Rabbi’s Grater’s Sermons

Thoughts on Veterans Day 2008

Fri, 7 Nov 2008 20:00:40 -0800

Rabbi Emeritus Gil Kollin shares his thoughts about Veterans Day this Shabbat.

From time to time I am asked to officiate at a military funeral or at a funeral in which the deceased was very proud of his or her military service and requested that a chaplain do the service. Even though it is nineteen years since my retirement and my Air Force Uniform is long out of fashion, it still fits (if a bit snug in spots), and sometimes I wonder which I am more proud of — my military service or the fact that it still fits!

Military funerals are very impressive events, with a solemn ritual very much akin to a High Roman Catholic Mass in its attention to color, clothing and pageantry. And it is clear who is “in the action” and who is observing the action. Those “in the action” wear the uniform.

Sometimes however there is a more personal connection to such a ceremony. Such as the time four years ago in April when Anita Brenner and Len Torres asked me to officiate at the funeral of their son, Marine lieutenant Andrew Torres who died of cancer shortly after his graduation from Annapolis. My status as a military chaplain enabled me to provide a proud Jewish component within this solemn ceremonial context. It addressed both Andrew’s pride in his Jewish heritage and his grieving parents’ wish to honor that pride. I felt honored to be so invited and to serve them in this in this special way.

For a while my son Eytan was dating a young lady with whom he was associated in his role as an actor in Renaissance Fairs. The relationship eventually evolved into a kind of brother-sister association and Cassidhe became one of our adopted daughters, joining us for holidays. Eventually she did find the love of her life, a recently discharged Army vet named Eric Hole who had served tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Eric joined the National Guard, figuring that his recent tours would shield him from an immediate call-up, but his unit was indeed called up. Eric was sent to Iraq and ended up as one of the more than 4,000 casualties in that war.

His widow asked me to officiate at his funeral and I did so. Among those present was my then fifteen year old grandson, Nathan, who knew and adored Eric. I cannot tell you what it meant for me to have my grandson see me as part of that solemn ceremony and indeed one of that “band of brothers and sisters” who wear the uniform of our country. Now I’m no hero, nor am I a veteran of combat. I served four years of active duty in Mississippi and Turkey and then twenty-four years in the active reserve, giving a day a month and two weeks out of my annual vacation to conduct services and counsel men and women at bases around the world. As a chaplain I am barred by the Geneva Convention from bearing arms. But I have to tell you that all those years I felt honored to be affiliated with and to serve those who do the hard and dangerous work of the armed forces.

So, as we mark Veterans Day here at PJTC, I thank Rabbi Grater for asking me to deliver the sermon and share some thoughts with you, and to join him in honoring our veterans here tonight.

In an op-ed article a couple of days ago in the NY Times, Nicholas Kristoff cited a speech given by Martin Luther King about fifty years ago in Hawaii. King quoted a former slave who had become a preacher commenting on the state of race relations in the latter part of the nineteenth century. “We ain’t where we wanna be. We ain’t where we ought to be. We ain’t where we’re gonna be. But, thank God, we ain’t where we was!”

Reflecting on the forty-seven years since I was sworn in and donned my first uniform I have to say we still have a long way to go in the manner in which we regard the men and women who volunteer for military service and go in harm’s way to defend and protect our country as directed by their commander-in-chief. For many years while a draft prevailed the military experience was wide-spread in our society. Most legislators and elected officials had served in uniform and parents, grandparents, and uncles all had stories to tell about their time in the service. Now, with an all volunteer force, most of us have little or no contact with military people. In a time of economic constraint and social distraction it is easy to ignore the huge numbers of physically and psychologically injured veterans and consign them to trying to resume more or less normal lives without the treatment and support systems we promised them when they signed on. It is easer to impose onerous and repetitious tours of duty that erode family life and create serious personal problems rather then expand the force to meet the demands we place upon it.

Yet still we must say, with that preacher “Thank God we ain’t where we was”. I was living in Seattle in the late ‘60’s and pulling my reserve duty at McChord AFB, a major depot for troops returning from Vietnam for either reassignment or discharge. We used to brief these returning vets and warn them not to wear their uniforms when they went off base or headed out to Sea-Tac airport for their flights to their new bases or to home. The anti-war movement had bred a deep hostility to anyone in uniform and they would be subject to hostile looks, verbal harassment or even violence. And it was so unfair because they were mostly draftees who didn’t want to go to Vietnam, but who because they couldn’t get college deferments or safe slots in the National Guard (they didn’t send Guard units to Vietnam) ended up being drafted. And the overburdened and underfunded VA hospitals valiantly tried to help but to say the vets were under-served doesn’t describe the situations they faced when they sought help.

How different things are today. To be sure the war in Iraq is very unpopular but by and large those protesting the war and calling for disengagement take great care to proclaim their respect for our military and to acknowledge their readiness to sacrifice for their country. I have no hesitation about wearing my uniform in public places, and the men and women of our armed forces are generally greeted with respect and even approbation.

The wars aren’t over and we will continue to need a reliable and dedicated band of brothers and sisters ready to face danger on our behalf and protect our country in an unstable and scary world.

A few months ago when Yona and I visited France our trip included the standard day tour of the Normandy beaches and the Memorial Museum in Caen. We ended the day at the American Military Cemetery at Collville-sur-Mer, which contains 10,000 graves of Americans who died fighting during World War II in Europe. We were each given a flower and invited to spend an hour in the cemetery. I went to every marker bearing a Magen David and said an El Maleh prayer. I had identified myself to our tour group as a retired chaplain and invited those wishing to do so to join me for a brief memorial service before boarding the buses back to the hotel. About two dozen did so, including several World War II vets, who recited some of the prayers. I quoted from a sermon delivered by Navy Chaplain Roland Gittlesohn at the dedication of cemetery on Iwo Jima. He noted that admission to the cemetery did not distinguish between officers and enlisted personnel, between Protestants, Catholics and Jews, blacks or whites, immigrants or native born Americans. No quotas there. It was pure democracy. I concluded with an El Maleh prayer and a Kaddish for all buried there. We stood to attention, saluted, and sang our national anthem. Once again I felt uniquely qualified to lead such a service and help myself and many others to leave Colleville-sur-Mer with a special sense of connection to and appreciation of the sacrifices made by those who rested there.

So, to those who have served I say “Thank you.” To those who are currently serving we say, “Thank you.” And to those who will serve we say, “You will have our respect and our support, no matter if we are Red or Blue, because for all of us you are Red, White and Blue. May God watch over you and — as I’ve heard recently from both sides of the political spectrum — May God Bless America.”

Shabbat Shalom.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma and Kashrut Vegetarianism in Genesis

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 20:00:04 -0700

Some friends recently reminded me of Michael Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, as we were discussing the merits and modern meaning of keeping kosher. My friends were saying that after reading this book, which traces three distinct strands of food production, they were asking themselves, “Why should I keep kosher when it appears that the meat production of even kosher meat offers no discernible difference from modern, industrial meat production, which has become a gross manipulation of animal life? What are the ethical principles that guide kashrut?” I have not read Pollan’s book in its entirety — and I plan to — but I did go and read the introduction online. His premise starts from asking, “What should I have for dinner tonight?” and continues to explore the complex, and increasingly unhealthy, ways in which people, and Americans in particular, are feeding themselves. In the introduction, he says, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma is about the three principal food chains that sustain us today: the industrial, the organic, and the hunter-gatherer. Different as they are, all three food chains are systems for doing approximately the same thing: linking us, through what we eat, to the fertility of the earth and the energy of the sun. It might be hard to see how, but even a Twinkie does this — constitutes an engagement with the natural world. As ecology teaches, and this book tries to show, it’s all connected, even the Twinkie.” (pg. 7) And while Twinkies are not kosher, his point is well-taken: what we eat, how we eat and for us today, most urgently, how the food produced and what are the health-risk factors involved, calls us to be even more vigilant in our dietary decisions. In this week’s parshah, as we read from the beginning, Genesis, I believe that we get a divine dietary call that most of us, from the very beginning of time, have chosen to ignore.

Full disclosure: I am a vegetarian and have been for fifteen years since meeting my wife and joining her in this choice. To be fair, at first, it was mostly out of convenience. She said I could eat whatever I wanted, but she was not cooking meat. So, being a student, and not much of a dandy in the kitchen, I slowly was won over to her vegetarian lifestyle. However, over time, I have come to see not only the health benefits of this choice, but also grasp and appreciate the ethical concerns involved. I believe that these ethical concerns are directly related to kashrut, the act of keeping kosher. In the conversation with my friends, where they expressed reservations not about the practicalities of keeping kosher but rather the seemingly lack of ethical concerns that are raised in books like The Omnivore’s Dilemma, I talked about how I saw kashrut for us today. In doing so, I spoke about what I see as the original kashrut, a kashrut that many great thinkers, notably Rav Kook, the first chief rabbi of Palestine, and Rabbi Arthur Green, saw as what God originally intended for us, a blueprint that is explained in this week’s Torah portion, the story of creation.

In Genesis 1:29, God describes what will be our diet: all the green vegetation of the Earth, the fruits and food of the trees. This is what the animals and us are meant to eat. In the Garden of Eden, there was no meat eating! Maybe that is why we rebelled! It is not until the story of Noah, and the declaration that because human beings can’t help themselves, can’t restrain themselves, God seems to acquiesce and permit humans to eat meat, as long as they drain the blood, for “the blood is the life force.” Such begins the journey of kashrut, which will be described in greater detail in Leviticus, where the variety animals that we can eat are categorized, and in even greater detail in the rabbinic literature, which is where all the main laws of kashrut as we know it, the separation of milk and meat, the need for separate dishes, etc., are written. So, how does this relate to The Omnivore’s Dilemma? How does this relate to the questions of ethical concerns that many people, myself included, share about the modern keeping of kashrut?

Here is my thought for tonight: I believe that the most authentic expression of kashrut just might be vegetarianism. I still eat fish, eggs and dairy products, so I am not fully separated from the animal kingdom, but it is the modern production of meat and poultry today that really is of great concern. As Michael Pollan so astutely states, “But forgetting, or not knowing in the first place, is what the industrial food chain is all about, the principal reason it is so opaque, for it we could see what lies on the far side of the increasingly high wall of our industrial agriculture, we would surely change the way we eat.” (ibid, p. 11) While the biblical mandate for kashrut didn’t highlight the ethical treatment of animals per se, the rabbinic tradition absolutely did. The Bible merely states the animals that are permitted and prohibited without any justification or reasoning. Kashrut laws are known as chukim in Hebrew, a set of laws that are not rational; these laws are in contrast to mishpatim, laws that seem to have a reason behind them. However, the rabbinic literature, stemming from the earliest law codes of the Mishnah and Talmud, argue that kashrut is meant to be a system of eating that takes great pains to ensure that the animal is killed in a humane way, which stems from the idea of not eating the blood. However, as I just showed you, all of this was a later concession to Noah, whereas the original idea for food didn’t include meat. Certainly today, with the modern food industry, which includes massive kosher plants like Empire and Rubashkins, we have reason to be concerned that the essence of kashrut is not being adhered to.

One additional point here: We have all hopefully heard of the horrible conditions, and now the federal investigation of Rubashkins, or Agriprocessors, in Pottsville, Iowa. These public disclosures have, thankfully, inspired Jewish organizations of all stripes, including local Orthodox rabbis here in LA, to create a new type of kashrut symbol, one that will take into account more than just the food, expanding our concerns to the plight of the workers, the condition in which the animals are kept, how the food is transported, etc. It is what Rabbi Arthur Waskow has been calling eco-kashrut for more than thirty years. So, if you eat kosher meat, don’t buy Rubashkins, which includes Aarons and many other sub-labels of their company, until they comply with these new standards.

Let’s get back to the vegetarian point. Rav Kook seemed to think that vegetarianism was an ideal only to be achieved in the messianic time. However, in the translation of the second paragraph of the Shema that I brought on Yom Kippur, in which Reb Zalman offered us a teaching that said we could make “heavenly days right here on Earth,” I think that we might work toward reaching for this goal in our day and time. We know that red meat is both harmful to the heart and in the industrial production of it, harmful to the Earth as well. We are cramming chickens into cages that don’t allow them to move, stuffing them with hormones that grow them to unhealthy sizes, just for our pleasure, and as I read recently, with the salmon industry the way it is today, we might run salmon right out of existence. We all know the issues with cattle and the amounts of hormones we are injecting into them. Many cultures in the world already subscribe to a healthier way of eating, promoting vegetarianism as an ideal. Rabbi Harold Shulweis, in a piece several years ago, speaks eloquently on this matter when he says, “I visualize Shabbat as a vegetarian day, especially since the Sabbath is the day of tranquility and harmony with nature…I visualize the Passover Seder as a vegetarian meal. After the destruction of the Temple, roasted meat was prohibited at the Seder table for it appeared to substitute the home table for the Temple. Why not a vegetarian meal in anticipation of the Passover of the future?” Rabbi Art Green, a major proponent of vegetarian kashrut, says, “This is not an ascetic choice, we should note, but rather a life-affirming one. A vegetarian Judaism would be more whole in its ability to embrace the presence of God in all of Creation.” Dr. William Clifford Roberts, a noted cardiologist, says this on meat eating, “When we kill animals to eat them they end up killing us because their flesh which contains cholesterol and saturated fat was never intended for human being who are naturally herbivorous.” All of this seems to point to the idea that a more ideal kashrut, a choice on eating that speaks to our core moral and ethical values, as well as to the decision to try and bring more holiness into our lives, just might be one that returns to the eating habits of the Garden of Eden, which were solely the greens of the trees and plants of the Earth. While our ancestors argued greatly about the reasons behind kashrut, most notably the great debate between Maimonides and Nachmanides, and there have been attempts to link kashrut to health concerns since the beginning, today’s concerns about our health might mandate that we do urge a kashrut that is both tied to ethical and health concerns. Doing this would not limit its potency, in my view, and might just entice more people today to keep kosher.

All of this provides some food for thought, as they say! While I don’t imagine that we are all going to become vegetarians over night, or start keeping kosher overnight, I do encourage us to think about the food choices we make. Read The Omnivore’s Dilemma and understand what the industrial and fast food nation we have become has done to our bodies and our environment. Reconnect yourself with the food you eat. Great organizations in the Jewish community, like Hekhsher Tzedek and Uri L'Tzedek, are doing important work in the ethical components of kashrut, and my friend Nigel Savage’s organization Hazon is helping us understand the complexities of eating and nature in a way that might also change how we make food decisions. While kashrut in the Torah is a chok’ a law of mysterious and irrational nature, we just might be able to understand today that the reasons we choose to eat kosher, and perhaps even making that kashrut vegetarian, are very rational, understandable and just as holy.

Shabbat shalom.

From the Web editor:

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Yom Kippur, 5769 — Global Torah

Thu, 9 Oct 2008 11:00:37 -0700

The following paragraph is read aloud, chanted in Torah trope:

How good it will be when you really listen, and hear my directions, which I give you today, for loving Adonai, who is your God, and to act godly with feeling and inspiration. Your earthly needs will be met at the right time, appropriate to the season. You will reap what you planted for your delight and health. Also, your animals will have ample feed. All of you will eat and be content. Be careful—watch out! Don’t let your cravings delude you; don’t become alienated; don’t let your cravings become your gods; don’t debase yourself to them, because the God-sense within you will become distorted. Heaven will be shut to you, grace will not descend, Earth will not yield her produce. Your rushing will destroy you! And Earth will not be able to recover her good balance in which God’s gifts manifest. May these values of Mine, reside in your feelings and aspirations; marking what you produce, guiding what you perceive. Teach them to your children so that they are instructed how to make their homes sacred; and how they are to deal with traffic. Even when you are depressed, and when you are elated. Mark your entrances and exits with them, so you will be more aware. Then, you and your children, and their children, will live out on earth that divine promise given to your ancestors to live heavenly days right here on this earth.

Anybody recognize these words? When I first heard this translation of Deuteronomy 11:13-21, otherwise known as the second paragraph of the Shema, by the great Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, I was stopped in my tracks. Reb Zalman, as he is affectionately known, is one of the great innovators of Jewish life in our time, founder of the Jewish Renewal Movement and translator of liturgy and Torah in a new and creative way that speaks to the hearts and minds of us twenty-first century Jews while maintaining the deep integrity of the text. I was stopped in my tracks because the second paragraph of the Shema is often overlooked because it seems to be offering a “reward and punishment” theology that most of us, myself included, don’t find viable any longer. Yet, with Reb Zalman’s rendering of the text, I found myself intimately drawn into the relational aspect of the text, the baseline that there is a partnership between us and God, in a way that I had not experienced before. Reb Zalman maintains the central notion of the Torah that both God and humans play a role in the creation of our life on Earth, but he translates the Hebrew in such a way that allows us to see that our actions can affect our “God-sense,” a beautiful phrase, thereby harming or securing our success in life. The phrase that really grabbed me was, “Be careful-watch out! Don’t let your cravings delude you; don’t become alienated; don’t let your cravings become your gods; don’t debase yourself to them, because the God-sense within you will become distorted.” It is not that God disappears or abandons us or punishes us if we don’t act in a proper manner; rather our ability to sense God’s presence in our world becomes distorted, demented, blurry—to use some of last week’s metaphor, we veer “off-line” in our lives. Today, friends, is Yom Kippur, a day unlike any other in our year, a day when we seek to understand, as deeply, as profoundly, and as intimately where we have gone “off-line” in our lives and in our world and what we can do to restore the connection. This morning, I want to focus attention on the idea of global Torah, what our great book of wisdom teaches us about interfacing with the world so that we can work to create what Reb Zalman calls, “heavenly days right here on Earth.”

Once, in the kingdom of Solomon, there lived a two-headed man. Upon the death of his father, the man became embroiled in a bitter dispute with his brothers and sisters over the inheritance. “Since I have two heads,” he claimed, “I deserve twice as much money as the rest of you.” His siblings responded, “Perhaps you have two heads, but you only have one body. Therefore you deserve only one share.” The case was brought before King Solomon, the wisest of our kings. He said, “Pour boiling water over one of the man’s two heads. If the second head screams in pain, then we will know he is one person. If not, it will have been determined that the two-head person is in fact two separate independent individuals.” (Parable from Rabbi Avi Weiss in Spiritual Activism) And so it is with our world. We have many heads, but share the same body, and when one part is in pain, we should all feel it collectively. Each human soul, Jew and non-Jew, is a head on the body of humanity, a body that right now is suffering in so many of its parts that it often seems too overwhelming to start the healing process. Which head do we start with? The genocide in Darfur? The intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict? The dire state of our environment and climate change? Our nation’s economy? The wealth disparities right here in Pasadena? The devastation of, and lack of response to, Hurricanes Katrina, Gustav and Ike? The war in Iraq? Attacks on ethnic minorities and gays and lesbians? Malaria, AIDS, poverty, homelessness? The psalms say, “Tov Adonai la’kol, v’rachamav al kol ma’asav, God is good to all, God’s compassion is evident in all God’s deeds,” (Psalm 145): the question this morning is whether we are good to all, whether we are compassionate in all our deeds? Are we living imitatio dei, imitating God, as Genesis calls us to? Are we heeding the call of Isaiah the prophet, whom we just heard as the haftorah this morning, when he asks, “Is this the fast I desire?” “You shall be holy, for I, Adonai, your God am Holy” is the clarion call of Leviticus 19, the holiness code. And, in Judaism, holiness is best embodied when we care for others, care for our planet and work to create a world in which God’s presence can dwell among us. And let me be clear: I see a great deal of healing in the world too, a great deal of amazing action being taken, starting right here at PJTC in our own environmental, Israel and Darfur efforts, working with Union Station and local schools, as well as the work of many Jewish and secular organizations that work tirelessly each and every day for justice and equity in the world. But today is not the day for self-congratulation or accolades; today is Yom Kippur, and we fast today to recognize and heal the places where we can do better, do more, reach higher, dig deeper and effect more systematic change. “Compassionate criticism,” is what I like to call it. So, if I am critical today, it is not without the knowledge and appreciation of what is being done; rather, it is with the deep-seeded, Torah-grounded belief that there is much more work to be done. And while I can’t focus on all the areas of concern, I will raise up and highlight a few hot spots that are on my mind today. U’teshuvah, u’tefillah, u’tzedakah ma’aveerin et roa ha’gezarah, for our collective acts of repentance, prayer and committed response to those in need, while not eliminating the suffering, can certainly lessen the severity of the decree.

As I showed in our study of the Akedah on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, I follow the tradition which teaches that our sacred text needs to be reinterpreted in each and every generation. There are so many places in the Torah that we don’t take literally and that the ancient rabbis of the Talmud sometimes didn’t take literally; yet, in certain circumstances, we seem to be unable to apply this principle. For instance, many can’t seem to let go of the notion that Leviticus 18:22, the primary verse condemning homosexuality as an abomination, should not be read literally, or at least should be read in the cultural context in which it was written. Rabbi Steve Greenberg, the first openly gay Orthodox rabbi, has written a definitive treatise on this matter, arguing convincingly that “[in the Talmud or Jewish history] while principles tend to remain firm, rulings often change…When social conditions shift, when reality dawns on us in new ways, then the same principles will often balance out in different ways, producing different rulings.” (Wrestling with God and Men, page 16) I urge you to read his book, Wrestling with God and Men. And, thankfully, Rabbi Elliot Dorff and others in our own Conservative movement have created a halachic avenue for gay and lesbian ordination, as well as permitting Conservative rabbis to do commitment ceremonies. I am proud to be performing one later this fall, my first. The Torah I believe teaches in the primacy of human rights for all people, created in the image of God. A vision of global Torah, based on the notion of “kedoshim tiheyu, you shall be holy,” should teach us that we treat all people equally, fairly, justly, as we expect and desire to be treated. I believe marriage, kiddushin, is about the love and legal rights of two individuals, and it is not kodesh, holy, to legislate against people in such a hurtful and discriminatory way. “Is this the fast that I desire?” pleads Isaiah. My friend and colleague, Rabbi Ken Chasen of Leo Baeck Temple, one of many of my California colleagues dedicating whole sermons to the issue of marriage equality this season, writes, “This is a historic moment in which the rights and human dignity of a minority is under assault. As Jews, we know what it is to be harassed and persecuted because we are different. We too have been considered dangerous, deviant, a threat to society, abhorrent. As Jews, we ought to be frightened when a majority tries to deny rights to a minority they think are not equal to the rest of us.” The Torah teaches us, repeating itself 39 times, more than any other mitzvah, that we are to look out for the heads of our collective body that are most vulnerable and in need of protection, and we have a chance this fall to act on that mandate. Many churches and synagogues are displaying signs in front of their building calling for marriage equality. PJTC is not there, but I am inviting each of us as individuals to think about this crucial issue from a Jewish perspective on this, our day of repentance and introspection. We can have a conversation this afternoon, as I have a text study on this very issue from a Jewish perspective. I hope to see many of you here before Mincha to study and discuss.

The Talmud in tractate Shabbat 54b says, “…Whoever is able to protest against the wrongdoings of the world and does not do so is punished for the wrongdoings of the world.” For thousands of years, the Jewish community has heeded the call of “tzedek, tzedek tirdoff, justice, justice you shall pursue,” and has even more profoundly understood that when we have an opportunity to speak out, we are not only encouraged to do so, but we are even obligated to do so. The Zohar teaches “That there is nothing in the world empty of God.” It is for this reason, combined with the very recent horrors of the Holocaust in our collective memory, that the genocide in Darfur has been a focal point for the Jewish community’s global Torah efforts. I want to touch on Darfur because it poses a great humanitarian challenge for the world at this critical moment. We have been working tirelessly for the past 5 years to combat and stop this genocide, sadly the first genocide of the twenty-first century. A vision of global Torah, a Torah that cries out to us, “Don’t stand idly by the blood of your neighbor,” (Lev. 9:17), can’t be compatible with a world that tolerates genocide taking place under our noses. If we want to inspire ourselves with personal Torah, if we want to invest ourselves in a community of Torah, then we must act with the resolve of global Torah. One of our students, a young activist in training, senior Jenna Mittman, wrote a powerful piece in response to a genocide roundtable that we attended in my 11th-12th grade monthly seminar a few weeks ago, in which she said, “To act is not an easy thing. It involves skill, education, and a whole lot of confidence. It requires self-sacrifice and sometimes embarrassment. You must be willing to give yourself to a cause, risk your reputation for something you know is right. Be confident in the unknown and have thick skin. The ability to act,” she concludes, “indicates maturity.” And, even when the challenge is great, as combating genocide is, and even when it takes years and years, as our efforts in this cause have, Torah should be the force behind our efforts, the wind in our sails, propelling us forward to greater and more sustained actions, different actions, louder actions, bolder actions. Rabbi Harold Shulweis of Valley Beth Shalom, a continued voice of inspiration and justice now in his eighties, and founder of Jewish World Watch, said in his founding sermon Rosh Hashanah five years ago, “We, the Jewish people, gave the world the sacred power of conscience. Conscience stayed the hands of those who would destroy our children. Conscience must not slumber, conscience can waken the world.” We understand the call of God to Cain, “Where is your brother, ai acheecha?” And we bristle at Cain’s answer, “Hashomer achi anochi, Am I my brother’s keeper?” I am proud that our shul is an active member of Jewish World Watch, and I am proud to now serve on their board. The Sudanese people continue to need our help, our voice against the militias that are attacking them, against the government of Sudan who continue to deny that anything is happening. I hope most of us are informed on this issue; if you are not, please go the Jewish World Watch website and learn. The Darfurian head of our body is dying tragically each and every day, and we must continue to speak out on its behalf. “Caring fatigue” cannot be an excuse when men, women and children are being killed for being born in Darfur. This is the first genocide to be called genocide while it is happening. We can’t wait. V’eem lo achshahv, aimatai, if not now, when? Please take one of the powerful JWW High Holy Day Darfur booklets in the lobby and please send in the postcard at the back. We have the chance to make Darfur the first genocide ended in the twenty-first century, and please God, the last one we face as a human body.

And finally, Kol Yisrael Aravim zeh la’zeh, the Talmud teaches, “all of Israel is responsible for one another.” (Shevuot 59a) The last component of this morning is about the global Torah of our spiritual homeland, Israel. As we celebrate the amazing joy of 60 years of life for the state of Israel, we celebrate the joys of returning to our homeland, of reconnecting with our sacred roots, roots that gave birth to the Torah itself. There is nothing like walking in Israel, Tanach, a Bible, in hand, and exploring the depth and breadth of the land. There is nothing like a Shabbat sunset in Jerusalem, the holy silence of rest settling over the city and all those open to her call. We embody the psalmist, who says, “Em eshchachaich Yerushalayim, tishkach yimenee, If I forget thee O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither.” (Psalm 137:5) I certainly feel this way, and I know that many of you do too. And with all the beauty, with all the joy, with all the miraculous feelings of accomplishment—emotional, physical, spiritual, technological—feeling that were exhibited a few weeks ago at the Flag raising on Wilshire Blvd., with all of that, we know that all is not right in our holy land. We seek all to be right, to be peaceful. We pray several times a day for that. Still, it remains elusive, but we must never stop yearning for peace, not stop seeking peace, as we are called to Rodef Shalom, to pursue and to love peace. It is understood by all the parties that there is no military solution to this conflict, and still the violence continues. Fighting has never worked in the past; the only way out is serious negotiations, fair negotiations and negotiations wherein the parties have a genuine desire to succeed. We have gotten close and fallen away. If five years seems a long time to have been talking about Darfur, we have been working for decades and decades to solve this conflict. Demography is not on our side, nor is time. Prime Minister Sharon knew that; Prime Minister Olmert knows that and has said as much recently, along with naming other hard realities, sadly too late. “Is this the fast that I desire?” “Lo yisah goy el goy cherev, lo yilmadu od milchama, nation shall not lift up sword against nation and they shall not learn war anymore.” Isaiah was a remarkable figure in our history; we can quote and quote him. The truth of his message, however, like peace in the Middle East, remains elusive. We stand with Israel, we pray that a new government can be formed of reasonable and visionary leaders, leaders who will defend Israel and leaders who can take us to the peace table once again. The clock is seriously ticking on a two-state solution, and the next American president, whoever he is, must commit to working on this solution from day one. I am proud that over 700 clergy from around the country, including such noted, diverse, religious leaders as Rabbis David Gordis, Ismar Schorsch, Toba Spitzer, Arthur Waskow and Roly Matalon, agree with this idea and have recently signed an open letter to both candidates urging for immediate action, a letter sponsored by Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, of which I proudly serve as National Secretary. For no matter how much we, as Jews, may care about all the other heads on our global body, we know that American Jews – those of us sitting in synagogue today—and the state of Israel share a bond that is at our core of cores. This is why our Israel actions here at PJTC are so passionate, so vibrant and so healthy for am Yisrael, the Jewish people. I urge every one of you to get involved with Israel, from any standpoint that interests you: cultural, historical, political, Biblical, familial, religious, artistic — there is room for us all to love and care for Israel in whatever way is most resonant. May our love for Israel deepen in the coming year and may the seeds of peace begin to bloom again.

A concluding thought: There is a midrash, in the name of Rabbi Abahu, that teaches when the revelation at Mt. Sinai occurred, contrary to the literal reading of the text, which specifies thunder, lightening, fear and perhaps even chaos, it was actually silent, utterly quiet. No birds chirped, no waves crashed, no sound waves carried. (Shemot Rabbah 29) The sound of the aleph, the sound of silence, as Simon and Garfunkel sang, fell over the entire Earth. Friends, we need to regain a sense of that silence, that mystery, that awesomeness which reminds us that we are not the owners of this great, global body, not the sole masters of ourselves or our planet, even as we have the great responsibility to be masters of our destiny, to a point. Torah reminds us of the “God-sense” that is within us, a remarkable gift that makes us human, a gift that we dare to distort or destroy at our own peril. That is what the second paragraph of the Shema, especially in light of Reb Zalman’s translation, teaches us. God has not abandoned us; God has not punished us; God has not toyed with us; rather, God is waiting for us to return, waiting for us to realize where we have become hardened and to soften; God is waiting for us to wake up to the sound of the shofar, to the call of conscience, to the answer the question ayekah, “Where are we?” with an answer that befits us being “but a little lower than the angels.” Torah is a gift through which we can know God’s directions for Earth, directions that are sometimes, but not always self-explanatory; directions that need us to engage, interpret, follow-through and uphold; directions that need our God-given sense of understanding and application. We are but a chapter in the story of creation, a story that is sometimes comedy, sometimes tragedy, always unfolding and emerging. The end has not been written, our fate has not been sealed. May all the suffering heads on our collective body motivate us toward more healing, greater compassion, less violence and more peace. May the sound of silence, the power of our God-sense, and our great humanity lead us toward “living heavenly days right here on Earth.”

Gmar chatimah tovah.

Rosh Hashanah, First Day, 5769 — Platforms and Communal Torah

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:00:52 -0700

How many people here are on Facebook? How many people know what Facebook is, but are not on it themselves? How many people have no idea what I am talking about? I recently joined Facebook, and while it has not radically changed my life, it has connected me to a whole host of people from my past that I probably would have never thought about for the rest of my life, people who I knew in high school, at Camp Ramah and other random stops in my journey. It is a fascinating social network, an Internet revolution founded and run by a 25-year-old Harvard dropout named Mark Zuckerberg. And while our teens and children will in many ways build their social interactions around Facebook, MySpace and other Internet communities, folks my age and up might not. However, there is something about the structure of Facebook that can teach all of us something. In reading an article this summer in Time Magazine about who will be the next great Internet leader, Google, Apple or Facebook, I learned about the concept of a “platform,” and what that means for these Silicon Valley wizards. The article in Time grabbed my attention, in part, because it seems to be written by a Jewish man using religious and specifically Jewish terms to describe the excitement of the new iPhone and the Internet in general. For example, he says about himself and his Silicon Valley neighbors, “All of us, though, worship at the altar of bright and shiny things…These days, its the impending launch of Appleʼs next generation iPhone that has the faithful davenning.” I almost stopped reading there, with his fairly juvenile comparison of heartfelt prayer and the latest computer gadget, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt; after all, how many times do you stumble upon the word “davenning” in Time magazine?

A platform, in computer-speak, is “a software code on which third- party applications functions.” In the computer industry, platforms, over the years, have evolved from IBM to Microsoft and Windows and now to the Web, with each new stage able to reach more and more people. A few interesting quotes that I wanted to share from this article: A truly successful platform, “can extend far beyond its immediate group of users and effectively create and control an enormous market.” “An open-coding environment is key to any successful platform because the easier it is to use, the more developers will be drawn to it, making the platform that much more powerful.” And finally, “The point of being a platform is you can enable creativity on the part of thousands or millions of other people…who have ideas that you wouldn’t have thought of.” In essence, then, Facebook and other platforms are attempting to connect people from all over the world in a network of relationships that allow for as many people as possible to share interesting information, new ideas and creative endeavors, all in one central location. Rather than being the dictators of the site, Facebook creator Zuckerberg and his senior staff, which includes one of our very own PJTC family members, Ezra Callahan, are opening up the site and welcoming people to stand on their platform and reach for the connections.

Have you figured out my metaphor yet? Am I talking about Facebook or Torah if I say it “can extend far beyond its immediate group of users and effectively create...an enormous market.” MySpace or Torah: “...you can enable creativity on the part of thousands or millions of other people...who have ideas that you wouldnʼt have thought of.” Before Facebook, before Windows, before IBM, before computers, television or radio, there was a “platform” that held us together, a platform that we have stood on for generations, a platform that inspired creative thought to bloom, a platform so strong it has withstood persecutions, revolts (both from without and from within), cultural advances and declines, generations of communities reading it, studying it, wrestling with it and ultimately passing it down for their children to stand on. Platforms are not new, even though the technology for enacting them today is innovative; humans have always had systems for connection. And for us Jews, in the beginning, there was the platform of platforms: Torah. And this morning I want to talk about how the Torah is one of our main platform at PJTC, the basis for our growth, the glue that holds our community together, the Facebook of our people! This is what the Torah means, when it says in Deuteronomy, one of my favorite books, that the Torah “will be proof of your wisdom and discernment to other peoples, who on hearing all these laws, will say, ʻSurely, that great nation is a wise and discerning people.ʼ” (Deut. 4:6) To understand this, I think we should start at the beginning, for what happened at a mountain called Sinai, in the mysterious desert, changed our fate forever.

A beleaguered nation emerged from slavery, crossed the sea in a miraculous fashion and proceeded to follow their new leader, Moshe, toward a destination that was unknown to them. What has become the bedrock of our people, coming forth from Egypt, and what holds great mythical import for us today, the revelation at Mt. Sinai, begins with the story of a frightened, incongruous, confused and ungrateful group of 600,000 or so of our ancestors. Do you remember feeling that way? Do you remember how you felt at the moment of the revelation at Mt. Sinai? I ask you because the midrash (Pirke DʼRebbe Eliezer) says that all Jewish souls — past, present and future — stood at Sinai. That is why some Jews joke, when meeting someone they canʼt remember, “Didnʼt I see you at Sinai?” The great news is that we can refresh our memory a bit by looking at the Torah itself, Chapter 19-20 of Exodus, which recounts the revelation. As we do this, understand that I read revelation not as definitive historical fact, but as a sacred story, a foundational myth in the sense taught by Rabbi Neil Gillman, our scholar-in-residence a few years back, and I invite you to do the same. Heschel reminds us in one of his most profound theological statements, “As a report about revelation, the Torah itself is midrash.”

“On the third new moon after the Israelites had gone forth from the land of Egypt, on this very day, they entered the wilderness of Sinai.” (Ex. 19:1) One of the first indications that the Sinai event was not meant to be a one-time only affair is found in this opening line. It says in Hebrew, “bayom hazeh,” which indicates a present tense, literally, “this very day.” The rabbis have indicated over the centuries that whenever the Torah uses the word “hazeh,” it is inviting us to see the universal and infinite potential of that given idea. So, in our case, when the Torah says that the Israelites arrived at Sinai “bayom hazeh,” we can understand it as applying universally; every day that this verse is read is “this very day.” Heschel said it best when he taught that the giving of the Torah, matan Torah, might have been a once in a lifetime moment, but the receiving of the Torah, kabbalat Torah, happens anew in each and every generation.

As you might remember, the experience at Mt. Sinai was not necessarily a fun time! Moshe was going up and down the mountain, an interlocutor between a nervous people and an intimidating God, and he was getting a good workout in the process. There was smoke, fire, thunder, fear and trembling. The shofar sounded loudly, the mountain shook, all us were remarkably afraid, we even thought that we might die. The midrashim around this event are voluminous, including what exactly was revealed: the whole Torah and all subsequent writings; just the 10 commandments; just the first commandment; just the first letter of the first commandment, aleph; nothing but Godʼs presence here on Earth. All of these ideas and more are part of the rabbinic record dating back thousands of years. But regardless of how we perceive or understand it, the core component of the Sinai experience was the establishment of a covenant, an agreement. Some midrashim say it was mutual, like a marriage; one famous one says it was coercive, with God lifting the physical mountain over our heads and threatening to drop it on us to assure our compliance. I canʼt know for sure, my memory is a bit foggy on the details, but I do know that we are still here, basing our Jewish lives on the events of that day as recounted in the Torah. Chapter 19 reads, “All that you say, we will do,” say the people. We build our Jewish existence on the “platform” that is Torah, standing on the shoulders of those who came before, adding our voice, experience and new understanding to its foundational platform. And, as we add continually renew Torah, Torah renew our lives as well, as we say in the ending blessing of an aliyah, “vʼchayei olam natah bʼtocheinu, eternal life is planted deep within us.”

One moment that has always struck me regarding the revelation at Sinai was the line immediately after the last commandment. Exodus 20:15 says “All the people saw the thunder and lightening, and the sound of the shofar.” In my senior sermon during rabbinical school, I expounded on the notion of people “seeing thunder,” as this is a highly unusual idea. In my research for that sermon, I highlighted the work of Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan zʼl, who spoke of this moment at Sinai as one of “synesthesia,” a known meditative state where our senses are able to function in out of the ordinary ways, hence being able to “see” thunder. I think this has deep implications for us today. The experience of revelation, in some way, shape or form, is meant to cause us as a people to have a shift in consciousness, an altering of our perception of the world around us. We read in Exodus, “Vʼasu li mikdah, vʼshachanti bʼtocham, make for me a sanctuary so that I may dwell among them.” (Ex. 25:8) Through our communal interactions with and study of Torah, we create change in ourselves, in our community, and in the divine realm. This is the power of Torah, the reason we were liberated from Egypt in the first place.

And, this is the reason that we are calling our exciting and ambitious Torah writing project for this year, “Standing Again at Sinai.” We are hoping to reenact the involvement, inspiration and dedication that we experienced at Sinai for our PJTC community today. Martin Buber understood this, when he wrote, “Israel receives its decisive religious experience as a people...The community of Israel experiences history and revelation as one phenomenon, history as revelation and revelation as history. In the hour of its experience of faith the group becomes a people.” (Buber, Israel and the World, p. 169) And that is precisely what we are hoping for this year: community unity, celebrating old friends and making new ones, youth and elders coming together, families, singles, straight, gay, religious, secular, conservative, liberal, wealthy, of modest means, new members and long time members, all of us joining forces to write our own Torah, a Torah that will have the exact same words as all Torahs in the world, but will be uniquely infused with our own PJTC “Sinai” energy and love. You will be hearing about this project in detail after the holidays, but I am so jazzed up about it that I couldn’t wait! This will be a remarkable community bonding experience, and it has the potential to raise more money than we ever have in a non-capital campaign to help secure our future in a big way. It also addresses a complaint I’ve heard during previous fundraisers that everybody canʼt fully participate because of the cost. This will be a very democratic fundraiser, with opportunities available at all levels, and I mean all levels! I am so excited for you to hear more about the plan, how we all get to invest ourselves, fully, into a part of the Torah that is meaningful to us already. In addition to everything else, there will be an opening and closing study session, which promises to be one of those “once in a lifetime experiences” according to everyone I have spoken to at other shuls who have done this project. So, get ready for the Torah! You will learn how many letters are in the Torah scroll, and we will secure our PJTC future in a big way by connecting to and adopting each and every one.

On a related note, I want to take this opportunity to honor and thank the wonderful members of our community who read the Torah each and every week. Hazzan Sofer and I are so blessed to be leaders of a shul that has all volunteer leyners, or Torah readers. “Leyn” is the Yiddish word for reading the Torah. We have amazing Torah readers and gabbaim, who assign and manage the Torah readings and aliyot, ranging from youth who continue to stay involved in their post-bʼnai mitzvah years by reading Torah to long-time adult members. If you are interested in learning how to read Torah, please talk to Cantor Sofer. In terms of last nightʼs sermon, this is really personal Torah! Learning the skill of reading Torah is a life-changing event, for it opens up a world of mystery and intrigue. Try it, itʼs fun! So, in this PJTC Year of the Torah, I am deeply grateful, and say yasher koach, to all the Torah readers and all the gabbaim, some of whom are also major Torah readers as well, in our community who make time in their busy lives to perform this mitzvah for the benefit of all of us — we will honor them all further on Kol Nidre as they carry in the Torahs at the beginning of the service. Kol hakavod!

One of the fascinating aspects of the computer platform is that people can add their own ingenuity and creativity to a program, sharing their knowledge on top of the foundational platform. That is what Facebook means when it says it is becoming a more open platform, where a “virtuous circle blooms, with a mass of users attracting a horde of developers who build fun or useful stuff, which in turn pulls in more users.” (Time Magazine, June 16, 2008) To me, this is what the Torah is meant to be! While it has over our history at times been a closed platform, either to women, people with disabilities, the uneducated, and certainly to gays and lesbians, I believe in a Torah that is accessible to everyone and that provides opportunity for everyone to become the best person they can be, and as a lead-in note to my Yom Kippur sermon, and fully within the law, it for this reason that I believe Proposition 8, amending our constitution to ban gay marriage, is harmful for our communities. More on that next week. I believe in a Torah that is fluid and ever expanding, judiciously building on itself like a sacred spiral, gathering new wisdom that its earliest readers could not have imagined. Torah is about love, commitment, devotion, hope, peace, learning, keeping us grounded in our tradition, while opening our hearts up to the moment before us and providing us a path, a guidebook for living holy lives on this Earth. And we do this as a community, even as we do individually. To be a kehilla kedosha, a holy community, Torah must be at our center, even as we interpret it and understand it for our own day, our own time and our own community. Without Torah as the center, we are like a ship without a rudder. It is our eternal platform upon which we build our lives as Jews.

I close with a story, first told by my teacher and friend, Rabbi Ed Feinstein of Valley Beth Shalom. There once was a city with two synagogues. One synagogue was in the wealthiest neighborhood. It was an imposing edifice with great golden doors. Inside was a beautiful sanctuary with a great ark. And in the ark were dozens of beautiful Torah scrolls. This synagogue had everything — except congregants. No one came to pray or study or celebrate. Each week the rabbi would come by, open up the building, check around to make sure everything was in order and then close the building for another week.

The other synagogue was different: It was in the poorest part of town. It was a broken-down hovel of a building with cracked walls and doors that squeaked. But it had congregants, hundreds of them, who came every Shabbat: old people, young people, single people, parents & children. They came because they loved Torah even though the members of this congregation were so poor that they couldn’t actually afford a Torah scroll. But, in order to teach their children, they took two sticks of wood and a long piece of blank parchment and pretended it was a Torah. An old covered milk crate served as they ark, and an old man who had memorized the Torah served as their reader. He would read to crowds of people each week, people who hung on every word, discussing its meaning, wrestling with the text; Torah was their life.

One week the rabbi of the wealthy synagogue arrived to check on everything. He switched on the lights, saw that everything was untouched, unmoved from the last week and the week before. As he was about to leave, he heard a scratching sound. He listened carefully to find the source of the sound. Was it a bug? A mouse? He searched everywhere until he finally located the source: it was coming from inside the ark! He walked gingerly up to the Ark and pressed his ear against the door. Not only did he hear scratching, but now he heard voices. Voices? Was someone in the ark? He grasped the huge handles and slowly cracked open the door. The door swung open, flinging the rabbi back. Out of the ark came swarms and swarms of letters! Like ink-black butterflies, the letters flew off the Torah scrolls and poured out of the ark.

A black aleph came forward, and the rest of the letters formed lines: alefs and bets and gimmels and dalets headed for the golden doors of the synagogue. The rabbi couldnʼt believe his eyes. “Stop!” he yelled. “Where are you going?” The aleph signaled for the letters to stop and said, “We are leaving.” “Leaving?” the rabbi exclaimed. “Why? Look how we have treated you. We dress you in the most beautiful velvet, protect you in this stately ark. We show you only the highest respect and reverence.”

“It is true that you respect us Rabbi. But you donʼt love us. It is not enough to dress us in fancy clothes. You must open the Torah and open yourself to the Torah. We are lonely Rabbi! We need people to read us and learn from us and celebrate us.” The rabbi was shocked. He pleaded with the letters. “Donʼt leave us!” “Leave you?” the aleph replied. “We are not leaving you. You left us long ago. We are going where we are appreciated. Now, please Rabbi, stand aside so we can go.” The rabbi stared in amazement as the letters headed right out of the synagogue. At last, the final tav went out. “Where are you going?” the rabbi called out. The tav reached back to the rabbi and answered, “Follow us.”

And where do you think they ended up? Of course, at the doors of the poor synagogue where the congregation had reached the moment of raising up the Torah scroll. The old man stood and slowly lifted up the pretend Torah. As he turned to show the congregation the scroll, the doors burst open and the congregants gaped in awe as the letters came in. The old man froze in place, staring with amazement as the letters flew up to the blank parchment and took their places in order, forming a complete Torah. He felt the letters with his rough hands and after a moment, called out, “A miracle!” Joy rose up from the congregation and everyone started dancing and singing with the Torah. The rabbi couldn’t believe what he was seeing: first the letters, and now dancing with the Torah! To him Torah was ponderous and solemn, not joyous — you donʼt dance with a Torah!

The rabbi slowly walked to the front of the room. His seriousness and gloominess snuffed out the joy immediately. Everyone stopped. “How can you dance with the Torah? The Torah is heavy, holy, it must be revered.” “How can you not dance with the Torah?” the old man answered joyfully. “The Torah is our life, our joy, our gift to our children. Here, rabbi, hold it in your arms.” It had been quite some time since the rabbi had held a Torah. He found it wasn’t heavy at all. He felt warmth infusing his body. A smile came to his lips and tears came to his eyes. And then he heard a voice from within the scroll, the aleph, whisper in his ear, “Dance, Rabbi!” Soon everyone was dancing again and they danced the entire Shabbat together with their Torah.

From that day on, the rabbi of the rich synagogue spends every Shabbat at the poor synagogue, sitting in the front row, taking in every word, engaging in the dialogue on the meaning of each verse. And when the time comes to raise and wrap the Torah, the rabbi is now the first one to jump up, with a joyous smile and join the call of the aleph, “Dance!” And dance he does with the Torah in his arms.

My friends, we are neither the rich synagogue nor the poor synagogue. Yes, we have a beautiful building and Torah covers, but we also have people devoted to Torah, giving so much of themselves to our congregation, sharing their lives and learning together. But we also have room to grow so that our dedication to Torah is as fervent as the poor synagogueʼs in the story, bringing crowds of people here each and every week for the central focus of our people and of every Jewish community in the world: a life of Torah, a life of joy and dancing with this precious gift. And so, in this coming year, may we focus less on how we appear and more on what we feel; may we together honor the Torah as we fill our own scroll with the holy letters, and may our entire community heed the call of the aleph, in celebration with the platform of Torah, and dance!

Shana tovah!

Erev Rosh Hashanah, 5769 — Personal Torah

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:00:48 -0700

For years, Jews around the world have worked to recover and rehabilitate Torahs that disappeared or were destroyed during the Holocaust, returning them to use in synagogues.

One Torah remained hidden for more than sixty years, buried where a synagogue sexton had put it, until Rabbi Menachem Youlus, of the nonprofit Save a Torah foundation, began looking for it about eight years ago. Over two decades, Rabbi Youlus said, the foundation has found more than 1,000 desecrated Torahs and restored them, a painstaking and expensive process. This one was elusive. But Rabbi Youlus was determined.

He had heard a story told by Auschwitz survivors: Three nights before the Germans arrived, the synagogue sexton put the Torah scrolls in a metal box and buried them. The sexton knew that the Nazis were bent on destroying Judaism as well as killing Jews.

But the survivors did not know where the sexton had buried the Torah. Others interested in rescuing the Torah after the war had not found it.

As for what happened during the war, “I personally felt the last place the Nazis would look would be in the cemetery,” Rabbi Youlus said, recalling his pilgrimage to Auschwitz, in late 2000 or early 2001, in search of the missing Torah. “So that was the first place I looked.”

With a metal detector, because, if the story was correct, he was hunting for a metal box in a cemetery in which all the caskets were made of wood, according to Jewish laws of burial. The metal detector did not beep. “Nothing,” the rabbi said. “I was discouraged.”

He went home to Maryland. One of his sons, Yitzchok, then 13, wondered if the cemetery was the same size as in 1939. They went online and found land records that showed that the present-day cemetery was far smaller than the original one.

Rabbi Youlus went back in 2004 with his metal detector. It beeped as he passed a house that had been built after World War II.

He dug near the house and found the metal box. But when he opened it, he discovered the Torah was incomplete. “It was missing four panels,” he said. “The obvious question was, why would the sexton bury a scroll that’s missing four panels? I was convinced those four panels had a story themselves.”

They did, as he learned when he placed an ad in a Polish newspaper in the area “asking if anyone had parchment with Hebrew letters.”

“The response came the next day from a priest. He said, ‘I know exactly what you’re looking for, four panels of a Torah.’ I couldn’t believe it.”

The priest “told me the panels were taken out of the scroll and into the concentration camp by four different people,” Rabbi Youlus said. “I believe they were folded and hidden.” One of the panels contained the Ten Commandments from Exodus.

The priest, who was born Jewish, was himself an Auschwitz survivor. He told Rabbi Youlus that the people with the four sections of the Torah gave them to him before they were put to death.

“He kept all four pieces until I put that ad in the paper,” Rabbi Youlus said. “As soon as I put that ad in the paper, he knew I must be the one with the rest of the Torah scroll.”

I begin with this true story as written directly in the New York Times, April 30 2008, an inspiring and heart-wrenching story of hope emerging from the ultimate pain and suffering. A hope that was held in the Torah of that time, a hope that was kept alive by the personal dedication of one man, a committed soul for whom Torah was too important to let even one scroll not be searched for. For that is how the Jewish people pass life on throughout the generations: through the Torah our weave is created. With the start of Rosh Hashanah, we have now officially begun PJTC’s “Year of the Torah,” a year in which we as a community will undertake the holy and exciting project of writing our own Torah, following in the traditions of our people, l’dor va’dor, to ensure the ongoing life of our sacred narrative. These High Holy Days, I am focusing our attention on the “variety of Torah experience,” to borrow an idea from the great religious thinker William James, a variety that begins tonight with the personal. You might be asking yourself, “Isn’t Torah a communal idea? Don’t we gain insight from being in community and sharing in the stories, laws and traditions together?” And while the answer to these questions is surely yes, tonight we are unpacking what it means to approach Torah from within our own hearts, our own life experience, our own unique place in the continuum of Jewish existence, for each one of us, you and I alike, can and must play a role in the ever unfolding meaning of Torah. While we often seek meaning and understanding from outside ourselves, I believe deeply that the Torah can only be understood and made meaningful in our lives if we own its teaching for ourselves, cultivating an awareness to the divine within us, to the Torah within us meshing with the Torah of the scroll. Each on their own cannot survive; the Jewish people would not have survived until today without a deep connection to Torah and I want to argue that the Torah itself would not have survived until today without personal commitments in every generation to its ongoing interpretation or without genuine value to the lives and struggles of individual Jews.

Some of the most memorable Torah lessons come in moments of personal interaction, private experiences of either God or inner wisdom, which lead to greater communal connectivity. Take Jacob for instance. In the famous story of him dreaming about the ladder in Genesis 28, after experiencing a tragic escape from his home, where he engaged in some questionable acts in regard to his brother and father, Jacob dreams of the ladder, awakes and proclaims, “God was in this place and I, I did not know.” Alone in a moment of crisis, this personal interaction and existential experience was to change Jacob forever, eventually leading him to wrestle with an angel (or himself), another profound personal moment, and become Israel, the spiritual father of our people. And then there is Joseph and his individual moments in Egypt, becoming one of the great, unsung heroes of the Torah through his ability to translate a spiritual awaking into an economic, and some might argue political, triumph in the heart of Pharaoh’s Egypt. And Moses, having his quintessential personal moment of discovery at the burning bush in Exodus 3, answering “hineni, here I am” to one of the greatest calls in history. Each of these stories live in the heart of our Torah, but do they live in our hearts? Do we read them and move on, allowing them to gloss over us like a passing shadow, or do they affect us, alter us, move us? Our liturgy reminds us each night, “ki hem chayeinu v’orech yameinu, the Torah and its teachings are our life and the length of our days” when we open our life to the Torah’s teachings, we extend our lives in meaning and insight. And some of the deepest connections come when we look inside our own hearts. It is a hidden surprise that the ancient Midrash understood, as the following legend recounts:

The angels grew jealous of God’s intention to endow Adam and Eve with God’s own image. Should mere mortals be so gifted? They plotted to hide the divine image. Some angels proposed that it be hidden beneath the seas, others that it be buried in the tallest mountains. The shrewdest angel dismissed their plans. “The human being is ambitious. She will search high and low to find the treasure. Let us hide it within the soul of the human being. It is the last place in the world that he will think of looking for it!” (As told in For Those Who Can’t Believe, Rabbi Harold Shulweis, pg. 92)

While this midrash is speaking of the divine image within us, I believe that it can also be applied to the Torah as well. Some of the best interpretations of the Torah I have heard come from regular folks seeking to make meaning of the text for themselves and their own personal lives. This is what I teach our b’nai mitzvah students as they prepare to deliver their divrei Torah: if the Torah doesn’t speak to you in this time and in your own life, then it is a mere book and not a living, breathing tree of life. The tree will die without the water of our soul. And in a beautiful symmetry, as Jews, we will die spiritually without the water of the Torah.

A personal story: Many of you know that my twins were born prematurely, with Franci on bed-rest from nineteen weeks, in the hospital for three weeks before the birth, and the kids in the NICU for eight weeks after. We lived in Kingston, NY and the hospital was in Albany, an hour away. These were some of the scariest and most unsettling days of my life, not knowing if my kids, babies that we had desperately worked to bring into the world, were going to survive and if they did, what would be the damage to their minds or bodies, if any. We had an amazing community in the Kingston shul, our friends and family came to our aid from near and far, and we had each other. But, on those drives back and forth (I put 5,000 miles on my car in those three months!), I would often meditate and focus on the story in Genesis of Rebecca and the birth of her twins. The Torah tells us, in Genesis 25, that Rebecca, after feeling her twins “wrestling” in her womb, a premonition of what was to come, that she went to inquire of God, asking famously, “If this is so, why do I exist?” (Gen. 25:22). I too felt that feeling of helplessness, an existential pain that cried out from deep within me. I found comfort in the Torah, not in the fact that God answered Rebecca which I accept is not how God functions today; rather, the comfort came from knowing that someone in our tradition had experienced something similar to what I was going through. And baruch hashem, my kids are fine, wonderful 1st graders with zero physical or mental issues from their challenging birth. The Torah was my personal comfort. It was there for me in a time of need. And it can be there for you too, in your own way, if you are open to it.

Last year at this time, I asked each of us to consider what the concept of mitzvot might mean and explored interpretations outside the realm of “commandedness,” which is what the word traditionally means. I have been thinking a great deal over this past year, having sessions called “Congregational Conversations,” in which we discussed and unpacked what it means to be a part of this religious community. You have heard me talk about mitzvot, a core aspect of the Torah, as “spiritual discipline,” actions and ideas that call us to a greater sense of commitment, even without feeling that there is a punishing God watching over us if we don’t obey. Tonight, in the context of our connection to Torah on a personal level, I want to offer another interpretation of mitzvah for our time, that of mitzvah as “personal engagement.” It is certainly a mitzvah to be involved in Torah study and there is a blessing to say before we learn. The end of the blessing, after the traditional opening formula of “baruch ata adonai,” is “la’asok b’divrei Torah,” literally, “to be busy with words of Torah.” This blessing evokes such an active quality, one that calls us to be fully engaged in the study. Personal engagement is something that each of us does on our own, from our hearts and with our full selves. Think about the times in your life when you have been personally engaged in something, be it work, family, a hobby, a piece of chocolate cake, a ball game, a humanitarian cause, etc. Think about the quality of action that this required, and how you felt doing it. When we are personally engaged, we focus, concentrate and are fully present in the experience. Our body, our eyes, our energy are all dedicated to one focus. Now, I want you to think about your personal engagement with Torah. Does it have this kind of laser focus? Does it have this kind of dedication and energy of purpose? I believe that a rededication to focus of this kind is what it will take to revitalize and reenergize the progressive Jewish community in regard to the more traditional aspects of Judaism, including Torah study, which we have mostly let slide from our consciousness. We need to “get busy” with our Jewish selves!

Joke: A businessman rushed into the office of his rabbi and complained loudly about his troubles. “I am stone broke,” he cried. “My creditors call day and night demanding money. My wife says she’ll divorce me if I don’t straighten out my financial problems and my daughter say she wants me to give her a $15,000 wedding. What can I do? What can I do?” The rabbi said, “Calm yourself. I have good advice for you. What I want you to do is go home, place the Torah a table. Sit down in front of the Good Book, close your eyes and open the Torah at random at any page. Then take your finger and point to any place on that page, keeping your eyes closed. When you open your eyes you will find the answer to your problems under your finger.” The fellow thought the rabbi was totally confused and ridiculous. Yet, on his way home he decided to give that advice a try anyway since he had nothing to lose.

Now the rabbi hadn’t seen this fellow for three months when suddenly he rushed into his office and shouted. “Rabbi, good news. I am inviting you to officiate at my daughter’s $15,000 wedding.” The rabbi was astonished. “So you did what I told you.” “Yes I did,” said the businessman. “I put the Torah on the table, closed my eyes, opened at a random page and put my finger on the page. When I opened my eyes, there in front of me was the answer to my financial problems.” “Speak up!” shouted the rabbi, “Tell me, what were the words under your finger?” “Chapter eleven,” said the businessman.

I want to say something to each of us now: Torah’s accessibility is available to each one of us, all of us, including non-Jewish spouses, those who have never looked at a word of Torah in their life, parents of children raising them Jewish, the young among us, the seniors among us, and all in between. Torah inspired Christianity and Islam, so it has universal applications. I want to help each of us feel closer to Torah, closer to our tradition, maybe even closer to God, and I want this because I feel a deep love of Torah and a deep love for each of you. I have heard some concerns since last year’s sermon that I want to take us down a path of more stringent observance, which has made some uncomfortable. I appreciate the folks who spoke to me about this, and I want to say now that everyone is welcome at PJTC, no matter where on the Jewish path we are. My job as the rabbi is to try and excite us about Judaism and hopefully bring us closer and closer to the core, which is the Torah. As God speaks about Ishmael in tomorrow’s Torah reading, God heard Ishmael’s cry “ba’asher hu sham,” where he was in that moment. The Midrash teaches us that God hears us, accepts us, and is open to us wherever we are on our path. I am only inviting us to be on the path, and hopefully to continue walking down the path each year.

The first step in having a more personal relationship with Torah is to read it! Systematically designed to foster ongoing connection, the Torah is divided into easy reading sections: a parshah each week, seven aliyot in each parshah, corresponding to the seven days of the week, culminating in Shabbat. So, you could start by making sure you have a Torah in your home, and then you can begin with Genesis, which we start in a few weeks, and start the journey for the year. We started a program this year that allows you the opportunity to have an actual Torah scroll in your home. Only one family participated! Maybe some folks will be moved to try it this year. Each week on Thursdays, starting again after the holidays, I will continue to lead a one-hour lunch and learn Torah class on the weekly portion. Maybe consider adjusting your schedule to join us. I will also be teaching two different classes this year on Torah, the first one about the history and structure of the Torah, looking at some of the well-known and less well-known chapters, and the second class will be about how to write a d’var torah, a short teaching of your own on Torah. There are countless books about the Torah, and of course, there are numerous websites and podcasts on the weekly Torah portion. This is what I mean when I say personal engagement. I want you to join me, in honor of our “Year of the Torah,” and learn something new about the Torah. Let us together answer the call of the liturgist, who says, “v’ha’er aynanu b’toratecha, open our eyes, enlighten us, with your Torah.” If you have never even looked at it, get the book and start reading. If you are a regular, go deeper into your study, add Rashi to your weekly reading, start a Torah study chavurah, invite friends over on Shabbat afternoon for snacks and Torah learning. We might think about doing that at different people’s home’s this year. I am happy to help make that happen, if there are chevreh, a group of people, to join in. The Mishnah, in Peah 1:1, says famously that “talmud Torah k’neged kulam, the learning of Torah, in all its multiple facets, is equal to all other things,” and in Pirke Avot, “When two people study Torah together, the Divine presence, Shechina, is in their midst.” We study, and that leads us to action in our world, as it says in the Talmud Kiddushin 36a, but we need to be grounded in study, for that is what helps sustains the action. In essence, this is what Jews do.

I want to close with a beautiful teaching I found from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, chief rabbi of Britain, a man I greatly admire, whose book The Dignity of Difference I highlighted a few years ago on Yom Kippur. It says in parshat Ha’azinu, at the end of Deuteronomy, the following: “Let my teaching fall like the rain and my words descend like the dew.” Rabbi Sacks notes a midrash from Sifrei, which likens Torah to the rain, in that, “just as the rain is one thing, it falls onto the earth and waters trees, bushes, plants, grass, each growing according to their own strength and personal need.” Following this midrash, Rabbi Sacks says, “There is only one Torah, yet it has multiple effects. It gives rise to different kinds of teaching, different sorts of virtue…The Torah is compared to rain precisely to emphasize that its most important effect is to make each of us grow into what we could become.” In a remarkably pluralistic teaching, Rabbi Sacks is reminding us that while we might all be reading the same Torah, we will all have different interpretations, unique understandings and personal responses. He makes a poignant point when he says, “Judaism, in short, emphasizes the other side of the maxim, E pluribus unum, out of the many, one; [our tradition] says, ʻout of the one, many.’” The Talmud reminds us of this idea when it teaches, “If one sees a crowd of Israelites, one says the blessing, ʻBlessed is God who discerns secrets,’ because the mind of each is different from that of another, just as the face of each is different from another.” (Berachot 58a) An odd blessing for a crowd, where we would expect it to focus on the unity of the people, but as Rabbi Sacks teaches “each member of the crowd is still an individual with distinctive thoughts, hopes, fears and aspirations.” And so may we be: a community personally engaged in the traditions and text of our people, finding our place in the scroll and creating a place for the scroll in us.

Shana tovah u’metukah!