Finding Meaning, Making Sense
September 27, 2010
The weekly Torah study group that meets every Saturday morning in the youth lounge reads and discusses this week’s Torah portion, and sometime other writings. The dozen or more regular and occasional attendees generally go around the table reading paragraphs of the text and commenting on it. The designated leader of the week tries to manage the discussion.
Kol Nidre, September 17, 2010
September 20, 2010
Stuart Cohen’s Speech
My father’s generation sought to build great Jewish institutions. Temples, Community Centers, Federations, were a way to say to the world, “We are here. We are Jews. And we’re not going away.” Times change. How many of us here tonight, especially those under 50, want to build great Jewish institutions with magnificent buildings?
Lost and Found
September 18, 2010
Yom Kippur Morning 5771 / 2010
Temple Emanu-El, Marblehead
This is the time in our Yom Kippur service when I generally begin my morning sermonic message, but before I begin, I have some items that turned up in our lost and found, and I want to see if they belong to any of you here. For those in the back, I’ll try to describe them briefly…
[SHOW SOME LOST & FOUND STUFF]
Most of the time, lost items that are brought to the Temple office aren’t ever claimed, the problem being that if you are ever going to get something back, you first have to realize that it’s missing.
A little over a year ago, I found a checkbook on the floor near the entrance to Crosby’s market in downtown Marblehead, off of Washington Street. I scooped it up, looked around, and not noticing anyone looking for some missing wallet, I brought it back with me to my office to begin the process of finding its rightful owner. Soon after reporting its discovery to our local police department, and while searching whitepages-dot-com for possible contact information, our former Associate Rabbi, Rabbi Kassoff, came into my office and chatted with me as I perused the internet for possible matches. She couldn’t help but notice my enthusiasm.
As she pushed me just a bit, I expressed to her that of all the hundreds of mitzvot in Jewish life, I was doing my very favorite — Hashavat Aveida – returning lost objects. I have always pursued this mitzvah with special fervor. She then asked me the obvious question of “why?” What happened to you,” she asked, “that turned you into such an enthusiastic returner of lost objects?”
I had never thought about that, but the answer came to me pretty quickly. And it has to do with a story I included in one of my sermons nearly a decade ago, in a very different context. I will briefly recall it for you.
Back in 1965, and in case you’re interested, I’ll do the math for you: I was just seven years old, I received the following letter:
“Dear David,
I happened to pick up a little blue travel-pack as I was walking to work last Saturday morning. Upon investigating, I found that it has (1) a collection of baseball cards, (2) a pair of sunglasses, (3) a toothbrush with toothpaste, (4) a pen, with DAVID written upon it, (5) a billfold containing $2.52 in cash, (6) a loose dime, (7) a good luck piece, and (8) a loose football charm. I expect that you had thought it lost, but I thought I should return it so you don’t get into trouble with your parents. David, do write and tell me about your trip.
Sincerely,
Thomas A. Rubis, Rural Route #3, Spencer, Iowa.
To this day, I remember losing that little travel bag containing most of my worldly possessions, and I also remember my mother telling me not to worry; that some honest person would find it and return it to me. When Mr. Rubis did, in fact, notice my address and send it back to me, I understood probably for the first time what it felt like to be the recipient of such an act of goodness.
Just before my Rabbinic Ordination, I decided to take a gamble and write a letter to that man, just to thank him again — two decades later — and to let him know how deeply his kindness had touched me. I guess that the folks in the Spencer, Iowa post office knew where Mr. Rubis had retired in Florida, and they forwarded my letter to him. I was a bit shocked but delighted to hear back from him. Yes, he wrote, he remembered sending me that little bag so many years before. I’m sorry that we never met.
And as I thought back to that early experience from my childhood, it occurred to me that perhaps that is why Returning Lost Objects may be, of all the hundreds of mitzvah opportunities symbolized by the fringes on the corners of the tallit, my own very favorite. The origins of the laws go all the way back to the Book of Deuteronomy, particular this passage:
“You shall not see your neighbor’s ox or his sheep go astray, and hide yourself from them: you shall surely bring them back to your neighbor. And if your neighbor is not near to you, or if you do not know him, then you shall bring it to your house, and it shall be with you until your neighbor shall seek after it, and you shall restore it to him again. In like manner you shall do with his donkey, and so shall you do with his garment, and with every lost thing of your neighbor’s which he has lost, and you have found, you shall do likewise, you may not hide yourself.”[1]
In the laws of returning lost objects as they are detailed, first in the Talmud, and then expanded in the Medieval Codes of Jewish Law, we learn of the various obligations that fall upon the one who has found something. What objects need to be advertised, and which may we keep? How long are we required to hold on to what we happen across, take care of it, and what of any financial ramifications, for both the owner and the finder?
As Jews, we have never seen the abandonment of worldly possessions as a particularly helpful path towards heightened spirituality, for so long as we practice moderation and avoid excesses, ownership of property can be an expression of our unique individuality. Helping to re-unite a person with something that he or she has lost is, I believe, an affirmation of that person’s humanity, an aspect of how we learn to love our neighbor as ourselves, which is why our tradition takes it so seriously.
I’d ask you to take a moment to think about something you have lost – something material and tangible, perhaps something meaningful, unique, and irreplaceable. Remember what you felt like when you realized it was missing. Maybe you felt something more than just plain sadness; perhaps you felt diminished or vulnerable, guilty or even frightened. And now, try to recall a time when something you thought you had lost was then found, either just by you, or even better by someone else. You may have felt relief, or even more, something more akin to healing, joy, or maybe even rebirth!
According to the traditional counting, there are 613 Mitzvot ordained in the Torah. Nobody does them all. As Reform Jews, our list is more selective, and our choices evolve as our religious practices may change over the years. However, among the techniques, the spiritual disciplines recommended by our sages of old was to select one mitzvah, only one, and then learn how to do it perfectly. So this one’s mine. And I continue to study the laws, practices, and ethics of the lost and found, and hope to keep learning and doing them better.
As I mentioned, the rabbis call this mitzvah Hashavat Aveidah – and the word, hashavat most interestingly, comes from the same root as Teshuvah, which we generally translate as “repentance”. Teshuvah is, of course, our theme on this day, and the meaning of the word in English is really “Return”, more than Repentance.
On this Yom Kippur, we consider our deeds, our words, our behaviors over the past year, and seeing where we’ve gone astray from our values, try to make amends and resolve to do better in the coming year. But why this language of “return”, when the last thing we want is to return to the error of the past year’s ways? My answer, now looking through the lens of my favorite mitzvah, is that sometimes the first step of Teshuvah is realizing what we have lost, and then, finding our way to recovering it in our lives. Like many of the odds & ends that will go unclaimed from our Temple’s lost and found, you first have to realize that something has gone missing before you have the possibility of finding it again!
Last evening, our President, Stuart Cohen, delivered a powerful message about the direction and vitality of our congregation, and as I listened to his words (not just last night, but as he shared his message with me last week), I thought that so much of what he had to say was about recovering what has been lost. As a congregation, our teshuvah includes the need to restore connections between and among our congregants of all ages. And our teshuvah means finding new sources of vitality, innovation, and creative energy that if not constantly renewed, can so easily be lost in communal institutions such as ours.
On this day, we ask ourselves and consider: What have I lost that was once important and meaningful in my life? And how might my Teshuvah be the way in which it might be reclaimed? And I won’t hesitate to speak very personally, because after all, the best leadership is by example. An aspect of my own teshuvah, as your Rabbi, is asking myself: In pursuing my life’s work now for more than thirty years, has anything been lost that might be and must be recovered?
I am quite confident that my dedication to learning and teaching, mentoring and counseling has certainly never diminished, nor has my devotion to our congregation, my concern and care for our members and family, or the joy I feel in guiding men, women and children through the sacred stages of their lives. But I know that I am no longer the youngest of the rabbis serving on our North Shore synagogues. In fact, I think I’m the oldest. So I ask myself, and do so quietly but honestly, if there might be some measure of the enthusiasm, energy, inspiration and motivation that I brought with me two decades ago as a young rabbi, which have been lost or diminished by the challenges of our economic and cultural climate, or simply by the accumulated bruises and scars that inevitably come with the passage of time? A key aspect of my own, personal Teshuvah lies in recognizing whatever may, indeed, have gone missing, and recover it, renew it, and embrace it tightly once again.
A number of people commented to me, after our Rosh Hashanah morning service, that they were aware of how much I was enjoying, personally, participating more in the music with Jon, Lynn, Morton and the Choir. And over the past few months in particular, I’ve been reminded that it is, through music that I often find the purest joy and highest spiritual elevation. I’m glad many of you have noticed that, too. And I would ask you as I have searched myself: Is there a part of your own, spiritual life which gives you joy and inspiration, but which you have somehow let go of or even lost completely? Part of our teshuvah is finding the lost sparks, and then re-kindling our spiritual passions.
This is the day, this morning of Yom Kippur, when we ask ourselves: What’s gone missing in our lives? What of our ideals and our vision, the core of who we are, and the image of who we would like to become? Once we begin to anwer these questions, we can do the real work of teshuvah, and find that wholeness and healing, which are the promise of this sacred day.
According to a legend that is partly folk-tale and partly mystical, a baby while still in its mother’s womb, knows all of Torah, all of Jewish wisdom and learning. But at the moment of birth, the Torah escapes with its first breath. Of course, the baby cries. And then, throughout our lives, we seek through study, through prayer, and through our actions to recover the Torah which had been lost. “Every day,” wrote the Sefat Emet, “a heavenly voice announces that a valuable lost object – the Torah – has been found and is waiting to be claimed.”[2]
And maybe that’s another reason why my favorite mitzvah guided me towards becoming a rabbi. Being a Jewish teacher means helping people to find Torah every day. Living as we do in an increasingly secular age and culture, experiences of profound meaning, pathways to the realms of holiness, have most certainly, for so many, gone missing. And not only the rabbi, or even just the leadership, but our entire congregation — we become the open door through which people may find what’s been absent in their lives. I can tell you that it happens every day, especially when we stay clear in our mission.
I want to conclude my thoughts this morning with you by returning to the more ancient laws of the lost and found. In the tractate of the Talmud that deals with the various aspects of hashavat aveida, the sages ask the following question: When can it be assumed that a rightful owner has given up hope for recovering his property? If you lose something, you might hold out hope for days or weeks, but in the end, you’ll likely give it up as gone forever. The rabbis call that circumstance ye-ush – despair, at which point, the finder may assume that the search is over, and may keep the object for himself.
As Jews, we are conditioned not to give in to despair. Even in most trying of times and circumstances, in the words of the Israeli National Anthem, “Od lo avdah tikvatenu – our hope is not yet lost.” But what of those things of this earth that we can never get back or reclaim? Especially, what of our departed dear ones, whom we lose to the mortality of being human?
Even of these, our dear ones, we do not despair, neither of them nor of life, for such are the lost objects held in the care of God, where they remain in safe keeping, until such a time as we are united again, in the gathering of life.
It is my faith, and the hope I share with you today, that whatever we may believe has been lost from our lives, our spirits, our dreams and our visions, God will continue to hold for us until the time comes when we are ready to claim them once again. May this be such a time of restoration and renewal for us all. Because seeing someone find again that which once was lost, I think, may be God’s favorite mitzvah, too.
[1] Deuteronomy 22:1-3.
[2] Cited by Rabbi Daniel S. Nevins.
The Golden Weekend In Cordoba
September 17, 2010
Kol Nidre 5771 / 2010
Temple Emanu-El, Marblehead
I am often asked by people in casual conversation if I have always known I’d want to become a Rabbi. My first answer is usually something along the lines of “I’m not sure – I’m still deciding.” Students in Christian, theological seminaries, such as my classmates at Harvard Divinity School, or the classes that Professor Marv Wilson brings from Gordon College to the Temple every year often ask me if I had experienced “a calling.” To be honest, I never heard or felt a “calling” from above or beyond that directed me towards rabbinical learning and leadership. But then looking back on my High School and then college years when I was teaching Jewish music, coordinating weekend retreats, and developing educational materials for synagogues, summer camps, and Youth conclaves, my general trajectory emerges as a rather clearly defined, if not straight and narrow, pathway towards the present.
For example, when I was sixteen years old, one of my former summer camp counselors was working as an educator at a large, Reform Temple in Skokie, Illinois, a suburb just north of Chicago. His idea was to have older teenagers create a Religious School curriculum for younger teens, exploring the major aspects of Jewish history, and he hired me to be part of the project. So I spent the entire summer of 1974 without my parents or family in Chicago, sixteen and basically on my own, taking in the occasional Cubs’ game, swimming in Lake Michigan, hanging out at a nearby batting cage, and creating a Sunday School lesson on the period of Jewish history which came to be known as “The Golden Age of Spain.”
In the course of my research and preparation of the course materials, I discovered something I had not expected. You see, the Golden Age of Spain is recalled as a period, from roughly the 10th through the 12th Centuries, during which Jewish life flourished under a series of unusually tolerant, Muslim rulers. Jewish law, philosophy, poetry and culture blossomed as never before since the start of the Diaspora, and would never again — until the middle part of 20th Century America.
What I discovered, however, through my reading that summer, and what surprised me along the way, was that the Golden Age of Spain kept being interrupted by intermittent anti-Semitic outbursts, pogroms, and even forced conversions to Islam. In the end, I had trouble finding that so-called “Golden Age” for the Jews. So when the time came for me to present my educational materials, I had changed the title of the course from “The Golden Age of Spain” to “The Golden Weekend in Cordoba.”
Now, yes, Cordoba was for the most part, a great place to be Jewish for the better part of two hundred years. When Córdoba became capital of Spain under the dynasty known as the Umayyads, it also became a center of a most vibrant Jewish culture. One of the most famous Jews of the time was Hasdai ibn Shaprut, a physician and diplomat in the service of the caliph, the ruler. Ibn Shaprut attracted a tremendous number of philosophers, poets, and scholars to the city, and among his achievements were the translating important scientific treatises from the Greek language into Arabic, so that they could be studied first in Spain, and then throughout all of Medieval Europe.[1] I would also make mention of Rabbi Moses bar Hanoch, who, from his school in Cordoba revitalized Talmudic studies throughout all of Morocco and Spain. And none other than the great, Moses Maimonides was born in Cordoba, in the middle of the 12th Century. Perhaps the most important and influential Jews in all of our history, of whom it was often said, Mi Moshe ad Moshe, lo kam k’Moshe — “From Moses [of the Torah] to Moses [Maimonides] there was none like Moses.”
It is this historical memory of medieval Cordoba that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf cites when explaining the rationale for the naming of the Cordoba House, the proposed Islamic Center to be built two blocks away from Ground Zero, the World Trade Center complex destroyed on September 11th, 2001. The organizers of the initiative have stated that the name of the center was meant to invoke Medieval Córdoba, which they call a model of peaceful coexistence between Muslims, Christians, and Jews. The Center is intended, they claim, to be “a platform for multi-faith dialogue… striving to promote inter-community peace, tolerance and understanding locally in New York City, nationally in America, and globally.”
Unfortunately, looking back to the 12th Century and our revered, Moses Maimonides –he was forced to forsake his birthplace soon after the invasion of the fanatical Muslim Almohades, and in order to escape persecution, he and his entire family fled to the relative safety of Egypt. The Almohades conquered North Africa and Spain in 1146, and made Cordoba their capital city. Jews throughout Andalusia were forced to either adopt Islam, go into exile, or die for their faith. Their radiant communities which had existed for more than five hundred years were destroyed, and the horrors later to come under the Spanish Inquisition were preceded and certainly equaled by those of the Almohade Muslim rulers of Cordoba.
It is this historical memory of medieval Cordoba that skeptics and opponents of the proposed Islamic Center in Lower Manhattan cite, suggesting that for radical Muslims around the world, Cordoba evokes the images of conquest and triumph over the infidel religions of both Christianity and Judaism. Opponents believe that building the Islamic center in lower Manhattan would be a symbol of victory for the radicals, their legacy of September 11th, a military victory in the name of Allah.
For me, all of these historical associations were certainly part of my awareness when a local, newspaper reporter recently asked me, for quotation and publication, where I stand as a Jewish leader on this simmering, emotional, and complex controversy. Here is what I told her, and I know that many of you read my response just last week on the front page of our local press. I said:
“I know that my own feelings on the matter aren’t nearly as important as those who lost loved ones on 9-11, but I also know that there are differing opinions among the survivors. I believe that the terrorists behind the attacks were striking not only at the American people, but also the American ideals of freedom, pluralism, tolerance and peace. A nd those are the very ideals that we should use in assessing the appropriateness of building a mosque near Ground Zero. That is why I am not fundamentally opposed to the construction. My hope would be that an Islamic center near the place of that national tragedy would actually help to foster the most peaceful inclinations and promote the moderate voices within the American Muslim community.”[2]
Of course, I know that whichever side of the debate I would find myself espousing would be a matter of some certain controversy, even anger or disappointment. But to be honest, before the reporter’s interview, I had not yet formulated a definite, personal opinion on the debate. I’ll admit to you that sometimes when such controversies arise, I follow rabbinical wisdom — first by listening much, and saying little, and only later, synthesizing the various arguments in order to arrive at my own, hopefully cogent opinion.
Now having had the benefit of two weeks more of research and reading, listening and thoughtfulness, I can tell you that I do stand by that original quote. But tonight, on a night of reflection for us all, I have much more to say, and I believe that within this controversy lie certain hints of what the future might hold for us – both as Americans and as Jews.
In the Torah, more than two dozen times we are urged to bring our own historical plight to a better understanding of the plight of others, and as Jews, we need to recall only recent history when we were the victims of suspicion, bigotry and hatred, forbidden to build our own houses of worship on this very soil. When Jewish immigrants first arrived to New York in 1654, New Amsterdam Governor, Peter Stuyvesant, was determined to ban them completely. Jews, he complained, were “deceitful,” “very repugnant” and “hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ.” Never did he allow them to build a synagogue of their own.[3] Only near the beginning of the 18th Century would Jews in New York be granted the right to worship in public. Elsewhere in New England, such as in Connecticut, that right was not granted until 1843. And even into the 1950’s, new suburban synagogues commonly had to battle angry neighbors and zoning boards when they applied for building permits.
There are many examples like the case in St. Louis, Missouri, when Temple Israel purchased property to build a new synagogue in May, 1954. But the very next month, the city of Creve Coeur, suddenly amended their zoning ordinances requiring a special permit, which was then promptly denied. It took four years before the State Supreme Court forced the city to allow the synagogue to be built.
And let us not forget how, during that same decade, there were an awful lot of Marbleheaders who were not particularly welcoming of newly arriving Jewish residents. When we read some of recollections of our founding members, which are preserved in a series of Oral History tapes and transcripts, it becomes clear that the clergy leadership at the Old North Church played a vital role in chastising the prejudices of those who opposed the building of a Jewish house of worship in Marblehead, thus helping to pave the way for Temple Emanu-El to be established.
As a people who have been victimized by hatred and bigotry more so than any other in history, Jews have a moral obligation to be among the first to stand up against the growing tide of anti-Muslim prejudice in this country. A couple of weeks ago, when the pastor of that Gainesville, Florida church achieved his sought-after, international publicity by threatening to burn books of the Koran in commemoration of the September 11th attacks, I thought immediately of our ancestors, who, from medieval times well into modernity, were forced to watch in horror as cartloads of Talmud volumes and other sacred texts were incinerated by anti-semitic popes and priests, malevolent rulers, and vicious mobs. At one point, I made the comment that the same people who would publicly desecrate another faith’s sacred writings might just as well be publicly desecrating the American Flag. Shortly thereafter, the notorious minister of Topeka’s Westboro Baptist Church, those same folks who mount protests at the funerals of young American men and women who have died in service to our country, burned BOTH a Book of Koran and an American Flag, this past Saturday, September 11th.
So yes – as an American AND as a Jew, I will not stand in opposition to the building of the Islamic Cultural Center, the Cordoba House, also known now as Park51. But still, I need to clarify my stance and my feelings even further.
First, with regard to its location, I find myself agreeing with those, including the Imam himself, who argue that the site, two blocks away from Ground Zero, already a location of a drinking establishment, an off-track gambling business, and nearby strip club can only tangentially be considered as “sacred ground.”
But yet it is so close, and certainly in the vicinity where the destruction occurred. And I am clearly reminded of the leadership displayed by the late Pope John Paul II in 1993. He personally intervened to demand the relocation of a convent, which had been slated for construction in the vicinity of the Auschwitz death camp. He did so not because it was legally necessary, for it wasn’t. Rather, he did so out of compassion and sensitivity to the feelings of the survivors, to the Jewish world which had lost so many lives so very close to the proposed site. As a religious leader among the Muslims in America, I do hope that Imam Rauf would be inspired with a measure of John Paul’s compassion and wisdom.
I can’t say I knew much of the Imam’s life and work prior to the current limelight, although I gather that he has, indeed, devoted much of his career to working closely with Christians, Jews and secular leaders to advance interfaith understanding. He’s reprimanded his own Muslim religion for remaining, in many ways, in the “Dark Ages.” But thus far, he has fallen short of distancing himself from the terror of Hamas, and he has, in his interviews, expressed the only slightly-veiled threat of violence from the Muslim world should the building of his Cordoba House end up being scuttled. So although he is working hard to present himself as a peacemaker, as a builder of bridges, Lenny Zakim – he is not.
And where would the Imam stand on the crucial matter of Israel’s legitimacy in the world of nations? I would, of course, welcome any Muslim Imam or cleric who has the understanding and yes, the courage to stand up publicly supporting the existence of the Jewish State, and the critical importance of Israel’s security – not only for her, but for democratic nations around the world. But at the same time, whether I like it or not, and obviously I don’t, I acknowledge that there absolutely must be room in the American debate for a side that accepts the predominant, Arab narrative regarding Israel as their truth, no matter how passionately I disagree with their historical, emotional, or moral arguments. The freedoms we treasure as Americans come with substantial risks, one of which is the necessity of living side by side with those with whom we vehemently disagree.
Let there be no doubt – the growth of increasingly radicalized Islamic communities throughout the world absolutely endangers all that we hold precious – our faith, our safety, and the very principles upon which our country was founded. At the same time, it is my belief that America remains the best hope for the rise and influence of peace-seeking, communally engaged, Islamic voices. It is precisely because America allows freedom of worship, a pluralistic cultural and mentality, and separation between our religion and our government that here, if anywhere, moderate Islamic leadership may emerge as a countervailing voice to Islamic terror and hatred.
So if, in the end, the Cordoba Center is built, especially at that site, then all Americans will call upon its community and its leadership:
To acknowledge that Muslim conflicts around the world, such as in Chechnya, Kashmir, and Sudan, have nothing to do with Israel, America, or the Jews;
To call attention to atrocities against women in places like Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other Muslim nations;
To speak out against terror – clearly and unequivocally, including the likes of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al-Qaeda;
To protest the corruption and violence of oppressive, Muslim regimes;
To vigorously refute the Holocaust denial so prevalent today in Islamic publications and speeches;
To recognize that the freedom of religion that allows Islamic worship and community centers to be built in this country, is entirely absent in Islamic countries, where the death penalty awaits anyone who would convert to a different faith;
And to facilitate a healing of the growing antipathy of Muslims towards Western culture, and America in particular;
Should the Center be constructed, either in lower Manhattan or elsewhere, then I promise you that it will not take very long before we will know which Cordoba it most represents – the Cordoba in a Golden Age of learning, cooperation, and prosperity, or the Cordoba of tyranny, hatred and fear. Both are remembered not only in Jewish history, but in the history of the entire world, and perhaps, that will also be true to say of this time in history in which we find ourselves today.
I’ve never had the opportunity of having deep and intimate dialogue with my contemporaries who serve as clergy in the Muslim faith. I’d imagine that like my Christian colleagues, many, if not all must feel as if they are being called by God to sacred service. And so it is my prayer that God, the God of our father, Abraham or Ibrahim, will be present with them, calling still to them, and inspiring them to walk in the ways of Abraham: seeking peace, pursuing peace, and bringing men and women into the shelter of God’s peace. For that is the only path that might yet lead us and our world towards that true and enduring Golden Age, of which we still, and will yet continue, to dream.
[1] Cecil Roth, The Jewish Contribution to Civilization, U.A.H.C., 1940, p. 214.
[2] Marblehead Reporter, September 1, 2010.
[3] Jonathan D. Sarna, “When Shuls Were Banned,” Forward.com, August 11, 2010.
Wandering Jews
September 9, 2010
A RABBI’S RESPONSE TO EAT/PRAY/LOVE
Rosh Hashanah Morning 5771 / 2010
Temple Emanu-El, Marblehead
From the time of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, up until the re-establishment of the State of Israel, our ancestors were often depicted by the image of the Wandering Jew – homeless, pursued, and wearily seeking a place of refuge. Even in the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer includes the Wandering Jew among his cast of wayfaring characters[1], and in medieval Christian theology, the aimless drifting was a sort of punishment rooted in New Testament lore. There’s even a plant – the Wandering Jew, a kind of spiderwort, that I’ve been known to kill off in no time flat!
But although the common image of the Wandering Jew portrays a pitiful figure of weakness and helplessness, the historical reality of the Wandering Jew was that of a purposeful, self-reliant, and adventuresome undertaking — either by a studious, religious disciple, or that of an industrious, commercially-driven entrepreneur. More often than not, the Wandering Jew of medieval Europe embarked on his travels as a matter of choice, not out of duress. Travel was absolutely a fundamental aspect of Jewish life throughout the Middle Ages and on into modernity. We know, for instance, that in order to make a journey from one town to another, a man often needed to procure not one, but two licenses – one from the ruling government, and another from the local, Jewish community.
You may wonder why the Jewish community would have to issue a license for one of its members to undertake a journey. For one reason, it was to prevent the traveler from shirking his own share of the communal taxes generally imposed on the Jews by the ruling authorities, and also to make certain that no one had any outstanding claims of any sort pending against him. But once he had gotten the proper documents, the communal travel license offered him both safe passage and warm welcome into the next town.
A special Prayer for Travelers was composed by the sages in anticipation of the many dangers which can be met along the ways and roads, and likewise, a huge variety of protective amulets and potions may have accompanied the sojourner on his way. “May it be Your will, O Lord, our God and the God of our ancestors, that you will lead us toward peace, direct our footsteps toward peace, guide us toward peace, and enable us to reach our desired destination for life, for gladness, and for peace. May You rescue us from the hand of every enemy, attack, thieves, and wild animals along the way, and from all manner of dangers that assemble to come upon the earth…Blessed are You, O Lord, Who hearkens to the prayer of wayfarers.”
Sometimes these journeys were devotional, such as travel to the Holy Land, particularly in the years following the expulsion from Spain at the end of the 15th century. Or there was the case of the young student, the Bachur, who would travel from teacher to teacher, school to school, from Sabbath to Sabbath in search of guidance and wisdom.
But more often, Jewish medieval wayfaring was commercial in nature, and the diaries and testimony of the merchants form a remarkable historical account describing the realities of the period. So for instance, the journeys of the 12th Century’s Benjamin of Tudela, throughout Europe, Asia and Africa preceded Marco Polo by more than a century. Benjamin of Tudela’s diaries are a precious legacy of Jewish history, and important, primary sources for historical research in general.
My musings on the history of Jewish wayfaring have been largely inspired by this summer’s major motion picture release of the Elizabeth Gilbert novel, Eat/Pray/Love. Rather than take in the movie, I chose to read Gilbert’s book, hoping to better understand and experience the author’s own, internal reflections, not to mention her wonderful sense of humor. Given the returns from the movie, and the continued best-selling status of Gilbert’s book, I imagine that many here today are familiar with her tale of travelling the world to experience physical, spiritual and emotional renewal.
For those who missed it, at the age of thirty-two, Liz Gilbert was educated, had a husband and a home, and a very successful career as a writer. But she was unhappy in her marriage, and often spent the night crying on her bathroom floor. While writing an article on yoga vacations in Bali, she met a seventh-generation medicine man who told her she would come back one day to Bali and study with him. After finalizing a difficult divorce, she spent the next year traveling around the world, and in keeping with the egocentric, some would say, self-absorbed aspect of her voyages, she visited countries that begin with the letter “I”. She spent four months in Italy, pursuing the physical pleasures of eating and enjoying life. She then spent four months in India, withdrawing into the seclusion of an ashram, where she becomes a devout student of a Hindu guru as she sought her spirituality. She then ended the year in Bali, Indonesia, looking for “balance” between her physical and her spiritual aspects, and there she found love — in the form of a dashing, Brazilian factory owner.
Of course, as I read Eat/Pray/Love, I did so through the perspective of Jewish eyes, thinking all the while about how our own faith tradition perceives the human aspects of body, spirit and heart, and of course, what it means to be on a journey of self discovery. After all, that is the reason we have come to the Temple today, on the first day of our New Year. We look deeply and honestly into our own lives to discover that which fills us with meaning, and also finding out, perhaps, what’s been missing. We measure our lives according to the highest values of our faith, and hopefully begin a journey that will take us from who we have been, to the men and women we might hope to become!
The most obvious realization I had while reading Eat/Pray/Love was that if it was a Jewish woman going on such a journey, immersing herself in countries that begin with the letter “I”, I’d absolutely suggest adding “Israel” to the itinerary!
Even in Israel, it is no problem making one’s way eating and praying, and yes, loving, too. Over the past several years, Israeli cuisine has definitely made the jump to “world-class”, and, realizing that sacred places and spaces are part of the very landscape throughout our homeland, prayer comes quite naturally almost anywhere within her borders. And as for the “love” part, well, I have nothing personal to share, but as you might imagine, I know a few pretty good stories!
However, as opposed to the prevailing concepts in Western thought, Jewish wisdom sees no clear distinction between body and spirit. The Greco-Roman philosophers of antiquity conceived of a marked separation between the finite and corporeal body and the transcendent and eternal spirit. They imagined that the soul was, in fact, held prisoner by the lowly human body. Plato wrote: “The lovers of knowledge are conscious that their souls… are simply fastened and glued to their bodies: the soul is only able to view existence through the bars of a prison…”[2]
Jewish thought, on the other hand, proposed a more holistic view of the human being, in which body and soul, flesh and spirit, are both considered sacred, and they function in harmony rather than in opposition.
So for example, the most elevated of spiritual encounters was experienced at Mt. Sinai, at the time of the Giving of the Torah. According to the Book of Exodus, all of the Israelite nation that were gathered at the foot of the mountain both heard and saw the outward signs of God’s revelation – the smoke rising from the mountain, the sound of the ram’s horn, the quaking of the very ground beneath their feet.
A few of the men ascended onto the Mountain of God — Moses, his brother Aaron, two of Aaron’s sons, and seventy of the elders of the people. The Torah tells us that there, atop of the mountain, they basked in a vision of the Almighty:
“Then Moses and Aaron, Nadav and Avihu, and seventy elders of Israel ascended; and they saw the God of Israel: under His feet there was the likeness of a pavement of sapphire, like the very sky for purity. Yet He did not raise His hand against the leaders of the Israelites; they beheld God, and they ate and drank.”[3]
This passage has a rather curious conclusion, does it not? In the immediate aftermath of their unparalleled religious epiphany, the Israelite leadership took time out for a banquet. It’s as if they broke out the bagels and the shmears which they had brought along on their hike, and enjoyed a little nosh! This was hardly the reaction that we might have anticipated as we read the account from our own vantage point several thousands of years later. How could Moses and the others have turned so quickly to the physical realm of their own bodily functions, their hunger and their thirst, even while yet inundated by their supernal vision?
The 15th-Century Italian sage, Ovadia Sforno, from that very land of Liz Gilbert’s odyssey of eating, suggests that they made a feast of rejoicing because even in the midst of their spiritual elevation, even while yet glowing with prophetic vision, they remained connected and aware of their own physical senses. For Sforno, the nobles’ ability to eat and drink in the immediate aftermath of beholding God is powerful testimony to their having achieved a thorough integration of their physical and spiritual qualities.
In Jewish life, as we all seem to know instinctively, eating is certainly an aspect of our spirituality, even and often a kind of prayer. So we read in the Talmud: “At the time when the Temple stood, the altar used to make atonement for a person; now a person’s table fulfills atonement.”[4] That is to say, the destroyed altar from of old has been replaced – not here in the synagogue, but in our homes and around our dining room tables. Eating and spirituality are, indeed intertwined, and they are likewise braided with that third idea, love.
A beautiful example of how Eat/Pray/Love are intertwined in Jewish spiritual experience is the prayer that to has come down to us from the wife of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev. Whenever she kneaded and baked the challah for the Sabbath, she prayed: “Lord of the world, I beg you to help me so that, when my husband, Levi Yitzhak says the blessing upon these loaves, he may have in his mind the love I have in my mind at this very hour that I bake them.”[5]
So there, in that beautifully simple moment, we find the intersection of food, prayer, and love! And so we find again and again in our inherited wisdom how a healthy, Jewish spirituality seeks to integrate, not merely balance, the aspects of our personality that are physical, spiritual and emotional.
Still, I don’t want to focus only on the disparities between the author’s ideas and our own, because in fact, the spiritual travelogue that is Eat/Pray/Love accords quite well in a great many ways with our own Jewish conceptions. Gilbert writes: “Sincere spiritual investigation is, and has always been, an endeavor of methodical discipline.”[6] And Judaism without its moral and ritual disciplines would fail to inspire in us either essential or lasting benefit.
And of course, a geographical journey bound up with a deeper, spiritual journey, has been part of the Jewish story since our very beginning. Jewish history begins with the command from God, to Abraham: Lech Lecha. – Leave! Travel! Journey! You will leave your homeland, the place of your birth, and thus, you shall be a blessing to the entire world.”
Likewise, when Gilbert cites Gandhi’s assertion that discovering true knowledge is impossible without the direction of a Guru[7], (hence her motivation for taking up residence in an ashram), she echoes the Talmud’s famous dictum, “Aseh l’cha rav” – find for yourself a rav, a teacher, a rabbi.[8]
In early Hasidic lore, the rebbe was, for all intents and purposes, a guru of sorts, and as I described a moment ago, students would travel far and wide to the towns in which the local tzaddik, the saintly teacher, would hold court. The most intense search for truth and meaning, in the European 19th-century Jewish world, was found in the study hall of the Kotsker Rebbe. This Chasidic master’s demand of self awareness and honesty shaped the Polish town of Kotsk into a passionate center of learning and self-renewal. The story is told of one such Chasidic student who came to the city of Kotsk to learn with the Rebbe. The student immediately recognized the fiery eyes of the Kotsker bent over the pages of the Gemara – the oral tradition. Wanting to make a good impression he decided to be as honest and direct as possible: “Rebbe, I have come to Kotsk to find God.”
The Rebbe lifted his eyes from the small, black Hebrew letters. Staring straight into the student’s eyes he replied, “So go home. God is everywhere.” The student was crushed, his first conversation with this leader of thousands was falling apart. Not knowing what to say, he said “Rebbe, why should I have come to Kotsk?”
“Ah,” the Rebbe sighed, ‘to find yourself, my son, to find yourself.”
On this morning of Rosh Hashanah, that is why we have come here as well. Young and old, learned and novice, faithful and skeptic, Jew and non-Jew as well – I hope that you will see this day as a new chapter to an ongoing journey – the journey inward to find our true and best self. Because even the journey to God is a sort of wandering inward, where the goal, to quote Rabbi Arthur Green, “is an ultimately deep level within the self rather than the top of the mountain or a ride in the clouds. Spiritual growth… is a matter of uncovering new depths rather than attaining new heights.”
Our Jewish story began with a journey. From the time we have been Jews, we have been wandering. And without a doubt, journeys in geographical space can be essential to our personal growth, evolution, and discovery. But the most vital Jewish journey that we embark upon during these High Holydays is a journey inward to discover one’s essence, so then to express that essence in daily life. In the words of that Kotzer Rebbe:
“God spoke to Abraham… `Lech’, Go, and ‘Lecha’ – to yourself’, written with identical letters ?? to tell us that the essential journey … that a person must make in this world is to himself, to his essence. For that is his entire purpose in being in the world.”
As I read the Liz Gilbert’s bestseller, I enjoyed thinking of the similarities and the contrasts between the lessons which she brought home at the end of her year of travel, and the teachings of our Jewish faith as we begin the New Year. I realize that as Jews, we seek not simply to balance, but to integrate the physical, spiritual, and emotional aspects of our lives, for in the end, they are all ultimately intertwined.
I recognize that there are substantial differences between the Jewish and the Buddhist practices of isolation verses engagement, of the discipline of silence and the imperative of interaction; of the benefits of quieting the mind in comparison with the urgency of raising our voices in order to improve and heal our world. But when it comes to making our lives a journey towards finding the best expression of who we might become, that has always been part of who we are as a people and a community of faith.
I had a teacher, a personal mentor and inspiration, who would begin each and every day by reciting the Prayer for Travelers. “May it be Your will, O Lord, our God and the God of our ancestors, that you will lead us toward peace, direct our footsteps toward peace, guide us toward peace, and enable us to reach our desired destination for life, for gladness, and for peace.” I asked him about his unusual, spiritual practice, and he told me that he did so to remind him, at the beginning of every day, that he was embarking upon a journey.
And I have made it my resolution on this morning of the New Year, and I urge you to make it your resolution as well, to make this a year of being on a journey. As individuals, as a synagogue, and as a community, may this be a year of being Wandering Jews; hearing the call of “Lech Lecha”. Let us go forth, towards our innermost and our best possibilities.
For so we have learned: We may not always like the leaving, but God loves our BECOMING.[9]
[1] There is scholarly disagreement about this.
[2] Plato, Phaedo.
[3] Exodus 24:9-11.
[4] Talmud, Chagigah 27a.
[5] Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim, Early Masters.
[6] E/P/L, p. 2.
[7] p. 30.
[8] Avot
[9] Based on a poem by Rabbi Norman Hirsch.
The Vuvuzela And The Shofar
September 8, 2010
Erev Rosh Hashanah 5771 / 2010
Temple Emanu-El, Marblehead
Although I was in Israel for only a few days this past summer, I couldn’t help but notice something rather unusual that I had not seen on any previous trips. It seemed as if every restaurant, whether in the cities or in the suburbs, had added a big, flat-screen television on one of its walls. When I mentioned it to an Israeli friend of mine, he told me that they were only temporary. They’d been put up just for the World Cup soccer matches. Given the popularity of the sport, even in a country that didn’t have a team in the tournament, if a restaurant, coffee shop or other eatery didn’t have one, then they would have a serious problem attracting customers during the two weeks of the competition. Later on, I remarked how, during the matches, the sound was always turned completely off.
“That’s because of the vuvuzelas,” I was told. “Hem kol-kach margizim… They are so annoying!”
The word “vuvuzela” was only recently added into the Oxford Dictionary of English in its newest edition, and although relatively unknown to most of us before this summer, for South Africans, vuvuzelas are uniquely essential to the experience of being at a soccer match. To everyone else around they world, they were such a nuisance that various attempts were made by the broadcasting networks to filter out the noise of what commentators have likened to stampeding elephants, a swarm of locusts, a goat on the way to slaughter, or a giant hive of very angry bees.
As you probably know, this is a vuvuzela!
[Show & then sound vuvuzela]
Many newspapers around the world suggested an outright ban; even the Jerusalem Post had an article[1] headlined “Buzz of the Vuvuzela Distracts Israeli World Cup Viewers,” noting that the noisemaker “is overpowering the commentary and causing mayhem.” The article described the sound, perhaps as only an Israeli newspaper could, as resembling “a shofar mixed with the call of an elephant.”
Legend has it that the plastic horn hearkens back to a time when South African warriors blew antelope horns to call villagers to meetings, to announce their arrival at battles, or to strike fear in the hearts of their opponents. And although that resembles in some ways the role played by the shofar in early Jewish history, in truth, the vuvuzela’s origins are more likely to be connected to plastic bicycle horns. As it turns out, the similarities between the South African vuvuzela and the shofar of our Jewish tradition aren’t very substantial.
Plus, I can promise that the sound of the shofar that resonates on our New Year will not grate on our nerves. No, on the contrary – it will be remarkably pleasing, inexplicably familiar, even though it is a sound as ancient as the earliest days of our people.
[Sound Shofar]
By our contemporary musical standards, the melodies and refrains of the shofar are anything but refined. Some worshipping here tonight may recall a time when many Reform synagogues substituted a trumpet, or even played the sounding notes on an organ, in order to create a more modern, aesthetically pleasing tonality. But these more sophisticated musical instruments failed to capture the Shofar’s unique, somewhat eerie registers that echo with antiquity, and a powerful spirit of triumph.
Tonight begins the New Year, and the highlight of our Rosh Hashanah services tomorrow morning will be the sounding of the shofar. We read in the Bible, “In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a sacred occasion; you shall not work. You shall observe it as a day of sounding the shofar.”[2] The Torah never uses the name, Rosh Hashanah. It continually refers to this holyday as “Yom Teruah” – a day of sounding the shofar. But what is the symbolism, the essence behind the Shofar calls, and why on this day in particular? The Torah gives no explanation. But the rabbis of our tradition urge us, during this season, to study and to meditate on the meaning of these ancient sounds.
This shofar that I am holding has been used for decades here at Temple Emanu-El, and for many years, our Ba’al Tekiah, Bill Cantor, used to come pick it up from my office several weeks before the High Holydays to begin practicing; getting in shape. Ever the athlete, Bill needed to firm up his embouchure, condition his lungs. When the time finally came for Bill to pass the torch, so to speak, I handled the duties for a couple of years, until Don Ganz “answered the call”, and he has done so most admirably ever since.
I have Don’s permission to tell you, well, let me put it like this: In my 30 years of being on the pulpit, and including the many hundreds of Bar and Bat Mitzvah’s I’ve conducted, it’s fair to say that I’ve never seen anyone MORE nervous than Don was before those first few tekiyot his first year on our bima. Don admitted to me, “I remember how my right leg was visibly shaking and someone in the front row actually pointed to it…I thought I was going to pass out. I remember I thought I was going to be okay until right before when you said ‘Just remember it’s not a performance – it’s prayer.’ That’s when I lost it!!”
Imagine that! It’s not as if being in front of people was a new experience for Don! Whether as Don or “Dondo”, he’s has been a professional entertainer for more than 30 years! But having the awesome, spiritual role of sounding the shofar for our congregation here on our bima… that made him shake in his boots – a response very much in keeping with the Biblical prophet, Amos, who observed, “Shall the shofar be sounded in the city, and the people not tremble?”[3]
Don would practice for weeks leading up to Rosh Hashanah — which can be a problem, of course. Where can you go to practice the shofar? I remember that his studio wasn’t possible because the neighbors kept complaining. So Don would go out on a boat, into the middle of Salem Harbor, and although that gave him the space, it was still a bit inconvenient. The fisherman told him he was scaring away the stripers, and the Coast Guard would think he was in some sort of distress!
So instead, he’d come to the Temple to practice, and the sound of the shofar in the sanctuary, during the weeks prior to Rosh Hashanah, has not only kept me intensely aware of the rapid approach of the New Year, but also helped reinforce for me that, when it came to my preparations… there is always less time than we think!
The story is told of how the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, instructed his new Baal Tekiah to delve into and learn the deepest, mystical meanings behind each of the shofar blasts. Only then would the essential power within the sounds stir the congregation to its core. And so the man did. He studied and meditated the meaning of the sounds, and then, he even wrote down some notes on a slip of paper. He put the paper in his pocket so that he might be reminded of the various meanings before sounding the shofar.
Now what that fellow may not have realized is that the custom of blowing the shofar is actually older than Judaism. In ancient days, even before the time of the Bible people believed in the shofar’s magical powers — that the blasts from a horn could drive away demons. The use of loud noises to scare away evil spirits is common to many cultures. That is the main reason for fireworks on the Chinese New Year. It is also one of the origins for the custom of breaking a glass at the end of a Jewish wedding.
But the Bible never connects the shofar with frightening away evil spirits. Instead, it relates the meaning of the shofar blast to the theme of a coronation. “The Lord ascends His throne amidst a loud sound,” declares the Psalmist. “God rises amidst the sound of the shofar.”[4] Rosh Hashanah celebrates the beginning of Creation. It is The Birthday of Universe. And so the Shofar blasts, by re-enacting the Coronation of God, commemorate the anniversary of creation, when there came to be a world over which God could rule.
As the Shofar declares God to be the Ruler of the World, we should recognize and acknowledge the many different forces which wield power over us in our lives. Therefore in every tekiah there comes a question: By whom are we ruled? By what values are our lives being guided? To which causes have we pledged our allegiance? Often, we who have chosen to blend our Jewish tradition with American society are governed by the fads and fashions of the day. And all of us, at times, are held captive to unconscious habits and harmful fixations. So the sound of the Shofar calls upon us to check and re-direct our priorities, enabling only the highest values, the Godly ideals, to reign supreme in our lives.
In the days of our Biblical ancestors, the shofar was also used as a call to battle. When Gideon would rouse his troops, “Va-yit-k’u ba-shofarot, they sounded a tekiah on the shofar.”[5] When the watchman of a city would awake its sleeping inhabitants to warn them of impending danger, “Ve-takah bashofar, ve-hiz-hir et ha-am, “He sounded the shofar and warned the populace.”[6]
In our own generation, the Shofar remains a call to battle, but not necessarily in the realm of the military. Our primary battle is within, engaging in battle against the enemy which is often our own self. How difficult it is to change our lives for the better, to realize our vision of who we could possibly become. Achieving the highest potential within us comes only after years of hard work, and in fact, the struggle never really comes to an end. So on Rosh Hashanah, we re-arm for the battle, and the sound of the shofar re-awakens within us the strength to continue onward.
If the neurological scientists are correct, certain sounds affect us because they touch the remnant of some ancient, genetic memory. So too, for the Jewish community, the sound of the shofar carries us back to the very birth of our history, to the time and the place when we accepted our mission to be a covenant people, a light to the nations. The Torah describes in great detail how the sound of a mighty shofar accompanied the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mt. Sinai. “…as morning dawned, there was thunder, and lightening, and a dense cloud upon the mountain, and a very loud blast of the shofar; and all the people who were in the camp trembled. Moses led the people out of the camp toward God, and they took their places at the foot of the mountain.”[7] This is why it is traditional for us to stand while the shofar is sounded, just as our Israelite ancestors stood in awe at the foot of Mt. Sinai. In hearing the shofar calls, we are transported back to that place and time. We experience, once again, the call of the Divine. We accept anew the Torah as our pathway to peace. As Jews, we are reborn into the ancient covenant between God and Israel.
Finally, the shofar recalls not only our past, but in the same instant, it carries us forward into the future. For in Jewish tradition, the tekiah gedolah, the heroic, final blast, symbolizes human liberation, a Messianic Era of wholeness and peace. In the words of Isaiah, “On that day, the Great Shofar shall be sounded.”[8] There will come a time when the battles, within ourselves and throughout the world, will be over and they will have been won. As we hear the Tekiah Gedolah, we lift our ears and our eyes to catch a glimpse of that world still yet to be realized, and perhaps renew our hope and faith that such a dream is still possible to hold.
These are but a few of the symbolic and historical associations we recall when we hear the shofar sounding. And remember, the mitzvah, the obligation we share on Rosh Hashanah is not to blow the shofar. That’s why we have Bill, and Don, and hopefully later on, many of our congregation will bring your own shofrot to our concluding service on Yom Kippur, and join in blasting a final Tekiah Gedolah. But no, our job on this day is to hear the sound of the shofar – lishmoah kol shofar, and as we listen to its ancient and powerful registers, to consider all of the meanings those sounds might convey to guide and inspire us as we begin the New Year.
But a word of caution: What I haven’t told you is that the shofar sounder for the Baal Shem Tov, the one who studied, meditated, and then wrote down all of those mystical implications – in the end, when the time came for him to ascend the bima, was panicked to discover that he had somehow lost that little slip of paper. He had nothing but his own heart to depend on. And in the end, that was enough, as the power and beauty of each tekiah, shevarim and teruah from his shofar transcended all that had ever before been heard.
So may it be for all of us who hear the shofar sounding! Although our study and preparations are important, in the final moments, the sound of the shofar comes to stir our heart, even more than our minds.
And maybe that is why those vuvuzelas during the World Cup soccer matches were so annoying – they buzzed in our ears, but the sounds went no further. There they stuck and were unable to penetrate to any depth of meaning.
But as the shofar soundings enter our hearing, if we allow them, they will go so much further, so much deeper – echoing within our hearts, our memories, and the soul of an entire people. They will reawaken in us memories of the past, hopes for this day, and promises for the future.
Tekiah! [sound shofar]
[1] June 14, 2010.
[2] Numb. 29:1.
[3] Amos 3:6.
[4] Psalms 47:6.
[5] Judges 7:19.
[6] Ezekiel.33:3.
[7] Exodus 19:16-17.
[8] Isaiah 27:13.
