Yom Kippur Shachrit, Sept. 23, 2015/10 Tishri 5776
 
My paternal grandfather, Morris Nathan (z”l), worked as a stage manager on Broadway, back in the day.  May father, Jess (z”l), spent – or ill-spent, depending on your viewpoint – his childhood watching the heyday of vaudeville from the wings.  Thus, I have an honestly inherited appreciation for questionable humor.  No surprise, I keep copious humor files, electronic and hardcopy.  Much to my disappointment, I have been at a loss to unearth ecological humor that doesn’t make us wince as we chuckle.  A few examples of how weak the field is (groaning permitted):

“I have an obsession with wind farms.” “Really?” “Yes. I'm a huge fan.”

The British government is playing down the risk of floods caused by climate change to the UK.  Meanwhile, a secret government project is underway on a restricted piece of land. The only things that go in are trucks carrying two of each animal.

The Heavy rocker band Korn has taken a responsible eco-attitude towards touring. They’re going to throw the same TV out of every hotel window. 

Belching Cows are said to produce more harmful methane gas than cars. Scientists are now trying to develop a cattle-ytic converter. 
(http://www.jokes4us.com/holidayjokes/earthdayjokes.html)

The best of the lot, from a personal viewpoint, was finding a website selling eco-bumper stickers, including a few proclaiming the driver “the world’s coolest environmental engineer,” which a couple of years ago I would have purchased for Stephen, before he retired from that field to devote himself to writing and speaking out on the religious imperative to engage in planetary tikkun.  As I said, slim pickens.

Perhaps the lack of environmental humor without a sting or a groan represents our widening understanding that what we’re facing in our lifetime, in the lives of our children and grandchildren, is no joke.  And, Jewish tradition transmits ancient teachings about our responsibilities to creation that have evolved into practical modern ecological principles to which we must respond.

We have inherited a world-view that deeply entangles written and oral Torah with the Torah of the Earth – our physical Torah scroll itself upheld by wooden “trees of life.”  We are commanded not to damage fruit-bearing trees when besieging an enemy, for these valuable food sources are not people, who can flee before an invader, rather, they are part of the divinely-established nourishment assured us in Genesis.  We are constrained in our use of the natural world by dozens of mitzvot addressing what may be planted and how, the respectful care of livestock, the preservation of species, water pollution, air pollution (both in terms of odor and particulate matter). 

To some of our mystics, all of reality expresses the divine source from which we emanate and all of its manifestations by the metaphor of a Great Tree.  Our Israelite ancestors may have considered their tree-worshipping neighbors heathens, without realizing how deeply they too were enmeshed in a system of religious practice that held sacred – as in sourced in divinity – every aspect of God’s creation, Big Bang onward.

Our very calendar directs us to live our lives in concert with the movement of sacred time as kept by the great lights, the sun and the moon, which determine our liturgical year.  Every day has its place in a cycling and recycling of opportunities to bless and be blessed.  Today itself, Yom Kippur, is the divine mechanism by which God effects our at-one-ment:  “For through the agency of this day, I will atone for you – before YHVH you will be purified from all your sins.” (Leviticus 16:30) 

Every Friday evening, when we welcome the Sabbath with L’cha Dodi, we sing “Let us go forth to greet Shabbat, for she is the endless Source of Blessing/As was ordained from the very beginning, last in creation but first in the plan.” (v. 2.)  We are reminded every week that Shabbat exists as part of the natural order, a planetary movement from evening to evening, intentionally imbedded by God into our cycling through quarter-“moonths,” the most essential holy day.  A taste of redemption, of the world to come – not only in the sense of afterlife, also as the potential for redeemed life on our ark of a planet, a redemption entrusted to our hands.

If you joined in our Tashlich observance Rosh haShanah afternoon, you shared in a charming folk ritual of tossing our mistakes into moving water, moving water that preferably has fish in it (another Jewish reason to care about water quality). Talmudic literature links Torah and water: as fish cannot live without water, we cannot live without Torah – without our millennial-long conversation, even struggle, with its infinite potential meanings.  As well, the perception that fish’s eyes never close reminds us of God’s constant attentive presence.  Even more, according to many kabbalistic works, true tzaddikim, the most righteous people, reincarnate as fish – hence, a necessity to eat fish with especial kavannah and gratitude, lifting up again the sparks of holiness inherent in the tzaddik as fish.  What a delicious teaching!  (See http://blog.shabbat.com/dvar-torah-on-parashas-metzora-diseases-pigs-and-reincarnation-by-rabbi-elchanan-shoff/)

During the month before the High Holy Days, midrash tells us that “the divine sovereign is in the field,” that is, God is especially close to us, moving about on Earth in the midst of its inhabitants.  Chabad Hassidism extrapolates from this that since the essence of the mitzvot is to make God a dwelling place below (in the natural world), it is necessary to fulfill the mitzvot by means of physical nature, in order that the natural world itself be made into a suitable home for the Holy One. (Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Likutey Sichot, via R. David Seidenberg email, 9/5/2014.)  From this perspective, we can make no separation between practical ecology and spiritual ecology.

Just how, though, are we to do this?  How are we to assure that the planet we inhabit remains a suitable dwelling for the Holy One who manifested it so that divinity may dwell within us?  God makes clear this divine intention when giving Moses directions for building the Tabernacle: do this, v’shachanti b’tocham, create sacred space that holds your attention, and I will dwell within you. (Ex. 25:8) To this day, our prayer books offer an array of blessings by which we may express our appreciation and awe for the natural world we share with the Holy One: blessings over foods, over sweet odors, upon seeing beautiful trees, hearing thunder, standing on the shore of the sea, gazing on mountain heights.

This morning’s Torah reading commands us – or, if you prefer the hassidic reading, links us to God by inviting us – to choose life, that we may live, we and our offspring.  (Deut. 30:19)  What clearer call might there be to accept our tradition’s millennia-long mandate to protect God’s creation?  Not only that – as a Jewish mandate – but, mercifully, we have reached a time of religious and spiritual re-awakening to this sacred obligation, to choose life not in the sense of short-term profit, but to choose life for the planet itself.  This re-awakening offers us yet another opportunity to apply the unique gifts of each tradition to renewing life for all forms of being on our planet.  

For example, permit me to share some examples from a text study created by R. Daniel Swartz of Pennsylvania Interfaith Power & Light, pairing excerpts from Pope Francis’s recent encyclical, Laudato Si/Blessed Be, with complementary teachings from Jewish tradition.

His Holiness writes: The natural environment is a collective good, the patrimony of all humanity and the responsibility of everyone.  If we make something our own, it is only to administer it for the good of all.  If we do not, we burden our consciences with the weight of having denied the existence of others.  From Jewish tradition, the prophet Exekiel speaks (34:18-19): Is it not enough for you to graze on choice grazing ground, but you must also trample with your feet what is left from your grazing?  And is it not enough for you to drink clear water, but you must also muddy with your feet what is left?  And must My flock graze on what your feet have trampled and drink what your feet have muddied?

From Laudato Si: Our insistence that each human being is an image of God should not make us overlook the fact that each creature has its own purpose.  None is superfluous.  The entire material universe speaks of God’s love, God’s boundless affection for us.  Soil, water mountains – everything is, as it were, a caress of God.  We hear an echo, in these words, of the Third Letter of Ben Uziel, translated by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch: One glorious chain of love, of giving and receiving, unites all creatures; none is by or for itself, but all things exist in continual reciprocal activity – the one for the All, the All for the One.

A midrash on Leviticus 4:5 (Rabbah) describes some people sitting in a ship.  One of them takes a drill and begins to bore a hole in the ship where he is sitting.  His companions say, “what are you sitting and doing?”  He replies, “what has it to do with you? I am boring a hole under my part of the ship.  They reply, “but the water is coming in and sinking the ship under us!”  Indeed.  To the same point, Pope Francis writes, “we require a new and universal solidarity. . . . All of us can cooperate as instruments of God for the care of creation, each according to his or her own culture, experience, involvements and talents.

Lastly, this inter-textual conversation asks us to recognize climate change as an issue of intergenerational justice.  Many of us have heard the Talmudic tale of Honi, who stopped along the way to watch an old man planting a carob tree.  Honi asks him, “how many years will it take for this tree to give forth its fruit?”  “70 years,” replies the man.  “Are you so healthy a person that you expect to live to eat its fruit?” Says the man: “I found a fruitful world because my ancestors planted it for me.  So, too, will I plant for my children” (BT Ta’anit 23a).

To which our teacher Francis replies, “Once we start to think about the kind of world we are leaving to future generations, we look at things differently; we realize that the world is a gift which we have freely received and must share with others.  . . . Intergenerational solidarity is not optional, but rather a basic question of justice, since the world we have received also belongs to those who will follow us.”

Jewish tradition has long recognized the risks inherent in disrupting the flow of generations, the flow of learning, of sustenance, of care, of love, of opportunity.  Most famously, Jewish jurisprudence raises nearly insurmountable barriers against capital punishment, cautioning witnesses in capital cases that if they err, the wrongful destruction of a single soul will count as the destruction of a whole world, of all the generations that would follow from the life lost in a flawed trial.  (JT Sanhedrin 4)

As I was reading the first novel in Margaret Atwood’s Madd Adam trilogy, this same insight caught me up short, as one of the characters explained the impossibility of reconstructing our built reality after worldwide environmental collapse: “All it takes is the elimination of one generation.  One generation of anything.  Beetles, trees, microbes, scientists, speakers of French, whatever.  Break the link in time between one generation and the next, and it’s game over forever.” (Oryx and Crake, p. 223.)

Neither Torah, its sages over millennia, Pope Francis, Margaret Atwood, nor I put forward these teachings for the purpose of discouragement.  To the contrary, these teachings inspire us to constant hopeful engagement in our partnership with Creation itself.  These teachings remind us of the power inherent in our paradoxical inclinations toward unbounded love and self-preserving ambition.  If we love our own lives and those of children and grandchildren, biological or metaphorical, we need to work to mitigate climate change.  For the sake of a viable worldwide economy, of a sustainable ecology, of adequate food and water, of personal safety and hope for a livable future, of a future in which diverse cultures will be blessed with enough time to figure out how to live peacefully – for all of these self-preserving ambitions, we need to work to mitigate climate change.  

We derive our capacity to meet this challenge from our sacred Source, which calls us to nurture, to heal, to protect, to save this beautiful blue ark on which we sail through eternal cosmic seas.  This is our mandate, our covenant, our moment to live into the most sacred bond we have with the Holy One: the bond to maximize the potential for life, for the life of our planetary garden.

Pope Francis prays:
All-powerful God, you are present in the whole universe 
and in the smallest of your creatures.
You embrace with your tenderness all that exists. . .  .
Bring healing to our lives,
that we may protect the world and not prey on it, . . .
Touch the hearts
of those who look only for gain
at the expense of the poor and the earth.
Teach us to discover the worth of each thing,
to be filled with awe and contemplation,
to recognize that we are profoundly united with every creature
as we journey towards your infinite light. . . .
Encourage us, we pray, in our struggle
for justice, love and peace.

To which we respond with a prayer voiced in the 19th century by the holy Reb Nachman, who wants us to know nothing more clearly than the reality of ultimate Oneness and of our inter-dependent relationship with all being:
Grant me the ability to be alone;
may it be my custom to go outdoors each day
among the trees and grass - among all growing things
and there may I be alone, and enter into prayer,
to talk with the One to whom I belong.
May I express there everything in my heart,
and may all the foliage of the field -
all grasses, trees, and plants -
awake at my coming,
to send the powers of their life into the words of my prayer
so that my prayer and speech are made whole
through the life and spirit of all growing things,
which are made as one by their transcendent Source.
May I then pour out the words of my heart
before your Presence like water, O God,
and lift up my hands to You in worship,
on my behalf, and that of my children!

​Keyn y’hi ratzon, so may this be our will and God’s.

Yom Kippur Yizkor, September 23, 2015/10 Tishri 5776

Rabbi Judith Abrams (z”l) studied intensely, learned with unparalleled insight, taught with free-wheeling delight, laughed easily and wildly, and loved the wisdom, foibles, brilliance, obsessions, cleverness, level-headedness, and mystical practicality of the ancient rabbis.  For me, two core take-aways from her teaching include: (1) develop a spiritual practice during easier times to support you in tough times, because the demands of tough times arrive unannounced; (2) when you notice a passage of liturgy that reads like it’s climbing a staircase to heaven, get on board the mantra and climb.

And climb we do.  Yitgadal v’yitkadash, magnified and sanctified – the kaddish mantra with which we acknowledge and commemorate the loss of loved ones – the prayer for the dead that requires us to exalt the glory of the God upon whom we often heap blame for our grief, the Author of life and death.  Our sense of obligation to recite kaddish runs deep, drawing the doubtful and the faithful into a ritual of intergenerational weaving, of assuring an unbroken chain of remembrance.

So essential is this weaving, that we’re willing to stretch as necessary to make sure we can fulfill our heart’s wish to bless and elevate.  Rabbi Simcha Paull Raphael remembers working as a busboy in the Catskills back in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, at the then-famous and now-vanished Kutsher’s Country Club. One summer, owners Joe and Milton Kutsher were saying kaddish for their mother. And every day, mid-morning, there would be a minyan at the hotel so the two brothers could say kaddish in community. If the maitre d’ of the dining room got a call that they needed more bodies for a minyan, he would look around the dining room to see who was finished with his breakfast cleanup and would call the names of those he was sending to the minyan – “Goldberg! Schwartz! Cohen, Raphael!” – and then he would stop, look around, and finding no more Jewish teenagers, would continue “Gonzalez! Rodriguez! – you go, too!”  Better too many than too few to uphold the Kutshers in their prayers.

Observing the anniversary of parents’ death (and the deaths of others especially close to us, and the deaths of the uncounted unnamed) originated in Germany.   Later, the 16th-century kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Luria expanded our understanding of the prayer’s power: not only does our recitation assist the transition of loved ones’ souls during the first eleven months after death, reciting a yahrzeit kaddish helps sustain these beloved souls as they continue their evolution in Olam ha-Bah.

Rabbi Shulamit Theide considers more earth-bound reasons for reciting magnifications in the face of loss: “When we grieve, we face realities: life is fragile, fate is unpredictable . . . . God does not pull strings [on our behalf]. One must acknowledge this reality in order to become an adult who can pray as an adult. The rabbis, too, lived through [life’s routine sufferings and] through horrific ordeals. . . . They knew that there was no true and lasting path to God that did not admit of God’s [apparent] hiddenness from humanity.

“So they prescribed the continual process of saying – again and again – that God is, in fact, too magnificent for words. The text demands that we admit that the Holy One is so far and above all that is human that there is no earthly speech that can be adequate, no words that can suffice.  Judaism asks us to proclaim God’s greatness in the moments of our deepest losses. . . . But at some point, standing at the juncture of life and death, praising God, the knowledge of our precious smallness emerges simultaneously with the awareness of the Creator’s awesome, indescribable nature – [which enfolds and sustains us]. 

“[Some] rabbis say that by repeating y’hei sh’meih rabba m’varakh [Let God’s great name be blessed] we aid God in affixing and affirming the foundation of the world.  We co-create the world, itself spoken into existence, in the act of reciting Kaddish – [we build the stairs as we climb them, as I imagine Rabbi Abrams saying]. We use all-powerful speech while simultaneously admitting its patent inadequacy.  [Let the name of the Holy One be glorified, exalted, and honored] . . . beyond all psalm and song? We are only human. Our words – even those we use to praise the Holy One – are wounded ones.   

“[Yet,] they must be, if we are to be adults. To acknowledge God’s greatness demands that we see ourselves for what we are: the heirs and the executors of the human condition, ensouled collaborators in God’s unimaginably awesome creative unfolding.  So we learn that we must rise to our God-given task: the ethical and moral work of fashioning the world, [for the elevation of all souls, of our very own souls, in this lifetime. Say the Kaddish.  Then, work to create a world that honors all those you remember with love.  Within the unique cosmic moment of our embodied consciousness, it will indeed be a new world.]* 

After all, when we endure a loss, committing ourselves to saying kaddish gives us a chance to learn from the Torah of the beloved’s life, to appreciate the legacy that will help us build that new world. In this way, we support our loved ones making their way (however we each might imagine it) in eternity while simultaneously engaging our embodied souls in new learning and creativity.  As not everyone feels drawn to attend synagogue regularly, even to say kaddish, so it can be helpful to think of kaddish as both a specific ritual act in Jewish community and an internal process of working through and learning from the nature of one’s relationship with the person who has died.

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (zt”l) used the term “Going to Kaddish College” to describe the psychological function of reciting the prayer.  He explained how in this eleven month period mourners who open to the potential may go through a deep sense of inner evaluation, and learn a great deal about themselves and about the one they mourn.  He used to tell the following story about his father's death – one to which many of us can fully relate:

“After getting up from sitting shivah for Papa, alav hasholom, I was driving home in my truck.  Soon after I started out, a driver on the road cut me off.  I instantly let out a string of curses – Polish, Yiddish . . . every obscenity in my vocabulary.  Then I stopped myself as I heard the echoing of my father's voice.  It was exactly as he would curse and swear while driving at the wheel.  I said aloud:  “Papa, this is one of yours!  This one you can have back.”  I realized that I was just beginning to sort out my “yerishah,” my inheritance from Papa, to understand what he had given me that I could affirm as my own, and what was his, not mine.”**   

As this anecdote suggests, during the process of “Going to Kaddish College,” mourners have an opportunity to distinguish what they wish to weave forward into the new world they’re building in collaboration with their beloved’s memory, and what may be left behind.  In contrast to our wider culture’s insistence on closure, moving on, forgetting death’s ever-present teachings of love, impermanence, and hope, the obligation to say kaddish binds us to past and future both realistically and creatively.

​When you notice a passage of liturgy that reads like it’s climbing a staircase to heaven, get on board the mantra and climb.  And because the mantra includes responses, you know you do not climb alone – you accomplish the outer and inner work of initial mourning and annual remembrance in community, with others who have or will stand where you stand, grieve as you grieve, and who will, in their time, be grateful for your emotional and spiritual support.  Keyn y’hi ratzon, so may this be our work, together.


* “Say the Kaddish, Create the World (For the Very First Time)”

** “On the Afterlife,” audio-cassette, distributed by Bnai Or Religious Fellowship, Philadelphia (n.d.)

We have arrived at the eve of Yom Kippur.  We have chanted Kol Nidre, acknowledging our desire to transform ourselves in the new year, yet admitting the unlikelihood we will achieve all that we vow to God and ourselves.  If Reb Nachman’s teaching that “all was created for the sake of the choice and the chooser” * speaks truth, then this sacred day will sorely test our willingness to choose rightly.

The renowned theologian Chris Rock underscores Reb Nachman’s words: “You know, some people say life is short, and that you could get hit by a bus at any moment, and that you have to live each day like it’s your last.  Baloney [OK, he didn’t actually say ‘baloney’].  Life is long. You’re probably not gonna get hit by a bus.  And you’re gonna have to live with the choices you make for the next fifty years.”

There’s the rub: at every moment, we make personal or group choices that birth outcomes we must deal with for a lifetime – perhaps beyond. Sometimes, we are taken aback by the consequences of what seems like a perfectly reasonable choice, given what we know:

A wealthy clergy-person (denomination irrelevant), who has been faithful to God his whole life, is visited by an angel.  “God sent me to let you know you’re going to die in two days.  But, don’t worry, you will be welcomed into heaven.”

The preacher says, “that’s great – but listen, I know God has this rule that we can’t take anything with us.  Do you think God would bend it for me?  I’d really like to take something with me.”  The angel agrees to ask. The next night, he returns with a message: “God told me to tell you that you may bring one suitcase, with whatever you want inside of it.” 

The preacher is excited by the possibilities, yet can’t decide what to pack.  He considers filling the suitcase with cash, but he’s not sure what kind of currency is accepted in heaven.  Instead, he converts all his cash into gold, which he imagines must be of – literally – universal value.

Next day, he dies peacefully and finds himself at the entrance to heaven, suitcase by his side.  The welcoming angel stops him: “Sorry, but you can’t bring any worldly possessions with you.”  The preacher replies, “An angel assured me that God said it was OK.”  “Oh, well, if it’s OK with God, bring it on in.  Just out of curiosity, what’s in the bag?”  Smiling broadly, the preacher opens the suitcase, showing off all the bars of gold.  Puzzled, the welcoming angel gives the new arrival a funny look: “That’s what you brought?  Pavement?”

Sometimes, we look to religious teaching to help make our choices clearer, yet find ourselves disappointed when the tradition responds with complexity, insisting we accept responsibility and free will, pushing us back toward the school of Reb Nachman and Reverend Chris: “all was created for the sake of the choice and the chooser.” 

Our adult B’not Mitzvah class recently discussed a passage from Sifra, an early legal commentary on Leviticus, which posed a variant of “the lifeboat question.”  R. ben Patura expounded the Torah verse “that thy brother may live with thee (25:36)” with this example: Two men were traveling through the desert and only one had a water flask.  The water would suffice to keep only one man alive until reaching the next water hole.  If the owner of the flask kept the water for himself, he would reach the spring; if he shared, both he and his companion would die. 

According to R. ben Petura, “the verse, ‘that thy brother may live with thee,’ means that the water should be shared, even though both men die.”  But R. Akiva said – focusing more on the word “live” than the word “brother” – ‘that thy brother may live with thee’ means that your life takes precedence.  The water should be used to save a life.  On this question of self-preservation versus survival, ben Petura offers what we might call a romantic, “Romeo and Juliet” answer: if we can’t live together, we’ll die together.  Akiva, whose decisions generally prevail, gives a rational yet harsh-seeming response: choose life.  If we cannot choose life for all, then choose life for those whose lives can be chosen.  A guideline based on sturdy religious principle, for sure, yet leaving us with wrenching choice.  (Study handout, source unknown.)

At the heart of Judaism’s insistence on personal and communal responsibility, on the primacy of free will, is the notion that we are born to the work of choosing, created with inclinations to do good and to do evil, capable of learning to master what tempts us.  In this regard, R. Lawrence Kushner offers a useful distinction between “bad” and “evil.”

“‘Bad,’” he writes, “means ‘unfortunate,’ ‘painful,’ and even ‘horrible,’ but it does not mean that someone is necessarily responsible for what happened.  A freak accident for which no one is to blame, for instance, is ‘bad,’ but it is not ‘evil.’  [Often, though, we use ‘bad’ to mean] ‘unethical,’ ‘wicked,’ and ‘evil.’  We cry out that things should have been otherwise and that someone is to blame.  And if the one who is to blame acted intentionally, then the ‘bad’ is also ‘evil,’ [leaving us to consider] that the question, ‘why is there evil in the world?’ means ‘why are human beings evil?’” (God Was in this Place, pp. 61-2.)

Just as we might find R. Akiva’s guidance more challenging than empowering, so may we find R. Kushner’s insight disturbing.  Who wants to accept such a burden of choice and responsibility?  Happily – and I underscore happily – we are not expected to excise our potential for evil, as our human wholeness requires us to wrestle with our yetzer harah.  Remember, we are commanded to love the Eternal with all our heart, all our soul, and with all our material, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual components – with all our human “stuff.” 

One strand in our tradition even identifies the evil inclination with essential human passions: “Were it not for the yetzer harah, a person would not build a house or get married; would neither beget children, nor ply a trade or pursue a profession.” (Gen. R. 9:9.)  The great scholar R. Eliezer Berkovits adds: “The evil inclination is here recognized as a necessary ingredient of life itself, the Jewish concept of the élan vital, the individual’s desire to live and survive. It is the affirmation of one’s personal existence and the drive for self-fulfillment. It is not evil in itself, but only the potential cause of evil. The vital forces of individual existence which maintain a person in the world are the same which may carry a person against the world.” (“When Man Fails God,” A.E. Millgram (ed.), Great Jewish Ideas, p.187.)

Yet again, we return to the primacy of free will and its corollary responsibility.  Two recent films have instructed us in how to train our dragons; Judaism offers us copious guidance on how to train and direct our inclinations for good and evil, how to fulfill our roles as creative partners of the Holy One.  First of all, we are not expected to do this work alone, but rather, with a loving partner.  Reb Zalman (zt”l) points to Leviticus 16:30 as the verse that invites us to do the work of Yom Kippur in partnership with God: “For through the agency of this day, I will atone for you – before YHVH you will be purified from all your sins.”  He notes that “there are teachings in Kabbalah that point to God investing Him/Herself into the time of the 26 hours of Yom Kippur to effect the atonement for us.  How 26 hours? Because we add an hour before and an hour after.  Why 26? It is the numerical value of the divine name, YHVH.  It is love begetting a response of love, 13 + 13 = 26, 13 being the numerical value of love, ahavah.” (“A Teaching for Yom Kippur 5773.”)

Second, we are heirs to an extraordinary array of spiritual practices that help us refine and uplift our behaviors, practices that help us discern when we’re at risk of our “less good” yetzer, our more selfish inclination, taking the upper hand.  Reb Yitzhak Buxbaum likes to tell the story of a pious Jew, who on his deathbed, promised his friend that he would return to tell him how he had been judged in the World of Truth.  After some time, he appears and reports that in examining his deeds, no fault was discovered with a single exception: once, when he had sat on a court, a plaintiff slipped a coin in his pocket, which he pretended not to notice.  Because of this sin, heaven decreed the punishment of Gehinnom – a transitional place of soul-examination and learning.

When he arrived in Gehinnom, he was given a little hammer and told to knock down a gigantic building.  Daunting, perhaps, but he thought to himself: “why did I pray my whole life, why did I seek to fulfill mitzvot?  Isn’t it because I sought to do God’s will?  If this, too, is God’s will, then I accept the obligation to do it – just as I accepted the obligation to train myself to align to God’s will when I was alive – even if it takes a very long time.”  As he then tells his friend, “I swung the little hammer and hit the building once, and it collapsed in an instant, and I was welcomed into heaven, because I had accepted the decree as the same divine will that had guided me throughout my life.” (MiSod Siach Hasidim, p. 277, Daily Maggid #111, “The Judgment.”)

Judaism’s great mystical optimist, Rav Avraham Yitzhak Kook (zt’l) ceaselessly encourages us to understand our constant struggles as holy and necessary aspects of the universe’s evolution: “The perception that dawns on a person to see the world, not as finished, but as in the process of continual becoming, ascending, developing – this changes us from being ‘under the sun’ to being ‘above the sun,’ [viewing reality] from the place where everything takes on new form.  The joy of heaven and earth abide in us as on the day they were created.  In this luminous perspective, one looks at all the worlds, at the general and human development, at the destiny of each creature, at all the events at all times.” (Orot Hakodesh 2:517.)

He continues: “A foundation of the Torah is that the human being is created in the Divine Image.  The essence of this is found through the absolute freedom that humans have. . . . Without the foundation of absolute human freedom, there would be no place for Torah to exist.” (Pinkasei HaRayah, 2:16)  Thus, our routine struggles to accept our role as God’s partners in shaping creation and to discern how to align our wills with the underlying divine will represent evolutionary pathways to a fulfilled aspiration: shalom, a universal Shabbat of wholeness, wholesomeness, and boundless joy.  An aspiration we share with our divine partner.

Judaism is rich with “sacred technology” for cultivating our partnership with God.  As Martin Buber famously describes our interconnection with the One: “no matter where I take hold of a shred of [the divine Unity], I hold the whole of it.  And since the teachings and all the commandments are radiations of God’s being, a person who lovingly does one commandment utterly and to the core, and in this one commandment takes hold of a shred of the unity of God, holds the whole of it in hand, and has fulfilled all.” (Ten Rungs, 1962) All was created for the sake of the choice and the chooser, so choose something: a morning and evening Sh’ma, a blessing before food, light Shabbat candles, study a few words of Torah, offer forgiveness ungrudgingly, be still and know that God is God.

“For through the agency of this day, I will atone for you – before YHVH you will be purified from all your sins.”  Through divine love were we created; through reciprocal love are we cleared of wrongdoing.  Created in the divine image, we share the divine capacities for choice and for accepting responsibility: remember, Isaiah teaches, “oseh shalom u’voreh et harah,” God takes responsibility for making peace and creating [what we experience as] bad (45:7).  We are also created in the image of the One [who] offers good to all and who shows compassion to all divine works (Ps. 145:5). In Rav Kook’s ecstatic vision of a humanity rising to Union with the Holy One:

It is the good that I desire,
Its glorious expanses entrance me.
Its lips, its roses, I kiss,
Its beautiful vision exalts me.
Absolute good, without limitation,
Without end, constriction or boundary,
That is not separate from anything alive,
That with its love, fixes everything broken.
Good for me, good for all,
Good without badness or tightness,
Good full of pleasure for all,
Full of tranquility without anxiety.
Good forever, good right now,
Good for every people and nation,
Who seek the good and not the bad,
And the light and the delight, ‘as the One is there” (Gen. 21:7).
 
May our desire to partner with God to attain the highest rung of cosmic evolution be a catalyst for manifesting our best choices according to all of our capacities; may all of our inclinations, no matter where they arise, be for good.  Amen, g’mar tov.


* Everything you see in the world - everything that exists - is there for the sake of free will, in order to test people. The entire world and all that it contains were created to give man free will. (Sichot Haran #300; Chayey Moharan #519)
 

Rosh haShanah Shachrit, Sept.14, 2015/1 Tishri 5776

One of my favorite examples of fanatic religious differentiation goes as follows:

Walking across a bridge one day, I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. A second may ran over and yelled, “Stop! Don't do it!” “Why not?” “Well, there's so much to live for!” “Like what?” The second man said, “Well, are you religious or atheist?” “Religious.”  “Great!  Are you Christian?”  “Yes.”  “Me too! Catholic or Protestant?”  “Protestant.”  “Me, too! Episcopalian or Baptist?” “Baptist!”  “Wow! Me, too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?” “Baptist Church of God!” “Me, too!  [We’re really getting some bonding going on here, as the split hairs get finer.]  “Original Baptist Church of God or Reformed Baptist Church of God?”  “Reformed Baptist Church of God!”  “Me, too!,” exclaims the hopeful rescuer, as he presses on to make an even deeper connection with the jumper.  “Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1879 or Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915?”  “Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915!”  To which the second man cries, “Die, heretic scum!” as he pushed the other one off the bridge.

This sort of humor reinforces my sense that the real aftermath of Eve and Adam’s fruit snack in the Garden of Eden has been humanity’s ever more sophisticated skill at spotting and naming differences – you remember, eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil bestowed, among other things, the power to distinguish (and judge) one thing relative to another.  Nothing is too trivial for us not to find a way to differentiate ourselves into smaller and smaller categories:

Q. How many Christians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A. Three, but they're really one.

Q. How many Quakers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A. Ten to sit around in a circle until one feels the inner light.

Q. How many Zen Buddhists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A. Two, one to screw it in and one not to screw it in.

We do not exempt Judaism from this obsession with difference:

Q: How many Jews does it take to change a light bulb? 
A: 30. One to change the bulb and 29 to discuss it and give contradictory advice to the person changing the bulb. 

Q: How many Ultra-Orthodox rabbis does it take to change a light bulb? 
A: This has not yet been determined. They are still searching for a Talmudic reference to light bulb. 

Q: How many Jewish Renewal rabbis does it take to change a light bulb? 
A: It depends. One if it's an eco-kosher bulb that isn't going to be lit by electricity from nuclear power. Two, as long as a man and a woman rabbi have equal turns replacing in the bulb.  Three, same as above plus an additional rabbi to study the psycho-halachic implications of such a change and then lead a weekend retreat to evaluate the experience. 

To distinguish one category of people from another can certainly be the stuff of humor; it can also become the stuff of horror.  When we indulge in distinction as a means to separate ourselves from others heartlessly, we lose touch with the other part of the lesson from Eden, that the differences we note with such clarity represent variable manifestations of an underlying Unity – a unity in which all forms of being find their source.

ALEPH, the Alliance for Jewish Renewal, is celebrating 2015 as a year of Deep Ecumenism, with the tag line, “prays well with others,” and OHALAH, the Jewish Renewal Rabbinic and Cantorial Association, has selected as its January 2016 conference theme “Deep Ecumenism: V’chol Netivoteha Shalom” – “and all Her paths are peace,” referring to the spiritual diversity inherent in the Instruction, the Torah, Divinity has revealed to the many peoples of the earth.  The spiritual orientation known as deep ecumenism represents one of Yavneh’s core values, and one of the most obvious ways in which we and Jewish Renewal worldwide are striving to reframe the religious ecology of our planet. Meister Eckhart, a thirteenth-century Christian mystic, described divinity as “an underground river that no one can stop and no one can dam up.”  The contemporary theologian Rev. Matthew Fox adds that while we may discover many wells drawing from that One River, “we would make a grave mistake if we confused [any one well] with the flowing waters of the underground river [itself].  Many wells, one river.  That is Deep Ecumenism.”  Take a moment to hold that image in your mind: an unstoppable underground river accessible to all, unique to none. Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (zt”l) encouraged us to consider each religious tradition as an organ in the body of collective humanity: our differences are meaningful and our commonality is significant.  When we honor both the differentiation and the unity, we enhance the possibility of collaborating with followers of other religious paths in our shared work of healing creation. 

The expansiveness of our divine Source cannot be captured fully by any one tradition; if it could, we would have found a container big enough for God, we would have marked the limit of divine potentiality.  Reb Zalman modeled for us how to safely derive additional nourishment in traditions other than our own, understanding that each religion provides some but not all possible spiritual vitamins. (See ALEPH.org, Yavneh-Raleigh.org, Paradigm Shift.)

Deep Ecumenism orients us to the potential for learning from and growing spiritually with teachers and adherents of all faith traditions.  At Yavneh, one of our foundational kavanot (intentionalities) is to respond to the challenge of overcoming the historic hostility between faiths, primarily between Judaism and Christianity, but also to be open to learning from and growing spiritually with teachers and adherents of all faith traditions.  This kavanah manifests in our membership policy, which welcomes all supporters of Jewish Renewal, regardless of whether they are Jews, and in Yavneh’s Center for Deep Ecumenism, offering its first programming in November.
In the delicate process of God-seeking, there is no way to overestimate the centrality of the experiential.  Each of us shares in a holy obligation to open our minds, hearts, and souls to the Reality of God and to the reality that God loves diversity, nearness, and surprise.  When we model how to give up a futile triumphalism that insists that Divinity can only be accessed along a single path, we open ourselves and others to a diversity in which all religious practitioners hold on to particular “shape and color . . . [only to] form the mosaic in which we are all God’s tiles,” not to proclaim our ownership of capital-T truth.

Deep Ecumenism neither minimizes our attachment to Judaism’s spiritual understandings, nor compromises our personal and communal religious practices.  If ecumenism has a boundary, it’s in the realm of practice, at the point where we sense something damaging to our spiritual immune system, something that calls into question for us the integrity and beauty of Jewish teaching. 

Still, why should Jews be interested in the wider spiritual ecosystem?  Over 3500 years, Judaism’s survival as an independent religious practice has been so hard-won, why look elsewhere?  We read this morning of Abraham and Hannah, both of whom faced the paradox of losing and gaining a spiritual future by offering to give up what was most precious to them.  How can shopping elsewhere for spiritual vitamins be good for the Jews? 

As a life-long practitioner of Deep Ecumenism, from decades before I could name it, permit me to share my top ten reasons:

Deep Ecumenism requires us to take our own religion seriously.  If Jewish spiritual practice, learning, worship, community, history, culture – if the entirety of Jewish reality didn’t hold a primary place in my life – I would not be ready to engage with others in that open field where we all strive to yield our absolutes for the sake of divine unity. 

As a corollary, Deep Ecumenism requires us to become better educated about our tradition.  If I don’t invest time and energy delving into Judaism’s riches, what will I have to share in spiritual dialogue?

Sometimes, Deep Ecumenism helps us make sense of what puzzles us in our own tradition, requiring us to open our hearts to the varieties of Jewish spiritual experience.  If I have no understanding of how followers of other forms of Judaism engage with tradition and its evolution, I am hobbled in my efforts to distinguish between the essential core and the outer layers of various ways of Jew-ing, as Reb Zalman would say. 

Deep Ecumenism gives us an opportunity to explore the mystical heart of all faith, all yearning for connection to our shared Source.  When we learn how to engage with other traditions from the sacred heart of the cosmos, we open ourselves to realms of beauty and inspiration otherwise denied us by narrower vision.

Deep Ecumenism also helps us moderate reflexive “truth claims” and to relax our adversarial posture relative to “the other.”  We learn to hear the mythic truths embodied in alternative religious narratives and practices, and we begin to discern the particular gifts our tradition brings to the divine mosaic.

Deep Ecumenism calms our tendency to take rejection as permission to reject.  We have good reasons to challenge the triumphalisms of religions whose followers have oppressed, persecuted, and murdered Jews.  And, we have better reasons, rooted in Judaism’s essential commitment to shalom, to wholeness and peace, to share with anyone who will listen the unique blessings and insights Judaism contributes to humanity’s storehouse of spiritual riches. 

It’s not about being nice; it’s about being our own best representatives, not leaving the definition of our tradition to those who do not live it.  Engaging in Deep Ecumenism helps defuse false understandings of Jewish teachings.

When we undertake what Reb Zalman described as “the more intrepid exploration of Deep Ecumenism in which one learns about oneself through participatory engagement with another religion or tradition,” we discover what it means to open our hearts to the richness of personal and communal practice from multiple perspectives and to introduce our perspective into the mix.

In engaging with the other, we learn about ourselves. When we collaborate with fellow-travelers on other spiritual paths, our own practices are enriched — and we come one step closer to a world without religious prejudice or fear.  As Rabbi Irving Greenberg teaches, every false belief we have about another religion is a mountain we have to climb over to reach God (One River, Many Wells Conference, July 5, 2015.). 

It’s fun, a sacred game that rewards our attention and curiosity daily.  A few quick examples from our summer vacation:

In July, Stephen and I drove a circular route from Las Vegas to Zion National Park, on to Bryce Canyon, along the Escalante-Grand Staircase to Capital Reef, from there to the south rim of the Grand Canyon, and back to Las Vegas.  We took a morning to visit Tuba City, AZ, which some of you may recognize from Tony Hillerman novels as part of the Navajo Nation.  Our time at the Navajo Museum sparked numerous spiritual ah-ha’s:

First, the Navajo raise churro sheep.  When you google them, you will note that they can sport four horns.  Why there isn’t a thriving Navajo shofar industry is beyond me. 

Second, we experienced intriguing “compare and contrast” moments.  It is long-time Jewish practice to pray eastward to Jerusalem, and, during Sukkot, we honor our agricultural origins by offering blessings in six directions – the major compass points, up and down – with a swaying palm branch.

Similarly, traditional Navajo practice assigns spiritual meaning to each major compass point, daily marking the life processes of contemplation, planning, acting, and evaluating – a reasonable analogy to the traditional Jewish practice of daily self evaluation and teshuvah: “Every day the cycle is repeated, and in each cycle there is a lesson to be learned; even if we fall, we stand back up to see what we can do differently.  Every dawn is a new start, a new life, a renewal (Museum text.).”

Third, the Diné, as Navajo call themselves, “The People,” have no separate word for religion – nor does Hebrew.  They live in a sacred relationship with their land and enact healing ceremonies to connect themselves to one another in beauty and harmony.  Navajo legend says that the Diné had to pass through three different worlds before emerging in the present fourth or “glittering” world, while Jewish mystical teaching identifies four interpenetrated worlds of action, feeling, thinking, and clinging to the holy in which we enact our being.  Alternative four worlds theologies, one conceptually linear in its evolutionary path, the other cyclic.  Much to contemplate here.

We, too, are inheritors of a sacred relationship with a particular land, a sense of the holiness of Creation that over time has expanded to include our entire fragile planet.  Our mystical tradition also teaches that the ultimate purpose of our ritual practices, indeed, of all our actions in the world, is tikkun, repair and healing.  As Reb Nachman of Bratslav was fond of saying, if you believe you can do damage, then you must believe you can effect repair – just as the Navajo way teaches that one may always find a path back to harmony with self, others, and the land.

It all comes back to the light bulbs.  As Rumi writes:


     If ten lamps are present in one place
     each differs in form from another;
     yet you can’t distinguish whose radiance is whose
     when you focus on the light.


     In the field of spirit there is no division;
     no individuals exist.
     sweet is the oneness of the Friend with His friends.

     Catch hold of spirit.
     help this headstrong self disintegrate;
     that beneath it you may discover unity,
     like a buried treasure.
          “Ten Lamps”

The light is infinite; holy darkness is infinite; the sacred river is infinite.  The more we honor the infinite Unity, the nearer we draw to infinite shalom. Keyn y’hi ratzon, so may it be our will and God’s.

Erev Rosh haShanah, September 13, 2015/1 Tishri 6

Shanah tovah! For many decades, liberal Judaism frowned on talking in synagogue, except for the prayer book readings – and, of course, the sermon required reverent silent appreciation.  Yet, our Torah proposes that creation itself came into being through speech: “And God said, let there be . . .” In the interest of furthering community here at Yavneh, I would invite each of you now to take a couple of minutes to talk in shul – to wish those around you a fulfilling new year.  And yes, you may walk around some to do that.


Now, you may be thinking I’ve just set up a paradox: talk please, but for only so long.  Talk please, but only to express new year greetings.  How typical of the questions about when, how, for what purposes, and with whom we speak that have long been of interest in Jewish tradition. Word obsessed, we love the subtleties of linguistic play, we love stories illustrating the cleverness that comes with listening carefully, the amusement of sliding between possibilities to reach an unexpected conclusion, the potential of even the smallest word to carry a universe of meaning.

Four Israelis set in a restaurant in Tel Aviv. For a long time, nobody says a word. Finally, one man groans, “Oy.” “Oy vey,” says the second man. “Nu,” says the third. At this, the fourth man gets up from his chair and says, “Listen, if you guys don't stop talking politics, I'm leaving.”

Sammy, in a moment of envy, steals the rabbi's gold watch. Later, he doesn’t feel too good about it, so he decides to go see the rabbi. “Rabbi,” he blurts out, “I stole a gold watch.”  “Oh my, Sammy! That's forbidden! You should return it immediately!” Sammy looks down at the floor. “What shall I do?” “Just give it back to the owner.” Sammy pauses. “Do you want it?” “No, return it to its owner.” “But he doesn't want it.” “In that case, you can keep it.”

And back to a restaurant, home ground to a substantial percentage of Jewish humor: two Jewish men are sitting in a kosher Chinese restaurant frequented almost exclusively by Jews in Crown Heights. As they chat comfortably in Yiddish, a Chinese waiter comes up and, in fluent and impeccable Yiddish, asks them if everything is okay, may he get them anything, and so forth. The diners are dumbfounded.  When they pay their bill on the way out, they ask the owner, “Where did your waiter learn such fabulous Yiddish?” The owner looks around and leans in so no one else will hear and says, “Shhhh. He thinks we're teaching him English.”

Now, the concerns we bring to this time of year, the spiritual urgency of the Days of Awe, may lead us to feel we’re speaking a language foreign to the rest of the year.  After all, we live according to at least two different calendars, religious and secular, and in two overlapping cultural contexts: that of Jewish ritual and liturgical practice, which may or may not be a constant in our lives, and that of a globally diverse yet interactive culture.  No wonder many of the Hebrew terms we use in our High Holy Day worship seem at odds from our understanding of how these words translate in other contexts. 

Our High Holy Day prayer book, our machzor – meaning “cycle,” from the same root as “review,” as in going over one’s studies – guides us through an allegorical drama, in which our role is to close any gaps in our relationship to the Holy One.  The script, as it were, moves us from being abashed before a divine sovereign because of what we have done imperfectly to being reconciled with a loving, gracious, and infinitely patient divine lover who wants nothing more than our return to balance and optimism. 

We may know intellectually that Jewish practice supports the process of teshuvah, of repentance and return, as a daily undertaking, as a means to interrupt guilt and remorse and replace them with an ongoing exercise in spiritual refinement.  As Reb Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of the Lubavitch Hasidic dynasty teaches, “throughout one’s days one should experience teshuvah that is marked by great joy” (Lessons in Tanya for 5 Av).  Yet emotionally and practically, we may find it difficult to accept this more expansive understanding of teshuvah, when in our secular reality words like transgression, sin, repentance, regret, and apology carry negative resonances.

“Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” An article posted on selfgrowth.com explains that this movie catchphrase – which I suspect has had a disproportionate and unhelpful effect on our emotional lives these past few decades – means that because you know you are loved truly for who you are, you are accepted and now able to give this kind of love to someone else.  Somehow, “twoo wuv” implies no negotiation, no rough spots, no mutual learning, no interpersonal adjustments – only acceptance.  It is what it is. 

And here we are, asked to recognize and account for our transgressions, seek out those we might have hurt, apologize, make amends if possible, and set ourselves the daunting task of transforming future behavior. 

Here we are, asked to speak truth to God and to one another; even more, to listen for the assurance of divine and human forgiveness, of love for us as we are learning, as we are evolving, as we are transforming ourselves and our relationships.  Here we are, locked in a call-and-response between hard-won self-knowledge and the potential of forgiveness and renewal. 

Fortunately, the traditional liturgy that we have adapted for our High Holy Day prayers at Yavneh seeks to balance our words of teshuvah – which are eagerly awaited by God – with God’s assurance of loving forgiveness.  The liturgy helps us attune both to speech and listening, to the energetic exchange between ourselves and our Source. It strengthens our desire to cultivate sacred aloneness with the divine – hitbodedut, as the Hasidic master Reb Nachman of Bratslav famously teaches:

Set aside time each day to meditate and pray alone . . . and express your innermost thoughts and feelings and personal prayers to God.  Hold these conversations in whatever language you speak best. Our set prayers are said in Hebrew, but if this is not one's native language, it is difficult to use it to give expression to all one's innermost thoughts and feelings and the heart is less drawn after the words. It is easier to pour out your heart and say everything you need in your own language.

Hitbodedut is of the greatest value. It is the way to come closer to God, because it includes everything else. No matter what you lack in your service of God, even if you feel totally remote from divine service, tell God everything and ask for all that you need.

If at times you find yourself unable to speak to God or even open your mouth, the very fact that you are there wanting and yearning to speak is itself very good. You can even turn your very inability to speak into a prayer. Tell God that you feel so far away that you cannot even speak! Ask God to have mercy on you and open your mouth to say what you need (Likutey Moharan II, 25). 

If not every day, at least at this season and as often as we re-member, as we reconnect to our fullest selves, may we speak with such openness, candor, yearning, and devotion.

The liturgy also invites us to listen for speech that does not require an “outer ear.”  It reminds us that every aspect of our lived experience holds the capacity to transmit sacred messages.  According to the early 20th-century mystic Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, “once a person accustoms himself or herself to hearing the voice of God issuing from everything, the supernal meaning now comes that has eluded the person, and this is spiritual wisdom. . . .   Until finally, in the spiritual wisdom itself, one finds the true appearance of God.”  With his usual holy optimism, Rav Kook concludes, “and everyone who continues to search and philosophize increases the holiness of faith and cleaving [to God] and the light of the holy Spirit (Sparks beneath the Surface).

If not every day, as often as we re-call ourselves to the effort, may we listen for the bat kol, the divine voice, issuing from all that we encounter, not only from the words of liturgy, but from the entirety of being, from our own mouths.

Rabbi Lawrence Kushner delicately traces for us how to understand the words of Scripture, the words of the prayer book, and the words of our inner and outer speaking as the larger divine Self in conversation with our smaller divine selves.  Kushner cites the Piesetzna Rebbe, who used to say, “not only does God hear our prayers, God prays them through us” (God was in this Place, p. 135).  In our High Holy Day drama, we and God share the words of a script that directs our souls to wholeness and reconciliation.

The psalmist says, “Ki lidvarcha yichalti, For I await your word,” or, as translated by Reb Zalman, “For I made myself empty to receive your word.”  In this sacred season, out of the silent spaces in which our souls find rest and out of the silences that assail us with doubts, may we listen for the divine words that create and then shape our reality, the teachings that mediate the link between Infinite and finite being.

Jewish tradition insists that this unending “speaking and listening” represents internal and eternal processes shared by all Israel, that is by all who wrestle with the Holy Blessed One:

The teaching is internal, as we read in D’varim, Deuteronomy, for “This transmission that I am revealing to you today is not too mysterious or remote from you. . . . Ki karov eilecha ha-davar m’od, for the thing--ha-davar, that vivifying word-thing – is something that is very close to you.  B’ficha, it is in your mouth and bil’vavcha, in your heart, la’asoto, so that you can fulfill it.” (Deut. 30:11, 14)  The Holy One assures us that we are competent and capable of lifelong sacred conversation with our Source.

The teaching is eternal, for, as R. Joshua ben Levi teaches in Pirke Avot (6:2), every day the divine voice issues from Sinai, searching out our inner hearing.  Torah unfolds continually in our presence, within the Presence that holds us. When we pay attention, “Sh’ma!,” when we truly givie ourselves to the One in whom we find our being, revelation, reassurance, forgiveness, and love roll forth unabated, slaking our thirst for the love and care of our Creator.

The teaching is universal, the inheritance of all who seek the One. As vessels of infinite possibility, along with God, all of us create and shape with words, and our every word carries the potential to participate in the foundational process of teshuvah:
          Shuvah Yisrael ad YHVH Elohecha
          Ki chashalta ba-avonecha;
          Return, O Israel [all of you who wrestle with God] to the Lord your God, for 
                 you have fallen because of your sin.

And what is the sin?  A lack of attention to the constant speaking and listening that defines our interconnectedness with the One who gods us into being.  The korban, the offering which brings us closer, is the word we utter in truth, in hope, as the fruit of our sincere introspection.  Says the prophet Hosea:
          K’chu imachem d’varim
          V’shuvu el-YHVH . . .
          Take words with you,
          And return to the Lord.
          Say to God,
          ‘Forgive all guilt
          And accept what is good;
          Instead of bulls we will pay
          [The offering of] our lips. (14:2-3)

Whenever we speak God’s words and express our partnership as creators and shapers, as sources of healing and tikkun, we fulfill the blessing of being created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of the Holy One.  When we speak and listen to the words of the High Holy Day liturgy, we enact a great, mythic drama of assurance and reconciliation – a familiar drama, the end of which is predictable and blessed.

If we commit ourselves to this sacred enactment, an expression of the highest form of spiritual artistry, we have much to gain, even if we feel unprepared for our role.  As Reb Nachman says, hitbodedut, [our private conversation with God] is of the greatest value. It is the way to come closer to God, because it includes everything else. No matter what you lack in your service of God, even if you feel totally remote from divine service, tell God everything and ask for all that you need.

And, if we listen to the words we utter as if they emanate simultaneously from our hearts and God’s, then, according to Rav Kook’s holy optimism for the continual, inevitable refinement of our souls, we can only “increase the holiness of faith and [of] cleaving [to God] and the light of the holy Spirit.”

May it ever be our blessing to remain true vessels of Holy Possibility, to teach the Torah of our hearts truthfully through our lips, to rejoice in ever turning and returning to the Source of our Being.  Then, like the Psalmist, we will call out:
          Y’rei-ehcha yir-uni v’yism’chu,

          Those who are in awe of you shall see me and rejoice,
          Ki lidvarcha yichalti,
       
for I have made myself empty to receive – and I would add, transmit – your word. (119:74) Amen.

Yom Kippur Shachrit, October 4, 2014/10 Tishrei 5775

This morning’s Torah reading begins with the words: “Atem nitzavim hayom kulchem lifnai Adonai Eloheichem, y’all are standing attentively today before the Eternal your God.” A familiar, prepositional (“before”), dualistic image of our relationship to the Holy One.  We stand here; God faces us, apart and outside.  It’s certainly fair to ask: before whom do we think we stand?  This reasonable question underscores the experience of Judaism as a dualistic – not to mention hierarchical – faith path.  As ever, though, our tradition offers us alternatives and paradox, enough of both to sustain faith in a non-dual divinity, a God from whom we are never separated, a no-thing-ness that is the ultimate source of all Being.

Many of us associate “nothingness” with a shorthand understanding of Buddhist teaching, as well as finding it difficult to associate Judaism with such practices as silence, abstraction, stillness, non-attachment.  It’s not that various Buddhisms (they being no more monolithic than we) don’t account for the advantageous aspects of duality, of awareness of a separate self: To the question “how much ego do we need?,” teacher Shunryu Suzuki replied: “just enough so that you don’t step in front of a bus.”  I vividly recall a radio interview with a Thai Buddhist priest in Los Angeles, whose community was preparing relief supplies after the 2004 tsunami.  The reporter suggested that the Buddhist concept of non-attachment must make dealing with such disaster less burdensome.  The priest responded that such a teaching cannot be helpful to people who are drowning, to people already under the bus.

The internet, bless its heart, holds a treasure trove of supposed Jewish-Buddhist citations:

The hungry man in the street asking the hot-dog vendor to “make me one with everything.”

The deep question: “If there is no self, whose arthritis is this?”

The reminder: “Breathe in, breathe out: forget this, and attaining Enlightenment will be the least of your problems.”

The unassailable truth: “Wherever you go, there you are.  Your luggage is another story.”

The temptation: “Torah says, ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’ The Buddha says, ‘there is no self.’ Maybe we’re off the hook.”

In fact, mystical Judaism includes an ancient, well-established concept of a sacred Nothingness – hear No-thing-ness – which challenges liturgical, poetic, and everyday language that relies on familiar dualistic forms, such as ruler, parent, creator.  Prof. Daniel Matt, translator of the The Zohar , a 13th-century mystical Torah commentary, teaches extensively about Jewish nothingness.  He starts with the axiom that we cannot define God, because divine infinity exceeds the realm of language.  Our mystics, he notes, delight in the impossibility of trapping God with words.  Yet, even the mystics must resort to language if they wish to refer to divinity or to share even a bit of what they have experienced.

One strategy is simply to call God “Nothing,” not to suggest negativity or non-being, but to point to God being greater than anything one can imagine: God is like no thing.  The medieval kabbalists largely derived this negative theology from Moses Maimonides, who taught that God has nothing in common with other forms of being, that God “exists but not through existence.”  (Put that in your dualistic pipe and smoke carefully.)  Maimonides encouraged the theologically curious to approach divinity by accumulating insights into all that God is not.

Later mystics considered Nothingness as the only name appropriate to the divine essence.  One proof text for this transformation appears in Job (28:12): “V’ha-chochma mei’ayin timatzeh, Where – mei’ayin – is wisdom to be found?,” or, “wisdom emerges out of nothingness,” ayin.  This reading identifies no-thing-ness as Keter Elyon, the crown sephirah at the top of the Tree of Life – nicely illustrated by our congregational logo on the Torah-reading table.

And we, along with all forms of being, emanate from Keter Elyon. Moses de Leon, to whom The Zohar is attributed, defines Keter Elyon as “the totality of all existance, and all have wearied in their search for it . . . , for it brings all into being. . . . Anything sealed and concealed, totally unknown to anyone, is called ayin, meaning that no one knows anything about it.  Similarly, no one knows anything at all about the human soul; she [too] stands in the status of nothingness.”  Thus, God and our souls share an infinite, inherent no-thing-ness, accounting for our capacity to express the divine image and likeness.  By our essential nature, we participate in the no-thing that is God, in the formless source of all form.

By the late middle ages, Jewish mystics counseled their students to understand the vulnerability of searching too eagerly for the essence of ayin, no-thing.  One teacher describes devekut, cleaving to God, as “pouring a jug of water into a flowing spring, so that all becomes one,” and warns his disciples not to sink too far into the boundless ocean: “The endeavor should be to contemplate, but to escape drowning.”  On the other hand, the depths of nothingness also serve as a reservoir of power.  Mystically understood, “Out of the depths I call you, YHVH” (Ps. 130:1) may describe not only a cry from one’s own state of despair, but also to the divine depths from which God can be called forth.  Adversity can lead us to appreciate the resource of ayin, for “I lift up my eyes to the mountains”; my help comes from ayin, no-thing: “esah einai el he-harim, mei-ayin yavoh ezri.” (Ps. 121:1)

Our hasidic masters direct our attention to the experiential, psychological aspect of engaging with no-thing.  They evolve contemplative practices by which skilled practitioners subsume the ego – the “Ani” – into the ayin, in order to see through the illusion that we are separate from God.  In humility, we are to understand ourselves and all being as channels for the divine attributes.  This awe-induced understanding transforms our thought processes, so that we become aware that divine energy underlies material existence, and this awareness permits us to participate in the reciprocal flow back and forth from the source, ayin, to its manifestations in all forms of being.  (See Daniel C. Matt, “Ayin: The Concept of Nothingness in Jewish Mysticism,” Tikkun 3, no. 3, 1987, pp. 43 -7.)  

Mystics of all traditions understand the risk associated with seeking devekut, of cleaving to the ineffable without adequate spiritual preparation.  The very language of no-thing-ness tempts us with beautiful metaphor.  Imagery intended only to hint sometimes ends in certitude and arrogance; we sometimes insist on making literal what is only meant to suggest.

The Indian sage Jiddu Krishnamurti used to tell this story: Once Satan and his demon sidekick were walking down the street, closely watching a man 20 yards ahead who was on the verge of realizing Supreme Truth.  The demon grew worried, and began to nudge Satan, but Satan remained quite calm.  Sure enough, the man did, in fact, soon realize the deepest spiritual big-T Truth.  Yet, Satan still did nothing about it.  Losing control, the demon blurted out: “Don’t you see? That man has realized the Truth!  And you are doing nothing to stop him!”  Satan smiled slyly and replied, “Yes, he has realized the Truth.  And now, I am going to help him organize the Truth.”

In this spirit, trying to hold lightly the mystical insights concerning a non-dual Jewish theology, let us consider a couple of the consequences of such a God-idea. First, it draws us to an appreciation of the overwhelming diversity of being emerging from unity.  In the words of our teacher Moses Cordovero: “The essence of divinity is found in every single thing – nothing but it exists.  Since it causes every thing to be, no thing can live by anything else. . . . Do not attribute duality to God.  . . . Do not say, ‘This is a stone and not God.’  God forbide! Rather, all existence is God, and the stone is a thing pervaded by divinity.” (Daniel Matt, The Essential Kabbalah, p. 24.)

This insight can only heighten our personal and collective response to climate change, for we cannot give spiritual credit to Cordovero’s pervasive, non-dual divinity without examining our culture’s dualistic relationship to creation itself.  Jewish Renewal came early to the environmental movement, largely because of the influence of Jewish mystical teachings about absolute interdependence.  Some of the earliest religious inquiries concerning environmental challenges come from Renewal publications, including the very concept of eco-kashrut – the obligation to consider the exposure of farm workers to toxins, the mistreatment of animals raised to provide food, the power sources on which we depend.

Second, reflecting on non-dual divinity undoes binaries.  If all existence derives from the same source, how we understand apparent distinctions comes into question.  Light/dark no longer aligns automatically with good/bad, or large/small with powerful/weak, or male/female as an accurate shorthand for gender variability.  If all existence derives from the same source, then every aspect of existence – even, or perhaps, especially – those aspects we would prefer to reject as “outside” the good or the godly, every aspect of existence must be recognized as serving the entirety.  This recognition may not shield us from suffering, though it does reconfirm for us the absolute value of each form of being and experience in the evolution of the Sacred Whole.

In spite of seemingly dualistic scriptural and liturgical language, our texts and tradition are awash in hints pointing to underlying unity.  We sing at the end of Aleinu, “Bayom ha’hu yiyeh Adonai echad u’shmo echad.” On that day, we will see it manifest that the Eternal is One and the divine name we use is “One.”  We read in Torah, “Ayn ohd milvado.” “There is no-thing besides God.” (“Aleinu,” Zech. 14:9; Deut. 4:35)  One might even say, the theme at Yavneh for these High Holy days has been the power of diversity within unity.

On erev Rosh haShanah, we heard Reb Zalman’s (zt”l) admonition to pay attention to the inter-relational nature of being – “But even in the atom, the nucleus
and the electrons that dance around it are in relationship with each other.  We believed we couldn’t know anything until we got to the smallest component, and so we forgot to seek what binds things together.” – along with his transmission of the Baal Shem Tov’s teaching “that God so loved the world that She gave Herself to be the Earth.” To which I would add Isaiah’s confirmation: meloh kol ha’aretz k’vodo, God’s glory pervades the Earth. (6:4)

Rosh haShanah morning challenged us to renounce polarization – a dualistic impulse – in favor of a radical understanding of all humanity as deriving from the same divine source, so that we are less likely to miss the mark in seeking to love one another as ourselves, because we are all a part of the same ultimate Self.  This effort requires us to become disruptors of categories, searchers for common ground.

Yesterday evening, I invited us to cultivate a more gentle and consistent process of self-evaluation and transformation, of ongoing t’shuvah.  If there is but one Source of Being, then everything we manifest, even those traits or behaviors we wish or need to change, expresses some necessary aspect of the cosmic totality. It’s not that we are looking for a path away from our errors or transgressions, a dualistic highway between good and evil.  Instead, our every awareness of an opportunity for transformation helps us deepen into our essential divine nature.  We can take joy in stringing pearls for heaven where we are, instead of excessively berating ourselves for unfinished evolution.

This morning, we are called to commit ourselves to a process of spiritual creativity.  On the one hand, we remember that when the Holy One commands the Israelites to build a tabernacle, the reward for doing so is that Divine Being, God’s immanence, the Shekhinah, dwells b’tocheinu, amongst and within the people.  We learn from the Piezetner Rebbe, “not only does God hear our prayers, God prays them through us,” for in our praying we enter the flow of abundance and being that is our source, and become channels for “the ever-proclaiming praise of God.” (See Lawrence Kushner, God was in this Place, p. 135.)

On the other hand, we build the Mishkan, on which the divine presence visibly rests, so that we might have a physical focus point for our religious life.  The Mishkan – shorthand for sanctuary, ritual, and liturgy – stands before us in what we experience as a physical world, a world of objects and actions.  We gaze upon it, walk toward it, enter it.  Prepositionally, it rests before and apart from us. 

Most of the time, in our embodied selves, we have to rely on dualistic language and on our apparent differentness from other people, other forms of being, to function safely in a place of material reality.  Even if I know that the car swerving into my lane represents more space than matter, better to get out of the way.  Here, at the level of what we call Assiyah, this apparently hard and fast world, we must speak to one another and to our divine source as if, as if, we were face-to-face, as if we were not of the identical essence.  In this world, we use the language of yearning, of love, of seeking, of praying, to reach out – as if what we are reaching for did not reside within all being.  We use dualistic word and action in the service of a divine unity unbounded by any limits to its joyous diversity.

And, at the same time, when we open our spirits to the other worlds of interconnected being, worlds of emotion, intelligence, and spirit, we find guidance within our tradition in how to approach non-duality, how to experience our fullness of being within the One source of all.  We find what we need to create the spiritual vision to see past surface separation to ultimate union.  And so, my prayer for us all in the unfolding new year is that we may each be blessed to discern the One at the root of the many; to accept our individual deployments in the service of our Source and of all being; and to devote our physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual energies to the protection of all life on our threatened planet.  Amen.

Erev Yom Kippur, 10 Tishri 5774/October 3, 2014

Al cheit she’chatati!  Beloved Yavneh community, I come before you this Kol Nidre eve stricken with remorse for having failed to convince all of you that Yom Kippur is meant to be a joyous holiday, a guarantor of forgiveness and blessing, rather than a day of suffering, doubt, and anxiety.  J  We have well learned, I believe, that reconciliation between people comes about when we note our errors, offer repentance and restoration, and commit to changed behavior.  Yet, when we arrive at the Days of Awe, my sense is that many of us feel weighed down because we fear we haven’t, perhaps couldn’t, do enough to erase our past transgressions.

The ancient rabbis taught that feasting on erev Yom Kippur was as sacred as fasting not only throughout the day tomorrow, but as meritorious as fasting through both tomorrow and the next day. (BT Yoma 81b)  Our early teachers understood the theme of the holiday as not only about seeking forgiveness, but more importantly, about having faith that forgiveness is forthcoming.  According to the 16th-century scholar and mystic R. Moses Cordovero, “worship comprised of somberness and suffering is not acceptable to God.  Only a worship of joy and celebration.  Therefore, we begin Yom Kippur with festiveness and a lavish feast.”  (See 2006 High Holy Day Message, R. Gershon Winkler.)

Apparently, this viewpoint is a tough sell, as we tend to hold ourselves – and others – to high standards. Not to be picky, of course, merely out of respect for traditional expectations.  And, not just here on Earth.

A prominent rabbi died at the ripe old age of 96 and went straight to the heavenly Gan Eden.  There, in the shade of a luxurious tree, he found a large table surrounded by several learned scholars, some of them his former students, engaged in lively Talmudic debate.  The table was laden with wonderful food, pastries, kugle, the tenderest brisket, steaming chicken soup, soft rolls, and much more, and the men noshed and slurped happily as they disputed the text before them.

One of his students rose to greet his teacher: “Rebbe, we’re so happy you’ve finally joined us!  Come, have something to eat.”  The rabbi looks at the array of food and asks severely, “Who’s the mashgiach, the one who makes sure all this is kosher?”  The surprised student replies, “This is heaven!  God is the mashgiach.”  The old man ponders this for a long time, eyes closed, deep in thought, while his students await his learned conclusion.  At last, he speaks: “Fine, I’ll have some fruit.  On a paper plate.”

A good story, we are told, gives the mind a chance to surprise the heart, so I’m going to take it as a good sign that we find this story funny.  Perhaps, even, see a bit of our own resistance to self-compassion in the old man’s determination not to become lax in his observance, even in the world to come.  Perhaps, to recognize in our capacity for harsh self-judgment permission to judge others harshly as well.

Personally, I like to believe that if I am aware of the benefits of something – a new superfood, exercise, dietary supplement – that is sufficient to receive the benefit, whether or not I change my behavior.  (Stephen, as we all know, not only does the research, but actually follows the recommendations he finds credible.  As his loving spouse, I find this a mixed blessing.)  In the physical world, this attitude only helps me in my imagination; knowing people who run marathons has not loosened my hamstrings, you should pardon the reference.  Spiritually, however, there is something to my fantasy.  Awareness itself counts: while we are taught to use the High Holy Day season to undertake a detailed accounting of our souls, we are also taught that just opening to the possibility that we may need to do some soul work earns a pretty high score.

Constructive criticism, whether of others or of ourselves, most benefits us when it is rooted in the belief that we – and all others – are at one with God.  If there is but one Source of Being, then everything we manifest, even those traits or behaviors we wish or need to change, expresses some aspect of the cosmic totality in which we participate.  We, individually, arise out of divinity’s love of diversity, each of us with our particularities and quirks (some stray quarks, too, no doubt).  As we see in  the constant movement of the divine qualities arrayed on the mystical Tree of Life, no aspect (whether we experience it as good or evil) lacks a role in the eternal dance of balancing and rebalancing. It’s not that we are on a path away from our errors or transgressions.  As soon as we note something we would wish to transform, we deepen into our essential divine nature. Whatever we choose to refine helps us settle more firmly into our divine Source and home.  We come round right to where we need to be, as the Shaker hymn would have it.

Liturgically, High Holy Day prayers use a language that, for many of us, masks services’ kavannah, intentionality.  Watch closely this year, as the movement of our prayers shifts from noting, acknowledging, and committing to correct our transgressions to wave after wave of reassurance that our heartfelt t’shuvah, our turning toward God and toward one another, our t’fillah, our yearning for sacred relationship, and our tzedakah, our sharing, have been accepted.  Take to heart that when our rabbis seek to express “bottom line” Jewish teaching, righteous behavior can be netted out in a single Torah verse:

“Rabbi Simlai taught: Six hundred and thirteen commandments were given to Moses.  Then David reduced them to eleven in Psalm 15, beginning, ‘He who follows integrity, who does what is right and speaks the truth in his heart.’  Micah reduced them to three, “Act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. (6:8)’  Then came Isaiah and reduced them to two, “Keep justice and act with integrity. (56:1)’  Amos reduced them to one, ‘Seek Me and live. (5:4)’ . . . And Akiva taught: The great principle of the Torah is expressed in the commandment, ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself; I am the Eternal.’” (Levit. 19:18) 

We only have to begin, where we are, trusting that the only Place in which to do our work is the eternal here, within the eternal time/space of the living God.  A familiar story:

An ascetic, seeking a revelation from Elijah, dressed only in white, was silent except for words of Torah and prayer, drank nothing but water, rolled naked in the snow, and put nails in his shoes.  Yet, he received no vision of the prophet.  Hearing that the Baal Shem Tov had experienced revelations from Elijah, this perush set out one winter’s day for Medzibuz to ask the great teacher why he himself had not succeeded.

The Besht took his visitor out into the courtyard, then told his coach driver to bring his white horse from the stable, along with a bucket of water, and to let the horse run free.  The horse smelled the brisk, fresh air, snorted with delight, took a drink of water from the bucket, and then began to roll in the snow.

“Do you see this horse,” said the Besht to the perush.  “He also wears white, drinks only water, rolls in the snow, has nails in his shoes, and hasn’t spoken a word in ten years, yet he’s never had a revelation of Elijah! [Even though I’m tempted to question how the Besht would know this, I will yield the point for now.]  Why?  Because all these things that you and the horse are both doing are merely external.  Don’t worry about Elijah; worry about revealing your own soul.”

When the visitor departed, the Besht explained to his hasidim: “Being pious is more about attaching yourself to God than about neglecting the body and worldly affairs.  Instead of fasting from food, eat in the presence of God.  Instead of fasting from speech, infuse all of your words with holiness.  I tell you, having heavenly revelations – for which the Besht is renown – is at a lesser spiritual level than having a revelation of your own soul, so that you may be totally authentic and live from your deepest self, your divinely-rooted soul.” (Adapted from Yitzhak Buxbaum, The Light and Fire of the Baal Shem Tov, pp. 258 - 9.)

[Usher passes box of pearls through the congregation. My thanks to the S’fat Emet, via Reb Chava Bahle]

The advice to begin with ourselves in a positive manner may seem to trivialize the importance of t’shuvah, of mindful self-examination and intentional repentance.  Not so.  Even the smallest shifts in awareness entrain others, and we do not have to wait for the High Holy Days to make these shifts.  Contrary to popular comedic convention, Jewish spiritual tradition does not make much of guilt (although, Jewish child-rearing technique might). 

Instead, we are guided to look inside and make the smallest of adjustments from day to day, beginning with a review of the day as we prepare for sleep, setting action directives for correcting what may be off-kilter at the next opportunity.  We are guided to make peace with friends and family before entering into Shabbat, having reviewed the six days of the work week.  We are guided to mark each new moon as a Yom Kippur Katan, “a little Yom Kippur,” to discern – ideally with a spiritual companion – whether there is some aspect of behavior we wish to focus on as the new moon waxes, then wanes.  The entire month of Elul, prior to the Days of Awe, asks us to harvest eleven months of self-refinement, so that we enter the new year joyfully and welcome the certainty of forgiveness on Yom Kippur.  As we read in Talmud, the day itself atones for us. (See BT Yoma 86b.)

Wasting soul power on excessive self-reproach diminishes our capacity to engage with the world according to baseline Jewish teaching: “Love your neighbor as you love yourself; I am the Eternal.” (Levit. 19:18)  Over time, our understanding of “neighbor” has expanded to include all other images of the Holy One, not only the ones living next door or sharing our religious or political views.  Re-membering – pulling ourselves together – to stand in God’s loving Presence, we recognize our soul’s holiness and the equal holiness of every other soul – Elohai, n’shamah she’natata bi, tehorah hi, every morning, every soul returns to its essential purity.  Accepting that we always stand before the throne of glory, surrounded by the gentle wings of Shekhinah, we more easily discern our individual soul mission.

The one who tortures herself incessantly with the idea that she has not yet sufficiently atoned is essentially concerned with the salvation of her soul, . . . not with the work which her soul is deployed to perform in this world.  Focusing excessively on our faults rather than on each opportunity for refinement, however small, robs us of energy for the work of t’shuvah, of return and transformation.  In the time wasted on brooding over the flaws we find in ourselves, we could be stringing pearls for the delight of Heaven – we could be loving others as we have come to love ourselves, secure in the reality of the Living God. (Adapted from Buber, Hasidism and Modern Man, pp. 162 – 7.)

Hold onto the pearl you have chosen (that’s also the advice from our insurance carrier!).  You may already know what gift of individual goodness it represents; if not, you will discover it as the year unfolds.  We have been taught: “This is the secret of the unity of God: no matter where I take hold of a shred of it, I hold the whole of it.” (Buber, The Way of Man/Ten Rungs, p. 76.)   Similarly, the pearl in your hand attaches to some aspect of your own evolving soul, and in touching part of it, you find an attachment to your entire self, to the widest possible range of potential, refinement, joy, and wholeness.  Welcome to the day that atones, and to the awareness that transforms.  Gamreinu chatimah tovah, may we all be sealed for blessing.  Amen.

Rosh haShanah Shachrit, September 25, 2014/1 Tishri 5775

There’s a theory which posits that if we ever discover the precise origins and meaning of this universe, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.  There’s another theory that states this has already happened.

For me, the process of writing – not just sermon writing – resembles an exercise in just such a multiple universe theory: there is some probability that in at least one universe, the writer will be content, and in another, the audience.  There is also a certainty that in some universe, neither will emerge satisfied with the communication.  No matter how carefully arranged, all communicating with words can lead to something akin to a zen koan, a kind of parable pointing to the absurdity of trying to sort reality into fixed categories.

According to one famous koan, a Zen master lay dying, with his monks gathered around him.  The senior monk leans over and asks the master for final words of wisdom.  The old master weakly says, “Tell them Truth is like a river.” The senior monk relays this message on to the others. The youngest monk is confused: “What does he mean, ‘Truth is like a river?’” The senior monk relays this question to the master, and the dying master replies, “O.K., Truth is not like a river.”

This could as well be a rebbe story: the hearts of great spiritual teachers range far beyond binaries.  Complex reality simply can’t be sorted into neat little boxes.  Truth is and is not like a river; it transcends classification, or, at best, remains classifiable for only an instant.  Yet, we plague ourselves with efforts to arrive at capital “T” Truth, that simultaneous river and non-river, especially about sensitive, or frightening, or challenging, or threatening matters.  For example, the matter of Israel/Palestine, about which I rarely meet an agnostic.  Mostly, I encounter people filled with painful certainties, discomfited by alternative certainties, certainties that pile up into a high and wide wall named “dilemma” – a devastating problem defying resolution.

Last spring, I read My Promised Land: the Triumph and Tragedy of Israel, by Ari Shavit, a well-regarded Israeli journalist. Shavit doesn’t offer his memoir as capital “T” truth.  He does, however, make a masterful effort to understand the Jewish state’s evolution from an aspiration of late 19th-century political theorists to its current incarnation as an economically powerful, high-tech, militarily secure (though constantly threatened) political entity.  His analysis carries great weight, alternating between narratives of Zionists and of the Arabs who also live on the land, struggling to  discern the roots of shared suffering and of lost opportunities for peace.  It seemed the perfect choice for a High Holy Day book report: compassionate; fair-minded; keenly aware of errors, misperceptions, and willful deception on all sides; regretful and hopeful.  And then, Gaza exploded – from inside and out.

And the dilemma became unbearable, the issues so fraught with competing elements of physical and spiritual risk, the first risk being that incurred by speaking our individual truths, frustrations, anxieties, and hopes.  As it’s impossible for everyone to begin with the same understanding about the great koan of the meaning and purpose of Israel in the world, the potential for open-hearted dialogue within the Jewish community and beyond lies crushed under the weight of our incompatible categories. 

And, beloveds, this summer’s vitriol makes me cry.  Social media, especially, infiltrate our every moment with conflicting narratives and demands for our assent or objection.  We have learned to harden our hearts and minds to reject rather than process challenging information.  Our modes of argumentation assume that disagreement exposes the moral failure of one side or the other, as if two were the maximum number of viewpoints.  Families, friendships, community groups, congregations shatter against the hard stone of the dilemma before us.

How do we disengage from soul-crushing exercises in competitive suffering?  How do we grieve for ourselves and for “the Other,” without giving up some perceived moral superiority?  How do we escape from our triumphalisms, our powerful conviction that “our worst is better than the Other’s best”?  How do we listen and truly hear one another with compassion – Sh’ma Yisrael – even when we don’t agree and can’t yet imagine ever agreeing? 

How can we come to recognize where we are being triggered by fear?  How can the memory of the Shoah not trump every argument in favor of negotiation over warfare?  How do we deal with the secondary trauma of the Shoah in this moment, the vile resurgence of European anti-Semitism and its step-child, militant Islamic Jew hatred? How can we balance the condemnation of Israeli policies that oppress Palestinians with support of an oppressed people whose own social structures include violent oppression of women, of political dissenters, of minority religious views?    

How do we resist the fearful paralysis that inhibits serious internal reflection and external dialogue?   How do we live the Judaism we espouse, an evolving tradition that insistently moves away from tribalism toward a universalist understanding of human relationships and of human responsibility one for the other?  How do we do the sort of cheshbon ha-nefesh, the accounting of the soul, necessary to clarify our deepest values and strengthen us to accept the challenge of unyielding complexity?  Most important, how may we shape ourselves and our tradition to have the greatest impact for good? 

In an era when polarization has come to dominate our culture, we might be forgiven for accepting it as a fixed attribute. We may overlook the ways in which we suffer from self-inflicted wounds.  As Reb Zalman (z”tl) has noted, we sometimes seek easy answers to relieve the anxiety of being with a problem and fail to look for the upayas – the skillful spiritual means – and the texts that can serve us at a difficult time.

One of Judaism’s skillful practices is listening to the stories of tzaddikim, of people striving for righteousness.  Sometimes, their stories help us take yet another step on the path of personal and communal redemption.  Back in the spring of 2010, Marc J. Rosenstein posted a commentary on Leviticus 19: 17 -18, “You shall not hate your brother in your heart; you shall reason with [warn, chastise, “call out”] your neighbor, and not incur guilt on his account.  You shall not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Eternal.” Rosenstein writes:

The Chilazoner Rebbe was sitting with his Hasidim around the holiday table [in the Galilee], and he told the following parable. “Once I was driving along the highway and a car passed me and pushed quickly in front of me, cutting me off.  ‘Damn Arab kids,’ I said. ‘They have no respect for the laws of the land, not even for the traffic laws.  They whine about having no rights, but they refuse to accept responsibility!’ A few minutes later I found myself stopped at a red light next to the car that had passed me.  The driver was Ultra-Orthodox.


“Once I was driving along the highway and a car passed me and pushed quickly in front of me, cutting me off.  ‘Damn Ultra-Orthodox,’ I said.  ‘They have no respect for the laws of the land, not even for the traffic laws.  They think they are holier than the rest of us, that they can run the country as they want, forcing everyone else onto the shoulder.’  A few minutes later I found myself stopped at a red light next to the car that had passed me.  The driver was a settler.

“Once I was driving along the highway and a car passed me and pushed quickly in front of me, cutting me off.  ‘Damn settlers,’ I said.  ‘They have no respect for the laws of the land, not even for the traffic laws.  They think they can hold the rest of us hostage to their messianic meshuggas – driving us all to disaster.’  A few minutes later I found myself stopped at a red light next to the car that had passed me.  I recognized the driver from his picture in the business section of the paper, a prominent lawyer from Herzliya.

“Once I was driving along the highway and a car passed me and pushed quickly in front of me, cutting me off.  ‘Damn North Tel Aviv snobs,’ I said.  ‘They have no respect for the laws of the land, not even for the traffic laws.  They throw around their money and power and treat the whole country as if it were their own private estate.’  A few minutes later I found myself stopped at a red light next to the car that had passed me.  The driver was my neighbor.

“Once I was driving along the highway, in a hurry to pick up my kid from the Acco train station.  I passed a whole lineup of cars moving irritatingly slowly, and then had to squeeze back into the right lane before the West Acco intersection.  A traffic cop pulled me over after the light.  ‘What, did I do something wrong?’ I asked him incredulously.  ‘Are you kidding?’  You just cut off that whole line of cars – an Arab, an Ultra-Orthodox, a settler, a lawyer, and a local.  You almost caused a serious accident!’  ‘Wow,’ I said.  ‘I didn't see them.  I really didn't see them.’

'There was silence at the table as the Hasidim contemplated their master’s deep wisdom.  Then one spoke up, hesitantly,[a bit like the youngest monk at the deathbed of his teacher]: ‘Perhaps the Master would agree to interpret the parable?’  But the Rebbe would only repeat the last sentence: ‘I didn't see them.  I really didn't see them.’

And those who have understanding will understand.

In spite of the heaviness in our hearts as we face one another feeling stymied by a dilemma, we are people of understanding.  We do hear the entire teaching of the Deuteronomy passage cited above: we are committed to eradicating hatred from our hearts; we recognize our obligation to warn one another against harmful acts – with loving kindness, not so as to incur guilt for failing to warn or guilt for disrespecting another image of God; we accept the challenge to let go of grudges in pursuit of peace; wherever we are, we seek to attune to the best in ourselves and our neighbors.  And we do this because we have been blessed with the sacred opportunity to discern our own holiness in the image of our Source.  We do this because polarization leads to despair, disdain, and destruction – toxins that pollute every aspect of our lives.

Please do not misconstrue what I’m saying as an endorsement of untroubled neutrality; of a naïve acceptance of all views as equally valid; of a mushy-headed “love will find a way” sensibility.  Please hear my call for discernment, which requires patience, and for giving a full hearing to each person we encounter, and for noticing when we reject something without consideration – those rejections are both great indicators of our vulnerabilities and of potential shifts in understanding.  If striving to fulfill the commandment to love one another were easy, it would probably carry much less weight.  It’s not easy.  It challenges us to say honestly to ourselves: “I’ve met my neighbors; don’t care for them at all; yet I will find a way for us to thrive together until we figure out how to love one another.”

At a meeting between the Dalai Lama and Israeli and Palestinian peace activists in 2005, His Holiness – whose Tibetan community-in-exile knows something about facing a Great Wall of oppression – reminded his guests that “regardless of your past history, the current reality is that you have to live side-by-side.”  This is an old small “t” truth begging to emerge.  As far back as our early rabbis, we’ve been warned against claiming primacy over others, because all humanity descends from a single ancestor (Sanhedrin 4:5).

Humanity has been offered Torah and her mitzvot so that we might live by them, that is, in seeking to fulfill them, we find life (Leviticus 18:5).  Over and over, Torah breaks down the very idea of “stranger,” until the word Israel itself barely holds meaning beyond “God fearer.”  Having inherited this radical understanding of the human family, we are covenanted to struggle with the paradox that seemingly opposite things can be simultaneously true, small “t” true.  Perhaps the best we can do is train ourselves to become disruptors of categories.  Anger and resistance bind us tightly and feed our fear that the conditions that create dilemmas can never shift; emotional and spiritual spaciousness opens windows of creativity and potential.  As long as we accept polarization as a normal intellectual, emotional, or spiritual state, we will continue to miss the mark in our efforts to love one another as we are loved by our Source. 

I pray that in the new year we will accustom ourselves to sitting peacefully with internal contradictions, on our way to learning how to accept external contradictions with less fear, less resistance.  I pray we come to understand violent conflict as an attack on our planetary Mother, so that we can embrace a pro-humanity, pro-peace, pro-non-violence worldview.  Within the inexhaustible Source that creates and sustains our being from moment to moment, at this turning of the year, may we find comfort in shared silence, inspiration in the white spaces, redemption in compassion.  Within that inexhaustible Source, may we rest transparently, allowing our pain and fear to be soothed by the Merciful One, in whom we find our eternal home.  Kayn y’hi ratzon, so may this be God’s will and ours.

Erev Rosh haShanah, September 24, 2014/1 Tishri 5775

Shanah tovah!  What a joy to gather with you once again in this beautiful sacred space we are honored to share with our sisters and brothers in faith here at St. Mark’s.  Our sharing helps us to thrive as a synagogue without walls, and, by so doing, we reduce Yavneh’s environmental impact on our living planet, which suffers under the press of more than enough concrete.  So, again, Rector Ljunggren, thank you and your community for welcoming us with open hearts.

In Judaism there is a concept called “yichus,” which basically means lineage or pedigree.  In popular parlance, the term “good yichus” describes someone with connections to a distinguished family.  In even looser adaptation, “yichus” may loosely apply to the reflected glory one may claim from a connection to a distinguished person, even one you may have merely met – or been in the same zip code with – perhaps no more than once.

Until I investigated the use of yichus in consultation with the all-knowing Google, I was unaware of how much discussion it garners on certain websites.  Apparently, who claims yichus and how s/he may flaunt it generates quite a bit of, shall we say, mildly judgmental commentary. 

From the Yeshivah World News, I gleaned the following: 

“Yichus is like a potato plant. The only good part of it is under the ground.

Yichus is like the lottery. It only makes sense if you're bad at math.

Yichus is like the law of gravity. It doesn't matter how high you started, if your current trajectory is down.

And, from the site, iStehtl (yes, iStehtl – the fiddler’s still on the roof, but with a synthesizer, I guess):

“Yichus is a string of zeros; it’s only worth anything if you have something in front of it” – which has a certain inspirational zing to it.  Which might explain the otherwise (to me) incomprehensible comment: “Judaism . . . making me feel more like a supermodel every day,” signed, aseeker.

With the limitations of yichus in mind, at this confessional time of year, I admit to claiming professional yichus as a student and musmach (ordinee) of Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, may his memory be for blessing.  As Yavneh is one of the congregations directly affiliated with the Jewish Renewal movement he founded, I’d like to take some time as we begin a new year together to speak about him and his influence.

Beginning with the personal: back in 1998, I applied to the Renewal seminary not only to learn more of what Reb Zalman had to teach, but also because his way of being in the world as a scholar, spiritual explorer, and holy innovator affirmed so much of what my own spiritual evolution had already come to hold true.  Over time, I enjoyed the blessing of a gifted teacher who also honored me as a colleague in spiritual inquiry, who took seriously my leaning into new insight, who greeted me with smiling eyes and called me Rochel Leibn.

Stories are told of rebbes of such sympathetic genius that every hasid in the room thinks each word is directed specifically to him; believe me, what I have just attributed to my relationship with Reb Zalman, every single one of his students, colleagues, neighbors, family members, and friends will also claim.  He mindfully shepherded all of us, individually and in relationship to one another.  At our last encounter, I was sitting next to him awaiting a presentation by Rabbi Chava Bahle, whom we have had the joy of learning with here at Yavneh.  As the room began to fill up, Reb Zalman told me and the others in the row with him to go sit up front, to show Chavaleh the honor her teachings merit.  Reluctant to move, I leaned into my Rebbe and said, “oh, I’d rather sit here and bask in your aura.”  To which he replied, “Rochel Leibn, my aura reaches to Raleigh.”  Even higher, even wider, I would say.

At the memorial weekend about six weeks after Reb Zalman’s passing, participants had an opportunity to sit in small groups to reminisce.  We are taught that hearing stories about tzaddikim, righteous souls, is a sacred activity, a form of Torah study.  One of the men in my group is a distinguished Jewish scholar who had once lived around the corner from Reb Zalman.  Reb Zalman’s across-the-street neighbor was also an academic.  One Sunday morning, Reb Zalman borrowed some tools from his neighbor to work on his car.  When he returned the tools a few hours later, the neighbor was entertaining guests.  Dressed in dirty coveralls and sweating from his exertions, Reb Zalman stood at the door for a few minutes regaling his neighbor with what he had learned about carburaters – with his boundless curiosity, every bit of new information was cherished and integrated with all the rest.  When he departed, the guests wanted to know just how their host had managed to find such an erudite mechanic.

Reb Zalman manifested in our world as an insatiable energy field, constantly seeking out, acquiring, integrating, and reconfiguring what he had learned and experienced.  Not like the Borg, for purposes of control, but as one of the best expressions any of us will ever be privileged to encounter of the human yearning for spiritual understanding. 

Author and photographer Alan Briskin posted the following remembrance on his blog:

“I met Reb Zalman when I first interviewed him for the Collective Wisdom Initiative in August, 2000.  We met at his home in Boulder, and I still recall the instant connection that was made when he first began speaking. Well, maybe not instant. He was telling me a story that began 300 years ago about the Age of Reason, and I wasn’t sure we would have enough time for him to get to the point.

“I was about to interrupt him when he sensed my impatience and held up his hand.  ‘Wait,’ he said. I paused, gathered myself, and had something like an epiphany. He was telling me a story that was critical if I was to have any direction for the work that was still to unfold for me.  I still have my notes from that session and his words read like poetry:

“We have not learned much in our
current conventional morality
and politics about togethering.

“The last century with the
[emphasis on] scientism sought to see everything
in the reductive form. We wanted
to get to the atom and beyond the
atom, to the smallest part.

“But even in the atom, the nucleus
and the electrons that dance
around it are in relationship with
each other.

“We believed we couldn’t know anything
until we got to the smallest
component, and so we forgot to seek

“WHAT BINDS THINGS TOGETHER” – as we will see, a main theme in the evolution of Jewish Renewal’s theological orientation.

At my first face-to-face meeting with my rebbe, when I was beginning my rabbinic studies, he greeted me on the way to dinner after a kabbalat Shabbat service with a hug, took a step back and touched my birthmark, saying “You know how to dance with divine providence!”  I probably squeeked out “thank you,” all the while wondering “in what universe could that true?”   It took me a while to unpack that message, so, in Reb Zalman style, we’ll come back to it when it fits into a larger context, but, suffice it to say, the import of this quick encounter contributes to the many ways I am bound to my teacher, in whose lineage I gratefully serve this community

Permit me to point to just one of the ways Reb Zalman’s curiosity, erudition, loving-kindness, and holy yearning have influenced not only the Jewish Renewal movement that arose around his teachings and those of his students, but the entire Jewish world.

After the Shoah, the central question “why be Jewish?” ceased being primarily about living as a minority in a majority culture, instead, it confronted skeptic and believer alike with apparent evidence of divine abandonment.  The deep wounding suppressed the necessary emotional processing into near impenetrable silence.  Reb Zalman spoke aloud what many others avoided: the fact that after the Shoah, many Jews were suffering from “post-traumatic God syndrome.”  And so, he turned his attention to renewal instead of restoration: if a Jewish world had been destroyed in the mid-20th century, then what could we learn from the last time that had happened, when the Romans destroyed the institutions of biblical Judaism in 70 C.E.?  What could we bring forward from our rich spiritual past to nurture a Judaism looking toward a transformed future, seeking its growing edge?

Jewish Renewal responds to these questions by providing a trans-denominational Jewish home for the previously disenfranchised, the doubters, the secular and the learned who needed to get far enough out of the head to rediscover the heart, the ones who didn’t know Judaism has an ancient and inspiring mystical center, the ones who had been kept at a distance (including women and non-Jews, from whom many Jews imagined we had nothing to learn).  Reb Zalman cultivated in himself and others a deep and holy curiosity about how Judaism and other faiths can nurture our capacity to live fully, transparently in the Divine Presence. 

And, he encouraged us to discern in our spiritual practice, in our study, in our community-building, reasons to continue along a Jewish path and to create a future together.  To feel, accept, and learn from everyone; to find comfort, laughter, and joy in the tradition as it transformed.  He modeled for us how to do the soul’s work over a long life-time, including how to turn age-ing to sage-ing; he even modeled for us how to meet death, how to roll our individual wave gracefully and gratefully back into the great ocean of being.  He showed us how to find our individual sense of deployment in service to the Holy One and to one another; how to claim our empowerment, to stoke our spiritual fire, to feel our ritual gestures in our bodies.  He taught gratitude as foundational practice, famously reporting that he begins each day saying, “Good morning, God.  Thanks for godding through Zalman for another day – I’ll do my best to give you a good ride!”

During his lifetime, Reb Zalman’s students took great pleasure in the energy of what we call a neo-hasidism.  After all, we were invited to immerse ourselves in the spiritual riches of the Hasidic masters and of the mystical tradition that inspired them, and we had a beloved Rebbe sitting before us, just like all the other Hasidim.  Our Rebbe, however, while enjoying the energetic exchange and the reciprocal love inherent in that model, knew that what he was bringing into being was not a hierarchical lineage, but an organic, distributed, and wide-ranging lineage.  On many instances, he would rise from “the Rebbe chair,” move over one seat, and absorb the “rebbetude” of whoever took his place.  And then that one would move over, and someone else would teach.

This willingness to move away from centralized spiritual control in order to make space for many other teachers – and for their students and the students of their students – this wisdom has bequeathed to Jewish Renewal robust institutions and a healthy future, free of dynastic wrangling and accustomed to innovation, creativity, and responsiveness.  Part of this wisdom might be attributed to something Reb Zalman said he learned from Christian monks: to sit still and let God love him. 

So what about this dancing with divine providence I’m supposed to know how to do?  Six months after receiving this message via Reb Zalman, I asked him why he had said that to me.  He replied that he didn’t know, that sometimes he was impelled to transmit something, and he had learned to do so without massaging the transmission into something that made sense to him.  So, he said, perhaps I should seek the counsel of Chana Rochel of Ludomir, a woman called by her community to serve as their rebbe, even though such a thing was “unacceptable” 200 years ago in a Ukrainian village.  From Chana Rochel – who adapted her holy service to fit the constraints of her times – from my Rebbe, from my family, friends, and community, in the years I’ve been blessed to serve as a spiritual teacher, I eventually recognized that I too had learned to accept the responsibility to receive and to share, to trust my kishkes, to do the work without thinking it’s mine alone. 

The foundational theological teaching of Jewish Renewal arises from an understanding shared by all mystics and certainly by our Hasidic masters:  all being emanates from a single divine Source, and all forms of being manifest inextricably in relation to all others.  When Rabbi Burt Jacobson interviewed Reb Zalman for an essay about the Baal Shem Tov, Reb Burt asked: “What does the BeShT have to teach us now?” The response: “That God so loved the world that She gave Herself to be the Earth.” And, this evening, as we celebrate another year in the life of our beautiful blue ark of a planet, I remind you of what our Rebbe loved to say, “The only way to get it together – spiritually, practically, environmentally – is together!”

Keyn y’hi ratzon, so may this be our will and God’s, and may the soul of our teacher, Reb Mesullam Zalman Chiyyah ben Shlomo haCohen v’Chaya Gittel be bound up in the bonds of eternal life. Amen.

Leviticus 16:1 – 18:30
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
To ponder from this week’s portion:

We have before us the description of the ritual required for the High Priest, Aaron, to make expiation for his sins, those of his family, and those of the whole household of Israel on Yom Kippur.  As we prepare for Passover, the re-enactment of our liberation into service to the Eternal, what might we wish to let go of along with physical chametz/leavened goods?  How might we use our Passover preparations as a way to rededicate ourselves to living Covenanted lives?

May our path toward the festival be filled with joy,  L’shalom, 
Reb Raachel