Yom Kippur afternoon sermon on "being nice"

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.