Gerry Who? / Parshat Yitro 2016-5776

Eldridge Thomas Gerry was the fifth vice-president of the United States. He served under President James Madison. If you have never heard his name, that’s could mean that you weren’t on your high school’s It’s Academic team. Neither was I. But even better known than Mr. Gerry is a political practice bearing his name that is damaging the democracy we enjoy in this country: gerrymandering. Manipulating the boundaries of congressional districts through (too often politically motivated disingenuous) re-apportionment in order to assure that one political party or the other will “own” a district may have created some majority-minority districts, but in recent years it has stifled what should be the inherent dynamism of a democracy. In 2012, Democrats won 51% of the popular vote for House representatives countrywide, but secured only 46% of the seats; gerrymandering played a significant role. Take Illinois’s famous 4th District, pictured here above. The creative people who engineered this one had to include part of highway I-294 to make it contiguous and ensure it would remain solidly in the hands of the Democrats. Similarly Maryland’s 3rd District, left, meandering lazily like a river through three counties and Baltimore City. 

 

Or consider Pennsylvania’s 12th District (below right), a Republican stronghold (below—can you tell which is the map?).

This country is dotted with such districts: North Carolina’s 3rd, California’s 7th, New York’s 12th, Texas’ 19th, or any of a great many congressional districts through the country. Gerrymandered districts is the shrewd creation of politicians who have a very different conception of leadership than you probably do: Rather than going out and winning votes and serving their constituents, they redraw districts so that they can choose their voters. (Check out this video for a good laugh, and Jon Stewart’s take, as well.) Who’s serving who here? Coupled with the massive influx of special interest money into politics and the repeated failures of campaign reform, it is not surprising that we have a largely dysfunction political system and fewer and fewer people are choosing to participate, as evidenced by lower voter turnout. People are feeling increasingly disenfranchised and we are all suffering from a paucity of genuine leadership.

The Israelites, newly freed from slavery in Egypt, are running into leadership problems, as well. They, too, feel disenfranchised. Moses is at wit’s end. He has survived the desert, Pharaoh, plagues, Pharaoh’s army, the Sea of Reeds, and even Amalek. Now Moses faces what may be his greatest challenge yet: leading the Israelites. Fortunately, his father-in-law, Jethro, comes to meet him and, seeing the confusion and disarray entailed in trying to adjudicate the needs and conflicts of 600,000 people, he tells Moses:

The thing you are doing is not right! You will surely wear yourself out—and these people, as well. The task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone. Now listen to me. I will give you counsel, and God be with you! You represent the people before God: you bring the disputes before God, and enjoin upon them the laws and the teachings, and make known to them the way they are to go and the practice they are to follow. (Exodus 18:17-20)

Jethro tells Moses that his job description is to be the intermediary between the people and God concerning God’s expectations for them. Moses, however, is attempting to do far more: he is trying to serve as judge of their disputes with one another. No, no, Jethro says, this is far too great a burden for one person to shoulder, even Moses. The people are not being well served.

You shall also seek out from among all the people capable men who fear God, trustworthy men who spurn ill-gotten gain. Set these over them as chiefs of thousands hundreds, fifties, and tens, and let them judge the people at all times. Have them bring every major dispute to you, but let them decide every minor dispute themselves. Make it easier for yourself by letting them share the burden with you. If you do this—and God so commands you—you will be able to bear up; and all these people too will go home unwearied. (Exodus 18:21-23)

Jethro’s response to Moses’ conundrum of leadership was not democracy, but Torah reminds us of something that is easily forgotten in the power and money battles that dominate the American political landscape. Jethro instructed Moses that the criteria for choosing leaders ought to be their qualities of character: they must be honest and trustworthy, and dedicated to serving the people. Do these sound like criteria that would serve us well, and far better than that of powerhouse fundraising, the #1 criterion these days?

Gerrymandering is not illegal. The goal of creating majority-minority districts and districts with like concerns may well be legitimate in some instances, but we see little of that today. What is more, drawing districts is a complex issue and there is no simple (nor even complex) mathematical algorithm for doing it. (Try out the Redistricting Game.) In June 2014 the Supreme Court  uphold the constitutionality of the independent redistricting commission of Arizona, providing hope that we could move to a strategy for drawing congressional district lines that is not flagrantly partisan. If we can recognize the effect of extensive gerrymandering in corroding the democratic nature of our political system and skewing elections even further toward the poles of power and money and away from the pillars of character and ideas, there is hope we can move toward a system that allows more access to the political process. Hopefully, we the voters will then be able to give due consideration to candidates’ character and vision.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

No Home-Sweet-Home in the Wilderness / Parshat B’Shallach 2016/5776

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Dr. King should have turned 87 last week. His last efforts were directed toward organizing the “Poor People’s Campaign.” The plan called for a march on Washington and the erection of a tent city on the National Mall in order to dramatize the reality of people who fall between the economic cracks in our country and suffer the deprivations of poverty and homelessness. But alas, Dr. King was assassinated and the “Poor People’s Campaign” never came to fruition. Nearly 50 years later, and despite five years of economic recovery, more than 45 million people—14.5% of the population of the United States—live below the poverty line. What is more, on any given night, half a million people in America are homeless. And this is the richest country on the face of the earth.

This week, we open to Parshat B’Shallach, famous its account of the parting of the Sea of Reeds, through which the Israelites cross through on dry ground, and for Shirat haYam, the song of triumph the Israelites sing on the far shore. This is the moment that the Israelites’ redemption is consummated. The Israelites are finally entirely free; Pharaoh’s soldiers cannot reach them to haul them back into slavery.

Redemption, sweet redemption. But the Israelites are now homeless.

The sweet taste of redemption soon fades. Three days out from the Sea of Reeds they trek into the Wilderness of Shur to a place called Marah (“bitter”). Its name reflects its water, which is too bitter to drink. As Torah describes it, the people “grumble” and “complain” about their situation. God instructs Moses to throw a piece of wood into the water to sweeten it. The next stop is the oasis Elim, boasting twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees. Sounds nice, but is this sufficient for 600,000 people? From Elim, the Israelites journey to the Wilderness of Sin, where the harsh and immutable reality of their situation comes crashing in on them. “If only we had died by the hand of Adonai in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots, when we ate our fill of bread!” they whine to Moses. “For you have brought us out into this wilderness to starve this whole congregation to death.” (Exodus 16:3) Moses castigates the people:

So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “…Who are we that you should grumble against us? Since it is Adonai Who will give you flesh to eat in the evening and bread in the morning to the full, because Adonai has heard the grumblings you utter against [God], what is our part? Your grumbling is not against us, but against Adonai!” (Exodus 16:7-8)

God solves the problem, raining down sufficient quail each evening and manna each morning to fill their stomachs and sustain them on their journey but the complaining doesn’t stop; indeed, it is a continuous trop for their 40-year trek through the wilderness.

Is Moses correct in thinking that the people are ungrateful complainers? He seems to believe that the miracle at the Sea of Reeds should provide spiritual sustenance sufficient to allay their fears about the basics of food, shelter, and protection from enemies. Or is he frustrated by their complaining and how difficult it is to lead them?

We might view the Israelites’ situation not from God’s or Moses’s perspective, but from the perspective of the people. Are their fears so difficult to understand and impossible to justify? They find themselves homeless, exposed, vulnerable, and ill equipped to survive in the Wilderness. They barely know the invisible God Whom Moses has come to know and trust, and who communicates only with Moses. Is the level of trust in God that Moses expects and God demands of the people reasonable? Even Moses has a lapse in the trust department: Numbers 20:6-13 attributes Moses’ striking the rock twice to a lack of trust in God to bring forth water.

The Israelites have been torn from their moorings and while slavery is not an enviable life, it is the only life they have known. In Egypt they had homes; now they have none. In Egypt, there were reliable food sources; now there are none. Their worst fears are realized: In Rephidim there is no water. Although God comes through with another miracle and supplies water, this is far from having a constant and reliable source of water, such as the Nile. And, as the Rabbis say: when the ladder is rickety, don’t rely on a miracle (BT Kiddushin 39a). No sooner has water been provided than Amalek attacks and they find themselves battling a savage and remorseless enemy. The Israelites feel desperately vulnerable. Their fear is pervasive and palpable. Should we be surprised? Should they be blamed?

Many people living in our own communities, as well as around the world, live vulnerable lives lacking the basics of food, clean water, shelter, and security that we enjoy. They find themselves face to face with crime and drugs on a daily basis. Yet I hear voices saying, “They should get their act together,” and “There are so many services available that they don’t use” and “This is a land of opportunity—it’s their fault if they don’t take advantage of it.” This is precisely why Dr. King was planning the “Poor People’s Campaign”—because so many who have never known poverty and homelessness cannot comprehend what it is like. It is difficult to empathize with someone whose situation and experiences are wholly different than one’s own. Nonetheless, that is precisely what Torah calls us to do.

That is what Alejandro Aravena of Chile does. Aravena is the 2016 recipient of the Pritzker Prize, which is the Nobel Prize of architecture. Previous winners include Frank Gehry and I.M. Pei. But

Aravena's housing shells; "filled in" by owners.

where others have built colossal, magisterial wonders, Aravena was awarded the Pritzker for designing unfinished, concrete shells of houses for a Chilean public housing project: high quality, half-complete houses for people who are poor. With time, they can complete and expand them to middle-income housing. Thom Pritzker, chair and president of the sponsoring Hyatt Foundation noted that Aravena’s design, “gives economic opportunity to the less privileged, mitigates the effects of natural disasters, reduces energy consumption, and provides welcoming public space… Innovative and inspiring, he shows how architecture at its best can improve people’s lives.” Aravena gets it.

So do the folks in San Francisco who created Project Homeless Connect in 2004, bringing together an array of services for the homeless in a daylong fair five times a year. It can take many days, and money desperately needed for food, for homeless people to travel from agency to agency by public transportation to get the help they need and are entitled to. Here is a partial list of services people can access at the fairs—all in one place on the same day: dental care, eyeglasses, HIV testing, housing information, food, hygiene products, medical care, mental health services, SSI benefits, legal advice, California identification cards, voice mail accounts, employment counseling, job placement, wheelchair repair, and addiction services. PHC can now be found around the country. The Central Maryland PHC (the one closest to where I live) makes available medical exams and screenings, haircuts, legal advice, identification, healthy food, and more—in one place on the same day. PHC was created by people who get it.

And so do the people at the ASPIRE Center in San Diego, a 40-bed residential treatment facility for returning veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury, who could not be successfully treated in out-patient clinics. The Center opened in February 2014. Some veterans arrived at ASPIRE from jail; many would most likely have ended up on the street. At ASPIRE, residents receive a menu of services including vocational rehabilitation, psychotherapy, educational classes, and treatment for PTSD and TBI. We are all lifted up when those who struggle the most are lifted up.

We can do more. We can do better. Perhaps if we look at the story of the Israelites’ experience in the Wilderness through their eyes, we will.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

Let Them Eat Bread! — Parshat Bo 5776 / 2016

After a long and unexpected hiatus, I’m am happy to return to writing and providing these drashot to the weekly Torah portions. This week we open to Bo, the third parashah in the Book of Exodus.

Last spring, my friend Penny let me “babysit” her sourdough starter while she was out of town for several weeks, and before returning it to her, she told me to keep half. Since then, I have had a great time experimenting with new recipes and baking all the breads and rolls we have eaten and served here for the past six months. So far the sourdough starter is thriving, but friends tell me that sometimes they die. In fact, while my half of Penny’s starter is going strong, Penny’s half didn’t survive. Apparently, sourdough can be a delicate thing.

And yes, all this is related to Parshat Bo, where we read the first instructions concerning the celebration of Passover—which hasn’t happened yet because the Israelites are still enslaved in Egypt. Our story of redemption entails three types of bread: fancy yeast breads of Egypt, matzah, and manna.

Parshat Bo contains the first mention of the famous food restrictions that pertain to Pesach:

וְהָיָה הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה לָכֶם לְזִכָּרוֹן, וְחַגֹּתֶם אֹתוֹ חַג לַיהוָה:  לְדֹרֹתֵיכֶם, חֻקַּת עוֹלָם תְּחָגֻּהוּ. שִׁבְעַת יָמִים, מַצּוֹת תֹּאכֵלוּ--אַךְ בַּיּוֹם הָרִאשׁוֹן, תַּשְׁבִּיתוּ שְּׂאֹר מִבָּתֵּיכֶם:  כִּי כָּל-אֹכֵל חָמֵץ, וְנִכְרְתָה הַנֶּפֶשׁ הַהִוא מִיִּשְׂרָאֵל--מִיּוֹם הָרִאשֹׁן, עַד-יוֹם הַשְּׁבִעִי

This day shall be to you one of remembrance: you shall celebrate it as a festival to Adonai throughout the ages; you shall celebrate it as an institution for all time. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread; on the very first day you shall remove se-or from your houses, for whoever eats chametz (leavened bread) from the first day to the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. (Exodus 12:14-15)

Torah commands us to remove שְּׂאֹר (se’or) from our homes so that we cannot eat חָמֵץ, which is anything leavened with yeast (bread, rolls, etc.). What, exactly, is se’or?

People have been making bread for 30,000 years. In the main, ancient peoples ate flatbread (examples from around the world include: lavash, tortillas, naan, roti, johnnycake, tortilla, and injera). Our matriarchs and patriarchs ate something like matzah or pita. Historians believe that Egyptians may have been the first to bake yeast breads 5,000 years ago. Hieroglyphs depict the process; archaeologists have uncovered grinding stones, baking ovens for yeast bread; and yeast cells have been detected in ancient loaves.  (You can learn more here and here.)

The Israelites undoubtedly learned the techniques of baking yeast breads from the Egyptians, including how to produce a sourdough (it takes a week) and how to let dough raise before baking it.

With this in mind, let’s return to the question I posed earlier: What is se’or? My colleague and friend, Rabbi Howard Kosovske, makes a compelling argument that se’or, which we often translate “leavening,” refers specifically to sourdough. Rabbi Kosovske point out that sourdough is key in a bread-based diet. Today we use commercial yeast, easily purchased in the supermarket in jars or packets, but in Egypt, people depended on sourdough, which takes a week to prepare, must be carefully maintained, but then can be used time and again to produce a luxurious bread. The Israelites would have learned how to make and maintain sourdough in Egypt. It was precisely this se’or, the sourdough—providing the staple of their bread-based diet, that the Israelites are commanded to destroy.

I’ve thought a lot about this idea. Destroying the se’or each spring, year after year, constitutes an enormous act of faith that God who redeemed Israel from Egypt once, will again redeem Israel/Jews from the threat of starvation. Sourdoughs are fragile enough. It’s not clear at what point in history people understood that airborne yeast produced the sourdough, but presuming that this was understood in the biblical period, minimally Jews were destroying the very source of their bread-based diet each year. (Recall that Penny's half didn't survive.) This is an experience most of us do not have because commercial bread and yeast are ubiquitous, and we do not fear hunger, let alone starvation.

Without se’or, the people were limited to eating the flatbread of their ancestors. Presumably baking bread without a se’or, the sourdough starter, should suffice, but halakhah requires that we eat matzah, flatbread in the extreme. The rigorous conditions under which matzah is prepared, scrupulously guarded and quickly baked to ensure that wild yeast in the air cannot get a foothold in the dough, can be understood as a rejection of, and independence from, the slave culture of imperial Egypt that produced pyramids and storehouses on the backs of slave labor and dined on luxurious bread but dehumanized the very people who baked it for them.

The third bread in the Exodus story is manna. In the Wilderness, between the pyramids and yeast breads of Egypt and the traditional flatbreads of Eretz Yisrael, God provides manna, an ephemeral bread that appears in the morning and disappears within hours, teaching the Israelites that God’s presence in their lives is constant and dependable. They don’t need to see God (i.e., have bread in hand) at all times for God to be near. Bread will come each morning; God is ever-present. Manna weans the Israelites off “Egypt” and prepares them to make their own way in Eretz Yisrael.

Ironically, we could say that yeast bread is the “bread of affliction,” matzah is the bread of freedom, and manna is the miracle that reminds us that redemption is an ever-present possibility.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

Jacob and the RCA / Parshat Toldot 5776

The Rabbinical Council of America, the formal rabbinic body of modern Orthodoxy, voted recently passed a resolution in response to the wonderful success of Yeshivat Maharat, as it prepares to ordain three more women as rabbis and thereby (in the yeshivah’s words) “changing the communal landscape by actualizing the potential of Orthodox women as rabbinic leaders.” You can read the RCA’s resolution here. It starts out just as you might expect: “The flowering of Torah study and teaching by God-fearing Orthodox women in recent decades stands as a significant achievement.” It then devolves into a prohibition against ordaining women (regardless of title conferred), hiring women as rabbis, and allowing women to use the title “Rabbi.” Here we are in the 21^st Century in a free, modern country fighting the ancient battle of men who want to control the show and relegate women to the back of the shul.
 
Some people don’t get it until they experience it. In this week’s parashah, Toldot, Jacob behaves unconscionably: he cheats his brother out of the birthright and conspires with his mother to deceive his father into giving him Esau’s blessing. Torah does not provide so much as a hint that Jacob comprehends the gravity of what he has done. Jacob evinces not a hint of empathy, compassion, or remorse. The only thing that registers with him is that he is personally endangered by Esau’s resentment. He runs off to Paddan-aram to save himself and find a wife. Jacob wakes up to the pain he has caused his brother and father only when he is on the receiving end of cheating and deception at the hands of his father-in-law, Laban. Some people only get it when they experience it themselves.
 
With that in mind, I’m considering the recent discussion about the RCA’s draconian pronouncement about the evils of woman participating visibly or wielding authority in Jewish religious life and specifically, Jerome Chanes’ piece about what it’s like to sit behind a mechitzah—something that he experienced recently. He tells us, “…I was more than just uncomfortable. I was not in control of my devotions. Someone else was. I felt marginalized. I was miserable.” Now he gets it. And getting it led him to ponder why there is still—in the 21^st century!—a mechitzah. I don’t want to condemn Chanes in particular, especially because I don’t know him and do appreciate the piece he wrote, but I have to wonder why so few people can envision the pain and degradation of “the back of the bus” or the “back of the shul” until they are physically relegated to a place of invisibility. Some people don’t get it until they experience it. How sad that this is what it takes.
 
The RCA’s recent pronouncement has the effect of doubling down on protecting the privileged prerogatives of men in their corner of Jewish life. How sad and pathetic that the need of some men to hold the reins of power and authority, and not share it with women, eclipses what today is common decency, equity, and compassion. These same men would likely support egalitarian standards for doctors, lawyers, teachers, and social workers. In the world of the synagogue and the Jewish community, however, they revert to a medieval mindset. I suppose I should take some comfort in knowing that the vote was close and that the president of the RCA, Rabbi Shalom Baum, voted against the resolution. Baum is quoted as saying that he believes that most of the current officers and roshei yeshivah feel that the resolution is both unnecessary and poorly timed. Just what does that mean? Is it unnecessary because the RCA is already on record as saying women are unfit to be rabbis or even counted in a minyan? Is it poorly timed because it’s bad PR?
 
One thing is clear: the resolution is evidence that educated, talented, capable, savvy women are very threatening to the members of the RCA. It was only last year that Yeshiva University’s rabbinic school threatened to withhold ordination from a student who hosted a partnership minyan. Even more recently, Rabbi Mordechai Willig of Yeshiva University said, in a d’var Torah, that it was a mistake to allow women to study Talmud and called for a reevaluation of women’s study opportunities in the Orthodox world for fear that such studies would poison their pretty little heads with egalitarian ideas. Willig and those like him are running scared. And it’s not the liberal Jewish world they are running from most immediately. It’s Rabbi Avi Weiss, who fonded Yeshivat Chovevei Torah and Yeshivat Maharat, and who ordained rabbi Sara Hurwitz as the first Orthodox rabbi. Hurwitz is now the dean of Yeshivat Maharat. Kol ha-kavod to Rabbis Weiss and Hurwitz. May they go from strength to strength.
 
Returning for a moment to our ancestor, Jacob: It should not have been necessary for Jacob to experience the pain he caused his brother and father to understand the gravity of his acts. It should not be necessary for men to sit behind a mechitzah to understand how marginalizing, degrading and (to be perfectly honest) utterly ridiculous it is in the 21^st century. After all, do we need to experience poverty, homelessness, hunger, war, sexual violence, and terrorism to know what they do to people’s bodies, minds, and souls—and care? Rebbe Nachman of Bratzlov taught that the Shefa (the divine flow through the universe that animates and fuels all life) is compassion. Rebbe Nachman taught us to think of God this way because he knew that empathy and compassion do not come naturally to everyone; we need to cultivate them in ourselves, and practice them in our lives.
 
It’s time to dip our cup into the stream and drink abundantly. L’chaim. Shabbat shalom.
 
© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

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[1] http://www.thejewishweek.com/features/first-person/i-was-behind-mechitza.