It's not our responsibility to complete the task, but that doesn't mean we stop trying!

Every USY convention I ever attended included rousing song sessions.  After Shabbat dinner, Shabbat lunch, Seudah Shlishit, the bentchers would be brought out and people would compete to introduce and sing songs.  Shtick was part of the fun and stories would be told of the origins (real or not) of the various songs.  One of those songs can be connected to our weekly Torah portion.

Before connecting it to the parsha, let’s practice it together:

Lo alecha hamlacha ligmor Lo alecha ligmor V'lo ata ben chorin lehibatel mimena V'lo ata ben chorin  Sheyibane beit hamikdash, sheyibane Sheyibane beit hamikdash, sheyibane Bimhera b'yamenu, sheyibane Bimhera b'yamenu, sheyibane Sheyibane hamikdash

It's not for you to finish the task But you are not free to cease trying May the Temple be speedily built in our days

Shlach Lecha is about the sending of the spies to see the Promised Land.  Not listening to instructions, they failed at their task.  Rather than bringing the people to Israel, they caused the people to die in the wilderness.  The peoples’ obstinance prevented them from seeing the possibilities.  They let fear rule them instead of cautioning them.

Our haftorah on the other hand shows more successful spies.  They find partnership even with one whose role seems less than perfect.  Rahab was an innkeeper, but her other business was the world’s oldest profession.  The spies could have ignored her based on her reputation, but they saw that she was an honest woman, who would not betray them.  They saw through the exterior and looked at the truth within.

Knowing our Torah and knowing our Bible, the book of Joshua sees the successful conclusion of our journey.  While the book of Judges shows the conquest was complicated, Joshua teaches us that success is possible.  He also teaches that this success can be built upon the shoulders of giants.  Joshua was not Moses. He did not try to be, yet he was able to do what Moses could not--lead the people into Israel.

This lesson is just as true to us today.  We are able to accomplish so much, because of those that came before.  At our board meeting this week, we talked about our shul’s past and our future.  We discussed the values that brought us through the door and the lessons we would like to teach,  

At the end of the day, we can accomplish much, but we will not accomplish EVERYTHING we set out to do.  That’s exactly the way it is supposed to be.  It is not our job to complete the task, but we must not cease from trying!  Shabbat Shalom!

June article-having children isn't as easy as the birds and the bees

For the last year, I have thought about whether or not I wanted to write this letter.  Last summer we celebrated a beautiful membership BBQ.  For our family, that BBQ was very bittersweet.  That day would have been just after Rebecca finished her first trimester.  We would have shared with all of you the news of our second pregnancy and hopefully expected our second child this past February.  Yet, a few weeks before that BBQ, our plans changed, we had a miscarriage. Honestly, when Rebecca said we needed to go to the doctor, I was in denial.  Even after the doctor said that there was no heartbeat and either we were off in our calculations, or this pregnancy was unlikely to go to term, I still hoped that we just counted wrong.  Yet that night, when she was in so much pain that we visited the ER of St. Luke’s Hospital, I could no longer deny reality.  Our hope for that pregnancy to lead to a second child was over.

The next months were filled with repeated cycles of hope, disappointment and mourning.  Even as I write this, I still have no happy announcement.  Yet, we are hopeful.  After realizing that we have been hoping for another child this long and not yet been blessed, we made the decision to go through a complete fertility checkup.  Amidst a slew of invasive tests, (much more invasive for my wife than for me), we now have more hope.  We are DOING something.

I share this, even as we have not been silent about our challenges, but because in order for me to serve this congregation, I have to be authentically me.  I cannot be a good rabbi, unless I am a good Jew, a good man, a good Philip.  Each day I strive to serve the Holy One, to serve Gd, to teach Torah, and to work with Israel.  Each day, I bless Gd, even on days when I am angry or frustrated.  I also share this because of the conversations it sparks.  Mentioning the miscarriage at a service last year, a half dozen people immediately mentioned their personal or familial experiences.  Speaking of a procedure my wife endured after Shavuot, others shared their journeys of infertility, some mentioning the challenges of our holy matriarchs--of Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel.  Knowing that we are not alone, that we stand with a community, who know where we have been and know that hope is possible, is incredibly powerful.  For that, I thank you.

I regularly argue that Judaism does mourning better than any other faith tradition (or lack there of).  Through the routines of shiva, shloshim, yahrzeit, we use the support of our community and our rituals to find a sense of wholeness, even among the brokenhearted.  As I have written previously, some of our greatest rabbis have recognized that there is nothing so whole as a broken heart, that through loss and pain, we can find reserves of strength AND empathy.

While these rituals do not exist traditionally for miscarriage, I have found solace online (in Jewish blogs and articles on the subject), in my rabbi’s manual, in prayer and writing, in therapy, in the words of all of you, and in conversations with Rebecca.  At the end of this month, I will perform the wedding of a close friend, participating in that life cycle event reminds me of the joy of what I do!

Memorial Day, Yom Hazikaron and Yizkor--inspired by Rabbi Mark Greenspan

Rabbi Philip Weintraub

Congregation Agudas Israel

Shavuot May 2015

Pablo Picasso once was quoted as saying “Good artists copy, great artists steal.”  In my writing and speaking, I am always looking to share brilliant ideas with you.  I try to make connections between our holy texts, our day to day lives, and everything in between.  One rabbi I mention regularly, is my in-law’s rabbi, Mark Greenspan of the Oceanside Jewish Center.  This week he wrote about the connections between Shavuot’s Yizkor, American Memorial Day, and Yom HaZikaron (Israel’s Memorial Day).  Without stealing his text, I am stealing his idea, but I might have gotten there anyway on my own!

Only a few days ago, Israel observed its Memorial Day, Yom Hazikaron.  At 7PM as the holiday began, sirens were sounded throughout the country and everyone paused to remember.  Again, the next morning at 11AM, the sirens sounded again and the entire country temporarily ground to a halt.  On the radio, sad music played.  Rabbi Greenspan shared the words of Naomi Ragen:

“Remembrance Day in Israel is like nothing else, I dare say, anywhere in the world. The country simply shuts down all distractions. Restaurants, bars, and discos close down. Radio and television channels spend the day telling the stories of the fallen, showing old pictures and new videos of soldiers who died five months or thirty years ago. The programs emphasize the same thing: the person’s childhood, home, his parents,  his wife or girlfriend…for one day, every single person in Israel who identifies with the Jewish state and the lives of the people who live here feel these men and women are part of their own past, their own family.”

It is a day unlike any other.  Of course, at the end of the day, Yom Ha’atzmaut begins, and just like the Psalmist says, the mourning is turned to dancing.  The BBQs are lit and there is dancing in the street.  There is a visceral transition as people go from remembering their loved ones to realizing that those sacrifices gave (re-)birth to their nation.

In our own country, Memorial Day is a less remembered affair.  With the JWV, we planted flags in our cemetery on Friday morning.  There are parades and speeches, but most people see it as a day for a BBQ, a day off from work announcing the beginning of summer or even a day to buy a new car or grill.  While its origins from the Civil War, renewed after WWI hoped for a day of solemnity, it has become more festive than is likely ideal.

Returning to the Jewish calendar, we observe Yizkor on Yom Kippur, Shmini Atzeret, Pesach and Shavuot.  We remember our loved ones, the gift of their lives and the memories that are in our hearts and souls.  It is not a memorial day just for soldiers, but for the soldiers of life--all of us who fight daily battles to celebrate and contemplate each day.  It is for children and parents, grandparents and siblings, spouses and other loved ones.  For many, it is also the day we remember the Shoah.  Rabbi Greenspan shared the words of Rabbi Reuven Hammer on the origins of Yizkor:

Originally, Yizkor was quite different. Rabbi Reuven Hammer writes:  “Yizkor appears first during the Middle Ages in Europe, where it was recited on Yom Kippur in order to remember the martyrs slain during the Crusades. Such a memorial list was recited in Nuremberg in 1295, and the custom soon spread. Later, the practice began of saying it on the festivals as well…” There was nothing generic about the original Yizkor service. In the generations following the crusades every family knew someone or some community that was destroyed by the crusaders – Yizkor was an opportunity to remember these people. Over time the connection was lost so that Yizkor became about each generation's loved ones.

Rabbi Greenspan continues

At the heart of Yizkor is one thing: tzedakah. Yizkor is not an exercise of simply remembering but a challenge to act on our memories. In reciting the Yizkor prayer one makes an oath to give charity in memory of loved ones. Tzedakah is an act of redemption. It is an attempt to keep a person’s memory alive through good deeds. The Book of Proverbs states, Tzedakah tatzil mimavet, “Charity has the power to save a person from death.” This verse has several meanings. First, charity literally saves lives because it provides for those in need and saves them from starvation. Second, it can save us from spiritual death by investing our lives with meaning and purpose. Finally, charity saves the dead from oblivion by allowing us to keep their memory alive through good deeds.

With Yizkor’s focus on tzedekah, we really show how we commemorate the one’s we love.  By giving of ourselves in their name, we believe we help them in the world to come.  Yet in this way, we also keep them alive in our hearts and in this world.  If we support their causes, we are truly honoring their memories.

At the end of the day, each of these days that almost merge today are deeply personal.  While the national and the religious components remain, we cannot abandon the individual connection.  These moments are moments FOR US.  They are times FOR US to consider our connections.  

In my own life, I see these challenges personally.  Having recently experienced the loss of a relative I did not know well, I feel the loss of missed opportunity.  Thinking about our miscarriage last summer, I have the loss of a child who I did not get to know.  In both of these cases, grieving gets more complicated.  We mourn not only what was, but what could be.  We mourn the future, the loss that we can just barely comprehend.  Whether in these specific losses, the challenge is not the past, but the future.  We wish that we could share our children with our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents.  We wish they would have the same connections that we do, yet in these moments we see what is missing.

At the same time, coming together, we see what remains.  We see the loved ones in these rooms.  We see the people we have grown up with, grown older with, the Jewish connections that we have built over a lifetime.  We remember those who are not with us, but we gain the support of those who are here.  As we prepare for Yizkor, look around the room, share a smile, a word of kindness with your neighbors.  Chag Sameach.