Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur 5772 / September-October 2011
Rabbi Levin's Sermons

First Day Rosh Hashanah 5772
Following the Pillars of Cloud and Fire
© Rabbi Amy Levin, 2011 / 5772

For almost fifty years, our ark has been the centerpiece of this bimah.  I know that we are not all of one mind about this ark.  Last year, I sent out some general questions about your feelings about this building, and I've got to tell you that about as many people said they love this ark as said they hate it!

There is some very apt symbolism in our ark, and a very profound message for us as well.  First of all, there is the overall shape:  the whole ark is meant to represent a Torah scroll.

The curved doors on our ark open with a movement reminiscent of unrolling a Torah scroll, and, the bottom of the ark is adorned with atzei hayim, the wooden dowels upon which the parchment of the scroll is attached.

When our sanctuary was constructed, the name of the congregation was Beth Torah.  Now "Beth" is one of those unfortunate victims of the transliteration process:  there are two Hebrew letters that are pronounced with a "t" sound: tet and tav.  Academicians who were trying to develop a transliteration system that would represent each letter of the Hebrew alphabet determined that tet would be transliterated as "t" and tav would be transliterated as "th".  That's why you'll sometimes see the word mitzvot spelled mitzvoth.  And that's why the Hebrew word Beit, which means "house of" had been spelled Beth.  Not a woman's name, but "House of."

So, when this sanctuary was being designed, and when this ark was selected, it was more than apt for a congregation named "Beit Torah" (that is, House of Torah) to select an ark in the shape of a Torah scroll.  When Beth Israel and Beth Torah merged to form Torat Yisrael, the House of Torah and House of Israel became Temple Torat Yisrael: Torah of Israel . . . And the imagery of the ark still worked.

That's the apt symbolism.  Now here is the profound message:  what is the subject of the tapestry doors on our ark?  Anyone know?   The pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire.  What is the origin of these images?  The pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire take us back to the book of Sh'mot/Exodus:  b'nei Yisrael, the progeny of Israel are wandering around in the wilderness.  A place with no road signs or landmarks.  Gary Larson's Far Side Cartoon version of this predicament has Moses scanning the horizon looking for a hint of a direction, while his wife Tzipporah remarks to a group of women in the foreground: "You'd think after forty years, he'd ask for directions."

Clearly Gary Larson did not know his Exodus.  The route for the wandering Israelites was consistently laid out for Moses and all of Israel to see any time of the day or night:  they were led by a pillar of cloud by day and by a pillar of fire by night.  They would move when the pillar moved and would encamp when the pillar stood still.  God's presence was always before them throughout their decades of wandering.

So, for forty-something years, our Aron Kodesh, our Holy Ark, has stood for the truth that whereever and whenever our people have journeyed, God has blessed our journey with an eternal, engaging, inspiring and challenging divine presence. 

Why did it take forty years to get to Eretz Yisrael?  Even walking, and getting lost a few times, it wouldn't take that long.  B'nai Yisrael needed the time to transform, to become the people they were called to be.  That is our task as we make our way to East Greenwich:  we need time to become the congregation we are called to be. 

It would be disingenuous to pretend that it is not painful to abandon comfortable old realities (or illusions) to risk new and unproven possibilities.  How do we find the courage and the precedent for weathering the challenges of leaving the comfortable behind for the potential and the pitfalls of the unknown?  B'nai Yisrael, our wandering Israelite forebearers relied on two sources of strength and inspiration: they relied on each other and they relied on God, on those pillars of cloud and fire, on the manna, on the water coaxed from the arid wilderness.

And our Torah is far too wise and honest a source to pretend that the community of Israel wandering in the wilderness was a cohesive, mutually supportive group that marched in accord from month to month and from year to year.  Really, a group of Jews?  That wouldn't be sacred scripture, that would be a fairy tale!

Rather, the revelations of the book of Bamidbar preserve the struggles of our people, the growing pains they encountered as they transformed from slaves to independent, accountable adults. Their sense of faith in God wavered at times.  Their faith in each other wavered at times.

Kind of like us.

They looked back at the good old days.  Their good old days weren't graced by overflow high holiday services, multiple religious school sessions and smoothly functioning daily minyanim, their good old days were remembered for the fleshpots of Egypt, the stability of roofs over their heads and a routine to their day.  They could not go back any more than we can.

Among the Israelites who were included in that group Exodus from Egypt were those who were just not able to conceive of a future charted by a God they could not see.  They crafted for themselves an idolatrous Golden Calf that helped them feel more grounded, which brought them a measure of familiarity.  And they were left behind in the wilderness, they did not move forward to follow the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire.  Over the years, we have lookeRH I 5772 Journey.docxd around us and found that some who we thought were journeying with us, who were sharing our transformation into the congregation we are called to be ultimately felt unwilling or unable to take that journey with us. Some of those have chosen the comfortable, familiar patterns and configurations of community that, we hope, helps them feel more grounded. 

As our wandering ancestors made their way through the challenges of transformation and renewal, there were also those among them who were inspired by conflicting visions, those who were not ready to accept the leadership represented by Moses and Aaron and Miriam.  Yet again, the community of Israel moved forward toward the uncharted future in diminished numbers, no doubt feeling shaken by the rhetoric of rebellion and conflicting vision that heralded the departure of those who needed to follow a different vision or different leadership.  And here we are again:  we, too, have watched with a spectrum of emotions ranging from dismay to abandonment as some who have come so far with us have chosen to follow different leadership and be part of different kinds of communities.

Each of these milestones along the Israelite journey contributed to the maturing and cohesion of the Israelite community.  As we look back at the dramatic stages of the book of Bamidbar, we gain an appreciation for the necessity of each of those steps.  The people of Israel who were going to enter the Land, settle it, be enriched and nurtured by it, were the people with the determination and openness to be forged into the people they were called to be by the challenges of that wilderness journey. 

That's you, by the way.  You are the people of Torat Yisrael who have given yourselves over to this process of transformation, who are taking this journey with determination, openness and faith. The promise of our pillars of cloud and fire touch a chord in you.

Even on this last leg of our journey, we're going to meet some new realities and new challenges.  For forty years, our ancestors had only the vision of a land of milk and honey to sustain them.

What is the vision that is going to sustain us?  What is our "milk and honey?" I'm not sure yet.  I think we have to spend some time thinking about that this year, but I can tell you what it isn't.  Our "congregation of milk and honey" is not going to be a reincarnation of what was.  I don't believe that the vision of a strong daily minyan is going to sustain us on our journey. The vision of the synagogue as the exclusive social haven of a marginalized Jewish population may be what energized and inspired our founding families, it is a complete anachronism for us.  Just as the Israelites who entered the Land of Israel were not the passive followers who left Egypt, so we who are taking this congregational journey together are not passive followers: slavery is not good training for independence and unquestioning acceptance is not good training for community-building.

The process of preparing for our move out of this sacred space is parallel to the process a family goes through when moving homes, or the emotions of the Israelites as they prepared to escape Egypt with what they could carry:  the questions are the same questions:  what do we take with us? What do we leave behind?  What are our most precious possessions?  What do we need to bring with us that will make us feel "at home" in our new space?  What can we shed that will help us emerge with a clearer vision of who we really are?

A very devoted team of volunteers, Anita Olinsky and Linda Weisman, have for months been engaged in the fascinating and dusty task of exploring the far and near corners of this building, sorting through boxed up records and memorabilia and an incredible miscellany of items left over from auctions, events and simchas.  They've already discarded a lot.  They've put aside treasures for us to take.  Our physical move is going to take a communal effort, so please keep your eyes peeled for requests for help in our e-mails and on our website.  Hopefully many hands will make light work.

The list of what we will take with us from Cranston to East Greenwich goes far beyond things that can be loaded onto a truck.  We have spiritual and communal inventories to sort out as well.

What are the principles of faith that reflect the congregation we have been and the congregation we are called to be?  Like our wandering ancestors guided by the pillars of cloud and fire, we are open to being guided by that which we cannot see.  As the generations of Jews before us have understood and demonstrated for us, Judaism is a multi-faceted amalgam of that which is immutable, like the Torah, and that which evolves and responds to the realities of the lives of Jews in each era and each place, like our new Mahzor.

As generations of Jews before us have understood and demonstrated for us, there are imperatives and opportunities inherent in a tradition based on the perception that every human being is created in God's image.  The congregation we are called to be reaches beyond our walls to acknowledge the sacred spark in every human being: vulnerable neighbors, adherents of different faiths, even people who have hurt or abandoned us.  Our understanding of Judaism creates opportunities to deeply appreciate that which is unique and blessed in every human being we encounter and creates the imperative to bring support, solace and encouragement to troubled souls.

As generations of Jews before us have understood and demonstrated for us, there is no end to the learning, exploring, delving, growing in Jewish knowledge afforded to us by our tradition.  The congregation we are called to be is a community of Jewish learners . . . Not locked into one curriculum, not bounded by one spiritual path, but each of us pursuing what engages our minds and our hearts and then coming together to enrich our communal experience with the information we've learned and the insights we've acquired.

There is a lot packed into these tapestry doors:  not just because they contain our congregation’s scrolls of Torah, but because those pillars of cloud and fire represent both the tribulations and challenges of  our transformative journey and the spiritual legacy we will take with us as we pack up and move to our next “encampment.” 

The Israelites who entered the Promised Land were determined to follow the vision of faith, values and inspiration revealed by God and described by Moses.  Those Israelites proved themselves to be open to new ideas, open to growing in faith and open to functioning as a mutually supportive and nurturing community.  So have you.

Through a daunting series of challenges, the wilderness Israelites stayed together and moved together to meet their new, uncharted future.  That's what we're going to do.

Our ancient Israelite ancestors reached the promised land and settled there to enjoy God’s blessings . . . if we remain true to the promise of our pillars of cloud and fire we’ll move together and grow together to be the congregation we are called to be:  a congregation of faith, a congregation of compassion, a congregation of learners . . . and that will be a blessing for us here today and for many others who we have yet to meet.

Second Day of Rosh Hashanah 5772
Blind Faith
© Rabbi Amy Levin, 2011 / 5772

Whenever I visit Israel, my daughter Adina takes a day off of work and plans a “girls day out” for us somewhere in the greater Tel Aviv area where she lives and works.

This summer, Adina arranged an extraordinary experience for us:  we went to Holon, a city just south of Tel Aviv, to the children’s museum.  We were going to spend an hour and a quarter in total darkness and experience for that fleeting time what it is like to move through the world as a blind person.   Our group of 8 ranges from a ten year old boy to a seventy-something grandmother.  We are given a few moments of perfunctory instruction on using a cane and then our guide, Yehuda, calls us to join him in a very strong, deep, gravelly voice.  He gives us a few guidelines, we will be walking through a number of every day settings, we can stay close to the wall most of the time but there will be times that we will move more freely around the space to explore.  At the end of each "scene" we are to follow his voice through a door to the next scene.  He will double back to make sure no one is left behind and then will close the door between the two scenes and we will explore the next area.  Yehuda is blind.  All the exhibit guides are blind. 

I stepped through the doorway, stepped around a corner and suddenly it was pitch black, absolutely not a glimmer of light.  I heard Yehuda calling us to enter just ahead. He asked for a sort of roll call, asking us each to tell him our names as we entered. I tell Yehuda my name and feel a very strong hand guide me past him to the right.  Just standing still I can not tell if there is open space in front of me or a wall.  I freeze.  I know I am in a safe space and I know that there are people coming in behind me and for a moment I am at a complete loss.  Then I remember my cane.  I sweep it along the ground in front of me and find I can take a few hesitating steps.  When my cane encounters a wall and my free hand finds a railing, I am able to move forward with much more confidence.  It feel a little like I am cheating, but at least I can make room for the people in our group who are coming in behind me.

A few steps more and I hear birds chirping and water running.  Through the cane, I can feel the difference between spongy grass and a gravelly path.  My face is brushed with the leaves of a tree and then I feel the trunk with my cane.  I find that my greatest concern is to hold on to the cane for dear life.  

Yehuda herds us through the door and asks us to identify the objects we encounter.  I hear people around me exclaiming over a kitchen counter, a table and chairs, a stove top, pot and kettle.  There is something very reassuring about touching these familiar objects.  In this kitchen scenario, though, the pots and kettles and plates are all glued to the surfaces that hold them.  In a real kitchen, I am sure most of those objects would have wound up on the floor in no time.  And so we move on to a short boat ride, a city street, an outdoor produce market and finally a snack bar.

We are still moving through pitch blackness, I’m cautiously moving forward, following Yehudah’s voice and directions and grasping onto hand rails whenever I can find one. All this time, I’ve got the loop at the end of my cane wrapped around my wrist and my fingers wrapped firmly around my cane.  My dependence on my cane has developed very quickly. The snack bar is a real one.  Neither Adina nor I are interested in the very familiar selection of Israeli chocolate bars and salty snacks  on the menu but it is challenging just trying to track all the information as the girl behind the counter rattles off the names of items for sale and their prices.  Yehuda guides us to seats and sits with us around a table.  He tells us about his life (he was born with sight and went blind as a child).  Then there is silence, the scrape of a chair, and then music. Yehuda is serenading us at a piano and singing with that great deep voice of his.  He sings a ballad that included the words, in Hebrew, of course: "if only I could see you!"

When Adina told me what we were going to be doing, I thought, this could be the basis of a great High Holiday sermon . . . hmm . . . probably about trust.  But it turns out that the quality that declared itself to me as the defining characteristic of the blind is courage.  Surrounded by the sounds of buses and car horns, and the beep of backing up trucks, in that experience with Yehuda, I could barely make myself move forward . . . and I knew I was in a simulated environment and totally safe.  How does someone who is completely blind even leave the house, I thought to myself.  So this sermon inspired by my hour and a half as a blind person is about courage.  About the courage it takes to move through the world when there is so much around us we cannot see.

Vision is a dynamic element throughout the Torah and Jewish tradition.  The role of “seeing” in our sources reminds us that there is much more to be seen than just what can be perceived by a healthy functioning eye communicating with a healthy functioning brain.

I caught a McDonald’s commercial on television a while ago . . . cute kids are peering into the Happy Meals packages because, the voice over explains, there’s hope in those meals.  “I don’t see any hope in here!” “Hope? Where’s the hope?” They say . . . and we viewers watch and say “aw, what cute innocent little kids not understanding that the hope is in the penny out of the purchase price that McDonald’s donates to their Ronald McDonald House program.  At that age, kids might still be looking for hope at the bottom of a Happy Meal box and we may consider their search to be disarming and innocent and a symbol of their adorable cluelessness.

Actually, we adults are very adept at “seeing” things that are not visible to the physical eye:  My Rabbi and teacher, Rabbi Neil Gillman, talks about the conversation between the developmental psychologists watching one toddler grabbing a toy from another toddler:  “Look at that ego!”  One psychologist comments to the other. There are signals and behaviors that we interpret without even thinking too much about them by virtue of how, where and when we were raised.  The psychologist’s remark is perfectly comprehensive to us even though there is no object “ego” in the room with the toddlers.

The gift of sight that God has given us has the potential to go far beyond the visible:  A few weeks ago, we read in Deuteronomy:


ראה אנכי נתן לפניכם היום ברכה וקללה
See, I am placing before you today a blessing and a curse.

There were other verbs at God’s disposal at the moment of the revelation of the book of Deuteronomy:  “sh’ma” . . . listen . . . might have made sense here.  Which makes the choice of the verb “see” even more engaging.

But God urges us in this passage to see the blessing and the curse placed before us at any given moment.  Blessing and curse are tucked away in the landscape around us at every single moment . . . and we are groping around holding onto the handrails and waving our canes.  How do we step out into the world, make decisions, make alliances, align ourselves with or against personalities or causes or principles knowing that we might inadvertently bump up against a blessing or a curse before we know it.  That is the courage we who are conventionally sighted must muster in order to engage in the world.

In today’s Torah reading, Abraham does some profound seeing . . . or not seeing:  on hearing God’s instruction to journey Avraham gathers up all he needs for the sacrifice he thinks God is requiring of him, and travels with Isaac and two young servants for three days.  And then, the Torah relates, Avraham raised up his eyes and saw the place.  That place, tradition tells us, is Mount Moriah . . . the site where the Temple in Jerusalem will one day be built . . . but right now it’s a mountain in the wilderness covered with some scrub brushes.  Father and son, walking toward that mountain.  And the son, bright kid that he is, asks . . . I see you’ve brought along everything you need for a sacrifice except for the actual animal, Pops.  And Avraham responds:  It is God who will yeira’eh . . . make seen . . . the sheep, my son.  And at the penultimate moment, with knife raised, Avraham is stopped by the angel, raises his eyes again, and . . . sees.  Seeing the curse, seeing the blessing . . . if you took a look at the marginal notes during the Torah reading, you’ll have seen that there is a midrashic tradition that says that that ram had been caught in that bush since before creation . . . the blessing was tucked into the landscape the whole time, but Avraham was blind to it until God couldn’t stand it any more.

You’ve probably heard that, deprived of one sense, our other senses become sharper, trying to compensate for the loss.  It’s not such a gradual process . . . the first piece of information I had that I was moving into an outdoor space back at the children’s museum was aroma . . . I smelled the freshness of green things, then I heard the stream of water and the birds.  I very deliberately began to call each of my remaining senses to the task of gleaning as much information about my surroundings as possible.  The mental picture of my surroundings that I was able to construct from my senses of hearing, touch and taste was pretty rich . . . but still inadequate.  All I could account for was those things that were close enough to be smelled, heard or tasted . . . there was no way to perceive what was around the corner . . . or even where the corner was.

I was moving through that constructed world on blind faith . . . the faith of the blind.  We all do it, you know, because God knows, our sense of wherein lies the blessing and the curse is fairly undeveloped. . . or atrophied . . . I’m not sure which.

In modern parlance blind faith gets a bad rap with its connotations of mindlessly and sightlessly and unquestioningly following another’s lead.   Headlines are chock full of victims who followed the wrong person with blind faith.

But the faith of the blind is another matter:  In my controlled, short experience as a blind person trying to navigate an unseen world, I was acutely aware of my inability to comprehend the landscape around me.  I stuck my hand into a bin at the produce market and knew my fingers were wrapped around an orange . . . but I couldn’t know that the next bin held apples until my hand reached in there.  I couldn’t know the ground was sloping down without sensing that slope with my cane, I couldn’t know I was about to literally hit a wall without the warning of my cane.

I put my faith in my cane, I trusted what it told me and accepted that my cane could reveal things to me that I could not perceive on my own.  And I was deeply aware that I was mustering the courage to place that faith in my cane.  It wasn’t natural and those first few steps I took by grasping that cane and perceiving the world through that cane were terrifying . . . I was stepping out into thin air for all I could see with my eyes.

Do you remember what I said yesterday about the eitzei hayyim of the Torah scroll?  Those wooden dowels . . . rather cane-shaped . . . are referred to as “trees of life” and the verse we sing as we return our Torah scrolls to the ark is:  eitz hayyim hi . . .

It is a tree of life to those who hold fast to it, those who are supported by it are happy, its ways are ways of pleasantness and all its paths are peace.”

If we were to muster the courage to grasp on to the Torah with blind faith we would acquire the ability to perceive, to see, the blessing and the curse so present at every moment and in every place around us.  The faith is blind faith, not because we follow blindly, mindlessly . . . but because we are blind to so many profound truths without the aid of the Torah to make that blessing and curse perceptible and comprehensible.

I pray that we all are blessed with the courage of the blind in this new year, to grasp hold of the eitz hayyim, the Tree of Life of the Torah, to help us perceive so much that we would otherwise be unable to see.

Kol Nidrei 5772:  Owning Up
© Rabbi Amy Levin, 2011 / 5772

There are a few television programs I’ve programmed to record automatically on my DVR.  One of my favorites is a Foodnetwork program called “Chopped.” In case you aren’t a foody like me, I’ll explain the premise:  Four chefs come to compete in a cooking contest.  They each have a basket with a lid in front of them and when the clock starts, they have half an hour to prepare an appetizer from the mystery ingredients in the basket…, which contains a few normal ingredients and then something weird.  Like the basket will contain breadcrumbs, turkey breasts and marshmallows … something like that.  After a half hour of frenetic cooking, the chefs present their dishes to a panel of judges. After tasting and discussing each dish, the judges decree that one chef be “chopped.”  The remaining chefs go on to prepare an entrée, the two who are left prepare dessert and the winner is the Chopped Champion.  Great show. Here’s what connects Chopped to Yom Kippur:  as each losing chef is chopped, they are given a 10 second opportunity to say something about being chopped by the judges.  Their reactions  often amaze and dismay me:

“I know I’m a winner even though the judges don’t.”

“The judges chopped the wrong chef.”

“They’re wrong! I’m a champion!”

“That’s just the judges opinion . . . I know I’m a great chef.”

Maybe one out of 10 chopped chefs will say something like: “I was out-cooked today by better chefs.”  Or “I blew it, I made a mistake in that dish today.”

We don’t like being judged.

We hate owning up to our mistakes and our shortcomings.  In a very public setting, like a nationally broadcast television program, it’s got to be excruciating to be shown up by peers and criticized by people whose expertise is unquestioned.

But we hate owning up to our mistakes and our shortcomings even in the most private of settings as well.  The culture around us has trained us to expect to be brutally torn apart if we are caught making a mistake or falling short somehow.  

We have a whole toolbox of techniques for avoiding the admission of transgression, wrongdoing or shortcoming that would render us vulnerable. Images of the stronger animals turning on the weakest one in the pack flash through one’s mind.  So instead of opening ourselves up to the expected attack, we have mastered “the spin.”

"My appetizer was perfect, the judges just didn’t appreciate my cooking style."
"My child behaved perfectly appropriately, the teacher is just prejudiced against her because she is so popular."
"Everyone in my business accepts cash without issuing a receipt . . . we’d all have to close our businesses if we reported every cent we took in."
"I needed to turn to another woman for comfort, my wife doesn’t care about me any more."

It was a pleasant surprise to find these lyrics in recent very popular hit song:
Seems like everybody's got a price, 
I wonder how they sleep at night. 
When the sale comes first, 
And the truth comes second, 

So kudos to Jessie James . . . and to me for knowing who Jessie James is and knowing the words to her song, Price Tag.

My question is Ms. James’: What are we teaching our children about accountability?  My first cousin is a philosophy professor.  He told me about a phone call he got from a parent:  “You have destroyed my son’s career!”  My cousin, taken aback, asks what he did to produce such a disaster.  The father explained:  “You gave my son a “C” in your class.  He’ll never make Phi Beta Kappa with that grade and he won’t get into the graduate school he needs to advance his career.  You, professor, have to change that grade to an A.  What’s philosophy anyway?  Why should a grade in a philosophy class destroy my son’s future?  I’m paying a lot of money for this degree and you have to fix this.”

In our desire to raise children with strong self esteem and to internalize the liberal ethic that no opinion is wrong, no effort falls short, we are perpetuating a culture of non-accountability.  Worse.  We’re tolerating and perpetuating a justification for “the ends justify the means.”   There’s always a good reason to duck responsibility.  It’s never our fault.  The “fix” is not our responsibility, but someone else’s. 

And then we walk into this sanctuary on Yom Kippur and spend a significant amount of time reading words like:

You know the mysteries of the universe, the deepest secrets of everyone alive. You probe our innermost depths; You examine our thoughts and feelings. Nothing escapes You; nothing is secret from You.  Therefore, may it be Your will, our God and God of our ancestors, to forgive us for all our sins, to pardon us for all our iniquities, and to grant us atonement for all our transgressions.

Talk about culture shock.

It is small wonder that we have a tendency to compartmentalize religion.  To shut it away for all but three days a year, or once a month, or even once a week. It just doesn’t seem to fit in to real life.

So I ask you to suspend that compartmentalization with me for a little while and take a peak at what it means to “own up.”  To accept the premises of our faith, and of this day, on their own terms.  Our own terms:

There’s a real catch in that prayer I just read to you:  Earning God’s pardon and forgiveness sounds good.  Comforting.  But in order for God to bless me with pardon and forgiveness, I’ve got to own up.  I’ve got to acknowledge that I actually did fall short this year, that I did make mistakes, hurt people, forgot important things, wasted time, put myself before others . . . and, yikes, I can’t fake this contrition either by just mouthing the words on the page because God knows the deepest secrets of everyone alive. probes our innermost depths.

A couple of years ago, as we began Kol Nidrei services, I began the practice of having you turn to the people you are sitting with  apologize to each other and ask each other for forgiveness.  It was clear the first year or so that we followed this practice that some of you were quite moved by this opportunity to clear the air with those you love, and begin this day of Atonement by sharing a forgiving embrace with the people most dear to you.  Others of you were clearly uncomfortable by my direction, I heard strained laughter from a number of places across the room and I found myself hoping that in future years those who were made uncomfortable by apologizing and embracing those they love would, in coming years, look forward to this opportunity to do what comes rather unnaturally to many of us . . . say we’re sorry.

This practice is rooted in the two thousand year old rabbinic insight that only God can offer us forgiveness when we acknowledge our shortcomings in the realm of mitzvot bein adam lamakom / mitzvot that provide parameters to the relationship between God and each individual Jew.  This category of mitzvah is largely made up of commandments that provide the means of infusing our every day actions with a sense of God’s presence through small and great acts of religious discipline:  keeping kosher, praying, lighting Shabbat candles…

The second category of commandment is mitzvot bein adam l’adam which provide parameters to the relationship between human beings.  This category of mitzvah is largely made up of commandments that require us to be mindful of the spark of the divine in each human being we encounter.  Mitzvot like: giving charity, offering only fair weights and measures in our business practices, avoiding slander or causing someone public embarrassment or causing bodily harm, honoring our marriage vows, etc.

In this second category, the rabbis who laid down the principles of rabbinic Judaism teach us, only the person we have wronged can provide forgiveness. Once we have secured human forgiveness, we can turn to God to pardon us for having disregarded the sanctity of the human being created in God’s image  by violating that individual’s peace of mind or perhaps even physical safety. But God is not free to offer us that pardon until we have made peace with the person we have wronged.  Therefore, it has become a regular practice for Jews all over the world to reach out and apologize to friends and family before coming to Kol Nidrei services.

Sometimes, we approach those we love with a  “hedging our bets” sort of apology:  “If I’ve done or said anything that hurt you, please accept my apology and know that the hurt was not intentional.”  But there are times when a particular exchange or actions weighs heavily on us and we turn to our loved one to say: “That moment that I hurt you . . . I apologize.  I know what I did and I make a commitment to you not to repeat that offense again.”  That is the spirit of “owning up” that heals.

So if we have owned up to the hurts we have caused to the human being God loves, w can turn to God and ask for forgiveness for having caused the creatures God loves such pain.

“Owning up” . . . that’s a fascinating idiom . . . in the context of our spiritual work on Yom Kippur the dynamic of owning our mistakes allows us to raise ourselves up.

How do we do that owning up?  It seems counter-intuitive.  Like the 3 year old trying to convince his mom that the family dog pulled the cooky jar off the counter, our first inclination is to look around us and pin the offense on happenstance, exigent circumstance, lack of awareness, a force not under our control . . . anything but a moment of personal, conscious and perhaps even deliberate shortcoming.

There are a few of us who move through the world by virtue of sheer force of will.  Those people will grit their teeth, say “I have to face my shortcomings and promise to improve myself . . . and mean it.”

But I think most of us need . . . and deserve . . . a certain context that makes owning up possible.

We need a measure of confidence in our surroundings.  We need to know that we will be forgiven.  There are few moments as difficult as offering a sincere apology and not having it accepted.  Indeed, our tradition teaches us that if we have been hurt in some way by another, and they come to us with a sincere apology, we are allowed to turn away from them twice.  But if they are back for a third time we are obligated to accept the apology with a whole heart.

We would all thrive, dare to grapple with our doubts and our shortcomings, dare to explore  and question . . . even openly question issues of faith and practice, if we thought that our mistakes would be forgiven.  The specter of rejection stifles the spirit. The specter of unyielding judgment, black or white, yes or no, makes it difficult for us to dare to own up . . . publically or privately.

This is why our tradition teaches us about God’s midat rachamim.  This is why the last seven haftarot we read every Shabbat leading up to Rosh Hashanah contained one absolute declaration of God’s love for us after another . . . to make it clear to us that the God to which we would be revealing ourselves this Yom Kippur is a God that is looking for the opportunity to forgive, guide and embrace us.

Rabbi Art Green, relates a midrash in his book, These are The Words, which provides us with another insight into the potential of owning up:

He writes:  The first person to undertake teshuvah was the very first human. Adam realized the magnitude of his sin in the Garden,  and sought to be reconciled with God.  Teshuvah in this case would mean re-establishing the intimacy and trust that existed between God and God’s beloved creatures before the explusion from Eden.  Teshuvah, in this key story, could not mean the re-creation of innocence, remarks Rabbi Green.  That childlike aspect of Eden was gone forever.  But a new relationship, one more mature since it had faced and overcome the moment of doubt and betrayal, was Adam’s goal.  It is this deeper faith, one that emerges from struggle with self, that is the goal of teshuvah.

Which is the goal of what I’m calling tonight “owning up:  owning our errors and shortcomings in order to elevate ourselves.”

It also takes a measure of self-confidence to dare to own up, to trust that we can connect with our innermost core of integrity, and approach this opportunity for growth from the inside out . . . from our core self-awareness through our intentions to our decisions and ultimately to our actions.

(RH 472) There is a legend concerning Moses after he broke the first set of Ten Commandments in anger at his backsliding people. On his way up another mountain, Mount Pisgah, he prayed to the Lord that he might, just briefly, enter the Promised Land which he could see before his dying eyes. But the Lord said to him, “Moses, you lost faith in me and I could forgive you that. You lost faith in your people and in their divine possibilities and I could even forgive you that. But then you lost faith in yourself and I cannot forgive you that. For without faith in yourself, it is impossible for you to enter the Promised Land.” 

Dan Arieli, in his book Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, says: we are not only irrational, but predictably irrational—that our irrationality happens the same way, again and again. Whether we are acting as consumers, businesspeople, or policy makers, or simple people just living life, understanding how we are predictably irrational provides a starting point for improving our decision making and changing the way we live for the better. When Arieli says predictably irrational he means that we often repeatedly choose the immediate reward over the long term good that we know would come with better decisions.

But, he assures us, if we are aware of our tendencies, and particularly of our failures, we can find ways to incentivize ourselves to make better decisions for our own long term benefit.

Dan Arieli has rediscovered and analyzed in modern terms what we have right here in the pages of our Machzor from ancient times.  It is only through self-reflection, owning up to our errors, lapses, misjudgments, that we have a chance of learning and growing:  become more honest people in business, becoming better life partners or parents, becoming better Jews.

Because, in Jewish tradition, we have great wisdom.  We are actively encouraged to examine our life plan, the details of our lives, and detect our own errors – with an eye toward making positive changes for the good.  Because our Sages intuited a long time ago that if we face our failures, we can then focus on a better future!

The story is told of a great Chasidic master who came to shul on Yom Kippur night and he said to God:  I’ve come to mend my ways and I promise that from this day on I will be a better person.  Then he said to himself:  I know that I said the same thing last year and I kept on repeating the same mistakes, so how can I say it again this year?  And then he answered himself by saying:  But this year I mean it!

I don’t think that Yom Kippur should be a day of sadness.  Yes, owning up can be difficult . . . the “owning part” certainly is.  Owning the poor decisions we’ve made and the poor habits we’ve fallen into, and the poor priorities we’ve committed to.  But Yom Kippur provides us with the gift of the “up” part . . . we can walk out of this sanctuary knowing that we are in a better place than we were when we walked in, we are on our way to more mature, deeper and more meaningful relationships with our loved ones, our community and our God.

Yom Kippur Morning 5772: Remembering
© Rabbi Amy Levin, 2011 / 5772

An eighty year old couple were having problems remembering things, so they decided to go to their doctor to make sure nothing was wrong with them. When they arrived at the doctor's office, they explained to the doctor about the problems they were having with their memory.

After checking the couple out, the doctor told them that they were physically okay but might want to start writing things down, making notes to help them remember things. The couple thanked the doctor and left.

Later that night while watching TV, the old man got up from his chair and his wife asked, "Where are you going?"

He replied, "To the kitchen."

She asked, "Will you get me a bowl of ice cream?"

"Sure."

Then his wife asked him, "Don't you think you should write it down so you can remember it?"

"No, I can remember that."

"Well, I also would like some strawberries on top. You had better write that down cause I know you'll forget that," his wife said.

"I can remember that, you want a bowl of ice cream with strawberries."

She replied, "Well, I also would like whipped cream on top. I know you will forget that. You had better write it down."

With irritation in his voice, he said, "I don't need to write that down, I can remember that." He went into the kitchen.

After about 20 minutes, he returned from the kitchen and handed her a plate of scrambled eggs.

She stared at the plate for a moment and said, "You forgot my toast."


We focus a lot on remembering during these Yamim Nora'im, these Days of Awe.  Who, though, is meant to do the remembering? Us?  Those who owe us apologies?  Someone else?

The unit of the service during which we commend the souls of those we have loved and lost to God's eternal care is called "Yizkor" which doesn't mean "we remember" or "they will be remembered" but rather "He/God will remember." 

On Rosh Hashanah, during musaf, we read three collections of verses that demonstrate how deeply woven into our core tradition are three particular themes: the first collection of verses are the malchuyot verses which focus on the sovereignty of God.  The third collection is the shofarot section, all of which illuminate the profound history and hopes we associate with the mitzvah of hearing the shofar.  And the middle section is called zichronot/memories: a collection of verses itemizing particular moments in which God turned to Israel b'midat rachamim, with divine mercy, which we want God to remember while sitting in judgement on us.


Since Rosh Hashanah, at each holiday, Shabbat and weekday service, we have added the plea: "zochreinu l'chayyim" "remember us to life" to the first blessing of each amidah.  Remember us for life, Sovereign who embraces life, and write us in the Book of Life, for Your sake, living God.

In each of these liturgical instances, it is God who we turn to to do the remembering.  We don't ask God to help us remember, even though the rest of the year we complain a lot about our faulty memories.  It's a little surprising because you'd think that the spiritual work of examining our relationship to God, to Judaism and to our people would compel us to ask for help remembering. ...maybe we don't ask because our ability to remember is likely to remain flawed, or maybe we don't ask because we don't think it's so important to remember, or maybe because remembering can yield discomforting recollections.

But we do remember, or at least we have the potential to remember.  Perhaps because our liturgy places so much emphasis on the importance of what God remembers, Rabbi Morris Adler, a highly esteemed predecessor of mine in the Conservative rabbinate, considered our capacity to remember to be one of our gifts from God.  In the context of this prayer in particular, Rabbi Adler considers our capacity to remember our loved ones who have died to be a gift:

We thank You, O God of life and love,
For the resurrecting gift of memory
Which endows Your children fashioned in Your image
With the Godlike sovereign power
To give immortality through love.
Blessed are You, O God,
Who enables Your children to remember.
                                                                      --Rabbi Morris Adler

I have to say that as I stand here facing you at each of the four Yizkor services we hold each year, I have never seen anyone chuckle or smile in sweet remembrance of a departed loved one.  I see only solemn faces and tears.  As much as Rabbi Adler embraced the capacity to remember as a gift, it seems, actually, to be more of a mixed blessing. 

When God is doing the remembering, we are "off the hook." We've delegated a complex and potentially painful task to One who is infinitely strong and infinitely capable of remembering how things really were.  When we are doing the remembering, the results are much more uncertain.

Our memories can be sweet and can bring smiles to our faces, as we recall events, moments or people that contributed to our sense of well-being: something as simple as a dish of comfort food from childhood. I vividly remember sitting at the table in my grandparents' minuscule kitchen, eating Mama's chicken soup with "luckshen" (that's noodles).  I have a half dozen of those meat soup bowls.  Not her good china, just the everyday meat dishes that held my chicken soup.  I eat any meat dish I can from those bowls, soup or not.

Our memories can bring us back to painful moments as well.  Moments of embarrassment or moments of trauma:  as vividly as I remember Mama's luckshen soup, memories of being chased home from school by the kids from the Catholic parochial school I had to pass, kids who chased me into alleys, calling me a "dirty Jew" and terrifying me are seared into my memory. 

Remembering is a mixed blessing.

The spirituality and healing author, Caren Goldman writes in her challenging book: Restoring Life's Missing Pieces: The Spiritual Power of Remembering and Reuniting with People, Places, Things and Self:

“The time is ripe for looking back over the day, the week, the year, and trying to figure out where we have come and where we are going to, for sifting through the things we have done and the things we have left undone for a clue to who we are and who, for better or worse, we are becoming.  But again and again we avoid the long thoughts....  We cling to the present out of wariness of the past.”

Ms. Goldman contends that our "now" our sense of ourselves in every present tense moment can be well-integrated and give us a sense of completeness if we do the work of remembering that which we have, for one reason or another sought to, or allowed ourselves to forget.  Living with those missing pieces of our lives yet "unrestored" contributes to a nagging sense of incompleteness and restlessness.  We're a bit uncomfortable in our own skin because some essential elements of who we are, be they comforting or discomforting, are missing.

I started to read Ms. Goldman's book over the winter.  I found her premise to be engaging.  Then my Aunt Gladys called and told me she had stage 4 liver cancer...and two agonizing months later, Gladys died.  Three months later, I got a phone call at 6:30 in the morning . . . Never a good time for the phone to ring . . . And I learned that my mother had died in her sleep.  A few months later still, and I came home from my summer visit to Israel to find that my dear friend, my colleague Judith Lubiner, was in the hospital battling an aggressive and spreading cancer . . . And within weeks she was gone.

Suddenly, the premise of Ms Goldman's book escalated from engaging to profound:  each of the women I lost this year meant something else to me in terms of memory:

My mother, as some of you know, had a profound cognitive dementia that expressed itself most strikingly in a complete loss of short term memory.  As this condition rooted itself in my mother's mind, I began to appreciate what short term memory means to us on a day to day basis:

I moved my parents to the Renaissance Unit of Tamarisk (that’s the Alzheimer’s / Dementia unit) in March of 2005.  Tamarisk was a godsend for my parents, and gave my brother, my aunt and uncle and me real peace of mind about the way they were cared for every single day. As I watched my parents try to orient themselves in their new surroundings at Tamarisk, the void left in their personalities by the absence of their short term memories screamed out to me.  My mother walked around in a constant state of agitation.  She did not know where she was.  She did not remember how she got there.  She could not recognize any of the people around her unless my brother, my aunt (her sister) or I were visiting.  For all my mother knew, she was locked up in a place that had no identifiable location.  It must have been like living in a Kafka novel. 

Every single time I went to see her, which was pretty much daily in the beginning, my mother would ask "how did you know where to find me?" and "when am I going home?" and "how long are you staying?" (she thought I was visiting from Israel.). Without her short-term memory, my mother was unable to orient herself in the world or come up with a plausible script in her head that would give her peace of mind.  My father was becoming increasingly frail and was walking unsteadily.  I discussed a certain kind of physical therapy for him called "gait training" that helps the elderly walk more securely.  My parents’ geriatric psychiatrist explained why it was no use:  "we need our short term memory in order to learn.  Your father has no short term memory so there is no way for him to participate in the progressive learning that gait training requires." that insight was like a physical blow.  He can't learn anymore... one of the joys of my father’s life had been learning.

 My mother's prolonged struggle to orient herself in an incomprehensible world demonstrated to me that remembering is not just an intellectual exercise, it is the only way we can know who we are.  The early rabbinic sage Hillel asked in Mishnah Avot:  אם אין אני לי מי לי?  (Im ein ani li mi li?)

This is most often translated: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me?". I would like to posit a different, to my mind, deeper more meaningful translation: "If I am not 'me' to myself, who am I to me?". If I cannot recognize myself, orient myself in the most basic way because my short term memory has abandoned me, than I truly do not know who I am.

Then there is my Aunt Gladys.  In life and in death there were never two sisters so profoundly different and so emotionally close to each other than my mother and her sister.  They were each others’ best friends. 

Advancing age robbed my mother of her memory.  Advancing age prompted my aunt to revel in memories.  Gladys was the family archivist, social historian and repository of all our best family stories.  That she was a bit of a revisionist when it came to her stories bothered no one, for Gladys' version was consistently more entertaining and more reflective of her world view (or her sense of humor) than the actual course of events.  She'd pull a comic huff when we'd call her bluff and then laugh her huge, life-embracing laugh. Gladys was very attached to her memories and no one held a grudge better or longer than Gladys if anyone offended or hurt any of her "loved ones."

There was something ritualistic and even liturgical in Gladys' storytelling.  She instinctually understood that she was passing down the heritage and founding legends of our family when she would tell us (for the umpteenth time) about how my quiet, modest grandfather closed up his candy store, put on his hat and went to see the neighborhood priest when some local kids called him a Kike. "And believe me," Gladys would conclude, "that priest made sure that never happened again!" Another seminal family story that Gladys loved to relate was how she and her girlfriends would play mah Jong in our apartment when my brother and I were little so my parents could go out, and how they'd wake me up (because I was fun and cute) take me out of my crib and feed me junk food until just before our parents came home...then they'd pop me back in my crib and I'd go off to sleep just like a little angel just in the nick of time. 

Though I doubted the historical accuracy of these tales, I never tired of listening to Gladys relate them time and time again.  They were a verbal hug, an affirmation of my roots and my identity, and the death of their storyteller has left a huge gap in my life.  Hillel went on to ask:

וכשאני לעצמי, מה אני?   (U'chshe'ani l'atzmi, mah ani?)

And when I am for myself, what am I?  The common translation poses a traditional challenge to narcissism. But I can read my aunt's wisdom about memory in this stage of Hillel's question:  and when I am only looking at myself alone, what am I?  Without the collective memories of my family and my people I cannot know who I am. Looking in the mirror, listening only to the inner voice of my own self-awareness is not enough to comprehend my place in the world.

Judith Lubiner facilitated Chug Nechamah with me for close to six years.  We started the group together.  I felt there was a need for a bereavement group within our community and I turned to Judith's expertise, gentleness and wisdom to make it happen.  Judith was our healer.  From a core of intelligence and compassion Judith helped us all make peace with our memories.  Judith's gentle skill helped those rent by memory to weave those memories back into our lives in such a way that we could feel whole and in tact and still remember: Hillel's final stage of his question in the Mishnah is:

 ואם לא עכשיו, אימתי?  (V'im lo achshav, eimatay?)

And if not now, when? 

Judith was able to show the broken-hearted that there were alternatives to being broken by memories, and her untimely death teaches us all that we must not wait too long to reach back to those "long memories" to make ourselves whole.  If we don’t reach back and try to make ourselves whole through memories, even painful memories, as Caren Goldman suggests, if we don’t begin that process now, then when shall we?

Perhaps it is because of this wise urgency, if not now, when, that we turn to God for all that remembering on our behalf.  We may not be up to the task alone, but if God remembers with us we may have the courage to make ourselves complete by restoring the missing pieces of our lives, those memories that have eluded us.  We cannot really know who we are without those memories.  אים אין אני לי מי לי?We cannot understand where we have come from, what family and community has shaped us without those memories. וכשאני לעצמי מה אני? We task God with so much remembering during these Days of Awe, so that we may, with God's help, heal and be made whole by our memories.   ואם לא עכשיו, אימתי?

Rabbi Levin's Groundbreaking Sermon!
November 15, 2009 // 28 Heshvan 5770

About four years ago, I slipped a bookmark into a new book.  The note on the bookmark said “a great source for groundbreaking.”  I’ve picked up that book a number of times over the course of the years, and each time, I’ve said to myself:  I am going to get to share this with everybody, I know it.”

As we’ll see in a little while, breaking ground involves digging into the earth.  That’s what has inspired me to bring this midrash to you today:  A midrash is a rabbinic verbal image, an interpretation of a biblical verse or verses that has sparked the imagination of a rabbi about 1700 or so years ago.  The verse is from Psalms:  You plucked up a vine.  You cleared a place for it, it took deep root and filled the land.”

On this verse an antique rabbinic voice asked:  “Why is Israel compared to a grapevine?  Just as when a grapevine’s owners want to make it more beautiful, they uproot it from one place and plant it in another place and it becomes more beautiful, so when the Holy One wanted to make Israel known to the world, the Holy One uprooted them and brought them to a new place where they began to flourish.”  (Shmot rabba 44:1)

There’s a lot to unpack in this rabbinic teaching:  Our people have been plucked up, uprooted and replanted endlessly from the moment that God instructed Abraham and Sarah to leave the land of their birth to journey to a new place where they did, indeed, flourish.  This pattern of laying new roots and flourishing in a new place should fill us with optimism and inspire us as we gather yards from the beautiful site of our new synagogue building. 

We have some gifted gardeners in our congregation, and I imagine they can explain to us how uprooting and replanting can revitalize a plant.  My ancient predecessor used this image in answering why Israel is compared to a grapevine because he (yes, I’m going to assume that in the 3rd century my colleague was male!) because he knew that this would be a well-understood and well-known phenomenon to his contemporary listeners.

Uprooting is unsettling, of course.  Once we’re settled in, once the new becomes the familiar, once the familiar becomes infused with powerful personal memories,  once the roots have dug deep it takes a lot less energy to stay than to go.  But if you pull a plant out of a pot when it’s been in that pot too long, you find that the roots have thinned and grown to bind each other in a knot . . . they’ve lost the room and the air to grow with vitality. 

When we’re unsettled we are vulnerable to uncertainties that we did not need to cope with before.  We’re surrounded by a blank slate of walls, with no memories or associations.  The only certainty we have is that things are going to change. That change can be like the repotted plant whose roots suddenly find new nutrients, new air and new ground to grasp and make its own.

And that is where the promise of the midrash comes to encourage us: “…when a grapevine’s owners want to make it more beautiful, they uproot it from one place and plant it in another place and it becomes more beautiful…”

So the grapevine’s owners want to make it more beautiful . . . it is beautiful already. And Torat Yisrael is beautiful already:  we have beautiful, intimate, friendly services,  we have beautiful teams of people making our congregation green, supporting two local food support programs, cooking for the Rhode Island Family shelter and more, we have beautiful , engaging adult learning groups,  we have a beautiful, burgeoning school around the corner and we have a beautiful sense of community.

And when we are planted in this new, beautiful place we are going to become even more beautiful!  Invigorated and inspired by potential, our beautiful congregation will flourish on our new land.

There’s a very fine Hebrew word for giving thanks for a moment like this:  הללויה which means praise God!  You’ve received a little piece of paper with the words of a song based around this word, and I’d like to ask you to join me in singing it now as we contemplate the many blessings awaiting us in this beautiful piece of land in this lovely, welcoming town:

Halleluyah

Halleluyah to the world, everyone will sing
In one single word the heart is full of thanks
And also beats “what a wonderful world!”

Halleluyah with the song, for a day that shines
Halleluyah for all that has been
and for all that will be – halleluyah!


Halleluyah la'olam,  halleluyah yashiru kulam
bemila achat bodeda halev male behamon toda
veholem gam hu - eze olam nifla.

Halleluyah im hashir, halleluyah al yom sheme'ir ,
Halleluyah al ma shehayah,
umah she'od lo hayah - halleluyah