Shavuot, Bamidbar and Memorial Day—A Joint Commemoration

Shavuot and Memorial Day—A Joint Commemoration

Sermon on Shabbat Bamidbar (Numbers 1:1-4:20)

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

May 25, 2012     4 Sivan, 5772

This weekend we will be observing a day of remembrance for all those who have served and fallen in the service of our country.  It’s Memorial Day.

How interesting that this Shabbat we will also be reading Parashat Bamidbar, the first portion of the book of Numbers, the fourth book of the Torah.  Bamidbar means “in the wilderness,” referring to the Israelites’ 40-year wanderings through the Sinai Desert.  However, the book got its English name from the fact that Moses is instructed by God at this moment to count up, to number, his people.  This first census, however, is not complete; it encompasses only a portion of the people—only those who will defend the rest of their nation, all men “From twenty years old and upwards, all who are fit to go out to the army in Israel.”

Not all the good intentions in the world, not even Holiness itself, can guarantee the safety of a people if it doesn’t have an army.  It’s a sad truth, but a truth nonetheless.  In the wilderness of life, it’s best to play it safer.  Hope, faith, altruistic idealism are all nice, but without some sheer strength behind them, there’s not much chance of us or them lasting longer than a week or two.

Through the prism lens of Memorial Day, one can see not only one war but also all the wars we’ve ever fought.  One blending into the next, the causes of the next war are already rooted in this one.

Yet Memorial Day is more than just about the little or big wars of our lives.

Memorial Day is also the official beginning of summer.  And—oh!—how great is that?!  To children, summer spells vacation.  To parents, it’s a bit of respite.  A time to catch up on some rest, or travelling, reading, or just spending some extra family time at home.  The plentitudes of life strike us at this season.  The ample sun and rain—thank God—have hopefully resulted in a rich harvest.  Fruit is ripening on trees, and vegetables plants are growing quickly.  This is the season I look toward on all other days of the year. 

Still, for most of us, the range of feelings runs the gamut this weekend.  From remembrance and sadness to expectation and happiness.   There is no life without loss, we know that. We know that there is no peace without some struggle before it.

At times, the feelings run into each other.  Remembering the laugh of a fallen friend, our heart takes flight for a moment; only to falter and sink a moment later with the realization of his loss, of his absence from our side and company.

Yet we celebrate, knowing that life continues because of the sacrifices that had been made.  We do not leave the past behind us; we take the memories, both of the good and of the bad, with us.  And, looking around us and ahead, we make plans to build new worlds, new homes, to plant new crops and tend to them.

Relying on the strength of those who “go out to the army” to serve their nation means we show them our gratitude.  Not only by saying “thank you,” but also by living as they would hope we live:  by the light of the ideals we all share, that we all pay allegiance to. 

Shavuot serves as the Jewish equivalent of this seasonal celebration of life’s journey and blessings.  At first Shavuot served only as an agricultural festival, the Festival of the First Fruit.  But later, by the first century, it assumed yet a new role—a celebration of our people’s receiving the Torah.  Yes, we celebrate this amazing gift.  But along with the joy come the also the lessons of the Torah, those ideals we had promised to learn and live by.  It’s a Day of Remembrance all its own, a day of feeling grateful for the blessings of our life, as well as a day set aside for repeating our vows with God.

These two holidays—Memorial Day and Shavuot—which coincide on this weekend—have two things in common:  first, that on them both we remember the past even as we give thanks for the present moment; but also that on these two days we remember that there are two kinds of strength we need to rely on if we have any hope of surviving another year, of making it into the Promised Land.  Just as it isn’t enough to rely only on God’s promise of a Land Flowing with Milk and Honey, so also it isn’t enough to rely on the sheer physical strength of our armed forces.  We couldn’t survive if it weren’t for both kinds of strength—the strength of our hands as well as that of our faith and ideals.

A commitment to one must always be joined to a commitment to the other.  Physical strength and spiritual strength.  Without them, we just couldn’t survive.

This Shavuot, as Jews, we renew our vows with God.  Once again, we accept God’s Torah, promising to study—and try to live by—its rules and regulations.

On this Memorial Day, as Americans, we dedicate ourselves to remembering those who have served in all our wars, as well as those who continue to serve, today and tomorrow, in our country’s defense.  We pay tribute to those whose lives were lost in past struggles, honoring them not only by planting flags at their grave marks, but also by upholding—and actively furthering—the very ideals for which they lived and died—freedom, justice, equality, love and compassion.

Kein y’hi ratzon.

©2012 by Boaz D. Heilman

Down, Toward the Land

Down, Toward the Land

D’var Torah on Parashat B’har-B’chukotai (Lev. 25-34)

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Mountains are majestic.  People have always known that.  In our human imagination, mountains have ever been the dwelling places of gods and titans.  In our Biblical tradition, there are three major mountains, each the scene of various revelations of God. 

Mt. Zion, of course, became the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the hub of Judah and Judaism, the meeting point of Israel and the God of Israel. 

Elijah the Prophet trod the more solitary paths of Mt. Carmel, above the Haifa harbor.  But even he, persecuted by the governing powers who felt threatened by him, had to seek ultimate refuge and inquire meaning and purpose on yet another mountain—the one where, centuries earlier, God had first appeared to Moses—Mt. Sinai.

It was at Mt. Sinai that God also first appeared to our people, sounding the words that became the foundation of our faith, the Ten Commandments.  It was there that Moses received the instructions for building the Tabernacle and there, too, that he learned and taught his brother, the High Priest Aaron, about holiness and the ways of holiness.

The Holiness Code, the essence of Jewish Life and Belief, is at the heart of the Book of Leviticus.  But though it summons the highest ideals of our people, Leviticus is only the third book of our Torah.  The fitting conclusion of the book—the final two portions that serve as this week’s double portion, B’har and B’chukotai—is not only an eloquent summary of what has been.  It is also a gateway opening to the rest of our life and history.

The first verse of Parashat B’har begins appropriately, “Adonai spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying“—

—Saying what?  What exalted vision of glorious holiness would God provide for Moses and us this one last instant that we are “at the Mountain,” B’har Sinai? 

However, nothing more can be said that hasn’t been said already.  The rules have already been given, the teachings, taught.  Instead of looking for any further ecstatic or spiritual connection with God, the Torah directs our attention elsewhere:  “When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a Sabbath to Adonai.”  “When you come into the land”!  It is there that God wants us to look, toward our future, toward where we are headed, not where we are right now.

The rest of our life, as it were, isn’t at this Mountain any more.  It is toward the future that we must now look.  Our focus is not to remain sequestered at some exalted high place that we’ve been to, where humanity and the Divine intersect; but rather, it must now be redirected to the plainer, more lowly paths, where humanity and earth intersect.

This is the season of graduations and confirmations.  Hundreds of thousands of proud learners line paths, enter squares, taking their final steps as students on the grounds of their hallowed institutions.  However, once they shake the offered hand, once the diploma is in their hand, they are no longer bound to their masters and mentors.  Once down from the stage, their first steps are into their future life.

What rules can be, what rules should be given at such a moment?

“When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a sabbath to Adonai.”  That’s what God says to Moses to tell the People at this moment.  Look to the land and make it holy.  Recognize your place and role in it.  You aren’t the master of the house, you’re only the caretaker.  God is the owner of the Land, and that’s why the Land must be holy.

Some years ago, I was walking down a street in Jerusalem when a couple of kids walking in front of me unwrapped some candy and dropped the wrapper on the ground.  I couldn’t believe it.  I picked up the trash, threw it in a bin and asked the offending kids, quite harshly, “So Jerusalem is a trash can now?!”  I think they just shrugged.  Another madman in Jerusalem!  The city is full of them!

But that’s how God intends for us to see all the earth, not only Jerusalem.  Once every seven years, we must let the land produce at its own rhythm, not at our hurried, frenzied buy-and-sell rhythm.  Once in fifty years—the rounded off seven years seven times—we must recognize our position as tenants on God’s farm.  There are no landowners, no homeless people; we all lease the land and are here at God’s pleasure.  We all become equal, all equally dependant on God and the Earth’s natural abundance.

It’s actually a graduation gift:  a moment that we can stop competing with one another, stop trying to prove ourselves better than someone else, stop the treadmill that has us speeding toward an end that will come all too soon of its own accord.

Stopping for a moment of respite, we can look around and see who’s still around.  Where we’ve been is almost inconsequential.  Where we are is more important.  It’s a moment of rest and tranquility that allows us to catch our breath and rediscover the balance in our lives.

Of course we don’t have to wait 50 years for such a jubilant occasion.  Every moment in our life ought to be filled with that sense of wonder, when we can look behind and see where we’ve come from, and then turn fully around and look forward again.  We don’t leave the past behind, that’s impossible.  We are human, and that means we remember.  But just the same, we take the teachings of the past—about self respect, about loving one another as we love ourselves, about dignity and compassion, and of course that lesson about the consequences that must follow our actions—and we apply them to the future.  In the land where we are headed.

Graduation, confirmation—these are the moments of grace we’ve been granted, the gateways where the past and the future can be seen as equally distant, equally near.  As you descend Mt. Sinai and head off la-Midbar, into the Wilderness, into Life, make them both holy.  You know how, you’ve been taught.  Now go do it.

© 2012 by Boaz D. Heilman