"A little girl sick with cancer"

It’s been a great week here; we’ve gotten together with several friends who have made aliyah, we’ve visited Ramat Shilo/Ramat Beit Shemesh, Yad Binyamin (a wonderful Shabbos!), and Beer Sheva, and we’ve had a chance to breathe after the hectic year that just passed. Very, very good; a beautiful trip – and we still have two days left, thank Gd.

It has been hard to deal with one aspect of traveling around Israel, though: the constant call of people in economic need.

I knew they would be here; as a policy, I regularly purchase small items with large-shekel bills so that I’ll have the half-shekel and one-shekel coins to distribute to them. But this time it’s worse, at least in Yerushalayim. I don’t know that the general מצב (situation) is any worse, but it never hit me as hard before, probably because I wasn’t as exposed to the phenomenon.

The major sites for people sitting on the ground and calling for help, at least where we’ve been this trip, are the shuls and the תחנה מרכזית (central bus station). When I was here in yeshiva I rarely traveled. When I was here with Federation trips we rode charter buses rather than travel by city bus; we went to Yad Eliezer and youth villages, but that's not the same as the woman on the street with her hand out. I was here for work this past January, but that was a lightning trip – four days from beginning to end, including the flights. On this trip, though, we’ve spent a lot of time walking back and forth between Rechavyah and the תחנה, walking up and down King George/Strauss/Yechezkel, and walking from Rechavyah to the Old City. The result: Lots of exposure to people in need.

Many of them are the usual suspects – older men and women on the street, as well as chassidim of various varieties at the minyanim. But others, too. A young woman in a snood, looking very much like any number of women I saw in Yad Binyamin, at the תחנה last night. An apparently healthy young man in shul the other morning. And the woman who provided the title of this post, who has been stationed outside the תחנה (by the train-track construction, where you cross the street if you came in by intracity bus) every day for at least the past week, repeating in a monotone, “ילדה חולת סרטן, A little girl sick with cancer.”

I have a hard time with this. I am well aware that some of the collectors could go to work, and that many of the stories these people tell are false or colored. Still – how can you hear ילדה חולת סרטן and walk on? And yet, I did just a short while ago…

Very tough.

[This week's Haveil Havalim is here.]

Olive, Fig and Grape: Don't say No! (Derashah)

[For the record: I have a poppy on my coat today.]

[Note: This week's "Toronto Torah" is now available here.]

I spoke at a UJA meeting earlier this week, and presented an idea I really like; it would be a good skeleton for a derashah if I were still in the darshaning business.

Here’s a digest:

Avimelech, son of Gideon, uses the aid of the population of Shechem to murder his half-siblings and gain the throne. Yotam, the sole remaining sibling, delivers a public rebuke before disappearing into hiding. (Shoftim 9)

As JPS translates the relevant part of Yotam’s speech:
He went and stood in the top of mount Gerizim, and lifted up his voice, and cried, and said unto them: 'Hearken unto me, ye men of Shechem, that Gd may hearken unto you.
The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive-tree: Reign thou over us.
But the olive-tree said unto them: Should I leave my fatness, seeing that by me they honour G-d and man, and go to hold sway over the trees?
And the trees said to the fig-tree: Come thou, and reign over us.
But the fig-tree said unto them: Should I leave my sweetness, and my good fruitage, and go to hold sway over the trees?
And the trees said unto the vine: Come thou, and reign over us.
And the vine said unto them: Should I leave my wine, which cheereth G-d and man, and go to hold sway over the trees?
Then said all the trees unto the bramble: Come thou, and reign over us.
And the bramble said unto the trees: If in truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and take refuge in my shadow...

Clearly, the main villain whom Yotam targets is his half-brother, the thorn, Avimelech. This is a completely unworthy, unproductive man, and he has accepted the throne.

It is also evident that Yotam blames the population itself for asking the thorn to lead.

But there is another set of villains: The olive, fig and grape, which decline to lead because they wish to preserve their unique attributes, which they fear they would lose if they were to take the throne. The olive is afraid it might lose its dignified position; the fig is afraid it might no longer be seen as the one that produces sweet, satisfying fruit; the grape fears that it will no longer be seen as the source of joy.

I see this all the time, in community work; it’s especially relevant for tzedakah solicitation. People are afraid that they will lose their respected positions if they run around asking for funds. People are afraid that they will be known as takers, rather than givers. People are afraid that they will spend their time talking about war and poverty and social services, and cease to be the life of the party.

But those are the people we need, for their talents! We need people who make community enterprises an honor. We need sweet people who make others feel good. And we need people who bring joy to these serious matters. These are the people who make good on the Torah’s עשר בשביל שתתעשר (“tithe so that you will become wealthy”) pledge – the people who enrich those who give, in many diverse ways that transcend finances. We need the olive, the fig and the grape.

All leaders bring talents to the table. None of us are thorns – but what sort of fruit are we?

And I closed with one more thought: The olive, fig and grape are reticent because they fear losing their dignity, they fear becoming known as takers, they fear being known for dull sobriety. But the truth, and I have seen it many times, is that those who lead end up with greater honor, end up known for the satisfaction they provide rather than the money they take, and end up increasing spiritual joy for themselves and for all they meet.

The Condescending Tzedakah Collector

[Haveil Havalim is here!]

[Warning: Rant ahead]

I think it’s safe to say that most people are sensitive to, and do not appreciate, condescension. Our antennae are calibrated when we are children, beginning the first time a patronizing relative, teacher or other adult praises some work of art or scholastic effort with out-of-line rhetoric and soaring accolades which in no way match reality.

We understand that this is an insult to our intelligence, and it is all the more offensive for its attempt at deception.

A great example: A woman once told me how her daughter, as a five or six year old, came to over a period of days with increasingly primitive works of art, until the mother finally gave a less-than-enthusiastic response. The girl told her she had just wanted to see what it would take to get her mother to drop her over-the-top praise.

Personally, I have very little tolerance for patronizing treatment. I’d rather hear an overly harsh critique than receive a let’s-make-him-happy, smile-and-nod response to a class or speech. Aside from its basic insulting character, condescension plays on my insecurities; it makes me wonder what people are really thinking, and just how many of them are thinking it.

Unfortunately, in my line of work I get exactly that treatment, and not infrequently. It comes with being in a position of some authority – people who want something from me may think that flattery is the best way to get it.

So I’ll have someone tell me how wonderful a speech was, as an introduction to asking me to bring in a relative or friend as a speaker.

Or someone will talk about how great things are in the community, as a preface to selling a new initiative.

And the worst are the fundraisers.

A fundraiser was the spur for this post: I recently had a collector from a major yeshiva come through town and spend a few days here. After maariv he came to me and said, "Rabbi, that was just such a beautiful shiur you gave! It was g'shmak-"

I don’t know what else he was going to say, because I cut him off, saying I had to run. I couldn’t stomach it; he was talking about a 3-minute, between-minchah-and-maariv dvar torah, not a class or lecture. What kind of naïve idiot does he think I am?

The same fundraiser wasted a gift of a speaking opportunity by using almost all of his time to tell the community that we always, surprisingly, attract a good class of congregants despite the challenges of our area, we have a nice seudah shlishis in shul, we have children in shul, that we somehow manage to give our children some Judaism, and that we maintain a minyan morning and night... And all of that, here in Allentown, who would have thought?

All of those things are true, frankly, but it was just the way he said it – and no, I don’t think I am being hyper-sensitive, others pointed it out as well – that conveyed to me and to others who were present, “I’m trying to find something good to say before I hit you up for a donation.”

Tell it to me straight. Even better, skip the telling and just make your pitch for what you want. I’ll respond a lot better for it.

[End of rant]