Kol Nidre: Sanctuary Service

Sermon by Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman
2018/5779

I decided for this Yom Kippur to go back to the basics – feeling remorseful, forgiveness, reconciliation – and I wanted to begin this sermon with a personal kind of everyday experience. When I thought of all the examples, of which there are many, don’t get me wrong. Times I needed to feel remorseful or forgiven. I thought about my family and I thought, I’m not going to make public what happens in my home. I thought about people who are angry at me at Temple because I didn’t do something right; there are many. But I thought displaying that publically might not be in the best taste – I’d have to ask forgiveness, by the way. So I came into Temple this afternoon and I sat down and a Rabbi goes to somebody who is very close, right? My Executive Assistant, Diana. And I say, “Diana, can you give me an example of a time I did something that I needed to ask for your forgiveness? And she goes, ‘You mean like yesterday?’ And I’m like, yeah, what happened yesterday? ‘Well, Rabbi, you were in my space and you called it an archaeological dig. And then I had to go get something out of your car that you forgot and guess what? It was an archaeological dig.’ Sorry, Diana.  

So the idea of being remorseful is the centerpiece of Yom Kippur. There’s a story about God sending an angel down to Earth to find the most precious thing in the world. So the angel goes down and brings back a smile from parents looking at their newborn child. God says, “It’s precious, but it is not the most precious.”

The angel goes back down and brings the song of the nightingale. “No,” God says. “Go back.”

The angel brings back a young person walking an elderly person walking across a crowded street. “No,” says God.

The angel is searching and searching on this earth and all of a sudden hears the cry of an adult man. A man, crying. The angel steps aside to watch what’s happening and the man is crying because he said harsh words to his brother and feels so terrible.

So the angel takes one tear and brings it to God and God says, “Yes. The tear of remorse is the most precious thing on this earth.”
We know this; we just read it. We will read many more tomorrow. For the sin that I have committed against you, openly and in secret. The sin that I have committed against you inadvertently. The sin that I have committed against you under duress.

Judaism understands that impact is over intention. Judaism understands that intention can be used as a defense, actually, and not taking responsibility like, “I didn’t mean it. No, it wasn’t something that I really knew that I was doing. I’m sorry!” Judaism says you have to apologize anyway. You have to apologize for the things you didn’t mean or the things you thought you didn’t mean, which is a class on Freud, which I’m not giving today.

So here we are. Impact over intention. It’s a powerful lesson about forgiveness.

A man – Christian Picciolini – you heard him here; he spoke here. He’s an incredible human being. He used to be a leader in a Nazi skinhead cell outside of Chicago. He was homophobic, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, he was racist; he hated anyone and everyone who was not white because he believed he was the victim.

One day, he was beating up a young black man only because he was black. And he all of a sudden caught a glimpse where he locked into the fear in this young man’s eyes. And then it was all over in the best of ways. Christian got out of his extremist life and he actually created a non-profit called Life After Hate where he actively brings people out of extremist organizations in order to turn their life around as he turned his life around. You can google him; it is amazing.

Impact over intention. That is one of the major precepts of Judaism.

A second precept of Judaism is that reconciliation without repentance and repair is actually nothing at all. It doesn’t hold together, meaning somebody has to do a lot of hard work in order for reconciliation to happen. It’s not easy.

Michelle Goldberg in the New York Times last Sunday wrote a piece about the #MeToo movement. She wrote a very interesting perspective on it. She said, as she was speaking about a whole array of people, that the people who have been accused of harassment – not the most egregious people but others – that she feels sorry for them. They’ve gotten caught up, but she realizes that they don’t actually feel sorry for the women that they might have offended. They actually don’t even think much about the women that they might have offended. And that is, according to Michelle, why the #MeToo movement of reconciliation hasn’t really gone very far. Because these men actually aren’t building restitution or reconciliation, they just want to be absolved of what they are accused of.

We know this kind of world, don’t we? In the Torah, long ago, Jacob and Esau teaches us the need for repentance and repair before reconciliation. You remember the story – good old Jacob stole Esau’s birthright and stole his blessing. And Esau’s a little upset – okay, he wants to kill his brother – and so Jacob leaves for a long time and becomes a very wealthy man. He has a lot of wives and he has a lot of kids and he has a lot of animals. And he decides to return and he is going to meet his brother Esau again. Perfect. Life is going pretty well. I’m going to do it. God says, “No, no, Jacob. You don’t get to do that. No. You go over here on the other side of the river.” And there, an angel wrestles with him.

We often look at Esau, we often talk about wrestling as this wonderful thing that the Jewish people do, but I think actually God made Jacob wrestle because he understood in order to be reunited with his brother, Jacob had some work in growing up to do. He had to feel the pain of what it means to have done something wrong even if, in the end, it works out okay. He had to take responsibility and so he wrestles with the angel, with the man, and guess what happens? He comes back, limping. He’s limping for the rest of his life and got a new name – he went from Jacob to Yisra'el the One Who Wrestles.

So here we have a patriarch who needed to learn the lesson of what it means to truly repent and repair in order to reconcile. He and his brother come back together. There are many debates whether there was really reconciliation or not, but the bottom line is they didn’t kill each other and that’s a good thing.

Rabbi Jonathan sacks says it is not an exaggeration that forgiveness is the most powerful implementation of human freedom. Forgiveness equals human freedom.

Another precept in Judaism is this idea that we have the ability to transform the experiences, the hurdles, the realities that are in our lives through forgiveness. That we don’t have to be our circumstances; that somehow we, as human beings, can find a way around our circumstances. He actually says that when tragedy hits and there is no hope, forgiveness is the answer.

Jean Quam, who is the Dean of the School of Education, gave a sermon this summer and introduced us to a man she met whose name is Ray Hinton. He wrote this book, The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row.

Ray, as he is known, spent 30 years imprisoned on death row. He was innocent, completely innocent. And after 30 years, defended by Bryan Stevenson, a very well-known writer and lawyer, he walked out of that jail as an innocent man. The evidence did not add up; it never did.

Ray actually found this incredible ability to find freedom. He used his humor, his imagination, his wisdom, and intelligence. He actually broke through the incredible boundaries where each man on death row lived in their own cell. Ray would begin talking to people – they couldn’t see each other, but they would talk and he would make them laugh and he would talk about the things that he did and his family and they would talk about the things that they cared about and they spoke to each other when they were in their cells, when they were so lonely and isolated. And he broke through these incredible barriers. After a few years he decided to let go of his hate; he had lived with so much hate for a just -- an injustice system, as far as he was concerned. And so he found a way to say they can imprison my body, they can imprison my future, but they cannot imprison my soul.

He made friends with a man, Henry. And he found out that Henry actually was a leader in the KKK and was involved in a lynching of a young black man. Henry changed his ways by becoming friends with Ray. He said, Ray, the hatred that I was taught by my parents was just wrong. And on one visiting day, Henry introduces Ray to his father and says this is my friend. An African American man is my friend.

It’s an incredible story of redemption.

And Ray tells his fellow inmates that he is going to write a book when he gets out and he is going to tell their stories and he’s going to tell his story and he did. And he wrote this story by saying the sun does shine even when we don’t see it.

We all have heard these stories from the Holocaust. I have told Anna Orenstein’s story many times of her finding an apple core for her birthday in Auschwitz, eating it, savoring it, loving it. And she too survived a horror, just like Ray. And she, at 90-plus years old, still eats the core of every apple she has because it reminds her of miracles.

We know the power of forgiveness when we sit around a table and remember our loved ones, never telling their résumés, never telling their successes, but always a tear when you tell this story of forgiveness of a loved one and an I’m sorry at the end of life is so life-giving.

That is the most precious thing on this earth.

Forgiveness is redemptive. We know it, we’ve heard it, we as a people know it in our kishkas and we bring it forth.

Forgiveness is redemptive, but not without a limp, not without a severing. And you know what? That limp, that weakness as some might look at, is actually the core of our strength. We are Yisra'el, we are wrestlers, and we are wrestlers who come out of the fight proud of the limp that we have for the rest of time.

Gmar Chatimah Tova.

Yom Kippur: Truth

Sermon by Rabbi Sim Glaser
2018/5779

When I was about the age of our TIPTY choir participants, in the year 1969, I fully and completely believed that Paul McCartney of the Beatles had died in an automobile accident. Paul was dead. There was proof of it! I had read all about it in several pop music magazines and even in major newspapers.

The clues were all there – the 28 IF license plate on the Volkswagen on the cover of Abbey Road (meaning that Paul would have been 28 years old “if” he had lived). And in that same picture Paul is dressed for burial, Ringo like a funeral director, George as a gravedigger, and John as God.

If you played parts of Revolution 9 on the white album backwards (a trick you can do with vinyl) you could hear the words “turn me on dead man.” The famous front cover of the Sgt. Pepper’s album features a left handed bass guitar in flowers on the ground like at a graveside. On the back cover of Sgt. Pepper’s, Paul is the only Beatle turned with his back to the camera. The song lyrics “without you” are right over his head.

At the fade out to the song Strawberry Fields Forever you can clearly hear John Lennon saying “I buried Paul.” On Magical Mystery Tour, three of the Beatles are wearing red carnations. Paul’s is black. Another photograph has Paul in uniform seated at a desk with a large sign in front of him that says in full caps: “I WAS.”

There were, in fact, hundreds of provocative clues indicating that Paul McCartney died in 1966 and was replaced by a look-alike contest winner. Clearly someone was trying to tell us something, and I was transfixed.

The only problem was… that it was total nonsense. Narishkeit as we say in French. Paul wasn’t dead. He’s still not dead. He is 74 and performing, live.

The reason I remember this so vividly almost 50 years later is because at the time, and for almost two full teenage years of my life, I completely believed it. It wasn’t until a few years later when they were talking about how idiotic all the fans had been to believe this stuff, that I realized I was one of those idiots!

The year this phony story broke we were living in Jerusalem. It was a year of uncertainty. We had uprooted from northern California – boom – to the Middle East. New friends, new language, new home, new schools: everything was turned on its head. Unlike the Israel of today, there was not a lot of English being spoken or printed so we were glued to the twice daily BBC broadcast and the Jerusalem Post weekly newspaper which I read cover to cover. I was eager for information and evidence of certainties and truths.

Everybody deals with anxious uncertainty in different ways. I remember that same year my father was smoking his way through two and a half packs of cigarettes every day. It was the brand where the company told you that real tough men smoked them. When we would beg him to kick the habit he would respond: “Don’t worry,” he’d say, “I’m too mean to die!” As it turned out, he was wrong. Convinced of his immortality by a corrupt tobacco industry peddling false facts… as hard truth… to sell their product.

We latch on to supposed truths because they make us feel better. We join chat rooms and receive Twitter feeds that confirm things we already believe. You see? I was right! If the information supports our point of view then it is true. If it does not then it is false. As weird as it sounds, “facts” are becoming relative.

The Colbert Report famously coined the word truthiness. Something that seems pretty truthful, but who cares if it is factual or not? He would joke: “I don’t like encyclopedias. They are elitist, telling us what is or isn’t true. What did or didn’t happen. Who’s Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was finished in 1914? If I want to say it happened in 1941, that’s my right…”

Colbert continued, “Ladies and gentlemen [the truth] comes from your gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than in your head? Look it up. Somebody’s gonna say I did look it up and it’s wrong. Well, mister, that’s because you looked it up in a book. Next time try looking it up in your gut.”

There is nothing new about people presenting things as facts that are simply not true. There have been many articles recently testifying to the “death of truth” in our time. But truth has been getting the shaft for centuries, and few groups of people in the world know the dangers of “false truths” as well as the Jewish people.

We are, after all, the children of Treblinka, the concentration camp that the Nazi propaganda machine portrayed to the world as a comfortable existence and a model of the benevolent protection the Third Reich gave their Jewish citizens.

We are the children of Alfred Dreyfuss, the French Jewish Captain accused falsely of treason in a famous trial in 1894. One that lasted 12 years and was viewed with fascination the world over by folks who believed in his guilt without any sound evidence.

We are the children of the blood libel, perhaps the oldest lie in human history. For 2,000 years, we were subject to the fraudulent accusation that we are Christ killers. We know the cost of absurd lies portrayed as truth.

And the beat goes on. Only this last year the Polish government sought to rewrite their own history, making it illegal to describe Polish death camps, or to assert that Polish citizens had any part in the Holocaust. Why the bold lie? To make people feel better about their origins, I suppose.

As we journey into the future, the accuracy of the historic past gets harder to prove. Today, nearly one-third of all Americans, and almost half of Millennials believe that substantially less than 6 million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. And while there is evidence of over 40,000 concentration camps and ghettos, more than half of Americans can’t name a single one. When you have that kind of gap in historical knowledge it is so easy to fill it with tripe.
We are also the children of a warming world. A world which contains an alarming number of people denying sound, factual, compelling climate science. Why? Because it is scary, and when we don’t want to think about something we invent “alternative facts.” We peddle it as the truth.

This is, of course, human nature. We all fall prey to falsehoods and misinformation. And every one of us carries around facts and stories about ourselves and others, only some of which are accurate.

I, for example, have told the story of my mother’s parents endless times, based on what my mom told me growing up. How they lived in the little village of Malsch. How, when things started going badly, her parents got her and her brother out but they were relocated to Gurs, a French internment camp in the Pyrenees, where they suffered for about two years, and then the train that took them directly to Auschwitz where they were killed the day they arrived.

I was telling this very story to Yehudit Shendhar, the assistant director of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, a few years ago when she was here speaking. As I got to the part about the train going directly from the camp to Auschwitz she started shaking her head. “What?” I asked. “What?” She said: “That could not have happened.” And she recited some facts from her detailed studies indicating that no trains went directly from Gurs to Auschwitz.

This was stunning to me. Not only was the sacred history of my grandparents’ demise being called into question, but the reality was that I myself had been guilty of telling an inaccurate story about that crucial moment in history for almost half a century.

It made me wonder, how precise is any of the information encased in my skull? How much has been altered in the course of communication and my own fabrication? I’m a creative guy. I make stuff up!

It is human to bend and stretch information. The Torah and the Midrash themselves are stunning examples of the sages trying to make sense of a complex universe by making up stories.

Curiously, Judaism teaches that there are certain times that lying is allowed, even perhaps encouraged. To save a life, to prevent future harm to someone, even to exaggerate a point. In Genesis, even God lies. When Sarah laughs that her husband Abraham, at 90, is too old to father a child, God says “Oy, that is not going to play well with the old man!” And proceeds to tell Abraham that Sarah was laughing at her own inability to have children at her advanced age.

OK, so God didn’t say “oy.” I made that up.

It should be simple to spot the truth and to stop lying, right? As the Torah teaches, midvar sheker tirchak: “distance yourself from words of falsehood” or from the holiness code: lo t’cha’chashu v’lo t’shak’ru ish b’amito, “you shall not deceive or lie to one another.” It’s even one of the Ten Commandments: You shall not bear false witness.

To be human is to twist tales and exaggerate. But don’t present them as facts! As Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously observed: “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts.”

I remember seeing a church marquee that read: Avoid Truth Decay, Brush up on your Bible. We are emerging into an era of “truth decay.” A post-truth era that includes now familiar phrases such as “fake news” and “alternative facts” and “phony science.” We used to say, well, here is my opinion. Now we play hard and fast with facts, which is scary.

We live in an era of climate change deniers, birthers, and anti-vaxxers; history revisionists and internet trolls who talk on Facebook about fake Americans; even Facebook “likes” (thumbs up) are robot generated. Websites that present false facts about candidates in elections.

This has been exponentially accelerated by social media, which connects users with like-minded members and supplies us with customized news feeds that reinforce our preconceptions, allowing us to live in our increasingly narrow silos. Why do ads keep popping up on my computer for Pepto-Bismol and reissues of old Beatle albums? Because they know who I am and what I want!

I love my Google search and my Wikipedia. The democratization of information is quite appealing. But there is a danger in replacing genuine knowledge with “the wisdom of the crowd,” blurring the lines between fact and opinion, between informed argument and blustering speculation. Oh yes, I am a big fan of the internet, but let’s remember: The internet is supposed to reflect and transmit reality, not create it!

What does it take to get something taken offline these days?

My brother and sister-in-law are therapists in Newtown, Connecticut and lived through two horrific years following Sandy Hook, consoling and counseling the bereft families. Alex Jones, the perverse bombastic radio personality who called Sandy Hook an invented political scam and who publically listed the address of a family he claims never lost their child, is only now finally losing his radio sponsors and stands to get yanked off the air once and for all.

Mark Zuckerberg, maybe the most influential businessman of his generation with 2.3 billion Facebook followers, refusing to take down posted Holocaust denial messages because their lies may not have been “intentional.” What’s that about? Why does it take a court case and the biggest-ever one day stock market nose dive to have something like that taken down off the net?

Our Jewish tradition encourages healthy dialogue. Vikuach, or argumentation, is actually a mitzvah. Maybe that is why Jews are such excellent doubters, skeptics, critics, and kvetches. These are legitimate parts of our faith. But competing facts? No.

Should we be concerned when those holding the highest positions in the land of the free are spewing baseless venom that is gobbled up by haters? Hannah Arendt notably wrote in 1951: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or Communist, but (ordinary) people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, between true and false, no longer exists.”

There are times when we just can’t handle the truth. But that doesn’t mean it should go away. There will always be a human attraction to false stories that soothe us in our ignorance, when the truth is too hard to swallow. It is human nature to do this!

This holiday of Yom Kippur is a holiday unlike any other in that it asks us to tell the truth about ourselves. To end the year-long embrace of fictions that let us get away with what we’ve done and said. Coming back every year, looking at our lives, stunned at how different we are from the year before. How we crafted stories and goals and dreams and how they didn’t come to fruition.

Over the years of my career I have given a few hundred eulogies, and every once in a great while someone will approach me after the service and say: “You know, that was a lovely eulogy… who were you talking about”? So I was comforted to read that in the Talmud one of the occasions you are permitted to lie is when you are writing a eulogy.

Why would that be? I think it’s because at the end of our life we want someone to tell a really good story about our years on this planet. We want our true lives to be about caring, and generosity and integrity. We want to inspire others who will come after us with things we actually said and did.

A year ago at this time we really had hopes to write a better story for ourselves, and then life got in the way… We made promises that were hard to keep. We said things to ourselves and to others that simply weren’t true. That’s the way we are wired.

On this holiday we want to go home again. To return to the land of our souls. I don’t know… maybe that is why it is such a colossal letdown at the end of the Wizard of Oz when Toto pulls down the curtain and behold, there is a crazy old man pulling ropes and talking into a voice modulator. We so wanted to believe we could gain a heart, that we grow a brain and become wiser, or finally gain courage, or just get back to Kansas… And it turns out some snake oil salesman was lying to us the whole time.

Let’s not be snake oil salesmen to ourselves.

On Yom Kippur we are not allowed to play loose with the facts. The truth is not always easy to swallow, but it beats the heck out of living in a world of lies that masquerade as the truth. We have gone down that rabbit hole before, and it’s dangerous.

This world is a real place, and there are verifiable facts out there. We need to be seekers of that truth, about ourselves, about each other, about our nation, about the physical planet.

Our official credo is Shma Yisrael – listen oh Israel. Maybe our words this year should also be: “You know, I could be wrong.” Or: “maybe I should rethink that…” or “you make a good point!” Or, “wait, who just published that fact?”

The word for truth itself spans the entire Hebrew alphabet – Alef, the first letter, mem – dead center – and taf – the last letter – together spell emet.

We are a people of language. We are the people of the book. We are Supreme Court justices, peddlers, bankers, woodchoppers and water drawers, speech writers, physicians and advertisers, scientists and poets. But above all things, let us be truth seekers.

It may be a more difficult task in the coming years than ever before, but this is a quest that should never cease.

And that’s a fact.

Yom Kippur

Sermon by Rabbi Jennifer Hartman
2018/5779

Every year in late October, I wake up extremely early and drive to Armstrong High school to attend the New Hope Prayer Breakfast.  Started by the current mayor of New Hope, the breakfast is meant to honor all of the religious backgrounds that are represented in the suburb.  Every year I dread this day because I am NOT a morning person (although Fred is working very hard to make me one!), and it is always cold and I don’t particularly like the cold.  Yet every year once I enter the auditorium and am embraced by the warmth and kindness of those in attendance, I am reminded of why I attend.  I always find inspiration, both from my colleagues and from the students who participate in the morning program.  A few years ago, the program honored a particularly inspiring high school graduate.As he approached the podium, I saw a handsome young man in his early 20s who needed some help finding his way to the lectern.  Once settled, he began to tell us his story.  Elias was driving home from college in North Dakota a few years ago, when, out of nowhere, a car driving at full speed in the wrong direction, struck his car head-on.  The next thing Elias knew, he was lying in a hospital bed, barely able to move and unable to see.  Elias had been hit by a drunk driver, rendering him blind.  

Over the days and weeks and months that followed, the swelling in his body went down, the bones healed, and Elias was even able to attend the court hearing of the drunk driver and find forgiveness.  But he never regained his eyesight.  So began Elias’s arduous and painstaking task of learning how to navigate the world without the ability to see.  He has not given up on any of his dreams, they are just taking a bit longer to reach. Today, he happily lives on his own, in a townhouse in Brooklyn Center.  He is finishing his master’s degree in education and he is a student teacher working with middle school band students.  He still loves to play music and, if I remember correctly, he has a girlfriend.  

At the end of the program I approached Elias and asked if he would be willing to come and speak to our 7th grade students. He agreed without hesitation.  When the students entered the room and saw the guest speaker they questioned what he was doing there.  When they learned he was going to tell them about how he became blind they were surprised.He did not fit any of their preconceived notions of a blind person!  They were in awe of his incredible determination.        

Evelyn Glennie is a Grammy-winning percussionist and composer – who, due to a genetic abnormality, was almost completely deaf by the age of 12.  Evelyn remembers that year, when her music teacher expressed concern with Evelyn’s ability to play given her disability.  The teacher’s logic was understandable: one cannot play music without hearing it.  How would Evelyn be able to hear the music she was playing?  The teacher did not understand that Evelyn could hear the music with her entire body as she could feel the vibrations from her head to her toes.Evelyn’s resolve forced the teacher to devise a new lesson plan.  They soon began each lesson tuning drums.  Rather than hear the tone, Evelyn needed to be able to feel in her fingers the very subtle changes in pitch.  Her teacher started Evelyn with the kettle drum, the most difficult to tune, understanding that once she mastered this instrument the rest would become easier! During her lessons, Evelyn put her hands on the wall of the music room, and would "listen" to the sounds of the instruments.  In this way she connected with those sounds far more broadly than simply depending on the ear. Because of course, the ear is subject to all sorts of other factors: The room one happens to be in, the amplification, the quality of the instrument, the type of sticks – they're all different.

As Evelyn grew older and honed her craft, she decided to audition for the Royal Academy of Music in London.  At her audition the admissions committee said they would not accept her because they did “not have a clue about the future of a so-called 'deaf musician.’” She could not accept that and said to them, "Well, if you refuse me for those reasons, as opposed to the ability to perform and to understand and love the art of creating sound – then we have to think very, very hard about the people you do actually accept." And as a result of her challenge to the admissions council, as well as her two outstanding auditions, Evelyn was accepted into the program. Furthermore, this incident impacted music institutions throughout the United Kingdom.A law was passed that made it impossible for an institution to refuse an applicant on the basis of their physical limitations.  The admissions committee needed to listen to every single applicant play before deciding to accept or reject them. This led to much more diversity in professional orchestras throughout the world.[1]

Shaquem Griffin is a rookie linebacker, drafted by the Seattle Seahawks in this year’s NFL draft. He is NOT your typical football player. Due to a pre-natal condition, Shaquem’s hand was amputated when he was 4 years old. He nevertheless grew up to star for his high school in track, football, and baseball before winning an athletics scholarship to the University of Central Florida alongside his twin brother.  In 2016, Shaquem was named American Athletic Conference defensive player of the year.  Shaquem drew national attention at this year’s scouting boot camp when he bench pressed 225 pounds 20 times using a prosthetic hand. He followed that up by recording a 40-yard dash time of 4.38 seconds, the fastest time ever by a linebacker.  When asked about his success with only one hand he responds: “People all get tackled the same.”  Shaquem has never had much patience for perceived limitations, and has overcome the challenges that could have stood in his way. 

Recently, Shaquem was at his nephew’s football game when he saw a young boy on the field who was missing a hand. Shaquem called him over and introduced himself.  The boy could not believe he was meeting a real NFL player and that this player was also missing a hand.  The boy looked down to hide his tears of gratitude and awe. The one-handed linebacker nudged his little chin upward.  “Don’t let anybody tell you what you can’t do,” Shaquem said.

Torah teaches us that we are not to curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind.  Elias, Evelyn and Shaquem had significant obstacles in their way. Each of them could have let these obstacles dictate their future.  Elias could have decided he was no longer able to become a teacher.Evelyn could have listened to that first music teacher of hers, accepting that since she could not hear with her ears, she could not become a musician.  Shaquem – knowing that NEVER before had an athlete without both hands played in the NFL – could have easily given up on his dream.  No one would have blamed them for taking a different path. These three people took the commandment from Leviticus one step further.They made sure not to put a stumbling block in front of themselves.  They did not allow fear, insecurity, or societal norms to determine their destinies.They looked into their hearts and they found the courage and the determination to follow their own path.  

Yom Kippur is the time when each of us is called on to uncover our unique trail, and to evaluate our lives in order to find motivation to move forward.  The prayers and the choreography of the service are meant for us to feel the awe of our final days on earth.  For example, we rise for Kol Nidre and face the empty ark – as if we are staring into an empty casket – to ask forgiveness for the promises we made, but did not keep. We are to ignore our bodily needs like food and water.  We do not look for refuge in alcohol, social media, TV, or music.  This is the day when we look squarely at who we are and the stumbling blocks in our way.  This is the day we begin to remove those blocks, and Judaism is here to help us with this work.  

Judaism is the “satellite navigation system” of the soul, and these High Holy Days are a gift that allows us to stop and see whether we need to change direction.Maimonides, the renowned middle ages philosopher, once said the following regarding the blowing of the shofar:“It is God’s wake-up call to all of us.Without it, we can sleepwalk through life.  We waste time on things that are urgent but not important, things that promise happiness but fail to deliver.” 

How many of us have experienced this sentiment firsthand?  How many of us follow the path directly in front of us, rather than stopping, taking stock, and reevaluating in order to follow our own route?  How many of us feel constricted by handicaps that are not visible but we feel intensely? Jewish tradition gives us many examples of people who overcame obstacles, and fought for their goals.  

We only need to look to Moses to comprehend how hard this can be.  In the Torah, Moses is described as being heavy of tongue.  Yes, the greatest orator of our tradition had a speech impediment.  He overcame not only this handicap but also his intense shyness to lead the Israelites out of Egypt and speak the beautiful poetry and prose that fill the book of Deuteronomy.  

Or we can look to one of the greatest teachers and rabbis of our tradition, Rabbi Akiva, who was born into an extremely poor family and remained illiterate into adulthood. Yet, he had a thirst for knowledge and, with his wife’s encouragement, he finally took the journey to the closest academy to learn Torah at the age of 40.  He excelled in his studies. He quickly became a prolific writer and famous teacher with over 12,000 students.  We still learn from Rabbi Akiva today, almost two THOUSAND years after his death. 

God commands us: Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind.  While this sounds like an easy charge it can be the most difficult as it not only applies to our neighbor but also to ourselves.  It was not easy for any of the people I’ve described today to overcome their challenges.  It took courage, fortitude, and the support of their communities.Yet, each one of them knew they had to pursue their dreams.  They could not live lives unfulfilled regardless of the physical and emotional barriers in front of them.  In removing these barriers they brought inspiration, knowledge, and great change to themselves and their communities.  These changes have improved the world for all of us.In today’s day and age we have the technological innovation to make almost anything possible.  It is up to us to find the resolve to remove the physical and emotional obstacles that stand in our way.  

Over a year ago, when Thomas Friedman was here for our Voices series, he charged us saying: For the first time in history all of us together can fix all of the problems in our world.  I challenge each one of us, in this New Year 5779, to heed his call and pay attention to the commandment of our tradition.  May we each work to remove the stumbling blocks in our lives so that we can not only fulfill our greatest potential, but also bring inspiration and transformation to our world.  

[1] https://www.ted.com/speakers/evelyn_glennie

Rosh HaShanah: Hello TIPTY!

Sermon by Rabbi Jennifer Hartman
2018/5779

Hello TIPTY!

I missed you guys last year!  Thank you for your understanding of my maternity leave.  And while I’m speaking to everyone in attendance today, I want you to know that YOU are the inspiration for today’s sermon!  I am sorry I am going to have my back to you, but I hope you will still listen!

With the production of Hamilton being in town, I would be remiss if I did not reference it!  In the show, Hamilton uses the refrain:

I am not throwing away my shot

I am not throwing away my shot

I’m just like my country

I’m young, scrappy and hungry

And I’m not throwing away my shot

So many of the most amazing changes in history were started by ambitious, energetic, and brave young people – like you.  This includes the establishment of the United States of America. At our nation’s inception, three of our most influential founding fathers were James Monroe at 19 years old, Aaron Burr at 20, and Alexander Hamilton at 21.  I understand this may be too “ancient history” for you to feel a connection with these great historical figures.  So, let us look more recently.  How about to the 1960s when four black teenagers walked up to the all-white Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C. and refused to leave – leading to countless sit-ins that swept the South, and forced our country to confront racial injustice.  

Or how about the 1970s uprising of black high school students in Johannesburg, South Africa.  At this time, the white and black communities spoke different languages.  The South African government made a law that only the white language could be spoken, making it nearly impossible for black teachers to teach and for black students to learn.  This government mandate was forcing these students into poverty, without any chance of upward mobility.  Several of these students courageously responded with a peaceful protest, which turned deadly when police attacked the students with guns and tear gas. The parents of these students could not understand what their children had done.These parents felt that, by standing up and challenging their government, their children were only making life worse for the community.  But these inspirational students understood that this new law meant the end of their education and that was untenable for them.  Their protest brought international attention and outrage to issues of racial equality, which ultimately led to the dismantling of Apartheid.

Or we can look to this past February when the students of Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL turned their tragedy into action.  These students took up the cause of gun control and have not only spoken with President Trump, but have also persuaded companies such as Delta and United Airlines, Hertz and Avis Car Rentals, and Metlife Insurance to cut their ties with the National Rifle Association.  These students have done more in a few short months than many lobbying groups, with much deeper pockets, have done in years.  

In all ages, society has leaned on its youth to have visions of a better future, while listening to its elders share their dreams about a life once lived.  As the prophet Joel so eloquently teaches in the Tanach – “the old shall dream dreams, and the young shall see visions.”  During the time that the prophet Joel lived, only select individuals - those who showed their commitment to God by living lives dedicated to helping the vulnerable and taking care of our earth - were given the gift of prophecy.  Joel prophesizes that in days to come, in a world where we all work toward justice, at that time, all of our youth will have visions of the future, all will hear and pay attention to God’s voice. While we do not yet live in this more perfect time, we do live in an amazing era where our young adults not only see visions of what needs to be done, but have the courage to act on these visions to help build a future of which we can all be proud.

I want to tell you, the youth who are here today, the ones in the TIPTY choir and the ones in the congregation: the adults in your world are noticing all that you do! While I was working on this very sermon, a friend sent me a text asking if I wanted topic suggestions.  Out of curiosity I replied “sure.”  He texted: “If I could write the sermon, my topic would be ‘How adults in our country need to be as good as our youth.’”  I was delighted to have evidence that I am not the only one who notices all of the work you are doing and change you are making.  While we debate and discuss, you are out there getting things done.  You are changing the world.  Do you, the youth of our congregation, our world, truly understand the power that you have?  The difference that you can make?  I still hear too many of you question the kind of impact you could have; I see you shrug your shoulders in defeat.  The reality is that you are the ones who inspire the rest of us to act.  

In 2015 I traveled with a group of 8th grade students to Alabama and Georgia to explore the intersection of the Civil Rights movement and Judaism.  The movie Selma had just come out and it was the 50th anniversary of the march which happened because of the work of two brave young people – James Bevel and Diane Nash.  James and Diane understood that segregation was eating at the soul, not only of their community, but of the nation.  Our group thought of their courage as we walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge with images of the beatings in our head.  When we entered the town of Selma we were met by a middle-aged and very energetic woman named Joanne.  She pulled us all together with her strong yet sweet voice and began to tell us her story.She spoke of the rush of excitement in early spring of 1965, as she walked across the bridge surrounded by her community, holding hands with her family.  And then the sheer terror she felt as the police descended on the march.  She remembers being beaten to the ground and out of nowhere being picked up and put into a car and taken to safety.  The events of that day defined her and her drive to bring equality to her community.  She challenged the students on the trip to find their passion and not let anything get in their way.  

Joanne did not know it at the time, but standing in the front of the line, next to Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, was Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. The two became fast friends in the early 1960s.  Both were speakers at a conference on religion and race organized by the National Conference of Christians and Jews[1].  They supported one another through many endeavors including the march from Selma to Montgomery.  After the march, Rabbi Heschel was asked if he had time to pray on the journey.  He responded, “I felt my legs were praying.”  His marching, his protesting, his speaking out for Civil Rights was his greatest prayer of all.  He, as well as Joanne from Selma, did not let anything interfere with their vision, or actions towards, a more accepting, more equal, and more just society.  

You, the students of Temple Israel, the students of Minneapolis, have as much courage, passion, and fortitude as all of the students I have been talking about; these characteristics are ingrained in you, and I marvel at this all the time.  In the aftermath of the Parkland shooting earlier this year, you coordinated walkouts at your schools in conjunction with your peers in Florida.  Through the organization Students Demand Action, you planned and implemented a march that brought thousands to our state capital.

Your civic involvement is unprecedented in many ways.This is why I was not surprised to learn that youth, ages 18 to 24, decided the 2008 election.  Just by showing up to vote in greater numbers than previous decades, you changed the course of history and elected the first black president of the United States. In fact, according to the Youth Electoral Significance Index, voters between 18-29 years old will have the greatest impact of any age group on our Minnesota elections.  The races here are projected to be very close and in close races, even slight boosts in youth voting could mean the difference between defeat and victory for candidates from either party.  It is our responsibility as part of the Jewish community to play an active role in choosing our leaders. The Talmud teaches that "A ruler is not to be appointed unless the community is first consulted."[2]  Judaism views voting as a responsibility and as US citizens, it is our privilege and an opportunity for each of us to express our beliefs on what is best for our country.  

Not only do we, your parents, teachers, and clergy, listen to you and find inspiration in your words and your actions, we are also here to help you develop your skills of advocacy.Many of these skills are already built into what you do at school[3]. Problem-solving, critical thinking, collaboration, and perseverance are all a part of your daily experience. This morning, I have given you historical and modern-day examples of youth and young adults who are using these skills to change history.  My hope is that you will see yourselves in these stories, see that the current movements you are already a part of are connected to those you learn about in history class.  Your work for justice also connects you to our Jewish tradition.  If you have not yet reached confirmation, 10th grade, then you will soon learn more about this link.  During Confirmation class, Temple Israel students connect their Jewish learning to activism and spend the year studying Jewish texts - Torah, Tanach, Talmud. In these studies I work to show you how ancient texts are directly connected to current events.  Together, we use these texts to lobby on Capitol Hill! Jewish tradition supports you when you choose to protest or organize or speak truth to power.

You, the youth of today, are a part of a community of young people with a shared vision of a more equitable society that stretches back to Alexander Hamilton and even farther – to Moses, to King David, and to Rabbi Hillel who is so often quoted as saying:  

If I am not for myself who will be for me?

If I am only for myself who am I?

If not now, when?

If not now, if not when you are young and energetic, when you are idealistic and committed, then when will you, or any of us, have the determination to do this most important work?  You, the youth of today, have the knowledge, the passion, and the resources to change our world.  I want to be sure, before we leave this morning, that you know, unequivocally, that you have this power, this strength, this courage and that we, your teachers, your parents, your trusted adults are here to support you in your passions and, mostly, to stay out of your way as you work to bring justice to this world.I strongly believe, knowing you as I do, that you are NOT going to throw away your shot!     

[1]https://www.plough.com/en/topics/community/leadership/two-friends-two-prophets

[2]Babylonian Talmud Berachot 55a

[3]https://www.ted.com/talks/sydney_chaffee_social_justice_belongs_in_our_schools/transcript?rss#t-593794

Rosh HaShanah: Thinking Horizontally

Sermon by Rabbi Sim Glaser
2018/5779

This morning is a first. Behold, we have combined the downstairs TIPTY creative service with the traditional Sanctuary service to fashion something of a hybrid. We thought it might be nice for the generations to get a sense of what each other are up to. In this room we celebrate a hallowed history of worship. Our kids are thinking about tomorrow. It’s a nice blend.

One of our great biblical prophets, Yoel, said that the old shall dream dreams and the youth shall see visions. This prophet understood the delicate balance between those of us who represent the past and those who are the guardians of the future.

Yoel is what one of my favorite Kabbalah teachers called a horizontal prophet. A horizontal prophet is concerned with making clear God’s wishes, but equally about the welfare and future of the people. Isaiah, whom we will read on Yom Kippur, is a classic horizontal prophet when he tells us that our fasting on that day has to do not so much with our saying sorry to God, but with unlocking the yoke of poverty and not allowing another to go hungry.
Then there is the famous Amos – another horizontal prophet – who demanded Justice to flow like the mighty stream – in real human terms.

Vertical prophets, on the other hand, are all zealots for God. They are single-minded, caring only about pushing God’s agenda, sort of “stumping for God,” publicizing the Divine greatness with no regard for the people other than that they obey Divine law. They are extremists with one unalterable point of view, and one that rarely addresses the future welfare of others.

A classic example of a vertical prophet is Elijah. You’ve heard mostly the good press on Elijah. You’ve sung his song, put out his cup on Passover. But Elijah was a hot-headed God promoter who was more interested in punishing sinful Israelites than investing in the future and believing that we and our offspring mean business.

Contrast Elijah with Abraham who, in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, challenged God’s own judgment to not act rashly in consideration of potential decent human character. Hey, there may be some decent folks in these towns!” Give humanity a chance!

Abraham’s goal was the future of humanity. His faith was tested many times, and he managed to show both his fealty to his God, and a love for the people he was forging into a nation. Abraham was a true horizontal prophet.

Oddly enough, the story we just heard chanted from the Torah is the one test Abraham almost failed! High atop Mount Moriah, Abraham almost becomes a vertical prophet, acting only for the sake of some bizarre Divine instruction to sacrifice his only son, and literally annihilate the future. He takes Isaac up the mountain, picks up the knife ready to end the future right there, and almost does the deed.

Spoiler alert: An angel stops him just in time! But just to keep you guessing, the Torah describes the two of them ascending the mountain, with no mention of Isaac on the way down, as though to give us a sense of what it would have been like, had the great Abraham cared nothing about the coming generations. It’s a sobering message to anyone who ignores the urgent calling of the future!

On the holiday of Shavuot this last spring I was asked to address our 10th grade confirmation students. Shavuot celebrates the giving of the Ten Commandments, but I wasn’t worried about these kids keeping the Ten Commandments. They were fifteen good kids and I didn’t spot very many potential adulterers, idol worshippers, thieves, or murderers among them. Well, there was this one kid, but never mind…

So I chose instead to give them five rules I hope they will break as they take our world into the future. Five expectations that many adults have about their likely behavior that I want them to prove false.

Rule #1

The statistics tell us that you millennials are going to replace human interaction with tech media; that some of you spend close to 6 hours a day on devices. I’d like to give a vote for looking at each other in the eyes. There really is no substitute.

Yes, it is true that Israeli technology came up with a lot of the science that led to smart media, but Jews have taught for thousands of years that real physical community is essential to our wellbeing. We need to sing and dance with each other. We need to agree and disagree with one another face to face. We need to hold each other accountable. We need to look each other in the eye. Peace negotiations are rarely made over wireless.

The Torah says that we, not our handheld devices, are, body and soul, created in the image of God. Silicon Valley says the rule is that they will tell you how to conduct your relationships. I told them to break that rule!

Rule #2

The numbers predict that when these kids come of age to vote in a few short years, more than half are not going to cast a ballot in local, state, or national elections. In the last national election, 40% of all eligible voters didn’t bother to go to the polls, and the percentage was even higher among young voters.

Our kids are growing up on a steady diet of complaining about our elected officials. How laws are being pushed through that do not have your best interests at heart. As a firm believer in the ancient Jewish law of karma I think we get what we deserve. Our generation, either by our vote or our abstention, brought about this political atmosphere.

There are people out there that are planning your future for you and are banking on the likelihood that you are going to stay home on voting day. If you have strong feelings about the issues – trade, foreign policy, LGBTQ rights, the climate, gun violence – make your voices heard and elect those who are concerned with your health, safety, and welfare.

One young person told me recently that she was not interested in politics or voting because, quote, “the politicians have ruined our world.” Maybe. But they work for you and they need to hear from you!

On Yom Kippur we will read the famous Torah passage that commands us to “choose life.” Most folks think the important word in that phrase is “life.” Actually the important word is “choose!”

Jewish historian, philosopher, and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel was noted to have said: the opposite of justice is not injustice, it is indifference. The opposite of peace is not war, it is indifference. The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference.

Right now the rule out there says that over half of you are not going to exercise your right to vote. Break that rule!

Rule #3

You kids are inheriting a planet from us that we have not taken very good care of. The statistics about rising sea levels and alarming temperatures and storm systems are dire. We react to it as though the problem is insurmountable and we have passed the tipping point for climate change and it is out of our hands. But that is old-people talk. That is vertical prophecy nonsense. That is the language of people looking 50 years down the line and saying: “well, I won’t be alive anyway.” But you and your children will be.

The direction we take from today onward is very much in your control. If you think the people in charge of protecting the environment are not doing a good job, replace them. If you think the systems and energy policies of our nation are wrong-headed, change them.

Our Torah commands us back in Genesis: “be good stewards of the planet.” That instruction has never been more consequential than at this moment in human history.

The rule says your generation and ours are too self-absorbed to do anything globally. Break that rule!

Rule #4 - Israel

Many of you kids will soon find yourselves at a university that has an active anti-Zionist campaign going. The folks who may confront you about the Jewish state have done their homework. So learn your facts about Israel and its unique position in the 4,000 year history of the Jewish people. It is ok to take issue with the policies of the Jewish state. The history of Israel is not without blemish. But it is not ok to deny Israel’s very right to exist. No other country on the face of this planet has its existence regularly called into question.

You may find yourselves engaged in passionate debate about the Jewish state. So learn about Israel’s role in the world, including the many attempts to live in peaceful coexistence with its neighbors. Make up your own mind. Visit Israel. Get to know the people of Israel, and the amazing globally healing actions that are coming out of that country.

The rule says that with every passing year fewer and fewer American Jewish youth are connecting with Israel. Break that rule!

And lastly, Rule #5 - Religious Affiliation

According to the polls on trends in religious groups in this country, 60% or more of you are going to choose to not be affiliated with any official religious institution whatsoever.

Sooner or later every human being on the planet finds some type of belief system. It may not be an officially recognized faith system like Christianity, Islam, or Judaism, but sooner or later you, and your children after you will fall into a set of beliefs. You can certainly leave it up to chance. I think associating with a Jewish institution that fosters Jewish values will be good for you.

Did religious school totally prepare you for life in the real world? Maybe not. But there are millions of people out there spewing warped value systems, and millions more who are seeking to belong to something. Just surf the net and you’ll find them. Online communities have their purpose, but they do not, for the most part, console the bereaved, feed the hungry, provide companionship during life’s hard moments, or put ancient hallowed values to work in a world of people in need.

The rule says many of you are going to turn away from your heritage. Please break that rule.

Elijah the vertical prophet did not believe much in the will and ability of humanity’s future. He didn’t have faith in the children.

And so there were consequences for Elijah: The Bible story tells us that God gets sick and tired of him, actually firing Elijah from the position of chief prophet! Elijah is pink slipped and replaced by another fellow. Turns out that God of Israel has more faith in our young people and in humanity than the prophet.

Equally strange is that Elijah’s death is never reported, as though to suggest that he lives on eternally and as a punishment of sorts he must bear witness to how the people behave. Elijah is therefore eternally condemned to appear as a featured guest with his own center stage seat at every bris that will ever occur in the Jewish future. That’s why we set a chair for Elijah at our covenantal ceremonies.

He doesn’t attend brises because he loves smoked salmon and knishes. No. Elijah is being forced to witness our undying Jewish devotion to the future. That we will not allow ourselves to get trapped with old festering ideas, but to embrace tomorrow.

In my opinion, any philosophy that cares more about today than tomorrow is not a Jewish philosophy.

And what is the most well-known thing about Elijah? As the Passover Seder draws to its conclusion, a child is asked to go open the door for that famous guest who is running on Jewish time. It is a child who greets Elijah.

Why does Elijah have to show up at every Seder? To witness eternally that the Jewish people are committed to freedom eternally. Not just with our own, but with everyone’s freedom. And not just about our historical freedom, but our future redemption. He gets there just in time to hear us say “next year in Jerusalem,” which is really shorthand for “let us do the Messianic work we need to do to make next year healthier, saner, cleaner, holier, gentler, and more peaceful than this last year was.”

It is a child who goes to the door! Always a child! Because Elijah the vertical prophet needs to look squarely in the eye the young person who is going to inherit tomorrow.

Alas, we live in a world of too much vertical prophecy. We are so sure of ourselves. We retreat into our camps. We have stopped listening to the other voice. Our immediate security in the present moment overrides our concern for the future. And when we do this, the first thing that gets sacrificed is the world of our children and grandchildren.

As the great horizontal prophet Yoel said: “The old shall dream dreams and the youth shall see visions.” Our greatest prophets were about investing in the future, and this, I believe, is where we need to firmly set our sights: knowing that the only way to ensure tomorrow is to invest in those who are being born today.

L’shanah tovah.

Erev Rosh HaShanah: Sanctuary Service

Sermon by Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman
2018/5779

Rosh HaShanah is the celebration of the creation of the world. The rabbis in the Talmud tell us that when we as humans create something, we actually create the same thing. If we create coins in a mint, the coins all look the same. But God is different. God creates human beings from one source and none of us look exactly the same.

Judaism teaches us that in God’s unity, we see it in the diversity of the human spirit, in the diversity of the world. That’s why in Kindergarten we here at Temple Israel have each of our Kindergartners create their own skin color. We have paints; we have black and we have white and brown and yellow and green and pink and beige. And each of the Kindergartners have to create their very own skin color. Everybody has multiple colors in their skin. Some of us have more pink, some of us have more brown, and some of us have more black. And it’s to teach our Kindergartners the very lesson that the Talmud teaches us: We are each unique beings and our skin color is the beautiful creation that God gave us. And then when they find the very palette of their skin in the mixture of the colors of the paint, on a huge mural, each one draws their face. 

Over the years the mural has changed. We have many more children with brown and black and it is beautiful and it is wonderful and it is the changing nature of our Jewish community. 

Jews of color who grew up here have told me many interesting stories. They tell me that when they leave the cocoon of this community that they experience things – and even in this community the stories are powerful. You see, through adoption and conversion and intermarriage, the palette of our faces and of our skin is changing. 

Jews of color have told me that sometimes they don’t feel Jewish. A Korean-born adoptee by white, Ashkenazi parents went to Hillel her first year of college and was questioned: “Why are you here?” She had her Bat Mitzvah here. She grew up here. “What are you doing here?” 

A young woman with a Latino father said that she felt like she had to leave her Latino identity at the front door as she came into Temple Israel because no one ever asked her about her heritage as a Latino. 

We have many more stories like that. 

A family who have children from Guatemala – after a history lesson here at Temple Israel, an ancestry lesson, came up to me and showed me the map. Asia, Africa – they were not there. There was an assumption that one’s ancestry came from Eastern or Western Europe. And South America was cut in half. Part of it wasn’t even on the sheet. 

We at Temple Israel and in the Jewish community – we need to discuss race and we need to discuss it from the inside out. Our Board of Directors has made this one of our main principles out of our strategic plan and I feel proud that we are doing it. 

But let’s take a moment and figure out how we got here. How did we get to the point where when we think of the person, a Jew, we think of somebody from Eastern or Western Europe? How did that all happen?

Well, in the 1800s there were about 2.5 million Jews in the world. We grew fast. By 1900 we had about 9.5 million Jew and by 1939 we had 16.6 million Jews in the world. And 9.5 came from Europe, 6.5 came from North and South America, and 1 million from Asia. We understand 1939, the Holocaust, and 6 million European Jews were killed, slaughtered. And what has happened is that we, in this United States, the majority of us came from Western or Eastern Europe; there were migrations from those places, so we have become the majority.

In 1960, the census in the United States Jews for the first time were able to check off Caucasian. All of a sudden the idea of our race became white. For white, Ashkenazi, European Jews.

What has happened since then, is that now in Israel there are 70 countries represented by the Jews who live there and this country is changing as well – 75% of the Jewish community lives in the United States or in Israel, North America probably -- I’ll add Canada. And so, we now must wrestle with race in our community.

But let’s go very far back. Where do we come from? We come from Asia and Africa. I’m pretty sure that Sarah and Abraham, I’m pretty sure that Moses and Miriam and Aaron were brown people, not white. We know that Zipporah, Moses’s wife, was Ethiopian. We know that Joseph’s wife was Egyptian. And so our people were very much an integrated whole. We came from various places with different shades of reality, but we always had one thing in common – we had the similar rights, rituals, and symbols that bound us, connected us, beyond the different realities in which we lived. 

Asian and African and Latin American Jews – they have different experiences, they have different foods, they have different understandings and narratives that we’ve never actually listened for. But in this day and age when we’re so worried about Jewish survival, it is the very door that will open the possibility of growth. A growth of population, a growth of narrative, a growth of food. 

Now let’s be honest, we all want to be Sephardic around Passover, don’t we? Have you ever heard of mushroom, jalapeño matzo balls? Mexican. Have you ever tasted not dill or garlic powder, but turmeric and cinnamon? And the beauty of cumin – Jewish Moroccan dishes are full of the smells that we love. 

In India, the haroset is actually dates, very much like the Sephardic tradition, but actually they are cooked and then put through a cheese-cloth so it’s a syrup, not a paste. So much easier to spread on matzo! Where have we been? 

We have a lot to learn. We have a lot of places to grow. And I believe it is in our hands. 

The Talmud teaches us of an emperor who questions a rabbi by holding a dove in his hand. He is trying to trick that rabbi and he says, “Rabbi, is the dove alive or is it dead?” The rabbi knows exactly what will happen. If he says alive, then that emperor will crush the bird with his bare hands. If he says dead, the emperor will let it go. So instead he says, “Dear Emperor, the answer is in your hands.” 

The answer is in our hands. We just need the courage to do the work.

Robin DiAngelo, PhD., speaks about white fragility. And she teaches us many lessons. It is a powerful book. It is a life-changing book. And she shares many things, but I want to share two of them. She says there is no colorblindness in this world. We all have grown up with the messages about what it means to have dark skin. None of us – none of us – are immune. And when we say we are colorblind or race doesn’t matter, what we do is we shut down conversation. And she says that people with white skin privilege often cannot even put a sentence together when they’re talking about race because we haven’t flexed that muscle enough to talk about it, to hear about it. And when we don’t allow ourselves those kinds of very uncomfortable situations, but necessary; we leave race up for the radio and tv waves out there – that allows and brings people to call police on two black men who were waiting at Starbucks for a business meeting to begin. That didn’t only happen at Starbucks in Philadelphia. That’s happened in coffee shops right in our neighborhood, let me tell you. Hurtful, hurtful realities. 

If we don’t talk about race, then what happens? Somebody calls a police officer on a Yale student having fallen asleep in a common area. If we don’t talk about race, then Colin Kaepernick’s Nike advertisement – I think I have heard more conversations about why he shouldn’t have been part of the advertisement that what he is trying to teach us. We have stopped talking about race. We have not gotten ourselves to talk about what he wants us to talk about. Forget about Nike, let’s talk about race and racism in this country. And that is what he wants from us as well. But instead we get distracted by who should be on the billboard for a pair of tennis shoes. 

It is in our hands. It is in our hands and we can do the work.

Robin DiAngelo tells us that she doesn’t care how she gets confronted about her own racism, she doesn’t ask somebody to be nicer or quieter or less emotional as we all have done. She just wants to hear the feedback because that’s how she’s going to grow. 

I want to hear the feedback of my implicit bias. I want to be confronted about my own racism. I want to become better. And this congregation, at its heart, has always grown and expanded with the issues of the time. And this one we will do together as well.

So what do we do?

This past summer I had a brunch at my house with congregants of color and the conversation was enlightening. And it was amazing and it was profound. We are going to get this group of people, many of whom are not Jewish but raising their beautiful children of all colors in our congregation. We must do the work for those children. They are our children. And so this group will get back together we will continue. And just watch out for many wonderful things. We talked about having a festival with Moroccan food and Indian Jewish food and Chinese Jewish food. I called it anything but Ashkenazi, but I don’t know if that’s so cool. You’re not laughing – I thought it was funny. We’re not going to have matzo balls unless they’re jalapeño and mushroom.

We also have made a commitment here at Temple to do implicit bias work and training. We are going as a staff and clergy and security and administration. We are all going to wrestle with race in order to change the world from the inside out.

The Jews of color of this community and this congregation demand that we go out into the world and change it as well. And so, this year 5770 in Hebrew spells out “taf shin ayin tet.” What that means is get moving. Get moving. And we’re going to get moving because guess what? As Nike says, just do it.

Erev Rosh HaShanah: Where Was Grandpa?

Sermon by Rabbi Sim Glaser
2018/5779

This summer Barb and I became grandparents for the second time, as Benjamin and Melissa welcomed Alan Glaser into the world. Alan! I have not yet met him, but I understand he is a fine young man and is already seeking gainful employment.

It appears that Alan may have inherited his Baba’s red hair and his Grandpa Sim’s stomach issues. His two-and-a-half-year-old sister Margaret is coming to terms with no longer being the center of the known universe. Something most of us are supposed to grapple with before we are five, and yet many of us believe ourselves to be the center of the universe our whole lives.

Grandchildren are a big deal in Judaism. They are said to be the very embodiment of the word Naches. The ultimate blessings. They are the proof there is such thing as a free lunch – you play with them, bring them stuff, and then go home and let their parents deal with the mess. Though I am a man of the cloth, I don’t really do diapers.

Psalm 128 says: “May you live to see your children’s children,” from which comes the beautiful teaching that to gaze into the eyes of one’s grandchild is to see eternity. There are some Jews who refer to their first grandchild as “my Kaddish,” meaning: This child will guarantee my immortality by way of memory. But someone does have to make sure they know the Kaddish…
We have been doing FaceTime with our granddaughter Margaret for a while now. Barb usually initiates the connection, so I hear from the next room the lovely chirping of my granddaughter saying, “Where’s Grandpa Sim?”

I quickly insert myself into the picture frame. “Right here!” I cry. I’m charmed by her request, but on some darker days, when I am thinking about the future of our world and, God willing, the longevity of my grand-pups, this question, “Where’s Grandpa Sim,” takes on greater meaning. Where, indeed, is Grandpa Sim?

Who doesn’t want to be present in the lives of our children and our children’s children? We want to show them the deepest love, and comfort them in the warm blanket of our affection. And we want to share with them the joys and significance of our religious traditions. And most of this comes naturally to us.

But I wonder, as the years continue, if Margaret’s poignant question might become: “Where were you, Grandpa?” Or: “Tell me the story about what you did when you heard about the world warming up?” Or: “How big was your carbon footprint, Grandpa?” Or: “Is it true you lived during a time when there was still a fighting chance to reverse climate change, Grandpa?”

As they grow older and wiser, my grandkids might ask me if I was one of the people who didn’t believe the scientists. Or upon becoming aware of their inherited Jewish lineage: “Doesn’t the Torah teach us right from the beginning that we are responsible for the health of the planet?” And I don’t think it is going to mean a darn thing to our grandchildren if we respond with: “Well, honey, it was all very political…”

We often hear about the consequences of a warming planet in long term figures. “Statistics reveal Miami will be under water by the end of the century!” blares one recent headline. Why do we project the consequences of our actions to 80 years from now? Are we trying to soothe ourselves, as though we need not feel overly burdened by something that will reach its peak until long after we, ourselves, have departed this world?

I think if we learned anything this last year it is that we don’t have it all figured out. I also think we learned that it is hard to be human, and it is especially difficult – and even problematic to believe – that we can solve the world’s problems solely by using our mammoth brains and technological advances. Or that we can leave it to our elected officials locally and nationally to bail us out.

Rosh Hashanah, the birthday of the world, brings many messages. The call of the shofar awakens us to gaze mindfully and honestly at ourselves and our relation to the world we affect with every breath.

These holidays teach about both human power and humility. As the tradition goes, each of us should carry with us in one pocket the sacred name of God, acknowledging that we were created in the Divine Image. And in the other pocket, we should carry dust and ashes to remind ourselves that we are mortal, physical beings interacting with a physical world. We tend to forget both things.

A story goes that a man was once complaining to God, saying: “You have no idea how hard it is to be human — to live a life darkened by suffering and despair in a world filled with violence and destruction, to fear death and worry that nothing we do, or create, or dream, seems to matter. You have no idea how hard it is to be human!”

God responded, “Wait, you think it’s easy being God? I have a whole universe to run, galaxies upon galaxies demanding constant vigilance. You think you could do that?”

“I’ll tell you what,” suggested the Man, “let’s switch places, for just a moment. For just a little bit You be human, and I’ll be God, and that way we can determine who has it harder.”

“For just a moment?” God considered, “OK, why not.” So the man and God switched places. The man sat upon God’s throne and God descended to the earth. After that one moment had passed, God looked up and said, “OK, time to switch back.” But the man refused. He refused to give up the throne of God.

And, as the story maintains, we still haven’t given the throne back to God. We still think it is easier and more beneficial for us to maintain control as supreme beings, rather than to re-establish God’s place on the throne. Why is that important? Because when we know our place, we can shudder at the hugeness and fragility of the earth. When we know our place we can feel awe and wonder at stuff we might otherwise just take for granted.

In the old days there were storms, and fires, diseases, drought, crops would die, people would get sick, cities would be destroyed in wars and the population devastated. Ah, but today we have category 5 storms and 600 square mile fires, diseases, drought, sickness, war, and devastated populations.

The difference is that back in the day we used to attribute these horrible events to God’s being angry with us. All those disasters were because of God’s divine wrath. But now, because we are smarter, more scientific, more sophisticated, we don’t look to God’s will to explain our fate. We look out upon a reality shaped by politics and economics, a reality shaped by our own choices.

Human beings can achieve amazing feats, but we are not gods.

Maybe the idea of God controlling every detail of the universe was helpful because it meant that God actually gave a hoot about us.

I am reminded of a story about my son Benjamin, the father of our new grandson. Way back in the difficult days of his junior high school days, Benjamin, who has Tourette’s, had been getting no small amount of teasing at school for his verbal and physical tics. One evening Barb heard Ben up in his room sobbing and saying: “Why did God do this to me?” It broke her heart to hear this, and she mentioned it to his therapist at the time. The doctor calmly shrugged and said, “It isn’t so bad. Obviously your Benjamin thinks well enough of himself that God is taking the time to deal with him personally.”

And that’s kind of how it is with us when we sing the Avinu Malkeinu. The jury may still be out on whether or not anybody is listening. But see how we care enough about ourselves that we want to believe we really are in relationship with a God who cares!

The midrash tells a story of Adam and Eve’s very first day on earth. The story begins with a sunset. The very first sunset. As Adam and Eve watch their only source of light disappear, they panic. They beg and pray for the sun to return. In fear and anger they order the sun to stop its descent. Then, as darkness falls, they mourn the loss of their light. But it is only when they finally let go and trust in the natural cycles of the earth and the ability of the world to heal itself that they are able to fall asleep. When they awaken, there it is! The sun, in all its glory!

There are other versions of that story that add that the first human beings learn to make fire, a light of their own devising, and that is what comforts them. Their ability to take control. How delicate is that balance between trust and control…

On this holiday, in these complex modern times, we need to acknowledge both truths. That we are blessed with immense ability to alter nature, and that the world knows how to heal itself. That we may wield the physical power of gods, but need to humble ourselves before the Creator.

When you look into your grandchild’s eyes, Jewish tradition tells us, you see eternity. You realize that every energy decision you make daily, every official you vote into office, every movement you join or avoid, every religious imperative to be stewards of a fragile planet you either dismiss or take to be morally binding, is clearly more than about just you. It is about a future that will contain people we love dearly.

If we are not adequately attentive to this monumental challenge, those innocent questions of a grandchild might very well become: “Where were you, grandpa and grandma? What did you do? Is it true you could have made a difference?”

Let us celebrate this New Year with pledges and goals that go beyond improving only ourselves to seeking a refuah, a healing on a global and a multi-generational level. We are at an immensely important moment in human history… in the eye of the storm, so to speak. We are this amazing mixture of mortal and Divine. And it is time for us to use human physical strength to achieve a Divine future that will allow us to look into our grandchildren’s eyes and say: “I was there, and I did everything I could for you.”

Keyn y’hi ratzon…