Many of the medieval rabbinic commentators believed that these fears were well founded. Rabbeinu Bachya, the 14th-century Spanish scholar, notes that in all of Torah there is not one single reference to Joseph actually forgiving his brothers. In not ever explicitly forgiving them, Joseph allowed their debt to cast its shadow of anxiety over them in perpetuity.

Similarly, many countries in the Global South have the threat of debt casting an onerous shadow over their lands—debt owed to international financial institutions like the World Bank and IMF and to wealthy countries like our own. Many of these debts were first incurred decades ago—often by corrupt or despotic regimes—in order to offset collapsing commodity prices. Paradoxically, the money that nations borrowed to support their development is now the stumbling block to progress. Because these loans incur interest greater than the amounts debtors are able to pay off, countries become stuck in an endless trap of interest payments to the West. And every penny paid by the Global South in interest payments to Western banks is money that cannot be invested in their own development and their future. They, like Joseph’s brothers, are enslaved by their indebtedness.

Although both situations appear bleak, the Torah provides a model for stopping the perpetuation of limitless debt. We are taught that every 50th year—called the Jubilee—all debts are to be released and all property returned to its rightful owner.5 The Jubilee is not a blanket free-for-all or amnesty from bad financial decisions; it is a tool for ensuring freedom from unrelenting debts, redemption from the oppression of perpetual burdens. The Jubilee year serves to regularly restore equality and equity among communities.

Taking the biblical Jubilee as its namesake, Jubilee USA, an alliance of more than 75 religious and human rights-focused groups, works to ensure the definitive cancellation of the crushing debts that loom over the heads of the world’s poorest nations. Support for their work, and that of all those laboring on behalf of debt cancellation—including AJWS—is an important part of global justice activism.

The impact of debt relief is profound: debt cancellation allows developing nations to focus on the provision of basic human needs such as education and health care for their citizens. For example, debt cancellation in Uganda resulted in a doubling of school enrollment; in Mozambique it allowed for the vaccination of five hundred thousand children.6 In Haiti, forgiveness of bilateral debt to the U.S. and the International Monetary Fund has enabled the country to better focus on recovering from the 2010 earthquake.

Unfortunately, Joseph never forgave his brothers’ debt to him, and the enduring acrimony and fear was a stumbling block for the rest of their lives. As many of us have experienced in our own personal relationships, we can never fully move on until we completely let go of our claims to the past. We cannot be released from the burden of regret until those to whom we are indebted forgive us explicitly. The same is true in a global context. May we learn from Joseph and his brothers’ experience, and work to free developing nations from the oppression of debt, building towards a better and brighter future for the entire planet.

To read the full commentary and podcast, click here.

Before being swindled out of his birthright over a bowl of lentil stew, Esau comes home from working in the field all day. The Torah makes a point of noting that he “was tired.” Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik explains the significance of this verse:

Esau came tired from all his accomplishments and all his conquests. He was exhausted and disappointed. This is just like modern man, who, with all his progress, his innovations and his inventions, is still full of internal doubt, tortured by disappointment, bothered by anxiety, fearing death. Esau came from the field and he was tired…

Focused solely on physical success, Esau finished his day existentially exhausted: unfulfilled, demoralized and disappointed. Soloveitchik’s commentary pushes us to see the ways in which our own physical accomplishments don’t bring us the fulfillment we might expect them to.

I, too, once came from the field and was tired.

In 2009, I joined 20 fellow rabbinical students from across the denominational spectrum on an AJWS delegation to Thies, Senegal. There, we spent a week working with AJWS grantee Tostan to build latrines in two villages—Darou Mouride and Keur Songo.

On my first day in Darou Mouride I was sent out to work with some of the villagers. We were taken to labor in their “field”—a barren landscape filled with weeds and cracked earth. There was no irrigation to be had; they hardly owned a plow. And yet we worked for hours, moving dirt and burning weeds. Covered in sweat and dust, by the end of this labor I felt like I had accomplished nothing. The poverty around me is overwhelming, I thought. No amount of physical labor can rectify this. I was exhausted, disappointed and anxious.

When Esau came back from the field that day, he literally gave up on his future out of his desperation over the moment. His disappointment at the futility of his labor was so strong that hunger and exhaustion took over, enabling his brother Jacob to swindle him out of his birthright in exchange for a simple bowl of soup. Esau’s disillusionment blinded him to his own self-interest and success.

So had mine. I was so focused on the horror of the poverty I witnessed that, without immediate success, I was left demoralized and disappointed—so tired that I was ready to give up.

As I walked back into the center of the village, I was followed by a small child—no older than five or six. Disheartened by my day’s fruitless labor, I sat down on a chair, and this stranger sat there with me. Suddenly, the silence around me was broken. “Popmusonjop!” he exclaimed. He said it again, and again and again. It was his name. “David!” I offered back. He reached out and held my hand.

We spoke no common language other than the smiles on our faces. And yet, there, in the middle of this village whose name I could hardly pronounce, we played silly games I remembered from elementary school; we kicked around a dilapidated soccer ball, ran around together and laughed and smiled. The companionship I brought to Popmusonjop gave him a fun afternoon; the relief he offered me was redemptive. It refueled my drive to confront the poverty I saw and continue to work toward alleviating it.

Human connections like this one are the antidote to the doubt and exhaustion we can so easily feel as social justice activists. Whether these connections come from those who benefit from our social activism, like Popmusonjop, or from our peers in a community of fellow Jewish activists, they are what nurture us through the great task ahead. Because without them, we are like Esau: so exhausted that we give in to our urge to accept short-term comfort over the more elusive birthright towards which we have been striving.

Healing our world is not a venture for the individual. The task is too large. Without companionship, it’s hard to remember why we’re doing this hard work in the first place and to know not to give up when progress is slow. But as long as we don’t go out there alone, as long as we don’t try to work a field all day by ourselves, we can remind each other that the cause is more important than the immediate discomfort and remain ever-optimistic of the possibility of eventual triumph. Working for the future of this planet—securing a birthright dedicated to justice, equality and responsibility—is a tiring task that requires human connection to sustain us along the way.

For the full commentary and podcast, click here.

We read in Parshat Noach that God, discontent with pervasive evil in the world, chooses to unleash a flood and begin Creation anew. After destroying all life on the earth except for Noah, his family and a multitude of paired animals, God makes a covenant with this remnant of humanity. Promising never to repeat this course of destruction, God stretches a rainbow across the sky as a sign of this vow.

In enacting this covenant, God promises, “This is the sign of the covenant that I set between Me and you… for all generations to come.” In Hebrew, the word used for generations is “dorot,” and in this verse it is spelled oddly, missing two vowel letters that should normally be included. This does not affect the word’s meaning, but neither can it go unnoticed.

The medieval French commentator Rashi picks up on this oddity. He teaches that these missing letters indicate that, while the rainbow serves as a reminder of God’s promise to most generations, “there are some generations that do not need the sign of the covenant because they are [already] so fully righteous.”

Rashi suggests that some generations do not need the reminder; their righteousness demonstrates that they already innately understand that we cannot sit back and count on Divine action to wash away the injustice surrounding us—it is now up to us.

Based on Rashi’s interpretation, the rainbow is not merely a symbol of covenant and God’s promise not to destroy the world; it is a Divine invitation for humanity to deal hands-on with this world’s injustices ourselves. While some generations take up the call on their own, most—including our own—need the reminder. Each of us blessed with the privilege of witnessing a rainbow’s beauty is called upon to take personal responsibility for ensuring the eradication of injustice in our world.

In Somalia, for example, millions of people continue to face severe and immediate food insecurity. The direct cause of this famine is drought. But humanity’s hands are stained with the blood of this crisis. The country’s barely functioning central government, undermined by the militant Islamist group Al Shabab, has been incapable of helping its citizens in this crisis, and United Nations’ relief efforts have been severely hindered within this power vacuum. Somalia is a human crisis as much as a natural one, and the responsibility for fixing it lies with people—not with God.

Around the world, we share responsibility for hunger, in a world where enough food is produced to feed everyone. We can see human culpability for hunger in our own government’s food aid programs. Developed with the best of intentions, U.S. food aid has, over time, actually played a role in undermining local farm development in the Global South, fostering the perpetuation of conditions ripe for devastation as regularly as each cyclical draught. But there is something we can do to fix this injustice. The U.S. Farm Bill faces revision in 2012. With sufficient pressure on Congress, just reforms can be made to the bill to support food assistance that contributes to—instead of detracts from—long-term food security and resiliency. The rainbow colors up our sky today, reminding us that our opportunity—our responsibility—to act, is now.

Parshat Noach is a call to action, to commit ourselves to the work of bringing justice to those corners of the Earth that lack it, and to inspiring the rest of our community to act hand-in-hand. The rainbow is not merely a symbol of God’s covenant with humanity; it is a reminder of each individual’s responsibility for ensuring the proliferation of justice in this world. May we all, one day, merit to not need that reminder.

For the full commentary and podcast, click here.

And yet, despite my presumption that their beds are not all-too comfortable, that their towels are rough and their coffee watered-down, there exists in my imagination a feeling – a gut emotion – of something homey, something comforting and ever-welcoming about Motel 6. When I close my eyes and imagine myself on some rural interstate late at night with nowhere to sleep, I picture Motel 6, and feel a sense of calm, a sense that there’s a place there for me.

Why? It’s something about that un-ending ad campaign with tacky music mixed with the tag line, “We’ll leave the light on for you,” which, over too many years of much too much television watching has been engrained in my mind. I cannot shake it! “We’ll leave the light on for you!” At all times, throughout the country, on any given night, if I’m without place to go, if I’m stranded, or traveling, or just need the comfort of some other bed, there’s Motel 6, waiting, light on, for me to come. Motel 6 is everywhere. Motel 6 is always. Motel 6 is ever-ready to welcome my return.

And that is such a striking picture to me, because that is precisely the image I want us to hold onto of the Holy One. In the dark of night, God is the far-away light offering us comfort if we seek it. God is there, waiting. God is here, waiting. Always.

In Masechet Rosh Hashanah of the Babylonian Talmud, the rabbis grapple with the implications of the destruction of First Temple. “How could this have happened?” they wonder. It seems, at first glance, to be a theological impossibility. If God’s home on Earth were destroyed, they conclude, God must have let it happen for a reason, and certainly God’s presence must have been there no longer.

By means of explanation, Rabbi Yochanan tells the story of ten journeys taken by the Shechinah, God’s presence, as she moved slowly from her abode within the Holy of Holies before the Temple’s Destruction. Ten journeys. With each one, God’s presence moved further and further from its former physical accessibility.

And so the journeys began. The Shechinah moved from atop the ark, to an ornament on its side, a cherub, from there to a second cherub, then to the threshold outside of the Holy of Holies and from there it filled the Temple courtyard.

The fifth journey was from the Temple courtyard to the altar. The Shechinah moved to the roof of the Temple, to atop the wall surrounding the Temple complex, and from there filled the entire city of Jerusalem. The residents of Jerusalem were enveloped by God’s awesome presence, kavod Adonai, yet they did not even know it. The Shechinah moved to the Mount of Olives, and from there journeyed to the desert, into the wilderness. The tenth journey: the final journey. In the wilderness God waited for Israel to come and join Him. They never did.

What is the meaning of this midrash? Why did God’s presence move around from space to space preceding the Temple’s destruction?

Picture the image of the midrash. Together, these ten steps form a direct and deliberate journey of God, slowly removing God’s self from the Holy of Holies, and retreating ever further from the focus of Israel’s prayers. Each journey of the ten moves God’s presence further from its center in the Holy of Holies while also allowing God’s presence to fill more space – an ever larger area amongst Israel. With each step, God stops momentarily. God waits to be noticed. God waits to be sought. At all times, God is there, ready with the light on for each of us.

At each stop of God’s ten journeys, God invites Israel to seek Him, to realize that they are surrounded by the Holy presence, yet they do not. And so God’s presence ends up far away, in the wilderness, waiting to be found.

We may be so foolish as to hear this midrash and think to ourselves, “How could the Jews have been so misguided? If I were surrounded by God’s presence like they were, surely I would realize it!” I would be lying if I said I did not think precisely this the first time I studied this text. But that is exactly the point. We too are surrounded by God! God is here! God is silently screaming out, begging us to hear God’s voice. God’s presence is no longer confined to a single chamber in a far-away Temple. God’s Being fills all there is, awaiting companionship, friendship, and dialogue.

The story of God’s departure from the First Temple is one of a God ever present, yearning to be sought. God’s presence hovers, waiting to be noticed. God is persistently inviting us to join with Him in conversation: to praise God, to beseech God, to listen to God. God is our eternal, infinite Motel 6.

Now, there are many vehicles through which we can engage in dialogue with the Divine One. “Al shlosha devarim ha’olam omed: On three things the world stands,” we are taught in Pirke Avot. “Al haTorah, v’al ha’avodah, v’al gemilut Hasadim.  On Torah, on worship and on loving acts.” Each of these is its own unique Jewish path to God.  Each has its own utility, its own strengths and rationales. Prayer is just one. But it is what I focus on today.

Prayer speaks to the emotional coldness of life. It’s not hard to feel abandoned by the Holy One – to feel alone, in the desert, with God long-since departed. Our world is filled with billions of humans ever-overcome by feelings of loneliness, apartness, separateness. We live on one rock, surrounded by empty space, in an infinitely large universe created billions of years ago.  Prayer can fill the space between those light years of emptiness. Prayer has the power to comfort our discomfort; to make us joyful when the world makes us sad; to push us toward better states of being. Prayer is a seemingly inward practice focussed entirely on that which is emphatically outside of ourselves.

Let me be clear though: I do not want to give the impression that prayer is easy, or that it is straightforward, or that it should come naturally. Prayer – especially traditional Jewish prayer – is an entirely counter-cultural act. It requires patience, and trial and error. Prayer pushes back against the most basic of American values: individuality, autonomy, idolization of the pursuit of happiness. Jewish prayer encourages us to join with community, to cede our own autonomy, and to focus not on what may seem most fun in the moment, but, rather, on what will most challenge us to be a better individual. Prayer runs contrary to everything that our society and lives tell us is normal, good and useful.

Prayer is difficult.

Let me say that again: Prayer. Is. Difficult.

I remember the first time I visited the Kotel. I was sixteen years old. As we drove towards the Old City, I was reminded of the tradition of writing a note to place within the cracks of the wall’s stones. I quickly pulled out a piece of scratch paper and a pen. I was ready to write out my prayers, but I was stuck. What do I write on a note to God?

Everything I could think of sounded trite, at best. Please give me this… please help me with that… Really? This is what God wants to hear? I was frozen in myself, unable to figure out what to write. So I scribbled down all I could think of: Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad, I wrote in broken Hebrew, and left the rest of the page blank. Does God mind that my spelling is atrocious? I wondered.

Minutes later, I walked up to the imposing white Wall, inserted my note into a crack, and closed my eyes. Time to pray, David, I thought. I stood there, and waited for the words to come. I waited for prayer to happen, for that transformative feeling to erupt inside me as I was overcome with emotion and devotion. It never came. Are you there God? It’s me, David. I could not even meek out those words from the classic Judy Blume novel. One minute passed, then another, until finally I made my peace and walked away having done nothing.

Prayer is difficult. Prayer is not magic; there is no hocus-pocus to davening. It doesn’t just happen. The spirit of God doesn’t just overcome you. You cannot snap and make it transform your whole being. Prayer takes practice; it demands patience and perseverance.

Prayer is an existential conversation with He-Who-Does-Not-Speak-Back. Prayer is tsim tsum of the self – pulling back the ego and the id and making room for God to enter. It is something we are born wanting to do, but without the instinctual knowledge of how it is done. It demands transcending our very being. And that, my friends, ain’t easy.

The only way to get better is to start trying. What do you have to say to the Creator of All? What words are you holding back from the Holy One of Blessing? Say them. Open up. Sit uncomfortable with the silence that follows, and then say them again. One conversation leads to another; one step makes the next easier. The difficulty of prayer is only overcome by praying, training yourself to speak with the silent Divine One with each try. A blessing today, leads to a few blessings tomorrow.

God is here, waiting, with the light on. Now, today, tomorrow, next year. If only we know the right words to say when we walk inside.

Esa einai el he’harim, m’ayin yavo ezri? I life my eyes up to the mountains, from where will my help come? Ezri m’im Hashem, oseh shamayim va’aretz. My aid comes from God, Maker of Heaven and Earth.

The mountain tops can seem imposing. And yet they are empty. God is here, God is imminent. And God is listening, waiting, inviting us to see God’s presence around us, and respond.

Three times daily, we conclude the weekday blessings of the Amidah, saying, “Barukh ata Adonai, shomea tefilah. Blessed are You, God, who listens to prayer.”

God is listening, what do you have to say?

And then, as quickly as we learned to care about the Arab Spring, to be inspired by the passion of a people’s yearning to breath free, we forgot again, concerned instead with debt ceilings and Congressional ineptitute. Through the warm waves of summer we have drifted from one austerity plan to another, one made-up legislative fight to a second, and then a third and a fourth.

These are August days of melancholy. The heat wave sits over many of these united states and we all moan a collective sigh at the pessimism which abounds.

Where is that hope in which we all once believed? Where did it go? I want it back.

But then, far away, on the other side of the globe, another spark is lit. No, not the Arabs this time. This time that fire is Hebrew.

In these seasons covered by the dark clouds of far-right measures strangling the Israeli public, these times of loyalty oaths, and land appropriations, and far-reaching attacks on democratic pillars, from out of nowhere the public rose up to demand a grand vision of what modern societies can and should be: places centered upon the stability of the middle class, where wealth is not monopolized but the few, where education and health care are a right, not a privilege.

The tent cities represent the best of what the Hebrew Republic was built to be: Jews fighting for the their own self determination, not at the exclusion or expense of another people, but, rather, because they have the will and the power to build their own utopia in the land of their forefathers. This is the society that is a light to the nations, a society that fights for the prophets’ visions of equality and justice. This is the land of hatikva, the land of hope.

So the Arab Spring may have faded as quickly as the United States’ credit rating this summer, but I say cheers to the Hebrew Summer. Cheers to the Jews who can remind us of the power of the individual, of the promise of democracy, and of the eternal truth that the world continues to lean forward towards justice.

I wish them luck, and remain inspired by all they have done so far. Cheers.

And yet, in the silence of empty streets, Carmaggedon 2011 came and passed. There were no horrors. Life went on. And the contractors even finished their work a day early. $400,000 well-saved.

Cue the Monday morning quarterbacks criticizing the ridiculousness of this whole adventure, comparing Carmaggedon to Y2K as another overly-hyped non-emergency. Cue the politicians to start warning of Carmaggedon 2012, Return of the Carmaggedon, this time bigger, more dangerous, and more likely to go wrong. Cue the screaming children and fainting women.

Lost in the commotion is the amazing story of one weekend in Los Angeles when millions of people were able to relax, stay put, walk, bike and enjoy their neighborhoods. Not even a whole weekend. It lasted one day. Saturday. Shabbat.

A woman on NPR notes how nice it was to stay local for the day, to see friends, interact with her community and connect with neighbors. She hopes that corporations and politicians will take note and find ways to make this a more regular occurrence.

But she can do it herself!

Carmaggedon was not a present given to us by Measure R. It need not be a one-time parting gift of the Mulholland Bridge. No. It is something that can be repeated regularly, every week even.

Carmaggedon was quite lovely, in the end. But the experience is nothing new to me.

This is the point where I could self-righteously suggest that Shabbat provides the answer, that if only people realized that observance was the path to enjoying the unexpectedly delightful result of this weekend’s construction.

I will not.

Shabbat offers plenty of good, to be sure, but strict observance of the day’s sanctity is not for everyone.

Rather, I use Carmaggedon as a template for explaining the beauty of the Seventh Day, and what it can be: friends, a slower pace, actually connecting with the place in which you live.

Connection is something so-craved in our day. It can seem forever-distant. But it’s here! Right in front of us. If only we could pause, breath, and slow down enough every once in a while to attain it. If only we could close freeways every weekend!

Carmaggedon, that absurd fear over what terrible things would happen if Angelinos could not travel between the City and the Valley for two days, gave so many a taste of the very thing they always seek yet forever move further away from.

I’m lucky enough to already get that gift every week. Maybe, just maybe, this past weekend will have taught a few more people that they can to.

Meeting with friends during Carmaggedon Shabbat afternoon, one reflected on her aspirations for the day:

It’s so great, she said. I can walk down the streets of L.A. and exchange high fives and smiles with every person I pass.

Pollyannaish? Yes. A pipe dream? Not exactly.

Beyond the rules, the rituals and the details – all of which I love – the essence of Shabbat is that every person needs and deserves a day of rest. Rest is not errands. Rest is not mindless sleep. Rest is about connecting, with your neighborhood, with your friends, with your family, with the world around you. Rest is about good food, good company, and lots of smiles.

And maybe just a few high fives with other pedestrians too.

Take a second, and zoom in on Yom Kippur afternoon. Walking the streets, one cannot help but notice the glaring absence. It comes in the form of an unsettled feeling in one’s stomach.

No, it isn’t the fast speaking. It may seem that the lack of food is playing tricks on the mind, but it is not.

In the middle of the day, in the center of the Israeli capital, there is not a moving car in sight. The silence is unsettling. Nothing. Literally, nothing, to be heard.

In place of cars are people, having taken over the roads entirely.

It feels like the end of the world. In the aftermath of some cataclysmic event, the people slowly come outside to see what has become of their planet. It is that odd to the eye. It just does not happen anywhere.

Nowhere but here.

And so, as I stepped down the main street of this German Colony that I call home, reveling in the serenity of peace and quiet, I wanted to grab onto the experience and never let go.

Because it made Emek Refaim feel so normal, so real.

It is anything but.

This street is first mentioned in the Book of Joshua. It is here that the Philistines took position, having been attacked by King David, many centuries later. It is here that, legend holds, a race of giants once dwelled.

Hence it’s name, Emek Refaim, “Valley of the Ghosts”.

I see these ghosts every morning when I board the bus. The stare at me every afternoon, as I pass shops and cafes on my walk home. They surround me every Friday as I buy groceries for Shabbat.

Look over there! That’s where the German Templars first settled this area.

Psst. Just past that cafe, an evil man once murdered innocents, as part of some political game.

Get this: a little beyond that hill, look to the left of that big church. There your ancestors built a home for God.

Every inch of this place is seeped in these stories, history just waiting to be remembered. Like a soaked-through sponge, ready to be wrung out, every step feels full of the past.

The ghosts reach out to grab you; the giants want to catch your attention.

What is the meaning of this place? I ask the same question every day.

I want to pretend it has no meaning.

This is just a place. A place where Jews live. And I am one of them. I have an apartment, I wake up in the morning, and go about my business. I study, I pray, and try to save the world in the process. I watch some television. I go to bed.

But no!

Those Jews, over there, are speaking the language of my ancestors. Were it not for Eliezer Ben Yehuda, the dream would not have come true. That lintel, it has Arabic, because this neighborhood, after the Germans, was settled by Arabs, who fled in ’48, the year my people was redeemed, just over there, around that corner.

Every morning, the sun rises over the Jordanian hills to my east. And if I squint just enough, I can make out the profile of Moses, looking here, into the Land of Israel, just before his death.

History comes alive at every moment, the ghosts grab at me continuously.

I tried to use Yom Kippur to shake myself of it all. Let it be. It is what it is. You can’t figure it all out in one instant.

Another day passes. Still no answers. Lots more questions.

Not like it’s actually a bad thing. We all strive for a life of meaning, infusing each moment with rich ideas and rituals and history. Sometimes, here, it can feel like too much though.

And so I let it be.

In the silent moments, the times no cars are passing, when there is no yelling or shoving or sirens or gunfire, I try to pause. To take in the beauty and love it all. To appreciate it for what it is, all that it has been, and all it strives to be.

Here in the Valley. The Land of the Giants.

The drive was long and arduous. The forty mile trek should be a straight shot, but can take as long as five hours, depending on things like traffic, police checkpoints, and donkeys stopping along the road.

And so it was, that, on the outskirts of Dakar, still an hour from our destination, our van made a pit stop so people could do their business. I joined the parade of tubobs (Wolof for “white person”) towards the gas station’s latrines. Yet, after nearly two weeks without touching money, two weeks without even a hint of capitalism, I could not help but enter into the snack shop and walk around.

The refrigerator filled with neatly stacked bottles of Coke Light beamed with angelic light as a heavenly chorus filled my ears with song. I grabbed one from behind the glass. My mouth began to water, my heart beat a little faster. But there, just as I turned around, my eyes gazed to my left and were met dead on with the comforting stare of a large blue and white bag of Bamba.

Bamba, if you did not already know, is a favorite snack of Israelis. Something only conceivable in this land of Milk and Honey, Bamba is like cheese puffs, only with peanut butter instead of orange cheese powder. Sounds gross. Tastes delicious.

I bought a few bags and triumphantly returned to my van, providing gastronomic solace to twenty five future rabbis removed from civilization for far too long.

We all enjoyed the snack, taking little time to think about the experience. But, in retrospect, most surprising about finding the Israeli national snack at a gas station in the capital of this West African Muslim nation was the fact that it wasn’t all that surprising at all.

A week prior, we had met with the Israeli ambassador to the country. The tall man – a walking caricature of himself – spoke proudly of the work his home country is doing throughout the Western Coast of Africa.

Not prone to believing others’ hyperbole and an eternal sceptic at heart, I was adept at taking everything he said with a grain of salt. Could the massive amounts of development work that he is describing really be possible? Is it true that the Israeli embassy in Senegal is behind a giant tolerance program taking place soon in Dakar. What are the ulterior motives? What is behind his message? How could such a small country be responsible for so much good?

Not that I wouldn’t want Israel to be such an or lagoyim – light unto the nations – in this hell on earth. It just seemed too good to be true. Could the country really be funding tzedakah to help non-Jews merely because it is the right thing to be doing?

Surely, Israel has much to gain from such work. A heavily tolerant, Suffi, non-Arab country has much to offer the Jewish State. But the support is real. Is real. Israel?

Low and behold, NGO after NGO that we met with described the great support they receive from the Israeli government. Not the American government with its gag rule and bureaucratic stipulations. No, the Israeli government.

In a country without stable sources of water and an agricultural system stuck in the Iron Age, Israel’s drip irrigation technology has giant potential. In a country forgotten by most of the world, that small Jewish state, so embroiled in its own quagmires, is not forgetting.

The Jewish state’s embassy is doing the hard groundwork to help this underdeveloped nation and its neighbors realize their potential. All Israel gains is the love of an unknown people ignored by modernity and a market to sell its national treat.

Let’s remember after all: most Senegalese have never met a Jew. In fact, most don’t even know that such a thing exists. For two weeks, I found it easiest to describe myself as an Israelite. And the Senegalese know what that is only because they read about them in the Koran.

Stellar.

This is the ultimate form of tzedakah, is it not: giving to a people who do not even know you.

In the age of Lieberman and Netenyahu, of showdowns with the US, and ultimate fears of annihilation from Iran, of violent protests against parking lots and never ending hate-mongering, as I chewed on my delicious bites of peanut-coated puff, I felt good, very good.

Surely, the Diet Coke helped.

But each bite of Bamba seemed to carry in it a morsel of redemption. The food was symbolic of everything that I had learned to work for during my time in Africa. This is what giving is supposed to be about. This is human beings helping fellow humans alleviate their most dire problems. This is the work ahead. This is what it means to be a Jew, to be a human, to be privileged and ready to give back.

ברוך אתה ה’ הזן את הכל.

I was surrounded by twenty four colleagues – fellow rabbinical students from throughout the United States – as we prayed the morning service from atop a building in downtown Dakar, the capital of the West African nation of Senegal.

For two weeks, our delegation joined the American Jewish Service to work with its grantee, Tostan, aiding in community-led development in rural villages facing extreme poverty throughout Africa.

No prior experience could have prepared me for what I saw in Senegal: children with flies in their eyes; distended bellies; open sores; bare feet; hunger; sickness; a land parched by drought. At first glance, the place seemed like hell. How could God allow such a place to exist?

For ten days we worked with locals in the villages of Darou Mouride and Keur Songo, building latrines and helping them in their daily chores. I swept, I tilled soil, I brought forth water from wells. All the while, I built bonds with people so different from me, and yet so similar. They love, they cry, they laugh, they play.

I played with many kids. Two in particular I will never forget, Tidiane Geye and Popmusonjop showed me firsthand the power of the AJWS and its grantees to bring positive change to the world.

As I butchered their names time and time again, the two kids laughed in a way that any would at a blubbering foreigner standing before them. “Tubob” they called me – white man.

Finally, Tidiane Geye crouched down and spelled out his name in the sand below him. In a country with almost no literacy, this defiant act writing was nothing short of miraculous.

But my new friends need far more than an education. They need food. They need mosquito nets. They need basic health services and access to a world which has left them behind. They need shoes.

They need an American Jewish community that remembers them, and does all we can to help the billions of people like them who live in abject poverty, trying to make ends meet on as little as a dollar a day in conditions more horrific than most of us could imagine.

I returned from Africa inspired by the work of the AJWS. I returned motivated by my new cadre of rabbinical students dedicated to bringing our message of social justice to our home communities. I returned ready for the hard work ahead.

The Wolof word used in response to a greeting is “mangifee,” which translates literally as “I am here.” The Hebrew equivalent is “hineini”, the response by Abraham when God first calls out to him in service.

To all my brothers and sisters in this world stricken by the disease of poverty – to Tidiane Geye and Popmusonjop – to all of the communities where AJWS works and those yet to be helped, I cry out Mangifee. I am ready to help you. I am here to work on your behalf. Hineini.

I went for a walk this afternoon with a friend around a lake here in Oakland. As as we neared the end of our stroll, we happened upon the local Catholic church, a monstrous cathedral of epic proportions. It was completed only this year – a massive modern structure of concrete and glass.

And something inside me pulled towards the building. I have always shied away from churches. I feel mildly uncomfortable inside of them – a little bit outside, and little bit persecuted Jew. Generally, with all due reverence and respect, they don’t interest me.

But this time, something was different. The old, dormant, architect inside of me bubbled to the surface with curiosity. I yanked at my friend, and we walked up the ramp, ascending towards the Temple of God like the staircases in Jerusalem once ascended to God’s home. We walked up to the door, and peaked through the window at its side.

I could see in. Barely.

So, with much angst and equal excitement, I pulled at the door and entered.

The space was empty, save a few other souls, some praying, others praying that they could soon leave; some in awe, others awe-struck by the millions and millions of dollars the structure must have cost.

I expected to be wowed by the engineered steel and wood; once inside, I was most moved by the engineering of soul and spirit. I generally think of churches – at least the big, beautiful kind – as things that are in Europe. This one was a twenty-first century creation; but a space that evoked the spirit of humans as well as any first-century construct. Every inch of the space had meaning, every line significance, ever curve a story. I wanted to cry out, with tears, not voice. I wanted to shout, to pray, to celebrate, to smile.

Such beauty. Such meaning. And I don’t even do that Jesus thing.

Once upon a time, I dropped out of architecture school because I realized that I don’t like to draw. I turned instead to the field of spirit, of God and belief. But I never left behind my reverence for the ability of the buildings we create to display the greatest things about humanity – for architecture to not be about walls and a ceiling but, rather, telling the story of man, to evoke emotions with the delicate use of space.

And I found that, again, finally, tonight, here in Oakland, in the Bay, in the land of my former school.

And last night, after dinner with a friend I have not seen in many changes of the trees, we returned to his apartment and lit the holiday lights. One candle, one helper, burning brightly against the dark of the Winter Solstice. Without prompting or cues, we both sang the day’s blessings, one after another, after another. Same words, same tune. Two men from far different worlds, separated for years from each other.

I could not help but appreciate the divinity of that moment. Of sharing in celebrating the miracle together. And what was that miracle after all? What is that Hanukah thing all about?

So the Macabees one a war. Who cares?

The miracle is in the oil. In the smallest of mundane objects, a physical thing no less mortal than ourselves, which had the power to inspire hope and awe in people throughout centuries.
In the most unexpected of objects, an entire season of celebration was found. The oil like so many other inspiring creations, helps us rise to a higher occasion, to remind us what is important, to remind us what it means to believe, to hope.

That is what Hanukah is about – it is about the ability of man to succeed, to surpass, and in that success redirect one’s thoughts back to the Divine.

In this time, in those days, the miracle befell us. It seems to come alive before my eyes every day of this festival.