Rosh HaShanah Morning 5781: Faith in the Voting Booth

 A version of this sermon was delivered at Temple B'nai Torah - A Reform Congregation on Rosh HaShanah Morning 5781.

The first action new American citizens take, after their oaths, is registering to vote.  I know this because in 2006, when I became a citizen of this great nation, as soon as the swearing in ceremony was concluded, after the VHS-taped speech by the President and the music video of “Proud to Be an American,” all the new citizens, from all over the world, were taken across the hall in a line and one by one we were each handed voter registration cards to fill out on the spot.

It is a moving sight, to see folks of all backgrounds and skin tones, with accents from all over the world, new Americans, standing in line to accept the most valued, cherished responsibility and right of citizenship: the vote.  It was not always thus.  The founders of this nation only considered white, male landowners eligible for the vote.  It took a civil war, a women’s suffrage movement, and the civil rights movement to expand that right to make it as close to universal as possible.  And yet we know that there are still obstacles to voting in this nation.  From gerrymandering, to closing polling places, to purging rolls, to tampering with the mail, to gutting the Voting Rights Act, which Justice Ginsberg, in dissent, described as throwing out your umbrella when it's raining because you're not getting wet, some will stop at nothing to prevent their fellow citizens the right to vote, and to work to maintain power through disenfranchisement rather than earn it through ideas. 

The Reform Movement is once again promoting a civic engagement campaign which strives for 100% participation in this year’s general election from all Reform congregations.  Our Social Action/Social Justice committee has already been hard at work on this and after the holidays, we’ll be sending out even more information about that and how to be an engaged citizen.  There is no question that voting this year is critical.  As we learn every four years, this year is the most important election ever.  This year, it certainly seems like that’s true.  We have a stark and important choice before us, friends.  Like the choices we make over these Days of Awe, which inform the year we will have ahead, the vote we cast exemplifies the future we hope for.

Civil laws for not-for-profit organizations like synagogues and churches preclude me from telling you who to vote for or who to vote against, even though we know that many flout this law.  Nonetheless, my faith, your faith, and our understanding of what it is God asks of us in our time on this earth all have a role in helping each of us to make that decision.  As Jews we benefit from and value deeply the separation of church and state.  It is among the reasons we have had such success here in America.  The government cannot tell us how to practice our religion, or whether we can.  But the separation does not go both ways, and it shouldn’t.  We are allowed to use our religion to help us decide on the government we want for ourselves and this nation we love.  But what part of our traditions, what elements of our faith and our sacred obligations do we bring with us into the voting booth?  How do we have faith in the voting booth?

To answer that, we look to the morning liturgy and the role of blessing.

Eilu devarim…  These are the things…

These are the things that are limitless, of which a person enjoys the fruit of the world, while the principle remains in the world to come.  They are: honoring one’s father and mother; engaging in deeds of compassion; arriving early for study, morning and evening; welcoming the stranger; visiting the sick; providing for the wedding couple; accompanying the dead for burial; being devoted in prayer; and making peace among people.  But the study of Torah is equal to them all, because it leads to them all.[1]

We chant these words daily, after we bless the study of Torah during our morning service.  We use these words, compiled from the Mishnah and the Talmud, so that the blessing we say each day, la’asok bedivrei Torah, about busying ourselves with words of Torah, is not said in vain.  Every blessing requires its action be fulfilled.  Like the blessing of citizenship demands the action of voting.

To ensure the blessing’s completion, every day, as the action of busying ourselves with Torah, we recite eilu devarim, these are the things: morality, right action, following the ultimate commandment of v’ahavta l’reachah kamocha, love your neighbor as yourself, in all its variations.  Eilu devarim!  These are the things! 

We read this every day, not just because we need a text to study.  There are libraries full of texts that could be included.  This text is a reminder of what it is we value, what it is we hold most important in the way we live our lives, and the way we interact with each other and with God.  When we choose our government, ought we not demand the same from our leaders?  In just 45 days’ time, or sooner if you will vote early or by mail, when we have a decision to make about the future, our future and our nation’s, when we ask ourselves what things are important to us, let these things, eilu devarim, be on our mind.

Hachnasat Orchim, Welcoming Strangers. 

God calls us to create and live in a society which welcomes the stranger and which treats them kindly.  “There is to be one law for you and the stranger alike,”[2] God tells the people as they make their way out of Egypt, before sinai, before the parted sea, almost before any other commandment.  We know what it means to be treated as strangers.  We understand what it means to be treated as less than, treated as a threatening horde, ready to usurp power, to take jobs away.  The Pharaoh enslaved our ancestors because of his fear of the strangers in his midst.  Fair treatment of the stranger is mentioned no fewer than 36 times in the Torah.  It is a value of our people and ought to be a value of every society we are a part of.  And if and when it is not, we ought to fight for it and demand it.

This past February, which I know seems like 18 years ago, before the virus, I took the opportunity over some of the Presidents’ week vacation to witness firsthand how this nation is treating its strangers.  Not well, I learned when I went down to the border with Mexico at Brownsville with a small group of volunteers.  Friends, what I saw there was not the America that any of us want.  Technically, it’s not happening in America because America had closed its borders. 

Even before COVID, America instituted a program in January 2019 known as MPP, the Migrant Protection Program, also known as the “Remain in Mexico” program.  This law means that anyone attempting to enter the USA can be detained here or sent back to Mexico to await adjudication of their case in an immigration court.  That seems reasonable on paper.  It seems reasonable until you see the actual human toll, until you see the families living in tents, stuck in legal limbo.  While there are certainly some nefarious folks trying to gain access, and every nation has a right to police and protect its borders, the majority who have been affected by this law are asylum seekers from Central America.  That means that they fled their homeland due to danger and violence, making their way to our border in order to find a safe haven.  The myth of America still looms large, even if the reality doesn’t match.

America turns them away.  In violation of international law, America has de facto closed its borders to asylum seekers.  At the literal border, at the midway point on the bridge over the Rio Grande, there are immigration agents posted because international law states that once you set foot on American soil, you can claim asylum.  The agents are there to prevent anyone from crossing over.  Canada has since altered its own laws since they no longer consider the U.S. a safe place for asylum seekers.[3] 

Our small group spent just a few days in Brownsville, cooking for and carrying meals to the migrant camp in Matamoros, Mexico, where more than 1500 people are waiting to know what their next step might be.  We served them food, thanks to World Central Kitchen, the NGO whose mission it is to feed people in disaster zones.  We saw planes deporting people to a third nation, under the cover of darkness.  We saw footage of the effect of the child separation policy, hundreds of children imprisoned for the sin of seeking the American dream.  We spent part of Sunday morning teaching school to kids of all ages, sprawled on tarps laid out over the dirt.  The kids’ passion for learning and normalcy was palpable.  Their smiles were infectious and broad.  But that was the only day of school they get.  We saw the human toll that anti-stranger policies exact. 

Eilu devarim, these things I will not forget, that in those people’s faces, I saw our own history of being unwelcome to America at our time of need.  At the same time, I will not forget the humanity I saw and their capacity to find joy in the midst of difficulty.  None of us should forget the importance of welcoming the stranger as we look up our polling place.

Bikkur Cholim, Visiting the Sick.

According to tradition, there are certain rules for this mitzvah.  Among them: Don’t go visit too soon.  Don’t tax the patient with too many visits.  The rabbis of old were practical and also a touch superstitious.  But the Midrash elaborates that there is real power in this mitzvah.  Each visit is said to take away 1/60^th of the illness.  When Joseph visits Jacob on his deathbed, the sight of the son he favored most, who was taken from him for decades, whose face gleamed with the beauty of his beloved Rachel, the sight of Joseph, gives Jacob the strength to sit up in his old age.[4]  Visiting the sick is akin to healing the sick, even in just a small way.  We are commanded to be healers of the sick, easers of suffering.

There are ways to stop the spread of this virus.  We know it because we’ve done it here, in New York, on Long Island.  After the hell that was our spring, we have made it to the other side.  We know that social distancing, mitigating risk, and wearing masks are all ways that stop the spread.  We know this because science tells us so and the data tell us so.  Imagine what we could have done had we known, like the President that the virus was airborne on February 7.

The Rabbis of old didn’t have science, but they did have sense.  They had the sense to remind us that we are only supposed to alleviate suffering, not exacerbate it.  In their injunctions against visiting too soon, the commentators say that it’s to prevent the patient from thinking they are sicker than they are, but there was perhaps also a recognition that in the case of illness that is not understood, you should keep your distance for a few days.  They might not have understood that a disease can be airborne, but they didn’t even need that knowledge to advise social distancing

Eilu devarim, these numbers ought to be on our mind: 200,000 Americans dead and nearing 7 million infected, hitting the worst-case scenarios presented all those months ago.  Loved ones dying alone in hospitals.  Frontline workers underequipped.  Families losing the opportunity to mourn in the ways they expected.  Our community’s losses.  Our members who lost loved ones. The line of hearses awaiting burial at the cemetery.  Families whose worlds have been crushed.

Eilu devarim, these things must be on our mind: how much of this might have been preventable if our leaders had chosen to alleviate suffering?  Our votes should bring healing, not more suffering and pain, and we should remember that as we make our plan to vote.

Hava’at Shalom Ben Adam Lechavero, Making Peace Among People:

One of the most important roles for a leader is to comfort people through difficult times.  The prophet Isaiah loved to tell the people what they were doing wrong.  But when the people were at their worst, when the people had lost everything, he chose to comfort them, with words of consolation from God.  As our ancestors wept by the rivers of Babylon, Isaiah reminded them of their promise and their ideals and that though things were tough, a brighter future was possible, if only they stuck to the values of Torah.

There is no question that this nation feels more divided than ever before.  E pluribus unum seems farther away than ever.  As a Jewish community, we value peace and pray to God over and over to cause peace to descend upon us.  We also know that as much as we count on God to heed our prayers, prayer without our action is incomplete. 

This summer, our nation witnessed the largest social protest movement in American history[5] as millions marched for racial justice and against police brutality in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death at the knee of a police officer.  One more violent interaction caught on smartphone video.  Eilu devarim, these are the things we should remember… 2/3 of Americans believed in at least part of the goals of the protest movement.[6] 93% of protests were peaceful.  Of the 7% where there was violence, we could say it was just a few bad apples, but recent reports also indicate that much of that violence was stoked by white supremacists seeking to blame the racial justice protestors and sow discord.[7]  Though the violence was by no means widespread, it is always wrong.  The images of cities aflame, factions of this nation confronting each other in the streets, shattered us all.

Eizeh devarim!?  What words of peace did we hear from our leaders?!  Eizeh devarim!?  What words of consolation from our Commander in Chief, for a nation beaten down, seemingly tearing itself apart?!  What words of shalom, of wholeness of bringing people together?  The lack of words, the lack of a thrust toward peace, the lack of a comforting presence in our nation’s time of greatest need.  That ought to be on our minds as we fill in the bubble.

Talmud Torah Keneged Kulam.  The Study of Torah is Equal to Them All Because It Leads to Them All. 

The rabbis of the Talmud debate whether study or action is greater.  They answer, and here the Talmud explains that it’s all the rabbis, almost as if they shout in unison: “Studying the Torah is greater because studying leads to action.”[8]  What does it mean to study Torah, to busy ourselves with sacred words?  It means for the purpose of living them.  Values have no meaning if they stay in our books.  Our liturgy teaches us that Torah is an expression of our deepest held values.  We are commanded to study eilu devarim, these things, because in studying them, we find ourselves living them.  In making space in our minds and souls for these values, in considering them day after day, there can be no end except to find our hands, feet, and minds living out our values through our actions and our choices. 

We are called to live a life dedicated to and comprised of eilu devarim, these things that are without measure, that we cannot do enough of.  We are called to make our decisions based on eilu devarim, these values.  We are also Americans, called to elect our leaders.  The votes which are our inalienable right allow us the opportunity to put our faith, our values, eilu devarim, into action.  \

This nation has a choice before it this November.  We each have a choice before us.  What values will we bring with us into the voting booth?  What Torah will guide our future?  What kind of society do we seek to build?  What values will we demand our leaders not only speak but act?  These values: eilu devarim:

אֵֽלּוּ דְבָרִים שֶׁאֵין לָהֶם שִׁעוּר שֶׁאָדָם אוֹכֵל פֵּרוֹתֵיהֶם בָּעוֹלָם הַזֶּה וְהַקֶּֽרֶן קַיֶּֽמֶת לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא, וְאֵֽלּוּ הֵן כִּבּוּד אָב וָאֵם וּגְמִילוּת חֲסָדִים וְהַשְׁכָּמַת בֵּית הַמִּדְרָשׁ שַׁחֲרִית וְעַרְבִית וְהַכְנָסַת אוֹרְ֒חִים וּבִקּוּר חוֹלִים וְהַכְנָסַת כַּלָּה וּלְוָיַת הַמֵּת וְעִיּוּן תְּפִלָּה וַהֲבָאַת שָׁלוֹם בֵּין אָדָם לַחֲבֵרוֹֹ וְתַלְמוּד תּוֹרָה כְּנֶֽגֶד כֻּלָּם:

Amen.

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[1] Translation in Mishkan Tefillah with a touch of Gates of Prayer

[2] Ex. 12:49

[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53494561

[4] Genesis 48

[5] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/03/us/george-floyd-protests-crowd-size.html

[6] https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/polling-trumps-protest-response-could-cost-him-2020

[7] https://www.wsls.com/news/virginia/2020/07/27/police-richmond-riots-instigated-by-white-supremacists-disguised-as-black-lives-matter/

[8] Kiddushin 40b

Erev Rosh HaShanah 5781: Fail in the Most Beautiful Way

 A version of this sermon was delivered at Temple B'nai Torah - A Reform Congregation, on Erev Rosh HaShanah 5781, Friday, September 18, 2020.

In the world of international soccer, there is no more beloved team than Barcelona.  They are record breaking in terms of their achievements, holding more records than I have time to list this evening.  They are the fourth most valuable sports team in the world, and my nephew Myles can often be seen sporting their kit, though that is more my brother’s influence.  Apparently, Myles is more of an Arsenal fan.  Barcelona’s success is known worldwide, and other football clubs know what it means to come up against them.

Last year, Barça as they are known, met with Liverpool in the Champions’ League semi-final.  These games are played on aggregate scores, which means that two games are played, one at each home stadium, and at the end, the team with the most goals wins.  Well the first leg of the semi-final saw Liverpool lose 0-3 at Barcelona.  And then Liverpool lost its two star players to injury before the second match in Liverpool.  In response to these difficult odds…  In recognition of the longshot his team had been at the outset, and the even longer shot they had become, Liverpool head coach Jurgen Klopp had some words of wisdom for his team, who would need to score 4 goals in 90 minutes.  He told his team his plan: “Just try.  And, if we can do it, wonderful.  And if not, then fail in the most beautiful way.”

Fail in the most beautiful way.  A powerful statement and a difficult concept.  With these words, Klopp gave his players permission to not achieve success.  He gave them the opportunity to take all the pressure off the result and instead focus on the method.  Try hard, he told the team.  Try as hard as you can.  If you fail, let it at least be an effort worthy of a defeat playing the beautiful game.

The notion of failure, of not achieving our goals, has been on our minds so much these last months.  So many of us have faced disappointment after disappointment.  Many of us feel like we can’t seem to succeed at everything that was put on our plates.  Some of us feel like we haven’t succeeded at anything.  Many of us have had to juggle so much out of the ordinary, and then when things don’t go perfectly, or even well, or even mediocre, we judge ourselves for the failure. 

Failure is a part of success.  And so in this new year, as unknown challenges and pressures will mount around us, let us all take a cue from Coach Klopp: try, and if it cannot be, let us fail in the most beautiful way.  Let us put our efforts into our goals, but if and when they don’t pan out, let us all at least be able to say we tried beautifully and failed beautifully.  Because at the core, that’s what Coach Klopp was telling his team, that if the effort is beautiful, then the failure ought to be seen as something beautiful as well.

Our tradition has something to say about failure, and it starts at the very top!  Today as we celebrate Rosh HaShanah, we rejoice with blasts of the horn the anniversary of God’s creation.  Hayom Harat Olam, we intone at our Shofar service.  “This is the day of the world’s birth!”  Yet we know that while we celebrate today, 5781 years ago, things didn’t go so smoothly.

Adam and Eve can’t be trusted not to eat of the fruit.  The Evil Inclination goads the snake into causing trouble and mischief.  The first humans break the rules, and Eden, the paradise created for humanity’s every need, is lost forever.  Generation after generation of humanity show God that this grand project of creation, this crowning achievement of existence for which God contracted in order to make space, has only come to evil.  There is too much wickedness on the earth for God to abide.

“The Eternal saw how great was man’s wickedness on earth, and how every plan devised by his mind was nothing but evil all the time.  And the Eternal regretted that They had made man on earth, and God’s heart was saddened. The Eternal said, “I will blot out from the earth the men whom I created—men together with beasts, creeping things, and birds of the sky; for I regret that I made them.”[1]

God’s heart was saddened and filled with regret.  What powerful emotions from God.  The sadness of the failure, the regret over the outcome.  All leading to a rash decision.

We know what God does next.  God sends the flood, to wipe clean the earth of its wickedness.  “For in seven days’ time I will make it rain upon the earth, forty days and forty nights, and I will blot out from the earth all existence that I created.”[2]  God throws in the divine towel.  God decides that the project is too far gone, not even worth reforming, and that it’s time to start over.  God doesn’t give up on creation, God starts again.  Sometimes, it just doesn’t work.  Better to cut your losses and move on, right?  Sometimes, sure.

Nothing is impossible for God, and yet God still accepts that the first go around at creation was a failure.  God tried all that God could and still came up a little short. 

So, if God fails, what hope do we have?  Well, that’s not quite the point.  If God fails, why on earth should any of us believe that we’re not also going to make mistakes, that we’re not also going to put all our effort into something and come up short!?  But, when that happens, we have to remember that God failed beautifully.  When God describes the creation, over and over again, God says it was good, even very good!  But even things that start out good, don’t always end the same way. 

How many of us created pandemic and quarantine goals, like color-coded schedules for our kids, and gardens of vegetables to tend?  How many of us put together a list of all we wanted to accomplish now that we had some additional time around the house?  How many of us made it past a few weeks?  Probably some, and that’s great.  But a lot of us, and I include myself in this, especially if you were to see the state of my garden, just couldn’t keep it up.  Screen time went up for everyone.  Pants became optional.  The weight of everything we have been dealing with got to us.  The unexpected stresses of being home all the time and changing all our routines was too much to allow for our creations to flourish.  The weight of the reality around us was for some of us too much to hold onto while also aiming for these goals.  But we tried.  If we failed, we did so beautifully because we tried and aimed for success.

Now, we know that a reboot is how God responds to failure, but is that the best way?  To wipe clean and start over from scratch, eliminating all good with all bad?  Even God recognizes that this is not the ideal turn of events.  Once God starts over, God reminds us that never again will God destroy the earth.  One of the first things Noah does once out of the Ark is build an altar to God.  Then we read, “The Eternal smelled the pleasing odor [of Noah’s sacrifice], and the Eternal said to Themself: “Never again will I doom the earth because of man, since the devisings of man’s mind are evil from his youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living being, as I have done.”[3]  An interesting turn of phrase here in the Hebrew, which, when describing God’s inner monologue says:  Vayomer Adonai el libo: God spoke to God’s heart.  After reading of God’s sad heart before the flood, we now read that God speaks to God’s heart, to comfort it, to make a promise.  God speaks to the heart of things and decides that even if things get bad again, God won’t seek to destroy and start over.

So, if the first example of responding to failure, shaking the etch-a-sketch clean, is less than ideal, what then?

To find another answer, we need to look closer to our own metaphysical realm as humans and think about Moses.  His story is marked with a series of difficulties and setbacks, and yes, failures in a beautiful way, though we don’t often consider them that way when we look at the totality of his life and achievements.

But let’s take Moses’s most famous accomplishment, freeing the people from Egypt.  Did he succeed?  Sure, just check the haggadah!  But before he succeeded, he failed.  Fully 11 times God sends Moses to Pharaoh in order to demand the people’s release.  Once with the staff and snakes and then 10 more times, once before each plague.  11 times.  Plague after plague, with the power of God behind him, and each time, he comes home to Tziporah and his neighbors with nothing to show for it. 

“Are we free yet, Moses?” 

“No, not yet.  But God’s cooking up something great for tomorrow!” 

“Whatever you say, Moses…How ‘bout now?” 

“Well, actually, now we have to make bricks without straw.” 

“Oh, well, thanks so much, Moses!  Some redeemer you turned out to be!”

Each time, Moses does what he is asked and sends a wave of destruction against Egypt.  Frogs, fleas, locusts, darkness, flaming hail, over and over, each time the answer ultimately, no.  Finally, after the 10^th plague, Pharaoh relents.  Moses has achieved success!  And then, just as they are about to taste freedom, Pharaoh’s mind and heart change, and he pursues the Israelites to the Sea of Reeds.  11 times Moses sought freedom for the people.  11 times he failed.  11 times Moses came before the Pharaoh.  11 times the people are disappointed.

Moses shows us the power of failing beautifully.  He does all he can with each attempt, and when it doesn’t work, he tries again.  Each time, he learns more and more about the power of failure.  And each time he comes back stronger.  Remember he didn’t even want to talk to Pharaoh to begin with!

“Was it for want of graves in Egypt that you brought us to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, taking us out of Egypt?  Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us be, and we will serve the Egyptians, for it is better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness?”[4]  God may have hardened Pharaoh’s heart; the people blame Moses for the failure.

But Moses doesn’t give up.  He tries again.  As we read in Proverbs, “Seven times the righteous falls, and yet gets up.”[5]  He trusts in God, and he knows that if he has failed, he has done so beautifully, and he is willing to do so again.  It would take a miracle for the people to survive this!  Moses, bolstered by his previous attempts knows that God will come back again, tells the people not to fear, even before God tells Moses to part the waters.  And finally, Moses succeeds in freeing the people from Pharaoh’s grip.  Only took him 12 tries!

Moses not only learns as he goes, he learns about the importance of failure and learning from mistakes.  Only a few months later, as the Israelites are at the foot of Mt. Sinai, and Moses is up above talking to God, Moses and God experience a failure together as the people revolt against God, Moses, and Aaron, building the Golden Calf. 

God recognizes what’s going on.  “They have been quick to turn aside from the way that I enjoined upon them. They have made themselves a molten calf and bowed low to it and sacrificed to it, saying: ‘This is your god, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!’”[6]

God sees this as a failure.  The people have turned aside from me, God says.  They have acted basely, God tells Moses.  True to form, God has a suggestion about what to do next.  “Now, let Me be, that My anger may blaze forth against them and that I may destroy them, and make of you a great nation.”

Moses, however, has learned what it means to pick up and try again.  It is only in trying again that the failure can truly be beautiful.  “But Moses implored the Eternal his God, saying, “Let not Your anger, O Eternal One, blaze forth against Your people, whom You delivered from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand.  Let not the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that He delivered them, only to kill them off in the mountains and annihilate them from the face of the earth.’ Turn from Your blazing anger, and renounce the plan to punish Your people… And the Eternal renounced the punishment God had planned to bring upon God’s people.”[7]

In response, Moses heads down the mountain with the tablets of the Ten Commandments, and upon seeing the ruckus down below, in anger and frustration after having defended the people, he smashes the tablets and punishes the people.  Moses has failed again, this time in bringing the word of God to the Israelites. 

Ultimately, Moses will need to go back up to reinscribe a new set of tablets.  But when the time comes to place the tablets in the Golden Ark, whose cherub’s wings serve as the shelter of God’s presence amidst the people, both the broken set and the whole set are placed alongside each other for the journey ahead.  We learn from our failures when we bring them with us.  We learn from our failures when we build on what was and try again.  And when we do all of that, we fail beautifully because we did not give up and we did not give in.

It took a lot of miracles for the Israelites to escape to freedom.  It also would have taken something akin to a miracle for Liverpool to score four goals in 90 minutes in order to beat the powerful Barcelona.  And yet, that’s exactly what happened.  Barcelona was defeated.  Because Liverpool was given the freedom to fail, but to do so with integrity of effort and gumption, they succeeded.  Because they allowed themselves the freedom to not achieve everything ahead of them, they in fact accomplished more than anyone thought they could.  Liverpool didn’t cower and run away.  They didn’t lose faith.  Instead, they accepted that it might not go their way and continued to play hard.

We have to imagine that Moses, somewhere around the 6^th plague, had a sense that each time he went to Pharaoh, he was going to be rejected.  And yet, he did not flee from potential failure.  He did not lose faith.  Instead he faced it head on and ultimately succeeded.

This year 5781 begins as there is so much uncertainty around us.  Can I tell you something that is certain?  We will all fail at something in the year ahead.  We will all have plans that go sideways and opportunities that we miss, and goals we won’t score.  But, if we make a commitment to ourselves tonight, that each challenge we face will be with the understanding that if we must fail, we ought to do it beautifully, well then, maybe we just cut ourselves a little slack.  And maybe the failures of the year ahead may lead us not to despondency for what we did not achieve, but to pride in how we did not achieve it, pride in our beautiful failures.  And then to the realization that we can try again.

Here’s to a year of beautiful failures!

Shanah Tovah!

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[1] Genesis 6:5-7

[2] Genesis 7:4

[3] Genesis 8:21

[4] Exodus 14:11-12

[5] Prov. 24:16

[6] Exodus 32:8

[7] Ex. 32:11-12, 14

Passover Yizkor 2020

A version of this sermon was delivered at Temple B'nai Torah - A Reform Congregation, Wantagh, NY at 7th-day Passover Festival Service.

Passover Yizkor 7th Day 2020: Coronavirus Edition

Passover is supposed to be memorable.  That’s the entire point of the holiday, if you listen to God tell it: In Exodus 12:14, in the midst of God’s instructions and forewarning about the 10th plague, we read: “וְהָיָה֩ הַיּ֨וֹם הַזֶּ֤ה לָכֶם֙ לְזִכָּר֔וֹן This day shall be to you one of remembrance: you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Eternal throughout the ages; you shall celebrate it as an institution for all time.”  Throughout the ages.  For all time.  God reiterates this just a few verses later, commanding: “You shall observe the [Feast of] Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your ranks out of the land of Egypt; you shall observe this day throughout the ages as an institution for all time.” (12:17)

Moses then announces this to the people twice.  After explaining placing the blood over the doorposts to cause the plague to pass over, Moses continues: “You shall observe this as an institution for all time, for you and for your descendants. (ib. 24) Moses repeats this commandment to the people after Pharaoh frees them.  “You shall keep this institution at its set time from year to year,” (13:10) Moses repeats to the people while reminding them about the matzot and the Passover sacrifice.
There is a heightened sense of the importance of memory to the Seder rituals as well.  You may not be able to remember all 10 plagues all the time, but you remember that there are 10.  If you’re like me, you always forget one. 

More than the facts or the story, we all remember what we do when we announce the plagues, we take a little wine out of the cup, to diminish our joy and mitigate the sweetness.  Whether with finger or with spoon, whether you make a point to discard the plague-y wine or lick your pinky when done, that’s memorable. It’s a memory that is made in the best way, by involving so many of the senses.  You hear the plague announced. You touch the wine.  You see the drop grow on your plate or spread on your napkin.  You smell the brisket.  You are completely immersed in an act of memory designed to be memorable. 

God makes the point that Passover is meant to be remembered not just by those who experienced it.  It is meant to be remembered always by all their descendants.  It’s no surprise the youngest sings the four questions.  At some point in your life, you were the youngest in your family.  Every one of us was.  It ensures we all learn the questions of this festival at a young age, so that we can work to figure out the answers as we get older.

We have done a pretty good job as a people of keeping this charge, of remembering and recalling the exodus, how God redeemed us with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. And we’ve been immensely creative over the generations trying to ensure continued success. 

Well, Passover is supposed to be memorable, all right.  I don’t think that any of us will ever be able to forget this one in particular.  It will be one of those years we all look back on and tell stories about.  “What did you do when the world stopped for Coronavirus?  How did you have your Seder when not everyone could be together?” the children will ask.  "We did what our people have always done," we will tell them.  "We recognized that the importance of sharing the memory of our history would not get, and could not get, vetoed by any pandemic.  We improvised, like our ancestors, and ensured that the story was told to a new generation."

“We focused on the important part,” we’ll say.  And, for each of us that was probably something different.  For all of us it was the same thing, a drive, a sense, that this holiday must be celebrated, that we must remember.  Just because we can’t be physically alongside each other didn’t stop us.  When normally we’d see tables set and filled with 10, 20, 30, 40 people, filling tables in every room, this year so many shared photos online of Seders set for one, two, four.  A computer or a tablet on the table.  We used the technology available to us and strove to be together when we could not.  And though there were fewer dishes to be done at the end of the night, and though we can be proud that we followed God’s commandment, we know it’s not how it’s supposed to be.  We felt it when we didn’t need to put the leaf in the table.  We sensed it when we didn’t need to use all the chairs.  We knew it when we divided the recipe in half. 

On this holiday, so focused on memory, the memory of the past pushed us to move forward, but it also pulls something at our souls.  We’re supposed to be together.  We’re supposed to be alongside each other.  And the absence of those who would have been there only heightens the absence of those who could not be there.  It’s not just those who can’t travel who we miss; it’s those who are now sheltered under God’s wings, who were with us at full tables just a few years back, or many years back which only feel like a few.  The full tables of the past are what we miss especially this year. 

The full tables of Seders past render an image of what the Seder was always supposed to be: generations together, sharing in tradition.  The full tables of the Seders of our past burst with memories of their own.  They tell the stories of our families which make us who we are.  The full tables of our past burst with love: for us and from us.  Today, as we transition to our service of memory, our Yizkor on this last day of our festival, we pause to seat our beloved departed at places of honor at the full Seder tables in our memory, our zikaron. 

These Seders in our souls burst with the blessings of those who came before us, who taught us the importance of the traditions we worked so hard to fulfill this year.  The Seders in our souls bring us closer to all those whose absence we feel every year, and whose presence we feel every year.  We feel them with us when we push ourselves to make the recipe the same way she did.  We feel them with us when we tell that joke that was told every year.  We feel them with us when we hear the familiar melody that they first taught us.  Our loved ones of blessed memory are with us at every Seder, as they are with us at all times, in our memory. 

No ZOOM password required.

Vaera 5780: An Overabundance of Evidence

A version of this sermon was delivered at Temple B’nai Torah – A Reform Congregation in Wantagh, NY on Shabbat Va’era 5780/2020

There are certain perennial questions we have as Jews.  At Passover we ask five of them.  The four in the Hagaddah and then "When do we eat!?"  That question by the way is also the question asked every Yom Kippur!  So, each year when we get to the Torah portions that describe the famous story of the plagues, the Passover, and the Exodus, a series of questions always seem to come up.  Each year, we ask why it is that we read about Passover well before the Holiday falls.  That has to do with the Torah cycle and the holiday cycle.  And that's where we are in the Torah right now.  Another question that arises as we reach this week’s portion, Parshat Va’era, is the question of why it is that God hardens Pharaoh’s heart.  After all, if God wanted to change Pharaoh’s mind, why prevent it from happening?  It seems counter-intuitive that God would prevent the Pharaoh from being moved to change or act in response to Moses’s pleas and God’s signs and wonders.

Toward the beginning of the portion, we read that God sends Moses to speak to the people Israel, to announce that the God of their ancestors will redeem them.  Even though Moses follows God’s instructions about how to introduce himself to the people, they don’t believe him.  The Torah tells us why: “their spirits [are] crushed by hard labor.” (Ex. 6:9)  They are so despondent in their situation that they cannot imagine that redemption is possible.  They don’t have the capacity or vocabulary to understand God, and sadly, we know, the slave generation will never fully commit to God, with but a few exceptions.

When the Israelites don’t listen, God then sends Moses to speak with Pharaoh.  Moses responds to God: If the people won’t listen to me, then how is it that you think Pharaoh is going to listen to me?

We read: “The Eternal replied to Moses, ‘See, I place you in the role of God to Pharaoh, with your brother Aaron as your prophet. You shall repeat all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall speak to Pharaoh to let the Israelites depart from his land. But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, that I may multiply My signs and marvels in the land of Egypt.’” (Ex. 7:1-3)

Now, there is an interesting parallel in the Hebrew.  The people’s spirits are crushed by what the Torah calls avodah kashah, hard labor.  God says that God will “ekasheh et lev Paroh” harden the heart of Pharaoh.  Already we see that God’s response to Pharaoh will be to turn the tables on him, to dole out to Pharaoh what Pharaoh has done to the Israelites.  God will show that God’s power supersedes that of Pharaoh, or that of any of the gods of Egypt.  “You made the people’s labor kasheh,” God is saying, “So, I will make your heart kasheh, and you will pay for it.”

The plagues are meant as much for the Israelites as the Egyptians.  The Israelites’ hearts and spirits are hardened beneath their labors.  Their hearts will need to soften in order to finally be a free people.  But the Egyptians, up until this point, don’t think they’ve done anything wrong, at least we don’t have any indication that they think the way they’re treating the Israelites is wrong.  We don’t hear from anyone but the Pharaoh.  And we know that it is his own obstinacy in the face of overwhelming evidence that ultimately leads to his downfall.  That Pharaoh’s heart hardens after each of the first five plagues is his own doing.  The Torah tells us after the plague of blood in the Nile: “when the Egyptian magicians did the same with their spells, Pharaoh’s heart stiffened and he did not heed [Moses and Aaron]. (Ex. 7:22)  We read similar indications after each of the first five plagues. 

As each of the first five plagues strike Egypt, the evidence mounts before Pharaoh, that God is not pleased and that he ought to pay attention. 

After the frogs, his heart hardens when the relief comes.  After the lice, the Egyptian magicians can no longer recreate the plagues, and they say to Pharaoh, this is the finger of the God! Yet, his heart hardens.  After the insects, we read: “But Pharaoh became stubborn this time also, gam bapa’am hazeh.”(Ex. 8:28)  The inclusion of “this time also” shows that even the Torah narrative seems to be confounded by Pharaoh’s stubbornness and inability to learn.

Each of these plagues is evidence of the Egyptians’ wrongdoing.  Rabbi Tali Adler of Machon Hadar makes this point explicit about the first two plagues as she teaches:  

Both of the first two plagues begin in the Nile where Jewish boys were drowned. The first, blood, makes it clear that the Nile, the source of life for the Egyptian people—the place where even Bat Paroah, the woman who saved Moshe bathed—is actually a site of mass murder. All of Egypt, suddenly, is forced to confront the truth that what is life-giving and sustaining for them has been the locus of unbearable suffering for the people they oppress.

The second plague, the frogs, exposes the horror even more explicitly. The frogs, we are told, emerge from the Nile itself—still, presumably, filled with blood. In picturing the image of the frogs—small, slimy creatures crawling out of the river used as a mass infant grave—it is easy to imagine that as the frogs started to emerge, people thought that they were seeing thousands of ghosts emerge from their watery graves.

It’s not until after the 6^th plague, the skin inflammation, that we read that the Eternal stiffened the heart of Pharaoh.  Why does God take over here?  Rashi (to Ex. 7:3) says it’s as punishment.  Since Pharaoh’s heart hardened 5 times on its own, and he didn’t heed God, now God will show Pharaoh what it means not to heed God.  The evidence is mounting.  The proof of the Egyptians’ crimes is public and known, and still, Pharaoh will not let the people go. 

But… we just learned that for plagues 6-10, it is God that hardens Pharaoh’s heart.  So, is the Pharaoh even to blame?  Rabbi Jonathan Sacks says yes, pulling from a Renaissance Italian commentary by Rabbi Ovadia Sforno:

“God hardened Pharaoh's heart precisely to restore his free will. After the succession of plagues that had devastated the land, Pharaoh was under overwhelming pressure to let the Israelites go. Had he done so, it would not have been out of free choice, but rather under force majeure. God therefore strengthened Pharaoh's heart so that even after the first five plagues he was genuinely free to say Yes or No.” [1]

This makes sense especially when we recognize that the Hebrew word for what happens to Pharaoh’s heart changes.  It moves from kasheh, meaning harden as we heard earlier, to chazak, meaning stiffen or strengthen.  In this interpretation, God makes Pharaoh’s heart stronger, so that he can make up his own mind in the face of the evidence before him.  But will he be convinced by evidence, or is the verdict already decided in his head?

            God wants Pharaoh to make his decision based not on pressure from others or based on something out of his control, but rather based on a true recognition that what he had been doing, how he had enslaved the Israelites was indeed not ok, that his rule, and the kingdom of Egypt had become corrupt, cruel, chaotic, and focused on an Egyptian supremacist attitude.

            The end of this week’s portion leaves no question as to the corrupt nature of the Egyptian government:  “when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he became stubborn and reverted to his guilty ways, as did his courtiers.  So Pharaoh’s heart stiffened and he would not let the Israelites go, just as the Eternal had foretold through Moses” (Ex. 9:34-35).  After every plague, the Pharaoh reverts to his default position, that he and Egypt can outlast God’s punishments.  Next week’s portion will dissuade him of that.

Ultimately, we know that Pharaoh never truly heeds the lesson that God is trying to teach him.  He will let the people go, but then he will change his mind and chase after them.  Not listening to the evidence presented to him over and over again destroys Egypt.  According to the Torah narrative, the crops and herds are destroyed by locust and disease, the Nile is putrid, the people who are still alive are inflicted with lice and disease, and his army is ultimately drowned at the Sea of Reeds.  All that his nation had been crumbles around him. He leads his nation to destruction because his heart is hardened, and he can’t find a way to soften it enough to heed the warning and listen to the evidence of what has been laid out before him.

When evidence mounts before us, will it be heeded?  When God sends a message, will it be heard?  Let us strive to live our lives as the antithesis to Pharaoh, with our hearts pliable, open to change, to compassion, to loving the other as ourselves.  Let our hearts be light, not weighed down by the heaviness of sin, indifference, or lust for power.  Let our hearts be loose, willing to accept the evidence we see before us, so that we may always make a choice for the good. 

Shabbat Shalom

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[1] Sacks, Lord Rabbi Jonathan: The Weighing of the Heart: Vaera 5780