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RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:JEWISH RENEWAL:JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL:TOPLESS JEWS:
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RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL: JEWISH SPIRITUALITY: 'TOPLESS JEWS'
RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL: JEWISH SPIRITUALITY: 'TOPLESS JEWS'
Dear Reader: From one of my students, in Brazil : Marco:
Shalom:
I apologize if my English is not as eloquent as Rabbi Riemer's below post. It
is not my first tongue. My rabbi's wife has helped shape this for me.
I read the below and many thoughts came to my head from my reading and my
studies with my rabbi-teacher Dr Rabbi Arthur Segal this past year.
I remember the story in the Talmud of the two young boys asked, to see if
they were able to participate in a minyon, where God is.
One pointed up to the ceiling, and the other went outside and pointed up to
the heavens.
Both where considered by the head rabbis to understand the concept of Who we
worship and eventually became famous rabbis themselves.
While we as adults understand that God is all around us, and resides in our
hearts, [where ever we allow Him into our hearts], being 'Topless' can be
defined as being Godless.
The whole purpose of study is to get closer to God and His will, and then
understanding that all humans are His children and our siblings.
When we treat another human badly, we treat God, our Heavenly Father, badly.
This does not please God. If we want to please God, my rabbi-teacher tells
me, we need to treat God's children correctly.
Indeed the Talmud tells us that God would rather us treat our fellows
correctly, then be strictly kosher or strictly watching Shabbat.
Rabbi Reimer and the other three rabbis quoted are correct.
We do many things to separate ourselves from God, from each other, and from
life itself.
To me use of a laptop or a cell phone in a meeting with fellow humans is
just another sign of what we humans have always done and what Judaism has been
teaching us not to do.
Staying with Moses for a moment, the Torah is very clear that he was too
busy working, to circumcise his two sons, and too busy working to have
intimacy with his wife. Moses spent so little time with his sons they are barely
mentioned in the Torah.
Moses had no modern electronics.
But he still had his own version of a laptop and a cell phone.
From the first Passover to the present we Jews have found ways to put
ourselves back into bondage and to separate ourselves from God and from each other.
Few of us truly live day by day in the moment seeing every one of God's
blessings. Few of us truly understand to be able to say to God that You: 'open
up Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living being...God is close to
all who call upon him sincerely' (Psalm 145).
If we truly had faith, trust and belief in God, my teacher on-line taught me
last week, we would not be jealous of others. We would know that God gives
us more than enough. He gives us exactly what we need. We would revel in
others successes. We would not be like Korach and try to keep Moses from sharing
his wisdom.
Jews had a false god 7 weeks after the first Passover, the Golden Calf.
We continued to do so through out the Tanach. We continue to do so today. We
will work on Shabbat for gold, and ignore our families and God.
Using a cell phone or a laptop when one is with other humans, ignoring them,
to either communicate with another human, but most likely do so to earn
money, is just another way to worship an idol, (money) while ignoring God and His
creations.
We have had 'topless' Judaism for a long time and we need Jewish Spiritual
Renewal which my on-line rabbi is teaching me, and others, to understand that
God is at the top of our lives. While we modern Jews have changed our prayer
books and have taken the ban off women, all good things, we have developed an
arrogance, a lack of humility, forgetting that what we have accomplished is
NOT from our hand, but a loan from Him, to be shared, and not protected.
I pray for the day when Jews and all who call upon the name of God as their
Rock and Redeemer, come to meetings, and come to human interactions , be they
in person, or via email or web classes, Top-Full with God's love, compassion,
mercy, and wisdom. Amein.
Shalom.
Marco de Fonseca
EXECUTIVES ORDERED TO COME TO STAFF MEETINGS TOPLESS
Parshat Shemot
Rabbi Jack Riemer
I was innocently minding my own business the other day, reading the business
section of the newspaper, when I saw a headline that really shocked me.
It said: Silicon Valley executives are told to come to staff meetings
topless.
My first reaction to that headline was anger.
How could any CEO dare issue such an order? How could any company order its
workers to come to staff meetings topless?
It is a clear violation of the Jewish laws of modesty. And it is a clear
violation of American law as well. I was ready to reach for the phone and
call the American Civil Liberties Union and protest, and then I decided to
read the rest of the article.
This is what it said:
Meetings are sometimes ---whether it be in business or in organizations. And
so what has happened lately is that people have discovered a handy diversion
during staff meetings. As laptops have grown lighter and easier to carry,
people have discovered that they can take them along to staff meetings and
pretend to be taking notes on their laptops while actually sending and
receiving messages, or reading their e-mail, or playing solitaire, while the
meeting drones on and on around them. CEOs are finding out that in this age
of wireless internet and mobile e-mail, having an effective meeting is
becoming more and more difficult. Laptops, Black Berrys, IPods and the like
keep people from being fully present, even though they are physically
present at the meeting. And therefore, more and more Silicon Valley
companies are ordering executives to leave their laptops, or tops as they
are called in Silicon Valley slang, behind on their desks when they come to
staff meetings.
It was not easy at first for executives to get used to the idea of coming to
meetings topless, i.e. without their laptops, but by now many of them have
gotten used to it. Now they are learning how to look at each other and how
to connect with each other during meetings instead of connecting via their
laptops with websites or people a thousand miles away. And as a result, many
of the companies in Silicon Valley report that their meetings have become
much more productive.
When I read that, I decided not to protest and not to raise any objections
over the fact that companies in Silicon Valley are requiring their
executives to come to staff meetings without their laptops. Now my only
complaint is with whoever wrote that misleading headline on the story that
got me so upset.
Now I understand and agree with that CEO who ordered his or her staff to
come to meetings without their laptops. For we live in a world in which the
ever-increasing speed and power of these laptops enables us to toggle back
and forth between tasks. The wireless revolution has turned every laptop
into a mobile communications center. Darting back and forth among multiple
screens, a person can be physically present at a meeting in California while
simultaneously corresponding with someone on the other side of the world.
But that does not make for productive meetings.
Scholars who study the behavior of people at work say that it is
increasingly difficult to get, and to hold, anyone's undivided attention.
Today, workers seem to be more focused on the machines that they carry with
them wherever they go than they are on the people with whom they are
supposedly meeting face to face. It is a source of frustration to those
people who come to the meetings in order to persuade their co-workers of
something, and it makes teamwork very difficult.
I must tell you that part of me has some sympathy for those who use-or who
are tempted to use-their laptops during meetings. I don't know about you,
but I have been to one or two board meetings in my time----not here, but
elsewhere---that were a little bit boring, and I have been tempted, more
than once, to play xs and os, or to doodle during someone's presentation.
And when people ask me why the Messiah has not come yet, I am sometimes
tempted to tell them my theory which is that the Messiah came already---but
that he couldn't get on the agenda, so he left.
Let me tell you about three rabbis who, each in his or her own way, arrived
at the same insight that these CEOs in Silicon Valley have arrived at.
The first is Rabbi Lawrence Kushner of San Francisco. He looked at the story
of Moses at the burning bush that we read today, and he noticed a nuance in
the story that others, who may have read the story more quickly than he did,
probably did not notice.
The story says that Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law and he
led them into the wilderness. An Angel of the Lord speared to him in a
blazing fire out of a bush. He gazed, and there was a bush all aflame---but
the bush was not consumed. Moses said, I will turn aside to look at this
marvelous sight; why does this bush not burn up? When the Lord saw that he
had turned aside to look, God called to him out of the bush.
Rabbi Kushner asks a very simple question about this passage. How long must
a person look at a burning bush before he notices that it is not being
consumed? A minute? Two minutes? Five minutes? And how many of us look at
anything at all for that amount of time?
If we did, he says, who knows how many wonders we might notice too!
God waited until Moses noticed, until Moses turned aside to look at this
wondrous sight, and then He spoke to him. And so it is with us. If we are so
busy, if we are so rushed and harried that we seldom pause to look---to
really look---at anything, is it any wonder that we so seldom notice the
wonders of God?
Rabbi Jamie Korngold of Boulder, Colorado, has the very same insight into
the story as Rabbi Kushner has, but she phrases it in a more whimsical way.
This is her version of what would happen---or to be more exact, of what
would not happen---if Moses lived today.
As she tells the story, this is what happened. Moses was tending the flocks
of his father-in-law, Jethro. He drives the flock into the wilderness, and
comes to Horeb, the mountain of God. He had always found this place
relaxing, and so he decided that this would be a good place to take a break
and relax for a few minutes.
But as he sat down to rest near a bush, Moses thought of all the things that
he still had to do that way---all the things that were on his schedule. He
knew that he needed to get home early that day, in order to change into his
dress robes, and catch a caravan into the city, because he had a packed
afternoon of important of meetings ahead of him. He was trying to figure
out how he could get all his work done in time so that he could get to the
gym that night, and still get home in time, before his son Gershom went to
sleep. Just then, his eye noticed something strange. There was a bush right
in front of him, all aflame, and yet the bush was not being consumed by the
fire! Moses opened his Dictaphone machine and makes a note to himself: I
must come back here tomorrow, if I can find the time, in order to see what
is going on here. And then he noticed that the battery on his machine was
getting low, and so he made a second note to himself to be sure to go on
line or go to Office depot and order some new batteries, first chance he
got.
Just then his cell phone goes off. He grabbed the phone out of his robe
pocket. It was a text message from his friend, Nathan, who always seemed to
know what i was going on in the stock market a day before anyone else did.
Moses read the message, which was written in the abbreviated language that
people who send text messages often use: Wool futures 2 go up tomorrow.
Don't sell your sheep 2 day. Call me L84.
By the time Moses had read the message, he and his sheep are well past the
bush and he has already forgotten all about the strange flames that burned
but did not seem to be consumed. With his cell phone in hand, he calls his
wife, Zipporah, just to check in.
Five minutes later, when he gets off the phone, and took care of the call on
Call Waiting that has been waiting for him, and sent an Instant Message to
deal with the caller's question, he remembers the burning bush, but by now,
it was well behind him. He was tempted to go back and look at it again, but
he realized that if he did, he wouldn't have time to stop at Starbucks and
get a shot of caffeine before his first meeting began. And so he sent an
Instant Message to the fire department instead. The fire department sent a
crew, which put out the fire at once.
Moses makes page 15 of the next day's newspaper for saving the wilderness
from burning down, and that gave him something to talk about during the
staff meetings that he went to that day. Meanwhile, God tried the burning
bush routine a couple more times, but eventually God realized that people
were just too busy to notice the miracle, and so He gave up.
God thought of sending His message by e-mail instead, but Moses didn't
recognize who the Sender was, and so he figured it must be spam, and he
deleted it.
And that is why the Israelites stayed in Egypt for such a long time, and why
Moses did so well in the shepherding business that he eventually
conglomerated his father-in-law's flocks with the flocks of many other
people, and went on the big board and became a high powered executive on
Wall Street. But unfortunately, his home life was terrible, because he never
had time for his wife and children, and, as a result, the life of Moses was
a mixture of success and failure. He did at the age of sixty, from a heart
attack that he got while in the middle of an important staff meeting, and by
now his name is no longer remembered.
That is the way Rabbi Korngold tells the story of Moses at the burning
bush slightly adapted and barbessered.
Now, let me share with you the teachings of one more rabbi, before I close.
His name was Rabbi Menachem Mendl of Kotsk. I hope that you have heard about
him. If not, you should, for he was one of the most exciting Jewish leaders
of the last few centuries. He was a bold, quick tempered, impatient, lonely
and innovative thinker, and his life story and his ideas are well worth your
attention. If you want to learn more about him, both Elie Wiesel and Abraham
Joshua Heschel have written fascinating accounts of his life, which I
heartily recommend that you read.
Rabbi Menachem Mendl of Kotsk was drawn to another passage in the life of
Moses. After the moment at Sinai, God says to Moses: Aley alay hahara,
viheyey sham ==Come up to Me on the mountain and BE THERE.
Says the Kotsker: I understand that God tells Moses to climb up the mountain
to Him. But why does God then say to Moses: =And be there? Obviously, if
Moses climbs up the mountain, he will be there? Why then do we need this
extra phrase?
Rabbi Menachem Mendl of Kotsk answers his own question this way: Anyone can
climb the mountain. That only takes strength and energy. The real task is
=to be there=---to be completely there---to be in the moment there---once
you arrive. Most people are focused on the reason why they have come
someplace for a minute, perhaps for two minutes, perhaps for five
minutes---and then they get distracted, and their minds go wandering
somewhere else while their bodies remain on the mountain.
What God was telling Moses---and by extension, us as well---was to be in the
moment. Otherwise, you will be too distracted to hear the Voice of God or to
notice His Presence or to pay attention to His teachings.
It is not easy to be in the moment nowadays. There are so many distractions
,
all around us and inside us. I think---if I dare say so---that it may be
harder to be in the moment now than it was for Moses then. After all, he had
no laptop and no cell phone.no BlackBerry and no IPod to keep him from
concentrating on what was going on before his eyes. And so, if Moses had to
be told, as the Kotsker claims, not only to climb the mountain but to BE
there, then surely how much more must we learn how to stay focused and how
to concentrate and how to live in the moment---we who live in such a busy
and such a noisy and such a distracting world.
And so I have changed my mind. I am no longer upset with this CEO who
ordered his executives to come to staff meetings topless , as I was when I
first saw that headline. Now that I understand what he meant, now that I
understand that by topless he meant without laptops , I appreciate what he
was trying to do.
And if I can speak for him, which I know that I have no legal right to do, I
think that Moses---at least the way that Rabbis Kushner and Krongold and the
Kotsker understand him----would have agreed with him too.
And so, I ask you in all their names---in the names of Rabbi Kushner and
Krongold and the Kotsker, and in the name of Moses and God as well---to
learn from today's sedra, to learn from the story of what happened at the
Burning Bush, and from what might not have happened if Moses had been too
preoccupied and too busy to pay attention to what is in front of you, to
really see what is in front of you, and not just to glance at it and move on
because you are too busy.
You know: there is a new sign that is found nowadays at the door of almost
every sanctuary. We have one here too. Have you seen it---or have you just
glanced at it but. The sign says everything that I have been trying to say
in this sermon in just a few words. It says: Please turn off your cell
phone or put it on vibrator before you enter the sanctuary, because the
place that you are about to enter is holy
I urge you to pay attention to that sign. I urge you to visualize a sign
like that, not only when you enter the sanctuary but when you enter the
Shabbat as well.
For if we can only learn how to do that, then we will not live such frantic
lives, and we will not have to be told to go to staff meetings topless, the
way they now have to do in Silicon Valley.
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I apologize if my English is not as eloquent as Rabbi Riemer's below post. It
is not my first tongue. My rabbi's wife has helped shape this for me.
I read the below and many thoughts came to my head from my reading and my
studies with my rabbi-teacher Dr Rabbi Arthur Segal this past year.
I remember the story in the Talmud of the two young boys asked, to see if
they were able to participate in a minyon, where God is.
One pointed up to the ceiling, and the other went outside and pointed up to
the heavens.
Both where considered by the head rabbis to understand the concept of Who we
worship and eventually became famous rabbis themselves.
While we as adults understand that God is all around us, and resides in our
hearts, [where ever we allow Him into our hearts], being 'Topless' can be
defined as being Godless.
The whole purpose of study is to get closer to God and His will, and then
understanding that all humans are His children and our siblings.
When we treat another human badly, we treat God, our Heavenly Father, badly.
This does not please God. If we want to please God, my rabbi-teacher tells
me, we need to treat God's children correctly.
Indeed the Talmud tells us that God would rather us treat our fellows
correctly, then be strictly kosher or strictly watching Shabbat.
Rabbi Reimer and the other three rabbis quoted are correct.
We do many things to separate ourselves from God, from each other, and from
life itself.
To me use of a laptop or a cell phone in a meeting with fellow humans is
just another sign of what we humans have always done and what Judaism has been
teaching us not to do.
Staying with Moses for a moment, the Torah is very clear that he was too
busy working, to circumcise his two sons, and too busy working to have
intimacy with his wife. Moses spent so little time with his sons they are barely
mentioned in the Torah.
Moses had no modern electronics.
But he still had his own version of a laptop and a cell phone.
From the first Passover to the present we Jews have found ways to put
ourselves back into bondage and to separate ourselves from God and from each other.
Few of us truly live day by day in the moment seeing every one of God's
blessings. Few of us truly understand to be able to say to God that You: 'open
up Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living being...God is close to
all who call upon him sincerely' (Psalm 145).
If we truly had faith, trust and belief in God, my teacher on-line taught me
last week, we would not be jealous of others. We would know that God gives
us more than enough. He gives us exactly what we need. We would revel in
others successes. We would not be like Korach and try to keep Moses from sharing
his wisdom.
Jews had a false god 7 weeks after the first Passover, the Golden Calf.
We continued to do so through out the Tanach. We continue to do so today. We
will work on Shabbat for gold, and ignore our families and God.
Using a cell phone or a laptop when one is with other humans, ignoring them,
to either communicate with another human, but most likely do so to earn
money, is just another way to worship an idol, (money) while ignoring God and His
creations.
We have had 'topless' Judaism for a long time and we need Jewish Spiritual
Renewal which my on-line rabbi is teaching me, and others, to understand that
God is at the top of our lives. While we modern Jews have changed our prayer
books and have taken the ban off women, all good things, we have developed an
arrogance, a lack of humility, forgetting that what we have accomplished is
NOT from our hand, but a loan from Him, to be shared, and not protected.
I pray for the day when Jews and all who call upon the name of God as their
Rock and Redeemer, come to meetings, and come to human interactions , be they
in person, or via email or web classes, Top-Full with God's love, compassion,
mercy, and wisdom. Amein.
Shalom.
Marco de Fonseca
EXECUTIVES ORDERED TO COME TO STAFF MEETINGS TOPLESS
Parshat Shemot
Rabbi Jack Riemer
I was innocently minding my own business the other day, reading the business
section of the newspaper, when I saw a headline that really shocked me.
It said: Silicon Valley executives are told to come to staff meetings
topless.
My first reaction to that headline was anger.
How could any CEO dare issue such an order? How could any company order its
workers to come to staff meetings topless?
It is a clear violation of the Jewish laws of modesty. And it is a clear
violation of American law as well. I was ready to reach for the phone and
call the American Civil Liberties Union and protest, and then I decided to
read the rest of the article.
This is what it said:
Meetings are sometimes ---whether it be in business or in organizations. And
so what has happened lately is that people have discovered a handy diversion
during staff meetings. As laptops have grown lighter and easier to carry,
people have discovered that they can take them along to staff meetings and
pretend to be taking notes on their laptops while actually sending and
receiving messages, or reading their e-mail, or playing solitaire, while the
meeting drones on and on around them. CEOs are finding out that in this age
of wireless internet and mobile e-mail, having an effective meeting is
becoming more and more difficult. Laptops, Black Berrys, IPods and the like
keep people from being fully present, even though they are physically
present at the meeting. And therefore, more and more Silicon Valley
companies are ordering executives to leave their laptops, or tops as they
are called in Silicon Valley slang, behind on their desks when they come to
staff meetings.
It was not easy at first for executives to get used to the idea of coming to
meetings topless, i.e. without their laptops, but by now many of them have
gotten used to it. Now they are learning how to look at each other and how
to connect with each other during meetings instead of connecting via their
laptops with websites or people a thousand miles away. And as a result, many
of the companies in Silicon Valley report that their meetings have become
much more productive.
When I read that, I decided not to protest and not to raise any objections
over the fact that companies in Silicon Valley are requiring their
executives to come to staff meetings without their laptops. Now my only
complaint is with whoever wrote that misleading headline on the story that
got me so upset.
Now I understand and agree with that CEO who ordered his or her staff to
come to meetings without their laptops. For we live in a world in which the
ever-increasing speed and power of these laptops enables us to toggle back
and forth between tasks. The wireless revolution has turned every laptop
into a mobile communications center. Darting back and forth among multiple
screens, a person can be physically present at a meeting in California while
simultaneously corresponding with someone on the other side of the world.
But that does not make for productive meetings.
Scholars who study the behavior of people at work say that it is
increasingly difficult to get, and to hold, anyone's undivided attention.
Today, workers seem to be more focused on the machines that they carry with
them wherever they go than they are on the people with whom they are
supposedly meeting face to face. It is a source of frustration to those
people who come to the meetings in order to persuade their co-workers of
something, and it makes teamwork very difficult.
I must tell you that part of me has some sympathy for those who use-or who
are tempted to use-their laptops during meetings. I don't know about you,
but I have been to one or two board meetings in my time----not here, but
elsewhere---that were a little bit boring, and I have been tempted, more
than once, to play xs and os, or to doodle during someone's presentation.
And when people ask me why the Messiah has not come yet, I am sometimes
tempted to tell them my theory which is that the Messiah came already---but
that he couldn't get on the agenda, so he left.
Let me tell you about three rabbis who, each in his or her own way, arrived
at the same insight that these CEOs in Silicon Valley have arrived at.
The first is Rabbi Lawrence Kushner of San Francisco. He looked at the story
of Moses at the burning bush that we read today, and he noticed a nuance in
the story that others, who may have read the story more quickly than he did,
probably did not notice.
The story says that Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law and he
led them into the wilderness. An Angel of the Lord speared to him in a
blazing fire out of a bush. He gazed, and there was a bush all aflame---but
the bush was not consumed. Moses said, I will turn aside to look at this
marvelous sight; why does this bush not burn up? When the Lord saw that he
had turned aside to look, God called to him out of the bush.
Rabbi Kushner asks a very simple question about this passage. How long must
a person look at a burning bush before he notices that it is not being
consumed? A minute? Two minutes? Five minutes? And how many of us look at
anything at all for that amount of time?
If we did, he says, who knows how many wonders we might notice too!
God waited until Moses noticed, until Moses turned aside to look at this
wondrous sight, and then He spoke to him. And so it is with us. If we are so
busy, if we are so rushed and harried that we seldom pause to look---to
really look---at anything, is it any wonder that we so seldom notice the
wonders of God?
Rabbi Jamie Korngold of Boulder, Colorado, has the very same insight into
the story as Rabbi Kushner has, but she phrases it in a more whimsical way.
This is her version of what would happen---or to be more exact, of what
would not happen---if Moses lived today.
As she tells the story, this is what happened. Moses was tending the flocks
of his father-in-law, Jethro. He drives the flock into the wilderness, and
comes to Horeb, the mountain of God. He had always found this place
relaxing, and so he decided that this would be a good place to take a break
and relax for a few minutes.
But as he sat down to rest near a bush, Moses thought of all the things that
he still had to do that way---all the things that were on his schedule. He
knew that he needed to get home early that day, in order to change into his
dress robes, and catch a caravan into the city, because he had a packed
afternoon of important of meetings ahead of him. He was trying to figure
out how he could get all his work done in time so that he could get to the
gym that night, and still get home in time, before his son Gershom went to
sleep. Just then, his eye noticed something strange. There was a bush right
in front of him, all aflame, and yet the bush was not being consumed by the
fire! Moses opened his Dictaphone machine and makes a note to himself: I
must come back here tomorrow, if I can find the time, in order to see what
is going on here. And then he noticed that the battery on his machine was
getting low, and so he made a second note to himself to be sure to go on
line or go to Office depot and order some new batteries, first chance he
got.
Just then his cell phone goes off. He grabbed the phone out of his robe
pocket. It was a text message from his friend, Nathan, who always seemed to
know what i was going on in the stock market a day before anyone else did.
Moses read the message, which was written in the abbreviated language that
people who send text messages often use: Wool futures 2 go up tomorrow.
Don't sell your sheep 2 day. Call me L84.
By the time Moses had read the message, he and his sheep are well past the
bush and he has already forgotten all about the strange flames that burned
but did not seem to be consumed. With his cell phone in hand, he calls his
wife, Zipporah, just to check in.
Five minutes later, when he gets off the phone, and took care of the call on
Call Waiting that has been waiting for him, and sent an Instant Message to
deal with the caller's question, he remembers the burning bush, but by now,
it was well behind him. He was tempted to go back and look at it again, but
he realized that if he did, he wouldn't have time to stop at Starbucks and
get a shot of caffeine before his first meeting began. And so he sent an
Instant Message to the fire department instead. The fire department sent a
crew, which put out the fire at once.
Moses makes page 15 of the next day's newspaper for saving the wilderness
from burning down, and that gave him something to talk about during the
staff meetings that he went to that day. Meanwhile, God tried the burning
bush routine a couple more times, but eventually God realized that people
were just too busy to notice the miracle, and so He gave up.
God thought of sending His message by e-mail instead, but Moses didn't
recognize who the Sender was, and so he figured it must be spam, and he
deleted it.
And that is why the Israelites stayed in Egypt for such a long time, and why
Moses did so well in the shepherding business that he eventually
conglomerated his father-in-law's flocks with the flocks of many other
people, and went on the big board and became a high powered executive on
Wall Street. But unfortunately, his home life was terrible, because he never
had time for his wife and children, and, as a result, the life of Moses was
a mixture of success and failure. He did at the age of sixty, from a heart
attack that he got while in the middle of an important staff meeting, and by
now his name is no longer remembered.
That is the way Rabbi Korngold tells the story of Moses at the burning
bush slightly adapted and barbessered.
Now, let me share with you the teachings of one more rabbi, before I close.
His name was Rabbi Menachem Mendl of Kotsk. I hope that you have heard about
him. If not, you should, for he was one of the most exciting Jewish leaders
of the last few centuries. He was a bold, quick tempered, impatient, lonely
and innovative thinker, and his life story and his ideas are well worth your
attention. If you want to learn more about him, both Elie Wiesel and Abraham
Joshua Heschel have written fascinating accounts of his life, which I
heartily recommend that you read.
Rabbi Menachem Mendl of Kotsk was drawn to another passage in the life of
Moses. After the moment at Sinai, God says to Moses: Aley alay hahara,
viheyey sham ==Come up to Me on the mountain and BE THERE.
Says the Kotsker: I understand that God tells Moses to climb up the mountain
to Him. But why does God then say to Moses: =And be there? Obviously, if
Moses climbs up the mountain, he will be there? Why then do we need this
extra phrase?
Rabbi Menachem Mendl of Kotsk answers his own question this way: Anyone can
climb the mountain. That only takes strength and energy. The real task is
=to be there=---to be completely there---to be in the moment there---once
you arrive. Most people are focused on the reason why they have come
someplace for a minute, perhaps for two minutes, perhaps for five
minutes---and then they get distracted, and their minds go wandering
somewhere else while their bodies remain on the mountain.
What God was telling Moses---and by extension, us as well---was to be in the
moment. Otherwise, you will be too distracted to hear the Voice of God or to
notice His Presence or to pay attention to His teachings.
It is not easy to be in the moment nowadays. There are so many distractions
,
all around us and inside us. I think---if I dare say so---that it may be
harder to be in the moment now than it was for Moses then. After all, he had
no laptop and no cell phone.no BlackBerry and no IPod to keep him from
concentrating on what was going on before his eyes. And so, if Moses had to
be told, as the Kotsker claims, not only to climb the mountain but to BE
there, then surely how much more must we learn how to stay focused and how
to concentrate and how to live in the moment---we who live in such a busy
and such a noisy and such a distracting world.
And so I have changed my mind. I am no longer upset with this CEO who
ordered his executives to come to staff meetings topless , as I was when I
first saw that headline. Now that I understand what he meant, now that I
understand that by topless he meant without laptops , I appreciate what he
was trying to do.
And if I can speak for him, which I know that I have no legal right to do, I
think that Moses---at least the way that Rabbis Kushner and Krongold and the
Kotsker understand him----would have agreed with him too.
And so, I ask you in all their names---in the names of Rabbi Kushner and
Krongold and the Kotsker, and in the name of Moses and God as well---to
learn from today's sedra, to learn from the story of what happened at the
Burning Bush, and from what might not have happened if Moses had been too
preoccupied and too busy to pay attention to what is in front of you, to
really see what is in front of you, and not just to glance at it and move on
because you are too busy.
You know: there is a new sign that is found nowadays at the door of almost
every sanctuary. We have one here too. Have you seen it---or have you just
glanced at it but. The sign says everything that I have been trying to say
in this sermon in just a few words. It says: Please turn off your cell
phone or put it on vibrator before you enter the sanctuary, because the
place that you are about to enter is holy
I urge you to pay attention to that sign. I urge you to visualize a sign
like that, not only when you enter the sanctuary but when you enter the
Shabbat as well.
For if we can only learn how to do that, then we will not live such frantic
lives, and we will not have to be told to go to staff meetings topless, the
way they now have to do in Silicon Valley.
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