5768 Sermon Drafts Rabbi Jonathan Ginsburg
Sermon Erev Rosh hashanah starts with asking good questions
So who’s the smartest person who ever lived? Many people say Einstein. Jewish tradition suggested King Solomon. But actually, in a book about genius, Einstein is rated number ten. Shakespeare is number two, so who is the smartest, overall genius who ever lived? According to that genius book – Leonardo DiVinci.
I just read a new book called “How to think like Leonardo DiVinci.” Seven steps to genius every day. If that’s any book, Leonardo DiVinci certainly is one of the most amazing people ever. He thought of submarines, airplanes, helicopters and weapons that weren’t introduced in the battlefield for four hundred years. He helped reorganize biology, study of plants and animals, and the human body. He painted the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, anticipated evolution, the law of gravity, and the sun not revolving around the earth way before the people that were credited with it anticipated it.
The thing I wanted to mention most about this book was that in the seven steps to think genius like Leonard DiVinci, guess what step number one is. It is something that a lot of Jewish mothers know intuitively. Because when a child comes back from Hebrew school, a lot of parents would say “What did you learn today?” But the Jewish mother is supposed to say to her child, “Did you ask a good question today?” Judaism is full of questions. Sometimes the questions are sometimes more important than the answer. Leonard DiVinci was a fellow that asked questions constantly, never stopped questioning. So this book calls the Italian word for curiosity the step number one in genius.
Yom Kippur demands we ask questions to begin the search for answers. Jews joke that a basic Jewish conversational style is answer a question with a question. How much did that cost? Why do you want to know? Or how much do you think it cost? Question after question was considered a key method of obtaining wisdom in ancient Greece, and is the basis of the Socratic school of learning.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said that coming to God is possible only after wonder-when we look at the universe and wonder how and why and what,
The bible really begins with a question. When Adam and Eve do the first naughty thing by violating G-d’s strict command not to eat from the tree, G-d asks a question. The question is the Hebrew word aleph yud chuf hay, ah yecha Where are you? That is the preeminent question that is asked in the ten days of awe. The basis of the question we must ask ourselves. Where are we? Where do we stand in relationship to the best that we could be. Where do we stand in relationship to G-d’s desire for how we’re supposed to live? Where do we stand in our relationship to our responsibilities to ourselves, to our family, to our community, to the world?
In the next generation after Adam, another question by God plays a central role in the story. When Cain killed Abel and so disappointed G-d. G-d simply said, “Where is your brother?” To which Cain gave the wrong answer, asking another question “Am I my brother’s keeper?” And the answer is obvious – “Yes, you are”. It reminds us of Moses challenge to the 2 ½ tribes in Numbers when they wanted to stop short of the land and Moses asked “will your brothers go to war and you stay here and do nothing?”
The first stage of thinking like a genius, like Davinci, is to ask the right questions-to always be wondering, asking, questioning.
Jews never had been content, even with respect to God. We question everything-even God. So many of our converts come to us with the frustration that in their prior religion, they could not ask. I have to admit that in my early Jewish education too, my parents were often frustrated when I reported that my questions were often answered with “because its geshribbin-its written-it’s a test of faith etc.
But that is not the true Jewish way. When God told Abraham in Genesis God was planning to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham asked him a question which was really a challenge-would not the Judge of all the earth do justice?
In Numbers, when the five daughters of the good man Zelophad died, they did not think it right that there dad’s land should be lost and challenged a law they thought unjust, and asked Moses who asked God, and God affirmed their challenge.
The most widely celebrated jewish experience of the year revolves around questions-the Torah says when you settle in the land your children will ask why do you observe these rituals? That came to be the basis of the 4 questions of the passover seder. No answer until you get a question
Feeling abandoned and hurt prompted questions-such as by the psalmist who said "I lift up my eyes to the heavens and wondered wherein comes my help" or Isaiah expressing god’s question-God looked down and saw injustice and wondered why there was no one to intervene.
It seems as though Yom Kippur is about answers-, not questions. We sinned thisly and thusly. Rabbi David Woznica is a prominent rabbi in the Los Angeles area,
Formerly the director of the Center for Jewish Life at the 92nd Street Y.
He is fond of telling the story of how, when he was a child,
His parents -- mistakenly -- informed him that the tradition was
To strike one's heart during the Al Chet
Only for the sins that one had actually performed.
So, throughout his childhood and adolescence, every Yom Kippur,
He would read the list of sins, and make a judgment for each one whether he was guilty of it that year, or not.
We have sinned against you by speaking recklessly - yeah, I did that one.
We have sinned against you through bribery - no, not that I can think of.
We have sinned against you through arrogance - okay, a little.
We have sinned against you through impure thoughts -- yeah, I had a couple of those.
Until one year, when he went to a more traditional synagogue for Yom Kippur
And -- during the Al Chet, as he was choosing judiciously when to strike his heart,
He noticed - that the guy next to him was striking himself for EVERY SINGLE LINE!
And David Woznica couldn't believe it!
Get a load of this guy! What a jerk!
How could he possibly have had TIME to do all those things!?
But then, of course, he was shocked to notice the guy on the OTHER side of him
Was ALSO striking himself for every single line.
And the person in front of him.
And behind him.
And finally he came to the conclusion that perhaps his parents hadn't accurately transmitted the tradition to him.....
But YK is really about questions-we are forced to continuously ask ourselves questions
• Am I satisfied with the way I’m living my life and the person I’ve become? What would I answer if a booming voice from heaven confronted me with the question, "What do you think you’re
Doing down there with the life I’ve given you?"• What has been the quality of love that I’ve given and received?
This past year? Have I been willing to invest myself in the spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and physical intimacy that’s needed to sustain love? • What have I learned and taught this past year? Have I accepted?
The obligation to be a lifelong learner, growing in my capacity to co-produce the world with God?
• How would my community be different if all of us were committed to the vision and path of Torah? Has my relationship with my community been as a passive consumer of social and
Religious services or an active producer of a commonwealth of righteousness, truth, justice, freedom, peace, and kindness? • What has been the effect of my work on the world, both in?
Terms of the individuals I’ve touched personally and the ripple effects my work has had? Have I made doing well—acquiring position, possessions, prestige, and power—the exclusive purpose
Of my work in the world, or have I made doing good my highest priority—using the gifts I’ve been given to create more of God’s goodness in the world?
A Sage in the Talmud suggested the questioning does not even end at our death. He suggested that when we die, our judgment is based on questions:
How did we use our time on earth? Did we do our work with integrity? Did we do our part for universal peace? Did we live Jewishly? Did we raise a family? Among others.
It’s fruitful to consider what questions we’ll be asked by God. The entire purpose of these questions on this Holiest of days is obviously to help guide our next year to make it as holy a year as we can.
Its important to know what questions God will probably not ask us to and what we will be asked:
1... God won't ask what kind of car you drove. He'll
ask how many people you drove who didn't have transportation.
2... God won't ask the square footage of your house,
He'll ask how many people you welcomed into your home.
3... God won't ask about the clothes you had in your closet, He'll ask how many you helped to clothe.
4... God won't ask what your highest salary was. He'll
ask if you compromised your character to obtain it.
5... God won't ask what your job title was. He'll ask
if you performed your job to the best of our ability.
6... God won't ask how many friends you had. He'll ask
how many people to whom you were a friend.
7... God won't ask in what neighborhood you lived, He'll ask how you treated your neighbors.
8... God won't ask about the color of your skin, He'll
ask about the content of your character.
These are not tough questions. Want tough questions? watch the tv show
being as smart as a Jewish fifth grader-learn. These are life enhanciong, holiness enhancing questions.
So what are the answer to these questions? That we should be seeking everyday. The starting point though, the key to the answer is this:
It’s the answer Abraham gave when G-d called his name in the Torah reading in the second day of Rosh Hashana. It comes from Isaiah when he’s called by God to serve as a prophet. It is the name of one of the most powerful prayers of Rosh Hashana – It is: Hineni, here I am.
Let’s ask ourselves everyday, starting right now. Let’s our answer first be., heneni-here I am ready-ready to aspire to higher levels of Holiness .
Sermon – First Day of Rosh Hashanah-We are the World’s stewards.
Happy New Year, Chag Samach everyone. We come together on this first day of the new Jewish year of 5768 to celebrate as a people, an opportunity for a fresh start. One of the classic expressions associated with the New Year is Yom Horat Olam, the day of the creation of the world. Our sages said that this day marks the anniversary of the creation of the universe. Now we don’t believe this to be literally true, but it is fascinating that on the day on which most Jews come for a religious experience to the synagogue other than Yom Kippur, the main focus of our sages for this day had to do with not only the beginning of the ten days of repentance when we reflect on our own selves, but also to contemplate G-d’s creation of the universe and our role in it. I want to take the opportunity on this day and this year, to talk about our responsibility to our planet, whether we ae inflicting damaging and irreparable harm to it and what we can do.
The first question I want to address is, is it a Jewish problem? Whenever I approach a question as to whether it has Jewish aspects to it, I ask myself, “are there mitzvot involved”? The way in which Jews are to look at the world is from a viewpoint of Mitzvah. What has G-d commanded us regarding this particular issue? In reflecting on the question of the earth and our responsibility in terms of mitzvot/Jewish Observation, I come up with the following:
1. It says specifically in the Torah that we are to not only have dominion over the earth but also to guard the garden. Now that is not a Halachic legal category but it is deeply imbued in Jewish values. It is understandable that Jews have taken the lead on issues of the environment because of this intrinsic commitment and value we have, going back all the way to the beginning of the Torah. God gave us this beautiful earth and it is ours not only to take from it what we need to survive, but also to guard it and take care of it. This idea is again addressed in a beautiful, rabbinic legend, a Midrash. The text presents a powerful image: God takes Adam for a tour of the garden, and points out all the flora and fauna and says to him, “Behold My works, how splendid they are. All that I have created, I created for your sake.” It continues: “Now listen up – do not ruin or destroy my world. Sh’im kilkalta, ayn mee sh’taken achrecha –if you mess it up, there is no one to clean up after you.” (Kohellet Rabba 7:13) The point could not be made more clearly.
2. We have the concept in Judaism of Tikkun Olam, of restoring the broken world. This not only on the level of contentious issues between human beings, but if the world is broken in some way and I will suggest that it is in a moment, we have a responsibility based on the principle of Tikkun Olam, to do everything we can within reason, to repair it.
3. We have the Jewish value concept of Pikuah Nefesh, to save our lives. We are not permitted to do anything to harm ourselves. In fact, we are obligated to do things to protect our lives and others.
4. The value of don’t stand idly by while the blood of your neighbor is spilled. From Leviticus Chapter 19, the Holiness Code. If we are endangering ourselves or we see others in danger, we are obligated by Jewish Law to do something about it and not stand idly by.
5. We have a Jewish value of Ohave Habriot, to love our fellow creation. This year bald eageles were removed from the listof endangered specifies., the one great symbol of America. When the Mayflower landed, there were probably 500,000 bald eagles and now there are 10,000. But there were only about 500 a while ago when they went on the endangered species list, and it looks like that species, at least temporarily, has been saved. We have to love our fellow creatures and when our actions endanger them, we must be concerned.
6. The sixth principle in Judaism is called Baal Tashchit. We are not permitted to waste things. There is a law in Deuteronomy that says that when the Israelites were besieging a city, they could not destroy the fruit trees because they knew that after the siege was over people would still need the fruit trees. From that law, it was derived that we were not allowed to waste. And so, not wasting world resources becomes a Jewish value.
7. Tsar Baalia Hayyim. We are not to bring or inflect unnecessary pain upon any living creature. If the things that we do bring pain and discomfort to other creatures besides human beings, that is forbidden by Jewish law.
8. Bichirah Hofsheet-fre will. We have a choice in how we live and how much we add to or help this problem
9.The Jewish people celebrate Earth Day each and every week, as we are doing today, beginning at sundown each Friday. We call it Shabbat. Our beautiful tradition, long before recreational shopping existed, instituted one day a week on which we stop, look and appreciate. Rather than “Stop and Shop” we stop and give thanks.
As I see it, Shabbat is the ultimate environmental mitzvah. Living outside of Israel, none of the agricultural laws of the Torah apply to us. But Shabbat applies equally in Israel and in the Diaspora. The lessons it teaches of appreciating God’s creation are vitally significant. Friday night, we begin Shabbat as the sun sets, reminding ourselves that the ultimate master of the universe is the creator, not some corporation which decrees the work day to end according to its schedule. Some Jews have the misconception that Shabbat is a day on which everything is forbidden. The philosopher and Holocaust survivor Eric Fromm has a wonderful explanation for the forbidden labors of Shabbat. All of them, he says, remind us that it is God who is the Creator, not us. Six days a week, we create. On Shabbat, we set our physical creativity aside and admire the work of the Almighty. Rather than seeing these prohibitions as restrictions, Fromm understand them to be sigificant theological lessons, leading us to appreciate the gift of nature with which God has entrusted us.
Shabbat observance has so much potential as an environmental mitzvah.
If consuming fuel by driving our cars is a problem, doesn’t it stand to reason that not driving one day in seven, except perhaps to the synagogue, will make a positive contribution?
If buying too much is contributing to exhausting the resources of the earth, doesn’t it make sense that putting away the wallet and credit cards one day If six days a week our consumerism is stoked by advertisements on the TV, marketing calls on the phone, and pop-up ads on our computers, wouldn’t being free of all that one day a week be a blessing?
What is particularly nice about this suggestion is that even if I am wrong, and Shabbat observance does nothing at all for the environment, it will be a great blessing to you and your family.
Those 9 concepts are just a few of the ideas of Jewish traditions, commandments and values which help guide us to an understanding that environment is a topic of Jewish concern.
Secondly, I ask myself, is this topic High Holiday worthy? Well I can’t think of anything that is more holiday worthy than the issue of “are we destroying the place where we live.” Are we defiling and making contaminated, tama is the Hebrew word – the place that we inhabit? We don’t have the technology yet to move our entire civilization to another planet. And so to destroy what we have, is suicidal.
Thirdly and finally, it comes down to the science of the matter, is this really a problem? Is there anything for a reasonable price that we can do without creating greater harm to fix it?
Is this a problem? I was hard to convince. I was slow to come around to this. Some believe that global warming it is simply a issue of cycles of the earth and that if we drill down far enough into the earth, we find out that every while there is a healing and cleaning of the earth and we have had drastic flooding before. In fact, the story of Noah in the Torah shows that we have had drastic flooding. In the area around the Masada, which hopefully some of you will visit with Gail and me in May, we are going to see. Maybe global warming and cooling are inevitable cycles. Maybe this is just part of the annual cycle of the seas rising and the lakes disappearing. They wouild say if Bangladesh is going to soon be overrun by water and hundreds of millions of people will have to find another place to live. That’s just the way it is. And if the polar icecaps in Antarctica are melting. Maybe it’s just part of nature. There are some scientists who say that there is no compelling evidence that the warming trend we see will amount to anything close to catastrophe, that the earth is always warming and cooling.
But, I don’t think science supports that view. Al Gore says the oil industry is spending $10 million a year to create the impression that there is disagreement in the scientific community about global warming...He says global warming exacerbated by human activity is the subject of one of the strongest scientific consensus views in the history of science.
I don’t believe its just a simple matter of historical cycles of nature. At the very least we are not helping matters, and in fact we are exacerbating the problem.. A new global warming report issued recently paints a near apocalyptic vision of the earth’s future. More a billion people in need of water, extreme food shortages in Africa, a planetary landscape ravaged by floods and species becoming extinct. Despite the harsh version, scientist criticize it by saying the findings were watered down at the last minute by government bureaucrats seeking the fast call for action. So it is actually a lot worse than that. Even in a softened form, the report outlined arrays of devastating affects that will strike all regions of the world at all levels of society. Those without resources to adapt to the changes will suffer the greatest impact according to the study
In India officials warn that climate change could destroy vast swaths of farmland, affeting food production and adding to the woes of laready desperate peasants who live off the land. Researchers studying western Europe tempurature records have found the length of heat waves has doubled since 1880. And, of course, that directly violates the Jewish idea of God’s wrath being especially waged to those who hurt the vulnerable, who are often the widows and the strangers. The report paints a bleak picture of the future. Rising temperatures will re-configure coastlines around the world as oceans rise and sea water surges over the land. Melting glaciers and mountain ranges will release floods and rock avalanches. Streams will dwindle cutting off the main water supplies for more than 1/6th of the world’s population. Africa will suffer the most extreme effects with a quarter of a billion people there losing most of their water supplies. Food production will fall, etc.
But most scientists who study natural climate fluctuations, say the current warming trend is the result of human activity and is behaving differently from past temperature fluctuations. The rate of change is so accelerated that what is happening now seems to be unprecedented. They say that without realizing the consequences of our actions, we have begun to put so much carbon dioxide in the air surrounding our world that we have literally changed the heat balance between the earth and the sun. The average temperature will increase to levels humans have never known and put an end to the climate balance on which our civilization depends. The concentration of CL2 having never risen above 300 points per million for at least a million years, is now 383 per million and we are moving closer to several tipping points that could within ten years make it impossible for us to avoid irretrievable damage to the planets, habitability for human civilization.
Its not just about damage to the earth. There are political consequences as well. Take for example our oil dependency. Thirty years after proposels to reduce dependency on foreign oil, oil prices are higher than ever and there is greater dependence on imported oil. Every dollar we spend on oil feeds the Arabs’ Oil nations, including Iran which feeds world-wide terrorism, which threatens America, the State of Israel and Jews.
There is a very serious problem. We can’t just turn a blind eye to.
Questions: So what then do we do about it?. Well, one question is – is it cost effective to do anything? How much are we willing to sacrifice? Unless there are very severe laws, business and governments will also weigh the issue how much it costs. Do we even have the technology to fix this.
Tom Friedman, New York Times columnist, author and Pulitzer Prize winner said in a New York Times column recently “the truth is the core of our energy crisis is in Washington. We have all of the technology that we need right now to make huge inroads in becoming more energy efficient and energy independent with drastically lower emissions. We have all of the Capital we need as well. But we need public policy to connect the energy and capital the right way. That is what is missing”
The same UN panel that concluded that we are in big trouble, said the fix was within reach. They had some good news. Climate change can be limited at what scientists said would be a reasonable price. And here’s really the clincher for us today.
What about the cost effectiveness?
Top climate economists say, cutting US emissions efficiently to hold greenhouse gas concentrations could cost the US twice as much pure year as it is now spending on the war in Iraq and racing too quickly toward efforts to cut could have consequences as well. Nuclear power – we know what the consequences there could be. Planning lots of new crops for bio-fuels could accelerate the deforestation. There are costs to alternative fuels
The average citizen can make valuable contributions by making small life-style change without waiting for governments to act. The report said that by rapidly wrapping up the use of renewable energy sources like solar, wind and hydro-electric power, we can make cars, homes and factories for energy efficient. They said that the cost of tackling climate change was comparatively reasonable. By spending a little over a tenth of 1% of the world’s income each year for 23 years, they said greenhouse gasses could be held nearly in check, avoiding the worse predicted environmental disasters. Most people conclude that it could be reasonable and that we could do much more. South Korea, for example, is breaking ground on the world’s biggest Solar Power Plant and will try to diversify its power sources and use cleaner energy. There is much that we can do. One thing is use our purchasing power to impact.
It is interesting now, that big companies are starting to get on board here. The New York Times reported in July that new companies are starting positions called Chief Sustainability Officers. They are not simply environmental watchdogs, they are to keep operations safe and regulated at bay for helping companies profit from the push to go green. I’ll just tell you about two names that you all know. Home Depot will introduce a label for nearly 3,000 products like fluorescent light bulbs that conserve electricity and match insect killers that promote energy conservation, sustainable and forestry and clean water. They will have 6,000 products by 2009 to become the largest green labeling program in America retailing and persuade competitors to speed up their own plans. And, it’s joining the largest retailer, Walmart in pursuing issues of public concern like climate change that stores have left generally before to government and environmental groups. And quite often now when you open up the paper, you see an ad for a company touting how responsible it is to the environment. For example, I just saw a Bos dishwasher ad that said that if every home that was going to buy a dishwasher this year bought their product, it would be like taking 500,000 pounds off the road. I don’t know if that’s true but certainly something to think about.
I want to make some concrete suggestions that things that we can personally do before we wait for government and business to help. I've got just 16 here. Thank me for keeping it short because I read a book called 1001 ways to save the earth, so I'm leaving out 985 of those suggestions.
1. Every time a light bulb burns out, replace it with a compact fluorescent light bulb. It is one of the easiest ways you can save the planet. Replacing one regular bulb in our home with a compact fluorescent would have enough energy to light more than 2.5 million homes for a year. They cost a little bit more but they last up to six times longer.
2. Hand cranked flashlights. Crank it for 30 seconds and it lasts up to 60 minutes of power. And they have AM and FM radios.
3. Go vegetarian or cut back on your meat consumption. Besides all the other health reasons, saving money and easier to keep kosher, it takes eight times more energy to produce a pound of meat as it does a pound of tofu. Now this is from a long time carnivore who ate meat every day. Now living with Gail has changed that and I eat meat very rarely until I sneak off to Ken’s kosher diner for a strip steak. But think of all the advantages in terms of Kashrut, saving money, health, and now the environment.
4. If you’re buying a new home, or you’re moving, go smaller. Houses between 1500 and 2000 square feet consume 40% less energy than McMansions. In over 4000 square feet, I get a kick out of people who are building 30,000 square feet homes, but making them green. Use a smaller house. Or next time you are in the market for a car, downsize it. Every hundred pounds a car weighs requires 2% more fuel to move it. Not every idea is a good idea- some believe that the US forcing lower gas mileage won't yoeld less miles driven-car owners, knowing that, in studies claim they will then feel fre to drive more. Some believe the key here is to raise the tax of gas to discourage driving.
5. Fly direct if you can. The take offs and the landings burn most of the fuel.
6. Or when you are not using an appliance, pull the plug. They estimate that 95% of the energy consumed by cell phone charges are when they are left plugged in. Between 2-6% of our electrical home energy consumed comes from wasted energy like that.
7. Don’t keep buying bottled water. Buy one bottle and keep refilling it. The amount of plastic used to produce those bottles and the amount of non biodegradable plastic we put in the ground hurts the economy. The US Conference of Mayors in June had a resolution calling for a study to examine the environmental impact that millions of empty water bottles have on municipal garbage operations.
8. When you are buying a TV think about it. Televisions account for about 4% of the energy consumption in the United States and the old TVs use a lot less energy than the new ones.
9. For people who say “I’m buying 5 pairs of organic blue jeans”, it actually uses a lot less energy if you buy one pair of non-organic blue jeans. Buying less: I I read an article recently about people who decided they are not going to buy anything for a year. Instead of just recycling, except for food, health and safety items, the group would go through an entire year by reusing, repairing and regifting or doing without. Long after the rest of us, the editorial said, have given up our vowels to spend more time on the treadmill, and less time in Dunkin Doughnuts, these people are debating whether to buy a new toilet brush was necessary or in the spirit. Haircuts, movies and meals out were ok. Buying a new Ipod instead of fixing an old was not. All of this seems a little overwrought, the editorial said, but there seems to be something to be said about living below you means. Maybe you don’t lie awake at nights worrying about how much you are contributing to landfill overflows. Maybe we are too busy worrying about the credit debt run up over the holidays. Either way, if we have a nagging sense that we are acquiring too much, we probably are. We could use the extra money, the extra closet space, and the earth could use a break.
10. Walk or bike more and drive less.
12. Continue recycling. We now proudly recycle our office paper
13. Plant a tree-one tree takes away the pollution of 13 cars
14. When we buy, buy green friendly products. The businesses will get the message.
15. Priuses are becoming status symbols. When buying a car, ask what kind of car Hillel would have bought.
16. When you grocery shop, bring along your own bags so stores don't add more unnessessary plastic and paper bags to the world. (Hope I haven't offended any bag salespeople).
Just as our body continues to repair itself and replace itself, so that we have a completely new body, every cell is changed every seven years. So the earth has the remarkable capacity to renew itself. They say creation happens every day. Lakes and rivers that were so befouled by pollution, that seemed to be dead, remember when Lake Erie caught on fire, now have revived, the same way that bald eagles that were once near extinction have been taken off the endangered list. There is a capacity for renewal. But it becomes a tipping point when things are so bad, they cannot be renewed or are lost. So we have to avoid that tipping point and let the earth restore itself to be healthy. There is a very famous expression in the Talmud that says to save one life is to save a universe. That always helps us understand the preciousness of each human soul. I never thought about this until now that the other side of that is how valuable the universe is. And not only if we don’t do anything while hundreds of millions of people maybe die, but surely the universe itself has undeniable value and must be preserved.
We well could throw up our hands saying al this is futuile since as the developing nations econimies grow, so does their use and forcasts for huge increases in neds of energy and cnsequently further adding to this problem.
The Torah contains two versions of the story of
creation. In the first, found in Genesis chapter 1,
mankind is the last thing created, except for Shabbat.
Humanity is the pinnacle of creation. The sages
compare this version of creation to when someone moves
into a new house. The furniture is moved in first.
Only when everything a person might nee dis in the
house does the family themselves move in. Thus the
last is the most important. God commands us to
multiply and fill the earth and subdue it – conquer it
– use it for our own purposes. The world is here for
our benefit. For this reason the sages taught that
when we die one of the first questions we will be
asked is Why did you not partake of every legitimate
pleasure and benefit in the world?
But chapter two of Genesis tells a different story of
creation, one in which mankind is created first, so
that God makes sure there is a caretaker before he
creates the garden. Following the same analogy then
here it is the garden, that is, the earth that is more
important. And indeed in this version the Torah is
very explicit. God places man in the garden in order
l’ovdah ul’shomrah, to guard it and to serve it. It is
the world that is of ultimate significance. Our
purpose in life is to take care of the world and to
sustain it. Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra, a 12th century
Bible commentator wrote, “The ignorant have compared
humanity’s rule over the earth with God’s rule over
the heavens. This is not right, for God rules over
everything. The meaning of but the earth He gave over
to humanity is that humanity is God’s steward over the
earth and must do everything according to God’s word.”
Rabbi Haim Berlin of Volozhin went so far as to state
"Then man became a worker of the earth (i.e., a
farmer), and thereby the purpose of creation was
fulfilled."
Through these two stories the Torah teaches us that
God obligates us to maintain a balanced relationship
with the world. We can and should derive benefit from
the world and its resources but only to the extent
that we are also able to preserve and maintain that
world.
The rabbis bring this teaching home with a beautiful
midrash, found in Kohelet Rabbah, in which God takes
Adam by the hand and leads him around the garden. God
says to Adam: See My works, how fine and excellent
they are! All that I created, I created for you.
Reflect on this, and do not corrupt or desolate My
world. . Sh’im kilkalta, ayn mi sh’taken achrecha.
For if you do, there will be no one to repair it after
you.” What a profound teaching, coming to us across
the ages from some 1700 years ago.
The Torah is replete with laws about our environment.
We must allow our fields to lie fallow every seventh
year, the Sabbatical, so that they can rest and
rejuvenate. Fruit trees cannot be harvested until the
fourth year, as acknowledgement that their bounty is
from God, but also so that the tree is able to
properly mature. Even in warfare the Torah prohibits
cutting down fruit trees. From this the rabbis derived
a broader prohibition – baal tashchit – against
wasteful destruction of resources. They taught, for
example, that one must not adjust a lamp to burn too
quickly, for this would be wasteful of fuel. That
prohibition was laid down two thousand years ago, yet
can be applied today to how we set our thermostats and
what kind of automobiles we purchase.
In his treatise on Asthma, Maimonides as a physician
saw the ill effects environmental degradation could
have on the health, and he proposed regulations to
counter them. Joseph Caro, author of the Shulchan
Aruch, the most accepted code of Jewish Law, wrote
about the responsibility of communities to plant
trees. Various responsa of Rabbi Yitzhak ben Sheshet
(Ribash), of the early 14th century, deal with urban
pollution issues and their effects on urban dwellers.
Jewish philosophers such as, Rav Nachman of Breslov
and Rav Abraham Isaac Kook, Rabbis Shimshon Rafael
Hirsch and Abraham Joshua Heschel, all taught us about
the importance of our relationship to this earth and
the fact that God expects us to be stewards for this
creation He has loaned us for our benefit.
This is the season for taking stock, for asking
ourselves how we measure up to the expectations God
may have of us. On this day of all days, the day on
which we celebrate God’s creation, we should be asking
ourselves: How are we doing in relation to our
responsibility as shomrim, guardians, for this good
earth? Are we doing our job? Do we recognize that if
we allow this earth to fall into ruin, there is no one
to set it right after us? On the subject of global
warming, the answer is an abysmal “no.” If we are
serious about teshuvah, then one place to begin is
right here, by acknowledging the sins we have
committed by damaging Gods world, and by committing
ourselves to seeking to repair the damage that we have
done.
One of the reasons for sounding the shofar, according
to Sa’adia Gaon, is to remind us of Creation, and of
our obligations to preserve that creation. This Rosh
Hashanah I invite you to join me in doing teshuvah for
all the ways in which we have hastened global warming.
I say join me because I acknowledge that I too have
done my share of ecological damage. When
it comes to global warming we are all guilty, but we
have to begin somewhere.
And like all teshuvah, this teshuvah requires more
than beating our breasts. It requ
So, my friends, on this day of Rosh Hashanah, when we celebrate creation of the earth, we have a solemn obligation to manage, by God, both in law and in values. to think carefully about what we personally can do. The great wisdom of our sages from the Mishnah say it is not up to us to finish the task, but neither are we to desist from it. Hillel reminded us that we can care for ourselves, if no one will be for us, who will be, but also if we are only for ourselves, what are we?
It is the story of the two fellows in the row boat. One fellow looks over and sees another one drilling a hole under his seat. He says “what are you doing?” The other fellow says “what do you care? it’s my side of the boat.” We are all in the same boat together. God gave us this beautiful universe. God does not want us to destroy it. We clearly have the capacity to destroy it. Somewhere between the two values of the torah and genesis, between having dominion over the earth, which we have, and having to tend and guard the garden, we will perhaps erred on the side of dominion, and lost sight of our responsibility to guard the garden. For the sake of all those animals who don’t have a voice, and for the sake of this planet that speaks to us and cries as it shows us what is happening. Let us personally do what we can with these suggestions to make a difference.. And let us use our power of voting and complaining and kevetching to help our government to move in the direction it should move in to balance and rebalance to save the earth. _(Hebrew)__________________ God’s spirit and grandor fills the whole universe. ----------
God says help me, be my partner, do not let me down. Save the earth.
Sermon draft for the second day of Rosh Hashana-Kol Yisrael
I take the opportunity every year on the second day of Rosh Hashana to offer my thoughts about the state of the world Jewry. Jews the world gathers today, and as much as this is a holy time to reflect on our relationship to God, we sense kinship to fellow Jews everywhere and to our heritage.
I want to start with Jews abroad, because it is more human nature to be concerned about our neighbors and our family, it is more challenging to be concerned about Jews elsewhere. The place to start is the disheartening study of a Jewish sociologist who says that half of American Jews don’t respond positively to the Jewish value of all Israel is responsible one for the other. We need to remember the powerful story in the Torah, when two and one half of the twelve tribes wanted to stay outside of the land of Israel and Moses challenged them with the challenge “Will your brothers go to war while you stay here?.” They finally agreed that it was their responsibility to help settle Israel. That lesson serves as a paradigm for the Jewish value-kol yisrael aravim ze baze- we have a responsibility to our fellow Jews.
We aren’t, of course, only concerned about Jews. Jews, more than any other group of people, are at the forefront of raising consciousness of tragedies elsewhere, in Darfur for example. While Jews are responsible for all, and reminded constantly to help the oppressed, today we speak about our lansmen.
How are our Jewish brethren fairing?
Israel- . The Middle East constantly in our lifetime seems to be on the verge of warfare. The proclivity to war and to terror has little to do with Israel. It is a product of culture and history. Arabs have and do fight Arabs. Sunnis and Shiites, Iran vs. Iraq, etc. When the reversal of decline of the Arab world set in, and the ascent of the west and its power and achievements in every area of human endeavor, has spawned a lust for terror that will not end until the Arab Moslems come to terms with the west. No matter what Israel does, to some extent it will never be enough unless Israel disappeared and even then the violence and terror would not stop. Even after Israel departed from the Sinai, Gaza, Lebanon, and billions of dollars of American aid to Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians, there is not that much progress toward peace. Of course, there is a kind of peace with Egypt and Jordan, but Israel’s past magnimity many in that region see as weakness. Israel’s recent diplomacy has earned it rounds of kidnapping, ransom and rocket attacks. Terror impacts Israel, though the security barrier has greatly cut that down, but still faces regular rocket attacks from Gaza and the North.
We can ask ourselves all day long what if:
-if the Arabs had accepted the UN partition plan in 1947, dividing the mandatory Palestine into a Jewish state and Arab state.
-if the Arabs had created a Palestinian state between 1948 and 1967, when Jordan controlled the West Bank
-if the Palestinians had accepted the Clinton parameters in 2000 calling for the creation of the Palestinian state on more than 90% of the west bank, all of Gaza, and East Jerusalem as its capitol.
You can ask all day long what ifs, but shouldn’t young Palestinians be asking why at every opportunity why their parents choose conflict over compromise. Now Gaza and the West Bank as we speak are split – with Hamas determined to destroy Israel and control Gaza. At least PM Omert has been conducting discussions with Abbas of Fatah, and we never stop hoping for progress. Tom Friedman wrote an interesting article in the New York Times talking about how the first three Israeli approaches to peace have been exposed as failures
One-the way of the left: the land for peace is discredited by the collapse of Oslo,
Two-the way of the right permanent Israeli occupation of all the land of Israel has been impossible by Palestinian demographics and through uprisings,
Three-third way unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon and Gaza has been discredited by Hezbollah attacks from Lebanon and Hamas’s rocket attack from Gaza.
So what would the fourth way be? What do we hope for?
Of course, the largest problem is Iran with each passing day, with each triumph and pronouncement, the chance is dim that diplomacy will or can stop Iran’s juggernaut rush to develop nukes. So all the West can do is more tightly squeeze Iran, they can try military action which has very serious consequences, or they can let them go ahead and just hope that deterrence will stop them from nuking Israel and nuking Europe and nuking the West. There isn’t any really clear solution as depressing as that is.
Israel has many other challenges we are called upon to help navigate-religious domination by the Ultra-Orthodox-the government funds only Orthodox synagogues and rabbis and the religious decisions are made by them,
Poverty is a significant problem, often exacerbated by the many thousands of able bodied ultra orthodox men who study all day in lieu of employment
On a positive note, when we think about Israel, 83% of Jewish Israelis say they are satisfied or extremely satisfied with their lives and nearly ¾ of Israeli Arabs say they feel the same way. In the orthodox community it is 97%. Can you find that many people in any other country in the world say they are extremely satisfied? The Israeli economy continues to bloom, in spite of the second Lebanon war, the divestments, and the boycotts, Israel’s economy enjoyed the largest growth in the GMP in any western country at 8% in the last quarter of 2006. Lists of Israel’s amazing achievements in just the first ¾ of the year is long and phenomenal. The budget deficit was under 1%, industrial exports leading the surge, and high tech industry.
For those who follow this, it is unbelievable how often Israel comes up with revolutionary inventions that will help make the world so much better. Last year some Israeli scientists came up with a straw that you can stick into completely polluted dangerous water and it filters the water so you can drink it. Of course it will save much of the world of terrible disease, because so much of the fresh water is polluted, but some of the Islamic countries, when they heard it was Israel invented it, didn’t want to buy it because they would rather have their citizens suffer. Just in the first few months of this year, Israel found that brackish water drilled from underground desert aquifers could be used to raise warm water fish They are moving forward fast on advances in treatment of Lou Geris disease and Stephen Hawkings, one of the world’s greatest scientists came, he taught them but he also learned that they are making great progress on that disease that could help him and thirty thousand Americans. They have a new capsule that sits in the stomach of animals that sends real time information on the health of the herd. They have made huge progress in helping heart disease and a device that uses electrical nerve stimulation to treat congestive heart failure. These are just a few of the continual achievements of Israel.
In contrast to the efforts to the tiny Israel to make contributions to the world, to make better humankind, we have to ask what of those who strive to eliminate Israel from the face of the earth, ----what have they contributed, other than create hate and bloodshed, and we have to wonder what Israel could achieve if it were just left alone.
So what is our obligation to Israel, what is our answer to Moses when he said “will you stay here and sit on your seat and your brothers go to war”?
First visit if at all possible. We are planning another trip in May. We had a very successful trip last October of twenty-seven people Come with us or go on some other trip- go by yourself, but visit.
One the bright spot in this regard has been the birthright to Israel program, where Jewish young people between the ages of 18 and 26 get a free trip. Over the past 12 months the papers have reported that 45 thousand applied for birthright, which is more that the 30 thousand who have a bar/bat mitzvah this year in the United States. Birthright has become an important Jewish right of passage. While 44 thousand have applied this year, funding limitations mean only 12 to 18 thousand can go on each of the sessions. Right now, 150 thousand participants have come from 52 countries to participate, an amazing program. The evidence is already piling up about the impact that has.
Two Financial help-After the synagogue, which of course should be everyone’s number one tseddakah priority, it’s your synagogue, we need it to survive, worldwide Jewry and Israel has to be right up there, with donations to the UJA, part of our synagogue’s continuing support, Jewish United Fund of Chicago, which gives about half its money to worldwide Jewry in Israel. Our past president, Alan Carroll, give a pitch for investing in Israel Bonds, which helps support Israel’s activities-, the Jewish National Fund which plants trees, helps with water conservation and land development, women’s organizations like Hadassah and Naamat, which support so much medical care in Israel.
Three-We have to be active politically. I am so happy that when we were in Israel last year, an Israeli employee of AIPAC in Jerusalem spoke to our group, and the Hermans and the Urbans went with me to the AiPAC conference. I hope others of you will go with me this year in June and all of you could join. We need to be involved with our Congress people, our state and house legislators because you never know who is going to move up in politics. We also must explain Israel’s predicament and position to our neighbors. It makes a big difference. And now with election season rolling around again, we must make our voices heard with the candidates.
And what about our fellow Jews everywhere?
When various British organizations reach to the bottom morally and vote to Boycott Israeli academics etc, British Jews suffer. Jews in many places around the world feel ever less safe. Every week there seems to be a new revelation of a forestalled terror attack here or abroad and constant threats to kill Jews. attack on Fort Dix, Eight British Muslim doctors, who are conceiving a plot, and suicide bombing continues. CNN showed a video of a Middle East school suicide bombing graduation ceremony with nearly 300 suicide bombers graduated. And Leno’s quip was that all of them were doing the same thing this summer that most graduates do, backpacking through Europe. It would be funny if it weren’t so tragic. We are fighting people who blow up Mosques, markets, hospital emergency wards, and girls’ schools. It is a culture of death. The suicide Jihadists are so hard to defeat because they have no desire to build anything. Their only goal is to make sure America and Israel fails in its effort to help make the Middle East decent, pluristic and progressive. Argentina has a large Jewish community-hundreds of thousands. There is a growing link betwen that country and Venezuela, whose dictator, Chavez, has a very close relationship with Iran, a contry whose president continuously calls for the destruction of Isrel and is suspected of being behind the 1994 bombing of the JCC that killed 85.
What about American Judaism? The tale of 2 cities-best of times and worst of times-
We have our own terror issues to worry about. Tom Freedman of the New York Times reported on a study done of American Moslems, and the conclusion overall they are better assimilated and more concerned about the religious extremism than their counterparts in the rest of the world. And yet, what I found scary about that study was that among those under 30, despite deeper American roots, one in four young Moslems think suicide bombing in the name of Islam can be justified – one out of four American Moslems under thirty. Clearly building relations with moderate Muslims must continue, as we maintain vigilance.
In a new book about the study of Jewish future by Calvin Goldshiver, he writes convincingly about the astonishing proliferation of vibrant creative Jewish activities, the unprecedented availability of Jewish educational venues and materials. Conversion to Judaism, and I am proud to say we have the city’s largest conversion program here, run by my wife Gail, has yielded may new passionate and committed Jews. We must reach out worldwide and welcome those who might find a spiritual home with the Jewish people, much as our ancestors did until stopped by foreign powers. We have Jews-by-choice here working to build better relations with the African American and Hispanic communities. One Latino fellow who says his family were Marranos from 500 years ago in Spain is translating my youtubes into Spanish.
In clear ways we are all Jews-by-choice today. We have free choice. How can we exercise it properly?
Women’s Jewish activism well established and sweeping development has revitalized adult Jewish education in many communities.
Perhaps the most encouraging fact is the majority of Jews are not fleeing connections with other Jews in Judaism. While the book Bowling Alone a few years ago chronicled America’s diminishing sense of joining others in community, and people increasingly isolated themselves in the audio visual game rooms, instead, Jews statistically continue to have some Jewish friends observed some Jewish rituals, belong to some type of Jewish organization, have visited Israel, and have some interest in Jewish cultural, spirituality or social action. He writes in the book “in diverse ways, Jews consider being Jewish one of the most important things in their lives. Therein lies hope for the Jewish future and motivation to meet its challenges”.
College Jewish studies are a real bright spot. My son is now starting Indiana University, and for those who know, Indiana University awhile ago didn’t have much Jewish study, but today you can major in Jewish studies, living in a Jewish interest group housing program. When I went to University of Chicago years ago, they had one Jewish study’s professor in medieval Jewish history, a course in biblical Hebrew and some Biblical courses in the divinity school. Now they have a big program in Jewish learning there.
Camping and day school The Reconstructionist movement now has a new summer-camp in the East and is thriving. The Conservative movement’s Ramah camp is thriving. Chicago will formally dedicate its new beautiful Jewish High School building on the 30th.
There are many challenges. When the Development Director of the Jewish Theological Seminary of Chicago’s office came to visit me, she said I was the first Rabbi she talked to whose Conservative Synagogue’s membership wasn’t dropping, but in fact, was increasing. May it continue. But we must continue to grow. Every Jew has an obligation to the Jewish people, to God and to history to belong to a synagogue. Every one of us has to think beyond ourselves to the next generation-dor ldor and make a commitment in our estate planning to the synagogue.
We face many challenges nationally and internationally on the assimilation front. On what basis today is the average Jewish household different from the non-Jew next door?
What can we do? We can do our share. We can create the strongest, most vibrant synagogue we can, where people who comes with questions and essential human needs:
What’s the meaning in life?
Where is my community?
How do I connect?
How do I feel God’s presence in my life?
What is my purpose?
What do I do with my God given talent?
We need to support our fellow Jews in the state of Israel, and the Jews who are threatened in worldwide communities while our key task is to learn our tradition, and live it while providing a sacred, religious community here. We do that so we can help people sanctify their lives daily through prayer, through deeds of loving kindness, and we help them honor the godliness in every human being, in a sacred community of welcoming, because we are here to be God’s partner. We need to do that and to help bring God’s kingdom closer to earth.
Kol Nidre Sermon Draft
1. Maslow hierarchy of needs
Maslow, one of the classic psychologists, talked about a pyramid of human needs. At the bottom is
.A. the need for food and water;
There tragically are many without adequate of either and water will be an increasing problem.
B...above that is shelter and security;-many substandard housing and not secure-darfur, Iraq
Caboose that is love and companionship; -many feel unloved and alone (call weather)
D. Above that is the need for esteem and appreciation-kavod –much low self esteem and feel no kavod
God wants us to live abundantly with enough food, water, housing, security, love, friendship, esteem, companionship-Judaism says tikkun olam fight for the right of all for this and work towards it for ourselves. Never give up. Have faith.
E. is the question that we ask tonight, at the top of the pyramid, is self actualization of meaning and purpose in life. Many don’t feel meaningful purpose
2. Most people spend most time and concern on 1-4,
3. The largest questions in our life often focus on area 5, the least discussed, explored, or reflected upon in our culture. And as we age we concern ourselves with self-actualization-the meaning and purpose of our lives, what good have we done, has it been worthwhile, more and more.
4. Out of concern about that and concern about the future, according to studies certain Americans believe in astrology and a sixth has actually consulted psychics. There is even a new scholarly field which studies meaning. It is called “experimental existential psychology, or XXP.” It explores how people find meaning and purpose in their lives. A topic that once was the province of poets and philosophers, research now say can be granted under the cold light of science. How people deal with existential concern explains a broad specter of behavior. It is a new field of study being taught at science universities. The question is getting ever more complicated because of, for one thing development in science. Scientists believe that eventually, in the near future, we will have a do it yourself virtual reality, abandoning our own world for a made up one will an ever larger.
What do we make about our lives part of adult life? For futurist, Ray Birdwell, this is only the beginning. We are approaching the age of full immersion virtual reality. Thanks to innovations in genetics, nana technology and robotics, we will soon be able to design our own mental habitat. Those same technologies will help us overcome our genetic heritage, live longer, become smarter. It is amazing to think about that we will learn how brains operate and devise computers that function like them. The barriers between minds and computers will disappear. Then the question is what do we do with these enhanced human beings? They will become our relations to one another, but what would our purpose in life be? As we move into that kind of world over the next decades and century, we will continue to contemplate the questions that have perplexed humanity since the beginning.
As we age the question on our purpose and meaning on this earth grows greater. Has there been a purpose? What difference have I made? Can I make in my remaining time? Does it matter? The main question that we ask ourselves is about the meaning of our lives. Rabbi Harold Kushner who wrote “When bad things happen to good people” also wrote a book “When what you have isn’t enough – a search for life’s meaning.” That book, based loosely on the biblical book of the ecclesial Kohelet, begins with a story of someone who came to see him who said that he sat next to a fellow in a desk in an office for many years. They exchanged little stories about their families, they knew each other’s names, and they worked side by side for over a decade. They didn’t socialize much together. Then one day the fellow died of a heart attack. A week later, his wife came in, cleaned up his personal effects, after receiving condolences from the office, and left. A few days later, somebody new was at the desk working, as if the person never existed. So the question to Rabbi Kushner was “Is that all it is?” It’s like a pebble that drops in a pool that makes a few ripples and then disappears.
. In order to answer this question, of course, the key would be to know what our goal is, what we want to achieve, what the answer is. It isn’t as easy as Map quest, or a gps system, where you plug an address in your computer, and say where you are and where you want to go and then it gives you the exact directions for doing so.
Friends, we gather tonight on the beginning of the holiest Day of the year, a day that the Torah commands us to afflict ourselves to atone for our transgressions, so we can become, NAKI, clean before G-d. Historically, with the haunting melody of Kol Nidre, this day has been a day of intense introspection for Jews. To consider our lives in the largest possible scope, to take a break from all our activities, these 24 hours are very precious to us today, but we know how important it is to spend the day reflecting and preparing ourselves for the future. This day is a day for, first of all, clearly understanding ourselves that is the purpose of all the prayers, confession and atonement.
Life goes so fast. Over before we know it. The first answer is that there is 86 thousand seconds everyday. We sleep about 25 thousand of them-not counting naps. What do we do with rest?
Of course, for G-d, our seconds don’t mean the same thing. There is the old joke about the fellow said to G-d, “G-d how long for you is a second”? And G-d says “a million years.” “And G-d, how much money for you is a penny?” and G-d says “a million dollars.” So then the man says “G-d, can I have one of your pennies”? And G-d says “yes, in just a second.” But for us, all we have is our seconds, this time with which we live. I’m fifty-one now, and I meet vigorous people in our congregation who are 89 and 93. That age doesn’t seem as far away as it did awhile ago, what happens in one’s life? One 87 old fellow here told me his life was just like a click of a finger, and then he clicked his fingers.
Yom Kippur then, bids us contemplate “what then is the destination”? , and “how does Judaism help us on this journey”?
1. Never give up
One illustrativeexample came from the Chicago Bears and the exciting Kevin Hester. In that great play where he caught a kick from the Giants, and stood under the goal post. They thought the play was over, they started walking off the field, and he took off and tied for the longest touchdown in sport’s history – 108 yards, simply because the Giants didn’t know that you don’t walk out until the play is over. Don’t assume because your old, that’s it, or reached a dead end in career, or relationship or health.
There is a lot of Jewish thinking about aging. One of the favorites I hear is aging is not for sissies, it is tough to get old. You may wonder why nature fized it this way. There is an old rabbinic legend about why this happens. The story was that before Abraham, people did not show their age, they simply got to a certain point and died. And Abraham and Isaac were walking down the street and Abraham didn’t look any older that Isaac at that point, and people didn’t know who was the older and who they should give honor to. And Abraham mentioned that to G-d and G-d said “well if I change that and I make you look older, so they will know to whom to pay homage, you will feel older. There is no other possibility.” Abraham said, “Well, we have to teach the world respect for the elderly.” And G-d said “OK” and changed nature so that people began to show their age. And that’s the first time the work Zaken, old was used in the bible in the context of Abraham. The Torah tries to communicate that the value by saying to us that you have you have to stand before the gray haired. It is a mitzvah to show respect to the elderly. The commandment to honor your father and mother is viewed as older people and teachers as well. It is obviously though that the cry of the psalmist who said “don’t abandon me in my old age”-. The worry that old people will be neglected. But the psalmist also taught us-teach me to number my days, that as long as I am getting older, I should learn something from the experience.
It is obvious that people are always looking for the fountain of youth. In fact some pharmaceutical companies, who are not cranks or quacks, that include well regarded Harvard scientists, who believe that they are going to develop a pill that treats many feared diseases, like diabetes, degenerative nerve conditions, many form of cancer, and the only side effect is the increase of life span. That is what they are working on. May we all live to experience that little pill!!. But in the meantime, there is a lot of wisdom about how to stay younger than our chronological years might indicate-, a lot of studies show that older people who frequently visit museums, play musical instruments, play chess or have schedules packed with other brain stimulating but fun activities, are less likely to develop dementia. I’m sure if you put regular synagogue attendance in the mix it would be number one.
There is a lot of evidence that growing old doesn’t mean frailty, researchers are finding. They may not be the inevitable result of aging, rather as preventable and perhaps treatable. Weight training, even in older individuals reduces inflammation, helps prevent falls. They are studying now the question of if a combination of aerobic exercises, weight lifting and balance training can help frail, sedentary individuals retain the ability to walk at least four blocks. There are even studies that say thinking negatively about getting old and you age more quickly. But if you think good thoughts about aging, you’ll likely stay healthy a little longer. People 70 or older who have negative thoughts and beliefs about aging had poor memories as the years passed. Those with positive views lived a medium of 7 years longer, even after taking into account differences in their age and health.
But of course, there comes the inevitable point of illness. There is a book by a professor, Donald Murray, called “My twice lived life,” about coping with what life deals us and seizing control of it, about living in the moment, and also about accepting our lot. The book says life is a journey and adventure, a ride filled with obstacles that help us to see living in a new light. The other book I read about is called “Learning the? the blessings of imperfect life by a young professor who was struck with Lou Geris disease at the age of 35. That disease made it urgent for him to ask all kinds of questions that most of us avoid. What he learned from those questions is that formal consciousness of my own mortality has been my best guide to being more fully alive, live more fully in the present.
The advice to aging well is pretty documented, Dr. Abraham Weil wrote “Healthy Aging”, talking about how important it is to do exercise throughout your life, eat healthy, take vitamins, watch stress , think positively, rest, and keep learning. In fact, some scholars believe that the real question is not how old are you, but what is your real age. I love the story about a Rabbi who was asked in an interview what age he works with; he said “I work with young people of any age.” These 137 factors including, do you take vitamins, how do you handle stress, do you smoke, do you floss, are you active, do you get your fiber, do you laugh, do you learn, do you get regular checkups, do you buckle up. 137 different things that affect your real age.
These questions have a greater urgency as one becomes older in life. The old joke about a Yemenite Jew who is 76 goes to the doctor for a checkup, and the doctor says “You are amazing; you have the body of a 40 year old. How old was your father when he passed away?” The man said “Oh, my father didn’t pass away, he is doing fine, and he is 95. In fact he is getting married next week.” “Your father is 95 and is getting married! Oh my goodness. Why is a man 95 getting married?’ He said “Well, his parents thought it was a good idea, since he’s got this girlfriend.” The Yemenite Jews are notorious for long lived, but of course, even with all the increased technology, none of us are going to live forever. So the question becomes especially acute for the aging. Where do we find meaning and how does that help us in our quest for a better life but after having thought about all of this, about whether it is a little pill or all this work to try and stay young, still there is the large question of what is it all for. We want to live healthy, we want to live long, we want to be remembered well, we want to live productively and positively. Asking what is the meaning of life is even to be viewed humorously. You used to have to go to India and climb a mountain and wait 6 months to talk to the guru, who would give you a two word answer. Today you can click on the internet for a search for the meaning of life and you get more information than imaginable
But we never, ever, stop until this play is completely over. One of the marvelous books I read over the summer is the book about the smartest man who ever lived. Now, some of you probably are going to say Einstein, but according to books on genius, Einstein was number ten. The smartest man who ever lived was Leonardo Deviancy. And his book is called “How to think like Leonardo Divine, seven steps to genius every day.” One of the main points about this book that was so interesting to me was that several of the essential steps in Da Vinci’s genius are that he never, ever gave up. In the face of amazing adversity that would cower almost all of us, he never gave up. Even on his death bed, he was always curious, trying to learn. He doesn’t fear a single second wasted. But towards what end? What purpose? What goal?
The Jewish people have thought about this question for a very long time.
2. It’s the journey-enjoy it. There really is no determinate ending. Part of our clear understanding on this journey is that when our little piece physically ends, the journey itself never ends. There is such a huge amount of discussion about the end of that HBO hit series Sopranos, because it didn’t seem to be really an ending. It just sort of ended without resolution. And there is even editorials in the paper about it, one of them in the Tribune said endings are hard, beginnings are easier, they are full of energy and possibility. The creator of the series invited questions, not just about the unorthodox ending, but by filling the scenario with clever portions. If we physically learn anything from the Sopranos its -- and that’d how the editorial ended. And there were even articles which compared the ending of the Sopranos, that TV show about mobsters to great works like Gone with the Wind, which didn’t really end. Scarlet vowed some day to win Rhett Butler back, but its summer vows, you don’t know if she does. Or the Samuel Beckett play, Waiting for Godot, where the two main characters wait for Godot who never shows. They keep waiting for the answer and you are left with the unresolved issue does life have any meaning whatsoever. Well, a lot of that is in the journey
3. The task on the journey is raising holiness
. G-d wants us to stay healthy. G-d wants us to use our time productively, to help ourselves and the world to grow in holiness, to repair the broken world, to work with integrity, to live intensely, Jadishly, to be part of a religious community, to do no harm, to do good and to do so as long as our breath lasts, and not to walk off the field before the play is over. We will have all of eternity to bask in glory and not worry about this world and doing good deeds. But while we are in this world, until the very last breath, it is ours to continue to grow. Even Deviancy on his death bed continued to grow. So for these 24 hours, as we take a stock of our lives and ourselves, as we reflect on what G-d wants from us, where will we find meaning. Yes, it is true that one day someone else will take our place at the desk where we sat, doing our work that we someday will cease living physically. But while we are here, we are commanded to live holy lives, to help others, to help ourselves, to grow in love and holiness that is to have a life well lived. Moses was not able to enter the Promised Land, the thing he wanted most, to remind us that we never complete our journey, we continue journeying. At some point, our journey in this world stops and we move on to the next world. Until then, the laws of the road are to live hold lives.
. A wonderful Rabbi named Daniel Matt put it this way. A spiritual task is to discover the divine spark in each person, and situation we encounter. To become aware that single thing we do, see, touch or imagine has the possibility of being laded with holiness. Judaism teaches that we must raise the fallen sparks of the unperfected world, to make that a spiritual adventure. For Judaism it’s living the journey in a hold way, continuing to look around us to see opportunities that we have to make the world better, to do tikkun olam, to save the world.
4. Community important to help out-As Jews we are also members of a covenant of people, and that helps us understand that this search for meaning takes place in the --?—community. We ask ourselves what is the purpose of our existence, how do I respond as a Jew to the exigencies of life. Some of the authentic questions of life, we do not do this alone, we do it within a community
5. But the main thing in all of this life and the next is God. Question in parasha a few weeks ago-Moses asks at end-what does God ask of you? Who cares? Best seller book by Harris posits God and religion have just a source of evil for the world. There are even synagogues called secular human ism which don’t say shma yisrael-they pray to the best we revere in humankind. To Judaism though, there is no more important question in life that what does god ask of us. It is what gives us ultimate meaning, purpose, esteem. Security.
Interesting studies over the summer showed 1. The subconscious has much more power over us than we thought and does not limit its control to our dreams at night but can effect us all day long, and helps explain why we can be noble one minute and petty the next. Next study-can’t say “he’s a dirty rat” because rats turn out to be nicer than humans. Next study-we are closest to chimps, both can be purposely vengeful to punish bad behavior but humans alone are also spiteful for no good reason. Dogs fight in the natural world over territory-only human stoop low as to train dogs to fight for our sport, or mass murder for no purpose. We can’t rely on human spirit-it too easily duped. We need God. Almost all people believe-but if we don’t squarely face what God ask of us-it means nothing.
Micah the profit answered 2800 years ago-do justice, love mercy, walks humbly with god. Moses answered 500 years earlier, to be in awe of God, to serve God through prayer, study of torah and mitzvoth, and to love God. The punch line there-Man does not live by bread alone, but from what comes from God’s mouth.
We have a choice as we live on this planet, waiting for the next world and the next life-we deserve to have enough food, water, shelter, security, companionship, esteem, respect. If we or our neighbor do not, we must fight for it, with justice and mercy continually and never give up. But mean while, as the overreaching guide principle, the reason why we are here,, the thing that gives us and our lives eternal meaning and purpose, is to use our God given talents and abilities, with our loved ones, our neighbors, our community, our country, our world, to be in awe of God-year, to learn what God wants from us by studying the tradition, to live what God asks of us through the mitzvoth, and to love both God and our neighbors through prayer and deeds of loving kindness. That’s why we say that it is repentance yeshiva -reflecting on our errors and rectifying them, tfilah-praying over it, and tzedakah turning our lives out to help others. That is the key to this holiest of days
.
Yom Kippur Day-To learn to live to love”
What is Judaism? How would you explain Judaism simply? Is it we believe that G-d is one – we promote that to the world?
Or we recognize there are hundreds of commandments that G-d gave us from the Torah, the Orthodox say six hundred thirteen, and to be a Jew is to observe those commandments?
Is it Maimonides thirteen principals of faith, articulating the fundamentals of Jewish belief?
Or if you simply say it in one sentence, as the great sage Hillel did two thousand years ago when someone asked him to explain Judaism on one foot – “Do not what is hatful to you, do not do to your neighbor, all the rest is commentary – go and study.”
Is it as the great prophet, Micah, in the bible tried to summarize, to say “what does G-d want from us, to do justice, to love mercy and to walk company with G-d.?”
Or what it says in Deuteronomy-what does God ask of you? To be in awe of God, observe the commandments, serve God and love God??” What is it to be a Jew?
In one way to look at it- If Yom Kippur atones for our transgressions against G-d, the most indispensable basis of it, then is to know what G-d wants us to do, so we know what we are responsible for. All these huge classic books of Judaism on my shelves, and I could point to all those and say “This is Judaism”, but I try and think about a succinct way to sum up the essential ideas. After reviewing and reflecting on all of these possibilities, I have three simple words that I want to communicate to you today as guideposts in what I think of the essentials of Judaism. And they all begin with L.
The first one is “To Learn”. The Hebrew word for learn begins with the same letter sound – Lamad, the basis of the word Talmud, to learn. In one of the classic formulas of Judaism, from the Talmud, it is taught, “the world is based on three things, Torah, Avodah, and Gmilut Hasidim”. The first word, Torah, means learning/ instruction. It is the root of that word is the same as a parent, to instruct, to teach. When the prophet, Micah said the key is to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humble with G-d, we are not walking humbly with G-d if we think we are know-it-alls, if we think we don’t need to learn from G-d what our lives should be.
Some born Jews sadly get virtually no Jewish education and go through life without really knowing the basis of Judaism. For those who do get Jewish education, some end at thirteen.
There are some bright spots on the horizon, the fantastic growth of Jewish Day schools. When I graduated from the fist Solomon Schechter 8th grade class with 13 classmates here in 1970, there were a few schools like it in the nation. Now there are many and many non-denominational ones as well, besides all the Orthodox. The proliferation of Jewish high schools, the ground breaking for the Chicago land Jewish high school is happening and of course, you have the Ida Crown Jewish Academy, and other high schools growing around the country, you have a proliferation of Jewish study classes at universities.
The access now to the internet has made learning just about anything jut a touch away. One of activities this past year has been uploading 175 videos of Jewish educational content to youtube, and they have been watched over 50,000 times, as one rabbi’s effort to assist Jewish learning. There is a great passage that we recite every morning in our prayer service, at the beginning of the morning Jewish prayers, which goes like this – These are deeds that yield immediate fruit and continue to yield fruit in time to come – honoring your parents, doing deeds of loving kindness, providing hospitality, visiting the sick, helping the needy bride, attending the dead, making peace between one person and another, but preserves for the last, a study of Torah is the most basic of them all. Read Torah.
A founder of human secular Judaism died in July sadly of an accident. In his obituary it said that when he founded secular human Judaism, in the prayer service they don’t recite the Shema, they say they revere the best in man. I obviously disagree with that. We do need to aspire to the best that human beings can achieve, but Judaism has always believed that there is a source of wisdom and power greater than us, and that source of wisdom and power we call G-d, Adonai, and that G-d communicates with us and has things to tell us. Whatever we study in Judaism, we are really trying to understand what it is that G-d wants. That doesn’t mean that we go to it blindly. Jews have always questioned. I have a whole sermon on the High Holidays about questioning. These are faculties we challenge, each other and even G-d.
When we say at the end of the Shema twice a day, the reader says “Adonai, elohachem, abet”, G-d is a
G-d of emet that is a source of truth. The word emet, if you think about it, has the first, middle and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet, we continually want to find the truth. There is obviously so much more available now. In 1456 there were sixty copies of the Guttenberg bible which was the first book printed in Europe. But yet, less than fifty years later by the turn of the century in 1500, there were fifteen million printed books in circulation. And it has just continued to explode, now the internet, where the people have multiple opportunities to learn.
One of the things I am so proud of about the Synagogue is the opportunities we have here. On a daily basis, you can get my Torah email, if you have a computer, with a sermon or Torah thoughts, or something every day. You can even do it while we are all sleeping, 24 hours a day. Besides my Youtube videos thousands more, and websites and newspapers, periodicals, books
We have weekly classes here. You want to learn how to read Hebrew; we offer it nearly year round. You want to learn the essentials of Judaism; we offer our sixteen week class nearly year round my mother offers a monthly Yiddish class. Gail offers her weekly spirituality Pirkei Avot class. We have a monthly lunch and learn with a variety of lectures. The Synagogue is a hotbed for Jewish learning, and of course, just not here. You are in one of the biggest Jewish communities the world, with a quarter million Jews, and all kinds of activities and learning opportunities here.
I don’t know if any of you have watched that show, “are you smarter than a fifth grader.” Well, in Judaism we should be smarter than a fifth grader. We should continue to learn every day. Why is Torah study considered to be the highest value above all others on that list of the ancient list from the Talmud? Because it leads to everything else.
There are a lot of stories of the summer about people diving for sunken treasure and finding huge treasures at the bottom of the ocean. The Torah says it is not across the ocean, it is not so far away you can’t find it, it is right there.
. The second “L” is to live Jewishly. I choose that because the Torah says “Here are the commandments, Hi Bahem, you should live by them. It does mean to live Jewishly, When G-d first offered the Torah, our ancestors said Naasah Vnishma, we will do it and then we will understand why we do it. Judaism is a leap of action. Of course we are a religion of faith, but primarily a religion of doing. In the famous expression, the world stands on three things, the first is Torah, which I just talked about is learning, the second is Avodah, which is work, but it is also divine worship, divine service, living with G-d, in G-d’s ways. There is a great passage, an ancient passage which says we have to imitate G-d and all G-d’s ways, walk in G-d’s ways. How do you do that? We don’t know what G-d does. While we know what G-d does through the commandments, when G-d sent a messenger to visit the sick, when the good deeds recorded as G-d’s doing, we have to emulate them. What does that mean?
We have to pray. We have a daily minion and most of the time, thank G-d, we’re not the biggest synagogue in the world, we have a daily minion, we have ten people. Make a commitment, come to our daily minion, and pray with us. Pray daily, even if you are not in our minion, but pray. The basic way Jews pray is through blessings. We should bless G-d a hundred times a day, our tradition said, through our daily prayers, whenever we benefit from something, to live Jewishly is to pray. Don’t be afraid to talk to God.
Judaism is also concerned about what we eat, not only healthily, which is a constant struggle, but also kosher, to discipline ourselves through Torah, to inspire to eating in a kosher way.
Judaism also tells us to live in terms of Jewish time. I don’t mean being late, - it means to sanctify the Sabbath, lighting candles, making kiddish and having Hallah.
I read a book this year called “How to think like Leonardo DiVinci, Seven Steps to Genius Everyday.” Step number three of the seven is about being attuned with all your senses to life. I’m thinking about how much of Judaism is attuning the senses to G-d. We light the candles, we feel the warmth and we see the light. Havdalah we smell the spice box. Shabbat we smell the Hallah and the chicken cooking, or whatever you are making. We hear the words of the Shofar and our prayers and Jewish songs. To live, to spend our time jewishly, sanctifying the Sabbath, coming to services, observing the holidays. We are not a religion that says “I’m Jewish so I eat a bagel and lox; it is a religion of sanctifying our lives for Jewish time.
And I’ll talk more about living jewishly means Jewish life cycle rituals. There is a disturbing trend I read about in the media of not only some Americans but young Jewish couples not circumcising their sons. We’ve done it for four thousand years. Ok, so you can’t walk for a year after you get circumcised (joke), but we have never not done it-even under threats. Huge medical studies indicate it is healthful in many ways.
Our adolescent life cycle event the Bar and bat Mitzvah. There are more Jewish kids this year who have applied to go on the birth right trip to Israel, somewhere about fifty thousand, but they cannot all be accommodated for lack of resources, but thank G-d that program exists, more, than are going to have bar/bat mitzvahs this year. I encounter parents who don’t bother with Jewish education and bar mitzvah- everything else is more important. In the sad aftermath of the bridge collapse in the twin Cities there was much bemoaning of the failure to invest properly in infrastructure of roads and bridges. The classic system of Jewish infrastructure, that has made Judaism possible, has been uniform, universal education of our youth.-and the bar/bat mitzvah ceremony which celebrates one stage of it. .
Jewish marriage and Jewish weddings-the classic angst thereof course is intermarriage, but the real issue is whether the family will be Jewish thereafter-we must do whatever we can to support the couple-in married or not, and encourage Jewish living after the ceremony.
Jewish funeral practices. Cremation seems to be an increasing mode of Jewish end of life, and as you know Judaism is opposed to that. We think people’s bodies should not be burnt. They should be lovingly placed back into the earth from whence they came, and we remember that Hitler major way of disposing of dead Jews was to burn them.
We think we should live our lives in Jewish life cycle ways.
And of course, live our lives based on the ethical pattern of Judaism In the hullabaloo about the various terrorist plots being uncovered in England, the papers say the average Londoner is watched and photographed three hundred times a day by these anonymous cameras. Well, we know G-d is watching us all the time. There is a wonderful Shabbat story that goes along with the Shabbat hymn Shalom Alachem, which talks about the welcoming the Shabbat angels-the story goes that there are angels looking in our window and they are checking to see if we are making Shabbat. Well, I want to borrow this story, that we are being photographed all this time and G-d’s watching us.
One of the ways to assess if we are living jewishly or not, is to imagine when the angels look through our windows, they wonder about more than Shabbat. Do they see us creating a Jewish home? Are there kiddish cups on display, is there a Hanukkah menorah, and are there Jewish books? Are these things dusty or are they being used? Is there a Hallah cover? Are there two sets of dishes for meat and milk? Is there music on that is Jewish?
Vanessa ocks teaches in the department of religious studies at the University of Virginia. She is the author of a book called “Words on fire, one woman’s journey into the sacred.” She identifies three useful categories as to what makes a Jewish home Jewish. The first category she calls “Jewish stuff”. Religious books, coffee table art, photographs of Jews, Jewish jewelry, seduccah boxes, Jewish art work, Jewish articulate objects. Does your home have this stuff? The second category she calls “Jewish Signifying Objects.” Objects that are not in of themselves considered exclusively and uniquely Jewish, but they function in many Jewish to embody, create an express Kiddush holiness, by their sheer presence. Traditional Jewish foods like Hanukkah latkes, homintashen, gefilte fish, displays of extended families, from generation to generation, do we have an abundance of Jewish signify objects? The third set in the Jewish home she calls “ordinary objects transformed.” Material objects found in any Jewish home, but function in a Jewish way. A dish is a dish, but in a Jewish home where Kashrut is observed, the dishes may have certain colors or patterns. A telephone is a telephone, but when it is used to check on a sick friend, it becomes a holy vessel. Even cleaning equipment when it is used to clean one’s house before Shabbat, to make Shabbat special, it becomes a holy vessel. And money, too, - is money being dropped into a tseddakah box before candle lighting?
These three categories of Jewish subjects signify objects of Jewish stuff that makes your home Jewish. What do the angels see? Is the home and immediate home defined by Jewish values? Is the conversation that occurs in your home gauged by a Jewish thermometer? Our tradition says that three people who eat and not share with the Torah, it is as if they consumed idolatrous sacrifices. Even one person sitting and thinking about Jewish subjects, brings the divine presence. Dr. Arnold Eisen, the newly appointed chancellor urged all Rabbis to speak about Jewish living and mitzvoth observance these High Holidays.
The third “L” after learning and living, is to love jewishly. There are two kinds of love. The first is to love G-d. The Torah commands us to love G-d three different ways, with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our might. Now how do you love G-d?
First of all, G-d has to be first. Anything else is idolatrous. And for many people, many Jews, G-d aren’t even on the agenda. But G-d has to be first. That means we need to pray, we need to thank G-d every day for the blessings in our life. One of the ways in which we love G-d is by doing G-d’s bidding, by extending ourselves to help others, to sanctify G-d through our deeds, called kiddushat hashem. You know the word enthusiastic means to be filled with G-d. So, we need to focus as a priority on loving
G-d. Lest you imagine this as unscientific, a recent article in the NYT about science and God said “Albert Einstein mentioned God often enough that one could imagine he and the “OLD ONE” as he called God sometimes, had a standing date for coffee. To wit-“the Lord is subtle, but malicious he is not.”
The other kind of love is to love others. And that starts with us. You know in a very pivotal central verse of the Torah, which is really the key to life, love thy neighbor as thyself, a lot of people talk about the challenge of loving your neighbor, but the key to the verse begins with loving yourself, and how many people don’t love them. But G-d loves you. You are made in the image of G-d, and we can’t ever forget that. And if we don’t love ourselves, how can we reach out and react to the world with any kind of image befitting being made in G-d’s image.
And after we understand we have to love ourselves, we have to reach out and love others. We have to see G-d in everyone else. There is no room in Judaism for any kind of racism, because we are all members of the human race. The Torah begins with one Adam. I don’t believe there is literally just one guy Adam at the beginning-(if so, who did his son marry?) But one Adam as a myth is a way of saying we all come from the same person, it is a classic madras saying, no one can say my father was greater than yours.
Key words of Judaism are chased and reclaim, as Micah said, to do justice and to love mercy. One of the names for G-d is Rickman lay, the merciful one. What does it mean to have mercy? One common expression is -Oh he is a dirty rat. But you know what; they have done studies this year that show that rats are very kind to each other, even to stranger rats. Chimps are the closest to humans of any animal but a study released in August showed that while chimps and humans can be properly vengeful to punish bad behavior, only humans are spiteful. We should just be as kind to other human beings, at least as nice as rats are and chimps are to their own. Dogs don’t fight each other unless there is a good reason-its only humans who amuse ourselves by starving man’s best friend into killing other of man’s best friends for sport.
The Torah says one law for Israelite and stranger alike. Love the stranger. It is a very unique and special religion in this regard to teach human beings not to have xenophobia, fear of strangers, but love of strangers. The basis of loving others is to treat all as we would like to treated-respect them, their property, and their honor.
NYT had story about hotels trying to improve wake-up calls. With all the fancy technology, often calls don't happen, or the wrong hour. We have always had a wake-up call using the most ancient and simple device-the shofar. Rambam-wake us up from our spiritual slumber. Our spiritual slumber is not really living fully as God intended.
And so my friends, what is it to be a Jew? What is Judaism? What are the pillars upon which we should live our lives? I offer this simple formula, to go forward this year and to think about this every day. To learn as a Jew, to live as a Jew, and to love as a Jew, G-d and our fellows. Every night before you go to bed, assess your day on that basis. Did I learn today? Did I live as a Jew today? Did I love G-d and my fellow creatures today? And, of course, every day we fall short, that is what it is to be human and so we repent and we reflect and we strive tomorrow. And every morning as we say the traditional words, which are beautiful to say, thank you G-d for restoring my soul. Modeh Ani Lifanecha Melach Chai Vikiyom. We also quote the great verses from the psalm – this is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Be filled with enthusiasm for the new day. By again say with me, to learn, to live and to love.
Yom Kippur Sermon #3
On this holiest day of the year, we reflect on really what is the most important thing in life. Sometimes the most obvious and simplest things are ignored. So what I want to talk to you today is about half of Judaism, about half of life, about half of what seems to G-d the most important things in life, and about which Yom Kippur can remind us, but that doesn’t do any good. And that is what it is to be a mensch. What it is to be nice?
. There isn’t any good word in Hebrew for nice. When you say something looks nice, you use the word, Yafeh, and you can say the word good is Tov, but doing nice, being nice, acting nicely, there is really no one term. On the other hand, one can would say that half of everything concerned with G-d is about being nice.
We divide all of the Mitzvot, the commandments in Judaism, into two groups. Commandments having to do with us and G-d, like Shabbat and Kashrut, and commandments having to do with us and other human beings, we call Ben adom, La Chavaro, between a fellow and another person. In fact the Ten commandments are divided that way too. The first half, on the right side, is about G-d and not taking G-d’s name in vain, and not having idols, and Shabbat, even honoring parents #5, that is the bridge commandment between the two sides, have to do with G-d. The other side, has to do with our relations with our fellows.
The rabbis are very clear that Yom Kippur only can atone for transgressions between us and G-d, but transgressions between us and our fellows, we have to take care of that ourselves. And then G-d can forgive us. In fact, if you could distill the entire High Holiday liturgy down to one line, it probably would be: “repentance prayer in deeds of loving kindness averts the severity of the decree.” The key there is after we repent, and after we pray, we still have to do deeds of loving kindness.
I raise this today, because it seems to be a huge issue, maybe always has been. First of all, on the level of minor problems, there are articles all the time in the paper now about how it seems that basic civility between people is eroding and people are being ruder. Whether it is spitting on the street, thinking the whole world is yours, sneezing without covering your nose, swearing a lot, playing your music too loudly, although I-pods seemed to have helped out a bit, taking the place of those big boom boxes, to the level of cheating, stealing, gossiping, slandering, humiliating, hurting. All the things we do to hurt one another. These may seem to be minor things.
We shouldn’t say that they are just minor. One way to draw an analogy is the story about the fourteen billion dollar Boston tunnel project had a terrible calamity when part of the roof fell down and killed somebody and caused huge delays. It turns out that after months of investigating the problem was the wrong kind brew was used to secure a dollar and fifteen cent anchor, which caused the whole top roof to come down. Little things have big consequences.
The accumulated little things of lack of civility, and of hurting one another, have big consequences. Before we go into the Jewish aspect of this, let us talk about the science aspects. One of the most startling things that have been found by researchers this past year on this subject is that rats are actually very nice to one another. They go out of their way even for rats they don’t know to be kind. We used to say “Oh, he’s a dirty rat”. But we can’t say that really anymore because rats seem to be very nice.
Then scientists released a study that found chimp that have 98% humans dna do vengeful things as we do, but for purpose, but unlike humans, are not purposelessly __________. Scientist further found that we are our own worst enemy in this regard, even as our conscious minds try to be nice, our subconscious works continuously to undermine our high mindedness. Scientists believe that we’re actually wired for niceness, for helping others, when they attach wires to various parts of our brain, and we actually do well for someone else, the parts of the brain linked to happiness light up. So if we’re actually wired for happiness, what goes wrong? And then of course there are psychopaths who have no moral sense of life. Not just suicide bombers. Since 9-11. 100,000 Americans have been slain by guns and 500,000 assaulted with guns.
What does Judaism teach? In the twenties lots of Jews were champion boxers. A young Jew went to his parents and said he wanted boxing lessons. His mothers said “I don’t want you to do it because you might get hurt.” His father said “I don’t want you to do it because you might hurt someone else.” The question is do we really have a religious view of humanity that we are made in G-d’s image, in which case just as we were personally made in G-d ‘s image, so was everybody. The task is to see the other as somebody made in G-d’s image. Martin Buber, one of the great Jewish thinkers of the last century, most famous phrase was “I vow”, that we have to see every other human being as a vow, made in G-d’s image.
I was watching a TV commercial for the car brand Volvo and they were touting the new security system, where from a far distance, you can have a clicker, not to open your car, which they have as many cars do now, but as the ad said, to detect whether there is a human heart inside that car. Of course, that is a safety issue, is there somebody hiding in your car. How often that happens, I don’t know. But on a spiritual level detecting whether there is a human heart in that car, is like is there a human heart in that person. I think about the wizard of Oz, the story of a tin man who basically just wanted to know that he had a heart. There is a very famous Jewish ancient story about this about a Rabbi who sent his five disciples out to investigate what were the most important qualities in life. Each disciple came back with a different value. And the Rabbi said the disciple who came back and said the heart was the most important quality to have. Was the right value trait, because that encompassed all the other qualities, to have a human heart?
One of the stories I tell at dedications for tombstone monuments was a quote from Rave Kook, who was a great Rabbi of Palestine before Israel became a state. In reflecting on the western wall, he once said something that is now a modern Hebrew song, he said there is some stones that have hearts like human beings, some human beings that have hearts like stone. So what is it to have a heart like a human being? And what is it we do to hurt one another? There are so many ways.
Sometimes the greatest hurt comes from those who are supposed to love us and care for us the most. Gail and I went out to Oakton Des Plaines campus for a sculpture exhibit put together by one of our members. The curators of the museum there is Nathan Harpist. There are some very interesting sculptures and one of them was actually a cylinder and around it was paper, like tape measures, and on each blank tape measure was written phrases. All negative, and all things that people hear from parents and relatives-such as “oh, you’re too fat, you won’t amount to anything, you’re stupid, you don’t do anything right” and on and on, dozens of these sentences went around and around the cylinder like tapes in our head, things we say to hurt and afflict one another.
How is it that we can start saying things of loving kindness to one another, and not do things to hurt one another? .I was very moved by the story about a Florida school that is now not just teaching the three R’s, but to teach two other R’s. In addition to reading, writing and arithmetic, they are teaching respect and responsibility. That’s why that I started to use on my tag line of emails and synagogue literature, what I think are three of the major issues in Judaism that we try to teach. One is to learn jewishly to study Torah. The second is to live jewishly. The third is to love
G-d with all our heart, soul and might, and our fellow creatures as ourselves.
There was a story in the paper about a church where the minister gets a bus and takes his parishioners out on the bus to do random acts of kindness and the line he uses is “the church has left the building.” There is something very noble about that, on the other hand, random acts of kindness is not exactly what the Jewish theory had in mind, because we structurally institutionalize this, and the commandment system of Gmilut Hasidim , deeds of loving kindness, as well as tseddakah. Tseddakah is not based on randomness, like charity based on the Greek word keratas, of love, but of the root word tseddakah, the responsibility.
I found an article which I found meaningful in this regard, listed various qualities. For example it asked the question “what is the greatest joy?’ And the answer to this article was “giving”.
It asked-What is the most satisfying work we have? Helping others. In that regard, there was a study this year which surprised me because when clergy get together they always talk about how much burn out there is. Turns out that clergy are the most satisfying of all professions. And number two after that were other helping fields like social work. The people obviously in that field don’t make the most money, but seem to be the most satisfied. The greatest, most satisfied work seems to be helping others.
The article went on to say is what the ugliest personality trait is, they included selfishness,
What is the greatest shot in the arm, encouragement?
The most powerful force in life? love,
The most dangerous pariah? the gossiper,
The deadliest weapon? the tongue,
The most contagious spirit, enthusiasm.
These are values and ideas that we could well emulate. So from a Jewish prospective, how do we understand this? I’ll tell you a story that is from the Torah, the end of the book of Numbers, the fourth book of the Torah that makes us a point like this. 2 1/2 of tribes on the border of the land of Israel say to Moses, I don’t want to go across the land. The reasons they give him notably have any concept of G-d absent from their request, and they quite clearly prioritize in their language that their businesses, their cattle, will be better on that side of the Jordan. And the last thing they mention is their children. Moses is very upset with them and he basically, mentions G-d four times in a brief response and changes the priority by listing the children first, their families, and then their cattle. And the sages said that if you don’t approach life in a relationship to others in a meaningful spiritual way, G-d based, it doesn’t end up being meaningful and valuable, and that we can’t prioritize our business over our family and our community and our deeds. In the end, that’s not a proper value system.
Antimonies is a cousin of the great medieval sage, Rambam/ Maimonides, who is himself a wonderful important medieval sage, said that every commandment, no matter what it is, it has one of two purposes, either reminding us about G-d or teaching us to be more merciful and compassionate. The Talmud said that the basic way in which we know G-d is through deeds of loving kindness, but G-d does deeds of loving kindness, and we have to emulate G-d. The Torah begins with deeds of loving kindness, of G-d addressing Adam and Eve, marrying them, taking care of them, and providing for them. And as for deeds of loving kindness, is G-d burying Moses. In fact, that is an interesting Mitzvah when you participate in burying the dead. The Rabbis call it the ultimate form of mercy because the person obviously can’t repay you.
One of the candidates as the most important mitzvah in the Torah, the Torah gave it the center place in the middle book, in almost the middle chapter, in Leviticus 19, is “love thy neighbor as thyself.” What’s fascinating about that is that is the first time that phrase occurs in either that form or the form it occurs in the Talmud which is “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.” Subsequent to that verse from about fifteen hundred BCE, it occurs in virtually every culture, east and west. In Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. Many, many religious texts have a version of that verse. Clearly somehow every culture understood that G-d, above all, wanted us to love our neighbor as ourselves.-and to not do things to others we would hate to have done to ourselves.
Now, that verse means that we have to love ourselves, but not exclusively. As the great sage Hillel said “If I am not for myself, who will be? But if I am only for myself, what am I?” In the Torah, in describing the creation of humanity says we are created in the image of G-d, but Salem Elohem. And if indeed we are created in the image of G-d, so is everyone else. And so we have to respect that. The Torah also as you know begins with the idea that there is one Adam. One person created first. Now, I don’t believe that to be scientifically true, but it makes a very important spiritual point which is we all come from the same G-d and no one can say my Dad is better than yours.
There is a very fascinating story in the media earlier in the year about a fellow who was tracing his DNA and was convinced he was one hundred percent white, Anglo Saxon protestant. And when his DNA was actually checked, it turns out that he had about twenty different ethnic groups from all over the world in his blood system. He wasn’t anything, but he was everyone and everybody. And I would hazard a guess that if anyone of us checked our DNA, we would find that we are linked deeply. In any case, differences in DNA between us and every other human being is so minor, it is miniscule, because we all come from the same origin. And therefore, that same chapter in Leviticus which says “Love thy neighbor as thy self” also says “don’t tell tales, don’t bear stories, don’t curse people who are deaf, don’t stand idly by while the blood of your neighbor is spilled.” It’s to be a mensch. And this is all regulated by commandments. These are not optional ideas; these are commandments from G-d. G-d wants us to behave this way towards one another.
The biblical story we read this afternoon, the story of Jonah which concludes Yom Kippur’s bible readings makes the same point. Jonah feels it is not his big responsibility to help the citizens of Nineveh. He doesn’t want to bother with it. God chases him around the world until he forces Jonah to agree that it is his responsibility to care about other people.
So it starts with us. It starts with us. And to be the best person we can be means to refrain from humiliating other people. It means refraining from gossip, don’t listen, and don’t participate in it. It means like I kind of hear at funeral’s eulogy preparation, if you have nothing good to say, don’t say it. It means to be positive, encouraging, and supportive, to help our neighbor as ourselves. It doesn’t mean we have to be saps and be taken advantage of, but to live with a positive outlook. We need to be conscious and considerate of others and of ourselves, because G-d talks about our responsibility to be holy. It is often in the context of these kinds of behaviors which is of deep concern to G-d. And G-d gives us obligations to behave in a particular way.
On Yom Kippur, when we are praying for our lives, and praying for our souls, and praying for more time and for mercy and capacity for G-d, G-d expects us in turn to be mercifully and compassionate to others, and to exercise that by doing deeds of loving kindness. Maimonides says that we should each view ourselves as though we are equally balanced, right now, at this moment, between deeds of good and deeds of bad, and perhaps the next thing we do will tip the scale. This is the only way to rectify the bad we brought into the world by our misdeeds is to do positive deeds to counterbalance it. Do deeds of loving kindness. And that is why every morning in the traditional prayer book, it begins with a list of kinds of acts of loving kindness that we can do to help one another.
Whether it is, in ancient times, providing a soup kitchen for the hungry, providing a wedding dress for a poor bride, or helping bury a poor person, giving tseddakah, helping institutions, not turning our back on others, giving the corners of our field to the poor, and in simple discourse, not taking bribes, not cheating anyone, paying workers a decent wage that they are entitled to at the appropriate time, employing people, being supportive and kind. It also means observing the social conventions-be respectful to the property and person of others. Who is honored-the Talmud asks-he who honors his fellow.
It seems like this is so clear to all of us, but on this holiest day of the year, we have to remind ourselves it’s a deep concern to G-d, and it is something that we need to renew and rededicate ourselves to, because we can’t effect proper atonement and get a clean slate as the Torah promises us unless we take this very seriously and take care of it.
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