Vayakhel 2014: Accepting the Gifts of all of us, by Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg

I will never forget the first time I saw my colleague and former boss Rabbi Lynne Landsberg, several years after she had suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury in a car crash. I ran into her at a URJ Biennial convention –the national conference of our Reform movement.

Thirteen years earlier, Lynne had supervised me when I interned for a summer at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington, D.C. Back then, she was a tall, formidable, incredibly well-spoken, and very funny woman. She was a powerful speaker and advocate in Washington on behalf of our movement on important moral issues.

When I saw her at the Biennial thirteen years later, I was overwhelmed by the physical changes. She was small now, and hunched over. She walked with great difficulty, with a cane, her face was disfigured, and her speech was slurred. My heart immediately sank at the sight of this powerful woman who now seemed so diminished. This woman whom I used to go to for help and advice was now asking me to take her by the elbow and guide her through the convention hall.

But as I walked with her, I quickly began to see that this was still Lynne Landsberg. She still cracked me up, she was still bright and articulate. And a couple years later, when I got to hear her speak to a large forum about disability rights, I saw clearly that she is still a powerful speaker and an effective advocate . In fact, because of her life experience, she is even more inspiring now than she ever was before.

This week, in observance of Jewish Disability Awareness Month, Lynne wrote a Dvar Torah – a teaching – for the URJ weekly email. She starts by quoting this week’s Torah portion, which talks about Shabbat.

It says in Exodus 35:2, "On six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of complete rest, holy to the Lord; whoever does any work on it shall be put to death.

She goes on to say[1]:

I know well how harsh the threat of death is. In January 1999, due to a Traumatic Brain Injury sustained from a car accident, I lay near death in a coma for six weeks.

After brain surgery and a month and a half in a coma, I slowly awoke, unable to do literally anything. I could not walk, talk, read, concentrate, or focus for any amount of time. Finally, after four months in the hospital, I came home with 24-hour nursing care. Years and years of intensive rehabilitation followed.

From my 48 years without a brain injury, I. . . know well how liberating it is to rest on Shabbat. But now, I understand that the concept of Shabbat rest implies that you have spent six days creating, producing, and providing – none of which I was able to do for many years following my accident and which I still struggle to do now.

Rest is different from doing nothing. The unfortunate reality, though is that "nothing" is what many people with disabilities do all week with their talents and credentials because they are denied employment and the opportunity to contribute to society in meaningful ways.

According to disability advocates, the vast majority of adults with disabilities are unemployed or underemployed – not because they cannot or do not want to work, but because they are denied the opportunity to work at jobs for which they are qualified, simply on the basis of discrimination. Statistics show that such employment discrimination leads many people with disabilities to lives of poverty and significant financial struggle.

"Nothing" is also what many Jews with disabilities do in our synagogues because they find themselves shut out of participation, both physically and emotionally. Even those Jews with disabilities who are members of congregations may not necessarily be involved in synagogue life. This is due to no fault of their own. Many of these congregants need more from their synagogues than ramps and designated parking spaces. As in the general population, those in the Jewish community have a wide spectrum of disabilities, ranging from the obvious (such as the use of wheelchairs, canes, or prosthetics) to the invisible (including autism spectrum disorders, mental illness, and many others).

Lynne speaks beautifully of the meaning of Shabbat as rest from a week of productive labor, of active engagement with the world. And she teaches us that Shabbat doesn’t hold much meaning when you aren’t able to contribute actively to your community during the week.

In the past few weeks I’ve visited with a number of congregants who, whether due to age or illness, are currently disabled. One of these folks is Peggy Tunick, whom many of you know. She has been an active member of this congregation for decades.  She gave me permission to share a bit about her and to use her name, and I’m so grateful for that.

When I went to see Peggy this week, I was saddened to see how much she has deteriorated physically. A neuro-muscular disease has made it very difficult for her to walk and to speak. But Peggy is still Peggy! Although it was challenging to understand every word she said, I could still see and hear that she has her same sense of humor, her same magnetic personality, her same sharp intellect. Typical of Peggy, before I could even ask how she was doing, she asked me to show her pictures of my kids.

Peggy and several other congregants I’ve visited share the experience of the days running one into the other, without much to distinguish them. They struggle to make their days matter, when so much time is spent doing “nothing.” For each of them, there is a sense of isolation and a yearning for meaningful engagement with the world and with our community. For them, I imagine Shabbat doesn’t feel much different from the rest of the week.

In this week’s Torah portion, Moses and the Israelites begin to build the Tabernacle where God’s Presence will dwell among the Israelites. The first thing Moses does is to ask every Israelite whose heart so moves him or her to bring contributions to the building project. And every Israelite who is moved to participate brings something of value, whether wood or gold or cloth, to the building of this holy space.

Over the years I have seen us in this congregation successfully harness the gifts of many of our members, some of whom have physical, emotional, or mental disabilities. We find ways to make sure every child who wants to become Bar or Bat Mitzvah can do that, no matter what learning differences they may have. We have already taken good steps towards making our synagogue accessible physically and spiritually to all. We don’t have any stairs, we have the ramp to the bimah and a new automatic front door.

A new project in the works is to begin live streaming our Shabbat services and other programs, so that homebound congregants can connect to the community in real time over the internet.  We have also been emphasizing the issue of mental health through our programming and our social action work this year.

But there is always more that we can do, especially when it comes to figuring out how to help those with disabilities bring their gifts to this community. Peggy told me that one of the hardest things about her situation is that she has always been the one who does for others, she has always been independent, she has always been the one to offer help. Now she is on the receiving end, and it’s important for us to give to her. But wouldn’t it be wonderful to find ways for her to continue to give to others?

Another thing that I’d like us to figure out is how to help congregants overcome the embarrassment they feel about coming into the building in a wheelchair or with a walker, especially for the first time. Even though the building is physically accessible, it is emotionally difficult for many folks to overcome that feeling of being exposed, or becoming the center of attention when they come into the building for the first time after an injury or a disease has debilitated them physically.

We also can engage with this issue on the policy level. We need to urge our Senators to finally ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Go to here to take action:  http://action.rac.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=11332

As we devote ourselves to making this community and our world a place where all people can bring their gifts and where all people can find Shabbat rest after a week of meaningful labor, I want to end with my own interpretation of a saying from Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of our Sages:

Ben Azzai taught: “Treat no one lightly and think no-one is useless, for everyone has a moment, and everyone has a place.”

---

[1] http://www.reformjudaism.org/blog/2014/02/21/holy-privilege-resting-shabbat?utm_source=WU&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20140221&utm_campaign=Feature

Parashat Mishpatim 2014: Do you really know the heart of the poor and the stranger? Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg 1/24/14

Perhaps you read this story in the Huffington post a couple weeks ago[1]:

Katherine Hackett has done everything America has asked of her. She is a hardworking, skilled, educated professional who paid taxes and contributed to her community. A single mother from Moodus, Conn., she raised two sons who have served our country in the military.

She worked for 17 years in the health care industry. But 13 months ago, without warning, she got some devastating news that turned her life upside down. She was handed a pink slip and given four weeks' severance pay.

Unemployment benefits have been essential to Katherine's survival during this difficult period. Still, they only covered her mortgage and COBRA, leaving her with only $230 a month for the rest of her expenses. That's less than $8 a day for food, utilities and other necessities. Fortunately, enrollment in the Health Insurance Marketplace thanks to the Affordable Care Act cut her health care costs dramatically. But now, because Congress didn't pass an extension before the end of the year, Katherine and 1.3 million people like her have had their emergency unemployment benefits cut off.

Katherine wrote a letter to President Obama, explaining her struggle. This led to her traveling to Washington a couple weeks ago to introduce the President as he urged Congress to pass the extension of unemployment benefits.

Katherine wanted the president to tell people that she isn't coasting, sitting around the house and enjoying the good life. The mere suggestion is offensive. She is working every day to try to find a new job, sending out resume after resume, applying for every position for which she might be qualified.

In the meantime, she's lost 15 pounds because she's buying less food. She can't replace her old car. To save on heating costs, she's keeping her thermostat at 58 degrees and wearing a coat and hat in the house. She explains that she has a "poverty of spirit" right now and wants nothing more than the dignity and self-respect of going back to work.

There are hundreds of thousands of stories like this in our country right now, including a good number of folks in our own congregation. Most of us probably know at least one person who is unemployed . And so far, our federal government has failed to continue to provide the support these folks need to live while they look for work and to avoid falling into poverty and hunger.

Those who argue against extending these protections say that unemployment benefits remove the incentive for folks to go out and look for a job. But economists can’t prove that this is the case.

What we do know is that no one is living the good life on unemployment insurance, when they at least have the benefits. On average, it replaces only about half of a worker’s earnings – who’s going to be satisfied with a 50 percent pay cut? Why would Katherine Hackett rather wear a coat in the house than enjoy the dignity of work?

What we do know is that many people have given up looking for jobs – after sending hundreds of resumes when there just aren’t enough jobs to go around – there is a deficit of hope. And another thing we know is that with the cut of these benefits, people all over this country are slipping deeper into poverty. I was just at our local Shoreline Food Pantry last week and learned about how the number of people going there has skyrocketed, and how the CT Food Bank which supplies most of their food can’t keep up with the demand.

As Jews, we know is that this is a moral issue, and that we are responsible, because, as we read in this week’s Torah portion, “we know the heart of the poor and the stranger, because we were strangers in the land of Egypt.”[2]

We read in this week’s Torah portion that if we mistreat those in our society who are powerless, God will hear their cries, and we will be responsible for the consequences.

The parasha this week, called “Mishpatim,” brings us a whole series of regulations, including laws regarding how we are to treat the poor, the orphan, the widow and the stranger.

Here is one of them:

If you lend money to the poor among you, do not act toward them as a creditor; exact no interest from them. If you take your neighbor’s garment as a pledge for repayment of a loan, you must return it to him each night before the sun sets; it is his only clothing, the sole covering for his skin. In what else shall he sleep? Therefore, if he cries out to Me, I will pay heed, for I am compassionate. (Exodus 22:24-26)

These laws aren’t just presented to us as a dry list of things we must do or not do. There is an emotional appeal – have empathy – “in what else shall he sleep?!” We know the heart of the suffering. God hears their cry. And therefore, the core of our covenant with God is our obligation to relieve that suffering and protect the powerless because God is compassionate.

The Medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides teaches about a ladder of tzedakah – that there is a spectrum of ways that we can give of what we have to make the world more fair, more just. According to Maimonides, the highest level of tzedakah is to give in such a way that we help people become self-sufficient.

I heard an interview on the radio this week with a man who is unemployed, who spoke of how unemployment benefits have helped him. He talked about what you need in order to find a job – you need an internet connection in order to apply for jobs- companies are not interested in seeing you in person to pick up an application – they turn you away and say go home and apply online. Internet access costs money, and unemployment benefits help with this. And then once you get an interview, you need gas money and a car to get to the interview. Benefits help to cover these costs as well.

Katherine Hackett speaks of her "poverty of spirit" – that all she wants is the dignity of a job. Unemployment benefits provide some basic dignity so that she and others like her can become self-sufficient again. These protections help to provide not only material but spiritual support to people who need it.

In an article I read this week about what it means to be poor, I read this quote that has stayed with me: “to be poor is to feel controlled by the world.”[3] To be poor, to be unemployed, is to live at the mercy of the world.

And so I leave us with some questions – questions that we should be asking ourselves and our public officials. Do we know the heart of the poor, the stranger, the unemployed? And if we do, what is our response – do our hearts close against them or open further?    Can’t we spare just a bit more mercy?

---

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-e-perez/the-dignity-of-work-kathe_b_4557760.html

[2] paraphrase of Exodus 23:9

[3] http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/18/what-happens-when-the-poor-receive-a-stipend/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

If I Only Had a Brain! - Parashat Vaera 2013, delivered on Friday December 27th, 2013 by Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg

I could wile away the hours

Conferrin' with the flowers
Consultin' with the rain
And my head I'd be scratchin'
While my thoughts were busy hatchin'
If I only had a brain

This year does happen to be the 75th anniversary of the Wizard of Oz. But that’s not my only excuse to sing one of my favorite tunes. There actually is a connection between the Wizard of Oz and our Torah portion this week. Both of the stories ask us the same question.

As we know, the brainless scarecrow, heartless Tin Man, the cowardly Lion and the homeless Dorothy face down the Wicked Witch of the West and save the Land of Oz from her terrible power over their land. They sing, over and over again, about what they are lacking. And yet, it is they – that very same scarecrow, Tin Man, lion and little girl - who overcome her in the end.

That very same scarecrow. . .

In our Torah portion, Va-era, we read a genealogy of Aaron and Moses. In this unremarkable, almost boring list of names, we learn who their parents are, what tribe they come from, who they marry, and the names of their children, yada yada yada.

But what catches my attention is the next verse, which says, “It is the same Aaron and Moses to whom God said, ‘Bring forth the Israelites from the land of Egypt. . .’ It was they who spoke to Pharaoh king of Egypt  to free the Israelites from slavery; these are the same Moses and Aaron.. .Moses, who appealed to God, saying ‘ See, I am a man of impeded speech; how then should Pharaoh heed me!’”

That very same scarecrow – if only he had a brain. . .

That very same Moses – if only he didn’t have a speech impediment. . .

Have you ever looked back at your life and asked, “How could it really have been me?” Maybe you look back and see an accomplishment, a victory, a challenge overcome, a trauma survived and feel like it must have been someone else who did that. Maybe you doubt that you could ever have had the strength or courage or compassion or smarts to do it. 

Or perhaps there is a challenge, a task presenting itself to you right now – and you’re asking yourself, “Am I really cut out for this? Do I have the qualities to be a leader in this moment? How did I end up with this responsibility at work or this struggle in my personal life?  How could I, who has never faced something like this before, make it through this difficult time or make that difficult decision? How could I, with all of my faults, weaknesses, lack of this or that talent – ever accomplish this goal? Why can’t someone else just do it instead??”

How do I know if I am capable?”

And the truth is, we can’t know. We really can’t know.

That very same Aaron. . . that very same Moses. .. that very same scarecrow. . .

That very same God!

Up until now, God has never played this role before in history. God is accustomed to things like the daily tasks of creating the world. God has a good track record with bringing fertility to patriarchs and matriarchs like Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca and Jacob and Rachel and Leah, so that the covenantal will get passed down from one generation to the next.

But liberation of the Israelite nation from the grip of the most powerful nation on earth - Egypt? Deliverance of an entire people from oppression and slavery? Redemption ? This is all new territory, even for God. So new that God has to introduce Godself to Moses and Aaron with a new name.

The Torah portion opens with God saying, “I am Adonai.” (using the name YHVH) “I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as El Shaddai (a name associated with creation and fertility), but I did not make Myself known to them by My name ‘YHVH’.. . . I have now heard the moaning of the Israelites because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant. Say, therefore, to the Israelite people: I am YHVH. I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary chastisements. And I will take you to be My people, and I will be your God.”

This is the same God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But God must now manifest with a new name and with new ways. God now needs to act as redeemer and deliverer. There is no proof from the past that God is capable of doing these things. We will only know if God can act in these ways when God indeed DOES act.

That very same God. .. that very same Aaron. . . that very same Moses. ..

That very same scarecrow. . .

The scarecrow doesn’t know he already has a brain. The Tin Man doesn’t know he already has a heart. The lion doesn’t know he already has courage. Dorothy doesn’t know that she can go home. Until the moment presents itself and they act.

They overcome the most powerful wicked witch in the land. And then they can look back and see – ah yes, they had that potential all along. Those dimensions, those qualities were hidden within them the whole time.

And so I ask myself – where in my life am I hesitating? What am I capable of? What dimensions of myself are hidden that I might discover through my own action?

God has waited as his People suffered under Egyptian slavery for 400 years– to show this as-of-yet unseen dimension of God’s self – YHVH the Redeemer and Deliverer

We can’t really know what we are capable of until we go ahead and do it. Sitting back and waiting for someone else to do it could mean that it will never get done – or that it won’t get done for another generation.

The Israelites need Aaron and Moses to act – yes, that same Aaron and Moses.

It WAS THEY who spoke to Pharaoh king of Egypt to free the Israelites.  They only know that it was THEY who could do it until they DID it.

Shabbat Vayiggash – Shabbat of Nelson Mandela’s passing 12/6/13 First Friday Skit, "Joseph and Nelson" - Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg

Joseph and Nelson

Props:

2 metal chairs

Joseph coat

Cast:

Joseph

Nelson

Brothers

Traders

Prison Guards

DeKlerk

A long, long time ago, according to the Torah, there was a man called Joseph.

(Joseph steps out)

He lived in the land of Canaan, on a bridge of land just north and east of the continent of Africa.

Joseph was one of twelve sons, and his father loved him best of all, giving him a many-colored coat to show it. Joseph’s brothers hated him for it.

One day they took off his coat, threw him into a pit in the wilderness and sold him to slave traders who brought him down to Egypt.

(Brothers take Joseph’s coat off, “throw” him into the pit.

Traders come and take Joseph out of the pit)

His brothers were full of lies. They dipped his many-colored coat into goat’s blood and told their father Jacob that Joseph had been torn by a wild beast.

Meanwhile, Joseph became a slave in Egypt. And things kept getting worse. Through a series of unfortunate events, he was unfairly thrown in the deep dark prison dungeon of Pharaoh, even though Joseph had done nothing wrong.

(Prison guard puts Joseph behind the chair – Joseph kneels)

95 years ago – in 1918, a man named Nelson Mandela was born. He lived in a country called South Africa, at the southern end of the continent of Africa.

(Nelson comes out)

As he reached adulthood, he understood that he lived in a time of great injustice. Even though they were the minority, the white people of South Africa had all of the power, had control over all of the land, and had made native black people into foreigners in their own home. Black people had to carry passports with them, were not allowed to live in white areas or go to white schools. They were restricted in the types of jobs they could have, and they could not vote. This was called apartheid.

Nelson Mandela believed that apartheid was wrong, and he risked his life by speaking out and acting against this racist policy. For his actions, he was unfairly thrown into a prison. He was not allowed to leave the prison for almost thirty years!

(Prison guard brings  Nelson behind chair, Nelson kneels)

Two stories of men in deep dark prisons in Africa – Joseph and Nelson.  Neither of them had done anything wrong to deserve being put in the dungeon. And neither of them gave up hope in the darkness.

Joseph made friends with the other prisoners, who were also there unfairly too. He helped them, he listened to them, and he interpreted their dreams. Joseph had faith that his life had a purpose.

Nelson didn’t give up his struggle, even when he was in prison. He was still the voice and the soul of the dream of his people – to be free, to be treated as equals, to have control over their own nation. From prison, Nelson even negotiated with the white president of South Africa, F.W. DeKlerk, persuading him to lift the apartheid laws.

Joseph eventually was freed from prison.

(Prison guard takes Joseph out from behind the chair)

He interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams, and Pharaoh lifted Joseph up

(Joseph gets up on chair)

to become the 2^nd most powerful man in Egypt – the man in charge of distributing food during the famine.

In this week’s Torah portion, when Joseph’s brothers come down to Egypt for food,

(Brothers stand in front of Joseph)

Joseph saw that his brothers had changed. They no longer lied. They cared about each other and cared about their father Jacob.

And so Joseph forgave them. He reconciled with them.

He told them:

Joseph: “Do not be pained or upset that you sold me here! For it was to save life that God sent me here before you.”

The brothers hug each other, and they shed tears. They learn to live with each other peacefully again.

(Brothers hug)

Nelson too, was freed from prison.

(Prison guard brings Nelson out from behind chair)

And he too was lifted up by his people

(Nelson stands on chair)

to become the first black president of his nation of South Africa. He understood that in order for his nation to heal, there had to be forgiveness and reconciliation.  Nelson said,

Nelson: As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison.

Nelson Mandela died yesterday. But many years before he died, Nelson and his former enemy, F.W. DeKlerk, had become friends.

(Nelson and DeKlerk hug)

Even though both Joseph and Nelson were imprisoned unfairly and treated unjustly, they opened their hearts in forgiveness to those who might have been their enemies.

So, tonight we celebrate two tzaddikim. Two righteous ones. Both who lived in darkness and held on to their dreams. Both who found their way from the deepest pit to the highest height. Both who taught that healing can only come through reconciliation – through forgiveness.

Because Nelson’s funeral won’t take place for another week or so, we will not say kaddish for him tonight. But we can say these words together:

“Zecher tzaddik livracha.”

Which means, “may the memory of the righteous be a blessing.”

We pray that his story and his legacy will continue to bring blessing to the world.

Tomato Rabbi!

When you look at this tomato, what do you see? What questions come to mind?

·        Red, round, shiny, beautiful

·        I wonder if it’s juicy inside and if it has good flavor

·        I think about eating it with a slice of mozzarella and some basil

·        I might wonder whether it is organic or locally grown – whether I need to wash some pesticides off of it before I eat it.

But for me, and probably for many of us, there is a question that I hadn’t really thought to ask about tomatoes before this week.

Who are the people who picked this tomato? And what are their lives like?

This week I met some of those folks. On Monday through Wednesday of this week, I and a group of a dozen rabbis – Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, and Orthodox – went down to Florida with T’ruah – a national rabbinic human rights organization that I have been involved with for many years.

We met migrant farmworkers who spend a good part of the year – from October through February or March – picking tomatoes in central Florida, in the fields surrounding a town called “Immokalee.” These laborers pick nearly all of the tomatoes that Americans consume and purchase out of season at places like Stop and Shop, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, McDonalds, Wendy’s, Subway and Taco Bell.

The first thing to know is that the people who pick the tomatoes have created a powerful organization called the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, or CIW. Even though they come from different places and speak many different languages – Spanish, Creole, and a variety of indigenous languages spoken in various regions of Mexico and Guatemala – they came together, starting in the early 90’s, to share their experiences with each other and to change the conditions in which they are working. Use popular education – drawings, skits, radio. Now the CIW has many allies, including my rabbinic organization, T’ruah.

Up until 2010, when the CIW’s organizing efforts began to transform the industry, workers had no rights or protections and were at the mercy of the particular grower they worked for that day. On Tuesday morning at 5am, our group of rabbis went to one of the many parking lots in Immokalee and watched the workers streaming there to board white and blue school buses that would take them out to the fields.

We also saw the deplorable, ramshackle trailers in which the workers live. They pack 10-12 people into a trailer to be able to afford the rent, which is comparable to what you would pay in NYC for the same amount of space.

We learned from Emilio Faustino, one of the CIW members, that the people who pick our food are mostly day laborers. Some might have a verbal agreement with a particular grower to work for a certain number of days in a week or month. But for the most part, the workers arrive at the parking lot and don’t know for sure if they will find work that day.

What I’m about to describe used to happen everywhere, without any recourse on the part of the laborer. Today, now that the CIW’s Fair Food Agreement is taking hold among growers, these conditions don’t exist everywhere all the time anymore, and when they do arise among growers who have sign the agreement, there is recourse. But there are still many growers who have not signed the agreement, and even those who have are not implementing it consistently yet.

Conditions historically, and still in many places today:

·        They would board the bus, arrive at the field by 6am, and sometimes have to sit on the bus for 2-3 hours to wait for the dew to dry on the tomatoes – they wouldn’t get paid for those hours.

·        Once the picking begins, the workers were, and still are not paid by the hour – they are paid according to the number of 32-lb buckets of tomatoes they pick. Try lifting a 32-lb bucket on your shoulder and running with it some time.

·        To make minimum wage, a worker would have to pick 153 of these buckets in one day, in the hot, humid sun, for 10-14 hours per day, with no shade. $7500 /yr., sub-poverty

·        Wage theft was rampant. The worker runs his or her bucket to a truck where a person in the truck would dump it out and give the empty bucket back with a token inside. The worker would keep track of the tokens and get paid 45 cents per token at the end of the day. But if the dumper doesn’t think the worker filled the bucket to his standards, he would dump the tomatoes out but not give the picker a token, sending him back to pick another bucket more to his standards.

 What I just described used to be the typical experience of tomato worker. However, there is a spectrum of experience, where what I just described is on the more normative end, but it gets worse from there. Because these workers work at the whim of their particular bosses, who were not accountable to any outside standards or authorities for how they treated the workers, the workers were, and still are in some cases, incredibly vulnerable to abuse.

In fact, workers not only risked their jobs, but even their lives if they complained about unhealthy or abusive conditions. They are regularly exposed to pesticides. But it used to be that if someone was actively spraying in a nearby row, a worker would risk getting fired if he stopped picking to move away from the spraying. Beatings were not uncommon, regular sexual abuse and assault of women, and regular verbal abuse. No recourse, no standards, not job security.

Famous case of a 17 year old boy who was beaten  - one of the early CIW actions, organized a march to perpetrator’s house with the bloody shirt as a banner.

Tonight I’m not going to go into detail on the worst of the worst on this spectrum which has in many cases constituted conditions that meet the stringent legal standards for prosecution as modern-day slavery. But just to give you a sense – cases of no escape, locked in at night, debt peonage – not only for illegal immigrants. You may pay for a visa and show up to find there is no job for you. Or, with guest worker program – stuck with the employer who hired you. If conditions are not good, there is nowhere to go.

CIW’s work:

Started with general strikes and hunger strikes in the 90’s, getting the DOJ to investigate and prosecute slavery cases.

More recently, changed tactics – use market pressure. Get corporations who buy from the growers to sign a Fair Food Agreement – will only purchase from growers who pass one penny per pound of tomatoes picked on to the workers and observe a code of conduct – zero tolerance for abuse, wage theft, sexual harassment, slavery

This has been very successful – 11 major corporations (Taco Bell, McD’s, Burger King, Subway, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Chipotle, food service companies @ college campuses) and now 90% of growers. Working now on Publix supermarket (SE) and Wendy’s – last of the 5 top restaurant chains. Very challenging, but it’s working.

Impact: the workers are the ones who have made these changes

Time clock

Minimum wage guarantee, even if raining, or waiting for dew to dry

CIW trains workers and growers on zero tolerance for harassment, wage theft, etc.

3^rd party takes complaints and investigates – Judge Laura Safer Espinoza

But – need everyone on board. Risks of abuse, slavery still exist as long as not all growers are signed on. And, still a risk that growers will pull out if we don’t keep the pressure on. This is about changing a culture.

I left with so many impressions. Here are some:

·        Immigration/illegal immigration – most of these workers were subsistence farmers at home. No longer can sell their produce – now, competing with US prices b/c of NAFTA – can’t compete, so have to become part of the US food production industry and send $ home

·        Ag workers, along with domestic workers and restaurant workers are the most vulnerable

·        History of slavery in South continues, just in a different form – still most marginal/vulnerable population in the country can be enslaved (we see this in case of young runaways lured into prostitution as well)

·        How vast the tomato farms are and how hidden from view for most consumers.

·        These changes impact 100,000 workers – this makes a very big difference in real people’s lives.

·        Empowerment of laborers

Sign letters to Wendy’s asking them to sign on to CIW’s Fair Food program –the letters will be hand-delivered the week of Nov 11-17^th.

You may have seen the photo of me praying with the other tomato rabbis in a supermarket – we won’t be doing that. But we will be going to a Wendy’s to attempt to deliver the letters to the manager, and to hand information out to customers to raise awareness.

This Too Shall Pass - Vayera 2013

Sammy Cohen-Eckstein was due to celebrate his Bar Mitzvah on November 16th.  But last week, when he ran out into the street to retrieve a soccer ball in front of his apartment building on Prospect Park West, he was suddenly hit by a van and died. My dear colleague and friend Rabbi Ellen Lippman, is Sammy’s rabbi, at Kolot Chayeinu in Park Slope, Brooklyn, the synagogue that Jim and I belonged to when we lived there. I never knew Sammy, but the news of this sudden tragic death touched me deeply. It’s been hard to stop thinking about it.

As rabbis and as Jews who decide to cling to a particular community, we open ourselves up to the possibility of these kinds of losses. This could happen to me. It could happen to any of us.  We rabbis fall in love with our congregations – we develop love for our congregants as individuals, and for our communities as a collective.

These past few weeks here at CBSRZ have been hard. Over many weeks I stood at the bedside of a dying man – Howard Kaplan - and then buried him surrounded by a loving circle of family and friends. And while this was happening, we have had and continue to have many other congregants in the hospital and in treatment for serious conditions. Thankfully, many seem to be on the mend, but we have the longest Mi Shebeirach list we’ve ever had during my time here.

On top of this we recently had to say goodbye to some people I’ve grown very fond of. Bea and Lew Case, long time members of CBSRZ who moved up to Newton, MA to live in an assisted living facility close to one of their sons. And we recently celebrated the Bat Mitzvah of their Acadia Barrengos, whose family recently relocated to Vermont. All of these experiences have reminded me on a daily basis of how much I love this congregation and how attached I am to the individual members of this community, and this is such a gift. At the same time, it is a terribly scary thing – to catch these daily, sometimes even hourly glimpses of the possibility of loss.

The word “love” appears for the first time in the Torah in this week’s Parasha, when God instructs Abraham to take his son, his only one, the one whom he loves…and offer him up as a burnt offering on the top of a mountain that God will show him.

We know this terrible story. Our own Michael Roth offered multiple commentaries on it on the 2^nd Day of Rosh Hashana this year. But none provided comfort or peace. Except, at the end of Michael’s confrontational, stark presentation, he offered this. That perhaps this story is really meant to illustrate how fragile life is. It is really meant to illustrate what it means to allow yourself to have a child, or to become attached to another human being. God tells Abraham, and God tells us – to dare to live and to love means to make yourself vulnerable to having it all snatched away.

And so, what do we do?  We learn from Abraham that we can live in the present and give thanks. When we’re faced with our own fears, our own vulnerability or uncertainty, we can’t live in the past, trying to bring back or relive what was. God uproots Abraham from his past by calling him in last week’s parasha – to leave his father’s house and his homeland and to go to the land that God will show him.

And this week, Abraham reminds us how fragile the future is as well. God allows Abraham to get to the brink of sacrificing his own son – his future – and the future of our entire people. We can plan for the future – we must. And we should have hope for the future. But Abraham teaches that we shouldn’t become too attached to a particular image of how the future will be.

Abraham’s knife is stopped from killing his son at the last minute by an angel. Abraham then immediately lifts his eyes, refocuses, notices a ram caught in the bushes, and offers the ram as a sacrifice in place of his son.  When we catch  glimpses of the abyss of loss, we too can refocus, offer up a ram to God and burn it, thanking God for the gifts of life and love that we have right now. We can live in the present and give thanks.

I have another colleague, Rabbi Phyllis Sommer, in Chicago, whose son Sammy just came through a bone marrow transplant to heal him from childhood leukemia. Phyllis posts on a blog almost every day and she is inspiring in how willing she is to share her vulnerability with all of us. She shares her frightened, angry rants when things aren’t going well, she shares her prayers of gratitude when the light of hope is visible.

Above all, she shares her excruciating effort to stay in the present – to not allow herself to get too attached to a possible future outcome of a particular drug or treatment –– to not allow herself to get anxious or give up when they hit a roadblock – to help her son find peace with the rollercoaster of one day finally getting to go home after 90 days in the hospital, to the very next day spiking a fever and having to go back to the hospital – to allow herself to shed tears of hope, as Sammy writes out his birthday wish list and she catches a glimpse of more birthdays to celebrate after this one. To love someone is to ride the rollercoaster with them, day after day.

I want to close with a well-known folktale that seems to have migrated from the realm of Persian Sufis to Jewish lore about King Solomon.

The story goes that King Solomon had a trusted minister named Benaiah ben Yehoyada. But the King thought Benaiah was getting too big for his britches and needed to be humbled. So, one day, Solomon said to him, "Benaiah, there is a certain ring that I want you to bring to me. I wish to wear it for the Sukkot festival, which gives you six months to find it."

"If it exists anywhere on earth, your majesty," replied Benaiah, "I will find it and bring it to you, but what makes the ring so special?"

"It has special powers," answered the king. "If a happy man looks at it, he becomes sad, and if a sad man looks at it, he becomes happy." Solomon knew that no such ring existed in the world, but he wished to give his minister some added humility.

Spring passed and then summer, and still Benaiah had no idea where he could find the ring. On the day before Sukkot, he decided to take a walk in one of the poorest quarters of Jerusalem. He passed by a merchant who had begun to set out the day's wares on a shabby carpet. "Have you by any chance heard of a special ring that makes the happy wearer forget his joy and the broken-hearted wearer forget his sorrows?" asked Benaiah.

He watched the elderly man take a plain gold ring from his carpet and engrave something on it. When Benaiah read the words on the ring, his face broke out in a wide smile.

That night the entire city welcomed in the holiday of Sukkot with great festivity. "Well, my friend," said King Solomon, "have you found what I sent you after?" All the ministers laughed and Solomon himself smiled.

To everyone's surprise, Benaiah held up a small gold ring and declared, "Here it is, your majesty!" As soon as Solomon read the inscription, the smile vanished from his face. The jeweler had written three Hebrew words on the gold band: "Gam zeh ya'avor - This too shall pass."

How very true. In a moment of great difficulty, we can remember “This too shall pass,” and feel comforted. Yet, in our greatest moments of joy, we also know in a deep place, that “this too shall pass.”

All is fleeting, and we are humbled. But this should only propel us to seek more connection, to give more thanks, to give and receive more love.