Clergy Sermons

Someone at my first night seder offered an astute observation. I’m abashed to say, we had a full table, and I can’t remember who said this, as I would have liked to give them credit. They pointed out that Judaism often asks us to “remember”. The Purim-Passover season begins with Shabbat Zachor, the Shabbat on which we are command

Change is hard. Even when a change is overall positive, there is still a sadness at leaving the past behind. As I approach my departure from my role as CBJ rabbi, I am carrying inside me a deep sadness.

 

The other hard part is that I am stepping out into an unknown. I’m not leaving this job for another one. I’m leaving this job, trusting that I will find another one that will allow me the professional growth that I need right now.

 

It takes a tremendous act of faith to do that. Some of you may remember at Kol Nidre two years ago, I spoke about bitachon, trust or faith. I told the story of my panic attack on a mountain side, and that, as slippery and difficult as the mountain traverse had been - When it was the exact same traverse with only a few foot drop, I could handle it confidently. It was only my fear that brought on the panic that made it impossible to move forward. Bitachon is what it feels like to walk through life with an, inner faith that whatever comes your way, you will be able to handle it. The divinity within you will stand by you.

 

I went back and reread that sermon this week. It was helpful.

 

And then it happened that in the study group that I facilitate on Tuesday mornings, Marcia and Jan Chaiken brought for us a midrash to study, that spoke of the experience of stepping into the unknown.

 

The midrash was interpreting two verses. The first is from Deuteronomy (13:5):

 

אַחֲרֵ֨י ה׳ אֱלֹקֵיכֶ֛ם תֵּלֵ֖כוּ וְאֹת֣וֹ תִירָ֑אוּ וְאֶת־מִצְוֺתָ֤יו תִּשְׁמֹ֙רוּ֙ וּבְקֹל֣וֹ תִשְׁמָ֔עוּ וְאֹת֥וֹ תַעֲבֹ֖דוּ וּב֥וֹ תִדְבָּקֽוּן׃ 

You shall walk after Ado-nai your God, whom you should revere, whose commandments you should observe, whose orders you should heed, whom you should worship, and to whom you should cling. 

 

Without reading ahead, without thinking about the framing I just opened with  - How do you understand the concept of “walking after God.” 

 

….

The second verse if from Leviticus (19:23):

 

וְכִי־תָבֹ֣אוּ אֶל־הָאָ֗רֶץ וּנְטַעְתֶּם֙ כׇּל־עֵ֣ץ מַאֲכָ֔ל וַעֲרַלְתֶּ֥ם עׇרְלָת֖וֹ אֶת־פִּרְי֑וֹ שָׁלֹ֣שׁ שָׁנִ֗ים יִהְיֶ֥ה לָכֶ֛ם עֲרֵלִ֖ים לֹ֥א יֵאָכֵֽל׃ 

When you enter the land and plant any tree for food, you shall make its fruit orlah. Three years it shall be orlah for you, not to be eaten. 

The word “orlah” cannot be translated. It’s the word that refers to the foreskin of a penis. The word orlah also refers to a metaphorical thickening of the heart that must be removed to allow for repentance. Moses’ lips had orlah making it hard for him to speak. Orlah is some sort of extra material that gets in the way of full spiritual development, and so must be removed. 

 

The Torah is telling the people that when they plant trees, they must refrain from eating the fruit for three entire years. 

 

Here is the midrash that the Chaiken’s found for us on this verse:

 

Rabbi Yehuda ben Rabbi Simon began: “You shall walk after Ado-nai your God” (Deuteronomy 13:5). Is it possible for flesh and blood to follow the Blessed Holy One? The One of whom it is written: “Your way was through the sea, Your path through the mighty waters” (Psalms 77:20)... “And you shall cling to Him” (Deuteronomy 13:5). Is it possible for flesh and blood to ascend heavenward and cling to the Divine Presence? The One of whom it is written: “For Ado-nai your God is a consuming fire” (Deuteronomy 4:24), and it is written: “His throne was sparks of fire” (Daniel 7:9)...Rather, from the beginning of the creation of the world, the Blessed Holy One engaged only in planting first. That is what is written: “Ado-nai God planted a garden in Eden” (Genesis 2:8). You, too, when you enter the land, engage only in planting first. That is what is written: “When you will come into the land and plant” (Leviticus 19:23).

 

Whenever we are feeling uncertainty, it can be so easy to succumb to paralysis. To walk in God’s path means you have to have enough faith to put tiny seeds, or little saplings, into the soil. Knowing that the seeds might not grow. Knowing that you WON”T get anything back for at least three years. Still, you take the first step. You plant the seeds.

 

In our study session, Leslie Weinstein pointed out that the early Zionists did just that. Fleeing the murderously AntiSemitic communities of their birthplaces, they arrived in a land that was stricken with poverty, malaria, hunger. For the most part they knew nothing about farming, but they rolled up their sleeves and planted Eucalyptus trees. They drained the swamps, they made the desert bloom.

 

Rhonna Rogol pointed out that this is how we should face unknowns of all kinds. Whether it is an unknown cast with hope and opportunity - as mine is right now. 

 

And even more so, if it is an unknown cast in fear and darkness. 

 

Watching footage of the forests of harei Yehudah - the hills around Jerusalem - going up in flames last week, it felt like a devastating reversal of the efforts of the chalutsim (Israel’s pioneers.)

Seeing the devastation in Los Angeles.   

 

But God, sitting on a throne of flames, still plants trees. 

 

At the end of May, we will have two opportunities to be inspired by Israeli environmentalists, who are continuing to walk in God’s path, even surrounded by smoke and flames. 

 

On Tuesday evening, May 27th, Alon Tal, a visiting professor at Stanford, a former member of knesset, will speak to our community about environmentalism in Israel. He’ll be focusing particularly on the impact of the war, and offering us a vision for the future, Two days later, Dr. Tal is organizing a conference at Stanford, a collaboration between the Israel Fellow’s program and the Doer School of Sustainability, and he has invited our community to attend. 

 

About the same time, we will also have two opportunities to be inspired by people planting seeds in the face of another calamity that can often feel almost as desperately hopeless as climate change.  And that is, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

 

Before I say more about that, I want to take us back into our Torah portion. This week’s portion includes the most famous mitzvah of the Torah - v’ahavtah l’reyachah kamochah. Love your fellow as yourself.

 

That’s one heck of an abstract ideal. But within the context of the verse, the mitzvah of loving your neighbor is tied to some very concrete mitzvot. And they are not the mitzvot you might expect. I mean, if you were writing the Torah, what mitzvot would you choose to associate with the ideal of loving your neighbor?  

 

It’s mostly associated with negative commandments - what NOT to do. 

 

Leviticus 19:16-18

לֹא־תֵלֵ֤ךְ רָכִיל֙ בְּעַמֶּ֔יךָ לֹ֥א תַעֲמֹ֖ד עַל־דַּ֣ם רֵעֶ֑ךָ אֲנִ֖י ה׳׃ (יז) לֹֽא־תִשְׂנָ֥א אֶת־אָחִ֖יךָ בִּלְבָבֶ֑ךָ הוֹכֵ֤חַ תּוֹכִ֙יחַ֙ אֶת־עֲמִיתֶ֔ךָ וְלֹא־תִשָּׂ֥א עָלָ֖יו חֵֽטְא׃ (יח) לֹֽא־תִקֹּ֤ם וְלֹֽא־תִטֹּר֙ אֶת־בְּנֵ֣י עַמֶּ֔ךָ וְאָֽהַבְתָּ֥ לְרֵעֲךָ֖ כָּמ֑וֹךָ אֲנִ֖י ה׳׃ 

 

(16) Do not go about bearing slander amongst your people. Do not profit by the blood of your fellow: I am Ado-nai ׳. (17) You shall not hate your kinsfolk in your heart. Reprove your kin but incur no guilt on their account. (18) You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against members of your people. Love your fellow as yourself: I am Ado-nai. 

 

Verse 16 - There’s so much to say about the verse. What I want to lift up just now is the connection between slander and violence. A culture of hateful words can lead to a culture of violence. 

17 - Burying our anger in our hearts is dangerous. When we have a culture of not talking to each other, things can spiral out of control quickly. 

 

The president of Johns Hopkins expressed this danger powerfully, in a letter he wrote to the students who were sitting in illegal encampments protesting the war in Gaza. He started by noting that these encampments are dangerous. Though most of the students’ intentions are peaceful, we have seen that on other campuses violence erupted, and actually its the protestors in the encampments who are the greatest risk. And then he wrote:

 

We recognize that the encampment is useful in seizing our attention. It forces us to confront different frames or narratives on the conflict. But that is as far as it goes. By physically demarcating a space and by gathering, studying, and chanting with only those people who subscribe to a similar worldview on an incredibly complex subject, you fail to honor the university's foundational imperative for conversation across difference, for conversation that aims to test, evaluate, and understand competing claims. An encampment of this nature cannot help but reduce the capacity of those within it to see the common humanity of those who are outside its perimeter. Instead of recognizing and drawing strength from our diversity, we veer to a community of rigid solitudes, a community defined by suspicion, distrust, and, in the extreme, hatred. Along the way, our common humanity is lost. - Ron Daniels, President of Johns Hopkins University, in a letter to protestors dated May 3, 2024.

 

That brings us to the third, most powerful verse of the trio…

 

(18) You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against members of your people. Love your fellow as yourself: I am Ado-nai. 

 

It is so hard not to crave revenge against the other that you do not understand. The other that you have not been talking to or listening to, but instead have been talking about and directing anger towards.

 

HaEmek Davar - 19th century commentary, one of my favorites, wrote:

 

"Love your neighbor as yourself." ...the warning against revenge is connected to this. If you were to do something bad to another person, you would desire that they not take revenge on you, but rather that they would let it go. So you should behave that way towards your fellow.

 

In the moment that we desire revenge, we’ve lost our ability to see ourselves in the other person’s place. To see them as human, like ourselves. We’ve also lost the ability to recognize that we ourselves have sometimes hurt others, and would not want revenge taken on us.

 

While I was on my mini-Sabbatical in Jerusalem, I read two books by Palestinian writers. The first one was very hard for me. A man named Rajah Shehadeh. A beautiful writer. His words are filled with love of the land and of his people. But he is so angry at Israel - there was no space in his words for our story. And he does this thing of trying to separate Israel and Judaism, in order to say that he’s not against Jews, but against Israel. But he can’t define my Judaism for me. And my Judaism is not separable from my Zionism.

 

So, though Shehadeh’s book had literary merit, I did not like it at all.

 

Then I read a book called In This Place Together, about Souleiman Kahtib, who goes by Souli. Also a beautifully written. And also very hard to read. Souli and his family suffered greatly from the Israeli occupation of the west bank. It’s easy to dismiss white American college kids accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza - as if they even understand what that term means.  It’s a very different thing to read a Palestinian telling his own story of suffering and mistreatment, and shake it off. But unlike Shehadeh, Souli makes space for our story, too. He makes space to see Jewish and Israeli suffering. He acknowledges Jewish connection to the land. He seeks out Israeli partners, And, he wants his people to own their part in creating the conflict.  

 

The only catch is, he wants our people to own our part as well. 

 

On Tuesday, May 20th, the consul general of Germany will be visiting CBJ, to talk about what Germany is doing to support Israel. His talk represents for me the enormous potential of hochech tochiach - of genuine rebuke and remorse.  Even after actual genocide -the genocide that defined genocide - two generaions later, there has been real teshuvah in Germany, and there’s been forgiveness and healing in the Jewish community.

 

Now let’s look at the final source on the sheets, a midrash from the Jerusalem Talmud:

 

It is written: “You should not take revenge or nurse hatred against your fellow countrymen.” How is that? He was cutting meat and the knife fell down on his hand. Should he go and hit his hand? “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”. Rebbi Aqiba says, that is a great principle in the Torah. Ben Azzai says, “this is the book of the descent of man” is a more important principle (i.e. the principle that all of humanity is one family.) 

 

Sometimes it can seem that there is no way to recover from the brutality of what Hamas did to us on October 7th. How can we ever forgive?  And if we cannot forgive them, and they cannot forgive us for the violence that followed, then the future is truly hopeless.

 

But Israel is the land of miracles. If you will it, it is no dream. Israel is the land of God, and in the face of uncertainty, God starts by planting. 

 

I invite you all to read Souli’s book. Reading that book may be like planting a seed within yourself. I’ve ordered ten copies that can be shared around, although you might want to pick-up your own copy so you can mark it up. 

 

And on June 21st, my final Shabbat in the role of rabbi for this community, I invite you to engage with me in a conversation about Souli’s book. 

Let’s plant seeds together.

ed to remember Amalek. In the kiddush every Friday night, we make a declaration: זכר ליציאת מצרים, in memorial of the exodus from Egypt. At the end of each set of holidays we recite Yizkor, a memorial prayer for family and close friends.

The seder is an act of memory, not of history. Historians attempt to study the past with dispassionate objectivity. They can disagree about interpretation of events, or about whether one event caused another or not. But if they disagree about historical facts, it’s with the understanding that only one set of facts is correct. 

Memory is quite different. Memories shift over time, and two people can hold quite different memories of the same event. And to remember something, you have to have been part of it. And yet, none of us were there when Amalek attacked us. None of us were actually slaves in Egypt.

Our ancestors were fascinated by the past, but most were not historians. The great rabbis of earlier generations showed remarkably little interest in the historicity of events. For them, the past was alive. Abraham and Sarah, Joseph, King David - they all live in each and every one of us. Bits of our souls reenact their stories all the time. Each of us was present at Mt. Sinai, and each of us is obligated to see ourselves as having been liberated from Egypt.

The word Haggadah comes from the verb l’hagid, to tell. It derives from a verse in Exodus 13:8, part of one of 4 passages that inspired the piece about the four children:

וְהִגַּדְתָּ֣ לְבִנְךָ֔ בַּיּ֥וֹם הַה֖וּא לֵאמֹ֑ר בַּעֲב֣וּר זֶ֗ה עָשָׂ֤ה ה לִ֔י בְּצֵאתִ֖י מִמִּצְרָֽיִם׃ 

And you shall explain to your child on that day, ‘It is because of what Ado-nai did for me when I went free from Egypt.’

The verse says you should do this haggadah, this telling or explaining, “on that day”. On what day? Passover. But which Passover?  Look back at verse 6. Moses is speaking to the Israelites, as they are about to leave Egypt. But he is commanding them that in the future - when they arrive in the land of Israel - they must observe Passover as an annual holiday. The interesting thing is, the people he was speaking to never did arrive in the land. It’s their children who entered the land. And yet, the commandment of וְהִגַּדְתָּ֣ לְבִנְךָ֔, and you shall explain to your children, is understood to apply to the generation that entered the land, and all future generations. Even though, factually, ‘It is because of what Ado-nai did for me when I went free from Egypt’ – is not true, for them. 

Are we to lie to our children? 

A little delving into the root and conjugation of the word “haggadah” is revealing. The root is נגד. The same root as the word neged, which means against or opposed to or to stand opposite. Either partners or combatants can be described as neged. The word nagad means to be conspicuous. But haggadah or l’hagid has a hifil conjugation - for Hebrew grammar buffs, that is why the נ has dropped out. For the rest of us, words that are conjugated in hifil usually indicate causation. To do something TO something else. So l’hagid is not just to say something, but to cause a change in it. Perhaps, as our translator here suggests, it means to explain it - that is, to cause it to be understood. Or perhaps, something more. Perhaps l’hagid actually means to change the truth, or the reality, of the story that you are telling, through the telling of it. To make it conspicuous. To bring it out into the world, so that others may stand in relation to it.  

Did Ado-nai really do this for me when I went out of Egypt? As we tell it, we make it so. It’s not history, it’s our story, and we create it about ourselves. 

Another interesting thing about the phrasing of this verse - Ado-nai did it for ME. It’s the story of an entire people, and it is also each person’s personal story. 

Every person’s life is a story. Our stories grow, and change, and intertwine, like living vines. My story is part of the story of my people, and that of my people is part of mine. The stories of each person in my family is part of my story, and mine is part of theirs.

The stories of every friend, and colleague, and every person who has impacted me, is part of my story. 

When a person dies, their story seems to end. If they die too young, that ending is harshly cruel, like a vine hacked off to leave a gaping hole in the mesh. We are left thinking about the experiences they never got to have, and that severing can be unbearable. Even when a person has lived life to its fullest, still when their story reaches its conclusion, their absence shifts and stretches our own story, often painfully.

But the Torah offers us another way to think of their stories. They don’t end. “Because of what Ado-nai did for ME when I went out of Egypt.” The story of the slaves, their suffering, their freedom-  it continues not because we can watch the Prince of Egypt while munching popcorn, and are entertained. Their story continues because we are commanded to live it. And that means it continues to change and grow with us. Not everything that lives is contained in a physical body.  

Rabban Gamliel’s rephrasing of the Torah’s commandment reveals how difficult this is. We must see ourselves as IF we went out of Egypt. To really embody, to really become part of their story and let their story live through us - that’s not easy to do. It is easier with someone who was personally, deeply part of your own life. My grandmother is so real to me, though she has been gone for 20 years, I’m still in conversation with her in my mind. My grief over her loss, and my anger at the difficult parts of her personality, have long ago been put to rest, and I am grateful that her story continues with mine. It’s also different when a loss is more intensely painful. I think in that situation we have no choice BUT to keep that person alive. Loss of a child, loss of a husband or wife. The surviving parent or spouse may find they think of their lost one every single day. Their story appears unbidden within their own, and may offer little comfort. And - as painful as it is - that sorrow, too, is keeping the story alive of their loved one alive.

From a traditional perspective, reciting Yizkor is not something we do because it makes US feel better. It might make us feel better, and it might now. We Yizkor because it is a mitzvah, just as telling the story of the exodus is a mitzvah. Because every life is a story. And by continuing to engage with the stories of those who are physically gone, we ensure that their stories remain alive.