This d’rash was presented as part of our synagogue’s observance of HIAS Refugee Shabbat. At the end, there is a letter that can help a refugee near where I live to remain in the United States with his family. Please sign it and mail it to the address indicated. Billy

Did you hear? Big Bird is retiring. Well, not Big Bird, but Caroll Spinney, the actor who plays Big Bird. After 50 years of entering our homes from his home on Sesame Street, the voice not only of Big Bird but also of Oscar the Grouch is retiring. He’s 84 years old, which is amazingly difficult to believe!

I mention this because Sesame Street is something that has accompanied so many of us through childhood and, as parents, through our second childhood. Coming home from school, plopping down in front of the TV with an apple and maybe some cheese, and jumping into that wonderful world where we got to learn our ABCs and our 123s, this is emblematic of life done right. While Sesame Street was originally created for underprivileged kids to help them get a good start on their education, we privileged kids loved it too. Sesame Street was part of the good life.

But around the world, there are 25.4 million children who are refugees, who have been forced to leave their home, leave their country, and cannot safely return. If they’re really lucky, they may live with family or friends, but more than likely they’re living in tents and other temporary structures inside of refugee camps, and also in towns and cities where jobs, affordable housing, decent meals and health care are very difficult to come by. If these kids get to watch Sesame Street, they just might be wishing they could live in a home as nice as Oscar’s trashcan.

It is estimated that there are 68 million refugees worldwide. Wanna guess how many of those are here in the United States? Well, since 1975 – that’s a little more than 40 years ago – more than three million refugees have been able to find refuge – a safe home – in America and have built new lives for themselves and for their families. Recently, however, our federal government has pretty much closed America’s gates and the ability for refugees to find refuge here has decreased to almost zero.

On top of that, our government has stepped up efforts to deport – which means to send away from our country – people who once came here from another nation, have lived here for decades, raised families here, but are now being arrested, separated from the people they love and, far too frequently, made to leave the United States and not come back.

Here’s just one family’s story.

Armando Rugerio

In Mount Kisco, maybe 25 minutes north of here, there is a synagogue much like ours called Bet Torah, the house of Torah, where families come to observe Shabbat and holidays, celebrate babynamings and B’nai Mitzvah, learn in their religious school and adult education programs, and practice tikkun olam through shared community service and help for others. At Bet Torah, there is a caretaker whose name is Armando Rugerio. He’s been the caretaker there for twenty years.

Armando has two children of his own, has never broken a law, and has been steadily employed by a community of hundreds of families who adore him. But in a single instant, he was taken away from all of that. He and his family had been dining in a nearby restaurant when a fight broke out. The police came and arrested a number of people, including Armando, who had just been eating a quiet meal with his family. While the court found Armando innocent, a government agency called Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, received a list of who was in the jail. ICE began proceedings to deport Armando. Despite decades of employment, paying taxes, and letters from members of Bet Torah attesting to what a wonderful member he is of their community, Armando was sent to Mexico, his country of birth, now a foreign land which he’d left behind some thirty years ago. He was dropped off without bank cards, cash, cell phone or ID. He was given no time to gather any belongings or even to call his family to say goodbye.

Did Armando enter our country illegally thirty years ago? I suspect the answer is yes. But we have to ask ourselves: Is this the correct way to respond? By throwing him out, ignoring three decades of hard work, responsible citizenry, not to mention that our nation claims among its most cherished values a sense of goodness and of caring for people in need?

At the end of this page, you will find a letter. If you are so moved to reach out on behalf of Armando and his family, please consider signing that letter and sending it to the Immigration Court where Armando, who is back in the United States but has been in jail up in Albany for the past five months, is going to be tried, either to be welcomed home or returned to a home that stopped being his home a very long time ago.

In this week’s Torah parashah, Lekh Lekha, Abraham and Sarah embark upon a journey that brings them to a new land, Canaan. They were not citizens of that land but resided there as resident aliens. Still, no one forced them to leave and, in time, our people built homes, and an entire future, in that place which they had dubbed “the Promised Land.”

America too is a land of promise. Recently, however, we’ve told many, many people that promise does not include them. Our ancient Israelite ancestors have taught us differently. Our American ancestors, who settled here to find refuge from oppression and persecution in Europe, have also taught us differently.

If we want America to be restored to a place where the words at the base of our Statue of Liberty still ring true – “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” – you and I are going to have write a lot of letters, make a lot of phone calls, and perhaps most important of all, vote, so that these United States of America can once again be that place where nightmares can end, where men and women can bring their children to safety, and where, together, we can build homes as friendly and loving as Sesame Street.

We are so lucky to live in a world where we get Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Taylor Swift, and (soon) mountains of Halloween candy. Help us to grateful for all these things and so much more, and to show our gratitude by truly seeing those who are anything but lucky – 68 million refugees around the world, 25 million who are kids – and doing what we can to help.

Aleinu. It’s on us, God, to stand up for all of them. By signing a letter to help one father get back to his family. By standing with others – at demonstrations, here in services, outside courthouses – wherever our voice is needed. And by voting, to elect leaders who care not only about our future but about those whose future can and should be here as well.

Aleinu, God. It’s on us. May we be worthy of making these words come true.

Billy

Honorable Steven Connelly
Honorable Philip J. Montante, Jr.
Batavia Immigration Court
4250 Federal Drive, Room F108
Batavia, NY 14020

Re: Armando Rojas Rugerio A-072486981

Dear Honorable Sirs:

I am writing on behalf of our community member, Armando Rojas Rugerio, whose viable application for asylum was recently denied.

Mr. Rojas has lived in the area for the past two decades and his absence is keenly felt by this community as well as his devoted family. He has lived in the United States for more than 30 years, was deported without any notice to his family— in spite of a stay of deportation signed by a Judge.

Upon return to his sister’s village, Mr. Rojas was immediately identified as a target and was threatened on several occasions, causing credible fear as two family members had been murdered prior to his return.

Two months later, members of our community walked Mr. Rojas through the border entry point at Otay Mesa and he was sent to the Albany County Correctional Facility where he has been incarcerated for the past five months.

I am aware of Armando’s unfailing work ethic and his winning ways that have been an inspiration to all who know him. His absence has spurred the community on to action which has secured the financial support of his family during his detention. I am respectfully requesting that Armando’s application for asylum on the basis of credible fear, (his Asylum Officer found him to be credible and have a legitimate fear if he should be deported), be reconsidered thereby making him eligible for parole and ultimately returned to the family and community who cares for him deeply.

Thank you.

Throughout my entire rabbinic career, whenever Sukkot has arrived, I have enjoyed explaining that sukkot – the three-sided booths we erect following Yom Kippur and in which we spend a week visiting with friends, dining with family, and watching squirrels carry away its vegetative decor – are fragile! Without a whole lot of trouble, they can fall down. But I never actually thought I’d see one tumble!

My synagogue’s sukkah, lovingly constructed each year out of sustainable materials harvested and built by our sukkah team, crumbled to the ground on the first day of Sukkot.

And I just love that! What a powerful lesson for all of us. We told you it could come down. And lookee there, it did! The world is a fragile place. Things can break. And sometimes they actually do.

I can remember when I was a kid, that from time-to-time I’d get to bring home a model airplane made of balsa wood. These were really flimsy objects, but if you wound up its rubber band enough times, the propeller as it twisted back around would make the airplane really fly. But it would only last maybe fifteen minutes before a wing or the tail would break right off. And I was always devastated by that. Those things were cool!

But sometimes things just break.

Sometimes, we break them ourselves.

Once when I was practicing meditation (you’re gonna love this), I was maybe seventeen years old and sitting still for twenty minutes was, under the best of circumstances, not easy to do. It was a summer day, and I’d brought a glass of ice water to keep me from melting, setting it on the dresser just behind my chair, which was also where I placed my watch so I wouldn’t keep looking at it. But from time-to-time, I obviously did need to look at it to see if I was finished. So I reached back and, while feeling around for the watch, my hand found the iced water, knocking over the glass so that its entire freezing contents spilled right down my back. Furious, I jumped up, spun around, picked up my watch and proceed to smash it to smithereens.

Sometimes things don’t just break. Sometimes we take care of that ourselves.

Once a couple of weeks ago, nature did some of the breaking.

Hurricane Florence dumped up to three feet of water on cities and towns throughout North and South Carolina. The damage was estimated at $48 billion. But the image I will always remember of these two broken states is of a cow struggling to swim through the flooded waters inside and outside her barn and just keeping her head above water until being rescued by a passing boat. Its skipper wrapped a piece of rope around the cow’s nose and mouth, holding its head above water as they towed it to safety.

Sometimes the world breaks all by itself. And all we can do is hang onto each other and ride out the storm.

Then there’s the United States Congress, rendered almost completely ineffective by their refusal to work with people of differing political positions and points of view. That wasn’t what I thought I was voting for. People used to say that nothing except compromise ever takes place in the Senate and House of Representatives. Oh, how I miss those days.

Sometimes we deliberately sabotage ourselves and break things on purpose! On purpose!

Which makes our little sukkah seem pretty insignificant, don’tcha think? Which is what it was always meant to be. Because it’s just a symbol. The sukkah is supposed to remind us of how fragile our world is, that sometimes we have to endure what naturally happens, but that so much of the brokenness is in our control to fix. And when we stand up and angrily smash our watch to pieces, we’re in need of … well, we’re in need of, quite frankly, something we just spent the last few weeks talking about: teshuvah … changing our behavior for the better.

Throughout Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, reading after reading and sermon after sermon urged us to fearlessly examine our lives and to inventory where we have fallen short of our obligations to the human family. Some of us spent more than a dozen hours in ten different services engaged in this sacred process of heshbon nefesh, of figuring out where we could seriously improve ourselves in the year ahead.

Now it is the year ahead and the question before each of us is, “So what are we gonna do about it?” Have we simply packed away the makhzorim from our High Holy Days and moved on? Or are we going to take that list of ways we can be kinder and more generous, and actually try to change?

That’s why I love our fallen sukkah. If we’ll let it, it’s reminding us that there’s so much brokenness in our world, and while we may or may not fix our symbol of life’s fragile nature, we can certainly get to work trying to fix some of the real brokenness that’s all around us.

A week ago, members of the Peace Islands Institute, a Muslim community organization, came to visit our high school Academy and served them a homemade dessert called Noah’s Pudding. Premised on the supposition that when the Flood ended and the Ark landed, the community joined together for one last meal, a meal made from the last supplies that still remained on the Ark – Noah’s Pudding – and broke bread together one more time before journeying into their new and individual futures, Noah’s Pudding is an offering from one person to another, symbolizing a wish that whatever lies ahead will be filled with sustenance, sweetness and human companionship. Their sharing of Noah’s Pudding with these Jewish high school students was a powerful and unforgettable demonstration of friendship, of building up, not falling down. I have no doubt that on Monday evening, through the simple sharing of a humble Muslim tradition, we fixed just a tiny bit of the brokenness in our world.

Things break. That’s going to keep on happening. Our great gift is that we can be there for each other when they do. Sometimes we can rebuild; sometimes all we can do is offer a hug.

During the High Holy Days, we shared in the dramatic and, quite frankly, frightening words of Un’taneh Tokef, “Who shall live and who shall die?” When I encounter this reading, I no longer see it as God’s judgement of me or of others. Rather, I see it as a call to action. It reminds us that people do live and people do die. And sometimes, there’s nothing to be done, but sometimes, and perhaps far more frequently, there is something we can do; there’s much that we can do. Like helping a cow keep its head above the floodwaters, if we just keep our eyes and our hearts open, there are plenty of ways to fix things.

And then there’s Simkhat Torah. A simply wonderful celebratory holiday that wraps up this otherwise serious time period. A holiday that may be the most important of them all. It is a time when we dance with the Torah as a symbolic conclusion to these High Holy Days. The Torah is, of course, not only a symbol of our passion for learning right from wrong, it’s also a guidebook for doing so. We’re right to dance with our scrolls. In a world filled with brokenness, our communities must come together, with whatever ideas we can muster, and, like our friends from Peace Islands Institute, share in bringing hopeful change to everyone.

I imagine that I will never see a sukkah fall down again. But I will see children break some of their toys, adults break some of our communities, and nature break some of our homes. May we remember that each one of us is capable of doing something, maybe even a lot, to make things better. May these High Holy Days, and one broken sukkah, inspire us to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Billy

Postscript: On Thursday (Sep 27), many of us listened in as the Senate Judiciary Committee heard the testimonies of Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford. While there is much to criticize about what took place, whichever side of the aisle and/or the issue we’re on, there was also something very right happening. We may not like what we see going on in Congress, but we have a Congress. It may be damaged and in need of repair, but it’s still there. So register to vote, run for office, or help someone else run. If you see a sukkah that’s fallen, figure out if it needs picking up. And if it does, let’s do what we can do to lend a hand.

In case you didn’t know, it’s the Hebrew month of Elul. These are the four weeks leading up to the High Holy Days, a time when most Jewish families are thinking about, well, probably nothing having to do with the High Holy Days. Including this Labor Day weekend, it seems to be a time to squeeze out the very last minutes of summer fun and relaxation.

Rabbis and cantors, on the other hand, are pretty much thinking about nothing BUT the High Holy Days. There is music to prepare, sermons to be written, and a thousand other preparatory activities that must get done before any of you set foot in the tent next Sunday evening.

Let me give you one small example of how this season affects clergy. On Facebook (you know, where all serious work gets done), we Reform rabbis have a page all our own. It’s a place to discuss Torah, Talmud, and contemporary issues of import. This week, amidst the intense laboring to prepare our sermons, this most crucial posting was placed by a rabbi I know. He asked: What’s a “fun fact” that’s actually fun?

And that’s all it took. Dozens of rabbis, all with way more important things to do, began chiming in. Responses included:

• Ducks are the fastest flying birds.
• Your ears never stop growing.
• In Switzerland, it is illegal to own just one guinea pig.
• During our lifetime, each of us will produce enough saliva to fill two swimming pools.
• Escalators never actually break, they just become stairs.

I know you’re impressed by the width and breadth of knowledge that rabbis possess. You simply have no idea! By the way, I can’t verify that any of these are accurate, except maybe that broken escalators are stairs. I did learn that ducks are not the fastest flying birds. While the swiftest duck may clock in as high as 100 mph, the peregrine falcon flies double that!

All of this is to say: One never knows how someone is going to spend their summer vacation. Sure, there may be trips to exotic locales and sunbathing at the local pool, but those aren’t necessarily summer’s most indelible moments.

My summers, by the way, like yours, aren’t all vacation (tho I do remember those sublime years of youth when nothing needed to be accomplished between the last day of school in the spring and the first day back in the fall). My summer, slowed down as it was, included a half dozen funerals during which I was honored to share in the sacred act of saying goodbye to someone who was well-loved and will be much-missed. It’s always a privilege to be invited into these private, intimate, holy moments in people’s lives.

Other significant moments in my life this summer have included:

• Presiding over the demise of my kitchen stove and oven, during which Ellen and I had much fun picking out new appliances, but not quite so much fun having to spend lots of money hiring a carpenter to modify drawers and cupboards that no longer opened because the new units obstructed things deep inside our cabinetry. The lesson: Home ownership is really satisfying except when, like an aging body, it requires surprise visits and expenditures to keep things running.

• Speaking of which, earlier this summer I thought I was going deaf in one ear but, upon visiting the ENT doctor, I learned just how much wax can build up inside there. The lesson: Try to stop being so dramatic about physical demise. While we’re all definitely disintegrating, it’s probably happening at a much slower rate that we think.

• I got to visit my two now-pretty-well-grown children. Katie is married and an art educator living in Montpelier, Vermont. This summer, she returned to Eisner Camp after a 10-year hiatus, where she taught yoga, meditation and, of course, art. Aiden has gone what they call “adulting,” moving to Denver this summer, getting himself five part-time jobs, an apartment, and even a new dentist! The lesson: All that love we gave our kids when they were young? It really does serve as the foundation for them building lives that are vibrant, healthy and satisfying. And I have to say, I’m happier for my kids now than any report card or school concert ever made me feel!

• Lastly, bringing it all together, there’s Mars. Throughout June, July and August, the red planet came nearer to our earth than usual. Mostly residing about 140 million miles from Times Square, this summer Mars almost made it all the way up to Westchester, coming 100 million miles closer than ever! But what was most profound for me was that no matter where I was this summer: Massachusetts, Colorado or New York, there was Mars, shining brilliantly in the night sky. The lesson: Everything is connected, no one is alone, and we are all part of the same magnificent, unfolding story.

So while, yes, the White House continues to give us reasons to wonder if civilization is rapidly coming to an end, there remains so much that is good in our world. And even while we fret – concerned for immigrant children still living apart from their parents, Russian meddling in our democratic elections, genocide in Myanmar, North Korea’s nuclear weapons, and rampant gun violence – we can also rejoice – 12 boys and their coach successfully rescued after 17 days stuck in a cave in Thailand, the World Cup bringing us all together in global competition marked by shared friendship and excitement that transcended all ethnic and nationalist demarcations and, since the year 2000, 1.2 billion additional human beings on the planet have gained access to electricity, one of the first steps out of poverty.

There is still much reason to rejoice.

In this week’s parasha, Kee Tavo, we read (in Deut 26:11) Moses’ instructions to the Israelites as they prepare to conclude their 40 years of desert wandering and enter the Promised Land: “V’samakhta v’khol ha’tov asher natan lakh … you shall enjoy, together with the Levite and the stranger in your midst, all the bounty that God has bestowed upon you and your household.” This foundational value, shared as they readied themselves to go to war, serves as a profound reminder to us that human existence isn’t for the purpose of suffering; it’s to build lives that mean something, that provide sustenance and safety for all people, and ultimately to love and to laugh and to luxuriate in the simple joys of being able to have a place to live, enjoy one’s family, and even to chuckle at fun facts shared while avoiding matters of responsibility.

So I’ll leave you with two more fun facts and a wish.

1st fun fact: Banging your head against a wall for one hour burns 150 calories.

My wish: There are an infinite number of ways that we can spend the time allotted to us on this earth. Some of it should be spent helping make things better for everyone. And some of it should probably be spent fretting about how bad things are. But not only is it vital that we spend time with people we love and in activities we love, we ought also avoid, as much as possible, uselessly banging our heads against a wall, even if someone tries to convince us there’s a benefit in it.

The Israelites understood that joy was a fundamental component to life, and that all are commanded to enjoy, and to ensure others can do the same. From the dawn of Creation, a bounty has been bestowed upon us. It would be mean-spirited to squander that.

2nd fun fact: 7% of all Americans actually believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows. I don’t know if that’s true, but I’d bet it wouldn’t surprise many of you to learn it is (the 7% believing, I mean). This big, beautiful world of ours is filled with the full spectrum of humanity, including a few (what’s 7% of 325 million?) who think some pretty strange stuff. As the month of Elul nears its finishing line and we prepare to meet in the tent next Sunday to greet the New Year, may we embrace all of our human family, chuckling at those who subscribe to fun facts that are much more fun than fact, all the while extending our love and our compassion even to those from whom we differ immensely. Let’s resolve to make this New Year 5779 one of goodness, kindness, understanding, and the simple delight that comes from sharing the most magnificent fun fact of all: life.

That’s how I spent my summer vacation.

Ketivah v’khatimah tovah … may all soon be inscribed for blessing and peace. Shabbat shalom.

Billy

I have a story to tell you. It’s about a tiny bird. I’ll come back to that.

Tisha b’Av has been set aside as a day for the Jewish community to remember the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple two thousand years ago. Traditionally, this day is observed with fasting, prayers of lament and rituals of mourning. Two thousands years is a very  long time, however, and grief abates.

So if Tisha b’Av no longer compels, what’s to be done with it?

Earlier this week, while I was trying to figure this out, I took my dog for a walk. Not ten feet outside the front door, we encountered a baby bird on the ground. It was alive but I couldn’t tell by how much. I could only imagine it had fallen from its nest perhaps fifty feet above and that couldn’t have been good.

Charlie sniffed but respectfully backed away. Ellen came out and very gently carried the bird to the bottom of the tree from which it had fallen. It was out of direct sunlight and the possibility of getting stepped on. It laid its head on its wing to rest. Not thirty minutes later, we checked on it and it had died.

For a good while after, our home was subdued. Even Charlie seemed quiet. It was only a baby bird, but in the few minutes that it had entered our lives, it had evoked our sympathy and stolen our hearts. We grieved.

I wondered. Is this what we need in order to feel the pain of loss? If we are to act on human suffering, must we experience that suffering firsthand?

I have a handmade tallit that I purchased in Israel. Before completing the order, I was asked, “What text would you like embroidered on the atarah?” Well, that was going to take some thought and I returned home to America without completing the order. What text would I want to see every time I place that garment across my shoulders? Three weeks later, I sent them my response. It came from the Book of Job (38:35):

For me, this text, God’s response to Job’s asking what we all want to know, “Why?” Why has my health failed? Why has my loved one died? Why is my marriage over? Why did that earthquake have to cause so much destruction? How can that leader condone so much suffering?

God’s response to Job was that there is so much we can’t control. And there are questions for which we will never have answers.

We may not like that response, but it seems pretty accurate to me.

There is a passage, however, from Noah benShea’s Jacob the Baker that helps me live with this unsettling reality:

Watching a flotilla of small sticks and leaves dropped into a river race and tumble around one bend only to be caught in another, someone said, “Clearly we are not in control of where our lives are going.” But another responded, “We are nevertheless responsible for how we conduct ourselves as we are carried on.”

This is how I’ve tried to approach my life, which has been a pretty easy one compared to so many others, but I’ve had my share of sorrows. I don’t hide my grief, but I try not to be crushed by it either.

Here’s what I’ve been thinking about Tisha b’Av. Each of us quite likely has horrible moments that are ours. Not all are the result of evil people, but they are painful memories no less. Loved ones die. Natural disasters claim the lives of hundreds. Political disasters (like tearing immigrant children away from their parents) exact a different but no less painful price.

Tisha b’Av comes along. We allow our pain to reemerge, even after two thousand years. Or we just remember — we don’t own, or we don’t directly feel, that pain. The message in both cases, I believe, is that these memories and their concomitant feelings are valid but, if possible, they ought not end there. Painful memory can and should be used for good purpose.

Perhaps by limiting this communal grief to a single day, Jewish tradition is trying to say, “It doesn’t have to ever go away. But like that flotilla of small sticks and leaves, we need to choose how to live in its aftermath. Always always, choose life.”

We needn’t relinquish our sadnesses forever. The hurt might never fully go away. But if in addition to missing what has been lost, we can turn that grief (and our hearts) toward making the world a bit more hospitable for someone else, then our pain and the grief that comes from someone’s life having ended far too soon (or whatever it is that lingers on), perhaps we can turn it toward something of deepening value and even personal redemption.

That little bird haunts me. I think I’ll be carrying the image of its dying for a while yet. I don’t think I’m going to become a bird doctor, but my sadness did prompt me to write this. And perhaps, as Tisha b’Av approaches, that’s of some worth and a fine way to channel this loss.

For me, that seems like a good lesson learned.

Billy

What’s the best terrible thing that’s ever happened to you? Is it some food you thought you hated, but someone made you try it and you liked it? Or did you have to go somewhere to which you desperately wanted not to go, but someone made you go and you liked it? One of my best terrible things is a musical called Merrily We Roll Along. It’s a story that moves backwards in time, from the lives in tatters of its stars at the beginning of the show to their starry-eyed beginnings at the end of the show. Merrily We Roll Along appeared on Broadway sometime in 1981 and even though it was created and produced by some of Broadway’s biggest names – Harold Prince and Stephen Sondheim – the critics hated it and it was gone in two weeks. I saw one its sixteen performances, and Merrily We Roll Along has been one of my very favorite musicals ever since.

Food, trips and Broadway musicals don’t really come close to being the worst things a person can experience. But suffering is suffering. And learning to handle life’s difficulties with grace, to even find ways to be grateful for goodnesses that still remain, these are among life’s greatest challenges.

Here’s a story called “The Curse of Blessings.” It was written by Mitchell Chefitz (from his book by the same name).

Once upon a time, there was an Officer of the Law. A newly-minted graduate of the academy, he was filled with pride, dressed in his crisp, blue uniform, adorned with brass buttons, gold epaulets, and a silver sword at his side. But the young officer, also filled with self-importance, was arrogant and cold-hearted.

One day, while walking his beat, he heard a commotion in an alleyway. Stepping into the darkness, he saw a man dressed in rags. “Come forward,” he commanded. But the man did not come forward. “I am an Officer of the Law, and I command you to come forward!” The man still did not move. Instead, he spoke, “I just don’t know what I’m going to do with you.”

“Do with me?” the Officer replied. “Do with me? You don’t do with me! I do with you! I am an Officer of the Law and I order you to come forward.”

“Ahh,” said the man in rags, “now I know what to do with you,” and as he spoke, he drew his sword. “Now I know exactly what to do,” and without another word he moved to attack.

The Officer drew his sword in defense. “Stop that!” he ordered. “Put down your sword right now or someone is going to get hurt.” But the man in rags continued moving forward. “Stop!” he said again, but to no avail, and as the man in rags thrust his sword forward, the Officer of the Law responded in kind.

In that moment, just as the young officer moved to attack, all became silent and still. Suddenly frozen in place, he could not move. But he could hear. And what he heard was the man in rags saying this: “I am leaving you – but as I do, I place upon you the Curse of Blessings. The Curse of Blessings means that every day you must offer a new blessing, one you have never spoken before. On the day you do not offer a new blessing, on that day you will die.”

And then all returned to normal. Except the man in rags was gone. The Officer of the Law lowered his sword, wondering what he had just seen and what he had just heard. “I must have imagined the whole thing,” he thought.

It was late, and the sun was setting. The Officer felt his body growing cold. Did the man in rags exist? Did he really speak those words? Was the Officer’s life leaving him?

In a panic, he blurted out a blessing: “Thank You, O God, for creating such a beautiful sunset.” At once, he felt warmth and life flow back into him, and he realized, with both shock and relief, that the curse was real.

The next day, he did not delay. Upon waking, he offered a blessing: “Praised be the Source Who has allowed me to awaken this morning.” His life felt secure the entire day. The next morning, he blessed his ability to rise from his bed; the following day, that he could tie his shoes.

Day after day, he named features that he could bless: that he could take care of his body, that he had teeth to brush, that each finger of his hands still worked, that he had toes on his feet and hair on his head. He blessed his clothes, every garment. His house, the roof and floor, his furniture, every table and chair.

One day, running out of blessings for himself, he began to bless others. He blessed his family and friends, fellow workers, and those who worked for him. He blessed the mailman and the clerks, firefighters and school teachers. He was surprised to find they appreciated his blessings. His words had power. They drew people closer. He became known as an unusual Officer of the Law, one who brought goodness wherever he’d go.

Years passed, decades. The policeman had to go further and further afield to find new sources of blessing. He blessed city councils and university buildings, scientists and their discoveries. As he traveled throughout the world, he grew in awe of its balance and beauty and he blessed that. He realized that the more he learned, the more he had to bless. His life was long, and he had the opportunity to learn in every field.

He passed the age of one hundred. Most of his friends were long gone. His time was now devoted to searching for his life’s purpose and the one source from which all blessings flow. He had long since realized that he was not the origin but merely the conduit, the channel, and even that realization was welcomed with a blessing that sustained him for yet another day.

As he approached the age of one hundred and twenty, the Officer decided that his life was long enough. Even Moses had lived no longer than that. So on his 120th birthday, he decided he’d offer no new blessing and allow his life to come to its end.

All that day he recited old blessings and reviewed all the gifts he had received throughout his life. As the sun was setting, a chill settled into his body. This time, he did not resist it. In the twilight, as his breath grew shallow, a familiar figure appeared — a man in rags.

“You!” whispered the Officer of the Law. “I have thought about you every day for a hundred years! I never meant to harm you. Please, forgive me.”

“You still don’t understand,” said the man in rags. “You don’t know who I am, do you? I am the angel who was sent one hundred years ago to harvest your soul. But when I looked at you, so arrogant and cold, so pompous and full of yourself, there was no soul there to harvest. An empty uniform, that’s all you were. So I placed upon you the Curse of Blessings, and now look what you’ve become.”

In an instant, the Officer of the Law understood all that had happened. Overwhelmed, he said, “You, my friend, have been my greatest blessing.”

The man in rags replied, “Now look what you’ve done. A new blessing!” The Officer of the Law and the man in rags looked at each other, neither knowing what to do.

Sometimes we have a million blessings and can’t see any of them. And sometimes, when blessings are in short supply — that’s when we rise to our very best, seeing the most important blessings of all, and giving thanks for our great fortune.

I want to show you a video. It’s an excerpt from Britain’s Got Talent, filmed after the tragic bombing that occurred in 2017 at an Ariana Grande concert in England’s Manchester Arena.

Two stories. The same ending: that despite colossal difficulty, we humans possess such magnificent hearts and spirits that we can come back from most anything. And when we do, we are often in possession of a greater sensitivity to all the wondrous and truly gorgeous beauty that has always existed around us.

The trick, of course, is to acquire this sensitivity without having to endure tremendous hardship.

At Mount Sinai, the Torah tells us, God instructed that we should never make gods of silver or of gold (Ex 20:20). In a collection of midrashim on the book of Exodus called the Mekhilta, our rabbis interpret “gold and silver” to mean life’s best moments. “When happiness comes,” they teach, “give thanks. But when things get tough, give thanks then as well.”

The rabbis probably didn’t mean we should be happy when we’re sad, but that we should remember, even when we’re sad, that life has had its wonderful moments and, if we’ll open our hearts, we can have wonderful moments again.

Summer is almost here. Time for many of us to go play. For as long as I’ve been at Woodlands, I’ve been sending you into these lazy, frolicsome months with homework: to read a new book, think a new thought, and make a new friend. It’s just another way to remind us that life is filled with blessing, and we should keep our eyes and our hearts open every moment of every day so that we don’t miss any of them.

A horrific story of the Holocaust to share with you. Many of you will know it. Young people might not. But it describes just one small, terrible moment during which only three people died, which was pretty benign for genocide. All you have to do is multiply this moment two million times, and that gets you six million Jewish lives murdered by the Nazis during World War II.

Here’s the story.

One day when we came back from work, we saw three gallows rearing up in the assembly place, three black crows. Roll call. SS all around us, machine guns trained: the traditional ceremony. Three victims in chains— and one of them, the little servant, the sad-eyed angel.

The SS seemed more preoccupied, more disturbed than usual. To hang a child in front of thousands of spectators was no light matter. The head of the camp read the verdict. All eyes were on the child. He was lividly pale, almost calm, biting his lips. The gallows threw its shadow over him.

This time, the Lagerkapo refused to act as executioner. Three SS replaced him. The three victims mounted together onto the chairs. The three were placed at the same moment within the nooses. “Long live liberty!” cried the two adults. But the child was silent.

“Where is God? Where is He?” someone behind me asked. A sign from the head of the camp. The deed was done. Total silence throughout the camp. On the horizon, the sun was setting. “Bare your heads!” yelled the head of the camp. His voice was raucous. We were weeping. “Cover your heads!”

Then the march past began. The two adults were no longer alive. But the third, he was too light; the child was still alive. For more than half an hour, he died so slowly under our eyes. Behind me, I heard the same man asking: “Where is God now?” And I heard a voice within me answer him: “Where is He? Here He is—He is hanging here on this gallows.”

The story appears in Night, a book written by Elie Wiesel describing his experiences as a sixteen-year old in Auschwitz. I first read Night when I was sixteen. Beyond the horror of that specific event, I often wondered deeply about Wiesel’s question, “Where is God?” What did it mean that God was hanging on those gallows? Was God then dead? I’ll come back to that.

First, come with me to a country that I imagine few of us have visited. It was once known as Burma. Today it’s also called Myanmar. It sits between China and India, with neighbors that include Laos, Thailand and Bangladesh. Late this past August, Muslim militants in Myanmar staged coordinated attacks on 30 police posts and an army base. 59 insurgents and 12 members of Myanmar security forces were killed. It represented an escalation of a conflict that had been simmering there since October 2016. For about a year, military sweeps against these insurgents were frequently followed by allegations of serious human rights abuses. Of Myanmar’s 51 million citizens, the treatment of approximately 1.1 million Muslim Rohingya had emerged as predominantly Buddhist Myanmar’s most contentious human rights issue. At that time, Reuters had reported their concern that the conflict might spark even more aggressive army responses and trigger communal clashes between Muslims and Buddhists.

Within days (perhaps hours) of those 30 coordinated attacks, on Aug 25, 2017, the Burmese army embarked upon a massive and deadly ethnic cleansing campaign targeting the Rohingya people. The Burmese army responded with what has been described as disproportionate violence, indiscriminate shooting, setting entire villages aflame, and violent assualts against women. Since last August, nearly 3/4 million Rohingya have fled their homes and made a perilous journey to crowded refugee camps in Bangladesh. Those who remained in Myanmar now live in danger of starvation and continued attacks.

The Burmese government denies that it’s carrying out human rights crimes against the Rohingya people. But it’s also prevented journalists, aid organizations, and U.N. officials from entering the Rakhine State, a long coastal region that borders the Indian Ocean, where the Rohingya reside, for any kind of follow-up investigation. The only available information has come from refugees who’ve fled to Bangladesh. Those reports have prompted U.N. Special Reporter Yanghee Lee to state that violent actions of Burmese military against the Rohingya present the “hallmarks of a genocide.” Other U.N. human rights experts have shared that the evidence “points at human rights violations of the most serious kind, in all likelihood amounting to crimes under international law.”

Who are these Rohingya people? They are a Muslim ethnic group that has lived in Burma for centuries. Before the violence and exodus of refugees this fall, there were an estimated 1.1 million Rohingya living in Burma. Most of them resided in the western Rakhine State, where historians trace their roots back as early as the 12th century. But throughout those centuries, the Rohingya people have long endured a history of persecution in Burma. Today, the Burmese government won’t even call them “Rohingya,” instead labeling them as illegal Bengali immigrants. They’ve been denied citizenship in Burma since 1982, effectively rendering them stateless. Their rights to work, travel, marry, and access health services are severely restricted, resulting in the Rohingya community becoming one of poorest and most oppressed in Burma.

The refugee settlements in Bangladesh that shelter some 600,000 people currently earns it the unwanted honor of having become the largest refugee camp in the entire world. 60% of those being sheltered there are women and girls, a large number of whom are malnourished. This month’s approaching monsoon season promises to make life there even more unbearable, with the U.N. reporting that 100,000 refugees are at risk from landslides and floods, as well as waterborne diseases that will be carried into camps already overpopulated and lacking proper sanitation, with one hospital facility for every 130,000 people.

A dire situation indeed, and probably one about which you’ve heard very little.

Return to the years of the Shoah for a moment. From 1933 to 1939, nearly 400,000 Jews fled Nazi Germany and Austria due to mounting physical violence and targeted legal repression. During that time, before the atrocities of the Holocaust were in highest gear, international authorities, including our U.S. government, were slow to speak out. And of those who did flee, most were caught and murdered as the Nazi war machine overwhelmed Europe. By war’s end, fully 2/3 of Europe’s Jewish population – six million men, women and one million children – was annihilated.

But here’s something worth mentioning. Between the years of 1939 and 1945, in the Republic of Albania, across the Adriatic Sea east of Italy, the Jewish population of only 200 grew ten-fold to 2000. Albania, you see, was one of very few countries that kept its doors open to Jewish refugees. And of those 2000, except for a single family, none died. Yes, the numbers are modest, but their success – rescuing more that 99% of those who had turned to them for help – is in no way modest.

And one more thing: Albania was, and to this day remains, predominantly Muslim.

Here’s what happened. The Nazis occupied Albania in September 1943. When Adolf Eichmann called for the Final Solution to be implemented there, the Albanian response was a uniform one: “Besa.” Besa is a word that means “faith,” or “to keep the promise,” “word of honor.” It reflects the Albanian Muslim idea that when you have welcomed a guest into your home, you provide that guest every kindness and honor, withholding nothing, including, if need be, the protection of their lives. This concept extended beyond the walls of their homes to include the very borders of their nation. So when the Nazis came hunting for Jews, Albanian Muslims embarked upon an ambitious national project: to hide every one of them (including the additional 1800 souls who had sought refugee status there). Two thousand Jewish men, woman and children were protected. And except for a single family, two thousand survived.

So during the Shoah, there were Muslims who rescued Jews. Perhaps now, we can do something for the Muslims of Myanmar?

This past February, the Jewish Rohingya Action Network was founded. Its aim is to create a united response to this crisis. Thus far, it has mobilized 72 American Jewish organizations, and 248 rabbis and communal leaders, who together have written and proposed that the United States Senate pass The Burma Human Rights and Freedom Act which would increase humanitarian aid, establish U.S. sanctions against the Burmese military, and create mechanisms to help provide accountability for crimes committed against the Rohingya people and other minorities in Burma.

As a significant aside, on March 6, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington took back its prestigious Elie Wiesel Award from Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi. They did so based on her failing to halt, or even acknowledge, ethnic cleansing happening in her country. Too small a consequence for her heinous behavior, but at least it’s a consequence.

The Burma Human Rights and Freedom Act (S.2060) was introduced by Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Benjamin Cardin (D-MD). This bipartisan bill would promote democracy and human rights in Burma, implement sanctions against ethnic cleansing practices taking place there, and hopefully begin to restore human rights for ethnic minorities still in Burma and those who would like to come back home. Here’s one place where you can play a role in stopping ethnic murder in Myanmar. We’ve placed a link at wct.org/burmahumanrights for you to urge our own senators Schumer and Gillibrand to support this bill.

You can also donate to the American Jewish World Service’s efforts to deliver humanitarian aid into those refugee camps in Bangladesh by visiting ajws.org/donate/rohingya.

You and I can’t stop genocide by ourselves. But as Rabbi Tarfon taught, “We are each obliged to do something.” And on this Shabbat Yom HaShoah, as we remember those of our own families who were forgotten or ignored in their cries for help, if we can do something to honor their memories, don’t you think this would be that something?

During and after the Holocaust, the question has been asked, “Where was God?” Many have abandoned their faith because their answer to this question was either “God chose not to help” or “There is no God.” May I humbly suggest another response to this question? Where was God during the Holocaust? God was indeed there. God was right there in Albania, when those Albanian Muslims opened their doors and their borders to save the lives of ten times their Jewish population. And where is God now, during the genocide in Burma? God is right here, with you and me, when we open our hearts, when we open our wallets, and when we open our consciences, refusing to stand idly by while the Muslim Rohingya people of Myanmar are terrorized by an uncaring, brutal and, thus far, unaccountable government of Burma.

On this Shabbat Yom HaShoah, on this Holocaust Remembrance Shabbat, let us remember. Let us remember loved ones forever lost because of the Nazi genocide. Let us honor their memories by doing what we can to prevent a new genocide in our own generation. The cry of “Never Again” is not just for the Jewish people to survive, but for us to ensure that survival is made available to all peoples, that never again will the world stand silently by, that God will never again be permitted to die on the gallows … anywhere.

This is how the memory of the Holocaust, of our six million dead, can be honored.

Ken y’hee ratzon … may these words be worthy of coming true.

A version of this sermon has been published online by the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism at https://rac.org/blog/2018/04/20/where-was-god-then-where-god-now.

There’s a story about a kid named Sammy who was walking along feeling sorry for himself because his family had recently moved to a new town, he hadn’t made any friends, and his parents seemed to be busy all the time. So when he saw an adult kneeling on the ground searching for something, he tried to tip-toe around the other side. There’s nothing worse when feeling sorry for yourself than some adult asking you to be useful. But as he passed the man, he saw a white cane on the ground and realized the man was blind. So down Sammy went and, together, they searched for the man’s lost key. Finding it, the man said, “Thank you. When you walk in the dark, sometimes you forget how kind people are.”

“I think I was lost too,” said Sammy, realizing he’d been lost in a locked-up world inside his head and heart. But now, as they walked together, Sammy knew his loneliness was growing smaller and smaller.

When we’re young, we’re at the center of our universe. We look out for our self. This is where learning begins. We discover where our self ends and the rest of the world asks things of us. In time, we slowly learn to reach out beyond ourselves and care for others. Often this blossoms during adulthood but, from time to time, it starts earlier. And sometimes the results can be astounding … and inspiring.

In November 1991, thirteen-year-old Elana Erdstein was visiting her grandmother and noticed a basket overflowing with toothpaste, soap and shampoo samples, all collected from many hotel stays. Elana began thinking about other travelers who probably had similar baskets stowed away, and having been encouraged by her synagogue to engage in a socially responsible community project enroute to her becoming a Bat Mitzvah, Elana began collecting supplies from others in her community. Boxes were set up at the library, the JCC, and houses of worship all over town. Ultimately, Elana collected 25,000 items, all donated to organizations that could get them into the hands of the needy. Elana said, “I learned that one person, even one who can’t drive yet and only has allowance and babysitting money, can make a difference.” Today, Elana’s a Reform rabbi at my childhood synagogue in Cincinnati, Ohio, continuing to make a difference in a whole lot of people’s lives.

In the 1990s in Homer, Georgia, when the doors to the new courthouse opened to the public, the old courthouse was scheduled for demolition. Sixteen-year-old John Clark Hill loved that old building and took action to save it. He wrote to local newspapers and gave speeches before any group that would listen, pleading for restoration. Today, that old courthouse, which John and his friends saved, houses art exhibits, a genealogy library, and serves as a civic center for plays and concerts. And Dr. J. Clark Hill lives in Commerce, Georgia, where he not only provides medical care but has served as mayor for the last seven years.

After the tragic events at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, students there and across the country have had enough. They’ve walked out of classes, stopped traffic, and made speeches calling on leaders local and national to finally do something about guns in this country. The conservative right-wing immediately set out to discredit them, even claiming they were actors hired to criticize second amendment rights. In words that could only have come from a teenager, 11th grader Cameron Kasky told CNN, “If you’d seen me in our school’s production of Fiddler on the Roof, you’d know that nobody would pay me to act for anything.”

This week, the Florida legislature passed a bill that imposes a three-day waiting period for most purchases of long guns, and raises to twenty-one the minimum age for purchasing those weapons. It provides nearly $100 million to improve school security and $67 million to fund a new sheriff program allowing school districts to voluntarily train and arm employees who do not exclusively teach in the classroom.

The legislation is modest. But it represents one of the first times that the voices of the NRA haven’t stopped a piece of legislation in its tracks. It’s a start. And that’s a great thing.

I couldn’t be prouder of the young people who stood up to demand that something change. And I pray, really, I pray that they will have the staying power to become the thorn in the side of our leadership that this country desperately needs. On Saturday, March 24 – our holy Sabbath, mind you – I urge you to support these kids who are organizing to march here in New York and down in Washington. Find a way for your own kids to participate. And write checks. Lots of them. Allowance and babysitting money might not be enough for this particular extracurricular activity.

Do you know the story of Bil-ahm’s donkey? Bil-ahm was a fortune teller, perhaps a prophet, but it’s his donkey that saw an angel and delivered God’s message. The donkey, not the prophet. The donkey! Considered to be among the least intelligent members of the animal kingdom, it’s the donkey who teaches a lesson to the man.

Great feats being performed by unexpected individuals is always surprising. Are not teenagers the donkeys of human civilization? And yet, here they are, working to make a difference in our world. And succeeding. Youth are perhaps the greatest source of unexpected contributions to society. A young girl in Canada began a recycling program that spread across her entire province. A 16-year-old boy invented a sophisticated piece of biomedical technology that’s used in hospitals to monitor heart conditions.

In the 1960s, it was young people who led our country into a new era of civil rights. In the 1970s, it was young people who embarrassed our government into ending the Vietnam War. In the 1980s, it was young people in Tiananmen Square, China, who called for greater democracy, and helped pave the way for economic and political reforms.

I don’t know what will come of these young people working to pass gun laws that will make our schools and our neighborhoods safer. But I do know two things. First, they deserve to be supported. They deserve to hear from the people they love and respect that we think they’re doing a great thing. And second, watch where they go. Some of these kids will stay the course and remain involved. And like those kids whose stories from twenty-five years led them to civic leadership today, some of these stories will lead to a lifetime of community service as well. God, I hope they change the gun laws! But if all they do is learn that there’s a world bigger than themselves out there, and that they can play a role in making it a little better for others, that’ll be plenty.

In the meantime, let’s be good allies. And who knows? Maybe we will get safer schools for them. But if not for them, then maybe for their children. If the course is a long one, and they want to stay on it, let’s do all we can to support them, now and always.

Shmuel Yosef Agnon, who wrote modern Hebrew fiction, penned a story called “The Kerchief” in which a young man’s mother, on the day he becomes a Bar Mitzvah, gives him a beloved kerchief as a token of her love. Later, as the boy returns home from temple, he passes a homeless person with outstretched swollen hands hoping for a bit of money. Having none, the boy hesitantly binds the person’s wounds with his mother’s kerchief. Apprehensive that his mother will be upset at his giving away her gift, he returns home only to find love in her eyes as she reassures him that his compassionate act was his initiation into adulthood.

With Purim only a week behind us, our holiday of fantastical stories where unlikely heroes save the day, may each of our lives be filled with people who perform unexpected acts of goodness. We’ve seen donkeys granted audiences with angels, and beauty queens muster the courage to speak truth to power — why not children who change our nation’s laws? Stranger things have happened, but none more important or more urgent.

In 1983, an 11-year old kid from Philadelphia named Trevor Farrell saw a news report on television describing the lives of people living on the streets of his town. Trevor asked his parents if he could bring the people on the streets some coats and blankets, to which they agreed. A few days later, Trevor was still handing out coats and blankets, now collecting them from his neighbors. Soon after that, people from all over his town were stopping by Trevor Farrell’s home to drop off coats and blankets. Nine years later, Trevor had opened a shelter for the homeless in his town. And today, a non-profit organization called Trevor’s Campaign is celebrating 32 years of advocacy to improve lives the of families in Philadelphia.

Children are children. They’re sweet, adorable, honest, uninhibited, and sometimes quite outrageous. Sometimes, as they grow up, they become kids of action – looking at their world, seeing a problem, and trying to fix it. These children do their parents proud. They do us all proud. May our world be filled to overflowing with them.

Shabbat shalom.

It’s the season of Jonah in our home – his birthday is February 14, his yahrzeit is March 5, and his Concert is March 10. Since he’s on my mind, no reason he shouldn’t be on yours as well. So here’s a Jonah story.

When Ellen and I were young parents, we decided to rear children who were free of gender stereotypes, unhampered by society’s expectations that they fit into certain roles and not into others. And so, our children, who never signed onto this platform, ignored our convention-defying instruction and did whatever they wanted. Katie adored Barbie dolls and all things girlish, while Jonah turned any object he picked up, benign or not, into a gun and battled his way through early childhood.

Ellen and I quickly learned we’d have to find another way to teach our children to respect and embrace the full spectrum of the human family. In time (including Aiden’s entrance into the story), we watched three wonderful young people grow in spirit and goodness.

Judaism has always taught the importance of beating swords into ploughshares. Yehuda Amichai suggested we keep going and beat those ploughshares into musical instruments, so that anytime we think about harming one another, we’ll need to beat our musical instruments back into ploughshares before we can turn them into weapons.

The world’s such a challenging place, and aren’t we humans fascinatingly complex? I’m grateful to be part of a tradition that calls us to struggle for freedom and peace.

Purim is upon us. This year, “A Hairspray Purimspiel” has taken over our celebration. We open with these reworked lyrics to “Good Morning, Baltimore” …

Queen Vashti woke up one day, feeling dismay, her nerves all frayed.
Her husband, Akhashverosh, had gone overboard, inciting the hoard.
With wine flowing free, the king did decree, “Six months of sensual debauchery!”
Queen Vashti took all the women and hoped that the men would not see.

Good God, Shushan’s laid low. Her good name’s received quite a blow.
Common sense and humanity were replaced by insanity.
Good God, Shushan’s laid low. Any semblance of grace is for show.
We’re falling apart by degree. Save us all, Vashti!

Purim is our annual send-up of life in ancient Persia, but it’s really a commentary on our own lives, right here right now. As we wrote new lyrics to the melodies of “Hairspray,” we soon realized these words could not have been written at any other moment in history. And while we did not set out to critique President Trump’s America, it was unavoidable.

Later in that same song, “Good God, Shushan’s Laid Low,” we sing:

Akhashverosh was incensed,
Who would dare stand against such a handsome guy?
Akhash proclaimed for himself
That throughout the land Queen Vashti was banned.
The courts said, “No way!” The king shouted, “Foul play!
It must be fake news from CNN!”
Our base is stronger than yours
And we will make Shushan great again!”

Depending on the theory to which you subscribe, you may attribute the current #MeToo movement of women pointing accusing fingers at sexual harassers everywhere to a critical mass of frustration and outrage at our president’s serial abuse of women (of all of us, really). “Critical mass” may be the operative term here as we witness a sudden flood of allegations against men who will no longer be silently endured by the double-X chromosomal half of the human family. We have reached some sort of watershed moment, and American society will hopefully be better because of it.

Before the February 14 shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, synagogues were wondering how to deal with the Esther story in light of the #MeToo movement. I’ll come back to the violence in Florida after we tackle this first challenge for a bit.

At this specific moment in American life, it’s important to take a closer look at Queen Vashti and Queen Esther.

First, Queen Esther. As a child, my friends and I all loved the celebration of King Ahashuerus’ “beauty contest” to find himself a lovely new queen. But the details of the biblical story don’t shine as kind a light on Esther, the surprising victor in that Olympic category. The women with whom she was competing for Vashti’s vacated queen-ship were judged not only on their looks (see chapter 2, “Each girl went to King Ahashuerus at the end of twelve months’ beauty treatment”), but on their sexual performance (see elsewhere in chapter 2, “She would go [to the king] in the evening and leave in the morning”). We don’t tell that to the kids, and you end up missing out on that detail as well.

Further, when Mordekhai begs Queen Esther to help rescue the Jews of their kingdom, she pleads powerlessness. After all, she’s only the queen. She sees the king only when he calls for her, which likely means for a sexual rendezvous. She can’t even imagine pursuing a relationship with him that goes any deeper; forget about actually leading her people.

Esther, at least as our Purim story gets going, is not much of a role-model for us today.

Then there’s Queen Vashti. When I was growing up, she was the story’s villain every bit as much as Haman. We couldn’t wait for justice to be served through her banishment. Disobeying her king — imagine! The Midrash, examining Vashti’s refusal to appear before the king and his pals, suggests that Vashti was in fact an immodest woman who would not have hesitated to appear before the boys buck naked (I’m sorry, “wearing her royal diadem”). The midrashic rabbis say she either had an embarrassing rash or had somehow sprouted a tail and, vain as she obviously was, wished to show neither in public. For those of you who find it difficult to swallow a tale about Vashti growing a tail, the Maharal of Prague (a 16th century commentator) agrees with you that’s ridiculous. He likens Vashti’s tail to my spare tire. She put on a lot of weight and, again in her vanity, refused to display her slothfulness.

Justice, I say! Good riddance, Queen Vashti!

And then I grew up. The first step was in noticing that hanging in my home on the dining room wall my entire childhood was a painting of Queen Vashti. Not Queen Esther, but Queen Vashti! Only later did it occur to me that I should ask my mom why she had a picture of this vile woman prominently displayed in our home. That was the beginning of my adult Jewish education. Vashti, she told me, was (in contrast to how Jewish tradition has treated her) a dignified woman. She’d stood up to a boorish king, and on behalf of women everywhere, told him she was no longer willing to merely be an object of his desire. As a result, Vashti may have disappeared from the Purim story, but beautifully, royally, and with great dignity, she lived in my home, and now in my soul. Thanks, Mom.

Vashti’s story was always one of resistance against sexual harassment. We can only wonder what she might have done for the oppressed elsewhere. Would she have stood up to Haman and his genocidal scheme? We don’t get to know that. We only get to wonder if we ourselves have the strength and the hutzpah to stand against bigotry in our own time.

Back to Esther. Her story, I think, is one of tremendous growth and maturing. Because she was anything but a hero when the story began, her evolution is remarkable, touching and inspiring. In the beginning, whether pushed by Mordekhai or eagerly signing up, she gave her body to King Ahashuerus. When it became clear that Esther was uniquely positioned to convey to the king the Jewish people’s plea for rescue, she wanted nothing to do with it. Esther had a sweet scam going and she had no interest in jeopardizing a good thing. Not until Mordekhai pointed out that Esther would likely also be caught in Haman’s net of destruction did she reluctantly offer to help.

Perhaps that’s how it is for many of us. We live out our years quietly enjoying life with family and friends. Then one day our life is upended. A loved one is struck by tragic illness or death, and we devote ourselves to seeing that others need not succumb to the same. Once we too have been caught in a net, we often turn our attention, energies and resources to making a difference. In this very way, Esther’s story is our story too.

Why our rabbis felt the need to castigate Vashti, I don’t know. It’s not like they had to protect the good reputation of King Ahashuerus. But castigate they did, and at every opportunity. In chapter one, we’re told the king had thrown a wild celebration for his administration and supporters (think Jared and Ivanka, and the NRA). Six months into that celebration, he held a week-long banquet, on the seventh day of which he ordered Vashti to do some pole-dancing for him and his buddies. The rabbis presumed this “seventh day” was Shabbat and that — because Vashti would frequently choose that day to summon Jewish women, strip them naked and make them work for her — it was therefore on Shabbat, they say, that Vashti was banished.

The world has changed. And not just in the Trump era. I’ve been a rabbi for thirty-one years. I wrote my first purimspiel twenty-eight years ago, in 1990. Riffing on the “Wizard of Oz,” I wrote:

Seven days into the celebrating, Ahashuerus called for his queen to come and display her beauty. Now Vashti was a good queen. What she wasn’t was someone who simply did what someone else told her to do, especially if she thought it was demeaning. And being asked by her husband to “display her beauty” for his pals … that was demeaning! So she said, “No.” She refused to appear.

Since I’m pretty sure I didn’t come up with that respectful perspective on Vashti by myself, I have to assume we Jews have matured a bit in the last thousand years. Treated poorly in their own time, both Vashti and Esther are now seen in noble light by our community. If all of us are part of the #MeToo movement, and we should be, our Purim story provides an annual reminder that people are people; we may not be born heroic but we can rise to life’s challenges and, doing so, we can bring honor to ourselves, to our families, and to our people.

Vashti was always about doing what is right. Her resistance against sexual harassment may have lost her a job, but it earned her an honored position in our people’s history (well, the made-up part of our history) as a model for consistently living a principled set of human values. Esther grew into her highly-regarded place in Jewish life. She didn’t start out that way, but grew stronger through adversity and, in the end, has become a model of strength and integrity for us all.

Let me come back to gun violence.

Purim has always been about social justice. Its message was never limited to gender issues alone, or to opposing the persecution of our people. The issue of guns being used to indiscriminately slaughter American citizens is a #MeToo movement no one should have to belong to and that all of us should belong to. The story of Purim is a violent one. A deranged individual has deadly force placed into his hands and he chooses to direct that force at the Jews of Shushan. And while they knew at what moment – the 13th of Adar – the violence would be unleashed, there was nowhere for them to run. The story resolves in a surrealistic bloodbath during which the Jews turn the tables on, and slaughter, their attackers. This was not, I believe, an endorsement for arming teachers. This was a perverse fantasy, for we know of far too many times in Jewish history when we were herded like sheep to the slaughter, unable to defend ourselves. There is hardly a Jew throughout history who wouldn’t have preferred the rule of law, not guns, to ensure the safety of their children.

When we gather on Purim – the 14th of Adar – we cheerfully recount the grotesque counter-offensive that killed 75,000 would-be attackers and saved the Jews of Shushan. But that’s not the resolution to conflict that we seek in real life. It’s not the message Judaism teaches us. Rather, we are, as much as humanly possible, encouraged to work through our differences, and to use acts of compassion that are undergirded by strong, effective laws to make our nation and our world safe and secure.

Will the Parkland shooting finally turn the debate on guns? I’m certainly not counting on Congress to offer solutions. But maybe those who say that young people can really make the difference this time are right, and I’m more than willing to cast my lot this Purim with them. So while yes, you and I need to remain involved in whatever efforts we find to curb gun violence, let us make certain that we are good allies and lend our support to any young person’s campaign seeking to effect these changes. One, they need to know we’re proud of their efforts. And two, we’re the ones to teach them how to open doors, how to speak truth to power and, frankly, to bankroll their efforts.

These young people are trying to write a new Purim story. They’ve identified their Haman and are reaching out to persuade the king to save their people. My prayer? That generations that from now, we’ll be retelling the glorious tale of how it was our kids who finally brought rational, compassionate action to this incredibly dark chapter in our nation’s history.

On Facebook, my daughter the art teacher posted the following: “Anyone who wants teachers to carry guns in the classroom should probably know that earlier this week I misplaced half a banana when I put it down to help a student, and forgot about it until three hours later when a very confused child found it on the clay cart.” Eloheinu v’elohei avoteinu v’imoteinu … dear God and God of our ancestors … we don’t know all the answers, but we’ve got some pretty strong instincts, and a couple thousand years of experience to help guide us. Still, now would be a great time for You to pop up in one of those pillars of cloud or fire and guide us the rest of the way. Or maybe that’s what You’ve just done by sending us these kids. May this year’s Purim celebration inspire us to work diligently for the betterment of women’s lives and of our children’s lives, to topple Haman wherever he appears and, in so doing, better the lives of people everywhere.