This week we begin the fourth book of the Torah, the Book of Numbers. If each of the five books were paperbacks, you could find out a little about them by reading the synopsis on each back cover.
Genesis: Gd creates the world, and then makes a special connection with Abraham and his descendants!
Exodus: The Israelites go from slavery to freedom as miracles abound. They receive the Torah on Mount Sinai and build the Tabernacle!
Leviticus: Everything you ever wanted to know about sacrifices and disgusting skin disease– and more!
Numbers: The Jews wander in the desert for forty years!
Deuteronomy: Moses goes over everything he wants the Israelites to know, and then he dies.
I’m not sure that a synopsis like that would make you interested in reading any of the five books. There is a reason why I didn’t go into advertising.
But the fourth book, Numbers… basically it is just that, the Israelites wander around in the desert. Plenty of things happen, battles and curses, the death of Miriam and Aaron, but it all takes place on the journey.
Why might we spend twenty percent of the Torah wandering around in the wilderness? The Hebrew name of the book is just that, במדבר, in the wilderness. Why is that so important?
First of all, Gd will always remember the fact that we trusted Him, we followed Him into the desert. We knew there was no food. We knew there was no water. The Psalms tell us that whenever Gd thinks of our devotion, when we followed Him into the wilderness, His love for us is strong.
But also, it is important that we read about the Israelites wandering in the desert because we too are wandering in the desert. We too are on a journey.
In the Middle Ages, a lot of people stayed where they were for their entire lives. I mean physically as well as figuratively. These days, almost no one does. Looking around this room, I see people who were born in different states, who grew up in different cities. I see people who were not born Jewish, but somehow made their way here. I see people who practiced Judaism in one way, and then came to practice in another way. I see people who thought one thing about Gd, and now think another. We are still on the journey.
And I don’t know where we are going to end up, either. Tomorrow night we will have a service led by the confirmation class, and I think about the young women and men in that class a great deal. Will they go away to college? Will they end up living in Baton Rouge, or elsewhere? What will their relationship to Judaism be ten years from now? Twenty years from now? Fifty years from now? What will their relationship with Gd be like?
Life is a journey through the wilderness. We don’t have enough water, we don’t have enough food, to take us to our destination. But if we want to get anywhere, we must have faith, we must have courage. We must follow Gd into the wilderness. Don’t stay where you are because it is safe. Don’t shut out that voice that is calling you. Gd wants you to travel to Him, Gd wants you to travel with Him. The journey is before us. Let’s go.

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When I was a senior in high school I took three advanced placement classes. These were college level courses for which, if you passed a test, you could receive college credit. On the exams, I did better in English and History than I did in Calculus. However, the English and History departments of the college I attended did not give me credit, while the Math department put me down as having passed a Calculus class.
As a result, I was afraid to take math in college, because the department would assume that I already knew calculus, and I would only be able to take higher level math classes. This inability to take math did not worry me, because, to be honest, I was really more interested in history, philosophy, and literature.
Very often people divide themselves between those who are more science and math oriented, and those who are more language and art oriented. Left brain and right brain. On one side, stories. On the other, infinite calculations. Religion tends to be more the territory of stories. And yet, religion itself is full of numbers.
In Psalm 90 the poet implores Gd to teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom. In fact, Gd does that very thing in this week’s Torah portion, parasha Emor.
וּסְפַרְתֶּם לָכֶם מִמָּחֳרַת הַשַּׁבָּת מִיּוֹם הֲבִיאֲכֶם אֶת־עֹמֶר הַתְּנוּפָה שֶׁבַע שַׁבָּתוֹת תְּמִימֹת תִּהְיֶינָה: עַד מִמָּחֳרַת הַשַּׁבָּת הַשְּׁבִיעִת תִּסְפְּרוּ חֲמִשִּׁים יוֹם וְהִקְרַבְתֶּם מִנְחָה חֲדָשָׁה ײַ You shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day when you bring the Omer offering, seven complete Sabbaths. Until the day after the seventh Sabbath shall you count, fifty days, and then you shall bring a new offering to the Eternal.
Why is it that we are now numbering our days? Does anyone feel that his or her heart is growing wiser because we are now in the period of counting the Omer? And today is not just any day of the Omer. Tomorrow evening will be the 33rd day, Lag B’Omer, when restrictions due to the Omer are lifted. In Israel, people will be lighting bonfires and having barbeques. Any wood left unattended tomorrow in Israel is likely to disappear into someone’s bonfire.
Some of you know that the Kabbalists assigned an aspect to each week of the Omer, seven aspects. Each of the same seven also apply to each day of the week. Today is Eternity within Majesty, נצח שבהוד. It is through the Majesty of the living Gd that we are able to connect to eternity.
Because the seven aspects of the seven weeks are not only aspects of the weeks, they are aspects of Gd Gd’s own self, blessed be His name. The Kabbalists have said that there are ten aspects or emanations of Gd. Seven of them, the seven that are also considered aspects of the seven weeks of the Omer, are within reach of our understanding. Three of them are completely beyond our understanding.
And what do we call these aspects, these emanations of Gd? They are called ספירות. Numbers! Is Gd a word, or is it a number? Someone said to me yesterday that if the Torah was written by Gd it would have been written in a holy language, a language that was beyond our understanding. Some people would say that it was written in a holy language, Hebrew. Tradition tells us that we pray in Hebrew even though Gd understands all languages because the angels only understand Hebrew, the language of heaven.
But others say that mathematics is the language that Gd speaks. And the Torah He wrote is in our bodies and in every aspect of the world, and it can only be understood through mathematics.
I say that where Gd stands, the two sides of the brain come together, left and right. The counting itself is a story, and what do we do with stories? We recount them. In fact, the word for counting in Hebrew, ספירה, as in ספירת העמר, has the same root as the word for story, סיפור. The same root can mean to tell, or even book, as in ספר. ספר תורה. Is the Torah itself a number?
Teach us to number our days, oh Gd. Teach us to bring together numbers and stories, Your aspects and the aspects of the universe You have created. Teach us to count, to be counted, and to recount. And in that way will we get a heart of wisdom.
Shabbat shalom.

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In Judaism, one of the worst sins is ‘מוצי שם רע,’ to put out a bad name. In other words, to spread bad and untrue rumors about someone. Judaism condemns those who do לשון הרע, repeat bad news about someone even if it is true. Judaism goes even further, forbidding repeating even good things about someone else. How much more so then, should we avoid מוצי שם רע, spreading lies about someone.

Judaism tells us that to criticize someone behind his back is like murder. It cannot be rescinded. You cannot take back your actions. Once a rumor is out in the world, it has a life of its own. Once a lie is told, people will continue to believe it, or believe half of it, even if the original liar retracts his statement. After all, he has admitted he is a liar. How do we know that he lied the first time and not the second time?

Our parasha this week is Metzorah, about the leper, and about a house that is ill. Both the house and the person have צרעת, which is not real leprosy, Hansen’s Disease, but some skin ailment. Psoriasis? It sounds similar. The rabbis of the Talmud tell us that a person becomes ill with צרעת when he or she speaks ill about someone.

Resh Lakish, one of the rabbis of the Talmud, tells us that we should read מצורע as מוצי שם רע. They are one and the same thing. He gets this not just from wordplay, but because when Miriam speaks ill of Moses, even when it is true, she is stricken with צרעת. When Moses tells Gd that he is unable to go to Pharaoh and free the Israelites, even when he speaks badly about himself, he is stricken by צרעת.

We are just as likely today as in ancient times to repeat bad rumors, to exchange so called ‘juicy gossip’ with our friends and neighbors. In fact, because or modern communication, things are worse than ever before. The statement from the Talmud ‘A word was said in Rome and a man died in Syria,’ has never been more true.

I have sinned in this respect. I am not thinking about bad things I have said about others, although I may have done that as well. In the winter of 2008-2009, Israel attacked the Gaza Strip. Around that time, I visited a very good friend of mine who does not feel the same as I do about Israel. We tried to avoid talking about it, but we couldn’t, and we ended up having a real argument, with my friend calling Israeli soldiers war criminals. I still remember how I literally had a pain in my stomach from this argument. But I finally managed to stop it by saying that we should both wait until a report had been issued on the conduct of Israel in the war. My friend agreed.

In September of 2009, the Goldstone Report was issued. It claimed that Israel had broken international law by deliberately targeting civilians. Not wanting to be one of those people who deny things they do not like even when they are faced with evidence, I admitted to my friend that he had been right.

I did so having lived in Israel, having known Israeli soldiers, believing that the צ.ה.ל, more than any other army in the world bends over backwards not to harm the innocent. I was guilty of believing מצי שם רע. This week, Richard Goldstone, the author of the report, retracted the statement that civilians were targeted by Israeli soldiers. Goldstone no longer believes this, although the report has not been changed. Once a rumor is out in the world, it cannot be rescinded.

But my sin was that I did not speak up for Israel. My sin was that I did not deny that this מוצי שם רע could be true. By my silence I allowed this rumor to spread.

How often do we do this? And how often do we stand up, and refuse to let a rumor spread? Every word is important. Let us guard our tongues, but also be careful what we listen to.

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The book Kohelet tells us לכל זמן ועת לכל־חפץ תחת השׁמים There is a time and a season for every experience under heaven… עת לחשׁות ועת לדבר A time to keep silent, and a time to speak.

There is no doubt that this is true. But there are also times when we speak out when we should be silent, as well as times when we keep silent, although we should speak.

In this week’s parasha, we have the most famous example of silence in the Torah. It is a moment of great triumph. Aaron and his four sons are ordained as the first Jewish priests. From this time on, there will be a language through which those who are not prophets may speak to Gd. The priests will perform the sacrifices, and on the basis of the merit of this action, we human beings will be accepted by Gd, we will be in a relationship with Gd.

The first sacrifice is made. It is successful. The Mishkan, the complicated piece of machinery that is the Tabernacle in the desert, works. How do we know? A fire comes down from heaven and consumes the sacrifices, and all the people see a bright light that indicates the very Presence of Gd. It is the culmination of everything for which our people have been working since Abraham.

And just at that moment, Gd kills two of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Abihu.

There has been a lot of speculation as to why. Did they deserve it? Were they punished for someone else’s sins? Was it not a punishment at all? We are not going to speculate now. For whatever the reason may be, good reason, bad reason, no reason– Gd kills Aaron’s sons.

What is fascinating is what happens next. Moses, the uncle of the two young men, says to his brother something that may be intended to comfort him, but basically comes off as ‘Well, that’s what you get.’ And the Torah tells us וידם אהרן. Aaron is silent.

There is a time to keep silent and a time to speak, but how do we know which is which? Gd forbid that anyone here should loose a child, for any reason, but we know what must have been going through Aaron’s mind. If you loose an elderly family member from natural causes, it makes you angry at Gd. Let alone a child. Let alone two children. Let alone a case in which there is no talk of natural causes, of chance, of bad luck. Gd did it! Gd took Aaron’s sons. Aaron is so angry that he is unable to eat. But Aaron is silent.

We have language to praise Gd, we have language to thank Gd. We don’t have language with which to fight with Gd. Should we then keep silent?

Look around the world. There is plenty to be angry with Gd about. Yesterday, for example, was Yom Hashoah. Holocaust Remembrance Day. Yes, human beings have free will, and those crimes were committed by human beings, but where does the buck stop? At what point do we stop keeping silent? How much responsibility does Gd have to bear before we admit “Yes Gd, I am angry with you”? Should we speak when we see any of the murders that are daily on the front page of the newspaper? Should we have spoken on September 11th, 2001? When a tsunami kills thousands? When a Katrina hits? Can we admit that we are upset that, some time between rainbows and kittens, Gd took the time to create cancer?

I think Aaron was wrong to keep silent. We are wrong when we do not confront Gd, when we do not challenge Gd. Don’t be afraid to ask Gd “Why did this happen?” “What were You thinking?” “Is this the best You can do?”

Don’t expect an answer, although you may be surprised. But don’t turn your back on Gd. Don’t let your anger turn into hatred, or, even worse, apathy. If you want to take a swing at Gd, do ahead. But stay in the ring. It might turn out to be one of those fights where you end up in each others arms and crying.

Gd demands that you be aware of Him, that you take Him into account. That doesn’t mean you have to like everything Gd does. If you see injustice, if you see unfairness, if you see something that makes you angry, that is not a time to keep silent. It is a time to speak. If you don’t like what Gd has done with the world, you go out and make a better one.

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This week we start a new book of the Torah, ויקרא, Leviticus. This is the book that contains the detailed instructions on how the priests are to perform the sacrifices.

Some people say that instructions regarding sacrifices are not terribly pertinent to our lives in the 21st century. Many of us might agree with Maimonides, who wrote in the 12th century that sacrifices were only instituted because the Israelites of the Torah were not spiritually advanced enough to worship purely on the basis of prayer, mitzvot, and good deeds. As soon as we were advanced enough, says Rambam, Gd took the Temple away, and with it went the sacrifices.

Other commentators disagree with Rambam. Why would the Torah spend so much time describing something that was not important? Very often, in Jewish books, the most important part is neither the beginning nor the end, but the middle. The book of Leviticus is right in the middle of the Torah. It is also the book with which the traditional cheder began to teach small boys.

So what is it that is so central, literally, about sacrifice?

There are a lot of lessons we can draw from this week’s parasha, but I want to look at three of them. One is that the world as depicted in the Torah is basically an ordered, harmonious whole. Everything has its place and its role. Things will get out of place, and things will go wrong. That is completely natural. But when they do, we have some say as to whether they will be fixed or not. We can bring the world back into harmony.

We can expect that we will go back and forth between purity and impurity, between sin and teshuvah. The world is not static, it is always changing, and it is the responsibility of human beings to make sure that it changes along the sacred lines that Gd envisioned.

Another lesson in the parasha is that there is no real difference between the so-called ritual commandments and the ethical commandments. According to the Torah, a sin against a person is a sin against Gd, and a sin against Gd is a sin against the whole community. In either case, we are obligated to bring the world back into harmony again.

The third lesson can be drawn from an oddly placed word in the second verse of the portion: Speak to the Israelites and say to them: When a person sacrifices from you a sacrifice to the Eternal…

What is that word מכם– from you– doing there? Why doesn’t it just say “When a person sacrifices a sacrifice to the Eternal…”? This brings us back to the question of what a sacrifice might be. What does it mean to give something to Gd if Gd created the world, and the entire world belongs to Gd? What is it that belongs to us, that is truly ours to give?

In that same verse, verse 2, we see that we are to bring an animal from the herd or from the flock. We are forbidden to bring a wild animal as a sacrifice. We cannot bring this animal because we have not nurtured it, we have not loved it, we have not raised it. There is nothing of ourselves in it.

Nothing physical on this earth belongs to us. Not our homes, not our children, not even our own bodies. They belong to Gd, and He can take them away in a moment. But our love belongs to us. Our creativity. Our compassion.

When we give Gd these things, I believe these are gifts that please Gd.

What does that mean for us today? We no longer bring lambs, bulls, goats and pigeons to be sacrificed. But I think when we love and nurture our children and then send them out into the world, that is a gift to Gd. When we work for the community, spending hours of our time to run a fundraiser, or to organize an event, without payment or proper recognition, that is a gift to Gd. Whatever we do out of love for the good of others, that is a sacrifice of the heart, and a gift to Gd that is good indeed.

Many people here give these gifts often. We do not recognize them enough, and we do not thank them enough. But the One who accepts sacrifices knows.

Vayikra, the book of Leviticus, tells us to make regular sacrifices, as well as sacrifices for guilt and sacrifices for thanksgiving. Let us all look into our hearts and see what we find there, that we can bring as fitting gifts to the One who has given us all.

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It is made of gold and silver, of tanned skins and carefully woven cloth. It is blue, purple, and crimson. It is made by all of the skilled artisans in the camp, everyone who can carve and sew and build and weave. Here in the middle of the desert, in the monochrome repetitive landscape, there is a sudden splash of color and beauty.

Second, the Mishkan is collapsable. It is made with rings and hooks so you can set it up and take it down on short notice. The few heavy items have poles that go through rings, so people can pick them up and carry them off. The tendency of most religions is to build something huge, something impressive, something immobile and awesome. A cathedral. A temple. The Great Buddha of Ushiki, a statue that weighs 4003 tons. Temple Emanu-El in New York City, that seats 2,500 on the High Holidays. Those monuments say we are here. And we are not leaving. The Mishkan says we are here now. We could move at any moment.

What message do we get from this? The condition of the Jews for most of history was that we were a traveling people. We moved for business, to trade, or because we were no longer welcome in the place we had been living. We were adventurers, explorers, refugees, survivors. We were merchants.

Until a generation ago, it was said that every Jewish grandparent had an accent. In other words, we never stayed in the same place for three generations. It is fitting that we begin our relationship with a Gd in a portable temple.

The message we take away is that we are not just traveling. We are not only moving from place to place. It is our mission to bring holiness to every place we go. It is our destiny to carry our temple on our back. Wherever we go, be it Louisiana, South Africa, Australia, or Hong Kong, we unfold our Mishkan and set it up and establish Gd’s presence there.

Today there are Jews almost everywhere in the world. And we put up our synagogues, prayer groups, hospitals, our charities. We refuse to accept injustice, we refuse to accept the status quo. We refuse to live a life without prayer, without holidays, without repentance, without gratitude. We refuse to live a life without meaning. This is our Mishkan, and I tell you it is beautiful.

Remember this, wherever you go. Whether it is away to college, whether your job takes you away from Baton Rouge, whether you are home on your own, whether you are in the darkness of a despair that follows you around, unpack your Mishkan, set it up, and establish holiness. Gd will be there waiting for you.

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Rosh Hashanah. The beginning of the year. Tradition has it that the anniversary of the creation of the world is today, the first day of the Jewish month of Tishrei. The month that ended yesterday, Elul, is considered to be a month of reflection. A month of preparation for the “cheshbon nefesh,” the spiritual accounting we do on these awesome and sacred days. It is a time in which we examine both our deeds and our thoughts, the work of our hands and the work of our hearts.

Last year during the month of Elul, I attended Shabbat services at a synagogue to which I only went occasionally. One of the service leaders gave a sermon on teshuvah. The word “teshuvah” is translated in the Oxford Hebrew Dictionary as “repentance.” This service leader said that one of the great things about Judaism is that, once a year, we have an opportunity to do teshuvah. And I thought to myself, ‘What does he mean, once a year?’

If you want to talk about the great things about Judaism, surely one of them is that repentance is always available.

Our High Holiday prayerbook, our Machzor, is entitled The Gates of Repentance. The title is taken from a quote from Rabbinic literature. The gates of prayer are sometimes closed, but the gates of repentance are always open.

But what do we mean by the word ‘repentance?’ In Hebrew, the word teshuvah means turning. Teshuvah is translated as repentance because we turn away from our sins. When we turn away from our sins, we turn towards Gd. Other ancient religions of the Middle East also spoke about turning, but not in the same way. Their gods might turn towards you, and they might turn away from you. There was absolutely nothing you could do to affect the turning. Only in Judaism do we turn towards Gd.

In Catholicism, of course, to repent you must go to a priest and confess. Based on your level of contrition, the priest may assign you penance, and may or may not grant you absolution.

In Judaism, we also have confession. The confession is called the vidui, and we say it at fixed times. We say it once a day during tachanun, a part of the daily morning service that is no longer said in most Reform synagogues. We say it once a year, during the High Holidays. And we say it once in a lifetime, just before death. In each case, we don’t really talk specifically about what we have done wrong. There is a set liturgy, a formula to say.

On the High Holidays we confess in the first person plural, and we confess to a number of things that we may or not have done. אשמנו, בגדנו, גזלנו. We are guilty, we have been faithless, we have robbed…

We confess as a community, not as individuals. Because of this, no one is humiliated in public, because no one knows what any specific individual has done. But if that is the purpose, why not just confess silently to what we have done? And why confess at all? Does confession lead to repentance?

People seem to be willing to confess the most embarrassing things on T.V. Actors and singers confess their addictions, their infidelities, their error in making anti-semitic or racist remarks. People who are not famous might as well confess in public too, to get their fifteen minutes of fame. That is, after all, the point of that kind of confession. It does not lead to repentance, only to notoriety. And yet, to acknowledge one’s error is a necessary first step on the road to repentance.

The vidui, the liturgical confession, gives us a chance to remember the sins that we have committed. We may not have taken bribes, we may not have hated without cause, but there is no one here who is not in need of teshuvah. We all say and do things that are hurtful to others. Many of us should give more to charity. We could do more for the environment. We may not always treat everyone we encounter with the full respect due to every human being, made in the image of Gd. But our natural reaction is to make excuses for ourselves. I didn’t give that guy money because he will probably use it to buy drugs. I didn’t look the cashier in the eye because we are both busy. I didn’t take political action because one person can’t make a difference anyway.

Confession strips away the delusion that we have been as good as we can be. We haven’t. And when we say the vidui, while we confess to things we have not done, all of the things we have done come back to us. The need for teshuvah becomes pressing. It might be cathartic to confess individual sins in front of a T.V. audience, but the focus would be on the shame, not on the sin. The vidui gives us a chance to know in our hearts where we have fallen short.

But this is only the first step of teshuvah. Our tradition tells us that we should go to the people against whom we have sinned and ask their forgiveness. It is not enough to send an email to everyone in your address book saying ‘Sorry!’ No sin is too small. No sin is too large. Go to him and confess what you did. He may have forgotten it. He may never have noticed it. It may have been bothering him for months.

In some cases, you cannot apologize. Abraham Joshua Heschel tells a story of Chaim Soloveitchik the rabbi of Brisk, the Brisker Rebbe, on a train traveling from Warsaw back to Brisk. Some men on the train, not realizing who he is, try to get the rabbi to sit in on their card game. When he refuses, they are angered by his attitude, and push and insult him. When they arrive at the town, and the men see the big group assembled to meet the rabbi, they realize who it is they have been insulting.

The next day one of the men comes to see Rabbi Soloveitchik. The man apologizes abjectly. He had no idea who the rabbi was, he thought he was just an ordinary man. And the rabbi refuses to forgive him.

The man goes back to him again and again, trying to apologize, but each time the apology is rejected. Finally the man asks the rabbi if it is not true that Jewish tradition insists that sincere apologies must be accepted. “Yes,” says the Rabbi Soloveitchik, “but I cannot accept your apology because your transgression was not against me. Had you known I was the Brisker Rebbe, you never would have insulted me in that way. Your transgression was against the ordinary man you thought I was. You need to apologize to all ordinary people, whom you were so willing to insult.”

This kind of apology is not possible. Nor can we apologize to that man on the side of the road who we passed by, although he held a sign that said ‘Hungry.’ There are many people who, for whatever reason, we cannot contact to make our apology. Jewish tradition also provides for teshuvah in this case.

Whether or not you are able to make confession, whether or not you are able to apologize, teshuvah has a very specific goal. The key is hidden in the meaning of the word itself.

The secret is that the word “repentance” is not really a good translation for “teshuvah.” We live in a Christian country, and naturally our Judaism is colored by the Christian society in which we live. When we sin, Christianity demands that we must be truly penitent. We must be sorry for what we have done. The word ‘repent’ means to think again. Re-Pent. We thought it was okay to perform a certain action, but now we think again and we realize it is not okay. But Judaism goes further.

Teshuvah, as I metioned before, means “turning.” The ultimate goal of all repentance is to physically turn away from the bad you have done. You can repent in thought alone, but to do teshuvah, you must change your actions. So if you are unable to apologize, after truly trying, you can still do teshuvah by turning away from your sin. Maimonides quotes the Talmud when he says that we never know if our teshuvah is sincere until we have a chance to commit the same sin again, and this time we do not. When given the opportunity to do something wrong, we turn away. We turn away from the sin, and we turn towards Gd.

This brings us to tomorrow’s Torah portion. The Akedah. The binding of Isaac. Much has been made of the fact that Gd tested Abraham. That Isaac went along willingly. Rabbis have argued for centuries about how old Isaac was, whether he knew he was to be sacrificed, what Abraham was thinking. There has been speculation on the identity of the two servants who accompanied them, why Abraham woke up early, and why we read this Torah portion on Rosh Hashanah.

One answer to the last question might be that this is a story of teshuvah.

Gd commands Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Abraham and Isaac travel for three days, bound for the place that Gd will show them. Why did Gd make them travel for three days? Our tradition tells us that it was so no one could say Abraham sacrificed Isaac on the spur of the moment, that he didn’t have time to think it through. Every step that Abraham took for three days was an opportunity to turn aside. Every moment was a moment in which he could have turned from death to life. But he continued in the same direction, step by step. Without pause. Without turning to the left or to the right. Because Abraham could not turn towards life without turning away from Gd.

Abraham and Isaac climb the mountain. The wood is laid out to burn the sacrifice. Isaac, Abraham’s beloved son, is bound, and laid upon the altar. The terrible sacrificial knife is in Abraham’s hand.

It seems as if there is no way to avoid this awful murder. How many crimes occur because the criminals are there, and each thinks “I can’t back out now without looking bad?” How many weddings take place despite misgivings on the part of the bride or the groom, because the clothes have been bought and the invitations have gone out? At a certain point, actions take on a grim inertia of their own. Once you are on top of the roller coaster, there is no place to go but down.

And yet. And yet.

And yet at the last possible moment, the knife is in the hand, the hand is in the air, there is a turning aside! Abraham does not do teshuvah! Gd does teshuvah! Gd turns aside from the course Gd was on, the roller coaster miraculously turns into a smooth track, the valley is exalted and every mountain and hill is made low, the crooked is made straight and the rough places made smooth. (Isaiah 40:4)

When Gd turns aside from His evil action, Abraham is able to turn aside from his. One teshuvah leads to another, which leads to life for Isaac, the love between Isaac and Rebecca, their son Jacob, and the entire history of the Jewish people. All from one act of teshuvah.

No matter how inevitable an action may seem, even if it is commanded by Gd Himself, teshuvah is always possible. The gates of teshuvah are always open. But at no time is teshuvah more available than now, during the days of awe. Rosh Hashanah is also known as Yom Ha-Din, the day of judgement. According to the Talmud, Gd opens the Book of Life on Rosh Hashanah. Gd weighs our good and evil deeds, and then writes what will be in the year to come. This is a metaphor. We are told that we will be judged by the end of Yom Kippur, because the danger is that if the gates of teshuvah are always open, we might very easily put it off. I can always do teshuvah tomorrow, next week, next year. No. The time to do teshuvah is now.

Between this moment and the closing blessings of Yom Kippur, please take time to reflect on your life. Think of something you do that you shouldn’t, something you should do that you don’t, some way to make yourself a better person. And commit yourself to turning.

Is it that easy? No. Teshuvah is hard work. It is hard work, but it begins with a commitment to turn.

No matter how far away you have gone, if you turn towards Gd, Gd will turn towards you. You may only be able to take a tiny step towards redemption. Sometimes you cannot even move an inch forward. But you can always turn, turn towards Gd, and Gd will turn towards you.

The beautiful thing about Judaism is that the gates of teshuvah are always open. Our task as Jews, as human beings, is to walk through those gates. Only then will we be worthy of that great act of teshuvah, Gd’s turning to the good, that created us as a people.

I pray that 5769 will be a zissen yor, a sweet year, for all of us. May we find this year eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to turn. Shanah tovah.

The post Erev Rosh Hashanah 5769 #1 appeared first on Beth Shalom Synagogue.

There are two great strengths to being Jewish. One is the diversity of the Jewish experience. Every Jew in every place and in every time period has a different experience.

The other great strength is what we all have in common. From the North, from the South, from 16th century Rome, from 9th century Bagdad, convert, rabbi, or non-practicing, we are all a family. That is what makes the differences so interesting. And we all share prayers, Shabbat candles, holidays, and most of all Torah.

Because Passover is the most widely observed holiday in Judaism, the part of the Torah that we are now reading is very familiar to most of us. Children around the world can say the the names of the ten plagues: דם, צפרדע… If they don’t know them in Hebrew, they know them in their own language. Blood. Frogs. Lice… And if you don’t know them in order, or if you don’t know all ten, you still know a few of them.

In this week’s Torah portion, Vaera, we have the first seven of the ten plagues. In two weeks the Israelites will go free, only to be trapped at the Sea of Reeds. Just when it seemed that all was lost, the sea will part, and the Israelites will march through. When the Egyptian soldiers march through, the sea will return to it’s natural place, and all of the Egyptians will drown.

The Israelites sing and dance. Our prayer מי כמוך is based on their song. The midrash tells us that the angels also begin to sing and dance, and the Holy One, blessed be He, silences them. “My children are dying, and you are singing?’ Gd says.

One of my students asked a very interesting question the other day. If Gd silences the angels, why doesn’t He also silence the Israelites?

My answer was not so good. I said ‘Well, here are these people who thought they were about to be killed, and they were saved by a miracle at the last minute. You have to cut them some slack, let them rejoice, let them sing a little.’

But it made me think. And it made me think also about the plagues. The message of the midrash is that we must not forget that the Egyptians are also Gd’s children. How are we supposed to feel about the plagues?

The plagues occur because one man, Pharaoh, refuses to let the Israelites go. But of all the Egyptians, Pharaoh probably suffers the least. When the Nile turns to blood, Pharaoh can drink wine or juice. What can the ordinary Egyptians drink? When giant pieces of hail are falling, Pharaoh can stay indoors. What about the people who must be out working? What about the people who live in huts with flimsy roofs, that will not keep the hail out?

The rabbis justify the plagues on the Egyptians, saying that they all cooperated in and benefitted from the enslavement of the Jews. The Nile turning to blood and the death of the first-born son are retribution for the command, carried out, to throw all Hebrew male babies into that very river.

The people do acquiesce to what Pharaoh is doing. They don’t rise up and overthrow him. Why should they? He is a pretty good Pharaoh. So he doesn’t treat the Jews well, but why should the Egyptians care about the Jews? It is only when those plagues come that the ordinary people might have reason to doubt the wisdom of the course Pharaoh has taken. By then, it is perhaps too late.

It is difficult to think of this story of the plagues and not see parallels to what has been happening in Gaza. The people of Gaza are trying to recover from a plague as great as any in this week’s parasha. Many people died because their roofs could not keep out the deadly hail, while their leaders, the Hamas Pharaohs, stayed safe in underground bunkers. Just like Pharaoh.

The events in our Torah portion have a very concrete goal: To free the Israelite slaves from Egypt. Operation Cast Lead also had a concrete goal: To stop Hamas from sending rockets and mortars into Israel, targeting civilians. But both the Exodus and the recent battle in Gaza had less concrete goals as well.

Many of us are uncomfortable with the idea that Gd unleashed the plagues  וְהִרְבֵּיתִי אֶת־אֹתֹתַי וְאֶת־מוֹפְתַי בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם, to multiply My signs and marvels in the land of Egypt… וְיָדְעוּ מִצְרַיִם כִּי־אֲנִי יי so that the Egyptians shall know that I am the Eternal. Must people suffer and die just for that?

And one of the objectives of ‘Operation Cast Lead’ was to let Hamas and other enemies know that the Israeli Army is also still capable of signs and wonders. How then should this make us feel?

And how should we feel, in both cases, about the deaths of the innocent?

Nobody suggests that the concrete goals were not worthwhile. We cannot say that Gd should have left the Israelites in Egypt to avoid hurting the innocent Egyptians. Nor can we say that the Israelis should have just let Hamas continue to bomb them without responding. But let us remember the words of the midrash: My children are dying, says Gd. This is not a time for singing. This is not a time for rejoicing. This is a time for soul searching and introspection. This is a time for sorrow, and above all, a time to recommit ourselves in our own hearts for finding a political solution, a peaceful solution.

To paraphrase Golda Meir, it is a terrible thing that Hamas tries to kill our children. A terrible thing, but one we can understand, and some day try to forgive. What is worse is the tragedy that we find ourselves forced to kill their children.

May Gd soon bring a day when no one will want to or be forced to kill a child. May it be Gd’s will that the current ceasefire will lead to a truce, the truce will lead to a peace, and the peace, someday, to brotherhood. Please join me in saying כן יהי רצון.

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There are many parts of the Torah that are difficult to understand, difficult to reconcile with what we consider to be justice, righteousness, or goodness. When I was growing up, and this may be true of some of you, the hardest thing for me to accept was the fact that Moses was not allowed to enter the Promised Land.

It didn’t seem fair. I had seen many movies and read many books, and I know how these stories end. The hero gets his reward. The enemy is defeated, and the hero gets to go home. Where is Moses’ reward?

He doesn’t want the job. Pharaoh hates him. The Egyptians hate him. The Israelites hate him. He has to beg Gd not to destroy the people over and over again. Gd listens! Gd saves the people because of Moses, and they still don’t like him! All we ever hear are complaints!

Moses asks for two things, and two things only. The first is to see Gd’s face. And Gd says no. Nothing personal, says Gd, but no one living can see my face.

Moses second request is to be able to enter the Promised Land. This too is denied him. Why?

This week we have a double parasha, Chukkat and Balak. In Chukkat, the people ask for water. Gd’s glory appears to Moses and Aaron, and He says ‘Take your rod and assemble the community, and speak to the rock… and water will come from the rock…” Moses takes his rod and assembles the people. He says “Listen you rebels, shall we get water from you out of this rock?” and he strikes the rock twice with his staff.

The water gushes out all right. But Gd tells Moses and Aaron that they will not enter the land that they are seeking. What did Moses do wrong? What did Aaron do wrong? Some commentators say that Moses erred by making it seem as if he and Aaron were doing the miracle. Isn’t Gd always trying to get people to respect Moses? Do people think that Moses, after serving Gd for so many years, is suddenly opening his own miracle shop?

Other commentators point out that Gd never told Moses to strike the rock. Again, are we supposed to think that Gd can have water come out of a rock without touching it, but Moses can only have water come out by hitting it? Or, as some commentators say, no question it was Gd’s miracle, but isn’t it a little less of a miracle if you have to hit the rock?

Okay, a tiny, tiny bit less of a miracle.

You might remember that there was a similar event back in the book of Exodus. But in that case, Gd tells Moses to take his staff and strike the rock! This time, Gd tells Moses to take his staff, but He doesn’t tell him to strike the rock. Why did He tell Moses to take his staff then?

For years, this seemed to me like a setup. Gd told Moses to take his staff and strike the rock the first time because He knew that by telling Moses to take his staff the second time He could trick Moses into striking the rock.

Gd is a Gd of justice. He knew that Moses could not enter the Promised Land. Moses will be 120 years old when the people enter. It is time for someone younger. If Moses leads the people into the Promised Land they will come to worship him. So Gd tricks Moses into striking the rock so that Gd will have an excuse to take the leadership away from him.

I used to think that was the answer, but now I see what a bad answer that is. Suppose a worker’s job is going to disappear. The boss then gives the worker an assignment at which he knows the worker will fail. When the worker does, the boss fires him, saying you failed. You’re not a good worker. What kind of boss is that? If the worker needs to be fired, the boss should go and say I’m sorry. I have to fire you. And this is why.

Did Gd trick Moses into striking the rock so He could deny Moses entry into the Promised Land? What does Gd say? He says יַעַן לֹא־הֶאֱמַנְתֶּם בִּי לְהַקְדִּישֵׁנִי לְעֵינֵי בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לָכֵן לֹא תָבִיאוּ אֶת־הַקָּהָל הַזֶּה אֶל־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר־נָתַתִּי לָהֶם He says ‘Because you did not cause there to be faith in Me, and sanctify Me in the eyes of Israel, you shall not bring this community into the land which I will give to them.

I still don’t get it. I certainly can’t see anything that Aaron did wrong. And if Moses did something wrong, how come the water came forth from the rock anyway? And if Moses did not sanctify Gd in the eyes of the people, why didn’t Gd just say ‘Here, you forgot to sanctify me. Now do it again, but this time, do it this way…’

I do believe that Moses and Aaron’s time had come. They had to turn the leadership of the tribe over to younger people. I also believe that Gd is just, and not petty. There must have been a reason for Gd to do things the way they were done. I don’t pretend to understand. Was it a lesson for Moses? Was it a lesson for the Israelites? Is it a lesson for us?

If Gd is just– and Gd must be just– there is no reason for Gd not to be just– Moses must have gotten his reward. The midrash tells us that when Moses dies he turns to Gd and says ‘It is not fair that I struggled all this time and never entered the Promised Land. And Gd, as it were, puts His arm around Moses and says ‘I know. So I’ll tell you what, Moses. Since you never entered the Promised Land, I won’t enter it either. Until the Messiah comes. And then you and I will enter the Promised Land together. שבת שלום.

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I am very happy and moved to see everyone here for my second High Holiday season. I welcome those who are new here, including Cantor Frankel. We welcome back some previous members, welcome back to Baton Rouge and/or to your Beth Shalom family. And we also feel the tremendous loss of some of our members who celebrated the Holidays with us last year but who have gone on before us. They are no longer with us physically, but their memories, their love, and the way they shaped our lives will always be with us.

We assemble tonight as a community of Israel, here to praise Gd as we have been commanded by our Torah. וּבַחֹדֶשׁ הַשְּׁבִיעִי בְּאֶחָד לַחֹדֶשׁ מִקְרָא־קֹדֶשׁ יִהְיֶה לָכֶם כָּל־מְלֶאכֶת עֲבֹדָה לֹא תַעֲשׂוּ יוֹם תְּרוּעָה יִהְיֶה לָכֶם And the seventh month, on the first of the month, shall be declared a holy day for you. You shall do no manner of work. It shall be for you a day of the sound of the shofar. Without these three elements, Gd, Israel, and Torah, we would not only not be able to observe Rosh Hashanah, but there would be no Judaism. After all, if there were no Israel, who would be Jewish? Without Gd there would be no Torah, and without Torah, how would Gd and Israel communicate?

For Torah is nothing more or less than the means of communication between Gd and Israel. Some Jews believe that the Torah was physically given by Gd to Israel on Mount Sinai, and some believe that to be a metaphor. Some believe that only the ten commandments were given on Sinai, some believe that only the first two commandments were communicated directly to Israel, and some believe that only the first word of the Aseret HaDibrot were communicated directly. And what is that word? אנוכי. I. In other words, Gd revealed the fact of His existence on Mount Sinai. The rest of the Torah, the whole Tanach, the Temple, this Rosh Hashanah service, and Judaism itself is, some people say, no more or less than the response of the Israelites to that one word, אנוכי.

But however Gd communicated with Israel, the Torah, its laws and practices, is certainly the means by which we communicate with Gd. Yes, of course we pray, but the Torah and the tradition that springs from it tells how to pray. And even more than free prayer, what defines us as Jews and not as just nice people or spiritual people, are the מצוות, the commandments.

The fact that all of you are obeying the commandment to commemorate ראש השנה on the first day of Tishrei, the commandment that I read from the book of Numbers a moment ago, is not incidental to the fact that you are Jews! By obeying the commandments we are sending a message to Gd of our love, our obedience, our understanding of the sacred nature of the world. So in a sense these three pillars of Judaism can be reduced to two. Gd and Israel, with the Torah the relationship between them.

All of Judaism is about communication between human beings and the Holy One, blessed be He. But who is He? And is He He? What do we really know about Gd?

Maimonides wrote that the more we try to describe Gd, the less accurate the description becomes. Gd is really beyond our ability to comprehend. Maimonides suggested that we would do better by describing what Gd is not. For example, not human. Not limited. Not created.

Although human beings canot fully comprehend Gd, most of us do have in our minds some idea of Him. One of my teachers, Dr. Carol Ochs, says that by the time we are seven or eight we have developed a concept of Gd. This concept is often a combination of what we have learned in Religious School, the kids’ Bible stories we have heard, our parents, perhaps our teachers, perhaps a man we once saw with a long white beard.

But we are children. Therefore we understand Gd as all good. Therefore we see Gd as all powerful. Gd is Superman. And therefore, kids expect Gd to act like Superman. When we are in trouble, Gd will fly in and take care of the trouble. When there are bad people, Gd will protect us, the good people, from them.

Psychiatrists talk about the trauma people suffer when they discover that their parents are not all powerful, that their parents cannot always protect them from harm. We also discover that our parents are not all good, but human, a mixture of good and bad. Parents may have only good intentions, but everyone makes mistakes. And there are parents, unfortunately, who do not even have good intentions. But what about the trauma we suffer when we we see that Gd will not always protect us from harm?

The word ‘theodicy’ refers to the problem of evil in the universe. The problem appears because of a view of Gd that we have when we are children. Some people never outgrow this view of Gd. Like our view of our parents when we are small, we say that Gd is all powerful, all knowing, and all good. And if that is true, there should be no suffering in the world.

It is a difficult problem. Gd can do anything. Gd is all good. And bad things happen to good people. This is a puzzle. If Gd can do everything and is completely good, why doesn’t He keep bad things from happening to us? Why isn’t Gd more like Superman? And if Gd is much, much more powerful than Superman, why is there evil in the world at all?

There are a number of possible solutions to this puzzle. One answer is to say that Gd is all powerful and Gd is all good but we are not. If bad things happen to us, it is because we are bad, and Gd is punishing us. This was a traditional Jewish answer to the problem of theodicy. By the nineteenth century this answer was looking very thin. The holocaust more or less put an end to this idea. Only a few  fundamentalists still insist that we suffer because of our sins. People who still divide the world between ‘good guys’ (always us), and ‘bad guys’ (always them). People who have never outgrown a childish view of Gd.

Other religions deal with the problem of theodicy by saying that yes, Gd is all good, but there is another power that is evil. This power can somehow battle with Gd, defeating His good intentions. This idea limits Gd’s power, for otherwise how could anyone fight Gd? Judaism has never accepted the idea that there could be a divine or semi-divine power that struggles against Gd.

Rabbi Harold Kushner, in his book When Bad Things Happen to Good People famously posited that Gd is all good and all loving but not all powerful. Gd would like to help you when you are sick, Gd would like to save you when you are in trouble, said Kushner, but He cannot.

We might describe this concept of Gd as ‘Gd as Batman.’ Powerful, good, doing his best to fight the bad guys, but he can’t be everywhere at the same time. When Rabbi Kushner’s son died, he decided that he would rather believe in a Gd who could not save his son than a Gd who could have, but chose not to.

I believe there are things that Gd cannot do, not because He is incapable of doing them, but because it would conflict with other things Gd has done. For example, Gd has chosen to give us free will. If a person wants to do something foolish and self destructive, Gd could stop her. But He won’t.

The world as we know it could not exist without our ability to make a choice between good and evil. There would be no right or wrong. And if a person performs her self destructive action, she may very well suffer for her choice. Would anyone choose good over evil if there were no consequences for our actions? Would we have learned so much about the human body if Gd cured all diseases? Would we have invented so many wonderful machines if Gd gave us anything we wanted?

Gd is not Superman. Gd will not keep us from making bad decisions, and Gd will not protect us from the consequences of our decisions.

Gd is not Batman either. When we mature, we realize that no one is completely good and no one is completely bad. Although Batman is not all powerful, he is still a completely good person who protects good people from bad people. I do believe there are very bad people in this world, and very good people, but no one is always good or always bad. And all of us, good and bad, can have a relationship with Gd if we want it.

Remember that all of the people in the Torah who are loved by Gd are imperfect. Abraham, Sarah, Rebecca, Jacob, Joseph, Benjamin, Miriam, Moses, David– none of them are all good. And let me ask you, where in the Bible is it written that Gd is all good? The Bible says Gd is just. It says He keeps His promises. It says He has promised to make the descendants of Abraham a great nation. Nowhere does it say that Gd is good. We know that Gd can be good. He can also be like a devouring fire. Sometimes the Tanakh compares Gd to a mother protecting Her child, and sometimes to a man of war.

We have a hard time reconciling our concept of a good Gd with His demands that the Israelites destroy their enemies, man, woman, child and beast. We have a hard time reconciling our concept of a good Gd with a Gd who gets angry, who threatens to destroy the Israelites when they create the Golden Calf, and who does destroy all people and animals except for the few on Noah’s Ark. We have a hard time reconciling that Gd with a good Gd because even Gd is not all good.

The very first prayer we say after the Barechu begins בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, יוֹצֵר אוֹר, וּבוֹרֵא חֹשֶךְ, עֹשֶׂה שָׁלוֹם וּבוֹרֵא אֶת הַכֹּל. Blessed are you, Adonai our Gd, who creates light and fashions darkness, who makes peace and fashions everything. But when this line originally appeared in the book of Isaiah, it was יוֹצֵר אוֹר וּבוֹרֵא חֹשֶׁךְ עֹשֶׂה שָׁלוֹם וּבוֹרֵא רָע, who creates light and fashions darkness, who makes peace and creates evil.

Gd Himself creates evil! We don’t want to tell that to young children! They want to believe in a Gd who will keep anything bad from happening! And they should. They should also believe that their parents will keep anything bad from happening. Until they grow up. And then they should have a more mature view of their parents. Why not of Gd as well?

There are people who never grow out of the idea of Gd as Superman. Some of them become fundamentalists, and some lose their faith in Gd altogether. Those who become fundamentalists must see the sufferings of others as punishment for their sins in order to maintain their belief that Gd is all good. If you do not believe that everyone who suffers suffers because of his sins, but you do believe that Gd is Superman, you will be lead to disbelief. Because you will look around the world and see suffering, and you will ask yourself “Where is Superman?” And the only conclusion you can come to is that there is no Superman.

Both fundamentalists and non-believers should read Isaiah. Even without Isaiah, you can figure it out yourself. If Gd created the world, and there is evil in the world, Gd created evil.

This is a concept of Gd that is useful for adults. The question one might ask is this: If there is evil in Gd, why should I worship Him? What good, as Kushner said, is a Gd who has the power to save me but does not?

It’s a good question. I can only take you back to the metaphor of Gd as parent. When we find that our parents are only human, that they make mistakes, do we disown them as parents? When we realize that our parents do bad things, do we say that they are not worthy of being parents? Or do we try to help them become better people, as Abraham did with Gd when Gd wanted to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah? Because there are two important things about our parents, and only these two things really matter:

One, they are our parents. For better or worse, they brought us into the world, and we will always have that connection.

Secondly, they are bound to us with ties of love. Not everyone loves her parents, and not everyone is loved by her parents. But usually, there are ties of love. Sometimes overt, sometimes hidden. Sometimes simple and pure, and sometimes in a strange and complex way. But love.

And we know those same things about Gd. He is our Gd, who created us, and who brought us out of Egypt. And we know that Gd loves us.

How do we know? We see it in this beautiful world, and in the lives we have been given. We know it because Gd says so. And He promises never to abandon us. What does it mean that Gd loves us? It means that yes, sometimes Gd will help us. But just as our parents don’t do everything for us, especially after we become adults, Gd will not do everything for us. He will not protect us from all harm. It doesn’t hurt to ask. But we must not feel betrayed if Gd does not answer our prayers.

What does it mean that Gd loves us? It means that He is there for us, in good times and bad times. He suffers when we suffer, and He is glad when we are happy. He was there with Joseph in prison, and He was there when Nachshon waded into the waters of the Sea of Reeds. Gd is here for us as well, and will not abandon us in life or in death.

Gd is not Superman, but that is a good thing. Superman would make life less interesting, less important. The fact that Gd, a being beyond our imagination, who exists without time or space, loves us– that adds to the depth and mystery and beauty of existence.

Who is Gd? How can we know, when we hardly know our own families? But we love our families. We don’t turn our backs on them for not being perfect. Gd does not give up on us because we are not completely good. Let us extend to Gd the same courtesy.

Gd, Israel and Torah. The Torah is a sign of love between Gd and Israel. It is, the rabbis have said, our ketubah, our marriage contract. And who is Gd? A mystery. An incomprehensible Being. But one who loves us and will always be with us. And perhaps we can live with that.

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