NITZAVIM ROSH HASHANAH 5779
SOMETHING ROTTEN IN…

September 6, 2018
26 Elul 5778

Awake you sleepers from your slumber; rouse you from your lethargy. Scrutinize your deeds and turn in repentance to your Creator. Look well into your souls and mend your ways and actions (Moses Maimonides – meditation on shofar).

The opening verses of this week's Torah portion describe Moses standing before the total assembly of the Israelites: its leaders, its judges, its men, its women and children of all ages including the infants. He exhorts them to be faithful to the covenant with God, and he warns lest they say, "I shall be safe though I follow my own willful heart" – to the utter ruin of "the watered and dry alike" (an idiom for total destruction) (Deuteronomy 29:18).

The wild fires that have caused such terrible damage in the western part of our country generally begin in dry areas but the conflagration soon spreads to consume the adjacent watered and verdant locales. So it is with unchecked moral rot. Slow creeping at first, it gathers momentum, ultimately reaching that tipping point engulfing the social order and consuming the good with the bad, the morally upright with the depraved sinner. Moses' stark caveat is no less relevant today than it was when spoken thousands of years ago.

We face today the effects of the division of the country into the blue and the red. This polarization accelerates the unfolding moral decay that fills our opinion pages and air waves. Sadly, commentators and writers who bemoan the evidence of our moral decay are dismissed as bearers of fake news and even pilloried as enemies of the people.

Martin Niemoller bemoaned his failure to recognize and challenge the moral rot in Germany that was already clear in the early days of the Nazi rule. Ultimately he too became a victim of Nazi oppression and was interred in concentration camps for many years. Following his liberation after WWII, he reflected on his failure and his refusal to challenge Nazism in its early days. The signs of the unfolding decay were there but he didn't feel personally threatened.

He subsequently wrote:

First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

He bemoaned his silence because he did not believe he was personally affected by the rot in its inception. To his sorrow he learned that allowing it to develop unchecked, it ultimately impacted him – and so many others who were silent during the early days.

The sounding the shofar celebrates Rosh Hashanah as the day the world was created and the day we are judged. The bill of particulars is not confined solely to our stewardship of the natural world but extends to our sensitivity to the evolving moral rot in our midst and our need to strengthen our determination to overcome it before it overcomes us all.

From the holy city of Jerusalem my best wishes for a Shabbat Shalom u'Mevorach, a Shabbat of peace and blessing and a Shana Tovah u'Metukah, a good and sweet year.

Rabbi Arnold M. Goodman


KI TAVO 5778
THIN PEARLS AND THIN SOUP

August 30, 2018
19 Elul 5778

And you say in your heart, my power and the might of my hand has gotten me this wealth, you shall remember the Lord God gives you the power to get wealth… (Deuteronomy 8:17-18).

In Ki Tavo (when you come into the land), Moses instructs the generation poised to enter and settle the Promise Land that they are to make an annual pilgrimage to the Temple to bring to God an offering of the first fruits. This joyous rite of giving thanks to God was to be shared with family and friends. Moses' audience was surely heartened by this promise of plenty, but, as was his wont, it came with a harsh caveat.

Should they fail to be faithful to God, divine punishment would be swift and fearful. The rains would cease, the ensuing drought would dry up their fields and orchards, with exile soon following. The choice, Moses insisted, was in their hands.

The blessing of material success would enable them to live well, but it was accompanied with the mandate to share this well-being, not only with their families and friends, but also with the indigent and needy. The later prophets sharpened this message in their condemnation of those who used their wealth and status to subjugate others while they indulged themselves in excessively high lifestyles.

Amos articulated his impatience of those who amassed riches and used their prestige to lord it over others. He decried those "who… lie in beds of ivory and stretch themselves up on their couches…" (Amos 6: 1, 4). To him, this conspicuous consumption desecrated God's blessings.

Excessive wealth is morally corrosive when it feeds a sense of omnipotence that each person can do as he/she wishes without moral and legal restraints. This human failure was highlighted in two recent trials. Paul Manafort amassed great wealth. His "beds of ivory" were his excessive wardrobe and high style of living acquired via immoral and illegal behavior. Michael Cohen, acting as an agent, made payments to women to buy their silence about their adulterous liaisons with Cohen's principal. A "bed of ivory" takes shape when wealth and prestige lead to a disregard and a violation of marital sanctity.

It's hardly a coincidence that we read this Torah portion before the High Holidays. This is the season we are challenged to assess our lives and our behavior. Do we say in our hearts, "my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth?" Or do we invest the fruits of our blessings to strengthen our families, and to share with others as we rejoice before God? We will not have met the challenge of these holy days if our concerns are limited to decrying the immoral behavior of a Manafort, a Cohen and his principal.

"Beds of ivory" symbolize a total disregard of others and of the values of our society. We can all fall prey to this human weakness. Hopefully, at such moments, our ears will be open to the moral strictures of Moses, of Amos and of all the prophets and teachers who urge us to celebrate God's many blessing but to be aware of, and sensitive to, the conditions and needs of the less fortunate in our midst.

An old Yiddish saying sums it up best: while we may moan that our pearls are too thin, there are far too many whose soup is too thin.

From the holy city of Jerusalem my best wishes for a Shabbat Shalom u'Mevorach, a Shabbat of peace and of blessing.

Rabbi Arnold M. Goodman