Rabbi’s Grater’s Sermons

Loving the Occupiers and the Bankers in our Midst

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 20:00:31 -0800

The names in these scenarios have been changed for the sake of the people’s privacy. Martin worked for 30 years for a local electrical company, made a good living, saved some money, was able to buy a house, send his kids to college. When it came time to retire, after a life of hard and honest work, he found his pension had been depleted by the economic crisis and he was forced to find a low-wage, part-time job just so he could stay in his house and afford healthcare. Charles is a twenty-seven year old school teacher, teaching high school English in a low-income neighborhood of Philadelphia. Not well-versed in the intricacies of finance and mortgage lending, he thought he got a good deal on a home a few years ago, only to find himself completely underwater when the bubble burst and now he was just evicted from his home as it was foreclosed on by the bank. He is living in a motel until he can figure out what to do. Shirley is a very successful banker, having graduated Harvard with an MBA, working now as a senior analyst in a well-known firm. Sitting in church one Sunday morning, she was struck by the sadness in the voices of those who were “testifying,” as they do in some churches, about the terrible struggles they were facing, losing homes, children without food, seniors unable to pay for medicine. These were not people she passed by on Skid Row as she went to work, but members of her own community. Never having been very philanthropic in the past, she shocked her pastor when she came in Monday morning and wrote him a one million dollar check to help anyone in the community in need. James has had a drug problem most of his life, starting when his older brother got him hooked at age 11. He has been in and out of jail, has lived on the streets for many years. He has no remaining family and didn’t graduate high school. He wants to get his life together but just can’t seem to figure out how or where to start. And the list of names and stories could go on and on.

All of these people are Americans, citizens of our great nation, all affected, in one way or another, by the chaos we find ourselves living in as we began the year 2012. As I seek to make sense of what is happening and what a religious voice can add to the conversation, I keep coming back to one of my favorite pieces of liturgy that comes at the very beginning of the morning service, where we say, “Ha’reinee m’kabel alai mitzvat ha’borei, v’ahavta l’re’acha kamocha, Behold I am ready to accept upon myself the great deed of our Creator, Love your neighbor as yourself.” We say this at the beginning of the service, one of my teachers explains, so that we remind ourselves of why we came to pray in the first place: in order to love one another, in order to care for one another, in order to make ourselves vessels for the great love that God feels for each one of us. And the words here are important. It doesn’t say we are to “do” this mitzvah or “perform” this mitzvah, it says that we are ready “to accept,” or better, “to receive upon ourselves,” this mitzvah. Loving one another is not something that is to be taken lightly, not something that we just do without effort. Sure, we may love our spouse, our children, our family with ease, but this is calling us to love others, our neighbors, literally and figuratively. It is this piece of liturgy that is going to be my mantra for 2012: I am ready to receive God’s love and share it with others.

In trying to evaluate the varying directions our country might take in the coming year to heal and rebuild, I am both inspired and disappointed by the Occupy movement and what it has brought to the national conversation. To be sure, it has quickly and significantly altered the conversation we are having about the economy, with the phrases ‘occupy’ and ‘99%’ now instant lingo for a movement in process, for a set of ideals that are still being formed. I understand that one of the main concerns of those involved is about the fairness of our economic system. The current rules of the game, rules that we as a nation have actively or tacitly accepted, seem skewed to favor the wealthy, the corporations, what the movement has deemed the ‘1%.’ The mortgage lending practices that got lots of innocent and well-meaning people into homes that the lenders knew they couldn’t afford and who are now facing foreclosure, like Charles the school teacher. The credit card industry, the student loan industry, of which I myself got caught in and am paying the price for, the tax code that favors the uber-wealthy: all are aspects of our economic system that are legal and have legislation to back them. But, does that make them right? Is this the kind of social and moral fabric that we want as a nation? One of the successes of the Occupy movement has been to bring these long-festering questions from the beneath the surface of our country out into the open. The solutions will need to be worked out, and without a leader I don’t see the movement able to seriously help in that regard, but these are questions that we need to address together, as a country, and make decisions about how we want to move forward. While I resonated with some of the values being put forth by the Occupy movement, I also know that I don’t want to completely dismantle the structure of our government, all of our economic principles or the essential nature of our democracy. I want to fix what has gone awry with our great nation. In seeking to do this, I come back to V’ahavta l’re’acha kamocha, are we loving our neighbor as ourselves? And yet, we have asked these questions before, in different eras of our history.

“This is America’s opportunity to help bridge the gulf between the haves and the have-nots. The question is whether America will do it. There is nothing new about poverty. What is new is that we now have the techniques and the resources to get rid of poverty. The real question is whether we have the will…One day we will have to stand before the God of history and we will talk in terms of things we’ve done. Yes, we will be able to say we built gargantuan bridges to span the seas, we built gigantic buildings to kiss the skies. Yes, we made our submarines to penetrate oceanic depths. We brought into being many other things with our scientific and technological power. It seems that I can hear the God of history saying, ‘That was not enough! But I was hungry, and ye fed me not. I was naked, and ye clothed me not. I was devoid of a decent sanitary house to live in, and ye provided no shelter for me. And consequently, you cannot enter the kingdom of greatness. If ye do it unto the least of these, my brethren, ye do it unto me.’ That’s the question facing America today.” (Dr. King, March 31, 1968)

This is Dr. King in 1968, a prophet and leader who helped us see through the haze and into the light of God. In his day, Martin Luther King called racism the moral stain on society. Today, in light of the crises we face, might we call greed the moral stain on our society? For Judaism doesn’t disparage wealth, to the contrary, we celebrate and embrace economic success. However, the Torah reminds, with lessons of wealth distribution, fairness, equity, debt forgiveness and caring for the needy, that with wealth comes responsibility and that greed corrodes the heart. To that end, I believe, like Dr. King, that the religious community has an important role to play in the national conversation of economic policy.

My work as a congregational rabbi has taught me that there are no black and whites, even in this issue of greed and the financial crisis. All poor people are not righteous and all rich people are not greedy; all the people who slept out at the Occupy camps don’t necessarily want what is best for our country and all the people who disapprove of the movement don’t necessarily not care about poverty, economic inequality and injustice. We have a long road ahead as a nation, to be sure, but I believe that the Torah, ‘love your neighbor as yourself,’ applies to the occupiers and the bankers, to the poor and the rich, to the hungry and the fed, to the needy and the abundant. However, as Dr. King reminded us long ago, along with Rabbi Heschel, whose 40th yartzheit we observed this past week, there comes a time when hard truths must be brought into the light day, when policies must change, when morality trumps profit. In this spirit, in honor of the greatness that Dr. King called us to, important and vital questions about our nation’s future must be asked, discussed and solutions that benefit all of us must be found. Let us be ready to accept the great mitzvah of loving one another. The light of God demands nothing less of us.

Being What We Believe, Not Just What We Think

Fri, 6 Jan 2012 20:00:34 -0800

There is an old story about a patient who was being treated by a psychiatrist. The patient wouldn’t eat or take care of himself, claiming that he was a corpse. The psychiatrist spent many hours arguing with the patient trying to convince him he wasn’t a corpse. Finally the psychiatrist asked the patient if corpses bled. The patient replied, “Of course corpses don’t bleed, all of their body functions have stopped.” The psychiatrist then persuaded the patient to try an experiment. The psychiatrist would carefully prick the patient with a pin and they would see if he started to bleed. The patient agreed. After all, he was a corpse. The psychiatrist gently pricked the patient’s skin with a needle and, sure enough, he began to bleed. With a look of shock and amazement the patient gasped, “I’ll be darned...corpses do bleed!” (Robert Dilts, www.nlpu.com)

What we believe, how we see life and what we hold to be true can be deeply imbedded in us, so much so that we often don’t see what is actually happening, rather what we expect “should be” happening, or what we imagine is happening. Reality then, when seen this way, becomes subjected to our own mental gymnastics. Robert Dilts, one of the founders of a school of thought called NLP, or neuro-linguistic programing, a system of thinking that examines the dynamics between mind, language and how their interplay affects our body and behavior, says this about beliefs, “Our beliefs are a very powerful force in our behavior. It is common wisdom that if someone really believes he can do something he will do it, and if he believes something is impossible no amount of effort will convince him that it can be accomplished...Our beliefs about ourselves and what is possible in the world around us greatly impact our day-to-day effectiveness. All of us have beliefs that serve as resources as well as beliefs that limit us.” (ibid.) I am thinking about this concept as we begin a new calendar year, which offers us an opportunity to examine and potentially reframe beliefs that are limiting us in our lives, as well as beliefs that need to be brought to the forefront, ones that can help us improve and grow. There is a critical difference here between what we believe and what we think. Sometimes they are in line, but sometimes what we think clouds over what we actually believe or know. Knowing, believing, thinking: the interplay between these three are key to how we will actually behave. Let me share an example from the Torah this week.

Jacob has died, leaving Joseph and his brothers to carry on the legacy of their father. There has been reconciliation, as we saw last week, in the dramatic revealing of Joseph to his brothers, their crying, hugging and reuniting, culminating in bringing Jacob down to Egypt to see his long, lost son, whom he had thought was dead after all these years. Joseph has matured, he has gone through some deep transformation and he has, we think from the text itself, made a tikkun, a healing, with his brothers and they with him. They should be on the road to a new life together. However, this week we see that the brothers have actually not allowed what they “believe” to mesh with what they think. To summarize the text: After the death of Jacob, the funeral and entire mourning period, the brothers are shown saying to one another, “What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrong that we did him?” (Gen. 50:15) They then proceed to send a message to their brother with a lie. The messenger tells Joseph that his brothers said that, “Dad told us to tell you, after he dies, that you should forgive us and not treat us badly.” Even after all of the raw, emotional and deep connection that Joseph has with his brothers, they still cannot bring themselves to “believe” that Joseph actually forgives them. They still feel that they are in danger, that they need to concoct a lie, dragging their father, now deceased, back to life to support them in another affront to their brother. Why? What was going on in their minds and hearts that didn’t allow them to actually believe what Joseph had said to them? Joseph, of course, reassures them and reminds them that it was God who brought about what transpired, not them, and then it says, “He reassured them and spoke kindly to them.” (Gen. 50:21) The Hebrew for “spoke kindly to them,” is actually “va’yidaber al libam,” literally, “he spoke on their hearts.” Joseph, not knowing that his brothers had lied, again, spoke directly to them, kindly, honestly and with compassion; whether or not the brothers ever actually hear this, we don’t know. What if the brothers had actually believed Joseph and made that change in themselves?

Can we believe when others tell us things? What does it take to believe what is actually happening in front of us, be it in our personal lives or in the life of our world, rather than what we think should or could be happening? What does it take for us to not believe we are corpse, even when given proof, rather than continue to believe something we have either created in our own head, been taught to believe or refuse to accept, no matter how many times someone tells us? Can we believe that change is possible? As we begin a new year, 2012, with all of the hopes and fears, challenges and opportunities, can we hold fast to the notion that Torah gives us throughout: choose life! I am intrigued by the fact that in Genesis, the two main portions about the deaths of our major ancestors, both this week’s portion and one from a few weeks ago, are actually called Vayechi and Chayei Sarah: And He Lived and the Life of Sarah. I think the Torah is teaching us that even when we face death, which we all will one day, even that reality is about life, about what we choose to highlight and believe in this world. Think about the old adage of the “glass half full or half empty.” The key is to find the balance between hope and reality, between false expectations and optimism. That is a struggle we all go through in life, but I think that one of the main points, as a starting point, is to make sure that we see the glass in the first place. May we go into this year, an important year in so many respects, trying to believe in what is possible, seeing what is real, and embracing both of these realities in formulating what we think.

Shabbat shalom.

Light and Darkness this Hanukkah

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 20:00:49 -0800

Educational psychologist Maurice Freehill once famously asked, “Who is more foolish, a child afraid of the darkness or a grown-up afraid of the light?” When we are kids, darkness is scary, the shadows of our rooms, the imaginary noises and monsters under the bed and in the closet, the fear that we are alone, unprotected, in danger, these childhood darknesses can overwhelm us, frighten us, shake us deeply. What our parents teach us, however, is that by just turning on the light, a flick of the switch, a strike of the match in an earlier era, can immediately change the entire situation, can change everything we see and feel. The noises go away, the shadows disappear, the spooky feelings dissipate. Light in the darkness. But, the second half of the quote is also interesting, and very challenging. When we grow up, when we realize that the darkness of nighttime isn’t as scary as we remember, we sometimes become afraid of the light, afraid of what we see, in ourselves, in our world and, as adults, we prefer darkness. We prefer to close our eyes, close our hearts, close our minds. Darkness in the light. The challenge of living is to find the balance between light and darkness, between joy and fear, between hope and despair. And, in many ways, that is what Hanukkah itself offers us.

While the Maccabees are part of the central narrative of Hanukkah, we know that the rabbis of the Talmud, exhibiting their great discomfort with the militarism and zealotry of Judah and his brothers, sought to downplay that aspect of Hanukkah and elevate the miracle of the oil lasting eight nights, a miracle that elevates light, that elevates the Divine spark working in our human world. It is why we read, in tomorrow’s Haftorah from Zecharia, the famous line, “not by might and not by power, but by spirit alone, says the Lord of Hosts.” By imposing this prophetic reading on the Shabbat of Hanukkah every year, our wise ancient rabbis taught us that the light of hope and peace are what we are to take away from this holiday, not the might and violence of the warriors. Light over darkness. What we highlight in our world, what we choose to elevate to the realm of importance, that is what will light our world, that is what we will see as miraculous. We should make a much bigger deal about ending a war than beginning it, if starting one is necessary at all. The light of peace will only lead our world when we choose to follow the example of our ancient rabbis and highlight miracles over might, celebrate shalom and light over the darkness of fear and hatred. Our liturgy, in the prayer Modim Ananchu Lach, reminds us that there are daily miracles in our midst, moments of light that need to be lifted up, as Matisyahu sings, Hasidic reggae master or not, and that is what will bring more light. As adults, we can’t be afraid of the light, even when it shines on truths that sometimes frighten us, challenge us, call us out of the darkness we are hiding in. That is the deeper meaning of this holiday. In fact, the Kabbalistic teaching on the lights of Hanukkah teach that each candle brings a small amount of the Or Haganuz, the hidden, holy light of the first day of creation, the light that God needed to hide away in order for us to come into being, and through the hanukkiyah, we can illumine the darkness not just with physical light, but with spiritual and divine light as well.

Focusing on daily miracles is also a way to highlight the good in our lives, the light over the darkness. What we choose to pay attention to, give credence to, pass on to our children, is what makes all the difference in lifting up the light. We will never get rid of the darkness; in fact our tradition reminds us that some of the most holy light we create actually comes from the darkness itself. When we are children, it is the darkness that we fear, when we grow-up, it is the light we fear; together, light and darkness makes us fully human. It is in the light and darkness of the world that we witnessed the death, within 24 hours of each other, of two human beings that led their nations, each in opposite directions. Last weekend, both Vaclav Havel, the brilliant, dissident playwright who led the Velvet Revolution and became president of both Czechoslovakia and later the Czech Republic, and Kim Jong Il, the reclusive, greedy, self-centered and brutal dictator of North Korea died. That is almost too much to handle in one 24 hour period! Sadly, because the repression is so horrible in North Korea, the life and work of Havel, someone who fought for freedom, stood up to empire, marched and led the workers of his country to topple the Communist stranglehold, has been somewhat overlooked in the face of the Kim Jong Il, a leader who stood against everything Havel stood for. What will we choose to highlight, light or darkness? If anything, Havel can be compared to the Maccabees in ideals, even as he was more like Dr. King in practice. Dr King, who we all know famously said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.”

As we celebrate this holiday, let us all find ways to lift up the light, to shine it on the darkness that still exists, be it in the halls of power in our own country, on the bloody streets of Syria, in the minds and hearts of those that continue to hate others; all are forms of darkness, some darker than others, to be sure, but all blocking the light of compassion, acceptance, peace, hope and freedom. Plato said it best, when he reminded us, “A sensible person will remember that the eyes may be confused in two ways - by a change from light to darkness or from darkness to light; and he will recognize that the same thing happens to the soul.” May the lights of the Hanukkiyah this year help to recognize our own inner light and may the courage of our people’s history teach us to not be afraid of light and to shine it into the dark places, with love.

Shabbat shalom and chag urim sameach!

Put a Little Love in Your Heart, Human Rights Shabbat

Fri, 9 Dec 2011 20:00:04 -0800

When my kids were in kindergarten, they sang the song, “Put a Little Love in Your Heart,” and it has became a family song ever since. We usually do it as a joke, as they were quite cute and had some fun dance moves to go with it, but as I sat down to craft something to say about human rights and Judaism, I kept coming back to this song. I kept coming back to the basic thought that love is what makes our world possible in the face of great challenge, that love is what makes living tolerable when we see injustice and poverty and slavery and human rights violations. “Think of your fellow man, lend him a helping hand, put a little love in your heart. You see its getting late, please don’t hesitate, put a a little love in your heart. And the world will be a better place, for you and me, just wait and see.” This can be seen as naive, childish and silly, but is it? Was it naive, childish and silly for Dr. King to say that light will overcome the darkness, that only love can overcome hate? If we believe in the power of love, in the truly transformative power of love in our world, than anything is possible. I believe that, even as I struggle to live it. I believe that even in the face of cynicism and disbelief. And I think that is what the Torah is all about, what Judaism is all about, what life is truly all about.

While the song is cute, the idea of love in our hearts is a serious one. And, I see it as directly related to human rights. I decided not to talk about a specific campaign, a specific policy, a specific human rights abuse, but rather about the underlying scrooge behind each of them, whether it is spoken or not: when we don’t see the other as a human being, as another living being created in the image of God, then slavery in the tomato fields in Florida is possible; then ignoring genocide is possible; then injustice toward women is possible. All of the great philosophers and thinkers of many religious traditions seem to say the same thing, namely that when we see the face of God in the other, we act in more compassionate, loving ways. When we don’t, we either ignore injustice or perpetrate injustice because the victims are not seen as humans, but rather as what Martin Buber called “it.” Relating to human beings as an “it” rather than as a “thou” offers us a mask behind which we can hide. I was thinking about this as a reality in our world, one in which we classify people by how much they can produce, what socioeconomic class they are in, how much we can separate ourselves from them as people. Yet, the Torah, in many different places, tells us that this is precisely what we must battle against in order to have a healthy, fair, balanced society.

Ahavat olam, which we just prayed tonight, ahavah rabbah, which we will pray tomorrow morning, v’ahavta, which we just prayed, all of these moments in the liturgy are about ahavah, love. Love is essential to healing, love is essential to fairness, love is essential to creating the world we want. My whole focus on this changed last night when I had the chance to hear two leaders from the Jerusalem Peacemakers, Rabbi Eliyahu McClean and Sheikh Ghassan Manasra, who are on a speaking tour of the United States, sharing their work in trying to bridge the gap, in a small way, between Israelis and Palestinians. I assume that, like me, people came to hear policy analysis, insights into how to solve the conflict, something about what we read in the news. However, that is precisely what they didn’t talk about. They told us how their work is based on the fundamental aspect of love and compassion that needs to be built between people, all people. They talked about how they both, individually, came to the realization that finding God in the world necessitates us to be involved with others who are not like us. We find God in ourselves by knowing the other. And, unlike the philosophers, be it Buber, Levinas, Heschel, they are actually doing this work on the ground, between people, one to one. They talked about creating a space where people can listen to one another, learn about one another, care about each other not as Israelis and Palestinians but as people, mothers, fathers, children, human beings. They do something called the Jerusalem Hug, where hundreds of people encircle the Old City, holding hands, and hug Jerusalem. This is their fifth year. Is this going to solve the conflict? Obviously not, but it is going to make a difference in the lives of those participating, which included Arabs and Jews, Israeli soldiers, settlers and secular folks, people just walking by and being moved to join in. Their group went and prayed in Hebron together, at the Cave of the Patriarchs, Jew, Christian and Muslim. Creating the space of love, putting a little love in their heart, that is the essence of their group. Is it naive, silly, childish? To me it is no more naive, silly or childish than Leviticus 19 telling us to “love our neighbor as ourselves.” Human rights is not an issue to solve, it is a way of life to embrace, that is what I heard last night with these two peacemakers.

So, what can we do tonight, right now? “You see its getting late, please don’t hesitate, put a little love in your heart.” Simple adages, pithy slogans, fortune cookie wisdom, the Torah itself: all are places that trying to inspire us humans to act different, to be different, to live different, put a little love in your heart. Prayer is about cultivating that love, about reminding ourselves of what matters, about making ourselves known to God. “Don’t hold a grudge...don’t hate your brother or sister in your heart...love your neighbor as yourself.” The Jubilee year, the sabbatical year, the release of debts and slaves. While it is not clear if these Torah laws were ever implemented, it is clear that they are ideals to strive for, ideals to seek, holiness to action. We need to know each other more closely, not just in generalities. We need to reach out, push ourselves out of our comfort zones to meet those who we see as “different,” thereby putting a face, a heart, a soul to a group. That is how all hatred is to be overcome, that is how we will begin to battle back against the innumerable human rights abuses we see in the world. Could it be as simple as loving more? Surely can’t hurt. We can start by listening to the song, “put a little love in your heart.”

Shabbat shalom.

Living Our Life, Not Someone Else’s

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 20:00:43 -0800

Carl Jung once said the following: “If you do not acknowledge your yearning, then you do not follow yourself, but go on foreign ways that others have indicated to you. So you do not live your life but an alien one. But who should live your life if you do not live it? It is not only stupid to exchange your life for an alien one, but also a hypocritical game, because you can never really live the life of others, you can only pretend to do it, deceiving the other and yourself, since you can only live your own life.”

Rabbi David Wolpe brought Jung in his teaching this week about being yourself and living your life. He reminded us that a century before Jung, the Kotzker rebbe said a very similar thing when he taught, “If I spend my life being someone else, who will be me?” An age-old question, asked by the Torah, philosophers, Shakespeare and thinkers of all stripes, we are constantly in dialogue with what it means to live, to be in this moment, to be alive. Or are we? I think that Rabbi Wolpe wrote his column because in many ways, on many days, we are actually not in this dialogue, but rather trying to make a living, feed our families, pay our mortgage, save for the future and just “enjoy” life. If religion is here to do anything for us, I think that one of the main roles it can play is to help clarify our priorities, help sort out the many different directions we are pulled and help us define who we are based on the notion of being created in the image of God, with attributes of the Divine that are unique to being human. How many of us remember what we wanted to do with our lives when we were kids? How many of us are doing all, or some, of what we dreamed? While I know that dreams of our childhood change, part of the wonder of that time is that we believed anything was possible, we believed that we could do something in the world that mattered, not just to others, but to ourselves. Reconnecting with that part of ourselves is what I think a life infused with Torah and rituals of our people can offer us.

In a recent class with some of our teens, I was discussing Shabbat and beginning to teach them about its meaning. I started by asking them the following questions: 1) What is most important in your life? 2) What do you think society tells you is most important in your life? 3) What is missing or lacking in your life? I wanted to start here because I believe that Shabbat is less about the candles, kiddush and other rituals, and more about the mindset, spirit and opportunities it offers to think and reflect in a bigger and deeper way than everyday life. The rituals are pathways to creating the space for this kind of thinking to take place. Some of the answers for “what was most important in your life?” were: exploring and learning, family, friends, pets, music, achieving goals, self-respect, learning from mistakes, global issues, school, religion. Interestingly, none of them said “being happy,” which is both good and bad. Happiness is something that we talk a great deal about in our country, but I think living a life of meaning, depth, value and exploration is more important than happiness just for the sake of happiness. But, that is another talk!

It was actually the answers to the second and third questions that got my attention most. In answering, “what do you think society tells you is most important in life?” some of the answers were: personal gain, money, grades, beauty, fame, being perfect, fashion, power, but the most repeated answer was getting into college. In answering, “what is missing or lacking in your life?” some of the answers were: time, love, self-definition, respect, self-motivation, direction, answers to the big questions. The gulf between the answers in the three categories is somewhat disturbing to me. The kids seem to have the right idea about what values and priorities are important, but the messages they are getting from the world, and it is not clear who or what is giving them these messages, I just asked about “society,” and the things that they are lacking, are not measuring up. In Jung’s terms, or the Kotzker’s for that matter, what life are these kids living? Is it their own? Is it a myth that is coming from outside sources, be it from their parents, the media, their friends, a fantasy of what “life” is supposed to be? What kind of life are we articulating for our kids that will help them define what it means to be successful, satisfied with what they are seeking? Are we helping them to “follow their yearnings,” as Jung suggests, or are we setting them up to make choices based on a set of values and predetermined choices that may or may not fit them? To me, these are essential questions for us to be asking, wrestling with and helping to shape answers that will be worthy of who we are, namely creatures created in the Divine image. If our kids think college, grades, money, power and fame are the goals in life, then we need to seriously rethink how successful we are being today. If Judaism has a role to play in our lives, it can certainly serve to shape priorities and values that are in line with our best selves. Shabbat is a necessary component not only because we need rest and spiritual renewal each week, but also because we need time to think, to assess and to discuss the bigger picture of who we are, how we are, and what kind of life we are living. As Heschel described Shabbat, it is a “palace in time,” an opportunity unlike any other.

At the end of Rabbi Wolpe’s column, he says, “our selves are partly given, partly constructed by our own choices.” We live in a complex, fast-paced, multi-cultural and multi-dimensional world and there are choices all around us. To the extent that we are part of the animal kingdom, we are born with a certain DNA, with a certain family history, a particular genealogical make-up, all of which contribute to who we are in this world. However, to the extent that we are human beings, unique creatures within the animal kingdom, we are born with the opportunities to help shape our destiny, define parameters for how we want to live, what we want to value as important, teach our children to seek what their hearts are calling them towards. If we think that money and success are the defining characteristics of our society, so will our children; if we don’t think that, but continue to allow these messages to define us, who is to blame but us? It is a central tenet of our Jewish faith to ask questions, engage in deep introspection and take responsibility for making the necessary course corrections to our lives and the world in which we inhabit while we are living. We mustn’t be lulled into living someone else’s understanding of life if it is not the life we want to be living. As the midrash teaches, at the end of our lives, God will not ask us why were you not more like Moses or Akiva or Heschel or anyone else; God will ask us, why were you not more like you? It is these kinds of conversations that I hope we will have over our Thanksgiving tables next week, an American palace in time. Don’t just overeat and watch football, but talk about what you are grateful for, what brings you meaning, along with what frightens you, what keeps you up at night and what you are prepared to do about it. Shakespeare had it right when he wrote, in King John, “Oftentimes excusing of a fault, doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.” Something to ponder.

Shabbat shalom.