Marriage Equality Referendum: Religious Freedom Means Less Religion (and More)

Here are a few excerpts from the sermon I'll deliver tomorrow morning at Beth Am.  All are welcome!  If you are interested in learning more about how to defeat the referendum in November, please visit Marylanders for Marriage Equality and sign the Pledge to Defend Maryland's Civil Marriage Equality Law!

...[March 1 (the day Gov. O'Malley) signed the bill)] was a really good day, but we knew then as we know now that the fight for Marriage Equality is not over.  You see, as I speak, there are those gathering tens of thousands of signatures to petition the State of Maryland to include this issue on the November ballot.  They will almost certainly succeed and six months from now, we will all have the opportunity to uphold or strike down this monumental law.

...My concern today is not the church nor the synagogue but the role of religious people and institutions in shaping American law.  Ask yourselves, in the past weeks and months, how much of the political discourse reported on the news and in the papers, the chatter in internet blogs, revolves around religious ideologues and their views: of abortion, contraception and, yes, Marriage?  But take note, it is the establishment clause, America’s separation of church and state, that guarantees the sorts of protections we Jews and others have come to enjoy in this country. And I believe, wholeheartedly, that elections are a time for religious people to exercise not their desire, in hubris, to remake the country in their own image but their commitment to civil and religious freedom for all! 

...So if you support marriage equality because it reflects your religious beliefs, join the fight to uphold the law and defeat the referendum.  And if your religious beliefs or personal sensibilities say otherwise, join the fight to defeat the referendum as well!  Because you believe that each of us, no matter what we believe, no matter who we marry, is guaranteed the same protections under the same Constitution.  

The New Jewish Neighborhood (Part 6): Building Blocks of Community

Please take 2.5 minutes to watch this video....

 

I think the Japanese model raises some deeply evocative questions about the nature of community.  If in America the streets are named and blocks are the "unnamed spaces in-between," what does that say about the occupied space?  After all, we don't live in the street.  We live on the block.  Our houses and yards (not to mention people, plants and pets) are in those unnamed spaces.

The New Jewish Neighborhood is about paradigm shift -- reimagining the way we conceive of Jewish communities and communities in general.  In Jewish tradition, naming has creative power.  Adam names the animals and then his partner.  Parents name children in memory of loved ones, hoping to invoke their convictions and values.  Jews-by-choice name themselves as they emerge into their new religious selves.  Cancer or trauma survivors select an additional name to acknowledge their "rebirth" into life.

Perhaps the NJN is a place where blocks, not streets, are named.  If so, how might we name them?  We might choose names based on shared interests or values: "The Cooking Block" or "The Reading Block."  Or we could select names that reflect the diversity of a given block: "The Block of Six Religions" or "The Block Representing Nine Decades of Life."

If we think about blocks as dynamic spaces humming with life, might we find new ways to come together?  One new way would be to use technology to deepen connections between and among residents of the same neighborhood, the same block!

Here are a few intriguing examples of websites proposing to do this (thanks to Miriam for the heads up):
www.homeelephant.com, www.yatown.com and www.nextdoor.com.  Try one out in your neighborhood.  Then, post here or on my facebook page and share how it's working.

When a Tree Falls in the City...

A few days ago, I was looking out my upstairs window when I saw a huge branch fall off an enormous dead tree in my neighbor's backyard.  I had been watching this tree for sometime, particularly because I often walk down the alley beneath it.  The scene of the branch falling was really quite dramatic; a live power-line came down and rotten wood splintered everywhere.  I couldn't help but think that had someone been walking underneath, he or she would be dead or seriously injured.

The occupant of this house tells me he has called BGE (Baltimore's power company) but has been told that, as owner, he is responsible for the (substantial) cost of removing the tree.  He, a man of limited means, cannot afford to do so.  Meanwhile, it is clear that with a strong wind, this tree will soon be falling in one of several directions, including onto/into my neighbor's house.  

View of the dead tree from my window.  Even after the clean-up, a large branch remains in the carriage house.

This is a common challenge in any city with limited resources.  Like in the case of a prospective transplant recipient who suddenly jumps ahead on the waiting list when she takes a turn for the worse, resources are often directed toward a dire or immanently dangerous situation.  Instead of engaging in healthy preventative care, we are left to rely on miracles.

In Nehardea there was a shaky wall that had been in the same condition for thirteen years.  Nevertheless, Rav and Shmuel would not go past it.  One day, Rabbi Adda bar Ahavah came [to visit them].  Shmuel said to Rav: "Let's walk around the wall."  Rav replied: "Today it is not necessary, for Rabbi Adda is with us whose merits are so great that we don't have to be afraid [of the wall]." - Talmud Bavli, Ta'anit 20b

Perhaps the world has changed, but I do not know of people who have the power to stay a shaky wall, or arrest a falling tree. Walls must be buttressed, and dead trees must be removed before people get hurt or worse.  In the vicious cycle of not-so-benign neglect, there are real consequences.  One can only pray that the people charged with keeping our citizens safe realize this before it's too late.  After all, even the Rabbis of the Talmud recognized that miracles are hard to come by...

Rabbi Yanai said: "A person should not stand in a dangerous place and say, 'A miracle will occur for me,' for perhaps a miracle will not occur...."

In other words, "Chop down the damned tree!"

Beauty and Radical Amazement

Just yesterday I spent the day with my four-year-old son.  He was home sick but feeling well enough to complete a puzzle together, read and watch a little TV.  It was a beautiful day, so I encouraged him to step onto our back deck to feel the sunshine.  We don't spend a lot of time on that deck -- it's small and, more to the point, it overlooks an unsightly alley and a pile of rubble that accompanies the vacant and dilapidated houses next door.

On this day, I stepped into the sunshine to discover myself having a typical reaction: "Too bad about the view," I thought to myself, "especially on such a pleasant Spring day!"  Shamir, for his part, stepped onto the deck, looked at the pile of bricks, dirt and glass next door and said excitedly, "Look Abba, flowers!"  I looked and discovered to my amusement that he was identifying several dandelions sprouting from the heap.  I had barely noticed.  Where I saw weeds, he saw flowers.  Where I saw trash, he saw beauty.

It's been close of two years since we moved to Baltimore and Reservoir Hill.  I must confess that my first impressions, though largely positive, were tempered by the good number of vacant properties, accumulated trash in some yards, crumbling historic homes so far removed from their glory days.  During my time here, my attitude has changed. I have been struck by how much progress has been made in such a short time: more homeowners, fewer vacants and homes worthy of their historic status, the new playground, the community farm and the transformation of Whitelock Ave. which you can read about here (RHIC Green) and here in Teddy Krolik's beautiful posts on MIT's CoLab radio.  I have also come to know many of my neighbors, their stories, interests and concerns.  But more than this, I (like my son) have begun to notice how much beauty is peeking out from the cracks.  I know neighbors working two or three jobs to make ends meet who still have time to prune their hedges and plant modest gardens.  I see children shooting hoops or playing in sprinklers.  I see the Druid Hill Park cherry blossoms in full bloom from my bedroom window and our first red tulip returning for an early glimpse of Spring.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, "Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement... get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted."  It's not just that beauty is in the "eye of the beholder."  Radical amazement must be cultivated.  We choose what (and how) to behold.  Which will it be, the flowers or the weeds?

Nice Things, Nice People

There's a highway overpass at 28th Street connecting Reservoir Hill with other Baltimore neighborhoods like Remington, Hampden and Charles Village.  A couple months ago I saw an older gentleman laboriously painting the cracking concrete walls of that overpass, covering with pearly white paint the weather-worn graffiti and rust-orange chain link run-off.  I remember thinking as I watched him work: "What a thankless job! -- earning a day's wage toiling in the heat of the day to make Baltimore just a little nicer."  A couple weeks later, I was driving on the same overpass when I saw fresh black graffiti scrawled across the white surface.  It read: "THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS."  My heart sank.

I don't know who sprayed the graffiti.  My immediate thought was it must be some MICA student, someone who thinks they're being clever or ironical.  Indeed, I later discovered local artist Adam Kurtz's website where he now sells postcards with the graffiti from the overpass.  Click here to see the image.  Someone once told me that contemporary art must be judged, above all else, by how it makes us feel.  That display, if it was art at all, made me feel awful -- for the poor man who worked so hard to paint the wall, for the cars driving by and, perhaps most of all, for the misguided “artist."

Seeing those spray painted words made me think of the scene from Schindler's List when Helen, a young Jewish captive, is describing her abuse at the hands of the Nazi commandant, Amon Goeth.  "'Why are you beating me? [I asked him].'  He said, 'The reason I beat you now is because you ask why I beat you.'"  The abuse becomes, invidiously, self-fulfilling.  The comparison is imperfect to be sure, but both have in common a blatant violation of the principal of Bal Tashchit.  To create (life, beauty and, yes, art) is a great Jewish virtue.  God is, after all, the Creator.  The undoing of creation, then, the wanton destruction or abuse of things and people is an affront to God.  To spray paint something like "THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS" and through that destructive process to actually ruin something which was, in it's own small way, a nice thing, is to go against everything that healthy (let alone sacred) communities stand for.

  

Abraham Joshua Heschel once said, "When I was young, I admired clever people.  Now that I am old, I admire kind people."  I dated a girl in college who didn't like the word "nice," she thought it too banal or simplistic.  But I am often struck by society's dearth of simply positive qualities like "nice."  That day in my car I could only think, "but we can have nice things, we just need a few more nice people."  

It's months later now and the graffiti has since been covered over, perhaps by the same man who worked so hard to paint it in the first place.  I wonder what he was thinking as he repainted.  I know what I would be thinking:  "Some people might see this as art.  Perhaps it is.  But perhaps it's just mean."

My Week in Annapolis

It's been an exciting week.  Our program on Same-Sex Marriage (covered here in the Baltimore Jewish Times) was well attended and well received.  Many thanks to House Delegates Barbara Robinson and Luke Clippinger who attended and lent their support along with Israel "Izzy" Patoka from Governor O'Malley's office. 


Then, Friday afternoon, I was privileged to testify before a joint House committee in support of House Bill 438, the Civil Marriage Protection Act.  I am pleased to report that there were nearly one hundred others who testified in favor of the bill, many of whom were leaders in the faith community!  Kudos to the Governor who testified early and then returned to the hearing room around 11:15 p.m. (long after I was back in B'more observing Shabbat) to watch the final half-hour of testimony and reinforce his deep commitment to the bill.


This video was released by Marylanders for Marriage Equality who have been stalwart advocates along with their counterparts Equality Maryland.  You can also watch excerpts from last week's clergy press conference here.

You're Invited! The Religious Case for Same-Sex Marriage

A discussion led by Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg of  Beth Am Synagogue and Pastor Andrew Foster Connors of Brown Memorial Park Avenue Presbyterian Church about the theological and textual underpinnings of a progressive stance on same-sex unions.