Chanukah Sermon

Balancing our Jewish Lives

A week ago our community was shaken, shocked and saddened by the untimely death of Rabbi Shmuel Mann of B'nai Israel in Aurora. This is a profound loss for the B'nai Israel community in particular but also to all of us in the Western Suburbs. Rabbi Mann will be sorely missed. His twin brother, Rabbi Akiva Mann, spoke movingly in his eulogy about Rabbi Mann's scholarship, about his love of people and about his deep integrity.

In talking about his beloved brother, Rabbi Akiva Mann said something that made me think. He pointed out how his brother always emphasized to his congregation that important as ritual practice is, our ethical behavior toward one another, our commitment to Tikum Olam, our compassion and caring for others are equally important. I thought to myself: curious that in my congregation I feel I need to deliver the mirror image of Rabbi Mann's message:  that as important as our ethical behavior toward one another is,  and our commitment to Tikun Olam, repairing the world, ritual practice is equally important. Perhaps this is due to the fact that B'nai Israel is a more traditional synagogue than ours, and its members more attentive to ritual. They do not need as many reminders of how important ritual is in our lives. Perhaps they need more reminders of their religious responsibilities to make the world a better place.

I have no doubt that our congregation is extremely strong and very committed to universal values -- our commitment to feeding the hungry, and to volunteering our time and energies in a wide range of social justice issue – values and commitments we share with those of various faiths. For this I am immensely proud and so should you be. However, a lot of us, I feel, need to make ritual observance a more central part of our Jewish lives. We need to pay more attention to lighting Shabbat candles in our homes, on having a challah on our table Friday nights, on saying Kiddush as we sit down as a family for the special Sabbath meal, on resting on the Sabbath and on observing other rituals that are particular to Judaism. I can almost guarantee that observing one of two of our precious rituals consistently, would enrich our spirit as well as our family and communal lives.

One of the home rituals performed by most of us is the lighting of the Chanukah candles.  According to the Talmud, the primary reason we light the candles on Chanukah is to "publicize the miracle of Chanukah". The miracle is not the military victory of the Maccabees, but the miraculous intervention by G-d when one vial of oil lasted for eight days. We are to publicize the miracle by placing the lit menorah outside our doorways or in the windows of our homes, so that passers-by can see them, and be reminded of the miracle of Chanukah. 

There is an interesting discussion among the rabbis of the Talmud about what constitutes the mitzvah of the menorah. One rabbi says that a person has completed the mitzvah to light the candles once the candles have been lit. Another rabbi states that one has not completed the mitzvah of lighting the candles until they are placed in the window so that others can see them.  The disagreement is over whether the actual "lighting" of the candles is the main part of the mitzvah, or whether the "placing" of the candles in the window is the main part of the mitzvah.

Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev, a Chassidic master who lived circa 1800, comments upon this Talmudic disagreement from a psychological perspective.  He writes that a person should always try to perform a mitzvah with joy and great desire, with fervor and with meditating on G-d's greatness. To perform a mitzvah is a wonderful privilege, and our enthusiasm for doing it should know no bounds. But, he acknowledges, our heart is not always in it. We are not always able to perform the mitzvah with the proper "kavanah" the proper intention, with the right attitude.  A person might then think – "If I am not "feeling" it, I should not perform it."

This, writes Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, is the hidden meaning of what at first glance appears to be a disagreement in the Talmud -- whether "lighting" is the essence of the mitzvah, or whether "placing" is the essence of the mitzvah.  This is not a disagreement at all, claims Rabbi Levi Yitzchak. Rather, in asserting that the "lighting" is the essence of the mitzvah, we mean that a person should optimally perform a mitzvah with great joy, as if his or her soul is on fire. When the other opinion maintains that "placing" is the essence of the mitzvah, we mean that even when a person falls from that place of fieriness and enthusiasm, he or she should still perform the mitzvah.  In the first instance, the fervor of the person uplifts the lighting. In the second instance, the lighting uplifts the person. This is true of all mitzvahs, whether of the "ethical" or the "ritual" kind.

This is what happened to Dr. Laura Schulman, who published her story in the Jewish Press.  She writes that over the years she had become very distant from her Jewish roots and apathetic about Jewish practice. She was attending a medical convention when she walked by the public lighting of a menorah on the steps of a building on the campus of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. "My eyes welled with tears," she writes. "…. To be away from my family that first night of the holiday felt cold and lonely. Now, seeing the lights of the first night's flames of that big menorah, my heart lit up also, and I felt the warmth of my people all around me."

When she returned to Seattle, she contacted a rabbi for the first time in her life and told him of her experience in Baltimore. That flame in Baltimore ignited a spark that led her to reconnect with her Jewish community and to live an active Jewish life. The flame of that Menorah continues to burn steadily within her.

Such is the power of ritual. Rabbi Mann, may his memory be a blessing, reminds us that we need to strive to balance our Jewish lives with both ritual and good deeds, good deeds and ritual. Together these have the capacity to uplift our lives in unimagined ways.

Shabbat Shalom

Parasha Vayishlach

What Does G-d Look Like? 

Every Sunday morning I visit two classrooms in our Religious School for one of my favorite activities of the week --"Ask the Rabbi". Usually the teacher and the students prepare a list of questions ahead of time that they want to ask me.  Some of the questions are surprisingly original and profound. A boy in our third grade asked me, "How old are you when you know that you are Jewish?"  I have to admit I never thought about that before. I suppose it would be like asking, "How old are you when you know that you are a boy? -- or a girl?" It is the kind of information about yourself that you just know. Most likely, none of us can remember when we learned we were Jewish. In response to that question one third grade girl told us that her family has committee meetings when important things come up in family life. She recalled that when she was three years old her family had a meeting and told her she was Jewish!  This response prompted a little girl sitting next to her to tell us that her family had to put her in a bathtub to make her Jewish – but she did not remember it.  I did not understand that until she told us that she had been adopted.  Oh, I said, you had to go to a mikvah – the ritual bath used in conversions among other things -- because you were not born Jewish. This led another child to wonder why it was that her mother, who was Jewish, married her father, who was Christian!  Now we are getting into the nitty-gritty, I thought. I could see the classroom teacher squirming in his seat as I contemplated that one! "Well," I said "That is easy to answer, -- they fell in love! "

As you can see, these questions are full of depth and penetrating curiosity at the same time.  Last week a 5^th grader asked me what G-d looked like. As I often do, I explored this with the students before offering an answer. "Does anyone have any ideas," I asked. This led to a lively discussion. One child thought G-d might look like a giant blue smurf. Another thought G-d might look something like the Genie in the Alladin movie.  I later viewed a picture of the Genie in the Disney movie over the internet and I have to admit that I could understand where this child was coming from.  Another child opined that G-d was invisible. Of course this implies that G-d occupies some kind of space in which G-d is invisible, which is different from saying that G-d cannot be seen. My usual answer to this question is that G-d has no shape and no form and cannot be seen.

Perhaps my usual answer is not the entire truth either. After all, the Torah says that there has never been a prophet like Moses, who spoke to G-d "panim el panim" – face to face. And in this week's Torah portion, we have the story of Jacob wrestling with what is described as an "ish"—the Hebrew for "man". There is a lot of discussion in the commentaries about whether this is actually a "man" or "an angel". The Torah tells us that they wrestle throughout the night. The "ish" injures Jacob. As dawn approaches, the "ish" tells Jacob that he needs to go. Yet Jacob holds on. "I will not let you go until you bless me," says Jacob. The "ish" blesses Jacob and gives him a new name – Yisrael – "because you have wrestled with beings divine and human and have prevailed." Interestingly, Jacob names the place Peni-el, which means, "I have seen G-d face to face and I have survived."

Why would Jacob name this place "Peni-el" – I have seen G-d face to face – if he was convinced that the "ish" was in fact a man? Jacob seems convinced that he has had an encounter with the divine. So perhaps G-d does have a face, and that face and form looks very much like you and me.  That is certainly easiest to imagine when we look at the innocent faces of our beloved children. This seems to be Jacob's experience as well. The "man" with whom he wrestles is no "man" at all, but rather G-d himself. So this is how I answered the children this time --that maybe G-d looks like --- us!  The Torah tells us that G-d created humankind in G-d's image. There must be something in our appearance that is similar to G-d.

Jacob confirms this later in the parasha. When he finally meets Esau, Jacob implores him to accept the gifts that he has sent his brother. "When I saw your face," says Jacob, "it was as if I were seeing the face of divinity itself."

In his book, Seek My Face – A Jewish Mystical Theology, Rabbi Arthur Green tells the story of Rav Nachman Kossover, a contemporary of the Baal Shem Tov. Rav Nachman was a mystic who believed that to be close to G-d one had to focus on the four letters of G-d's name throughout the day. It was said that when Rav Kossover was preaching, he would look out onto the faces of those listening to him and he would see the letters of the divine name on their foreheads. The rabbi fell on hard times and was forced to sell goods in the marketplace for a livelihood. He had a dilemma. How could he remember G-d throughout the day? How could he keep the letters of the Name before him? Surely in the hustle and bustle of the marketplace he would lose his concentration and stray from G-d. He solved his problem by hiring an assistant who accompanied him in his business transactions. That person's only job was to remind Rabbi Nachman of the divine name. Whenever he would look at the face of his assistant, Rabbi Nachman would remember the name of G-d.

The Ten Commandments teach us that we should never make a graven image of G-d. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel taught that his is not because G-d has no image. He taught that this is because G-d has only one image – the image of every single human being.  In saying this Heschel is teaching us that it is idolatry to shape materials into images of G-d. The image of G-d cannot be contained or represented in any concrete image. This is a lessening of the image of G-d, a diminishing of the divine. Rather, we should shape our lives in the divine image. When we strive to fashion our lives to reflect the will of the Almighty, we are truly the living image of G-d.

Shabbat Shalom

Parasha VaYetze

Remembering the Holocaust

November 9 and 10^th mark the 75^th anniversary of the riots against Jews in Germany that we know as Kristallnacht – the night of the shattered glass.  In those 12 hours of mayhem, over 7500 Jewish businesses were attacked, 1000 synagogues were set to fire across Germany and Austria, and nearly 100 people were killed. The rioting was not a spontaneous action by Germans and Austrians. It was orchestrated by Hermann Goering and by Richard Heydrich, two of the Nazi leaders closest to Hitler. The following day, when the smoke cleared, so to speak, Goering presided over a meeting that included Heydrich as well as German insurance executives. The streets in front of synagogues were strewn with rubble, and it was determined that the Jewish community would have to pay for the clean-up. It turned out that although Jewish businesses were attacked that night, the businesses were often in buildings owned by Germans. The German owners ended up having to file claims against their insurance companies – something the insurance executives were not happy about!  The world also condemned Kristalnacht, wondering how such a brutal riot could take place in such a civilized country as Germany. Goering realized that this action against the Jews was a big mistake, and resolved never to do anything like it again. The destruction of German Jewry would have to be accomplished in a much more systematic and controlled manner.

Raoul Hilberg, the great scholar of the Holocaust, taught that Kristallnacht was not the first act of the genocide against the Jewish people. Rather, it was the final act of the traditional way of persecuting Jews in Europe – it was the final pogrom. It was the end of the medieval way that governments and communities attacked their Jewish populations. From that time on, Germany would pioneer modern methods of genocide. That would lie in the future.  For now, Germany wanted to rid itself of her Jews through making life unbearable for them in Germany.  Voluntary emigration was the goal of the Nazis.

Kristallnacht did convince many Jews that there was no future for them in Germany. Up until Kristallnacht many held out hope for the future of Jews in Germany. When Hitler came to power in 1933, there were 520,000 Jews in Germany. By the time of Kristallnacht, in 1938, there were only 300,000 Jews left in Germany, the result of emigration, and 190,000 in Austria. After Kristallnacht, it became apparent to the Jewish community that Jews could no longer survive in Germany.  One hundred thousand Jews left Germany in the months after Kristallnacht, and 80,000 left Austria. Some of them found refuge in Cuba or Shanghai or other places in the world, and were thus saved from the Holocaust.

Emil Fackenheim was a prominent theologian and a Reform Rabbi who died in 2003 in Jerusalem.  At the time of Kristallnacht he was a young man studying to become a rabbi and living in Berlin. He was rounded up by the Nazis in the days following Kristallnacht, along with 30,000 other Jews.  He was transported to the Sachsenhausen, concentration camp about 25 miles from Berlin. In the crisp autumn air he and others were made to strip and stand naked for hours in the main assembly area of the camp. As the afternoon waned, it began to get colder and colder. Finally, the Kommandant of the camp came out to address the freezing and exhausted prisoners. The Kommandant stood before them next to the cage of his pet parrot. On the cage was a sign saying, "It is forbidden to tease the bird."  "I knew then," Fackenheim later wrote, "that we naked and shivering Jews could never aspire to the status of a German pet".

Fackenheim was released from the concentration camp after three months on condition that he would leave the country. He made his way to Scotland where he enrolled as a doctoral student at the University of Aberdeen. However, he was detained as an enemy alien of military age and deported to Canada where he was imprisoned for a while before gaining his freedom. He earned his PHD in Philosophy from the University of Toronto and some years later joined its faculty where he taught until 1984.

Although he had a distinguished academic career, Fackenheim is perhaps best known for his formulation of what came to be known as the "614^th commandment." For those who are unfamiliar with the Jewish tradition, it is said that the Torah contains 613 commandments.  Fackenheim wrote, "We are, first, commanded to survive as Jews, lest the Jewish people perish," he said. "We are commanded, secondly, to remember in our very guts and bones the martyrs of the Holocaust, lest their memory perish. We are forbidden, thirdly, to deny or despair of God, however much we may have to contend with him or with belief in him, lest Judaism perish. We are forbidden, finally, to despair of the world as the place which is to become the kingdom of God, lest we help make it a meaningless place in which God is dead or irrelevant and everything is permitted. To abandon any of these imperatives, in response to Hitler's victory at Auschwitz, would be to hand him yet other, posthumous victories."

In the recently completed Pew Survey of American Jewry, people were asked, "What does it mean to be Jewish?" Seventy three percent of those asked, the highest percentage of any response, answered, "It means to remember the Holocaust."  How do we remember the Holocaust? If "remembering the Holocaust" means that we make a personal commitment to Judaism so that it survives;  if it means never forgetting the victims, if it means that we never despair of G-d no matter what;  if "remembering the Holocaust" means that we will work to make our world a better place;  a place which becomes the Kingdom of G-d;  if "remembering the Holocaust" means that we will never accept Jewish powerlessness again, if it means we will never again allow the fate of the Jewish people to depend on the good will of others, then Judaism is in good shape in America. I wonder -- Does it mean that to those who responded? Does it mean that to you? May it be so!

Good Shabbas.

 

 

Parasha Ki Tetze

The Power of Words

It is a beautiful Jewish tradition for parents to place their hands on the heads of their children and bless them on Friday nights. For sons we say, "May G-d give you the blessings of Ephraim and Manasseh". For daughters we recite, "May G-d give you the blessings of Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah." At the synagogue it is our custom to give blessings to those who are celebrating birthdays and anniversaries. We give blessings to bar and bat mitzvahs when they have their first aliyah, and we give a special blessing to their parents on the occasion as well. We bless those who are in need of healing. In fact, blessings are so important that we might even KILL for them!

Surprised? Shocked? Bewildered?  That is exactly what happens in our Torah portion this week! Isaac is old and is about to bless his son, Esau. He asks Esau to hunt and prepare some game for him, and he will then give him a blessing. Jacob, on his mother Rivkah's advice, disguises himself as Esau while Esau is out hunting. He steals into his father's tent disguised as Esau and tricks his father into giving him the much desired blessing instead. When Esau returns to find out that his blessing has been given to his brother, he is distraught. This tough guy, this seasoned hunter, this rough and tumble rogue bursts out into wild and bitter sobbing!  "Bless me too, Father", he cries out.  "But," says Isaac, "Your brother came here with guile, and took your blessing!"  "You only have one blessing, Father?" asked Esau, still bitterly weeping. "Bless me too, Father," he begs for a second time.  Isaac blesses Esau as well. But, the Torah tells us, Esau harbored a grudge against his brother Jacob, and planned to kill him after Isaac, his father, passed away.

Reading this story, we have to feel sorry for Esau. We also have to wonder – what harm did he suffer that he should plan to kill his brother? Is a blessing so important that you would kill someone for stealing it? Could not Isaac simply give Esau the same blessing he gave Jacob? Is it not G-d who blesses us? Who are we to be giving blessings anyway?

When we consider that up until the time of Abraham is was only G-d who gave blessings, we begin to glimpse the power of giving blessings. In the Book of Genesis, G-d blesses the seventh day and makes it holy. G-d blesses Abraham as well. After that, the power of blessing others is taken up by humankind. G-d can bless, and so can human beings. In other words, we share the power to bless with G-d.  Make no mistake about it, our words are very powerful. Our words can create, and our words can destroy. Two hundred and fifty years ago, the words of Thomas Jefferson inspired our nation to greatness. Hitler was one of the great orators of the 20^th century, yet his power to mesmerize millions with his speech led our world to catastrophe. A careless word between friends or family members can lead to strife that is difficult to overcome. Yet the words "I'm sorry" can lead to reconciliation and peace.

It is said that the words of the righteous have a special power, and that G-d sees to it that they are fulfilled.  The point is illustrated in this story:  Long ago there lived a great pious Jew named Rav Huna.  He was so poor that he worked in the fields all day long for a few coins and then learned Torah all night long.  One night when Rav Huna entered the house of study his teacher noticed his pants were held up with an old rope.  "Rav Huna, what has happened to your belt?"  His teacher asked.  "Why are you wearing that rope around your waist instead?"  Rav Huna replied quietly "Last Shabbas I didn't have enough money to buy wine for kiddish.  I know I could have made kiddish from challah but in order to fulfill the mitzvah of kiddishim the most beautiful way I decided to sell my belt and buy some wine."  Rav Huna's teacher was so impressed with his student's devotion to a mitzvah that he exclaimed "Now you dress yourself in rope.  May it be the Almighty's will that one day you will be so rich and prosperous that you will be covered with the finest silk."  And sure enough Rav Huna became an exceedingly wealthy man.  He no longer worked in the fields or lacked food or clothing.  On the day of his son's wedding Rav Huna laid down to rest for a while in a dark room.  His daughters and daughters-in-law did not notice Rav Huna on the bed and used it as a place to put their fine silk coats.  And so it was that when Rav Huna awoke he found himself covered with silk from head to toe.  His teacher's blessing had come true. 

Perhaps now we can understand why Esau was so upset. He knew that his father, Isaac, was a righteous person, and he believed that his words had great power to influence and even to determine his future.  In Esau's estimation, Jacob has done nothing less than to steal the future that Esau had envisioned for himself. 

Can the blessing of a parent, or a rabbi, influence ones future?  I believe it can. Several weeks ago, I was back in Massachusetts having a coffee with one of my former congregants. She was recalling a time almost a decade ago when she had turned sixty years old. Her father had died when he was sixty two, and she was anxious about her aging and her mortality. She recalled that when she was called for an aliyah she received a blessing from me on the occasion of her 60^th birthday. For her, that blessing made all the difference in the world, she recalled.  From that time on she faced her future without fear and with a new-found confidence.  "I knew everything was going to be all right," she said.

Now I would like us each to take a few moments to think quietly about what blessing we would like to receive tonight. Then, I want you to turn to your neighbor and tell him or her what blessing you would like.  It could be for health, or for patience, or for finding a job, or doing well at a project coming up at work, or for any other challenge you may face. Then your neighbor will bless you, with the words, "May the G-d who blessed our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah bless you with/in your/ to ….."  Then repeat that process being the recipient of your neighbor's blessing. The formula for the blessing is found in the back page of your handout for this evening.

Shabbat Shalom