1 Yom Kippur Day Sermon 2018 A conversation I had this summer with a colleague of mine, (a Rabbi from Los Angeles) keeps whirling around in my head. She had just returned from teaching a group of significant donors to the Jewish community and had begun her teaching by sharing her belief that we were at a time of moral crisis and was met with blank stares. To better understand this disconnect, she asked them, Do you know anyone who doesn t know where they will sleep tomorrow night? Do you know of anyone who has not been able to receive chemotherapy or has an opioid addiction and can't get treatment, or access mental health therapy because they have no health insurance or resources to pay for it? They had not. She continued. Do you know anyone pulled over by border patrol or the police because of the color of their skin? Do you know anyone denied a job or promotion because of their gender identity or sexual choices? Did you know anyone who didn t have or didn t have know anyone from whom they could borrow $500 to post bail and be released as they awaited their hearing? Do you know anyone who has no path to obtain papers to be able to work legally and not live every day in fear of being separated from their family? They looked at her as if she were from another planet, because in their small and privileged circle, these things did not happen to them, or to anyone they knew and thereby didn t exist. They were happy with their tax cuts, the booming economy, their stock dividends, their vacations, their access to excellent medical treatment and private education. Moral crisis? What was the rabbi talking about? And it s not only amongst a small subset of significant donors. I spent 10 days this past summer at Camp Ramah in Southern California. In conversations with many Jewish educators from Los Angeles I heard the same refrain, many of their Rabbis
2 were unwilling to speak out against injustice or condemn moral apathy because they feared it would endanger their job and anger congregants, even when they felt the voice of Jewish ethics called them to speak out. Affluence and social integration had led many of their congregants to feel immune from the instability, lack of socio-economic safety net, lack of economic mobility and policies detrimental to minorities and immigrants. Judaism is clear. There is right and there is wrong. And we must name the difference. We are in control of our actions and can and must choose to act ethically and morally and have the capacity to improve. There is an interconnection between all humans and even if we are temporarily not affected, we are called to rally against evil and to wave the flag of justice, because we know what oppression is. Torah constantly reminds us that we were slaves in Egypt and must not forget the oppression of others. The rabbis made sure to emphasize this, worried that we might choose otherwise. They selected a passage from the prophet Isaiah to be read this morning as our haftorah to make sure the message was clear and serve as a rallying call. As Isaiah declares: ק ר א ב ג רוֹן אַל תּ ח שׂ ך כּ שּׁוֹפ ר ה ר ם קוֹל ך ו ה גּ ד ל ע מּ י פּ שׁ ע ם וּל ב ית י ע ק ב ח טּ את ם Cry with full throat, without restraint; Raise your voice like a ram s horn! Declare to My people their transgression, To the House of Jacob their sin. (Isaiah 58:1). And continues (Isaiah 58:6-7): ה ל וֹא ז ה צ וֹם א ב ח ר הוּ פּ תּ ח ח ר צ בּ וֹת ר שׁ ע ה תּ ר א ג דּ וֹת מוֹט ה ו שׁ לּ ח ר צוּצ ים ח פ שׁ ים ו כ ל מוֹט ה תּ נ תּ קוּ No, this is the fast I desire: To unlock fetters of wickedness, And untie the cords of the yoke To let the oppressed go free; To break off every yoke. ה ל וֹא פ ר ס ל ר ע ב ל ח מ ך ו ע נ יּ ים מ רוּד ים תּ ב יא ב י ת כּ י ת ר א ה ע ר ם ו כ סּ ית וֹ וּמ בּ שׂ ר ך ל א ת ת ע לּ ם
3 It is to share your bread with the hungry, And to take the wretched poor into your home; When you see the naked, to clothe him, And not to ignore your own kin. We have our task. The rabbis knew it was not that simple. And that part of human nature is to try and avoid this responsibility. But they wanted us to know that there was no shirking, and saying this doesn t affect me. They knew we needed to be reminded of this lesson and instructed us to read the book of Jonah this afternoon. Our reluctant prophet Jonah tries to avoid the task asked of him by God to go to Nineveh and proclaim judgement upon their wickedness. Believing it doesn t affect him, after all he is not from Nineveh, and wanting nothing to do with it, he flees. He jumps on a boat and goes to sleep. Jonah continues to sleep amidst the raging storm, the cries of the sailors calling out to God all around him and the boat at risk of destruction. The captain of the boat goes to Jonah and reprimands him: מ ה לּ ך נ ר דּ ם ק וּם What is with you that you are sleeping? Get up. That is our today and our question. How it is possible that we are sleeping? Kum. We must awaken. And stand up. On April 4 1967, exactly one year before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King delivered a famous anti-vietnam war and pro-social justice speech "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence", known as his Riverside Church speech at an event he shared with Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and others. Some considered it King's most important speech. Here are some excerpts from this speech:
4 We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late....we may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect... We must move past indecision to action... If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard?... We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls "enemy," for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers. Dr King believed that 1967 was an hour of moral urgency that called for the engagement of all Americans in ending the Vietnam war, fighting poverty and racism and seeing all fellow humans as children of God. Today, fifty years later, we re also at a time of moral urgency, We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. We have have to resist falling asleep, shutting
5 out, feeling overwhelmed, and naively hoping we are immune to the problems around us. Our challenge is living with and acting with moral urgency, in a world where change is often slow, the path strewn with setbacks and solutions complex. The task before us can seem overwhelming. The psychologist Paul Slavic studies when people respond and don t respond to calls for help and the challenge of responding to people in crisis when the numbers are large. When the pain of one individual comes to their attention, he has observed people respond generously, care deeply and exert great effort to help. But these same people tend to be much less responsive and act indifferent to the plight of the one who is part of a much greater problem. We fall prone to psychic numbing. When the number of victims in a tragedy increases, our empathy and our willingness to help, decreases. This happens even when the number of victims increases from one to two. Human nature is to be discouraged and ignore when we can t solve the whole problem. Paul Slavic has run a number of experiments to understand when human beings are moved to help and when they are not. In one experiment, he showed a picture of a starving and impoverished 7 year old child named Rokia from Mali to two different groups. Both groups were shown the same photograph and told her life would be changed for the better as a result of their financial gift which would be used to feed her, provide her with education, and basic medical care. One group, was given only this information. They responded generously. The second group was given the same picture and information and were also given statistics of starving children in Ethiopia and southern Africa. The donations from the second group dropped significantly. In another experiment, donations dropped significantly when people were shown the photo of two starving children and asked to give to both of them rather than just one. Yes, with even an increase from one to two people in need, we re less likely to give.
6 Today, it is easy to feel psychic numbness with a multitude of issues requiring complex solutions. With many setbacks and challenges along the way, the path is long and sometimes feels futile. Martin Luther King reminded us And I must confess, my friends, that the road ahead will not always be smooth. There will still be rocky places of frustration and meandering points of bewilderment. There will be inevitable setbacks here and there. And there will be those moments when the buoyancy of hope will be transformed into the fatigue of despair. Our dreams will sometimes be shattered and our ethereal hopes blasted.. But difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with the audacious faith in the future. Let us realize that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. (Martin Luther King, Where Do We Go From Here, Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Atlanta, August 16, 1967.) Knowing the road is long and demanding, I find myself turning to a couple of core Jewish principles and texts to anchor me, providing needed strength and direction, shaping my approach, engagement and priorities for our broken, messy and overwhelming world. This morning, I want to share two of my guiding texts with you. Both of these texts are core principles of Judaism and likely familiar. I bring this morning new understandings introduced to me this past summer. This afternoon, our mincha Torah reading comes from a section in the book of Leviticus, called the holiness code, which is located around the middle of the Torah and often considered the core of Torah. Its final few words are
7 Love your fellow as yourself: I am Adonai. ו אָ ה ב תּ ל ר ע ך כּ מ וֹך א נ י י הו ה A variation of this verse has become famous through a well known story from the Talmud about Hillel who was asked by someone who wanted to convert if he could explain all of Judaism on one leg to which he replied What is hateful to you, don t do to others. The rest is commentary. This line is explained by Rabbi Akiva as the great principle of Torah. ( clal gadol batorah ). There is a midrash which challenges this idea as the great principle in Torah and suggests, in the name of Ben Azzai, an alternative fundamental principle of Torah: ז ה ס פ ר תּוֹל ד ת אָד ם בּ י וֹם בּ ר א א ל ה ים אָד ם בּ ד מ וּת א ל ה ים ע שׂ ה א ת וֹ This is the record of Adam s line. When God created humanity, God made him in the likeness of God. How does Ben Azzai s suggestion work as a greater or equal fundamental principle? Let me share with you two explanations. First, the Korban Aharon (Aharon Ibn Hayyim 1545-1632 who lived in Morocco, Egypt, Venice and Jerusalem) who bases his comments on the role of the word usually translated as fellow, friend or neighbor as a limited factor with the,ר ע ך mitzvah ו אָ ה ב תּ ל ר ע ך כּ מ וֹך being limited to whoever qualifies as reeh. This is in contrast to Ben Azzai s suggestion which applies to all. This is the record of Adam s line is an even greater principle, because it says that everyone is descended from the same father and all are siblings; on account of this, people cannot lord it over one another or hate one another. This is a great principle because the verse love your neighbor as yourself requires love from friendship
8 alone. But this is the record of Adam s life requires love out of brotherhood, which is a greater obligation. Moreover, with this verse, God shows us that we all share one image and one seal, which is the divine form. Contemporary biblical scholar Prof. Jacob Milgrom offers a different suggestion about the importance of Ben Azzai s verse: If you do not love yourself, asks Ben Azzai, how can you be expected to love someone else?..he proposes to first make sure every person is aware of the fact that he is of ultimate worth because he bears the likeness of God, that regardless of his condition, he has the divinely endowed potential to achieve joy and fulfillment in life, and only then, having learned to love himself, is he capable of loving others. This suggestion of Ben Azzai makes sure to begin with grounding each and every individual, no matter what we think of ourselves, be it those of us who have poor self-esteem or perhaps too much self-esteem, as all having extraordinary merit and potential, and all equal, having been created in the image of God. There are no winners and losers, criminals or heroes. No individual is more important in God s eyes, and someone s closeness or connection to us doesn t matter, we are all equally in the likeness of God. My second guiding text is an explanation by Rabbi Aharon Shmuel Tamares on the first of the ten commandments. Tamares lived in Poland from 1869-1931 and believed the role of the Torah and the mitzvot were to benefit and improve humanity. He believed that if he was loved by God, then everyone was loved by God and deserving of love. He believed that in general, whether through philosophy of kabbalah or other means, there is little we can understand and clarify about the essence of God for it is beyond the capability of any creature to conceive of God other than to learn the positive attributes of God of justice and
9 integrity and hating violent and coarse power. Rather all we can learn about God is from God s self-revelation, particularly from the first commandment. אָ נ כ י י הו ה א ל ה יך א שׁ ר הוֹצ את יך מ א ר ץ מ צ ר י ם מ בּ ית ע ב ד ים I the LORD am your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of slavery (Exodus 20:1). Examining the verse, why would God include mention alongside God s self-revelation about God s role in bringing the Israelites out of Egypt and the land of bondage. And why mention take us out of both the land of Egypt and the house of slavery? For Tamares, we learn from this text that God hates coercive and coarse power and hates governing over people in a way that is negative to them. Applying this characteristic of God to the people of Israel, Tamares believed that being a treasured nation to God and the role of the Israelites is to carry the flag of righteousness and hate evil. And this is our call and what it means to observe the first commandment. Yom Kippur reminds us that the future is unpredictable but our behavior matters. Tonight we will gather for the neilah service with its image of the gates closing and the message that we can be too late. As our story of Jonah reminds us, it is time to wake up and decry the wickedness before it is too late. It is time to listen to the still small voice, "the god we must obey" and to act, recalling both v ahavta lrecha kamocha and that each and every human being is equally created in God s image. Just as God in the first commandment, identifies Godself with taking us out of bondage, we too are charged for this to be our identity, the people who take others out of bondage. We re facing a marathon. May we be strong as we go forward. I conclude today with a runner s prayer written by my childhood rabbi, Rabbi Harvey Fields, as the invocation to the LA marathon, March 4, 1990.
10 Poised at the starting line, O God; The marathon looks long. So be with us Every step of the way. Load us with energy for the road ahead. Carry us swiftly into the heart of the race. Stretch our stride Strengthen every tendon Let the adrenalin flow, And our muscles speed us Toward the finish-line. Hold our heads high with pride. Remind us along the way That the race is not to the swift But to the wise and disciplined That the victory belongs not to the strong, But to the careful and determined. That the best songs are not yet written And the best marathon is yet to be run. Yet should we falter or stumble along the way, Be pinched with pain, aching and breathless, Pick us up O God, Push us on, Or gentle tell us You ve run your best, Be proud you re here. And when we ve reached the finished line, No matter first or last, Applaud us.
Welcome us home, O God. Use us for other races, For causes awaiting our strength, For purposes of healing and helping. For gentle mercies and for peace. 11