Once again, I am posting my High Holiday sermons here on the blog. Included below was my sermon on the first day of Rosh Hashanah this year, the first in a series of four on a single theme. I hope you like it; feedback is always welcome and appreciated. More will be coming very soon:
Twelve years ago, I moved to England. I had graduated college and been accepted to Rabbinical School, but rather than remain in New York, on the Upper West Side and at the Jewish Theological Seminary, I took time off to live in London. I spent a full year traveling to British, Welsh, and Scottish college campuses, speaking about Judaism and the Conservative/Masorti Movement, and I lived in a small apartment, a flat, in the northern suburbs of the British capital. That year I also belonged to one of the most well-known British Conservative congregations, New North London Synagogue, with its incredible rabbi, Jonathan Wittenberg. And before I moved away, in 2004, the community had just begun to discuss a project to construct a new building, centered around a new sanctuary.
I began my Rosh Hashanah sermon here today with this brief nostalgic recap, in order to share with you that back in June, just a few months ago, I returned to London for a visit. Finally, I was able to see, for the very first time, their new, beautiful building, which took them nearly a decade to complete. And it was in that building, in their incredible sanctuary, three months ago, during a Friday night service, that I had an epiphany, truly, and right then I knew what I would be speaking about here, today, to introduce my High Holiday theme for the year 5776.
Close your eyes for just a minute (indulge me…). Picture walking into a very large, cavernous, white room. Hanging from the ceiling in the center of the room, above your head, is an immense piece of wood, as if sliced out of a tree and hovering in the air above the main table. Attached to the wooden piece is the synagogue’s ner tamid, eternal light. At the front of this sanctuary are two enormous doors, nearly 20 ft. in height, covered in stained glass, behind which is, of course, their ark. If your eyes are still closed, I want to direct your mind’s attention to the right, left, and above this oversized ark. On all three sides are Biblical quotes. And it was to these quotes that my attention was drawn, and it was from these that I educed my epiphany.
Three quotes from the Torah, each written three times, and together forming the basis of the mission of the New North London Synagogue: “v’Ahavta et Adonai Eloheicha,” “v’Ahavta l’Rei’acha Kamocha,” and “v’Ahavtem et Ha-Ger” - “You shall love Adonai, your God,” “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” and “You shall love the stranger.” Ahavah; NOT just the name of a famous brand of Dead Sea skin products - it is, in fact, the Hebrew word for “love.” These three quotes, on the sanctuary walls of a synagogue in London, will each form the foundation of a High Holiday sermon here in Wallingford, with a fourth Biblical quote from a different prophetic source, rounding out my four main speaking opportunities. Our theme for this year’s High Holidays is “Ahavah,” “Love.”
All at once, love seems like something so simple, so cliche, and so overdone; yet also incredibly complex, deeply meaningful, AND unique to each and every one of us. It is also a subject we do not talk about nearly enough. Yet, love is at the core of our religion, and arguably ALL religion. Jonathan Wittenberg, that same London-based rabbi, writes quite a bit about love. In 2009, in an article in the British newspaper, the Jewish Chronicle, Rabbi Wittenberg wrote: “The call to God is love, the foundation of all the commandments.” With that in mind, let us launch into our theme, and our first quote on love. The ancient rabbis latched onto my first quote about love, and used it to illustrate - like Rabbi Wittenberg - that love was, and is, at the very core of everything the Torah is trying to teach us.
The Talmud, written and compiled over 1,500 years ago, relates a story that might be familiar to some of you. I’ll give you the Cliff’s Notes version: A heathen, living 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem, decided to play a trick on the two most famous Jewish leaders of his time. He went to the great sage Shammai and announced that he’d convert to Judaism if Shammai could teach him the entire Torah while standing on one leg. Shammai was no fool; he recognized a prank when he saw one, and so he chased the heathen away. Our huxter loved how well the gag was working, and how infuriated he made the great Shammai. He then proceeded to the house of Hillel, an even greater sage still. The same proposal was put forth: “Teach me the entire Torah while standing on one leg and I’ll become a Jew.” To his, and our, great surprise, Hillel responded, “what is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor - that is the entire Torah; the rest is commentary.” Hillel took a very famous line from the Bible (our quote for today) - “v’Ahavta l’Rei’acha Kamocha - Love Your Neighbor As Yourself” - and he rephrased it in the negative. Rather than commanding the heathen to love another, Hillel set the bar a little lower, saying essentially, “just don’t do bad things to others, and that too represents the essence of the entire Torah.” Think about this for a second: The WHOLE thing?!?! We’re talking about Five Books of Moses; 613 different commandments; one of the foundational texts of all world literature - and Hillel sums it up in a single line?!? It is hard to wrap your mind around. Nevertheless, that is indeed what he is saying.
If you are familiar with this story, you may, however, NOT be aware that Hillel’s quote actually continues. He DOES say that this commandment, often called The Golden Rule, is the entire Torah and the rest is commentary, but then he adds, “now go and learn it.” This IS the essence of the Torah. Hillel DOES believe that the rest IS commentary. BUT you must go and study it to fully grasp what is really is all about. Like the word “love” itself, this Golden Rule seems so simple and straight-forward, yet it must be studied - again and again - before it can truly become internalized and assimilated into the very core and fiber of our being.
What about you and me? Do we really live it? Many of us can quote the Golden Rule, and we know that it is called “The Golden Rule,” but we struggle to put it FULLY into practice. We love our neighbors. You may even have thought that the Golden Rule WAS, simply, “Love thy neighbor.” It isn’t. We care, somewhat, about the people around us. But the hard part of this verse, from the Book of Leviticus, 19:18, is NOT the love part; the really tough part is just one word in Hebrew, two in English: “Kamocha - as yourself.”
Think about how much MORE upset you are when you yourself suffer an illness, or your children or parents are afflicted, or your best friend is in an accident, than if any of these things happen to strangers around us. Or worse still, in some foreign country halfway around the globe. “Sure,” we say, “but that’s just human nature. We take care of our own.” And that is true. However, our Torah, the foundation of our Jewish heritage, is in so many ways ALL about rising above human nature. Not letting that be a good enough excuse for our behavior. Yes, that is our initial inclination, to care about ourselves, our families, and our friends more than we care about others; but we must push ourselves to do better. The Golden Rule is urging us, even demanding of us, that we apply it to EVERYONE, not just the ones for whom it is already self-evident that we should care and be concerned. “As Yourself.” Can we love another THAT much? Can we allow ourselves to hear and internalize the commandment to open our hearts and homes THAT wide?
Can we raise money for cancer when we, ourselves, are not survivors, and when we don’t have immediate family or friends affected? Can we become leading voices against gun violence, with no personal loss to draw from? Can we allow ourselves to be touched by the plight of international refugees, even when our daily lives are unaffected by their struggles or their suffering? Can we care ANYWAY, just because? THAT is the challenge of Hillel’s teaching.
Now, I get it. It’s NOT easy. That’s my whole point, really, isn’t it? That love is more complicated than we sometimes give it credit, and Leviticus’ self-evident Golden Rule is in actuality a lot harder to live by than we think. But here’s the key: Relationships. If you seek to know “the other,” then loving him or her as much as we love those closest to us becomes a whole lot easier. You and I, we CAN manufacture a vested interest. If we’re willing to push ourselves to get there, we can create the relationships that will make us care deeper, and bring a little more “As Yourself” into loving our neighbors. This is basically the guiding principle behind Ohev’s new community initiative, called FUSE. FUSE is a partnership among congregations and community groups from Chester, Media, Swarthmore, and Wallingford, to engage with THIS very issue. In our community, we are often siloed; we share a physical space, but we do not really know one another, and we do not feel responsible for our community as a whole, let alone one another.
FUSE aims to ask what “Kamocha - as yourself” could really mean. Can we expand the boundaries of our communities and our hearts to include people from all walks of life, from various faith traditions, different races and sexual orientation, and disparate economic status? And can we make THEIR fate feel like our own? Not just feel like it, not in an inauthentic way, but actually “fuse” together our shared destiny to make it vital and life-sustaining that we help one another?
FUSE is just getting off the ground. You may never have heard of it until five minutes ago. But our work has begun. Next month, on Monday, October 12th, Columbus Day, we are holding a large communal gathering to which you are all invited. It’s a full-day conversation, 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., which will include brainstorming and action-planning for us to look at our SHARED community and think about how we can use the resources we already have to start working together to affect change. But the agenda, and the goals, and the action steps are only part of the purpose of FUSE. A major component is the getting together itself - just being in a room together! - the creation of joint space to share stories, meet face-to-face, and just get to know one another a little bit better, and in ways we otherwise never would, and never do. In short, FUSE is about the verse from Leviticus, “v’Ahavta l’Rei’acha Kamocha - Love your neighbor as yourself.” One of the taglines we’ve even been using is “Strangers becoming Neighbors.” Because that is what we need to be doing. We need to break down those barriers.
Together with other clergy members and community leaders in Delaware County, this is MY effort to embody Hillel’s addition to the famous quote. It’s not just “Love Your Neighbor As Yourself,” but also Hillel’s instruction: “Now go and learn it,” go make this dream a reality. We learn to live the Golden Rule with our actions and our behaviors; by interacting differently with the world. And I am sincerely hoping that FUSE can be just that, a fuse or spark that ignites change in all of us, everyone here.
Think about your own life. Each of us has causes we care about. We give money, time, and effort, we post things on Facebook and retweet them on Twitter. But ask yourself if all your causes and campaigns and contributions are meaningful to you because of an existing connection; to yourself, your history, your family and friends, or your community. For many of us, that is indeed the case. And that’s not a bad thing. I’m not judging those choices. That is, after all, human nature. But ask yourself if there is another level to which you can push yourself, a way to embody the full version of the Golden Rule, “v’Ahavta l’Rei’acha KAMOCHA,” “Love Your Neighbor AS YOURSELF.” Let us all resolve to work on expanding our fences, adding new relationships to our lives, and opening up our hearts to greater love for the people around us.
As we have adorned the walls of our sanctuary with beautiful art that reminds us of our history and what it means to be Jewish, so the New North London Synagogue has inscribed on their walls the values they wish to represent within and without their community. Let us also write these powerful words down, but etch them into our hearts and souls. Rabbi Wittenberg, and the ancient sage, Hillel, remind us: it is the foundation of our Torah; the essence of our people. Let us each emblazon these words in our lives in the new year that is about to begin. “v’Ahavta l’Rei’acha Kamocha”; now go and learn it.
Shanah Tovah!
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