This evening I went to the City of Elgin City Council meeting. The Coalition of Elgin Religious Leaders, together with the League for Women Voters and the Human Rights Commission under the leadership of Denise Henson, helped Elgin to become an International City of Peace. The proclamation was read today, September 11, 2013 as a fitting tribute to the horrors that occurred on 911 thirteen years ago. I was proud to have been at City Hall. I look forward to next weekend’s focus on peace in all the local churches (and my synagogue!) and the event scheduled for November 3 which will deal with making Elgin a safer, more peaceful city.
High Holiday sermons are a puzzle. You start out writing and hope you get somewhere. You hope you have something meaningful to say. If you are lucky or skilled, the puzzle pieces fit together and you have a set. This year mine turned out to be a series. The Power of Hope. The Power of Names. The Power of Presence. The Power of Questions. The Power of Memory.
Some years I spend hours and hours, writing, rewriting, getting just the right nuance, just the right turn of phrase. Some years, at the last minute I have to throw out my work and start over. I am not alone in this. Every rabbi has developed his or her own process over the years. Every rabbi changed his or her sermon in the immediate aftermath of 911. The one I know who did not did not have her contract renewed. People needed comfort, needed something, anything to make sense out of the inexplicable. We knew the world had changed forever.
Today’s guest blogger, Paul Cohen, helped me solve this year’s puzzle, at least as a sermon. He wonders about the names of G-d and the connection to the 13 Attributes:
When we assign attributes to an individual we do so in an effort to describe their personality. Although attributing personality to a deity is very Egyptian, or Greek or Roman, it does not seem very Jewish. Also, the personality defined by the Thirteen Attributes does not seem to be reflected in any of the direct contacts between G-d and Abraham, Moses, Job or Jonah.
Does G-d ever describe Him(It)self? At least once, yes. When Moses is confronted by G-d at the Burning Bush he senses an Imminence- another worldly Presence. Having been raised since childhood in the Egyptian culture of his day he asks an Egyptian question. “Who’s there?” In other words, “Are you Osiris or Horus or any of the other gods I know of?” G-d answers, “I Am That I Am.” Moses says nothing as if to comment, “Swell, that doesn’t help.” G-d then adds, “I am the G-d of your Fathers, the G-d of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.” Moses has had just enough contact with the culture of the Hebrew slaves to know who he is dealing with. The rest of the interview is spent on instructing Moses on what he is to do, and reassuring him that he will be able to complete his mission.
As with Moses, most direct interactions with G-d are either instructions of chastisements. Neither of which suggest a “Personality” consistent with the Thirteen Attributes. My conclusion is the Thirteen Attributes Personality is more of a description created by the Rabbis trying to impart something hopeful to their students.
Paul is correct. The rabbis aer trying to impart something hopeful. That is part of why the rabbis leave out the last part of the verse in the liturgy. The full verse says, “The Lord! The Lord! Is God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and unto the fourth generation.” This is precisely what I wrote my rabbinic thesis on. Why did the rabbis drop the back half of the sentence? What does that have to teach us?
Part of the reason is because in later scripture, G-d seems to reverse G-d’s own mind and punishment for our parents sins is no longer carried out in the next generations. Part of it is that they were looking to provide hope. Not very hopeful to be sitting in shul and be told that you are not pardoned, rather, even your children and your children’s children to the third and fourth generation will be held accountable, will be punished. Why bother trying to be good? Why bother trying to do teshuva? However there are some things that seem to be transmitted from one generation to the next, patterns that repeat. Domestic violence. Alcoholism. The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Do they have to? Can we stop the patterns of violence? Is that why this whole verse was included in the first place?
As world events were unfolding last week, I knew I needed to make some statement about Syria from the bimah. People were expecting it, even asking me what I would be saying.
Here is my Rosh Hashanah Morning sermon, the Power of Names, my response both to Paul and to Syria. I continue to pray for peace.
Rosh Hashanah Morning: The Power of Names
I owe some people an apology. This is appropriate at this season. It is McFarlane with an e and not a d, it is Glaser with an s and not a z, it is Marcy with a y and not ie, it is Burker not Bruker and it is Narbone not Narvone. If I have gotten anyone else’s name wrong, I am sorry. Some of you might say, “What’s the big deal, those were typos,” or “you had a lot of names to learn; it was your first year.” But names are important. There is both a power and an intimacy in knowing someone’s name. Remember how cool it was when your elementary school teacher learned your name. You thought you were special. If you are a teacher, remember how hard you worked at learning all those names that first week.
When a couple knows they are going to have a baby, they spend a lot of time figuring out exactly what name to give that child. They consult baby name books, or online directories. They may ask family and friends. They may even argue about it. But they know that the name they choose is important. There is an implicit power in the name. Once the baby is born, we Jews make a big deal out of it. We have special blessings. The father and mother may be called up to the Torah and that very special name is proclaimed for the first time. We even have developed “Naming ceremonies” so that girls are on a equal footing with boys.
This morning’s Torah portion is a difficult one. It reads like a modern story of surrogacy. Abraham at the urging of Sarah sends Hagar and Ishmael out into the wilderness with nothing more than a skein of water and some bread. The assumption is that they will die shortly. How can Sarah demand this? How can Abraham do this? How can G-d condone this? I am not going to answer those questions today. Instead I want to talk about something that arises from the text.
We know Hagar and Ishmael’s names. But at the end of this morning’s text, their names are never used. Ishmael is referred to as “the lad”. Hagar, as that Egyptian woman. The Hagar cries out, a prayer I assume, but G-d hears the cry of the lad. Not that it is even called a prayer. Women who are other don’t pray, per se. Not that G-d even hears the right person. What happened to their names? Not using them marginalizes them. They don’t really count. We don’t really care about them. They don’t even have a name.
There was an old radio play called the Last American Jew. It had the last Jew in America on display in a museum, essentially in a cage. He would repeat over and over again, “My name is important, my name is important, my name is important.”
Why? Why are names important? We know from reading the Odyssey that if a person knows your name, they have some power over you. Think about Odysseus with the Cyclops. The fact that he knew the Cyclops name meant that he could control him, master him at some level. Even beat him at his own game. Win the battle, if you will. Names offer a level of intimacy.
The names of G-d are important too. They mark the level of intimacy that we have with the Divine. Abraham knew that G-d was El Shaddai, the Almighty G-d. At the burning bush, Moses demands, “Who are you? and G-d answers, “I am that I am.” A difficult translation of difficult, impossible Hebrew. I am what I will be? I am who I am? As our own Paul Cohen, and many rabbis before him point out, “Moses says nothing as if to comment, “Swell, that doesn’t help.” G-d then adds, “I am the G-d of your Fathers, the G-d of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.” Moses has had just enough contact with the culture of the Hebrew slaves to know who he is dealing with.”
Before Moses goes back up the mountain to receive the 10 commandments again, he asks again, “Who will go with me?” G-d assures him that G-d’s Presence will go with him and give him rest. Then Moses asks for more, demands that G-d, “Show me your ways.” Go G-d agrees and promises to hide Moses in the shelter of the rock and allow G-d’s goodness to pass before him and whisper G-d attributes to him. Adonai, Adonai, El Rachum v’chanun. This is the very list that we sing over and over again as part of the High Holiday liturgy. It tells us that the The Lord! The Lord! Is God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin. 13 different character traits, attributes. This gives us much more information about who G-d is than I am that I am.
We know who G-d is. We have lots of names for G-d, El, El Shaddai, the G-d of your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, I am that I am, HaMakom, Emet, YHVH or Adonai, HaMelech. Hagadol, Hagibor, Hanorah, El Elyon, Knowing who G-d is by name is important because it creates a certain intimacy with G-d. We can call G-d different names as we need them. G-d the Father says something different to us than G-d the Sheppard. G-d the Creator is a different sense than G-d the Redeemer. G-d the Healer and G-d the Comforter. All the same One G-d. Those names help us create what Buber refers to as an I-Thou relationship, rather than an I-It relationship. It is relational Judaism, the newest buzz word from Ron Wolfson’s newest book, at its best. We have a relationship with G-d precisely because we know G-d’s name, or precisely the many names of G-d.
And this is a reciprocal relationship. We are told by G-d, in Isaiah, that “I called you by name and kept you. You are a covenant people, a light onto the nations.” G-d knows my name? Even before I was born as Psalm 139 says, that G-d knows my ways precisely because he knit me together in the womb. G-d has a relationship with me. That brings me comfort.
One of these names of G-d is really important: El Roi. The G-d who Sees. This is the name that Hagar, the very Hagar we started with gave to G-d. She is the first person to name G-d in the Bible. And still our portion doesn’t use her name when she is thrown out by Abraham.
What could she see, through her tears and her anger that the others could not? She could see that G-d is One. This morning we recited the Sh’ma. Many of you closed your eyes, the better to concentrate, the better to meditate, the better to be fully focused and aware of the oneness of G-d and our relationship to the Divine. We are witnesses to G-d’s oneness, even more paradoxically because our eyes are closed.
Rabbi Victor Reinstein, a colleague in Boston, the head of the advocacy committee for the Massachusetts Board of Rabbis and a JTS alum, teaches us that, “The journey to One begins with a question. The very first word of the Mishna, of the entire Talmud is מאימתי/from when?” From when may we say the Sh’ma. First they deal with when in the evening, because as we learned last night, day begins at night. And then in the morning. The answers are not given in time but in degrees of light, from blue to white, or from blue to green, from a wolf or a dog, or between a donkey and a wild ass. But the anonymous stam of the Talmud says, “From when a person can see their friend at a distance of four amot, about six feet, and recognize them. As Reinstein points out it is only when we can recognize the difference that we arrive at the time in which we can affirm G-d’s oneness. The Talmud argues about who is a friend. A close friend is likely to be recognized regardless of darkness and distance, according to the Jerusalem Talmud. This is someone who we might have just passed by. A friend is not necessarily someone we have a close relationship to but someone to whom we have the possibility of having a relationship with. Perhaps are Reinstein suggests, the answer is From when we can see the image of G-d, tzelem elohim, in each other.” The midrash on that is clear. We are to understand that G-d created us all b’tzelem elohim, in the image of G-d, from one man, Adam, so that no one could say his lineage is better. We are also taught, and we share the same teaching in the Muslim Hadith, that to save one life is as though we have saved the entire world.
Names are important. They allow us to identify the people as our friends. When the names of people, and their G-d become unimportant, dangerous things happen. In the classic story Les Mis, in the opening scene of the musical, we learn that Jean Val Gean has been arrested and held on charges for 20 years for stealing a piece of bread. He has been reduced to his prisoner number. 24601. He lost his identity as a person and he struggles with this throughout the musical. We know Javere’s name, as he argues that the most important thing is upholding the letter of the law. Jean Val Gean argues that he had done little, he broke a window pane and stole a loaf of bread. This in order to feed his sister and her child.
During World War II, people in the camps had their prisoner numbers tattooed on their arms. That number was their only identity. They were no longer known by their names. Many people cannot fathom the devastation that occurred during the Holocaust. How is it possible that so many were killed? “It is an unsettling thought to think of Anne Frank, naked, dead and rotting among the corpses in the pits at Bergen-Belsen. Yet that is what the Holocaust is, that thought, multiplied six million times.” I first read this quote as a sixteen year old on a summer trip to Israel. We know her name. Anne Frank, just a child. An innocent victim. Knowing Anne Frank through her diary, through her everyday life, through her name, makes the Holocaust more real. Six million times. How can there be six million nameless deaths?
Today we are facing a similar and tragic situation. It has been documented that Syria has used sarin gas on its own people. These fellow human beings have ceased to have names, they only a number, collateral damage in game of chess, where no citizens can win. There are no easy choices in Syria. It is not clear to me, this rabbi, what the US can or should do. What is clear to me is that names are important. 40,000 are already dead. People cried out, like Hagar without a name, and no one heard their nameless cries. 1400 people were killed August 21 in this sarin gas attack. On August 29, the BBC published a report and film of a bombing of a school yard with Napalm in Syria. The use of the word Napalm brings me back to the Sixties. Yes, I am old enough to remember them. You remember the song too…”How many roads must a man walk down…how many times must the cannonballs fly before they are forever banned… How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn’t see… How many ears must one man have before he can hear people cry? How many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died. The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.”
The answer may be blowing in the wind, and on the winds of public opinion. It is hard to build consensus to act. The United States doesn’t have strategic interests, per se, in Syria. The age old question surfaces, “Is it good for the Jews or bad for the Jews.” I know I don’t know what the answer is to Syria. Last Friday I participated in a conference call with 1000 rabbis with the President of the United States. In this brief call of Rosh Hashanah greetings there were three questions asked. One on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and immigration reform. One on health care and the economy. The very first one, asked by the president of the Rabbinical Assembly, the rabbinic arm of the Conservative Movement, in the name of other rabbis around the country, was on Syria. In his question, he made an interesting point. He stated that only one other time has this president used the term red line. That was with Iran over nuclear weapons. Since the President has now called the use of chemical weapons a red line, if he does not act will that send the wrong message to Iran and they will keep designing, building or G-d forbid, using chemical weapons? The president replied that he had not yet made up his mind, and could not say anything too specific on a call with 1000 people for national security reasons. Then of course he announced his decision on Shabbat.
This week the president is in St. Petersburg at the G-20. While the summit is supposed to be about the economy, the pundits are saying that the economy will take a back seat to Syria. While no formal meeting are scheduled on the topic, and nothing directly with Putin, you can be assured that there will be important conversations in the breaks. I am reminded of another summit that happened on the eve of the Final Solution. 34 countries gathered in the French resort of Evian in the summer of 1938. Most of those countries, including Great Britain and the US expressed concern and condemned Germany for its treatment of Jews. Only the Dominican Republic was willing to open its borders to more Jews.
Has anyone been to the Pita Puff? A charming Mediterrian café near the Jewel on Summit. Great pita and wonderful soup, which the owner brought to me as a sample for free as a sign of welcome and hospitality. It reminded me of the soup I had every day in Israel for lunch. But does any one know his name? Because I confess I do not. I do know that when I first spoke to him last year he was very concerned about what was going on then in his native Syria. He is a Syrian Christian and he explained, patiently that they have a different greeting than Saalam Aleikhum. Apparently only the Muslims use that Arabic greeting. He told me he is one of the lucky ones. He managed to get out, to capture one of those elusive visas. He told me he came to this country because he could not attend higher education in his country and he had a dream of opening a restaurant. I pray that his family that remains in Syria continues to be OK.
While I, as an American like the idea of having Congressional and International support before striking, I worry that our president and the news media has tipped our hand too much making it more dangerous for our troops and even for the Syrian people we are trying to help. I have a friend who is a rabbinic Navy chaplain. She is on a ship somewhere in the Mediterranean (she cannot disclose where) on high alert. But she and three Jewish sailors took time out to celebrate Rosh Hashanah. She reports Tashlich on a ship surrounded by the Mediterranean is awesome. But I digress. She now has no idea when she or the sailors she is responsible for are coming home.
While I as a Jew and a supporter of Israel have worried about Syria for decades, I am not sure I understand fully why now. Why is sarin gas worse than 100,000 deaths? Why is sarin worse than napalm? And the very real question…what happens to Israel? Is this likely to become a regional war. Iran has said, repeatedly, that they have Israel in the crosshairs. If the United States strikes, with or without further international support, what terror will Iran unleash on Israel? Seeing Israelis stockpiling food, making sure that bomb shelters are ready and testing their gas masks scares me.
I do know that we as Jews, as Americans, as people concerned with Israel, that too many people have died. There have been too many nameless deaths. The names, the names are important. We cannot, in light of the Holocaust, our own history, marginalize others. Our tradition demands that we be able to distinguish the face of our friends and that we hear people’s cries. Our tradition demands that we pursue peace, that we actively run after it.
This week we will pound our chests in a collective alphabetical litany of sins we have committed, either as individuals or as a community. Ashamnu, bagdanu, babarnu dofi. At the very end, we say ta’anu, ta’avanu, we have been xenophobic, we yielded to evil and were zealots for bad causes. May we not in this year to come be ta’atanu, guilty of such sins, even through the complicity of silence. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who marched with King and explained that he felt his feet were praying, said that “In a democracy some are guilty, all are responsible.” This was true in the Germany he was fortunate to escape and this is true in the United States.
We cannot remain silent to people’s cries, whether they are a strategic interest or not. Whether we know their names, or not. We cannot remain silent to their cries. Shana tovah.
A postscript:
Since delivering this sermon, Great Britain has said they will not participate. 80% of the American public does not support limited air strikes into Syria. The president has spoken to the nation and seems to have retreated a little. He is attempting to build consensus before actually striking. It feels like we back from the brink. While I am still not sure what should be done about Syria and I do not want to put our troops at risk nor hurt the still fragile American economy, I still believe that we have an obligation to speak up, to not be silent. We have an obligation to pursue peace, to actively run after it. If this means using diplomatic means and not rushing in with air strikes that may or may not be effective, may or may not hit their intended targets, may or may not draw the region into a bigger regional war, then by all means lets pursue diplomatic options at all costs. Just as long as the 100,000 nameless dead are not forgotten and their cries are not ignored. Ken yehi ratzon.