Some of you already know that on the first Thursday of every month, a group of Ohevites meets at Pinocchio’s Pizza in Media for a Lunch n’ Learn. We rent out their upstairs room (which you possibly didn’t even know existed!), and spend an hour-and-a-half, or so, eating pizza and salad, and learning about Judaism, or aspects of the world through a Jewish lens. Sometimes we get 14 people, other times we’ve hit close to 40. We seem to have formed a die-hard group of LunchersN’Learners, who generally try to come every month, though all are welcome! This year, we’re mixing it up.
In honor of Ohev’s centennial celebration, our Lunch n’ Learn in 5780 (2019-2020) is going to be a bit different. I thought we might spend the next few months delving into the history of the Jews who settled in Chester, where our congregation was founded. I already began this topic at LnL in July and August, but so far we haven’t even gotten to the founding of the synagogue in 1920!
On October 17th (yes, I know it’s not the first Thursday of the month... read on...), we will continue our conversation in the Ohev Sukkah. Then, on November 7th, we’ll return to our usual venue (Pinocchio’s in Media) and normal schedule. My hope is that we’ll not only learn about the story of B’nai Israel and B’nai Aaron becoming Ohev Sholom (with a faction forming Mispallelim), then Ohev Shalom, then moving to Wallingford - but that it’ll teach us something else vital as well. Our story is a microcosm of American Jewry everywhere, and even includes elements of worldwide Jewish migration patterns, AND the stories of all minorities in this country. You might be surprised to learn how they all overlap, intertwine, and share themes.
So, whether or not you personally were born in Chester, or have family from there, this is YOUR story too! Our Centennial is an opportunity to look back at our incredible history, and how we’ve been present to some pivotal moments in the history of our entire nation. But it’s also a chance to see yourself in that history, to understand how it reflects your life, your story… and hopefully, your future. And if that isn’t enough to entice you, I’ll also divulge that there are some CRAZY, HBO-worthy anecdotes in there that you DON’T wanna miss!!
And you can learn all about our wonderful and turbulent past, every first Thursday at noon, over a delicious (and most-popular) slice of mushroom-and-onion pizza!
Sincerely,
Rabbi Gerber
Sunday, October 6, 2019
Thursday, October 3, 2019
Rosh Hashanah Sermon, Day 2 5780
Part Two: Now that Rosh Hashanah is behind us, I am posting my sermons online from days 1 and 2. If you aren't already familiar with my High Holiday writing, I always choose a theme, and then present four sermons on/related to/surrounding that theme. Included below is sermon #2, which expands (I hope...) on the initial concept, and develops it in a new direction. After Yom Kippur, I will post sermons 3 and 4 in the series. Feedback and responses are always welcome! Happy and Healthy New Year!!
Can I tell you something frustrating about this morning’s sermon? Not the specifics of what I’m planning on saying to you, but just some of the challenges that come automatically, when you deliver a sermon on the second day of Rosh Hashanah? No matter what I talk about with you all, here today, some people will automatically view it as a second-tier issue. Last year, I spoke about Israel, and when someone questioned me about it, I said, “but I devoted an entire sermon, one of my four MAIN talks on the High Holidays, to Israel!” and their response was, “sure, but you ‘buried it’ on the second day of Rosh Hashanah.”
For the record, I put all my sermons on my blog after the holiday (which you've clearly discovered, dear online reader...), so even people who weren’t here COULD read them, but again, no matter what I focus on for Day Two, or how I talk about it, it’s seen as getting short-shrift. So, what am I trying to “bury” and barely talk about with you today?
Well, if you were here for services yesterday, you may know that my theme for this year is “Jewish and…” thinking about various ways that our identities are multi-faceted. We can, and need to, maintain multiple priorities at once, and strive for a harmonious balance among all these various sides of ourselves.
I don’t talk a lot about voting or politics. I push enough buttons already, and - this year in particular - I am trying to choose my areas of engagement very, very carefully. One thing, however, that I continue to maintain vociferously, is that we cannot be one-issue-voters. Life doesn’t work that way. Yes, the world is confusing and overwhelming, and sometimes we are tempted to say, “I just want to focus on issue x, and whoever says what I want to hear on that topic, s/he will get my vote!” But it’s a dangerous oversimplification, and one that can easily be exploited by someone with ill-intent. No, my point of emphasizing “Jewish and…” is more than just talking about Jewish identity. I want to raise up how all of us - all people - are nuanced, complex, opinionated, passionate, diverse, and multi-layered.
So for today, for sermon #2 (you know, the throwaway one…), I want to expand even the scope of my topic: We, our community, Ohev Shalom, as a whole; we are “Jewish and.” We are Jewish AND… not-Jewish. And I mean this in a couple of distinct, but equally crucial ways. If we think of this as my Interfaith Sermon, there are two different paths we could walk down, and indeed we need to stroll along both of them. Interfaith can refer to the relationship WITHIN a family, where (at minimum) one person is Jewish AND one person is something else. And Interfaith is also the term we most often use for relationships between our congregation and the other houses of worship in our region. Our local gathering of religious leaders is, in fact, called the Interfaith Council of Southern Delaware County. Interfaith means both things, which in and of itself is quite interesting.
On the one hand, we might have thought (or still think) that there should be two different terms for these areas of connection. After all, one is intimately connected to a specific family, an internal dynamic within a unit, and how we, as a community, integrate family units with more than one history, tradition, culture, food, terminology, and even theology into our shared community. And the other is about our congregation as a single entity, affiliated and engaged with the local area communities, joining together on social projects, services, awareness campaigns, vigils, and to stand united when needed. So they can seem like QUITE different definitions of “Interfaith.” Yet on the other hand, both topics force us to engage with an important question, namely, “who do I include as ‘us,’ and who is left out as ‘them’?”
In the course of my work with FUSE, our Fellowship of Urban-Suburban Engagement, which has now been in existence for nearly six years, I have thought about this question a lot. Early on, the leadership team of FUSE discussed a subheading for our name, something like “expanding the fences.” And we received pushback. “Shouldn’t we be eliminating fences??” people would say. “All borders and boundaries are bad! There should be no ‘us’ and ‘them,’ that kind of talk is inherently discriminatory!” I wonder about that though. In a very impressive volume, written in 2011, entitled “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind,” Dr. Yuval Noah Harari tackles this question of us/them. He writes: “No social animal is ever guided by the interests of the entire species to which it belongs. No chimpanzee cares about the interests of the chimpanzee species, no snail will lift a tentacle for the global snail community, no lion alpha male makes a bid for becoming the king of all lions, and at the entrance of no beehive can one find the slogan: ‘worker bees of the world - unite!’”
Harari goes on to say that globalism is a human invention, or rather an invention of homo sapiens. And even when our ancestors tried to remove barriers and create common causes, according to Dr. Harari, “somewhere in the next valley, or beyond the mountain range, one could still [always] sense ‘them.’” So rather than try to eradicate this notion that has existed for millennia upon millennia, perhaps our time would be better spent reflecting on how we treat the people who are considered ‘us,’ AND the people who are considered ‘them.’ Yesterday, the main point I tried to make in my sermon was that “to be in relationship, we need to make space for ‘And.’” Today, the question is, ‘in relationship with whom?’
At least for me personally, our community definitely includes “Jewish AND not-Jewish.” We are interfaith in BOTH senses of the word. Let’s look a bit more closely at each one: Our expanded community of FUSE - made possible by the Netzach Grant established here in our congregation - as well as our partnerships through the incredible work of our Social Action committee, our USY teens, our families engaged in Mitzvah Projects, and the collaborative work we’ve been doing through the Outreach Grant; all of these create a greater sense of ‘us.’ This is indeed relationship-building, so it takes a lot of time and effort. This includes awkward moments, misunderstandings, clashes in food culture, some disagreements, and a GENEROUS helping of patience… but what many of us are discovering is that it starts to shift from an engagement across a vast divide - ‘us,’ over here, dealing with ‘them,’ over there - and gradually morphs into a new definition of who WE are. We 'fuse' together into the “US” in the middle of our name...
In his recent book on Jewish community-building, entitled “Next Generation Judaism,” my colleague, Rabbi Mike Uram, who heads the Hillel program at UPenn, writes about the importance of changing your mindset. “When we speak differently, we think differently, and when we think differently, we act differently.” It can be incredibly powerful - AND empowering - to change our vocabulary to one where our FUSE network and our Outreach partners, all the people we live with here in Delaware County, and who share our desire to thrive and succeed, be safe and healthy, and to nurture our families and our communities; ALL are one, united “us.” THAT is my goal.
Just last month, our FUSE group received some very exciting recognition. The Religious Leaders Council of Greater Philadelphia - which represents more than 30 member communities and (according to their website) more than 2 million people in the Greater Philadelphia region - awarded FUSE a distinction known as Zones of Peace. We were actually nominated by Shari Baron, so I want to extend a shoutout to her for her pride in our FUSE work and her desire to magnify FUSEs voice and reach. In their presentation ceremony in early September, John Hougen of the Religious Leaders Council talked about how FUSE is “creating relationships and fostering cooperation among people who are often isolated by mistrust, fear, and bigotry” and he praised FUSE for its “effective work in addressing the root causes of violence and building a better community.”
Building a better - and SHARED - community is indeed our goal. The hard work, however, is by no means concluded! The Zones of Peace award will hopefully be a great motivator for future progress. It can be used, say, in a High Holiday sermon (albeit on the second day of Rosh Hashanah…), to energize new participants to join FUSE. But more always needs to be done.
The same is true for our interfaith inclusion within Ohev Shalom. It can so easily just remain a talking point, or a hot topic to put on our new ShulCloud app (shameless plug!), to demonstrate that we are relevant and modern. But we also NEED to continuously challenge ourselves to walk the walk of our convictions; or as Rabbi Uram stated, “speak differently, to think differently, to act differently.”
So many studies tell us that interfaith families either do NOT feel welcomed, especially into Conservative synagogues. Or even if they ARE greeted warmly, they are continuously treated as newcomers, assumed to be outsiders looking in. Especially if it’s a multi-racial or multi-ethnic family. I don’t have an easy answer here; it is an open question put to our entire community… all of the “US” present right now, or reading this sermon online: How do we change ‘them’ into ‘us’? How do we begin to live, openly, fully, and proudly, with a community that is Jewish AND not-Jewish?
Another colleague of mine, Rabbi Michael Knopf, at Temple Beth-El in Richmond, VA, has been a leading voice in pushing the Conservative Movement to be more inclusive of interfaith families. He led his congregation, last year, to the bold and unprecedented resolution of permitting their synagogue’s clergy to officiate at interfaith ceremonies... IF and WHEN the movement allows it. In other words, they are breaking NO prohibitions at the moment… but publicly putting pressure on the leadership of the movement, by signaling that they would be supportive of the change, and ready to begin making the shift a reality… and ideally sooner rather than later!
Rabbi Knopf has written eloquently about this issue himself, specifically taking on the infamous surveys of American Jewish Life, that many of us know and have had brandished in our faces, stating that interfaith families are less likely to affiliate, even lesser-likelier to raise Jewish children, and almost impossibly ever going to produce Jewish grandchildren. Challenging this common trope, Rabbi Knopf writes, “As intermarriage has shifted in our time from crisis to simple fact of contemporary Jewish life, many have come to realize that intermarriage is not a threat to Jewish continuity, but rather an opportunity for Jewish flourishing and vitality.”
But more than just stating an opinion, he goes on to say: “When Jewish organizations and institutions reach out to and include intermarried families in Jewish life, they become as likely as in-married families to remain Jewishly attached... Conversely, when the Jewish community adopts an exclusionary posture toward intermarried families, we miss an opportunity to strengthen the Jewish partner’s connection to his/her tradition… and to bring the partner from a different background into deeper and more meaningful relationships with Jewish tradition and community.”
In other words, intermarriage is simply a reality of the Jewish and American landscape in 2020. It does not help us to label it as good or bad; it just is. But where we have agency, where we - as a community - CAN affect change, is how we define ‘us’ and ‘them.’ When we turn people away, they will indeed feel rejected, and will not affiliate with the Jewish community. Big surprise! But what if we expand our fences? Folks, we’re already doing it, but our language hasn’t always caught up. We don’t mean to, but sometimes we state our interfaith inclusion hesitantly or sheepishly. If we change how we speak, it may shift how we think, and in turn transform how we act.
You already know that we are more than just one thing. I think even though I’m only on sermon two out of four (and on the consolation-prize one, no less…), most people already agree, generally speaking, with the notion of “Jewish and.” I believe we can all appreciate that there are multiple parts to our identity, both individually and collectively. But is there room for “Jewish AND not-Jewish”? Yes, we care about relationships, but we also need to keep asking ourselves, ‘in relationship with whom?’
As we gaze ahead into our future, we cannot help but wonder who we will be, and who will be the ‘us’ that keeps this place going. We believe in Relational Judaism, and we know that we are also relational Sapiens, who WOULD lift a paw or a tentacle for others of our species, and who DO want worker bees everywhere, metaphorical AND actual, to be protected. This is our space, our home, our Zone of Peace. Let ‘us’ continue to FUSE together with others who share our community, and let’s expand our fences together. And yes, even though I spoke about this on the infamous Second Day of Rosh Hashanah, I care about this topic a lot.
Shanah Tovah!
RH2 5780 - Main Sermon
Shanah Tovah.Can I tell you something frustrating about this morning’s sermon? Not the specifics of what I’m planning on saying to you, but just some of the challenges that come automatically, when you deliver a sermon on the second day of Rosh Hashanah? No matter what I talk about with you all, here today, some people will automatically view it as a second-tier issue. Last year, I spoke about Israel, and when someone questioned me about it, I said, “but I devoted an entire sermon, one of my four MAIN talks on the High Holidays, to Israel!” and their response was, “sure, but you ‘buried it’ on the second day of Rosh Hashanah.”
For the record, I put all my sermons on my blog after the holiday (which you've clearly discovered, dear online reader...), so even people who weren’t here COULD read them, but again, no matter what I focus on for Day Two, or how I talk about it, it’s seen as getting short-shrift. So, what am I trying to “bury” and barely talk about with you today?
Well, if you were here for services yesterday, you may know that my theme for this year is “Jewish and…” thinking about various ways that our identities are multi-faceted. We can, and need to, maintain multiple priorities at once, and strive for a harmonious balance among all these various sides of ourselves.
I don’t talk a lot about voting or politics. I push enough buttons already, and - this year in particular - I am trying to choose my areas of engagement very, very carefully. One thing, however, that I continue to maintain vociferously, is that we cannot be one-issue-voters. Life doesn’t work that way. Yes, the world is confusing and overwhelming, and sometimes we are tempted to say, “I just want to focus on issue x, and whoever says what I want to hear on that topic, s/he will get my vote!” But it’s a dangerous oversimplification, and one that can easily be exploited by someone with ill-intent. No, my point of emphasizing “Jewish and…” is more than just talking about Jewish identity. I want to raise up how all of us - all people - are nuanced, complex, opinionated, passionate, diverse, and multi-layered.
So for today, for sermon #2 (you know, the throwaway one…), I want to expand even the scope of my topic: We, our community, Ohev Shalom, as a whole; we are “Jewish and.” We are Jewish AND… not-Jewish. And I mean this in a couple of distinct, but equally crucial ways. If we think of this as my Interfaith Sermon, there are two different paths we could walk down, and indeed we need to stroll along both of them. Interfaith can refer to the relationship WITHIN a family, where (at minimum) one person is Jewish AND one person is something else. And Interfaith is also the term we most often use for relationships between our congregation and the other houses of worship in our region. Our local gathering of religious leaders is, in fact, called the Interfaith Council of Southern Delaware County. Interfaith means both things, which in and of itself is quite interesting.
On the one hand, we might have thought (or still think) that there should be two different terms for these areas of connection. After all, one is intimately connected to a specific family, an internal dynamic within a unit, and how we, as a community, integrate family units with more than one history, tradition, culture, food, terminology, and even theology into our shared community. And the other is about our congregation as a single entity, affiliated and engaged with the local area communities, joining together on social projects, services, awareness campaigns, vigils, and to stand united when needed. So they can seem like QUITE different definitions of “Interfaith.” Yet on the other hand, both topics force us to engage with an important question, namely, “who do I include as ‘us,’ and who is left out as ‘them’?”
In the course of my work with FUSE, our Fellowship of Urban-Suburban Engagement, which has now been in existence for nearly six years, I have thought about this question a lot. Early on, the leadership team of FUSE discussed a subheading for our name, something like “expanding the fences.” And we received pushback. “Shouldn’t we be eliminating fences??” people would say. “All borders and boundaries are bad! There should be no ‘us’ and ‘them,’ that kind of talk is inherently discriminatory!” I wonder about that though. In a very impressive volume, written in 2011, entitled “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind,” Dr. Yuval Noah Harari tackles this question of us/them. He writes: “No social animal is ever guided by the interests of the entire species to which it belongs. No chimpanzee cares about the interests of the chimpanzee species, no snail will lift a tentacle for the global snail community, no lion alpha male makes a bid for becoming the king of all lions, and at the entrance of no beehive can one find the slogan: ‘worker bees of the world - unite!’”
Harari goes on to say that globalism is a human invention, or rather an invention of homo sapiens. And even when our ancestors tried to remove barriers and create common causes, according to Dr. Harari, “somewhere in the next valley, or beyond the mountain range, one could still [always] sense ‘them.’” So rather than try to eradicate this notion that has existed for millennia upon millennia, perhaps our time would be better spent reflecting on how we treat the people who are considered ‘us,’ AND the people who are considered ‘them.’ Yesterday, the main point I tried to make in my sermon was that “to be in relationship, we need to make space for ‘And.’” Today, the question is, ‘in relationship with whom?’
At least for me personally, our community definitely includes “Jewish AND not-Jewish.” We are interfaith in BOTH senses of the word. Let’s look a bit more closely at each one: Our expanded community of FUSE - made possible by the Netzach Grant established here in our congregation - as well as our partnerships through the incredible work of our Social Action committee, our USY teens, our families engaged in Mitzvah Projects, and the collaborative work we’ve been doing through the Outreach Grant; all of these create a greater sense of ‘us.’ This is indeed relationship-building, so it takes a lot of time and effort. This includes awkward moments, misunderstandings, clashes in food culture, some disagreements, and a GENEROUS helping of patience… but what many of us are discovering is that it starts to shift from an engagement across a vast divide - ‘us,’ over here, dealing with ‘them,’ over there - and gradually morphs into a new definition of who WE are. We 'fuse' together into the “US” in the middle of our name...
In his recent book on Jewish community-building, entitled “Next Generation Judaism,” my colleague, Rabbi Mike Uram, who heads the Hillel program at UPenn, writes about the importance of changing your mindset. “When we speak differently, we think differently, and when we think differently, we act differently.” It can be incredibly powerful - AND empowering - to change our vocabulary to one where our FUSE network and our Outreach partners, all the people we live with here in Delaware County, and who share our desire to thrive and succeed, be safe and healthy, and to nurture our families and our communities; ALL are one, united “us.” THAT is my goal.
Just last month, our FUSE group received some very exciting recognition. The Religious Leaders Council of Greater Philadelphia - which represents more than 30 member communities and (according to their website) more than 2 million people in the Greater Philadelphia region - awarded FUSE a distinction known as Zones of Peace. We were actually nominated by Shari Baron, so I want to extend a shoutout to her for her pride in our FUSE work and her desire to magnify FUSEs voice and reach. In their presentation ceremony in early September, John Hougen of the Religious Leaders Council talked about how FUSE is “creating relationships and fostering cooperation among people who are often isolated by mistrust, fear, and bigotry” and he praised FUSE for its “effective work in addressing the root causes of violence and building a better community.”
Building a better - and SHARED - community is indeed our goal. The hard work, however, is by no means concluded! The Zones of Peace award will hopefully be a great motivator for future progress. It can be used, say, in a High Holiday sermon (albeit on the second day of Rosh Hashanah…), to energize new participants to join FUSE. But more always needs to be done.
The same is true for our interfaith inclusion within Ohev Shalom. It can so easily just remain a talking point, or a hot topic to put on our new ShulCloud app (shameless plug!), to demonstrate that we are relevant and modern. But we also NEED to continuously challenge ourselves to walk the walk of our convictions; or as Rabbi Uram stated, “speak differently, to think differently, to act differently.”
So many studies tell us that interfaith families either do NOT feel welcomed, especially into Conservative synagogues. Or even if they ARE greeted warmly, they are continuously treated as newcomers, assumed to be outsiders looking in. Especially if it’s a multi-racial or multi-ethnic family. I don’t have an easy answer here; it is an open question put to our entire community… all of the “US” present right now, or reading this sermon online: How do we change ‘them’ into ‘us’? How do we begin to live, openly, fully, and proudly, with a community that is Jewish AND not-Jewish?
Another colleague of mine, Rabbi Michael Knopf, at Temple Beth-El in Richmond, VA, has been a leading voice in pushing the Conservative Movement to be more inclusive of interfaith families. He led his congregation, last year, to the bold and unprecedented resolution of permitting their synagogue’s clergy to officiate at interfaith ceremonies... IF and WHEN the movement allows it. In other words, they are breaking NO prohibitions at the moment… but publicly putting pressure on the leadership of the movement, by signaling that they would be supportive of the change, and ready to begin making the shift a reality… and ideally sooner rather than later!
Rabbi Knopf has written eloquently about this issue himself, specifically taking on the infamous surveys of American Jewish Life, that many of us know and have had brandished in our faces, stating that interfaith families are less likely to affiliate, even lesser-likelier to raise Jewish children, and almost impossibly ever going to produce Jewish grandchildren. Challenging this common trope, Rabbi Knopf writes, “As intermarriage has shifted in our time from crisis to simple fact of contemporary Jewish life, many have come to realize that intermarriage is not a threat to Jewish continuity, but rather an opportunity for Jewish flourishing and vitality.”
But more than just stating an opinion, he goes on to say: “When Jewish organizations and institutions reach out to and include intermarried families in Jewish life, they become as likely as in-married families to remain Jewishly attached... Conversely, when the Jewish community adopts an exclusionary posture toward intermarried families, we miss an opportunity to strengthen the Jewish partner’s connection to his/her tradition… and to bring the partner from a different background into deeper and more meaningful relationships with Jewish tradition and community.”
In other words, intermarriage is simply a reality of the Jewish and American landscape in 2020. It does not help us to label it as good or bad; it just is. But where we have agency, where we - as a community - CAN affect change, is how we define ‘us’ and ‘them.’ When we turn people away, they will indeed feel rejected, and will not affiliate with the Jewish community. Big surprise! But what if we expand our fences? Folks, we’re already doing it, but our language hasn’t always caught up. We don’t mean to, but sometimes we state our interfaith inclusion hesitantly or sheepishly. If we change how we speak, it may shift how we think, and in turn transform how we act.
You already know that we are more than just one thing. I think even though I’m only on sermon two out of four (and on the consolation-prize one, no less…), most people already agree, generally speaking, with the notion of “Jewish and.” I believe we can all appreciate that there are multiple parts to our identity, both individually and collectively. But is there room for “Jewish AND not-Jewish”? Yes, we care about relationships, but we also need to keep asking ourselves, ‘in relationship with whom?’
As we gaze ahead into our future, we cannot help but wonder who we will be, and who will be the ‘us’ that keeps this place going. We believe in Relational Judaism, and we know that we are also relational Sapiens, who WOULD lift a paw or a tentacle for others of our species, and who DO want worker bees everywhere, metaphorical AND actual, to be protected. This is our space, our home, our Zone of Peace. Let ‘us’ continue to FUSE together with others who share our community, and let’s expand our fences together. And yes, even though I spoke about this on the infamous Second Day of Rosh Hashanah, I care about this topic a lot.
Shanah Tovah!
Rosh Hashanah Sermon, Day 1, 5780
Now that Rosh Hashanah is behind us, I am posting my sermons online from days 1 and 2. If you aren't already familiar with my High Holiday writing, I always choose a theme, and then present four sermons on/related to/surrounding that theme. Included below is sermon #1, which introduces you to this year's theme. After Yom Kippur, I will post sermons 3 and 4 in the series. Feedback and responses are always welcome! Happy and Healthy New Year!!
You were expecting me to say something else there, weren’t you? I mean, that makes sense. You can’t exactly end a sentence - much less a greeting - with the word “and,” can you? It’s not considered a grammatically correct practice even to BEGIN a sentence with “And,” so it surely isn’t acceptable to trail off saying “And,” with nothing whatsoever to follow it! … but it DOES grab your attention, doesn’t it?
And I would argue that the reason it doesn’t work well at the start OR the end of anything, is because “And” is a connector. Some of you may already have read my September article in L’Chaim, our synagogue newsletter, where I subtly hinted that the word “And” would be integral to my theme this year, to the topic which I hope to continue expanding upon through the four main sermons of the High Holiday services. The more I’ve thought about it, over the past few months, the more I’ve felt it is a perfect metaphor for community, for engagement, for relationship; because “And” cannot stand alone. It needs to connect to something - or someone - on one side... and ideally it really needs someone to hold its hand on the other side as well.
I want to pause and give credit for this year’s theme to my friend and colleague - really, my teacher - Rabbi Kelilah Miller. Months ago, she and I were engaged in one of our extended, philosophical conversations, which happen with some frequency around the office, and somewhere along the way, this idea was born: We are not one thing. None of us, not a single person in this room, no human on earth, and perhaps not even any living creature anywhere, is defined simply by one trait, one belief, or one action. You are not exclusively a male or a female, such that all your decisions or actions can be traced back to your gender. You are not a Democrat or a Republican or an Independent or apolitical; meaning that the dividing lines are not solid, firm, and clear, with no commonalities across the various spectra. And we cannot be labeled entirely as Jewish, Muslim, Christian, atheist, Hindu, Buddhist, Baha’i, Sikh, humanist - and thereby imagine that all our choices and behaviors stem from our faith or lack thereof. We are not one or the other. This OR That. Right OR Left. We are “Jewish and…”
For the rest of this sermon, and then for three additional sermons - tomorrow morning, Kol Nidrei evening, and Yom Kippur morning - I want to talk with you about the topic of “Jewish and.” And today, on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, my sermon’s subtitle is “Jewish and Different.”
Sometimes, especially in cultures like ours here in America, or even across Western Civilization, it is easy to create stereotypes and simplistic pictures in our heads. Indulge me for a moment, and close your eyes, right now. If I asked you to picture “A Jew,” what would you see? Just create an image in your mind. Is this person wearing a kippah? Maybe a tallit? Maybe it even tips over into the stereotypical, and your mental image is of a male, and HE is wearing all black, maybe has peyes and a big beard. But even if all that is not true, and you didn’t picture that at all… I imagine you likely still pictured a Caucasian. (You can open your eyes now)
Now, my pointing this out isn’t meant to make you feel bad, or ashamed in any way. What I want us to do is look at our own preconceived notions, so that we can step away from them. It is difficult - maybe even impossible - to change and evolve, if we can’t first look at ourselves RIGHT NOW honestly and openly. Each person here has a framework within which s/he sees the world AND it is almost certainly different from the person sitting next to you, AND we need to talk about our own frameworks in order to make room for someone else’s. To be in relationship, we need to make space for ‘And.’ Right now, we are in the Season of Repentance; the High Holidays. And most of us know that the main theme of Rosh Hashanah is NOT celebrating or merriment or even eating (though food is obviously central to this, and EVERY, Jewish holiday too…), but really, Rosh Hashanah is about reflection and introspection. We are preparing for Yom Kippur, just ten days away, and trying to begin this new year better than the previous one.
And I would argue, that it is hard to do any real self-examination or experience any true growth, without asking some tough questions. Certainly in my own experience, wisdom - which is quite different from intelligence or knowledge - wisdom comes from perseverance, resilience, and challenge. Sitting comfortably and relaxed, enjoying services and not feeling pushed to search inside yourself at all, simply CANNOT lead to change. So if you and I are serious about why we are here for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, if we MEAN what we say when we claim to want to begin a new year fresh, with a desire to be better, to improve, to strive for different, then it has to begin with questions that challenge us, AND with examining our relationships with the people around us.
We need to start with looking at ourselves. When we think “Jewish,” we sometimes forget to imagine “Different.” It’s not intentional, but we likely imagine “Jewish = looks like me.” “Jewish” can ALSO mean African-American, or Latino, or gay, or someone with different needs or abilities. And/or a vastly different origin story. Last year, Siona Benjamin was our Artist-in-Residence, and she provided us all a wonderful opportunity to learn about the Jewish communities of India. Her artwork, which combined Judaic imagery, with traditional Indian and Hindu symbols, as well as American ones, was incredible, and hopefully we’ll have a chance to enjoy her art again soon. My main takeaway from her visit was a way to see the term “us” as expanded. To think of “Jewish and…” as meaning more than just Ashkenazi, or American… or white.
The title of a 2015 documentary about Siona Benjamin and her art is called “Blue Like Me.” This is a reference both to the influence of a type of art called Indian “miniature” paintings with a lot of blue figures, but also to what Siona herself describes as the feeling of an outsider looking in. People who live in a Jewish community that is predominantly white, Ashkenazi, and heteronormative, but who don’t fit into one or more of those categories, or feel they don’t “fit” some other accepted norm within our community, can often feel like an outsider looking in. My point here is, someone around you might feel like an Other, and you don’t even know it.
Now, you could be thinking, “Do we HAVE TO recognize our differences, our diversity, explicitly? Why should our specific terminology matter, if our actions demonstrate what a welcoming and inclusive community we are?” And my response is, when people don’t feel they are represented, see someone like them on the bimah, hear their story in our tradition, then they may NOT feel welcomed and included. If we don’t talk directly about marginalized groups or give voice to the tough and painful questions that many people feel inside, then are we really being warm and welcoming? Aren’t we just putting “And” at the end of a sentence, without bridging it to something on the other side?
To be in relationship, we need to make space for ‘And.’ I mean, REALLY make space for it. The challenge is one of humbling ourselves, of withdrawing a little, and not making assumptions about who “fits in” and who doesn’t. The ancient rabbis of the Mishnah famously wrote about being open to difference in their own way, writing statements in Pirkei Avot - Ethics of Our Fathers - like, “Eizehu Chacham? Ha-Lomed Mi-Kol Adam.” “Who is Wise? One who learns from ALL people.” And a separate teaching, from the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Ta’anit, is a perfect partner to that first quote: “Rabbi Chanina taught, ‘I have learned much from my teachers. I have learned more from my colleagues than my teachers. But from my students I learned more than all of them.’”
In other words, when read together, these two texts remind us to learn not just from ALL teachers, from all people who identify themselves as educators - who teach a class or a Lunch n’ Learn or deliver a sermon or an instructional YouTube video. No, we truly learn from ALL people. We need to withdraw our own egos, humble ourselves a little, and discover how amazing it can be to learn from 4-year olds, from complete strangers on the street, from an annoying co-worker who usually only says obnoxious things. Or, during this Season of Repentance, perhaps we can challenge ourselves to learn from someone who has angered, upset, or disappointed us? Or learn by pulling back, and listening for a still, small voice that may offer an unexpected teaching, that we were ONLY able to hear because we created space with our silence?
We’re here, right? We’re in synagogue ON Rosh Hashanah, taking seriously the themes presented to us about making changes to begin the new year better than the previous one. So what does that mean? For me, for you, for each person here? Can change really take place, without examining ourselves, without asking some challenging questions, without evaluating our relationships with the people around us? If change doesn’t involve any of those things, how is it meaningful, substantive, significant change?
I want to share with you one, final image that encapsulates this concept of “Jewish and” for me. It is a window, metaphorically AND tangibly. As an aside, I want to share that our building is filled with artwork. Some you see immediately, others are more subtle or blend in with their surroundings. Some might be incredibly beautiful and eye-catching, while other pieces are - shall we say - an acquired taste. Or perhaps slightly dated in their appeal. But what they all have in common are stories. Incredible, personal, meaningful, beautiful stories. As the rabbi of Ohev Shalom for over ten years now, I have had the privilege to learn many of the stories that predated me, and the even GREATER privilege to make new stories along with you. Occasionally, I find it sad that so many people will never know the details, intricacies, and the history that is hiding behind a glass dove or a plaque in the grass or inside a Torah cover. But I want you to know, today, that each one unlocks an entire life and a series of events. As part of our Centennial celebration, we are hoping to record as many of those stories as possible; if you personally want to know any more details about something you see anywhere around Ohev Shalom, please ask. Each is like an “And”; a relationship waiting to open up to you.
One such story began just one year ago, when we dedicated a beautiful new stained glass window in our Balin Chapel (across the lobby). The window depicts a gorgeous tree, sprouting some unidentified, but delicious-looking orange fruit. And throughout the roots and the branches of that tree are words in Hebrew and in English. Like the art around the building, some are obvious, others are hidden. Every word connotes relationship. For the family that dedicated the window, each characteristic mentioned represents a facet of a relationship that is incredibly meaningful and powerful. But like all artwork, it begins with one story, but it spreads out - much like the branches of the tree in that window - to create new possibilities. New branches, leaves, and fruit, or for each new onlooker, new interpretations, personal meaning, AND a relationship.
I love our new chapel window. On sunny late afternoons, the light reflects into that prayer space at the perfect angle, creating an inverted, glassy, watercolor-like image on the wall opposite the window. Other times, the whole room is bathed in a warm, soothing, blue shimmer. It kind of makes us all look a bit more similar; a bit more "blue like me"... Depending on how I am feeling, a different word in the window will catch my eye, or the little mockingbird hidden among the branches. The art itself might not change, but we shift and grow and evolve, and so the world around us seems altered all the time. If you change your perspective, or change your approach - or maybe even just look out a new window - you really can see things in a different light.
Every year, the focus for me at these High Holidays is relationships. How is our relationship to ourselves, our family members, our friends, our community, the world, AND God? But it has to begin with an honest look at where I am RIGHT NOW. The goal isn’t to be totally different, to change everything about yourself! But we do need to make space for growth. To do that, we have to look at ourselves through a new lens and a new light, AND then we have to remove ourselves enough to hear other people’s stories and their challenges, AND then we have to spend some time on relationships. It may seem like a lofty goal, but I know we’re up to the challenge. We may all be different, but we can all make space for relationships. We can grow new branches and new fruit, we can learn from all those we encounter along life’s way. We are not just one thing; none of us are limited nor are we immutable. No. We are “Jewish and…”
AND… Shanah Tovah!
RH1 5780 - Main Sermon
Shanah Tovah! … AND… (Pause)You were expecting me to say something else there, weren’t you? I mean, that makes sense. You can’t exactly end a sentence - much less a greeting - with the word “and,” can you? It’s not considered a grammatically correct practice even to BEGIN a sentence with “And,” so it surely isn’t acceptable to trail off saying “And,” with nothing whatsoever to follow it! … but it DOES grab your attention, doesn’t it?
And I would argue that the reason it doesn’t work well at the start OR the end of anything, is because “And” is a connector. Some of you may already have read my September article in L’Chaim, our synagogue newsletter, where I subtly hinted that the word “And” would be integral to my theme this year, to the topic which I hope to continue expanding upon through the four main sermons of the High Holiday services. The more I’ve thought about it, over the past few months, the more I’ve felt it is a perfect metaphor for community, for engagement, for relationship; because “And” cannot stand alone. It needs to connect to something - or someone - on one side... and ideally it really needs someone to hold its hand on the other side as well.
I want to pause and give credit for this year’s theme to my friend and colleague - really, my teacher - Rabbi Kelilah Miller. Months ago, she and I were engaged in one of our extended, philosophical conversations, which happen with some frequency around the office, and somewhere along the way, this idea was born: We are not one thing. None of us, not a single person in this room, no human on earth, and perhaps not even any living creature anywhere, is defined simply by one trait, one belief, or one action. You are not exclusively a male or a female, such that all your decisions or actions can be traced back to your gender. You are not a Democrat or a Republican or an Independent or apolitical; meaning that the dividing lines are not solid, firm, and clear, with no commonalities across the various spectra. And we cannot be labeled entirely as Jewish, Muslim, Christian, atheist, Hindu, Buddhist, Baha’i, Sikh, humanist - and thereby imagine that all our choices and behaviors stem from our faith or lack thereof. We are not one or the other. This OR That. Right OR Left. We are “Jewish and…”
For the rest of this sermon, and then for three additional sermons - tomorrow morning, Kol Nidrei evening, and Yom Kippur morning - I want to talk with you about the topic of “Jewish and.” And today, on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, my sermon’s subtitle is “Jewish and Different.”
Sometimes, especially in cultures like ours here in America, or even across Western Civilization, it is easy to create stereotypes and simplistic pictures in our heads. Indulge me for a moment, and close your eyes, right now. If I asked you to picture “A Jew,” what would you see? Just create an image in your mind. Is this person wearing a kippah? Maybe a tallit? Maybe it even tips over into the stereotypical, and your mental image is of a male, and HE is wearing all black, maybe has peyes and a big beard. But even if all that is not true, and you didn’t picture that at all… I imagine you likely still pictured a Caucasian. (You can open your eyes now)
Now, my pointing this out isn’t meant to make you feel bad, or ashamed in any way. What I want us to do is look at our own preconceived notions, so that we can step away from them. It is difficult - maybe even impossible - to change and evolve, if we can’t first look at ourselves RIGHT NOW honestly and openly. Each person here has a framework within which s/he sees the world AND it is almost certainly different from the person sitting next to you, AND we need to talk about our own frameworks in order to make room for someone else’s. To be in relationship, we need to make space for ‘And.’ Right now, we are in the Season of Repentance; the High Holidays. And most of us know that the main theme of Rosh Hashanah is NOT celebrating or merriment or even eating (though food is obviously central to this, and EVERY, Jewish holiday too…), but really, Rosh Hashanah is about reflection and introspection. We are preparing for Yom Kippur, just ten days away, and trying to begin this new year better than the previous one.
And I would argue, that it is hard to do any real self-examination or experience any true growth, without asking some tough questions. Certainly in my own experience, wisdom - which is quite different from intelligence or knowledge - wisdom comes from perseverance, resilience, and challenge. Sitting comfortably and relaxed, enjoying services and not feeling pushed to search inside yourself at all, simply CANNOT lead to change. So if you and I are serious about why we are here for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, if we MEAN what we say when we claim to want to begin a new year fresh, with a desire to be better, to improve, to strive for different, then it has to begin with questions that challenge us, AND with examining our relationships with the people around us.
We need to start with looking at ourselves. When we think “Jewish,” we sometimes forget to imagine “Different.” It’s not intentional, but we likely imagine “Jewish = looks like me.” “Jewish” can ALSO mean African-American, or Latino, or gay, or someone with different needs or abilities. And/or a vastly different origin story. Last year, Siona Benjamin was our Artist-in-Residence, and she provided us all a wonderful opportunity to learn about the Jewish communities of India. Her artwork, which combined Judaic imagery, with traditional Indian and Hindu symbols, as well as American ones, was incredible, and hopefully we’ll have a chance to enjoy her art again soon. My main takeaway from her visit was a way to see the term “us” as expanded. To think of “Jewish and…” as meaning more than just Ashkenazi, or American… or white.
The title of a 2015 documentary about Siona Benjamin and her art is called “Blue Like Me.” This is a reference both to the influence of a type of art called Indian “miniature” paintings with a lot of blue figures, but also to what Siona herself describes as the feeling of an outsider looking in. People who live in a Jewish community that is predominantly white, Ashkenazi, and heteronormative, but who don’t fit into one or more of those categories, or feel they don’t “fit” some other accepted norm within our community, can often feel like an outsider looking in. My point here is, someone around you might feel like an Other, and you don’t even know it.
Now, you could be thinking, “Do we HAVE TO recognize our differences, our diversity, explicitly? Why should our specific terminology matter, if our actions demonstrate what a welcoming and inclusive community we are?” And my response is, when people don’t feel they are represented, see someone like them on the bimah, hear their story in our tradition, then they may NOT feel welcomed and included. If we don’t talk directly about marginalized groups or give voice to the tough and painful questions that many people feel inside, then are we really being warm and welcoming? Aren’t we just putting “And” at the end of a sentence, without bridging it to something on the other side?
To be in relationship, we need to make space for ‘And.’ I mean, REALLY make space for it. The challenge is one of humbling ourselves, of withdrawing a little, and not making assumptions about who “fits in” and who doesn’t. The ancient rabbis of the Mishnah famously wrote about being open to difference in their own way, writing statements in Pirkei Avot - Ethics of Our Fathers - like, “Eizehu Chacham? Ha-Lomed Mi-Kol Adam.” “Who is Wise? One who learns from ALL people.” And a separate teaching, from the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Ta’anit, is a perfect partner to that first quote: “Rabbi Chanina taught, ‘I have learned much from my teachers. I have learned more from my colleagues than my teachers. But from my students I learned more than all of them.’”
In other words, when read together, these two texts remind us to learn not just from ALL teachers, from all people who identify themselves as educators - who teach a class or a Lunch n’ Learn or deliver a sermon or an instructional YouTube video. No, we truly learn from ALL people. We need to withdraw our own egos, humble ourselves a little, and discover how amazing it can be to learn from 4-year olds, from complete strangers on the street, from an annoying co-worker who usually only says obnoxious things. Or, during this Season of Repentance, perhaps we can challenge ourselves to learn from someone who has angered, upset, or disappointed us? Or learn by pulling back, and listening for a still, small voice that may offer an unexpected teaching, that we were ONLY able to hear because we created space with our silence?
We’re here, right? We’re in synagogue ON Rosh Hashanah, taking seriously the themes presented to us about making changes to begin the new year better than the previous one. So what does that mean? For me, for you, for each person here? Can change really take place, without examining ourselves, without asking some challenging questions, without evaluating our relationships with the people around us? If change doesn’t involve any of those things, how is it meaningful, substantive, significant change?
I want to share with you one, final image that encapsulates this concept of “Jewish and” for me. It is a window, metaphorically AND tangibly. As an aside, I want to share that our building is filled with artwork. Some you see immediately, others are more subtle or blend in with their surroundings. Some might be incredibly beautiful and eye-catching, while other pieces are - shall we say - an acquired taste. Or perhaps slightly dated in their appeal. But what they all have in common are stories. Incredible, personal, meaningful, beautiful stories. As the rabbi of Ohev Shalom for over ten years now, I have had the privilege to learn many of the stories that predated me, and the even GREATER privilege to make new stories along with you. Occasionally, I find it sad that so many people will never know the details, intricacies, and the history that is hiding behind a glass dove or a plaque in the grass or inside a Torah cover. But I want you to know, today, that each one unlocks an entire life and a series of events. As part of our Centennial celebration, we are hoping to record as many of those stories as possible; if you personally want to know any more details about something you see anywhere around Ohev Shalom, please ask. Each is like an “And”; a relationship waiting to open up to you.
One such story began just one year ago, when we dedicated a beautiful new stained glass window in our Balin Chapel (across the lobby). The window depicts a gorgeous tree, sprouting some unidentified, but delicious-looking orange fruit. And throughout the roots and the branches of that tree are words in Hebrew and in English. Like the art around the building, some are obvious, others are hidden. Every word connotes relationship. For the family that dedicated the window, each characteristic mentioned represents a facet of a relationship that is incredibly meaningful and powerful. But like all artwork, it begins with one story, but it spreads out - much like the branches of the tree in that window - to create new possibilities. New branches, leaves, and fruit, or for each new onlooker, new interpretations, personal meaning, AND a relationship.
I love our new chapel window. On sunny late afternoons, the light reflects into that prayer space at the perfect angle, creating an inverted, glassy, watercolor-like image on the wall opposite the window. Other times, the whole room is bathed in a warm, soothing, blue shimmer. It kind of makes us all look a bit more similar; a bit more "blue like me"... Depending on how I am feeling, a different word in the window will catch my eye, or the little mockingbird hidden among the branches. The art itself might not change, but we shift and grow and evolve, and so the world around us seems altered all the time. If you change your perspective, or change your approach - or maybe even just look out a new window - you really can see things in a different light.
Every year, the focus for me at these High Holidays is relationships. How is our relationship to ourselves, our family members, our friends, our community, the world, AND God? But it has to begin with an honest look at where I am RIGHT NOW. The goal isn’t to be totally different, to change everything about yourself! But we do need to make space for growth. To do that, we have to look at ourselves through a new lens and a new light, AND then we have to remove ourselves enough to hear other people’s stories and their challenges, AND then we have to spend some time on relationships. It may seem like a lofty goal, but I know we’re up to the challenge. We may all be different, but we can all make space for relationships. We can grow new branches and new fruit, we can learn from all those we encounter along life’s way. We are not just one thing; none of us are limited nor are we immutable. No. We are “Jewish and…”
AND… Shanah Tovah!
Friday, September 27, 2019
Nitzavim: Choose... Something!
Right now, I'm in High Holiday mode. That means I am spending most of my time writing, editing, deleting, retooling, and finalizing sermons. After Rosh Hashanah, I'll post my first two main sermons here on the blog, so even if you didn't catch the live-version, you can still tell me if you thought they came out ok or not.
Fingers crossed... Though my brain is mainly focused on the Jewish New Year, and all the themes and imagery that come with it, I nevertheless wanted to pause and reflect with you on this week's Torah portion. Luckily for me (and hopefully you as well), I discovered that a source I was using for something ELSE, in a holiday sermon, had something interesting to say for Parashat Nitzavim as well.
My brother, Benjamin, gave me a book a while back, entitled "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind," by Dr. Yuval Noah Harari. At one point in the book, Harari talks about how religion began and developed. He describes how animalism (or zoolatry) evolved into polytheism, which created both monotheism and dualism.
I was especially taken with a particular observation of Harari's, namely that all theology - all thinking about Divine forces, as well as the origins and purposes of humanity - face one struggle or another. Whatever you believe, however you imagine the universe is structured, you have to wrestle with a problem, and make a choice. Monotheists struggle with the Problem of Evil, or as Harari writes: "Monotheists have to practice intellectual gymnastics to explain how an all-knowing, all-powerful and perfectly good God allows so much suffering in the world." Dualism, meanwhile, is puzzled by the Problem of Order, meaning: "When Good and Evil fight, what common laws do they obey, and who decreed these laws?" No one can answer every question; everyone has to choose.
And here's where our Torah portion jumps into the mix. Moses is reaching the very end of his monologue, the last words he'll utter to the Children of Israel before his own death. Speaking on God's behalf, Moses declares:
"I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life—if you and your descendants should live." (Deut. 30:19) On the one hand, it doesn't seem like much of a choice; more like a threat or an ultimatum! But on the other hand, it very much IS a choice. People choose death and destruction, pain and suffering, greed and hatred every single day! So much so, that it challenges the very fundamental building blocks of our monotheistic theology! If God is powerful, all-seeing, and good; how can there be this much evil in the world??? And even if you try to shift to dualism, polytheism, or some ancient animal worshiping zoolatry; ya still gotta make choices!
Just as Harari describes, we DO get distracted by the challenge of Evil quite a bit. But if we can set that aside for a minute, I think this quote from Deuteronomy actually is emphasizing the choice part. And not that it's a one-time decision,
and then you either live life as a Good Guy or a Bad Guy, but rather that life - living - is a series of constant choices. As we finish up this month of preparation, and get ready for Rosh Hashanah, we should let God's appeal to us keep ringing in our ears: "u'Vacharta va'Chayim," "Choose life!" It matters less what you believe, or even how you personally resolve, in your own mind, the eternal problem of the existence of evil. But what DOES matter are your choices - today, tomorrow, this upcoming Monday, and every day. Be a force for good in the world. Improve and inspire the community around you, and take responsibility for your actions and your behaviors, knowing when to say sorry and genuinely be remorseful. Make good choices, but perhaps even MORE importantly, recognize what a gift and a power it is to be able to choose. Respect that ability, treat it with compassion, kindness, and understanding; and together, we can all 'choose life!'
CC images in this blog post, courtesy of:
1. Steve Johnson on Pexels
2. Albert Meyer on Wikipedia
3. andreasfuchs8732 on needpix.com
4. Jeremy Noble on Flickr
Fingers crossed... Though my brain is mainly focused on the Jewish New Year, and all the themes and imagery that come with it, I nevertheless wanted to pause and reflect with you on this week's Torah portion. Luckily for me (and hopefully you as well), I discovered that a source I was using for something ELSE, in a holiday sermon, had something interesting to say for Parashat Nitzavim as well.My brother, Benjamin, gave me a book a while back, entitled "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind," by Dr. Yuval Noah Harari. At one point in the book, Harari talks about how religion began and developed. He describes how animalism (or zoolatry) evolved into polytheism, which created both monotheism and dualism.
And here's where our Torah portion jumps into the mix. Moses is reaching the very end of his monologue, the last words he'll utter to the Children of Israel before his own death. Speaking on God's behalf, Moses declares:
"I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life—if you and your descendants should live." (Deut. 30:19) On the one hand, it doesn't seem like much of a choice; more like a threat or an ultimatum! But on the other hand, it very much IS a choice. People choose death and destruction, pain and suffering, greed and hatred every single day! So much so, that it challenges the very fundamental building blocks of our monotheistic theology! If God is powerful, all-seeing, and good; how can there be this much evil in the world??? And even if you try to shift to dualism, polytheism, or some ancient animal worshiping zoolatry; ya still gotta make choices!Just as Harari describes, we DO get distracted by the challenge of Evil quite a bit. But if we can set that aside for a minute, I think this quote from Deuteronomy actually is emphasizing the choice part. And not that it's a one-time decision,
CC images in this blog post, courtesy of:
1. Steve Johnson on Pexels
2. Albert Meyer on Wikipedia
3. andreasfuchs8732 on needpix.com
4. Jeremy Noble on Flickr
Friday, September 20, 2019
Ki Tavo: Sure, bless; but, when??
I get it. This ritual that our Torah portion ordains at the start of the reading makes a lot of sense, and I'm on board. I just have one, little question. The text instructs our
ancestors, "When you enter the land that Adonai, your God, is giving you as a heritage, and you possess it and settle in it, you shall take some of every first fruit of the soil, which you harvest from the land..." (Deut. 26:1-2), and the Torah then essentially lays out a lengthy, scripted, demonstrative ceremony. The person is supposed to recount our people's history of wandering, then oppression, wandering some more, and eventually entering this land, cultivating the fruits of the earth - truly a gift directly from God - and now expressing gratitude and mindfulness for receiving God's Favor. Again, it makes perfect sense. I'm all for it. I'm just wondering, when exactly should this ritual be performed?
You see, if you think about it, Deuteronomy is giving us *at least* three possible options. When you enter the land; meaning that as soon as you've crossed the border, give thanks to God. Or when you possess it; in other words,
when you've subdued your enemies and have declared victory, stop and give thanks. Or when you settle it; which is later still, after the dust has settled, peace is in place, and you've had enough time to really set up your farm and grow an apple or two. And even then, the individual Israelite might respond that at any one of those moments, s/he'd be too busy, too stressed, too preoccupied to stop and go through a lengthy, scripted, ritualized ceremony of thanksgiving. "Can't this wait until... well, I don't know... LATER??!?!" A fair question, right? Well, to me, this is both the loophole *and* the brilliance of our text.
You (stressed-out Israelite) could always say "later, later, later." "I will definitely, definitely get to this at some point... WHEN I have time. I mean, this ritual makes total sense, and I will 100% get to it... just after we enter/possess/settle/cultivate/increase/organize/incorporate/and then publicly trade the land and its fruits..." Do you see my point? We put it off and put it off, always telling
ourselves that there will be some OTHER opportunity when we'll have endless free time, and that mythical moment will be the perfect time to stop, appreciate, practice mindfulness, and give thanks. One of our greatest sages, Hillel, famously stated in Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of the Fathers: "Do not say: 'When I have time I will study, because you may never have the time.'" (2:4) This was later echoed by a student of his, John Lennon, who wrote: "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." So when does the Torah want you to conduct this ritual at the Temple? Well, right now, of course!
I mean that only somewhat facetiously. Obviously, we have no Temple, and most of us don't grow our own produce (and the majority of my readers don't live in the Biblical Promised Land...). But the point of this whole passage is more than a reminder about one particular ceremony in one specific location
at one exact moment in time. It's about mindfulness and appreciation. Even today (maybe *especially* today!), we wait and wait and wait for the perfect opportunity. That precise instant to tell someone how we feel, to express our gratitude in general, to attend a service, try our hand at something totally new and unfamiliar, or set out on an adventure that has ALWAYS been on our "bucket list." What are you waiting for? A sign from God? Someone else to tap you on the shoulder and say, "Now! This is the moment! GO FOR IT!!" We're in the Season of Repentance, folks. Rosh Hashanah is ten (gulp!) days away. You're waiting for a better moment than this?? Consider this your tap on the shoulder...
CC images in this blog post courtesy of:
1. PeakPX
2. Marines on Wikimedia Commons
3. AhmadArdity on Wikimedia Commons
4. rgaudet17 on Pixabay
You see, if you think about it, Deuteronomy is giving us *at least* three possible options. When you enter the land; meaning that as soon as you've crossed the border, give thanks to God. Or when you possess it; in other words,
You (stressed-out Israelite) could always say "later, later, later." "I will definitely, definitely get to this at some point... WHEN I have time. I mean, this ritual makes total sense, and I will 100% get to it... just after we enter/possess/settle/cultivate/increase/organize/incorporate/and then publicly trade the land and its fruits..." Do you see my point? We put it off and put it off, always telling
I mean that only somewhat facetiously. Obviously, we have no Temple, and most of us don't grow our own produce (and the majority of my readers don't live in the Biblical Promised Land...). But the point of this whole passage is more than a reminder about one particular ceremony in one specific location
CC images in this blog post courtesy of:
1. PeakPX
2. Marines on Wikimedia Commons
.jpg){kind=link}
3. AhmadArdity on Wikimedia Commons
4. rgaudet17 on Pixabay
L'Chaim (newsletter) article - September, 2019: Making Room For More “AND”
There is a weird dichotomy in our brains. On the one hand, we all hope and pray that life will be easy, free of pain, devoid of suffering and struggle, and as relaxing and peaceful as possible. That is the hope, the aspirational goal.
And yet, on the other hand, we also know that challenge, obstacle, even illness and grief, can be formative. We are most proud when we achieve something difficult, not something easy or effortless. We feel accomplished when we previously failed repeatedly at something, only to FINALLY crack the code! So how do we reconcile these two competing feelings; that it would be ideal to be conflict-free, yet the conflict itself brings out our perseverance, grit, and resilience, and actually helps us grow as human beings?
Think about your own life: What are the moments that feel defining, that have shaped you as a person? Often they are related to adversity, or at least the overcoming of something tough. Partly what we then ALSO have to acknowledge, is that growth doesn’t occur in a straight line, in a direct and consistent trajectory. We respond and react, and are sometimes pushed to grow when we least expect it… or want it.
This, to me, is at the core of our introspection and mindfulness every High Holiday season. Each of us is urged to look back at our lives and notice patterns and changes, and to start the year ahead with more awareness of where we are going and why... and also know that we are preparing (and bracing…) for challenges we can’t yet even imagine!
I guess what I really want to say to you is: It isn’t one or the other; we need both. We strive for (and sometimes reach) calm and ease, which allows us to enjoy and be grateful… yet inevitably we also experience challenge and adversity, which makes us grow and evolve. It’s not an either-or – it’s both-AND.
The High Holidays are coming in just a few weeks. I won’t tell you my sermon theme for this year just yet, but I WILL tell you the word “And” is central. Each of us is not defined by one thing, one behavior, one experience. Life ebbs and flows, it has high points and low ones, and we learn and grow from everything that happens (ideally, anyway…). Our lives, our religion, our congregation, our holidays; they aren’t black OR white, good OR bad. They are many things all at once, they are a combination of so many factors and elements. We need to see and reflect on all of them: The positive AND the negative, the joy AND the grief, the easy AND the hard.
This year, let’s focus on the “And”; seeking harmony between disparate emotions and conflicting experiences. If we step INTO the challenges and INTO the complexities, we might just emerge on the other side with greater peace, wholeness, AND…
A Shanah Tovah u’Metukah – A Good & Sweet New Year!
Sincerely,
Rabbi Gerber
Friday, September 13, 2019
Ki Teitzei: Don't Drag God Into This!
One of the most famous pieces of liturgy in the Jewish tradition is the Kol Nidrei. Even as I write those two words, you may immediately hear the haunting, echoing sound of a cantor chanting this prayer in your head; it's just SO evocative! And the reason it stirs such reactions in many of us has a lot less to do with the words
themselves, and a whole lot more to do with the spiritual, emotional, powerful, holy, pin-drop silent mood that often settles on a sanctuary as the evening of Yom Kippur begins. Even when we can't necessarily express WHY, we just know that Kol Nidrei means so much, and it touches our souls on some deeper level. However, it isn't the Day of Atonement just yet! Right now, Rosh Hashanah is still weeks away, so Yom Kippur is ten days further away than that. But two verses in this week's Torah portion made me think about the Kol Nidrei prayer, and about an intention we may want to focus on, in these weeks of preparation before the High Holidays begin.
As awe-some as the Kol Nidrei mood may feel, the words of the ACTUAL prayer are surprisingly... well, dull. In essence, it is an introductory paragraph - written in Aramaic (in this case, like Jewish legalese...) - that declares publicly that we are annulling all vows and oaths that anyone here may swear from this Yom Kippur
until the next one. Riveting, isn't it? No, clearly not. It does, however, allude to an interesting theology, that was not just held by the ancient rabbis who composed the Kol Nidrei prayer, but was also articulated in Biblical texts like our parashah this week. In Deuteronomy, 23:22-23, the Torah warns us: "When you make a vow to Adonai, your God, do not put off fulfilling it, for Adonai, your God, will require it of you, and you will have incurred guilt; whereas you incur no guilt if you refrain from vowing." My question is, why? Why does God care about each individual's vows and oaths, and whether we fulfill them or not?
Perhaps because our ancestors firmly believed that words mattered. You may have heard me state this before, but I posit that our Jewish tradition resoundingly rejects
the sentiment behind "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." Words, you see, can do incredible damage. They can harm well beyond any physical injury. Our forbearers believed it SO strongly, that they contended that your oath - the words coming out of your mouth at any moment - have the power to force the very Creator of the Entire Universe to be your guarantor!! If you don't fulfill your vow, you are making a liar out of God. And this was considered a particularly grievous and blasphemous sin. Like, first-thing-you-want-to-resolve-on-the-Holiest-Day-of-the-Year level of sin!
So maybe that's not your theology. (Spoiler alert: It isn't mine either...) But what if we treated our words with that kind of reverence? What if we acknowledged how powerful they COULD be, and how much damage, pain, and suffering they can
cause? If you've ever truly offended someone, and/or caused terrible destruction with your words, you do discover - excruciatingly swiftly - how dangerous words can be. There is, however, no option to just NOT speak. It is important to remember that the Kol Nidrei prayer doesn't say, "DON'T make vows; don't harm anyone with your words." It's admitting that it happens... a lot. Mistakes are made, and injury is caused. The question isn't whether we should speak or not, but when we DO hurt someone else, how can we try to repair and heal? In this month of Elul, the Season of Repentance, sit for a moment with the incredible power of your very own speech. Reflect on how you've used it in the past, and how it can become a tool for good in the year ahead. You don't need to memorize the "fine print" of the Kol Nidrei prayer, but please don't forget that the core message - there and throughout the Torah - is about how we wield this incredible ability that is our words. Kind of leaves you speechless, doesn't it?
CC images in this blog post, courtesy of:
1. Center for Jewish History on Flickr
2. Richard Masoner on Flickr
3. Dede30 on DeviantArt
4. geralt on Pixabay
themselves, and a whole lot more to do with the spiritual, emotional, powerful, holy, pin-drop silent mood that often settles on a sanctuary as the evening of Yom Kippur begins. Even when we can't necessarily express WHY, we just know that Kol Nidrei means so much, and it touches our souls on some deeper level. However, it isn't the Day of Atonement just yet! Right now, Rosh Hashanah is still weeks away, so Yom Kippur is ten days further away than that. But two verses in this week's Torah portion made me think about the Kol Nidrei prayer, and about an intention we may want to focus on, in these weeks of preparation before the High Holidays begin.As awe-some as the Kol Nidrei mood may feel, the words of the ACTUAL prayer are surprisingly... well, dull. In essence, it is an introductory paragraph - written in Aramaic (in this case, like Jewish legalese...) - that declares publicly that we are annulling all vows and oaths that anyone here may swear from this Yom Kippur
until the next one. Riveting, isn't it? No, clearly not. It does, however, allude to an interesting theology, that was not just held by the ancient rabbis who composed the Kol Nidrei prayer, but was also articulated in Biblical texts like our parashah this week. In Deuteronomy, 23:22-23, the Torah warns us: "When you make a vow to Adonai, your God, do not put off fulfilling it, for Adonai, your God, will require it of you, and you will have incurred guilt; whereas you incur no guilt if you refrain from vowing." My question is, why? Why does God care about each individual's vows and oaths, and whether we fulfill them or not?Perhaps because our ancestors firmly believed that words mattered. You may have heard me state this before, but I posit that our Jewish tradition resoundingly rejects
the sentiment behind "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." Words, you see, can do incredible damage. They can harm well beyond any physical injury. Our forbearers believed it SO strongly, that they contended that your oath - the words coming out of your mouth at any moment - have the power to force the very Creator of the Entire Universe to be your guarantor!! If you don't fulfill your vow, you are making a liar out of God. And this was considered a particularly grievous and blasphemous sin. Like, first-thing-you-want-to-resolve-on-the-Holiest-Day-of-the-Year level of sin!So maybe that's not your theology. (Spoiler alert: It isn't mine either...) But what if we treated our words with that kind of reverence? What if we acknowledged how powerful they COULD be, and how much damage, pain, and suffering they can
CC images in this blog post, courtesy of:
1. Center for Jewish History on Flickr
2. Richard Masoner on Flickr
3. Dede30 on DeviantArt
4. geralt on Pixabay
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