8 | The Jewish Press | July 29, 2022
Voices The Jewish Press (Founded in 1920) Margie Gutnik President Annette van de Kamp-Wright Editor Richard Busse Creative Director Susan Bernard Advertising Executive Lori Kooper-Schwarz Assistant Editor Gabby Blair Staff Writer Sam Kricsfeld Digital support Mary Bachteler Accounting Jewish Press Board Margie Gutnik, President; Abigail Kutler, Ex-Officio; Seth Feldman; David Finkelstein; Ally Freeman; Mary Sue Grossman; Les Kay; Natasha Kraft; Chuck Lucoff; David Phillips; Joseph Pinson. The mission of the Jewish Federation of Omaha is to build and sustain a strong and vibrant Omaha Jewish Community and to support Jews in Israel and around the world. Agencies of the JFO are: Institute for Holocaust Education, Jewish Community Relations Council, Jewish Community Center, Jewish Social Services and the Jewish Press. Guidelines and highlights of the Jewish Press, including front page stories and announcements, can be found online at: www.jewishomaha.org; click on ‘Jewish Press.’ Editorials express the view of the writer and are not necessarily representative of the views of the Jewish Press Board of Directors, the Jewish Federation of Omaha Board of Directors, or the Omaha Jewish community as a whole. The Jewish Press reserves the right to edit signed letters and articles for space and content. The Jewish Press is not responsible for the Kashrut of any product or establishment. Editorial The Jewish Press is an agency of the Jewish Federation of Omaha. Deadline for copy, ads and photos is: Thursday, 9 a.m., eight days prior to publication. E-mail editorial material and photos to: avandekamp@jewishomaha.org; send ads (in TIF or PDF format) to: rbusse@jewishomaha.org. Letters to the Editor Guidelines The Jewish Press welcomes Letters to the Editor. They may be sent via regular mail to: The Jewish Press, 333 So. 132 St., Omaha, NE 68154; via fax: 1.402.334.5422 or via e-mail to the Editor at: avandekamp@jewishomaha.org. Letters should be no longer than 250 words and must be single-spaced typed, not hand-written. Published letters should be confined to opinions and comments on articles or events. News items should not be submitted and printed as a “Letter to the Editor.” The Editor may edit letters for content and space restrictions. Letters may be published without giving an opposing view. Information shall be verified before printing. All letters must be signed by the writer. The Jewish Press will not publish letters that appear to be part of an organized campaign, nor letters copied from the Internet. No letters should be published from candidates running for office, but others may write on their behalf. Letters of thanks should be confined to commending an institution for a program, project or event, rather than personally thanking paid staff, unless the writer chooses to turn the “Letter to the Editor” into a paid personal ad or a news article about the event, project or program which the professional staff supervised. For information, contact Annette van de KampWright, Jewish Press Editor, 402.334.6450. Postal The Jewish Press (USPS 275620) is published weekly (except for the first week of January and July) on Friday for $40 per calendar year U.S.; $80 foreign, by the Jewish Federation of Omaha. Phone: 402.334.6448; FAX: 402.334.5422. Periodical postage paid at Omaha, NE. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: The Jewish Press, 333 So. 132 St., Omaha, NE 68154-2198 or email to: jpress@jewishomaha.org.
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Editorials express the view of the writer and are not necessarily representative of the views of the Jewish Press Board of Directors, the Jewish Federation of Omaha Board of Directors, or the Omaha Jewish community as a whole.
Willing to grow don’t really know where to start. ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT It’s a missed opportunity to own up and get betJewish Press Editor Here’s the summarized story: Steve Dettelbach ter. As is often the case when someone says or was confirmed as the director of the Federal Bu- writes something problematic, more energy is reau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Then, a county Republican group in Kentucky in a social media post called Dettelbach part of a “Jewish junta” that “is getting stronger and more aggressive.” The county GOP group attacked the two Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Rob Portman of Ohio, who voted for his appointment, and also attacked two Republican Senators, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and James Risich of Idaho, who were not present for the vote, saying, “It’s obvious they want to move on from having to defend rural gun owners.” The entire Facebook page in question was deleted, but the screen shots are of course easily available—the cat is very much out of Steve Dettelbach, director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tothe bag. The county’s GOP chair, Karin Kirk- bacco, Firearms, and Explosives, being nominated for the endol, said that the Facebook page had been position with President Joe Biden in the White House “hacked” and said the party “would not and Rose Garden in Washington, D.C., April 11, 2022. Credit: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images did not publish anything antisemitic — as some of our very own members have Jewish her- spent on making excuses than on owning behavior itage,” according to Andrew Lapin, who covered the and apologizing. I’ve been guilty of it myself- the story for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. tendency to make excuses, over-explain why what Ha. happened, happened- rather than saying these simSo we’re going with the ‘we were hacked’ de- ple words: ‘I messed up. I’m sorry.’ fense? And then, to top it off, ‘some of our very own Why is it so difficult to admit it when we are members have Jewish heritage?’ Let’s focus on the wrong? We are all human, both as individuals and first part, because the ‘Jewish heritage’ comment, I as institutions and organizations. And so, mistakes
will happen. I would go even further: without mistakes, there is no growth. Oftentimes, when we are afraid to make a mistake, we are most at risk of stagnation. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote: “In Tabernacle and Temple times, Yom Kippur was the day when the holiest man in Israel, the High Priest, made atonement, first for his own sins, then for the sins of his “house,” then for the sins of all Israel. From the day the Temple was destroyed, we have had no High Priest nor the rites he performed, but we still have the day, and the ability to confess and pray for forgiveness. It is so much easier to admit your sins, failings and mistakes when other people are doing likewise. If a High Priest, or the other members of our congregation, can admit to sins, so can we.” Holding any politicians to the High Priest’s standards might be too much to ask. We’d definitely be setting ourselves up for disappointment. But how about this: rather than falling all over this one unfortunate and misguided social media post and pointing fingers, what will happen if we use it as an opportunity to take a look at ourselves? We, too, cannot live up to the High Priest, but we can still try. We can remind ourselves we are not perfect, we make mistakes, all the time. Sometimes our mistakes are even intentional. Will we recognize them when they happen, first privately, then publicly? Will we own up to them and apologize? I guess the ultimate question is not who made what mistake and whose fault it was, the ultimate question is: Are we willing to grow?
The James Webb Telescope looks at the universe through the eyes of God BENJAMIN RESNICK JTA Back in December, human beings, a weird variety of uniquely frail, lithe and hairless monkeys, launched into space a new, $10 billion dollar telescope, 21 feet in diameter and, like many great temples, covered with golden mirrors. The James Webb Space Telescope is 100 times more powerful than the Hubble telescope. It traveled a million miles from earth with a mission — the first fruits of which we saw last week with the photographs released by NASA — that is almost unfathomably grandiose: to peer out (that is, to look back) at the moment when the first stars turned on and cleared away limitless clouds of primordial gas, seen as light that has been traveling towards us for 13.6 billion years. Readers of Bereshit — Genesis — learn about a time when all was tohu vavohu — when all was formless and dark — and there is a strong chance that Webb will show us the very moment when something happened and then there was light. We will be able to see that moment of creation. The moment when the first stars began to burn, unfathomable vessels of brightness that would create the carbon, the nitrogen and the oxygen that make up 86.9% of our bodies, which would later shatter to create our heavier atoms, which would combine with the hydrogen created during the Big Bang. All of this means, by some alchemy of thermodynamics that is, for me, still shrouded in darkness — or perhaps by some act of primordial grace — we are mostly composed of starlight, our mass coming from some mysterious vibration of immortal and timeless energy, echoing through the universe from the beginning of time. This energy has existed from the moment when the very first lights went on and will exist after the very last lights wink out. When all returns to a formless nothingness, those little pieces of starlight that are me will still be there, perhaps joining in a cosmic dance with those that are you, forming something new, maybe something wonderful. These are and were and will be the very same atoms that now
make up my bones and blood, and which through the world through the eyes of God and, as the great whatever unfathomable, godly magic, fire electricity Christian mystic Meister Eckart famously said, that through my brain, so that one day, also out of dark- “the eye with which I see God is the same eye with ness, I look out on the world, see its lights and col- which God sees me.” ors, discover the taste and fragrance of milk, come I don’t know what to do with the knowledge that to smile and laugh and walk and speak and even- all the electrons in my body hum and create this ditually (not me but others like me) grow up to build vine illusion of being which is the same as the dimachines to look back in time. We are the universe coming to know itself. We are the eyes of God peering out into endless darkness, lighting fires of imagination and ingenuity that allow us to reach into our bodies to make them well, and to travel to the great orbs in the sky, and to look deep into the past, with a golden vessel like the altar of incense overlaid in gold, burning through time and thick with the fragrance of memory, hiding its illuminations somewhere beneath An image released by NASA on July 12, 2022, shows the edge of a the smoke. And we come to under- nearby, young, star-forming region in the Carina Nebula, captured stand what and where and when in infrared light by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: we are. And we will see the mo- NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI/Handout via Xinhua. ment that we’ve been reading out for all of Jewish vine majesty of nonbeing. history: “Vayomer elohim yehi or, vayehi or” — God But when I imagine myself one day returning to said, “Let there be light and there was light.” the stars and when I looked at the new images of the We cannot and perhaps will never be able to see universe released this week by NASA I am indeed further, into those 250 million years after the Big filled with a sense of wonder and humility and comBang but before the stars, when all was a dark, hot fort and gratitude. Maybe someday we will build a soup, unformed and void, tohu vavohu. telescope even more mighty. Maybe we’ll go back Like you, perhaps, like everyone in the world who farther and marvel at the dark work of creation, the has ever looked seriously into the thermodynamics of world before the letter “bet” in bereshit, the blank man, I don’t know what to make of all this. I don’t whiteness concealing and revealing all mysteries. know what to do with the knowledge that I was Until then, each year, we’ll roll back the scrolls, forged in starlight or that the space between my we’ll read the story again and, with our clumsy and atoms is empty, a vacuum, like the void into which, marvelous fingers, we’ll try to touch creation. according to the Kabbalists, the Unending poured Benjamin Resnick is rabbi of the Pelham Jewfirst light. I don’t know what to make of the fact that ish Center in Pelham, New York. He previously every piece of me has existed and will exist for all time. served as the Rav Beit HaSefer of Solomon It seems as though the fires of my imagination Schechter Day School of Metropolitan Chicago. are endless, that my capacities of love and hate, The views and opinions expressed in this article are laughter and tears, are endless and abiding and those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the real. And I believe that I am indeed looking out on views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.
