This is the sermon I gave at Temple Sinai in Cranston, Rhode Island, on Friday, November 18.

The comedian Dave Chappelle was the guest host on Saturday Night Live last weekend. Chappelle has built a reputation for controversy for jokes about sexual assault and about trans people. In his monologue on Saturday night, he made similarly controversial jokes about the antisemitic social media posts by music performer and producer Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) and by basketball player Kyrie Irving.

I won’t try to repeat Chappelle’s jokes. First of all, I could never duplicate his expert timing and delivery. Second, the content of the jokes is not really the point I want to make tonight. Let it suffice to say that Chappelle’s jokes about antisemitism were all based on the idea that while Jews may or may not control the media, it’s a bad idea to even talk about it because doing so will get you in trouble with … well, he wouldn’t say directly, but I think you get the point. It was hard to listen to Chappelle’s act and not get the idea that, rather than repudiating antisemitism, he was working to get laughs by repeating some of the most tired and destructive stereotypes about “The Jews,” as he referred to us repeatedly. What a shame.

Of course, complaining about a comedian’s jokes is a rather futile task. Comedy has its own language and style. Trying to criticize comedians as if they were college professors or politicians usually ends up sounding mean-spirited, culturally clueless, or just like you “don't know how to take a joke.” It’s not a game I want to play.

Maybe the best response to Chappelle came from a fellow comedian. Jon Stewart, who is Jewish, when he appeared on The Late Show. He made his own jokes about the idiocy of conspiracy theories that say that Jews secretly control everything from oil prices to bagel flavors. Sometimes the best way to counter a nasty joke is with a joke of your own.

Also, I will mention that a few of my Black Jewish friends have said they did not find Chappelle’s performance to be antisemitic. Dave Chappelle is Black and much of his humor is in the idioms and style of Black American culture. I may be deaf to the nuance of Chappelle’s jokes that were intended to make fun of antisemitism, not amplify it. I’m open to that.

Nonetheless, what I heard, and what some four million viewers on the show’s live broadcast heard, was a comedian who was willing to talk about antisemitism in a way that we don’t often hear in America. Chappelle himself stated in his monologue, “It shouldn’t be this scary to talk about anything,” and, of course, he is right. Many Jews in America right now are feeling very scared by the way that antisemitism keeps popping up in the news and in popular culture, but with very little context to show how dangerous it can be. We know. We remember. But much of America seems to be scared to talk about the fact that this type of rhetoric, if left unchecked, will lead to hateful violence against Jews, just as it always has in the past.

Tonight, I want to talk about what we are seeing in America and the world right now and what we can do about it. It’s not any easy topic for me to talk about and, I believe, it’s not easy for most of you to hear it. But it has to be said.

Since Ye’s antisemitic tweets a few weeks ago, there has been a surge of hateful speech and threats against the Jewish community throughout the country. Here in Rhode Island, antisemitic flyers were thrown onto driveways and front yards in the Oakland Beach neighborhood of Warwick and in North Providence just this week.  In Bethesda, Maryland, not far from the congregation served by Rabbi Eric Abbott, who grew up here at Temple Sinai, antisemitic messages were found spray painted on fences and brick walls. My social media page is filled with reports from rabbis across the country about antisemitic posters, threatening messages on Temple voicemail, and loud public opposition to even the most basic statements against antisemitism. It all feels surreal. We wonder how this could be happening in America.

Well, I know what’s not happening. We are not living in a world where antisemitism disappeared, once upon a time, and now has mysteriously come back. No. We know that antisemitism has always been here. It is the conspiracy theory that never seems to go away. From medieval times to today it has hardly changed at all. “The Jews are secretly spreading the Black Plague.” “The Jews are secretly kidnapping children for their blood.” “The Jews are secretly manipulating the world economy.” “The Jews are conspiring to take your job and give it to a Mexican.” The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The difference now is that antisemitism has come out from the shadows and into the mainstream. It may have started with an American President who openly courted and gave legitimacy to far-right white supremacist groups that are openly antisemitic. It has now spread to other cultural groups who see Jews as a convenient scapegoat for their own oppression. There is something about hating Jews that has always seemed more acceptable in American society than hating any other ethnic or cultural group, and it sometimes seems like we are the only people who notice.

So, what do we do? I like Jon Stewart's approach of fighting humor with humor. It’s smart and culturally savvy, but it is not nearly enough. We also need to start doing a better job of calling out antisemitism when it appears and we need to do a better job of “calling in” people who are blind to antisemitism (sometimes even their own hidden antisemitism) and inviting them into conversation and partnership. That is the approach that the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island is taking this week.

They have prepared social media messages calling on our allies to support and show up for the Jewish community. They are contacting non-Jewish leaders asking them to speak out against antisemitism. They are also reaching out to local news programs, meeting with business, civic and elected officials, consulting with law enforcement, and generally issuing a wake-up call to begin the scary conversation that nobody seems to want to engaged in – a conversation about the rise of antisemitism and what real and tangible support for the Jewish community would look like.

I’ve been doing this, too. Yesterday I had a meeting with a group of Episcopal priests with whom I have partnered in the past and directly asked them to talk about antisemitism from their pulpits. They have agreed to do that. I had a separate meeting yesterday with a diverse group of Christian clergy members in East Greenwich, and they have agreed to issue a joint public statement about antisemitism. Slowly, we are getting the word out that the normalization of antisemitic rhetoric is going to be countered by the normalization of calling out antisemites and the message that antisemitism is not compatible with our society’s civic, religious and moral values. It won’t happen overnight and there is a need to stay vigilant against hatred, but we can do it.

And the task of opposing antisemitism is not just a job for Jewish leaders and rabbis. I want to ask you to participate in this task, too. I recently completed an adult education class on antisemitism on Zoom and the videos and class materials from that class are available on the Temple’s website. Take a look and consider the advice I gave on how to identify and counter antisemitism in your own personal interactions.

When you hear or see language and behavior that amplifies negative stereotypes about Jews, don’t be silent. The simplest response can be the kind that Jon Stewart gave on The Late Show. Point it out. Don’t let it go by without comment. Even make a joke about it. It’s a better response than nothing. But you can do more.

Ask people who make such comments how they imagine their words affect Jews and other people who face ridicule and oppression. Invite them to share their own stories about how they learned to think and talk about Jews and tell them your own stories.

And we can do more than that, too. Enlist the aid and support of non-Jewish allies. Do you think it was easy for me to say to a group of my non-Jewish friends that they need to speak out about antisemitism? I assure you it was not, but it is necessary. Antisemitism is not a problem that was created by Jews and it cannot be solved by Jews alone. We need to know who are friends are and ask them to stand with us.

Finally, here’s another thing you can do – educate yourself. Learn about the history and tropes of antisemitism so you will notice it when it arises and so you can help others identify it, too. While you’re at it, also learn about the history of other forms of racial and ethnic hatreds and get more comfortable talking about all forms of racism and bigotry. When our friends in the Black community, the Muslim community, and the LGBTQIA community see that we care about the hatred directed against them, they will feel more willing to care about and to act against the hatred directed against us. That’s how you build a movement.

And that’s what we need. Antisemites have been building a movement for decades and even centuries. Not every person who holds antisemitic views is part of an organized antisemitic movement, but the few who are work hard to get as many people as possible to hear their message. We have to build a movement that will get people to hear our message – the true message of Judaism and the Jewish people.

Rather than being a people who conspire in the shadows with nefarious plans to overthrow civilization – as antisemites imagine – we are a people who have stood up for moral values. Where they see Jews overrepresented in the media, in the world of finance, and in government, we point out that Jews are actually overrepresented in the work of fighting poverty, addressing racial injustice, supporting democracy, advancing the arts, and building inclusion, equality and justice for all. If Dave Chappelle wants to talk about “The Jews,” he needs to include that crucial part of the total picture.

The times are frightening and we have every reason to feel troubled, but we are not without the ability to do something about it. Be a part of the movement.

Shabbat shalom.

This is the sermon I delivered at Temple Sinai in Cranston, Rhode Island on the first day of Rosh Hashanah 5783, September 26, 2022.
 
There is a moment in the Book of Esther that always stops me dead in my tracks. Every Purim, I cannot read it without pausing and wondering. It comes right after Haman (thank you for not making the noise) is infuriated by Mordechai’s failure to bow down to him and he decides that the Jews must be destroyed. He goes to the King and says, “There is a certain people, scattered and dispersed among the other peoples in all the provinces of your realm, whose laws are different from those of any other people and who do not obey the king’s laws; and it is not in your Majesty’s interest to tolerate them” (Esther 3:8). 

In one verse, the Hebrew Bible sums up two thousand years of antisemitism. So, the question I always ask myself on hearing this verse is, “How on earth did they know?” 

How did the authors of the book of Esther know that, for centuries to come, the Jewish people would be maligned as a scattered, insidious force working to destroy civilization? How did they know that we would be slandered and persecuted for the invented crime of disloyalty to the nations in which we live? How did they guess that villain after villain, like Haman, would rise against us seeking our destruction, all while applauding themselves for their self-righteousness? How did they know?

Let me assure you that I do not make this observation as some kind of proof of the divine origin or the inerrancy of the Hebrew Bible. I’ll leave that to the biblical literalists and fundamentalists – I’m not one of those. But I do make the observation to make a point about the antiquity and persistence of antisemitism. It is, perhaps, the world’s oldest form of hatred, and it is still very much with us today.

Consider these examples:

• At the University of Vermont last year, a teaching assistant made antisemitic remarks on social media threatening to lower the grades of Jewish students. Two student organizations, including a sexual assault support group, boasted that they would exclude students who “expressed support for Zionism” from membership in their organizations. UVM’s President released a statement two weeks ago denying that antisemitism is an issue at the university.

• In Kentucky, the Bracken County Republican Party put a message on its Facebook page accusing the newly confirmed director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms of being part of "a Jewish junta” that “is getting stronger and more aggressive." As at UVM, the county’s party board denied charges of antisemitism with the claim that they would never do that because they have party members with Jewish heritage.

• In Boston, a Democratic City Council member tweeted, “Y’all are letting the Zionists SHAKE YOU DOWN” in response to a federal court ruling that allowed a new law against boycotting Israel to go into effect.

• Right here in Cranston, flyers with hateful antisemitic messages were distributed by a white supremacist organization. Two men with the flyers were arrested in East Providence for refusing to identify themselves to police who witnessed them illegally posting them on utility poles.

We don’t only have anecdotes to show that antisemitism is on the rise. According to a report by the Anti-Defamation League, last year saw a 27-percent year-over-year increase in anti-Semitic messaging from white supremacist groups. The World Zionist Organization reports that it was the worst year in a decade for antisemitic incidents around the globe. 

What is going on? What has been going on for the last 2000 years? Lies against the Jews are practically the same today as they were in ancient Persia when the biblical Haman talked about Jews as an insidious affliction, bent on destroying a decent, law-abiding society – an affliction that could only be stopped by force. 

And why is it that the Jews, of all people, have been singled out for this kind of suspicion, animosity and hatred? Scholars have puzzled over it for centuries. You, too, have probably wondered, “Why us? Why the Jews?” Of all the nations and peoples of the earth, why have we been singled out by those who wish to find a scapegoat for humanity’s ills?

You have probably heard some of the theories: Jews were stigmatized by Christianity with the charge that we were responsible for the death of Jesus. But if that is the root source of the hatred, why is antisemitism also so prevalent among Muslims and other non-Christians? 

Jews have been stereotyped as money-grubbing exploiters of the poor. But if that is the reason for antisemitism, why has the persecution of Jews actually been at its worst when Jews have been desperately poor and exploited themselves, as we have been for most of our history?

Jews revere a singular God of universal morality, and that has been perceived as an intolerable threat to those who revere only their own power. But if that is the source of antisemitism, why are other minority religions that also uphold a moral deity not also singled out for hatred? 

Some people today claim that the State of Israel is the reason for the rise of antisemitism. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is complicated, and I have no intention of doing it justice this morning. But I do note that nothing Israel does actually reduces anti-Jewish hatred. If Israel today pulled out of the West Bank and declared a Palestinian state, does anyone seriously believe that anti-Jewish rhetoric would be reduced? Is that what happened 18 years ago when Israel unilaterally pulled out of Gaza? No. If anything, it has gotten worse, with increasing claims that the Jewish people are actually colonialist invaders in the Land of Israel – the only people in the world who are called colonialists for living in their native land.

The truth of the reason for antisemitism’s persistence may be the sum of all of these factors and more – a perfect storm of prejudices. Maybe. But I want to suggest a different interpretation – the interpretation expressed by Professor Deborah Lipstadt, the American historian best known for documenting the deliberate falsification of history by Holocaust deniers.  

Lipstadt’s observation is so simple – and also so contemporary – that it is surprising that we fail to recognize it immediately. Antisemitism is a conspiracy theory – an unlikely or bizarre explanation of events that depends on belief in sinister, powerful groups. Conspiracy theories gain traction, not because of evidence or arguments, but because of the desire to blame circumstances on a hated group that is defined as evil. 

In the middle ages Jews were accused of killing gentile babies to drink their blood. Today, antisemites spread stories of a Jewish conspiracy to replace the white race by promoting the immigration of black and brown people into the United States. They tell stories of Jews not showing up to work at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, which “proves” that the attack was secretly a Jewish plot. 

When we actual inspect the underlying beliefs of antisemitism, all we see is delusional thinking. We see beliefs so absurd and without a shred of evidence that could only be the product of hatred and imagined terrors run amok. We easily understand that such conspiracy theories are the product of paranoia and irrational rage. They have nothing to do with history, theology, socio-economic or geopolitical trends, policies or facts. Conspiracy theories do not need reasons. Hatred has no logic.

The unsettling idea that there is no “why” behind antisemitism presents a big problem for people who want to combat it. If there is no rational basis for antisemitism, there is no reason to believe that any amount of facts or  arguments will undo it. Antisemites believe that Jews are greedy, evil, inferior, or plotting to overthrow civilization because that is what they believe. They may present so-called evidence in support of their beliefs, but debunking false evidence does not stop them from hating since their hatred was never actually based in facts or evidence to begin with.

Does this all sound familiar? In many ways, we are living in an era of conspiracy theories. Bizarre, ugly lies are rampant today and readily believed by the gullible – about faked school shootings, about the origin of the Covid virus, and, yes, about stolen elections, too.

So, what do we do? How do you stop a hatred that is based on nothing?

We have to admit that the answer cannot just be the main thing we have tried so far – education. The movie, Schindler’s List broke a record when it was shown on television unedited and without commercial interruption in 1997. Sixty-five million people watched it, by far the largest audience of any non-sports TV program that year. People were moved to tears. It was the most compelling piece of public Holocaust education ever conceived. In the wake of it, mandatory Holocaust education programs were enacted across the country, including here in Rhode Island.

And what has it gained us? Twenty-four years after Schindler’s List was shown on NBC, white supremacists marched down the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, chanting, “Jews will not replace us.”

At one time, we might have been convinced that the worst of antisemitism was just among fringy whackos on the edge of society. Not any more. The stories about the World Trade Center and “White Replacement Theory” are not confined to corners of the dark web. They are now mainstream. They are promoted by commentators on cable news and by college professors at distinguished universities. Antisemitism is spreading.

So, what does work? In my mind, there are several important steps to combatting hatred beyond just general public education. Here are four:

1) Speak Up. No antisemitism should ever be ignored or go unchallenged. When a neighbor makes an offhand semi-humorous remark about Jews controlling Hollywood, or the banking system, or what have you – reply without apology or antagonism, “That’s hurtful. You know, some people believe those awful stereotypes. Don’t tell jokes like that.” 

When a small, pathetic group of neo-Nazis posts antisemitic flyers in Cranston or anywhere, we won’t write it off as the product of a few disturbed individuals. We will report it to the police. We will go to the newspapers and demand coverage. We will publicize the names and faces of the perpetrators of hate. If people tell us we are “overreacting,” we will say that we will not be silenced and that all forms of hatred must be confronted. Antisemitism counts as hatred just as much as racism, sexism and homophobia.

2) We must educate ourselves. Maybe in our attempts to educate non-Jews we forgot to make sure that we ourselves understand antisemitism. Learning about the history and patterns of antisemitism will help Jews to identify it quickly and make sure that other people see it, too, even in our everyday interactions. I’ll be teaching an adult education class this year on antisemitism and we will discuss it in age-appropriate ways in our Religious School, too.

3) Join forces. Antisemitism may be the oldest hatred, but it’s not the only one. When we join with Blacks, Muslims, Asian and Pacific Islander peoples, LGBTQIA people and others who are also subjected to hatred, we not only gain allies in our fight, we also gain opportunities to show how the antisemitism we face is painful and harmful to us, and how it hurts them, too. We show that antisemitism is not just some relic from the past. It is here and it is now. 

A recent report in the New York Times showed that antisemitic propagandists have been working overtime posting messages on fake social media accounts designed to drive wedges of distrust between Jews and Blacks, and Jews and Muslims. We can’t be distracted or tricked out of building alliances with other victims of hatred. This is the thinking behind Temple Sinai’s Community Conversations program with a Black church in Providence and our Building Bridges program of dialogue with Rhode Island Muslims. I encourage you to participate with us.

4) and finally, we must dig more deeply into ourselves. Jews are not exempt from our own prejudices and stereotyping. Our reflections on the experience of antisemitism should not wall us off from the suffering of others people, it should heighten our awareness. We should become more determined to acknowledge prejudice and bias that exists within the Jewish community. We need to notice our own tendencies to marginalize Jews of Color, transgender Jews, and queer Jews. We should strengthen our resolve to build a community in which every voice matters. We know that such a commitment will make us better and stronger as people.

The book of Esther, for twenty-three hundred years, has been our warning about what can happen when evil people use conspiracy theories and malevolent lies to gain power. In many ways, we are seeing a repeat of that lesson in America today. It is no wonder that the oldest conspiracy theory of them all is also on the rise at a time like this. Working against the spread of lies is not only important for us as Jews, it is also essential to the stability of our society as a whole. 

This year, in 5783, be an Esther, be a Mordechai by taking action, educate yourself, build alliances, and dig deeply into yourself. Make a difference in the face of rising hatred by proudly being a Jew and fighting for our values.

L’shanah tovah tikateivu. May you be inscribed for a good year.

This is the sermon I delivered at Temple Sinai in Cranston, Rhode Island, on May 6, 2022.

In 1968, a 21-year-old Texas woman named Norma McCorvey became pregnant. Despite her young age, McCorvey had been pregnant twice before. 

At age 16, McCorvey had been married to a man who brutally beat her. She left him to move in with her mother, who also had a history of violence, and gave birth to her first child. Within the child’s first year, her mother took the child from McCorvey and coerced her into signing papers putting the baby up for adoption. The following year, McCorvey became pregnant again and gave birth to a second child. This time she willingly put the child up for adoption after she was born.

During her third pregnancy, McCorvey resolved that she wanted an abortion. From her previous experience, she knew that she would not be able to get or keep a job while pregnant; and she desperately needed a job. Also she did not wish to repeat the emotional ordeal of her two previous unwanted pregnancies and adoptions. 

Eventually, she was referred to attorneys who were mounting a legal challenge to Texas’ restrictive abortion laws. They filed a lawsuit against Henry Wade, the Attorney General for Dallas County, and named McCorvey as the plaintiff using the pseudonym “Jane Roe.” 

As you know, the case eventually was brought to the U.S. Supreme Court, which announced its landmark decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973, declaring that the U.S. Constitution protects the right to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restrictions.

We learned this week that a majority of the members of the U.S. Supreme Court have taken an initial vote to overturn Roe v. Wade almost fifty years after the decision became the law of the land.

I assume that people do not come to Temple services in order to hear political commentary, or, at least, I assume that they probably shouldn’t. I have my political opinions, but it’s not my job to share them. On the other hand, the political issue of the moment, the leaked draft of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, is one that has an unmistakable impact on religion and morality. 

For those who don’t like hearing their rabbi talk about controversial issues, I am sorry to disappoint you. Tonight, I regret that I must talk about what is probably the most controversial topic in America today. 

For those who do want to hear their rabbi talk about politics, I am sorry to disappoint you, too. I am not going to touch on the political or legal aspect of the issue – which political parties are helped or hurt, which Justices are going to vote which way, what Congress could or should do, and so on. For any of those topics, I direct you to your favorite newspapers, radio networks, and cable news stations.

I am going to talk tonight about what this topic says about the role of religion in America, the moral destination our nation is heading toward, and how we should respond to the challenge as Jews and as human beings.

There is no question that the topic of abortion has become inextricably linked with religion in America. As much as some people try to camouflage their opinions in arguments about due process, state’s rights or so-called “Constitutional Originalism,” it is evident that those who support legal bans on abortion under some or all circumstances, are motivated by a particular religious view about when life begins and the authority of their religious view to be imposed on others. It is also plain to see that many who support abortion rights see religion as their enemy. It is for this reason that I have to speak on this issue. If I do not, it will only tend to confirm people’s false assumptions about religion, about Judaism, and about this holy congregation.

Let me make it clear: Reform Judaism holds that access to abortion is a Jewish value and that it is essential health care. This is a position that Reform Judaism’s delegates of lay congregational leaders have made over and over again for many decades. It is a position founded in the Torah, in the Talmud, and in the centuries of rabbinic commentary. Jewish law states unequivocally that the life and wellbeing of the living woman is prioritized over the developing fetus within her. Traditional Jewish law holds that there are circumstances in which abortion is favored or required, especially in cases where the woman’s life is imperiled. 

Moreover, Reform Judaism holds that all people should be allowed to make the choices that are right for them – in consultation with medical professionals and their loved ones – about reproduction and about their bodies. The power of government to compel or force a choice – any choice – is a violation of this fundamental value.

Others, of course, are free to have different opinions about the morality of abortion, but there is more at stake in the present situation than just a challenging ethical issue. It appears that there are five Justices of the Supreme Court who favor restoring the power of government to impose one particular response to that challenge on all pregnant women.

In a constitutional democracy, should government be invested with the power to force itself into one of the most personal decisions a human being can make in her life? Is it the role of government to choose a position on a deeply contested religious issue like the beginning of human life and thereby force that position on people who believe differently?

This is not the first or only time that we Jews have been put into this position. Throughout our history, the majority populations in the places where we have lived have tried to force Jews to conform to their notions of God and morality. The resurgence we are seeing today of a Christian fundamentalism that insists that it has the right to impose its religious standards on our entire society should be deeply disturbing to Jews and to everyone, regardless of their position on the particular issue of abortion. There can be no question that success in overturning abortion rights on the state level will be followed by religiously motivated assaults on the federal level. There is no doubt that, once Roe v. Wade is dispatched, if it is dispatched, there will be an attempt to pass a national ban on abortions. There can be no doubt that it will result in attempts to overturn the right to contraception and the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex people, too. 

What can we do? Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land. Right now, the U.S. Constitution still protects the right to choose to have an abortion. Regardless of whether you personally approve of abortion or not, I ask you to do whatever you can to protect that right for others. If not for yourself, do it for your children and for generations of Americans to come who may soon lose the right to choose for themselves how and when to give birth. Write to your lawmakers. Show up for public displays of support for abortion rights. 

More than fifty years ago, the story of a woman named Norma McCorvey opened up the eyes of the U.S. Supreme Court. Seven of the Justices – all of them men – found that forcing a woman to give birth to unwanted children, in the words of their decision, “may force upon the woman a distressful life and future.” They saw that adoption was no solution to the problem. McCorvey herself had put up two of her children for adoption and knew that being forced to do it for a third time would do her harm.

Fifty years of living with Roe v. Wade has also taught us other important moral truths about abortion in America. We understand today that overturning Roe v. Wade will not end abortions. It will only force those who have the means and the ability to travel far to get them. Those who cannot will imperil their lives by attempting illegal abortions, as has happened throughout history when abortions have been restricted or banned. 

We have also learned that denying access to abortion will disproportionately imperil the people who, right now, have less access to healthcare: poor people, people of color, immigrants and disabled people.

The right to abortion that was codified in Roe v. Wade almost fifty years ago did not fall from the sky for no reason. It happened because of the tireless efforts of people who understood that government should not have the power to reach into the most intimate decisions of our lives. The fight is not over. We will continue to keep true to our faith and to our values.

Shabbat shalom

This is the sermon I gave at Temple Sinai in Cranston, Rhode Island, on Friday, January 28, 2020, Shabbat Mishpatim.

This week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim, includes a curious verse. I’m not sure everyone today would agree with it. The verse, Exodus 22:27, commands, “You shall not revile judges, nor put a curse upon a chieftain among your people.” Today, it seems, cursing our leaders is not just considered acceptable behavior, it’s practically our national pastime. I want to take a look at this commandment, what we think it means, and what it might teach us about our society today.

First, a word about the Hebrew words of this verse. The part of the verse that says that “you shall not revile judges” actually uses the word Elohim, which we usually translate as “God.” However, since ancient times, the rabbis have understood that the word Elohim sometimes means something more like “great people” or “powerful people.” The earliest commentators all agree that this verse is not talking about reviling God – which is certainly covered elsewhere in the Torah – rather, it is about not expressing hatred for human leaders – judges, kings, elected officials, officers of the court. Yet, the use of the word Elohim here is interesting, as I will discuss in a few minutes.

The ancient midrash collection, Mekhilta d’Rabbi Yishmael [22:27:1], says that the prohibition against cursing leaders applies as long as the leaders do their job as their jobs are defined. You may not like the way they do the job, you may think that you could do a better job, you may believe that they don’t really understand their job, but as long as they are not renegades who ignore the rules of their job, you may not curse them.

So, I want to suggest that the rule is not really about not cursing the person in the leadership position; it is about not reviling the position itself. We have a similar idea in American society today when we say things like, “You may not respect the President, but you still have to respect the office of the presidency.” There needs to be a basic understanding in a society that once we cross the line of despising our political system just because we don’t like the particular people in power, we have undermined the very existence of the system we all depend on to keep us safe, to hold our society together, and to prevent anarchy from overwhelming us.

In American society, we often call this understanding “the rule of law.” It is a phrase made popular in part by the writings of John Adams, the second President of the United States. Adams wrote that a good government should be “an empire of laws and not of men,” meaning that our civilization becomes stable, just, and worthy of sustaining itself when not even the most powerful people can excuse themselves from obeying the law and when every member of the society is subject to the rights, privileges, and limitations of the law on an equal basis. The moment that the law becomes a weapon to use “against thee, but not against me,” the rule of law is broken and those who wield power should be regarded as illegitimate and as immoral, authoritarian despots.

But in observing the rule of law, which despises self-serving autocrats, we also relinquish our claim to despise the people who rule in ways other than what we would choose ourselves. It is a two-way street. Leaders have an obligation to live within the rules; the rest of us have an obligation to accept the authority of the people who govern within the rules.

That seems to be what this week’s Torah portion is telling us. You are not allowed to curse your leaders just because you don’t agree with them; you are required to give the respect due to their office. The only alternative is to ally yourself with the causes of chaos and anarchy that will lead to the ruin of the society as a whole.

If you imagine that the commandment not to curse leaders was more easily obeyed in ancient times than it is today – if you believe that the leaders of the past were so much better than those we have today – if you believe that people loved and appreciated their leaders in the past more – I am sorry to say that you must have a poor understanding of the ancient world and a worse understanding of human nature.

The Torah goes out of its way to remind us about how many Israelites really hated Moses during his forty years of leading them in Egypt and through the wandering through the desert. The Hebrew Bible tells us clearly that King David, the other paragon of leadership in ancient Israel, was so deeply disrespected in his time that even his own wife criticized him publicly and his children tried to overthrow him.

It has always been so. No leader, no matter how great, is without detractors. The game of "King of the Mountain," in which people try to pull down the person at the top, is the oldest game in the world. We never get tired of it. The struggle to “throw the bums out” without, at the same time, allowing all of society to fall into lawlessness is as old as civilization itself.

This is the observation of the Torah. You can see it in the way that the Hebrew Bible never invests itself too much in any particular human ruler. Even Moses and David are shown to have serious flaws and they have eager detractors. But the law itself, the rules by which society is governed, is never attacked in the Torah. It is venerated far more than any human being could ever be.

This week’s Torah portion is a virtual monument to the idea of the rule of law. Parashat Mishpatim contains 53 laws, one of the most of any Torah portion. Among the laws in the portion are laws against crimes like murder and kidnapping and laws for civil conduct like the repayment of loans and compensation for accidental property damage. But at the center of the Torah portion are laws for the administration of the legal system itself. This week’s portion commands judges and other civil authorities, “You shall not side with the powerful to do wrong. You shall not give false testimony to favor the interests of the mighty. Nor shall you show favoritism toward the poor in a dispute…You shall not take bribes" (Exodus 23:2-3,8).

There is a lot for us to learn from the Torah’s commitment to the rule of law and faith in human systems of justice and governance. The world today is experiencing a crisis in the rule of law that is unlike any time since the end of the Second World War. Democracies are falling toward despotism in countries like Turkey, Poland and Hungary. In just the last eight months, coups with military support have overturned the rule of law in Myanmar, Mali, Tunisia, Guinea, Sudan, and Burkina Faso.

And, lest we think that the United States is somehow exempt, we have seen in our own nation definite signs of decay in the rule of law. We can see, perhaps, how it started when the Supreme Court ignored the ballots cast in Florida and installed George W. Bush as president in 2000. The fractures deepened in 2016 when many people called Donald Trump’s Electoral College win illegitimate because of his failure to win the popular vote. Now it has reached near crisis levels as one quarter of all Americans believe that the result of the 2020 elections were false and the election stolen. The belief is, of course, primarily promoted by the false claims of the losing presidential candidate and his refusal to concede, a line that has never been crossed before in the nation’s history.

How much longer can this go on? What happens when nobody in a society believes that the rules matter as much as “winning” matters? In such a society, the rules will collapse. The rules will just be changed, after the fact, by people who have the power to create new rules that produce the results they want.

Regardless of your partisan allegiances, regardless of your preferred policy positions, you should fear this. It is a recipe for chaos and disaster.

And there is something else we should notice. Remember how this week’s Torah portion uses the word Elohim for the people in positions of authority who must not be cursed? Remember how the word Elohim is usually translated as “God”? I don’t think it is a coincidence.

The Torah itself recognizes that once a society rejects the rule of law, it will also reject the rule of God. Once people have tasted the power that comes with the ability to change the rules however they want, whenever they want to get the results they want, they will never accept the idea of any authority over them – not the authority of justice, not the authority of a moral order, and not the authority of creation’s supreme Source. The Torah understands that accepting the rule of law within the human realm is a necessary step toward accepting the rule of Heaven in our spiritual lives and in our basic understanding of who we are in the universe.

We are commanded not to curse our leaders – even when we disagree with them, even when we believe that they are dead wrong – not because they are above criticism or beyond reproach. We are commanded to respect the framework of governance and the rule of law because it is the floor beneath our feet. It is the foundation of all we aspire to do as a civilization.

Today we are standing on the brink of stepping over the line that leads to chaos. It is time to take a step back and to remember that there are ideals and there is a vision of what we are meant to be that are beyond merely “winning.”

Shabbat shalom.

This is the sermon that I delivered at Temple Sinai in Cranston, Rhode Island, on the morning of Yom Kippur 5782, September 16, 2021.

I want to introduce you to Rosie. It’s not her real name, but she is a real person, a Jewish woman who lives in Rhode Island. Like millions of other people of all religions, races and ethnicities across the United States, Rosie lost her job within the first month of the COVID-19 pandemic and needed help. Without her income, she was in danger of not being able to pay her utility bills, buying food, or even keeping her home. Fortunately for Rosie, she had some previous familiarity with Jewish Collaborative Services of Rhode Island and she sought their assistance.

Rosie spoke with Marcie, the coordinator of the Full Plate Kosher Food Pantry, and she received an emergency delivery of food, along with other household supplies and personal care products. (By the way, the Full Plate Food Pantry is the agency that we are supporting this year with our High Holy Day Virtual Food Drive.)

Rosie also connected with a case manager at JCS who was able to give her money from a designated COVID-19 relief fund to help her pay her utility bills and rent.

Rosie was so thankful for the help that she sent a note to the agency. She wrote, “Though I am certainly grateful to JCS for the financial support, food and supplies, I am most grateful for their caring and compassion. I turned to Shana from the Kesher program when I felt the worst. When I was fearful about my future, Shana listened and cared.”

Now, you might think that I am telling you Rosie’s story today to give the Jewish community a pat on the back for taking care of our own. Yes, Jewish Collaborative Services does an amazing job. Yes, I encourage you to support their work with generous donations. Yes, we at Temple Sinai are so lucky to have Shana Prohofsky, the woman Rosie praised in her letter, as our Temple’s Kesher Worker and I encourage you to seek her help whenever you are in need.

What may not be clear, though, is that this is not really such a happy story. Even though Rosie got help, there are many others who do not. Even for Rosie, this was a painful experience. It’s always hard to admit that you need help and to accept food and money. There is an aspect of the experience, even when it is most deeply needed – even when the people offering help are loving, kind and supportive – that causes people to feel humiliation and despair. Nobody likes feeling that way – nobody – and we should not be content with a society that forces anyone into that position.

The reason why I am telling you about Rosie today is because there are millions of Rosies out there – in Rhode Island and beyond – people who are struggling with poverty. And, the difficult truth is, if you have never experienced poverty, it’s difficult to imagine how hard it is – how poverty traps people over generations – how not having a job means you can’t get a job – how lenders, financial institutions and the legal system prey on poor people – how having to struggle to feed your children makes everything else in your life a thousand times more difficult – how falling into poverty eviscerates people’s self-esteem and how they are perceived by others.

Poverty is an issue that many of us are entirely blind to. But it is a problem – a huge problem – right here in our state and in our community. Rhode Island has the highest poverty rate in New England at 13.4%. One out of every seven and a half residents of Rhode Island lives in poverty – more than 136,000 people. And although poverty is a real and significant problem in the Jewish community, as you probably know, it is far worse in other segments of the population.

We may think that we are a state that doesn’t discriminate on the basis of race, gender and age, but poverty in Rhode Island definitely does discriminate. The poverty rate for Black people in Rhode Island is 24% – one in every four Black people in our state lives in poverty. For Hispanic people, the rate is nearly 29%. For women of all races in Rhode Island, the poverty rate is 2.5% higher than it is for men.

What age group do you imagine suffers the worst poverty in Rhode Island? If you guessed the elderly, you are looking at the wrong end of the spectrum. It’s children. The poverty rate for people under six years old in Rhode Island is 22%. Almost one in four infants, toddlers and preschoolers in Rhode Island is living in poverty. Right now.

Homelessness is at a particular crisis point in Rhode Island. Every year about 4,000 men, women and children experience homelessness in Rhode Island, largely because our state lacks enough affordable housing units, and that results in sky high rents. The situation is so bad that – listen carefully – there is not a single town in the state – not East Providence, not Woonsocket, not Central Falls – where the average family seeking to rent can afford the average priced two-bedroom apartment. Think about that.

No matter what image comes up in your mind when you hear the term homeless, it is almost certainly wrong because there is no one type of homeless person. Homeless people are single people and they are families with children. They are people who are out of work and they are people who have jobs. They are people living outdoors and in shelters, and they are people who move from one friend’s house to another or live in their cars. They are middle-age, elderly and, increasingly, they are children. Over the past six months, I have had no fewer than three people from this Jewish community approach me for help because they are homeless or are in imminent danger of becoming homeless.

I should not have to tell you that this is not the way a just society is supposed to be. This does not meet the standard of what Jewish tradition demands. In today’s haftarah, you heard the words of the prophet Isaiah who said that a fast on Yom Kippur that is only about begging God for forgiveness while, at the same time, allowing people to go hungry and homeless is no fast at all. Such a fast will not, in Isaiah’s words, “lift up your voice before heaven" (Isaiah 58:4).

So, what can we do? There actually is a lot.

Over the past several years, Temple Sinai has joined with the Rhode Island Interfaith Coalition to Reduce Poverty in support of legislation to combat homelessness, hunger and poverty. Many of you will remember the speakers we have had at our Friday night services talking about these issues and many of you have participated in writing letters, calling lawmakers, and testifying at the State House.

That work has paid off. This spring, our efforts resulted in a state law that now makes it illegal for landlords to discriminate against people who use federal housing vouchers to pay their rent. Such discrimination used to be so widespread in Rhode Island that classified ads said explicitly “No Section 8” – no federal housing vouchers. That will not happen any more.

This year, we also passed the Fair Pay Act to protect women and people of color from being paid less than men and white people doing the same work with the same qualifications. We passed the first increase in 30 years of RI Works benefits, which go to the poorest of the poor families in the state. We passed the Rhode Island Minimum Wage Bill that will increase the hourly wage of $11.50 to $15 an hour over the next four years.

These victories are enormous for struggling families and individuals in our state like Rosie. The 30% increase in the RI Works benefit alone will help thousands of children growing up in families without certainty about their next meal, adequate clothing, or even a roof over their heads.

But, of course, these victories are not enough. In order to answer Isaiah’s charge, we still need to make sure that Rhode Island is a state where our society’s wealth is not concentrated into the hands of a few wealthy people at the top with a multitude of poor people at the bottom. We need to make our state into a place where we recognize that our first obligation is to see that everyone’s basic needs are met with dignity, care and justice.

Over these High Holy Days, you have heard me talk about making this the year of “You shall not hate.” You’ve heard me say we have an obligation to care for each other by getting vaccinated to stop COVID -19. You have heard me talk about releasing ourselves from bitterness and toxic refusal to forgive. This morning, I need to ask you to go a step even further. I need to ask you to do something to end the pain and humiliation of poverty.

There are many ways of doing it and of making a difference. You can see it in the variety of ways that Temple Sinai members are changing lives. Susan Sklar, the Chair of our Social Action Committee and other Committee members made a difference this year by organizing a phone calling campaign to get Temple members to call lawmakers about legislation – now passed – that sets standards for care in our state’s nursing homes.

Our members Marc and Claire Perlman made a difference this year by raising millions in cash and products for the Ocean State Job Lot Charitable Foundation to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, assist military families in financial crisis, and help people in need due to COVID-19.

Our members Shelley Sigal, Tonya Latzman and many others made a difference this year by participating in the Temple’s “I Can Run Errands for You” program, doing grocery and pharmacy shopping for seniors in our community who are not able to get out of their homes during the pandemic.

So, what about this new year? And what about you? What difference will you make in Rhode Island and in the world? It does not need to be big and it does not need to take a lot of your time. Just believe me when I tell you that for someone like Rosie, or the more than one hundred thousand other people in Rhode Island living in poverty, it will be enormous.
​
G’mar chatimah tovah.
May you be sealed for a good year.

This is the sermon that I delivered at Temple Sinai in Cranston, Rhode Island, on Kol Nidre night of Yom Kippur 5782, September 15, 2021.

On June 11, 2021, Michael Packàrd was diving in the waters off of Provincetown, Massachusetts, doing his job as a commercial lobster diver. Packàrd had no idea that his second dive of the day, rather than resulting in another 100-pound haul of lobsters, would make global news.

When Packàrd was about 45 feet deep, near the bottom, he felt something huge push him and then surround him. He said It felt like “a truck hit me and everything just went dark.” At first, he thought that it was a shark attack. “I felt around,” he said, “and I realized there was no teeth, and I had felt, really, no great pain.… I realized, 'Oh my God, I'm in a whale’s mouth. I’m in a whale’s mouth, and he’s trying to swallow me.”

Fortunately for Packàrd, that humpback whale really did not have any interest in swallowing him. Despite their massive size, humpbacks can’t eat anything larger than fish the size of sardines. The whale shook its head a few times, rose to the surface, and spat Packàrd back out.

But in those moments Packàrd spent in the whale's mouth – which, by his own reckoning was only 30 or 40 seconds – he had all the thoughts you might image come in the face of death. "I’m like, ‘This is how you’re gonna go, Michael.” he thought to himself. “This is how you’re going to die. In the mouth of a whale.”

What does that sound like to you? Resignation? Acceptance of the inevitable? Regret? Willingness to let go of life? I’m not sure that even Packàrd himself could describe all the feelings he had in that moment.

I’m happy to report that Michael Packàrd was almost entirely unhurt in his adventure with the whale. He was taken to a local hospital, treated for bruises and a dislocated knee, and went home the same day. But maybe something within his mind and soul were changed by the experience. The encounter with the whale and with death may have taught him something about life.

By now, many of you probably have guessed why, on Yom Kippur, I’m talking about a man who was in the mouth of a whale. It sounds just like the story of Jonah, doesn’t it? It sounds like the book we will read tomorrow afternoon and, by tradition, on every Yom Kippur afternoon.

Tonight, I want to talk about Michael Packàrd. And about Jonah. And about all of us, too. There is something about the story of being swallowed up, ready to give up on life, even embracing death, that points to the hidden message of Yom Kippur – the day on which we pretend to die so we can learn how to live.

The biblical book of Jonah is, of course, the story of the reluctant prophet who tried to run away from God. Jonah boarded a ship heading in the direction opposite that which God had commanded him to go. God sent a storm to toss the ship and Jonah confessed to his shipmates that he was the cause. Jonah explained to the sailors that God was angry at him for his defiance. He told them to throw him overboard to save their lives. When they did, a “great fish” swallowed Jonah and he lived inside it for three days.

Now, that’s what most people remember about the book of Jonah. It’s a good yarn and the image of the man swallowed by a whale has kept the book popular through the ages. But, to understand why we read this fish story on Yom Kippur, we have to delve a bit deeper into the waters of the book of Jonah.

Tonight I would like to offer five lessons from this story – five lessons from the story of a man who thought he was going to die.

Lesson Number One. What did God want from Jonah, anyway? God commanded Jonah, “Go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to them, for their wickedness has arisen before Me.” Why Nineveh? Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire, the enemy of the Jews that had vanquished the Northern Kingdom of Israel and scattered the ten northern tribes. When God commanded the Jewish prophet to go to Nineveh, it was like asking a mouse to go to preach to the cats. Maybe that’s why Jonah didn’t want to go. Maybe that’s why he went aboard a ship heading in the opposite direction. God had put him on an impossible mission, and he was not too keen on it.

So, our first lesson from the book of Jonah is that doing the impossible is exactly what God wants from us. God wants us to face the things that we believe we cannot face – to face our deepest fears. God wants us to learn that the challenges we consider impossible are not as daunting as we imagine.

Lesson Number Two. What did Jonah do for the three days he was in the whale? About the last thing you would expect. Jonah sang out in praise of God. In fact, Jonah’s time in the whale appears to be his happiest moments in the entire story. Jonah recited a psalm to God, proclaiming his joy as he was cut off from the world, alone in his own private sanctuary in the belly of the whale.

This is our first big clue about what is wrong with Jonah. Jonah loved being in the whale. He loved being isolated in a dark place where he was rendered motionless and powerless like death. It’s what he wanted more than anything. And maybe that is why God made the whale spit him out.

Did you ever wonder why Judaism has no monks or monasteries? All the other monotheistic religions love the idea of people shutting themselves off from the world to contemplate God away from the cares of the everyday. Judaism detests this idea. The highest form of worship we offer God is in the way we live in the world. Judaism cannot exist on a lonely mountaintop, or in the belly of a whale.

Lesson Number Three. What did Jonah do after the whale spit him out? God again told Jonah to go to Nineveh, and this time, Jonah did as he was told. For three days Jonah walked from one end of Nineveh to the other declaring that God would wipe out the city.

This is what prophets in the Bible are supposed to do. They declare God’s will to the people and try to persuade them to change their ways. The thing is, though, of all the prophets in the Bible, Jonah is the only one who ever succeeded in convincing anyone to change. The Ninevites – the evil, sworn enemies of Israel – heard Jonah’s words. They declared a public fast and their king led them in pleading to God for forgiveness. Jonah is not just the most successful prophet in the Bible – he is the only successful prophet in the Bible. He is the only prophet who spoke the will of God … and people actually listened and changed because of it. And he did it by preaching – not to the Jews – but to the enemies of Israel.

The Ninevites pleaded for God’s forgiveness and God forgave them. God saw them turn from evil and renounced the punishment of destroying the city. The irony is overwhelming. It takes a prophet who does not want to preach, and it takes an audience that does not know God, in order for God’s will to be obeyed in this world.

Think about what that means in our day when the people who claim to speak for God often seem the most godless, and, often, the people who do God’s work of love and justice are the people who have the least interest in organized religion. It certainly makes you think, doesn't it?

Lesson Number Four. How did Jonah respond to God forgiving the Ninevites? How did he feel about his success as a prophet?

Well, he was furious.

Jonah cried out to God, “This is exactly what I knew you were going to do, God! This is why I didn’t want to come here! I knew that you would be compassionate to these people and forgive them!”

Why does God’s forgiveness make Jonah so upset? It’s possible that he was so partisan toward his own people that he was ashamed to see the enemies of Israel repent and receive God’s forgiveness – while the Israelites, God’s own people, refused to listen to God or change their ways.

But maybe it was something even deeper than that. Maybe Jonah just did not like the idea of forgiveness to begin with. After all, why should someone who does something wrong be forgiven just because they say, “I’m sorry.” Maybe Jonah thought – people who do what’s right should be rewarded and people who do what’s wrong should be punished. Just saying words shouldn’t change that.

I think all of us have thought that way at one time or another.

But this is where the book of Jonah, in my mind, has its greatest insight. Jonah is not just angry about God forgiving other people’s sins, his greatest anger is directed at himself – his own failings and sins, his disobedience toward God, his failure to embrace the role of prophet.

And, isn’t this true of us, too? I’ve noticed that when I get angry at someone, it’s usually because they’ve done something that reminds me of something I don’t like about myself. Don’t most of us reserve our greatest condemnation and our greatest anger for ourselves? That’s what Jonah did. He hated himself for his failings and he thought he deserved to die. He even told God he wants to die. He said, “Now, Adonai, take my life from me. My death is better than my life.”

Here is the book’s connection to Yom Kippur. The purpose of Yom Kippur is to convince us to live. We may not think that we yearn for death like Jonah did, but our actions say otherwise. Every day that we fritter our lives away in vanity and emptiness, we drain ourselves of purpose and fulfillment. Every moment we spend stewing in resentment, self-criticism and wallowing in guilt, we embrace death. Yom Kippur comes to us and says, “Your life is worth too much to be wasted like that. Embrace life. Change your ways and live.” So, what do we do? We spend 24 hours fasting and praying – just like Jonah in the whale – until we have had enough of death and are ready to live again.

That is the paradox of Yom Kippur. We need to go through a day of pretend death – pretending that we don’t need food, pretending that we should feel terrible about past mistakes, and pretending that our lives are dust and ashes – in order to reawaken to our true selves, to awaken to the self that God wants for us, the self that desires a life of meaning, joy, and living life with love and kindness toward others and ourselves.

Lesson Number Five. After the Ninevites repented for their sins, Jonah left Nineveh in disgust, and what did he do then? He set up a tent on the outskirts of the city to see what would happen. Would God forgive the Ninevites, or would God destroy the city as he had been told to prophesy?

While Jonah watched the city, God watched Jonah. God caused a kikayon plant to grow over Jonah’s head to give him shade from the hot sun. What is a kikayon? It is the vine of the castor bean plant. While castor oil has medicinal uses, the plant is also the source of ricin, often called the most powerful poison in nature. A few drops are enough to kill an adult human being.

So there was Jonah, sitting in the shade of a poisonous plant enjoying his poisonous thoughts about Nineveh, about God, and about himself. But, the next day, God brought a worm to destroy the kikayon, exposing Jonah to the sun, and Jonah again pleaded with God to let him die.

God’s response, and the enigmatic ending of the book of Jonah, is this:

God says, “You cared about the kikayon, that you did not work for, that you did not grow. It appeared overnight and was gone overnight. So, how can I not care about Nineveh, a great city of more than 120,000 people who don’t know their right hand from their left and all their animals?”

It is the book’s most important lesson and it is the lesson of Yom Kippur. After a day of rehearsing for death, we should learn how to love living the way that God loves us, all living things, and even the animals. God is patient. God would rather sustain the lives of people who are so amoral that they don’t know the first thing about right and wrong. And God is patient also with Jonah’s proud, bitter, and resentful yearning for death, but God also wants Jonah to know how toxic that bitterness is. God wants Jonah – and us – to live and to learn to love the world and humanity despite all the deep imperfections and flaws, despite the resentments we have accumulated from suffering life’s cruelties.

These are our lessons on Yom Kippur. Learn to try to do what seems impossible. Learn to live with other people, even when they seem impossible. Learn to seek and accept forgiveness. Learn to embrace life. Learn to let go of resentment and pain.

The clock has started, we have just under 24 hours now to meet the challenge. During this day, we will confess our shortcomings and errors and we will make promises to do better, but we will get nothing out of the exercise if our acts of atonement are nothing more than expressions of despair, self-abasement, isolation, and wallowing in guilt. We need to move from that darkness into the light of living with purpose, joy and kindness to others and ourselves.

Life is short and it is fragile, but Yom Kippur teaches us to live the time we have with honesty, integrity, and with effort always to do better. That is the task of this day – to face the inevitability of death and choose to embrace life. Each of us, figuratively, spends this day in the whale’s mouth. Like Michael Packàrd, we may go through a million different emotions along the way, but we can know ahead of time that we will do the impossible if we make the effort. We will live. We will live with release from our pain and confinement. We will live with joy.
​
G’mar chatimah tovah.
May you be sealed in the Book of Life for a good year.

This is the sermon I delivered at Temple Sinai in Cranston, Rhode Island, on the first morning of Rosh Hashanah 5782, September 7, 2021.

In the collection of rabbinic sayings called Pirkei Avot, the most famous teaching is a quote by Hillel the Elder, the greatest sage of the first century BCE and, perhaps, the person who did more than anyone else to set the early direction of Rabbinic Judaism. Even if you didn’t know where it came from or who said it, you’ve probably heard this teaching before: Im ein ani li, mi li? Uchshe-ani l’atzmi, mah ani? v’im lo achshav, eimatai? “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?” (M. Avot 1:15).

I’ve been thinking about Hillel’s three rhetorical questions since the start of the pandemic and what they say to us about our responsibilities to ourselves and to others through this crisis. It’s not hard to see how the saying applies to our current situation as a society divided on the issues of masks and, even more so, on vaccinations.

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me.” It is up to each of us to make choices to keep ourselves and the members of our families safe. Everyone needs to decide for themselves what that means for them in the midst of the pandemic. Putting your head in the sand and pretending that there is nothing wrong is dangerous and foolhardy. Our first obligation is to take care of ourselves. If I am not for me, who will be?

But that is not enough. “If I am only for myself, what am I?” At the same time as we take care of ourselves, we must also think about others. We all live in a society. We are all members of the human race. We all have a moral obligation to think about how our choices affect others. If you were to decide that its okay for you not to wear a mask, when you could wear a mask, because everyone else’s masks protect you – or if you were to decide not to get vaccinated, when you could get vaccinated, because everyone else’s vaccinations will keep you safe if there are enough of them to provide herd immunity – you would not be factually wrong. You would be safe from the virus in such a situation. But, obviously, you would be ethically and morally wrong. No one is exempt from doing their share, what is possible for them, to help society as a whole.

And then we come to the last of Hillel’s three questions: “If not now, when?” Some obligations cannot be deferred. Every moment we delay in taking action to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is a moment in which we allow the harsh logic of exponential growth to overwhelm us. By taking action now, not just “sometime,” but “right now,” we make our world safer, bring the end of the pandemic sooner, and save more lives.

To further consider the choices each of us face in the pandemic, let’s consider the scenario known as the “Prisoner’s Dilemma.” You may have heard it as a story, but it is more than just a story. It’s one of the central models of game theory -- the mathematical study of strategic choices.

The Prisoner’s Dilemma goes like this:

Two partners in crime are arrested by the police. The police don’t have enough evidence to convict them of the serious crime they are suspected of committing, but they do have enough to convict the prisoners on lesser charges. The police place the prisoners in separate cells, giving them no way to communicate with each other. The police offer each of them a deal.

Each prisoner is told, “If you testify, we can convict the other prisoner on the more serious crime and we’ll see that you get a reduced sentence. But if the other prisoner testifies against you, well, then you will be the one to get the more serious sentence. What will it be? Will you testify or not?”

So imagine that you are one of these two prisoners. You know that if you and the other prisoner both betray each other by testifying, you will both end up serving two years in prison. But, If you betray the other prisoner and the other prisoner doesn’t betray you, then you will go free and the other prisoner will serve three years in prison. If both of you say nothing, you will both get off with just a one year sentence. But if you remain silent and the other prisoner betrays you, then you will get three years and the other prisoner will walk. What should you do?

A completely rational, mathematical analysis of this one-time event shows that the best choice for you is to betray the other prisoner. It’s easy to prove this. Let’s say the other prisoner is definitely going to betray you. If you stay silent, you will end up with three years; but if you also betray, you will only get two. Betrayal is better. Let’s say the other prisoner is definitely going to stay silent. If you stay silent, too, you will get one year; by if you betray, you will walk free with no time in prison. Betrayal is still better. Regardless of what the other person does, you will always get a better outcome if you betray. So why not do that every time?

Interestingly, when given this scenario, most people do the opposite of what logic dictates. This is well known by sociologists and game theorists. They’ve even given it a name. They say that most people have a “cooperative behavior bias.” People tend to optimistically believe that the other prisoner will not betray them and that they, consequently, should not betray the other prisoner. They decide not to betray, even though, rationally, betrayal is the better choice.

I hope that you, like me, are glad to hear that. It makes me feel a little bit better about being a human being knowing that my fellow human beings would rather be kind to me than cruel, even if cruelty is the choice that has the biggest immediate payoff.

Does this just prove that human beings are all simpletons who act with kindness when we should really just coldly and rationally do what is in our best personal interest without regard to the consequences for others? Maybe not. 

Betraying your partner may be the best choice for a player in the Prisoner’s Dilemma individually, but the best outcome for the two players combined is the opposite. By not betraying each other, the two partners each receive a one-year sentence for a total of two years between them. That is the lowest possible combined penalty if you look at the situation from the shared perspective of both prisoners.

What’s more, if two people play out the Prisoner’s Dilemma over and over again for an unspecified number of turns, the best outcomes for each of the players result from attempting to cooperate. In this situation, each prisoner can observe the behavior of the other and test whether the other person is cooperating with them. If they both see that cooperation is working, they will both end up doing better in the game, both from the group perspective and – importantly – from their own individual perspective, too.

This has been proven experimentally dozens of times. Players may feel tempted to play selfishly, and they may win on some turns by betraying the other person, but eventually the cycles of betrayal, distrust and retribution that come from playing “mean” end up being less successful than the long term outcome for players who develop the trust in each other to play “nice.”

The Prisoner’s Dilemma is not just an interesting thought experiment. It is used as a model to evaluate strategies and predict outcomes for many real world situations that weigh cooperative behavior against selfish behavior. We play the Prisoner’s Dilemma game, in a sense, every time we choose between doing the selfish thing or doing the cooperative thing.

Here are two examples. Let’s say you’re applying for a job and you realize that your friend, who is also in a job search, would be a great applicant for the position. Should you tell your friend about the job? If you don’t, you may end up getting the job and your friend won’t. But, if you do tell your friend about the job, your friend might get the job and then your friend might tell you about another opportunity that would be a good fit for you.

Let’s say you are going to a party where there will be a gift exchange. You can buy an expensive gift or a cheap gift. Should you buy the expensive gift and risk that you will lose out by getting a cheap gift in exchange, or should you buy a cheap gift so the worst you can do is break even?

In both scenarios, the logical choice for the best immediate payoff is to make the selfish choice – and sometimes, as we all know, that’s exactly what people do. But the instincts of most people are to make the kinder and more optimistic choice. Why? It’s not because we’re stupid. It’s because most of us have learned over time that cooperation works. It works if we develop trusting relationships in which people anticipate that we will choose kindness. It’s a game that we all have been playing since childhood.

And it seems clear that “the vaccination game” our society is now playing is, in fact, a large-scale version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. It is, perhaps, the largest human study ever conducted on how well people are willing to treat each other, how much they trust each other, and what the social costs are for playing the game “mean” or “nice.”

I should mention that when mathematicians study the Prisoner’s Dilemma, they assign values to the risks of cooperating or betraying, and it isn’t always the zero, one, two or three years in prison that I gave as an example. The “vaccination game” we are now in is one that, objectively speaking, has very high risks associated with not getting vaccinated. You greatly increase the risk of getting a serious case of COVID and possibly dying from it. That would definitely be a worse penalty than added time in prison. On the other hand, the risks of getting the vaccine are tiny. You might get a sore arm or fatigue for a few days. Some people worry about serious side effects associated with the vaccine, but with 40% of the world’s population having received at least one dose serving as data, there is ample evidence that such risk is extremely rare -- on the order of one in a million. On the other hand, getting vaccinated greatly reduces your risk of getting COVID and of having a serious case. Even if you decide to play “mean,” the odds in this game are overwhelmingly in favor of vaccination.

If nothing else, the pandemic has given us this lesson in the wisdom of Hillel’s teaching from more than 2,000 years ago. “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?” Judaism’s insight is that we are all really better off when we see ourselves not just as individuals, but as parts of a whole. Trusting in the goodness of others, being willing to act for the benefit of others (even when it’s not in our narrow, short-term interests), makes our lives better. Living with optimism about other people’s kindness, believing that we are responsible for each other, building relationships founded on trust and predictable benevolence – these values give us  a pathway for surviving as individuals, as a community, as a nation, and as a world. This is the way toward life – and as we have learned in this pandemic – the way that can keep us from death.

L’shanah tovah tikateivu v’techateimu.
May you be written and sealed for a good year.