Month: June 2020

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Sermons

Black Lives Matter – Qorah 5780

In the classic Israeli pop tune from 1974, Natati La Hayyai, the first Israeli supergroup, Kavveret, opined about giving one’s life to one’s country, only to be insulted in return.

נתתי לה חיי, ירדתי על ברכי
יאמינו לי כולם, למדתי מה זה סתם ונעלבתי

Natati la hayyai, yaradti al birkai
Ya’aminu li kulam, lamadti mah zeh stam vene’elavti

I gave her my life, I got down on my knees
Believe me, everybody, I learned what’s meaningless, and I was insulted

It was Israel’s entry into the Eurovision Song Contest of 1974, their second year of participation in the annual competition. They didn’t win; it was not until 1978 and 1979 that they had two monumental hits that won Eurovision two years in a row (Abanibi and Halleluyah). 

But the song was also a critique of Israel’s government, a plea for a two-state solution long before that idea was taken seriously by anybody in the mainstream:

אחד אומר שנגמרים לו השמיים
כשיש מספיק אוויר למדינה או שתיים

Ehad omer shenigmarim lo hashamayim,
ksheyesh maspik avir lemedinah o shtayim.

One says that the sky is ending for him,
When there is enough air for one or two countries.

It’s a statement of disaffection — the feeling that after what the song’s composer, Danny Sanderson, had given to Israel – his army service, his taxes, his ideological commitment to building the State of Israel, which was only about a quarter-century old when he wrote the song – that the State had left him behind, had smacked him down.

It’s been floating around in my head for a couple days, not for Zionist reasons, but for patriotic American reasons. Because I have been thinking, as many of us have, about the range of challenges facing Black Americans.

Yes, the police brutality, the chokeholds, the default suspicion, the profiling. Yes, the unequal distribution of resources. The ineffective schools. The double standards of justice. The higher rates of infant mortality. Yes, the redlining. The income statistics: As NY Times columnist David Brooks (no liberal snowflake, that one) points out, Black families earn 57 cents for every dollar white families earn. Black college graduates earn only about 80 cents for every dollar earned by white college graduates. “Between 1992 and 2013,” Brooks writes, “college-educated whites saw the value of their assets soar by 86 percent, while their black counterparts saw theirs fall by 55 percent.”

That is truly staggering. The feeling that I have been left with after surveying the depths of these challenges, is that Black Americans were not only mistreated from the moment that they arrived in chains on this continent, but that the very foundations of the American economy depended on the free or very cheap labor that Black Americans provided. And it seems that even after Emancipation, every attempt was made, whether deliberate or through the invisible hand that moves markets, to keep them from moving beyond the lowest rung on the economic ladder. Perhaps you heard last week about the destruction of “Black Wall Street” in Tulsa in 1921?

It is easy to understand why many Black Americans feel that they have given their lives to America, for the building of this nation. And yet many also feel that not only have they NOT received credit, but feel as if this country continues to try to smack them down. And when a police officer kneels on a Black man’s neck patiently until he dies, we do not have to wonder why people are angry and disaffected. Natati lah hayyai. I gave her my life.

I have been trying to find the right way into this issue for a while. Three weeks ago, I quoted an assortment of texts from the Jewish bookshelf on the various ways of respecting one’s neighbor. Two weeks ago I suggested that the way that we can help is by being engaged with society, with all the people around us. But there is something else that we need to acknowledge, hevreh, and that is this:

Black lives matter.

Yes, yes, I know. Jewish lives matter too. And some of you are surely thinking, “Rabbi, shouldn’t you be talking about the Jews?”

Well, I am talking about the Jews. I’m talking about the Jews of Boston – my great-grandparents, who owned a house in Dorchester, which at some point in the early 1960s they sold because they were scared – the neighborhood was changing. I’m talking about the Jews of the Hill District here in Pittsburgh, and of cities all over America, who were busy fleeing to the suburbs, and who did not look back over their shoulders, like Lot and his daughters, to see the faces of those who moved into their old neighborhoods.

And I am also talking about the Jews who signed up for the civil rights movement; who stood with Dr. Martin Luther King, who worked alongside Black activists in Mississippi during the Freedom Summer of 1964, who died along with them.

And I am also talking about Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who wrote in his essay, “Religion and Race” in 1963:

There are people in our country whose moral sensitivity suffers a blackout when confronted with the black man’s predicament. How many disasters do we have to go through in order to realize that all of humanity has a stake in the liberty of one person?… What begins as inequality of some inevitably ends as inequality of all.

Bias and fear of the other are, of course, a part of being human, and these things are very hard to overcome. And while I am certain that the vast majority of us do not sympathize with white supremacy, which would of course be ludicrous for Jews, there is no person without biases.

But we are all part of this system, whether we like it or not. And that is why it is essential right now to affirm something that we might all have missed as we were busy becoming fully accepted in American society: that black lives matter too.

Now, I know that some of you have heard that that slogan is anti-Semitic and/or anti-Israel. It is true that the Movement for Black Lives, which is one group within the sphere of those who have participated in the wider Black Lives Matter movement, has featured language on their website since 2016 that is anti-Israel, using odious terms like “apartheid” and “genocide” in ways that are completely inappropriate. The attempt to link the Palestinian cause to the struggles of Black Americans indicates a woeful misunderstanding of the history of the Middle East and muddles the message of the latter. 

However, the Movement for Black Lives does not speak for all who carry the banner of Black Lives Matter. This is not the message that most people hear when they repeat that slogan. What they hear is, We care about our neighbors; we care about equity in our society; we care about the disenfranchised, and we want to make sure that all are given a fair opportunity to make it in this world.

And those are clearly things which are drawn from Jewish tradition, some of which I have previously identified.

So yes, we must be wary of those who seek to delegitimize Israel, but we can also work for the benefit of our African-American neighbors at the same time. Those things are not in conflict. (And many have written about this already, including my rabbinical school classmate Rabbi Avi Olitzky: Why I, A Minneapolis Rabbi, Changed My Mind About Black Lives Matter, and Amanda Berman, the founder of Zioness, a progressive, Zionist group: We Can – We Must Show Up As Zionists For Black Lives Matter). 

Turning back to the Torah for a moment, the first two words of Parashat Qorah, which we read this morning, are, “Vayiqqah Qorah.” Literally, Qorah took. But there is a problem with this verse, in that the verb “laqahat” (to take) is transitive – in Hebrew as in English, it requires a direct object. You cannot merely take; you must take something. Rashi tells us something useful: that 

לקח את עצמו לצד אחר להיות נחלק מתוך העדה

He took himself to one side, splitting off from the community.

That is, Qorah’s attempt to effect change was to selfishly and violently lead others astray, to divide the Israelites so as to upset the balance of power. Moshe, by the way, does not fare much better; he is angered by Qorah’s accusations, by dividing people and leading malcontents astray, and fires back with similarly accusatory language at Qorah and his posse.

And folks, this is not leadership. True leadership requires working together for the common good. It does not encourage division, or accusation, or aggressive, one-sided actions.

Good leadership requires talking to everybody, listening to all the voices around you and forging a path forward together. It does not mean that everybody agrees on everything, but that disagreement is respectful and does not impact the common welfare.

How can we in the Jewish community show true leadership at this time? By being part of the discourse, by listening to our Black friends and neighbors, by understanding that the message of “Black lives matter” is one that we can and should sign onto. We need to be at that table. We need to make sure that Jewish voices are heard in that context. We need to give of our lives as well, to make sure that, as Rabbi Heschel put it, the inequality of some does not inevitably become the inequality of all.

~

Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Congregation Beth Shalom, Pittsburgh, PA, Shabbat morning, 6/27/2020.)

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Sermons

We Can Change the World Through Civic Engagement: Schmoozing Leads to Action – Beha’alotekha 5780

Milt Eisner passed away and was laid to rest this week. He was a member of Beth Shalom for 57 years, a stalwart of lay leadership, former president, chief gabbai and man of many committees who held a range of roles for this synagogue and for the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. Those of you who knew Milt knew that he was first and foremost dedicated to community. If you did not know Milt, you should know that it was this dedication that made Beth Shalom what it is. He was a gifted fundraiser, but even more so, a consummate schmoozer. He knew everybody, and he knew you and your kids and your stories and, of course, how much you should be giving to the shul or the Federation. As Federation CEO Jeff Finkelstein put it at his funeral, they don’t make ‘em like Milt anymore.

Milt knew something that not enough of us realize: that civic engagement is the key to a thriving community. 

Now, of course, Milt came up in a time in which the Jews were more likely to look inward. When he first joined Beth Shalom in 1963, the world was a very different place for the Jews. They were still not welcome in some circles. Casual anti-Semitism was still very much alive. It was only 18 years after the end of World War II, and Jews were still struggling to make known the horrors of the Holocaust.

Those Jews who were inclined to participate in communal activities did so with the other people in their neighborhoods, i.e. Jews. They played poker with other Jews; they dined with other Jews;  they donated to Jewish causes.

And people like Milt poured their heart and soul into building the institutions of Jewish community, institutions like Congregation Beth Shalom.

Ladies and gentlemen, the world has changed tremendously. But civic engagement, truly engaging with your community, is the key to the future. We all need to be more like Milt, but we need to do it a little differently. 

Right up front in Parashat Beha’alotekha, in the second verse of this morning’s reading, the one that includes the titular word, we find the following (Bemidbar / Numbers 8:2):

דַּבֵּר֙ אֶֽל־אַהֲרֹ֔ן וְאָמַרְתָּ֖ אֵלָ֑יו בְּהַעֲלֹֽתְךָ֙ אֶת־הַנֵּרֹ֔ת אֶל־מוּל֙ פְּנֵ֣י הַמְּנוֹרָ֔ה יָאִ֖ירוּ שִׁבְעַ֥ת הַנֵּרֽוֹת׃

Speak to Aharon and say to him, “When you raise up the lamps, let the seven lamps give light at the front of the lampstand.”

What is God telling Aharon, the Kohen Gadol / High Priest to do? To lift up seven lamps; to elevate the Israelites and their spirits by casting light. Yes, you can read this literally, as a mere prescription for a routine activity in the mishkan (the portable sanctuary in which the Israelites worshipped while wandering in the desert for 40 years). But you can also read it metaphorically as the obligation of leadership to cast light and to elevate the holiness in people and in the community. 

Detail from the Arch of Titus in Rome, showing the menorah from the Temple in Jerusalem being carried away following the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 CE

In fact, Rashi (Rabbi Shelomoh Yitzhaqi, France 1045-1105 CE) points out that the wicks of the three lamps on either side of the seven should be pointed inward, toward the middle lamp, so that nobody would say that it was God who needed the light. In other words, the light cast is for us. Humans, not God.

I’ll come back to that, but let’s pause for a moment of internal self-congratulation. Beth Shalom took a giant leap forward this week with respect to leadership: We passed the new constitution. Mazal tov! Milt would be very proud.

Yes, I know that does not sound so exciting. But it speaks volumes about the health of this institution. In the wake of and of course driven by the new strategic plan, the implementation of which began last fall, we now have a constitution that meets the needs of this congregation now, allowing us to sail boldly together into the future with more efficient, more transparent leadership. And that is tremendously valuable.

And bringing that plan and this new structure to fruition required the help of a bunch of civic-minded people, too numerous to mention right now, but you know who they are. When volunteers put their heads together, great things can happen. And it bodes well for the larger plank in this congregation’s future, that of financial sustainability. 

The leadership of this synagogue is truly worthy of praise and appreciation, and I am grateful for and inspired by your talents and your commitment. Kol  hakavod.

Turning our attention now beyond the walls of Congregation Beth Shalom, we cannot deny that we are facing other great challenges right now as a society.

I spoke last week about the particular challenge of racism seen in the recent murder of George Floyd. And Ahmaud Arbery. And Breonna Taylor. And Antwon Rose. And I spoke about how our tradition – verses of Torah and rabbinic literature – speak directly to our obligations as Jews to build a better world. And I spoke about how we are all in this together: Black, white, Asian, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Zoroastrian.

A lot of people are very upset and hurt right now. And a lot of people are looking for positive ways to be involved. And here is my suggestion: we have to channel that energy into being like Milt, that is, being committed to the idea of community.

The future of our society, and our ability to right fundamental wrongs, to change institutional bias that breeds injustice, depends on our interdependence, on our willingness to work together and to support each other. And it also depends on leaders – people who step forward to make things happen.

However, unlike in the Torah, when leadership came through tribal affiliation and primogeniture, leadership today can come from anywhere. Each of us has the potential to be a leader. And we need more leaders. 

Many of us are asking ourselves, what can we do? What can we do about the inherent biases in our schools, in our real estate practices, in our healthcare system, in our policing, that lead to very different outcomes depending on the color of your skin?

And, in particular, what can a synagogue do?

Let me tell you, in particular what we need. We need volunteers, people who are willing to step forward to create dialogue. We need to partner with another community, an African-American church, for example, with whom we can create not just bridges, but opportunities. We need to get to know each other, to share stories, to break bread, maybe even to daven together, to learn what they need from us as allies, as members of the same community. We need to create meaningful joint programming and not just “virtue signaling.” 

We should also acknowledge that the landscape of American Judaism is no longer only Yiddish-speaking, gefilte-fish-eating, Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews. We need to have dialogue within our own community about the palette of contemporary Jews. 

And before we even get to those dialogues, we need to prepare ourselves. Did the Israelites receive the Torah on day 1 at Sinai? No. It was day 3, after extensive preparation.  We have to make sure that we understand our own biases first, our own comfort and discomfort zones. We have to make sure that our intentions are pure and our hearts are open.

Ladies and gentlemen, this will take time. I know, the urgency of the moment feels like we need to swoop in and do something dramatic. And for sure, there are many people in this world who do not have the luxury of time. 

True leadership is thoughtful and mission-driven. And now that many of us have been drawn into the cause of casting more light in this world, into considering how we might make a difference in the fight against racism, we have before us an unprecedented opportunity to show real leadership.

Congregation Beth Shalom should be building that metaphorical seven-branched menorah. Not the one in the mishkan, but the one that serves as a beacon of light, here on Beacon Street, to our neighborhood, our city, and our country; to lift us all up, together, black, brown, white, and everything else. 

Building that menorah will not be easy. Milt Eisner and other people like him put decades of work into building the institutions of this community. And where did it begin? With the schmooze. With sharing stories; with breaking bread together. With being involved with people and organizations.

Rabbi Aqiva teaches us (Babylonian Talmud Masekhet Qiddushin 40b) that study is greater than action, because study leads to action.

We have a lot of learning to do before we get to the action. Now is the time to discuss, to learn, to take a good long look at ourselves, and then to reach out to others to expand the dialogue. And then we can lift up the lamps that will illuminate all of us.

And we need you to be involved first. Derekh has sponsored a few initiatives in the past year or two, including the civil rights trip last year and the book group reading Ibram Kendi’s How to be an Anti-Racist. We intend to turn up the volume in this area, to raise the level of dialogue. So when those opportunities come, please take them. 

We will also need a dedicated task force to prepare and create the dialogue, and to facilitate the learning opportunities that will lead to action. 

Ladies and gentlemen, we will all need to be involved if we as a synagogue community want to make a difference. We will need you to step forward as a leader. We will all need to be a little more like Milt.

Milt (z”l) and Sarita Eisner

~

Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Congregation Beth Shalom, Pittsburgh, PA, Shabbat morning, 6/13/2020.)

Categories
Sermons

There is Only One Side – Naso 5780

:’לֹ֥א תַעֲמֹ֖ד עַל־דַּ֣ם רֵעֶ֑ךָ אֲנִ֖י ה

Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor; I am God. (Vayiqra/Leviticus 19:16)

(The “I am God” bit is often left off; but it is an essential part of the verse. Understanding that we are all in holy relationship, that God dwells in the space between each of us and connects us, is needed now more than ever.)

***

On October 28th, 2018, there was a hastily-prepared memorial service at Soldiers’ and Sailors Memorial Hall for the victims of the previous day’s murders at the Tree of Life building. I remember the silence, the shock and grief, the over-capacity crowd, the sea of umbrellas outside of people who could not get into the hall. 

I remember that the clergy who were invited to join the presenters on the stage were from across the community: Jewish, Christian, Muslim, white, black, and everything else.

Pittsburgh, October 28, 2018

I remember that we stood together, unable to fathom the depth of what had happened, unable to imagine the sheer brutality and hatred required to carry out such an unspeakable act.

I did not watch the video of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police. I could not bring myself to do so. The print details were enough: 8 minutes and 46 seconds. “I can’t breathe.” “Mama!”

Ladies and gentlemen, we are in pain as a society. The coronavirus, the 108,000 dead; the economic fallout, 13% unemployment; and now a slew of events on the national stage that remind us all of the deep ugliness that lurks within the American psyche. The hatred, the systemic racism, the political division, the festering anger toward the judicial system and law enforcement, the resentment that different groups of people feel toward one another.

I attended a peaceful protest of clergy on Monday. One of the African-American preachers riffed on Psalm 94, which we recite in our weekday services every Wednesday.  

עַד־מָתַ֖י רְשָׁעִ֥ים ה’ עַד־מָ֝תַ֗י רְשָׁעִ֥ים יַעֲלֹֽזוּ׃

How long shall the wicked, O Lord, how long shall the wicked exult? (Tehillim / Psalm 94:3)

How long? He cried. How long?!

Pittsburgh, June 1, 2020

How long indeed. 

As you know, we had an 8:30 curfew for three nights last week. I confess that I broke the curfew on each of those nights; on Saturday night because I did not know that there was a curfew (I don’t use computers or listen to the radio or turn on TV on Shabbat or Yom Tov). On Sunday and Monday evenings because I was taking an evening stroll in Frick Park after dinner, and did not quite make it home by 8:30. 

On the latter two nights, I suppose that I broke that curfew because I knew I could. I knew that if a police officer were to stop me, he or she would not interrogate me or knock me to the ground or handcuff me or arrest me and take me down to the station. And if I happened to say the wrong thing or not look sufficiently submissive, she or he would probably be forgiving, tell me to just go home, you’re not supposed to be outside right now.

And that is exactly the point.

I will not have to have “the talk” with my sons, the talk that all black parents must have with their sons. Although I am 6’4” and arguably intimidating if you were to pass me alone at night, I will probably not have to worry that I will be perceived as a threat, and I know that people do not immediately assume that I am up to no good when they see me in public. I can go jogging or bird-watching without fear of anything going wrong.

And that’s because I look white. And I wear a kippah on my head.

But my tradition teaches me to be sympathetic to others; to listen to their needs; to help them when we can.

וְגֵ֥ר לֹא־תוֹנֶ֖ה וְלֹ֣א תִלְחָצֶ֑נּוּ כִּֽי־גֵרִ֥ים הֱיִיתֶ֖ם בְּאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרָֽיִם׃

You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
(Shemot / Exodus 22:20)

We remember where we came from. We remember that we were slaves, so that we understand the oppressed, the enslaved, the disenfranchised. And we remember that we have to stand up for them, whether they are Jewish or not.

I was dismayed to read an opinion piece in the Forward this week, written by some rabbinic colleagues, titled, Every Jew Must Decide Which Side They Are On.

No! Hevreh, there is only one side: the side of humanity. The side in which we build a better society, one in which police officers do not kill unarmed people, and in which peaceable assembly is not accompanied by violence, theft, and vandalism. The side in which there is no need for city curfews. The side in which visibly Jewish people can walk in the street without fear of being attacked. The side in which law enforcement, and indeed the US military, do not use tear gas on American citizens who are lawfully exercising their Constitutional rights. The side in which people are not divided between “sides.”

I am afraid right now that, given the division between people, our society will be torn apart by well-meaning people who point angry fingers at others. Let us not be manipulated into thinking that there is an “us” and a “them.”

There is only one side, and I am on that one. And so is the Torah.

Ladies and gentlemen, the only way we are going to move forward as a society in a way that is safe and respectful and loving is by understanding that we are in this together. 

:’וְאָֽהַבְתָּ֥ לְרֵעֲךָ֖ כָּמ֑וֹךָ אֲנִ֖י ה

Love your neighbor as yourself.
(Vayiqra / Leviticus 19:18)
[ זה כלל גדול בתורה, this is a great principle in the Torah, adds Rabbi Aqiva.]

Hevreh, there is a lot of blame to go around for how we got here. But blame is also a game that involves picking sides, drawing lines. Let’s face it folks: we are all a little guilty of bringing us to this point. Parashat Naso (Bemidbar / Numbers 5:7) teaches us that when we seek atonement, we must confess our sins, and here are a few we have all done:

We are guilty of not helping raise up our enemy’s donkey, after it fell from a too-heavy burden. (Think metaphorically, folks.) (Shemot / Exodus 23:5)

We are guilty of repeating slander of one another via social media, like the tzara’at skin disease that spreads so easily, and cannot be taken back. (Vayiqra / Leviticus 13:1ff)

We are guilty of not having a system of justice that is applied equally to the rich and the poor. (Vayiqra / Leviticus 19:15)

We are guilty of not following the Torah’s imperative of “Tzedeq, tzedeq tirdof” – צדק, צדק תרדוף. Justice! you shall pursue justice. (Devarim / Deuteronomy 16:20)

We are guilty of standing idly by the blood of our fellow human beings. (Vayiqra / Leviticus 19:16)

But here is the upshot: we are all in this together, and we can change.

What we need now is not anger. Not division. Rather, what we need right now is to listen to one another, to work together, and pull ourselves up out of the mess we have made. 

Our neighbors showed up for us, ladies and gentlemen. And we must show up for them.

And not just that. Get to know people outside your familiar range of friends. It is only through being in relationship with others unlike you that we learn to counteract our own natural biases. We, the Jews, have spent so many centuries in ghettoes and in forced exile and subject to pogroms and genocide that we are reflexively suspect of others unlike us. But now is the time for us to listen to the stories of all of our neighbors, and act through love toward one another. That is the Torah’s great principle.

Parashat Naso includes a piece of text that is well-known in Jewish life, the so-called Birkat Kohanim, which the Torah identifies as the blessing that the kohanim, the priestly class shall bless all the rest of us:

יְבָרֶכְךָ֥ ה’ וְיִשְׁמְרֶֽךָ׃ 

May God bless you and protect you!

יָאֵ֨ר ה’ פָּנָ֛יו אֵלֶ֖יךָ וִֽיחֻנֶּֽךָּ׃

May God’s face shine upon you and be gracious to you!

יִשָּׂ֨א ה’ פָּנָיו֙ אֵלֶ֔יךָ וְיָשֵׂ֥ם לְךָ֖ שָׁלֽוֹם׃

May God’s face lift up to you and grant you peace!
(Bemidbar / Numbers 6:24-26)

It is up to us to seek God’s face, to look for and understand the divinity in each and every person. It is up to us to find ways to reach out, to learn, to listen, to create spaces in our lives beyond our comfort zones to connect with others. We must all stand on the same side at this time to be blessed and protected. We must seek to change ourselves, to change our behavior, to rid ourselves of the anger and the fear and the hate, to create that single side, the right side of justice and peace and love. 

~

Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Congregation Beth Shalom, Pittsburgh, PA, Shabbat morning, 6/6/2020.)

Categories
Festivals Sermons Yizkor

The Dead Support the Living – Yizkor / Shavu’ot 5780

You may know that I love to hike, and during this pandemic, I have been spending more time walking outside than I ordinarily do, particularly in the heavily-wooded Frick Park. That’s a good thing – particularly now that the weather is nice. Good for the spirit, good for the body. 

Red-tailed hawk in Frick Park (photo credit: me)

Judy and I were in the park a few weeks ago, and we noticed a couple of tall trees that looked dead, sort of intertwined with each other. And upon looking closer, we saw that the situation was much more interesting: one of the trees, standing upright, was clearly dead – no leaves, no bark in many places, minimal branches still remaining on its tall trunk. But the other tree was leaning over heavily onto the dead one, and it was still alive. It looked as though the live tree had been knocked over in a storm, and the dead tree had somehow “caught” it, and prevented it from falling.

The dead tree was actually holding up the living one.

We generally think of dead natural things – trees, animals, etc. – as being past their point of usefulness. That is, they are no longer part of the system. But of course that is not true. On the contrary: as you walk around a forest, for example, and you see plenty of dead things on the ground – leaves and tree trunks and occasionally animal carcasses – it is worth remembering that those things are essential parts of the circle of life. They serve as homes to insects, food for fungi, and of course when they break down into nutrients and reenter the soil, they continue to nourish the living plants around them by fertilizing the ground once again.

That is the cycle of life. Life yields death, which yields life again. 

And, in some sense, the same is true for people. Not in physical sense, of course, and not in the sense of death and resurrection, although for sure there are some Jews who believe in that sort of thing. But rather, I would like to propose that the dead nourish and sustain the living, sort of like that dead tree holding up the live one.

How can that be? Lo hameitim yehallelu Yah (Psalm 115:17), we chanted in Hallel earlier today. The dead do not praise God; that is only for the living. Being able to sing words of praise together with our community, that is a sure sign of life.

And yet, those of us who have passed from this world into the next are not only very much here with us, but they support us, the living as well. Let me explain, with an assist from the following midrash:

Moshe Rabbeinu is at the end of his life, and has ascended Har Nevo (Mt. Nebo), as God instructed him to do. God reminds Moshe that, even though he will not enter the Promised Land, he can see it from the mountain.

Moshe appeals to God, saying that it is not fair that he, Moshe Rabbeinu, who took the people out of the Land of Egypt, bringing them forth from slavery, cannot enter the Land of Israel. “I should be the first to cross the Jordan River,” he pleads. “I should lead them into the Land. Why won’t you let me? Why do you not favor me with love, as you favor the rest of Benei Yisrael (the Israelites)?”

“I have favored you with love,” says God. “I gave the Aseret HaDibberot, the Ten Commandments to the people through you. I gave the Torah, the Five Books of Moses, to them through you. That is how I have expressed my love for you.”

“Who, then, will lead the people, if not me?” says Moshe.

“Yehoshua (Joshua) will lead them. It is time for the people to find the courage to travel on without you, Moshe. But you will die knowing that they will never forget you. You will always be an essential part of them. You will be constantly invoked, in song and story, in learning and teaching, in repeating the words of Torah for millennia to come. You will continue to support them after you die, and your words will bring them strength.”

Moshe thinks about this, and then goes back down from Har Nevo to give a final blessing to Benei Yisrael. He climbs the mountain a final time, and, as he is looking out over the Land of Israel, spread out before him to the west across the Jordan River, God kisses his soul, taking his life. 

As a final act of God’s love, God buries Moshe on top of Har Nevo, in a location that has remained secret to this day.

***

How do the dead support the living? In the same way that Moshe Rabbeinu does: through the words that they said; through the actions that they took to sustain us in life; through the inspirations and memories fixed in our hearts and minds, that lead us to seek peace between people and care for those in need and comfort those who grieve. 

We carry them with us, just as we carry with us the Torah that Moshe gave us. When we get to Simhat Torah, the other celebration of Torah, half a year away, we will read, “Torah tzivvah lanu Moshe; morashah qehillat Ya’aqov.” (Devarim / Deuteronomy 33:4) Moses charged us with Torah, as the heritage of the congregation of Jacob. Our heritage includes not only Torah, but also the pieces of our ancestors that we contain: their good deeds, their wisdom, their reputations.

And how will we, the living, support those who will someday remember us when we are gone? By being the best people that we can be in life. By drawing on the Jewish values of learning, of compassion, of gratitude, of community-building, of remembrance. By fulfilling the mitzvot, the holy opportunities communicated to us through Moshe Rabbeinu and upheld by generations. By committing ourselves, every day, to making this world a slightly better place.

Three times a day in Jewish life, and sometimes four, we recite the berakhah “Barukh Attah Adonai, mehayyeh hameitim.” Praised are You, God, who gives life to the dead. I know that it’s a not-so-coded reference to the Messianic resurrection of the dead that our ancestors yearned for. The Amidah (standing, silent prayer that is a part of every Jewish service) says, God keeps faith even with those who sleep in the dust: umqayyem emunato liysheinei afar, we sing ever-so-joyously. (BTW, that well-known melody, ubiquitous in American synagogues, was written by Cantor Max Wohlberg for a Junior Congregation service in the middle of the 20th century. He later regretted its spread to the entire Jewish world, because it just did not quite fit the meaning of that paragraph.)

But the berakhah is incomplete. It was liturgy that served a particular purpose at one time, and there are some who feel it has outlived its usefulness (the Reform and Reconstructionist movements changed the language; the Conservative movement left the language but tinkered with the translation). 

How it should be read is not only about God giving life to the dead, but also as the dead giving life back to us. Mehayyeh hameitim. We are in a circle of mutual support: God sustains the dead, who sustain us, who praise God. It’s an eternal loop of life. 

I would be remiss not to mention today that we passed an abominable statistic in America this week. The number 100,000 means nothing in relative terms; our per capita death rate in America due to the coronavirus is lower than many nations. 

But in very real terms, it is a staggering number, more than the number of American soldiers who died in the Korean War and Vietnam conflict combined, and all in the space of a couple of months.

I find myself coming back to the words of President Abraham Lincoln, delivered a little to the east of here, after the battle at Gettysburg in 1863:

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain…

We the living, said President Lincoln, continue the work of those who gave their lives to give us life. They sustain us through their devotion. And as we recall not only our parents and grandparents and spouses and siblings and children who are no longer with us, we also recall those who gave up their lives to this disease, and we too resolve that they shall not have died in vain.

The dead give us life. They hold us up like strong, tall tree trunks. And we continue to remember them, to live their words and their deeds and their wisdom. That is the cycle of life, in which we are all bound.

~

Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Congregation Beth Shalom, Pittsburgh, PA, Shabbat morning / Second day of Shavu’ot, May 30, 2020.)