Rabbi's Sermons

"Abie Nathan and the Dream of Israel"

Rabbi Jeffrey W. Goldwasser

Rosh Hashanah 5769

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

This past August, as the summer was winding down, an obituary appeared in newspapers around the world announcing the death, on the 27th, of a man you probably have never heard of, but who played an important role in the history of the State of Israel. If you have heard of Abie Nathan, it is probably because of a day in 1966 when he riveted the attention of an entire nation.

Abie Nathan grew up in a traditionally observant Jewish family in Persia and, later, in India. As a young man he had a passion for airplanes. He joined the air force in India and became a pilot.

When the State of Israel was born in 1948, Abie Nathan volunteered to fight for the new Jewish State in its War of Independence against seven Arab armies. Nathan flew several missions to bomb Arab villages during the war. On one occasion, he visited the ruins of one of these towns on foot after his bombing run. There he saw burnt corpses of people killed by the bombs he had dropped. Nathan later recounted that the sight caused him to fall into a deep depression and anguish over what war does to human beings.

After the war, Nathan stayed in Israel and worked for El Al airlines for nine years. Later, he managed one of the first "American style" restaurants in Tel Aviv, called "The California," which became a central meeting place and hang-out for Israeli intellectuals. Handsome and charismatic, Abie Nathan found himself at the center of a circle of urban Israelis who wanted to bring change to their country.

Israel at the time was suffering a palpable malaise. Through the 1950s and early sixties, Israel had weathered a series of military skirmishes with its neighbors. Many Israelis felt a deep weariness over their isolation in a tiny country surrounded by enemies. Many felt that the Zionist dream of the Jewish state had fallen short of its ideals. They wanted peace.

The writers and poets who frequented the California talked about how Israel needed a miracle to restore its spirit. So, they decided that they would manufacture one. Nathan's friends convinced him to lead a tiny party, called Nes, or "Miracle," in Israel's Parliamentary elections. The platform of the party was that, once elected, Nathan would fly to Cairo in his private plane, meet with Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, and bring peace to both countries. It was not clear that Nathan knew what he would say to Nasser to bring about peace, but that was a mere detail.

When the election results came in, they were far from miraculous for Nathan and his party. He got just over 2,000 votes, short of the threshold to make him a member of the Knesset. Yet, over the next few months, he kept talking about making the quixotic trip to Egypt after all. Despite his failure at the polls - and, perhaps, because of it - Nathan's talk of a heroic flight to Egypt began to attract more attention than it had before the election. Nathan circulated peace petitions and gathered the signatures of 100,000 Israelis. He promised that he would hand-deliver them to Nasser.

On the morning of February 28, 1966, Abie Nathan drove to an airfield in Hertziliyah with a reporter, ostensibly to take photos of him with his plane. However, once there, Nathan jumped into the cockpit, started the engine, and took off on his voyage of peace.

Nathan submitted no flight plan - his adventure into enemy airspace was completely illegal and potentially lethal - yet, it seemed that everyone in Israel knew exactly where he was going. When the story of Nathan's flight appeared in the papers the next morning, the entire country was electrified. He had done it. Every Israeli waited to hear news about Nathan's flight.

By a strange twist of fate, though, the first news they heard was awful. An Associated Press story appeared, saying that Nathan's plane had crashed over the Mediterranean, not far from the Israeli coast. Abie Nathan, said the AP, was dead.

That news sent the entire country into mourning. Even people who had written off Nathan as a far-out dreamer, grieved his loss and the loss of his dream. Two major Israeli newspapers came out with special editions to commemorate the death of Abie Nathan. Radio stations interrupted regular broadcasts. At the California, crowds of shocked and confused mourners assembled. Abie Nathan's death became a metaphor for Israel's wounded national psyche.

It was at that moment that someone rushed into the crowd in front of the California shouting: "He's alive!" The AP had gotten the story wrong. The Israeli Air Force said that Nathan's plane had disappeared, but that was only because their interceptors had lost track of him while he was flying only a few feet above the Mediterranean's waves. Abie Nathan's tiny biplane did make it. He never got to Cairo (his plane didn't even carry enough fuel to get that far), but he did land in Egypt, on the other side of the Sinai Peninsula, at the coastal city of Port Sa'id.

Nathan's arrival must have been quite a surprise to the workers at the Port Sa'id airport. Of course, they had heard nothing about the flight that had stolen the heart of Israel. But, here he was. Abie Nathan landed on a quiet airstrip, stepped out of his plane, and asked the first person he saw to take him to see President Nasser.

The Egyptians treated Nathan well. They took him to the local governor's office, fed him, gave him a pair of pajamas for the night, played cards with him (Nathan, of course, won) and, the next morning, they told him to go home.

Abie Nathan arrived back in Hertziliyah the next day in his plane. He was greeted as a national hero. The crowds at the airport were so immense they had to be cleared away multiple times to make enough room for him to land. There were celebrations in the streets as the tiny nation of Israel - as it has done so many times in its history - swung from one emotional extreme to another. This time it was from the deepest mourning to ecstatic celebration.

Abie Nathan spent the next forty years of his life, essentially, living that same story over and over again. There was another attempt to fly over the Mediterranean to meet with Nasser. Later, he bought a small ship and used it as the home-base of a pirate radio station. For 21 years he used that station to broadcast news and inspirational messages of peace to Israelis, Egyptians and Arabs.

Over Nathan's life, he was criticized for his "gimmicks" and "stunts," but criticism never stuck because, behind the showmanship, Abie Nathan was devoted to the cause of peace, not self-promotion. Some called him naïve for his trip to Egypt in 1977, but before the year was out the Israeli government was in talks with Egyptian Pres. Anwar Sadat that led to a peace treaty. Nathan spent nine months in prison in 1991 for making contact with the Palestinian Liberation Organization, but within four years, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was shaking hands with PLO chairman Yasser Arafat. For more than 25 years, Abie Nathan was a gadfly to the Israeli people, constantly reminding them of the dream of making peace.

Zichrono livrachah. May his memory be a blessing.

There is something about the story of Abie Nathan that is so quintessentially Israeli: The chutzpah of Nathan's flight ... the idealism of the Israeli people ... the macho culture in which so much depends upon the charisma of one man ... the readiness of a nation to be held in the grip of a really good story ... the mood swings from despair to ecstasy and back again. It is all so Israeli.

I bring the story of Abie Nathan to you today, because he represents a different model of Israeli heroism - not a great military leader or a hard-nosed prime minister, rather, a hero of keeping true to the values upon which the Jewish state was founded. These are the values expressed by Israel's Declaration of Independence, which, in 1948, said that Israel would be a state that would "ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex," a state that would "guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture."

Abie Nathan wanted the state of Israel to be what the Prophet Isaiah had said it should be 2,500 years earlier, "A light unto the nations," a beacon of peace. And he believed that it is not enough to dream if you do not also work to make your dreams come true. What a fitting hero for a country founded upon the words of Theodor Herzl:

"Im tirtzu, ein zo agadah," "If you will it, it is no dream."

Abie Nathan was the kind of hero we need to rediscover - and by "we," I mean, in particular, American Jews. A study last year found that young American Jews are less attached to Israel than Jews of their parent's generation, and those parents are less attached to Israel than were their parents. The study showed that 80% of American Jews over the age of 65 agree that "caring about Israel is an important part of being Jewish," but the number declines to 72% for Jews age 50-64 years old, to 64% for those aged 35-49, and only 60% for Jews under 35. The authors of the study warned that, as younger generations displace the older, the trend away from identifying with Israel will grow and become irreversible.

What has turned the affection and interest of consecutive generations of American Jews further away from Israel? The answer should be obvious. If the Israelis of 1966 were wearied by a series of skirmishes with the Arab states over 18 years, how much more are we, American Jews, exhausted, demoralized and sickened by more than 40 years of war and violence since? American Jews under the age of 50, like myself, have no personal memories of Israel's improbable birth and its miraculous survival. The only images many of us have of Israel are scenes of violence on our televisions.

Sometimes, dreams come crashing down. In May of 1967, just 15 months after Abie Nathan flew to Egypt to present peace petitions to President Nasser, the Egyptian president expelled United Nations peace keeping forces from the Sinai Peninsula and amassed 1,000 tanks and 100,000 soldiers on the Israeli border. He called for the Arab states to unite in military action against Israel. Three weeks later, Israel defended itself with a preemptive attack against the armies gathered on its borders, and the Six Day War began.

That was the war in which Israel tripled its size by gaining control of the West Bank, the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, and - most importantly to the Jewish imagination - the ancient walled city of Jerusalem. But it also was the war that began what has now been 40 years of Israel's greatest dilemma - what to do with the territories it conquered in that war and the human beings who live there?

Israel had not intended to take the West Bank in the Six Day War. The Jordanians gave it up without a fight, and, in the war's aftermath, they were uninterested in reclaiming it, as they preferred to make it a home base for attacks against Israel by Palestinian nationalists. Together with the Gaza Strip, the territories are now the home to 3.8 million Palestinians. Less than two years after Abie Nathan's flight for peace, Israel entered the era of occupation - a nightmare that still stands in the way of peace.

Since then a constant state of violence, terror and war has numbed us. Rather than pulling out their hair over every new incident, American Jews have, in increasing numbers, just lost interest. You can't blame people for wanting to say, "Israel has nothing to do with me. If that's what Israel is all about, I'll have nothing to do with it."

But, you know, that is not what Israel is all about. Israel was not founded in order to make war with its neighbors, or to serve as a prison for 3.8 million refugees. Israel is still about what it has always been about: a place for the Jewish people to live in their own land ruled by their own values. Should we be surprised that, surrounded by enemies, it is harder to do than we first imagined?

Like the Jewish people, Israel is not perfect, far from it. Yet, despite its problems and violent history, Israel is also remarkable for its energy and achievements. It is the only democracy in a part of the world where dictators, theocracies, and warlords are more the rule than the exception.

Israel is a nation that has been forced to fight nearly impossible odds just to survive, yet it has not allowed militarism to take over its culture. In only sixty years, Israel has given the world some of its greatest poets, novelists, scientists and inventors.

What is more, Israel has been able to advance peace in ways that would have been unimaginable at one time - peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, the establishment of Palestinian self-rule in the territories, the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. There is reason to be hopeful that peace can come, if leaders on both sides will it.

We need to get to know that Israel, too. We need to get over the numbing stupefaction that war has inured in us. We need to rediscover reasons to care about Israel.

Here are my four reasons:

* First. We need to care about Israel because we care about Jews. Israel is now, or soon will be, home to more Jews than any other country in the world. While the number of American Jews has grown slowly, and now has begun to decline, the Jewish population of Israel has grown tremendously. Israel and the U.S. are now tied, each with about 40% of the world's Jewish population - with Israel heading up and the U.S. heading down.

Even if we, American Jews, do not easily think of Israel as a safe haven to protect us personally should anti-Semitism arise on these shores, we must recognize that Israel has been such a refuge for millions of other Jews since its founding. In addition, more than 80,000 American Jews, including relatives of many people here today, have made aliyah to Israel.

Willy Sutton is reputed to have said that he robbed banks "Because that's where the money is." The Jewish corollary to Sutton's Law is that we must care about Israel because that's where the Jews are. The numbers say that Israel is the future of the Jewish people.

* Second. We need to care about Israel because we care about Judaism. Israel is the greatest experiment in Judaism of the last two thousand years. It is the only place in the world where Judaism is the cultural, ethical and spiritual core of a nation. If we care about what Judaism teaches us about how society should run, then we have to care about the one place where it is tested day after day. If it matters for Jews to have at least one place where they don't have to explain why they are taking Rosh Hashanah off from work or school, than Israel matters.

* Third. We need to care about Israel because Israel needs us. Israel's license to exist is based on the premise that it is the world's one and only Jewish state. If the Jewish people are indifferent to Israel, then why should there be an Israel? This relationship between Israel and the Jewish people also gives Jews living outside of Israel the right and responsibility to speak up and use our influence to make sure that Israel lives up to its founding ideals. We need to care about Israel to help it become what a Jewish state should be.

* And here is the predictable final reason for caring about Israel. We need to care about Israel because it is our home. It is where our people originated. For 2,000 years of exile, Jews prayed to God daily to return there:

"Vahavi'einu l'shalom mei'arba kanfot ha'aretz, v'tolicheinu komemiyut le'artzeinu."

"From the four corners of the earth, bring us to peace and lead us upright to our land."

Living in a age when 2,000 years of yearning finally have been fulfilled, how can we forget the bond between a people and its home?

I say that we American Jews need to rediscover heroes like Abie Nathan because we need to reclaim the high-minded ideals that he risked his life for, and the ideals upon which the State of Israel was founded. We need to wake up to what is going on today in Israel - good and bad - and recognize that, as Jews, we are irrevocably linked to it. That requires spending some time getting to know Israel.

During this year, 5769, Israel will be the central focus of learning at Congregation Beth Israel on every level of our education programs. We'll dance to Israeli music with our children at Hand in Hand family events. With felafel and humous, we'll help our children and their parents develop a sense of what Israel means to them, and how it is a part of their Jewish identity.

Occasionally, during our Shabbat morning study, we will look at ancient and modern texts that ask penetrating questions about the relationship between God, the Jewish people and the land of Israel.

I will teach an evening adult education course this year on the modern State of Israel that will include opportunities to discuss recent and current events. There is much to discuss. With the resignation of Prime Minister Olmert, and the strong possibility of early elections this fall, with ongoing peace negotiations with the Palestinians again in active mode, there are many changes happening. I want there to be a safe forum in this community for those conversations to happen with all perspectives included.

So, come. Learn with us to reconnect to Israel. However, I also will ask you to do more. I want to ask you to consider making this the year that you visit Israel with your family - your spouse and your children, certainly, but also with your congregational family. What better way could there be to discover Israel than to go there with your own Jewish community and your rabbi?

Almost every American Jew I know who has gone to Israel describes the experience as a revelation and a homecoming. Israel is a land of astonishing natural beauty - with lush valleys in the north and southern deserts in a painter's pallet of red, gold, copper and bronze. It is a country that places a living record of human history before you, with stunning archaeological treasures adjacent to modern cities.

First-time visitors often say "I feel like I've come home to a place I've never been," as they recognize that this land belongs to them and they belong to it. Last night, we heard members of our congregation talk about their Israel experiences. Each talked in a different way about a land that opened his or her heart. Each told us that we owe it to ourselves to go. From standing before the Western Wall to climbing Masada, from rafting in the Galil to visiting the excavation of a two-thousand-year-old synagogue, Israel is an experience that will awaken your Jewish soul in ways that you cannot foresee.

Plans are just beginning to come together for a trip in the spring or early summer of 2009. I know that financial considerations are important for families making such a choice, but you should know that there are many sources of scholarships and grants to make the decision easier. Please fill out one of the cards on your seat to let me know that you are interested in exploring the possibility.

Today, I ask you to remember a man who was greatly pained by his country's faults, but who still strove to keep its dreams alive. A man who wanted to remind his fellow Jews of the words of Theodor Herzl, Israel's spiritual founder: "Im tirtzu, ein zo agadah", "If you will it, it is no dream."

The slogan of modern Zionism coined in the early 20th century is also a slogan for American Jews in the early 21st century. Israel has been the land of our dreams, but now it needs to be more. It is a real place. It is a place that demands our attention. We owe it to ourselves to engage with Israel, not just as a symbol - a faraway place for speeches and campaign promises - but as our own.

I ask you today to hear the story of Abie Nathan as part of your own Jewish story. He moved to Israel and caught the excitement of its dream. Even when that dream was tarnished by disappointment and misery, he did not back away from it. He recognized his country's faults, and then - in an admittedly grandiose and theatrical way - he risked his life to help bring it a little closer to the dream.

That is what we Jews have always done. We dream dreams, but not just to let them exist like vapor in our imagination, and not just to have something to gripe about. We dream dreams, as Abie Nathan did, in order to will them into reality.

This Rosh Hashanah - as we sing, pray and celebrate together in a land far from Israel, may we remember how to dream together. May our year of 5769 be a year in which we awaken our attachment to Israel, and connect to its dream. In so doing, may we, too, become a "light unto the nations" to bring the dream to the entire world.

G'mar chatimah tovah.

May you be sealed for a good year.

Congregation Beth Israel

http://www.cbiweb.org

“Create a Jewish World”

Rabbi Jeffrey W. Goldwasser

Yom Kippur 5768

Friday, September 21, 2007

Children know how to create worlds. How do we forget?

Driving to school, we travel down the road where maple trees are on either side for a stretch of some 300 feet. I listen, like an eavesdropper, to my girls as they recreate themselves as fairies and turn the world into a fairy kingdom.

“Oo,” says the older one. “We’re in the fairy palace.”

I look and see the leafy branches above us, the tunnel created by road, tree trunks, branches and leaves. What do you know? She’s right. We’re in a palace as fine as Versailles.

The girls know that what they are doing is play. And despite the fact that I know it, too, I’m temporarily transported into a child’s world of magic. There are fairies here, twisting vines into candelabras and spinning spider webs into stained glass.

When the car emerges at the road’s end, I say, “We’ve left the palace.” And the younger one says, “Why? Why do we have to leave?” And I’m not sure I know. When did I leave behind the world in which I could create palaces from maple trees?

Maybe I never did. Maybe there’s just been a change in the style of architecture. Grown-ups create worlds, too. Don’t they?

We create worlds without even knowing it. The play we all engaged in as children — commanding armies of toy soldiers, exploring outer space from a tree-house, serving the queen with plastic tea sets — is nothing compared to the pretend play we do as grown-ups.

We invent elaborate schemes of how our families and jobs are supposed to work, how other people perceive us, and what our responsibilities are to others. We create theories of how our communities, governments and economies should work and what they owe us. We develop opinions on hundreds of topics that answer questions about how people should get along with each other.

The worlds that grown-ups create are more complex than children’s worlds, and violating the rules of grown-up worlds has greater consequences. But the difference between the worlds created by children and grown-ups that strikes me the most is that -- unlike children -- we grown-ups are utterly convinced that the worlds we create are “real.”

Are we right about that? Maybe, children know something that we don’t know about what “real” really is. Is there anything about the World Wide Web, the Superbowl, or the Securities and Exchange Commission that makes them real outside of the minds of the people who believe in them? Is there anything about them that is more real than a child’s fairy palace?

If you doubt the answer — if you believe that your world is not merely a creation of your own attitudes, prejudices, habits and points of view — listen to this simple story:

A man goes to see his rabbi because he is leaving the town he has lived in for many years and he is apprehensive about the place to which he is moving. Will he like the people there? Will they be kind to him? Will he find a supportive community?

The rabbi asks the man, “Tell me, how have you liked the people here where you’ve been living?”

“Oh, very much, Rabbi,” says the man. “The people are generous. They care for one another and there is a wonderful community.”

“Good,” says the rabbi. “Then I can tell you that you will find the people in your new town to be exactly the same.”

“Oh, thank you!” says the man. “Thank you, Rabbi.”

A second man goes to see the rabbi. He, too, is leaving the town where he has lived for many years. He, too, is apprehensive about the place to which he is going.

“Rabbi,” he says, “I worry. What will the people be like? How will they treat me? What kind of community is there?”

The rabbi asks the man, “Tell me, how have you liked the people here where you have been living?”

“Oh, it’s terrible, Rabbi,” says the man. “The people here are scoundrels. They care only for themselves and speak nothing but ill of each other.”

“Hmm,” says the rabbi. “I am afraid that you will find that the people in your new town will be exactly the same.”

We live largely in a reality of our own making. When we look at the world, we think we are looking at something apart from, separate from, ourselves. In truth, though, the world we think we live in is to a great extent a mirror reflection of our own choices — choices that most of us aren’t even aware that we have made.

Of course, there are circumstances in life that are not of our choosing, and they can effect us deeply. No one chooses to be victimized by abuse or loss. But, to a surprising extent, we choose our own satisfaction or discontent in life. The choice to approach life one way will allow us to perceive the good around us. Another choice will cause us to see ill. As Shakespeare says, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” (Hamlet II, ii).

This is an insight that, I believe, is present in the Jewish approach to life. Here is a simple example.

At the beginning of morning services, we enter the synagogue and we sing: “Mah tovu ohalecha Ya’akov, mishkenotecha, Yisrael.” “How good are your tents, Jacob, your dwellings, Israel.” It is a poem made up of verses from the Bible. Each verse sings of the experience of being in a place and knowing that it is holy. Do we sing these verses to remind us that we are in a holy place? I think not. I think that we we sing these words in order to create a holy place.

A synagogue, after all, is just a building. It can be made of steel and cement, glass and wood, just like other buildings. What makes it holy? Nothing more than the fact that those who enter it intend it to be holy. It’s a choice. Holiness is something we create through the magic of speaking it into existence. With our imagination, and our ability to notice what is around us, we turn a stone into an altar, we turn wood into a sanctuary, and we turn the words of our lips into an offering fit for heaven.

Like children who discover themselves in a fairy palace, we inhabit the realm of our own imagination and, in that way, we shape the reality of the world around us. It is no accident, I think, that Judaism is the first religion to imagine a God who creates the world just by the magic of speaking it into existence. All God had to do was to say, “Let there be light,” and there was light (Genesis 1:3).

So, if we create the reality of our world through our thoughts and intentions, we ought to be careful about the reality that we choose to create. Those choices will determine, to a greater extent even than our material surroundings, whether we will be happy or unhappy, connected or isolated. We each decide for ourselves whether our world will be a place of kindness, holiness and community, or a place of gossip, profanity and abuse.

Judaism can be understood as a system for guiding people toward making wise choices in building their world with their thoughts. Judaism does this by giving us models for thinking about the world that lead to lives of satisfaction and happiness.

Here is an obvious example. The tenth of the Ten Commandments is, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, your neighbor’s spouse, … or anything that is your neighbor’s” (Exodus 20:14). This is nothing like a law that would be passed by Congress or the state Legislature. It is a warning that you should not allow your mind to be overwhelmed by constant thoughts about having things that you cannot have. It’s not thought control; it’s common sense for mental health. Judaism, as a system, guides us toward healthy ways of thinking that will make the world sweeter to us and our lives more satisfying.

There are many ways in which Judaism can guide us to use the power of our minds' intentions to create worlds for ourselves that can make us happier. Let me tell you about some specific examples that I recommend to you in your own life.

Every seven days we create a holy world called Shabbat with nothing more than the intention that it should exist. In this world there is nothing that has to get done. Everything you do on Shabbat is merely for the pleasure of doing it. Tradition says that Shabbat is “a foretaste of the world to come” — a deliberate device for lifting yourself out of your habitual world and placing yourself into an altered state of holiness. Work does not exist there. It’s like the best vacation you ever had, only without all the rushing at the airport and wondering how much to tip the bellboy.

Many liberal Jews think of Shabbat as a hassle. It’s the day, they think, that tradition says you are not supposed to drive, check your email, or go to the golf course. “Who needs that?” you might think, “How is that going to make my life better?”

Unfortunately, Jewish tradition can get so weighed down by the particular rules that set the boundaries of proper behavior, that it seems to neglect the territory that those boundaries were created to protect. Shabbat is not about taking away people’s pleasure. To the contrary, we create Shabbat by putting aside the distractions of everyday life and by setting an intention for ourselves to experience spiritual peace and rejuvenation. Shabbat is about creating a world of holiness within our week so that we have time to reflect and take pleasure in life. Without the intention to create that world, Shabbat would not be Shabbat; it would just be Saturday.

Celebrate Shabbat by making it an oasis in time. Don’t worry about the traditional restrictions. The important thing about Shabbat is the world you create for yourself when you prepare a time when there is nothing that needs to be done — no appointments to keep, no laundry to wash, no bills to pay, no chores to do — nothing that you would define for yourself as work.

Sure, preparing for Shabbat takes some work. You can’t have a Shabbat experience unless you do the work ahead of time to make Shabbat possible. But, when it does come, let Shabbat be a time to spend with family, to take pleasure in the things you never have time to do the rest of your week. Let Shabbat be a world unto itself that you have created to make life more meaningful and fulfilling.

Another tool Judaism offers us, for shaping our intentions and creating a better world for ourselves, is prayer. Prayer in Jewish tradition is the experience of regularly taking a small portion of the day to speak the things that matter most.

Praying — or davvenen, as it is called in Yiddish — is a world unto itself in which we plug ourselves into the universe for a moment to speak our truth to the cosmos. On any given day, that truth may be worry, or fear, or celebration or anger. All of these, and more, are acceptable. It also is a moment to allow ourselves to listen to the voice of the universe speaking back to us. We may hear that voice as a reminder to slow down, to pay attention to details, to open our hearts with compassion. Or it can just be the quiet affirmation of the truth that we have spoken.

For those who make davvenen a regular part of their life, it can be like a chat with your best friend from childhood — the one who could tell you anything and whom you could tell everything. It is the safest place in the world for sharing all your deep fears and high hopes. It is a place for connecting your soul, deeply and completely, with its Source.

Many modern people are embarrassed by the thought of prayer, or they feel like they don’t know how to do it properly. However, prayer can be a very private experience, something that you do silently just sitting in your chair. Jewish tradition does prescribe a fixed form for prayer, not to mention prayer garments and other paraphernalia. But prayer is just the opening of the heart that can be begun in any way you choose. Words are not even necessary to begin, just the intention make the connection.

So, if you have not recently, give it a try. Many people who try davvenen for the first time find that it is an experience of unexpected emotional power. Feelings that you did not know that you had can begin to flow out. Best of all, it is a world that you can create and enter whenever you need it. But, if you become practiced at it when you don’t think you need it, it will come more easily to you, and as a greater comfort, when there is a need.

The last example I’d like to offer of a Jewish world you can create for yourself is the most appropriate to this day. T’shuvah is the answer to the yearning we all have felt for a second chance (or even third, fourth or fifth chance) to make right the things in life we regret.

T’shuvah, the great undertaking of this day of Yom Kippur, is the way of making every wrong you have committed whole and holy just by wanting it to be so. In the world of t’shuvah, guilt over past deeds disappears like smoke merely because we have an intention — to ask for forgiveness and to recommit ourselves to making wiser choices in the future.

In the world of t’shuvah, repentance does not require punishing blows or eternal sorrow. We are forgiven for our faults merely because we yearn to be forgiven. Tradition says that this intention has the power to reverse every harsh judgment that we would call down upon ourselves from heaven. It turns the scarlet of our deepest shame into purity as white as snow -- just by intending it to be so. It’s like the loving hugs your parents gave you when you felt like you deserved the back of their hand. It is the embrace that says, “All is forgiven.”

Some people think that t’shuvah is all about feeling horrible about yourself and beating yourself into submission for your failings. But that is the very opposite of t’shuvah. On Yom Kippur, we collectively admit our faults so that we will know what it is that we are being forgiven for. We dredge up our shame, not so we can wallow in guilt, but so we will know that even this is not beyond the realm of forgiveness. All we need to do is to feel the holiness of forgiveness in our hearts and to ask for it.

Judaism is a system for creating a world where work is crowned by rest, where the yearning to be heard is crowned by prayer, and where human imperfection is crowned by forgiveness. These are experiences that can make life holy. The only thing required to make it so is to intend it to be so.

I know that talk of fairy palaces and creating worlds with mere thoughts sounds very dreamy. It sounds like something that doesn’t belong in the real world. But, I ask you again, just how real is the “real world”?

Most of us live in a society where “reality” is that you need to work hard to get ahead, and getting ahead will make you affluent and happy. How real is that? The New York Times reported this summer that dot-com millionaires in Silicon Valley are unhappy because they feel overworked and “not rich enough” (Gary Rivlin, “The Millionaires Who Don’t Feel Rich.” NYT, August 5, 2007).

In America homes today, the television is turned on for an average of more than 6 hours a day. We have a culture in which the reality of “American Idol” and “The West WIng” is more real than the lives of actual human beings. Even news programming these days is blamed for skewing our thoughts. For example, a CBS poll this month shows that one third of all Americans today think that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11th terrorist attacks. Which channel were they watching?

If your thoughts can have that much impact on your world and the way you respond to it, shouldn’t you be very careful about which thoughts you allow to sink into your head? Judaism is a system that helps us to care for the the health of our minds and of the world our minds create. Judaism helps us to make wise choices about the world of ideas we create for ourselves to live in.

Which reality do you want to live in? The reality in which you must struggle to get ahead in the rat race, or the reality in which resting from work is as important as work itself? Which reality do you want your children to grow up in? The reality of television reality shows, or the reality in which we make time for being together as families, having our individuality appreciated, and having our faults forgiven?

The purpose of Judaism is to help us choose a reality in which we can make our own holiness. Judaism allows us to choose a life in which every maple leaf turning red in the fall and every spider web glistening in the morning light can be greeted with blessing and celebration.

Children know how to create worlds. We should remember, too. Create your world and make it the place of your dreams. Then it will be a palace that you will never have to leave.

“Organ Donation: Defeating Death”

Rabbi Jeffrey W. Goldwasser

Yom Kippur 5768

Saturday, September 22, 2007

This is a story about death. It is also a story about life.

Rabbah was sitting at the bedside of Rabbi Nachman. All he could do now was to hold his friend’s hand and offer whatever comfort he could for the dying man.

Rabbi Nachman had once been tall, handsome and athletic. Age had made him hunched over and frail. He had been the head of the academy at Nehardea for twenty years and he was the chief judge of the Jewish community of Babylon. Nachman had risen out of poverty to achieve his renown. He had become a wealthy man and always was generous with his money. He often hosted itinerant scholars in his home for lengthy stays.

That is how, many years before, he had befriended Rabbah. One of the greatest masters of Jewish law in his generation, Rabbah bar Nahamani, was not nearly so refined as his wealthy friend. He, too, had been born in poverty and had spent most of his life traveling the Jewish towns of Babylon as a preacher until he was named head of the academy at Pumbedita. He was known for his humor and his engaging style as a teacher. However, his habit of speaking out against the privileged leaders of the Jewish community had not won him friends in high places.

Rabbi Nachman, though, had always been an exception. Over the years, Nachman had made Rabbah a frequent guest in his home, and a dear friend.

Now, it was Rabbah’s turn, his final opportunity, to repay his friend’s many kindnesses by comforting him as he approached the end. Rabbah saw that Nachman’s life was fading and that he was frightened — frightened of what he knew was coming soon.

In a dry, scratchy voice, Rabbi Nachaman said to Rabbah, “Tell the Angel of Death not to torment me.”

Rabbah tried to humor him by saying, “You don’t need me to tell him. You are a man of great distinction. Surely, he will listen to you.” But Rabbi Nachman was not in the mood for humor. He said, “Who can claim to be esteemed or distinguished before the Angel of Death?” There was silence in the room. Both knew that there were no answers for such questions.

Then, Rabbah said to his friend, “Afterward, you must appear to me in a dream to let me know.” What he meant by that, not even Rabbah knew. Did he want his friend to tell him what torments he had suffered in dying? Did he want to know what lay beyond death? Did he want to know if there was a way back?

Later that day, Rabbi Nachman breathed his last. Rabbah was joined by others who washed and wrapped his body, escorted him to the cemetery, and buried him before the sun had set. They spent the next seven days sitting with Rabbi Nachman’s wife and children, offering them the comfort of companionship and caring.

Rabbah soon forgot about the request he had made of his friend — to appear to him in a dream and to … “let me know.” But a month later, Rabbi Nachman did appear to Rabbah in a dream. Immediately, Rabbah heard himself rush to ask this question: “Did you suffer? Was there pain?”

In the dream, Rabbi Nachman answered, “In the moment of death, I experienced as much pain as there is when one lifts a fallen hair out of a saucer of milk.”

While the answer brought some comfort to Rabbah, he puzzled over the meaning of the expression. “Lifting a hair out of milk”? It certainly sounded painless. But, what did the image represent? A fallen hair might symbolize death. Milk is life, a child’s first source of nourishment and comfort.

Rabbah next asked a question that he did not even know he wanted to ask. “Is it possible to come back? Do you want to?”

“No,” said the image of his old friend. “No. Even if the Holy Blessed One were to ask me to go back to the world in which you live, I would not wish it. I could not bear to experience again how great the fear of death is where you are” (B. Moed Katan 28a).

* * * *

Rabbah and Rabbi Nachman were real people. They lived in Babylon in the fourth century of the common era. Both were great leaders of the Jewish community. They helped to create the Babylonian Talmud, the great collection and commentary of Jewish law and legend.

This fanciful story about the death of Rabbi Nachman is from the Talmud. In the story, it is only after Rabbi Nachman dies, and is free of the fear of death, that he realizes how overpowering that fear is in life — so much so that, given the chance, he would rather not experience life again.

Death is a great unknown. We fear it for reasons that we cannot always explain, even to ourselves. It is part of human nature to fear death and to try to avoid it.

The fear of death, like all fears, can help us stay away from danger, but it also can lead us to poor choices. Fear can turn us into cowards when courage is needed. Fear can convince us to do things that will cause harm to others, or it can keep us from doing things to help others.

Today, I would like to talk about a specific problem facing the Jewish people that I believe is caused, in part, by the fear of death. I would also like to talk about what this day, Yom Kippur, has to say about the way we approach death.

First, let’s talk about the problem facing the Jewish people. It has to do with an issue that people do not like to talk about much: being an organ donor after you have died.

If you fear death — and whose death would you fear more than your own? — then you are likely to use any excuse to avoid even thinking about it. So, why would you want to think about being an organ donor? The simple answer is: it saves lives, and it could save a lot more.

Organ transplants are a miracle of science. Before transplants were developed some fifty years ago, people with severe diseases and injuries to their heart, lungs, kidneys, livers and other organs didn’t have much of a chance. Today, these men, women, and — yes — children are getting second chances.

Right now, as we sit here, there are nearly 100,000 Americans in need of an organ transplant. For many of them, getting a transplant is the main thing that separates them from returning to a normal, productive life. Without it, many face failing health, misery and death.

Why are there so many? Because the waiting lists for donated organs are very long.

In the past six months, only 7,000 new organs — from both living and dead donors — have become available. At that rate, many of the people who need transplants will have to wait years to receive them. Many of them will not live long enough to see that happen.

And here is the tragic part for the Jewish community. Jews, who are so generous in almost every other aspect of giving, fall far behind every other ethnic and religious group in their willingness to make organ donations. Why should this be?

There are several reasons — all based on misconceptions driven by fear. First, let’s talk about the misconceptions that persist among every ethnic and religious group, not just Jews.

Many families refuse to donate the organs of a loved one who has died because they are afraid that donating an organ will disfigure the remains of their loved one. Not so. Organ removal is done by professionals with the same training as the surgeons who heal living patients. Organ removal does not disfigure the body any more than therapeutic surgery.

Some fear that the family of the deceased must pay for the procedure to remove organs to be donated for transplantation. This is also untrue. A few well publicized incidents of billing errors that were quickly corrected have resulted in this persistent myth.

Some people believe that it is useless for them to register as organ donors because they are not in top health or because they think they are too old. Not so. Almost everyone can be an organ donor.

The most common misconception about organ donation, though, is also the misconception most driven by fear. Many people are deathly afraid that if they indicate that they are an organ donor it will affect the quality of care they will receive when they are treated for a life-threatening injury or illness. This is the most clearly untrue myth of them all.

While patients are alive, doctors and medical professionals make every possible effort to keep them alive with the best quality of life possible. The specialists who deal with organ donation are never called and transplants are never considered until the patient is brain-dead and recovery is completely impossible.

Now, we’ve all heard about situations in which people who were thought to be terminally ill — even people called “clinically dead” or in a “persistent vegetative state” — miraculously recovered to the stupefaction of medical professionals. You need to know that these people would never at any point in their treatment have been considered for organ donation. Never.

Coma, clinical death, and being in a “persistent vegetative state” are not the same thing as brain death. Once the brain stem has died, it quickly begins to liquify. In such a state, breathing can only be maintained with a respirator and even the heart will begin to die soon. After brain-death, it is impossible for life to be restored and the person cannot be said to be alive by any reasonable definition.

That is the condition that a person must be in before any consideration is given to removing organs for donation to a person who needs them to live. No decisions in a person’s medical care are ever effected by his or her status as an organ donor. It just does not happen.

So, what makes these myths and fears even more prevalent in the Jewish community than they are in the general population? Why is it that so many Jews refuse to become organ donors? It is, again, another myth borne out of fear.

You are the biggest group I speak to all year, so I am counting on each of you to do your part to repeat to others what I am about to say: There is absolutely nothing in Jewish law that prohibits a Jew from being an organ donor. Quite to the contrary, it is a mitzvah, a holy obligation, for Jews to be organ donors because donating organs saves lives.

Still, confusion abounds concerning the intricacy of Jewish law on this subject. Let me try to clarity it.

It is true that Judaism places a high value on kavod hameit, the honor of the dead. According to Jewish law, every effort should be made to honor the dead by giving them a quick burial of the entire body. It is considered shameful in Jewish tradition to allow any part of a dead body to go unburied.

However, this value does not in any way preclude organ donation. From the time of the Talmud, the rabbis all have agreed that the value of saving a life, pikuach nefesh, is more important than kavod hameit. Traditional Jewish law holds that one may eat a ham sandwich on Yom Kippur if it would save a life, all the more so should one donate organs for such a cause.

Many Jews have a misconception about the Jewish concept of techiat hameitim, literally, “the resurrection of the dead.” In some strains of Judaism, this is understood as the belief in the literal, bodily resurrection of the dead from the grave at the end of time. Strangely enough, even Jews who do not in any way believe in literal resurrection, believe that the concept justifies a ban on organ donation. They reason that bodily resurrection will not be able to occur if a body is missing its organs. This is absolute nonsense.

Saadia Gaon, the great rabbinic sage of the tenth century wrote against this position. He stated that it is obvious that bodies decompose in the ground in just a matter of decades. If God has the power to resurrect the dead, certainly God can restore missing organs. Belief in bodily resurrection has nothing to do with a ban on organ donation.

The only issue in Jewish law that effects organ donation concerns the time of death. Obviously, vital organs cannot be removed from a dead donor until he or she is dead. But when does death occur? According to traditional Jewish law, death was believed to come when people stop breathing or their hearts stop beating.

That poses a problem for organ transplant. Some organs only can be taken for transplantation if they are removed from the donor’s body when he or she is still breathing, or rather, having a respirator breathe for him or her. If doctors had to wait for the body to stop breathing, many organs that could save the lives of others would be lost.

Most orthodox authorities today are aware of this problem. That is why, in 1991, the Rabbinical Council of America — the nation’s largest organization of orthodox rabbis — approved organ donations as permissible, and even required, from brain-dead patients. Today, virtually all orthodox authorities accept brain-death as the point at which organ removal for transplantation may occur.

Given these facts, why is it that so many Jews today — even non-orthodox Jews — still believe that donating organs is against Jewish law? Why do even Reform Jews, who reject the notion of literal resurrection and who accept the modern medical definitions for time of death, continue to say no to organ donation?

I believe it is because of that old, ingrained fear of death. Fear makes us seize on any excuse not even to think about our death or the death of a loved one. In the story from the Talmud, Rabbi Nachman realized only after death what a powerful force such fear could be. It is a force that leads us to make poor choices. It turns us into cowards when courage is needed. It convinces us to do things that can cause harm to others, and prevents us from doing things to help others.

In the case of organ donation, the harm is great. Someone on the organ donation waiting list dies every ninety minutes. Connect the dots. Every organ suitable for donation that is not donated can be correlated to one potential recipient whose life depended upon it.

Think of the tragedy of this. When organ donation is refused, the death of the potential donor is only the precursor to, somewhere, the death of a potential recipient. Often, it is more than one potential recipient, because one person can donate organs that would save many lives.

That was the case when Alisa Flatow, a Brandeis University student studying for a year in Israel, was killed by a suicide bomber in 1995. She and some friends were on their way to a Passover vacation when the bomb went off, killing her and seven Israeli soldiers, all under the age of 21.

Alisa’s father, Steven Flatow, travelled to Israel from his home in New Jersey to identify the body of his daughter, lying brain-dead but breathing on a respirator, in a hospital in Beersheva. The staff at the hospital asked the grieving father if he would be willing to donate Alisa’s organs. After consulting with his wife, he gave his permission. Six people, all of whom had been on long waiting lists, received Alisa’s organs in life-saving procedures.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin made a condolence call at the Flatow home in New Jersey after Alisa’s death and her life-giving gift. He told the family, “I can't find the words to express our thanks and admiration for what [you] have done.” And he said, “Alisa Flatow’s heart beats in Jerusalem.”

Rabin’s words were literally true. Alisa’s heart was alive in the body of a 56-year-old man. Her kidneys gave a new lease on life to a 44-year-old accountant. A young woman breathes with Alisa’s lungs.

Today, I am asking you to do two things. The first is to take home the organ donor cards you have received, read them, understand them, and sign them. Because doing that alone is not enough, I also want you to have a conversation with your family in which you let them know about your wishes regarding organ donation. Talking to your family is a crucial step. Your organ donor card will be useless if your family refuses permission to donate your organs after you have died.

I know I am asking you to talk with people you love about your death, and I know how frightening that can be. I am asking you to overcome the fear of death in order, potentially, to save a life.

This is a fitting task on this day, Yom Kippur, for Yom Kippur is a day that calls on us to confront death and our fear of death. This is the day on which the Torah commands us to “afflict our souls,” to deny ourselves the things that living bodies require, especially food and drink.

Traditionally, we dress in white on Yom Kippur as a symbol of purification, but also as a symbol of death. The white kittel that I and others wear on Yom Kippur is actually a burial shroud. Before the final shofar blast just before sunset, we will recite the Shema and then repeat the words Adonai Hu HaElohim, “Adonai is God” over and over again. It is exactly the same ritual that Jewish tradition prescribes for the moment before death. In many ways, Yom Kippur is a dress rehearsal for our own deaths.

Why? It’s not so we’ll know what to do when the moment of our death comes. It is so that, until that time, we will know how to live.

Confronting death on Yom Kippur teaches us to value the things in life that are truly most important. The purpose of life is not to never die. That would be and empty and futile goal. Rather, life is made meaningful by the relationships we create, by acting toward others with loving kindness, and by helping to repair a world that is still broken.

These experiences transcend death; they defeat it. When life is lived meaningfully, death is no more fearful than the pain of removing a hair from a saucer of milk. The life of those who live such lives will go on, long after their bodies have faded away. Anyone who holds dear the life of a departed loved one can agree with this spiritual truth — the dead live on within us, and within the world they helped to make a better place.

Make your signature on those organ donor cards a spiritual act. Make it a rejection of your fears and an embrace of life for yourself and, maybe, for someone you will never meet in this world. Make the conversation you will have with your family about organ donation an opportunity for real connection and real understanding of your deepest values. Make it a moment in which you defeat death by focussing on the things of life that truly have the greatest meaning.

Rabbi Nachman and his friend, Rabbah, wanted to know what was on the other side of death, but, really, they already knew. After we die, we live on in the things that we have done in life that make our lives matter. We live on in the values that we teach to our children and that we make real in our communities. We live in the things we have done to make our world a better place. The real fear should not be the fear of death, but the fear of a life that is empty of the values, experiences and deeds that make our lives eternal.

The Torah teaches, “I have placed before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life so that you and your children will live…” (Deuteronomy 30:19). Choose life for yourself and make choices in life that allow others to live. Choose generosity over hard-heartedness. Choose compassion over indifference. Choose righteousness over injustice. Choose courage over cowardice. Today, of all days, choose life by rededicating yourself to living a life full of meaning. When you choose life in this way, you will defeat death and give yourself a life that never ends.

G’mar chatimah tovah.

May you be sealed for life.

"Emergence"

Rabbi Jeffrey W. Goldwasser

Kol Nidre 5769

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

There are deep questions that we ask, that we have always asked, about ourselves and our place in the universe. Yom Kippur is a day when we reach inside ourselves to try to answer some of those questions. Who am I? What is the meaning of my life? How do I connect to the universe and its Source?

People generally assume that faith and science have very different answers to those kinds of questions - answers that are fundamentally incompatible with each other. People often assume that each of us must choose to be a person who accepts either the religious answers or the scientific answers. Or, they assume that we must keep the scientific and religious answers in separate compartments of our brains, because the two can never be reconciled.

I know that many Jews think of themselves as rational, modern, scientific people. I do myself. However, many Jews today, despite feelings of attachment to Judaism and the Jewish people, believe that they must reject Jewish religious assumptions about life, creation and God because they believe that those beliefs are incompatible with science and modernity. This is unfortunate. I think that it is possible to discuss our ultimate questions about ourselves and the world both in religious and scientific terms without contradiction.

Both the scientist and the person of faith - and we remember that, sometimes, they are the same person - both tend to be people who are awed by the miracle of the universe. We share a reverence for a world that is more mysterious than we can fully comprehend - from the tiniest creature to the grand scale of the cosmos. Both faith and science are engaged in conversations about our wonder at our own existence.

Tonight, I'd like to talk about one idea that has gained great interest among scientists in several different disciplines, and I'd like to think about what it says about the scientific and religious ways of looking at the world. I'd like, also, to apply that idea to help us come up with some of our own answers to the basic questions about who we are and what our task is in this vast and awesome universe. After you've head what I have to say, I hope that you will consider how science and faith can complement each other, not contradict each other, for people who have open minds and spirits.

To begin, I'd like to start small, on the scale of the tiny. Let's start with ants.

Have you ever looked at ants? Have you ever watched a group of ants long enough to figure out what they were up to? How they are organized? What they do?

When I was eight years old I spent hours staring at the busy ants in the sandy soil of my schoolyard. I was fascinated by the way they would each move in different directions, with no apparent coordination or communication, and yet they could collect food, clear away debris, and build a home for themselves. How do they do that?

Apparently, people have been wondering the same thing about ants for a long time. The Book of Proverbs, which tradition says was written by King Solomon three thousand years ago, gives this advice:

"Lazybones, go look at the ants. Study their ways and become wise.

Without leaders, officers, or rulers, they prepare their stores in the summer, gather their food at harvest time."

Deborah Gordon is a biologist at Stanford University who is, perhaps, the world's leading expert on the behavior of ants. Gordon's studies show that, it seems, King Solomon had the right idea about ants when he said that they have no "leaders, officers or rulers." In fact, according to Gordon, you cannot point to a single ant who is, in any way, the leader of the colony or any part of it.

This often comes as a bit of a surprise to people, like me, who don't know much about insects. Ants have queens, right? Isn't the queen in charge of the other ants? Or are they just figure heads, like the Queen of England?

All of the cultural associations we have with the word "queen" lead us completely in the wrong direction when it comes to ants. Ant queens are not venerated by other ants and they do not in any way issue decrees. Despite what we see in animated movies, queen ants do not live a life of luxury as the matriarch of the ant hill. The queen is just the unique, slightly larger female in each colony who lays the eggs. She is the colony's ovaries, not its leader or its figure head. She just lays eggs.

It seems that all ants - not just the queens - are like this. They each begin life with a genetic and chemical program that determines their body type and directs their behavior. Taken individually, they are remarkably dumb. You can see this when you watch them closely.

One ant will encounter a bit of a twig or the carcass of a dead ant.

That ant will pick it up and follow a program that tells it to carry it north. If another ant comes along who sees the object differently, its programming might tell it to take the object south, and so it does. If the first ant then discovers the object in what it considers to be the wrong place, it will pick it up and carry it back north. Then the second one will come and carry it back south.

Gordon says that they can go back and forth like this for hours ...

sometimes days, weeks or months.

Seen at this level, ant behavior can be infuriating, exhausting, and incomprehensible from a human point of view. We are flummoxed by the way that ants never get tired, never get frustrated, never take pride in a job well done, never stop doing exactly what they are programmed to do, and nothing more. Boredom and discouragement are as alien to ants as mindless, repetitive drudgery is repulsive to us.

However, the fascinating thing about ants, says Gordon, is what we see when we view them collectively. Somehow - and exactly how is the big puzzle - when you look at ants as a whole colony, they are the very opposite of "mindless." When you add up all of the individual "dumb" behaviors of individual ants into a statistically significant pool of many ants, their collective behavior is very smart. Acting together, ants are extraordinary, inventive and capable.

Here is a small sample of what, together, ants can do:

Ants are farmers. Leafcutter ants, for example, create all their food by growing a fungus that they plant, nurture, feed and harvest.

The ants recognize how the fungus reacts to the different types of food they bring to it, and they will stop bringing particular types of food if they notice that it is toxic to their crop. Other ants practice animal husbandry by keeping and caring for aphids, caterpillars and other insects. They milk this livestock for the sweet liquids they produce.

Ants solve complicated mathematical problems. Despite the fact that no individual ant knows anything about geometry or calculus, ant colonies routinely calculate exact mathematical solutions to the practical problems they face. For example, to prevent the spread of disease into the colony, some species of ants will dispose of the bodies of their dead at a location that is exactly the furthest point from all the entrances to their colony.

Ants create amazing works of architecture. Harvester ants respond to changes in barometric pressure by building flood gates at their colony entrances just a few minutes before the rain begins to fall.

Some species of nest-building ants can dig new tunnels starting from two distant, underground locations that meet exactly in the right place in the middle.

So, how do we explain this? How is it possible that creature that are so incompetent, so mindless, so dumb as individuals, can be so capable, so sophisticated, so smart when seen as a colony?

"Go look at the ants. Study their ways and become wise."

Deborah Gordon proposes a model for understanding the way ants are so dumb as individuals, so smart as colonies. The smart behaviors that are entirely invisible - and, it appears, unknowable - when Gordon looks at ants as individuals "emerge" when large numbers of ants are together in a colony. The complexity of the interaction between thousands of individuals with each other and with the colony as a whole result in a system of behaviors that is totally different from anything that a single ant could do alone. Scientists describe that observation, and a host of similar observations from many other disciplines of science, as examples of "emergence."

The term, "emergence," itself is not new. It was first used in the mid-19th century by scientists and philosophers who were perplexed by systems in which novel qualities and behaviors would pop up, seemingly out of nowhere, as a system became more complex. The new qualities were surprising because they did not appear to be related to the qualities or capabilities of the system's individual parts.

The observation of emergence appears to challenge a classical assumption of science that is often called "reductionism." In a reductionist view, all complicated systems can be described as being the sum of the qualities and behaviors of their individual parts. If you understand all the parts of an automobile engine, says reductionism, you can deduce how it makes a car drive on a road. If you wanted the car to fly, you would have to add parts that have the qualities of flight - say a propeller and a wing. You would not expect the car to be able to spontaneously fly just because you added more parts that have nothing to do with flying. Reductionism says that you can always trace the qualities of the whole back to the qualities of the parts.

However, emergence seems to contradict that assumption. You could not look at an individual ant - study it, dissect it, run it through a maze, or do anything to it - that would allow you to deduce some of the complex and sophisticated behaviors of an ant colony.

In an emergent system, some say, reductionism falls apart. New qualities, new behaviors, new abilities appear to "emerge" from the system as a whole. It is not just a matter of "the whole being greater than the sum of its parts" - the whole becomes an entirely different, entirely unpredictable, and entirely new thing from any of the parts.

Some of the most obvious examples of emergence come from biology. It is easy to see how your perception of ants changes as you pay attention to different scales. Up close, they're dumb; from further away, they're smart. Scientists also use emergence to understand non-biological systems. Meteorologists describe weather as a phenomenon that emerges from the complex interactions of air and water molecules, temperature and pressure. Physicists say that the laws of chemistry emerge from more fundamental laws that govern subatomic particles and the forces that drive them.

Emergence also can be used to describe systems that are not usually considered to be in the realm of science. Financial markets, for example, seem to have emergent qualities. Who decides if the stock market will go up or down on any given day? No one. And everyone.

The World Wide Web is another frequently cited example of a system with emergent qualities. Who decides what pops up first when you do a Google search? Nobody at Google, Inc. has the power to decide that. The result of your search is the result of millions of choices made by millions of Web users and millions of interconnections between Web sites.

In both examples, there is no central authority that decides how the system will behave, yet it has a recognizable pattern that emerges out of the chaos of thousands and millions of small parts - you and me. As King Solomon said, there are no "leaders, officers, or rulers."

So far, emergence just seems like an interesting way of looking at how some complex systems work. But, as we think more about it, we can recognize that emergence also has some profound implications for the way we think about the origin of order, pattern and design in the universe. Emergence suggests that there is a kind of mystery to the way the universe's order is created.

In an emergent system, where does organization come from? If there is no master ant, no master water molecule, no master floor trader at the stock exchange, then who is the author of the system of which they are a part? Everyone and no one.

There appears to be some kind of "ghost in the machine." The system itself becomes an entity that is constituted by, and yet separate from, its many parts.

Perhaps there is something about that concept that does not sit well in our minds. There does seem to be something in us that wants to be able to identify the source of the intelligence behind the hidden patterns and rules we observe in the world. We want to know that there is an author. Yet emergence seems to say that our minds'

hunger for an identifiable source or author misleads us. The author of the system is, strangely, neither the system's parts nor the system itself. Rather, it is hidden in the process of myriad interactions among the individual parts, and the parts with the whole.

Who rules the ant colony? There is no puppeteer pulling the strings from the outside. There is no ant or group of ants within it that are responsible, either. Despite the protestations of our reason-seeking minds, we cannot really offer any rational answer to the question.

And, speaking of the mind, our own consciousness appears to be, perhaps, the most mysterious example of emergence of all. When we ask ourselves the question, "Who am I?" What can we answer? Who, exactly, is asking the question? Where, inside of this mass of tissues and sinews, organs and arteries, is the self? Is it here?

Or here? Or here? One possible answer is that the concepts of "self" and "mind" emerged from everything that we are, with no identifiable center or control.

There is no brain cell or group of brain cells that is the master source of our identity. Just as there is no ant that tells other ants what to do, there is no location within you that tells you who you are or that directs your thoughts. Even more, not one of your billions of individual brain cells thinks any thoughts by itself, knows who you are, or understands any of the things you observe with your senses.

Your brain does not work like an army with a general who is in charge and ranks of soldier cells taking orders from superiors. The cells in your brain are much more like a colony of ants - all individually stupid, but collectively miraculous in their intelligence and beauty.

What does that have to do with Judaism? Maybe everything.

Judaism rejects the reductionist view of the universe. There is no Jewish notion that the universe is like a clockwork that, once set in motion, carries out a set of prescribed rules in a way that it is completely regular and completely predictable. In contrast to that view, Judaism assumes that there is mystery built into the operation of the universe and that the universe reveals itself to us in ways that we cannot fully predict or fully comprehend.

Yes, Judaism calls that mystery "God," and that word, many people assume, is what separates faith from science. Science, people think, could never accept the concept of God because God is not subject to proof. But it is not necessarily so. Judaism is not dogmatic in its understanding of God, and "God," in Judaism, is a metaphor that can mean different things for different people. For many modern Jewish thinkers, God is that which makes life and the universe meaningful, not meaningless.

Accepting the teachings of science does not require a person to believe that his or her life is meaningless, and it does not require the rejection of every way of thinking about God. If we look at the ideas of emergence as a guide, it would not be difficult to say that we can think of God as the mysterious author of the system called "the universe," who is neither the system's parts nor the system itself. God is the One who emerges from the process of myriad interactions among the universe's parts, and the parts with the universe.

Here is an example of a classical Jewish metaphor about God and about the mystery built into the universe. An ancient rabbinic midrash says, "There is not a single blade of grass that does not have a guardian in heaven that decrees upon it and says, 'Grow!'" [Genesis Rabbah 10:6]. The rabbis here wanted to convey the idea of a divine presence pervading reality, shaping every moment, supporting and sustaining the world in a way that could never be explained by a purely mechanical process. We acknowledge this in the words of the Amidah prayer which three times a day declares that God's miracles are "every day with us" and that God's "wonders and goodness are in every moment, morning noon and night."

Judaism cannot accept a clockwork universe of strict regular predictability. Yet, neither does Judaism embrace the opposite perspective - a universe that is under the capricious control of a God who is free at any moment to rewrite the rules. God, in Judaism, is not the master puppeteer who controls every aspect of the universe's course. The rabbis were always careful to assert that we human beings have free will that allows us to set our own course - an apparent limitation to God's omnipotence. In the Talmud, Rabbi Hanina deals with this paradox by saying, "Everything is according to the will of heaven, except for humanity's reverence of heaven" [B.

Megilah 25a, B. Niddah 16b].

What does God control? Rabbi Hanina seems to say, "Everything and nothing." As powerful as we might imagine God to be, the rabbis say, God has left human choices between good and bad outside of heaven's jurisdiction. God controls everything, except for our ability to do whatever we want. God - Judaism's author of the system called the universe - is neither entirely present in the universe, nor entirely absent from it.

Emergence speaks in the language of science and Judaism speaks in the language of faith, but both appear to be saying the same thing about the nature of reality. We live in a world that is not simple in its construction, with parts that predictably make up the whole. Rather, we live in a universe that is a constant dynamic tension between the micro and the macro - between the visible world of material reality and the transcendent world of the interconnection that unites all things. Both worlds are real, despite their contradictions and paradoxes.

What is more, the paradox of this complex universe is reflected in our own being at the deepest level. Our very consciousness is, perhaps, the finest example of a universe that is constantly and beautifully revealing novel richness out of the chaos of uncountable interconnections. The emergence of order and beauty out of our cascading neurons is a reflection of the order and beauty of the unfolding and self-revealing design of the cosmos.

How do we answer the question "Who am I?" Both faith and science point to the universe and say that we know ourselves best when we allow ourselves to recognize that we are a part of something much larger and greater than ourselves. We are miracles of systems and patterns that are far beyond our ability to comprehend fully, but we, nonetheless, bring dignity and nobility to our existence by striving to unlock the mysteries. In pursuing such knowledge and awareness, we realize ourselves to be a part of a grandeur and beauty that is transcendent.

The scientist may say that when you look out into the limitless variety of the universe, you can discover yourself. The person of faith may say that when you look deep into yourself, you can discover the face of God. And we can say that they are each, in their own language, saying the same thing.

Perhaps that is our purpose, the reason why we are here. Whether it is to peer into the heavens with a telescope, or to peer into life's difficult choices as they are presented in the Torah, whether it is to study the life of ants, or to study texts that seek life's meaning, our job on this planet is to strive to reveal the hidden, to know the unknown. Through that process, we can come to know ourselves.

Yom Kippur calls on us to reacquaint ourselves with a divine presence that is simultaneously beyond us and deep within us. This is the day that we intentionally try to fathom ourselves well enough to see through all of our conceits and to know ourselves truly for who we are. This is the day when we peer into the universe and strive for a new connection to the ultimate source of life's meaning. We seek out the mysterious author of the universe and the author of our own lives. When we do, we may discover that all is revealed in the myriad ways we are connected to others, to the world around us, and to our own mysterious selves.

The psalmist says, "Shiviti Adonai lenegdi tamid," "I have set Adonai always before me" [Psalms 16:8]. We look into ourselves and we discover that, all along, God and the universe are waiting for us there.

G'mar chatimah tovah. May you be sealed for a good year.

"War"

Rabbi Jeffrey W. Goldwasser

Yom Kippur 5769

Thursday, October 9, 2008

"It seemed like a good idea at the time."

How often are human beings foiled by their assumptions about what the future may bring? How easily do we mislead ourselves into reacting to a threat without considering the consequences? How many times do we look back on what we have done, and wish that we had "known then what we know now"?

These are observations about human nature that are at the heart of this day. Yom Kippur is a day for reflecting on our past actions and considering them with the wisdom of hindsight - not so that we can berate ourselves for what we have done - but in order to make wiser decisions in the future. We want to learn from past mistakes to become more thoughtful about our choices and more mindful of unintended consequences of our actions. It is something we need to do for both the choices and actions we make as individuals, and those we make as a nation.

On Yom Kippur seven years ago, I stood before this congregation a little more than two weeks after the most devastating military attack against the United States since Pearl Harbor. I was dumbfounded about what I should say to you.

How could I possibly make sense of the events of 9/11? How could I possibly say anything about what the event meant or would mean to the future?

Like everyone in the United States at that time, I just hoped that our leaders would guide our country wisely to respond to what had happened to us.

A month later, our country launched a war against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Eighteen months after 9/11, after much drum-beating and saber-rattling, our country launched a war against the regime of Sadaam Hussein in Iraq. It seemed, at least to some, like a good idea at the time.

I do not want to use our precious time this morning to launch into recriminations about who is to blame for what has happened since. We have heard plenty of that before, and there is plenty more to come in the last four weeks of the presidential campaign.

Instead, I would like to consider our collective responsibility for what our nation has done for the last seven years as we have fought two wars simultaneously. I want to consider what specific things we can do today to address the mistakes of our past and to plan for how we might do better in the future. Think of this as a memo to the present on how to set a better course for the conclusion of our current wars, and a memo to the future, in the hope that it might make us wiser in the way we respond to the next war.

* * * * *

Jewish tradition has a great deal to say about wars, the impact they have on society, and what obligations we have to respond to them. When we consider our current military conflicts and the conflicts we will experience in the future, we should be mindful of what our tradition says about war. Despite the fact that these teachings come from an ancient world that is very different from our own, their principles are as timeless as war itself.

The ideal state of the world, in Jewish tradition, is peace. The prophet Isaiah states that in the time of the world's messianic redemption, all the world will come to Jerusalem and forever renounce warfare as a means of settling disputes. "Lo yisa goy el goy cherev, lo yilm'du od milchamah," "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

Peace is among our highest values. Yet, Jewish tradition also is realistic about war and the fact that it is, at times, necessary. The Torah and the rabbis do not ignore the fact that we cannot rely on our enemies to do the right thing, as much as we might try to persuade them with measures short of war. At some point, war becomes the only persuasion that can work.

On the other hand, Jewish tradition is also skeptical about the ability of wars to achieve lofty goals. The Jewish people, from far back in antiquity, had too much experience with the horrors of war to be seduced by the idea that it could be a solution to every problem.

The Torah states that before attacking an enemy it is necessary first to attempt to negotiate peace (Deut. 20:10). The rabbis say that this law shows that, even in war, peace is always the highest value. "You may know how great is the power of peace," says a midrash [Devarim Rabbah 5:12], "by the fact that even when you enter a war with sword and spear, the Holy Blessed One commands that you begin by proclaiming peace."

The Torah pays particular attention to the way that a nation is called to war by its leaders. Perhaps the Torah anticipates the way that a nation's leaders will glorify war as they seek to build support for war and exhort the troops to fight fiercely.

In the Torah, there is one specific person who has the job of exhorting the troops for battle [Deut. 20:2-4]. This person is called the m'shuach milchamah, the priest who is "anointed of war" [B. Sotah 42a-43a]. The m'shuach milchamah is the one who inspires the troops to courage and who reminds them that God will protect them. The Talmud emphasizes that the purpose of his speech is to make sure that the nation goes to war out of devotion to do what is right, and not out of fear of the enemy.

Only after the priest speaks to the troops are the military leaders permitted to take command of them. It is interesting that the m'shuach milchamah is neither a king nor a general. He is a priest who is, at least somewhat, removed from the interests of money, military, or politics. The Torah recognizes that the exhortation to war must be separated from hidden or selfish motives. It is all too easy for an unscrupulous leader to take advantage of a people frightened by troubled times by exhorting them to war in order to consolidate power or to seek the riches of conquered territory.

The most authoritative writer on Jewish laws of war was the Rambam (also known as Maimonides), the great Jewish legalist and philosopher of the 12th century. Rambam detailed the distinction in Jewish law between two types of war available to us.

The first type of war is known in rabbinic literature as milchemet mitzvah, literally, a "commanded war." A milchemet mitzvah is a defensive war, one that is fought in direct response to an attack in order to fulfill the mitzvah of saving lives. According to Rambam, a king could order a milchemet mitzvah on his own initiative to defend the people without consulting other authorities.

During a milchemet mitzvah, soldiers are exempt from most ritual requirements, such as not working on Shabbat. As a modern example, recall that when Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack against Israel on Yom Kippur in 1973, even the orthodox rabbinate supported taking up arms on the holiest day of the year. Saving lives takes precedence even over Yom Kippur. What is more, tradition teaches that in a milchemet mitzvah, everyone in the nation is required to respond to the call of in the war effort, "even the groom from his chamber and the bride from her chupah" [Yad, Melakhim 7:1-4].

However, the laws are quite different if the war falls into the second category, a milchemet reishut, a "permitted" or an "optional" war. A milchemet reishut is a war fought to advance the strategic or humanitarian objectives of the nation, but without the pressing circumstances of an enemy attack. A milchemet reishut is not a capricious war or a war fought only for the personal gain of the king - that would be prohibited - rather, it is a war that is fought for permitted but discretionary purposes.

A milchemet reishut can be declared by the king only with the approval of a majority of the Sanhedrin, the rabbinical court of 71 elders. Soldiers in a milchemet reishut are not exempt from ritual obligations such as Shabbat. In addition, there are many prohibitions on who may fight in a milchemet reishut. Deuteronomy [20:5-9] specifically states that anyone who recently has become engaged, who has established a new home, who has planted a new vineyard, or who is overcome by fear is not allowed to fight in such a war.

Even if it is difficult to determine how the distinctions between a milchemet mitzvah and a milchemet reishut apply to the modern world, one thing is clear: Jewish ethics demands that wars be fought for purposes that are honest and well understood. A leader who undermines the nation's ability to understand whether a war is necessary or discretionary has both misled the nation and usurped power.

Jewish tradition not only recognizes moral distinctions between different types of wars, it also sets moral standards for the conduct of all wars. The rabbis insisted on strictures for the conduct of wars that would make wars less likely to begin, and, once begun, less destructive and bloody.

There is a specific command in the Torah against destroying fruit trees in fields surrounding a city during a siege (Deut. 20:19): "When in your war against a city you have to besiege it a long time in order to capture it, you must not destroy its trees, wielding the ax against them. You may eat of them, but you must not cut them down. Are trees of the field human to withdraw before you into the besieged city?"

In antiquity, as in modern times, armies would sometimes use a "scorched earth" strategy to destroy anything that could be useful to the enemy, even resources that were of no direct military use. The destruction of food sources and the poisoning of wells have been used in warfare since ancient times to intimidate, terrify and subjugate civilian populations. The rabbis understood the Torah in this passage as specifically prohibiting unnecessary destruction.

Judaism is unambiguous, too, in its command for the care of the sick and injured - a command that, of course, applies to those wounded in war. In our prayers at the beginning of this morning's service, we recited: "These are the deeds whose value is beyond measureŠhonoring father and mother, acts of love and kindness, visiting the house of study, welcoming guests, visiting the sickŠ" When we Jews talk about the obligation to care for the sick and injured, "bikur cholim," we are talking about one of our highest values - on par with feeding the hungry, burying the dead and studying Torah. There is no human being, no matter who, who does not deserve our best efforts to cure his disease or treat her wounds. There is no illness or injury - whether physical, mental or spiritual - that does not command us to respond with comfort and compassion. When soldiers go to war and come back broken, we have an absolute obligation to care for them.

* * * * *

So, how has the United States done in the way it entered our current wars and the way it has pursued war? Have we measured up to the standards of Jewish tradition in the way we have

made war?

In some ways we have. The United States, especially in the last two years, has switched tactics to minimize the death and destruction caused by our war efforts. We have sought partnership with factions in Iraq that we used to think of as enemies. The so called "surge" in Iraq has helped to keep the peace while we have built partnerships and sought diplomacy. We have learned that needless destruction and needless harassment of civilian populations tends to

create more enemies for the U.S. than it neutralizes.

However, in many ways we have fallen short of Judaism's ethical requirements for war. The most

troubling part of our war in Iraq was the way in which it was begun. It has become clear in hindsight that our leaders did not share all the information and perspective that they should have. We were led to believe that this was a war of necessity, when it was, in fact, a war of choice. We were exhorted to war by leaders who made knowingly false statements - such as the assertion that Saddam Hussein had purchased Uranium for nuclear weapons when our leaders knew that the evidence was false. Because of that, we still cannot be certain that we know what their true motivations were for going to war.

Where Jewish ethics demand honest discourse on a war's purpose, our leaders have given a range of conflicting justifications for the war in Iraq that change at irregular intervals. At various times, it has been justified as a war to punish those who attacked us on 9/11, a war to stop a dangerous dictator from using nuclear and chemical weapons, a war to rescue a nation from a leader they despised, a war to establish democracy in the Middle East, or a war to restore stability to a society torn apart by internal ethnic hatreds. How can we judge if a war is truly necessary, or even morally permissible, if its justification changes every time its premise is proven false?

Even staunch supporters of the War in Iraq acknowledge that, in its first three years, the war was fought with a heavy hand that caused too much destruction. Conservative estimates suggest

that more than 88,000 civilians have died in Iraq in the violence since the war began. Tens of

thousands of innocent Iraqis were harassed by troops that broke down their doors, arrested them

without cause, and subjected them to inhumane conditions in prisons like Abu Ghraib.

We also have fallen short, tragically, in the way we treat our own wounded soldiers. The scandal

at Walter Reed Army Medical Center that came to light in February 2007 opened many people's eyes to our failures to care for returning soldiers. In helping soldiers with wounds of the psyche and

spirit, our failings may be even worse.

Estimates of the rate of posttraumatic stress disorder among the more than one million Americans who have fought in Iraq range from 12% to 20%. According to a study, one out of every three U.S. soldiers who has returned from active duty in Iraq has needed mental health treatment. Another report shows suicide rates among younger veterans that are two to four times higher than

the rate for civilians of the same age. Yet, veterans' groups charge that the responsible government agencies are "in denial" about these psychological wounds.

Following the Vietnam War, America saw an explosion of returning veterans with mental health problems for which we were not prepared. The number of Iraq War veterans with mental health problems may end up in the range of 300,000 individuals, dwarfing those of previous wars, and we are doing little to deal with it. In a New York Times article, Stephen L. Robinson, a 20-year Army veteran who now advocates for health services for veterans, said, "There's a train coming that's packed with people who are going to need help for the next 35 years."

* * * * *

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, perhaps the greatest Jewish thinker of the 20th century, said, "If we are not all guilty, we are all responsible." On Yom Kippur it is our task to consider what we have done - as individuals and collectively as a community and a nation. We do not do this for the purpose of wallowing in guilt or for exacting retribution. We do it in order to learn and to grow. We do it in order to become wiser people who will consider the unintended consequences of our actions and make better choices in the future. We do it to better direct our purpose and action in the present.

What have our experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan taught us? We should know that when we are frightened, as we were in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, we are very vulnerable to making decisions out of fear instead of wisdom. We should know that when the drums begin to beat for war, we must be wary that, what Mark Twain sarcastically called, "the holy fire of patriotism" may be used to advance a narrow interest and not the interest of the nation as a whole. We should remember that the purpose of war should always be to lead to the goal of peace. We should know that war can only succeed when it is fought with honor and concern for the well-being of the innocent. We should remember, as well, the sacrifice of those who fight on our behalf and preserve their dignity and honor.

We should remember that war is horrible. It fragments entire societies. It snuffs out many thousands of lives. It leaves ten times as many broken and bereft. War also takes on its own terrifying, self-justifying logic, making wars much easier to begin than to end. Once begun, wars tend to depart from the lofty and noble justifications that prompted them at the start, until our energies are subverted only toward winning at any cost.

And what should we be doing right now? We need to keep our elected officials accountable for the resources we continue to put into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Write to them or call and insist that our blood and treasure be spent wisely for clear and achievable purposes that you support. Register to vote. Vote.

We need to support today's service men and women, and support returning veterans, who have selflessly done our bidding by going into harm's way. Give to organizations like "Adopt a US Soldier" and "Any Soldier," which help people send messages and care packages to U.S. service men and women, or "Operation Helmet," which provides free helmet upgrades to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some chapters of the Jewish War Veterans have made it a priority to support veterans of all religions and backgrounds by serving as volunteers at VA medical facilities and at veteran centers to help disabled vets. Just reaching out to a returning veteran or the family of a veteran in a time of need can make a huge difference.

Our member George Drasin has been supporting returning veterans in another way. He is part of a non-partisan organization of mental health care practitioners - psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers - who offer free services to Iraq veterans and their families. The organization, the Returning Veterans Resource Project, works in the Pacific Northwest, where he and Deena live most of the year. You can support their work, or help start similar networks of mental health care practitioners here.

* * * * *

When wars begin, they appear to be a solution to a problem, but even the wars fought for the noblest causes usually end up creating more problems than they solve. Let us be forewarned for the next time. Let's not have to say at some point in the future, "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

We cannot pretend to be able to see the future results of the decisions we make today, but neither can we pretend to be totally ignorant of the fact that wars are almost always more costly than we imagine they will be, and that wars fought without honest reflection on their cause, or without scrupulous attention to our values, are the costliest of all.

This morning, I have offered my memo to the present and a memo to the future - thoughts about what Judaism teaches us about our current wars and the next war. Of course, if we had sought a warning from our past before we entered the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, there would have been many to be found in the writings of our greatest statesmen and philosophers, and in our own sacred texts.

"Lo yisa goy el goy cherev, lo yilm'du od milchamah", "Nation shall not lift sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." Isaiah's words are written on the statue that stands in front of the U.N. Building in New York City, just five miles from Ground Zero. Those words should be there to remind us of something. They should not be there only for us to congratulate ourselves on our taste in poetry and our zeal for religious phraseology. Written more than 2,500 years ago, in a world very different from our own, they are still a message for our modern world.

If we wish to dream of a world without war, than we should never enter war lightly or without careful consideration. We cannot afford to pretend that overwhelming military superiority is any kind of license to do whatever we want in a war. Even in a time of war, values matter. If creating peace in the world really matters to us, it must matter the most when we are most tempted to use war as a solution to our problems.

Seven years after 9/11, we need to look back, study what we have done, and learn. There are lessons to be learned from our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, lessons for us all. On this Yom Kippur, let us commit ourselves to listen and to take responsibility. Let us work now to create a world that lives up to our highest values.

* * * * *

G'mar chatimah tovah. May you be sealed for a good year, and so may we all.

Congregation Beth Israel

http://www.cbiweb.org

“Fearing God”

Sermon delivered Yom Kippur 5770

Monday, September 28, 2009

Rabbi Jeffrey W. Goldwasser

Congregation Beth Israel

North Adams, MA

“Now, Israel, what does Adonai your God ask from within you? Only to fear Adonai your God, to walk in all of God’s paths, to love God, to serve Adonai your God with all your heart and soul; to observe Adonai’s mitzvot and laws that I am enjoining upon you today for your own sake” [Deuteronomy 10:12-13].

On the steppes of Moab, Moses spoke these words to the Israelites as they were about to enter into the Land of Israel. Moses’ sermon was intended to inspire them, for their own sake, to continue to fulfill their obligations to God—obligations to faithfully follow God’s ways, to love God, and to fear God.

Yes, there is that word. Fear. Throughout the Hebrew Bible, we see how one of the hallmarks of an ideal relationship with God is the “fear of God.” It makes me flinch inwardly whenever I see the word. Of all things, why would a loving, nurturing God want me to be afraid? What does it even mean to fear God?

This is one of the questions I hear most often from people who are trying to make sense of the language of the prayerbook and the language of the Hebrew Bible. Does God really need me to be afraid?

The word, I believe, is particularly upsetting to us because of all that we have learned about fear from psychology. Fear is the painful, cringing instinct at the root of neurosis. It is our irrational fears that keep us from experiencing life to the fullest. Fear is the enemy that makes some people quick to anger, quick to feelings of guilt, quick to run away from a challenge, quick to fall back into bad habits, or quick to deny reality.

So, we have to ask, “Is that what God wants from us? Does God really want believers to be people who do God’s will because they reflexively fear the pain that God otherwise might inflict upon them?” These are fair and challenging questions, and there are answers.

Part of the problem, I believe, lies in the difficulty inherent in translation. “Fear” can mean a lot of different things in English, so it is important to understand the Hebrew words that are translated as “fear.”

Just as no two snowflakes are exactly alike, no two words in different languages ever convey exactly the same meaning. The Hebrew word that we usually translate as “fear” in Moses’ sermon is “yirah.” We know from the contexts in which this word is used that “yirah” always refers to the emotion one feels when in the presence of a great power.

When you stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon and contemplate its vastness compared to your own smallness, you may well experience something that could be described as fear. When it occurs to you that you could achieve some material gain for yourself by harming someone else, the trembling feeling in your gut is also a kind of fear. It is the quaking sensation that you are in danger of being overwhelmed by something vast and consuming.

The 20th century theologian Rudolf Otto coined the term mysterium tremendum to describe this feeling—a kind of shuddering, skin crawling, ice-in-the-veins dread that can be experienced as something “so overwhelmingly great that it seems to penetrate the very marrow,” or something that “steals upon [one] almost unobserved as the gentlest of agitations, a mere fleeting shadow passing across [ones] mood” [Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy. p. 16].

In English, we also could describe this feeling with the word “awe” and, perhaps, even “reverence.” It is the recognition of a powerful threat that is not physical, but existential—not a threat to the body, but to the spirit. It is not the fear of an abusive parent’s strike across the face. It is the fear of seeing a beloved parent’s look of disappointment in your actions. It is the the feeling that accompanies the very uncomfortable, unnerving and uncommon human realization that there is something more important than oneself.

This is a kind of fear that, paradoxically, we can feel good about. Nobody wants to be the child who can feel no regret in the disappointment of his or her parents. Certainly, no parents want their children to have an ethical and emotional blindness that makes them insensitive to chastisement. We understand that the ability to be aware of the feeling of fearful awe is at the foundation of having a conscience. It is the primitive, emotional feeling in the gut that makes the intellectual ideas of “right” and “wrong” sensible to us.

It is important to recognize that “yirah,” this quaking awe, is not the only emotion that Jewish tradition prescribes for our relationship with God. The passage from Deuteronomy with which I began also talks about a full-hearted and full-souled love of God. “Love of God” is the usual complement to the “fear of God” in Jewish tradition. Just as children should regard their parents both with respect and love, so it is with a person’s relationship with God. Jewish tradition speaks of the love of God in deeply passionate terms. But, awe, too, can be passionate, even ecstatic, in those rare moments when we feel overwhelmed by the wonder of the world in which we live.

The linguistic explanation for the deeper meaning of the Hebrew word “yirah” is helpful. It provides a useful distinction to help us better understand what the Torah is talking about when it upholds the “fear of God” as an attribute of the pious. But, I am afraid, it is not a complete explanation.

Although, “yirah” is the most common word associated with the “fear” or “awe” of God, it is not the only Hebrew word used to express our trembling before the Divine. In the liturgy for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, for example, we see other words, some that we may find more difficult to accept.

There is a special addition to the blessing for God’s sanctity in the Amidah of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. We recited it a little while ago in our service. Here is a literal translation:

“Adonai, our God, place your fear upon all that You have made, and your terror on all that You have created. Let all that is made be in awe of You and all that is created bow before You. May all be made into a single circle to do Your will with a full heart. For, as we know, Adonai our God, dominion is Yours, power is in Your hands and strength is at Your right side. Your name is wondrous over all that You have created.”

Here the meaning of the Hebrew words for “fear” and “terror” cannot easily be re-interpreted as wonder and awe. This is “pachad” and “eimah,” in Hebrew, words that convey an immediate and powerful threat to a person’s well being. On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we actually pray that all living things will have that kind of visceral reaction to their Creator.

This is language that we do not hear as much during the rest of the Jewish liturgical year. Here, during the High Holy Days, there is little talk of God as companion and lover to balance the images of God as ruler and judge, as we have during most of the year. Yet, the prayers for the Days of Awe are meant to be heard against the backdrop of the rest of the year’s liturgy. Just as the taste of apples and honey together evoke this season—precisely because we don’t eat them together at any other time—the words of the High Holy Day prayer book are meant to evoke the particular flavor of our relationship with God at this moment in contrast with that of the rest of the year.

Next week, when we celebrate Sukkot, the focus of the liturgy will shift to God as lover and protector. However, now, during the Days of Awe, we are in the season when we most want to hear the ticking of the clock towards the deadline for seeking forgiveness; it is the time when we most want to feel the power of a God in judgment over us so we will meet Yom Kippur’s finish line for atonement. If you are only in the synagogue during these days, it is as if you were to hear only your spouse’s criticism of you and never hear his or her words of love and devotion. That’s not good in a marriage and it’s not great for a relationship with God, either.

I know that the whole idea of having a relationship with God is difficult for many people. I know that at this moment, someone in this room feels that his or her relationship with God is full and fulfilling, and I know that someone feels that he or she doesn’t have a relationship with God and doesn’t want one. Both of those extremes are fine and most of us are somewhere in between. We are all somewhere on the spectrum, whether we are conscious of it or not. We all have some notion of how our lives fit into the meaning of life and the universe as a whole, and we all question, in one way or another, what that relationship implies about the choices we make in life. Even if you are not sure right now about how this language about “fearing God” might help you answer those questions, it is possible that it can become a tool to help you gain a better understanding of your life and how you relate to life’s meaning.

So, how can we best understand the meaning of the “fear” and “terror” of God mentioned in our prayers? To answer that, I believe, we have to consider what purpose the emotion of fear actually serves in the human psyche. From the perspective of psychology, the emotion of fear is not an evolutionary error in the way our brains are constructed—far from it. Fear is part of a necessary mechanism for survival. Fear is the thing that triggers a “fight or flight” response when an animal is confronted by a predator or a life threatening situation. Fear can save us by filling our bodies with the hormones we need to run away as fast as we can, or to defend ourselves with all of our might. Fear is a good thing, if it is triggered by a threat that is real and ready to turn us into a meal.

The problem is that the things that frighten us are not always real. The human mind has the remarkable capacity to imagine worlds that do not really exist. That is the ability that allows us to imagine and build cities, to transform a desert into a vineyard, and to create art. Other animals, which can only perceive what is, cannot create images of what might be or of what ought to be in their minds, as human beings can. It is our most unique trait as a species, our greatest tool for achievement, but it can also be a great obstacle.

The ability to invent alternate realities means that we respond to the worlds we imagine and not only to objective reality. We are terribly adept at inventing things to frighten us. If a person imagines becoming ill, and becomes preoccupied with that thought, he or she can be driven to distraction with the fear of disease and, paradoxically, end up making choices that are actually detrimental to health—like staying indoors all day, or taking inappropriate medicines.

A person who constantly imagines all the different ways in which he or she might fail in work or in relationships can become stressed out by the constant release of hormones intended for “fight or flight” situations, and end up making choices that actually help to bring about the very failure that he or she most fears. The emotion of fear is within us because, when applied appropriately, it can save our lives; when applied inappropriately, though, it can just as easily ruin lives.

We live in a society that sometimes seems to multiply our inappropriate fears. We increasingly expect and demand more of our time to be devoted to our work, so that we have little time to relax and reflect on our lives. We don’t have time to process all that we have to do, so we become overwhelmed and fearful about all the things that can go wrong. That’s what we really mean when we say, “I feel stressed out.” We mean that we are afraid—scared that we have lost control and that we will fail.

When we do get “stressed out,” we poison our bodies with the chemicals that nature meant to be used only in emergencies. We make ourselves sick and we make bad choices that lead to more fear, more stress, and greater unhappiness.

The idea of fearing God is to take all of those inappropriate fears we have in life and turn their energy over to the highest within us, instead of the lowest. The great American orthodox rabbi, Joseph Soloveitchik had a good way of explaining this. The Rav was once asked by a Jewish psychologist why the High Holy Day liturgy included prayers to fear God, considering how much harm fear can do to the human psyche. Soloveitchik did not try to explain the “fear of God” as referring only to awe and reverence. Rather, he said, “I would rather have one big fear than a thousand little ones.”

Soloveitchik understood the problem of fear, and he expressed it in the language of God-talk, but it makes sense no matter what language you use. We need fear and it is a natural part of our psyche. But, as human beings, we can make conscious choices about what we shall fear. Shall we live in dread of not meeting the approval of our peers with our wealth or our good looks? Shall we fear falling behind in the quest to achieve status? Shall we fear every perceived slight or blow to our ego?

Soloveitchik proposes, instead, that we control our fear as a tool for making ourselves better, wiser and happier people, rather than to allow our fears to control us, and lead us to choices that make us anxious and unhappy. Soloveitchik advises us to let God be our fear.

If we have an instinct to “fight or flight,” let it be one that we harness to fight for justice and what is right. Let it be one that inspires us to take flight from behaviors that, in the long run, only do us harm.

The psalms say, “Adonai li, lo eera… Tov lachasot bAdonai mibto’ach ba’adam.” “Adonai is mine, I shall not fear … It is better to take refuge in Adonai than seek security in human beings” [Psalm 118:6-8]. The psalmist understands our choice. Fearing God does not mean cowering to defend ourselves from divine blows. The fear of God means taking possession of our fears. Instead of turning all of those hormones against ourselves, feeding our self-doubts and insecurities, we should be using that energy to heighten our self-awareness of the choices we make in life and try to do better.

We experience Yirat HaShem, “the fear-awe-reverence of God,” when we let go of compulsive behaviors and bad habits and choose, instead, to develop behaviors and habits that make us feel good about ourselves, our relationships with others, and with our relationship to our community. We “take refuge in God” when we catch ourselves spending too much of our energy worrying about what other people think of us, fretting over whether we are getting our share, or feeling distressed about whether we are getting ahead, and choose instead to listen to the voice of our highest values and and our dearest hopes for the world.

Fearing God is the antidote to neurosis, not the acceptance of one great neurosis. Fear is a useful emotion when it is directed toward saving ourselves—and we are endangered, whether or not we recognize it, by our stressful, hectic lives. Fearing God is filling ourselves with the trembling awareness that our lives are meant to serve a purpose larger than our own existence.

The human mind is gifted in its ability to invent things to frighten us, but we have the choice to use our minds, instead, to focus on a single idea that is the repository of our highest aspirations. If you think of God in that way, then you can feel good about fearing for your ability to stand before God unashamed. We can be the masters of our fears and direct them away from self-destruction and toward God.

Is what I am suggesting easy? Not at all. It takes patience to quiet our frantic minds enough to even notice our fears and how they affect our behavior. It takes discipline to make changes in the way we respond to our fears. It requires us to change some of our priorities so we have time to reflect. It also takes a lot of self-forgiveness for when we don’t get it right. Even then, we can spend entire lifetimes working to master our fears and still fall short.

However, the effort we expend toward transforming our fears is richly rewarded. The reward is our own happiness. By turning away from the thousand fears that send us flying and fighting in a million directions, we give ourselves the opportunity to live the lives that we actually want, not the lives that we are scared into.

On Yom Kippur, we are faced with the challenge of confronting the choices that we have made and deciding to do better. When we ponder that challenge, we should focus on the question of our fears.

If we choose, we can frame the question like this: “What does Adonai your God ask from within you?”—and discover that the answer is something like this: “God asks only that we let go of the fear that drives a thousand anxieties, and instead walk in the path of a whole heart and a dedication to our highest purpose. It is to rediscover the love and the dedication to our values that will nourish our souls. And it is to do it for our own sake.”

G’mar chatimah tovah. May you be sealed in the Book of Life for a good year.

“Health Care”

Sermon delivered Kol Nidre 5770

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Rabbi Jeffrey W. Goldwasser

Congregation Beth Israel

North Adams, MA

My friend, Chip Joffe-Halpern, a local public health administrator whom many of you know, told me a story about a local man without health insurance. Chip included this story in an article he wrote in a local newspaper a few years ago, so it may be familiar to some of you.

The story is about a man—we’ll call him “Dave”—who lived here, in Northern Berkshire County. Dave was in his 50s when he got some of the worst news that anyone can get. Dave had cancer, it was spreading, and the prognosis was not very good. Thank goodness, he went to Ecu-Health Care, the agency that Chip runs, which was started by an interfaith clergy group in the mid-90s, and which I have served as a board member. Chip and his staff tried to find a surgeon who would treat Dave.

This was a few years ago, before Massachusetts became the first and only state in the nation that mandates health insurance for all residents. Dave had a job and supported a family, but he worked for one of the many local small businesses that could not afford to offer health insurance to its workers. Because he did not meet the state’s income requirements for assistance, Dave did not qualify for any of the health benefit programs that existed then. He could not afford to pay for the necessary surgery himself, and the state had no program to pay for it, either.

In all of Western Massachusetts, not a single surgeon could be found who could take Dave on as a patient on a low-fee or no-fee basis. Eventually, Ecu-Health Care found a surgeon on the other side of the state who would treat him. The surgery was successful—so far as it slowed down the spread of the cancer—and Dave eventually returned home, but he was far from being out of the woods.

The cancer caused Dave excruciating pain, so his doctors prescribed medication to give him some relief. Unfortunately, the medicine cost $200 for a 15-day supply, and Dave’s family just could not afford it on top of all the mounting medical bills they were facing. With no where else to turn, Dave applied—through Ecu-Health Care—to the drug’s manufacturer for a free supply. Now, most pharmaceutical companies have programs that will provide needed medicines in cases like this. However, most of them, like the program Dave applied to, require applicants to fill out a lot of paperwork and to provide a lot of evidence of their need.

In the end, the thing that stood between Dave and relief from his pain was finding a misplaced copy of his previous year’s federal tax return. When that could not be found, Dave had to plead with the company to accept other evidence of his financial situation, which was obvious and abundant. Finally, the drug company relented, and Dave got the peace he sought. A little while later, his situation worsened, and Dave died in the hospital a few weeks later.

This story, about a man from our own community who had to beg and plead to receive appropriate healthcare, is repeated a thousand times daily throughout our country. With all of the best intentions in the world, our society has created a healthcare system that, at times, forces people to beg for medical treatment—even to beg for relief from excruciating pain—at a time when their families are facing their worst nightmares.

We live in the richest nation on earth. The comforts and opportunities that most Americans enjoy would boggle the minds of most people in the world. Our wealth and our technical capabilities would amaze even the Americans of just a few generations ago. When I hear stories like Dave’s I can only think—this can’t possibly be happening here. It can’t. But it does, every day.

* * * * *

Now, I know that you have heard a lot about healthcare reform over the last few months. If you are like me, you probably find it difficult to sort through all of the claims and counter-claims that have been made about the proposals that are now being debated in Congress. We know that that debate has become deeply political and divisive—even before Joe Wilson’s emotions got the better of him.

It is not my intention this morning to talk politics or to try to persuade you to one side of the debate or another. I believe that there has been entirely too much side-taking in the discussion about healthcare, and not nearly enough talk about the values that are the common ground we all share when we talk about healthcare. This morning, I would like to talk about those values. I would like to examine what Jewish tradition has to say about our obligation to care for the sick and how those teachings might apply to the dilemmas our nation faces.

It is, somehow, appropriate that the classical rabbis’ discussion of the obligation to heal the sick begins with a passage in the Torah about people fighting. In the book of Exodus [21:18-19] there is a case that involves an altercation between two people. The Torah states, “When people quarrel, and one of them strikes the other with a weapon or with a fist, and the stricken person does not die, but falls ill and must take to bed—if the stricken person eventually rises and is able to go about outdoors on a staff, the assailant shall be cleared, except that the assailant must pay for the stricken person’s loss of time and must surely heal the stricken person.”

In context, it is clear that the Torah means that the assailant must pay the medical expenses of the person who has been injured. The classical rabbis interpreted the verse in this way, but they also expanded its meaning. In the Talmud [Berakhot 60a and Bava Kama 85a], the verse is taken as proof that God has given us permission to heal injury and disease and even commands that we do so.

The permission may seem unnecessary. Why would God have to give us permission to heal the sick? We should remember, though, that there are religions, even today, that forbid some forms of healing because they teach that illness is a punishment from God and that human beings should not attempt to reverse what God has decreed. Judaism specifically rejects this position and, in most circumstances, even requires that physicians do everything in their power to heal people in need. Maimonides, the great medieval philosopher and Jewish legal authority—who, by the way, was also a physician—stated it this way: “The doctor is obligated by law to heal” [Sefer Ha-Ma’or, Nedarim 4:4].

What is more, Jewish tradition does not see the obligation to heal as being solely the responsibility of physicians. The Talmud goes on to state that a person is forbidden to live in a place that has no doctor [Sanhedrin 17b], and that the obligation to provide medical care for the members of one’s family is of the same degree and kind as the obligation to provide food [Ketubot 52b].

The passage in Exodus that requires an assailant to pay the medical expenses of his victim is also used by the rabbis as evidence that doctors should charge for their services. However, given the importance of making medical care available to all, the rabbis do place restrictions on how much health providers may charge. The Shulhan Arukh, the most important medieval collection of Jewish laws, states, “If one has medications, and another is sick and needs them, it is forbidden to raise their prices beyond what is appropriate” [Yoreh De’ah 336:3].

However, the rabbis state that the ideal situation is one in which the community creates a fund, financed by those who are able, that is used to provide medical care for those who are too poor to pay for it themselves. The Talmud praises the model of a healer named Abba who set up a box for communal donations outside of his office door: “He had a spot outside to put coins. Those who had put some in, but those who did not could come in and sit without being ashamed” [Ta’anit 21b].

The emphasis on avoiding shame is a telling and a typical concern of the rabbis. One of the central principles of Jewish tradition is respecting the dignity of each human being. The rabbis equate shaming people with shedding their blood. We must do more than merely provide for people’s material needs, we must do so in a way that honors them as beings created in the image of God.

It is not difficult to recognize how our healthcare system failed to uphold these principles in Dave’s case. We failed Dave by not recognizing our obligation as a society to treat him and offer comfort for his pain. We failed him by making the easy availability of that treatment conditional on his ability to pay. Perhaps most seriously, we failed him by putting him in a position where he was forced to debase himself, literally to beg, for the medicines he needed to relieve his pain. Cancer robbed him of his life, but it took the American healthcare system to rob him of his dignity.

And we should be deeply troubled that Dave’s story is only a particularly grievous example of a pattern that is all too common. May I ask you here this morning, by a show of hands—How many of you have a friend or a member of your family who has not had health insurance in the last year?

Now, let’s add to that the hands of those who have ever been denied health insurance.

Now let’s add people who have ever had their health insurance company deny payment for a prescription or procedure they needed.

Finally, let’s add the hands of those who have faced substantial financial pain due to healthcare charges for themselves or members of their families.

Now take a look around the room and see how many people are affected by the healthcare crisis.

Many of us have grown used to the idea that fixing our healthcare system is a matter of helping the needy. It is not. It is a matter of helping all of us. With the skyrocketing cost of healthcare forcing more and more employers to limit or cut health coverage for their employees, with the constant threat of losing existing coverage because of an illness or the loss of a job, no one should feel that healthcare reform is someone else’s problem.

What is more, the failure of America’s healthcare system is a moral failure. It has failed us all by failing to treat the care of the sick as a societal obligation. It has failed us by qualifying the availability of care on the basis of a person’s ability to pay. It has failed us by treating us with arrogance and indifference instead of dignity and respect. We may not all be at fault for our society’s moral failures, but we are all responsible for doing something about them.

Let’s look at some facts:

• 46 million American citizens do not have health coverage and 20 million more are underinsured. That means that one out of five people in the wealthiest nation on earth do not have adequate access to healthcare. We are the only advanced nation on earth with numbers nearly that high.

• We spend $6,000 more per person on healthcare than any other advanced nation and the cost of healthcare is rising at a rate three times faster than inflation.

• Medicare, the government-run healthcare system primarily for people 65 and older, will run out of money in eight years according to the program’s trustees.

The people who understand the gravity of the healthcare crisis better than anyone else are the men and women who have chosen to spend their professional lives as healers. They see first-hand every day how people without health insurance put off medical treatments they cannot afford and end up only getting sicker, costing us all more in the long run. Healthcare professionals see how they have to spend inordinate amounts of their time tending to paperwork instead of spending more time with patients. They see how the current system benefits private health insurance companies that make billions by skimming money out of the Medicare system.

Many solutions have been proposed to fix our nation’s healthcare system. I am not going to attempt to evaluate them. However, I am going to insist that you learn about them and that you decide for yourself what course is best. What is more, I am going to ask you to become an advocate for changing our healthcare system because, quite frankly, the current situation is a shanda. Jewish values and Jewish law clearly demand that providing affordable, compassionate healthcare for all is an obligation of a just society, and we are not even close.

The faith community in Massachusetts—and, in particular, Reform Jews—played an important role in the passage of historic state legislation in 2006 designed to provide health coverage for every citizen in the Commonwealth. While the Massachusetts plan is not perfect, it has resulted in our state having the lowest rate of uninsured people in the nation. When people stand up for their values, they can make an enormous difference.

Here are four specific things you can do:

1) Talk to your friends and neighbors about your personal experiences with healthcare. Part of the problem in the healthcare debate is that everyone seems to think that the crisis in healthcare is someone else’s problem. As we have seen here today, we are all affected.

2) Keep yourself informed about the facts in the healthcare debate. We all know that many of the criticisms we have heard about various healthcare reform proposals have not stood up to objective analysis. There are a lot of lies out there, so don’t believe everything that comes into your e-mail inbox or that is said on television. Find out for yourself what the proposals actually say and what they don’t say.

3) The Northern Berkshire Community Coalition has monthly meetings for everyone in the community to learn about important issues we are facing and to give people a chance to voice their opinions. Even if I weren’t on the Coalition’s Board, I would still say that attending their meetings is a great way to get involved in community. The next meeting, on Friday, October 9, from 10 to noon at the First Baptist Church in North Adams, will focus on healthcare. Invited speakers include the head of the local hospital and nursing home, local advocates for healthcare reform, Congressman John Olver, and you. Come to listen to what others say and make your own voice heard, too.

4) Tell your elected representatives what you think. Congressmen and senators care about voter opinions and they do pay attention to letters and phone calls. Voter comments on healthcare are especially important to lawmakers because of the complexity of the proposed policies. New ideas for healthcare reform are being floated in Congress every week and your representatives are still making decisions about which they will support. Let them know what you think.

We all know that the debate on healthcare this summer and entering into this fall has not been conducted in a manner befitting a country founded on high ideals of democracy, civil conduct and fidelity to the truth. There is a real danger that incivility will make it impossible for our nation to tackle the big and important problems we face without lapsing into partisan brawling and name calling. There is a possibility that we will become so exhausted by the bickering and frightened by the scare tactics that we will be unable to address basic issues of justice and fairness in our society. We could lose our nerve as a nation to do great things and stand up to moral challenges.

As Jews, we have an obligation to uphold our values, to be fearless in decrying injustice, and to do our share to build a better world. Today, I am asking you to do your part to ensure that for you, your family, your community and your nation, 5770 will be a sweet and a healthy new year.

G’mar chatimah tovah. May you be sealed for a good year.

“The Prophets”

Sermon delivered Rosh Hashanah 5770

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Rabbi Jeffrey W. Goldwasser

Congregation Beth Israel

North Adams, MA

There is a man standing in the city’s square, alongside the central gates that open onto the avenue that traverses the city. He stands on a raised platform and he is speaking loudly to a gathering crowd. His clothes are ordinary. Yet, there is something about this man’s manner and appearance that seems extraordinary—his proud and powerful voice, his fiery eyes, his flair for dramatic gesture and storytelling. He gives the unmistakable impression that his presence in the square betokens something important, even vital, to the life of his listeners. It is clear that this man is not just a salesman or entertainer. But, what is he?

The crowd around the man is growing larger and, perhaps in response to the attention, his words become filled with even more emotion and his voice more powerful and excited. The crowd is mesmerized by the man, but the people seem uncertain whether they are listening to him because of his talent as a performer, or if it is his words that captivate them.

He talks about the city and the nation. He says that the wealthy have grown content and lazy, that they have become so self-satisfied with power and prestige that they have forgotten who they are. They have even forgotten, he says, how they became so prosperous in the first place. He says, that it is this forgetfulness that will ruin them.

The people listen. The part of their minds that recognizes the truth of the man’s words has been awakened as if from a long sleep. As the man’s words grow more and more heated, the people feel a conflict growing within themselves—“Should I listen to this man? If what he is saying is true, then I, too, am to blame. I benefit from the things that he says will ruin us. He wants me to turn my whole life upside-down! Yet, if he is right, then how can I not listen? How can I not pay attention to such a warning?”

Now, the man knows that he has the full attention of his audience. Now, he can come to the heart of his message. He yells out in a mocking laugh, “Ha! To you who use your position to write rules and laws, contracts and documents that steal justice from the poor and take away the rights of the needy, you who scheme to take away the last stitch of dignity from those who live in squalor and the last penny from their pockets, what will you do on the Day of the Lord when you will pay for your crimes? Where will you run for help and who will save your own sorry carcass? Ha! When justice triumphs over you, what will you plead in your defense?” [viz. Isaiah 10-1-5].

This is no longer just a show, and the man is not just a street performer. A careful study of the faces before the man reveals some with lines of regret and guilt, one or two tears of recognition, and the sudden pallor of shame. The people stare at the man with the nervousness of an unfamiliar emotion. They look at him and feel—simultaneously—angered by the the attack he has leveled at them, and relieved that the truth has been spoken.

It is just at that moment, when the people are weighing in their minds what would be better—to stone this man for his effrontery, or to carry him in triumph as their king—that he suddenly and unexpectedly changes tone. His voice and his whole body appear to soften. He lowers the arms that had been raging over his head and extends them toward the crowd with his palms turned up, as if in humble pleading.

“When that day comes,” he says, “then there will be no more suffering. The world will be transformed into an orchard of delight and all people will live secure with all that is sufficient to live. All the world will come together in joy. People will say, ‘Let us live lives of justice and peace.’ They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not make war against nation and there will never again be any reason for war” [viz. Isaiah 27:2-6; 2:2-4].

The people listen to the man. They hear the crack in his voice as he shares his vision with them, and it breaks their hearts. Their anger melts and dissolves into dreams of better days, a better life and a better world. This man, they know, is no king, nor would he agree to become one. He is something else: a speaker of truths and dreams, a spokesman for justice, a scolder, a comforter, a gadfly and a visionary. He is a prophet.

After the man concludes, his audience wanders away, back to the daily business of shopping and trading. The man’s message falls back into the dark corners of their awareness. Will that stirring of heart and mind rise again? Will the longing for justice in an unjust world stay with them long enough to motivate action? Or will it just be forgotten?

* * * * *

The prophet Isaiah was a real person. We can be confident of that. Unfortunately, there is little else that we do know about him for certain. We believe that he lived in the late 8th and early 7th centuries before the common era in Israel’s southern Kingdom of Judah. We believe that he was a prolific writer and speaker who attracted followers during his lifetime, and that these followers grew into a movement that lasted for centuries after his death.

The book of Isaiah is the most poetic, and the most quoted of all the biblical prophets. Isaiah is the first among the 21 books of the Bible’s classical prophets. Of the others, the most famous include Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Amos, Micah and Zechariah.

These men, like Isaiah, all lived in the tumultuous eighth, seventh and sixth centuries before the common era. All of them had common themes in their teachings—that the people needed to change their ways to follow God’s ethical and ritual laws, or face punishment on a “Day of the Lord.” All of them taught that despite the punishment that was coming, God eventually would redeem Israel and take the people back in love.

God is the central focus and principle of all of the prophets’ teachings. God is the world’s creator, the giver of Torah, and the one who formed the covenant with the people of Israel. In the end, God is also the one who will call the world to judgment and justice. The God of the prophets is, more than anything else, the God of justice.

What is more, the prophets did not just talk about God, they spoke for God. They recited long speeches that they presented as direct quotations from God’s own mouth. Today, a person who claims to speak messages direct from God is viewed as presumptuous at best. A person who declares that God is about to bring judgment down on the world usually is regarded as mentally ill. However, such declarations were a well known and recognized form of public speaking in the Ancient Near East. In that world, a person who made such claims may have been viewed with skepticism, but also with a serious concern that he or she might be speaking a profound truth.

People often think that a prophet is someone who can predict the future, but the Jewish image of a prophet, rather, is a person who has a God’s-eye-view of the present. A prophet is a person who can see through the selfish interests, desires and preferences that cloud human perception, and can see the moral landscape of the present moment as it really is. A prophet is a person who is God’s messenger for speaking the truth

The classical prophets of the Bible could be very harsh in denouncing Israel for its failings, but they also could be poetically and disarmingly comforting in their promise of eventual forgiveness and loving reunion with God. The effect is sometimes jarring, as Israel is first berated for its moral failures that distance it from God, and then reassured of an eventual redemption in which God will take them back in love. Isaiah’s words of comfort are among the most famous:

“It will happen in days to come that the Temple Mount will stand at the top of the mountains, above the hills, and all the nations will look up at it in joy. A multitude of peoples will say, ‘Come, let us ascend the mountain of Adonai to the House of the God of Jacob, so that God will teach us God’s ways and we shall walk in God’s path. Ki mitzion tetze Torah, u’dvar Adonai mYrushalayim. For Torah will go forth from Zion, and the word of Adonai from Jerusalem.” [Isaiah 2:2-3]

That vision of a future world at peace and united in a common dream of justice and righteousness is the central promise of the prophets. They wanted to teach Israel to dream in league with God.

* * * * *

Today, I am recalling the message of the Hebrew Bible’s prophets because I believe that they still speak to us. In these days, when we are struck profoundly by the feeling that the world is not as it should be, the teachings of the prophets should be resonating in our ears. Like our ancestors in ancient Israel, we too are struck by the feeling that our society doesn’t always tell the truth about itself. We, too, live in a time when our myths about the ways we share our affluence and the ways in which we provide justice for all are fraying a bit at the edges. We, too, yearn for a way to live a joyful, meaningful life in which we truly know who we are and where we stand in relationship to our values, to our dreams for a better world, and to eternity. We, too, are in need of the prophets’ message of dreaming in league with God.

Where is that voice now? Who speaks the difficult truths that can turn us back to our own highest aspirations for morality and reverence? Last night, we heard four members of our congregation talk about some of the prophetic voices that have inspired them—voices of parents and teachers, friends and communities, even the prophetic voice in laughter and satire. This morning, I’d like to add to those comments by talking about the “prophecy shortage” in our society, and what we can do about it.

Perhaps it is because we live in a time of unprecedented rapid-fire communication that it is so difficult to discern a single clear voice that tells us the truth. We, in the age of the twenty-four hour news cycle are so inundated by information from television, print, radio, Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo, Google, and on and on, that whenever anything worthwhile is said, we have difficulty holding on to it beyond the next viral YouTube video, or the next sensational story about multiple births, campus murders or screaming congressmen.

But as much as we have been driven to distraction by the endless stream of news, gossip, advertising and triviality, there is part of us that still wants something deeper and more meaningful. Part of us wants to hear a message that strikes us as profoundly true, that will last longer than an advertising slogan, that gives us and our children a better guide to life than a sound bite.

My advice for finding meaningful prophetic voices in your life is threefold.

• Step one: Turn off the television, disengage from the 24-hour news stream, spend more time away from electronic media. The contemporary Jewish teacher, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, likes to say that the human brain is like tofu; it tends to takes on the flavor of whatever it marinates in. If you want your head to be filled with messages about your inadequate personal grooming, your inadequate sex life, and your dull existence, by all means, stew in the marinade of television. However, if you want to keep your mind attuned to what is true about the world around you, and what challenges we face as a society, there are much better ways to do it than the mass media.

I’m not saying that your favorite TV show is ruining your mind; but I am saying that, in a society, where kids watch an average three to four hours of television a day, there is a need for discipline and self-discipline—a more thoughtful approach to what we put into our heads.

• Step two: Turn to community. Engage in the life of the people around you. We have been programmed to believe that the world’s problems are bigger than we can address ourselves. Nonsense. The world is right there outside your door, outside the window. Right here in northern Berkshire County we have plenty of problems that need to be addressed—children who go to bed hungry, seniors who do not know how to pay for their medications, people who are alone in illness, and all the other troubles that flesh is heir to. By doing something to help these problems, you will put yourself in a better position to hear the truth about our world’s ills than by listening to a thousand sermons.

Here in Northern Berkshire, we have lots of organizations that would be delighted to have your involvement. North Adams Regional Hospital always needs volunteers to comfort the sick. The Berkshire Food Project would like you to help them feed the hungry. Louison House in Adams could use a hand giving shelter to the homeless. Your children’s school, your town’s youth center, and, yes, your synagogue would all love to put you to work to solve the world’s problems—starting with the problems we have right here. If you want to hear the voice of the prophets in your life, go listen to what these groups will tell you about meeting the basic needs of all of our local residents.

• Step three: Listen to the voice within you. Pay attention to your own still small voice. Become your own prophet. In the Torah portion we will read on Yom Kippur, there is reminder that we don’t need “someone else” to deliver the word of God into our lives. In it, Moses teaches us that God’s message is “not up in the sky” and “not across the sea” for someone else to go get for you. Rather, it is “very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart to do it” [Deuteronomy 30:11-14].

You know what you need to do to make your life the fulfilling, joyful and transcendent experience you seek. It is only, in the words of the prophet Micah, “to do justice, to love goodness and to walk humbly with your God” [6:8]. Become your own prophet and listen to your own heart. Let it remind you of the reason why you were made, the purpose for which you were given life. Rededicate yourself to doing the things that make you feel good about yourself as a human being, and proud to be a member of the human race. That is all that is asked of you.

Just as the prophets would alternate between harsh chastisement and a gentle, comforting vision of a better world, we need to treat ourselves with both discipline and self-forgiveness. We, too, need to make difficult choices for ourselves, and to celebrate ourselves for the love and compassion that we are capable of and that give our lives fulfillment and meaning.

Where the prophets spoke of a Day of the Lord that would lead to Israel’s reunification with God, we can understand a more individual experience of redemption. These Days of Awe, which we begin today, are the rabbis’ attempt to re-imagine the prophets’ promise of national redemption into a moment of a personal return to God. Near the end of each service, we sing the words of the prophet Zechariah, “Bayom hahu yiheyeh Adonai echad ushmo echad,” “On that day God will be one and God’s name will be one.” We are expressing a wish for ourselves to become at one with God—at one with our own highest dreams for ourselves.

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The prophetic voice is not just a voice of introspection and self-transformation. It also is a call to action to change the world around us. Our congregation will make the Prophets the central theme of Jewish learning in our community this year. But to do so properly, we must do more than study the prophets’ ancient texts. We must also act upon the prophets’ vision.

The prophets will be the focus of our Hand in Hand family education program this year. At our first event, last week, we talked to our families about Isaiah’s vision and they responded by making tzeddakah boxes to collect coins in their home each week to support local organizations that they chose themselves. We will build on that model through the year to inspire our kids and their parents to get involved in projects to address hunger, homelessness and animal welfare in our community.

The prophets also will be the topic for adult education classes at CBI this year. Our classes will include text study, and direct involvement in social issues facing our nation and world. This year, we will work to develop a meaningful social action group at CBI to help our members work with other local faith communities on projects such as building affordable homes for low-income families, combating illiteracy, and addressing global warming. We also want to start a Chesed-Caring group to attend to the needs of the sick and the homebound in our own congregation.

So, come. Learn with us as we study the words of the prophets who lived more than 2,500 years ago so that we may discover who we really are today. Act with us as we renew our dedication to be partners with God in the task of repairing this broken world.

L’shanah tovah tikateivu. May you be inscribed for a good year.

xt.