Repost: Greensboro soldier last Iraq casualty

Ever since the 1,000th US military casualty in Iraq, Temple Emanuel of Greensboro has read the names of the week's fallen soldiers each Friday night and Saturday morning prior to the mourner's prayer.  Rabbi Fred Guttman and I decided to start this after a local TV station refused to air a special on the war which would scroll all 1,000 names at the end of the broadcast.  They claimed it was unpatriotic.  Unpatriotic?  Years later, this is hard to believe or understand.  Those of us who have been to a military funeral, as Rabbi Guttman and I did at a local church, know that remembering and paying tribute to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice cannot and must not be taken lightly.  Had there been more reports of casualties, had the names scrolled nightly on major networks as they did during my earliest years when the Vietnam War was being fought, perhaps the Iraq War and the war in Afghanistan would have been more in the public conscience than it has been.  This may be the first time in American history that our country waged war while the vast majority of the public paid little or no attention to what was going on.

Not at our Temple.  Reading names was not a political statement.  It was a sacred reminder that those sacrificing their lives were not just other people's family: brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, partners and friends.  They were part of our larger American family.

In recent years, there have been fewer killed in Iraq and many more killed in Afghanistan.  We continue reading names each week with the hope that the day will come soon when "nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." (Isaiah 2:4)

For all of our soldiers who died in Iraq we say thank you for your service and sacrifice.  Zichronam livracha, may their memories always be a blessing.

Greensboro soldier last Iraq casualty

Monday, December 19, 2011

By Tom Breen and Don Babwin,  Associated Press

Seth Perlman (Associated Press)

Photo Caption: In this photo taken Wednesday, photographs of Marine Pvt. Jonathan Lee Gifford, who was killed just two days into the Iraq war, sit on display at the home of his mother, Vicky Langley.

GREENSBORO — As the last U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq on Sunday, friends and family of the first and last American fighters killed in combat were cherishing their memories rather than dwelling on whether the war and their sacrifice was worth it.

Nearly 4,500 American fighters died before the last U.S. troops crossed the border into Kuwait. David Hickman, 23, of Greensboro was the last of those war casualties, killed in November by the kind of improvised bomb that was a signature weapon of this war.

“David Emanuel Hickman. Doesn’t that name just bring out a smile to your face?” said Logan Trainum, one of Hickman’s closest friends, at the funeral where the soldier was laid to rest after a ceremony in a Greensboro church packed with friends and family.

Trainum says he’s not spending time asking why Hickman died: “There aren’t enough facts available for me to have a defined opinion about things. I’m just sad, and pray that my best friend didn’t lay down his life for nothing.”

 

He’d rather remember who Hickman was: A cutup who liked to joke around with friends. A physical fitness fanatic who half-kiddingly called himself “Zeus” because he had a body that would make the gods jealous. A ferocious outside linebacker at Northeast Guilford High who was the linchpin of a defense so complicated they had to scrap it after he graduated because no other teenager could figure it out.

Hickman was these things and more, a whole life scarcely glimpsed in the terse language of a Defense Department news release last month. Three paragraphs said Hickman died in Baghdad on Nov. 14, “of injuries suffered after encountering an improvised explosive device.”

He was more, too, than the man who bears the symbolic freight of being the last member of the U.S. military to die in a war launched in the political shadow of Sept. 11, which brought thousands of his fellow citizens out into the streets to oppose and support it. Eventually, the war largely faded from the public’s thoughts.

“There’s a lot of people, in my family included, they don’t know what’s going on in this world,” said Wes Needham, who coached linebackers at Northeast when Hickman was a student. “They’re oblivious to it. I just sit and think about it, the courage that it takes to do what they do, especially when they’re all David’s age.”

And they were mostly young. According to an Associated Press analysis of data, the average age of Americans who died in Iraq was 26. Nearly 1,300 were 22 or younger, but middle-aged people fought and died as well: some 511 were older than 35.

“I’ve trained a lot of kids. They go to college and you kind of lose track of them and forget them,” said Mike King of Greensboro Black Belt Academy, where Hickman trained in taekwondo for about eight years. “He was never like that. That smile and that laugh immediately come to mind.”

The pain is fresh for people who knew Hickman. But the years have not eased the anguish of those who lost loved ones in the war’s earliest days, when funerals were broadcast live on local television, before the country became numb to the casualty count.

Vicky Langley’s son, Marine Pvt. Jonathan Lee Gifford, was killed just two days into the war. More than eight years later she sits in her Decatur, Ill., home, surrounded by photographs of him and even a couple of paintings of him in his dress uniform that total strangers created and sent her.

She said she doesn’t concern herself with thoughts about the cost of the war and whether it was worth the life of her son and all the others who died.

“Only the Iraqi people can answer that,” she said.

She thinks of her son constantly. She recalls the first day of kindergarten and how she came home and “turned on every appliance I could (because) it was just so quiet without him.” She remembers how as a young man he would call her, without fail, when the first snow of the year started to fall. She still hears the knock at her door at 11 at night, and the chaplain telling her that her 30-year-old son had been killed in Iraq.

And she sees him in the 4-year-old daughter he left behind, who is now 12. Lexie Gifford’s thin frame and face are miniature versions of her father’s, her smile a replica of his. She has the same slow, I’ll-get-there-when-I-get-there walk.

And who, for a reason nobody understands, a while back started popping frozen French fries in her mouth just like her dad used to do.

As the last troops prepared to leave Iraq, Langley was getting ready.

“I’ll probably sit and cry,” said Langley, 58. “I’ll be happy for the ones you can be happy for and sad for the ones you are sad for.”

Langley’s life has been one catastrophe after another since her son died. The next year her husband died. Then months later, doctors told her the reason she was feeling poorly was that her kidneys had shut down. That was followed by a fall and a broken back. Today, as she waits for her name to come up on a list for a kidney transplant, she gets around the house she shares with her mother in a motorized scooter.

The one thing she doesn’t have, she said, is guilt. Though she talked her son out of enlisting in the military a couple of times over the years, the reasons began and ended with concerns about the safety for her only child.

But after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, she knew there would be no talking him out of enlisting. Besides, she said, “If I was young enough I would have gone in, too.”

And even though the country’s mood was much different in 2009 when Hickman joined the Army, he had no doubts about his decision, Trainum said.

“When I talked with him on the phone a week before, he wasn’t unhappy about where he was or regretting being there at all,” Trainum said. “It was just going to work for him, and he was looking forward to getting his work done and getting home.”

Hickman, Gifford and the others left behind parents and spouses and children such as Lexie, whose memories of her Marine father are what one might expect of a girl who was four when she last saw him.

“He popped out of a Christmas box,” she said, of the Christmas just before Gifford was deployed, when he hid inside a large box to surprise his daughter. “He was tall. He had brown hair. He was nice.”

The losses linger for people who saw the flag-draped coffins come home.

“I used to watch all the war stories on TV, you know,” said Needham, Hickman’s old coach. “But since this happened to David, I can’t watch that stuff anymore. I just think: That’s how he died.”

New Orleans Trip - Day 4

I wish we did not have to leave.  In three days, we were able to accomplish so much.  Yet, there is still much left to do.  People will ask me how much longer they think we will need to keep returning to New Orleans.  My answer: we plan on coming until we are told not to anymore.  When I mention this to the people we meet in New Orleans, they say: "you may never hear that from us."  By most estimates, there is still well over a decade of volunteer work left.

This is hard to believe until you see it yourself.  The places that you need to see are not in downtown New Orleans.  Yet, they are also not tucked away.  The starkest examples can be found by going to St. Bernard Parish (to the east of New Orleans) and the Lower Ninth Ward.

We spent the few hours that we had before our 2:15 pm flight volunteering in the Lower Ninth Ward.  The Florida contingent brought us to our work site, yet they did not work that morning as they had a long bus ride home ahead of them.  The 20 teens from Greensboro and Roanoke met Linda Jackson, the President of the Lower Ninth Ward Homeowners' Association.

We met Linda at her house.  She briefly told us that where we were standing used to be houses as far as the eye could see.  That is no longer the case.  When the eastern wall of the Industrial Canal collapsed, water poured through the entire area ripping homes from their foundations and tossing them about.  Everything was underwater.  To this day, 1500 people are still unaccounted for.  And despite the few houses that survived and the exotic looking new homes constructed by Brad Pitt's Make It Right group, I would not argue with anyone who claimed that the Lower Ninth Ward was Ground Zero of the flooding that submerged New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.  To this day, much of the area looks like it did only weeks after the waters subsided and the debris was removed.

Linda explained to us that the government attempted to exercise imminent domain over the Lower Ninth Ward.  Why?  The Lower Ninth was one of the poorest areas of New Orleans, of Louisiana, of the entire US prior to Katrina.  Crime, drugs, and other societal problems were well-known there.  The government's idea was to take the land and turn it into an industrial zone.  But the Lower Ninth was home to its families for generations.  Linda reminded us of the importance of land.  If you have land, she said, you have a stakehold, you have power.  She, and hundreds of other families, were not about to give up what was theirs.  A few attorneys came to New Orleans as volunteers.  They were from other big cities: Washington, New York, etc.  They offered to help defend the homeowners of the Lower Ninth Ward.  When these attorneys were told that they were not licensed to practice in Lousiana, they sat for the bar exam.  Linda expressed to us her thanks for their work.

To understand the Lower Ninth Ward post-Katrina, you have to see this sculpture which is located on the median as you come off the bridge over the Industrial Canal into the neighborhood:

The central (red) structure is a house.  It is just a shell and may represent the homes that used to be there, the homes that were destroyed, the homes that needed to be gutted, the homes that are being rebuilt... you name it.  The blue posts on the left represent the rising waters which flooded the area.  There are chairs on the right (and one on the porch inside the central structure not visible from this angle).  These chairs represent how the people of New Orleans have front porches, unlike many of the cities we know nowadays where we only have back porches.  A back porch is for privacy.  A front porch is for community.  It means you know your neighbors, and know them well.  These chairs are empty, waiting for so many friends and family to return home.  6+ years later, the waiting continues.

Our task that Sunday morning was to clean up a property lot that had overgrown with weeds.  This seems like such an easy task.  Grab a weed-whacker and get to work, right?  The problem is that there aren't any weed-whackers.  The tools we had were rudimentary hand weed cutters.  They belong to Linda and she has a few dozen of them.  That's what she can store in her house.  You can't store dozens of lawn mowers there.  And a lawn mower wouldn't have stood a chance against the weeds that we were cutting, some of which were over 7 feet tall.  It took our group of 20 teens (and two of our chaperones) nearly two hours to clear the lot that we were assigned to.  My hands still have blisters on them.

It was rewarding to work on this project and finish it.  However, the work that we did was critical in ways that our students heard directly from Linda.  She told us how lots with overgrown weeds are subject to fines of $100 a day.  That is a hefty sum, especially when your house is no longer there and you live elsewhere.  And you are poor, or old or infirm, or all of the above.  If the fees add up, the city just confiscates your property.  We worked that day to help a family, maybe more than one family, avoid this fate.

Like everything else we did, our work on Day 4 was far from easy.  As we finished, we looked around and saw dozens if not more lots that needed similar care.  In situations like that, it would be understandable to stand back and say "this job is just too big, too complicated, and not worth it."  Honestly, I have never heard that from anyone in New Orleans.  Nor have I heard it from the students that have come on our trips over the past four years.  Instead, I see people, little by little, rolling up their sleeves, working hard, and sharing messages of hope.

There will be more posts on our trip to New Orleans in the coming weeks and beyond featuring pictures and other links.  I want to end this post by expressing my gratitude: to the supporters of this program, to the congregations that have participated, to the individuals and organizations that we consult and work with, to the people of New Orleans, and to the students who dedicated their time and presence to making a difference in the lives of others.  For those who are reading these postings who do not belong to our Temples, or who are from places beyond the "borders" of the Jewish community, please know that these service learning projects are highly replicable.  Feel free to be in touch if you want a sounding board for your ideas.

New Orleans Trip - Day 3

Our third day in New Orleans is what most expect from a work-mitzvah trip.  We arrived early in the morning at the site of a house that we would be building.  This year, we chose to work with Habitat for Humanity.  The walls were already up, as was the roof.  However, there was still much to be done.  How many of our group had ever done contruction before?  was the question that Nicole, our site supervisor, asked.  Only a few hands went up; those who had worked with Habitat on prior trips to New Orleans or even back home.  Most of us would be learning our skills "on the job."  By the end of the day, we would not only master hammering, putting up siding, building and installing a staircase, attaching boards to roof structures (to name a few of the tasks), but we would also help someone get closer to moving home.

Our building day coincides with Shabbat.  When we go to New Orleans, we do so as a Jewish group.  So, why are we building on Shabbat?  This question is asked each year.  Simply stated, if we were back home, we would not do this.  But, our time in New Orleans is limited.  The days that we can build on are also limited.  Friday is out since that is the day we focus on environmental restoration.  Years ago, we used to build on Sundays.  These days, no one builds on Sundays.  This is a sign that the urgency of the first few years post-Katrina have passed.  Of course, the need is still present.  So, we build on Shabbat.

And we do our respect and honor Shabbat.  We had a Shabbat service, complete with a Torah study session, in the house we were building, transforming the bayit (house) we were building into a temporary beit knesset (synagogue).  We spoke of Jacob's dream of a ladder and angels going up and down.  Are there angels in the Jewish tradition?  Certainly.  I was sitting among them that morning.  They were teens with hammers in their hands, busy doing God's work here on earth.

There was a special ruach (spirit) that we brought to our prayers and left as a permanent blessing for those who will live in the house we helped build.  After our workday finished, we wrote the words of Shema on one of the interior beams with our signatures (in Hebrew and/or English) and the names of our respective congregations.

That day, we worked together with two future Habitat homeowners, Judy and Tyrone.  Habitat requires that those who will purchase their homes also put in over 300 hours of "sweat equity).  I heard Judy's story, how she had sought refuge in the Superdome to ride out Katrina.  She was there for 6 grueling days before she was transported elsewhere.  Her apartment did not flood, but her life was so profoudly impacted by what she experienced.  She was so grateful for the work our teens were doing and the time that they dedicated to rebuilding New Orleans.

We spent the daylight hours with Habitat for Humanity.  The above picture shows our entire group and some of what we accomplished.

Yet, our day wasn't over.  After dinner, we went to the banks of the Mississippi River for a havdalah service.  The place that we chose was Woldenberg Park which is the site of the New Orleans Holocaust Memorial designed by the Israeli artist Yaakov Agam.  Like the braids of a havdalah candle, our service helped to bring our Shabbat experiences - all of them - together.  Yet, before we started, there was something that caught our attention.  Across the Mississippi River, there was a massive fire.  After our initial concern, we surmised that it was a controlled fire since there was a Fire Dept. boat parked in the middle of the River not responding.  The fire was almost like a second havdalah candle for us.  Its light was bright enough and I felt some of the heat of the blaze even though it was a significant distance from where we were standing.  Later that night, I looked up what had been happening.  In summary, this bonfire was part of a celebration in the city of Algiers.  What made this particular fire so meaningful is that part of what was being burned was an art installation called Floodwall that had been donated by the artist Jana Napoli.  The exhibition was made up of 700 dresser drawers that had been collected after Hurricane Katrina.  Think of what dresser drawers represent to us: our memories, our belongings, our dearest keepsakes, and so much more.  I never saw this exhibition but apparently it toured the US and the world for years.  As we stood on the banks of the Mississippi declaring that there is a difference between Shabbat and the rest of the week, between sacred and profane, the drawers of Floodwall were ignited and burned brightly.  In one of the articles I read, Ms, Napoli remarked that she wanted "...the public to participate in a collective final release of Katrina woes."  We surely did.  What an unforgettable havdalah!

Our next stop was at Mid City Rock 'n' Bowl, a New Orleans institution.  On the one hand, we bowled for an hour.  On the other hand, and this may be hard to picture, there was a band of the full stage next to the lanes.  We have heard many bands there over the years, but this year was a treat - Sgt. Peppers Beatles Tribute Band.  When the band opened, they looked just like the Fab Four did when they appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show.  They setlist for that part of the show was the early music of the Beatles.  We only stayed for a few songs of their second set which they did dressed in Sgt. Peppers outfits.  Everyone was dancing: our group, other groups, young people, old people.  It was hard to leave, but it was after 11 PM when we left for the hotel.

We had awoken 19 hours earlier and had done so much.  As the words which end the Abbey Road album so beautifully delare: "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."  We had given so much.  What was also true is that we had gained so much.

New Orleans Trip 2011 - Day 2

Of all of the programs that we do in New Orleans, what we do during day 2 is the hardest to explain.  Today's work was dedicated to environmental restoration.  When I tell others that we are doing this, the response usually is "that's really important."  I concur.  However, with only a few days in New Orleans, why spend the day doing environmental work?  To do what is necessary, we wind up going to a remote location without any interact with the people of New Orleans.  We spend the day cutting down large stalks of grass and then replanting them in mud on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain.

Truth be told, on our first two trips in 2008 and 2009 environmental work was not on our radar screen.  Then, in 2010, the Gulf was impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster.  That fall and again this year, we have devoted a day to working on environmental projects.

We don't go to the Gulf of Mexico or clean up any oil.  Rather, we drive about 45 minutes westward to an area known as the Bonnet Carre Spillway.  It was a beautiful day.  The skies were clear but it was a bit colder than it was when we volunteered last year in October.  What else was different?  Last winter saw record snow fall in the northern regions of the US.  The Mississippi River was swollen and threatening to flood major cities.  So, for the first time in decades, the Army Corps of Engineers opened major spillways along the Mississippi including the Bonnet Carre Spillway.  This allowed massive amounts of water to be diverted sparing cities such as New Orleans from catastrophic floods.


We worked in the same area last year, cutting down grass from one area and replanting it.  It doesn't sound glorious and the work is tiring and dirty.  What amazed me is that what we planted last year had done its job.  The grass was preventing erosion and allowing silt to accumulate, providing a protective barrier which keeps salt water from invading fresh water area and killing off cypress trees and damaging other areas that are critical to stopping future environmental disasters.

I mentioned earlier that this was not an easy project to describe.  Yet, if you ask the students we worked with this year, they will tell you that what they did was quite meaningful.  They know about environmental concerns mostly because they hear about them.  By going to these areas, they were able to see dead cypress trees with their own eyes.  They were also able to do something about it with their own hands.

Following our day of work, we returned to the hotel to prepare for Shabbat.  The transition to Shabbat was so beautiful with everyone dressing up for services and dinner at the Gates of Prayer congregation in Metairie.  I could write pages about Gates of Prayer and Rabbi Bob Loewy.  Their hospitality towards our groups over the years has been extraordinary.  We were welcomed during services and had a tasty and filling dinner of Louisiana dishes.  Jackie and Dan Silverman were there and I enjoyed reconnecting with them.  Following dinner, the community shaliach spoke about the Maccabiah Games.  We concluded our meal with Birkat HaMazon the traditional blessing following meals.

For Shabbat dessert, we went to Cafe Du Monde for beignets.  What a sweet way to celebrate Shabbat.

New Orleans Trip 2011 - Day 1

After months of planning and anticipation, we are back in the Big Easy.  This is our fourth tikkun olan/mitzvah work trip to New Orleans.  We started coming here with Jewish teens in the fall of 2008, 3 years after Katrina and the subsequent flooding of Greater New Orleans.

When I say "we," I mean Temple Emanuel of Greensboro and Temple Sinai of North Miami Beach.  I should not forget the American Hebrew Academy and Temple Emanuel of Winston-Salem, NC who have teamed up with us on earlier trips (and surely will be among our partners in the future).  But "we" really refers to Jewish teens from our respective congregations.  We had a choice years ago: who should make up the participants on a trip like this?  Our answer: we wanted to do this as a service learning experience for older high school students, providing them a engaging and meaningful ways to continue their Jewish involvement by doing hands-on work and giving back.  By the way, this is only one component of an overall approach to teen involvement.

This program was a recipient of the 2011 Fain Award given by the Religious Action Center of the Union for Reform Judaism for outstanding work in social action.

This year's group is our largest group ever.  We have a total of 31 teen volunteers (15 from Greensboro, 5 from Roanoke, VA, and 11 from North Miami Beach) and 5 chaperones (including me and Rabbi David Young from Temple Sinai of North Miami Beach).  A videographer is accompanying us for the first time and the plan is to show our documentary at the URJ's Biennial in a few weeks time.


December 1, 2011 - The group from Greensboro and Roanoke left North Carolina arriving in New Orleans at around 11 AM.  We were met at the airport by the Florida group.  Brave souls... they took an overnight bus-ride from South Florida to southern Louisiana.

Before we got to work, we did a few overview tours.  Our first tour was with Julie Schwartz who took us on a panoramic tour of New Orleans.  Along the way, we learned about the history, culture, and contours of New Orleans.  She also spoke with us about local Jewish history.  The main difference between this tour and ones that we have taken in the past is that you no longer see devastation.  In fact, Julie mentioned that tours used to be called "disaster tours" or "Katrina tours."  They are now referred to as "renaissance tours."  When we go to the Lower 9th Ward (which we did not see yesterday), we will surely see many reminders of what happened 6+ years ago and the immense work that remains.  But our tour focused on what has been rebuilt and how New Orleans of today is truly "back."

Our next stop was Tulane University.  We were met by a number of Jewish undergrads including Carley Regal who went on our trip last year and is a freshman at Tulane now.  Her dad and brother are on this year's trip.  The highlight of our Tulane tour was an extended visit to the new Hillel Jewish student center.  As a former Hillel Rabbi, I was so taken by the space and opportunities that this center for Jewish life offers.  Corey Smith, Hillel's Associate Director, showed us around.  Jewish life at Tulane is thriving and I was glad that our teens saw this.  In fact, Tulane and Tulane Hillel have been regular stops on our trips to New Orleans.  No matter where they go to college, I want to make sure that they know about and connect with their campus Hillels.

Our evening culminated with 2 hours of volunteer work at the New Orleans Mission.  Well over 150 men and women were there for dinner.  Many of them live on the streets and might otherwise not have eaten.  Our students served dinner, helped out, and worked as a team to make everything go smoothly.  After a full day of traveling, they have started to give back.  Giving back will be our main focus over the next three days.

Before we left the Mission, one of the organizers told us his story.  He had been in prison and is now in the process of rebuilding his life.  How is he doing this?  By helping others.  His story was moving; perhaps one of our teens will write about it.  But, the message behind his story was: do what you can to give back and help others.

Ryan Braun is NL MVP; last Jewish player to earn this distinction was Koufax in '63

Here's how the Forward put it:

Ryan Braun Named National League MVP

'Hebrew Hammer' Is First Jew To Win Since Koufax in 1963

 

Ryan’s the MVP: Slugger Ryan Braun scores during a playoff game. The Milwaukee Brewer became the first Jew in nearly a half-century to win the Most Valuable Player award.

By Nate Lavey

Published November 22, 2011.

Ryan Braun, the slugging outfielder for the Milwaukee Brewers, became the first Jewish Most Valuable Player in nearly five decades.

Braun, the son of an Israeli-born Jewish father and a Catholic mother, was named the National League MVP on Tuesday. He received 20 of 32 first-place votes and 388 points in voting announced by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Los Angeles center fielder Matt Kemp was second with 10 first-place votes and 332 points.
In an era when Jewish baseball players are remembered as heroes from another time, Ryan Braun ranks among the very best current players of the game — of any religious persuasion. As a big hitter for the Milwaukee Brewers, the 27-year-old Braun has consistently broken team records. And his huge, 450-foot home run on September 23 clinched the Brewers’ spot at the top of the National League’s Central Division, giving the team their first division title in nearly 30 years.
Braun, who batted .332 and hit 33 home runs this season, is being seriously considered for the National League’s Most Valuable Player, an honor that will be announced in late November. Braun plays on the Sabbath, but his Jewish identity runs deep. His father’s family was nearly destroyed in the Holocaust, and Braun has said that he is “proud to be a role model for young Jewish kids.” They have good reason to look up to him: In 2007, he became the first Jew ever to be named Rookie of the Year, and he has often been compared to such Jewish baseball greats as Sandy Koufax, Hank Greenberg and Al Rosen. Braun even shares a nickname with Greenberg and Rosen — “The Hebrew Hammer.”

This year, for the fourth consecutive year, Braun was selected to play in the All-Star Game. Even though his long-ball hitting and speed weren’t enough to power the Brewers into the World Series, it’s likely he’ll be wearing that World Series ring one day.
Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1963 was the last Jewish player to win the award. Other Jewish players who have been named MVP are Hank Greenberg of the Detroit Tigers in 1940 and Al Rosen of the Cleveland Indians in 1953.
Braun this season batted .332 this season with 33 home runs, 111 RBI and 33 steals to help lead the Brewers to the Central Division title.
Some have taken to calling the Los Angeles-reared Braun “The Hebrew Hammer.”
“I am Jewish,” Braun said last year. “It’s something I’m really proud of. But I don’t want to make it into something more than what it is. I didn’t have a bar mitzvah. I don’t want to pretend that I did. I didn’t celebrate the holidays.
“It’s a touchy subject because I don’t want to offend anybody, and I don’t want groups claiming me now because I’m having success. But I do consider myself definitely Jewish. And I’m extremely proud to be a role model for young Jewish kids.”

It's Been Over a Month... Baseball in Israel

That sound of silence on my blog after the High Holidays should not be mistaken for lack of activity.  In fact, I am having a hard time remembering a period of time so active in our congregation.  Here's a quick sample (in no particular order):

* Temple Emanuel held its Third Jewish Festival.  Thousands from our area attended.  Yashar koach and Todah Rabbah to the 500+ volunteers who made this possible.

* Yevgeny Kutik performed a beautiful concert, the proceeds of which benefitted our local March of the Living scholarship fund.  You can view clips from his performance on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=429RWS0t1QM AND http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6H35n9PQTw)

* Tal Becker delivered a talk about the changing landscape in the Middle East and its implications for Israel.  This event, sponsored by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), was a showcase of pro-Israel activism and concern from our congregation and community.

* Speaking of AIPAC, I recently took three students from our area to Washington for AIPAC's annual High School Summit.  While in DC, they learned about the importance of the US-Israel relationship.  They also went to the office of Representative Brad Miller where they spoke with Ashely Orr, one of Representative Miller's Legislative Assistants about supporting the Foreign Aid bill, increasing sanctions on Iran to impede their nuclear ambitions, and standing by Israel by supporting calls for direct negotiations (instead of appeals to the UN).

* LGBT Shabbat which featured a talk by Joanna Blotner of the Human Rights Campaign as well as music from Noteworthy (a sub-group of the Triad Men's Choir).

* Local candidates for Greensboro Mayor and District 4 representative to City Council appeared at our Candidates Forum in advance of our recent elections.

* A successful launch of our second year of Melton adult mini-school classes in Greensboro.

* Pet-A-Palooza - a Sunday morning gathering in our outdoor chapel as we held our morning Religious School assembly and blessed our pets.  We did this on the Sunday morning immediately following Shabbat Noach, the Shabbat when the weekly reading includes the story of Noah's Ark.

I am sure that I am missing many things on this list.  Suffice it to say, we have been a beehive of meaningful and engaging Jewish activities.  What a blessing!

I will conclude this posting with a piece that I saw from the Forward:

Jewish Players Aim to Boost Israel Baseball Team

You can view the article here: http://forward.com/articles/146099/ or below where I have posted it in its entirety:

 

Three Jewish former major leaguers will help Israel field a competitive team in next year’s World Baseball Classic.

Shawn Green, Brad Ausmus and Gabe Kapler met this week in Los Angeles with Israeli baseball officials and promised to help out, the players told The Associated Press.

 

It is unclear whether any of the three would play for Israel themselves, the A.P. reported, though Green said that he would help “in any capacity.”

 

“If I felt like that was a role that the team needed, I would prepare for it…,” he told the A.P., adding: “I feel a strong connection to Israel and it would be an honor to put on the uniform.”

 

Peter Kurz, the Israel Association of Baseball’s secretary-general, told the A.P. that one of the three former ballplayers will likely be the Israeli team’s manager, and that all of them will help with coaching, recruiting and fundraising.

 

Israel will be one of 16 countries invited to play in next year’s qualifying round, and the top four teams advance to the 2013 World Baseball Classic.

 

“Today, the idea of bridging the gap between the generations of American/Jewish baseball fans and baseball fans in Israel is an enticing prospect,” Ausmus wrote in an e-mail cited by the A.P. “Hopefully, this is the beginning of renewed and long interest in baseball in Israel.”

Sermon: Bless What You Have, Play From Your Heart, and Always Have Hope - Kol Nidre 5772

Bless What You Have, Play From Your Heart,

and Always Have Hope

Kol Nidre 5772

Rabbi Andy Koren

Temple Emanuel

Greensboro, NC

How did she do it? Was she a superhero? Superheroes wear special outfits and she had a special leotard. Maybe she was a superhero?

Superheroes belong to teams with cool names. The Justice League. The Fantastic Four. Her team was known as “the Magnificent Seven.”

Superheroes can fly. And so could she. Well, sort of... She could fly through the air, but that was only after she sprinted down the runway, jumped on a springboard, and propelled herself off of the vaulting horse.

Most of us had never heard of her until the 1996 summer Olympic games in Atlanta. It was during those games that Kerri Strug, an 18-year old Jewish American gymnast captured the attention of our country and the entire world.

The drama was intense. The US women had never won the Gymnastics Team Competition Gold Medal. Entering the final rotations, they were ahead and poised to make history, unless there was a complete collapse. The Russian team's remaining event was the floor exercise. The US team would be vaulting. The US gymnasts simply had to land their vaults cleanly.

They had practiced since they were little girls. They could do this blindfolded. One by one, they vaulted. Each vaulted well, but then failed to stick the landing.

Kerri Strug, small but mighty, was the last to compete. She ran with everything she had, hit the springboard, and then... something went wrong. She came up short. And, like her teammates before her, she failed to stick the landing. It was ok since she had one more vault remaining.

But, as she was walking back to the starting position, she began to limp. When she missed her landing, she badly injured herself.

It was clear from the look on her face that she was in pain. But, the gold medal was on the line. What now?

The cameras caught Kerri talking to her coach. “Do we need this?” she asked.

Her coach replied: “Kerri, we need you to go one more time. We need you one more time for the gold. You can do it...”

If you were like me, watching this at home, you were probably holding your breath. Kerri herself had a look on her face of deep prayer, concentration, and determination.

Then, she ran down that runway one more time, flew through the air after hitting the springboard, vaulted gracefully and... put her hands over her head after successfully sticking her landing.

A second later, she hopped onto her good foot and then fell to the floor. She wasn't a superhero, but she had done it.

Her coach ran to her and carried her back to the team bench. Shortly thereafter, he carried her to the podium as she and her teammates were awarded their historic gold medal.

How is it that we pick ourselves up and make the best of tough situations?

How is it that we can go on, even if we have stumbled or been injured physically or emotionally? How can we dig deeper, even if we have to make do with so much less than 100% of our strength, or – as many of us know – far fewer resources than we were used to?

What athletes do in challenging situations is not that different than what our tradition suggests.

What does our tradition suggest?

BLESS WHAT YOU HAVE

PLAY FROM YOUR HEART

and ALWAYS HAVE HOPE

As rich as our history has been, the Jewish people have known our share of defeat, disappointment, and suffering over nearly 4000 years. The stakes were often much more serious than whether our team would come in first or second. Take, for example, when our people were exiled from Israel by the Babylonians almost 2600 years ago. The Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed and we were carried away as captives. The prophet Jeremiah was asked: “what should we do?” His answer was not “give up” or “give in.” Rather, he sent a letter for all to see.

Build houses there, and dwell in them. Plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them. Get married and have children. Your children should do the same so that they may have their own children. Grow, and do not be diminished, there. And seek the peace of the city where you find yourself captive, and pray unto God for it; for in the peace thereof shall you have peace. (paraphrased from Jeremiah 29)

Go on living, Jeremiah says. Grow strong. Bless what you have.

Jewish tradition tells us that we should say a minimum of 100 blessings each day. We do this to remind ourselves that what we have should never be taken for granted.

All too often, whether times are good or times are tough, we overlook what we truly have. Or we look at what others have and wonder “what if…” We spend far too much time dwelling on what we do not have or what is broken.

The High Holiday prayerbook contains a list of our sins – an alphabetic acrostic of what we have messed up or grossly lack. But should we not also use this time to take stock of what we have and bless it. If we have a roof over our heads, bless that. If we have food on our tables, bless that. The simple things that we may overlook, should not be taken for granted. We should be aware of them, use them, and bless them.

But this is not only about our possessions. Whether or not we are athletes, whether or not everything in our body works, we should bless what we have. I learned this from a quick conversation I had a few years ago with the actor Michael J. Fox. He was speaking at the Reform Movement's Biennial conference. Some of us suffer from serious, even chronic illness. Others of us are caretakers. Michael J. Fox developed Parkinson's Disease at a relatively young age. I only needed a few minutes with him and, as a Rabbi, worked my way backstage so that we could talk. “Michael, what is the one piece of advice you would give to someone living with a chronic illness?” I asked. Without hesitating, he said to me: “Be grateful for what still works.” He told me how he wakes up in the morning and runs through his mind what parts of his body work. Then he blesses what works. Some days fewer things work. Instead of cursing what is wrong, he blesses what is right. Each and every day.

You do not have to live with a chronic disease to appreciate this. In fact, among the 100 blessings that we have is one that we are supposed to say after using the bathroom. I am being serious about this. Thank You God for creating our bodies with a series of intricate passages, valves, and stops that all have jobs to do. This blessing is so holy that it is posted next to the bathrooms of the Western Wall in Jerusalem. At its core, it acknowledges what Michael J. Fox taught me that day: be grateful for what still works. Bless what you have.

All of this talk about blessing, we should also bless the people in our lives. We should blessing our families, our friends, and our community. I hope that you had a chance to gather with those you are closest with under our chuppah in the lobby, if only to tell someone else how much he or she is a blessing in your life. We do this on the High Holidays, but we should also do so throughout the year and throughout our lives. Do it in person. If not in person, call, email, text, Facebook. Tell others what they mean to you and bless them.

As we stand before the ark on this holiest of days, let's bless what have.

There is a second lesson of this time of the year. Like athletes in the heat of competition, we should play from the heart.

I think of Kerri Strug that summer. And I also think of the winter Olympic skaters who grace the ice every four years. Those few minutes we see on TV are the product of years of hard working and training. On occasion, even the best skaters will miss a move or even fall during competition. What do they do? Do they leave the ice? No. Giving up is not an option. They continue and complete what they started because their commitment and dedication come from deep inside. They come from the heart.

We Jewish people know this type of heart-felt commitment. Such dedication isn't only expected when we have to pick ourselves up. It also essential to our celebrations and observances. Miriam was one of the greatest leaders of our people. After we crossed the Red Sea, she led the first hora in Jewish history. Spontaneous, it was danced with more than our feet. It was danced with our hearts.

The same could be said about the music and musicians here at Temple Emanuel. If we think that they are only singing with their beautiful voices, then we are not truly getting what they are doing and modeling for us. It is impossible, for example, to imagine a Kol Nidre without our Cantorial Soloist Mitchel Sommers singing from his heart. The same goes for our choir and the many voices and instruments that are shared with us during the High Holidays. Our hearts are moved because they do not hold back. If they can do it, how much the more so should we pray and sing from our hearts.

Why do we Jews talk with our hands? I ask this seriously. Why do we talk with our hands? The reason, I once heard, is that when you look around a Temple, you see no drawings of God. Such images are prohibited by the Torah. We are the people who insist that God has no human form. When the Torah says “God spoke,” we are adamant that God has no mouth. When the Torah speaks of “God's outstretched arm,” we argue that God has no arms. God lacks hands, legs, anything bodily. And then we realize what this is all about. We – all of us – are God's voice, God's arms, and God's legs. When there is injustice, we have to speak up. When someone has fallen down, we need to help pick them up. When someone needs help, we should run to assist. We talk with our hands because, on a deeper level, we sense that we have something the God lacks. We have the ability to help by using our bodily forms.

The same might be said about God's heart. On the ark doors in front of us all, a giant Jewish star appears. But if you look closely, you can see that there is a heart surrounding each of the triangles of this star. The heart pointing downwards might symbolize the heart of God, reaching out at all times, wanting to connect with humanity. The heart pointing up might represent the heart of humanity striving to connect with God. The meeting point, the Jewish star, shows that such connections are always available.

Maybe we have to be God's heart, too. Or maybe it is our responsibility to bring more of God's heart, love, and connection to our world.

Once we realize this, we cannot help but approach life with everything we have. We cannot help but put our heart into everything we do and also give from our heart.

I see so many examples of this in our community and beyond. For more than 20 years, Temple's Brotherhood has modeled this by serving dinner once a month at Greensboro Urban Ministries. Temple's Social Action Committee's work with the Hot Dish & Hope program also exemplifies this. If you haven't been to one of these programs in a while, I highly encourage you to do so.

One more thing: I see a tremendous amount of giving from the heart each year when I take a group of high school juniors and seniors to work for four days in New Orleans. Six years later after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans has for better or for worse become last decade's forgotten news. This December will be our fourth annual trip to New Orleans. Much of what we do is in areas which are still years and years from being fully repaired. What amazes me each year is not just the gratitude of the people of New Orleans that we keep coming to help. What gets me is the dedication of our teens. What inspires me is how they put their hearts into what they are asked to do.

The same could be said about any of the volunteer efforts than any of us have done.

I have heard it said that words spoken from the heart directly enter the heart. Actions that come from the heart have a similar effect.

Our world needs more heart in so many ways these days. Playing from the heart is something that we can and must do.

Last but not least, we have to always have hope.

If any people would have the justification for abandoning hope, giving up on tomorrow, it would be us Jews. Yet, for 4,000 years we have done just the opposite.

Hope. I especially want the middle school, high school, and college undergraduate and graduate students to hear this message. For years now, you have not only heard about but also lived through very tough times. God willing, things will change. For now, we need you to maintain hope.

Without hope, I do not think that Kerri Strug would have done what she did. Without hope, Abraham would not have left home, Esther would not have gone into the king’s quarters. Without hope, we would not have crossed the Red Sea, and we would not have persisted in the desert and made it to the Promised Land. Hope helped us survive the horrors of our past. It also helped us build. Without hope, we would not have the modern state of Israel. It is not a coincidence that the national anthem of Israel is titled HaTikvah which means “the hope.”

Temple Emanuel was established in Greensboro 104 years ago by families that could only have hoped we would become what we are today. We are what they dreamed and hoped for. And the Jewish community 104 years from now, 1004 years from now, will hopefully carry forth our hopes and our dreams.

Hope is the key to our past. And hope is the key to tomorrow.

Yom Kippur, considered by many to be a solemn and heavy day, is actually a day of hope. Maybe our prayers for peace and prosperity throughout Israel, the Middle East, our country, and the entire world will be realized. Such prayers take tremendous hope.

The same is true for teshuvah – usually translated as repentance but better rendered as change. Judaism boldly states that change is possible. We look at our lives and imagine what we can do to improve. Cynics and pessimists might tell you that change is impossible. Jewish people will tell you otherwise. The message of Yom Kippur – our holiest and most hope-filled day – is that anyone can change. Anyone.

Olympic gymnastic competitions are judged. Over the next day, each of us will be judged. But not in the way that we normally think about it. We do not have to be superstars or superheroes. Unlike Olympic competitions, there is no panel holding up numbers. Today, we are all sitting or standing before God and God alone. Our moment to dig deeper, to get up and give it our all, is now.

Let us pray to be included in the Book of Goodness for the coming year. May our blessings be many, our hearts guide us, and may hope shine forth from all that we say and do. And may God’s blessings and goodness be ever abundant.

AMEN

The Return of Chesed - Rosh HaShanah Morning 5772

The Return of Chesed

Rosh HaShanah Morning 5772

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Rabbi Andy Koren

Temple Emanuel, Greensboro, NC

Chassidic Jews appear in many stories.  Here’s one that you may not have heard before.  A group of Chassidic Jews go to the circus.  Turns out, the Chassidic circus is in town.  All of the animals are kosher, the trapeze artists (the Flying Feldmans) all wear modest dress, you get the picture.  Even the clowns are Chassidim.

As is the case with all circuses, there is the part where a VW buggy drives into the big tent.  The doors to this amazingly small car open.  And out comes one Chassidic clown.  He looks around.  The Chassidic spectators start clapping and laughing as he walks back to the car and not one, not two, but seventeen other Chassidim come out of the tiny Volkswagen.

After the show, the Chassidic spectators wait near the clown tent.  They just have to meet one the Chassidic clowns from the VW act.  They have to know how they did it.

Sure enough, the main clown steps out and the Chassidim are waiting there for him.

“Brother, that was the greatest show we have ever seen.  And your part was by far the most spectacular.”

“Thank you so much,” said the Chassidic clown.  “What can I do for you?”

“We’ve got to know,” one of the spectators started, “how did you do it?  How did you do that trick where all of other Chassidim come out of that small car?”

“Well, I’ll tell,” you said the clown.  “We researched with other circuses.  They actually have a trap door underneath car and another in the ground.  But we figured that we couldn’t do that.  It just wouldn’t be honest.”

“You mean to tell us that your act wasn’t a trick?”

“Not at all.  There were 18 of us in that car.”

The Chassidim shook their heads in disbelief as the clown continued.  “Just prior to entering the big top, we pack up that car.  I go in first.  Then Shlomo, Sammy, and Dovid.  And so on and so forth.”

“There must be a secret to how you make this work.  You make it sound so easy,” one of the Chassidic spectators said. 

“Well it could be difficult, if we wanted to make it that way.  But, we don’t.  In fact, as each new Chassid comes into the car, we squish together to make more room.  And here’s our secret: For each new person who enters, we have to be a little closer to one another, and much kinder.  Indeed, we have to love each other just a little more.”

Throughout our tradition, this idea of being a little closer, being kinder, and loving each other is highlighted and commanded.

One of the first examples we have is of Abraham.  Sodom and Gomorrah are condemned cities; yet, Abraham appeals to God on their behalf, asking God to spare these mega-cities should there be only 10 righteous people – a simple minyan – living there.

Our tradition connects major characters with their highest attributes.  Judaism connects Abraham with the quality of chesed – loving kindness and compassion.    Abraham exhibits chesed to others.  However, it is Abraham who must rely on God's chesed – God’s kindness and compassion – in this morning’s Torah reading.  God tests Abraham by instructing him to sacrifice his son Isaac.  And Abraham tests God: will I have to go through with this?  Isaac is spared because God shows compassion.

But it is not just Abraham.  We build a Golden Calf and God is ready to wipe us out.  Moses appeals to God for forgiveness.  “God, You are Notzeir Chesed La-Alafim – You, show compassion and mercy to thousands.”  We sing that passage during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur as we confess our wrongdoings, hoping that God will forgive us now just as we received forgiveness in the Golden Calf story.

Perhaps you noticed as you walked into Temple this morning that our cornerstone is engraved with the words of the Prophet Micah: do justice, love chesed, and walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8).  Chesed is so central to who we are as a Temple that we carved it in stone and placed it as our foundation.

These are just a few of the 248 times that chesed appears in one form or another in the Torah.  That number may seem random, but it is well-known in Jewish tradition.  Of the 613 commandments, 248 are positive commandments, that is to say, the “Thou-Shalts,” the things we are commanded to do.  The Torah is telling us that behind all of our actions there should be kindness.  Moreover, in pre-modern times Rabbis learned from their doctors that there are 248 organs and other parts of the human body.  Whether this medical tidbit is true or not, chesed is something that we should feel in our guts.  It should come from our kishkes, as well as from our hands and our thoughts.  It should be all encompassing.

But it’s not.  Not these days, at least.  Not in the large measures we would expect.  What we are treated to each and every hour in a non-stop 24/7 cycle is political punditry.  Instead of squeezing a little closer, being a little kinder, loving more, we push others away, sharpen our knives, and go for the jugular.  No one is given the benefit of the doubt.  It’s always election time.  Mean-spiritedness is the order of the day.  We feed on conflict; we thrive on criticism.  What is missing? Chesed.

Take the issue of immigration, for example.  Our country has a rich history of immigration.  Many will claim that the US is a country of immigrants; all of us, except for Native Americans, at some point came from elsewhere.  You would think we, of all nations, would be the most understanding and that Americans would have chesed on this issue.

Jewish tradition has a very strong position on how immigrants should be treated.  More than any other commandment in the Torah, 39 times, we are told to treat the stranger, the outsider, the immigrant well.  God implores us to “love the stranger.” (Deuteronomy 10:19)  Why?  Because left to our own devices, we would exploit outsiders; we would deny them the protections that we take for granted.  We should know better; we were once strangers in the land of Egypt and in many other places since.  Perhaps for this reason, Israel’s immigration laws are among the most liberal and accepting in the world.

The American immigration system has been broken for so long.  Today, there are well over 11 million undocumented immigrants in our country.  Immigration laws are in desperate need of comprehensive reform.  Yet, while this is happening, kids are getting caught in the middle.

This year alone, over 65,000 undocumented students will graduate from American high schools.  They came to the United States as young children with their parents. They want to go on and study for higher degrees.  They want to serve in the military of the only country they have known.  Yet, when they declare that they want to do this, they are asked for their papers.  Without papers, they face deportation.  Why are they being forced to pay the price for a broken system?

Imagine a kid whose parents came here when she was only 4.  She is now 19 and wanting to do what her peers are doing.  She is told that this is impossible.  I met this young woman; I heard the urgency in her voice.  Last week, I was on a call with a young man named Moises.  Here’s how he explained it: "My best friend was going to go off to college to be somebody, and I was going to stay here and be nobody."

These kids go to school with our kids.  They have known no other home but America.  Many now face detention and then deportation. It is a country that lacks chesed which would send kids to a place they didn't grow up, where they have no ties, no family, nothing.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in Washington worked on changing this.  They wrote a piece of legislation called the DREAM Act which would offer a path to citizenship for kids in this unjust predicament, provided that they are upstanding individuals of high moral character.  Teens from our Temple have lobbied in DC during the L’Taken Social Justice Seminar for the passage of the DREAM Act.  Frankly, the DREAM Act should already be the law of the US.  It passed the US House and had bi-partisan support in the Senate.  Late last year, though, it met its fate due to a Senate filibuster.

Just two weeks ago, on a Friday night, our Temple was one of the first congregations nationwide of any religion or denomination to host a DREAM Act Sabbath. Two undocumented students spoke from this pulpit, asking for our support, our understanding, our chesed.   For them and so many others, this has to change.  Meanness, conflict, and criticism need to give way to compassion and chesed.

There is another issue, specifically in North Carolina, which will be a test of who we truly are and our measure of chesed.  We all remember gathering here in unity on the tenth anniversary of September 11^th.  Just one day later, on September 12th, the North Carolina House voted to amend our state’s constitution defining marriage as only applying to heterosexuals.  And a day after that, the NC Senate followed suit.  The upcoming ballot will feature what will be termed a Defense of Marriage Amendment.

We need to remember the following: there is already a law in North Carolina passed in the early 90s which defines marriage in the way that this amendment proposes.  Taking this additional step to include language in our state Constitution which is discriminatory in this degree can only be seen as the opposite of chesed.  These days when the world is in such turmoil, is this issue what we want our elected officials working on?

Matters of sexual preference should be between individuals and their religious community's interpretation of Scripture, morals, and ethics.  The same should be said about marriage.  What do politicians really mean when they say that they are defending marriage?  You would think that the best way to do this would be to make sure that there are jobs, good education, and equal protection under the law.  Codifying one religious interpretation over others will not protect my marriage or anyone else's.  What it will do is restrict some loving couples from inheritances, powers of attorney, or visitations at critical moments in their lives.  What is will do is codify discrimination in our state’s constitution.

As Jews we know only all too well the devastating consequences when discriminatory laws are written into the judicial framework of a state or a country.  In Germany in 1935, the Nuremberg laws represented the beginning of the end of European Jewry by codifying anti Semitism and a denial of equal civil rights into government law.  We here in the South also know well the effect of the Jim Crow laws when they did likewise.  As a state, do we really wish to return to these days? I hope not and I hope that when the time comes, you will vote to reject this most heinous piece of legislation.

As 5772 begins, we need to be at the forefront of returning chesed to the world around us.  We need to remember that chesed is not just needed on the airwaves or in the halls of government.  Chesed is also so important for those we spend the most time with.  Kids will tell us that chesed is needed at school and online.  A recent study of teens and young adults in their 20s noted that 56% have been the target of online bullying or harassment, a number which has been on the rise for a while.  We need more chesed in our virtual worlds.  But, we also need it in the workplace.  And, we need more chesed at home.

Last night, Rabbi Guttman spoke about the Mezuzah and how it is set at an angle to demonstrate compromise.  A Mezuzah can also teach us about our relationships and how chesed fits into them.  The scroll that we place into the Mezuzah begins with the words of the Shema and then continues with the V’ahavta prayer.  Shema means “listen.”  V’ahavta means “you shall love.”  If you want to love, you first have to listen.

Listening first is so different than how we might regularly operate.  Often, when someone is talking, we might cut them off or just wait for them to finish and so that we can say what we were planning to say anyway.  Or, how often have we walked in the room, seen or heard something, and then just reacted?  No questions, just a response.  I know I have done this far too often.

Shema – listen, really listen.  Don’t react.  Actively listen.  Listen to what your friends, your co-workers, your staff, your boss has to say.  Listen to what your kids, your spouse, your parents (if they are still with us) have to say.  Listen carefully.  Listen with everything you have.  That is the way to bring more chesed to our relationships.  That is the way to model it for kids or grandkids.  Listen first.  Shema.  Do not assume the worst. Then V’ahavta – love, understanding, kindness – should follow.

The world around us needs more chesed.  So do our closest relationships.  We could stop there.  But we should not.  Because the High Holidays ask that we not forget about ourselves.  This is the time of the year when we need to dig deep inside.  There is that internal voice which is always critiquing everything I do.  I hear it on the golf course. I hear it when I am not in the gym. I hear it in the boardroom, the classroom, the kitchen, and the bedroom.  Enough.  The shofar should be our signal to be closer, kinder, and more loving of ourselves.  This may be our hardest task.  In those quiet moments, when we are alone with our thoughts and prayers, we need to be asking: how is it that I can I have more chesed for myself?  During these days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I, like you, review my shortcomings.  Yes, I have messed up royally, missed the mark.  Having done this, is the answer to be racked with guilt?  No.  I turn to God for forgiveness, like we all should, like our ancestors did on so many occasions throughout our history, going all the way back to the Golden Calf.  God, the source of chesed, will forgive me for not being the person I was meant to be.   I have to try my best.  But I also need to let go of my guilt in order to begin to reconstruct my life and repair my soul.

On Rosh Hashanah we bless each other with the words L’Shanah Tovah.  The word Shanah means “year,” but it is also similar to the Hebrew word “shinui” which means change.  For ourselves, our families and friends, and our society as a whole, 5772 should be a year of change.  Let’s do what we can to replace harshness with helpfulness, nay-saying with hand-shaking, and phobias with friendships.  Let this be the year when bullying gives way to brotherhood and when criticism gives way to kindness, to chesed.

Let’s move over a little, let’s get a little closer to one another, be much kinder, and love each other just a little more.  Let’s do our part to return chesed to all of the places it is needed.

L’shanah tovah – may this year be filled with blessing and sweetness for us, our families, and our world.  AMEN