Yom Kippur Morning Sermon (2007)

Yom Kippur Morning
September 22, 2007
10 Tishrei 5768

Fundamentalism and Self-Reflection

The confessional is a mainstay of the Yom Kippur liturgy. So many times through the day’s prayers, we stand and publicly avow all the sins we may have committed in the past year.

In this spirit, this morning I have another confession to make:

I am a fundamentalist.

Yes, it’s true. I discovered it while reading this morning’s Torah portion from Nitzavim. But before you contact HUC to send me back to New York, let me explain.

First of all, a bit about the word “fundamentalism” itself. In order to understand it fully, I looked up the word “fundament” on dictionary.com: it is “a foundation; an underlying theoretical basis or principle.” “Fundamentalism”, then, is “a religious point of view characterized by a return to basic, essential, foundational principles” [adapted].

Inspired by the words of Moses in this Torah portion, I began to understand my religious quest in these terms – a Return to Essentials, or Back to the Basics.

So, what are these fundaments upon which my faith rests? Before I answer, I want to set the stage, and that involves a little bit of congregational participation.

I would like to ask you all to open up your Gates of Repentance to page 343, to Deuteronomy 30:11-14, which begins at the bottom of the page. I invite you to please rise and read this passage responsively with me; your part is everything in quotes, and I will begin.

30: 11] For this commandment which I command you this day is not too hard for you, nor too remote. 12] It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who will go up for us to heaven and bring it down to us, that we may do it?” 13] Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who will cross the sea for us and get it for us and bring it over to us, that we may do it?” 14] No, it is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, and you can do it.

(You may be seated.)

In the wake of the overwhelming display of God’s power during the Exodus, Moses has to convince the Israelites that the Torah they are receiving will not be similarly overwhelming. It is almost as if he says:

Remember when we went across the sea on dry land on our way to receive the Torah? And remember when I ascended the mountain to God’s very Presence in the heavens to receive the Law? I know that was all very miraculous and intimidating, but from now on, everything will be accessible to you on the ground.

In other words, all that divine intervention was paving the way for human activation.

Here’s where we get down to the Jewish fundamentals: the mouth-heart partnership. I believe that this duality is a radical statement of our relationship to tradition, community, and ourselves.

The mouth is the locus of public discourse. It is the quintessential tool for interpersonal communication, and, therefore, the mouth is the fundamental building block of community. By locating the Torah in our mouths, Moses reminds us that Judaism cannot exist in isolation but requires the active engagement of a collective.

On the other hand, the heart is the locus of personal reflection, self-fulfillment, and autonomy. Individuality, even when it leads to disagreement, is essential for an authentic, thriving Judaism. Of course, there are limits to this autonomy, and Moses warns us that following our own willful hearts is abhorrent to God: the heart untempered by the mouth is self-aggrandizing and idolatrous.

This interplay of individual and community is also illustrated in the way Moses addresses the Israelites in this speech. He locates the fundamentals of Judaism in “your heart” and “your mouth”, both in the singular. That singular, together with the plural “You” (or “Y’all” where I come from) in the very first verses of the portion, makes it clear that Moses is speaking to the community in its radical entirety: the Torah is to be found in the mouth and heart of every man, woman, and child – and not just the Israelite, but the stranger, too. And not just those present at the time, but all their descendants in perpetuity. Therefore, to exclude even one individual is to limit ourselves from the covenant, to cut ourselves off from God.

That’s what I mean when I say I’m a fundamentalist. My commitment to others, within and without the Jewish community, is my first and my last. Consider: Moses did not say, “This thing is very close to you, right here in this Sefer Torah.” If we are serious about the meaning of Torah, then we must guard against taking the pages of Torah so seriously that we blind ourselves to the Torah within each of us and among all of us.

This is why it makes me so angry when so-called “fundamentalists” – Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and otherwise – make inflammatory and exclusionary statements. Terrorists call for holy war to wipe out all the non-believers. Missionaries call for conversion to their one true faith at the threat of eternal punishment – and maybe some earthly punishment, too. Reactionaries call for the condemnation of those of different races, sexual orientations, and political affiliations.

To all of these I want to react dramatically; I want to call them racist, chauvinistic, outside the bounds of acceptable religion. I want to rail against them because they do not seek the divine in the mouths and hearts of those they condemn to suffering or even death. I might have used the label “fundamentalist” and meant it as a criticism, but I won’t anymore. For these kinds of believers disregard those fundamentals of mouth and heart that Moses articulates in our Torah portion. Preferring the words of their holy texts, they ignore the holy words that dwell in every human soul. They desecrate the divine spark in others and in themselves.

* * *

And then, in a more self-critical moment, I pause to ask if my summary rejection of these “fundamentalists” is itself a violation of my fundamental principle of mouth and heart. As hard as it is to ask, should I not seek some taste of the sweetness of Torah even in the bitterness of their words? In the wisdom of the great sage Ramban and this Season of Repentance, I found the beginning of an answer.

Up to now, we have taken it for granted that “this Mitzvah” (“this commandment”), which Moses locates in our mouths and hearts, refers to the entire Torah, and most commentators agree. But the Ramban, in his commentary on Deuteronomy, takes it to refer to the specific commandment of teshuva – repentance – a few verses earlier: “you shall return to the Eternal your God” (Deut 30:2; see also 30:10).

The Ramban’s interpretation encourages us, even as we criticize others, to reflect on ourselves:

When have I abused Torah to justify my hatred or to hide my indifference? When have I clothed profane ulterior motives in pious garb? When have I complained without constructing, criticized without contributing? When have I deprived myself of experiencing God by excluding someone, knowingly or not? When have I been blinded by my own willful heart? When have I been deaf to the voices of my community? When have I been hesitant to ask forgiveness? When have I been slow to forgive?

These are the questions that I carry with me this Yom Kippur. The task before each of us is to bring the mouth and heart back into dialogue, back into balance. Sometimes this means calling out hypocrisy and sin in our communities and in our world. Sometimes, it means turning those fundamentals into tools of forgiveness. Always, it means that if our own mouths and hearts are in order, we can speak with greater integrity when we see dangerous “fundamentalism” in others.

As we turn inward during this day of introspection, let us not forget to keep looking outward, too. My hope for all of us is that we have the heart to reflect critically on our own souls, and the openness of mind and mouth to share in that soul-searching with our community.

Ken y’hi ratzon, and a meaningful fast.

Yom Kippur / Kol Nidrei Sermon (2007)

Erev Yom Kippur - Kol Nidrei
September 21, 2007
10 Tishrei 5768

Mortality and Meaning

This past summer, I interned as a chaplain at a hospital in Seattle. I learned a powerful lesson from a pamphlet available in the pastoral care department, entitled Helping a Child Grieve and Grow. I used this pamphlet several times during the summer to help families support their grieving children. It said:

A wise writer once insisted that only death makes love possible. Because human life is fragile, it is precious. Because an individual makes but one appearance on this earth, his or her uniqueness must be cherished.
Do you really want to protect a child from discovering that truth?

Unlike God’s other creations, we humans live with the knowledge that our lives will come to an end. When Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge, I don’t believe they brought death into the world – I believe they became aware of it. A curse at first, this morose realization was also a blessing in disguise. For with the knowledge of death came a new understanding of life: since it is finite, every moment counts. Since it is short, it is precious. In his book The Doctor and the Soul, psychologist Victor Frankl explains:

How often we hear the argument that death does away with the meaning of life altogether. That in the end all man’s works are meaningless, since death ultimately destroys them. Now, does death really decrease the meaningfulness of life? On the contrary. For what would our lives be like if they were not finite in time, but infinite? If we were immortal, we could legitimately postpone every action forever. It would be of no consequence whether or not we did a thing now; every act might just as well be done tomorrow or the day after or a year from now or ten years hence. But in the face of death as absolute finis to our future and boundary to our possibilities, we are under the imperative of utilizing our lifetimes to the utmost… Finality, temporality, is therefore not only an essential characteristic of human life, but also a real factor in its meaningfulness….

In one of those bittersweet ironies of the human condition, death becomes a teacher, a guide, an inspiration, even. When we ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, and knew death, a new mandate came into the world: embrace life. God’s command to Adam and Eve – Be fruitful and multiply! – is an answer to the question of death. Knowing that their singular lives would come to an end, the symbolic first human beings were charged to leave something of themselves behind in this world. What legacy of theirs would be untouched by death, an immortal gift to the next generation, and the next…?

We are human beings like Adam and Eve, and we inherited those eternal questions. The cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker, in his book The Denial of Death, speaks of “constructions of symbolic immortality” to describe the ways we make lasting meaning in the world. For many, children carry on that undying spark into the future; for some, their contributions to society; and for others, their community, which outlives its individual members. Each of these – children, contribution, community – puts us in contact with eternity, in relationship with immortality, in touch with meaning.

* * *

As we gather today as a community of meaning-seekers, Yom Kippur urges us to confront these questions again. The reminders of mortality are pervasive. The Unetaneh Tokef prayer and others besiege us with images of God’s Book of Life and Death, of who shall perish by water and who by fire. The fast gives us the sense of a withered body, freed as in death from the need for physical sustenance. Kol Nidrei asks for us to be absolved of vows we are unable to fulfill, acknowledging the possibility that our life might end before we live up to our promises. When we stand before the ark for this prayer, we remove all the Torah scrolls. The aron kodesh – the holy ark – without the holy sifrei Torah in it, becomes merely an aron – which is also the Hebrew word for "coffin." On Erev Yom Kippur we stand with the support of our community and stare into our own grave.

In this light, the Day of Atonement feels like a rehearsal for the last day of our life. The effect could be despair, unless we can see this day as an unexpected gift: a God’s-eye view of our life from its end. One day a year, we stare death in the face. And it turns out that death’s face is a mirror. When we stare into it, we get the opportunity to evaluate our lives as if from our final day. On that day, we will ask in the past tense what we are privileged today to ask in the present: are we living the life we should, the life we want, for ourselves and those around us?

The Sages used to say, “Repent one day before you die” (Avot 2:15). Their disciples countered skeptically, “But how can we possibly know when that day will come?” “Exactly,” the Sages replied, “Therefore repent every day, and when your last day comes, you will be ready” (adapted from BT Shabbat 153a).

* * *

One day a year of immersing ourselves in this heavy death imagery may be enough. Judaism is obsessed with life, not death, and our tradition repeatedly urges us to “choose life” for ourselves and our children, as we will read in the Torah portion tomorrow morning.

Again, the liturgy is a great teacher. As we finish the prayers for Yom Kippur, the quiet of death is shattered by the rousing sound of the shofar. As one midrash explains, the shofar is a symbol of resurrection:

And how does the Holy One, blessed be He, resuscitate the dead in the world to come? We are taught that the Holy One, blessed be He, takes in His hand a Great Shofar . . . and blows it, and its sound goes from one end of the world to the other. (Midrash Aleph Beit D’ Rabbi Akiba 3:31)

When the shofar sounds near the end of Yom Kippur tomorrow, we too will be jolted out of our pseudo-death and return to life again. Looking back on our year, the good and the bad, we are called to resurrect the person we have been in our best moments. From the mire of mortality, each of us is reborn with the new year, ready to reach for the elusive embrace of eternity through our relationships and our works.

* * *

In the last week of my chaplaincy internship, I was present with a family while they said final farewells to their beloved Richard as his life support was removed. This 67-year-old man had been well respected in his community for his commitment to the arts and civic life, and in this moment he was surrounded by family and friends. I hope I never forget the image of his wife and three daughters embracing each other and holding his hand as he took his last breaths. Their tears were grief and joy intermingled: grief for losing him, joy for all the blessings that outlived him. Please God, may we all leave behind such a loving legacy.

If we are open to it, Yom Kippur’s glimpse of death may remind us of the preciousness of life. Then may it help us appreciate the sanctity of our relationships with our loved ones and with our communities who give this life its special meaning.

Ken Y’hi ratzon. Gut yontif.

*Special thanks to my teacher Rabbi Larry Hoffman for planting the seed of the idea for this sermon in our Liturgy class on September 6, 2007.

Rosh Hashanah Morning Sermon (2007)

Rosh Hashanah Morning
September 13, 2007
1 Tishrei 5768

Three Abrahams

The Rosh Hashanah morning sermon presents a special challenge to us rabbi types. The story of Abraham’s near sacrifice of Isaac, his beloved son, is, to say the least, a difficult episode. Not to mention that thousands of years of interpretation – Jewish, Christian, and Muslim – are layered on top of this story so thick that’s it’s all we can do just to scratch the surface.

But instead of analyzing the traditional midrashim and rabbinic commentators, I decided to share with you some thoughts I’ve been having recently about this story, and how we might try to make sense of it.

My thoughts on the Aqeda, the binding of Isaac, go in three directions, each represented by one of three Abrahams.

* * *

The first Abraham I want to talk about is Avraham Avinu, Abraham the Patriarch, the Father of our Faith and the subject of this Torah portion.

He was a religious revolutionary and iconoclast, not only leaving the physical and spiritual home of his fathers but also destroying their idols before he left. Some even refer to him as the first religious zealot. Indeed, his fervent dedication to God was evident in his relocating to a new land, his circumcision of himself and his entire clan, and his steadfast adherence to God’s will. Maybe it shouldn’t surprise us, then, that Abraham would be willing to follow God’s command even to the point of slaughtering his own son, that beloved promise of the future.

Many people I’ve talked to about this story are deeply disturbed by Abraham’s compliance. How could he carry out such a barbaric and brutal act as killing his own son? Wasn’t he just a dangerous fanatic? Is this really the individual that we want to elevate and emulate as the paragon of our faith? The jarring story of the binding of Isaac is our spiritual inheritance, but is a difficult legacy.

This Abraham was ready to sacrifice his child for the sake of Faith in God.

* * *

The second Abraham I have been thinking about is Abraham Geiger.

A German scholar and rabbi, Geiger lived from 1810-1874 and can be called the father of Reform Judaism. Like many of his fellow 19th-century European Jews, Geiger was drawn to the cultural richness of his surroundings; art, music, science, history, literature, and philosophy were all flourishing, and many Jews wanted to be a part of it. And for most of them, embracing that world meant leaving behind the particularistic, tribal, superstitious world of Jewish tradition.

Geiger watched in dismay the exodus from Judaism of so many educated fellow Germans. His solution was to transform Judaism into a religion of reason, history, sophistication, and high art. He brought the critical approach of a scholar to his role as rabbi, undertaking to fashion a Judaism for the Modern Age. As one writer said, “If a practice separated a Jew from the modern, secular world, then it was a Jew's religious obligation to renounce it” (Jewish Virtual Library, “Abraham Geiger”). For Geiger, to be properly religious meant to participate in modernity, not to withdraw from it.

Like Avraham Avinu, this Abraham was also an iconoclast and a religious revolutionary. He, too, smashed the idols of his fathers, at least metaphorically. As the Jewish Encyclopedia says, Geiger demanded that the “Torah as well as the Talmud … should be studied critically and from the point of view of the historian, that of evolution, development.” Of course, Geiger’s approach inflamed more traditional segments of the Jewish community, and the resulting rift led to (among other things) what we now know as Modern Orthodoxy.

Geiger did not possess the zealous faith in God of the first Abraham. His was a steadfast faith in human reason, a devotion to modernity, and a nearly messianic trust that the spirit of the age would dissolve Anti-Semitism and usher in a new era of equality for all humanity.

This Abraham was ready to sacrifice ancient practices for the sake of Reason, Modernity, and Progress.

* * *

Turning now to the final example in our “Abrahamic trinity”, I look not to the pages of biblical or Modern Jewish history, but to the annals of the American experience: Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln was a consummate politician and statesman, with a knack for reading and shaping public opinion. In an age when partisan rancor polarized the debate toward venomous extremes, Lincoln rose above the fray with his lofty moral vision expressed through equally lofty rhetoric.

This Abraham, like our first two, was an iconoclast and, according to some, a radical reformer. The institution of slavery was so ingrained in the culture and economy of the nation that the Founding Fathers had not conceived of a way to get rid of it, and the country was willing to go to war over it. But Lincoln’s steadfast devotion to the ideals embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution led him to devise an end to the inhumane practice. He acted not with aggression or fear-mongering, but through carefully reasoned, morally sound, political maneuvering. He often endured criticism from the left-wing and right-wing alike, for being too conservative or too radical. (This reminds me of the wise observation, “If both sides of the aisle are upset, you’re probably on the right track.”)

Lincoln displayed masterful leadership and devout patriotism. He rose above personal grudges and partisan animosity because he believed fervently in a higher purpose. He labored tirelessly to preserve the sanctity of the Constitution – the covenant of his fathers – and to hasten the reign of liberty and justice in our land. In the end, he died for his cause.

This Abraham was ready to sacrifice himself for the sake of Union, Democracy, and Liberty.

* * *

So what do these three – the Religious zealot, the scholarly reformer, the political genius – have to do with us?

The unflinching intensity of Avraham Avinu’s faith sustained the Abrahamic covenant through hundreds of generations of descendants, leaving us to bear its burden and enjoy its blessings.

The force of Abraham Geiger’s brilliant scholarship and religious criticism gave birth to the kind of Liberal Judaism from which we are descended.

And the steadfastness of Abraham Lincoln’s moral vision and political genius preserved the Union and ushered a new era of freedom for our nation.

I submit that these three – even as they themselves stand alone in their generations – represent archetypes that we all have to wrestle with as 21st-century American Jews. They are us: Jewish, Modern, American. These models have many blessings to offer, but they have darker sides, too: fanaticism, assimilation, corruption.

How will we approach the big questions in our lives, issues of meaning, holiness, and community? What measure of faith, reason, and politicking will we include in our estimation of living a good life? How will we balance our many loyalties – to God, to Jewish community, to America, to the world?

I hope that these three Abrahams may be our teachers as we look to the New Year and think about what kind of life we want to lead. May God grant us the courage and wisdom to handle the pressures pulling us in various directions in our lives, enlightening us to avoid the dangers and follow the good. And may the New Year be for each of us a year of balance, where fervent faith, critical reason, and political patriotism join together to help us choose blessing, not curse, and to affirm life for us and our children.

Shanah Tovah U’Metukah.
A sweet and good new year.

Rosh Hashanah Evening Sermon (2007)

Rosh Hashanah Evening
September 12, 2007
1 Tishrei 5768

Calendars Collide?

I would be lost without my calendar. I happen to keep mine on my palm pilot, and if it were to break or get erased, the effect would be devastating. My calendar orders my life. When the hours in my days are unformed and void, my calendar – like the word of God at Creation! – fashions my world out of that chaos.

Perhaps it is a touch ironic, then, that calendars are, for many American Jews, a source of confusion. Why don’t the Jewish holidays match up with the same American calendar days every year? And why do the holidays start and end at sundown? And how many new years do we celebrate? And are we in the 21st century, or the 58th?

I remember encountering similar confusion among many of my classmates in the Episcopalian school I attended as a child. “Why did I get to miss school a few days every fall?” (Maybe they were a little jealous!) I would explain that it was the Jewish High Holidays; not knowing a whole lot more than that, I would sometimes tentatively add, “It’s a long story.”

* * *

Now I know a little bit more than I did then, and so I can say with confidence, “It’s a long story.” Because the history of the development of the Jewish New Year is a rather long and complicated story.

The Bible does not actually mention the phrase “Rosh Hashanah.” In fact, the Torah’s designation of the New Year is not Rosh Hashanah at all but something entirely different. As we read in Exodus 12:1-2, about the springtime month of Nisan, “Adonai said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you.” This New Year is situated in the Exodus story, as a commemoration of the first Passover, when the Israelites were redeemed from Egyptian bondage. In other words, the rebirth of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as a nation occurred in the month of Nisan, in the spring, the season of rebirth. Thus, the New Year as defined in Exodus, as one scholar put it, “coincided with the beginning of Jewish national history.”

So the months of the year begin at Passover, and Jewish national history begins at Passover, and that makes sense as the New Year holiday. But what does the Bible say about Rosh Hashanah?

Well, like I said, the phrase itself does not appear in the Bible, but there is a reference in both Leviticus 23.24-25 and Numbers 29.1-2 to a day of sacred assembly, when we are to make offerings to God, observe complete rest, and sound the shofar. And this is to be done on the first day of the seventh month, Tishrei – that is, today.

So we have something that looks like what we’re doing today, with the sacred assembly and the shofar, but it doesn’t say anything about a new year. So where does this Rosh Hashanah idea come from?

Enter the Rabbis. The Mishnah, the 2nd-century compilation of rabbinic teachings and commentary on the Torah, holds the key to answering our questions. Here the Rabbis actually name four different New Years, including Passover/Nisan, but only one of the other three interests us today. That one, which they actually call “Rosh Hashanah,” they designate as the first day of the seventh month – today. More specifically, they define it as the beginning of the year for counting years, sabbatical years (7-yr cycle), and jubilees (50-yr cycle).

In effect, the Rabbis built a practical, functional New Year observance on the foundation of a biblical day of assembly. In this respect, it resembles the American New Year, when the calendar year resets. Rosh Hashanah would be, the Rabbis decided, the focal point for organizing the calendar. There’s that order-from-chaos thing again.

* * *

The New Year celebrated on Passover is symbolic and particularistic. It is about our genesis as the Jewish People, and our story about leaving Egypt, wandering in the wilderness, and receiving our Torah.

But for the Rabbis, and I would say for most Jews, this has never been the end of the story. The genius of Judaism is in the profound link between particularism and a commitment to universal values and responsibility.

Sure enough, the calendar reflects this. Six months after our national celebration of the Passover story, we experience Rosh Hashanah. This New Year is, literally, universal – a commemoration of God’s creation of the universe, the world, and all humanity. This holiday asks us not, “Where do you stand as a Jew?” but rather, “Where do you stand as a human being?”

I think the Rabbis meant for it to be so. Elsewhere in the Mishnah, they describe Rosh Hashanah this way, quoting from Psalm 33:

On Rosh Hashanah all human beings pass before God as troops, as it is said, “Adonai looks down from heaven, God sees all mankind. From God’s dwelling place God gazes on all the inhabitants of the earth, God who fashions the hearts of them all, who discerns all their doings” (Psalm 33:13‑15). (M. Rosh Hashanah 1.2)

For the rabbis, the Universal New Year, Rosh Hashanah, was elevated above the Jewish People’s New Year, Passover. Where the latter celebrates particularistic national myth, the former recognizes universal human responsibility. With our years punctuated perennially at six-month intervals by these two alternating New Year observances, it feels as if that particularistic redemption from Egyptian bondage gave us the freedom and privilege to realize our common humanity.

Living between those New Years is still a challenge, though. Judaism, and especially Reform Judaism, does not bemoan our acculturation into American society; we embrace it. Sometimes this relationship creates tension, between seeing ourselves as Jews and seeing ourselves as Americans, and more globally as human beings.

But we continue to live with a foot in each world. The chaos of our lives is ordered by two overlaid but not always overlapping calendars.

My prayer for all of us in this season is that we find the insight and support to turn that tension into inspiration and action. May we learn from the wisdom of our calendars to navigate between particularism and universalism, between self and other, and so take responsibility in the world as Jews, and as human beings.

Shanah tovah.

*Special thanks to my teacher Rabbi Larry Hoffman for planting the seed of the idea for this sermon in our Liturgy class on September 6, 2007.