Yom Kippur 5772 - Who Can But Prophesy?

Yom Kippur 5772

Temple Sholom - 8 October 2011

“God says, ‘Cry aloud, do not hold back, let your voice resound like a shofar’”. [Isa. 58:1] So we read in the haftarah this morning.  And yet, we do not cry out.  We hold back. Our voices do not resound like the shofar.  Why?  Let us take our lessons this morning, from the text of our prophetic forbears.

Perhaps we do not know what to say.  When we look at the classical texts of our prophets, most speak of Divine encounter, of God speaking directly to them and commanding them to speak.  In our modern world, those who claim Divine revelation are viewed as either mad or, at best, dangerously partisan.  Claims of prophecy are not a recommendation in our modern debate.  Real answers demand logic, statistical proof, essays in the Atlantic or Op-Eds in the Wall Street Journal.  We dismiss those who say they speak in God’s name.  Yet, ironically, here we are this morning, with prayerbooks in our hands, seeking forgiveness from God in order to enter the New Year.

How can we know what to say without feeling that God’s will needs to revealed in thunder and smoke?  Remember the lesson from Elijah [I Kings 19:11-13]:

And God said, “Go out and stand upon the mountain before God.  And, behold, God passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke the rocks in pieces before God; but God was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but God was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake - a fire, but God was not in the fire.  And after the fire - a still small voice. And when Elijah heard it it, he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out and stood in the entrance to the cave. And, behold, there came a voice to him.

Prophecy does not come from a thundering, external revelation, but rather a still, small voice within us that we can only hear if are ready to listen.

How, then, do we know when the voice that whispers to us what is right and what is wrong is true; that it is the voice of prophecy and not self-interest?  There is no weakness in cribbing from our prophetic ancestors.  If the answers seem to agree with the words of those prophets most revered in our tradition - be it Amos, Hosea, or Abraham Joshua Heschel - then that is a criteria by which we can judge.

Let us take an example - we inscribed the words of the prophet Micah on the outside wall of our Temple in Plainfield: [Micah 6:8] God has said, O human, what is good.  And what does Adonai require of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk with God in humility?” Are we speaking out for justice? Are we showing mercy, without regard for merit?  Are we acting in humility or arrogance?  These are the standards by which this very congregation has chosen to weigh its actions.

There is a reason that we in Reform Judaism call ourselves the inheritors of the prophetic tradition.  Emerging from centuries of rote tradition, our Reform ancestors resonated with the words of Isaiah that we read this morning, that we as a movement have chosen to read at this most sacred moment in our calendar.  Isaiah rejects ritual, if it acts as substitute for ethical actions.  He cries out, [Isa. 5-7]

Is this the fast that I look for? A day of self-affliction?  Bowing your head like a reed, and covering yourself with sackcloth and ashes?  Is this what you call a fast, a day acceptable to God?  Is not this the fast that I look for: to unlock the shackles of injustice, to undo the fetters of bondage, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every cruel chain?  Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and to bring the homeless poor into your house? When you see the naked, to clothe them, and never to hide yourself from  your own kin?

We are Israel, if not prophets, then b’nei nvi’im - the descendants of prophets.  We do not need rabbis to interpret these words in sermons to tell us how to apply prophecy to the real world.  The words are self-explanatory. They resonate with the still, small voice within us.  It is not that we do not know what is right, it is that we neglect to bring out these dusty old sayings and apply them to our modern choices.  We live in a world obsessed by the mission statement.  Good organizations read every thing they do in light of their mission.  If it fits, do it - allocate the necessary resources, go forward.  If it does not, then do not.  That still, small voice, echoed by our classical prophets, is the mission statement of our Judaism.  We need to examine what we do and do not do in its light.

So, now that we know what to say - or at least how to judge what we say in the light of our prophetic tradition, what is it that moves us from the personal to the public?  A prophet is not a prophet if they only speak inside their own head. How do we gain the courage to speak out, to carry the prophetic mantle that is our inheritance?

Let us take a step back, before we gird our loins for battle, and review.  Over the past ten days, we have examined the prophetic voice - what we have heard and what we find ourselves called to utter - for the sake of making a better world.  We have found the prophetic voice within ourselves. We have braved the call to speak of what we must, even politics.  We have decided to embrace fear as a motivator for our own speech.  The time has come to address the fear that we have of speaking: the greatest fear that keeps us from being prophets.

Later this afternoon we will read the story of Jonah, the reluctant prophet.  We might ask why the Bible seeks to preserve the story of a prophet who did not wish to prophesy?  Now that we have acknowledged that we, too, are prophets, then an examination of Jonah’s journey, can help us to see why we are often reluctant to act in this role.

Jonah is called to prophesy by God - to speak to the non-Israelites in Nineveh, and give the traditional prophetic warning, that they have been wicked and restitution is on its way.  Receiving the Divine command, Jonah gets up - and immediately flees in the opposite direction. God is forced to pursue Jonah - with storms and miraculous fish - until he accepts his responsibility, turns around, and speaks to the people of Nineveh.  He does his prophetic duty, and the people repent and are spared.  Jonah despairs and rails at God, “I knew it.  You always give in. You are ‘endlessly merciful, patient, loving and true’. What is the point?”

We learn from Jonah that the greatest fear of the prophet is not failure, but success.  The prophet does not want to speak.  Speaking involves standing up and saying things that people do not want to hear: threatening them with dire consequences.  What could be worse than foretelling doom and destruction - and having to live to see it carried out?  And yet, success means that there is no proof of what the prophet has come to warn.  As Jonah knew beforehand, faced with destruction, even the people of Nineveh turn from their ways and repent.  Jonah is disappointed that Nineveh is not destroyed - and yet that is the proof that his prophecy has succeeded.

Why speak out, when there is no reward to the prophet?  If you are not successful, if you are not believed and no one changes their ways, then you are both ridiculed and ineffective, forced to bear witness to events that you foretold, a Cassandra cursed with a gift of prescience.  If you are successful, and people listen, and change their ways, then you have become a false prophet.  All the forecast gloom and doom is averted and your word are forgotten.  There may be personal satisfaction, but there is little glory.

Prophesy is a thankless job.  No one is grateful for being told what to do - even less so, if the advice is right.  But, being human is also a thankless job.  There is no one patting us on the back and congratulating us for living.  The rabbis said, mitzvah goreret mitzvah - the reward of doing one mitzvah is another mitzvah.  Part of our humanity, our very nature, is that we are b’tzelem elohim - created in the Divine image.  Knowing what we know, living as we do, we damage ourselves when we ignore that which is natural to us.  We must speak out.  We must work for justice and mercy.  

Let us end with the words of the prophet Amos [Amos 3:3-8]:

Can two walk together, unless they be agreed? Will a lion roar in the forest, when he has no prey? Will a young lion cry out of his den, if he has taken nothing? Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth, where there is no lure for it? Does a snare spring up from the earth, and have taken nothing at all? Shall a shofar be sounded in the city, and the people not be afraid? ...  Surely Adonai, our God, will do nothing, without revealing the secret to God’s servants, the prophets.  The lion has roared, who will not fear? Adonai, our God has spoken, who can but prophesy?

This is our task.  We are the children of Israel, the descendants of prophets, human beings created in the Divine image.  The still, small voice speaks within us.  We are only true to ourselves if we speak up, if we engage our prophecy.  We ask on this Yom Kippur day for forgiveness; we act in this year 5772 in order to merit it.

L’shanah tovah tikateivu.

Kol Nidrei 5772 - Fear is a Go(o)d Thing

Kol Nidrei 5772

Temple Sholom - 8 October 2011

Behold this day is awesome and full of dread, so at least says the unetaneh tokef, which we will read and sing again tomorrow morning.

A funny thing happened on the way to Yom Kippur services this year.  Last Shabbat, when Sandra Nussenfeld was giving the announcements, she wished everyone a good Yom Kippur.  I jumped in and said, “No, it was not a good day, but ‘awesome and full of dread’”.  And I meant it.  I had an epiphany: Being a rabbi - and the son of a rabbi - I have never had a problem understanding the awesome and dreadful nature of the High HolyDays.  Even the hosts of heaven are judged, not to mention the rabbi and his or her sermons.  These are the few days in which the entire congregation is gathered together, so everything has more import.  We’ve got to get just the right sermon, get all the dues in, put out all the important flyers, have the best Kol Nidrei speech.  We get one chance all year, so we had better get it right.

But, I realized, outside the Temple offices and committee meetings, perhaps things aren’t quite as dire.  The High HolyDays might even be, heaven forfend, something to look forward to - a time to see family, to spend some time in self-contemplation, to visit with old friends and fellow congregants, to feel good and dress nicely.  I’m not sure you understand how earth-shattering this revelation was.  “Day of fear and trembling” might need to be explained; might not be intuitive and visceral.

Wow.

The words of the liturgy speak it; the music sells it; the fasting and the long drawn-out day in prayer all point the way - this is not happy.  We are not supposed to comfortable.  We should feel uneasy. More, we should feel we are dangling over a precipice - with just a puff needed to send us hurtling to our doom.  This should leave us desperately focused on our prayer and repentance - as a drowning person clings to a lifeline.

Why?  Fear is a lousy motivator, we say.  Nothing good ever came from fear.  We believe in positive feedback, constructive criticism, love rather than chastisement.

Or do we?  When we go to work, which we may love and find fulfillment in, do we finish what needs to be done because it feels like the right thing to do, or because we have to?  “Have to” - or we will blow the deal, throw the case, miss the sale, lose our job?  We give ourselves “deadlines” - think about that word, about where it came from, how it means “do or die”.  In the end, we are motivated by consequences - hoping for those we desire, but acting to avoid those we do not.

We need look no farther than our current political arena to verify our belief in the narrative of doomsday.  The only thing that seems to get our national legislators to even contemplate legislating is the dire consequences of an economic meltdown - such as the debt limit crisis this past summer, or the shutdown of the Federal government - threatened last week.

But what happens to the boy who cries wolf too many times? It is difficult to build up the adrenaline each time, over and over again.  Enough already.  Yeah, yeah, shut down the government, who cares?  It is now October 7th, one full week past the beginning of the government’s fiscal year and not only is there not a budget in place, there is no thought of getting one until late November.  Governmental shutdown is not enough?  What about global financial meltdown? What about the US government defaulting on its debts?  Each new crisis has to be bigger than the last, no matter how close the previous shave might have been.  What are our national motivators?  When I was growing up, there was the fear of nuclear war - supposedly prevented by the fear of mutually assured destruction.  This generation is driven by the fear of Islamic extremists - of terrorism bringing destruction to our homeland.  Perhaps it follows that even our fiscal debates need the tang of armageddon.

Even if we are not ready to entertain the possibility that fear may not be a bad thing, let us at least acknowledge that fear is a part of our everyday environment and even a useful tool.  After all, fear of bad consequences serves us very well.  If we are afraid we might get burned, we do not touch the stove or stick our finger in an electric socket.  Because we fear that our house may catch on fire, we install smoke detectors.  We have airbags in our cars.  We take out insurance policies on our health, our homes, our cars, our lives.  A healthy amount of fear we call wisdom, forethought, preparation.  

To go a step further, fear often works to keep our community safe. While an individual might feel that they can safely control their car at excessive speeds, fear of a ticket or of the loss of the driving privilege, keeps most highway drivers within at least 10 miles of the speed limit.  In Pirke Avot, Rabbi Chaninah said, “Pray for the welfare of the government, for without the fear of its authority, people would eat each other alive.”  We might not admit that we keep from taking what is not ours because of a respect for others and their property, but rather because we are more concerned with being caught then doing the right thing from the beginning.

The prophetic voice is in the trope of fear.  The prophet begins with the message that we have done wrong and the consequences are on the way.  We are chastised for our failures and threatened with just punishment for our crimes.  Only when we have accepted the equation are we shown the way out - repent and change our ways.  Then, once again, God will forgive us.

But the prophets, too, had the problem of the boy who cried wolf.  Our Biblical ancestors were scolded by Hosea, by Amos, by Isaiah - and each time, we saw the error of our ways and repented.  Yet, in another generation, sometimes even with a decade, we had forgotten the lesson.  Or, having never been punished, we began to disregard the warnings.  Finally, came the prophet Jeremiah with a message that each of us who are parents or teachers have eventually had to give.  “I’ve told you, and I’ve warned you and I’ve warned you. Now, you are going to be punished and there will be no reprieve.”  The threatened consequences arrived, our Temple was destroyed; our nation scattered; our leaders sent into exile.  For, if there is one thing that we should remember that is worse than fear, it is that which we are justly fearful of.

I am afraid that I cannot agree with the statement of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, that we have nothing to fear, but fear itself.  Because when we no longer have that fear, we have the consequences.  Ask the members of our congregation who can tell you that fear of unemployment is one thing, losing one’s livelihood is something altogether different.  We fear homelessness, illness, loss of family - and while all these things might turn out to be not as bad as we had feared, they are certainly worse than the fear itself.

As human beings, we engage in a desperate gamble - that we will have enough time, enough resources, enough strength, to accomplish all that we wish.  We make this bargain here, and this trade-off there.  We care for ourselves and trust that the world, that society, will take care of itself.  We donate what we think we can afford - of our money to political and social causes, of our time to issues of the day, of our energy and attention the things that cannot wait.  We all act thus, and are surprised that there is no “them” who have acted to save us from our limited attention spans and our narrow self-interest.

Proverbs, chapter 9, verse ten tells us that t’chilat chochmah, yiryat Adonai - the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.  Let us then choose to be wise and to embrace our fear; to take advantage of this day of fear and trembling and of the opportunity it represents to motivate ourselves and our community.  We should not be so jaded, so burned out, so calloused that even legitimate fear makes no impression upon us.  We are but dust and ashes, but knowing how humble we begin, we have so much room to soar.

This will not be the only bimah in America where you will not hear, re-quoted again, the words of the recently deceased Steve Jobs from his 2005 Stamford commencement speech:

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something...almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.

I would, humbly, amend Jobs’ question from “would I want to do what I am about to do today” to “If I were to stand judgement on my life - balancing all the good and the bad over its duration - am I tipping the scale in the direction that I should?”

What are those things that, as we head into the year 5772, we should justifiably fear?

Was the previous generation the apex of the American experiment?  Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum have just authored a book, taking off on one of President Obama’s theme in the last State of the Union, “That Used to Be Us”.  

“As we were writing this book,” Friedman and Mandelbaum explain, “we found that when we shared the title with people, they would often nod ruefully and ask: ‘But does it have a happy ending?’ Our answer is that we can write a happy ending, but it is up to the country—to all of us—to determine whether it is fiction or nonfiction. We need to study harder, save more, spend less, invest wisely, and get back to the formula that made us successful as a country in every previous historical turn. What we need is not novel or foreign, but values, priorities, and practices embedded in our history and culture, applied time and again to propel us forward as a country. That is all part of our past. That used to be us and can be again—if we will it.”

As we asked last Friday morning, is this moment in the lifecycle of our planet the time when we look back and mark the beginning of the decline of humanity and its civilization?  Al Gore closed his narration of the film, An Inconvenient Truth, with the lines, “Future generations may well have occasion to ask themselves, "What were our parents thinking? Why didn't they wake up when they had a chance?" We have to hear that question from them, now.”

Is this generation that will once more mark a Jewish exile and see another dream of a Jewish homeland destroyed - by enemies external or internal?  Last year, Israeli filmmaker Yaron Kaftori created a 50 minute mock documentary called 2048, which imagines a future filmmaker looking back at Israel’s 60th anniversary in 2008, from the perspective of the exiles of an Israel which no longer exists.  In a Jerusalem Report article, Kaftori said, “[It] was never an issue for me... This country was always strong, it was always secure. [But now,] I feel like many other people, that we are headed in the wrong direction and we are threatening the demolition of our state. And it will not come from an external threat... We are a very divided state. There are so many groups of people – I don’t even know what to call them – who want different things. No one cares about each other.”

We rightly fear for our country, for our planet, for our families, for ourselves.  This day, this moment right now, this day is full of dread because we are here to do nothing else but contemplate the consequences of our action and inaction.  This day is awesome - and awe-inspiring - because it is not our last.  It is another first moment to decide what we will do in the year to come.  Whether we will face our legitimate fears and act on them, or continue to live in fear and hope everything will turn out all right.

Now is the time to be gripped by fear and trembling.  Now is the time to hear and to be the prophetic voice.  Now is the time to hear the shofar call.  Now is the time pull ourselves back from the precipice and to do whatever is necessary to make the world all that we wish it to be.

L’shanah tovah tikatevu - may we take up the pens and write for all of us a better year.

RH Morn 5772 - Go Ahead - Talk Politics; It's the Prophetic Thing to Do

Rosh haShanah Morning I 5772

Temple Sholom - 29 September 2011

We are struck this morning by two acts of personal engagement - Abraham who, at the request of God, takes his favorite son and heir to a far mountain to be offered up as a sacrifice; and Hannah, whose desperate plea for a child leads her to offer him up, before he is even born, in service to God.  Hannah, who prays so passionately that the priest Eli suspects her of being drunk.  Abraham, who himself binds his son, lifts him to the altar and raises the knife for slaughter.  And there is something else that these two events have in common - they both feature a difficulty in communication.  When Hannah tries to speak to her husband, Elkanah, about how difficult she finds the fact that she has not had a child, he dismisses her concerns, saying, “Do I not mean more to you then ten sons?”  While her communication with God is successful, God’s supposed representative, the priest Eili, does not understand that she is praying, but thinks that she is drunk.  Abraham, when asked by God to bring his son Isaac for a sacrifice, seems to sneak out early in the morning without speaking to his wife, and Isaac’s mother, Sarah.  On the journey, as Isaac asks his father about what they are doing, “I see the fire and the knife, my father, but where is the ram for the sacrifice?”, Abraham can only evade and say that God will provide the sacrifice.  There is no evidence of any words every again spoken between Abraham and Isaac, or even Abraham and Sarah, who dies right after the end of this story.

Our inter-familial conversations are often bounded by such silences - areas that we believe are minefields with dangerous consequences if we tread too far and step in the wrong place.  Never talk about the Red Sox around Uncle Norm.  Don’t even mention Grandma Annie’s meatloaf around your father, he hated it.  Very often, we remember the prohibitions longer than the reasons.  We become like the rabbis of the Talmud, who placed fences around the law - telling us not to mix milk and meat, let we inadvertently violate the Torah’s prohibition on boiling a kid in its mother’s milk.  When we bring new people into the family conversation, we first carefully lay out the map with all its forbidden territories.  As families grow and intermix, soon there is nothing to talk about about at all.  And, above all, never talk politics.

Don’t talk about politics at family gatherings.  Don’t talk about politics at the dinner table.  Don’t talk about politics in school.  Don’t talk about politics at work.  Don’t talk politics in Temple - and, certainly, not from the bimah.  Is it any wonder that our politicians can’t talk politics without yelling at each other?  They don’t have any experience in doing so.  If every time there is a possibility for a conversation between different viewpoints, we shut down the discussion, how do we learn to speak with those who disagree?  Even worse, if we only discuss politics with those who share our views, how do we ever test our beliefs?  How do we expand our views?

So, here we go, the Rabbi is going to talk politics from the bimah - and I dare you not to leave.

Interestingly enough, everyone else seems to have written this sermon for me already this year.  In the Wall Street Journal last week, Tevi Troy, former Jewish liaison for the Bush White House, laid out his case against the “political sermon” in a reaction to President Obama’s Rosh haShanah call to American Rabbis.  He said, in part:

Political sermonizing is a mistake for many reasons. First, the Holy Days are supposed to bring forth a universal message about the unity of the Jewish people, the importance of our shared religious tradition, and the need to rededicate ourselves to observance of the Torah in the year to come.

Then there's the risk of alienating part of the congregation. Even if you know that 70%-80% of your synagogue votes one way—and public opinion polls suggest that this may be the case in Conservative and Reform synagogues—why risk alienating the other 20%-30%? In many (or most) communities, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the only time certain congregants set foot in synagogue that year. Why risk driving them away with a message that could offend?

Furthermore, while it may appear easy to find support for left-wing political positions in the Torah and rabbinical sources, the truth is that the Jewish tradition doesn't give much guidance on the optimum level of marginal tax rates, Medicare restructuring, or food-stamp funding. To claim otherwise is to give false guidance.

The passages read aloud on the High Holidays each year are filled with the most important problems of the human condition, including Jonah's attempt to shirk his responsibilities, Hannah's desperate plea for a child, and God's testing of Abraham's faith with the binding of Isaac. All of these stories still resonate today, and skillful speakers can use them to guide congregants.

The mandate of religious leaders is to convey to their communities spiritual encouragement and the wisdom of the ages. For the other stuff, there's cable news.

Two responses followed rather immediately - the first on the Huffington Post from Rabbi Jill Jacobs, founder of Jewish Funds for Social Justice and currently executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights.  She was referred to earlier in Troy’s piece and responded:

Rabbis (and ministers, priests, imams and others) should not -- ethically or legally -- tell their communities how to vote. But preaching about how to vote is not the same as preaching about what values and priorities ought to be embodied in health care policy. Preaching about how to vote is partisan. Preaching about health care, poverty and how we structure a just society is moral leadership.

There is no better time than Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur for rabbis to speak about the pressing issues of the moment. Troy characterizes these days as a time "to bring forth a universal message about the unity of the Jewish people, the importance of our shared religious tradition, and the need to rededicate ourselves to observance of the Torah in the year to come."...

Rabbis must bring the thousands of years of accumulated Jewish wisdom to bear on these issues. This is what it means to be a religious leader. A religious leader does not stick to "safe" topics like Jewish unity and ritual practice (though these have their place, too). A religious leader takes ethical stands on the hard issues of the moment -- and does so with integrity, with a strong basis in his or her religious tradition, and out of love and a passion for creating a more just world.

We do not need more partisan politics. But we are in desperate need of religious moral leadership.

And, today in the New Jersey Jewish News, editor Andrew Silow-Carroll strikes a similar note.  Beginning with the example of Rabbi Joachim Prinz, escapee from Nazi Germany, and an early voice, here in New Jersey, against the rise of Naziism and for the Civil Rights movement, Silow-Caroll concludes:

I don’t turn to rabbis to tell me how to vote, but I do look to them to show me the ways Torah can inform all that we say and do. When it comes to politics, I am not asking rabbis to give me the right answer, but to help me ask the right questions. The rabbis’ challenge is to do this without turning the bima into a bully pulpit.

And if they can’t engage with questions of policy? That’s Judaism’s loss. As Prinz sermonized, “I was never able to conceive of religion, and certainly not of Judaism, as something that could continue to exist in splendid isolation.”

I would sum it up simply.  I do not look for someone else to tell me what I should do because of their religion.  Rather, I look to the Torah and to Jewish tradition to help me decide what my obligation is in the world - how I am to treat others, and how I expect to be treated.  Quite obviously, this moral guidance will influence me in all the choices in my life - from what I purchase to whom I vote for.  I do not look for the Torah to magically (perhaps using a secret numeric code) tell me which lever to pull, but rather set up the criteria by which I judge my options.  As a rabbi, I agree with Andrew Silow-Carroll that a good sermon will engage the congregation in the right questions and point them to the texts of Judaism that may provide answers.  I agree with Rabbi Jacobs that I am not here to stick to safe topics, lest some individuals in the congregation become uncomfortable (and more about this on Erev Yom Kippur).  Finally, I agree with Tevi Troy that the point of a good sermon - High HolyDay or no, is to “bring forth... the importance of our shared religious tradition, and the need to rededicate ourselves to observance of the Torah in the year to come”.  But, our shared religious tradition tells us over and over to remember that we were slaves in Egypt, and obedience to the Torah means that we cannot stand idly by while our neighbor bleeds.  These are statements with political implications and to not say so from the bimah is to eviscerate our strong Jewish tradition.

But that is my prophetic role and, as we spoke about last night, you have just as important and compelling prophetic role as I do.

Now that you have been convinced that it is not only valid, but demanded that politics be spoken from the bimah, the next step is to convince you to speak politics yourself - at home, at work, on line, or wherever you converse.  As Americans, we tend to shy away from difficult subjects.  We do not speak about domestic violence in the Jewish community - but it happens, and ignoring it does not make it go away.  In fact, we give shelter to abusers when we refuse to speak up.  Not to set aside that domestic violence is a real and serious issue, but we do the same with politics.  When we cede the field to demagogues, we lose the middle ground; the common ground where people of good faith can converse with each other and come to mutual agreement.

If we do not speak politics out loud and in public, our politicians become convinced that we do not care.  Or, if we do care, we are not motivated enough to anything so active as voting our convictions.  Should we be surprised if they only listen to those on the extremes?  Who else is there to listen to if no one else speaks up?  Here is a much ignored secret: Money does not elect politicians.  In the end, money can be used to influence voters, but the only way to get elected, or re-elected, is to garner more votes than your opponent.  We must let our representatives know that they are OUR representatives, whether we voted for them or no.  We must assure them that we take an active interest in what they do, that we will hold them accountable for their actions and inaction, that they should be more concerned about constituents than party.

Would you like some concrete steps to take?  Find out who represents you - in your county and  the state legislature, as well as in Congress.  Visit them when they are in their local offices.  Let them know that you expect a note or e-mail every week telling you what they have done.  Read it.  Write back.  Praise them when they have done things that you agree with, especially if you more often disagree.  Tell them what you want to happen - if you prefer active collaboration and cooperation rather than posturing and deadlock.  E-mail is easy; Facebook even easier - let them know that you are paying attention to what they do, that you have expectations that they listen to you - even if they disagree - and that you will vote according to your beliefs and your confidence in those you represent. Give them the perverse message that their short-term goal of re-election is incumbent on how they act on long-term priorities.

We should not be afraid to use our prophetic voices - in speaking to our representatives, relatives, friends, or colleagues.  We can say, I feel this way because I was raised to believe that what is hateful to me, I should not do to others, as Hillel said; that I heard in synagogue that I am obliged to help even my enemy, if I see them struggling on the roadside.  We can feel confident in expressing our opinion and its religious backing.  In doing so, we are not attempting to convert them to our beliefs, but rather to help them understand our reasoning, where we come from, what motivates us to act the way that we do.

There is a rich text of prophetic tradition - not on only in our Tanach, but in all of our sacred Jewish texts - even in the prayerbook you hold in your hand.  Yet, those words are dead lying on that page if we choose not to lift them up.  If the only place that they are spoken is between these walls, once or twice a year, they will serve no purpose.  The words exist to inspire - to travel past a rote repetition by our lips and to root in our minds, our hearts and souls.   They cry out to be re-worked, re-stated, re-imagined, and re-formed by individuals in each generation - repeated by each of us to others.  Do not allow yourself to say, it is not my job, someone else will do it - or no one else will.  Do not say, if I speak I am only but one voice that will be lost in the wind - you may inspire others to speak up as well.  We call ourselves the chosen people, we are all chosen.

One of our greatest prophets, Jeremiah, had the same doubts. He complained to God, who replied:

Before I formed you in the belly I knew you; and before you came forth out of the womb I sanctified you, and I ordained you a prophet to the nations.  Then said I, Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak; for I am a child.  But the Lord said to me, Say not, I am a child; for you shall go to all to whom I shall send you, and whatever I command you you shall speak.  Be not afraid of their faces; for I am with you to save you, said the Lord.  Then the Lord put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me, Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.  See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant. (Jeremiah 1:4-10)

In this new year, let us resolve not to doubt that each of us were also known and blessed, sanctified and ordained - chosen to be prophets, and that words that we find that rise from our hearts to our mouths, these, too, are words of prophecy.

L’shanah tovah tikateivu.

RH Eve 5772 - Would That All the People of Adonai Were Prophets

Erev Rosh haShanah 5772

Temple Sholom - 29 September 2011

This Rosh haShanah, I feel a little bit like Penn and Teller, but without the atheism.  Penn and Teller, for those of you not in on the secret, are a pair of non-magicians, a duo who perform by showing off exactly how their magic illusions are done.  In that spirit, I would like to explain what I am going to do in these High HolyDay sermons - give you a peak behind the curtain, come forward and give my best performance, and then invite you backstage to see how it all works.

This year, in particular, I find myself compelled to speak with the prophetic voice - the voice that we preserve in our Bible to read in companionship with every Torah portion.  Tomorrow morning, we will read the story of the prophet Samuel and the circumstances by which he was petitioned from God by his mother, Hannah, and later came to hear God.  This story, of the sacrifice of an only child to God by a parent, stands against the story of Abraham’s near sacrifice of his son, Isaac.  Next week, at Yom Kippur, we will read in the Torah about how each one of us stood at Sinai to enter into covenant with God, which will be tempered with Isaiah’s thundering denunciation of empty ritual without ethical behavior.  On Yom Kippur afternoon, to the explanation of God’s command to be holy, we bring the story of Jonah, the reluctant prophet.

Each of these prophetic texts illuminate for us three different aspects of the role of the prophet in Judaism.  Samuel teaches us about listening to the soft call of the Divine voice, and how to answer when we are called.  Isaiah is the most powerful example of what we often identify as the prophetic voice - the thundering chastisement of hypocritical behavior, the demand for repentance and change, and the threat of punishment if that change is not made. Finally, Jonah shows us the human face of prophecy, the difficulty of confronting others and the fear of taking such a risk.

All of these are of course challenges for the modern sermonizer.  I have sat in church and been jealous of the Baptist preacher who has prayed for God to speak through her, and then given a sermon of inspiration.  Honestly, I could choose any one of a number of different subjects for these sermons.  Which, however, would be right for this congregation, at this moment, in this place?  Why do we hold this religious service - an attempt to connect ourselves more closely to whatever we consider the Divine - hostage and pause for fifteen or twenty minutes to listen to what the guy in the white robe has to say?  Something that is both new and contemporary - never been heard before, and yet is timeless - carrying the weight of three thousand years of tradition.  In some ways, it would be infinitely easier, if God were to write these sermons for me...

And yet, perhaps God has, and I just need to open the Book and read.  Isn’t the message of Isaiah still relevant to us today?  A former congregant has chastised me and several of my colleagues and our congregations for concerning ourselves on the High HolyDays with our own congregational fundraising when there are millions starving in Africa.  Is this the fast that I have ordained?  Is it not to feed the hungry?  But, were I to thunder and rail and “go all Bible-thumping Old Testament” on you, would I find that threats and fear are the best way to engage a modern audience?

It is risky to stand up here and tell others what to do.  There is the obvious risk - I could so offend you that members of the congregation would seek my resignation, or at the least, vociferously argue that I be reprimanded, or, perhaps, vote with their feet and ears by not returning to our congregational worship.  There is also the more subtle risk - that despite an inspired eloquence and fervent message, nothing changes.  All that sermonic energy leads to a handshake and a “Good sermon, Rabbi”, but no self-reflection, no action.  That perhaps is the more telling risk - it is easier to give a sermon without an exhortation than have to face the fact that a message delivered with full devotion of heart and soul, still fails to move.  Better not to try at all, perhaps.

This service begins with me, as your prayer leader, standing before the Ark in an act of public humility- “Behold, me of little merit”.  And yet, with the strange reverse humility of Rabbinic Judaism, I am still standing in front of the congregation and saying it.  There is an old joke about how one Yom Kippur, the Rabbi, in a furor of repentance, throws herself to the ground in front of the Ark and cries out, “O God, I am but dust and ashes.”  Equally moved, the Cantor throws himself to the ground and says, “O God, I am but dust and ashes.”  Carried away by the fervor evident on the bimah, the Temple President throws herself to the ground and also cries out, “I am but dust and ashes.”  At which point the Rabbi and Cantor turn to each other and say, “Look who thinks she is but dust and ashes!”

So, why am I any better than any of you in the congregation, and why am I the one to stand up here and tell you what to do and how to behave?  I am reminded of the words of the disgraced Korach, who demanded, “Are not the entire congregation of Israel holy?  Does not God dwell among us?”  The answer is, other than that you have chosen me to stand here and deliver this message to you, I have no more right than any of you to deliver it.  That is why I am taking this opportunity to explain what I am doing and how I am doing it.  For if I have no more right than you to speak up in a prophetic voice, then you have no less right, no less duty than I, to speak up as well.

The frustration of the prophet is not in the message, but in the need for having to deliver it.  We are enjoyed by our Torah, in the book of Leviticus 19:17, from the Holiness Code that we will read on Yom Kippur afternoon,”You must indeed reprove your neighbor.”  We are not only responsible for our own behavior, but we are commanded to be so self-righteous that we tell others what behavior we expect from them.  Everyone should be a prophet - and the Rabbis had a saying that if all Israel were not prophets, we were at least b’nei nvi’im - the children of prophets.  The truth is that we do judge others, but our society frowns upon us letting them know - whether for good or for ill.  Is it fair that we talk about other people behind their back, but do not let them know directly what we would tell someone else about them?

Our goal for these High HolyDays is to become, not a nation of priests, but a congregation of prophets.  Tomorrow morning, we will talk about the need to talk politics - not only from the bimah, but at our dinner tables and with our friends.  On the second morning of Rosh haShanah, we will spend a little time seeing how we can bring be prophetic and bring the Divine into our own lives, through our trimester theme, the Jewish lifecycle.  On Erev Yom Kippur, we will look straight in the eye of the fire and brimstone Hebrew prophet and think about why we seem to need a day that is “awesome and full of dread” to even begin a process of self-reflection.  As we conclude our ten days of repentance, on Yom Kippur morning, we will stand with Jonah in the whale and under the gourd, and ask what it is we fear that keeps us from prophecy.

In the Book of Numbers, parashat B’ha’alotcha, Moses finally takes his father-in-law Yitro’s advice (which he gave way back before the Ten Commandments in Exodus) to delegate authority an appoint magistrates from each of the tribes to judge the people.  Moses gathers all of the new judges together at the mishkan - the portable sanctuary in the wilderness, where God’s spirit descends upon them.  Two of their number, Eldad and Medad, were still outside in the camp and not at the ceremony.  But, at that moment, they are also filled with God’s spirit and begin to prophesy.  A young man comes running up to Moses to report, and Joshua says that they must lock these untamed prophets away.  Moses answers, “Are you jealous for my sake?  Would that all of the people of Adonai were prophets and that Adonai would put the Divine spirit upon each of them!”

In this New Year, let us explore what it means to live up to Moses’s dream, and for all of us to be prophets.

L’shanah tovah tikateivu.