Erev Rosh HaShanah: Nefesh Service & Seder

Sermon by Rabbi Tobias Moss
2020/5781

Conception Changes Perception

This has been a year full of separation and challenge, illness and anxiety, turmoil and tumult, difficulty and death — the difficulty and death that a normal year brings, compounded by the difficulty and death that a COVID year brings.

Of course there have been wonderful moments this year: births and virtual baby namings, Zoom b’nai mitzvah, more meaningful than you might think, technological innovations… But more importantly, human-to-human cultivation — checking in on neighbors, friends, and fellow humans, advocating for causes we believe in, finding ways to celebrate a 110th birthday in our community.

Still, the cheshbon, the accounting balance of the year, has seemed mostly to be in the red, pretty negative.

I keep seeing people on social media wish for this year to be over. One Jewish comedian, Eli Reiter, tweeted yesterday: “I’m lucky to be Jewish because it means there are only three days left to this dumpster fire of a year, and there are four more months for the rest of you.”

Most of us want this year to end, but a new year, with the same world, the same challenges that doesn’t solve much on its own. A year ends, a year begins, but does the world change?

Many of us have been susceptible to an error in Jewish translation, myself included. There’s Rosh Hashanah liturgy that says hayom harat olam — most frequently translated as “today the world is born.” Sounds totally fresh and new, suggesting Rosh HaShanah is the world’s birthday…not quite.

A better translation of hayom harat olam would be today the world is conceived. Today is the gestation of the world. Today we are invited to conceive of what could be, not necessarily tomorrow, but perhaps at the end of these 10 days of repentance, or perhaps what will be three months from now, six months, nine months. What the world could be after struggles and striving.

We are invited to see the world not as an “as is”— born, already in existence, an event.

But rather the world as “in becoming” — what could be, a process.

Quite obviously I don’t know the following firsthand, as I’m neither a parent today, nor a mother ever, but mothers have told me how much perspective changes at the moment of pregnancy — priorities, food choices, the body itself of course, the way you view the state and future of the world, etc.

This is what Rosh HaShanah asks of us: What needs to change for this new world to be born?

It always seems funny that Yom Kippur’s themes of judgment come after Rosh HaShanah. You might think it should be opposite: get your moral/spiritual/relationship affairs in order before the new year. But in fact, we need the eye-widening effect of Rosh HaShanah, a new year, a world that is still just in conception. This eye-widening allows us to see the possibilities of the world unfolding, and that in this great universe and world — a world in which black holes collide, and potential signs of life show up in unexpected places — that we have a role to play. It’s a bit part, but we got cast. We can be a parent, friend, aunt, uncle, cousin of the world that will one day be born.

Noah Ben Shea wrote collections of Jacob the Baker stories. Any of you know of this wise baker? For those who are not familiar, Jacob the Baker was a baker in a small town, whose great wisdom made him village famous — oh, how I’d die to be village famous.

This is one of the stories about him that reflects on the wisdom of a full life lived. This year was so overwhelmingly filled, over-wrought and overrun, that the story seems fitting for just the course of this year. Jacob the Baker:

And so one day, like many other days, kids shuffled over to Jacob’s bakery after school, plopped themselves down on some sacks of flour — the very gluten-filled version of a beanbag — and finally a boy found some courage, and asked Jacob, “Why do you often say, ‘A child sees what I only understand?’”

“A child sees what I only understand.”

Jacob paused, and then answered, his voice with a long-ago quality.

“Imagine a boy, sitting on a hill, looking out through his innocence on the expanse, mystery, and beauty of the world. Slowly the child begins to learn. He does this by collecting small stones of knowledge, placing one on top of the other. Over time, his learning becomes a wall, a wall he has built in front of himself. 

Now, when he looks out, he can see his learning, but he has lost his view. And so he is now a man, no longer a boy. And this man is both proud and sad. The man looks at his predicament, this wall of learning, and decides to take down the wall. But to take down a wall takes time, and when he finally accomplishes the task, he has become an elder, an old man. 

The old man rests on the hill and looks out through his experience on the beauty of the world. He understands what has happened to him. He understands what he sees. But he does not see the world the way he saw it as a child on that first clear morning.”

A young girl interjects, “But, but, certainly the old man can remember what he once saw!”

Jacob responds, “You are right, experience matures to memory. But memory is the gentlest of truths.”

“Are you afraid of growing old, Jacob?” asks a child, giggling.

“What grows never grows old,” said Jacob.

This parable speaks to the full span of life. But I believe it has much wisdom, to speak to the span of a year, especially this past one. A year that began with our hopes and wishes for that coming year. With 10 days of t’shuvah, repentance, t’filah, prayer, and tzedakah, charitable giving, we tried to get ourselves on a good track for the coming year. And then over the course of this year, challenges came upon us, one after another, stone upon stone, boulder upon boulder, until suddenly it was hard to look over that wall. It became hard to see anything besides the challenges of COVID, the challenges of America in distress, the challenges of keeping the public safe—the whole public, no individuals or groups excluded. Inevitably, these challenges blocked our sigh. Will we only be able to see after each is solved, one by one, like in the story?

Quite the opposite. In order to overcome these challenges we need to see, to imagine, to conceive. The offering of Rosh HaShanah is to see anew now. The year changes from 5780-5781. “Should we be afraid of the world growing older?” the little boy might ask. “What grows never grows old,” said Jacob. And this world, it keeps growing, it keeps changing. It invites us to join that process to see over the wall, see with wide, fresh eyes. To see possibility in the world, to see possibility in ourselves. Today the world is conceived, and we can see anew.

Rosh HaShanah is the reset moment on the shechecheyanu prayer: shechecheyanu, vikiymau, v’higiyanu lazman hazeh. From Rosh HaShanah on, we are asked to notice the first time we eat a fruit in this new year, acknowledge the coming of each holiday in this new year, bless the first time we’ve traveled to Israel this year, God willing.

We thank the Source of Life for having given us life, for helping us to withstand whatever could’ve knocked us down, and for reaching this time, this precious moment.

Some of you may have eaten an apple earlier today. Tonight or tomorrow that apple is no different. So why shechecheyanu? You are different. Your perspective is different

Yom Kippur

Sermon by Rabbi Tobias Moss
2019/5780

Our TIPTY choir just sang Etz Chayim Hee. “It is a Tree of Life to those who hold fast to it; all who support it are happy.”

When I was a kid growing up in Tenafly, New Jersey, just outside of New York City, I too was part of a youth choir. At Temple Emeth, it was called Etz Chayim. Ever since then, those words have had a special place in my heart. It is a metaphor that seems to do justice to the otherwise impossible to summarize: the scope, span, and sustaining spirit of Judaism and Torah.

A tree reaches upward to the heavens, produces fruit for nourishment, and absorbs sunlight into vibrant green and multi-colored leaves. For me, this upward growth symbolizes the aspirations that Judaism lays out to me and how I might always achieve new spiritual heights.

Of course, a tree also digs deep roots which establish its history and give it power to withstand storms and winds. I know that I can forever explore my roots, the span of collected Jewish tradition, to find meaning and sustenance. So I love this metaphor, Etz Chayim—The Torah is a Tree of Life.

But these words were wounded, this byword was bloodied, this metaphor was marred, on October 27, 2018, with the tragic events at the Tree of Life-Or L’Simcha synagogue, in Squirrel Hill of Pittsburgh. This was the murder of eleven Jews, killed in the very act of holding fast to it, to Torah, the Tree of Life. In the Jewish vocabulary, there is a single word that captures our immediate reaction to such a moment: Eicha?!

How?

How come? 

How is it so?

How do we proceed?

How is God involved?

How is God absent?

How was a 97-year-old woman named Rose a threat to anyone?

We have a whole book in the bible called Eicha, known in English as the Book of Lamentations. The scroll is recited on Tisha b’Av, a day that is fully dedicated to the mournfulness of lamentation. Yom Kippur is a more expansive, more awesome day, containing the full range of human emotion—from sadness to joy, from mourning to dancing. In my remarks, I will dig a little deeper into the former, into sadness, but I hope by the end of this sermon, that we also bring into view the joy and hopefulness that are just as much a part of this redemptive day.

A lament is something we’re not used to. It’s a crying out without a solution suggested, without consolation conferred. Rather, eicha is a question without an answer; an exclamation that doesn’t provide direction.

Would you please read with me the lament now projected above, which I wrote in the days following the Pittsburgh shooting.

It’s now almost a year since we all in our own way said eicha. Some cried it, some whispered, some wondered, some cursed.

It’s now almost a year of Kaddish for those 11. We can’t adequately memorialize them, though I know their home communities will.

It’s now almost a year since their synagogue was devastated. Did you know that their building remains shuttered, surrounded by a fence, and the congregants are meeting in other locations for these High Holy Days? We can’t purify their building from here.

It’s now almost a year since Etz Chayim Hee, this beloved metaphor, has been so tainted. Perhaps it is in my power, in our power, to help purify just that, just those words.

The Talmud records that in the ancient Temple ritual, a scarlet thread would become white if the Yom Kippur ritual was successful. How, then, can we make our bloodied Tree of Life return to its vibrant green? The rest of the verse gives us an answer. It is a tree of life to whom? To those who hold fast to it. We need to hold fast to our Torah.

In my moment of lament, when I wrote that poem, I asked for a hero or sage who could, perhaps like the ancient Temple Priest, take care of this all for me, for us. But a year later, we know that an act of devastation can only be answered by 1,000 acts of chesed, 1,000 acts of kindness. Our community, in Pittsburgh, in New York, and I know here as well, received and gave 1,000 acts of kindness after the tragedy. In Pittsburgh, Jew and non-Jew alike and even opposing sports teams, rallied around the slogan Stronger Than Hate. That together, America’s loving portion is much stronger than its hateful one.

No hero or sage can prove this alone. Rather, as our Torah portion reads, atem nitzavim, culchem hayom, you who stand here today, all of you, regardless of age or occupation, all have it in your power to observe these teachings. The teaching is very close to you, says Moses, it is already in your mouth and in your heart.

So when the shootings at Pittsburgh occurred, or Poway, San Diego, or outside of the Jewish community at Christchurch, Charleston, or elsewhere, we usually don’t need new instructions, we just need to act upon our teachings. These wicked people are often publishing manifestos, but we are not a manifesto type of people, making simple proclamations. Judaism is about show, don’t tell—not manifestos, but manifesting our commitments, our kindness. We grab hold of our Tree of Life, our Torah, in which study leads to action.

If our grasp was flimsy, we’d have stopped coming to synagogue a long time ago, though I know thousands of you came for the service following the shooting, and you are gathered here again today, holding fast.

If our grasp was flimsy, we wouldn’t check in on a sick neighbor or a mourning friend, but I’ve already witnessed how deeply this community looks out for each other, holds fast to each other.

If our grasp was flimsy, we’d bristle at the inconveniences of increased security, but holding fast means supporting the financial burden and enduring the psychological burden of this reality. We give gratitude to those who are keeping us safe.

Holding fast means making the extra effort to meet Judaism’s demands for justice throughout our society. As we heard Isaiah articulate in our Haftarah, “unlock the shackles of injustice, loosen the ropes of the oppressed, share bread with the hungry.”

Isaiah also tells us that holding fast means honoring and remembering Shabbat and calling it a delight. That’s not always easy for us, even for us clergy. I’ll share a simple story, which reminded me of what happens when we hold fast to Torah.

A few weeks after beginning here, my girlfriend visited for the first time. On her first Friday afternoon, within the whirlwind of work, we managed the mighty feat of having a meal cooked and the table set for two before returning to Temple for Shabbat services. After services, we walked back to my nearby home.

Two blocks from home, crossing the street, I did a double-take, thinking that I’d recognized someone. However, in my excitement to get back to “my Shabbat meal,” I ignored that double-take sensation, and shied away from an encounter. But a voice called out, “Tobias?!” And sure enough, it was a camp counselor I’d worked with at a Jewish summer camp in Colorado. The counselor had been an acquaintance, but not more than that. We stopped to chat.

Like me, she’d just moved to Minneapolis. We marveled at the coincidence, but truthfully, honestly, my attention wasn’t with her. My attention was going towards my house two blocks away, to an intimate meal, an overdue catch-up, and time away from the new pressures of this public rabbinical role. But then that Torah-infused conscience of mine started piping up, like Pinocchio with a Jewish Jiminy Cricket inside. Or as Moses puts it, “the instruction is already upon our hearts and our lips.” So Mitzvot, commandments, and Jewish values flew across my brain: Jewish hospitality, welcoming someone new to town, inviting someone for Shabbat dinner, making Shabbat a delight. So I grabbed hold of that little piece of Torah, and invited her to join us for dinner. We re-set the table for three.

It was a small act, but most of life, thankfully, is responding to small moments, small opportunities. I didn’t solve a great ethical dilemma. I didn’t give some great sum of money to tzedakah. But now that Shabbat guest is no longer just an acquaintance, but one of my first friends in the Cities. She’s been back for another meal. She came here for Erev Rosh HaShanah services. Grabbing hold of just a little bit of Torah ultimately brought more joy to my world; I think to hers as well.

The rabbis say mitzvah gorreret mitzvah, a mitzvah leads to another mitzvah. Acts of lovingkindness self-propagate. Joy ripples through a society.

Now earlier I promised that Yom Kippur is known to tradition as a joyous day. The Talmudic rabbis say that there’s simply a joy inherent with repentance and finding forgiveness. An earlier sage provides a more specific illustration. Rabbi Shimon Ben Gamliel records the following tradition: There were no days of joy in Israel greater than Tu B’av (Jewish Valentine’s Day, in short) and Yom Kippur. On these days, anyone seeking a mate would dress in white gowns. All the gowns had to be borrowed, so that no one would know who was rich, who was poor, who was from royal or priestly descent, and who was a common Israelite. These white-wearing singles would go dance in the vineyards and meet their suitors. Who would think that the day of reckoning could have such romance? That the earliest JDate occurred on Judgement day?

Now, we do things a little bit different at Temple. Now it’s just us clergy that wear these white robes, and the white-clad Torah scrolls. I promise, we’re not about to dance for you; that holiday is in two weeks.

But on this day, joy still comes into focus. After the Kol Nidre awe of last night, after our introspection of this morning, after the healing and memorial services this afternoon, during Yom Kippur’s climactic conclusion, during Ne’ilah, we’ll bring up all the new babies of the congregation this year. They are our dancing joyful reminder on this Yom Kippur.

Rabbi Jeffrey Meyer, the Tree of Life synagogue rabbi who many of us saw on the news, asks what is the most important day of the Jewish year? His answer is the day after Yom Kippur. The day when we begin to choose, will our grasp on Torah be flimsy or held fast? That seems to me to be why Yom Kippur was once a day for finding your mate, and now is a day to celebrate babies and the next generation. We are celebrating tomorrow and all the coming opportunities, big and small, all the opportunities to hold fast to the Tree of Life. All its supporters bring happiness into the world. Shanah Tovah.

Rosh HaShanah: Youth-Led Creative Service

Sermon by Rabbi Tobias Moss
2019/5780

Un’taneh Tokef. Let us proclaim the sacred power of this day, awesome, full of dread.

Who by fire? Who by water? Who by slow decay? Who by moose? 

Who by moose?! No, that wasn’t said out loud. That was in my own reading as I thought of what was my closest call, closest brush with death during the past year.

Who by moose?

I began this summer with a 1,700 mile drive from my home in New York City to my new one here in Minneapolis. Accompanied by two of my most adventurous friends, we took the scenic route, driving on the Canadian side of the Great Lakes. It was beautiful and I was full of excitement for this transition, for joining Temple Israel, for leaving the crowded Big Apple and coming to the Land of Lakes.

As we started to drive Superior’s northern shore, a new traffic sign was spotted popping up along the road: yellow signs with muscular antler-clad animals in mid-gallop. These weren’t like the slender deer signs I’ve known in suburban New Jersey. There were two words posted below the image: night danger. But sometimes you see a sign without understanding its significance. So we drove along after the sun had set.

I was behind the wheel when, out of the darkness, only some yards in front of the car,

I suddenly identified a cluster of skinny legs and hulking bodies. I was horrified and confused about why people would cross a highway at such a dangerous spot.

My instinctive reactions took over as I swerved out of the way. We pulled over and caught our breath. The three of us pieced the image together. We had just barely dodged two humongous black-furred moose. They were nearly invisible on the dark highway. As far as I’m aware, though one never knows for sure, that was my closest brush with death from the past year. Who by moose?

Now were I to try to further update Leonard Cohen’s “Who by Fire,” itself an update on Un’taneh Tokef, “Who by moose?” just wouldn’t cut it. It doesn’t sound elegant enough; it’s not the way I’d choose to go. But then again, one of the points of this prayer is that in real life we don’t know how, we don’t know where, we don’t know when we will go. However, at this awesome time of year we muster the collective courage to ask the question who by this, who by that?

At last year’s asking of “who by fire,” no one could have known the answers: which house would have a freak electrical fire and everyone wouldn’t make it out, that the Amazon would burn with unprecedented intensity; that in nearby Duluth, Adas Israel’s 118-year old synagogue 

and eight Torah scrolls would go up in flames just weeks before this year’s High Holy Days.

And as for the coming year, we know that tragedy, or if we’re lucky, only adversity, will certainly befall us. So once again we ask: Who by this? Who by that? Come on God, come on Judaism, give us a roadmap for the year to come! We get none.

We hear no answers to those explicit questions of the poem. But we do hear an answer to unspoken questions. What shall we do in advance of such tragedies? What shall we do after they come to pass? We don’t get a roadmap, but we do get direction.

וּתְשׁוּבָה וּתְפִלָּה וּצְדָקָה מַעֲבִירִין אֶת רעַ הַגְּזֵרָה

T’shuvah, t’filah, and tzedakah will temper the severity of the decree.

Repentance, prayer, and righteous giving will ease the hardship of what’s to come.

It is not a detailed roadmap, but it is a compass, a way to navigate during these ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and in the year to come. Three stars to follow: 

T’shuvah – repentance

T’filah – prayer

Tzedakkah – righteous giving

However, just learning a bit of orienteering doesn’t mean it is easy to get where you want to go. They don’t erase the hardships of life. They temper them, reshape them, help us to make meaning, move beyond the bad to experience more of the good.

I’ve learned about these three guiding principles from two of the most Minnesotan things I’ve done during my first few months here.

The challenge to “temper the hardship of the decree” was the central theme that I encountered during my obligatory first pilgrimage to the Guthrie Theater—you see Minneapolis caught my eye not just for its proximity to lakes and moose, but also the acclaimed theater scene.

At the Guthrie, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage debuted her newest play about a truck stop sandwich shop, Floyd’s. The whole play takes place in the sandwich shop kitchen where ex-convicts are striving for two goals with equal fervor: repentance and the perfectsandwich.

Three young cooks were recently released from jail, but are struggling with the stigma they receive from the outside world and their own persisting guilt. They are easily set off when someone brings up their past, and they have great concern they’ll fall into bad habits. These three look up to a wiser and older cook, Montrellous, who seems to have moved beyond his own troubled past.

“Look here, being incarcerated took a little something from all of us. Cuz you left prison don’t mean you outta prison. But, remember everything we do here is to escape that mentality. This kitchen, these ingredients, these are our tools. We have what we need.”

This is the Jewish belief. We have what we need. T’shuvah is possible.

My teacherRabbi Larry Hoffman notes that one biblical description of sin is that it is a burden that weighs us down. God nosei avon, lifts up, that burden. If God removes the burden on a person, then so must society practice forgiveness, then so must we each practice forgiveness with ourselves.

T’shuvah is largely about dealing with our past. This season’s second guiding principle,T’filah, prayer—especially petitional prayer—is how we express our hopeful reaching out towards our future. We allow our souls to express our deepest desires. We join together with our people to do the same.

Throughout the play, the cooks come together for their own sort of communal ritual as they prepare simple sandwiches. They dream. They daydream. They dream out loud about discovering the ultimatesandwich!

“Cubano sandwich, with sour pickles, jalapeno aioli and . . . and sweet onions!”

“Grilled blue cheese with spinach, habaneros and . . . candied apples.”

“Maine lobster, potato roll gently toasted and buttered with roasted garlic, paprika and cracked pepper, mayo, caramelized fennel, and a sprinkle of . . . of . . . dill,”

(I knew I’d have to do this sermon on Rosh HaShanah, because this would be too painful to hear on Yom Kippur.)

Rafael asks: “Can the perfect sandwich be made?”

Letitia asks: “When we get there, will we know?”

And again, the wisest among them, Montrellous, responds: “We can only strive for the harmony of ingredients. That’s all.”

Here in synagogue, we don’t usually dream together of the perfect sandwich.

We dream of a world perfected.

We pray for peace.

We pray for community.

We pray for healing.

Our prayers don’t get answered in a direct or explicit fashion, but as Montrellous suggests, we nonetheless strive towards these ideals in our daily lives, though we do not know whether we’ll ever achieve our ultimate aims.

As 20th century Reform Rabbi Rabbi Ferdinand Isserman eloquently puts it: “Prayer cannot mend a broken bridge, rebuild a ruined city, or bring water to parched fields. Prayer can mend a broken heart, lift up a discouraged soul, and strengthen a weakened will.”

To elucidate our third guiding principle, tzedakah, righteous giving, I’d like to share a lesson from an unexpected place, from my most Minnesotan day here: the State Fair! We don’t have that sort of thing where I come from.

The fair’s nickname is the Great Minnesota Get Together. It seems to me that this has at least two meanings, the first being all the people that get together, and the second being all the subjects, themes, and attractions that get brought together. You can learn about the latest in organic lawn care or you can eat a deep fried waffle-encrusted breakfast sandwich on a stick—I don’t think that’s the perfect sandwich. You can walk through an art gallery made of corn kernels, or, as I did, you can spend half an afternoon learning how honey is made.

Rabbeinu Bachya, an 11th century Rabbi, writes in his book Chovot HaLevavot, Duties of the Heart, that one has the internal duty to see the world not just as it plainly seems to be, but to seek lessons from nature. We should observe and contemplate the natural world, and deduce Divine wisdom from this practice. And so in the middle of the State Fair I asked myself, and the beekeeper, what I could learn from the bees.

There are many other types of bees. There’s the bumble bee, carpenter bee, mason bee, leafcutter bee, and sweat bee, not to mention wasps, hornets, and other, meaner varieties.

When it comes to honey production, these other bee species are stingy. They only produce enough to survive day by day. When winter comes, the entire hive dies, every worker bee dies, save for the queen who hibernates alone for the winter, and then starts the hive from scratch in the spring.

But the honeybee does things differently. Even once they’ve made enough honey to keep the hive alive, they just keep going. They can end up making three, four, five times as much honey as they’ll ever consume.

Thanks to this generous spirit, if you will, when winter comes, even here in Minnesota, the hive survives along with queen. Thanks to this generous spirit, humans can enjoy from the honey surplus, without harming the health of the hive.

Likewise, for us, tzedakah helps our community survive the winter, the weak along with the powerful. Tzedakah is also how we share the sweetness of life.

Tzedakah is too often translated as charity, which limits the idea to only material giving. While our tradition does challenge us to do with less and give more, it also invites us to recognize the other bounties we have to share as well. Here the Bible’s Book of Proverbs teaches another lesson from the honey bee.

צוּף־דְּבַשׁ אִמְרֵי־נֹעַם מָתוֹק לַנֶּפֶשׁ וּמַרְפֵּא לָעָצֶם׃

Pleasant words are an overflowing honeycomb

Sweet to the soul, healing for the bones.

As you eat your High Holy Day honey, don’t just revel in the sweetness of the moment, but also let the honey serve as a guide. As you enjoy the surplus that the bees made, what surplus do you have that you can offer as tzedakah? What can you do to help the hive survive the winter, the weak along with the powerful? How you can help the community not only survive, but also taste life’s sweetness during these ten days and throughout the coming year?

One day we will all reach our end. Some of us by fire, some by water, some by slow decay, but hopefully none of us by moose, since we all now know what those “night danger” signs mean. 

Jewish tradition acknowledges this human reality, our human frailty. Rather than let it halt us in our tracks, we do not experience our mortality as a dead end, that there is nowhere left to go because of it.

Un’taneh Tokef concludes: 

Our origin is from dust

And our end is to dust.

But God, 

You are beyond description.

Your holy name suits You

And You suit your Name,

And somehow we are named After You.

May Adonai Eloheinu, the Eternal Source of Strength, give strength to Am Yisrael the People Israel and all humanity, as we navigate the New Year to come. We have no roadmap, but we do have these three stars to follow. T’shuvah, T’filah, Tzedakah. Repentance, Prayer, and Righteous Giving.

Shanah Tovah.