Finding Ourselves in Torah

When you walk into a house of worship, you might reasonably expect to find at the front and center of the sanctuary the symbols and iconography that that particular faith tradition holds most precious.

When you walk into a synagogue, you do, indeed, find at the center the symbol that the Jewish people holds most dear: the Torah. It’s not a picture of Abraham and Sarah, or a picture of Moses, Miriam, and Aaron. What the Jewish people holds most dear is not the image of these great figures of our mythic past, but rather the book that tells their story.

When you look at picture, all you see is the person in the picture. But when you look in a book, it’s possible to see not only the characters therein, but also to see yourself.

And this is why the Jewish people holds the Torah most dear: not because we can find our mythic forebears in it, but because we can find ourselves in it.

The Great God Debate

Yesterday afternoon at WRT, a group of 5th-7th grade students met to participate in "The Great God Debate."

We know that a person doesn't have to believe in God in order to be Jewish: Judaism has always been more interested in asking good questions than in providing definite answers. And so, we added our voices to the long-standing Jewish tradition of asking big questions about God.

While the nuances of each student's beliefs were left on the floor of the debate stage, we were able to capture some data on what our students believe. Below are some of the results:

***

The Problem of Suffering
Philosophers argue that if God is as we expect, then God should be all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing. However, since we see that there is suffering in the world, we realize that God can't be all three of these things at once. Otherwise, the all-knowing part of God would know that people suffer; the all-good part of God want to remove that suffering; and the all-powerful part of God would take initiative to alleviate that suffering. And yet, suffering people still suffer.

In response to this problem, philosophers argue that at any one moment, God can, at maximum, only be two of these three qualities. After a rich debate, our students voted to tell us which of these three attributes they think is least likely to be true about God. Results are below:

Jewish Theology
Jewish religious thinkers make three main assertions about God, often referred to as: Creation, Revelation, and Redemption. "Creation" refers to the Jewish belief that God created the world. "Revelation" refers to the Jewish belief that God gives us specific instructions for how to act in the world, which Jews call "commandments." "Redemption" refers to the Jewish belief that God has the power to change the world and our lives. These three beliefs are enshrined in the three blessings that surround the Shema prayer.

Below, our students ranked these Jewish theological claims, in order from most believable to least believable.





The Chosen People?
Jewish thinkers have long disagreed on what it means to be "the chosen people." Does this mean that God cares more about the Jews? Does it mean that God expects more responsibility from the Jews? Or does it mean that each people and religion has its own special relationship with God -- each people "chosen" for its own unique qualities and destiny?

Below our students respond to whether God has a special relationship with the Jewish people.





Belief in God
Based on our earlier discussions, our students weighed in on the broadest question of them all: "Do I believe in God?"

Three Generations Respond to the Election

Since the election, I have a number of times facilitated the following discussion with elementary school-aged students and their parents at WRT:

Since the election, I’ve been thinking about three Jewish holidays that fall around this time. Each holiday has a value associated with it.

The first holiday that I’m thinking of is the one that just passed, Sukkot. On Sukkot, we wave the lulav and the etrog. The lulav and the etrog are made up of a three of different kinds of tree branches, plus a citrus fruit. And although these four elements are different from one another, we hold them all together. So from the holiday of Sukkot, I’m reminded that it’s important to spend time with people who are different from you.

The second holiday that I’m thinking of is the one that’s coming up, Chanukkah. On Chanukkah, we light the menorah each night, starting with only one candle, and every night adding another candle—until finally, on the last night, we have eight bright candles aglow in the menorah. So from the holiday of Chanukkah, I’m reminded that the Jewish tradition believes that the future is always brighter than the present.

The third holiday that I’m thinking of is one that we celebrate every week, Shabbat. Shabbat is a day of rest. Rather than doing schoolwork or going to our jobs, we spend time relaxing with family and friends. We rest on Shabbat, in part, so that we can be replenished for the other six days of the week, when the world really needs our hardest, best efforts. So from the holiday of Shabbat, I’m reminded that our work in the world really matters.

My question to you is: In the wake of the election, which of these three holiday values is most important to you right now? What makes that value so important?

I’ve heard families make the case for each of the three holidays, often underscored by an obvious emotional seriousness.

One of the most interesting responses came from a family that agreed on a holiday/value (Sukkot/spending time with people who are different from you), but disagreed on how to interpret that value. This family had three generations present at the conversation. A fifth grader said: “I think it’s important to be around people who look different than us, or pray differently than us, or speak different languages than we do—because the United States is made up of lots of different kinds of people.” Her mom added: “On top of that, it’s important to try to understand people who may have voted differently than we did—to recognize that not everyone thinks the same way as we do, or has the same life circumstances as us.” Her grandfather added: “Yes, it’s important to try to understand people who may have different life circumstances than us, but we can never let our own goal of seeking understanding become a free pass for bigotry.”

The fifth grader believes in multiculturalism, and regrets that that Trump’s rhetoric has alienated so many people. Her mom wants to widen the circle of understanding across the political divide, feeling it her duty to understand the lived differences of Trump voters who feel that the American system has forgotten them and left them behind. Her grandfather is open to widening the circle of understanding, but no so wide as to make space for intolerance and bigotry.

I resonate with all three generations—each appropriate to its age and stage. I pray that we are able to enact all three, and most importantly, to know when is the right time for which response.

The Age-Old Story of Jewish Culture Conflict

Delivered at Westchester Reform Temple on Parshat Noach 5777.

For as long as there have been Jewish communities, there have been Jewish communal conflicts.

My mom’s family are proud Greek Jews. My great-grandfather Jessoula was a rabbi in the town Janina—a charming university town situated on a lake in northwest Greece. When he arrived in this country in the early 20^th century, he established a small Greek synagogue on the Lower East Side, which is still in existence today. There, every Saturday morning, a small minyan meets to celebrate Shabbat in the Greek Jewish style—the only such minyan in the world.

But in order for even this small Greek minyan to exist in New York City, the Greek Jewish community had to undergo a centuries-long communal conflict over the very fabric of their cultural identity.

Up until the eve of the Holocaust, the Greek Jewish community was divided into two major demographic strands: Jews of Greek origin, and Jews of Spanish origin. The Jews of Greek origin had been living in Greece for nearly two millennia, since the destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70 CE, while the Jews of Spanish origin had been living in Greece for only 500 years, since the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, in 1492. For nearly 500 years, these two groups fought each other to see whose culture would define Jewish life in Greece. They disagreed about whose prayer book they ought to use, whose dietary customs were more correct, and not least of all, in whose language they ought to conduct Jewish communal affairs.

In the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki, the sheer number of Spanish refugees eventually caused that Jewish community to adopt Spanish customs.

In Janina, where my great-grandfather was born, the Greek Jews were so concerned about the preserving their cultural identity that they petitioned the Chief Rabbi of Constantinople to forbid Spanish Jews from settling there. Their petition was not approved. The Jewish community of Janina ballooned, so much so that a new synagogue was built on the outskirts of town to accommodate the influx of Spanish Jews. Eventually, these two communities found a way to get along. For communal events, the Jews would gather in the pristine building of the new Spanish synagogue, but while they were there, they would practice the historic Greek customs.

By looking at family surnames, I’ve hypothesized that my ancestors in Janina were originally of Greek origin. Which leads me to wonder: How well did my ancestors get along with their newly arrived Spanish neighbors? Were they part of the group that petitioned to ban Spanish Jews from settling in Janina? Or were they part of the historic compromise that enabled the two Jewish communities to find common ground? In their historic Jewish culture conflict, how did my ancestors behave?

This week, in Israel, we’ve witnessed a different historic Jewish culture conflict—over who has the right to pray at the Western Wall, and how. Our own rabbi emeritus, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, marched alongside other world Jewish leaders in protest of the Israeli government’s failure to create an egalitarian prayer space at the Western Wall. We should note that the struggle over Wall itself is but one symbolic example of the many ways in which non-Orthodox forms of Judaism are granted unequal status in Israel. Reform marriages and conversions are not recognized as religiously valid by the Israeli rabbinate; and while Orthodox institutions get state funding, non-Orthodox institutions, with a few exceptions, are left to fend to themselves. With their protest this week, non-Orthodox Jewish leaders declare: the existence of Israel unites the Jewish people, but some of its policies religious divide us from one another.

Fittingly, in this week’s Torah portion, we read the story of the Tower of Babel. As the story goes, human beings were united by a desire to be like God, to make a name for themselves on earth and in heaven. And so, they decided to build a tower that would reach the sky. United by their common purpose, people from the four corners of the earth bought tools, skills, and materials to aid in the Tower’s construction. But threatened by this upstart human endeavor, God decided to confound the humans’ speech, such that each person spoke a different language, and no one could understand the other.

A midrash imagines that at the Tower of Babel, one worker asked another to pass him a brick. But because, they didn’t speak the same language, the second worker brought the first not a brick, but rather, a shovel. And when the first worker realized that he’d been misunderstood, he took his co-worker’s shovel hit him over the head with it. In this way, the Tower of Babel represents not only the origins of the world’s many languages, but also the origins of cultural conflict.

Our tradition knows of the possibility of internal Jewish culture conflict. It is perhaps for this reason that we can recognize two schools of thought within our sacred texts: one that emphasizes what binds all Jews together, and the other that emphasizes what makes each Jewish community unique. The tension between these two schools of thought is illustrated by a brain puzzle presented in the Talmud. If, God forbid, a Jewish house of study should catch fire—asks the Talmud—and only half the books can be saved, which books should be rescued: the books written in Hebrew, or the books translated into the local vernacular? What’s most important, the Talmud asks: Hebrew, which unites us, or the many other languages in which Jews have written throughout the ages, which define, and thereby, often divide us? The Talmud, in its characteristic style, gives no definitive answer, as if to say: “We must strive to save them all.”

Indeed, throughout our history, the Jewish people have written—and written prolifically—in many different languages. The core of our tradition, Torah and the rest of the Bible, is written mostly in Hebrew. But much of the Talmud is written in lingua franca of the ancient Near East, Aramaic—causing rabbinical and cantorial students to spend many late nights hunched over a trilingual Hebrew-English-Aramaic dictionary. Many Americans may know a little bit of Yiddish—common words that have floated into American English, mostly of a comedic flavor, like klutz, schlep, schvitz. But perhaps they don’t know that beyond these jokey words lies a rich literary tradition of Yiddish theatre, poetry, song, and fiction. Let us recall that Maimonides, considered by many to be the greatest medieval Jewish thinker, wrote not in Hebrew but in Arabic. And Martin Buber, one of the most influential modern Jewish thinkers, wrote in German. I often wonder if, centuries from now, future rabbis and cantors will spend many late nights hunched over some new trilingual dictionary wishing that our great contemporary thinkers, like Brad Artson or Rachel Adler, hadn’t written exclusively in English.

If, God forbid, the imagined Jewish library I’ve just described were to burn down, which books, which languages, should we save first? Should we save the books written in Hebrew or the books written in other languages? What’s more important: Jewish unity, or intra-communal Jewish distinctiveness?

When Leah and I were married, we decided to write our Ketubah not in the traditional Aramaic, but rather in Hebrew and in English. We wanted it in English so that we could easily read and remember what promises we made to one another on our wedding day. And we wanted it in Hebrew so that if, God willing, our future great-grandchildren should someday find our Ketubah, they would be able, no matter what language they speak, to connect to their ancestors. The English on our Ketubah connects us to the present; the Hebrew connects us to the past and the future.

So let’s once again connect to the past—to my great-grandfather Jessoula in Greece, and to his ancestors when the Spanish Jews arrived on their doorstep. Were they with the group that wanted to keep the Spanish out? Or were they with the group that wanted to welcome the Spanish in? Did they, like the builders of the Tower of Babel, hit one another over the head at the first sign of culture conflict? Or were they, like our imagined Jewish library, open to the cultural gems of every Jewish place and time?

I can’t say for sure. Of course, I hope that they were champions of Jewish diversity—just as I hope for the same in our day, this week at the Western Wall in particular.

But I wonder. I wonder if they ever could have imagined that someday, a descendant of theirs would live in a place called the United States; if they could have imagined that he’d be the product of Greek Jews and German Jews; if they could have imagined that his native language would be English—and that yet, despite all these unimaginable differences, he, like them, would still celebrate Shabbat, still know a little Hebrew. I wonder if it was some unimaginable version of you and me that they had in mind when they decided to settle their differences—to honor their Greek-Jewish heritage while welcoming their Spanish-Jewish neighbors.

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I hope that Jewish diversity in Israel will grow. But more importantly, I hope that we and Jews everywhere can recognize that what unites us is as important as what divides us. I’m here because Greek Jews and Spanish Jews learned how to get along. Let’s learn to do the same. The future is counting on us.

The "Systems Theory" of Holiness

The following dvar torah was delivered at Westchester Reform Temple as an introduction to the afternoon Torah reading on Yom Kippur 5777. 

This afternoon, we’ll be reading a passage from the Book of Leviticus that’s known as the Holiness Code. As early as the 2nd century CE, commentators recognized that in many ways, this passage closely resembled the Ten Commandments. Like the Ten Commandments, the Holiness Code is a compact collection of instructions given by God to the Israelites on how to live lives of value and purpose. In fact, several of the Ten Commandments have direct counterparts in the Holiness Code: you shall honor your parents, observe Shabbat, you shall not steal, swear false oaths, or worship idols. Additionally, the Holiness Code ends in the way that the Ten Commandments begin: with a reminder that God brought the Israelites out of the Land of Egypt. With these many parallels in mind, classical commentators have often referred to the Holiness Code as an expanded version of the Ten Commandments.

But these many similarities notwithstanding, the Holiness Code differs from the Ten Commandments in one important way: where the Ten Commandments are structured and orderly, the Holiness Code is freeform and meandering. The Ten Commandments are organized around the nice round number 10—the basis of our counting system. The Holiness Code, by contrast, is rather unwieldy, containing the seemingly random number of 31 commandments.

In addition to the number of commandments, the two sets of laws differ in how they are organized. You’ll recall that the Ten Commandments were given on two tablets of stone: five commandments on one tablet, five on the other. The first tablet contains laws that concern humans and God—laws like: you shall not worship idols, you shall not swear falsely by God’s name—what we might broadly refer to as “religious” laws. The second tablet contains laws that concern humans alone—laws like: you shall not murder, you shall not steal—what we might broadly refer to as “ethical” laws. The Holiness Code, by contrast, knows of no such strict division between the religious and the ethical. It is a disorderly amalgamation of laws concerning every sphere of life: from worship to commerce, the legal system to family relationships, agriculture to social welfare.

But despite its seeming disorderliness, the Holiness Code does have a unifying message. The passage is punctuated throughout with the phrase, “I am the Eternal your God.” It is as if the Holiness Code is saying: “All these many diverse spheres of life—worship, commerce, the legal system, families—all of these are of equal concern to God.” Where the Ten Commandments creates a false dichotomy between the religious and the ethical, the Holiness Code teaches that there can be no such separation. 

There’s a certain irony here. The word “holy”—in its Biblical sense, kadosh—means “separated.” A helpful example: the seventh day is called “holy” because it is unlike the other days of the week—it’s separated, distinct from the rest. Similarly, the Holiness Code should, as its name indicates, teach us how to separate, how to distinguish between one kind of action and another. And yet, both in content and in form, the Holiness Code teaches the exact opposite: that we reach for holiness not by separating one sphere of life from the others, but rather, by acting as if all parts of our lives were of equal concern to God.

We might say that the Holiness Code speaks the language of systems theory: that what happens in one part of our world affects what happens in the entirety of our world—that the way we engage in commerce affects the way we treat our families affects the way we structure our legal system. In this year of social upheaval, the Holiness Code reminds us that there are no simple solutions to problems: that police body cameras are no remedy for the implicit racial bias in all of us, that global terrorism is as much about climate change as it is about geopolitics.

Wouldn’t it be nice if our world looked more like the Ten Commandments: neat, clear, easy to follow? But despite their appeal, the Ten Commandments are the religious vision of our childhood. The Holiness Code insists on treating us like adults—insists that what happens in one part of our world affects the entirety of our world, that every action has an impact.

In 5777, let us hear the Holiness Code when it asks us: what impact am I making?

Kein y’hi ratzon.

A Conversation between Abraham and Jonah

Delivered at Westchester Reform Temple on the second morning of Rosh Hashanah 5777. 

A teacher of mine used to say: Poetry is the art of leaning two words against each other, and then listening in on their conversation. I love this description. And I think it accurately describes the power of poetry. A classic example comes from Homer, who frequently uses the phrase “the wine-dark sea.” Listen to the conversation between those words: we may not have thought of it before, but the sea is indeed as dark as wine—and also as tempting and as dangerous.

On the two-day holiday of Rosh Hashanah, we have the opportunity to lean not two words against each other, but rather, two stories. We read one Torah story on day one, a different story on day two, and then listen to the conversation that arises between them. And it was with this conversation in mind that the editors of our new High Holiday prayer book selected the passage we are about to read. On day one, we read the story of Abraham heeding God’s command to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. And this morning, we’re going to read the story of Abraham negotiating with God over the fate of the Sodom and Gomorrah. Listen to the conversation between these two stories: on day one, Abraham chooses God before his own family; on day two, Abraham chooses the human family before God. It is as if one story is asking the other: whom shall the religious person serve?

But this morning, I’d like to listen in on a different conversation, between two biblical figures who appear on the High Holidays. I’d like to listen to a conversation between the Abraham of Sodom and Gomorrah, about whom we’ll read this morning, and the anti-hero of Yom Kippur, Jonah.

God comes both to Abraham and to Jonah to announce God’s plan to destroy a wicked city. But the responses of each prophet could not be more different. Jonah tries to flee from God. Why should he care about the fate of some far away city? Abraham, by contrast, directly confronts God. Though Sodom and Gomorrah are not his home, he argues for justice on behalf of his neighbors.

This already would be an interesting conversation between Abraham and Jonah. We might imagine one asking the other: how wide is my circle of responsibility? But the conversation is deeper still than that. Because underlying each prophet’s story is a distinct theory of justice and mercy.

Jonah is an advocate for strict justice. He believes that the Ninevites are deserving of their punishment, and is upset when God forgives them. We might imagine Jonah saying: “Do the crime, serve the time.” He believes that even the most minor of offenses is deserving of swift and total punishment. Even when the Ninevites repent of their misdeeds, Jonah wishes that God hadn’t forgiven them.

Abraham, by contrast, has a far more nuanced understanding of justice and mercy. He convinces God to save the city if God should be able to find ten innocent people who live there. Notice that the request is not to save the innocent and punish the guilty, but rather to save the whole city on account of the innocent. The implications of this request are astounding. First: more grievous than the saving of an entire guilty city is the taking of even one innocent life. Abraham recognizes that the guilty can always repent, but the innocent dead can never be vindicated. A second astounding implication: Abraham seems to believe not in collective punishment, but in collective rewards. Abraham recognizes that righteous behavior is contagious—that we’re all responsible for the work of building a more just society, guilty and innocent and alike.

In our society, so fraught with racial tension and the politics of identity, with whom do we side in the conversation between Jonah and Abraham? Do we side with Jonah: that what happens in the neighboring town is not my problem; that even the most minor of offenses—like the selling loose cigarettes on the street—deserve swift and total punishment? Or are we with Abraham: that we’re all in this together; that even in a complex society, the taking of innocent lives should never be the necessary price for enforcing law and order?

In 5777, let us resolve to be remembered as the children of Abraham, and not the children of Jonah. Let us ask be prodded onward by the question that Abraham so famously asks God in this morning’s Torah reading: “Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?”

Kein y’hi ratzon. May this be our inheritance.

The Day that God Became a Parent

Delivered at Westchester Reform Temple on Erev Rosh Hashanah 5777. For Gavi.

If you ask a child to draw a symbol of Rosh Hashanah, it’s likely that he or she will hand you a picture of a shofar or apples and honey. If you ask an adult to draw the same picture, maybe you’ll get something more abstract: a mirror, as a symbol of self-reflection; two people hugging, as a symbol of forgiveness; or they might even leave the page blank, as a symbol of a fresh start. But if you were to ask the many generations of rabbis who compiled our High Holiday prayer book to draw the symbols of Rosh Hashanah, you’d wind up with a book full of pictures of parents and their children.

Study the Rosh Hashanah prayer book and you’ll find that the image of the parent-child relationship is everywhere. We read in the Torah and haftarah four stories about parents and their children.[1] We stand before the ark and call God Avinu, our loving parent, and refer to ourselves as banecha, God’s children.[2] Our tradition says that Rosh Hashanah corresponds to the Sixth Day of Creation[3]—the day that humankind was born. We don’t have to be biblical literalists to understand the significance of that statement. In the evolutionary history of our planet, the emergence of humanity represents a momentous shift. Rosh Hashanah celebrates that shift, and calls it “the birthday of humanity”—the day that God became a parent.

This Rosh Hashanah, I find that I’m especially attuned to images in our prayer book of parents and children—because this year, in addition to celebrating my first Rosh Hashanah here at WRT, I am also marking my first Rosh Hashanah as a parent.

As both a rabbi and a parent, I wonder how God might have felt on that Sixth Day of Creation, in that moment of evolutionary history when human life first emerged. I wonder if God might have felt the way that I felt when I first held my child.

This evening, I’d like to paint a new picture of Rosh Hashanah, in the form of an original midrash—a legend about the day that Humanity was born, the day that God became a parent.

***

It was the Sixth Day of Creation, and God was beginning to despair of this whole “universe” project. The animals and plants and oceans and stars were all nice enough to look at, but they showed no concern for one another. Galaxies crashed into galaxies without remorse; the animals cared only about the survival of the fittest. And God, who had created every species with love and care, began to worry that the universe might collapse on its own indifference. God needed a partner, one who could show concern for the world beyond itself. And so God said: “Let us make humankind in our image.”[4]

And on that day—which we Jews commemorate as Rosh Hashanah—Baby Humanity was born, and God became a parent.

The first time that Baby Humanity blinked open its eyes, God—who had always had a way with words, who had created entire solar systems simply by saying, “Let there be”[5]—for the first time, God was speechless. With no words to speak, no new thing was created. And so God rested[6]—the first Shabbat.

If resting was new to God, then the whole world was new to Baby Humanity. We had never seen light before, never breathed air, never felt the warm touch of skin. The world was a marvel and we loved living in it.

But then, the sun went down:[7] Baby Humanity’s first night. The world grew dark, and cold. And God—who had, only minutes before, held us in a safe embrace—suddenly, our loving parent seemed far away. Humanity felt afraid. And so we began to cry.

God didn’t know what to do. This was uncharted territory. First, God tried to reason with Humanity, to explain that the sun would come up again in the morning. This didn’t work. Then, God tried to soothe us, to rock us gently and whisper, “hush.” This worked better. But it was only a few minutes before the wailing started up again.

God started to get frustrated. Why wouldn’t Humanity just be quiet already? Then, the frustration gave way to feelings of failure. It was God, after all, who had created this world. What kind of irresponsible person would bring a child here, where the sun goes down at night, where darkness and the cold are inevitable?

The crying lasted all night long—on again, off again—God trying everything to get Humanity to sleep. After several hours, God finally walked away. We would have to fuss it out for ourselves. God listened, heartbroken, as we cried and cried, until our voice grew sore and our eyes grew dry, and we whimpered ourselves off to sleep. God never forgot that night. For God, who was used to feeling omnipotent, it was a humbling experience.

Humanity also never forgot that night. It’s one of our earliest memories. It would come to us often, later in life, when bad things happened to us for no apparent reason. “Where were you, God?” we would ask. The question would puzzle us forever.

This broke God’s heart. After all, God had done everything God could do. But like all parents, God couldn’t take away our pain.

Of course, there were many joyful moments, too. Baby Humanity used to love to reach up and try to touch God’s face. Our baby arms were never quite long enough,[8] but our loving parent was only ever inches beyond our grasp. It was like a game: trying to reach for what was unreachable. We called this game “religion.”

Humanity began to grow, as babies tend to do: first, into a toddler, and then, a child. And as we got bigger, we grew less and less interested in that old game of trying to reach up and touch God’s face, more and more intrigued by the world around us. We wanted to know the names of all the animals,[9] the taste of every kind of fruit.[10] Of course, this was what God had always wanted: a child who would show concern for the world, who could see its many beauties and its many flaws. But nevertheless, God missed being the center of our attention. How could it be that Humanity was already growing up so fast?

God realized that Humanity would someday, inevitably, go off and venture out on our own. And so, God decided to start equipping us with all the rules and instructions we would need to make our way in the world—“commandments,” as God called them. Some of these were clear and simple: “You shall not murder.” “You shall not steal.”[11] Others were easy to understand, but hard to do: “You shall not bear a grudge.” “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” [12] Of course, it would be many more years before God would learn one of the hardest parenting lessons of God’s life: that even the clearest of rules are liable to be broken. But nevertheless, in those early years of Humanity’s childhood, God trusted that these rules would guide us as we began to explore the world.

And oh, how God loved to watch us explore. As is the case with many parents, it was God’s greatest joy to see how we were reflections of God’s own self—not because we looked like God, but because we acted like God. On good days, we took only what we needed, shared our gifts with others, and cleaned up after ourselves. In these moments, God knew that God had instructed us well, and felt proud to be raising such responsible children. Even on our harder days, when we didn’t get what we wanted, or when we had to part with something that we loved, God could see God’s self in us. We didn’t realize this as children, but God, too, had known loss and disappointment—loss when one species wiped out another, disappointment that the universe had its flaws. We had not realized that even God, our loving parent, was not perfect. But God knew it. And in us, God saw a child—and soon, a young adult—created in God’s image.

But here comes the part of the story that hurts. Because in all good stories—as in life—things break.

There came a time, as there often does, when what our parent wanted clashed with what we wanted. All those rules that God had created to guide and protect us now seemed to us to be blocking our free exploration. God had created an interesting world, and we wanted to see it all, beyond the boundaries of all those “You shalls” and “You shall nots.” And so—without malice, but nevertheless, knowingly—we broke one of our parent’s beloved rules.

Which rule Humanity broke, I can’t quite say. But I know which rule I broke. And I’m sure that if you think about it now, you’ll remember which rule you broke too.

Of course, God found out. It nearly broke our loving parent’s heart. “We didn’t mean to hurt You,” we tried to explain. “We weren’t a little kid any more. We wanted to make our own decisions.”

But God didn’t understand this—at least not yet. From God’s point of view, the rules were the rules. They were there to keep us safe, to help us take care of ourselves and the world. By breaking the rules, we had broken God’s trust.

“Trust us to live without the rules!” we argued. But God would have none of it.

For many days, God wouldn’t speak to Humanity. At the end of a week, God slipped a note under Humanity’s door. We unfolded it. Written in big block letters, as if they were chiseled in stone, the note read: “You shall honor your parent.”[13]

This made us furious. We wouldn’t let ourselves be controlled. If God didn’t want us break the rules, then God shouldn’t have given us free will. We sunk our teeth in deeper. We raged; we rebelled; we mutinied. For many of us, it would be years before we spoke to God again.

***

Were it not Rosh Hashanah, our story might end here. But our High Holiday prayer book is full of images of parents and their children for a reason. The prayer book is trying to remind us that the parent-child relationship is one in which forgiveness is always possible.

Forgiveness is always possible because to be someone’s parent or to be someone’s child is an unconditional relationship—not in terms of love, but in terms of role.[14] No matter what happens to any of us, we are always—irrevocably, and by definition—our parents’ children.

Our relationship may fracture: by death or by estrangement, by neglect or abuse. But there is always the opportunity for repair. That might mean an actual reconciliation. Or, when that’s not possible, repair might mean forgiving our parent or child not for what they did to us, but rather for who they are.[15]

In an unconditional relationship, forgiveness is always possible. And this is why on Rosh Hashanah we call God Avinu, our loving parent.

***

So how does our story end?

It’s been years since that last big fight. For many of us, we haven’t spoken to God since. But in the intervening years, God has established a tradition, and God sticks to it every year, no matter the state of our relationship. Every year, on Humanity’s birthday—which just so happens to be tonight—God goes up into the attic and finds the dusty old box of memories[16] with our name written on the lid. God brushes off the cobwebs, removes the lid, and starts rummaging through the mementos: a photo of Humanity on the day that we were born; a picture we had drawn; even that note, now crumpled and faded, on which God had written “You shall honor your parent.”

Once, on Rosh Hashanah, we thought we heard footsteps in the attic, the floorboards creaking above our heads. We looked up, searching for the source of that sound. And in an instant, we remembered that old game we used to love so much as children, when we used to reach up and try to touch God’s face.

As if by reflex, we cried out: “Avinu! Is that you?”

And although we heard no audible reply, something deep within told us that just as we were down here remembering God, God was up there in the attic, remembering us.

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[1] Day one Torah: Sarah’s resentment of her step-son Ishmael (Genesis 21). Day one haftarah: Hannah’s desire to become a mother (I Samuel 1-2). Day two Torah: Abraham binding his son Isaac (Genesis 22). Day two haftarah: Jeremiah’s prophecy (Jeremiah 31), featuring Rachel weeping for her exiled children (see v. 14; also vv. 7, 19, and 28).

[2] See, for example, in the Rosh Hashanah liturgy: Avinu Malkeinu and Hayom Harat Olam. In the Yom Kippur Liturgy: Ki Anu Amecha and K’racheim Av. Also others.

[3] See Pesikta d'Rav Kahana 23:1.

[4] Genesis 1:26

[5] Genesis 1:3 and others

[6] Genesis 2:2

[7] For a similar midrash, see Genesis Rabbah 11:2.

[8] For a parallel image, see Exodus 33:20.

[9] For a similar midrash, see Genesis Rabbah 17:4.

[10] See Genesis 3:6.

[11] Exodus 20:12

[12] Leviticus 19:18

[13] Exodus 20:11

[14] See the chapter called “Father” in Jack Miles’s God: A Biography. In the classical sources, see Deuteronomy Rabbah 2:24.

[15] See the essay called “Changing Your Past: Reflections on Forgiveness,” by Rabbi Ellen Lewis, NCPsyA, in Mishkan Hanefesh: Yom Kippur.

[16] See the “book of memories” referred to in Un’taneh tokef.