It was a full day
of touring Northern Israel. The tour guides told us this day
was too ambitious, too many planned stops especially with kids
on the trip. But you haven’t traveled with a trip from
Temple Israel; Susie Simon wouldn’t hear of cutting anything
out of the itinerary. Our goal was Rosh HaNikra on the Lebanon
border. We would stop at all the other sites along the way.
We arrived at the Lebanese border late in the day, and all of
us took pictures right under the border sign. Our kids, who
at the time were so comfortable with soldiers in uniforms with
guns, talked to the border patrol. He even gave a gun to one
of our kids to take a picture. Now it seems so surreal that
our Temple group was standing at the very boarder of Lebanon
about two weeks before the conflict started. Little did we know
that a war would erupt, that just a few miles from where we
stood, Ketushas would be launched hitting places we visited
that same day: Acco; Hadara; and Haifa.
I know that every
person on that trip is more connected to Israel, glued to their
television screens, the newspaper and their radios now more
than ever before. Not because they have answers, but because
now the news was not just about Israel a far-away place that
we are supposed to feel a connection. But the news was about
Shmulk, Ron and Amir. People, whom we now know, people whose
lives are affected by the conflict. Upon our return, countless
times people commented on how our timing for the trip was so
great, we were so lucky. No really, for our hearts are still
there with the people we met, our brothers and sisters in Israel.
This renewed connection to Israel is the strength of who we
are as a community. This was a tour unlike any other; standing
at the western wall, the Lebanese boarder, on Masada is about
our history and our present situation.
The High Holy Days
are a time for us to bring our questions to the synagogue, not
our answers. It is a time for us to be in touch with our vulnerabilities,
especially this year, when we feel so vulnerable after a difficult
summer in Israel, we are left with many unanswered questions.
Years ago, Leonard
Fein, the founder of Moment magazine, said that there are two
kinds of Jews. One wants an Israel which is militarily strong,
capable of defending itself and strong enough to defeat any
enemy, an Israel that is tough enough to do what has to be done
for its survival. The other wants Israel, which is a beacon
of justice and righteousness, which affirms the humanity of
all, friend and enemy, which prides itself on its civility and
its compassion. And the trouble is most of us are both kinds
of Jews.
I understand exactly
what Fein is saying. In preparing this sermon, my initial instinct
was to talk about how Israel is a beacon for the world. I wanted
to share the importance of our recent trip to Israel with close
to 80 people connected to Temple. I wanted to talk about our
group’s visit to hear a Palestinian and Israeli journalist
speak to one another about the failure of Israel’s unilateral
policy especially in Gaza, where Abbas was left powerless. Worse,
Abbas has been deemed ineffectual and, therefore, from their
perspective, was how Hamas was elected. I wanted to share the
fact that on our last day in Israel part of our group went to
Neve Shalom/Wahat al Salam. Neve Shalom, founded 35 years ago,
is the only community in Israel where Jewish and Arab families
have chosen to live, work and raise their children together.
I wanted to say that I support Israel in responding to an unequivocal
and violent act of war from Hezbollah in Lebanon with a military
response. Yet I am saddened at the destruction of that country
that just got back on its feet so recently and now is in ruins,
and the anguish of the Lebanese people. I was going to bring
out my liberal side. And then I was invited to give the invocation
at a local Anti-Defamation league (ADL) dinner honoring one
of our own congregants, Jeff Noddle. To prepare my prayer, I
went to the ADL website just to reacquaint myself with its work.
As I was innocently browsing its webpage, I clicked on the cartoons
found in Arab newspapers across the middle east. I was horrified
to see what is found acceptable to print, even in Jordan and
Egypt. One cartoon depicts Prime Minister Olmert giving birth
to Adolph Hitler with the blood pouring out onto the floor dripping
from the bed, and that was a mild one. I quickly found myself
outraged. They hate us. I heard the voice in my head say, “We
have to protect ourselves at all costs.”
In a matter of seconds
I was both kinds of Jews, the one who wants Israel to be able
to make peace with her friends and enemies and the one who sees
the military strength of Israel as the only solution.
But then again the
struggle is all about the origin of Israel. It was in the moment
that Jacob wrestled with the angel, that he received the name
Israel. When Jacob confronted his brother Esau upon his return
home, not knowing if he would be greeted with Esau, still angry
about Jacob stealing his blessing and birthright or whether
the years that had passed has soothed the wounds. Was Esau coming
to him as his enemy or his brother? The night before the reunion
took place, Jacob wrestles with an angel. The rabbis say the
angel was actually Jacob’s inner self. The two brothers
are reunited by a kiss, seemingly reunited in peace, but the
text is chanted on a unique way that gives it the sound of a
bite. The Hebrew word for kiss, Nesheka, is the same root as
Neschek, the word for weapon. The text leaves open the question
of whether the brothers were reunited in peace.
The questions we
ask ourselves are one thing but the questions we ask of one
another are at the heart of the matter. Since the beginning
of the second intifada six years ago, I have seen our community
become more and more polarized concerning Israel. While as Leonard
Fein so eloquently depicted “a healthy schizophrenia”
that might not be as true today as it was then. I’m not
sure the struggle is internal, but rather it has become externalized.
I believe most Jews feel like they need to outwardly take one
side or the other and this polarization is having a negative
impact on our community.
What is important
to understand is that the younger Jews in our midst have less
connection to Israel. In 1989 – 75 percent of the American
Jewish community said that Israel was an important part of their
Jewish identity; in 2005, only 57 percent acknowledged the importance
of Israel. Just go online and read the blogs of many young Jews.
They talk about how disenfranchised they feel from Judaism because,
as they put it, the “Israel right or wrong mentality.”
One of the bloggers admitted she was nervous about going to
synagogue these High Holy Days because of the fact that her
rabbi argued with her about her position on Israel. Our young
people don’t want answers; they want a place they can
ask their questions.
This isn’t
the first time we have been caught between the questions and
the desire to have an easy and simple answer or explanation.
Let us examine the
golden calf story; I believe we can learn a lot from this ancient
story today. We can imagine how frightened the Israelites must
have felt left without Moses in the middle of the desert; left
with so many questions: Where is Moses? When is he going to
return? Where is the God he is meeting on top of that mountain?
Why hasn’t God come down to us? The desert is frightening,
cold and lonely at night, hot and relentless during the day.
They didn’t know there were 613 laws given Moses?not ten,
something most American Jews who went through religious school
don’t know. They were left with Aaron, a nice guy and
everything but a real people pleaser. He understood their fears,
but never helped them understand that everything would be ok
and that Moses would return. The true test came when they told
Aaron they wanted to make a god, and he instructed them how
to do it. “Take off the gold earrings that are on the
ears of your wives, your sons and your daughters and bring them
to me.” Then Aaron himself casts the mold to create the
golden calf. (The rabbis get Aaron off the hook by saying that
he was trying to stall the Israelites because it takes time
to take the gold out of other people’s ears, however the
timing didn’t work out. The rabbis do everything to excuse
the behavior of the patriarchs, and in my mind, this is one
of those times because when Moses confronts Aaron, he lies.
He says he threw the gold into the fire and out came a golden
calf.)
They craved certainty, and they were willing to risk it all
for a quick fix. They saw it as an either/or proposition. Either
Moses returns now, or we will build our own image of God. They
tried to create certainty in an uncertain world.
The lesson of the golden calf is that there are no easy answers.
If we believe in easy answers, it leads us to worship of false
gods.
The sin of the golden
calf is the sin of certainty. And the sin of certainty allows
our passions to go unchecked by compassion. This scenario is
all too familiar to us today.
Certainty is burning
churches because you don’t like what the pope says.
Certainty is flying
two planes into the World Trade Center.
Certainty is blowing
yourself up on a city bus, or in a market, or anywhere for that
matter and killing innocent people.
Certainty is killing
one’s own leaders of peace, Anwar Sadat and we, too, have
our fanaticism in the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.
Certainty is attractive
and alluring; it is even downright seductive. Certainty has
room for only one idea—only one truth.
Certainty gives an
easy answer to a complex situation.
Certainty is all
about extremism and fanaticism.
Many people have come up to me and longed for the unity of our
country immediately following 9/11. Most Americans were on the
same page, a unified understanding of the gifts of democracy
and our freedoms that we perhaps had taken for granted for too
long. Now that we are five years post 9/11, the disagreements
seem to have reached a crescendo. However these very disagreements
are what we fought so hard to preserve in the aftermath of 9/11,
our freedom of expression was what was attacked on the fateful
day.
When I visited Cuba,
we went to the American Intersection; the United States does
not have an embassy in Cuba because of the Embargo. The young
man who met with us told us that he loves it when the Americans
come to Cuba and criticize the U.S. government because he wants
the Cuban people to understand the ability to openly express
disapproval with one’s government. That is the democracy
he wants to show the Cuban people.
The Talmud says:
Make yourself a heart with many rooms; And bring in the words
of the house of Shammai; And the words of the house of Hillel
The ones who declares clean ; and the one who declares unclean.
Hillel and Shammai always disagreed with one another. We are
a people who have created a tradition of arguing and disagreeing.
We have the ability
to hold differing views at the same time; we have it down to
a science.
Our tradition says
Eylu v’ Eylu Devrai Elohim Chaim – these and these
are the words of the living God. Just open a page of Talmud
and you will find rabbis arguing with one another. In Perkei
Avot it says; if an argument occurs for the sake of heaves,
God’s presence rests between the two. We are people who
have traditionally thrived on ambiguity – being skeptical
about an answer that is too simplistic.
Rabbi Harry Danzinger,
the President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis writes
and I agree: “I hope we can keep the two Jews Fein speaks
about in our hearts: that we don’t get caught up in the
justified concern for Israel’s existence; that we choose
to feel no pain for the citizens of Lebanon; the innocent lives
lost; the bereaved families; those left homeless in the wake
of war. And I hope that we will not become so troubled by the
innocent deaths that we forget that Israel acted to protect
its own citizens from a terrorist organization and its state
sponsors, enemies openly committed to the destruction of Jews
and the Jewish state.
Compassion must temper
passion, and in this mix it makes life a bit more complicated.
But ultimately we make the best decisions and our world is a
better place, when we have both passion and compassion, when
we have more questions than answers.
In our tradition
the antidote to the golden calf is the Mishkan, the tabernacle
or the sanctuary the Israelites created in the wilderness. After
the golden calf, God understood the human need for a tangible
place to worship. Because the golden calf was born out of a
human need for certainty, it was the wrong structure. Left up
to us, we make a molten idol that we surround which will never
give us a sense of place or security. Left up to God, the divine
answer to uncertainty is to instruct us to create something,
which is bigger than we are, a tabernacle that surrounds us.
The Mishkan was created as a place that gave the Israelites
in the desert direction when they were lost, a beacon for a
community of slaves which had a new found freedom.
Immediately in the
aftermath of 9/11, a New York City taxi driver told a reporter
that with the fall of the twin towers he has lost his landmark,
his point of orientation. He no longer could tell how far uptown
or downtown he was traveling. Without looking up and seeing
the towers, he was confused about where he was. It is easy to
get lost when you are on the ground with no beacon to guide
you.
When times get confusing
and we are tired and disillusioned, this sanctuary is a beacon
for us, for the Jewish community and for the interfaith community
of Minneapolis. It is a place to bring our perspectives and
to hear those of others. It is a sanctuary of the Jewish value
of struggling with the most important questions we confront.
Like the tabernacle, the star on the ceiling encompasses us
all, and yet we enter this place through different doors. This
is a place to respectfully disagree and at the same time find
those who are like minded. This is a place where we gather as
a larger family committed to Temple’s long history. This
place is a sanctuary of Jewish values, a beacon to help direct
us when we are lost, so we know in what direction we want to
be heading.
On Yom Kippur, during
our afternoon study session, I have invited three Muslim leaders
to have a conversation with us. Imams Makram, Hamdy and Adil.
Each of these men has a different path to Islam and they will
share their stories, their perspectives and teachings with us.
Last spring when I found out that the fast of Ramadan begins
on Sunday evening, the traditional second day of Rosh Hashanah,
I wanted to bring these men in for a sharing of our High Holy
Days, both Muslims and Jews. Since the summer we have a lot
more to talk about together. Our task is to not see the Muslim
world as monolithic, there are liberal Muslims and these three
men are powerful examples of that. But even within the liberal
Muslim world, there are differences of culture and understanding
depending on where in the world one is from and where one is
practicing the Islamic tradition.
There is
a story from the Holocaust that teaches is to be careful of
making sweeping accusations. A boy in the cheder speaks of his
hatred for the Germans and what he would like to do to them.
His teacher reminds him that not all Germans are Nazis, that
there are innocent bystanders, even people who jeopardized their
own safety to hide Jews. The student is not persuaded. He would
like to kill all Germans. His teacher looked at his student
with tears in his eyes and simply said, “But if you have
no compassion, so why be a Jew?”
