Spirits of the Dark: Halloween Eve 2014

Spirits of the Dark

Sermon for Halloween Eve

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Shabbat Lech L’cha, 5775

Though there are many theories about the origins of Halloween, one thing is certain:  It is NOT a Jewish holiday.  Of course, one could say that Sukkot shares a few elements with Halloween.  Both are fall festivals, both mark the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the period of shorter days and longer nights.  In ancient times, in a world awash with ignorance and superstition, fall was the time of year in which malignant and malicious spirits were more prone to emerge from the darkness, from under the foggy underbrush of a world that science could not yet explain.

Some beliefs held that these malicious spirits of the underworld needed appeasement in the form of acts or gifts that would bring about their favor and avert divine retribution. A treat, if you will, to ward off the trick.

The Jewish world that emerged out of the superstitious murk of ancient cultures is not devoid of spirits and ghosts.  The Patriarch Jacob, for example, on several occasions, sees spirits.  At the time of his return to his homeland, following a 20 year exile, he has an overnight wrestling match with someone or something that was both more and less than human, a being that could cause harm but could also bestow blessings; a creature that could appear powerful at night, but for whom exposure to sunlight brought terrible consequences.

The custom of appeasing one’s demons could also explain Jacob’s act of sending generous gifts of livestock and money to Esau before his reunion with the dreaded twin brother who, twenty years earlier, had sworn to kill Jacob.

And though the modern world associates witchcraft mostly with women, in ancient time this was far from a female-dominated realm.  Goblins, gnomes and elves were often of the male variety of demons; and Satan, of course, the head honcho of all evil spirits, was definitely male.  If he weren’t, Rosemary would never have her baby and the entire genre of horror movies would look very different today.

In the world of Jewish demonology, in fact, Satan is not a fallen angel.  He is the cynic, the one who has little faith in the creatures called human beings.  To prove that, Satan—whose name means “the one who misdirects”—tempts people, throwing obstacles and enticements in their way so as to prove to God that God’s faith in us was misdirected from the start, that the chance God took in creating a being that could destroy as carelessly and gleefully as he could create, was a bad choice.

In Jewish folklore, the underworld over which Satan rules is made up of little trolls whose job it is not only to keep the flames of hell burning, but also to entice and tempt people, to play with and cause them to trip up. Far from being demons or devils, Satan and his little helpers are not excused from God’s laws; then must even observe Shabbat, giving all tortured souls a day-off from the eternal flames of Gehennom, the place where souls were scrubbed clean before they returned to the loving embrace of the Heavenly Creator of all souls.

But the Torah is full of witches and sorcery, as is obvious from the commandments stated in Leviticus and Deuteronomy:  “Thou shalt not permit a witch to live.”  Witches negated the God-given gift of choice and free will.  Associated with the dead, having the power to communicate with the world beyond, with channeling the immortal souls of dead people, witches had unique and undue power over the living.

The most famous witch in the Bible is probably the Witch of Endor.  As told in the book of Samuel, King Saul took it as one of his holy missions to exterminate all witches from his kingdom.  Yet one somehow survived, and it is this witch that Saul goes to visit and consult with before his final battle with the Philistines.  He asks her to raise the spirit of the prophet Samuel.  In those days, it was the belief that for commoners, the spirits of the dead appeared upside-down.  Only for royalty, presumably out of respect, did they appear right side up.  So when Samuel’s spirit appeared upright from within the smoke of her cauldron, the witch knew that her anonymous visitor was King Saul, and she is terrified that he will kill her now as he had done to all the other witches of the land. 

Samuel has some pretty harsh words to say to his erstwhile protégé, and the king, ashen and downfallen, returns home without doing the Witch of Endor any further harm.

The Talmud and Midrash, Judaism’s great texts of the first millennium of the Common Era, also speak of witches and other spirits of the Other World, as well as of their evil influence on the Real World.  Chief among those was Lilith, a night spirit who, in one ancient text, appears as Adam’s first wife (a version derived from the two seemingly separate stories of the creation of woman in the story of Genesis).  Lilith, it seems, was a bit too adventurous for some prudish rabbis who saw her as sexually promiscuous and domineering.  In speaking of Lilith in such a way, these early Rabbis took an even earlier belief and wove stories that helped shape Jewish gender ethics for the next two thousand years.

The red string of Kabbalah, the red ribbon or string tied to the post of a male baby’s crib, are among the amulets and antidotes that are said to ward off the malicious Lilith, whose revenge for being cast out in favor of Eve was her insatiable demand for male babies and for the seed ejected in nocturnal emissions.

Ghosts and evil spirits also appear in Jewish folklore, among them dybbuks, ru'aḥ tezazit and ru’ach ra’ah.  All of these are disembodied spirits that invade living bodies, taking control of them and acting out their own desires through the possessed body.  The mystic philosophy, Kabbalah, contains many rituals and protocols relating to exorcism of a dybbuk. 

Then, of course, to counterbalance the soul-without-a-body, cue the golem, which is a body without a soul.  In modern retellings, the soul is replaced by a brain, but originally it was a soul that the creature lacked.  An effective retelling of this story can be found in the Kaddish episode of the TV series “The X-Files.”

In our own time and place, Halloween has lost much of its religious connotations.  I suppose we can thank Hallmark and the candy industry for this particular transformation—though it is just as likely that science and secularism are as guilty of this as anything else.  Yet, superstitions still abound, especially around cemeteries and graveyards.  Despite the huge advances in knowledge and learning, fear of the unknown is still prominent in the human psyche.  Laughing in the face of darkness is just one way in which we ward off the dangers.  Taking delight in tricking malicious spirits is our way of showing them who’s in charge in this world.

And treating with sweets and candies those little children who appear at our doorsteps, dressed in the most creative, imaginative and colorful costumes, is but one way in which we adults attempt to propitiate and pacify a frightening future. 

The historical roots of Halloween are, indeed, not Jewish.  However, the spiritual world is actually deeply interwoven with the Jewish world.  And though some rabbis forbid any and all customs and celebrations associated with Halloween, it’s probably the least harmful way in which we can try to ward off darkness and fear.  At least this way we make our children happy, as we teach them that, though there ARE legitimate fears in the world, they CAN be conquered, that we have unbound abilities that far outpace the malicious scheming of any number of goblins and demons.  God knows the terrors of the real world are not half so easy to placate, but the children don’t need to know that.  Not yet at any rate.  Let them remain innocent but a while longer.

May the taste of Torah always be as sweet as candy in our lives and in the lives of our children.

Kein y’hi ratzon—may this be God’s will.

© 2014 by Boaz D. Heilman

Alone But Secure: D'var Torah for V'zot Ha-Bracha

Alone But Secure

D’var Torah for Parashat V’zot Ha-Bracha

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

The holiday of Sukkot has undergone many transformations through the ages.  The name “Sukkot” first appears in the book of Exodus, where it indicates a location, the first place where the Israelites encamped following the Exodus from Egypt.

We are also told that we celebrate Sukkot in order to remember the flimsy huts in which our people dwelled during their 40-year trek through the Sinai Wilderness. 

But then, once they had settled in the Promised Land, Sukkot was transformed yet again, turning into a harvest and thanksgiving festival.  Once again the ancient Israelites dwelled in fragile booths, both to escape the heat of the last days of summer and to finish gathering the harvest before the cooling rains came.  

The association with water has remained part of the holiday of Sukkot, our celebration of renewed life.  In ancient Israel, Simchat Beit Ha-sho’eiva (Rejoicing at the Wellhouse) was a famously joyous festival that centered around the water wells that were beginning to fill and overflow again at this season.  When the Temple was yet standing, during the holiday of Sukkot not only was there abundant sacrifice of animals (mostly to feed the large numbers of pilgrims that converged on the city for the holiday), but in addition to the traditional wine libation prescribed by the Torah, water was also offered on the altar.

This rejoicing at the replenished source of life that water was (and, of course, still is) is possibly one reason why, at the end of the holiday of Sukkot, we celebrate Simchat Torah, the festival of Rejoicing With the Torah.  Water and Torah both represent the life-blessing of God.  One physical, the other more spiritual, both are necessary for survival, and the gift of both is therefore cause for rejoicing.  Around this time of the seasons’ turning, the two symbols unite, converging into one thanksgiving celebration.

On Simchat Torah we celebrate the many blessings that the Torah brings into our life. It is at this festival that we conclude the annual cycle of the reading of the Torah and immediately begin it anew.  V’zot Ha-Bracha, comprising the last two chapters of the book of Deuteronomy (chapters 33 and 34), is read on this holiday, immediately followed by the first few verses of B’reishit, Genesis.

V’zot Ha-Bracha contains the blessings Moses gives the People of Israel just prior to his death.  In a scene reminiscent of the blessings given to his sons by Jacob at his deathbed, Moses addresses each tribe.  In beautiful and exalted poetry, he foresees their future.  It isn’t always rosy.  There will be difficult times ahead, though much glory as well.  Moses then blesses the people of Israel as a whole, foretelling its future:  “Israel then shall dwell in safety alone” (Deut. 33:28).  Alone and apart (badad), but also safe and secure (betach).

It’s hard to reconcile these two adjectives.  Yet history has proven Moses a true prophet.  Israel’s history has shown the thread of our existence often weaving in and out of the history of other peoples.  Our exodus from Egypt was our first emergence onto the world stage as an independent people.  Since then, our lives have interwoven with those of the Persians, Greeks and Romans, to name but a few.  In our wanderings throughout the world, there were times when we seemingly merged with other nations; paradoxically, however, we always also stayed ourselves.  We remained Jews.  Wherever we went, we took our traditions with us.  We took our Torah and all our holy books with us.  We took our prayerbooks, candlesticks, and even our foods.  We took our language, and even though at times it too merged with other languages—Yiddish and Ladino are but two examples—Hebrew remained protected, tucked safely inside our holy books, in our prayers and within our hearts.

Even today, this prophecy of Moses stands true.  Israel has emerged yet again from the furnace into which it was thrown, its traditions intact, its soul and spirit undaunted, its language still thriving.

Long ago, Moses foresaw the struggles his people would have to endure; yet he also knew with unbound certainty that God would always ensure their survival.  Provided, of course, that they continued following God, teaching God’s law, practicing justice, equality and compassion.  No matter how many enemies rise up against Israel, Moses promises that in the end Israel will remain secure because of our faith in God.  Alone and separate, but secure.

It is at this point, with his task at last fully accomplished, that Moses climbs up his final mountain, Nebo.  From this peak he sees the Promised Land from end to end.  He sees the peaks of the northern mountains as well as the depths of the valley of Jericho.  He sees the region of Judah (and, presumably, the future city of Jerusalem) extending all the way to the Negev Desert and the Mediterranean Sea.  And then, still full of strength and vigor despite his 120 years, Moses dies. 

For Israel, it’s a new beginning.  Joshua, Moses’s disciple from his youth, takes over at this point, the People of Israel promising to follow him as they had followed Moses.  It will be Joshua who will lead them into the Promised Land, Joshua who will help them conquer it and make it their national home for all ages.

Thanks to Moses, however, the Israelites can look forward with confidence to a bright future.  They know the dangers and difficulties that loom ahead, yet they are unafraid.  Once a tribe of some 70 families, they have emerged from wretched slavery and become a splendid people.  Bound by an eternal Covenant to be God’s partners in the ongoing, sacred work of Creation, they can now open a new chapter in their history, and so they do, mi-b’reishit, from the beginning.

Chazak chazak v’nit’chazek, “Be strong, be of good courage and we shall all be strengthened.”

© 2014 by Boaz D. Heilman

Defending Israel: Sermon for Yom Kippur

Defending Israel

Sermon for Yom Kippur 5775

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

© 2014 by Boaz D. Heilman

One of my favorite political cartoon strips comes from Israel.  Drawn by Yaakov Kirschen for the Jerusalem Post, it’s called Dry Bones, a reference to the prophet Ezekiel’s vision of the Valley of Bones. Earlier this week, the strip featured a husband and wife talking about the current situation in Israel and relating it to Yom Kippur.  The wife opens the conversation:  “Yom Kippur is the day we use to list our sins and shortcomings. The whole world needs a day like that.”  Looking up from his newspaper, the husband replies:  “No they don’t!  They use the entire year… to list our sins and shortcomings.”

It’s an amusing observation, but it’s also all too true.  In the last few years, it’s become fashionable to criticize Israel, to find fault with any number of its policies, both foreign and domestic.  Israel bashing is now widespread and common, not only among terrorist groups, but in polite, sophisticated and enlightened countries as well. 

And so, since for much of the world, every day is Yom Kippur, I decided that today I am going to give myself and my home country a break.  Today, instead of pointing out Israel’s faults and sins, I am going to point out some of the things she actually does right.  Tomorrow we can go back to business as usual. Today, we count our blessings instead, as I look at the values that Israel prizes and endeavors to achieve.

So as everyone who has access to a TV, computer or a newspaper knows, Israel was involved in a war for much of this past summer.  I won’t get into the details, but I would like to mention that Israel went into this war reluctantly; that it agreed to, and accepted, eight ceasefires—which Hamas broke; that all through the war, Israel continued supplying Gaza with electricity and with literally tons of humanitarian aid every day, even as Hamas continued firing thousands of rockets and mortar rounds indiscriminately at towns and cities throughout Israel; and that the ground-force incursion came only after the attack tunnels were discovered.  The entrances to many of these tunnels were concealed inside apartment buildings, under mosque floors and within supposedly-UN-run clinics and hospitals, places where a bomb dropped from the sky would cause damage that Israel deemed excessive.  So instead, Israel ordered its foot soldiers to go in there.  Many of the Israeli soldiers who fell in Operation Protective Edge died because Hamas had booby-trapped these very building, with the full knowledge of Israel’s sensitivity to accusations of genocide and disproportionate response.

In fact, Israel took extraordinary measures to avoid civilian casualties among the Gazan population.  No other country in the world can claim, as Israel does, that before each bomb it dropped, every effort was made to let people know that it was coming.  Printed leaflets were dropped.  Calls were made to cell phones to make sure everyone who didn’t see the leaflets got the message anyway.  Then came “roof knocking,” in which a non-explosive or low-yield device is used as a warning for anyone who might still be in the building to leave.  Then and only then, after every chance to evacuate was given, did Israeli warplanes drop their bombs on the target.

In war and peace, Israel struggles to define and maintain its Jewish identity.  To be Jewish doesn’t just mean to recite prayers devoutly several times a day.  You must also strive to live by the highest Jewish ideals, even if on occasion you fall short.

One example is how Israel deals with the precept of freeing the captives—a mitzvah that today relates to a huge international problem:  the plight of refugees.

Israel has had to deal with more refugees from more places around the world than any other country in recent history.  While there are many problems—such as what to do with the thousands of Sudanese who fled persecution in their own country, made the dangerous trek across the Sinai Desert and finally arrived in Israel—only to find themselves unwanted there; yet many others, such as the 100,000 Ethiopian Jews who arrived in Israel in the 1980’s and 90’s, have managed to integrate and create new, productive lives for themselves in their new homeland.

I admit that when I first saw people of color—I must have been 8 or 9 years old—I must have stared and gawked shamelessly.  I hope I can be forgiven for that, though I still cringe at the memory.  What I knew at the time is that they came to Israel from Ghana to learn about farming and agriculture.  What I didn’t know is that the program that sponsored their studies was called Mashav.  Initiated by then-Prime-Minister David Ben Gurion and Foreign Minister Golda Meir, Mashav is Israel’s agency for international development and cooperation.  Since its inception in 1956, Mashav has trained more than 270,000 men and women from 150 countries.  Among other things, Mashav teaches developing countries about water conservancy and energy efficiency.  (By the way, it isn’t only third-world countries that benefit from Israel’s experience.  Even as we speak, Israeli water experts are helping California deal with its worst drought in history).

Ten years ago, Mashav sent a dairy farmer named Lior Yaron to China.  His job? To bring modern technology to China’s failing dairy farms. Israeli dairy cows, as it turns out, are the most productive in the world, yielding almost twice as much milk as their American counterparts.  China, on the other hand, has had to ration the milk that its cows produced.  That is, until Farmer Yaron arrived.  Within four years, cows in China doubled their production of milk; they have become the wonder of China and actually attract a huge number of visitors from all over Asia.

Poverty and hunger today are among the greatest challenges that the developing world is facing.  All over the world, global warming has caused some of the worst droughts ever.  Guess who is leading the world in the field of food production in drought conditions?  You guessed it:  Israel, observing the mitzvah to feed the hungry.

In Africa, which is particularly and disastrously affected by the global climate change, for decades now Israel has been teaching and enabling farmers to turn from subsistence farming to commercial farming. In Kenya, it’s helping to protect the water of Lake Victoria and is currently expanding its work to water treatment and management.  In Ethiopia, the focus is on drought resilience and dryland agriculture.  And in Ghana, Israel’s help is in the field of citrus production.

Another huge problem that Israel tackles both locally and globally is domestic violence, particularly violence against women.  How big is this problem?  It is estimated that in the US alone, domestic violence is the third leading cause of family homelessness.  In some other cultures, the murder of women who are perceived as bringing shame to their families is considered acceptable and even honorable. Their crimes? Refusing to enter an arranged marriage, seeking divorce from an abusive partner, or venturing out on the street unchaperoned by a male relative.

Here is where Mashav, Israel’s agency for international development and cooperation, does some of its most important.  Not far from where my mother lives, in Haifa, Mashav runs an international education center named after Golda Meir.  This center assists in the training of women engaged in community work, a beautiful phrase that basically means women’s rights and empowerment.  Since its founding in 1961, the Golda Meir Training Center has helped train nearly 20,000 women from 150 countries and regions, including the Palestinian Authority and Gaza.

Healing the sick is yet another commandment Israel observes diligently.  You may know already about Teva Pharmaceuticals, about CT scanners, MRI’s, surgical lasers and the pillcam, all developed in Israel.  But did you know that Israel is one of the world’s leaders in stem cell research?  Or that Israeli scientists are currently working on medicines proven effective in the treatment of MS and pancreatic cancer?  Did you know that there are about 1,000 companies in Israel that are involved in healthcare or life-science products?  

 

It’s well known that in the last few years, biomedical technology has become one of Israel’s chief exports.  What isn’t as well publicized is that a large part of the results of this work is actually dispensed for free—in medical and educational aid that Israel sends all over the world to victims of wars, earthquakes, fires, disease and other disasters. 

Helping the poor, feeding the hungry, healing the sick and freeing the oppressed—the very mitzvot we read about in this morning’s haftarah--these are some of the precepts that help define Israel’s mission and purpose today.  What’s so amazing is that Israel does all that while facing constant challenges to its existence and even to its very right to exist.   

Yet this idealistic and humanitarian work is rarely in the news.  It’s so much more interesting to show full-color pictures of war atrocities supposedly committed by the Jewish State. 

But Israel’s sacred service to the world does not go unrecognized.  The work of Lior Yaron, the dairy expert, won him the “Great Wall Friendship Award,” a prestigious prize conferred by the mayor of Beijing.  Perhaps more significantly, earlier this summer, Israel was appointed to serve as vice-chair on an important UN panel dealing with refugees and human rights.  More than 140 countries overrode a coordinated effort by Arab states to thwart this appointment.  The selection of Israel to serve on this committee displays both gratitude and acknowledgment of the Jewish state’s many contributions to humanity and the world.

In the past, it was customary on Yom Kippur to ask for contributions for impoverished Jews living in Israel. 

In my parents’ generation, it was the Israel Bonds campaign.  The 1948 War of Independence had taken a terrible toll on Israel’s economy and population.  On top of this came the complexities of absorbing hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors and almost three quarters of a million refugees from Arab countries.

But today, I’m not here to ask you to buy Israel Bonds.  I’m not even going to suggest that you invest in Israeli stocks.

But I do ask that you invest something else in our Jewish homeland:  More than ever, Israel needs your support:  At home or at work; on college and high school campuses; in the daily newspapers and in all the social media; and not least, in Congress and the White House.  We need to support Israel.  Not because Israel is pure and blameless; it does have its faults, and it does makes mistakes, and we don’t even have to agree with all of its policies.

But Israel deserves our support for three basic reasons:  First, because Israel is probably America’s best and most trusted ally, if not in the whole world, then definitely in its region of the world.  Second, because we, as Americans and as Jews, share Israel’s values and, like Israel, try to live by the highest standards, ethics and principles. And third, we must support Israel because criticism of Israel does not stop with Israel. As anti-Israel protesters marched in Europe and elsewhere this summer, slogans such as “Death to the Jews!” in Belgium and France and “Gas the Jews!” in Germany revealed the true identity of the evil ideology behind the protesters’ masks.

By defending Israel’s right to defend herself, we stand up for Israel’s right to exist.  By supporting Israel’s vital work around the world, we become partners with its cause and mission. And by being there for Israel, we ensure that Israel is there for us too. 

Thousands of years ago, when we stood at the foot of Mt. Sinai, we affirmed our unity.  From rich to poor, men, women and children, we declared ourselves, as one people, ready to accept the mission God set out for us.  Today, I call on each one of us to reaffirm our solidarity with our people, to be there for one another, to find new strength and hope for the future

as we stand together, arms linked, shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart.

Am Yisrael chai!  The People of Israel lives!

G’mar chatimah tova, may we all be inscribed and sealed for a good year of health, happiness, love and peace. 

Kein y’hi ratzon, may this be God’s will.