This is a tale of two sermons. Last night, because the EPD Squad car was here in the interest of time, I didn’t get to finish and I had a really important message.  

Last night we observed Domestic Violence Awareness Month and our own Maureen. We support her and the very important work that the Community Crisis Center does in the Elgin area. Hereoes work there. They are truly on the frontlines and are integral in keeping the fabric of our community. We thank the Elgin Police Department for bringing the DV Squad car and partnering with us.  And we hope you enjoyed the purple goodie bags, the color of DV awareness, in honor of this. 

Yeterday, as part of the Crisis Center’s observance of DV Awareness they hosted their annual Partner in Peace breakfast. I was honored to do the innocation, where once again I taught everyone my favorite line of liturgy, “Ufros Aleinu Sukkat Shlomecha, Spread over us the shelter, the fragile sukkah of Your peace.” Peace is fragile and Judaism places shalom bayit, peace of the house as a high value.  

Sadly, domestic violence and intimate partner violence exists in every community, social economic group, 1 in 4 women will experience violence in their lifetime. This includes the Jewish community. Every October, I spend some time talking about this topic. This year is no exception.  We are in the beginning of Genesis still and domestic violence and sexual assault is clearly spoken about in our texts. Today’s parsha talks about an angel of the Lord sending Hagar back to Sarah to submit to Sarah’s harsh treatment. Lot was willing to give up his daughters to a raging mob. Later Dinah will be raped.  These are not OK. Full stop. It is why we have and need agencies like the Community Crisis Center. It is why I was trained as a domestic violence and rape counselor and volunteered for years in Boston on a rape hotline. It is why my door is always open to have this conversation. No one has the right to hit you. Period. Full stop.  

And sadly, and this is very important. While we are all aware of big coverups like the priest scandal or the Boy Scouts, Penn State, Michigan State and now Simon’s beloved University of Michigan, the Jewish community is not without its own coverups. Recently USJC and specifically USY had to confront a decades old story about a rabbi at camp just as the statue of limitations was running out. https://www.jta.org/quick-reads/conservative-movement-to-launch-investigation-of-sexual-abuse-allegations-at-youth-program  

Even more recently I received the Reform Movement’s letter which I will read here and send to the whole congregation. https://urj.org/blog/important-update-our-community This one has a real deadline. IF you were abused by staff in the Reform Movement, you have until Nov. 15th to write to the independent investigators. I urge you to do so and I will walk that path with you.  

Abram, not yet Abraham went on a journey  in this week. To a land that G-d would show him. He left his land, the place of his birth and his father’s house. 

Lech lecha—Go forth, Go to yourself.  What does it mean to go forth? How do we find ourselves? To be authentic? We know the story of Reb Zuzia, when he was dying, his students were surprised that he was crying. Why? He was worried that when he got to the gates of heaven he wouldn’t be asked by was he not Moes, but why he was not Zusia.  

Our congregation has a vision statement that includes the plank, meaningful observance. What does it mean to find meaning? Meaning can be as varied as the stars in the sky, just like the stars in the promise to Abram. Last night we had a very meaningful service, filled with lovely music and lots of singing. For some, including me, that provides a spiritual lift and lots of meaning. For others, not as much. For some, keeping kosher provides meaning. For others, they see it as an outmoded form of Judaism. 

This week we read about Abram after his name is changed to Abraham circumcising himself and the males in his family. I kicked off a firestorm of discussion in two rabbinic groups around circumcision. Seems that not all American Jews are circumcising their newborn boys. There is even now a group called Bruchim, Welcome, promoting this idea. https://www.jta.org/2021/10/07/culture/these-jews-want-to-normalize-not-circumcising-and-they-want-synagogues-to-help?fbclid=IwAR189nrVzTERQEa6LVVz3ilFwEyh3QWc3ZbQlKqqjhgO37tcs4LQNxh8q4A  

The reasons for this is varied. A The responses to my questions about it were also varied and fascinating. It is something we could and probably should discuss at some point as part of our ongoing study of “A Time for Everything” this year. 

We are at a shift in the American Jewish people. This is not new. COVID-19 has uncovered some of the inherent underlying issues in the American Jewish Community. However, we have actually seen some of the trends for decades. All the way back in my lifecycle classes in rabbinical school I would say that I never saw a lifecycle event that comes out of a box. They are not just cookie cutter events—and they shouldn’t be in my opinion. They should incorporate elements that are meaningful to the people marking time, welcoming a new child, male or female into the covenant, starting the beginning of school, a Bar or Bat Mitzvah—some are now calling this B-Mitzvah, Confirmaiton, graduation, marriage, retirement, or a funeral. All of those can be individualized.   

Each individual must find their own meaning, their own way on their journey, just like Abram and Sarai. Just like our own Avot prayer that highlights that each of our patriarchs, Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob and each of the matriarchs, Sarah, and Rebecca, and Leah, and Rachel each had their own understanding of G-d. It is my job to accompany people on those journeys—whether it is a baby naming, a wedding or a funeral. When I sit with someone at the hospital. When I call to see how you are doing. When I provide a book suggestion just for you.  

Later this month I will participate in the read out of the Metropolitan Chicago Jewish Population Study. When I first arrived 10 years ago, JUF told me that there were 6000 unaffiliated Jews in the Fox River Valley. There may still be. How we define Jew. How we define affiliated are important survey construction constraints. And we may learn, yet again, that synagogue membership may not be meaningful to many. We at CKI are lucky. We have held our own despite the trends and despite the pandemic. 

Recently there have been some articles that have appeared as we are coming out, hopefully, G-d willing from this pandemic.  

https://ministryarchitects.com/theyre-not-coming-back/?fbclid=IwAR2zZ6FdQ_vXjqAQa607Jr9-MuiuYQLjM3jAhmkpKI8mNh1BPWAjmv04AiY  

Rabbis and priests and ministers are actively planning exit strategies. NOT ME! 

Overwhelmed: Not a problem to be solved: 

https://www.congregationalconsulting.org/overwhelm-not-a-problem-to-be-solved/?fbclid=IwAR1B0ZjUj1nsdE9KZKVd-lAZFCEyyDkNrijgCteF9Jq4suZ4F7zC7Yw 

Perhaps instead this is an opportunity, to build the world, or at least our corner of it, the way that is most meaningful, most authentic.  

“The Future is Starting Now” is a new show from Rabbi David, your Torah Tech Guy. “Starting Now” is an opportunity to hear from and interact with those Jewish leaders who are imagining and creating the future of the Jewish community, its structures, institutions, values, and systems – now. Cherie Koller-Fox, Rabbi Elyse Wechterman, Ron Wolfson Ron Wolfson Rabbi Dan Judson  

But meaning is not just about religious observance. It is more than that. It is about finding your authentic self and living into it. Recently, just a week ago, I went on a journey.  Running is part of my authentic self. It helps keep me grounded. It gives me an opportunity to meditate and davven. It is a place where in the early morning light I can meet G-d and my inner mot feelings. It is part of who I am. I find meaning in running. Perhaps instead of the Energizer Rabbi I should be the Running Rabbi. 

Let’s go on this journey together and find meaning together.  I’m not sure where we are going but together we will get there. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot.  

PS: While written for churches, it works for synagogues too:

Stop Leading the Church You Lost & Start Leading the Church You Have.  

Clarence E Stowers: 

The culture has changed.  

Habits have changed.  

Your church has changed. 

Stadiums are Full, but Sanctuaries are Half Empty 

The stadium was packed as I watched the Chicago Bears’ exciting win against the Raiders on Sunday. 

Where are the people? 

Many became comfortable with online worship. They don’t have to get their family dressed, fed, and out the door on Sunday morning anymore. They can sip their coffee in their jammies while their children play or sleep in.  

While online faithfulness has certainly lessened over time, some of your people are still there. They are giving. They are on your side. They’re just staying home. 

God has uniquely positioned you and your church to serve a changing culture if you are willing to let go of what you used to do. 

Remember this: Stop Leading the Church You Lost & Start Leading the Church You Have.  

Did you catch that? 

Get it? 

Got it? 

Good! 

*Inspired by Allen White 

Parsha Summary: 

God said to Abram, “Go forth, go to yourself, out of your land, the place of your birth, your father’s house, to the land that I will show you.” And there, once Abram figures out where there is, God will make him a blessing.  So Abram left.  

But soon there was famine in the land and Abram and Sarai went down to Egypt. Abram tried to pass Sarai off as his sister to spare his own life. When they returned from Egypt, Abram’s herdsmen and Lot’s quarreled with each other over resources. They agree to separate. Lot chose the plain of Jordan. Abram chose the land of Canaan.  

Sarai was barren. She decided to give her handmaiden, Hagar, to Abram to be a surrogate mother. This doesn’t go especially well and Hagar runs away. Hagar is told by an angel to return to Sarai and submit to Sarai’s harsh treatment.  She is the first person to name G-d,  

G-d appears to Abram and tells him that he will make a covenant with him. And that Sarai will in fact bear a son, Isaac. As a sign of that covenant, Abram agrees to circumcise himself. As an old man, this would have been quite painful. There has been much written again about circumcision in the modern Jewish world, new organizations like Bruchim. Yet the text says that those who are not circumcised are cut off from their kin and this covenant. How do we balance these opposing views? 

Table Topics: 

1. What does it mean to go forth or to go to yourself?
2. How can science help us protect natural resources, water, food, and prevent quarraling, famine and refugee crises?  
3. Infertility is still a problem today. Is there any circumstance where you think a surrogate would work? How has the science of infertility helped women today? 
4. What are your opinions on circumcision? What does the Academy of American Pediatrics say? How does medical science inform your opinion? 

Labs at Home: 

Water Dowsing Experiment. Can you find water using a stick? Why or why not? Read this two articles and decide. OR come up with your own experiment to prove.  

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a3199/1281661/  

https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-school/science/water-dowsing?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects  

Song:
Debbie Friedman – L’chi Lach 

Act of Kindness: 

Help someone make a party after the birth of child, to welcome them into the covenant. It could be for a girl child or a boy child. Offer to help the new mother. 
 

Noach: Genesis 6:9-11:32 

What a great time we had at the zoo today. And despite some raindrops we didn’t find any rainbows. Thanks to the Scientists in the Synagogue grant we were able to learn lots of things about animals. 

Parsha Summary:
This is the story of Noah who G-d commanded to build an ark out of wood to rescue the animals. 7 pairs of the 7 clean/pure/able to be eaten animals, a pair of each of the other animals. Noah was a righteous man in his generation. He did exactly what G-d commanded. Noah walked with G-d. After building the ark and loading all the animals. It rained for 40 days and nights. How long did Noah, his family and all those animals stay on the ark? Like much in Judaism, we argue about that from the text. Most agree given the timeline in the text it was 365 days, a full solar year. Where was all the food? How did they keep the animals from fighting with each other? Think of the noise! Think of the stench!  

Eventually, the rain stopped. After 150 days, the ark came to rest on Mount Ararat, wherever that is. After another 40 days, Noah opened the covering of the ark. He sent out a raven and a dove to see if the earth had dried out. The dove could not find dry land. So Noah waiting another 7 days. This time the dove brought back an olive leaf in its bill. Then he waited another seven days, sent the dove out again and it did not come back. G-d told Noah to bring everything out of the ark. Imagine what that would be like! (Some have said that it would be similar to all of us who spent more than a year in our houses, isolated during the pandemic. Are there parallels here?) 

Paralleling the beginning of Genesis, G-d tells Noah to “be fruitful and multiple and fill the earth,” but this time G-d makes a covenant. A covenant with Noah and for all times. I will maintain My covenant with you: never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” The sign of the covenant is the rainbow. God further said, “This is the sign that I set for the covenant between Me and you, and every living creature with you, for all ages to come. I have set My bow in the clouds, and it shall serve as a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth.” 

Have you ever chased a rainbow? I’ve come to the conclusion that if you go looking for one you will not find it. You need to be surprised by one. It requires the perfect balance between sun and rain.  

The science of rainbows is important. It is what give us the color spectrum. Sometimes people talk about G-d’s paint brush.  While I enjoy some black and white photography I am grateful for the full spectrum of colors. 

Ultimately, a rainbow is a multicolored arc made by light striking water droplets. (Or light through a prism, which is what a raindrop is). In fact, a rainbow is an optical illusion. It depends on where you’re standing and where the sun is shining. It has to be a precise angle, 42 degrees, which is why I said it take the perfect balance between sun, rain and angle.    

According to National Geographic, “Rainbows are the result of the refraction and reflection of light. Both refraction and reflection are phenomena that involve a change in a wave’s direction. A refracted wave may appear “bent”, while a reflected wave might seem to “bounce back” from a surface or other wavefront. Light entering a water droplet is refracted. It is then reflected by the back of the droplet. As this reflected light leaves the droplet, it is refracted again, at multiple angles.” 

If this is a covenant, what then is our responsibility? One of my Bar Mitzvah students who had this portion pointed out that the whole earth is our ark and that we must take care of it.  

At the end of the portion, after a very long genealogy with names we seem to never use anymore, with ages that don’t seem to fit our rational minds or lives, we come to the story of the Tower of Babel.  G-d again seems to be annoyed with the people on earth who are building a tower to reach to the heavens. What is G-d afraid of? That they will reach G-d? Is it some kind of Wizard of Oz moment where G-d doesn’t want to us to see the workings behind the curtain? In any case, G-d decides to “confound” their language, thus ending the budling project and the cooperation between people.  

Table Topics: 

1. What is a cubit? How big was this boat? 

1. Some people think they know where Noah’s Ark landed. Perhaps in Turkey. Does it matter to you? Why or why not? Bruce Feiler in his book, Walking the Bible discusses going to visit one site. Here is a very recent article. https://www.israelhayom.com/2021/10/04/archaeologists-claim-to-have-found-true-location-of-noahs-ark/#:~:text=The%20discovery%20was%20made%20in,in%20the%20Book%20of%20Genesis. 

1. How did Noah keep the birds on the ark? Wouldn’t they fly away? 

1. Do other traditions like the Epic of Gilgamesh help us understand the story of the flood? What are the major differences between the two? 

Bonus Question: This parsha also tells us the story of the Tower of Babel. Linguistics is a science. How do you understand the “confounding of language” as described by the Tower of Babel. What do you think of G-d’s role in this.  

Labs at Home: How to make a rainbow 

https://www.childrensmuseum.org/blog/saturday-science-make-a-rainbow 
 

Songs: 

The Rainbow Blessing 

Other honorable mentions: “Rise and Shine”, a good old-fashinoned camp song and “Green Alligators”. 

Act of Kindness:
The Talmud tells us that we should feed our animals before we sit down to eat. How can you help people take care of their animals? Can you volunteer to walk a dog? Pet sit? Provide pet food to a food pantry? 

Yesterday I spent the day chasing rainbows and unicorns. And succeeded. Allie Mikyska and I actually saw two rainbows over Busse Woods and just as Ellen suggested then the glorious sun came out. We had lots of opportunity to talk will we were walking. We talked a lot about Noah. Why was he righteous. The text doesn’t really tell us. Perhaps because he obeyed G-d and bult the ark. Why do some people, many Evangelical Christians have problems now with rainbows and unicorns?  Perhaps because the gay community has taken both on as symbols to show the diversity of humanity.  

Rainbows have often fascinated me. Not growing up in a particularly religious household. You’ve heard the story about how when we joined the temple in Grand Rapids and were asked to light the candles for New Member Shabbat I told the rabbi, “But Al, Jews don’t believe in G-d, only Christians do.” I was afraid he might use that line at my ordination. 

Fast forward to Tufts where I became very active in Hillel. My sophomore year I was walking by the Chapel on the weekend of Shabbat Noach and there was a maple tree that was ablaze with fire. I had just left my Pashrat Hashavua class, not unlike our weekly Torah Study here and we had been studying rainbows. I came to the conclusion that rainbows are the proof that G-d exists. Why? Because they are a perfect balance between sun and rain. Too much sun, no rainbow. Too much rain, no rainbow. It has to be just right. Sort of like Goldilocks or even better the poem by Joyce Kilmer that includes the line that “only G-d can make a tree.” I actually wrote a poem about the Chapel Tree. 

I like the Noach story for other reasons. We know that this week that Noach is a righteous man in his generation. (Although we don’t really get a definition of righteous). That unquestioningly he builds a ark and rescues his family and all those animals. Next week we will see that Abraham is considered righteous precisely because he does question G-d.  

But what is with all this destruction? Why does G-d want to destroy the world that G-d had just created? I’ll dare to ask that question. Some may see the very question as heresy. I do not. Our task is to question G-d and to wrestle with G-d. It doesn’t really help that the midrash teaches that G-d made 974 worlds or maybe 1000 before this one.  

Rabbi Judah b. R. Simon said: “Let there be evening” is not written here, but “And there was evening”; hence we know that a time-order existed before this. Rabbi Abahu said: “This proves that the Holy One, blessed be He, went on creating worlds and destroying them until He created this one, and declared, ‘This one pleases Me; those did not please Me.’” (Midrash Rabbah – Genesis III:7) 

“In Genesis Rabbah, Rabbi Abahu characterizes the creation as an act of creative destruction, a way to dispose of the remnants of the prior worlds whose “formlessness and void” nature, tohu u bohu, is the place where evil can prosper. Whether filled with evil or not, these past worlds turn our universe into a haunting palimpsest.” 

Later in the parsha, G-d gives us the rainbow as the sign of the covenant. And promises to never destroy the world again. “Never again will I doom the earth because of humanity, since the devising of their minds are evil from their youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living being, as I have done.” 

Some have argued that G-d meant destruction by water. There is an Negro Spiritual, “Mary Don’t You Weep.” The line goes, “God gave Noah the rainbow sign / No more water, the fire next time.” James Baldwin wrote a book using that phrase “The Fire Next TIme” as the title to describe the emerging civil rights movement.  

But a covenant is a two-way street. If G-d promises to not destroy the world and the rainbow is the sign of that covenant, what do we need to promise in exchange. Some talk about the seven Noahide laws: 

Seven commandments were commanded of the sons of Noah: 

1. Not to  worship idols.
2. Not to curse or blaspheme G-d.
3. Not to commit murder.
4. Not to commit  adultery or other sexual immorality. 
5. Not to steal.
6. Not to  eat flesh from a living animal.
7. To establish courts of justice. 

I have looked and looked and am never clear on how these are derived from the simple level of the text. Perhaps some comes from the Talmud. Perhaps it is codified in Tosefta. These “commandments” have been promoted especially by the Chabad movement and Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson as an alternative to fully converting to Judaism.  Just become a Noahide.  

Others have seen this story as the birth of our being caretakers with G-d in creation. G-d is not going to destroy the world but we then have an obligation to not destroy it either. 

And then, coming out of nowhere, we have the story of the Tower of Babel. Again G-d is not satisfied. These people are making bricks. Trying to build the tallest tower, reaching to the heavens. Perhaps trying to reach G-d! Horrors. ““If, as one people with one language for all, this is how they have begun to act, then nothing that they may propose to do will be out of their reach. Let us, then, go down and confound their speech there, so that they shall not understand one another’s speech.” Thus the LORD scattered them from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city.” 

Say what? I thought that we are supposed to learn how to cooperate. How to work in teams. How to build bridges between people. I am not comfortable with this story. It seems the antithesis of other verses like “Love your neighbor as yourself” and the root of some of the real problems in this world. Why would G-d do this? Was G-d feeling threatened? Does G-d have a short fuse? How do we justify both these stories, the destruction of the world and the confounding of speech with G-d is slow to anger and full of lovingkindness?  

Every so often someone sits in my office and says they don’t believe in G-d. I assure them that my father described himself as a Jewish atheist and that it is OK not to believe in G-d. Many Jews do not, not just my father. But then I ask them to describe the G-d they don’t believe in. Often it is a destructive G-d, or the G-d that sits on a throne making some kind of capricious decisions about who shall live and who shall die Sometimes it is the vindictive G-d who wipes out whole peoples, like the Canaanites so that the Israelites can possess the land. How can we understand the destruction of the Holocaust. Why did G-d not stop it if G-d is all powerful  all knowing and all good? I struggle with those notions of G-d too.  It is not the G-d I believe in. Many questions this morning. Not so many answers. We will have to wrestle them out together.  

Yesterday we talked about prayers of healing. And why prayer and mediation helps with healing. Today we read the very beginning of the book of Genesis. Bereshit. So let’s start at the very beginning. 

Except in our congregation, we don’t read the whole cycle. We are on the triennial cycle. This year we are on the third year. So while I would love to start with the sweeping languge of Bereshit Bara Elohim, that’s not exactly where we pick up the story. We start with Chapter 5.  

Yet, there are echoes of the Creation story and one line we are going to explore in depth. 

Enoch walked with G-d. What does it mean to walk with G-d? Is that too anthropomorphic for us today?  

Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav (1772-1810) would walk outdoors in nature, in creation every day. Here is his prayer:  

“Master ofthe universe, grant me the ability to be alone. May it be my custom to go outdoors each day Among the trees and grass, among all growing things. And there may I be alone, and enter into prayer, To talk with the One to whom I belong. May I express there everything in my heart, And may all the foliage of the field – All grasses, trees and plants – awake at my coming, To send the powers of their life into the words of my prayer So that my prayer and speech are made whole Through the life and the spirit of all growing things, Which are made as one by their transcendent source. May I then pour out the words of my heart Before your Presence like water, O Lord, And lift up my hands to you in worship, On my behalf, and that of my children! “ 

Even before then, walking with G-d is a thing. Isaiah taught us, “You shall run and not be weary you shall walk and not faint.” That seems to be every runner’s prayer. And for me, running and walking is a spiritual discipline. Recently at a WW meeting we were encouraged to take an Awe Walk. That would be me every day! For many experiencing creation and that sense of awe is their first entry point into experiencing the Divine. That’s why the first paragraph after the Barchu, the formal call to worship is about Creation.  

Yet there is more about walking with G-d. We are told by the prophet Micah that there are just three things that G-d requires, “To do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with G-d.” 

How can we walk with G-d? Sifre Eikev teaches us “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). All who are called in God’s name will survive.(Joel 3:5) How is it possible for a person to be called by God’s name? Rather, God is called “merciful”—so too, you should be merciful. God is called “gracious” as it says, “God, merciful and gracious” (Psalms 145:8)—so too, you should be gracious and give gifts for nothing. God is called “just” as it says, “For God is righteous and loves righteousness” (Psalms 11:7)—so too, you should be just.” God is called “merciful”: “For I am merciful, says the Lord.” (Jeremiah 3:12) so too you be merciful. That is why it is said, “And it shall come to pass that all who are called in God’s name will survive.” This means that just as God is gracious, compassionate, and forgiving, you too must be gracious, compassionate, and forgiving. [Translation by Rabbi Jill Jacobs]” 

It is not so much that we are walking in G-d’s ways, it is that we are imitating G-d. How do we imitate G-d? The Talmud in Sotah 14a asks this very question, “What is the meaning of the verse, “You shall walk after the Lord your G-d?” Is it, then, possible for a human being to walk after the Divine, which is described as a “devouring fire”? But the meaning is to follow the attributes of the Holy One. G-d clothes the naked, as it is written: “And G-d made for Adam and for his wife coats of skin, and clothed them” (Genesis 3:21); so should you, too, clothe the naked. G-d visits the sick, as it is written: “And G-d appeared to him by the Oaks of Mamre”; so should you, too, visit the sick. G-d comforts mourners, as it is written: “And it came to pass after the death of Abraham, that G-d blessed Isaac his son” (Genesis 25:11); so should you, too, comfort mourners. G-d buries the dead, as it is written: “And He buried him in the valley” (Deuteronomy 34:6); so should you, too, bury the dead.” 

Rabbi Susan Freeman developed a meditation about walking with G-d for the Jewish Healing Center, taking us through the various stages of life. Noah walked with G-d, blameless in his generation. (Genesis 6:9). Abraham walked before G-d and was blameless. (Genesis 17:1). Malachai wonders what is the point. What have we gained by keeping God’s charge, and walking in mourning, before the Lord of Hosts?” (Malachi 3:14). But we are not to fear because we remember the purpose of our journey. As we age, however, the journey and the walking get harder. However, we are comforted by the verse from Ecclesiastes, “Ki holech adam el olamo: For [we set out], we walked to [our] eternal abode.” (Ecclesiastes 12:5). She explains that there is a calm stillness when we stop walking. God is with us, right behind us, as always. Gam ki-elech b’gey tzalmavet lo-ira ra ki-atah imadi: Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no harm, for You are with me.” (Psalm 23-4) 

I have used this meditation before with various types of groups. It is particularly effective at assistant living programs. For a while I lost the words, although I am not sure there is any magic in them. However, I was delighted to find them again. (They are attached at the end.) 

Other ways to walk with G-d include using a labyrinth. There are labyrinths in the Elgin area at the Unitarian Universalist church out on Highland, at St. Joe’s and St, Alexius and I think the maze out at the Moron Arboretum is also similar to walking a labyrinth. The idea, like Rebbe Nachman, is to be outside and to pour out your soul to the divine. And to listen. Really, really listen. Sometimes answers to your most pressing questions bubble up. Like Elijah I call that the still small voice.  

Let’s experience walking with G-d, just like Enoch, just like Noah, just like Abraham.  

Rabbi Susan Freeman’s full meditation:
To prepare for this meditation, try to re-experience feelings of physical strength and weakness in your body. In your mind liken the “journey of life” to a very long walk from infancy on. Sense the presence of God as you re-experience different stages, both of strength and weakness, in your life. Imagine yourself as an infant, not quite ready to walk. You are in a place which feels very secure. See yourself trying to stand or to move in some tentative, exploratory way. You have no sense of yourself as a separate being, apart from what surrounds you. You are walking — no boundaries between yourself and the environment around you. No boundaries, walking with God, blameless. This is your earliest memory, when you were like Noah: “blameless in his generation… Noah walked with God: Et ha Elohim hithalech Noah.” (Genesis 6:9) 

Walking in wholeness, fully present, nothing separating you from anything. Walking with God. As you picture yourself in your secure environment, notice a door in the distance. You feel compelled to go towards the door. “Lech lechah: Go forth.” Walk toward the door. With each step closer to the door, you sense your life — without boundaries fading. As you touch the door handle, the feeling of fading boundaries is replaced with a growing sense of strength, sturdiness, independence. Open the door and step out. You walk forward in confidence and with a strong sense of self. You are no longer walking with God but walking before God. The memory of when you were like Abram: “Hithalech lefanai, veheyeh tamim: Walk before me and be blameless.” (Genesis 17:1) Continue walking. You are walking along a path that seems to stretch forever into the distance. Walking…walking…walking… Many years of sturdy walking before God, trusting your body to take you through life in strength. Your eyes focused on the future — the memory, the turning back and looking back on the time of blameless wholeness with God has faded, is so vague. You have been walking a long time now. Though your body continues to move forward, very gradually you are becoming weary, tired… No longer master of strength, sturdiness, optimism. Feel the weariness. “What’s the point of this long journey?” you ask yourself. At times you feel resigned, other times angry. Lately, it’s protest. Why this body… only to betray me? A body I don’t recognize. Where can I be if I am not with God, nor am I with myself as I have known myself for so many years? “U-mah betzah ki shamarnu mishmarto v’chi halachnu k’doranit: What have we gained by keeping God’s charge, and walking in mourning, before the Lord of Hosts?” (Malachi 3:14) So much darkness, the heaviness of mourning for what you have lost makes it harder to continue on. Each step slower now, and often painful as if you’re leaving behind the body you once knew and are entering a valley of darkness. But strangely, you are not frightened; you are calm. You remember the purpose of your journey. The place from which you have come is the place to which you are going, a safe place. “Ki holech adam el olamo: For [we set out], we walked to [our] eternal abode.” (Ecclesiastes 12:5) When the dust of this journey settles, you realize your lifebreath will return to God. “V’yashov he-afar al-ha’aretz keshe-hayah v’ha-ruach tashuv el-ha Elohim asher netara: And the dust returns to the ground as it was, and the lifebreath returns to God who bestowed it.” (Ecclesiastes 12:7) Notice the calm stillness as you stop walking. Look around, see that though you are no longer walking, God is there with you, right behind you, as always. God has been as constant as your most constant companion. “Gam ki-elech b’gey tzalmavet lo-ira ra ki-atah imadi: Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no harm, for You are with me.” (Psalm 23-4) You have been in God’s presence always. You do not have far to turn to return to the breath of all life. Return to God and God will return to you. “Shuvu elai v’ashuvah aleichem: Return to Me and I will return to you. Shuvu elai v’ashuvah aleichem.” (Malachi 3:7) 

As I look at your faces, your beautiful faces on Zoom and in the room, I am aware of how much people are in need of healing. We talk about this a lot here at CKI and we have a robust tradition of praying for those that you name for healing of mind, body or spirit. We call that the misheberach prayer. Translated, that first word means the One who blesses.  

I have spent a lot of time thinking about mishebreachs lately—for all of you—and for myself as people have added me to their own personal or congregational misheberach lists. Over the summer I actually finished writing a book called Trip Notes: Love for the Journey about exactly this topic. Begun when our dear friend Nori had pancreatic cancer and expanded when Simon was undergoing treatment for bladder cancer, it is 16 weeks of prayers for healing.  

How do we think prayers like that work? There is science now behind why prayer and mediation help with a range of healing.  

“More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of.” (Alfred, Lord Tennyson; from Morte d’Arthur) 

“Different types of meditation have been shown to result in psychological and biological changes that are actually or potentially associated with improved health. Meditation has been found to produce a clinically significant reduction in resting as well as ambulatory blood pressure,[2,3] to reduce heart rate,[4] to result in cardiorespiratory synchronization,[5] to alter levels of melatonin and serotonin,[6] to suppress corticostriatal glutamatergic neurotransmission,[7] to boost the immune response,[8] to decrease the levels of reactive oxygen species as measured by ultraweak photon emission,[9] to reduce stress and promote positive mood states,[10] to reduce anxiety and pain and enhance self-esteem[11] and to have a favorable influence on overall and spiritual quality of life in late-stage disease.[12] Interestingly, spiritual meditation has been found to be superior to secular meditation and relaxation in terms of decrease in anxiety and improvement in positive mood, spiritual health, spiritual experiences and tolerance to pain.[” 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2802370/ 

So the science is becoming clearer. Prayer and meditation help in healing.  

Besides growing scientific evidence that prayer works, really really works to provide or aid in physical healing, there seems to do something else. It helps a person know that people care about them, that they are part of a community. It is part of why we do a misheberach here both on Friday night and Saturday morning. You telling us who you are concerned about helps support all of you—and the people you are praying for, while building our own community. Do not underestimate the power of prayer. 

However, like Jews we argue about lots of things. Including how to do a misheberach. And there are lots of questions. So let me attempt to answer some of them: 

• Who is entitled to one? Anyone who is in need of healing of mind, body or spirit. You get to decide. Sometimes it is people with serious medical conditions. Sometimes it is people with chronic medical conditions. Sometimes it is people who are in the hospital or in rehab. Sometimes it is people who are struggling with a mental illness or a long-standing disability.  
• Does the person have to be Jewish? No, we can pray for people who are not Jewish. And we can pray for someone who is Jewish who doesn’t have a Hebrew name.  
• Does the person have to be in the hospital? No. If you feel you would like a mi shebeirach said for you or a loved one, then say one. 
• Can it be for a group of people? Yes, we have often prayed for the people facing a natural disaster, for frontline workers, for our leaders and advisors as the prayer for our country says and “for the world at large”, which clearly needs healing.,  
• In my congregation we also do a mi sheberach for healing for any one who is in need for healing of mind, body or spirit, as part of the Friday night service.  

The Mi Shebeirach prayer is a prayer that brings me hope. I like the idea in the Friedman version that we pray to give us courage to make our lives a blessing. I pray that this prayer will give you hope as well. When I visit someone in the hospital I ask them what they want to pray for. Often I get answers like strength, courage, to not be in pain. Recently I got mercy. I pray for a skilled and compassionate care team.  

The traditional words: 

May the one who blessed our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, bless [name] son/daughter of [parents], since he/she has come up to the Torah in honor of God and Torah. May he/she merit from the Holy One of Blessing protection, rescue from any trouble or distress, and from any illness, minor or serious; may God send blessing and success in his/her every endeavor, together with all Israel, and let us say, Amen.  

Note that we pray through the zecut, the merits of our ancestors, both the patriarch and the materiachs. Some people believe that when praying for healing with someone’s Hebrew name, it is the mother’s Hebrew name that is necessary. 

Here are Debbie Friedman’s words: 

Mi Shebeirach 

Mi shebeirach avoteinu
M’kor hab’racha l’imoteinu
May the source of strength,
Who blessed the ones before us,
Help us find the courage to make our lives a blessing,
and let us say, Amen. 

Mi shebeirach imoteinu
M’kor habrachah l’avoteinu
Bless those in need of healing with r’fuah sh’leimah,
The renewal of body, the renewal of spirit,
And let us say, Amen
     Debbie Friedman, z”l 

Debbie Friedman – Mi Shebeirach (2001) 

Debbie Friedman would always teach that she would sing it through one time for all of us and then we could join in. It was a nice tradition and it was based on another prayer, that Moses said for his sister Miriam. El Na Refana La. Please G-d, heal her. A simple prayer of healing. Just 4 words when Miriam was struck with a skin disease. And she was healed. Debbie Friedman’s version of Misheberach, which we usually do at CKI is not the only setting. Here is Craig Taubman doing a combination of Misheberach and El Na Refana La.  

Mi Shebeirach – Craig Taubman 

Here is another version of El Na Refa Na La done at Hadassah Hospital. It won the Hadassah Song Festival.  

Hadassah Healing Prayer “El Na Refa Na La” by Yair Levi and Shai Sol – רפא נא-עם ארגון נשות הדסה 
Asher Yatzar, The Bathroom Prayer 

At the beginning of our Saturday morning service there is a prayer for healing that is often described as the bathroom prayer. Yes, it is the prayer that people say after coming out of the bathroom when everything comes out right. But it also talkes about G-d being the healer of all flesh. G-d is the ultimate doctor. I love the fact that 2000 years ago the rabbis understood that the body is a finely balanced network. I have seen that with patients today. A specialist, a cardiologist or a pulminologist or a nephrologist could keep any one organ going almost indefinately but keeping all of them going at the same time can become impossible.  

Baruch Atah Adonai, Ehloheinu Melech Ha’olam, asher yatzar et Ha’adam b’chochmah u’vara vo n’kavim, n’kavim, chalulim, chalulim. Galui v’yadu’ah lifnei chiseh ch’vodecha she’im yipate’ach echad m’hem o y’satem echad m’hem, ee-efshar l’hitkayem v’la’amod l’fanecha. Barcuh Ata Adonai, rofeh chol basar u’mafli la’asot. 

“Blessed is our Eternal God, Creator of the universe, who has made our bodies with wisdom, combining veins, arteries, and vital organs into a finely balanced network. Wonderous Fashioner and Sustainer of life, Source of our health and strength, we give You thanks and praise.” (Gates of Prayer translation, page 284) 

Amidah: 

In the Amidah, the second paragraph called the G’vurot that talks about G-d’s strength, has one line in it. “You sustain life through love, giving life to all (reviving the dead) through great compassion, supporting the fallen, healing the sick, (v’refuah holim) freeing the captive, keeping faith with those who sleep in the dust.” 

I often pause on that phrase just slightly to think about those I am praying for.  

On Shabbat, even G-d rests so we don’t ask for anything. During the weekday Amidah, there is one of the 18 blessings that is a request for healing. Here is the Lev Shalom translation: 

Heal us Adonai that we may be healed. Save us Adonai that we may be saved. You are the one deserving of praise. Bring complete healing to all of our suffering. For you are G-d and Sovereign, a faithful and compassionate healer. Baruch Atah Adonai, Healer of the ill among your people Israel.  

Adon Olam: 
Often I sing the last paragraph of Adon Olam in the hospital with something. I use a Debbie Friedman version that is like a lullaby… 

B’yado afkid ruchi
b’et ishan v’airah. V’im ruchi g’viati
Adonai li v’lo irah. 

I have stood with nurses in the ICU and watched in amazement as someone’s blood pressure has stabilized. 

Byado 

 It is important to know with the relatively new HIPPA laws, the hospitals cannot call us to tell us you are in the hospital so unless you or a friend or relative call, we do not know. And we do not share that information unless you give us permission. So call us. We care. 

If you, yourself are in need of healing, you may need other things. Meals, transportation to medical appointments, babysitting, shoveling. These are things your CKI community can help with. It is part of being community. 

How does all of this tie to the parsha, the portion? Tune back in tomorrow and you’ll see. In the meantime, I pray with you and for you for a refuat hanefesh, refuat haguf, a full, complete healing of mind, body and spirit.  

Give ear. Hear.  

“Give ear, O heavens, to what I say, and let the earth hear my words; 

May my teaching come down like rain, my speech distill as the dew, 

Like storm-drops on the grass, and like dew-drops on the pasture, 

For I speak in the name of the Lord—give glory to our God!” 

Last night we talked about what we needed to hear from Moses as we are poised ready to cross over the river Jordan. There were many good thoughts. It’s going to be OK. Take my hand, I’ll go with you. I’m scared, tell me it is going to be OK. You’re going with me, right?  

And then the heavens opened, a brief and very needed rain storm, with a little bit of thunder ensued. Some even were lucky enough to see a rainbow, the sign of the covenant between G-d and Noah. The promise that G-d is never going to destroy the earth again. A reminder that we are partners with G-d in Creation and that we, too need to protect the earth—our ark! But we’ll talk more about rainbows in a few weeks. 

That rainstorm made me think of Honi the Circle Drawer. Usually, we tell the story of Honi and the carob tree and our responsibility to plant for our children and children’s children. Another way of taking care of our environment. Often, we tell the story for Tu B’shevat, the New Year of the Trees.  

But there is another story. About praying for rain. There was a drought. Not unlike what we are currently experiencing in northern Illinois. Did you know we are down at least 6 inches of rainfall? 

God was nowhere to be found, nowhere to be heard. Honi prayed anyway.  The people had stopped believing that they could hear G-d but Honi believed G-d would still hear them. Water is necessary. Particularly in a desert. When rain is plentiful, it is an afterthought. During a drought it becomes the only thought.  

Of course, being Judaism, there are two stories of what happened, both in the Talmud: Taanit 19a[3] and 23a 

Honi drew a circle in the dust, stood inside it and demanded that G-d provide rain or he would not move until it rained. It began to drizzle. But Honi was not satisfied. He expected more rain. Then it poured. Still Honi was not satisfied. He wanted a calm, gentle rain. Then it began to rain gentle, healing raindrops, a sign of G-d’s grace and compassion.  

Perhaps this story reminds you of the scene from Frisco Kid. The chief asks the rabbi, “Can your G-d make rain?” And he answers that “G-d does not make rain. He can do anything. He gives us strength when we are suffering. He gives us compassion…he gives us courage….but He does not make rain.” 

Can your God make rain? 

In Hebrew we talk about G-d bestowing blessings and loving kindness upon us, “Gomel hasadim tovim.” Gomel is from the same root as gamel, camel. G-d’s lovingkindness and blessing fills us up, like a camel is filled up, again with water. 

We, here in northern Illinois, are still experiencing a drought. We are down approximately 6 inches in rain fall for the year. The retaining pond by my house is drying up. The summer of 2020 became known as the hottest on record, from 1871. How do we receive rain? How are we filled up.  

Soon it will be Sukkot. Sukkot is actually my favorite holiday. One of the reasons is it is connected to the water cycle. In this verse there is a difference between geshem, rain and tal, dew. It is on Sukkot that we change our Amidah and pray for rain—but not until the very end of the holiday, the chag. Sukkot was a pilgrimage festival, where people would go up to Jerusalem. You wouldn’t want to pray for rain until after you returned home. You wouldn’t want to traipse through the all the mud to get home. 

Some say that the lulav is an ancient form of a rain stick, calling down G-d’s blessing of rain upon us.  

On the second night of Sukkot, in the time of the Temple there was more celebration of water. There was an actual water drawing ceremony, Simchat Beit Sho’eivah. Everyone was gathered. Men, women and children.  It was the harvest festival. Zeman Simchatenu, the time of our joy. This ceremony reflected that joy–joy in our families, joy in our harvest and joy with our God, the God who provides rain and water, harvest and home. The people would hope for and pray for God’s protection and blessing as they prayed for rain in its proper season. They drew water from the pool of Shiloh in the City of David in an elaborate water drawing ritual, the Nisuch Hamayim based on the verse: 

“And you shall draw waters with joy from the wells of salvation.” (Isaiah 12:3) 

We know that verse from the circle dance, Mayim.  

On the second night of Sukkot, the high priest of the Temple would draw special waters from an underground spring called “Shiloach” that flowed near the temple grounds—these waters were known as the wellsprings of salvation and were considered to be a source of prophecy and revelation. The priest would enter the Temple grounds through the Water gate in the south, bearing a gold flask of water, approaching an altar where four high torches were burning in the north. The water of the sacred wellsprings served as a libation to be poured over a stone altar while the priest faced southwest (direction of water and earth), thus drawing water and prophecy down to earth.  

Not only did they draw water, but there was a spiritual transformation as well. The rabbis asked why this celebration is called simchat beit ha-sho’eivah because the Hebrew meaning is uncertain. They answer that from there one draws the spirit of holiness. Yonah ben Amitai was one of the pilgrims who went up to Jerusalem for the festival. He went to the simchat bet ha-sho’evah and the spirit of holiness rested upon him. This teaches us that the spirit of holiness rests upon you when your heart is filled with joy. 

 This ceremony drew down Shechinah, the Divine Presence, the Indwelling Holiness and blessed Israel with beneficial rains and the blessings of water. Sukkot is all about tactile blessings. Waving the lulav and etrog, dwelling in the sukkah, full body mitzvot. It is like the healing waters of the mikvah and maybe why I am so drawn to this commandment.  

Today’s portion also has to do with teshuvah. While the end of the Yom Kippur liturgy keeps repeating that the gates are closing, in truth, the gates are never closed. We still have the opportunity to return, to heal, to heal the earth. James Kugel teaches,  

“It may not be inappropriate, however, to mention something about a key word connected to Yom Kippur: teshuvah (repentance). People often stress that this word comes from the Hebrew root meaning “return,” but that’s not altogether correct. “Return” is indeed one sense of the root shuv, but this verb does not always mean going back to a place where one has already been.  A more inclusive definition might be to “change direction.” A Jew who had led a totally secular existence and suddenly turns to God is called a ba‘al teshuvah. He’s not going back to somewhere, but embarking on something entirely new. In this and other cases, the word teshuvah would best be rendered as “turn,” “turn around,” and the like. This embodies an important message for everyone on Yom Kippur as well as for the Shabbat that follows it. No matter where one has been until now, it is a time to consider one’s past mistakes and change direction.” 

“Like water, teshuvah is both destructive and creative. It dissolves the person you were but simultaneously provides the moisture you need to grow anew. It erodes the hard edges of your willfulness but also refreshens your spirit. It can turn the tallest barriers of moral blindness into rubble while it also gently nourishes the hidden seeds of hope buried deep in your soul. Teshuvah, like water, has the power both to wash away past sin and to shower you with the blessing of a new future, if only you trust it and allow yourself to be carried along in its current.” Dr. Louis Newman 

The question today, then has to be asked, as we prepare for Sukkot, how are we going to do teshuvah for the environment, the very land and the very water that G-d began to create with. How are we going to be partners with G-d in this glorious creation. What are we going to demand of G-d, like Honi and what are we going to demand of ourselves? 

Today we are going to talk about a really important topic. Anger.  

We just saw that G-d gets angry. Really really angry in our haftarah this morning. His anger blazes forth, the text tells us. G-d is angry in our Torah portion too. The Israelietes have just built the Golden Calf and then danced around it. Moses has come down Mount Sinai, seen them dancing and smashed, not just broke the tablets with the 10 Commandments. G-d is not happy. In fact, G-d is angry. Very angry. He (in this case that pronoun works for me) threatens to not go with the Israelite people. G-d is going to stay at Sinai. Oy. 

The reverse is also true. And this is important. It is OK—to argue with G-d. To be angry with G-d. This is a portion where we see Moses as the great negotiator. He argues with G-d. He is angry both with the Israelites and G-d. He is scared. We see him as Moshe Rabbenu, Moses our Master, our Teacher. On Simchat Torah, later this week, we will read the very last portion of Deuteronomy, where we are told never again did there arise a prophet, a leader like Moses who knew G-d face to face. 

But wait, I thought that no one, not even Moses, could see G-d face to face and live. That’s part of what this portion is about. It clearly says that G-d will hide Moses in the cranny of the rock and make all G-d’s goodness pass before him but no one can see G-d’s face and live. 

Here we find Moses demanding that G-d go with him and the Israelite people. Moses wants more. Moses wants to know who is this G-d who is angry and demanding. Who exactly is G-d. What is G-d’s essential nature.  G-d promises. G-d will go with Moses and lighten his burden and give him rest. Moses climbs back up and hides in the crevice of the rock. 

Moses is not the only one to argue with G-d. Abraham bargains with G-d to save Sodom and Gomorrah as we will see in just a few weeks. That is the difference between Abraham and Noah. Noah was a righteous man in his generation. Noah built an ark and rescued animals at G-d’s command but never asked why G-d was going to destroy the world.  

Jacob wrestled with what? Himself? An angel? G-d? In the dark night of his soul, when he was all alone and scared, he wrestled. His name was changed to Israel, Yisrael, which means one who strove with G-d and men. As Arthur Waskow said, “G-dwrestler. “ 

But these arguments with G-d are not just for Biblical characters.  

Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev (1740-1810) argued with G-d, using a very similar construction to Moses, demanded, commanded G-d:, It is a prayer of protest, “Din Torah mit Got” (a lawsuit with God) in which he asserts, “And I, Levi Yitzhak, son of Sarah Berditchev, say, from my stand I will not waver, and from place I shall not move until there be an end to this exile.” 

Here is another Rabbi Levi Yitzhak story about Kol Nidre and not letting G-d off the hook. The tailor had cheated Goldman out of trousers but G-d has allowed a little girl to die of diphtheria. The tailor lost his temper with his children but G-d had known about a famine in another country.  “And for every sin I had committed during the past year, God had done one too. So I said to God, ‘Look, we each have the same number of sins. If you let me off, I’ll let You off!’ ” 

http://www.berdichev.org/arguiing_with_heaven.htm  as told by Rabbi Larry Kushner.

Sometimes we don’t even know what the questions are, as Reb Levi Yitzhak illustrates at a Passover seder. When speaking about the four children, he said, “Lord of the Universer,I Levi Yitzhak. Am the one who does not know how to ask….doesn’t the haggadah say that with the child who does not know how to ask, “you must start with him.”…Lord of the Universe, are You not my Father? Am I not Your son? I do not even know what questions to ask. You take the initiative and disclose the answer to me. Show me, in connection with whatever happens to me, what is required of me? G-d, I do not ask You,  about why I suffer. I wish to know only that I suffer for Your sake.”

Elie Wiesel called G-d to account in his haunting play, The Trial of G-d which some of us read in book group recently. 

But what about us? Rabbi Harold Kushner’s book is When Bad Things Happen to Good People, not if and not why. How do I answer people when they ask why? Sometimes there is no good explanation. Each person needs to respond to tragedy in their own way, in their own time.  

Reverend Larry Zimmerman said at John Oganowski’s funeral after 9/11, that G-d was present when the World Trade Center Towers fell. G-d wept as we wept. G-d gave the firemen courage as they raced up the stairs. G-d held every victim in the palms of His hands. Perhaps too anthropomorphic but comforting nonetheless. 

Mayyim Hayyim, the Community Mikveh and Education Center in Boston wrote a book for women living with cancer. It has the best chapter on anger I have ever read. I buy these books in multiple copies, because if I loan one out, it doesn’t come back.  

I, too have wrestled. Sukkot has emerged as my favorite holiday but it wasn’t always so. Once upon a time, a lifetime ago, 40 years ago this week, I too had a dark night. It was the second night of Sukkot and despite the bright light of the full moon, it was very scary. Later people wanted to know where was G-d. How could I possibly become a rabbi after that kind of violent attack. 

Have you ever tried to bargain with G-d. Maybe you’ve promised that if G-d helps you pass the chemistry test that you will keep Shabbat. Maybe you’ve said that if your mother is cured of cancer than you will go to shul. I’m not sure G-d works that way, but the temptation is real. 

Each person needs to wrestle with these questions on their own. I came to the conclusion that G-d was present that night. Psalm 81 provided the key. I outlined this before, back in 2010 before I was a rabbi but the words still ring true to me: 

Psalm 81 begins by saying: 

Sing with joy to God, our strength
Shout with gladness to the God of Jacob. 

It continues that we should strike up a melody, sound the timbrel, play the harp and lyre, sound the shofar—we should make music. 

The reason to sing with joy and shout with gladness and make music is because we feel grateful. For what are we feeling grateful? For God, our strength, who rose up against the land of Egypt.  All of this is communal, in the plural form. 

But the text continues—and here it switches to the personal. The translation in Siddur Sim Shalom is more liberal than literal: 

Then I heard a voice I never knew.
“I removed the burden from your shoulder
your hands were freed from the load.
When you called in distress, I rescued you
Unseen, I answered you in thunder
I tested your faith in the wilderness.” 

The actual Hebrew is more specific. It refers to the Exodus from Egypt—and removing the Israelites from the burden of slavery. 

The load was the basket of bricks that the Israelites carried in the building projects of Pharaoh. The wilderness is named in the actual Hebrew; it is waters of Meribah. Meribah itself means strife and is a reference in Exodus 17:7 and Numbers 20:13, where the Israelites stayed after fleeing Egypt, the narrow place, and were complaining that they wanted to go back—because they were feeling strife at being free, and because they wanted the cucumbers and the leeks! 

This is like the text we began with. Moses, bargaining with G-d demands to see G-d. God reassures Moses of God’s presence saying, “I will go in the lead and lighten your burden.” Other translations say “give you rest.” 

The oblique translation of Siddur Sim Shalom worked for me. It allowed me to go back to a difficult time in my life and answer that haunting question for me. G-d goes with us, because Moses called G-d to account. In this very portion. This brings me comfort and strength. Still. So go ahead, argue with G-d. Bargain with G-d. Be angry with G-d. Cry. Scream. Pound a pillow. It’s OK. G-d can take it and will cry with you. You are not alone. 

We just heard from Jerry Neiderman, who together with Robin and some dedicated volunteers at home have lived out our responsibility to “Love our neighbors as ourselves” hrough the mitzvah of leaving the corners of our field for the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the most vulnerable amongst us. Both of Both of those commandments are in this afternoon’s Torah portion. We do this by supporting Elgin Cooperative Ministry and their soup kettles. On this Yom Kippur morning, we hear the words of the haftarah, asking, demanding, “Is this the fast I desire? No, it is to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless.” We have lived that out as a community by supporting Food for Greater Elgin. There is still time to send in your donation. 

But what if? What if there is still more to learn here.  

What if…as Lynn Unger teaches:
Pandemic 

What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.
 
And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.
 
Promise this world your love–
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.
 
–Lynn Ungar 3/11/20 

Yom Kippur is considered the Sabbath of Sabbaths. What if we take a deep breath. Go ahead. Right now.  

This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Yes, Yom Kippur is actually a happy holy day, a chance to start the new fresh and to be right with G-d and our fellow human beings. It is a full day of rest. A chance to spend the day praying, reflecting, meditating, refreshing. It’s like Tevye. “If I were rich, I’d have the time that I lack to sit in the synagogue and pray, and maybe have a seat by the eastern wall.” Today we have time. We all have time.  

The Israelite people shall keep the sabbath, observing the sabbath throughout the ages as a covenant for all time: it shall be a sign for all time between Me and the people of Israel. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day G-d ceased from work and was refreshed. (Exodus 31:16-17) 

And G-d was refreshed. In Hebrew it is actually a pun. And G-d was resouled. V’yinafash. A nefesh is a soul. So even G-d needed to rest from the work of creation, from the very act of creating. And here is something I just learned. This description of Sabbath comes right after Bezazel, the chief architect of the mishkan, the sanctuary is chosen. Bezazel is the master craftsman, the chief artisan and creator. So even though they are going to be in a period of great creativity—the Israelites and Bezazel still need to rest. You need to rest in order to create. There is some irony in me crafting this D’var Torah since I am known as the Energizer Rabbi. Even rabbis need to rest and recharge our batteries. PLEASE don’t call me tomorrow morning. I’ll be resting.  

“An artist in the course of painting will pause, lay aside the brush, step back from the canvas, and consider what needs to be done, what direction to be taken.” (Gates of Prayer, page 143) That’s Shabbat. The same is true for music. One famous musician talked about that the beauty of music comes in learning to play the rests. That’s not an original quote but I can’t find the person who said it. I’m willing to offer a prize for the person who can find the source. 

For some of us, the pandemic provided opportunities to be creative. Some learned new languages or tried out new recipes, some even painted…it was, for some, an opportunity to reset priorities, to take that deep breathe, to pause.  To maybe learn again how to lead a more authentic life. It was a sabbath of the soul. 

Maybe that’s not you. Maybe you had to work—and maybe even work harder, or experienced loss, unspeakable grief, the loss of health or job or loved ones. Those are real. And we are not out of the woods yet.  

The sabbath is not just for people. It is also for the land. Every seven years. This Rosh Hashanah we began the cycle again. This year is a shmita year, a Sabbath of Sabbath for the earth: 

In Leviticus and then again in Deuteronomy we are commanded to let the fields go fallow—and to forgive debts and free the slaves.  Deuteronomy: “At the end of every seven years, you shall celebrate the remission year.  The idea of the remission year is that every creditor shall remit any debt owed by his neighbor and family member when God’s remission year comes around. You may collect from the stranger amongst you, but if you have any claim against your brother for a debt, you must relinquish it….” (Deuteronomy 15:1–6) 

This was a radical concept. Everything should rest. Even the land. Even the debts. And yet, G-d will provide—even for the needy, even though this text says that there will always be needy amongst us and we may not shut our hands against them. 

How could this be possible? How could we live this commandment out and still survive? 

Did you notice last year—how the birds returned—how noisy dawn was? Or do you remember the picture of the coyote racing down an empty Michigan Avenue. Somehow, while all the people were still at home, the environment began to heal. Just a little bit.  

In the magazine Space, a NASA satellite has shown how the earth breathes.  https://www.space.com/38806-nasa-satellites-watch-earth-breathe-video.html  

As you know, I was an American Studies major with a specialty in colonial American History. For me, this was a fun summer. Recently I learned two new things, fulfilling our vision statement of lifelong learning. The first was about Hamilton. So important to us here in Elgin, at 47% Hispanic. Perhaps, given his Caribbean roots, he was Jewish, descendent from those who fled the Spanish Inquisition, just like many who sit in my office and wonder about their Jewish roots. There’s a new book out. The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton. I can’t wait to dive into this book when the chaggim are over.  

Thinking of Hamilton’s Hispanic Jewish roots, one of the most important things I learned in Guatemala when I was an American Jewish World Service fellow was about English. In American English, the most used verb is to do. What do you do? How do you do? How are you doing? What should we do now? You get the idea. A lot of our identify is around what we do. What if, instead, we just be.

The second happened just this month. On September 5 we marked the 230 anniversary of when Robert Carter III, the patriarch of one of the wealthiest families in Virginia at the time, walked into a  a Northumberland County courthouse and delivered an airtight legal document announcing his intention to free more than 500 slaves. While Washington and Jefferson were just beginning to voice doubts about the ethics of owning slaves, Carter managed to live out this very verse in our common scripture. What is it that we need to be freed from personally today? 

How then will we at CKI mark this shimita year? We have started a conversation about our own community garden. That very garden that Jerry was just speaking about and has been so carefully tended. It is instrumental to the fabric of the soup kettles. Yet, hungry people cannot wait a year for food and fresh produce. As the Isaiah text demands this morning, Is this the fast I desire? No, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless. So how do we take care of the needy people in front of us today and live out this shimta text? 

The organization Hazon, recently merged with Pearlstone, has much to teach about modern day Shmita. They have a full source book that from time to time this year we will dip into. Using the Hazon Shmita Sourcebook we will study these expansive topics together, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1g2kx6MWGlzJmeffm53tzV7I1M6P-_DzI/view   

The first teaching we will do will be next Shabbat during Sukkot the harvest festival. In addition, Hazon has what they are calling Shmita prizes, $1800 for new ritual objects, art, performance art, music, poetry. We will encourage any of you creative types to learn more about shmita and submit something. https://shmitaproject.org/about-prizes/  Perhaps this will be the year where we can convert our ner tamid to a solar ner tamid. We have until Chanukah to submit our proposals. 

As we explore shmita together, a time set aside for us to rest, we will explore how we rest. Some will add more mindfulness and meditation and rest our brains. Some will try for more sleep and better sleep quality. Some will rest from consumerism and buying more stuff we may or may not need. Some will rest the land or find ways to rotate crops—an invention of the ancient Israelites as I proudly learned in 5th grade history.  

For now, we get to pause, just like those artists, and reflect on what is the society we want to rebuild. Shmita gives us that luxury. May this be a year of expansive rest and healing. Ken yihi ratzon 

Let’s take the time to listen, to really listen to this piece of music by Jessi Roemer. It brings our Hebrew and our Hispanic roots together.

(Smash down the children’s building blocks. )

We just heard from Dr. Biana Kotlyar Castro about a time to heal.  

It is ours to praise
the beauty of the world 

even as we discern
the torn world. 

 For nothing is whole
that is not first rent 

     Marcia Falk 

What are the first steps toward healing. What if, before you can heal, you have to break.  What if before you build you have to destroy. You have to demolish before you can reconstruct.  That’s what Dr. Andras Angyal taught at Brandeis to his psychology classes. It isn’t easy. He recommended that before you can rebuild you need to take out the central beam and have everything come crashing down.  

There is no question that these past 18 months have been difficult. It has often felt like that center beam was crashing down. Often, I hear something like “I just want to go back to normal.”, whatever normal is. Or I hear the phrase we need to learn to live with the new normal. Whatever that is.  

What if…. 

What if we practice the Japanese tradition of kitsukuroi, which means golden repair. It is  “the art of restoring broken pottery with gold so that the fractures are literally illuminated. Featured recently in the Wall Street Journal – “The artists believe that when something has suffered damage and has a history, it becomes more beautiful. The true life of an object (or person) begins the moment it breaks and reveals that it is vulnerable.”  

What if we recognize that other cultures have this practice too.  In many native art forms, Intuit, Navaho, Mayan, Turkish and Persian, artists deliberately leave something imperfect. Only G-d is perfect. An intentional flaw is woven in or a bead left out.  Or as Wanda Pitzele confirmed to me, a spirit bead is woven in.  

What if we learn the lesson the king learned:
Once there was a king with a prized jewel, a perfect diamond. So perfect he kept it under wraps and locked away.  Every morning he would check the diamond to make sure it was still perfect. One morning the king awoke,  he found a single think crack descending down one facet. His precious diamond was ruined. It was no longer perfect. 

He called in all the best jewelers of the entire kingdom, hoping someone could fix it. Nothing could be done. The crack was so deep that any effort to remove it would make it worse. But one craftsman, from a neighboring kingdom thought he could save the diamond. The king laughed. Everyone else had said it was not possible.  However, seeing that there was nothing else that could be done, the king said that the jeweler could spend a single night with the diamond. If he succeeded in fixing the diamond, there would be a great reward. If not, he would be put to death. 

The jeweler took the diamond and locked in his room, examined the diamond carefully. It was beautiful, sparkling like the fire of the sun on the surface of the water. But the crack could not be removed without destroying the diamond further. What could he do? He worked all night and emerged in the morning with the diamond and a look of triumph on his face. The entire royal court, the king, the queen, the ministers, even the jester, gasped. The scratch had not been removed. Instead, it had become the stem of a beautiful rose, etched into the diamond, making the diamond even more unique and beautiful. The king embraced the simple jeweler. “Now I have my crown jewel. The diamond was magnificent until now. The best. The most perfect. But it was no different than the other stones. Now I have a unique treasure.” 

What if that is the story behind Leonard Cohen’s song the Anthem:
“You can add up the parts 

but you won’t have the sum
You can strike up the march,
there is no drum
Every heart, every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”
     Leonard Cohen 

Leonard Cohen – Anthem (Live in London) 

What if, that crack is something even more broken.  What if it is the shards of glass from the very beginning of creation. When G-d began to create the world, G-d’s presence filled the universe. In order to make room for creation, G-d drew in a breath, contracting creating room for our imperfect world. From that contraction, tzimtsum, darkness was created. When G-d said, “Let there be light,” the light that came into being filled the darkness and ten holy vessels came forth, each filled with primordial light. The light was too bright and it smashed the vessels and the holy sparks were scattered. We were created to gather the sparks and the shards back together again. To build and rebuild. That is the work of tikkun olam, repair of the world. 

When Moses came down the mountain, he didn’t just break the tablets, he smashed them. As the midrash teaches, the shards were gathered up together with the new tablets and placed in the ark of the covenant. The new tablets and the shattered rested side by side. Rashi says the broken ones were set down under the new ones, like a foundation for them.  Just like Angyal was suggesting. We need to break down in order to buildup. 

What if the tradition of smashing a glass at a wedding, mirrors this tradition, as we now gather the shards together to make a beautiful mezuzah.  

What if a teaching on the V’ahavta agrees:  we are told to place these words of love on our hearts. In a Hasidic tale, a disciple asked the rebbe: “Why does Torah tell us to place these words upon your hearts? Why does it not tell us to place these holy words in our hearts?” The rebbe answered: “It is because our hearts are closed, and we cannot place the words in our hearts. So we place them on top of our hearts. And there they stay until, one day, the heart breaks and the words fall in.” And the Kotzker Rebbe says “There is nothing as whole as a broken heart.” 

What if as Parker Palmer says, “Suffering breaks our hearts — but there are two quite different ways for the heart to break. There’s the brittle heart that breaks apart into a thousand shards, a heart that takes us down as it explodes and is sometimes thrown like a grenade at the source of its pain. Then there’s the supple heart, the one that breaks open, not apart, growing into greater capacity for the many forms of love. Only the supple heart can hold suffering in a way that opens to new life.” 

What if our suffering leads to new life, a more meaningful life, a more authentic life. 

What if we can be like Simone Biales and be vulnerable enough and courageous enough to explain why she dropped out of the Olympiccs. BUT, and this is really important, As Rabbi Jon Spira-Savett said this summer, If she wants to talk in terms of broken that’s for her and no one else to say. He’s right. 100% and he continues, “And furthermore, we are not entitled to describe anyone else who suffers psychologically or spiritually or physically as broken. That’s not how this metaphor works or helps. I can be broken, I can say that about myself. I can listen when you say to me this is how you feel, what you are experiencing. But I don’t get to say that you.” are. https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/wholeness-not-brokenness-what-simone-biles-actually-taught-us/?fbclid=IwAR14JdnnkiglY3AHBnOKjbjY1BsSQr2ghHoa14RaWFWi74-mVRoYGjoOjbs 

And we know that the mental health needs are real. Especially coming out of the pandemic where things like suicide calls, domestic violence, substance abuse are all up ~40%. We know that access to mental health care is not equitable and hard to find for many. The recent issues in Elgin Township 708 board highlights this disparity.  

What if…. We are like baseball players. Rabbi Harold Kushner reminds us that no one expects a hitter to hit 1000 percent. Hitters who are over .300 are considered great. No one expects a team to win all 165 games in a season. But good teams win more than they lose.  We are not perfect and we don’t have to be perfect to be loved. There is enough love to go around. 

Kushner concludes his book saying, “what G-d asked Abraham was not “Be perfect” or “don’t ever make a mistake.” But “Be whole. To be whole before God means to stand before Him with all of our faults as well as all of our virtues and to hear the message of our acceptability. To be whole means to rise beyond the need to be pretend that we are perfect, to rise above the fear that will be rejected for not being perfect. 

But before we can be whole, we need to be broken.  

Now that we have been broken, what is it we want to rebuild? What are the rocks that go back into the vase, that just 10 days ago I stood here and broke—that was accidental. What is it we want to rebuild? What is it we want to create?
 

What if…we then create a world, a new normal where people are allowed to thrive, where there is access to medical care including mental health services. 

What if…we then create a world, where bullying is a thing of the past and kids are not afraid to go to school. 

What if…we then create a world where people can disagree but don’t settle a dispute with a weapon. 

What if…we then create a world as Isaiah will talk about tomorrow where this is not the fast that G-d desires but rather we should feed the hungry, clothe the naked and house the homeless. 

What if…we then create a world where everyone can sit under their vine and fig tree and none shall make them afraid. 

What if…we then create this world and build this world on love.