YOM KIPPUR DESIDERATA

Sermon for Yom Kippur morning 5784

September 25, 2023

What is Yom Kippur?  The Torah tells us, in Leviticus chapter 16, verses 29 through 31, which we read earlier today:  

“This shall be for you a law for all time: in the seventh month on the tenth day of the month, you shall practice self-denial, and you shall do no manner of creative labor, neither the citizen nor the stranger in your midst.  For on this day atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you of all your sins; you shall be clean before the Eternal.”

In ancient Israel, this atonement was achieved through purification rituals conducted by the Kohen Gadol (the High Priest) in the Temple in Jerusalem:  We still recount these rituals in the dramatic Avodah service on Yom Kippur afternoon.   

In later centuries, up to our own time, the centralized, sacrificial, priest-centered rituals were replaced in Judaism by a focus on individual efforts  --- towards  repentance, prayer and social justice ---- or to use the Hebrew phrasing of our High Holiday liturgy --  teshuvah, tefillah and tzedakah.  

We turn inward and judge ourselves --- so that we may find new energy to turn outward and repair the world.

We do this with seriousness of purpose:  This is Yom Din, a day of judgment, a day on which our ancestors imagined that our fate for the coming year is being sealed in a book of life.  We are taught that the entries in that celestial book are written in our own handwriting, by our own freely willed acts and omissions.

In this sacred season, teshuvah, tefillah and tzedakah go together --- with our inner work of teshuvah ----- finding emotional expression in our tefillah  ---- and concrete effect in our acts of tzedakah.   In essence, this is about cheshbon-ha-nefesh, taking stock of one’s own soul.  We seek during this season of repentance to bridge the gap between our actions and our ideals.

In the penitential prayers of our synagogue services, we phrase our confessions in the plural, reminding us that whether we attend synagogue regularly or not, whether we call ourselves Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Reform or none of the above, whether we live in the State of Israel or in the Diaspora,  whether we are Jews by birth or by choice ---- we are all one people ---  all sharing one fate --- all responsible for one another----- and all called to the pursuit of justice throughout the world and peace among all people.

Still, it all begins on the individual level. 

So, on that individual level, where ought we to begin?

You may be familiar with a poem that was written in 1927 by the Indiana-born poet Max Ehrmann.  It was called “Desiderata,” and, especially in the 1960s and 1970s when I was growing up, it became widely known and quoted in popular culture.  I even had a framed copy of “Desiderata” on the wall of my bedroom when I was in High School – which, I might add, was subsequently commandeered by my sister when I went away to college.  To this day, over 40 years later, she still has it hanging on the wall of the guest room of her home in south Florida. 

But I digress…

Anyway, the poem[1] starts like this:

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

I was reminded of Max Ehrmann’s poem Desiderata when I came across a Jewish text written some seven centuries earlier.  Here is some advice for living that was written by Rabbi Eleazar Ben Judah of Worms circa 1200 C.E.  To me it’s sort of a medieval rabbinic version of “Desiderata” appropriate for Yom Kippur reflection even today. 

If you happen to come across a copy of the old Silverman machzor, originally published in 1939 and revised in 1951, you can find it there, where the reading is entitled “Meditation”:

It goes like this: 

Let your dealings be such that a blush need never color your cheek; be sternly dumb to the voice of passion; commit no sin, saying to yourself that you will repent and make atonement at a later time. Let no oath ever pass your lips; play not the haughty aristocrat in your heart; follow not the desire of your eyes, banish carefully all guile from your soul, all unseemly self-assertion from your bearing and your temper.

Speak never mere empty words; enter into strife with no person; place no reliance of those of mocking lips; wrangle not with evil people; cherish no too fixed good opinion of yourself; but lend your ear to criticism and reproof.

Be not weakly pleased at demonstrations of honor; strive not anxiously for distinction; never let a thought of envy of those who do grave wrong cross your mind; be never enviously jealous of others, or too eager for money.

Honor your parents; make peace whenever you can among people, lead them gently into the good path; place your trust in those who love God.

If worldly wealth be lent to you, exalt not yourself above your sibling; for both of you came naked into the world, and both of you will surely have to sleep at last together in the dust.

Bear well your heart against the assaults of envy, which kills even sooner than death itself; and know no envy at all, save such envy of the merits of virtuous people, as shall lead you to emulate the beauty of their lives.  Surrender not yourself a slave to hate, that ruin of all the heart’s good resolves, that destroyer of the very savor of food, of sleep, of all reverence in our souls.

Keep peace both within the city and without, for it goes well with all those who are counsellors of peace; be wholly sincere; mislead no one by prevarications, by words smoother than intention, as little as by direct falsehood.  For God, the Eternal, is a God of truth; it is God from whom truth flowed first, who begat truth and sent it into creation. [2]

We know that such noble aspirations are often easier said than done, but we assemble as a community this day to support each other in following the path of the good life.   As we say when we finish a book of the torah – chazak, chazak, v’nitchazeyk --- be strong, be strong, and let us strengthen one another.

That’s also an appropriate kavanah, or prayerful intention for this concluding day of the Yamim Nora’im/ these “Days of Awe.”

Yom Kippur is a solemn day but not a sad day. 

We are taught to have hope and confidence in our ability to do the work of teshuvah .  A classic pun on the Hebrew name of this holiday reminds us of this --- In the Torah the Day of Atonement is called Yom Kippurim.  According to the classic pun --- the two words “Yom Kippurim” meaning Day of Atonement  should be read as three words --- Yom      Ki       Purim --- a day  like  Purim.   And so, we might say that just as on Purim our people collectively succeeded with God’s help in defeating their external adversaries, so we on this Yom Kippurim/ this day like Purim --- will surely succeed with God’s help – in overcoming our internal adversaries of sin and despair. 

This Yom Ki Purim this Day Like Purim can be for each of us a time of joy and gratitude for the power to make amends for our misdeeds.

Speaking of connections between holidays, we usually lump Yom Kippur together with Rosh Hashanah and speak of them collectively as the Days of Awe or the High Holidays.  However, an important tie also links Yom Kippur with Sukkot, our fall harvest festival which follows Yom Kippur by only five days.  Philo of Alexandria, some twenty-one centuries ago, taught that Yom Kippur is like a pause to say a blessing over a meal.  Since the meal is the harvest – the meal of the entire year --- the pause for the blessing is also much longer than your typical one-sentence “hamotzi”.

And so, we pause --- for prayer, for self-reflection, for blessing, for supplication.  

May the solemnity and power of this day inspire us to return to our better selves.

Gmar chatimah tovah v’tzom kal/ A good sealing and an easy fast to one and all.

© Rabbi David Steinberg (September 2023/ Tishri 5784)

[1] https://www.desiderata.com/desiderata.html

[2] Eleazar Rokeach, 1200 --- as quoted in High Holiday Prayer Book, Rabbi Morris Silverman, editor (Prayer Book Press, 1951), p. 348 (adapted)

ONE WORLD, ONE FATE

Sermon for Kol Nidre night 5784

September 24, 2023

I spoke on Rosh Hashanah about how Judaism contains a mix of universalistic and particularistic ideas. 

The particularistic aspect is perhaps most strongly asserted in those words that we find in the traditional language of the first paragraph of the Aleinu: 

שֶׁלֹּא עָשָֽׂנוּ כְּגוֹיֵי הָאֲרָצוֹת
וְלֹא שָׂמָֽנוּ כְּמִשְׁפְּחוֹת הָאֲדָמָה׃
שֶׁלֹּא שָׂם חֶלְקֵֽנוּ כָּהֶם וְגֹרָלֵֽנוּ כְּכָל הֲמוֹנָם׃‏‏ 

[God] did not make us like the nations of the lands,

Nor place us like the families of the earth,

Nor make our portion like theirs,  

Nor our destiny like all the multitudes.

Reconstructionist prayerbooks omit these lines because of the possible chauvinist and supremacist interpretations that they could imply. And that’s certainly one reasonable argument.

The Reform siddur Mishkan Tfilah includes those lines, as does the independent  machzor “On Wings of Awe” that we are using for our High Holiday services, so I’m fine with including those lines in our services that use those prayerbooks. 

Still, those lines, especially that last line --

שֶׁלֹּא שָׂם חֶלְקֵֽנוּ כָּהֶם וְגֹרָלֵֽנוּ כְּכָל הֲמוֹנָם׃‏‏ 

[God has] not made our portion like theirs,  

Nor our destiny like all the multitudes.

Those lines nowadays seem particularly inapt to me.

In these recent years of increasingly disturbing signs of climate change --- how can we Jews, or we Duluthians, or we Americans, anymore say  --  without massive cognitive dissonance: 

שֶׁלֹּא שָׂם חֶלְקֵֽנוּ כָּהֶם וְגֹרָלֵֽנוּ כְּכָל הֲמוֹנָם׃‏‏ 

[God has] not made our portion like theirs,  

Nor our destiny like all the multitudes.

With regard to the global climate crisis ---

Goraleynu DAVKA kekhawl hamonam ---

Our destiny is INDEED like that of all the multitudes.

Maybe not to the same degree as for those suffering from historic heat waves in Italy or Arizona.

Maybe not to the same degree as for those who have had to flee from smoky wildfires in Northern California or from Yellowknife in the Canadian Northwest Territories.

Maybe not to the same degree as for those whose lives have been disrupted by increasingly common superstorms, floods and rising sea levels.

But, nevertheless, all of humanity still occupies just this one planet, and the effects of climate change are not hermetically compartmentalized by political borders.

As we are taught in the Midrash collection Ecclesiastes Rabbah: 

בְּשָׁעָה שֶׁבָּ בָּרוּךְ הוּא אֶת אָדָם הָרִאשׁוֹן, נְטָלוֹ וְהֶחֱזִירוֹ עַל כָּל אִילָנֵי גַּן עֵדֶן וְאָמַר לוֹ, רְאֵה מַעֲשַׂי כַּמָּה נָאִים וּמְשֻׁבָּחִין הֵן, וְכָל מַה רָא הַקָּדוֹשׁשֶּׁבָּרָאתִי בִּשְׁבִילְךָ בָּרָאתִי, תֵּן דַּעְתְּךָ שֶׁלֹא תְקַלְקֵל וְתַחֲרִיב אֶת עוֹלָמִי, שֶׁאִם קִלְקַלְתָּ אֵין מִי שֶׁיְתַקֵּן אַחֲרֶיךָ

 When God created the first human being, God led the human around all the trees of the Garden of Eden and said: “Look at My works! See how beautiful they are—how excellent! For your sake I created them all. See to it that you do not spoil and destroy My world; for if you do, there will be no one else to repair it.”[1]

Duluth has made the news in recent years as a “climate refuge” and we even have members of our congregation who have moved here on that supposition.  But the effects of the Canadian wildfires this summer gave pause to any of us who have been relying on such notions.

And the flood of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers who have sought to enter Europe and North America in recent years has come in no insignificant part as a result of political upheavals that have been caused in significant part by climate change.[2]

Indeed, in the long run, and on a fundamental level  ---

ְגֹרָלֵֽנוּ כְּכָל הֲמוֹנָם׃

Our destiny IS like that of all the multitudes.

 --------------------

 The main body of our liturgy tonight opened with Kol Nidre. We chanted it in its original language a little while ago, with all our Torah scrolls taken out of the ark standing as it were as witnesses and judges.

I purposely didn’t have us read it in English at that moment because I didn’t want to interrupt the dramatic flow of the liturgy – and, of course you all had the translation in front of you on page 256 of the machzor.

But it seems appropriate to read that translation now:

All vows, bonds, devotions, promises, obligations, penalties, oaths, wherewith we have vowed, sworn, devoted, and bound ourselves, from this Day of Atonement to the next Day of Atonement – may it come to us for good – all these we repent us of them.  They shall be absolved, released, annulled, made void and of no effect; they shall not be binding nor shall they have any power. Our vows shall not be vows; our bonds shall not be bonds; and our oaths shall not be oaths.

This is what we might call an exercise in “teshuvah advance planning.”   In effect, we’re trying to make amends for the wrongs we haven’t yet committed.  Kol Nidre acknowledges that we are imperfect --- and that our best intentions are often thwarted by circumstances beyond our control, or simply by our own moral failings.

Indeed, with regard to such verbal undertakings, there is a strong current within Jewish tradition that teaches that it’s better not to make vows at all:

As it says in Deuteronomy 23: 22-23  --  

“When you make a vow to the Eternal your God, do not put off fulfilling it, for the Eternal your God will require it of you, and you will have incurred guilt; whereas if you refrain from vowing, you incur no guilt.”

And as we learn in Ecclesiastes 5:4

טוֹב אֲשֶׁר לֹא-תִדֹּר--מִשֶּׁתִּדּוֹר, וְלֹא תְשַׁלֵּם

 “It is better not to vow at all than to vow and not fulfill.”

And the Talmud, in Tractate Chullin, goes even further --- as it quotes the teaching of Rabbi Meir: 

טוב מזה ומזה שאינו נודר כל עיקר

“Better than either of these (i.e., better than the person who makes a vow and fulfills it or than a person who makes a vow and fails to fulfill it), is one who doesn’t vow at all.” (Chullin 2a)

However, notwithstanding all the caveats in Kol Nidre and in our tradition about making vows at all, it seems to me that the current state of the world impels us to make a vow --- and to do our best to fulfill that vow ---

A vow to ourselves.

A vow to God

And, perhaps most fundamentally, a vow  --- ledor vador --  to the generations who will follow us: 

A vow that we will leave behind us a world that can continue to sustain human habitation. 

That is not an easy task.  And it’s not a task at which we can succeed simply through private individual actions.  Indeed, one of the scandals of recent decades has been the concerted effort by powerful corporations to put the onus on individuals for solving the climate crisis.

A recent article in the independent journal “YES!” cogently describes the situation. 

Here are some excerpts from that article by journalist Casandra Roxburgh entitled “Individuals Are Not to Blame for the Climate Crisis”:

She writes:

“[…] George Monbiot [a columnist for The Guardian newspaper] has described individual responsibility as one of the most significant lies ever told by the fossil fuel industry and the PR companies that devise their messaging. And still, these messages continue to be perpetuated by leaders worldwide. […]

“[According to Robert Brulle, a visiting professor of environment and society at Brown University,] [t]he first mainstream manifestation of this individual focus […] was BP inventing the concept of the “carbon footprint.” It’s a messaging strategy that has fundamentally reshaped how the public views the climate crisis.

“Suggesting turning off the lights or driving less loses sight of the global severity of the climate crisis and shifts the focus off those with the greatest capacity and responsibility to make meaningful change.

[…]

“The often-touted solution of changing individual consumption habits is a nonstarter. It feeds into the narrative of individual responsibility that the fossil fuel industry has manufactured. Ethically, yes, one should reduce meat consumption and use public transportation more often. However, those things will not single-handedly make a difference in the grand scheme of things: An individual can save a meager 2.6 tons of carbon dioxide by going carless, which can’t compare with the 1.38 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent Shell emitted last year.”[3]

So, yes, let’s each do our best to reduce our own carbon footprints.  But let us not lose sight of the need to view these issues on a societal level.  What we especially need to do is to be sure to vote for political candidates who exhibit seriousness in addressing climate change on the macro level, nationally and internationally.  

In any event, it’s always best to remain hopeful.  Indeed, that’s the note on which Psalm 27, which we read throughout Elul and the High Holiday season, closes:

לׅׄוּׅׄלֵׅ֗ׄאׅׄ הֶ֭אֱמַנְתִּי לִרְא֥וֹת בְּֽטוּב־ה' בְּאֶ֣רֶץ חַיִּֽים׃

קַוֵּ֗ה אֶל־י ה' חֲ֭זַק וְיַאֲמֵ֣ץ לִבֶּ֑ךָ וְ֝קַוֵּ֗ה אֶל־ ה'׃ 

Mine is the faith that I surely will see the Eternal’s goodness in the land of the living. Hope in the Eternal and be strong.  Hope in the Eternal and take courage.[4]

We traditionally greet one another on Yom Kippur invoking the Talmud’s poetic metaphor of a celestial “Book of Life.”

Gmar Chatimah Tovah – we say – May you have a “good final sealing” in the Book of Life for the year ahead. 

To this we must add, on a decidedly non-metaphorical level, one more prayerful intention:

May we, individually and collectively, be part of the solution in addressing the crisis of climate change in the year ahead.

For we know that, the traditional words of the Aleinu notwithstanding,

[God] has indeed made us like all the other nations of the lands,

We have indeed been placed like all the other families of the earth,

Our portion is indeed like theirs,  

Our destiny is indeed like all the multitudes.

ONE WORLD, ONE FATE.

May God help us in the task ahead.

AMEN.

(c) Rabbi David Steinberg 5784/2023

[1] https://www.sefaria.org/Kohelet_Rabbah.7.13.1?lang=bi

[2] See, e.g., https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2021/05/13/climate-migration-an-impending-global-challenge/

[3] https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2022/01/31/climate-change-fossil-fuel-industry-individual-responsibility

[4] Psalm 27: 13-14, translation adapted from that of Rabbi Jules Harlow in his Machzor for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, p. 53.

NEITHER NINTH OF AV NOR SIXTH OF JANUARY

Sermon for First Morning of Rosh Hashanah 5784

September 16, 2023

There has always been within Judaism a dynamic relationship between universalism and particularism.  Our religion is a world religion, but our religion is also the religion of a particular people.  The late Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, speaks of this dynamic in many of his writings but here’s a quote from him that I think expresses the concept well:

In his 1992 book “Crisis and Covenant: Jewish Thought After the Holocaust”

He writes:

“Judaism embodies a unique paradox that has distinguished it from polytheism on the one hand and the great universal monotheisms, Christianity and Islam, on the other. Its God is universal: the creator of the universe, author and sovereign of all human life. But its covenant is particular: one people set among the nations, whose vocation is not to convert the world to its cause, but to be true to itself and to God. That juxtaposition of universality and particularity was to cause a tension between Israel and others, and within Israel itself, that has lasted to this day.”[1]

We also see that dynamic, that paradox, of universal vs. particular in the nature of this holiday that we are observing today, Rosh Hashanah…..

One of the themes of Rosh Hashanah is that it marks the birthday of the world – as it says in the High Holiday machzor – “Hayom Harat Olam”.  Today the world is born.

But the traditional Torah readings for Rosh Hashanah are not about the creation of the world. Instead, as was expressed in the reading that Don Ross shared at the start of the Torah service this morning, the Torah readings for Rosh Hashanah tell of the early experiences of Abraham and Sarah’s family who would ultimately become “Am Yisrael”/ The Jewish People.

The Torah itself also exhibits this juxtaposition of universal and particular.  The first 11 chapters of Genesis tell the story (or maybe a couple of stories) about the creation of the world at large and of humanity at large. 

And, in particular, the story of Noah and the Flood culminates with God’s “rainbow covenant” with Noah and his descendants – in other words a covenant with the entirety of humanity:

וְלֹֽא־יִהְיֶ֥ה ע֛וֹד מַבּ֖וּל לְשַׁחֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ  

“[that] never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”[2]

But from Genesis chapter 12 through the end of the Torah the focus is on one people, our people, the Jewish people.

And still, threaded throughout those accounts, and increasingly prominent in the remaining books of the Hebrew bible, we also find a concern for society in general. 

And a concern for human dignity – a concern for the idea that each person is created btzelem Elohim/ in the image of God.   

But the western ideas of Democracy that we inherited from the culture of the Ancient Greeks are not explicitly native to Judaism. Ancient Israelite religion gave authority to judges and priests and kings and queens as representatives of God.  Democracy, on the other hand, is an ideal that enters Jewish civilization at a much later time.  

Fast forward three thousand years ---

The State of Israel’s 1948 Declaration of Independence includes language that envisions a melding of the universalistic ideas of democracy with the particularistic ideas of Judaism.  One hears echoes of both in passages such as these:

THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; (that’s a particularist idea)  it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; (that’s a universalist idea) it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; (maybe that phrase reflects both universalism and particularism?)  it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.  (that all sounds pretty universalistic!)

And a few paragraphs later:

WE EXTEND our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people (particularist) settled in its own land (particularist)  […]

And in the next paragraph it strikes an especially particularistic note:

WE APPEAL to the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora to rally round the Jews of Eretz-Israel in the tasks of immigration and upbuilding and to stand by them in the great struggle for the realization of the age-old dream - the redemption of Israel.

------------------------------------------------

If the State of Israel had a formal Constitution, such a document might be counted upon to spell out more fully the relationship between the universal idea of Democracy and the particular ideal of the Jewish character of the State.

However, to this day, the State of Israel has no formal Constitution.

Instead, the Israeli Knesset has from time to time enacted so-called “Basic Laws” which could someday form the building blocks of a Constitution.  As the official website of the Israeli Knesset explicitly states:

Since the Constituent Assembly and the First Knesset were unable to put a constitution together, the Knesset started to legislate basic laws on various subjects. After all the basic laws will be enacted, they will constitute together, with an appropriate introduction and several general rulings, the constitution of the State of Israel.[3]

In particular, in 1992, the Knesset enactedחוק ­יסוד: כבוד האדם וחירותו   the "Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty.”

That Basic Law states in its opening paragraph:

חוק ­יסוד זה, מטרתו להגן על כבוד האדם וחירותו, כדי לעגן בחוק­ יסוד את ערכיה של מדינת ישראל כמדינה יהודית ודמוקרטית

“The purpose of this Basic Law is to protect human dignity and liberty, in order to embed in a basic law the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.”

And so, this paradoxical idea is embedded in Israeli law --- the goal that the State of Israel should be MEDINAH YEHUDIT VE-DEMOCRATIT --- A JEWISH AND DEMOCRATIC STATE.

The present civil upheavals in Israel stem from a conflict over how to reconcile these basic values of JEWISH and DEMOCRATIC.  It’s a struggle that has existed in Israel ever since its independence, but it has reached a fever pitch in recent months.

Judaism and Democracy are certainly compatible --- and indeed I doubt that anyone sitting here today would deny that they are both essential. 

The question, however, remains --- how does one value interact with the other?

Today the State of Israel is in a state of crisis, with hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens engaged in mass protests against the government.  This has been going on now for over six months.

The rallying cry of the masses in the streets is DEMOCRATIYA --- Democracy.

But the supporters of Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition counter that it is they who are defending Democracy through their proposals for what they describe as “Judicial Reform” but what their opponents describe as a “Judicial Coup”.

It’s a complicated situation because the governing coalition headed by Binyamin Netanyahu is made up of several distinct factions with distinct policy goals.

The governing coalition includes greater-Israel nationalists who want to annex the West Bank.  It includes Center-right elements like Netanyahu’s own Likud party who are mainly concerned about security and free market economics. And it includes ultra-Orthodox parties who want to impose their interpretations of halachic norms on the general population -- including imposing them on those who are personally secular or who identify with non-Orthodox Jewish denominations.

The fact that we are spending Rosh Hashanah here, this morning, gathered together as a Jewish congregation affiliated with the Reform and Reconstructionist movements, puts us squarely in the middle of that struggle.

This past February, the prominent Israeli journalists and writers Matti Friedman, Yossi Klein Halevi and Daniel Gordis, all of whom made aliyah decades ago from North America, and all of whom could generally be described as politically centrist, published an impassioned plea in the Times of Israel entitled “An open letter to Israel’s friends in North America”[4]

In the concluding paragraphs of that open letter they wrote:

The North American Jewish community has steadfastly come to the aid of Israel at moments of crisis. Israel belongs first of all to its citizens, and they have the final word. But Israel also matters to the entire Jewish people. When an Israeli government strays beyond what your commitments to liberal democracy can abide, you have both the right and the responsibility to speak up.

Israeli leaders need to hear where you stand. North American Jews and their leaders must make clear to this government that if it continues on the path to transforming Israel into a country of which Diaspora Jews can no longer be proud, there will be no business as usual.

We and our families, along with many tens of thousands of other Israelis, are in the streets every week demanding the government end its war against our democratic values and institutions. We need your voice to help us preserve Israel as a state both Jewish and democratic.

SO, WHAT ARE WE TO MAKE OF ALL THIS?

Let me try to give you a brief summary of what’s going on:

First off, the current governing coalition is the most right-wing in Israel’s history.  But the country is almost evenly politically divided.  Netanyahu’s coalition has 64 seats in the 120-member Knesset. Those 64 seats represent 48% of the total votes cast in the last election.  Why only 48%? Because one of the left-of-center parties, Meretz, failed to secure enough votes to reach the 3.25% minimum vote threshold for being seated in the Knesset.  Had Meretz run on a joint-ticket with the Israeli Labor Party – a move that many had recommended --- the combined ticket would have gained them several more seats in the Knesset.  But the decision of the leaders of the Meretz and Labor parties to run separately meant that, in the end, thousands of votes for Meretz were “wasted”.  In contrast, at Netanyahu’s suggestion, three of the furthest right-wing parties (not including Netanyahu’s own Likud party) ran as a joint-ticket and so two of those parties, who would otherwise have failed to meet the 3.25% threshhold, this time were able to get into the Knesset.

Past Likud-led coalitions have included centrist parties to the left of Likud but this time around, those Centrist parties have refused to be in coalition with Likud because Netanyahu is on trial for corruption and refuses to step down from leadership of his party.  So now, for the first time, we have a Likud-led government in which Likud represents the farthest left element of the governing coalition.

In any event, even if the coalition of governing parties represented the majority of the country’s voters, they did not campaign on the issue of overhauling the judiciary.

This has led to hundreds of thousands of Israelis protesting week after week against the judicial proposals.

These protests intensified after the Knesset passed the first of these proposals: An amendment to one of its so-called “Basic Laws”  --- an amendment which stated that the Court could no longer overrule governmental actions on the grounds that the justices found such actions to be “unreasonable.”

Mind you, there had never been any legislation that gave the Court the power to impose a “reasonableness” standard on actions that did not violate any explicit provisions of law.  This was a power that the Court had claimed for itself.

The political opposition protests that the reasonableness standard is necessary because otherwise there are no checks and balances built into the Israeli political system:  No upper legislative house to approve governmental appointments; no separation of legislative and executive powers; no formal constitution.

And yet – one person’s “checks and balances” is another person’s “gridlock.”

The plot thickens:

Just this past Tuesday, the Court heard a case brought by opponents of the governing coalition.  That lawsuit asks the court to overrule the amendment to the basic law that abolished the “reasonableness standard”.  And some in Netanyahu’s coalition – including the Speaker of the Knesset – have stated that the government would not recognize any Supreme Court decision to invalidate the newly-enacted amendment whose very purpose had been to limit the Court’s own power. They argue that the Basic Laws, including newly enacted amendments to any of the Basic Laws, are equivalent to Constitutional provisions so a court should have no power to strike them down.

But the opposition says that just slapping the designation “Basic Law” on a piece of legislation doesn’t make it any more immune to judicial review than a regular law, since Basic Laws don’t require any supermajority to be enacted in the first place.

From my own perspective, I have no hesitation in saying that if I were an Israeli citizen, I would be one of the myriads protesting in the streets against the current government’s recent and proposed actions. 

However, one person’s “checks and balances” is another person’s “gridlock.” 

And no one has argued that the Knesset elections were conducted in a corrupt manner. 

No one has argued that the members of the current Knesset weren’t duly elected.

And if government actions were to violate specific provisions of any existing legislation, no one is arguing that the Supreme Court doesn’t still have the power to overrule them. 

The “reasonableness” standard, on the other hand, had been invented by the Supreme Court itself without any legislative authority to do so. It’s disingenuous to argue that there isn’t anything potentially “anti-democratic” about such a doctrine.

To be sure, there were other, potentially more far-reaching judicial proposals that the government had announced --- proposals involving procedures for selecting judges, proposals for officially exempting ultra-Orthodox men studying in Yeshivas from being drafted into the army, and proposals for imposing Orthodox religious practices on a secular or religious liberal public. 

However, those have been put on hold for the foreseeable future. And, if as a result the far-right parties end up bolting from the governing coalition and bringing down the government – then maybe the next round of elections will bring back a more mainstream centrist coalition that can bring progressive ideas more to the forefront. There is nothing currently enacted or proposed that would prevent such a future, perhaps inevitable, pendulum swing.

Compromise and good faith are needed to get over the current impasse. And while I applaud the Israelis who are marching in the streets, I nevertheless fear that Americans similarly marching in the streets to protest against Israel would likely have the result of giving aid and comfort to those who oppose Israel’s very existence.  I for one don’t want to give visceral Israel-haters any such ammunition.

In short, I think the Israeli political gridlock will get untangled soon enough.  And I don’t think that that country has turned into or will turn into an autocratic place like current day Hungary or, God forbid, current day Russia.

And I don’t believe that we are witnessing a crisis anywhere near equivalent to the destruction of the Second Temple – a comparison that has been made of late.  What’s happening in Israel is not a new Tisha B’Av – nor, from an American perspective is it a new “January 6th” either.

Regarding the famous phrase “Tzedek, Tzedek Tirdof” (“Justice, Justice You Shall Pursue”), the Talmud in Tractate Sanhedrin explains the reason for the repetition of the word Tzedek in the following way:

צדק צדק תרדף אחד לדין ואחד לפשרה

One [mention of “justice”] for judgment and one [mention of “justice”] for compromise.[5]

The last two aliyot of this morning’s Torah portion provided an instructive example of compromise as Abraham negotiated a peaceful settlement with his Philistine neighbors.  Near the end of the passage that we read from Genesis 21 this morning, the Torah teaches:

 וַיִּטַּע אֶשֶׁל, בִּבְאֵר שָׁבַע; וַיִּקְרָא-שָׁם--בְּשֵׁם ה', אֵל עוֹלָם

Abraham planted a tamarisk-tree in Beer-Sheva, and invoked there the name of Adonai, the Everlasting God[6]

According to a classic midrash, the ESHEL or tamarisk tree that Abraham plants at Beer-Sheva symbolizes the value of hospitality.  That’s because the word for tamarisk in Hebrew is Eshel – spelled with the three Hebrew letters Aleph, Shin and Lamed.  The midrash teaches that the word Eshel is an acronym for three things a conscientious host or hostess should provide to his or her guests:  “achilah”/food, “shtiyah”/drink and “levayah”/accompaniment – meaning making sure that one’s guests arrive and depart safely.[7]  (Though others say the lamed stands for “linah”/ “lodging).  

Let us hope that that spirit of fellowship and hospitality, like the tamarisk tree of our Torah portion, can be cultivated in Israel today, not to mention here in our American home as well, and with God’s help, ideally, among all humanity.

Shanah Tovah and Shabbat Shalom.

(c) Rabbi David Steinberg (September 2023/ Tishri 5784)

[1] Crisis and Covenant, p. 250

[2] Gen. 9:11

[3] https://main.knesset.gov.il/en/activity/pages/basiclaws.aspx

[4] https://www.timesofisrael.com/an-open-letter-to-israels-friends-in-north-america/

[5] Sanhedrin 32b

[6] Genesis 21:33

[7] Rashi on Sotah 10a -- ולשון אש"ל נוטריקון הוא אכילה שתיה לויה שהיה מאכילן ומשקן ואח"כ מלווה אותן

THE THREE R'S

Sermon for Erev Rosh Hashanah 5784

September 15, 2023

Our High Holiday season generally coincides with the start of the public school year.  And I bet you’ve all heard of that old expression that school should at the very least teach kids what we somewhat slangily (Is slangily a word?) refer to as the three R’s.

[You all know what the three R’s are, right?]

READING, ‘RITING, ‘RITHMETIC

And, nowadays, we also have a newer version of the three R’s to motivate us to be more environmentally conscientious:

REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE.

Well, in Judaism we have yet another version of the three R’s ---

REPENT, RETURN, RESPOND

Those three R’s collectively boil down to a single idea.  A single idea which is relevant all-year long, but which we specifically focus on at this time of year.

Of course, I am speaking now of “TESHUVAH”

Repentance, Return, Response – those are three different ways of translating that evocative Hebrew concept:

TESHUVAH.

********************

The first of these three ideas --- REPENTANCE --- is probably how most of us instinctively translate the word TESHUVAH.  At least my impression is that that’s the most common translation – and it’s certainly the first translation I ever learned.

The 10 Day period that begins tonight and ends with the end of Yom Kippur are called Aseret Ymei Teshuvah/ The Ten Days of Repentance. 

But, as I said a moment ago, Repenting is not just something we’re supposed to do during the 10 Days of Repentance.  If you don’t believe me, here’s a blessing that we find in the weekday Amidah recited throughout the year on ordinary days that are neither Shabbat nor Festival:

הֲשִׁיבֵֽנוּ אָבִֽינוּ לְתוֹרָתֶֽךָ וְקָרְ֒בֵֽנוּ מַלְכֵּֽנוּ לַעֲבוֹדָתֶֽךָ וְהַחֲזִירֵֽנוּ בִּתְשׁוּבָה שְׁלֵמָה לְפָנֶֽיךָ: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה' הָרוֹצֶה בִּתְשׁוּבָה

Return us, our Parent, to your Torah.  Draw us near, our Sovereign, to your service. Bring us back to you in true repentance.  Praised are you, Adonai, who desires repentance.

To repeat:  That’s not a special High Holiday blessing that we find in the High Holiday machzor. Rather that’s a blessing for everyday that we find in the daily siddur.

And that all-year-long traditional blessing on the subject of TESHUVAH reflects a teaching that we find in the Talmud in Masechet Shabbat 153a: 

[...] רַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר אוֹמֵר: שׁוּב יוֹם אֶחָד לִפְנֵי מִיתָתֶךָ. שָׁאֲלוּ תַּלְמִידָיו אֶת רַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר: וְכִי אָדָם יוֹדֵעַ אֵיזֶהוּ יוֹם יָמוּת? אָמַר לָהֶן: וְכׇל שֶׁכֵּן, יָשׁוּב הַיּוֹם, שֶׁמָּא יָמוּת לְמָחָר, וְנִמְצָא כׇּל יָמָיו בִּתְשׁוּבָה [...]

[…] Rabbi Eliezer says: Repent one day before your death. Rabbi Eliezer’s students asked him: But does a person know the day they will die? He said to them: All the more so, a person should repent today lest they die tomorrow; […] and all one’s days a person ought to be in a state of repentance.

What does it mean to repent? To do TESHUVAH?

The classic test we find in the classic Jewish texts is that after acknowledging we’ve done something wrong, and making amends for having done so, we find ourselves in a similar situation at a later date and – this time around – we don’t act the way we did previously.  Like the classic example of how when Joseph’s brothers had the opportunity to betray their youngest brother Benjamin as they had betrayed Joseph years earlier, this time around they didn’t do it.

We find ourselves in the midst of moral choices every day of our lives. And we never know how much time we have in this life.  So, as Rabbi Eliezer advises – we ought to try to work on doing Teshuvah every day.

That doesn’t mean we need to be moping around morosely all the time – just that we should recognize that there are always ways we can be more sensitive, more caring, more just, more compassionate, more understanding. 

That’s a lifelong process that doesn’t just take place during these Aseret Ymei Teshuvah/ These Ten Days of Repentance. 

And we’re never going to get it all completely right.  But, as a midrash declares:

אָמַר הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא לְיִשְׂרָאֵל, בָּנַי, פִּתְחוּ לִי פֶּתַח אֶחָד שֶׁל תְּשׁוּבָה כְּחֻדָּהּ שֶׁל מַחַט, וַאֲנִי פּוֹתֵחַ לָכֶם פְּתָחִים שֶׁיִּהְיוּ עֲגָלוֹת וּקְרוֹנִיּוֹת נִכְנָסוֹת בּוֹ

“The Holy One said to Israel: My children, open for Me an opening of teshuvah/ of repentance as small as the eye of a needle, and I shall make for you openings so wide that wagons and coaches could enter through it.”[1]

The eminent scholar Dr. Louis E. Newman, in a 2018 essay on the Reconstructionist website “Evolve”, describes it all this way. Newman writes:

[T]he rabbis […] make a remarkable point. God so wants us to engage in repentance that if we make only the most minimal effort, God’s gracious response will be many orders of magnitude greater. We need not do this work comprehensively or perfectly; we need only to make a start. Every move in the direction of teshuvah is meaningful. Restated in a less anthropomorphic framework, we might say that the universe is structured in a way that supports and magnifies our efforts to repent. We are not alone in this work. We should not despair that the work of teshuvah is too onerous or that it is pointless. Every effort we make will open up for us further opportunities for reconciliation.[2]

*****************************************************

THREE R’s --- REPENTING, RETURNING, RESPONDING

So far we’ve been talking about “Repentance”.

What about that second R:  “RETURN”?

You probably are familiar with that poignant verse in the Book of Lamentations with which we end every Torah service:

הֲשִׁיבֵ֨נוּ ה'  אֵלֶ֙יךָ֙ וְֽנָשׁ֔וּבָה חַדֵּ֥שׁ יָמֵ֖ינוּ כְּקֶֽדֶם׃

Return us, Adonai, to you and we will return – renew our days as in days of old.[3]

Both of the verbs in that verse --- HASHIVENU (Return us [or cause us to return]) and NASHUVA (we will return) are related to the noun “TESHUVAH” and the verbal root shin-vav-vet.

So, here we have that second possible translation of TESHUVAH --- The idea of “RETURNING”

I think that this idea of mutuality --- Cause us to return and we will return --- can apply to interpersonal relationships as well -- in our families, in our congregation, and among our neighbors near and far. 

Let’s help and encourage one another to be kinder to and more supportive of one another.  Hashivenu ve-Nashuvah --- let this be our way of relating not just to God but also to one another.  Let us help one another, in all our interactions throughout the year, to be the best versions of ourselves that we can be.

********************

The idea of “TESHUVAH” as “RETURNING” also makes me think of another context, which I’ll admit is probably not what the writers of our Biblical and Rabbinic texts were thinking.  

Does anyone here play tennis?

The last time I tried to play tennis was some, gasp, 50 years ago when I was in seventh grade gym class – Nope – I just could not get the hang of it. Badminton, or volleyball I had a little more success with.

But, in any event, one thing that those sports have in common is that one of the things you need to do is to RETURN a serve. 

Sometimes the serves that are directed at us in life are fast, are forceful, are tricky.  It’s not always easy to return a serve. 

What challenges do you find being “served” up at you these days?

How have you been doing in your efforts to “return” those serves?

When we’re able to do so, and when the other side is in sync with us, it can be beautiful and energizing to get a good volley going.  Then the tennis or badminton or volleyball match becomes a metaphor not of fending off a threat to our existence, but rather of being part of a joyful burst of energy whether we end up winning or losing on any given occasion.

I pray that in the coming year all of us may find joy, exhilaration and camaraderie when we return the serves that come at us each day.

*****************************************************

Well, thanks for sticking with me with that possibly obscure metaphor I just tried out on you….

Okay, back to the three R’s: REPENTANCE, RETURN, RESPONSE.

I’m probably on more solid ground when I talk about the third “R” --- translating Teshuvah as Response.  And, by RESPONSE, I actually mean “ANSWER” (but the word “Answer” doesn’t start with an “R” so I fudged my sermon outline a bit there…)

[Anyway neither writing nor arithmetic start with R’s either….]

All right then, “TESHUVAH” as “ANSWER”.

That’s a very basic, and well-attested translation.

We have a whole tradition in medieval Judaism of she’eylot u’teshvuot --- questions posed to learned rabbinical authorities and responsa delivered back to those who have posed the questions.

QUESTION AND ANSWER/ SHE’EYLA U’TESHUVA.

So, if that’s the case, then now, tonight, as Rosh Hashanah begins – we are beginning

“The 10 Days of Answer.”

And that, of course, leads us to ask --- if we’re here all these hours in synagogue to do “TESHUVAH” to do “ANSWER”,

then

what

is

the

question?

I smile as I think of the late British author Douglas Adams in the “Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy” imagining a cast of characters trying to figure out the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything. 

They ultimately find that the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything is [WAIT FOR IT….] “42” 

and, better yet,

the “QUESTION” turns out to be “What do you get if you multiply six by nine?”.

To which the hero of the tale, Arthur Dent, who is really a stand-in for “Everyman” responds
“I always said there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe.”[4]

In Jewish tradition, I think we take a less cynical view of life, the universe and everything. 

For as it says at Genesis 1:31  --  “And God saw all that God had made and behold – it was very good.”

We don’t need to figure out the answer (or answers) to the question of life the universe and everything. 

It’s certainly not as simple as “42” (or “54” for that matter).

But if TESHUVAH means ANSWER, RESPONSE – to what life is serving up against us on that tennis court of existence --

Then what IS the question?

Not long after God, in Genesis 1:31, reviews all of creation and pronounces it “TOV ME’OD”/ “VERY GOOD”    ---- God poses the first QUESTION. 

And maybe that first question --- served up by God to Adam in Genesis 3:9 --- is the very question that brings us here all these centuries later:

As it says in that very first question in the Torah,  Genesis 3:9,

וַיִּקְרָ֛א יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהִ֖ים אֶל־הָֽאָדָ֑ם וַיֹּ֥אמֶר ל֖וֹ אַיֶּֽכָּה׃

Adonai Elohim called out to the man and said to him: “Where are you?”

AYEKA --- WHERE ARE YOU?

As 5784 begins,

It’s not “One Size fits All”.

In beginning to answer that question, in beginning to embark (or better yet, in continuing to embark) on the journey of TESHUVAH, I, for one, really resonate with that beautiful reading composed decades ago for the old Reform siddur “Gates of Prayer”:  It’s a reading that I think helps us respond to that question

AYEKA? WHERE ARE YOU?

Here's that reading:

Each of us enters this sanctuary with a different need.

Some hearts are full of gratitude and joy:

They are overflowing with the happiness of love and the joy of life; they are eager to confront the day, to make the world more fair; they are recovering from illness or have escaped misfortune. And we rejoice with them.

Some hearts ache with sorrow:

Disappointments weigh heavily upon them, and they have tasted despair; families have been broken; loved ones lie on a bed of pain; death has taken those whom they cherished. May our presence and sympathy bring them comfort.

Some hearts are embittered:

They have sought answers in vain; ideals are mocked and betrayed; life has lost its meaning and value. May the knowledge that we too are searching, restore their hope and give them courage to believe that not all is emptiness.

Some spirits hunger:

They long for friendship; they crave understanding; they yearn for warmth. May we in our common need and striving, gain strength from one another, as we share our joys, lighten each other’s burdens and pray for the welfare of our community.

[Amen]

-------------------------------------------------------------

And I’ll conclude with my own prayer and hope: May all of us be inscribed in the book of life and may it be a shanah tovah umetukah, a new year of goodness and sweetness, for all of us, for all Israel, and for all the world.

Lshanah tovah tikatevu

(and also I might add)

Shabbat shalom.

© Rabbi David Steinberg (September 2023/ Tishri 5784)

[1] Shir Ha-Shirim Rabba 5:2:2

[2] https://evolve.reconstructingjudaism.org/teshuvah/

[3] Lamentations 5:21

[4] https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/243402/did-douglas-adams-say-i-always-thought-something-was-fundamentally-wrong-with-t

FATE OF THE WORLD TBD

Sermon for Yom Kippur morning 5783

October 5, 2022

Here we are at the last of my four High Holiday sermons on the four paragraphs that were composed almost two thousand years ago and inserted into the even older Kedusha blessing of the Amidah for use on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. 

These liturgical additions are traditionally attributed to Rabbi Yochanan ben Nuri, and date from the first half of the second century of the Common Era. This was the time of the Bar Kokhba revolt and the Hadrianic persecutions that followed it.   

In other words, these prayers come from a time in which our people were experiencing persecution and mass murder as the forces of the Roman Empire fought to eradicate the Jewish connection with Jerusalem and the Land of Israel some six decades after they burned the Second Temple to the ground.  The story of the execution of Rabbi Akiva and his students that we revisit later today in the Yom Kippur martyrology service is set in that time period. 

And so, these prayers that we chant on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and that we have been discussing in these High Holiday sermons this year, represent the persistence of hope and faith and determination even in the direst of circumstances. 

Even amidst all the troubles and worries that we face in our own lives today, we must always remember how fortunate we are to be comparatively safe, and comparatively secure vis-à-vis those genocidal eras of the past.  And we can always be encouraged and inspired by the determination our ancestors showed throughout the centuries to maintain our identity, to maintain our religious heritage and to remain committed to building a better world.

As I shared with you on Erev Rosh Hashanah, some later commentators teach that these special prayers on the High Holidays, prominently featuring the exclamation --- UVECHEN/ THEREFORE --- were also intended to recall Queen Esther’s brave announcement in chapter 4 of Megillat Esther ---

וּבְכֵ֞ן אָב֤וֹא אֶל־הַמֶּ֙לֶךְ֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר לֹֽא־כַדָּ֔ת וְכַאֲשֶׁ֥ר אָבַ֖דְתִּי אָבָֽדְתִּי׃

AND THEREFORE  I shall go to the king, though it is contrary to the law; and if I am to perish, I shall perish!”[1]

Today, on this most awesome of the Days of Awe, our tradition teaches that we too NAVO EL MELEKH --- we too go before MELEKH HA’OLAM – to confess our sins and plead our case to be graced with another year of life.  We purport to do this despite the fact --- repeated over and over during these High Holiday services in the concluding lines of Avinu Malkeinu that ---   אין בנו מעש'ם – WE HAVE NO MERITS – WE ARE UNDESERVING – WE HAVE NO DEEDS TO JUSTIFY US .  Those are a few of the translations we find in various machzorim for the Hebrew אין בנו מעש'ם.  Our machzor “On Wings of Awe” renders that phrase as “we have too few good deeds.”  But that softens the language of the Hebrew phrase אין בנו מעש'ם a bit since “Eyn” doesn’t mean “too few”.

“Eyn” means none, zilch, nada. 

As we should well know, since every Shabbat morning we sing:

אֵין כֵּאלהֵינוּ.

 אֵין כַּאדונֵינוּ.

 אֵין כְּמַלְכֵּנוּ.

 אֵין כְּמושִׁיעֵנוּ.

Which means that “There is …

NONE like our God.

NONE like our provider

NONE like our sovereign

NONE like our redeemer.”

So, EYN BANU MA’ASIM --- WE HAVE NOTHING TO WARRANT OUR CONTINUED EXISTENCE AS LIVING BEINGS.

Indeed, given all the horrors that human beings have inflicted upon one another throughout history and to the present day, and given all the abuse we have heaped upon the planet that we live on and on the living species with whom we share it, and given all the ways in which we personally have at times been insensitive and uncaring to one another --- to both “our neighbor” and to “the stranger that dwells among us” --- given all that, you would think that

UVECHEN/ THEREFORE ---

We are beyond the possibility of redemption.

But, of course, that’s not the message that the High Holidays in general, and Yom Kippur in particular, come to teach. As the late chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks taught:

“The God who created us in [the Divine] image gave us freedom. We are not tainted by original sin, destined to fail, caught in the grip of an evil only Divine grace can defeat.   To the contrary, we have within us the power to choose life. Together we have the power to change the world.”[2]

And yet, I’m chilled when, just yesterday morning as I was finalizing this sermon,  I was reading about Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons in his vicious aggression against Ukraine, and about North Korea’s brazen missile testing over the skies of Japan. 

We may not be experiencing the terror of the Hadrianic persecutions, or of the Shoah right now, but we – and all humanity – are nevertheless living right now in very dangerous times.

I don’t know if any of you have ever read the novel “On the Beach” by the Australian novelist Nevil Shute.  It was published in 1957 and, two years later, made into a film starring Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner. It concerns the lives of survivors of a nuclear war living in Australia who are awaiting certain death from radiation sickness as winds slowly blow south from the aftermath of a nuclear war that had devastated the rest of the world.  

When I was 12 years old, in sixth grade, my English teacher Miss Malta assigned our class to read “On the Beach” and then to go around interviewing at least five or six people of our choice asking them – “What would you do if you were in the situation of the characters in the novel?” 

In writing the report, we were supposed to put at the top of each interview a quotation from the interviewee that summed up the content of the interview.

I was thinking about that book, and about that sixth grade English class assignment, when I was reading yesterday about the latest developments concerning Russia and North Korea.

Of course, back in 1972, when I had that school assignment, we were living in the midst of the cold war and its attendant nuclear threats.  Little could anyone of my generation imagine that now, in 2022, over three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world might be drifting in that same dangerous direction.

But back when I, as a sixth-grader, interviewed my grandfather Harry Gray (born in Zhmerinka, Ukraine as Aron Grabelsky) for my English class assignment about “On the Beach” this is what my Grampa said to me:

“Where there is life there is hope.”

I’m sure he didn’t make up that adage on his own, but it has definitely informed my outlook on life ever since.

“Where there is life there is hope.”

And I suppose our Jewish traditions around the High Holidays have also informed my outlook all these years for, as we well know, that statement in Avinu Malkeinu that  אין בנו מעש'ם is surrounded by the language of hope and faith – surrounded by the affirmation that God is ultimately judging us through the lens of compassion and mercy --- or --- to put it in more secular terms --- WE OURSELVES ARE NOT ONLY “UVECHEN” people  -- we are NOT ONLY “LOGICAL CAUSE AND EFFECT” – people.  We ALSO believe and, AND WE KNOW THAT WE SHOULD ACT ON THE BELIEF –

that mercy, compassion, generosity 

LOVE/HOPE/PEACE/RENEWAL/COMMUNITY

[Note: Here I held up my service outlines folder on the cover of which I had years earlier written those words — "LOVE/HOPE/PEACE/RENEWAL/COMMUNITY — a suggestion which had been made to me and others by our colleague of blessed memory Rabbi Michael Remson.]

Might still make it possible for us to muddle through.

And so, although, eyn banu ma’asim --- although we have too few good deeds --- we nevertheless pray:

אָבִֽינוּ מַלְכֵּֽנוּ

ah-vee-noo mahl-kay-noo

Our Parent, Our Sovereign!

חָנֵּֽנוּ וַעֲנֵֽנוּ

chah-nay-noo vah-ahh-nay-noo

be gracious to us and answer us

כִּי אֵין בָּֽנוּ מַעֲשִׂים

kee ayn bah-noo mah-ahh-seem

for we have no merit

עֲשֵׂה עִמָּֽנוּ צְדָקָה וָחֶֽסֶד

ahh-say eeh-mah-noo tzih-dah-kah vah-cheh-sed

deal with us charitably and kindly with us

וְהוֹשִׁיעֵֽנוּ

vih-hoe-shee-ay-noo

and save us.

And, by praying that “Avinu Malkeinu” should save us --- what we are really saying is ---- may we, flesh and blood human beings, summon up the dedication, the will and the integrity to fix this mess that we, the human race, have made of this world.

I had stated that my four sermons this High Holiday season would focus on the four additional sections of the Kedusha of the High Holiday Amidah ---

Uvechen teyn pachdekha --- Therefore, Adonai our God, make all your creatures awestruck by your greatness.

Uvechen teyn kavod --- Therefore, Adonai, share Your glory with Your people,

Uvechen teyn tzadikim yir’u viyismachu – Therefore let the righteous rejoice

And now, on Yom Kippur morning, we reach the closing section of this prayer,

Vtimlokh attah Adonai levadekha – Therefore, you Adonai alone will rule….[3]

The quote from the fifth chapter of the Book of Isaiah near the end of the blessing sums this section up for me: 

Vayigba Adonai Tzeva’ot bamishpat  (“Through justice the Commander of the hosts is exalted”); veha’el hakadosh nikdash bitzedakah (“through tzedakah, holiness flows from the holy God.”)

Okay then, those are, as it were, our marching orders --- let’s focus on pursuing justice.  Let’s focus on giving tzedakah.  That’s what WE can do. And that’s what will make our religious visions real.

**********

Rabbis need rabbis too – and my rabbi during the first few years after my ordination 25 years ago was Rabbi Ron Aigen, himself one of the first graduates of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College back in the early 1970’s.  Sadly, he passed away unexpectedly at the age of 68 back in 2016, just a month before he was scheduled to retire after 40 years of serving Reconstructionist Congregation Dorshei Emet in Montreal. 

But his teachings live on.  As we conclude our focused study of the “Uvechen/Vetimlokh” sections of the Amidah --- this particularly heartfelt piece of liturgy that many of us may have just skimmed over year after year in synagogue on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur -- let me just share with you Rabbi Aigen’s commentary on this phrase “Hael Hakadosh Nikdash Bitzdakah” ---  translated in our machzor as “through tzedakah, holiness flows from the Holy God.  Or, as translated in the Mishkan Hafesh Reform machzor --- “The God of holiness [is] made holy through righteousness. Or, as translated in the Reconstructionist Kol Haneshama machzor – “God, the Holy One, [is] made holy by the reign of justice.”  Or as translated in Rabbi Aigen’s machzor “the holy God is sanctified through righteousness.”

(And, by the way, you may recall, we used a screen shared version of Rabbi Aigen’s machzor for our first “Covid Era” all-virtual High Holiday services two years ago.)

So, here’s how my friend and teacher Rabbi Ron Aigen (zichrono livrakha) in that machzor commented on the verse --- Ha’el hakadosh nikdash bitzedakah:

He writes:

“Tzedakah”, literally “Justice” or righteousness, is an obligation upon every Jew.  For Jews, giving to the poor is not merely an act of charity, but a mitzvah, a command to correct the injustices of the world, one person at a time.  Affirming the holiness of God is not a matter of professing an abstract dogma or doctrine.  This prayer, as amplified throughout the High Holiday liturgy with this quote from the prophet Isaiah, is a reminder that we are obligated to make God’s holiness a reality through acts of tzedakah.  As we transcend ourselves by attending to the needs of others, we come to experience the transcendence of God.”[4]

That’s a start --- as we reflect on our situation on this day of judgement and resolve not to despair – and as we resolve to make each moment count as we engage with the challenges ahead.

Gmar chatimah tovah – May we be sealed for a good year --- and for the years to follow as well – we, and all Israel, and all the world.

Amen.

© Rabbi David Steinberg (October 2022/ Tishri 5783)

[1] Esther 4:16

[2] https://www.rabbisacks.org/ceremony-celebration-family-edition/yom-kippur-family-edition/#how-yom-kippur-changes-us

[3] The complete text of that section is as follows (This is from a different translation – the one we used at our Yom Kippur morning service is in a book that is not available in an online version that I could copy and paste):

  וְתִמְלוֹךְ אַתָּה ה' לְבַדֶּֽךָ עַל כָּל מַעֲשֶֽׂיךָ בְּהַר צִיּוֹן מִשְׁכַּן כְּבוֹדֶֽךָ וּבִירוּשָׁלַֽיִם עִיר קָדְשֶֽׁךָ. כַּכָּתוּב בְּדִבְרֵי קָדְשֶֽׁךָ יִמְלֹךְ ה' לְעוֹלָם אֱלֹהַֽיִךְ צִיּוֹן לְדֹר וָדֹר הַלְלוּיָהּ:

קָדוֹשׁ אַתָּה וְנוֹרָא שְׁמֶֽךָ וְאֵין אֱלֽוֹהַּ מִבַּלְעָדֶֽיךָ. כַּכָּתוּב וַיִּגְבַּהּ יְהֹוָה צְבָאוֹת בַּמִּשְׁפָּט וְהָאֵל הַקָּדוֹשׁ נִקְדַּשׁ בִּצְדָקָה. בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה' הַמֶּֽלֶךְ הַקָּדוֹשׁ

And You Adonoy will reign alone over all Your works on Mount Tziyon, dwelling place of Your glory, and in Yerushalayim, city of Your Sanctuary, as it is written in Your holy words, “Adonoy will reign forever; Your God, Tziyon, throughout all generations. Praise God.” Holy are You, and awesome is Your Name, and there is no God beside You, as it is written, “And Adonoy Tzevaot is exalted through justice and the Almighty, the Holy One, is sanctified through righteousness.” Blessed are You, Adonoy, the Sovereign, the Holy One.

[4] Rabbi Ron Aigen, ed., Mahzor Hadesh Yameinu, p. 41

LIKE SMOKE

Sermon for Kol Nidre night 5783

October 4, 2022

As I explained back on Rosh Hashanah, I have decided to use the four added paragraphs in the High Holiday kedushah as my “chomer lidrosh” – that is to say, as the texts I’ll try to sermonize about – for my four High Holiday sermons.  These are the four paragraphs that we find in the High Holiday machzor that are added to the third blessing of the Amidah. 

Three of these paragraphs begin with the word “Uvechen” meaning “Therefore”.  And the last of the four added paragraphs begins with the word “Vetimlokh” meaning “and You shall rule”. 

In our Kol Nidre service this evening we find these passages on pages 225 through 228.

I talked about the first  “Uvechen” paragraph on Erev Rosh Hashanah and the second “Uvechen” paragraph on the first morning of Rosh Hashanah.  This evening we’ll turn to the third “Uvechen” paragraph.

In preparing these talks I’ve tried to get my head around the liturgical history of these passages.  It’s a little complicated but from what I can gather, there was a debate among the sages of the Mishnah as to where in the Rosh Hashanah service we should sound the shofar.

Apparently these “Uvechen” paragraphs in the third blessing of the Amidah was where some said we should sound the shofar.  Later in history, the three sets of shofar calls were moved to another part of the service, but these special readings still stayed put in this part of the service, even without the accompanying shofar calls.  Thus, if you look through the “Uvechen” passages you can still find echoes of the themes of the readings that accompany the shofar calls elsewhere in the Rosh Hashanah service.

Of course, that raises the question, why are we still saying these additional prayers on Yom Kippur?  And the answer is – as it so often is in Judaism -- -it’s a tradition!!!!  ---Though I do think these passages still fit in well Yom Kippur too. 

If you’ll recall, the first “Uvechen” paragraph focused on the vision of all humanity joining together in one fellowship (Agudah Achat) to recognize the sovereignty of God.

And the second “Uvechen” paragraph focused on the hoped-for arrival of messianic days

Now the third “Uvechen” paragraph opens with a description of how good people will respond to the coming of that ultimate time of peace and justice.

Let’s take a look.  Please open your machzorim to p. 226 and we look at the Hebrew at the bottom of that page.  I’ll translate it line by line:

וּבְכֵן צַדִּיקִים יִרְאוּ וְיִשְׂמָֽחוּ

And therefore the righteous will see and rejoice,

וִישָׁרִים יַעֲלֹֽזוּ

and the upright will be jubilant,

וַחֲסִידִים בְּרִנָּה יָגִֽילוּ

and the pious will exult with joyous song;

Wow! That’s three different expressions for joy following one another in rapid succession!

These expressions of joy and jubilation remind us that Yom Kippur is not supposed to be a sad holiday.  We may be fasting, and contemplating our sins, and memorializing our dead, but even on this most awesome of the Days of Awe we should still cultivate joy. 

Sukkot, five days from now, is known as Zeman Simchateinu, the Season of our Joy, but that joy is already ramping up on Yom Kippur.

Indeed in the Mishnah (Taanit 4:8) it is taught that during the days when the Temple stood, Yom Kippur (along with Tu B’Av in mid-summer) were the happiest days of the year, days on which young people found their romantic mates.

Yom Kippur is not a sad day.  We are taught to have hope and confidence in our ability to do the work of teshuvah .  The 18th century commentator known as the Vilna Ga’on, taught that the designation -- Yom Ha-Kippurim [יום הכפורים] – which is how the Day of Atonement is referred to in the Torah – should be interpreted as if the letter kaf[כ]  were not part of the verbal root kaf-pey-resh [כפר] meaning “atone” but rather as if that letter kaf represented the prefix “ke” (meaning “like” or “as) so that we’d get “Yom ke-Purim,”  meaning “A Day Like Purim.”  

Rabbi Shraga Simmons, referring to that classic pun, writes:  “That which we accomplish on Yom Kippur with spiritual pursuits, we accomplish on Purim with physical pursuits. These holidays are two sides of the same coin, two opposite halves of the same day.”[1]           

How do you experience joy? 

We don’t need to wait for the coming of messianic days to cultivate simchah, alizah, gila, rina --- all of them being Hebrew terms for joy that we find in this passage in our machzor.

I guess for me, I find joy in experiencing and performing music, in being outdoors in nature, in sharing experiences with loved ones, in travel, in good conversation, in good food, to name a few sources.

As a classic dictum in the Talmud Yerushalmi teaches:

עתיד אדם ליתן דין וחשבון על כל מה שראת עינו ולא אכל

“In the future each person will have to account for everything their eyes saw which, although permissible, they did not enjoy.”[2]

But, as we know, Yom Kippur is not ALL fun and games.  The paragraph that we are discussing this evening continues with a description of what awaits evil people once we have healed our world:

וְעוֹלָֽתָה תִּקְפָּץ פִּֽיהָ. וְכָל הָרִשְׁעָה כֻּלָּהּ כְּעָשָׁן תִּכְלֶה כִּי תַעֲבִיר מֶמְשֶֽׁלֶת זָדוֹן מִן הָאָֽרֶץ

“injustice will close its mouth, and all the wickedness will vanish like smoke, when You remove the tyranny of arrogance from the earth”

The world is not lacking these days in arrogant tyrants.  There are plenty of candidates for that designation of “memshelet zadon.”

We see it in Russia, in Burma, in Iran, in China and elsewhere.  But if democratic nations keep up the pressure then -- with God’s help -- human rights will be advanced.

Though, matters get complicated when the tyrants are armed with nuclear weapons. Let us pray that sanity prevails in the global conflicts that face us today.

*******

The other phrase in this third “uvechen” paragraph that has always been very evocative for me is that image of wickedness vanishing “ke-ashan” – “like smoke”

“Smoke” is a loaded symbol for all of us.

I think of the smoke of the crematoria in which the Nazis burned millions of our people.

I think of the smoke from the wildfires that increasingly plague not just the west but even, at times, Duluth as well – getting worse each year from the effects of climate change.

And I think about all those who have been addicted to tobacco and succumbed to cancer as a result.

A personal memory – I remember when I was a teen ager and my younger siblings and I hid all the ashtrays in our house.  Our parents scolded us but they still got the message and within a few years after that incident that they had each quit smoking.

But here in our High Holiday prayer – smoke symbolizes healing – the healing that comes when wickedness goes away.

On Yom Kippur we try to put the past behind us, at least those aspects of the past that have not served us well.  And we have a classic image of a celestial book that records our deeds for better or for worse.

We remain who we are.  Our deeds remain part of us.  But we strive all the same to move forward and get a fresh start towards being better people. 

All this High Holiday season I’ve been thinking about a song called “Smoke.” It’s from the 1997 album “Whatever and Ever Amen” by the group Ben Folds Five. Singer/songwriter Ben Folds is not Jewish, and I doubt he’s all that familiar with the details of the Jewish High Holidays liturgy.

But this song, “Smoke,” that he co-wrote with Anna Goodman sticks in my brain.  Ben and Anna had met when they were both in first grade, were close friends growing up, married each other in their twenties, divorced six years later but remained friends and artistic collaborators. Their song is about a romantic breakup but (with a little bit of judicious editing) I think it works also as a midrash on moving forward in life and leaving our regrets behind us  --- which to me is a helpful attitude as we move forward into a new year.

Leaf by leaf and page by page
Throw this book away
All the sadness, all the rage
Throw this book away
Rip out the binding and tear the glue
And all of the grief we never even knew
We had it all along
Now it's smoke

[…]

Here's an evening dark with shame
(Throw it on the fire)
Here's the time I took the blame
(Throw it on the fire)
Here is the time when we didn't speak
It seems, for years and years
And here's a secret
No one will ever know
The reasons for the tears
They are smoke
Smoke
Smoke

[…]

Where do all the secrets live?
They travel in the air
You can smell them when they burn
They travel
Those who say the past is not dead
Can stop and smell the smoke
You keep saying the past is not dead
Well, stop and smell the smoke […]

You keep on saying the past is not even past […]

[Well, stop and smell the smoke] […]

[…]

We are smoke
Smoke
Smoke[3]

****

And in the wider world, we have faith that good will prevail,

UVECHEN, and therefore,

וְכָל הָרִשְׁעָה כֻּלָּהּ כְּעָשָׁן תִּכְלֶה כִּי תַעֲבִיר מֶמְשֶֽׁלֶת זָדוֹן מִן הָאָֽרֶץ

“all the wickedness will vanish like smoke, when You [O God] remove the tyranny of arrogance from the earth”

Of course, God needs our help to achieve this goal.

But you knew that already.

Gmar chatimah tovah/ May we all be sealed in the Book of Life for a good year – us, our families, our friends, our country, our people and our world.

Amen.

© Rabbi David Steinberg (October 2022/ Tishri 5783)

[1] https://aish.com/48949286/

[2] Talmud Yerushalmi, Kiddushin 4:12

[3] Here’s a link to a live performance of the song, including the lyrics I elided above because they didn’t quite fit in with my theme. (I.e., regarding teshuva, I wouldn’t advocate thinking of our past actions as having “never really happened” but the rest of the song works really well for purposes of this sermon!)

WAITING AND HOPING

Sermon for 1st morning of Rosh Hashanah 5783

September 26, 2022

As I explained in my Erev Rosh Hashanah sermon last night, I have decided to use the four added paragraphs in the High Holiday kedushah as my “chomer lidrosh” – that is to say, as the texts I’ll try to sermonize about – for my four High Holiday sermons.  These are the four paragraphs that we find in the High Holiday machzor that are added to the third blessing of the Amidah.  These are among the first major liturgical changes that distinguish our Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur prayers from the prayers we recite the rest of the year. And historians of Judaism tell us that these were among the earliest such additions to our standard liturgy.

Three of these paragraphs begin with the word “Uvechen” meaning “Therefore”.  And the last of the four added paragraphs begins with the word “Vetimlokh” meaning “and You shall rule”.   

In this morning’s Amidah we can find this material on pages 143-146.  Let’s open our machzorim to p. 143 to refresh our memories.

That Hebrew section on the bottom of p. 143 is what I focused on last night --- especially the references to “Kawl haberu’im” --- all created beings forming “agudah achat” --- one collective fellowship -- so that God’s awesome presence might be felt “al kol mah shebarata” (over all that God has created.).

I suggested last night that that is a similar sentiment to what we find in the finale of Beethoven’s 9th symphony where the chorus sings about offering a kiss to all the world because all humanity are brothers and sisters.  And that we are all under the providence of one heavenly parent – or as we might say in the language of Judaism – we are all under the loving care of  --- Avinu Shebashamayim --- Hakadosh Barukh Hu.

Today, I’d like to focus on the second of the “Uvechen”/”And therefore” additions to the liturgy.  On page 144 we read [PRESENT TENSE] as follows: (and like last night, I’m going to translate this line by line literally rather than relying on the somewhat interpretive translation in our Machzor): 

וּבְכֵן תֵּן כָּבוֹד ה' לְעַמֶּֽךָ

And, therefore, grant honor, Adonai, to your people.

 תְּהִלָּה לִירֵאֶֽיךָ

Praise to those who stand in awe of You.

 וְתִקְוָה טוֹבָה לְדוֹרְשֶֽׁיךָ

And good hope to those who seek You.

וּפִתְחוֹן פֶּה לַמְיַחֲלִים לָךְ.

And confident speech to those who wait for you.

 שִׂמְחָה לְאַרְצֶֽךָ וְשָׂשׂוֹן לְעִירֶֽךָ

Joy to your Land, and gladness to your City

 וּצְמִיחַת קֶֽרֶן לְדָוִד עַבְדֶּֽךָ

A flourishing of pride to David your servant

וַעֲרִיכַת נֵר לְבֶן־יִשַׁי מְשִׁיחֶֽךָ

And an array of light to the son of Jesse, your anointed one

בִּמְהֵרָה בְיָמֵֽינוּ

Speedily in our days.

 The Reform and Reconstructionist movements long ago backed away from the traditional idea of an individual descendant of King David arising as a Messiah, so it’s no surprise that our machzor (and most Liberal machzors) either remove that language entirely or translate it metaphorically.

For example, our “On Wings of Awe” machzor, instead of translating those messianic expressions

וּצְמִיחַת קֶֽרֶן לְדָוִד עַבְדֶּֽךָ

וַעֲרִיכַת נֵר לְבֶן־יִשַׁי מְשִׁיחֶֽךָ

בִּמְהֵרָה בְיָמֵֽינוּ

Instead of translating those messianic expressions literally ---  our machzor speaks of “Glowing with the lights of a peaceful future realized at long last.”

And the new Reform machzor “Mishkan Hanefesh” offers --  “May the sparks of David, your servant, soon grow bright enough for us to see a beam of light in the darkness, a promise of perfection.”

In any event, whether you personally believe in the coming of an individual GO’EL (Redeemer) or rather in the hope for a general time of GE’ULAH (Redemption) --- it still behooves us to think about what such a world could be like – and what we could do to help bring it about.

The machzor’s prescription is that classic triad of “uteshuvah, utefillah, utzedakah” ---- repentance, prayer and charity.  And our sages teach that it all depends AL HATORAH, V’AL HA-AVODAH, VE’AL GEMILUT CHASADIM “on the Torah, on Service and on Deeds of Lovingkindness.” 

To me, that beam of light in the darkness includes working for interracial healing, addressing climate change, pursuing economic justice, and defeating all forces of oppression  -- among other tasks that face our species.

There is so much to be done, but as Maimonides famously taught ---

Every person must view oneself the entire year as if one is half meritorious and half guilty, and so too the entire world is half meritorious and half guilty. If one has sinned a single sin, behold one has inclined oneself and the entire world towards guilt and caused its destruction. [But] If one performs a single mitzvah, behold one has inclined oneself and the entire world towards merit, causing its deliverance and salvation. This is as it is stated, ‘And the righteous one [is] the foundation of the world’ (Proverbs 10:25), [meaning], this one who has made oneself righteous has inclined the entire world [to merit] and has saved it.[1]

That teaching is from Hilchot Teshuvah/ The Laws of Repentance in Maimonides’ code of Jewish law, Mishneh Torah.

UVECHEN, and therefore:

What is that one good deed that you will do this year to tip the balance of the world?

 ***********************************

 While we’re focusing this morning on the second “Uvechen” passage on p. 144, I’d also like to dwell on the phrase “Ufitchon peh lamyachalim lakh”.  

That’s the last word on the third line, and extending to the fourth line of the Hebrew on page 144  --- “Ufitchon peh lamyachalim lakh”.   

They don’t really translate it in the English that we have in our machzor.

It literally means --- “opening of mouth to those who wait for you.”

What is this “pitchon peh?” – this “opening of the mouth”.  Clearly it’s some sort of idiom.  Generally, I’ve seen it understood as a metaphor for “confident speech” or of “the ability to speak”. 

Trying to put this in some sort of contemporary context, my mind turns towards the question of voting rights, of threats to democracy, of the integrity of the electoral process.  In this secular American context – that’s the most important way in which we have “pitchon peh”  -- the ability to have a voice in society.

We have been in a dangerous place as a country ever since the former president refused to accept his electoral defeat --- and ever since he bullied significant numbers of members of his political party into accepting his lies.  Our future as a democracy continues to hang in the balance.

The continuation of the phrase in the machzor says that this pitchon peh (confident speech) is “lameyachalim lakh” – “for those who wait for, or who place their hope in, You” – that is to say, those who place their hope in God.

We pray that God will grant confident speech, the ability to speak, VOICE, to those whose hope rests in God---  but it’s also up to us to help bring this about. 

For if there is any basic, fundamental article of faith that Judaism can teach us --- it’s the belief that God- -- however we might understand God – that God works through us, and that God is to be found in how we relate to one another.

(And if you don’t believe in God – that’s fine too --- then we should look to our Jewish tradition to give us an agenda for our brief sojourns in this plain of existence. --- And we’re glad you’re all here with us this morning!)

We live in scary, stressful, divisive times. But that phrase in our High Holiday machzor, in that second “Uvechen” passage that associates this Pitchon Peh/ this empowerment of the voice with MEYACHALIM (those who wait or hope).

That verb – LEYACHEL – meaning to wait or to hope – reminds us of the consolations of faith.  As it says in what is probably my favorite Psalm, Psalm 131:

ה' ׀ לֹא־גָבַ֣הּ לִ֭בִּי וְלֹא־רָמ֣וּ עֵינַ֑י וְלֹֽא־הִלַּ֓כְתִּי ׀ בִּגְדֹל֖וֹת וּבְנִפְלָא֣וֹת מִמֶּֽנִּי׃

אִם־לֹ֤א שִׁוִּ֨יתִי ׀ וְדוֹמַ֗מְתִּי נַ֫פְשִׁ֥י כְּ֭גָמֻל עֲלֵ֣י אִמּ֑וֹ כַּגָּמֻ֖ל עָלַ֣י נַפְשִֽׁי׃

יַחֵ֣ל יִ֭שְׂרָאֵל אֶל־ ה'  מֵ֝עַתָּ֗ה וְעַד־עוֹלָֽם׃ 

Adonai, my heart is not proud
nor my look haughty;
I do not aspire to great things
or to what is beyond me;

but I have taught myself to be contented
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child am I in my mind.

יַחֵ֣ל יִ֭שְׂרָאֵל אֶל־ ה'

Place hope, O Israel, in Adonai,
now and forever.

That message, like so many messages in our tradition, is not an excuse for inaction.  But what it is, is a warm embrace ---- Diesen Kuß der ganzen Welt!  ---
a call to refrain from despair, to stay committed, to stay focused, and to stay confident in our efforts to do good and to be good.

UVECHEN, THEREFORE, we will have the strength to continue.

Shanah tovah u’metukah.

 (P.S. Check out this inspiring setting of Psalm 131 in the last movement of Leonard Bernstein’s “Chichester Psalmss.)

© Rabbi David Steinberg (September 2022/ Tishri 5783)

[1] Mishneh Torah, Repentance 3:4 (sefaria.org)

THEREFORE

Sermon for Erev Rosh Hashanah 5783

September 25, 2022

THEREFORE.

I think therefore I am….

It’s raining and I went outside without an umbrella.  Therefore I got wet.

I ate too much at dinner.  Therefore, I had indigestion.

A useful word this “therefore.”  A word that implies some sort of logical connection between what comes before it and what comes after it. A word that implies that the universe ultimately makes sense, even if we don’t quite grasp how, and even if from our own limited perspectives it might at times seem chaotic and random.

THEREFORE.

The Hebrew equivalent of “THEREFORE” is “UVECHEN”.

UVECHEN. 

That’s a word that comes up repeatedly in the High Holiday liturgy.  You may have already noticed it in our service thus far this evening.  But before we get to that, I’d like to point out a key moment in the Bible where we find the word “UVECHEN”.

It’s in the Megillah – the Book of Esther:

Haman (boooo…..) had hatched a plan for the extermination of the Jews of King Achashverosh’s realm.

Mordechai had shared the scary news with his niece Esther who had been chosen as Achashverosh’s Queen --- while secretly hiding her Jewish identity.

And now Uncle Mordechai implores Queen Esther to intercede with King Achashverosh – to enter the royal chamber even though she has not been summoned, thus risking death.  And Esther bravely responds:

וּבְכֵ֞ן אָב֤וֹא אֶל־הַמֶּ֙לֶךְ֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר לֹֽא־כַדָּ֔ת וְכַאֲשֶׁ֥ר אָבַ֖דְתִּי אָבָֽדְתִּי׃

AND THEREFORE --- UVECHEN ---- I shall go to the king, though it is contrary to the law; and if I am to perish, I shall perish!”[1]

That’s from Esther, chapter 4, verse 16.  So, what Esther is, in effect saying, is ---

UVECHEN – It’s logical cause and effect.  My people are in danger so therefore I must try to advocate their cause even at risk to myself.

I found a long explanatory footnote about the connection of this verse from Megillat Esther with our spiritual efforts during these Yamim Nora’im/ these Days of Awe --- these Ten Days of Teshuvah that start tonight and extend through the final shofar blast at the end of Yom Kippur:

Here’s what the commentary from the Metsudah Machzor says about Queen Esther’s “UVECHEN”/ “AND THEREFORE” and of its relation to ourselves:

(I’ve edited it slightly, mainly to make the God language gender neutral)

36 The word וּבְכֵן, ‘and [therefore],’ marks the beginning of the special prayers of the [Amidah] recited at each Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur service. According to Avudraham [who lived in 14th century Spain] the Sages chose this word to convey the thought expressed by Esther as she prepared to go before the king on behalf of her people. After telling Mordechai to assemble all the Jews to fast for three days and nights on her behalf, she said, “ וּבְכֵן אָבוֹא אֶל הַמֶּלֶךְ ‘and [therefore] I will go in to the king” (Esther 4:16). Thus, since today is the Day of Judgment, as we come before the Supreme [Ruler]of [Rulers], the [Blessed] Holy One […], we begin with the words uttered by Esther as she came before the king. The Siddur Maggid Tzedek quoted by Siach Yitzchak writes that the emphasis of Avudraham was on the last words of the verse said by Esther, “וּבְכֵן אָבוֹא אֶל הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲשֶׁר לֹא כַדָּת,” “And so I will go into the king, even if it is unlawful,” for which one of us can say, “I am virtuous, I have cleansed my heart from sin.” Especially on this great and awesome Day of Judgment, who among us is not embarrassed and ashamed to appear before the [Ruler of Rulers] garbed in sackcloths of sin. If Esther who had fasted for three days in penitence and prayer in preparation for her appearance before the king was nevertheless so terribly frightened that she declared: “וּבְכֵן אָבוֹא אֶל הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲשֶׁר לֹא כַדָּת” (“And [therefore] I will go into the king, even if it is unlawful,”) then we should certainly tremble in awe before the presence of Hashem on this Day of Judgment, knowing deep in our hearts how little and how poorly we have prepared ourselves. Thus our Sages ordained that we open the prayers with the word וּבְכֵן [“and therefore”] recalling the words of Esther; therewith shattering our delusions of spiritual complacency, and causing us to bow before [God] with broken hearts and tear-filled eyes.

Okay, before anyone runs out of here in a fit of hopelessness, let’s back up a little.

Just remember --- that this yearly exercise we undertake of individual and communal self-assessment is not meant to spiritually paralyze us.  Just the opposite.  We --- and our liturgy – only go through this process because we have faith in the outcome --- We have faith that God, so to speak, doesn’t expect us to be perfect – rather God, as it were, has compassion for the world and its creatures and therefore “UVECHEN” – we too should have compassion for the world and its creatures.  And THEREFORE/ UVECHEN our sincere efforts for teshuvah will be fruitful.   As it says in Psalm 27 –

 ה'  אוֹרִ֣י וְ֭יִשְׁעִי מִמִּ֣י אִירָ֑א ה' מָעוֹז־חַ֝יַּ֗י מִמִּ֥י אֶפְחָֽד׃

The Eternal is my light and my help;

whom should I fear?

The Eternal is the stronghold of my life,

whom should I dread?

And so, that word --- UVECHEN/ THEREFORE --- Queen Esther’s faithful exclamation --- comes up prominently in our High Holiday liturgy.

So, did anyone notice it in the silent Amidah we did a few moments ago?

I’ll point you to it --- Let’s open our machzorim to the bottom of page 41:

Here’s where the unique features of the Amidah for both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur first appear[2]:

It’s in the context of the third blessing of the Amidah, known as Kedushat Hashem (in the evening version) or as the Kedushah (in its longer version in the morning and afternoon amidot).  This third blessing of the Amidah invites us to think of ourselves as the earthly counterparts to angels on high.  That, like the angels of Jewish tradition – we should be occupied with praising and serving God – and with giving one another permission to do so in everyone’s own unique ways.

We have three different insertions into the Amidah here in the High Holiday Machzor starting with the word “UVECHEN” (“AND THEREFORE”) --- and a fourth insertion starting with the word “VETIMLOKH” (“AND YOU SHALL RULE”)

I’ve decided to use these four paragraphs as my “chomer lidrosh” – that is to say, as the texts I’ll try to sermonize about – for my four High Holiday sermons.

So here we are at Sermon Number 1 (Erev Rosh Hashanah) --- Let’s look at that first “UVECHEN” insertion (at the bottom of page 41):

I’m going to try to translate it pretty literally line by line rather than using the more interpretive English in our machzor:

וּבְכֵן

And therefore

תֵּן פַּחְדְּךָ ה' אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ

grant that Your awe, Adonay, our God,

עַל כָּל מַעֲשֶֽׂיךָ

be upon all Your works,

וְאֵימָתְךָ עַל כָּל מַה שֶּׁבָּרָֽאתָ.

and Your dread upon all You have created;

וְיִירָאֽוּךָ כָּל הַמַּעֲשִׂים

and may all [Your] works fear You,

וְיִשְׁתַּחֲווּ לְפָנֶיךָ

כָּל הַבְּרוּאִים.

and may all created beings bow down before You.

וְיֵעָשׂוּ כֻלָּם אֲגֻדָּה אֶחָת

And may they all form a single band

לַעֲשׂוֹת רְצוֹנְךָ

to do Your will

בְּלֵבָב שָׁלֵם.

with a perfect heart.

כְּמוֹ שֶׁיָּדַֽעְנוּ ה' אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ

For we know Adonay, our God

שֶׁהַשִּׁלְטוֹן לְפָנֶֽיךָ

that rulership is Yours,

עֹז בְּיָדְךָ

strength is in Your hand,

וּגְבוּרָה בִּימִינֶֽךָ

And might is in Your right hand

וְשִׁמְךָ נוֹרָא

and Your Name is awesome

עַל כָּל מַה שֶּׁבָּרָֽאתָ:

over all You have created.

**********

When I recite these words in prayer, the phrases that jump out at me are the ones that stress how we, not just we in this room, not just we in the Jewish community but we --- כָּל הַבְּרוּאִים (all created beings) – are in this together.  That all of us are charged to form אֲגֻדָּה אֶחָת (one band, one fellowship, one collectivity, one human race.).

Climate change is upon us.  No nation can combat it alone. 

Public health inequities are rampant.  No nation can remedy it alone.

Hatred and terrorism plague the planet.  No nation can battle it alone.

It sometimes seems like we are in a chaotic, senseless world.  But that’s only our limited perspective.  We need to believe that it somehow does all make sense.  That there is cause and effect. That there is a “THEREFORE”  --- an “UVECHEN” ---in play in our lives. 

All this reminds me of the finale of Beethoven’s 9th symphony with its setting of Schiller’s Ode to Joy –

Seid umschlungen, Millionen!
Diesen Kuß der ganzen Welt!
Brüder, über'm Sternenzelt
Muß ein lieber Vater wohnen.
Ihr stürzt nieder, Millionen?
Ahnest du den Schöpfer, Welt?
Such' ihn über'm Sternenzelt!
Über Sternen muß er wohnen.

I’ll take the liberty here of revising those lyrics slightly to make them more gender inclusive as I render them in English ---

Be embraced, O you Millions!

This kiss is for all the world!

Brothers and Sisters! Above the starry canopy

A loving parent must dwell.

Can you sense the Creator, O world?

Seek the Creator above the starry canopy.

Above the stars God must dwell.

Those words were written in 1785, and set to music by Beethoven in 1824.  But they still ring true for us on Rosh Hashanah, the birthday of the world. 

An affirmation of hope and faith that recall the machzor’s call for all humankind to join together in

אֲגֻדָּה אֶחָת

לַעֲשׂוֹת רְצוֹנְךָ

בְּלֵבָב שָׁלֵם[3].

a single band

to do Your will

with a perfect heart.

UVECHEN – THEREFORE – Let us enter the new year 5783 full of hope, faith and determination to heal ourselves and to heal the world.

Shanah tovah u’metukah

© Rabbi David Steinberg

Erev Rosh Hashanah 5783/ September 2022

[1] Esther 4:16

[2] The extra language in the first two blessings of the Amidah appear throughout the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah (Ten Days of Repentance from Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur) but the “uvechen” insertions only occur on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

[3] “Agudah echat la’asot retzonkha beleyvav shaleym”

SAFETY IN NUMBERS

Dvar Torah on Parashat  Bemidbar (5782/2022)

(Num 1:1 – 4:20)

Dvar Torah given at Temple Israel on Friday evening 5/27/22. That service also included a baby naming for a newborn in our congregation who was given the Hebrew name “Miriam.”

In our yearly Torah reading lectionary cycle this week we begin the fourth of the five books of the Torah, the book known in Hebrew as Sefer Bemidbar and known in English as “The Book of Numbers.”

As is the case with many of our holy books, the Hebrew title doesn’t correspond to the English title.  “Numbers” refers to the various Census counts that take place in the book.  “Bemidbar” is the first word in the two-word phrase “Bemidbar Sinai” meaning, “In the Wilderness of Sinai”.

That’s, of course, where our story takes place.  The miraculous escape from Egypt and arrival at Mt. Sinai are described in the first half of the Book of Exodus.  Then for the second half of the Book of Exodus and the entirety of the Book of Leviticus, we are still camped out at Mt. Sinai as God conveys many laws to Moses who conveys them to the people. 

But now, in the Book of Numbers, after a few introductory chapters of preparation, we set off “Bamidbar”/ “Into the Wilderness” slowly making our way to the Promised Land. 

We never quite get there – at least not in the five books of the Torah.  That settlement of the Land of Israel and the subsequent history of Ancient Israel is recounted in the remaining books of the Tanakh/The Hebrew Bible.

I guess Sefer Bemidbar has always been my favorite among the five books of the Torah because this theme of wilderness wandering is so resonant. 

All our lives, if you really think about it, are journeys.  Sometimes the journeys are filled with joy and abundance.  Sometimes they are filled with stress and sadness.  But our sense of unceasing connection with our loved ones, with our values, and with our faith is there to help keep us steady amidst the twists and turns of life. 

This past week has certainly been one of those stressful times, with the horrific news of the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas.   Stressful, not only because of the tragedy itself, but also because of our frustration at the inability of our leaders and representatives to pass rational gun safety legislation.  I know that a massive protest took place today outside the previously scheduled National Rifle Association convention in Houston. And David Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland, Florida mass shooting when he was a high school student, is now organizing further actions to advocate for laws requiring universal background checks and other sensible laws and policies. Particular outreach is being done at the moment to encourage gun owners who understand the need for better gun control policies to get involved in a bipartisan manner.  If you look up the hashtag #GunOwnersForSafety on Twitter or other social media you can find a lot more information.  And, as I understand, there will be a number of demonstrations and other actions all around the country in the coming days and weeks.  Hopefully, such actions will have greater success than those that took place after Columbine, after Sandy Hook, after Parkland, etc., etc., etc.

In such a world, it can be scary to raise children, or to bring new children into the world.  But we are a people wedded to the value of “Uvecharta Bachayim”/ “Choose Life.”[1]  And this is not by any means the first time in our history when life has seemed precarious.  Our Torah teaches that when Pharaoh decreed that all the newborn Israelite male children should be drowned in the Nile, and when the entire Israelite population was being crushed by the indignities of slavery --- that many families were considering not having children, were considering not bringing new lives into their dangerous world.

But, according to the midrash, they were dissuaded by one brave, forthright, hopeful, faith-filled, optimistic, visionary prophet.  That prophet was Miriam, the older sister of Moses. We read in Tractate Sotah in the Talmud that Miriam spoke up and convinced her parents, as well as many others among the Israelites, to keep hope for the future.  She convinced them that it was worthwhile to continue to bring new life into the world. 

And in this way, she single-handedly saved the Jewish people and ensured its continued existence. [2]

And from there Miriam went on in her prophetic career to fill the role of spirit-raiser-in-chief, leading with dance and music as the Israelites emerged in safety from the waters of the parted Sea of Reeds.[3]

Anyone blessed with the name “Miriam” carries that proud and life-affirming heritage within her throughout her days.

But getting back to this week’s Torah portion, it starts with God instructing Moses to take the first of several census counts of the Israelites. Why?  Doesn’t God already know how many Israelites there are?  Indeed, doesn’t an all-knowing God already know everything there is to know about us? 

Rashi, commenting on the opening verses of our Torah portion explains:

מִתּוֹךְ חִבָּתָן לְפָנָיו מוֹנֶה אוֹתָם כָּל שָׁעָה

“Out of affection for them, God counts them all the time”[4]

A well-known midrash elaborates on this idea.  As we read In the Midrash collection Bemidbar Rabbah:

“This may be illustrated by a parable. A man possessed ….a stock of fine pearls which he would take up and count before taking [them] out [to market] and which he would count them again on putting [them] back in their place [when he came home]. So, as it were, said the Holy One, blessed be God: … ‘You [Israel] are my children … therefore I count you at frequent intervals.’

Rabbi Melissa Crespy comments on this midrash :

“God takes pleasure in the ‘children’ God brought into the world, and wants to make sure they are safe and sound, and so God counts them at frequent intervals, taking delight and comfort in seeing them and knowing that they are all safely there.”[5]

And so it’s true with us as well ---

All of us, to use a Yiddish expression, “shep naches” – or, loosely translated – all of us take joy and satisfaction in the arrival into the world of children who will be loved and nurtured and who can rely on the support and encouragement not only of their parents but also of the entire community which treasures them as well.

We hope and pray and strive to create and maintain such community – in our congregation, and in the wider society in which we live.

But, in the meantime, we cherish the moment and look to the future with hope, commitment and faith.

Shabbat shalom.

© Rabbi David Steinberg (May 2022/ Iyar 5782)

[1] See Deuteronomy 30:19

[2] Sotah 12a

[3] Exodus 15:20-21

[4] Rashi on Numbers 1:1

[5] https://www.jtsa.edu/torah/counting-pearls/

A MITZVAH OF DISOBEDIENCE

Thoughts on Kedoshim (5782/2022)

(Lev. 19:1 – 20:27)

[Dvar Torah given on 4/29/22 — The Shabbat of Joey W.’s bar mitzvah]

Shabbat is always a special time for the Jewish people. It’s our most important holy day, more important than Yom Kippur, more important than Passover, more important than Chanukah.  The poet and philosopher Asher Ginsberg (aka “Achad Ha’am”), who lived from 1856 to 1927 famously put it:  "More than the Jews have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jews."

This sacred time from Friday evening to Saturday evening each week affords us an opportunity to step back from the rushed pace of weekday concerns, to reconnect with our loved ones, to remind ourselves of our blessings, and to commune with God.

Of course, as the Achad Ha’am quote suggests, our ability and commitment to fully immerse ourselves in the spirit of Shabbat is often far from 100%. But the more we put into that effort, the more we will get out of it.  The sweetness of our gathering together right now as a community is just a taste of what could be.

All Sabbaths are special but this one is especially special!  For this is the Shabbat when we welcome the fine young man sitting behind me into his status as a full member of the Jewish community.  That’s what Bar Mitzvah is all about.  Joey may not yet be old enough to drive, or to vote in American elections, but we now regard him as an adult in terms of his status in the Jewish community. 

What this means is that Joey (like any young person reaching the age of Bar or Bat Mitzvah) is entitled to have their thoughts, beliefs and opinions respected.  And, conversely, that they are responsible for their actions. 

This classic Jewish idea that age of 13 signals a change in status goes back almost two thousand years, to the Mishnah, where in the tractate “Pirke Avot” we learn בֶּן שְׁלשׁ עֶשְׂרֵה לַמִּצְוֹת age thirteen for mitzvot.   In other words, age 13 for being responsible for one’s own sense of right and wrong. 

Parents teach and compel a child’s behavior but, like it or not, the teen years bring on a transformation. 

And, would you believe it – science apparently bears this out!

Literally, just yesterday, scientists from Stanford University published a study in the Journal of Neurosciece with the fancy title:  “A neurodevelopmental shift in reward circuitry from mother’s to nonfamilial voices in adolescence”. [1]

From what I gather from the news coverage around this new study, it seems that from infancy to around age 13, a child’s brainwaves instinctively react to the voice of one’s mother.  But from age 13 on --- the voices of others have a stronger effect.  Here’s how all this is described in an article released today on the website of the British newspaper the “Daily Mail” :

“The study by the Stanford School of Medicine used functional MRI brain scans to give the first detailed neurobiological explanation for how teenagers begin to separate from their parents.

It suggests that when your teenagers don't seem to hear you, it's not simply that they don't want to clean their room or finish their homework — their brains aren't registering your voice the way they did in pre-teenage years.

'Just as an infant knows to tune into her mother's voice, an adolescent knows to tune into novel voices,' said lead study author Daniel Abrams, clinical associate professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences.

'As a teen, you don't know you're doing this. You're just being you: You've got your friends and new companions and you want to spend time with them.

'Your mind is increasingly sensitive to and attracted to these unfamiliar voices.'

In some ways, teenagers' brains are more receptive to all voices — including their mothers' — than the brains of children under 12, the researchers discovered, a finding that lines up with teenagers' increased interest in many types of social signals.

But in teenage brains, the reward circuits and the brain centres that prioritise important stimuli are more activated by unfamiliar voices than by those of their mothers.

The brain's shift toward new voices is an aspect of healthy maturation, the researchers said.

'A child becomes independent at some point, and that has to be precipitated by an underlying biological signal,' said the study's senior author Vinod Menon, a professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences.

'That's what we've uncovered: This is a signal that helps teens engage with the world and form connections which allow them to be socially adept outside their families.'[2]

-----

None of this, not the mishnah’s teaching about בֶּן שְׁלשׁ עֶשְׂרֵה לַמִּצְוֹת nor the new Stanford University study about changes in brain wave patterns at age 13 – none of this means that a teenager should stop respecting their parents.  Most of us are familiar with the fourth of the 10 Commandments that we find back in Exodus 20:12 ---

כַּבֵּ֥ד אֶת־אָבִ֖יךָ וְאֶת־אִמֶּ֑ךָ

Honor your father and your mother…

In this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Kedoshim, at Leviticus 19:3, that idea is reiterated in slightly different language: 

אִ֣ישׁ אִמּ֤וֹ וְאָבִיו֙ תִּירָ֔אוּ

You shall each revere your mother and your father,

Notice that the order of the parents is flipped  -- In the Exodus quote father comes first, while in the Leviticus quote mother comes first.

One commentary that I read about this suggests that both versions appear in the Torah in order to show that a person should respect their parents equally.   

(And I’d argue that we can also apply this idea to families with two Dads or two Moms --- whatever your family structure is – if you are in a two-parent household you should respect each of your parents equally).

But what I find really fascinating, especially in the context of Joey’s Bar Mitzvah this Shabbat, is the second half of that verse from this week’s parasha, Leviticus 19:3:

As I mentioned a moment ago – the verse begins with the words

אִ֣ישׁ אִמּ֤וֹ וְאָבִיו֙ תִּירָ֔אוּ

You shall each revere your mother and your father,

BUT THE FULL VERSE READS AS FOLLOWS:

אִ֣ישׁ אִמּ֤וֹ וְאָבִיו֙ תִּירָ֔אוּ

ואֶת־שַׁבְּתֹתַ֖י תִּשְׁמֹ֑רוּ אֲנִ֖י יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵיכֶֽם׃

You shall each revere your mother and your father, and keep My sabbaths: I יהוה am your God.

We might well ask --- what does revering your mother and father have to do with the commandment of keeping the Sabbath, and why does the verse end with the reminder “I am Adonai your God”

Here’s what the medieval commentator Rashi, citing a teaching in the Talmud, says about that:

סָמַךְ שַׁבָּת לְמוֹרָא אָב, לוֹמַר אַף עַל פִּי שֶׁהִזְהַרְתִּיךָ עַל מוֹרָא אָב, אִם יֹאמַר לְךָ חַלֵּל אֶת הַשַּׁבָּת, אַל תִּשְׁמַע לוֹ, וְכֵן בִּשְׁאָר כָּל הַמִּצְווֹת (בבא מציעא ל"ב):

Scripture places the commandment of observing the Sabbath immediately after that of revering one’s parent in order to suggest the following: “Although I [the Eternal] admonish you regarding the reverence due to your parent, yet if [your parent] bids you: "Desecrate the Sabbath", do not listen to [your parent]”— and the same is the case with any of the other commandments.

(So says Rashi commenting on Leviticus 19:3 and citing Bava Metzia 32a of the Talmud)

Okay, far be it from me to suggest that Gerry or Devyn would ever order Joey to commit a sin. 

But I think the teaching here can be expressed in a more general manner --- That’s the idea that once you reach your teenage years,

once someone like Joey reaches the age of Bar Mitzvah,

once any of us starts to transition into being a grown up ---

Once that happens -- we are called upon to continue to respect our elders and look to them for guidance but we also are now called upon to exercise independent judgment and follow our consciences. 

That’s what it means to be a Jewish adult.

Another one of my favorite Jewish teachings is where it says, also in Pirke Avot:

אֵיזֶהוּ חָכָם, הַלּוֹמֵד מִכָּל אָדָם

Who is wise?  The one who learns from every person.[3]

Joey has a lifetime ahead of him. 

And for Joey, as for the rest of us, there always remains so much to learn. But if we want to attain wisdom, we should also strive to learn from every person.

I know I speak not just for myself, but for all of us gathered here, when I say that we all look forward to learning from Joey, both tomorrow morning when he will share his dvar torah with us, as well as in the days and years to come. 

Shabbat shalom.

(c) Rabbi David Steinberg

April 2022/ Nisan 5782

[1] https://www.jneurosci.org/content/early/2022/04/06/JNEUROSCI.2018-21.2022

[2] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-10763435/Teenagers-brains-start-tuning-mothers-voice-age-13-study-finds.html

[3] Pirke Avot 4:1