Just do it.

What do today’s parshiot, have to do with us moderns? Today is an unusual day where we have not one, not two, but three separate Torah readings. What do we have? Why, in a day when we may feel pressed for time because of the upcoming holiday, do we have more to do and not less? The first one is the very beginning of Leviticus where we are told about this complicated, messy, dirty, noisy, smelly system of sacrifices. The specific one we read about today is the “well-being offering”, the one from the root of the word shalam, shalom, wholeness or completeness, peace. Somehow offering this sacrifice was to bring us well-being or we were to offer it in thanksgiving when we felt that sense of shelmut, wholeness. The system of sacrifices doesn’t sound very  appealing and palatable to our modern ears. It probably wasn’t very ecological either. And the animal rights activists. Oy! So what was the point—then or now? I am not advocating a return to a sacrificial system—even though we might pray for it in our traditional musaf service.

The second portion is a portion that is read every Rosh Hodesh. And today is Rosh Hodesh Nissan, the first day of the first month, so Shana Tovah, Happy New Year! You may have thought that was Rosh Hashanah—which is actually the first day of the seventh month. This calendaring thing in Judaism was, and is, complicated. From Numbers, it tells us how to offer sacrifices at the appointed seasons, specifically at Rosh Hodesh. In these seven verses, there is a lot of detail.

The third reading is from Exodus, to remind us of the Exodus from Egypt, since we now only have two short weeks to prepare for Passover. It, too, reminds us of the sacrifices required for Passover—and it reminds us to tell our children on this day. Even the haftarah which we studied earlier this morning is about the offerings for Passover and new moons. So what is with all these sacrifices?

Like they do at the Tony awards, when they announce from the main stage, the bimah: previously this morning, the award for futuristic sacrifices went to our haftarah reading from Ezekiel. Haftarot were added to the service during a time period of Roman occupation when the Torah was not allowed to be read in the service. We will not be repeating it here this morning, so I encourage you to look at it during the Torah service, if you are so inclined. Reading Torah, and by extension Haftarah, in the native tongue was encouraged in the Talmud, Sotah 33a. As well, what follows there is a fascinating discussion of praying in native tongues. Worthy of fuller study to answer some of the burning questions that you asked me yesterday. But that, alas, we will have to save for another time.

Dr. Nehemia Polen, in teaching Leviticus, makes the point that what the Israelites were doing with their sacrifices was trying to recreate the pinnacle experience, pun intended, of Sinai. They were pushing the reset button. Remember, at Sinai the mountain smoked. It quaked. There was fire. When the Israelites were wandering, they were led by a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire. Somehow, they thought that God’s presence was actually in the fire and the smoke. Even in the Israelites fear and trembling—and they were scared, so scared they begged Moses to go for them—they were privileged to experience a sense of the Divine. Not just a sense. They had a direct experience of God. Mekhilta, one of the earliest examples of rabbinic midrash, teaches us that they who were led out of Egypt, who passed through the Red Sea and met God in the desert, were privileged to have a direct experience of the Divine. It tells us that even a lowly bondswoman who was at the shores of the sea saw God, as opposed to Isaiah and Ezekiel who only had visions of God.

When they built the mishkan, the Tabernacle in the wilderness, and later the Temple in Jerusalem, they had all those elements. Fire, smoke, incense. It was as if they were trying to recreate that special experience they had during the exodus from Egypt.

How many of us have stood on a mountain top, or watched the power of the sea, or seen a sunrise over Lake Michigan, and experienced the presence of God wanted to bottle that feeling up, to bring it back with us into our every day lives. It should be so simple. But it isn’t easy. When we return to our every day, busy lives the feeling disappears, like a vapor. The Petoskey stone necklace I am wearing today was designed to do precisely that—remind me of times spent up north and the closeness I feel there to God. Somewhere, I think I have a t-shirt that says: Up North, this is God’s Country. But the feeling rarely lasts.

These portions come along to teach us something of how to do it. How to experience the Divine in our every day lives. How to prepare and purify ourselves. How to restore that sense of wholeness and well being. It comes with practice. It comes with routine. It comes with doing it every day, punctually, morning and night. This isn’t just for the priests of yesteryear or the rabbis of today. The text says clearly, “Command the Israelite people and say to them.” All of us. It continues… “as a regular burnt offering every day… one in the morning and one at twilight.” The rabbis of the Talmud recognized this when they switched from a sacrificial system to a system of prayer in the synagogue. In the morning service, we read from Shabbat 127a that “these are the obligations without measure whose reward is without measure.” They include attending the house of study daily, punctually, morning and night. The rabbis understood that in study we can get another glimpse of the holy, that spark of Divine inspiration or as on Mount Sinai, that lighting bolt.

Sometimes it is hard to create that kind of structure. It takes discipline and practice. How many of us have said, I don’t want to go. I don’t want to get up. I have too much else to do. I don’t understand enough of the service. I feel like an outsider. Yet the text tells us, and I really believe that rewards are without measure.

The role of ritual is to provide a structure, a sense of normalcy in an abnormal place. On the day after 9-11 in Lower Manhattan, the Wall Street Journal managed to publish its first paper since the tragedy. It was a Herculean effort  amidst the chaos. There was much debate about whether they could even get a paper out that day, but they knew—that even with the quaking, the fire, and the smoke that hung over Manhattan, that was precisely what they needed to do. Get a paper out. It was a ritual that provided structure and normalcy to the workers at the Wall Street Journal and to their readers.

Religion comes from the Latin, religio, to tie back up. This is how we can tie back up, can reconnect with the Divine. This is how we can push the reset button today. So for me—even when I rebel against the structure. I do it. It is a privilege. We do it with other things—brushing our teeth morning and night, eating an apple a day to keep the doctor away, swimming laps in the pool, running or Zumba or practicing piano scales.  Even the daily ritual of pills—one in the morning and one in the evening—can express our gratitude to God for keeping us alive and sustaining us, for doctors and researchers who develop such treatments. With every lap I swim, I get stronger and it gets easier. With every Hebrew verse conquered I have a better connection and a better understanding of God. It is those flashes of insight that connect us back to the Divine, back to the mountaintop, back to the sunrise.

Why then does the portion continue with specifying additional sacrifices for Shabbat, for Rosh Hodesh and for Passover? Same idea. To bring us closer to the Divine and to express our gratitude for the Divine presence.  Watching carefully the phases of the moon—both new and full is a reminder of the constant presence of the Divine.  So we celebrate new moons and full moons. Sometimes it isn’t always so clear—the moon, like God can be hidden. But then it returns and illuminates our life.

Twenty-four years ago today, on Rosh Hodesh Nissan, in a chilly Boston, I married my husband. The rabbi thought it would be an auspicious day. That morning, which was also the first day of spring…it snowed. My matron of honor said the snow flakes were daisy petals from heaven…to remind us of God’s presence. I wish I could bottle up those daisy petals, too. Part of my job as a rabbi is to help people find those signs and ways to draw close to God, to help bring meaning to their lives, to create sacred time and space. I am glad we have a record of the ways our ancestors returned to wholeness and I am glad we moderns have discovered new ways—being inspired by nature, by prayer, by music, by ritual and practice. That we have our own reset buttons. May this Shabbat, and this weekend be filled with signs of God’s presence and draw us closer to God. Then will we have offered a modern sacrifice. Ken yehi ratzon (May it be God’s will).

Delivered at Congregation Kneseth Israel, Elgin, Il, Shabbat Hachodesh 5772