Archive for the ‘holidays’ Category

Facing Down Our Fears: Yom Kippur 5769 Sermon by Rabbi Joe Blair

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008

Yom Kippur 5769

October 8-9, 2008

Rabbi Joe Blair

 

Facing Down our Fears

 

Gut Yontiff.

As one of my colleagues, Rabbi Lewis Eron of Voorhees NJ, has recently described it, we have completed the first two legs of the annual Jewish Spiritual triathlon.

We spiritually trained hard through the month of Elul, doing the work of Teshuvah.

We got to the starting block, and took off at the sound of the gun at Rosh Hashanah. We pushed ourselves and made it through the initial stage of that distance swim.

We clambered out, limbered up, and launched ourselves again immediately into the next stage, and have just completed the nine day endurance bike/run of the Yamim Nora’im, the days of Awe. Now, finally, we are here, in the midst of the 25 hour heavy power-lifting effort of Yom Kippur.  

This metaphor is apt because the work we are supposed to be doing for this holiday is hard; we have to prepare ourselves for it, it comes in stages, and at the end, we can find ourselves exhausted, and though elevated by the effort, not having achieved the coveted status of ‘the winner’ – that one person recognized as the best, the highest achieving, the mark others aim to surpass in future. Most years, that seems like challenge enough.

This year, however, it feels even harder and more of a challenge than usual. This year there is so much happening in the world around us that demands our attention, that tugs at us and pulls our focus away from the world of the spiritual. It all feels so urgent, burning, and insistent.

Think about it. The news we heard just this week is terrible. Not to list all the ills of the world:

Today, in addition to the sorrows that all of us must face, the pains of losses, of illnesses, and of deaths, we are burdened by what is happening around us.  We are faced with an economic crisis which is affecting most – maybe all — of us, and which is destroying many people’s lives. Think of those who are being evicted for being unable to keep up with the rising interest payments on their homes, as one example of this disaster.

Think of the kinds of natural disasters that have struck, which seem to have increased in numbers of late, and the toll in lives and property lost has been staggering, with no end in sight.

There are genocides ongoing in the world, wars that seem to have little purpose and no end, and little being done about them. Even when we try to help, it is so little compared to the needs of those suffering.

Terrorism has spread and become the de facto means of waging wars worldwide. From the middle East to India to the former Soviet Union, and now elsewhere in the world, terrorism is on the rise.  We are watching tensely as nations and groups whom we have good reason to fear, some of whom hate us for simply existing, both as Americans and as Jews, come ever closer to acquiring access to weapons that are terrifying to contemplate ever being used – yet apparently they have every intention of doing so.

Our own civil liberties and most cherished rights to due process have been curtailed in the name of combating terrorism, without a hue and cry arising.

We see a massive rise in the number of anti-Semitic acts and hate crimes in the world – not just ‘over there’ – the statistics show that it is rampant right here at home.

We see the increase in power of forces of intolerance and bigotry. Here at home, the push to rescind some of the social gains that have been made over the past two generations has gained new force and adherents, and is making inroads in the public mind.

Taken altogether, in light of all this the future looks bleak, and very uncertain. We don’t know what to expect next, what will happen, how to react, how to protect ourselves and our loved ones.  

So these are difficult times. Times of uncertainty, fear, anxiety, and even dread. None of us is immune or exempt from these feelings.

In times such as this, it is easy to lose heart, even easier to fall prey to fears. The crisis du jour calls us to attend. Look NOW! it screams. REACT!  But I urge you – think carefully, do not fall into this trap. Do not be tempted by the siren song of urgencies!

In the words of Mordecai Kaplan:

“To find life in the present worth living, people must have faith in a future.  The ultimate in human tragedy is not suffering or even death, but hopelessness.  This is the true meaning of damnation.  Men have been known to suffer all manner of torments and to maintain, throughout them all, a deep and abiding interest in life, to experience life as worth living.

“Martyrs, like Akiba and Socrates, have gone to their death with serenity, because they believed their death was not the final verdict on all they lived for.  But it is hell to suffer evils without feeling that there is anything that we can do about them, or without the confidence that they will be abolished.

“It is the function of religion to save men from this hell, and the Jewish religion did so.  How keenly our Sages predicted the need of faith in a future to give meaning and worth to the present is beautifully expressed in a midrash that comments on the prayer of Jacob at Beth El.  We are told in Genesis that Jacob, when fleeing from the wrath of his brother Esau, was accorded a vision of God in a dream, and when he awoke, he set up the stone, on which he had lain, as a pillar and vowed that, if permitted to return to safety, vehayah adonai li lelohim, “the Lord shall be my God.”  In saying this, our Sages explain, “Jacob gave permission to the key-word by means of which God would in future ages redeem his descendants.”  All the solace and bliss that would fall to the lot of Israel would be theirs, by virtue of the rallying cry vehaya, “it shall come to pass,” that is to say by virtue of faith in the future.

“We always seem to be confronted with the alternative of either accepting the present situation as the norm, with its violence, falsehood and hate as the ultimate reality, or we must seek to save ourselves from demoralization by applying the traditional key-principle of salvation, vehayah, “it shall come to pass.”  There is still a future, and in it are concealed unfathomed possibilities for good. As our vision for the future appeals more clearly to us, the evil in the world will cease to be an obsession that prevents us from beholding and enjoying the good there is in it.  When we recognize an evil, let us see whether we can do something to correct it.  If we can, let us do it. If not, let us defer the correction of that evil until some future time, pressing on, meanwhile, to other goals that are immediately attainable.  Our tactics in contending against evil should be those of modern, noble warfare.  When we encounter an obstacle that we cannot surmount, we need not let it stop us; we can bypass it while moving onward in the general direction of our goals, determined by our ethical ideals. This is the experience of salvation.  It is not so much dependent on our attaining our goal as in our confidence that the goal is worth attaining, and on our wholehearted devotion to attaining it.”

                               —Mordecai Kaplan, The Future of the American Jew, “Hope.”

Instead of despairing, as Kaplan tells us, we must turn to religion as the source of strength and comfort that has been given us. You have already taken the first step in that direction by coming here today. Now all you need to do is attend to the very words we all say each time we come together. 

In our services, in the Geulah, the section on Redemption, we read:

“In a world torn by violence and pain, a world far from wholeness and peace, a world waiting still to be redeemed, give us, Lord, the courage to say: there is one God in heaven and earth.”

This seems a pretty fair description of what we are seeing around us today.  And we do need courage to assert God in the face of what we know is happening in our world. Continuing, in the Amidah, we read:

“God of Israel, may our worship on this [Sabbath] day bring us nearer to all that is high and holy. May it bind the generations in bonds of love and sharing, and unite us with our people in common hope and faith. And through [Sabbath rest and] worship, may we learn to find fulfillment and joy in the vision of peace for all the world.

“You are with us in our prayer, in our love and our doubt, in our longing to feel Your presence and do Your will. You are the still, clear voice within us. Therefore, O God, when doubt troubles us, when anxiety makes us tremble, and pain clouds the mind, we look inward for the answer to our prayers. There may we find You, and there find courage, insight, and endurance. And let our worship bring us closer to one another, that all Israel, and all who seek You, may find new strength for Your service.”

This tells us that God is with us, within us. How can we give up or give in to despair if we believe that?  The very Creator – the Source of Being – is our taproot and the bedrock of our strength! Together, we acknowledge the inner source of our strength.

“We gratefully acknowledge, O Lord our God, that You are our Creator and Preserver, the Rock of our life and our protecting Shield. We give thanks to You for our lives which are in Your hand, for our souls which are ever in Your keeping, for Your wondrous providence and Your continuous goodness, which You bestow upon us day by day. Truly, Your mercies never fail, and Your lovingkindness never ceases. Therefore do we for ever put our trust in You. O God, let life abundant be the heritage of all the children of Your covenant. Blessed is the Eternal God, to whom our thanks are due.”

How do we access this inner strength? We are offered the gift of prayer to help us as we face our fears and uncertainties. We are told:

“Prayer invites God to let God’s presence suffuse our spirits, to let God’s will prevail in our lives. Prayer cannot bring water to parched fields, nor mend a broken bridge, nor rebuild a ruined city; but prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart, and rebuild a weakened will.”

And we are told, we are not alone. Not only is God within us, we have each other. We are a holy community, and we support one another.

“We have come together to strengthen our bonds with our people Israel. Like Jews of generations past, we celebrate the grandeur of creation. Like Jews of every age, we echo our people’s ancient call for justice. We are Jews, but each of us is unique. We stand apart and alone, with differing feelings and insights. And yet, we are not entirely alone and separate, for we are children of one people and one heritage.  And we are one in search of life’s meaning. All of us know despair and exaltation; all bear burdens; all have moments of weakness and times of strength; all sing songs of sorrow and love. In this circle of hope, in the presence of the sacred, may the heart come to know itself and its best, finding a fresh impulse to love the good. May our celebration lead us to work for the good; and may this day give strength to us and to our people Israel.”

More:

“Let there be love and understanding among us; let peace and friendship be our shelter from life’s storms. Eternal God, help us to walk with good companions, to live with hope in our hearts and eternity in our thoughts, that we may lie down in peace and rise up to find our hearts waiting to do Your will.”

Each time we pray together we announce what it is we have each committed to by our very presence:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your mind, with all your strength, with all your being. Set these words, which I command you this day, upon your heart. Teach them faithfully to your children; speak of them in your home and on your way, when you lie down and when you rise up. Bind them as a sign upon your hand; let them be a symbol before your eyes; inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Be mindful of all My mitzvoth, and do them; so shall you consecrate yourselves to your God. I, the Lord, am your God who led you out of Egypt to be your God; I, the Lord, am your God.” 

In light of all this, knowing that we have the strength of God within us, and the community around us supporting us, we should not be cowed by fear or doubts. We are not alone! We are not powerless!  

These beliefs are our touchstones. Our only chance of dealing with fears and uncertainties is to face them in light of our core beliefs and knowing that we are loved and supported. How, then, can we give in to despair?   

Rather, with the certainties and the support that this knowledge brings us, we have hope and strength. We can face our fears. We can overcome our troubles and afflictions. We can rise above them. We can scale the heights, and keep our focus on the spiritual aspect of life, seeing God in those around us, seeking to do God’s work in the world.

So as we come to the end of this third leg of the spiritual triathlon, even if we aren’t declared ‘the winner’ of the spiritual marathon of these holy days, each one of us who has seriously undertaken the effort ‘wins.’ Even now, in the midst of this solemn occasion, this high holy day, I want to offer my congratulations to each of you for being a ‘winner’- a status you have earned simply by making the effort, holding your focus, being here as part of our community and as an expression of God in the world. Please accept my ‘high five’ to you. No need for gator ade showers today. Our spiritual high is enough. J

May you, may we all, know that we have support and strength that arises from deep within us, from a place that taps the core of our beliefs as the source. May we draw on that source wisely, and use it to do what we know is right and good in the world, and in that way, go from strength to strength and be strong. Chazak, chazak venitchazek.

Leshanah tovah umetukah tichateimu!

 

 

 

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Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell Yizkor 5769 Drash

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008

Yizkor

Yom Kippur

10 Tishrei 5769/9 October 2008

Temple Beth El

Harrisonburg, VA

Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell

 

 

I spoke this morning about Yom Kippur as a day of descent. For some, the destination of our descent is yizkor, this service of memory, of remembering. Just about every single one of us gathered in this sanctuary is here to intentionally remember—to bring to mind with a clarity that is facilitated by and on this day—to reassemble, in our mind’s eye, the stage on which we played with friends and beloveds, now gone. This day provides that state—it is up to us to recall the props, the staging, the lines and the cues. We address ourselves to this challenge as if—if we did it right, remembering the way the light glistened in her hair, the full laugh that so delighted—or embarrassed us—that ridiculous outfit, that keen sense of duty, that passionate involvement, that loving presence—if we could only remember it fully, we might bring our beloved back to us—for one last word, one final embrace, a request for forgiveness, a tear of regret, a burst of gratitude.

 

But we do not have that power. We have memory, yes, but not the power to bring back the days when our loved ones sat beside us, nudging, loving, cajoling, spoiling us, celebrating life with us.

 

So today we look for ways to honor the memory of those who enriched our lives with their presence. Now that they are gone, it is up to us to carry out their precious legacies. While we Jews often name our children after those who have passed away, how often are we equally intentional about picking up their dreams—and taking concrete, deliberate steps towards fulfilling hopes those we loved were not able to realize. Sometimes we fulfill the dreams of our beloveds simply by living full, purposeful lives. We know for whom we were the life project. Other times, it is easy—and joyful—to help realize their commitments, for we share the values that shaped them, and that shaped us. Sometimes, although we love them and miss them, the legacies of our beloveds are complicated and even challenging to our beliefs. Perhaps today will open a window to enable us to reconsider this legacy—and work towards transforming it—in memory of a beloved who loved to eat—or cook—we could work to end hunger, locally or beyond geographical boundaries. To honor the memory of one who was unable to show love, perhaps our involvement in or support of an organization that provides loving homes—for discarded people or abandoned animals—perhaps such work would work to heal our own deep sense of loss.

 

It is up to us to create living memorials to those we loved—to extend the influence of their goodness, their kindness, their passions—beyond the grave. And, if we can, to work towards repairing their broken dreams, by creating opportunities for others—in their name.

 

So on this day of memory, may we enters the doors of yizkor honoring that memory is a complex and challenging exercise. And that finally, each of us is enriched beyond measure because for some time we were privileged to share this world with each of those who is now gone.

 

Ashreinu. How blessed are we, for their lives, for their gifts, their passions, their joys.

May we be worthy guarantors of their memory.

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Yom Kippur 5769 Sermon by Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell

Friday, October 17th, 2008

 

Shir HaMa’a lot: A Song of Ascents

Temple House of Israel, Staunton, VA

Temple Beth El, Harrisonburg, VA

10 Tishrei 5769/8&9 October 2008

Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell

 

 

During one of my first visits to the Shenandoah Valley, Nurit and I visited one of the caverns. I later discovered that I was following a family tradition—my grandparents included a visit to a Shenandoah Valley cavern on their honeymoon in 1916! I will never forget my first descent into the unexpectedly beautiful world below the surface of the earth. I kept wondering about the first individuals to “discover” these formations. Once they kindled light to illuminate the beauty around them, did they think that they had descended into a kind of heaven, and that the myths of a hot and smoldering ugly netherworld had simply been wrong? Were they dazzled, as were we, by what they saw? What did they think of the even temperature and the cool water that glides down the walls and creates sparkling, shimmering pools on the floor?

 

My first visit was followed by another. Even if I visited every year that I am blessed to be with you here, I will never take for granted the magnificent power of the stalactites and stalagmites that form curtains and columns and vistas of natural beauty that delight and amaze so many visitors every year. We who visit this magical world below are afforded a glimpse into the formation of the earth hundreds of millions of years ago, vistas that take our breath away.

 

The cavern provides a powerful metaphor for us as we enter into this solemn and challenging day of Yom Kippur.

 

This is a day of mystery and wonder. On this day, we are encouraged to enter a place that is both familiar and unfamiliar. When you, fortunate residents of this area, approach any of the caverns, the terrain is familiar and welcoming. And then you descend below the surface of the earth, and, perhaps like me, are amazed anew. So it is with this day. We enter this familiar sanctuary, and greet friends, family, and acquaintances. We welcome newcomers who are grateful to have found a community with whom to observe this Day of Awe. And then we open the machzor, the High Holiday prayerbook, and we are ushered into the liturgy of this uniquely solemn day. And as Yom Kippur progresses, we descend deeper and deeper into the cavern of our souls.

 

The metaphor of descent mirrors the journey of the ancient High Priest into the Holy of Holies on this day. This is how Rabbi Jill Hammer describes the Yom Kippur ritual:

 

Nothing could be more mysterious than the image of the high priest entering the holiest chamber of the Temple on Yom Kippur. As the high priest utters the secret name of the Divine within a cloud of incense, it is as if he planted the sacred word like a seed, creating the cosmos anew. Emerging from the shrine, the high priest renews the land and inspires the people to awe and repentance.

 

She continues,

 

On Yom Kippur, many Jews fast and pray the whole day. The words of the Yom Kippur prayers are like the winding journey of the high priest toward the Holy of Holies. Each prayer takes us a little closer to the innermost depths of ourselves. On this day, we are all high priests meeting the Divine in privacy and intimacy. Surrounded by clouds of song and petition, we are able to look into our hearts more deeply than on any other day of the year.[1]

 

We enter into this day, this day that is the Holy of Holies, as if we were entering one of the nearby caverns. Some of us are unsure about whether or not to enter this day of descent. We’re here because of someone else’s idea of what Judaism asks—or demands—of us. We entered this synagogue tonight as a tourist enters a renowned  cathedral, with curiosity and respect, but without commitment. But Yom Kippur is not like any other day in our calendar. This is the Day of Awe, the day when individuals become community by collectively opening our hearts. So you who are hesitating—take the hand of the one beside you. You who hold back, catch the reassuring glance and the outstretched arm of your neighbor. For centuries, Jews have taken the risk of journeying into the dark on this day. Together, we muster the courage to step into the unknown of this Sabbath of Sabbaths, this Day of Judgment.

 

How well prepared are we for this journey? Do we carry sources of illumination with us? Like early cave explorers, we may carry only candles, which are easily extinguished. Once they’re out, we may find that our matches have become soggy and unusable. How will we make our way in the dark? We move closer together to reassure ourselves that we are not alone.

 

The air thins, and we find ourselves gasping for breath. But as the seconds become minutes, our breath returns and oxygen courses through our veins and arteries without our willing it. We’re surprised by a wave of calm that follows the panic. We realize that our eyes are slowing becoming accustomed to the lack of light. We’re not going to perish here.

 

A descent into darkness need not be a one way journey. Rather, this awesome day welcomes us to name the difficult, challenging, painful, narrow passages in our lives, to acknowledge the fears that stop our hearts. By providing particular words, and music, and silence, this day guides us through our descent into awe. After some time, our eyes become accustomed to the darkness, and we begin to step slowly, and deliberately, through the deep.

 

And as our sight seems to return to us, now sharper than it was, so do we find ourselves better able to hear in this distinct place. We hear the soft breathing of the others who entered this place with us. On this day, we are not alone in our fear, in our awe.

 

When fear begins to subside, awe begins. Once our eyes become accustomed to the dancing glints of light, we realize that we have descended into a place of profound and overwhelming beauty. No matter how many times we go into the caverns, we are delighted anew by the whimsical and fantastic natural formations. So can each descent into this day bring new insight. Whether we’re here reluctantly or intentionally, Yom Kippur helps us move from fear to awe.

 

But when we turn from fear to awe we do not banish fear. Rather, we name it. By descending into the dark we acknowledge our limitations, our fallibility, our humanness. In the quiet of this altered space, we feel our smallness, our insignificance, our frailty. And in this place of awe, we face the supernal beauty of creation. In the luminous presence of the Creator, we may see only our flaws.

 

We call out: Avinu Malkenu: our Father, our King. Our petition is communal. Avinu malkenu, honenu v’anenu. As a collective, in a single voice, we call out, and we ask God to answer us. We are frightened because we have fallen, we have missed the mark. Hurtful words have spilled out of our mouths. We have inflicted harm on others and on ourselves. We have failed to speak the truth, to work for peace, to care for those in need. Yet as we turn to the Holy One in this deep place, we turn together. We do not say, “ashamti, bagadati, gazalti, I have been “arrogant, brutal, careless,” but ashamnu, bagadnu, gazalnu,” we have stumbled and fallen, “our sins are an alphabet of woe.”[2]

 

For even as we arrive at these days, at this place, with our hands full of the deeds– and the misdeeds of the past year, we also arrive having sought—and granted—forgiveness to one another. Our liturgy reminds us, “For transgressions against God, the Day of Atonement atones; but for transgressions of one human being against another, the Day of Atonement does not atone until they have made peace with one another.”[3] As we all know, building and maintaining families, communities, or congregations, is difficult and demanding work. Because we are human, we hurt one another—usually unintentionally, but not always. Healing community is holy work. That is the work that precedes this day. Sometimes, it happens on this day. As we hear ourselves intone these words, “Ashamnu, bagadnu, gazalnu,” we realize that we are all fallible. We all fall down. We all disappoint ourselves and others. The very process of repeating these words as a collective can be healing. We can begin to forgive ourselves—and one another.

 

As we stand in the darkness of this day, and as one, cry out to our Creator, “Avinu Malkenu, be gracious and answer us,” we find the Source of Compassion waiting for us. On this day, we are not exiled, or banished. We are forgiven. We are embraced. And we now see that God’s light illuminates not only our failings but also our fortitude, not only our stumbling but also our shining spirits.

 

Again and again throughout our lives, we descend into the depths. This day tells us that no matter how terrifying the darkness, on this day or on any day, we are never alone there. The Holy One is waiting for us there. On this day, we call to God El Rachum v’Hanun, God of mercy and lovingkindness, erech apaim vrav hesed v’emet—endlessly patient, loving and true. We who take the risk of truly entering into this day are rewarded by discovering the Source of Compassion who acknowledges our fears and welcomes our tears. When we descend we are embraced by a Source of Kindness who invites us to see our own strength.  God waits for us not only on this day, but whenever we enter the cavern of darkness that is always just below the surface of our lives. Today we learn that darkness need not be a place of despair.

The ancient psalmist asks:

“Lord, whither can I go from your spirit?… If I ascend to the heavens, You are there! If I make my home in the lowest depths, behold, You are there!”[4]

 

God is waiting for us, not only today, but every day of our lives.

 

And the community is waiting for us as well. Jews survive when we lift up the fallen. At some time or other, all of us fall. Just as God meets each of us in the depths, so does God inspire and empower the community to extend hands and hearts when we are in need.    

 

Psalm 126 is familiar to many of us. It is one of fifteen psalms that begins, “Shir HaMa’alot: a song of ascents,” and is sung on each Shabbat and festival at the beginning of Birkat haMazon, the blessing after meals. The final verse of this five-verse psalm begins with four powerful words: “Ha’zorim b’dimah b’rinah ikzaru: Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy.” The plural form reflects the universality of human experience. For those who live on the land, planting, sowing seeds, is an essential step towards providing sustenance for both family and community. Sowing, then, serves as a symbolic action for all work in the world. Like all of creation, plants and animals, fish and fowl, we human beings live and then die. We mourn in a particularly human way, with wailing, with silence, with tears and with words. And while we often take time away from our daily pursuits after a loved one dies, we must soon return to the work that sustains us and our loved ones. Our tears mix with our sweat and with the dew that enables young plants to mature into grain, into vegetables, into fruit. And as days and months pass, we move, slowly, haltingly, away from immediacy of grief. When seasons change and the time of harvest comes, we discover that darkness has become light, and that mourning has turned to dancing. Those who sow in tears reap in joy.

 

The ascent from the depths of this day of repentance may be arduous for some. The ascent from the depth of loss may seem nearly impossible for many. We may want to stay in the darkness, not sure how we will manage in the light. But this day, which is finally, a day of joy, calls to us. Make the journey. You will find that darkness is rich and fruitful, a place of awe and beauty. Come down, and then come up. And in the ascent, you may discover that your heart is unburdened and that your mind is clear. And that you can face the new year with a new-found sense of joy and perhaps even hope.

 

Remember the High Priest and his ancient journey into the Holy of Holies? Rabbi Jill Hammer teaches,

 

“The high priest does not overly prolong his prayer so as not to worry those who wait for him. We too do not prolong our prayers more than necessary. We finish the service at the moment of [sunset], and emerge from the fast into our daily lives.”[5]

 

When the sun sinks below the horizon, we conclude our Yom Kippur prayers and kindle the havdalah candle. We return from the depths, and from our individual encounters with our Source. And we discover that those who accompany our descent have become essential companions as we reclaim the light. We ascend from silence and open our mouths with song. After a day of petition and prayer, we have exchanged fear for awe, and despair for joy.

 

So let us go forth, each one of us, into this Yom Kippur day and into this new year, with a new appreciation for the power of the deep. May we enter this day and this new year with strength to face the darkness that awaits us all, and with the confidence that our faith—and our community—can illuminate unexpected paths to beauty and to joy.  

 


[1] Jill Hammer, The Jewish Book of Days (Philadelphia: JPS, 2006), 38.

[2] Translations from The Gates of Repentance (NY: CCAR Press, 1978), 327

[3] Ibid., p. 251.

[4] Psalm 139, ibid., p. 296

[5] Hammer, idem.

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Rosh Hashanah 5769 Sermon by Rabbi Joe

Friday, October 3rd, 2008

Our Community & Miracles             5769                            Rabbi Joe Blair

 

This past year was a year of much activity in our community, much going on. Most of you can think back and recall it.

 

This past year, we have had more than our share of illness; we suffered deaths, close calls, health scares, a number of personal tragedies, and many troubles. We saw job losses, estrangements, and accidents. The number and variety of traumas among our community has been greater than anyone could have guessed. We have seen many lives of those among us changed in significant ways; much sadness, sorrow, and loss. And we have ALL been touched by it.

 

At the same time, some (even much) of what has occurred has been good, sometimes even wonderful. Our community has been strong, and supported each other and those in the larger community.  We have given; financially and personally. We have striven to make a difference, to help others, to live out the Jewish values we hold dear.

 

A few examples: We held healing services for our community to help address the pain we felt. The caring committee came into formal being and has been active ever since. We established the Chevrah Kadishah, the holy burial society, and the members stand ready to perform, offering the most selfless act possible – for those whom they help in this way can never give anything in return.

We added regular Shabbat morning services to our calendar, providing another opportunity and way to join together and to share the peace of Shabbat. We had the first Holocaust Education Week, and worked with the larger community to make known the fact that it is everyone’s responsibility to support the idea of ‘never again.’ The Staunton Jewish Film Festival was successfully initiated, reaching out to Jews and non-Jews alike. We added many opportunities for education and Jewish learning at all levels.

We were blessed with several new Jewish souls, and in the course of this year we celebrated at least one naming, one bris, one marriage, and one B’nai Mitzvah.

 

We know that our community is a blessing. In times of trouble our community supports and sustains us. In moments of celebration the same members of the community share our joys and uplift us.

 

What we don’t know until it is our turn to be supported is just how much of a blessing our community really is. We can not even imagine how important, how meaningful, how supportive it is to have the community members there when they are most needed to keep one from feeling utterly alone and abandoned. At those times, when we question G-d most, at times of pain and trouble, to have others stand beside you as you face those feelings is more than anyone can describe. It is a deep, loving, and life-sustaining link that is felt and understood, but is inexplicable and unexpressible.

 

Our community is more than those we happen to live amongst. The community we live in is our place of prayer, and often, as we have seen, it is also the answer to our prayers. It is the locus for our life cycles, and the stage where we live out our life. Our joys and sorrows play out against the backdrop of that community. Community is always there, around us. Without community, we would be lost.

Just as others are there for you, you have also been there for those others. Make no mistake: you are as much needed by them, as they are by you.

 

Recently I have heard someone say, ‘but I was just doing what is right, or what I should’, or ‘I really didn’t do anything, I just said a few words’ or ‘I just brought by some food because I knew they wouldn’t have a chance to stop and get something’, or ‘I just called or dropped by to let them know I was thinking of them – they didn’t really need me to talk to them, and I couldn’t do anything for them.’ 

 

Not so, my friends. Not so at all. You can have no idea how much your simple presence, or your smile, a friendly word, or a small gesture can mean to someone as they face the dark moments of the soul. What you do is NOT a small thing.  Never say, ‘just’.

 

A story to help me illustrate this point:

 

            [Here I reold the story of “Just a Miracle” by Rabbi Mitch Chefitz about Elijah and recognizing

             miracles, where the word 'just' blinds everyone to their presence.]

 

My friends, never imagine that there is not a miracle in the very existence of each one of us. Every moment is full of miracles – what I call ‘everday miracles’. The smile of a child, the beauties of the setting of the sun, the rainbow after a storm, the mountains and foothills rising up, the mist lifting above the trees in the morning, and the waves on the shore.

It is up to us to make the effort to find them, to see them, to recognize them for what they are. Each one is a tiny, perfect moment, a glimpse of what is and what can be, and we can find them when we look. That is why there are specific blessings for such experiences in our tradition.

 

And sometimes, just sometimes, we are fortunate enough to discover and to see that these tiny everyday miracles join together to form larger miracles. When we think of the wave, we see this in microcosm.

At the moment, we look and see that there is one perfect wave, one tiny miracle that hits the shore. If we continue to watch and see , we see another, and another, and another - an unending stream of waves that each roll up and crash upon the beach. This endless ebb and flow of wave following wave following wave is what makes for the larger miracle, an ongoing miracle.

Each single event is a tiny miracle. Together they create something much more than the sum of their parts.  So it is with us and our community.

  

When you look around you in this sanctuary, when you see the others here, and feel the sense of kehillah kedoshah (holy community) that together we create, you sense how all of the other people are here and supporting you in creating this community. Their presence is important to you now, today. Equally so, you are supporting them, and your presence is important to each of them.

That sense of mutual suport is one of the ways that you know that our community would not be as strong, and vibrant, as healthy, or as full of love as it is without you, as it is with you as part of it. Your very presence is one of the tiny miracles, as is the presence of each other person here. All of us together are what makes up this community. And we all, together, add our tiny evertday miracles one on top of another, building up, and creating the larger miracle that goes on and reaches far beyond any one of us can imagine.

 

So always remember: you are not ‘just’ anything – you are a tiny miracle to others, and an integral part of the larger ongoing miracle of our community. Our community is there for you, as you are there for it. Chazak, chazak venitchazek. May our community go from strength to strength in strength.

 

Leshanah tovah umetukah tikateivu

 

Rabbi Joe 

 

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Rosh Hashanah 5769 Sermon by Rabbi Sue Elwell

Friday, October 3rd, 2008

““???? ??? ????

Hayom Harat Olam

 

Erev Rosh HaShana

Temple Beth El, Harrisonburg, VA

September 29, 2008/1 Tishrei 5769

 

 

““???? ??? ????

These three words, which are found in our machzor, our High Holiday prayerbook, are often translated as “today the world is created,” or “today is the birthday of the world.” 

My colleague Rabbi Ayelet Cohen teaches that a closer look at these three words “tells us much more.  ???? means ‘today,’ that part is simple enough.  But the Hebrew word????  means not only ‘world,’ it also means ‘forever/eternity.’” Today eternity is created. Today forever begins.

 

So a simple phrase that might have led us into a chorus of happy birthday rather stops us– and asks us to think not only about marking time, but rather to consider the nature of time. We are invited to consider the relationship not only of then and now, but how now relates to forever.   

 

Rabbi Cohen continues, and further challenges us: “The word ??? is the most difficult one in the phrase.  It comes from the Hebrew ?????, or pregnancy.  Here it functions as a verb and a noun at the same time, implying a creative act that is not sudden or abrupt but one that requires a long period of gestation.  The elasticity of the words and of this phrase teaches us to go beyond the simple meaning.  When we read???? ??? ????  in our ????? we are saying, ‘Today the world was created,’ but also ‘Today we celebrate the constant creation of the world.’  Today is pregnant with eternal creation.”[1]

 

Hayom Harat Olam becomes, then, not only a statement, but also a challenge. On this day, we consider not only how we live in and measure time, but also how we honor, mirror and illuminate the mystery of continuing creation.

 

Let us take a moment to listen to the world. Let us take a moment to listen to eternity. Don’t get up. Stay in your seat. Begin to listen. You may settle more deeply into the pew, letting go of any physical stress or discomfort you may have been experiencing. You may want to straighten up to better hear the sounds that are waiting for you to hear. You may feel your spirit moving to the back of the sanctuary, or even out of the door, ready to dance in the evening breeze. Let yourself listen.

 

What do you hear? Do you hear the clouds whispering as they glide across the night sky? Do you hear the earth settling in for the night, relieved that the majority of humans who have illusions of control as they drive and cycle and walk on the earth are now, because of the dark, huddled in their frail buildings, leaving the out of doors to the insects and birds and animals who know how to navigate the night? Do you hear those creatures calling to one another in forests and deserts and on mountain tops? Do you hear the quiet murmurings of parents on the other side of the globe as they tuck their children into bed or as they gently wake them as the new day dawns? Can you hear this beautiful, fragile universe breathing, humming, singing?

 

Listen.

 

Do you want to respond? Do you want to join in?

 

Can you find a voice in which to harmonize with or provide a counterpoint to this song?

 

Some of us are life long members of the world choir. Some of us hear—and join—in the song of eternity every time we garden, or when we sing a child to sleep, or when we sit beside one who needs our presence. Some of us feel our hearts open in song every time we enter this building.

 

Others of us are straining to hear the music. Some of us have closed our ears and our hearts. Some of us have accepted deafness as our permanent condition. But the universe is singing to us, every day of our lives. On this night, Judaism urges every one of us to rouse ourselves from the slumber that has prevented us from hearing eternity’s song. Hayom Harat Olam: today is the day when birthpangs rock our world, when creation begins anew.

 

What is one of the messages of eternity’s song? The Torah teaches in the Book of Numbers:

 

And in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a holy convocation: You shall do no manner of work; it is a day of blowing the horn unto you. (Numbers 29:1)

 

And in the Book of Leviticus:

In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall be a solemn rest unto you, a memorial proclaimed with the blast of horns, a holy convocation. (Leviticus 23:24)

 

The chorus of eternity’s song may be as simple as: observe this holy day. Mark this anniversary of creation. One verse says: Do not work. Another verse directs us to blow the shofar.

 

The shofar sounds, and we begin to wake up. We awaken to eternity’s challenge: be present.  Be here now. Make this day the first day of the rest of your life.

 

A Talmudic teaching: “R. Zevid said, ‘if the first day of Rosh Hashana is warm, the whole year will be warm; if cold, the whole year will be cold’”. (Baba Batra 147a)[2]

 

Rabbi Zevid was not speaking about the temperature outside. Rather, he was speaking about the temperature inside. He was addressing the enthusiasm, the passion with which each of us approaches this day. Do we “warm” to this day, opening ourselves to the heat that true engagement demands? Do we turn up the heat of our spirits on this day of creation, this day when we glimpse eternity? Or are we tepid, lukewarm, room temperature? Have we, over the years, cooled down or even cooled off? Have we become cold, finding the entire enterprise of Judaism and Jewish practice chilly, off putting, frozen?

 

We all know that in order for human beings to function, we must maintain a particular, and in fact a very particular, body temperature. When we are ill, when our equilibrium is upset, our body temperature may drop or soar and prevent us from thinking clearly. When we become seriously overheated, or if our body temperature drops precipitously, our very lives are endangered. On this day, we are reminded that our lives depend on balance. And our spiritual lives depend on creating a climate of sufficient warmth so that we not only survive but thrive.

 

I would like to propose that there are, for each of us, three steps to waking up, and to opening the way to a year of warmth. These three steps can also be imagined as three concentric circles with permeable, shimmering boundaries. We begin with focusing on care for our souls. Then we expand our focus to our intimate companions. Then we extend our focus to the larger world. Join me as we explore three interrelated responses to the call of the shofar, to the call of the universe.

 

The Jewish calendar gives us ample opportunity to prepare for this Rosh Hashana day. Too few of us take advantage of the month of Elul, the month that precedes and ushers in Rosh Hashana. This is a month when we are invited and encouraged to engage in the process of heshbon hanefesh, taking an accounting of our souls. In fact, the shofar that will rouse us from our slumber tomorrow morning has been warmed up, so to speak, by being sounded every day during the month that preceded this day. Whether we took advantage of this month of preparation or not, each of us can now enter this process of caring for ourselves, for our spirits, for our souls. Our tradition teaches that rather than being a narcissistic or anti-social exercise, taking stock of and taking responsibility for one’s behavior and actions is what mature individuals must do. During the month of Elul and the first ten days of Tishrei, beginning today and continuing until Yom Kippur, we are encouraged to focus on our own lives, on how we care for ourselves, body and soul.

 

If we don’t care for ourselves, we cannot be present for others. Rosh Hashana, then, is a wake up call to each of us to mind our own health. To make sure that we have regular physical exams, and that we heed the direction and advice of our health care professionals. Rosh HaShana is a perfect time to re-commit ourselves to a regular program of exercise, or to a new approach to modulating our eating patterns.

 

But health is not confined to the body. How is our intellectual health? What are we reading? With whom do we engage in conversation? Are we speaking only to those with whom we agree? Are we open to ideas that challenge us and make us stretch intellectually? And what about our spiritual health? How do we, day after day, week after week, care for our souls?

 

We Jews are blessed with many tools for maintaining health. Our tradition has a rich body of prayers and texts that can be used as daily practice, from the moment we open our eyes until we close them again at the end of the day. By thanking God every time we eat, we are engaging in a spiritual practice of gratitude We are also making an explicit connection between our responsibility of caring for our bodies and our appreciation of our place in God’s universe. We begin at home—in the home of our own bodies, the bodies that are the physical container, the temporary home for our durable and infinite souls.

 

The renewed self, however, does not live alone. Every one of us gathered in this sanctuary tonight, whether we live alone in a modest apartment or in a rambling house, or whether we live in a dwelling that is filled with others and their comings and goings—each of us lives in a context of intimate relations. Whether we eat breakfast every day with our intimates, or whether they are thousands of miles away—each of us is in the center of a particular circle of souls. Some of us are quite conscious—and insistent—about our place as the center, the focal point of that circle. Others of us never think of ourselves that way. I ask you to take this time to place yourself in the center of the unique web that is your life now. Who are the people with whom you interact every day, those who make up your daily world now? This is your intimate circle. Whether these people are related to you or not, whether you have chosen these beloveds and companions or not, I ask you now to focus on these primary connections.

 

What is the quality of your interactions with these individuals? If you are truly taking care of yourself (step one), you are making space to be present for another. As we all know, intimate relationships are very demanding. They ask us to be present, to show up, to listen, and to interact. Many intimate relationships that come to an end do so because one of the partners is no longer present. He or she became distracted—by work or by something else that pulled them away from the demanding work of being present, showing up so that exchanges of quality and substance and meaning can happen.

 

Today is the day when we are called by the shofar to pay attention to our relationships. When we take ourselves seriously, we attend to appropriate self care. The healthy self can extend care to others. Our tradition teaches that these two circles of care are essential but insufficient.

 

My colleague Rabbi Jan Katzew recently shared the following teaching of Isaac Luria, the sixteenth century kabbalist. As you may know, Rosh Hashana is observed for two days in Israel, and in most communities around the world. In the Talmud, which is written in Aramaic, these two days of Rosh Hashana are called yom arichta, one long day. What does this mean? Chaim Vital, Isaac Luria’s student, tells that Luria’s response is that the two days of Rosh HaShana are like one long day. The work of the first day is to turn one’s attention inward: to review one’s deeds, to conduct a heshbon hanefesh. The work of the second day is to turn one’s attention to the world, to address oneself to tikkun olam. Tradition teaches us that this is the work of one long day: the work of each day is necessary but insufficient. The work of both days, together, is the essential challenge of this day of renewal.

 

HaYom Harat Olam. This day, when each of us is challenged to open our hearts and minds as the shofar jolts us from our slumber—this very day calls us to find a balance that works for us—between our inner work and our outer work, between caring for ourselves and caring for the world.

 

Today is a day to examine the causes, projects and the communities in which we are engaged. These days of reflection challenge us to re-evaluate and re-assess our involvement: are we lukewarm or have we cooled off? This is a time to remember and reclaim the heat that drew us to the work that reflects our vision of what the world can be. This day is a day to reclaim the sacred Jewish obligation of repairing the world.

 

Today the world is created. Today is pregnant with eternity. Tonight we listen to the universe calling us, challenging each one of us to wake up and to shake off the chill of our slumber. The silence and the song that we hear when we open our hearts includes the songs of our souls, the music of our souls bound up with the lives of others, the songs of our souls bound up with the world entire. The universe invites us to join the dance of repair and of return, and to sing songs of wholeness, hope and peace.

 

Let us go forth, my friends, with deep thanks to the Source of all for enabling us to once again celebrate creation. Cradled in the arms of this beautiful world, sheltered beneath the endless skies, may each of us be privileged to hear –and to sing–eternity’s song every evening, and every morning, of this new year. 

 

 


[1] Ayelet S. Cohen, “Hayom Harat Olam,” Rosh HaShana 5764, Congregational Beit Simchat Torah. From the internet.

 

[2] Cited in Nachalat Shimon on Parashat Nitzavim, by R. Shimon Ashkenazi of Dorbromil, as translated by Rabbi Jonathan Slater.

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Jews & that ‘other’ holiday

Monday, December 24th, 2007

It is December 24th. Just about everywhere is going to close very shortly, and there will be nothing open for the next 24 hours.

Most of my neighbors and the members of my secular community are going to be celebrating a holiday. Some will do so in a secular fashion. A few will do so in a religious fashion. Most will create some mix of the two.

For me, my family, and my religious community, this is an odd day. It is an enforced day off of work for most (not that I hear many complaints on that score!). It is not a holiday. This year, in fact, it is not even close to any Jewish holiday. It is not a meaningful day in any way for us. There is no religious significance, and no cultural significance.

Once you look at the lights on your neighbors houses, there is not much left to do. I, for one, cannot stand the same old fare that appears from year to year on television (I am not much of a TV watcher, anyway), and the radio blasts a mind-numbing wintry mix of badly performed carols, sappy stories, and other pointless things that are just plain annoying.

So, what’s a Jew (or any non-Christian) to do?

It turns out that the only places that are reliably open on Christmas day are: (1) Chinese restaurants, and (2) movie theatres. Voila! The Answer!

 I wish my Christian neighbors and friends a happy, meaningful, and beautiful Christmas. I hope that they will be moved and filled with the spirit of their holiday, andf that there will be peace on earth, as they sing. As for me, and my family and friends, we will be enjoying movies and chinese food! :-)

Seasons greetings to all.

Rabbi Joe  

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A Thought on Light at Chanukah Time

Wednesday, November 21st, 2007

A Thought on Light at Chanukah Time

Rabbi Joe Blair

 

Chanukah is often thought of as the holiday of light, or lights. After the difficult times of oppression and persecution, a moment arrived when we (through the Hasmoneans) were victorius, with G-d’s help carving out a respite in the ongoing war, lightening and enlightening the world for a time. We recall the re-kindling of faith and hope as the Temple was re-dedicated, at that time when the menorah was re-lit to shine out and dispel the darkness that had come in those days. That light has served as a beacon of hope and faith and comfort to many, then, and in all the years and centuries since.

 

That light, the light of the presence of G-d among us, shines on still. That light cannot be extinguished, but it can be made dim and difficult, even impossible to see. In our day, there are reasons that the light is not apparent to us.

 

Today, we must acknowledge that the holy light of the presence of G-d among us is not visible to us. It is clouded by the darkness of war in many places. It is obscured by the existence of hate, bigotry, and prejudice among us, and within us. It is masked by the use of violence and bloodshed as tools to quash others. It is concealed by the cries of those who feel the sting of poverty and degradation. It is hidden by the intolerance and lack of acceptance of others not exactly like us. It is covered by the actions and choices of our elected and appointed officials, in our name, in perpetrating actions we do not and cannot condone or accept. It is veiled by the actions and words of our leaders, religious and secular, who use their position to further their own ends and not G-d’s.  It is buried by the vicious, genocidal actions of so many in too many places. 

 

If we are to truly kindle the light of Chanukah, we must re-dedicate ourselves to the pursuit of justice and righteousness. We must partner with G-d in making the world more perfect, more fit for the presence of G-d among us, so that the light of G-d’s presence will shine forth brightly, illuminating all in every corner of this world.

 

There are so very many needs, and so many worthy ways to work towards this end. I pray that we each choose at least one among them, and dedicate and re-dedicate ourself to the holy tasks of Tikkun Olam (repair of the world) and Rodef Tzedek (pursuit of righteousness) to help bring light to the world at this season of the year when light is on our mind. .

  

Rabbi Joe

  

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Sermon: Yom Kippur – Chance Encounters

Thursday, October 18th, 2007

Yom Kippur 5768  Chance EncountersRabbi Joe Blair 

Monday evening, after a fairly long and very busy day, I left the office at the synagogue, and made my way towards home. My day had started with a flat tire when I went out to the car, and after changing the tire and cleaning up, I made a detour on the way to the office to drop the car off to have the tires replaced, the car aligned, and the brakes checked – a routine service which had been delayed a little too long. In the late afternoon, they called and I went and picked up the car, then returned to the office to continue what I was working on for a few more hours. It was after eight when I left, and it was already dark. As is so often the case, for me, at least, my mind was full of the events of my day: fragments of conversations, nagging problems, unresolved feelings; the list of things I would need to do, things I had forgotten to do, things I should not have done; and a whole host of other bits of the flotsam and jetsam of my day. Nonetheless, I was still alert, awake, and attentive as I steered my car towards home. There was a good amount of traffic on the main highways, but once I got off on the smaller secondary roads it dissipated, and there were few cars on the road as I came close to home. I have driven the same route almost daily for the last four plus years. I am quite familiar with it, and there are few locations along it that I can’t pick out or picture in my mind’s eye. Consequently, I am fairly comfortable driving along it, and have a sense of when to slow down for upcoming curves and hills, as well as knowing where the straightaways make for easy driving. Never, however, have I imagined anything out of the ordinary happening along that route, so I was utterly taken by surprise when suddenly, out of nowhere, seemingly from thin air, a deer dropped  from above me onto the roadway no more than one foot in front of my car. I tried to swerve, and I did my best to stop, but it was completely futile. I was traveling at between 45 and 50 miles per hour (the speed limit there is 55), and a car just won’t turn or stop in one foot of distance. I hit the deer. In less than the blink of an eye, that deer flew off my hood and into the brush and trees on the side of the road at that place. A cloud of steam billowed out from under my hood, and the front of the car bounced violently up and down, bottoming out. The tires squealed as I stomped on the brake pedal. It all took just an instant. By the time I could stop the car, and pull over and get out to try to see if there was anything to be done, I heard a crashing of brush receding into the distance. I had to accept that as indicating that the deer had survived and was able to resume its progress. My car was not nearly so resilient. It is in the body shop having most of the front end replaced. So much for the alignment done that afternoon! I know that deer are overpopulated in this area, that they are not suited to survive in a suburban environment, and that Virginia has the largest number of deer-car accidents in the US, but I still felt and feel badly. I can’t help but wonder if I had done something a little differently, or come along ten seconds earlier, or five seconds later, if the whole incident would have been avoided. The very chance nature of our encounter, intersecting only for a split second, only at that precise time and place, is amazing. Any small change on the part of the deer or by me would have changed that incident significantly. In a sense, the very fact that we did intersect is a small miracle.  It seems that we are constantly ‘happening’ to have things occur to us, that chance plays a huge role. Perhaps, on a personal scale, this is what chaos theory is supposed to help explain. (If I am mistaken in my use of the term, I know that the physicists in the congregation will correct my misapprehension shortly enough.) I couldn’t help but think about this idea of chance and happenstance as it plays out in our daily lives. Think about these examples: If I had stopped for coffee instead of going straight home, I would have missed that deer. If I had not had the tires changed and the alignment and brakes done, I might have been less able to steer, slow, and stop and much worse could have happened. Similarly, if I had not forgotten to pick up the book to return, I would not have had to make an extra trip to the library. If I had not gone back into the house to retrieve something I forgot, I would not have missed the phone call at the office. If I had not missed the phone call, I would have been able to meet my friend for dinner. If I had not turned off my cell phone, I would have known that my appointment was cancelled and been able to do something else. It all seems so random, so subject to chance. Is this really the organizing principle for our lives? Of course, chance is one way to describe it, but perhaps a better term would be ‘opportunity.’ At the risk of exposing my age, I recall reading a series of books by Carlos Castaneda about a Yaqui sorcerer named Don Juan who lived largely in rural areas of the west coast of

Mexico. Castaneda was ostensibly an anthropologist or sociologist, and intended to study the culture of Don Juan. In fact, what we discover through the various books is that Don Juan was waiting for Castaneda, and in fact lured and then captured him as a student. Castaneda thought he was meeting this old man by chance, but Don Juan knew that this was the arrangement he had been seeking. In a number of the encounters described, Don Juan described to Castaneda how life presents us with opportunities, saying that each opportunity is a chance that pops out in front of us, and each chance presents us with a choice about what to do. The secret, he teaches, is to be alert, aware, trained, and prepared to make a choice, and to seize the chance presented. He calls each one of them a ‘cubic centimeter of chance’ which comes once and is then gone forever.  In light of this, Deborah Lipstadt, professor of modern Jewish thought and Holocaust studies at

Emory University wrote this story about her father, and the intersection of chance and opportunity. “On Rosh Hashanah in the mid-1960s, my father received a cancer diagnosis. The doctors scheduled radiation treatments, but the initial treatments fell on Sukkot and Simchat Torah…. He asked that he be allowed to come in for treatment during the middle days of the festival. The hospital spokesperson explained that those days were reserved for in-patients. Outpatients generally found it too depressing to see the terrible shape these patients were in. My father, unfazed, said that even if it was too depressing, he would come during the in-patient days. Reluctantly, they agreed. On his first visit, he sat in the waiting room surrounded by terribly disfigured, desperately ill people on gurneys. While reading his newspaper, he began to hum. A lady on a gurney nearby said, ‘That’s pretty. Sing louder.’ My father agreed and did. The lady quietly joined in. Others followed, and soon the room was awash with song.  Shortly thereafter, a nurse emerged and asked my father to come in. He rose, but before leaving, he turned to the other patients and said, ‘That is a tune by Shlomo Carlebach. I knew his family in

Germany. He set a verse from the book of Psalms to this music. The words you were singing are, ‘Esa eynai el heharim meyayin yavo ezri. Ezri meyim Adonai, osey shamayim ve’aretz’ (From whence shall my help come? My help shall come from the Lord, the creator of heaven and earth.) He concluded, ‘And so may it be’ then went in to his treatment”Mr. Lipstadt seized the chance when it arose and made it an opportunity to make a difference to those around him. He made this opportunity in the midst of a chance encounter, thinking of and reaching out to those around him, acting on his values, doing what he had been preparing for for many years. The same Shlomo Carleback that Mr. Lipstadt mentioned told this parable about chance and opportunities. This is adapted from the version of it retold by his daughter Neshama.  “Imagine you are on a subway, and suddenly realize that your soul mate, the one you have been waiting and praying for your entire life, your basherte, is standing beside you. You’re full of love and disbelief; and you can’t speak. Then the doors open, and your soul mate is leaving, walking off the train. Frozen, you manage only, ‘What’s your number?’ You hear only the first three digits. Then the doors close. At the next stop, you run to a pay phone, frantically trying every combination of numbers imaginable. Failing that, you drive through the streets, crying, searching. Overwrought, you begin to drive dangerously, hurrying, running red lights. You are arrested for reckless behavior. Imprisoned, brokenhearted, and alone, you await your trial. You prepare yourself, terrified of the possible judgment you will receive.  As you enter the courtroom, you look up to see that the judge you have feared  to meet is your soul mate, the very person you’ve been seeking, and whose absence created the sadness that made you lose your way. You break down. Your soul mate says the words that change your life. ‘I know you’ve made mistakes, but let’s not think about that now. Today, I just want to be close to you.’On Yom Kippur we stand in judgment before G-d. We beg forgiveness for our mistakes. In Elul G-d comes to us. If we listen closely we will hear G-d’s voice saying, ‘I know how hard this world can be. I know you long for meaning, and sometimes make mistakes. But now, I just want to be close to you.’ Sometimes, it is when things are falling apart that we have the opportunity to hear G-d’s voice.“ 

Of course, all this begs the question of whether there is really any such thing as chance, or is it foreordained? It has been a subject of debate for centuries. It is too large and too hard a question to answer today, so I will leave it for exploration another time. For the moment, it is enough to know that there is something that we call chance, or coincidence, and we must live in such a way as to take that into account. We cannot live in a rudderless, undirected fashion. There must be a guiding light, and an organizing principle, for our lives to have any meaning. For the moment, we will just accept that this light is G-d, and the principles are those enumerated in the Torah and Mitzvot. Taking advantage of the sudden appearance of a chance, turning it into an opportunity, is not something that simply happens. It requires that we prepare ourself. Like an athlete, we must train and practice and make ourself ready to recognize the chance, and to act at the instant, without notice. Thank G-d, that is what all my years of driving did: I knew to first slow and then stop the car, to continue steering, to hold steady in my lane, and so on, all without taking any time to think. Training, preparation, and practice, all came together, and took over to the point that it was all integrated into my bones. I didn’t have to think at all, I just KNEW what to do and automatically did it. This is also the purpose of our traditional routine of prayer, and meditation, and kavvanot, of tikkun olam, and mitzvot, of avodah, tzedakah, and gemilut Chasidim. These are the exercises and practice that we undertake to make ourselves ready to recognize the chance, to seize the instant, and to actualize the opportunity. This is what we do to prepare, to train, and to ready ourself to recognize our beloved when we encounter them. What we do becomes a part of us, so deeply ingrained that we do not need to give it a thought – we simply do the right thing when we have to act.  That is why it is so important to have meaningful spiritual practices that are in synch with our values, and a regular routine of reinforcing them.Today, Yom Kippur, is the culmination of all of that work and preparation for the past year. Now, here, we stand before G-d, our judge, and our basherte. It is up to us to seize this opportunity, to reach out, to take this chance to be close to G-d, and to seek to hear the words telling us that G-d will  ‘just want to be close’ to us, as we seek to be close to G-d.  In that way, our lives will be fulfilled, and we will be a blessing and a light to the world. May you see G-d in the face of all you love, and love in the face of all around you. May you be sealed for a good and sweet year of blessings and joys. May you find that G-d wants to be close to you. May there be peace in the world. Let us say, Amen. Shanah tovah. Chag sameach.

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Rabbi Sue’s Rosh Hashanah Sermon 5768

Tuesday, September 18th, 2007

Standing on One FootRosh HaShana SermonRabbi Sue Levi Elwell 

Staunton/Harrisonberg,

Virginia12/13 September 20071 Tishrei 5768 

Three months ago, I broke my foot. It is still in the process of healing. Two people suggested that I speak to you today on “The Torah that I have learned while standing on one foot.” Knowlegable Jews both, they hoped, perhaps,  that I would be able to use Hillel’s famous response to the sceptic as a jumping off point, so to speak, for my Rosh HaShana derash. As you may remember, the 1st century sage Shammai was approached by an individual who asked him to teach the entire Torah as he stood on one foot. As the Talmud relates the story, after Shammai chased away the questioner, chiding him for the foolishness of his question, the sceptic approached Shammai’s colleague and rabbinic rival, Hillel. Hillel responded: “that which you hate, don’t do to others. That is the entire Torah, the rest is commentary. Go and learn! ” (BT: Shabbat 31a). 

I have been blessed over the last year to have completed a three year study program at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem where I was one of thirty rabbis from across the US and Canada who traveled to

Israel to study for a month in the summer and for a week in the winter. While in

Israel, and every week when we were not together in person, we studied with leading Israeli scholars, exploring traditional texts and asking new questions and acquiring fresh insights. This cross-denominational program brought together an extraordinary group of teachers who are privileged to serve large and small congregations, and communities of elders and lay learners. By sharing our expertise and experience, we were all able to deepen our rabbinates and to strengthen our ability to read and interpret the rich textual legacy of our tradition. 

In July, I began another study program. Together with 36 rabbis from across the world, I am now a student at the Jewish Spirituality Institute. In many ways, this is the perfect complement to my years of immersion in text study through Hartman. The IJS program welcomes rabbis to explore meditation, yoga, Hasidic teachings and silence as means of deepening our own spirituality and, ultimately, our rabbinates.  

Both of these intense study programs send the rabbis who choose to study in them back to the sources, back to the text. In both programs, we ask again and again: what is the essential message of the text? What is the “ikar,” the root, the essence, the basis, foundation, importance, the principle of the teaching? So, armed with my teachers’ direction to take a second and third and a fourth look at texts that I thought I understood, or texts that seem to be so basic that they teach themselves, I ask you to join me in a consideration of this Talmudic story of Hillel and Shammai.            This is one of the first stories we, as Jews, as Jewish parents and as Jewish educators, learn and teach. The questioner first approached Shammai. The question Shammai heard was: “Teach me the entire Torah in the few seconds that I wobble before you attempting to stand on one foot.” Shammai, who is often portrayed in our ancient texts as impatient or unreasonably stringent, dismisses the questioner. 

What are some other understandings of standing on one foot?The practice of yoga includes a number of positions that focus on balancing the body on one foot, and then on the other. The practioner learns to focus attention so completely that it is possible to stand without falling, gracefully posed and balanced on one foot. For years, I have been working on this pose. Sometimes, I am able to sufficiently focus my attention and intention, compose myself, and, for a few magic seconds, I am balanced. But I must work at paying attention, to being fully present, to focusing, to listening to my body and quieting my mind. Standing on one foot demands work.  

Perhaps Hillel sensed this when the questioner, who is referred to as an outsider or foreigner, a ger, approached him and asked the same question. The Talmud does not record the exact formulation of the question, nor any helpful details about the questioner. So we must use our own life experience, and our imaginations, to reconstruct this simple tale. Is a scoffer approaching our sages to make fun of them—and of Judaism? Or do we have here a person who senses that she stands near the entrance to a beautiful castle filled with rooms set with magnificent banquets. She has heard from travelers of the beauty of this place, the generosity of its inhabitants, the peace of those who make this their home. She is simply seeking a way in. When Hillel was approached, perhaps with the same question as was posed by Shammai, Hillel listens for the question behind the question. Perhaps he looks into the eyes of the one who questions and sees hunger and desire and loneliness. As recorded in the Talmud, Hillel responds, “”that which you hate, don’t do to others. That is the entire Torah. All the rest is commentary. Go and learn!”  

That which you hate, don’t do to others. In other places in our tradition, this double negative becomes a positive commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Leviticus 19:18). This direction, to behave towards others as we would like others to behave towards us,  to treat others as we would like to be treated, is often called The Golden Rule, for it is a value held by many of the religions, ethical traditions and spiritual pathways that guide the world’s people.  This ethics of reciprocity is considered here by the Dalai Lama:“Every religion emphasizes human improvement, love, respect for others, sharing other people’s suffering. On these lines every religion had more or less the same viewpoint and the same goal.”          How would our lives change if we began taking this teaching, Hillel’s teaching to heart? Take a moment to think of ideal circumstances of waking up each day. Where would you like to awake? What words or music would you like to welcome you from sleep into wakefulness? What would you like to see when you open your eyes? Once you’ve gotten out of bed and stand on your feet, what feelings or thoughts or movements would help you prepare for the day ahead?  How would you nourish your body and then step out of your home to greet the world?  

Now think about how that vision of perfection directs us to treat others. Whether we live alone or with others, whether we wake up alone or beside another, whether we begin our day by waking others in our care or by responding to eager, waiting pets, what might it mean to be keep Hillel’s direction in our minds? How could we, from the moment we awake until we lie down again to sleep, how could we treat others as we would like to be treated? How do we love another throughout the day as we wished we were loved? When we learn to treat ourselves with compassion, intention and care, we have a much better chance of treating others with sensitivity. Once we begin listening to our own hungers and needs, to how we need to be in the world throughout every day, we will discover that we have also learned to listen to others’ hungers, to others’ joys, to others’ suffering.  Like Hillel, we can become experts at listening to the words beyond and behind the words that are articulated. We, too, may learn to hear the words that are never uttered.  

Tomorrow Jews across the globe will stand to listen to the blasts of the shofar, calling us to wake up and listen. For what should we listen? My goal for tomorrow is to be present, to be intentional, to use the same powers of concentration that I muster when I attempt to balance on one foot. I hope to open my heart to the raucous, ancient sounds of the shofar.  If I listen with full intention, perhaps I may be privileged to hear my own voice, echoing the voice of the ancient petitioner, seeking a way in to wisdom, to community, to a sense of the possibility of this new year.  I hope also that I will be able to hear Hillel’s kind and clear direction: begin with the most immediate action. Start treating others the way you want to be treated. This is indeed the ikar, the essence, the foundation of the whole Torah. Let us now go and listen and learn. 

L’shana tova.  

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Sermon: Seeking Joy Amidst Imperfection

Thursday, September 13th, 2007

Rabbi Joe Blair — Rosh Hashanah 5768 (September 12-13, 2007)

Today, we are taught, is the birthday of the world, the anniversary of creation. G-d is viewed as the sovereign, sitting on the throne of justice and judgment, writing our fate in the books of life and death. Our deeds are weighed, our souls are judged, our worth is measured, our future determined.

Which of us is confident we will not be found lacking? Which of us has been completely righteous, without sin or transgression, blameless, and without error? Certainly, I would not dare to think of myself in that category. I am an imperfect human being. I err frequently.

But all is not lost.

Even now, at the holy days, if we strive, we can accomplish Teshuvah, turning and returning. We can repent and make amends. We can seek and grant forgiveness. We can repair the damages, heal the injuries, seek forgiveness for our trespasses, and forgive those who have trespassed against us. In short, we can open our hearts, perform Teshuvah, and be better than we were.

This requires a sincere effort in all of these tasks and aspects. Not one, not two, not some, but all. It is not enough to make amends and repent. Nor can we simply seek forgiveness for what we have done that injured others. A key component of this process is sincerely to grant forgiveness.

Easier said than done. I find that often, the most difficult thing of all of these to do is to forgive. As hard as it is to say ‘I am sorry’, it is harder still truly to forgive.

I am human – we all are -and we all have a tendency to nurse our hurts, to hold on to our grudges. This is not healthy. In fact, this is not only fruitless, it is downright self-destructive.

Rabbi Harold Kushner tells of a woman who approached him after a high holiday sermon on forgiveness. The woman was absolutely furious. She reminded Kushner that her husband had abandoned her, leaving her to raise two small children by herself in very tough circumstances ten years earlier. Her life had been very hard since then. She demanded, angrily, “After he did all that to me, you want me to forgive him for what he did?”

After a moment, Kushner replied, “Yes, I want you to forgive him. Not to excuse him, not to say that what he did was acceptable, but to forgive him as a way of saying that someone who would do that has no right to live inside your head, any more than he has a right to live inside your house. Why are you giving a person like that the power to turn you into a bitter, vengeful woman? He doesn’t deserve that power over you.”

Kushner’s point is valid, showing us that forgiveness is not a favor we do for the person who offended or injured us. It is a favor we do for ourself, a way of cleansing our soul of thoughts and memories that lead us to see ourself as a victim, and make our life less enjoyable than it is or could be.

When we understand that we have little choice as to what other people do, but we can ALWAYS choose how we will respond to what they do, we are empowered and able to let go of the embittering memories. We can then enter the new year cleansed and refreshed, free of the burden of carrying their actions in our heart and soul.

One more step: as difficult as forgiveness is, an even more difficult task, in my experience, is forgiving oneself. Like many of us, I am my own harshest critic. I seem to never forget or let go of my failures, I can’t overlook my mistakes, I hold on to and remember all that I do that does not work or does not meet my own expectations. Being very much human, I have lots to criticize in myself. I cannot count my errors and faults in the course of a week just on my fingers and toes. At times I feel that it would take a 10 digit adding machine with paper tape to do so! I am all too aware of my many flaws and mistakes.

But if I continue to carry the load of all of these faults and flaws and mistakes with me, I will burden myself to the point that I will be unable to move or function under the oppressive and crushing weight of them all.

What to do?

We cannot merely forget these flaws and mistakes, and we cannot simply say that the slate is wiped clean and we will go forward into the new year, doing the same things again! No. We know in our hearts that is not the way, it will not work.

Instead, once we have sincerely repented for what we have done, made amends as best we can, and truly asked forgiveness of others, then we are ready to do the hard work. Only then may we seek to do for ourself that which we do for others: we must forgive ourselves for our own errors and transgressions. In this way we can free ourself from a crushing encumberance that drags our soul down, and free ourself of the burden. At that point, we are prepared to seek G-d, and to ask for forgiveness from the divine ruler.

When we free ourself of the burden we have created, we enter the world of the spirit. The most amazing thing to say about this world is that it is free of the constraints of our ordinary life. Gravity doesn’t apply to our spirit or our soul. We can fly and soar, there are no boundaries, and the whole universe is open to us, and our playground.

When we are free in this way, it is possible for us to seek G-d, to approach the throne of the most high. In that state, we are able to soar upwards, seeking G-d, and in that fashion, acting and striving to bring more godliness into the world, and to be more godly in our own life.

There is a huge benefit to us for this effort. This feeling of freedom, of interacting with the divine, is the source of Joy. Not happiness, for that is fleeting. Not pleasure, which is tied to the physical world and the actions of others. Joy, the sense of being at one with creation, in communion with the divine, at peace with ourself.

The tools are available to us, and we can take advantage of them to reach Joy. We are flawed, but in a manner of thinking, the imperfections we contain are the necessary precursors to seek and find Joy. It only remains for us to choose to seek Joy amidst imperfection.

One more story, before I conclude. A bit of wisdom that shows us how G-d is merciful, and offers us a path that can lead to Joy.

In the traditional Jewish world, there are men (and some women) who serve as schnorrers. This term means ‘beggar’, but the fact is that they are really not beggars. Instead they serve as collectors for money for a worthy cause. The stereotypical picture is of a righteous chasidic man, very pious, very religious. They often come to Jews around the High Holy days (and other holidays), and they make a pitch for the person they are visiting to give Tzedakah for a cause they espouse. Their attitude is often that they are there to do the Jew they are visiting a favor, giving him or her the opportunity to fulfill a Mitzvah. Often, the best of them make their pitch in the form of a story, something that will touch and affect the listener. Here is one such story that contains a great deal of wisdom, as told by Avi Magid (a name that can be translated as ‘my father is a storyteller’), slightly adapted here.

“I was called and asked to join in a meeting, so I hurried to the rabbi’s study. As I entered his study, Rabbi Joseph was talking in an animated way with, of all people, a schnorrer, a very small, very elderly chasid. Odd, I thought, why invite me over to meet another schnorrer? A schnorrer is a schnorrer. A quick glance verified that there was nothing unusual about this schnorrer. He was dressed in the usual black coat, black hat, wore a long gray beard, had the full payes. In short, he had all the criteria of the mental image of a schnorrer. But, as it turned out, this was no ordinary schnorrer collecting money for a yeshivah or orphanage. No, this guy had gone big business — he had merged and consolidated! He represented a multitude of institutions, and had gold foil stamped and embossed certificates of authenticity, documented in a well worn leather portfolio, which he grandly displayed and brandished to emphasize both his status and the importance and value of his mission. Every year, he made the rounds of synagogues and individuals. Every year, he brought back large amounts of money for his employers. And every year, he did this by telling a story — usually something that contained musar – a tale with an ethical twist to it. And, like the wandering minstrels of medieval Provence, you paid him in direct relationship to how you much you liked it or how much it affected your heart. As you can imagine, he was very good at it. That year, his story was in the form of a question. The rabbi led us over to the seating area. We got settled, and comfortable on the couch, the schnorrer sitting opposite us on an armchair. He leaned forward in his chair and looked deep in our eyes. He asked, “What is the difference between a mitzvah – a good deed – and an averah – a sin?” The question, of course, was rhetorical – not meant to be answered by us. And, even if you did know an answer, you were obliged not to respond. So, we looked at him and waited politely for him to explain the answer. He sat back heavily. Closing his eyes and speaking softly in the sing-song voice which is often used to study Talmud, so as to draw us in, he said: “A mitzvah is something that often seems hard to do, but afterwards you know you did the right thing. An averah is something that often seems easy to do, but afterwards you know you did the wrong thing. And how do you know? Because your kishkes – your guts -tell you so.” Here was a statement about life which basically rendered any formalized system as meaningless. All the structured discourse of the philosophers, all the patterned logic of the theologians were for naught. All the classes on morality, the reflections on situational ethics, the values based decision making, even the pilpul of the Talmud; and it all came down to just this. The final arbiter of principle was kishkes. How simple. That was the schnorrer’s story that year. He got an exceptionally large check.” For us, the message is clear. As the schnorrer said: you know in your guts what is right. The hard thing is doing it, but you can choose to do so. When you do what is right, you feel yourself free and moving closer to G-d, finding Joy. And when you err, all is not lost! There is still the means to recover, by using the tool of Teshuvah. You can still free yourself, and achieve Joy.

The bottom line, the take away message is that G-d has provided for us two ways to seek Joy: by choosing so as not to err, and by seeking Teshuvah when we do err. Joy is available to us even when we err. How liberating! What a great gift! Praise be to G-d for creating us in such a way that we may find Joy, even when we fail in the first instance.

May all of you have a shanah tovah u’metukah, and a gut, gebencht, gezunt yor, and may you find and experience much Joy.

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Torah Cycling….

Sunday, October 29th, 2006

A question was posed to me recently about where we are in the reading of the Torah (five books of Moses), and how we know what to read each week. Here is a short answer.

On Simchat Torah once again we began the cycle of reading the Torah, as I mentioned in an earlier posting. We read the final few verses from Devarim (Deuteronomy) and the first few from Bereshit (Genesis) as we do each year on that holiday, thus both concluding the cycle for last year, and beginning it anew for this year. By doing both at the same time on that holiday we indicate by our actions that we are always (forever) engaging with Torah, and that we are never done, there is always more to be learned and gained by interaction with the text.

But how do we know what to read after that?

The way this works is that the Torah is traditionally divided into 54 parashiot (portions or sections for reading), which are read one after another week by week in a leap year (a year in which a leap month is inserted, and consequently, when there are 54 non-holiday weeks in which to read Torah). In non-leap years, we have fewer weeks to assign a parashah (one of the parashiot), so two or more parashiot are combined and read in a single week in order to make it through the entire cycle by next Simchat Torah. In this way, it is possible to make the full cycle of the Torah in the course of one year, and read it all. That is how a Jewish calendar can identify which week in the year it is by the name of the Parashah to be read that week, and everyone can understand it and agree which one it is. [There is a minor variation on this with holidays that are observed for a day longer outside of Israel, so that there can be a slight difference occasionally in a few weeks on what is being read in Israel as opposed to outside Israel, but this is known and taken into account, and the two sync up shortly after.]

Of course, this means that the readings each week are fairly lengthy – usually about six chapters. This can be more than a given community wishes to do each week, so a variation on this to spread the reading out and to read on a triennial cycle, which means that the entirety of the Torah is read over three years (instead of one), and only one third is read in each year. Instead of reading less and falling behind week to week, and therefore being on a different cycle than other communities that read the whole parashah, however, those communities that choose this approach read one third of each Parashah in a given week, the next week skipping ahead to the next Parashah, thereby keeping up with other communities as to which Parashah is being read. The way this is done is that in the first year, the community will read the first one-third of each Parashah, in the second year they will read the middle third, and in the third year they will read the final third. This means that the community has to keep track of which year of the triennial cycle they are in. Our community is one of those that follows the triennial cycle. This year (5767, 2006-2007) we are in the third year of the triennial cycle.

We select the break for the thirds of the Parashah to be read in each year based on the internal division of the Parashah into Aliyot (the calling up to the Torah of congregantsto be honored by reciting the blessings over the reading of the Torah). Â Since there are traditionally seven Aliyot on a Shabbat (Sabbath) morning service, we generally (as a guideline) take the first two or three Aliyot as the reading for triennial cycle year 1, the third and fourth or fourth and fifth for year 2, and the fith and sixth or sixth and seventh for year 3. This also helps to keep us lined up with other communities – which is a nice thing, especially if congregants are travelling and attending services elsewhere. This helps assure that they will be on the same reading cycle and will be able to follow along wherever they may happen to be.

Rabbi Joe Blair

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A respite….

Tuesday, October 24th, 2006

The spate of fall holidays has ended. We have come to the time of calm after the storm. We have a period of about eight weeks this year with the only holiday being Shabbat, the weekly sabbath, and Rosh Chodesh, the new month.

It strikes me that this period of regularity and ‘normalcy’ is a welcome time, a chance to regain balance and perspective after the exciting but disruptive period of so many holidays and so much emotional energy. There is an almost frantic pace that the holiday period raises. We need the break, a respite from all the emotional energy that the holidays generate and absorb.

Perhaps there is method to the madness: the alternation of the time of excitement and observances and the more placid time following may be a healthy approach, allowing us to scale the heights and traverse the lows, on the one hand, and to stroll placidly on the straight, smooth paths on the other.

May we all enjoy and benefit from this quieter time, and use it to refresh ourselves, and to reflect and to pray for peace.

Shalom,

Rabbi Joe Blair

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The day of tarrying

Monday, October 16th, 2006

If you have ever had a big family rite of passage – a Bar Mitzvah, or a wedding, for example – with lots of out of town guests, you know that often not only do you have the ceremony and reception, but you also host a morning after breakfast. This is because all those who are from the local area can go home, but those who make a major effort and travel a distance to be there will not be able to go home that day, and you want to acknowledge their presence and the effort they have made to share in your joyous occasion. In effect, you have some of the family and closest friends hanging around afterwards and visiting.

In a way, that is what Shemini Atzeret is. We have just had the holiday of Sukkot, where all nations/peoples are able to come and worship G-d, and offer their sacrifices in the Temple. A big party, rejoicing in the harvest and in creation, for a large guest list – like a wedding! Most of the guests go home, but the close family hangs around to visit. The most dear relative, of course, is G-d, and we want to have a small private time to spend with G-d, so we have an extra day, a day of tarrying with G-d. 

I really love this image of a quiet moment spent with those closest to us, so I have a soft spot for Shemini Atzeret.

Shalom,

Rabbi Joe Blair  

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The nature of nature

Wednesday, October 11th, 2006

Sukkot, the time of our rejoicing, the harvest festival, the feast of booths…. All names for the same holiday. A seven day period celebrating the harvest, and the relationship to G-d in the wilderness, and creation – nature. This seems to cover a wide range and a lot of territory….

Maybe it helps to remember that this is THE Universal holiday. The holiday for ALL peoples. When we read in the Torah about the Temple times, what we learn is that a sacrifice was offered to G-d on behalf of every single people/state/nation/group. That is why there are a total of seventy sacrifices described – one for each people that the Torah believed existed. No exclusions mentioned….

Anyone who wanted could come and offer their sacrifice in the Temple – it just had to meet the requirements to be a suitable type. No one had to say they were a Hebrew, or claim to be anything at all. They simply brought their offering to G-d. No checking at the door to make sure you were ‘one of us’, or that you believed ‘correctly’. That was your business, and G-d’s. I like this – it makes me positively recall that all humanity are of one kind. What we see as our differences are just how we do things, not what we are or where we come from….

The sense of being close to nature here is very physical. We sit in a hut, or booth, the Sukkah. The roof is made from growing plants. It is incomplete and not water tight. We are exposed to the weather, to the wind, to the air. We do not control our environment, we are not in charge! The walls and roof of the Sukkah are only partial barriers to the wind, rain, and sun. A physical metaphor for life…..

Happy Sukkot!

Rabbi Joe Blair

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May you be sealed….

Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006

The greeting from Rosh Hashanah on is Leshanah tovah tichateimu, may you be sealed for a good year. This is in reference to the image of the ‘book of life’. According to this analogy or image, G-d sits in judgement on us at Rosh Hashanah, and writes our name and fate in the book of life. Then, we have some time, the period of the yamim nora’im (days of awe) to affect the ’sentence’ by our behavior – through sincere repentance, acts to repair injuries we have caused and to seek forgiveness of those we have hurt, and finally to reslove not to repeat our misdeeds. On Yom Kippur, at the end of the Neilah (concluding) services, as full darkness approaches, we imagine that the gates of Heaven are ‘closing’ to our pleas, and when they close, the book of life will be sealed with the judgement as it is written at that moment. It is an awesome, perhaps even terrifying image.

Because we believe that G-d is merciful, it is not the death of sinners that G-d seeks, but their repentance and return to the proper way. In that sense, we know that it is within the power of every person to ‘change’ the judgement – to at the least mitigate the severity of that imagined fate written in that metaphorical book of life. And because we believ that all people seek to live and to have a good life, we think that everyone will do all that is within their power to make the judgement as positive as possible. For that reason, we speak and think as if the judgement will be for a good fate, and we wish each other that this good judgement will be ’sealed’ in the book of life, left intact and positive, and followed in the year ahead of us.

So may you be sealed for a good year in 5767.

Rabbi Joe Blair

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Happy New Year! Afflict yourself!

Tuesday, September 26th, 2006

Today is Monday, September 25th.

A random thoguht for today.

We have just celebrated Rosh Hashanah (from Friday night to Sunday night in the Diaspora). Rosh Hashanah celebrates the anniversary of Creation, the birthday of the world, so to speak. It also celebrates and acknowledges G-d as the sovereign power, the creator, and the source of all being.

Today is Ta’anit Gedaliah, the fast day commemorating the assasination of Gedaliah, the last autonomous Jewish governor before the imposition of outside gevernance, prior to the destruction of the second Temple. This fast is not widely observed at this point, and many Jews are not even aware of it.  However, it appears on the Jewish calendar each year on the day following Rosh Hashanah.

Thinking about this juxtapostion, the question that comes to my mind is, “what does it mean to begin the new year with a day of fasting and sadness?”

Rosh Hashanah is itself a holiday with mixed emotions attached. On the one hand, we are celebrating and rejoicing in creation. On the other we are steeping back and dealing with the idea that this is the time each year that G-d is sitting in judgement, determining what fate we deserve in the year to come. That latter view is why we call the period from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur the Yamim Nora’im (days of awe or fear). To think seriously that what will happen to me in the coming year depends on how I did last year gives new meaning to the term ‘test anxiety’.

And here the caledar adds to the stress level by causing us to think back and remember and mourn a political assasination that happened over 2000 years ago!

WHY?

I have no answer that was given me from the wisdom of the ages. All I can think is that it is not just a quirk of timing, an accidental placement of the two events on the calendar. So I have to find my own idea of a reason. Each year it changes: here is what I have come up with as my thought for this year.

Like a Jewish wedding, at which we smash a glass – some say as a reminder of those who cannot share our joy in the moment – perhaps beginning the year with a moment of sober rememberance may temper our joy for the instant, but help us to appreciate it all the more. When things are good, when we are rejoicing, we tend not to remember those who are not included in our circle, not to recall the sadness and tragedies of life that others may be encountering at that very same moment. Closer to home, we do not think about what might go wrong, or what we have already dealt with when we arrive at a moment of joy. We focus on the good feelings engendered and feel happy. Perhaps, we would be even more joyous if we could balance that joyous moment with how far it is from the moments of fear, depression, sadness, loneliness, anger, and other negative emotions that we have all experienced, and will all experience. Joy is all that much sweeter when it is possible to see it in stark contrast to the negative.

Perhaps.

I wish you joy and happiness, peace, health, prosperity, love, and all good things in the year to come.

Shanah tovah umetukah,

Rabbi Joe Blair

 

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Kaporet

Tuesday, September 26th, 2006

There is a traditional ritual that is little practiced in this day and age. It is somewhat difficult to imagine, more so to identify with for modern sensibilities, especially those of us who get our foods at the grocery in nice, neat, pre-packaged, portion-controlled, shrink-wrapped plastic containers.

Imagine: you want to atone for your sins, and you want to enact some ritual that will embody that atonement, and help to purge you of the guilt of having sinned. That was the motive behind the ritual of kaporet (or kapores, in the Ashkenazic pronunciation). Kaporet is from the root that gives us the word ‘kippur’ as in Yom Kippur, the day of atonement.

This is an old ritual, and seems to me to partake of aspects of sympathetic magic, transference, ritual slaughter and offering sacrifices, blood as atonement, and even Tzedakah (righteous action).

In brief, one would take a chicken or a rooster, preferably white to symbolize purity, and conduct the ritual. In that ritual, a formulaic recitation would identify the chicken or rooster as taking the place of the sinner, who deserved to die for their sins, and the sinner would take on the ritual purity of the animal (sympathetic magic and transference). The animal would be swung by the legs over the head of the sinner, as a sign that the sinner was ‘covered’ by the animal (further transference), after which the animal was ritually slaughtered (offering) and the blood poured out on the ground to atone (sacrifice). The meat was then given as an offering for the poor (completion of the offering, demonstration of the purity of motive). 

Pleasant? No. 

Primitive? Yes.

Affecting? I think so.

Powerful? You bet.

I have to admit that I did witness and even take part (indirectly) in this ritual many years ago. I was a small boy.

I was taken to what must have been a local market area by my Grandfather, and there were people there performing this ritual, many of them dressed in the clothing of the very pious. Crates were all over, chickens were clucking, there were feathers flying – it was a scene of chaos to my mind – exciting and different, and a little scary. It seemed that dozens of men were swinging chickens over their heads, while dozens or hundreds more were gathered around. Of course, being a small child, it is likely that my memory is exagerrated, but it felt that way to me then, and that is how I recall it.

After a time, my grandfather bought a chicken from a man selling them from a crate. He held my hand and moved into the circle of men holding and swinging the chickens, and then he did the same. I was too small to do this, but I can tell you that it was deeply impressed on my memory.

To see my grandfather take this white chicken or rooster, hold it by the legs and slowly swing it in circles over his head while reciting the formulaic phrases, ‘this one’s purity for my sins, this one for me, this one’s life for mine’ then to hand the stunned and quiet bird over to the Shochet (ritual slaughterer) who was there, to be killed in an instant in the traditional fashion, is an image that has stayed with me. Once the bird was killed, the blood was drained out onto the ground as is required in Jewish practice. Then my grandfather took that dead chicken in his one hand and my hand in his other, and moved into a crowd of men standing there in a circle around the area where the ritual was being performed.

I don’t know how they knew to be there, but these were the poor of the community. These were the people who could not afford to buy a chicken, or to perform the ritual themselves: I suspect some of them were not even Jewish. My grandfather walked among them, looking carefully, and by some process I could not fathom, chose one, and approached him. He respectfully asked this man if he would do my grandfather the favor of accepting this chicken, and the man looked him in the eyes for a moment, then nodded and told Grandpa, “Yes, I will do this for you.” My grandfather smiled, gave the man the chicken, and warmly shook his hand. He then took out what looked to me to be an enourmous wad of bills from his pocket and gave it to the man. The man gravely accepted it, then turned and left. My grandfather smiled at me, took my hand, and led me away.

Every year when we come close to Yom Kippur, I remember this. Somehow, atonement and sacrifice, guilt and blood, sin and expiation, Tzedakah and forgiveness, action and prayer, love and death, are all tied together at this moment in the year for me. Yes, I would say that ritual is powerful and affecting.  

Leshanah tovah umetukah, 

Rabbi Joe Blair

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The Cycle of the year

Wednesday, September 20th, 2006

Perhaps you remember that song from a few years ago (okay, maybe more than a few)…. Some of the words that are flooding my mind at this point are:

“Like a circle slowly turning, like a spoke within a wheel…. …the images you find, in the windmills of your mind.”

I think that I associate that song with this time of year because of the ‘circles slowly turning’ image. In fact, though, it is not quite circles that I think about so much, but more the idea of spirals, and especially concentric spirals. I have come to picture the flow of time as following the surface of an imaginary cylinder. Time starts at one point on the cylinder (Creation?), and transits the entire circle that makes up the first level or layer of the cylinder, then rises one level when it comes back to the point of starting again, and continues. In this way, it makes a series of rising concentric circles spiraling up the cylinder from one end to the other.

If that picture is not clear (tto much like the horrors of geometry in high school!), think back to the grade school lesson you had on Thomas A. Edison, and the invention of the phonograph. In recording, he used wax cylinders, and the needle would move from end to end as the cylinder spun in a circle. You saw these cyiinders in all those film strips!

Another image even more people may remember is of a ‘Slinky’, the toy that ‘walked down stairs’. This was a toy, essentially a thin wire spring coiled flat and wound into a cylinder, but when you released it on a stair, it would ‘walk’ down by having the spirals shift to the lower step one after another, and then repeat, eventually going down an entire flight of stairs.

Whichever of these images is clearest for you, think about the layers or levels as each being a year. Every time you make the circuit and pass the starting point, you are bumped up a tiny bit and move into a new level – a new year.

Now the interesting point to me is that you are always making the SAME circle or circuit. It does not change. You pass by exactly the same points on the cylinder, just at a higher level. The shape of the circuit or the cylinder does not vary. This seems to me to be like our year, the cycle of the year. We start, pass each of the holidays that we observe at given distances around the cycle, and then wind up returning to our starting point to do it again. At the same time, each year is different – we are at a different level, and the things that happen along that circuit are unique to that year. So each circuit is unique, but all are also the same.

Moreover, there is another commanality: each year passes over the same events or holidays at the same point in the circuit. If we think of something like Creation, and use the theory of the ‘big bang’ as a means by which to took place, we can easily imagine that the vast release of energies that occurred at the moment of creation (the starting place on our circle) would begin to radiate out in all directions. I can imagine that those energies are what bump the spiral up a level each year at the point of passing the moment of creation. In this way, each year is connected to creation, and partakes in it to some degree. Creation is still ongoing and affecting us! If this is true, we might consider that the ‘energy’ of that event is also somehow accessible or apprehensible to us as we pass that point on the circuit.

That, to me, is a comforting thought. As we pass the point on the circuit that has such a burst of power and energy, we are energized. We revisit that event both in our path theough time, and in our passage through Torah! The cycle of Torah readings also follows this spiraling pattern. We come back each year to the same reading, to the same story, but we read it differently because we have changed and grown and experienced things in the intervening time. So the Torah is the same, but eternally changing as we interact with it.

Time and Torah are wound up together, somehow connected and intertwined. And we interact with both.

An interesting idea to ponder as we come rapidly to the start of the new year, 5767 in just a few days.

Shanah tovah umetukah – a good and sweet year to all of you.

 

Rabbi Joe Blair

 

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New Years Celebration?

Monday, January 2nd, 2006

So we have the turn of the secular calendar, this year going from 2005 to 2006 in the Common Era (CE). The common usage has this taking place on January 1st, with the day starting precisely at midnight, local time.

The Jewish or Hebrew calendar changes years at the time of the holiday of Rosh Hashanah (Head of the Year), the 1st of the month of Tishrei, the seventh month on the calendar. Last October we went from 5765 to 5766. As all Hebrew days do, the new day starts at sundown and runs until sundown. This is due to the biblical description of creation in Bereshit (Genesis): ‘It was evening, it was morning. The first day.’ This seems to confuse many, including those folks who print calendars commercially, because they can never decide when a holiday falls, since it spans two boxes and numbers on the secular calendar.

The Jewish new year at Rosh Hashanah celebrates Creation, the birthday/anniversary of the world and the universe, and recognizes the sovereignty of God the Creator over all God’s works. We imagine God enthroned on high, as a king, dispensing justice and mercy with wisdom and compassion to all subjects.

I understand the basis for Rosh Hashanah, the religious motivation behind it, and the imagery and visualization we use in the liturgy. I can feel the connection of this holiday with the message and meaning it is intended to convey. It makes sense to me.

Not so with the secular new year. We note the aging, replacement, and death of one year, and the birth and installation of a new year – the images are one the one hand, an old wizened man with a long beard, in a gown or toga, dependent on a staff to move, and on the other, a baby, almost incapable of movement, certainly without much to recommend it as a controller of the fates, wearing a diaper and looking innocent.

I am not too sure what I am to take from this image, what message it is intended to convey. On a slightly cynical note, I could see it as a statement that life is inherently out of control, that each year is wasted before it is done, and that there is no hope for the future to be better than the past because the two are disconnected.

Even worse, the celebration is a rowdy bacchanalian rite, not something that will elevate us as human beings in the image of the divine, or call upon us to be more godly in our actions. It is more connected with carnival than with ritual. Don’t misunderstand me – I think there is a place for celebration, fun, good times, and silliness. I am just asking if this is the right place.

I don’t know anyone who still fears that the sun will not return after the shortest day of the year, nor do I know anyone who professes to worry about it. As an excuse for ancient civilizations to offer a ritual to encourage the outcome they desired it made some sense, if that was the form of offering they understood. For us to continue it as a part of our ‘heritage’ or as a rememberance of the past makes far less sense.

It would seem to me to make more sense for our nation (the United States) to celebrate the new year on the anniversary of our nation, July 4th, or to celebrate on the anniversary of the declaration of independence being adopted, or some similar and meaningful moment in the history of our nation. To tie our calendar to an ancient fear which was long ago overcome does not seem to make much logical or emotional sense.

In another entry, perhaps I will look at what happens in Israel on this date.

Shalom,

Rabbi Joe Blair

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Too Many Holidays?

Sunday, October 30th, 2005

We have just concluded the celebration of almost a month of Jewish holidays.

Watching the children in the religious school this week, I noticed that they are overwhlemed with holidays.

To them it seems that we have a holiday every time we meet – talk about saturation and overdoing it!

I tested this feeling today, by asking the younger students to tell me what holiday we are celebrating now or what is coming next. There was a pregnant pause, then one of them ventured the guess, “Halloween?”. I said no, that is a holiday everyone can celebrate, but it is not a Jewish holiday.

Another long pause, then one of them said “Your birthday?” I smiled, and said no, that was a good guess, but it is not my birthday at this time of year.

After a short time, I told them they should understand that I had asked a trick question, and that the answer is ‘nothing’. They all looked stunned.

I continued, “we have had a lot of holidays, but they are over now for this year. But we do have a holiday that comes every week”. They are smart youngsters, and caught on – they all called out that it was Shabbat (the sabbath).

I then said there is a holiday for the beginning of each Hebrew calendar month, and asked if they knew the name of it. No one did, so I explained that it is called Rosh Chodesh (head of the month) and it is the day when the new month starts, the day when we can see the tiniest sliver of the new moon in the sky. They all knew about the moon getting bigger, until it was full, then getting smaller, so they could understand this idea, and i seemed to make sense to them.

Then I told them that other than Shabbat each week, and Rosh Chodesh at the start of the month, we have no Jewish holidays for a while. I asked if they could think of what the next holiday might be. They didn’t seem to know, until I offered the hint that on this holiday we have chocolate coins…. I never got to mention Dreidles (tops) or latkes (potato pancakes), because they knew right away what I was talking about. One of them exclaimed, “Chanukah! I know that! I LIKE that holiday!”.

I tell this not only because they were so cute, but to point out that we have a calender problem in Judaism. The reactions of the children exemplify it.

With the intensity of introspection in the month of Elul immediately followed by the concentration of holidays in the month of Tishrei, we are ALL subject to Holiday Fatigue Syndrome: a sense of exhaustion, irritation with celebration, and a wish to get it over with, already! Who can stand two months of this?

Not me, and not most of us, I suspect. At least, not if we see it as one long holiday and drive ourselves to the brink of sanity over it.

Instead, I suggest, we need to separate the components out, look at each one on its own, and give each its due.

Elul with its introspection in anticipation of the High Holy Days is not an active time, but it is somewhat draining emotionally, if we take it seriously. Perhaps we need to look at it not as a month of self-examiniation, but as thirty days on which we can take advantage of the season, for short periods, when we are able. I cannot sustain the same level of introspection over days and days, but I can take a day here, an hour there, and during the period of Elul, with breaks and downtime, make use of the time to conduct my cheshbon nefesh (accounting of the soul). I even suspect that I am more ready to undertake such an accounting, if I know that I can stop when it becomes too hard and return to it later.

Similarly, rather than seeing it as ten days at a peak for the yamim Nora’im (days of awe), I can set aside times during the period from Rosh Hashanah (new years day) to Yom Kippur (day of atonement) for my Teshuvah (repentance and penitential prayers). Again, concentrated moments spread out over the period are more likely than a continuous push for the whole time.

And when we begin Sukkot, the Feast of Booths, I can celebrate when I am in the Sukkah, so that it is a more time and space limited holiday, and in that way I can ameliorate the impact of a seven day celebration.

Finally, for Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, I suggest that we have taken these with a bit of the wrong sense. I think we should view these days as more like the time after a family Simchah (joy): that time when the majority of the guests have left, we are almost done with the clean up, we have taken off our fancy dress, and the closest family and friends have stayed around to spend time together, and to relax in each other’s company. I think perhaps we should be looking at Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah in this light – our chance to wear more comfortable clothes and relax in company with G-d and each other – our closest friends and family.

Perhaps if we saw it in this light, and acted accordingly, the concentration of holidays wouldn’t feel so burdensome, but would be a joy and a means to relax and truly celebrate what matters.

So, do we have too many holidays? I would answer, No: we have just been trying to make each one a formal affair. If we can stop trying so hard, we might find we are having a good time and truly celebrating! And that would truly make it the season of our joy.

Rabbi Joe Blair

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The Season of our Joy

Wednesday, October 26th, 2005

The High Holidays are drawing to a close now. This evening the final bit of celebration concluded with the end at sundown of Simchat Torah, Rejoicing in the Law. From Rosh Hashanah, a time of mixed emotions – celebration of creation, the birthday of the world, and the day when we are judged for who and what we have been in the prior year and what will become of us int he coming year – through the ten Yamim Noara’im (Days of Awe) that lead us inexoroably from the intiial moment of judgement to the awesome day of atonement, the day of Yom Kippur, on which we picture G-d as having judged us, now sealing the ledger in which our fate int he year to come is recorded. And yet, Yom Kippur is also seen as one of the most joyous days in all the calendar. After all, it is reasoned, G-d is a merciful god, compassionate and forgiving to all who sincerely repent. And when we reach the end of the day of Yom Kippur, the closing of the gates of prayer and the sealing of the ledgers, we know that we have done what we can to invoke the mercy of G-d, and G-d will temper justice with mercy. So there is a giddy sense of acceptance, a fresh page in our book, a renewed start in our relationship with G-d.

Then we enter the Holiday of Sukkot (the Festival of Booths). We dwell (or at least sit and eat meals in) the flimsy temporary structures, celebrating the harvest and G-d’s bounty in creation, the whole of nature spread before us and above us, and the vast majesty of the sky above us. We are exposed to all of nature and all dangers, but we are protected by the unseen hand of G-d. An exercise in trust and acceptance, the Sukkah, and a way to review what it is that is really important in our life. Throughout this holiday, we have the Torah, and we take joy in it, in learning, in studying, in sharing, in discussing and arguing, in fully engaging in the words of the Torah in a never ending conversation with each other, and with G-d.

The holiday culminates in Simchat Torah, when we express our joy and pleasure in the Torah, and in the relationship with G-d that it opens for us and to us. We sing and dance with the Torah, and we lovingly read the last words and the first all together, so that there is no end, no cessation to our engagment with and focus on the Torah. We read in a continuous circle, like a wedding ring – unbroken, without beginning or end, perfect.

So this is the season of our joy – a joy in creation, in Torah, and in G-d. What a wonderful way to start the year.

May it be a good year, a sweet year, a year of blessing for us all, and may it be a year of peace for all the world.

Rabbi Joe Blair

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