Choose Life - Yom Kippur Morning Sermon 5783

 

Many years ago,[i] in the autumn of 1863, a horrible plague, a cholera (kaa-lir-uh) epidemic, ravaged the Jewish community of Vilna.  There was not one house where someone did not lose a loved one.  Rabbi Israel Salanter, the great sage of Vilna, fretted as Yom Kippur approached.  Too many in the community were sick, weakened by this plague.  What would happen to their health if they decided to fast on Yom Kippur?  He took counsel with physicians and recognized quickly that something must be done.

 

As the Yom Kippur morning service began, the great rabbi slowly approached the podium.  His voice was weak but grew stronger and louder by the minute.  “Today is a holy day of repentance and prayer, for the living and the dead, and of a plague that has broken out, for how long, we do not know!  When trouble comes, each person must look at their deeds, but also at their own body, flesh, and health.  Each of us shall live by God’s commandments, not die by them.  There are times when one must turn aside from the Law and by doing so, a whole community may be saved.” 

 

The entire congregation remained quiet, weeping. 

 

“I am eighty years old and I have never transgressed a mitzvah.  But “choosing life,” this too is a mitzvah!”  With strong resolve and defiance, the rabbi called out: “Eat, Jews, eat!  Go now and eat!”

 

But not one soul in the shul stirred, not one person moved from their seat! 

 

“Shammas, it must be done!”  The shammas, the synagogue attendant, entered the sanctuary with a cup of wine, challah, and some cake.  The great sage, Rabbi Israel Salanter, made kiddish and motzi.  Then, in front of the entire congregation, on Yom Kippur morning, he ate and drank as did the entire Jewish community of Vilna.

People were scared, terrified about their health and yet no one wished to break their fast on Yom Kippur.  Rabbi Salanter gave the community permission to eat.  His actions saved countless lives.  He taught that this was not a personal decision, for it is a communal obligation to choose life. 

 

Rabbi Salanter believed staunchly in the commandment found in this morning’s Torah reading, “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse.  Choose life – so that you and your children may live…”[ii]

 

As so many of you know, our Jewish tradition teaches that the mitzvah of pikuach nefesh, saving a life, supersedes each and every one of the other commandments.  We are required to do everything in our power to save and support life. 

  

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been struggling over these last few years.  It sure seems that American society devalues life, disregards the health and safety of our neighbors, and does absolutely nothing to protect life.  American society prioritizes personal needs, personal liberties, over the needs and welfare of the entire community.  Whether in reaction to covid restrictions during the early days of the pandemic or the increase of gun violence, I’ve become dismayed as our country blatantly disregards the lives of those who are most vulnerable.   

 

Just last week, a member of our congregation watched helplessly as a lock-down occurred at her child’s school.  For hours she didn’t hear any information at all.  Can you imagine waiting hours to learn about your child’s health and safety?  And all of us bear witness to the continue rise of gun deaths, as the scourge of violence effects every corner of our beloved city.

 

Our American society values the Second Amendment and the rights of gun owners over the wellbeing of those in our broader community.  This is an attack on our Jewish values.  As Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb teaches, “Like Americanism, Judaism cherishes freedom, always yoked with responsibility.  Emphasizing one’s freedom to shoot over others’ freedom to live fails the test.  We must bring the prophetic, justice-seeking, lifesaving, pro-reasonable-regulation Jewish perspective proudly to bear in the public square.”[iii]

 

One group who courageously and defiantly brought their voices to bear in the public square were the teenagers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.[iv]  Cameron Kasky, Alfonso Calderon, X Gonzalez, David Hogg, and dozens of other teens, joined together to create #NeverAgain and the March for Our Lives.  These teen activists encouraged thousands to travel to Tallahassee and later to Washington to become the largest youth led movement since the Vietnam War. 

 

Their actions spurred chapters across America allowing millions of voices to be heard.  They registered thousands of new voters, increased youth turnout at elections, and continue to work towards passing universal background checks, assault weapons ban, and other laws to limit gun violence.

 

This movement was led not by one person, but by an entire community.  Dozens of teen leaders, parents, teachers, youth and people of all ages, came together, a true grassroots movement.  It’s reminiscent of our Torah reading this morning, “You stand here this day, all of you, in the presence of Adonai your God – your tribal heads, elders, and officials; every man, woman, and child of Israel; and the stranger in the midst of your camp; from the one who cuts your wood to the one who one draws your water – to enter into the covenant of Adonai your God…”[v]

 

Our Jewish tradition believes in communal solidarity.  Today, on Yom Kippur and every day, we commit a covenantal oath to each other and to all in our broader community.  We must stand together: young and old, rich and poor, elder to woodcutter, to choose life.  We have a responsibility for each other’s health and wellbeing.  In our tradition we say: Kol Yisrael Aravim Zeh be’zeh, that we must all take care of each other. that we must choose life together!

 

And yet, there is a perception in America of what it means to choose life or what it means to be “pro-life.”  This phrase “choose life” might even seem foreign to you as a member of our liberal Jewish community.  I suspect that most of us do not define ourselves as “pro-life.”  Conservative Christianity has coopted language that is truly at the heart of our religion.  As Jews, we are, and have always been pro-life, for we are commanded to “choose life.”  As a Jewish community, we define pro-life differently.

  

Being “pro-life” in a Jewish context means valuing all life and protecting the health of all people, especially the life of the pregnant person.  From the Torah until today, our rabbis have taught that the life of the pregnant person is prioritized over that of the fetus; for the fetus in Jewish law is not yet a life.  In the Babylonian Talmud, we learn that the fetus is merely fluid until day 40.  After forty days, the fetus becomes a physical part of the pregnant person’s body.  It is not until the head emerges during childbirth that our tradition believes that the fetus becomes a person.[vi]

This is not just a liberal perspective, from Reform to Orthodox, Jewish tradition believes a pregnant person’s life is sacrosanct.  This summer the Orthodox Union, representing Modern Orthodox synagogues came out with this statement, “[The] same mandate to preserve life requires us to be concerned for the life of the mother. Jewish law prioritizes the life of the pregnant mother over the life of the fetus such that where the pregnancy critically endangers the physical health or mental health of the mother, an abortion may be authorized, if not mandated, by Halacha and should be available to all women irrespective of their economic status.  Legislation and court rulings-federally or in any state-that absolutely ban abortion without regard for the health of the mother would literally limit our ability to live our lives in accordance with our responsibility to preserve life.”[vii]

Our Jewish community came together this summer to speak as one around the issue of Abortion.  Even still, it is difficult to speak openly about the need for an abortion and to share our stories publicly.  That’s why I am in awe of the bravery of Rabbi Rachel Pass who last year shared in an editorial of her decision to have an abortion while in rabbinical school.  Rabbi Pass learned just after Rosh Hashanah in her second year of school that she had accidentally conceived.  As she shares, “I chose life when I left Literary Artistry of the Bible early on a Thursday afternoon to walk the few short blocks from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion’s New York campus to the Margaret Sanger Planned Parenthood on Bleecker Street. I took the first pill in a quiet office, sitting across from a doctor who looked just like me… There is nothing more sacred than the right to live one’s life as one chooses – and to choose life, and to choose blessing. In having an abortion, I chose my life.”[viii]

 

As a Jewish community, we “choose life” when we care for the life and health of the pregnant person.  As Rabbi Rachel Pass shares: “As Jews, if anyone, ever again, tries to argue that abortion restrictions are justified under the prerogative of religious freedom, we can explain that our religious freedom demands that we have access to abortion care when it is needed and wanted.”

It's hard to push back against American society and the religious fervor of conservative Christianity or rightwing political opinions.  And yet, we are required to stand up and “choose life.”  Rabbi Shefa Gold teaches that “Choosing, means being able to… stand against the flow of mainstream culture, and to stand for values that are positively counter-cultural…”[ix]

That’s what we Jews do!  We stand up against mainstream culture and proudly proclaim that our Jewish values demand that we take care of the most vulnerable.

That’s what happened, some 250 years ago when a cholera plague ravaged the Jewish community of Vilna.  The great Rabbi Israel Salanter stood upon a bima, like this one, recited kiddish and motzi, and in act of defiance ate and drank on Yom Kippur.  So many were already sick and would be weakened if they fasted.  That day, Rabbi Salater’s actions, and the community’s actions, saved countless lives.

On this Yom Kippur, we too must stand together.  As our society crumbles, as our nation devalues life and fails to take care of the most vulnerable, we must act.  As gun violence increases, as our Supreme Court, and our state governments all over this country make it easier to subvert our religious values and ignore the health and wellbeing of a pregnant person, we must act.  It is time to stand firm as did Rabbi Salanter, to be as brave as Rabbi Pass, and to be as defiant as the teenagers of Parkland.  Life is precious, life is vulnerable, life is fleeing, on this day of Yom Kippur, we must remember that it is life that matters most.  “I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse.  Choose life – so that you and your children may live…” May we reclaim the meaning of what it means to be pro-life.  May we stand firm in our Jewish values that the communal needs must supersede personal liberties.  May we do all that we can, to end violence, to protect the vulnerable, and to take care of those who are pregnant.  May we always, may we always, “choose life.”  Amen.

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[i] There are many different versions told of this story.  Some scholars believe that Rabbi Salanter did eat on Yom Kippur, others believe he just encouraged those who were weak to eat.  Still others, believe that the day’s service was shortened and that the Rabbi encouraged congregants to remain outdoors in the fresh air.  Different versions are told by David Frischmann, Three Who Ate (http://fullonlinebook.com/poems/three-who-ate/lpbc.html) published in 1911.  Louis Ginzberg also shared more of this story in Students, Scholars, and Saints (p. 184-185) https://archive.org/details/studentsscholars028068mbp/page/n195/mode/2up?q=jacob and much more information can be found here as well: https://www.talmudology.com/jeremybrownmdgmailcom/2020/2/18/berachot-50-the-three-who-ate-on-yom-kippur-for-feb-22

[ii] Deuteronomy 30:19

[iii] https://momentmag.com/ask-the-rabbis-gun-control/

[iv] https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-the-survivors-of-parkland-began-the-never-again-movement

[v] Deuteronomy 29:9-11

[vi] Babylonian Talmud, Yevamot 69b; Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 23b; Mishnah, Ohalot 7:6

[vii] https://www.ou.org/news/statement-by-the-union-of-orthodox-jewish-congregations-of-america-on-us-supreme-courts-potential-overturning-of-roe-v-wade/

[viii] https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/i-am-a-rabbi-my-abortion-was-a-sacred-choice/

[ix] https://www.rabbishefagold.com/yk5776/

 

 

 

Planting Seeds - Kol Nidre Sermon 5783

This past summer, my vegetable garden at home truly came into its own!  My husband Brian and I finally discovered the wonders of organic fertilizer as well as watering regularly.  We harvested so many cucumbers that we learned about pickling!  We had so many tomatoes that we were eating Caprese Salad as an appetizer for every meal.  But most incredible was gardening with Caleb.  I very much enjoyed watching my son harvest the veggies, get angered when the squirrels ate our strawberries, while weeding and watering.  In so many ways, this is our Jewish story, planting seeds and tilling and tending our gardens.

It all began long ago, with Abraham!   As a midrash teaches, Abraham foresaw the future.  One day his family would travel down to Egypt, endure centuries of enslavement, and finally achieve redemption.  His descendants would want to build a Mishkan, a tabernacle for God and they would need Acacia wood.  To help fulfill this vision, Abraham planted seeds near his tent in Beersheva.  It was Abraham’s grandson Jacob who carried forth after him.  On his way down to Egypt, Jacob stopped at Beersheva, uprooted the small trees, and later replanted them in the wilderness.  When the Israelite people, generations later, were ready to build their tabernacle for God, they had an abundant supply of Acacia wood, for their ancestors had planted the seeds.[i]

 

This story perfectly describes a phrase that many of you know!  We call it l’dor va’dor.  From generation to generation.  We are part of a long line of tradition going all the way back to our spiritual ancestors, Abraham and Sarah.  We stand upon their shoulders, and all of whom came before us.  Our ancestors serve as the foundation, yet we stand on top.  Unfortunately, sometimes we forget that we aren’t the last generation.  There will be those who follow after us.

 

One person whose job is to focus on the future is Ari Wallach, a self-described Futurist.  Ari believes that too often we are stuck in a short-term mindset.  Instead, we should follow the principles of what he calls longpath.  As he writes, “Longpath is a mindset, a way of being… taking a view from thirty thousand feet in the sky and thirty thousand years into the past and the future.  Longpath reminds us that we are part of something bigger than ourselves and that while our own time is finite, we need to become the great ancestors our descendants need us to be.”[ii]

 

Ari is the son of a Polish refugee who escaped the ghetto, lost most of his family during the Holocaust, and went on to become a commander of the resistance.  Ari’s work on longpath is deeply impacted by his Jewish identity, and by his father’s lived experience, including his father’s mantra, “The future really started yesterday.”[iii]

Our Jewish tradition links past to future, one long path, summed up by words we will hear later tonight, “Adonai, Adonai – God compassionate, gracious, endlessly patient, loving, and true; showing mercy to the thousandth generation...”[iv]  Our Jewish community, spans millennia, a thousand generations!  That is truly l’dor va’dor!  As the latest generation, it’s our responsibility to shift our focus from today’s worries towards the longpath.  As Ari Wallach reminds us, our descendants need us to plant trees that will bear fruit not just tomorrow, but for a thousand generations to come.

 

This reminds me of a beautiful story about a group of travelers who were stranded in the desert.  For days, these travelers were without any food or water before they suddenly came upon an oasis.  They rested beneath a fruit tree, drank water from a stream, and ate much of the fruit.  When it was time to leave, they wondered how to repay the many gifts that the oasis had given them.  They decided to take some water in their canteens, pack some earth in their bags, and grab some seeds from the fruit.  As they continued their journey, they paused now and then to take some of the rich earth, plant some seeds, water the plantings, so that there would be new oases for the travelers that followed.[v]

Those wanderers were incredibly lucky to find that oasis.  What a miracle to stumble upon this place to rest and renew.  What’s most remarkable is that they decided to pay this gift forward; to share their blessings with others.  They became stewards of the land, providing new places of refuge for future wanderers of the desert.

 

The journalist and author Bina Venkataraman believes that it is a human need to keep our name alive, perhaps on a plaque on a park bench or building.  She argues that this object, a very worthy gift, can end up becoming static, an isolated fixture in the world.  Instead, she imagines each of us leaving behind “an heirloom.”  An heirloom is something that can grow and can be stewarded by later generations.[vi] 

  

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about a steward in our community, Agi Rado, who left us with an heirloom.  Many of you knew Agi, a fierce personality, who was born in Budapest and was the only member of her family to survive the Holocaust.  Agi later became a world-renowned concert pianist and teacher of musicians.  After Agi’s passing, we learned that she had left our congregation a significant gift to be used for Holocaust, Jewish, and Musical programming.  Two weeks ago, we gathered for our inaugural program, where we honored Agi’s legacy with an incredibly moving and spiritually uplifting Selichot service led by Michelle Citrin.  Our congregation would not have been able to join together that evening without Agi’s gift.  Her heirloom enables us to gather far into the future for vibrant Jewish, musical, and Holocaust related activities.

 

Not all of us are able to leave behind such a gift.  But each one of us has talents, passions, and riches to share with future generations.  The desert wanders didn’t have much, but they had their hearts and hands to steward future sanctuaries in the wilderness.  Agi didn’t need her name on our building; she did want to better her community.  Each of us has an heirloom, a gift to share today and in the future.  What is the heirloom you wish to leave behind?  How can you help steward our community and our world?

 

As public philosopher Roman Krznaric teaches, “We are inheritors of extraordinary legacies from the past – from those who planted the first seeds, built the cities where we now live, and made the medical discoveries we benefit from.  But alongside the good ancestors are the ‘bad ancestors’, such as those who bequeathed us colonial and slavery-era racism and prejudice that deeply permeate today’s criminal justice systems.  This raises the question of what legacies we will leave to future generations: how do you want to be remembered by posterity?”[vii]

 

One group in our congregation that is already thinking about their legacy is our teens.  Our teens recognized that more and more people in our community are gender non-conforming or non-binary.  There are those who do not feel comfortable using the restroom while in our spiritual home. It was our teens who took the initiative and pushed us forward towards a vision of creating All Gender Restrooms. 

 

As author Bina Venkataraman teaches “most of us won’t act…unless we can vividly imagine the future.”[viii]  She calls this imaginative empathy.  At a personal level, we can do this work by writing letters to our future selves, our future descendants or by imagining together what our world and our synagogue could become. 

 

Our teens began to envision the future, we too need to follow their example as we reflect upon the type of ancestors we wish to become.  Will we let racism and hatred fester, or will we prune back the weeds of intolerance?  Will we standby as our planet is destroyed or will we plant seeds of climate activism?  Will we watch as fascism continues to rise, or will we set down roots for a stronger democracy?  Will we let our Tree of Life topple, or will we help water and sustain our Jewish community far into the future?      

 

One person who reflects upon her legacy is Rabbi Shoshana Meira Friedman, a writer, rabbi, and climate activist in Boston.  Rabbi Friedman shares that from an early age the planet was her first love.  “I want to be an environmental activist when I grow up,” she told her third grade class.  After decades of false starts, she found her momentum as a climate activist in her mid-30’s.  She spent four years juggling rabbinic jobs with risking arrest, organizing campaigns, and leading songs at marches.  But having a baby, stopped all of that midstride.  When her friends travelled to Washington, DC a few months ago to join a climate protest in solidarity with indigenous nations, Shoshana was heading to her son’s preschool for pick-up.  As she shares, “Having a baby in the United States was the most radically selfish thing I have ever done.  Even though systemic emissions reduction is what matters, it’s still true that having a child will be the single biggest contribution I make to greenhouse gases and resource extraction, and it has put another person in the way of climate disaster.”

  

As Shoshana was picking up her son that day from preschool, she saw him with his purple backpack and black curls bouncing.  “He runs to me and in the weight of his body against mine, I feel my roots sinking into the Earth, coming home again.  Feeling an ultimate forgiveness, not for the sins of my species, but for my mortality and limits.  Knowing that, like my son, I am worthy of love and belonging not because I will save this beautiful world, but because I am a part of it.”[ix]

 

Long ago, Abraham and Jacob planted seeds, trees they would never see grow tall.  They had a vision of what was to come; an obligation to plant for those that would follow.  For generations, our people have uttered the phrase, l’dor va’dor.  We have proudly stood upon our ancestors’ shoulders, but now it is our time to act.  We must become the great ancestors our descendants need us to be.  It’s time to grab some seeds, some dirt, and some water, to get a shovel, and to dig.

   

We must build upon our past and dream of the world we hope to create.  We must become stewards of this community and the fragile earth that surrounds us.  We must build a legacy encompassing our values, our teachings, and our vision.  Tonight is Yom Kippur, a time of reflection, and a time to look into the mirror and see yourself and to see all who follow after you.  What seeds will you plant?  What roots will you set upon this earth?  What heirloom will you leave behind?  What will be your legacy?

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[i] Rashi on Exodus 26:15. See also commentary by Rabbi Amy Newman, https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/407235?lang=en

 

[ii] Ari Wallach, “The Shift in Mindset All Parents Should Try” (August 24, 2022) https://www.fatherly.com/life/longpath-excerpt-ari-wallach

 

[iii] Ari Wallach, “When Judaism Considers the Long Term it Looks to the Past” (August 15, 2022)  https://www.jta.org/2022/08/15/opinion/when-judaism-considers-the-long-term-it-looks-to-the-past

 

[iv] Exodus 34:6-7, translation from Mishkan HaNefesh, Yom Kippur, p. 100

 

[v] As told by Rabbi Sam Gordon

 

[vi] Bina Venkataraman “Why You Should Think About Being a Good Ancestor – and 3 Ways to Start Doing it” (August 27, 2019) https://ideas.ted.com/why-you-should-think-about-being-a-good-ancestor-and-3-ways-to-start-doing-it/

 

[vii] Roman Krznaric “Six Ways to Think Long Term” (July 12, 2020) https://medium.com/the-long-now-foundation/six-ways-to-think-long-term-da373b3377a4

 

[viii] Bina Venkataraman “Why You Should Think About Being a Good Ancestor – and 3 Ways to Start Doing it” (August 27, 2019) https://ideas.ted.com/why-you-should-think-about-being-a-good-ancestor-and-3-ways-to-start-doing-it/

 

[ix] Rabbi Shoshana Meira Friedman, “Becoming a Mom During the Climate Crisis” (August 31, 2022)  https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/becoming-mom-climate-crisis