Kol Nidre 5776: The Power of Speech

A version of this sermon was delivered at Temple Emanu-El of East Meadow, Kol Nidre, 5776.

Yom Kippur is a time machine. 

 You don’t believe me, probably, because Yom Kippur is not a stainless steel car with doors that open up. You don’t believe me because sometimes the day itself feels like it goes on forever. How can we be time traveling if it feels like our own watches aren’t even moving? Well, maybe you’re right. Maybe Yom Kippur isn’t a time machine for our bodies; but it is a time machine for our souls, and where we hope to go on Yom Kippur, well, to get there, we don’t need roads.

Yom Kippur allows us to look back at our past mistakes and make them right. And it allows us the opportunity to affect the future. It allows us to look at who we aim to be and work to make that happen. This day might not allow us literally to travel to that place, to make right what once went wrong, but it does allow us to change both history and the future. We change history by working to apologize, to speak our regrets, express our remorse, utter our contrition for any hurt and pain we have caused. We change the future by turning away from that part of us that caused the pain and hurt. We change the future by not letting the past dictate its outcome, by telling ourselves that we are supposed to work on this.

In the last year, perhaps in no realm has it become clear that we must send our souls through time to change the future than in the realm of our words and our speech.

Judaism understands speech as powerful. Speech creates. Speech changes. And, speech connects. Creation, change, and connection are all potent, positive, divine attributes of speech, but they are the hardest to come by. Easier, and for that reason more often utilized by our species, is the power that speech has to demolish, damage, and detach.

The world we have exists because of divine speech. “Bereishit bara’ Elohim et hashamayyim ve’et ha’aretz In the beginning of God’s creating Heaven and Earth, the earth was unformed and void.”[1] And then God spoke. God does a lot of speaking in the Torah. In the beginning, God speaks and suddenly there is order out of primordial chaos. God speaks and there is suddenly light and dark, earth and water, flora and fauna, fish and fowl, beast and human. Our tradition has always recognized the power of God’s speech.

“Baruch she’amar v’hayah ha’olam, baruch hu Blessed is the one who spoke and the world came to be, Blessed is God. Baruch oseh vereishit, baruch omer v’oseh Blessed is the one who creates everything, blessed is the one who creates by speaking.” Each morning we recite these words as the opening of psukei d’zimrah, the section of our morning service praising God for all God’s goodness, love, and gifts. And we begin by praising the creative power of divine speech.

But it is not just God’s speech which is noted as powerful. Rav Kook, the first chief Rabbi of Israel writes in an essay titled: The Power of Speech “Sometimes we can sense the connection between our speech and the universe…as our soul is elevated, we become acutely aware of the tremendous power that lies in our faculty of speech. We recognize clearly the tremendous significance of each utterance.”[2] 

Are we, with every word, recognizing the potential power of our words? Are we, with every utterance mimicking the divine, creative speech filled with blessing? Are we, with every simple expression, sensing the connection between our speech and the universe?

Or, are we just destroying?

There has been a lot of destructive speech this past year. Speech is amplified more than ever before, thanks to social media. And not just is it amplified, but the number of people whose speech we are exposed to have multiplied exponentially. This summer, the Jewish community in particular, witnessed the destructive power of speech, as related to the Nuclear Deal with Iran. The American Jewish community fractured between those who felt it was a good deal, and those who felt it was bad. Some felt one way for the United States and a different way for Israel.

The Jewish community of the past has had disagreements; the Talmud is based on disagreements, and this disagreement certainly won’t be our last. Disagreement is not the issue.

The many opinions over the imperfect deal have merit and deserve to be discussed constructively and with creative force. Instead, we resorted to name-calling, accusations and attacks. If you were for the deal, even reservedly, you were sentencing Israel to death and annihilation and capitulating to the Ayatollah. If you were against the deal, you showed dual-loyalty and were accused of being a war-monger. None of this speech is true because none of these words have nuance. Nuance is hard when emotions are high. Nuance is especially hard in 140 characters. And nuance is even harder to make into a soundbite.

Un-nuanced speech destroys. It destroys relationships and individuals. It destroys communities and it destroys years of hard work building alliances and friendship. Our community’s destructive speech altered the timeline, and the Jewish community in America will now have to work hard to reconcile after the difficult summer. It will not be possible if we do not go back to the past, and work to make what we said right. There can be no future if we do not commit to this today.

What the future requires is creative speech, speech that builds up. Speech that recognizes difference, yet maintains a level of respect, decorum, and a recognition that the other is indeed imbued with the same divine spark as we are. Let us strive to divine, creative speech in the new year.

According to Jewish Law, speech also has the power to change, to transform, matter and being, spiritually speaking. Some of you may search for chametz in the days before Passover. As we go around our houses’ corners with a feather and candle, looking for crumbs, we know that we can’t conceivably find each and every crumb from each piece of bread or every pretzel. So, the rabbis instituted a blessing which declares that any chametz, any leavened product, which we didn’t find is as the dust of the earth. With our words, we change the state of the crumbs from bread to dust.

Many of us have also, with our words, changed the status of our beloved. “Be consecrated to me, with this ring, as my spouse, according to the laws of Moses and Israel.” It is this familiar formula of the wedding vow coupled with the exchange of the rings that for Judaism renders a couple married. Without the words, the ceremony is incomplete. Speech in the form of a marriage vow changes two people into spouses.

When we speak, do we recognize the power our words have to transform? When we utter our words, do we recognize the power that they have to render us obligated, and do we take that seriously? When we talk, do we consider every word a promise or an oath, tied to our character and our trustworthiness? 

Or, do we only use our words to cause damage?

Words can damage, changing someone not for the better, not in a divine or sacred way, but rather in a hurtful way. All the more so these days because of the anonymity associated with speech on the internet. According to psychologists and neuroscientists,[3] speech damages not just in the present but in the future. Adults who report verbal abuse, particularly those who experienced that in adolescence show underdeveloped connections between the brain’s two sides and higher incidences of anxiety and depression. A fleeting word to one person lasts a lifetime for another. The damage that words cause in the present can be permanent and affect the future.

Words can also damage a reputation. Earlier this year, Brian Williams was suspended from his role as the anchor of the NBC Nightly News. Later, he was permanently replaced, and all because of words. His words recounting his experiences embedded with soldiers in Iraq were exaggerations. He made his story more exciting and harrowing than it actually was. This is no great sin, except that we have trusted our news anchors to deliver facts about the goings on in the world, and if one part of a story is made up, what else might be? It may not be fair, but it is the truth of the function of the press. Whether pride, misjudgment, or a bad memory were the culprit doesn’t matter much, not to his reputation and his future as a broadcast anchor. It is Yom Kippur, so it is important to recognize that Brian Williams has apologized, served out his suspension, and appears ready to do whatever it takes to earn back his reputation. In the new year, let us commit to speech that elicits changes for the good and commit to measuring each of our words as if they were a vow.

Speech has the power to connect. Robert Alter points out that it is only after woman is created from man’s rib that man speaks.[4] God commands the man about which trees he can and cannot eat. It is only after the man does not respond to God that God recognizes that “It is not good for man to be alone, I will make him a helping counterpart.” After woman is created, Adam finally speaks: “this is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” The first words that Adam speaks are words recognizing that the two of them, the origins of all humanity on earth, are made of the same substance. Adam sees the connection between him and his helping counterpart and declares first what they share.

We also strive for that connection, when we speak the words of prayer. While meditation and silent contemplation are worthwhile and important ways to reach the Divine, as Jews we speak many of our prayers out loud and as a community. There is a power in a large group of people all saying the same words together. It connects us. It gives us a shared experience and a shared vocabulary. It tells us that our words are not for us alone and that our neighbor’s words are for us, too. We all work together in calling out to God, in praising God’s name, in praising God’s creative power.

We pray the vidui, the confessional, in the plural and out loud, because we are all in this together. We take responsibility for our actions as well as our neighbors’. If one of us sinned, then all of us are guilty. That connection to another, that feeling of, “I’m here for you because I know you are here for me,” that can come through prayer, if we recognize the power of connection through shared speech. We even ask God for that ability, Adonai sefatai tiftach u’fi yagid tehilatecha, Eternal God, open my lips that my mouth may declare your glory!” God is found in the space of the shared speech. 

And in our confessionals today there are many references to our sins of speech. Al chet shechatanu, for the sin we have committed with our words. For the sin we have committed by malicious gossip, for the sin we have committed by speaking slander. Judaism, and Yom Kippur especially, ask us to take stock of the words we’ve used in the past and work to prevent that harmful speech in the future.

When we speak, are we striving for connections to God, declaring God’s glory? When we talk are we endeavoring for relationship? Are our mouths uttering words of commonality and similarity? 

Or, are we only focusing on that which separates us?

For speech also has the power to detach, to disconnect us from our neighbors, those with whom we share so much. We use our speech to put people in boxes and categorize them, based on the color of their skin, their national origin, their sexual orientation, their size, only ever focusing on those parts that are different. We see in those differences only what separates, not that those elements make up the mosaic of humanity. Our political system is replete with speech that disconnects, and it comes at us from all sides. The speech of detachment gains quick points, because it draws us to our own corners, apart from each other, and it plays on our fears.

Hasty speech, speech that assumes, also disconnects because it disregards context and foregoes thought and reflection. Nowhere is this more true than in a comments section on any website. A single article or a single quote tells all that is needed to know to size up a person and welcome an onslaught of vitriol. One inappropriate comment renders a person a racist forever. One offensive joke, potentially made years ago, and we know right away and with great certainty that he’s an anti-Semite to his core. Their life, their history, their struggles don’t matter. All that matters is the opportunity to tell someone off, to shame them, to ensure that the right opinion is heard, often accompanied by hateful speech from so many anonymous arbiters, derogatory comments, and occasionally threats of violence. Our modern lives make it easy to communicate with one another from anywhere and everywhere, and yet we seem more detached than ever.

In the new year, let us commit to speaking with the purpose of connecting with our families, our neighbors, our communities, and even strangers.

The rabbis of old understood this struggle between creation and destruction, between change for good and change for bad, between connection and detachment. They recognized how difficult it was to err on the side of positive speech. Because of this, they added a prayer to the end of the Amidah, which we don’t recite out loud, because it is about the rest of our speech. It begins with the following words: Elohai netzor leshoni mi-ra…Oh Eternal, guard my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking deceit.” The rabbis put this prayer in to remind us of the purpose of our words of prayer, that they should be for good and truth, and we are to take the message with us after we pray, as well. These words, imploring God to help us choose our words correctly, end The Prayer, Hatefilah, and we say them to ourselves. Maybe we ought to begin saying it out loud, together.

Let us take their message from the past with us into the future. Yom Kippur is a time machine. Let us use our speech to remedy the wrongs of the past and create a better future built on creation, positive change, and connection.

Shanah Tovah.

[1] Genesis 1:1
[2] Orot HaKodesh Vol III p 285 (emphases mine)
[3] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-new-brain/201010/sticks-and-stones-hurtful-words-damage-the-brain
[4] Robert Alter to Gen 2:23 (thanks, Rabbi Elisa Koppel)

Yom Kippur Morning 5776: Back to the Future!

A version of this sermon was delivered at Temple Emanu-El of East Meadow on Yom Kippur Morning, 5776.

The future is here. It is 2015, and this is the year that Marty McFly visits in Back to the Future Two. Now, I don’t bring this up just because of the potentially sacrilegious number of prayers that I have said that the movie’s prediction of a Cubs’ World Series victory this year actually come true, but because all year, all of 2015, we have been living in the future, and Yom Kippur is the perfect time to talk about the future. 

“Great Scott!” you might say. “Aren’t we supposed to be thinking about all of our sins, all of our accomplishments, all of our deeds and vows over the last year?” Yes, we are.  But there can be no mistake that this day, perhaps more than any other on our calendar, asks us to peer into the future as we commit to being better versions of ourselves in the coming year.

If only we had a time machine that could take us back before the concrete began to crumble in our sanctuary. If only we had a DeLorean, that when it hit 88 miles per hour would take us to the future on tire tracks of fire, a time after all the difficult decisions have been made, and after all the discussions have happened, a time after the chaos when we will look back in wonder at how we ever did that. Well, we may not be able to travel thanks to 1.21 gigawatts of power, but we will make it to that time, as long as we do it right. The best way to predict the future is to create it. Getting it right in the future is in part about looking back with the right perspective. That’s the easy part, really. The harder part is looking forward with the right perspective.

There are a number of ways to look toward the future. Will we be resigned to our future? Will we look at whatever comes as a blessing? And will we make the commitment to be a part of it, whatever it may look like, because there can be no future if there is no one to experience it?

A story is told of King Solomon, who put his servants to the test in order to teach them a lesson in humility. As servants to the king, they were accustomed to treating those beneath them with a certain disdain and superiority. “I have heard,” the King announced, “of a ring of magical powers. This ring has the power to make the happy man sad and the sad man happy.” Solomon ordered his servants to scour the countryside looking for such a ring, though it was the product of his imagination. They had no idea where to go.

“How will we find this magic ring?” one servant bemoaned.

“I bet it doesn’t even exist!” one of the servants shouted.

“It’s probably some wild goose chase for one of his wives!” another joked angrily.

Four servants went out from Solomon’s palace toward the four directions, each hoping to find this ring for the King and gain prestige and status in his eyes.

The first returned from the west, over the sea, empty handed. “I am sorry, King, but there is no such ring in the west. Though I prayed to God I would find it, I could not.” And with that, he retreated from King Solomon’s presence.

The next returned from the south, the lands of Ethiopia and Sheba, and he had brought with him an assortment of rings, hoping that one of them would meet Solomon’s needs. “My Lord, these are the finest of rings from the south, you may have your pick!”

“None of these does what I ask.” Solomon dryly responded. With a wave of the King’s hand, the servant exited, humiliated.

Well, the same thing happened with the servants who went east and north. One came back empty handed. The other, having heard what happened when a variety of rings were offered to the king, selected one ring, a beautiful, jewel-encrusted, shimmering-in-all-colors signet, from what he had gathered

But, Solomon was not swayed. “This is not the ring I’m looking for. This does not make the happy man sad and the sad man happy.”

But Solomon’s most trusted servant had not yet returned. Which direction had he gone, anyway? Well, Benaiyah had decided not to go far, but to dig deep. He went from alleyway to alleyway, starting in the center of Jerusalem working his way to the outskirts, near the walls. He pored over the wares of each and every jeweler and junk dealer twice, just to be sure. He worked systematically, quietly, on official business of the king. That was all he would tell people when they asked after him: “I’m on official business of the King.”

One day, not long after the last servant was sent away from the king, Benaiyah had just finished looking through an elderly man’s makeshift shop, if you could call a blanket spread out on the ground a shop, for the third time. Not having found it, Benaiyah collapsed against the wall for a break. 

The old man looked at him and asked: “My young friend, what is this official business of the King that he has you rummaging around in shops like mine, in these forgotten corners of the city? What could the king want that I have?”

“He is looking for a ring, a magical ring, with the powers to make happy men sad and sad men happy.” Benaiyah put his head in his dirty, tired hands.

“I have such a ring!” the old man exclaimed. And with that, he took a simple gold band, polished it with an old cloth, etched a few letters into it and handed it to Benaiyah. “Here, my son. This is what the King asks for.” Benaiyah looked at the ring’s engraving and smiled wide. He leapt to his feet and bounded back to the castle. 

He burst into the King’s chamber and, out of breath, presented him the ring.  “This, my King, is the ring you seek!” He handed Solomon the ring on which was engraved the words “Gam zeh ya’avor. This too shall pass.” Solomon’s surprise turned to dismay and then quickly to resolve as he commended Benaiyah for having completed the task.

“Well, Benaiyah, you certainly have done it.” Solomon didn’t even look up, he was so transfixed by the ring. Immediately, he took off all his jewels and robes and declared that rather than teach a lesson in humility, he learned a lesson in impermanence. Nothing lasts forever, Solomon declared. With that ,Solomon went on to write the book of Ecclesiastes, Kohelet.[1]

Nothing lasts forever. The difficulties we are facing are not permanent and not impossible to overcome. The challenges we will struggle through together have an end, and together we can reach that end. This story of Solomon teaches us that while we may feel stuck in a situation, time continues to move forward, and even if not immediately, situations change.

Gam zeh ya’avor, this too shall pass: reminds us that we can always create change. The future is uncertain and therefore, unwritten. Though we spend much of these days of awe asking for inscription in a book of life, and meditating on who will live and who will die through the words Unetaneh Tokef, it is the line after that reminds us that our future is not preordained, that reminds us that our current situation is not fixed. We remind ourselves that we have the power in us to change the future, through the work of prayer, repentance, and charity. Gam zeh ya’avor is not a prescription merely to wait for change to come; it is also a call to act to make change happen. This too shall pass is a helpful tactic when we’re faced with difficulties, and a reminder not to take the good in our lives for granted.

There is, however, an issue with living an exclusively gam zeh ya’avor lifestyle: we may be tempted to consider our past less than critical. If everything changes, what good is dwelling on the past…or the present? King Solomon even tells us in Kohelet that all of life is fleeting. If wherever we are is impermanent, why make a record of it at all? Because, while our situations may change, our values do not. Kohelet, we must remember, is only one book of the Bible for a reason. Our past reminds us of our values and of where we came from so that our future, the future we bring about by causing our situation to pass, ought to be informed by all that we have learned in the past, lest we repeat the same mistakes. Gam zeh ya’avor: one way to prepare ourselves for an uncertain future is to recognize that our current state is not permanent. That might be enough to push us to action.

A second story, this one from the Talmud[2], and this one also including the word ‘gam,’ meaning also. Rabbi Akiva was accustomed to saying "Everything God does is for the good". Once Rabbi Akiva was traveling with a donkey, rooster, and candle and when night came he tried to find lodging in a nearby village only to be turned away. Although Rabbi Akiva was forced to spend the night in the field, he did not lament his fate. Instead his reaction was as it always was. “Everything God does is for the best.” 

With that, Akiva settled in for the night. A wind came and blew out his candle. Later, a cat ate his rooster. And then, a lion came and ate his donkey! Each time, Rabbi Akiva's reaction was “Everything that God does is for the best.” That night a regiment came and took the entire town captive, while Rabbi Akiva who was sleeping in the field went unnoticed and thus was spared. When Rabbi Akiva realized what happened ,he said, “Didn't I tell you that everything that God does is for the best?” Rashi explains that if the candle, rooster, or donkey would have been around, the regiment would have seen or heard them and would have also captured Rabbi Akiva.

But Rabbi Akiva didn’t just come to this outlook on life by happenstance. He was taught. And his teacher’s name was Nachum – you can see why I like this story – but he was known as “Ish Gamzu.” The Talmud explains that his nickname came from the fact that his reaction to anything that happened to him was always “gam zu l'tovah this, too, is for the good.”

One time, the Jews wanted to send a present to the Emperor in Rome, and they felt that Nachum Ish Gamzu would be the best emissary as miracles are always happening to him. So they sent him with a chest filled with treasures. On his way to Rome, he stopped by an inn and during the night the innkeepers emptied the jewels from the chest and filled it with sand. When the chest was offered to the Emperor, he opened it and saw the sand. Naturally the Emperor was infuriated. Nachum Ish Gamzu just said, “Gam zu l'tovah: this too is for the good.”

Eliyahu Hanavi, Elijah the prophet, came disguised as one of the Emperor’s men and suggested that maybe the sand was from Abraham who threw sand and it turned into swords. The Romans tried out the sand on a nation that they had difficulty in conquering and were able to defeat them with the aid of the sand. The Emperor sent Nachum back with great honors and a chest full of treasures. Gam zu l'tovah, indeed.

The beginning of Nachum’s story has him being sent to the Emperor, in Rome. And then later, this unknown rabbi from Judea, an outpost of the empire and from a defeated people no less, gets an audience with the Emperor. Perhaps this is a signal that this story, and indeed its lesson, is meant to be taken with a grain of salt. A miraculous story in the Talmud teaches us that everything will turn out ok as long as we hope or pray it will. But, we know that the clouds of difficulties and hardships sometimes don’t have silver linings.

So, what do we learn from Nachum ish Gamzu? Even when the most beautiful of things suddenly become sand, that doesn’t mean it’s all bad. There can be good that comes out of a bad situation. There can be, and in fact, ought to be, a way to look at every situation that pushes us not only to mourn what we have lost, but to make the best out of a bad situation, and it starts with mindset. Are we ready to direct our energies positively in the year ahead? Are we ready to look at what we have before us and make the statement: Gam zu l'tovah, even if we might not know what good will come? When we are ready, the story seems to tell us that God will help us. God sends Elijah to Nachum’s side, to give him the strength to see everything as if it truly is letovah, for good.

But as with gam zeh ya’avor, this too shall pass, gam zu letovah comes with a caveat. Nachum isn’t the least bit concerned for his safety over the fact that he has been robbed. His optimism and positive let’s-make-lemonade-out-of-lemons attitude overwhelms his ability to see the reality before him. 

And, while in his case it’s not detrimental to him, we know all too well that neglecting to see the reality, neglecting to face hard truths, and neglecting to prepare for the future can have very dangerous consequences. Optimism and positivity can carry us far, but if they are not tempered with realistic expectations, we may all find ourselves sleeping in a field.

One final story[3]: In a mountain village in Europe many centuries ago, there was a nobleman who was concerned about the legacy he would leave to the people of his town. The man spent a great deal of time contemplating his dilemma, and at last, decided to build a synagogue. In the course of his planning, he decided that no one would see the plans for the building until it was finished. Apparently, centuries ago, there were no Temple Boards. He had scaffolding erected and a large tent covering the construction site so no one could see what was going on. The construction took quite a long time – much longer than he anticipated—because doesn’t it always?

But at long last, the project was completed. A grand opening was planned. The townspeople were excited and curious about what they would find upon seeing their new synagogue unveiled. There was a great ceremony and with great fanfare. The cover was dropped from the building and the people marveled at the synagogue’s magnificence. No one could ever remember so beautiful a synagogue anywhere in the world.

The townspeople entered the beautifully appointed building and marveled at the careful woodwork and the beautifully crafted floors in the entrance way, inlayed with different colors of wood in patterns of such grace and beauty. They continued to move through the building and began to examine the walls, so expertly joined together. Their eyes travelled to the high ceilings, expecting to see some grand candelabra, but there was none. For a few minutes no one said anything about it.

Then, noticing the seemingly obvious flaw in the design, one of the townspeople asked, “Where are the lamps? What will provide the lighting? Are we to pray to God in the dark!?” There was nervous laughter from the crowd and all eyes turned to that nobleman who had commissioned the building.

The proud nobleman pointed to brackets, which were strategically placed all along the walls throughout the synagogue. He then gave each family a lamp as he explained, “Whenever you come to the synagogue, I want you to bring your lamp, and light it. But, each time you are not here,” he said, “a part of the synagogue will be dark. This lamp will remind you that whenever you are absent, some part of God’s house will be dark. Your community is relying on you for light.”

The light of our community relies on each one of us, bringing our lamp, hanging it up at the Temple and proclaiming that our little corner of God’s house will not be left dark. Regardless of where our lights have been in the past, this day is about looking to the future. We need to recognize our roles in our future. We need to see ourselves as bearers of that light, and understand that the light that we each bring is a necessary part of our community. That is true today, and it will continue to be true tomorrow and next week and next year. We may look toward the future with the gam zeh ya’avor attitude or the gam zu letovah attitude, but it won’t make a difference if we don’t all commit to bringing our lights.

Last night, our Cantor and Choir helped us to time travel by evoking the memory of generations past with their beautiful rendition of the Kol Nidre prayer. Our memories are of the past, those moments of years gone by when those melodies filled our ears and our souls. Yes, the prayer pulls us back, but it asks us to look forward. “Mi yom kippurim zeh ad yom kippurim, haba’ From this Yom Kippur to the next Yom Kippur.” The vows we make, all that we pledge and promise, we pray that we not be held responsible for breaking those vows. The future is not certain, but it rests in our hands. Kol Nidre, and indeed all of Yom Kippur, asks us to understand who we have been and use our experience to strive to be better moving forward while at the same time recognizing the realities as we look forward.

We don't need a DeLorean.  We don't need to physically travel back in time to learn from our past and improve our future. We are already equipped to handle the difficulties before us. As we exit this Yom Kippur, as we celebrate the new year with our families, breaking our fasts with sweetness and togetherness and a good number of bagels, let us not only consider ourselves cleansed from our previous deeds and our past year. Let us also consider ourselves prepared for the year ahead and for the future. Let us consider ourselves prepared to handle the challenges before us with the right mindset and the right opportunity. And finally, let us all commit to installing our light as often as possible.

Shanah Tovah

[1] יש אומרים
[2] Based on B. Ta’anit 21a and B. Berachot 60b
[3] Thanks to Rabbi Robin Leonard Nafshi for the base of this story, which she titles: The Nobleman’s Legacy.

Yom Kippur Yizkor 5776 - The Power of Tears

A version of this sermon was delivered at Temple Emanu-El of East Meadow on Yom Kippur, 5776.

A few years ago, an artist named Rose-Lynn Fisher decided that she would take samples of different kinds of tears and photograph them under an optical microscope. What she discovered was that each tear and each type of tear she photographed gave her a unique artistic composition. She turned these prints into an exhibit she calls The Topography of Tears. Fisher writes: “The random compositions I find in magnified tears often evoke a sense of place, like aerial views of emotional terrain. Although the empirical nature of tears is a chemistry of water, proteins, minerals, hormones, antibodies and enzymes, the topography of tears is a momentary landscape, transient as the fingerprint of someone in a dream.”[1] 

Tears are indeed meant to be momentary, transient, like life. But Fisher, by photographing all these tears, has given them permanence, just as our memories do for our loved ones.

Did you know there are different kinds of tears? The saline that streams down our faces differs depending on the situation. There are actually three different kinds of tears, according to doctors. Basal tears lubricate and protect our eyes each time we blink. Reflex tears are triggered by irritants like onions or smoke. 

The tears in our eyes this day, The Day, however, as we remember our loved ones of blessed memory seem to be unique to humans. No other species cries emotional tears. Emotional tears are triggered by happiness, loneliness, fear, sadness, and grief, among many other emotions and in all combinations. What’s even more interesting is that some studies suggest that these three kinds of tears while similar are all slightly chemically different. Our bodies know when we’re reacting or when we’re expressing emotion. Fisher discovered the difference firsthand, noticing that the tears she photographed were each so different from one another.

In one print titled Tears of Grief, Fisher presents a mostly barren print, with jagged, rectangular intrusions seemingly disconnected from each other, as if the grief has ripped apart the structure. 

Tears of Remembrance, on the other hand, has a darker tone to it, as if the darkness represents the memory washing over similar rectangular forms to those found in Tears of Grief. Those forms come together in this print, as if to tell us that remembrance is an act of piecing together those pieces after the grief that we have felt. 

That these two contain similar characteristics is not surprising; grief and remembrance are so closely intertwined.

All of the science and art about tears is so powerful because tears are universal to the human experience. Those same scientists who study the chemical make-up of tears also work to determine why we cry, what evolutionary purpose does it serve? One thought is that tears are a silent way for us to signal that something is not right. Our tears show our neighbors and our community that we are in pain and in distress and that we long for someone with whom we can no longer speak, with whom we can no longer laugh until we cry, and without whom we feel a void. Tears tell those around us that we need comfort, that we need a caring hand, that no, everything is not ok, not fine.  

Whether one day, one week, one month, one year or many, many, years have passed since we lost our, husband or wife, our partner, our mother, our father, our sister or brother, our child, our grandparent, our friend, the loss is still felt. That loss, though we grow more accustomed to it, will never register as normal. We may have adapted to that void, but the tears still flow to signal that we do not forget. Our tears tell others that we are in pain.

As much as our tears signal our community to action, they also are a signal to each of us. Our tears tell us that our emotional selves still long for those we have lost. Our tears tell us that our souls cry out for the connections we have lost, the friendships, the loves, the laughter, the shared experiences. Our tears serve as a personal, individual yizkor, a personal, internal, physiological and emotional act of remembrance so powerful it has no choice but to come out, so powerful, it could not be left within. And so we cry. And we ought to. Our tears tell us that we do not forget.

As much as tears speak to our neighbors and friends, and as much as our tears equally serve as a form of memory for us, they also speak to God. The psalmist teaches us: “God is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”[2] God knows when we are broken, and God is close to us in our moments of sadness. Perhaps God’s comfort comes through the acts of our neighbors and friends who, after witnessing our tears, are called to comfort us, and sit at our side to remind us that though one we have loved may be gone, love itself is not gone. Perhaps God’s comfort comes from the very real comfort we feel after we have had a good cry, after we feel as if we have let out all the emotion within us, at least for the time being, and all we can do is move on. Perhaps God’s comfort comes because God accepts tears as prayers. When we just can’t find the words to say, and all we can allow ourselves to do is cry, God will accept that. The Talmud[3] teaches us that “though the gates of prayer may be closed, the gate of tears is not.” For the psalmist writes,[4] “Hear my prayer, O Eternal! Hearken to my cry! To my tears do not be deaf.”

Our tears are prayers to God, each one of them. When we cannot find the words and all we have are our memories, our tears tell God all that God needs to know. Our tears of grief and our tears of remembrance call out to God. Our tears of sadness and our tears of loss implore God wordlessly. In this way, their memories truly are for a blessing. Today, as we allow our memories of them to flow through us, let us view our tears as an extraordinary gift from our beloved ones of blessed memory. Let us weep, let us cry, let our tears stream down our faces! And let those tears that their memories evoke indeed become our conduit to God, a prayer to the Eternal and a way for each of us to feel God’s presence. In that way may we be comforted.

[1] http://www.rose-lynnfisher.com/tears.html
[2] Psalm 34
[3] B. BM 59a
[4] Ps. 39:13

Rosh HaShanah Morning Sermon: Reflections on Race in America and America's Journey for Justice

An edited version of this sermon was delivered Rosh HaShanah Morning, 5776 at Temple Emanu-El of East Meadow.

           I awoke early this morning to get a jump start on this thing that I am supposed to do, before the heat of the day takes over and makes the journey too difficult.  I brought my servants, a donkey, and my son, Isaac.  Not my only son, but the one I have left.  Not that long ago, my other son, Ishmael, had to go.  His mother, Hagar, and my wife Sarah didn’t get along so well.  Sarah’s a little territorial; but I can’t blame her.  It took us so long to have this one child.  So many weeks, months, years of waiting, praying to a God that we can’t see.  And finally a son, just as those visitors told us we would have.  And now, this boy, this young lad, has to be given to God.  It’s what we do.  It’s just the way of the world.  I can’t explain it; it’s just the way things are.  Our neighbors send their sons to their gods, so I get it; but I’m not so comfortable with it.

We trekked this morning, looking for just the right place.  Somewhere high up, close to the heavens.  Somewhere that spoke to me.  Somewhere that told me this is the place that God wants.  And I find the perfect place.  High up this dusty, golden hill.  Higher than any of the hills around it.  That feels right to me.  I can’t quite explain it, but I sense that I’m in the right place.  Have you ever had that feeling of just knowing that something was right, like everything was pointing you in that direction?  That’s how this hill feels, like it’s the center of all that has been created.  The hill feels right, and the time of day feels right, and my belief in God feels right.  But what I’m about to do, I still…

I brought everything I needed with me: my knife, wood for the burning, and my son.  He’s so quiet this morning, but he does notice that something doesn’t add up.  “Dad,” he asks, “I see the knife, and I see the wood, but what are we going to give to God?”  He doesn’t really understand the way of the world, yet.  I would have taught him, but it seemed cruel to tell him what was coming, and besides, I don’t want him to be scared.  “Come this way, Isaac,” I say to him.  “Take a moment to rest here on these stones.”  My voice shakes.  Does he know how scared I am?  My hands tremble holding that knife.  How will I go through with this? 

Doesn’t this seem wrong?  That our young people should be killed off like this?  Why would God give me a son only to ask for him back?!  I’m no expert on God, but I know when something doesn’t make sense to me.  But so far, everything that I have been asked, I have done and everything that I have been promised has come true.  What am I supposed to do?  I believe with complete faith that God has my best interest in mind, is looking out for me, for us, for my family.  God was with me in Egypt those many years ago, when Sarah and I, in our youth, traveled there looking for food.  God was with me before that too, on the long journey to this land.  That feeling I first had when we arrived here, that’s the same feeling I have today on this mountaintop.  God called then and I answered then; and that’s all I’m doing now, right?  This is what a father does.  It’s an ordeal we all have to go through.

He’s resting there now, on the stones.  He’s got to know what’s going on.  He must have some idea.  He’s not dumb, that son of mine.  Maybe he doesn’t notice things as carefully as his brother, but he’s not dumb.

It’s time now.  I can’t delay any longer.  The knife is sharpened.  This is God’s design.  I have to hold it strong now, and I need to use, want to use all my strength.  I don’t want him to suffer.  I lift my hand as I look into his innocent eyes, which now belie his utter terror at what I’m doing.  His eyes ask me what I’m doing, why I’m doing it.  They scream out for his mother, but the rest of him doesn’t move.  He has the same resolve as I do.  Or maybe he just doesn’t want to fight me.  I have to do it now.  I have to just plunge that knife and not look back.  I have to just let God’s will play out, right?  Don’t I?  This is what we do?

But that fear in his eyes gives me pause.  In the tears quietly streaming down his face I sense betrayal, not just of his body, but of our relationship, our father-son bond.  I can’t do it!  I can’t make myself do it!  What will Sarah say when I return?  How will I ever look her in the face again?  I need to drop this knife now and gather my living son into my arms.  No God that I believe in would ask this of me!  No God would want a family torn apart by violence, by bloodlust.  No God would value the blood of our children over their breath, their souls.

I look up and see a ram caught in the thicket.  Let that be for God, not my son!  That will serve as a symbol of my trust in God, not my boy.  If God is not content with a man who values human life above all else, I cannot help that!  I only know what is right and I know that dropping this knife now is the right thing.  This I believe with complete faith.

*          *          *

Each year on Rosh HaShanah morning, we hear this famous story.  We heard it this morning, so beautifully chanted, the story of Abraham who is called by God to sacrifice his son Isaac as a test of fidelity.  The story is usually referred to as Akedat Yitzchak, the binding of Isaac.  The climactic moment of this story is the moment when, as the knife is about to be plunged into the boy, something stops Abraham in his tracks.  The Torah tells us that it is an angel of God who stays Abraham’s hand by calling out “Abraham, Abraham!”  This moment of divine intervention makes it clear to Abraham that what he is about to do is not what God wants.  Abraham senses that what he is about to do is not the right thing.  What he is about to do is actually abhorrent to God.  Abraham looked around him, at what his neighbors were doing, and said enough is enough: I am not going to sacrifice my son because it’s the thing that’s done.  That voice that called out to Abraham was indeed divine, but it may have come not from the heavens, but from a place deep in Abraham’s soul, in his conscience, that place that told him that this thing which was asked of him was not right – that thing which was just happening all around him was not the way the world should be. 

Abraham understands at that moment, but not until that moment, that God doesn’t want a child sacrifice.  It’s not until he sees his son beneath him and sees the life in Isaac that this epiphany comes to Abraham.  Abraham has a moment where he senses that just because the world works a certain way doesn’t mean it’s right, fair, or ought to continue.

In his breathtaking and crushing book Between the World and Me, Ta-Nahesi Coates describes the world as it is for black men living in America in 2015.  His book is written as a letter to his son, Samori, who at age 15 comes to a realization that the world is not as it should be.  Coates writes to his son:

That was the week you learned that the killers of Michael Brown would go free…would

never be punished.  It was not my expectation that anyone would ever be punished.  But you were young, and you still believed.  You stayed up till 11pm that night, waiting for the announcement of an indictment, and when instead it was announced that there was none you said: “I’ve got to go,” and you went into your room and I heard you crying.[1]

Coates’ son has a difficult epiphany about our great nation, and Coates uses his epistle to his son to explain that the reality of our nation is that racism is real, it is powerful, and it is engrained.  Coates book focuses on the fear Black parents have for their children and about their children.  He focuses on the origins of the racial issues in our nation, not to complain, but to recognize the reality and share what he has learned with his son, the way that his parents shared it with him.  Coates is, at this moment, a father who is desperately trying to save his son, though he does not have the ability to do so.  He is not the one wielding the knife.  He is not the one who established the system as it is, though as any father would, he sees it as unfair and not right.  The way of the world is not right.

            Coates goes on to describe a moment when he came to realize and recognize the injustice which still plagues this nation.  In the second half of his book, he recounts the story of another young Black man, gunned down in the prime of his youth.  A man named Prince Jones, whom Coates’ knew from their time at Howard University.  Prince Jones was killed yards from his fiancée’s home by an undercover police officer outside of jurisdiction.  He was shot eight times, five in the back, a result of a barrage of 16 bullets.  Coates describes his reaction to hearing the news: “I cannot remember what happened next.  I think I stumbled back…What I remember for sure is what I felt: rage and the old gravity of West Baltimore.”  Here, Coates is referring to his upbringing in difficult and dangerous neighborhoods of Baltimore.  The neighborhoods of Coates’ youth are the result of years of discriminatory policies around mortgages, (add more here)  The legacy, Coates realizes, of that neighborhood, always seems to pull a person back.  That gravitational pull… Even though Prince Jones’ family did everything supposedly right – Jones’ mother is a self-made physician, the family saved and moved to a safe neighborhood, and Prince was sent to the best schools and brought up to achieve the American middle-class dream – even this man, whose family did everything that they were told, hoping to gain entrée into a different life, even this man was not immune from overzealous and racially motivated policing.

           What is truly heartbreaking when reading Coates’ words is seeing that even with all the progress that has been made, the lesson Coates had to learn about how his life is valued by our nation is the same lesson he watches his son learn.  In the same way Coates came to understand in 2001 that the institutionalized racism of the past continues to have ramifications today, his son, in 2015, also learns.  There may not be Jim Crow any longer, but we are still a far distance away from true equality and equal justice under the law.  In some ways, we can perhaps relate to the first time we each learn and understand that anti-Semitism persists.  For us, however, anti-Semitism was never enshrined in the laws and customs of this nation.  Jews were never constitutionally considered less than humans.  Jews were not bought and sold and treated as property for centuries.

If you recall, last year, I spoke about race from this very same spot, and about how the shooting of Michael Brown was a wake-up call for me and was indeed a wake-up call to all of us and this entire nation.  Baruch ata Adonai Eloheinu Melech Ha’Olam pokeach ivrim, praised are You Eternal Our God for giving sight to the blind.  We have woken up; but as our eyes opened, we wiped the sleep away only to see that the true scope of the problem is much broader than most of us understood.  The Black community has known what has been happening.  They have been telling us, but we have not listened.  They have been telling us that their children are being killed, that their mothers and fathers are being taken away and incarcerated at rates much higher than white Americans, though statistically they don’t commit more crimes than white Americans.  They have told us that their rights are being violated and that they are stuck in a system that neither values their lives nor seeks to help undo the ramifications of generations of discrimination.  They have demanded fair and unfettered access to the voting booth and have been told by the High Court that the problems of the past are no longer problems.

I learned some of this from reading Coates’ book, but I learned more in Columbia, South Carolina, where last month, I participated in a Civil Rights March organized by the NAACP.  This year marks the 50^th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, which was brought to national attention by a march on Selma, AL led by Martin Luther King.  The march that I participated in began in Selma on August 1 and this week – tomorrow, in fact – the march will end in Washington, DC.  This almost 1000-mile-long march is the longest civil rights march in American History.  Traversing Alabama, Georgia, South and North Carolina, Virginia, and then Washington, DC, the march’s aim is to bring to light the myriad issues that still surround race in this nation.  If last summer’s violence and protests in Ferguson, Missouri were a wake-up call that there are still problems in this nation, this summer’s march seeks to make clear what the issues are, how complicated they are, and how long the road toward justice actually is.  It seeks people to proclaim that just because the world is one way doesn’t mean that’s how it needs to stay.

America’s Journey for Justice, as the march is called, aims to make the nation aware of the reality of being black in America, and why it is a markedly different reality than being white in this nation.  As a part of their endeavor, the NAACP reached out to the Reform Rabbis’ Association, the CCAR, hoping to find 40 rabbis to march alongside them, one a day, carrying a Torah the entire way.  As of last count, more than 174 rabbis, primarily but not exclusively from Reform congregations, will have participated over the 40-plus-day journey. 

It was a powerful experience to march through South Carolina’s capitol: to know that the absence of a Confederate flag was a new reality, to walk alongside so many who hope that the ideals of this nation be met.  And that’s what it was really all about.  We were required to march two by two, in straight lines, to keep us safe and in one lane of traffic.  As we marched the 13.5 miles in the heat of the South Carolina summer, I was struck by how varied the experience was.  There were moments of meditative prayer.  There were moments of learning.  And there were moments of epiphany.

A moment of meditative prayer: At one point during the day, all I could focus on was putting one foot in front of the other and staying in line.  It was all I could do to keep going.  Not from being tired or from any pain, but from the heat and the redundancy of walking for hour after hour.  Sometimes, when our bodies begin to move on autopilot, it frees up our minds.  In my mind, at that moment, as my feet rose and fell, the words of the prayer r’tzei came into my head: Retzei Adonai Eloheinu, b’amcha Yisrael u’tfilatam b’ahavah t’kabel.  Accept our prayers with love, O God! Running through my head.  

But I wasn’t praying, at least not in the typical manner of prayer.  I was praying in an entirely different manner.  I was actually living the words of Abraham Joshua Heschel, who, after marching at Selma, famously declared that he felt as if his feet were praying.  Every footfall of each of the marchers was a prayer.  Every step toward our goal, for that day, for the march, and for the future was a prayer.  It was a step in the right direction.  And from somewhere within my soul, I prayed that my steps would be accepted lovingly by God as prayer and that those prayers would one day be answered.

A moment of learning: At one point, I was marching alongside my 13-year-old niece, Arbel.  She and I struck up a conversation with one of the march marshals, named Jemiah.  Jemiah asked Arbel if she understood why she was marching.  Being 13, her answer was something like: “Well, my uncle is a rabbi, and he wanted me to come.”  That wasn’t quite what Jemiah was asking, but ok.  Jemiah went on to explain some of the difficulties that black people in America have endured in the past and continue to endure.  I knew that under segregation, black people were not allowed in hospitals, or were only allowed in black-run hospitals.  

I never really stopped to think about all the ramifications of those policies and laws, which were in existence as recently as 50 years ago, well within the lifetime of many here today.  So, I didn’t put together that not being admitted to a hospital meant that women could not give birth in a hospital.  If you were not born in a hospital, you did not get a birth certificate.  This means it is extremely difficult to obtain any kind of ID.  I had known about the discrimination.  I hadn’t stopped to consider its effects or what segregated hospitals might have to do with voting.  Voter ID laws, aside from policing a problem that doesn’t really exist, disproportionately affect black Americans.  I learned at that moment, how truly complex and enduring the repercussions of racism really are in this nation.  If we haven’t lived it, we can’t fully understand it. And, just because there are laws against it, doesn’t mean that it’s over.

A moment of epiphany:  Early in the day, shortly before I carried the Torah for the first time that morning, I looked up from my position in the phalanx and before me were people marching behind an American flag and the Torah.  Both of these objects are symbols which hold important meanings for me.  I never considered what they have in common.  I am a firm believer in the separation of synagogue and state, but I could not help but begin to realize what these two have in common.  They are twins, I realized.  They may be fraternal twins, but they are twins.  They both represent aspirations of freedom.  They both represent aspirations of justice. 

Freedom and justice are important concepts in our Torah.  We began the morning of the march by reading from the Torah a brief excerpt from Shirat HaYam, the song of the sea, which the Israelites sing with Moses and Miriam after their liberation from slavery, a freedom song.  This idea of freedom is so important to us as Jews that we sing the most famous line from that song each day, the Mi Chamocha, so that we never forget that freedom is a precious and divine gift. 

The Torah also commands us to pursue justice, as it proclaims Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof: Justice, Justice shall you pursue![2]  Why is the word justice repeated?  Because we are to seek justice for ourselves, and justice for others.[3]  We are to look at our sacred words and aspire to reach the goals they set out for us.  Likewise for the American flag.  It is a symbol of liberty and equal justice under the rule of law.  Though much of our nation’s history has seen us fall short of that goal, it is an aspiration toward which we must all work.  That aspirational nature of both our Torah and of our nation is why I love both – because they both call us to be better.  They both demand that we work to make the world what we want it to be, what it ought to be, when we look around and see the world not as it should be.  Like Abraham, we have to hear that divine within us and answer the call to look around and say that the way things have been done is not ok, that the status quo is no longer acceptable, and that as Jews who live in America, we take all minority rights seriously and that we believe that black lives matter in the same way we believe that all lives matter because we are a religion who believes in the sanctity of living beings.  God gives us the choice.  God sets before us life and death, good and evil, and God commands us to choose the side of life.  Be a people who values life, like the Eternal values life.

Marching in South Carolina was a way to live the values of freedom, justice, and life which are required of both our Torah and our citizenship.  Learning from those marching the entire 1000 miles was even more important because we all must start to learn about what’s really happening in our nation if we want to be able to fix it.  We have made tremendous progress in this nation.  Fifty years ago, it was state troopers who attacked the marchers in Selma.  This year, the NAACP march is escorted by state troopers in each state, clearing the way, stopping the traffic, ensuring safety and order.  That progress is important and it is critical to recognize and be thankful for it, but we cannot become complacent.  We must keep working, there are more steps ahead.

I have been invited to participate in the formation of a Black Jewish Coalition for Justice on Long Island, and while I don’t yet have much information, I will keep you informed about other ways to be involved.  If you are interested in racial justice, please be in touch with me.  We must work to meet with those whose lives and experiences are different from ours.  It is my hope that this coalition will serve exactly that purpose. 

Beyond grassroots local meetings, we can also advocate for change nationally.  Last year’s Supreme Court Decision, Shelby v. Holder, which undid a critical piece of the Voting Rights Act, may have been appropriate according to certain principles of law.  The day after the decision, many states introduced legislation to test just how far they could push the law.  The suggestion is not to flout the decision; that is not how this country works.  We must speak out against it by supporting new legislation to replace the overwhelmingly bi-partisan supported Voting Rights Act.  To that end, this past June, the Voting Rights Advancement Act was introduced in both the House and the Senate.  This new law would serve to reestablish, following the Supreme Court’s guidelines, certain provisions of that landmark legislation.  This new act, among other aims, seeks to ensure that last-minute voting changes won’t adversely affect voters, particularly people of color and language minorities.[4]  This is an important piece of legislation that we should favor vocally by contacting our representatives and letting them know that as Jewish Americans, voting rights and minority rights are important to us. 

In a few moments, we will hear the calls of the Shofar, the ram’s horn.  These calls are to be reminders of the willingness Abraham had to sacrifice his son to God.  These calls are supposed to awaken our souls to turn toward the good in the new year.  This Rosh HaShanah, as we hear the calls echo around us, let the sound arouse in us the voice of the divine which commands us to work to make the world as it should be and not settle for the world as it is. Let the calls pierce our souls and bring each of us to work toward the cause of Freedom, Justice, and Life, the cause of this nation, the cause of our Torah.

Shanah Tovah!           

---

[1] Coates, Between the World and Me, p 11

[2] Deut 16:20

[3] Based on Rabbi Lawrence Jackofsky and David Toomin (RJ website)

[4] Info from RAC one-pager

Erev Rosh HaShanah Sermon: Toward Inter-Religious Dialogue

A version of this sermon was delivered on Erev Rosh HaShanah 5776 at Temple Emanu-El of East Meadow. 

       “Aren’t we a nice family?”  A man I had the pleasure of meeting while marching in South Carolina, a man named Middle Passage, asked this simple, jocular, yet profound, question at dinner the evening after the Justice March in South Carolina.  Middle Passage took a bus 1300 miles from Colorado to Selma to march for Justice, intending to march the entire distance to Washington, DC.  Middle Passage made it his job to carry the American flag at the front of the marchers day after day.  Middle Passage served in the Navy and had 5 open-heart surgeries in the decades before he joined the march in honor of his brother.  Yesterday, I learned that Middle Passage took ill while marching in Virginia and could not be revived.  At mile 922.  The culmination of that march is this week in Washington, DC, and MP, as he was often called, will not see it.  I marched alongside him at the front while carrying the Torah.  We didn’t speak much during the day, we focused on the marching, but I gained the strength to continue marching just by being next to him and his unwavering devotion.  I didn’t want to stop while I was next to him.  I hope that I was able to do provide at least a little bit of that in reciprocity.

        This question he asked at dinner, “Aren’t we a nice family?” wasn’t just out of the blue.  After having marched over 13 miles in high temperatures and humidity, we were all tired, and hungry.  Middle Passage was seated alongside a few of the local NAACP marchers, and my colleague and friend, Rabbi Lauren Cohn, as well as a few other rabbis.  I noticed that there was only one space left at their table, but I asked if I could pull up a table to join them, so that I could make room for my niece, but also because after the long, hot day of marching alongside everyone, I didn’t want us to all be seated at separate tables.  I added a table, and more joined us.  So there we were, all seated together, and Middle passage asked this question: “Aren’t we a nice family?!”  And we did feel like family.  Especially over dessert: homemade vanilla and orange pound cakes, which had been lovingly donated and served by a group of local NAACP ladies who came by just to bring homemade cake.  They were delicious.

         It was a different question from Middle Passage that led us toward an interesting and important conversation.  Middle Passage, having marched with Reform Rabbis for 25 days at this point, asked our day’s group of Reform Rabbis if our liberalism with Jewish Law and tradition wasn’t just diluting Judaism.  What a question.  That’s a question that really requires an all-day answer.  And, it’s a question that is important to have an answer for, especially if you’re a Reform Rabbi.  So we talked, explaining that we find a sense of sacredness in our decisions and in the process of making those decisions; and that we value Jewish Law, but don’t give it absolute authority over our entire lives and beings.  And we listened, about what they understood about Judaism and how much they had learned by being on the march with, as one marcher described it: “40 days and 5000 rabbis!”  We shared about who we were and what we believed.  And we asked more questions.  And we laughed.  We were a family, because at that moment, what brought us together, was more powerful than whatever differences we may have had.

         We got to the discussion about the complicated definition of Judaism.  Is it only a religion?  Is it a people?  Is it a race?  That there is no one answer to this question should not be surprising, but at one point during this discussion, I turned to a gentleman next to me named Royal, who would be teaching us that evening, and tried to describe it the most rabbinic way I know how: by asking a question.  “Do you feel pride when a person of color achieves something, like an honor or a high elected office?” I asked.  He said that he did.  I connected this to the pride I feel, and I imagine many of us feel, when a Jewish person does the same, or likewise the difficulty we have when a Jewish person does something publicly immoral, like run a Ponzi scheme.  I hadn’t made that connection so explicitly between Judaism and the Black experience before.  It was an important realization for me, and I hope for Royal.  It was an important discussion for all of us, and it would not have happened without a willingness to question and a willingness to answer honestly.

When I headed down to South Carolina, I wasn’t expecting to come away with an appreciation for, and a desire for more inter-religious dialogue, but come back with it I did.  In the next year, I’d like us to start reaching out to different faith based communities and congregations in the spirit of inter-religious dialogue because we will learn about others, and we will learn about ourselves.

Our scriptures point to examples of inter-religious dialogue and its benefits for the Jewish community.  One prominent example comes in the book of Exodus.  Moses’ father-in-law Jethro is a priest of Midian.  Yitro[1], as he’s known in Hebrew happens to give name to the portion during which God gives Moses the 10 commandments.  This is technically because the portion starts with his name, but also, many would suggest, because of his prominent role in the narrative.  In many ways, it is Jethro who prepares the Israelites to receive God’s laws. 

Jethro seeks out Moses at Sinai, having heard what God did for the people Israel in Egypt.  And when Jethro arrives, he sees a harried and tired Moses spending all day adjudicating all the Israelites’ disputes, the petty and the significant, because at that point, Moses is the only one who knows all of God’s rules.  Remember, the people have seen the plagues cripple Egypt and they witnessed God’s power at the parting of the Sea of Reeds, but only Moses has heard God’s voice and commands. 

Jethro, as a priest in his own right, has experience with these sorts of matters and he urges Moses to establish a system of judges, who know the rules, who can help with the smaller claims, who will help Moses carry the burden of being a prophet of God.  No sooner does Jethro suggest this, than Moses enacts it.  And then, the next thing that Moses does is ascend the Mountain.  The Torah tells us that Moses goes up and then God calls to him.[2]  Is it only through Jethro’s prodding that the entire system of Jewish Law and jurisprudence exists today!?  Just like Moses, sometimes, we can learn a lot about the best way to be who we want to be by looking at best practices of others.  If we want to know what might work for us, we need to be willing to ask questions of others. 

Now, the rabbis of the Talmud and commentators on the Torah are not so comfortable with Jewish practice being created, or even advised, by someone who is not Jewish.  The midrash and the Talmud make a point of saying that Jethro must have converted to Judaism,[3] though there is no evidence for that in the texts.  The rabbis of blessed memory were living in a time when reaching out to others was not so easy.  They lived in a time when Judaism was under attack and when focusing inward to thwart incursion was an important objective.  We don’t live in such times.  Our times are not perfect, and there are those who still dislike Jews.  But on the whole, we are blessed to live safely in this nation.  While the state of Judaism in America can sometimes be complicated, and God knows that we have enough trouble talking with our own, in this day and age, it is important to know who our neighbors are, what they hold important and what they value.  We may find we have much more in common than separates us. 

If we begin to have conversations with other communities, we can begin to understand our neighbors, their practices and beliefs, their customs and priorities.  We’re not aiming to agree with everyone about everything, because there will be serious differences, and that’s not the purpose.  But, if we begin to learn about others’ practices, we can hopefully come to a place of respect and understanding, which is the goal.  We could easily learn about other faith traditions, and we should.  But it is more important to learn from them.  We can read from and study their sacred texts and histories, but it is an incomplete study, and would do a disservice to our neighbors. 

This is all on the individual level.  We will also learn about their communities, how they handle difficult times, where they draw their strength to continue in the face of the realities of an era in religious affiliation.  It’s not just Judaism that is suffering declining affiliation rates, after all.  What do these other communities do to engage their members?  What do these other communities do to stretch a budget?  How do other communities maintain their traditions while still moving forward?  These are all questions that every religious community asks, and we can learn a lot from each other.

But inter-religious dialogue doesn’t just help us learn about others and what they do.  It also asks us to look deeply at ourselves.  If we are to answer questions like the one Middle Passage asked about diluting Judaism, we need to know what we believe and how we came to that belief.  We need to know how to answer questions about God, Judaism, and the role of Torah in our lives.  We need to have a sense of what we value, what gives us strength, and what troubles us.  What we may find is that by engaging with those who are different than us we come to a better understanding of who we are, and come to have more pride, and dare I say faith, in who we are and what we believe.  Do we each have answers to these questions: What do you believe about the divinity of the Torah?  What do you believe about God’s role in your life?  What do you believe about the role of Jewish Law?  Where are you comfortable drawing the line?  And finally, the follow up to all of these questions: Why?  These are important questions for Jews, and we take too little time to answer these kinds of questions when we are insulated in our own community.

But we won’t just learn more about ourselves and our beliefs; we’ll also find a new pride in our identities as Jews.  When I was teaching in Atlanta, I worked with 7^th and 8^th-graders teaching Jewish Studies.  Some of you who are or have been teachers may groan at this, and yes, teaching middle school is an acquired taste, but I loved it.  The students were energetic and witty.  They understood our sacred texts and their meanings in new and different ways.  As a part of my research for my master’s degree, I interviewed a number of 8^th-graders about their Jewish Identity.  We had spent that year focused on Jewish Identity.  What I learned, among many other fascinating findings, was that for these 8^th-graders, they felt the most pride in their Judaism when they were able to explain their beliefs and their Judaism to peers who were not Jewish.  They would go off to their summer sports camps and summer academic programs and meet people of all different religious traditions, and they would often have to explain what it meant to be Jewish.  They described a sense of pride at being able to articulate what it was that made them Jewish.

          Being able to articulate our Judaism to others serves another important purpose.  While it is true that we live in unprecedented safety and security in this nation in 2015, there are still many people who have little to no understanding of Judaism.  Imagine what we can teach others about Jews and Judaism.  What impressions and understandings of Judaism can we share?  What light can we bear to others?  What appreciation of who we are and what we value can we impart?  Just as we will come to understand others, we will strive to have others understand us.  When personal and communal relationships are fostered, incendiary rhetoric can be tempered.  That is an admirable and important goal in this era of 140-character character-assassinations and hyperbolic insinuation.  

When Middle Passage asked, “Aren’t we a nice family?” he was mostly joking, because of how different we all were, each of us at that table for dinner.  But there was a profound understanding of the power of different people coming together.  The Hebrew word for family, mishpacha, comes from a root meaning to join together.  So in many ways, MP was not at all wrong about his assertion.  We joined together to share a meal.  We joined together to march for shared values.  We joined together to share about ourselves and learn from others.  In this new year, let us expand our family table to learn about others and learn about ourselves.  Let us expand our understanding of other faith traditions and by doing so come to a better understanding of our own.

Shanah Tovah!

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[1] Thanks to Rabbi Josh Stanton for his help seeing the fullness of Jethro’s relationship with Moses.

[2] Exodus 19:3

[3] See Rashi on Exodus 18:1, and sources.