1. Shabbat Shalom
2. Whenever we talk about the Red Cow, the laws from the book of Bamidbar about purity and death, we usually talk about the mystery of the ritual. A fully red cow is burned to ash on the altar. When a small amount of these ashes are mixed with water and sprinkled on someone who has been contaminated by contact with a dead body, the most severe form of ritual contamination, the mixture removes that contamination and the affected person is restored to a state of ritual purity. But anyone who has to handle the red cow during the burning process, automatically is contaminated with a lesser form of ritual impurity and must go the the mikveh that night.
3. That mystery, why the ashes make pure the contaminated but contaminate the pure has been the subject of many sermons over the years; but I want to consider today another aspect of this odd sacrifice. The ashes of the red cow are the only way to remove the contamination that arises from contact with the dead. Death is something that human beings have feared probably since the beginning of time. We have extensive myths about what happens when we die and where our consciousness goes to after our body dies. One minute we are alive, body and soul, the next moment we are just a lifeless body. One minute we are breathing and alive, the next moment our breath is gone and no amount of help can make us alive again. God gives us our life when we are born and we are not sure how that happens. God takes our life when it is over and we are not sure how that happens either. It is all very mysterious, unexplainable and therefore frightening.
4. The sacrifice of the red cow is how we attempt to stop the inevitable march of death through our world. It was believed that if we get too close to death, death will come to us; the ashes of the red cow make that death go away, until the next time we have contact with it. We could discuss here the fact that ancient civilizations had no understanding of germs, disease and infection. We could discuss whether our ancestors really believed that the ashes of the red cow would help us cheat death. It would be a very fascinating discussion but I would like to take this in a very different direction. The red cow is not the only way humans can cheat death. There are many people, in all of history, who have given us life by giving up their own. Like the red cow, they are the heroes, who in death brought life to the world. And this week we had a number of heroes to remember.
5. This week was the 100th year since the tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. I know that nobody here was alive and remembers that tragedy, but it was a single disaster and the deaths that occurred have saved many lives over the years. The details of the disaster should be well known. 146 people, mostly women, died in the disaster, from the fire, from asphyxiation, or from blunt trauma from jumping to escape the fire. The fire began on the eighth floor, in a bin full of cuttings from the the past weeks. The workers, mostly immigrant women but there were also 17 male workers, on the ninth floor had no warning of the blaze below them until it arrived. There were three exits from the floor plus the elevators. One of the exits was locked to prevent theft. The foreman on the floor escaped without unlocking the door. The outside fire escape was in poor condition and quickly fell from the side of the building killing all those who were on it. The elevator operators kept the elevators running saving as many as they could until the flames caused the rails of the elevator to buckle and they were no longer useable. Some of the victims pried open the elevator doors and jumped down the shaft to their deaths. The one last internal staircase within three minutes was filled with smoke and flame and then blocked by bodies both up and down.
6. The fire department arrived quickly but their ladders could only reach the sixth floor, well below the fire on the ninth. A crowd of people quickly gathered around the building and what they saw was a nightmare. To escape the flames, the women jumped from the windows only to die on the pavement below. Eyewitnesses said that they saw one couple, a man and a women, kiss and then jump together. There were safety nets held by firemen but they could not handle those jumping from such a high floor. Women in the crown fainted as they watched, one by one, the women jump to their deaths. Men charged the police line trying to get into the building to save those trapped inside.
7. When it was all over, it would take a long time to identify all of the bodies. In fact, the last six unidentified bodies were only given names this past February. There were huge funerals for the victims of the fires and thousands attended, and marched down the street in solidarity with those who died. The owners were tried for manslaughter but were acquitted in a criminal trial. There was a civil lawsuit and they did have to pay each of the victim's family a fine; and there was an insurance settlement that also paid the families of the victims.
8. But there is more to this story. It was this tragedy, the worst industrial accident in the history of New York City, that accelerated the labor movement in this country. Labor Unions became strong advocates for safe working conditions and the rights of workers. The fire marshal of New York City initiated a citywide investigation and found over 200 other factories with similar conditions to the Triangle factory, placing their workers in similar danger. New York State and later many other states, began to pass fire safety laws designed to prevent another disaster like the Triangle fire. Today, whenever you see a sign in a store that reads, “This door must remain unlocked during regular business hours” it is a reminder of the lessons learned from the women who died in the Triangle fire. The exits in this room, the fire alarm equipment, the emergency lighting and the fire suppression equipment all are in place right here because of lessons learned in the Triangle fire. There is a monument to the disaster on the building in New York City, which was rebuilt and in use today, in memory of those who died. But their deaths have saved countless. Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of that tragedy.
9. In the recent tragedies in Haiti, Chile and Japan, we have seen a similar heroism. There are men and women from all over the world who have flown directly to the center of each disaster and worked in horrid conditions, to enter buildings and save the lives of those trapped inside. These rescue squads, with special dogs trained to sniff out the living and the dead, risk their own lives to help others. The rescuers in Japan I want to single out for special note because the quake in Japan was so great that there were some very severe aftershocks. Each aftershock brought another alarm about another possible tsunami. As soon as the danger passed, however, these brave rescue workers went back to their work to save more lives.
10. And in Japan, there are another breed of heroes. There are, right now, 50 men who are braving certain death to continue to work in the damaged nuclear reactors in Japan to prevent a meltdown and a mass radioactive contamination of the surrounding area, an area that may include Tokyo itself. This week, three of the men stepped in radioactive water, that seeped into their protective clothing and they had to be sent to the hospital to be treated for elevated radioactivity. They have struggled to enter the damaged buildings, to find ways to pump water into the reactors and to reattach power cables to get the safety equipment and the emergency sensing equipment working again. They have volunteered to endure long exposure to four times the usual limit of radiation, in order to save the lives of those who live within a fifty mile radius of the damaged plant. One by one, they are working to secure the radioactive reactor cores and the pools that hold the spent nuclear fuel. The reactors will never be able to be used again but these heroes work on to prevent the further escape of radiation. The lessons that are being learned from this emergency will be used in every other country to assess the risk and to discover new ways to keep humanity safe from nuclear radiation.
11. The priests of the Temple of Jerusalem endured their own brush with death, to create the ashes that would help save others from death's contamination. To save a life, says our tradition, is to save the world. We could look at this ritual as a vestige of a bygone era, or we can see it as a lesson about heroism in the human spirit. Sometimes people die. Some tragically in fires and natural disasters. Some by running into danger to save the lives of others. I am privileged to work as a chaplain for the Palm Beach County Sheriff's office. I get to work with these heroes often. Every day they go out, never knowing what the next hours may hold in store for them. Each time they say goodby, they remind each other, “Stay safe”. I put on my Kevlar vest for eight hours a month. They put theirs on for each 11 and 1/2 hour shift. They run into danger so we don't have to. They too are heroes.
12. As I reflected on the history of the Triangle fire, I began to wonder how many more men and women would have to die before we can see real gun reform laws in this country? According to Newsweek magazine, since the killings in Tuscon, Arizona, over 2500 Americans have been killed by gun violence. How many more have to die before we can have some sensible gun control in this country?
13. Parshat Parah is our annual reminder that sometimes each of us are called upon to be a hero to someone else. Maybe we don't risk our lives, but when we offer a hand to help those in need, we have also saved a life. A friend of mine once stated that a hero is just like anyone one else but he or she is brave just a few minutes longer. Let us brood this day, not on the mystery of how the ashes of the red cow worked, but on the mysterious part of the human psyche, which brings others to sacrifice their lives so that many others can live. We owe them all, this Shabbat, our deepest gratitude.
May God help us learn the lessons of life from the sacrifices of others, and may our lives be longer and better because they lived and died. Amen and Shabbat Shalom
Monday, March 28, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Vayikra
1. Shabbat Shalom
2. In the Midrash, Bereshit Rabbah, it teaches that “Every blade of grass has its angel that strikes it and whispers, “Grow, grow.” The Midrash is telling us that part of the very essence of nature is that everything, and by extension everyone, must grow. I have always found this idea fascinating in that every living thing does not grow naturally, but the angel must strike it and insist that everything has to grow.
3. I thought of this quote this week as I contemplated the beginning of our third book of the Torah, the book of Vayikra, the book of Leviticus. As I have often mentioned, these weeks of the year are not easy weeks for us Rabbis to create sermons around them. The last two parshiyot of Exodus are basically a repeat of the three parshiyot that came before them. Now we will have two parshiyot dedicated to the why and how of sacrifices and then, after a short side story, we will go into the definition and care of skin diseases. I suspect that many of my colleagues will be turning this week to Libya, Wisconsin or Charlie Sheen rather than spend any time on which animals were to be brought to the altar, how they were to be slaughtered and how they were to be burned.
4. But I had occasion to speak this week with a member of our congregation about the siddurim that we are using. He was unhappy with the book because there were prayers inside that he felt did not belong in a siddur. I asked him what prayer does not belong in our Siddur and he noted that the translations were different and that he was not in favor of the inclusion of Imahot, the matriarchs in our Amida.
5. Now let me be clear that prayer is, by its very nature, a very personal activity. We may sing together some of our prayers, we may read responsively in English and listen attentively when the Amida is repeated aloud. But, the essence of prayer is not found in the words of our siddur but in the way these words enter our hearts. That is a very personal journey and praying is thus a very private and personal activity. We gather together to pray but we are solitary in our praying. As a poet once said, “each of us has prayers no one else can utter, each of us has thanks that no one else can offer.” We can strengthen each other when we pray together but we can not really pray unless we feel our prayers in our heart.
6. I understand that prayer is a very complicated activity and I did not fault my friend for his discomfort over a new prayer book. But it did get me thinking about how far prayer has come in Judaism and what will become of prayer in the future. It is an important topic and I want to address it this Shabbat and next Shabbat as well.
7. The Torah is very clear in our Parsha; if we wish to bring our hearts near to God, we need to bring to the altar, something of some value to us. A cow, a ram, a goat or even a couple of birds that the poor might bring, are not inexpensive offerings. One had to give something meaningful if one expected God to take note of the offering. In the very beginning of the Torah, in Genesis and the story of Cain and Abel, Cain brings an offering of fruits and vegetables from his garden, but Abel brings the choicest firstling from his flock. God notes the special value of Abel's sacrifice and does not accept the mediocre offering of Cain and thus jealousy comes into the world, followed by death.
8. As we can imagine, if we know that God wants a valuable offering, then, people being human, after all, soon become competitive as to who can bring the most valuable offering. My ram beats your goat. My ox trumps your ram. Before you know it, children are being sacrificed in order to be that much closer to God. Were it not for the explicit refusal of God to allow Isaac to be sacrificed by his father, I wonder if the people of Israel might have also crossed this line.
9. Many Sages note that the reason there is so much detail in Leviticus over sacrifices is to limit the one upmanship that subverts all that the sacrifice is about. It is not the offering that makes the difference in our approach to God. What makes the sacrifice meaningful is the meaning we give it in our hearts. There were those who brought sacrifices to the Temple in order to atone for their sins. They had no intention of stopping their sinning but the expensive sacrifice would absolve them of guilt over the past so they could go on sinning. A man who cheated his customers in business all the time could bring an ox to sacrifice and be cleared of all guilt. He could then go on cheating his customers. The sacrifice was just “the cost of doing business.” Is it any wonder the Prophets of the Bible insist that the person who sins, repents and sins again, will not find forgiveness, even on Yom Kippur. To draw close to God, you have to feel the need for God in your heart.
10. Every morning and every afternoon the priests in the Temple offered a daily sacrifice. The people of Israel believed that as long as these sacrifices continued, God would be happy with the people of Israel and would not let any catastrophe overtake them. Should these daily sacrifices stop, then surely doom would come to Jerusalem and to the Jewish People. The destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BCE and then again in 70 CE, was as traumatic an event as one could ever imagine. That it would no longer be possible to sacrifice to God would mean that we would not just be exiled from our land, but we would be banished from the presence of God. How could we possibly pray without bringing an offering? As the Romans burned the Temple, the Sages were gathering in Yavne to try and save as much of our faith as they could. They could have allowed other altars as our people had done before Moses was commanded to build the Mishkan in the desert. But they did not. The Sages of Yavne decided that service of the heart is more important than service at the altar.
11. As I explained to those who study with me every morning before minyan, these early prayers were not fixed prayers. In much the same way as the Rabbis did not tell a person what kind of animal to bring to sacrifice, they did not tell a person what words to pray. The sages did teach the proper formula for a blessing but the words of prayer were not set in the time of the Talmud. The great Rabbi Eliezer said, “If a man makes his prayer a fixed task, his prayer is no prayer.” Another Sage taught, “Prayer should not be recited as if a man were reading a document.” And Rabbi Acha said, “a new (i.e. different) prayer should be said every day.” If we are to pray with our hearts, we must use words that rise from our hearts. In the time of the Talmud, they did not have a prayerbook. The service was led by a man trained to make his prayers fresh every day.
12. But that is not the end of this story. The Midrash then explains this free style of prayer in more detail. We read in the Midrash, “It happened once that a disciple was reading the Amida in the presence of Rabbi Eliezer and shortened his prayers. The other students said, “Master, do you see how he as shortened the prayers?” But Rabbi Eliezer said, “He has not been shorter than Moses who said in the Torah “Heal her, O Lord, I pray” (Numbers 12:13). At another time, another student in a similar situation prolonged his prayers. The other students said to Rabbi Eliezer, “Master, did you notice how he prolonged his prayers?” but Rabbi Eliezer said, “He did not prolong his prayer more than Moses, when he says in the Torah, “I fell down in prayer before the Lord for forty days and forty nights” for Moses said to himself, there is a time to shorten prayers and a time to prolong them.”
13. As the centuries went by, there were poets that seemed to compete as to who could make the longest, most beautiful poetry for prayer. The services, using these complicated piyutim, grew longer and longer. Later Rabbis, abbreviated these piyutim to save time in the service. El Adon that we recite in our Shacharit service on Shabbat is just a small remnant of a much longer, complex piyut. On Yom Kippur, Unetane Tokef is also just the last part of a long complicated piyut that has fallen mostly into disuse. The Birkat Hamazon has a different beginning if two people are reciting it, if three people are reciting it or if ten people are reciting the Birkat. There were also additional beginning formulas for when there were a hundred or a thousand reciting the prayer together. The beginning for these large groups fell into disuse. There just was no need to gather that many together to thank God for a meal.
14. By the time printing was first used to create a prayerbook, the Jewish world already had two different kinds of prayer. The Sefardim of the Middle East and North Africa had one tradition of prayer and the Ashkenazim of Europe had a different tradition for the words and order of the prayers. And yet, both traditions allowed for new prayers to be added to the service and, when the service got too long, they took out the prayers that no longer were needed. Groups felt free to add and subtract from the siddur as they pleased. The ability to put together the service any way one wanted explains how the Hasidim of Eastern Europe, following the lead of the Rabbi Isaac Luria in Sfat, began to use the Sephardic siddur instead of the Ashkenazic siddur in use by Jews in the rest of Europe.
15. Modern Jewish philosophers note that every time someone wants to create a new denomination in Judaism, the first changes they make are in the siddur. The Reform movement in Europe created a new prayer book and they have the tradition of rewriting that book every couple of decades or so. Our Conservative movement began with each congregation printing their own siddur. Eventually, Rabbi Morris Silverman adapted the book he used in his synagogue and eventually his book became accepted in the entire movement. The Sim Shalom prayerbook we use is the second attempt to create a new siddur in our movement. The first attempt was a one volume siddur for daily, Shabbat and holiday use. Now there are two volumes of Sim Shalom, one for daily minyan and one for Shabbat and Festivals. When Mordechai Kaplan decided to break with Conservative Judaism and begin a Reconstructionist movement, the first book he wrote was the Siddur. In the Orthodox world today there is a transition going on from the old Art Scroll siddur to the more compact and easy to read Koren Siddur.
16. The history of prayer is not the history of one book, but it is the poetic history of how Jews have released the feelings for God that they have in their hearts. It all began with a sacrifice, but it evolved away from killing animals to offering our words as true expressions of what we feel inside. Some people still pine for the Temple that is gone but most Jews today, of all denominations, would not like to see a return to animal sacrifices. Rambam says that sacrifices were just a concession by God to those who needed a tangible way to worship. Jews who lived in the time of Maimonides, were far too sophisticated to need to offer an animal to feel close to God.
17. Next Shabbat we will look to how Jews today look at prayer and the prayerbook. For now let us be content that we neither have to dash the blood of our sacrifices toward the curtain of our ark nor do we have to fall on our faces in prayer forty days and forty nights. It is enough just to direct our hearts to God and let the yearning of our heart, draw us closer, in holiness to God.
May God help us find the best words to express the longing in our heats and may our prayers be as acceptable before our Creator as once our ancestor's sacrifices were accepted. Amen and Shabbat Shalom.
2. In the Midrash, Bereshit Rabbah, it teaches that “Every blade of grass has its angel that strikes it and whispers, “Grow, grow.” The Midrash is telling us that part of the very essence of nature is that everything, and by extension everyone, must grow. I have always found this idea fascinating in that every living thing does not grow naturally, but the angel must strike it and insist that everything has to grow.
3. I thought of this quote this week as I contemplated the beginning of our third book of the Torah, the book of Vayikra, the book of Leviticus. As I have often mentioned, these weeks of the year are not easy weeks for us Rabbis to create sermons around them. The last two parshiyot of Exodus are basically a repeat of the three parshiyot that came before them. Now we will have two parshiyot dedicated to the why and how of sacrifices and then, after a short side story, we will go into the definition and care of skin diseases. I suspect that many of my colleagues will be turning this week to Libya, Wisconsin or Charlie Sheen rather than spend any time on which animals were to be brought to the altar, how they were to be slaughtered and how they were to be burned.
4. But I had occasion to speak this week with a member of our congregation about the siddurim that we are using. He was unhappy with the book because there were prayers inside that he felt did not belong in a siddur. I asked him what prayer does not belong in our Siddur and he noted that the translations were different and that he was not in favor of the inclusion of Imahot, the matriarchs in our Amida.
5. Now let me be clear that prayer is, by its very nature, a very personal activity. We may sing together some of our prayers, we may read responsively in English and listen attentively when the Amida is repeated aloud. But, the essence of prayer is not found in the words of our siddur but in the way these words enter our hearts. That is a very personal journey and praying is thus a very private and personal activity. We gather together to pray but we are solitary in our praying. As a poet once said, “each of us has prayers no one else can utter, each of us has thanks that no one else can offer.” We can strengthen each other when we pray together but we can not really pray unless we feel our prayers in our heart.
6. I understand that prayer is a very complicated activity and I did not fault my friend for his discomfort over a new prayer book. But it did get me thinking about how far prayer has come in Judaism and what will become of prayer in the future. It is an important topic and I want to address it this Shabbat and next Shabbat as well.
7. The Torah is very clear in our Parsha; if we wish to bring our hearts near to God, we need to bring to the altar, something of some value to us. A cow, a ram, a goat or even a couple of birds that the poor might bring, are not inexpensive offerings. One had to give something meaningful if one expected God to take note of the offering. In the very beginning of the Torah, in Genesis and the story of Cain and Abel, Cain brings an offering of fruits and vegetables from his garden, but Abel brings the choicest firstling from his flock. God notes the special value of Abel's sacrifice and does not accept the mediocre offering of Cain and thus jealousy comes into the world, followed by death.
8. As we can imagine, if we know that God wants a valuable offering, then, people being human, after all, soon become competitive as to who can bring the most valuable offering. My ram beats your goat. My ox trumps your ram. Before you know it, children are being sacrificed in order to be that much closer to God. Were it not for the explicit refusal of God to allow Isaac to be sacrificed by his father, I wonder if the people of Israel might have also crossed this line.
9. Many Sages note that the reason there is so much detail in Leviticus over sacrifices is to limit the one upmanship that subverts all that the sacrifice is about. It is not the offering that makes the difference in our approach to God. What makes the sacrifice meaningful is the meaning we give it in our hearts. There were those who brought sacrifices to the Temple in order to atone for their sins. They had no intention of stopping their sinning but the expensive sacrifice would absolve them of guilt over the past so they could go on sinning. A man who cheated his customers in business all the time could bring an ox to sacrifice and be cleared of all guilt. He could then go on cheating his customers. The sacrifice was just “the cost of doing business.” Is it any wonder the Prophets of the Bible insist that the person who sins, repents and sins again, will not find forgiveness, even on Yom Kippur. To draw close to God, you have to feel the need for God in your heart.
10. Every morning and every afternoon the priests in the Temple offered a daily sacrifice. The people of Israel believed that as long as these sacrifices continued, God would be happy with the people of Israel and would not let any catastrophe overtake them. Should these daily sacrifices stop, then surely doom would come to Jerusalem and to the Jewish People. The destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BCE and then again in 70 CE, was as traumatic an event as one could ever imagine. That it would no longer be possible to sacrifice to God would mean that we would not just be exiled from our land, but we would be banished from the presence of God. How could we possibly pray without bringing an offering? As the Romans burned the Temple, the Sages were gathering in Yavne to try and save as much of our faith as they could. They could have allowed other altars as our people had done before Moses was commanded to build the Mishkan in the desert. But they did not. The Sages of Yavne decided that service of the heart is more important than service at the altar.
11. As I explained to those who study with me every morning before minyan, these early prayers were not fixed prayers. In much the same way as the Rabbis did not tell a person what kind of animal to bring to sacrifice, they did not tell a person what words to pray. The sages did teach the proper formula for a blessing but the words of prayer were not set in the time of the Talmud. The great Rabbi Eliezer said, “If a man makes his prayer a fixed task, his prayer is no prayer.” Another Sage taught, “Prayer should not be recited as if a man were reading a document.” And Rabbi Acha said, “a new (i.e. different) prayer should be said every day.” If we are to pray with our hearts, we must use words that rise from our hearts. In the time of the Talmud, they did not have a prayerbook. The service was led by a man trained to make his prayers fresh every day.
12. But that is not the end of this story. The Midrash then explains this free style of prayer in more detail. We read in the Midrash, “It happened once that a disciple was reading the Amida in the presence of Rabbi Eliezer and shortened his prayers. The other students said, “Master, do you see how he as shortened the prayers?” But Rabbi Eliezer said, “He has not been shorter than Moses who said in the Torah “Heal her, O Lord, I pray” (Numbers 12:13). At another time, another student in a similar situation prolonged his prayers. The other students said to Rabbi Eliezer, “Master, did you notice how he prolonged his prayers?” but Rabbi Eliezer said, “He did not prolong his prayer more than Moses, when he says in the Torah, “I fell down in prayer before the Lord for forty days and forty nights” for Moses said to himself, there is a time to shorten prayers and a time to prolong them.”
13. As the centuries went by, there were poets that seemed to compete as to who could make the longest, most beautiful poetry for prayer. The services, using these complicated piyutim, grew longer and longer. Later Rabbis, abbreviated these piyutim to save time in the service. El Adon that we recite in our Shacharit service on Shabbat is just a small remnant of a much longer, complex piyut. On Yom Kippur, Unetane Tokef is also just the last part of a long complicated piyut that has fallen mostly into disuse. The Birkat Hamazon has a different beginning if two people are reciting it, if three people are reciting it or if ten people are reciting the Birkat. There were also additional beginning formulas for when there were a hundred or a thousand reciting the prayer together. The beginning for these large groups fell into disuse. There just was no need to gather that many together to thank God for a meal.
14. By the time printing was first used to create a prayerbook, the Jewish world already had two different kinds of prayer. The Sefardim of the Middle East and North Africa had one tradition of prayer and the Ashkenazim of Europe had a different tradition for the words and order of the prayers. And yet, both traditions allowed for new prayers to be added to the service and, when the service got too long, they took out the prayers that no longer were needed. Groups felt free to add and subtract from the siddur as they pleased. The ability to put together the service any way one wanted explains how the Hasidim of Eastern Europe, following the lead of the Rabbi Isaac Luria in Sfat, began to use the Sephardic siddur instead of the Ashkenazic siddur in use by Jews in the rest of Europe.
15. Modern Jewish philosophers note that every time someone wants to create a new denomination in Judaism, the first changes they make are in the siddur. The Reform movement in Europe created a new prayer book and they have the tradition of rewriting that book every couple of decades or so. Our Conservative movement began with each congregation printing their own siddur. Eventually, Rabbi Morris Silverman adapted the book he used in his synagogue and eventually his book became accepted in the entire movement. The Sim Shalom prayerbook we use is the second attempt to create a new siddur in our movement. The first attempt was a one volume siddur for daily, Shabbat and holiday use. Now there are two volumes of Sim Shalom, one for daily minyan and one for Shabbat and Festivals. When Mordechai Kaplan decided to break with Conservative Judaism and begin a Reconstructionist movement, the first book he wrote was the Siddur. In the Orthodox world today there is a transition going on from the old Art Scroll siddur to the more compact and easy to read Koren Siddur.
16. The history of prayer is not the history of one book, but it is the poetic history of how Jews have released the feelings for God that they have in their hearts. It all began with a sacrifice, but it evolved away from killing animals to offering our words as true expressions of what we feel inside. Some people still pine for the Temple that is gone but most Jews today, of all denominations, would not like to see a return to animal sacrifices. Rambam says that sacrifices were just a concession by God to those who needed a tangible way to worship. Jews who lived in the time of Maimonides, were far too sophisticated to need to offer an animal to feel close to God.
17. Next Shabbat we will look to how Jews today look at prayer and the prayerbook. For now let us be content that we neither have to dash the blood of our sacrifices toward the curtain of our ark nor do we have to fall on our faces in prayer forty days and forty nights. It is enough just to direct our hearts to God and let the yearning of our heart, draw us closer, in holiness to God.
May God help us find the best words to express the longing in our heats and may our prayers be as acceptable before our Creator as once our ancestor's sacrifices were accepted. Amen and Shabbat Shalom.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Pekuday
1. SHABBAT SHALOM
2. Shabbat Shekalim always falls just before the beginning of the last month of the Jewish Year. We are used to thinking that Tishri, the month of Rosh Hashana is the new year, but the Torah considers the month of our independence, Nisan, the month of Pesach, as the real first month. Shabbat Shekalim always falls on the Shabbat before Adar, or second Adar when we are in a leap year.
3. As we enter the last month of the year, we are reminded that taxes are due. The Torah teaches us that every adult Jew owes one half shekel at the end of every year. This Shabbat is our reminder that this tax is due. It was a flat tax on every adult and it served not only to fund the Temple but as a way of counting citizens. It was the same tax for the rich and poor alike and so by counting the money, we would know how many adult taxpayers were in the country.
4. There actually are many different kinds of taxes in Judaism. Maaser was the first ten percent of the crops that were due to the priests. Every third year there was a tax that would go to the poor. There was a tax of the harvest that was supposed to be transported and consumed in Jerusalem to improve the economy in the Holy City. First fruits from a tree and the first born of animals were to be given to the Temple. Kings in Israel could impose a labor tax; not money but a certain number of days that able bodied men or women would be required to perform state functions. What we would call “Charity” today is not so much a voluntary contribution but a requirement of God that we owe those in need in our community. That is why it was called, Tzedakah, or “Justice” because turning your back on the helpless and poor was considered injustice and a sin.
5. From ancient times to the present, taxes have always been a source of controversy and sometimes pain. The kingdom of Solomon was divided over the high taxes his son wanted to impose on the people of Israel. Jews in the ghettos of Europe were often taxed to pay the salaries of those that would oppress them. Americans fought our Revolutionary War over the problem of taxation without representation. In Israel today, there are those who criticize Israel because some Orthodox Jews who pay little or no taxes seem to get a disproportionate amount of tax dollars to support themselves and their yeshivot. The proverb teaches us that the only sure things in life are death and taxes. The difference between death and taxes though, is that death does not get any worse every time Congress meets!
6. Taxes today are a big part of our news. Ever since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, taxes have been labeled very bad by our political leaders. It is a common belief that we pay too much money in taxes and that the government wastes our money so we never get any tax money returned. I remember well the first time my daughter got a paycheck. She called me that day and asked me about taxes. She had no idea that taxes would be taken out of her paycheck. She had counted on her salary but not on the payroll deductions. She understood the concept but was not happy about how it reduced what she had hoped to earn.
7. Unlike the flat tax of the Bible, most taxes in this country are “progressive” taxes. The more you earn the more taxes you pay. A greater burden of taxes are thus collected from those who can afford to pay them. Judaism teaches us that even the poor need to give Tzedakah, but clearly the mitzvah / obligation of giving Tzedakah is greater the more money we have. I like to remind my students that if somebody earns $10,000, and has to pay 10% in taxes, or $1000, that is a huge bite out of the money he has earned. On the other hand, a person who earns 10 million dollars, and has to pay 10% in taxes, has to pay a million dollars in taxes, but since he still has nine million in the bank, it has not cramped his style at all.
8. Taxing the rich therefore has always been a favorite target in Congress. Those who have more, pay more. It is a simple system and it has only one major problem. It is a lot less interesting to tax the rich when we start to earn enough to be a part of that club. Rich people spend a lot of their money on finding ways not to pay taxes. Sometimes these deductions are legitimate and the tax savings are legal. Sometimes these deductions are not legitimate and the failure to pay taxes on the money is criminal. Judaism is very clear on the subject of taxes. We are entitled to every legitimate tax deduction possible. Jewish law, however, does not let us refuse to pay legitimate taxes owed. We have a religious duty to pay what we owe and to pay it on time. This is not only a law for the rich, but a law for all of us. The price of living in this country is the taxes we pay.
9. The other side of the tax discussion is what we spend our taxes on. Judaism has its laws regarding what a government is supposed to provide. Government provides us with safety and security, it must help those who are poor, punish those who break the law, regulate business so that nobody can claim an unfair advantage over another and provide for schools, hospitals and other public services. If we depend on a public service, we must also be prepared to pay taxes to support it. This week a group of Christian ministers wrote an article for a newspaper that federal, state and local budgets should be “moral documents”. The article was the source of much discussion on the radio this week. Should religious values and morals have a place in our budget debate? The reporters were claiming a separation of church and state made certain that religious values not be considered in the deliberations of government. But we forget that the separation of church and state only goes one way, government is not allowed to spend tax money on religious institutions of any kind, but religion can advise our representatives on what our priorities should be.
10. Budgeting, for a family, for a synagogue, for a state and for the federal government is all the same. A budget always reflects our values. What we value most, we make sure is funded in our budget. That which is of little value, is pushed to the back. Classic budget battles are over which programs we value most. In the case of the federal budget, do we value defense spending over heating oil for poor families? In a state budget, we can argue about paying more for teachers or for police officers. Creating a budget is always about weighing the different values we have and assessing a price tag for each one.
11. If your family budget is anything like mine, there are two types of budget items. Those that are fixed and those that are discretionary. I do not have much control over my electric or water bill. Unless I am prepared to do without air conditioning and hot water, there is really little I can do to make these expenses lower. Discretionary income, like my bill for cable television and my credit card bill, I have more direct control over. The only problem is that they represent only a small part of my budget. If we really want to control our budget, we will have to directly face the major expenses. We may have to move into a less expensive home. We may have to purchase a more modern air conditioner that is more energy efficient. We may have to replace our toilet and shower head to consume less water. We may have to drive less to get a handle on the ever increasing cost of gasoline. For most of our budget, we will have to make some serious changes to our lifestyle if we hope to get our spending really under control.
12. Government has pretty much the same problems. Most of what they need to cut would require great changes in the way American's live their lives. Should Social Security be for everyone or only for seniors who have no other retirement plan? Should the government take more control of healthcare to contain health costs? How much defense spending is too much, which military equipment is necessary for our troops and which items are expensive wastes of money? Much of government's discretionary spending is such a small part of the budget, it is almost useless to try and use it to reduce the deficit unless we are talking a ten to twenty year time frame.
13. Budget battles get nasty when, as in the case of the State of Wisconsin, one side tries to undermine the values of the other. Minorities often filibuster or shut down government to secure some compromises from the majority party. When there is a spirit of cooperation, a budget battle rarely will cause much confrontation. But in these days of toxic relations between parties, nobody wants to compromise an inch, and the only people happy are the news media who get a juicy story to cover. I think, however, that I would have more compassion for the governor in this battle if had not, just before he presented his budget, given the rich in his state a huge tax reduction. If he is so determined to balance the budget, why does he feel the need to do it off the backs of public employees?
14. There is a lot of talk these days of tight budgets to change our tax structure to something fairer and simpler. A value added tax may make more sense than a regressive sales tax that is a greater burden on the poor. Eliminating all deductions on Federal Income Tax would insure that everyone would pay taxes and they would be lower for everyone. Taxes have to be high because so many people take advantage of all the deductions. If we remove the deductions and everyone would pay their fair share, then it would mean we would not need to tax at such a high rate. Tax deductions are the way our representatives show us that they are looking out for our needs. Demanding services and then expecting to have exemptions so we don't have to pay for them is bad budgeting and part of the reason that we are in so much tax and budget trouble today.
15. The half shekel tax for the Temple is no longer collected. The Temple was destroyed two thousand years ago and the need to support it stopped. The early Zionist movement talked about using the half shekel as a membership fee to bring about the redemption of Israel. It has long been a custom on Purim to give a half dollar as a symbolic half shekel to provide for the synagogue or for the poor. The half shekel may no longer be an official tax but it still can do much good in the world, from support of Israel to strengthening our local Jewish community. Complaining about taxes may be our favorite occupation but taxes can do a world of good in our lives and for the world. In ancient times as well as in our modern era, the problem is not about the money, but in the way people feel about it.
May God help us to use our taxes wisely to bring peace and prosperity to our nation and may we gladly pay for the government that we need and for the protection that it secures on our behalf. May our taxes no longer be a source of contention or strife, but the doorway to a better life for all as we say....
AMEN AND SHABBAT SHALOM
2. Shabbat Shekalim always falls just before the beginning of the last month of the Jewish Year. We are used to thinking that Tishri, the month of Rosh Hashana is the new year, but the Torah considers the month of our independence, Nisan, the month of Pesach, as the real first month. Shabbat Shekalim always falls on the Shabbat before Adar, or second Adar when we are in a leap year.
3. As we enter the last month of the year, we are reminded that taxes are due. The Torah teaches us that every adult Jew owes one half shekel at the end of every year. This Shabbat is our reminder that this tax is due. It was a flat tax on every adult and it served not only to fund the Temple but as a way of counting citizens. It was the same tax for the rich and poor alike and so by counting the money, we would know how many adult taxpayers were in the country.
4. There actually are many different kinds of taxes in Judaism. Maaser was the first ten percent of the crops that were due to the priests. Every third year there was a tax that would go to the poor. There was a tax of the harvest that was supposed to be transported and consumed in Jerusalem to improve the economy in the Holy City. First fruits from a tree and the first born of animals were to be given to the Temple. Kings in Israel could impose a labor tax; not money but a certain number of days that able bodied men or women would be required to perform state functions. What we would call “Charity” today is not so much a voluntary contribution but a requirement of God that we owe those in need in our community. That is why it was called, Tzedakah, or “Justice” because turning your back on the helpless and poor was considered injustice and a sin.
5. From ancient times to the present, taxes have always been a source of controversy and sometimes pain. The kingdom of Solomon was divided over the high taxes his son wanted to impose on the people of Israel. Jews in the ghettos of Europe were often taxed to pay the salaries of those that would oppress them. Americans fought our Revolutionary War over the problem of taxation without representation. In Israel today, there are those who criticize Israel because some Orthodox Jews who pay little or no taxes seem to get a disproportionate amount of tax dollars to support themselves and their yeshivot. The proverb teaches us that the only sure things in life are death and taxes. The difference between death and taxes though, is that death does not get any worse every time Congress meets!
6. Taxes today are a big part of our news. Ever since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, taxes have been labeled very bad by our political leaders. It is a common belief that we pay too much money in taxes and that the government wastes our money so we never get any tax money returned. I remember well the first time my daughter got a paycheck. She called me that day and asked me about taxes. She had no idea that taxes would be taken out of her paycheck. She had counted on her salary but not on the payroll deductions. She understood the concept but was not happy about how it reduced what she had hoped to earn.
7. Unlike the flat tax of the Bible, most taxes in this country are “progressive” taxes. The more you earn the more taxes you pay. A greater burden of taxes are thus collected from those who can afford to pay them. Judaism teaches us that even the poor need to give Tzedakah, but clearly the mitzvah / obligation of giving Tzedakah is greater the more money we have. I like to remind my students that if somebody earns $10,000, and has to pay 10% in taxes, or $1000, that is a huge bite out of the money he has earned. On the other hand, a person who earns 10 million dollars, and has to pay 10% in taxes, has to pay a million dollars in taxes, but since he still has nine million in the bank, it has not cramped his style at all.
8. Taxing the rich therefore has always been a favorite target in Congress. Those who have more, pay more. It is a simple system and it has only one major problem. It is a lot less interesting to tax the rich when we start to earn enough to be a part of that club. Rich people spend a lot of their money on finding ways not to pay taxes. Sometimes these deductions are legitimate and the tax savings are legal. Sometimes these deductions are not legitimate and the failure to pay taxes on the money is criminal. Judaism is very clear on the subject of taxes. We are entitled to every legitimate tax deduction possible. Jewish law, however, does not let us refuse to pay legitimate taxes owed. We have a religious duty to pay what we owe and to pay it on time. This is not only a law for the rich, but a law for all of us. The price of living in this country is the taxes we pay.
9. The other side of the tax discussion is what we spend our taxes on. Judaism has its laws regarding what a government is supposed to provide. Government provides us with safety and security, it must help those who are poor, punish those who break the law, regulate business so that nobody can claim an unfair advantage over another and provide for schools, hospitals and other public services. If we depend on a public service, we must also be prepared to pay taxes to support it. This week a group of Christian ministers wrote an article for a newspaper that federal, state and local budgets should be “moral documents”. The article was the source of much discussion on the radio this week. Should religious values and morals have a place in our budget debate? The reporters were claiming a separation of church and state made certain that religious values not be considered in the deliberations of government. But we forget that the separation of church and state only goes one way, government is not allowed to spend tax money on religious institutions of any kind, but religion can advise our representatives on what our priorities should be.
10. Budgeting, for a family, for a synagogue, for a state and for the federal government is all the same. A budget always reflects our values. What we value most, we make sure is funded in our budget. That which is of little value, is pushed to the back. Classic budget battles are over which programs we value most. In the case of the federal budget, do we value defense spending over heating oil for poor families? In a state budget, we can argue about paying more for teachers or for police officers. Creating a budget is always about weighing the different values we have and assessing a price tag for each one.
11. If your family budget is anything like mine, there are two types of budget items. Those that are fixed and those that are discretionary. I do not have much control over my electric or water bill. Unless I am prepared to do without air conditioning and hot water, there is really little I can do to make these expenses lower. Discretionary income, like my bill for cable television and my credit card bill, I have more direct control over. The only problem is that they represent only a small part of my budget. If we really want to control our budget, we will have to directly face the major expenses. We may have to move into a less expensive home. We may have to purchase a more modern air conditioner that is more energy efficient. We may have to replace our toilet and shower head to consume less water. We may have to drive less to get a handle on the ever increasing cost of gasoline. For most of our budget, we will have to make some serious changes to our lifestyle if we hope to get our spending really under control.
12. Government has pretty much the same problems. Most of what they need to cut would require great changes in the way American's live their lives. Should Social Security be for everyone or only for seniors who have no other retirement plan? Should the government take more control of healthcare to contain health costs? How much defense spending is too much, which military equipment is necessary for our troops and which items are expensive wastes of money? Much of government's discretionary spending is such a small part of the budget, it is almost useless to try and use it to reduce the deficit unless we are talking a ten to twenty year time frame.
13. Budget battles get nasty when, as in the case of the State of Wisconsin, one side tries to undermine the values of the other. Minorities often filibuster or shut down government to secure some compromises from the majority party. When there is a spirit of cooperation, a budget battle rarely will cause much confrontation. But in these days of toxic relations between parties, nobody wants to compromise an inch, and the only people happy are the news media who get a juicy story to cover. I think, however, that I would have more compassion for the governor in this battle if had not, just before he presented his budget, given the rich in his state a huge tax reduction. If he is so determined to balance the budget, why does he feel the need to do it off the backs of public employees?
14. There is a lot of talk these days of tight budgets to change our tax structure to something fairer and simpler. A value added tax may make more sense than a regressive sales tax that is a greater burden on the poor. Eliminating all deductions on Federal Income Tax would insure that everyone would pay taxes and they would be lower for everyone. Taxes have to be high because so many people take advantage of all the deductions. If we remove the deductions and everyone would pay their fair share, then it would mean we would not need to tax at such a high rate. Tax deductions are the way our representatives show us that they are looking out for our needs. Demanding services and then expecting to have exemptions so we don't have to pay for them is bad budgeting and part of the reason that we are in so much tax and budget trouble today.
15. The half shekel tax for the Temple is no longer collected. The Temple was destroyed two thousand years ago and the need to support it stopped. The early Zionist movement talked about using the half shekel as a membership fee to bring about the redemption of Israel. It has long been a custom on Purim to give a half dollar as a symbolic half shekel to provide for the synagogue or for the poor. The half shekel may no longer be an official tax but it still can do much good in the world, from support of Israel to strengthening our local Jewish community. Complaining about taxes may be our favorite occupation but taxes can do a world of good in our lives and for the world. In ancient times as well as in our modern era, the problem is not about the money, but in the way people feel about it.
May God help us to use our taxes wisely to bring peace and prosperity to our nation and may we gladly pay for the government that we need and for the protection that it secures on our behalf. May our taxes no longer be a source of contention or strife, but the doorway to a better life for all as we say....
AMEN AND SHABBAT SHALOM
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Tetzaveh
Parshat Tetzaveh
Sermon Saturday Morning
2011
1. Shabbat Shalom
2. When studying Torah, one of the first lessons we learn is that everything in the Torah is important. What is written is important. What is missing from the text is important. Every word and every letter is important. The Talmud teaches us that the sages were able to derive all manner of laws from every little nuance in the written text of the Torah. In fact, we learn that the great Rabbi Akiva was so adept at this style of learning that he could infer great heaps of laws from the decorative crowns that adorned the letters.
3. We have a textual anomaly at the very beginning of this week's Parsha. God commands Aaron to bring pure olive oil to the Mishkan in order to have a light continually burning in the Menorah. The problem is that the text uses two different words to convey the same thought. “L'meir L'ha-alot” To kindle and to light - Why is the same command used in two different ways?
4. Sampson Raphael Hirsch, in his extensive Torah Commentary, makes note of the double wording in the text and he makes this comment: “This term for kindling lights (L'ha-alot) is used only in connection with the care of the Menorah. It precisely describes the task of the keepers of the flame; i.e. to hold the kindling flame against the wick to be kindled until the wick 'continues burning on its own.' The task of the Torah teacher is to render his services unnecessary. His task is not to keep the 'laity' forever dependent upon him. This is meant as an admonition to both teachers and students that they should be patient and persevering.”
5. Writing almost 200 years ago, I think Hirsch is on to something here. One of the great issues in education is all about the role of the educator. There is a midrash about a pagan who came to the great sage Hillel and asked him to convert him to Judaism on the condition that Hillel only teach the Written Law to the student and not the Oral Law. The man only wanted to learn Torah and not Mishna or Midrash Halacha. Hillel accepted the condition and the next day the man came for a lesson. The first lesson was learning Hebrew so Hillel taught him “Aleph, Bet, Gimmel...” The next day, the second lesson, was “Gimmel, Bet, Aleph” “You taught it to me differently yesterday,” complained the student. Hillel replied, “Just as you must depend on me to teach you the letters, you must also depend on me to teach you Torah through the Oral Law.”
6. One way of looking at education is to find a teacher who can enlighten us as to what Torah is all about. Whenever we have questions, we go to our teacher and we learn the answer to the mysteries at hand. Teachers are very powerful people. We learn to see the world through the eyes of our teacher and we come to appreciate how our teacher combines knowledge and logic to find the answers, not only to the great questions of the past, but to questions that are new and difficult to understand. Such a teacher can make us feel at home in the world, safe with the knowledge that every problem does indeed have a solution and every question has an answer. If we don't know what to do, we can always rely on our teacher to set us on the right path.
7. I understand the reason why people would want to have all the answers; it really makes living much easier. To know that every problem has a simple solution makes all of our problems disappear. If I don't know the answer I need, I can go to my teacher and the teacher will tell me what I need to know to solve the challenges I face. But as one philosopher notes, “Every problem has a simple solution; that is usually wrong.” Aristotle, the great Greek teacher taught that if you were to drop a stone and a feather, the stone would fall faster than the feather. Heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones. Over a thousand years later, Galileo, the Italian scientist, decided to finally test the teachings of Aristotle. He took iron balls of different weights and had them dropped from the tower in Pisa. The heavier balls should have landed first, but every time he tested the theory, they landed together in one thump. Galileo had no choice but to say that Aristotle was wrong, and no matter what the weight of an object, gravity pulls on them with the same force.
8. Hundreds of years later an Apollo astronaut, standing on the moon, a planet with no atmosphere to disrupt the fall of a feather, dropped a hammer and a feather and both landed at the same time. Aristotle's answer was not the right answer. It took a greater understanding of gravity, to finally see where Aristotle had gone wrong.
9. Hillel is not the only kind of teacher in Judaism. There is, in our faith, another model for educators. The philosopher, Martin Buber tells a story of a man who came to the Kotzker Rebbe with a problem. “I keep brooding and brooding and I am unable to stop!” “What do you brood about? Asked the Rabbi. “I keep brooding about whether there really is a judgment and a judge.” “Does it matter to you?” asked the Rabbi. “Rabbi! If there is no judgment and no judge, then what does all of creation mean?” “Does that matter to you?” asked the Rabbi. “Rabbi! If there is no judgment and no judge, then what do the words of the Torah mean?” “Does that matter to you?” asked the Rabbi. “Rabbi! Does it matter to me? What do you think? What else could matter to me?” “Well, if it matters to you so greatly,” said the Kotzker Rebbe, “then you are a good Jew after all. And it is quite all right for a good Jew to brood; nothing can go wrong with him.”
10. The Kotzker Rebbe was a very different kind of an educator. He was not interested in teaching facts to his student. He was all about asking questions. He did not instruct the man, he guided the man to understand his questions better and to see his concern not as a problem at all, but as an opportunity to really live his life as a good Jew. Through his constant questioning of the student, the student was able to step away from his brooding long enough to see that it was not taking him in the wrong direction in life, rather his brooding was the logical result of one who has learned many facts but is now struggling with the very essence of life. The learning, says the Kotzker Rebbe, is not in the facts and not in the answers, but the learning is found in the struggle to understand.
11. Just as there are different kinds of teachers, there are also different kinds of learners. When a student who wants to know the answers to questions, looks for a teacher, the student is looking for someone who will give him or her all the answers. If such a student were to find a teacher who only asked questions, he or she might find that teacher very difficult to understand. In the same way a student who is looking for a mentor and guide needs a teacher who will gently guide the student to find the answers for him or her self using basic questions and principles. If that student were to have a teacher who only gives the facts the student might find that teacher and his teachings very frustrating.
12. Rabbi Hirsch teaches us with his comment on the Torah that he is a follower of the style of the Kotzker Rebbe. One needs to teach basic principles and then get out of the way, as the student finds his way through the world. In some ways, this is the more mature way of teaching students. When we are young children, the question is always “Why? Why? Why?” demanding answers from our parents and teachers. Later, as we grow, we try to use our knowledge to understand more difficult problems, testing our understanding with experiments and with sharp discussions with those who disagree. As we mature, the answers are less important than the way we arrive at our answers. It is not enough to learn one haftara, we want to learn the Trop, the ancient musical markings so we will be able to read, on our own, any haftara.
13. One of the effects of internet and cable television is that there is more information available to us than ever before. Every minute there is another talking head telling us some facts about something he thinks is important. Since news is always on, the newscasters must always have something to say, there must be a constant flow of facts to match the images and the news as it unfolds all over the world. For some people this constant flow of information is wonderful. These people live for facts and they collect them as one would collect stamps or coins. But what can they do with their facts? They need the advisers, the experts and the pundits to tell them what all the facts mean. They rely on their teacher to show them what they should do.
14. But others are not seeking facts, they are seeking light. They don't want anyone to tell them how to think or what to think; they want to hear and form their own opinions. They do not rely on one line of thinking or another, but take what they know and weave their own outlook on the world. It is true, that from time to time they find that they have drawn wrong conclusions, but they are less interested in the conclusions than they are in the process of how they can decide between differing possibilities.
15. What makes this approach interesting is that each person who is added to the discussion is like another candle lit up against the darkness. All it takes is one candle to push back the darkness, but if one candle lights other candles, the light of the first one is not diminished; in fact, as more and more candles are added to the room, the light only increases and the darkness is pushed back to the farthest corners of the room. So it is with learning. The more a teacher helps a student understand difficult concepts, the more light is added to the discussion and the darkness of ignorance is pushed farther and farther back. Even if the student is far from his teacher, the light of learning never really abandons him to the dark. Like the Menorah in the Temple, the light of wisdom burns eternally.
16. Rabbi Hirsch has given us great insight into the workings of a good teacher. Light the lamp of learning in your students and then get out of the way. Let them grow and find their own answers to life's most difficult problems. The meaning of life is not found in the answers, but in the way we search for our answers. As we share our light, we spread more light throughout the world.
May God give us the learning we will need to find our way in the world. And the proper teachers, who may not give us the answers we seek, but who will challenge us by asking, “Why do you want to know?”
Amen and Shabbat Shalom
Sermon Saturday Morning
2011
1. Shabbat Shalom
2. When studying Torah, one of the first lessons we learn is that everything in the Torah is important. What is written is important. What is missing from the text is important. Every word and every letter is important. The Talmud teaches us that the sages were able to derive all manner of laws from every little nuance in the written text of the Torah. In fact, we learn that the great Rabbi Akiva was so adept at this style of learning that he could infer great heaps of laws from the decorative crowns that adorned the letters.
3. We have a textual anomaly at the very beginning of this week's Parsha. God commands Aaron to bring pure olive oil to the Mishkan in order to have a light continually burning in the Menorah. The problem is that the text uses two different words to convey the same thought. “L'meir L'ha-alot” To kindle and to light - Why is the same command used in two different ways?
4. Sampson Raphael Hirsch, in his extensive Torah Commentary, makes note of the double wording in the text and he makes this comment: “This term for kindling lights (L'ha-alot) is used only in connection with the care of the Menorah. It precisely describes the task of the keepers of the flame; i.e. to hold the kindling flame against the wick to be kindled until the wick 'continues burning on its own.' The task of the Torah teacher is to render his services unnecessary. His task is not to keep the 'laity' forever dependent upon him. This is meant as an admonition to both teachers and students that they should be patient and persevering.”
5. Writing almost 200 years ago, I think Hirsch is on to something here. One of the great issues in education is all about the role of the educator. There is a midrash about a pagan who came to the great sage Hillel and asked him to convert him to Judaism on the condition that Hillel only teach the Written Law to the student and not the Oral Law. The man only wanted to learn Torah and not Mishna or Midrash Halacha. Hillel accepted the condition and the next day the man came for a lesson. The first lesson was learning Hebrew so Hillel taught him “Aleph, Bet, Gimmel...” The next day, the second lesson, was “Gimmel, Bet, Aleph” “You taught it to me differently yesterday,” complained the student. Hillel replied, “Just as you must depend on me to teach you the letters, you must also depend on me to teach you Torah through the Oral Law.”
6. One way of looking at education is to find a teacher who can enlighten us as to what Torah is all about. Whenever we have questions, we go to our teacher and we learn the answer to the mysteries at hand. Teachers are very powerful people. We learn to see the world through the eyes of our teacher and we come to appreciate how our teacher combines knowledge and logic to find the answers, not only to the great questions of the past, but to questions that are new and difficult to understand. Such a teacher can make us feel at home in the world, safe with the knowledge that every problem does indeed have a solution and every question has an answer. If we don't know what to do, we can always rely on our teacher to set us on the right path.
7. I understand the reason why people would want to have all the answers; it really makes living much easier. To know that every problem has a simple solution makes all of our problems disappear. If I don't know the answer I need, I can go to my teacher and the teacher will tell me what I need to know to solve the challenges I face. But as one philosopher notes, “Every problem has a simple solution; that is usually wrong.” Aristotle, the great Greek teacher taught that if you were to drop a stone and a feather, the stone would fall faster than the feather. Heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones. Over a thousand years later, Galileo, the Italian scientist, decided to finally test the teachings of Aristotle. He took iron balls of different weights and had them dropped from the tower in Pisa. The heavier balls should have landed first, but every time he tested the theory, they landed together in one thump. Galileo had no choice but to say that Aristotle was wrong, and no matter what the weight of an object, gravity pulls on them with the same force.
8. Hundreds of years later an Apollo astronaut, standing on the moon, a planet with no atmosphere to disrupt the fall of a feather, dropped a hammer and a feather and both landed at the same time. Aristotle's answer was not the right answer. It took a greater understanding of gravity, to finally see where Aristotle had gone wrong.
9. Hillel is not the only kind of teacher in Judaism. There is, in our faith, another model for educators. The philosopher, Martin Buber tells a story of a man who came to the Kotzker Rebbe with a problem. “I keep brooding and brooding and I am unable to stop!” “What do you brood about? Asked the Rabbi. “I keep brooding about whether there really is a judgment and a judge.” “Does it matter to you?” asked the Rabbi. “Rabbi! If there is no judgment and no judge, then what does all of creation mean?” “Does that matter to you?” asked the Rabbi. “Rabbi! If there is no judgment and no judge, then what do the words of the Torah mean?” “Does that matter to you?” asked the Rabbi. “Rabbi! Does it matter to me? What do you think? What else could matter to me?” “Well, if it matters to you so greatly,” said the Kotzker Rebbe, “then you are a good Jew after all. And it is quite all right for a good Jew to brood; nothing can go wrong with him.”
10. The Kotzker Rebbe was a very different kind of an educator. He was not interested in teaching facts to his student. He was all about asking questions. He did not instruct the man, he guided the man to understand his questions better and to see his concern not as a problem at all, but as an opportunity to really live his life as a good Jew. Through his constant questioning of the student, the student was able to step away from his brooding long enough to see that it was not taking him in the wrong direction in life, rather his brooding was the logical result of one who has learned many facts but is now struggling with the very essence of life. The learning, says the Kotzker Rebbe, is not in the facts and not in the answers, but the learning is found in the struggle to understand.
11. Just as there are different kinds of teachers, there are also different kinds of learners. When a student who wants to know the answers to questions, looks for a teacher, the student is looking for someone who will give him or her all the answers. If such a student were to find a teacher who only asked questions, he or she might find that teacher very difficult to understand. In the same way a student who is looking for a mentor and guide needs a teacher who will gently guide the student to find the answers for him or her self using basic questions and principles. If that student were to have a teacher who only gives the facts the student might find that teacher and his teachings very frustrating.
12. Rabbi Hirsch teaches us with his comment on the Torah that he is a follower of the style of the Kotzker Rebbe. One needs to teach basic principles and then get out of the way, as the student finds his way through the world. In some ways, this is the more mature way of teaching students. When we are young children, the question is always “Why? Why? Why?” demanding answers from our parents and teachers. Later, as we grow, we try to use our knowledge to understand more difficult problems, testing our understanding with experiments and with sharp discussions with those who disagree. As we mature, the answers are less important than the way we arrive at our answers. It is not enough to learn one haftara, we want to learn the Trop, the ancient musical markings so we will be able to read, on our own, any haftara.
13. One of the effects of internet and cable television is that there is more information available to us than ever before. Every minute there is another talking head telling us some facts about something he thinks is important. Since news is always on, the newscasters must always have something to say, there must be a constant flow of facts to match the images and the news as it unfolds all over the world. For some people this constant flow of information is wonderful. These people live for facts and they collect them as one would collect stamps or coins. But what can they do with their facts? They need the advisers, the experts and the pundits to tell them what all the facts mean. They rely on their teacher to show them what they should do.
14. But others are not seeking facts, they are seeking light. They don't want anyone to tell them how to think or what to think; they want to hear and form their own opinions. They do not rely on one line of thinking or another, but take what they know and weave their own outlook on the world. It is true, that from time to time they find that they have drawn wrong conclusions, but they are less interested in the conclusions than they are in the process of how they can decide between differing possibilities.
15. What makes this approach interesting is that each person who is added to the discussion is like another candle lit up against the darkness. All it takes is one candle to push back the darkness, but if one candle lights other candles, the light of the first one is not diminished; in fact, as more and more candles are added to the room, the light only increases and the darkness is pushed back to the farthest corners of the room. So it is with learning. The more a teacher helps a student understand difficult concepts, the more light is added to the discussion and the darkness of ignorance is pushed farther and farther back. Even if the student is far from his teacher, the light of learning never really abandons him to the dark. Like the Menorah in the Temple, the light of wisdom burns eternally.
16. Rabbi Hirsch has given us great insight into the workings of a good teacher. Light the lamp of learning in your students and then get out of the way. Let them grow and find their own answers to life's most difficult problems. The meaning of life is not found in the answers, but in the way we search for our answers. As we share our light, we spread more light throughout the world.
May God give us the learning we will need to find our way in the world. And the proper teachers, who may not give us the answers we seek, but who will challenge us by asking, “Why do you want to know?”
Amen and Shabbat Shalom
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