Ukraine

My great-grandfather, Alexander Reiser, of blessed memory -- after whom my father is named -- was born in 1881 in the city Lviv in western Ukraine. According to an exhaustive family record, which traces our lineage all the way back to the 1700s, Alexander’s parents and grandparents were merchants in the lumber business. They traded and exported all across the Pale of Settlement wood that had been chopped down in the dense oak forests of western Ukraine.

Over the past few weeks and months, as the tension in Ukraine has escalated into all out war, my great-grandpa Alex has often been on mind. Even though I never met him, and even though I have never been there, I feel, on some deep level that I cannot fully explain, a connection to Ukraine -- and in particular to the city of Lviv.

Of course, there are many reasons to feel concerned about the war in Ukraine. Like so many others, I am appalled by Russia’s blatant disregard for the sovereignty of a neighboring nation. This unprovoked war represents not only a threat to Ukraine, not only a threat to the stability of Europe, not only a threat to NATO, but also, a threat to democracy and the rule of law.

Like so many others, I fear for the life of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, who has shown incredible leadership and bravery over these past few weeks -- and also fear for the lives of the Ukrainian fighters, whose resistance against the better-resourced Russian military has, at least so far, proven stronger than expected.

Like so many others, my heart breaks for the humanitarian crisis that has been unleashed -- with hundreds of innocent civilians killed, with estimates, as of Thursday evening, of more than a million people who have fled to neighboring countries, and a million more who are internally displaced, taking shelter in subway stations to avoid the bombardment of missiles. I urge the congregation to help provide humanitarian relief by donating toiletries, diapers, and first aid kits, which will be distributed through the AFYA foundation, and are being collected in bins outside the main entrance to WRT through this coming Wednesday.

But for us as Jews, our reasons for concern about the war in Ukraine are not only about geopolitics, not only about the humanitarian crisis -- but also, it is about our heritage. Even for those of us who do not trace our family’s lineage there -- as I do, with my great-grandpa Alex -- Ukraine matters deeply to the Jewish people.

On Wednesday, President Zelensky -- who is himself proudly Jewish -- recorded a video message addressed to the Jewish people of the world. In it, he reminded us that Russia’s attempt to erase Ukrainian history also, in part, erases Jewish history. Since the war began, missiles have fallen on the town of Uman, where the Hasidic master Rebbe Nachman of Breslov is buried -- and which has become a pilgrimage site for hundreds of thousands of Jews every year, who come to pray at the tomb of the revered rabbi. Missiles have also damaged the Babi Yar Memorial Center in Kiev -- a memorial site dedicated to the unthinkable massacre that was perpetrated there during the Holocaust, in which, over the course of just two days, 33,000 Ukrainian Jews were dragged from their homes, shot dead, and thrown into a mass grave in a nearby ravine.

All across Ukraine, there are numberless places that matter to the Jewish people: whether it’s the pilgrimage site of Uman, the ravine of Babi Yar, the vibrant synagogues and community centers that serve the approximately 150,000 Jews living in Ukraine today -- or, the dense oak forests outside of Lviv, where, a 150 years ago, my great-grandfather Alex’s family earned their living.

To be sure, Jewish history in Ukraine has been decidedly stormy: darkened first by the Khmelnytsky Massacre in the 1650s; followed by centuries of Tsarist restrictions about where Jews could and could not live, and what professions Jews could and could not enter; forced military conscription, including for children; countless pogroms committed by our neighbors; accusations of blood libel (the medieval myth that Jews use Christian blood in order to make matzah) charged against us even as late as the 20th century; the mass shootings of the Holocaust (of which Babi Yar is just the most well-known example), carried out by Germans, but often assisted by local Ukrainians; the repressions of the Soviet era. The list of Jewish tragedies in Ukraine goes on and on and on.

And yet, despite these many tragedies, Jewish history Ukraine is also incredibly rich. The number of Jewish luminaries who were born or lived in what is now Ukraine is staggering: the Baal Shem Tov, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, Sholom Aleichem, Shai Agnon, Ahad Ha’am, Chayim Nachman Bialik, Golda Meir, Natan Sharansky -- to name just the most well-known few. The Jews of Ukraine were impressively culturally productive. Together, they pioneered three major innovations in modern Jewish life -- without which, the Jewish world as we know it today would likely be unrecognizable: the Hasidic revolution, the flowering of Yiddish literature, and the Zionist movement.

What was it, we might ask, about the Jewish experience in Ukraine that, despite our people’s stormy history there, we nevertheless were able to be so culturally productive? Why is it that these three major innovations -- Hasidism, Yiddish literature, and Zionism -- all were born in Ukraine?

To help us answer this question, we need a crash course in modern Jewish history. It is a story that can be told in two contrasting parts: the Jewish experience in Western Europe (places like France, Germany, and Austria) contrasted with the Jewish experience in Eastern Europe (places like Poland, Lithuania, and Ukraine).

Let us begin with Western Europe. For the Jews of Western Europe, the modern era begins with the French Revolution and its battlecry of liberté, égalité, fraternité -- or “liberty, equality, and brotherhood.” The centuries of inequality between the nobility and the peasants gave way to the ideals of the Enlightenment: the rights of citizenship, equal protection under the law, democracy. And as these ideals spread across Western Europe, the walls of the Jewish ghettos gradually came down. Our ancestors were emancipated and granted equal citizenship under the law.

But in exchange for their citizenship, the Jews of Western Europe were expected to participate in the majority culture of the nation. They needed to speak French, look French, and act French. Gone were the days in which one’s primary group association was with the Jewish community. Identifying as French, or German, or Austrian had to come first.

The Jews of Western Europe adapted accordingly. It was there that our own Reform Movement was born, out of a desire to make our worship services look and feel more like the Protestant services of our German neighbors -- with prayers in the vernacular, instrumental organ music, and mixed seating for women and men. It was there that modern Jewish philosophy flourished, with thinkers such as Moses Mendelssohn and Martin Buber -- mirroring the esteemed German intellectual tradition of Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche. For the Jews in Western Europe, emancipation created the need for them to fit in.

All of these developments stand in sharp contrast to the experience of the Jews in Eastern Europe. For them, the modern era begins not with the French Revolution and emancipation. Rather, for the Jews of Eastern Europe, the modern era begins with a historical moment that has resonances to today. It begins with the Russian annexation of Poland, Lithuania, and Ukraine.

As the Russian Empire expanded westward, it newly found itself with control over many ethnic minorities: including Poles, Lithuanias, Ukrainians -- and Jews. In an effort to organize this jumble of groups, the Empire relied on the medieval institution of social estates -- categorizing people into different groups, each with its own a differing set of rights and responsibilities. Unlike the Jews in the West, who, after being emancipated, had to minimize their Jewish group identity, the Jews in the East were moved in exactly the opposite direction -- and were now politically defined specifically as a group.

And it is this difference between West and East -- this sense of collective Jewish identity -- that caused the Jews of Ukraine to be so impressively culturally productive. Although their collective identity was forced upon them as a political status, it nevertheless led to our three major innovations in modern Jewish life: the Hasidic revolution, the flowering of Yiddish literature, and the Zionist movement.

Let us consider each of them in order. First: the Hasidic revolution. In the 1700s, Jewish life in Eastern Europe was in disarray. Under the burden of heavy taxes, the community did not have enough money to properly fund the yeshivas where rabbis would train and study. As a result, both the scholarship and the leadership abilities of the rabbis began to suffer -- and the community began to grow disillusioned with them.

And it was into this leadership crisis that the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, was born. He developed revolutionary ideas about Jewish life. To him, it did not matter that the yeshivas were weak. He taught, instead, that prayer is more important than study, that the heart is more important than the mind, that joyful piety is more important than Talmudic erudition, that the simple Jewish commoner can be as close to God as the greatest learned sage. Unlike the religious Reformers in Western Europe, who had worked to make Judaism more closely resemble their Christian neighbors, the Baal Shem Tov in Ukraine worked to make Judaism more closely resemble the life of the everyday Jew. Hasidism attracted followers by the millions.

Second: the flowering of Yiddish literature. While the emancipated Jews in the West were learning to speak French and German, the unemancipated Jews in the East had no choice other than to more fully embrace their mother tongue -- the mamaloshen: Yiddish. They created a rich literary culture, teeming with Yiddish novels, short stories, poems, essays, newspapers, journals, stage plays, and songs -- with the Ukrainian port city of Odessa as its vibrant, beating heart.

Unlike the Jewish writers in the West, who composed serious, cerebral books of modern Jewish philosophy, the Yiddish writers in the East composed stories about the lives of everyday Jews: about Tevye the milkman and his daughters (written by the perhaps the most famous Ukrainian Jew, Sholom Aleichem), or a story about an incident of getting lost on the way to the train station, or about falling asleep in shul and accidentally missing the entirety of Rosh Hashanah. These were the stories of the people, written in the language of the people -- and they proved hugely popular.

Third: the Zionist movement. We tend to think of Theodore Herzl (who was from Western Europe) as the founder of the Zionist movement. But in fact, the vast majority of Zionist leaders and their followers came from Eastern Europe -- and many of them from Ukraine. Two of these Ukrainian Zionists were Leon Pinsker (who predated Herzl by 15 years, and to whom Herzl’s ideology is deeply indebted) and the Ukrainian Zionist Aham Ha’am.

Both Pinsker and Ahad Ha’am observed that the emancipation of Jews in the West had come with some negative side-effects. Pinsker pointed out that, even after they had been emancipated, Western Jews continued to face discrimination. True, they had been made citizens -- but they were second class citizens, at best. What’s more, the Jews had very little power over their own emancipation. They had to passively wait until the state decided that it was ready to emancipate them -- and they might be waiting for a very long time. In his influential pamphlet called Auto-Emancipation, Pinsker called upon the Jews of Eastern Europe to stop passively waiting, take matters into their own hands, and establish a Jewish national movement.

Ahad Ha’am, for his part, also saw the negative side-effects of emancipation -- but from a different angle. He pointed out that emancipation also led to assimilation. As an antidote to this problem, Ahad Ha’am created the idea of Cultural Zionism -- the notion that the Jews should re-establish a Hebrew civilization in the land of Israel, from which a rich Jewish culture and a thick sense of Jewish pride would flow outwards to the Diaspora.

All three of these innovations -- Hasidism, Yiddish literature, and Zionism -- were pioneered in Ukraine. All three of them reflect the political status of the Jews of Eastern Europe -- who, unlike their Western counterparts, were not emancipated until the 20th century. On account of this, all three innovations are expressions of collective Jewish identity: the feeling that to be Jewish is, first and foremost, to be part of a group -- Hasidism, as the religion of the people; Yiddish literature, as the language and stories of the people; and Zionism, as the national movement of the people.

This is why the Jews of Ukraine were so impressively culturally productive: they understood themselves as belonging to a people -- a sprawling extended family. 

***

In every nuclear family, in yours as well as mine, there are certain places that we hold dear: the town in which we were raised, the beaches on which we have vacationed, the park where we proposed to our spouse, the cemetery where our parent is buried. These places are full of memories. These places have shaped who we are.

Even though I have never been there, and even though I never met him -- the dense oak forests of Western Ukraine, in which my great-grandfather Alex’s family earned their living, shaped my family’s story. The place will always be a part of us, and we will always be a part of it.

And what is true for our nuclear families is also true for the sprawling extended family that is the Jewish people. Even for those of us who do not trace our lineage to Ukraine, still it is a place that we cherish. It is a place that shaped the Jewish story. It is a place that produced our culture.

We Jews will forever care about Ukraine -- for there, we have known that to be Jewish is to belong to a group. To be Jewish is to be a part of a family.

The People of the Book

While I was in rabbinical school, I served as a student intern at Temple Shaaray Tefila on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. During my time with the congregation, the senior rabbi of the synagogue was Rabbi Jonathan Stein -- who, by that point in his rabbinate, had enjoyed a long and distinguished career. All four walls of his large office were lined with built-in bookcases, and every bookcase was packed from floor to ceiling with books -- some of them in rows that were two books deep. There must have been thousands of books in that office. When congregants -- or, in my case, a young rabbinical student -- would come into Rabbi Stein’s office and look around in wonder at his impressive library, the distinguished rabbi, with his usual wit and humor, would gesture towards the books and say: “I’ve read every single title.” 

A few weeks ago, the Jewish Book Council announced the 2021 winners of the National Jewish Book Awards -- their annual prize for the most notable Jewish books from the past year. And in the weeks since the list of award-winners was published, like Rabbi Stein, I can proudly say: “I’ve read every single title.”

Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t read every book -- only the titles. And I must say, even just the titles fascinate me. Among the honorees are titles such as Beyond the Synagogue: Jewish Nostalgia as Religious Practice, a book that explores the deep religious meaning that American Jews have found in seemingly mundane experiences, like going to a deli. Another title is Becoming a Soulful Parent, a book that applies the tools of Jewish spirituality to the challenges of raising children. Another book is entitled An Account of a Minor and Ulti­mate­ly Even Neg­li­gi­ble Episode in the His­to­ry of a Very Famous Fam­i­ly, which is a novel that imagines a fictional visit by Ben-Zion Netanyahu (father of the former Israeli Prime Minister) to the campus of a small liberal arts college in the United States -- an encounter between Israeli Jewishness and American Jewishness. And of course, there was an award for the writer Dara Horn’s much acclaimed and much discussed book on anti-Semitism -- which, in addition to winning a National Jewish Book Award, would likely also win an award for the most provocative title of the year. The book is called People Love Dead Jews.

Browsing through the list of winners is like browsing through Rabbi Stein’s library. While it may be true that, at this point, “I’ve read every single title” (and no more than that), nevertheless, reading every title makes me want to read every book.

Throughout our history, the Jewish people have always been lovers of books. One of our most famous and proud nicknames is that we are “the People of the Book.” We Jews love to read, love to write, love to explore new ideas -- love to utilize the power of language to transform our minds, our souls, and our world.

It’s been said that when you enter any sacred space, like a church, a mosque, or a synagogue, you will find at the front and center of the room the image or symbol that that particular faith group holds most dear. For the Jewish people, the symbol that we hold most dear is not a shrine or an altar, not a statue of a person, not some dogmatic statement of faith, but rather, is a book -- our Torah scroll. We love this book so much that we treat it with the utmost reverence. We stand up when we are in its presence, as if it were an honored guest. We try never to let it touch the floor, as if it were too exalted for so lowly a stature. We cradle it in our arms, parade it around the room, and lovingly kiss our finger when we reach out to touch it, as if it were a baby entrusted to our care -- a precious child, our hope for the future.

Our nickname “the People of the Book” originally comes from the Islamic world. In the early Muslim caliphates, although Jews did not practice the majority religion, still, our ancestors were granted a special political status. On account of our shared reverence for the stories of the Bible, our Muslim neighbors treated our ancestors kindly and fairly: granting them, in Arabic, dhimmi status -- that is, the equal protection that Sharia law extends to non-Muslims who are, nevertheless, “People of the Book.”

And indeed, in places where Jews lived among a majority Muslim society, our ancestors thrived. In Baghdad, in Muslim Spain, in Iran, and in Egypt, we Jews enjoyed prolific Golden Eras -- many centuries of literary productivity, generating some of the greatest Jewish writers and books of all time. The philosopher Maimonides, the poet Yehuda HaLevi, the Jewish legal scholar Joseph Karo, the mystical book of the Zohar, and countless others were all written by Jews in Muslim lands. Perhaps our most famous book, the Babylonian Talmud -- which, unlike the Hebrew Bible, is not a book that we share with other faith traditions, but rather, is exclusively a part of the Jewish religious canon -- the Talmud was written in Iraq. For Jews in Muslim lands, the term “the People of the Book” signified more than just a protected political status. It was our shining legacy.

However, as you browse through the titles of the National Jewish Book Award winners, it quickly becomes clear that the term “the People of the Book” is at least partly inaccurate. Among the twenty titles that received awards, only one of them is explicitly about the book -- the Torah. The other nineteen award-winners are on all kinds of secular Jewish topics, representing many different genres of literature -- including biographies, academia, cookbooks, personal memoirs, history books, and illustrated children’s books. The vast majority are not explicitly religious.

I imagine that the same might be said about each of our own Jewish book collections at home. While we likely might have a copy of the Hebrew Bible, the prayer book, and the Passover Haggadah, it is also likely that alongside these religious books, we might have a novel by Philip Roth or Geraldine Brooks, books about Israel or the Holocaust, books about the Jewish contributions to Hollywood and Broadway, a book of Jewish jokes or familiar Yiddish phrases, or perhaps books that are indeed inspirational but are not explicitly religious in content, like the well-known Chicken Soup for the Jewish Soul. In our house, popular children’s books like Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins and Latkes, Latkes, Good to Eat are at least as beloved as the actual story of Chanukah. Judging either by the National Jewish Book Award winners or by our own personal libraries, we might reasonably say we Jews are not so much “the People of the Book,” but perhaps more accurately, “the People of the Books.”

Even “the Book” itself (the Hebrew Bible) is in fact not one single book, but rather, is a collection of books -- written at a variety of different times, in a variety of different places, by a variety of different authors, with a variety of different worldviews and motivations, spanning a variety of different genres. Some books of the bible may have been written as early as 1000 BCE; others, not until 200 BCE. Some were written in the Land of Israel; others, in faraway Persia. Some are books that are filled with religious piety; others are books of poetry (like the Book of Psalms), or a novella (like the Book of Ruth), or a collection of aphorisms, similar to Bartlett’s Quotations (like the Book of Proverbs). There is even a comedic farce (like the Book of Esther)!

What we now refer to as “the Book” is, in fact, a collection of books, spanning a variety of genres. If we look back into Jewish history, we will see that there has not always been perfect consensus as to which books should be included in the collection, and which books should be left out. There are many ancient Jewish books that did not make it into the Bible’s final cut: for instance, the Book of Jubilees, or the Book of Maccabees, or the Book of Ben Sira. Somewhere along the way, by some process that isn’t precisely understood by historians, our ancestors made a decision about which books to include in the Biblical canon and which to disregard -- sort of like an ancient version of today’s Jewish Book Council, deciding which books should be recognized with a National Jewish Book Award, and which should not.

There’s a famous debate that is recorded in the Mishnah, [1] in which the ancient Rabbis are arguing over whether certain books of the Bible possess the gravitas to truly be considered sacred. The debate centers around two books in particular: the Song of Songs, and the Book of Ecclesiastes. The Song of Songs, for its part, is a collection of ancient Hebrew love letters. It describes in vivid, sensual detail the courtship between two young lovers. In some passages, it could reasonably be described as erotica. It is hardly a wonder that the ancient Rabbis were divided over whether such a book ought to be considered sacred.

The other book that the Rabbis debate is the Book of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes, for its part, is a philosophical treatise that expresses a skeptical view of human existence. It argues that life is meaningless, that piety is useless, and that justice is merely an illusion. And yet, despite the seemingly secular and potentially subversive content of both the Song of Songs and the Book of Ecclesiastes, the ancient Rabbis ultimately decided that both of them were fit to be called sacred -- and today, we treat both books with the same reverence that we would afford any other part of the Hebrew Bible.

Let us consider, for a moment, what this debate among the ancient Rabbis was all about -- and why it matters for us today. On some level, the Rabbis were asking: What are the books that we should care about? What content should a Jewish person read and study in order to be considered a well-educated Jew? [2] Do the books need to be explicitly religious -- or is there a meaningful place for other kinds of Jewish writing? Put differently: Should we define ourselves narrowly as “the People of the Book,” or more broadly as “the People of the Books”?

If we are to take the broader definition -- that there is indeed a meaningful place not only for religious books, but also for other kinds of Jewish writing -- then a whole new set of questions emerges. For example: to what extent should a person who is well-read in secular Jewish texts be familiar with and conversant in the classical religious canon? Should there be some sort of “core curriculum” of, say, Hebrew bible, prayer book, and Talmud that is required before a person can branch out into more wide-ranging “elective” Jewish reading, like fiction, history, and memoir? Additionally, we might ask: What are the limits to the term “the People of the Book”? Is it sufficient for a Jew to be well-read in general -- say, as an avid-reader of The New Yorker, or in the best of contemporary non-fiction -- but have never picked up the Book of Genesis or the Passover Haggadah?

In short, the question we are asking is: What exactly do we mean when we say that we are “the People of the Book” -- and even more importantly, how should that nickname inform our Jewish lives?

I ask these questions this evening without offering any definitive answers -- and I would welcome the conversation that these questions might lead to. But for now, I’ll leave us with the following thought, attributed to the medieval Jewish sage Hai Gaon. Hai Gaon lived in what is present-day Iraq -- where, as a Jew in a majority Muslim culture, he was granted equal protection under the law as one of “the People of the Book.” Fittingly, although he wrote hundreds of published works, not a single one was a book. Rather, he is best known for having written many letters, which we continue to study to this day.

Hai Gaon wrote: “There are three things that a person should hold dear: a field, a friend, and a book.” A field allows a person to earn a living. A friend provides a person with companionship. “But a book is even better than a friend. For a book can provide companionship as well. And while a friend might desert you, a book will go with you anywhere. A book can reach across time and space, and express eternal ideas -- and in that way, a book can become transcendent.” 

And isn’t this part of what it means to be Jewish: to treat that which is transcendent as if it were our closest friend? Perhaps this is what we mean when we say that we are “the People of the Book” -- not just that we a people who loves to read and write, but more importantly, that we are a people who believe that even when we feel alone, even when we feel that all seems lost and senseless, we nevertheless can always reach for a book and find there waiting for us exactly the thing that we need: guidance, wisdom, inspiration, companionship, the lofty ideals that we most associate with God. For us, a book is like the divine: a loving friend, eternally present, just waiting to be opened.

_____

[1] Yadayim 3:5

[2] For more on this question, see: (1) Moment Magazine’s symposium The Five Books Project, and (2) Hannah Pressman’s essay in The New Jewish Canon (2020, ed. Kurtzer and Sufrin) on Telushkin, Hyman, and Ochs.

After Colleyville

What a week this has been.

Last Saturday morning, on Shabbat, while the members of Congregation Beth Israel of Colleyville, Texas, were celebrating a Bar Mitzvah service, a stranger, who had come into the synagogue from the cold, seemingly looking for some place in which to sit and warm himself with a hot cup of tea, suddenly pulled out a firearm in the middle of the service, and demanded, at gunpoint, that these Jews, whom he imagined to be the world’s puppet masters, secure the release of Aafia Siddiqui from federal prison -- holding the rabbi and three congregants hostage in their own sanctuary for more than eleven hours. It was a terrifying situation.

Late Saturday night, after the hostages eventually escaped unharmed, we all breathed a deep sigh of relief. But still, that night, I could not sleep. It all hit just a little too close to home. I could not stop thinking about the scene inside that sanctuary -- about the tension, the pressure, the fear. I could not stop thinking about the assailant, who reportedly asked the hostages how many kids each of them had, and shouted to the hostage negotiator outside the door: “Why are you going to leave seven children orphaned?” I could not stop thinking about the congregants of Beth Israel, who watched as their little shul, where they have eulogized their parents and given Hebrew names to their children, was broadcast on international television, surrounded by hundreds of FBI agents and SWAT teams. I could not stop thinking about the hostages’ families. Who had informed them of what was unfolding inside of the synagogue? Where were they throughout the ordeal, and who was with them? I could not stop thinking about the hostages themselves. What thoughts must have been racing through their head?

I share these painful images not as an act of voyeurism, but rather, because they haunt me. And I know that I am not alone in this feeling. For many of us, it has been all too easy this week to project ourselves into that terrifying situation -- to feel that it could have been us, to wonder how we would have reacted. Although the hostages escaped physically unharmed, the events of this past weekend have once again activated one of the Jewish people’s most deep-seated psychological traumas: our centuries-old fear for our safety in an all too often hostile world.

Earlier this week, a group of congregants gathered together and studied a passage from the biblical Book of Lamentations about being held hostage. Lamentations was written more than 2500 years ago -- so deeply rooted in history is our trauma. The passage from Lamentations argues that among all the possible crises that might befall a person, to be held hostage is among the worst -- because to be held hostage inflicts not only physical pain, but also psychological, emotional, and spiritual pain as well.

In the days since the hostages escaped, there has been much conversation in the Jewish world about how to protect our communities from physical pain. There will be continued security training for clergy and congregants; there will be increased funding for synagogues and other Jewish institutions to secure our campuses; there will be vital conversations about how to strike a proper balance between, on the one hand, welcoming strangers in from cold, and on the other hand, keeping our communities safe from strangers who would do us harm; there will be further efforts to educate our friends and neighbors about what anti-Semitism looks like, why it is sometimes hard to spot, and how best to combat it.

These conversations about how to keep our communities physically safe are critically important. And yet, as the passage from Lamentations reminds us, our physical safety is only part of the equation. If we are to effectively cope with our deep-seated trauma, then we must also be sure to invest in our emotional and spiritual wellbeing -- which is why we gather together on Shabbat. We need each other right now. We need to be together, to hold one another. We need a space into which we can bring our pain, our fear, our sadness, our anxiety. We need to consider not only how we will protect ourselves when the world outside feels vulnerable, but also, how we will uplift ourselves when the world inside feels vulnerable. As one congregant put it so eloquently this week: we may need to carefully guard the doors of the synagogue -- but the doors of the ark must continue to remain wide open, so that we can pour out our hearts. 

This Shabbat, we are invited to do exactly that. With the ark wide open behind me, and our hearts wide open as well, we kindle these lights for Shabbat…

The Woodcutter and the Carpenter

This evening, as Christians around the world are gathering to celebrate one of the most sacred days on their religious calendar, I find myself thinking about a particular historical figure. I wonder if you can guess who it is.

The person I’m thinking of was Jewish, and he lived about 2000 years ago in the land of Israel. He was a teacher, a preacher, and a sage -- a rabbi who inspired many students and raised up many disciples. He taught about the centrality of ethical behavior, and the importance of showing loving kindness to everyone you meet. He was famous for his open-mindedness, his patience, and his tolerance. And on account of all these qualities, he grew to become the most influential teacher of his generation.

If you thought that I was describing Jesus of Nazareth, whose birth Christians around the world are celebrating tonight, then you were not too far off. Indeed, this description does fit Jesus quite well. But in fact, the person I’m thinking about this Christmas Eve is not Jesus, but rather, is a different ancient teacher who also fits this description -- Jesus’s slightly older contemporary: the great Jewish sage, Rabbi Hillel. [1]

Although we might not immediately associate one with the other, there is much that Hillel and Jesus share in common. They lived in the same time and place, they practiced the same religion, and they preached a similar message.

Hillel was older than Jesus by two generations. At the time that Hillel died, Jesus would have been ten years old, and already fully initiated into the study of Torah. Hillel was the most influential rabbi of his generation, with an impressive network of disciples who all subscribed to his particular school of thought. It is hard to imagine that Jesus, as a young student of Torah, would not at the very least have heard of the revered older sage, Rabbi Hillel. It is entirely possible that Jesus might have been directly influenced by him.

Jesus, the Christian scriptures report, was a carpenter by trade. And Hillel, Jewish tradition teaches, earned his living as a woodcutter. There is something poetic about this unusual coincidence. Just as the carpenter builds upon the work of the woodcutter, so too, it seems entirely possible that Jesus may have built upon the work of his predecessor, Hillel.

And yet, despite the possible influence that Hillel may have had on Jesus, there is also a certain irony to how their story will eventually unfold. This evening, I’d like to explore that story -- the unusual tale of the woodcutter and the carpenter -- to see how they were alike, how they have been remembered so differently, and what that might mean for us.

Let us begin with what they share in common. Hillel is known for his pithy ethical maxims -- which, in substance and in style, are strikingly similar to what would become some of Jesus’s most well known teachings. Where Hillel said, “Do not judge your neighbor until you have stood in his place” (Avot 2:4), Jesus would later say, “Judge not, lest ye be judged” (Matthew 7:1). Where Hillel said “My humiliation is my exaltation” (Exodus Rabbah 45:5), Jesus would later say, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5).

There is a story in the Gospel of Mark (Mark 12:28-31) in which someone asks Jesus to give his opinion on what is the single most important commandment in the entire Torah. In classic rabbinic form, Jesus is unable to pick just one -- so he narrows it down to two: the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4), and the famous commandment from the Book of Leviticus, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18).

If you’ve studied a little Talmud, this story might sound vaguely familiar. In fact there are many [2] stories in the Talmud where different rabbis are asked to distill the essence of the Torah down to a single commandment. But Jesus’s answer is particularly reminiscent of a famous story [3] that is told about Hillel.

The story goes like this: Once, a young man who was not Jewish showed up unannounced at the house of study and demanded to speak with a rabbi. A certain rabbi came to the door. “What is it you want?” the rabbi asked. The young man replied: “Rabbi, I challenge you to a test! To prove whether you are indeed a wise and learned person, I challenge you to teach me the entirety of your Torah while I balance on one foot. And if you can accomplish such a feat, then I will convert to Judaism here on the spot.”

The rabbi immediately grew incensed at this outrageous request. How dare this young man suggest that the entirety of the Torah, the wisdom of which this rabbi had devoted countless years of his life to studying, could be summarized in mere minutes to a complete novice -- and meanwhile asking the rabbi to debase the sanctity of Torah study while the would-be convert simultaneously performed some frivolous acrobatic balancing act! And the rabbi angrily slammed the door in the young man’s face. 

Again, the young man knocked on the door -- and this time, it was Hillel who greeted him. Once again, the young man proposed his challenge: “To prove that you are learned, teach me the entirety of your Torah while I balance on one foot -- and if you can, I will convert to Judaism on the spot.”

And Hillel, with his characteristic patience and wisdom, quietly considered the young man’s challenge. After a few moments, he asked the young man to please balance himself on one foot, and then Hillel said: “That which is hateful unto you, do not do to your neighbor. The rest of the Torah is commentary. Now go and study it.”

This story bears a striking resemblance to Jesus in at least two ways. First of all, when asked to distill the entirety of the Torah down to its essence, Hillel and Jesus offer remarkably similar responses. They could have said nearly anything -- that the essence of the Torah is to observe Shabbat, or to keep kosher, or to remember that God redeemed the Israelites from Egypt. But instead, each of them offers a similar ethical teaching, that the essence of the Torah is to show concern for one’s neighbor -- with Jesus framing it in the positive, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and Hillel framing it in the negative: “That which is hateful unto you, do not do to your neighbor. The rest of the Torah is commentary. Now go and study it.”

But there is also a second way in which this story about Hillel and the convert bears a striking resemblance to Jesus. Jesus was well known for having welcomed so-called sinners into his ministry (Luke 15:2). Similarly, this story about Hillel (which, I should mention, is just one among many such stories about him in the Talmud) [4] depicts Hillel as someone who was willing to open his door wide to even the unlikeliest of students. Where the first rabbi slammed the door in the young man’s face, Hillel welcomed him in. Where the first rabbi saw only a scoundrel, Hillel recognized a seeker.

We see here a portrait of two renowned Jewish sages, Hillel and Jesus: one slightly older, the other slightly younger, both of whom were famous for their pithy ethical maxims, both of whom distilled the essence of Judaism down to concern for one’s neighbor, both of whom opened their doors wide to even the unlikeliest of students -- the woodcutter, and the carpenter.

But here is where their stories begin to diverge. Although in their lifetime, Hillel and Jesus shared much in common, after their death, history would remember them in wildly different ways.

It is important to note that Jesus never intended to establish a new religion. He lived his entire life as a fully committed Jew. The Christian scriptures report that Jesus and his closest disciples practiced every aspect of Jewish life: they kept kosher (Acts 10:14), they believed in circumcision (Acts 15:1), they regularly prayed at the Temple in Jerusalem (Acts 2:46 and 3:1). In his famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus reminds his followers about the importance of practicing Judaism. He says: “I have not come to abolish the laws [of the Torah], but rather, to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17), and goes on to say that anyone who forsakes even the smallest detail of the Jewish tradition should not be counted as among his disciples.

It was not until after Jesus’s death that his followers began to take things in a different direction. Despite the protestation of many of Jesus’s most trusted disciples (Acts 15:1), the apostle Paul overturned Jesus’s insistence on following Jewish law (Galatians 2:21). And with that, Jesus’s loosely organized band of followers ceased to be merely a group of committed Jews, all of whom happened to feel devoted to one particularly charismatic rabbi -- and were instead newly transformed into a distinct religion unto themselves. Christianity was born.

There are many possible reasons why Paul might have decreed that Christians no longer needed to practice Judaism. On a purely practical level, it made Christianity more attractive. A would-be convert could join the new religion without having to take on the extra burden of keeping kosher or circumcision. And indeed, after Paul lowered the bar to entry, the ranks of Christianity swelled.

Paul’s religious revolution had a profound impact not only on Christianity, but also on Judaism. Over the centuries, our ancestors leaned into the religious practices that distinguished us from our Christian neighbors. They built a sense of group identity around the things that made us unique, the things that Paul had abandoned: things like keeping kosher, observing Shabbat, building a sukkah, or wearing a kippah.

Even today, we can still see the effects of Paul’s religious revolution. When you hear someone say, “I’m a bad Jew” (which, by the way, is a phrase that I do not endorse), what they usually mean is: I don’t keep kosher or I don’t observe Shabbat. Similarly, when you hear someone described as “very Jewish” (another phrase that I do not endorse), it usually means that that person does keep kosher, does observe Shabbat, does build a sukkah, or does wear a kippah.

But of course, the great irony is that none of these things that we label as “very Jewish” fit with Hillel’s definition of the essence of Judaism: “That which is hateful unto you, do not do to your neighbor.” By that measure, a person should be described as “very Jewish” not based on whether they keep kosher or wear a kippah, but rather, based on how they treat others. This is the great irony in the story of the woodcutter and the carpenter: Hillel likely influenced Jesus, but Jesus’s success likely marginalized Hillel.

This Shabbat, as Christians around the world are gathering to celebrate the legacy of the carpenter, I would encourage us Jews to try and reclaim the legacy of the woodcutter. We might ask ourselves, as Hillel famously did while his student balanced on one foot: what do we believe is the essence of Judaism? Should we lean into the religious rituals that make us uniquely Jewish? Or, should we focus our attention on the ethical values that we share with all humankind?

We remember Hillel for having prioritized ethics, saying: “That which is hateful unto you, do not do to your neighbor.” But let us not forget that he also added a second part to his answer, in which he affirmed the importance of Jewish rituals. He added: “The rest of the Torah is commentary. Now go and study it.”

Perhaps this is the true legacy of Hillel: that, unlike Jesus and his followers, Hillel held on to both -- ethics and Jewish rituals. Perhaps this is the most important lesson that Hillel ever taught: while his student stood upon one foot, Hillel taught us that the most important thing in life is learning how to balance.

_____

[1] This sermon is inspired by and draws upon Rabbi Joseph Telushkin’s incredible intellectual portrait of the sage, entitled Hillel: If Not Now When?

[2] See, for example, Jerusalem Talmud, Nedarim 9:4 -- “Rabbi Akiva says: the greatest principle in the Torah is ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’ (Leviticus 19:18). Ben Azzai says: a more important principle is ‘This is the story of all humankind’ (Genesis 5:1).”

[3] Babylonian Talmud, 31a

[4] See also: the prospective Jew who challenged the validity of the Oral Torah (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a); and the prospective Jew who wanted to be High Priest (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a).

The Dark Side of the Force

“A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…” 

With these iconic words, the filmmaker George Lucas introduced the world to Star Wars, arguably the most successful science fiction or fantasy franchise of all time. 

Over the past month or so, my wife, Leah, and I have binge-watched our way through much of the Star Wars saga -- and it must admit, it has been thoroughly entertaining. I say this as an admission because, before the pandemic, we were not all that into science fiction and fantasy. But over the course of the past 20 months, we have binge watched not just Star Was, but also five other SciFi and fantasy series -- collectively, many dozens of hours of movies, all of which we have really enjoyed. 

It didn’t take us long to realize that we were hooked on the genre. And quickly, we began to wonder: what is it about science fiction and fantasy stories that is so engrossing? Consider, for a moment, the sheer volume of blockbusters and bestsellers that this genre has produced over the past few decades: Star Wars, Harry Potter, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, the Marvel Comic movies, The Hunger Games. The list goes on. What is it about science fiction and fantasy that has captured the imagination not just of me and Leah, but seemingly, of the entire world? 

I think that one part of the answer can be found in those iconic opening words at the beginning of every Star Wars movie. SciFi and fantasy allow us to be transported to an utterly different world -- to events that happened a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. That is to say: SciFi and fantasy provide us with a degree of escapism. They allow us to temporarily leave behind the real world, to forget about our own lives and problems -- and for a few hours, to inhabit a universe that is completely different from our own. Especially during the pandemic -- and in particular, during those first few months of the pandemic, when we were all stuck at home, unable to go anywhere, and our only contact with the outside world came through the bleak headlines that we read in the news -- we have all needed a strong dose of escapism. Science fiction and fantasy allow us, for the moment, to forget the problems of our world and instead be immersed in a world that is a galaxy away.

But these stories don’t merely provide a strong dose of escapism. More often than not, they also present us with a world that is neatly ordered and morally unambiguous -- where it is easy to tell the difference between good and evil, between heroes and villains. And although the heroes might sometimes experience a setback, or someone who we thought was good reveals himself to be evil, we know that in the end, before the final chapter comes to a close or before the credits roll, all will have been set right in the universe. The heroes always win; the villains are always vanquished; and the world is always restored to order.

Film critic Mallory Rubin has pointed out that Star Wars was the perfect film for its time. The original movie was released in 1977 -- as the United States was still recovering from the aftershocks of the tumultuous sixties, the Watergate Scandal, and the Vietnam War -- a period that challenged longstanding norms and traditions. And into that tumult, George Lucas introduced exactly the right balm: a fantasy world in which good could easily be distinguished from evil in clear and obvious binaries: with the Jedi Knights on one side, and Darth Vader, easily the most recognizable villain in all of film history, on the other; with the Galactic Rebellion on one side, and the evil Empire on the other; with the mystical power of the Force on one side, and the menacing Dark Side of the Force on the other.

As we descend into winter, and Chanukkah approaches, I have found myself thinking about the Dark Side of the Force. We often describe Chanukkah as our Festival of Lights -- at the coldest and darkest time of the year, our Jewish way of celebrating light. Of course it is not just the Jewish religious tradition that, come winter, goes to battle with the Dark Side of the Force. Christmas tells the story of a star that shined in Bethlehem -- a sign that God’s son had been born and brighter days were ahead. The Aztecs used to offer winter sacrifice to their Sun God -- in hopes that doing so might cause him to return soon.

But unlike these other religious customs, Chanukkah bears yet another striking resemblance to the world of Star Wars. It is not too hard to translate the Jedi into the Maccabees, Darth Vader into King Antiochus, and the Evil Empire, intent on ruling the galaxy with an authoritarian grip, to be translated into the Syrian Greeks, forcing their Hellenistic culture not only onto the Judeans, but also, onto every other unwilling kingdom in the ancient near east.

Like Star Wars, Chanukkah is the story of righteous rebellion. Like Star Wars, Chanukkah is presented as a battle between good and evil -- where there is a clear distinction between heroes and villains, where we trust that light will surely triumph over the Dark Side, and the universe will be restored to order.

But of course, we know that the world does not often work this way. Our lives are not neatly ordered and morally unambiguous. It is not always so easy to distinguish right from wrong, truth from opinion. Sometimes, the people we think of as heroes lose. More often than not, the universe isn’t restored to order. Science fiction and fantasy will always be exactly: only a fantasy -- the world as we might wish it to be, but not the world as it is.

Despite many of the movies being rated PG13, George Lucas has asserted that, in their essence, the Star Wars movies were intended for children. And indeed, the movies present a worldview that is very childlike and simplistic: where good and evil are clearly defined, and the heroes always win. Similarly, perhaps it is Chanukkah’s childlike and simplistic worldview that accounts, at least in part, for the holiday’s blockbuster popularity -- especially among children.

Science fiction and fantasy might allow us to escape to a galaxy far, far away -- but equally so, we need other powerful stories that enable us to grapple with the real world in all of its complexity. We need stories that help us to live with ambiguity and endure disappointment. And this week’s Torah portion provides us with exactly one such story.

It is one of the most famous stories in the entire Torah. We often refer to it as Jacob wrestling with the angel. But if we examine it more carefully, we will find that Jacob’s wrestling partner is anything but an angel. Recall that their wrestling match takes place in the middle of the night -- and that Jacob’s wrestling partner insists that he must leave before the sun rises. It seems that he is some sort of night creature, who gets his power from the dark. Recall also that, when he sees he is outmatched, Jacob’s wrestling partner resorts to fighting dirty -- and, according to one particularly evocative translation, punches Jacob in the groin. And yet, this dirty-fighting night creature, whom we might expect to be the very embodiment of the Dark Side, turns out not to be a villain, not a manifestation of evil, but instead, when their wrestling match has concluded, he offers Jacob a blessing.

Unlike the world of science fiction and fantasy, this is a story that is rich with complexity -- where even the Dark Side has a blessing to offer. Unlike George Lucas’s galaxy far, far away, Jacob’s wrestling match might remind us of our own world, which is neither neat nor orderly: where good things sometimes emerge in the dark, where people who we thought were our enemies sometimes turn out to have something to teach us, where the disappointments and anxieties that keep us up all night wrestling in the dark might sometimes lead to a blessing.

This year, as our Chanukkah candles burn down, perhaps we might permit ourselves to linger by the menorah for a few moments longer than usual -- in order to behold not just the beauty of the light, but also, to wait and see if there might be a blessing that is waiting for us in the quiet stillness of the dark. The candles will burn out -- but in their place, the musky scent of the smoke will arise: a sweet aroma that we otherwise might have missed, a gift to us from the Dark Side.

Something's Coming

Leonard Bernstein once wrote that of all the art forms, musical theatre, in his opinion, is the most powerful medium for storytelling. Musical theatre combines all the best elements of other art forms -- the score is one part symphony, the dialogue is one part play, the songs are one part opera, the dance is one part ballet, the costumes, sets, and lighting are one part visual arts -- all combined together into a unified artistic work to form something that none of those creative disciplines can achieve on their own. When it comes to storytelling, Bernstein argued, musical theatre is art at its best. 

In many successful musicals, there’s a particular storytelling device that is often key component. It is called the “I want” song. It’s that song, usually sung relatively early on in the musical, where the protagonist articulates the thing that they deeply want. It is a moment of self-revelation, where the audience comes to understand something important about the protagonist -- the deepest yearning of their heart, the dream that they have for themself, the world that the protagonist would like to inhabit. And typically, after the “I want” song, the rest of the musical unfolds around that character’s quest to achieve the thing that they want. 

 A classic example comes from a musical composed by none other than Leonard Bernstein himself -- the masterpiece West Side Story. After the overture has concluded, after we are introduced to the rival gangs of the Jets and the Sharks, the second song in the musical is an “I want” song. Tony, one of our protagonists, sings the song “Something’s Coming” -- revealing to the audience his feeling that life has more in store for him than his daily humdrum routine. Here are a few of the lyrics: “There's something due any day. I will know right away, soon as it shows. … It's only just out of reach -- down the block, on a beach, under a tree. … Something's coming. I don't know what it is -- but it is gonna be great.” Now that we’ve seen the deepest desire of Tony’s heart, the rest of the story can unfold in all its tragic beauty. 

This moment -- the “I want” song, in musical theatre -- can also be traced onto other powerful forms of storytelling. The famous scholar of mythology, Joseph Campbell, described the literary pattern known as “the hero’s journey.” One element of the hero’s journey is “the call to adventure” -- that moment in the story when the protagonist realizes that the world they have always known is somehow too small, and begins to feel the pull towards something different, something new, something unknown. It might be Tony in West Side Story singing “Something’s Coming,” or Ishmael in Moby Dick, feeling “the damp November in [his] soul” and feeling it high time that he set off to sea, or Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, grown tired of sepia-toned Kansas, where “all the world is a hopeless jumble,” imagining a life that is “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” These are people dreaming of a life that is as yet unknown, an existence that is just beyond the horizon. “It’s only just out of reach -- down the block, on a beach. … Something’s coming.” 

In this week’s Torah portion, we meet a character who also feels that something’s coming -- who also dreams of a world that is beyond everything that she has ever known: our matriarch, Rebecca. In the Torah narrative (Genesis 24), Rebecca’s story is told from the perspective of her soon-to-be father-in-law, Abraham. It goes something like this: Abraham, we might recall, is ready to find someone for his son Isaac to marry. And so Abraham sends the chief servant of his household back to the old country, back to Mesopotamia, where Abraham had grown up, to try and find a suitable mate for Isaac. Upon his arrival in the old country, the servant happens upon Rebekah drawing water from the town well. When he asks her for a sip, she not only draws water for him, but also for all of the camels in his caravan. From this gesture, the servant sees that Rebekah is someone who is generous and giving -- and feels that she is the kind of person Abraham had sent him to find: a perfect match for Isaac. 

When Rebecca’s story is told from this perspective, the primary character traits that come across are her generosity, her caring, and her kindness. And indeed, these are praiseworthy qualities. 

But when we tell the story from Rebecca’s point of view, a very different picture of her emerges. Let us imagine it now: Rebecca has lived her whole life as part of a small and tight-knit family in Mesopotamia. One day, a stranger arrives from far away Canaan. While the other villagers see him as a dirty, foreign beggar, Rebecca sees in him an interesting outsider to whom she is naturally drawn. His caravan of camels is laden not just with goods and provisions, but also with stories of far away places. He comes on a mission, on a quest. And when this voyager eventually proposes that Rebecca leave behind her family to accompany him on a long journey to an unknown place, where she will marry a man she’s never met before, who worships an invisible God -- Rebecca immediately accepts. Eileich, she says in Hebrew. “I’ll go.” 

Told from her perspective, Rebecca’s story is not only about generosity and kindness, but also, is about bravery, the call to adventure, the search for something more than the daily humdrum life that she has always known. We might imagine Rebecca, moments before she meets this voyager, quietly humming to herself the words that Tony sings in West Side Story: “Something’s coming. … I don’t know what it is -- but it is gonna be great.” 

Our sages have long noted that, in many ways, it is not Abraham and Sarah’s son, Isaac, who serves as the next link in the chain of tradition, but rather, it is their daughter-in-law, Rebecca, who inherits their spiritual legacy. Abraham and Sarah established this religion by famously heeding the call to adventure, when God said to them Lech lecha -- go forth from the place of your birth to a land that I will show you. Rebecca, one generation later, does the very same thing -- saying eilech, “I’ll go,” leaving behind her family and the home she has always known, her eyes gazing towards the horizon. Also in the next generation, Jacob, Rachel, and Leah will go forth on a journey. Of all our founding fathers and mothers, it is only Isaac who never once leaves the place of his birth. He is born in Canaan, he will spend his whole life in Canaan -- and there, he will die and will be buried. 

We note this, not to speak ill of Isaac; there are plenty of good reasons why he never left the place of his birth. Rather, the point is that a central element that links all three founding generations is an eye that gazes towards the horizon, a feeling of spiritual restlessness, the willingness to leave behind the familiar. This, it seems, is a core insight of the Jewish spiritual tradition: the feeling that there is something more out there, something beyond the humdrum existence of our everyday lives, the feeling that “Something’s coming.” 

This is what the act of prayer is all about -- to help attune us to the wisdom of our tradition, a wisdom put forth by Abraham and Sarah and carried on by Rebecca: the wisdom that our life and our world can be so much more than meets the eye. Prayer is not the act of reciting ancient words, in a foreign language, in hopes that they might somehow please an invisible God. Rather, prayer is the act of getting in touch with the yearnings of our heart, of keeping our gaze towards the horizon, of dreaming of a world that is as yet unknown. If we listen carefully, we just might hear the song that is embedded deep within the human soul, telling us that there is something “only just out of reach -- down the block, on a beach, under a tree. … I don't know what it is -- but it is gonna be great.”

Yizkor: A True Kindness

My first encounter with death was as a young child, in early elementary school. A close family friend of ours, at whose house we used to gather every year to break the fast at the end of Yom Kippur, died of AIDS. I didn’t even know he was sick. I vividly remember parking our car outside the hospital, and my parents telling me and my siblings that they were going in to visit him, and that we were to wait in the car -- but I had no idea the nature of the visit. Even a few days later, when they told me he had died, I didn’t fully comprehend. I must have been seven or eight years old. Even after all the eulogies in the sanctuary, even after seeing his bereaved husband weeping over the casket, even after seeing the casket lowered into the grave -- I could tell that something very sad was happening, but I couldn’t quite understand it. 

It was not until I found myself standing in a line at the cemetery that slowly wound its way up towards the grave, and I reached the front of the line, and my parents pointed to a shovel that was firmly stuck in a mound of earth, and gestured that I should take it and offer a shovelful of earth into the grave, and I did so -- only then, as I watched the clods of earth break apart as they fell from the shovel, separate in the air as they seemingly endlessly tumbled into the grave, landed with a loud thud on the lid of casket, and broke apart into pieces -- only then, did it hit me. He was gone, and he wasn’t coming back. 

Is there any ritual more vivid than this one? It has often been said that different religions have their different strengths -- and that Judaism is particularly strong when it comes to our rituals around death and mourning. In the immediate aftermath of bereavement, when it is hard to know exactly what one ought to say or to do, our tradition provides a detailed script: we gather with friends, they bring us food, we sit on low chairs, we cover our mirrors, we do not shave, we light a candle that burns for seven days, we speak the words of the mourner’s kaddish. But among all these rituals of grief, perhaps none is more stirring or striking than the ritual of literally helping to bury the dead, by offering a shovelful of earth into the grave. 

Rituals are powerful experiences. There’s a whole academic field known as ritual studies. It is a multidisciplinary field, combining elements of religious studies, anthropology, philosophy, and aesthetics. The field of ritual studies seeks to explain what exactly constitutes a ritual, compared to, say, a routine -- and more importantly, seeks to explain why and how rituals achieve their effects. It is a complex field of study, which is beyond our purposes this morning -- but suffice it to say that a ritual is a physical expression of an idea. Experiencing a powerful ritual gives us access to our truths that are usually just beyond the horizon of our consciousness. A powerful ritual serves as a bridge or a gateway, allowing us to gain access to thoughts and feelings that we do not usually have at front of mind in our day-to-day existence. 

For me as a child, at my first ever funeral, as I offered a shovelful of earth into the grave, the thud of the earth as it landed on the casket activated something deep inside of me -- told my heart and my brain that death is final. It spoke to me in a language that was deeper than visiting the hospital, deeper than hearing the eulogies, deeper than seeing our friend’s bereaved husband weeping over the casket. It was, by all measures, a powerful ritual. 

A few years ago, standing with a WRT funeral at the graveside of their loved one, the power of that ritual only grew deeper for me. The sons of the deceased, one of whom is our congregant, both delivered stirring eulogies, about how much their father had done for them in their life: from the time they were children, and their father worked two jobs in order to feed and clothe them, through their young adult years, when their father helped to pay for college and get them each started in business, and even into his final decade, helping them to navigate the complexities of marriage and raising children. 

We had already recited the words of 23rd Psalm, “The Eternal One is my Shepherd,” had already sung the Memorial Prayer El Malei Rachamim, had already spoken the words of the Mourner’s Kaddish. The graveside ceremony was drawing to a close, and we had but one ritual left to perform -- to help to bury the dead. 

In rabbinical school, they teach us what each ritual means -- where it comes from, why we do it. And if you’re lucky, you have good mentors who can help you find a meaningful way to explain a ritual before it is undertaken. And so, at this point in the ceremony, I relied on what I learned from my teachers and my mentors and said something like what I usually say during that part of the service. I will often say something like: Our tradition calls this act of helping to bury the dead a chesed shel emet -- which means a “true kindness.” We call it a “true kindness” because we know that the person we are doing this for will never be able to repay the kindness and do it for us. 

Then, one by one, the mourners lined up, and each offered a few shovelsful of earth into the grave. It was a particularly hot afternoon, and we had been baking in the hot sun for more than 45-minutes -- so as the final mourners took part in the ritual, and the crowd’s focus began to turn towards greeting the family, I expected that we would soon grab an icy bottle of water from the cooler that the family had brought, and make our way back to our air conditioned cars. 

But then, as the crowd was dissipating, our congregant, the son of the deceased, took the shovel in his hand again, and continued shoveling. Although I knew that it was customary in some Jewish circles for the mourners themselves to fill the grave to the top, this was the first time I had actually seen someone choose to do so. He took off his suit jacket, and sweating through his white dress shirt, and dirtying his black dress shoes, he began to vigorously fill the grave. His brother came over and joined him, and together, they worked at completing the task -- stopping at several points to catch their breath, wiping the perspiration from their brows, saying nothing to each other, as their spouses, children, and friends, watched in profound silence, until the earth that covered the casket was level with the grass, and their knuckles were white from exertion, and they wiped their sweaty palms on the legs of the pants and rubbed their calloused fingers.

There is no class in rabbinical school, no book explaining the meaning of Jewish mourning rituals, that could ever give that be so profound a teacher. Here were these two sons who, only moments ago, had spoken about how much their father had done to help them -- and now it was they who were helping him. Just as they could not feed and clothe themselves as babies, so too, now their deceased father could not lay himself to rest, could not fill his own grave with earth. And so these children demonstrated at a very deep level the meaning of the phrase chesed shel emet -- that to help to bury the dead is a true kindness, one that we do knowing full well that the person we are doing it for will not be able to return the favor. But on this particular day, it was not a favor that needed returning. Their father had already paid them so many kindnesses, with his own sweat and calloused hands. And now, it was they who repaid the kindness unto him. 

Of course, not all bereavements are alike -- and not all people will experience the ritual of burying the dead in the same way. But it is my hope for all of us who are gathered in this moment of Yizkor, this moment of remembrance, that we might each, in our way, whatever the shape of our sorrow, that we might experience a ritual that touches our soul and helps us to live with our grief. 

Even though we may fill the grave with earth -- in our hearts, we never completely bury our dead. They are with us always in our lives, even if just beyond the realm of our day-to-day consciousness. 

Rituals are powerful experiences. They give us access to truths that are usually just beyond the realm of our consciousness: to me as a young boy, the finality of death; to these two bereaved sons, the many kindnesses their father had paid them. May this moment of remembrance help us reach beyond our day-to-day existence -- and in turn, be reached by those whom we have loved and lost. 

Amen.