.

“I think Obama’s overriding goal is to have Israel destroyed,” said Randy Silver, a businessman from Glenview, Ill. “He puts steps in motion to bring about the destruction of the State of Israel.”

One New Yorker who insisted on anonymity said, “He’s not a Hitler in the sense that he’s anti-Semitic and wants to put every Jew into a concentration camp -- at least not as we see things right now.”

I guess it's easy (and possibly correct) to write this off as simply another example of the standard overheated rhetoric of our day. The combination of vicious partisan politics in Washington, and the nasty echo-chamber of the Internet just makes moderation impossible, and all but guarantees that the most extreme views imaginable will get voiced, and get noticed.

But, this kind of rhetoric (the fairly common "Obama is evil," not the even more extreme "let's kill him") still bugs me. As someone who (proudly) can usually see both sides of any issue, I just have trouble imagining believing anything this extreme.

Is Obama bad for Israel? He may be. He clearly is not as supportive of Israel as George W. Bush was. In my opinion, he falls far too easily into "cycle of violence" rhetoric, which doesn't acknowledge that this is not an equal conflict. He's made some troubling, subtle comments against Israel (such as inexplicably leaving them off a list of terror victims in a speech last year). And so on.

Of course, I've heard multiple times, once from an Israeli government official, that the cooperation between the US and Israeli militaries has been better under Obama than it ever has been, and significantly so. There are also those who believe (possibly through Rose-tinted glasses) that Bush's extreme pro-Israel stance made it harder for the Palestinians to even come to the table, since they felt that the deck was stacked against them.

So, I guess that reasonable people can disagree about, and even argue about, whether Obama is good for Israel or bad, and how much so. I'm open to that.

But, can't we also agree that, even if his views and policies aren't too good for Israel, that that doesn't make him Anti-Semitic, Hitler-esque or otherwise evil?

Is that so radical?

Tebow

[This was supposed to be a quick hit about Tim Tebow and praying. It's a bit more of a ramble. But, hopefully it makes some sense. If you want a more organized (but, even longer) take on this subject, check out http://rabbipaul.blogspot.com/2007/10/can-we-pray-that-red-sox-win-world.html]

There's been a good amount of talk in the popular press, and a great deal more in religious circles, about Tim Tebow and his religiosity, especially as it relates to sports. As I'm sure you know (and if you don't, where the heck have you been?) Tim Tebow is the quarterback of the Denver Broncos, and he is a deeply religious Christian. He is also extremely open about his religion–he speaks publicly about it, used to write religious references on the black-tape under his eyes, and most famously regularly kneels down for an obvious moment of prayer during games (a practice which has become known, and often mocked, as “Teodowing.”)

This has led to a rash of discussions of (among others topics) whether it is appropriate to ever pray at a sporting event. I'm not so much interested in the “I'm offended if you intrude on my Sunday sports watching with a religious moment” approach. Live and let live, I say, and if someone wants to pray while the camera happens to be on them, or someone wants to take out an ad for a religious organization or issue, even one with which I strongly disagree, more power to them. That's what it means to live in a free society, and that's why we talk about “the marketplace of ideas.”

No, what's interesting to me is the theological/philosophical question about whether it's appropriate to pray to God at these times. The arguments against this practice are (like everything else, it seems, these days) often offered sarcastically: Do you really think that God is a [insert your least-favorite sports team here] fan? Don't you think that God has bigger things to worry about than whether a field goal go through the rights or not? Why would you waste your prayers on something as silly as a sporting event?

I'll admit to agreeing with the sentiment behind the first of those—no matter what you believe about God, it seems to me to be ridiculous to think that God will favor one team over another. If for no other reason than the obvious fact that whenever a bunch of people are praying for one team to win, a roughly equal number are praying for the other team. Unless you're going to assume that God does some kind of headcount, or some slightly more involved measure of combined spiritual intensity (“well, Giants fans have reached 9.7 on the prey-oh-meter, but Packers fans only mounted a 9.2…”), it just doesn't make any logical sense to believe that God will directly influence the game in favor of one team over another. Maybe it's the computer geek in me, but the math just doesn't work out.

But, at the same time I have to admit that those other objections ring hollow to me. Don't get me wrong—I don't believe that God influences games directly. But, if you believe in a God who can, and does, directly influence events here on earth, then why is it impossible to believe that God would use that influence on sporting events? I mean, I assume that God doesn't have a limit on available influence, or on attention span. God could influence the flight of a football while having absolutely zero impact on God's ability to influence the progress of a drought or other natural disaster. There should be, almost by definition, I would think, nothing which is so small as to be irrelevant to God. We're told (I can't remember where I read this, but I can't find it…) that a gnat doesn't beat its wings on earth without God taking notice on high. If God can influence anything, God can influence everything. Right?

But, what if God can't influence anything? What is the point of prayer isn't to change the world, but rather to change the pray-er?

In the book of Deuteronomy were told that one of the great spiritual dangers of life: the belief that we are responsible for what we have accomplished. It was looking around and saying, “Look at what I've accomplished with my own hands.” Because, one of the great religious truths of life is that we have accomplished nothing solely with our own hands. We are a messy mass of dependencies, and everything that we do—absolutely everything—was accomplished only because of others. And, ultimately, because of the One who lies behind it all, about whom we know almost nothing, but without whom there would be nothing. For me, and for many Jewish sages, a prayer of “thanks” is not a statement about cause and effect. It's not saying that I think that God stepped in and altered the flow of history in some small or large way, the way that I thank someone who does a favor for me, here on earth. For me, a prayer of “thanks” is a prayer of humility. It's a prayer of perspective. It's a reminder that I can't take very much credit, if any at all, for anything that I accomplish. It's a reminder to think about the intricate web of connections which led to the possibility of me doing the final act in an infinitely long chain which led to some result.

Do you like this blog post? If so, I'm glad, and I'll admit that that makes me a little proud. But, if we're going to get thoughtful about this for a moment, it's easy to think of endless number of people and things upon which I was dependent to write this. We can bring up the teachers who taught me all the ideas contained here (since not one of them is original to me). We can think of the people who wrote the software which I'm using to write this. We can think of my parents who—among 1 billion other things—had me. We can think of the soldiers in the American Revolution who gave us the country in which I grew up—a country which allowed me to pursue my education, and to watch football. We can think about the first animals who crawled out of the sea (an event which Rabbi Arthur Green refers to as the greatest act of bravery in history) to allow land-based creatures to develop. I could literally spend this entire day writing this blog, rambling on about all the things about which I can think which had to happen in order to give me the opportunity to ramble on.

I very much don't believe in a God who intervenes in the world. I don't believe in a God who chooses whether to heal someone, protect someone, or grant some success, based on the beauty, intensity, or quantity of their prayers. But I've talked to some people who do believe in that kind of a God, and at least some of them will still tell you that the kind of humility that I am describing here is a purpose, if not the purpose, of prayer. Not to change God, but to change ourselves.

It's pretty obvious that Tebow believes in a personal, active, intercessionary God. But, because I've never heard him speak about it, I have no idea if, when he kneels, he's asking for specific things, or merely trying to get in touch with his own humility. And, you know what? I don't really care. What matters to me is not going on when he prays, but when I pray. And when I pray, I thank God for everything in my life. Even the things I did myself.

Especially those.

In Defense of Materialism (?)

Just before Christmas, Jewish pundit and author Dennis Prager wrote an article suggesting that, contrary to most of what we read during the Christmas/holiday season, we should actually embrace the buying and acquisition of material things.

Now, let me just say that, for starters, I think that this is a terrible message to attach to Christmas/Hanukkah/whatever. There are incredibly valid, important, powerful arguments to make that focusing on materialism, while supposedly celebrating what are supposed to be sacred, spiritual times, is wrong on so many levels. That's not exactly a novel argument, so I won't bother repeating it here.

But, taken out of the context of the holidays, I think that Prager makes an interesting point. And, it's one which might serve to highlight one of the differences between Christianity and Judaism (acknowledging that my own knowledge of Christianity is obviously very limited, so I apologize in advance if I misrepresent anything here).

Before defending material things, let me make clear where I do agree with the joy-deniers. First, there is no question that no material thing can compete with love, religion, music, reading, health and other precious non-material things. And second, experiences contribute more to happiness than things do. If you only have x amount of money to spend on yourself, traveling to new places is usually more contributive to happiness than a better car. When I had almost no money through my early 30s, I still traveled abroad every year — which meant that I could only afford an inexpensive car. I have now visited a hundred countries, and that has given me more meaning and happiness than a luxury car or any other material thing.

But having said all that, material things matter. They can contribute a great deal to a happier and more meaningful life.

Very often, we are sent the message that material things are bad. But, at least in the Jewish point of view, material things are not bad. They are not important—at least not very much so—but that's a very different thing. Everything else being equal, it's better to have things than to not have things. There's nothing wrong with being rich, or with enjoying its benefits.

That's where I think Judaism and Christianity differ. Although I know there isn't exactly unanimity on this point, I think that Christianity leans towards the belief that material things are, ultimately, corrupting. That they're bad. That, all things being equal, were better off not having things than having them.
And, I learned somewhere along the way that this reflects a fundamental difference in our two religions.

At its core, Christianity is concerned with the next world. This world is, more than anything else, a prelude to that world. And so, that which attaches us to this world is, consequently, bad. Our focus should be entirely on the next. You can certainly find this view within Judaism, but it's not the dominant view. The dominant view is that this world is what we should be worried about, at least while we're in it. The next world is important, to be sure. More important, even. But, for now, what we have is what's around us, and it's good. What else could it mean in Genesis when, while creating the world, God pauses from time to time to declare the latest piece of creation “good.”

The world, and that which it contains, is good.

The Talmud teaches that a person will be held accountable for everything in this world which they could have enjoyed, but didn't.* God put these things here so that we could enjoy them. Not enjoying them is seen as a little bit of a slap in the face to God.


*obviously, the “which they could have enjoyed” is important. Things which have been outlawed need not apply…

This perspective seems to me to jibe pretty well with reality. Protest though we may, most of us find some real pleasure and happiness in the material world, even (especially?) in the little things:

With all my love of family, of friends, of music and of the life of the mind, I have always loved material things, too. On any happiness scale, it would be difficult to overstate how much joy my stereo equipment has given me since high school. I so love music that I periodically conduct orchestras in Southern California. And I now own a system that is so good that its offerings sound only a bit less real than what I hear from the conductor’s podium. I bless the engineers and others who design stereo products, and it is my joy to help support their noble quest of reproducing great music in people’s homes.

Since high school, too, I have written only with fountain pens. Buying new pens and trying out new inks are among the little joys of life that contribute as much — and sometimes more — to one’s happiness than the “big” things. There is incomparable joy at attending a child’s bar mitzvah or wedding. But those great events last a day. I write with a beloved fountain pen every day, listen to music every day, smoke a pleasure-giving cigar or pipe every day (except Shabbat, for the halachically curious). I love these things. What a colorless world it would be without them. So, too, I love my house. And I love the artwork and furniture and library that help to make it beautiful.

The danger, Judaism teaches us, is in going too far. In confusing “enjoying things” with “needing things.” With elevating things to a higher level, one of which they don't belong:

Can people overdo purchasing things? Of course they can. People can also overdo taking vitamins, exercising and even reading books or studying Talmud.
So, then, when do we need to control our buying things?
a) When it becomes a compulsion — when one cannot stop buying things because the buying gives more pleasure than the things that are bought.
b) When the primary purpose of the purchase is to impress others with one’s wealth.
c) When one cannot afford what one is buying.

Judaism tends to view the world as a balancing act (one more reason that "Jewish Extremist" should be an oxymoron. If only). So it is here. Enjoy the little things, but keep them in perspective. After all, God made them, too.

"These and These" on Israel

One of my favorite topics (on this blog, and in life) is ambiguity - the idea that truth is rarely precise or absolute. It lies not so much between the extremes, as it does over the entire spectrum, including the extremes. Everyone is, at least in part, usually right. It's summed up in the famous Talmudic statement that "Elu v'elu devarim elohim chayim -- these and these are the words of the living God."

One of my favorite writers about Israel is Rabbi Daniel Gordis. I think that he's clear, honest, and usually right on the issues.

So, I was particularly happy when Rabbi Gordis wrote an article about the need to acknowledge the validity of all parts of the spectrum, when it comes to Israel:

That’s why some of us who write about Israel take a different approach. We don’t care about being neatly classifiable as “left” or “right”; because to love a country is not that different from loving a person. It means defending but also critiquing. It means loving unconditionally but knowing that love does not mean overlooking serious flaws. To love Israel, I believe, is to know that the Jewish state is not just a flag or an army or some holy place. To love Israel is to love the real Israel, with all its many warts and imperfections. And to love Israel is to know that there is a difference between a wart and a serious disease; when an imperfection is so serious as to threaten the entire enterprise, then the most loyal thing that one can do is to insist that Israel be better.

I am incredibly pro-peace. I believe that the Palestinians deserve a state of their own, and that ongoing occupation (or whatever you want to call it now) serves the interests of no one. 

I am incredibly pro-Israel and pro-security. I think that the Palestinians, not Israel, have overwhelmingly been the obstacle to peace. I think that making peace with a people which is openly and actively dedicated to your destruction is foolhardy, and untenable, if not ridiculous.

Am I a leftist or righty? A hawk or a dove? In the words of Gordis' article, a prophet or a guardian?

I am a Zionist. A lover of Israel, Which makes me all of the above.