You Shall Love Your Neighbor...

The following d'var torah was delivered on Yom Kippur afternoon at Temple Shaaray Tefila in Manhattan.

In a few moments, we’re going to read what is sometimes referred to as the ethical core of the Torah. In one climatic chapter, God lays out God’s expectations for ethical living, including such maxims as “leave the corners of your field for the poor,” “do not place a stumbling block before the blind,” and famously, The Golden Rule: “V’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha—You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

In the days leading up the High Holidays, I found myself wondering: What is it that gets in the way of achieving the Torah’s ethical standards? A person asks for money on the train, and we avert our eyes. A person sleeps under the awning by our corner store, and we walk past him every morning as if he wasn’t there. We hold grudges. We lie. What is it that keeps us from loving our neighbors as ourselves?

One answer—and I think a sound, but ultimately unsatisfying answer—comes from our ancient sage Rabbi Hillel. The Talmud records that once a non-Jew approached Rabbi Hillel and asked to be converted to Judaism, so long as Hillel could explain the entire Torah while standing on one foot. Rabbi Hillel accepted the challenge, balanced himself on one leg and said, “Do not do unto others that which is hurtful to you. The rest is commentary. Now go and study.”

Rabbi Hillel takes The Golden Rule and frames it in the negative: “Do not do unto others that which is hurtful to you.” And yes, this alleviates us of unrealistic responsibilities to perfect strangers. Would loving your neighbor as yourself mean that you have to love your neighbor’s children as much as your own children? This kind of expectation is unrealistic, and Rabbi Hillel provides a more nuanced framework in which to understand our ethical responsibilities. “Do not do unto others that which is hurtful to you.”

But Rabbi Hillel’s formulation can’t possibly relieve us of our responsibilities towards that person who sleeps under the awning at the corner store. Maybe something that isn’t hurtful to me will, unwittingly, be hurtful to someone else in ways I couldn’t even imagine. It doesn’t hurt me to stand under the shower for 30 minutes every morning, but it likely does hurt someone who doesn’t have access to clean water at all. It doesn’t hurt me to spend all my money exactly as I’d like, but it does contradict the command to “leave the corners of your field for the poor.” So while Rabbi Hillel’s maxim does help explain why it’s sometimes hard to live up to the Torah’s ethical standard, it does so only to a partially. And nevertheless, the Torah still says, “V’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha—Love your neighbor as yourself.” And I find, time and again, that that’s really hard to do.

The 18^th century German-Jewish philosopher Rabbi Naftali Herz Weisel offers the following solution. Rabbi Weisel examines a grammatical peculiarity in the phrasing of “v’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha.” Perhaps you’ve heard that last word before, kamocha. It’s in one of our prayers—“Mi chamocha ba-eilim Adonai—Who, o God, is like you?” Who is “kamocha?” Who is “like you?” Using this insight, Rabbi Weisel retranslates “v’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha”—not “Love your neighbor as yourself,” but rather, “Love your neighbor, kamocha.” “Love your neighbor, like you.” “Love your neighbor, he is like you.” “Love your neighbor, because, like you, he is also a human being.”

The word kamocha, the word “like you,” doesn’t refer to how much we’re supposed to love our neighbor, but rather to the reason that we’re supposed to love our neighbor. “You should love your neighbor, because your neighbor is like you.” Because that person who asks for money on the subway is like you. Because that person who sleeps beneath the awning at the corner store is like you. You should let go of your grudges, because that person against whom you hold a grudge is like you. All 7 billion of us are just like you. That is to say, all 7 billion of us are human, like you. All 7 billion of us were created in the image of God, like you. All 7 billion of us have a spark of divinity inside of us, a light in our eyes, breath in our lungs, a mother, a father, a story of where we come from and a hope for where we going—just like you.

So I think I found an answer to my question. I think I know at least one thing that gets in the way of living up to the Torah’s ethical standards, and more importantly, of living up to my own. And it’s not what might you think. It’s not that I forgot that each one of us has a divine spark inside. It’s that I sometimes forget that I do.

My wish for all of us this Yom Kippur is that 5774 will be a year in which we keep our eye on the divine spark inside of us. Because if you can remember that you’re divine, that’s the first step in remembering that we’re all divine. That varied though we may be, each one of us is like you.

"This Thing Is Not in Heaven"

The following d'var torah was delivered on Yom Kippur morning at Temple Shaaray Tefila in Manhattan.

We often translate Yom Kippur as the Day of Atonement. When I was a kid, I didn’t know what the word “atonement” meant, and I was taught that it means “making up for your mistakes.” And so from an early age, I learned that Yom Kippur is a day about our mistakes, our shortcomings, our sins. Look at our High Holiday prayer book: We pound on our chests during the Ashamnu prayer, as we quite literally beat ourselves up over all that we’ve done wrong this year. We come to synagogue and we find ourselves neck-deep a litany of our own guilt—pages upon pages of “The sin we have committed against you,” and “Our alphabet of woes.” “Dear God,” we exclaim, “forgive us, for we stand guilty before you.”

I’d like to suggest that, despite all the evidence to the contrary, the true message of Yom Kippur is not one of guilt, but rather one of hope. On Yom Kippur morning, we open the Torah and read what is for me the message of the High Holiday season: “Lo vashamayim hi—this thing is not in heaven.” This thing—this hard work of self-examination, this striving to be our best selves, this beautiful, challenging, ambiguous work of transforming ourselves and transforming our broken world—this thing is not in heaven. Lo vashamayim hi is the Torah’s way of saying “Yes we can.” “Yes, life is a challenge, and yes, we choose to accept it, and yes, it is going to be hard, and yes, we can do it.”

While the ancient Egyptians had their priests and the ancient Greeks had their oracles to communicate between the people and the gods, the ancient Israelites declared Lo vashamayim hi—this thing is not in heaven. When the age old feelings of doubt and guilt creep up and cloud our vision, when we feel immobilized by old habits and stuck in our ways, the words of our tradition burst forth and remind us Lo vashamayim hi—this thing is not in heaven. Your relationship with whatever you believe God to be, your sense of self-worth, your ability to be the best You that you can be—these things are not in heaven. “No,” the Torah declares, “they are right here—in your mouth and in your heart, and you can do them.”

Don’t get me wrong: saying "lo vashamayim hi," declaring that “this thing is not in heaven” does not imply that life is going to be easy. As I’m sure almost all of us have experienced, it’s a lot easier to promise that this year I’m going to be more patient or more attentive than it is to actually do so. We leave the walls of the synagogue on Yom Kippur afternoon and fall back into our old habits. Lo vashamayim hi asserts that we can face life’s challenges not by setting unrealistic, sky-high goals, but rather by taking everyday, concrete steps. In her book The Creative Habit, dancer and choreographer Twyla Tharp gives the following example. Tharp writes:

“I begin each day of my life with a ritual. I wake up at 5:30 am, put on my workout clothes, walk outside my Manhattan home, hail a taxi, and tell the driver to take me to the Pumping Iron gym, where I work out for two hours.

“The ritual is not the stretching and the weight training each morning at the gym; the ritual is the cab. The moment I tell the driver where to go, I have completed the ritual.”

Tharp’s example shows that it’s not the workout that’s the hard part—it’s the getting out of bed. For most of us, myself included, working out two-hours-a-day is a goal that is way up in heaven. Similarly, to always be humble, or to never be angry—these goals are way up in heaven, unreachable even for the most emotionally aware people among us. We shouldn’t strive to never be angry. Rather, we should work, day by day, to cultivate the ability to recognize when our anger is arising in us, where it’s coming from, and to decide, moment by moment, if anger is the feeling we want to express right now. This kind of goal is not way up in heaven—lo vashamayim hi. “No, it is are right here, in your mouth and in your heart, and you can do them.”

Here’s what no one ever taught me as a child. The word “Kippur” doesn’t just mean “atonement.” It also means “forgiveness.” Yom Kippur—the Day of Forgiveness. Yom Kippur—not the day upon which we set unrealistic goals and then beat ourselves up when we don’t meet them, but rather the day upon which we forgive ourselves for being human. My hope for all of us, as we begin this new year of 5774, is that before the sun goes down tonight, as you’re asking others for forgiveness, that you’ll also make the space to forgive yourself. Because this thing—this beautiful, challenging, transformative work of forgiveness—this thing is not in heaven.

Carrying the World. Alone.

The following d'var torah was delivered on Rosh Hashanah morning at Temple Shaaray Tefila in Manhattan.

Have you ever had one of those moments where you see a friend and you can just tell that something is not right? She looks worried or tired, as if she’s just been crying or she’s mad about something. So you walk up to your friend, and in as supportive a way as you know how, you say to her, “How you doing?” And then, shrinking inside of herself as if she’s been found out, your friend puts on the least convincing calm-face you’ve ever seen, looks you in the eye and says, “I’m OK.”

If you’re like me—and I would guess, if you’re like most people—you’ve been on both ends of that situation. All of us have an inclination to sometimes conceal the truth, in order—we imagine—to protect ourselves and those we love. It’s hard to admit it when we’re hurt. It’s hard to be so vulnerable. A coworker gets a promotion instead of us, and rather than acknowledge that we’re disappointed, we say, “It’s probably for the best.” A friend can’t make it to an important life event, and we wave it off as if it’s no big deal. We keep our disappointments inside. We put on a happy face. And while we quietly carry our bundle of worries, we imagine that we’ve got everybody fooled, most of all, ourselves.

On Rosh Hashanah morning, we read about a character who thought he had everyone fooled. For whatever troubled reason, our forefather Abraham heeds God’s call to sacrifice his son Isaac. He doesn’t tell Sarah where he’s going or even that he’s going. He, Isaac, and his servants set out early one morning, walking in uncomfortable silence for three days, the dread of the thing hanging over him. “The boy and I will go worship and we will come back,” Abraham says to his servants. He knows that if he tells the truth, his servants might try to stop him, or Isaac might run away. Or perhaps he imagines that so long as he doesn’t say it out loud, he doesn’t have to face the horrible truth of the deed. “It’s not real, as long as you don’t admit it.”

But then comes Isaac. He knows his father too well. Isaac senses that something is wrong. His dad is not usually this quiet. He doesn’t usually look so sad, so conflicted, so deeply torn. And then Isaac, who’s known in our tradition as a shy man of few words, utters perhaps the bravest words in the entire Torah—brave, not because he willingly goes along with his father’s plan like some sort of martyr, but brave because he risks breaking the silence in order to name what everybody else seems too scared to ask: “Dad, is everything OK? Ayeh haseh l’olah? Where is the sheep for the sacrifice?” But again, Abraham conceals the truth. “Everything’s OK, my son. Don’t worry about the sheep.”

Elie Wiesel, in his book Messengers of God, notes that although Abraham—as the first monotheist—is a visionary, he is also a complete loner, unable to form lasting relationships with anyone. “Abraham,” Wiesel writes, “the first angry young man. Abraham, the first to rebel against the establishment, a minority of one, alone against the world” (70-71).

Our trials may not be as severe or as obvious as Abraham’s, but like our forefather, we all too often act as if we too are alone against the world. We don’t want to burden others with our “stuff,” and so our burden grows. But we’re not Atlas; try as we might, we can’t carry the whole world on our shoulders.

Abraham is ultimately prevented from carrying out his horrific deed. Instead of his son Isaac, he sacrifices a ram that happens to be caught in a nearby thicket. Jewish tradition teaches that this ram was created at the end of the sixth day of Creation and lay in wait through the generations of Adam and Noah to be found at this exact moment—a safety net that God created from the beginning, in case Abraham should choose to actually go through with the sacrifice.

Abraham was lucky. God had pre-ordered a ram. But the rest of us can’t afford to silently carry our burden and hope for a divine intervention.

Rather than wait for some miraculous ram, on Rosh Hashanah we blow a ram’s horn and read the story of the binding of Isaac. My hope is that the story will remind us that we can’t carry our burdens alone. And the ram’s horn—the shofar—my hope is that the sound of the shofar this Rosh Hashanah will wake us up, jolt us into awareness, open our ears to the chorus of Isaacs all around us—who, even when we remain silent, are perceptive enough, and more importantly, caring enough, to ask if everything is OK. 

Isaac Transcends Himself

This morning, and also on Yom Kippur, we read the words “Lo vashamayim hi. This thing is not in heaven.”

This thing that God commands us to do—

this thing,

this high-holy responsibility to be God’s partners in creation,

this beautiful, challenging, ambiguous work of transforming ourselves and transforming our broken world—

this thing is not in heaven.

Lo vashamayim hi is the message of the High Holidays.

It’s the Torah’s way of saying “Yes we can.”

Yes, life is a challenge, and yes, we choose to accept it, and yes, it is going to be hard, and yes, we can do it.

[…]

For one moment in his long, painful life, our forefather Isaac embodies the spirit of lo vashamayim hi.

Isaac, the quiet one.

Isaac, the troubled one.

Isaac, lost in his thoughts, disconnected from the world around him.

But one day: “vayeitzei Yitzhak lasuach basadeh / Isaac went out into the field.”

Out there in nature, the Rabbis say, Isaac established the tradition of davvening Minhah.

And while he’s out there in the nature, something blossoms in Isaac.

He opens his eyes—seeing the world, as if for the first time, in all its unfolding glory.

He talks, for the first time, to God.

He falls, for the first time, in love.

He finds, for the first time, a bit of comfort from his otherwise traumatic, overwhelming biography.

For one moment in out in nature, eyes wide open, Isaac’s experience of the world is transformed from one of loneliness and doubt to one of companionship and hope.

Out there in nature, Isaac opens up his heart and says, “Yes, my life has been a challenge, and yes, I choose to accept it, and yes, it’s going to be hard, and yes — I — can — do it!”

Lo vashamayim hi! This thing is not in heaven!

Life — is a challenge.

And our ability to meet that challenge — is not in heaven.

It’s with Isaac.

It’s in nature.

It’s in our nature.

It’s outside in the field.

Theology of Pastoral Care

The following reflection was presented at the end of a unit of CPE, as a chaplain intern at NYU Langone Medical Center. It reflects my personal theology as it relates to pastoral caregiving.

Clinical pastoral education has greatly deepened my theology. Ultimately, my pastoral theology is an assertion that redemption comes from within. I will explore and develop this assertion in the following pages.

Like many of the other listening professions, chaplaincy is predicated on the assumption that talking helps. Anger, sadness, fear, guilt, hopelessness, loneliness, and a whole host of other difficult emotions can be alleviated by talking through them. Speech, therefore, holds a certain transformative power.

Judaism, too, affirms the power of speech. Looking at Genesis 1, the Tannaim (1^st and 2^nd centuries, Palestine) declare: “Ba-‘asarah ma-amarot nivra ha-olam / By ten acts of speech was the world made” (Pirkei Avot 5:1). Jewish liturgy praises the One “she-amar v’hayah ha-olam … omeir v’oseh … gozeir u’mkayeim / [the One] Who spoke and the world came into being … Who speaks and acts … Who decrees and fulfills” (P’sukei D’zimra). Since human beings were created “betzelem elohim / in the image of God” (Gen. 1:27), we too can create with our speech. The late-medieval Jewish philosopher Joseph Albo (15^th century, Spain) in his work Sefer Ha-Ikkarim argues that it is the power of speech that separates human life (which he terms “m’dabeir / speaking”) from animal and plant life (“chai / living” and “sameach / happy,” respectively). Indeed, it is through the human being that God “hitkin … binyan adei ad / eternally perpetuates the world” (Sheva Brachot, blessing #4). Talking—and for the chaplain, listening—perpetuates the work of creation by allowing experiences and emotions to be processed and transformed.

Judaism insists that processing one’s experiences and emotions is critical for finding comfort. The holiday of Tisha B’Av is an exemplar of this principle. Tisha B’Av is a day of remembering our national and personal tragedies. We lament. We fast. And yet despite our sadness (or perhaps because of it), Midrash Eichah Rabbah declares (1:51) that the Messiah will be born on Tisha B’Av. Redemption, it seems, can only come by acknowledging our losses. Similarly, Moses’s timely retelling (Deut. 1:22 ff.) of the story of the scouts (Num. 13) seems to suggest that the Israelites can only enter the Promised Land if they first remember their past failures. Another illustration of this point: On the restless night before Jacob is to be reunited with Esau, Jacob wrestles with a man/God. After the man/God sees that he/it cannot beat Jacob, Jacob says “lo ashaleikhacha ki im beirachtani / I will not let you go until you bless me” (Gen. 32:27). Like Jacob, our lives are full of struggles. And the only way to find the blessing in the struggle is to wrestle with it and not to let it go until it blesses us.

Unlike Jacob, Moses leaves his grief over Miriam unattended to, a negligence that may have contributed to his banishment from the Promised Land. The Torah makes no mention of anyone mourning for Miriam after her death. It simply reports that the Israelites were without water. Indeed, Miriam is a symbol for water. Her name contains the word yam / sea, and contains the letters of the word mayim / water. Additionally, it is Miriam who placed Moses in the waters of the Nile and danced by the waters of Red Sea. As such, before Moses strikes the rock to bring forth water, he calls the Israelites “morim / rebels” (Num. 20:10). The word morim is spelled exactly the same as the name Miryam, only with different vocalization. Moses was silently grieving for Miriam, and his striking of the rock represents his displaced grief. Moses’s unprocessed baggage ultimately prevents him from entering the Promised Land.

If emotional processing is the gateway to alleviating suffering, Judaism further seeks to understand the source of suffering. The Book of Job suggests that suffering is not a result of divine reward and punishment—as other parts of Tanakh might suggest (see, for example, the second paragraph of the Shema [Deut. 11:13-21])—but rather that the origin of suffering is beyond human comprehension. “Eifo hayta b’yasdi aretz / Where were you when I founded the earth?” (Job 38:4) God asks Job. (It is worth noting that Job’s so-called friends unsuccessfully try to comfort him with an explanatory, problem-solving approach, rather than with an empathetic, experience-affirming approach.) Job’s comfort (and the end of his suffering) comes only after he understands that suffering cannot be explained using human logic.

The first chapter of Genesis depicts a God whose creation is wholly good. Deutero-Isaiah, on the other hand, describes a God who creates both good and evil. The prophet—writing in the context of exile and against the influence of Persian Zoroastrianism (that is, dualism)—declares “yotzeir or uvorei choshech, oseh shalom uvorei ra’ / [God] creates light and creates darkness, makes peace and creates evil” (Is. 45:7). God creates the entire world—both what we perceive to be good and what we perceive to be evil. I would characterize this aspect of God as “Source and Substance of all Creation.”

Perhaps one of the most eloquent expressions of good and evil comes from the piyyut (liturgical poem) Unetaneh Tokef, a centerpiece of the High Holiday liturgy. The piyyut declares that on Rosh Hoshanah, God decides “mi yichyeh u-mi yamut / who shall live and who shall die.” This statement reflects a theme from the Book of Job—that no matter how much we try to control our fate, many things are beyond our control and our understanding. It is a very sobering realization (like the one I’ve had in the hospital) about the fragility of life.

The piyyut goes on to say “u-t’shuvah u-t’filah u-tz’dakah ma’avirin et ra’ ha-g’zarah / repentance, prayer, and righteousness can transform the severity of the decree.” Herein lies both the challenge and the wisdom of the piyyut. A careless reading of this last line would suggest that righteousness will be rewarded with prolonged life. This is counter to human experience. However, a more careful reading of the piyyut yields a different conclusion. This last line of the piyyut is an adaptation of language that appears in Midrash Genesis Rabbah: “Sh’loshah d’varim m’vatlim g’zeirot ra’ot: t’filah, u-tz’dakah, u-t’shuvah / three things annul a bad decree: prayer, and righteousness, and repentance” (44:12). Where Genesis Rabbah says “m’vateil / annul,” Unetaneh Tokef says “maavir / transform.” The difference is subtle, but important. Genesis Rabbah suggests that righteousness and reflection will be rewarded; Unetaneh Tokef suggests that righteousness and reflection will provide comfort. Righteousness will not cause suffering to be annulled, but rather will cause our experience of suffering to be transformed.

A central tenet of Judaism is of God as redeemer. Rashi (11^th century, France) notes that at the moment of Revelation, God introduces God’s self not as Creator, but as Redeemer: “I am the Eternal, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt” (Ex. 20:2). The exodus from Egypt is the paramount expression that God is with us in our times of trouble. However, redemption should be understood not as the termination of suffering, but rather as a comfort through suffering. Even after their redemption, the Israelites suffered in the desert, and also in the Promised Land. Nevertheless, God’s comfort was with them in the desert (eg. the pillar of cloud, the well of water, and the manna [Ex. 13:21, 17:6, 16:4]). The prophet Hosea declares that God loves and comforts the people Israel not only in their suffering, but even in their transgression. Even when God seems to cast us out, “v’eirastich li l’olam / I [God] betroth you unto Me forever” (Hosea 2:19). Heschel (20^th century, Polish-born American) calls this prophetic trope “divine pathos.” I would characterize this aspect of God as “consciousness,” or “the God within.”

The chaplain’s job is to help create a space in which a person can access his or her own God within, his or her own redeemer, his or her own comfort. The chaplain creates this space by acting as a wounded healer. The wounded healer is a living expression of the phrase “chazak, chazak, v’nitchazeik / be strong, be strong, and we will all strengthen one another,” which Jews recite upon completing a book of Torah. The wounded healer’s purpose, however, is expressed in the converse: “I am wounded, and I see that you are wounded; so together, we can acknowledge that to be wounded is to be human, which ultimately, is life-affirming.” As Naftali Herz Weisel (18^th century, Germany) reflects, you are to love your neighbor kamocha—not “as you love yourself,” but rather because your neighbor “is like yourself,” which is to say, he or she is also human. He or she also contains God within.

The following, therefore, is my theology of pastoral care: by creating a space in which patients can engage in the divine work of talking, the chaplain enables his patients to wrestle with their suffering; suffering exists alongside good, in the universe that was created by the Source and Substance of all Creation, for reasons beyond human control or understanding; and when patients wrestle with their suffering, they may discover that to suffer is to be human, to be human is to contain God within, and to contain God within is to have the capacity for comfort and redemption.

The Sheva Brachot Project

Leah and I created the Sheva Brachot project as part of our wedding weekend. We later submitted it to Ritual Well. It was eventually featured in an article by journalist Rahel Musleah.


Background for the Sheva Brachot Project 
The Sheva Brachot Project is a ritual that we created to honor our greatest role models during our wedding weekend. Together, we identified seven inspirational people in our lives (individuals, couples, and even one group of friends) and asked them to offer us a blessing.

We asked that their blessing be in two parts: a written piece (a poem, a letter, a quote, an article, song lyrics, a Jewish teaching, or any other text) and an artifact (a photo, a peice of art, memorabilia, a book, or any other meaningful object).

We gathered with our seven role models 45 minutes before our rehearsal dinner and asked them to offer their blessing. It was one of the most special moments of our wedding weekend. We then displayed the seven blessings (written pieces and artifacts) on a table at the rehearsal dinner. At either end of the table, we placed a written description of the project; next to each person/group's blessing, we placed a written paragraph about the influence they've had on our lives.

Below is some of the language we used in creating this project. Feel free to borrow, use, adapt, change, or add. Also, we'd love to hear how other people use this ritual! Feel free to contact us at danielhreiser [at] gmail [dot] com with your own ideas, successes, adaptations, or questions!


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Sample of The Sheva Brachot Project 

We’ve Been Blessed:
The Sheva Brachot (Hebrew for “Seven Blessings”) are the traditional Jewish prayers offered to the bride and groom on their wedding day. We are extraordinarily grateful to have people in our lives who have inspired us to become more deeply ourselves, encouraged us to take life-transforming risks, and guided us along the path to becoming the people we are today. You are those people, and you have been a blessing.

For us, our wedding is not only a moment of transition, but of transformation. As one book of our life closes and we begin to write the story of the rest of our lives, we ask you, who have been our greatest inspiration, to bless us.

Your Blessing:
We would be honored if you would offer us a blessing in two parts. The first part should be a written blessing. This can be in any form you like: a letter, a poem, a quote, song lyrics, a traditional prayer, a prayer of your own creating, a melding of all of the above, or anything that feels right for you. The second part of the blessing should be an artifact. This can also take any shape you like: a photo, a piece of art, memorabilia, a book, or any particularly meaningful object.

Your blessing, along with the six others, will be featured on a display table at our rehearsal dinner. Please bring your blessing with you to the rehearsal dinner. We ask that the written part of the blessing be in a frame of your choosing. Daniel’s parents, who are hosting the event, will recognize each of you over the course of the evening.

The rehearsal dinner will begin at 6:30 pm. We’d be honored to spend half-an-hour together before the event begins to receive your blessing and express our deepest gratitude, not only for this extraordinary gesture, but for the many years of inspiration, guidance, and love. We’ll send you an Evite Invitation to this mini-ceremony in the weeks preceding the wedding.

Thank you for playing such a meaningful role in our wedding weekend and in our lives.


[Project description as sent to our role models]
[Project description as it appeared on the display table]

A Rosh Hashanah Sermon--Adonai Yireh

This past summer, the scandal in the Penn State football program rocked not only the world of college sports but the entire nation. Coach Joe Paterno and other Penn State officials displayed unbelievable negligence in protecting Jerry Sandusky. The NCAA issued against Penn State what is arguably the most severe punishment in collegiate sporting history, and I think rightfully so.

However there’s one aspect of the NCAA’s penalty that I find troubling: the decision to strip the football program of all of its victorious since 1998. This is troubling for two reasons. First, it punishes the players for the crimes of their coaches. And second—and for me more importantly—it pretends that history can be rewritten.

Going back in the record books and changing a few stats doesn’t actually change anything. Taking away Joe Paterno’s victories doesn’t undo his wrongdoings, nor does it refute his winning record. Whether Paterno is or isn’t the winningest coach in NCAA history doesn’t remove the trauma that Sandusky inflicted on so many young boys. And even if Paterno was a terrible coach and role model, it doesn’t change the number of times his team scored more points than their opponents. Even in this viciously perverse story—and no matter how much we’d like to undo this cruelty—the past cannot be rewritten.

Rosh Hashanah calls us to open the books of our lives and see what we have written there. Where have we been this past year? What were our greatest successes and our greatest failures? “Our days are like scrolls,” teaches Bakhya, the medieval Jewish philosopher. “Write in them only what you want remembered.” How often do we write in the books of our lives things we wish we could strike from the record? How often do we lose our patience with a loved one, only to immediately wish we could take it back? How often do we share that tiniest piece of gossip, with the full knowledge that it can’t be unsaid? How often do we put our work first at the expense of our family, only to find ourselves, years down the line, wishing that we could have one more Saturday afternoon together? How often do we wish that we could rewrite history?

This morning, we read the binding of Isaac, the most well known and perhaps most troubling episode in Abraham’s life, one that I imagine Abraham himself wishes could be rewritten. As a sign of devotion to God, Abraham takes his son Isaac to the top of Mount Moriah with the intention of making him a human sacrifice. Thankfully, an angel of God intervenes, and Abraham is unable to complete the task. And as a sign of thanks to God, Abraham decides to rename that place “Adonai yireh / The Lord sees.”
 
The naming of places is a classic literary trope in the bible and often holds the key to unlocking any particular story’s central message. In decoding the binding of Isaac, Jewish commentators throughout the centuries have offered a variety of interpretations for why Abraham chooses to name this place, “Adonai yireh / The Lord sees.” I’d like to briefly present you with two, and then focus on a third.

Rashi, a medieval French commentator and one of our most prolific sages, argues that the name change points to the centrality of sacrifice in ancient Israel. The name means: “Adonai yireh / The Lord sees that through sacrifice, the people of Israel demonstrate their devotion.” A second interpretation comes from Radak, who lived a century after Rashi. Radak argues that the name refers to an earlier passage in the story. When Isaac had asked his father, “Where is the lamb for the sacrifice?” Abraham replied, “Adonai yireh / God will see to the lamb.” In the end, God does see to the lamb by providing one that is stuck in the bushes, pointing to God’s benevolence and grace.

A third interpretation comes from the Midrash, and is particularly appropriate to Rosh Hashanah. In our tradition, Abraham is associated with hospitality and with loving-kindness. And yet, glaring in the middle of his otherwise praiseworthy biography is the binding of Isaac, an act of inhumane zealousness. According to the Midrash--which is our collection of fables based on the Torah narrative--Abraham will eventually come to regret his actions. The Midrash points out that the very next event in the bible is the death of Sarah, Abraham’s wife and Isaac’s mother. The Midrash imagines that upon hearing the news of what her husband almost did to her son, Sarah goes into a state of utter shock and dies. Abraham put God before his own family, and this Sarah cannot take. The Midrash also points out that after the incident on Mount Moriah, Abraham and Isaac never speak to each other again. Abraham’s blind devotion to God distances him from his son until the two are completely estranged. In proving himself to God, Abraham loses that which should have been closest to him, his wife and his son. The binding of Isaac is, for Abraham, a blemish on his record, a dark spot in his history, an irremovable weight on his conscience, and out of his regret, Abraham renames that place “Adonai yireh / The Lord sees that which I have done.” Shameful though Abraham may feel, he will forever be remembered for it. God sees, and Abraham can not rewrite history.

On Rosh Hashanah we affirm that “Adonai yireh,” that the Godliness inside of each us sees all that we have done this year, that the divine spark within calls us to bear to witness to our own actions. It is the day upon which we see the history of our lives displayed before us, and rather than boasting with pride or shrinking with regret at what is written there, we simply read. This can be terrifying. Sometimes the truth can hurt. But often, when we bring it out into the light, the truth becomes less scary. As rabbi and author Alan Lew puts it, “We know we can stand the truth. It is already here and we are already enduring it.”

I recently had a disagreement with a loved one in which we were forced to examine the truth of our history. Deep-seated relationship dynamics, engrained in us over decades of a close, loving relationship, were finally acknowledged. The conversation was uncomfortable. But it was honest. We weren’t able to change, or forget, or bury, or rewrite anything about our history. But we were able to examine it. And in doing so, we were able to see ourselves and each other more clearly.

It is exactly for this reason that Rosh Hashanah has another name: Yom HaZikharon / The Day of Remembering. Remembering the past enables us to do self-improvement. When we boldly remember the truth that the past holds, we no longer serve it, as a blemish on our record, but rather it serves us, as a beacon of right action.

This morning, we recited Unetaneh Tokef, one of our tradition’s most stirring and powerful prayers. The prayer was written in the 11th century, but it borrows its language from the Talmud, written 500 years earlier. This earlier version declares that our acts of self-reflection will cause God to ma’akir / tear-up God’s judgment of us. This is a God who can rewrite history, a God who, with proper persuasion, can cause any event in our past to just disappear, as if torn / ma’akir out of the pages of history. Five centuries later, the author of Unetaneh Tokef envisioned a different kind of God. The author declares that our acts of self-reflection will cause God to ma’avir / transform God’s judgment of us. This is a God who calls us to recognize our past, to face it boldly, and in doing so, allows us to ma’avir / transform ourselves and our understanding of the story of our lives. This is not a God who tries to rewrite history; this is a God who sees. Adonai yireh. This is a God who calls upon us to see.

So I don’t think Joe Paterno should have all of his wins torn from the record books. This would not be in the spirit of Yom HaZikharon / The Day of Remembering, but rather in the spirit of forgetting. And we learn nothing by forgetting. Instead, let’s remember a football giant who was so good at winning, that he risked the safety of dozens of youngsters and ruined his own reputation to do it. That story has something to teach us.

As for ourselves, let us open our eyes this Rosh Hashanah to see the truth of our past, which cannot be changed, our failures along with our triumphs, that we may remember them—and learn.Adonai yireh, oh God who sees, give us the vision to see your holy spark which lives within each of us, that it may illuminate our dark places, that it may guide us to good action, that it may take that which we’d rather tear out of history and transform it into a source of blessing.

Kein y’hi ratzon. Be this God’s will.