Filling Our Hearts with the Right Spirit: A Proposal for Teaching Our Values to the Whole Community

Transcription

1 Filling Our Hearts with the Right Spirit: A Proposal for Teaching Our Values to the Whole Community Rabbi Ari Saks Sermon manuscript Parashat Vayetzei (Genesis 31:17-32:3) Delivered extemporaneously at the Huntington Jewish Center on Saturday, November 20th 2018 I walked into the hustle and bustle of a small church in Perth Amboy. The administrative office was full and the cleaning crew was hard at work. There was a group studying and a group practicing music. The place was buzzing with activity. But the most amazing thing is that other than the pastor, no one there was a paid professional. Every leader, every teacher, every doer was a volunteer. Pastor Noel Stantiago s church, the PAC Center, in Perth Amboy was one of many churches he s seeded in his career. He knows how to get the most out of his often very limited financial resources. But what s his secret? How does he make a 100 family congregation feel like 1000? As he was giving me the tour of his church we stopped in the main sanctuary, a hall not much greater in size than our kiddush lounge but with a full band set up in the corner. Looking in that direction he said to me, Rabbi, you see 1

2 that band? No one plays in that band until they go through a mandated period of classroom study where their heart is filled with faith. Only when they have the right spirit then do they have the right to play. I have to tell you that I was astounded by Pastor Santiago s explanation of the PAC Center s success. On one level I was amazed he could get so many people to show up for class. Now that takes some skill. But more than that, the idea that you had to have the right kind of spirit in order to participate runs contrary to much of my experience and training in the Jewish community. First, we run after volunteers, trying to get them to participate, as opposed to them running to us. The running joke is if you raise your hand to volunteer a good idea, then you automatically become the chair of that committee. No good deed goes unpunished, I guess. But in all seriousness, it s the idea that people have to be filled as if they are vessels with a certain kind of faith that perplexed me the most. 2

3 Judaism prides itself on not having a particular creed outside of, maybe, the Shema. Indeed when Maimonides wrote his 13 articles of faith which have been canonized in our liturgy as Yigdal, many medieval editors of liturgy balked at the idea of including Yigdal in the siddur because it seemed sacrilegious to itemize Jewish faith into thirteen particular articles. We Jews are too diverse in our thinking to be pinned down to a particular belief system. Yet, Pastor Santiago s comment - that you can t play until you are filled with faith - continues to intrigue me till today because of how a shared faith, a shared set of values, a shared spirit, binds his community together as they move towards a shared vision of the world they want to create. Isn t that what we re aiming for when we talk about building a community with Jewish values? That there are such central Jewish ideas on how to live in this world that we can work together towards a common goal? And so I wonder, is it possible to create a Jewish PAC Center? Is there a Jewish way to 3

4 create a vision that our entire community shares, thus enthusing and exciting all of us to be active members of our community? In thinking about key Jewish values, I m drawn to today s Torah portion when our matriarch Rachel steals her father s idols as she leaves his house. Rashi teaches us that this was done out of a pious, monotheistic impulse - in order to distance her father from the practice of idol worship. But if that is the case, then why didn t she just destroy the idols? Why did she have to steal them? One theory is that she wanted to take the idols with her because she was still an idol worshipper. Thus she not only stole them from her father but she hid them from Jacob who, unsuspectingly, promised Rachel s father that the one who stole the idols would not live (see Jephtah s vow in Judges). Rachel seems to be both a thief and an idol worshipper. Not a good examplar of Jewish values, right? But maybe stealing and holding onto the idols wasn t an immoral act at all. Perhaps it was a necessary act, a just act, an act that turned a wrong into a right. According to a few 4

5 contemporary biblical scholars, possession of the household gods, was related to issues of clan leadership or inheritance. You only pass the gods along to those who have the right to inherit from you. Thus centuries before the daughters of Tzlophchad petitioned Moses to give them their father s inheritance, here we have a daughter taking her father s idols as a symbolic token of her inheritance, of her right to take her children and possessions away from her father. As biblical scholar J.E. Lapsley argues, Rachel s devious and extra-legal means of taking possession of these idols without permission was a form of getting justice from the patriarchal household that prevented her from getting her rightful inheritance. Thus, one of the reasons behind Rachel saying she could not get up from the saddle of the camel - where she was hiding the idols - because the way of women is upon her, is partially to indicate to us that the way of women constraints her possibilities for speech, advocacy and direct action. As another biblical scholar, Wendy Zierler puts it, Rachel steals not only the idols but also the language that has been used by the patriarchy 5

6 to define her as woman and limit her access to culture and law (Women s Torah Commentary, 179). Rachel s spirit was filled with a sense of justice that was not learned and studied in a classroom, it grew out of her own unique experience. Her heart was not filled with her father s spirit, a spirit she did not accept as just or right. Instead, she cultivated her own spirit by arguing against her clan s authority figure and teacher - her father. She was willing to breach her relationship with her family by sitting down upon the idols hidden underneath her, in order to stand up for what was right. That s why when we sit in our classrooms to study key Jewish values and teachings, we do not sit idly by as vessels waiting to have our spirit filled by teachers. No, our classrooms are crucibles in which our intellects are like swords, itching to be sharpened by the swords of our teachers to help us figure out what is right and what is wrong. And if our teachers can t do the job, we may have to do it ourselves. Or perhaps we can find other like minded independent thinkers whose sharpness will put us to the test. 6

7 The most holy of relationships a Jew can have with a fellow Jew is one of chevruta. Normally translated as study partner, chevruta means much more than that. Throughout rabbinic history, from Shammai and Hillel in 1st century BCE to Rabbi Yochanan and Reish Lakish in 3rd Century CE and to our classrooms today, when Jews sit together to learn, we re not trying to fill one another s spirits as if they re vessels, but rather, in the words of the Talmud, we re sharpening our minds as swords. Sometimes literally. Jewish learning and argumentation can be so intense that according to legend followers of Hillel would kill followers of Shammai, which interestingly was the impetus for the prohibition of weapons in the Beit Midrash. Along these lines, there is a famous story of Rabbi Yochanan s arguments with Reish Lakish, a former thief who Rabbi Yochanan turned into his chevruta study partner and who Rabbi Yochanan introduced to his sister to marry. Rabbi Yochanan s arguments with his brother in law were so legendary and so personal in their viciousness - such as 7

8 denigrating Reish Lakish for his criminal past - that Reish Lakish ended up dying out of shame. The ferocity of these debates would make our polarized politics look like people sitting around a campfire singing kumbaya. Yet after the death of Reish Lakish, also known as Bar Lakisha, Rabbi Yochanan was inconsolable. Are you like Bar Lakisha? Bar Lakisha - when I would believe a thing he would challenge me with 24 objections, and I would answer him with 24 answers, which led to a fuller understanding of the law. So Rabbi Yochanan went out and tore his clothes and he cried and said, Where are you Bar Lakisha? Where are you Bar Lakisha? And he shouted until his mind left him. So the rabbis asked for mercy for him, and he died (Bava Metzia, 87a). From this story you can get the sense of the Talmudic expression, Oh Chevruta, Oh mitutah - give me a partner, a friend, a challenger, or give me death. Our Talmud is teaching us so pointedly that at the heart of any profound piece of learning is a need to be in relationship with people who will challenge you, who will make you think, who will 8

9 push you beyond your comfort zone to come up with 24 objections to your answers in order to help you discover the right or just answer. I think these three examples of how we discover our spirit, our values, our understanding of what is right and what is wrong, reflect some of the challenges we face in America today regarding our discourse around values. All of them include some positives and some downsides. First, there are people who believe that all we need is to sit back, have our minds and hearts filled with the right spirit and then we ll all be OK. Sometimes that spirit is generous and life affirming, as I saw in Pastor Noel s church. It provides a sense of purpose that can move an entire group of people in a positive direction together. But sometimes that spirit can be toxic and dangerous, making us think that wrong is right and down is up, that all news we don t like is fake news, because we take what was preached at us as gospel. Second there are people who are independent minded like our matriarch Rachel whose spirit tells her to stand up and fight for 9

10 what s right, even though the ultimate result of that fight is that she must find the courage to separate herself from her history because sometimes we have to leave history behind in order to build a better future. Yet the downside to this approach is that when you leave your history behind, you also lose the support network to help you navigate the complicated and challenging road ahead. Independence can be lonely. Then finally we have the talmudic model of chevruta, in which we live in conversation with one another in order to sharpen our views of what is right, even if we have to listen until it hurts. Yet, there are times when listening not just hurts, it can also kill and maim, when we re not ready to sit down for conversation and thus cause unexpected harm to ourselves and to the people we re trying to listen to. So in thinking about all of the positive qualities and downsides to these approaches, how do we choose the right model for our congregation? 10

11 As I look out into our congregation, and not just to everyone sitting here today, but to all of the people who could be here today, I am amazed by the diversity of opinions, views, spirits, and approaches to life we all have. And from this vantage point, there really is only one path that speaks to me, and that s to lean into our diversity, to stick together, to think together, to converse together, like one large HJC chevruta. In the words of Keith Messing from last year s Simchat Torah luncheon, this is our second home. How can we push anyone out? How can we really turn anyone away, even if they don t have as good of a moral character as we would want? We have no choice but to be in conversation with one another. But let s remind ourselves that being in conversation does not mean we can t teach certain core values of our community that will help keep us safely together, even when the dialogue is difficult. Thus, from the example of our matriarch Rachel we need to heed the teaching that if we don t stand up for anything, then we stand for nothing. And we need to take from the example of Pastor Noel 11

12 that it is possible to teach a shared spirit that can lighten our burden and help us work more in sync with one another towards a common goal. So with that in mind, I have a proposition. It s not a didactic command, simply a suggestion, an offer that is cultivated from standing up here and witnessing the beauty of our diversity and the sense of wonder of how much more we can grow by sharpening our swords together. Just as Rachel stood up for what she knew what was right, we at HJC have a core set of values that have been cultivated over time: 1. Acceptance of Diversity 2. Tikkun Olam 3. Thoughtfully Evolving 4. Egalitarian 5. Kehillah Kedoshah 6. Accessible and Understandable Judaism 12

13 As we have seen through our Torah Discussions over these past couple of months since the High Holidays, the six values of our community are broad enough, robust enough, and flexible enough to help each of us to undergo a personal journey of spiritual growth while staying in relationship with another. These are the values that we fight for, that we yearn for as a whole community and to play off of Pastor Noel s example, that we should use as the foundation for a Core Values Class that every member of our community should take, based on a curriculum developed by members of the congregation on the meaning of these core values, so we all know what we stand for. How amazing would it be if every new member had a chance to learn about these values when they first walk in the door while conversing with members who have been here for generations and have seen those values in action? How special would it be for long term members to see that to be a member is more than just paying dues, it s about cultivating the wisdom of our community as refracted through the lens of our Jewish values? 13

14 These classes would not be about filling our hearts with the right kind of spirit - and don t worry, you can still play in the band (i.e. read Torah, take an aliyah, volunteer, etc.) if you don t take the class. But, to take the Talmudic model, these classes would be a crucible for weighing, dissecting, and arguing over the meaning and relevance of these values for us today. Does accessible and understandable Judaism mean that we should teach people whatever they re interested in learning, or do we have an obligation to make sure people are literate in the teachings of our most important sages? Is Tikkun Olam a Jewish call to participate in the broader civic movement for social justice or is it a call to fulfill mitzvot so that the Jewish way of life perseveres for another generation? I can just see our swords being sharpened as 24 arguments are met by 24 responses, and it ll be a beautiful thing, because in doing so we will cultivate the Unique Torah that forms the core of our shul s unique brand of Judaism. These shared values can provide the backbone for a shared spirit that we own independently and collectively, helping us move our community 14

15 forward one conversation, one class at a time. That is what it means to fill our hearts with the right spirit. 15