Category: Uncategorized

Originally posted: October 29, 2014

Poor Noah.  The rabbis give him such a hard time. The famous Rashi teaches that he wasn’t REALLY righteous, he was just righteous in his own generation.  He never stood up to God to defend his contemporaries from the flood.  As Avivah Gottleib Zornberg argues in her book Genesis: The Beginnings of Desire, it is Noah’s lack of outrage that shows his (poor) character and his tremendous cowardice.

If we are in any doubt about who Noah is, we have only to consider the central fact of his silence.  From beginning to end of the Flood narrative, Noah says not a word… the impact of Noah’s silent acquiescence in the destruction of the world is devastating.  (p.58)

What a wake up call to modern readers!  I’m starting to ask myself if I might have a bit of the Noah syndrome. Too often, I choose silence over action or rightful moral outrage.  These past few weeks, when news of clergy abuse hit the headlines, I had to ask myself: what would I have done if I had heard the reports?  Would I have come forward with difficult reports about a leader I admired, or would I have defended him to his victims, saying “well, you must have misunderstood him,” or “he’s really such a good man.  He didn’t mean it.”  Would I have stood up for justice, risking my reputation or relationships to speak difficult truths?  Or would I, like Noah, have stood by in silence and allowed destruction to continue without a word?

The title of this blog, Shameless Judaism, is only aspirational so far. I want to be someone who speaks up when necessary and who refuses to let important truths get clouded with other concerns.  But too often, fear gets in the way.

How comforting to know that even Abram, the great champion of justice, had some fear of his own.

Just imagine what kind of courage it took for Abram to begin a new nation, or to bring his own son to the altar, or (gasp!) to challenge God about God’s plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.  Surely, this was not a man who had to conquer his own fear.  And yet, as God presented the covenant and a series of promises for Abram’s future, it’s almost as if God predicted that Abram might have some mixed emotions. “Al Tira Avram Anochi Magein Lach.” “Do not fear, Abram. I am your protector.” (Genesis 15:1)  God showed Abram the stars of the sky, saying “I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars.”  If you’re going to be the leader of a great nation, God seems to be saying, you have to start with no fear.  I know you may feel fear, but I’m committing to you:  abundance is in your future.

What happens next is powerful, and it’s good news for those of us who want to stand up for justice, but aren’t always ready to do so.

V’he’emin b’Adonai, vayachsheveha lo l’tzedakah.   “And [Abram] believed in God, and [God] counted it for him as tzedakah (righteousness, or justice).” (15:6) Or, to translate it slightly differently, Abram believed in God, and God gave him credit for acting justly.

What a surprising moment!  God gives Abram credit for acting justly because Abram believed?? How is that enough? Shouldn’t faith be combined with action, through the work that we do to stand up for others?

The Christian Bible teaches that “faith without works Is dead.” (James 2:14)  But here, in fact, the Torah seems to teach otherwise.  Of course, faith WITH works may be better.  It is true; behavior trumps belief in Jewish thought.  What we do defines us, not what we think.  But action can be hard, especially when it comes to things that require courage and commitment.  That’s why it’s good to know that sometimes God (or the God I choose to believe in) gives us credit for faith, even before we’ve done the action.  Harachaman, the Merciful One. knows how hard it can be for us to take action. God knows that perhaps the first step is simply to believe:  to believe that we CAN take action, to trust that we will be guided to justice, to know that the right will always win out.  And isn’t that a good beginning to any act of justice?

What a relief to know that Abram got points just for having a little belief.  We may think we’re not courageous enough to be true leaders.  We may wonder if we would take the right actions when called upon to act justly.  We may worry that we will be penned in by fear at just the wrong moment.  But the Torah reminds us: it’s okay to be a beginner.  The way out of the Noah syndrome is, perhaps, simply to BEGIN with a bit of faith.  Sometimes the work inside leads to the work outside.  After all, the rest of Abram’s story is filled with acts of courage.  So may ours be, as well.

Originally posted: November 6, 2015

Walking into a Jewish high school, you’d never guess that Judaism values silence!

And yet, the beauty of silence is extolled throughout Jewish literature. Most famous, perhaps, is the mishnah from Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel in Pirkei Avot:

Kol yamai gadalti bein hachachamim, v’lo matzati laguf tov ela shtikah. V’lo hamidrash hu ha’ikar ela hama’aseh. V’chol hamarbeh dvarim mevi chet.

Throughout my life, I was raised among the scholars, and I discovered that there is nothing more becoming a person than silence; not study, but doing mitzvot (actions) is the essence of virtue; excess in speech leads to sin. (1:17)

I know, I know. Wasn’t I JUST saying how important it is to speak up for justice? That was last week. This week, I’m thinking a lot about how it’s not ALWAYS important to speak up.  The ability to be silent is a pretty amazing trait (a tough one for me!). So then we have to ask ourselves: why do we push so many of our students to “participate more in class?”

This week, during Parent-Student-Teacher conferences, I was reminded again of how many students continue to get the message that they have to talk in class.

“So, do you have any questions for me?” I asked at the end of one meeting. “Yes,” said one student. “Do I need to participate more?”
“Not sure,” I responded. “Do you WANT to participate more?”

Some students wish they spoke more in class. Maybe they are nervous to say the wrong thing, or they feel like other students intimidate them. Those are students I want to help find their own voices. But I don’t believe that every student needs to “PARTICIPATE,” in the way that teachers so often say. Every year, parents tear up when I say it’s okay if their child doesn’t speak in class. “For 12 years, teachers have told us that he needs to speak more in class. This is the first time anyone has ever told us that it’s okay for him to be himself.”

Why does everyone have to speak in class? I’m grateful to Susan Cain for the TED talk “The Power of Introverts” for teaching me that not everyone processes things by speaking about them.

One student’s mother was so relieved to hear that her son could sit and listen or write his thoughts down instead of speaking them. An Asian immigrant, she said that she thinks the expectation for students to speak in class is cultural.  “In Taiwan, we were taught that silence is golden. Show humility, don’t speak too much. In America,” she said, “everyone has to self-promote.”

So I had to ask myself, what is silence worth in Jewish culture? According to the Talmud (Megilah 18a), Rav Dimi came to Babylonia with a lesson from the West (Palestine): “Milah b’sela, mashtokei b’trein.” “A word is worth one coin; silence is worth two.”

Think about Moses, our greatest prophet– decidedly not a big talker. “Lo Ish Dvarim Anochi,” he tells God in chapter 4 of Exodus. “I am not a man of words,” says our lisp-laden leader. (He does eventually learn to say what he needs to say, as Bible teacher Dorothy Weiss reflects. “He doesn’t shut up through the whole book of Deuteronomy!”)

Our greatest prophet was most likely–surprise–an INTROVERT. Most of the other prophets were, as well. And when one prophet, Elijah, is outspoken, mocking the people, making demands on God, screaming and shouting, what sign does God send him? Not a storm or an earthquake, but a kol d’mama dakah. A still small voice. “Stop yelling,” God seems to be saying. “Be quiet for once!” It is in the quiet where the Divine can be found.

It’s time we leave our introverted students alone on this “class participation” thing. We don’t need to shame them into talking more in class. My creative colleagues at Schechter have taught me well; let students write their ideas down on a class blog or share them privately with us. Not every student has to have the same personality. The rest of us (my talkative self included) have a lot to learn from these quiet learners.  If we stop talking for a moment, the silence may speak for itself.

Jordan

Nov 20, 2014

Incredible, appreciate hearing my own teachers thoughts about this.

Lenny Lionnet

Nov 7, 2014

But I often think introverted and extroverted mental processes are too often associated with quiet and talkative. Someone who is quite talkative can be an introvert (maybe Abby Sosland) and someone who is quiet can be an extrovert.

Lisa

Nov 7, 2014 I think that there’s a lot of value in your blog post, and I do think about the value of not speaking (and especially not shooting off your mouth) in Judaism, which I found an issue in contentious seminars in grad school.

But I also think that there’s a difference between quiet students and silent students, and that there are students who don’t speak in class not because they hate to speak but because they are not sure that their ideas are important enough for them to claim the time and airspace, so I try to create opportunities for those students to participate. I like to make a list of the people with hands up and then add another student who has not raised her hand, saying something like “And then I’ll check in with ___ and see if you want to add anything–I know from your blog post that you have good thoughts about this.” I have alerted the students in advance that I do this, and that they can decline to speak without penalty, but I think that all too often silent students are not silent because they prefer to be silent but because they need to have ways opened for them. I also like to go around the table at the beginning of a seminar meeting and ask students to note the issues they want to make sure we cover that day. They can just refer to their commonplace book entries (posted on the blog) but this round of agenda-setting means that everyone has spoken once in the first ten minutes of class, which takes the pressure off for the students who sit looking for an opening because they feel that they are supposed to speak.

Originally posted: November 20, 2014

Remember that time when you were planning that really important thing, and then all of a sudden you couldn’t remember what you were trying to do? You lost all motivation and all you wanted to do was sleep?  Or eat?

What happened to your strong resolve? What happened to your commitment?

Every so often, for many of us, the body beats the mind. We get so tired, so hungry, so “done,” that we become blinded by our physical need, and our best laid plans fall away.  It’s what cravings specialists refer to as getting to “HALT:” Hungry Angry Lonely or Tired.

Ask anyone who knows me well;  when I’m in HALT, I can (every once in a while) be (a bit of) a drama queen.  I will admit that on occasion I have said things I don’t mean: “I’m so hungry I could DIE.”  And if you asked me to give away the most important thing in my life at a moment when I feel like I need to sleep, I might actually be willing to negotiate a price.

So it’s hard for me not to empathize with Esav in this week’s parsha.  He arrives at the end of a long day of hunting, and his quiet brother Jacob is making a lentil soup. Sell me some of that soup, he says, ki ayef anochi,  “because I am tired.”  Jacob agrees, on the condition that Esav sell his birthright, and Esav agrees.  Hineh anochi holeich lamut, v’lamah zeh li bechorah?  “I’m about to die. Why do I need the birthright?” (Genesis 25:30-32)  The rabbinic tradition wants to vilify him, to make him a thoughtless jerk who doesn’t know the value of important things in his life. And they point to his animalistic nature, in the way that he asks for the soup, the way that he eats it. But what if Esav is not an animal at all, but just deeply, utterly human? What if he has just hit the end of his rope at the end of a long day? Perhaps the Torah is encouraging us to hear the humanity in Esav, to understand that he is simply a victim of his cravings, of his exhaustion, and of his humanness. Evidently the Torah understood the concept of HALT. The Torah understood that human beings do stupid things when their defenses are down.

Even more, one interpretation suggests that Esav had probably learned this kind of language from his own mother.  As Robert Alter suggests, Esav’s words v’lamah zeh li bechorah (“why do I need the birthright?”) call to mind Rebecca’s words when she was struggling to have a child:  lamah zeh ‘anochi (“why me?”).  (See Robert Alter’s Genesis, p. 129.)  This beautiful connection pushes the point that Esav may have had a model in his own home of this kind of self-pity, this kind of giving up. He may not know any other way to be.  Shouldn’t we have a bit more compassion for him?

The rabbis teach that there are shivim panim latorah, literally, 70 faces of Torah. Our trick as careful readers of text, then, is to find ourselves in each of the figures of our story. We have a responsibility to look at each Biblical character from shivim panim, through 70 faces, and to see each one as utterly human.

Remember that time when you lost all your focus and gave up for a moment?  When you did the dumbest thing ever, just because you were tired or hungry, or you didn’t know a different way?  Most of us can remember at least one of those moments. And we must hold them in our minds when we meet Esav, or for that matter, anyone whose actions we may not understand. There are at least 70 faces to Torah. Look in the mirror; one of them is yours.

Originally posted:  December 14, 2014

One of my all-time favorite lessons about Chanukkah, from the Talmud Shabbat 22:  The rabbis discuss whether the real mitzvah of Chanukkah is to light the candles or simply to place the Chanukkah menorah in the window. The Chassidic text Kedushat Levi teaches that these two possibilities reflect different spiritual moments in a Jew’s religious experience. Sometimes the spiritual fire is alive in us, and sometimes it’s not.  I love how honest the original Chassidim were about the ebb and flow of our spiritual and emotional lives.  The Kedushat Levi reads the rabbinic debate as a message that sometimes it’s enough just to show up, just to place our menorah and to have the faith that the kindling– the revival of spiritual light– will come.  It seems to me that’s the whole message of the holiday itself.  Light will come, even in the darkest moments.  May each of us experience a renewed faith and a renewed spiritual energy as we light our candles in the coming week.  See you in January!

Originally posted: March 4, 2015

I’ll never forget the moment I learned that amazing line from the book of Esther. I was in Talmud class at JTS Rabbinical School, and (surprise!) my classmates and I were struggling to stay focused.  Our professor stopped the class, and he recited the line which Mordechai said to Esther when he was encouraging her to rise above her own fears and save her people.

כִּי אִם-הַחֲרֵשׁ תַּחֲרִישִׁי, בָּעֵת הַזֹּאת–רֶוַח וְהַצָּלָה יַעֲמוֹד לַיְּהוּדִים מִמָּקוֹם אַחֵר, וְאַתְּ וּבֵית-אָבִיךְ תֹּאבֵדוּ; וּמִי יוֹדֵעַ–אִם-לְעֵת כָּזֹאת, הִגַּעַתְּ לַמַּלְכוּת

If you are completely silent at this moment, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from somewhere else, but you and your family will perish;  and who knows?  Perhaps it is for this moment that you have arrived at the royal palace?

Our professor pointed this verse directly at us.  “Listen, folks,” I remember his message. “The Torah will survive this generation, with you or without you.  The question is:  do you want to be a part of it?”

I loved that verse, and it still comforts me today.  The Jewish people will be just fine. It’s good to know I don’t have to hang the survival of the entire Jewish people on any one class or group of students. When students say they don’t feel like studying or following the tradition, I say to myself or even to them:  “no big deal. The Jewish people will survive, no matter what.”

But it is Mordechai’s challenge to Esther which is far scarier.  Sure, the Jewish people will survive– and that is certainly comforting– but the real question is, what is my role in the process?  Why have I been brought to this “royal palace” in my own life?  What am I meant to do with this very moment?

Mordechai throws the gauntlet down for each of us: what are we doing with the privileges we have been given?  What is our mission in this one opportunity at life?  Where will we fit into this story?

The problem with a challenge like this one is that too often we may feel like dropping the ball.  Maybe we don’t know what we are meant to do, and we find Mordechai’s challenge overwhelming.  Or worse– we DO know, and we decide we just can’t handle living up to what we might hope for ourselves.

But another verse in this week’s liturgical readings warns us against thinking we don’t have it in us.

This past Shabbat in shul, I sat next to List College Dean Shuly Schwartz, who pointed out her father’s favorite line in the Haftarah for Shabbat Zachor.  Evidently, Rabbi Mordecai Rubin, z”l, loved the moment when the prophet Samuel spoke to the failing King Saul.  As soon as I looked at the line more closely, I saw what was so special about this line.  For Samuel, Saul’s biggest problem– and the reason he could not remain king– was his own self-image.

 וַיֹּאמֶר שְׁמוּאֵל–הֲלוֹא אִם-קָטֹן אַתָּה בְּעֵינֶיךָ, רֹאשׁ שִׁבְטֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אָתָּה; וַיִּמְשָׁחֲךָ יְהוָה לְמֶלֶךְ, עַל-יִשְׂרָאֵל

Samuel said:  You may be small in your own eyes, but are you not the head of the tribes of Israel?  God has anointed you king over Israel.  (I Samuel 15:17)

Samuel makes clear that God’s problem with Saul is that Saul’s own ego is getting in his way. Each of us has been chosen for something, but when we fail to step up to it, we are in trouble. Being small in our own eyes is in itself the sin.

Mordechai reminds us, the Jewish people will be just fine, bayamim hahem uvazman hazeh, in those days as well as in our time. But what will our role be in the story? Each of us, like Saul and Esther before us, has been anointed for something. If we don’t play the role chosen for us, history–the history of our people, the history of the world– will certainly continue.  But we shy away at our own risk.   וּמִי יוֹדֵעַ?  Who knows?  This could be the very moment we have waited for.

Originally posted: April 3, 2015

There must have been a really good evolutionary purpose to negative thinking. Back in hunting and gathering times, it probably made sense to look for trouble, even on beautiful, sunny days.  You never knew when some predator would pop out on the savannah, ready to pounce and attack.  I’m sure that kind of fear and worry used to be really beneficial to Homo Erectus… but the modern human might do well to move on.

Negativity catches us unawares, even when all is well.  All winter long, we long for a sunny day, but by the second day of spring, we forget how much we wanted it and fill our minds with new concerns.  Come July, we’ll be complaining about the heat.  As our lives–and attention spans– move forward, we’re quick to look for the next problem, without stopping to reflect upon how good things actually are.

It’s true at a national and communal level, too.  We can spend our time wringing our hands about the situation in Israel– and at times, we must, perhaps– but we forget that for 2000 years the ONLY thing we prayed for was to be returned to Zion.  As the popular prayer goes, we may not be where we want to be, but let’s not forget: we are certainly not where we used to be.

The rabbis got this, intuitively, when they planned for our seder discussions.  Putting “v’higadta l’vincha” (you shall tell your children) into practical terms, they told us exactly HOW we should be telling the story of our people on Passover night. “Matchil b’gnut u’msayem b’shevach.” We start with the bad and end with the good.  Rav and Shmuel disagreed about what, exactly, the bad was; was it that we were slaves, or that we were idol worshippers?  Either way, we are taught, we must tell both sides of the story, even in the simplest of terms.  It once was bad, and now it’s good. Now let’s give thanks.

In an article about the origins of the seder, Professor David Golinkin shows that this was actually a Roman technique in creating a powerful storyline.

According to the Mishnah (10:4), the father at the Seder “begins with disgrace and concludes with praise”. This, too, was a Roman technique. Quintillian (30-100 C.E.) says: “[It is good in a eulogy to]… have ennobled a humble origin by the glory of his achievements…at times weakness may contribute largely to our admiration” (Stein, p. 37).

Starting with gnut— starting with the worst part of the story– helps us to appreciate how far we’ve come.  As Quintillian knew, “weakness contributes to admiration,” and recognizing the difficult in our own histories will guarantee a sense of gratitude in the moment.

This Passover, let’s tell our story, bad to good. Transforming negativity into gratitude takes practice and work, and seder night can help us. Of course, our world still needs to be redeemed in so many ways. Enslavement is all around us, both literally and spiritually. But for a moment, let’s stop and give thanks. Where has our story shifted?  Where have we found freedom and grace from something that was troubling us?  When we go from Gnut to shevach, the blessings in our lives suddenly come into focus.  We will have reason to lift our glasses and sing: Dayenu!  Thank you, God, for the miracles that abound.  Chag Sameach.

Originally posted: April 13, 2015

Ask any one of my students, past or present: discipline has never been my strong suit.  I tend to laugh more than yell, compliment more than critique, and, to my embarrassment, give many more As than Bs.

So today, the 9th day of the Omer, is a spiritually challenging day.  The second week of the Omer mystically focuses on gevurah (limits or discipline), and the second day of the second week asks us to turn our attention to gevurah shebe’gevurah— limits within limits. No easy task!  I want to bring chesed (love) to the study of Torah, and I hate the idea of turning someone off from Jewish learning with an overzealous disciplinary approach.  And yet, studies show that children and teens need limits– and fewer compliments– to build esteem. So maybe this is a useful quality to consider.

Today, I read Abaye’s comment in the Talmud as if it is addressed to me:

If a scholar is loved by the townspeople, their love is not due to her superiority but to the fact that she does not rebuke them for neglecting spiritual matters. (Ketubot 105b)

For me to be an effective educator, I need to remember that my goal is not to be loved, but to help my students arrive at their own spiritual goals, even with occasionally difficult conversations. Tomorrow the tradition asks us to focus on the beauty inherent in these very boundaries and limits, and throughout the week, I’ll be reflecting on how we might use gevurah in our teaching, our parenting, and in our lives, in general.  Join the conversation:  post your thoughts below.  How will you be working with gevurah this week?

Originally posted: June 3, 2015

Sometimes, even second chances need second chances. About a month ago, on the 14^th of Iyyar, I considered writing a blog post about Pesach Sheini and second chances.  I never actually wrote the post. This week I was asked to write a column for Parshat Behaalotcha—where Pesach Sheini is described in the Torah. A second chance at “second chances!”  I’m reaching for the text again, asking it to teach me something worth sharing.

The Book of Numbers tells the story of a group of men who could not observe Passover “in its appointed season,” as Moses commands.  They approached Moses and Aaron, worried that they would have to miss the Pesach sacrifice.

And those men said unto [Moses]: ‘We are unclean by the dead body of a man; why are we to be kept back, so as not to bring the offering of the LORD in its appointed season among the children of Israel?’  (Numbers 9:7)

Moses returned to the men with God’s permission to bring the Pesach sacrifice a month after the proper time.

‘If any man of you or of your generations shall be unclean by reason of a dead body, or be in a journey on a distant road, he shall keep the passover unto the LORD; in the second month on the fourteenth day at dusk they shall keep it.’ (Numbers 9:10-11)

If you were unable to make it the first time, God seems to be saying, try again. One month after Pesach, the 14^th day of Iyyar, we are given a second chance.

I love what Jonathan Mark wrote in the Jewish Week about the text:

 ‘Death’ and ‘distant roads,’ rebbes explained, also refers to sadness and disconnection. Anyone who missed doing what he or she had to do, be it on a Passover or in other circumstances, essentially could go back in time if his or her yearning was true enough. Nothing broken was beyond repair. After all, time itself is an earthly concept. Heaven is not confined by the laws of time.

According to Mark, Pesach Sheini allows us out of the confines of time.  It frees us from the idea that we are stuck in a cycle of aging and moving through time, with no rest point, no do-overs.  Pesach Sheini allows us to go back and do over, once in a while.

And the do-over does more than allow us to go backwards in time. The second chance also lets us move forward with a new perspective, with a kinder, gentler view of ourselves and the things we may have done imperfectly.

What were these men doing when they missed Passover?  The ancient midrashic text Sifrei offers three possibilities: they were carrying Joseph’s bones, burying Aaron’s sons Nadav and Avihu, or caring for a met mitzvah (a corpse with no family to claim it).  In any of scenarios, one thing is clear; these men were involved in a sacred task.  Their excuse is entirely acceptable, their second chance merited.

Powerfully, the Sifrei offers these men the benefit of the doubt.  They must have had a good reason to miss the Pesach sacrifice, we can hear the rabbis explaining to themselves. They must have been doing something important.

What if we were to judge ourselves with that same approach?  To say to ourselves, “okay, you didn’t make it the first time, but there must have been a good reason.  You must have been involved in something important.  Can you let yourself off the hook and try again?”

Pesach Sheini offers us the opportunity to forgive ourselves for things we wish we had done differently, to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, let ourselves off the hook, and try again. It’s a gift to those of us who may not get everything right on the first try.  And isn’t that, really, just about everyone?

Originally posted: September 30, 2015

This year, as Hurricane Joaquin approaches during the holiday of Sukkot, we feel more than ever the fragility of sukkah design.  Those partial walls, lightly attached corners and strangely layered schach that have served us so well year after year suddenly seem flimsier than usual.  In this climate, we may be particularly aware of the irony of asking God to spread over us a sukkat shalom, a Sukkah of Peace.   Do we really want shalom that is so flimsy?  Are we actually asking God for peace that is so temporary? With the storm threatening to topple our sukkot, we may be craving more of a binyan shalom (a building of peace), or better yet, a mivtzar shalom (a fortress of peace)—unshakeable, immovable, and eternally durable.

Of course, it is the sukkah’s very flimsiness that is its essential element. The Talmud lists a number of odd loopholes for building a sukkah. For example, as long as a wall comes close enough to the ground (under three handbreadths, or about 10 feet), the law of lavud considers it as if it is touching the ground.  More than that, if a wall of the sukkah is only 10 feet high, the law of gud asik mechitzta treats it as if it goes all the way up to the heavens.  Finally, if there is an awning attached to the wall of a sukkah, the law of dofen akumah says we just pretend it’s a crooked wall and sit under the schach which is attached to the awning, as if it were attached to the wall itself.  These are just a few of the strange set of regulations that might make us wonder. With all of the fake walls and pretend corners, it’s as if the sukkah is an imaginary space!

An imaginary space, indeed.  It turns out a little imagination is exactly what we need if we are to live the religious life. As Rabbi Norman Lamm, the former president of Yeshiva University, pointed out in a 1964 sermon (amazing what you can find online!), it is these very illusions that are at the cornerstone of faith.  “Pity the man,” he writes, “who prides himself upon possessing ‘common sense,’ who ‘sticks only to facts,’ and who has nothing to do with sentiment or illusion.”  Lamm quotes the poet John Ciardi from Saturday Review, who wrote,

It is always a mistake to discuss poetry with a man who insists that it must make sense… For the trouble with being sensible is not the sense it does or does not make, but the life it never really manages to get to. It always manages to shut as many doors as it opens…

A little illusion makes possible those things in life that are beyond exact, consistent measure:  love, beauty, faith.  It is also precisely what we need to build a life of meaning.

No wonder, then, that the tradition calls for the metaphor of the delicate sukkah when we pray for peace. Leave the bricks and concrete for other purposes.  Like a sukkah, peace requires a bit of flexibility, a few ambiguities and a blind eye to some of the precise measurements that may not fit exactly.  It also needs to be rebuilt and re-patched every time a new storm comes around.  With a little imagination, the joy we bring to our sukkot can help us to envision a world of peace, where walls, or perhaps more importantly, doors, can be rebuilt again and again, imperfectly and with plenty of loopholes.