Making Today Count

            In this season just following Passover, our tradition invites us to embark on a spiritual journey of finding meaning through the counting of the Omer.  Each day for the 49 days between the start of Passover and the holiday of Shavuot, we are instructed to make an offering.  According to our Torah, this offering was to be an Omer (a specific measurement) of barley.  Today, this period of time calls upon us to find our own source of Omer. 

            We are reminded that each of us has the potential to offer something new to the world every day – to impact another person, to stand up for those who need defending, to advocate for our core values.  At this time of year, we strive to do so consciously, not letting a day go by where we have failed to bring some kind of intentional offering of ourselves.

            While we impact our world, we are also reminded that the barley that was offered in ancient times was not of us but of the earth.  Part of the Omer involves recognition of the gifts that this world has to offer us.  During this period, let us seek out moments of appreciation for the world in which we live.  Let us take time to note and find those elements of our lives that we might take for granted and spend a few moments in gratitude.  Doing so might just offer us the perspective we need to positively and intentionally impact our world.

            In light of this time of year also bringing Yom HaShoah – our day of Holocaust Remembrance – we must be reminded the importance of making each moment count.  By living out this Omer message, we declare to the world and to our ancestors that despite the best attempts of those who tried to wipe out our people, we are still here striving for tikkun olam, the repair of our world, according to our Jewish values.                         

Today is the 13^th day of the Omer. 

·      How will I make it different from the previous days? 

·      What will I offer to the world on this day? 

·      What offering does the world have for me? 

If we can find positive answers to each of these questions today and every day of the Omer, our world will be transformed and lifted up.

-       Rabbi Ari N. Margolis

Omer 5772

One way to make an immediate offering to our world is to join with us in opposition to the proposed marriage amendment to the NC State Constitution.  Be sure to vote on or before May 8^th.  Talk about it to friends and neighbors.  For more ideas on how to advocate, visit www.equalitync.org

Living the Passover story this year in North Carolina

Wishing you a Happy Passover!  Chag Pesach Sameach!

            I want to wish you a wonderful Passover filled with meaning and may all your matzah be tasty.  As we gather with friends or family for our Passover Seders this year, let us all be reminded of the messages of this holiday. 

            We retell the Exodus story of our ancestors from their enslavement in Egypt, and we are taught that each one of us is to use our imagination as if we were the ones toiling hopelessly in Egypt, watching the plagues shift all of our paradigms, trekking through the desert with a mixture of trepidation and jubilation on our backs right alongside the matzah we were cooking.  Each step away from Egypt brought us closer to freedom and yet had the opposite effect of gravity, making us feel more and more pulled back from whence we came.  And upon reaching freedom, we too feel the exaltation and relief and inspiration that the injustices of Egypt are behind us and that we can work to create a better, more fair society.

Our Passover narrative still rings true today, as we recognize that the Hebrew word for Egypt, mitzrayim, literally means, “narrow places.” One of these narrow places might just be the ballot box in just under a month.  The proposed Amendment One to the state constitution threatens to plague North Carolina with injustice.  Not only does this amendment strip our gay and lesbian friends and family, some of whom may be sitting at our own seders this year, of access to the rights of domestic partnership, but it threatens any loving couple who chooses not to marry for any number of reasons from being able to fully share in one another’s lives. Widowed couples who live together in unmarried partnership might no longer be able to advocate for one another’s health directives. Children raised by two loving partners might be stripped from the only parent they have left, in the case in which their biological parent was to die.  No matter how far away from Egypt we believe ourselves to be, society is constantly challenged by the gravitational pull of our narrower views. 

In the Passover story we see that if it had not been for external help – from an inspirational power like God, from a great leader like Moses, from the faith of Nachshon ben Amindadav (according to a Rabbinic Midrash, the Red Sea only parted after he stepped into it, believing that something could happen), we might still be stuck in the narrow spaces of Egypt.  Let us be inspired to do something about our modern narrow spaces:

o      Volunteer with Equality NC

o      Talk about the core of the issues with family or friends or coworkers or neighbors or grocery counter checkout people.

o      Be sure to vote on or before May 8^th (for Early Voting information click here)

o      Come to our Temple Beth Or phone bank, April 15^th – 10AM-1PM.  Contact Cindy Schneider, caschneider2000@aol.com, or Eileen Schwartz, eyeschwartz@nc.rr.com, for more details.

Current polling shows that although public sentiment does not agree with the outcome of this amendment, too many North Carolinians remain uninformed as to the potential consequences of this Amendment for it to be defeated. This will not change unless each of us steps forward to be a Moses or a Nachshon or an inspiration to others.

This year, let us each add a symbol to our seder plate, one that represents our contemporary Egypts, our own narrow spaces, our struggle against the injustices of Amendment One.  And when someone asks what it is doing on our seder plates, we can not only retell the story of Passover but relive it, as well. 

Rabbi Ari N. Margolis

Baseball and Sacrifices and Tolouse, France - Let them draw us near to our best selves.

                Sacrifice.  In baseball, it is a useful strategy – bunting the ball with the knowledge that the batter will most likely get thrown out at first, but the net result will be to advance a base-runner to second or third base, drawing them nearer to the promised land of home plate.  A sacrifice represents the giving of oneself, one’s own energy and efforts and statistical prowess, for the benefit of the team.  Ultimately, the act of sacrifice in baseball is a statement of trust in the rest of the team and its bigger mission – to score more runs than the opponent. 

In this week’s Torah portion of Vayikra, we learn the laws of the ancient version of bunting – the sacrifices offered to God, via the priests of the Tabernacle and, eventually, of the Temple.  The Israelites were expected to give from their valuable flock and herds and food stocks – the results of their efforts and energy and prowess – as a means to a relationship with God.  Reading the rules of these sacrifices, however, one realizes that the goods given over to the priesthood were not just burnt up to the heavens, but rather they helped to sustain the community at large.  Some sacrifices ended up going to the poor, while others went to the priests (who could not own their own land), and still others went towards communal celebrations and commemorations.  If a person did not have enough goats to make certain types of sacrifices, one could give pigeons or wheat or even prayers.  The Hebrew word for sacrifice, korban, literally means to draw near – and the ancient korbanot, sacrifices, were intended to draw the Jewish community nearer to one another and to God.

I believe that we need this week’s Torah lesson after a week like this one.  At least I know that I do.  We have heard of the horrific killings of Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, his two children Aryeh and Gavriel, and another child, Miriam Monsonego in Tolouse, France.  While we do not know all of the reasons behind their killings and likely never will, it seems as though they were victimized specifically because of they were Jews.  Upon hearing of such tragedy, we might be reminded that we have been jaded by a nonstop cycle of news reports that transmit death after death to us.  I know that I have allowed myself to become distanced and detached upon hearing of such occurrences, sorting it in my head as another example of how our world is and thanking God that it wasn’t closer to home.  I would guess that I’m not alone.  Perhaps our response should not be one of distance, but of korbanot, of drawing near.  Let us utter a prayer for the community and Jews of France.  Or send condolences to the families of the Ozar HaTorah school: Ozar Hatorah 33 rue Jules Dalou 31500 Toulouse, France.  Let us hug and love our dear ones.  May we prevent this moment from distancing us from our best selves but rather bring ourselves nearer to the compassionate, supportive people we value and strive to be. 

If the purpose of a baseball sacrifice is to increase the hopes of scoring a run, then maybe our modern day sacrifices involve preventing ourselves from giving in to the evils that we see in our world.  With each senseless tragedy, we can choose to spread hope in this world, through gestures small and large, sending out the message that we cannot accept that such acts are merely the way of the world.  There has to be a better way.  We cannot and will not stop searching and working to draw ourselves nearer to that world.

Parashat Vayikra 5772

BLASTING SOME TORAH!

It has taken me a while, but one of my New Years Resolutions (from Jan 1, not from Rosh Hashanah) was to get back into the blog-o-sphere. 

 And that brings me to today.  Sometimes, fate can have a funny way of prodding us along the paths we seek to travel.  I had written a piece for our Temple e-blast, but due to a mix-up, the link sends viewers to last week's Torah commentary by Rabbi Dinner (which is still a wonderful piece on resolution-making - trying to figure out how to link to it).  So, if you want to see THIS week's Temple Beth Or Blast of Torah - here it is!  Win-Win!

Get Up!  Stand Up!

            This weekend we honor a legendary hero in our society, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  The dream of Dr. King was of a world the way it could be – he had the courage to refuse to accept his society the way it was. He risked his body, his reputation, his freedom in order to stand up to a system that was unjust.  And it did, unfortunately cost him his life.  However, the changes he brought about have become his undying legacy and his message is a timeless one.

            So timeless, that we see echoes of Dr. King’s non-violent fight in this week’s Torah portion.  After the Pharaoh of Egypt declared that all male-born children in Egypt should be killed upon birth, the Israelite midwives, Shiphra and Puah also stood up to the perceived injustice of the decree. They risked their own lives by facilitating the delivery of healthy Israelite children.  And in doing so, they differentiated themselves from the Egyptian

            Our Jewish and American heroes teach us to stand up to injustice.  It is easy to complain about the ills of our society, and that is an important first step, but if we fail to take action, we become a part of the pervasive culture that facilitates the problems we see. We all know this, cognitively, but Life is busy for us all, but if those who came before us had not stood up for us, none of us would have the choice to ignore our societal problems.

            It is a New Year, a time for each of us to explore new opportunities.  With the amount of suffering just locally, we each can find a cause to rally around and stand up for.  We can get out and make phone calls in opposition of the proposed gay marriage ban, which threatens the rights of those who are living in loving relationships.  Volunteer with our Habitat for Humanity Abraham build on Sunday mornings, where we are not only building a home for a family in need, but we are also building bridges and dispelling myths amongst our Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities.  Spend time distributing food at the Interfaith Food Shuttle, so that we can experience first hand the importance of feeding those who do not have enough to sustain themselves. 

            There is no injustice too small or too large to stand up to.  Let us just not be complacent.  As Dr. King said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”  And it is why a slew of rabbis, including my own mentor, Rabbi Richard Levy, marched alongside Dr. King decades ago, praying a Shabbat service in a Mississippi prison.  Unfortunately, it is not hard to find such threats even here in our own backyards.  Let us use this long weekend as an invitation to start working to repair our world directly – either by volunteering right now, or by signing up to make a difference at a future date.  Then we will truly be honoring the legacy of a man and a movement whose dreams we all hope to realize.

-       Rabbi Ari N. Margolis

Parashat Shemot 5772 

Day 35: Leadership in Humility

Today is Day 35 which is five weeks of the omer . . . Ha-yom shloshim v'chamesh yamim, she-hem chamishah sh'vuot la-omer.

THE OMER INTERSECTION: Chod + Malchut - Humility and Leadership

As we wrap up our week of humility, we have hopefully worked on letting go a little bit more of our egos, which has hopefully helped us to recognize the part of ourselves that is a part of something bigger that we care about.  I know for myself, I've thought about how I am as a husband, a parent, a rabbi, a son - all sorts of roles - and done a little bit of separation between what I make about me in each of these roles, and what I do that is not about me at all but about these relationships. 

Now we turn the tables of such exploration specifically to the area of leadership.  How do we use our humility to lead?  What I've been finding through these reflections is that it takes a quiet confidence to be humble.  When we have insecurities in our egos, this is when we have the most trouble achieving humility.  In such situations, we tend to need feedback in order to feed our sense of self - to receive validation or support or confirmation that what we are doing is good and appreciated. 

When we are unable to fill ourselves up with what we are doing, it is hard to have true humility about our actions, since we feel the need seek out affirmation.  My mentor from the Rhea Hirsch School of Education at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles, Dr. Michael Zeldin, once met with me to discuss how I was doing in an internship, and we spent a good deal of time talking about confidence.  He asked me where my confidence comes from, and at first I responded with feedback from others.  And he helped me to understand that confidence has to come from within based on being able to analyze one's own actions with the tools of a plethora of theories and best practices.  We take feedback in as a means to assess the work we are doing, but that should not be a referendum on the person we are.

When we have a quiet confidence that comes from within - a sense of who we are, even as we are willing to openly question and analyze and improve upon the work that we do - the feedback we seek becomes more about our shared purposes than about our individual needs.  And this is what it means to lead through humility.  As we ask questions of others and relate to others in the course of trying to make things happen in our world, the key is to not make such interactions about us, but to keep focused on the tasks at hand.  And when we model this in our leadership roles, we lead through humility. 

THE OMER CHALLENGE:

Today is a day to work on our self-confidence.  Think back to the paper-slip activity and focus a bit on the building-up side: "For my sake, the world was created."   Spend a few moments just taking-in an aspect of our world that reminds us that "For my sake, the world was created."  Let this experience remind us that we have positive things to experience in this world and to contribute to it, and that we are worthy of living up to our responsibilities.    

As a VERY BROAD CHALLENGE (I wish I had ideas for how to make this more measurable and concrete, but nothing's popping up and it's time to get the post out).  During the course of the day, in the tasks we attempt, let's work on separating out the validation we crave for our own sense of self from the feedback we need in order to evaluate what we do.  Let us hear feedback openly and not conflate it with who we are but rather allow it to inform what we do.  Practice this, and see if it works for us.  This way, we can be more open to questioning the ways we approach our tasks in ways that might allow us to go about our work/projects/relationships with a bit more humility.  And we might inspire others to do so, as well.

Days 32, 33, and 34: LOTS of humility (And Lag B'omer - the big break of the Omer)

Today is Day 34 which is 4 weeks and

SO, I guess on the weekends blogging gets tougher  - with the different schedule and with the fact that as a rabbi, I've been working most of the weekend, and I'm still learning that balance.  But rather than just move past the last couple of days.  Though I haven't written about them yet, they have a lot of meaning, so I'll incorporate them all together in this post.  


THE OMER INTERSECTION: Chod + Nitzach, Chod, and Yesod - Humility mixed in with endurance, humility, and today's actual intersection, bonding:


As we build back up to today's intersection, let's at least run through the others from the past few days: 
Humility and Endurance - What are the challenges to sustaining our humility?  When are there moments in which we are tempted to ignore our humility and act with brashness?  Do these lapses in humility take us away from the person we are trying to be? Sometimes, we choose in the short term to respond with ego instead of taking a step back and allowing our humility to give us the patience to endure.  One of the most common scenarios in which we respond in such a way is the inclination to say, "I'll just do it myself" when someone else struggles, doesn't fully follow through, does something differently than we would, etc.  There is nothing humble about "I'll just do it myself," even when we think we're doing it to be helpful to others.  Not that there is never an appropriate time for such a response, but we probably all do this more often than we should.  


Humility and Humility - What holds us back from being humble?  Is it the vulnerability of allowing myself to reflect and see where I may have made mistakes as opposed to blaming everything on someone or something else?  Do I see my humility as central to my ego, making it not so much an expression of letting go of ego, but rather making it a central part of who I am?  When we are humble because we think we should be, we are making our response about us rather than about the bigger issue going on.  This intersection from the lag B'Omer (which was today - more on that soon) requires us to remember to keep our focus on that which is outside ourselves


Humility and Bonding - Sometimes, when we respond from a place of  humility, we can feel a bit lonely.  To walk a path of humility sometimes requires us to suppress certain things we might want to say but would not be productive for our cause, our community, and ultimately ourselves.  Examples of such experiences include times when we hear private things about someone else that the other would not want us to share or when we end up looking bad when someone else does not follow-through as expected.  To share such details would make us feel better in the short-term, but we might regret such actions later.  Our intersection for this evening and Monday challenges us to rethink our reactions to such situations.  We have to recognize that in such cases, the drive to share with others can be a bit more about our own egos.  Because we are so worried about that part of ourselves, we might feel alienated and separate when acting on our humility.  But, if we let go of the ego, chalk it all up to a part of the bigger picture, and act in ways to support others and work more closely with others, these moments of humility can actually bring us closer together.  




THE OMER CHALLENGE:
For this day, when we have a moment in which we are tempted to assign blame to someone or something else, stop.  Whether in speaking to someone else or just in contemplating a situation for ourselves - let us instead take responsibility for being a part of the solution, working with others and bringing them closer.  Excuses can push people away, even when legitimate.  There are times for excuses, but for today, let's not make this one of those times.  


Shavua Tov!

Day 31: How Compassion Can Help Us Reach Humility?

Today is Day 31, which is four weeks and three days of the Omer. . . Ha-yom echad u'shloshim yom, she-hem arba'ah sh'vuot u'shloshah yamim la-omer.

   

 

THE OMER INTERSECTION: Chod + Tiferet - Humility and Compassion:

Humility and compassion seem like they are already companions.  As we're seeing this week, humility is all about our ability to shift our mindset to thinking about how a moment is all about me to how a moment is about something bigger than myself.  It is about seeing the privilege in being a part of, as opposed to taking for granted that such moments in life just happen.  To reach such a state of humility, we have to reach outside ourselves, and this is what tiferet, compassion, pulls at us to do.

While we have also been exploring the boundaries in which too much chod can suppress us and can overly diminish our sense of self, today's intersection calls out to us to actively pursue the times in which we are not finding enough humility.  It is our sense of compassion that has the potential to move us out of our self-important bubbles and towards finding greater meaning outside of ourselves in all aspects of our lives.

THE OMER CHALLENGE:

So, today, let's work on our humility.  If we followed through with yesterday's paper-slip challenge (more on that in a bit), we may have found a few places in our lives where we realized that more humility might be a good thing.  Let's pick an area our lives in which we could use an extra dose of humility, and open our hearts to feeling compassion for others.  If we need to do this as a spouse, then spend time listening and openly inviting our partners to share with us, and as we listen try to experience the discussion from their perspective and point of view, and not how it makes us feel.  If we need the humility at work, let's seek out and listen to the ideas of others and genuinely consider what they have to say, seeking to find merit rather than listening just to shut it down.  Wherever we need it, let's work to bring that humble approach to our lives.

OMER REFLECTION: The Paper-slip challenge

I have to admit, I really LOVED the idea to actually put the pieces of paper in each pocket from yesterday.  I had to look at the "dust and ashes" slip a few times just to remind myself that the concept for this experiment was not my own, but based on century-old wisdom passed along to us.  For the most part I followed-through on the exercise, and I absolutely learned a few things about myself and about humility:

1) I think of myself as a humble person.  I don't crave the spotlight unless it is about a bigger cause than myself, I constantly and consciously fight to ensure that what I do is more about values and the needs of those I love and serve rather than my own ego, and I can be genuinely hard on myself.  I had expected to be reaching into the "world for me" pocket more often than the "dust and ashes" reminder.  But the opposite was true.  Maybe this is just what I do all the time to keep my ego in check, but it was an important self-realization.  (In fact, I just reached back into the "dust and ashes" pocket to remind myself that while I am definitely doing self-reflection here for self-growth, this blog space is also for others and I shouldn't just make it about me.)

2) Humility is all about an appropriate balance.  A number of times, I found myself reaching into one pocket, only to then feel the need to reach into the other!  For part of the day yesterday, we were shooting a video for the last day of religious school.  We were dressed in ridiculous costumes, and I figured, if I'm going to embrace the embarrassment and silliness of this moment, I needed the self-confidence "world for me" reminder.  As I did so, I then thought, "But I have to keep in mind that as fun as I'm having while doing this, it's not about me - it's about creating a moment for the kids in the religious school.  So, I reached my other hand in the other pocket and grabbed both slips of paper at the same time.  I found this happening a number of times during the day..  

3) Doing such a concrete, ongoing, accessible activity throughout the day really helped me gain consciousness about my thoughts and actions.  It did so in a wholly unexpected way.  Of course, there were times during the day when I forgot I even had the papers, but then I'd get back on track, and each time I had to decide, it brought a whole different awareness of the moment at hand.  I learned so much from this experience, that I have the papers in my pockets again today, hoping to continue to grow from it all!