A version of this sermon was delivered on Rosh HaShanah Morning, 5784, at Temple B'nai Torah in Wantagh, NY
The Mountain is Out!
While I was in Seattle this summer, I had the joy of being taken around by my old friend Julie, whom I hadn’t seen since some time in the last century, when we taught together at a Hebrew School in the Chicago suburbs. Julie took a friend and me around to parts of Seattle we couldn’t see without a car, and we spent a glorious day together with a local. Here’s Julie and me at the locks.
Two
nights later, we happened to be having dinner at an adjacent restaurant to
where Julie was eating, and when we ran into each other, Julie asked what we
had done that day. We told her about our
wonderful trip to Bainbridge Island, how we took the ferry, and how we saw
great views of Mt. Rainier, or Tahoma, in the distance on the way back. It was far away, and we had to zoom in, but
there it was. When we told her about our
view, her response puzzled and intrigued me: “Oh,” she said, “the mountain was
out today!” The mountain was out... What does that mean? Growing up in Illinois, and living on Long
Island, there’s not a lot of mountain talk…
Though
I barely experienced it this summer, the Pacific Northwest is known for
dreary, rainy, overcast days. Many days
of the year, you can’t see Mt. Rainier from the cities. The haze, the light, the angles of the other
mountains, the weather, all of these occlude the mountain from view. So, when you can see it, the locals take to
saying, “The mountain is out today.” There’s
a website where you can check to see if it’s out.
But that’s not all,
because in addition to that, and probably because, on average, the mountain is
out somewhere between 80-100 days a year, the folks in Tahoma’s shadow also say
that everyone should live every day as if the mountain is out. In other words, live each day, no matter the
weather, like the skies are clear and like the light is right and like you can
see far into the distance, to the giant volcanic edifice towering over the
horizon. Even on days when the mountain
is lost in the fog, on days when the mountain is hidden from sight though we
know it’s there, we ought to still live our lives as if we can see it clearly.
Today
is Rosh HaShanah. The mountain is out
today.
What
is it about mountains that so calls us to attention? What is it about these high places that so
much over the course of history called humans to something bigger? “Esa einai el heharim. I lift my eyes to the mountains, from where
will my help come?” sang the Psalmist.[1] A little while ago, our choir sang other
words of the Psalms: Romemu Adonai Eloheinu v’histachavu l’har kodsho, Exalt
Adonai our God, and let us bow toward the mountain of God’s holiness.[2] In moments of desperation, we look up. In moments of exaltation, we look to the
mountain. The Psalmist understood that
it was not the mountain, but God who will serve as their help; not the
mountain, but God whom we exalt. The sense
of God’s presence comes by looking up to the mountain. Like getting into Mountain Pose, we are
pulled upward as if by our spines.
Olympus, Fuji, Sinai. Is it their size? Is it that they are tall and draw our gaze
upward? Is it how they occlude the
horizon? Is it that their peaks are
shrouded in clouds, their apex hidden from view?
Today
is Rosh HaShanah. And, the mountain is
out today!
A
few moments ago, we heard expertly chanted by so many of our congregants in
beautiful High Holy Day trope, the difficult story of the binding of Isaac. I’m sure Rabbi Lowenberg’s introduction
covered most of it, so let me just recap.
God tells Abraham to take his son Isaac to Moriah, as a sacrifice, on
one of the peaks that God will show him.
Why does God have to show him?
Shouldn’t Abraham just be able to see it? Perhaps.
But Abraham is accustomed to going in the general direction when God
commands. “Go to the land that I will
show you, and you shall be a blessing.”[3] It seemed to work out the first time, so why
not also now?
It was a three-day
walk for Abraham to get there, and one can imagine the mountain rising in the
distance as “he looked up and saw the place from afar,”[4] walking
through the valleys, his son and two servants alongside him.
Looking
up, Abraham sees a cloud on Moriah[5] and
he knows that is the mountain God is sending him to. Isaac, too, sees that cloud, and the two go
on together.[6]
Abraham takes Isaac
up that mountain with the wood, the fire, and the knife. Abraham ties his son up. And at the moment he is ready to plunge that
knife down, the Torah tells us: “Then, a messenger of Adonai called to him from
heaven:…‘Do not raise your hand against the boy, or do anything to him. For now
I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your favored
one, from Me.’”[7]
The
mountain is out today! Mount Moriah emerges
over us as we hear this story. Tradition
tells us that Moriah was always a place of sacrifice. Adam, Noah, David, Solomon: all of them set
up altars there.[8] Only Abraham and Isaac’s story at Moriah is
shared on this day. And on this mountain
before us, the Jewish people survive. On
this mountain, faith in God seems paramount, but faith in the future is the
lesson. The mountain is out, and it
calls us to a future of life and trusting in a God that prefers life and
blessing, even when it seems like everything is stacked against us. Abraham was tested so that we wouldn’t have
to be and so that would learn from his lesson.
Put down that knife. Do not raise
your hand to the boy. The mountain is
out and Moriah calls us to life.
Why
is Moriah out today? Wouldn’t it
make more sense to be called to Sinai on this day? To be inspired to the moment of theodicy
today? I mean look at it. It’s also covered in clouds. It’s also tall and imposing. It’s also a place of divine interaction. Why not Sinai? Why is the mountain of sacrifice out but not
the mountain of commandment?
Rabbi
David Guttman quotes Rabbi Hayim of Sanz: “At Sinai, we, the Jewish people were
receivers. At Moriah, we became givers…At
Sinai God came down, at Moriah, [hu]man[ity] went up. At Sinai, the voice of God was dominant. At Moriah, the response of [hu]man[ity] was
dominant. At Sinai, God was the
principal actor. At Moriah, [hu]man[ity]
was…Moriah is the priority mountain…At Moriah we ascend – and it becomes holy.”[9]
Moriah
calls us to action. Moriah calls us to
more than just blindly listening to God.
It was on Moriah that God’s promises all came true, but only after human
action. It was at the moment of the
binding of Isaac that Abraham’s promise of progeny is sealed. It is on Moriah where David builds his city
and Solomon builds his Temple. It was to
Moriah where our ancestors made pilgrimage and offered their first fruits and
the first of their flocks as thanks and praise to God for their great
redemption. At Sinai we listened. At Moriah we acted. What kind of year does Moriah call us
to? It calls us to a year of action. A year of giving and a year of service to God,
not through the work of sacrifice, but through the work of covenant,
relationship, generosity, and love. The
mountain calls us to our best instincts today, it calls us to our most divine
selves.
But
we don’t have to go to the mountain. We
can bring the mountain to us. We can
call the mountain out!
When
Jacob flees from his impulsive brother’s wrath and heads to his mother’s family
in Haran, he stops along the way in the wilderness. Famously, he has the vision of the ladder
reaching to the heavens and, in response, he offers a prayer. According to tradition, this is the origin of
Ma’ariv, the evening prayer service. And,
hidden in this moment, according to the sages, is the power Jacob has to bring
God’s mountain closer to him.
According
to the sage Rashi, when Jacob stops in the wilderness to pray, much more
happens. Rashi picks up on the language
of the verse: “Vayifga bamakom, he came upon a certain place.”[10] The place, according to Rashi[11] is
Mt. Moriah, even though Jacob is nowhere near it. But it’s the verb that stands out to Rashi,
who explains that this verb, vayifga, seems to imply happenstance, like
Jacob stumbled upon or accidentally ran into the place. And if that’s the case, how did he do that? How could Jacob have stumbled into
Moriah? Rashi explains that Moriah
uproots itself and comes to Jacob at Beth El.
The
Sfat Emet[12]
explains Rashi’s comment: “The will of a person is undoubtedly capable of
arousing the holiness of God anywhere. And
so, when Rashi states that Mount Moriah uprooted itself and came here [to Jacob]
– that’s because Jacob had a great desire to come to Mount Moriah, and so even
though this place [Beth El] was very distant, Mount Moriah jumped right over.” Even in this moment of difficulty for Jacob,
with his family left behind and an uncertain future ahead, he calls the
mountain to him and, in so doing, brings with it God’s promise of life and a
powerful future.
We
can call the mountain to us. We can call
Moriah, with its promise of life and future and blessing. We can summon the mountain if only we summon
our will to be near it.
The
mountain is out today! And the mountain
is out because we call for it to be!
Being
called to the mountain is powerful.
Calling the mountain to us is powerful.
But
it’s not enough for the mountain to be out on this one day. Rabbi David Wolpe, quoting Menachem Mendel of
Kotzk,[13]
teaches that for Abraham, the hardest part of the Akedah was not the three days’
walk. It wasn’t the climb up the
mountain. It wasn’t binding his
son. It wasn’t sacrificing the ram. It was coming down the mountain. It was what happens after. The mountain is on our minds today. What about two months from now? Four?
Eight? This day, when the
mountain is out, is meant to serve as the model for every day of the rest of
5784. We don’t always have the words of
Torah so imminent. We don’t always have
the mountain looming over us.
The
mountain is out today. We are here in
the synagogue. We’ve said the prayers we
need to say, and in a few moments we’ll hear the shofar and another year will
be ushered in. The mountain is surely out
today. It is our choice to live every
day of 5784 like the mountain is out.
For when we make that choice, when we choose blessing and life, when we
choose to look to the future with hope and anticipation, when we choose to exalt
God by lifting our eyes toward the heavens to the peak of the mountain, when we
make these choices, the mountain can be out every day! And then, when the mountain is out every day,
it will truly be a year of blessing and goodness for us all.
Shanah
Tovah.
[1]
Psalm 121:1
[2]
Psalm 99:9
[3]
Gen 12:1
[4]
Gen 22:4
[5]
See Rashi and others on Gen 22:4
[6]
After Midrash Tanchuma Vayera 23:1
[7]
Gen 22:11-12
[8]
Based on MT Chosen Temple 2:2
[9]
Guttman, Rabbi David, in Elkins, Dov Peretz Ed. Rosh HaShanah Readings p 143
[10]
Gen 28:11
[11]
Based on Rashi to Gen 28:11
[12]
Sfat Emet Vayetze 2:6
[13]
Wolpe, Rabbi David, as quoted in Elkins, Dov Peretz, Rosh HaShanah Readings, p
133
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