Ask anyone the following question and you will likely get a different answer each time. “What is your favorite symphony?” Some would respond with certainty Beethoven’s 9th. Others would no doubt go with Mozart’s 38th Symphony in D Major, his “Prague” symphony. Or perhaps your personal taste lies more with the compositions of Brahms, Shubert, or Vivaldi. But even if you prefer the searing electric licks of Jimmy Page’s guitar to the graceful bow-strokes of Yo-Yo-Ma, nonetheless, you still probably have your own favorite piece of classical music. Such is the power of the symphony; a good symphony is eternal; its melodies echo throughout the generations.
Well for me the choice is clear; in fact I have known my favorite symphony since I was just a small child. It is a modern symphony written by a practically unknown composer. It blends modern elements of jazz with the influences of the classics and the result is an avant-garde composition with a brave and unique style. It is called “An American Symphony” and it was written by Martin Kramer, and all my life it has been my absolute favorite; despite the fact that I only heard it for the first time last March.
But how could this be? How could I have known that this American Symphony was my favorite even if I had never heard a single note of the piece itself? How could I have known that the music from this symphony would stir me to my soul even if it had never even been played aloud before? The answer is simple; it is because Martin Kramer was my great-grandfather and it is because “An American Symphony” was his life’s work.
I was fortunate enough to have known my great-grandfather well into my early adolescence which meant that not only had I heard stories of his musical escapades, I experienced them first hand. My father and my grandparents told stories of his days as a band leader in the hay-day of Atlantic City, playing alongside the greats of the era. But I also knew of his musical talents from personal experience. Each time I visited his apartment he would take out a different instrument from his collection and dazzle me with a display of prowess previously unknown to me. To this day my memory is clouded with visions of an obsidian piccolo, a tarnished trumpet and the time I sat at his piano bench as he taught me the circle of fifths.
But one memory that remains crystal clear to me is the time when he first told me the story of his American Symphony.
“Joel,” he said in his raspy voice, “Did I ever tell you about my symphony?”
“No pop-pop, you wrote a symphony?” I asked with wonder.
“Yes, but it was never played,” he replied with a tinge of sorrow. “I sent it around to some places without much response, until this one time I received a call from the concert master of the Philadelphia Philharmonic that he wanted to play part of my symphony, one single movement.”
“Really pop-pop?” I said, “that’s amazing, and did they play it?”
“No.” he replied with a smile. “I told him he could either play the whole thing …. or he would play nothing at all!”
“Wow,” I said, amazed at his commitment to his principles, to the integrity of his art, “good for you pop-pop,” I said, feeling proud to be his great-grandson.
“Joel,” he responded, “It was the dumbest thing I ever did!”
My great-grandfather died a few years after he told me that story, never once having heard the result of the many midnights spent pencil in hand, at the piano. His life’s work, “An American Symphony,” never to be heard from again.
That is until this past March. My grandmother, Gerry Seltzer daughter of the unknown, unrenowned composer Martin Kramer was turning eighty years old and the entire family gathered together for a special surprise party in her honor. A string quartet played her favorite pieces softly in the corner and an unexpected performance of a family choir serenaded her with some of her favorite Jewish melodies. But one surprise remained. Generous family contributions had paid for my great-grandfather’s symphony to be entered note by note into a computer program, which could then, for the first time since its composition, play back the symphony for all to hear.
There was only one problem. Although the computer technician had plugged in all the notes and measures into the program, it still lacked a personal touch, a sense of style that the composer had originally intended. It needed someone who could pore over the handwritten symphony looking for all the moments of crescendo and decrescendo, someone to fix the tiny mistakes in the meter, someone to decipher the inkblots which obscured the author’s intent. So the two best musicians among my cousins, Jeremy and Jacob pulled an all-nighter before my grandmother’s party, endlessly balancing, editing and perfecting the digital copy of my great-grandfather’s symphony.
Finally, the moment came and the entire family anxiously anticipated the opening measures of our pop-pop’s unplayed masterpiece. Tears welled up in the eyes of my grandmother and her sisters as they remembered the sound of his pencil scratching on the page and as they awaited the moment when they would first hear those notes come to life. The symphony began with a start, hurried drums and frantic digital violins pierced the air, and everyone who was present strained to hear the long lost voice of a family member long gone.
Since it’s Yom Kippur, and so therefore I feel the need to be completely honest with you, I must say, it didn’t really sound so good. It was difficult to say whether the dissonance I heard was a result of the digitized and therefore hollow sounding instruments, the lack of a good sound system, or whether it was just the result my great-grandfathers composition in the first place. But despite our first visceral reactions, we all smiled at the end and said, “That Pop-Pop, he was truly ahead of his time!”
But the reason I am telling you this story today, before our Yizkor service has nothing to do with the quality of the symphony. It does not concern me whether it is the most moving piece of music that has ever existed, or simply another example of a composition that was destined to remain forever unheard. What me the most was the metaphor.
Here were my younger cousins, the great-grandchildren of this man they had hardly known, reading and interpreting his symphony. Martin Kramer had left us a legacy, an inheritance; and here we were, now three and four generations removed from this man and we were still able to read his music. Despite the years, we still retained the keys necessary to unlock his message. We still had the tools which were needed to interpret his symphony. This, I learned, is the meaning of legacy; this is the definition of eternal.
Which brings me to an important question we all should be asking ourselves on this Yom Kippur: Will the symphony of our lives, our life’s work, written in the ink of our ethics and our values, be legible to our great-grandchildren? Will they be able to speak our language, relate to our wishes and understand our definition of a life that is meaningful, admirable and spiritual? Or have we been writing a symphony that is destined to remain unplayed by future generations.
Allow me to tell you two stories which might help us understand the important question of creating a lasting legacy. The first is a popular Hasidic tale and the second is a story told to me by a congregant. The first story I want to look at is a well known one which centers on the founder of Hasidism, the Baal Shem Tov:
When the Baal Shem Tov had a difficult task before him, he would go to a certain place in the woods, light a fire and meditate in prayer – and the task he had set out to perform was done. When a generation later the “Maggid” of Mezritch was faced with the same task he would go to the same place in the woods and say: I can no longer light the fire, but I can still speak the prayers – and what he wanted done became reality. Again a generation later Rabbi Moshe Leib of Sassov had to perform this task. And he too went into the woods and said: I can no longer light the fire, nor do I know the secret meditations belonging to the prayer, but I do know the place in the woods to which it all belongs – and that must be sufficient; and sufficient it was. But when another generation had passed and Rabbi Israel of Rishin was called upon to perform the task, he sat down on his golden chair in his castle and said: We cannot light the fire, we cannot speak the prayers, we do not know the place, but we can tell the story of how it was done. And, that must be sufficient, and it was.
Something has always bothered me about this story. I mean, I get the message, things are bound to be lost from generation to generation, but telling our sacred stories has a value in and of itself. But nonetheless it bothers me. I always wonder, why did the Baal Shem Tov not teach his student the Maggid of Mezrich how to light the fire? Likewise, why did the Maggid not teach his student, Rabbi Moshe Leib the correct way to vocalize this important prayer? Finally, why did Rabbi Moshe Leib fail to point out this sacred place in the woods to his students so that it would be kept safe for generations to come? Isn’t it the job of any teacher to ensure that our legacies survive throughout the generations? Surely telling the story alone cannot always be sufficient?
Far from being a metaphoric Hasidic tale, the second story which I hope will help us understand our task as legacy makers came to me from an extremely wise congregant in our wonderful community. We were talking several months ago about the importance of creating positive Jewish identity amongst our children and he relayed this very personal story to me.
“Rabbi,” he said, “fifty years ago my wife and I moved to Providence to raise a family. We wanted everything for our children, every wonderful opportunity that would help them become successful adults, this was our number one priority.”
“You see Rabbi,” he said, “At that time; some of the finest private schools on the East Side had very strict systems of quotas determining how many Jewish students were allowed per class. But I was determined that this institutionalized anti-Semitism would not prevent my children from receiving a fine education. So I lobbied from within this private school and got all of my children admitted. In later years, I worked tirelessly as a member of the school’s board to remove the quota system entirely, and I succeeded!”
“Rabbi,” he said intently, “my number one goal in raising my children was that they would be happy, intelligent, successful and fully assimilated Jews.” “And Rabbi,” he said with a look of deep understanding, “I was so successful in achieving this goal, my goal of assimilation, that only two of my ten grandchildren are Jewish.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” he said, “I love each and every one of them, but Rabbi, if I had to do it all over again, I would have a very different set of priorities. I succeeded in my goals, yes; but in retrospect, I guess I would say I didn’t have the right goals.”
Now I am not trying to criticize this man for the way he chose to raise his children, in fact I want to praise him. I think that his story was one of the most profound examples of wisdom I have ever heard. Here is a person, who is clearly blessed with the insight that many years spent in self-reflection can grant us. What this wise man was saying, was that the legacy we leave behind to our children is so precious, so lasting, we must make certain that we are laying down the correct foundation for our children and our grandchildren to build their lives upon.
I found an unattributed quote once which said “Each human life is like a new symphony heard for the first time. It can't be understood or fully appreciated until after the final cadence.” Indeed our lives are like fine symphonies. Although our lives meander through different movements of varying length and style, nonetheless, they should be bound together through a central theme or motif. Our personal priorities in life are reflected in these themes which accompany us as we compose our own personal symphonies.
This brings me back to the important question we started with today. As I watched my cousins sit and read this long unplayed, long unheard symphony, interpreting note by precious note, deciphering my great-grandfather’s pen strokes, this thought occurred to me: will my great-grandchildren be able to read my symphony? Will they be able to connect with the legacy I leave behind for them? Will it stir their souls, will it even matter to them?
My friends, I don’t know about you, but I do not want my children to forget how to light the fire. I do not want to see my grandchildren struggling to remember the prayer, nor see my grandchildren lost in the woods. I want to give them clear instruction on what matters in life: their character, their relationships and their faith.
And so I have an assignment for each of you today. Today, while you are in shul, on this holiest of days when we are confronted with our own mortality, I ask you to spend some time reflecting on the content of your personal symphony. Are you happy with the legacy you have so far created, are there things that you feel have been left undone or unsaid? Then, I ask you to go home after yuntiff and write your symphony. Take out a pen and create an ethical will, a legacy of personal priorities that you will leave behind for your children and your children’s children. Spend the rest of your life teaching them, how to start the fire, how to say the prayers, how to find the place in the woods. If your Judaism matters to you, then send your children and your grandchildren to Jewish schools, to Camp Ramah, and teach them to love their faith as others have taught you. Leave for them the many legacies of life that were left to us by those we now memorialize through our Yizkor prayers. As Simon Dubnow, the great historian who perished in the fires of the holocaust uttered with his last words: yidn, shreibt un fershreibt, Jews, record this, write this down!
For if we do not, our own personal symphonies might never be played; and the fire, the prayer and the place will lost forever.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Kol Nidre 5770: TheTangled Web of T'shuvah
Tonight I want to talk to you about what I believe is the single most inspiring spiritual concept in our world today. This concept is one that gives hope to the downtrodden, offers redemption to the wicked and peace to those whose are riddled with self doubt. But for all its capacity to save us, to redeem us, this concept is also the source of great modern controversy. Many of us here doubt its awesome power, we are cynical of its potential and we simply cannot believe that it could be as powerful as it is made out to be.
The concept I am referring to is what I believe to be the single most inventive creation our great Rabbis ever made, which can be summed up in a single weighty word: T’shuvah. The concept of T’shuvah is often translated into English as repentance and this is the problem. You see, the English word repentance derives from the Latin word pentire, meaning to be sorry, but the rabbinic invention of T’shuvah means so much more than feeling sorry.
Being sorry, is simply an emotion. It is a feeling we experience when we regret what we have done; and don’t get me wrong it is an important element of our humanity. We do make mistakes, we are imperfect and the ability to feel sorry for these shortcomings is what hopefully leads us to make great and important personal change. But regret is only an emotion after all; whereas T’shuvah, T’shuvah is a process. It may indeed begin with feelings of regret, but T’shuvah is something so much more.
As you may know, the word T’shuvah comes from the Hebrew root shin, vav, bet, denoting a turning, or a return to something. The result is a concept which simply cannot be contained in the English word repentance. T’shuvah is an act, it is an art form, and it is a spiritual discipline. T’shuvah means allowing for the possibility of monumental change even within those who have lived a life of evil. It is at once, a commandment to ask for forgiveness from God and from our neighbors; but it is also an edict to forgive: to give penance to those who have harmed us, and yes, T’shuvha is even a demand to forgive ourselves.
In this one single word, T’shuvah, the rabbis created a world of infinite spiritual possibilities. Instead of envisioning a binary, black and white world, filled with virtue and sin, good and evil, righteousness and wickedness; with T’shuvah the rabbis discovered a world filled with dizzying shades of grey.
So how does one ‘do T’shuvah?’ As the medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides explains, true T’shuvah, true repentance, is achievable by making verbal declarations, publicly or privately, to God and to our fellow human beings; admitting our culpability and asking for forgiveness. For Maimonides, the mark of the truly repentant person is that when they are confronted with the very same opportunity for sin, they ‘turn away’, jettisoning their former selves in favor of a more morally correct path. But this definition of the process of T’shuvah always makes me wonder, can it really be this easy?
When we discuss the process of T’shuvah do we really believe in its ultimate promise of personal redemption? Can it truly be that by deeply committing ourselves to positive personal change that we have the ability to atone for even our greatest sins? Do we humans actually have faith that people can change, or are we conditioned to see everyone as a sinner dressed in white?
Well, it doesn’t take a rabbi to realize that this past year’s headlines were riddled with complicated cases of T’shuvah in our modern society. Each one presents us with a case study for this staggering world of gray we find ourselves living in, and tonight, I want us to examine carefully what each of these examples of T’shuvah, or lack thereof, may have to teach us about ourselves. For the sake of clarity, let us name each of these examples with an easy-to-remember moniker that will help us keep track as we proceed: Let us call them: the Governor, the Swindler, the Senator and the Quarterback, and let us begin with the Governor.
Just for the record, I want everyone here to know that I knew something was fishy from day one! The moment that the story broke on the cable news channels that Governor Mark Sanford had gone missing, I knew that something was rotten in the state of South Carolina. So rather than giving him the benefit of the doubt, instead of believing for even a moment that he had gone on a camping trip, or needed some time away to do some writing, I condemned him from the start. It turns out, I was right.
As we all came to learn, far from seeking solitude on the Appalachian Trail, Governor Sanford was instead out strolling the beaches of Buenos Aires enjoying the company of a woman who was most definitely not his wife. He was caught, and the jig was up, the time had come for him to explain himself, to say he was sorry and to atone for his transgressions.
So he called a press conference, and in what was no doubt one of the most bizarre moments in our political year, he delivered his ‘apology’, to his wife, his family, his constituents and the television cameras. Despite the fact that there were what seemed to be sincere moments of heartfelt regret for the pain his actions had caused, he still stopped short of saying what he did was wrong. In fact, sprinkled between his admissions of guilt and his expressions of personal failure were two sound bites that simply overshadowed it all, and they were: “soul-mate” and “love story.” By calling his mistress his “soul-mate” and by referring to his extra-marital affair as a “love story,” his apology seemed dead on arrival.
But maybe we are being too harsh on the guy. After all, one of Maimonides’ instructions as to the proper way to do T’shuvah is to apologize to those who you have wronged, and if you make this apology in public, harei zeh m’shubach, well this is even more praiseworthy, claims the Rambam. So maybe Governor Sanford’s story is merely a case of a guy whose marriage simply wasn’t working, maybe he fell victim to his urges and to the temptation of new love, only to later realize that he had thrown away everything he had built in his life: a family, a career, and a reputation. Maybe he really is sorry. So I ask you, do you believe him?
I didn’t think so.
Which brings us to our second case-study in T’shuvah for this evening: the Swindler. In January the story broke that Bernie Madoff, the Wizard of Wall Street, and former chairman of the NASDAQ exchange was the criminal mastermind behind the single biggest Ponzi scheme in our nation’s history. He stole tens of billions of dollars from thousands of investors who had entrusted him with their foundations, their endowments and their personal retirement accounts. In a moment, people lost everything they had. The rich became poor and the powerful became powerless to stop this stunning flash of reality: that Bernie had stolen their fortunes and their futures. In time it came to light just how deep the rabbit hole actually went.
We came to learn that while Madoff did not discriminate when it came to his victims, he nonetheless specifically targeted elements of his own Jewish community who trusted him with their investments. Charitable organizations such as Hadassah, The World Zionist Organization, Elie Weisel’s Foundation for Humanity were bankrupt because of Madoff, and some institutions had to close their doors due to the depths of his deceit.
As the story went, with the collapse of the economy last fall, Madoff knew it was only a matter of time before his pyramid scheme fell apart. He was swiftly brought to trial, convicted and given the maximum sentence of 150 years for his crimes. At his sentencing, Madoff, with tears in his eyes spoke the following words:
I am actually grateful for this first opportunity to speak publicly about my crimes for which I am so deeply sorry and ashamed. I am painfully aware that I have hurt many, many people, including members of my family, my closest friends, business associates and the thousands of clients who gave me their money. I cannot adequately express how sorry I am for what I have done.
The account of his sentencing in the New York Times then described one final scene:
At the end of his personal statement, Mr. Madoff abruptly turned to face the courtroom crowd. He was no longer the carefully tailored and coiffed financier. His hair was ragged. His eyes were sunken into deep gray shadows. His voice was a little raspy,
“I am sorry,” he said, and abruptly added: “I know that doesn’t help you.”
Tonight, as we begin this ultimate day of repentance, how are we as Jews supposed to feel about Bernie Madoff? Yes we feel angry, yes we feel ashamed, yes we feel that his actions defamed his own name as well as the name of the Jewish people as a whole! But maybe he truly is repentant. Maybe his life has been one of tortured torment for many years and we should feel sorry for him. And if, if he has done T’shuvah, and if in his heart of hearts he is a changed person…than maybe we should forgive him. And so I ask you, should we?
I didn’t think so.
Now we move onto perhaps the most complicated case of them all: the tragic case of the Senator. Senator Ted Kennedy was a man who despite a life filled with mistakes, some of them severe, many of us could not help but love. In his recently published memoirs he is brutally honest about his history of heavy drinking and womanizing, habits for which he was well known. He also admits to being constantly tormented by that tragic night at Chappaquiddick when Mary Jo Kopechne, a twenty-eight year old woman died in his car. He admits to making “terrible decisions” that night, and he describes his regrettable actions after the accident as “inexcusable.” But the truth is we never will know the details of that New England night forty years ago.
Was Senator Kennedy drunk? Was he in a relationship with Kopechne? Was he in some way responsible for her death that night? Were his actions immediately following the accident, his waiting to call police and the giving of false statements, the result of shock and bewilderment, or the calculated steps of a cover-up? Yes, the late-Senator admitted to making mistakes at Chappaquiddick, yes he admitted to feeling regret and tremendous sorrow; but he still never really came clean about the details of that night.
But despite this lack of clarity many of us came to love him and admire him. We look upon his many ma’asim tovim, his good work as the Liberal Lion of the Senate over his nearly fifty years as a public servant. We see how he championed the causes of the poor, the downtrodden, the uninsured and the immigrant. Recently we read his letters to the Pope and were touched by his admissions of imperfection, as well as his statements of personal faith. But can these admissions of regret, these letters to the Pope and a legacy of good legislation hope to entirely atone for a self-professed life of missteps and mistakes? Can a lifetime of good deeds in some way erase the death of a young girl or ever hope to bring comfort to her family? So I ask you yet again, should we forgive him?
This one is certainly a little trickier.
Now we arrive at our final examination into the tangled web of T’shuvah we witnessed in the year that was: the quarterback. The terrible case of Michael Vick is the tale of a man who had everything: fame, fortune, talent, and who lost it all because of an obsession with the gruesome and wholly immoral ‘sport’ of dogfighting. Worse than his addiction to watching dogs maim and kill each other, worse than his inability to say no to his so-called friends, was the proof that was brought against him showing how he tortured and murdered dogs who were no longer able to fight.
Not that it would matter to him, but he is most certainly guilty of transgressing an important mitzvah in the Torah, namely that of Tza’ar Ba’lei Hayim, preventing cruelty to animals. Our Jewish tradition mandates that when we as human beings find ourselves in clear positions of power, like that of the human relationship to an animal, we must hold ourselves to a higher standard. We must not abuse this power, like Michael Vick did; we must treat all creatures as God’s creatures, which Michael Vick most certainly did not. For his gruesome crimes against the powerless, many among us feel he can simply never be forgiven.
But, on the other hand he was punished, he was bankrupt and he did serve his time behind bars. In fact, in a recent interview on “60 Minutes” he admitted to crying himself to sleep at night while in jail. He also confessed to being a changed man; a man who, like many, found a path towards the light of God from within the darkness of a prison cell. He claims that he is committed to ridding our communities of animal cruelty; he claims that he has learned from his mistakes. But is all of this true, or is it simply the result of a team of professional advisors guiding him on the path towards atonement. And so I am forced again to ask: do we believe him?
Maybe the jury is still out on this one.
Friends, this is the complicated reality of T’shuvah: it is at once something we all want to believe it, and yet we all find ourselves struggling to admit that it actually exists. Can T’shuvah truly atone for everything, or are there crimes for which there can be no forgiveness? Does everyone deserve a second chance in life, or are there some who do not deserve a reprieve. Should we trust in their process of T’shuvah, or are we resigned to cynicism in saying, people can never change. Ultimately, perhaps this is just an unfortunate reality to our human condition: maybe it is simply in our nature to doubt someone else’s contrition.
Yet here we find ourselves, gathered together for another Yom Kippur. It is my hope that we have assembled here tonight to begin the earnest process towards T’shuvah. I would like to imagine that each of us has articulated our apologies aloud for our families, our friends and our God to hear. I would like to believe that we will spend the next 24 hours in serious contemplation which will lead to a year when we are different, when we are changed, when we are better. But unfortunately, I know that this is not the case. I know that for many of us Yom Kippur is simply a formality.
And so tonight and tomorrow as we beat our chests and beg for God’s forgiveness, let us keep one simple prayer in mind.
“Please God, we pray that You are more compassionate than we are.”
The concept I am referring to is what I believe to be the single most inventive creation our great Rabbis ever made, which can be summed up in a single weighty word: T’shuvah. The concept of T’shuvah is often translated into English as repentance and this is the problem. You see, the English word repentance derives from the Latin word pentire, meaning to be sorry, but the rabbinic invention of T’shuvah means so much more than feeling sorry.
Being sorry, is simply an emotion. It is a feeling we experience when we regret what we have done; and don’t get me wrong it is an important element of our humanity. We do make mistakes, we are imperfect and the ability to feel sorry for these shortcomings is what hopefully leads us to make great and important personal change. But regret is only an emotion after all; whereas T’shuvah, T’shuvah is a process. It may indeed begin with feelings of regret, but T’shuvah is something so much more.
As you may know, the word T’shuvah comes from the Hebrew root shin, vav, bet, denoting a turning, or a return to something. The result is a concept which simply cannot be contained in the English word repentance. T’shuvah is an act, it is an art form, and it is a spiritual discipline. T’shuvah means allowing for the possibility of monumental change even within those who have lived a life of evil. It is at once, a commandment to ask for forgiveness from God and from our neighbors; but it is also an edict to forgive: to give penance to those who have harmed us, and yes, T’shuvha is even a demand to forgive ourselves.
In this one single word, T’shuvah, the rabbis created a world of infinite spiritual possibilities. Instead of envisioning a binary, black and white world, filled with virtue and sin, good and evil, righteousness and wickedness; with T’shuvah the rabbis discovered a world filled with dizzying shades of grey.
So how does one ‘do T’shuvah?’ As the medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides explains, true T’shuvah, true repentance, is achievable by making verbal declarations, publicly or privately, to God and to our fellow human beings; admitting our culpability and asking for forgiveness. For Maimonides, the mark of the truly repentant person is that when they are confronted with the very same opportunity for sin, they ‘turn away’, jettisoning their former selves in favor of a more morally correct path. But this definition of the process of T’shuvah always makes me wonder, can it really be this easy?
When we discuss the process of T’shuvah do we really believe in its ultimate promise of personal redemption? Can it truly be that by deeply committing ourselves to positive personal change that we have the ability to atone for even our greatest sins? Do we humans actually have faith that people can change, or are we conditioned to see everyone as a sinner dressed in white?
Well, it doesn’t take a rabbi to realize that this past year’s headlines were riddled with complicated cases of T’shuvah in our modern society. Each one presents us with a case study for this staggering world of gray we find ourselves living in, and tonight, I want us to examine carefully what each of these examples of T’shuvah, or lack thereof, may have to teach us about ourselves. For the sake of clarity, let us name each of these examples with an easy-to-remember moniker that will help us keep track as we proceed: Let us call them: the Governor, the Swindler, the Senator and the Quarterback, and let us begin with the Governor.
Just for the record, I want everyone here to know that I knew something was fishy from day one! The moment that the story broke on the cable news channels that Governor Mark Sanford had gone missing, I knew that something was rotten in the state of South Carolina. So rather than giving him the benefit of the doubt, instead of believing for even a moment that he had gone on a camping trip, or needed some time away to do some writing, I condemned him from the start. It turns out, I was right.
As we all came to learn, far from seeking solitude on the Appalachian Trail, Governor Sanford was instead out strolling the beaches of Buenos Aires enjoying the company of a woman who was most definitely not his wife. He was caught, and the jig was up, the time had come for him to explain himself, to say he was sorry and to atone for his transgressions.
So he called a press conference, and in what was no doubt one of the most bizarre moments in our political year, he delivered his ‘apology’, to his wife, his family, his constituents and the television cameras. Despite the fact that there were what seemed to be sincere moments of heartfelt regret for the pain his actions had caused, he still stopped short of saying what he did was wrong. In fact, sprinkled between his admissions of guilt and his expressions of personal failure were two sound bites that simply overshadowed it all, and they were: “soul-mate” and “love story.” By calling his mistress his “soul-mate” and by referring to his extra-marital affair as a “love story,” his apology seemed dead on arrival.
But maybe we are being too harsh on the guy. After all, one of Maimonides’ instructions as to the proper way to do T’shuvah is to apologize to those who you have wronged, and if you make this apology in public, harei zeh m’shubach, well this is even more praiseworthy, claims the Rambam. So maybe Governor Sanford’s story is merely a case of a guy whose marriage simply wasn’t working, maybe he fell victim to his urges and to the temptation of new love, only to later realize that he had thrown away everything he had built in his life: a family, a career, and a reputation. Maybe he really is sorry. So I ask you, do you believe him?
I didn’t think so.
Which brings us to our second case-study in T’shuvah for this evening: the Swindler. In January the story broke that Bernie Madoff, the Wizard of Wall Street, and former chairman of the NASDAQ exchange was the criminal mastermind behind the single biggest Ponzi scheme in our nation’s history. He stole tens of billions of dollars from thousands of investors who had entrusted him with their foundations, their endowments and their personal retirement accounts. In a moment, people lost everything they had. The rich became poor and the powerful became powerless to stop this stunning flash of reality: that Bernie had stolen their fortunes and their futures. In time it came to light just how deep the rabbit hole actually went.
We came to learn that while Madoff did not discriminate when it came to his victims, he nonetheless specifically targeted elements of his own Jewish community who trusted him with their investments. Charitable organizations such as Hadassah, The World Zionist Organization, Elie Weisel’s Foundation for Humanity were bankrupt because of Madoff, and some institutions had to close their doors due to the depths of his deceit.
As the story went, with the collapse of the economy last fall, Madoff knew it was only a matter of time before his pyramid scheme fell apart. He was swiftly brought to trial, convicted and given the maximum sentence of 150 years for his crimes. At his sentencing, Madoff, with tears in his eyes spoke the following words:
I am actually grateful for this first opportunity to speak publicly about my crimes for which I am so deeply sorry and ashamed. I am painfully aware that I have hurt many, many people, including members of my family, my closest friends, business associates and the thousands of clients who gave me their money. I cannot adequately express how sorry I am for what I have done.
The account of his sentencing in the New York Times then described one final scene:
At the end of his personal statement, Mr. Madoff abruptly turned to face the courtroom crowd. He was no longer the carefully tailored and coiffed financier. His hair was ragged. His eyes were sunken into deep gray shadows. His voice was a little raspy,
“I am sorry,” he said, and abruptly added: “I know that doesn’t help you.”
Tonight, as we begin this ultimate day of repentance, how are we as Jews supposed to feel about Bernie Madoff? Yes we feel angry, yes we feel ashamed, yes we feel that his actions defamed his own name as well as the name of the Jewish people as a whole! But maybe he truly is repentant. Maybe his life has been one of tortured torment for many years and we should feel sorry for him. And if, if he has done T’shuvah, and if in his heart of hearts he is a changed person…than maybe we should forgive him. And so I ask you, should we?
I didn’t think so.
Now we move onto perhaps the most complicated case of them all: the tragic case of the Senator. Senator Ted Kennedy was a man who despite a life filled with mistakes, some of them severe, many of us could not help but love. In his recently published memoirs he is brutally honest about his history of heavy drinking and womanizing, habits for which he was well known. He also admits to being constantly tormented by that tragic night at Chappaquiddick when Mary Jo Kopechne, a twenty-eight year old woman died in his car. He admits to making “terrible decisions” that night, and he describes his regrettable actions after the accident as “inexcusable.” But the truth is we never will know the details of that New England night forty years ago.
Was Senator Kennedy drunk? Was he in a relationship with Kopechne? Was he in some way responsible for her death that night? Were his actions immediately following the accident, his waiting to call police and the giving of false statements, the result of shock and bewilderment, or the calculated steps of a cover-up? Yes, the late-Senator admitted to making mistakes at Chappaquiddick, yes he admitted to feeling regret and tremendous sorrow; but he still never really came clean about the details of that night.
But despite this lack of clarity many of us came to love him and admire him. We look upon his many ma’asim tovim, his good work as the Liberal Lion of the Senate over his nearly fifty years as a public servant. We see how he championed the causes of the poor, the downtrodden, the uninsured and the immigrant. Recently we read his letters to the Pope and were touched by his admissions of imperfection, as well as his statements of personal faith. But can these admissions of regret, these letters to the Pope and a legacy of good legislation hope to entirely atone for a self-professed life of missteps and mistakes? Can a lifetime of good deeds in some way erase the death of a young girl or ever hope to bring comfort to her family? So I ask you yet again, should we forgive him?
This one is certainly a little trickier.
Now we arrive at our final examination into the tangled web of T’shuvah we witnessed in the year that was: the quarterback. The terrible case of Michael Vick is the tale of a man who had everything: fame, fortune, talent, and who lost it all because of an obsession with the gruesome and wholly immoral ‘sport’ of dogfighting. Worse than his addiction to watching dogs maim and kill each other, worse than his inability to say no to his so-called friends, was the proof that was brought against him showing how he tortured and murdered dogs who were no longer able to fight.
Not that it would matter to him, but he is most certainly guilty of transgressing an important mitzvah in the Torah, namely that of Tza’ar Ba’lei Hayim, preventing cruelty to animals. Our Jewish tradition mandates that when we as human beings find ourselves in clear positions of power, like that of the human relationship to an animal, we must hold ourselves to a higher standard. We must not abuse this power, like Michael Vick did; we must treat all creatures as God’s creatures, which Michael Vick most certainly did not. For his gruesome crimes against the powerless, many among us feel he can simply never be forgiven.
But, on the other hand he was punished, he was bankrupt and he did serve his time behind bars. In fact, in a recent interview on “60 Minutes” he admitted to crying himself to sleep at night while in jail. He also confessed to being a changed man; a man who, like many, found a path towards the light of God from within the darkness of a prison cell. He claims that he is committed to ridding our communities of animal cruelty; he claims that he has learned from his mistakes. But is all of this true, or is it simply the result of a team of professional advisors guiding him on the path towards atonement. And so I am forced again to ask: do we believe him?
Maybe the jury is still out on this one.
Friends, this is the complicated reality of T’shuvah: it is at once something we all want to believe it, and yet we all find ourselves struggling to admit that it actually exists. Can T’shuvah truly atone for everything, or are there crimes for which there can be no forgiveness? Does everyone deserve a second chance in life, or are there some who do not deserve a reprieve. Should we trust in their process of T’shuvah, or are we resigned to cynicism in saying, people can never change. Ultimately, perhaps this is just an unfortunate reality to our human condition: maybe it is simply in our nature to doubt someone else’s contrition.
Yet here we find ourselves, gathered together for another Yom Kippur. It is my hope that we have assembled here tonight to begin the earnest process towards T’shuvah. I would like to imagine that each of us has articulated our apologies aloud for our families, our friends and our God to hear. I would like to believe that we will spend the next 24 hours in serious contemplation which will lead to a year when we are different, when we are changed, when we are better. But unfortunately, I know that this is not the case. I know that for many of us Yom Kippur is simply a formality.
And so tonight and tomorrow as we beat our chests and beg for God’s forgiveness, let us keep one simple prayer in mind.
“Please God, we pray that You are more compassionate than we are.”
Monday, September 21, 2009
The Real Hero of the Akedah: RH2 5770
A short while ago, I asked you to consider an important question regarding this morning’s Torah reading, Genesis Chapter 22, עקידת יצחק
The Binding of Isaac . Knowing that each and every year we read this same story from a drastically different personal perspective, I asked you to ponder which character you most identified with this year. Likewise, during these Yamim Noraim, these Days of Awe, when we find ourselves wondering if we have the necessary courage to undergo great personal change, I asked you to determine which character in our story this morning acts the most courageously.
The reason I am asking these questions to you today, is because no matter where I may find myself each year, and regardless as to how I might be feeling on any given second day of Rosh HaShanah, I often find myself returning to the same familiar question – who is the hero of this suspenseful tale of the Binding of Isaac? Who is the character I am supposed to idolize? Which character am I supposed to identify with? Which of our players is the one about whom I am supposed to say to my child, pay close attention to this one; this person is an example of true courage, of real righteousness. And so the question I pose to each of you this morning is: Who is the real hero of Genesis 22, of עקידת יצחק?
A standard response to this query would be Abraham of course. After all, should not אברהם אבינו, Abraham our forefather, get the lion’s share of the credit in this story? A man of advancing years, recently blessed with the birth of a child from his beloved, but aged wife Sarah; a man who left his home and family by the command of an invisible voice, a man who only yesterday had to send away his first born son Ishmael in order to satisfy his wife’s desires – this man is now asked to sacrifice his only remaining progeny, his beloved son Isaac. And yet Abraham, this paragon of faith never waivers or falters, he moves with purpose to carry out this ultimate act of faith without a single word of protest. Surely Avraham Avinu is the real hero of the Akedah.
Or perhaps the true hero of our story is the character of Isaac. After all, the story is called עקידת יצחק, the Binding of Isaac. Perhaps our title hints that he is the true hero, the one who really lays it all on the line. In fact, our Talmudic sages believed that Isaac was not a young child at the time of this story, but rather he was a grown man of thirty-seven years old. If we believe in this chronology then our Isaac is no small boy heading out on some camping trip with his father. This is a ready and willing participant in this moment of faith. If Isaac is self-sacrificial, if he understands God’s command as his ultimate destiny, then Yitzhak must be the true hero of the Akedah.
On the other hand I often think about silent Sarah’s role in all of this. Perhaps she heard God’s voice the night that Abraham awoke from his sleep; perhaps she gave her husband her understanding permission to take their only son on this sacrificial journey. Perhaps she is the true symbol of faith in this story. Maybe Sarah’s role as silent mother is the most courageous of all.
Or maybe we are missing the biggest hero of them all in this amazing story. What about God? Isn’t God the ultimate hero of this tale precisely because God DOES NOT require this ultimate act of faith on the part of Abraham, Isaac and Sarah. Isn’t God the one who sends the angel to Abraham saying אל תשלך את ידך אל הנער , "Do not dare raise your hand against that boy?" Ultimately it is God who turns our story into a test of faith instead of into a tale of ancient human sacrifice; so maybe God is the hero of the Akedah.
But before we go and crown a winner, wait just a moment! Although you could make the case that each of these characters plays a courageous and heroic role in this tale, you could just as easily make the case against each and every one of these players. Far from being fine examples of heroes and heroines, perhaps we could indict each of them for their regrettable actions or inactions as the case may be.
Let’s start with Abraham. What kind of father accepts this divine decree against his son without a single word of protest? Is not this the very same Avraham Avinu who in a moment of tremendous hubris bargained with God for the lives of the innocent living in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah? There, in that story, our hero Abraham was willing to stand up to God and ask: השופט כל הארץ לא יעשה משפט "
“Should not the Judge of the entire world act with righteousness?” And indeed God, bent to Abraham’s moral will! But here in this story, when he is asked to sacrifice his own innocent son Isaac, now he chooses to remain silent?
And maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to let Isaac of the hook either. Either we read the character of Yitzhak as a young, naive boy; Or we to read the persona of Isaac as a grown man at the time of the Akedah, which means we must ask why he too accepts this divine decree without a single utterance of protest on his own behalf, let alone on the behalf of the emotional damage it would cause to his elderly father and mother.
Which brings me to Sarah Imeinu, whose presence is noticeably absent from the narrative details of our story. Now on the one hand I am tempted to give Sarah a pass, after all, it was likely a group of men who originally wrote this story, and they didn’t really have a talent for including the feminist perspective. On the other hand, my own feminist approach to reading the Bible challenges Sarah as to why she did not insert herself into this crucial story? Why did she not take an active role in the life and the welfare of her only child? Why did she not stand up to her husband and put an end to his incessant desire to please a distant Divine voice at the expense of her family?
Finally, I am forced to bring a critique against the character of God in this story. I hesitate to ask the question, but I know it is one that many of us here today believe needs to be asked: Is this the type of God we choose to worship? Do we really want a seemingly capricious God who is willing to tear the fabric of our family lives apart for the sake of a divine test? I certainly don’t. For this reason, I for one believe that God can not be the hero of our story either.
Which I think leaves us only one option unturned: there, almost lost in the background of our tale, tangled tightly in the thicket is the lonely, wandering ram. Yes, that ram, which appears so suddenly in our story and is ultimately brought to the altar in place of the boy Isaac, I believe that ram is the true hero of the Akedah. In sacrificing its life in place of Isaac’s, this dark tale of divine decree is suddenly transformed into a story of familial and national redemption; a story whose message is so meaningful to us, we read it each year. A hero whose example is so powerful for us, we sound the shofar in memory of his courageous act each Rosh HaShanah.
Now just to be fair, before you go thinking ‘this new rabbi….pretty clever,’ I must say that I am not the first one to say this! In fact, many people before me have pointed to the image of the ram in the Akedah as a paradigm for heroism and courage. I first was introduced to this concept by one of my most favorite inspirations, a maker of modern midrash, the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai.
With your permission, I would like to read you the poem which inspired this morning’s sermon. It is entitled “The Real Hero of the Sacrifice of Isaac.”
The real hero of the sacrifice was the ram
Who had no idea about the conspiracy of the others.
……
I want to sing a memorial song about the ram,
His curly wool and human eyes,
The horns, so calm in his living head.
When he was slaughtered they made shofars out of them,
……..
I want to remember the last picture
Like a beautiful photo in an exquisite fashion magazine:
The tanned, spoiled youngster all spiffed up,
And beside him the angel, clad in a long silk gown
For a formal reception.
……
And behind them, as a colored background, the ram
Grasping the thicket before the slaughter.
The Angel went home
Isaac went home
And Abraham and God left much earlier.
But the real hero of the sacrifice
Is the ram.
Now before you go thinking…this Amichai….pretty clever; as proof to the Biblical statement of “v’Ain Kol Hadash Tachat HaShamesh,” “There is nothing new under the sun,” Amichai is also not the first to have focused his attention on the heroic role of the ram in our story. Thousands of years ago, the rabbinic midrash makers taught us about the ram and the crucial role it played in the Akedah.
In a famous mishnah found in Pirkei Avot, the rabbis teach that ten things were created by God on the eve of the world’s first Sabbath. Among this list are things that would be crucial elements in the survival of the Jewish people throughout the Bible, things such as the rainbow that ended The Great Flood, the Manna that fell in the desert and the writing on the Ten Commandments. Included in this list however is our all-important ram, the very one we are discussing this morning. You see, his role in the Akedah was no case of mere happenstance; instead this courageous ram he was the one fulfilling his divine destiny on this fateful day.
Another midrash comes to teach us that lest we think the ram in our story was a one-hit-wonder, that is he played his role in our tale and then disappeared for all time, this is most certainly not the case. In a midrash found in Pirkei D’Rebe Eliezer we learn that every part of this sacrificed ram comes to play a role in the future of the Jewish people. There the rabbis explain that the ashes of the slaughtered ram served as the bedrock for the Beit HaMikdash, the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. The sinews of the ram provided the ten strings for the harp that Kind David used as he composed the Psalms; and its two horns were made into shofrot, the left horn became the shofar that God blew on Mt. Sinai at the moment of Revelation, the right horn becomes the shofar that God will blow in the world to come.
What I find most fascinating about this midrash is how the rabbis allow for the ram to transcend its animalistic nature and magically become the most important institutions of our Jewish religion. Firstly, by becoming the foundation for the Beit Hamikdash, the Temple, the ram turns into the idea of Korban, or of drawing closer to God through acts of sacrifice. Secondly, when the ram transforms itself into David’s harp, it becomes T’fillah, the institution of prayer; the chief thoroughfare of human communication with the divine. Finally, the image of the ram is transformed by its two shofrot, the shofar blown at Mt. Sinai is representative of Torah, of God’s special Revelation to the Jewish people. The second, the one that will be blown in the world to come becomes our image of G’eulah, of redemption. Korban, sacrifice; T’fillah, prayer; Torah, Revelation; and G’eulah, redemption: That’s quite an accomplishment for one small, woolly ram.
I want to conclude this morning by teaching you one final nuance in the story of our heroic ram. As we know, at that moment of truth, svach. The accepted English translation of the Hebrew word “svach” is thicket, although this word hardly does the Hebrew justice. The root of the word Svach, is samech, bet and chaf, meaning interwoven. But in fact, Modern Hebrew has taken its definition even further. The Hebrew word for ‘complicated’ is M’subach, meaning all tangled up, and it shares the same root as our word thicket. In fact the phrase Svach HeChayim has come to mean “the complications of life,” capturing the notion that to live in our modern world is to find ourselves constantly caught in a thicket of moral dilemmas.
We are trapped by elements of our society which worship materialism over spirituality. We are trapped by our media that tells us we should look this way, act that way and buy this thing. We find ourselves struggling to break free from complicated collections of personal entanglements, conflicts with our neighbors, our friends and even our families. In short, we are trapped ba’svach, caught in the thicket, and our challenge is to work our way out. When you find yourself caught in the thicket this year, will you have the courage and the sense of purpose to free yourself? When someone around you cries out in need, will you answer the call to help them, cry with them, and support them?
Moments ago we heard the blast of the shofar, a reminder of the heroic ram in our story. Now that we heard that shofar sound, the question we must ask ourselves today is do we have the same courage as that wooly ram? Do we have the strength to work our way out of the entanglements of a complicated life in order to become something bigger, something more meaningful, something lasting? Do we have the courage to live our lives just a little closer to God this year, as a Korban like this little ram did? Do we have the commitment to create a relationship with the Divine through prayer, T’fillah, as this little ram managed to do? Will we let another year go by without dedicating ourselves to the most precious gift God has ever given us, the Holy Torah? Friends, the results of our newfound courage in the year to come could be nothing less than cosmic. We must believe, as the ram did, that if we work to remove ourselves from the thicket of our lives, if we live our lives with a commitment to our Jewish values, if we truly allow the blast of the shofar to enter our souls today; if each of us has the power to achieve these courageous goals in the coming year, then we are surely one step closer to Ge’ulah and a time when all of humanity will gather to hear the long, last redemptive blast; reminding us what a little courage can do.
The Binding of Isaac . Knowing that each and every year we read this same story from a drastically different personal perspective, I asked you to ponder which character you most identified with this year. Likewise, during these Yamim Noraim, these Days of Awe, when we find ourselves wondering if we have the necessary courage to undergo great personal change, I asked you to determine which character in our story this morning acts the most courageously.
The reason I am asking these questions to you today, is because no matter where I may find myself each year, and regardless as to how I might be feeling on any given second day of Rosh HaShanah, I often find myself returning to the same familiar question – who is the hero of this suspenseful tale of the Binding of Isaac? Who is the character I am supposed to idolize? Which character am I supposed to identify with? Which of our players is the one about whom I am supposed to say to my child, pay close attention to this one; this person is an example of true courage, of real righteousness. And so the question I pose to each of you this morning is: Who is the real hero of Genesis 22, of עקידת יצחק?
A standard response to this query would be Abraham of course. After all, should not אברהם אבינו, Abraham our forefather, get the lion’s share of the credit in this story? A man of advancing years, recently blessed with the birth of a child from his beloved, but aged wife Sarah; a man who left his home and family by the command of an invisible voice, a man who only yesterday had to send away his first born son Ishmael in order to satisfy his wife’s desires – this man is now asked to sacrifice his only remaining progeny, his beloved son Isaac. And yet Abraham, this paragon of faith never waivers or falters, he moves with purpose to carry out this ultimate act of faith without a single word of protest. Surely Avraham Avinu is the real hero of the Akedah.
Or perhaps the true hero of our story is the character of Isaac. After all, the story is called עקידת יצחק, the Binding of Isaac. Perhaps our title hints that he is the true hero, the one who really lays it all on the line. In fact, our Talmudic sages believed that Isaac was not a young child at the time of this story, but rather he was a grown man of thirty-seven years old. If we believe in this chronology then our Isaac is no small boy heading out on some camping trip with his father. This is a ready and willing participant in this moment of faith. If Isaac is self-sacrificial, if he understands God’s command as his ultimate destiny, then Yitzhak must be the true hero of the Akedah.
On the other hand I often think about silent Sarah’s role in all of this. Perhaps she heard God’s voice the night that Abraham awoke from his sleep; perhaps she gave her husband her understanding permission to take their only son on this sacrificial journey. Perhaps she is the true symbol of faith in this story. Maybe Sarah’s role as silent mother is the most courageous of all.
Or maybe we are missing the biggest hero of them all in this amazing story. What about God? Isn’t God the ultimate hero of this tale precisely because God DOES NOT require this ultimate act of faith on the part of Abraham, Isaac and Sarah. Isn’t God the one who sends the angel to Abraham saying אל תשלך את ידך אל הנער , "Do not dare raise your hand against that boy?" Ultimately it is God who turns our story into a test of faith instead of into a tale of ancient human sacrifice; so maybe God is the hero of the Akedah.
But before we go and crown a winner, wait just a moment! Although you could make the case that each of these characters plays a courageous and heroic role in this tale, you could just as easily make the case against each and every one of these players. Far from being fine examples of heroes and heroines, perhaps we could indict each of them for their regrettable actions or inactions as the case may be.
Let’s start with Abraham. What kind of father accepts this divine decree against his son without a single word of protest? Is not this the very same Avraham Avinu who in a moment of tremendous hubris bargained with God for the lives of the innocent living in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah? There, in that story, our hero Abraham was willing to stand up to God and ask: השופט כל הארץ לא יעשה משפט "
“Should not the Judge of the entire world act with righteousness?” And indeed God, bent to Abraham’s moral will! But here in this story, when he is asked to sacrifice his own innocent son Isaac, now he chooses to remain silent?
And maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to let Isaac of the hook either. Either we read the character of Yitzhak as a young, naive boy; Or we to read the persona of Isaac as a grown man at the time of the Akedah, which means we must ask why he too accepts this divine decree without a single utterance of protest on his own behalf, let alone on the behalf of the emotional damage it would cause to his elderly father and mother.
Which brings me to Sarah Imeinu, whose presence is noticeably absent from the narrative details of our story. Now on the one hand I am tempted to give Sarah a pass, after all, it was likely a group of men who originally wrote this story, and they didn’t really have a talent for including the feminist perspective. On the other hand, my own feminist approach to reading the Bible challenges Sarah as to why she did not insert herself into this crucial story? Why did she not take an active role in the life and the welfare of her only child? Why did she not stand up to her husband and put an end to his incessant desire to please a distant Divine voice at the expense of her family?
Finally, I am forced to bring a critique against the character of God in this story. I hesitate to ask the question, but I know it is one that many of us here today believe needs to be asked: Is this the type of God we choose to worship? Do we really want a seemingly capricious God who is willing to tear the fabric of our family lives apart for the sake of a divine test? I certainly don’t. For this reason, I for one believe that God can not be the hero of our story either.
Which I think leaves us only one option unturned: there, almost lost in the background of our tale, tangled tightly in the thicket is the lonely, wandering ram. Yes, that ram, which appears so suddenly in our story and is ultimately brought to the altar in place of the boy Isaac, I believe that ram is the true hero of the Akedah. In sacrificing its life in place of Isaac’s, this dark tale of divine decree is suddenly transformed into a story of familial and national redemption; a story whose message is so meaningful to us, we read it each year. A hero whose example is so powerful for us, we sound the shofar in memory of his courageous act each Rosh HaShanah.
Now just to be fair, before you go thinking ‘this new rabbi….pretty clever,’ I must say that I am not the first one to say this! In fact, many people before me have pointed to the image of the ram in the Akedah as a paradigm for heroism and courage. I first was introduced to this concept by one of my most favorite inspirations, a maker of modern midrash, the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai.
With your permission, I would like to read you the poem which inspired this morning’s sermon. It is entitled “The Real Hero of the Sacrifice of Isaac.”
The real hero of the sacrifice was the ram
Who had no idea about the conspiracy of the others.
……
I want to sing a memorial song about the ram,
His curly wool and human eyes,
The horns, so calm in his living head.
When he was slaughtered they made shofars out of them,
……..
I want to remember the last picture
Like a beautiful photo in an exquisite fashion magazine:
The tanned, spoiled youngster all spiffed up,
And beside him the angel, clad in a long silk gown
For a formal reception.
……
And behind them, as a colored background, the ram
Grasping the thicket before the slaughter.
The Angel went home
Isaac went home
And Abraham and God left much earlier.
But the real hero of the sacrifice
Is the ram.
Now before you go thinking…this Amichai….pretty clever; as proof to the Biblical statement of “v’Ain Kol Hadash Tachat HaShamesh,” “There is nothing new under the sun,” Amichai is also not the first to have focused his attention on the heroic role of the ram in our story. Thousands of years ago, the rabbinic midrash makers taught us about the ram and the crucial role it played in the Akedah.
In a famous mishnah found in Pirkei Avot, the rabbis teach that ten things were created by God on the eve of the world’s first Sabbath. Among this list are things that would be crucial elements in the survival of the Jewish people throughout the Bible, things such as the rainbow that ended The Great Flood, the Manna that fell in the desert and the writing on the Ten Commandments. Included in this list however is our all-important ram, the very one we are discussing this morning. You see, his role in the Akedah was no case of mere happenstance; instead this courageous ram he was the one fulfilling his divine destiny on this fateful day.
Another midrash comes to teach us that lest we think the ram in our story was a one-hit-wonder, that is he played his role in our tale and then disappeared for all time, this is most certainly not the case. In a midrash found in Pirkei D’Rebe Eliezer we learn that every part of this sacrificed ram comes to play a role in the future of the Jewish people. There the rabbis explain that the ashes of the slaughtered ram served as the bedrock for the Beit HaMikdash, the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. The sinews of the ram provided the ten strings for the harp that Kind David used as he composed the Psalms; and its two horns were made into shofrot, the left horn became the shofar that God blew on Mt. Sinai at the moment of Revelation, the right horn becomes the shofar that God will blow in the world to come.
What I find most fascinating about this midrash is how the rabbis allow for the ram to transcend its animalistic nature and magically become the most important institutions of our Jewish religion. Firstly, by becoming the foundation for the Beit Hamikdash, the Temple, the ram turns into the idea of Korban, or of drawing closer to God through acts of sacrifice. Secondly, when the ram transforms itself into David’s harp, it becomes T’fillah, the institution of prayer; the chief thoroughfare of human communication with the divine. Finally, the image of the ram is transformed by its two shofrot, the shofar blown at Mt. Sinai is representative of Torah, of God’s special Revelation to the Jewish people. The second, the one that will be blown in the world to come becomes our image of G’eulah, of redemption. Korban, sacrifice; T’fillah, prayer; Torah, Revelation; and G’eulah, redemption: That’s quite an accomplishment for one small, woolly ram.
I want to conclude this morning by teaching you one final nuance in the story of our heroic ram. As we know, at that moment of truth, svach. The accepted English translation of the Hebrew word “svach” is thicket, although this word hardly does the Hebrew justice. The root of the word Svach, is samech, bet and chaf, meaning interwoven. But in fact, Modern Hebrew has taken its definition even further. The Hebrew word for ‘complicated’ is M’subach, meaning all tangled up, and it shares the same root as our word thicket. In fact the phrase Svach HeChayim has come to mean “the complications of life,” capturing the notion that to live in our modern world is to find ourselves constantly caught in a thicket of moral dilemmas.
We are trapped by elements of our society which worship materialism over spirituality. We are trapped by our media that tells us we should look this way, act that way and buy this thing. We find ourselves struggling to break free from complicated collections of personal entanglements, conflicts with our neighbors, our friends and even our families. In short, we are trapped ba’svach, caught in the thicket, and our challenge is to work our way out. When you find yourself caught in the thicket this year, will you have the courage and the sense of purpose to free yourself? When someone around you cries out in need, will you answer the call to help them, cry with them, and support them?
Moments ago we heard the blast of the shofar, a reminder of the heroic ram in our story. Now that we heard that shofar sound, the question we must ask ourselves today is do we have the same courage as that wooly ram? Do we have the strength to work our way out of the entanglements of a complicated life in order to become something bigger, something more meaningful, something lasting? Do we have the courage to live our lives just a little closer to God this year, as a Korban like this little ram did? Do we have the commitment to create a relationship with the Divine through prayer, T’fillah, as this little ram managed to do? Will we let another year go by without dedicating ourselves to the most precious gift God has ever given us, the Holy Torah? Friends, the results of our newfound courage in the year to come could be nothing less than cosmic. We must believe, as the ram did, that if we work to remove ourselves from the thicket of our lives, if we live our lives with a commitment to our Jewish values, if we truly allow the blast of the shofar to enter our souls today; if each of us has the power to achieve these courageous goals in the coming year, then we are surely one step closer to Ge’ulah and a time when all of humanity will gather to hear the long, last redemptive blast; reminding us what a little courage can do.
The Case for the Great Unplug: RH 1 5770
Isn’t it wonderful to be gathered together for another Holiday? The days of anxious anticipation are finally over, giving way to a Holiday meant to inspire us with feelings of joy, gladness, awe and reverence for God. Many of us no doubt prepared a beautiful festive meal in honor of this, the most important of holidays, and relatives and friends came from far and wide to share together in the simcha of Jewish celebration. Now here we sit as a congregation, raising our voices together in joyful song and heartfelt prayer thanking God for creating this wonderful day. Oh yeah, and it happens to be Rosh HaShanah as well!
You see, I was only talking about Shabbat! That feeling of anticipation I get each week, the smell of the challah which greets me at my door each Friday afternoon, the feeling I get when I welcome friends and family around the dinner table, the songs, the prayers, these are things we are supposed to feel each and every week, not simply once a year. But I know, I know, life happens too quickly, sometimes it feels like there isn’t any time to stop and pay attention to ‘little old Shabbat.’
And maybe you are right. Maybe life does move too quickly these days. Monday comes with a maelstrom each week, the cell phone rings off the hook as we make our way to work. On Tuesday your blackberry won’t stop chirping as your email inbox continuously floods with incoming messages. On Wednesday you have to pick up the kids from soccer practice, then take them to their guitar lesson, then drop them off at their study group only to pick them back up again so they can get home in time to Instant Message the friends they just saw! Thursday means food shopping, dry cleaning, and the time to call your mother otherwise you will definitely hear from her tomorrow! Friday is perhaps the busiest day of all; a day to spend a couple extra hours at work in order to cross off every entry on your action item list, answer every voice mail, dot every ‘i’, cross every ‘t’ before making your way home. With work weeks like these Friday night and Saturday can so easily become the only time you have for socializing, for going out to dinner, for doing some shopping, for taking the kids to a birthday party, for taking your ‘fun’ out for an evening at Dave and Busters. Because after all, Sunday is the day you have to drop the kids off at Hebrew School, then make a quick run to Home Depot to pick up that new hedge trimmer, meet a friend for coffee, pick up the kids from Hebrew School and make it home in time for the 4:15 Patriots game, Sunday dinner, put the kids to bed and have enough energy left over to make it up to watch Entourage at 10:30 on HBO, go to bed and then wake up at 6am to start the week over again. I know, I know, with lives like these who really has time for Shabbat?
What I want to talk with you about this morning is precisely this: A world that is too busy for Shabbat is precisely a world that is in desperate need of Shabbat. A world where the line between humanity and technology is forever being blurred is a world that is in dire need of the simplicity the Sabbath has to offer. Finally, a world that is rapidly shrinking due to globalization is precisely the kind of world that is in definite need of Shabbat and its intense power of localization.
Allow me to start our conversation this morning where any normal person would choose to begin: with Ben Stein. You probably have heard of Ben Stein, a writer, a lawyer, a former speechwriter for Richard Nixon, perhaps made most famous by his cameo appearance in the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, where his monotonous repetition of the name “Beuller, Bueller,” became forever engrained in our popular culture. Why do I make mention of Ben Stein in a sermon supposedly talking about Shabbat? Simple, I mention him because I know that Ben Stein is in desperate need of The Holy Sabbath.
Last summer, I stumbled upon a piece Ben Stein wrote in the business section of The New York Times. The article was entitled: “Connected, Yes, but Hermetically Sealed.” He began his article with a quotation from the French philosopher Jean Jacque Rousseau:
“Man is born free,” Rousseau said, “but everywhere he is in chains.” No doubt a powerful quotation in Rousseau’s day, an era defined by the struggles for liberty, fraternity and equality; but one that still rings strangely true in our own world as well. Using this quote as inspiration Stein ponders:
What would Rousseau have made of the modern-day balls and chains with which we shackle ourselves? They are not made of steel or iron, but of silicon and plastic and digits and electrons and waves zooming through the air. These are the chains of all kinds of devices, like the BlackBerry, the iPhone and the Voyager. These are the chains with which we have bound ourselves, losing much of our solitude and our ability to see the world around and inside us.
But far from being a diatribe against the many wonders of technology, Stein knows, as all of us do that technology is a wondrous part of our life. It allows us, to feel connected to our fellow human beings in an instant, despite the reality of the distance that lies between us. It has allowed us to live longer, play harder and dream bigger than previous generations could even have imagined. But nonetheless, Mr. Stein manages to describe a situation, one which all of us have experienced, when we rejoice in the tiny taste of a world free from our silicon chains. He describes an ordinary couple of hours during an airplane flight:
Consider an airplane flight. We are soaring across the country. We listen to music. We read books and newspapers. We sleep and dream. . . . Maybe you talk to your neighbors. You are free to think and to reflect on existence and on your own small role in it. You are free to have long thoughts and memories of high school and college and the first time you met your future spouse.
Then, the airplane lands. Cellphones and P.D.A.’s snap into action. Long rows of lights light up on tiny little screens. These are people we absolutely have to talk to. Voice messages pour in, telling of children who got speeding tickets, of margin calls, of jobs offered and lost. The bonds of obligation, like handcuffs, are clapped back onto our wrists, and we shuffle off to the servitude of our jobs and our mundane tasks. A circuit is completed: the passengers who were human beings a few moments earlier become part of an immense, all-engulfing machine of communication and control. Human flesh and spirit become plastic and electronic machinery.
Sound familiar? How many of us present here this morning have landed on the tarmac with a jolt, breathed a sigh of relief, and then immediately reached into our pockets to turn on the cell phone? The transition Stein describes is immediate. The book we were reading disappears, the conversation we were having with the stranger to our right vanishes as quickly as the bag of roasted peanuts we inhaled during the flight; our technological world once again dominates our existence. We think to ourselves: “Well, it was nice while it lasted.”
Finally, Stein concludes his article with what many of us would consider to be a frightening thought: He writes
WHAT would we do if cellphones and P.D.A.’s disappeared? …try a day without that invasion of your privacy. Or a week. You will be shocked at what you discover. It’s called life. It’s called nature. It’s called getting to know yourself. Will we ever throw away the chains that go “ping” in our pocket? Or have we irrevocably become machines ourselves?
I think we all can relate to what Ben Stein is saying. No show of hands is necessary, but I’m curious as to how many of us are willing to admit to having a bordering on unhealthy ‘cell-phone dependence?’ The symptoms of this disease can be described as feeling inexplicably nervous upon discovering that you left your cellphone in the house, while you are out walking your dog around the block. Or perhaps you feel a phantom vibration on your thigh every three to four minutes because the nerves in your epidermis have become accustomed to the feeling of being interconnected with the world. Again, no need for a show of hands (please), but I wonder, how many of you brought your cellphones with you to Temple this morning? Why? Isn’t the entire State of Rhode Island in this building right now? More importantly who could you possibly need to speak with that is more important than the Holy One who created our ever-expanding Universe? This Temple, on this day, and on every Shabbat and every festival should be a place where we feel comfortable putting away our ubiquitous cell-phones in favor of our often neglected soul-phones.
But now I want to ask you a different set of questions, this time feel free to raise your hands to signal your affirmation.
1. How many of you admit to an overwhelming feeling of freedom upon turning off your cell-phone for a couple of hours? 2. How many of you will acknowledge that instead of feeling depressed upon discovering that no one has left you a voicemail in 24 hours, you feel a sudden rush of relief? 3. How about this one: how many of us now define the true meaning of the word ‘vacation’ to be a healthy detachment from the silicon shackles of our cell-phones, our blackberries, our iphones and our laptops? Sitting on a beach, the sun shining on our faces, no cell-phone in site, no email inbox to check, we remark to ourselves: “now this is relaxing!”
The reason why we feel relaxed, this rush of excitement as we unplug, this overwhelming feeling of inner-peace, these are the direct result of feeling in control of our time. In our increasingly technological and staggeringly global world, we human beings have lost our sense of time. And ultimately, this is what Shabbat has to offer us: reclamation of our sacred time. A time that will not be dominated by someone else’s dialing of your phone number; a time that will not succumb to the internet’s impossible demands of immediacy. A time that is wholly yours, and a Holy time, to focus your energy and attention inward: towards your community, your family and ultimately into yourself.
As you all know we live in a world of intense Globalization and technology has done us all a wonderful service in making our large, spherical globe so much smaller and so much flatter. We walk down the street while talking to someone half-way around the country; at night, using our computers we ‘skype’ or Instant Message with people half-way around the world. We send an email and in a rush it stretches across thousands of miles and appears on a computer in India. We even experienced a burgeoning political revolution in Iran this year via twitter updates. Pretty amazing actually and I, for one, am grateful for the ability to connect with my world on a global level.
But I also want to encourage us to consider the oft-neglected power of localization. When we walk down the street, talking on our cellphones to someone who is a world away, we have a tendency to miss the old woman who has her hand out for assistance. At home, we so easily reach around the world to connect with someone we sometimes forget to reach out to the very people who live in our house. We check our Facebook profiles constantly often at the expense of our real, live, flesh and blood friends.
I want to argue that Shabbat is the logical and necessary answer to this culture of globalization. The observance of Shabbat forces us to localize our focus for one day each week upon our home, our family and our community. Imagine the impact Shabbat could have upon yourself and your household if everyone paused each week to connect with each other, not across the world, but across the dinner table. Imagine if once a week your kids concentrated with wondrous intensity as they played a game, not on their computer, but on your living room floor. Imagine if for one day each week we made it our concern to check-in with our extended family, the friends who make up this wonderful village we call Temple Emanu-El. Thinking locally for one day could really make a world of difference.
I would like to conclude my sermon this morning by talking to my dear friend Ben Stein. Ben, I agree with you. I agree that although we are free we are increasingly enslaved to our work, to our cell phones and to our laptops. I agree that due to this constant need to connect on a global level we are sacrificing our ability to connect intimately with our family, with our friends and with ourselves. But Ben, I disagree with you that the only solution to this problem is a three hour plane flight.
Ben, what we need is the Sabbath. Ben we need the ritual, the institution of Shabbat in our lives each week. We need, like Abraham Joshua Heschel said, “To set apart one day a week for freedom…a day for being with ourselves…a day of independence from external obligations, a day on which we stop worshipping the idols of technical civilization, a day on which we use no money, a day of armistice in the economic struggle with our fellow men and the forces of nature.” “Is there any institution” Heschel asks, that holds out a greater hope for the progress of the Human race than the Sabbath? I don’t think there is.
I hope Ben is listening, and I hope all of you are listening as well. We have the power. We have the power to control our own time, to take dominion over our lives. We have the power to turn every Friday into holiday, to turn every Shabbat into that overwhelming sensation of ‘vacation.’ It is easy to feel this power. All we have to do….is turn the power off.
Shabbat Shalom, oh yeah, and Shanah Tovah.
You see, I was only talking about Shabbat! That feeling of anticipation I get each week, the smell of the challah which greets me at my door each Friday afternoon, the feeling I get when I welcome friends and family around the dinner table, the songs, the prayers, these are things we are supposed to feel each and every week, not simply once a year. But I know, I know, life happens too quickly, sometimes it feels like there isn’t any time to stop and pay attention to ‘little old Shabbat.’
And maybe you are right. Maybe life does move too quickly these days. Monday comes with a maelstrom each week, the cell phone rings off the hook as we make our way to work. On Tuesday your blackberry won’t stop chirping as your email inbox continuously floods with incoming messages. On Wednesday you have to pick up the kids from soccer practice, then take them to their guitar lesson, then drop them off at their study group only to pick them back up again so they can get home in time to Instant Message the friends they just saw! Thursday means food shopping, dry cleaning, and the time to call your mother otherwise you will definitely hear from her tomorrow! Friday is perhaps the busiest day of all; a day to spend a couple extra hours at work in order to cross off every entry on your action item list, answer every voice mail, dot every ‘i’, cross every ‘t’ before making your way home. With work weeks like these Friday night and Saturday can so easily become the only time you have for socializing, for going out to dinner, for doing some shopping, for taking the kids to a birthday party, for taking your ‘fun’ out for an evening at Dave and Busters. Because after all, Sunday is the day you have to drop the kids off at Hebrew School, then make a quick run to Home Depot to pick up that new hedge trimmer, meet a friend for coffee, pick up the kids from Hebrew School and make it home in time for the 4:15 Patriots game, Sunday dinner, put the kids to bed and have enough energy left over to make it up to watch Entourage at 10:30 on HBO, go to bed and then wake up at 6am to start the week over again. I know, I know, with lives like these who really has time for Shabbat?
What I want to talk with you about this morning is precisely this: A world that is too busy for Shabbat is precisely a world that is in desperate need of Shabbat. A world where the line between humanity and technology is forever being blurred is a world that is in dire need of the simplicity the Sabbath has to offer. Finally, a world that is rapidly shrinking due to globalization is precisely the kind of world that is in definite need of Shabbat and its intense power of localization.
Allow me to start our conversation this morning where any normal person would choose to begin: with Ben Stein. You probably have heard of Ben Stein, a writer, a lawyer, a former speechwriter for Richard Nixon, perhaps made most famous by his cameo appearance in the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, where his monotonous repetition of the name “Beuller, Bueller,” became forever engrained in our popular culture. Why do I make mention of Ben Stein in a sermon supposedly talking about Shabbat? Simple, I mention him because I know that Ben Stein is in desperate need of The Holy Sabbath.
Last summer, I stumbled upon a piece Ben Stein wrote in the business section of The New York Times. The article was entitled: “Connected, Yes, but Hermetically Sealed.” He began his article with a quotation from the French philosopher Jean Jacque Rousseau:
“Man is born free,” Rousseau said, “but everywhere he is in chains.” No doubt a powerful quotation in Rousseau’s day, an era defined by the struggles for liberty, fraternity and equality; but one that still rings strangely true in our own world as well. Using this quote as inspiration Stein ponders:
What would Rousseau have made of the modern-day balls and chains with which we shackle ourselves? They are not made of steel or iron, but of silicon and plastic and digits and electrons and waves zooming through the air. These are the chains of all kinds of devices, like the BlackBerry, the iPhone and the Voyager. These are the chains with which we have bound ourselves, losing much of our solitude and our ability to see the world around and inside us.
But far from being a diatribe against the many wonders of technology, Stein knows, as all of us do that technology is a wondrous part of our life. It allows us, to feel connected to our fellow human beings in an instant, despite the reality of the distance that lies between us. It has allowed us to live longer, play harder and dream bigger than previous generations could even have imagined. But nonetheless, Mr. Stein manages to describe a situation, one which all of us have experienced, when we rejoice in the tiny taste of a world free from our silicon chains. He describes an ordinary couple of hours during an airplane flight:
Consider an airplane flight. We are soaring across the country. We listen to music. We read books and newspapers. We sleep and dream. . . . Maybe you talk to your neighbors. You are free to think and to reflect on existence and on your own small role in it. You are free to have long thoughts and memories of high school and college and the first time you met your future spouse.
Then, the airplane lands. Cellphones and P.D.A.’s snap into action. Long rows of lights light up on tiny little screens. These are people we absolutely have to talk to. Voice messages pour in, telling of children who got speeding tickets, of margin calls, of jobs offered and lost. The bonds of obligation, like handcuffs, are clapped back onto our wrists, and we shuffle off to the servitude of our jobs and our mundane tasks. A circuit is completed: the passengers who were human beings a few moments earlier become part of an immense, all-engulfing machine of communication and control. Human flesh and spirit become plastic and electronic machinery.
Sound familiar? How many of us present here this morning have landed on the tarmac with a jolt, breathed a sigh of relief, and then immediately reached into our pockets to turn on the cell phone? The transition Stein describes is immediate. The book we were reading disappears, the conversation we were having with the stranger to our right vanishes as quickly as the bag of roasted peanuts we inhaled during the flight; our technological world once again dominates our existence. We think to ourselves: “Well, it was nice while it lasted.”
Finally, Stein concludes his article with what many of us would consider to be a frightening thought: He writes
WHAT would we do if cellphones and P.D.A.’s disappeared? …try a day without that invasion of your privacy. Or a week. You will be shocked at what you discover. It’s called life. It’s called nature. It’s called getting to know yourself. Will we ever throw away the chains that go “ping” in our pocket? Or have we irrevocably become machines ourselves?
I think we all can relate to what Ben Stein is saying. No show of hands is necessary, but I’m curious as to how many of us are willing to admit to having a bordering on unhealthy ‘cell-phone dependence?’ The symptoms of this disease can be described as feeling inexplicably nervous upon discovering that you left your cellphone in the house, while you are out walking your dog around the block. Or perhaps you feel a phantom vibration on your thigh every three to four minutes because the nerves in your epidermis have become accustomed to the feeling of being interconnected with the world. Again, no need for a show of hands (please), but I wonder, how many of you brought your cellphones with you to Temple this morning? Why? Isn’t the entire State of Rhode Island in this building right now? More importantly who could you possibly need to speak with that is more important than the Holy One who created our ever-expanding Universe? This Temple, on this day, and on every Shabbat and every festival should be a place where we feel comfortable putting away our ubiquitous cell-phones in favor of our often neglected soul-phones.
But now I want to ask you a different set of questions, this time feel free to raise your hands to signal your affirmation.
1. How many of you admit to an overwhelming feeling of freedom upon turning off your cell-phone for a couple of hours? 2. How many of you will acknowledge that instead of feeling depressed upon discovering that no one has left you a voicemail in 24 hours, you feel a sudden rush of relief? 3. How about this one: how many of us now define the true meaning of the word ‘vacation’ to be a healthy detachment from the silicon shackles of our cell-phones, our blackberries, our iphones and our laptops? Sitting on a beach, the sun shining on our faces, no cell-phone in site, no email inbox to check, we remark to ourselves: “now this is relaxing!”
The reason why we feel relaxed, this rush of excitement as we unplug, this overwhelming feeling of inner-peace, these are the direct result of feeling in control of our time. In our increasingly technological and staggeringly global world, we human beings have lost our sense of time. And ultimately, this is what Shabbat has to offer us: reclamation of our sacred time. A time that will not be dominated by someone else’s dialing of your phone number; a time that will not succumb to the internet’s impossible demands of immediacy. A time that is wholly yours, and a Holy time, to focus your energy and attention inward: towards your community, your family and ultimately into yourself.
As you all know we live in a world of intense Globalization and technology has done us all a wonderful service in making our large, spherical globe so much smaller and so much flatter. We walk down the street while talking to someone half-way around the country; at night, using our computers we ‘skype’ or Instant Message with people half-way around the world. We send an email and in a rush it stretches across thousands of miles and appears on a computer in India. We even experienced a burgeoning political revolution in Iran this year via twitter updates. Pretty amazing actually and I, for one, am grateful for the ability to connect with my world on a global level.
But I also want to encourage us to consider the oft-neglected power of localization. When we walk down the street, talking on our cellphones to someone who is a world away, we have a tendency to miss the old woman who has her hand out for assistance. At home, we so easily reach around the world to connect with someone we sometimes forget to reach out to the very people who live in our house. We check our Facebook profiles constantly often at the expense of our real, live, flesh and blood friends.
I want to argue that Shabbat is the logical and necessary answer to this culture of globalization. The observance of Shabbat forces us to localize our focus for one day each week upon our home, our family and our community. Imagine the impact Shabbat could have upon yourself and your household if everyone paused each week to connect with each other, not across the world, but across the dinner table. Imagine if once a week your kids concentrated with wondrous intensity as they played a game, not on their computer, but on your living room floor. Imagine if for one day each week we made it our concern to check-in with our extended family, the friends who make up this wonderful village we call Temple Emanu-El. Thinking locally for one day could really make a world of difference.
I would like to conclude my sermon this morning by talking to my dear friend Ben Stein. Ben, I agree with you. I agree that although we are free we are increasingly enslaved to our work, to our cell phones and to our laptops. I agree that due to this constant need to connect on a global level we are sacrificing our ability to connect intimately with our family, with our friends and with ourselves. But Ben, I disagree with you that the only solution to this problem is a three hour plane flight.
Ben, what we need is the Sabbath. Ben we need the ritual, the institution of Shabbat in our lives each week. We need, like Abraham Joshua Heschel said, “To set apart one day a week for freedom…a day for being with ourselves…a day of independence from external obligations, a day on which we stop worshipping the idols of technical civilization, a day on which we use no money, a day of armistice in the economic struggle with our fellow men and the forces of nature.” “Is there any institution” Heschel asks, that holds out a greater hope for the progress of the Human race than the Sabbath? I don’t think there is.
I hope Ben is listening, and I hope all of you are listening as well. We have the power. We have the power to control our own time, to take dominion over our lives. We have the power to turn every Friday into holiday, to turn every Shabbat into that overwhelming sensation of ‘vacation.’ It is easy to feel this power. All we have to do….is turn the power off.
Shabbat Shalom, oh yeah, and Shanah Tovah.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
'Staying Close' to Synagogue: Parashat Ki Tavo 5769
Shabbat Shalom.
As a way of beginning an important discussion this morning I want to share an email with you.
This forwarded email is clearly very funny and exceeding clever but what is most impressive about it is that its contents can best described as life-saving. For those of you who perhaps have not yet seen this life-saving lesson, maybe due to your personal policy of never opening a forwarded email; allow me to share its message with you this morning, (With due thanks of course to the dozen or so congregants who sent it my way in the first place.)
The email’s title is: How to Stay Safe in the World Today. And it reads as follows:
-In order to stay safe one should avoid riding in automobiles because they are responsible for 20% of all fatal accidents in our country.
-But one should also not stay at home because 17% of all tragic accidents occur in the home. (that's 37% already)
-One should try to avoid walking in the streets or on the sidewalks because 14 % of all fatalities occur to pedestrians. (now that's 51%)
-Avoid traveling by air, trains, buses, or public transportation because 16% of serious accidents involve these forms of transportation. (that's a total now of 67%)
-Of the remaining 33%, 32% of all deaths occur in hospitalsl; Teaching us that above all else one should try to avoid hospitals.
But you will no doubt be pleased to learn that of the remaining 1% of fatalities only a miniscule 0.01% of these deaths occur in a synagogue; and of that 0.01% most are usually related to a previous physical disorder.
Therefore, sound logic, solid reasoning and mathematical truth dictate that the safest place for you to be at any given point in time is in here in the Synagogue.
For those who are wondering, Torah Study is even a safer endeavor. The number of deaths during Torah Study is too small to even register in our statistical accounting.
Therefore, for safety's sake, go to Shul as often as possible, and attend Torah Study. It could save your life!
This email, while humorous, and of dubious scientific accuracy is nonetheless offering us something to think about. When it comes to our own personal safety, our well-being and the well-being of our families, where should we be spending most of our precious time?
As always, I believe the Torah might have something to teach us with regard to this important question.
In this morning’s parasha, Parashat Ki Tavo the Children of Israel are told to perform an interesting ritual upon their entering the Promised Land. Six of the twelve tribes are to stand on Mount Gerizim while the remaining six tribes stand on Mount Ebal on opposite sides of the biblical city of Schem, modern day Nablus. Those standing on Mt. Eval are unlucky enough to enunciate twelve curses, twelve divine punishments for forsaking the spiritual or ethical tenets of the Torah. Those who stand on Mt. Gerizim have the more-desired position of reciting six concise blessings that will be bestowed upon the Israelites should they keep the terms of God’s covenant.
I want to focus this morning on two of these six blessings and explore what they have to teach us with regard to our coming to Synagogue more often. Of these six blessings two are familiar to us. The first reads:
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה בָּעִיר וּבָרוּךְ אַתָּה בַּשָּׂדֶֽה:
“Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the country.”
The second verse, one often found on Jewish art intended to be hung as a blessing on our front door, reads:
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה בְּבֹאֶךָ וּבָרוּךְ אַתָּה בְּצֵאתֶֽךָ:
“Blessed shall you be in your comings and blessed shall you be in your goings.”
These two verses and their rabbinic interpretations offer us great input into the debate over the safest and most fulfilling place for us to spend our time.
A discussion found in the Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Baba Metzia page 107a discusses the meaning of our first verse:
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה בָּעִיר וּבָרוּךְ אַתָּה בַּשָּׂדֶֽה:
“Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the country.”
There, the Babylonian sage Rav understands this verse to be referring to physical proximity to a place of blessing. He explains that when the Torah tells us “Baruch Atah BaIr,” it is actually sayingשיהא ביתך סמוך לבית הכנסת
“Your home should be close to the Synagogue.” Here Rav is saying that our blessing from God will come to us when we choose a home that is nearest to our place of worship. In other words, Rav believes that the blessing offered to us in the Torah is conditional upon our physical proximity to the synagogue itself. The closer you are to shul, the more blessing you will have. Let’s call this our Physical interpretation.
Well this seems well and good for those of us who live on the East Side, (check mark) but what about our good neighbors and Temple members in those very far flung towns such as Pawtucket, Warwick or the 'galacticaly' remote East Greenwich? Well those distant foreigners need not fret, because the twentieth century Hasidic Rabbi, Rabbi Meged Yerachim has an interpretation you will enjoy. He explains that the statement of Rav in the Talmud is not speaking of physical proximity to the synagogue, but rather about our own spiritual closeness to the morals and tenets that our Beit K’neset, our religious community teaches us. He writes:
יש אנשים שהתנהגותם בבית היא לגמרי אחרת מאשר בבית הכנסת. בית
הכנסת רחוק מביתם.
“There are people whose personal behavior at home is drastically different from their behavior in the Beit Knesset. This is what is meant by the phrase “Those who live far away from the Temple.”
Let’s call this our Behavioral interpretation. In it, Rabbi Yerachim teaches us that distance is not something that can only be measured with a ruler. He is saying that there is also such a thing as behavioral distance, when our actions represent values that are truly far away from the teachings of our tradition. In this way we must be conscious of taking account of our behavior; we must ask what are the actions which bring me closer to my community. What are the deeds which increase the distance between me and the Beit Knesset, the place where my community resides?
For a different interpretation of this same verse, I turn to a very famous rabbi The Maharal of Prague. Rabbi Yehudah ben B’tzalel Loew, most famous for his connection with the legend of the Golem, also was a prolific philosopher, scholar and commentator to the Torah. His interpretation of this same verse offers us yet another perspective on our conversation this morning.
He writes:
ברוך אתה בעיר: שיהיה ביתך סמוך לבית הכנסת,
Blessed shall you be in the city: When Rav interpreted this verse as meaning that you should live in close proximity to the Synagogue;
אין הפירוש שלא יהיה צריך שילך בדרך רחוקה
He wasn’t saying that you wouldn’t have to walk a long way to get to shul,
אבל ר"ל שיהיה ביתך קרוב אל הש"י.
Instead he was saying that your house should be close to Hashem Yitbarach, to the Blessed One, to God.
In other words the Maharal rejects the physical interpretation in favor of a spiritual one. He argues that the essence of the question is not one of our actual proximity to the Beit HaKneset itself, but rather is a question of our closeness to the One God who is worshiped in that Beit HaKnesset. One can live around the corner from the shul, one can attend services regularly and still feel distant from God. In this case the question we should be asking ourselves during this time of introspection is “How will I, in the coming year, move my household closer to God?”
Finally I wish to speak about one last interpretation, this one about the second verse I quoted earlier. This verse is also germane with regard to the discussion of the place of the synagogue in our lives. The verse from the Torah reads:
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה בְּבֹאֶךָ וּבָרוּךְ אַתָּה בְּצֵאתֶֽךָ:
“Blessed shall you be in your comings, and blessed shall you be in your goings.”
In Midrash Tanchuma, a collection of Aggadic Midrashim to the Torah this verse is expounded thusly:
ברוך אתה בבואך, על תנאי בבואך לבתי כנסיות ולבתי מדרשות,
Blessed shall you be in your comings: On the condition that you are coming to the Synagogue and to the Beit Midrash, the House of Study.
וברוך אתה בצאתך מבתי כנסיות ומבתי מדרשות
And blessed shall you be in your goings… as long as your are going from the Synagogue and from the House of Study.
I would call this the habitual interpretation. In other words, the blessing mentioned in the verse is bestowed upon the individual who makes it a habit to come to shul. Now, luckily there is numerical requirement mentioned as to the definition of habitual…it simply means that coming to shul to pray and to learn regularly, making it part of our routine, offers us the possibility of leading lives filled with blessing. It means that our physical proximity to our place of worship matters. It means that we should be behaving in ways which reflect the teachings of our holy tradition no matter where we reside. It means that we must work hard at bringing God close to our lives and the lives of our families. And finally it means that we must make a habit of going to our Beit Knesset, the place which offers us worship, learning, and the warmth of community.
I would like to end with a brief story about the importance of coming to Shul regularly. A habitual attendee of our morning and evening minyanim recently reported to me a harrowing experience. Upon arriving at morning minyan recently this person was shocked to discover that SOMEONE ELSE was sitting in their seat! Now to many this would seem a trifling matter, but to this person it ruined an entire morning! When they told me about what had happened they asked me whether or not I thought they were being petty. “Petty?” I asked. “No, you are not being petty, you are being pious!” I explained that the Halacha mandates that each of us have a Makom Kavuah, a permanent spot, that we sit in while we are in shul. So this person was actually fulfilling the mitzvah of claiming a personal spot of regularity in our communal space.
But, I also made certain to mention to this individual that a Makom Kavuah, a permanent personal spot, is to be respected only when it is Kavuah…permanent and T’midi…persistent. After all, if we aren’t there often enough for people to see us in that spot, we lose all rights and privileges to claim it as our own.
So feel free to stake claim on your own personal Makom Kavuah, your spot in this sanctuary. But make sure you come early and you come often, otherwise don’t be surprised if you find someone else sitting in your seat.
Shabbat Shalom.
As a way of beginning an important discussion this morning I want to share an email with you.
This forwarded email is clearly very funny and exceeding clever but what is most impressive about it is that its contents can best described as life-saving. For those of you who perhaps have not yet seen this life-saving lesson, maybe due to your personal policy of never opening a forwarded email; allow me to share its message with you this morning, (With due thanks of course to the dozen or so congregants who sent it my way in the first place.)
The email’s title is: How to Stay Safe in the World Today. And it reads as follows:
-In order to stay safe one should avoid riding in automobiles because they are responsible for 20% of all fatal accidents in our country.
-But one should also not stay at home because 17% of all tragic accidents occur in the home. (that's 37% already)
-One should try to avoid walking in the streets or on the sidewalks because 14 % of all fatalities occur to pedestrians. (now that's 51%)
-Avoid traveling by air, trains, buses, or public transportation because 16% of serious accidents involve these forms of transportation. (that's a total now of 67%)
-Of the remaining 33%, 32% of all deaths occur in hospitalsl; Teaching us that above all else one should try to avoid hospitals.
But you will no doubt be pleased to learn that of the remaining 1% of fatalities only a miniscule 0.01% of these deaths occur in a synagogue; and of that 0.01% most are usually related to a previous physical disorder.
Therefore, sound logic, solid reasoning and mathematical truth dictate that the safest place for you to be at any given point in time is in here in the Synagogue.
For those who are wondering, Torah Study is even a safer endeavor. The number of deaths during Torah Study is too small to even register in our statistical accounting.
Therefore, for safety's sake, go to Shul as often as possible, and attend Torah Study. It could save your life!
This email, while humorous, and of dubious scientific accuracy is nonetheless offering us something to think about. When it comes to our own personal safety, our well-being and the well-being of our families, where should we be spending most of our precious time?
As always, I believe the Torah might have something to teach us with regard to this important question.
In this morning’s parasha, Parashat Ki Tavo the Children of Israel are told to perform an interesting ritual upon their entering the Promised Land. Six of the twelve tribes are to stand on Mount Gerizim while the remaining six tribes stand on Mount Ebal on opposite sides of the biblical city of Schem, modern day Nablus. Those standing on Mt. Eval are unlucky enough to enunciate twelve curses, twelve divine punishments for forsaking the spiritual or ethical tenets of the Torah. Those who stand on Mt. Gerizim have the more-desired position of reciting six concise blessings that will be bestowed upon the Israelites should they keep the terms of God’s covenant.
I want to focus this morning on two of these six blessings and explore what they have to teach us with regard to our coming to Synagogue more often. Of these six blessings two are familiar to us. The first reads:
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה בָּעִיר וּבָרוּךְ אַתָּה בַּשָּׂדֶֽה:
“Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the country.”
The second verse, one often found on Jewish art intended to be hung as a blessing on our front door, reads:
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה בְּבֹאֶךָ וּבָרוּךְ אַתָּה בְּצֵאתֶֽךָ:
“Blessed shall you be in your comings and blessed shall you be in your goings.”
These two verses and their rabbinic interpretations offer us great input into the debate over the safest and most fulfilling place for us to spend our time.
A discussion found in the Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Baba Metzia page 107a discusses the meaning of our first verse:
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה בָּעִיר וּבָרוּךְ אַתָּה בַּשָּׂדֶֽה:
“Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the country.”
There, the Babylonian sage Rav understands this verse to be referring to physical proximity to a place of blessing. He explains that when the Torah tells us “Baruch Atah BaIr,” it is actually sayingשיהא ביתך סמוך לבית הכנסת
“Your home should be close to the Synagogue.” Here Rav is saying that our blessing from God will come to us when we choose a home that is nearest to our place of worship. In other words, Rav believes that the blessing offered to us in the Torah is conditional upon our physical proximity to the synagogue itself. The closer you are to shul, the more blessing you will have. Let’s call this our Physical interpretation.
Well this seems well and good for those of us who live on the East Side, (check mark) but what about our good neighbors and Temple members in those very far flung towns such as Pawtucket, Warwick or the 'galacticaly' remote East Greenwich? Well those distant foreigners need not fret, because the twentieth century Hasidic Rabbi, Rabbi Meged Yerachim has an interpretation you will enjoy. He explains that the statement of Rav in the Talmud is not speaking of physical proximity to the synagogue, but rather about our own spiritual closeness to the morals and tenets that our Beit K’neset, our religious community teaches us. He writes:
יש אנשים שהתנהגותם בבית היא לגמרי אחרת מאשר בבית הכנסת. בית
הכנסת רחוק מביתם.
“There are people whose personal behavior at home is drastically different from their behavior in the Beit Knesset. This is what is meant by the phrase “Those who live far away from the Temple.”
Let’s call this our Behavioral interpretation. In it, Rabbi Yerachim teaches us that distance is not something that can only be measured with a ruler. He is saying that there is also such a thing as behavioral distance, when our actions represent values that are truly far away from the teachings of our tradition. In this way we must be conscious of taking account of our behavior; we must ask what are the actions which bring me closer to my community. What are the deeds which increase the distance between me and the Beit Knesset, the place where my community resides?
For a different interpretation of this same verse, I turn to a very famous rabbi The Maharal of Prague. Rabbi Yehudah ben B’tzalel Loew, most famous for his connection with the legend of the Golem, also was a prolific philosopher, scholar and commentator to the Torah. His interpretation of this same verse offers us yet another perspective on our conversation this morning.
He writes:
ברוך אתה בעיר: שיהיה ביתך סמוך לבית הכנסת,
Blessed shall you be in the city: When Rav interpreted this verse as meaning that you should live in close proximity to the Synagogue;
אין הפירוש שלא יהיה צריך שילך בדרך רחוקה
He wasn’t saying that you wouldn’t have to walk a long way to get to shul,
אבל ר"ל שיהיה ביתך קרוב אל הש"י.
Instead he was saying that your house should be close to Hashem Yitbarach, to the Blessed One, to God.
In other words the Maharal rejects the physical interpretation in favor of a spiritual one. He argues that the essence of the question is not one of our actual proximity to the Beit HaKneset itself, but rather is a question of our closeness to the One God who is worshiped in that Beit HaKnesset. One can live around the corner from the shul, one can attend services regularly and still feel distant from God. In this case the question we should be asking ourselves during this time of introspection is “How will I, in the coming year, move my household closer to God?”
Finally I wish to speak about one last interpretation, this one about the second verse I quoted earlier. This verse is also germane with regard to the discussion of the place of the synagogue in our lives. The verse from the Torah reads:
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה בְּבֹאֶךָ וּבָרוּךְ אַתָּה בְּצֵאתֶֽךָ:
“Blessed shall you be in your comings, and blessed shall you be in your goings.”
In Midrash Tanchuma, a collection of Aggadic Midrashim to the Torah this verse is expounded thusly:
ברוך אתה בבואך, על תנאי בבואך לבתי כנסיות ולבתי מדרשות,
Blessed shall you be in your comings: On the condition that you are coming to the Synagogue and to the Beit Midrash, the House of Study.
וברוך אתה בצאתך מבתי כנסיות ומבתי מדרשות
And blessed shall you be in your goings… as long as your are going from the Synagogue and from the House of Study.
I would call this the habitual interpretation. In other words, the blessing mentioned in the verse is bestowed upon the individual who makes it a habit to come to shul. Now, luckily there is numerical requirement mentioned as to the definition of habitual…it simply means that coming to shul to pray and to learn regularly, making it part of our routine, offers us the possibility of leading lives filled with blessing. It means that our physical proximity to our place of worship matters. It means that we should be behaving in ways which reflect the teachings of our holy tradition no matter where we reside. It means that we must work hard at bringing God close to our lives and the lives of our families. And finally it means that we must make a habit of going to our Beit Knesset, the place which offers us worship, learning, and the warmth of community.
I would like to end with a brief story about the importance of coming to Shul regularly. A habitual attendee of our morning and evening minyanim recently reported to me a harrowing experience. Upon arriving at morning minyan recently this person was shocked to discover that SOMEONE ELSE was sitting in their seat! Now to many this would seem a trifling matter, but to this person it ruined an entire morning! When they told me about what had happened they asked me whether or not I thought they were being petty. “Petty?” I asked. “No, you are not being petty, you are being pious!” I explained that the Halacha mandates that each of us have a Makom Kavuah, a permanent spot, that we sit in while we are in shul. So this person was actually fulfilling the mitzvah of claiming a personal spot of regularity in our communal space.
But, I also made certain to mention to this individual that a Makom Kavuah, a permanent personal spot, is to be respected only when it is Kavuah…permanent and T’midi…persistent. After all, if we aren’t there often enough for people to see us in that spot, we lose all rights and privileges to claim it as our own.
So feel free to stake claim on your own personal Makom Kavuah, your spot in this sanctuary. But make sure you come early and you come often, otherwise don’t be surprised if you find someone else sitting in your seat.
Shabbat Shalom.
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