Parshat Ki Tetzei: What's a mitzvah? What's our mission?

Rabbi Philip Weintraub

Congregation Agudas Israel

9/17/16

How do we unite a list of disparate laws?

How do we unite a group of disparate people?

The answer is simple: We work towards shared purpose.  We work towards shared mission.

In our Torah, the mission was reaching Israel and building a new community.  Whether discussing the treatment of criminals, how to fight fairly, conduct business ethically, uphold societal norms, take care of the environment or remember the evils of Amalek, the 74 mitzvot found in this parsha focus on: teaching the people Israel how to live in Israel, morally, ethically, responsibly.

The rabbis are nervous about giving reasons and justifications for mitzvot.  If we know a mitzvah’s reason and origin, we are more likely to justify it away if the circumstances seem different.  For example, if we were to say that the prohibition on pork was to prevent trichinosis, does it apply when we have reliable ovens that can cook food thoroughly.  As Conservative Jews, we do not discard mitzvot willy-nilly, we know that kashrut--or at least avoiding pork, is a sign of Jewish identity, a covenant with God, a daily reminder of holiness through our eating choices.  As such, we have no need to discard the law, simply because one of its original rationales no longer applies.

There are numerous works on the rationales of mitzvot--some quite inspiring.  We speak about mitzvot as pathways to God, as ways of bringing holiness into our lives, as organizing principles.  I think about Steve Jobs wearing the same black turtleneck and jeans every single day--taking away some unnecessary choices gives us more creative energies for the rest of our day.  Taking time to pray and meditate, to thank God for the gifts of our lives on a regular basis makes us feel better.  So why do we have such a hard time with being told what to do?  Why do we as Americans put up such a fight about organizing our lives and our calendars according to someone or something else--GOD?

Powerfully, when we work on mitzvot together, we quickly build a community.  As Gil Troy, a Mcgill Professor and historian has argued: While some may say schwer zu sein a yid, it’s hard to be a Jew, when those outside our community look in, they sometimes say Mah Tovu ohalecha Yaakov--how wonderful are your tents o Jacob!  The organzing principles of our faith are not about faith at all--they are about action.  They are about getting together and building a cemetery, a school, a synagogue, finding kosher food.  When we were together on these endeavors, we find that common purpose. (http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/no-it-is-not-that-hard-to-be-a-jew/#)

The challenge sometimes is what happens AFTER the building is done?  How do we keep working together?  The answer is simple--use our mitzvot as a guide.

The mitzvot in this parsha are not all about ritual.  They are not all about prayer.  They are about the details of living in a unified and cooperative society.  Ensuring justice, fairness, being decent people. One might argue many more of them are universal and not just for Jews!  As my colleague and friend, Rabbi Mark Greenspan said this week,

“I would suggest that while one doesn’t have to be Jewish to be a good person, one can't be a good Jew without being a good person. Goodness is the bottom line. Justice is the measure of being God fearing. Rituals mean nothing if they are not based on a solid foundation of compassion and goodness.”

What is unique about the Jewish tradition, something I bring up regularly is that the ritual and the interpersonal commandments are intertwined and interrelated.  We are not completely fulfilling our destiny as Jews if we ignore one or the other.  I love to remind us of the mitzvot ben adam l’havero, between individuals, because we need to know that we are already following most of the commandments.  Yet we cannot forget the mitzvot ben adam l’Makom, between humanity and God.  If we ignore the rituals all together, it does not make us half-Jewish, but we have lost an opportunity to connect.  Once again, I preach to the choir--you are all here--you are choosing to be part of and not apart from community.  By being here, you are demonstrating the importance of prayer and mitzvot in your lives!

Looking at various mission statements out there, the ones I like best return to recognizing the various combined goals of a synagogue.

• A house of prayer: aiding our members in a search for meaning in life, fulfilling the spiritual needs and longing of our Jewish community, providing a path that brings us closer to each other and to G-d;
• A house of study: supporting and fostering a community dedicated to Jewish knowledge, learning and living;
• A house of assembly: creating a welcoming home and sense of family for our members.
• An integral part of the foundation of K'lal Yisroel, the Jewish people, supporting Israel and all good causes with support, both financial and otherwise.

In short, the way we become a community is by choosing to make ourselves one--by working together to uphold the values of God, Torah and Israel, living the mitzvot both ritually and communally.

Yom Kippur Yizkor

Rabbi Philip Weintraub

Congregation Agudas Israel

September 23, 2015

YK Day: Holiness of Mundane in Loss

As my daughter approaches the age of Disney movies, the dramatic absence of parents is particularly powerful.  Think back to your childhood or of your children and grandchildren: Snow White, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Lion King, Bambi, Dumbo, Peter Pan, The Jungle Book, The Fox and the Hound, Beauty and the Beast, Pocahontas, Aladdin, Frozen, even Pixar with Toy Story or Up.  Mothers, fathers or both are killed or disappeared in remarkable numbers.  Some suggest this comes from a tragic accident that resulted in the loss of Walt Disney’s own mother.  Others say it is simply an effective narrative tool--if you want to talk about growth and maturity, “knocking off a parent” is useful shorthand.

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-there-are-no-moms-in-disney-movies-2014-9#ixzz3kcJ1gjFa

Whether in Disney terms or in reality, no life is complete without loss and loss can be an opportunity for growth.  At this stage of my life, I am grateful to have my parents and in-laws.  Parenting is a tremendous blessing, but no matter the child, having a resource to ask questions is a gift.  I cannot imagine the loss of any of them, and do not pretend to.  Yet empathy, the loss of grandparents, and even the loss of a potential life, makes grief no less real in my own life.

Having studied grief academically, through chaplaincy, through our shared experiences and my own personal losses, I have seen how different traditions attempt to assist people through their grief process.  I cannot say strongly enough how lucky we are to be Jewish, to choose Judaism, especially when we lose someone.  As Jews, our religion offers us a rubric, an algorithm, a language for loss that is frankly missing in much of our surrounding culture.

I don’t say this to make you feel guilty if you sat shiva for three days instead of seven.  I know that not all of you will come to Yizkor services next week for Shemini Atzeret, at Passover or Shavuot.  We do not have a daily minyan here to help you say Kaddish every day, but we will help you with a minyan for shloshim, for shiva or for a yahrzeit.  In all of those cases, we have always come together--as long as we have a week’s notice!

I stand here to affirm my message from the last week.  Every single day of our lives is one that can be filled with holiness, with kedushah,  with little points of light that can inspire us to deeper, more meaningful lives.  The lesson I have not clearly articulated over these last few days is that as modern Jews, we are all Jews by choice.  If we were born Jewish, we did not have any official conversion ceremony, but we chose to remain within our tradition.  As such, the rituals, the metaphors can speak to us, can help us make daily choices that bring God into our lives.  As I quoted the Kotzker rebbe earlier this week, “Where is God found? Wherever we let God in!”

For Passover 2014’s Yizkor, I introduced you to Superman Sam, Sam Sommer, the second child of two rabbis, Phyllis and Michael Sommer.  Sam had a difficult form of childhood cancer and his parents blogged from the beginning of his diagnosis, through remission, recurrence, and to his death.  Unlike so many health journey blogs, they did not stop at his death in December 2013.  While not as frequent, I get regular emails with new blog posts, with photos of the family and memories as they live their lives and as they remember him.  No matter the stages of grief, it is not a purely linear process.  People may be angry one day and accept another.  They may go back from acceptance to bargaining or denial all on a daily basis.

Rabbi Phyllis wrote recently:

Pouring

I was driving today, wearing sunglasses.

Because the sun was shining.

And then suddenly, it started to rain.

Pour, actually.

But the sun was still shining.

Brightly.

I looked around, thinking that if I tried hard enough, I would find a rainbow.

But I didn't.

And then the rain stopped.

The sun shone.

Sometimes that is how I feel.

The sun can be shining.

And without warning, a monsoon pours down upon me.

I am overwhelmed with grief.

I want to find a rainbow, to imagine that it's going to end.

The rain stops, but sometimes the rainbow doesn't show its face.

Sometimes I am completely overwhelmed with the realization that I'm never going to wake up and find Sam here.

I hope for the rainbow. For the light and love and blessing.

Sometimes it hides its face.

http://supermansamuel.blogspot.com/2015/09/pouring.html

That’s what life is.  Moments of joy, moments of sadness.  I especially loved the line that sometimes the rainbow doesn’t show its face.  It made me think of the rabbinic concept of hester panim, that when we feel lost, hurt, it is as if God is hiding God’s face.  Yet even when we feel abandoned by God, we may just be looking in the wrong place.

On Rosh Hashanah, I argued that we will find more meaning, more happiness, more joy if we could be more appreciative.  The same is true with our memories and with sadness.  We live in a world that is afraid of emotion.  We numb ourselves and distract ourselves from the realities of the world and the realities of our lives.  I argue that our lives our richer when we allow ourselves to mourn, allow ourselves to feel sad, to cry.

In this year, I shared with you some of my own feelings of loss.  We are grateful to Gd, no kunahuras, and hope to celebrate a new addition to our family after next Purim, [pretend to spit].  Yet, even as I find myself incredibly excited about such possibilities, I still grieve and yet am somehow a tiny bit grateful for the miscarriage Rebecca had last summer.  I mentioned earlier the great blessing of the Jewish tradition--rituals and things to do when we lose someone.  One of the biggest challenges people have around death is not knowing what to do, how to act, yet our tradition gives clear instructions--except where it doesn’t.  Miscarriage, perinatal and neonatal loss don’t have traditional Jewish rituals.  We discovered things in the back of my Rabbi’s Manual, online, and Rebecca found going to the mikvah to be a healing experience.  For me, this absence of ritual was the hardest part.  Yet I was blessed to have all of you.  Sharing our story with you, I heard so many, many stories.  Had I not been a rabbi, we might not have told anyone, which would have been so much more difficult for us.  We discovered that we were not weird alien creatures for being sad about losing a potential child, but truly part of a community, one of many who shared that experience.

It has not been easy to share the experience.  As much as I put myself in front of you all, there are some feelings I am more reserved about.  I love to share my joy, but am less excited about sharing sorrow.  Yet that sorrow makes joy so much richer.  I firmly believe that our ability to appreciate the wonders, the miracles of our lives is in direct relationship to our ability to mourn the losses of our lives and the broken world we live in.  When we recognize the sorrows of others, when we work to support them, how much more can we gain from our experience, how much more can we appreciate the blessings that we do have.  How much more can we celebrate?  In my own life, I ask for your continued prayers, as we hope to have much to celebrate in the coming year!  Every morning, Psalm 30 tells us that God turns our mourning into dancing.  I pray that this year will do so for all of us.

Thinking about Yizkor, our minds go to a place of memory, remembering important people in our lives. Whether they are parents, grandparents, children, siblings, spouses or other relatives and friends, they touched our lives deeply.  We simply would not be the people we are without their influence.  Whatever their biological role, they were our teachers and even without a physical existence, they can still teach us.

As Jews in the 21st century, obligation (or guilt) does not resonate in the ways it did for generations of Jews.  Yet you stand and sit here today.  You recognize the potential for holiness, meaning, love in our lives.  We are not simply organisms for whom living is our only goal.  Over the last few days, I have spoken of bringing the kedushah, the holiness, of today into the rest of the year.  I have spoken of the tools of gratitude, prayer, Israel, relationships, community, respect, and now memory and loss.  I pray that in the year to come, these tools will help you discover holiness, find meaning, bring gratitude and love into your life.  These are huge goals, yet we need not entirely accomplish them to reap huge dividends.  Every moment is an opportunity.  Do not waste it, let us turn now to the Yizkor service.

Kol Nidre 2015

Rabbi Philip Weintraub

Congregation Agudas Israel

9/22/15 (5776)

Kol Nidre: Holiness of Mundane in Human relationships

Before I start another sermon with a joke, I want to add a brief follow-up to my second day Rosh Hashanah sermon.  I spoke about the miracles and challenges of Israel and challenged you to come with me next May.  The flyers are at the table with your nametags and deposits are being accepted starting Thursday!  Now, to the humor:

A rabbi, a priest and a minister are fishing, sitting on a little boat in the middle of a lake.  After a little while, the rabbi says, “I think I need a soda.” So he walks across the lake and grabs a drink from his picnic basket on shore.  A few minutes later, the priest says “I could really use my sandwich,” so he walks across the lake and grabs a bite from his picnic basket.  The minister is absolutely amazed at this and decides to try it out.  He excuses himself to use the restroom, takes a step off the boat and starts splashing about in the water.  The rabbi turns to the priest and says, “Should we have told him about the stepping stones?”

What does it mean to be a community?  In the last few years, United Synagogue has stopped calling its member congregations congregations.  Instead they call them kehillot, communities.  We strive to be a kehillah kedoshah, a holy community, where we look out for one another, support one another, help in times of need and celebrate each other's simchas.  The rabbi and priest in my joke would have been a lot nicer had they just told the minister where the steps were!

As a community, we keep each other in the loop.  If someone is sick, we check in on them.  Hopefully I am told.  Every month in the bulletin I write that sometimes it is ok to gossip.  I would rather hear that someone is ill three times than not hear at all. While many value their privacy, I cannot offer a prayer, cannot visit, if I do not know in the first place!  Creating and growing a community is dependent on our interconnectedness.

One of the aspects of this shul that I love is the feeling of community.  In the last few years, I can think of quite a few moments where we really did things right.  When “my girls” had their bat mitzvah, so many of you came to support, that it looked like Yom Kippur--although the kiddush was a heck of alot better.  Together they worked with me for quite awhile (and continue to do so) and when we celebrated their accomplishments people really showed up.  At bar mitzvahs of some of the young people of this congregation, the same spirit was found.  There is a great energy in this room when we truly come together.  When my daughter was born we found that same energy at her naming.  Celebrating her birth with so many of you, we discovered the love that is in this community.  We pray for many more such occasions in the future!

On the other side of things, when we have lost members and friends, we have never been short for a shiva minyan.  Even when members had been less active in their later years, shiva minyanim have been well attended.  While it would be nice if more people attended some of those funerals, I spoke this week with a recent widow and she shared how touched she was with those from way back who came to attend her husband’s funeral and shiva.

Just this past week I had another moment of celebration.  I was talking to one of our co-presidents, recovering from back surgery.  He said, “Did you tell everyone to call me? I heard from him and her and her and him to see how I was doing?”  I said, “It wasn’t me.  They are doing it on their own.”  In that moment, if I can pat myself on the back, I realized that my teachings and sermons are truly sinking in!

As a rabbi, as a chaplain, the lesson that I have really learned is “just show up”.  This lesson does not apply only to me.  Your presence is what makes or breaks an event.  It is what changes a class from me talking to myself to a spirited discussion.  Your physical self in this room transforms a service from personal prayer to a minyan. Your presence at a funeral, a shiva, in the home of someone who doesn’t get out much can provide so much support.  

When you visit someone who is ill your presence can actually help to heal!  Tractate Bava Metzia teaches that visiting the ill removes 1/60th of the illness!  This isn’t to say that you just need sixty visitors, as the Talmud and later commentators advise not overwhelming people, not arriving at the same time as the doctor, and giving people with intestinal distress more space so that they are not embarrassed by their noises and odors. With those caveats, the rabbis understood that just showing up is incredibly powerful for people.  Even if there is nothing “to do”, keeping a family member company can be a major source of consolation in a difficult time.  Don’t worry too much about saying the wrong thing, but try to give the person you are visiting space to talk.  Try listening more than speaking and then you won’t say anything you regret!  (That is a good lesson not just in a hospital, but in a shiva home, or in many conversations!)

Now that I’ve just said presence is more important than words, let me remind you that what and how we say does matter, too. The way we speak to one another, what we choose to say, and where we choose to say those words are all incredibly important and should reflect our values.  We must be careful of the words we choose, not just in a hospital, but in all situations.

There is a famous story elsewhere in Bava Metzia (84a) about Rabbi Yochanan and Reish Lakish, two famous scholars.  Rabbi Yochanan was known for his great beauty, which helped to inspire Reish Lakish to drop his first profession (as a leader of bandit and thieves) and become a Jewish scholar!  Rabbi Yochanan taught Reish Lakish Torah for years; they became very close, chevrutas, study partners and friends.  

This close friendship was broken one day when their normally spirited arguments of details of Jewish law took a personal turn.  Discussing swords and weapons, Rabbi Yochanan believed that the manufacturing of a sword was complete when it was tempered in an oven.  Reish Lakish said it was not complete until it had been cooled in water after that heating.  They debated for awhile until Rabbi Yochanan said, “you were once a bandit, so you are the expert on swords.”  Reish Lakish was broken hearted and replied “If you still think of me as a bandit, what did you ever do for me?”  Rabbi Yochanan replied “What did I do for you?  I reformed your ways.  I brought you under God’s protection.  How dare you not appreciate this!”  The two men departed, both deeply offended and personally hurt by the other's reaction.  Reish Lakish was so upset, and so crushed internally, that he fell ill, and eventually died because of it.

One might think the story is over there.  Yet the lesson continues with the reminder that even deep relationships can be irreparably harmed by harsh words and hurt feelings.  The narrative continues:

Rabbi Yochanan was upset and grieved greatly for his departed friend.  The other Rabbis saw this and wanted to pick him up.  They knew that Rabbi Yochanan was at his happiest when he was studying with Reish Lakish, so they began a search to find the most brilliant scholar they could, and would pair the two together as new study partners.  They found a tremendously bright student, who for every teaching Rabbi Yochanan would bring, would give a long list of reasons why he was correct.  But this did nothing for Rabbi Yochanan.  "I don't need this," he said.  "What I need is for you to tell me why I am wrong.  That is what made Reish Lakish so special.  That for every teaching I brought, he would tell me 24 reasons why I was wrong.  It was through that discussion and that debate, that we each came to see the other's viewpoint, and together we were able to finally learn what a correct answer might be."

In our tradition, arguing is important.  Disagreements are important.  Yet, we have to be aware of HOW we are arguing.  We must do so with respect, with love with kindness.  Showing respect applies even in board meetings and financial discussions!  We must remember that from our tradition, from our Talmud, public embarrassment is seen as a cardinal sin.

While I could give you several sources,  Bava Kamma 90a gives several examples of huge fines for seemingly minor physical confrontations.

. צרם באזנו, תלש בשערו, רקק והגיע בו רוקו, העביר טליתו ממנו, פרע ראש האשה בשוק נותן לו ארבע מאות זוז

4) If he tore at his ear, plucked out his hair, spat at him and his spit touched him, or pulled his cloak from off him, or loosed a woman’s hair in the street, he must pay 400 zuz.

Dr Josh Kulp of the Conservative Yeshiva writes;

“These types of blows will probably not cause any damage and therefore the fines are for embarrassment only...They demonstrate that Jewish law takes publicly embarrassing another person very seriously and penalizes such a person with a stiff financial penalty.  Indeed according to Jewish tradition one who publicly embarrasses another is akin to a murderer. “ http://learn.conservativeyeshiva.org/2014/05/bava-kamma-chapter-eight-mishnah-six/

Dr. Kulp also teaches about of Bava Metzia 58b-59a where we learn

that one who publicly shames his neighbor, it’s equivalent to murdering him; wronging someone verbally/publicly is worse than robbing him; better to have potentially (but not actually) adulterous relationship that to publicly shame his neighbor AND finally, better to throw oneself into a fiery furnace than embarrass someone!  

On that note,

[Check the age of the room]:

A rabbi, a priest and a minister are playing golf together.  As they get to the third hole, the rabbi says to the priest, “celibacy, hmm,  Really, forever?”  The priest says, “well, almost, there was this one time.”  Around the ninth hole, the priest says to the minister, “I know that your denomination doesn’t allow gambling, but have you ever played the lottery?”  The minister replies, “Well, there was that one time our convention was in Vegas.  I put a nickel in the slot machine and won $100.  You are the first people I’ve ever told.”  Just as they were getting ready to play the last hole, the two of them look at the rabbi and say, “do you have any vices?”  The rabbi looks a little sheepish and the says, “I do love a great story.  I’m trying to figure out who I want to tell these to first!”  

Again, the rabbi in this joke isn’t the nicest guy.  I wouldn’t want to go to a bar with him!  Jewish values would teach him to keep his mouth shut.  While there are certain exemptions to rules of gossip--ie letting me know if someone is ill so I can visit, sharing information that would stop a bad marriage or a bad business deal, we are not to speak ill of people maliciously or unnecessarily.  

Rabbi Israel Meir HaCohen Kagan, who lived a hundred years ago, was an incredibly important and influential rabbi who focused on ethical teachings.  He was an ethicist, a halachic judge, (posek) whose commentary on the Shulchan Aruch, the Mishneh Brurah, is authoritative in many circles today.  In Jewish parlance, an author is called not by his name, but by his most important work.  He is not generally known as the Mishneh Brurah, but as the Chofetz Chaim, which was his work about pure speech, refraining from gossip, and all the laws and customs surrounding that issue.  His teachings there, reminding us to be extremely cautious about how we speak about others, overshadows his authoritative book on Jewish Law.  This tremendously popular and pious rabbi continues to be referenced as his seminal work, even as he was a prolific author!  His books on shmirat ha’lashon, guarding the tongue remain in print and online as primary sources today.  (On a side note, if you’d like to study them with me, I’m glad to do so!) As we enter into a day of contemplation, let us strive that the year to come will include far more positive speech!  What does it say about Jewish tradition that his book about talking respectfully is even more well known than his book about the entirety of Jewish law.

Ignoring my jokes, I can boil down this sermon to three lines:

1. The way to be a community is to show up for one another.
2. To be a holy community, we need to think about what we say to one another.
3. Being nice, not embarrassing one another is the hallmark of being a good Jew.

May these points remain with you not just tomorrow, but every day this year. We have so much to celebrate here, let us continue to work for the positive! L’shanah tovah.

Gratitude is powerful. Finding the sacred in every day.

Rabbi Philip Weintraub

Congregation Agudas Israel

September 14, 2015

RH Day 1: Putting the extraordinary in the ordinary in Prayer

There is an old Israeli joke about a rabbi who arrives in heaven.  He is shown to his dwelling and learns what ones does and how one gets around.  After a few days of wandering, he finds a tremendous mansion, which seems even more fantastic after seeing his own humble dwellings.  After a few more days, he asks around and discovers an Egged bus driver (or Jerusalem taxi driver) is the resident of the most luxurious accommodations.  This rabbi gets rather frustrated and takes his concerns to the top.  He asks God, what is going on?  I spent my life serving you and teaching your people.  God responds quite simply. “When you taught, people slept.  When he drove, people prayed!”

 

What does your average day look like?  You get up, take care of your daily needs, eat, shower, get moving.  You go to work, to school, to the stores, run errands, do laundry.  Even retired we find ourselves in third or fourth careers, running, running, running.  As Americans, we are busier and more productive than ever, but are we happier?  Are we more fulfilled?  Do we find satisfaction in our busy, busy lives?  Children are rushed to activity after activity in order to be prepared for middle school, high school, college.  We live in a world of burned out elementary school children!  Too much homework, always on work phones for adults--with some companies even tracking their employees activities outside of work.  How much time of your day is spent in prayer or reflection, in gratitude?  Do you think you have time for that?

Every single day we are searching for more on our devices.  We click through and search for more.  We do not sleep because of the glow of the screens.  More news.  More life. More connection.  We live in a world where our single friends can scroll through endless possibilites on phone apps, yet struggle to find a real relationship.  So many choices leave them (and us) wondering if the best is yet to come, dismissing what we have! Looking at the facebook posts of friends and colleagues, 95% of what we see is the best, the most beautiful, the most wonderful.  We can feel horribly inferior, until we consider what WE post.  Do we share (or should we) our tsurris or just our best?  Do our facebook friends think we are also living perfect lives?

What would it look like if we just got off the technological treadmill?  What if we took a breath and imagined a different type of life?

Guess what you are doing right now?!  Today is Monday.  You have stepped out of your normal paradigm.  You are in a different space, thinking different thoughts.  I am not speaking just to pat you on the back, but to ask how you can bring this paradigm into your daily life.  Today, the first day of Rosh Hashanah, is about forgiveness and judgement, but it is also about new opportunities.  It is about looking at the world differently.  We sound the shofar.  Psalm 89:16 reminds us:

16 Fortunate is the people that know the blasting of the shofar; O Lord, may they walk in the light of Your countenance.

טז אַשְׁרֵי הָעָם יֹדְעֵי תְרוּעָה הֹ" בְּאוֹר פָּנֶיךָ יְהַלֵּכוּן:

Today I encourage you to feel fortunate.  Let the blast of the shofar awaken us.  Let us walk in the light of the Holy One and discover our blessings.  Looking around the world, we know that we are blessed to live here now.  We have major problems in this country, income inequality, far too much gun violence, yet right here, right now we are safer here than almost anywhere in the world at ANY time in history.  Our ancestors could not have imagined a world where we could have influence, safety, health, success and remain minorities.  World history is filled with the idea that for a people to be successful they have to dominate the society around them.  Jews have demonstrated that this is simply not the case.  We can be a tiny percentage of the world’s population and still accomplish incredible things, still live lives of meaning and dignity.

I invite you to look around this room with a spirit of awe and gratitude.  See the people that sit here with you.  See the friends that make this all possible.  Look at the book in front of you.  Within it are three thousand years of yearning.  These prayers are the original facebook, the original twitter, the original party line. On the sides of the book we have the commentaries, the dreams, the visions, the poetry, that helps us connect to those dreams, those prayers, those wishes.  Security. Peace. Love. Sustenance.  Housing. Family.  These dreams do not change, whether we live today or a thousand years before or after.

As Jews, we have a deep well, a reservoir of hope, of yearning, of connection.  We have traditions that tie us to our roots.  We are grafted to our sources of connection, to the Holy One, to God.  We create and renew this connection through prayer and thanks.  Looking at the liturgy here, the prayers we recite, we see the dreams that have not changed in millenia.  Every year there are new fads that try to connect people to that which is missing in their life, to help them find meaning.  Some of these fads--yoga and meditation--aren’t fads at all, but ancient wisdom from other traditions.  Other diets and workout routines are more temporal.  The search for thankfulness and gratitude is found throughout the world, for a very simply reason.  We are happier, more fulfilled, more joyful when we give thanks, when we see the good in each other and the world.

As Jews, we have a rubric, a template for giving thanks in so many ways.  From the prayers for the first flowers of spring, to those asking for healing, to daily prayers of waking up and going to bed, of pausing during the day to recognize our own humanity.  Traditionally we pray both before AND after we eat.  On September 22, 2018 I’ll study the 43rd page of Menachot, a tractate of Talmud discussing our ancient sacrifices in the Jerusalem Temple.  Yet, on that page is a demand from Rabbi Meir which I am quite familiar with: “

חייב אדם לברך מאה ברכות בכל יום, שנאמר: (דברים י') ועתה ישראל מה ה' אלקיך שואל מעמך. רב חייא בריה דרב אויא בשבתא וביומי טבי טרח וממלי להו באיספרמקי ומגדי.

It was taught: R. Meir used to say, A man is bound to say one hundred blessings daily, (skiP:)as it is written, And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee? On Sabbaths and on Festivals R. Hiyya the son of R. Awia endeavoured to make up this number by the use of spices and delicacies.

What would it look like to say one hundred blessings a day?  How would that even work?  Traditional Jews have it easy!  There are a dozen blessings when one wakes or enters the shul, nineteen thrice a day in the Amidah, three or four around the shema in the morning and at night, and blessings before and after meals--you are done!  Shabbat and festivals are more challenging with the Amidah having fewer blessings, yet celebratory meals and Shabbat walks enjoying our beautiful Hudson Valley can easily add enough scents and tastes to add up to the official count.  At the same time, I think we can gain much from Rabbi Meir even if we don’t literally count our daily blessings.  Some social scientists claim we are most productive if we work twenty minutes take a few minutes break and then return to our focus--like interval training for the mind.  What if we used that time for gratitude, to recognize the Creator of the Universe, to recognize the Divinity in ourselves, and in one another.  Would we be more focused (and generous) to one another in a meeting if we remembered the holiness within us all, if we saw how interconnected we all are?  

ד  שְׁמַע, יִשְׂרָאֵל:  ה" אֱ-לֹהֵינוּ, ה" אֶחָד.

4 Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one.

Echad, one, is translated in many different ways.  Echad--alone, singular, unlike anything else.  Yet kabbalistically, mystically, one might imagine a different sort of one-ness.  What if we saw all the world as God or at least Godly?  Would we look at Syrian refugees the same way?  How would we treat immigrants to this country?  Or even the most disliked group of people on this planet--political candidates! What would the WORLD look like if we acted with more love?

So the big question is if we have the secret to happiness, why don’t we use it?

I shouldn’t need to stand here and tell you that you will be undoubtedly happier if you are nice to people, if you give thanks to God for all that you have, if you appreciate your family, friends and the ones you love?  And yet, I must stand here and say exactly that!  

I have known my wife for nine years.  She knows me very well.  In the weeks leading up to the holidays, like many rabbis, I can get a little stressed and cranky.  I want everything to be just right.  I want you to walk away impressed with your community, closer to God, inspired to live more meaningful lives.  And I want you to do that without looking at your apple watches during my sermon.  In short, I want everything just right.  Yet at this time of year, even while writing about gratitude, I can find myself short-tempered!  In focusing on making sure every detail is right for you, I can forget the bigger picture, even the point of my sermons this week.  In coming together, I want us to learn how to live even when we are not gathered in these numbers in this room.  I want to inspire you to find the holiness that is in each day, whether or not I can get you to come back and spend time with me on a weekly basis!  I want you to find the blessings of OUR tradition not just today, but every day.

One way to do this is through our mouths and one is through our calendar.

Through our mouths, Jewish tradition has much to say about what goes in AND what comes out.  Some of you know the holiness of kashrut, of choosing to be conscious of every morsel that goes into your mouth, you may have discovered that making that choice supports the gratitude I mentioned previously.  However, do not let anyone tell you that what comes out of your mouth is any less important.  As the annexation debate rages just a few miles down the road, we must be cognizant of how we speak about our neighbors--both those who look like us and those who do not.  As Rabbi Sacks recently wrote:

I used to think that the most important line in the Bible was “Love your neighbour as yourself”. Then I realised that it is easy to love your neighbour because he or she is usually quite like yourself. What is hard is to love the stranger, one whose colour, culture or creed is different from yours. That is why the command, “Love the stranger because you were once strangers”, resonates so often throughout the Bible.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/06/refugee-crisis-jonathan-sacks-humanitarian-generosity

How we speak about others can have beautiful and grave consequences.  When I hear that my words and actions have inspired someone to live and teach the blessings of Rosh Hashanah at their holiday meals, I am filled with pride and gratitude.  Yet when I am told that my words have hurt the ones I love, I am filled with shame and grief.  Words matter.  When we think first of what we are to say, when we consider what we eat, what goes in and what goes out, every meal and every conversation is an opportunity for holiness!

The Jewish calendar is ONE more way of finding the holiness every single day--not just today, but every day.  From Shabbat to festivals, our calendar conspires to create time for family, for friends, for the sacred.  While disconnecting from work on a regular basis may seem crazy, obligating ourselves to time together is life changing.  Pausing on a regular basis allows us perspective.  It gives us the gift of time.  It creates moments to look out over our gorgeous Hudson river, to see the leaves change, to sit by the pool while we still can.  Whether we pull out of the fine china or eat Evergreen takeout on paper plates, those family dinners can change the course of our lives.  In just a week or two we will celebrate Sukkot and Simchat Torah, building the Sukkah (or letting me bring it to you), we shake fruits and vegetables, reminding ourselves of our roots, reminding ourselves of our land and our dependence on the Holy One.  When those holidays are over, I look forward to studying with you some of the sources of Shabbat and thinking with you how we might re-imagine Shabbat practices today.  Would we disconnect completely or use technology to connect to far-flung family?  Are we still celebrating Shabbat if we use our microwaves to reheat food?  We can make observing the Sabbath more about saying yes than saying no?!  Friday nights we sing Lecha Dodi, a mystical poem striving to connect us with God.  One verse has always moved me. יָמִין וּשְׂמֹאל תִּפְרֽוֹצִי. וְאֶת־יי תַּעֲרִֽיצִי Break out of your confines to the left and right, praise God.  Spread the Shabbat to the left and to the right.  In today’s world this is true, Muslims and Christians have taken our Sabbath and brought it to the surrounding days.  What would the world look like if we could spread the joy, the peace of Shabbat to the rest of the week?  How would you look?  How would you feel?  In the year to come, I pray we can discover this joy, this holiness together!

This is the way we find connection.  This is how we solve the yearning in our souls.  This is how we find God in every moment in our lives--by looking.  As the Kotzker rebbe, Menachem Mendel of Kotzk, said: “Where is God found?  In the place where we let God in!”  Let God in by finding the holiness, the joy, the meaning in each day.  

As we continue our service for the day, let us all remember today and every day my favorite verse from Psalms:

כד  זֶה-הַיּוֹם, עָשָׂה ה";    נָגִילָה וְנִשְׂמְחָה בוֹ.

24 This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.

Let every day be a day of rejoicing!