* * * * *

Thank you, Scott. This is Chag Ha-Asif, the Festival of Ingathering. Sometimes, the thing we gather in is ourselves. We collect people together and harvest the joy of being a community.

Tomorrow morning, the Brotherhood will gather again to build Temple Beit HaYam's Sukkah. We're starting at 8:00 a.m. Come one, come all.


Other Posts on This Topic:
Sukkot: Gathering in Ourselves
Building a Sukkah in Hurricane Territory

In response to Israel's abandonment of God, God abandoned Israel in return. God says, "I will hide my face from them and see how they turn out in the end" (v. 20). God says that Israel will be plagued with disease, beasts and warfare. 

And this is where the poem takes an unexpected turn. We might have expected that Moses would say, as in other narratives of Deuteronomy, that Israel would then repent from its evil ways and God would take them back (for example, Deuteronomy 30:3). Instead, God says, "I might have scattered them and erased them from human memory" were it not for Israel's enemies who would say of Israel's defeat, "Our power is triumphant! It was not Adonai who did any of this!" (32:26-27). The poem says that God only saved Israel because to do otherwise would have caused the other nations to believe they had defeated God. God saves Israel because it is good for God, not because it is good for Israel.

This message directly contradicts the central teaching of Yom Kippur, which we just observed hours ago. Yom Kippur says that God waits until the very last moment for us to repent so that God will take us back in love. Ha'azinu says that our repentance does not matter. God acts as God acts for God's own reasons. Perhaps the message is a necessary counterpoint to Yom Kippur.

After spending an entire day believing in the efficacy of our repentance, prayer and charity—a day of putting ourselves through the wringer to move God's compassion—we are reminded by this portion that we don't really believe, after all, that we can force the hand of God. Good thing, too.

If we really had the power to pressure God to save us—even through sincere repentance—wouldn't that mean that we have a power that is superior to God's power? Is it possible that we have free will, but God is a slave to our acts of t'shuvah? No. It does not work that way. God does what God does and human beings can only accept it. 

Yom Kippur does tell a great truth. Our actions matter. By changing ourselves, we have the ability to help repair the world. But that truth is only half of the truth. The other half is that sometimes we strive to change and the world does not get better in return. Ha'azinu reminds us  that part of having faith is knowing this, and striving for change anyway. 

The day after Yom Kippur (and every day after that), we tone down our messianic expectations about winning life for ourselves and the world, and thereby escaping death. We remember that, in the end, God is God. We are not.


Other Posts on This Topic:
Speaking to the Empty Chair
The King's Advisor

Making such a visit during the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is a mitzvah. It fulfills a sacred obligation to sanctify the memory of those we love who are no longer with us. It also helps us to prepare for Yom Kippur by placing within our minds and hearts an awareness of our own fragility, fallibility and mortality. 

Yom Kippur, which begins tonight at sunset, is the one day of the year we set aside for focussing on that truth for 24 straight hours. It is not easy. We have minds that habitually seek to think about just about anything else. We spend our lives distracted by the necessities of getting through the day, harboring opinions and pursuing personal preferences and desires. We seldom find the time to turn our thoughts to the great truths: we are temporary and we owe our entire lives to a source beyond ourselves.

After the formal part of Sunday's kever avot service, I watched people wander around the cemetery grounds, finding names of loved ones, old friends, and other reminders of memories that have faded but not disappeared. I watched as one person sat on the ground to get closer. People came up to me to ask a question about the cemetery, to share a story about their beloved, to whisper a name. They remembered.

In the first act of Hamlet, the prince is called to these difficult thoughts by a visit from his father's ghost. Shakespeare gets it just right when he has Hamlet say:

Remember thee!
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee!
Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there;
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmix'd with baser matter: yes, by heaven!
(Hamlet, Act I, Scene V)

Yom Kippur is our day for wiping away the trivial and focusing on what really matters, unmixed with baser matter. As we stand before the open ark and ask God to answer us and to be gracious to us, despite our meager deeds, we remember who we really are. We put our lives into perspective and confront some deep truths.

Our lives are small, the universe is vast. While we are here, the task is ours to do the best we can. Still, we can reach beyond our temporary selves by remembering, and making ourselves worthy of memory.


Other Posts on This Topic:
Bo: Hitting Rock Bottom
Steve Jobs and Yom Kippur
Funerals

This year, we are doing the same thing. I've asked the children in our religious school and the adults who attend our services, once again, to write down the ways they would complete the sentence, "For the sin we have sinned against You by… forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement." Here is the original version of the Al Cheit we will recite on Wednesday morning as we seek forgiveness on Yom Kippur:


For the sin we have sinned against You by not being patient with others, and for the sin we have sinned against You by being too hard on ourselves.

For the sin we have sinned against You by not taking the time to listen, and for the sin we have sinned against You by being too quick to speak.

For the sin we have sinned against You by not giving our time, and for the sin we have sinned against You by not taking time for ourselves.

For the sin we have sinned against You by not having an understanding heart, and for the sin we have sinned against You by not having compassion.

For the sin we have sinned against You by ignoring sales clerks, public servants and custodians, and for the sin we have sinned against You by not showing appreciation for all who serve us.

For the sin we have sinned against You by losing our temper with others, and for the sin we have sinned against You by not fulfilling promises made to ourselves.

For the sin we have sinned against You by pushing away those who are kind to us, and for the sin we have sinned against You through self-isolation.

For the sin we have sinned against You by getting carried away with selfishness, and for the sin we have sinned against You by not listening to what we most need to hear.

For all of these, God of forgiveness, forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement!
ועל כולם אלוה סליחות, סלח לנו, מחל לנו, כפר לנו

For the sin we have sinned against You by demanding perfection from our children, and for the sin we have sinned against You by losing our temper with our parents.

For the sin we have sinned against You by disavowing those who are kind to us, and for the sin we have sinned against You by withholding kindness from others.

For the sin we have sinned against You by being disrespectful to members of our families, and for the sin we have sinned against You by expecting respect without earning it.

For the sin we have sinned against You by wanting more than God wants us to have, and for the sin we have sinned against You by not wanting more for others.

For the sin we have sinned against You by talking back to parents and siblings, and for the sin we have sinned against You by not listening to their words.

For the sin we have sinned against You with words that are mean and thoughts that are unkind, and for the sin we have sinned against You by missing opportunities to apologize.

For the sin we have sinned against You by eating things we should not, and for the sin we have sinned against You by not taking part in pleasures we should enjoy.

For all of these, God of forgiveness, forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement!
ועל כולם אלוה סליחות, סלח לנו, מחל לנו, כפר לנו

For the sin we have sinned against You by lying, and for the sin we have sinned against You by telling the truth to cause hurt.

For the sin we have sinned against You by silently holding grudges, and for the sin we have sinned against You by failing to openly acknowledge kindness.

For the sin we have sinned against You with feelings of jealousy, and for the sin we have sinned against You by being bitter over the success of others.

For the sin we have sinned against You by not spending more time with people we love, and for the sin we have sinned against You by putting our work above our relationships.

For the sin we have sinned against You by letting other people’s agendas derail us, and for the sin we have sinned against You by not pursuing our own path.

For the sin we have sinned against You by not giving our best, and for the sin we have sinned against You by not being fully present.

For the sin we have sinned against You with impatience, and for the sin we have sinned against You by judging others too quickly.

For the sin we have sinned against You by placing ourselves above others, and for the sin we have sinned against You by not seeing greatness in each person.

For all of these, God of forgiveness, forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement!
ועל כולם אלוה סליחות, סלח לנו, מחל לנו, כפר לנו


Other Posts on This Topic:
For the Sin We Have Sinned Against You...

Doesn't that close the case? The Torah says that Moses wrote the Torah. Who or what would know better?

Okay, I admit it. That's not such a good argument. According to the text of Moby Dick, the novel was written by a fellow named Ishmael, not by Herman Melville. The Torah may not be the irrefutable source of information about the authorship of the Torah. 

What makes the matter even more complicated is this: The word "Torah" may not mean the Torah, as we understand it, when it appears in the Torah. Based on etymology and usage in the Torah, the word, תורה (Torah), means something like "instruction," "teaching," or "law." Maybe the Torah means some other work when it uses the word "Torah." Maybe it means only some portion of what we call the Torah. 

But even that does not answer the question of whether Moses wrote the Torah (whatever the word "Torah" means). If Moses is the author of the Torah, how do we explain the fact that the Torah contains a narrative about the death of Moses (Deuteronomy 34:1-12)? How do we explain that there are many verses in the Torah that are written from the perspective of a time long after Moses? Genesis 14:14, for example, says that Abraham traveled "as far as Dan." The land of Dan was not called that until the tribe of Dan settled there. According to the Hebrew Bible, that did not happen until after Moses was dead and buried.

Further, if Moses is the single author of the Torah, why are there so many obvious contradictions in the Torah, including two versions of the Ten Commandments that disagree with each other? The Exodus version says that Shabbat is a memorial of the seventh day of creation; the Deuteronomy version says that it is a reminder of the exodus from Egypt. Wouldn't a single author maintain consistency?

Traditional Jewish commentators have answers to these questions. Some say that Joshua wrote the verses about the death of Moses. Some commentators say that God instructed Moses how to write the Torah in such a way that it would be understood by future generations. Tradition says that Moses intended the seeming contradictions to convey subtle distinctions of meaning. 

Those answers might be satisfactory if you are determined to prove that Moses is the author, otherwise, they don't really pass Occam's Razor. Why accept an explanation filled with odd assumptions and acts of divine intervention when a simpler explanation would suffice? Why not just say that the Torah was not written by Moses? Some traditional Jewish commentators—Abraham Ibn Ezra and Joseph ben Isaac in the twelfth century, Hezekiah ben Manoach in the 13th century—seem to imply that this must be the case.

What does this mean to us? Does it matter whether the Torah was literally written by Moses? If we find great meaning and reflection on the nature of our lives and our relationship with God in the Torah, why do we care who wrote it? Does the history of the text compromise its truth?

Modern scholarship reveals much about the origin of the Torah, and we ignore what historical inquiry teaches us at our own peril. But scholars cannot tell us everything about this sacred text. 

The Torah stands at the center of the Jewish journey to understand our existence. Along that journey, the Jewish people have found profound reflections of life's meaning in the Torah's words. It need not be the literal work of one man who lived more than three thousand years ago. It is the journal of a people's long quest to understand ourselves and to understand God. It is the record of our dialogue with the divine.


Other Posts on This Topic:
Shavuot: The Torah is Your Lover
Shavuot: Sinai and Symbolism

I brought a group of seventeen members of our congregation to Roger Dean Stadium tonight to watch this little piece of history and to root, root, root for the team of the Jewish homeland. In purely baseball terms, it was a good game. (Details on the game are below for any baseball fans who may have wandered onto this blog). 

Win or lose, though, it was thrilling just to see a group of professional baseball players on a field all wearing uniforms with the name "Israel" across their chests. David told me that he believes it is, "Without question, the best Jewish baseball team in history ever to play together." 

With a roster made up mostly of minor league prospects and recently retired major leaguers, he's probably right about that. (Only three members of the team, including David's son, Alon Leichman, are actual Israeli citizens.) Of course, there is not much to compare to this team. There haven't been too many attempts in history to put together an all-star Jewish baseball team.

For me, watching tonight's game was like watching worlds collide. After my family, Torah, and the Jewish people, baseball is the great love of my life. Seeing this marriage of baseball and Israel in a stadium just 30 miles from my home in southern Florida was thrilling and, at the same time, a bit surreal. I had a momentary break from reality in the ninth inning, when Israel brought in a relief pitcher named Shlomo Lipetz, and the crowd started chanting, "Let's go, Shlomo!" I thought I had wandered into a Michael Chabon short story, or, perhaps, an alternate universe in which baseball was invented by Avner ben Dubi Dag. 

And, yes, that was me in the third inning trying to start a cheer for Israel by shouting, "Give me a yud!" It was also me in the sixth shouting, "Hit a homer for your bubbe, Shawn!"

So, here is a little summary of Team Israel's historic game. (I always wanted to be a newspaper sports writer.)

The scoring started in the top of the first when Israel's first baseman, Nate Freiman sent a line drive over the fence in left. Israel was up 1-0. That is where the score stayed for the next six innings. 

In the bottom of the sixth, South Africa put its first two batters on base. A swinging bunt moved the runners to second and third with one out. At that point, Israel brought in relief pitcher Josh Zeid to get out of the jam. Relying on a fastball in the low 90s, he struck out the first South African batter he faced. After intentionally walking the next batter to load the bases, Zeid induced a popup to short. Inning over. Score still 1-0.

In the top of the seventh, Israel replayed the same script by putting two on and moving them over to second and third with a bunt. After that, things went only slightly better for Israel than they had for South Africa. Israel scored one run in the inning on a wild pitch. Israel ahead, 2-0.

In the eighth, Israel broke the game open. With two out, Shawn Green (yes, that Shawn Green) reached on a botched infield play, ruled a hit, and advanced to second on a passed ball. The next batter for Israel walked and Jack Marder was hit by a pitch to load the bases with two out. Charlie Cutler then had the play of the game with a double lined just above the reach of South Africa's first baseman. As the ball rolled down the right field line, all three Team Israel runners came around to score. Israel had a commanding 5-0 lead. 

In the bottom of the eighth, South Africa went down, echat, shtayim, shalosh.

In the top of the ninth, Israel added two more runs with Nate Freiman's second dinger and an RBI single by Shawn Green. Israel ahead, 7-0.

The bottom of the ninth was an adventure. Shlomo Lipetz ("Let's go, Shlomo!") could not find the strike zone. He put the first two batters he faced on base with two walks on just nine pitches. After getting a pop fly out, he walked a third batter to load the bases. Bye-bye, Shlomo. Enter, Jeff Kaplan to the mound. 

Kaplan walked the first batter he faced to give South Africa its first run and then induced an easy grounder to shortstop that was badly booted. The error scored another run and reloaded the bases. Kaplan retained his cool following the error. A quick groundout from catcher to first produced another run for South Africa, but also the second out. A pop fly to short ended the game. Israel wins, 7-3. 

How do you beat that? Well, I got former Red Sox outfielder Gabe Kapler to sign my Team Israel cap. Now that is what I call Jewish joy.


Other Posts on This Topic:
Pesach and Opening Day
Thoughts on Torah, Redemption and Spring Training
Why Torah is Like Baseball

When I look out over the sanctuary during the Days of Awe, there are a lot of people. I see the people who are there all year long. These are the people who come to Shabbat services and adult study programs on a regular basis, who volunteer their time to help make the congregation work, or people who are generous with their resources to fund all that we do. These are the people—maybe 18% of the congregation—for whom every rabbi and every congregation is deeply grateful. We couldn't exist without them.

Of course, I also see some faces that are around the synagogue less frequently. There are parents of children in our religious school who might attend services sporadically over the year. There are people on the periphery of the congregation who attend and support the congregation occasionally, but who mostly stay on the sidelines. There are people who were very active in the past, or in previous congregations, but they feel they now have completed their duty. There are people who only come a few times a year, but make a big difference when they do participate with their enthusiasm and true love of Torah and the Jewish people. This is the largest percentage of the congregation. Let's say they make up 47%, just to pick a number.

Then there is the other 35%. These are the people who come to the High Holy Days, especially if they land on a weekend and if they don't have other plans. They send in their membership contributions every year, even though they say they, "don't use the Temple so much." They do count on the synagogue to be there for them when they need it. They want the rabbi to officiate at a funeral when a close relative dies. They want to be visited in the hospital when they are sick. However, it is unlikely they will come to the congregation's help when the congregation needs it.

So, here is my confession. Paying attention to the first 18% is easy. Every rabbi does that. Frankly, it is a privilege to care for people who care so much about the Jewish community. No problem there.

It may be surprising that we also worry a lot about the last 35%. We wonder if we are one bad holiday sermon or one unreturned phone call away from losing them. We worry if they will decide not to renew their membership, not to be a part of the Jewish community, not to keep Judaism in their lives.

We forget about the 47%, though. We forget that it is also our job to make sure that they stay connected—and not just with their membership dollars or by sending their kids to religious school. Many of the Rabbi's 47% are people who are on the periphery because they feel that there is no place for them in the center. 

They do not have time to volunteer or the discretionary funds to make a large contribution. They love being Jewish, but the adult education and other programs at the synagogue do not appeal to them. They have busy lives and the synagogue, while important, has to wait in line for their attention along with the PTA, their kids' sports commitments, their secular social circles, their jobs, their families, and the rest of their lives. We sometimes forget about these people … and we cannot afford to do that.

Most rabbis and most congregational leaders complain that It is always the same people who do all the work and all the giving all the time. Sometimes, though, rabbis and lay leaders do not realize the ways in which we create barriers for nearly half of the congregation. Many of this forgotten half, if asked to do something specific that would interest them, would be ready to pitch in. Many of them feel shut out of participating because they are not in the same age group or social circle as the congregation's leaders. Some just don't know how they can help, or they have never been asked. 

(Surveys and flyers don't count as asking. People want to be asked in person. They want to be asked in a way that respects their time and their abilities.)

It's my job to care about these people, too, and often I forget to do that. I am sorry for that. 

We are one people and there aren't all that many of us. Nobody can be left out. We are a people who celebrate our unity. When we divide ourselves into smaller and smaller statistical pieces, we forget to see the people behind the numbers.

On Yom Kippur, when I look out over the congregation, I want to see all of them. I want to see each of them as an individual with lives that are complicated, interesting, busy and beautiful. I want to open my heart to doing what I can to allow each person to find his or her joyful place in the community of the Jewish people.

L'shanah tovah tikateivu.

This morning, on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, I was about to get into my car when I noticed a leaf-like blob on the car's roof. A moment before brushing it off with the back of my hand, I realized that it actually was a tiny frog, no more than half an inch long. It looked like a perfect porcelain miniature, bathing itself in the Florida morning sunlight.

People ask me what I like about living in Florida—just over a year since I moved here. They seem to expect me to talk about the warm climate and the lack of snow. To tell you the truth, I actually miss the snow and the frosty mornings of winter up north. For me, the warmth I love about Florida is more about the people than the weather. 

What I do love about being outdoors in Florida is the abundance of life. That tiny little frog on the roof of my car is just one example among dozens that I experience regularly. After our recent brush with Tropical Storm Isaac, my wife and I discovered that our front door was covered with beautiful bright green frogs and there was a two-foot long corn snake seeking shelter in a nearby alcove. 

A few days ago, I saw a peregrine falcon in a tree on our street and snapped a photo of it as it flew back into the nearby wetlands with a twig in its beak. There is a lush pomegranate tree growing in the Temple's courtyard. Majestic sandhill cranes walk through suburban neighborhoods like they own the place.

Rosh Hashanah, which begins tonight at sunset, is a celebration of creation. In the liturgy of the shofar service, we say, "Hayom harat olam!", "Today is the birthday of the world!" This is a day for looking at the world with new eyes and with wonder. If we Floridians spend much of the year hiding out in air-conditioned protection from the natural world, we are likely to miss it. Rosh Hashanah should come to us as a day to remember what a gift it is to live in this place of incredible flora and fauna. 

My wish for everyone over the next two days is that you experience the sound of the shofar as the call of the wild. Let that sheep's horn lure you back into the world of tropical frogs, seagrape trees, amphibians, reptiles and birds. We live in a beautiful place and this is the day to wish it all a happy birthday!


Other Posts on This Topic:
God of the Natural or the Supernatural?
Shanah Tovah Umtukah!

The problem, I think, for most people is that we have been trained to look at the world through a rational scientific lens. Science teaches us to believe only what we can perceive with our five senses and things that can be derived rationally through logic. Science is a tremendous tool that has shown human beings truths about the physical features of our universe that astonish us. Yet, science and rational inquiry do not teach us everything that we can know to be true.

Consider this brief test.

In numeric order, rate the following statements according to how strongly you experience them to be true in your life:

A. ___ There is so much I have to do.
B. ___ The entropy of isolated systems never decreases.
C. ___ I love the members of my immediate family.
D. ___ Erik Satie's Gnossiennes No. 1 is beautiful.
E. ___ Stealing is wrong.
F. ___ Objects accelerate at a rate equal to the net force applied divided by the object's mass.

Of course, I am not suggesting that statements B and F are not true. Of course they are. They are examples of the kinds of truths that we can discover through logic and the direct evidence of our senses. 

However, these are not the only kinds of truths. There are days when A is more true for me than anything else on this list. Thankfully, there are also times when C is my greatest truth. I am grateful to live in a world in which almost everyone agrees that E is true, even if they don't always adjust their behavior to it. 

If I were falling from the top of a tall building, there is nothing that would be more important to me than F.

Rosh Hashanah is about things that are true for everyone, even if we rarely reflect on them. It is true that we have been given life in this world, despite the fact that we never asked for it and did nothing beforehand to deserve it. It is true that our life is fragile, imperfect, and in need of repair. It is true that the deepest fulfillment we achieve in life comes from experiences in which we connect to something beyond ourselves. It is true that we are more than bodies taking up room; human life matters. 

You don't have to believe in a God who is a big daddy in the sky listening to our prayers and passing judgment on our actions. I do not. I do, however, have faith that I am here for a reason and that part of that reason is to discover truths of all sort, to live a life of justice and compassion, and to appreciate all I can in life that is true and beautiful (such as item D, above). I certainly have moments of doubt, but I believe myself to be at my best when I acknowledge these things to be true.

This is what Rosh Hashanah is for. It is our once-a-year moment to pay attention to the fact that there is a world that we did not create, that there is a task for us in life that is not complete, and to listen to the wake-up call to start paying attention to the truest truths of our lives.

That's why you are here.


Other Posts on This Topic:
Shanah Tovah Umtukah!
The Difference Between God and Religion

In the middle of this week's Torah portion, there is a verse that appears to have been inserted almost randomly. It does not obviously connect to the text before or after. It may, though, teach us something about a universe in which the laws of cause and effect do not always hold:

The hidden things belong to Adonai our God, but the revealed are for us and our children forever to do all the words of this Torah (Deuteronomy 29:28).

We learn which of our behaviors lead to our happiness and which lead to our suffering. We try to follow the former and avoid the latter. We never do so perfectly, but we can usually detect where we went wrong when we fail. That is the world that has been revealed to us. It is the world of following the instruction—the Torah—that we have been given.

But there is also a world that has been concealed from us. We are human and limited, so we cannot know what the future holds for us. There are times when the world seems to run without rules and we feel that God is hidden from us. That hiddenness also is a part of the universe we have been given.

This is a teaching that goes further and deeper than just saying (as I often say to my children), "Life isn't fair." If that were really, strictly true, then nothing would make any sense and there would be no point in trying to do what is right. 

Instead, we recognize that there is some of each. The revealed world is for us. Within that world, we get to make choices about how we will behave and we are given some assurances about the outcomes we should expect, good and bad. Within the revealed world, we have some latitude. The Torah has given us a basic moral structure for the universe and it is up to us to implement it with social structures and rules of our own devising. 

The hidden world, though, is not ours. There is an aspect of reality over which we have no control. We cannot decide what the circumstances of our birth will be. We cannot control the millions of seemingly random variables that effect our lives—what unforeseeable events will test us, challenge us, or torment us. Part of life is learning to accept that we don't get to control everything. Part of how the world works is hidden from us. It belongs to God.

The greatest test of human character is how we reconcile these two ideas. What do we do with the power we have to affect the world? Do we use that power for good or ill? How do we deal with the things that are beyond our control? Do we humbly submit ourselves to a world in which we don't know everything and we can't determine every outcome? 

Also, do we allow one of those conditions to overwhelm the other? Does fatalism stifle us from action when we have the power to effect change? Does our arrogance make us struggle senselessly against things that are beyond our ken? How do we know the difference?

As we enter into the Days of Awe, seek clarity between the two. Let the shofar awaken you to the revealed world before you and double in your determination to make it better. Hear the silence between the blasts, too. It is a reminder that our power is limited, we can't do everything, and sometimes the best thing we can do is to accept what is real and what is true.


Other Posts on This Topic:
Yoga and Judaism: The Yoke's on You
Noah: The Redemption of God