We are half way through our journey to Rosh Hashanah. What does it mean to stand before the Heavenly Court? Our next guest blogger, Paul Glaser, has extensive experience standing in court and defending those accused of crimes. Paul has worked as an appellate attorney for more than 36 years. He is also my “bimah partner” as ritual chairperson at Congregation Kneseth Israel. His job there is to make me stay sharp and focused. It is nice because I know he has my back. He teaches:

“It is common practice in the legal world for attorneys appearing before a court to refer to the judge (or judges in the case of reviewing courts) as “Your Honor,” or “This Honorable Court.”  In petitions filed with the Illinois Supreme Court asking to have a case accepted for review, the pleading begins with the following:  “May It Please This Honorable Court.”  Capitalization is expected.

While it is historic and expected practice, referring to courts as “Honorable” is, to be frank, sometimes not easy.  Not every judge is truly “honorable.”  Judges are human and prone to the same frailties as anyone else.  Some are inherently dishonest.  Some fool around on their spouses.  Some have substance addictions.  Some are prejudiced against certain kinds of people.  Some are unfair and bear grudges.  Some are not particularly bright.  Some are just collecting a paycheck until retirement kicks in.  But still, we attorneys continue to call judges “Honorable” because we don’t want to get ourselves on the judge’s bad side, because if we do, we’ll at worst be held in contempt and fined or jailed and, at best, never get anything from that judge in terms of relief for our clients.

I bring up the above because I see parallels between the professional “dance” lawyers engage in with judges and the Thirteen Attributes.  Do we Jews accept God’s Attributes because we truly believe them, or because we either fear something bad will happen and/or we hope that if we say it enough, we might get something good in exchange?  As Jews we are supposed to wrestle with God.  And sometimes we need to wrestle with ourselves.”

As Paul points out, the wrestling is important. The word Israel means G-dwrestler. Is it always easy to believe the Thirteen Attributes? No. We have already seen examples of when it appears that G-d is not kind or compassionate. We know that G-d gets angry. Some days it is easier than others to believe. Perhaps Paul is right. Some days it feels like going through the motions. Or that It is a wrestling match. And that is OK—even encouraged. It is a dance. But then the Psalm 30 teaches, echoing yesterday’s blog, G-d’s anger is for a moment; G-d’s favor is for a life-time. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning…You did turn my mourning into dancing.” May the wrestling become a dance.

Adonai and El are two words with similar meanings, often both translated as G-d. They appear next to each other in the Thirteen Attributes. Adonai, Adonai, El… The rabbis teach that Adonai is the G-d of mercy and compassion while Elohim is the G-d of judgment. Moses learned more of this when he stood awestruck at the burning bush and demanded to know G-d’s name. Gunther Plaut teaches, “The repetition of the attribute of mercy was taken to mean that God is merciful both before and after man has sinned and repented; it is man who changes, not God.” But it would appear that G-d does change to some extent. This week’s parsha says that  “Parents shall not be put to death for children, nor children who put to death for parents: a person shall be put to death only for his own crime. (Deut. 24:16)”

This seems to be in contrast with the end of the Thirteen Attributes, which state, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet He does not leave the guilty unpunished; He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.” (Ex. 34: 7; see also 20:5; Numbers 14: 18; Deut. 5: 8). This last part is left out of the rabbi’s liturgy for Selichot. Why the change? It is not a very comforting verse to include when we stand before G-d in judgment. It seems unfair to our children and grandchildren that something we did wrong would be attributed to them and they would be held responsible for our sins. Are there some sins that are visited upon the third and fourth generation? Sins that repeat in families perhaps? Domestic abuse, alcoholism? We stand now in the third and fourth generation after the Holocaust and the founding of the State of Israel. Is reconciliation ever possible?

Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the retiring Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, helps us understand. There is a difference between divine judgment and human justice. Human justice can never be perfect. “We are not God. We can neither look into the hearts of wrongdoers nor assess the full consequences of their deeds. It is not given to us to execute perfect justice, matching the evil a person suffers to the evil he causes. We would not even know where to begin. How do you punish a dictator responsible for the deaths of millions of people? How do you weigh the full extent of a devastating injury caused by drunken driving, where not only the victim but his entire family are affected for the rest of their lives? How do we assess the degree of culpability of, say, those Germans who knew what was happening during the Holocaust but did or said nothing? Moral guilt is a far more difficult concept to apply than legal guilt.”

So the principle of justice is set out in this week’s Torah portion that the parents may not be killed for the sin of the children and visa versa. Everyone is responsible for their own actions. It is reiterated by two prophets, Ezekiel and Jeremiah who said, In those days people will no longer say, ”The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ Instead, everyone will die for his own sin; whoever eats sour grapes-his own teeth will be set on edge. (Jeremiah 31: 29-30).

The Talmud, in Makot 24a asks this very question. If Ezekiel and Jeremiah are correct, what about the Torah teaching that the children are punished to the third and fourth generation?

“Said R. Jose ben Hanina: Our master Moses pronounced four [adverse] sentences on Israel, but four prophets came and revoked them . . . Moses said, “He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.” Ezekiel came and declared: “The soul that sins is the one who will die.”

Think about that. As Sacks teaches, “Moses decreed and Ezekiel came and annulled the decree!…How is that possible when it was not actually Moses but G-d himself who decreed?…Two things are clear from God’s words to Moses. First, He is a God of compassion but also of justice – since without justice, there is anarchy, but without compassion, there is neither humanity nor hope. Second, in the tension between these two values, God’s compassion vastly exceeds His justice. The former is forever (“to thousands [of generations]“). The latter is confined to the lifetime of the sinner: the “third and fourth generation” (grandchildren and great-grandchildren) are the limits of posterity one can expect to see in a human lifetime.”

Change does seem to be possible. Change can be scary. It is rarely fun. It can seem to shake the bedrock. But sometimes change is necessary, even in long established Biblical law. This Torah portion gives us a blueprint for how to carry out justice. Some of it was radical, ahead of its time. Women can get divorced. If a husband died and he had a brother, the brother had to marry the widow, in order to take care of her. Some of it feels old-fashioned, dated, and unjust. If a woman was raped in a city, she too was stoned to death because it was assumed she hadn’t cried out. I am glad the rabbis found ways to change this law. I am glad that even within the Biblical text we see a radical shift of not punishing the children and grand-children for the sins of the parents. Change can be good.

Even G-d changes G-d’s mind. This week’s haftarah says that G-d even though G-d was angry and “For a brief moment I abandoned you, with a deep compassion I will bring you back. In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you…To Me this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth.” (Isaiah 54)

G-d is a G-d of both justice and compassion. This is indeed a comforting thought as we move closer to the Days of Awe.

For Friday night, Shabbat:

The experience of being slaves was so powerful that 36 times in the Tanakh we are told to treat the widow, the orphan and the stranger with justice because we were slaves in the land of Egypt.

Last week’s Torah portion says “Tzedek, Tzedek tirdof, Justice, Justice shall you pursue.” Pursue is an active verb, we should run after justice, actively pursue it. More than any other individual portion, this week’s parsha spells out how to treat the widow, the orphan and the stranger, the marginalized among us. Our country is a nation of immigrants. Yet, there is always a call for immigration reform. There is a tension between “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,” and something else that appears in this week’s Torah portion. This week we are also commanded not to forget Amalek.

How do we balance these two seemingly polar opposites today? How do we treat “the other” today? Who are the marginalized people in our society today? Why does each of us have a responsibility to be mindful of this? What can you personally do? Educate yourself about the issue from a Jewish perspective: http://forward.com/articles/181134/the-jewish-face-of-the-immigration-reform-struggle/?p=all

Consider, as many Jewish organizations are doing, signing a petition supporting immigration reform or calling your representative. Check out http://action.rac.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=3561

Our next guest blogger is Linda Blatchford. Linda shows up almost every Saturday and enjoys helping to lead the davenning (prayer service). She is also a very talented jewelry designer.

God is gracious, compassionate, and forgiving – these are three of the thirteen attributes.

Gracious is defined in the dictionary as “marked by kindness and courtesy.” Thinking about a few Torah readings, it occurs to me that maybe G-d is not always kind. Is it kind of G-d to ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac? Is it kind of G-d to prevent Moses from entering the holy land?  Yet, G-d has reasons for these actions and by studying the texts with our rabbis, we learn about them.

As G-d demonstrates by these actions, perhaps one cannot be gracious and compassionate all the time.  We are human after all and not perfect nor do we need to be (in my opinion). Each of us draws upon the sparks of G-d within us to help others, to do the next right thing, a mitzvah. I am sure that G-d wants us to be compassionate toward other people and help them in any way we can.  Buying a meal, driving someone to a doctor’s appointment, or just listening to a person who needs to talk are all examples of gracious and compassionate things we can do. Sometimes, the little things we can do speak volumes and mean the most.

In the month of Elul, before Rosh HaShanah, we are to approach our friends and family to ask their forgiveness for any wrongs we have done against them in the past year. Why? It is good to start the Jewish New Year with a clean state. It is a form of repentance toward other people, and it’s important to do this before turning to G-d to ask for His forgiveness during the High Holidays.

Forgiving others adds other elements to the process. We may tend to forgive, but not forget. If we emulate G-d by forgiving and forgetting, we are honoring G-d, and rising to a higher level of love, compassion and kindness for others and for ourselves by unburdening ourselves of judgments and past wrongdoings and live in the present, here and now.

So, I hope we all start 5774 with these qualities.

Linda asks an important question. Is God always kind and compassionate? I think the answer would appear to be no. Her examples, Asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, Moses not being able to see the promised land are good ones. And what about Job, his faithful servant, who G-d allows to be tested? But there are more recent examples. How could we ever think the Holocaust was kind and compassionate? It has always interested me that the Thirteen Attributes do not say that God is all powerful, all knowing, all good. No, instead, we are told that G-d is kind, compassionate, slow to anger, forgiving of sin. I tend to agree that God can be kind and compassionate. But God gave us humans free choice. When we make bad decisions, God can’t step in and make it right or necessarily be kind and compassionate. Linda is right when she says that we must go to people before Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and ask their forgiveness. I think, the deep meaning of what Linda is teaching us is that if we are to emulate G-d by being kind, compassionate, forgiving, then we also have to be forgiving of G-d when it appears that G-d is not being kind and compassionate. Wow! Can we do that? Can I do that?

Elul 10: What Do I Pack? How do I “Be Prepared”?

Hiking up a mountain can be hard work—it takes strength, courage, perseverance, and just a little faith. It takes being prepared—remembering the first aid kit, the water, the flashlight, matches, the Swiss Army knife, the helmet, the cell phone. The rewards can be spectacular. The Israelites were told to “Be prepared for the third day. Wash your clothes. Do not go near a woman.” The women were prepared too. They remembered to bring their tambourines with them into the wilderness. This attention to detail always amazes me. How did they know they were going to have something to celebrate in the wilderness?

When I go camping frequently I pack too much. I also learn how little I really need as I strip down to the bare essentials that will fit in my car, my canoe, or my backpack. How much do any of us really need? As I pack my own house this week, how much is too much stuff? Do I really need 50 wine glasses? Maybe. Six sets of dishes for my kosher home, plus one extra dairy set just for Michigan football Saturdays? Books–do I still need all those books? Most of them. Yes, even the cookbooks despite having so many recipes online now. Maybe not the tour guides to Israel from 1985, a trip I never took that year. What about all those hats, gloves, scarves, t-shirts? Do all these things lead to a spiritual clutter? Maybe. But I find it difficult to part with many of them.

What do you need to do to prepare for this spiritual climbing? What do you need to bring with you? Perhaps a prayerbook, a Bible, your journal, a pen, treasured friends?

Our next guest blogger is Rabbi Katy Z. Allen, Rabbi Katy Z. Allen (AJR ’05) is the founder and leader of Ma’yan Tikvah – A Wellspring of Hope in Wayland, MA (www.mayantikvah.org), a congregation that holds services outdoors all year long. You can find Ma’yan Tikvah’s Earth Etudes for Elul a www.mayantikvah.blogspot.com. Rabbi Allen is also a staff chaplain at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA. It is my honor to call her teacher and friend as she teaches much about the connection between Jewish spirituality and nature.

 “Adonai, Adonai, G!d, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abundant in goodness and truth, showing compassion to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin. (Ex. 34:6-7)”

From Rabbi Allen: G!d speaks the Divine name twice! Wouldn’t once be enough? Whose attention is G!d trying to reach?

The medieval commentator Rashi teaches that “Adonai” is G!d’s attribute of compassion, and that the Divine Name is said once before a person sins and once after the person sins and repents. It’s a nice image. I think also about Rabbi Arthur Waskow’s understanding of the four letter tetragramaton as a breath that happens when we try to pronounce the unpronounceable name, and he refers to G!d as the Breath of Life. So, the Divine Name being spoken twice is sort of like G!d breathing deeply twice, once before we sin and once after we sin and repent, or, in the verse above, two deep breaths before naming the aspects of Divine mercy and forgiveness that are available to us.

Jewish tradition teaches that we are to walk in G!d’s ways. Accordingly, this means that we, too, need to have all the qualities of forgiveness listed in this verse. The compassion to a thousand generations might be tough for one individual, but at least we can try to be merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abundant in goodness and truth, and forgiving of other’s transgressions. And taking two deep breaths can help us just as much, or even more, as it can help G!d! If we breathe deeply, letting the air in and out, with conscious awareness that we are bringing into our bodies molecules that were released from some other organism or from the Earth, perhaps we can better manifest in ourselves these amazing Divine qualities.

Philosopher and nature writer Kathleen Dean Moore writes in The Pine Island Paradox: “if you sit still in the dark, breathing quietly, the world will come to life around you…and then you will understand: you are kin in a family of living things, aware in a world of awareness, alive in a world of lives, breathing as the shrimp breathe, as the kelp breathes, as the water breathes, as the alders breathe, the slow in and out. Except for argon and some nitrogen, every gas that enters your lungs was created by some living creature—oxygen by plankton, carbon dioxide by the hemlocks. Every breath you take weaves you into the fabric of life.”

When we are confronted by a difficult situation with another person, if we breathe deeply and remember the water, the oxygen, the nitrogen; the rain, the oceans, the mountains; the rainforests, the deserts, the water’s edge; the frogs, the salamanders, the bacteria – if we in those two deep breathes can allow such images to pass through our minds, reminding ourselves that we are but one tiny part of the amazing web of life on this amazing planet, and that the Breath of Life sustains us all, perhaps we will find it easier to walk in G!d’s footsteps and to be merciful and forgiving. Perhaps we will be able to look more kindly at our neighbors and ourselves. Perhaps an abundance of goodness and truth will seep into our beings, and bring healing to us and to the Earth.

With all my heart and all my soul, I pray, may it be so. Amen. Selah.

Rabbi Allen has some interesting points. One Rosh Hashanah morning I was sitting on the Atlantic Coast, at Plum Island, just after blowing shofar at sunrise. Soon I would be leaving for Germany to be the Yom Kippur rabbi in a small town. The world looked like an especially scary place that year. A rabbi had been stabbed in Frankfurt and a terrorist plot had been foiled in Heidelberg. “It doesn’t have to be this way. Sitting here the world looks so calm, so peaceful, so easy. It doesn’t have to be complicated. We should just watch the sunrise over the ocean and breathe deeply.” Rabbi Allen’s idea combines what Rabbi Kershenbaum said about G-d and us counting to 10 (or 13) when we get angry and the idea of the breathe of life. When G-d created us, G-d breathed life into us. The soul (neshama, another word for breath), is pure. G-d breathed it into us.  How do you take a breath? Go ahead. Do it right now. Breathe in goodness. Breathe out tension and stress. Breathe in G-d’s loving presence. Breathe out anger, fear and insecurity.

Much of the story of Moses is about leaving his homes. As a baby he was placed in a basket and floated down the River Nile, rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter. Thus, he grew up not in his parent’s home but the palace of the Pharaoh. Moses had to flee Egypt after smiting an Egyptian. He left his home and all that he knew and wound up in Midian, in the home of Jethro the Midianite priest. Then he left Midian to return to demand that Pharaoh let the Israelites go. And wandering in the desert for forty years surely was not a permanent home.

Some have said that “home is where the heart is.” While this piece of writing seems particularly apt this week, as I pack to move for the second time in two years, it was written initially several years ago. In studying with my hevruta partner about humility, we were talking about the need for balance. Even the rabbis saw the need generations ago. It reminded me of Bubble Rock perched on the cliff of South Bubble Mountain in Acadia National Park. I have climbed to the top any number of times in all kinds of weather. It is my touchstone. It is a pinnacle experience. I have tried to push the “accidental boulder” off the side of the mountain. Entire football teams have tried. A picture of this rock hangs in my office. It is about balance. It serves as a reminder to pause and remember that special place where the world feels whole and at one, another home for me, a place of mystical insight. How do you bring that experience back into your everyday world? I tried by bringing a piece of Cadillac granite that has been cut and polished into a heart. It sits in my home, by the side of my tub to remind me to breathe deeply and to search for balance.

Where do you feel at home? What role does home play in your life? What is the balance between security and stability and being in the right place at the right time?

Moses got angry. God got angry. The 13 Attributes say that God is slow to anger. Some translations say patient. It is OK to be angry. It is even OK to be angry with God. In fact, Dannel I Shwatrz in his book Finding Joy has an entire chapter on Getting Through the Pain where he talks about how to channel anger. In some cases, if harnessed, anger can make us more effective. Mayyim Hayyim in their fabulous resource for cancer patients, Blessings for the Journey, talks about this difficult topic rather than sweeping it under the rug. The question becomes how do we use our anger. Can we use it for good? Or do we become bitter? What do you do when you become angry?

Moses smashed the first set of commandments. And yet, and yet, life continues. Yet, out of the smashing, the destruction of the tablets of the 10 Commandments, hope arises. A midrash tells us that the Israelites gathered up the broken pieces of the smashed tablets. Eventually they put the pieces in the ark together with the new set. As Estelle Frankel said in her book, Sacred Therapy, “Sometimes we learn to appreciate life’s gifts only after we have lost them.” Ultimately, Frankel concludes, “the whole and the broken live side by side in us all, as our broken dreams and shattered visions exist alongside our actual lives.” What are the dreams that you have that you have not realized yet? How do we hold onto the beauty of our youthful, idealized dreams while maintaining the more mature, realistic ones?

You are my beloved, says G-d. Yet for many of us it is so hard to believe that G-d can love us. That was true for me. As a victim of a violent crime I thought that I wasn’t loveable anymore. That I was somehow “damaged goods.” But then I had an aha moment. The first two attributes are Adonai, Adonai, The Lord, The Lord. But the rabbis teach that there are no extra words in the Torah. Usually this attribute is seen as G-d loving the sinner before the sin and loving the sinner after the sin. What if, it meant that G-d loved me before the attack and after the attack? Was it even possible? It just might be.

Our next blogger is Zahava Raz, the cheerful, welcoming voice of Congregation Kneseth Israel. Her thinking was quite similar. G-d is the G-d of love. Why wouldn’t we want to know this G-d?

After looking at the list of 13 attributes of God, the question came to me, “who wouldn’t want to know this God of Israel, who is so wonderful, so personable, so abundant in goodness and forgiveness, showing compassion to a thousand generations, pardoning sin and full of truth?

It struck me how much this God loves us.  How much He desires us to know Him. Why on earth shouldn’t we run to Him and stay with Him on a daily basis and just get to know Him? This is why the Israelites fell on their faces before Him in worship.  They saw, knew and felt that powerful presence.

Yet we do not come close.  We stray far from Him. We think we cannot enter into a relationship because He is God.  Yet Abraham did, Moses did, David did, and all the prophets did.  We can too.

He must be real to us, we must be like walking Torah’s, full of all those attributes. These attributes should be ingrained in our personalities for peace to come on earth.

Forgiveness needs to be a part of our lives.   If we do not forgive, sickness comes, webecome bitter and harbor grudges.  We should imitate God – we should be slow to anger and showing much compassion towards one another.  And if another injures us, we should pardon them in love.

God is our example.  And He wants to know us as His children . We  should be that close to Him.  And have confidence to come to Him with trust, and not fear.

When the Israelites were wandering in the desert they received a double portion of manna on Friday because they could not collect it on Shabbat. Manna comes from the Hebrew word for gift. Manna was a gift from G-d that fell out of the heavens. When we talk about creating holy spaces we offer gifts. What are the gifts that you bring?

Debbie Friedman, of blessed memory wrote lyrics about our gifts this way:
These are the gifts that we bring
that we may build a holy place.

This is the spirit that we bring
that we may build a holy place.

We will bring all the goodness
that comes from our hearts

And the spirit of God will dwell within…..
These are the colors of our dreams
we bring to make a holy place.

This is the weaving of our lives
we bring to make a holy place.

We will bring all the goodness
that comes from our hearts

And the spirit of love will dwell within…..
These are the prayers that we bring
that we may make a holy place.

These are the visions that we seek
that we may build this holy place.

Let our promise forever be strong,
let our souls rise together in song,

That the spirit of God
and the spirit of love,
Shechinah,
will dwell within.

In her lyrics the gifts we offer are not monetary. Those help to be sure. These gifts are from the heart.

Shabbat is both holy time and holy space. It too is a gift. Like the old Pepsi commercial it is the pause that refreshes. It is the break from the mundane. Time we can spend with God, our families, our communities. May each of you find that holy space, that holy place, that holy time during this weekend. May each of you find a crevice in the rock where you can experience God’s presence. It maybe in the synagogue. It may be standing by the ocean or a pond or a lake. It maybe sleeping in a hamrock, gently rocked by a summer breeze. It maybe in an actual crevice on top of a mountain. But find that space to know that you are loved. That would be a good Shabbat gift. Shabbat shalom.