Wait; who planted these trees?

“Pray as if everything depended on G-d and act as if everything depended on man.”
-Francis Cardinal Spellman

A story:

The news went out around town: a huge flood was coming! Immediate evacuation was ordered, and people began leaving town as quickly as possible. At the local temple, there was a honking noise; outside was the head of the Sunday School, in a van full of congregants.

“Rabbi,” said the head of the Sunday School, “we have an extra seat. Come with us!”

“No,” said the Rabbi. “Drive safely, and lead these people well. I shall remain here; I have faith that G-d will save me.”

The van left and the waters continued to rise. Soon the streets were impassable, The Rabbi moved to the second floor of the temple, water lapping at his ankles. There was a knocking at the window; outside was the Cantor, in a motorboat full of refugees.

“Rabbi,” said the Cantor, “we have an extra seat. Come with us!”

“No,” said the Rabbi. “Sail safely, and lead these people well. I shall remain here; I have faith that G-d will save me.”

The motorboat left and the waters continued to rise. Soon the building was flooded. The Rabbi moved to the roof of the temple, water lapping at his ankles. There was a great noise and a rush of wind; above was the President of the Congregation, in a helicopter full of rescue workers.

“Rabbi,” said the President, “we have an extra seat. Come with us!”

“No,” said the Rabbi. “Fly safely, and lead these people well. I shall remain here; I have faith that G-d will save me.”

The helicopter left and the waters continued to rise. Soon they rose above the Rabbi’s head. He swam until he could no longer move, and then the waters covered him and he drowned. He awoke in Heaven, facing the Great Judge.

“Adonai,” said the Rabbi, “I had faith in you. How could you let me drown?”

“But Rabbi,” said HaShem, “I sent you a van, a motorboat, and a helicopter; how much more did you need?”

---

So why does this story remind me of Tu B’shvat?

The harvest holidays present an interesting quandary to my mind; we gather to pray and thank G-d for the plentiful harvest, or to ask for a good crop to come. We learn that all things come from G-d, the creator of ha-kol ha-olam, the entire world. Well if that’s so, why do the farmers have to work so hard?

The community that casts seeds upon the earth and then waits, as the Rabbi in the story, for G-d to provide bountiful harvest will soon perish, starving to death with prayers on their lips. Praying for wisdom will not help you pass a test if you neglect your studies. And an ever increasing body of research shows that people that fall ill and pray for health will quickly grow worse if they do not also petition a doctor. In fact, not since the Exodus from Egypt has a community fed itself literally on their prayers to Heaven.

What then is the role of prayer?

It is a sort of reverse blasphemy to say motzi before eating, thanking G-d for “bringing forth bread from the ground” while completely neglecting the farmer, the miller, the baker, and – in our modern world – all the truckers, grocery store employees, FDA inspectors, tractor manufacturers, and entrepreneurs without whom the bread that G-d brought forth from the ground would never reach our table.

The Old Shul answer would be something along the lines of, “Yes, but it is only through HaShem that they are able to do so!” I don’t like that one; feels like a cop out. Rather, think of it as a reminder; before you plant, before you harvest, before you cook, before you eat, remember. There is a way to do this, to feed the people while living in harmony with the world. To feed your family while caring for the community.

My Catholic friend uses a grace that I have come to deeply appreciate. It says, allowing for misquotation, “bless the hands that prepared this food, and bless this food that we may use it in thy service.” Smoothly invoking, recognizing, and thanking the involvement of G-d in the process, while reminding and recommitting us to our duty as ethical human beings.

We pray for inspiration and dedication, but the action is all on us.

Happy Tu B’shvat; let’s go hug a tree!

Not to get stuck on a theme, but....

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
-Steven Weinberg

This has always been my single largest concern about organized religion. As soon as you let someone else start thinking for you - especially about something as important as religion - there's trouble. Religion (and there's a very strong case for putting patriotism in the same category) is used to justify some pretty awful stuff that people would normally never do, but they are reassured - nay, required! - to do them in the name of their god.

My greatest challenge as a rabbi and as an active member in my faith is to encourage the spiritual development of others and help them find their answers without giving them answers. To teach them that following the law can never get in the way of being a good person. To live in a way that encourages those around me to strive constantly outward, allowing their hearts and minds to stretch and grow and always stay open.

"Catholic Judaism"?

http://www.threejews.net/2009/01/new-name-for-conservative-judaism-my.html

Heh.

Enjoyed this post a lot, and humor aside it touches on a very important point. For years now I've been uncertain what "Conservative Judaism" was all about, except that it was some counter-revolution following the Reform movement's "revolt" against the Orthodoxy. Do they need a name change or just a message overhaul? Not sure, but it's a good question to be asking.

For that matter, what exactly is "Reform Judaism" about anymore?

Building my case, Part 1

"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

As this first installment, this will take a bit of explaining; bear with me.

The URJ's current policy is to refuse admission to prospective rabbinic students that are married to, engaged to, or seriously dating a non-Jew. If a student is accepted and later enters such a relationship, they will not be ordained. I'm opposed to this policy.

Huh. I guess that didn't take so long to explain.

This is a wrong policy, and I believe it fails on every level: ethical, moral, legal, political, social, and business (not to name many more I haven't thought of yet). I currently face a dilemma in that I want to be admitted to HUC but dislike this policy; it's enough of a political hot topic that I imagine being too vocal about it could hurt my chances for admission, but I figure that presenting a well thought-out, reasoned, structured argument against it will mitigate any damage. After all, they can't easily bar me from becomming a rabbi because I created a rabbinic response to a modern social issue.

Anyway; I'm slowly gathering evidence to support my claim. Most, I imagine, will be rhetorical but I would like some concrete elements to include as well. These will be added as I find them.

I saw this quote at a URJ commentary on Exodus 1:1-6:1; the discussion was about Pharoh turning a blind eye towards the contribution of the Jews to Egyption society and hardening his heart against them so he can treat them as lower creatures than "true" Egyptians. However, the day was saved by two women but it "is not clear from the text if the two midwives were Hebrews or Egyptians", leading the second writer to conclude "that it is not your name that defines who you are; it is your decisions and choices that shape who you become."

Not that there's a parallel or anything. Just sayin'.

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."
--Ghandi

There’s a commercial on that’s bugging me (not a novel experience, granted, but still), and it’s been on about 5 times in the past hour. It’s for the local ASPCA (no link; they pissed me off), featuring Sarah McLachlin’s saddest songs accompanying the most pathetic photos imaginable of poor, suffering dogs and cats…and possibly a rabbit; I couldn’t tell. I mean, seriously; give me a break. There’s pulling on the heart strings and then there’s going too far.

Now, don’t get me wrong; I love animals in general and my pets specifically. People that know me know that you can frequently go almost five minutes without hearing a story or seeing pictures about my adorable little monsters. But still; priorities people!

I sympathize with the plight of abused animals; I’m a little fuzzier on the concept of “homeless” pets, since a pet living in the wild is just called an “animal”, but I have heard some very disturbing stories about people abandoning pets in environments they are not prepared to survive. I have a serious ethical problem, though, with the idea of spending that much money on homeless animals when we still haven’t helped all our homeless children.

In 2007 we spent 41 billion on our pets. Much of it on very reasonable things:

It’s not so much the $41 billion a year Americans spend on pets (“more than the gross domestic product of all but 64 countries”) or that only the consumer electronics category outpaces pets in annual growth. Or that we spend more on pets than on movies, video games and listening to recorded music combined.

No, it’s the specifics of our largess. That includes $919 testicular implants to restore a four-legged chum to “anatomical preciseness” after neutering; $430 indoor potties; $225 raincoats; drugs for depression, anxiety and obesity; psychotherapy; slippers and bikinis; calling firms with names such as Pooper Trooper and Doody Calls to pick up the waste in one’s yard; a host of new surgeries such as rhinoplasty and eye lifts; and the rise of pet insurance.

Meanwhile, according to the National Center for Children in Poverty, in 2007 we also had 13.2 million children living in poverty. This isn’t counting the families that are merely abusive, schools that are underfunded, illnesses that go untreated, or…well, you get the picture. Quick math tells me the money we spent on pets that year works out to about $3100 per child. Not a huge amount per kid, but enough to make a significant difference to a family, a school, a community, or a hospital.

Oh, and the commercial jusft came on again. Sigh. I opened with a quote from Ghandi; usually this is used as a comment on animal cruelty – how civilized can a people be if they lack compassion for other living things? Here’s the flipside though: what can we judge about a nation that buys our pets candy but lets our children starve? That buys custom dog houses and designer pet mattresses but leaves children on the street? That is more willing to buy health insurance for their own pet than for someone else’s child?

I love my pets, and want a better world for all Hashem’s creatures, but if I have to set priorities between pets and children it’s not even close.