D'var Torah & Sermons

A nice Jewish boy made news this week, but for all the wrong reasons. Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, was up on Capitol Hill offering mea culpas and trying to explain how his creation, which was meant to bring people together and create community online for millions—even billions—has become a twisted tool of those who would sow hate and discord. Increasingly we have seen how social media has been used to create divisions in American and European society, as well as be used as a tool of choice for communicating hatred by terrorists and bigots, even being used in Burma to perpetuate atrocities against the Rohinga people. This platform that Zuckerberg created, that was touted for so long as a way of bringing people together seems, increasingly, to be a tool to drive people apart. We saw it coming, of course. The bubbles we created for ourselves as Facebook and Social Media in general became our source for news and found ourselves preferring sites and pages of sources we agreed with, sources that were increasingly strident, and as we’re learning more and more each day, may have been weaponized to make us see “the other side”, and you can decide who that is, as the enemy.

And the problem wasn’t that people were doing these things with Facebook, in collecting and manipulating our data. The problem is that it worked. The problem is that, when faced with the opportunity to see our neighbors, our fellow Americans, our fellow Jews, as our fellows or our enemies, too often we chose the latter. And perhaps we continue to choose the latter. And I mean choose. I wonder whether, 15 months after the last presidential elections, there is any way back for us to relate to and among each other. I wonder, and I worry. I worry that the damage to our precious community and sense of community is so severe, that it may never recover. I worry that my son will grow up in an era of discord and conflict rather than shared support and humanity. I worry that we will not let go of our anger, as we continue to look for blame, rather than solutions.

I worry, but I hope as well. Not a naïve hope; not ignorant of what is happening outside these walls and around the world, but the hope that grows out of shared love and support. The hope that comes out of hearing our youth speak out for justice. The hope that comes from seeing 80 or more of us gathered this past Saturday to greet our new cantor, but also catch up with one another in sacred and personal fellowship.

This week, we read in the Torah how Aaron, now the high priest of Israel, goes to bless the people. He raises his hands, and…nothing happens. So, he and Moses, his brother, go back into the Tent of Meeting, come back out, bless the people together, and then the presence of Adonai manifested and fire came forth; the prayer over the people had been recognized.

Why did it need to happen twice? Aaron was the high priest, after all. Why did Moses have to do it with him? Did Aaron do it wrong, as some commentaries suggest? Did Moses have to demonstrate how? Did his voice falter at the thought of such an important responsibility? Whatever the reason, the text is pretty clear that the blessing doesn’t count unless it’s done together.

The blessing doesn’t count unless it’s done together.

It is important for us to lift this up, and to lift it up in this moment. In the Torah, this moment happens not just at the ordination of Aaron and his sons, but the ordination of Israel itself as God’s chosen people. This is a moment in the Torah that is beyond survival, beyond mere physical needs, and speaks instead to the mission of Israel; to be a nation of priests and a holy people. That’s true in our moment too. We are still that nation of priests and that holy people. We are in this moment, no less terrifying than the moment after Sinai when Israel realized it had a long journey ahead of them. Perhaps our wilderness is different, but the mission remains the same. We are called, all of us, to do this work. And we’re called to do it together. Together we can be strong even when one of us doesn’t feel it. Together we can be loving even when one of us is wounded. Together the work we do to make a difference becomes not only meaningful, but transformative. Each of us as individuals can only do so much, but together, together our blessing counts for so much more.

That, fundamentally, is why we come here to this place. Not for our own personal needs, not to satisfy our own desire for entertainment or relaxation or memory, but because when we’re together, we’re something more. Because together—young and old, of every gender and no gender, Jews by choice and by chance and those who aren’t Jewish at all, with all of our myriad different experiences—become something else entirely. In that moment, we become Israel, and it is when we come together as Israel that the blessing becomes real.

We are counting the Omer right now, each day from the second day of Passover for fifty days. Each day is just a day, full of potential realized and squandered, full of tasks and moments that are thrilling and challenging in equal measure. There’s nothing special about each day. But the last day is Shavuot, when we commemorate the giving of the Torah at Sinai. The days, gathered together, matter. The work we do, gathered together, matters. The blessing we offer, when done together, matters. For that reason, we must find a way to come back, each of us, all of us, together.