Diamonds and Democracy - MLK Shabbat and Inauguration Weekend

The Maggid of Dubnov told a story* about a king who owned the most beautiful diamond

in the world. Every night the king carefully took the gem from its storage case to gaze

at it lovingly. But one night, disaster struck: the diamond slipped from his hands and

fell to the floor. The king picked it up quickly. But when he examined the stone, he saw

right away that there was now a thin crack running down its length. His diamond was

ruined.

In a panic, the king called every jeweler in his realm. But each expert responded that

once there's a crack in a diamond, there's no way to fix it. The desperate king sent out

word that anyone who could repair his broken diamond would be richly rewarded. A few

days later, a jeweler from a distant province arrived at the palace. After examining the

diamond, he promised the king he would fix everything, not to worry. He took the

diamond and promised to return with it in a few months.

The despondent king couldn't wait to see his diamond as good as new. When the day

arrived, the jeweler presented a beautiful box. The king shook with excitement and

opened it quickly. But when the king looked inside, his face turned red and he shook

with fury. The same thin crack still ran down the center of his precious diamond. "What

have you done?" he screamed. "You promised you would fix it!”

"Please, your majesty, wait!" said the old man. "Just turn the stone over." And when

the king did so, he saw the jeweler had carved the petals of a flower at the top of the

diamond. So now the crack running through the stone appeared to be the stem of a

flower, and the diamond was more beautiful than ever.

The irony of telling a story about a king on a night about democracy is not lost on me. And yet, it is important to know that in hasidic story telling, parables about kings are usually lessons about God. In this case, many things can be compared to God’s precious gem, but tonight, it feels democracy is the most fitting.

Consensus has it that American democracy is fractured. Bifurcated, more precisely, between left and right. Legislative chamber aisles are cavernous and while many pay lip service to “my friends across the aisle,” we know that words get lost in the cracks’ crevices, lost to the shadows of mistrust.

We know that fear, anxiety, and hate thrive in those shadows.

And yet the presence of a crack does not mean that the gem is irrevocably ruined. In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. clarified: "Democracy is not a fragile thing, it is not a weak thing…It is a precious thing." 

Our US democracy is strong. Even with the attacks and perversions, it prevails. But while not weak, it is precious. Precious things need to be guarded, tended, maintained through special attention. Otherwise they fall into disrepair, or are stolen. Our democracy, a precious thing, must be monitored and protected.

And…we must be careful. Sometimes precious things are made accessible only to a privileged few under the guise of protection. Whether through cronyism or restricting voting rights, or in the spread of misinformation or limiting of the press; whether through elitism and buying access, or in scapegoating and vilification, we see our precious democracy cracking before us. Every American, under every administration, is obligated to catch the crack, and instead of rending it further apart, find a way to shape it back to beauty.

At his speech at the March on Washington in 1963, Dr. King reminded us that "the great problem facing our nation is not just the past, but the future.” “How will we meet the challenges ahead,” he asked. “It’s not enough to just love democracy in theory,” he replied, “we must live it every day." This means lifting up the voices of the oppressed and asking which voices are still missing. Democracy thrives on multivocality and a determined assertion that every living soul matters equally.

To live by King’s words, protecting our democracy, does not mean watering down our convictions or softening our values. No, in fact we heed his words when we hone and refine them. We apply them creatively as tools of democratic artistry. In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963), King wrote: "The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?"

What would it look like to be extremist for love? I imagine it is about love through action, committing ourselves to our fellow humans; creating a ripple effect of positivity that begins in our own hearts and extends out to others, even when challenged.

The Maggid of Dubrov, like MLK, embodied this courage to dream and persevere. The Maggid famously shared, "When a person is in trouble and turns to God, they should not ask to be saved from their problems, but rather to be given the strength to endure and to learn from the experience." May we have the strength to endure and grow in the adversity we see and the adversity inevitably to come. May we be artisans of justice and believers in democratic beauty.

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*Note, the telling of the Maggid of Dubrov story is as told by Rabbi Marc Margolius - https://westendsynagogue.org/sites/default/files/site_images/cracks%20in%20the%20diamond%20-%20KN%205777_1.pdf

The End of 2024, the Beginning of 2025

It is our family tradition to spend New Year's Eve with a gang of rabbis and their families. We’ve essentially all raised our children together. Once upon a time, we would put the babies to bed, spend some quality time together and then hit the sack well before midnight. But now, we’re in a terrible in-between where we, an exhausted gaggle of parents at the end of a nearly 2 week school break, just want to go to bed but the demanding horde of 5-12 year olds are determined to stay awake until midnight to watch the ball drop in real time. We oblige and quickly turn in after the confetti flies.

It’s not my favorite thing, this staying up to midnight business. But even I have to admit, it might just be worth it in order to watch the ecstatic cheer of my kids and give them their first kisses of 2025. In that stroke of midnight, something primal takes over. It's a magical moment, no matter how culturally contrived or sleep-deprived.

My teacher Larry Hoffman recently wrote one of his “Open Letters to My Students,” where he waxed poetic on the cross-cultural fascination, and celebration, of the New Year:

“Most cultures have some sort of new year’s bash,” he observed, “The rationale behind it all is unclear. History of Religion expert Mircea Eliade considered it an outgrowth of ancient peoples’ desire to take refuge in a primeval moment when the connection between ourselves and the gods was patent…”.

His point, I believe, is that cultural and religious moments of marking time are not just about logically organizing our days. Sometimes, for reasons that aren’t exactly logical, the moment and our souls meet. And even if it is just a moment, sometimes it is much more than a wistful, passing kiss of earthly and Divine. One minute of connection can be enough for a soul rejuvenation. It’s like a dry watercolor palette. When you apply even a small drop of water, the color reactivates. You can paint again. Might that be what happens at midnight on January 1st.

But then we have to wonder what happens between those potent moments? Our beginnings are not always magically sparked by tons of confetti and loving embraces. As Rabbi Hoffman points out, “Judaism famously warns that ‘All beginnings are difficult’ (Mekhilta to Exodus 19:5).” “Google ‘Beginnings are hard,’” he says, “and you find a ton of people in agreement. All sorts of examples come to mind: moving to a new school; starting a new job; embarking on a new relationship; undertaking a new project; writing that first line of a school essay.”

He has a point. It’s one thing to say “New Year, New You!” and it’s another to actually jumpstart the process of self-improvement. That’s why Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, is really just the start of a 10 day turning project that culminates in the drama of Yom Kippur.

But then Rabbi Hoffman adds a wrinkle. He muses that while beginnings are hard “...endings are usually harder. Making new friends, though difficult, is easier than saying goodbye to old ones. Starting your first job is easier than retiring. Declaring a war is nothing compared to ending it. Moving in with (you hope) the love of your life may have its uncertainties, but the pain is in moving out. I know nothing about what it feels like to be born into the world, but I suspect that dying is harder.”

We know this truth too. “Old habits die hard,” they say. With enough motivation, you can begin a new project or pick up a paintbrush and paint with gusto. Endings take motivation too, but often motivation might not be enough. You can be motivated to stop smoking, for example, but actually doing it is a bear of a battle. Starting 2025 with a new set of resolutions is likely easier than quitting the bad habits of 2024. We learned a lot about ourselves and our neighbors in 2024 and those insights are going to follow us into 2025 where they will no longer be theoretical, but consequential.

Will 2025 bring further descent into our baser proclivities or will it be the beginning of personal and national redemption? It’s a question that hovers menacingly, like the drones over New Jersey. Are we on the precipice of good or further evil? Many would say the latter.

Enter our forefather Judah. On the surface, last weeks’ Torah portion and this week’s parsha seem to be all about the Joseph narrative. But if you look closely, you’ll see his brother Judah’s story running parallel, with lessons for this looming New Year.

Judah is the fourth of the six sons of Jacob and Leah. When Judah and his brothers throw Joseph into a pit to die, it is Judah who sees a caravan of Ishmaelites and suggests that they sell Joseph into slavery instead: “What profit is it if we slay our brother and conceal his blood? ... Let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother, our flesh” (Gen 37:26-28).

At this point, the Torah becomes ambivalent toward Judah. He saved Joseph’s life, but didn’t go so far to rescue him. He’s not a villain, but not quite a hero either. So the text takes a detour, and in a narrative aside, we learn that Judah went to live away from his brothers, got married and had children. Long story short, Judah neglects to properly take care of his daughter-in-law, Tamar. When she calls him to task, he publicly owns up to his descent into sin. It is the first step in his story’s redemptive arc.

So then in this week’s Torah portion, Judah’s character is ultimately determined. When his brother Benjamin is taken into custody in Egypt, Judah offers his life in exchange, pleading for Benjamin’s release. With this heroic act, Judah’s redemption is complete. Once he was a wishy-washy do-gooder, then a full blown sinner, and then he became a repentant. Now he seeks not just accountability, but justice, and he is willing to put his life on the line for it.

This redemptive arc in the text is important, because Judah will one day be the progenitor of the Kingdom of Judah, the ancient country of Jewish hegemony. He has to rise to goodness in order to establish legitimacy to the throne and merit being the ancestor of the coming Messiah.

And even so, it is still significant that Judah goes through this hero’s journey. Far from perfect, he role models our own journey to being better. Sure, beginnings are hard, but Judah represents how hard it is to shake your baser inclinations, how hard it is to end the bad habits and earn a good reputation; how much effort it takes to live up to your potential.

One final insight along these lines from our tradition to take into 2025:

There are two times in the Torah that God shares a list of curses that will befall the people if they do not live according to the laws God set for leading moral lives. Basically, it’s what happens if they don’t live up to their potential.

Over time, our sages instituted rules for the public recitation of these curses: the reader utters them in a quieter voice than the blessings. Furthermore, the aliyah, the section being read, cannot end with the curses. The reader must go at least one verse past the curses before stopping.

Understanding both this practice and Judah’s story, the message from our tradition is clear: even when we have neglected to live up to our potential, we must struggle past the sin. Redemption is on the horizon if we would just strive towards it.

Perhaps this is the value of even an exhausted parent staying up to midnight on New Years Eve. We hold a haggard 2024 in our hearts and push forward into 2025. We welcome it with fanfare and joy, even when we know it too will be a struggle. We feel the earthly and Divine kiss at midnight, if even for a second, in order to renew our spirits and tell us we can be redeemed - if not today, maybe one day soon - as long as we hold fast to the God-given potential within us.

Happy 2025 everyone. Whether full of beginnings or endings, may it be a year of growth and possibility. Amen.