A rabbi, a priest and a president of a Baptist University walk into a Methodist Church. Not the introduction to a joke. We were each asked to talk about what we as Christians and Jews have in common. I wrestled with what to say and many of you, via Facebook, had good suggestions. Talk about the environment. Talk about Jacob and Esau, peace and reconciliation. Talk about tikkun olam, repairing the world and our joint responsibility for social justice. What follows is what I actually said.
The challenge—say something meaningful about Judaism and Christianity and what we share in common in 7-10 minutes. You have to be kidding me. This is a 5000 year tradition and I am but one person, and no two Jews agree.
There is more that we Jews and Christians share in common than not. And those differences should not be glossed over but that is a discussion for another time. Today is a day to celebrate our commonality, our unity.
It is always a pleasure to be in this sanctuary with its beautiful stained glass window with a Torah, a shofar, a Star of David, and David’s harp. It feels like coming home. Thank you for welcoming me home. And that is part of what I want to talk about: home. A synagogue, which is a Greek word, is a Beit Tefilah, a House of Prayer, a Beit Midrash, a house of study and a Beith Kneseth, a house of assembly. These are three functions that we Jews and Christians share in common—prayer, study and building community, building a home.
Perhaps my most powerful moment in my life was the day after 911. I had been at rabbinical school in New York on 9/11 and it was difficult to get home to Boston. It was a harrowing drive back to Massachusetts. When my cell phone finally began working again, after I reached Connecticut, there were many phone calls to make, reassuring people that I was OK. I consulted with an elementary school principal about how to tell her young students about the events still unfolding, a rabbi about whether to cancel Hebrew School that day and a UCC minister who by that time knew he was going to have to do the funeral together with a Catholic priest, of John Oganowski, the pilot of flight 11. But the next morning, members of Greater Lowell Interfaith Leadership Alliance, an organization like CERL here in Elgin, in a pre-scheduled event gathered to work at a Habitat for Humanity site. When all the world seemed to be crumbling, we were building. Building a home, together. “Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.” That is the power of unity. That is the power of Interfaith Dialogue. That is the power of tikkun olam.
Judaism talks a lot about tikkun olam, repairing the world. The idea comes from a story in the Zohar about the story of Creation. According to the 16th century Kabbalists, in order to make room for the world, G-d needed to contract, tzimtzum in Hebrew, an act of love. Think about times when you hold back in order to allow someone to grow. G-d created special vessels to hold the Divine light. However, G-d’s light was so bright, so intense, that it shattered the vessels, scattering the shards with some of the Divine light still attached. It is our job, to gather those broken shards together, to repair the brokenness in the world. Gathering those shards together, to help find the lost light is the purpose of the rules, the commandments, the mitzvoth in Torah, the Five Books of Moses. When we practice mitzvoth, we are bringing holiness back into the world, releasing the light within.
I grew up in Grand Rapids Michigan, at the time a town that was 85% Dutch Reform. It even had its own form of Girl Scouts, the Calvinettes. It has been said you can the girl out of Grand Rapids, but you can’t take the Calvinist out of this Jew. Funny, yes, but I am not so sure. Those of us who were not Dutch Reform banned together in our ways. My Catholic Girl Scout troop would go caroling every year at Clark Retirement Community, the Methodist home that eventually my mother would spend her last days living in. The rabbi was on the board at Clark. Our next door neighbors were a good Methodist family. When they first came to celebrate Chanukah with my parents, their youngest asked why they couldn’t be Chanukahish instead of Christmas. That neighbor is a music minister in her church. Recently I had dinner with her and I think somehow she, and my mother, would be pleased I am here today.
What I learned in Grand Rapids, is that many Christians think that the G-d of the Old Testament was one of jealousy, vengeance and anger and that the G-d of the New Testament is the G-d of love. Somehow the New Testament is better than the Hebrew Bible. It is newer. It is better. It completes the Old.
It took me a long time to learn that while there are various scriptures we could point to argue that position, it is not correct. We share the same G-d that we both pray to. And that one G-d is a G-d of love and compassion. Remember when the Israelites were dancing around the Golden Calf? Remember when Moses smashed the 10 Commandments? G-d told him he would have to come back up and get a second set. Moses wasn’t too happy. Who me? I’m tired. I’m tired of leading this stiff-necked, stubborn people. Their YOUR people, not mine. G-d takes the people back in love, convinces Moses that G-d will go with him and lighten his burden and give Moses rest and that G-d will share with Moses his essential attributes. Moses agrees and is hidden in a cleft of the rock. All G-d’s goodness passes before Moses and he hears whispered, “Adonai, Adonai, El rachum v’chanun, erech al payim, v’rav chesed v’emet. Noseh chesed l’alaphim, noseh avan v’pesha v’takah v’nakeh.” The Lord, the Lord G-d is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, patient, full of lovingkindness and truth, granting lovingkindness to a 1000 generations and forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin. 13 different phrases to describe G-d. Thirteen different ways that we know that G-d is a loving G-d, full of compassion and grace.
This then is the answer to the Calvinists in Grand Rapids, and the reason I became a rabbi. But there is another midrash. After the Israelites received the second set of tablets, they put it in the ark of the covenant. They also gathered the broken fragments, the shards of the first set and lay them in the ark as well.
What this means is that G-d loves us and gives us a second chance. Even a third and a fourth. This brings us comfort. I don’t know about you, but I am learning. I am not perfect. G-d does not require our perfection. It is OK to make a mistake. It is a natural, even necessary part of development. Sometimes we only learn to appreciate life’s gifts after we have lost them. If, however, we are lucky enough to be given a second chance, with the wisdom we have acquired through our experience of failure, we learn how to cherish and hold on to what we are given. The first tablets of Sinai did not endure, say certain Biblical commentators, because the Israelites had not developed sufficiently strong inner vessels to hold on to their powerful light. The first tablets, like the initial visions we have for our lives, frequently shatter, especially when they are based on naïvely idealistic assumptions. Our first marriages or first careers may fail to live up to their initial promise. We may join communities or follow spiritual teachers and paths that disappoint or even betray us. Our very conceptions of God and our assumptions about the meaning of faith may shatter as we bump up against the morally complex and often contradictory aspects of the real world. Yet, if we learn from our mistakes and find ways to pick up the broken pieces of shattered dreams, we can go on to re-create our lives out of the rubble of our initial failures.” Estelle Frankel
During that process of maturing, we are told what G-d requires of us: To do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with G-d. Micah 6:8. What does it mean to walk in G-d’s ways:
“To walk in God’s ways” (Deuteronomy 11:22). These are the ways of the Holy One: “gracious and compassionate, patient, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, assuring love for a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, and granting pardon” (Exodus 34:6). This means that just as God is gracious, compassionate, and forgiving, you too must be gracious, compassionate, and forgiving.
Just as G-d clothed the naked, when He clothed Adam and Eve, we too should clothe the naked. Just as G0d visited the sick when He visited Abraham in his tent after the circumcision, we too, should visit the sick. Just as G-d fed the hungry in the wilderness by giving them mana, we too should feed the hungry. Just as G-d buried Moses, we too, should bury our dead and console the bereaved.
We are commanded to take care of the widow, the orphan and the stranger, the marginalized among us. 36 times in the Hebrew Bible, it tells us that we need to do so. Many more times than it tells us to not eat pork or to observe the Sabbath.
Yesterday Jews around the world read the portion of Genesis called Chayeii Sarah, the Life of Sarah. And Sarah was 100 and 20 and 7 and Sarah died in Kiryat Arba. The portion finishes several chapters and years later with the death of Abraham. What do we know about this matriarch and patriarch we share in common? We know that Sarah welcomed guests to her tent which was opened on all four sides. She fed them bread that was blessed. She lit candles against the darkness that would last from one Shabbat to the next. She was as innocent at 20 as she was at 7 and as beautiful at 100 as she was at 20. She was a true woman of valor. We know that Abraham followed the one true G-d, that he listened to that voice, that he sent Hagar and Ishmael out into the wilderness, that he almost sacrificied Isaac. That he arranged for a wife for Isaac and that Isaac loved her. We know that Abraham died alone and that only after his death did Isaac and Ishmael come back together to bury their father.
Eli Wiesel teaches that “True, we are often too weak to stop injustices; but the least we can do is protest against them. True, we are too poor to eliminate hunger; but in feeding one child, we protest against hunger. True, we are too timid and powerless to take on all the guards of all the political prisons in the world; but in offering our solidarity to one prisoner, we denounce all the tormentors. True, we are powerless against death; but as long as we help one man, one woman, one child live one hour longer in safety and dignity, we affirm a human’s right to live.
-Elie Wiesel, Sages and Dreamers
Dr. King, whose PhD came from that great Methodist school, Boston University, once said it similarly, “Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don’t have to have college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”” Answer “life’s most persistent and urgent question,” as Dr. King called it. “What are you doing for others?”
Part of how I serve will find me back here on Thanksgiving morning. I and my family, with our sleeves rolled up, taking that mitzvah of hospitality seriously as we help with the Community Thanksgiving Dinner. My tradition teaches, the world is not complete. We are completing it. It also teaches that it is not ours to complete the task neither are we free to ignore it. There is still work to be done–plenty of it–with the legacy of King, Wiesel, Heschel and others. It also teaches that in a place where there is no humanity strive to be fully human. I think that participation in this kind of dialogue leads today to our ability to do all those things.
It leads to the knowledge that we share a G-d of love, a G-d of truth and a G-d of righteousness and compassion. Today, if only we would follow the voice of the Divine.
I’d like to close with a Franciscan benediction:
May God bless you with discomfort
At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships
So that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger
At injustice, oppression and exploitation of people,
So that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.
May God bless you with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, starvation and war
So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them
And to turn their pain into joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness
To believe that you can make a difference in the world,
So that you can do what others claim cannot be done. Amen.
– Franciscan Benediction