My Rosh Hashanah Sermon - would love to hear your thoughts!

In Marc Foster’s “Stranger than Fiction” Howard Crick’s life is turned upside down when he realizes he might be a character in novel. Immediately, Crick, played by Will Ferrel, seeks out a literature professor to find out what to do. His instructions are clear, figure out whether he is a character in comedy or a tragedy. As the narrative continues we find Crick carrying around a notebook. On one side, he has written the word, comedy. On the other side, he has written the word tragedy. As he lives his life, he begins tallying up moments of tragedy and comedy until he looks his love in the eyes and says, in perhaps the funniest moment of the movie, “I think I’m in a tragedy!”

Howard Crick is not the only person in history to divide stories into comedies and tragedies. Since Aristotle, literature has been placed into one of these two categories. Comedies begin in disarray but over the course of the narrative, they move toward unity until they finish with a final act of unity, usually a marriage. Think “Taming of the Shrew” or even “The Hangover.” Tragedy on the other hand, begins well but because of some fatal flaw everyone ends up dead on the floor. These range from “Hamlet” to Scorseese’s “The Departed.”

It seems today people are still using these classical definitions to debate the present state of the Jewish community. Open the newspaper and you’ll find many arguing that we are living in a tragedy. The Jewish population is shrinking, young Jews lack engagement with Israel, hostility toward religion is more accepted than it ever has been in America, the future of many of our greatest Jewish institutions is in question, including the future of the synagogue. Some view these as fatal flaws and fear that they spell the tragic death of the American Jewish community and perhaps the Jewish people.

Then of course, there are those who feel that we are living in a comedy. Look at the Jewish Meditation Center of Brooklyn and other similar organizations and you’ll see a renewed commitment to Jewish spiritual connection. Pray with Altshul or any other independent minyan and you’ll see an intense and powerful connection to Jewish prayer and community. Anti-Semitism is at an all time low, and in fact, we might actually be in a period of Philo-Semitism, a love of Jews. And of course, the current generation of Jews is the most secularly educated in history and this creates stronger leaders and brings to the table new ideas. Follow the comedy paradigm and the Jewish future has never been more sound than it is today.

In a way, the tragedy / comedy dichotomy is a false one. Jewish narratives do not function as one or the other. Like good postmodern movie, Jewish time combines moments of comedy and tragedy. Let me give you two examples:

Each week, the Jewish calendar relives the story of creation. Just as the world was created out of chaos and emptiness, tohu v’avohu so too does our week begin is disarray. However, our sages teach us that like any good comedy as our week progresses it moves toward wholeness. Monday is less broken than Sunday, Thursday less than Wednesday, until Shabbat arrives and our comedy ends like most, with a wedding as we welcome the Shabbas bride during the singing of L’cha Dodi. This wedding ushers in a 24 hour period where we gain an extra soul, taste the world to come, and experience wholeness unlike any other time during the week. It’s the ultimate happy ending.

However, our story doesn’t end there. Humanity has a fatal flaw. We haven’t brought about redemption. Our world, because of hunger, hate, injustice, and fear cannot sustain the unity of Shabbat. Saturday night arrives, Shabbat crumbles and we need the smells and sounds of the Havdallah services just to survive. Our comedy ends in tragedy. Our world is again in chaos and we must start our comedy narrative anew.

Like the Jewish week, the Jewish year bounces between comedy and tragedy. Each year, during the month of Elul we engage in a sacred drama with God. God, who according the Abraham Joshua Heschel is in search of humanity, goes looking for us. At some point right before Rosh Hashanah God finds us and in an act of love we unite with God. In fact, our tradition teaches us that at this time every year, humanity is so close to God, that God cannot tell the difference between humanity and the angels. For the rabbis who developed this doctrine, the month of Elul isn’t just a 30-day before the High Holy Days; it is an acronym for this process. Elul means ani l’dodi, v’dodi li, I am my beloved and my beloved is mine. God and humanity are intertwined and unified. The Holy Days are the last scene in the Jewish comedy, as God and the humanity are wed.

However, over the course of the year, we begin to fade. Humanity moves further and further from God. Again, humanity has let the flaws of hate, anger and materialism get in the way and we experience tragedy anew. Each summer as a reminder that our world is not whole, we arrive at the 9th day of the month of Av, Tisha B’av and are forced to relive the destruction of the Temple and God’s exile from our midst. But like our Jewish week, time moves in cycles. The month of Elul starts again and our tragedy turns to comedy anew.

Both the Jewish week and the Jewish year are microcosms of Jewish history. These narratives tell us many things about our relationship to God and to the Jewish story. However, most importantly, they tells us that Jewish time is neither tragedy nor comedy but the inextricable linking of the two.

Those who look at Jewish history can certainly make a reasonable argument that we live in a tragedy. I often look around at hostility toward Israel or see the shrinking demographic data and I feel the fear and regret I do when I say goodbye to Shabbat on Saturday night. However, I can also make a reasonable argument that we live in a comedy. I observe the energy in the Brooklyn Jews community, I hear a high-school student say that he’s never experienced anti-Semitism, I see how liberal Judaism has accepted fully the notion of gay marriage and I feel much like I do on Friday night when the Shabbas bride enters.

Throughout time, the Jewish world has contained pessimists and optimists. To steal a phrase from Simon Rawidowicz, Judaism is the “ever dying people.” Yet, we are also the ever-thriving people! Saul Bellow described Jewish literature (as a representation of Jewish life) as “a curious intermingling of laughter and trembling” because the tragedy narrative and the comedy narrative depend on one another. Just as Shabbat is so much sweeter because we experienced the chaos of the week, and Saturday night is so much harder because we’ve experienced the peace of Shabbat, our tragedy narratives make our comedy narratives stronger and visa versa.

A brit milah of a newborn baby has added meaning in light of the narrative of shrinking demographics. Anyone who joins Congregation Beth Elohim or goes to a Federation program proves wrong those who say that our age cohort does not care about Jewish institutions. And it works the opposite way. The narrative of non-affiliation forces congregations and organizations to avoid staleness and self-gratification. The narrative of lack of Israel engagement empowers us to create innovative programs and experiences like Birthright to educate our community about the richness of the state of Israel.

Tragedy and comedy narratives may seem mutually exclusive but they are not. A rich Jewish future is built on mutual interdependence of these stories. As Jews, we must laugh in the face of our greatest fears and view our greatest successes with a bit a fear. That’s the only way to avoid complacency.

However, Jewish time is not an endless cycle of bouncing between comedy and tragedy. Although the two are intertwined, the idea of redemption has always remained a foremost hope of the Jewish people. For some this is called the Messianic era. For others it is called peace, security, or stability. We may live today in both a comedy and a tragedy but it’s been the hope the Jewish people for millennia that we end up well. One day Shabbat will begin and it not end. Then life will be “yom shkulo Shabbat—the perfectly actualized Shabbat day. One day we unite with God at the High Holy Days and we don’t lose that connection. Maimonides’ famous statement, “ani mamamin, b’emunah sh’lemah,” I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the messianic age is statement of faith that we live in a comedy.

Time may vacillate between comedy and tragedy but it doesn’t function like a ferris wheel. We aren’t stuck in a perpetual and inescapable cycle of ups and downsbetween good and bad, joyshope and fears. Jewish time differs from those in say a Greek novel because history has a direction. Jewish time looks less like a hamster wheel and more like a…well a Shofar!

[hold out long, curved shofar]

The shape of the Shofar reminds us that we live in the interplay between the high’s and low’s but more importantly that one day the tragedy narrative will dissolve and we will end our story in a comedy. Yes, a shofar loops around, but it also ends up somewhere a little further ahead than where it began. One reason we blow the shofar is to remind us that there is a better place. We sound the horn to rouse us from our pessimism, to collect up our feelings of exile, pain, and fear and to acknowledge that the “ever dying people” will continue to thrive.

We live in a scary time. However, we also live in a hopeful time. Both narratives are important and both are crucial a whole Jewish story. Whether we see our current reality as a comedy or tragedy is really up the individual. There are enough elements of both to make a strong case for either. But Jewish history and faith teach us that no matter how many checks we put in the tragedy or comedy box we are a link in a history that is always moving toward betterment and self-actualization. There’s nothing more hopeful and entertaining than that!

An authentic reading of tradition - a Shoftim Sermon

“For whom do you speak?” asked our dean Jack Wertheimer.

I was attending a seminar for rabbinical students from all seminaries, orthodox, conservative, reform, and transdemoninational and it was our first session. With a smile, knowing he was about to be controversial, Dr. Wertheimer asked again, “For whom do you speak? As a rabbi, can you ever speak for the Jews? What about your movement? How about your synagogue community? We know that traditionally rabbis are considered a public voice for social justice. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched with Martin Luther King. After the Six Day War, American Jewry was unified in its pride and support of Israel. But today, can you ever speak for any view other than your own.”

It was a provocative question and the answers surprised me.  While the Reform Movement has been an important voice for social justice since the 1960s (and in some cases even before), I quickly learned that that was not the case with other movements. In fact, most of my orthodox classmates were adamant that an issue like climate change and health care is too complicated for any rabbi to advocate for. Jewish ethics do not conform to the intricacies of public policy, they said. You can speak to your own views but its unfair to force Judaism to say what it does not.

I was a minority voice but a loud one. Jewish leaders, rabbis, cantors, and Jewishly educated laity have not only a right but an obligation to teach, preach, and advocate for American interests in a distinctly Jewish idiom. My classmates were right in one regard. Issues are just too complicated and opinions to diverse to ever begin a sentence with the phrase, “the Jews feel that…” If I took a poll, we would find a diversity of opinions on universal health care, environmental policy, and reproductive rights. Unless you give me the right, I cannot speak for you.

What I can speak for (and this applies to anyone who takes the study of our sacred texts seriously) is an authentic reading of our tradition. I am framed by certain key texts in our tradition, one of which appears at the start of this week’s Torah portion and is the phrase, tzedek, tzedek tirdof…“Justice, justice, shall you pursue!” Other texts include the command, v’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha, love your neighbor as yourself and the notion that we are all created b’tzelem elohim, in the image of God. Anyone who takes Jewish learning seriously has a right to use that information to frame their worldview and raise a prophetic voice that advocates for justice and equality!

However, I often find myself reluctant to speak up about issues we face today. Am I smart enough to take a teaching from the prophets Isaiah or Jeremiah, couple it with teachings from the rabbis and speak with a prophetic voice for social change? The answer is yes! WE ALL ARE. And we have an apt metaphor for this internal struggle in this week’s Torah portion.

Parshat Shoftim speaks about the notion of the false prophet.  Here, Moses tells the people that after he is gone, God will raise up a prophet in his stead. He will speak the words of truth and the people are commanded to listen to him. However, Moses continues, there will surely arise false prophets among you. How then will you know whether a prophet speaks the truth? Moses explains that if a prophet speaks in the name of God and his prophesy comes true we know he was a true prophet. If not we punish him for uttering a false prophesy in the name of God.

This text is telling but dated. The rabbis acknowledge that after the destruction of the Temple, prophesy halted. God no longer speaks to us directly. Now, when we want to find out our religious duty in the world, we have to look to our sacred texts for guidance. Where once, a prophet knew if he was speaking the truth if he heard God’s voice, today speaking in a prophetic voice for justice is much harder. We have to read texts, make judgments and trust ourselves.

Where once the big question was whether or not a person was a false prophet, today the bigger question is whether when we speak for the tradition, are we speaking truth or falsehoods? Without God’s guidance, it’s a lot easier to be on the wrong side of history and that’s a scary thought.  It’s easy to look back at those rabbis who marched in Selma or who fought to preserve the redwood forests in the 1990s, known affectionately as the Redwood Rabbis and say that their decision was easy. It’s much harder to be in the moment having to choose between a Jewish reading of budgetary issues and social programs, workers or employers, those who wish to immigrate to America and those who citizens who remain unemployed.  

Without divine guidance and forced to make my own judgments about Jewish tradition, it’s no wonder that I and many others would rather simply let Judaism inform our religious life, like prayer, Shabbat, and kashrut, and personal ethics like honoring my parents, avoiding stealing, and treating others with dignity and avoid any mixing of Judaism and public policy.

However, Jewish tradition is clear, a reading of the tradition informed by texts and thoughtfulness is an authentic reading and can serve as a platform to assess and engage with the modern world. As American Jews we can hold two truths in our hands. We are informed by American sensibilities and by Jewish ideals, and together we can each speak for what we feel Jewish ethics mandate from America. Others may not agree with us our conclusions. Many may ridicule our reading of tradition. But without God’s voice in our heads, we can only trust our own judgment as we rightfully and prophetically fulfill our moral mandate to seek peace and pursue justice.

Our struggle to overcome our fear of giving the wrong message and being on the wrong side of history is an ancient struggle that our rabbis faced nearly two thousand years ago.  The Talmud asks the question, “There are so many smart rabbis who study much more than I but some pronounce things ritually pure while other pronounce it impure. Some kosher while others unkosher. What should I do?”

The Talmud answers with a teaching that still speaks to today, “Make your ear like a hopper, which takes in that you hear, but acquire for yourself a discerning heart and don’t be afraid to pick a side.”

The jury is still out about whether we can speak in the name of other Jews, but I submit to you that there is no question that each and every one of us here, can cultivate that discerning heart and can speak with an authentic and prophetic voice in the name of Judaism.