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Torah reading” Adonay pakad et Sarah”

One concept echoes itself through out the Torah Reading and forms a core element of the Musaf Service. It is the concept of “Remembering”.

It starts with the Torah reading of the first day,  Adonay Pakad et Sarah Kaasher Amar,” The Lord remembered Sarah as He promised.” In the Hafatarah, we are told of Hannah who prayed for a son Vayizkereha Hashem,” The Lord Remembered her.” In the next day’s Haftarah, we are assured that the exiled children of Israel would be saved, Zachor ezkereno od,” I shall surely remember him.” The Musaf Amidah includes ten verses from the Bible in which God remembers His promise to the children of Israel.

I must ask if we are worried so much if God will remember us, as if anyone else will remember us, notice us, look for us.

We may ask, ”Why do we come to shule?”

That question was asked of readers of one of America’s most venerable of Jewish papers, Der Forwerts, The Yiddish paper, Forward, in its popular column, A Bintel Brif, A Bundle of Letters,  a hundred years ago. This was the Jewish Ann Landers & Dear Abbie- before these two Jewish sisters were even born!

Wrote one of the readers in rough paraphrase,” Moishe comes to shule to pray to God. I come to shule to be with Moishe.”

We come to the synagogue, as much as we need to come to be with God, hoping that God remembers us, notices us, as to be with our fellow Jews. That’s why the noise level in synagogues is always so high, because we are talking twice—once to God, and at the same time, to our neighbor. We come to shule, because, in order to find God, we need to find our neighbor. Even if we don’t come to find God, maybe, because we come to be with our neighbor, God will find us.

We Jews are supposed to get together three times a day, seven days a week. Practical life whittles it down to Friday nights and Saturday mornings, and festival, and then, life is hectic and busy, so its some Friday nights, or some Saturday mornings—but at least, now Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, we all try to get together in shule, in the synagogue, planning to be with our neighbors, and hoping, in the process, at this holy season, to bump into God as well.

Togetherness is so crucial for us, and it is so difficult to find. In truth, it has been difficult for ages.

            It is Rosh Hashanah, and the heroes of our season are actually the heroines- Sarah, Hagar, Hannah, and Rachel, from our Torah and Haftarah readings. It is appropriate then, that I bring in another set of heroines form our Torah—Naomi and Ruth, for their story puts our modern concern into a nutshell:

            As you recall, Naomi and her husband moved to a foreign land, where their two sons married local women. The husband and sons both die, Naomi is left alone, alone on her own, alone, a stranger in a strange land. There was only one solution--to head back to her own homeland with what little property and belongings she could still her scrape together. Perhaps her own long-forgotten friends and relatives would have pity on an old widow.

There was one saving grace. She still had one trustworthy daughter-in-law . Just as things looked the bleakest, this young woman shone through like a ray of light on a gloomy, cloudy day.

“ Don’t ask me to leave you”, she told her mother-in-law. “Wherever you go, there I will go, wherever you lodge, there will I lodge. Your people are my people, your God is my God.”

            We have a glimpse of life from the perspective of Naomi, and the solution offered by Ruth.

            This is our­ most modern of stories. For  although the story is set in a date three millennia ago, the fear of loneliness and isolation is very much our present day worry and concern. At least, in antiquity there were organic societies, in which one had ones niche as long as one lived. Even into the good part of the last century, it was still possible to find warmth and support in life from voluntary communities and associations as well.

            Now, however, we Jews have been uprooted, involuntarily and voluntarily, and so have so many other peoples. America, par excellence, is a nation built up by uprooted peoples from all over, uprooted not only physically, but emotionally as well, by the march of industry and modernity itself.

As a result, we no longer belong to the organic societies of antiquity, nor the contractual societies of the past centuries. We are now in the NO society. No permanent society, NO permanent friends, NO permanent home. There is total freedom from the bonds of patronage or parenthood or guilt, and there is also loneliness, isolation, solitude.

        Is this the world we seek to live in?

I raise this issue because I see it too often. Many times, as a pulpit Rabbi, I had requests for aid from absolute strangers to the Jewish community, who had been living in the neighborhood for years, yet who knew no one and had never bothered to come by.

When times were good, they had no need of us, yet, in time of trouble, they discovered that no one had any need of them. Rabbi help me; Rabbi, what can I do; Rabbi, who can I turn to. I must admit, that in these cases, besides a few words of advice, I was pitifully unable to do anything.

To be sure, we moderns are caught in a paradox. We prize our individuality, our personal rights. It is the hallmark of American society, since the earliest colonists and frontiersmen. We sing "I did it my way" and a fast  food chain echoes it in the commercial "Have it your way". It is enshrined in our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, the theology of our civil religion.­

           Despite this, we know, as Josh Billings once said, "Solitude is a good place to visit, but a bad place to stay.” Think about a popular show of several years ago, Cheers, whose theme song was:

“Where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came.” Very few truly want to be alone.

Today, everyone has a Facebook account. It’s another way of creating an intimate community, of just friends, It is a community that now encompasses a few billion, and we find ourselves measuring our importance in the number of friends we have and the number of followers we have on Twitter. I find myself constantly contacted by people looking to connect, from Arab lands, from Africa, from Asia, people with whom I have nothing in common but who are seeking to connect, to be noticed.

 We all want someone else to know our name. Not just Vadonay pakad et Sarah, The Lord remembered Sarah, but, even more so, we want the fellow around the corner, the woman next door, to remember us as well.

            I suggest that for the Jew or anyone else to find himself or herself alone could be the ultimate Hell. Our liturgy for this season includes the poignant prayer, Shma Kolenu, God, Hear our voices.” It then continues  Al tashlikhenu b’et zikna, kichlot kochenu, al taazvenu, Do not throw us away in our time of old age; as our powers wane, do not abandon us."

        My father would tell me that in his synagogue, in his home town of Dolina, in Galicia, the old men of the congregation would begin crying at this verse and my father, as a little child, would begin to weep as her saw his elders weeping.--This was a prayer addressed to God but cried out loudly for the ears family and friend. It carried the point to them – ­“You do not abandon me!"

Our teachers, since antiquity, were keenly aware of the vulnerability of the individual in his aloneness. Thus the greatest threat the Bible had to offer was not the punishment of death, but of karet--of being excised, cut off. Venikhretah nafsho metoch amo,” For he himself shall be cut off from the midst of his people.          “

Rosh Hashanah points us toward the conclusion of this season, Yom Kippur. The very name of this day in English gives eloquent voice to that concern. We speak of Yom Kippur as the “Day of Atonement”. The word “Atonement’ is a compound old English word; it is, in its root, “At--One—Ment”.It is being at one, the opposite of being alienated from God. We can also speak of “At - 0ne – ment”, in regards to our fellow human beings.­ At this season, we seek to be at one with our fellow man and woman.­( This usage is attributed to an early English Bible translator, Tyndale).

            A legend recorded in the Talmud gives voice to classic Jewish sentiment on the need for human attention. In other faiths, great saints are said to flourish on isolation; not so in our tale. The great saint and holy man famous for Tu b'Shvat legends, is Honi Hameagel. We know the basics of the story:he sees an old man planting a tree, laughs at him for wasting his efforts on something he will never enjoy, and the old man retorts that he plants for his children’s children.            Long before Rip Van Winkle, he falls asleep for 70 years, only to awaken to see a Carob tree grown from seedling to fruit­ bearing tree. This part of the tale is oft told.                        

           However, we never hear the rest of the story.

He enters the Rabbinical Academy to hear the teacher declare:

This issue is as clear as it was in the days of the great Honi Hameagel, for he could answer every question. At this, our seventy-year sleeper shouted, "I am he", but who would believe him? At that rejection, he fell faint, prayed for mercy, and died. Jewish saints don' t seek to be alone; they, too, seek to be remembered and  be seen . Thus, the Talmud Concludes, people say: O Hveruta o mituta” Give me companionship or give me death." Notice-not Liberty or death, but companionship or death.

Think about our concept of worship. Many years ago, I saw for the first time, the great Cathedral of Notre Dame. There is an overwhelming sense of transcendance, of the smallness of the human being, of the total power of God. The pious Christian is awed by the the mysterium tremendum, the holy mystery, the totaI otherness  of God . At the core, Cathedral comes from Cathedra—the throne- the seat of authority which the individual must accept.

The same sense is felt inside the walls of the great mosques of Islam­, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the great Mosque at Isfahan in Iran. The essence of Islamic religious architecture is geometric variation in design--circles inside circles, filigreed walls and columns-­ceilings supported  by a multiplicity of columns. All this is intended to convey the sense of the abstractness, of infinity, of the vastness , the total otherness of the mystery of God. The word Mosque comes from the Arabic masjid, from an Aramaic word, for bowing. One bows in the presence of God.

Then, there is the synagogue. There is, in the synagogue, no sense of awe and mystery. Our houses of worship may be beautiful, but, since the Temple of ancient Jerusalem—there is no Notre Dame.

            Is this plainness the result of a lack of piety or devotion? Is the Jew any more or less pious than the Christian or Moslem because of this?

What does synagogue mean? It is from the Greek for  bringing people together.That, in turn, comes from the Hebrew,Beit Haknesset, the place of the gathering of people- from which, the Christians derived the concept of  “Ecclesia”,  the Church, the collection of the people, not the building.

The nature of our synagogue gives witness to the nature of our faith. The shekhinah, God's presence, is not automatically  found within the walls of the synagogue. God’s presence has not been in the Temple Mount since the year 70. It has been in the Exile, in the gathering of the Jewish people wherever they maybe, that God’s presence is felt.

One may not say the Kaddish  in praise  of God when alone in the synagogue. But one may chant the Kaddish in praise of God any where:in the jungle, in the desert, in the concenrtration camp, if one has ten adults. The  people, together--ten adults--a minyan. We are commanded to declare the Holiness of God’s name in public—Kiddush hashem—in public, not alone. Even dining in Judaism prefers company—we need three to eat together, so we can jointly give thanks for our food and our blessings. God is found even in the presence of two engaged  in Torah. God's presence is within the interaction between human beings, not within the dead walls of a building, no matter how awesome, immense, and awe-inspiring it may be.

Be-rov am hadrat meIech-- It is in the multitude of the people that the

King is truly glorified.

If God is enhanced in the workings of society, how much more so then, the human being is enhanced in the midst of a kehillah, a congregation. The human individual, within the context of society, becomes the vehicle for the emanation of God in this world.

            Can we not therefore suggest, that the answer to the human condition of this century is to be found right here, this very day.

Here, within the walls of this congregation,we can find the solution to our modern malaise.

We are no longer born into our communities; we must now actively seek them out, and create them. It is the synagogue which can best offer the Jew his  or her shelter and his or her comfort, as well, partners in joy, strengtheners in sorrow. I know that you have a big task in holding together this wonderful congregation , this Beth El, House of God of nearly a century, but you need to continue; you need each other, you nourish each other.

I close with the thoughts of  Franz Rosenzweig. He had planned to go to the Baptismal font. By chance, he went first, to a very traditional, plain, and unpretentious Kol Nidre service. The presence of the shared community, bound in common prayer, made him reverse his decision. He Iater became a great Iight of Jewish Philosophy in Germany before the Hololcaust. I close with his words: “None of us has solid ground under our feet. Each of us is only held up by the neighborly hands grasping him by the scruff, with the result that we are each held up by the next man, and often, indeed, most of the time, hold each other mutually.”

Let us all join together, in keeping ourselves upright and on solid ground in life and make God’s presence felt in our midst.

Amen

If Not Higher

If Not Higher  Rosh Hashanah First Night 2015

Opening Paragraph of If  Not Higher

            For all that we Jews have, over the course of centuries, prided ourselves on our love of learning and our respect for scholars, the truth is that the good story teller always drew the larger crowd than the greatest Talmid Hacham, even at the time that our sages were in their heyday.

            So, one Rabbi, the story goes, drew huge crowds with his tales, while his colleague drew only a few with his scholarly lectures. The former saw that his colleague was upset at the turnout, so he comforted him with a story.

            “ Let me tell you a story of two men who go to market. You sell the finest diamonds and emeralds and rubies, and I sell knickknacks: buttons, threads, odds and ends of cloth. Which one of us will have more buyers?  Why I will of course, because everyone can afford to buy a cheap needle and thread, but very few can afford your precious stones."

            So while Talmudic arguments and pilpul were the highlights of Jewish genius, a story well told was worth a thousand arguments.

            "Do you want to know the One who spoke and the world came into being? " The Sages  advised,’ Study the Aggadah, the legends and tales, for through them you will know him and cling to his ways and qualities’.” (Sifre ).

            Throughout the ages, Jews spun tales and stories that embedded values. The short story, the tale, the legend, the parable reached a. peak in the mouths of the Hasidic Rebbes, who found that they could break through the black clouds in a person's soul fastest by a quick epigram, a parable, or a short story, faster and with greater effect than with  a long disquisition or a fiery sermon.

            Hence, with your permission, tonight, instead of a sermon, I will serve up a story, one not of my own doing, but by the Yiddish master, Yitzhak Leib Peretz. It is one of the masterpieces of modern Yiddish literature in which he took classical Jewish beliefs and presented them to an audience that was no longer “frum,” no longer pious.

He  was a master of the gothic tale, who wrote in Hebrew and Yiddish, at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th  century. Although himself a secular Jew, he loved to delve into Hasidic and mystic lore.

            The tale I will tell you tonight takes place during the High Holy Days period, just during the time of Slichot.

In the milieu of the story, in East Europe, it was the custom to go to Slichot,  for several  nights just before the first crack of dawn before Rosh Hashanah,  .

            It is a story of what makes for a true prayer for forgiveness of sins. It is, as well, the classic story of true believer, the Hasid, and the sceptic, the Misnagid. Chasidim tended to come from Poland and the western Ukraine, Poylnish or Galicianer, people of emotion and intensity; Misnagdim tended to come from Lithuania, hence  the idea of  Litvak, a cold harsh critical scholar.

            This is the translation by Marie Syrkin:

EARLY every Friday morning, at the time of the Penitential Prayers, the Rabbi of Nemirov would vanish.

    

     He was nowhere to be seen—neither in the synagogue nor in the two Houses of Study nor at a minyan.  And he was certainly not at home.  His door stood open; whoever wished could go in and out; no one would steal from the rabbi.  But not a living creature was within.

                Where could the rabbi be?  Where should he be?  In heaven, no doubt.  A rabbi has plenty of business to take care of just before the Days of Awe.  Jews, God bless them, need livelihood, peace, health, and good matches.  They want to be pious and good, but our sins are so great, and Satan of the thousand eyes watches the whole earth from one end to the other.  What he sees he reports; he denounces, informs.  Who can help us if not the rabbi!

      That is what the people thought.

      But once a Litvak came, and he laughed.  You know the Litvaks.  They think little of the Holy Books but stuff themselves with Talmud and law.  So this Litvak points to a passage in the Gemarah—it sticks in your eyes—where it is written that even Moses, our Teacher, did not ascend to heaven during his lifetime but remained suspended two and a half feet below.  Go argue with a Litvak!

      So where can the rabbi be?

      “That’s not my business,” said the Litvak, shrugging.  Yet all the while—what a Litvak can do!—he is scheming to find out.

      That same night, right after the evening prayers, the Litvak steals into the rabbi’s room, slides under the rabbi’s bed, and waits.  He’ll watch all night and discover where the rabbi vanishes and what he does during the Penitential Prayers.

      Someone else might have got drowsy and fallen asleep, but a Litvak is never at a loss; he recites a whole tractate of the Talmud by heart.

      At dawn he hears the call to prayers.

      The rabbi has already been awake for a long time.  The Litvak has heard him groaning for a whole hour. 

      Whoever has heard the Rabbi of Nemirov groan knows how much sorrow for all Israel, how much suffering, lies in each groan.  A man’s heart might break, hearing it.  But a Litvak is made of iron; he listens and remains where he is.  The rabbi, long life to him, lies on the bed, and the Litvak under the bed.

      Then the Litvak hears the beds in the house begin to creak; he hears people jumping out of their beds, mumbling a few Jewish words, pouring water on their fingernails, banging doors.  Everyone has left.  It is again quiet and dark; a bit of light from the moon shines through the shutters.

      (Afterward the Litvak admitted that when he found himself alone with the rabbi a great fear took hold of him.  Goose pimples spread across his skin, and the roots of his earlocks pricked him like needles.  A trifle:  to be alone with the rabbi at the time of the Penitential Prayers!  But a Litvak is stubborn.  So he quivered like a fish in water and remained where he was.)

      Finally the rabbi, long life to him, arises.  First he does what befits a Jew.  Then he goes to the clothes closet and takes out a bundle of peasant clothes:  linen trousers, high boots, a coat, a big felt hat, and a long wide leather belt studded with brass nails.  The rabbi gets dressed.  From his coat pocket dangles the end of a heavy peasant rope.

      The rabbi goes out, and the Litvak follows him.

      On the way the rabbi stops in the kitchen, bends down, takes an ax from under the bed, puts it in his belt, and leaves the house.  The Litvak trembles but continues to follow.

      The hushed dread of the Days of Awe hangs over the dark streets.  Every once in a while a cry rises from some minyan reciting the Penitential Prayers, or from a sickbed.  The rabbi hugs the sides of the streets, keeping to the shade of the houses.  He glides from house to house, and the Litvak after him.  The Litvak hears the sound of his heartbeats mingling with the sound of the rabbi’s heavy steps.  But he keeps on going and follows the rabbi to the outskirts of the town.

      A small wood stands behind the town.

      The rabbi, long life to him, enters the wood.  He takes thirty or forty steps stops by a small tree.  The Litvak, overcome with amazement, watches the rabbi take the ax out of his belt and strike the tree.  He hears the tree creak and fall.  The rabbi chops the tree into logs and the logs into sticks.  Then he makes a bundle of the wood and ties it with the rope in his pocket.  He puts the bundle of wood on his back, shoves the ax back into his belt, and returns to the town.

      He stops at a back street beside a small broken-down shack and knocks at the window.

      “Who is there?” asks a frightened voice.  The Litvak recognizes it as the voice of a sick Jewish woman.

      “I,” answers the rabbi in the accent of a peasant.

      “Who is I?”

      Again the rabbi answers in Russian.  “Vassil.”

      “Who is Vassil, and what do you want?”

      “I have wood to sell, very cheap.” And, not waiting for the woman’s reply, he goes into the house.

      The Litvak steals in after him.  In the gray light of the early morning he sees a poor room with broken, miserable furnishings.  A sick woman, wrapped in rags, lies on the bed.  She complains bitterly, “Buy?  How can I buy?  Where will a poor widow get money?”

      “I’ll lend it to you,” answers the supposed Vassil.  “It’s only six cents.”

      “And how will I ever pay you back?” said the poor woman, groaning.

      “Foolish one,” says the rabbi reproachfully.  “See, you are a poor sick Jew, and I am ready to trust you with a little wood.  And I am sure you’ll pay.  While you, you have such a great and mighty God and you don’t trust him for six cents.”

      “And who will kindle the fire?” said the widow.  “Have I the strength to get up?  My son is at work.”

      “I’ll kindle the fire,” answers the rabbi.

      As the rabbi put the wood into the oven he recited, in a groan, the first portion of the Penitential Prayers.

      As he kindled the fire and the wood burned brightly, he recited, a bit more joyously, the second portion of the Penitential Prayers.  When the fire was set he recited the third portion, and then he shut the stove.

      The Litvak who saw all this became a disciple of the rabbi.

     And ever after, when another disciple tells how the Rabbi of Nemirov ascends to heaven at the time of the Penitential Prayers, the Litvak does not laugh.  He only adds quietly, “If not higher.”!

.

*******

What message does the Rabbi of Nemirov have for us today?.

            Actions are more than words. To sit in the house of worship alone does not lead to heaven.

Our Rabbi is showing the true Jewish path- Maasim Tovim, the doing of good deeds, and Gmilut Chasadim, acts of lovingkindness, of which one can never do enough.

In the course of the good deed there must menschlichkeit, a sense of basic decency, to it. It cannot be done automatically, impersonally. The Rabbi uses the occasion to teach that sick woman a vital lesson-not to give up, not to lose hope, even though she lies alone, weak, helpless. She must remember to have faith—that is the lesson he gives her.

We must set aside our cynicism, our disparagement of those things we can not measure, count, or quantify. The Talmid Chacham needs the Chasid, the mind needs the heart.

He reminds us that the good deed does not replace the religious deed, rather it goes hand in hand. Therefore, as he lights the fire, he recites the prayer!

Finally, we realize that we are great when we lower ourselves. By lowering himself to the service of a power woman, in the guise of a simple wood cutter, the Rabbi elevated himself to the highest levels of heaven, if not higher.

I pray that all of you will, in the course of the following days, take the tale to heart. Go out of your way to give someone who needs it a helping hand; at the same time, give someone who needs it the courage, the faith to keep on going. Do so as Jews of faith. Then perhaps , we 'll meet at some point, Oyb Nisht Nokh Hekher, If not higher than heaven!

Shabbat Tshuvah and Lady Macbeth

Shabbat  Tshuvah  and Lady Macbeth   

One afternoon, having nothing better to do, I dialed a phone number. It was from an ad in the local paper, which had only the message on it “Shalom” and “ Call this number”. So I did. I could guess in advance what it was for, but, out of curiosity, I dialed anyway.

On the other end, an answering machine came on. The taped voice was that of an elderly, Yiddish accented man presenting what seemed to be a very Jewish explanation of the nature of sacrifices and the Torah, using some traditional Jewish commentaries. One could have assumed that this was a worthy project, a “ Dial a word of Torah”, sponsored by some yeshiva. Of course at the very and came the punch line: since there were no longer any sacrifices to act as a mechanism of forgiveness, that meant there was no means of obtaining of atonement from God – – unless – – this was the clincher – – one accepted Yeshua the Moshiah as the ultimate sacrifice.

I knew when I dialed that that would be the purpose of the number, but his taped “ evangelical drashah” speaks to an ancient question: how is atonement achieved? How can we feel ourselves forgiven by a God of justice for crimes which we, in our guilt, see as horrible indictments against us.

It doesn’t require any demonic force to pursue us in our guilt. We are quite capable in our own imaginings to create our own hell of self-punishment.

I mentioned Lady Macbeth. You know the plot from Shakespeare.  Lady Macbeth has been the accomplice to her husband’s murder of the King and cannot forget her actions. Night after night she gets up from her sleep to try ineffectually to remove the stains of blood which only she can see.

“Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red. “

A great line if ever there was one, followed by this well-known one-liner:

“Out, damned spot! Out, I say”.

Lady Macbeth’s suffering was well deserved. However, Shakespeare has given us one of the great examples of the crippled neurotic, a classic themes of the literature of psychiatry :We have the unforgiving pursuit by some real or often imagined sin which cripples the neurotic in a myriad of fashions.

One central purpose of this season from Rosh Hashanah  to Yom Kippur is to enable us to find relief from the hounds of hell, whether we picture them as a theological reality or a mental aberration. How is atonement achieved?

There’s a classic debate in rabbinic lore in which different verses of the Bible answer just that the same question. It is the debate between the various strands of biblical thought: the schools of wisdom, prophecy, poetry, and priesthood.( Pesikta d Rav Kahana 24:7)

Asks wisdom, what will become of the sinner? She answers, “ Evil pursues the sinner.” In such a perspective, this is a world of cause and effect, a world of unbending determinism. Evil reaps evil and there is no escape. Lady  Macbeth as well as Lord Macbeth himself  reap the consequences of the murderous plot. That is their Karma.

Ask the prophets, ”What will become of the sinner?” They answer,” The soul that sins, it shall die.” For the prophets, the sense of justice, of righteous indignation is paramount and overwhelming. Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus: let justice be done even though the world be destroyed. The crimes and sins of the people cannot be wiped off the slate. Thus when we read on Yom Kippur the story of Jonah, we encounter such a prophet. The people of Nineveh have sinned? Then let them be destroyed, no matter what. I have sinned: throw me into the ocean!

Ask Psalms, what will become of the sinner? He answers,” Let the sinners cease out of the earth.” It is the rhetorical flourish of the poet. He echoes the criminology of the writer of Proverbs, of wisdom, and theological imperative of the prophet.” Let sinners cease out of the earth and the wicked shall be no more.” With one fell swoop, the entire kit and caboodle are undone

Ask the Torah, ask the school of priests, what will become of the sinner? She answers,”Bring the guilt offering and achieve atonement thereby.” This is the school of the ritualist, the theologian and the formal religionists. Since guilt is there, and either the mind or God is unforgiving and unbending, then we must engage in a ritual act. Man is after all “Homo symbolicus” the human being of symbols. That which distinguishes us from animals is our ability create and think in terms of symbols. All actions and objects exist in the realm of symbolism. That which is been carried out in a phenomenal world can only be undone in the world of metaphor and imagery. Hence the dance of the witch doctor or the sacrifice of the ancient temple, or the need to posit, as evangelists who wish to convert us claim,  some universal, overwhelming sacrifice to end all sacrifices, of the son of God. It is also the answer, once again, of the neurotic, who seeks, through the use symbolic action, relief from the torments of conscience.

Is this the end of the conversation? The Midrash covered all the branches of the Bible but did anyone ask God what he thought? The Midrash continues to ask God. What is God’s answer for us? Not Wisdom, not Psalms, not Prophets, not even the Torah. Rather, we ask, “What does God want? What will become of the sinner?

“ Let him do Teshuvah , carry out the act of return, of change, and all will be forgiven.”

What does God seek? Not cruelty, not harsh justice, not inexorable law, nor any magic approach. Ultimately, God speaks as the teacher to his pupils – – to the sinner, he says – – you can grow, you can mature, you can change your actions. It is within your grasp, within your ability to attain atonement – – not through animal sacrifices, not through any mediators in heaven, but through your own readiness to grow and change. The road to Teshuvah, to return to the path of good, is continually open, never blocked, never closed off, to any of us at any time Our path to reconciliation with God, with ourselves, without conscience, and with our fellow human beings, is forever open to us to the actions we choose to do.

May we always indeed take the path of the right choice.  Amen.

When the Messiah Fails to Come on Time

When the Messiah Fails to Come on Time

We are a people of contradictions and extremes. How so?

Two weeks ago, we had Tisha B’ Ab with its remembrance of past tragedies and its heavy burden of sadness that it placed in the collective Jewish consciousness. Last week we had Tu B’ Av, the 15th of Av. It is the Jewish version of the TV show, The Bachelor! It is said that there were no happier days, for one this day, as well as on Yom Kippur, the maidens of Jerusalem would go out to the vineyards and dance in hopes of being selected by some eligible bachelor.

Our long history of tragedies has made us forget the happiness that should have been the lot of the Jewish people.           

We read a series of three Haftaroth before Tisha B Av, whose theme was that of warning of disaster. Now, we have a series of seven Haftaroth whose theme is that of consolation..

After the destruction, there is the promise of rebirth. It is that promise of rebirth that has kept us going as Jews despite the pall of tragedy that hung over us. It is the message of hope, as it was worded in Hatikvah:”Hatikvah bat shnot alpayim”, the Hope of restoration to our land in independence and dignity, the hope of two thousand years.

            We have had a basic Jewish understanding that all will be right in its own good time, that the days of the Messiah would essentially be a better, more righteous and more just version of the ancient kingdom of David.

            But what happens when you just can’t wait any longer, when the burden of exile becomes unbearable? What happens when the nations of the world deal overly harsh with us? I want to give you some examples from our past and see how it sheds light on the way people behave, not just Jews, but Christians and Moslems as well, because, in truth, not just us Jews await.

            When Bar Cochba failed as  Messiah, there was a push by Rabbinic scholars to downplay any attempts at speeding on the end of days. Nevertheless, the hope and longing for a solution to the exile and pain of Jewish existence could push us over a cliff-literally.

            In the fifth century, there appeared someone who called himself Moses and captivated the hearts of the Jews of the Island of Crete. They gave up all their possessions and gathered at a cliff overlooking the ocean. He assured them that he was, like Moses, able to split the sea so they could march on to the Land of Israel. They had but to start walking—off the cliff and into the ocean, never to be seen again. Jewish  lemmings!  

            Another would be Messiah appeared around the time of the Crusades, when the Moslem world itself was in turmoil. One David Alroi took the opportunity to start an armed rebellion of Jews against the ruling Sultan. The Sultan quickly put down the rebellion and executed the would be redeemer.

            Yet another would be Messiah was a renowned and respected Kabbalist, Abraham Aboulafia.at the end of the 13^th century.

            An inner voice told him that it was time to convert the Pope Nicholas III to Judaism, so he made his way to Rome. The Pope threatened to burn him at the stake but Aboulafia, unafraid of threats of execution, made his way to Pope only to discover that the Pope had died of a stroke the night before he arrived.

            The most disturbing event took place as a result of the fall out of the Spanish expulsion and then the massacre of Polish Jewry by the Cossacks under Chmielnicki.

            Once again, a new Messiah arose, and this one carried the entire Jewish world, east, West, North, South, along with him,  Sabbatai Zwi, of Smyrna. He carried out bizarre acts, marrying a Sefer Torah and then marrying a woman who was well known as a prostitute. He issued a new blessing, “Matir issurim”-“ Who has permitted that which is forbidden” and engaged in “Mitzvah habaah be averah”, committing a sin for the sake of mitzvah.

            These acts, he assured his followers, were symbolic of the mystical war that he was waging against the dark Satanic forces. Today, we would escribe his behavior as bi-polar or manic-depressive. He and his followers saw it as a mystical battle of light against darkness. He had an ardent promoter and theologian on his side, Nathan of Gaza, who provided the Kabbalistic and theological justifications for Sabbatai Zwi’s bizarre behavior.

            The entire Jewish world, so desperate for an end to its troubles, within a few short years doubled down and bet on him that he was indeed the Messiah. Even the Christian world as far as England was abuzz with speculation.

            Then, in 1666, he went into the Ottoman Sultan. The Sultan gave him three choices- be shot with a volley of arrows or be burned at the stake—if he would survive it certainly would be proof that he was the Messiah-- or become a Moslem.

            Sabbatai Zwi chose to become a Moslem.

            That should have been the end of it but Jews kept on believing in him, believing that this was but the outward symbol of a hidden act of destroying the dark forces. Most remained devout Jews, just waiting for the forces of darkness to explode. Others copied their Messiah by becoming outwardly Moslems, but remaining as secret Jews, Donmeh, repeating what many of their ancestors had done as Marranos. 

            There remained here and there, into the last century, pockets of followers of Sabbatai Zwi in Turkey. Many of them became prominent in Turkish society and were active in the Young Turks movement that lead to the end of the reign of the Sultan and the rise of Kamal Ataturk, the founder of Modern Turkey—who himself had attended a school run by Donmeh members. Islamists in Turkey still blame the fall of the Sultan on us Jews as a result.

            It did not end there however. A century later, Jacob Frank claimed to be his reincarnation, engaged in a bizarre sex cult, and took his community as a whole, to be baptized in Lwow. His daughter, Eva, was declared the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, and for a while, they were favorites at the court of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Their followers continued on down to the beginning to the Holocaust. Many descendants of Sabbatean believers became prominent in French revolution and modern Jewish movements as well. One such descendent, Luis Dembitz Brandeis, became a Supreme Court Justice here.

            This is truly a litany of Jewish oddities and failings.

            The basic Jewish response to all of these false Messiahs was to ban or restrict kabbalah. It was to shut down speculation and present ourselves as paragons of logic. We could have either the rigorous Talmudic logic of the Lithuanian Jews, or the logic of enlightened Jews of the modern Reform, Conservative and Orthodox schools. Chasidism was in some ways an approach to water down mystical speculation for the poorer Jews of Poland and Ukraine.          For some Jews,  the fervor  of Messianism was transferred to the political realm, as early as the French revolution. For many Jews, the hopes of Communism drew them as did the earlier Messiahs. The Zionist revolution as well, for sure drew upon the inspiration of a reborn people promised by the Prophets

            However, for the majority of Jews, an inner dynamism and creative realm was shut out because of the fear of this wave of irrationality. Something of Judaism was lost in the process.

Now, what we as Jews experienced has been experienced in its variations in the Christian and Moslem world as well.

Christianity had essentially internalized the messianic era into personal salvation, yet the desire for redemption of the world in history never truly disappeared among them either. The Christians were always hoping for a Second Coming.

I recall back in the 70’s when evangelical Christians were expecting the end of days with great expectation. I was Rabbi in Virginia and Pat Robertson, the great televangelist, had his headquarters in our area. My members told me that some of their neighbors had come over to them and told them, out of friendship and love, that they could have the keys to their cars and houses after the “Rapture”. At the rapture, which would mark the end of days, which was just around the corner, the souls of the righteous would be plucked out of their earthly existence and taken straight to heaven. We Jews could have free use of the cars and house in the short time that would follow before the world would be overthrown. This belief gave rise to a successful series of books and movies, so we could say that it was a very benign and harmless form of end of world expectations.

            It is only in this light, of expectations of an imminent end of the world as we know it, that we can understand why there is so much turmoil in the Middle East. Islam too shares with Judaism the Messianic expectation. It even uses that word, Masiḥ, when Jesus would return, together with the Mahdi, the Redeemer, who would overthrow the Dajjal, the Anti-Christ, before the Day of Judgement.(In current preaching, Dajjal now mean the great Satan and the Little Satan, America and Israel.) Notice how Islam uses themes that are both Jewish and Christian.        Do we wish to understand the long term vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran-- it is a harbinger, a forerunner, in the Shiite version, of the final battle. Hence, the great worry about such a regime getting its hands on a nuclear weapon. We are worried that they really believe what they teach. Hence, the great skepticism about the value of the nuclear arms agreement with Iran.

             If we wish to know what is the driving force and inspiration of the Sunni Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, what is the inspiration that draws the disaffected from Europe and even America, it is because this too is a part of the battle of the end of days. The cruelty and brutality is part and parcel of the coming end of days. It is taking an element of Islamic belief and pushing it to its farthest bounds.

            This rush to hasten the end of days still gnaws at us Jews. To that extent, the Jewish terrorists who burned the Palestinian baby also sprayed” Long Live the Messiah , the King.” If there is any consolation for us, it is that such a manifestation of end-of-days mania among us Jews is rare and is hunted and shut  down.

            Here is a question for us—this image, of a final redemption, is one that gives us all hope, yet, it can drive to such disastrous consequences, cross the board. Can we find , in our heritage, a teaching that gives this new meaning that will still bring us hope, without the destruction.

            Is there a Messianic vision that can speak to us spiritually, that can give us hope and expectation without derailing us as it has so often in the past?

            There is.

            We as Jews have always recognized that something is amiss in the political and social world. It is expressed in the concept of “ Galut”, Exile. Wrapped up with it is the concept of “Shekhinah be galuta”; God’s presence is in exile with us. The concept was intended to remind us that even while we may suffer as a people God is with us to protect us.

            In the thread of Kabbalistic thought, that suppressed underground of Jewish thinking, that concept took on an added meaning, that even God is in exile, that something has inherently gone wrong in the perfect universe from the moment that Adam sinned. This line of thought led to the idea that, in order to create the universe, God had to withdraw from it,”Tzimztum” and that very act of creation had resulted, like the big bang of physicists, in a shattering of the vessels that channel divine power, “shvirat hakelim”. There was a mixing of the “ Nitzatzot hakodesh”,sparks of the divine together with dark forces of matter, the shell, “klipot”. In short, the universe itself is in physical and spiritual disarray.

            What then is the purpose of the human being? The human being is created for the purpose of “ tzorech gavohah”, a higher necessity, that of elevating the lost sparks of divinity in the universe. The first Adam failed in this task and it has been given over to the Jewish people to continue. The tool of the Jew is the fulfilling of the mitzvoth.

            You must recognize that there resides in this a powerful message:

            God needs us to complete the redemption of the world, the “ geulah”, in a process of   “tikun”, repair.

            It is no longer God destroying us and exiling us, but we ourselves when we fall back and allow the forces of darkness to take over our lives.

            The human being is no longer just another creature, nor even just a servant of God. The human being, especially in this Jewish variation, is now the agent of redemption.

            Think of this as a way of inspiring ourselves every day.

            If I carry out a mitzvah, it’s not just a nice Jewish custom. It is my way of redeeming the world as well as myself

            If I care for my neighbor as myself, I am not just being nice or being self-interested, but I am carrying out an act of redemption.

            If I strengthen my involvement with my fellow Jews, I can be strengthening our “Salvation Army”.

            If we are involved in making physical life on earth better, through science and technology, as well as through fair and just government, we are involved in redeeming the world.

            Even our collective explorations of the physics of the sub-atomic world and the explorations of space and the universe, perhaps these too will be part of the redemption of the world.

            In this, our lives get renewed vigor and meaning, drawing upon the richness of Jewish thought and spirit. We would have no need for violence or mania to achieve this, no false messiahs and messianic pretenders. Instead, step by step, in our daily deeds, we each and every one of us brings about the unity of God’s name and the redemption, the Geulah, of all.

The Messiah is Born on Tisha B”Av

The Messiah is Born on Tisha B”Av

            Today is the Ninth of Av, Tisha B”Av, but since it is Shabbat, we postpone the observance of this date to this evening and tomorrow, so as not to mar the sanctity of Shabbat with our fasting. Note that we never postpone Yom Kippur, which is also a fast day, to Sunday. Yom Kippur maybe a day without food, but it is far from a day of tragedy; it is instead, a day of joyful expectation leading to “At-one-ment.”.

            One day, too, Tisha B Av will be a joyful day as well. It was already stated by the prophet Zechariah: This is what the Lord Almighty says: "The fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh and tenth months will become joyful and glad occasions and happy festivals for Judah. "( 8:19). The fast of the fourth month, counting from Pesach forward, is the 17th of Tammuz, when the walls of the Temple were breached. The fast of the fifth month is Tisha B Av, when the Temple itself fell. The fast of the seventh month, the day after Rosh Hashanah, mourns the murder of Gedaliah, the High Commissioner appointed by the Babylonian overlords, which marked the beginning of the disastrous rebellion that led to the destruction. The fast of the tenth day, The Tenth of Tevet, marks the start of the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem.

            In other words, the Jewish exiles, sitting in Babylonia had already established this series of memorials. When, two generations later, they were allowed back to Israel, this practice of fasting had been deeply ingrained. The prophet Zechariah, looking at this return, looks forward to a time when these fast days would be transformed into days of rejoicing, because the Sacred Temple and the Kingdom of Judah would once again be established. History would come to an end.

            However, we know that Zechariah was premature. The Temple was rebuilt, bigger and better and new kings were established on the throne of Israel, but it seems that the mourning, in one sense or another, continued. Things were not yet perfect.

            And then—the Temple was destroyed again, on Tisha B’ Av, 600 years after it was reestablished. Again, on Tisha B’Av, the great Bar Kochba rebellion was put down at Betar and the remains of Jerusalem were plowed under. We would have to learn to live without a Temple, without a society under our own leadership, and eventually, without our land. For some 1900 years, we would live at the tolerance of other peoples and rulers, and often, we would not live. Tisha B’ Av became a day of even greater mourning as other events were associated with that date in history- the expulsion of the  Jews from medieval France and England, and then the expulsion of the largest and most prosperous Jewish community of its day, the Jewish community of Spain, in 1492. Even in modern times, it became associated with the date of the official start of the Final Solution, when  Himmler received Nazi Party authorization to begin and with the date of the start of the deportations from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka and death.

            We can see, then, why Zechariah’s prophecy would be so very important for us. We would have been lost as a people in permanent depression had it not been for the words of Zechariah and the prophets that preceded and followed him.

            What kept us going, even before the Temple was destroyed the first time, was a concept that we call in Hebrew “ Yemot Hamashiach”, the Days of the Messiah, or Messianic expectation.  Messiah itself comes from the Hebrew word “ mashiach” for anointed with oil, a ceremony in which one was designated for high office, as a priest or king. Even a pagan king, Cyrus of Persia, would be called God’s Messiah by the Prophet Isaiah for opening the gates of the land of Israel to the exiles from Babylonia. It soon became a term to designate the rightful heir to the throne of King David.

This concept appears in the sense of destruction and restoration in the text of the Torah itself, long before there is a Temple to destroy, long before there is a king or Davidic lineage.

            At a time when both Kingdoms, Israel and Judah, were powerful and prosperous, the Prophet Amos preached of a “ Day of the Lord”, when the wicked would be judged and overthrown. When the Northern kingdom fell, the Prophet Isaiah already envisioned an heir to the throne of King David who would usher in a period of great peace, when” the lion shall dwell with the lamb”. In short, to paraphrase a rabbinic comment, God creates a cure before he brings the illness. A later Jewish legend would say that the Messiah was born on Tisha B Av itself. From the depth of destruction would come the redemption. (Yerushalmi Berakhot 2:4)

            In the intervening years, before the destruction of the Second Temple, every generation saw itself as the last, as being on the verge of the end of days, as being participants on the war of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness, as we find in the writings of the dead Sea sects and the Apocrypha (books from the close of the Biblical, period that were never included in the Jewish canon).    

            Jesus may have been a member or leader of such a movement and  may have seen himself as a precursor to the Messiah or have been seen by his followers as the Messiah. He promulgated his famous ethical statements towards one’s enemies, “Turn the other cheek” ,” Give your cloak.” (These statements themselves are adapted quotes from earlier Biblical verses). Many Christian scholars see these not as ethical directives for all ages but as a conditional statement of faith because the end is nigh. Why fight and why hold on to possessions when it would all be swept away overnight and the wicked would get their comeuppance and the righteous would be rewarded.

            It was this great anticipation of a dramatic end of all that is that gave rise to the disastrous rebellions against Rome; from this moment on the concept of a Messianic kingdom was dramatically changed.

            For the early community of followers of Jesus, as the dead Jesus failed to return to overthrow Rome, a new explanation was needed. Thus  Paul would find end of days not in the future, but in the present, a salvation of the individual souil, not the nation. This was the great radical departure of the new religion of Christianity, a split from all notions of redemption in history that were essential to Judaism. The fall of the Temple a few decades later was the catalyst that forced the separation of Christianity from Judaism and sealed this version of the new religion. Christianity never shook its Jewish roots completely and would, in time, come right back to the Jewish concept of the Messianic era, but as an afterthought. The idea of a future redeemer would find its place in Islam as well in the figure of a Mahdi  who would defeat evil at the end of days..

            Jews, in turn, were devastated; the longing for a Messiah had given rise to horror of war and internal division. The Sages now gave this future vision a critical revision. The Messiah would come, in and of his own time, as God would determine, still within the framework of the nation and world history, but in God’s own good time. At best, it could be achieved only by personal and communal perfection, not by war. Thus, a tale arose, that the Messiah could be found sitting at the gates of Rome, symbol of the children of Darkness. He would be disguised as a sickly beggar who is constantly bandaging his wounds.

“R. Joshua b. Levi met Elijah, , , ‘When will the Messiah come?’ — ‘Go and ask him himself,’ was his reply. ‘Where is he sitting?’  ‘At the entrance.’ And by what sign may I recognize him?’  ‘He is sitting among the poor lepers: all of them untie the ir bandages all at once, and retire them all at once, whereas he unwraps and rebandages each separately, thinking,’ should I be wanted, I must not be delayed.’  

 So he went to him and greeted him, saying, ‘peace upon you, Master and Teacher.’ ‘Peace upon you, O son of Levi,’ he replied. ‘When will you come Master?’ asked he, ‘Today’, was his answer.

On his returning to Elijah,.he complained: ‘He spoke falsely to me, stating that he would come to-day, but he has not!’ Elijah answered him, ‘This is what he said to you, the first word. ‘Today’ (of a quotation from Psalms 95:7),’ Today, if you will listen to his voice.’( Sanhedrin 98a).

In other words, the coming of a Davidic savior would be depend on the merits of the Jewish people. It could not be forced by violent armed rebellion.

Of course, the odds of all Jews being so pious are slim, so other sages suggested the Messiah will come when all is Jews have fallen so low in morality and behavior that he will have no choice but to step in.

Finally, the accepted position was” Ayn Dohakin et Haketz.” Don’t try to force the end of days.” It is all in God’s hands.

            Thus the Rabbis claimed that God made  three oaths with the people of Israel and the nations: One, that Israel shall not go up as in a military siege to reconquer the land of Israel; the second,  Israel would not rebel against the nations of the world; and the third that the idolaters would not oppress Israel too much’.  To this was added the comment that the prophets would not reveal the secret of the end of days and  the people would not force the end.” ( Talmud Ketuboth 110-111

            Thus the speculation and the drive to obtain an end of oppression by force were pushed off into the future and left to the hands of God. In classical Rabbinic thinking, the idea of the Messiah would not be a cataclysmic end of days, but an era of social and political peace for the Jewish people.  Thus, the Rambam gave what may be the classical formulation of the Messianic concept:

Do not presume that in the Messianic age any facet of the world's nature will change or there will be innovations in the work of creation. Rather, the world will continue according to its pattern. . . .

Our Sages taught: "There will be no difference between the current age and the Messianic era except the emancipation from our subjugation to the gentile kingdoms."

The Sages and the prophets did not yearn for the Messianic era in order to have dominion over the entire world, to rule over the gentiles, to be exalted by the nations, or to eat, drink, and celebrate. Rather, they desired to be free to involve themselves in Torah and wisdom without any pressures or disturbances, so that they would merit the world to come . . .

In that era, there will be neither famine or war, envy or competition for good will flow in abundance and all the delights will be freely available as dust. The occupation of the entire world will be solely to know God.

Therefore, the Jews will be great sages and know the hidden matters, grasping the knowledge of their Creator according to the full extent of human potential, 'The world will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the ocean bed.( Isaiah 11:9)" ( Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Melachim, Chapter 12)

            Note his insistence on awaiting and not pushing for an end of all; we may consider this the basic Jewish understanding of the ages before and after. We will know that the Messiah has come-after the fact, the Rambam assured his readers ( Ch. 11). That kind of viewpoint enabled Jews to establish communities and prosper in Babylonia and North Africa and the Rhineland and Spain. More or less, we would accommodate ourselves to the gentiles, they would not overly oppress us, and we would be fine until the Messiah would come. With this outlook, it would be easy for us to resist the blandishments of the Christian missionaries, as it would be easy to refute their claim that the Messiah had come in the form of Jesus. It would be easy for us to resist the subjugation under Islam and the extortion protection money we had to pay , the jizzya, because we could assure ourselves that these religions, as burdensome as their believers were upon us, were still a stepping stone for the nations of the world to attain the knowledge of God It would all be straightened out at the end

Thus, as Maimonides could declare, among his 13 principles of faith:

“Ani Maamin: I believe with perfect faith, in the coming of the Messiah. And even though he delay, nevertheless, I wait for him.”

Now, I will leave for another Shabbat, the quandary of what happens to our belief in the Messiah when the nations of the world have violated their oath not to oppress us too harshly.