Choose Hope: The Story of Coach Ted Lasso and the Biblical Caleb

APRIL 23, 2021 By RABBI ALEX KRESS

In the first episode of Ted Lasso, the title character played by Jason Sudeikis tapes a poster above the entrance to his office. It reads simply, “Believe.” The character is a small-town American football coach hired to lead a British soccer club, which Sudeikis describes as “Mr. Rogers meets John Wooden.” The problem is that Coach Lasso knows nothing about soccer and was intentionally hired by the clubs nefarious owner to tank the team. Undeterred by the challenges, he perseveres to spread optimism and hope.

In the story of the spies from this week’s parashah, Sh’lach L’cha, we find the Torah’s version of Ted Lasso. Moses sends 12 men, one from each tribe, to scout the land of Canaan. They are tasked with finding out how many people live in the land, if the soil was rich for farming, and if their towns were fortified. After 40 days, the men return downtrodden.

Though the land is flowing with milk, honey, and enormous clusters of grapes that take two people to carry, the spies deliver Moses and the Israelites a grim picture: The land is full of inhabitants, some so large they make the spies look like grasshoppers. Their cities are fortified and there is no chance the wandering Israelites can make the land their home. At this news, the people weep loudly, railing against Moses: “If only we had died in the land of Egypt” (Numbers 14:2)

However, one spy had a different experience. “Caleb hushed the people before Moses and said, ‘Let us, by all means, go up, and we shall gain possession of it, for we shall surely overcome it’” (Numbers 13:30). Caleb’s optimism and confidence stood in stark contrast to the cynicism of the other spies. While they expressed reservations and fear, Caleb expressed hope and faith. The text tells us that Caleb has a ruach acheret – a different spirit – that appears influential. A few verses after Caleb exudes positivity, another spy, Joshua, joins in and implores the Israelites to have faith. The 15th-century commentator Isaac Abarbanel teaches that while Joshua had a prophetic spirit that would later inscribe him in the canon, Caleb “had merely a human spirit.” Caleb, like Ted Lasso, was just a can-do guy.

Yet the story of Caleb and Ted Lasso is not only about their gift of optimism; it is that they made choices. Caleb, like Ted, could have been weighed down by cynics but instead chose to spread light rather than darkness. Caleb, like Ted, could have kept silent in the face of such negativity but instead chose to speak up. Caleb, like Ted, could have let the despondent undermine their faith but instead chose to believe in themselves, the people around them, and in things unraveling in the way that they were meant to unravel.

As Coach Lasso sets up his office in that first episode, he hangs a few iconic sports photos whose subjects inspire him: Muhammad Ali towering over Sonny Liston, the “Miracle on Ice” at the 1980 Winter Olympics, Buster Douglas knocking out Mike Tyson, Coach Jim Valvano winning the 1983 NCAA Tournament. These moments embody the ruach acheret (different spirit) of Caleb: Muhammad Ali speaking out against the war in Vietnam and losing his boxing license; a group of amateur American hockey players beating the professional Soviet Union team; heavy underdog Douglas knocking out Tyson; the unbridled optimism of Coach Jimmy V facing down a deadly cancer diagnosis to implore the world, “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.” These figures became legends because of the spirit they brought to the moment, a choice we are all capable of making in moments big and small.

Though we might not always have the positive disposition of Ted Lasso or the boundless courage of Caleb to offer hope in the face of adversity, we do control what we say and how we act. We can hold grudges and be petty or we can forgive. We can let challenges stop us in our tracks or we can find a way to persevere. We can spread kindness and hopefulness or we can drag others down.

 

When we find ourselves at a crossroads and faced with a choice, Caleb and Ted Lasso both teach us to believe in ourselves, in others, and in the possibility that things might just work out for the best.

Build Longer Tables, Not Higher Walls

APRIL 9, 2021 By RABBI ALEX KRESS

When I was 2, my dad stood in front of a lightbox holding an X-ray that confirmed his mother was dying of lung cancer. As her first
yahrtzeit approached, my dad felt a yearning to observe the mourning rituals of Judaism.

My mom, who was not Jewish and had no plans to convert, stayed home with my infant sister and me so my dad could attend Shabbat
services for the first time in decades. Just before the closing blessings, the rabbi preached a sermon warning of the moral catastrophe of intermarriage and the impending havoc it would wreak on the Jewish people. His stinging words
repulsed my father.

This story of someone showing up to partake in Jewish ritual and being made to feel unwelcome is all too familiar.

We read of a similar tale in Parashat B’haalot’cha, in which Miriam and Aaron speak out against Moses’ life choices: “He married a
Cushite woman” (Numbers 12:1). Our tradition identifies this woman as either Tzipporah, Moses’ wife in Exodus, or perhaps a different wife from Egypt. In either case, the argument is clear: The non-Israelite woman is an outsider, looks different, and is not worthy of marrying into our exclusive club. Whether it is her religion, skin color, or some other supposed fault, her “otherness”
is too much for Miriam and Aaron to countenance.

Too many of us harbor such chauvinistic attitudes, consciously or unconsciously. We take pride in how many Nobel Prize winners are
Jewish, and lately how many Jews played a role in developing COVID-19 vaccines. When we learn someone is in a new relationship, we ask of the partner, “Are they Jewish?” The more vulgar among us make jokes about the goyim (the derogatory Yiddish word for people who are not Jewish). When they see Jews of Color in the synagogue for services or an event, they assume they are part of
the janitorial staff. When they see anyone outside of their Ashkenormative perception of who is a Jew, they turn into Aaron and Miriam and say, “You aren’t like us.” Every action or comment that makes someone feel “other” adds a brick to the wall of exclusion.

As our Torah portion makes clear, there is no room for exclusivity in our community.

God, irate that they would criticize Moses, descends upon Aaron and Miriam in a cloud. When the cloud departs, Miriam is stricken with
tzaraat, the scaly skin ailment associated with punishment for slander (Sifra Mtzora 5:7). The Torah tells us that “Miriam was shut out of the camp for seven days, and the people did not march on until Miriam was readmitted” (Numbers 12:15). In other words, Miriam was forced outside the very boundaries she was attempting to erect and enforce.

To recover from the illness brought on by her actions, and also for the community to move on, Miriam, not Moses or his wife, had to leave the community. This is a lesson in radical inclusivity.

In a world in which, according to the Pew Research Center, 72% of non-Orthodox marriages are interfaith, we must dispel exclusionary
attitudes toward others. We must not be silent when we hear people in our community espouse ideas and language that make others feel unwelcome. When we poison the ground on which we build holy space through word or action, we undermine the very project of creating a sacred community. When we passively or actively make people feel different, we thumb our nose at God in whose image we
are all made.  

I was lucky that my parents persisted and found a spiritual home that welcomed our interfaith family. Yet all too often, those we
greet with hostility leave forever. Not only does rejection of “the other” violate the sanctity of all human beings, it seriously undermines Jewish continuity.

Though we have made great strides in accepting interfaith families, there is more work to be done in lowering barriers to those who show up at our doors seeking community. Our responsibility is to include, not judge, all who wish to be part of our community and share our sacred values. As the saying goes, we must build longer tables, not higher walls.

Embracing the Unknowable

APRIL 9, 2021 By RABBI ALEX KRESS

As a kid, I loved how math made the world orderly. It was neat and predictable: Two plus two always equaled four; the answer was never in question. Yet, as I got older and math continued to get more and more complicated, I became increasingly fascinated by the human experiences that numbers and equations alone could not capture.

Fact remained important, but what about truth? What about the subjective realities of our lives, like love and hurt, that can be
comprehended only in the abstract? We can count and categorize people in large swaths, but how can we understand their individuality? To be human means to live with both sides of the coin: the curious pursuit of the knowable and the humble recognition of the unknowable forces of the universe.

The Book of Numbers opens with the knowable: a clean mathematical survey of the Israelites in the wilderness. The first half of this
Torah portion counts each tribe’s battle-ready men – 603,500 in all – and meticulously records their placement around the Tent of Meeting. The second half of the portion moves from human concerns to Divine service. The Levites’ responsibilities in officiating religious rites and maintaining the mishkan, the sacred dwelling place of God in the Israelite camp are spelled out. In these distinct sections, we find the two sides of the coin: what is in human hands and what remains out of our control. Though we can organize ourselves in preparation for the wilderness, we will never truly know what lies ahead.

As the pandemic spread across the world in early 2020, cancer spread through my body. As the son of medical professionals, I eagerly
followed the knowable medical science, undergoing two surgeries at recommendation of my doctors. But when you experience a life-threatening illness, you realize that the doctors, like the patient, must also embrace the
unknowable.

When the biopsy results came back, I received a call with good news: “We didn’t find any viable cancer. Your immune system killed it
all. We’ve never really seen anything like it. We might want to write up your case for a medical journal.” Jokingly, I said, “Let me know when you’ve got it. I’ll add the theological perspective.” The reply surprised me: “Honestly, rabbi, the theological perspective makes as much sense as the biological one.”

We crave reason and predictability, but certainty is often elusive and we must embrace the unknowable. My cancer didn’t happen for a
reason, nor did my cure. No one was to blame, neither human nor Divine. What kept me grounded throughout my treatment was my embrace of a belief articulated by the theologian Judith Plaskow in “Two Feminist Views of Goddess and God”
(Tikkun, Jan. 16, 2015):

“God is inclusive of good and evil, the power of creativity that undergirds all life processes; this God is not personal or solely good, but rather is the power undergirding everything.”

This approach to faith, in which God is not beyond the world but immanent in it, helps us to recognize that rationality and spirituality are not only compatible but dependent on one another. When we apply this theological understanding to our lives, we develop a spiritual resilience that carries us through the wilderness of the unknown. In the unpredictable ebb and flow of life, this type of malleable faith heightens our highest highs, softens our lowest lows, and keeps us grounded throughout. It allows for a dynamic theology that meets us – the family member, professional, Jew, friend, citizen – where we are, with the potential to change and evolve as we assume different roles throughout our lives.

Hidden in the census report that begins Parashat B’midbar is a reminder that survival depends on a mysterious interplay of fact and
faith. Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz notes that in the census, twice as many of the children have the name of God in their names as do their parents (The Steinsaltz Humash: Humash Translation and Commentary, Jerusalem Ltd., 2018, p. 730). Even though the parents were born into the desperate conditions of Egyptian servitude, they gave their children names like Nethanel, “God has given,” in the belief that this will endow their children with spiritual resilience and that reliance on the rational alone will not sustain them in the
wilderness.

 

Each of us faces a wilderness, an unknown future with unexpected twists and turns, in which rational decisions may guide us but faith
has the power to sustain us. The question is: Will we let it?

Reigniting the Spark of Community

APRIL 8, 2021 By RABBI ALEX KRESS

Before the pandemic, I took so much for granted: hugging friends, visiting family, singing at concerts, eating at restaurants, going
anywhere I desired. The virus flipped our world upside down and forced us apart from the people and spaces that fill our lives with love, sustenance, purpose, and energy. I am grateful to live in a time with technology that allows us to stay hyper-connected, but screens have not replicated what I missed most – my Jewish community.

Zoom did not nearly replace the spiritual energy I receive when gathering in temple to worship, sing, learn, and eat bad oneg cookies
together. I miss the laughter and handshakes and hugs. I miss the highs of lifting each other up on chairs in celebration and the lows of carrying each other through suffering. Fundamentally, I miss Jewish life.

This experience brought new meaning to the words of the first-century sage Hillel: “Do not separate yourself from the community”
(Pirkei Avot 2:4). I always thought of this teaching as an obligation to sustain the community, not the self, but the pandemic has made me rethink that assumption.

In Parashat Korach, we read of the dynamic between individuals and their community. Korach leads a rebellion against Moses and
Aaron, charging them with the crime of separating and elevating themselves from the community. “You have gone too far!” the rebels accuse. “For all the community are holy, all of them, and Adonai is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourselves above the congregation of God?” (Numbers 16:3). Though God quashes Korach’s rebellion and the earth “swallows [the rebels] up,” his false accusations regarding the relationship between the individual and the community are not totally without merit. Every individual is holy, and God is found when we gather in community.

Speaking to this dynamic, the 20th-century commentator


Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik asks: “

 “Does the individual stand above the community which should serve its needs, or should the individual subordinate himself to the community’s needs?”

To answer this question, Rabbi Soloveitchik uses the story of Moses as a paradigm. He notes that the sages compare the worth of Moses to the entirety of the Israelite men. Yet when the Israelites sinned by fashioning the Golden Calf, Moses is reduced to their sinful status. Rabbi Soloveitchik’s interpretation of this seeming contradiction is that it “seems that the community and the individual are placed in balance with each other and are interdependent” (Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, On Repentance, pp. 114-115).

During the pandemic, I became particularly aware of this interdependence. We all play a role in sustaining community, but the distance
helped me understand how much community sustains and uplifts me. 

It is not simply the extremes of Moses’ righteousness compared with the sin of the Israelite community that highlight this relationship. I
found it in the slow depletion of my spirituality in the absence of singing, gathering, and learning in community. I felt it while singing muted on Zoom instead of experiencing the cacophony of all the other holy (and often atonal) voices. I experienced it while crying on Zoom, thousands of miles away from friends, welcoming their newborns into the covenant.

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and while that’s true, the absence of physical Jewish community weighed heavily on my
emotional and spiritual wellbeing in a way I never previously understood.  

After the earth swallows Korach and his rebels, a plague breaks out in the camp. The Torah tells us that Aaron “stood between the dead
and the living until the plague was checked” (Numbers 17:13). After shouldering the weight of fear, rebellion, and plague, Aaron goes straight to the Tent of Meeting, the place where Israelites convened to worship. He returns to sacred space, full of ritual and connection. Aaron’s actions after the plague read like an instructive for us to return en masse to our Jewish communities once it is safe
to do so.

We have all experienced and dealt with the massive trauma of COVID-19 in different ways, and no panacea could possibly mend our


individual and communal brokenness. Yet, the Torah urges us to show up. Show up spiritually at services, even after an exhausting week. Show up righteously to seek justice, even when you just want to collapse on the couch. Show up socially, even when you don’t want to see other people.

The 20th-century philosopher Martin Buber teaches that God is the electricity that surges between people who relate to each other humanly – and I think we could all use that spark.