legislation to prohibit Shariah law and all foreign religious law in American courts

http://www.islandpacket.com/2012/02/27/1979891/sharia-law-is-not-form-of-religious.html#storylink=misearch


Hi folks,
Here is a perspective I have and wrote in my newspaper column for the island packet   about the flurry of states trying to enact legislation banning foreign law or shariah law in the court systems.
Take a look and tell me what you think.
Shalom
Brad

Torah Thoughts: Immigration and Jewish values-Parashat Mishpatim

Parashat Mishpatim

On this Shabbat we embark upon an experimental idea to enhance our congregation’s Shabbat Morning experience. Tomorrow morning we inaugurate the Hot Topics Shabbat. Besides the fellowship of a little nosh and an abbreviated worship service, we intend to engage our congregants in a different kind of study and discussion. Rather than diving into the sea of commentaries, we will use the Torah portion as a jumping off point to discuss provocative and challenging issues in the public domain.  Can Torah values enlighten our understanding about controversial topics today?  Do contemporary politics determine our religious values or do our religious values inform our view of society’s most vexing problems?

Tomorrow morning we shall address the immigration issue in light of the Torah’s views on the stranger. “You shall not wrong the stranger or oppress him for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:20).Given that God commands us to be kind to the stranger for we were once strangers in the land of Egypt, how do we reconcile that moral imperative with our response to both legal and illegal immigration issues that have received so much attention? The Torah teaches us to be kind to the stranger regardless o f the legal status. It creates a bedrock value for Jews over history to welcome the stranger. This value also impacts Israel today with the influx of illegal immigrants from Asia, Africa and China.

We Jews understand the importance of immigration to our spiritual heritage. Quite a few within our own congregation are immigrants arriving here during the period of Nazism.  Other congregants come from Israel and the Former Soviet Union. The experience of being an immigrant is part and parcel of our spiritual DNA as any value can be embedded into our consciousness. Yet, since most of us are second and third generation Americans is our perspective towards non-Jewish and illegal new arrivals different than how we view Jewish immigration? My own belief is that before we make a decision on people who are poor and who are illegal immigrants we should familiarize ourselves with Jewish history and ethos regarding our own values towards treating the stranger in our midst.

We have witnessed a movement in our country to modify and restrict illegal immigration in states like Arizona, Alabama and South Carolina. We have witnessed the President and the Congress over the last two administrations attempt and fail at enacting comprehensive Immigration Reform. Lots of debate and accusations all the way around with regard to the legislation and the debate as to how best to protect our borders and differentiate between legal and illegal immigration. Certainly we have seen the depth of bad will that spreads when these issues are stoked by pending state legislation as well as by the intended and unintended consequences of an unstable and volatile economy. These factors pull apart the social fabric of our country.

Of course we are not the only nation that struggles with these kinds of issues. It is even more ironic to watch Israel, which like America, is a nation of immigrants. The idea of settling new Jewish immigrants is part and parcel of Israel’s mission and its strength for the future. But the Israelis have problems with non-Jews who come from far flung nations such as the Philippines, Somalia, China and other nations. These people who yearn for a livelihood come to Israel’s prosperous economy. Here Israel must face its own Jewish past when we were illegal immigrants to Israel in light of the British mandate let alone to so many other countries during the period leading up to World War Two. Now Israel struggles with what policy to adopt that is consistent with Jewish values of respecting the stranger in our midst and at the same time does not threaten the economy or Israel’s ongoing security issues and the Jewish character of Israel.

How do we react to the millions of illegal immigrants who have crossed our borders? They use our social services which we pay for and their children born in this country become citizens. Should we support state government efforts to close our borders and severely restrict potential illegal immigration? They are our landscapers and our dish washers and our agricultural labor and our apartment maintenance people etc. In an economy of so many unemployed can we really count upon the idea, as some presidential candidates have intoned, of self deportation? There are so many citizens who need a job. Must we act to rid our country of illegal immigrants so that we can return these manual labor jobs to the unemployed in our midst? Is that policy realistic? Is it right?

The Hebrew word for stranger is ger which derives from the root to sojourn or dwell. It refers to a person who has come to dwell in our nation who is not a member of that nation. In the ancient land the stranger would come to the nation because of famine or many other political or economic hardships. The Torah narrates the stories of Abraham and Isaac who both left Canaan to Egypt because of famine. Of course Jacob and his clan went down to Egypt under Joseph’s protection. In that situation we came in as legal immigrants but were then declared illegal and cast into a 400 year slavery.

The Bible tells us that the stranger must be accepted into our community. In fact they too were expected to observe the Sabbath as the Israelites. By reading the books of Chronicles which details much of Israelite history, we see how the Israelite kings used foreign immigrants for public work projects.

“David commanded to gather together the strangers that were in the Land of Israel, and he set masons to hew wrought stones to build the house of God. Solomon numbered all the strangers that were in the Land of Israel, numbering them were found a hundred and fifty thousand and three thousand and six hundred.”

 Israeli Supreme Court Justice Haim Cohen wrote, “These strangers, migrant workers, were of vital importance. It was they who did the heavy manual labor, and it would appear that already then the Israelites themselves avoided such work.” Justice Cohen goes on to argue that Judaism has embedded in its spiritual reservoir the utmost respect for non-Israelite residents. And this fact of history and theology supports why we have been overwhelmingly sensitive and empathetic to the immigrants who have come after us to America.

One final piece of evidence comes from medieval Spain. The commentator Moses Ibn Ezra commented on the verse not to oppress the stranger.   He writes, “As a resident alien, he has no family roots in the land, so it would be easy for the citizens to wrong him whether regards to money or to housing, and even to oppress him by means of false testimony.  You must not wrong a stranger either, merely because you have more power than he.  Remember that you were once strangers like him.”

Does this not bear relevancy for today?  True we must make difficult decisions. Will we support efforts to purge or cleanse our country of these people? Will we come to grips with America’s ideal and its promise?  True, we must be honest about our feelings about Hispanics and other minority groups in general as we decide our position on illegal immigration. Is the best or proper solution for illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship? Or do we as a society continue a national policy of perpetual indecision?

The Torah tells us, “Have one law for the stranger and the citizen alike”(Lev.24:22). Putting both laws together is a political and spiritual challenge to keep this nation strong.

Torah Thoughts: Parashat Yitro. Environmental and Spiritual Sustainability

Parashat Yitro 2012

In the presidential heat of an election year, we listen to the debates. Two particular controversial ideas, for example, are the debt crisis and the unemployment rate. Regarding the debt crisis candidates challenges us to consider what we shall leave behind to our grandchildren with regard to the out of control debt that our country incurs each day. The same idea of what we leave behind to our future resonates when we hear about preserving the environment at the cost of sacrificing old and new jobs. The debate over the recent pipeline proposal from Canada to Texas that the Administration put a hold on is a classic example of pitting jobs against preserving the environment.

This idea of being aware of what we owe our progeny resonates for us in Judaism. In particular this week we observed the holiday of Tu B’shevat which is the 15^th of the month of Shevat. It is a holiday that is growing in Jewish consciousness because it was established long ago to celebrate the trees and the benefit they provide us. Needless to say this little known holiday gives us a new perspective on the environment. We are all especially sensitive to global warming, air pollution and spoiling of the nation’s waterways. Again this holiday reminds us of the moral imperative that Jews should embrace as part of our stewardship to the planet to work for repairing the physical world –tikkun olam.

What is the key term today in the culture that responds to these issues? It is sustainability. Moral sustainability and economic sustainability and spiritual sustainability are all interconnected to the political and cultural climate of our country and to the world. Congregation Beth Yam can contribute to environmental sustainability by doing what we can inside our house of worship as well as for the community at large to contribute to preserving our pristine Hilton Head and Bluffton area.  On a broader scale Jews we have worked to support the Jewish National Fund which grows trees in Israel. Trees still need to be planted in Israel and the environment is still at risk in Israel with regard to water issues and particularly the drying up of the Dead Sea. Our children and grandchildren are growing up with the responsibility that environmental sustainability is essential for our future.

The underlying point is that we and our progeny will have to accept that in order to achieve sustainability for our economy, our environment and our spirituality that we will impose limitations on our desires to pursue our pleasures, conveniences and our way of life. That is the challenge we face as humans when we are also supposed to be caretakers of the world that God gave us. We have to do more with less is the ethos of our age.

I want to share with you a Talmudic story (BTa’anit 23a) about a man who lived in the first century of the Common Era. His name was Honi and he was a respected sage. Rabbi Yohanan asked whether it was possible for a man to doze off and dream continuously for 70 years. One day, as he was walking on the road, he saw a man planting a carob tree.  He asked him, “How long will it take this tree to bear fruit?”  The man replied, “Seventy years.”  He asked, “Are you quite sure you will live another seventy years to eat its fruit?  The man replied, “I myself found fully grown carob trees in the world; as my forebears planted for me, so I am planting for my children.

Are there not a lot of things that we do and work for in our life that is not for us alone but is for those who come after us? How many of us, for example, have addressed with experts the importance of proper estate planning? We all want our assets to go to our descendents and we want to know that our wishes and our values will be respected so that the assets are channeled to our loved ones. Our work, the product of our labor, is not just about us. The benefit is for those who we care about besides us alone. That is partly what sustainability is all about. We need to plant a future, like Honi, for our progeny that our economic, spiritual and physical environment will be fruitful for them as it was for us.

In this week’s parasha Yitro, God gives us the Ten Commandments. There is no mention per se about the physical environment in the Ten Commandments.  But idolatry and creating idols reminds us that when we think we can do whatever we want with our world and with our environment that we are subtly turning ourselves into an idol. In other words when human desires and human needs have no check upon them then we have built a Tower of Babel, an idol to ourselves.

When forget to respect the Shabbat then, for example, we have lost touch to let the land remain fallow and regain its resources to grow crops in the future. We have threatened our spiritual heritage of the Sabbath and our economic interests to preserve sustainability for the earth. 

When we forget to adhere to not coveting our neighbors’ possessions do we not risk unleashing unrestrained desires to acquire anything and to use any resources from our land for anything so long as it satisfies our consumption desires? Is that not coveting our neighbor’s possessions? When that happens have we sacrificed sustainability for unbridled consumption and, therefore, the future that Honi wanted for his forbears.

What is so important to realize in the connection between the Ten Commandments and the environmental sustainability issues is that our survival and our ethical standing requires us to impose limitations upon our wishes and desires.  The Ten Commandments are about God saying to us that we must accept boundaries upon our behavior. We are not totally free to live the way we want. For a society to sustain itself it must create and identify moral and immoral behaviors. That is what the Ten Commandments are about and what the rest of the mitzvoth demand from us. They teach us what God wants from us and they teach us how we can live as a community in a way that honors humankind and God who created us.

How do we defeat hatred? Parashat B'shallach

Parashat B’shalach

(A nuclear armed Iran: How do we defeat hatred?)

It is chilling and frightening to digest continuing news reports as Israel contemplates when and if to launch a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. I say this not just because of the repercussions, both intended and unintended, for Israel let alone for the United States.  I say this because following the course of this scenario gives rise to an unknown and unpredictable apocalyptic chain of events.  For those events to unfold Israel will determine that it will have no choice, as though it was backed up against the wall with no place else to go, except to strike out against Iran. The potential of a nuclear Holocaust arises from the ideological triumphalism that stokes the hatred of the religious and political leadership of Iran.  On the other hand, can Israelis definitively know whether such a justifiable and legitimate preemptive attack, despite their enormous military arsenal, will serve Israel’s security interests and its diplomatic reputation in the world?

Rest assured Israeli society and its policy makers, military brass and its political leaders are grappling with this question.  Yet the Torah portion, B’shallach, reminds us from the annals of ancient history, in vastly different circumstances, of a situation when we felt our backs were up against the wall. The last 70 years were full of threats from the Arabs that they would drive us into the sea. In this week’s parasha we see the origin of that horrific thought when Israel began their trek out of Egypt. Bolstered by the devastation of the plagues, they stood at the shore by the Sea of Reeds. Pharaoh, violating his promise to let them leave Egypt, pursues the people with his armed forces to the Sea. Here our story could have ended and the Israelites would have not even been a footnote in history.  But the Torah narrates the drama of Israel’s faith and its fears to take the leap into the sea.. Even Moses is not sure how his people could  avoid the wrath of Pharaoh’s triumphalism and hatred. Once again it is an existential moment of life or death for the Jewish people.

The point in the story I want to highlight in the Torah mirrors what we are experiencing today with Iran. We see the power of unrestrained hatred in the hardened heart of Pharaoh. It was ugly and destructive for us and for Egypt as well. In chapter 14 of Exodus, all we have to do is to imagine the rhetoric then and apply it to today’s Iranian leaders as they set their sights to annihilate Israel.

“He (meaning Pharaoh) made ready his chariot and took his people with him. He took six hundred chosen chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt, and captains over all of them.” The Egyptians were headed to the Sea and thirsting to wipe the children of Israel off the face of the earth. The drama intensifies as the Israelites debate what to do. Some cried out to God for salvation. Others demanded that Moses lead them back to Egypt to resume their place as slaves.  Moses himself is not entirely sure what to do and how to navigate through this crisis. God even becomes vexed at Moses and scolds him.

“The Lord said unto Moses:  “Why cry to Me?

Tell the children of Israel to march forward.

As for you lift up your rod,

Stretch your hand over the sea and divide it

And the children of Israel shall go into the midst of the sea on dry ground.” (vs15-16)

Yes there was a miracle coming from God but there was also another message which was that Moses and the people had to own their own survival too. They had to take decisive action along with divine intervention if they wanted to survive Pharaoh’s onslaught.

We have witnessed this scenario play itself out before in Israel’s modern history. In 1948, for example, King Abdullah of Jordan rode in front of his army to the banks of the Jordan River and fired the first shots against Israel near Kibbutz Degania and then returned home. Egypt’s Gamal Abdul Nasser in 1967 and Sadat in 73 also threatened to cast Israel into the sea.   Now President Ahmenijhad has stoked fear into the hearts of Jews world –wide. History teaches that the names change but the goal is always the same.

Once again Israel stands at the shore of the sea deciding what action to take when a modern day Pharaoh seeks our destruction. Once again we witness the internal struggle that only Israel can wage with itself to make its decision as the threshold for stopping or delaying the Iranian momentum to wage nuclear war narrows. Time is running out, the experts say, before Iran is immune to Israeli military intervention. Some  Israelis say we will have to learn to live with this reality in the Middle East. Still others, especially past American leaders, have recently been quoted as saying caustically, that Israel should not worry so much since Iran has only one bomb and Israel has 300. I still cannot fathom the moral underpinnings behind that sentiment.

Who can fathom the deep seated hatred against the Jews that circulates through the heart of the Iranian political leadership? There are ways to counter a military force. There are weapons and military strategy and luck. But how does Israel defeat hatred? Divine intervention freed us but we will never know if Pharaoh ceased to hate the Israelites.  The only answer is to never given in to hatred.

 In fact the sages of the Torah addressed this obsession to hate. In the Midrash the sages observed that Pharaoh himself made ready his own chariot to destroy the Israelites. From that they inferred a principle that hate disrupts protocol. In other words he uncharacteristically saddled his horse and chariot from the uncontrollable hatred. Kings usually stand by, while servants prepare their chariot and harness.  Drunk with hatred for Moses and the Israelites, Pharaoh prepared and harnessed his own chariot. As soon as his courtiers saw what he was doing they followed him.

Trickle down hatred is an old syndrome which appears in the soul of the so-called Supreme Leader of Iran. Hatred infected his courtiers, the revolutionary guards and  Ahmenijhad the Iranian president. Nothing has changed today when it comes to the intoxicant of hatred and how it can corrupt and become self destructive in any human being let alone people in political power.

We cannot forget that symbolically speaking world Jewry is standing at the shores of the Sea with our people in Israel. We will support them and advocate that our America be there with and for Israel at this hour. The real lingering question that remains, the thorniest one of all, is how to counter the hatred not only of Iran but in the Arab world? In other words, how do we beat back hatred of us? Alas this has plagued us for far too long. But it is our burden to bear. This time Israel can defend itself with its military prowess. But the long term battle of defeating hatred and winning over enemies as friends may be the most complex and frustrating strategic effort that Israel and world Jewry must battle against for years to come. We will need more than military might to defeat the advocates of hatred.

 The only way you can defeat hatred is by not giving into it. We will need to retain our own faith in God not because we expect God will split the sea again. We need God to enable us to check our own emotions and spirit to not let the bitterness of someone else’s aggression and hatred dampen the Jewish spirit to win the peace. We cannot let our adversaries see us descend into cynicism or hatred. We cannot give up the Tikvah the hope of our place as a light to the nations or that we would return to the fleshpots of Egypt. In other words we too have a dream that Isaiah spoke of when he said that “nation shall not lift up sword against nation nor will they study war anymore.”  That vision belongs to the Jewish ‘We have a dream speech.’

Interfaith extended family: A challenge for Jewish Grandparents

http://www.islandpacket.com/2012/01/28/1943596/grandparents-must-act-as-faith.html#storylink=misearch


Here is yesterday's column from the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette on Grandparents coping with children and grandchildren being raised in an interfaith family. Your comments are always welcome.

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King

In honor of Martin Luther King Day

This weekend America remembers the works and life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In our community the Martin Luther King committee had an interfaith service on Thursday evening at the AME church. There was a white and black speaker at the service. The audience had a decent ratio of interracial participation. I delivered the invocation and along with scriptural readings from clergy around the community  we achieved the good feeling of unity and remembrance of Dr. King and the cause of social justice.

The next night Congregation Beth Yam had its own Shabbat services that highlighted the civil rights movement and Dr. King’s life. Instead of the typical preacher we invited John Gadson who serves on the board of the Penn center. This was a vocational training center started in the Lincoln administration and educated blacks for almost a century. Dr. King visited there and held meeting of interfaith clergy on its campus because it was the only place that had the facilities to house blacks and whites in those days. Located on Lady’s Island near Beaufort, South Carolina, the Penn center is on the national historic registry. Mr. Gadson, who was once the executive director of the Penn center, and went on to be a teacher in the business school of the university as well as worked in economic planning for South Carolina governor Richard Riley, gave us a history of the Penn center and related his own experience of meeting Dr. King at a meeting of young black leadership.

Our service was packed and the music was dynamic especially with the singing of the Negro national anthem. People felt moved and they remembered the civil rights era as well as learned about a wonderful historic institution in the low country that they never visited or even had heard about before. The feedback was strong and positive. Many commented that they were truly moved. We had a great turn out from the Black community and the socializing was even further evidence that people want to find ways to come together.

Monday morning at 9:30 will be the community march that will lead us to the high school with a great program. We shall remember and hopefully be inspired. Dr. King’s message deserves our time and has earned our respect. I hope that our congregants at Beth Yam will show up and support the congregation and the community at large.

One can say that a lot has changed for the better in terms of race relations since the sixties and the era of Dr. King’s ministry. We have just dedicated a monument in Washington D.C. to Dr. King. We all understand the critical role he played in this country’s history. His advocacy of non-violence and his passion for a better America is still an important message for us to reflect upon and work for in our society. The work is not, however, done because we are even more racially diverse and in need of renewing our commitment to maintaining an ethos that the content of our character means more than the color of our skin. Dr. King’s vision is about social and economic justice as well as racial harmony.

How many of us have friends from another race? When was the last time when we shared a meal or went out socially with a couple or individual from another race? These are the kinds of questions that we should ask at this time because we could make a difference by just starting with ourselves. Tikkun Olam or repairing the world starts with each of us.

Torah thoughts for the Sabbath

 Torah Portion: Parashat Vayechi - January 6, 2012

When a patriarch or matriarch of the family dies, there are different levels of transition. In the life cycle the preparation for the funeral takes center stage and the family comes from all over to participate and plan the funeral service. People are usually on their best behavior.  The children are reflecting and pulled between comforting the surviving parent and, depending on their age, attending to their children too. The rituals of the service and the shiva that follows  plays a powerful role in giving the family and the community an opportunity to pay respects to the family, testify to the best qualities of the deceased and  begin to find a sense of healing. The service transforms the deceased into state of mind from a state of being. Rituals help us canonize our beloved ones into our memory as well as to the communal memory. One would think that would be enough emotional turmoil, but, there may be many more complex and conflicting emotions as well as unresolved issues that even a funeral and shiva cannot bring closure to in this period of mourning. That is exactly where the impact upon the children and the extended family is most acute. It is at these moments when we are all redefining our place not only inside ourselves but in relation to the rest of the family members.

The torah portion is exactly where we find these kinds of issues playing themselves out with the advent of the death of Jacob. Rather than a time for coalescing the children of Jacob in total unity, the emotional climate in this Genesis story is volatile. Rabbinical commentaries are looking to see through the story whether the past can resolve itself or whether the death of Jacob will trigger past conflicts and tear a part the tribes of the sons of Jacob. What do the rabbis see? Furthermore what can we learn from the tense moments and underlying suspicions that surface in the Torah portion that can shed some light between families struggling with the death of a patriarch or matriarch? A strong foundation in the future for our children and grandchildren requires parents and especially grandparents to  be transparent not only about their wills but also about values.

The truth is that in the Torah portion there were tensions and fears percolating beneath the surface that revealed many long term resentments between the children and with Jacob himself. Even the text of the Torah tells us that after Jacob’s death, the brothers were afraid that Joseph would slay them all in revenge for their selling him into indentured servitude.  The Torah teaches that people are the same in the ancient or contemporary world when it comes to grieving. In other words rivalries and jealousies will always exist and parenthetically, people have the capacity to rise to the occasion and they can, on the other hand, regress to an embittered side of themselves.

Tonight we are reading the final Torah portion, Vayechi, in the book of Genesis. Let’s remember that Joseph had brought the entire family to Egypt. He has revealed himself to his stunned brothers as the second most powerful man of Egypt next to Pharaoh himself. He has taken no vengeance even though his brothers live in fear that at any minute he might do so. But they know that Joseph will not hurt them as long as their father Jacob lives.  By chapter 50, Jacob has blessed all the children and given them his patriarchal message. It is now time to return him  to the cave of Machpelah in Hebron to be buried alongside his father and mother Isaac and Rebecca and his wife Leah and grandparents Sarah and Abraham. Imagine the scene of everyone gathered together at the cave. Joseph has received permission from Pharaoh to escort his father’s body back to their homeland of Canaan.

This situation is not altogether different from modern day families  who come together to bury a parent. They will put on their best face on in front of the community. And many times there are families who have worked out their issues and the funeral can be an opportunity to build stronger bonds in an extended family.

Unfortunately, the rabbinical stories sense that this moment of burial in the Torah was full of latent fears and old unsettled accounts that threatened to destroy the unity of the tribes of Jacob.

Let me give you a brief flavor from the Talmud of this family’s issues.  In one Midrash the sages tell us that once the word of Jacob’s death became public, Esau and his clan came, the progeny of Ishmael, and the children of Abraham’s second wife Keturah all attended.  Their purpose was to make war upon Jacob’s children for all the injustices their parents experienced.

In one episode from the Talmud, Esau saw that there was an extra burial space opened available since Rachel was buried outside of Bethlehem. Esau said that he wanted that space next to his father for himself. They text of the aggadah describes the story of the verbal altercation between Esau and his nephews. They refuse to let him have the plot for himself claiming that he sold his birthright to Jacob long ago. Acknowledging this fact, Esau still insists that they show him the bill of sale for the entire burial property that Abraham purchased years before from Ephraim the Hititte. This family feud ends up delaying the funeral. The brothers are about to send  Naphtali back to Egypt to retrieve the bill of sale for the cave . At that point one of the sons of Dan, Hushim became so angry at the idea of delaying the burial and it being an insult to their grandfather takes a club and strikes Esau on the head so hard that his eyes popped out. At that very moment, the sages say, Jacob opened his eyes and smiled. They then buried him immediately.

One final story was the moment when sons of Jacob had arrived back to Canaan. The brothers watched Joseph go over to the pit where they had originally thrown him when he was a youth. The brothers said, “Surely he will take his revenge against us!” But Joseph did no such thing. As he stood and remembered those days, he invoked a blessing that they had survived and thanked God for all the good in his life. Needless to say the fear from their actions against Joseph’s was real and palpable inside the brothers. This is not an exactly harmonious family situation.

This is not what we like to think about when imagining our ancestor Jacob’s burying our revered patriarch Jacob. And yet is it all that foreign to us when we are talking about the here and now? Whether it is money or family heirlooms, the death of a parent is a time of delicate emotions even in the best of situations. How many people do we know who have estranged relationships with their parents, children and siblings?  Yes, we live our daily lives without focusing on old jealousies or hurts but these ritual moments of life transitions raise to the surface all kinds of issues that can distract us from focusing on the meaning of a loved one’s life. We can see from this story in Genesis that issues were not worked out and while time passes people deal with their issues differently. Some can get over the past and others do not.

What also exacerbates these issues today is the geographic reality that families are increasingly spread out all over the country and the world. It becomes harder to work out issues from childhood and move on. The challenge, nevertheless, is when unresolved hurts or conflicts fester over years which mean it becomes harder to resolve them and the time of a funeral is a difficult time to make shalom even if we look united on the outside.

Today we have so many social medium available to keep us in touch with relatives, and, therefore, more opportunities to make amends. The question is whether we have the will to do so? Truthfully I have witnessed all too many episodes of family members either unwilling or simply afraid how to go about making peace with family members.

Building trust with family is an ongoing process and one that requires us to take the time to keep up with family and make an extra effort to get together. Even learning how to communicate with our children about the contents of the will and removing the doubts and questions about who gets what is, in my estimation, an important part of the process of  keeping the family together after a parent passes. Transparency is critical when grandparents are thinking about the long term of the well being of children and grandchildren.

I have learned from others that preparing for one’s death  and sharing our plans with the children is the best way to create a pathway for  the future that our children and grandchildren will remember us maintain civil and even warm relations between themselves. But the best way to avoid issues like what we saw at the end of life is to work on them now.

Shabbat shalom