This is a key. A key to what you might ask. I’ll tell you.
Last night we began a year-long conversation about what it means to be part of a covenant. A covenant is a contract. An if-then series of promises. If you do x, I promise to do y. It is a pledge of obligation between two parties, sometimes accompanied by a token signifying the brit—covenant. It is a partnership.
Today we are going to talk about the keys to the covenant. God gives us signs. Symbols to remind us that we are in a covenant. They are keys. Yesterday, during choir, there was some joking about Stew giving the correct pitch. And not sliding into the right note. In fact, baseball catchers do give signs—and pitchers have to catch them to give the right note. It is a good example of a covenant—of the partnership that exists between pitchers and catchers who have a very special and deeply connected relationship. Stew has exactly that kind of relationship with the choir..
In Judaism there are three signs of the covenants between G-d and humanity. The first is the rainbow, sign of the covenant between G-d and Noah to never destroy the world again. We talked about that last night, and concluded that our actions matter.
Then there is Shabbat, given as a sign of creation: “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” (Exodus 31:16-17).
And the hardest sign may be circumcision, established as the sign of men entering the covenant: “Such shall be the covenant between Me and you and your offspring to follow which you shall keep: every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and that shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you” (Genesis 17:10-11). It is the way that people—boys and men—enter the covenant. Abraham circumcised himself and his son Ishmael—who at the time was 13—that’s some Bar Mitzvah ritual! Muslim still circumcise at 13. Isaac was circumcised on the 8th day. Moses didn’t circumcise his sons—Zipporah, his wife, the daughter of a Midianite priest had to do it, but that’s a story for another time.
Most people want to belong to something. People want love and acceptance. In fact, the world religion, from the Latin religio, means to tie back up. When people leave their birth homes, when they leave their parents’ house, they often feel they are missing something. They want to tie back up into something. They go searching. For something.
Abraham went searching too. He heard a voice. Lech lecha. Go forth. The rabbis teach that it really means Go towards yourself. Find yourself. Leave your country, the place of your birth, your parent’s house and go. To the land that I G-d will show you. And I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great and you will be a blessing.
We often sing this. “Lechi lach, to the land that I will show you. Lecha lecha, to a place you do not know. Lechi lach. On your journey I will bless you. And you will be a blessing lechi lach.”
G-d promises to give the land to Abraham and his descendants yet to come. To Isaac. To Jacob. To all of us. And those descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sands of the sea.
Today and tomorrow we read two of the most difficult passages of Scripture. We read about Abraham sending out Hagar and Ishmael. Then we read about Abraham taking Isaac up the mountain to offer him as a sacrifice. In both cases it would seem there was a fear that there was not enough to go around.
Both Ishmael and Isaac survive their ordeals. But they don’t speak to Abraham again. They come back together only to bury Abraham. They don’t reconcile—with Abraham or themselves before then. After the burial Ishmael goes off his own way and becomes as the text tells us the leader of a great nation, just as he was promised.
My favorite book this summer, in a long time really was, , Letters to My Palestinian Neighbors, by Yossi Klein Halevy. It is a powerful love poem to the ideal of the land of Israel—the promise of G-d as part of the covenant, to all the descendants of Abraham. I swelled with pride as he explained why Israel needs to exist. How Jews have been tied to the land all the way back to Abraham. How Abraham bought the tomb in Kiriyat Arba, the Cave of Machpeleh to bury Sarah after the binding of Isaac.
He tells us that “Being an Israeli is like awakening in a dream.” Once again, I was ready to move there. Yossi Klein Halevy tries to hear the other side. He tries to hear Ishmael’s voice. Hagar’s anguished cries. He reminds us, as we listen into his ten letters that after the destruction of the Temple, “The Jewish relationship to the land of Israel shifted from space to time.” But Jews never forgot Jerusalem and wherever they wandered—really were forced to go—they remembered and longed to return. Return—there is our word of the week—Yossi argues that modern Zionism was the meeting point between need and longing. Need gave Zionism its urgency but longing gave it its spiritual sustenance.
In some circles, even within Judaism Zionism has become almost a dirty word. However, Klein Halevy argues that “But if by “Zionism” one means the Jewish attachment to the land of Israel and the dream of renewing Jewish sovereignty in our place of origin, then there is no Judaism without Zionism”. (Kindle Locations 436-437).
He ends his book with his 10th letter describing Sukkot and the fragility of peace. When he describes sitting in his sukkah, on his marapeset, his porch, I hear echose of the lyrics to Bashanah haba’ah and I dream of peace.
“And yet, sitting in my sukkah, I sometimes feel more exposed than protected. From my porch, I clearly see three distinct political entities. The sovereign territory of the state of Israel ends at the wall. In the distance is the Palestinian Authority. And in the farthest distance, the hills of Jordan. Just beyond my field of vision is a Middle East in ruins. (Kindle Locations 1838-1840)..
Yossi is a realist. Born of necessity. In the middle of his celebration of Sukkot—another missile alert at 4 AM and he goes scurrying to a shelter—a real bomb shelter.
Nonetheless he ends the book with words of hope:
“these letters as I began: with the prayer that we will meet. Now we have spent some time together in spirit, but I hope to host you one day in my home— in my sukkah. B’ezrat Hashem. With God’s help. Inshallah.” (Kindle Locations 1887-1888).
Unfortunately, he doesn’t have all the answers of how two people can live on the same land. Neither do I. He tries to listen to their argument—to the other narrative. Can a shared narrative be developed? I am unsure. One Palestinian leader wrote a scathing review in the New York Times which then Yossi defended himself. If we the People of the Book, given that name by Arabs, cannot even write about our love for Israel I worry a great deal. If we cannot listen, we a people commanded to hear, Hear O Israel, I worry even more. How can a shared narrative on a shared land be created?
Make no mistake, Israel has a right and a need to exist. But how we treat the Palestinians is important to our very moral fiber. And make no other mistake. It isn’t easy.
That is why I love the quote from Golda Meir, “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”
It is possible that there are three distinct covenants, with Jews, Christians and Muslims.
Jews believe Isaac was taken up that mountain. Muslims believe it was Ishmael and the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount marks the spot. Perhaps we need the vision of Rabbi Arthur Waskow and his chassidiche story of when the Messiah builds the Temple https://theshalomcenter.org/node/309 . Perhaps we need the musical hope of Matiyashu and his rendition of his song One Day recorded in one hour in Jerusalem last February. https://www.lostandfoundtobe.com/3000-jews-and-muslims-sign-up-to-learn-a-song-together-the-result-is-perfect-harmony/
I, too, would like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.
Recently, I attended a meeting of the clergy of Elgin—all the clergy from the three groups. Part of the workshop was to design a shared narrative for the city. I love Pastor Bob Whit’s vision that he read as a poem one year.
We dream one day of a city where the founding fathers’ vision and laboring for hope and freedom for all people would not be in vain.
We dream one day of a city where truth is born through love.
We dream one day of a city where injustice no longer exists because the demonstration of love for one another has blanketed our city.
We dream one day of a city where no one goes hungry, have a safe and healthy living environment where every person has been educated, empowered and given opportunity to have a successful life.
We dream one day of a city where all people are heirs to equality and justice.
We dream one day of a city where in the process of renewing our own rightful place as people, that we make a difference in the lives of others.
We dream one day of a city where our children are never again stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity because of the inequality and injustice.
We dream one day of a city where faith in God dissolves discord and creates a beautiful symphony of love.
We dream one day of a city where relationships of respect, trust and honor are demonstrated between churches, municipalities, police, schools, social agencies and interfaith groups that will say, “what can we do together that we can’t do apart”?
We dream one day of a city called Elgin, where black men, white men, brown men, Jews and Gentiles, Catholics and Protestant will be able to join hands in our loving city and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last, free at last; thank God Almighty, we are all free at last”.
We Dream of a City Note: Last three sentences are excerpted from I Have a Dream Speech, Martin Luther King Jr, “brown men, in our loving city, all free” and Elgin were added.“We Dream One Day of a City” is an excerpt taken from the curriculum of R.A.C.E.—Renewing. America’s. Cities.for Equality. Copyright 2016 of Bob Whitt, Building on Collaboration.
It is one of hope and optimism. That is the Elgin that I want to live in. That is the vision of the country I want to live in. That is the vision of the world I want to live in. Here at CKI our embracing diversity, part of our vision, means that we have members from 30 communities, 11 school districts and members who were born in 17 foreign countries. Developing a shared narrative, a shared vision is important.
However, what I learned at that meeting, sadly, is it is not yet the experience for everyone. Some people feel left out. One African American pastor said, “I don’t think too much about Elgin.” As his story, his narrative unfolded, he spent a weekend in jail because he was missing a front license plate. And while that is not exactly law abiding, it probably shouldn’t be an arrestible offense.
Our task that day was to being to articulate
A story of why we are called to lead in this moment.
A story of the community we hope to see realized
A story of why we must act.
Because as Pastor Mark Weinert said in facilitating the meeting, here is what he knows. If we cannot articulate a shared redemptive story for our city…then other narratives will fill the voice. That story might be that some lives are inherently more valuable than others. A story that there’s not enough resources for everybody. The story of hyper-individualism. That I got mine—that’s all that matters. A story of fear, rather than hope.
As many of you know, I went to Connecticut this summer to share that vision. A vision that many city leaders have been working on since before Ferguson. Until this spring I believed in our articulation of that vision. That we in Elgin had a better way. That we are better together than apart. That dialogue and mutual understanding makes us stronger. That even if there was a police shooting, our town wouldn’t erupt. That we had built the bridges between people that would sustain us. It was aspirational.
Then Decynthia Clements was shot to death on the Jane Addams Highway. What verb you attach to the description of the video makes all the difference. Did she stumble, fall, trip, stagger, emerge, charge, get out of the car. Was she ever in control? Did she have two feet planted? What did you see, if you watched the video as did I? Is there a shared narrative here?
This spring tested our ability to respond. I still believe that our ongoing response has been better because we spent the time up front building those bridges between people.We are better together.
How do we get to the point here in Elgin where everyone shares Pastor Whit’s vision—and experience?
In our own family stories, our shared narratives—there can be differences. You might remember that we had brisket for dinner for Rosh Hashanah and I might tell you it was always chicken with apples. We might both be right. Rosh Hashanah gives us the opportunity—like Isaac and Ishmael—to come back together. To return. To be part of the covenant. To belong.
Here at CKI we too have a vision based on our Jewish tradition. To be a Jewish congregation that provides meaningful observance, lifelong learning, community building and embracing diversity.
It is aspirational. We’re not quite there yet either. Some people have different experiences of what it means to be part of CKI.
If you are a regular attender at CKI you may have noticed something missing this morning. Someone actually. One of my bimah partners, Saul Mariasis died over the summer. He was my faithful friend showing up week after week, gracing us with his presence and his knowledge and a little schnapps. He had a very different life story than I having served in the Argentinian army, then the Israeli, US and even the Norwegian Merchant Marine. We probably never agreed on politics. But week after week we would share this bimah and have a great deal of respect and love for one another. We trusted one another. Despite our differences, in age, gender, career, we developed a shared narrative and a deep partnership and friendship, like Ari was talking about last night when he explained that by having friends you develop peace.
Our relationship was part of the covenant. It was an I-Thou relationship.
This summer I attended the Academy for Jewish Religion’s alumni retreat. At a camp in the Poconos, out in the creation I so dearly love. The theme was “Crossing the threshold”, so very appropriate for this season. In one session we learned about keys. The scholar in residence, Rabbi Steve Sager, held up a key and asked, “What does this key open?” Then he let us rabbis and cantors in on a secret. Now I will let you in on the secret. We have all the tools we need. All the keys to the Kingdom. All the keys to the covenenat. The challenge is to recognize them. That’s what the Mensch handbook is about. So each of you is going home with a key—a reminder that you already possess everything you need. You have the tools, the keys to get you through this season of repentance, to open the gates of the gates of righteousness. You have the keys to be participants in the covenant, members in the covenant.
The keys are signs, the central principles or values of Judaism and the ways we show each other that we belong in the covenant.
What are those keys? Judaism gives us some tools:
Pekuach nefesh—saving a life
Bal Tashchit—Do not destroy
Hachnasat Orchim—Welcoming Guests are some we have begun to discuss.
By Shavuot, as a community, we will have developed 12 of these guiding principles. We will then, as used to be done, sign a ketubah—a contract—as a community pledging to commit to these principles.
The keys are what you personally need. It might be the key of compassion. Of patience. Of lovingkindness. It might the key of forgiveness or reconciliation. It might be the key of teshuvah. It could be the key of hospitality. Or vision. But you already possess the key. You belong here. As part of the covenant. This key is a sign of that covenant. Here you will find joy, love, acceptance.
This is an introspective time. One were we are called upon to think about our lives. To do teshuvah, to turn back, to return. Teshuvah is one of the keys of the covenant. And the promise of G-d, is that the gates of repentance are always open and that G-d will take us back in great love, just as G-d promised as to our ancestors.
This knowledge gives me hope. My message to you today is simple. We have all keys to the gates. All the tools to belong. All the tools to be a light to the nations. A shining example. There is a key for each of you in a basket next to last night’s beach stones. They are a reminder. A sign of the covenant. Your actions matter. There is a ripple effect and you can open the gates with the key to the covenant. Come Cross over the threshold with me. L’shanah tovah.