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

The president speaks

Now he moves to israel and the peace. He supports israel. Peace is in the long term interest of israel. A strong israel transcends all politics. He cites tikkun olam again. Unshakeable commitment to israel and its security, he proclaims. No administration in history has done more to secure israel than obama, he proclaims.
Iran now. Us will take no options off the table.
US was there to help israel . "Dont believe others who tell a different story. Those are the facts." Now he quotes from pirke avot. , we are not obligated to complete the task. Neither can we desist from it. Heneni he says. He will keep america's promise no matter how long it takes. Our best days are still to come.
The crow is applauding wildly.
Thats's it. Commentary to come later.

The president speaks

Compliments urj religious action Ooooo center. The crowd cheered.
He is talking about his daughter attending so many bar and bat mitzvah services. She is the expert on jewish ritual in the Obama house.

Now he is talking about this weeks' torah portion. He quotes the hebrew word heneni! Joseph is the central figure. He sees and feels that the biblical jewish story and his own story resonate together.
He quotes the term tikkun olam repairing the world. He has captured the convention.
Now he is talking about the value of change and how his administration hss made changes. Health care, gay rights, economic justice, ending the war in Iraq and so forth.
The crowd loves it.he speaks of the shared values that transcend all faiths. his mission is about about the struggle to enable all americans to enter the middle class. He says" heneni here I am. " he is willing to fight for all americans to achieve this objective.

The president speaks.

We have just spent the last hour listening to the Religious Action Center celebrate its 50th anniversary. Videos, testimonial speeches and a jazzed up version of America the Beautiful. We are still waiting. Patience.

Day Two the URJ Biennial Convention

Blogging the URJ convention: Day Two

It is after midnight. I am sitting outside of my hotel with my computer in the unusually balmy night here in National Harbor. So much to say and so little strength to say it at this hour. Maybe that is a blessing for all my readers.

One of the reasons why I love this convention is the kvell moment. I mean those precious moments where one can run into a dear friend be it a colleague or former congregant. But when suddenly a former youth in my congregation who I officiated at his bar mitzvah comes over to me and is now a junior in high school and gives me the biggest hug and with his wonderful smile greets me.  I feel the presence of the Eternal with me in this moment. To know that we are making a difference in the lives of our congregants is what it is all about. This teen is in the regional leadership of the reform movement and that makes me so proud. He has not only grown in stature but in his maturation as a young man. We are blessed to have such fine young people. Truthfully the URJ conventions are reunions of an extended family that defies the imagination. Years ago our relatives used to attend the cousins clubs. Now we have the Biennial convention. Here we are all cousins under the big tent of mishpachah.

Tonight there were three highlights. One was listening to the honorable Deputy Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak. What I shall remember about him was his posture, that is, the way stood with such pride and joy as the crowd stood up and applauded him. It was not that he was relishing the adulation and respect from us all. It looked as if he was this senior statesman and so proud of his country and his role. Think about the rough and tumble fisticuffs of Israeli politics. Here was a night when he could absorb progressive Judaism’s appreciation and respect for the man who has served Israel so honorably over the decades. He gave a great speech reassuring us that he was committed to Israel being a democratic state despite what we may read about the legislation in the Knesset. He applauded us for what we have contributed to the state. And he also acknowledged that it was important for him to listen to us. That is no easy task for an Israeli political leader or for any Jew given our penchant for verbal combat on the drop of a dime. Two Jews and three opinions proclaims the old adage. He said that in Israel it was two Jews and four or five opinions!

The next event was honoring the legal team of David Boies and Ted Olson both of whom received the Maurice Eisendrath Bearer of Light award. Both of these men are famous lawyers who have represented their respective Democratic and Republican parties in some of the most important legal cases of the last two decades. Remember they were adversaries in the election results of the Bush-Gore presidential election. Now they have joined forces to take on the state of California to oppose proposition eight which discriminates against same sex marriage. There are getting ready for their appearance at the Supreme Court and they are doing their best to educate the country that the government should no longer discriminate against its citizens regarding choosing a partner. The fact that these two giants of American jurisprudence could stand together and transcend the partisan divide on this issue was truly an inspiration to us all.

Finally the evening program concluded with resolutions. The most important one to mention was Reform Judaism’s stand on economic justice for all. Our temple President Ted David was invited to serve on that committee. Kudos go to Ted and the committee for his work to bring the resolution to the plenary.

I do not want to skip the fact that the Republican House Majority Leader Representative Eric Cantor spoke to the assembly.  The fact that he is Jewish was a wonderful addition to the role he was playing as the Majority leader of the House of Representatives. Briefly he assured the audience that his party and the congress would stand behind Israel and do everything in its power to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. His received a warm welcome and applause. We were fortunate to have him at the Biennial. Tomorrow we shall here from President Obama.

I enjoyed going to the session this morning on Progressive Judaism in Europe today. We had several rabbis from Germany, Great Britain, and Poland talking about the challenge of maintaining Jewish life in these countries. There is the competition with Habad and the Orthodox establishment and the cultural differences of Jewish identity issues in Europe in a post Holocaust era and migrations of Jews from the former Soviet Union into Western Europe.  The World Union of Progressive Judaism works with our movement all over the world. Of course the governments in Europe support through taxes the different religions in Europe. What a challenge and yet more congregations and even a rabbinical school for liberal Jews in Germany are growing each year.

Last but not least I went over to one of the halls to listen to an Israel jazz group called Seeds of the Sun. Fantastic. The leader Mattan Klein who I know personally is a flutist. We have to find a way to bring them to Hilton Head one day. Good night to all and Good morning to you all.

Shalom

rb