The Reason for Patience

If patience is a virtue, then I tend not to feel especially virtuous.  Often I want (now) to fix (now) what’s wrong in the world (now) – and rush hour traffic can seem like ironically named torture. From feeding our hunger to speaking our minds, it’s a very human impulse to indulge each arising desire, to say whatever word presses to be spoken, to go where we will and do what we want. This human impulse animates evolutionary biology (“It’s going to eat us!”), psychology (think the Freudian id of constant desire), and politics (have you seen a Twitter feed lately?).

I imagine our spiritual ancestors, described in this week’s Torah portion (Beha’alotecha), on their meandering four-decade journey through the desert. A generation of wanderers knew when to go and when to stop based only on divine weather. When a divine cloud dwelled atop the Mishkan (indwelling place of holiness), the people camped; when the divine cloud lifted, the people also got up and journeyed forward (Num. 9:15-21). “Whether days or a month or a year, however long the cloud stayed,” the people waited (Num. 9:22).

What kind of patience waits so faithfully? That a whole people could wait – not just individually but also as a society – puts in focus the human impulse to indulge, decide, act, do and go. After all, we’re the species of instant gratification, Black Friday mall stampedes, road rage, airport security lines outbursts, and micro-aggression at supermarket check-outs.

Cultivating patience isn’t about passivity (it takes active effort to cultivate patience) or slow going (though patience can mean going slow or nowhere). Rather, patience is about refining our (often inflated) sense of control. Social psychologists teach that we tend to over-estimate what we can control, and conflate what we control with who we are. Often that’s why we get impatient, act out, and tend to hurt ourselves or others: we try to assert control that we don’t actually have, to serve a deep-seated sense of who we think we are and what we think we need.

Social psychologists experimentally confirmed these ideas in the 1990s, but the Sforno (Ovadia ben Ya’akov, 1475-1550) wrote about them 500 years earlier. He wrote that for our wandering ancestors to await the right time (God’s time) to break camp and travel, the people had to let go of control and planning. On a moment’s notice, they’d need to stop and make camp; on a moment’s notice, they’d need to break camp and go. They accepted that they weren’t in control. By letting go of the illusion of control, together they could be led to the Land of Promise.

I’ll try to remember this the next time I go nowhere quickly in rush-hour traffic, the next time my inner “Type A” lurches to control more details than are mine to control, the next time I feel like things aren’t going my way. Only by letting go might I really get where I need to go.

R’ David Evan Markus

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Save the Bassoonist!

I wonder about the ego of the bassoon player in an orchestra. Most of the glory goes to the first violinist or the piano soloist. Even the cellist sometimes gets a star turn. The poor bassoonist, with his oversized double reed contraption, is often in the back corner. The deep, rich tones of the bassoon are only noticed in the rare orchestral moment during Scheherazade or in a theme of Peter and the Wolf. Please don’t ignore the bassoonist. Not as sexy as the sax, fewer students are taking up the bassoon. There is a Save the Bassoon campaign begun in Europe in 2015. We need the bassoonist because the depth of an orchestra comes from the variety of instruments that often do the heavy lifting with little notice.

Whatever their seat in the Orchestra, we measure a musician’s value by the amount of playing time they have or the position of their seat toward the front of the stage. Our sense of merit assigned each human being is exhibited in a similar way as we assign value to prominent positions and featured skill sets.

As one who lives in an affluent suburb, many of my neighbors are doctors, lawyers, and entrepreneurs. They are the violinists and pianists of our communal orchestra, receiving more attention and compensation than many others. Yet, the music of life requires the participation of those whose work does not garner the same attention and might not even seem instrumental.

In the Torah portion, Naso, we read this week a description of two of the clans of the priestly family. By virtue of their lineage, we might expect them to have exalted status. Not so. Their jobs are to shlep and tote. The Gershonites are tasked with carrying cloths, screens and ropes. The Merarites carry planks, bars and sockets. While seemingly unimportant, these are sacred tasks. The portable sanctuary that served as focus for B’nai Israel during 40 years in the desert needed a devoted group willing to perform the tasks of disassembling, portage and reassembly. Without them, there would be no mobility for the ark, which was the focal point of God’s presence on earth.

The seemingly menial tasks of these priestly clans are deserving of special mention in Torah. If so, then there must be a lesson to be learned about the value of being a shlepper. Or rather, that we must learn to value every member of our community, from the high priest to the water carrier. Each person can offer an essential contribution. Each musician is as necessary to the performance of a symphony whether exhibiting the dexterity of the first violin or the timing of a timpanist. Our tradition tells us that the work of our hands is holy. All we need do is pick up an instrument and play sweetly.

Your days will improve if you notice each person you meet and appreciate that they are an instrument of God’s great creation. The UPS driver that delivers your Rue La La package to your door is as essential as the fashion designer who created the dress you wear. The person who cuts the grass is as important as the architect who designed the houses in your neighborhood.  Will you greet the garbage collector warmly and thank the toll collector in the booth for doing their jobs? Recognizing for the Gershonites and the Merarites in our society is a holy endeavor that will bring greater melodiousness to the cacophony of life.

As you conduct your life, may your gratitude direct you toward each of the people who contribute to your comfort. May the words of your mouth and the meditations of your heart, include an expression of appreciation for every member of God’s orchestra.

R’ Evan

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Count me out!

Everyone wants to feel counted. We want to be seen and we want to be included. In a consumer driven, hyperlinked, order it on-line world, what you say and do can count in myriad and unanticipated ways.

The book of Numbers (bamidbar) begins as Moses is told to take a census of the whole Israelite community. A census is more than counting. The modern census is replete with demographic information. But who wants to be merely a number or a statistic? The cyber world seems desperately interested in what you have to say. You aren’t just a number. Your opinion counts. Your click on “like” feeds an algorithm that counts. Grab a peloton bike and enter an on line class where you will be counted. E commerce sites like Airbnb rely on counting up reviews.

Yale Dean, June Chu, was recently suspended for a Yelp review that described an Asian restaurant as being an inauthentic experience for white trash. Before there was Yelp and before there was Twitter you had a better chance of getting away with your prejudices and your anger. June Chu’s words counted, and Yale may decide to no longer count her among their faculty.

I once posted a critique of a hotel on Trip Advisor. I thought my comment was fair. The hotel manager wrote to me quickly to apologize and ask me to remove the comment as bad reviews could cause a loss of business and his staff could lose their jobs. So which was more important, my upset at a lack of sleep at this overrated hotel or the dozen employees? I took down my negative comment.

That Yale dean is just an example of the angry public comment that goes viral. We have a President who counts on his Twitter comments reaching millions to affect public opinion, judicial action and government policy. But you could have guessed I would have done the jump to Trump by now. So I’m counting on you to read a bit more here.

I’ve too often seen people expressing anger, misstate facts, and blame unfairly in on-line forums. In Hebrew this is lashon hara, the evil tongue, which is gossip. There is a parable about how gossip is like feathers shaken from a rooftop. The Internet is the energy that shakes the feathers out of a pillow; spreading them far and wide to land in places unknown and never to be gathered again. So it is with the words we write on listservs, or google docs, or group emails.

I have better advice. It comes from Torah. People count. No matter what your opinion, consider the impact of what you write before you hit send. Is your expression more important than the pain or loss you might cause by your words? If so, right click. If not, swipe left. Count on your words having a negative impact because your mobile device might not be an instrument of holiness. When your opinion counts, your words can be an instrument of pain, or of healing; an instrument of ego, or of truth; an instrument of ugliness, or of righteousness. It’s up to you to choose. How you use your on line accounts will determine the holiness of your devices and how you are counted.

R’ Evan

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Lend me an ear

Ever hear someone argue that just being a good person is Jewish enough? By that argument, the myriad laws, the extensive rituals, to wit the Torah, are superfluous if you behave as a good person. I doubt if that view is sufficient.  Torah offers some inspiring insights into the way we live our days. Our tradition provides holy provocation toward best behaviors. This week’s Torah reading offers a great example of what it means to be a good person in the context of a business transaction. Join me as I marvel at Torah in its’ sophisticated and specific consideration of the relationship between a creditor and borrower. Or just lend me an ear.

Perhaps you recall a time when you were asked for a loan by a relative or friend. You might have viewed that request as potentially damaging of a relationship. The danger of changed relationship due to economic advantage brings to mind the warning from Hamlet, “neither a borrower nor a lender be.” Or the old proverb, “Before borrowing money from a friend, decide which you need most.” But the Torah reading this week takes a different approach. Torah wants you to be a lender and to enhance your relationship at the same time. That’s how we bring God into a business transaction.

Leviticus 25:35 says this: “when your kinsman is beaten down and comes under your authority, you hold him up, not as a stranger, but as the resident who lives by your side.” In context of the verses following, we learn that Torah is describing a person who is in dire economic straits and turns to you for help or a loan. Torah’s first concern in the area of such economic transactions is to focus on relationship. For example, if you are a lender you gain an economic advantage over another person. Torah admonishes, when you have an economic advantage over another person don’t treat that person like a stranger.

If you have hesitated when a friend or relative has asked to borrow money from you Torah says not only should you be a lender, but you should also make the extra effort to support that same person in other ways. Don’t avoid the relationship just because you have become a creditor.  Don’t treat the borrower like a stranger. In fact, our tradition says, hold them up. Invite them over for a meal.  Take them to the ballpark. Keep the mah jong game going.

An even broader read of this verse teaches that if you do transact business with a person who is in a weaker economic position, you should treat them as kindly as you would a neighbor. That’s how we bring God into commercial transactions.

The lesson is broader than just being kind to a person who needs your financial assistance. The lesson is to maintain Godliness even in the context of commercial transactions. I remember the scene in the Godfather when Michael Corleone says “it’s strictly business.” In Judaism, it is never “strictly business.”

R’ Evan J. Krame

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Option B

“Facing adversity, building resilience, finding joy.”  That is the subtitle of Sheryl Sandberg’s new book, Option B.  I’m about to download it to my kindle. You likely have heard her story – one of the most successful business people in America faces tragedy when her husband suddenly dies while they are on vacation. Resilience in the face of adversity is not a new tutorial. The lesson is as old as Judaism. But it is a message that we need to hear often, with great repetition, until the truth of our own resilience becomes the story of our lives.

We all know a person, like Sandberg, who has overcome a great struggle or tragedy. I know a lawyer whose client was involved in racketeering – so the FBI wrongfully arrested the attorney as well as the mobster. There’s a client who endured a physically abusive marriage and escaped with her child to save their lives. Or in the Torah, there is the story of Aaron, the High Priest, whose two oldest sons in an overzealous demonstration of their priestly duties are consumed in a flash of holy fire.

And then there’s you and me.  We’ve struggled too. Some more than others but this isn’t a competition. Your illness, or your unsuccessful business, or your failed relationship or your loss – that is the adversity chapter of the story of your life. Sandberg’s book is about living life accepting that sh*t happens and then finding a way to live in Option B.

We all can tell stories of those who overcame adversity by finding courage and building up character. They suffered the trauma and swore that no joy would be had again; that no favor would enhance their lives. And then, sometimes, they find new relationships or create new businesses, or build new homes. The lucky ones go a step further. They become advocates for other families.  Or fundraisers for curing an illness.  Or mentors to those who have struggled.

Even after believing that you will never be happy again or never take pleasure in another day, that morning comes where a smile creeps in, a chuckle emerges and a laugh lights up your soul. Even better, if we are blessed with friends or family or caring professionals, we can better confront our pain, be encouraged to act despite our fear and together we find joy again.

For some, the source of strength, the courage of rising and the return of happiness all comes because God.  That’s what Judaism instructs. For example, the haftorah for the week’s reading Acharei Mot – Kedoshim is from the prophet Amos. After a prediction of impending doom, God promises to lift up the fallen sukkah of David, to repair its ruin and build it firmly again.  Sometimes we are fallen and we find the strength to rise up.  Sometimes we feel our lives are a ruin and yet the day of restoration arrives.

Discussions of adversity often focus on blaming God. Upbraiding God is always available to us. I want to offer another possibility without diminishing the pain of adversity. How about praising God for recovery, for resiliency, and for restoration? Thank you God for providing option B.

Sheryl Sandberg’s husband died at an early age and option A for her life, a life with her husband, was no longer possible. Two painful years later she is writing and speaking about living her life with dignity, courage and even joy, although she can now only live Option B. What she may not yet realize is that almost all of us live Option B. Our lives are never as we expect. It is not our nature to generally anticipate that life’s twists and turns will be car crashes and cancer cells.  Yet, it should be our anticipation that God will be with us when we stand up again and when we laugh. At least that’s my guidebook for Option B – God is in the courage that emboldens us and in the joy that enlivens us.

The poet Rainier Marie Rilke wrote in God’s voice: Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final. Don’t let yourself lose me.

When next I see you, I hope I recognize your strength to overcome adversity, to build resilience and to experience the joy of living.  And maybe you’ll see mine. And in that moment, we’ll both say, halleluyah or amen, because God.

R’Evan

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What’s Pure?

It’s been awhile since I heard the word “pure” except to describe olive oil and Ivory soap – maybe also mountain spring water and 24 carat gold, but not much else. What sense we have of “pure” concerns just a few things, and mainly to mean a lack of impurity. A circular definition – “pure means something lacking impurity” – hints that we don’t fully know what we’re saying.

“Pure” is a strange concept for us moderns. If we ask, “What’s pure in our lives?,” the question can seem ill-fitting, tone-deaf to the lives we actually live. After all, “pure” is rarely on our Top Ten list. Maybe “pure” seems unattainable like a myth, a mirage, a white elephant of fantasy.

But in spiritual tradition, “pure” was a big deal – not just an aspiration but also a mandate. This week’s Torah portion (Emor) focuses on how our ancestors understood “pure” (tahor) and its opposite (tamei). The context was a priesthood that’s gone the way of history, but the reminder of what’s “pure” – and why it’s important – remains poignant and potent.

Our ancestors understood “pure” in terms of things, appearances, words, relationships and places. Some were “pure,” some weren’t. Back then, it was “impure” for a kohen (priest) to touch the dead, shave or cut certain hair, gash the skin, tear clothes, profane God’s name, marry certain people, or go outside the sanctuary (Lev. 21:1-15).

It seems a long list whose values feel foreign – today we might imagine a very different list – but the fact of a list means some important things. One is that “pure” isn’t a faraway reality or white elephant of fantasy, but totally attainable in the lives we lead. If “pure” seems impossible, then maybe standards are too high or hopes for ourselves or the world are too low.

Another thing we learn is that the “impure” list is limited. Soul isn’t on the list! Judaism teaches that the soul is never “impure” – no matter who, no matter what. Take that in.

A third is that the ancient list of five realms that can be “impure” – things, appearances, words, relationships and places – remains helpful. That list is in our control: it’s not inherently “impure” but rather made “impure” by human action. And some of what’s “impure” can be made pure again – maybe not everything, but certainly many things. “Impure” isn’t a one-way street.

The real question is why “pure” matters at all. In ancient days, “pure” was a human condition to serve the holy. When we focus only on what’s “impure” in things, appearances, words, relationships and places, that focus can pull us away from what’s most important. It’s not that we ignore what’s “impure” as if blind to it – ours isn’t a fake spirituality – but rather that we can lift our spiritual vision higher. In this way, “pure” can be less about the reality of what things are and more about our perspective, intention, sense of self and sense of what’s most important.

That higher spiritual vision is always possible and itself can serve the holy – and the world.

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David Evan Markus

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What’s to eat?

Jews spend a lot of time talking about food. There’s nothing like Jewish holidays to get Jews talking about food. During Passover we compare seder menus and debate matzah brei recipes (crispy or pancake style?). Sometimes it seems that the majority of our Passover conversation is about food and not so much about the freedom which was supposed to be the point of the holiday.

We need a reminder that Passover isn’t the holiday when we long for bread, just as Yom Kippur isn’t merely the holiday when we crave food. Sometimes our attachment to food is so fully identified with our emotional state that we diminish the potential of food as a spiritual experience. If food is such an important topic for us as an ethnic and religious group, can it also be a prompt for feeding our spiritual selves?

Food is supposed to be an important way to reach the hearts and souls of Jews. The Jewish relationship with food can also provide spiritual nourishment. In parshat Shemini, read on April 22, 2017, we are given a first lesson on the many rules regarding the kinds of animals we may eat. We get religiously restrained when we view the kosher rules as a culinary criminal code. Rather, we might view our associations with food as reminders of a need for spiritual sustenance.

Every time I am in a restaurant and I see the bacon or lobster I won’t order, I get a little spiritual lift. That boost comes from the reminder that I am making a choice about what I put in my mouth, so that I can remember to live according to “higher” standards rather than personal impulses. Food choices remind me that I am a Jew and that being Jewish means aspiring to improving the world that God is creating. Therefore, choosing just to eat kosher food is not by itself sufficient.

I have chosen, for example, to limit my consumption of red meat because it is bad for my health and also bad for the environment – just Google “cow emissions global warming.” This is how Reb Zalman Schachter- Shalomi z”l taught us about eco-kashrut. Farmed fish is often a source of pollution raised with harmful concentrations of antibiotics, pesticides and fish feces. I check packaging carefully before buying fish. In this way, our eating choices are spiritual exercises that have consequences for our selves and for all humanity.

If you gave up hametz for Passover, and are now returning to your regularly scheduled diet it is a good time to consider what it means to make food choices as a Jewish person should – for the sake of both spiritual growth and the health of our planet. These are worthy goals emanating from simple rules starting with choosing which animals we eat.

R’ Evan.

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Mouthing Off

From a man’s mouth you can tell what he is. (Zohar Bamidbar 193)

Passover is a holiday of the mouth. The Hebrew word Pesach can be heard as two words: Peh sach, the speaking mouth. The Passover story of Exodus, liberation and redemption, traces from the mouth, starting with the cries of a people who descended so low in degradation and slavery that all they could muster were groans. Moses then spoke to truth to power, even with his speech impediment, calling Pharaoh to let the people go. And even once the people went free, liberation was not complete until they crossed the sea and sang their Song of the Sea to praise God for their freedom.

The groan of one so beaten down is the vocalization of a slave. Whether enslaved by a taskmaster, economics, illness or politics, groans alert us to the need for rescue. In our own time, these groans still are heard around the world, in our communities, and perhaps even in our own families. If we turn a deaf ear, then how can we hope for God’s rescue? Passover instructs us to speak up on behalf of those who can only groan, or who are silent entirely.

Like Moses, a brave few resist tyrants and demagogues from the high platform of history.  Their words rail against abuse and rouse the world to change. These have been our modern prophets: Abraham Joshua Heschel, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Reinhold Neibuhr – each rooted in a theological tradition of speech to bring change. But we needn’t be theologians or prophets to amplify the cry for freedom. Passover asks precisely this: hear the groans, speak the call to freedom, release the bound, cut the shackles.

But freedom isn’t just the lack of outward shackle: freedom is incomplete until one offers praise for one’s freedom. When the newly freed people cross through the sea they erupt in song. That’s what the Song of the Sea teaches: freedom is complete only when the inner impulse to express gratitude becomes automatic and free-flowing like an unstoppable geyser.

If our enslaved, impoverished, weary desert ancestors could do it, how about us who are relatively prosperous? In all we have, do we forget that we are not the Creator, the source or energy that manifests this world and all its possibility? Do we speak and sing gratitude for our lives, for what we have, for our freedom to have it? If not, then for our every outward appearance of freedom, inside we too are bound. What’s stopping us?

Passover comes to remind us: we are to experience liberation not “as if” we were there but rather “because” we were there – perhaps because we still are there. If life’s burdens keep us from singing gratitude for what we do have and for our freedom to have it, then inside we’re not fully free. Passover beckons us into this timeless journey of bondage and liberation. We remember the times when we groaned (or still groan) under those burdens. We recall the times when spoke truth to power, when we celebrated our lives with gratitude, so that we can exercise those muscles. Countless millions today groan or are silenced completely. It’s up to us to speak for them and then, step by step, help make the world more free from every oppression that burdens body and spirit.

You can tell a lot about a person by the quality of their speech and how they employ their words. What will come from your mouth this Passover, and after? Use your voice – groan if it’s all you can do. Look for every chance to speak truth to power, stop oppression, free the bound and then let your free-flowing geyser of gratitude flow from you into the world. That’s a path to freedom worth celebrating.

Spread the word.  R’ Evan. (dedicated to Karen Simon).

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Your Holy Uplift

Some values are timeless, but how we express them can change over time. This week’s Torah portion (Tzav) uplifts this idea through the example of how we handle shame and guilt.

What Torah calls us to do – uplift shame and guilt – often isn’t our first impulse. Torah expresses this truth with “sacrifices,” the ancient currency of giving offerings to God in contexts ranging from gratitude to hope to penance. The purpose was to feel closer to the holy – which is what “sacrifice” literally means in both Latin (sacrificare) and Hebrew (korban).

That’s why this week’s Torah portion features sacrifices. Ancient sacrifices had common features. One gave them freely from choice possessions. One placed them on a fire always kept burning so it’d be accessible immediately (Lev. 6:5-6). Sacrifices were transformed into heat and light, and their smoke rose upward (Lev. 6:2). The sacrifice was even called an olah – “the thing that goes up.” Sacrifices for “sin” or “shame” (Lev. 6:17), and “guilt” (Lev. 7:1-2), were uplifted just this way.

Fast forward to today. When we feel shame or guilt, how often is our first impulse to ignore it rather than act immediately? How often is our next impulse to suppress it, to shove it down, rather than lift it up? How often do we diminish it rather than offer it our choice commodities of attention, time and care? How often do we keep it in the dark rather than turn it into light?

Suddenly the ancient symbolism of sacrifice, expressed in modern language, can make sense in a whole new way. What Torah asks us to do, when we feel shame and guilt, is to turn upside down the natural impulse to ignore, delay, suppress, diminish and darken. Understood this way, shame and guilt become calls to attention, immediacy, uplift and light.

But how? No offense, Torah, but burning a chicken won’t do it for me.

Thankfully, today we have other tools to draw close to the holy. We can start with speech, calling things what they are. We can speak them to others, so we’re not alone. We can make tangible amends to people we’ve wronged. We can make it easier for others to make tangible amends. We can give to charity. We can volunteer. We can pray. We can love.

All of these, each in their own way, can draw us closer to the holy. In these ways, shame and guilt can become holy updrafts. Find yours and make them real, with amazement that ancient ways we long ago outgrew still offer hands-on wisdom to make our lives a blessing.
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Rabbi David Evan Markus

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Calling Anne Frank

When I visited the bank, the assistant manager suggested that I call Anne Frank.  I was at the bank to transfer donated funds to the American Friends of the Anne Frank House, the nonprofit organization for which I serve as treasurer.  The assistant manager asked me a question for which I didn’t have ready information, looked at the account name and said, a bit too innocently,  “Can you call Anne Frank?”

A rush of emotions arose – sadness, anger and frustration. I calmly tried to correct the misperception.  I told her that Anne Frank died in the Holocaust and the account was for a museum in Anne Frank’s honor that is one of Europe’s most visited sites.  The bank manager responded, “I’m not very interested in history.”  I sunk into my chair in despair.

Such ignorance is beyond unacceptable: it is dangerous. George Santayana famously wrote that “those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  I fear Santayana didn’t go far enough.  Failure to remember the past can be an existential threat to the collective future, especially when we don’t care or even refuse to remember.  This kind of ignorance is perilously close to willful.

Willful ignorance makes an unwitting accessory – bluntly, a sin.  The Torah portion opening the book of Vayikra (Leviticus), read this week leading to the Shabbat of March 31, 2017 (remember that date), describes a sin offering for one who unwittingly incurs guilt: “When one unwittingly incurs guilt in regard to any of God’s commands about things not to be done, and does one of them,” an offering is made to atone (Lev. 4:2).

The unwitting sin begins with not knowing.  The paradox and challenge are that we don’t know what we don’t know.  If at least we care to know and try to find out – if we open to history so we don’t re-live it – then we have a chance to right history’s wrongs.  But for one who says “I’m not very interested in history” and lives that way, there can be no atonement.

Ignorance, and especially willful ignorance, therefore are the threats we must address head-on.  Not knowing is perhaps the greatest sin of this decade if not this century.  Information is more available now than anytime in history, but ongoing hatred against minorities, attacks on society’s fabric, disinformation and worse all hide in plain sight before those who aren’t “very interested in history.”  Not knowing sows inaction or improper action, incurring guilt about things not to be done.  “I don’t know” and “I don’t care” cover the failure to act and make unwitting accomplices in hatred, xenophobia, violence, deprivation and more.

That is why we must redouble our commitment to educate ourselves, our youth and our communities.  Of all people, we should know how and why this task lies on our shoulders.  That’s why we build museums, fund education programs and do all we can to combat this sort of ignorance.  I was grateful to visit the new Museum of African American History and Culture, which vividly tells the story of slavery, oppression and segregation. Attendance at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam increases each year and now tops one million visitors annually.  Museums are just a start to addressing ignorance and unwitting sin. Sara Bloomfield, Director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, recently lamented that while a million students visit each year, few have any prior knowledge of its importance. And despite millions of student visitors, nearly all sit idly by while genocides continue around the globe.  They don’t know that history lives today.

Anne Frank’s official date of death is March 31, 1945, corresponding this year to the week when we read in Torah about unwittingly incurring guilt. After my bank visit, my inclination is to buy a box full of Anne Frank’s diaries and hand them out each time someone doesn’t recognize her name or tells me that they’re “not very interested in history.”

What will you do?
R’ Evan J. Krame

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