A Sukkot Reminder
This week we begin the seven day period of Sukkot. The holiday has several obvious symbols that we all recognize- the Sukkah, a temporary hut to recall the days of the desert wandering, the Lulav and Etrog, symbols that tie the holiday to the fall harvest and to the Land of Israel. If you attend services these are symbols that you can’t avoid. There are other symbols of the holiday that are not so obvious. Perhaps the most important is found within the Torah reading. The Rabbis called Sukkot “the holiday.” There was something so special about it that it was “the” holiday unlike any other. I suggest we look for the reason in the Torah reading containing the narrative of a series of sacrifices that were only brought during Sukkot.
The Book of Numbers commands that 70 oxen be sacrificed. Each one of the oxen stood for one of the peoples of the world. (In Rabbinic politics the world consisted of seventy nations.) As a people we were to offer a sacrifice to God for every nation of the world. This has to strike the modern reader as strange: why would we pray for the other nations? Surely, some of them could be our enemies, yet God commands that we sacrifice and pray on their behalf. To the Rabbis this was the seed of Jewish universalism. After spending Rosh HaShannah and Yom Kippur praying for ourselves and for the Jewish people God reminds us that we need to pray for all human beings.
Today we live in a world filled with tension and hatred. (So did our ancestors.) Our own country is more divided than ever it seems- we need to heal from all of the polarizing elements that plague us today. Can you think of a better time to pray on behalf of those that we might tend to dismiss as “enemies,” as “them,” or as “those people.” It is not an easy thing to do. It tends to challenge human behavior but that is exactly what the Rabbis wanted us to learn from Sukkot- at every turn, even on most sacred of days, we need to look at the rest of humanity and remind ourselves that we are all in this together.
Observe the lessons of Sukkot: visit a Sukkah and remember how very delicate the world is. Hold the lulav and etrog and remember the beauty that exists in this world. Pray for the well-being of others and hope they pray for yours!
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
For Yom Kippur
Ideas are Fireproof
One of the challenges of the print media is that you always have to work ahead—printing and distribution takes time. So I find myself writing about Yom Kippur on Erev Rosh HaShannah to reflect on events that may or may not have happened by the time you read this! Boy, this can get confusing, so what’s all the fuss? As I write today (Erev Rosh HaShannah) the big news is “will he or won’t he?” This question refers to the planned 9/11 Koran burning in Gainesville. By the time Yom Kippur comes we will know what happened but either way, I think the issue teaches us something about ourselves.
Erev Yom Kippur Jews will gather to hear Kol Nidrei. No matter where it takes place the service is pretty much the same and so is the congregation: a mix of people who represent the community. There will be Jews who pray every day, there will be Jews who haven’t prayed since last Yom Kippur, and there will even be Jews who won’t even be praying because they are still trying to figure out why they are even there! My point is that there is something that draws us together on Yom Kippur that may be beyond our ability to explain. The music, the mood, the desire to reconnect or to connect for the first time- all of these and more draw us to the idea of spending Yom Kippur in shul. But what in the world does this have to do with burning Korans to protest 9/11?
Let me first say that I do not support this “protest.” It is hateful and serves no purpose. Those of you who read my columns regularly know that I spoke out very early on about the Ground Zero mosque but the actions planned in Gainesville are not the way to react to that or any other situation, nor does it honor the victims of 9/11. There is a bigger issue that we should also learn from Jewish history: you can burn books but you can’t burn ideas.
Look at our history: The church burned sacred Jewish books in the streets of Europe. Torah scrolls, prayer books, manuscripts, and other Jewish literature were thrown into the flames to wipe out Judaism. Centuries later the Nazis would also try to destroy us and they started with the burning of our books. What did it achieve? Think about it when you are at services on Yom Kippur—the bonfires of hate could not touch what was most critical to our existence- our faith, our ideas, and our beliefs. To paraphrase a midrash “you can burn the scroll but you can’t burn the letters.”
The burning of the Koran will only produce more acts of hatred. No matter what you do to an object you can’t change people on the inside unless you change their ideas. Our books have been burned over and over but no enemy has ever been able to assault what we believe. Maybe that is the enduring idea of Yom Kippur.
One of the challenges of the print media is that you always have to work ahead—printing and distribution takes time. So I find myself writing about Yom Kippur on Erev Rosh HaShannah to reflect on events that may or may not have happened by the time you read this! Boy, this can get confusing, so what’s all the fuss? As I write today (Erev Rosh HaShannah) the big news is “will he or won’t he?” This question refers to the planned 9/11 Koran burning in Gainesville. By the time Yom Kippur comes we will know what happened but either way, I think the issue teaches us something about ourselves.
Erev Yom Kippur Jews will gather to hear Kol Nidrei. No matter where it takes place the service is pretty much the same and so is the congregation: a mix of people who represent the community. There will be Jews who pray every day, there will be Jews who haven’t prayed since last Yom Kippur, and there will even be Jews who won’t even be praying because they are still trying to figure out why they are even there! My point is that there is something that draws us together on Yom Kippur that may be beyond our ability to explain. The music, the mood, the desire to reconnect or to connect for the first time- all of these and more draw us to the idea of spending Yom Kippur in shul. But what in the world does this have to do with burning Korans to protest 9/11?
Let me first say that I do not support this “protest.” It is hateful and serves no purpose. Those of you who read my columns regularly know that I spoke out very early on about the Ground Zero mosque but the actions planned in Gainesville are not the way to react to that or any other situation, nor does it honor the victims of 9/11. There is a bigger issue that we should also learn from Jewish history: you can burn books but you can’t burn ideas.
Look at our history: The church burned sacred Jewish books in the streets of Europe. Torah scrolls, prayer books, manuscripts, and other Jewish literature were thrown into the flames to wipe out Judaism. Centuries later the Nazis would also try to destroy us and they started with the burning of our books. What did it achieve? Think about it when you are at services on Yom Kippur—the bonfires of hate could not touch what was most critical to our existence- our faith, our ideas, and our beliefs. To paraphrase a midrash “you can burn the scroll but you can’t burn the letters.”
The burning of the Koran will only produce more acts of hatred. No matter what you do to an object you can’t change people on the inside unless you change their ideas. Our books have been burned over and over but no enemy has ever been able to assault what we believe. Maybe that is the enduring idea of Yom Kippur.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Some Rosh HaShannah Thoughts
It's OK to fail!!
No, I am not making excuses. I am just asking you to think about things a little differently as we celebrate the new year. There are so many “sub- themes” to the High Holiday season—we speak of the passing of time, the concepts of repentance and forgiveness, and the acknowledgement that our lives really are in God’s hands. The holidays are also about self-evaluation, a task for which we usually make too little time or effort. As we begin the new year I share with you some thoughts about our need for such evaluations.
I have spent the last thirty years studying and teaching about Judaism but I still find it as exciting as ever. Not many people get to say that because after a certain time you can get bored with any job! So why am I still excited? I think it is because I am constantly amazed, intrigued, and inspired by our tradition and the insights that it has about God and man. Our tradition never ceases to surprise me—just when I thought I knew something I have to start thinking about it all over again—so too with the concepts of success and failure.
Our ancient teachers had an amazing gift of sympathy for the human condition- if religion preaches ideas about how people are to be “perfect” what do you say when they fall short? How can any religion (ours included) try to teach and instill moral perfection in the face of human imperfection? (Hence the art of the sermon- a message made to remind you that you aren’t perfect. Maybe the Jewish twist to that idea is… you aren’t perfect yet.) The important part of the message is that you are not free to stop trying! I think that idea informs Judaism’s concept of man. A human being may be imperfect but what makes us human is our determination to keep trying.
So is it a mitzvah to fail? No, not at all. We live in a society that is driven by the idea of success. It might be expressed by the job you have, or the money you make, or the car you drive. Our society is also driven by the idea that failure is bad, if you fail you are second rate, if you fail you must be lazy, if you fail you are “bad.” At Rosh HaShannah we should really confront the ideas of success and failure. In the realm of religion it is about moral perfection (or at least meager progress.) In the realm of our own self-evaluation it is about renewing our resolve to keep trying. Yes, it’s OK to fail, welcome to the human race. It’s not OK to stop trying. As we stand before God we don’t offer excuses (failure) we only confess and acknowledge our humanity. If we do that there is only one place to go—back to the drawing board for another try. Have a sweet year and try your hardest!
No, I am not making excuses. I am just asking you to think about things a little differently as we celebrate the new year. There are so many “sub- themes” to the High Holiday season—we speak of the passing of time, the concepts of repentance and forgiveness, and the acknowledgement that our lives really are in God’s hands. The holidays are also about self-evaluation, a task for which we usually make too little time or effort. As we begin the new year I share with you some thoughts about our need for such evaluations.
I have spent the last thirty years studying and teaching about Judaism but I still find it as exciting as ever. Not many people get to say that because after a certain time you can get bored with any job! So why am I still excited? I think it is because I am constantly amazed, intrigued, and inspired by our tradition and the insights that it has about God and man. Our tradition never ceases to surprise me—just when I thought I knew something I have to start thinking about it all over again—so too with the concepts of success and failure.
Our ancient teachers had an amazing gift of sympathy for the human condition- if religion preaches ideas about how people are to be “perfect” what do you say when they fall short? How can any religion (ours included) try to teach and instill moral perfection in the face of human imperfection? (Hence the art of the sermon- a message made to remind you that you aren’t perfect. Maybe the Jewish twist to that idea is… you aren’t perfect yet.) The important part of the message is that you are not free to stop trying! I think that idea informs Judaism’s concept of man. A human being may be imperfect but what makes us human is our determination to keep trying.
So is it a mitzvah to fail? No, not at all. We live in a society that is driven by the idea of success. It might be expressed by the job you have, or the money you make, or the car you drive. Our society is also driven by the idea that failure is bad, if you fail you are second rate, if you fail you must be lazy, if you fail you are “bad.” At Rosh HaShannah we should really confront the ideas of success and failure. In the realm of religion it is about moral perfection (or at least meager progress.) In the realm of our own self-evaluation it is about renewing our resolve to keep trying. Yes, it’s OK to fail, welcome to the human race. It’s not OK to stop trying. As we stand before God we don’t offer excuses (failure) we only confess and acknowledge our humanity. If we do that there is only one place to go—back to the drawing board for another try. Have a sweet year and try your hardest!
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