A version of this sermon was delivered on Erev Rosh HaShanah 5782 at Temple B'nai Torah - A Reform Congregation in Wantagh, NY.
You
may have missed the headlines, but this past May, Europe was in crisis, and on
the brink of collapse. No, I’m not
talking about Brexit, or the effects of the COVID pandemic. I’m not even talking about the voting at the
Eurovision song contest this year.
No. Earlier this May, in a brazen
act, a farmer moved a large stone some 7.5 feet, out of the way of his tractor.[1]
Now,
you might be wondering, what could be so brazen about moving a stone? Even a large stone? Aren’t farmers allowed to do that? Shouldn’t he be allowed to keep his tractor
and equipment safe? Well, this farmer
lives in the town of Erquelinnes, Belgium, which shares a border with the
French town of Bousignies-sur-Roc. When
this farmer moved that large stone out of his way, what he didn’t realize is
that the stone had been placed there deliberately and with purpose. Not by God, but by a border commission in
1819, tasked with dividing up Europe in the aftermath of Napoleon’s loss at
Waterloo four years earlier in 1815. I
imagine some of us are thinking back to High School history courses when we
last might have heard these names. When
the Belgian farmer moved that stone, he moved the border 7.5 feet, making
Belgium bigger by 7.5 feet and France smaller by 7.5 feet, though I’m sure they
measured in meters. And he did this all
by moving a stone out of the way of his tractor.
Quite
the accomplishment for a small-town farmer: creating an unintentional
international incident, that if it couldn’t be resolved amicably, would
necessitate the formation of a border commission, the likes of which hasn’t
been convened since 1930! Quite the
chain of events unleashed by an innocent desire a man had to properly farm his
land.
The
farmer obviously had no idea what his simple action might lead to. He had no sense that by just doing his work,
going about his day, he might create such a firestorm. Not all our actions have such earth-changing
consequences, but this season of our New Year and these Days of Awe ask us to
consider our actions, all of them, big and small, and their ramifications, big
and small.
What do we create when we act? What might we destroy?
This is the question that weighs on our souls
on these days that bring us to the border between heaven and earth. We cannot move the border between earth and
heaven, but our tradition makes clear that we do have an effect on the
heavens. These hours spent in our houses
of worship, pleading before and praising God, remind us all that our actions
not only affect those around us in this world, but the heavenly realm as
well.
What we do, will do, and have done will cause
us to be written and inscribed in the book of life, we pray. As we begin these days of repentance, prayer,
and charity, we might ask ourselves what these prayers mean and how we are
supposed to understand them. Do we
believe that God is sitting up in heaven with a quill pen keeping track of
everything we do in a giant ledger or on a long scroll? Maybe we imagine God crouched over a laptop
with an Excel spreadsheet of our deeds, each of us getting a new tab, the sum
of our actions automatically updating with each entry. However we might imagine it adding up, our
deeds have a metaphysical effect: our actions affect even God Themself. They can temper judgment’s severe decree!
These cause-and-effect beliefs are hard for
our modern sensibilities. When the
rabbis of old teach that our deeds affect the heavens, they do so in part to
remind us that if our actions can impact God in heaven, imagine the impact they
have on earth. If every one of our
actions matters so deeply to God, then we are called to mimic the Divine
Concern and consider how every one of them matters to us and to those around
us.
What we do matters, every moment of every
day. It is all taken into account by
God, and so it should all be taken into account by us.
The ancient rabbis explained that Divine
Concern for the effects of our actions. In
Pirke Avot, the collection of teachings from the earliest generations of
Rabbis, we read that “Rabbi Eliezer, son of Yaakov, says: One who does a single
good deed acquires a single defender. One who does a single sin acquires a
single prosecutor.”[2] Rabbi Eliezer here teaches that our deeds
essentially assemble a collection of lawyers to plead your case before God. The good deeds amass a team of defendants,
and the bad deeds amass a team of prosecutors.
In The Talmud, “Rabbi Joshua ben Levi said:
All the commandments which Israel performs in this world will come and testify
on their behalf in the world to come.”[3] Rather than serving as the attorneys,
according to Rabbi Joshua ben Levi, our deeds serve as witnesses, testifying on
our behalf before the throne of judgment.
Though he doesn’t elaborate, clearly some would testify for the
prosecution and some for the defense.
Rabbi Shmuel Eidels, known as the Maharsha, who
lived in Poland in the 16th and 17th centuries, goes even
further in a teaching on this very passage of Talmud. In his commentary, he teaches that “in each
action of a person’s hands is created a spiritual being based on the deed, as
it is said, the one who fulfills a commandment gives strength to the host of
the heavens,” [4] Our actions, the Maharsha teaches, create. It’s not just that the actions call forward
the prosecutors and defenders, he says.
It’s not just that the actions themselves take the stand. No, all of our actions are moments of
creation. Positive actions create a
force in the heavens that buttresses the foundations of God’s abode.
The Maharsha goes on to explain that the
opposite is true as well. “And thus…one
who commits a sin removes strength from the host of the heavens, and gives
strength to the side of impurity, and they are witnesses who testify against
him.”[5]
Doing the right thing is heavenly
infrastructure. By following mitzvot,
and living up to our moral standards, we strengthen God. When we miss the mark, when we sin, we chip
away at the heavens and strengthen the case against us in the heavenly
court. These High Holy days allow us the
opportunity to make up for those times we’ve missed the mark. We enter the sanctuary of our souls hoping
that our prayers, our contrition, and our commitment to deeds of lovingkindness
will begin to make up for those times.
But the Talmud and the Maharsha remind us that focusing on this only on these
days is not sufficient because our actions every day are moments of creation. These days are supposed to guide us for the
rest of the year.
The Maharsha’s teaching that every one of our
actions is a moment of creation means that every action we take allows us the
opportunity to mimic the Divine, to participate in the act of creation. Every action in our lives has the potential
to be another Big Bang, another moment of B’reishit bara! This potential is exciting, as we embark on
this new year, because it gives us another chance to build upon that
infrastructure. It gives us another
chance to hold ourselves accountable. It
gives us a chance to improve.
God tried out other versions of existence
before committing to this one. The other
ones were not good. In an interesting
midrash, Rabbi Judah bar Simon teaches that the world we live in today was not
God’s first attempt.[6] He asks why the Torah, in describing the
first day of Creation – on which God speaks light into being, separates light
and darkness, and names day and night – why on this first day of existence,
does the Torah say, “And there was evening.”? For Rabbi Judah bar Simon, the “and” is
superfluous. This is to teach us, he
says, “…that there was a time-system prior to this.”[7]
And the midrash adds a teaching of Rabbi Abbahu, who said that, “This [‘and’]
teaches us that God created worlds and destroyed them, saying, ‘This one
pleases me; those did not please me.’”[8]
This one, though, as we read in the Torah, is
good and, ultimately, very good.[9] So when God created something that God wasn’t
especially proud of, God tried again. Rabbi
Avi Stausberg teaches that the successful creation of the world was only made
possible by the creation and destruction of previous attempts.[10]
It took God a few tries to get it right. Rabbi Natan Zvi Finkel, in his essay
“Destruction and Building,” explains God’s repeated attempts at creation by
looking at the book of Proverbs, which teaches that the world was created with
wisdom.[11] “…In the destruction of the worlds, there is
great wisdom…However this is not really destruction at all, rather it is the
way of wisdom: through the different attempts to build worlds and their
destructions, the foundation is established upon which the world is based.”[12] Destruction leads ultimately to wisdom when
we are inspired not to make the same mistakes a second time.
If we have the same creative power as God,
then, like God, we have the ability to discern wisdom from our mistakes and use
it as the foundation of our world. That’s
what these days are about. Discerning
wisdom from our mistakes, from the moments we destroyed, the moments we chipped
away at heaven, the moments we moved the border. Whether God is keeping that ledger or not,
these days, reflecting on our deeds, call upon us to take stock of what we
created and what we destroyed. And,
these days teach us that even from those moments of destruction, there is the
opportunity to create again, with every action of our hands.
Today is the birthday of the world! Hayom Harat Olam! These words remind us that among the many
meanings of this Rosh Hashanah, today is a celebration of creation and God’s
creative power. We marvel at it and celebrate
it. With a simple speech act, God sends
all of existence into being. We sound
the shofar to recall the moment when, out of Tohu vavohu, out of an
unformed and void cosmos, God spoke existence into being.
And, at the same time we marvel at our own
divine creative power, at the power we have in our hands. According to Rabbi Finkel, we are obligated
to use it. “A person is obligated to be
similar to God in all God’s attributes, so too is it obligated upon a person to
create worlds like God. As it is taught
[in the Talmud]: ‘Be similar to God. Just
as God is merciful and compassionate, so should you be merciful and
compassionate.’”[13]
Because it’s not only wisdom that God uses as
a tool of creation. The Psalms teach us Olam
chessed yibaneh, that God created with chesed, lovingkindness.[14]
And as God creates with lovingkindness, we are called to mimic that
lovingkindness in all that we build and all that we create. We are called to show love for ourselves, and
for others. In doing so, we forge ahead and
build upon a sturdy foundation. We
partner
Tonight, we enter the year 5782 with blasts of
the horn and praises of God. Ahead of us
are untold opportunities to change the world, to create with wisdom, compassion,
and deeds of lovingkindness. Let us take
up the charge and hear the sound of the Shofar calling us to build a world of
chesed. Let the sounds of the shofar
call us to repair, through our actions, the heavenly realm, so that God’s
presence may continue to be strongly felt.
For if we participate in the work of creating a world founded on wisdom
and built from love, then God’s presence will truly be felt around us and
through us. And then, it will truly be a
Shanah Tovah. A good year.
Ken Yehi Ratzon.
Amen.
[1]
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/belgian-farmer-moves-belgium-france-border/
[2]
Pirke Avot 4:11
[3]
BT Avodah Zarah 2a
[4]
Maharsha on Avodah Zarah 2a in Chidushei Agadot
[5]
Ibid.
[6]
Bereishit Rabbah 3:7
[7]
Ibid.
[8]
Ibid.
[9]
See Gen. 1
[10]
Rabbi Avi Strausberg, Hayom Harat Olam – We are the Creators. https://www.hadar.org/torah-resource/zokhreinu-lhayyim-memory-and-promise
[11]
3:19
[12]
Rabbi Natan Zvi Finkel, as quoted by Strausberg, Rabbi Avi., Hayom Harat Olam –
We are the Creators. https://www.hadar.org/torah-resource/zokhreinu-lhayyim-memory-and-promise
[13]
Ibid.
[14] 89:3
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