I cannot remember ever struggling with writing a sermon as much as I have with this one. If I ever did it was long ago.
In part, my struggle writing this is a reflection of the exhaustion from dealing with the pain and angst engulfing our country and much of the world. Every day endless media streams bombard us with images and sounds of people fighting for their own benefit, fighting for their own egos, instead of for the common good.
In part, my struggle writing this is a reflection of the pull of optimism that calls us to hope that our community is truly on a positive upswing. We want to hope. We yearn to believe. Yet, we struggle with the fear that we will be disappointed yet again.
In part, my struggle writing this is a reflection of the difficult year it has been for so many of us in both our private and public lives. I have been honored that you have shared with me your stories of pain, disappointment, loss and angst. I have been honored that you have shared with me your stories of joy, happiness and fulfillment.
In part, my struggle writing this is a reflection of the wave of disbelief, disillusionment, and betrayal that continues to suffuse our beloved Congregation Albert. Led by our President, Dale Atkinson, we are taking all the right steps to recover from the embezzlement while continuing to grow and become an even more positive force in your lives and our community as we recover from the shattering of our trust. Yet, we still hesitate to trust.
We call this time the Days of Awe, because we are tasked with doing the awesome. We are called to dig deep to forgive, let go of our pain, and begin again to trust. We are called to dig even deeper, to step up and own our responsibility, not because we trusted too much, but in not trusting each other even more and allowing Congregation Albert, our safe haven, to be fractured.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, through his book To Heal A Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility, gave me reminders of, and new understandings of, the strength that Judaism gives us to move past our feelings of betrayal and the shattering of our ability to trust.
He reminds us that book of Job is among the hardest books to understand. The book makes no sense. We find Job, a totally righteous person, suffering because of his righteousness. Job, his family before they die, his friends, all ask the unanswerable question: “Why me?” “Why Job?” Rabbi Lord Sacks writes: “The question most often asked by theologians and philosophers is: how, given what we know of the world, can we be sure that God exists? The question asked in the book of Job (as in later rabbinic midrash) is the opposite (emphasis mine): how, given what we know of God, can we explain that humankind exists? Why did a wise, good, all-knowing, all-powerful Creator, having constructed a universe of beauty and order, introduce into it one form of life, Homo Sapiens, capable of destroying the beauty and creating disorder?”
His answer: “The question answers itself, and the answer is profoundly counterintuitive. The Bible is not humankind’s book of God; it is God’s book of humankind. It takes for granted that God can construct a home for humankind. The question that endlessly absorbs it is: can humankind construct a home for God?”
My answer to that question is yes. Regardless of the many different theologies in this sanctuary tonight, we can continue to build Congregation Albert into, as Sacks puts it, “a home for God.”
But what is “a home for God”? In my mind it is a place where we act Godly. Please put aside, for at least a moment, your particular understanding of, or belief in God and see these for the examples they are. What does it mean to act Godly? Judaism teaches that it means we are to imitate God by following God’s example of how to act as we are taught in Torah. God clothed the nakedness of Eve and Adam, so too are we to clothe the naked. God visited Abraham as he was recovering from his self-circumcision, so too are we to visit the sick. God buries Moses on Mount Nebo, so too we accompany the dead to their final resting place.
But, as Jews we are called to go to deeper in acting Godly. First, Torah teaches us that when God brought us out of Egypt it created a symbiotic, albeit unequal relationship. In Exodus chapter 6 God says, “I will be your God and you will be My people.” That phrase is repeated several times throughout the rest of the Tanach – the Hebrew Bible. Through the various forms of the covenant between God and the Israelites there is one constant. We are responsible to God and for God, and God is responsible for us and to us. Our tradition takes this monumental concept and calls upon us to implement it within our own lives, within our relationships with each other. In the Talmud, tractate Shavuot (page 29a) we are taught: Kol Yisrael aravim zeh bazeh – Every Jew is responsible for, and accountable to, every other member of our community. Just as we have a covenant with God, we have a covenant with each other.
What does it mean to be responsible for and to each other? On the surface we have an obligation to care for each other’s physical needs for food, shelter, clothing…. But on the deeper level, when one who is a part of our community sins, we all share a degree of responsibility for allowing that sin to occur in our midst. We all have the responsibility for doing Teshuvah, repentance for our part in the sin. We all have the obligation to ensure that there is no opportunity to repeat. Thus, during this season of repentance, all our confessional prayers are plural: “For the sin WE have committed…”
The other way that we need to imitate God and act Godly is through faith. Judaism does not mandate faith in God. Judaism mandates faith in each other as individuals and in humankind. Again, as Rabbi Lord Sacks writes: “In making humankind God was taking the risk that one of his (sic) creations might turn against its Creator. Even for God, creation means the courage to take a risk.” I extrapolate from this that we are to be in relationships with each other and that involves risk. Further, if God’s creating humankind was a risk, then God had faith in us that, for the most part, we would choose to do good.
If God, as it were, could have faith in us, how much the more so should we imitate God and have faith in each other, even after one of our own turned against us?
The Torah is the story of how our people turned against God over and over, and yet each time, God had enough faith in us to reinforce and keep the covenant. We have been betrayed. One of our own turned against us. Now, as we are taught God did in Torah, no matter how hard it may be, we have to have faith in each other. Again, as Sacks writes: “Faith does not mean certainty. It means the courage to live with uncertainty.”
Rabbi Menachem Mendl of Kotzk told this story: For days, a person was wandering lost in the woods losing faith and hope of ever returning home. Finally, seeing another, the first person asks: “Do you know the way out of these woods?” The second answers: “I do not. But hold my hand and we will find our way through the woods together. And so, they walked, arm and arm, with hope and faith that they would find their way through the woods to a better place.”
Can we do any less?
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