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.