A Grater Message

Sermon for Tu B'Shvat

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 10:00:01 -0800

Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater delivers his sermon for Tu B’Shvat and Parshat Beshalach.

Risks for Justice: King, Gay Marriage, and Anne Frank's Savior

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 20:00:09 -0800

I am thinking about taking risks this week. There are moments in all of our lives, some little, some grand, where we need to take risks. Risk can be both exciting and dangerous, and we must weigh all sides of the situation before we decide. Yet sometimes, in extraordinary circumstances, we human beings have the capacity to do amazing things, even life-threatening things, for the sake of others. I begin with a woman who died this week at age 100, a Christian woman who risked her life to help protect a Jewish family during the Holocaust. Not just any Jewish family, but one that would become, unbeknownst to her at the time, one of the classic names associated with Holocaust memory: Frank. This week, Miep Gies (pronounced Meep Gees), the Vienna-born Dutch woman who helped hide Anne Frank and her family, passed away. In the Los Angeles Times obituary, Mrs. Gies is quoted as saying that she felt no fear when she risked her life to protect and bring provisions to the Frank family. “Real strength,” she said during an Oprah interview in 2002, “is being able to carry on when times are hard. I had no time to occupy myself with fear. There was work to be done.” I want to honor her memory by talking about risk taking, along with the legacy of Dr. King, and how we can apply some of that risk taking to today’s world in which we live.

Joseph, God, and Us

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 10:00:30 -0800

Noah and Climate Change

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:00:22 -0700

I have been wondering lately, “If the earth could talk to us, in our language, what would it be saying? If animals could talk to us in our language, what would they be saying?” As humans, we take pride in our ability to communicate, dialogue and assess issues that face us. I wonder if animals get together, out in the depths of the forests and say, “Man, what are we going to do about these humans? How are we supposed to live with all of this mess that they are creating? Maybe we should revolt? Send the elephants and horses into cities, swarm them with bees? Maybe get the pigeons to hover over large areas until we get some change?” They probably don’t do this, I know, but I kind of wish they could and would. Concerning our earth, and the challenges we face, our human voices often are not heard and I feel that we need a more radical and aggressive approach to the urgency of global climate change and all that comes with it. So, if I am not going to get herds of wild beasts holding a sit-in at coal refineries, then I guess we will need to go with something else!

Yom Kippur, 5770 — Positive Epidemics

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 10:00:55 -0700

Chances are if I say the word “yawn” to you now, many of you will yawn, including me. Yawn. Now, yawning is not exactly the best way to start a Yom Kippur sermon, but this little experiment is only one of the many examples given by Malcolm Gladwell, the brilliant thinker and author of The Tipping Point, one of his best selling books. In it, Gladwell chronicles events, episodes and trends that he describes as contagious or viral or in the most extreme language, epidemics. In writing about yawning, he says, “Yawning is incredibly contagious. I made some of you reading this yawn simply by writing the word ‘yawn.’ The people who yawned when they saw you yawn, meanwhile, were infected by the sight of you yawning — which is a second kind of contagion…And finally, if you yawned as you read this, did the thought cross your mind, however unconsciously and fleetingly, that you might be tired? Simply by writing or saying a word, I can plant a feeling in your head. Contagiousness, in other words, is an unexpected property in all kinds of things, and we have to remember that, if we are to recognize and diagnose epidemic change.” (Tipping Point, p. 10) When we think about epidemics, we often think of something negative, for that is what the word means. However the power of word, with its definition of “sudden, widespread occurrence of a particular phenomenon,” is inspiring me. You don’t often hear of an epidemic of happiness, or an epidemic of love going around. However, and this is Gladwell’s genius, the very same way that viruses and flues spread, and can turn quickly and massively into epidemics, so too can positive change in our society spread. I would like to posit this morning that we need some of these epidemics right now in our great nation, and there are three I am focusing on: an epidemic of compassion and gratitude, and epidemic of healthy food and an epidemic of civility. We are partners with God to create our world, and on Yom Kippur, we say over and over, “ki anu amecha, v’atah eloheinu, For we are Your people and You are our God.” God is waiting for us to act and so we must. Spiritual growth, working on our souls, should lead us to changed behavior in the world.