Congregation Emanu-El of Westchester: Sermon Archives

Rosh Hashanah
September 13, 2007

On these High Holy Days I am reflecting on numbers representing milestones in my life. Today the number is 35 marking half my lifespan but also the aggregate of years I have taught seniors at School of the Holy Child, the high school next door to the Temple.

Last April Holy Child honored me with a celebration, affording me an opportunity to reflect on a very satisfying career teaching Old Testament, four days a week, one hour a day. Somehow, with the accrual of time I have become the longest tenured teacher at a Catholic girl's school --- a rather unusual accomplishment. As one of my colleagues mused, "The Nuns come and go but the Rabbi stays forever!"

My religious detour began in 1972 with an invitation from Sister Mary Campion, once the Mother Superior, in the wake of the ecumenical spirit of Vatican II. She asked, "Would I teach three sessions on the Hebrew prophets?" Without hesitation I agreed and quickly adapted to the teaching environment. But, I must admit, for the Holy Child community I was something of an oddity. No one quite knew what to do with a Rabbi at School of the Holy Child. For instance, I wore an atrocious blue and yellow plaid sport jacket instead of a clerical collar, so, of course, I couldn't be a priest. But what was I? And what should the faculty and students call me? "Dan?" Unthinkable in the formal Catholic context. Rabbi Wolk? Something of a stretch for those used to calling their clergy "Father Paul, Sister Jean." Finally they settled on Rabbi Dan, although occasionally they slipped and I became Father Dan. One member of the Board of Trustees, only partially in jest, commented, "It's wonderful to have a Rabbi teaching our daughters but aren't there any out of work Jesuits who could do the same thing?"

Sister Campion and I immediately formed a close friendship and as the High Holy Days approached in 1972 the nun asked if she could attend Kol Nidre services. As I prepared to robe for services our head usher, somewhat flustered, knocked on my study door to announce. "Rabbi, there is a nun in the sanctuary. A Catholic nun. In full habit."

I smiled: "That's Sister Campion. From Holy Child." The usher continued. "And she brought five other nuns." In later years, accustomed to the appearance of the nuns, the usher, in an off handed way, would inform me ---"Dan, your nuns are here," and I knew we could start the service.

But that first year when I saw Sister Campion sitting in the fourth row off center aisle --- I had suggested she come early for a good seat - that first year I experienced a flashback. I was a child in Albany and had spent an afternoon at the temple where my father was Rabbi. Whenever I went to Temple Beth Emeth on Lancaster Street in downtown Albany I took part in two father-son rituals. The first, enacted in my father's study, occurred when he took a bottle of malted milk balls from his desk drawer and gave me one. I did not really like the taste of malted milk but I cherished the taste of love that accompanied that humble gift. Then my father would take my hand and we would go outside. Almost reverently he pointed to an inscription carved in the worn red stone of the temple, a structure now several centuries old. The words, from the book of Isaiah, read, "Thy House Shall be a House of Prayer for all peoples." This was my father's philosophy --- inclusion. A house of prayer for all peoples. And for him, the house included the world. No creed, religion, political philosophy or nation possessed absolute truth. All peoples should respect one another.

This was my remembrance as I saw the nuns sitting in our congregation 35 years ago. But today, our world is very different. We live divided, on the brink of what some call a clash of civilizations. The moderate voice is stilled, the voice of the fundamentalist looms powerfully --- there are those who would have us believe they and only they possess absolute truth. If we don't agree, we become outcasts.

In the summer, at Brant Lake, my home in the Adirondacks, there is a weekly event. A group of families dines together. Occasionally I join them. Usually the conversation covers such stimulating topics as whose septic tank overflowed, the number of jet skis on the lake and random statistics concerning the black fly population.

But on the evening I attended, one member of the group, an elderly, extremely well-educated but ultra conservative man detoured from the approved topics. The conversation began innocently when I was questioned about Hamas and Fatah. Before I could answer, the gentleman, who I will call Arthur, pounced. Had I seen the article about the terrorist plot in England. "Six out of seven suspects are Muslim doctors. You liberals always say it's the have nots who cause the problem. Not the case. Not the case. It was doctors. How do you explain that?"

Deftly I tried to bring the conversation back to septic tanks, but he persisted.

So I asked: "Arthur, what is your conclusion?"

Simple, Dan, simple. "You can't trust a Muslim."

Arthur is not unique. Today we look with suspicion on Muslims, stereotyping them, incorrectly, as single minded fundamentalist believers, spawning suicide bombers and terrorists. Recently, Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism stated: "The time has come to stand up to the opportunists, the media figures, the religious leaders and politicians who demonize Muslims and bash Islam, exploiting the fears of their fellow citizens for their own purposes." This year, when Rosh Hashonah and Ramadan coincide, these words are especially appropriate.

A clash of civilizations all in the name of religion.

What has happened to my father's house of prayer for all peoples, or the healing influence of Sister Mary Campion?

Often, when I speak with people about conditions in the world someone suggests that religion is a detrimental force. According to this view, religion is transformed into the Politics of God, used as a prooftext by certain leaders, in America and abroad, to justify their own infallibility complex. Bottom line: religion spawns war, hatred and, even in the secular world, stifles openness and flexibility.

The alternative? Atheism. Arguments for atheism flood the media. Some contemporary atheists infused with hostile skepticism want to cast out religion. The respected evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion ranked #3 on the thousands of books listed on Amazon.com. The most popular entry on the NPR series, "What I Believe" began with the declaration, "I believe that there is no God."

Absolutists for Religion. Absolutists against religion.

I do not see religion as either peaceful or violent. The Bible condones Holy Wars. It also gave the world the Ten Commandments. The Koran strikes out against the infidel but the Koran also says, "To you, your faith, and to me, mine." As Thomas Friedman pointed out, "Christianity inspired pogroms and Mother Teresa, Hinduism nurtured the earliest suicide bombings and Mahatma Ghandi." There is Muslim Fundamentalism, Christian Fundamentalism, Jewish Fundamentalism. Jean Jacques Rousseau said of religion: "I believe all particular religions are good when one serves God usefully in them." Religion can divide but it can also make our individual life richer and make our world a better place. The choice is ours.

But today religion speaks in narrow, strident, absolute tones --- as if there is an ultimate truth. Have I ever told you about Bob? Bob and I began Hebrew Union College, Rabbinical School, together. Bob dropped out in the middle of the first year with a cryptic explanation. "I was mistaken," he said. "My calling is for the cloth but not the clerical cloth." Bob's father worked in the garment industry in New York and Bob entered the family business. Then, to my amazement, at the beginning of the second year at HUC Bob returned. We welcomed him but, puzzled, asked why he had re-enrolled.

"Well," he sighed deeply, "last summer I felt something was missing - and that's when it happened. ---"

"Yes, yes," we asked. "What happened?" The suspense was unbearable.

"I was sitting on a bench in Central Park and suddenly I fell off. Now why would I fall off? There had to be an answer. And then it came to me. It was the voice of God and God was saying, `Bob go back to the Seminary. That is your calling. Go. Go now!' So I'm back."

If God speaks how can we not heed the summons? Of course, whose God is speaking?

Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a one on one with God? Many years ago I was interviewed on a talk show by David Susskind. He asked me what would I do if God appeared in my driveway --- please, don't ask me the context of his question! Sadly, I report, God has still not appeared in my driveway. Maybe because I have moved since that TV appearance. But I've often speculated on what I would say to God, what God would say to me. - all the questions God could answer. Doubts would vanish. For the first time in my life I would have the truth. The absolute truth. But alas this will never happen. I am doomed to live with uncertainty.

Ah Bob, Bob. How did you ever speak with God? Why did God choose you? For awhile I thought God only spoke with the Orthodox. Isn't that the fundamentalist viewpoint? But Bob wasn't Orthodox. And, thanks to Rabbi Pein I now realize even Orthodox Jews have difficulty establishing a direct link with God.

You probably wonder how Rabbi Pein found her way into this sermon. Probably even Rabbi Pein wonders. Here is the answer. At the High Holydays Rabbis always exchange sermonic material and last week Rabbi Pein e-mailed me a photograph of an Orthodox Jew kippah on his head, davening, praying, at the Western Wall. Absorbed in his prayer the man had his left arm flat against the wall. Like this. That is a familiar sight at the wall. But in his right hand this devout worshipper held a cell phone on which he was involved in a serious conversation. The caption beneath the picture read: "Hello? Hello? God??? God??? Can you hear me now?"

We can't be sure God hears us and it's not always easy to heed what God wants of us. Not always easy. Although I envy those who possess the absolute truth I do not believe such people really exist --- I don't even believe truth is absolute. So I am riddled with uncertainty. All I do know is that, in the words of the prophets, God desires us to do justly, love mercy and walk with humility. To repair our world --- for all peoples.

And if God ever does appear directly to me, yes, I still have faith it could happen, I would express a prayer that God inspire us to relieve the plight of the poor, to give us one day without the devouring tentacles of war, to enlighten us with the knowledge that no man or woman is better than any other; that everyone is but little lower than the angels, endowed with a divine but still unrealized potential. That would be my request of God. That would be my request.

Earlier this year I received an e-mail circulated by a Jewish chaplain serving in Iraq. He had traveled through the country searching for points of Biblical and Jewish interest. He passed Ur where Abraham was born, visited Babel, site of ancient Babylonia where the prophet Daniel was taken but the most interesting experience was when he was stationed with the 2nd Brigade of the 101st Airmobile Division in Mosul, ancient Niniveh, the city of the prophet Jonah. There he wandered over the rubble of an old synagogue, now a garbage dump, with Hebrew written on the walls. He was probably the first Jew in that synagogue in 50 years.

And then, not far from the synagogue he found a cemetery, currently used as a soccer field. Markers were scattered on the ground, one written in English and Sanskrit dedicated to Hindu and Sikh British soldiers killed in World War I and World War II. Other stones bore the imprint of a cross. Suddenly, the Chaplain was called over to a fragment of a tombstone discovered by his assistant, Specialist William Rodriguez. The writing on the remnant was a strange foreign language, to Specialist Rodriguez, but not to the Chaplain. The word was Hebrew. The name was "Zev," and the Chaplain, softly, ever so softly recited the Kaddish for this unknown Jew. Zev. Leaving the cemetery the Chaplain reflected on this final resting place of a Christian, Sikh, Hindu, Muslim. And Jew. And then he asked himself a poignant question, "Is death the only way these great faiths can exist in peace?"

My House Shall be a house of prayer for all peoples. But Isaiah meant in life, not in death. In life.

The Reverend William Sloan Coffin, Chaplain at Yale, Minister of Riverside Church wrote: "Love measures our stature. The more we love, the bigger we are. There is no smaller package in all the world than that of a man all wrapped up in himself."

When we love we embrace others --- no matter how different they may be from us. When we love we listen to the ideas of others --- no matter how different they may be from ours. And when we love we open ourselves to the magnificent diversity of this world.

Today, as I muse on my 35 year long association with School of the Holy Child I still imagine Sister Mary Campion sitting in our congregation and once again memory carries me back to the child I was, holding my father's hand. I am staring upwards. Upwards, to an inscription engraved in stone. "Thy house shall be a house of prayer for all peoples." I pray that we may evolve towards such a world.

Then, and only then, will the greatest of houses, the house of humanity become a gathering place for all people and we will come together in peace and understanding.