A Destination Wedding: Parasha D’varim August 6, 2011

 

On February 2nd of this year, Punxsutawney Phil peeked out of his burrow, did not see his shadow, and went back to sleep for forty-two days.  This works out to be one day for each Israelite camp-site in the desert after Sinai, a consequence of Israel’s failure to obey God’s command and trust in him to take her immediately and safely into the Promised Land. The same day, I woke up, had a meeting with three rabbi’s, took a bath and changed my name.  It was a choice – and a continuing series of choices -- in word and deed, made each day.  This brings me to a certain view of today’s parasha, an introduction of sorts to all of Deuteronomy.

D’varim – these are the words:  And Moses said “The Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb, saying: You have stayed long enough at this mountain.  Start out and make your way to the hill country of the Amorites and to all their neighbors … See, I place the land at your disposal.  Go, take possession of the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to assign to them and to their heirs after them.”   The writer must have been in a hurry as I see HE omitted “and your mothers Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah.”

This mitzvah, and the rest of Deuteronomy, means, in part, taking possession of the traditions and values of Judaism – of the Israel of these words – and to cherish, safeguard and transfer them to the next generation so that they may be shared with all peoples in all lands.

We are told during Pesach that we re-enact the Exodus because we are there.  I think we also must “be there” for all of what happens in Deuteronomy, the ultimate teachable moment by a teacher unlike any other.  Here is how a country boy -- born and raised in the high desert plateau east of the Rocky Mountain divide -- connects with the Sinai event and the culmination of that wilderness education on the threshold of entering Israel.

I began to think and write about today’s parasha 40 days ago, just before the Fourth of July – another day about a covenant published – although it was among 13 tribes – not 12.  If documents have descendants, a straight lineal line connects Sinai circa 1280 B.C.E to Philadelphia circa 1776. 

On July 4^th, my bride and I were at the base of Lone Mountain, an 11,166 foot snow capped peak in my native Montana.  It’s a place called Big Sky, a ski resort, on the edge of several wilderness areas – Coulter’s Hell to the south, Metcalf Wilderness to the North and the Redrock Canyon of the Yellowstone to the East.  

My bride and I went to Lone Mountain for a destination wedding of the oldest daughter of a close friend from childhood.  She was marrying her own childhood sweetheart, who she first met in a Montana Bible camp.  They are now both teachers near Golden, Colorado, which looks a lot like Moab, (Utah), a kind of jewel in the high desert plateau, quite distinct from Edom, Texas, down south where the land has a reddish hue. 

It started as an outdoor wedding.  The guests gathered next to the main ski lift.  Lone Mountain made an awe-inspiring backdrop.  The wedding party went to the summit in the early afternoon, where it is said you can touch the face of God.   More or less on time, the bride and groom came down from the mountain peak on a ski lift, her white bridal gown, at first a distant speck, billowed out as they neared.  Dark thunderheads suddenly scudded up from behind Lone Mountain.

With a sense of urgency, the pace picked up.   The minister, a friend of the father of the bride, had also married her parents 30 years before in a little town south of Jordan, Montana.  His was a youth ministry.   With an anxious look at the sky, he urged all to be seated and said, “Enough.  It’s time to get these two hitched.”  On cue, a lighting bolt struck the top of the mountain, with a loud sharp thunderclap, followed by a deep bass rumble that rolled down the mountainside and bounced back again off the mountain range across the valley.

The 200 guests gasped and flinched.  The minister quickly got to the point where the bride accepted her groom as her “lawfully wedded husband, for better or worse” when the heavens opened.  We all ran for shelter.

With those words spoken, let’s get back to the words of D’varim.

The commentators have often described all of Deuteronomy as something akin to a very large commencement exercise.  In this view, it is Moses’ valedictory, a monologue on monotheism.  It is a five course, five week summation and clarification of the teaching in the first four books.  And the teaching during the forty years wandering in the howling wilderness.

But maybe those five weeks on the eastern banks of the Jordan – and the forty years before -- were really part of the first and a very large destination wedding.  Instead of thinking of Moses as a valedictorian, perhaps we should think of him as a marriage counselor preparing Israel for her wedding to God.  In this view, D’varim is a prelude to a marriage vow, an assessment of the courtship and the relationship to date before the final vows are spoken with all that they entail.  Moses reviews the evidence of that commitment – God to Israel and Israel to God -- and asks the bride to make a choice that will decide her fate and the fates of her future generations.  The stakes are high and so is the dramatic tension.

The scene is set near the banks of the River Jordan, in my imagination, high on the hills of Moab, overlooking the Promised Land.  Moses faces the assembled tribes, with his back turned to the land that all of them are looking at, longingly, as he speaks the words that condition their privilege to take possession and keep possession of the land and their identity.  This is a confident and mature Moses – no more stuttering, no more uncertainty about his last remaining task as a servant to his people and to God.   He knows the urgency of the message he delivers, for he will not go with the children of Israel across the Jordan.  Only these words that were spoken will go with his charges, in their memories to guide their conduct from this time forward.  It is an existential moment in every conceivable meaning of that word.

We might say that the Sh’ma succinctly sums up all of Deuteronomy and is the climax of the story that began with Genesis.  We can thus be reminded much more frequently – but at less length -- of the essence of the teaching.   In the parlance of our nation’s capitol, the Sh’ma is a “one pager,” a document typically prepared by staff to tell our leaders and deciders all they need to know on matters of utmost importance. 

Now there is a good deal packed into this particular one pager, as many in our tradition have carefully noted, then footnoted and long remembered, perhaps most succinctly by Hillel and, at considerably greater length, by Maimonides.  I would be remiss if I did not consult with at least one such sage before attempting to capture the thematic unity of d’varim.  I turned to Billy Crystal.

I refer, of course, to City Slickers, a film about a band of brothers in mid-life crisis searching for escape from the slavery of meaningless jobs and searching for some meaningful purpose to their lives.  They have a bucket list that first takes them to Pamplona to run with the bulls, an adrenaline rush for sure, but a false and empty goal.  Lesson learned: it is not about a pagan ritual involving bulls.

Billy Crystal’s character, Mitch, is then persuaded, reluctantly and with much complaining, to sign up for a dude ranch cattle drive.  I think the herd consisted almost entirely of red heifers.  Jack Palance as Curly plays a fearsome trail boss who finally bonds with Mitch, following the birthing of a calf – named Norman -- and then imparts to Mitch the accumulated wisdom of the nomad cowboy life:  “It’s about this,” he says, punctuating the air with his index finger.   To which Mitch replies, “Your finger?”  And, of course, it turns out to be about one thing that you pursue with passion and purpose, a choice that you make and a responsibility that you accept to your band of brothers (and sisters) and to your children, to those you care most about.  Note: Don’t forget about Norman, the calf.  He is the central character in this drama.

After speaking these words, Curly dies in the wilderness.  Mitch and his friends are left to finish the job by driving the herd to the final destination. They dedicate themselves to the task and take responsibility to make it happen.  Ironically, at the end of the drive, the herd is sold off for slaughter.  But Mitch takes the calf, Norman, after he rescues him at a river crossing, back to New York, where he is greeted by his children.  Extra points if you remember that his son was played by Jake Gyllenhaal.

To sum it up, we can say that D’varim conveys a sense of urgency to begin and complete the one thing paramount in Deuteronomy, and to pursue it with passion and purpose and the promise that such pursuit is a life well lived.  It is promise made, a promise kept and the acceptance of a responsibility of one generation to the next generation, not only involving an historic land, but also a land and people of words, an aspirational ideal that may always lie just over the River Jordan, beckoning us to make a choice and assume the responsibility to go there – for our ancestors, for ourselves and for our children – most importantly our children.

I want to assure you that the two young teachers from Montana did complete their wedding vows, and soon resumed their life mission of teaching the next generation a set of values that are derived from the Torah that was given as a gift to Israel to share with all other nations so many centuries ago.  I should also take note of the coda to the wedding event: a spectacular complete double rainbow that arched over the full extent of the valley below Lone Mountain, a gateway to the river and the land beyond the river.

Shabbat Shalom.

ARE THE CHILDREN RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SINS OF THEIR FATHERS?

The son of Barnard Madoff committed suicide, apparently unable to cope with unrelenting innuendo and, finally, lawsuits and allegations that he and his brother knew and participated in the $64 billion fraudulent scheme devised and executed by his father.  Two years ago, Bernard Madoff confessed to him and his brother, and they in turn reported the fraud to the authorities.  The two year statute-of-limitations on fraud claims has come, and the trustee must file now to recover assets for the victims of the massive fraud.  Those victims include a number of Jewish charities as well as wealthy individuals.

The courts will eventually decide the factual and legal fine points as to whether the Madoff family were knowing (or unknowing) beneficiaries of the fraud, and whether such knowledge (or lack of knowledge) makes any difference.  On a vastly larger scale and with even greater evil intent, the Nazi machine took the lives and the property of over 11,000,000 people, 6,000,000 of them Jews.  Much of continental Europe and the Soviet Union were more or less complicit, with much of the rest of world in a state of willful ignorance.  

Those of the Nazi hierarchy who could be caught (or who were not protected as designated intelligence or national defense assets), were tried and punished.  Complicit Swiss and other banks and institutions were eventually forced to disgorge some of the stolen property.  The German state (but why not the Austrian state?) paid out substantial though insufficient reparations.

So there are now those who say "enough, already."  The evil generation is dead.  Let's move forward.  Forget about it!   Essentially, they say, the statute of limitations runs at the end of a generation.  Maybe such should be so in terms of material repayment.  But can it, or should it, be so with collective memory?   Yad Vashem, the Israeli memorial to the holocaust, will not let it be soon forgot, painful though the memory can be.  How could anyone distantly related to me, either participate in or turn a blind eye, to such pervasive evil?  Under the same pressures, would I have behaved any differently?

On both sides, going back to the 17^th century, my family comes from religious German-speaking peasants from the Strasburg, Alsace and Stuttgart, Wuertemburg regions of Europe.  On the maternal side, the family arrived in Maryland in the mid 1700’s and joined with devout Lutheran immigrants seeking refuge from the wars and turmoil of Europe.  They were co-founders of several of the earliest Lutheran congregations in Maryland, near Frederick and Hagerstown.  My maternal grandmother, one of 14 children, came from a Roman Catholic family of Luxembourgers who emigrated to the United States in 1875.  She was ex-communicated when she married my grandfather and agreed to raise my mother and her siblings in a non-Lutheran protestant faith.

       On the paternal side, my family was part of a strict pietist Lutheran sect that emigrated from Wuertemburg to the Odessa, South Russia region near the Black Sea in the late 1700’s and first decade of the 1800’s.  There they established self-sufficient ethnic colonies and prospered until the rise of Slavic nationalism in the 1880’s.  They separated (were excommunicated) from the Lutheran Church, which they viewed as insufficiently pious.  They held their own services in their homes, believed that the world would end in the early 1800’s and, among other reasons, emigrated to Russia to be near Israel at the end of days.  In the 1880's, they started leaving for the Dakotas, a region similar to the Russian steppes.  They continued their strict religious observances through the third decade of the 20^th Century, but did re-join the Missouri Synod, one of the mainstream American Lutheran sects.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the South Russia emigration is the connection to Georg Leibbrandt.  As summarized in the Jewish Virtual Library:

 Georg Leibbrandt was a scholar and politician in the Nazi Party.

Born to ethnic German parents in Torosovo (also called Hoffnungsfeld), near Odessa, in the Zebrikovo district of the Ukraine. It is probable, during his lifetime, he was the world's foremost scholar on the subject of Volga Germans.

In 1918, Leibbrandt studied theology in Germany; also taking classes in philology and history. In 1927, he was awarded a Ph.D. He traveled extensively through the Soviet Union in 1926, 1928, and 1929. During his visits, he was variously represented as a doctor of philosophy, a post-graduate student, a professor of history from Leipzig University, and an employee of the Institute for the Study of Germans Abroad (Deutsches Ausland Institute) in Stuttgart. The official purposes of his visits were the study of the history of the development of German colonies in the Black Sea coastal region and the gathering of historical information. As a result of his work, a book regarding emigrant movement of the Germans was published in Germany.

Leibbrandt had a talent for languages; which, coupled with a Rockefeller scholarship, enabled him to resume his studies in Paris and the United States from 1931 - 1933. While in the U.S. he kept contact with Volga Germans who had also emigrated to America.

Leibbrandt accepted a request from Alfred Rosenberg in 1933 to return to Germany, and joined the Nazi Party that year. He was then named director of the Eastern Division of the Foreign Policy Office of the NSDAP. He was also placed in charge of anti-Soviet and anti-Communist propaganda. When the Soviet Union was invaded in 1941, and the Ministry for the Eastern Occupied Territories was established, Dr. Leibbrandt was chosen by Rosenberg to direct the Political Department. Thus, Leibbrandt became the liaison for the Ukrainian, Caucasian, Russian, and other groups of emigres. Leibbrandt and Alfred Meyer attended the Wannsee Conference in 1942; representing the Ostministerium. In the summer of 1943, for unknown reasons, he ceased his duties in the Ministry and joined the Kriegsmarine (German Navy).

Leibbrandt was kept in Allied internment from 1945 - May 1949. He was formally charged with involvement in the murder of Jews, January 1950, by the Nuernberg Landgericht. The case against him was dismissed on August 10, 1950 and he was released from custody. In the post-war period, he returned to America and resumed his earlier studies on the subject of the Volga Germans; making expert contributions to the Association of Germans from Russia until his death in Bonn on June 16, 1982.

Leibbrandt’s birthplace, Hoffnungsfeld, was a daughter colony of Hoffnungstahl (Valley of Hope) that was established in the early 1800’s by Leibbrandt’s and my ancestors.  Leibbrandt’s principal scholarly work prior to joining the Nazi party, “Hoffnungstal und seine Schwaben”, is still the seminal genealogical compilation for that region of South Russia.  Over the last ten years, there have been several indirect negotiations over the use and copyright restrictions on that material on behalf of the Germans from Russia Heritage Society.

A large scale emigration from South Russia to the high plains in the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas started in the 1880’s (prompted by the rise of Slavic nationalism) until the Stalinist terror cut off most of the escape during and after World War I.   Those who did not make it out before then were mostly executed or disappeared in concentration camps or Siberia.  A few survived and stayed in the area, only to be caught between the Russian and the German armies in World War II.

In one of life’s odd coincidences, the Jewish great-grandparents of my wife’s godsons emigrated from Odessa, the city nearest Hoffnungstal, to the Dakotas at the same time as my great-grandparents.  They all homesteaded within a few miles of each other, and probably knew each other.   

So, in October of this year, I turned the corner and came face to face with the portrait of Georg Leibbrandt at the Yad Vashem Wannsee Conference exhibit.  Did Leibbrandt successfully recruit spies or collaborators in South Russia?  In South Dakota?  The sparse records and recollections remaining from South Russia contain accounts of horrific Russian atrocities against all non-slavic groups, more or less indiscriminately.  They also include accounts of Black Sea Germans collaborating with the German army against Russia as well as accounts of Black Sea Germans hiding or protecting Jews.  There are also a few accounts of Black Sea Germans participating in harassment of Jews.    

In South Dakota, and the United States generally, Black Sea Germans volunteered and served in the U.S. armed forces in numbers greatly disproportionate to their percentage of the total population.  They did this even though they were regarded with suspicion during both World Wars, as many still spoke German.   Some were arrested and jailed for a time for no reason other than their ethnic background.
The Black Sea Germans along with much of the remaining Jewish population in the same region fled to central and western Europe in the hope that they would be under the protection of the British and American forces at the end of World War II.  Under terms Stalin extracted from Roosevelt at Yalta, both groups were "re-patriated" to areas under Russian control by order of General Eisenhower.   Much suffering ensued.   Survivors of the long trek out of South Russia and the spirit crushing "repatriation" have left bitter memories -- separately recorded, but eerily alike -- in the Jewish and Black Sea German populations.
So when, if ever, does the accounting for the inhumanity of one people to another come to a close?  When, if ever, and if ever, how, is justice done?   And what does doing justice do to those who would bring justice?  These are hard questions with many facile and few, if any, satisfying answers.  It may be one problem we have to the end of time.

WHERE WILL THE LITTLE GHOSTS, GOBLINS AND GREMLINS GO THIS HALLOWEEN?

            For the last four decades or so a host of ghosts, goblins and gremlins gathered at the home of Mr. and Mrs. David Jones not to far from the Governor’s Mansion in Helena, Montana.  No, it was not a haunting as the spooks were spoken to ahead of time and invited to the party.   There will not be a Helena Halloween House this year because Ruth Jones has moved to be with her own grand-gremlins near Portland, Oregon following the death of her husband of 62 years on June 30^th.

            The idea of a Halloween House came to Ruth Jones when chatting with mothers and their toddlers while waiting in a supermarket check-out line a bit after her three older children got too old for a traditional Halloween party.   She just invited them to come over and they came. “It sort of evolved over the years,” she said.  Indeed it did!  She continued to extend invitations while waiting in line at other shopping venues.  Over the years the number of invitees began to grow, and the Jones residence came to be known as “the Halloween House.” 

Two years ago 90 children showed up.  How did she know?  “I gave away that many battery sparkle toys.”   Hmm.  Wonder if the adults got any? 

The house was decorated with lots of lights and featured a lit up ghost in the window.  The dining room table had a large ceramic pumpkin with a witch sitting on top.  “It was made for me by one of my best friends.”

Ruth has a way for generating enthusiasm for the party.  “Last year, from a good friend, I even got a hollowed out pumpkin with flowers and a stuffed black crow.”

Other long time Halloween helpers included her husband.  “Dave always got the donuts and apple cider and took a picture of everyone who attended, including the parents.  That was so we could tell who the ghosts and goblins belonged to.  He had a system whereby he numbered them on a sheet of paper with their signature and address so we could send them a copy of the picture.”

The party went on after the toddlers left, especially in most recent years.  “I was even lucky enough to have friends come later in the evening (some dressed in costumes) after bedtime for the Ghosts and Goblins.  It was all enjoyable from the babies dressed like pumpkins, to my retired friends, to the high school children that came because they remembered coming when they were little.” 

It could be that they also came back, like the six foot teenager last year, for the “treats” but also for the “tricks.”.  After a bit of friendly teasing from Mrs. Jones about not having a costume “he showed me on his knee he had cut a hole in his pants and drawn a face.  When he was leaving I heard him tell his friend, ‘See, I told you she always gives the big bars.’”  He got that right.  Mrs. Jones started stocking the 6 to a package candy bars in the freezer at least a month before Halloween.

  

      Mrs. Jones fully disclosed, before selling the house, that it was haunted at least once a year.  “I did not want them to be surprised come Halloween,” she said.  Will she miss the party?  “Of course, and also the excitement getting the house ready for it.”

            So why not take the tradition to Oregon?  “It has been difficult for me not to invite people I see here with small children.  In Helena, I invited them all year.  We never knew how many were going to show up or at what time. I am not too sure how people might react to random invitations from a stranger.  Maybe after I am here awhile,” she said.  

            What will she miss most?  “I will miss seeing how much they have grown in a year.  Who would come that came last year.  All the confusion.   I just plain like people, especially the children.”

            What will Helena miss most this Halloween?  If you have a memory of the Jones Halloween House and would like to share it post a comment to this story at www.weatherbeller.blogspot.com.

COMMENT

My journey to Halloween House started in 1981 with an auspicious start that melded into a cherished tradition for more than a decade for my family following a threat and black mail from the one and only Ruth Jones.
In the winter of 1981, Ruth’s son Richie, myself and several unnamed others slipped out of high school, got some refreshments and went to the Jones house knowing Mrs. Jones had not come home sick from work in 24 years. About 3:45 that afternoon the string ended with Ruth walking in unannounced to our gathering. To say the least Rich was in considerable trouble with the rest of us close behind.
Fast forward to the summer of 1998. In the mean time I was married with 2 kids and my mother-in-law and Ruth have known each other for years. I ran into Ruth over the years from time to time. This time she told me all would be forgiven from our high school indiscretion if I would simply bring the kids to her house for Halloween. That year started my kids looking forward to the last stop of the evening the Halloween House. The kids got doughnuts, big candy and a light-up toy of some sort. I got my picture taken and Dave would get me some of the “grown-up cider”. A few weeks later an envelope would appear with our copy of the photo.
This year when we were talking about Halloween and I told the kids that Ruth had moved we spent about half an hour remembering the years of fun. My oldest daughter who is a senior in High School talked at length about the different memories of gifts from Ruth. My youngest boy who is 7 brought out the ghost flashlight he got last year and we used it for tick-or –treating this year.
Don Bartsch Helena MT

November 4, 2010 8:01 AM