Thursday, May 04, 2006

Shlomos Drash Acharei Mot 5766: Shlomo, Azazel and Lashon Hara

This week we’re given more commandments. First we have the procedure for the Yom Kippur sacrifice of atonement, then a chapter on the prohibitions concerning blood. Finally we end Acharei Mot with the incest and other sexual prohibitions as practiced by the inhabitants of the land of Canaan prior to the Arrival of the Israelites. Our second portion Kedoshim notes a large set of commandments covering many different moral and ethical issues, many from previous portions. The Midrash notes the entire Ten Commandments are interspersed within this section. Once again the incest laws are noted, and honoring the elderly, the stranger, and the disabled are noted. This section has in its beginning, middle and end an interesting statement, “You will be holy for I am holy” where the portion's name kedoshim comes from.

Usually, I’m writing about Leviticus 18 and the sexual prohibitions when I get to this portion. Yet this year I have hard time writing about that. I’m interested in something else - the scapegoat, mostly because I feel like one right now, and I need to vent. We read in Leviticus 16:7-10

7. And he shall take the two goats, and present them before the Lord at the door of the Tent of Meeting. 8. And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for Azazel. 9. And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the Lord’s lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering. 10. But the goat, on which the lot fell to be for Azazel, shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go to Azazel into the wilderness.

In my current situation, I find this passage very parallel in meaning to another passage in our second portion:

You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie one to another. (Leviticus 19:11)

Also read on Yom Kippur, The mitzvah of the escaped goat, or scapegoat as it became to be known was that live goat that was left into the wilderness used to atone for sins. Azazel is often not translated but it is interesting to note some of the meanings. One is a mountainous rocky place. Another is to break it into two words, meaning the goat goes away. Or again, the phrase scapegoat.

For the last ten days of April, I was on a mountainous rocky place, which was incredibly awesome. I have never in my life seen rocks younger than me but here I hiked and drove over them frequently on my first days of a well-deserved vacation. I was in Hawaii starting on the Big Island and visiting lava flows which happened to cover the landscape decades after I was born. One was still creating new land - Due to the toxic gases, aerosolized volcanic fiberglass (known to the locals as Pele’s Hair) and possibility of cave-in of the lava crust I only got a mile away from the sight of hot lava spilling into the ocean, creating great plumes of steam. I saw waterfalls, jungles and grasslands. I saw the mongooses, who were introduced to the island as control for another imported pest, rats, only to leave the rats alone and be a major factor in the extinction of most of the native bird species instead. After several days exploring the Big Island, my mom and I flew to Honolulu for a few days of rest from our adventures. It was last Friday that got me as steamed as one of the volcanic vents I saw on Kilauea.

A few weeks earlier a reporter from the Chicago tribune e-mailed me about a story he was doing on Jewish outreach and wanted more information on Shabbosville. So I arranged a phone interview. Yet the conversation was rather different than I had expected. The reporter spent a lot of time on drumming, and my role as a drum circle leader, which I most decidedly am not, as I insisted that I had led only twice -- there were many people far more expert than me. I was asked about the song Shabbosville, and a little about the philosophy behind it. I was also asked about my current synagogue, a larger reform synagogue that has to some extent created internal Havurah to the larger organization -and these havurot have been successful for quite a long time.

Sitting in a Starbuck’s in a Honolulu duty-free Shopping mall with more signs and speech in Japanese than in English, I checked my e-mail - five time zones behind Chicago. And it was there I found that the article that this reporter had written had been published in the Metro section. While I can’t claim to speak for others interviewed, I was shocked how everything that was said in my name got printed in the most misleading way possible. I was repeatedly misquoted. I remembered back to the interview and how much I evaded answering the leading questions the way this reporter wanted me to.

Thinking about the whole content of the article, and how it was written, I noticed I got all the “crazy lines” the statements which were outrageous or discredited others. I got the lines that sounded like I was boasting. And thinking about it while on the plane home and preparing to write this week’s column, I felt like I was the scapegoat, the one who was so stupid looking that he made the main subject of the article legitimate. And it didn’t feel very good.

Today scapegoats are not used at Yom Kippur, but they are a major part of western society. I realize how often to make a 500-word article or 15-second sound bite reporters will use the concept of the scapegoat to make the very complex and interrelated world simple. I doubt it can ever be simple - the infinitely complex is the best witness to God’s creation in my view. Spending ten days in a microcosm of the interrelated nature of things while on vacation, affirmed that how complex things are, and how holy the network of relationships are. Only the Omniscient could ever make total sense of it all.

Yet we limited beings don’t like that kind of holiness. Were the kind of creation who is still stupid enough to have some of us believe that God is merely intelligent, not Omniscient. We love to believe there is always one person to blame for what really is a systemic mess. And thinking like either of those leads us not to solve the problems in the world, but just to make them worse. I saw land being made out of sea only a mile away from where I was standing - And I saw that over time, life forms will break down that desolate rock to create the grasslands of North West Hawaii and luscious jungles of the east coast and the underwater reefs surrounding the island. The cycle of life was not lost on the ancient religion of the Hawaiian Islands, it controlled everything that happened to the people, and that believed it was far bigger than they were. Wandering thought the biomes and ecosystems of Hawaii, I once again realized thing are too complex and too fragile for simple blame and simple solutions. Simply letting loose mongooses doesn’t get rid of rats -- and can do far worse damage.

In thinking of all this I cant help but believe any bit of news, when reported or printed is not truth but Lashon Hara, evil speech, the prohibition of Leviticus 19:11. The whole story cannot be told, yet we never believe that the commentators or reporters are just that people speaking their own personal opinion, but telling us what we should think should be the absolute truth then dictating who we should slander for the blame.

This certainly isn’t my best piece. I’m home now, still angry and still jet lagged. But I want to end this piece with a few short statements about the article and in General as I though about all this:


1. I am not a drum circle leader. I have led two drum circles due to circumstances, one the wishes of a dear friend for her birthday when no one else would start the thing up and one to give adults and children on a retreat a physical energy release after Havdalah.

2. Contrary to the article, Beth Emet has not banned drumming - one of those drumming leading experiences I’ve had was on retreat with Beth Emet. As I explained to the reporter, it would be in poor taste to be drumming on most Friday nights, but there have been times where at the Saturday morning Kahal service or on retreat it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Former cantor Jeff Klepper used to regularly drum at Kahal Saturday services. I’m all too aware some people like drumming and others don’t- I’ve led dialogue on the subject at Kahal. Personally, when it comes to percussion, I’m most often a fan of nothing louder than an egg shaker on Saturday mornings, though I’ll change that according to context.

3. I’ve said this one enough but it is worth repeating. My idea of Shabbosville is not as the mere party and margaritas but in the sensual experience of witnessing creation. The high is not alcohol, just perceiving how beautiful everything is in sight sounds smell touch and taste, and knowing this is God, and God’s works. I paraphrased Abraham Joshua Heschel to this reporter that Shabbat is an Island in Time, an island to pause and witness creation. Even a hardcore rationalist like Maimonides thought similarly, yet that apparently isn’t press worthy. We need to stop and rest in order to witness creation - and there is a joy, a delight an oneg when we do which is very similar to a good vacation.

4. I am a commentator; I do not give the absolute truth, but my part of a bigger dialogue with myself, with everyone else, with Torah, and with God. I can teach what others thought, or at least what I think they taught and I can give my own interpretations of Torah. But that is all. Even if I do ever get a column in print in some publication, I don’t ever want to be in the same class of people as this reporter, God forbid!

5. I don’t trust reporters any more. The system we have for the media, from reporters to editors to publishers and producers to the audience and the advertisers who pay for it all create a system that relishes in Lashon Hara. I learned my lesson; I’m not doing interviews again.

6. While the article seems to imply otherwise, I need to make it clear that I am a fully active member of Beth Emet. Each community has its own character and I fit best at Beth Emet, and hope to be as good a member there as I see in the many talented and brilliant people there.

7. Am I a little crazy to think all this? Do I deserve to be the scapegoat? I don’t know. Maybe we need some joyous unconventional thinking to solve some of the problems out there. That’s all I’m trying to do, though it is not the thing that is celebrated, but ridiculed. Is what I do that wrong?

I guess that’s all I have to say. Sorry for the vent today.

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