Tag: Pirqei Avot

Categories
Festivals Sermons Yizkor

We Are Never Finished – Shavu’ot 5783 / Yizkor

As I get older, I find myself more willing to accept a complicated truth about human life: you are never finished. No long-term project, no personal mission, no ideal to be implemented is ever really complete. We are all works-in-progress, and all of our human endeavors are forever in progress. 

This is, I think, an essential piece of the human condition. Life is not a middle-school algebra problem, where there is always a simple answer awaiting the one who takes all the correct steps. Life is definitely not a series of 3-4-5 triangles. It is far more messy. We start new tasks or relationships with zeal and abandon them mid-stream. We change course. We fail at being the parent we hoped to be, or the spouse we thought we were, or the exemplary child we aspired to be.

Among the texts from the Jewish bookshelf to which I most frequently return is Pirqei Avot, the second-century collection of rabbinic wisdom which is included in the Mishnah, but which stands out among the other books in that six-order collection as being quite different from the rest. Almost all of the Mishnah is about laws: instructions to post-Temple Jews regarding how to live life and observe rabbinic Judaism now that there are no more sacrifices. When do we recite Shema in the evening? What types of activities are forbidden on Shabbat? May one eat an egg laid by a hen on a Yom Tov day?

But Pirqei Avot is about how to be a better person. It is about learning and teaching Torah, about being careful with your speech, and about the complexities surrounding judgment and governing. And at the end of the second chapter of Pirqei Avot comes the piece of wisdom to which I return more than anything else in our canon:

הוּא הָיָה אוֹמֵר, לֹא עָלֶיךָ הַמְּלָאכָה לִגְמֹר, וְלֹא אַתָּה בֶן חוֹרִין לִבָּטֵל מִמֶּנָּה 

Rabbi Tarfon used to say: It is not your obligation to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.

This piece of wisdom has guided me through many challenging times. I think of it when I am pulling weeds from my garden, when I am exercising, when I am facing a particularly daunting pastoral situation, when I grieve, when I start a new project, and pretty much every day, as I face the piles of work on my desk that never seem to resolve themselves. It speaks to the challenges facing the State of Israel, and the challenges facing our nation, and of course those facing Congregation Beth Shalom.

Whenever I need to be reminded that the only way to tackle a seemingly-insurmountable project is to take a little at a time and keep moving forward, I think of this mishnah. And it helps.

I thought of this eternally-useful gem a little more than two weeks ago when I first became aware of the death of Justin Ehrenwerth, a young man who I had only met briefly, but was the beloved son and brother and uncle of members of Beth Shalom.

Justin was only 44, and his life was cut short by mental illness. But in those 44 years, Justin accomplished more than most of us do in a lifetime. He studied at Colby College, Oxford University, and Penn Law. He worked for John Kerry’s campaign for president, and then for Barack Obama’s campaign, and then in the Obama administration. He established and ran the government agency responsible for cleaning up the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. He became the president of The Water Institute, a New Orleans-based nonprofit dedicated to solving major environmental challenges. (Our member Jordan Fischbach, who was Beth Shalom’s Vice President for Synagogue Life until this past week, was one of Justin’s employees.) 

Justin was a national axe-throwing champion and a skilled harmonica player; a devoted son, brother, father and husband, and a loyal, dedicated friend who went out of his way to be there for others. Oh, and he also served on the Board of his synagogue in New Orleans.

Justin was also a person with plans. Jordan described him as being particularly mission-driven, which is something that many of us aspire to be, but (and I am speaking here for myself) actually is quite a challenging way to live. It requires discipline and energy that few of us are able to successfully muster. And all those who knew Justin recognized that energy; he was the kind of person who lit up a room when he entered. 

And this made his death all the more shocking. This young man, who had a lengthy resume of successes, who did so much good in this world and truly connected with so many people, was suffering quietly.

We laid Justin to rest last Wednesday at the Beth Shalom Cemetery, and during the hesped / eulogy, I said the following, based on a teaching I learned from my homiletics professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary, Rabbi Gerald Zelizer:

The tale of the Jewish people is filled with great figures who died before they completed the projects of their lives. Moshe Rabbeinu, Our Teacher Moses, was only able to view the Promised Land from across the Jordan River. King David set his heart on building the Beit HaMiqdash, the Temple in Jerusalem, but could not do so. Our matriarch Rachel died in childbirth while on the road to Ephrat; she neither reached her destination nor knew her son Benjamin. The Zionist visionary Theodor Herzl died in 1903 at age 44, when he had only just set in motion the forces which would yield a Jewish state 45 years later. 

The number of years is not necessarily the measure of success. The successful life is not necessarily the long life. The seeds that we plant which bear fruit long after we are gone are arguably the better measure.

Our ambitions, our mission, our goals, our hopes, what we strive to be, that is what determines the success or failure of our life, and not its length. How honestly, how nobly, how totally and completely one lives, these are the true measures of who a person is.

***

When we reflect on the lives of all those whom we remember today for Yizkor, we may wish to recall that the true measure of their lives was not a number of years. It cannot be surmised from the hyphen between the dates on their memorial stones. Rather, we might want to recall how they lived, what they lived for, who they loved, and the values they strived to impart through their actions. That was who they were; those were the things that they accomplished on this Earth. And we should all be grateful for that. Even though Moshe Rabbeinu does not make it to Israel, he is still Moshe Rabbeinu. Even though Herzl will forever lie in Jerusalem, in the modern capitol of a state which he imagined but never saw, he will always be the one who made it happen.

And furthermore, we should also cut ourselves some slack. No matter how mission-driven we may fashion ourselves, no matter what goals we achieve or dreams we realize, no matter how dramatically we fail, we might place some hope in the fact that those to whom we give love and life may in fact help complete our work on Earth after we are gone.

All the moreso: לא עליך המלאכה לגמור. It is not up to you to finish the task, because really, you cannot. That is the nature of humanity.

Our tradition acknowledges that. That is one reason that we read the Torah through every year, even though every time we get to the end we see that Moshe once again fails to enter the Promised Land. We knew that was coming. And yet, Joshua, his anointed successor, makes it.

We have to be willing to live with the fact that every conversation dangles, that every argument continues in some way, that our lives are like an ongoing road trip in which we never quite reach our destination, with side roads and dead ends and occasionally getting lost. 

So what can we do? We can reach out more fully and completely in love to those who need us. We can try our best to move the needle in some small corner of the world. We can aim to fulfill the mitzvot, knowing that we will occasionally miss the mark. And we can try to give to our children and grandchildren the opportunity to not finish the task as well, but also not to neglect it either.

~

Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Congregation Beth Shalom, Pittsburgh, PA, second day of Shavu’ot 5783, 5/27/2023.)

Categories
Sermons

The Most Beloved Employee of Beth Shalom, Bar None – Ki Tissa 5783

This is the most ironic period of the Jewish year, from a gastronomic perspective. In order to fulfill the Purim day mitzvah of mishloaḥ manot, sending packages of food and treats to one another, as described in chapter 9 of the book of Esther*, many of us pack extensive and sometimes quite fancy bags full of stuff – candy, chips, fruits, nuts, and of course hamantaschen – and distribute them far and wide. And, of course, we get similar packages from others. It’s a lovely, friendly, neighborly project that has a downside: then you have piles of snack food sitting around the house.

Now, as happens every single year, Pesaḥ is exactly one month after Purim. Prior to Pesaḥ, of course, your house should be free of ḥametz, five species of grains identified in the Talmud. The most essential halakhah surrounding Pesaḥ is that from the morning of the day prior to the first seder, it is forbidden by Jews to eat, possess, benefit from and even see ḥametz. So all products containing even the tiniest amount of exposure to wheat, barley, oats, spelt, and rye, which is basically everything you received in those mishloaḥ manot bags, must be eaten (or regifted, although none of your friends are going to want their mishloaḥ manot stuff to come back to them, so to do that you’re going to have to pawn it off on your non-Jewish neighbors).

As I sat at my kitchen table last Thursday evening typing out this sermon, surveying the array of Purim goodies calling out to be consumed, I hatched a great theory about the origin of hamantaschen. Some Jew at some point in the Middle Ages, on the week before Purim realized, “Hey, I have lots of flour that I’m going to have to use up before Pesaḥ. I should make a bunch of cookies for Purim and give them to all my neighbors! Then the ḥametz will be their problem!” It was such a great idea that all the neighbors did it the following year, thus neutralizing the original intent. But a fabulous Ashkenazi custom was born.

It is clearly NOT ironic, however, that foodstuffs and eating are an essential part of Jewish holiday practices, be it Adar or Nissan or Tishrei or whatever. On the contrary, it is hard-wired into the Jewish year. We are the people for whom what you put into your mouth is as important as what comes out of it as words of prayer. 

And it is also therefore not ironic that, as we honor Michelle Vines today, we must acknowledge that she has been the most important member of the staff here for many, many years. I will say a lot more on that in a few minutes, but first a word of Torah, brought to you courtesy of Parashat Ki Tissa, which we read today.

The subject of eating comes up at least six times in Parashat Ki Tissa. 

  • The Israelites’ first act after making the Molten Calf is to declare a festival, and so they offer sacrifices and then they sit down to eat and drink and perform all sorts of horrible acts (Ex. 32:6). 
  • Later on, when Moshe goes up Mt. Sinai a second time, God lays down the law about idolatry and intermarrying with the Canaanites, because it will lead to eating from their unholy, idolatrous sacrifices (34:15).
  •  Immediately after, there is a reminder of Ḥag haMatzot, the feast of Unleavened Bread which we associate with Pesaḥ, when we are obligated to eat matzah (34:18). 
  • In the same holiday passage, we also find a commandment to bring as a sacrifice the biqqurei admatekha, the first fruits of your land, which we associate with Shavu’ot, and in the same verse, the prohibition on boiling a calf in its mother’s milk, a commandment which yielded a whole bunch of practical laws which are in play to this very day (34:26). 
  • And near the conclusion of Ki Tissa we learn that in the 40 days and nights that Moshe was up on Mt. Sinai, לֶ֚חֶם לֹ֣א אָכַ֔ל וּמַ֖יִם לֹ֣א שָׁתָ֑ה, “he ate no bread and drank no water” (34:28). (He must have been quite hungry when he returned.)

You might even say that the latter half of the book of Shemot / Exodus, following the Israelites’ having escaped from Pharaoh’s army at the Sea of Reeds, is food obsessed. No sooner have they chanted Shirat haYam, the Song of the Sea, that they are desperate for water (Ex. 15:24). And then they are pining for the “fleshpots of Egypt” (16:3). And then there are the manna and the quail. And so on.

When we comb through the text for this dietary thread, we see it everywhere. Why does the Torah go out of its way to tell us who is eating and drinking and why, what they are permitted and what they receive, what is forbidden and what is associated with idolatry or with proper festivals? Do those food references further the narrative? 

The theme of food in the Torah reinforces the principle, which we all know, that eating is essential to what we do. Taken together, the episodes of eating and drinking remind us that this most mundane feature of our lives, the physical source of our energy and our spirit, cannot be overlooked. Our holidays surround food; our joy and our grief are expressed over platefuls of cookies and platters of smoked fish. Food is ritual. Food is an opportunity each day to frame an ordinary act in holiness with berakhot before and after. Food is the source of our strength, and our meals punctuate our lives. And, as you may know, it is food that enables us to perform the most fundamental mitzvah of Jewish life: learning Torah. As we learn in Pirqei Avot (3:17):

אִם אֵין קֶמַח, אֵין תּוֹרָה. אִם אֵין תּוֹרָה, אֵין קֶמַח

Im ein qemaḥ, ein Torah. Im ein Torah, ein qemaḥ.
Where there is no flour, there is no Torah; where there is no Torah, there is no flour.

The Maharal of Prague, a 16th-century rabbi, notes that the Mishnah here uses the term qemaḥ, flour, rather than leḥem, bread. Flour is a fine powder, he says, while bread has other characteristics: it can be rough and thick; flour thereby relates to the fine qualities of the soul, while bread, in its thick roughness, does not. Also, flour is a fundamental need, like Torah. If you have no bread, but you have a reserve of flour, you can make bread. If you have no flour in the jar, once you finish your bread, you are out of luck. Torah is the very source of our spiritual sustenance; when we have no Torah, we have nothing left. 

But whether we are speaking of bread or flour or pareve cookies, food, like Torah, is essential to our lives. The Jewish army of God marches on its stomach. And we should remember this all the more so on this day when we are honoring Michelle in her retirement.

Now, this may surprise some of you, but Michelle is not Jewish. Yes, it is true that she knows as much about kashrut (Jewish dietary laws) as any rabbi in the neighborhood, and can almost cite chapter and verse of the Shulḥan Arukh, the 16th-century codification of Jewish law, in the original Hebrew regarding certain Jewish dietary practices. And not only that, she also knows which customs are in play in which communities – which hekhshers (kosher certification marks) are acceptable in which synagogues, who among us allows broccoli and asparagus, etc. And she has an encyclopedic knowledge, acquired over many years of dealing with benei mitzvah, weddings, beritot milah (ritual circumcisions), shiv’ah (mourning rituals), and every other lifecycle and communal event, of every aspect of every party. She has managed the most complex of build-outs for celebrations in the Ballroom; she has poured at least 8 million shot glasses of grape juice for Shabbat kiddush; she has been spotted at every type of affair imaginable, always with a friendly smile and a nod, always with a calm, reassuring attitude of understanding. Members of this congregation and throughout the community know that we can not only trust Michelle, but that she has long been the one to rely on. She is, and has been for half a century, the most-beloved Beth Shalom employee, bar none.

And we are extraordinarily grateful for her half-century of service to Beth Shalom and to the wider Jewish community. We want you to know, Michelle, that in addition to honoring you this morning, the Congregation Beth Shalom and other synagogue friends are also providing a special gift for you, and we hope you will use it to take a nice, comfortable vacation.

Michelle has helped carry us through all sorts of moments, the joyous and the painful, the holy and the mundane. She has been there for all of us; holding us all up. She has been maintaining that figurative flour jar of spiritual sustenance as we have drawn from it, for many years.

And we are so grateful. Kol hakavod! All the glory is yours. 

When you see Michelle at kiddush today, please don’t ask her if we are out of egg salad. Instead, please just thank her for her many years of service, and wish her good luck.

~

Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Congregation Beth Shalom, Pittsburgh, PA, Shabbat morning, 3/11/2023.)

* Esther 9:22

כַּיָּמִ֗ים אֲשֶׁר־נָ֨חוּ בָהֶ֤ם הַיְּהוּדִים֙ מֵאֹ֣יְבֵיהֶ֔ם וְהַחֹ֗דֶשׁ אֲשֶׁר֩ נֶהְפַּ֨ךְ לָהֶ֤ם מִיָּגוֹן֙ לְשִׂמְחָ֔ה וּמֵאֵ֖בֶל לְי֣וֹם ט֑וֹב לַעֲשׂ֣וֹת אוֹתָ֗ם יְמֵי֙ מִשְׁתֶּ֣ה וְשִׂמְחָ֔ה וּמִשְׁלֹ֤חַ מָנוֹת֙ אִ֣ישׁ לְרֵעֵ֔הוּ וּמַתָּנ֖וֹת לָֽאֶבְיֹנִֽים׃

[The 14th and 15th of Adar were] the days on which the Jews enjoyed relief from their foes and the same month which had been transformed for them from one of grief and mourning to one of festive joy. They were to observe them as days of feasting and merrymaking, and as an occasion for sending gifts to one another and presents to the poor.

Categories
Sermons

Creating Gan Eden – Bereshit 5783

We are back at the beginning again.

Some of you know that I love Parashat Bereshit, because it opens up all of the big questions. Where did we come from? Why are we here? Who is this God character, and where did he/she/it come from? How did all of Creation come into being? Why is humanity so complex? 

Not that the Torah alone is equipped to answer such questions, of course, particularly for modern people. On the contrary: Bereshit offers partial answers to some of these questions, but leaves others more or less untouched, and some of those answers are not particularly helpful, given what we know today through scientific inquiry. As is usually the case when we dig into a meaty piece of ancient text, we might come away from the opening chapters of Genesis with even more questions. And particularly for contemporary people of faith, since science addresses the question of “how,” but often leaves off the answer to “why.” That is one reason that we absolutely need Torah.

It makes sense that the Torah starts in Gan Eden / the Garden of Eden; we want our beginnings to be pure. In Hebrew, the term “Gan Eden” is used to mean “paradise,”* but that English term brings with it associations that are not really found in the Torah’s text or Jewish interpretations. Gan Eden is not a place of the so-called “afterlife;” it is rather, you might say, a sort of womb for Creation, a protected, natural space in which God could raise the newly-created plants, animals, and humans. Gan Eden was God’s nursery: fresh and flowering and nurturing.

Our popular conceptions about Gan Eden comes to us from Christianity: that the first humans created there were without sin and immortal, and upon having eaten the apple, experienced a kind of spiritual fall, which made them fundamentally sinful and mortal.

But we, the Jews, read the story in a very different way. Humans were created to be mortal. And, by the way, the Torah never mentions an apple; the fruit is a non-specific fruit, although some Jewish sources suppose that it was a fig or a pomegranate.

More importantly, we do not have the concept of Original Sin, or the Fall. On the contrary, humans were created with the ability to transgress. And of course, they mess up very soon. 

There is a wonderful midrash about the creation of human beings. Prior to doing so, God wisely consults with the angels to see how they feel about this new creature, which will be something like them, and they were not in agreement about humans. (As told in Louis Ginzberg’s Legends of the Jews, JPS 2003, vol. 1, p. 51):

The Angel of Love favored the creation of humans, because they would be affectionate and loving; but the Angel of Truth opposed it, because humans would be full of lies. And while the Angel of Justice favored it, because humans would practice justice, the Angel of Peace opposed it, because humans would be quarrelsome. 

To invalidate his protest, God cast the Angel of Truth down from heaven to Earth, and when the others cried out against such contemptuous treatment of their companion, God said, “Truth will spring back out of the Earth.”

After consulting with the angels, God’s response was effectively, “Thanks for your opinion. And don’t you worry about that Truth business: it will be with us for sure.” So God creates humans, and places them in this lovely Garden, knowing that they will fail. And they will lie. And they will soon be lying and killing and doing all sorts of mischief.

But God also knows that humans have the great potential to do good, to carry out justice, to love, to till and to tend the Earth respectfully. God knows that humanity is a mixed bag, and that, although people will be a source of much pain and grief, they will also pursue and hold up truth. We are not fundamentally sinful, nor can we possibly be exclusively good. Rather, we are somewhere in-between. We are exactly as God the Engineer designed us.

Gan Eden, in Jewish tradition, is not paradise. It is a point of departure, not a future destination. The beginning, not the end.

Nonetheless, the fantastical idea of achieving paradise meanders through human existence. Many cultures have such a concept in their mythologies. We do, however. have the concept of “Olam HaBa,” the world-to-come, and there are some Jews in the world who work hard at performing mitzvot, fulfilling the opportunities for holiness in Jewish law, so they can attain a place in Olam HaBa. 

Opinions found on the Jewish bookshelf on what Olam HaBa is vary tremendously, from visions of a pleasurable place (like Gan Eden), to denial that there is anything at all after we die. One such vision (Babylonian Talmud Berakhot 17a) sees no Earthly pleasures in Olam HaBa, but rather merely sitting, with crowns on our heads, in the splendor of the presence of God, which will vastly exceed any kind of physical enjoyment. 

I have always subscribed to the idea that we perform mitzvot not for any future reward, but because that reward comes back to us in the present. And I have some good support here: there is a concept in Jewish life of Torah lishmah, learning Torah for its own sake. That is, we do not study our ancient texts and apply them to our lives so that we can get into Olam HaBa, but we do so because it is the right thing to do. The reward is the performance of the mitzvah itself. We read, for example, in Pirqei Avot, the second-century collection of Jewish wisdom(1:3):

אַנְטִיגְנוֹס אִישׁ סוֹכוֹ קִבֵּל מִשִּׁמְעוֹן הַצַּדִּיק. הוּא הָיָה אוֹמֵר, אַל תִּהְיוּ כַעֲבָדִים הַמְשַׁמְּשִׁין אֶת הָרַב עַל מְנָת לְקַבֵּל פְּרָס, אֶלָּא הֱווּ כַעֲבָדִים הַמְשַׁמְּשִׁין אֶת הָרַב שֶׁלֹּא עַל מְנָת לְקַבֵּל פְּרָס, וִיהִי מוֹרָא שָׁמַיִם עֲלֵיכֶם

Antigonos of Sokho, received [Torah] from Shim’on the Righteous. He would say, “Do not be as servants who are serving the master in order to receive a reward; rather be as servants who are serving the master not in order to receive a reward; and may the fear of Heaven be upon you.”

Antigonos was onto something here, a more robust strategy for life. Since we cannot know what awaits us after we die, do good for the sake of doing good now and reap the rewards now. If it helps us in the Olam HaBa, harei zeh meshubaḥ! All the better.

Maimonides, writing in the 12th century, extends Antigonos of Sokho’s words:

The Sages meant to tell us by this that one should believe in truth for truth’s sake. And this is the sense they wish to convey by their expression, oved me-ahavah, “serving from motives of love.” (from Rambam’s Introduction to Pereq Ḥeleq)

We should “serve” our Master (i.e. God) and “fear Heaven” by speaking truth (remember Truth?) and pursuing justice and living according to the mitzvot not because we hope to get there after we die and hang around wearing crowns in God’s court, but rather because we do so out of an act of love for other people and the world. That is its own reward. Torah lishmah, Torah for its own sake, is what we reap, and it is right here, right now.

Gan Eden, ladies and gentlemen, is not some mystical future destination for which we should strive. Neither is it an abstraction. It is, rather, what we can create for ourselves here on Earth, in the present moment. 

We all have the potential to build Gan Eden, a place that is protective and nurturing, a place that is safe and innocent, green and pleasant and refreshing. All we have to do is make it happen by fulfilling the holy opportunities which have been given to us.

We create Gan Eden when we keep the Shabbat. Shabbat is a taste of the refreshment of Gan Eden, but only if you do it right – when you set aside your mundane stressors and focus on being there, being present with your family and friends, on gratitude and all that emanates from it, on the qedushah / holiness all around us.

We create Gan Eden when we reach out to others, when we work toward the common good, when we fulfill the mitzvot bein adam leḥavero, those mitzvot that maintain the qedushah between people: when we treat others with kindness, when we clothe the naked and comfort the mourner and feed the hungry.

We create Gan Eden when we gather in prayer, when we gather in joy and grief, when we fulfill the rituals of Jewish life which color our days with meaning.

One of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s most well-known songs is an ode to Woodstock, from their phenomenal 1970 album Deja Vu, although the song was written by Joni Mitchell (who was actually not at Woodstock because she had a gig on the Dick Cavett Show):

We are stardust
We are golden 
We are billion-year-old carbon
And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the Garden.

But Joni got it wrong. We cannot get back to the Garden. There is no going back.

But we can make it here. All we have to do is act on the truth that is our spiritual heritage.

~

Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Congregation Beth Shalom, Pittsburgh, PA, Shabbat morning, 10/22/2022.)

* Interesting etymological note: the Hebrew עֵדֶן / ‘eden means refreshment or pleasure, so Gan Eden might be literally translated as “garden of pleasure.” The word “paradise” seems to have arrived in the English language via Latin and Greek from the ancient Persian word pairidaeza, meaning a garden enclosure.

Categories
Festivals Sermons Yizkor

Remembering the Small Print – Shemini Atzeret / Yizkor 5783

One of the things that this season does to me is to remind me to read the small print in the siddur, to pay attention to details that my eye is trained to ignore during much of the year.

Since most siddurim / prayerbooks are used for a variety of days – weekdays, Shabbat, holidays – they are designed to reflect the changes in our daily tefillah routine. During the holiday month of Tishrei in particular, there are changes almost every day, which require you to pay careful attention to the smaller print. 

If one goal of the Tishrei holidays is to make us all pay more attention, then for sure these subtle changes in our daily prayer are helpful. Even the extra le’eila which we say from Rosh HaShanah to Yom Kippur manages to keep me just a wee bit more focused for some time.

And that, of course is a good thing: tefillah / prayer should never be by rote. As we read in Pirqei Avot (2:13):

רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן אוֹמֵר, הֱוֵי זָהִיר בִּקְרִיאַת שְׁמַע וּבַתְּפִלָּה. וּכְשֶׁאַתָּה מִתְפַּלֵּל, אַל תַּעַשׂ תְּפִלָּתְךָ קֶבַע, אֶלָּא רַחֲמִים וְתַחֲנוּנִים לִפְנֵי הַמָּקוֹם בָּרוּךְ הוּא

Rabbi Shim’on said: Be careful with the reading of Shema and the Amidah, And when you pray, do not make your prayer something automatic, but a plea for compassion before God.

In tefillah, as in life, it’s the details that are important. While it is easy to think that the essential part of tefillah is the recitation of the words, the mishnah suggests that we have to actually be paying attention. True tefillah requires pouring our souls into the pages of the siddur, such that the yearning for compassion, the honest gratitude, the heartfelt praise and requests which are the building blocks of tefillah come from an honest place and can actually be felt by the davener. 

It is not the outward symbolism which matters; not the broad strokes of being in shul (synagogue) and standing in silence and reciting the words; rather, it is the internal details. It is the richness of the ancient Hebrew idiom and how it lands on our souls which drive honest prayer. It is, in fact, the small print, laden with the special features of the season, which matters most.

And when we recall beloved family members and friends who are no longer with us, on days of reciting Yizkor prayers, the details of their lives are the most essential items. 

What makes a person special and unique? It is not their appearance, or what car they drive or the color of their kippah. It is the intangible details: their deeds, their sayings, their values, their relationships. 

You might have heard recently about so-called “click chemistry,” because three biochemists just received the Nobel Prize for their work in the area. Click chemistry is a relatively new chemical process which allows us to build new molecules with particularly desirable functionality using small, organic building blocks, somewhat akin to molecular Lego pieces. 

Without getting too technical, the research of these Nobel laureates has made it possible to reliably build new molecules from these building blocks in a way that is cost-effective and has a high rate of success. The process will supplant older, more cumbersome and expensive methods of synthesizing such molecules. This will enable chemists to easily produce and test a whole new range of pharmaceuticals, polymers, proteins and other organic compounds. It is truly a remarkable breakthrough.

Now, the chemical engineer in me is inspired by this new molecular technology.

But I also find the idea of being able to assemble easily new molecules from building blocks appeals to me from, shall we say, a more homiletical perspective. As people, we are more than the sum of our parts; and yet we are constructed from the very same types of molecules that can be easily assembled through click chemistry.

We are, of course, exceedingly complex creatures. We are shaped by all of the forces around us: the people we meet, the books we read, the experiences we share with others, the love we receive and give, and all of the other tiny ways we fill our days and our lives. And all of these things, all of these minuscule moments and interactions are sifted through our basic structure, coloring all of the intricate pieces of our personalities.

With human personalities, of course, it is the details that matter. Our external features are not so different from one another; our internals are much more complicated. We have different strengths and creativities, different talents and hobbies and favorite foods and leisure activities. We are drawn to a range of entertainments and political pursuits, tastes in clothes and art and philosophy. We each have individual ways in which we express ourselves and fashion our lives.

A lazy search of the Internet led to somebody else’s back-of-the-envelope calculation of how many molecules there are in the human body, and that answer is perhaps on the order of 1027, or a one followed by 27 zeroes.

Much of that is water, but a good chunk of them are organic molecules, of the sort that are put together with the basic building blocks, the simplest Legos, of life. 

But that is what makes us human: the great complexity of the chemical system of which we are made. Our memories, our knowledge, our experiences, remembered and forgotten, are all encoded into that organic soup of tiny, encrypted chunks of living matter. The variation of these codes, which make up our genetic material, yield people who may indeed look quite similar, but are vastly different in behavior and thought. 

A friend recently reminded me that the events from our past which we remember are not necessarily those things which others remember about us. That is, the picture of our lives is far more complex than what we see. This also suggests that all of those details, all of those interactions which we can recall are probably less than half of the story of our lives.

That is what makes those who were special to us so memorable; why they take up so much of our brain space and emotional energy: the great complexity of our parents and grandparents, the mysteries of our siblings, the tender mercies of our spouses. 

Tomorrow morning, we start reading Parashat Bereshit, the beginning of the Torah once again. We return to Creation ex nihilo, when God begins to speak, and the whole world comes into existence, from a point of light to the full flowering of Earthly bounty. You may recall that at the end of each day, the Torah tells us that God saw that what He had created was good.

It’s almost dismissive in its simplicity. Of course the creation of the sun and moon and stars was good. Naturally the flowering plants and trees and birds and bees and alligators and capybaras were good. But they were also incredibly complicated. 

The creation of humans, male and female, on the sixth day is described as tov me-od, very good, something which might make us raise our eyebrows, given what we know about humanity.

Life, Creation, cannot be merely good or bad, but rather full of contradiction and complexity and an unfathomable myriad of details. The Torah (or, one might say, the Priestly author to whom scholars attribute the first chapter of Bereshit) seems to fail here in its terseness. It merely gives a social-media “like” when an encyclopedic excursus is called for.

And as we turn now to the service of Hazkarat Neshamot, the recalling of the souls, I hope that we can endeavor to remember not just the broad strokes of their lives, but also the details, all the ways in which they were special. 

We should remember the parts of their personality that they gave us: the empathy he showed an elderly neighbor when inviting him for a meal, the pride she took in tending to her garden, the loyalty he had to his barber, her attention to detail, like ensuring the brass banister was always polished to a shine. 

We should remember the ways in which they provided for us: the household economy, the food, the gatherings, in setting a beautiful table for the celebrations / semaḥot he arranged, all of the schlepping she did from school to game to recital and on and on.

We should remember the things that they said when we need to be uplifted: the words of encouragement and inspiration, the moment of shared joy when you got that acceptance letter and the tears during your bad breakup, the hugs and the kisses and sometimes the little push out the door that we needed. 

We should remember the values they taught us, the Jewish rituals they loved, how he would make his special haroset recipe, how she loved to sing and tell stories and family lore. We should remember those times around the seder table, or in the kitchen, or in the Sukkah, or in the synagogue.

My grandparents, Rose and Ed Bass, zikhronam livrakhah

And we should remember that, as much as we recall of those who are no longer with us, there was ever so much more about them than we could possibly ever have known. All those many, many details encoded into who they were; all of the small-print details which made them special to others and to all those who knew them.

In broad strokes, we all had parents, and people whom we have loved but are no longer with us. But it is the details of who they were which made them special and unique. And those are the things which we should recall at this time.

~

Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Congregation Beth Shalom, Pittsburgh, PA, morning of Shemini Atzeret, 10/17/2022.)

Categories
Sermons

On Being a Patriotic Jewish American – Mattot / Mas’ei 5782

Judy and I were at the Jersey Shore for a few days this week. The kids are safely ensconced at Camp Ramah in Canada, so we have had some time to ourselves, which is nice, but of course it reminds us of how much we love and appreciate and miss our children! 

One evening, we had a very patriotic experience. I find that as I get older, these things are much more moving than they were when I was younger. Nowadays, I tear up when veterans are honored for their service to our country, or at any ceremony for those who “paid the ultimate price” to defend our freedom. I have performed many funerals, but generally the only moment I lose control of my own emotions is when, at the funeral of a veteran of the armed forces, the honor guard removes the flag from the casket, folds it, and presents it to a member of the family. 

So we had taken a bike ride late in the afternoon to Sunset Beach, a lovely point with a nice view to the west of Delaware Bay. Unbeknownst to us, the tradition at Sunset Beach in the summer months is that, every day, they fly a different American flag, which had been draped on the casket of an armed-forces veteran during his/her funeral. As the day draws to a close, they lower the flag. So we stuck around for the ceremony.

Lowering the flag at Sunset Beach, NJ

When the time came, we sang “God Bless America,” and “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and then as “Taps” was played, the flag was lowered and folded, and returned to the family of the deceased veteran.

And, sure enough, the tears came. 

This does not happen to me on Independence Day, or on Memorial Day, or when we sing the National Anthem before a ball game, although a room full of Jews singing Hatikvah always gets me right here. But I think that ceremonies that are deeply personal, that tell one person’s story of dedication and service, are in some ways much more powerful than the general, national stories and commemorations.

And yet, the idea of peoplehood is extraordinarily important to me. I am proud, as I know you are as well, to be a member of the Jewish people; I am strongly connected to our history and traditions, and of course to other Jews, even those with whom I disagree deeply about how we interpret our text and our rituals. 

And of course, the vast majority of Jews throughout history have lived under non-Jewish rule. We have been mobile people, often against our will, often fleeing persecution, for thousands of years. A week from tonight we will observe Tish’ah BeAv, on which we commemorate oppression and destruction at the hands of ancient, medieval, and modern empires. And the Torah foreshadows this mobile history in Parashat Mas’ei, from which we read this morning. “Elleh mas’ei benei Yisrael,” it begins. “These are journeys of the Israelites, who started out from the land of Egypt, troop by troop, in the charge of Moses and Aaron.” (Bemidbar / Numbers 33:1). In fact, the book of Bemidbar begins by counting the people, and concludes with recounting the journey; the suggestion is that our peoplehood and our journeys are deeply intertwined. Our ability to journey is predicated upon our peoplehood.

And our ability to live among and subject to others who are not Jews is also made possible by our connection to one another. How did we survive 2,000 years of dispersion and exile? By sticking together. By reading and re-reading and re-interpreting our holy, ancient texts. By maintaining our traditions, distinct from the majority culture around us.

And yet, I am also a proud American, in many ways fully integrated into our society, celebrating American values and lamenting American woes. I am grateful to this nation, which provided a haven to my great-grandparents, which does not restrict our ability to practice freely our customs and traditions, which guarantees me many rights which my ancestors did not have.

The challenges of living as a distinct people and in the context of a wider, non-Jewish nation were well-known to the rabbis of the Talmud. They were, after all, living under Roman rule in ancient Palestine as the Mishnah was written and compiled (1st c. CE), and the Babylonian Gemara was completed under Persian rule in the yeshivot of Babylon (modern-day Iraq). Talmudic statements about the relationship between the Jews and the non-Jewish leadership of their jurisdiction are mixed. Consider, for example, conflicting statements in Pirqei Avot:

Avot 3:2

רַבִּי חֲנִינָא סְגַן הַכֹּהֲנִים אוֹמֵר, הֱוֵי מִתְפַּלֵּל בִּשְׁלוֹמָהּ שֶׁל מַלְכוּת, שֶׁאִלְמָלֵא מוֹרָאָהּ, אִישׁ אֶת רֵעֵהוּ חַיִּים בְּלָעוֹ

Rabbi Ḥanina, the vice-high priest said: pray for the welfare of the government, for were it not for the fear it inspires, every man would swallow his neighbor alive.

Avot 2:3

הֱווּ זְהִירִין בָּרָשׁוּת, שֶׁאֵין מְקָרְבִין לוֹ לָאָדָם אֶלָּא לְצֹרֶךְ עַצְמָן. נִרְאִין כְּאוֹהֲבִין בִּשְׁעַת הֲנָאָתָן, וְאֵין עוֹמְדִין לוֹ לָאָדָם בִּשְׁעַת דָּחְקוֹ

Be careful [in your dealings] with the ruling authorities for they do not befriend a person except for their own needs; they seem like friends when it is to their own interest, but they do not stand by a man in the hour of his distress.

Not exactly a comforting vision of government, right? There is a strong sense of suspicion of the non-Jewish authorities in rabbinic literature, perhaps largely because the Romans had destroyed the Temple and forbidden Jews from living in Jerusalem, but also because the rabbis of this period knew that in order to keep Judaism alive, they would have to prevent the Jews from pursuing the practices of the non-Jews around them. And so the rabbis inveighed against idolatry, of course, but also the bathhouses and the circuses and the other aspects of Greco-Roman culture. They forbid the consumption of foods and wine produced by non-Jews, because sharing these things would lead to fraternization, which would lead to intermarriage.

Perhaps the best-known and most essential statement of the relationship of Judaism and Jewish law to the non-Jewish authorities is the principle, cited four times in the Talmud, of dina demalkuta dina, or “the law of the land is the law.” The idea is that, even though Jews are subject to Jewish law, the non-Jewish law of the land applies in some cases as an extension of halakhah. So if the government requires you to pay taxes, for example, that would be effectively sanctioned by Jewish law as well.

And it makes a certain amount of sense. Had our ancestors not observed the laws of the lands in which they lived, they would surely not have been welcomed (not that they were honestly welcome in many places in which they had lived, of course, but all the more so). We have always had to see ourselves, at least minimally, and often uncomfortably, as subject to the laws and customs around us, even as we practice our own set of laws and customs. And that implies not only the innocuous things like getting a marriage license, for example, but also the more serious things, like serving your country in the armed forces and potentially giving your life in doing so.

One of the people at the flag ceremony in New Jersey was wearing a hat with a political statement on it with which I find myself severely at odds. He was standing with the family of the deceased veteran whose flag was being lowered, so I presume he was a relative. I found myself singing the National Anthem along with him, hands on our hearts, and respectfully observing together as the flag was folded. I am grateful that this man and I each have the ability to believe freely, to express our opinions freely, to practice our religion freely, and to vote freely, even though I am fairly certain that we do not see eye-to-eye on too many things. And I am, of course, deeply concerned that our tendency today to revile one another across the political aisle might eventually lead to curtailing those freedoms.

Which of course brings me to the final Jewish principle which we should consider in our context as Jewish Americans, and that is derekh eretz.

Derekh eretz, which has often been translated as, “respect,” is actually a wide-ranging term in rabbinic literature that might be better defined as, “the way things are done,” although literally, of course, it means, “the way of the land.” That is, derekh eretz is a set of societal norms that are connected to the land which we all share, and not limited to a specific sub-culture or ethnicity or religion. We are connected to the others around us, who may not share our Torah or our language or holidays or rituals, with some basic elements of human decency. 

“This land is your land / this land is my land,” sang Woody Guthrie*. We share the land through derekh eretz, and the way that we keep the land for us, for all Americans, is that we treat each other with respect and dignity and equality. We learn that from our tradition, and I hope that we can continue to spread that word, so that all might hear it.

Woody Guthrie

Although our journeys as a Jewish people will likely never be complete, we continue to, in some sense, be a part of the land wherever we reside. I hope that we all remember that during those moving, patriotic moments, whether personal or national.

~

Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Congregation Beth Shalom, Pittsburgh, PA, Shabbat morning, 7/30/22.)

* I read online (FWIW) that Guthrie wrote this song, arguably his best-known, in reaction to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.”

Categories
Sermons

#ComeBacktoShul – Vayiqra 5782

I was in church last Sunday afternoon. Admittedly, it was the first time I’d been to a church service in a while. 

I participated in an interfaith prayer gathering in support of the people of Ukraine at St. Paul’s Cathedral, presided over by Bishop Zubik of the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese. In attendance were people from across the religious spectrum of the region, including Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, and Christian spiritual leaders, as well as over 500 attendees. While some of the overtly Christian language was uncomfortable to me, the overarching message was a resonant one: we stand with the Ukrainian people. In addition to words of prayer and remarks by some of the clergy participants, including a very moving personal story from Father Ihor Hohosha of St. George Ukrainian Catholic Church, the service was occasionally punctuated by people calling out, “Slava Ukraini!” “Glory to Ukraine!”

A rabbi in church (courtesy of Cindy Goodman-Leib)

It was inspiring to see so many people together in one place – the first indoor gathering of that size that I have attended in two whole years, and all the more so to unite across theological lines in support of a cause.

One might criticize such a gathering by saying, “OK, that’s great. But what the Ukrainians need is actual, material support – arms, military personnel, humanitarian aid, and so forth. What good does having an interfaith prayer service do?”

Actually, ladies and gentlemen, prayer accomplishes a lot. And that’s why we are about to launch Beth Shalom’s #ComeBacktoShul campaign. I’ll come back to that in a few minutes.

What does tefillah / Jewish prayer accomplish? And why engage in it?

Here are the major communal and individual benefits:

  1. Tefillah / prayer brings us physically together. As you know, you have to have a minyan, a quorum of 10 people for it to be a complete service. That means you have to show up, something which is hard enough today even without a worldwide pandemic. And, as we have all learned in abundance over the past two years, being in the same room with other people is much better than seeing your fellow participants on your screen.
  2. Tefillah makes us feel like a community. אל תפרוש מן הציבור, “Do not separate yourself from the community,” says Pirqei Avot. When we have at least 10 people together in a room, we feel interconnected. We understand that we are parts of a greater whole. We build a qehillah qedoshah, a congregation founded in holiness.
  3. Prayer sensitizes us to the needs of the other. If you are doing it right, engaging in tefillah reminds you that, in this solitary moment of ritual, we are connected to God, to each other, to our ancient tradition. It reminds us that connection requires being open to and aware of the people around us. There is a custom that many have of giving tzedaqah during the weekday morning service, because that is a moment in which we are most sensitized to the needy around us. (We cannot pass the tzedaqah box on Shabbat, because handling money is forbidden on Shabbat; nonetheless, even on Shabbat, tefillah should lead us to see the Divine spark in everybody.)

    One of the first things that we say as part of the morning service is from Rabbi Isaac Luria, the 16th-century kabbalist (you can find this on p. 102 in Lev Shalem):

הריני מקבל עלי מצות הבורא: ואהבת לרעך כמוך

I hereby accept the obligation of fulfilling the Creator’s mitzvah: Love your neighbor as yourself. 

We cannot even begin to daven without first acknowledging that we are in relationship with the people around us.

  1. Tefillah is meditation. Jews are never silent, even when they pray. Our meditation is not like Eastern meditation; our mantra is in Hebrew, and has many more words. But if you are truly mindful about your prayer, if you are truly in the moment and successfully let go of the other things that are tugging at your attention during services, our prayer tradition functions the same way. That too is very hard. But if you commit yourself to doing it regularly, you will achieve the same thing that you might achieve in other kinds of meditation. 
  2. Tefillah teaches Torah. The highest ideal in Jewish life is learning; the most essential mitzvah out of all 613 is engaging with words of Torah. If you are paying attention, prayer is study, and study is prayer; they reinforce and build on each other. 
  3. Tefillah means “self-judgment.” If you are doing it properly, prayer is an opportunity to check in with yourself, to evaluate where you are, what you have done right and wrong, and to see if you can tip the scales in the right direction. As with all of the items above, tefillah is a tool for improving yourself and improving your community and your world. Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi taught that, as we open our mouths in prayer, we should start by saying, “Dear God, whatever jealousies and resentments I might harbor in my heart, please remove this judgment from me.” Self-judgment.

Yes, for Jewish prayer there is a high bar. Even if you cannot read Hebrew, you still have to be able to manage transliteration. And you have to know when to respond, and when to be silent, when to stand/sit, when to bow, and so forth. And to understand the meaning of the words – to be able to glean something from them, that takes real work. I had many semesters of liturgy and liturgical Hebrew in Cantorial School, and I still encounter words or idioms I do not understand. 

But of course some of those things do not require a deep knowledge. The mere act of gathering as a community so that we can feel connected to one another is an outcome that we can all achieve, even if you don’t know the words, or when to bow.

And yet, every time we gather for a service, we raise the level of qedushah / holiness in ourselves, in our relationships, and in our community. And in doing so, all of the benefits I just mentioned help us work toward improving this world.

So even though Ukraine is very far away, our gathering to say words of prayer on behalf of the Ukrainian people will surely help, even though we might not see the results immediately. Every prayer helps a little bit.

Which brings us back to why we are here. Yes, we are here this morning to celebrate with a bar mitzvah as he is called to the Torah. Yes, we are here to be with each other, to have lunch together. 

But more pointedly, we are here to pray. And we do that every day at Beth Shalom, twice a day, morning and evening.

And we need you to come back to pray with us. In person.

Thank God, our rates of transmission are as low now as they were last summer. Thank God, many of us now are boosted. We hope that soon young children will be able to be vaccinated as well. I am grateful, and I am sure that you are too.

I have heard recently from multiple members of Beth Shalom, in different ways and using different language, that right now, after two years of pandemic, they feel disconnected from our community. Well, folks, there is just one solution to that: #ComeBacktoShul. 

We need you to be here. Physically. In-person. We need you to come back. We are waiting for you.

And we need you to bring a friend. Find the people whom you know have not returned, and invite them to come back as well. We will welcome everybody with group air hugs all around.

So here are a couple of practical considerations:

  1. We are still wearing masks in the building, at least for a couple of more weeks. We want to be sure that everybody feels safe. It’s not going to be so easy for us to simply start to gather again. It still makes me a bit nervous to be around unmasked people right now. But that is a temporary thing. We’ll get used to it again.
  2. We are serving food again, and I hope that we’ll be able to start up our weekday-morning breakfasts soon.
  3. We will continue to make our services available via Zoom. However, within the coming months we will no longer be, as we have been for the past two years, in the mode of “she’at hadeḥaq,” which is rabbi-speak for “an urgent situation.” As the urgency of the moment recedes, we are going to return to the mode where a minyan is constituted only by people in the room, and we will not count Zoom participants toward that minyan. That will be a big change for our weekday minyanim, so you might want to consider helping us out morning and evening, so that we can continue to make a quorum. I anticipate that (if everything continues moving the right direction) this change will be coming around Pesaḥ.

The prophet Isaiah tells us that the Jewish center of worship is an ecumenical space, one that is for everybody. Isaiah says (56:7):

 כִּ֣י בֵיתִ֔י בֵּית־תְּפִלָּ֥ה יִקָּרֵ֖א לְכָל־הָעַמִּֽים׃

For My House shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.

Rabbi David Qimḥi, a late 12th/early 13th c. French commentator, also known by his acronym רד”ק (Radaq), said this about this verse:

וגם אל הנכרי כל שכן לשבים לדת ישראל:

And if Isaiah’s words applies to non-Jews, all the more so to those who are returning to Jewish worship.

This house is open to you, and to everybody. Now is the time to return. We need you to join us in prayer. The world needs you; the people of Ukraine need you. #ComeBacktoShul. 

~

Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Congregation Beth Shalom, Shabbat morning, 3/12/2022.)

Categories
Sermons

You Be the [Bad] Judge – Vayḥi 5782

Do you feel that you are a good judge of people? Personality, potential effectiveness at work, ability to get along with other folks, and so forth?

I do not have much confidence in my own ability to judge people, and I have been thinking about this lately, mostly in the abstract, because of our search for an Assistant Rabbi.

I tend to see the good in everybody, and I assume the best of intentions even when evidence is clearly to the contrary. It might be because I grew up in a small town in rural New England, where we just sort of assumed that the people around us were all good and well-intentioned. Or maybe it’s just my personality – I am a naturally trusting person. Or perhaps I should thank my parents for raising me to be non-judgmental.

Fortunately, seeing the good in everybody, and a willingness to overlook deficiencies in others comports well with rabbinic wisdom on the subject. In Pirqei Avot, for example, a second-century CE collection of rabbinic wisdom, we read the following:

1:6

יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בֶּן פְּרַחְיָה אוֹמֵר, … הֱוֵי דָן אֶת כָּל הָאָדָם לְכַף זְכוּת

Yehoshua ben Peraḥiah taught:.. When you judge others, tip the balance in their favor.

2:5

הִלֵּל אוֹמֵר, … אַל תָּדִין אֶת חֲבֵרְךָ עַד שֶׁתַּגִּיעַ לִמְקוֹמוֹ

Hillel taught: … Do not judge another until you stand in her/his situation.

When we are assessing the character or choices of others, it is upon us to do so generously, to understand that we might only see a part of the story, that we might misinterpret their motivations, and that we should therefore put a finger on the scale in their favor. The rabbinic shorthand invoked by Pirqei Avot is “kaf zekhut” – literally the pan of a metaphorical scale containing one’s merits, as opposed to the one containing the liabilities, when those characteristics are being evaluated. It is our obligation to incline toward kaf zekhut where possible.

Humans are complicated; even those who are generally good-natured can make mistakes, or can be swayed by the forces and situations around them. We all have the potential to make the wrong choices, and sometimes we do, but those errors in judgment do not necessarily crowd out one’s overall good intentions.

And, of course one of the other features of rabbinic Judaism is that our tradition provides us avenues for self-improvement: teshuvah, of course, repentance, but also guides for living such as the framework of mitzvot and the ethical considerations that come with them. Our tradition, and our people, are naturally self-reflective, perhaps in a way that does not comport with contemporary society and the current rapid pace of life, and the reduction of human communications to two-dimensional, 280-character  pronouncements.

The complexity of humanity, it seems, is getting harder for us to wrap our brains around, when our only choices are to “like” or “not like” something. You have to be for or against, yes or no, vaccinated or unvaccinated, etc.

But we are not binary creatures, limited to ones and zeroes. And that is surely true of the Avot and Imahot, the patriarchs and matriarchs of the dysfunctional family featured in the book of Bereshit / Genesis. 

Parashat Vayḥi, which concluded that book this morning, includes the captivating scene just prior to Ya’aqov’s death, when he poetically addresses his 12 sons. Most are pleasant words, blessing-like descriptors, which bode well for the tribes they represent.

But given the idea of kaf zekhut, of judging others with a generous eye,  there is one passage that has long captured my attention, when Ya’aqov actually distances himself, on his deathbed, from Shim’on and Levi. (You may recall that I am descended from the tribe of Levi, and so Ya’aqov’s words sting with an ancient, generational pain.)

שִׁמְע֥וֹן וְלֵוִ֖י אַחִ֑ים כְּלֵ֥י חָמָ֖ס מְכֵרֹתֵיהֶֽם׃
בְּסֹדָם֙ אַל־תָּבֹ֣א נַפְשִׁ֔י בִּקְהָלָ֖ם אַל־תֵּחַ֣ד כְּבֹדִ֑י כִּ֤י בְאַפָּם֙ הָ֣רְגוּ אִ֔ישׁ וּבִרְצֹנָ֖ם עִקְּרוּ־שֽׁוֹר׃
אָר֤וּר אַפָּם֙ כִּ֣י עָ֔ז וְעֶבְרָתָ֖ם כִּ֣י קָשָׁ֑תָה אֲחַלְּקֵ֣ם בְּיַעֲקֹ֔ב וַאֲפִיצֵ֖ם בְּיִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃

Simeon and Levi are a pair;
Their weapons are tools of lawlessness.
Let not my person be included in their council,
Let not my being be counted in their assembly.
For when angry they slay men,
And when pleased they maim oxen.
Cursed be their anger so fierce,
And their wrath so relentless.
I will divide them in Jacob,
Scatter them in Israel.

This is, really, a shocking passage. These are Ya’aqov’s final words to two of his sons. Where is the kaf zekhut? What on Earth could Shim’on and Levi have done that warranted such harsh words from their father? 

Well, it ain’t pretty. They slaughtered the family of Hamor and his son Shekhem, members of the Hivite tribe (one of several Canaanite tribes).

In brief, Shekhem took Ya’aqov’s daughter Dinah* by force. When he subsequently asks for her hand in marriage, Ya’aqov and family insist that Hamor agrees to circumcise all of the adult males in their clan. On the third day following the circumcision, when the men are all in pain, in come Shim’on and Levi to kill them all, claiming that they are defending the honor of their sister. It is a brutal, shocking story on all fronts, and their actions are difficult to defend. (Bereshit chapter 34, Parashat Vayyishlaḥ)

Did you miss that one in Hebrew school? Yeah, I thought so. It doesn’t make for good family discussions in the car ride home.

Was Ya’aqov justified in cursing two of his sons? Was it the right thing to effectively estrange himself from them, saying, “Let not my being be counted in their assembly”? Could he not have allowed for the possibility that they have done teshuvah, that they have repented? To me this is quite jarring. It seems exactly the opposite of the principle of kaf zekhut. Could he not, on his deathbed, have found at least something positive to say?

So he must have had a reason for doing so, and also for promising that these two tribes (and particularly the Levites) would be spread among the other tribes. In later centuries, the tribe of Levi had no tribal land of their own, but as religious functionaries lived throughout the region, so at least this aspect of the backstory checks out.

The 15th-century Spanish commentator Yitzḥaq ben Moshe Arama (who, by the way, fled the Inquisition in 1492 and died two years later in Naples) teaches us that 

Ya’aqov here utters a truth which Aristotle has publicized in his Ethics. Anger and temper, though undesirable qualities, may sometimes prove useful in arousing heroism in people. Soldiers in battle are spurred to bravery and courage by anger and indignation… [Ya’aqov believed that] it was advisable that the qualities of anger and passion that had been concentrated in Shim’on and Levi should be dispersed among all the tribes of Israel… A little spread everywhere would prove useful, but if concentrated in one place, would be dangerous.

Arama’s theory is that too much anger is extreme, but a little bit is helpful. It seems as though Ya’aqov, in acknowledging the complexity of human personalities and emotion, is distancing himself from two of his sons as a protective measure. He wants their characteristic anger distributed throughout the Israelite nation, dilute enough to be safe, but nonetheless available when warranted.

How might we interpret this for us today?

Each of us reflect, in some sense, the range of personality that Ya’aqov sees in his sons. We are sometimes happy, sometimes angry, sometimes down, sometimes yearnful, and so forth. None of us are entirely angry, or entirely happy, or 100% of any particular aspect of humanity.

In assessing others with kaf zekhut, giving the benefit of the doubt, we should do our best to remember that sometimes we are ruled by our emotions, and hope that the Shim’ons and the Levis within us are kept at bay, and that we see instead the lion of Judah, the fair judgment of Dan, the richness of Asher, the natural beauty of Naftali.

So, whether you are inclined to see the good or the bad in people, it is worth remembering that all of us are blessed with a rich variety of traits, not easily separated from one another, or discerned at first glance. When we are judging others, we should keep this in mind while trying to view the entire picture. That is what Ya’aqov teaches us with his final words. 

~

Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Congregation Beth Shalom, Pittsburgh, PA, Shabbat morning, 12/17/2021.)

* Despite her hardship, long-suffering Dinah does not get a deathbed blessing from her father. *sigh*

Categories
Sermons

Broad Justice – Ki Tissa / Shabbat Parah 5781

Traditional symbols on a seder plate for the Jewish festival of Passover.

I have always thought of the molten calf episode in the middle of Parashat Ki Tissa as a kind of intruder in the middle of the description of the mishkan. We have, at the end of the book of Shemot / Exodus, a total of13 chapters, spread over five parashiyyot, of descriptions of the mishkan and all of its implements and principles and construction and initiation ceremony, all recounted in stunning, and some would say monotonous, detail. 

And then, right in the middle of that, there is this curious story about how the Israelites were anxious because Moshe had not yet come down from Mt. Sinai, and so they compel his brother Aharon, who will soon officially be the Kohen Gadol, the Big Kahuna, the High Priest, to fashion an idol of gold, a calf. And they bow down in a flagrant display of idolatry, and dance about and commit lewd acts.

And God and Moshe, meanwhile, when they discover all of this, are not happy indeed.

The people’s notion, as captured in their request to Aharon is, (Shemot / Exodus 32:1)

ק֣וּם ׀ עֲשֵׂה־לָ֣נוּ אֱ-לֹהִ֗ים אֲשֶׁ֤ר יֵֽלְכוּ֙ לְפָנֵ֔ינוּ

“Come, make us gods who shall go before us…”

They wanted not the one true God, of course, but gods, with a lower-case “g.” They want the thing that the Torah is primarily aligned against: idols. Empty gods. Falsehood.

And then, to demonstrate the fact that they have not yet received the message about idolatry, when the calf and the altar is complete, not only do the people worship the offending idol, but they then eat and drink in celebration, and arise “letzaheq” (v. 6), a word translated by JPS as “to dance,” although Rashi tells us that this word implies the three biggest transgressions of the Torah: idolatry of course (they have already checked that box), murder, and sexual immorality.

How could this be the right god? How could the Israelites have wanted these gods to go before them?

It is clear that this passage is inserted into the seemingly-endless mishkan construction detail not only because the brief story refreshes the narrative after it had been bogged down in mundane descriptions of materials and planks and clasps, but also because it serves to reinforce the essential message of the mishkan, which is this: We are finished with all of that idolatry business, and the nasty stuff that comes along with it.

So what did the Israelites want? Was it murder and orgies and bowing down to idols? Or was it something else? Did they merely latch onto the wrong thing, i.e. idolatry, because it’s all they knew from Egypt? Did they command Aharon to make them an idol because they were trying to fill a spiritual void? They clearly lacked the maturity as a people to connect the dots between the laws already given (i.e. the first commandment, “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt,… you shall have no other gods before me.”) and their new paradigm.

I spent the earlier part of this week “at” the convention of the Rabbinical Assembly, the international professional organization of Conservative rabbis. Of course it was online, as most things seem to be these days, and as I am sure you can imagine, this has its advantages and disadvantages. I find that it is easier to learn new material and pick up tips from my fellow rabbis when I am away from the everyday bustle of work and home. One advantage to a Zoom convention, of course, is that you do not have to pick yourself up off the couch to attend a session. 

One of the items in which I participated was a so-called “Professional Learning Community,” a discussion with fellow rabbis that took place over three days for a total of six hours, on the subject of racial justice. In particular, our goal was to share wisdom and suggestions as to how we as individual rabbis could address this program in our own communities, but also to create some guidelines for the Rabbinical Assembly regarding how we might move forward as an organization with respect to these issues. 

Why must the Rabbinical Assembly and Conservative synagogues address issues of race? I’m so glad you asked!

In this season in particular, in which we are preparing for Pesah, also known as Hag haHerut, the celebration of our freedom, we are obligated to remember that nobody is truly free when some are enslaved.

That is precisely why we say in Aramaic, as an introduction to telling the Exodus story at the seder, “Kol dikhfin yeitei veyeikhul / Kol ditzrikh yeitei veyifsah.” Let all who are hungry, come and eat / Let all who are in need come and celebrate Pesah, this festival of freedom. We know that, as much as we have strived in America to create a system that treats all citizens equitably, the reality is that outcomes here with respect to education, health care, housing, and so forth are clearly uneven. We remind ourselves at the seder that it is our obligation to welcome our neighbor in: the one who is hungry, the one who is in need of freedom, the one who is disenfranchised.

One of the points of concern that our rabbinic task force faced is the question that some of our congregants ask, and that you may be thinking right now. “OK, Rabbi, I understand the need to help those who have been hurt by racial prejudice, but what about anti-Semitism? Shouldn’t you be talking about that instead? Shouldn’t we be focused on the challenge presented by those who are prejudiced against Jews?”

Many of us are concerned about anti-Semitic activity right now, and here in Pittsburgh we understand that too painfully. And when we see splashed across our screens a “Camp Auschwitz” t-shirt and detestable symbols of anti-Jewish hatred that have proliferated in recent years across the American landscape, we should absolutely be concerned about that. Perhaps you might think that a focus on racism means that we are neglecting the struggle against anti-Semitism. 

But this is not our God’s broad path of justice. This is the narrow path of idolatry. We cannot be only concerned for ourselves (see, for example, Pirqei Avot 1:14); if we are, we run the risk of being at the end of the litany famously delivered by Pastor Martin Niemoller, a quote that is engraved in our consciousness as a cautionary tale about the Shoah: “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out, for I was not a socialist.” Etc.

Our God is not so narrowly focused. Rather, God’s commitment to justice is broad.

It is essential for us to understand that holding aloft the anti-Semitism banner, without also addressing the other victims of hatred in our midst, that is something like idolatry. It obscures the fact that God wants us to treat all people equitably. Likewise, to address only issues of racism and implicit bias in our society without including the anti-Semitism in our midst, is also akin to idolatry.

Our God, the God of justice, is the one true God that leads us to work for the equitable treatment of all. Not just the Jews, mind you, nor only the people of any other particular group. Kol dikhfin yeitei veyeikhul. Let all who are hungry come and eat; the word “kol” / all is clear. All. 

The Talmud reminds us that the first Beit HaMiqdash / Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed due to idolatry, murder, and sexual immorality, the same things that the Israelites indulged in during Parashat Ki Tissa, when they built a calf of gold and bowed down to it. The Talmud goes on to tell us that the second Beit HaMiqdash was destroyed due to sin’at hinnam, baseless hatred, of which all the types of hatred of the other are included. That sugya (Talmudic passage) wants us all to know that sin’at hinnam is on a par with the other three major prohibitions of Jewish life. Just as we cannot tolerate idolatry in our midst, so too must we not tolerate hate of any kind. Sin’at hinnam has no boundaries.

To that end, I wanted to make you all aware of the fact that we at Beth Shalom have been working quietly on these issues in our community for some time. Yes, many of our members are already involved in racial justice work as individuals, but you should also know that we have a racial justice task force, which came together over the summer, a small but dedicated group which has been gathering material to share with the entire congregation. 

Among our goals is to begin the conversation about racial issues within our congregation, so that we might be better prepared to act when our neighbors need our help in closing the gap of racial injustice. We need to be ready, because just as they came to our side in our time of need, so too should we be there for them. That is what allies in the struggle against sin’at hinnam do. We need to be a part of that conversation.

We must continue to defend ourselves against the scourge of anti-Semitism, but we must also understand that this ancient hatred is one piece of a much larger continuum of hatred. In so doing, we will all be united in the broad struggle for justice and freedom that our God, the one true God, has commanded us to pursue.

~

Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Congregation Beth Shalom, Pittsburgh, PA, Shabbat morning, 3/6/2021.)

Categories
Sermons

Names, Not Numbers – Bemidbar 5780

When I was a student at the Jewish Theological Seminary, students would make funny videos for Purim that we would share at the Purim se’udah, the festive daytime Purim meal. One that I will never forget featured a rabbinical student stuck in the beit midrash, the big study hall where students would gather to learn traditional texts together. The doors are locked and he cannot get out, and it’s time to daven minhah (recite the afternoon service). So he gathers together a minyan (prayer quorum) of familiar, well-loved books: the dictionary of rabbinical Hebrew and Aramaic by Rabbi Marcus Jastrow, the book of Talmudic terminology by Rabbi Yitzhak Frank, a volume of Talmud edited by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, and so forth. He stands them up in a circle, as if they are davening with him. These books were so familiar to all of us that we referred to them not by their titles, but by the names of their authors. Rabbi Jastrow, z”l, although he passed away in 1903, was a dear friend to all of us through his dictionary.

Rabbi Marcus Jastrow

Parashat Bemidbar begins with a census. (A particularly hot topic right now, of course, because 2020 is a census year here in America.) Bemidbar is the first Torah reading in the book of the same name, which is called “Numbers” in English. Why Numbers? Because it begins with a whole lot of census data. (Hebrew names of the books and the parashiyyot / weekly Torah readings are derived from the first significant Hebrew word at the beginning of the book or parashah; the English names, mostly Greek, are thematic.)

We, the Jews, have been obsessed with numbers (not the book, but the concept) particularly since the late 19th century, when Jewish historians and demographers in Eastern Europe began the enterprise of studying their people. And yet, as you can see, there is a basis for this obsession in the Torah; this is one of a few passages that counts the Israelites. 

And yet, I am drawn to the fact that immediately after God gives Moshe the imperative to count the people, the Torah then launches into names. “Ve-eleh shemot ha-anashim asher ya’amdu ittekhem.” (Bemidbar / Numbers 1:5) “And these are the names of the people that will stand with you.” And because of this passage, the Torah preserves not only the names of Moshe and Aharon and Miriam, not only the names of the twelve tribes, that is, the twelve sons of Ya’aqov, but also such names as Shelumiel ben Tzurishaddai and Elishama ben Ammihud, two of the tribal chieftains that were identified this morning. And let’s face it: I’m sure Shelumiel and Elishama were great guys, along with Pagi’el ben Okhran and Gamaliel ben Pedahzur, but they are not exactly well-known figures in Jewish life. 

The 16th-century Italian commentator Rabbi Ovadiah Seforno, noting the presence of this list of names up front in a passage primarily about numbers, tells us that there is a reason that the names are mentioned here, instead of merely the numbers. Everyone of that generation, he says, was identified individually by a name that expressed his/her personal character. Not all of those names are in the Torah, of course, but Seforno wants us to think of them as individuals, not merely numbers.

Other commentators observe that the census was completed, to use contemporary parlance, with non-anonymized data, i.e. they counted the people by name, not merely by numbers. And why? The 14th-century Provençal commentator Rabbi Levi ben Gershom points to a traditional Jewish superstition about counting people: if they do it by name, rather than number, he suggests, it would not bring a plague upon the Israelites. 

(You may know that there are a few related customs when trying to figure out how many people are in the room to make a minyan, a quorum of ten people, like using a scriptural verse that contains ten words, or the tremendously charming and somewhat confusing, “Not one, not two,” method. My father, the mathematician, really likes that one.)

Indeed, even the commandment from God to count the people suggests the personal nature of the count. The text uses the idiom, “Se’u et rosh kol adat benei Yisrael.” (Bemidbar 1:2) “Lift up the head of each of the Israelites.”

We do not merely count people. We recognize their names; we lift up their heads, as if to see their faces, as if to acknowledge their humanity.

Perhaps some of us have known people with numbers tattooed on their arms. My father-in-law’s number was A-7082; his name was Ervin Hoenig. Part of the Nazi system of dehumanization was to replace names with numbers. 

At this time, when we mourn so many that our nation has lost due to the mishandling of the virus response by our authorities, we might remember that each of the roughly 100,000 dead Americans each had a story, each had people who loved them, each had lives in which they sought meaning and love and companionship.

From the New York Times’ listing of names of 100,000 COVID-19 victims, 5/24/2020

People are kind of hard-wired to count ourselves. The Zoom software that many of us are using now tells us exactly how many devices are connected.

But the value of gathering – for prayer, for learning, for mourning, for celebrating – is not how many people showed up to a service or a program or how many times an online video was streamed.  Rather, it is whether or not lives were touched by the content. Dr. Ron Wolfson, professor of education at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, who has dedicated much of his recent work to helping synagogues improve themselves, points out that it does not matter how many people show up to a class or a program or even a service, but rather, how many relationships were made or strengthened.

I suppose that is the essential challenge that we face right now as a community. How do we build or enhance relationships when we are so far apart from each other? Do online minyanim, for example, reinforce personal connections?

Building relationships is an essential part of Jewish community, of course. But the most valuable thing, and the foundation of all relationships, is Torah. That is why our tradition suggests that the depth of commitment to learning Torah is so great. That is why Rambam (Mishneh Torah Hilkhot Talmud Torah 3:10-11) teaches us that Torah cannot be acquired if you are well-fed, or during the day, when there are too many distractions. One must be hungry and focused to truly learn Torah.

Rambam, writing in the 12th century, was mostly drawing on early rabbinic literature from a millennium earlier. In the wake of the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE, these ancient rabbis turned Judaism from a centralized, hierarchical, sacrificial worship system into a portable, democratic, knowledge-based system that depended on teaching and learning and passing on that knowledge from generation to generation. (If you’re interested in learning more about this, please come to my session via Zoom at the Pittsburgh community’s Tikkun Leil Shavuot on Wednesday evening, 5/27.)

This is what these rabbis said in the 2nd century:

Pirqei Avot 6:4

כַּךְ הִיא דַּרְכָּהּ שֶׁל תּוֹרָה, פַּת בְּמֶלַח תֹּאכַל, וּמַיִם בִּמְשׂוּרָה תִשְׁתֶּה, וְעַל הָאָרֶץ תִּישַׁן, וְחַיֵּי צַעַר תִּחְיֶה, וּבַתּוֹרָה אַתָּה עָמֵל, אִם אַתָּה עֹשֶׂה כֵן, (תהלים קכח) אַשְׁרֶיךָ וְטוֹב לָךְ. אַשְׁרֶיךָ בָּעוֹלָם הַזֶּה וְטוֹב לָךְ לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא

Such is the way [of a life] of Torah: you shall eat bread with salt, and rationed water shall you drink; you shall sleep on the ground, your life will be one of privation, and in Torah shall you labor.

Pirqei Avot 6:5

[This mishnah identifies the forty-eight ways in which Torah is acquired]

בְּתַלְמוּד, בִּשְׁמִיעַת הָאֹזֶן, בַּעֲרִיכַת שְׂפָתַיִם, בְּבִינַת הַלֵּב, בְּשִׂכְלוּת הַלֵּב, בְּאֵימָה, בְּיִרְאָה, בַּעֲנָוָה, בְּשִׂמְחָה, בְּטָהֳרָה, בְּשִׁמּוּשׁ חֲכָמִים, בְּדִקְדּוּק חֲבֵרִים, וּבְפִלְפּוּל הַתַּלְמִידִים, בְּיִשּׁוּב, בַּמִּקְרָא, בַּמִּשְׁנָה, בְּמִעוּט סְחוֹרָה, בְּמִעוּט דֶּרֶךְ אֶרֶץ, בְּמִעוּט תַּעֲנוּג, בְּמִעוּט שֵׁינָה, בְּמִעוּט שִׂיחָה, בְּמִעוּט שְׂחוֹק, בְּאֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם, בְּלֵב טוֹב, בֶּאֱמוּנַת חֲכָמִים, וּבְקַבָּלַת הַיִּסּוּרִין

… by study, attentive listening, proper speech, by an understanding heart, by an intelligent heart, by awe, by fear, by humility, by joy, by attending to the sages, by critical give and take with friends, by fine argumentation with disciples, by clear thinking, by study of Scripture, by study of mishnah, by a minimum of sleep, by a minimum of chatter, by a minimum of pleasure, By a minimum of frivolity, by a minimum of preoccupation with worldly matters, by long-suffering, by generosity, by faith in the sages, by acceptance of suffering…

[…and that’s only 24 of the 48!]

How do we learn Torah and apply it to our lives? Through serious, hard work and dedication, with a minimum of qalut rosh – lightness of the head. And why is this so important? So that we do not become numbers. So that we are names. We are people, with a history, and a past, and a nation, and a homeland, and a whole lot of ancient yearnings.

What is really of value? Not how many of us there are, but rather our stories, our laws, our values, our interpretations, yes, even our holy disagreements. Those are the things that make us human. Those are the things that make us Jewish.

Let the numbers be for the people who are interested in things.

We understand the value of people, of names, of stories, and in telling and re-telling our national saga. Forget the Romans; that is why we, the Jews, are still here. Torah has sustained us until this very moment. Torah gives our names meaning; Torah fills our lives with context and depth.

Numbers? No thanks. As a former engineer, I’ve had my fill of numbers. I’ll take the names instead.

~

Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Congregation Beth Shalom, Pittsburgh, PA, Shabbat morning, 5/23/2020.)

Categories
Sermons

The Nexus of Politics and Judaism – Shabbat Nahamu 5779

I have recently received a few comments that my sermons have been “too political.” So I just wanted to clarify something as a kind of prologue: I try to speak to contemporary issues, issues that are in the air all around us. I cannot speak about abstractions, about things that we are not necessarily thinking about. And the clergy-person that does not address what’s on people’s minds is irrelevant. I am trying my best not to be irrelevant. My job is to teach how our texts guide us in our daily interactions with the world, with both the mundane and the existential.

At the same time, my goal is not to inflame. I do not label any public figures with unfair or inaccurate descriptors. I do not use hyperbolic or inflammatory language. I do try to avoid calling out specific people, where possible, or God forbid, mentioning political parties. It is not my goal to get everybody heated up and arguing at kiddush. On the contrary, I hope to elevate the dialogue by emphasizing what Jewish tradition teaches about the issues in play.

As you know, I think it is essential for us to remember that learning the words and concepts of the Jewish bookshelf improves our lives and our society, and I can tell you this: if the principles of compassion, of derekh eretz / respect, of justice, of acknowledging the kedushah / holiness in each of us and in our relationships with each other were kept in front of us at all times, the world would be a much better place, and perhaps far less polarized.

***

On this day, Shabbat Nahamu, the Shabbat of comfort, my hope is to bring us some comfort in Jewish text. The first Shabbat after Tish’ah BeAv, the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, is so titled because it is the opening salvo of the First Haftarah of Consolation which we read this morning, from the prophet Isaiah. As we count off the seven weeks from Tish’ah BeAv until Rosh Hashanah, we should feel ourselves recovering from the desolation of Tish’ah BeAv, moving from mourning the tragedies of our history to seeing ourselves as elevated in the glory of God’s sovereignty.

Relief from the Arch of Titus in Rome, depicting Roman soldiers carrying away the implements of the Second Temple following the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE

And the challenge facing us at this time is, how do we find comfort when the nation is still reeling from the needless deaths of 31 people two weekends ago? When we in Pittsburgh are still in mourning for the 11 members of our community who were so brutally taken from us nearly 10 months ago?

How do we find comfort when the issues surrounding who is allowed to come into this country, and who is allowed to stay, continue to roil our national conversation?

How can we find comfort when our government is proposing to favor immigrants who are not poor? I’ll tell you this, folks: if such a principle existed when my family members came here in the late 19th and early 20th century, I wouldn’t be standing before you, and most of you would not be here either.

How do we find comfort when our elected officials, many of whom are themselves descended from poor immigrants, continue to support policies that separate families at our borders?

How do we find comfort when we know that foreign actors are continuing to try to disrupt our democratic processes?

How do we find comfort when virtually every day brings some new revelation regarding our ongoing abuse of God’s Creation? This week it was the plastic content in Arctic ice.

At the program on Saturday evening, as our 25-hour fast began, we heard from speakers who addressed our grief. Our member Danielle Kranjec, Senior Jewish Educator at Hillel-Jewish University Center, spoke about how she and her students experienced the 18th of Heshvan. Richard Carrington, who works in the poor neighborhoods of Pittsburgh trying to free children from the cycle of gang violence, spoke about the 203 funerals that he has attended for the kids he has worked with, children he could not save. Representatives of Casa San Jose spoke of the gratitude they had for the haven this country has offered them from dysfunctional Latin American governments and the violent, failed societies from which they came.

How can we indeed feel comforted?

Some might argue that we, the Jews, have to look out for ourselves. And that is certainly true, to some extent. “Im ein ani li mi li?” said our sage Hillel, 2000 years ago (Pirqei Avot 1:14): “If I am not for myself, then who will be for me.” But then Hillel goes on: “Ukhshe’ani le’atzmi, mah ani?” “And when I am ONLY for myself, what am I?”

“Ve’im lo akhshav, eimatai?” “And if not now, when?”

Indeed.

Many of you know another mishnah from earlier in the same chapter of Pirqei Avot (1:2), one that was a kind of Jewish pop song a few decades back:

שִׁמְעוֹן הַצַּדִּיק הָיָה מִשְּׁיָרֵי כְנֶסֶת הַגְּדוֹלָה. הוּא הָיָה אוֹמֵר, עַל שְׁלשָׁה דְבָרִים הָעוֹלָם עוֹמֵד, עַל הַתּוֹרָה וְעַל הָעֲבוֹדָה וְעַל גְּמִילוּת חֲסָדִים

Shim’on the Righteous was one of the last of the Great Assembly. He said: The world rests on three things: on the Torah, and on service [to God], and on acts of lovingkindness.

But let’s face it: three is an excellent literary device if you’d like to make a point. So the rabbis did not limit themselves to only one statement of the things upon which the world stands. So at the end of chapter 1 of Pirqei Avot, there is another take:

רַבָּן שִׁמְעוֹן בֶּן גַּמְלִיאֵל אוֹמֵר, עַל שְׁלשָׁה דְבָרִים הָעוֹלָם עוֹמֵד, עַל הַדִּין וְעַל הָאֱמֶת וְעַל הַשָּׁלוֹם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (זכריה ח) אֱמֶת וּמִשְׁפַּט שָׁלוֹם שִׁפְטוּ בְּשַׁעֲרֵיכֶם

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel used to say: on three things does the world stand: On justice, on truth and on peace, as it is said: “execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates” (Zechariah 8:16).

Whenever this sort of thing happens in traditional texts, you know some rabbi is going to eventually come along to ask the question: why do we need these two statements? Wouldn’t one have been enough? Does the world stand on three things, or six?

Sure enough, in the Jerusalem Talmud (Ta’anit 4:2), there is a passage that addresses this:

תמן תנינן שמעון הצדיק היה משירי כנסת הגדולה הוא היה אומר על שלשה דברים העולם עומד על התורה ועל העבודה ועל גמילות חסדים ושלשתן בפסוק אחד (ישעיהו נא) ואשים דברי בפיך זו תורה ובצל ידי כסיתיך זו גמילות חסדים ללמדך שכל מי שהוא עוסק בתורה ובגמילות חסדים זכה לישב בצילו של הקב”ה

There they taught: Shimon the Righteous was of the remnants of the Men of the Great Assembly. He used to say ‘the world rests on three things – on the Torah on the Service and on Acts of Loving-kindness.’ The three of them are found in one verse (Isaiah 51:16):

וָאָשִׂ֤ים דְּבָרַי֙ בְּפִ֔יךָ וּבְצֵ֥ל יָדִ֖י כִּסִּיתִ֑יךָ לִנְטֹ֤עַ שָׁמַ֙יִם֙ וְלִיסֹ֣ד אָ֔רֶץ וְלֵאמֹ֥ר לְצִיּ֖וֹן עַמִּי־אָֽתָּה׃

[God said] I have put My words in your mouth and sheltered you with My hand; I, who planted the skies and made firm the earth, have said to Zion: You are My people!

“I have put My words in your mouth…” refers to Torah, “…and sheltered you with My hand…” refers to acts of lovingkindness, to teach you that anyone who is occupied with Torah and acts of lovingkindness merits to sit in the shadow of the Holy One.

So the Gemara here is explaining that the first statement of three comes from Isaiah, an affirmation that we are God’s people. Shim’on the Righteous is interpreting this to say that by living Torah, by learning and teaching it and applying it by performing acts of lovingkindness, deeds that reinforce the qedushah between people, we will merit God’s presence in our lives. We will earn a coveted spot in the shadow of the Qadosh Barukh Hu. 

But I must say, I need a little more than that. I can “sit in the shadow of the Qadosh Barukh Hu” all day while the rest of the world crumbles around me. Rather, I need something else. Hence the need for the other statement of three. The Gemara goes on:

תמן תנינן רבן שמעון בן גמליאל אומר על שלשה דברים העולם עומד על הדין ועל האמת והשלום ושלשתן דבר אחד הן נעשה הדין נעשה אמת נעשה שלום א”ר מנא ושלשתן בפסוק אחד (זכריה ח׳:ט״ז) אמת ומשפט שלום שפטו בשעריכם

There, Rabban Shim’on ben Gamliel said: The world stands on three things: on truth, on justice, and on peace, as is said, “Execute truth, justice, and peace within your gates” (Zech. 8:16). These three are interlinked: when justice is done, truth is achieved, and peace is established (Pirqei Avot 1:18).

So this one, says the Gemara, is an entirely different way of viewing the world. Not about the specificities of Torah or service to God, but rather about essential values. We have to seek justice, says the prophet Zechariah. We have to speak truth. That is when peace will come. And Zechariah is even more explicit in the following verse:

וְאִ֣ישׁ ׀ אֶת־רָעַ֣ת רֵעֵ֗הוּ אַֽל־תַּחְשְׁבוּ֙ בִּלְבַבְכֶ֔ם וּשְׁבֻ֥עַת שֶׁ֖קֶר אַֽל־תֶּאֱהָ֑בוּ כִּ֧י אֶת־כָּל־אֵ֛לֶּה אֲשֶׁ֥ר שָׂנֵ֖אתִי נְאֻם־ה׃

And do not contrive evil against one another, and do not love perjury, because all those are things that I hate—declares the LORD.

We have to dedicate ourselves to justice and truth and avoid purposefully reviling one another. And not just justice for us, for the Jews, but for the whole world. That’s what the world stands on. Only then will peace come.

So it may be easy to say that, but how do we get there?

The essence of politics, ladies and gentlemen, is agreement and disagreement. We all agree that there are problems to be solved, and we have multiple paths forward, different ways to approach these challenges. We can agree with each other or disagree, and not only on the solutions, but on the problems themselves.

But we have to do it truthfully, and we have to agree that justice is the abiding principle. And I would like to suggest something that we can all consider, yet another value expressed in Pirqei Avot, and that is “kaf zekhut” – giving somebody with whom you disagree the benefit of the doubt.

Before you dismiss outright what somebody else firmly believes, consider their position, and see if you can even make their argument for them. There is always another side. The only way we can gain true comfort, justice, truth, and peace, is to be able to listen to and seek to understand the other with a fair, even-handed ear, to seek common ground, and to find the political means to bring people together rather than drive them apart.

Only then will we find comfort; only then will we truly sit together in the shadow of the Qadosh Barukh Hu.

~

Rabbi Seth Adelson
(Originally delivered at Congregation Beth Shalom, Shabbat morning, 8/17/2019.)