Islamic Terrorism and Our New Reality

delivered January 9, 2015; revised January 14, 2015

All of us are appalled at the wanton murders at Charlie Hebdo in Paris and the loss of life at the Kosher market in Paris.

Just as we were appalled at the murders of the security guard and two Israelis at the Jewish Museum in Brussels.

Or the murders at the Jewish school in Toulouse that killed a rabbi and three young children.

Or when pro-Palestinian activists use the their free speech to express “death to the Jews” in the Jewish neighborhood of Paris.

For those of us outside of Islam, the attacks Wednesday in Paris differ little from what we saw with Hamas and Hezbollah last summer in Israel--except that they attacked French citizens, just as the train bombing in Madrid attacked Spaniards or the bus bombing in London killed the English.  

They might have different names — ISIS, Boko Haram, Hamas, Shabab, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Taliban — but all of them--the Islamic fundamentalists-- are driven by the same hatred and blood-thirsty fanaticism fostering a worldwide war against modernity.

As George Packer writes in this week’s New Yorker:

“It’s the same ideology that sent Salman Rushdie into hiding for a decade under a death sentence for writing a novel, then killed his Japanese translator and tried to kill his Italian translator and Norwegian publisher.

“The ideology that murdered three thousand people in the U.S. on September 11, 2001.

“The one that butchered Theo van Gogh in the streets of Amsterdam, in 2004, for making a film.

“The one that has brought mass rape and slaughter to the cities and deserts of Syria and Iraq.

“That massacred a hundred and thirty-two children and thirteen adults in a school in Peshawar last month.

“That regularly kills so many Nigerians, especially young ones, that hardly anyone pays attention.”

And of course, all of this is complemented by the intra-Muslim warring between two main sects, the Sunnis and the Shia, where day in and day out we have reports of people blowing themselves up at mosques and other Islamic holy sites.  

So much blood.  So traumatizing.  We block it out because if we let it all in, we simply could not function.

This jihad against Western democracies is against our cherished freedom of expression, our advances in equality of the sexes, our prizing of diversity where all are invited to peaceably practice their beliefs, religious or otherwise, no matter how much any of us condone or reject what the other is saying.     Freedoms we hold dear.

I regret to suggest that, as I did in my remarks about Israel on Yom Kippur, that our Western democratic narrative is irreconcilable with that of the Islamic fundamentalists.

There creates a forever struggle between modernity with its free expression, justice under the law, and human rights from the extreme violence of fundamentalists whose answer to these values is bloodshed--always with a Jewish sub-context. The narrative of attention-grabbing small subset of Muslims is that anyone, anybody, anywhere who denigrates their prophet will meet their end, period.

There is no narrative commonality which means that we will be in a forever struggle between protecting the values that we hold dear,

• the values of living in modernity

• the right of free expression

• and justice under the law

Where the rights of women and others are protected

And where those Muslims who practice Islam are free to live in peace with their neighbor. . .

Are the very societies that Islamic fundamentalists are trying to destroy.

What is terror if not to engender great fear, fear that has the ability to change people’s behaviors?

This jihad, this religious war, would return us 1,300 years to a vastly different pre-medieval world governed by uncompromising law.  At its core, the Islamic Fundamentalist believes that the goal is to overthrow all democratic governments throughout the world to be replaced with a Caliph with Sharia law, the most extreme form of Islamic legal law derived directly from the Koran.

It is a conflict without boundaries as long as there are democratic countries that are thriving.

Jihad must be condemned by Islamic religious leaders.  And it is.  Still, those Muslims who condemn jihad are not heard by the perpetrators--for the terrorists want nothing to do with those Muslims who would promulgate peaceful coexistence.   

Those Muslims who condemn are speaking to the vast majority of the world’s Muslim population who are not fundamentalist, numbering at approximately one billion people worldwide.  By contrast, the terrorists are perhaps one million people.  Still, one million people have the ability to do great damage to our modern civilization.

To our ears, as well, we do not hear the condemnation because we are not looking.  They are there, the condemnations, but they will never change the motivations of those who are committed to terrorism.  

Religious fundamentalists have and will always kill to achieve their goals.  

With today’s Islamic war against western values and societies, the level of violence is appalling, the loss of life devastating, and the goals the perpetrators seek are no closer to being realized.

I would venture to say that were we able to bring Mohammed back to life he would be appalled at what is being done in his name, just as Jesus would have been appalled at the Crusades and the millennia of Christian persecution of non-believers.

Remember I suggested that this is a conflict between democratic values and values that would rule the world under fundamentalist law.  

It is hard for us, as Jews, to experience a narrative so counter to our way of being in the world.  We consider ourselves life intoxicated, of being a people who embraces life in its fullness.  We are not a people reduced to solving disputes through vengeance.

Especially for us, a small people, for whom the specter of terror is all too real -- in Israel, in European countries like the United Kingdom and France, even in our homeland.  

We, as a people, as a tradition, do not valorize lex talionis, the legal principle an eye for an eye.  Rather the rabbis in the Talmud replaced this Biblical precept with compensating an injured party through money.  Vengeance only produces more vengeance.  

I wish I had a prescription to right this world made so out of kilter by the warped values of Islamic fundamentalists.  I don’t.

What is truly frightening is that Islamic fundamentalists will not be stopped.  In all of their tentacles they will continue to find ways, both clever and crude, to attempt to terrorize all who will never comport to their ways. Our challenge is to live our lives embracing the freedoms afforded us.  Terrorists must not be allowed victories of any kind over the way of life we hold dear.  

A Facebook Post on the Mikvah Scandal

My comment on The Forward's website today on the powerful words written by my colleague, R. Danya Ruttenberg: "The whole system of Orthodox self-policing is oxymoronic. From the kashrut scandal in Los Angeles to the ongoing sexual abuse of children by those who "look" Orthodox but act immorally, to this heinous act of violation of Judaism's most sacred precinct, the mikvah. To be violated sexually--whether physically or through "peeping--is profoundly annihilating. It undermines all that is holy and beautiful in Judaism, and makes it subject to the whims of those entrusted to lead our community.

This is not to say that the liberal streams of Judaism do not have their own entrenched problems (see, for example, Rabbi Starr, late of Sharon, MA) or the New York cantor convicted on sexual child abuse.

We who work so hard to become Jewish leaders should hold ourselves to a higher standard. We should seek counseling when our inner yetzer chara becomes overwhelming. We should not act-out unconsciously. We do not have the right to take the life of anyone, in anyway.

Yasher Koach, Danya, colleague, friend, modern day prophet."

Rabbi David Novak
Manchester Center, VT

Judaism: How We Make Meaning Out of Unpredictability

delivered Kol Nidre, 5775

Every blessing in my life is through Jewish community.  

That is probably true for many of you, too.

Think back over the arc of your life.

For me, it began at a Jewish nursery school where my childhood rabbi pinched me on the cheeks in the hallway;

To the tumult of losing my father at a young age and experiencing the comfort of Anne Klein, of blessed memory, the rabbi’s wife, holding my hand, as I watched Frosty melt on my little black and white television.

Think back to when you first lost someone and where you may have derived comfort.

To Spokane, Washington where Jewish life, running the youth group, and regional Jewish youth groups were a lifeline.

Think about how in your life your involvement with Jewish life-- synagogues, community centers, federations and the array of Jewish organizations all doing a part to build our community.  

To Los Angeles where the richness of Jewish community meant that I found different places to engage, to pray, to discover multiple paths for what it means to be Jewish.

Reflect on your multiple pathways in Judaism:  were they straight and in one direction?  Did you dabble in variety?  

To the realization that since that rabbi pinched my cheeks in the Nursery School that I wanted to be a rabbi--so I learned Hebrew, applied and got into Hebrew Union College where in Jerusalem where I met the love of my life;

Think about if you have been fortunate to meet the love of your life and how you may have celebrated it with Jewish community.

To today, here, at ICM, where give me the privilege of serving as your rabbi and growing in relationship to each and every one of you.

We are making Jewish life live, together.

____

This is a prologue to this important point:

In an unpredictable world, where none of us knows what may happen, Judaism allows us to find meaning.  

____

In an unpredictable world where none of us knows what may happen, Judaism allows us to find meaning.

None of us asks to be born.

Once we’re in life we are faced with choices, some that are in our control, many, if not most, are outside of our control.

This is Judaism’s power:  Out of the unpredictability of living, Judaism provides us a thread for creating meaning.

One of Judaism’s greatest strength is forming Jewish memory.

Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, Leah, Rachel, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, Miriam, David, Esther, Ruth.  

Each of these names resonate in our lives and the sacred stories of our people.  

Complemented by memories of people from your life: your parents, grandparents, children with whom you have shared sacred time over the course of your life.

Powerful.

Then there is the meaning making year-in and year-out created by the rhythm of sacred time of the Jewish calendar.

Each of us can rely on Shabbat coming every week, know that Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot are in the fall,  Chanukah during the shortest days of the year, Purim in early spring, and Pesach when spring begins to emerge, even in Vermont.  Like music, there is a rhythm to it. Like music, it has its own tempo.  Like music that you’ve heard time and again, it is familiar.

Jewish meaning-making is all encompassing, appealing to all five of our human senses through which we relate to our worlds.

Our sense of sight experiences the flames of the flickering candles for Shabbat and holidays--and the flames on yartzheit candles as we remember our beloveds who no longer live among us.  We see our family and friends, members of our community, and recognize each other.  

Our sense of smell embraces the pungently sweet spice box of havdalah, the lemony-etrog of Sukkot, the smell of oil frying the latkes, the horseradish of the seder.  

Our sense of hearing allows in our voices and the voices of other congregants, the voices of rabbis, teachers, and speakers, the powerful sound of the Shofar, the grogger at Purim, the child asking Ma Nishtana at the seder.  

Our sense of touch allows us to physically feel-each other each other our hugs, our words, our connections, physical and emotional.  Tonight this place is packed--and when you came in I’m sure that many of you took an opportunity to warmly greet people that you know and reach out to the people who are here who may be new to you.

Judaism’s communal connections is another powerful force for creating meaning in people’s lives.

From Shabbat dinners at home to the golf course to bridge and Mah Jong to the deeper encounters of visiting people in the hospital or recovering at home, reminding them that they are not alone.  Judaism creates meaning by making people feel known.

___

When we all inevitably find ourselves in life’s most difficult experiences, these  communal connections remind us that we are not alone.  

When we visit someone who is ill.

When we say a person’s name during the prayer for healing.

When we surround a person who has suffered an unbearable loss.

When we provide safe space for mourners to rebuild a world torn asunder.

At these times of deep human pain, Judaism makes meaning as a human anchor creating time, space, and structure amidst the void.  

_____

Of course there are the times of great celebration in which Jewish life excels.

The joy of hearing about a new baby’s birth.  

Welcoming a baby to our community through the ritual of brit milah or simchat bat.  

The Jewish coming of age ceremony of bar or bat mitzvah.  

Celebrating finding love and making lifelong commitments at weddings.

Commemorating anniversaries of finding love.

Celebrating birthdays, especially those that we consider “big.”  

We celebrate life as Jews because we are a life-intoxicated people.  

Judaism prioritizes life and living above all and gives us the opportunity at every stage of life to acknowledge and reflect on the privilege of being in life.

How thrilling it is when we come together to rejoice, when we sing “siman tov u’mazel tov--yiyeh lanu” “Good signs and good luck--may it also be for us” as if we were spreading the good fortune dust of the person we are celebrating.

And where does prayer fit into Judaism’s meaning making?  

When we put our deepest aspirations into words, what is also called prayer,

we have  the opportunity of giving voice to what we hope will be.  

Whether the prayers of our prayer books

Or the prayers prompted by our inner-beings.

In giving voice to our aspirations, we are empowering ourselves, especially in those human situations where we really do not have any power.

We all know that old Jewish idiom from the Yiddish:  we make plans and God laughs.

That is true--we live in a world that is unpredictable.

Still

Knowing that the world is unpredictable

It is my prayer, my aspiration, my hope that you will reconsider how Judaism transforms the unpredictability of life into meaning,

how Judaism functions in your life and the lives of the people you love and care about,

and remember that while none of us can change the world from following its natural course,

we are all blessed to have Judaism to make meaning.  

Change is Possible

delivered Erev Rosh HaShanah, September 24, 2014

Change is possible.

And yet people insist that change is not possible.

So a question:

Can people really change over the course of a lifetime?

Asked another way, as we mature, do our skills at being in life adapt to what we experience in life?

Think about your lives when you were 20.  Or 30.  Or 40.  Or 50.  Or 60.  Or even 70.  

Are you the same now as you were then?

Do you even recognize yourself from earlier in life?  How about last year?  

Last month?

Last week?

Yesterday?

Truth be told, each day we are alive we are never exactly in the same place whether we are aware of this or not.

This is a moment in our Jewish year when we focus ourselves on change.  

Our liturgy directs our attention to the idea of why and how and what we must do if we want to change.

The ancients who created our liturgies were on to something profound!

They had an insight that people have the capacity to change.  

This is why the process of teshuvah, embedded so prominently in our liturgy is portrayed as a person’s gradual evolution.  

What they lacked was the sociological and psychological research to prove it.  

If they had created a study, one that looked at, say, the generations of our lives, we would then have data points that would confirm their thesis that change is possible.

Today we have that research that bears out the insights and instincts of the liturgists: change is possible over the course of a lifespan.

Known as the Harvard Study of Adult Development, or by its nickname the Harvard Grant Study because its first funding came from W.T. Grant who was interested in finding out people who would make the best managers for his retail empire.  

The study began in 1938 when 268 male Harvard students were chosen to participate in a study that would follow and observe them across the span of their lives.  

As of two years ago, a number of the men were pushing past 90 and are still being observed.

Research from the study is leading to some amazing conclusions that could only be reached after observing these men throughout their lifespans.

Over the course of 90 plus years these men, real human beings, lived and are living in a time and place that like all epochs of time represent profound changes in thinking and attitudes.

Change is possible.

The study’s longtime director Dr. George E. Vaillant wrote a valedictorian book upon his stepping down as the study’s director.  He calls the book  “Triumphs of Experience”  reflecting his own personal growth as he observed the study’s participants over his long tenure as director as he, himself, matured.  

His personal human growth allowed him to recognize many of his earlier insights as inaccurate, and he uses the book to correct them as well as share his newfound understandings.

Dr. Vaillant is proving the point of the Harvard Study of Adult Development in his own analysis of the study:  as people change, as they mature, they can be in the world in a different way, just as he uses newer insights in his work reflecting on the lives of these real people.  

Positive mental health exists and can be understood independent of moral and cultural biases.

In “Triumphs of Experience” he writes: “The very first and most fundamental lesson of the Harvard Study of Adult Development and the one on which all the other lessons depend:  While life continues, so does development.”

How we experience ourselves changes over our lifetimes.  Dr. Vaillant writes that is especially true of what we consider wisdom to be.  

When many of the study’s participants turned 75, they offered definitions of wisdom that are more grounded, more centered, more reflective, and truly reflecting wisdom in its greater meaning.

For instance:

• “Empathy through which one must synthesize both care and justice.”

• “Tolerance and a capacity to appreciate paradox and irony even as one learns to manage uncertainty.”

• “A seamless integration of affect and cognition.”

• “Self-awareness combined with an absence of self-absorption.”

• “The capacity to ‘hear’ what others say.”

In each one of these observations, the men are sharing insights that a person’s perceptions are not black and white, that life has few “absolutes” and that human development comes by being in life as our our coping mechanisms mature.

Change is possible.

Another of the study’s profound insights is that the most important influence by far on a flourishing life is love. “The most important contributor to joy and success in adult life is love .  

Original assumptions about the study participants ability to love were based on childhood relationships.  What the study found was, barring outside destructive forces like alcoholism (the drug abuse of choice), as people traverse life, they can form loving relationships that sustain them.  

Change is possible.

Another outgrowth of the study:  men who are in warm adult relationships with others in their lives, especially their spouses, thrive.  

Even those who had unhappy childhoods or earlier adult relationship disappointments.  Many were able to become happy, functioning individuals as their lives matured.

Or as another study member said, “It’s the old who can teach us that life is worthwhile to its very end.”  

Change is possible.

And what about our Jewish expressions of change’s possibilities?  The study pointed to an important point:  

As we understand the relativities and complexities of life more deeply our immature need to believe becomes a mature capacity to trust, and religious ideology makes room for spiritual empathy.  

Religious ideology makes room for spiritual empathy.

Spiritual empathy means that we need to have self-empathy, to create the room for healthy development over the course of our lives.

That is part of the process of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur that calls so many of you to this place in this moment.

For those of you who enter this synagogue and this time of year with apprehension about the ability to change, know that change is gradual, often indiscernible, and is a process, like teshuvah, that is always happening, oftentimes below the level of conscious awareness.

Know that what many of the participants in the Harvard study said in their early lives fell to the wayside as life’s experiences affected them.

Know that later in life were able to have more fully realized responses to them.

Know that the desire to change is one step in human experience to making change happen.  

Know that the instinct that our liturgists had in speaking of change as possible confirms our modern understandings that human beings are, in fact, able to change.

With this knowledge, know, too, that as you embark on your time here this year that you are changing, just by your very presence in this place.  

Change is possible.

Quotations about Change Being Possible

“In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves.  The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.”  Eleanor Roosevelt

“You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.” Heraclitus