D'var Torah & Sermons

Yair D. Robinson

Parashat Toldot

11/29/19

Let me tell you about the second funeral I ever did. It was in Muncie Indiana, at my student pulpit. There was a woman there, her name was Sylvia. She born and raised in Muncie, the last of a multi-generation family in the congregation. She had no children but had poured her energy into the congregation. By the time I arrived she was living in a nursing home, and every week I was in town I’d stop by after Torah study. Here’s the thing: for all her devotion to the congregation, having served as a lay leader for years, especially concerned with the legacy of the Temple, she was also a profoundly unpleasant person. She had alienated just about everyone in the Temple, and most of her family as well. Even in her old age, when I was visiting her, Sylvia always had a few barbs for me whenever I showed up. When she died, she was afforded the right to have the funeral at the Temple, which in most communities is unusual, and basically the whole congregation came out, but as much to see whether I could say anything positive about this person.

As it happened, it was parashat Toldot, this week’s Torah portion. Most of the excitement goes to the beginning and end of the parsha: the birth of Jacob and Esau, and the trickery done by Jacob and Rebecca to claim the birthright. But the middle, we find Isaac digging wells, often re-digging the wells his father dug, only to have the people of Gerar come and stop them up. And so he names the wells Sitnah and Esek: Hatred and conflict. Repeatedly Isaac tries to maintain his father’s legacy, and repeatedly he comes into conflict with the nearby community, only to finally find living waters without disagreement, so he calls the place “Rehovot”, wide places. And after that, after the people of Gerar made peace with Isaac, he dug one more well, and called it “Be’er Sheva”, the well of promises.

So, I talked about the wells Sylvia dug in her lifetime. How, through her devotion to the legacy of the Jewish community in this small Indiana town, she found mayyim chaim, she found living waters. But she also dug wells of disagreement, of hostility, of conflict, and even of hatred. But some of those wells were Rehovot as well.

And it’s true for us as well. We dig wells in our lives, searching for living waters, for nourishment and sustenance. Sometimes we find conflict in the process, and sometimes we find peace. And we should always be asking ourselves the question: what kind of wells am I digging? What kind of wells are we digging for each other? Many of us got to spend the holiday with friends and family this week; some not. Did we find Sitnah and Esek, or Rehovot? Were we primed to expect one thing, and did we find another?

It happens to be Sylvia’s yahrzeit this Shabbat, but whenever I read these verses, I think of her, and I think of the wells she dug, and the wells we dig in our lives. May we, in our search for living waters, find wells of promise and peace. And may our wells provide nourishment for those in need. Amen.

Recently, in Boston, the Argentinian-born composer Osvoldo Golijov premiered his latest song cycle, called Falling Out of Time. The cycle is based on the 2014 novel by Israeli author David Grossman. The novel and song cycle are about a couple, grieving their child, now dead five years. The father, wracked with grief and pain and guilt, and perhaps driven mad, says that he must walk—must go—to where his son is, a journey that his wife knows is impossible. How can you walk to where your loved one has gone when he has died? But he gets up and goes, and soon is joined by others in the town who have lost their children, walking on a pilgrimage with no end. The music, like the novel, is haunting. They raise questions of grief and loss, which Grossman has explored in other novels, himself losing a son in the last Israeli war with Lebanon, but also raises a question of what it means to go.

We use the language of going, of movement, as much in the existential sense as we do in the geographic sense. How often have we talked about going somewhere—or nowhere—not meaning a literal place you can find, but as a state of being? When we ask, ‘where are we going?’, we’re just as likely to be asking about the direction of a particular set of choices, a course of action, a conversation, as we are asking where we are relative to a destination point on a map. We might ask: where are we going

-with this project?

-in this relationship?

-with our goals, our hopes, our dreams?

Likewise, we may use that language of movement to describe forward or backward motion, not just on the road to some place, but on the road of life. When we talk about how our lives, our goals for ourselves, our sense of success, we often use that language.

“I feel like I’m making progress”

“I feel stuck, or like I’m going backwards”

“I feel like the destination is farther and farther away.”

We can’t escape it, even when we check in with each other. How often, when we ask how our friend is, we say “how’s it going?”

These are all metaphors, of course. We can’t actually arrive in our relationships or our projects the way we arrive at Shoprite or a friend’s house. And yet, that language is incredibly evocative. We seem to have this need for that sense of movement in our lives, as if we are going somewhere. That’s the power of the Alvin Fine reading before Kaddish: that life is a journey, made stage by stage, a sacred pilgrimage.

But a pilgrimage to where?

Which brings us to our Torah reading, which we heard Rabbi Koppel share a few moments ago. Lech Lecha : You, Abram, Go. Go from your land and your birthplace and your family’s home to the land that I will show you, and I will bless you. We know the words, from Debbie Friedman if no one else. And those words Lech Lecha (or in the feminine, lechi lach) just roll off the tongue. They’re wonderfully alliterative. But they also present a problem. Because God doesn’t just say “go” or “you go”. God says, “Go to you”, a turn of phrase that just doesn’t get used that much (though interestingly, it is how God sends Abraham forth in the binding of Isaac story). Why does God say it that way, with this unusual turn of phrase: “Go to you”?

One possibility is that, that’s just how Hebrew works. It’s a quirk of the language. And it is, kinda. But as I said, it doesn’t really work like that.

Rashi, everyone’s favorite medieval French rabbi, suggests a radically different take, that we should read it hyper-literally. Instead of reading it as ‘you go’, we should read Go for yourself. That is, for your own sake; that the going will allow Abram to become Abraham. The going, as Rashi understands it, is now not just a physical journey, but a spiritual one as well. The midrashic Sefer Ha-Yashar takes this even further a few centuries later by saying that Abraham couldn’t realize his full potential unless he left as God commanded, so leaving becomes an act of self-actualization.

I want to take this idea even further: that Avram’s journey is, fundamentally, our journey. That when we talk about life as a journey, when we use that metaphorical language to describe ourselves as progressing or regressing, we are either moving closer to or further away from our selves. Our real selves. Our full potential selves. Our actualized selves. The kindest, most ethical, most thoughtful version of ourselves. That when we ask ourselves where we’re going, what we’re really doing is expressing the sense of distance from who we know we’re meant to be. Not in some grandiose, ego-inflated, delusional idea of the self, but truly in the sense that we can feel the destination, and the distance, in our bones: both our own hope for ourselves and our own disappointment, our own grief, when we fall short. Yet we keep moving forward. If we are fortunate, we might become a person like Connie Kreshtool, who won’t admit it, but who has chosen again and again to journey toward the holy and the right. We dare not mention the alternative. We keep moving forward.

Toward the end of Falling Out of Time, a child’s voice is heard singing a lullaby to the parents: “there is breath, there is breath, inside the pain, there is breath.” To breathe is to journey, even through the pain and loss as well as the hope and joy, toward our real selves. Abram’s journey is full of peril, full of trials, full of triumph and tragedy. Abram’s journey is ours, it is the same, as we move forward, lech lecha, for our own sake. As our prayerbook reminds us, God disturbs us toward our destiny, by hard events and by freedom’s now urgent voice. We don’t like leaving, but God loves becoming. May we move forward, always, toward our best selves, toward becoming. Amen.

It doesn’t take a great deal of conversation with me to know that I love camp—I often talk about its influence on me, and its power for so many young people.  Throughout my time as a camper, staff member, faculty member, and senior staff member at the 5 Reform Jewish summer camps at which I have spent time, each has displayed many aspects of the same magic—as well as a unique spirit.  In my most recent summers, I’ve had the opportunity to appreciate the particular magic of the URJ 6 Points Creative Arts Academy, a Jewish arts camp, near here in West Chester, PA, housed at the Westtown School—which I’ve had joy of experiencing with several campers from our congregation.  So, let me set the scene.

Creative Arts Academy is a place that breathes art.  In the fields between the lush, green trees—between the storied walls of the old buildings…It is there that creativity happens.  At CAA, young people discover who they are each day, trying new arts, honing skills, unfolding different aspects of themselves, exploring their world, and figuring out how they fit into it.  As faculty there, at so many moments of each day, I take in the camp community in soft focus—noticing us all as an ensemble—moving towards the same goal of creating a more beautiful world.

Each morning and each evening, surrounded by green fields, with the background of the blue sky of morning or the sun setting into pink and purple clouds in the evening, the camp gathers for ritual moments.  Between the beauty of voices joined together in spontaneous harmonies, through the prayers we sing each day, we share reflections on the values of camp and the theme of the summer.  This past summer, that theme offered 3 essential questions that seeped into all of our activities, quoting the great sage Hillel.  If I am not for myself, who will be for me?  If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, then when? These questions are answered throughout the time at camp in myriad ways—through art and through actions.  In conversations and in contemplation.

It was in the midst of all of this that one evening, long after the evening program, after hours spent laughing and sharing and planning with the other faculty, that I read something on facebook that pierced the bubble of camp.  And I became instantaneously more grateful that the campers didn’t have access to screens, so that their bubble could remain in tact.  A musician friend of mine posted that while he had played at Gilroy the day before, he was safe. 

And as opened a tab on my internet browser to find out what had happened, and took a deep breath thinking about how we’d be taking the oldest campers to the county fair the next day,  I reflected on the fact that there was yet another incident to add to an ever growing list, and I simultaneously realized that this now adult had once been a camper in my unit when I was a counselor for Carmel—the youngest unit at Camp Harlam.  And I thought of another camper in my bunk that same year, who was in Las Vegas for a concert 2 years ago, and while not physically injured, will forever grapple with mental scars.  And I thought of my colleague who had been the student rabbi in Littleton, Colorado, just a few miles from Columbine High School.  And I thought of my colleague who is the rabbi/educator in Parkland, Florida.  And my several friends who work in the Jewish community in Pittsburgh.  And just days later, still holding on to the bubble of camp, despite the bullet holes that permeated it, I would think of who my friends were in El Paso and then Dayton.  And while I know that these personal connections don’t make these stories any worse than any other, similar stories, I know that they hurt more.  And sometimes, it is when ideas become personalized, that they become more real for us.  And when some ideas become more real, we have no choice but to respond.

And with that, my mind returned in that moment, to the theme of the summer.  And I realized that I must be for myself, in order that my own realm be safer—the places and people I treasure.  I must be for others, in order to offer the same to those I do not know.  And that clearly, the time is now—and probably should have begun already. 

We have a problem in this country with gun violence.  And we have for a while.  In the places I mentioned—without even having to identify what happened in those places.  In so many other places where people have gone to shop, to see movies, to go to work, to pray, or to go to school.  Not to mention instances of gun violence that don’t even make national headlines, but are just as horrifying and important to acknowledge.  We have a problem. 

I’m not here to identify the specifics of that problem, or even to tell you what the solution is.  I have my ideas—I have no doubt that you do, as well.  I’d embrace the opportunity to engage in conversation about that.  But whatever you identify as the root of the problem, and whatever you think is the solution, I urge you to take action towards that solution.  Because approximately 100 people in the US die from gun violence every day^[1].  Because in the Jewish year of 5779, a year of 385 days, there were 403 mass shootings in the US^[2].  And those numbers are not ok.  And, most of all, because those numbers are not just numbers—each of those numbers is a collection of stories, and a collection of people connected to those stories, and of friends connected to those people.  This problem belongs to us all.

And it is happening all over our country.  And that terrifies me.  I know I’m not alone in that fear.  And, while as adults we may know how to grapple with those feelings, it is often even more challenging our young people.  I know that so many of our kids are scared.  A friend of mine told me recently that her daughter, a freshman in high school, spent that morning in hysterics, having woken up out of a nightmare about being in a school shooting.   And her nightmare felt real to her.  And she was late for school that day, because her mother had to calm her down, so that she could even begin to get dressed, and go to the very site of her nightmare.  This is a mature, 15 year old young woman—who woke up from a nightmare crying.  Our kids know what is going on, and for many of them, walking into school is a daily act of courage. 

To our young people here, I want to say to you directly: we see you; we hear you; and we are here for you.  You are loved, and you are valued.  And we want you to be safe.  We are doing our best. 

And to all of you, adults especially, I really hope that we are.  Because we need to.   We need to listen to our youth—especially as many of them are becoming leaders towards finding solutions to this issue—and because they are clearly telling us that there is a problem and looking to us. And we need to recognize that we owe real change to these next generations.  And we need to take action.  We need to do our best.  As I said before, this is true no matter your politics, no matter your beliefs.  Whether you feel that we need better gun laws in this country; or that we need to mitigate the culture of violence that is so pervasive, as Rabbi Robinson spoke about on Rosh Hashanah; or that we need to provide better and more accessible treatment for mental health; or that we need to recognize that mental illness is more likely to make an individual a victim than a perpetrator, and that we must reduce the stigma of mental health care; or that too often, too many people are failing to recognize the humanity of others…all of those are real needs in our society.  And while any one of them alone is unlikely to solve the immense problem that we have, put together, they can lead to real change—and perhaps we can take the steps necessary towards real solutions.  Be for yourself, and fight for the solutions that you believe in.  Be for others, and recognize that the work of your neighbor towards the same ultimate solution.  And let’s not wait any longer to engage in this sacred work together.

Because it’s going to take a while and it isn’t going to be easy.  And I don’t know about you, but I’m already exhausted.  And each incident that pops up in the notifications on my phone exacerbates the feelings already present—and I’m weary.  And I’m angry.  And don’t want to live in a world where I need to spend professional development time with our religious school faculty on active shooter trainings; and where we have to have increased security in our building; and in which I find myself constantly looking around for potential danger; and where one can’t help but to live on edge, wondering where it will happen next time.  Because there is an assumption of there being a next time.  And even as we fight for solutions, we also need to recognize and soothe our own feelings, and the feelings of those around us.  I’d like to suggest that these very High Holy Days offer us guidance in multiple aspects of this struggle.

Throughout this season, we read the ancient words of the unetaneh tokef prayer.  The prayer speaks of Divine Judgment; of God examining the life of each being on earth, determining our fate for the coming year.  On Rosh Hashanah, according to this prayer, God writes our fate in the Book of Life.  On Yom Kippur, our fate is sealed.  The basic theology of these words is troubling at best, especially when considering issues of gun violence.  But the ultimate message of the prayer is not that God determines our fate, but that our actions can change the determination.  “u’Teshuvah, ut’fillah, utzedakkah ma’a’virin et ro’a hag’zeirah.”  “Repentence, prayer, and charity temper judgment’s severe decree,” as it is translated in our machzor.  The implication here, and the common understanding of this line, is that if we engage in acts of repentance, prayer, and charity, then our fate will be better—we’ll prevent the brokenness and the chaos.  But I don’t think that’s true; too many good people have been victims of gun violence for that to be the case.  However, looking at the words more carefully allows for a different interpretation.  These acts of repentance, prayer, and charity will not so much change fate, but they can help to determine our reaction.  We are hopefully all written in the Book of Life; the question, though, is if we are in the book of the truly living.  For in order to live, we must realize that bad things will happen around us and that bad things will have an impact on us; we need to have the tools to live despite the bad.  I want to offer a more nuanced translation: Repentance, prayer, and charity bring us through the evil of the decree—this more literal translation is perhaps a more accurate understanding of these ancient words.  These actions give us coping strategies for living with the challenges that life presents.  No longer do we wonder how these acts can change our destiny, but how can these acts change the way we react to those events that are beyond our control?

T’shuvah, t’fillah and tzedakkah bring us through the evil of the decree.

T’shuvah: our acts of turning inward, can help us to see what we must do.  To see how we can be better at creating a reality that is different from that in which we find ourselves.  By sharing in collective repentance for the cycle of gun violence that has pervaded these last decades, we can turn towards a better future.  T’fillah: while surely, thoughts and prayers are not the solution to the vast problem of gun violence in this country, prayer is not a bad thing.  And successful prayer can change us.  Whether it brings us towards moments of transcendence which inspire us, or towards moments of centering and calm within ourselves, which comfort us.  Prayer that is more than going through the motions of the words we recite, prayer that makes us feel a sense of something beyond our day to day, can transform us and enable us to perceive both ourselves and our world differently.  Tzedakah: through righteous giving, of our money or of our time, to organizations that do work towards solutions in which we believe, our impact can be greater than what any one of us can do individually.  And if we understand this term more broadly, we can also see it as our mandate towards creating righteousness in our world—to making right that which we see is wrong. 

If we each engage in T’shuva, T’fillah, and Tzedakah, our actions can bring us through the terror of this problem of gun violence.   Each piece an essential part of the answer, to get ourselves through these challenging times, and to move our society beyond them.  As these holy days inspire us towards bettering both ourselves and our world, throughout this new year. 

And I truly believe this is possible.  It is, in fact, at camp where I find reminders of that, to remember on the days when I believe that it isn’t. 

On the final Shabbat of this past summer, I had the opportunity to lead Havdallah with the Directors and Leadership Team, sitting on the stage of the theater building, looking out at the camp community gathered, along with several families and community members, who had come for the final showcase.  The camp community sang the blessings, through tear stained faces, knowing that the summer was coming to an end.  The campers hugged each other, swaying with their arms around each other, separating themselves from Shabbat, and even as they held on to each other, grasping at the edges of the bubble as if to beg it to stay a little longer, beginning the emotional separation from camp.  And at the end, as is the tradition at Creative Arts Academy, the community sang Rabbi Max Chaikin’s version of Eliyahu HaNavi, the song calling upon Elijah the Prophet to herald a time of perfection and calling upon ourselves to build that reality.  As I watched the camp community from the stage, I saw the campers singing loudly—almost shouting the words—jumping and dancing and raising their arms with the message—truly living out the enthusiasm inherent in the idea of bringing about, “a time to come, when injustice shall be gone, pain and violence will be no more, done with hatred, done with war.”^[3]  And I knew, in that moment, that they really meant it.  And as they sang the words, “So we will not wait a minute more, to build the world we’re waiting for. Building starts with you and me,”^[4] I knew they were right.  This all starts with you and me.  And this all starts right now, as the gates close on the year that has past, and we open ourselves anew.  May we open those gates towards a time in which we are better, a year in which the world is better.  May we walk through those gates towards building that world.  So may it be for us all. 

ken y’hi ratzon

Kol Nidrei 2019

A few weeks ago Marisa shared with me an article about the Cheddar Man. Cheddar man is not, as you might imagine, a man made out of cheese, as sharp as that might be. Rather, he’s a 10,000 year old, perfectly preserved mummified man found in a boggy cave near Cheddar Gorge in England. This was mildly interesting to me, but not exactly a big deal; a number of prehistoric folks get found in the various bogs in the British Isles. The article went on to share that the mummy was so well preserved, some researchers decided to sequence his DNA. Fine. But, what I found truly interesting, and surprising, was that, having sequenced Cheddar Man’s DNA, they found his direct descendants living within a few miles of the this person’s final resting place. Think about that. 10,000 years after Cheddar Man died, they found his grandson 300 times removed living no farther than a short walk away.

Can you imagine? Can you imagine being able to say, “we’ve always been here” and for that to be literally true? Talk about being rooted to the land! This utterly fascinates me, to the point of giving me vertigo. Because this idea of being able to trace your ancestors back thousands of years to one geographic spot, that there are people who can say they’ve been in one place since before history, is completely foreign to us as Jews, and especially to us as American Jews. Of course, there are some of our people who have lived in our ancestral lands since Biblical times in an unbroken lineage of rootedness, but most of us do not have that experience. We cannot talk about our ancestors being in one place going back to the dawn of time. Rather, we talk about our grandparents or great-grandparents fleeing from persecution or hardship to come here, and before that their grandparents or great-grandparents fled from somewhere else. Our people have known exile after exile, dispersion after dispersion. Even our Biblical ancestors speak of a sense of exile. Abraham describes himself as a stranger in the land his descendants are supposed to inherit. The Psalmist speaks of himself as being a foreigner even in her own land, because of her distance from God. At Passover, Deuteronomy commands that we must recite our history, a history that we still recite at the seder to this day, that emphasizes our unsettled background, beginning: My Father was a wandering Aramean. Even the name we sometimes choose for ourselves as a people, Hebrew, means “to cross over”, to wander, unsettled. While we yearn for an Israel reborn and someday whole and at peace, that isn’t the comfort of being rooted in a place for millennia, but the ache of a people separated from their home, like a child torn from her mother. Truly, there is nothing like the Cheddar Man in Jewish history.

Or is there? I would argue that we are rooted, deeply rooted, as a people—but not in land. We are rooted in Torah. We are profoundly attached to our sacred text, our brit, our covenant, with God, with the words of our sacred Scripture. And at the risk of being Extreme, it’s more than the words. It’s more than the words and the stories that we to this day recite at Shabbat, that we teach to our children, that we break our teeth on, that we struggle with and that every generation has struggled with; words that we sometimes reject, often reimagine or reinterpret, words that beget more words: words of the rabbis in Midrash and Talmud, words of poetry and liturgy, words of stories and humor, words of challenge and question to this very day. Those words, all swirling around, in Hebrew and Aramaic and Yiddish and Ladino and English and so many other languages, lead us to our values. It’s not just the text; it can’t be. If it’s just an artifact to parade around the sanctuary and for terrified 13-year olds to chant from, it’s nothing but a museum piece. But the Torah that we are fundamentally rooted in, is the expression of our values as a people. That we were chosen to bring a light to the nations. That we have a special obligation to the world, to repair it, and bring word of God’s oneness. That all of us, created in God’s image, are holy, that we should love our neighbor and the stranger, protect the vulnerable, and that we deserve rest each week. I’m sure those ideas sound trite, but once upon a time, they were radical. Sometimes I think today that they’re still radical. And we Jews, forced to flee Judea but entering instead the country of Yiddishkeit, continue to preach these radical ideas. We are the world’s iconoclasts and always have been. As my teacher Rabbi Shai Held shared this summer: we as Jews have been disloyal to idols since the days of Abraham. Disloyal to tyrants since Pharaoh. Disloyal to little men who wish they were God since Haman. And that disloyalty to evil is a form of loyalty to God. We could spend hours discussing what that disloyalty to idolatry and tyranny has done for our history as well as our moral fiber. What are we loyal to, fundamentally? Not blood—anyone can be Jewish. Not land, as much as we may love our home country, and yearn for a Zion truly restored in all her grandeur. We are loyal to Torah; as a body of texts, as a process of learning and questioning, as a commitment we made at Sinai and continue to make with every choice, every mitzvah, and as an idea of who we are meant to be, who we are as our best selves, who God imagines us to be. We are loyal to the idea that in our commitment to Torah, to that Sinai moment, we are truly eternal. There is something truly powerful about taking a bar or bat mitzvah, that scared 13-year old I mentioned earlier, and bring them before the Torah knowing that each of them has an ancestor that did the same thing generations ago, thousands of years ago, in another land wearing other clothes with another accent, and that if they were to come forward in time in the conveyance of their choice: DeLorean, Police Box, or New York Phone Booth, and if they were to slip into the back row of the sanctuary to listen to their great-great-great grandchild however many generations removed, even though they would be truly a stranger in a strange land, that they would know what their descendant was reciting, and be rooted in it. Rooted in Torah just as we are.

That rootedness doesn’t happen on its own. We were not given the Torah at Sinai as an individual moment of epiphany. The Torah wasn’t given to a prophet in a private moment, distant from society. We were given it together, and the fulfillment of Torah—its values and obligations—requires the collective, the group, the community. Atem Nitzavim kulchem hayom we will chant tomorrow from the Torah: you stand here TOGETHER on this day. And later, Kedoshim t’hiyu, You—in its plural form, You—shall be holy. Rootedness in Torah isn’t just about the individual, though surely each of us is required and essential to fulfill it. Rather, Torah is about all of us coming together in sacred partnership—with one another and with God, if I can be so bold. And when we think of Torah and its principles, the rituals that grow from Torah, we see our interconnectedness, our dependence on one another. As one example, we cannot recite Kaddish without 10, so the mourner needs 10 or more to support and sustain them. So many of our mitzvot are like that, encouraging us to be there for one another: in justice and in lovingkindness. We are our best selves, as Jews, not standing alone, but shoulder to shoulder with our brothers and sisters, encouraging and supporting each other, whether in the smallest act of kindness, like a tray brought for shiva, or the strongest act of civil disobedience, and everything in between. Which is not to romanticize who we are. There’s nothing so difficult as being in community with other Jews. We are, after all, am k’sheh oref, a stiff-necked people. There is nothing simple or easy about life in community, and it certainly does not lead to instant gratification. We are disappointed by one another, and we ourselves disappoint. We argue, we forget. We find ourselves having the same interactions over and over again. We lose our patience, or others lose their patience with us. Real life in community is not a product you can buy, the customer is not always right, and your happiness is not guaranteed. There’s a discipline to it, to forgiving others their weak moments and their minor foibles. To forgiving ourselves when we don’t have the right words to say, when we fell short in our obligations and know it.  The Torah may be eternal, but each moment passes by and we wonder, perhaps always, whether we did enough. To live in community is not to take the easy path. It is to take the more meaningful path. To live in community is to learn to laugh at one’s self, to show up to the shiva call or the hospital room or the rally even when one is tired, to be patient with other people’s children as they play in the back of the sanctuary because that was once our children, or even us, to embrace with the older congregant who comes and looks around the sanctuary and sees none of her friends, because they are gone.  That is the real path of Torah, the path that leads to chesed, that is, to grace.

This is my 11^th High Holidays here. My 11^th Kol Nidre. There’s a little more gray in my hair, and altogether less of it. The two-year old from my first High Holidays is now preparing for his bar mitzvah. 11 high holidays of being able to say that I am your rabbi, of being rooted in this community, of being at your bedsides and b’nai mitzvah, at your funerals and weddings, in your classrooms and living rooms and board rooms, sitting on the floor of the JCC preschool and standing arm in arm with the clergy of this community. Compared to the 114 years this congregation has served Wilmington, it barely registers, to say nothing of the 10,000 years we discussed earlier. But it means something to me. To me it means that we are rooted, together, in Torah. Rooted together as a community. I don’t know where this community will be in 10 more years, or 100. I know that it is strong in its commitment to its neighborhood, that the members are committed to one another, committed to celebrating Jewish life, to Jewish learning, to social justice. To being the voice of Reform Judaism in the First State. And tonight I want to make you a promise, just as we promised at Sinai to do and hear, na’aseh v’nishmah, whoever we will be, whatever we do, we will do it together. We will continue to be rooted in our Torah values, as our ancestors were, as the builders of this community were. We will continue to live those values, doing the hard, messy work of community, the loving work of community, together. We will continue to grow as Jews, as people, and as a sacred congregation, and we will do this together. Because we stood at Sinai together, we are still standing at Sinai together, pledging ourselves to the work. And I cannot wait to get started.

Rabbi Yair Robinson

Congregation Beth Emeth

Erev Rosh Hashanah 2019

Can I share a somewhat embarrassing story with you? I feel like, after 11 Rosh Hashanahs together, maybe we can level with one another a little bit. Several years ago, don’t ask me when, I was trying to buy something at a pharmacy near my home. I remember that I was rushing, because I was trying to get meds to my kid, and as I was ringing up, I was trying to signal with my body language that I just wanted to get out of there. It wasn’t life or death, these weren’t prescriptions, but I was definitely stressed in the way that a parent can be when their kid is not feeling well. The cashier asked me if I wanted to participate in some kind of promotion or sign up for a frequent shoppers program. I really had no interest and just wanted to get out of there, so I said no, but she didn’t drop it. In fact, she kept pushing. I don’t know if she had been instructed to really hustle for these or if she was just a super optimistic person, but we went back and forth a few times. At that point, in that moment, I told her that if she didn’t stop pushing, I’d talk to her manager. I didn’t actually want to talk to a manager—I just wanted to get home, but that’s what I said. It was as if I punched her in the gut. She immediately shut down, and stopped making eye contact, looking down at the register. I think she even said, “wow”, and not in a good way. I just wanted to get out of there, but in my hurry to depart, I made this stranger fear for her livelihood. Did I really need to do that? Would it have been so bad if I had smiled and made a joke, or just said “hey, I know this is your job, but I’m just trying to get home in a hurry.” Or just signed up for it to get her off my back? Was my reaction necessary?

I bring this up not to embarrass myself or just whine about my failings, or use this as therapy time, but because I think there is a real question in front of us about how we as a society interact with people, especially in moments when we’re in a hurry or stressed out, or feel we need to take control of the situation, and that is to do something similar to what I did; to assert some level of authority or threaten the other person with some kind of consequence. In effect, it is to perform an act of violence.  Oh, I don’t think anyone in this room is going to resort to physical violence: I don’t think anyone here is up for a barroom brawl. But physical violence is only one kind. Certainly, it’s terrifying, and we see far too much of it, especially in the last year: from mass shootings around our country to the violence in our own city’s streets. However, we know and experience other kinds of violence in our lives, other ways we can be assaultive. It’s all around us: the use of punitive measures in our schools to correct behaviors, for example, rather than trying to use empathy. The threats of violence inherent in so many ways that we interact with one another, ways that we as individuals or a society try to force compliance, to assert control. Reflect, for a moment, on how we speak, how we posture ourselves. Do we operate from a place of entitlement, where our words, our needs, our wants, are more important than that of the people around us? Do we ask for help of our co-workers or make demands? Is there an implicit threat in our voice when we ask for something? Must we win at all costs, in every argument? Do I even need to discuss the way we talk to each other on social media, especially about politics and our political views? How, when we disagree with someone, or we don’t hear the exact right turn of phrase from a person we’re interacting with, we are quick to ‘cancel’ them? Cancel them? Really? Yes, really. Perhaps it is a result of the world we’re living in, where we are all wound so tight, all living right on the edge of explosion, that these kinds of defensive reactions seem appropriate. And yet, are they?

In his book Between The World And Me, The author Ta Nehisi Coates describes an experience leaving a movie theater with his son where an adult pushes the son out of the way. The woman is white, and Coates and his son are black. When Coates tries to protect his son, tries to intervene in some way to shelter his son, to do what any father might do, the woman’s response is “I’ll call the police.” That in and of itself is a threat of violence, a threat, as Coates points out, against any control he has over his body. Maybe we don’t have an exact corollary experience in our own lives, but we can ask ourselves the question whether we are quick to threaten consequences—to our children, to the people around us? Are we quick to call for a manager or supervisor, whether of the person ringing us up at the store or the teacher at our child’s school? Go back to the example I gave at beginning, the woman at the pharmacy: While I didn’t threaten her physically, my words was assaultive, and did clear violence to this poor woman. I didn’t know anything about her—not even her name. I don’t know what traumas she’s faced in her life, and how I may have fed into those traumas.

And essentially, that’s what we’re talking about. Trauma. Violence—whether words or actions—exposes others to the possibility of trauma and reawaken the traumas they’ve already experienced. What would it look, like, then, to live in a trauma-informed world, one where, while we might not know exactly what each other has experienced, we live in such a way that we take people’s trauma into account? The Jewish thinker Immanuel Levinas put it a little differently: we cannot know each other’s burdens, not really, because we live our own lives, not each other’s lives. But we can be responsive to each other’s burdens and take them into account in our interactions. Maybe it’s assuming best intent in others, rather than assuming they’re out to get you. Maybe it’s taking a moment and listening to the voice of the other person, and reflecting on the stress in their life, and giving them the benefit of the doubt, knowing we’d want the same for ourselves, or giving them the space to give voice to that trauma. There are so many ways to put a salve to each other’s wounds rather than exacerbate them; I’ve mentioned a few, I’m sure we could think of many more, but all of them require us to be willing to commit to living in a non-violent fashion.

As it happens, our community—this congregation and our city—is in the midst of that effort even as we speak.  This evening, at the conclusion of Peace Week here in Delaware, our interfaith and civic partners are gathered much as we are gathered: to commit to a new year, a year full of possibility, a year full of potential holiness waiting to be unlocked. However, they are not preparing to enter the year 5780. Instead, they are gathered to commit to the first year of NonViolent Wilmington. Part of the nonviolent cities movement, the vision is exactly as it might sound, for us as a city—institutions, nonprofits, houses of worship, businesses and citizens—to commit to Wilmington being a place of nonviolence. It is a noble idea, an effort that we as a congregation are committing to as well. And to many of us, I’m sure it sounds totally Pollyanna. To begin with, we are weighed down by the sheer amount and intensity of violence we as a city experience weekly, sometimes daily. While the last year has been better in terms of violent crime, a brief reflection on the shootings only in the last month tells us that we have a long way to go, to say nothing of the trauma the residents of Wilmington are still grappling with; lost parents and children and friends. Add to that the physical threat our community has felt since the shooting at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh less than a year ago, the way minorities have been under increasing stress this last year. Then add on top of that the various ways violence shows up systemically—in our criminal justice system, in our impact on the environment in our treatment of the vulnerable, then add on top of that t the kinds of violence I was describing earlier—the hurts and threats we make as expressions of our own stress, well, it would be understandable if many of us felt this was a lost cause.

Which I would argue even more strenuously that we should commit to this effort. Since that encounter in the pharmacy, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I can do to be a more peaceful person, to “seek peace and pursue it”, as our tradition admonishes. I am increasingly convinced that the violence around us—whether we perpetrate it or not, whether we are victims of it or not—debilitates us. Whether it is the violence we see around us—the crime in our city, or the way we respond to that crime—the violence of our actions, or the violence of our rhetoric, including our political rhetoric, we find ourselves locked in a system that amplifies and emphasizes violence as always justified, always warranted, always necessary, and always traumatic. Why would we choose to live in a world so comfortable with violence? Why wouldn’t we choose to make real a vision of non-violence? Violence cannot be resolved merely by our elected officials, or our schools, or our police and first responders; it is not contained ‘over there’: it will take the entire city, all of us, each of us committed to the well-being of this community, choosing to move forward, even if this goal is aspirational. 

In order to make that commitment, we must understand what non-violence means, especially as Jews. As we know, our tradition is not one of pacifism. Our tradition reminds us that sometimes, sadly, violence is necessary. For self-defense. In warfare. Even to protect the vulnerable. Again and again the Torah and rabbinic tradition give us profound examples of how restricted, controlled violence is sometimes necessary. But our tradition never values violence for its own sake, nor does it understand it as the best possible choice, only the sometimes necessary choice. Think, instead, how often our tradition emphasizes the importance of peace and maintaining peace; how the blessing of peace is repeated again and again. Meanwhile,  violence is understood to interrupt what should be a natural order, a disruption, a violation. Even the violence perpetrated by God is not idealized nor is it celebrated by our texts and traditions. In Genesis, right before tomorrow’s Torah reading, when God chooses to destroy Sodom and Gamorrah for their many sins, Abraham chooses to challenge God and push back against the divine decree, rather than revel in the destruction of the wicked. Similarly, when the Egyptians are drowning in the sea after Israel has fled, Israel sings songs of praise, songs that inspire the angels themselves. How do the rabbi’s imagine God’s reaction? God stops them, appalled, and asks: “My children are drowning, and you sing songs of praise to me?” While violence may be a necessary, according to the Torah, it should be understood as a tool of last resort, and should not be our first instinct.

I’m sure there are many listening to this right now thinking, “but that’s not how the world works.” No, it’s not. Not yet. We tell people to get tough, because it’s a tough world. We tell people to suck it up, figure it out, rub some dirt in it and move on, move forward. We tell children these things. That their pain doesn’t matter, or if it does, it’s because it’s supposed to make you stronger. That it’s a test. That’s the way the world is: it’s a big tough world and you just have to be tough enough to get through it. That’s how you succeed. That’s what we say, isn’t it? That’s what we tell ourselves and each other. That’s what we expect. What a bunch of nareishkeit. Is that really what we want to teach? Is that how we really want to live? That it’s okay to torment one another because that’s how previous generations dealt with their trauma? That it’s a dog-eat-dog world and we should go out there swinging? Why? What’s Jewish, exactly, about that idea? I don’t remember anything in the Torah saying “suck it up”. I remember the Torah reminding us to love our neighbor, to look out for the orphan and the widow, and to care for the stranger, the vulnerable in our midst. Thirty-six times in the Torah, we are reminded to care for the stranger, to love the stranger, and that love is unconditional. Not to love them when they comply, or submit, but to love them because we were strangers in the land of Egypt. Maybe it is a tough world, the Torah seems to say, but it’s our job to make it a little gentler, a little kinder, a little more generous. A few years ago when I urged us to become rodfei shalom, pursuers of peace, I was struck by how many people came forward telling me of how other people should be more willing to pursue peace. Virtually no one spoke of themselves or their own failings. We are quick to point fingers in every direction but our own. And, to be sure, we are commanded to rebuke our neighbors, but only after we reflect inwardly on our own behavior, and only as an act of love. Can you say that the last time you called someone out, it was out of love? Out of a sense of peace? I suspect, perhaps unfairly, that many of us, perhaps most of us, struggle with that. We struggle with acting in a non-violent way.

Our city could be a non-violent city. But if it’s just about getting Wilmington’s name on a website, it does no good. This effort must be a grassroots one, requiring all of us—each of us—to pull in the same direction. This is about violence on the streets and violence in our homes. This is about the violence in our rhetoric and in the structures of our society. This is about the violence to our environment and to our neighborhoods. This is about choosing to live in a way that is trauma-informed, remembering that we are neither the centers of our universe nor God, but people interconnected and dependent on one another, even, and perhaps especially, when we differ. I’m not going to lie: this is going to be hard. Everything is going to push back, including our own fight-or-flight response. But if Wilmington is to heal its streets, and if we’re to heal our own hearts, we need to pursue it.

So I ask you, I invite you, to make a pledge, to commit to pursuing non-violence in your life, to helping others pursue non-violence, to live your life in a trauma-informed fashion. To affirm the values of our tradition, to seek peace and pursue it.

I don’t know what happened to that clerk. I’m embarrassed to say I don’t remember her name or what she looked like. I have never apologized, and I don’t know that I could find her now if I could. But I know I can do better, I can be more responsive to those around me. And I know that, if I do so, it can make a real difference. I hope you will join me.

Eikev 2019

Some Hasidim of the Maggid of Mezheritz came to him. "Rebbe, we are puzzled. It says in the Talmud

that we must thank God as much for the bad days, as for the good. How can that be? What would our

gratitude mean, if we gave it equally for the good and the bad?"

The Maggid replied, "Go to Anapol. Reb Zusya will have an answer for you."

The Hasidim undertook the journey. Arriving in Anapol, they inquired for Reb Zusya. At last, they came

to the poorest street of the city. There, crowded between two small houses, they found a tiny shack,

sagging with age.

When they entered, they saw Reb Zusya sitting at a bare table, reading a volume by the light of the only

small window. "Welcome, strangers!" he said. "Please pardon me for not getting up; I have hurt my leg.

Would you like food? I have some bread. And there is water!"

"No. We have come only to ask you a question. The Maggid of Mezheritz told us you might help us

understand: Why do our sages tell us to thank God as much for the bad days as for the good?"

Reb Zusya laughed. "Me? I have no idea why the Maggid sent you to me." He shook his head in

puzzlement. "You see, I have never had a bad day. Every day God has given to me has been filled with

miracle.”

This week we read in parashat Eikev how we are to offer blessings for our meal after we have eaten and been satisfied, part of a suite of mitzvot concerning how we ought to express gratitude once we enter the Land. This begs the question of what it means to be “satisfied”? What if we don’t like the food, or the way it’s served? What if we find the conversation, the whole ambiance, to be wanting? Why would we offer blessing when we might, in fact, not be satisfied? For those who have recited birkat hamazon at repeated meals of camp food, we might really want to ask this question. What does our tradition mean by that idea?

One way of looking at it is, to be sure, that consumer mindset that all of us seem to have embraced. We are buying an experience, whether it’s the food on our plate, the engagement of our community, the loyalty of those around us, or even the island of Greenland, apparently, and if we’re customers, then the customer is always right. But I’d argue that our story suggests a different way of understanding the idea of satisfaction. That we may teach ourselves to be satisfied, to see even the bad days as good. To stand in a posture of generosity toward those around us. This past summer, during my time at Camp Harlam they spent a lot of time talking about “assuming best intent”; of campers, staff, parents or any member of the community. What a lovely idea. For when we assume best intent in others, it helps us see them  and acknowledge their humanity. This posture gives us the freedom to recognize the efforts of others, allowing us to give people the same benefit of the doubt we give ourselves. After all, while we cannot know fully what each of us carries in our hearts, if we stop to think about it, we know each of us is carrying burdens, burdens we may never see or fully understand. To assume best intent, to have that generosity of spirit, creates space for us to redefine satisfaction, and therefore express gratitude.

In Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of our Ancestors, we read im ein kemach ein Torah, im ein Torah ein Kemach (some of us may have even grown up singing these words). “Without sustenance, there is no Torah, without Torah, there is no sustenance”. Satisfaction on its own is mere idolatry of the self, an attempt to fill a bottomless hole. But a posture of generosity toward others leads us to see the good, the best intent in others, and therefore leads us to gratitude. In that way we may see every meal, and every day, as full of miracles.

Balak 2019

Last week while I was away up on the Cape I had the chance to participate in my dad’s installation as president of his Rotary club. It was, in many respects, an interesting event; I’ve known many of the members of his club for years, decades really, and it was a great moment for him and for our family. He asked me to speak as part of the installation, and when I got up I recalled a former member of the club, a past president of the Cape Cod Synagogue, a guy named Milton Penn, who had been honored a few years ago, before he passed. He was given a lifetime achievement award, one that was well deserved. Here was a man in his 90s who still went to work most days, who had given charitably and of his time to support the community around him, and was in every respect a pillar of society, and was beloved. There was no doubt he deserved the recognition. At the time he stood up, said thank you, and said something to the effect of, “the point is service above self; I didn’t do this to earn an award, but to serve the community.” And then he sat down. If you didn’t know Milton, you might imagine that this was false modesty on his part, or a Yankee abruptness that would go with some lack of social graces. But then you didn’t know Milton. He meant what he said; we are called to serve our communities and each other, to put the needs of the community above our own, and while awards are nice, they cannot be the motivation. In a way, he lived the words of Pirkei Avot: do not be like one who serves in the expectation of receiving a reward.

I think about Milton a lot when I’m on the Cape, and often wonder what he would make of this society, one that is increasingly interested not in service, nor in doing service to receive a reward, but just the rewards themselves. Think of the people we know, like Milton, who work quietly, behind the scenes, just plugging away trying to make the world better, not looking for any kind of recognition. Now think about your social media feed, as people post and post and post, almost as if they’re looking for a fight, looking to tell you about their values, but not really showing them.

This isn’t a new issue, of course. We’ve always, always had to deal with those who would talk rather than listen, who would be happy to have another certificate on their wall but not much to show for it. There are a lot of people who would be like Bilaam, the prophet in our Torah portion. The rabbis describe him as haughty, more sure of his capabilities than he ought to be, or as a wise person once said, “always certain, sometimes right.” What’s most concerning about Bilaam is his interested in doing the work of prophecy primarily for reward, rather than for any higher cause. Even in the part I just read, when he praises Israel ‘freely’, it’s all a bit suspect; it’s more hype than reality. And yet, we sing it first thing in the morning, when we enter the synagogue. Why? Because it is a prayer, and prayers are not descriptive in nature, they are proscriptive. They are aspirational; they tell us what we should be striving for.

 The truth is, it’s not enough to simply say, “how lovely are your tents, your dwelling places.” We have to make them lovely, and I’m not talking about décor here. Saying those words, singing them beautifully on Shabbat morning, doesn’t make it true. Doing the work makes it true. Serving those in need, caring for those in need, makes it true. Are our tents beautiful? Have we opened ourselves, our doors, to those who are fleeing trauma, who have needs that are unfathomable to us? Are we talking about how great we are, or are we being truly great?

At that Rotary installation, as at all Rotary meetings, we began with a patriotic song. My dad chose “America The Beautiful”, perhaps my favorite national hymn, and we sang all four, plus the four different refrains. I’d direct you to look at it on page 377 in the prayerbook. Most of us are familiar with only the first verse, which is descriptive of the natural beauty of our land, but when you look at the text of the other verses, you quickly see that it is prescriptive: our ancestors, pilgrims all, beat a thoroughfare for freedom in the wilderness, were noble heroes devoted to liberty, and committed to make the cities gleam, undimmed by tears. What are we doing to live up to their dream, of a beautiful America? What are we doing to affirm these words? Mah tovu ohalecha ya’akov: How beautiful are your tents, O Jacob. What are we doing to make these words true? Milton Penn knew, and he placed service above self, without regard for reward. May we do the same.

Rabbi Yair Robinson

Parashat Bechukkotai

Walking Erect, Walking in Dignity

This past Monday was a beautiful day. The sun was shining. My family and I had gone down to the riverfront to participate in a small Memorial Day exercise that was taking place, and there was a soft breeze.  It was perfect in so many ways. Except I had a little pain in my back. It wasn’t bad, but it did mean that I was moving more stiffly than I prefer. By the evening I was doing everything I could to not bend over. By the next day, I was in a phenomenal amount of pain. It started in my back and extended through my hips and across my shoulders. Something had gotten knocked out of alignment, but I persisted on going about my day with as much advil as I dared take. By the evening I had managed to make something go pop and the pain started to subside. I have no idea what I did wrong to begin with, but I realized the next day I had been in so much physical pain that Tuesday was a complete blur; I had gone about the day in a fugue not really aware of what was going on.

I spent two unpleasant days bowed with back pain, pain that went away. But it made me think of how many people are bowed over with equally powerful pain: pain caused by age and the mistreatment they incur, the pain of indignity, the pain of carrying all the weight of the world all of their burdens, the pain of the justice involved individual and their families, struggling mightily under the weight, the pain of and stress of being viewed with hostility in a hostile world: the person of color, the gay person, the disabled, the religious minority. I think it’s an especially powerful idea right now, as we become increasingly aware of how so many in our community are walking with burdens so heavy that they stand stooped and low. Sometimes it seems like the despair of the world has everyone hunched over, aware of their burdens. There is an expression in Hebrew: “omeid b’she’ela”, to stand as a question mark. There are a lot of people going around standing—literally and figuratively—as question marks, bearing a burden that seems intolerable.

But that is not how we are meant to go about. We are meant to stand erect, to stand with dignity. In our portion tonight, in verse 13, God, after telling Israel how many wonderful things will befall them if they follow the mitzvot, says a phrase that is at first familiar but different. “I am Adonai your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt to no longer be their slaves; who broke the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.” The commentator Sforno cites the Midrash in saying that, when Israel was enslaved, the Egyptians would make them lie on the ground so they could walk across them. And here, God removes the fetters that kept Israel bent over for centuries. As Baruch Levine says in his commentary, The aptness of the biblical metaphor is apparent. A person who is subjugated, upon whom a yoke is placed, is bent over. Once the bars are broken, he can stand at full stature.”

It's telling that this verse comes right after God encourages following the mitzvot as a way of maintaining deep relationship. As my teacher Shai Held writes,

The verse implicitly contrasts what it means to be a slave to Pharaoh with what it means to be a servant of God. Pharaoh places the Israelites under a backbreaking and soul-crushing yoke, whereas God invites them to stand tall.4 Subtly the Torah indicates that to serve God and to stand upright are not mutually contradictory. On the contrary, one cannot really serve God without a robust sense of one’s own dignity. True divine service depends on those who serve standing tall.

To fulfill the mitzvot outlined throughout the Torah is not an act of subjugation; on the contrary, it is an act of dignity. To be in divine service—to relieve people of their burdens and break the shackles of what binds them, to lift up those who have been knocked down, and to rebuild that which has been destroyed—requires that we see ourselves as engaged in the process, as partners. God doesn’t want servants and slaves, God wants us to have agency, to be engaged, to serve with dignity.

To be sure, we live in a time when the dignity of so many is under attack. Perhaps that even describes people in this room. And when our dignity is under attack, our burden feels weary, and our back becomes bowed. We must remember what we are called to do, both by our sacred Scripture and our historic experience. It is our obligation to cry out—on our behalf and on behalf of others—to find courage, to find our voices, to stand up, even when the weight of the world is on our shoulders.

In college, I learned that one of the most powerful moments on the stage in the 20^th century happened at the end of William Butler Yeats’ play “Cathleen Ni Hoolihan”, or “The Countess Cathleen”, when it was first performed in 1902. In that play, Cathleen, “The old Woman of Ireland”, is played by Maude Gonne, encouraging the young to fight for her independence.  She spent most of the play hunched over, but at the end, contrary to the direction Yeats had given her, she pulled herself up to her full height of six feet, a towering frame on the stage, and strode off like a queen, saying the lines “They shall be remembered forever, the People shall hear them forever.” It’s a powerful image, as powerful, perhaps, as the image the Torah gives us. May we stride forth, therefore, not bowed in pain or weary from our burdens, but in the strength of our mission, given to us by God and history; to assert our own dignity, and the dignity of those who suffer. Thus may it be said that we remember forever and hear that covenantal call in all we do, forever. Amen.

Yair Robinson

Parashat Emor 5779

My son had his spring chorus concert this past week. One of the songs played by the band was an orchestral arrangement of Psalm 42. Do you know the psalm? It reads, in part "...my soul cries for You, O God; my soul thirsts for God, My tears have been my food day and night; Why so downcast, my soul, why disquieted within me? Have hope in God; I will yet praise Him, my ever-present help, my God"

As I was listening to the music, I couldn't help but think this was the perfect song, the perfect psalm, for this week.

America this week was exhausting. Reading the news this week was especially exhausting. To quote Elon Musk, I'm just trying to think about the future and not be sad. But Missouri. And Georgia. And Alabama. Oy. When Pat Robertson says you've gone too far, well, need I say more?

I have gone through this week with a profound sense that we are failing women. That we as a nation are failing to protect women's bodily liberty, to protect the rights of the individual. Watching the lawmakers in these states trip over each other (and basic science) to violate women's integrity has been astounding, and heartbreaking, and terrifying.

And not just women. Let's be clear, what is happening in Alabama, and Missouri, and Georgia, and Ohio, is not the passing of laws that affirm life. They are acts of unabashed cruelty. They are not acts of love for potential children, because those same lawmakers are quite content to abandon said children once they have emerged into the world, especially if that child is brown, or gay, or poor, or non-Christian. No, these are not acts of love; these are actions that cause any person of good conscience to lament as our psalmist laments. These are acts of profanity, acts that defile the idea that all of us are created in God's image. The lawmakers who insist on such laws can use God's name all they want; they use that name in vain.

Cantor Flynn just chanted beautifully, as always, from parashat Emor, and she quotes from the text: You may not profane God's holy name. Some commentators connect this text with the commandment to recite the Kedusha in the context of community. In that discussion, in the Talmud, we learn that If one says 'Amen, yehei shemei rabbah' with all of his strength [i.e., with all of his intent], even if there is a trace of heresy in him, he is forgiven."

That is a powerful idea. That the act of saying this prayer with full intent and strength is transformative. Which is good, because we're going to need all of our intent and strength. We cannot be asleep any longer. Our task is to sanctify God's name, and to recommit ourselves to justice. Yes, we must lament, we must cry out. We must weep. We can give ourselves space to doubt and fear. And then we must act. We have to make those phone calls; to our national leaders, to our state leaders. We must give whatever we can to support organizations on the ground fighting these unjust laws. We must listen deeply and carefully to the stories of women who have found themselves suffering due to this kind of injustice. We must do this, because failure to do so would be a profanity in and of itself. Yehei shemei rabbah--we commit ourselves to God's greatness, God's holiness, by doing the justice work that is needed in this broken world. May it be enough. Amen.

Rabbi Yair Robinson

Parashat Terumah

2/8/19

Several months ago at a Rotary meeting a woman, a past president of the club who I know pretty well, came up to me and asked “which synagogue is yours?” Now, I’m used to this question. I get a variation of it all the time. “you’re the one on Baynard Boulevard, right?” No, that’s Beth Shalom. We’re on Lea and Washington. “Right, the one with the big ten commandments out front!” No, that’s Adas Kodesh. “Oh, I know! You’re that blue and white building! Near the Home Depot!” No, that’s a Ukranian Catholic church. So I was prepared for some version of this litany, with my usual answers, like “we’re behind the music school” and the like, but before I could she continued: “you’re at Rabbi Drooz’ congregation, right?” Now, I’m used to people asking me if I’m at Rabbi Grumbacher’s congregation, and when I get a question about Rabbi Drooz, it’s from someone closer to my grandparents’ generation than my parents, or mine.

She then took out a little pamphlet. She told me of how, when she joined Rotary, and joined the chaplain’s committee, she had met Rabbi Drooz, and loved his invocations at the beginning of meetings. She told me of all her fond memories of him and handed me the booklet. It was a collection of his invocations from his time at the Wilmington Rotary club, and she felt I should have it.

I’ve kept that pamphlet and have looked through it a few times. It is very much a product of its age and of Rabbi Drooz’ generation; typed on a typewriter and not a word processor, with a lot of male language for God. Some of the prayers were clearly from the Union Prayerbook or Gates of Prayer; some were his own words. This little booklet, not more than a few pages, was clearly not meant to be something preserved forever, but something to be used by the chaplain’s committee for a time, and then put aside, perhaps in the archives, if that. But the fact that this woman—not Jewish, by the way—kept this collection and spoke so glowingly of him, as if he might walk into the room at any moment, was very moving to me.

Now, I’m fully aware that I could be reading too much into this; that it’s just as likely that she was cleaning out her house, Marie Kondo style, and she decided this was a nicer way of throwing out this old pamphlet than just tossing it in the recycling bin. And yet, she must have kept it for some reason, and gave it to me for some reason—a gift, a free-will offering of the past, assuming that it would mean as much to me as it did to her. Of course, it can’t.  I did not ever get to know Rabbi Drooz in person; he had passed in the 1990s, long before I got to Wilmington, and so I only know of him from his writings, the stories told about him, and his portrait in the hallway. But it does mean something to me that I was entrusted with these memories. That is, on a certain level, what it means to give a gift—that we entrust something precious to us to someone else, in the hopes that they, too, will find it of value, even if it’s different. Could Rabbi Drooz know that his little booklet and the words in it would have such an impact twenty years after his passing? Probably not, but he sent those words out into the world hoping that they would make a difference, that they would be received as they gifts they were.

I suspect many of us wonder whether or not our actions, our choices, our gifts make a difference in this world. Most of the time, we don’t know how our actions impact others, or even if they are remembered. But if I learn anything from this chance encounter at Rotary, our actions are remembered, and our gifts make a difference. So give that which is precious to you, freely; offer them as gifts to those you encounter, and know that when you do so, you have made a difference.

Rabbi Yair D. Robinson

Congregation Beth Emeth

1/12/19

Installation for Elizabeth Flynn:

I want to share with you a story that I last shared at my installation. There was a rabbi named Nathan Finkel, who lived towards the end of the 19th century and headed a yeshiva in Slobodka, a small town in Lithuania. On cold, dark winter mornings, it is said, the rabbi used to get up early, cross over the bridge and go into town. He would stop off in all the shtibelech, all the little prayer houses and places of study, one after another. And in each small, dark room, he would light a fire in the oven and stoke the flames before continuing on his rounds.

“Why did he do it?” His closest friends would ask. And he would say: If all the prayer houses and places of study are warm early in the morning, then coachmen, porters and all kinds of working people will come in to get warm - and then they will find themselves in a sacred place. [Norman Lamm, The Good Society: Jewish Ethics in Action, p.31]

I have always loved this story, because I think it gets to the heart of what we do. What do we do? Is it about singing beautifully at worship? Is she just someone who says nice words at the holidays, or on Shabbat, who teaches our children and leads worship? Our job, Liz, the job of Jewish clergy, the job of all clergy, is to create a space of warmth and light. To provide a shelter from cold indifference, a place -- a safe haven from the daily, never ending competition and the meanness of spirit we find in the workaday world.  Our task is to create a sanctuary; a refuge where people are loved and supported, where we share in the work of justice and goodness, a safe place filled with God’s presence, where people can come in from the cold.

"They'll come in to get warm," said Rabbi Nathan, "and then they will find themselves in a sacred place." It is that warmth that brings people in – the warmth of community, of knowing that this is a place where all are valued as betzelem elohim, created in God’s image. It is the light—the light of Torah, of meaningful worship, of God’s justice, the ethics of our people revealed in the world—that keeps people here. Our task—your task, Liz—is to help the people first find warmth, so that they will stay for the light.

And you are already doing this work. I see it in the way you welcome people into your life, and share yourself with grace and warmth. I see it in your intentionality, the way you reflect on conversations with congregants, encounters with people, always concerned about whether or not you served them well. Always asking: did you give enough, did you do enough. I can assure you, cantor, you did, you do, you will—because you are enough. I have been watching you work and I am endlessly impressed by the way you see the whole person.

There are colleagues and teachers who have more to say, and more to say about who you are and what it means for you to do this work, so I will not belabor the point. But let me say this: I—we—are so glad you have come to bring the warmth of your presence—on the bimah, in the classroom, in the hospital room and the shiva house, and yes, in the Pokemon Go raid. And we are glad to have your light as well.

Parashat Vayeshev: How Much Pain?

What is an acceptable level of trauma? What is an acceptable level of pain? What is our comfort level with letting people suffer? I’m going to take a stab in the dark here and assume that the answer for us is “none”. There is no acceptable level of trauma, pain and suffering. For those of us who have experienced pain and suffering, and all of us have experienced pain and suffering, whether it’s emotional, physical, psychological, the very thought of a painful moment in our lives—an injury, an abusive encounter—is enough to put us in a tailspin. Some of us can heal and move forward from our injuries, but many of us find past trauma never really goes away. And we all know people like that. I have a friend in his 50s who played football in high school, and not at an especially high level, and he’s still dealing with knee issues from his time on the field more than thirty-five years ago. If we’re like most people, we hear that and shake our heads, intolerant of the idea of still dealing with pain from a past injury, at the same time feeling our own body or history for our own aches.

Accepting this idea, that there is no level of trauma that is acceptable, let me move on to the idea of moral trauma, especially bigotry. What is the acceptable level of bigotry for us as a society? Ethnic jokes? The use of misgendered names for trans individuals, or tired clichés about who wears the pants in a gay marriage? Is it redlining? Or pushing African Americans into worse housing loans, worse jobs, worse opportunities, or assuming their achievements are merely due to their skin color? Or shooting tear gas at people who are brown skinned? What is a healthy level of bigotry for a community? Again, I’m going to take a leap of faith and assume that, for all of us, the answer is “none”. The acceptable level of bigotry is “zero”. We recognize that expressions of bigotry, be they overt, like nooses left on a college campus, or subtle, like crossing the street when a man of Color comes our way, are unacceptable in a just society. We may be surprised to find our behavior turns out to be unintentionally bigoted—how many people use the word “retarded” because of habit, never once intending to demean those with learning or developmental issues, for example—and when we discover we’ve said something offensive we go through our cycle of defensiveness, embarrassment, and remorse and correct the behavior. At least, that is what is supposed to happen. Regardless, we recognize that to behave in this way is to cause real pain, moral trauma, and if there is no level of pain that is acceptable, then there can be no level of moral trauma that is acceptable.

So why is it, then, that when antisemitism comes up in discussion, the conversation quickly turns to the idea that there is some level of antisemitism that is acceptable in a free and just society? If you are a conservative, you should tolerate attacks on liberal forms of Judaism, the use of old canards and blood libels against opponents like George Soros and the like, so long as the conservative individuals in question support Israel (and we can have another conversation about what that means later). If you are a liberal, you should retain your fealty to the leaders of the Women’s March, and remember that their antisemitism—their expression of support for Louis Farrakhan, their accusations that supporters of Israel are not loyal to the United States—aren’t really antisemitism, that they are fighting for justice for all, and our supposedly white privilege and wealth means we should shut up and just support the cause. And if you think it is limited to politics, just bring up with your “friends” on the internet how you don’t celebrate Christmas and watch the fireworks explode. Or talk to any parent of kids, public or private, and ask them about the conversations they’ve had with fellow parents about how miffed they are that the school is closed for Rosh Hashanah, or that we are somehow undermining the education of children by even wanting the days off from school. If there is no level of pain or trauma—including moral injury—that is acceptable, why are we expected to grin and bear it?

I ask this pointedly, as I’ve been thinking a lot about something Linda Sarsour said, that has been coming up more on college campuses; that good liberals shouldn’t “humanize” Zionists, that to do so would be like asking black folk to “Humanize” members of the Klan. I can’t begin to tell you how freaked out and upset I get at this idea.

Let’s leave aside the comparison between Israel and the Klan for the moment. I’m troubled by this idea, that we should ‘dehumanize’ the people we disagree with, as if disagreement, even anger, is too milquetoast a response. How does dehumanizing my opponent help? First, does it give them room or space to learn or grow or make amends for their actions? Does it give you the space to see their perspective, their reality, their own human dignity? What does it accomplish other than making all of us, each of us, complicit in the defacing of God’s image in the world, denying the humanity and, by extension, the holiness inherent in everyone? We may disagree vehemently with the other, be angry at their choices, rage against the ways they undermine our sense of what is right, but they are, in the end, still people.

Of course, that doesn’t stop people, even in their humanity, from doing the wrong thing. As Donna Hicks points out in her book Dignity, while our humanity cannot to be questioned, our actions are always up for judgment. Look at our Torah portion. Joseph is introduced as a pretty awful character. He tells his father awful things about his brothers, and the question is raised whether he’s telling the truth or not. The favorite child, he rubs it in his brothers’ face by telling them about his dreams, dreams that make him the hero. Can we wonder why his brothers hated him, were angry at him? His actions are wretched. But his brothers don’t stop and correct the behavior, or just chew him out; instead, they gang up on him, tearing his clothes, flinging him into a pit, starving him, selling him into slavery, and finally rubbing his beloved cloak in sheep’s blood to suggest he was torn apart by a wild beast. Joseph’s behavior is bad, but his brothers’, response is to dehumanize Joseph, making him a slave and even replacing his physical body with animal blood. They deny Joseph his dignity, sending him to Egypt, an act that will have massive consequences, not the least of which Israel’s eventual 400 years of exile and servitude in Egypt. That, my friends, is the outcome of refusing to humanize the other; it will eventually result in our own dehumanization. And as a people who have been the subject of dehumanization, as recently as last month in Pittsburgh, we understand that threat intuitively.

There is pain and trauma in this world, a lot more than “none”. There is pain and trauma being caused by people claiming to do so in the name of American values, and I will resist that and do what I can to heal that pain and repair that trauma. There’s a lot of bigotry in this world, a lot more than “none”, and I will do everything I can to create a culture of peace and justice in this world. But demonizing the other will not help us heal pain, it will not help us create peace or justice. As we mark the end of sheloshim, the thirty days of mourning, for the victims of the Tree of Life shooting in Pittsburgh, let us remember that there is no level of trauma, no level of moral injury or bigotry that is acceptable in a just society, and that any attempts to dehumanize the other must be met with all the resistance we can muster.

I’ve had a refrain going through my head these past few weeks: Dayenu, it would have been enough for us.  But not the joyous Dayenu we sing at Passover, but a more somber one—enough is enough.  Had this one thing happened, Dayenu.  It would have been enough for us. 

Had there been a shooting in Pittsburgh, but not on Shabbat during services: Dayenu.

Had survivors of the Las Vegas shooting just over a year ago, not also been at the bar in Thousand Oaks: Dayenu.

Had there been a shooting in Thousand Oaks and not wild fires ravaging that same area: Dayenu.

Had swastikas been drawn in synagogues and public spaces throughout the country, but other synagogues not faced arson attacks: Dayenu.

Had our JCC had bomb threats nearly 2 years ago, and not been evacuated again this week: Dayenu.

Had Kristallnacht shattered windows and lives 80 years ago, and antisemitism and other hateful prejudice not continued to exist in the decades since: Dayenu.

Dayenu. It’s enough.  It’s too much.  

Between all these things, amidst other moments of challenge that so many of us have, traumas and wounds barely healed the reopen with each headline. When even our moments of joy can feel muted, for some of us: Dayenu. 

When some of us feel bad for feeling joy: Dayenu.

As Rebecca cried out with twins fighting with her womb: אִם־כֵּ֔ן לָ֥מָּה זֶּ֖ה אָנֹ֑כִי

“If this is so,” she asks, “Why am I?” 

If this is so, Why are any of us? Why are we? Dayenu.   It’s enough.

And yet, we turn towards the news, morning after morning, to see what else has happened.  For many, with a dread and a knowledge that there will be something.  Some other horror that has faced our world since the night before.  A sense of relief at those times when the world has been quiet—but a feeling that those times are fewer and further between than they used to be.  A sense of numbness and lack of surprise when we read of a new horror, that feels as unnatural as the tears that might burn on our cheeks.

And we find moments of hope.  We find sources of support.  We find opportunities for resilience.  And yet: Dayenu.

And yet we know we cannot be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief; as Rabbi Rami Shapiro reminds us, we must do justly, now.  Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now.  We are not obligated to complete the work, but nor are we free to abandon it.  We must say dayenu, now.

We know what happens for those fighting twins that Rebecca eventually births.  Jacob and Esau go on to lives of fighting.  But surely—we cannot accept that we are to live lives that are full of reports of almost daily trauma.  We cannot accept that while there may be factions around us who cannot agree and whose messages only grow louder, that they will continue to fight within our midst.  At some point, it must truly become enough.  For when it truly enough for us, then we must do something.  We must realize that we need to begin to repair, ourselves and our world, so that the future is better than the present may seem.

So what do we do with this sense of dayenu?

I believe that the answer is in those very twins, warring in Rebecca’s womb.  Because even those brothers eventually come together, a few chapters later than this week, Jacob and Esau crying over each other in a deep embrace and seeing in each other the Face of God.  In those brothers, we can see hope, a glimmer of the idea that eventually, the hatred and violence, the trickery and the manipulation, is, indeed, enough.  And it is in our young people that I continue to see hope.  This week’s Torah portion, after all, is called Toldot: generations.  It is through the generations that we can continue to make mistakes, and through the generations that we can find the hope towards repair.

Rebecca and Isaac, it seems, do not learn to change for the better, the behaviors of the generations before them.  Isaac instead digs anew the wells that his father had dug before him, instead of finding new wells of his own.  He urges his wife to pretend she is something other than who she is, in order to protect himself—just as his father had done.  Isaac and Rebecca both love one child more than the other, increasing the strife that existed for those children.  Perhaps, the story could have moved forward differently, if they had changed, and found a way to give their children the tools they could have used to make their world different.  Each generation has the potential to repair the damage of past generations—if only they are given the tools and the ability to do so.

 Perhaps, the next chapter in our own story can be different.  To those young people growing up in a world where shelter in place drills are commonplace, because too many shootings have happened in schools.  Those young people who are evacuated from their schools because of suspicious packages.  Those young people who have learned that they need to be careful wherever they are, because they read the same news that we read.  Those young people who have only begun to speak out against what they see as wrong.

Perhaps, it is through them that it will truly become dayenu.  Enough.  If we listen to them.  And help them to grow.  And help them to learn lessons that will help them to build the world that we all must believe is possible.  And listen to them.  And let them speak their truth and their power.

We have not yet learned.  And yet we can.  We can learn and we can teach what we have learned.  And together create that better world.  Where our broken and breaking hearts are mended.  Where our fractured world is healed.

And then, we really can create plowshares out of swords.  And musical instruments out of those.  And music out of those instruments.  A world where we don’t come together with our neighbors at rallies and vigils, but out of celebration and love.  

I believe that such a world is possible.  Because, as I heard this week, whole worlds pivot on acts of imagination.  It is imagining that world, and how to build it, and that we can, that keeps me going.  May this be the week where we, as a world, truly can say dayenu: It is enough.  

Ken y’hi ratzon.

Did you ever feel an urge to make a life changing decision? I’m talking about actually taking a chance and following your heart? Would you still have the courage to make that decision without knowing or the outcome, because you knew deep down it was the right thing to do?

In Lech Lecha, Abram experienced his calling when God told him לֶךְ-לְךָ מֵאַרְצְךָ וּמִמּוֹלַדְתְּךָ וּמִבֵּית אָבִיךָ, אֶל-הָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר אַרְאֶךָּ- “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto the land that I will show thee.” For Abram, this moment was so powerful and meaningful that he left Haran for Canaan, taking everything with him: his wife, his brother’s son, his entire property. Abram did not know where he was going, what he would encounter when he got there, or what the consequences of his actions would be, but he had conviction. The only thing he had was a strong belief in his decision because he trusted God to navigate and illuminate the path ahead.

God called and Abram answered. He chose to follow this calling and leave his comfort zone. Now when I say comfort zone, I mean Abram had the life. He was a wealthy man with a lot of sheep and goats; he was well respected within his family and his community. Imagine experiencing a moment of clarity in which you hear your true calling and then realizing it meant leaving a life you spent the last 75 years building.

This act is an act we can learn from. Abram’s faith in God was enough to trigger him into action. But what about us? You know, regular people with a regular connection to God. Most of us probably feel we have one sided conversations with God, without being able to hear a call back to us.

It is very possible that many people who are sitting in this room right now had a moment in which they felt a calling. Whether it’s something we really love and want to do, or a dream that we’ve had since we were children. A calling is stronger than just an aspiration. A calling is waking up in the morning knowing in your heart and in your gut that you MUST act.

Many Jewish philosophers tell us that we have a piece of God in us. That means that we don’t really have to have God reveal to us and encourage us to take action, as we already have this power inside of us.  True, most of us probably won’t hear the voice of God telling us to get up and go, but we must remember that the urge inside of us to pursue something because we know in our hearts it is the right thing to do, is GOD calling and it is up to us to ACT.

Yes, I know it is hard to leave your comfort zone. It’s comforting! It’s our warm cozy bed on a Monday morning, but you get out of bed anyway because you must. I believe in challenging myself to leave my comfort zone over and over again. As a perfect example, two months ago I got on a plane and left my home knowing I wouldn’t see it for a whole year, without really knowing what’s in store for me when I landed.  The fact that I’m standing here in front of you today, talking to you about Parasht Hashavua is a another one, as I do not usually discuss texts from the Torah, in English, let alone in public.

In my life, I have always tried to challenge myself and follow my internal calling, which is serving Israel and the Jewish people. This is a calling I felt since I was a teenager. I remember one day I read on the news that a group of Israeli teenagers went on a delegation to the University of Cape Town in order to protest against Israel’s policy, and I was overwhelmed by a very strong feeling, thinking this is not something you should do! I mean, Israel is not perfect - but why not try to influence and change from the inside? Why go to South Africa and harm Israel’s image that is already fragile? Looking back at that moment in time, I realize that the strong feeling I felt was my calling. It wasn’t anything like the divine calling that Abram had received, rather a strong burning in my heart and in my gut, which made me want to ACT. Immediately I started an advocacy project for teenagers and after a year I was able to form a delegation that went to Germany and spoke to over 200 peers about Israel and its complexity. That was the beginning of my journey serving my country and as you can see I am standing here in front of you today, serving as a bridge between Delaware and Israel. And although the calling was something I was sure of almost immediately, I have to say that many times I have acted out of that calling without knowing what’s in store, and in those times I always discovered and learned new and amazing things.

I once heard someone say that a calling is not something that just happened for no reason. There is a reason for why we feel what we feel. And if we feel a certain calling, we must follow it because it might be the reason why we were born into this world. This puts a lot of responsibility on our shoulders but it is an opportunity to be brave and heed God’s calling.

So what is it? What is your drive? What is that one thing that when you think about it, you feel compelled to action? And are you, in this moment of time, really perusing your calling or is there something holding you back? These are questions I ask myself on a daily basis almost, and I encourage you to ask yourself those questions as well.

There is a lot we can learn from Abram’s decision at Parahshat Lech Lecha about courage, taking risks and believing in yourself.  Today I want you to motivate and challenge you to follow Abram’s example and answer your calling because when you do, the fear of the unknown will melt away and you’ll be free to fulfill the purpose you were put on this earth to do.

Many of you have often heard me say that there’s all kinds of learning, a lesson I learned from my teacher, Ken Ehrlich. I want to share one moment of learning from early in my rabbinic career.

It’s 1998. I’m walking down the hall at HUC in Jerusalem with a bunch of my classmates, and we’re talking about heaven knows what. Clearly, something isn’t going my way, but the details are fuzzy now. At some point, I say with joking, mock exasperation “Clearly I just can’t win”, when a classmate looks at me and says, deadpan, “then maybe you should stop trying.”

Oof. That hit where it counts. It was an aside, probably meant in the same playful spirit as my comment, but it ended up having a profound impact on me. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that encounter and what it means for my life and my rabbinate. Specifically, what’s the winning thing about? On a certain level, it’s about vulnerability, or rather, masking vulnerability. In fact, I would dare say that a lot of what we do in our lives is to protect ourselves from feeling vulnerable, exposed. It feels bad.

There’s a famous story about President Johnson that, as he was getting on a helicopter, a Marine came over and said, “excuse me, sir, but this isn’t Marine One. That’s your helicopter.” To which LBJ responded “Son, they’re all my helicopters” and got on the wrong one. While true on one level, would it have been so bad if Johnson had smiled at the Marine and gotten on the other one? Did it matter that much? It does when we think of vulnerability as weakness and admitting our mistakes as a sign of failure.

But, didn’t we just go through a whole day whose purpose is to expose our vulnerabilities? To open ourselves up to healthy self-doubt? Isn’t that why we fast, on some level, and recite our sins alphabetically over and over again? By being vulnerable, we allow ourselves to be open to the possibilities before us. We allow ourselves to move past winning and toward growth.

That’s why we read Ha’azinu as well. God, through Moses, sings this song to the people, calling them to account right when they are about to cross the River Jordan and enter the promise land. They’re primed to focus on winning, to defeat the local yokels and settle this land flowing with milk and honey, but before they do, they are reminded of all their faults and foibles as a people. Their fecklessness, their failure to affirm God and follow the mitzvot. The song hits them right between the eyes and exposes their vulnerabilities. Not so that Israel will be defeated, not so that they give up, but to open themselves to growth, to learning, to not just be a people conquering a land, but to be a just people, a holy people. To be God’s people. So it is with us. We can only be just, and holy, and count ourselves as God’s people if we are vulnerable, if we take off our armor and allow ourselves to learn from our mistakes and each other.

Some time shortly before my encounter in the hallway 20 years ago, my teacher David Marmur taught me one of my favorite stories. Perhaps they are related. That in every conversation, there are two angels, the angel of winning and the angel of learning. The thing is, only one angel can be present at any given time. It’s been two days since Yom Kippur, Two days since we heard the shofar. May we continue to allow ourselves to be vulnerable, as on that day, and as such may we allow our better angels to prevail. Amen.