The Essence of Living as a Jew-The Shofar calls to Return

  The Essence of Living as a Jew-The Shofar calls to return

 

              Many of you may recall our children who would run up and down the corridors here.  Our middle one, Adi, is now doing well in business, but when we came here,back in 1980, he was just 2 years old himself.

              So, I am going to open about the best toy he ever received.

I had one of my own, which sat high up on a shelf in the house, and he would always beg me to take it down so he cou!d play with it. Mine was too large and costly, however;and the answer was, most often, no. By the way, I am not talking about a shotgun on the shelf.

              Finally, one summer, when we were in Israel on a visit, and he went to.his grandfather's store in Jerusalem—some of you may have been there. He saw something that caught his eye and his Saba, his grandfather, of blessed memory, having a soft heart , as grandfather’s are supposed, gave it to him.

              The toy was nothing less than a shofar, and surely there are few gift items,  which are more typically and inherently Jewish, that a child can play with, than a shofar. Also, it is the noisiest of all Jewish objects, and since then, not only did our kids love to blast tekiah, but our grandkids as well.

              The shofar rivets our attention.

              It is intriguing because of its antiquity. Even with the most intricate of carvings, it remains one of the most primitive of instruments, dating back well before the start of written history .

              The shofar is fickle--it can never be counted on, since it depends upon the chance shape that nature gave the particular horn, the skill of the carver who hollowed it out, the natural deterioration that the horn undergoes, the skill and the mood of the baal tekiah, the one entrusted with the blast of the shofar.

              Its tone sends a chill down our spine because of its very primitiveness.

              Why then, do we still use the shofar, when it has been surpassed in quality, tone,and dependability by over 3500 years of musical development? I can even get a decent musical sound out of playing an I-phone like a flute. Hi Tech music. Why bother the poor ram or antelope for a horn?

              Even in Abraham's day, it had been well outmoded. In ancient Ur, his presumed birthplace, we find evidence of flutes and harps a thousand years before his time, a millennia and a half  before Moses.Even the Bible records the use of metal trumpets and in the ancient Temple, silver and gold instruments were sounded together with the Shofar.

              So why stick to it?

              When the Roman’s had indoor plumbing and sophisticated roads and aqueducts, we still used the Shofar. At that time, Rabbi Joshua ban Karcha, the teacher of Rabbi Akiba, gave the following reasons for the use of the ram's horn, in particular, as opposed to other instruments on this day of remembrance: The ram's horn, he claimed, was created for the children of Israel--it was with the blast of the shofar that the Torah was given at Sinai; it was with the blast of the Shofar that the walls of Jericho fell; it will the the shofar that will sound on the appearance of the Messiah; and it is the shofar that will be sounded by God at the ingathering of all our exiles. In short, the shofar's clarion call is symbolic of prime themes of Jewish existence and faith.

              Said another Rabbi of the time: Why do we blow the shofar? Said the holy one--Blessed be He--Blow a ram's horn, and I shall remember the binding of  Isaac, the son of Abraham, and I shall account it unto you for a binding of yourself  before me.

              What reason might we give for ourselves, however, in sticking to tradition. Why not, as was tried, and is tried in some places, modernize --why not replace it with a trumpet, or at least fix a mouthpiece to it?

              The very fact that the Shofar was outmoded and primitive before it was commanded us is at the heart of its function.

              The word religion comes from the Latin term, “religare” to bind oneself. For the Jew, as much as we feel and act as if we are in the vanguard of the future, this is but one more example of our binding ourselves to an ancient tradition and heritage, in blatant disregard of the conveniences and benefits of the trendy and chic. No modern brass or woodwind would do the trick.A sound synthesizer or a computer mixer  with their tones, polished and correct, would teach us the beauty of music, but would miss the point completely.

              The shofar is not for auditory enjoyment, not for easy listening; it hurts the ears.It is only a shofar, not a coronet nor a saxophone that can achieve the mood evoked by it.

            Even the attempts to add a mouthpiece, to make it easier to blow the shofar and improve the tones, was rejected. The Sages felt that putting a mouthpiece, which would be made of  silver or gold, would be presenting a kind of a lie, as if to say, I have no voice of my own, so I can only express myself through that which is used for money In the shofar, the sound is raw and unvarnished, to express an inner honesty.

              Here is Maimonides description of its effect:

Awake, 0 ye sleepers, awake from your sleep: Search your deeds, and turn in teshuvah. Remember your creator, O you who forget the truth in the vanities of time and go astray all the year after vanity and folly that neither profits nor saves. Look to your soul and better your ways and actions. Let every  one of you abandon his evil ways and his wicked thoughts.

              Could even 76 trombones ever have the same effect?

              Clearly the shofar calls us to teshuvah, to return, to a return to a better,nobler self, and, from a Jewish perspective, a Jewish self.

              If the shofar calls us to return, as Jews, to our Rock and source, and that call sends chills down our spine, then what is our path to that return, what will ease that chill ?

            If the shofar calls us to awaken, then we must begin to make our choices-- We must take the steps to see to it that our actions and our lives fulfill the basic assumptions of what being a Jew- requires of us.

              The first avenue of Jewish expression is worship. If the existence of God is axiomatic, if it is for this idea that jews gave up their lives in the past centuries, then it must be given expression.

              That expression can be made privately, yet, as Jews, we live and breathe as a people, as a community. A Jew prays truly when he prays in the company of his or her fellow Jew, with words of prayer that are shared by Jews around the world, and in past and future.

              It makes no difference, in its value, whether that worship is in the magnificent classic sanctuary of the Wilshire Boulevard temple, or in a modest shtiebl. It’s value is in the community that is created.  No Jew need feel lost in the one true home that all Jews share at any moment in history and in any place-the synagogue.

              Our next grteat avenue of Jewish expression is the Sabbath, Shabbat .No other moment in time can create a full, a completed Jew, so to say, than the Shabbat. The great founding Zionist, Ahad Ha'Am once said that, "More than the Jew kept the Shabbat, the Shabbat kept the Jew. "It is the idea of the Shabbat which culminates creation, and it is the Shabbat which is a memorial to our physical and existential freedom from bondage. It is the same Shabbat which the prophet Isaiah proclaims, in one breath with social justice, as essential to achieving atonement on Yom Kippur--:U kratem  / Leshabbat Oneg-- You shall declare the Shabbat to be a delight., hence , the idea of Oneg Shabbat, The pleasure of Shabbat.

              Unfortunately, the experience of a Shabbat is devastated by modern life. For a few, we might excuse the exigencies of making a living, as one of the ancient Rabbis declared: Make your Shabbat a workday, and don't depend on charity.

              But so many can really rest on Shabbat. For many of us, we really don’t need to worry about day to day exigencies of  paying the bills. So, most of us probably do have the luxury of being able to enjoy Shabbat. Gather with family and friends for a Shabbat meal, join together in the synagogue, avoid the headaches of day to day struggle to survive, engage in learning, or even, as Jews used to do, geh shpatziren, go out for a lovely wait, and a shlaf shtunde, a cat nap to unwind. What an oneg, a pleasure.

              The Shofar calls us to lead our daily lives as Jews. No aspect of life is beyond the scope of Judaism, whether it be our personal hygiene, or what we eat. In the daily, mundane and routine act of satisfying our appetites, we are able to give expression to our Jewish self.

              There is no aspect of human desire that is in and of itself forbidden, except for cruelty and wanton violence. All else is cultivated and elevated.

All of the Jewish rituals are paths to take what is human desire and sanctify and elevate it. The act of choosing what to eat, when to eat, of how man and woman relate to each other emotionally and physically—the desires are not stifled and killed—they are trained, cultivated and elevated. Even our simple acts of personal hygiene, as the Talmud describes, Torah hi- lilmod ani tsarich—These are all Torah, and I need to learn.

              Finally, the path to return requires reconciliation with our fellow human being. 

              At this season of the year, we recall our shortcomings, and on Yom Kippur,we have that extensive catch-all of sins, the all-Het. There is no declaration of failure to keep kosher,or of failing to observe Shabbat properly, or not putting on tefillin.  The sins that are listed are all sins bein adam le adam-between human and fellow human or between ourselves and oursleves: entrapment; jealousy; stubbornness ;foolish speech; slander; theft; scorn.

            It serves to remind us that, if we mean to be Jews, that we must be first, and foremost, moral and ethical Jews. The shofar calls us to lead our lives as Jews in the path of harmony and righteousness in our dealings with our fellow human beings.

          The Rabbis told us that in the end of all days, in the heavenly court, we will be asked what we did with our lives. What will they ask us: Hanatata umassata beemunah—Did you deal with each other in business, or in any area of human interaction, beemunah—in faithfulness. Not” Did we have emunah” faith in God or in Torah—but did we act” beemunah- in faith- with our fellow human being.

             When the shofar calls us, it call us to account in all these areas.

            The sound of the shofar blower starts out in a very small mouthpiece, with very little volume and tone, as it leaves. It is as the sound waves travel along the walls of the horn, and as the horn widens, that the tones pick up volume and tonal quality, until they come out loud and clear at the other end. In other words, what starts out small returns magnified and amplified many times over.

              So it is with our turning at this season. The challenges and obstacles we face seem so large, and our voices seem so weak in the beginning. But as we make our moves, that small, weak voice can be magnified, many times over, in the lives of others that we impact upon, until our efforts are echoed by others into a loud crescendo of “ tekia gedolah”.to shake the walls of the heavens.

            Thus so may our lives create a great and beautiful noise for the sake of our fellow human being and of heaven. Amen.

How many friends on Facebook, How many followers on Twitter

How many friends on Facebook, How many followers on Twitter   2015

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.”!

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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!