FLAG

דגל

This week, flags are flapping in the wind, and It’s got me thinking.

Union Square Farmers Market in Downtown Manhattan was in full sunny spring bustle this week, buckets full of pink lilies, red geraniums, and, from the corner of my eye, a surprisingly familiar splash of color: Blue and white flags flying atop a large tent. A big sign announced  ”The Israeli Hi Tech Expo” – or something like that.  I walked by and a pretty young woman in a tight black suit sniffed my curiosity and called out in thick Israeli accent ‘Shalom! Do you want to come into inside?’

Not really, I smiled,  in Hebrew, I’m in a rush, and she smiled with surprise and in one swift move  inserted a small Israeli flag into my jacket breast pocket, waved goodbye and moved on. It took me an entire block to register the fact that I was now a walking embassy –  people staring at my chest with a wide range of expressions. I didn’t like this attention – rarely comfortable with public signs of affiliations, national, religious or more. Maybe I’m a product of centuries of Diaspora Jews blending in for safety. It could have something to do with growing up gay, closeted, trying to pass. Either way, flags are really not my thing. I took it out of my breast pocket and tucked in my backpack, but was unable to tuck away the question – why was I so uncomfortable walking around with a flag??

Two memories surfaced, about flags and ambivalence, and one more image that connected to the weekly Torah text, BaMidbar, where 12 flags wave wildly in the Sinai breeze.

1. 1983.  Salute to Israel Parade, as the son of the Israeli Consul General I get to open the parade, marching down Fifth Avenue with a gigantic heavy Israeli flag. In front of me are three NYPD officers, trotting on horses. Years  later I will pause to reflect upon the rich symbolism: Marching down fifth avenue, proud with flag, people cheering, stepping in horse shit all the way.

2. Fast forward 30 years. 2013. Gay Pride Parade in Manhattan and I’m here with my 3 children and one of their two moms: a proud LGBT family with strollers and sun screen. No flags. There’s plenty of rainbows already. Half way through the parade our son, then 3, finds a small Israel flag on the road, fallen from one of the Jewish floats, grabs it with delight and waves it high in the air. Really? I ask him? How about I get you a rainbow flag? You got the wrong parade, buddy… But stubborn little Zionist that he is, it’s blue n white all the way down the avenue, and he’s thankfully oblivious to the occasional boo (!) and quizzical looks.

It’s amazing that a simple piece of fabric can mean so much. The symbolic is attached to the practical. Flags are about identity, in simple but not so simple ways.

And maybe that’s why Moses puts such emphasis upon this tribal feature, instructing the 12 tribes to pitch their tents in strict formation, each tribe under its own unique family flag.

“The Israelites will put up their tents with each family under the flag that symbolizes its household.” (Num. 2:2)

 
Earth

ארץ

 

I rent. I’ve been a renter of real estate for my entire adult life.

 

No ideology – partially for practical finances, partially because I am often between Israel and the US – a foot in each world upon this earth. Where is home? both here and there. I am aware, and constantly reminded, that this is not the wisest fiscal choice, and nowadays, with some savings, can actually start to envision and plan for a modest purchase and investment in a home, but on the whole, right now,  I am a renter, and there is a great deal of freedom that comes with that.

 

 

In some way this is the ancient legacy of my people. The word Ivri – Hebrew – comes from the verb ‘ever’- crossing over, transient – the nomadic lifestyle, no attachment, pick up and go when it’s time to do so.  This has to do with how we live within, and not just with where we live and why.

 

The tension between nomad and settler, home owner and temporary dweller, citizen and migrant,  is as old as the human race for prosperity, property and progress.

 

It’s been a Jewish tension for as long as we remember, extended over exiles and diasporas, temporary homes turned into new homelands – from Babylon to Brooklyn. 

And this is the tension that is making the promised land into the land of sour, bitter, painful quarrels, every single day.  Is the price of the promise too high?

 

Just this week, a Jewish settler, father of five,  was stabbed to death by a Palestinian man at a junction in the West Bank. In response, raging settlers torched fields and homes, smashed cars and attacked several Palestinians, at least one of whom, a Palestinian street cleaner, father of 4, is in critical condition.

 

There are many layers for this rage but the ownership of land is at the heart of the matter.

 

Also this week, without much media attention, Israel’s supreme court granted the Israeli Government’s request to postpone the evacuation of the tiny settlement of Amona, scheduled for this week.

Amona, located in the heart of the West Bank, is an outpost founded illegally in 1995 on primarily privately owned Palestinian land. The name comes from the Book of Joshua, where Kfar Ha’Ammonai is mentioned – the village of the Ammonites – a reminder of the local indigenous Canaanites that were wiped out by the invading Israelites, as instructed by Moses.

 

In February 2006 the Supreme Court ordered the dismantlement of the nine permanent homes built in Amona. Thousands of protesters gathered and clashed with Israeli army and police when the time came for the demolition and eviction. The violent clashes, with more than 300 wounded, surpassed all previous clashes between the security forces of the State of Israel and civilians, including the 2005 unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip.

 

The government recognized the illegal use of Palestinian land in the majority of the Amona area, though some of the settlers are contesting this. Under the Supreme Court’s ruling the evacuation of the entire settlement was scheduled for April 2013. The most recent postponement comes so that the new government can have time to reorganize. The judges were severe in their ruling that this delay is ‘beyond the measure of the law’ and set the date for July 15 2013 – I don’t know if they knew that it is Tisha B’av – the fast that commemorate the destruction of the Jewish temples and the exile of the nation.

 

Not smart timing.

 

Who knows what will transpire in the political corridors before this actually happens – or not. But the Amona story is just one of many. And with no solution in sight, it seems to me, and to many others that the only way out of this lockdown is a new approach to the ownership, use, and attitude towards land.

 

 

Imagine a world in which nobody owns land. We all rent. None of us are land owners, all of us are temporary dwellers, modest guests of planet earth.

 

Roll your eyes and flip the channel – but this is not a new idea – it is in fact a Bibilal idea.  Even if it was not ever fully implmented. I mean, lets face it: Real estate is a big business for Jews and the real story behind it is very old and pretty complex – and you can find glimpses of it in this week’s Torah text – B’har B’chukotai, which describes the vision for a healthy society, living on earth, rooted in justice. The secret is in the details of the cycles of seven – every seven days we pause, every seven years is a fallow year, a chance to let the land rest and the people too; every seven cycles of seven is the jubilee – all homes go back to the original owner, debts are free, we start again.

It’s a radical notion. God, as recorded by Moses, could not be clearer:

 

And the land shall not be sold in perpetuity; for the land is Mine; and you are visitors and temporary dwellers upon it, along with me.  

Lev. 25:23

Imagine that – in a close reading of this verse it seems that even God is no owner- the very notion of the Divine is not rooted in the ownership of land: the security and peace of mind comes not from deeds for the home – it comes from the trust that nothing is permanent, and yet a roof is sheltering us at night, protecting us from the rain, from foe, from fear and cold and hatred.

Imagine a world in which we are all renters, with the mindset that takes away the wars that ravage our sacred earth, in so many ways, every single day.  It changes the way we say ‘mine’. It let us say ‘ours’. Can that change the reality on the ground in the Middle East? All over the planet? In your own home?

Can this radical mindset change the crisis that is threatening to turn the dream of a Jewish homeland into a nightmare for all involved? Can it alter the way greed it destroying earth? 

What will it take to change our attitude about ownership and use of land? towards the most appropriate relationship with property?

I’m writing this on a plane, far from land, on my way from Israel to NYC, about to launch a congregation that at least for now is homeless by design – a pop-up, renting, transient sanctuary that celebrates the fact that we are always on the go, Hebrews through and through. 

Beyond brick and mortar there is, perhaps, another vision waiting to happen, a way for the sacred to aspire, for us to ascend to the highest potential of our being, while deeply rooting us in the gravity of here and now.

 

In the diverse ecosystem we live in – there’s room for all: homeowners and renters, feudal lords and homeless people, settlers and wanderers. If only we were able to heed the word of Leviticus and find ways to let go, detach, be kinder to each other, to the earth that is home.  It is one earth – belonging to all. The word Earth is even  the same word in Hebrew and English, and in Arabic too. 

 

For the people of Palestine fighting for their homes,  for those reading the Torah as the road map for establishing a holy land, committed to their truth and faith; for all of us fighting to occupy a new reality of justice on earth, roomates and neighbors, future partners in being stewards of life on earth: May we culitivate the landscaope of love, Leviticus style, and learn how to live together better. 

 

shabbat shalom.

Amichai Lau-Lavie
Interim Executive Director

www.storahtelling.org
Subscribe to WORD: My New Weekly Bible Blog

What would his death achieve?

abomination

תועבה

This week marks my 44th birthday, and this week’s Torah portion, Achre Mot-Kedoshim, is the one I chanted, back in 1982, at the Fifth Avenue Synagogue in Manhattan.

This double portion has the mixed blessing of gems such as ‘love others as yourself’ alongside the prohibitions on sexual unions that are deemed abominable- then, and often, still, now.

At age 13 I knew that something was up with my sexuality and I suspect I already knew how to name the love that was not to be named. But I can’t remember what it felt like to stand on that synagogue’s main stage, surrounded by family from all over the world, and chant the verses that suggest that I ought to be executed for the sexual choice that I may or may not have chosen,  already in my mind, blood, or heart, or DNA or whatever.

I think I was aware of some tension but had to smile and wave, bury whatever questions I had deep inside, for a few more years. And so it was.

Recently I was asked to write a personal take on this Torah portion, to be published in an unusual anthology of personal reflections on Torah, titled ‘Unscrolled’. Born out of the reboot network’s creative collective and midwifed by the tireless Roger Bennett, it will feature some interesting takes on ye old five books of Moses, due, I think to be published this coming fall.

I decided to go back to that day in 1982, and put words in my own mouth, 30 years later.

Here it is, courtesy of the editors:

 I grew up Orthodox in Israel. By the time of my bar mitzvah—in April 1982—I was living in New York City, a sweet kid in a polyester suit. A little on the chubby side, perhaps. My dark blond mop of hair covered a pimpled forehead.

Being Orthodox had its advantages. Chanting my bar mitzvah portion was no problem. I rattled it off with ease. The problem was the speech. There was so much I wanted to say, but my English wasn’t good enough, and anyway, my speech had been written for me by my uncle, a renowned rabbi, who gave me a tired presentation expounding on the laws of charity.

Thirty years on, I would like to think that if the choice had been mine, and I had been able to summon the courage, this is the speech I would have delivered at the Fifth Avenue Synagogue in Manhattan.

As I write it, I imagine my forty-three-year-old self as a man in a black suit with a trim beard, standing directly behind that chubby bar mitzvah boy and visible to him alone.

Esteemed rabbis, my dear parents, family, and friends:

Shabbat Shalom.

Thank you for coming to celebrate with me on this day on which I become a man. Many of you have traveled very far to get here. My parents and I appreciate it very much.

My bar mitzvah portion, Achrei Mot, is about laws and limitations. Laws, I understand, are necessary, because without them things go wrong, and people can get hurt. The portion begins with the reminder of what had happened to the two sons of Aaron the high priest, and how they died by a “strange fire” because they did not observe the law, and were not careful enough when they entered the holy Tent of Meeting.

There are many different kinds of laws in this portion. These laws, I was taught, were given to us by God so that each of us can live a holy life, as part of a bigger, healthy society.

I started learning how to chant my Torah portion two years ago, back when we were still in Israel, from a cassette tape. I played it over and over again to memorize the verses by heart. At first, I didn’t think about what the words meant.

But over time I started paying more attention, and I began to wonder about the meaning of some of these laws, especially the ones about not seeing people naked.

There is a list, in this portion, of relatives that you are not supposed to see naked.

I figured out that “seeing someone naked” was a euphemism—a biblical way to talk about “having sex.” But I couldn’t understand why some relatives are on the list and some aren’t. And I had other questions, also, about some of the other laws.

My teacher, Rabbi Motti, didn’t want to talk about this too much. He said I’d understand when I am more grown up. When I become a man.

And I guess that day is today.

I don’t know if I’m as grown up as my teacher intended, and if I’m really already a man, but as I turn thirteen today, I think I’m just old enough to ask you all a question about these laws, and about one of them in particular that I’ve been thinking a lot about.

The room is stilled. My mother, up in the women’s balcony, is looking at me with a grave, strange look. My father, in the front row, turns to my uncle who is seated next to him and whispers something in his ear. The uncle shakes his head, confused.

After the list of relatives one is not supposed to see naked there are a few other laws that describe prohibited sexual behaviors. One of the laws forbids sex with animals. Another of the laws prohibits sexual relations between men. It’s called an abomination. And whoever does it can be punished by death.

SILENCE.

I’m sorry if this is weird, and maybe neither appropriate nor the speech you expected me to make today. But a few months ago, when we walked home from this synagogue, I asked my father what it means to be a man, and he told me that to be a man is to be honest and not be afraid of the truth.

And the truth is that I’ve been thinking a lot about this law, and it makes me afraid and ashamed to think about it and to talk about it, but it also makes me angry and confused.

I know it’s wrong to question God and the Torah, and maybe I’m too young to understand. But I don’t think that the law about abomination is fair, and I don’t think that people who break it deserve to die.

Today, you say, I am a man. But in fact I think that it already happened.

I think that I became a man almost a year ago, when I kissed for the first time, and felt like a grown-up.

I kissed another boy, a friend of mine, a friend I love.

It made us both afraid and nervous, but it didn’t feel dirty, or wrong, or like an abomination, whatever that is. It felt holy, whatever that is. It felt right.

DON’T LOOK UP. DON’T LOOK UP. My mouth is dry. My heart beats faster than it ever has. I am aware my life will never be the same again. I read on.

I am not an abomination. I don’t deserve to die because of whom I love.

You are all looking at me now, and it’s not pleasant, but I’ve held this secret, this abomination in my stomach, long enough.

If today I am a man, then on this day I tell the truth and face it, like a man. And you, who came from near and far, if you really love me, will love me still, I hope, just the way I am.

I know the Torah says it’s wrong.

I know it’s disappointing to you, my parents and siblings, relatives, friends.

But maybe the Torah does not mean what I’m feeling, because I don’t think—I don’t believe—that God thinks I am dirty, or sinning, or an abomination. Because isn’t that how God created me, in God’s own image, just the way I am?

Today I become a man, and I am who I am, with all of my questions, and doubts, and hard choices, and truths.

I think that’s what becoming a man is all about.

I want to thank you, my parents, for helping me so much in preparing for today, and for being the best parents possible. I’m sorry if I surprised you now, but I hope that you understand. Thank you to my brothers, and my sister, for coming all the way from Israel for this occasion and for always being there for me.

My family are all looking at the floor.

Thank you for listening, and for joining me on this most important day of my life.

Shabbat Shalom. 

I close the folder and dare to look up. Will somebody say something? Someone please hug me. My mother is crying. My father still stares down. Don’t hate me. Please say something.

And there I stand, thirty years later, placing a hand on my thirteen-year-old self’s shoulder and whispering, softly, “It’s going to be all right.”

Shabbat Shalom. 

 

Amichai Lau-Lavie
Interim Executive Director

www.storahtelling.org
Subscribe to WORD: My New Weekly Bible Blog

 SCROLL DOWN FOR ENGLISH

PEACEFUL PROTEST AT THE WALL FOR COED PRAYERS: The new moon of the month of Iyar just happened this past Thursday, April 11, and I spent it at the Western Wall, protesting the lack of equality for women and all non-orthodox Jews. Since women are not allowed to wear a talit in the kotel – they get arrested for violation of ‘local customs’ I invited one of my friends and fellow rabbinic students, Naamah Levitz-Applebaum, to stand with me, under my talit, and pray together, away from the either/or men/women section, and just, pray, together.

We did. And for the first time in many new moons as we’ve both been attending these protests – we could actually focus and pray. for peace. and justice, for equality, and much more.

We want to support the creation of a third section, co-ed, egal, open to all – and situated in a dignified, accesible and respectful location along side the current location of the wall. Such a plan was just unveiled this past week but is still a long way from approval or acceptance.

EAT

תאכלו

Instead of bringing us together food can sometimes become a reason for rifts.

A commotion outside the bakery on Agrippas Road, on the night right after Passover: A bearded man, clad in black, yelling at a group of Israelis, men and women, some in knit kippas and headscarves, some not, who are trying to buy fresh pita, eager for the first flavor of unleavened and not in the mood for the yelling: “It isn’t kosher!” the man gestures wildly, “It’s too soon after the holiday is over! This bakery is not kosher!”. He points at a sign on the wall: “Fresh pitas may not be purchased before 8:05pm on April 1. It takes about 30 min. to prep and bake a pita. signed: The Rabbis.”

It’s 8:15.

The bakery owner is not there to reply, the Arab workers busy packing pitas into plastic bags don’t even look up and a few of the startled customers are, Israeli style, shouting back, showing him their watches. He refused to relent – the bakery has been open since 8pm! It must be shut down at once.

We walk away from there, amused but also really not, nibbling a fresh pita and trying to make sense of all this food related mania and where ancient rules for dietary well being have become so Kafka-like ridiculous and so very unappealing. All the flavor taken out of simple pleasures, with too many regulations, too much supervision, separating us instead of adding another chair at the table.

Passover is just such an example of kosher gone wrong – on steroids.  The holiday, like so many others, is grounded in the art of eating – the flavors are what give it meaning, the taste is where our memories reside. But also the ongoing slavery to the wrong kind of stuff. The ultimate gastro-judaic obstacle course sets up each year unpleasant tiffs and family feuds sparked by different traditions of what one does or doesn’t eat and how. Quinoa, for instance, the latest addition to the “kosher for passover or not’ saga is banned by some, blessed by others and ignored by most. But at least at one Seder that I know of – an entire pot of it was thrown out because the hosts feared the hostile reaction of a cousin. Really. It’s not like there aren’t lots of hungry people among us! For THIS we left Egypt? For pseudo Bible thumping hunger games??

Far beyond the norms of actual nutrition, dietary restrictions define our most private and public norms of living, which is, most likely, their very reason for existence.

You could argue that Kosher (Or Halal, etc.)matters because God said so, or because that’s how social walls protect and mould an ethnic identity. But for me it’s simply a device to be more aware of the  daily duty of conscious nutritious intake. It’s about discipline, it’s about gratitude, and it’s about control. The religious prohibitions were inserted to make it more scary to some folks, but really, it’s just the gravy.  The main dish is more conscious eating.

Maybe it all began with that first bite of forbidden fruit – and all this kosher stuff is the reacting to boundless desire?

I grew up 100% kosher, tested the boundaries during my teens and army years, gone way off, and am now somewhere in the 85% vegetarian camp, kosher-ish. I only really started understanding the power of dietary restrictions when I went on a rigid – and successful -low-carb diet about ten years ago. AH! I remember thinking as I carefully removed the slices of bread from my tuna sandwich, with carbs clearly marked as the new Treif: THIS is why we have dietary restrictions in the Torah – it isn’t about some god-like menu – it’s about the disciplined practice of careful eating  - conscious, healthy, enviromentally aware. The law is there to serve the greater human need for better living – and for survival on the planet. The eco-kosher
movement is totally a step in that direction. My friends at Hazon are also doing amazing work in this area.

In this week’s Torah text, Shmini, Leviticus 11 lists the famous do’s and dont’s of kosher cooking – rabbit out, chicken in, etc.

We are what we eat – and what we are not allowed to or choose to avoid determines who we want to become.

Laws are important for the health of a nation, but sometimes laws become an obstacle to life. With all due respect to Kosher and to Kosher for Passover – and even with respect to the yelling Jew outside the bakery on post passover night: dayenu.

The obsession with minutia is driving us away from the real bottom line, the big picture, the healthy diets of disciplined pleasures that will nourish our bodies, satisfy our souls and help us be in better sync with the rest of the planet. Food is there to bring us closer to ourselves, each other, the divine. We must make sure it isn’t used so much as a tool for oppressive separation. There are enough food disorders in our lives already – let’s figure out a way to make the Jewish diet one that doesn’t promote more suffering, but brings more joy into our lives – one bite at a time.

How privileged we are to be having this conversation.

Bon Appetit.

Shabbat Shalom