Hashivenu, hashivenu Adonai elecha
Venashuva venashuva
Hadesh Hadesh yamenuke ke dem
Turn us back, turn us back, O LORD to You
and we will turn, and we will turn
renew, renew our days as before.
Lamentations 5:21
This song, from the Book of Lamentation, links our season, from Tisha B’av and destruction to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur with its promise of renewal, reconciliation and redemption.
“Uvchesed olam richamtich. I will take you back in love.” This is the 5th Shabbat of comfort, consolation after Tisha B’av. And as we draw closer, ever closer to Rosh Hashanah, these words are of great comfort.
I will take you back in love. What does that mean? That no matter what we have done, G-d will take us back. Even though we as a community and as individuals may have sinned, gone after strange gods, G-d, in G-d’s ever present mercy and love will take us back.
Even though as our haftarah suggests, G-d was angry with us for a moment, G-d will take us back and love us, with an unending love. As a community and as individuals.
It is a two way street. If G-d loves us, then we should love G-d. We know this from the structure of our siddur, prayerbook. G-d, much like a loving parent, gave us Torah, a system of laws and commandments, limits. That’s Ahavah Rabbah. And unending love. Then we are told we should love the Lord our G-d with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our everything. That’s the prayer we know as V’ahavata.
There is a catch. Rav Elazan ben Azariah taught in the Talmud about this season, “For sins between people and G-d, Yom Kippur atones, but between one another, Yom Kippur does not atone until one appeases his or her friend.” (Yoma 85b)
Love…
Love your neighbor…love the stranger…love your enemy. Say what? I thought, from the business world that the goal was to keep your friends close and your enemies closer. But that is not what we find, necessarily.
In today’s Torah portion, not the section we read today, we learn, that
“If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying helpless under its load, you shall refrain from leaving it to him, you shall surely release it with him.” (Exodus 23:5)
How many of you stopped on your way here to jumpstart a donkey? How many of you helped that ass of a stranger get back up on his feet?
Proverbs 24:17-20 expands this thought:
Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, And do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles; Or the LORD will see it and be displeased, And turn His anger away from him. Do not fret because of evildoers Or be envious of the wicked.”
We know this one…as we pour out a drop of wine for each of the 10 Plagues at the Passover seder, we learn the midrash: Why are you rejoicing, G-d cries? These are My creatures that are drowned.
If G-d can do weep, how can we not?
This is the season for trying to make up, to return, to repair. How many of you as part of your preparation for Rosh Hashanah are engaged in the debate about whom you will invite for holiday meals. How many of you remember being slighted when you were not invited to the first grade birthday party, or the middle school Bar or Bat Mitzvah or the wedding. You remember that feeling. Still. All these many years later.
So why would the Torah take the time to advise us to assist someone who we are at odds with? The key, according to our ancient rabbis, is found within in one important phrase: “help him.”
Nachmanides, the Ramban (1194-1270), notes that if you help another person, your enemy in particular, you may ultimately ” forget your enmity, and remember that he is your fellow.” Now we are back to this idea that we should love our neighbor, our fellow as ourselves. Today’s portion reads a lot like a recapitulation of the Holiness Code in Leviticus. We will be reminded to have just weights and measures, to pay our laborers on time, to be kind to the widow, the orphan, the stranger amongst us. We will be told to leave the corners of our field…just as we have done here at CKI.
But as my colleague, Rabbi Irwin Huberman points out, “Too often, when a crisis or disagreement occurs within a family or a circle of friends, bad feelings can be triggered, and — left unattended — can last a lifetime. This is particularly true during these fractured political times where lifelong friendships and family ties are often stretched, if not broken.”
The rabbis ask, debated, “Why did G-d allow the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem.” The Talmud answers with a story of a wealthy man who lived in the 1st Century in Jerusalem. He sends his servant to deliver an invitation to a party to his friend Kamsa. However, the servant delivers the invitation to Bar Kamsa, an enemy of the wealthy man. The host is furious at seeing Bar Kamsa at his party and orders him to leave. Bar Kamsa tries to make peace. He offers to pay for the food he eats, then for half of the expenses, then for the entire party. Each offer is rejected. All of this in front of the rabbis who sit passively. (Later Maimonides, the Rambam, will teach that if you ask forgiveness three times and are rejected, it is on the person rejecting, but that is a story for another time!) Bar Kamsa vows revenge for his humiliation against the rabbis who did not speak up and intervene to spare his embarrassment. Remember that embarrassment is a high sin in Judaism. If you embarrass someone in public you lose your place in the world to come. So Bar Kamas goes to the local Roman official to tell him that the Jewish community is disloyal to Rome. (That is a sermon for another time too!). Caesar agrees and destroys the Temple and all of Jerusalem. So the sages ask, “Why was the Temple destroyed?” Because of Sinat chinam, senseless, baseless hatred.
Rabbi Abraham Kook, the first chief rabbi of Israel taught that the anecdote to sinat chinam is ahavat chinam, baseless love. Lets think about this while we are arranging Rosh Hashanah dinner and who to invite, while we are searching for the white Torah covers, while we are practicing music and crafting sermons.
Shortly we will read the stories of Abraham our father. Abraham who kicked out Hagar and Ishmael. Abraham who was willing to sacrifice Isaac. What doesn’t appear in the Rosh Hashanah cycle, is that Abraham died alone. Only after his death did Isaac and Ishmael came back together. Life is short. Often too short. I relearned that lesson again this week. For many, too painful and too lonely.
Perhaps, then, what this morning’s portion has come to teach, is to open the gates wide. To build that temple and this synagogue without stint. That we need to be like G-d and take people back in love. This is the message of this season of teshuvah, of repair and return. Often it is up to us to take the first step.
Another Psalm echoes this message, with almost the same language of our verse in the haftarah, which Rabbi Menachem Creditor set beautifully to music. “Olam Chesed Yibaneh. I will build this world on love. And you must build this world from love. And if we build this world from love, then G-d will build this world from love.” (Psalm 89:3)
May this be a season of turning. Of repair and renewal. Of ahavah and chesed.
May it be so. May it always be so.