Congregation Emanu-El of Westchester: Sermon Archives

ROSH HASHANAH - October 4, 2005

Intimate family lore. In my hometown of Albany, N.Y. they thought my father was perfect. He was a loving pastoral Rabbi. Some even thought he was a saint. But he had a flaw. My father had a horrible sense of direction. A quality that I inherited --- although at least no one has ever accused me of being a saint! The proof text for Dad's abominable sense of direction occurred when I was very young and we embarked on a family trip from Wilkes-Barre, PA to visit relatives in Baltimore, MD. According to my mother we were lost before we even backed out of the driveway --- but she had a tendency to exaggerate. This much is certain: Within an hour we had no idea where we were --- we even passed the same site several times. Finally, in desperation, Dad came up with an ingenious idea. "See that car in front of us," Dad said, "that's a Cadillac and they always know where they are going. We will follow." I'm not certain when my father invented his theory of the omniscient Cadillac but we followed, until the Cadillac pulled into the driveway of its owner's home in Binghamton, New York ---my father close behind.

Dad asked the driver of the Cadillac, "Where are we?" The man answered "at my house. Where do you want to be?"

"Baltimore" my father answered.

The Cadillac owner laughed then gently informed my father he had driven two hours out of his way. This was followed by a probing question: "Where did you come from?"

After many hours driving in circles my father wasn't sure. Perplexed, he only scratched his head. But in later years, whenever he told this story, Dad would grin and comment: "you know, what bothered me most was not getting lost but I couldn't answer that question, "where did you come from?"

Well, that question remains as relevant today as it did for my father; 60 years ago. Only today the question is phrased in theological terms. "In the beginning of time where did you come from? Most of us would answer: "We evolved over many millennia with a monkey for an ancestor." But that is not the majority opinion. At least not in this country. Here are the statistics: 45% of Americans believe we were created by God on the sixth day. This is Creationism. 45% of Americans believe in the theory of evolution and 10% are undecided.

Now, contemporary creaton verbiage does not necessarily invoke God's name. Instead creation is subsumed under the title Intelligent Design. Intelligent Design created us. How else can we explain the amazing act of creation? Intelligent Design asserts that some features of living things are best explained as the work of a designer rather than as the result of a random process like evolution, natural selection. The problem with the clever and wily term, Intelligent Design is that the Grand Designer usually means God! The result, shrewdly packaged by conservatives is old time religion. God's hand in everything. I suppose you can say that Creationism has evolved into Intelligent Design. The fact that geology says our world is 4.8 billion years old, and that the intelligent designer lacked a great deal of intelligence or It would have done a better job, does not dissuade the believers. Courts are now being asked to mandate the teaching of Intelligent Design, as well as evolution, in the schools.

Even in the Jewish community fundamentalists have recently banned the books of a scholarly Orthodox Rabbi, the so called Zoo Rabbi because he is a proponent of evolution.

The argument over Intelligent Design is not necessarily between science and religion. Many theologians believe in evolution. Science and religion are not mutually exclusive. They need one another. What, then, is the real problem? I believe Intelligent Design is only a pretext for a narrow absolutism that will not tolerate differences. If God created and still creates how can we argue with the word of God and those who profess to speak the word of God? In the 1950's a movement entitled "The Death of God" thrived. I remember a popular bumper sticker from those days: "God isn't dead. He just doesn't want to be involved."

Well, today God is involved, In the religious and the non-religious -- and not only as a moral force.

When I was young my family had a wonderful cleaning woman, Louise. At the age of twenty-one I spent a year studying in Israel and when I returned Louise asked me to speak at her tiny white clapboard church in downtown Albany. I labored for many hours to craft that address delivered in front of Louise, my local gas station attendant, the man who mowed our lawn, the tall muscular person who worked in the butcher shop and other members of Louise's black Evangelical congregation. This was to be my first attempt at preaching and I intended to rise to the occasion. "Friends, members of Mt. Zion Baptist Church, I would like to tell you about the year I spent at the Hebrew University. First a summary of my courses." Somewhere in the middle of a description of Plato's Republic I noticed that I was losing my congregation. Albert the shoeshine man on the corner of State and Pearl was already snoring. Plato was not going over well in downtown Albany.

Then God appeared to me. A moment of inspiration. Although at first I was unaware. But somewhere in the midst of a sentence I had inserted the word "Jerusalem." If I remember correctly I said: "The Hebrew University is perched on the hills overlooking Jerusalem." At the word Jerusalem an amen echoed through the church. My next sentence read: "Someday I hope you will visit the Holy Land." A resounding reply. "Holy Land, Holy Land. Amen. Amen."

Throwing away my speech I strung together a long series of "Jerusalem, Holy Land, King David." I was even tempted to experiment with the words hummus and falafel but decided against this excess. The congregation was on their feet. I was a success. An amazing success. So successful that the weekly contributions totaled $11.75, including the $5 I had given on instructions from my mother! Incidentally, the $11.75 was given back to me as an honorarium. I never had such a reception in all the years to follow. How sad to peak at the age of 21. As the years passed I have often reflected on that day at Mt. Zion Baptist Church. I admired the depth of belief those people brought to religion for they were individuals in need and although they may not have thrived physically, spiritually they had great comfort.

Louise believed with perfect faith. And how much stronger we all are if we possess a faith in the godly. But today there are those who use that faith to stifle debate, openness, dialogue. Intelligent Design is a well financed political and religious campaign that pervades this country. It is a supernatural, untestable view of life that attempts to give certainty even when there is no certainty. The absolutism represented by religious fundamentalism, of which Intelligent Design is one manifestation, counters questioning and spreads its tentacles far and wide --- it intrudes insidiously into the secular. The Senate majority leader Bill Frist criticized those who were not, in his words "people of faith". But whose faith? Not any faith. The staff at the Air Force Academy was accused of overt religious discrimination; a pilot on American Airlines Flight 34 invites an interfaith dialogue between the Christians and the non-believers strapped in their seats. "This is your Proselytizer Speaking." Instead of becoming a more open America are we becoming narrower? In belief. In tolerance. In acceptance.

I do not know whether President Bush adheres to Intelligent Design although he does desire that it be taught in the schools, but he is beholden to the 45% of American literalists who accept fully the Biblical description of creation, that simplify that which can not be simplified. Today's voice is a voice that would have you and I believe that there is only one truth. And they know that truth. Perhaps the domestic and international turmoil that afflicts America is the result, at least in part, of the inability to see shades of grey. We refuse to confront the complexities and move out of the bubble that hides many of us, especially our leadership, from differing opinion. We need less ideology and more idealism.

And that takes me to penguins. Quite a leap? Not necessarily. For those of you who did not know, this is the year of the penguin. Not in the Chinese calendar but in the New York Times. According to the media many on the right have adopted this tuxedo clad penguin as their ideological hero. Penguins are role models for family values. Monogamous. Always at home with their children, loving, as demonstrated by the way they entwine their necks and vocalize to one another. Role models. Or at least they were until New York Times reporters, tired of Iraq, Hurricanes and the pennant races revealed that one pair of penguins, Ray and Silo, had a gay relationship. They came out of the ice, so to speak, in 1999 when they tried to incubate a rock without success but did successfully incubate an extra egg --- giving birth to a penguin named Tango. Then, to confound this greatest love story ever told, Silo, in a devastating tale of betrayal, sexual identity and penguin lust, forsook Ray for a lady penguin from California named Scrappy. You see, even in the world of penguins there is no certainty. What is clear one day might not be as clear the next. And that is the problem. In religion, in politics and in animal husbandry our world is in flux. We seek certainty, especially after 9/11 and there is no certainty.

In the outstanding play Doubt. A Parable, an elderly nun, Aloysius, principal of a Catholic school accuses a priest at the school of pedophilia. The priest, Father Flynn, comments "You have not the slightest proof of anything."

Sister Aloysius responds. "But I have certainty."

Father Flynn: "Even if you feel certainty, it is an emotion not a fact." And, as the play ends a tormented Sister Aloysius confesses: "I have doubts! I have such doubts."

Who among us wants doubts? But we do not have a choice. We are imperfect. We do not have assurance. Our common bond is doubt. That is reality. So I would suggest that it does not matter who created us. What does matter is whether, to the best of our ability, we act as if the godly was in us. The question remains, have we made our world a better place for our children and our children's children? And I am suspect. History will not record that we have progressed beyond our warring and fanatical ways. It seems that the smaller our world becomes by travel and communication the more lethal our weaponry and our hatred. And the result, as in the case of Iraq, is tragic. The 21st century has already begun with avarice, famines and grenades, invasions and suicide bombings - and it is insufficient to say, "God help us."

This year marked the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The author Aharon Appelfield described that moment when the wheels of destruction stood still. He writes of a doctor, from a religious background, who survived and sailed with Appfelfeld on a transport to Israel. With great sorrow the doctor said: "We didn't see God when we expected him, so we have no choice but to do what he was supposed to do: We will protect the wish, we will love, we will comfort. From now on the responsibility is ours." Yes, the responsibility is ours. Not some creator God or Intelligent Designer.

One of my favorite images is a painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The creation of Adam. Adam, not yet awake, not yet alive, lies supine in a mass of rock, his arm extended towards the heavens where God reaches down as if to pull Adam up. When I first saw this painting I assumed God and man were touching; that God was doing all the work. But no. God was not touching man. Adam needed to lift himself. To lift himself. The divine spark existed but it was powerless without Adam's interaction. And that is the way it is. We are partners with God. No longer can we say, "It is the will of God." It is the will of man, and woman, working in consort with God.

May we rise towards who we can be. Creatures only a little lower than the angels. May we demonstrate the intelligence to design a better world in the year to come.