Oh, one more thing

My friend, congregant and fellow community member made a thing. Specifically, a website guide to the contemporary Jewish women's experience. If you're exploring Jewish life this is a great resource and you should follow along. I know I'll be doing so.

#BlogElul: the last week

So this week was a reminder of my own human frailty, in the best sense of that concept (if that's possible).

Last Friday I found myself suffering from nausea and dizziness so severe I couldn't stand or walk without collapsing (or running to the porcelain gawd). It was, thankfully, a sinus/inner ear infection that was ruining my balance: it surely made me miserable but nothing antibiotics and a serious decongestant couldn't solve, given enough time. And blessedly I'm surrounded by incredibly supportive family and reliable colleagues, like Rabbi Brian Eng and Cantor Mark Stanton, who filled in for me Friday and Saturday morning last week, so I could let the drugs take hold before the bar mitzvah and Selichot services.

This was followed by the first day of religious school, which was AMAZING, with so many new and familiar faces and a real sense of community. In that same day, I had my first rehearsal for my Rosh Hashanah Torah readers (who are awesome), confirmation orientation, and a beautiful wedding in Philadelphia.

We also suffered a terrible loss in our congregation as a longtime member passed, and was memorialized yesterday.

And there was wonderful 'regular' work: meeting with colleagues (in both Jewish and interfaith settings), bar mitzvah meetings, easing the minds of new parents in the religious school, some Jewish Values Online work, and a few building issues ('cause you know, it's a synagogue, there are ALWAYS building issues).

And personally, this was the week that was most transitional for my son in Kindergarten, as the novelty wore off and he really began to adjust, with all the struggles that go with hat.

All this in the midst of the last pieces of High Holiday prep. To say that something had to give would be an understatement, so the blogging fell by the wayside.

I suppose I could have tweeted more little things here and there, but as much as I've learned to enjoy that venue, I still prefer the 'longform' approach of a blog. In the same way that it takes 15 minutes for a rabbi to clear his throat (was that an Arnold Jacob Wolf z'l joke?), it takes more than 140 characters for this rabbi to flesh out his thoughts, at least. Even if I may just be sharing a quote by Heschel or a Hasidic story.

So, as we enter the last Shabbat of 5772, allow me to offer my sermon for tonight as a way of anticipating the new year and to complete my Elul 'assignment', and as penance for my absence from the past week. Look to this space for my High Holiday sermons as they go 'live'.

May your new year be one full of blessing, of peace and of meaningful choices, of acceptance and justice, of engagement and love.

Rabbi Yair D. Robinson
Parashat Nitzavim
9/14/12
 It hovers in dark corners before the lights are turned on. 

It is the mouth that inflates the lungs of the child that has just been born. 

It is the singular gift we cannot destroy in ourselves, the argument that refutes death, the genius that invents the future, all we know of God. 

It is the serum which makes us swear not to betray one another. 

I am, of course, speaking of Hope, at least as the poet Lisel Mueller imagines it. It’s a word that has, of late, gotten ill use. And we know why: we look in our world, in our communities and wonder to ourselves how the barbarians are seemingly at the gates, how we live in a world that has gone topsy-turvy, that any thought of ‘hopey-changey’ stuff is at best irrational exuberance (as Alan Greenspan might say), and at worst, hokum.

This is especially true in this season, as we bid farewell to one year and welcome another, as we prepare ourselves for Cheshbon Nefesh, the accounting of the soul that comes with Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It is a time of introspection, and like students asked to grade their own work, we find ourselves lacking. Or, as a friend recently posted, Introspection... that's usually a word that means, "What did I do wrong?” But hope, as we just heard, is essential, and constant.  As much as we dwell on our misdeeds and mistakes in the past year, there is also the possibility of turning, of teshuvah, of asking “how might I improve?” 

This week, in Parashat Nitzavim, which is also our portion for Yom Kippur morning, after Moses reminds Israel of the choices before them, and fulminates against idol worship or self-congratulatory self-worship, he then says, “Surely, this mitzvah which I enjoin upon you this day is not too baffling for you, nor is it beyond reach. It is not in the heavens…neither is it beyond the sea…no, the thing is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to observe it.” 

It’s one of the most beautiful phrases in all of Torah, a reminder—no, a loving embrace—that reminds Israel and all of us that our goals—God’s goals—are not so daunting, that we are not so distant from the promised land, that we have not been set up to fail. Rather, our ‘is’ and our ‘ought to be’ are closer than we think, than we give ourselves credit. And as we move through the High Holidays, and do the real work of teshuvah, of repentance, we should remember that we are not defined by our mistakes, but rather how we choose to repair them.

Raba said: at the final judgment we are asked:
Were you honest in business?
Did you set aside time for learning?
Did you look beneath the surface?
Did you ponder the inner meaning of what you saw?
Did you live with hope? 

We await judgment, we prepare for atonement. May we live with Hope. Amen. 

#BlogElul Day 19: Beginnings

It is possible to summarize the Creation story as a set of answers to some basic questions. Why is there something rather than nothing? Because in the beginning God created. Why is there what there is and not something else? Because he created heavens, earth, sea, land, stars, moon, sun, plants, animals, and humans. And why do we have the Sabbath? Because when God was done creating he rested. At this point, though, we circle back on ourselves. Why did God rest? Because he wanted to create the Sabbath. We still don’t know why the Sabbath should be a part of Creation...
It begins as simply as a folktale and ends with the magnificence of church-organ Bach. Along the way, it offers a tantalizing glimpse of ancient science. P (The Priestly Author) doesn’t just tie the material world to the creativity of his First Cause; he categorizes God’s creations. There are sea and sky and land; fish and birds and animals; beasts that run wild, beasts that can be domesticated, and beasts that crawl; and, of course, humans. P doesn’t limit himself to the physical, either. His God creates the temporal, too, though he doesn’t so much call forth the units of time as divide them one from the other. Light he creates, but then he divides day from night, allotting much light to day and a lesser amount to night. Evening is winnowed from morning. There is one day, then two days, then three, then six.
The most remarkable feature of P’s protoscientific narrative, though, is that it leads us with every weapon at the poet’s disposal—rhythm, repetition, parallelism—toward its conclusion: the seventh and final day. This is no accident. P is working out the details of a monotheistic cosmos, and the Sabbath would seem to be an essential element of it. Behold creation in all its magnificence, P appears to be saying. This can’t be the work of some squabbling, inconsistent, all-too-human gods. It can only be the work of the one God who dwells beyond time and space, light and matter. The Sabbath is that dwelling.

Shulevitz, Judith (2010-03-18). The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time. Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

#BlogElul Day 18: Love

A good topic for "Chai", and of course, some more A.J. Heschel (z"l).

The basic dignity of man is not made up of his achievements, virtues, or special talents. It is inherent in his very being. The commandment “Love thy neighbor as thyself” (Leviticus 19:18) calls upon us to love not only the virtuous and the wise but also the vicious and the stupid man. The rabbis have, indeed, interpreted the commandment to imply that even a criminal remains our neighbor (Pesahim 75a). 

Heschel, Abraham Joshua (1997-05-16). Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays (p. 370). Macmillan. Kindle Edition. 

#BlogElul day 17: Inspiration

For those who missed it, here's the text of my article for this month's Jewish Voice, in which I talk about the rally and service held the Sikh center in the wake of the shooting last month in Wisconsin. It was an inspiration to behold; what inspires you?  

Late, late late.
That’s all I could think about as I parked my car and speed walked to the Sikh Center of Delaware on Wednesday, August 8^th.

I had been invited by Mona Singh of that community to come and participate in a candlelight vigil honoring those who had died in the terrible shooting at Oak Creek Wisconsin only a few days earlier. With their permission, I circulated it among colleagues (Jewish and non-Jewish alike) and within the community. Now, after getting horribly turned around, I was showing up 20 minutes into the program, and I felt terrible.

But as I walked down the road passed parked cars, I saw the number of Siegel JCC magnets on the bumpers, and I began to feel  better. And as I walked into the parking lot (the event was held outdoors to accommodate all the folks who came out) my anxiety melted.

I saw friends from the Jewish community, including Connie Kreshtool, Hayim Weiss, Susan and Mark Detwiler and others. I saw my friend Russ Bohner from Christ Church Christiana Hundred and Tia Hammer, the community organizer from Hanover Presbyterian. I recognized nuns, leaders from various other faith groups, staff from the Governor’s office, New Castle County, and Senator Chris Coons. I saw a sea of vivid orange of the head-coverings given out by the Center for those without a head covering; many Sikhs and non-Sikhs were wearing them respectfully, and that gave the moment a sense of brilliance, despite the noise from S. Dupont Highway.

The Senator stood up and spoke of shared values and of the celebration of those values. He pointed out that vigils were being observed at the White House and elsewhere. And then he said something incredibly profound: he spoke of feeling G-d present in that moment.

And G-d truly was. G-d was present in the smiles of children playing and in the words of prayer sung in Punjabi, the rituals observed without any sense of embarrassment or apology. G-d was present in the words of prayer spoken by civic officials and clergy. G-d was present as Father Russ and I took to the podium together, out of real friendship and affection for each other, and out of a sense that our prayers could, should, be interwoven at such a moment. And G-d was present as we gathered afterwards for a shared vegetarian communal meal (very important to Jews and Sikhs alike), breaking bread together: Christians, Muslims, Hindu, Sikhs and Jews.

Shailen Bhatt, Delaware’s Secretary of transportation and himself Indian and Hindu, spoke of their shared value of Seva, of selfless service. We know the term as Avodah, which carries the double meaning of service; both ‘worship’ and ‘work’. That vigil was service in the best sense: it was worship—prayers of hope and remembrance offered for the dead, the wounded and those stricken with hate. But it was also the beginning of work; the work we need to do to make sure G-d remains present in our encounters with one another. And that work never stops.

By the time I got back to my car, I wasn’t so worried about being late. I was sweaty from being outside, the taste of indian food still on my tounge; and I was filled with a new sense of hope. I have reached out to Mona Singh and invited his community into the interfaith work we do at Beth Emeth already; a new chance for seva. And as we move from High Holidays into a new year, may this connection, born of tragedy, inspire us to selfless service. 

#BlogElul day 6: Wonder

'nuff said.

Effort is its own reward. We are here to do, and through doing to learn; and through learning to know; and through knowing to experience wonder, and through wonder to attain wisdom, and through wisdom to find simplicity, and through simplicity to give attention and through attention to see what needs to be done.
- Ben Hei Hei, Pirkei Avot (5:26ff)

#BlogElul Day 15: Health

I am fortunate in that I don't have any observations of my own relating to health and the yammim noraim. Thank God my family circle is healthy in mind, body and spirit. I do know that this time of year and the theology of the High Holidays challenge those struggling through health issues profoundly. So I share the words of my father's teacher, Roland Gittelsohn, on "Mitzvah Without Miracles", both to explore the idea that healthy living is itself a 'mitzvah' of a different sort, and the idea that God may not be who we imagine her to be...

Mitzvah Without Miracles

Roland B. Gittelsohn

What can mitzvah mean to a modern Jew who is a religious naturalist? Perhaps a prior question should be: what is a religious naturalist? Briefly, he or she is a person who believes in God, but asserts that God inheres within nature and operates through natural law. A religious naturalist perceives God to be the Spiritual Energy, Essence, Core, or Thrust of the universe, not a discrete Supernatural Being.

What, then, can mitzvah mean to such an individual? Certainly more than custom or folkway, more than social covenant or mores. Mitzvah, by very definition, must be cosmically grounded; it must possess empyreal significance. For the religious naturalist, as for all believing, practicing Jews, in order to have mitzvah –that which has been commanded—there must be a metzaveh, a commander. That commander, moreover, needs to be more than human ingenuity or convenience.

In the mainstream of Jewish tradition through the centuries, this posed no great problem. The metzaveh was God. A mitzvah was God’s will. It had to be performed because God wanted it. It may have made sense to the human mind or not; these things were not important. It had to be done, plainly and simply because God had commanded it.

But how can an Energy or Essence, a Core or a Thrust, command? For the religious naturalist, who is the metzaveh? Answer: reality itself. Or, more precisely, the physical and spiritual laws which govern reality. Mitzvot must be observed because only by recognizing and conforming to the nature of their environment can human beings increase the probability of their survival in any meaningful way. Mitzvot are not man-made; they inhere within the universe. Our Jewish mystics suspected this long ago. Mordecai Kaplan has summarized the view of the Zohar as holding that “mitzvot are part of the very process whereby the world came into being.”

I agree with David Polish…that mitzvot are binding upon us “because something happened between God and Israel, and that some something continues to happen in every land and age.” What makes me a religious naturalist is interpreting the “something” to be a historic encounter between the Jewish People and the highest Spiritual Reality human beings have ever known or felt. No other people has been so persistent as ours in seeking that Reality and its moral imperatives.

It is easy to illustrate the cosmic nature of mitzvot on the level of physical reality. The universe is so constructed that, if I wish to survive, I must have adequate oxygen, nourishment, and exercise. God “wants” me to breath fresh air, ingest healthful foods, and regularly move my muscles. These, therefore, are mitzvot.

No less is true in the realm of ethical mitzvot. Honesty is a compelling mitzvah. Human nature (which is, after all, nature at its highest level of development) is such that in the long run the individual or the social group that consistently flaunts the dictates of honesty risks disaster. The struggle for freedom is a compelling mitzvah. Only the person who is capable of giving and receiving love will ever be fulfilled. These things are true, not because we want them to be and not because they were decreed by a human legislature, but because they are ineluctable aspects of reality. Hence the recognition, acceptance, and observance of them constitute mitzvot.

Most of the mitzvot spelled out in this guide [Gates of Mitzvah], however, deal with ritual observance rather than physical law or ethics. Are they, too, related to cosmic reality? In a less obvious but equally bidning sense than the physical or moral imperatives suggested above, yes. Human nature is such that we need to express our emotions and ideals with our whole bodies, not just our tongues. We need also to be visually and kinetically reminded of our noblest values and stimulated to pursue them. As otherwise lonely and frightened individuals, we need common practices and observances which bind us into meaningful and supportive groups. All of which adds up to the fact that we need ritual as something more than social luxury or convenience. For us as Reform Jews, a particular ritual may not be  mitzvah. But the need for a pattern of such rituals, this—because it grows out of and satisfies our very basic nature as human beings—is mitzvah. And this we desperately need.

A concrete example at this point may be more instructive than further paragraphs of theoretical exposition.  The most elaborate—and perhaps the most valuable—mitzvah in our tradition is the seder ceremony. A supernaturalistically oriented Jew celebrates at his seder God’s miraculous intervention in nature and history.

The seder means no less, however, to the religiously naturalistic Jew, who rejects miracles. Plugging into centuries of his people’s tradition as well as its unique pursuit of freedom, he visually, audibly, and dramatically commemorates that pursuit and rededicates himself to it. His metzaveh is triune: his very special human need to be free, both as a person and a Jew; his equally human need to augment speech with memory and motion in reinforcement of his highest values; and his specifically Jewish need to identify with his people’s destiny.

Permeating our theological differences is the common understanding that God, however divergently we interpret Him, is the Core Spiritual Essence of Reality. In this sense, God is the metzaveh of the religiously naturalistic Jew, who eschews the supernatural not only in theological speculation but also in his approach to mitzvot. He responds naturalistically to his own essence and to that of his universal setting. Mitzvot for him represent the difference between talking or philosophizing about Judaism and living it. They bind him firmly, visibly, to his people and his tradition. They speak to him imperatively because he is Jewish and wants to remain so.

Plaut, Gunther, editor; Gates of Mitzvah (New York: CCAR Press, 1979) 108-110