Walking With Abraham, Standing With You: Vayeira 2016

Walking With Abraham, Standing With You

A Sermon for Shabbat Vayeira 2016

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

In our Scriptural readings from the Torah, this week we find ourselves studying the story of Abraham, the first patriarch of the Jewish People and also the father of the three Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity and Islam.  I find it interesting—and hopeful, especially in these troubled times in America and the world—that we all share this one forebear, that no matter how different our faiths may be, we all find in Abraham a common source of teaching and inspiration.

When we first encountered Abraham, he was picking up the pieces of his life.  At the age of 75, Abraham was uprooting. Called by God, he was leaving behind his family, homeland and people, in search of something vague, a place he knew existed, but that he knew not where.  All he knew was that God would tell him when he got there.

It couldn’t have been easy for Abraham to undertake this journey.  He was getting on in years; he knew that chances were that he would never see his family again.  The Chaldeans—the people he was leaving behind—were among the most advanced civilizations in the world at that time.  And what was he doing?  He was leaving for the Wild, Wild West, a lawless place inhabited by people whose language, customs and ways he did not know.

So why did he leave?  At age 75, probably not for fun or profit. He was already rich, successful and established. So why now?

He left because he felt himself endangered. 

Abraham was different from his fellow Chaldeans, and times were getting dangerous for people like him, who shared his world views, and particularly his religion.  As Abraham saw it, the gods that most people around him worshipped were mere idols, make-believe creatures whose main characteristics were that they were lazy, quarrelsome, jealous and ill-tempered, and that the best way to deal with them was essentially to appease them with wine and sacrifice, and pray that they would leave you alone, like wild animals after feeding time at the zoo.

On the other hand, Abraham’s belief, which he stubbornly held on to, was that there was only one God, a just and compassionate God who wanted people to be like Him:  just and compassionate.

The different beliefs led to two very different—and in many ways opposing—lifestyles.  What Abraham was looking for was a place where he could live and worship freely, without fear of persecution.

People have been fleeing persecution, seeking liberty, for as long as humanity has existed.  In fact, America was founded upon this principle. The social and political system that was created here is a democracy, guided by the principle that we, the people, have the right to participate in the selection and running of our government.  Our democracy enshrines freedoms we hold sacred, holy. 

Elections in a system such as ours never result in a unanimous vote. In a democracy, it’s a given that there will be different opinions and dissenting views. Elections are often divisive; all you have to do is look at what’s happening in our country today.  A mere fortnight after one of the ugliest election in people’s memory, you can see people hurling insults, pitching hate at each other. In the media, among ourselves and even within families, people are unfriending one another, refusing to speak to one another, going as far as to cancel Thanksgiving family dinners because of the election, and who supported which candidate.

Democracy is not perfect.  In fact, Winston Churchill once stated that “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” But democracy is still the only system that allows us, the people, to have a voice, to place a person in office or take them out of it again. So far, this system has been more successful than all the others. Economically, socially, culturally—in every possible way, democracy has provided us with untold opportunities.  It has granted us the greatest number of freedoms and rights.  It has worked well—though not perfectly—for nearly 240 years now.

Still, what happened last week has left many of us in a state of shock and disbelief.  In poll after poll, we were led to believe in a different outcome. For many of us, this election was to be an affirmation of principles we believed in, that we worked hard for, and that took decades to accomplish.  But instead, we saw a swing in the other direction.

As a result of this election, there have been demonstrations, protests, marches and rallies.  We have also seen and heard mean and ugly words.  Symbols of hatred have been popping up in neighbors’ yards, in mailboxes, in the social media.  One of the most common of these symbols is the swastika, a fearful symbol that to the Jewish people has special, ominous meaning, as it represents death and destruction, reminding us of the Holocaust, the most terrible disaster our people has endured in the last 2000 years.

But it isn’t only Jews who are seeing these signs of hate.  All minorities—Muslims, gays, Latinos, African-Americans, immigrants—are feeling threatened by a wave of hatred and intolerance.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization, reports that since the election, there have been close to 500 incidents of hateful harassment and intimidation. In the larger picture, 500 isn’t a huge number.  But the cumulative effect has been to strike fear in the hearts of millions more.  These hateful acts have been taking place at K-12^th grade schools (!), on university and college campuses, in places of business, private homes and public houses of worship.  Even if we don’t experience the hate ourselves, television, the papers, the social media, all make sure we become witnesses to it.

One thing that we have learned from Abraham, the first Jew, the first recorded refugee from persecution, is that we are all responsible for one another.  Throughout our 3600 years of existence the Jewish People have learned that, in order to survive, we must be there for one another.  The legacy that the Founding Fathers of our country—all followers in Abraham’s footsteps—have left us, is that if America is to remain the Land Of The Free, we must be there for one another whenever we see acts of injustice, hatred, violence and intimidation.

Like yet another Abraham, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who fifty years ago marched in Selma, Alabama, alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King, arms linked to show support for those whose felt intimidated and disenfranchised, we too need to let all people—individuals and groups of all genders, races and beliefs—who are filled with fear, who see the hateful signs and words and know all too well what they mean, we need to let them know that we are there with them and will continue to be there for them. No individual, no group in America today need feel that they are alone.  WE STAND WITH YOU.  No one should feel afraid of his or her neighbor.  We still believe that “love your neighbor as yourself” is the most important rule of humanity, and we must stand up and defend it whenever we see it threatened.

Father Abraham heeded the call to leave his homeland. Despite his standing in the community, despite all the contributions he made to his society in religion, business, art, literature, and philosophy, Abraham felt unsafe in his own homeland.  And so he left all he knew and began his journey.  It’s a path we still find ourselves on today: A journey toward a land and a time when all people, in all their marvelous diversity, live in peace and harmony.  We don’t know when we will get there, but if our way of life is to survive, we cannot stumble and fall out along the way.

May our communities be strengthened by our pursuit of justice and compassion.  May our nation continue to be a shining beacon for all who feel oppressed and persecuted.  And may we all become messengers of hope, carrying forward the task of making America the great nation that it is and can be.  May we see the day when all people shall walk free, tall and unafraid, and may this day come soon.  Amen!

Pride And Arrogance: Noach 2016

Pride And Arrogance: A Lesson For Shabbat Noach

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Nov. 4, 2016

Noah must have led a very lonely life.  Of all his neighbors, in fact of all the men and women of his generation, he alone understood God’s ways.  He alone “walked with God,” he alone was deemed righteous, and he alone heard God’s voice.

When you are able to hear God’s voice, it isn’t likely that you hear much of anything else.  God’s voice is majestic, it’s overwhelming.  You might on occasion engage in some empty conversation with your neighbors, perhaps exchange meaningless pleasantries, but no more than that.  Your ear isn’t in sync with them; it’s always cocked to hear God’s voice, always eager for the next message, ever ready to do exactly what God tells you to.  It’s a lonely existence.

Then there’s pride to deal with.  It doesn’t take long to realize that you alone were found worthy, that you alone are God’s favorite.  Others may notice a distant rumble, but clear as daylight you know it to be God.  Others may see a cloud in the sky, but you know it is God’s anger about to burst out in a torrent, a flood.  The problem with pride, however, is that, even as you sit humbly at God’s feet it grows in small, incremental steps, stalking you, stealing on you. Your pride keeps you aloof, separate and distant from other people.  They don’t understand you; they don’t know you are in some deep conversation with the Almighty.  You are better than them, and you know it.

And when God tells you to build a huge ark and fill it with all different kinds of animals, you have little time or patience to listen to the problems of others.  It isn’t easy to find aardvarks in the Near East!

Pride is a common human trait, and up to a point it isn’t all that bad.  We are rightfully proud when we arrive at goals we had set for ourselves.  We are proud of our children and their achievements, when they reach milestones in their lives and, step by step, become independent. We are proud of our community, and we are proud of our nation when we all rise to uphold values we hold true and valuable to humanity.

But pride can also be a stumbling block, when it makes us, like Noah, blind to the suffering around us, unable to hear or respond to the voices that call out to us.

Our pride can affect our work, when it makes us unwilling to take criticism; when it convinces us that we alone know the right way to do things, that no one else can—or need to—help us do what we know best. Far from being team players, we go our own path, with little consideration for what others may think, believe or seek.

Pride influences the way we interact with others who may be less advantaged than us, when we can’t be bothered to help those who might need a hand.  We, after all, got to where we are by our own bootstraps, by our own hard work, by our diligence and natural talents.  Let them do the same now!

Pride affects how we relate to friends and even our family.  Knowing that you are always right means that the other person, by definition, is always wrong.  Your pride may lead you to keep pushing them, to keep scolding them, to treat even those who are closest to you with scorn and sarcasm.  Pride hinders you from accepting or seeing others as they truly are.  Instead, your ever-higher, always-unattainable expectations lead them to feel resentment, frustration, guilt and even self-hate.

There is no pleasing the proud and haughty, as often their glory is achieved at the price of humbling the other—be it child, spouse, sibling, or person of a different gender, nation, race or religion.

Pride is a slippery slope, but even Pride is as nothing before Arrogance. Pride, after all, may be justified:  You’ve done well; you’ve earned points, you’ve merited certain rights and privileges.  But whereas Pride can make you unreachable, Arrogance makes you untouchable.  You owe nothing to anyone or anything, no excuse or explanation, no apology or remorse, not even so much as a by-your-leave.  Laws, rules and regulations are not meant for you; they were created for simpletons, for the common masses, of which you are not.  When you are arrogant, you think you can get away with anything and everything.  You can say anything, do anything without fear of recrimination.  You are so certain of your superiority that sometimes you even manage to convince others of it.

This week’s Torah portion, Noach (Gen. 6:9—11:32), positions these two human traits, Pride and Arrogance, as bookends.  The portion starts with Noah, a person who, as the Torah tells us, “Was a righteous man, perfect in his generations.  Noah walked with God.”  He alone could hear God’s voice; he alone was privy to God’s intent to flood the earth, to destroy all living things, all that had “the merest breath of life in its nostrils.”  Noah alone heard God’s command to build an Ark to save himself.  Aloof and uncaring, Noah follows God’s directions to a T, to tragic results.    

But even an overly proud person may find redemption.  Deep inside the dark bowels of the ark he had built, overcome by guilt and remorse, Noah discovers pity and compassion.  Only then does God put an end to the misery.  The waters of the flood recede, and Noah’s descendants are given a second chance, an opportunity to rebuild what God had destroyed.

Not so, however, the Babylonians, generations later.  With their leader Nimrod, a mighty hero as ever existed, the Babylonians built a spectacular civilization, filled with splendor and beauty.  Their literature was famous throughout the land, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon became a world wonder.  But the Babylonians overreached.  In the story of the Tower of Babel, the Babylonians represent the epitome of dangerous arrogance and conceit.

For whereas Noah at least listened to God and did just as God told him, the Babylonians had no such intention.  Their belief in their own supremacy was so complete that they believed they could live above and beyond any rule, any law, human or divine. By building a tower so tall that its top would pierce the very heart of heaven, they planned to overtake God, to be even mightier than God.  The “name” they had wanted to create for themselves was intended to replace the Name of God.  God, of course, puts an end to this nonsense, dispersing the population and confusing their language so that no one could understand his fellow; and thus the empire fell.

The failure of Babylon was Arrogance.  It was arrogance that led not only to the collapse of their presumptuous tower, but in fact also to the downfall of their entire culture and civilization.  Their conceit, their single-minded intent was to be all-powerful and all mighty.  There could be no challenge or dissent from without or within. Anyone who dared to resist or who voiced opposition, was summarily silenced.

History has proven the Torah correct.  There is no redemption possible where arrogance exists.  

The collapse of the Babylonian Empire came as no surprise, but it also led to the possibility of new beginnings.  Out of the chaos, new creation: a new light emerges. Parashat Noach ends ten generations later with the birth of Abraham, a man who not only listened to God’s voice, but argued with it; a man who didn’t only walk with God, but also with all humanity at his side.  And the house he established some 3500 years ago, a house founded on the principles of goodness, justice and compassion, still stands to this very day.  

We are sitting in it now.

May we prove worthy dwellers of the tents of Abraham, blessed and privileged to follow in his footsteps, along God’s many pathways, but always in humility, gratitude and respect.

Ken y’hi ratzon.

© 2016 by Boaz D. Heilman

To Begin Again: Breisheet 2016

To Begin Again: Breisheet

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Breisheet—“In the beginning…”  (Genesis 1:1—6:8).  So we begin, again and again, just as we have for the past 2500 years.  Again the Torah has been rolled all the way back to the beginning, and again we read and ponder.  We have so many questions!  Why does the Torah begin with the second letter of the aleph-bet?  And what came before? Where did God find the materials for creation? Was it always there (as some ancient Greeks believed) or did God create matter ex-nihilo—from nothing—(as another school of thought believed)?

And above all else, why?  Why bring order into the chaos to begin with? What is order, anyway? Does order, like art, exist only in the mind of the beholder, or is there actual, objective “orderliness” out there in the vast infinity of all that exists?

The text of the Torah is built in a way that encourages us to think and ask our many questions.  Inherent in this text are even more ancient stories; some have been subsumed into the Torah’s version and appear when we focus on the words themselves.  An example of this is in the two versions of the birth of humankind, one that we encounter pretty much right away (Gen. 1:27), the other just a moment later (Gen. 2:22). Were Adam and Eve created together, or was Eve created out of a “rib” taken from Adam’s side.  And if so, then why do men and women still have the same number or ribs?

Story and myth, legend and history all combine as though in some primordial soup, and we have to examine all of it in order to get the full benefit.

But ultimately, the question that emerges as most important is Why?  Why did God decide to create the universe and then focus on a particular planet, minute and insignificant in the larger picture and then place humanity in its midst?  Why? For what reason?  For what purpose?

We have been discussing these questions for nearly three millennia now. Thousands of explanations have been offered—yet we still ask.  And therein lies the beauty and excitement of this text.  For it enables each of us to ponder for ourselves.  Each of us in invited to find our place at the table and continue the discussion begun so long ago, to converse with the greatest minds and souls of all time, hear their sage advice—and then freely to accept it, reject it or come up with an interpretation of our own.

This week we begin the cycle yet again, and the door is open for all of us:  Come in, partake.  Take what you will, offer what you will.  Only come in. There is respite for the weary to be found here, comfort for the downcast.  Here is food for thought, nourishment for the soul, a shining light in the infinite darkness that surrounds us.

As with the greatest of novels, Breisheet and what follows bear numerous repetitions and re-readings.  In each eon, at each age, we find appropriate lessons.  The ancient Rabbis say that the Torah has 70 “faces,” or interpretations.  And that’s true for any moment in life.  Tomorrow there will be new meanings, new discoveries to make and savor.

Torah means teaching.  It also means light.  With the creation of light—God’s first act of Creation, we are given a huge gift:  awareness.  We open our eyes and see.  We sense that we exist not only from the inside, but also in relationship to what we see all around us.  Comprehension comes later; first, we learn to see.

We learn to hear.  It is God’s voice that creates the universe.  The myriads and myriads of sounds around us are all God’s voice.  Like a rainbow, we hear the separate melodies that interweave, sometimes in harmony, other times in discord.  But each is a fragment of the whole.  Learning to add our voice, our own song, will come later.  First we learn to hear and listen.

We feel.  Our hands touch the blades of grass, our feet sense the dew on the field or the cracked dryness of desert sand.  With our hands we feel the trees, the flowers, the soft fur and flowing hair. We sense the roughness, and we wonder at the smoothness.  We sense the love; we comprehend pain.  How mystifying, this ability to feel another’s touch on our skin and then sense its echo in our hearts.

We feel the hunger.  We seek to quench our thirst.  We yawn and sleep and, miraculously, dream.  We imagine.  We see visions.  We learn to use our minds and hands to create, fashion and invent. We learn that everything has a name.

Slowly, we learn to craft tools and tame fire, wind and water to give energy itself. 

We learn that giving life to children is natural, but teaching them is not.

We gather information and store it, like grain, in the storehouses of our minds, or on cave walls, on paper or anything else that will allow our handprint.  Here is how we gather, here is how we hunt.  Here is how we pray.

We learn about cause and effect; we learn about actions and consequences.  With each step we take comes new awareness. 

We learn about death. Torah does not flinch in the face of the fearful and unknown.

We learn not to kill, not to give in to our natural impulses.  The impulse is short and momentary; the hurt and pain of loss are much more lasting.

Slowly, like the sun peering through the fog, we begin to comprehend that beyond reason there is also purpose. A path appears, revealing footprints of those who came before us.

And so we begin our own journey of discovery, of understanding, of determining for ourselves what the purpose of our existence might be. 

We have the tools.  Now we begin.  Again.

© 2016 by Boaz D. Heilman

Ushpizin: Guests At God’s Table

Ushpizin:  Guests At God’s Table

Sermon for Shabbat Sukkot

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

October 21, 2016

Growing up secular in Israel, I missed out on learning a lot about my own religion.  Sure, I learned about the holidays; I celebrated many of our traditions; at home we observed Shabbat by lighting candles, blessing the wine and challah, and eating dinner at the big dining table rather than in the kitchen, often to the accompaniment of Shabbat music that was coming from our one family radio.

At school we learned Torah stories and even some of the Prophets—but no Talmud and very little Midrash. The holidays all had a connection to our Land, the Land of Israel, and to our history as a people, but there was little in our education to link us with rabbinic teachings, with prayers, and certainly none of the more esoteric meanings and lessons that accompany the holidays.

The synagogue and many of the rituals remained mysteries to me until I was a teenager.  Sukkot, however, the holiday of Tabernacles, brought with it something that my friends and I could actually participate in.  It was easy to find planks of wood, some nails and a hammer, and for several years on end my brother and I, as well as several of our neighborhood friends, constructed and decorated a sukkah in the backyard of my childhood home.  We ate a few meals out there, played some games, but then school started again, and winter came in, and in Israel it rains in the winter.  And so, wistfully, we tore down the threadbare construction we had put together so enthusiastically just a few days earlier.

There were no festive family meals in the sukkah that I can recall; and certainly the tradition of inviting ushpizin was not something we children were familiar with.

Ushpizin are guests.  The word comes from Aramaic and is at the root of our own English word, hospitality.  Officially, of course, since the sukkah was in our backyard, all our friends were our guests, but there our hospitality stopped.  We didn’t invite any homeless or hungry people in—frankly, we didn’t know any.  Food may have been scarce in those early days of the State of Israel, but we children didn’t go hungry.  In those years, hundreds of thousands of new immigrants came to our Land, mostly refugees from Arab countries.  There were no homes to house them in, however, and most of them were living in tents in shabby refugee camps.  But we children were happy with what we had.  I guess we were lucky.

It was only much later that I learned about shaking the lulav and etrog—the Four Species—and the meanings that these symbols hold.  And only later, much later, did I learn about the tradition of inviting the ushpizin, the spiritual guests whose presence blesses the sukkah, those unsteady tabernacles that for one week you could see everywhere you looked, in backyards, on porches and even on rooftops.

Sukkot—not the holiday, but rather the tabernacles or booths that give the holiday its name—are decorated with green s’chach, a thatched roof made of interwoven green branches.  Streamers, flowers, paper chains made from colorful paper, drawings, and other miscellaneous decorations beautify the sukkah.  Traditional sukkot also have portraits—imagined, of course, since no one really knows what they looked like—of several of our ancient ancestors.  These are the ushpizin, our imaginary guests.  They are the patriarchs and matriarchs of our people—Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and his two wives, Rachel and Leah.  Then there are Joseph, Moses and Aaron, and King David.  In modern days, more women were added to this list, so Miriam, Esther, Deborah and Yael among others, have joined the ranks of the ushpizin, our spiritual guests.

Together, they all represent our tradition.  Individually, however, each has a role to play.  Our most ancient fathers and mothers represent our humble beginnings.  But they also teach us about our unity.  Our entire people, today all 13 or so million of us, are descended from this one family.  Going back to that earliest part of our history, not one of us can claim better heritage.  Not one of us can say that we are more mighty or heroic than another, or that we are born of a higher class.  Our earliest ancestors remind us of our equality.  We are all children of Abraham and Sarah, all a fulfillment of a promise made thousands of years ago, a bargain and a covenant cut between God and Israel.

Joseph, of course, saved our people from extinction.  He taught us about bringing together torn families, about forgiveness, and about making plans for an uncertain future.  But Joseph was also a dreamer, and he taught us to dream and see visions.  Joseph also taught us to remember where we came from, and to always try to find our way back home.  “Remember me,” he exhorts his brothers on his deathbed. “When God takes you back to the land of your ancestors, take my bones with you.” Joseph was the very first visionary Zionist.

Moses gave us the Law.  He gave us the Torah, the Word of God.  Moses gave us our holidays and traditions, our way of life.  He gave meaning and purpose to our existence as Jews, teaching us that holiness was not something you found in seclusion up on the top of some mountain, but rather down on the land below, on the street, in our cities and homes.  Moses taught us that holiness is found in justice, love and compassion.

The Torah and the Rabbis teach that Aaron—Moses’s brother—was a man of peace.  Rather than quarrel, he sought to pacify.  A man of steady hand, he guided our religion forward through the maze of offerings and sacrifices.  Entrusted with hearing the prayers and pleas of the people, he brought them forgiveness and understanding.  And above all, as the one whose daily task it was to light the menorah—the seven-branch candelabra that stood at the opening of the Tent of Meeting—Aaron brought light to the people.  In a world overwhelmed by fear and superstition, by dark and mysterious forces, Aaron represented then—and still does now—enlightenment, joy and an infinite range of possibility. 

David was the king who unified Israel and established a kingdom that lasted for nearly one thousand years.  According to tradition, he authored the book of Psalms, or at least many of the religious poems that that book contains. He established Jerusalem as the eternal capital of his kingdom and laid the foundation for the construction his son, Solomon, would undertake—the building of the Temple of God. 

Miriam, Esther, Deborah—all heroes of our people who stepped up at a time of need and rescued us from sure disaster.  To us today, they represent the need to take action.  Miracles happen, but not only through the Hand of God.  Often enough it takes a human hand to assist God.  We are, after all, God’s partners in Creation, in making this world a better place for all its inhabitants.  And especially in a time and place that saw women as—at best—second class citizens, it was these women who stepped up, who showed us the way forward, who made sure that we knew when, what and how we must take action.  They were the first to liberate women from social oppression, and still to this day they inspire us to see all human beings, regardless of gender, color or faith, as equal in the eyes of God.

These are the ushpizin, the guests that the Rabbis instructed us in days of old to invite into our unassuming sukkot, those threadbare huts that we build with scraps and decorate with the humblest material.  Not built to withstand anything beyond a gentle wind or mild rain, the sukkah is actually one of the most resilient and enduring of our Jewish symbols. It has survived storms, floods and fires.  It has withstood persecution, intolerance and exile.  Who knows, perhaps these ushpizhin, these guests we bring into our homes and lives, are the very reason why this humble structure has lasted so long.

For children, the sukkah is a fun and secure way to enjoy a bit of the outdoors at the turning of the seasons.  For adults, however, it represents that and so much more.  It represents our very existence—precious and beautiful on the one hand, yet also fragile and prone to falling down at a moment’s notice.  The sukkah is the most durable symbol of the Jewish People, a people made strong by our dreams and values, by our traditions and customs, and by our strong and constant devotion to a covenant made thousands of years ago on top a bare mountain—a covenant between God and Humanity, a Covenant of Peace.

May we all prove worthy ushpizin at God’s table, in God’s sukkah, today and every day of our lives. 

© 2016 by Boaz D. Heilman