Big Questions and Elul

I delivered this dvar Torah this past Shabbat at Kol Sasson congregation in Skokie, IL.

 

I. Stumbling On Big Questions

In 2005, four weeks after I received semikha, two weeks after our second son was born, my wife Natalie and I moved to Evanston. As the new rabbi at Northwestern Hillel, there were many things to do, many people to meet. But the biggest thing to do, programmatically anyway, was prepare for the High Holidays.

Like many campuses, Northwestern has an area where theater groups, political groups, fraternities and sororities hang big painted sheets to announce their upcoming events: “Party at Sig Ep Saturday night!” or “Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale, Thursday to Sunday in Shanley.” So to publicize the High Holidays, I figured we could hang a painted sheet, something like, “Yom Kippur, Wednesday. Repent!”

But a funny thing happened on the way to Yom Kippur. We realized two things: First, we could afford to make something slightly nicer than a painted sheet. So we printed an 8-foot by 3-foot banner at Kinkos. Second, instead of making a statement, we could ask a question.

Statements and announcements, it seemed to me, could linger in the air and easily be ignored. A question, by contrast, enters into the mind. You can’t walk by a question, a good question, and ignore it with the same ease that you ignore a statement. The old TV ad is a perfect case in point. “It’s 10 pm: do you know where your children are?” is far more evocative than “It’s 10 pm. Make sure your kids are safe.”

So we made a banner that asked what we thought was the basic question of the High Holidays: What will you do better this year? Underneath we wrote, Experience the High Holidays, and we listed the website for Hillel.

It turned out that this banner, created in my first weeks as a rabbi on campus, would be the seed of a much larger project, one that has influenced my professional career and my approach to education, leadership, community, and spiritual life. A little over a year ago, I left Northwestern Hillel to lead the national development of Ask Big Questions, which this year will be active on over 20 campuses, training over 100 students in the skills of text-centered reflective community conversation, and reaching tens of thousands of people from various walks of life in-person, online, and in print.

As we journey through this Elul, I want to go back to that Elul seven years ago. Here we are again in Elul. Here we are again, preparing for the High Holidays. Here we are again, a full shemitta cycle later, with the chance to discover, or rediscover, some Big Questions.

 

Rosh Hashanah Sermon 5772: Listening

To listen to an audio recording of this sermon (made after the holiday), please click here.

You probably remember the story about the elderly Jewish woman listening to a lecture by a famous astronomer. The lecture was about the sun.

At one point the astronomer said, “In around six to seven billion years the Sun will exhaust all its hydrogen fuel and begin the process of stellar death. When that happens, the Sun will grow so large it will engulf planet Earth.”

Distressed, the woman interrupted the lecture, yelling out, “Wait, when will this happen?”

The astronomer replied: “Six to seven billion years from now.”

To which the woman replied, “Whew! I thought you said million.”

The central mitzvah of Rosh Hashanah is not dipping apples and honey. It isn’t eating honey cake. It isn’t getting together with your crazy relatives. Those things are all lovely and important. But they’re not what Rosh Hashanah is fundamentally about. No, at its heart, Rosh Hashanah is about listening–about remembering what it means to listen, and about listening closely to the sound of the shofar.

 

Rosh Hashanah Sermon 5771: Overcoming Our Fears

You can listen to Rabbi Josh reading this sermon by clicking here.

Kol ha-olam kulo
Gesher tzar me’od
V’ha-ikar lo lefached klal.

All the world is a very narrow bridge
And the essence is not to fear at all.

It was the early years of the nineteenth century. The Jews of eastern Europe were herded together in cities and villages throughout Poland, Ukraine, Russia—in the area known as the Pale of Settlement. The machines of factories and the ideas of modernization, which had already had such an effect in the West, were beginning to be known in the East.

Think Fiddler on the Roof. People suffered—from poverty, disease, and threats of violence. While the ideas and forces of modernity offered an escape, they also deeply challenged traditional ways of life.

In the midst of all of this, beginning in the late eighteenth century, the movement known as Hasidus, Hasidism, spread like wildfire throughout the Jewish world of Eastern Europe. Its appeal was based on its simplicity: any Jew could experience God’s presence through the joyous performance of mitzvoth. Advanced Talmudic scholarship wasn’t required, wealth wasn’t required. Simple faith, simple piety—this was all a person needed to find fulfillment and happiness in the world.

Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav was the grandson of the founder of Hasidus, the Ba’al Shem Tov. A charismatic leader and creative genius, the teachings of Rebbe Nachman’s short life have inspired seven generations of disciples since his death.

Rebbe Nachman’s teachings are brilliant in the profundity of their simplicity. He taught of the power of song to elevate the spirit. He taught that meditation and silence could be routes to revelation, even more than reciting the traditional liturgy.

But Rebbe Nachman’s most famous teaching comes to us through this song:

Kol ha-olam kulo
Gesher tzar me’od
V’ha-ikar lo lefached klal.

All the world is a very narrow bridge
And the essence is not to fear at all.

I want to reflect with you today on this song, and on the challenge of fear. Because we live in fearful times. Indeed today, more than at any time since September 11, 2001, we sense fear around us.

 

Rosh Hashanah Sermon 5770 (2009): Tomorrow

For an audio recording, click here.

How many of you are familiar with the children’s stories of Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel? Frog and Toad are favorites of my kids. I have a hunch that Lobel drew some of his inspiration for them from the stories of the city of Chelm in Jewish folklore. They are humorous and usually reveal a moral lesson by way of something a little bit absurd.

One of my favorite Frog and Toad stories is called ‘Tomorrow.’ It goes like this:

Toad woke up. “Drat,” he said. “This house is a mess. I have so much work to do.”

Frog looked through the window. “Toad, you are right,” said Frog. “It is a mess.”

Toad pulled the covers over his head. “I will do it tomorrow,” said Toad. “Today I will take life easy.”

Frog came into the house. “Toad,” said Frog, “your pants and jacket are lying on the floor.”

“Tomorrow,” said Toad from under the covers.

“Your kitchen sink is filled with dirty dishes,” said Frog.

“Tomorrow,” said Toad.

“There is dust on your chairs.”

“Tomorrow,” said Toad.

“Your windows need scrubbing,” said Frog. “Your plants need watering.”

“Tomorrow!” cried Toad. “I will do it all tomorrow!”

Toad sat on the edge of his bed.

“Blah,” said Toad. “I feel down in the dumps.”

“Why?” asked Frog.

“I am thinking about tomorrow,” said Toad.

 

What does returning to God really mean?

With Rosh Hashanah only a few days away, the Torah annually brings us the poetic words of Parshat Nitzavim on the Shabbat prior to the New Year. Central to this Torah portion is the idea of teshuva, return, which is also at the heart of the High Holiday season. “You will return your hearts to God,” says Moses. “You will return to the Lord your God and you will listen to His voice… you and your children, with all your heart and all your soul. Then the Lord will restore your fortunes and take you back in love.” (Deut. 30:1-3)

What, though, does this return really entail? What does it mean to return to God?

Returning implies that we have been here before. One cannot return to someplace one has never been. So when we say we are returning to God, we really imply that we have been with God before, and that we are restoring a relationship that once existed. This is an important Jewish idea, one which I learned from my teacher Rabbi Avi Weiss: While on Rosh Hashanah we commemorate the creation of the world, it is not a day of newness, it is not a day of firsts. Instead Rosh Hashanah is a day of seconds, a day of repeating, a day of returning.

In the story of Noah, the Torah relates (Gen. 8:13) that Noah left the ark on the first of the month. But it doesn’t specify which month. The commentators on the Talmud interpreted the Torah to mean that Noah left the ark on the first of Tishrei, Rosh Hashanah. Why? Because Noah was engaging in the re-creation, the second creation, of the world. And the major difference between Noah’s experience and that of Adam and Eve is that Noah carried with him a memory of what had come before. Unlike Adam and Eve, who were placed on the earth, Noah and his family returned to the earth after a period of separation.

In our society, and especially in the university environment, we give honor and prestige to innovators, people who think of that which has never been thought, who “boldly go where no man has gone before.” And while this is important, it is precisely the opposite of the ethos of Rosh Hashanah and the value of teshuva. Returning means going back over our memories, reviewing our actions and our relationships, and reliving them so that we may repair them. It is not about leaving the past behind, but instead about repairing the past. That is the miraculous power and possibility of teshuva–that the past is not frozen, but is always in dialogue with the present and the future.

So when we say that between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we are returning to God, what we mean is that we are opening ourselves up to another dimension. It is a dimension beyond time and space, in which past and future are an open book. In this divine dimension we can set right that which has gone wrong, and can re-experience the sense of wholeness and unconditional embrace that lies deep in our souls. As Moses says, “For it is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.” (Deut. 30:14) May we all find that place to return to this year.

 

These Are Days to Remember

This piece appeared in the Rosh Hashanah 2007 issue of the Jerusalem Report Magazine

 

While Rosh Hashanah is known by several names—among them the Day of Judgment, the Birthday of the World—its official title, as proclaimed by the ancient Rabbis, is Yom HaZikaron, the Day of Remembrance. On its most basic level, Rosh Hashanah as Day of Remembrance proclaims God’s omniscience: “You remember all that happens in the world,” begins the Zichronot, or Remembrance section of the Musaf, the additional prayer. What is God remembering, and how does God remember? And what role do humans play in the process?

Memory is different than history. “Memory” implies personal experience, with a twist of internality different than the colder connotations of “history.” Where the three Pilgrimage festivals—Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot—emphasize the historical event of the Exodus from Egypt, Rosh Hashanah (and Yom Kippur) focuses on the personal, lived experience of the individual Jew. As Franz Rosenzweig writes in The Star of Redemption, “The Days of Awe place the eternity of redemption into time… Eternity is stripped of every trace of the beyond…; it is actually there, within the grasp of every individual and holding every individual close in its strong grasp.” While on Passover we strive to see ourselves as if we personally had left Egypt, as the Haggadah reminds us, on Rosh Hashanah there is no as if: The moment is real, it is here. The memory we relive is our own, and not the history of our ancient ancestors.

Rosh Hashanah is thus the holiday that most emphasizes our humanity. The narrative of Jewish national identity which forms the basis of the Pilgrimage festivals, and even of Yom Kippur (which appeals to the relationship between God and Israel as the basis for forgiveness) is virtually absent from the holiday. Pointedly, Rosh Hashanah is the only Jewish holiday that draws its traditional Torah readings from Genesis—that is, from the book of the Torah whose narratives take place before the emergence of the people of Israel. It is, after all, the birthday of the world, and not only the Jews. 

And thus Rosh Hashanah, in a very singular way, is the day on which are invited to be authentically ourselves. There is no part to act out, no role to play. There is no Haggadah, no script; there is no matzah or maror, no sukkah or lulav, there are no props. Instead, Rosh Hashanah is our Day of Remembrance, our day to remember our own lives, to invite and enable God to remember our lives with us. Indeed, in order for God to “remember all that happens in the world,” we humans must remember all that has happened in our lives. In the process, just as the sound of the shofar travels and reverberates within our bodies, we invite the Divine consciousness to enter our own. On Rosh Hashanah, as on no other day, God needs us.

A Rabbinic legend (Midrash Tehillim 81:6) powerfully illustrates the point. If the Rabbinic court proclaimed Rosh Hashanah a day later than was anticipated, says the midrash, God tells the Heavenly court to go home and come back tomorrow. “When it is not a decree for Israel,” the midrash states, “It is not an ordinance for God.” That is, if the Rabbinic court says that today is not Rosh Hashanah, then God is bound by the decision.

The message of this and other Talmudic passages is that the human role in the Covenantal relationship is particularly pronounced on Rosh Hashanah. In fact, it is so pronounced that God bows to human utterances. Yet this reality exists in a lovers’ quarrel with the ultimate power wielded by God: “On Rosh Hashanah it is written… who will live and who will die.” Still, the question must be asked: Where ends God’s agency in bringing about our future, and where does our own begin? (Likewise: When does the silence end, and the sound of the shofar begin?) On Rosh Hashanah we are reminded of how intertwined the life of the Divine is with our own lives.

To return to memory: The Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 32b) asks, Why on the High Holidays do we not recite Hallel, the celebratory collection of Psalms sung on the Pilgrimage festivals? The Talmud answers that God Himself says that it would be inappropriate to sing Hallel on a day when the books of life and death are open before Him. In other words, it would be inappropriate to sing Hallel, says God, because today is not a day of history, it is not a day for scripted singing. It is rather a day for a song emanates from the individuals who are standing in judgment, remembering themselves. And so the song of Rosh Hashanah is not a song of words, but a primal song open to manifold interpretation, the song of the shofar, that says “Wake up, wake up, and remember who you are!”

 

Abraham and Isaac: Rosh Hashanah 5766

A. Abraham

“And it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham. And He said to him, “Abraham.” And he said, “Here I am.” And He said, “Please, take your son, your only one, the one whom you love, Isaac; and get yourself to the land of Moriah, and offer him up there as a sacrifice, on one of the mountains that I will tell you.”

What would you do? 

You are Abraham. When you were 75 years old, the voice of God came to you and told you, “Get out from your land, from your birthplace, from your father’s house and go to the land I will show you. And I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great, and it will be for a blessing.” You left behind everything because of your faith in this God, because of your trust in this God’s word. God told you that you would become a nation—that you would have land, and that you would have children. 

And after many years of waiting, you finally did have a child with your wife Sarah—miraculously so: She was 90, you were 100! You waited for years. You may have started to doubt God’s promise, but then the promise was fulfilled. You have been given everything because you sacrificed everything—you left it all behind, and you got a complete life in return. 

And now, this. Now this same God in whose word you placed your entire existence, your entire future, asks you to give it all up again. This same God, who promised you land and children and blessing and who delivered—this same God asks you to sacrifice that which you love more than anything in the world. More than that, this same God, who you yourself humbled with the words, “Will the judge of the all the earth not do justice,” this same God asks you to take the life an innocent child, a being created in God’s own image. 

What would you do?

Traditionally, this is how we read the story of the binding of Isaac, the Akedah. From the Talmud through the great medieval commentator Ramban, up through Kierkegaard in the nineteenth century and Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik in the twentieth, this has been the essential question: What would you do? Would you have the faith of Abraham? Would you do as he does? Would you speak up? Would you say no? 

 

We read this story on Rosh Hashanah because today is a day to take stock of our faith. Today is a day to examine our relationship with God. It is a day, as the Talmud says and as the Machzor echoes, when all the creatures of the earth walk past God for review. Are we up to the challenge that Abraham poses? Would we do as Abraham does? That is our question on Rosh Hashanah.

B. Isaac

But there is another way to read the Akedah. Rather than read the story from the point of view of Abraham, we can read it from the point of view of Isaac: “And it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham,” my father. And He said to my father, “Abraham.” And my father said, “Here I am.” And He said, “Please, take your son, your only one, the one whom you love, Isaac”—please, take me!; and get yourself to the land of Moriah, and offer him up there as a sacrifice (offer ME up there as a sacrifice), on one of the mountains that I will tell you.” 

My father did not consult my mother. He did not ask me how I felt about this. But we went along. And after a while, I noticed there was no animal for the sacrifice, and so I said to him, “Abba,” and he said, “Here I am.” And I asked him, “I see that we have the fire and the wood—where’s the lamb for the sacrifice?” And my father said, “God will provide the lamb for the sacrifice, my son.” And we walked on together. And when we arrived at the place, my father took me and tied me up, and put me on top of the altar. And then my father took the knife and raised his arm. The knife was over my throat. 

You are Isaac. Your father has led you through the wilderness for three days. When you ask him what it’s all about, he misleads you. You climbed a mountain with him, and now he has tied you up and placed you atop an altar, and at this moment he has a knife extended over your throat. 

The question is not, What do you do? Physically, you are bound. You can’t do anything. Rather the question is an emotional, intellectual, and spiritual one: How do you respond? How do you feel? Confused? Terrified? Angry? Resigned? At peace? Accepting? 

 

C. Analysis

When we take the traditional view, and read the story from Abraham’s perspective, we start from the standpoint of freedom. Abraham’s Akedah is a story about choices. Abraham is not forced to do this. He is asked, as Rashi, the greatest of Torah commentators, reminds us in his comment on the tiny word נא. Note in verse 2 that God says קח נא את בנך—Please, take your son… Rashi focuses on the word נא, please, and says, “The word נא connotes a request. God said to Abraham, ‘Please take this test for me.’” Abraham performs the Akedah of his own free will. He freely chooses to listen to God’s call. 

This approach resonates with us because, as my teacher Rabbi Yitz Greenberg has said, today we are all, in effect, Jews by choice, just as Abraham was. Even if we are not converts, all of us today have the option of engaging Judaism on our own terms. There is no one forcing us to live Jewishly, or to identify as Jews at all. And so on Rosh Hashanah we ask ourselves, Will we choose this path? Will we listen to God’s voice?

But as we have seen, there is another side to the story. When we approach the Akedah from Isaac’s point of view, our questions change. Isaac’s story is not a story about choices. It does not start from the standpoint of freedom. Rather, Isaac’s story is a story about powerlessness. It is, as the very name Akedah suggests, a story about being bound. The Akedah, from Isaac’s point of view, reminds us of this truth: that we are all inheritors of our parents’ choices. We are all born into a context. We are all born into a history. We are all born into a situation over which we have no control. 

Remember my friends: Abraham left everything behind! He was a new Adam. He left his father’s house, his country, his homeland, to found something new. And so Abraham is a man of freedom, the first Jew and the first convert to Judaism. But Isaac—Isaac is very much a part of his father’s house. He is the inheritor of that house, the inheritor of his father’s new land, the inheritor of his father’s covenant with God. Abraham’s legacy has been placed on Isaac’s shoulders. Isaac is the third Jew, after Abraham and Sarah, and the first Jew by birth. 

And so the question that Isaac asks us on this Rosh Hashanah is, How will we respond? Will we go along? Will we participate? Will we take up the mantel of our forebears? Will we accept the history into which we have been born? 

 

D. Renewing the Covenant

Today, Rosh Hashanah, is the day when we renew our Covenant with God, the day when we bless God as זוכר הברית, the One who remembers the Covenant. The Covenant is a two-sided commitment, a commitment between us individually and collectively with God, to bring justice, righteousness, and holiness to the world. As partners in the Covenant, both we and God limit our choices. For His part, God agrees to sustain the world, to be a partner with humanity and with the Jewish people, to love us and to be patient with us. 

By embracing the Covenant, we commit ourselves to live by a set of moral, ethical and religious principles that acknowledge the fundamental dignity of every human being, every image of God. 

To live as Covenantal people means curbing our desire for power, by resting on Shabbat. 

It means limiting our appetite for food, by eating certain foods and not others. 

It means restraining our sexual impulses, and elevating sex to an act of love, intimacy, and dignity. 

To live as Covenantal people means seeing the poor in our midst as images of God, deserving of our respect and our sustenance. 

It means caring for our young, tending to our old, and taking care of those who are alone. 

It means speaking out against injustice and taking action to liberate the oppressed. 

 

On a global and communal level, to live as people of the Covenant is to make the world a more just place and to correct its wrongs. On a personal level, it means binding ourselves to a promise—a promise to restrain ourselves from our worst, and to inspire ourselves to our best.

Today, as we read the Akedah story and as we recommit ourselves to our Covenant, we are both Abraham and Isaac. We are Abraham because we are free to make our choice. God is asking you, God is asking us, to be God’s partner. And we are free to choose. And so we are Abraham. 

But we are also Isaac. We come here today as children of our parents and grandparents, the product of their choices and the history they created for us. We—you and I—have been burdened with a history and blessed with a birthright at the same time, just like Isaac. 

We are the next link in a chain that extends back to Elie Wiesel and Hannah Senesh, to Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein. 

It extends further back, to Moses Mendelssohn in the nineteenth century and the Ba’al Shem Tov in the eighteenth; 

To Baruch Spinoza in seventeenth century Amsterdam and to Joseph Karo in sixteenth century Palestine. 

And it keeps going, back a thousand years to Maimonides and Rashi, and to Rabbi Akiba and to Hillel a thousand years before them;

To Ezra and Daniel, to Mordechai and Esther, 

To Isaiah, King Solomon and King David in Jerusalem; 

To Joshua in Canaan and Moses at Sinai; 

To Jacob wrestling with the angel at the River Yabbok, 

And to Isaac and to Abraham, there atop Mount Moriah on that awful silent day, this day, this Rosh Hashanah, this very moment.

Today we are all Abraham, and we are all Isaac. Today we ask ourselves, “What am I bound to? What are my commitments? Are my commitments the right ones? How can I recommit myself to the things that are really important, to myself, my family, my community, our people, our values, our Torah, our God?” 

For some of us, today truly is the start of life beyond our parents’ house, away from our hometowns, away from our native lands. It is a day of Abraham. But today is also a day of Isaac, a day when we do not start afresh—but rather a day on which we begin again, conscious of the burden of our people’s history and the profundity of its millennia of wisdom. We are both powerful and powerless at the same time. 

And so the question stands. Or, I should say, the questions. To the Abrahams in us: What will you do? God is not asking you to sacrifice your child. But the implications of your choices will have an effect on your children, and on the world all our children will inherit. What will you do? What kind of world will you build for them? What classes will you take, what activities will you be involved with, what places will you go and who will you befriend—and what picture will all those strokes ultimately paint? To the Abrahams in us, today is a day to reckon with the choices we have before us.

And to the Isaacs in us: How will you play the hand you’ve been dealt? How will you respond? How will you make time to be a responsible custodian of this amazing and unparalleled 4 millenia-old tradition? Will you make time for Torah study? Will you make time for social justice? Will you make time for prayer? Will you make time for family? As the campus rabbi, I welcome you to make time for all these things through Hillel. You are always welcome, and I and the rest of the Hillel staff, are always available to you to be a companion and a guide on your Jewish journey. How will you engage this birthright of yours? To the Isaacs in us, today is a day to reckon with the choices that have been made for us—and to respond by making our own choices.

I bless you, as I hope you will bless me, with the courage of Abraham, to be a trailblazer and a visionary; and with the passion of Isaac, to know your people’s story, and to make it your own.

לשנה טובה תכתבו ותחתמו