Comforting Haftarah #6: Perhaps Not the Brightest of Topics...

This Saturday evening, September 1st, we will be starting the High Holiday season in earnest. Even though Rosh Hashanah is (thankfully...) still another week away, our
"warm-up" continues to help get us ready for its arrival. For a month, we have been hinting at the coming holidays, by ending the regular daily minyan prayers with a quick set of shofar blasts and a special psalm. Now, we take yet another big step closer, with a lesser-known service called Selichot. This service takes place at nighttime; ideally at midnight (though our version starts at 8:00 p.m.). Lately, I've been thinking about the many themes of the High Holidays, these Days of Awe, and especially about those we don't talk about as much. Both the Selichot service AND this week's Haftarah afford us opportunities to look at a darker side of these holidays. It's not an easy perspective to embrace, but it's quite important... and I think you and I are up to the challenge!

I used the term "darker side" on purpose, because our Haftarah emphasizes something we didn't hear about in most of the previous Haftarot of Comfort. This vision of Isaiah's refers constantly to God as the very manifestation of Light, and proclaims the emanating, healing, protecting, rejuvenating power of
the rays of light that shine from God. The prophecy begins: "Arise! Shine! For your light has dawned. The Glory of Adonai shines upon you" (60:1). However, even though the entire prophecy is about brightness, I find myself reflecting on the need for darkness to accompany that light. It's hidden, I acknowledge, but it's unmistakeable. You see, the main reason to tell a people about how much they will bask in radiance is because they are currently mired in gloom. Right? The power of this prophecy is the stark contrast it creates from their present situation. This, to me, mirrors the High Holiday experience. We can't talk about repentence without sin. We can't talk about improving things without acknowledging what is currently bad and needs change! Light and warmth and security and hope are only powerful concepts when the speaker or the listener (or both) is experiencing the exact opposite, and NEEDS to know things can - and hopefully will - get better.

Selichot carries a similar weightiness that is challenging but important. It's late at night. Perhaps we're tired. Perhaps we aren't ready to heed the messages of the High Holidays, but nonetheless, we jump in. We think about the fragility of life, the

precariousness of every day, and the idea that we get no guarantees in life, no assurances that our actions will secure our health and prosperity. These things are hard to think about, and most definitely uncomfortable to face. But how sincere can we be about making changes and wanting a fresh start in the New Year, if we can't first face the uncertainty of what it means to be alive? When we get to Yom Kippur, we traditionally dress entirely in white... not entirely unlike the tachrichim, the burial shrouds in which we dress the deceased at a funeral, and we also abstain from food or drink. We place ourselves in an almost-dead state, because we're meant to stare at our own mortality and be humbled. In our Haftarah, Isaiah declares: "Adonai will be a light to you forever... and your days of mourning shall be ended" (20). Yes, we're meant to see the first part, about God shining on our behalf. But can we afford to ignore that our ancestors listening to Isaiah felt like mourners every single day? Death NEEDS to be a part of living, otherwise we're just burying our heads in the sand.

Like I said, I know this theme can be difficult for many people to discuss. Death has become, for many of us, scary, looming, potentially filled with pain, deeply sad, and the very LAST thing we ever want to confront.

And yet, oddly enough, I think our Jewish tradition tries to put this issue in front of us time and again to make it EASIER to grasp. A lot of the terror that death holds over us is about what MIGHT happen, and how we COULD feel; the reality of the actual engagement with death is often much less intimidating. The final point I want to make about this here is; ultimately it isn't really about what I see in the text, or what I think we should be talking about. What do YOU think? How do you feel about death, or the notion that mortality is an underlying High Holiday theme that the rabbis want us to confront? If it IS something you're willing to explore, what are your concerns and/or fears around death, and how might you want that to change in the New Year? I know this isn't easy for MANY people, but it truly is vitally important. Now is the time to shed some light in this dark corner; the wait (and the trepidation) is over.

Images in this blogpost:
1. CC image courtesy of Vivobarefoot on Flickr
2. CC image courtesy of Pixabay
3. CC image courtesy of Sander van der Wel on Wikimedia Commons
4. CC image courtesy of stgortol on Pixabay

Comforting Haftarah #5 (and also #3... sort of): Do NOT Ignore the "IF"!

Do you know what feels really great? Knowing you have God on your side. What better feeling could there be? You're invincible! God is unequivocally, unwaveringly,

unfailingly on your team. You know, it almost - almost - makes you think you could do absolutely anything, even the most reprehensible acts, and God would forgive it all. Hey, just look at what Isaiah says in (the first half of...) this week's Haftarah: "'My loyalty shall never move from you, nor My covenant of peace be shaken,' says Adonai, who has compassion on you." (54:10) It seems so comprehensive, so impenetrable... you ALMOST couldn't blame a person - someone who saw him/herself as a loyal and faithful adherent - for getting drunk on this power, for justifying every abhorrent behavior by saying "God loves me, and that will never change." Almost...

I'm really struggling right now, to be totally honest with you. As a clergy member, a pastoral leader who receives people in my office, often people who are grieving,
vulnerable, and some who are innocent and naive pre-teens, the newspaper headlines cut me so incredibly deeply. I have been reading the stories of Catholic priests abusing their positions and abusing children, and the church allowing it and/or enabling it to continue, with much the same horror as I'm sure you have. But I also think I feel that pain somewhat differently, because I have the same kind of title, and am given that same level of trust. I have an office with a door that COULD close, and I both cannot fathom AND cannot stop thinking about how others with these same privileges turned them into instruments of terror. As a faith leader, I am struggling. Something is very, VERY wrong in our system, and some sort of major, sweeping change is really needed to cleanse us of this scourge.

I know that last sentence sounds kind of dramatic, but we cannot take this lightly. We are all injured by the abuse of these children. This is about more than celibacy, and we, as a society, need to reexamine our attitudes around sex-standards and expectations for men/boys and women/girls,

slut-shaming in our culture, victim blaming, and perhaps even societal assumptions that monogamy is right for everyone, with one other person, for an entire lifetime. These atrocious stories point to a wide-spread disease - THAT is the crucial message underneath all of this, and we simply cannot afford to miss it. The same is true of our Haftarah. There's a surface-level teaching, and a vital, glaring instruction running just below the text. On top, the words are saying that God is behind us 1,000%... but we all ignore an important word at our own peril: IF!! If you obey the laws, if you are kind and compassionate, if you are a crusader for justice, equality, and mercy, and IF you care about others as much as you do your own security, safety, and wealth - THEN you get God's protection. But only IF. Only, only, only "IF"...

You see, that same text - our Haftarah - also references the flood of Noah. It says God won't flood the earth again, wipe the slate clean of our sins. But Isaiah goes on
to say that all of this is true IF we "give heed," "incline the ear," and "hearken" to God (55:2-3). When we mistreat our neighbors and abuse the innocent, no amount of fake-holiness, well-constructed sermon, or charitable giving can save you from God's purifying floods... When we rest on our laurels and assume God's favor, we get in trouble. No one should be resting, and no one should be assuming. We have work to be done. We have to examine our society, and examine our values that spawn this level of evil and allow it to fester. We are in Elul, a month devoted to reflection, and it leads straight into the High Holidays. We've got a lot of soul-searching to do. This plague is hurting all of us, and hurting us to our very core. Let's get to work.

CC images in this blog post:
1. Courtesy of Chan Walrus on Pexels.com
2. Courtesy of Will Folsom on Flickr
3. Courtesy of SmilingHarrySyphilis on DeviantArt.com
4. Courtesy of Dallas_Foodie on Flickr

Comforting Haftarah #4: Unlocking Hineini; In the Text and In Ourselves

Every year, at the High Holidays, I focus my four major sermons on a central theme. Yes, I am doing it again this year... no, I will not reveal the theme ahead of
time. Sorry. :-P Some themes are forgotten soon after the holidays end, while others seem to stick with people for one reason or another. I am constantly reminded by congregants of my "Guilt-Free Judaism" theme, even though it's now YEARS old! And another that had staying-power was a single, Hebrew word: Hineini. The straight-forward meaning of Hineini is "Here I am." It is uttered time and again throughout the Hebrew Bible, and often by some of the most prominent individuals. This week, in our Haftarah, Hineini is taken to an even GREATER level, and it has some incredibly powerful implications for our ancestors... and possibly for you and me today.

As I mentioned above, some of the biggest "stars" in the Bible declare "Hineini." As such, it doesn't just mean "Here I am" in a geographical sense, but it implies so much more. It is mindfulness, spiritual and emotional

presence, groundedness, and perhaps most importantly, readiness. Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Isaiah, Samuel; they all say "Hineini" to God when called, indicating they are ready, willing, and able to take on whatever awe-some task God has in mind for them. "Here I am... let's do this thing!!" And in this, our fourth Haftarah of Consolation, the tables are turned, and strikingly it is now God who declares "Hineini!" God's very Presence is a source of great consolation to the people living in exile, and hearing God say "Here I am, fully committed!" heals generations of pain, suffering, and perceived abandonment. To our forebearers in Babylon, no sweeter word could ever be uttered by the Divine.

Something else, however, is also going on in our Haftarah. Something very powerful. I won't go too far down this rabbit hole, but I WILL say that many modern, Biblical scholars do not believe the Torah was written by Moses, as suggested by
the text itself. If you want to learn more about this idea, either write to me, leave a comment on the blog, or check out Richard Elliott Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible? We could spend hours upon hours on that one statement, but for our purposes here, I want to posit that the Hebrew Bible was compiled during the time of the Babylonian Exile, sometime after 587 B.C.E. If you accept that assertion, various hints and allusions start to come alive in the text. For example, in our Haftarah, we find the following verse: "This is what Adonai, God, said: 'Long ago, My people went down to reside in Egypt. Now they are oppressed by Assyria'" (Isaiah, 52:4). This simple verse reveals the motivation, perhaps, of the entire Bible: To connect the current suffering of our people to our ancient ancestors, and thus to pray/hope/plead that God will redeem US as God redeemed them.

There are two sides to this coin. By telling and retelling these stories, the authors and editors want to "nudge" God to save them just as the slaves in Egypt were saved. It's a constant, gentle, but firm prodding. At the same time, the word "Hineini" reminds us that it's a partnership.

We have to be like our forebearers, if we hope to emulate their triumphs. We have to declare out loud "Hineini - Here I am! I am ready to take on injustice, stand up to tyrants, demand equality and compassion for those suffering oppression, and treat others as I wish to be treated myself." We can rehash old tales all we like, but if we don't lead by example, we cannot ask God to reward us beyond what we deserve. For the Jews in Babylonia, the stories of the Exodus were IMMENSELY powerful, because the people could draw strength, courage, and resiliency from them. What do the texts mean to us today? If we are not looking for salvation, or hoping to return to Israel, what other messages might we be searching for, hidden under the surface of the text? As we continue to march towards the High Holidays, each of us is challenged to unlock the disguised meanings within the Biblical text; both the ones that spoke to our ancient relatives AND the ones aimed straight at us, right here today.


Images in this blog post:
1. CC image courtesy of Ged Carroll on Flickr
2. CC image courtesy of Joe Loong on Flickr
3. Title page of Who Wrote the Bible courtesy of GoodReads.com
4.  CC image courtesy of of Tripp on Flickr

Comforting (sort of) Haftarah #3: Nerding Out on Haftarah Practices

This week's Haftarah poses an interesting ritual conundrum, in a number of different ways. I'll try not to get too far into the weeds on this one, but I make no promises. And if anything here is confusing, BUT you are still interested in understanding it better, feel free to post a comment and/or write to me.

Ok, here we go: As I've now mentioned a few weeks in a row, we're right in the middle of a series of Haftarot of Comfort, that link together the special occasions of Tisha b'Av and Rosh Hashanah. However, this year, one of those Shabbatot (namely this weekend!) also falls on Rosh Chodesh, a new month on the Jewish calendar, so we replace the regular Haftarah with a special one for the new month. It actually works out well thematically, however, because the Rosh Chodesh Haftarah is also about reconciliation and God caring for the people. But then, a second Haftarah jumps in, pushes ahead in line, and changes the meaning entirely... though potentially in a crucial and timely way.

I've written and rewritten this next paragraph several times, but I can't get it quite right. The reasons WHY there's another Haftarah here seemed straight-forward enough to me at first, yet I am unable to explain it without taking up WAY too much
time and space here. If you're local, please join us for services on Saturday and all will be revealed... :-) For now, and for our purposes, I'll just say that there is a second Rosh Chodesh-related Haftarah at play, and one tradition enjoins us to just add the first and last verses of that other Haftarah, kind of like a little nod, a hat-tip, to the other reading. So here's what I think is so fascinating: Our first Haftarah, the "regular" Rosh Chodesh one, ends on a really unpleasant note. I won't give you the whole verse, but it starts like this: "They shall go out and gaze at the corpses of the people who rebelled against Me" (Isaiah 66:24). Believe me, it gets worse from there. The point is, our ancestors instituted a clever little practice, whereby we DO read that morbid verse aloud... but then we go back to the penultimate verse a second time, so we can end on a much more benign and corpse-free note.

My conundrum is this: If we're adding two verses from a DIFFERENT Haftarah, do we still need to repeat verse 23? Or perhaps the need to do so is obviated by these special additions? I find this especially intriguing, considering the final verse of the second Haftarah is focused on an entirely different topic.

No longer are we talking about the human-Divine relationship, about God forgiving our sins, restoring our Temple, and joyfully bringing back worship and sacrifice. Instead, the added verses focus on interpersonal relationships, human-to-human. The body of the text itself focuses on the strong emotional bond between David (before he became "King David") and Jonathan, and how external forces push them apart. The reading powerfully concludes with the two young men parting ways, but not before Jonathan could declare to David: "Go in peace! For we two have sworn to each other in the name of the Lord: 'May Adonai be [a witness to the bond] between me and you, and between my offspring and your offspring forever!'" (I Samuel, 20:42) Not a seamless shift, to say the least. So why include it, and how does this alter the take-away of our first text?? 

I'll tell you what I think. The new month that we're entering (the reason for all these extra readings in the first place!) is Elul. It is the Season of Repentance, the "official" start of the High Holidays. And we cannot only look heaven-ward for

forgiveness, reconciliation, and change. The first Haftarah reminds us we have obligations to ourselves, to our faith, to our planet, and to God. Human beings are prone to marveling at their own accomplishments and stressing the value of self-reliance and independence. But there are forces beyond us, and we need to recognize and respect them as well. Simultaneously, we are in relationship with other PEOPLE - as Jonathan said - forever! It is inescapable. So we need to make peace, bridge divides, and form sacred bonds between one another as well. Keep both of these in mind as we enter Elul. We've got a whole month to work on it, but NOW is the time for a check-in and some self-reflection. And neither Isaiah, David, OR Jonathan (or I!) want you to forget it...


Images in this blog post:
1. CC image courtesy of Dover Air Force Base
2. CC image courtesy of Robert Hruzek on Flickr
3. CC image of an Otto Stemler Bible drawing, courtesy of pcstratman on Flickr
4. CC image courtesy of Len Raden on Flickr

Comforting Haftarah #2: Don't Talk. Just Be.

As I mentioned last week, we are now chanting our way through a series of seven Haftarot of comfort. These prophetic texts escort us from Tisha b'Av to Rosh

Hashanah, and each offers reassurance to the People of Israel after terrible calamities had left them utterly traumatized. There's a lot for us to unpack in here. These texts give us fascinating historical insight into how our ancestors persevered despite enduring vicious persecution. They also offer us models for how to handle moments (or decades...) of theological doubt. But these prophecies also teach us something else that is equally (if not more) crucial. As a pastoral professional and a chaplain, someone who has had to offer comfort to people in times of uncertainty, illness, and death, I would like to speak with you for a little bit about that last point.

Our Haftarah opens with the prophet Isaiah imagining all of Israel, embodied in the term "Zion," stating: "Adonai has forsaken me; the Lord has forgotten me" (49:14). In Hebrew, that whole quote is just four, short words, but it reflects a total decimation of faith. Israel's Temple has been destroyed, its autonomy is gone, its people have been dragged off into slavery in a foreign land. So yeah, this is bad.

From the perspective of the survivors, the evidence certainly makes it abundantly clear; God has either abandoned us or forgotten us... or both. Or perhaps worse still, God has turned against us and deliberately caused this cataclysm! Isaiah, then, has to step into this situation and offer pastoral care and comfort. If you've ever had to sit with a friend or family member after a devastating loss, if you've felt that horrific sense of "what could I POSSIBLY say to make any of this 'better' for you right now?", then you have just a tiny inkling of what Isaiah was taking on. THAT is what I think these Haftarot are trying to impart - how to offer consolation and be present when someone has experienced heart-breaking loss. And, in fact, our Haftarah suggests a couple of different models.

Sometimes, you've got to employ tough love. I know that can be hard to imagine, but if the grief has turned over into toxic obsession, if the person is utterly unable to find their way out of total darkness, we sometimes need to shock the system.

Isaiah tries that tactic. Believe it or not, he actually mocks the people! It sounds almost like a taunt when he says: "Why, when I came, was no one there? Why, when I called, would none respond? Is my arm, then, too short to rescue??? Have I not the power to save?!?" (50:2) I know that occasionally pushing is needed, but this particular example is hard to hear. God (through Isaiah) sounds almost amused; "What? You don't think I can save you?!?" Isaiah even sprinkles a little salt in the wound, pointing out that Israel was exiled for her own sins. Gee, thanks, I'm sure that reminder was helpful and appreciated...

But there are also two other tactics being employed. One is to remind the person/people that even though they can't hear it right now, they DO have support, and loved ones are waiting to receive them in the Land of the Living when they're ready to extend a hand and ask for help. Our Haftarah ends with words of hope: "God has made [Zion's] wilderness like Eden, her desert like the Garden of Adonai. Gladness and joy shall abide there, thanksgiving and the sound of music" (51:3).

I hear the prophet saying: "You, the mourner, can't see it right now - and that's ok - but life IS waiting for you on the other side of this pain." I employ this one a lot myself. And then, the final tactic is simply to be. This is often the most healing, but also sometimes the hardest to offer. What can you say to help someone heal? The answer - frequently - is "nothing." So stop trying. Isaiah is present. He's there. He talks a little too much, but that's an occupational hazard (I can relate...). We need to do this as well. Just BE. Sit close, sit quietly, and hold the space (and the pain) for the one who is grieving. So the overall takeaway here is that there isn't one "right" way to offer consolation. I encourage you to think about instances when you've been comforted, or when you tried to reassure someone else; what worked and what failed miserably? We can learn so much from both. There is a reason why this Season of Comfort leads straight into the High Holidays; a period of self-reflection, renewal, and striving to become our best selves. How we act, and react, in moments of pain is crucial. And we could all use some help in this regard. And remember, sometimes you don't have to do much. Just be.


Images in this blog post:
1. CC image courtesy of Shelley Rodrigo on Flickr
2. CC image courtesy of Victorgrigas on Wikimedia Commons
3. CC image courtesy of Pixabay
4. CC image courtesy of Pixabay