Sermons
Rosh Hashanah Morning
September 19, 2009
It was a quiet Sunday morning after an evening snowfall. Outside, under one of the eaves of the Temple, I spied a pile of snow six or seven feet high. Probably from the snow plow except the driveway hadn't been plowed, and anyway, the snowfall only amounted to several inches. Well, I thought, maybe the snow was covering a wood pile. Then I remembered we didn't have a woodpile. Very strange.
So in the finest detective tradition I approached the mysterious pile and brushed off flakes of snow. A bright red metal roof took shape. My hand slid down the metal, over an open car hood and soon a glass windshield came into view, then two cracked headlights and, in the rear, the words Trans Am. My research had excavated a car, stripped, missing an engine, shocks, the radio. This discovery led to a phone call to my friends at the Harrison Police Department who, after a brief investigation, assured me that my archeological remnant was a very recent version of a spiffy stolen automobile, reported missing the night before, probably taken by a band of car thieves operating out of Stamford, Connecticut. Our sanctuary now housed four Torahs, one menorah, a Ner Tamid and a stolen Trans Am.
Since I am devoting this years' High Holyday sermons to an eclectic history of our Temple I would catalogue this event under the chapter: Great Temple Cover Ups, although in this case the cover was only snow. What revives this memory? What qualifies a stolen Trans Am to intrude on a High Holy Day sermon? Well, approximately a year ago synonymous with the timing of our holidays our country was in the early stages of a different form of cover up. The economy we believed to be secure was, beneath the surface, faltering. We have witnessed a society stripped of its engine, the headlights illuminating the future shattered and principles and values, lying abandoned. Many innocent people suffered because of certain banks, corporate executives and, of course, the outright scam of a Bernie Madoff. But was it only a small number of people who were responsible? Or do all of us need to reevaluate how we live, what is of enduring importance?
When the Roman Republic was in decline the Roman historian Tacitus commented, "The worst crimes were dared by a few, willed by more and tolerated by all." Could this indictment apply to today?
More than wealth has been lost. Confidence, trust in the goodness of humanity lies discarded beneath the eaves of our society.
At the end of the 19th century, an era in which Jews experienced extensive anti-Semitism, the Russian poet Saul Tchernikovsky refused to lose hope.
Laugh at all my dreams my darling
Laugh and I repeat anew
That I still believe in man
And I still believe in you.
This is the optimism that has driven the Jew through the ages – in spite of everything. But at the moment these beliefs in the basic goodness of humanity are being tested.
How do we begin to correct our society? Perhaps we begin with ourselves, by asking, what values matter to us, what values do we wish to transmit to our children and our children's children?
Robert F. Kennedy said "The GNP measures neither our wealth nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our bearing, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile."
And one of our commentators, I am not sure if it was Thomas Friedman or David Brooks, related a story he heard last year at Rosh Hashanah services. "A frail 80 year old mother is celebrating her birthday and her 3 sons each gave her a present. Harry gave her a new house. Harvey gave her a new car and driver. And Burt gave her a huge parrot that can recite the entire Torah. A week later she called her three sons together and said: `Harry, thanks for the nice house but I don't really need it since I only live in one room. Harvey, thanks for the nice car but I can't stand the driver. Burt, thanks for giving your mother something she could really enjoy. That chicken was delicious!"
How many chickens do we need? What is sufficient?
In the Jewish tradition it was common when one died to leave a will, not concerned with material resources but with the ethics we would pass on to the next generation. As many of you know, my father bequeathed such an ethical will. As I have done in the past, I share his thoughts. "These worldly goods are of small material value. I am in possession of a far richer store. It is a way of life transmitted to me, through thousands of years, by prophet, sage and martyr of my people. It embodies a counsel for life which if taken diligently to heart and practiced by all men, would lead to larger understanding, less bloodshed, and more brotherhood. It is a counsel which thinks of man as "a little lower than the angels" rather than as kin to beasts."
Man, woman, is but little lower than the angels. But Judaism also teaches that each one of us consists of two inclinations. A Yetzer Ha Tov, a good, a positive inclination, and a Yetzer Ha Ra, a bad, a negative inclination. Sigmund Freud, inspired by his Jewish heritage converted this concept into the Ego and the Id. The Yetzer Ha Tov and the Yetzer Ha Ra are constantly in conflict – On one hand the good inclination instructs us to reach out to others, the bad inclination is only concerned with the self. The positive inclination feeds the hunger of others, the negative inclination thinks only about feeding our own hungers. Bernie Madoff may have been the epitome of the Yetzer Ha Ra, the evil inclination, but is it possible that all of us consist of complex drives – and, if so, only we can re-instill trust and confidence in the fabric of our society by searching for a balance, understanding our nature and monitoring our actions. No one will do it for us.
On a day in November when the news was especially bleak, a cartoon landed on my desk. It was a black and white drawing of a heart. Inside the heart were the words:
"Good morning!
This is God.
I will be handling all of your problems today.
I will not need your help.
Have a nice day!"
Well, that's a nice thought. Certainly more appealing than the advertisement on the side of a bus in London that read: "There's probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." But that ad posted on a bus by an atheist or agnostic wasn't the notice I received on that day in November. No, I had just received assurance that God not only existed but would take care of me. Sit back, Dan. No need to be involved. God will make the world a better place. God will fix the economy, reform health care, bring peace to the Middle East. Stop worrying. Relax. You don't have to create a better world. God will handle all your problems. And, reverting to baseball language as the season reaches a climax, God is the designated hitter. So if God will be handling all my problems today, where is God? Come out from hiding God. It's Rosh Hashanah.
We need you!
Where is God?
I can only answer for myself.
God is not in the words we utter in this sanctuary. God is not even found in the rituals, although they bring comfort to many. This winter, after a service, a guest approached with a question -=-- Rabbi, how can you be a Rabbi and not wear a Kippah? A Yarmulkah? She was not the first to ask the question and I considered my answer. Should I explain that the origin of the Kippah dates to our desire to emulate the ancient Greeks and was then imposed as a sign of opprobrium by Christians in the Middle Ages? It is not indigenous to Judaism. Should this be my reply?
Instead I replied with an answer my father once gave. "If the Kippah has meaning for you, if you feel a greater bond with Judaism when your head is covered then I encourage you to wear the Kippah. But does God really hear you better if your head is covered?" The religious person is not measured by observance or even by degree of philanthropy. God is in our midst when we do justly, love mercy and walk with humility. When we. We. The emphasis is on the "we."
The specter of Bernie Madoff once again raised our fears of a recurrence of anti-Semitism, a common reaction whenever a Jew creates shameful headlines. Yes, whenever there is a scandal we hope, we pray that the culprit will not be Jewish for how will that reflect on all of us? Are we too sensitive? Too self conscious? I would like to believe that our reaction is not the result of our insecurity but rather reflects the high standards we hold for ourselves, values evolving from prophetic ethics basic to Judaism. Yes, I would like to believe that it is not about being Jewish or non Jewish for we cannot control the actions of others. All we can do is determine our personal actions, based on an internal set of ethics and values. God will not handle all our problems today. Neither will anyone else. God and the world need our help.
Martin Luther King repeated a prayer from a preacher who had been a slave: "Lord, we ain't what we want to be; we ain't what we ought to be; we aint' what we gonna be, but, thank God, we ain't what we was." Although my father dreamed that we would be little lower than the angels that is a reach – a daunting reach. But, as Pirke Aboth, a tractate of the Talmud instructs "It is not incumbent upon you to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it." -- even if we and our environment ain't what we want them to be. At least not yet.
Over the years I have been moved by the sometimes triumphant, often tragic drama of the Kennedy's, who, echoing the thoughts of William Butler Yeats, had every gift but the gift of years. And, recently, watching the funeral of Teddy Kennedy I was again taken as the media replayed Teddy's eulogy for his brother Bobby some years before.
"My brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life. He should be remembered as a good and decent man who saw wrong but tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it."
Tried. Tried. Tried. That is all we can do. Try to be the best we can be. Try to improve our world. Each of us, you and I are limited, imperfect. But is it possible that we can try to be more than we are --- to try, sometimes to succeed and at other times to fail. But, at least, to try. To be partners with God, fulfilling our own responsibility. Dayenu. That is enough.
One of our modern Jewish saints was a German Rabbi, Leo Baeck. It is said that when his congregation in Berlin was sent off to the concentration camp Rabbi Baeck was exempted by the Nazis. But the Rabbi objected. "If my congregants are deported, I will go with them."
In the camp he was assigned the macabre task of placing those who had died in a wheel barrow, and transporting them to the crematorium. He took one handle, a partner assisted with the other. After pushing the wheelbarrow over rough ground, the bodies bouncing from side to side, Baeck paused and cautioned his companion, "Push gently. Gently."
"But why?" "These bodies are dead."
Baeck nodded. "Yes, they are dead but I finally understand the meaning of the words `Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
Perhaps this is the ultimate in reaching beyond the self. Perhaps this was what Martin Buber intended when he counseled that we view a person as a "Thou," related to God, not an "it", an impersonal object to be manipulated for our personal benefit, our material gain. Perhaps, when we act in the manner of Baeck or Buber, God, the divine within us, enters this sanctuary. Perhaps.
In the year that lies ahead may we delve beneath the surface and, hopefully, uncover our ideals and values; not a stripped down version but the precious gift of humanity, realizing ourselves, caring for others, bound together in our aspirations and in our strivings. Then we can enter a reborn tomorrow.
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