Hineni - "Here I am!" - Rosh Hashanah Morning 5783

Thirty-six years ago, on a Rosh Hashanah morning similar to this one, a small group of families assembled at the Masonic Temple on Eutaw Place[i] to welcome the New Year for the very first time. The congregation didn’t yet have a building of their own, but as they gathered, prayed, and celebrated those first High Holy Days, they dreamed about the synagogue they one would day become.

 

Almost a year later, in the summer of 1987, Marvin Steinberg, the second president of the newly named Bolton Street Synagogue, asked in the second issue of the newly named Chavarim,[ii] four questions, or as he called them in Yiddish, the fier kashes:

·        Where will we be this time next year?

·        How many members will we have?

·        What will we be doing?

·        Most important, what will we be?

As Mike Green, our resident historian,[iii] shared recently: “It’s the Fourth Question that seemed to have defined us for the past 36 years.”  That question: “What will we be?” is central to our identity as a synagogue.  It is my belief, that this question can only be answered, when all of us stand up, when all of our voices are heard, when all feel called to act!

 

One who felt called to act, was a shepherd who lived long ago! [iv]  That shepherd was tending his sheep, minding his own business, when across the way he saw that a fire had sprung upon an old bush.  The shepherd ran over to put out the fire, when he heard his name reverberate across the hills, “Moses, Moses.” To which he uttered one of the most powerful phrases in our entire Torah: “Hineni.  Here I am.”  Moses was called to serve his people; to take them out of Egypt.  It was his time to stand up and act. 

Now, it's hard to translate Hineni into English.[v]  Hineni is not being physically present.  That is Ani Po, “I am here,” a phrase often uttered during attendance taking at religious school.  Hineni means much more: “I am mentally, spiritually, and emotionally present.” Hineni is significinat because it only occurs 14 times in the entire Jewish Bible.  Hineni isn’t a flippant answer, it means “Here I am, ready to serve”

 

Our synagogue’s foundation is built upon Hineni.  We would not be here today if our founders, many of whom are in this room, did not stand up and proudly proclaim, Hineni, “Here I am.”  From our very beginning, Bolton Street Synagogue was all about sweat equity.  We are who we are today because members of our congregation stepped up and did their part to help us flourish. 

At our founding, we had no religious school.  Cathy Lyman Fox, Donna Speer, and of course Mike Green, answered the call to create our very first classes, Aleph Blue and Aleph White.  Dozens of you, then and now, Jewish and non-Jewish, adults and teens, experienced teachers and those who had never entered a classroom before, heard the call to teach our kids.  You proclaimed: “Hineni, Here I am.”

 

In our early years, services were often led by members of the congregation.  Someone like, Mark Giuliano, who has joined us monthly for years playing piano, guitar, and banjo, adding so much joy to our services.  There so many of you, then and now: who lend your voices, play your instruments, lead our services, or give divrei Torah.  You proclaim, “Hineni, Here I am.”   

 

We could name dozens of others who pitched in with their time, energy, and talents.  I can’t name you all or we would be here for an hour!  For thirty-six years, you proudly stated: “Hineni. Here I am.”  We are better for it, we are stronger for it, because of each one of you!

 

As you can imagine, Hineni isn’t always easy.  And some of our Biblical examples are down right challenging.  Take the most famous, the first utterance of Hineni.  God calls Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac and Abraham answers, “Hineni, Here I am!”  Like me, you are probably angered by a God who would ask a parent to sacrifice their child.  You might also be dismayed by Abraham’s actions or inactions.  So lets look at this story differently, through a modern midrash told by Rabbis Rachel Bearman and Paul Kipnes.  This story is told through Sarah’s eyes:[vi]

“My heart began to pound as I realized Abraham had misunderstood.  God was commanding an offering to help transit leadership to Isaac.  A sacrifice of the finest of our flocks was called for, not a sacrifice of Isaac…

 

I hoped Abraham would figure it out himself.  But in case he did not, I had to intervene.  So I went back to bed and with my eyes closed, I planned my next step.

 

Abraham got up early, gathered his supplies, and took off with Isaac.  He didn’t even try to wake me.  No explanations; not even a kiss goodbye.

 

As soon as they were gone, I gathered my supplies and took our finest ram.  I followed carefully, hiding in the shadows.  At dawn on the third day, as they slept, I hurried up the mountain, releasing the ram into the bushes.

 

The rest happened so quickly.  Abraham was holding the knife, about to sacrifice Isaac.  He seemed to be in a trance.  So in my voice that he often called ‘angelic,’ I called out, ‘Abraham, Abraham.’

 

That broke the trance.  Realizing what he was about to do, he dropped the knife.  He looked up, saw the ram that I brought for him to sacrifice instead, and stepped toward it.”

Sarah takes matters into her own hands.  She recognizes quickly that Abraham has made a terrible mistake, misunderstanding God’s command.  What moves me is the interplay between Sarah and Abraham.  What we miss in this modern retelling is Abraham’s response.  When Sarah calls out in her angelic voice, it is Abraham who responds to her with: “Hineni, here I am!”  That is the power of relationship.  Abraham hears Sarah.  It is her voice that helps him change direction.  It is Sarah who awakens him to act!

 

For Hineni centers on relationship.  We answer Hineni when our family, our loved ones, our friends, and community call out in need.  When we are in deep relationship, we answer Hineni.  When we can make an impact on the people and community that surrounds us, we answer Hineni, Here I am!

And yet, living through this pandemic has been so challenging.  We’ve seen how difficult it is to connect and to reconnect!  So many of us feel separated from community. Perhaps you’ve run-into a member of the synagogue and realized that you haven’t seen each other in months?  Maybe you came regularly for services, study, or volunteering, but now with covid, you don’t enter the building in the same way.  You once knew how to get involved, how to share your talents, but now you might feel unsure.  Maybe you joined our community during the pandemic and are still figuring out what it means to say, Hineni!

This summer, in response to these questions, we launched Gesher – the Bridges Project.  Fifteen members of our congregation said Hineni and stepped up to become Bridge Builders.  They have begun to reach out to new members and older members for a one-on-one conversation.  Perhaps you’ve already gotten together over a cup of coffee, or a walk in the park?  We know how busy we all are, how much we have on our plates, and it might be a stranger who reaches out, but we hope that you will answer Hineni to that invitation.  These conversations, hopefully dozens this year, are not and I repeat are not, to pressure you to join a committee!  Gesher is about building relationship, learning about one another, creating connections, and together to answer Marvin Steinberg’s most important question: “What will we be?”

 

For we Jews, know what it’s like to live through some difficult times.  Some 2,500 years ago, the country of Judea was defeated by the Babylonians.  The society was decimated, the Temple destroyed.  It was at this moment, at the lowest of the low, that the Holy One shared these words with our ancestors: “I responded to those who did not ask, I was at hand to those who did not seek Me; I said, ‘Hineni, Hineni,’ ‘Here I am, Here I am,’ to a nation that did not invoke my name.”[vii]

Our people were fragile, worried, pessimistic.  They didn’t know where to turn or what to do, and yet the Holy One who reached out.  That’s what so powerful about these words.  Twice God answered “Here I am, Here I am” to a question that was never asked.

 

Now, I’m not asking you to be God.  I am asking you to emulate this act of courage.  It’s hard to stand up.  It’s difficult to put ourselves out there!    Too often we wait to be called. Too often we wait to be asked.  This passage from Isaiah asks, no demands, that we step-up through our own volition.  Don’t wait to be asked, share your self, your passions, your skills, your talents! 

 

For we are a congregation that stands up and helps.  Dinah Winnick recently shared that once without being asked she brought a homemade challah to the oneg and dropped it off in the social hall prior to services.  Afterwards, she was dismayed to see another challah on the table, until she realized proudly that it was her challah that was being eaten!  To all of you who provide your gifts without being asked, you too proclaim: “Hineni, Here I am”

From the very beginning, we hve striven to do the work of Tikkun Olam, repair of the world.  I think of the fierce passion of so many of us, then and now, who work to provide food for the hungry, a home for the homeless, who tirelessly spend your energy fighting for racial justice or Marriage equality, who without being asked stepped up to advocate for a better world.  You proclaim: “Hineni, Here I am.”  

Thirty-six years ago, a small group of families gathered for our very first Rosh Hashanah service.  They dreamed about the congregation they hoped to become!  This dream continues to become a reality because so many answered, then and now, “Hineni, Here I am!”

Just as our founders were called, just as year after year, decade after decade, each member of Bolton Street Synagogue was called, so too today, on this New Year, are each of us called.  Perhaps you are called by God, perhaps you are called by tradition, perhaps you are called by guilt, but hopefully you are called by this community, and by the still small voice that is found deep within your own soul.  As you are called, may you answer that deeply powerful word: “Hineni, Here I am!”

We know that it’s not easy.  We know that we are tired, busy, and scared.  We know that life today is different than it was before.  And yet, we need you, each one of you, young and old, new member, and old member, to stand up and once again say Hineni.  We need you to share yourself, to share your passions, to share your presence, and to volunteer.  We need you to answer Marvin Steinberg’s most important question: “What will we be?”  Don’t wait to be asked, don’t wait to be called.  It is time for all of us to say, “Hineni, Hineni, Here I am, here I am!” 

 

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[i] I’m in much gratitude to Michael Green, Ken Karpay, Sharon Krevor-Weisbaum, and Elaine Richman for sharing their memories about the founding of Bolton Street Synagogue and our first Rosh Hashanah

[ii] “Message by the President” by Marvin Steinberg, Chavarim July-August 1987, ed. Elaine Richman

[iii] Chavarim January – February 2022

[iv] Exodus 3:1-15

[v] I’m in much gratitude to Rabbi Norman J. Cohen, my teacher and mentor, for his reflections found in his book, Hineini in Our Lives

[vi] https://www.midrashicmonologues.com/post/where-was-sarah-during-the-akedah (Based Upon Genesis 20)

[vii] Isaiah 65:1-2

Hold the Torah Close - Erev Rosh Hashanah Sermon 5783

 

Shana Tova!  As has become our tradition, I’d like to begin these High Holy Days with a story as told by Rabbi Edward Feinstein with my own twist.  Sit back, take in a deep breath, and relax!

Long ago, there was a city with two synagogues.[i]  The first synagogue was gigantic, a gorgeous Moorish building of beautiful granite with very large windows.  Most breathtaking was the Ark.  Two magnificent gold covered doors sparkled in the sunlight.  Inside that Ark were two dozen Torah scrolls covered with the finest blue velvet.  And they were crowned with silver breastplates and ornaments that would befit royalty.  The building was lavish, yet there was a problem.  There were no people.  No one came for services.  No one gathered for Torah study.  No children frolicked in the classrooms.  Not a soul descended upon that stately building, except for the rabbi.

Each Shabbat, the rabbi would enter the sanctuary, open the Ark doors, peer inside, and make sure everything was where it should be.  And then, the rabbi would gaze at the empty sanctuary and quietly whisper, to no one at all, Shabbat Shalom.

The other synagogue was the complete opposite.  Across town sat a small, old, decrepit building.  It was dark and dank.  The roof was always leaking.  It was too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter.  No one would call that building beautiful.  But, unlike that shul across town, this synagogue was filled with people.  The sanctuary was overflowing during services.  Standing room only during Torah study.  A swarm of children in the religious school.  The community felt real devotion to each other and to the Torah.

Yet, there was a major problem.  The congregation could not afford a Torah scroll.  They were embarrassed that they didn’t possess the needed funds to purchase a scroll of their own. Instead, they created a fake Torah scroll of two wooden dowels with a small piece of parchment in between.  It was kept in a very small threadbare ark.

No one, and I mean no one, loved Torah more than this congregation.   Each Shabbat, the fake scroll would be pulled out and an older congregant who was almost blind would read from memory the words of that week’s portion.  Afterwards, the community would debate!  They would discuss every word of Torah and make relevant connections to their lives.  Torah was their essence!

As happened every week, the rabbi of the large synagogue entered the sanctuary one Shabbat morning and heard a noise coming from the Ark.  “Oy!” said the rabbi.  “Is it a mouse?  Or a snake?”  The rabbi slightly cracked open the Ark doors and was thrown backwards.  Out of the Ark poured letters, thousands of letters.  Alephs and Bets, Gimmels and Dalets, even Shins and Tavs.  The letters began to line up like Army troops ready for battle.  A very large Aleph commanded the other letters!  “Left, right, left right, left…” The letters of the Torah began marching out of the Sanctuary!

“What’s happening?  Wait, STOP!!!”  The letters of the Torah turned back towards the Rabbi.  “Why are you leaving?  We’ve given you everything!  We made sure you were protected in the Ark.” 

“Yes,” said the Aleph. “You protected us.  But rabbi only YOU did!  There are no people here.  No one reads our words.  No one grapples with our text.  No one dances with us.”   

“Rabbi, you locked us away in that Ark.  We aren’t meant to be locked away. We are meant to be studied. We need a community that will love us!  

“Don’t leave us!”

“Rabbi, your community left us a long time ago!”

The letters turned and marched out of that large, beautiful synagogue.

The last letter, a little Tav, beckoned the rabbi to follow, and so the rabbi did.

Across town, the small, little synagogue, was just finishing the Torah service.  As the older congregant lifted the Torah scroll, the doors of the sanctuary burst open!  Thousands upon thousands of letters spewed into the synagogue and jumped into the fake Torah scroll.

The older congregant felt that something was different.  “It’s a miracle, our Torah is real!”

The congregant scooped up the scroll and held it close.  Then the congregation started singing and dancing with the Torah.  They were filled with such joy!

“STOP!  STOP!”  The entire community turned towards the rabbi.  “This, this is too much!  First the letters fly out of the ark, then they march down the street, and now, this!  You have stolen my Torah scrolls!”

“Rabbi, look around!  Look at this community and how much they love Torah!”  And so, the rabbi looked around and things looked strangely familiar.  The rabbi remembered, long ago, when the big congregation was overflowing with people!  As a young rabbi, the community would gather to listen closely as the Torah was read, grapple with its teachings, and seemingly dissect its every word.  Each Shabbat, young and old once danced with the Torah!  What happened?  Where did the people go?  When did Torah get locked away? 

The old congregant placed the Torah in the rabbi’s arms.  It had been a long time since the rabbi held the Torah close.  And it felt right.  The Torah needed to live and to be loved!  And so the rabbi, filled with joy, began to dance and so did the congregation.

The following Shabbat, the congregation arrived to see the rabbi sitting in the center of the front row.  The rabbi listened diligently to every word of the Torah reading and participated during the rich discussion that followed.  And when it was time for someone to lift the Torah scroll, the congregation called upon their new rabbi.  The Torah was lifted and then the rabbi and the congregation began to dance and held the Torah close! 

This evening, we as a congregation welcome the New Year for the 36^th time!  It was thirty-six years ago, that our little shul, Bolton Street Synagogue, was founded.  Our congregation’s first building was in so many ways, like that little synagogue in this story.  The building was dark, damp, too hot or too cold, yet it was filled with people who needed and yearned for community.  And like that small shul, we too didn’t have a Torah scroll of our own.

It was Wally Orlinsky, past president of Bolton Street Synagogue, who helped us acquire our first Torah scroll.  That Torah scroll came from Europe.  It was once lovingly read and cared for by a synagogue in Czechoslovakia.  It was the Nazis who forcibly took this Torah scroll and thousands of others, boxed them up, and transported them to 40 warehouses in Prague.  The Nazis wished to create a Museum of an Extinct Race.  After the war, Holocaust Scroll #605 was rescued and later provided to us as our first Torah scroll.  Its words are badly damaged that we are unable to read this scroll during services.  And yet, at every Bar, Bat, or B’nai Mitzvah we share this story.  We ask our young people to proudly carry this Torah, reminding us of l’dor va’dor, from generation to generation.

And yet, how often does the Torah seem locked away behind the Ark doors?  The Torah might seem inaccessible, an innate object removed from your daily lives. The Torah might be lovingly cared for by me, your rabbi, but seem out of reach for most of you.  How often do you get to pick up the Torah, look at its words, let alone dance with it?

Torah is not easy.  Its words are centuries old written by people who lived in a very different time from our own.  Torah can seem patriarchal, xenophobic, violent, and its focus is on a God which we might or might not believe in.  Perhaps you feel that the Torah is irrelevant or so far out of reach from your own life.

As a rabbi, that breaks my heart.  Jewish tradition believes Torah is everything.  The mitzvah to study Torah is so important that it is considered equal to every one of the other commandments.  The Talmud teaches that a synagogue (a place of prayer) can be destroyed in order to build a beit midrash (a place of study).  The Torah provides us with a link to our past and a path to our future.

Torah must be our own.  We are taught that our generation stands upon the shoulders of the giants who came before us.  These students and teachers provided us with the foundation, but we stand on top.  Our opinions, our interpretations, are equal to theirs.  We must grapple with Torah, question Torah, and add our perspective of Torah, just as they did.

Thirty-six years ago, our founders birthed a new synagogue centered on community, justice, and Torah.  Thirty-four years ago, we acquired our first Torah scroll, reminding us of both the connection to our dark past and the journey towards the future.  Today, we have a choice: to keep Torah locked away behind the Ark doors, locked away from our hearts and minds or to commit to Torah: to learn Torah, to teach Torah, to question Torah, to love Torah.  This year: sing and dance with us on Friday evenings.  Study Torah during services.   Join us for Simchat Torah to see the Torah up close.  Grapple with its words on Saturday mornings as part of Taking Hold of Torah.  Read a book, take a class, delve into the sea of Torah!  For Torah must not be locked away.  It must live in each one of us.

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[i] This story is my own interpretation based upon two versions of this tale, “Lifting the Torah” as retold by Rabbi Edward M Feinstein in his book Capturing the Moon and a sermon written by Rabbi Jason Rosenberg “Dancing with Holiness”

Will We Walk Away or Will We Fight? - Yom Kippur Morning Sermon 5782 / 2021

 

A few weeks ago, after a long day, I was lying on my couch reading the New York Times, when I came across an opinion piece that stopped me in my tracks.  Perhaps you saw it too?  Dr. Anton DiSclafani is a Professor of Creative Writing at Auburn University.  She’s a proud Democrat living in ruby red Alabama.  And she loves the south.  She speaks fondly of southern hospitality as well as the kindness of strangers.  But these last few weeks have caused her to lose faith in her neighbors.  Lee County where she lives has only 34% of eligible adults vaccinated.  On a local Facebook group, people compare wearing a mask to experimental medical procedures.  While a local pediatrician is bullied for enrolling her children in a vaccine trial.  

 

But it’s Dr. DiSclafani’s words that hit home: “[The pandemic has upended] one of my deeply held beliefs – that living among people who are different from you is a good thing.  That it is good because it challenges you to think and act compassionately.  To love your neighbor.  I still believe that, but to be honest, right now I’d rather live in a place where everyone thought the same way I do, simply because I’d like to live in a place where everyone was vaccinated.”[i]    

 

How true are these thoughts!  How difficult it is to live amongst those who think and act differently from us!  How much easier would it be to just walk away! 

 

One person who walks away is the Prophet Jonah.  Later today, we’ll read his story, but here’s a quick refresher. Jonah was minding his own business when God called him: “Get up!  Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim against it – for their evil deeds have risen up before Me.”  So, what does Jonah do?  He flees!  He finds a boat leaving the port city of Jaffa and heads in the opposite direction.  He sails as far away from Nineveh as possible.

 

Like Jonah, Dr. DiSclafani sometimes dreams of walking away.  Like all of us, she’d rather live in a place where everyone was vaccinated.  And let’s be honest, unlike Dr. DiSclafani, we aren’t living in a red state surrounded by anti-maskers.  Most of us are living in our bubble with those who often think and act similarly to us.  We might mock the vaccination rates in Mississippi, be horrified of the anti-maskers in Florida, or angry at the policies enacted by the Governor of Texas, but at least we’re here in Maryland, far from them!  We might pretend that we can protect ourselves with our mask mandates, our covid prevention policies, and our high vaccination rates.

 

Unfortunately, that’s a fallacy.  We are one country.  Whether we like it or not, those who think or act differently from us are still fellow citizens.  Covid has shown that we can’t escape, that we can’t walk away.  If we can’t convince those in our country to wear a mask, take the vaccine, or protect the vulnerable, then we can’t get rid of covid.  We are fighting for our health and safety.  We are fighting for science and medicine.  We are fighting against cynicism, selfishness, and fear.  We might dream of walking away, but we know that this is simply not possible. 

 

Even Jonah finally realizes that he can’t flee. God sends a huge storm, so ferocious that the ship he’s on is about to be shattered into pieces.  The sailors cast lots to see which person caused the storm.  The lots fall upon Jonah.  He tells them, “Throw me away into depths and the sea will calm down for you.”  But the crew refuses.  They continue to row towards dry land even as the sea rages more and more fiercely around them.  Jonah was able to see something that the others could not.  The sailors on the ship needed to change direction, but they continued to do what they’ve always done.    Jonah made the brave decision to speak out; that a new path needed to be taken. 

 

It reminds me of the story of Nahum Goldmann, the Jewish leader in the diaspora after World War II and a fierce Zionist.  Goldmann co-founded the World Jewish Congress and served as one of the leading figures in the World Zionist Organization.  In the 1960’s Goldmann as an American Jew was a thorn in the side of Prime Minister David ben Gurion.   The Prime Minister believed that Goldmann and American Jews had no right to tell him how Israel should or should not act.  Even still, Nahum Goldmann spoke out.  He was critical of Israel’s military might.  He was also a realist: “There can be no future for the Jewish state unless agreement is reached with the Arabs.”  Goldmann felt strongly that if American Jews had the right to support Israel, we also had the right to critique Israel.  Even David ben Gurion agreed.  As he shared with Goldmann: “I have had one concept of Zionism since I was a child, and I hold to that concept.  I live in a free country, as you do, and both have the right of free speech.”

This is a difficult moment to be a liberal and a Zionist.  I love Israel.  I love the people of Israel, the state of Israel, and the land.  It is my spiritual homeland, a place of deep devotion to me.  But, that doesn’t mean that I’m not also troubled by many of the Israeli government’s policies.  It has been unsettling how many of the values that I care about and that I fight for here in our country are ignored or even worse abused in Israel.  To see anti-Arab sentiment, homes being destroyed, Reform Judaism lambasted, and women’s rights diminished, has personally been difficult.

 

And so, should I, should we walk away from Israel?  Should we ignore what’s troubling us and pretend that it’s not happening? Or should we badmouth Israel and trash everything about her?  No! Neither! It’s much more difficult to engage with Israel in a more nuanced and complex way.  

Israel can’t continue to hide behind walls or fences.  If these policies continue in the long term, the Israel that we love: a Jewish state, a democracy, a country where all religions and people are free will no longer exist.  We already see that Israel’s relationship with the world is fracturing, that its moral position is weakening, and that our Jewish community especially the youngest amongst us is losing its deep connection to the Jewish state.

 

Nahum Goldmann reminds us that we are all interconnected: Israelis and American Jews.  And that we have an obligation as American Jews to show our love, always our love first, and our critique.  And our words and our actions work.  Goldmann changed Ben Gurion, American Jews vision on civil rights help reframe the occupation.  Like Jonah, our perspective is needed more than ever to help Israel make the brave decision that a new path must be taken.

Jonah also takes a new path.  After his time in the big fish, Jonah arrives at the great city of Nineveh.  He proclaims: “Forty more days and Nineveh shall be overturned!”  And amazingly, his words and actions work.  The people of Nineveh fast, they put on sackcloth, from the richest to the poorest.  Even the king of Nineveh gets off his thrown and declares, “Let all turn back from their evil ways and from the violence.”

 

Every single citizen, from every single neighborhood, came together for the betterment of their city to end the violence and to lift up the fallen.  The wealthy could have said, “not my problem!”  They could have stayed in their homes, ignoring the problems that surrounded them, but they didn’t.  Jonah’s words impelled them to act.

 

I’m sure you know where I’m going.  Our city is broken.  Murder rates continue to rise, crime unabated, hunger, and poverty.  Thousands are about to be evicted from their homes.

 

It’s so much easier to just look away.  If we only stay in the White L and ignore the Black Butterfly.  If we only we walk in our safe neighborhoods.  If only we drive on specific streets and never after dark, all will be ok.  But will it?

 

What happens when we walk away?  When we turn a blind eye?   Further population decline in the next census? Increased crime? Loss of city services?  More poverty and hunger?    

 

Jonah was one person, but he represented the entirety of the Jewish community in a very non-Jewish city of Nineveh.  As a Jew, his words mattered, his voice was heard, his actions helped transform a community.  As one of only a few synagogues in Baltimore City, our congregation has a unique voice when we join together with our interfaith allies.  We can have a greater impact.  Whether with partners like BUILD, ICJS, the Black Lives Matter Interfaith Coalition, Jews United for Justice, or so many of the other organizations that you are working with, to better Baltimore. We have the power as a synagogue and a Jewish community to change the trajectory of the city that we love.  So many of us have already done this hard work, but have we done enough?

The Book of Jonah ends in a peculiar fashion.  It’s the only Book of the Jewish Bible that ends with a question.  God says to Jonah: Should I have compassion for the great city of Nineveh and the more than a hundred and twenty thousand human beings that live there?  This is a question not only for Jonah.  This is a question for each one of us.  Do we have compassion?  Do we care?  Will we fight?  Will we fight for our country, for our democracy and our kids’ safety? Will we fight for our city and for the most vulnerable? Will we fight for Israel to succeed as a democratic, free, and Jewish state?  It’s so much easier, so much simpler, to walk away and pretend that the anti-vaxxers can’t hurt us, the crime in our city can’t reach us, the continued violence in Israel is not our problem.  We’re all interconnected, whether we like it or, whether we believe it or not.

 

That’s the question at this moment.  The question asked of each one of us.  Will we engage with those who think, act, and view the world differently from us?  Will we walk away or will we fight?

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[i] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/opinion/Alabama-Covid-vaccine-politics.html

Follow the Thread - Kol Nidre Sermon 5782

 

Beginning in the spring of 1884, the artist Georges Seurat traveled to a bucolic retreat at the very gates of Paris to draw and paint.  Over the course of more than two years, he created his masterpiece, “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte.”[i]  Perhaps, you’ve been lucky enough, as I have, to have seen this work in person at the Art Institute of Chicago.

 

Seurat was avant-garde on the canvas, in contrast to the painters who came before him as well as the Impressionists of his day.  They were about the fleeting moment, while Seurat focused on permanence. 

 

His used a technique called pointillism.  At a distance the painting is beautiful; shimmering and luminous in the light.  But as you come closer and closer to the canvas, the images disappear and all you see are dabs of color.

 

What you might not know is that pointillism came about because of the scientific work of French chemist Michel Eugene Chevreul.[ii]  In the late 19^th century, Parisian tapestry makers wanted to improve the vibrancy of their colors.  Chevreul realized that the problem wasn’t the dyes being used to make the tapestry, but the ways that the hues were combined.  Most important to provide a vibrant tapestry was a thread of color.  The thread was central to make the tapestry come together.  This is what Seurat did in his painting, finding a juxtaposition of colors, blues and oranges, just as the chemist had found with the thread. 

 

Every year, it seems that we need this moment of Kol Nidre to reflect, to reframe, and to step back from our canvas of life.  But, even more so this year.  So many of us worried, fearful, and plum exhausted.  We’re standing way to close to the painting.  Our focus is on the dabs of color.  We’re worried about tomorrow, the to-do list, and keeping ourselves and our families safe,

 

Tonight, we search for that thread of color, that is found across our canvas of life.  The thread that is central to who we are, and to who we wish to become.

 

Author, educator, and activist, Parker Palmer shares this metaphor so beautifully in is poem “Everything Falls Away.”[iii]

Sooner or later, everything falls away.

You, the work you've done, your successes, large and small,

your failures, too.

Those moments when you were light,

alongside the times you became one with the night.

The friends, the people you loved who loved you,

those who might have wished you ill,

none of this is forever.

All of it is soon to go, or going, or long gone.

Everything falls away,

except the thread you've followed, unknowing, all along.

The thread that strings together all you've been and done,

the thread you didn't know you were tracking

until, toward the end, you see that the thread is what stays

as everything else falls away.

Parker Palmer describes a thread that continues from birth until death.  A thread that connects all the different pieces of our life.  The thread encompasses our failures and successes, the known and unknown.  This Yom Kippur, I urge you to take some time and reflect.  What matters most to you?  What drives you?  What connects you to those who came before and those who will follow?  What is the thread that weaves continually through your life?

 

The memoirist, Pauline Wengeroff, wrote a two-volume book about Jewish life in Russia at the turn of the twentieth century.  She shares there a beautiful story[iv] about how the Jewish women in her village would prepare for Kol Nidre to arrive.  Sara, the entrusted matriarch, gathers everyone together to recite T’chines, the Yiddish prayers and supplications that were recited by Jewish women in the old country.  Sara also brings forth an enormous ball of wick thread and a large piece of wax.

The women begin their work of candle making for Kol Nidre.  Sara places the ball of wick thread in her pocket.  She and Pauline’s mom stand three feet apart and pass the thread back and forth.  As they do this task, they speak about family members who died long ago, recalling their acts of goodness and kindness.  A thread is added for each person that they remember, until the wick is good and thick.  And then, living members of the family are remembered for life.  The threads of the dead and the threads of the living joined together to form the wicks of the Yom Kippur candles.

 

Our thread is multi-layered and is interwoven with the threads of our family and friends.  We know that those who came before us, our loved ones who are longer with us, and our family who continue to strengthen us, shaped us into the people that we are today.  It is the values, the history, the cultural framework, and even their mannerisms that give us our persona, our thread. 

When a family member dies, we take a black kriya ribbon and we cut it until the threads are shown.  The ripped ribbon serves as an outward expression of the torn grief and the broken heart that we feel on the inside.  Yet, even with the torn ribbon, our thread is not fully separated from the rest, reminding us that we are always connected to our past. On this Yom Kippur, we have the gift of time, to remember where we came from and of those extraordinary individuals who provided us with the thread that we carry forward.

 

Now, not to get too morbid, but tonight we do focus our thoughts on death.  Yom Kippur is considered a rehearsal for our passing.  Many of us don’t eat or drink, focusing on spiritual matters.  The Aron, the Ark, is also the Hebrew name for a casket.  Earlier this evening, after we removed the Torah scrolls, we looked inside the empty casket.  And tonight, many will wear a tallit, a prayer shawl, which traditionally is the garment worn when buried.

The tallit consists of four tzitzit, four fringes, four threads on each of its corners.  The tzitzit are to serve as a reminder of the 613 mitzvot, the commandments of living a full and meaningful Jewish life.  These tzitzit help us to recall our sacred obligations: to our Jewish practice, our moral commitments, and our observance of holidays and acts of loving kindness.  Those threads, the tzitzit, that we hold in our hands during the shema, should awaken us to follow a path of sacredness: our life mission.

 

One person who found his thread, who lived out his life mission, was Cleve Jones,[v] a gay activist.  Cleve lived during the early days of the AIDS epidemic.  In 1985, 1,000 San Franciscans had been lost to AIDS.  Our leaders and governments officials ignored the crisis or at worse, didn’t care.  Our country wasn’t responding.  And so, a march was planned.  Cleve asked all those who attended to create placards for friends and loved ones who had died of AIDS.  They taped those placards on the wall of the San Francisco Federal Building.  Cleve realized that placed together, the placards looked like a patchwork quilt.

 

And so, with fabric and thread, Cleve and others set out to create a memorial for those who had died of AIDS, and to show the devastating impact of the disease.  Two years later, in 1987, a beautiful and haunting quilt of 1,920 panels, larger than a football field, appeared on the National Mall in Washington.

Mike Smith[vi] was one of the co-founders with Cleve Jones of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt.  Mike believed that the quilt was a cry for help to reach Middle America.  Not something threatening, but warm and comforting, like your grandmother’s quilt.

 

Mike thought that they’d work on the quilt for a little while, a few months, and then be done.  They weren’t prepared for the beauty.  They weren’t prepared for the mothers all over the country who sent panels for their dead sons to preserve them in perpetuity.

The quilt has become Mike’s life work.  It began as a protest banner and became a National Treasure.  From that first fabric and thread, it has become the largest communal art project in the world.  54 Tons in weight, 50,000 panels.  Hundreds of thousands who’ve worked on the quilt.  But, it wasn’t just fabric and thread.  The making of the quilt inspired people to do something, to express themselves, to tell their stories, and to turn their grief into action.

 

Over the course of their lives, Cleve, Mike, and so many others, found their thread, physically and metaphorically, to express their life work, to turn their grief into action.  We are living through another pandemic.  A time of mourning and sadness and grief.  It’s so easy to be bogged down, to be exhausted, to be transfixed by the blur of colors, unable to see the thread that connects us to  what matters most and to each other.

 

This Yom Kippur, step back from your canvas, take stock in yourself: who you are, what you stand for, what you care about.  Step back from the dabs of color and find your thread.

 

As Parker Palmer concludes in “Everything Falls Away” -

Follow that thread as far as you can

and you'll find that it does not end,

but weaves into the unimaginable vastness of life.

Your life never was the solo turn it seemed to be.

It was always part of the great weave of nature and humanity,

an immensity we come to know

only   as we follow our own small threads to the place

where they merge with the boundless whole. 

Each of our threads runs its course,

Then joins in life together. This magnificent tapestry—

this masterpiece in which we live forever.  Amen.

---

[i] https://mymodernmet.com/georges-seurat-a-sunday-afternoon-on-the-island-of-la-grande-jatte/

[ii] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Michel-Eugene-Chevreul

[iii] I’m in gratitude to Rabbi Jordi Schuster Battis for sharing this poem at our CCAR High Holiday Sermon Seminar.  As well as a thank you to other colleagues for their thoughts and inspiration on the topic of thread.  Special thank you to my husband Brian ten Siethoff, who constantly reads and lovingly critiques every High Holy Day sermon and is my best editor.

[iv] Mishkan HaNefesh, Yom Kippur, p.8

[v] https://www.aidsmemorial.org/quilt-history

[vi] Mike Smith, Co-founder, Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt - Brief but Spectacular | PBS NewsHour