This is the sermon that I delivered at Temple Sinai in Cranston, Rhode Island, on the first day of Rosh Hashanah 5780.

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai was one of the greatest rabbis of his generation. We know that he was a real person who lived in the second century CE. We know that he really was one of a small handful of people who kept Judaism alive during a period of intense Roman persecution. Given his importance and given his reputation for loving the Jewish people so deeply, legends grew up about him. These legends depicted him as a man who would perform miracles on behalf of the Jewish people. Here is one that shows his wisdom and compassion:

A man and his wife are said to have appeared before Rabbi Shimon seeking a divorce. They had been unable to have a child after ten years of marriage and felt that their marriage violated the law to “be fruitful and multiply.” Rabbi Shimon sensed that the couple really loved each other very much, but he was not able to dissuade them from a divorce. So, he told them that, because their wedding had been a festive occasion, their divorce must be marked the same way. They would have to invite all their friends and family for a celebration with food and drink.

The couple did as Shimon told them, and, in the joy of the feast and merrymaking, both husband and wife remembered how much they loved each other at the beginning of their marriage and fell in love all over again. They resolved never to divorce, even if they could not have children. The story concludes with the statement that, through Rabbi Shimon’s prayer, God granted them a child [Shir HaShirim Rabbah 1:4].

During the life of Rabbi Shimon, Israel was under the dominion of the Roman Empire and its Emperor Hadrian. Hadrian was determined to wipe out the Jewish religion. He barred Jews from living in the city of Jerusalem. He outlawed the observance of Shabbat. He banned the study of Torah. Hadrian also issued a decree for the death of Rabbi Shimon.

Determined to keep both himself and Judaism alive, Shimon and his son went into hiding and lived in a cave where, legend says, they were sustained by only three things: the carob that grew on a tree near the entrance of the cave, water that came from a nearby spring, and the study of words of Torah.

According to the legend, after twelve years in the cave, Shimon received a message from heaven telling him that it was safe to come out of hiding. The Emperor had died and the decree for his death had been annulled. When he emerged, though, Shimon saw that the Jewish people had spent the years of persecution engaged only in farming and business, and had neglected the study of Torah. Shimon was saddened and angry to see that the Torah, which he had spent his life trying to keep alive, was now nearly forgotten by the Jewish people. He eyes were filled with such disapproval that his angry glance would miraculously burn people to cinders.

When God saw what Shimon was doing, the legend says, the divine voice called again and ordered him and his son to return to the cave. It seems that the world was ready for Rabbi Shimon at the end of Hadrian’s tyranny, but he was not yet ready for the world. His years of seclusion had allowed him to forget his love of the Jewish people and to forget the humility and acceptance that is required to live in community with others. It was only after an additional year, that Rabbi Shimon came out of the cave to stay [B. Shabbat 33b].

There is a midrash – a lesson in parable form – that is said to have been taught by Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai after his years in the cave. The midrash tells the story of passengers on a boat. As the boat pulled away from the dock to begin its voyage, one passenger opened his bag and took out a drill. The other passengers became alarmed as he put the drill bit against the floor under his seat and begin to make a hole in the bottom of the boat. The other passengers, in fear and astonishment, pleaded with him, “Stop! What are you doing?” The man was surprised by their objections. He calmly said, “What business is it of yours? Why should you care? I’m only drilling under my own seat. I have no intention of drilling under yours.” The other passengers frantically told him, “The seat might only be yours, but the water will rise up to drown us all!” [Leviticus Rabbah 4:6]
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It’s obvious that, of course, no one could be unaware that a hole drilled under one seat would sink the whole boat. We understand that the story of the man with a drill is a metaphor for something that we don’t always see so readily.

The story teaches that we tend to believe that we have the right to do what we want as long as it does not directly affect others. Often, though, we are unaware of, or ignore, how private actions can have public consequences. Our simplistic approach toward our rights, believing that we can behave as we wish without considering the consequences for others, can lead to terrible error and destruction. The story reminds us that nothing we do is really completely separated from others. Figuratively speaking, we are all in the same boat.

Take, for example, the person who wants to build a factory in a residential community. The person may declare, “I bought this lot. I have a deed of ownership. Why should anyone have the right to tell me what I can and cannot do on my property?” But, we know that communities do have a right, and need to have a right, to restrict what people do with their property when it has a negative impact on others. That is why we have zoning laws. A factory that might be well suited to one part of town, could cause unacceptable noise, pollution, or congestion in another part of the same town.

This concept was familiar to the ancient rabbis. The Talmud includes laws that require leather tanneries – which were smelly and dirty – to be placed on the outskirts of a town. Jewish law takes the concept even further by saying we have no right to remove ourselves or withhold our help when we are able to help people in need. We have no right to keep information from people whose wellbeing depends upon it. We are all in the same boat, and we have obligations to all our fellow passengers.

Now, let us consider why it was that Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, of all people, was the one who taught this lesson about the man with the drill on the boat. Remember, it was Rabbi Shimon who emerged from his years of hiding with harsh judgment against those who did not spend their lives studying Torah as he had. It was his angry glance that miraculously turned people to cinders, and it was he who had to re-learn the importance of loving people as they are, not as we wish them to be.

Rabbi Shimon thought that his harsh judgment against those who did not study Torah was a way of honoring the Torah. When he first came out of the cave, he did not realize that such behavior actually desecrates the Torah.

Torah teaches us to see each human being as a reflection of God’s image. We must not isolate ourselves from others or put ourselves on a pedestal above them. We must see each person as our fellow, our friend, and our companion in life’s journey. We must love others and care for them as they wish to be cared for, not always as we wish for them. That is the lesson that Rabbi Shimon required an additional year in the cave to learn, and it is the lesson that he wanted to teach with the story of the man drilling under his seat.

It is a lesson that we especially need to take to heart in today’s world. Consider the ways that we so easily “drill under our own seat” in today’s society.

Global warming is an obvious example. We can convince ourselves that the miles we drive in our cars, the gas or oil we burn to keep our houses warm, and the electricity we use to power our air-conditioners, are nobody’s business but our own. It’s so natural for us to declare, “What business is it of anyone else? Why should anyone care? I’m only spending my own money.” But the truth is that the changes we are experiencing in our climate, the melting glaciers, the rising sea levels, the global food shortages, the spread of disease, and the increase in powerful storms are the result of the choices that each of us makes individually.

We could talk all day about the small things we can each do to prevent climate change, and I encourage you to learn more about them and do them. For now, though, let us notice that we are all drilling small holes under our seats every time we burn fossil fuels in ways that can be prevented.

There are also examples in our Temple community that show how easy it is for us to miss the ways that the personal choices of one person can affect others. My friend Joel Chase, who will be our Torah reader on Yom Kippur morning, tells a story from when he was president of this congregation. There was a family (no longer Temple members) who asked that their Temple dues be pro-rated to the number of services they attended each year. They thought that if they came to only four services a year, they should only pay four fifty-seconds of the standard dues to reflect their actual use of the Temple facilities. That’s another form of drilling under your seat.

Joel also tells a story about a phone call the Temple received from the relative of a Jewish man who was known in the community, but who was not a member of the congregation. The relative called to inform us that the man had passed away. The caller also wished to inquire if the funeral could take place at the Temple. When told that the Temple could only be used for funerals of members, the relative asked how much it would cost to purchase a membership – for his deceased relative.

In both cases, I can assure you that Joel responded politely – a real mensch. He kindly told the first caller that the Temple can only exist if people support it even during the times when they do not personally benefit from it. He expressed his condolences to the second caller, but also said that the Temple needs the support of Jews while they are alive, and throughout their lives, not just when a moment of personal need arises – sadly, such as at a funeral.

If we only think about our own needs – if we say, “What business is it of anyone else’s? I’m only looking after myself” – we are likely to be oblivious to the needs of those around us. We also will fail to see how we will be hurt in the long-run by such behavior. Remember that the man with the drill didn’t realize that he, too, would drown if he drilled under his seat.

So, how do we respond to the person who does not see how his or her actions affect others? I suppose we could yell at such people. We could tell them how selfish they are being. We could try to make them feel badly. That might make us feel good for the moment, but, that too, is just another form of drilling under our own seat. It’s just another way of insisting on doing things our way while ignoring the needs of another person.

Remember that Shimon bar Yochai, who gave us the story of the man who wanted to drill under his seat, was reflecting on his own hurtful past. He was far from a villain. He was actually motivated by love of Torah and love of the Jewish people. But he also was a man who had suffered the pain of persecution and didn’t notice it when he turned that pain against normal, decent people – people who had not endured what he had endured. It took him an extra year of study to realize that when people did things that seemed selfish or unenlightened to him, it was not because they were bad. They just had a different perspective. We can’t all live together if we are not willing to accept and care about people who look at things differently than we do. That was the Torah Rabbi Shimon needed to learn.

So, we don’t yell at the man with the drill on the boat. We don’t wag our finger at the person who wants to build a factory in a residential community. We don’t take a high-and-mighty attitude against the person who turns the thermostat up to 72 degrees. We don’t disgrace the person who wants to support the Temple only when he or she needs it. No.

What do we do instead? We listen to them. We love them. We see them as reflections of ourselves. We all have places in our lives where we need to care for ourselves first. We don’t isolate people or put ourselves above them. We try to see each person as a fellow, a friend, and a companion in life’s journey. We remember that we must love others and care for them as they wish to be cared for. That is how we help people see beyond themselves and connect with others. That is how we keep them, and ourselves, from drilling those holes in the boat.

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 last Shabbat, Shabbat Ki Tavo, 5779.

When you are a rabbi, even a Reform rabbi, people tend to assume that you must have grown up in a religious household. It’s a curious assumption. I have to tell you, though, that, in my experience, it’s rarely true. Most of the rabbis I know – even many of the orthodox rabbis I know – did not grow up in homes that they thought of as religious when they were growing up. I certainly did not.

I grew up in a home that had a strong sense of Jewish identity. It would have been difficult for us not to. My mother came to the U.S. as an infant from France when her parents fled Europe. It really wasn’t possible for my mother’s family not to have a strong awareness of being Jews. The Nazis made sure of that. Yet, when they arrived in America, my mother’s family did not hold on to traditional Jewish observance for very long. My grandmother did not keep a kosher home. My grandfather’s idea of a house of worship was the New York Metropolitan Opera.

My father’s family was also strongly Jewishly identified. My grandfather on that side was a national officer of Alpha Epsilon Pi, the largest Jewish fraternity in the world, and he was a national officer of the American Jewish Congress. Being Jewish was more than a cultural afterthought for my father’s family, but they were not what most people would regard as “religious.” They did not attend Temple frequently. They did not observe Shabbat on anything like a regular basis.

Likewise, the household I grew up in was not religiously observant in the conventional sense. We went to Temple on the High Holy Days and my sister and I went to Religious School. But I do not remember a single time in my entire childhood when we lit Shabbat candles at home. There may have been a Hebrew Bible on one of the bookshelves in our home, but there was not another single religious book anywhere in the house – until I received a few as bar mitzvah gifts.

So, what was it in my childhood that got me excited about being Jewish – enough that I decided to become a rabbi later in life? I’ve asked myself that question many times. The answer that makes the most sense to me now is this: My father always told me that part of my job in life was to, "Make the world a better place than it was when you came into it." He used that phrase many times throughout my childhood. It never even occurred to me when I was a child that it was Jewish. But it sure was.

One of the most famous teachings in rabbinic tradition about making the world a better place comes from Pirke Avot. It says, לֹא עָלֶיךָ הַמְּלָאכָה לִגְמֹר, “It is not your duty to finish the work,” וְלֹא אַתָּה בֶן חוֹרִין לִבָּטֵל מִמֶּנָּה, “but neither are you free to neglect it” (M. Avot 2:16). Judaism teaches that none of us is expected to fix everything wrong with this world, but, nonetheless, we all have an obligation to do what we can.

I’m thinking today about my father teaching me that lesson because my family celebrated his 80th birthday this week. I’ve been reflecting on the impact he has had on my life and how it shaped me from an early age.

In college, I was an activist. I mean, it says on my college diploma that I majored in Theater, but the truth is that I majored in political activism. I worked on campaigns to get my college to divest from companies doing business in South Africa during Apartheid. After graduating college, I went to work for a national environmental advocacy group.

All the time I worked on these campaigns, I thought about what my father taught me when I was a kid. I remembered him saying, "Your job is to make the world a better place than it was when you came into it.”

It was only after I had been doing that work for about eight years out of college that I started to notice that many of my contemporaries in social change organizations left to do other things with their lives. A lot of them became lawyers. Some went back to academia to become college professors. Some just went on to careers in fields that had little to do with social change – writers and bookkeepers and marketing directors. One friend became a professional glassblower.

I did not resent their choices. I could not blame them. Working to make the world a better place is exhausting. It does not pay well. You don’t always notice that it’s making any difference at all. In a way, I was jealous of my friends who went to do other things with their lives. I even wondered: What’s wrong with me that made me think that it’s  my job – somehow – to change the world?

That’s when it hit me. The thing that made me think that I had to work for social change was my Jewish identity. It was the Judaism I was exposed to as a child that taught me that being Jewish meant that I was part of a bargain with God – a bargain we call “the covenant.” The deal is this: We are expected to do mitzvot – actions that bring kindness, justice, compassion and holiness into the world. In exchange for fulfilling the obligation to do mitzvot, God rewards us by – giving us more mitzvot to do.

That is, in a nutshell, the Jewish notion of why we are here and what our lives are all about. Our purpose in life is to do things that bring the world closer to what God intended the world to be when God created this reality and said, “This is very good.” Our job is to make it true – to make the world good.

When I realized that my drive to make the world a better place came from being a Jew – that was the moment that I started to get serious about learning as much as I could about Judaism. I haven’t stopped since. Apart from being a husband and father, it has become the most rewarding thing I have ever done in my life.

Learning about Judaism has helped me to understand my childhood and my life in ways that did not occur to me as a child. My family and I did not think of ourselves as “religious” when I was growing up, but maybe we were more religious than we knew. We were living Jewish values in a way that was deeply embedded in our identity. We not only believed that it was our job to change the world, we believed that changing the world was possible, that it was necessary, that it was something that we could see happening in the world around us, if we only paid attention to it.

Not everyone shares that kind of optimism about the world, but, I think, it is a belief that is intrinsic to being a Jew. Jews are addicted to hope – the belief that no matter how terrible the world may be, no matter how horribly people may treat each other, there is always the possibility that everything can be turned around. This world can be transformed into a paradise.

I’ll tell you where I see Jews who are filled with that optimistic belief. I see it in community centers and social service agencies. I see it at the State House. I see it in our Temple community and wherever people are helping others.

I also see it in the state of Israel. Think of it: in response to the greatest tragedy ever suffered by any people in human history, the Jewish people pulled themselves out of their misery and built a nation. In their ancient homeland that had been little more than a desert for centuries, they built an oasis, a miracle. Now, Israel has a lot of problems and there is much about Israel that concerns us. But, there are not very many other peoples in the world that could do what the Jewish people have done in reclaiming their ancient homeland. We did it. Jews never seem to despair or tire of trying to make the world a better place.

The Israeli musician and composer Arik Einstein sang about that spirit. His name may not be too well known among American Jews, but, to many Israelis, Arik Einstein is the poet who taught Israel what it means to be an Israeli.

What did Arik Einstein say in his songs that so perfectly captured the essence of Israel and of being a Jew? His most famous song, Ani v’Ata, says it all:

You and I change the world,
You and I, and then all will follow.
You and I change the world.
Others have said this before me,
But, that doesn’t matter.
You and I change the world

You and I will try from the beginning.
It will be hard for us, but that doesn’t matter,
It’s not so bad.
Others have said this before me,
But, that doesn’t matter.
You and I change the world.

You and I change the world,
You and I, and then all will follow.
You and I change the world.
Others have said this before me,
But, that doesn’t matter.
You and I change the world

This is what I love about being Jewish. It’s that casual certainty that we have a job to do. It’s a hard job, but that doesn’t matter. After all, if you have been given the whole world as a present that you did not even have to ask for, is it such a big thing to be expected to leave it a better place than you found it?

No. It would be rude not to. And, besides, that’s the deal that we have going with God. Just like my dad taught me.

Shabbat shalom.

This week’s political controversy from Washington – the one with tweets telling people to “go back” – will soon be forgotten like so many controversies before. For American Jews, though, this one hits close to home. We know what it feels like to be told to go back where you came from.
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Telling people to “go back” has always been a slur against immigrants and their children telling them that they are “not American enough.” That, to me, is the heart of this controversy. We are living in a moment when our country is, once again, examining what it means to be an American, who gets to claim the mantle of being “real Americans,” and who – because of their race, religion, or family heritage – has to prove that they are worthy of being here.

When most of our Jewish ancestors fled to this country from persecution in the 1880s and 1890s, they were considered undesirable by those who were already here. Along with Italians, Irish, Chinese and others, the new immigrants were told that they did not belong. Even a generation after the great wave of Jewish migration, no less a public figure than Henry Ford spoke openly about a vast Jewish conspiracy that was infecting America. President Calvin Coolidge said that America was becoming “a dumping ground” for foul, anarchist, and criminal immigrants who should leave if they didn’t love America.

We have heard it all before. Jews had to prove that we were “real Americans” even generations after we became Americans. That’s why the current attacks on immigrants and their children are so painful and so familiar in Jewish ears.

To make matters worse, Jews have now been drawn directly into the controversy. The same people who tell others to “go back,” are also making accusations that their opponents “hate Jews” and “hate Israel.” This week, the ADL issued as statement condemning those who are “cynically using the Jewish people and the State of Israel as a shield to double down on” racist remarks.

There is no question that there is a problem in America and around the world with anti-Semitism and unfounded attacks against Israel. We must address those. However, it’s easy to see that Jews and Israel stand to lose if they are dragged into a mud fight over “who is a real American?” Wary of being associated with xenophobic attacks, we want to say, “Leave Jews out of this!”

But, the truth is, we can’t be left out of it because we have always been a part of it. We have always been among the people whose American identity has been questioned, and it is still happening today on the left and on the right. We’ve always been among the people who have been told, “Go back.”

In a sense, that’s exactly what we need to do. We need to go back. We need to go back to our values as Jews and as Americans. We need to go back to the ideals of loving the stranger, because we know what it is like to be a stranger. We need to go back to the principle that this country is one nation “with liberty and justice for all.” We need to go back to the words written by Emma Lazarus and carried by the lady in the harbor that say:

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

The only “real America” is the one that embraces those values.


Other Posts on This Topic:
A Charge of Deicide
Things that Need to be Said

Is there anything that you must believe in order to be a Jew? There are many things that Judaism asks Jews to do, but what, if anything, are we required to believe?

It seems like a reasonable question. Other religions have basic tenets that a person must confess or state as their beliefs in order to be considered a member of the faith. For most Christians, belief in the divinity of Jesus and his resurrection is a foundational belief that defines the religion. For Muslims, there is the Shahada, the declaration of faith in one God and that Muhammad is God's prophet. 

But, what about Judaism? Is there anything that Jews are required to believe? Something that is so indispensable that, without it, you cannot call yourself a Jew?

The question is harder than it seems because Judaism, even in its most traditional form, insists that Jewish identity is immutable. Once you are born a Jew or convert to Judaism, there is nothing that will make you stop being a Jew. Even believing in another religion will not take away your Jewish identity.

However, Judaism does insist that just being a Jew is not enough. A Jew, says the tradition, must believe in some basic ideas, even if failing to do so will not remove Jewish identity. In the twelfth century c.e., Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon (known as Maimonides and as the Rambam) wrote his famous Thirteen Principles of Faith, which include belief in a single, unified, eternal, all-knowing God who is the only true God, belief in the Torah and the prophets as true teachings of God's will, and belief in the redemption of the world. (Fun fact: the words of the song Yigdal are actually a poetic rendering of the Rambam's 13 Principles).

The thing about the Rambam, though, is this: He himself did not believe in the Thirteen Principles as literal facts. A careful reading of his works shows that he understood the ideas of God, revelation and redemption on philosophical and metaphorical levels. He wrote dismissively of the idea that God has anything like a body, a personality, or any human attributes. To the Rambam, God is the abstract idea of perfection and ultimate meaning. What is more, the redemption of the world, to the Rambam, will not be a supernatural event filled with miracles, but a natural occurrence of a time in which all people will live in peace.

So, what are we supposed to believe, beyond the abstract and general belief in a divinity beyond ourselves and a belief that human beings came somehow, someday live in peace? Aren't there some specific things that Jews really need to believe about God, about ourselves, and about how we treat other people? I think there are.

Here is how I think about it:

1) Repeated throughout Judaism's most sacred texts is the command to care for the most vulnerable. To be a Jew is to have compassion for the slave, the impoverished, the bereaved, the destitute, and the despised. We are also commanded to provide them with the physical and spiritual comforts they require. More importantly, Judaism cannot permit an attitude that blames the poor for their poverty or that despairs that we are unable to alleviate their suffering. Jews believe in action for those in need.

2) Judaism is a religion of joyfulness. Each morning we should reawaken to the miracle of the world that has been given to us. While sadness and depression are real experiences that cannot be avoided at times, we are commanded to live with hope for the good and with a determination to find delight and wonder in the world.

3) The most fundamental Jewish belief about God is this: God is the unity that connects us all to each other and to everything. We human beings are not the center of the universe, but we are a part of it. We live with a moral imperative to recognize that there is a truth beyond ourselves that we must strive to obey. There is hope for this world to live up to its aspirations of justice and peace because the world exists for a purpose that we cannot fathom, but that makes us believe.

So, believe it or not, there are some things that we should believe as Jews. It may not be a catechism or a list of rules. It is more like an attitude, an appreciation, and an aspiration for the way the world ought to be. 

Superman was sent to earth as a baby from a dying planet. Spiderman was bitten by a radioactive spider that gave him amazing powers. The ancient Romans believed their city was founded by twins who were suckled by a wolf. A Hindu legend says that the cosmos rides on the back of a giant sea turtle.

These origin stories serve, in part, to say something about the character and values of heroes, of nations, and of the world. Superman fights for the well-being of the world because he knows what it feels like when your world is destroyed. The Romans saw themselves as noble survivors because they believed themselves to be descendants of warriors who fought for survival.

Passover is the great story of the origin of the Jewish people. We celebrate the holiday by retelling the story of how we were slaves and how God saved us. We recite for our children the legend of God's plagues against our captors and how God performed miracles to make us God's own people. Our story, too, serves to tell us something about who we are, about our values, and about the world we aspire to create. 

Here are some of my thoughts this year about what our origin story is supposed to teach us about ourselves and the world:

• Isn't it odd that we see ourselves as slaves in our origin story? Most civilizations tell stories about how their founders were brave soldiers or noble kings. We tell a story about how our founders were helpless servants to mighty Pharaoh. The story describes how we complained and griped all the way to freedom. At its essence, our origin story warns us against arrogance and hard-heartedness. It reminds us that, without God's help, we are nothing. It also reminds us to have compassion for people who are oppressed and helpless. We know that experience, too.

• The traditional Haggadah makes very little mention of Moses. We do not want to tell our story as the tale of one great man and credit him for our victory. The story we tell about ourselves is that no one human being has ever been our savior. Instead, we look to God and we look to ourselves as a collective nation for our redemption. Judaism, as a religion, is highly suspicious of the human tendency to turn great people into heroes, and to turn heroes into gods. We don't want to elevate any human to the status of a god. We have seen how the Pharaohs of the world quickly turn despotic, and how those who worship false gods become passive and cruel.

• In our origin story, the final chapter of the story is never told. By the end of the Seder, the Israelites are still a ragtag mob that has just witnessed the redemption at the Sea of Reeds (or, the Red Sea). We stop the story before we can get to Mount Sinai and the Ten Commandments. There is even a self-conscious incompleteness to the story seen in the four cups of wine we drink. Each cup represents a promise that God made to us: "I will bring you out of slavery in Egypt," "I will save you from their bondage," "I will redeem you with great power," and "I will take you as My people" (Exodus 6:6-7). However, there is a fifth promise in the biblical narrative: "I will bring you to the land which I promised" (Exodus 6:8). That unfulfilled promise is represented by Elijah's Cup, the cup from which we do not drink. The symbolism of the seder reminds us that our journey is incomplete. There is much that we still have to do to make God's promises true in the world.

As you experience the seder this weekend, consider what our story says about us. Think about what our first lesson is trying to teach us. We are not Romans who live to conquer and endure. We are not superheroes endowed with magical powers. In the story we tell about ourselves, we are human and deeply flawed. We are friends to those who are powerless and suspicious of those who are powerful. We are on a journey that is far from complete, but we are asked to be a part of it and to help write the next chapter – the one that starts today.

Other Posts on This Topic:
The Great Sabbath, Elijah's Cup, and the Unkept Promise
Matzah and Chameitz

This is the sermon I am delivering tonight at Temple Sinai in Cranston, Rhode Island.

I don’t know too many people who live with the feeling that God is right there, standing behind them, all the time. I don’t know many people who would say that they spend their days imbued with the awareness of God’s presence in their lives. I am envious of such people and, I have to admit, a little bit suspicious of them, too. God’s presence, for me, is something that I can find when I focus my attention on it, and it is something that sometimes barges into my life at unexpected moments. I think that’s the way that most people experience God – at moments when our hearts are opened to God, and at moments when we least expect God.

This week’s Torah portion, Vayeshev, begins the story of Joseph, the eleventh of Jacob’s twelve sons. In the whole Joseph saga, which we will be reading for the next four weeks in the Torah, God is famously absent. Throughout the Joseph story, people talk about God and they pray to God, but God does not appear directly and none of the characters – not even Joseph – ever communicates with God. It is as if, at the end of the book of Genesis, God has stepped into the background and let the human beings take control of the story.

Except that, here and there in the Joseph story, there are moments when God’s presence is hinted at. Quietly and unexpectedly, God shows up in obscure ways throughout the story. Here is an example from this week’s Torah portion:

“One time, when [Joseph’s] brothers had gone to pasture their father’s flock at Shechem, [Jacob] said to Joseph, ‘Your brothers are pasturing at Shechem. Come, I will send you to them.’ [Joseph] answered, ‘I am ready.’ And [Jacob] said to him, ‘Go and see how your brothers are and how the flocks are faring, and bring me back word.’ …When [Joseph] reached Shechem, a man came upon him wandering in the fields. The man asked him, ‘What are you looking for?’ He answered, ‘I am looking for my brothers. Could you tell me where they are pasturing?’ The man said, ‘They have gone from here, for I heard them say: Let us go to Dotan.’ So Joseph followed his brothers and found them at Dotan. They saw him from afar, and before he came close to them they conspired to kill him. They said to one another, ‘Here comes that dreamer!’”  (Genesis 37:12-20)

Now, if you are familiar with the story, you will recognize that this is a critical moment in the plot of the entire Torah. The brothers, who are furious with Joseph, will throw Joseph into a pit and then decide to sell him into slavery. Joseph will be taken down to Egypt where he will be the trusted servant of a powerful member of Pharaoh's court, but then he will be thrown into prison when he is falsely accused of raping the courtier's wife. After that, because of his gift for interpreting dreams, Joseph will rise from his prison cell and become the second-in-command of all Egypt, and, yada-yada-yada, he will end up saving his entire family and preserving the future of the Jewish people. All of that happens in this week's Torah portion and the portions that follow, but, first, Joseph has to be able to find where his brothers are grazing those sheep.

Do you notice something odd about how he gets there? The Torah tells us that there was a man – we’re not told his name, or anything else about him – who sees Joseph wandering aimlessly in the fields and he asks Joseph if he needs some help. Joseph tells the man, “I’m looking for my brothers. Could you tell me where they are pasturing?”

How on earth would this man know? If you went up to a perfect stranger at Providence Place and said, “Excuse me, I seem to have lost my brothers. Could you tell me where they are?” what kind of response do you think you’d get? A few odd looks and a few curt replies? “Hey, buddy, how the heck should I know?” You might get someone to take pity on you and ask you where you last saw them, or what they look like. You might even get someone to you ask the question, “Who are you?” But the man in Shechem, the nameless man in the story, does not do any of those things. He just says, in effect, “They went that-a-way.”

Why is this detail even in the story? How does the reader benefit from the interlude of Joseph being lost in a field and needing the help of a nameless person who tells him where to find his brothers and how to get on with his life? I think it’s one of those moments. It’s like one of those moments in life when we are searching for something – maybe we don’t even know what it is we are searching for – and a presence appears to us and helps us find the right path – the path that is waiting for us to fulfill. Maybe it’s God’s presence popping up in Joseph’s life at a moment when he really needs to feel it, or a moment that takes him utterly by surprise.

Have you had an experience like that in your life? Take a moment now to remember the time when God’s presence came to you in some unexpected form, to help you when you needed help, or came to you when you least expected it. Got it? Good.

This week’s Torah portion, which kicks off the Joseph story, is read every year during, or (as this year) right before, Chanukah. I find the this story about God’s hidden presence to be a perfect fit for Chanukah.

Think about it. Who is the hero of Chanukah? If you ask most students in our Religious School, they will tell you immediately who they think it is. They will say that it was Mattathias, the brave priest of Modi’in who refused to offer a sacrifice to the Greek gods after he was ordered to do so. Or, they will say that it was Judah Maccabee, the son of Mattathias, who led the rebellion against the Seleucid Empire and drove the Greeks out of the Temple. Or, maybe, they will say that it was whoever found that cruse of oil that was used to light the Temple Menorah – the oil that was only expected to last one day, but lasted eight.

The rabbis of the Talmud knew this about the Chanukah story. They knew that it was a story that seems to point to a human hero, and that made them uncomfortable. For that reason, they assigned a haftarah portion for the Shabbat that falls during Chanukah that says, pointedly, “‘Not by might, and not by power, but by My spirit,’ says Adonai Tz’vaot!” (Zechariah 4:6). They wanted to make sure that everyone understood that God was the real hero of the Chanukah story.

But I won’t correct the student who says that the hero was Mattathias or Judah Maccabee, or even the person who found the oil. Those answers are all correct, too. When we feel God’s presence in our lives, God doesn’t do it alone. It is always people – human beings – who serve as God’s eyes, God’s ears, and God’s hands in making miracles happen.

Remember that moment when you felt God’s presence come to you when you needed help? In what form to God appear? Who served at that moment as God’s eyes, ears, and hands? Who was the unnamed stranger, or the intimate friend, who gave you what you needed to fulfill your destiny at that very moment?

Chanukah is a holiday of noticing miracles and noticing the way that they are sometimes hidden and unexpected. God does not always enter into our lives as the gigantic special effects moment of the parting of the sea. More often, God comes as softly flickering lights in the darkness that help us remember who we are and where we are going.

You know, there is a song we sing during Chanukah that goes like this:

“Who can retell the things that befell us? Who can count them? In every age a hero or sage came to our aid!”

Who is the hero of that song? Who is the song talking about when it praises heroes and sages?

The opening line of the song is actually a paraphrase of a Psalm. It’s Psalm 116, which opens:

Mi yimalel g'vurot Adonai, yashmia kol t'hilato!
Who can retell the mighty acts of Adonai, proclaim all God’s praises!

Even when we sing our songs, just as in this week’s Torah portion, we sometimes let God’s presence step into the background. We sometimes let the human beings take control of the story. That is as it should be. We need to live our lives as if our fate is in our own hands. We need to take responsibility. We need to learn to be the heroes of our own lives.

But we also need to remember, once in a while when we really need it, or when it comes crashing down upon us in a moment of crisis, that there is a Presence ready to help us. We need to notice the quiet and unnamed character at the edges of our story, guiding us, loving us, bringing light into our darkness.

Shabbat shalom.

This is the sermon that I delivered tonight at Temple Sinai in Cranston, Rhode Island.

I came out of Shabbat services last Saturday morning on a spiritual high. We had gathered in the Chapel downstairs to spend the morning enjoying a wonderful breakfast as we do every week, we had studied together words from the Torah and the haftarah. We had a lovely service that included some regulars, some old friends, and some newer faces, too. We sang. We prayed. We remembered. We talked about hope for the future.

I came out of the service last Saturday and walked down the hallway to my study, and there a saw that there was a message waiting for me from a friend, the Rev. Andrea Wyatt, Rector of St. David’s on the Hill Episcopal Church here in Cranston. I read her words: “Dear Rabbi Jeff, I’m listening to news coming out of Pittsburgh. I wanted to reach out and say that I am thinking of you, and all of us in our troubled nation. When St. David’s gathers tonight and tomorrow for worship, we will be holding your community in prayer. Peace be with you.”

You can imagine how my heart sank at that moment. “Oh, no. What just happened?” It did not take me long to find out. My heart was broken when I learned what you all already know.

Eleven Jewish men and women were murdered at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in the worst act of anti-semitic violence in U.S. history. I want to name and remember the victims right now:

• Joyce Fienberg, 75, a retired research specialist, a small woman who lit up a room. 

• Richard Gottfried, 65, “Dr. Rich,” a dentist who volunteered at free dental clinics who was planning on retiring in a few months. 

• Rose Mallinger, 97, a former school secretary, the matriarch of her family. Her daughter is among the wounded. 

• Jerry Rabinowitz, 66, a primary care physician who was a core member of his congregation. 

• Cecil and David Rosenthal, 59 & 55, inseparable brothers who both had intellectual disabilities. They were well known and beloved ambassadors of the community.

• Bernice and Sylvan Simon, 84 & 86, a married couple who were active in the community and whose wedding was at Tree of Life 60 years ago.

• Daniel Stein, 71, a former president of his synagogue and the president of the Tree of Life Men’s Club. 

• Melvin Wax, 88, a retired accountant and grandfather who attended synagogue every week and often led services. 

• Irving Younger, 69, the first person to greet people with a handshake as they entered the sanctuary. He also volunteered as a Little League coach. 

I also want to share this with you: In the days since I found out about the shootings from Rev. Wyatt, I have heard and read so many stories from rabbinic colleagues across the country who also found out about the tragedy in Pittsburgh in much the same way. They, too, heard from their friends of other faiths – notably from other clergywomen and men – who reached out to them to express their sympathy and solidarity.

Over the past few days, I have received messages from literally dozens of clergy people and lay leaders of other faiths with words of support and condolences. I cannot tell you how grateful I am. The members of other faiths who have come out tonight – not just here in Cranston, but across the world – to sit in worship with their Jewish friends and neighbors is beautiful and so deeply appreciated. Thank you, my friends – ministers, pastors, priests, deacons, imams, clergy of all sorts, lay people of all faiths – who have cried with us and mourned with us over the past seven days. It means so very much.

In the days since the attack, I have heard many people say, "There are no words…" And it’s true. It is impossible to put into words the depth of our feelings, the way that we are broken inside over the shooting. Yet, there are some things that really do need to be said. It is not enough for us just to mourn the deaths and feel the agony of the world’s brokenness. We also need to speak out loud the many dimensions of this brutal act.

First and foremost, we need to speak the name of the hatred that led to the murder of eleven Jews. It is called anti-Semitism. It is the persistent and irrational hatred of Jews that has poisoned our world for millennia. It is a hatred that continues to falsely vilify Jews as demonic god killers. It is a hatred that sees Jews as preying on the blood of the innocent. It is a hatred that denigrates Jews as uniquely undeserving of a homeland and destined to wander the earth as nomads forever. It is a hatred that equates Jews with lechery, greed and carnality. It is a hatred that sees the Jew as a criminal desecrater of the holy. It is a hatred that sees Jews as the fomenters of global conspiracies to undermine the rule of godliness and truth in the world.

This is not some long-forgotten medieval lunacy. It is alive and all-too-well in our world today. The gunman who killed eleven middle-aged and elderly human beings, including a 97-year-old woman and two intellectually disabled men, believed that he was killing people who were – quote – “committing genocide against his people” – unquote. He is not at all alone in that belief. The delusion is still rampant. I see it growing in both dog whistles and in overt accusations almost every day. I hear it in the innuendo that behind every evil facing our society, there is a Jew. I will not stop talking about this hatred, and calling it by its name, until it ends.

We know, of course, that Jews are not the only victims of hatred and violence targeted against people because of their identity. Two days before the shooting at Tree of Life synagogue, two African Americans were murdered at a Kroger supermarket in Kentucky. In that incident, the white gunman first tried to enter a predominantly black church, but was unable to get inside. Determined to kill Black people, he went to the nearby supermarket and opened fire in the store.

In addition to the dead in Pittsburgh, tonight we remember Maurice Stallard, age 69, a warm and easy-going man who always greeted people with a hug. He was accompanied by his 12-year-old grandson when he was shot and killed. We remember Vickie Lee Jones, 67, a retired administrator at a VA hospital who loved to travel and was a faithful member of her church. They are two more people shot dead in America for being Black. May their memories be a blessing.

The fomenters of hatred seek to divide our society by making everyone hate everyone else. We won’t let them. Tonight, we know that we are united. Whether it is anti-semitism, racism, homophobia, or any kind of ideology that denies the humanity of anyone, we are together in our stand against hatred.

Let me say something else that cannot go unsaid. The gunman in Pittsburgh made it clear that what he hates most about Jews is our work to aid and welcome refugees to the United States – human beings he called "invaders" on a social media post just seventeen days before the attack. He specifically made reference in that post to HIAS (the organization once called the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) and to the ballyhooed migrant caravan that has been so prominent in the news during this election season. Concerning HIAS – an organization that exists to bring comfort and aid to desperate people risking their lives to flee violence, misery and poverty – he called it “sugar-coated evil.”

Two weeks ago today, Temple Sinai was one of nearly 300 Jewish congregations across North America that participated in HIAS's National Refugee Shabbat. In this sanctuary two weeks ago, we heard Kathy Cloutier, the director of Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island, talk to us about the ongoing needs of refugees and immigrants here in Rhode Island – people who come to our state from overseas with little more than a dream to live in safety and security. Rest assured that the attack in Pittsburgh will not deter us in our support for today’s "huddled masses yearning to breathe free."

I am the son of a mother who was a war refugee who came to this country after escaping Nazism in 1940. Many others in this room have similar stories. Having been refugees and immigrants ourselves, the Jewish people will continue to fulfill the Bible’s commandment: "Befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt" (Deuteronomy 10:19).

Something else to say tonight: This murder was done with a gun. Not just any gun. It was done with an AR-15 assault rifle, a light-weight semi-automatic weapon modeled on military weapons designed specifically to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible. Such weapons were banned for sale in the United States in 1994, but that law expired in 2004 when Congress failed to reauthorize it. Some say that banning weapons like this would only mean that law-abiding citizens would be prevented from buying them, while criminals would continue to get them on the black market. That’s probably true.

But why does any civilian need to have an assault rifle? Today, it is estimated that there are between five and ten million of these weapons in the U.S. They are one of the fastest growing segments of the firearms industry. Why? How does our society benefit from having so many of these weapons so easily accessible to almost anyone? Do we imagine that weapons designed to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible won’t be used by someone to do just that? How many more mass killings need to happen before we say, “Enough is enough”?

And here is the last thing that needs to be said tonight: This shooting appears to have been the act of a single, disturbed individual. But, of course, we know that it did not come out of nowhere. American society has become increasingly dominated by hateful rhetoric on all sides. I hear people on the right calling people on the left “angry mobs bent on destroying America.” I hear people on the left calling people on the right “Nazis” and “traitors” whose actions kill. It is inevitable that violent words like these will lead to violent action.

Simply put, we need to find a different way to do politics in America. Instead of pointing fingers at each other, let’s begin by each taking personal responsibility for our own rhetoric. Let’s not be sucked into an escalating war of words in which we dehumanize anyone with a different perspective than our own. The future of democracy may depend upon it.
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There is no question tonight that we are heavy-hearted with grief. And we also know that the Jewish people have been here before. Our secret weapon against all forms of hatred has always been hope. It is the most persistent trait of our people. We hope for peace in times of violence – and we continue to act with love when we are surrounded by hate. We hope for sustenance when there is deprivation – and we feed people who are hungry as a way of nurturing our own souls. We hope against hope for a better world in times of darkness – and we turn our mourning into dancing.

To all of the friends of the Jewish community who have come here tonight to be with us in our time of mourning, thank you. It means the world to us. We look forward to a time when we can gather together to dance.

Shabbat shalom.