From the Rabbi
Rabbi Robert L. Wolkoff
Previous Messages
“Forgetting is Not an Option”
More than 100 people celebrated the holiday of freedom with us this year — two Seders at our shul and two additional model Seders, one for the Greenport Ecumenical Ministries (GEM) and another at San Simeon By The Sound. Passover doesn’t mean only to pass over, but to pass over to our children the knowledge and, most importantly, the feeling, that freedom is a constant work.
Real freedom means to keep an order. Even free-spirit creativity needs order. Creativity without order is chaos. I’m often reminded of this concept when I download a new app on my phone. All of a sudden, the location of all the other apps shifts, and I have to learn the new order. That is why it’s important on Passover to change something and then ask, “Ma Nishtana” — what is the difference? That is why it’s important to know the apps and to recognize them, not just the order in which they appear. We don’t keep the order for the sake of order; we keep it for the sake of learning.
This time of year, we also commemorate the Holocaust. The juxtaposition is not accidental. The date was set to correspond with the start of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising: April 19, 1943, the 14th of Nissan, the eve of Passover — Seder night. The holiday of freedom inspired the Jews there not simply to ask, “What is the difference,” but to make a difference. The uprising failed at the time, but its message continues to reverberate today. In Israel, Holocaust Remembrance Day is called “Yom Hashoah Ve-Hagevurah,” which means “Day for the Holocaust and the Heroism.” The heroism refers to all the acts of resistance during those years, the biggest being the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto.
But since it would be inappropriate to commemorate this day at the same time we are celebrating Passover, the date was set as close as possible, on the 27th of Nissan — a week after the end of Passover. It is also a week before the State of Israel’s Independence Day, which is on the 5th of Iyar, just hours before the end of the British Mandate of Palestine on May 15, 1948.
It seems as though freedom and independence have a pattern. Consider the ancient Israelites, whom we remember on Passover. They eventually broke out of slavery, but many died in the darkness of Egypt. Others experienced years in the desert before gaining independence in the land of their dreams. Somehow, before breaking free, we go through deep darkness before arriving at “the promised land.”
At this year’s East End Jewish Community Council’s Holocaust Memorial Service, we heard Rabbi Sholom Friedmann, the director of the Amud Aish Memorial Museum, relay stories of spiritual resistance in the concentration camps when rabbis and observant Jews had to handle impossible situations while trying to adhere to Jewish law. For example, can someone sacrifice his or her life in order to save someone else? Or can one choke a crying baby in order to save the rest of the family in hiding?
We also listened to the moving story of Margo Lowry, a member of the North Fork Reform Synagogue, whose parents lost nearly all of their family and then their first child, but never lost their dignity and humanity. Margo concluded her story with the immortal words of Elie Wiesel, may his memory be for a blessing, that suggest that the first act of resistance is remembering: “Forgetting is Not an Option!”
In good hopes for the new month.
“The Sound of Freedom”
Dear members and friends,
It was nice to come back to Greenport, to budding trees and bushes. With Purim behind us and Passover ahead, it’s time for us to get ready for spring — to take off the Purim masks and begin clearing out the rising agent in our leavened selves. It’s time to remember how long the road to freedom can be and how hard it often is to navigate.
Passover is a holiday that connects generations. Although many Jewish generations were shaped by a common text, more importantly, they are shaped by the interpretation of each generation that raised them — each generation with its own challenges, each generation with only a short time to make its mark. In a Midrash on the Book of Ecclesiastes (1:13), the rabbis tell us that a person leaves this world without even half of his or her wants accomplished. Whenever I travel abroad, I’m reminded of this thought — how much we try to accomplish in such a short time.
We recently read in Parashat Ki Tisa (Exodus 32:19) about Moses going up to Mount Sinai to receive the tablets of Torah. While he was gone, the Israelites seemed to have betrayed their God by making a golden calf to worship. In response, Moses breaks the tablets; clearly, the Israelites are not ready to receive the word of God.
What should Moses have done when he found out what had occurred? Rashi quotes a Midrash that says Moses breaks the Tablets because he says to himself, “Receiving and eating from the Passover sacrifice, which is only one mitzvah in the Torah, is limited to those who are pure, here, when the Torah is like a bride,” so how can she be received by these sinners!?
What seems clear is that the tablets couldn’t be given to the Israelites just yet. However, Moses had other options. For example, he could have kept the Tablets for himself and the wise men on the mountain. God offers him a chance to forget about the people of Israel; God will start a new world with Moses. But Moses chooses to come down from the mountain and endure with his people. His message to his Israelite brethren is this: Even The Word of God, carved perfectly on stones from the top of Mount Sinai itself, is not an imitation for the real God!
Breaking the Tablets reflects Moses’s heartbreak and the disappointment of God. A Midrash says that God condoned Moses’s act. The lashes of freedom are no more hurtful than those of slavery, slavery to idols.
Freedom, as we learn on Passover, is also being together. Isolation is like being jailed. Moses decides to leave the Tablets behind and join his people. He proves the Mishpatim shebe’al peh, the oral Torah — that it’s not about revering the engraved words or images, it’s the reverent way we handle those words in every generation, and with all generations together.
There are times in life when we have to lift our eyes from the book and see life itself — life that we can’t control and in which we can’t accomplish everything. Therefore, we constantly have to make choices. Sometimes we have to make the choice to “break the tablets.” When I imagine the sound of breaking the Tablets, I hear an awful sound that goes beyond the limits of its noise. I hear Moses’s heartbreak. I hear the sound of the breaking of the matza. This year, as we break the matza, let’s also hear another sound that Moses wanted us to hear — the sound of not having to worship an engraved word. The sound of the broken tablets that is the sound of freedom.
A happy and free Passover to all.
—Rabbi Gadi Capela
“Two Nations Solution”
Dear members and friends,
Shalom from Israel! The day after I finished a 10-day interfaith pilgrimage to the Holy Land, I was sitting with friends, watching the evening news report of President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s meeting in Washington D.C. It’s always comforting to see a display of friendship between an American president and an Israeli prime minister. Of course, many people were surprised to hear that the two-state solution, supported by many administrations, is not the only solution being considered by the new President.
Almost immediately after the news conference, I received emails from several members and friends asking me what I thought about it. I have to admit, I was not too surprised, and not because it is a new administration, perhaps bringing an innovative look, but because for years I have been traveling the country and studying the subject. The trip this year finally convinced me that we are looking at this issue too narrowly. While a two-state solution may prove to be a good one, it has to result from a good process. Furthermore, the shape and character of the two states is still far from being defined.
Photo: Rabbi Gadi took this picture at the Tantur Ecumenical Center in Jerusalem as part of the “Praying Together” initiative, where the three main Abrahamic faiths come together. In the back, the Muslims were praying on the floor, and behind the wall were the Christians. “This was very special, and it provides hope,” Rabbi Gadi said.
History has shown us that drawing lines on the map does not create nations, and certainly does not guarantee peace. Even when the United Nations voted to divide the land in 1947, it didn’t claim that Jews or Arabs couldn’t live on the other side of the line. More and more, we also understand that the solution is not of local scope, but would have to include the whole Arab world, Jewish world and, I would add, much of the Christian world. Any solution would have to recognize that there are two nations that share land that is not simple do divide — and not just because of the Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria. It is a small piece of land with many holy sites for multiple faiths, all of which should have safe access to them.
For the past few days, I have participated in a conference of Abrahamic Reunion, an international organization that brings Jews, Christians, Muslims, and other Abrahamic faiths together, and is determined to make peace from the ground up. They share my belief that clergy must play a key role in process. We are now traveling around the country and meeting with important stakeholders from all faiths. I am happily surprised to hear fresh voices and ideas for solutions, which recognize that the term “two states” is not necessarily sufficient, and that the process is more important than terminology.
One of the important lessons of the Parashah of Yitro we read last Shabbat — when the people of Israel received the Torah on Mount Sinai — is that the Torah was received in the wilderness, a place we share with the rest of the world. Thus it behooves the Jewish people to find a way to share the blessings of the Torah and the holy land with the rest of the world, especially with the Abrahamic faiths. We all believe in the one God who gave us the law, and we need to share its blessings as well as its burdens.
I am planning to write further about the topic upon my return and, as always, I welcome your responses and opinions.
Shalom, Salam, and Peace,
— Rabbi Gadi
Photo: Rabbi Gadi took this picture at the Tantur Ecumenical Center in Jerusalem as part of the “Praying Together” initiative, where the three main Abrahamic faiths come together. In the back, the Muslims were praying on the floor, and behind the wall were the Christians. “This was very special, and it provides hope,” Rabbi Gadi said.
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