Of Shedim and Mazikim,ptuh, ptuh, ptuh.

Of Shedim and Mazikim,ptuh, ptuh, ptuh.

At Halloween time, we Rabbis tend to preach against commemorating what is a remnant of an ancient pagan celebration.

But please allow me to use this as an excuse for one of my favorite topics which is Jewish magic and superstition. Now we all know the Jews are highly rational, highly reasonable individuals, adherents of a religion of reason and rationalism. But there is always “on the other hand.”

In every major phase of Jewish history, there has been what we could call an official Judaism. There is for example the Judaism as expressed in the Bible which very clearly rejects any kind of demons, any kind myth any kind of magic.

You look at the story of the patriarchs and with Abraham and Isaac; there is not one single magic trick mentioned, not one incantation. Jacob, it is true has his fight with what he thinks is a demon but the demon has been transformed into an angelic messenger. The Egyptians have their magicians and the Babylonians too, but what about ancient Israel? As the pagan necromancer, Balaam, himself admits,” There is no magic in Israel”! We outlaw and forbid it. The Bible is, in essence, on the warpath against magic and magical, fantastical thinking.

 The Judaism as expressed in the Mishna is in the same vein- it rejects all mystical speculation. “Whoever asks, ‘what is above, what is below, what before, what after--it were better he never were born! ( Mishnah Hagiga 2). That pretty much shuts down any discussion of afterworld daemonic realms.

The Judaism of the philosophers like Maimonides or Saadia Gaon  held no truck for anything irrational.In the same vein, when we approach the modern era, the great Jewish thinkers, from Reform to Orthodox, slammed the door shut on any discussion of anything other than the religion of “Pure Reason”.

Nevertheless in each and every age, there was always an intriguing and interesting very colorful underground of Jewish magic and superstition, although it must be clear, at heart very benign and well intending. There is no playing the devil and no black magic in Jewish sources.

Probably some of the most intriguing of stories go back to the time of the Mishna and Talmud some 1500 to  2000 years ago.

First of all, the early rabbis want to distinguish between true magic and fraud. It is said that Rabbi Akiba and Rabbi Eliezer had a favorite trick called “the magic cucumbers. “ It is said that Rabbi Akiba asked Rabbi Eliezer “teach me how you plant the cucumbers” and so he said a word and the whole field was filled with cucumbers. Rabbi Akiba continued, “Now show me how you get rid of the cucumbers.” and he said another word and they disappeared. Their colleagues  then asked the question,” Since magic is so completely forbidden, how was he able to do this ? To which, the answer is, in order to fight magic you have to know magic .You have to know your enemy in order to your enemy.”

The Rabbis, in general, tried to discount miracles and the miraculous. They tried to explain away miracles as events created by God at the beginning of the universe; otherwise would be to admit that God made a mistake in creation if he needed to undo his own laws of physics.

And then…

There is the  story of the daughters of Rabbi Nachman who  could put their hands in boiling water without being scalded. How could that be? Because of their righteousness.

There is also the realm of the Mazikim. Now some of you familiar with modern Hebrew and   Yiddish know that a Mazik is often use to refer to a mischievous child. That is not the real meaning though of Mazik,  which means a destroyer, of the daemonic kind.

A good Jew would never enter a ruined building because of the Mazikiim inside. It may also be good practical sense because it’s it if it’s a ruined building, it could collapse.

Kin to the Mazik was the Shed, the demon.

 The king of all the Shedim was Ashmodai, or in English, Asmodaeus.  Now it is said of Ashmodai that he was not intentionally malicious; he was just drunk, mischievous and licentious. He was a hobgoblin to wise King Solomon and legends abound of him playing pranks on King Solomon, usurping the throne of Solomon, kicking Solomon out, pretending to be Solomon on throne while King Solomon had to spend aggravating time trying to get back to his throne.

It is said that Ashmodai has a host of followers who can be seen.

Said Rabbi Huna,” they all around us, 1000 to the left, 10,000 to the right. Said Rava.” When you are crowded sitting in the Academy but the room doesn’t look  full is because of the Mazikim. If your clothes get worn out before their time is because of the Mazikim. If you wish to know where they are, sprinkle flour around your bed at night and in  the morning you’ll see tracks like chicken feet. If you wish to see one, take the afterbirth of a black cat, daughter of a black cat, the firstborn daughter. Burn it to ashes and then rub it on your eyes; you will then see the Mazikim! ( Berakhot 6a) .

So far we’ve only talked about male demons. But let’s be fair. If Ashmodai is King, Agrat bat Mahlath is Queen and she has 10,000 demon attendants. It is said that at one time she was active at all times but Hanina ben Dosa restricted her powers to Wednesday nights and Saturday nights. Later it is said that Abbaye banished her from all populated regions but she still lurks in alleyways. Demons are especially harmful , it is said, in and around palm trees. Therefore should never go to the toilet by a palm tree or under a palm tree as that invites their attention.( Talmud Pesahim 110a)

Now do any of you remember an old  Superman comic in which he has a daemonic pest whom he can remove only by making him say his name backwards. I suspect the authors, who were Jewish, may have known of this solution to get rid of the demon Shabriri. You chase away a demon by using his name so if Shabriri strikes, you say Shabriri, Briri, Riri, Ri. You know by the way the famous magician’s charm, Abracadabra. That too, it is said, stems from a Jewish charm to remove the demon where a syllable is removed from each line till there is nothing left of the demon. The phrase itsel is said to come from the Aramaic, Abrech Dabra- Flee, Demon.

This perspective wasn’t just restricted to the world of the Talmud. If any of you read the stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer the Nobel prize-winning Yiddish novelist you know that his world is full of demons and magicians and I once heard him affirm, in a public lecture, that he very much believed in them. They were not just elements of his fiction or imagination, however.

I once asked my father if Singer was exaggerating in his description of life in the old world, and then he told me of what was common in his little town of Dolina when he was a child .

For one thing you would never go to shul at night. After all the ghosts of the dead also want to go to synagogue and pray and where would they go if not to the synagogue. Of course they were considerate and they would not come during the daytime to bother anybody,  so when else would they come, if not at midnight. If a plague would strike, the townspeople would look for an orphan male and female teenager, take them to the cemetery and set up Huppah next to the graves of their parents and marry them off. They knew that the souls of the parents would be so happy at this marriage that they would then plead to heaven to stop the plague.

Finally, there is our well beloved phrase in Yiddish “Kine hora.” “Kine Hora” is a slurred Yiddish/Hebrew phrase” Kein eyin hora”-No evil eye, upon which you know we spit 3 times, Ptuh, Ptuh Ptuh, and knock on wood. Now it turns out that Greeks also spit three times and everybody knocks on wood. But kinehora goes back to a very good expression stated by the Rabbis, who said that one of the greatest trait we can have is Eyin Tov, a good eye, because we see good in other people and the worst trait is Eyin Ra, an evil eye, because we would only see evil  in other people and be consumed by  jealousy.

The truth is that belief in an evil eye is something widespread especially in the Mediterranean; I think all of us know this sense that when things go to well for us we’re always afraid of pressing our  luck. Thus came the idea that when something good happened or when someone said a complement, anxiety would set in and with came the need to protect and defend from someone else’s jealousy, which really is at the core of the idea of evil eye, the eyin hora or “eyna Bisha”.

The evil eye could come in many forms and many traits, so there were a number of charms and  amulets to protect against it. For example it is popular today to wear a charm with a hand of five fingers up with a blue stone in the middle known as the “Hamsa”, Five. It is almost literally like a hand being held up to block something. Blue is considered the most effective color and you’ll find  doors painted blue protect the house throughout the Middle East.

I still have my grandfather’s notebook in which he collected all sorts of what were called “Seguloth”, guaranteed formulas to solve problems. So one of them is a formula, ” Lachash Leayin Hara”- An incantation against the evil eye-tried and tested.” Mashbia ani aleychem –I  swear against you, all manner of evil eyes: eyna tsehuva, eyna techelta, - a yellow eye, a blue eye, a tall eye ,a short eye , etc . that you flee and abandon so and  so and all his household and you will not have the power over him and his household, neither day nor night, neither asleep nor awake from now and for ever more.”

Now what can we conclude from this. We know that we are rational creatures; we know that we think things through. We also know that we have our own anxieties and fears. Rational people go to feng shui to tell them how to design the rooms in a house. Rational mothers refuse to immunize their children thereby exposing them to an epidemic of measles and mumps with serious side effects. Rational people are filled with contradictions.

 Perhaps the healthiest thing in all of this,  is the thought that while Judaism takes us away from the irrational  and away from magical thought,  Jewish people are people like everyone else. All of us need something to hold onto, something that gives us a little extra bit of assurance, rational or not. It may be that we have the equivalent of the old adage about “Chicken soup.” A man is rescued from drowning at the beach and someone shouts. “Give him chicken soup .” To this another one replies “Chicken soup can’t help him!”. At this the man answers” Well it won’t hurt.”

So, ptuh, ptuh, ptuh, kinahora, knock on wood, we should all be healthy and well.

The Purpose of Adam

            

            The Purpose of Adam

            Comments on the Weekly Reading: The Creation of Adam

            There is a story about the Hebrew school teacher who wanted to show off to the Rabbi how well his smallest children, in first grade, had learned their lessons.

            " Yankele, when the Rabbi asks you," Who made you," you will say "God".

            Itzik, when the Rabbi asks you " from what" you will say" from the earth".

            They study this lesson over and again, and finally, comes the day of the visit.

            The Rabbi walks in and the little children fall silent in awe at the distinguished visitor.

            The Rabbi, as expected asks the children" Who made you?". Nobody answers, Silence. He asks again. No answer. And again. still no answer. Finally, one little youngster raises his hand.

" Please Rabbi, the boy that God made--he is home sick with the flu."

            Fortunately, we know the answer, and we don't need to look for the boy who is home with the flu.

            Still, if we talk about God making man and woman, we can ask, " What is this Adam, this man and woman, that God created?" It's an ancient question, probably as ancient as the day Adam first opened eyes.

            One of the ancient scholars of Israel, Ben Azzai, said that the great verse of this book is found in the 3rd chapter of Genesis:

            " This is the book of the history of Adam. God created Adam in the divine image, male and female he created them."

            Adam means mankind, all mankind, all races and peoples, male and female, all created in the likeness of God, all of us as bearing exceptional potential. We are God-like in our traits when we use them for good good.

            A member of my former congregation, Reuven Weisman, of blessed memory, had been a noted Jewish educator, and he taught me a saying from his father, a noted Rabbinic scholar in earlier days.

            " What is man? He is like Jacob's famous ladder,Sulam muztav arza v rosho magia hashamayma   .We are a ladder, whose base rests on earth, but whose head reaches into the heavens."

            We may be mere mortals, tiny, limited , but our souls, our potentials, our mind, and spirit, are capable of reaching to the heavens.

            In the pagan world, it was customary for the idols to be brought out in procession, and for soldiers to run in advance and declare, "Make way for the images of the gods of Rome".  Rabbi Joshua ben Levi laughed at this custom. "Do you not realize," he scoffed," that when a  man goes in the road, a troop of angels proceed in front of him and proclaim, " Make way for the image of the Holy one, blessed be he."( Deut.Rabah 4:4).

             If we wish to see God, he was telling us, we must look for him (or her) in our fellow human being, not in any idols or objects.

            What better statement of the regard for the human potential, than these words by Rabbi Nehemiah, “One person is equal to all of creation."       ( Avot d' Rabbi Nathan 31)

            There is even competition between man and God as to who does better, in our teachings.

            A sceptic once challenged Rabbi Akiba, " Who creates more beautiful works--God or man?  After all, look at the skies and the heavens."

            Rabbi Akiba answered.” These objects are out of our reach, true, but what ever we can get our hands on, we can do better. Man creates more beautiful works. God produces wheat, but we make fine cakes. God produces flax, but we make fine clothing of it."

            It is the human being who is capable of bringing perfection and completion to the world. It is man, meaning both male and female, who are God's partners in creation, partners in creation when we act righteously and do good.

            In Kabbalistic lore, mankind is created precisely to complete the creation of the universe. We are created, the mystics said, lezorech gavohah, we are created for the greatest need, for tikun olam, to restore the world to its pristine glory.

            Yet, we know that if mankind is God's child, that child often behaves like an intolerable brat.

            There is a quaint description of God discussing with the angels his idea of creating Adam. There was no unanimity, the story goes. Some angels said," Please don't create him", yet others said, “Do create him".

            Love said: Create him for he will do deeds of love.

            Truth said: Do not create him, for he will be all lies.

            Righteousness said: Create him, for he will do righteous deeds.

            Peace said: Do not create him, for he will be all quarrel and discord.

            For the sake of man, the story goes, God cast truth to the ground, even though truth is his own emblem.(Gen. Rabbah 8)

             God had high expectations, but what has he been doing about us ever since?

            I had the privilege of serving as student secretary to one of the great religious teachers of this century, Rabbi  Abraham Joshua Heschel, who had marched arm in arm with the late Dr. Martin Luther King in Selma , Alabama. This is what he said of the human condition:

            " All  of human history as described in the Bible may be summarized in one phrase: God is in search of man.

When Adam and Eve hid from his presence, the Lord called," Where are you"( Gen 3:9). . . .

            "God is in need of man for the attainment of his ends ...  

God is looking for a" partner in creation" . . .." He continued, in quoting the ancient sages," The wicked rely on their gods, but the righteous are a support for God."

            God is always looking for us. He needs us, but we don't always want to be found. When we are found, we don't always want to answer to our failings.

            When  Adam sins, he covers himself with the infamous fig leaf,  hides in the bushes , and then blames his wife, Eve. She in turn, blames the snake. No one wants to take responsibility.

            God asks Cain a simple question," Where is your brother , Abel?," and Cain denies all responsibility," Am I my brothers keeper?."

            Our sages imagined this running dialogue between God and Cain, a dialogue that every criminal has used ever since,:

            God turns to Cain." Where is Abel your brother?" Cain answers, “I don't know, why do you ask me about him?  Do I ask you about him?           You, after all, are the keeper of all creation, and you ask me where he is?"

            Then he continues, “Of course I killed him-- you created me with the evil instinct. You are guardian of all, and you let me kill him--then you killed him!"

            Answered God," But Your brother's blood cried from the ground." 

            He couldn't deny the act, so he claimed ignorance,

            "Lord of the world. I didn't know what could happen. I have never seen a corpse in all my days. How could I know that if I hit him on the head with a stone, he would die? "( Gen. Rabbah 22)

            God is always calling us, and we are always either hiding, or coming up with lame excuses. We run away from what we are capable of, run away from our potential.

            The sage Hillel was aware that we are not always ready or courageous enough to stand up for what is right. We look around and see no one around us who is ready to do the job.        

            "Bamakom sheain ish, histadel lihyot ish: Where there is no man try to be a man." Or a woman. We surely can try.

            We have tremendous capacity for good, which we often are afraid of letting loose.           

            The Danish philsopher and theologian, Soren Kierkegaard, offered this advice:

             "A possibility is a hint from God. One must follow it. In every man there is latent the highest possibility; one must follow it. . . We each must say: Trusting to God, I have dared, even though I was not successful; in that is peace , calm, a confidence in God.  But to say: I have not dared; that is a woeful thought, a torment in  eternity."

            Would that we could all be ready to dare to fulfill our possibilities, with full responsibility for our actions.

            We pray that the day will come that humanity will behave in a manner fitting the " Image of God." On that, God will finally be able to breathe a sigh of relief and rest from creation.

Hoshanah Rabbah and the World Around Us

Hoshanah Rabbah and the World Around Us  

     What day on the Jewish calendar is so important that the entire calendar is designed so that this one day never falls on a Shabbat?.

     There is a formula that defines the Jewish calendar which says,” Lo ADU Rosh”-Rosh Hashanah never begins on a Sunday Wednesday or Friday. What does the formula mean? Well, if Rosh Hashanah falls on a Wednesday, Yom Kippur would fall on a Friday. How can you eat freshly cooked food for Shabbat when you can’t cook on Friday, and there is no refrigerator to keep food fresh? The break the fast would have to consist of some dried fruits and stale bread! If Rosh Hashanah falls on a Friday, then Yom Kippur would fall on a Sunday. Again, since you can’t cook on Shabbat how can you eat a decently cooked and satisfying meal before the fast? Again dried fruits and stale bread won’t do the job. So what about Saturday? Yom Kippur can fall on a Shabbat, as it did this year, since you can cook fresh and eat well the Friday before and the Saturday night after.

     So what holiday can’t fall on Shabbat? Purim , it is true, doesn’t fall on Shabbat, but that is because of Pesach, one month later, which cannot fall on a Monday, Wednesday or Sunday—but that is a fact controlled by the timing of Rosh Hashanah. So which holiday is so important that the calendar was designed so it would never fall on Shabbat?

     Any guess?

     Go back to my formula—Lo ADU Rosh. Not Wednesday and not Friday , because of Yom Kippur, but what of Sunday? What holiday would fall on a Shabbat if Rosh Hashanah hit a Sunday?

     What do we do on Hoshanah Rabbah? What is it by the way?

     During Sukkoth, every day we are to march around the congregation one time, carrying our lulav and etrog, and chant “ Hoshanah”=Save us. On the seventh day, we march around seven times, hence” Hoshanah Rabbah” a great Hoshanah. We then take a bunches of “aravah” , willows,chant a piyut, a prayer, for rain beat them on the ground, and chant “ kol Mevaser’- A voice is announcing, announcing and saying”.

     Later generations would ask why we beat the willow hear and interpret it as beating out our sins, as Hoshanah Rabbah represents the end of the Season of Judgement from Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur until now. But Hoshanah Rabbah, as true of all Sukkoth, is no longer about sin, but about water. All of Sukkoth was accompanied by a festival of water,” Simhat Beit HaShoevah.”

Hoshanah Rabbah, with its prayer for rain, was clearly the culmination of the celebration of the beginning of the rainy season. The “ Aravah” is specifically, the “ Arvey Nahal” the Brook willow, a plant identified with flowing water; beating the leaves is figuratively, beating the Aravah, which is also a Biblical word for clouds, a physical prayer for rain.

     Now, it makes sense. The calendar must be designed so that we can offer our prayers for rain with the physical beating of the willow without worrying that we violate a law of the Shabbat. The proof of the pudding comes the very next day—today- Shmini Atseret, the Eight Day of our Festival. It is marked by adding “ Mashiv haruach u’Morid Hagashem”, who causes the wind to bow and the rain to fall. If that weren’t enough, by tradition, the Cantor wears a white robe and chants the musaf with what melody? The melody of Yom Kippur Neilah.

     The whole calendar is so designed as to complete the season of forgiveness—Yom Kippur expresses forgiveness in our spiritual lives, and Sukkoth-Hoshanah and Shmini Atzeret express forgiveness on a physical plain, as felt in the blessing of the first rains of the season.

     All of this is intended to remind us that what we have on this planet, in its physical nature, is a great gift to be appreciated.

     We might assume that is to be self-evident, but, in truth, for us , as Jews, we weren’t always so much attuned to nature.

     We Jews, more so than any other ethnic group in the world, have spent some two thousand years as primarily urban, city and town-dwellers. To some extent ,we became disconnected from nature, just as the average city dweller today sees nature as a nice place to visit—but he doesn’t live there.

     Take for example, my paternal grandfather. He was a pious Jew, who knew that Jewish law requires us to feed animals. He would therefore feed cats. However, a cat is tamey--an impure animal, and if the cat would jump on his lap, he would take a towel and pick it up with the towel, never with his hands.

     Although there were Jewish farmers, they were the exception, and even in modern times, with the start of Jewish pioneering in Israel, Jews today—still sit in the office, not in the field.    

Our traditions tried very much then, to make us consider our connection to the world. The prayers for rain and the Hoshanah willows are one example.

     The other example is the idea of blessings for so many aspects of nature.

     Upon sighting the first blossom in the spring, one is to say," "Blessed are you O lord our God . . .for witholding nothing from this world and for creating good creatures and good trees in order to give delight to human beings." It is said only once a year and there is yet another blessing, that's said only once in 28 years, when the sun  is said to return to the same position it held in the sky at the time of creation.  We have to wait till the year 2037 to try that one.

     There is a blessing for everything on this earth--of course, we know of blessings for food and drink, but also blessings for lightning, shooting stars, or any other splendour of nature-- one says" Oseh maaseh bereshit"=who creates the world."-- in the present, not just the past.

      There is a prayer for beautiful tress, plants, and people,--She kacha lo beolamo.”this is how it is in His world”.   

     One hundred and fifty years ago, before ecology was popular, and when the industrial revolution was at its peak, Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch explained the purpose of these blesisngs.

     "It is these berakhot that have trained the Jew not to meander through the world unthinkingly and unfeelingly... Rather, the berakhot have taught the Jew to view the entire physical and material world with all of its change and its infinite variety of events and phenomena as a Temple in which to glorify his God ... Thus, as the Jew deals with the affairs of this world, he communes with his God. He perceives the voice of God not only in the bread and food which preserve and enhance his physical life, but also in all the bright and shining meteors of heaven and earth, in every great masterpiece of Creation that overawes his spirit, in every new blossom that heralds to him the return of spring, and in every form of great beauty or bizare grotesqueness which he gazes in amazement."

     What was true eighteen hundred years ago, when these blessings were formulated, was true one hundred and fifty years ago, in the time of Rabbi Hirsh, and is true today as well. 

     So very much of Jewish tradition is intended to help us live with the world, not away from it, not against it, but with it.

      That is very easy and simple idea to grasp, and we find, in Jewish law codes, starting with the Torah itself, rules of care for our resources--

     There is the Sabbatical year for the land to regain its vital minerals; this year happens to be a Sabbatical or Shmittah year.  Protection is given to fruit trees from devastation. There are rules in Rabbinic sources against overgrazing, and limitations against air pollution -- ancient laws  dating centuries, even millenia ago.

     Now, the Jewish concept of nature is not the same as the concept of pushed in popular talk, of “ mother” nature or of Planet earth as if it were “ Gea”,the goddess earth. It is very popular in modern ecology talk, to the extent that some modern ethicists can claim that there is no difference in value between a human infant and some noxious insect.

     The various prayers for rain, as well as the different observances around natural events, serves to remind us that we, as human beings, are the caretakers of nature--we are to enjoy our world, and we are to protect it, but we are also not nature’s subjects .

     We are focused on this life. Rabbi Abahu said that the day of rain is greater than the day of the Messiah , when the dead will came back to life. How can that be? The day of the raising of the dead will benefit only the righteous, but a rainy day is good for all-even for the wicked. Other Rabbis said a rainy day is like the giving of the Torah, yet others, like the very creation of the world. Rain  is a blessing in our lives—ask anyone in California.

     As to our world, it is said that when Adam was created, God took Adam on a walk through the garden of Eden. He showed him the flowers, trees, and animals, and said" Please--don't destroy my world . If you do, there will be no other world to take its place."

     Let's be sure we take the very best care of our world so we can be blessed from heaven with the bounties of earth.

    

Why Me?

Why Me? 

Yom Kippur  Yizkor 2014

           

            Somewhere, in some obscure article or journal, which I can no longer find, I recall someone doing a survey of people's sensitivity to pain. Groups were assessed by ethnic origins and I assumed were asked to measure some value for pain or the absence of pain. How much, perhaps, would they pay to avoid pain.

            As I can best recall, Jews were the most sensitive to pain. Be it physical pain, or imaginary pain, pain is pain, and Jews hurt. We Jews aren't stoical about it. In fact, not only are we commanded to heal illness, we are also commanded to minimize pain.

            This is a very curious religion, since, we would assume, from the way religion is commonly taught, that we shouldn't worry. Our pain, our hurt, is only temporary, it is only an illusion of our attachment to our selves, it is but the price we pay for heaven, and so forth. Yet no Jew is commanded to be in pain. He is commanded to be out of pain and to heal the pain of others.

                    This is Yom Kippur, and we have gathered for Yizkor, we feel very much the hurt and pain, this one, emotional, of the loss of someone we have loved. We seek, in our religion, the balm to heal, the medicine to soothe our hurts.

                    Undoubtedly, the hardest task for a Rabbi is to deal with good people who have suffered, be it an illness themselves, or the pain or death of a loved one. The question so often asked, is

            "Why me?" Why her?", "Why us?"

            It is a perennial question.

            There is a sage in the Mishnah who is commonly known as Acher-which means "another". What happened to this sage ,that he came to be known by such a disparaging title? It is said that Elisha ben Abuyah, his correct name, was a great scholar, of the time of Rabbi Akiba, and the teacher of the great Rabbi Meir.

             One day, he observed a young man climb a tree, take both the mother bird and the chicks, and come down unscathed.

            To take the mother as well as the chicks was forbidden by the Torah, and it irked the scholar that this scofflaw should have escaped unscathed. Then another young man climbed a tree, and this young man too found a bird's nest. He chased away the mother bird, as the Torah demanded, and took only the chicks. The mother bird was spared in order to produce a new generation of birds. The Torah promised long life for sparing the mother bird. Upon return to the ground, he was bitten  by a poisonous   snake, and immediately died. The great Rabbi was outraged. The one who broke the law went scot free yet the one who was meticulous in observance died of  snake bite , a death reserved for sinner, not saint. He declared Zo Torah --Zo Scharah?? This is the Torah-- This is its reward??

                     At that moment, it is said, he turned from Judaism completely, and became Acher, another.

            How many times have we seen just that which affected Elisha Ben Abuya so greatly. Good people suffer while wicked people thrive. Why should God allow it? Can God allow it?

                             Where is God in this equation?

                             This question has served as the meal ticket for a great many philosopher, especially in the monotheist religions, which all presume an omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent God. The philosopher's answers were often great masterpieces of sophistry. Thus, they would posit that evil is an illusion of perspective, that evil is merely the absence of good, just as darkness is the absence of light. There is the perspective  that evil is necessary for the good to stand out and be truly appreciated, just as ugliness gives contrast to beauty or darkness gives contrast to light.            But such answers are, in Rabbinic parlance, a refutation with a straw, easily broken.

Some Jewish sources sought to find the cause of suffering in our own actions.

                                            Since God is just, what happens, illness, war, accident, is our fault. We Jews are particularly prone to this, and this thought is in our own prayer books-- "Mipney Hataeynu galinu"--for our sins we were exiled.   There is in this thought, the sense that a universe with an overly strict God is preferable to a universe with no God.

            There are variations on the theme, in which the suffering we have now is compensated in the next life, while the triumphant wicked will get their due in the next world. There is the view, in Jewish thought, just as in Hinduism or Buddhism, that  if we suffer, it is because we committed wrong in a previous life, and are now paying for it, but will thereby be elevated to a higher level in the next as compensation.

            I, for one, could  never say to any person ,"If you are ill, it is for some sin, unknown to you ." I will never say it, and I find, that on the contrary, my greatest task is to assure the one who is suffering: You are not guilty (Unless, of course, we are talking to someone who has committed some gross crime, a mass murderer or a terrorist).

            Sin may be the cause of the troubles of the human condition—after all, we are all flawed beings in some way or another, yet no one dare point a finger at anyone and say, “ Your misery comes from some sin unknown to you!”

            No, sin as the cause of suffering is not an acceptable answer either.

            Fortunately, our tradition is not monolithic. We are not tied to the answers of one Rabbi, sage, philosopher, or prophet over and above all the others. On the contrary, in our tradition, from the very pages of the Bible and Rabbinic lore, there is open dialogue and a serious search for the salve and balm for our deepest wounds.

Our sages rephrased the issue in the tale of Job. Job is each and every one of us who has suffered for no good reason.

        Job's three friends try to assure him, "Job, Confess, You have some great secret sin". .Job refuses to admit any guilt, yet also refuses to turn against God. No answer gives him satisfaction, until God, in full awe and wonder, appears in personal revelation, denounces the three so-called friends, and vindicates Job   This personal vision, the assurance that there is a God in full command of the universe, rather than a universe in chaos, is sufficient answer for Job .

            Later sages took a new page out of Job's experience

             Job did not suffer because he had done wrong--the suffering was an indication of his very special saintliness. Thus, Rabbi Jose ben Judah, could say, "Precious are afflictions, for they are accompanied by God's glory" Or, as in the words of a Rabbi in the Talmud, "Whom God favors, he tries with afflictions. In such an attitude, many indeed found comfort.  I am good, but I suffer; then I must be a special object of God's concern, that it is intended to raise me to even higher levels. We Jews suffer because we are God's chosen people, not God's rejected people. In this thought, indeed, many Jews, over the centuries found great comfort .

                 Yet not every sage-was thrilled with that   assurance. One Rabbi, Rabbi Yochanan  in particular, had dedicated his life to comforting others. It is said that his colleague, Rabbi Eliezer was deathly ill, and he came to visit him.

He turned to his friend, and asked "Do you accept your suffering? Said Rabbi Eliezer, "I want neither suffering, nor any rewards from heaven for my suffering." Then, said Rabbi Yohanan, give me your hand," and raised his friend up in health.

Note in this story, that the great sage does not try to justify God to his friend. He does not lay a guilt trip on him, to say "You have. sinned, and God has punished you ."He does not try to bolster him by saying  “It is God's will".

            He is a faith healer in reverse. The healing does not come because Rabbi  Eliezer has faith. It comes because he refuses to accept the suffering.

Even beyond  this, we see, in our heritage, a call and a challenge, a dare to God Himself. Justice and right are paramount overall, and God is called to task. In the Bible, Abraham, God's personal friend, dares question God's justice at the planned destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and God accedes to Abraham's position.

This attitude is reflected millennia later, in a Hasidic tale.

There is a wide-spread tale of a poor, simple tailor who ,on this Day of Yom Kippur, began to bargain with God,"Ashamnu, bagadnu. "All right, God, so I did cheat this year. I over charged one man, another, I took too much cloth, the other, I made a sloppy stitch. Sure, those are my sins. But look, God, look at your sins--famine, war, widows &orphans. I'll tell you what. Let's make a deal. I'll forgive you your sins, if you forgive me mine."

            At this point, it is said, the Baal Shem went over to him in great agitation. "Why did you stop? You had God pinned down. A little more, and he would have been forced to send the Messiah.!"

            We must, at this point, recognize, that in our day ,in our frame of mind, we can not accept an image of God as one pushing myriads of buttons, this button for health, and this button for illness, this one for life, and this one for death. As Jews, we have accepted the truth of a universe of law and system, in which material events have material cause and effect. Disease is from germs and earthquakes are from the motion of geological structures, and we no longer seek God as the blame for these events, even if our insurance forms describe them as "Acts of God."  This is especially true for us as Jews, still living in the shadows of the Holocaust, in which clearly, the human choice of evil, and not God's wrath, is to be blamed.

Jews long ago realized that God, for all the philosophical terms of omnipotence, could not control everything. Among Jewish mystics, there was a realization, that for the universe to be created, God had to be absent from it. This inevitably led to a catastrophe in the universe and the existence of evil  which God alone could not conquer. The human being, the Jew ,in particular ,was the special vehicle whereby the universe would be restored to purity and wholeness and whereby evil would be conquered. We are then, not God's victim, but rather, God's partner in the restoration of the universe, God's partner in both a physical and metaphysical sense.

What then of ourselves. If God is not there to bail us out of our troubles, if he no longer splits Red Seas or makes Manna fall on our wildernesses, what then does God do for us. If "Why Me?" is to be answered, “It’s not your fault", then we are still left with the pain and hurt. Where is God in this equation?

The great Hasidic master, Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav, suffered in his final years from a debilitating illness. He was torn by doubt and conflict, since he was part of that ancient world which saw illness as coming from God in punishment of sin. Here was a Holy Man, a Tsadik, surrounded by a community of Holy Men--why did he not find healing? He fell into great despair.

Then, as his strength ebbed, he began to recover his bearings. At a gathering of his followers, he suddenly shouted out,"Gevalt- “Zich nit meya-esh zein!” Do not despair! There is no such thing as despair at all ! "He drew forth these words  slowly and deliberately, with strength and depth that he taught his disciples for all generations, that we would never despair, no matter what we endure.

At the entrance to the Bratslaver Synagogue, in the time of the Warsaw ghetto, there was a large sign, "Jews, Never Despair!" It is said that even in the times of the horrible ghetto, his followers danced with great strength and fervor.

“Jews, Never Despair.!" This is the great message of Judaism. God is to found in the depths of our pain, as the source of hope, strength, endurance.

 Just this is what we  add in our daily service for an entire month preceding the High Holy Days, the 27th Psalm. The poet depicts his enemies, ready to  pounce on him, and he asks for one thing: "It is your face that I seek, says my heart;

It is your presence that I crave, 0Lord.    Hope in the Lord and be strong, hope in the Lord and take courage."

                             God is found and is present in our hearts as we leap over the hurdles in our life, or even just live through them.

            We find God in our ability to reach out beyond our pain, beyond our problems, and look to our fellow human being, whom we are taught, is " betzelem Elohim “, in the image of the divine.

We will never answer the question, "Why Me?” Or " Why Us?" but we can give meaning to our lives , to our pain, when we can rise above it, and act, in God like manner with hope in God within us to conquer and overcome evil, pain, and suffering. To this goal we labor, and declare, "Jews, Never Despair!, We never lose hope in the face of whatever life deals us."

Shuvah and Tshuvah

Shuvah and Tshuvah     2014

Kol Nidre

                        Our season, from Rosh Hashanah through the end of Neilah tomorrow night, is identified as the Ten Day of Teshuvah, repentance. We are now, at Kol Nidre at our last lap in the race of this season, of the idea of being Jews, of our Jewish identity, and of rerighting our wrongs.

            I was driving in heavy traffic, just behind a truck, close enough to read the words on the bumper sticker. You know, there is one bumper sticker that says" If you can read this, you are too close." Other bumper stickers often have jokes, like "Mafia staff car", or stupid insults, but this one was unique, especially for a bumper sticker on a truck. It said.

            “If you are heading in the wrong direction, God allows you to make a U-turn."

            I couldn't have thought of a better slogan for this season, because if I take the word" Teshuvah", the word U-turn is probably the best translation for it.

            Can we really make a u-turn in life? If I do it on the street, I may get a ticket? Can I make a u-turn if life, and not only not get a ticket, but be praised for it?

            There is an old quip, recorded by one of Rashi’s grandsons in the tosafot--There is a statement in the Talmud" Everything is in the hands of heaven--hakol biyday shamayim- hutz meyirat shamayim-except for the fear of heaven" The commentator adds--Everything is in the hands of heaven, except for hot and cold.

            The commentary then continues—you can open the window if it’s hot, you can light a fire if it’s cold.

            What great philosophy is this?

            That whatever happens to us, fortune, wealth, health, success--all that may be in the hands of heaven, all that may be beyond us, yet there is one thing we can do--If it is too hot, we can open a window, and if it is too cold, we can light a fire.

            It is profound. We go through life complaining about everything, and none of it, we claim, none of it is our doing.  

            Oh No! The sage tried to tell us—it’s not just the simple task of opening a window or lighting a fire, changing the thermostat. It is a metaphor for all of life itself. You can open a window in life, you can light a fire in your hearts, and you can make a U-turn in life.

            Life is hard, and we are sometime tempted to throw up our hands and say, in the Yiddish, es ist bashert--it is fated- it had to be- and thereby, we give up. The word Mazel is a reference to that--what happens to us is the result of mazel, --we translate as luck, but it means a constellation of stars, simply a term borrowed from astrology. It goes back to the belief that all that befalls us has been dictated by the stars long before we were born.

            Even the Talmud says" Hakol taluy bemazal- afilu sefer torah baheichal--All depends on the stars, on fortune, even the Torah scroll in the ark.! How can that be? When you have a well-established synagogue, there are many scrolls, and some scrolls just have all the luck------they get read while others are ignored.

            This is a great idea--I never have to take the blame for anything. It's all my mazel.

            But fate, or destiny, or astrological signs, or mazel, doesn’t go over well with a sophisticated audience.

            Today, we pride ourselves on being modern. We have eliminated the word fate, but we have replaced it with modern versions of fate.

            First of course, we are sophisticated, we don’t believe in astrology any more—so we check the Feng Shui in a room. It’s no longer the stars that are so far away—of course they can’t influence us. But the doors facing the wrong point on the compass.? Ah, that’s something else.

            But there is more. There are new things to blame.

            Hakol taluy bagenim--Everything depends on our genes. This is the newest fashion--our behavior is determined by our genetic composition--patient or irritable, quick or slow, honest or dishonest, it is all a matter of genetic makeup. It's not my fault. I was born that way.

             Then, we have the excuse of hakol taluy bakalkalah-- everything is in the hands of socio- economics. It is not my fault.

            I was born into the wrong ethnic group—I was born black, I was born white, I was born brown—or the economic grouping—I was born in the 99%, or the newest one, I was born in the 1% and so never learned life. I was born a man- I was born a woman

            We say, Hakol taluy ba psychologiah-- everything depends on psychology, on environment and upbringing.

            The newest thing today is to blame your family. My family was dysfunctional, it s not my fault. My mother didn't understand me as an infant, my father made me dependent, they both gave me the wrong genes. All that we are, all that we have been, we throw off on our past, on everything around us--just not on ourselves.

            What is the Jewish answer?

            At this season, we have the famous prayer unetaneh tokef

-- It too begins with that theme, a sad one, that we await our fate passively--mi yihyeh umi uyamut. It is very painful and poignant, Life, death, health, illness, wealth, poverty--all of these are none of our doing. It is biydey shamayim-up to heaven.

            Then we drop to the conclusion: utshuvah utefilah utsedakah maavirin et roah hagezerah

            “Repentance, prayer, and acts of righteousness avert the evil decree. “

            We can't change the laws of physics or medicine, but we can change the world around us, we can change ourselves, we can make our choices. Whatever may happen,  come what may, we can change its impact, it import, its lasting effects on us.

            Ultimately, our Rabbis narrowed down the list of what is predetermined: Hakol –everything-- taluy bashamayim,- hutz me yirat shamayim--everything, in deed may be determined outside of us, but one thing, the most crucial,--only we determine--yirat shamayim--our moral and ethical, as well as spiritual values, that which ultimately define us a human beings, upon which we shape our actions- only we can control that.

            On this one fundamental question of human existence—God the Almighty- is powerless.

            Do you remember having to study Shakespeare in high school. If there was one sentence in all of Shakespeare  that was worth learning, it was this one line, in which conspirators look at Caesar and then one of them states: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars , but in ourselves, that we are underlings”.  That’s it—don’t blame the other—take a look at yourself. That is what Shakespeare meant.

            Around the time that the real Brutus was plotting against the real Caesar,  the Rabbis declared "Ain leyisrael mazal". Translated literally, it would seem, The Jewish people don’t have “ mazal”. What? Did they mean we don’t have any luck?

            No, it meant that the Jewish people don’t have a constellation controlling them. The Jewish people do not depend on the stars. It’s just between us—and God. We are either righteous—or not, and the fault, dear Baruch, is not in our “mazel”, but in

ourselves!

            Is that so bad!? Is it blame? Is it overwhelming guilt thrown on us? Or is it a new chance—Is it a new opening—A U-turn in life.

            In that, we are the freest of the free--that choice is ours, and ours alone to make. Not our astrological signs, not our genes, nor our social class, nor our childhood can force us to make our ultimate choices. In that we find our freedom.

            I want to turn to one other aspect of this season, in our High Holy Day liturgy, one which is at the center of our purpose of being, as Jews.

            Both one Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we recite the Alenu prayer in the middle of the Amidah..

            The aleynu tells us why we are here, why there is to be a Jewish people. It is the original La Marseille or Star Spangled Banner of the Jewish people..

            Are we to be a people of bagels and lox, a  nation of check writers, and purveyors of Jewish humor?

            The opening of alenu tells us something quite different.

            It tells us Aleynu leshabeach l’adon hakol- We are here to give praise to the lord of all that exists, creator of the universe.

            Why is that so?

            Because we have been given a task that sets us apart from the hoi polloi--from the nations of the earth- she lo asanu kegoyei haaratzot-- He has not made us like the nations of the earth-- not like the ancient Roman imperialists, nor the crazed mobs of the middle ages, nor murdering Nazis.

            In what way are we different?

            Va ananchnu korim umishtahavim u modim lifnei melech malchei hamelachim hakadosh baruch hu. –

            we bend the knee, bow down, and acknowledge the king of kings, the holy one , blessed be he--

            As Jews we are to recognize the reign of God in the Universe. This is a critical issue. It is from this point that we derive our concept of the worth of the world around us, of the value of humanity, of ethical and moral behavior.

            It is at this Alenu , that we do something we do at no other festival or Shabbat worship. A great teacher of Jewish wisdom, Franz Rosenzweig,  noted that  this distinguishes this High Holy Day period from all other festivals. We Jews refused to bow down to all the emperors and rulers in history, and we do not even bow fully before God on other days of the year, or at any crisis during the year—yes, we are a stubborn and stiff-necked people. But we do it at this season. We, or at least the Cantor and Rabbi on our behalf, kneel, not to confess faults, or ask forgiveness of sin, which we might expect during the Ten Days of Repentance, but rather to acknowledge the immanence and transcendence of God, to recognize, to feel, to sense that which is greater than us, beyond our ken, yet also present to us.

            It is in this sense of the awe of the presence of God that endows us with the sense of eternal value, that we are part of something infinitely greater than our 24/7 lives. It is that which gives us our freedom and the ability to move beyond the stars, beyond the           “mazal.”

            May we feel that inner freedom to overcome the burden of events that we feel weigh on us so that this Yom , this Day, truly becomes on of “ Kippur”, of atonement, of “ at-one-ment”,  of cleansing, and of new ness.

Amen