Last weekend, I was with my mother at a reunion of Holocaust survivors who lived together at a Displaced Persons camp in Berlin after the war. Right after the war, there was a feeling of hope. My mother and her friends were convinced that the horrors of WW II would change the world forever.
We know better. Let’s look at the news just from this last week.
On Monday, Jews were accused of operating a conspiracy in Algeria to harvest organs of kidnapped Algerian children. There is no evidence – no complaining parents – no names.
On Tuesday, the UN fact-finding mission report on the Gaza War was released. Shimon Peres labeled it "a mockery of history" and noted that it "legitimizes terrorist activity, the pursuit of murder and death." 8,000 rockets and mortars were fired into southern Israel since 2001. Where was the UN then?
Yesterday, at rallies in Iran, Ahmadinejad claimed that the Holocaust was "a false pretext to create Israel".
Israel feels marginalized more than at any time in recent memory. 94% of Israelis are opposed to agreeing to American demands on the settlements. I asked a friend of mine when I was in Tel Aviv a couple weeks ago, why are those on the Left against this? She told me that they are terrified that what happened in Gaza will happen on the West Bank – if Israel takes unilateral action, missiles will be fired from the territories. Only this time, they won’t hit Sderot; they’ll hit Ben Gurion Airport.
These events present us with choices: about how to react, or whether to react. Certainly, the survivors I was with last weekend clearly believe that, with Ahmadinejad, the world is pacifying another dangerous leader who is threatening our very existence.
What is it about the Jews? Rabbi Yehudah Halevi says in the Kuzari that, "Israel amongst the nations is like a heart amongst the organs". Whenever part of the body is ill; the heart it threatened.
Is this what it means to be chosen? Why is it that chosen-ness makes many feel guilty instead of proud? How did our biblical ancestors deal with being singled out?
First, let’s look at what chosen-ness is.
When a person chooses an object -- let’s say you choose a flavor of ice cream. The ice cream is chosen but the ice cream doesn’t care about being chosen. This is clearly a one-way relationship.
When a person is chosen, this becomes a reflective experience – it’s a two-way relationship. Let’s say we’re having a pick-up game of softball, and you’re chosen by Bob Braun to play on his team. You are expected to retroactively make a commitment to Bob’s team. He chooses you and he expects you to choose the team in return. By offering yourself up to be chosen as part of a team, you are offering your loyalty to the one who chooses you.
The interrelationship between chooser and the chosen exists in all meaningful human relationships.
We don’t choose our family. Perhaps because we don’t choose our families, each family member looks even harder for signs of chosen-ness. We continually look for reassurance that we’re accepted. Fortunately, I have a bookmark from my daughter that says I’m the best Dad in the world. So I don’t have to worry…
Partner-relationships sometimes involve a dance during which one waits for the other to do the choosing before allowing themselves to be chosen. Have any of you been through that? If you choose me, I will choose to be yours. Otherwise, tough luck.
Long-term choosing relationships are covenantal. My wife and I formalized our relationship with a ketubah, a contract. The nature of our commitment implies that the two of us – the "we" - are more important than the each of us – the "Is".
Chosen-ness isn’t one way. I chose my wife; she chose me and we are both chosen.
This process of choosing, and of being chosen is woven into the Torah. Like with marriage, when one chooser is God, the acknowledgement of the chosen-ness results in a covenant.
God’s first covenant with man is with Noah. God picks Noah to save all the species of the Earth from impending doom. Noah heeds God’s command to build an ark, and, once he and his family are safe, he brings an offering to God. Once God receives that acknowledgment, God establishes a covenant with Noah and Noah’s descendants - in other words, all mankind.
God commits not to destroy the flesh of the Earth again and, in turn, Noah commits to follow a series of new commands, which largely relate to creating a civil society. As we know, this covenant is marked with a rainbow. (Interestingly, humans are the only creatures that can see that much color.)
God’s relationship with Noah doesn’t appear to grow from there. Shortly after the flood, Noah plants a vineyard and gets drunk. Noah seams to be a man of the present who can only deal with impending doom, but not the future.
The next covenant is between God and Abraham. Abraham, Sarah and their nephew, Lot, are in Haran with Abraham’s father. When Abraham is 75, God says to Abraham, "Lech lecha, go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you."
God could have just said Lech – go – but instead He said Lech Lecha. Go for yourself or to yourself. This implies an internal process; not just an external one. These are all big decisions – to leave your home, to leave your father’s house, and to trust in a new place.
This is one of the most significant moments in the Torah. God speaks to Abraham. Had He been speaking all along with no one to listen? Going within oneself sometimes takes great bravery – in this case, the trust that Abraham was to have in God represented one small step for man, but a giant leap for mankind. But unlike the moon landing, the biggest step was the one within.
Notwithstanding this leap, it isn’t until Abraham risks himself on behalf of others that God makes a covenant with him. He does some remarkable things – he rescues his nephew from Sodom. After winning the battle, he doesn’t take the property normally due the victor; so that others can’t say – that’s how he got rich. This way, the battle can go into history with no residue of bad feelings. But that’s not all – this very Sodom – the one that captured his nephew – is the one that Abraham later defends when God expresses his intention to destroy them.
When Abraham is 99, Abraham and God enter into a covenant. By this point, Abraham and God have chosen each other – Abraham will be a father of nations, and Abraham in turn will commemorate the covenant by obligating all of his male descendants to be circumcised.
God brought Abraham out of the place of his childhood. Years later, the children of Israel are brought out of the place of their childhood and are standing at the foot of Mount Sinai.
Here is a third great covenant. With Noah, God had established a covenant with mankind. With Abraham, God had established a covenant with a family. Here He offers a covenant to a mixed multitude.
Again, they have to make the first step.
God articulates this clearly – "You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagle’s wings and brought you to Me. Now then, if you will obey Me faithfully and keep My covenant, you shall be My treasured possession among all the peoples. Indeed, all the Earth is mine, but you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."
What does Conservative Judaism say about this? About this verse, the Etz Haim says; "The notion that the people Israel have been chosen is not a claim of superiority. The Bible never hesitates to chronicle and condemn the Israelite’s shortcomings and God’s disappointment with them. To speak of Israel as God’s Chosen People is a historical truth – it is through Israel that the Bible and the notion of ethical monotheism came into the world. To speak of Israel as God’s Chosen People is an assertion of divine power to select any people as the bearers of that revelation. An additional dimension in the notion of chosen-ness is that God’s Torah belongs to an entire people, not only to professional clergy or an intellectual elite."
While this commentary appears here, the act of being chosen hasn’t actually been consummated yet. Moshe goes back to the children of Israel with God’s offer and "all the people answered as one, saying, ‘All that the Lord has spoken we will do!’"
In that moment, the Children of Israel accept the laws of the Torah. Israel has chosen God and God has chosen Israel.
The moment of acceptance at Mt. Sinai – the moment of acceptance of that covenant - is such an important moment, that we replay is many times. Every time you are called to the Torah, you say, "Baruch atah adoshem elokeinu melech ha’olem, ashre bachar banu mikol ha’amim…" Blessed are you the Lord our God, kind of the universe, who chose us from among the nations and gave us his Torah, blessed are you Lord, who gives the Torah.
First you come up to the Torah, thereby submitting your acceptance of it – and only then are you able to say the words, only then are we chosen. Every reference to being chosen also includes a reference to an obligation.
Converts may choose to be chosen – but their choosing must also come first.
We even see this in civil matters. New citizens must submit themselves to the covenant that binds all Americans before becoming an American. They choose and then we agree to put our lives on the line to defend each other.
Like marriages, all covenantal relationships require renewal. There is faith and trust that’s continually tested. Good marriages require acceptance of each other – we change and our outlook towards each other changes – this can happen in our relationship with God too.
In marriage, the symbol of the covenant is a ring. In Judaism, it is circumcision. The Mishnah Nedarim states, "the entire house of Israel is uncircumcised of heart". We may be born as Jews – and our parents may have raised us as Jews – but circumcision in itself isn’t a commitment, otherwise, there’d be no freedom of choice – and chosen-ness would be innate. Chosen-ness has to be reaffirmed person by person, year by year.
That’s one reason we’re standing here today. Teshuva, reflection, change. Lech lecha – go feet forward – keep moving, but be sure to also turn within. If you have the right attitude, the worst situation can have a positive result.
On March 20, 1942, my mother was nine years old. She was crouched head down among hundreds of other Jews marched from the ghetto to the umschlagplatz, the town hub or plaza. They were packed like sardines on the ice-covered ground. Slowly, people were inching forward on all fours.
This was the first of four akcjas – actions – that the Nazis carried out in this town. Two of them were carried out on Jewish holidays – on Shavuot and on Yom Kippur.
The Nazis surrounded the plaza. At risk to their lives, people whispered to the girl and, when she didn’t listen, they dared to lift their heads, insisting that she move ahead of them. A relay of whispers combined into instructions; "tell your uncle to tell them you’re his daughter".
She was frozen in body and spirit. There was no open ground. To move forward, she’d have to step on the bodies and heads of her crouching townspeople. The whispers echoes among other sounds - shouted orders, trucks, crying babies, sporadic gunshots, and people being clubbed – as she made her way the front.
Her uncle was a dental technician. He answered the Nazis’ call for doctors and dentists and was standing there dazed. My mother inched to him and grabbed his hand. A Nazi noticed, threw their hands apart and pulled her away toward the plaza – she cried out, "Tell them I’m your daughter." Her uncle awoke to the situation and grabbed her hand.
The two of them were ordered to join nine medical men who were already standing facing a wall with their backs to the plaza. My mother was the only child among them.
Behind her, everyone was hauled off in trucks to what were to become the first two of four mass graves. 3,500 Jews were killed that day.
My mother was chosen by her town and, in turn, she chose them – but they never knew that. That fateful day, my mother swore to commemorate her fellow townspeople. A Yizkor book – a book of memoirs about the town – was assembled and written in the 1960s by a group of the surviving adults. My mother had it translated into English. She also went back to her town with others and set markers on the mass graves. The book and the landmarks are the symbols of her covenant with those who perished.
Out of this came new life.
The book is now on the Internet and a community of children and grandchildren related to people who came from this town now congregate on a daily basis via the Internet. My mother’s parents can’t be brought back – that can’t be changed. But her Jewish town is, as a result of her being chosen, reborn.
So, what about the news? How do we address that? Perhaps the Jewish people are the heart of the world. We suffer at the news of anyone in distress – even if they are far away and unrelated.
All of the Arab leaders stood side by side with the leader of the Sudan who was under fire from the West.
How can the world let that be?
Russia is redefining its pass – recasting Stalin as a hero.
How can we let that be?
Our fellow Americans are going thru difficult times – the heart of the body feels all of these things.
This doesn’t mean we should despair.
People will continue to find reasons to accuse Jews falsely. But there are Holocaust museums in various corners of the world that stand as a testament between the past and the future.
The fire and fury against Israel as a result of the Gaza war will be a problem for years to come. And the fact that Israel feels marginalized may make it difficult to have a peace agreement soon. But the future is never quite what we expect it to be. The fact is that Israel is 61 years old. The United States was at war for 10 years of its first 61 years. It was painful, but it has outlasted the regimes of its enemies.
At the rallies in Iran, there were shouts of "death to Israel" that were answered with "death to Russia", the first country to recognize the Iranian election.
We know in our lifetime that we can expect the unexpected. The Iron Cross was beaten and the Iron Curtain fell because their enemies had iron will.
At the reunion of survivors last weekend, a friend of my mothers noted that there wouldn’t have been a Holocaust if, in 1939, there was a state of Israel. If anyone were to rise up against the Jews today, God forbid, the Jews would have some place to go – Israel.
Like Noah, we must be practical and prepare for the moment of doom. Whether it means we need to build an ark or, as Israel is doing, build an Iron Dome.
But that’s not enough. We must be forward-looking like Abraham.
When we hear the sound of the shofar, let’s recall when we all stood at the base of Mt. Sinai – and renew our belief that we can work together. When we, as a community, accept responsibility, laws and ordinances that go beyond the expected, then we are able to see ourselves as chosen.
When we were standing at Mt. Sinai, we weren’t feeling guilty. We weren’t feeling proud. We were feeling humble. Real chosen-ness is only appreciated with humility.
There will be times that our spirits will be broken and we will lose the will to chose. Will Eisner wrote one of the first graphic novels, "A Contract with God", in anger about his daughter’s death. But, like Abraham and Jacob, he recognized God, and did battle with Him.
Last year on Rosh Hashanah, my family was in the midst of a difficult struggle – my prayer and anger blended together but, thank God, this year, my prayers will be filled with thanks. We must always have hope.
Noah was capable of dealing with impending doom but that’s as far as he went. Abraham instead argued with God on behalf of a doomed people. 10 of the 12 spies went into Israel and reported on facts – but all they saw was the bad. Jonathan and Caleb, the 2 spies who saw something more, who saw the potential not just the facts – they were the ones who led the Children of Israel across the Jordan.
The Torah is a book of choices. Adam and Eve, Cain and Able, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Rebecca, Ishmael, Lot, Laban, Rachel, Leah, Jacob, Judah, Tamar, Joseph, Potiphar, Simon, Levi, Dinah, Moses, Aaron, Joshua – like us, all of them were faced with predicaments and choices.
Lech lecha – don’t be afraid of an untraveled road, new opportunities and new commitments. Abraham believed that Sara could have children – he believed in the impossible –that’s what kept him going. That belief can lead to invention and discovery, to hope and to covenants that span millennia.
Re-choose the people in your world who are dear to you – with a touch of the hand or a smile - and renew your commitments to them.
May we be sealed in the book of life for the year 5770. May our hopes and dreams be realized and, God, may the news improve.
Believe in the impossible. The choice is ours.
Shabbat shalom, Shana Tovah.