Standing Together on a Path of Purpose (Nitzavim 5775 and Rosh Hashanah 5776)

Standing Together: Asia and Aubrey

The journey of a school year is not a sprint, although it can feel like one when our plates are overflowing with opportunities or challenges.  But neither is it a marathon completely beyond the reach of most of us. 

Each new school year is more like a 10k race. That is, short enough to be finished. Long enough to require perseverance and partners. 

The start of each new Jewish year also is brief enough to be completed and long enough to require perseverance and partners. This idea is reflected in the final Torah portion, Nitzavim, of the year that is just coming to a close.  

But before more on Torah, I have in mind a particular 10k from March 2015 in Louisville. It involved two ordinary folks who did extraordinary things: Asia Ford, a black mom, and Aubrey Gregory, a white cop. Asia entered the race and Aubrey worked the race.

Heads or Tails (Ki Tavo 5775)

Have you every flipped a coin to help make a decision? For some it is way of handing decision authority over to 'fate' or letting a coin toss seem like an expression of divine will. "Heads or tails" also are invoked at some Rosh Hashanah (Jewish new year) tables. Around some Rosh Hashanah (lit. 'head of the year') tables one might hear a wish for the new year to be made "a head and not a tail." 

That odd formulation has ancient roots in in this week’s Torah portion. When Moses is describing the benefits of positive engagement with the ways of the Jewish people, those benefits include becoming "a head and not a tail . . . and never the bottom."  (Deut. 28:13) Although this is voiced in the singular, some commentators hear it as a group aspiration: the Jewish people wish to be autonomous and set their own destiny. Or wish to inspire or lead other communities toward acts of justice and mercy.

One commentator, Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev (18th century Russia/Ukraine) reads it differently. He questioned why "tail" and "bottom" was included at all - if coming out a head was all that mattered, why did the text even need to say "not tail, not bottom."

Who Taught You to Ride a Bike? (Ki Teitzei 5775)

Who taught you how to ride a bike? My dad taught me. But it was two, dear graduate school classmates that taught my kids how to ride a bike. There is plenty that we learn from our parents. Yet, there are so many valuable lessons that we learn from other adults, mentors.  

When I ask students to raise their hands if someone other than one of their parents taught them how to ride a bike, or dribble a basketball, or drive a car, or bake challah, or get over being homesick, or play a musical instrument, or act with kindness -- nearly every student raises their hands. 

Consider all the lessons that each of us learned from someone other than our parents.  In our modern world no parent can do it alone and every person needs the coaching and encouragement of people other than our parents.  

Finding A Path Out of the Forest: Together Pursuing Justice and Peace (Shoftim 5775)

Yesterday was the first day of classes at JCHS. Every student took a slightly different path to arrive. Though we traveled along separate paths getting to school, we join together daily to form a single, unified community. 

The first day of school is the start of a year-long journey that will endure a lifetime. In that spirit it has become my custom to use themes developed in Tefillat Haderech ("traveler's prayer") to acknowledge each class of students. Tefillat Haderech expresses hope for a safe journey. The explicit destination of every journey, in that sense, is not the place but the path, a path that is whole, complete, harmonious, and full of peace.

Identity: Not So Black and White (Summer Reading 2015)

Each summer, as students engage their assigned summer reading, the entire JCHS professional community (educators and staff) also have assigned reading. This summer’s reading was Beverly Daniel Tatum’s Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria: And Other Conversations About Race. Her language can be stark at times, but it is also instructive.

Tatum’s framework of domination and subordination brings to mind a Talmudic legend about a vision that comes to Rav Joseph during a near-death experience. In his vision, he sees the dominant and subordinate in society switch places.  He sees those who are dominant in his world inverted to become subordinate in his vision, and vice versa. In the midst of his inversion vision, one group stays in the same, respected place in both worlds -- righteous scholars. When R. Joseph wakes his

Pursuing Inclusion: Equal Does Not Mean Same (Korach 5775)

Each summer as students engage their assigned summer reading, my school's professional community (educators and staff) also have assigned reading. 

This summer it's Beverly Daniel Tatum’s “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria: And Other Conversations About Race.”  I selected this book to read as a professional community in order to advance our crucial Inclusion & Anti-Bias initiative.  It is essential that Jewish Community High School of the Bay fulfill its  pluralistic mission by actively pursuing inclusion and teaching that bias is corrosive to our community. Respect for difference and pursuit of inclusion also are at the heart of this week’s Torah portion and echo through rabbinic literature.  

In the Torah portion this week there is a serious leadership rebellion when Korach challenges Moses and Aaron.  Korach claims to be speaking on behalf of the inherent equality among the three of them.  But he fails to acknowledge the unique differences in their skills, abilities, relationships, and attitudes.  As expressed by Rabbi Bradley Artson Shavit, “Korach’s flaw was to confuse equal worth with equal skills. Korach was threatened by diversity.”

On Beyond Zebra: Making Meaning of Torah (Graduation 2015) (Shelach 5775)

My precious students:* Your graduation and this opportunity to offer a blessing and charge for the future that you will invent, arrives in perfect harmony with the Torah portion this week, Shelach. In it we read from the story of Moses blessing and offering a charge to twelve scouts about to enter Canaan, to begin a journey toward a future of their invention.  

We tend to think that in telling its stories Torah is limited to using only the now fixed in time 22 letters that comprise the Hebrew alphabet. This is reinforced by the very first words of Torah, “In the beginning God created et” (Genesis 1:1) What’s et? Et is a definite article in Hebrew spelled by joining the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet (aleph) to the last (tav).

Some read et as a kind of synecdoche for the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. In other words, “In the beginning God created the 22 letters and with those letters God created the world.”     

Yet a Torah scroll does not limit itself to 22 fixed, uniform letters. For example, this week in one verse the letter yud is super-sized. (Numbers 14:16) That yud is but one of 16 letters that are sometimes written super large or super small. In every Torah scroll some other letters by design have decorative dots or crowns or are written upside down. The Sages of Talmud refer to nearly 100 variants for letters in the Torah.  

That there are differences is clear. But making meaning out of those differences is up to us. My graduates, just as you have made meaning out of the differences among your unique selves, making meaning out of the Torah is now up to you.

Which brings me to one of my favorite and least well-known Dr. Seuss books, “On Beyond Zebra!”  The book turns 60 this year.  It actually came out before “The Cat in the Hat” or “The Lorax” or “The Places You’ll Go.”