What does the word “Kum” mean? To stand up. We use it in our liturgy, “Tzur Yisrael, Kuma b’ezrat Yisrael,” “Kuma Adonai….” They demand that God stands up. They also work as stage directions as we stand up.
Earlier this week, Simon and I went to a restaurant that has become a favorite. We were celebrating the 29th anniversary of our engagement. Yes, it is Bastille Day and while I condemn the rising anti-Semitism in France, I still enjoy good French food. Their mustard vinaigrette is the best that I have ever had, with the exception of the family’s favorite French restaurant in Manhattan. And the white sangria is celebratory like the mimosas we drank 29 years ago.
However, there was a pair of women sitting at the table next to us. They were discussing home improvement projects, one in a lilting Irish accent. It was impossible not to hear. At one point the Irish woman expressed dissatisfaction with her interior decorator. It seemed she was routinely late, by as much as an hour and half and didn’t have good supervisory skills over her contractors. I don’t know why the interior decorator wasn’t fired from the description. That’s what I would have done. Then the woman described the painting bid. It was for a half a million dollars. She thought it was high. But here is the bombshell. “But what can you expect? She’s Jewish.”
I didn’t say anything. But for me, lunch was ruined. Then I have spent the rest of the week wrestling with whether I should have said anything…
Today’s Torah portion, teaches us that we need to speak up. That even though we may believe that silence is golden (and duct tape is silver I have the t-shirt to prove it), silence means assent. For me, I think that means I should have spoken up. By not doing so, even though the conversation was not directed at me, I gave tacit approval.
Today’s portion describes the procedure for canceling a vow. It may seem a little dated, as it explains how to cancel a vow of your wife or daughter. But the underlying principle holds. Silence is assent.
What is a vow? A vow is an oath, a promise, an obligation. You shall not take the name of the Lord in vain. (Exodus 20:6) You shall not swear falsely by My name (Leviticus 19:12). If you make a vow, you need to fulfill it. Orthodox Jews go a long way to not making vows, promises in God’s name—they start promises with the phrase, “b’li neder, without a vow.”
If you are the husband or father and hear a vow that your wife or your daughter makes, you can cancel it, disassociate yourself from it, disavow it. If and only if you do so on the day you hear it. Only on the day you hear it. Otherwise, the assumption is that you approve. You are giving tacit acceptance. You agree with what your wife or daughter has promised.
But you have to stand up—and actively say you disagree. You cannot remain silent. Silence means assent. Silence means you agree.
Sometimes it is hard to speak up. Sometimes we want to look away. Sometimes we want to ignore. Sometimes there are plenty of other things we would rather do.
This week’s haftarah addresses this concept too. Here we find “the call of Jeremiah”, when Jeremiah was appointed by God to speak for God. Jeremiah doesn’t want to. He joins a long list of “reluctant” prophets that include Moses (I can’t speak, I am slow of speech) and Jonah (they won’t listen to me and if they do it will the quintessential “I told you so” moment so I am going to run away!). Esther also was afraid to speak up. God reassures Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the belly I knew you, and before you came out of the womb I sanctified you; I have appointed you a prophet unto the nations…Be not afraid of them; for I am with you to deliver you,”
The medieval commentator Sforno teaches “When a person has the ability to protest and remains silent, his silence is similar to verbal consent. When you do not say something to disagree, it is as if you agree with what was said or done.”
When looking at the root causes of the Holocaust, we teach students about bystander behavior—those who just stood by and watched and did nothing and upstander behavior, those who took a risk and stopped the action. They demonstrated great courage.
This has implications today.
So my question this morning, what are the things we want to stand up and be counted for. What are the things we cannot be silent about?
The list the congregation brainstormed included:
- Immigration reform
- Israel
- Honesty and Truth
- The environment
- Peace
- Education
This becomes the social action agenda of the congregation.
It mirrored the list that I had derived:
- Standing up for the right to education for all girls, all boys everywhere
- Standing up for the right to medical care for all
- Standing up to take care of the widow, the orphan, the stranger
- Standing up for Israel
- Standing up for justice
- Standing up against anti-Semitism
- Standing up for peace
As we enter the second week of Operation Protective Edge, this need to stand up and be counted and stand up for truth and honesty is so painful and so clear. This week’s parsha can be divided into two sections. The second section uses the ancient Hebrew that sounds like Israel Channel Two broadcasting this week’s news. How many soldiers are called up from each tribe. What each branch of the army, tzava, is supposed to do.
As we are standing up and speaking out—I urge caution. Be careful what is true. Check and double check each Facebook posting. Read responsible news sources. Do not inflame an already dangerous situation. Do not fan the flames of hatred. Saying that Israel has a right to defend itself is responsible. Saying that all Muslims want the death of all Israelis or that Israel should bomb the Palestinians to smitherines is not helpful.
Rabbi Larry Moldo, reflecting on the parsha as his Facebook status said this:
The portion this week teaches us that silence after being informed means assent. I have seen a partial list of atrocities committed worldwide this past year, and I declare that they have not been committed in my name, with my permission, or at the behest of the God or Judaism I believe in. A point of pressure should be found against the Boku Haram, so that no more innocent girls are targeted for slavery and death. All children should be educated and fed enough to survive, and nobody should be targeted simply because of their religion. No country should be involved in killing its own people, and leaders who are interested in that should all go into the same padded cell and leave their countries to a peaceful existence without them. All leaders (including our own) should, once they are elected, only have as much to live on as the poorest person in the country or state,with no gifts allowed at all. That may mean no further travel anywhere or communication with their constituents until after they have served their term, but if that helps increase the empathy level of the government (or at least reduces the tendency to get rich off the masses), it might be worth a shot. In the meantime, let us strive to be nice and kind to each other, for that is one thing over which we have some control.
The congregation liked Rabbi Moldo’s list. I like his formulation. It reads like the formulation for Kol Nidre. “I declare that they have not been committed in my name, with my permission or at the behest of the God or Judaism I believe in.”
Some of the things we have seen this week are just wrong. The shooting down of a civilian aircraft. The loss of innocent lives on both sides of the Israeli-Gazan conflict. The death of more Kenyans. Children on our southern borders being held in jails. Children going to bed hungry at night. Closer to home, the continuing gun violence in Chicago. None of them have happened with my permission. I disavow myself of them all.
Maybe I can’t prevent the whole world from sin, or my community or family or even myself. But I am still accountable if I do nothing. And maybe, just maybe, I could have saved my lunch if instead of silence, I had stood up, and spoken out.
Margaret, thanks for the good advice.. “As we are standing up and speaking out—I urge caution. Be careful what is true. Check and double check each Facebook posting. Read responsible news sources. Do not inflame an already dangerous situation. Do not fan the flames of hatred. Saying that Israel has a right to defend itself is responsible. Saying that all Muslims want the death of all Israelis or that Israel should bomb the Palestinians to smitherines is not helpful.”… I have to admit hearing about what was going on last week, between Gaza and Israel, had me feeling more angry than I like to be…
Jim–I am angry too. I am angry that we seem to keep repeating ourselves. For generations. For centuries. Explain invading Midian. Explain the idea that “God is on our side.” Really? I am not so sure. Explain how because Israel protects its citizens and helps them build and then find shelters so there are not casualties and when over a thousand missiles are fired into Israel, how this is Israel’s fault. People only hear sound bites and forget history. This is dangerous. That makes me angry too. It also makes me angry when people say there are no moderate Muslims. Those that are do live in fear for their own lives. This will make any hopes for peace even more difficult. But to say there is no one–that smacks of the kind of all or nothing thinking that Jews faced during the Holocaust. How dare we now perpetrate it on another group. Tonight–yes–I am angry–and very, very sad.
I am very touched by your d’var this week, especially in light of the conflict in Israel and the territories and it matters to world opinion. Your reference to Rabbi Moldo reminded me of the teachings of the Mussar, which says that humility is knowing when to practice silence for the sake of the community and when to step forward for the sake of the community.
I wanted, however, to suggest that your decision not to stand up in the restaurant would have been in keeping with the teachings of the Chofetz Chaim, who gave us some excellent guidance on when to step forward with criticism and when to be silent.
He said that when a person needs to be told his behavior is inappropriate, the person who tells him must (1) take the person to be criticized away from others so as not to embarrass them, (2) have the right intentions, and finally (3) be a person whom the person to be criticized “can hear,” meaning, someone whom the person respects enough to listen to.
Given that you, a total stranger, inserting yourself into her private conversation would likely have made her defensive and embarrassed (even if you could have found a way to pull her aside), your instincts were good. Telling her probably would have just given her another reason to dislike Jews. Your instincts were good.
A very good point I had not considered. The Chofetz Chayim could be a whole other blog post. Maybe closer to Rosh Hashanah! Thanks!
Years ago, on a Confirmation Class trip to NYC, I didn’t give any money to a stranger who asked me for some. I remember telling you about this and still feeling that I did the wrong thing. Now you’ve told us about your situation in the restaurant, and you still feel guilty. We are human, and as such, we make mistakes. What’s more important is that we learn from our mistakes.
We won’t always make the right choice, but as long as we think about what we’re doing and try to do what we should, I think we’re on the right path. You can change the word “right” if you wish, but however you say it, the fact remains that it is the responsibility of everyone to choose how to act. If more people act responsibly more often, I pray that our world will improve.