THE TORTOISE AND THE SCORPION: CAN PEOPLE CHANGE?
October 8, 2011
Yom Kippur Morning 5772
In the middle of his beautiful work of poetic fiction, David Rakoff, recent winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor, included an original version of an ancient fable, which like the rest of his composition, is written in rhyming couplets. The theme of the fable carries not an answer, but a most profound question that is likewise perhaps, the most central question and concern for this sacred Day of Atonement. So I would begin my message on this morning of Yom Kippur with David Rakoff’s telling of the legend of the Tortoise and the Scorpion:
“The scorpion was hamstrung, his tail all aquiver;
just how would he manage to get across the river?
“The water’s so deep,” he observed with a sigh,
which pricked at the ears of the tortoise nearby.
“Well why don’t you swim?” asked the slow-moving fellow,
“unless you’re afraid. I mean, what are you, yellow?”
“It isn’t a matter of fear or of whim,”
said the scorpion, “but that I don’t know how to swim.”
“Ah, forgive me. I didn’t mean to be glib when
I said that. I figured you were an amphibian.”
“No offense taken,” the scorpion replied,
“but how about you help me to reach the far side?
You swim like a dream, and you have what I lack.
Let’s say you take me across on your back?”
“I’m really not sure that’s the best thing to do,”
said the tortoise, “now that I see that it’s you.
You’ve a less than ideal reputation preceding:
there’s talk of your victims all poisoned and bleeding.
You’re the scorpion — and how can I say this — but, well,
I just don’t feel safe with you riding my shell.”
The scorpion replied, “What would killing you prove?
We’d both drown, so tell me: how would that behoove
me to basically die at my very own hand
when all I desire is to be on dry land?”
The tortoise considered the scorpion’s defense.
When he gave it some thought, it made perfect sense.
The niggling voice in his mind he ignored,
and he swam to the bank and called out: “Climb aboard!”
But just a few moments from when they set sail,
the scorpion lashed out with his venomous tail.
The tortoise too late understood that he’d blundered
when he felt his flesh stabbed and his carapace sundered.
As he fought for his life, he said, “tell me why
you have done this! For now we will surely both die!”
“I don’t know!” cried the scorpion. “You never should trust
a creature like me because poison I must!
I’d claim some remorse or at least some compunction,
but I just can’t help it; my form is my function.
You thought I’d behave like my cousin, the crab,
but unlike him, it is but my nature to stab.”
The tortoise expired with one final quiver.
And then both of them sank, swallowed up by the river.
The tortoise was wrong to ignore all his doubts —
because in the end, friends, our natures wins out.”[i]
The ancient parable can be found expressed in a wide variety of forms, and Rakoff’s version of the story, even were it not written in poetic couplets, is not the only expression of the same narrative. In some renditions, the scorpion is, in fact, unable to pierce the turtle’s hard shell, so having learned his lesson, the tortoise simply dives under the water, and leaves the scorpion to his watery grave. In other versions, particularly among certain Christian homilists, the story is told as a caution against following the temptations of one’s own devising.
But as expressed in the poem with which we began is, I believe, most faithful to the message of the fable, and as such, it expresses the philosophical warning so typical of the Hellenistic world view; that one can never escape, change, or avoid the consequences of one’s own inclinations. We are held captives by a fate beyond our control, even as we are prisoners to our inherited personalities. This basic fact is the foundation of all of Greco-Roman mythology, and informs the tragedies of Greek theater and even much of some contemporary, psychological paradigms. Try as he might to avoid an action that will certainly lead to his own demise, that scorpion must sting the tortoise. The moral of the fable is that the he really had no other choice.
Likewise, there is no shortage of contemporary, conventional wisdom, which argues that we are who we are – end of story; that true, essential change as human beings is never really possible. In the end, our personalities dictate our behaviors often, like the scorpion, to our own destruction.
But Jewish thought and philosophy differed at the most basic level with that of the Greeks and their followers, as Judaism always held fast to the belief that human beings stand alone among the creatures of the earth precisely because of the free will we possess, and therefore, the ability to change, to grow, to evolve as individuals and as a species. That is precisely why we read this morning a section of Torah specifically chosen for this sacred day: “See I set before you this day life and good, or death and evil… Choose life…!”[ii] Yom Kippur as our Day of Atonement, rests upon the belief and the trust that people are capable of transcending their own, innate inclinations, and are able to make changes for the better.
It is the ability to grow, to choose our ways in life is what makes us human; it is the meaning of being created in the image of God. Although animals do grow, they do not voluntarily change themselves. The transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly or a tadpole to a frog is programmed in their genes. They do not willingly make this transformation, and they are powerless to stop it. What makes us unique among earth’s creatures, what makes us fully human and according to some medieval philosophers – what it means to be created in the Image of God, is our ability to transcend both biology and environment, and to intentionally change our lives towards a higher moral vision.
The modern philosopher, Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote: “A stone is characterized by its finality, whereas man’s outstanding quality is in its being a surprise… To insist that I must be only what I am now is a restriction which human nature must abhor. The being of a person is never completed, [never] final.”[iii]
Expressing the same idea in somewhat less lofty language, the playwright, George Bernard Shaw is quoted as saying: “The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.”
This past Spring, I taught a course in our community’s “Torah Hub” Adult Education series, which explored the spiritual discipline of Jewish, moral development. Generally, when we think of Jewish, spiritual disciplines, we think of activities such as study and prayer, holyday observance, keeping Kosher, or other such focused practices. But particularly by engaging the Jewish literature known as “Musar”, personal, moral development is also pursued as an authentically Jewish, spiritual discipline.
The study of Musar, a word that means “inherited wisdom”, has always been part of Jewish learning, but it became in the early 19th-Century a specialized area of focus. The texts of Musar deal primarily with the development of ethical qualities, moral virtues, and the highest ideals of human conduct. The primary goal of this literature is not to inform, but to transform its students and readers.
As I shared with the adult learners who studied with me in the spring, it is through the combination of focused study of the literature, alongside an active, regular practice of contemplation and self-evaluation, we can transform ourselves in such a way that our values emerge as a stronger force, than even our natural tendencies, and our personality. So unlike the scorpion, even if were to have a “stinger” (say, in our personalities), that doesn’t mean we would always have to use it!
I believe that one of the most important and effective ways of bringing about the change we want to see in ourselves begins with the work of honest reflection, which is why making the time for quiet contemplation needs to be a regular aspect of our day to day lives. Only then can we truthfully evaluate our behaviors and responses in our relationships with others, our relationship with our own selves, and even our relationship with God.
One of the most remarkable passages in all of the Talmud relates a story of how the greatest sages of a generation came together with all of their wisdom, mystical insights, and even magical powers in order to rid the world, once and for all, of the human inclination to do evil. And amazingly – they succeeded! But there is a concept popularly known as “The Law of Unintended Consequences,” which applied to the rabbis’ predicament, for according to the Talmud, no sooner had the Evil Inclination been banished, then people stopped building houses, stopped having children, and stopped engaging in business. So the rabbis came back together and prayed that the Evil Inclination be returned to the world, and only then did the world return to its normal patterns.[iv]
The lesson from the Talmud is that the same human motivations can be directed towards good or towards evil; towards building or towards destruction; or in the words of our Torah Portion, towards life or towards death. It’s all a matter of how we channel our inclinations, or in other words, how we express our personalities.
In the Torah, there is little question that the greatest sin of the Israelite people came only days after having received the Torah. Gathered at the base of Mt. Sinai, the people grew restless for the return of Moses, their leader, and in their agitation, they prevailed upon Moses’ brother, Aaron, to forge a Golden Calf – the very sort of idolatry that they had been taught to abandon, and in their frenzied passion, the men and women literally ripped the golden rings from their ears in order to hastily construct the idol! Of course, at the conclusion of the story, Moses came down from the mountain, and saw the people dancing in ecstatic celebration around their Golden Calf. In his rage, Moses cast down the tablets of the Law he had received from on High, and the entire community was punished for a their backsliding, their transgression, and their loss of faith.[v]
But now fast-forward only a short while in Torah-time. God says to the Israelite people: “Asu li mikdash, v’shachanti b’tocham” – Build for me a Tabernacle, that I may dwell in their midst.” And here, perhaps in their finest hour, the people responded with unmatched enthusiasm and generosity. So abundant were the gifts of gold and silver, precious stones and fine linens, fabrics, and utensils, that Moses had to issue the cry: Enough! We have enough for the building of our shul! Please – let no more donations be made. I venture to say this was the first and only time in Jewish history that a capital campaign was called off for reasons of excessive generosity![vi]
But notice how these two stories, when viewed closely, are almost identical – except that in the first case, the generous offerings of the people were directed towards the creation of a pagan idol. And in the latter, the gifts were brought for holy purpose. I would argue that the personality of the people – a personality expressing generosity of spirit and spiritual intensity – was expressed equally in both narratives. In the first it was channeled in a destructive manner, but in the latter, towards holiness.
“Who is strong,” ask the sages of old? “The one who makes his adversary into his friend.”[vii] And sometimes, of course, the adversary is internal – it is our own personality and traits. But when we do engage regularly in both contemplation and study, we can recognize those aspects of our own inclinations of which we are less proud, and transform them into expressions of our higher values.
Now the meaning of a beloved, Chassidic story comes into better focus. It is the story of a king who owned a magnificent diamond, a gem so rare that he jealously guarded and protected it, rarely bringing it out even to display. Once it happened, during the course of a royal banquet, that the king was showing off his treasured stone, and it accidentally slipped from his cradling hands, and fell crashing to the floor. The stone didn’t break, but the perfect gem now bore a slim crack down one side. Obviously, the king was distraught over this great misfortune, and he consulted with the most renowned jewelers and trained diamond cutters from throughout the land. All of the experts agreed on the sad fate of the once-perfect gem, for regardless of the amount of polishing and cleaning they might try, the imperfection was now a permanent feature of the king’s beloved diamond.
Some time later, a jeweler from a distant land who heard of the disaster that had befallen the king arrived to the palace, and requested that he be shown the stone. “You see,” insisted the jeweler, “I can repair the diamond.”
“In fact,” he continued, “I could make the gem even more beautiful than it was before the accident, if the king would so consent.”
With nothing to lose, the king agreed, and so the jeweler set about his work. Within days, he returned to the palace, and presented the king with the results of his handiwork. As the king examined the diamond, his eyes grew wide, first with surprise, and then with delight! The crack had not been removed from the stone. Instead, it had been transformed by the jeweler’s carving into the long stem of a magnificent rose, with leaves coming from each side of the stem, crowned by an exquisite, flowering bud. The broken gem had become a precious work of art, more valuable now than ever before.
On Yom Kippur, we take up the challenge again to make our own lives into a precious work of art. We remember, and we affirm that we are not held prisoner by our circumstances, our experiences, our even our innate personalities. People can change. We can change; we can grow — towards a clearer vision of our better selves. And even our imperfections can be brought to the service of a higher calling.
David Rakoff’s rendering of the “Tortoise and the Scorpion” is delightful, but we are not like the scorpion, or any other creature for that matter. We can safely make the crossing from who we have been to who we might yet become. And today, of all days, is the time to begin the journey.
[i] As read by the author on “This American Life”, produced at WBEZ in Chicago, originally aired on 9/11/2009.
[ii] Deuteronomy 30:15-20.
[iii] Abraham Joshua Heschel, Who Is Man?, Stanford University Press, 1965: p. 41.
[iv] Genesis Rabbah 9:7.
[v] Exodus 32.
[vi] Exodus 36.
[vii] Avot deRabbi Natan, Chapter 23.
“FOR THIS WERE YOU CREATED”
October 7, 2011
Kol Nidre 5772
For the past 20 years, Dr. Richard Light, a professor of education at Harvard, has been conducting interviews with Harvard College students who are on the verge of graduation. Not long ago, he started to notice a trend. Even though undergraduates were content with the academic education they were receiving, many felt unprepared to take on bigger questions. One student told Light that although his classes had equipped him for work in chemistry and physics, “Harvard forgot to offer the most important course—a course in how to think of living my life.”
So together with the Dean of Freshmen and another professor of education, Dr. Light set up a voluntary discussion series, “Reflecting on Your Life,” for first-year students eager to explore those very ideas. The program has been quite popular, to the surprise of its creators. “We expected there to be 15 or 20 students interested in talking about this,” Light said. “But in the past three years, the program has had an average of 150 students—10 percent of the freshman class.”[i]
Our Temple President spoke tonight about the importance of creating meaning in our lives. Several weeks ago, when Stuart and I first discussed the content of his Yom Kippur message to the congregation, I told him that I would like to expand a bit further on the idea of meaning, in Hebrew, “Mashma-ut”, on this most sacred night of the year.
Even though the Harvard class exploring life’s meaning seems to have struck a chord among its freshmen participants, the search and struggle for meaning is hardly a concern limited to young men and women. In fact, I believe that the search for meaning becomes even more essential as we age, and as the reality that our lives are finite begins to come into sharper focus.
In his epic work, Man’s Search For Meaning, the 20th Century psychotherapist and, we must add, Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl insists that the search for meaning is a primary force in our lives. Breaking from the foundations of psychotherapy laid by his contemporary, Sigmund Freud, Frankl traces various forms of neurosis to the failure of the sufferer to find meaning and a sense of responsibility in his or her existence. He writes, “This meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone. Only then does it achieve a significance that will satisfy his own will to meaning.”[ii]
Frankl spoke of an “existential vacuum” affecting people in the post-WWII era, the growing loss of the feeling that life is meaningful. He also predicted, successfully I believe, that the problem was likely (in his words), “to grow increasingly crucial, for progressive automation will probably lead to an enormous increase in the leisure hours of average workers. The pity of it is that many of them will not know what to do with all their newly acquired free time.”[iii]
Of course, to speak of a search for meaning begins with the assumption that there is meaning to be found in our lives. But there is no shortage of philosophers, poets, writers and other skeptics who repudiate the very possibility of life having even a sliver of enduring meaning.
So we think of the musings of Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”[iv]
The famous trial lawyer, Clarence Darrow, described life as “an awful joke”, and wrote: “Life is like a ship on a sea, tossed by every wave and by every wind, a ship headed for no port and no harbor, with no rudder, no compass, no pilot; simply floating for a time, then lost in the waves.”[v]
Similarly, the acclaimed scholar of mythology, Joseph Campbell once said, “I don’t believe life has a purpose. Life is a lot of protoplasm with an urge to reproduce itself and continue in being.”
And in contrast to Viktor Frankl, who asserted that the quest for meaning is a core and primary human need, Sigmund Freud wrote: “The moment a person questions the meaning and value of life… he is sick. By asking this question one is merely admitting to a store of unsatisfied libido to which something else must have happened, a kind of fermentation leading to sadness and depression.”[vi]
Even some of our own, Hebrew authors of the Bible questioned life’s inherent meaningfulness, and our Sacred Scriptures did not censor their expressions of angst. “Vanity of vanities – hevel havalim”, writes the elderly, Biblical poet, Kohelet, in the Book of Ecclesiastes, ‘All is vanity.’ Kohelet considered life nothing more than a passing breath of air, and that we, composed of dust, in the end, merely return back to the dust, and whether we are good or evil, wealthy or impoverished wise or foolish, the same finality awaits us all.
Now keep in mind that Kohelet was part of a very small minority. Neither other biblical writers nor the rabbis and theologians of our tradition are so negative. In contrast, they are convinced that life does have meaning. Despite the infinite immensity of space and time, most biblical writers believed that man was a moral and spiritual reflection of the Creator, and according to the dominant themes of Jewish belief, the meaning of human life comes from this special relationship between God and man.[vii] In the words of the modern philosopher, Martin Buber: the existence of God is the “inexpressible confirmation of meaning. It is guaranteed. Nothing, nothing can henceforth be meaningless.”[viii]
But for many of us, believing in God is still not enough to satisfy our search for meaning, because as we sometimes struggle with our sense of God’s Presence, then we also struggle with our sense of life’s ultimate meaning. So I want us to consider, that at the very beginning of the Jewish spiritual quest, we go back to God’s first call to Abraham: “Lech L’cha – go forth.” Our sages paid attention to the unusual wording, and translated the Hebrew in the most literal manner: Lech L’cha, meaning “Go toward yourself.” That is to say, look inward — for that’s the essential direction of the spiritual journey – toward oneself.
Notice that the essence of God’s call to Abraham is NOT to create a sense of pervasive meaning for his people, his nation, and his descendants. Rather, the call from God is a summons to find meaning for his own life, for his own struggles, hopes, and vision. It is, I believe, somewhat ironic that in our age, where the Self is placed high above so many other values, and the spiritual journey is seen in popular culture as an individual’s unique exploration, that often our religious institutions sometimes tend to ignore that very personal motivation, and try to instill meaning through social action, by debating social policy, giving workshops in understanding public worship, or teaching a catechism. Now of course, those are all important aspects of sharing a communal faith tradition. But we also need to take our cue from the story of Abraham, and, I would add, from that course at Harvard in guiding seekers towards discovering personal meaning to the most important questions in their lives as well. As the philosopher, Heschel states, “The moment we become oblivious to ultimate questions, religion becomes irrelevant, and its crisis sets in.”[ix]
Again, we look to our Biblical tradition to find evidence and examples of that struggle for personal meaning in life, and to some extent, we can watch each and every one of our Biblical heroes and heroines engage in that deep, personal search. And only when they discover it, can their stories be complete.
I want to offer up two examples. First, is the story of Joseph – he of the “Amazing Technicolor Dream-Coat”. Envied and hated by his brothers to the point of fratricide, he is sold as a slave into Egypt, where in time he rises to great power. Later in his life, he will again come face to face with those same brothers who come down to Egypt to purchase food during a time of widespread famine. When the brothers finally recognized that it was indeed, Joseph who stood before them, wielding power over their very lives, they feared that he would choose to exact revenge for all they had done to him in the past.
But Joseph embraced his brothers, and spoke to them with kindness. He explained: “For it was not you, but God, who sent me here, in order to save countless lives during this famine.” At that moment, Joseph understood the meaning of his life. So Joseph was able to forgive his brothers, and bring about renewed family harmony, along with providing sustenance for countless thousands of starving people.
And let us also call to mind the story of Queen Esther, the heroine of our Purim Festival. The Book of Esther is a rather bawdy tale, a historical novel filled with debauchery and violence as befitting to our “spring fever” holiday, the Jewish Mardi Gras. If you recall the story, Esther, a lovely, orphaned Jewish girl enters the harem of the Persian King, Achashverosh, where she encounters the plot of the genocidal villain, Haman, to wipe out all the Jews of Shushan. Esther’s cousin and mentor, the wise Mordecai, appeals to Esther to risk her life by confronting the King with Haman’s evil intention. And she steps forward bravely to foil Haman’s plot, because she realizes in her heart that it was just for such a purpose that she had achieved her high and lofty status in the court. In that moment, she experienced the meaning of her life, and it was for Esther the source of her courage.
Like the Biblical figures, often our own sense of life’s meaning comes in moments – moments of clarity when we understand our own, unique mission. That realization is also described by Viktor Frankl:
“For the meaning of life,” he wrote, “differs from [person to person], from day to day, and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general, but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment… One should not search for an abstract meaning of life. Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone’s task is as unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it.”[x]
I want to share with you one such moment in my life, which happened only a few years ago. I’ll admit to feeling a little uneasy sharing aloud and so publicly such a very private and intimate experience and emotion. But after twenty years together, I trust you with my story as you have trusted me with yours
It may have been one of the lowest points in my rabbinate, brought on by a seemingly relentless series of tragic losses. When people ask me what’s the most difficult part of being a Rabbi, my answer is pretty consistent: It’s presiding over the funeral of a young child, a teenager or even a young parent. While I need to maintain a degree of professional distance in order to help bring the family and the community through such heartbreak, the utter sadness, the depth of pain and my feelings of compassion for those mourning the loss of one so young tears very deeply at my heart, my guts, and my spirit. And so, I guess after one too many of such agonizing funerals coming in rapid succession, I felt emptied of strength, a kind of spiritual weariness that led me to decide that I could not again, to the best of my ability, willingly put myself into such a situation.
The very same day, maybe even within a couple of hours after having made my inner declaration, I received an urgent call from a local funeral home. I don’t remember exactly, but the essence of the message was: “Rabbi Meyer, there’s been a terrible tragedy, and we told the family that you were the one best able to help them.”
“Of course, I’ll be right there,” I answered.
So I hung up the phone, closed my eyes and took a deep, cleansing breath, asking God — as I always do — for the wisdom and the words to guide the devastated family into and through that valley of shadows. And as I thought about the timing of having just decided to try to avoid that very circumstance, suddenly, two words entered into my mind, so clearly — it was as if I could hear them; words used by our sages for just such a moment: “L’chach notzarta “ – It is for this that you were created.”[xi]
L’chach notzarta. How might I best translate those simple, two words? Yes, literally, it means – “For this were you created”. But from a more complete understanding, I take those words to mean — (to paraphrase grief counselor, J. Shep Jeffries) — [It's] not simply a matter of ‘This is what I do because this is what I have been trained to do,’ or, God forbid, ‘This is what I do because it’s what I am paid to do.’ But rather ‘This is what I do because this is part of the meaning of who I am and how I choose to live [my life]!”[xii]
That’s not to say that the horrific situations which I am sometimes called upon to navigate with others, no longer affect me in those most the fragile depths of my spirit, my emotions, and my heart. But still to this day, I hear those two words guiding me and providing that sense of meaning through a variety of challenges, giving me strength, clarity and even occasionally, the bravery to live up to my highest potential – not only as a Rabbi, but also as a parent, a spouse, a child, and a friend. L’chach notzarta – for this were you created.
And on this sacred night of Yom Kippur, these words I offer as both a message and a challenge for our lives: To what can you say, l’chach notzarti – For this was I was created? I encourage you to look for those moments in the midst of loving, human relationships. Sense those moments in your work, or in your response to a call for help. Experience those moments when you perform a mitzvah, or in any act that improves the world for this and future generations.
Only yesterday, I received an e-mail from a member of the congregation, who was responding to our Temple’s efforts to help families who suffered damage to their homes and property during Tuesday’s flash-floods. She wrote: “My family and our homes were unaffected and I am profoundly grateful for this, and I am confident it is because I am supposed to help others.” What a beautiful insight into a moment of experiencing meaning in our lives! And I would only add: L’chach notzarnu´– It is for this that we were created!
As I conclude my message on this evening of Kol Nidre I cannot help but wonder if the answer to the mystery and the miracle of Jewish survival through the millennia is not somehow linked to our own sense of meaning as a people. Yes, God’s call to our Patriarch, Abraham, with two words — “Lech L’cha” — was a challenge to explore and experience the very meaning of his own life. But God’s call also ended with another two words: “V’yeheh b’racha – And you shall be a blessing.” When Abraham, in his inward journey, discovered the meaning of his own life, he was then able to bring great and enduring blessing to all of humanity. In fact, he changed the world forever, for the better. Through Abraham and his journey, the world began to learn the truth of Ethical Monotheism. Through Abraham was born the opportunity for all men and women to enter into relationship with the One God, and to bring to life in our world those Godly values of justice and love, of compassion and peace.
So – Lech Lecha! Go forth in the year ahead, on a journey inward towards the meaning of your own life, and then, like Abraham, may you also be a blessing.
For like Abraham — l’chach notzarnu – for this, we, too were created.
[i] Madeleine Schwartz, “The Most Important Course. Do Harvard Students Ponder the Meaning of Life?” Harvard Magazine, May/June 2011, pp. 56-57.
[ii] Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, – p. 154
[iii] Frankl, p. 169.
[iv] Act 5, Scene V, lines 24-28.
[v] Cited in Byron L. Sherwin, Faith Finding Meaning. A Theology of Judaism, Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 70.
[vi] Ibid.
[vii] See Jack D. Spiro, “Meaning” in Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought. Original Essays on Critical Concepts, Movements, and Beliefs. Arthur A. Cohen and Paul Mendes-Flohr, editors. The Free Press, New York, 1972: pp. 565-571.
[viii] Martin Buber, I and Thou, (1970), pp. 158 – 159.
[ix]: Cited in Sherwin, pp. 68–69.
[x] Frankl, pp. 171 – 172.
[xi] See Pirke Avot 2:8.
[xii] J. Shep Jeffries, Helping Grieving People – When Tears Are Not Enough. A Handbook for Care Providers, Brunner-Rutledge, NY, 2005.
FROM JERUSALEM TO RAMALLAH (AND BACK)
September 29, 2011
Rosh Hashanah Morning 5772
The nationalistic fervor which swept across Europe through the middle and late 19th Century found its Jewish expression in the Zionist movement, and the dream of a modern Jewish State in our ancestral homeland of Israel. As Jewish pride and hope blossomed, Jewish soccer clubs sprouted throughout metropolitan Europe – in Budapest, Berlin, Prague, Innsbruck and others cities throughout the 1920’s.
So it happened that only two decades before Adolf Eichmann forced Jews across Europe to sew a yellow star on their clothing as a symbol of degradation, many of these sports clubs played with a six-pointed Star of David prominently stitched on their jerseys and shorts. They enthusiastically draped themselves in blue-and-white uniforms, like the colors of the flag of Israel. And their proudly Hebrew names, “Hagibor” (“The Hero”), “Bar Kochba” (after the leader of a second-century revolt against the Romans), and “Hakoach” (“The Powerful”), clearly expressed both their historical roots, as well as their Zionist allegiance. And did you know that in 1925, the Jewish soccer club, Hakoach of Vienna was the surprise champion of the Austrian league. They went on to tour the world, playing exhibitions against teams across Europe, the United States, and even in the Far East. The story of Hakoach of Vienna is one example of how, in the words of author, Franklin Foer, “How Soccer Explains the World”.[i]
Perhaps another example of soccer explaining the world came in a story I read just last month in Sports Illustrated magazine.[ii] The article was titled, “Welcome to the World,” and it described the entry of a team from the nation of Palestine into a qualifying match in the World Cup of soccer. They were playing against a team from Thailand for the rights to make the World Cup finals in Brazil three years from now. And the article described some of the unique challenges of playing for the Palestinian team, a team composed of West Bank Palestinians, Israeli Arabs, and even residents of Gaza Strip, who play their home games at the three-year-old Faisal Al-Husseini Stadium just outside of Ramallah.
As I read the Sports Illustrated story, I remember thinking to myself: How can there be a national team for which there is no nation? As of yet, there is no internationally recognized, sovereign nation called “Palestine”! So if soccer explains anything about the world, what’s going on when a Palestinian national team is invited to participate in the World Cup matches before such an independent state has even come into existence? As far as the world is concerned, including FIFA, the governing body of international “football”, is Palestinian statehood already a done deal?
That question really bothered me. But as coincidence would have it, if there is really such a thing as “coincidence”, the very day after reading the Sports Illustrated story, I received a call from a colleague in Southern California, inviting me to travel to Jerusalem and the West Bank as part of a small contingent of rabbis, to meet with Israeli and Palestinian leadership, and to experience the unfolding realities on both sides of the “Separation Seam.” And so, only three weeks ago, I was sitting around a small table in the Knesset offices of the Israeli Foreign Minister with six other rabbis, and when we each explained to our host why we had agreed to take part in that Rabbinic Leadership Mission, I explained to him, as best I could, “Well, there was this article in Sports Illustrated…”
Of course, that was just a very small part of my motivation for agreeing to take part in the Mission. As I wrote you upon my return, the Mission consisted of two, very intensive days. We spent the first day in Jerusalem, with high-level Israeli political, military, and business leadership. On day two, we travelled to Ramallah and the West Bank to meet with their Palestinian counter-parts. I realized immediately upon receiving the invitation that this was a rare and historic opportunity to see, hear, witness and evaluate for myself – without the filters of anyone else’s opinion or agenda — the situation as it is currently unfolding, especially in the days leading up to the Palestinians’ coming to New York and the United Nations in their bid for Statehood.
I know that we all can read countless news stories, editorials, opinion pieces and blog sites that address the current and unfolding situation. But I went on the Mission to see and learn and decide for myself; and so this morning, I want to share with you my own, very personal take on the current situation and conflict.
First, to paraphrase a fairly well-known idiom, before I begin to speak, there’s something I want to say: I want to publicly thank my congregation and our leadership for the tremendous support you’ve offered both leading up to and following my mission to Israel and the Palestinian entity. I knew upon agreeing to the Mission, that my meeting with Palestinian leadership would evoke some degree of controversy, even criticism, from those whose opinions I respect, but who would question the integrity of my willingness to meet with the adversaries, yes, even the enemies of the Jewish State. Today, I want to assert, and I believe this from the very depths of my soul, that when you make the decision to meet and listen openly, honestly, objectively and compassionately to another, whose viewpoint, agenda and experience is so very different than one’s own, that decision is NOT an sign of weakness, of gullibility, of passivity or even fear. It’s actually an expression of strength, maybe even, of bravery. And no battle has ever been won without some significant acts of bravery!
Now I believe that there should be very little doubt in this community on where I stand as a staunch supporter and lover of the Jewish State. After twenty years of teaching, preaching, leading trips and writing opinions, I think most of you could probably place me rather accurately towards the right side on the spectrum between left-wing and right-wing supporters of Israel. But I was determined to come to this opportunity open to hearing what each of the leaders and representatives had to say, and I want to describe for you a moment, an image, that stayed with me as something of a metaphor for my journey.
Having taken six trips to Israel over the past four years, I have watched the building, the growth, and the impact of that so-called “Separation Seam”. I have seen pretty much the entire length of its fences and walls, and even hiked along parts of it. And I can tell you that no one likes that barrier – neither Israel who must maintain it, nor the Palestinians who must negotiate its path and its check-points. But there is no questioning that it has been extremely successful in its goal of preventing terrorist incursions and other acts of violence against innocent, Israeli citizens.
Still, up until three weeks ago, I had only seen one side of the barrier, and then, always seeing it as something meant to “keep them out.” Suddenly, when I crossed through the checkpoint on my way towards Ramallah, I realized I was seeing the very same barrier, only this time, I was seeing it from the perspective of those for whom it was meant for keeping them “in.”! I realized that in order to get the most from my unique opportunity, I would need to hold onto both perspectives, both ways of viewing that barrier and the various barriers to security and peace.
The topics we explored with Israeli political, business, and military leaders covered a variety of concerns, including the recent social demonstrations in Israel, the deteriorating situation in Egypt, the spread of the Arab Spring uprisings, and economic opportunities and obstacles. But the most pressing question of those days was why the Palestinian Authority has chosen to abandon negotiations with Israel, and go directly to the United Nations in seeking their goals and dreams of statehood.
It is important to remember that the end result of establishing a secure and sovereign, Palestinian State alongside the borders of Israel is not only the official policy of the Netanyahu administration; it has also been the official policy of the past several Israeli governments. The two-state solution has, been accepted as the most desired result and conclusion to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And over the past two years, in the West Bank, though not in Gaza, under the bureaucratic leadership of Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, the infrastructure has been laid for the time when that State will come into existence. And without question, at some point, that is going to happen.
The roads linking West Bank towns are quite good, built, by the way, mainly by Israel in order to help the day to day travel needs of the Palestinians, although we never read or hear about that kind of cooperation in the media. In fact, collaborative efforts between Israel and Palestinian Authority Security Forces are working rather well. In 2008, there were a total of 42 checkpoints along the length of the Separation Seam. As of last year, that number was down to 17.
Ramallah is poised to take on the role of economic capital of the Palestinian entity. In the downtown areas, there are new stone and glass government offices. Throughout the city, amidst the hodge-podge of older houses, apartments and businesses, large and beautiful homes are being built, many with beautiful views out across the hills and valleys. There is a stock exchange, a growing banking industry, a strong and successful police and security apparatus, and entertainment options such as coffee shops and theaters are springing up. There is even a home field for the soccer team just outside of Ramallah!
So what then are the barriers to peace? If so much is already in place, what needs to be decided? For the most part the issues remaining to be agreed upon are: Borders, Refugees, Security, and Water. One might think that, since both sides want the same end result – that being both Jewish and Palestinian sovereignty, those hurdles would be quite possible to overcome. So why have the Palestinians abandoned all negotiations with Israel, and instead, taken their cause to the UN?
It is important to note that not all of their leadership was in agreement regarding the wisdom of their unilateral declaration, including Prime Minister Fayyad, who was publicly opposed. Meanwhile, President Abbas and his spokesmen described their decision to move forward at the UN as a step towards resuming the stalled peace process. They say that the United States has lost credibility as an objective, mediator in the discussions, and so they are turning to the International Community, of which Israel is a part, to allow greater input in solving some of the intractable issues. The move is part, they say, of a wide-scale program of non-violent resistance to the Israeli occupation, which they know in the court of world opinion, will meet with great approval.
The Israeli leadership sees the Palestinians’ new strategy as a tactic intend to avoid negotiations entirely. In negotiations, there must be concessions on both sides. But the deck is so stacked against Israel at the UN that whatever the Palestinians present to the General Assembly is guaranteed to be passed. By avoiding direct negotiations with Israel to solve the outstanding issues, they won’t have to make concessions; they won’t have to give up anything.
I think we also have to view events within the context of the so-called Arab Spring, the shocking uprisings which spread so quickly in places like Egypt and Libya, and which toppled long-standing and seeming secure, autocratic leaders. Palestinian Authority President Abbas realizes that his credibility and power were on the steep decline among the Palestinian populace. A significant political victory on the International stage would go a long way to securing his position of leadership, and the hero’s reception he received this week upon returning to Ramallah certainly validated that gamble.
In short, the Israelis are looking to negotiate towards the existence of a Palestinian State as a way of ending the conflict. The Palestinians, on the other hand, are hoping to use UN recognition, as a platform for pressing on with their claims against the Jewish State.
Of course, there have been no substantial negotiations for nearly two years now. What are the issues that stand in the way? What do the two sides claim as the primary obstacles to negotiations and peace?
To the Palestinians, and they are of one mind and voice here, that the primary obstacle to negotiations and to peace is, in their words, “the continued illegal construction of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land.” The Israelis respond with the fact that there have been no new settlements built during the past ten years, and when illegal settlers set one up, they are immediately and forcibly evicted by the Israeli army. And although there does continue to be some construction in the communities already established, last year, the Netanyahu government imposed a complete, ten-month long freeze on all building projects in those communities, and never during those months, would the Palestinians agree to return to the talks. Frankly, we never heard a satisfying answer from the Palestinian leadership as to why they didn’t come back to the table,
The Israeli government insists that settlements are not really at issue, and they use the Gaza Strip as proof of that contention. Since the Israelis left Gaza back in the so-called “hitnaktut” of 2005, there are no settlements, no Israelis or Jews at all in Gaza. But that still hasn’t stopped the militant forces of Hamas from launching an unending barrage of rockets from Gaza into towns inside of Israel proper. If settlements are the problem, Israeli leaders ask, then why is the territory where there are no settlements now controlled by a terrorist organization seeking to murder innocent civilians?
The Palestinian response to that question was interesting, and frankly, I believe is not without some merit. When then Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, decided to evacuate the Israelis from Gaza he preceded quickly, unilaterally, and without including any Palestinian Authority input in the plan. “Had Sharon included us in the process,” the PA spokesman insisted, “we then could have gone to the people in Gaza and said, ‘Look at what negotiations have produced! Let’s continue to negotiate.’ Instead, Sharon’s actions allowed the radical element to say to the populace, ‘Look at what terror has accomplished! Let’s continue our strategy of terror!’”
I should mention that the situation in Gaza, and its control by Hamas, is in many ways as difficult a situation for the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank as it is for the Israeli government. I am confident in telling you that there will never be a real coming together of Hamas and the PA — which of course, begs the question: If we want to define the nation of Palestine, who are we talking about, and what are her borders?
I want to tell you the question I asked Ghassan Khatib, the Director of the Government Media Center of the Palestinian Authority. Essentially, he IS the international “face” of the PA. And I don’t mind admitting that I was very nervous sitting beside him, and asking this question. After all, I had been in Ramallah for less than a half-hour, and to paraphrase the prophet, Amos: I am neither a diplomat, nor the son of a diplomat! But I had come to the Mission for a reason, and I needed to ask the most essential questions. And so I tried to phrase my question in a manner that was both respectful of my host, but in a way that also might get an honest reply. So I said:
“Mr. Khatib: You and your government are clear and unified in your opinion that the primary obstacle to peace is the construction in settlement communities in the West Bank.” “Yes,” he answered, with a bit of a stare. Our eyes locked as I continued my question: “If I were to ask the members of my community, they would tell me that the primary obstacle to peace is the refusal of the Palestinians to recognize the State of Israel as the rightful, ancestral homeland of the Jewish people. Mr. Khatib, what would you have me say to my community?”
His answer was direct, but not satisfying whatsoever. Essentially, he insisted that the language of mutual recognition had already been agreed upon in the Oslo Accords, and that such a demand was only being made by the Israeli Prime Minister in order to placate his right-wing coalition partners. Israel made peace with Egypt without such language, Khatib insisted, and so did the Kingdom of Jordan. It is a new condition, he claimed, that has only served to delay the process of negotiation.
But the matter of the Jewishness of Israel IS important, in fact, I think it’s critical. Because when the problem of the Palestinian refugees is addressed, how can there be a Palestinian and a Jewish State, if the descendents of the Palestinian refugees have a right to live in the Jewish, rather than the Palestinian nation?
In fact, the essential Jewishness of Israel continues to be avoided, seemingly at all costs, by the Palestinian leadership. Last week at the United Nations, Mr. Abbas spoke of the Holy Land as the place of the ascension of the Prophet Muhammad, and the birthplace of Jesus Christ. But he failed to mention the fact that the Jewish nation had been settled there for more than two thousand years before either Jesus or Muhammad, and that Jerusalem was the capital of Israel under King David, King Solomon, and a succession of Jewish monarchs for many hundreds of years. In fact, there continues to be a complete denial by the Palestinians of any Jewish claim to our homeland. Frankly, I do not believe that there is anyone in the PA leadership who has either the political strength or the political will to recognize our authentic, historical claim to the land of Israel.
Finally, what about concessions? Even there, it’s hard to find a point of optimism. When the Israelis say that they are ready and willing to relinquish 98.5% of the West Bank to a future Palestinian State, a tremendous and risky concession of Israeli land, the Palestinians respond by saying that it is no concession at all, because the only starting point for negotiations is the pre-1967 borders. And were the Palestinians to renounce any claim for the right of refugee descendants to return to Israeli cities such as Haifa, Beersheva, or Tiberias, the Israelis would hardly consider that to be a concession, because the so-called “Palestinian right of return” is an historically false claim, and a condition that is not even on the table.
So where is there to go? To what possibility is there to turn? Perhaps you might understand why it was, that as I listened carefully and closely to each side’s arguments and positions, it became harder to find a direction that might offer hope, or even a place where the “dueling narratives” between two peoples might begin to find resolution! It seemed like the words of the Israelite people from the darkest days of the Prophet, Ezekiel, would be the most fitting conclusion to our Mission: “Avdah tikvatenu”– Our hope is lost.”[iii] Upon what grounds might we begin to place our hopes for a better tomorrow, for a time of reconciliation and peace?
I wonder if it is just another coincidence that soon after my return from the Middle East, scientists in Israel announced that they had made a remarkable discovery. They had found evidence of life in the Dead Sea.[iv] Until now, it has always been assumed, because of the saltiness of the water, that it is impossible for life there to either emerge or survive. Of course, it’s way too early go to fishing in the Dead Sea, but we now know that under the right conditions, life can develop even there, even in the sea that has always been taken for dead.
I met with Avi Nudelman, CEO of the Israel-Palestinian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who is working together with Mohammad Abu Ein, Chairman of the Palestinian Import/Export Association. They are creating partnerships and business connections between Israeli and Palestinian markets. And they are beginning to mark their successes, as contributing to the nearly $4 billion dollars in trade annually between the two sides. Both men emphasized that Israelis and Palestinians are natural partners, not only because of their proximity, but because they are both Western in their cultural orientation, because both value higher education and innovation, and both sides want the same basic things in life for themselves and their families.
We were invited into the offices of the Jerusalem Venture Partners, where start-up companies, incubator projects, and even artistic enterprises are provided seed capital for developing, financing, and marketing their ideas. Because of Israeli successes in so many areas of innovation, opportunities for investing in Israeli businesses are highly sought after. Since its beginnings in 1993, the Venture Partners has provided seeding for some seventy companies, with a total value of $900 million. They are now working to develop a High Tech Park in the city of Bethlehem, and are looking to partner with Palestinian incubator projects throughout the West Bank.
I had coffee I downtown Ramallah with a woman named Huda El Jak, the owner of a new chain of coffee shops. She is an entrepreneur and Venture Capitalist, and is modeling her business after similar, successful chains in Israel.
I visited with Sameh Masri, the General Manager of United Motor Trade Company — the largest importer of luxury automobiles in the West Bank. I saw his showroom, his spare parts warehouse, and his most important resource – the workers and mechanics he continued to employ – even during the stalled economic times of the 2nd Intifida.
I sat in the sparkling offices of the Director General of Quds Bank, one of the largest banking houses in the Palestinian lands. The former Minister of Energy for the PA, he now runs a consulting firm in Gaza. He spoke first hand of the strong link between a healthy economy and the reduction in violence, as well as the investment coming from Israeli investors through partnership with Palestinian businesses.
And I travelled to the planned city of Rawabi, an $825 million dollar development that is the largest project ever undertaken in the Palestinian areas. Among the funding sources are not only Arab sources, such as the nation of Qatar, but also Jewish and Israeli investors, including, I learned, Michael Steinhardt – one of the founders of Birthright Israel. Upon completion, Rawabi will house some 40,000 young, middle-income Palestinians, with state-of-the-art technological, environmental, and social infrastructure.
Our group was taken to the highest point of the planned city of Rawabi, and from those heights where picnic tables, volleyball courts, and a reception hall already stand, you can actually make out the buildings of Tel Aviv and the Mediterranean Sea far in the distance. One member of our group made the comment of how easy it might be to fire a rocket from that spot directly into Tel Aviv. But of course, that’s the last thing the people, the investors, and the builders of Rawabi would want: there is too much at stake, and of course, there is a lot of money to be made.
What seemed consistent among all of these business leaders and entrepreneurs, particularly among the Palestinians, was how they refused to get stuck in the narratives of victimization. They understand the challenges they face, but are creatively looking for solutions. They are eager, and yes, energized looking to the possibilities of the future.
As I made my way back through the Kalandia check-point into Jerusalem, it struck me that on both sides of the Separation Barrier: the hundreds of thousands of protesters who filled the streets and parks in Israel this summer, and the owners, workers, and investors in the Palestinian businesses and communities are all looking and hoping for the same thing – the chance make a better life for themselves and their children. That is why it was there, at the moment of crossing through the Barrier, I discovered that seed of hope.
We need to realize that the Palestinian conflict is certainly not the only problem facing Israel. It is not even the biggest threat to the region in this time of Iran’s nuclear development, growing anarchy in many Arab societies, and a shifting of power throughout the entire region. But finding a solution to the conflict, which would assure the mutual security for Israel and a Palestinian State would be a monumental and vital step.
Yes, there were times in my visit where I felt, like the words of Ezekiel “Avdah tikvatenu — Our hope is lost.” But the author of the Israeli national anthem, Naftali Imber, added two words to that phrase – “OD LO — NOT YET!” “Od lo avdah tikvatenu – Our hope is not yet lost”, sings the anthem! Perhaps the realization of that hope will be that one day, in a stadium in Tel Aviv, or on the pitch in Ramallah, two national teams will square off against one another, with the final score of a soccer match the only battle left to be fought.
[i] Franklin Foer, How Soccer Explains The World. An {unlikely} Theory of Globilization, HarperCollins, New York, 2004.
[ii] “Welcome to the World”, Sports Illustrated, August 8, 2011.
[iii] Ezekiel 37:11.
[iv] http://media.themedialine.org/media/110921_danny_Ionescu.mp3.
A NEW MACHZOR – CHANGES AND CHALLENGES
September 28, 2011
Erev Rosh Hashanah 5772
In his recent book, The Beginning of Infinity, physicist and cosmologist, David Deutsch, makes the following, rather fascinating insight. He writes: “Progress that is both rapid enough to be noticed and stable enough to continue over many generations has been achieved only once in the history of our species. It began at approximately the time of the scientific revolution, and is still under way. It has included improvements not only in scientific understanding, but also in technology, political institutions, moral values, art, and every aspect of human welfare.”[i]
Deutsch’s argument is that prior to the scientific revolution that ushered humanity into the modern era, people lived under the generally correct assumption that life, culture, knowledge, and technology would simply remain constant. The future could be expected, for the most part, to be very much like the present, even as the present was by and large no different from the past. We, however, live in a time when change is really all that is constant. We expect things to change, and try to anticipate where changes in technology, attitudes, aesthetics, and knowledge might lead.
This was the central reality which informed and forged the Reform Judaism of my grandparents and great-grandparents. Reform Judaism of the late 19th and 20th Centuries recognized the enormous shifts brought about by modern, scientific inquiry, Rather than reject new ideas, understandings, and realities, the Reformers both embraced and then embodied the ideal of change in religious practices as a healthy response to the evolution of society in general. Today, nearly two centuries since the earliest expressions of Reform Jewish thought, nearly all of the Jewish world accepts the truths that were at the core of our forbearers’ vision; “…that our tradition should interact with modern culture; that its forms ought to reflect a contemporary esthetic; that its scholarship needs to be conducted by modern, critical methods; and that change has been and must continue to be a fundamental reality in Jewish life.”[ii] We continue to see, throughout the country and even in our own community, congregations which declare adherence to more traditional forms, now adopting our own long-standing practices of including musical instruments, paying attention to the use of English, as well as Hebrew prayers, utilizing contemporary poetry, meditations and reflections, and giving a high priority to maintaining a fresh, creative spirit in our worship.
Of course, from its earliest days, Judaism has never been lacking the creative impulse, expressed throughout the centuries through the means of philosophy, poetry, folklore, and the development of Halacha, Jewish law and practice. But Reform Judaism of the past century and a half has focused on the evolution and development of our prayerbooks as a primary focus of our own, creative energy to an extent well beyond what had previously been seen in Jewish history.
Tonight, we have a unique opportunity as a congregation to be part of that dynamic process of creative, prayerbook evolution, as we are worshipping from the first, pilot edition of our newest, High Holyday Machzor. For those of us who have been worshipping in Reform synagogues throughout our lives, this will be the third, or perhaps even the fourth prayerbook we will come to know, and each one has been a reflection and a response to its own generational realities.
The first widely- accepted and utilized prayerbook in our Movement was the Union Prayerbook, which first came out in 1893. The book was extremely popular in the United States, with some 300 synagogues adopting its use, with over 100,000 copies printed and distributed. It underwent a significant revision right after World War I, and then a newly-revised edition was published soon after World War II. Our current machzor, Gates of Repentance, made its appearance back in 1978. So if we look across the time-line of the past century and a quarter, we can see that indeed, once in a generation, changes in practice, aesthetics, political realities and patterns of language have led to the creation and adoption of a new prayerbook , approximately every thirty five years or so.
I remember quite well when our Movement made the switch from the Newly Revised Union Prayerbook to The Gates of Repentance. And I can tell you that it was not an easy transition for congregational members who had long been accustomed to the English translations of the Union Prayer Book, with its “Thee’s” and “Thou’s” – long archaic forms of English speech utilized to add a formal air and tone of ancient solemnity, but replaced in the newer liturgy with more common, colloquial styles of English translation. Of course, the newer prayerbook also introduced certain content to the services which had long been absent or discarded in many Reform congregations, including the words to the Kol Nidre Chant, a complete service for the sounding of the Shofar, and the medieval hymn, “Unetaneh Tokef”, with its haunting intonations, “Who shall live and who shall die?… Who by fire and who by water?”
Yes, I remember well those first few years when our current machzor was being introduced in our North American Reform congregations, because those years corresponded to my first years in Rabbinical school, and as a rabbinic intern and then, as a student Rabbi. I can tell you that for a movement rooted in the desirability and inevitability of change, change — particularly in the realm of prayer and religious observance, never comes easily!
For the past several years, here at Temple Emanu-El, we have been engaged in the ongoing process of evaluating and evolving our own, unique patterns of worship, bringing a great deal of innovation to our Sabbath, festival and High Holyday services, which have resulted in changes in our prayerbooks, our music, our worship schedules, and even the architecture of this Sanctuary. And that is why last spring, I met with some of my rabbinical colleagues who are taking active, leadership roles in the creation of this new machzor, and requested that our congregation be one of the pilot-sites for worshipping with and experiencing the preliminary version of the prayerbook-in-process. It is my intention, at the conclusion of the Holyday season, to solicit Temple members for some of your own input regarding the content and format of this draft machzor, so that I might share some of our experiences here with our national leadership.
In some ways, let me admit up-front, I’m stacking the deck just a bit, because like our Sabbath prayerbook, Mishkan Tefilah, you can see that this pilot version is set up in order to enable a very dynamic approach to the liturgy itself. Because each prayer appears on both the right and left-side pages, the worship leader may choose to include either the traditional, Hebrew formulation, or a faithful English translation, or, using the left-side leaf, a poetic, medieval, or contemporary reflection on the theme of each prayer. And I say that the deck is stacked because having prepared the service, I already made some of my own decisions regarding which options we would utilize tonight. So there are some passages you might have really liked that I chose not to include tonight, and some that spoke to me and my heart, which we have included, that may have left you unaffected or uninspired.
One of the most interesting aspects of preparing tonight’s service, and anticipating the chance to pilot this new machzor was choosing which rendition of Avinu Malkenu to include. Of the entire liturgy unique to Rosh Hashanah, no prayer is better known, loved, and anticipated than Avinu Malkenu – Our Father, our King. For many years, at this Evening Service, we have not only prayed this text in both Hebrew and English, but we have also sung it twice; first, using the beloved, Cantorial rendition of Max Janowsky, and then as a unison, congregational chanting of the familiar, folk-like melody. I hope that you noticed as we prayed Avinu Malkenu this evening that our pilot machzor offered three very different and distinct expressions of the Avinu Malkenu. I think it’s fair to suggest that the very feel of, and response to tonight’s service might well hinge upon which version we shared together, more so than any other prayer or melody of the service.
Regardless of the phrases of supplication that are included, just in the words “Avinu Malkenu”, we express essential aspects of our relationship with God. Our experience of intimacy with the Divine, God’s being close to us, near, and imminent is that aspect we call “Avinu”, our Father. God’s majesty, transcendence, and awesome power we express when calling God “Malkenu, Our King.” Love of God, and fear of God. Intimacy with God and remoteness from God; God’s compassion and God’s Justice — all these are set into balance as we pray, Avinu Malkenu. Theologically, it is very powerful and very much in keeping with Jewish beliefs throughout the centuries.
The Avinu Malkenu certainly presents some challenges for Jews today – problems of language, of translation, and also of belief. No one here tonight has ever lived as subject to a king who wields limitless power and authority. So can the metaphor of God as such a monarch feel truly meaningful to contemporary Jewish men and women? And even the embedded metaphors of masculinity, our Father, our King, can be distracting to some, even though we realize that God cannot be conceived according to the limited specifics of human, gender identity. Did you notice how the translators of this draft version have chosen “Almighty and Merciful”, instead of “Our Father, Our King,” in order to avoid their perceived dilemma of gender specific translation?
To me, dancing around the metaphors of gender weaken, rather than intensify the power of this mantra-like recitation. But what was most strikingly difficult and jarring in our Avinu Malkenu tonight, — and I’ll share this with you even as I have already expressed my concern to those of my colleagues most closely involved in the Machzor project – is the English translation as rendered in the first full line of the prayer: Avinu Malkenu, chatanu l’fanecha. The customary translation of the phrase is, Avinu Malkenu, we have sinned before you,”, or alternately, “… we have sinned against You.” But here, we are given the expression, “Avinu Malkenu, we come before you in our brokenness.”
“Brokenness” is a bit of a stretch as a translation for Chet, or sin. I understand what the translators here are trying to accomplish. They responded to my uneasiness with the wording by suggesting that the translation should be considered “faithful to the original, even if not directly literal.” Their desire is to avoid using the word “sin” and all that it reflects, and to reframe our standing before God as persons lacking in wholeness, rather than deserving of punishment.
Ok, I agree that we hope for God’s love and compassion as we admit to our feelings of “brokenness”, and there can be so much in life that can break us spiritually, physically, and emotionally. And yes, much of what makes us feel broken comes upon us for reasons far beyond our own control.
But “Sin” is also real. Often, it is our own, misguided behavior that in the end turns against us, and leads then to our sense of being shattered, damaged, defeated or crushed. But that does not absolve us of the responsibility for owning up to our decisions, our behaviors, our shortcomings. Brokenness is a passive condition. Sinfulness means taking responsibility. And if these Holy Days are to be a time of heshbon ha-nefesh, of sincere and fearless soul-searching, we sell the process short by simply pleading “brokenness.” No! In the words of the liturgy, We have sinned. We have transgressed. We have gone astray from our highest ideals. I believe that if we are afraid of admitting honestly to the very idea of sin, then we actually diminish the odds that we will, in the year ahead, be strong enough to overcome those very thoughts and behaviors that lead to the brokenness we declare.
Avinu Malkenu is a perfect example of how difficult it is, and why it takes a tremendous amount of thought and deliberation when we consider, as Reform Jews, how best to express in our worship the ideas and beliefs of our faith.
I have to say that there is a great deal that I like about this new machzor — its layout, its content, and even much of its language. I love the explanatory notes at the bottom of the pages that allow for study and contemplation even during the course of the worship service. I appreciate the blending of modern, medieval, Biblical and rabbinical resources on the left-hand pages that help to amplify the messages of the traditional liturgy of the service. And I really have enjoyed the chance to vary the content of the service, and can see the opportunity this new machzor will offer for us to change things up, just a bit, year by year. So I’m looking forward to continuing to discuss our experience together with this new liturgy, and help our Movement evolve into the next generation of High Holyday worship.
A story is told of a student who had come to study with the renowned 19th-Century Rabbi Mordecai of Nadvorna. Right before Rosh Hashanah, the disciple came to his teacher hoping for permission to be dismissed early from his class. The rabbi asked him, “Why are you in such a hurry today?” He answered, “I have been given the honor of leading portions of the Rosh Hashanah service, so I have to look carefully into the machzor to put my prayers in order.” The rabbi replied, “That’s fine, but your time would be better spent for you to look carefully into yourself, and put yourself in order!”
So it is for us, we who live in a time when change is not only possible, but to be expected. Advances in technology, communications, culture and knowledge are what we have come to expect. But changes in ourselves, our ways of thinking and our patterns of behaving, those changes don’t come so easily. And if our prayers tonight, tomorrow, and during this Holyday season help us in the process of changing ourselves for the better, then we and our world will perhaps be healed of our brokenness, and discover the wholeness and the hope that have always been the promise of this sacred season.
[i] David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity. Explanations That Transform the World, Penguin, 2011.
[ii] “Reform Judaism, A Centenary Perspective”. Adopted by the Central Conference of American Rabbis in San Francisco, 1976.
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.
