Parashat Shoftim: Radical Gratitude, August 18, 2015

This is a slightly adapted version of the words I shared at the 2015 Wexner Graduate Fellowship Summer Institute

Last week I went to see the magicians Penn and Teller. Besides the magic, there is one thing that stood out to me about the show. Before the last trick, they stopped everything and said, “The real trick is convincing you that it’s just the two of us that pull this off.” Then they listed everyone who helps them perform, from the people who take the tickets to the people who sweep the stage. How powerful it must be for those people to hear every night that they are the ones that make the magic happen. It got me thinking about the power of saying thank you. It’s something I think about a lot. Gratitude is my spiritual practice.

I probably don’t have to tell you about the scientific research on gratitude. We’ve all seen the nearly weekly news reports about studies that reveal that people who keep some kind of daily gratitude journal are happier, healthier, and more resilient . 

And I probably don’t have to tell you that a daily practice of gratitude is deeply Jewish. The first words a Jew utters upon waking are Modeh Ani l’fanecha – “I offer thanks before you.” Before we sit up, or put on our glasses, the lens through which we see the world is gratitude. Nearly one third of our daily prayers are on the theme of gratitude. Gratitude is part of our spiritual DNA. 

But what I want to talk about today takes this practice a step further. If you want to hear about strategies for ritualizing a daily gratitude practice, find me sometime this week. What I want to talk about here is how we might develop a pervasive sense of gratitude that could shape us as leaders and transform the organizations we serve. I’m calling it Radical Gratitude.

This week’s parasha contains the commandment that judges should not take bribes. The Talmud, in Ketubot, relates a story of Rabbi Amimar, who recused himself from a court case because one of the litigants had once wiped away a feather that had fallen on the rabbi’s shoulder. Rabbi Samuel did the same because a litigant had offered him his hand when crossing a rickety bridge. 

These small acts could hardly be described as bribes. Were these rabbis really so fallible that their judgement could be swayed by such tiny favors? One modern commentator, Rabbi Pam, suggests that this question misses the point. He proposes that the Rabbis lived with such a pervasive sense of gratitude in their lives that these small acts were big deals to them . Their approach to the world was one of Radical Gratitude, where every tiny interaction was an opportunity to see the face of God. 

Remember, these are the same rabbis who came up with the idea that a person should say 100 blessings a day. Think about that for a minute. In 16 waking hours, that’s a blessing about once every ten minutes. Can you imagine finding something to be grateful for every 10 minutes, something deserving a blessing? You’d be in a constant state of blessing.

Blessings are miracle highlighters. They help us notice hidden holiness. I was once an educator at a summer camp, and I did a unit with the youngest campers about blessings. I taught them that there are two blessings we can say when we see a miracle of nature, one for big miracles and one for small miracles. That summer, I invented a game for myself. When I would see something beautiful, I would ask, which blessing should I say here? Is that stunning sunset a big miracle? Is the way the rain makes patterns in the lake a small miracle? Soon I realized I was seeing things to bless everywhere. The practice of blessings opened my eyes to the abundant wonders around me. What if we could live in that state of wonder? How might it transform the way we interact with the world? How might it shape our leadership?

Gratitude helps us move from scarcity to abundance. People who live with scarcity feel like there is an insatiable hole in their lives, and nothing they do will ever fully fill it. People who live with abundance look around and say, “Look at all these blessings.” Pirke Avot says, “Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their own lot.” (Pirke Avot 4:1) It’s the same water glass, but we learn to focus on a different half. 

I worry that in many Jewish organizations there is a pervasive feeling of scarcity. There is never enough time, never enough money, never enough programs, enough volunteers. Our membership is declining, our staff is overworked. In scarcity, we can feel undervalued. No matter how much we give, they always need more. A recent Gallup poll found that 65 percent of Americans say they don’t feel appreciated at work.  Under-appreciation leads to low morale, decreased productivity, and high turnover. The culture of scarcity affects everyone, it feeds on itself. I imagine that there have been times when all of us have felt underappreciated for the work we do.

But what if we could transform our organizations into Radically Grateful organizations? What are the miracles we are missing? What gifts have we yet to bless? Personally, I think it’s a miracle that anyone comes at all. People have a choice in how they spend their time, and they are choosing to spend some of it with us. Many synagogues in which I have worked  some time griping that people do not come often enough. Would it change our work if we spent more time marveling at how much they do come? Instead of wondering who is missing, we would remind ourselves that the people who walk through our doors have gifts they are eager to share. Our organizations are overflowing with people who are eager to offer their expertise and energy, and we have to notice it if we want to harness it.

So how can we be Radically Grateful leaders of Radically Grateful organizations? How can we become like those rabbis who noticed every gift they were given? Some of this easy. We could say “thank you” more. Who are the people in our organizations who are not thanked enough? Whose work is invisible? Whose work has come to be expected, so that it is no longer celebrated? Do their contributions go unnoticed by the people who participate in our programs? Leaders who say thank you publically contribute to a culture of Radical Gratitude.

And we can find sacred ways to thank our volunteers. One volunteer engagement expert I know likes to remind me that this recognition must go beyond an annual “rubber chicken dinner” – thanks for your help, enjoy this plate of rubbery chicken and an hour of speeches. How can we continually recognize their contributions in ways that feel natural and central to the work of our organizations? Here, I think the Jewish technology of “blessing” may be helpful. Imagine if we found opportunities, from the bimah or in the newsletter, to say blessing about the work our volunteers do – to mention them by name and share their contributions publically. With blessings we elevate a culture of Radical Gratitude though sacred ritual. What would it mean for every program to end with a blessing for our volunteers?

And Radical Gratitude can change how we understand our work. How many times have we heard that dynamic organizations celebrate their failures, as well as their successes? But building a culture that celebrates failures as learning opportunities takes courage and work. A ritual of gratitude after a program helps us shift our focus from what failed to what blessings emerged. In my own life, I’ve seen how gratitude can help me shift my thinking. Every day, I make a list of 5 things for which I’m grateful. The days that it’s hard to get to 5 are also the days it is the most transformative. Living with Radical Gratitude asks us to wrestle with our failures until we can extract a blessing from them. 

 

I believe that Radical Gratitude is more than a life-hack. It is a fundamental overhaul of the way we see the world. It centers us on our blessings and calls our attention to the source of those blessings. In my life, gratitude is a pathway to God. 

I learned about Radical Gratitude from my mother. It was her life philosophy. Even in the darkness times, she found light through blessings. Some of you know that last fall my mother passed away after a prolonged battle with cancer. I want to share with you words she wrote just 3 months before she died, when her sickness was at its worst. This was her Torah. This is the transformational power of gratitude:

My gratitude journey began [nearly 20 years ago] when [my husband] Peter’s father Bob was dying of lung cancer. It was an unbelievably difficult time. Dinner became the complaining opportunity for all that was wrong in the world. I was worried and frustrated about what we were teaching [our son]. And then one day I happened to see a TV program on gratitude (OK it was Oprah, I admit it). With all that Oprah has, she takes time every day to write in her gratitude journal. She interviewed a breast cancer survivor who was grateful for getting dressed that day! I realized then and there that we were focusing on the wrong thing.

The power of gratitude would come to mean a lot to us as that very night we began each meal with what we were grateful for that day. This little act was transformational.  I looked forward to Josh and Peter’s gratitude. It was meaningful and helpful for my family. Somehow after gratitude, life didn’t seem that bad after all. And I continued to practice gratitude while I was ill, counting my blessings instead of sheep at night. I had so much to be grateful for. It gave me strength and I was content with my life even through the

Even in her absence, my mother continues to teach me. So to that end, let me say thank you. Thank you to all of you, for this opportunity to share the blessings of my life. Our lives are overflowing with blessings. May they never be hard to see.

 

For Further Reading:

Here are some great resources on building a culture of Radical Gratitude in your workplace:

 

 

Turning Forgiveness Inside Out: Lessons from Sarah, Hagar, and Pixar (Rosh Hashanah Day 1 Sermon, 5776)

Flickr: Cornelius Zane-Grey
We haven’t known each other very long, but already I’d guess it’s not going to shock you to learn that I was a talkative kid. I know... surprising. My parents like to say that I learned to talk, but I never learned to shut up. My father came to spend the High Holidays with me. Go ask him. I’m sure he’ll gladly share plenty of embarrassing stories.    

Being a good talker when you are a kid is great. But sometimes it got me into trouble and annoyed the kids around me. For instance, there was one kid, with whom I carpooled, and I think I drove him… batty. So one night in middle school, he and a friend snuck out and TP’ed our house. It’s a pretty normal middle school prank, except that they got carried away. TP’ed is an understatement. There were also eggs thrown. And some not terribly clever things written on the sidewalk… in mustard. So parents got involved, and the community police officer, and there were consequences. I remember my family was deeply hurt that someone we saw every day would act out at us so aggressively.

As part of his punishment, the kid had to write us a letter of apology. I have a memory of him reading it to us. I don’t know if he meant it, or if it was just one of those annoying apology letters you're forced to write when you mess up as a kid. I imagine I probably said, “I forgive you.” I know I didn’t mean it. For years afterwards, when I’d see him in the halls at school or had a class with him, I’d be anxious. It took a long time to let go of the hurt of that silly middle school prank taken a step too far.

I talk a lot. But if there are three words that are difficult to say and really mean, they are “I forgive you.”
________________________________________________________________

The theme of the High Holy Days is t’shuvah. It’s repentance and return. Not just to God, but also to each other. Many people make a spiritual practice of taking these ten days to seek out the people they have hurt and ask them for forgiveness. But there is a second half of that equation, one which we often overlook. We may be approached by friends and family asking for our forgiveness. How can we make a spiritual practice of forgiving? It can be difficult to forgive. But how can we ask God to forgive us if we are not prepared to do so for others?

Jewish tradition has an impressive amount to say about forgiveness. There are whole treatises on the how to apologize and when to grant forgiveness.1 As I examined these texts, however, I discovered one topic which consistently gets glossed over. We read about if and when to forgive, but very little about how to forgive and really mean it. How do we convince our hearts to forgive? What should we do when we can’t let go of a hurt, even though we know that hanging on is causing us further pain. There is a Buddhist idea that holding on to anger is like holding a hot coal, waiting to throw it at the person who hurt you, and after while discovering that you are burning your own hand.2 What I want to look at this morning is method for dropping the coal.

Now I’m not talking about acts that are unforgivable, where one person is abusive or where the pattern of behavior has not changed. Jewish tradition certainly does not compel forgiveness in those situations. But what I want to talk about today what happens when we know, intellectually, that there is something we want to forgive, but the hurt is still swirling around inside of us, and we cannot expel it. If we are going to make this season a season of true forgiveness, then we are going to need tools to turn forgiveness from an aspiration into a reality.

And this is where I have some good news. This past summer, after years of work, researchers in California have released a new tool that is going to revolutionize forgiveness. A famous and powerful collaborative of scientists, engineers, and artists have come together to develop a new framework for understanding people’s emotional lives. I’m speaking, of course, about the Pixar movie: Inside Out.

If you have not seen it yet, I have two things to say to you. First, don’t worry; I’m going to try not to spoil it. And second. Go see it! It’s terrific. It’s funny. It’s about an awesome teenage girl who isn’t a princess. And it’s an enlightening take on what is happening inside each of our minds.

So for those of you who haven’t seen it yet, let me sum up the basics. I promise, no spoilers beyond what was in the previews:

The movie takes place inside the mind of an 11 year old girl named Riley. We learn that inside Riley’s mind is a command center called “Headquarters” (get it?) and that the command center is run by 5 characters, each one a different emotion – they are Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust. These five emotions work at a Control Panel that drives Riley through her days. They all work together to make her who she is. None are bad or good. They are just the elements of her, and through the movie, all the emotions are trying hard, each in their own way, to help Riley traverse the difficulties of life. Sometimes one of the emotions seizes the Control Panel, and chaos ensues, but when the emotions are working together, Riley is a well-adjusted kid. Pixar based this on real science, particularly on the work of Dr. Paul Ekman, who found that each of us has 6 main emotions. (for the film, Surprise got combined with Fear).

And this realization, that we all have these characters in our heads, this Inside Out Thinking, helps us to understand the emotions behind other people’s actions. Because here’s what I think makes forgiveness so hard: Steven Covey teaches that we tend to “judge ourselves by our intentions, and others by their behavior.”3 We know about ourselves that we are complicated people. We look at our own actions, and we see that complexity. I know I cut that guy off in traffic, but I was late picking the kids up at school because a work meeting ran long. And I remember feeling bad about it afterwards and hoping that the person I cut off knew that I was sorry. But when someone cuts me off in traffic… They are self-centered, inconsiderate jerks. Or worse. We rarely think about the intentions and motivations of those around us. It’s the actions we hold on to. It’s the actions that are hard to forgive.

Inside Out Thinking gives us a path towards forgiveness. Robert Enright and Joanna North, in their research on forgiveness, show that an important phase of forgiveness is separating the wrongdoer from the wrong-deeds he has done.4 But this is difficult to do. Pixar has given us a tool to try and peer into the other person’s brain, and see the intentions behind their deeds. What drove them to do what they did? Was it Fear? Sadness? Anger? I think it does not even matter if the story we create about their intentions is correct. Just the thought process that asks what’s going on in their brains opens up huge possibilities for empathy and forgiveness. The second we start thinking this way, we see the complex people behind the actions. People are easier to forgive than actions.

Let me give you an example of how Inside Out Thinking works: I have a hard time forgiving Sarah’s actions in this morning’s Torah portion. I feel profoundly challenged to try and make sense of the way Sarah behaves, in particular, the way she convinces Abraham to banish Hagar and Ishmael. The ancient commentators struggled with this text, too. Nachmanides calls Sarah’s treatment of Hagar “her sin.”5 Radak said she violates both her moral obligation and basic expectations of human kindnes6 But Inside Out Thinking can help me see the complexity behind the actions. Here’s what I imagine:

Sarah is sitting at the party for Isaac’s weaning. She is exhausted. Remember, she’s a 90 year old, with a baby. She looks across the tent, past all the people mingling, she spies a teenage Ishmael, playing with her baby Isaac.
At headquarters, inside Sarah, the 5 emotions are also looking out on this scene. Isaac is the symbol of Sarah’s Joy. When he was born, she named him יִצְחַק – laughter. She says “God has brought me laughter; everyone who hears will laugh with me.”7 These have been long and difficult years. Sarah had traveled with Abraham and supported him though all his trials, through all their hardships. And all the time she hoped that God would keep the promise, that there would be a next generation. Now God had answered her prayers at last!

But Sadness also sees Ishmael with Isaac. She sees that he is part of her family, and yet separate. Sadness remembers that day, 15 years ago, when Sarah lost hope. When she felt like God was not keeping the promise to give Abraham an heir, and she took matters into her own hands. She remembers how she told Abraham to go to her handmaiden, Hagar. Ishmael is the constant reminder of that decision. Sadness looks out at him, the symbol of her pain, of her feelings of inadequacy, of her faltering faith. Then Sadness looks over at Disgust. Is this a decision we can live with, they wonder. Can we bear this daily reminder?

Then Fear speaks up. It’s the fear that all parents feel when they look at their babies. It is the fear for the future. How can Sarah best provide for her son? How can she help him to find his place in the world? She knows that as the second-born son he gets almost no inheritance. Fear asks, “How can I make sure my son has a chance to thrive?”

That’s when Anger steps in. “Why should Ishmael inherit?” Anger asks. Anger remembers how Hagar had teased Sarah during her pregnancy, how her own slave had embarrassed her, and how she had tolerated it so that Abraham could have an heir.8 Now, she has a son of her own. “This is his time,” Anger says.

Sadness tries to speak up. Sadness knows how much Abraham loves Ishmael, how he would be heartbroken to send the boy and his mother away. But Sadness’s objections get drowned out by Anger and Fear.
Together, they make a decision. It’s not a decision Sarah will be proud of. But it’s her decision, and it comes out of these emotions: Joy at the birth of her son. Sadness and Disgust at her faltering faith. Fear for the boy’s future, and Anger at the perceived injustice done to her by Hagar and maybe even by God. These are the emotions that are driving when Sarah approaches Abraham and asks him to banish Hagar and Ishmael. Like us, Sarah is human. Like us, her emotions drive her. Like us, her emotions help her to makes choices, not always the best choices, but choices she must live with.

Flickr: Celestine Chua
Reading the story with Inside Out Thinking enables me to try and move from judging Sarah’s actions, which seem so harsh and so cruel, to trying to understand and forgive her for what is happening inside that might lead her to those actions. It does not make the actions any less problematic, but it helps me to remember that there is a human being behind those actions, someone who is trying, and maybe failing, but someone who is making hard choices. Inside Out Thinking is not about excuse making. I am not giving Sarah a pass on her actions by saying, “Anger made her do it.” Rather, I am trying to acknowledge her in her complexity and humanity. And seeing Sarah this way helps me to forgive her.

This is the season of repentance. Today we begin 10 days of introspection, of taking an accounting of actions, and seeking forgiveness for the times we missed the mark. We are challenged to identify the people we have hurt, and to attempt to make things right. But it is also a season of granting forgiveness. Not for every wrong. Some acts cannot be forgiven. Or maybe it’s not yet time to let go. But often, we want to forgive, but we don’t know how. We want to let go, but we cannot loosen our grip. These are the situations where Inside Out Thinking comes in handy. Looking at the possible emotions behind the actions of others helps us to make sense of them. We could look at Sarah in today’s story and see only the heartless action of casting out Hagar and Ishmael. Or we can try and imagine what is going on in Headquarters, to see that she is struggling with so many competing loyalties – loyalties to her son, to her husband, to her stepson, and to God. We might not be right. We are making an educated guess, at best. But attempting to understand her feelings opens us up to empathy.

What would it have meant to my middle school self if, when I said, “I forgive you” to the kid that egged my house, I had actually meant it? I would have been able to see him in the hallway, without getting tense. I would have been able to work with him in class groups without picturing my parents cleaning the mustard off the sidewalk. What would I have had to have changed so that I could have let go sooner? Maybe Inside Out Thinking would have helped. Maybe, after the initial hurt and betrayal had passed, I could have considered which of the many emotional voices in his head had driven his actions. Was it Anger? Or Disgust? Or Fear? Could this thinking help me to see him as a whole person, and not just see his actions? Could I have stopped talking long enough to try and listen to the voices in his head, and see how his unique arrangement of Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust made him who he was? Just like mine made me who I was? That likely would have made it easier to forgive. That likely would have made it easier to let go.

My hope for us, these High Holy Days, is that we engage in three kinds of spiritual work. First, that we spend time taking an account of where we have missed the mark this year, and, as a result, who we might have hurt. Second, that we spend some time apologizing to those we have hurt, and to God. But third, let us not forget to also be forgiving in this holy season. When people ask us, to the extent that we are able, let us try to forgive them. And, let us spend some time thinking about the people who have yet to ask for forgiveness. Who are the people who hurt us and who are now living rent free in our brains? Is it time for us to kick them out? If we can think of those people and do everything in our power to forgive and let go, I think this will be a powerful 10 days. On Yom Kippur, we are going to call upon God to forgive us, to see that we are complicated people who do not always live up to our intentions or others expectations. How can we use that model to forgive others? How can we mimic the behavior we want to see in God? On Yom Kippur Afternoon we are going to read the powerful charge of Leviticus 19. God says, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” From this we learn that we are to try and emulate God and God’s holy acts. As we call on God to be compassionate and forgiving with us, let us be compassionate and forgiving with others. And in this way, may we all help each other to be sealed for a blessing, in the book of life. Shanah tovah.


1 In particular, I would point people at this Article by Rabbi Margaret Moers Wenig: Jewish Laws of Repentance. The Living Pulpit, April-June 1994, p. 20-21 and this fantastic lecture on Forgiveness, sponsored by Machon Hadar featuring Rabbis Joseph Telushkin and Shai Held: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNa5rB2IzZk↩
2 Some attribute this idea to the Buddhaghosa, a 5th century Buddhist commentator:http://fakebuddhaquotes.com/holding-on-to-anger-is-like-grasping-a-hot-coal-with-the-intent-of-harming-another-you-end-up-getting-burned/↩
3 The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything by Stephen M. R. Covey, p 13↩
4 As explained by Professor Lews Newman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scW51DpWsHM↩
5 Nachmanides on Gen 16:6↩
6 Radak on Gen 16:6. Note that both the Nachmanides and Radak commentaries are on the earlier part of the Sarah and Hagar saga in Genesis 16, not Genesis 21, but I think the sin extends from one incident to the other. If Sarah “dealt harshly” enough with Hagar to make her leave in Genesis 16, the banishing her in Genesis 21 is even more harsh.↩
7 Gen 21:6↩
8 See Gen 16:4 Hagar’s “mistress was lowered in her esteem”↩

​I have a Sinai Problem

I have a Sinai Problem.

I love the imagery of the Revelation on Mount Sinai that comes from this week’s Torah Portion, Parashat Yitro. It’s so evocative and moving. The thunder and the lightning. The shofar blast and the trembling and the awe. I can close my eyes and hear the echoes of that moment.

There is a Midrash that teaches that all Jew stood together at Mount Sinai. Not just the Israelites whom God freed from Egypt, but all Jews throughout history. Mordechai and Maimonides. Solomon and Spinoza. And you, and I. And I can feel that truth. I have a sense that I was there, listening as God spoke for the first time to the Jewish people. But I don’t know what I heard.

That’s my Sinai Problem. I feel the truth of the moment of revelation, but I don’t know what was revealed. I feel that moment speaking to me today, but I don’t know what it is saying.

What is the voice that echoes from Sinai?

The traditional Jewish answer is simple. Just all Jewish teaching…ever. For the traditionalist, this includes the Torah, which we call the written law, and also the Mishnah and Gemarah, which make up the Talmud, or what we call the oral law. For some this even includes commentaries on the Talmud. Maimonides sums it up most succinctly when he says, “I believe with perfect faith that the whole Torah, now in our possession, is the same that was given to Moses our Teacher [on Mount Sinai].”[1]

And this is where they lose me. I know that Jewish law developed over centuries. I don’t believe that in one moment God revealed all the commentaries ever written. I know that each generation adds its own creativity to the Jewish project. I don’t believe that this comes from God’s predetermination. I believe that God wanted us to share the load.

So this is my Sinai Problem: I don’t believe that God gave the whole Torah at Mount Sinai, I’m not even sure it was a real historical event. And yet I hear it call to me. I feel it in my kishkes. If I don’t believe that God gave the Torah at Mount Sinai, what does it mean that I feel that I was there for the Revelation? What speaks to me about that moment? How do I solve my Sinai Problem?

I think all of us Jews in the modern world have a Sinai problem. If you leave behind the traditional Jewish notion that God gave Moses the entirety of Jewish law, then how do we make that moment meaningful in our lives? What is the purpose of revelation? Many philosophers have their own solution to their Sinai problem. Perhaps they can help us solve ours.

 

Sinai Solution Number One: Sinai Starts our Story.

Rabbi David Hartman, an esteemed Orthodox rabbi from Jerusalem, says that belief in Sinai does not require that one believe that all truth was revealed in that moment, or that our task is only to uncover what was already laid bare. Rather, he argues that what happened at Mount Sinai “gave the community a direction, an arrow pointing toward a future filled with many surprises… The Sinai moment of revelation… invites one and all to… explore the terrain and extend the road.”

For Hartman, Sinai set our community on a journey. It was not a road map, it was a starting place. God sent us out on our mission. It is a mission that still speaks to us today, a story we are still telling, and in that way, the journey that began at Sinai still unfolds today. For Hartman, Sinai’s is powerful because it is the start of our story.

 

Sinai Solution Number Two: Sinai informs our growth as a people.

The Reform philosopher Jakob Petuchowski does not see a contradiction between the historical development of Jewish law and the resounding appeal of Sinai. Jewish law evolved over centuries. Different circumstances called for different responses. Life for the Jews in ancient Israel was different than life for the Jews of the Babylonian Exile or Medieval Spain. Each required its own adaptations of Jewish teaching.

Yet the Jews of each age examined each challenge through the lens of that initial moment at Sinai.

Petuchowski says, “The thunders and the lightning at Sinai, as they appear in the biblical narrative, are an echo sounding through the ages of what had happened there. They testify to the fact of the Revelation, to the impact it had on the people.” That impact continued to shape the Jews of each age. For Petuchowski, Sinai is powerful because it echoes across Jewish life and shapes our growth as a people.

 

Sinai Solution Number Three: Sinai creates our Covenant

There is a midrash that teaches that at the moment of the revelation, God lifted the mountain and held it over the heads of the Israelites, to serve as a chuppah.[2] “God came to Sinai to accept the Jewish people, as a groom who goes out to greet his bride.” Standing under the Mountain, we are wed to God.

This is the meaning of the covenant at Saini. Like a marriage, we strive each day to know each other better. Like a marriage, we strive each day to learn how we might better meet each other’s needs. Like a marriage, our future is wrapped up in each other. The Prophet Hosea declares, “I will betroth you to Me forever.” (Hosea 2:21) At Sinai, God married the Jewish people, and today we are still partners in that marriage.

The philosopher Franz Rosenzweig, offers a modern framing of this idea. He says that at Sinai, the Jewish people didn’t hear the word of God, they encountered God, and began a new relationship with God “It was at Sinai that the people began the process of searching out what God wanted from them.”[3]

This was the spiritual marriage into which God and the Jewish people entered. It was a covenant of the search for the answer to the question, “What does God want from me as Jew?” For Rosenzweig, Sinai is powerful because it is the place where God and the Jewish people entered into covenant.

 

Sinai Solution Number Four: Sinai speaks to our soul.

Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Birditchev, a Hassidic commentator, offers an explanation of the Israelites’ statement when they accepted the law: “נַעֲשֶׂה וְנִשְׁמָע (Exo 24:7 WTT) – we will do and we will listen.” You would think it would be in the other order: “We will listen and then we will do.” Levi Yitzhak struggles with how it could be that the Israelites agreed to commandments they had not yet heard.

To solve this problem, Rabbi Levi Yitzhak says that there is a Torah inside of all us. It is written in our spiritual DNA. He posits that inside our physical bodies, we have another, spiritual body, and written on the bones and sinews of that body is Torah. And just like our bodies need food, our spiritual bodies require sustenance. And for Jews, that food is mitzvot – commandments and good deeds.

Have you ever had a moment here you just knew something was right or wrong? You didn’t need to look it up, or ask a rabbi, or consult a friend. You just knew it was right. Rabbi Levi Yitzhak says that this was you being aware of the Torah that is written in your spiritual self. The process of revelation is a process of self-discovery; it’s about finding the truth that is hidden within us from the very beginning. Standing at Sinai, the Israelites discovered what they already knew to be true.

This is how they were able to eagerly say, “נַעֲשֶׂה וְנִשְׁמָע (Exo 24:7 WTT) – we will do and we will listen.” In the moment of awe, as God lifted the mountain above their heads, they were able to open themselves up to their own inner truth. The Torah they heard is a Torah that was written inside of them. For Rabbi Levi Yitzhak, Sinai is powerful because it resonates with our spiritual selves.

Each of us has a spiritual soul, one that we inherited from our ancestors or one that we claimed for ourselves. Judaism speaks to me because it speaks to my spiritual soul. The revelation of Sinai still echoes in my own ears because it is the ongoing revelation of my own inherited truth.

Every day is an opportunity to know my spiritual soul better, to find out what it needs for sustenance. Each person in each generation should see himself as if he stood at Sinai, because each person is constantly learning to better understand the Torah that is written within her or within him. These are some solutions to the Sinai Problem. For Hartman, Sinai starts our story. For Petuchowski, Sinai informs our growth. For Rosenzweig, Sinai sets a covenant. For Levi Yitzhak, Sinai speaks to our soul.

 

For me, each of these begins to shape my solution to my own Sinai problem. Sinai calls me to the story of my people. It unites our community and helps us to grow. It begins our covenant with God. And it speaks to my spiritual self.

The Torah blessings that we will recite tomorrow morning call us to seek answers to the question of Sinai. They end with the words נוֹתֵן הַתּוֹרָה – God who gives Torah. We do not say נָתַן הַתּוֹרָה – God who gave the Torah.[4] We say it in present tense. God is constantly giving us Torah. We are constantly finding truth, in the world and in ourselves. And in that way, we are constantly hearing the echoes of Sinai. Every day is an opportunity to stand in the overpowering awe of the mountain, to feel the earth shake, and see the lights flash, as God gives Torah to us. It happens in big ways and small ways. It happens at crucial moments and in the quiet hours where we are alone with our thoughts. But when we perceive a truth in the world and it resonates with the truth that is within us, we receive Torah. We stand at Sinai. When we feel wed to God, when we feel the call to discern what God wants from us, we stand at Sinai. When we feel embraced by the story of our people, we stand at Sinai. Revelation is the reality that reverberates across time.

Baruch Atah Adonai, notein hatorah – Blessed are you God, who calls us to Sinai, who is daily giving us Torah.

[1] Maimonides 8th Principle of Faith

[2] Mechilta D’Rabbi Yishamel

[3] Rosenzweig’s position as explained by Harvey J. Fields in A Torah Commentary for Our Times, Vol 2 p49.

[4] Based on Yalkut Me’am Lo’e

Parshat Toldot: A Birthright and a Blessing from my Grandfather (11/21/2014)

Me in front of my Grandfather's school, with
picture of him at the age he would have been
when he went there.
A few years ago, I found myself standing in the courtyard of the Jewish day school that my grandfather, Fred Marcus, attended in 1939. The generational continuity was made all the more impressive by the fact that this day school was in Berlin, Germany. You see, when Annie and I were living in Israel in 2013, we had the opportunity to go on a class trip to Berlin, led by one of my professors, to learn about the Jewish community that had existed before the war and the fledgling Jewish community that exists there now. For my classmates, it was an exciting learning opportunity, but for me it was a special homecoming. My grandfather and I were very close. His influence is a big part of the reason I am in rabbinical school. My Jewish identity was shaped in so many ways by his love and teaching. And he passed away when I was a senior in High School.

Some Holocaust survivors cannot ever go back, either mentally or physically. The years of the Shoah become a chapter in a book that must remain closed and hidden away on a high shelf, or under the bed. But my grandfather was not one of them. My grandfather never compartmentalized his story, he never hid it. As an educator, he saw it as his duty to tell it. He would travel to schools all around Denver, where he lived, to testify to his experience in the Holocaust. I’ll be telling his story tomorrow at our dinner, and I don’t want to spoil it. If you want to know more, you’ll have to come back then. Tomorrow is for the story, but tonight, I want to tell you now a little bit of what I learned from him.

It wasn’t just that my grandfather was able to go back to his childhood in his memory. He went there physically. Germany was the land of his childhood, with many happy memories, not just painful ones. And he and my grandmother visited there a number of times. He also visited Shanghai, where he spent the war years, reconstructing in his mind a map of the ghetto that no longer existed in reality. My grandfather was not afraid to re-visit those places, though they had seen both the happiest and saddest moments of his young life, because they were a part of him. In fact, when he died in 2002 of his fourth heart-attack, it was in Germany, on a trip to see his homeland once more.

Me and Annie at my great great grandparent's
grave at the Weissensee Cemetery
And all through my childhood, my grandfather would tell me that someday it was his dream to take me to Berlin, to show me the land of his fathers. It was a dream he never realized. So when the opportunity came to visit Berlin two years ago, I jumped at the chance. Annie and I were school-trip delinquents. We spent much of the trip sneaking away from the group to go find sights that my grandmother suggested might still be around. She did her best to remember places that had meant something to him, having not been there herself in many years, and we followed her sparse directions, and used a lot of Googling to find a few key sites for ourselves. We visited the Berlin Zoo, his favorite place to hang out as a child (more on that tomorrow). We visited the grave of my great, great grandparents at the Weissensee Cemetery. And that is how we came to be outside Grosse Hamburger Schule (School), my grandfather’s school, on a very cold day in March. As we huddled together, I tried to imagine the man I remembered in his 70s as a 15 year-old boy, ascending those same steps. I tried to imagine who he had been then, how he came to be the person I knew. How this place had shaped him, and all the places from Belin, to Shanghai, to San Francisco, to Denver, and back once more to Berlin, had shaped him. How all these places added up to make him the man I knew and loved.

Our Torah portion this week seems appropriate for telling the story of my grandfather - Parashat Toldot, which means “Generations.” It tells the story of Jacob and Esau, two brothers who, from the time even before they were born, were at war. They struggled against each other in the womb. And the parasha is bookended by two parallel tales. At the beginning of Toldot, Jacob tricks his brother Esau into selling him his birthright. At the end of the parasha, Jacob tricks his father, Isaac, into giving him the blessing that was intended for Esau. By the end of Toldot, Jacob has acquired both a birthright and a blessing. As I was reading the portion this week, I wondered: What is the difference between a birthright and a blessing? Why does Jacob need both? Once he has the birthright, why would he need to steal the blessing, too?

A birthright in the biblical world is a property right. The eldest son, in most cases, inherited the entirety of his father’s property. When Jacob sets out to acquire the birthright, he is acquiring the land and goods and services that his father had acquired in his lifetime or had inherited from his father, Abraham. A birthright comes automatically, it is your heritage. It is whatever is passed down.

But a blessing is something different. Rabbi Umberto Cassuto says that a blessing is a prayer that one hopes God will make into a reality. It’s a hope for the future. It cannot be held or touched or visited. It is the moment when one generation lays its hands on the next and says, “These are my dreams for you. This is the light I will share with you.” What Jacob wanted from Isaac was more than a birthright; it was more than a house and some sheep. He wanted light.

In our world, it is not only the first-born that receives a birthright. Each of us inherits from the generations who came before. It is not always property, but we get a heritage. A last name. A homeland. A story. A sense of who we are and where we came from. When I stood in that courtyard in Berlin, this was the sense that I had. I was experiencing my birthright. As I visited the homeland of my grandfather, and his father and his grandfather, I had a sense of the power of birthright. Looking up at that school, I knew: This is where my people came from. Standing next to my great grandparents’ grave I knew: This is our story. This is my inheritance. Not just the story of a war, but the story of a man who survived. The love of a heritage of survival.

Many of us, if we are lucky, do not only receive a birthright, we also receive a blessing. I would hope that most of us can think of the blessings that our parents and grandparents bestowed on us. A blessing is something altogether different. A birthright is a look backward, a foundation on which to live. But when we are given a blessing it’s a goal to build towards, a height for which to reach. The blessings are the lessons we learned from our ancestors. The things they taught us, and the things we learned from watching the ways they lived. A birthright is something we might hold in our mind – to know from whence we came. A blessing is something we hold in our heart – to feel who we might become.
Standing in that courtyard, I was aware not just of my birthright, but also of my blessings, of the way of living my grandfather showed me. I thought of his love of life. I thought of his love of learning. I thought of his love of travel. I thought of the man who had survived horrors that had annihilated the Jewish community of his birth and who maintained an abundant faith in humanity. I thought about his bravery and his humility. These are the blessings my grandfather gave to me. They are far too many to innumerate here but there’s one in particular that I’m thinking of this week because of our Torah portion, the portion of Toldot, Generations:

There is an odd story that happens in the middle of this week’s portion, in between the birthright and the blessing. There is a famine, and Isaac and Rebecca have wandered looking for food, and they end up in a Philistine Kingdom called Gerar, in what now Gaza, well outside of the land of his father Abraham. They prepare to head down to Egypt, where hear there is abundant food. But God tells to Isaac to remain in Gerar, that good things will come to him there. God says, “Stay in this land, and I will be with you, and bless you.” In fact, it is the first time God speaks directly to Isaac. And Isaac listens, and thus it says, “וַיֵּשֶׁב יִצְחָק בִּגְרָר” – “Isaac stayed in Gerar.” A whole crazy comedy happens with the king of Gerar, which reads like the mistaken identities in a Shakespeare play, the result of which is that by staying there, Isaac and Rebeca end up acquired a lot of wealth. God says, “Stay in this strange and foreign place, and some good will come of it”. It is hard, and there are moments of terror, but in the end, good does come of it.


There is a Hassidic commentary on the words “Isaac stayed in Gerar.” It says that there are times in our lives where we do not know where we should go, literally where we should dwell. The commentary says “אם בא למקום פלוני דרך מקרה,” “If you have come to some place or another by chance, מן הסתם רמז הואמן השמים שעליו לגור שם, this may be a little hint from heaven that you should dwell there.” The commentator is saying, wherever you are, that is the place where you are meant to be. When God tells Isaac to stay in Gerar, and that God will bless him, it is a reminder that there are blessings to be derived from the place where he is. Isaac’s uncertainty of where he should go next is replaced with a sense that where he is, is probably where he is meant to.

In Shanghai: That's my grandfather and great-grandfather
 above the "T" in "Tiendong"
This is how my grandfather lived, and it’s his blessing to me that I am remembering most this week. Life in the Jewish ghetto in Shanghai was hard. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow, but for now suffice it to say that there was sickness, and there was hunger. My grandfather often lived from one meal to the next. And yet, he made a life for himself there. He joined a cultural club and wrote a newspaper column. When the war ended, he stayed and found an exciting job, and made friends, and met girls. When he and his father had fled Berlin, there were very few places in the world open to them. And so they found themselves in Shanghai. But having done so, my grandfather embraced the philosophy of this Hassidic commentary. He took it as a sign from heaven and said, “Yes, this is where I should be.” And when he got to California he did the same. Later, when the synagogue where he was working part time as an educator asked him to become the education director he said, “Yes, this is where I should be.” And when he retired and my grandmother asked him to move back with her to Denver, he said, “Yes, this is where I should be.” And whenever anyone would ask him to come and teach a class, whether on his Holocaust experience or something else, he would say, “Yes, this is where I should be.” And on his many travels with my grandmother to over 100 countries, he always looked around and said, “Yes, at this moment, this is where I should be.” When I travel, when I embrace the possibility of the place that I am in, when I say “Yes, this is where I should be,” I am living out the blessing of my grandfather.


On my first visit to High Point I told a story about Friday nights at my grandparents’ house. I told you that we would begin each meal with him giving me a blessing. I stood on a chair, and he put his hand on my head and blessed me with the ancient words of our tradition. On one week, I put my hand on his head, but the break with protocol did not faze him. In his head, he said, “Yes, this is where I should be.” So, from that week on we blessed each other. We said the words of the Priestly blessing, and in his memory, I share them with you now. They are my birthright, and my blessing, my heritage and my future. Each week, when we laid our hands on each other’s heads, this is what we said:

יְבָרֶכְךָ יהוה, וְיִשְׁמְרֶךָ
Yivarechecha Adonai viyishmirecha
May God’s birthright be one of safety and benediction.

יָאֵר יהוה פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ, וִיחֻנֶּךָּ
Ya'er Adonai panav elecha veechuneka
And may God’s blessings be one of light and grace.

יִשָּׂא יהוה פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ, וְיָשֵׂם לְךָ שָׁלוֹם
Yeesa Adonai panav elecha viyasem lecha shalom
As we look each other face to face, my you see the face of God in others, and may it bring you the abundant blessing of peace.

May we all be so lucky, to receive from the people we love, both a birthright and a blessing.


High Holy Day Sermon's 5775

Two Goats and Two Wolves: Yom Kippur Morning Sermon 5775

I was paying close attention to the Torah reading today, because Yom Kippur has high stakes, and I want to make sure we do it right. Luckily the Torah portion gives us detailed instructions for how to observe Yom Kippur, or at least how the very first Yom Kippurs were observed.

So I was paying close attention, and I read that to do this right, I’m going to need two goats. The Torah says I should change into a white linen tunic, with linen pants, and a linen sash and a linen turban, and you all will bring me two goats, two identical goats. And then we’ll place them up here on the bimah, and we’ll draw lots to see which will be for Adonai and which for Azazel. The Goat for Adonai, we will keep here, on the bimah (Howard, you’d hold it, right?), and the one for Azazel, we’ll place our hands on his head, and confess our sins, and then we will open the door and send him away, to wander down Westchester Drive, carrying our sins on his back.

If this tradition sounds weird to you, you’re not alone. It sounds weird to me, too, and it’s no wonder why we no longer do it. Even our ancient commentators thought it sounded weird. Animal sacrifice was a normative part of Judaism during the periods of the First and Second Temples. The Talmud deals regularly with the minutia of the sacrificial cult even though sacrifice was no longer practiced by the time that text was written. Yet even in the Talmud and other texts, the custom puzzles the commentators. Who or what is Azazel and why does he, she, or it, need a goat?

Azazel is only mentioned here in the Torah, so it’s hard to say what it means. The Mishnah thinks that perhaps Azazel is a place. Rambam says it is a high mountain. The Septuagint translates it as “escape,” implying that the goat is set to free. Modern biblical scholars argue that Azazel was likely the name of a demon or a demigod, and we see references to him in early post-biblical literature and midrashim. Perhaps Ibn Ezra, the 12th century commentator sums it up best when he cryptically says, “the truth is a matter of mystery.”

To all these commentators, the practice of the two goats on Yom Kippur stands out as strange and worthy of note. But regardless, it’s a powerfully evocative ceremony. The priest stands dressed all in white linen, ready for the Yom Kippur offerings. Two goats are brought before him. It’s made very clear in the Talmud that these goats must be identical. It must be impossible to distinguish one from the other. The High Priest produces an urn containing two lots. On one, the words “For Adonai” are written. On the other “For Azazel.” The priest puts both hands in the urn and pulls out the lots, indicating which goat will be offered up to God and which will be sent to Azazel. He ties a piece of crimson wool around the horn of Azazel’s goat and another around the neck of the one Adonai. The goat for Adonai becomes part of the sacrifice that the priest performs at the altar. He offers it up to God, the same as any other sacrifice. But after that, he returns to the other goat, he places his hands on its head, and confesses all of Israel’s sins. Then the animal is taken away without a blessing or any further ritual. It is sent off into the wilderness, escorted by another priest. What happens next is unclear. In some versions the goat is just sent out to wander in the wilderness. In other versions, it is taken to the top of a craggy mountain, and either the priest lets it fall or pushes it off. In any event, the goat is never seen or heard from again.

The ceremony is puzzling but haunting. There is grandeur and magic in it. It is dripping with symbolism, which is, I think, what makes me envious of it this morning. It seems like today we could use a striking ceremony like this to add meaning to our observance. But since we probably can’t get anyone to lend us their goats, let see if we can imagine what the function of the ceremony might be.


Today is the day of extremes. Life and death, good and evil. Everything hangs in the balance. And we feel this tension inside of us. If we were perfect, if we were people who never sinned, then we would not need a Yom Kippur. But nobody is perfect. Everyone misses the mark. And everyone arrives at this day and takes stock. We acknowledge what we have done wrong and strive to be better. We know that there is good in us, and that there is evil too, and we strive to aim for the good, to overpower our baser urges. A Native American elder described his inner struggle, saying, “Inside me there are two powerful wolves. One wolf is kind and good. The other is mean and evil. They fight each other in my heart all the time.” When asked which wolf wins, he responded, “The one that wins is the one that I feed.” This year, we pray that we will feed the kinder wolf.

There is a Jewish term for this. The Rabbis believed that within each of us live two inclinations, a yetzer harah – an inclination towards evil – and a yetzer hatov – an inclination towards good. Like the wolves, they battle inside of us and we choose which to listen too. We are like the classic cartoon of Donald Duck with an angel and a devil on our shoulders. And it’s an apt image, because in the cartoon, the angel is a tiny Donald, and the devil is a tiny Donald. Both are expressions of him, and he must choose which side of himself to listen to. He is both his yetzer harah and his yetzer hatov.

The two goats are like our yetzer harah and our yetzer hatov. First, they are identical. It’s impossible to tell them apart. And there are actions that we do where we cannot tell which inclination is driving us. What in one instance might be a mitzvah, might in another be a sin. Take for example gossip. Lashon Harah, or the evil tongue, is strictly forbidden in the Torah and rabbinic literature. The rabbis are clear: saying something about someone else – true or untrue – is a sin. Yet there are times when it is required. For instance, if someone is entering into a business relationship with someone you know to be untrustworthy, you are supposed to warn the person. And honest testimony in a court of law is a mitzvah. The same act can be a sin or a commandment. Let’s imagine I said, “He’s a crook.” If I say it to a friend, it’s Lashon Harah. If I say it to a potential client, it’s a warning. If I say it to a judge, it’s a mitzvah. The exact same words. The two inclinations inside of us are identical, just like the two goats, and we have to listen very carefully to know who is speaking. We have to carefully consider our intentions. Is what I’m saying for my benefit, or the listener’s? Will it harm someone if I say it? A friend has three questions she tells her children to think about before they speak: “Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?” The two goats remind us that all of our actions are suspect on this day. All must be considered. Maybe there were sins we disguised as mitzvot. Maybe there were difficult decisions we had to make for which we are beating ourselves up but which we made for the right reasons. Just as we cannot tell at the start of the ceremony which goat is destined for God and which will be sent to Azazel, we do not always know how our actions will turn out. Situations we entered into with the best of intentions turned rotten. In dark places, we were able to do some good. The two goats call us to examine our actions deeply, for we know they can look the same.

The Hebrew word Yetzer – intention --- comes from the some root as yatzor – to create, to form. The priest stands before the goats and in the moment before he reaches his hands into the urn, either goat could take on either role. There is an infinite amount of creative potential in the moment. It’s like Schrödinger's famous thought experiment about the cat in the box: The moment before you open the box, the cat can be simultaneously alive or dead. What enormous potential. Every day, every decision, every moment, we get to choose. And before each choice, there is infinite creative potential. Will I choose to listen to my yetezer harah or my yetzer hatov, my kind wolf or my angry wolf? Judaism says that in every decision there is a reset, a chance to do good. Maybe yesterday we leaned a little too heavily on the yetzer harah. Today there is just as good a chance we could choose good. In every decision, we are Yatzor, re-created anew. Perhaps last year, the goat on the left went to Azazel. But this has no bearing on this year. Every year, we choose a new.

Rabbi Eli Schocet tells a story of his childhood. He grew up in Chicago, where his father and his grandfather were both rabbis. One Shabbat afternoon when he was a young boy at his grandfather's home, a big Cadillac pulled up. Three burly guards stepped out with a well-known Jewish gangster. The man walked in and laid an envelope on the rabbi's table filled with cash. "This is for my mother's yahrzeit.” Then he left.

It is a special mitzvah to give charity on a Yahrzeit in memory of the loved one. But Eli was angry at his grandfather. "How can you accept money from that man? And on the Sabbath of all times?"

His grandfather softly answered, "Don't you understand what happened? This man is a criminal who lives an ugly life. But for one brief moment he looked on a calendar and saw that it was his mother’s yahrzeit. He remembered his mother’s dreams for him, that he grow up to be a Jew, that he grow up to be a mentsch. For one brief moment, he wants her memory to live within. That was a sacred moment, and I did not want to take away from it."

The two goats stand there, reminding us of our immense creative potential, the yatzor in each of us. Perhaps last year we were not the people we wished to be. Today, as every day, God reminds us that we stand like the two pure goats, waiting to choose to be for Adonai.
                                                       

And then the lots are cast, the decision is made. One goat goes for Adonai, and the other for Azazel. And so it is with sin and mitzvah. When we listen to the yetzer harah, we are like the goat sent to Azazel. We wander in the wilderness alone and afraid. We are on a high mountain, and the rocks below are jagged and menacing. Maimonides says that the function of the goat for Azazel was symbolic, meant to “impress the mind of the sinner that sins must lead him to the wasteland.” In ancient times, on Yom Kippur, the whole Jewish world faced toward the Temple but their sins were sent away, out the back door, to wander through the treacherous wilderness alone. What a powerful, visual reminder that yetzer hatov draw us into Jewish life while our yetzer harah separates us from the community and puts us in moral, and sometimes mortal, danger. Perhaps this is the meaning of the Unataneh Tokef prayer, when we say that today is the day we decide who shall live and who shall die. Who shall be like the goat who lives for God and who shall live for Azazel, and walk the treacherous path alone for the rest of their days?

When we choose to listen to our yetzer hatov, we are like the goat for Adonai. We are drawn closer to God. Why would we want to leave? What can we do to stay this close to God? Pirke Avot says, “Mitzvah Goreret Mitzvah – One good deed leads to another.” When we feel the radiance of listening to our yetzer hatov, it makes us want to listen more, to feed that wolf more. We come to synagogue on this Yom Kippur, ready to feel that closeness. We are ready to be forgiven of the mistakes we made in the last year, the times we missed the mark, so we can be like the goat for Adonai, drawn close to God. This is the function of Yom Kippur, to let God wipe the slate clean, so we can draw back to God. The word for sin is “chet.” It literally means “to miss the mark.” When we sin, it pulls us away from God, and T’shuvah – repentance – is our opportunity to return. The high priest would only enter the Holy of Hollies, the innermost part of the Temple on one day a year – Yom Kippur. On this day, when he and Israel were forgiven for their sins, he would enter into God’s inner sanctum. At no time in the whole year is humanity closer to God than on the day of repentance. When we repent and are forgiven, we feel closer to God, and that nearness urges us to do better, to try harder, to feed to the good wolf more.

The goat that is sent to Azazel is called the scapegoat. He carries the sins of the people. This is actually the root of the term, but I think we misuse it today. Today, to scapegoat someone is to blame them for your problems, to offload responsibility on to them. It’s a negative. Anyone who has ever had someone at work who gets blamed for the team’s mistakes knows that this is not a position of respect. But in the Torah, there is honor in the ceremony. The community comes together to recognize the goat as a sacred vessel for their misdeeds. This is not an excuse or an easy-out. It is a necessary ritual, commanded by God, to relieve the Jewish community of the burden of their sins. And why would we need such a vessel? God knows we have a habit of holding on to things, of carrying them with us longer than we should. The scapegoat ritual allows us to let go. We watch our sins walk off into the sunset. We see them leave. We look at the goat, acknowledge what we need to let go of, and then we let it go. This is why I wish I had two goats here today. Yom Kippur needs a ritual like this. Rosh Hashanah has tashlich, but Yom Kippur does not. There is no visual symbol, no physical reminder that we need to let go. So our prayers will have to do. Our job over the next 8-or-so hours is to figure out what we need to let go of and figure out what how we are going to let go. The machzor reminds us that God remembers what we forget, and God also forgets what we remember. God has already let go. The slate is wiped clean. Our job today is to make sure we also let go, so that tonight, we can step forward into the new year, refreshed and rejuvenated, knowing that when we break the fast, we will resolve to start feeding the good wolf.


G’mar Chatimah Tovah – May we be sealed for a blessing in the book of life!

Cultivating an Attitude of Gratitude: Kol Nidre Sermon 5775

One of my responsibilities as the educator at camp this past summer was to teach the youngest campers about prayer. We would begin by learning about blessings. I would teach them the traditional Jewish blessings for seeing the wonders of nature, figuring there’s no place in the world where they would have more opportunities to say these blessings than at summer camp.

There are two blessings for seeing a miracle in nature. The first is what you say when you see a big miracle, like mountains, seas, or even lightening. It goes:

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעולָם, עוֹשֶֹה מַעֲשֵֹה בְרֵאשִׁית.
We praise You, Eternal God, Sovereign of the universe, who makes the works of creation.

The second blessing is what you say when you see smaller miracles like beautiful trees and animals. It goes:

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעולָם, שֶׁכָּכָה לּוֹ בְּעוֹלָמוֹ.
We praise You, Eternal God, Sovereign of the universe, that such as these are in Your world.

This led me to a little game I played all summer. When I would see something beautiful in nature, I would ask myself, is this miracle big or small? Which blessing should I say here? Is that sunset a big miracle? Is the way the rain makes patterns in the reservoir a small miracle? What about this stunning vista or that gnarled, ancient tree? Even just asking the question tuned me in to the many miracles surrounding me. It didn’t matter which blessing I chose, because I had labeled what I was seeing as a miracle. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel writes: “Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement… [to] get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible. To be spiritual is to be amazed.” For me, these blessings were away to achieve “radical amazement.” They gave me a language to identify moments that seemed miraculous. Blessings are a way of expressing gratitude, and having the language helped me to find moments to be grateful.

Thinking Gratitude
I’ve had gratitude on my mind lately. It started with my blessings game, but it picked up in earnest when a classmate taught me a new prayer practice. During t’fillah at school each day, she pauses during the hodaah prayer and will not let herself sit down until she has listed 5 things for which she is grateful. I thought, I could do that. Here are some of the things for which I have expressed thanks in the past few weeks:
·       It is Thursday and the week is over
·       Being home for dinner every night this week
·       A group of peers to support me
·       Annie’s delicious Chicken Piccata
·       A terrific student pulpit
·       My favorite Korean restaurant re-opened
·       The fall TV line-up is back
·       A lunch without a meeting where I can just sit
·       A restful and productive weekend.
·       Comfortable shoes.

My gratitude ranges from the mundane to the profound. There are themes that continue to reappear. Mostly, food comes up a lot. And Annie. And my friends. It’s only been a few weeks but already I can feel a difference in my life. This 30 seconds of gratitude is one of the more spiritual parts of the prayer service for me. It is a moment to say thanks. What I am thinking about on this Kol Nidre evening is how I can spend the upcoming year continuing to cultivate an attitude of gratitude.


The science
The scientific literature on gratitude is unanimous – people who feel gratitude are happier, healthier, and more resilient. One study asked participants to keep a journal. A third of the participants wrote a list of five things for which they were grateful, a third listed hassles or frustrations, and a third wrote down something neutral. Those who kept the gratitude journals reported exercising more regularly, feeling better physically, and being more optimistic about the future than people in the other two groups.[1]

Gratitude also has an effect on personal goal attainment. Studies found that participants who kept gratitude journals were more likely to have made progress toward important personal goals, be they academic, interpersonal, or health-based.[2]

Expressing gratitude can also have a profound impact on children and adolescents. One study found a correlation between feelings of gratitude and avoidance of risky behaviors like using drugs.[3] Studies have also found an impact on test scores and performance in school.

In Judaism
But none of this is news for Jews. The Jews are a thankful people. In fact, the name Jew comes from the son of Jacob and Leah, Judah. When Leah had her fourth son, she was grateful and said, הַפַּעַם אוֹדֶה אֶת־יְהוָה (Gen 29:35 WTT), “This Time I will thank God,” and thus she named him Judah. From Ohdeh – I will thank. And so, from that moment on, the people of Judah, the Jews, became a people of gratitude. A people who knew how to say thanks.

And we have a very special tool for marking our gratitude: blessings. Rabbi Dov Heller, calls blessings the “technology for helping us develop gratitude.”[4] They encourage each of us to develop an “attitude of gratitude.” An attitude, which scientists confirm will make us happier, healthier people.

Gratitude is not something we only acknowledge a few times a year. Rather, according to the rabbis as well as scientists, it is a daily practice of self-improvement. The Talmud instructs us to say 100 blessings each day. If we are awake 16 hours of the day, that means we are saying a blessing about once every ten minutes. Can you imagine finding something to be grateful for every 10 minutes, something deserving of a blessing? Hard to imagine doing this for one day, let alone the rest of your life, but the attitude of gratitude developed by living in such a constant state of blessing would give you a new appreciation for the many miracles that surround you.

A story is told of a boy who had just eaten a delicious sandwich for lunch and said to his mother, "Thank you very much." But his mother said, "You should not thank me alone, for I only prepared the food." The boy wondered, "Whom should I thank?" He thought to himself, “The bread comes from the baker. I will thank him.” So the boy went to the bakery and said, "Mr. Baker, thank you for the wonderful bread that you bake.” The baker laughed and said, "I bake the bread, but it is good because it is made from fine flour, which comes from the miller who grinds it."

"Then I will thank the miller," said the boy, and he turned to leave.

"But the miller only grinds the wheat," the baker said. "It is the farmer who grows the grain."

So the boy went off in search of the farmer. He walked to the edge of the village, where he saw the farmer at work in the fields. "Thank you for the bread I eat every day."

But the farmer said, "Do not thank me alone. I only plant the seed, tend the field, and harvest the grain. It is sunshine and good rain and rich earth that make it grow."

"But who is left to thank?" asked the boy, and he was confused, tired, and hungry again, for he had walked a long way. The farmer said, "Come inside and have dinner with my family, and you will feel better."

So the boy went into the farmhouse and sat down to eat with the farmer's family. Each person took a piece of bread and then, all together, they said, "We thank You, O Eternal, our God, Ruler of the universe: You cause bread to spring forth from the earth."

Suddenly, the boy realized that it was God whom he had forgotten to thank. [5]

Bread does not just spring forth from the earth. So many hands go into making it. God’s hands and human hands. The process of saying blessings for the miracles in our lives helps to trace them to their sources, both immediate and distant. Our blessings reveal to us the many hidden hands that form the miracles of our lives.


Gratitude combats Insufficiency
Acknowledging miracles gives us a sense of contentment, and combats the insufficiency we all sometimes feel – the sense that we don’t have enough or that we are not enough. Pirke Avot says, “Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their own lot.”[6] There are two mindsets in the world: scarcity and abundance. Scarcity says “I do not have enough.” People who live with scarcity feel like there is an insatiable hole in their lives, and nothing they do will ever fully fill it. People who live with abundance look around and say “Look how blessed I am.” Whatever they have feels like enough. This is the message of Dayeinu on Passover – any one of the miracles listed would have been enough. How lucky are we to have experienced not one, but all of them. Each is part of a larger path to redemption, but when we separate them out, we can see them as a multitude of miracles, not just one. This is the value of a daily gratitude practice, breaking down the miracles of our daily lives into their component parts, until we can begin to move from a place of scarcity to a place of abundance. Bread is not just one miracle, it’s dozens of miracles baked into tiny loafs. How can anyone who thanks God for the miracle of bread not see the abundance in their life?

17 years ago my family was in a rough place. My grandfather had just been diagnosed with lung cancer. Neither of my parents was particularly happy at work. And I was in middle school (need I say more). The conversation at our dinner table each night had been reduced to a litany of complaints. My mother started to worry about the effect this was having on all of us. One day my Mom watched Oprah interview woman about how keeping a gratitude journal had helped her cope with cancer. “Some days,” she said, “all I can write is ‘I got up and got dressed today’ but those days even that can feel like a miracle.” This woman’s story touched my mother deeply and she saw it as a way to combat the scarcity we were all feeling. That night, at dinner, she announced that we would begin the meal by going around the table, each saying one thing that we were grateful for, something we have done at every meal since. I believe deeply that this practice of gratitude has transformed my family. I believe it has made us happier. I believe it has made us more resilient. In my mother’s own battle with cancer, this practice of gratitude has been one of the key powers that has kept her spirits up and her outlook positive, even on grim days. Cultivating an attitude of gratitude has helped my family weather seemly impossible storms.

Jewish Living is Grateful Living
The first words that a Jew utters upon waking are Modeh Ani l’fanecha – “I offer thanks before you.” From the very first moments of our day, we are grateful. Before we sit up, or put on our glasses, the lens through which we should see the world is one of gratitude.

And this mood carries us through our day. Nearly one third of our daily prayers are on the theme of gratitude. We experience gratitude at meal times – both before and after we eat. The Talmud says that someone who eats without blessing is like a thief. One must not take food without giving thought to how it came to be. In this way, every meal is an opportunity to cultivate an attitude of gratitude.

The Enemy of Gratitude is Habit
Yet despite the regularity of these blessing, we must not allow them to become rote, routine, and devoid of meaning. The enemy of gratitude is habit. It is easy to blindly say hamotzi without noticing the miracle that bread springs forth from the earth (with lots of help). The Medieval philosopher Bahya Ibn Paquda says that we are surrounded by such a “superabundance of divine favors” that it is easy to become accustomed to them and stop noticing them completely. We begin to see these divine favors as essential parts of our being, not miracles that exist outside of us. If I see the food I eat only as a necessity of my daily life, I fail to acknowledge it as miraculous gift that appears at my table. An attitude of gratitude reawakens us in to the superabundance of miracles that surround us. The blessings for nature, or the blessing over bread, or the blessing we say after we go to the bathroom are opportunities to remember that even in the ordinary, there is wonder. Blessings shake us from our complacency.

A Year of Living Gratefully
So what do we do with all this? How do we create a uniquely Jewish practice of gratitude? I propose on this Yom Kippur that we each resolve to make this a year of living gratefully. Just like in the scientific studies, we need ways to record our gratitude. To change our lives, gratitude has to be a daily practice. And from our Jewish tradition we know that ritual makes things permanent. The more we have a specific time or way to do something, the more likely it is to happen. Here are a few suggestions:

  1. I invite your family to join mine in starting each meal with gratitude. It’s like an out-loud gratitude journal that you share with the people you love. Or try a keeping a journal. Or, I read about one woman who is keeping a “gratitude jar.” Each night she writes something she is grateful for on a slip of paper and puts it into the jar, and next year, at Rosh Hashanah, she will open it again, to relive all the gratitude she felt this year.
  2. Set a number. Don’t just try to find one thing you are grateful for, find five. One may not be enough to tune us in to the superabundance of miracles. This is why my friend’s Amidah practice has been powerful for me, and I was fascinated to see the number five paralleled in the scientific literature. Our tradition encourages us to find 100 things to bless in a day. I bet we could each find five. I read about a woman who counts blessings instead of sheep. When she wakes up in the middle of the night and has trouble falling back asleep, she starts to think fondly about each of her children and then each of her grandchildren, one by one. She blesses them and sends them gratitude prayers. She says “I never make it through the whole list before I’m peacefully asleep again.”[7]
  3. Be specific. As I said, habit is the enemy of gratitude. If we are to cultivate a sense of “radical amazement,” we are going to need more than just “thank you God for the food I ate today.” Maybe this is why there are so many different blessings in Judaism – a different blessing for apples and potatoes – so that in thinking about which blessing is required, we consider the miracle more closely. This was certainly the function of my “big miracle/small miracle” game. It was about more than just naming something as miraculous, it was about saying “What about this is miraculous?” As you keep your journal or jar, or share around the table, I encourage you to be specific. As one scientist put it:
    1. While you might always be thankful for your great family, just writing “I’m grateful for my family” week after week doesn’t keep your brain on alert for fresh grateful moments. Get specific: “Today my husband gave me a shoulder rub when he knew I was really stressed." Opening your eyes to more of the world around you can deeply enhance your gratitude practice.
  4. Relationships rely on gratitude. Scientists have found a high correlation between successful marriages and the amount that a couple expresses gratitude towards each other. Dr. John Gottman suggests that in successful relationships, positive expressions like smiles, compliments, laughter, and expressions of appreciation and gratitude outnumber negative expressions like complains and frowns by 5 to 1! Take an opportunity each day to tell your partner one thing you are grateful for that day, just to make sure you tip the scales in gratitude’s favor.
    1. On that note, Annie, Thank you for being amazingly supportive these last 10 days. You are the biggest blessing in my life.


This Yom Kippur we ask God to seal us for a blessing in the book of life. If my research on gratitude has taught me anything, it’s that this work falls mainly on us. As my teacher, Sam Glaser puts it, “If you want more blessings, make more blessings.” Let this year be a year of blessing for all of us, but even more than that, may this year be a year when we notice the abundant blessings that surround us. Let it be a year when we take more time to say thank you to the people around us who are sources of blessing in our lives. Let it be a year when we notice miracles hidden in each day and thank God as their source. Let it be the year of abundance and not scarcity, of appreciation and not acquisition. So that, when we are here next Yom Kippur we will know that God sealed us for blessings in the book of life. Blessings which we noticed. Blessings for which we said thanks.




[1] http://gapsychology.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=309
[2] ibid
[5] Rossel, When a Jew Prays
[6] Pirke Avot 4:1
[7] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-michelle-levey/understanding-gratitude_b_888208.html

My Midrash on the Akedah: Rosh Hashanah Day 2 Sermon, 5775

Intro:
Every Rosh Hashanah, I struggle with the Akedah, the story of the binding of Isaac. On first inspection, it seems to be about ideas that do not speak to my Jewish Identity: blind faith and ultimate sacrifice. Like Jacob wrestling with the angel, I must wrestle this text to the ground and hold it there until I can extract from it a blessing: some kind of meaning for the day.

The Akedah is a terse story with very little detail. So much is left unsaid. What was Abraham thinking? What was Isaac thinking? What was Sarah thinking? The spaces in the text are enormous. They are shadows that we must fill with light if we are to see our way through.

Midrash is the ancient tool for filling in these spaces. It’s an interpretive process for fleshing out the story, filling in the gaps between the words with the truths of our own lives.

One of my favorite examples of Midrash comes from Pirke Avot. The Rabbis believed firmly that all the disparate stories in the Torah were actually connected. So they imagine that in the twilight of the 6th day of creation, in the hour before the first Shabbat, God made 10 mystical items that would serve the Jewish people later on. For instance, in that hour God created Moses’s staff, which he would use to split the sea, and Miriam’s well, which provided the Israelites with water in the desert. And, apropos for today, the ram, which would replace Isaac in the Akedah sacrifice. Thus, the Rabbis use the tool of midrash to weaved their own truth into the text.

Each year when I approach the Akedah, I write my own Midrash in my head to demystify the text. What I would like to do with you today, is share the story I’m telling myself this year. Some of it comes from traditional sources, and some comes from my own imagination. I will tell it as one coherent story, but I have placed an annotated version in the library, if you are interested to know the sources for these stories.   What I present from here is my own understanding of the Akedah – The binding of Isaac – that speaks to me on this Rosh Hashanah.

My Midrash:
Abraham sits alone outside his tent. His wife and son sleep inside but Abraham is restless. He thinks back over the last 25 years of his life, since first he was called by God. In the beginning, he had so much hope. The gods of the people around him were angry and vengeful, fickle and cold. They required constant devotion and sacrifice, sometimes even the sacrifice of children. [1] But God’s promise to Abraham was a different kind of relationship, a covenant, a ברית. Adonai would take Abraham and his descendants to be God’s people, and Adonai would be their God.[2] God would bless them and keep them.[3] This would not be a covenant of fear and trembling, but rather a covenant of אהבה רבה – of everlasting love on both sides.

But the last few years had seemed different. Abraham feels like he has been testing God, and God is barely passing. Abraham’s God had once again chosen to be a destroyer, leveling the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham had argued on their behalf. He had stood in front of the Divine and convinced God to choose mercy, to believe in the possibility of change. But when God could find nothing redeeming in those cities, God laid them to waste. Only Abraham’s nephew had escaped God’s wrath, but even his niece had died, when she turned to see her city one last time. Abraham still wept for her sudden end. Salty tears on his cheeks.

All his life, he had wanted a child, a son whom he could teach to love God as he did. And finally, when he had that son, a treasured child, God had allowed the boy to be exiled. The Eternal assured him that his younger son, Isaac, would carry on his name and his faith, and that Ishmael, too, would grow up to father his own nation. But still, Abraham was distressed.[4] Was this God’s reward for his faith?

After all these things, Abraham sits alone and thinks. What has become of the promise that God made to him? Was this the God who was forging a new path? Had Abraham smashed his father’s idols for this?


God watches Abraham curiously. He is God’s prophet, God's pride and joy. God had tried different types of relationships with humanity before, but they had all failed. Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden, Noah and the flood: examples of God’s inability to keep humanity from sin. So God tried a new approach. God set out to be a teacher, and not just a master, to lead the people towards a righteous life. And this began with Abraham, whose charisma was matched only by his kindness, who was gregarious and generous. Abraham embodied the spirit of the new way, the way of faith and hope that God desired. So God made a covenant with Abraham and the generations to follow him, to love them and care for them if they would love God in return.

And things had been going so well since then. Nine times, God gave Abraham tests. Not to prove anything to God, but to prove to Abraham, and to the rest of the families of the earth, that Abraham was a true prophet, and a man of faith. And Abraham had passed each of these tests with flying colors. When God told Abraham that God was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, God was so proud to see Abraham argue back, to hear him say, “You told me that you were the God of Justice and Mercy, and if that is true, then have mercy here.” What a proud moment, to hear him stand and declare firmly what was right. And it had caused God great agony to find that there not even 10 righteous people in the cities. If only Abraham had argued for a lower number!

So now, it pains God to see Abraham acting so despondently, to see his faith and his hope wavering. A final test was needed, to prove once and for all that this lonely man of faith would start a people. God had always known that this test would come, and now it was time.

The Torah Says:
Chapter 22, Verse 1: Now after these events it was that God tested Abraham and said to him: “Abraham,” and he [Abraham] said, “Here I am.”[5]
Verse 2: [God] said, “Pray take your son, your only-one, whom you love, Isaac, and go forth to the land of Moriah. Bring him up there as an offering upon one of the mountains that I will show you.”

Abraham says nothing. Why doesn’t he argue for his son? What has become of the brilliant orator who defended Sodom and Gomorrah?[6]

This is it, Abraham thinks. My last test of God. I thought You were the God who would not demand such a thing. I thought you were the God who was more merciful than wrathful. I’ll do as you ask, this last time. Perhaps you have a plan, and my beloved son will survive. And if not, then your promise of a great nation will die with him. I will go to this place you send me, not as a test of my moral fiber, but of Yours.[7]

The Torah Says:
Verse 3: Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, he took his two serving-lads with him and Isaac his son… and set out towards the place that God had told him of.
They walk in silence. Abraham and his family were encamped in Hebron, and God sent them to Moriah, modern-day Jerusalem. It should only take about eight hours to walk there, but the Torah says it took three days.[8] Abraham is dragging his feet. He looks down at the sand, considering his situation carefully.
But as he walks, he makes a subtle choice. It happens gradually, over the course of those three days. He barely even notices it, but slowly, he decides to have faith. God will be what God had promised to be. His God would not be the kind of God to demand such a sacrifice. Abraham cannot imagine how it will work out, but slowly, surely, he becomes more certain that it will. Even in the face of unspeakable fear, the threat of unfathomable tragedy, Abraham has hope.

The Torah Says:
Verse 4: On the third day Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place from afar.

On the third day, Abraham is feeling better, and moving faster. And for the first time, he lifts his eyes. In that moment, he sees before him the mountain, and at the top of the mountain, he sees the presence of the Eternal waiting for him.[9] When Abraham speaks to his servants, there is hope in his voice:

The Torah Says:
Verse 5: Abraham said to his servants, “You stay here, and I and the lad will go yonder. We will worship and we will return to you.”

He says, “We will return to you.” [10] I think Abraham is being honest. He really does believe that Isaac will return with him, that they will both survive this ordeal. Even in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, he believes that there is goodness and mercy to be found in God. Abraham and Isaac leave the group and ascend, together. They go up, to see what kind of God they will find there.

The Torah Says:
Verse 6: Abraham took the wood for the offering [and] the fire and the knife. And the two of them went together.

The two of them “went together.”[11] The time has come to talk. Abraham is nearing the end of his life. He wants to impart to his son his hopes and dreams for the future. He wants to pass on his relationship with God. But he does not know how to do it in a way that does not feel compulsory. How can he bestow his faith without Isaac feeling bound?

But it is Isaac who speaks first:

The Torah Says:
Verse 7: Isaac said to Abraham his father, “Father”, and he [Abraham] said, “Here I am, my son.” He said “Here is the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the offering?”
Verse 8: Abraham said, “God will see to the lamb for the offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.

Isaac is no fool. His father’s answer sounds evasive, and it leaves him troubled. Isaac starts to sense that he may be the lamb. To a younger generation, a parent’s faith can seem impossible, fanatical even. How can you worship a God who would ask such a thing of you?

But Abraham really means it. As he walked those three days, he decided to believe that an answer would come. And when he lifts up his eyes to the mountain and sees the presence of God, he knows that God will be his help and Isaac’s salvation.[12] Abraham says, “God will see to the lamb.”[13] He is growing more confident that God will see them and remember God’s promise to grant them life. As Isaac’s faith falters, Abraham’s resolve becomes strong.

The Torah Says:
Verse 9: They came to the place that God had told him of. There Abraham built the altar and arranged the wood and bound Isaac his son, and placed him on the altar on top of the wood.

Abraham finds there an Altar. It had fallen into disrepair. As Abraham rebuilds it, he thinks of the history of this place. Our tradition says it was the same altar on which Adam and Eve had made sacrifices when they were expelled from the Garden of Eden. It was the same altar on which Noah had made sacrifices after the flood.[14] This was a place where people worshipped a God who had taken from them everything. People had made sacrifices here after seeing God’s mighty and merciless hand. Now Abraham stands in front of the altar and wonders, will God again choose destruction, or will God choose faith in the future? Abraham’s resolve flickers. Will God keep faith in my family as I have kept faith in God? Or will God again make this a place where God demands ultimate sacrifices?

The Torah Says:
Verse 10: Abraham stretched out his hand, and he took the knife to slay his son.

Abraham moves slowly. He raises the knife. In each passing second, Abraham thinks he will hear God call out to him and say, “This has gone far enough,” but no voice comes. He looks down in to his beloved son’s eyes, tears streaming from his face and falling onto Isaac’s.[15] The whole world stands still. Life and death hang in the balance. He offers this prayer:

              מקור חיים וברכה – Oh Source of Life, and Blessing
              Master of all things.
              You, who sees all, and knows all,
          הִנֵּנִי – here I am.
              I am your faithful servant.
              I have given so much for you.
              I left my parent’s home and journeyed with you to a new land.
              I changed my name. I became a new person.
              I circumcised myself, and my sons.[16] 
              I offered them up. Not for a sacrifice, but for a covenant.
              A promise for our future.
But now, my beloved Ishmael is banished. My firstborn sent away.
              And Isaac, whom I love dearly, lays beneath the knife.
              I do not know what I have done to offend you,
That you would ask of me such a thing.
But I beg of you forgiveness, and that you will overturn your decree.
              I will do this awful thing, this unspeakable deed, if you ask.
              So I beg of you not to ask.
              Let the boy live!
              So that he can continue to build after I am gone.
              Let my children be a sign of my faith in you,
And a sign of your faith in me.
              Please, be the God of forgiveness.
              Be the God of life.

As Abraham offers his prayer, the angels in heaven also present themselves before God, weeping in a bitter voice. They say, “Master of the universe, You are called merciful and kindhearted. Have mercy. You promised Abraham that he would have many descendants through Isaac. What will be of the destined nation Israel? Who will accept Your commandments?”[17]

Abraham gazes into Isaac’s eyes. Isaac, however, looks upward and sees the angels as they beg God to invest in the future.[18] In that moment, as he sees the kingdom of heaven standing in his defense, Isaac’s faith grows. The seeds of faith that one generation plants for the next, blossom into new relationships with of God.

God responds to the angels: “When I created the world you begged me not to create human beings. You told me they would be sinners.[19] Would you have said this if you had you known then that there would be people like Abraham?

“I put Abraham through this ordeal to prove to the world, and to you, that man is more than just sin. Humans have free will, and look, they want to choose righteousness. Even in the face of certain death, they choose to hope for the future. And they demand of me the same, that I choose life, and allow them to turn from their evil ways.[20] From the very first moments of creation, I knew that people would choose life.[21] I have always known, and I will prove it to you!”

The Torah Says:
Verse 11: Then out of heaven, an Angel of the Eternal called to him, saying, “Abraham! Abraham!” He [Abraham] said, “Here I am.”
Verse 12: He said, “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, or do anything to him! For now I know that you are in awe of God – You have not withheld your son, your only-one, from me.

At the last moment, the voice of an angel screams out of the heavens.[22] Abraham’s prayer is answered. God choses life. But in Abraham’s relief, there is also anger. “After all I have done, how could you have even asked for such a sacrifice? You are the God of promises. Now, I stand here, knife in hand and ask you for one final promise:

“There may come a time when Isaac’s descendants sin and are worthy of punishment. Promise me that at such times, you will recall this day. Remember that in this moment, we stayed our hands. You and I both. Just as you have released me from this sacrifice, promise that you will forgive them, on account of our faithfulness to each other today.” [23]


God says, “Let this day be known as Rosh Hashanah, the New Year. On this day I will judge everyone in the world, great and small alike. I will set a decree for each, depending on his or her deeds. If your descendants want me to seek out merit for them and recall the binding of Isaac, let them sound this shofar, and it will be benefit them greatly.”[24]

Abraham is confused. “What is this shofar?”

God answers him, “Turn around, and you will see it.”[25]

The Torah Says:
Verse 13: Abraham lifted his eyes and saw a ram caught behind the thicket by its horns! Abraham went, he took the ram and offered it up as an offering in place of his son.

Again, Abraham lifts his eyes, in hope and faith, and sees the ram caught in the thicket.

God continues, “There may come a time when your descendants are entangled in sin, just as the ram is entangled in the thicket. If they repent, I will forgive their sins on the merit of this moment, on the merit the Akedah.”[26]

God says, “I have known, since the very beginning that humanity would sin. But I have also known that humankind would return to me in repentance, and that I would forgive them. As the sun set on the 6th day of creation, after I had created human beings, I created a symbol of this day, and of my eternal forgiveness. In that twilight, I created this ram.[27] I gave you this test Abraham because I always knew you would pass. That your faith, your hope, and your desire to return to me, would shine like a beacon, a sign to all the nations.”[28]

And Abraham takes the ram and sacrifices it on the altar in his son’s place.

The Torah Says:
Verse 14: Abraham called the place Adonai Sees. To this day, people say, “On the mountain of the Eternal, [God] will be seen.”

The place is called “Adonai will see” but also “Adonai will be seen.” This mountain is the place where God and humanity truly saw each other. Where each peered into the other’s soul, and saw reflected back, their own hopefulness, their own belief in the power to do better, not to destroy, but to create, to return and repent, and to forgive.

The Torah Says:
Verse 19: Abraham returned to his lads, they arose and went together to Beersheba, and Abraham stayed in Beersheba.

וַיָּשָׁב אַבְרָהָם – And Abraham returns. Yashav. From the same Hebrew root as T’shuvah – To return, to repent. After his crisis of faith. After he loses hope, and finds it again, Abraham returns, to walk again with God. That very first Rosh Hashanah ends with Abraham performing t’shuvah, repentance; returning to walk in his path with the Eternal.


The Akedah begins by saying that God tested Abraham. So what was Abraham’s test? Rabbi Bradley Artson suggests that “Abraham’s test was whether, in trying times, he would still insist on his Jewish identity, would still retain confidence that God’s promised covenant would survive. By refusing to abandon hope in the face of a bleak reality, Abraham remained true to the brit, to the covenant.”[29] In this last test, Abraham finally becomes the first Jew. A Jew chooses hope. A Jew chooses faith in the future. A Jew chooses life. Even in dark moments, a Jew believes in the power of T’shuvah, the power of our ability to return. A Jew believes in a God who believes in them. Not the God of blind faith, but the God of covenant. A God who wants us to stand up like Abraham did for Sodom and Gomorrah. And the God who will stand up for us when we cannot. The God who renews God’s faith in the covenant each year. The God who knows that however far we wander, the mighty sound of the shofar will bring us back.


[1] Rabbi Joshua Heller in Rosh Hashanah Readings, edited by Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins, p125
[2] Exodus 6:7
[3] Numbers 6:24
[4] Genesis 21:11
[5] Translation based on The Five Books of Moses, translated by Everett Fox and The Torah: A Modern Commentary, edited by Gunther Plaut
[6] Yalkhut Me’am Loez. P320
[7] Ed Levin in Rosh Hashanah Readings, edited by Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins
[8] Yalkhut Me’am Loez, p314
[9] Yalkhut Me’am Loez, p325 (based on Pirkey Rabbi Eliezer)
[10] Yalkhut Me’am Loex, p314
[11] Yalkhut Me’am Loez, p327 (based on Yafe Eynaim)
[12] Psalm 121
[13] Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson in Rosh Hashanah Readings, edited by Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins, p141
[14] Yalkhut Me’am Loez, p332 (based on Targum Yonatan)
[15] Yalkhut Me’am Loez, p334 (based on Bereshith Rabbah)
[16] Yalkhut Me’am Loez, p334 (based on Sanhedrin 89b, Bereshith Rabbah, and Targum Yonatan)
[17] Yalkhut Me’am Loez, p334 (based on Pirkey Rebbi Eliezer and Yafe Toar p335)
[18] Yalkhut Me’am Loez, p335 (based on Targum Yonatan)
[19] Bereishit Rabba 8
[20] Yalkhut Me’am Loez, p335 (based on Tanchumah)
[21] Deuternonomy 30:19
[22] Yalkhut Me’am Loez, p336 (based on Yafe Toar p335)
[23] Yalkhut Me’am Loez, p339 (based on Tanchuma)
[24] ibid
[25] ibid
[26] Yalkhut Me’am Loez, p340
[27] Yalkhut Me’am Loez, p340 (based on Yalchut Shimoni
[28] Concept of Maimonides as explained by Gunther Plaut in The Torah: A Modern Commentary, p142
[29] Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson in Rosh Hashanah Readings, edited by Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins, p141

Oh How the Mothers are Weeping: Rosh Hashanah Day 1 Sermon, 5775

Shira spent her summer ordering pizzas. It was not what she planned for the summer, but this summer did not turn out how anyone expected. So she made the best of it. Shira’s children were supposed to go to summer camp, but camp was canceled. It was not safe to go outside, so they spent the summer with their mother, ordering pizzas. Shira, and her family live in southern Israel, not far from the Gaza Strip, and the threat of rocket fire kept them confined to their home for much of the summer. So they did a lot of ordering pizzas. But not for themselves. Or, at least, not only for themselves. Shira’s daughter volunteered for a project organized by their community where they would call women whose husbands and sons were on milluim – reserve service, and offer to have a pizza sent to their house for dinner. Judaism teaches us that when someone is having a hard time, friends and neighbors should bring them a meal, but if we can’t leave our house, then we order them a pizza. Shira and her daughters called women from all over the country, women who were losing, at the very least, sleep as the violence continued and their husband’s and son’s service stretched on. They sent dozens and dozens of pizzas. In an e-mail a few weeks ago, Shira told me that the remarkable thing was how the women responded. She wrote, “They were all so grateful, but they were also sure that there were other people more needy or deserving than they.” She was also awestruck at their determination and grit, and selflessness. Shira and her children didn’t take no for an answer. They sent pizzas.

Wassam lives in Canada, with her husband, and her three children. Wassam is a pharmacist and her husband is a pediatrician at a hospital in Ontario. This past spring, Wassam’s husband planned a trip to Gaza, where he grew up, to renew his medical license. He thought he would bring his youngest, his daughter, 8-year-old Salma, to meet her grandmother. They arrived in early June. When the hostilities broke out, the doctor volunteered in a hospital emergency room, helping children wounded in the airstrikes. Soon, he was working 24 hour shifts. Salma stayed with her grandmother.

Wassam sat at home in Ontario, watching the news and fearing the worst. Once the war started, travel out of the Gaza strip was next to impossible, even for foreign nationals. What’s more, Wassam’s husband felt like he could not miss even one shift at the hospital to transport Salma to the border. He was one of very few qualified pediatric emergency physicians in Gaza. There were children there who needed him. So Salma remained inside with her Grandmother, while Wassam, on the other side of the world, watched and prayed, and mobilized a network of supporters and government officials to help her get her daughter home.

When Israel and Hamas agreed to a short-term ceasefire for international aid workers to enter Gaza, Wassam’s network seized the opportunity. Canadian officials worked with the consulates in Tel Aviv, Ramallah, and Amman to extract her. Wassam’s husband drove her to a bus, where she joined other Canadians leaving Gaza. Then he returned to the hospital to continue to help the children there. Salma and the others were driven to Jordan, where they were safely put on a plane. On Friday, August 8, Salma was reunited with her mother, after more than a month away.


Two mothers. Shira and Wassam. A world apart. United by conflict, united by hope, united by care for others and fear for their children. Today, I think of them. But not just these two mothers. The mothers who Shira called, who prayed for their husbands and sons to be safe. The mothers of the children who lay injured in that Gaza hospital, while Wassam’s husband tried to heal them. Mothers praying, and mothers wailing, and mothers having, and losing, and finding hope again. Mothers calling out for their children.


The imagery of the Torah and Haftarah readings on Rosh Hashanah is all about mothers. Sarah and Hagar, Rachel, and Hannah. And not just about mothers in general, but about their pain and struggles, their prayers, hopes, and tears. So many mothers call out to us on this day.

Today we read from Genesis 21, the story of Sarah, and the birth of Isaac. When Sarah finally gave birth, she became jealous of her maidservant Hagar and the son that Hagar had borne to Abraham. She wanted her own son to have the birthright, the inheritance of God’s promise, so she asked Abraham to banish Hagar and Ishmael from their home.

Hagar and Ishmael were sent out into the wilderness. When their water and food ran out, and Hagar could not go on, she placed her son under some bushes and walked a bit further. She thought to herself “let me not look on as the child dies.” And the Torah says וַתִּשָּׂא אֶת־קֹלָהּ וַתֵּבְכְּ “And she raised her voice and wept” (Gen 21:16 WTT). Out in the wilderness, Hagar cries out for her son.

In our Haftarah, we read from the book of Samuel the story of Hannah. Hannah was married to a man named Elkanah. Elkanah had two wives, Hannah and Peninnah. Peninnah had several children, and Hannah had none. This distressed Hannah greatly, especially because Peninnah would tease her mercilessly. Yearly, Elkanan, his wives and children went to the alter at Shilo to make sacrifices and on this family outing, surrounded by Peninnah and her children, Hannah would become acutely aware of her situation. At the annual festive meal, the Haftarah saysוַתִּבְכֶּה וְלֹא תֹאכַל , she wept and did not eat (1Sa 1:7 WTT). Up in the shrine, Hannah cries out for a son.

For tomorrow’s Torah portion, we will read Genesis 22, the Akedah –the story of the binding of Isaac. God commands Abraham to take Isaac and offer him as a sacrifice on mount Moriah. The Torah tells us nothing about Sarah in this story, we have no idea how she felt. Did she know it was going to happen? Did she learn about it afterwards? Did she try and stop it?

Responding to Sarah’s silence, the rabbis wrote a number of midrashim, stories to fill in the gaps in the text. Many pick up on the fact is the next thing that we hear about Sarah, in the section that follows the Akedah, is that she has died. The Rabbis wonder if the news of what Abraham did, or almost did, caused her so much grief and agony that she actually let go of life. Alone in her tent, Sarah cries out for her son.

In tomorrow’s Haftarah, we will read from the book of Jeremiah, written at the beginning of the Babylonian Exile. In it, the prophet writes, “A cry is heard from Ramah – Wailing and bitter weeping” -- רָחֵל מְבַכָּה עַל־בָּנֶיהָ (Jer 31:15 WTT) “Rachel weeping for her children”. Our tradition imagines Rachel, buried near the road from Jerusalem generations before, could “see” as the Israelites went into exile, and she wept for them, praying to God to remember them. Even from beyond the grave, Rachel cries out for her children.


Two days, four readings, and four wailing mothers. Hagar, Sarah, Hannah, and Rachel. Three of the readings explicitly use the world לִבכּוֹת – to weep. The only outlier is the Akedah, where so much pain is implied that the rabbis created a whole library of midrashim. So many tears are shed in our text, on this great and awesome day. Too many mothers cry out for their sons.


It’s been a summer of too many tears. Too many mothers crying out for their sons. Like many Jews around the world, I spent my summer in a haze. When I turned on the news, I was inundated with images of war and destruction, pain and death. My Facebook feed was a constant barrage of posts about conflicts. But I did not see a lot of weeping mothers on the news. Not as many as you would think. I saw a lot of talking heads and pointing fingers. I saw a lot of analysis and punditry. Stories about people like Wassam and Shira were drowned about by the din of body counts and rocket tallies, by the noise of sirens and politicians.

And it was not just abroad. Here at home we had our own share of conflict. Watching the news from places like Ferguson, Missouri was painful, too, and there were so many moments that called on our conscience. I was struck by how quickly the conversation turned from one about a community grieving to a conversation about race in America, about police funding, about wealth and poverty and class. And somehow, in our quickness to put the events in Missouri into their broader context, I worry we lost sight of the pain and the needs of the people involved. Just like in our Torah cycle for today, there were wailing mothers in Missouri, mothers calling out for their children. Rosh Hashanah calls us to respond to them, and not just to the politics of the moment.

I'm not saying we don't need analysis. On the contrary. Clearly a conversation about context is crucial to creating the conditions for change. And perhaps it is also true that the wails of mothers can be overwhelming and hard to hear, and it is all too easy to block out the realities of their pain with the persistence of our rhetoric. Our instinct when we hear reports of suffering individuals on TV is to respond to their pain with analysis. How could this have happened? Who is right? Reports of the fighting in Gaza quickly turn into debates about Israel’s right to defend itself and about the morality of war. Conversations about Ferguson quickly evolved into conversations about race, and class, and privilege. But even as each of the mothers in our holiday readings was situated in a larger context, each one’s pain was real. Ironically, it’s easier to talk about the big picture than to listen to the stories of people in pain. Perhaps it is easier to see the context than to hold in our hearts the sometimes contradictory emotions that come with empathy. Empathy compels us to say, “Even if I don’t agree with you, I feel for you.” The annual reading of the stories of Sarah, Hagar, Hannah, and Rachel call us to check if our inclination to analyze makes us deaf to the wails of mothers.


In today’s Torah portion, God says to Hagar, even though I have chosen to side with Sarah and Isaac, this does not mean I will ignore you in this moment of need. God has chosen Isaac. By the God’s reckoning, Sarah is right to kick out Hagar and Ishmael so that Isaac can be guaranteed the birthright. And yet our tradition also focuses on Hagar’s pain. Even if Sarah is right, or justified, this does not mean that Hagar has to be wrong. In the story, God never speaks to Sarah, but God does speak to Hagar, saying, “Fear not, for I have heard the cry of the boy where he is. Come, lift him up… for I will make a great nation of him.” Hagar cries out for her son, and God answers her.

It always surprises me that the Torah and Haftarah we read on Rosh Hashanah are not about the big picture, about the rhetoric of the day. Today is the birthday of the world, we could read Genesis 1, the story of creation. Many Reform congregations do. But instead we spend these days reading deeply powerful stories of personal petition and divine intercession. We don’t read about the creation of the cosmos or the need for repentance, we read about the wailing of mothers.

Let’s look more closely at the story of Hannah for a minute. Hannah is wracked by pain. The pain of feeling incomplete, the pain of being teased by Peninnah. And so one night, she goes into the sanctuary at Shilo. The Torah says that with the bitterness of her soul she offered a prayer to God. She prays fervently, but silently. She rocks back and forth and weeps. She is alone in the building, though the Priest Eli sits just outside the door. Eli looks over at her and thinks that she is drunk. He approaches her and says, "How long will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself? Sober up!"

Eli cannot see Hannah. He sees her only in the context of the temple, for which he is responsible. It’s sacrilege to be drunk in this sacred space! He does not see her pain, he only sees how she appears in this context, as he perceives her to be defiling the house of God. He sits at the doorway of the shrine, literally he is outside, looking at the whole. He only sees Hannah as a small piece inside this larger puzzle. His concern for the integrity of this institution blinds him to the woman who sits before him in tears.

Hannah turns back to him and says "Oh no, my lord! I have drunk no wine… I have only been speaking all this time out of my great anguish and distress." Suddenly Eli sees her. She is not only a woman in his shine, she is a woman in pain. When he acknowledges her pain, she is no longer just an “other,” now he sees her as a mother, calling out for a son.

It’s not that Eli should not be concerned with his shrine. It is his job to sit at the gate. But until his concern for the bigger picture is balanced against empathy for the individual, he lacks the ability to hear Hannah’s story. We must all be like Eli, who balances a concern for the shrine with compassion for the people who sit within it.

Why do we read about so many wailing mothers on Rosh Hashanah? To remind us that these next ten days are not just about ideas like the birthday of the world, the nature of the universe, the power of repentance and forgiveness. Rather these stories of wailing mothers remind us that these ten days are about people. Sarah and Hagar, Hannah and Rebecca are crying out, begging us to remember them. And not just them, but the real people in our lives. Who are the people we have hurt this year? Who are the people who are crying out to us, who we do not hear? And when we see the people around us hurting, we must resist the urge to be right, and instead, we must be sensitive. Our job is not to justify our actions or react defensively, but instead to help them feel heard. Just like Sarah and Hagar and Hannah were heard. This is our call for the next ten days. To reach out to the people we might have hurt this year and begin to make peace. So when we stand here together at Yom Kippur, we can focus again on the big picture of our lives and our souls, having first heard the call to compassion for those around us.

The stories we read today are not just the stories of mothers who call out for their children, they are also the stories of mothers being answered by God. Sarah prays for a son and is answered. Hagar prays that she and her son be saved, and God hears them. Hannah calls out to God in pain, and God blesses her with a child. We are challenged to be like God, to hear the mournful call of the people around us and ask ourselves how we might answer them. Like Eli, we must first recognize that they are in pain. When we see a person’s agony on TV, we must resist the urge to change the channel or dial up the rhetoric. We must respond to them in their pain.

The Talmud says that the 100 blasts of the Shofar on Rosh Hashanah are related to the wails of the mother of Sisera, the Canaanite General, enemy of the Jews. According to the book of Judges, Sisera’s mother stood on her balcony and wailed at the news of the death of her son. The midrash says she cried out 101 times. Tradition says we blow the shofar to counteract any affect that her crying might have on the heavenly hosts, so that our T’shuvah might not be discredited on her account. Yet we don’t blow the shofar 101 times to cancel out every single tear. Instead we honor that fact that even the mother of our biggest enemy mourns for her son. When we hear the shofar today, let it be a call to hear the cries of pain that come from near and far. The sound of the shofar reminds us of the cries of mothers in pain, and calls us to hear their stories.


About a week after Michael Brown was shot to death in Ferguson, his mother Lesley and their family received a letter from a person who recognized her pain all too well, Sabrina Fulton, mother of Trayvon Martin. In this letter, Sabrina models for us balancing the need to have larger conversations with our obligation to acknowledge the individual. She speaks to Lesley as the leader of The Travon Martin Foundation, an organization whose mission is both to end violence that claims too many children in America, and also to provide support to the families effected by that violence. But she writes to Lesley primarily as a mother. A mother who recognizes her pain. She says:
Michael is much more than a police/gun violence case; Michael is your son. A son that barely had a chance to live. Our children are our future so whenever any of our children – black, white, brown, yellow, or red – are taken from us unnecessarily, it causes a never-ending pain that is unlike anything I could have imagined experiencing.


This Rosh Hashnah, let us be like these mothers. Let us balance the cosmic and the global against the human and the personal. Let us hear the blasts of shofar, not just as a call to action, but a call to listening. Let us be responsive to those around us and those on TV who cry out to us in pain, so that we can be better neighbors, better friends, and better citizens. Let us make this year a year of empathy and listening. A year when we take to heart the message of the Shema: Listen, Israel.

From the Yeshivah Shel Malah: The View from the Heavenly Academy: Erev Rosh Hashnah Sermon 5771

My Jewish Identity was formed two miles above sea level. Up where the air is thin, that’s where my identity took shape. Up in the clouds, I learned how Judaism works in the real world. My Jewish heart beats at 10,200 feet.

Let me explain. I owe my Jewish identity to so many things. When I was here a few weeks ago, I talked about the impact of weekly Shabbat dinners at my grandparents’ house in my hometown of Denver, Colorado. To this I would add a stimulating religious school experience, close relationships with a number of rabbis, and participation in youth group. I was also particularly influenced by my college experience at the University of Maryland, where I discovered a Jewish community that was larger and more diverse than anything I had encountered before. Hillel there was a lesson in Jewish pluralism and the myriad of ways that Jewish identity can be expressed. In particular, in my four years singing in a Jewish a cappella group, with people whose practiced ranged for Orthodox to secular, I learned the power of Jewish communities to create beautiful harmony together. Each of these environments played an important role in the formulation of my Jewish identity.

But one special place stands out as having had more of an impact on my Jewish identity than any other. One unique, magical place that made me the Jew I am today: Summer camp. Not just any summer camp, a Jewish camp, high in the mountains of Colorado, nearly two miles above sea level. A place called Shwayder Camp. There, in the woods, in rustic cabins and an aging dining hall, I first discovered a Judaism that spoke to me. If I were to point to one experience that led me on the path towards being a rabbi more than any other, it would be Shwayder camp.

I spent seven summers as a camper at Shwayder and two as a counselor. And this past summer, after exactly a decade away, now a “grown up,” I went back to summer camp, to serve as the senior educator. At 29, I was the second oldest person in camp. I got to be the veteran, coming home again after a long time doing battle in “the real world.” And it was an incredible blessing to be back. An opportunity to appreciate how much that place had meant and still means to me, and to try and build that experience for others. And I came to better understand how much my identity is informed by my time at Shwayder. The Jew I am today is a camp Jew, a Shwayder Jew, a mountain Jew. And I want to share this Judaism with you. We may not be able to pray at two miles above sea level, but I hope that my camp Judaism will rub off on you a little over the course of my time here in North Carolina. I’d like to bring some Rocky Mountain High to High Point. So tonight I thought I’d share with you the top seven things I learned when I went back to summer camp:

Number 7: What you say matters
When I got back to camp I had the terrifying realization that most of the rest of the staff were my campers 10 years ago. Nothing makes you feel old quite like seeing your former campers take your old job. A few days into camp, I was talking to a member of the senior staff who had been a camper of mine, and she told me that when she was a camper, she and I had had a conversation which had stuck with her all these years. She remembered exactly where it had happened. We had been walking on the path out to the ropes course, and I had told her that Jewish tradition says that if you ask someone for forgiveness three times and they do not forgive you, then you are considered forgiven and you don’t have to ask again. She said that she often thought about that conversation and the Jewish obligation to forgive others and to let go.

Now I have no recollection of this conversation. But it was meaningful to her, and hearing it relayed back to me stuck with me all summer. Not only is the message of what I taught her appropriate for this holiday season, but so too is the fact that she remembered it. Our words have a profound impact on others, even in moments that do not feel significant to us. Something you say to someone this week might be a thing they are still thinking about a decade from now. What an incredible power and responsibility. As we move through these days of repentance, as we make our apologies and rekindle old friendships, let us remember that our words have the power to hurt and to heal, and that they might be remembered, not just today, but in the weeks, years, and even decades that will follow.

Number 6: Prayer is more powerful in the woods.
We have a unique beit knesset, an outdoor sanctuary, at Shwayder. We sit on benches that are carved out of old trees, facing the forest, with a stone alter. The ark is carved from this hundred-year old tree. The creek that runs through camp passes just beyond the sanctuary, so when you close your eyes for Sh’ma, you can hear the gushing water. The roof of the sanctuary is just the blue sky, edged by the mountains that surround our valley. Each night, when I said the Ma’ariv Aravim in this sanctuary, and thanked God for the wonders of creation, it was easy to find meaning in the words. Prayer can be powerful and meaningful indoors, but there is something incredible about praising God while surrounded by the beauty of creation.

There is a Chasidic story about a girl who left the synagogue each morning during her daily prayers to go into the woods. One day her grandfather followed her and watched as his granddaughter prayed amid the trees.

“Why do you go outside to pray?” he asked.
“When I am in nature I feel closer to God,” the girl replied.
“Don’t you know that God is the same everywhere?”
“I know,” said the girl, “but I’m not.”

I know that God is everywhere, but I feel blessed to have places in my life where I am more attuned to God’s presence.

Number 5: The power of return: Or, why it’s not true that you can’t ever go back.
It was strange to go back to camp, to my old stomping grounds. But it was also wonderful. I got a unique chance to give back to a place that meant so much to me as a child. And in doing so, I got to examine who I am and how I came to be me.

The Hebrew word for repentance is T’shuvah, which literally means return. We are reminded that this time of year is an opportunity: not just to return to God, but also to return to ourselves. I have a teacher who each year during the עשרת ימי תשובה, the ten days of repentance, calls one person who has had an impact on his life and thanks them. Each year he picks someone new, and in doing so he gets to reflect on who has contributed to his development. In this way, the Ten Days become days not just of T’shuvah – repentance, but T’shuvah, return.

Today I scheduled a meeting to talk to my high school English teacher next week. She taught me more about writing in one year than anyone else, before or since. She was the hardest teacher I ever had, but only because she had high expectations of us. Expectations she knew we could live up to. And she also cared about us deeply. I remember that before the first weekend of the school year, she wrote her home phone number on the board and told us that if we ever got in trouble and didn’t want to call our parents, we should call her and she would come get us, no questions asked. I cannot wait to call Mrs. McInerney and tell her what a profound impact her teaching and her compassion had on me, both educationally and personally.

Who is a person who told you that you mattered? Have you ever thanked them? What about finding 10 minutes sometime in the next 10 days to track them down and say thank you. Maybe it was recently. Maybe it was long ago. But now’s the time to go back and say thank you. Think what it might mean to them to know what they mean to you.

Number 4: Shabbat comes alive
Shabbat at camp is intense. We sing and dance late into the night. Most of the songs are the same as when I was a camper, sung in the same order and with all the same hand motions. It’s like a giant, two hour choreographed dance number. One of the non-Jewish staff members told me it was like being in a real life Broadway musical. But Shabbat is not restricted to Friday night. The entire 25 hours feels different from the rest of the week. Our schedule changes, our meals are different, our services are more creative. Each week, we set aside a whole day to be different and full of joy.

Abraham Joshua Heschel described Shabbat as “a sanctuary in time.” Human beings feel compelled to mark time, to measure our lives in months and years, to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries. But we Jews also see the value in sanctifying time, in building sanctuaries in time where we and God can dwell, together. The thing I miss most about camp is this pervasive sense of Shabbat, not just as an evening for going to services or having a family meal, but a whole day set aside as a sanctuary to God. My new year’s resolution is to work hard in my own life to create a stronger sense of Shabbat this year, to do more to sanctify the time.


Number 3: Shutting off
When was the last time you spent more than a few hours in a place where there was no cell phone service and limited internet? The biggest blessing of Shwayder is that, because we are so high up and so secluded, we do not get reception. It’s a blessing in disguise. I found it as hard as anyone else to unplug. I had a few days of withdrawal. But its impact on the campers is profound. Other camps fight a constant battle with kids about when it’s appropriate to use their cell phones. But at Shwayder, the kids don’t even bother bringing them up to camp, because they know they will not work. And so, when the kids are outside playing, they are untethered (unless they are playing tetherball). When the staff are interacting with the campers, there are no screens to distract, no buzzes or jingles to call them away from the moment.

I am not on an anti-cell phone crusade. Far from it. I think that cell phones are a great tool for connection. They allow us to draw close to people who are far away. But sometimes, it comes as the expense of the relationships or the experiences around us, and this summer taught me to appreciate the experience of having places where you make it a rule to shut off. My challenge to myself, and to all of you is to think of one or two times and places where you choose to be untethered. A place where you decide to shut off, and disconnect, so that you can reconnect with the people and experiences you treasure most. Maybe it’s an hour every day, or at the dinner table, or even when you are in this building. What are the places and times when you choose to set aside the outside world so that you can be present for those around you?

Number 2: Dor L’dor
Shwayder camp taught me the power of the Jewish value of Dor L’dor, passing tradition from one generation to the next. When I was a camper at Shwayder I had a remarkable time. But I was also sometimes teased. I was a nerdy kid, and an easy target. One night, I had my fill of being taunted by one particularly difficult cabin mate, and I went out on the back porch to get away. One of my counselors, a guy named was Jason, was walking through camp, and he saw me. He came up and said, “Hey, you need to be in the cabin. It’s late.” But I said I couldn’t go inside. Not yet. He saw, in that moment, that I was in need, and he sat down on the steps with me. He told me I mattered, and he told me I was special, and he told me it would get better. And soon, I was able to go back in the cabin, knowing that there were people in the world besides my family who really got me and cared about me.

My first summer as a counselor, Jason was the Assistant Director. A few days into the summer I pulled him aside and told him what that moment meant to me. I told him that I hoped that I would be able to do for a camper what he did for me. “Don’t worry,” he said, “you’ll get your chance.”

One evening, a few weeks later, I was walking through camp when I saw a kid sitting on the steps of his cabin. I kid you not, it was the exact same cabin. I went over to him and he looked up at me with tears in his eyes. So I sat down next to him and told him that he mattered, and that he was special, and that it would get better. I told him all the things that Jason told me, until he was ready to go back inside. Afterwards, I ran to find Jason and tell him that I had just had my porch moment.

Being back this summer and being on senior staff like Jason, I had a lot of time to reflect on this moment, and how I might help counselors to have their own “porch moments.” It made me appreciate the great chain of tradition that we as Jews participate in in. Pirke Avot says, “From all those who taught me, I have gained understanding.” Each influential teacher in my life opened me up to new possibilities, and I feel luckiest in the moments when I get to share what they taught me with others. What is one important thing someone taught you or told you that changed your life? On the drive home, I encourage you to share that one thing with a loved one. Pass on that wisdom and understanding to the people you care about, and they will keep passing it forward long after you are gone. Someday, the young people who were comforted in times of need by the counselors this summer will themselves be counselors who comfort others. And so the chain will continue.

Number 1: Magic is real
At camp, we have something we call Shwayder Magic. It’s those little moments that you realize that you are in a special place. Maybe it’s the moment when everyone is singing together at services and the harmony sounds perfect. Maybe it’s when you are dancing and jumping so hard on Shabbat that pictures fall off the wall. Maybe it’s when a cabin full of middle school girls sneaks up behind you to smother you in handfuls shaving cream (two times!). Maybe it’s a quiet moment on a horseback ride, or a game of cards with your bunkmates. Maybe it’s a late night talk on the steps of your cabin. There is so much magic in every moment. When people tell me that Judaism is struggling in America or that the profession I have chosen is anachronistic, I just want to fly them up to 10,200 feet, to show them Shwayder magic. Call it magic, call it miracles, call it Jewish living, but something special is going on there, and it informs every Jewish decision I make. My dream is to create magical moments like these in as many ways and as many places as I can. That, more than anything, is why I want to be a rabbi. To share that magic with you.


On Kol Nidre, we will read a prayer that speaks of the Yeshivah Shel Malah and the Yeshivah Sel Matah – The heavenly academy and the earthly academy. Our rabbi likes to say that Shwayder Camp is the Yeshivah Shel Malah – The academy on high. There is so much to be learned in that sacred space. So many lessons for the Judaism I hope to live. And my job is to take what I learned up at that academy in the sky, and bring it back down to earth. To teach it here at the Yesivah Shel Matah, our academies back down on the ground, so that everyone can know a little bit of that incredible place that formed my Jewish identity. So that everyone can experience a little bit of that Shwayder Magic. On Yom Kippur we will pray that the Yeshivah Shel Malah and the Yeshivah Sel Matah be engaged in the same task.  My work this year is to bridge the gap, to bring a little bit more of the Yeshivah Shel Malah to you.