Grosse Pointe Jewish Council 2024/5785 High Holiday Messages
Erev Rosh Hashanah -- Of Messianic Cults His followers proclaimed him sent by God to save them from public persecution and restore them to their proper place in society.
The leaders of the community knew: that he was just a buffoonish clown craving publicity, deluded in his own self-importance.
The leaders of the community believed: that his followers would soon realize that he was nothing but a conman dressed up in fancy clothes.
The leaders of the community scoffed at: his wild and crazy ideas, the outrageous and alarming reforms that he promised.
The leaders of the community chose to ignore: his proclamations that he and he alone could and would deliver his followers from their suffering and avenge their grievances.
The leaders of the community expected that: his followers would soon see that they, the traditional leadership of the people, were their best and only hope for the salvation of the community.
But the leaders were wrong, and they waited too long before they confronted him, before they declared him a false messiah.
The leaders were wrong, and they waited too long before accusing him of destroying the very fabric of the community, of upending the traditional covenant and codes, the principles and philosophies that had held the community together for so long.
The leaders were wrong, and they waited too long because they were afraid to confront him, to declare his message false, afraid of the backlash from his followers.
And because they were afraid to oppose him his influence grew, and the leaders realized too late that he had captured the hearts and bent the minds of his followers. Too late the leaders realized that he could and would rally his followers against them if they objected.
And his followers were swept up in the belief that he and he alone could and would save them as he promised them. And though many of those who did see him for who he really was just went along to get along, they were afraid that he would turn on them and denounce them. So he violated the laws of the community, and his outrageous proclamations were cheered by the crowds as he declared that that which was once a sin was no longer a transgression and was now, with his coming, a virtue.
He was hailed wherever he went, proclaimed by the crowds a gift from God. His followers were certain that the time had come, that their time had come, that they were about to witness the great redemption, the promised salvation when evil would vanish and the downtrodden would rule again.
But his mission failed when he was arrested and forced to choose between his delusions and the truth, when he was compelled to declare himself a false messiah. But his followers refused to accept that admission, and many of them followed him into the abyss of his defeat, believing to the end that this was just the darkness before the dawn of his redemptive rise. And historians today are amazed that so many, so firmly, believed. Amazed that this false messiah had so easily convinced the people that he was divinely chosen; amazed that thousands applauded his delusions and became foolish and disillusioned pawns caught up in this cult of adoration.
In 1626 Shabbtai Tzvi was born in what is today western Turkey. His yeshiva teachers described him “a bright, charismatic student of pleasant appearance and musical abilities, but inclined to solitude”. He was drawn into Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, and when he was twenty, he began to develop “unusual behaviors”. He would alternately sink into deep depression and isolation, only to rise out of it with a frenzied ecstasy. His manic-depressive swings were, for the most part, ignored by his family and friends who accepted him as “a pleasant enough fool.” But the rabbis, the community leaders, could not ignore his strange compulsions. He blessed and then ate non-kosher food! He would shout out loud the forbidden and not-to-be-spoken name of God and then pray with that name! And when at 25 he proclaimed himself Messiah, his hometown rabbis had enough, and they banished him. Shabbtai Tzvi wandered for several years in Greece until the Jewish leaders there forced him to leave after he called the community together for his wedding, bringing a Torah Scroll under the chupa as his bride, blessing himself and his “bride” using God’s unspoken name, declaring his authority to do so as The Messiah. He was later expelled from Constantinople for celebrating the three Pilgrimage Festivals (Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot) all in one week. Exiled again, he isolated himself in seclusion for three years. Later, at age 39, on his way to Egypt he passed through Gaza where he met Nathan Benjamin Levi who had previously proclaimed himself to be the resurrected Elijah. Nathan would become Shabbtai’s right-hand man and PR agent, surely a match made in heaven. Nathan, as the risen Elijah, then widely promoted Shabbtai as the Messiah, and proclaimed that Yamot HaMashiach, the Days of the Messiah had arrived, promising that the Messianic age would begin the following year (1666) when Shabbtai Tzvi the Messiah, the “Anointed One” of God, would conquer the world without bloodshed. Nathan declared that in 1666 Shabbtai Tzvi would lead the exiled Jewish multitudes back to the Holy Land and reconstitute the Ten Lost Tribes. The good news spread quickly and widely in the Near East and Europe: at long last the answer to the prayers of a scattered and oppressed people. Arriving in Egypt in 1665 the pair gained notoriety and attracted large numbers of “messiah groupies” who would follow Shabbtai and Nathan back to the Holy Land. And when, with great fanfare they and their followers came to Jerusalem, the rabbis were not quite so sure that he was not the Messiah! Upon arriving, Shabbtai Tzvi audaciously announced that he would soon offer sacrifices on the Temple Mount. But for the Jerusalem rabbis, this was too much! First of all, sacrifices were absolutely forbidden there until the Temple was restored. And perhaps even more importantly, for 1000 years the Dome of the Rock occupied the exact spot where the Temple would divinely be rebuilt. Such an attempted violation of this Muslim holy place would surely incite a major riot, and the entire Jewish population would be punished by the Turkish authorities. The rabbinic leadership of Jerusalem dispatched a message to Shabbtai, demanding that he not go through with his plan, and though he reluctantly agreed, he signed his written response to them with ‘I am Adonai your God, Shabbtai Tzvi’. To his gathered multitude of followers, he blessed them saying “Blessed is Adonai our God, Who permits the forbidden”, and he declared all forbidden foods now kosher and permissible. The rabbis had finally heard enough and had enough. They publicly attacked him and quickly excommunicated both Shabbtai and Nathan. The rabbis then reported to the Turkish/Muslim authorities that this false Messiah had promised rebellion against the Sultan himself. Only in Jerusalem for a week, Shabbtai and his entourage were banished from the city. The rabbis who had followed his career and had for so long been silent, now sent letters to the world’s major Jewish communities, warning them of the false messiah. But Shabbtai Tzvi’s messianic movement had already gained momentum. Jewish (and some non-Jewish) communities throughout the Ottoman Empire and Eastern Europe were swept up in an enthusiastic expectation of Divine Redemption. Even the Pope in Rome sent a delegation to Jerusalem to investigate and report how the Messiah’s arrival would affect the Christian world. Banished from Jerusalem, Shabbtai returned to his hometown of Smyrna, where in the autumn of 1665 he was welcomed and honored, a native-son success-story. On Rosh Hashana in Smyrna he again declared himself Messiah in the synagogue as the shofar was blown and the crowd shouted: “Long live our King, our Messiah!” And following Shabbtai’s 1665 Rosh Hashana proclamation, Nathan wrote to the head of the Egyptian Jewish community that in this new Jewish year, Shabbtai would take the crown of the Turkish Sultan, and make him his servant. And Nathan even fixed the date of that final Redemption—June 18, 1666 (a week after Shavuot). “The Age of Chaos”, Nathan wrote, “is finally over. Peace has come.”
His fame extended as far as Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands where Jewish communities, desperate for hope and the Messianic arrival, proclaimed the “good news” of the 1666 Messianic End-of-Days. Prominent rabbis climbed on the bandwagon and became zealous adherents. Whole communities were prepared to leave everything behind and follow him into the Olam Haba, the “World to Come”. Mass hysteria spread throughout the Middle East and Europe. Trade and commerce stopped, prophets appeared by the hundreds, people went into trances, businesses were sold for ‘pennies on the dollar’ and families were ready to be magically transported to Jerusalem for the Final Redemption. On December 30, 1665, Shabbtai Tzvi, with great fanfare, boarded a ship for Constantinople to “take the crown of the Turkish king”. But the Turks seized his ship in open water, took Shabbtai captive, and placed him under house arrest in Constantinople. The city responded in a collective uproar as they waited for Shabbtai, any day now, to escape Turkish arrest. But then, six months later, the promised date of redemption, June 18, came and went. And 3 months after that, on September 15, two weeks before Rosh Hashana, Shabbtai Tzvi was brought before the Sultan and given the choice of converting to Islam or die. Shabbtai Tzvi chose conversion and took a Muslim name. And his short-lived Messianic career was apparently over. But even this shocking news did not still the storm that he had created, and with characteristic audacity, Shabbtai Tzvi claimed that this was merely a temporary, preliminary stage in the redemptive process as explained in Kabbalah which required him to enter the darkness in order to redeem the last sparks of the Divine. Incredibly, hundreds of Jews converted to Islam with him, and for him. Shabbtai Tzvi remained under house arrest, comfortable and able to receive visitors and communicate with the world for ten years, until he died on Yom Kippur, 1676. Shabbtai Tzvi was 50 years old. But even after his death, many believers who had followed him into Islam remained convinced that his messianic mission was not yet complete. They identified themselves as Sabbatians into the 19th C, ostensibly living as Muslims while secretly following their own version of Judaism. The Sabbatians were, of course, vigorously opposed by Jewish authorities, and were eventually forced to hide their beliefs even from their own children, who were only told “the truth” when they became adults. By the end of the 19th C, the Sabbatians had been reduced to small groups of hidden followers who feared being discovered by both Muslims as false believers, and by Jews as heretics. After WWI, Istanbul became the center of the small Sabbatian community which outwardly practiced and professed Islam but secretly observed a Sabbatian faith that combined traditional Jewish theology, Kabbalah and Sufi mysticism. Central always was the belief that their messiah, Shabbtai Tzvi, did not die but was in hiding and would return. And because he “permitted the profane” during his life, they were no longer subject to the laws of Torah.
And the Sabbatians are still around today, concentrated for the most part in Turkey. It is supposed that they number several thousand, but since it’s a secret community, outwardly Muslim and only privately Sabbatian, precise numbers and information are scarce. In Turkey they are known as donmeh, meaning “one who has turned”, meaning turned from Islam. Members of the Sabbatian community refer to themselves as ma’aminim, Hebrew for “believers”. And because they are secretly not Muslims, on the one hand they cannot fully integrate into Turkish society, and on the other, they are rejected by Jews as heretics and have no place in the Jewish community-- so marriage either way is a problem.
For over 350 years now they wait for Shabbtai’s return, and despite everything to the contrary, they refuse to believe that they have been duped, that they are on the wrong side of history. Caught up in having so completely committed themselves to the Sabbatian cult, they cannot accept what seems so manifestly true to the rest of us-- that if the Messiah’s message violates the community’s standards and norms of behavior, violates the beliefs, ethics and principles of the traditional customs of the community, one might want to re-think one’s wholehearted support of and belief in a self-proclaimed savior and messiah.
Since Shabbtai, the Jewish community has learned its lesson and not allowed itself to be so simply deceived. (the CHABAD Lubavitchers are a notable exception) But one never knows if the situation should someday come again, that so desperately desiring a savior, we might fall in line behind another Shabbtai Tzvi.
Rosh Hashanah -- Head v. Heart: It's Complicated This morning we read the traditional and particularly upsetting story of God commanding Abraham to kill his son Isaac. Every year as we approach Rosh Hashana, as I approach Rosh Hashana, I struggle to lay this story onto some kind of framework that might help me justify reading it again. What kind of God asks this of a parent? What kind of parent accepts this command? Year in and year out, on Rosh Hashana of all days, we’re forced to “do something” about this story. And it doesn’t matter whether we believe it is true or not. Chapter 22 of Genesis just sits there, waiting, like the troll under the bridge (remember “Three Billy Goats Gruff”?), just waiting for us to pass over into the Torah Service, waiting for us to take out the Torah, just waiting for us, as Tradition requires we must, to begin: “Sometime later God tested Abraham…”
I’ve spent most of our previous nine Rosh Hashana mornings sharing with you my struggle with Chapter 22, this Akedat Yitzchak, the “Binding of Isaac”. On some mornings I’ve redeemed, at least to my own satisfaction, both God and Abraham, and to some degree Isaac. I’ve explained before why I think this one particular chapter, in all of Torah, was chosen almost 1900 years ago by the rabbis to be specifically read on this particular day, when all of the community was required to sit still and listen. This year, accepting the chapter for what it is, I realize that my conclusion about this story also informs me about a current serious and challenging issue that presses upon our community.
We are four days away from the first anniversary of October 7, the brutal and sadistic, cold-blooded and ruthless attack from Gaza. In response Israel launched a brutal and extensive counterattack. And since then, our community here has torn itself apart over what’s going on over there. And Father Abraham, I think, has something to teach us.
We read this morning “Sometime later God tested Abraham.” What was the test? I believe that it was not whether Abraham would faithfully, obediently, go off, intending, to kill his son. Rather it was a test of what Abraham would make of the command itself. Abraham’s heart told him “I can’t kill my son, the one we’ve waited for so long. But on the other hand, this is God telling me, the God who brought me to this land, who blessed me with property and prosperity and could just as easily take it away. But on the other hand, why would God ask me to kill the very son that God has graciously given us? But on the other hand, this is God, all-powerful and all-knowing, so how can I disobey? And of course, God could just as easily give us another son.” But one other hand, how can I kill my son? But then, as I imagine, Abraham’s head told him, “Wait a minute here. Let’s think this through. God told me before [15:5]: ‘Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them . . . So shall your offspring be.’’ And four times previously [17:15, 17:19, 17:21, 21:12] God specifically told me, promised me, that my seed would continue through Isaac! So Abraham’s head told him—either God’s previous promises are empty and mean nothing, or the promises are true and Isaac must live.” Interestingly, Abraham, as we read in the text, doesn’t argue or object, doesn’t complain, doesn’t throw up his hands in confusion. But why? Because he listens not to his heart but to his head and so thinks to himself “OK. Let’s see what’s going on with this God. If the previous promises are true, if this God is a man-of-his-word (so to speak), then God won’t let me kill the boy. But if the previous promises mean nothing, and he really wants me to kill my son, then forget it! The boy and I will come back home and be altogether done with this God.” So Abraham and Isaac set off early the next morning and three days later climb the mountain. Abraham ties up his son, reaches for the knife and waits. “OK God”, he thinks, “It’s now or never. Stop me now or the deal between us is over.” And a messenger of God does stop him. (I do find it interesting though that it’s not God who stops Abraham, not God who steps in and speaks, but only a messenger. Is God afraid to face Abraham, to face-up to what he’s put Abraham through? And along those same lines we should also note that God never speaks or appears to Abraham again.) Meanwhile, Abraham, after laying down the knife, says to himself “Yeah, I thought so!” Abraham’s heart did speak truthfully to him before: I don’t want to kill Isaac, but it is God telling me. But it’s just not right, but it is God who originally gave us Isaac, and if God could give us one, God could give us another. And if, in the end, Abraham had listened only to his heart he would have either killed Isaac on the mountain or preemptively cancelled his contract/covenant with God then and there-- if Abraham had only listened to his heart. But he did not, he listened to his head. And we have to do likewise.
Much has happened since October 7, and none of it is good. I’m a Zionist at heart and my heart weeps for the innocent Israelis who were slaughtered, butchered, and kidnapped into Gaza where many were further brutalized and raped. My heart, on and after October 7, hardened and told me that swift justice from the IDF was needed and necessary, that the Hamas invaders must suffer dearly for what they did, that the hostages have to be rescued at any cost. My heart told me that the Palestinian population in Gaza is at the very least passively complicit if not actively supportive of Hamas, and must bear some responsibility for this atrocity. My heart on October 7 held little sympathy for anyone in Gaza. But as the days became weeks, and the destruction in Gaza became more widespread and devastating, my heart softened, and I felt both sorrow and sympathy for the displaced families, for so many blown-up and bloodied in the hospitals, for the children and families without food or water. And as the months have become a year, I find that my heart is of two voices: one shouting for retribution and rescue, and the other sighing in sorrow and sadness that so many suffer. And my heart is also angry at the Netanyahu government. They had for years turned a blind eye to what Hamas was doing in Gaza. The Israeli government allowed Hamas to flourish in order to prevent Abbas and his Palestinian Authority in the West Bank from achieving prominence and power among the Palestinians. Because he rejected the possibility of a Palestinian state, Netanyahu and his government wanted a weak and unpopular Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. So long as Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority were fighting each other for political status, each claiming national representation, Netanyahu could ignore calls for a Two-State Solution. Consequently, after the Hamas attack and the Israeli bombing that followed, my heart was telling me “a pox on both their houses”. But I’m a Zionist at heart, I’m ever and always a supporter of Israel. I’m angry when she is unfairly held to higher standards than other nations. I fear for her when she is attacked, and I rejoice when she shows the world of what she is capable. So my heart pushes me away from the wicked Palestinians and the self-serving Netanyahu government. But then again, my heart is drawn to the suffering Palestinians and the desperate Israelis who only want this nightmare to end and the hostages home.
Abraham responded to the challenging predicament of God’s “test” by listening to his head, and not his heart. And that, I think, is where we should listen in addressing this predicament.
Rationally, intellectually, objectively it is clear that Hamas is a danger not only to those who live in Israel, but those in Gaza as well. We’re finally beginning to hear Palestinians express anger and regret for the consequences of Hamas control. Hamas has to be replaced by a responsible Palestinian leadership in Gaza, as does also the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. But this is not something that Israel or the West can do. Nor does it seem that the Palestinians themselves can do it or are able to do it. The Arab world must finally and resolutely step into the breach and take responsibility for building and supporting a self-sustaining indigenous Palestinian leadership, a leadership that recognizes their reality vis a vis the State of Israel. Egypt, Jordan, the Saudis and their Gulf State allies have the ability and the resources and the credibility to oversee the rebuilding of Gaza and see to the well-being of the Palestinian people. A Palestinian resolution cannot be imposed from without, but only from within the Arab world.
Rationally, intellectually and objectively it is clear that Israel cannot continue operating as it has for the past two years. Even before October 7 the Netanyahu government was immensely unpopular. For months on end thousands of Israelis weekly protested the government’s plan to restrict the authority of the judiciary, to increase the authority of the radical political right and self-interested religious right. Only new elections can resolve, one way or the other, the political tug-of-war that has consumed the Israeli public for over two years.
Rationally, intellectually and objectively it is clear that only a Two-State Solution can resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unfortunately, Israeli popular support for a Two-State Solution is at an all-time low. Nevertheless, it is in my opinion the only solution. Israel will have to unilaterally declare borders, tell many of the settler communities that they can either live within a new Palestine or move back into Israel. Israel should declare it a hostile border and leave the new Palestinian state to be responsible for its own well-being. If the surrounding Arab nations are then interested and finally willing to be an economic partner with a self-sustaining Palestine, let them all work it out.
The Middle East is a complicated place: Sunni versus Shia, Iran versus Egypt and the Saudis, Hezbollah versus the Lebanese and the Syrians, Charedi versus secular Israelis, the Settler Movement versus the Left Wing, Israel versus the Palestinians. And to some extent we, American Jews, find ourselves often caught in the middle.
I am a Zionist at heart, but my heart should not and must not, direct my response to the situation over there. I am a Zionist at heart, and I cheer and cry as Israel succeeds and suffers. But I know that it is with my head that I should support what’s right from what’s wrong, the politically possible from the immediately expedient, democratic leadership from religious zealotry. My head tells me that there is no easy way out of this situation, either in the short or the long term. The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has weak and ineffectual leadership, Hamas with evil intent is dedicated to the destruction of Israel, and Israel has the wrong kind of leadership. How should we, or even should we, respond? And if we care, how can we, might we, should we help? I can’t rely on my heart. I have to rely on my head. There are local and national organizations that support and promote the rational conclusions you or I might come to. There are groups in Israel that are dedicated to the values, actions and behavior we support. But ultimately, the situation can only be resolved by the parties immediately involved, albeit encouraged necessarily by pan-Arab and American allies.
Abraham, confronted with his “test”, would have realized the very serious consequences of whatever his response might be. He handled it the best way he could, given the circumstances. Isaac’s ultimate well-being would have to be collateral damage, but it couldn’t be helped if Abraham was going to test God’s previous promises. American Jews are being tested today. How should we, might we, must we, respond to what’s happening over there in the other country we support and love? But what we do share, and as a community affirm on this first day of the new year, is this, from Psalm 122 . . . שַׁ֭אֲלוּ שְׁל֣וֹם יְרוּשָׁלָ֑͏ִם Pray for the well-being of Jerusalem; May those who love you be at peace. May there be well-being within your ramparts, peace in your citadels.” For the sake of all, I pray for your well-being.
Post Script-- The following Spotify audio was passed on to me from GPJC member Ron Feldman, who received it from Tyler Shaw. It’s a Shabbat Message of Rabbi David Wolpe from last November and coincidently opens similarly to this Rosh Hashanah message of mine, though goes in a very direction. https://open.spotify.com/episode/4RLOhqPgkARi4Qsnta7sNu?si=Tze3E__9TVWAWnxy1AS1KA
Erev Yom Kippur -- Because People Aren't Basically Good Erev Yom Kippur, so often identified as the “Kol Nidre” service, has always been particularly difficult for me theologically. Tonight we began with Bryant Frank singing the collective and rather defiant kol nidre that declared “all the vows” that we might make in the year ahead, could be and can be, “absolved, annulled, and abandoned.” And yet, if tonight is all about the imperative importance and even necessity of seeking atonement from what we’ve done this past year, then given last year’s kol nidre in-advance-absolution, why are we even concerned about past promises and vows?!
And if that’s not confusing enough, we’re supposed to believe that with sunset tomorrow, those of us who have been sincerely repentant during these next 24 hours will be written, sealed for and guaranteed a “good, healthy and successful year” in God’s Book of Life—in advance and regardless of however despicable next year’s behavior might be! Really?!— Past behavior will tomorrow evening be just-like-that forgiven; and right now I’m free to fully disavow all future promises; and by the next sunset I’m automatically guaranteed a year of blessing irrespective of my behavior?! Does any of this make sense?
You can understand, I think, my discomfort about Yom Kippur. And yet, the day’s contradictions and false promises have not kept me from showing up and leading tonight’s liturgy! Nor, apparently, has the disquieting theology of the evening deterred your presence in the sanctuary. We are here, I think, because despite its irrationality, there’s something important and necessary and satisfying and affirming about coming together tonight. We sense that there’s something about this evening that transcends the disturbing liturgy of the prayerbook and its traditional theology. We somehow know this is where we’re supposed to be, and this is who we’re supposed to be with.
I sometimes wonder about those Jews who are not here tonight. If they know it’s Yom Kippur, if it’s not a hardship getting here, if their Jewish identity is sincerely important to them-- then why are they not with us? Giving them the benefit of the doubt, maybe it’s this problematic traditional theology that keeps them away, or maybe it’s that what we’re doing in the sanctuary tonight and tomorrow doesn’t really have any effect on their lives or well-being one way or another, or maybe for them all of this is nothing more than “sound and fury signifying nothing” [Macbeth]. I wonder, particularly on special days like this, why proud and affirming Jews feel they don't really need to participate with, or be involved with, or celebrate with their Jewish community. What I have heard explained is that their ritual complacency and sense of religious self-sufficiency comes from their belief that since Judaism affirms that people are basically good, and since Judaism is essentially just about doing the good—then that as long as a Jew follows one’s “inner self”, one’s basically “good” conscience-- one is already doing the expected, the proper, even the commanded “Jewish thing”. And if being a good person in and of itself makes one a “good Jew”, then there’s no need for whatever we’re doing here in the sanctuary. And if Western secular society, and especially the liberalism of modern American culture, affirms that people are basically good, the more a Jew identifies with “contemporary liberalism”, the more likely it is that the Jew is already doing the “Jewish thing”! Thus one’s apparent absence from the Jewish community on Yom Kippur does not at all diminish one’s Jewish identity, for the Jew is already fulfilling his/her Jewish “supposed to do's” by acting morally, ethically, decently in secular society! How wonderful! We can be authentically Jewish without having to learn from, participate with, support, or take responsibility for this Jewish community in particular, or the Jewish enterprise in general! But what if that original proposition is wrong? What if people are not basically good?!
You may have heard me say before that Judaism affirms the basic goodness of humanity. You may have heard me say before that a significant difference between Judaism and Christianity is that they declare that people are born tainted, stained with “original sin”, but that we say no, we are not “born into sin”, which is true. However, I’ve also come to the conclusion that we are not naturally, basically, inherently “good” either. Thinking back upon what it was like to have an infant in our home, she (and then he) was the ultimate in selfishness! Their waking hours consisted of demanding food, then comfort, then cleaning, then attention, then food—all despite what the rest of us might have wanted at any given moment. Now I know that this is normal behavior, exactly what we should expect from a baby, but on what grounds did we ever decide that because infants are basically selfish, they are basically “good”?! Well, perhaps their 'intrinsic goodness' comes out as they get older! Do I need to remind you of your teenage years, of the petty cruelty, the bullying and exclusions in junior high and high school? If you were not the fat, short, clumsy, or 'different' kid that was picked on, you knew who was! For real-- babies, children and adolescents are not basically good—and then they grow up! If truth be told, I think that folks often look for opportunities to 'not be good'! If you thought you could safely “shave” a little from your 1040, you'd do it! If you had the opportunity to say something nasty about a person you really disliked, with the assurance that they wouldn't know who said it, you'd do it! We do bad things because we “want to”, and we tend not to do bad things for fear of being caught! The statement: 'people are basically good' is one of those beliefs about which George Orwell said, “It is so foolish, only an intellectual could believe it.” And if further evidence is needed, we have the lessons of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Does it really make sense, for Jews particularly, to believe in the essential, foundational goodness of humanity?! We may scoff at fundamental Christians, or Orthodox Jews who blindly affirm irrational faith-statements, but how different are we if we believe that people are basically good?! If we strip ourselves of this long-held dogma, we come to realize that 'faith in the innate, intrinsic goodness of humanity' is nothing more than the final, futile and desperate last stand of the complete secularist! Because the less “religious” a person is, the more he or she needs to believe, must believe in the ultimate and innate goodness of humanity because that is all there is behind their hope that things will get better for the world and for us.
I am reminded of Woody Allen's 1989 film “Crimes and Misdemeanors”, I think it’s his most Jewish and religious movie. In that film Martin Landau, the Jewish protagonist, had long since abandoned his childhood faith in God. The point on which the film turns is that having rejected God, he realizes he can't have faith in humanity either. Faced with what's left, he concludes “Life is a cesspool”. But believing that life is a cesspool is not what we’re told is Jewish, is “Judaism”. While we might reject the simplistic theology of the prayerbook and Bible that God rewards the good and curses the evil, and have learned to transcend that naivety-- we nevertheless know that every prayer, every message from Scripture and its commentary, is still “life affirming”. Genesis reports that God made Creation “good” but that it can and should be made still better because we’ve eaten from that fruit and we know the difference between good and bad, right and wrong. But then how do we choose, on what basis are we supposed to choose? If the secularist says that all we have to guide us in our finite frailty is one’s instinctive preference for doing the right thing, and if the right thing is determined by what I think, believe, conclude and thus approve is the “right” thing, then the secularist must conclude that “good” is only that of which I approve, and “bad” is what I don’t! The secularist must finally and ultimately come to the conclusion that what makes murder (for instance) 'wrong' is that we don't happen to “like” it. In a purely secular society, morality can never be more than a matter of personal opinion! But if you believe that beyond your personal and subjective opinion that Hitler's organized and systematic program of mass murder and torture was objectively wrong and immoral, if that conclusion has to be and must be more than just your “opinion”, then something beyond “personal opinion” must declare it so. What then is that “something else”, and where does it come from? And if you say that it comes from the “basic goodness” at the heart of humanity, I would respond that our social reality refutes that. We don’t have to look very far to see that folks are not basically, innately, intrinsically good. And if we are not, then the source of objective morality must come from something 'higher' than any inherent human goodness. As Jews we call that higher source “God.” And even though our theology has radically, critically, judiciously changed in the several thousand years since the story of the Israelites at Sinai was told, we still affirm a transcendent Presence that is the ultimate source of our mores and values and social ideals.
And that brings us to Yom Kippur! On this one particular day of the year, we affirm that we stand in the presence of a morality that transcends humanity. Greater than the sum of our parts must be a measure of right and wrong with which our actions ought to be judged. We have long fooled ourselves into thinking that this 'measuring stick' could be the intrinsic quality of innate goodness residing in the human heart. And the consequence of such thinking takes us back to Woody Allen's “Crimes and Misdemeanors”. The character played by Martin Landau commits a heinous crime, and in the agony of his guilt he comes very close to confessing. But as time passes, he realizes that not only will he not be found out, but it becomes easier and easier to put the matter out of mind. Safe from the authorities, and secure in his self-justification, it becomes apparent to him that not only can he live with the evil he's done, but if it doesn't bother him then it's really not so evil, not so immoral! He's decided that choices of morality and immorality are not absolute and universal. Rather right and wrong are only real as they are seen and judged by people. Ironically, Landau's character is an ophthalmologist, and one of his patients, the rabbi, the “religious” presence in the film, becomes himself blind in the end! And as the film concludes, we are supposed to be disturbed about the consequences of morality measured only by each of us, and that any of us can be the decider of whether behavior is moral or not. We are fooling ourselves if we think that humanity alone is all that we need in order to learn the good and do the good. Which makes Yom Kippur our yearly collision with the folly of that belief. If the essence and import of Judaism and of being Jewish is nothing more than what is already found in the honesty of your conscience, in what you have decided is right and good, then this becomes a world of disorder and chaos, a world where good and evil are as unstable as the ever-changing moods of humanity and human nature and human culture.
On Yom Kippur we hear a message unlike that at any other time of the year. It is not that we must believe that there is God, but that we must behave as if there is God! Behaving “as if God is” means that we accept a transcendent morality of ultimate and absolute right and wrong. It means that goodness is not something I or you subjectively, innately know, but rather it is the objective goal of my intentional walk along this Jewish path.
Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are our opportunity to tap into the source of energy that is both our immediate Jewish community and over two thousand years of Tradition. However disquieting is our struggle with the words of our prayerbook or the theology of our tradition, we are nevertheless commanded: בֵּ֖ית יַעֲקֹ֑ב לְכ֥וּ וְנֵלְכָ֖ה בְּא֥וֹר יְהֹוָֽה ”Come O House of Jacob, let us walk in the light of YHVH” (Isaiah 2:5).
Without the possibility of God we must conclude that being Jewish and being a good person are essentially interchangeable, that Judaism is just our expression of the “basic goodness of humanity.” But then why bother being particularly “Jewish” when its essence is basically, primarily just to be human? Without the possibility of God, we are forced to accept that morality changes at the whim of cultural vagaries. In the film “Crimes and Misdemeanors” a woman sitting at the Seder makes just that statement, and then she continues, “and I say, if he can do it and get away with it, and he chooses not to be bothered by the ethics, then he's home free.” To which the Jewish father exclaims, “God will judge!” “And if your faith is wrong”, his daughter asks, “just what if...?!” “Then,” her father says, “then I'll still have a better, happier life than all who doubt.” That’s what makes this day so important. Having been told that we cannot rely on our limited, and inherently self-serving notion of “the good”, we realize that it's not enough to let humanity and our transient culture set the standards for morality, for what is right and wrong. We have erred, we have sinned, we have transgressed in believing that we can manage morality on our own, thinking that we are basically good! What’s true is that without the possibility of God, we have ethical anarchy.
And even if our faith in God is wrong, even if our faith in the possibility of God is wrong? -- then, at the very least humanity will be all the better for our acting as if that belief were true, and there’ll be a far better chance that this will be a better year.
Yom Kippur -- This Is Our Story I corrected someone recently who asked a question about Reformed Judaism. I told him it’s “Reform Judaism”.
It was an understandable mistake, there are several Reformed Churches, notably Episcopal and Presbyterian that have re-formulated themselves as different from their original namesakes. I often hear this mistake that we are “reformed” from our own folks, and though for some it’s only a minor irritant-- for me, it’s like nails-on-the-blackboard.
My GPJC three-part series last June was called “American Judaisms”. There are, both locally and nationally, a variety of very different expressions of what Judaism says about what it means to be Jewish. And referencing those different “American Judaisms”, I spoke about the Chabad rabbi who has recently organized a community in Troy, Rochester and Auburn Hills. Apparently, I interest him as a non-observant and therefore irreverent Jew who nevertheless knows a lot about Jewish rites and rituals, Jewish history and tradition. I suspect that he thinks of me and the community I represent as primarily “Jews who don’t” rather than our view of “Jews who are”. He would define “properly Jewish” as God-commanded behavior (ie what we do), and only secondarily as a self-affirming identity (ie who we are). And since I am not “halachically observant” I am therefore not “properly Jewish”. And yet, I know a lot. He must wonder: ‘I know that he knows what he ought to be doing, so why isn’t he?!’
And I wonder how many of us also think of themselves as “Jews who don’t”, and in so doing necessarily think of themselves as somehow less than those “Jews who do”. But if we self-define and self-describe ourselves by what we don’t do, we aren’t doing ourselves any favors. If I tell you that this [book] is ‘not a chair,’ how is that useful or informative! As long we speak of and understand ourselves as “not like Conservative Jews” and “definitely not like Orthodox Jews”, who are we? And if one’s Jewishness is only “do whatever you want, believe whatever you want”, and if it doesn’t really matter what anyone does or believes, then aren’t we left with a kind of communal anarchy? Which then begs the question: What is it that holds a liberal, progressive Jewish community together?
In my June series on American Judaisms I referenced a 1972 treatise by Leonard Fein called Reform is a Verb. It was an important text then, and still is today. Its title– "Reform is a Verb" was meant to remind us that liberal, progressive Judaism is always in the process of re-forming itself. And the way we understand who we are as Jews, and how we work together as a community, is indeed a process. We, our folks specifically, and liberal, progressive Jews generally, continuously examine the cultural values by which we live, and weigh them against the ethical values of our tradition. Our Judaism informs us about how we are to live righteously and ethically within society, and society informs us about how Jewish rite and ritual may be meaningfully understood and valued. Together, religious faith and secular culture inform us-- not as mutually exclusive competitors, but as mutually beneficial components of a full and enriching life. What ultimately distinguishes us from what we call “the Orthodox” begins with Revelation. They affirm and believe that at Mount Sinai, 3500 years ago, God delivered to Moses both a written and an oral Torah, both of which Moses passed down to Joshua, who passed them to the elders of the tribes, who passed them on again and again, perfectly, from generation to generation, until the Oral Torah was eventually written and codified 2000 years ago, and has been since expanded. What Traditional Judaism today declares as the rites, rituals and rules of authentic Judaism is, they affirm-- precisely, exactly the original God-given mitzvote, commandments which should and do define one’s Jewish life. For Traditional Judaism, the “Revelation at Sinai” then, is the set and packaged behavior and theology that should and must direct Jews now. But for those of us who are not so sure of what exactly happened at Mount Sinai, 3500 years ago (if something happened at Mount Sinai!) —we look at that behavioral package and its theology very differently. We view it and value it and appreciate it as the very human product of our ancestors as they, over time, developed their understanding of what it meant for Am Yisrael/the Jewish People to be “in covenant” with God. For us, that “package” is important because it’s part of our foundational history. It’s important because it is the product of generational discussions, and though it is not the divinely mandated and perfect directive of God, we still ought to discuss and determine what it might mean for us as Jews, still in covenant with God. We, like the 2000 years of Jewish generations before us, have the same responsibility, authority and authenticity to embrace the text of Torah, and the commentary that expands it, that we should find there, what is for us Jewishly meaningful and true.
This morning we opened the Torah to the traditional Yom Kippur reading and we heard: This mitzvah is not too hard for you or too remote. It is not in the heavens that one should say ‘who is there that can get it for me, explain it to me, that we should do it?’ Nor is it across the sea that one should say ‘who will go there, and show it to us, that we should do it?’ No—it is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, and you can do it.
Even in the days of Moses and the early Israelites, there was the recognition that Judaism was to be in the hands of and molded by the community. The rabbinic commentators in the 2nd and 3rd and 4th centuries wrote that Torah, initially of God, was indeed given into our hands, our inherited possession to interpret, shape and direct. The mitzvah, the commandment, was meant to help us live meaningful lives in the world, to give us guidance as we engage the world, as we engage a changing world. Even for the rabbinic commentators it was never that the mitzvah was, in and of itself, its own purpose. Rather the mitzvah points us, prompts us, to find purpose in how we live our lives. Throughout rabbinic literature we hear the call for Jews to find “relevant authenticity”. A value is ‘authentic,’ only if it addresses the needs and desires of the individual and the community as they live in the world. And when Jewish Law did not reflect changing cultural standards, mores, or ethical values— then Halacha, rabbinic law, was changed.
Polygamy was outlawed even though God advocates it in Torah.
“Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” was defined out of existence because that Torah law violated cultural norms.
Parents do not execute a “rebellious son” in the public square, even though Torah expressly commands us to.
And despite the fact that God tells Moses that the people are to bring offerings to the Levites who will operate sacrificial sites scattered throughout the Land of Israel— the priests of Deuteronomy in the 7th C BCE closed down all those sites, centralizing the cult in Jerusalem because that’s what they wanted to do!
And even though the sacrificial cult was to be “a statute forever throughout your generations” [Lev. 23:14] once the Temple was gone the rabbis re-formulated worship into our prayerbook.
Judaism was then, and is today, only authentic if it serves as a guide for living within the standards, values, cultural convictions and reality of one’s own time and place.
There is a famous midrash, a rabbinic legend, about a 3rd C. argument over the kosher status of a particular kind of oven. Though everyone except Rabbi Eliezer is convinced it is not acceptable, Eliezer claimed it is indeed kosher, acceptable. [Baba Metzia 59]. So convinced is Eliezer, that he even calls God to his defense—and God responds “Can you all not see that in matters of law Heaven agrees with Eliezer?!” But Rabbi Joshua rose and exclaimed “The Law is not in Heaven!” to which Rabbi Jeremiah added that the Torah, having been given into our hands at Sinai, is now the responsibility of the community. And quoting Exodus [23:2] Rabbi Jeremiah proclaims “You God, You told us Yourself: ‘after the majority must one follow.’” The rabbinic revolution 2000 years ago that saved Judaism in the aftermath of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and Jewish society, that preserved Jewish worship from the termination of the Levitical priesthood and its cult—that rabbinic revolution transformed a centralized system of place and person-bound ritual, into a flexible and adaptable community, not tied to a specific space or a specially designated priesthood. And if any Jews today are the legitimate heirs to that rabbinic reformation, it is Liberal Progressive Judaism! We preserve the integrity of that 2000 year old revolutionary transformation. We recognize that Judaism must be valuable and meaningful and fulfilling within the world in which its people live.
Jewish expectations must always be measured by the ethical values of our tradition and tempered by the cultural values of the community.
Our Judaism informs us about how we are to live righteously and ethically within society, and society informs us about how Jewish rite and ritual might be meaningfully understood and valued.
Faith and culture are not mutually exclusive competitors, they are mutually beneficial components of a full and enriching life.
I believe that when our rabbis surveyed the emerging landscape in the generations after the Roman destruction, they understood exactly that. I believe that they re-formed the text and tradition of the Biblical, Israelite community into a rabbinic Judaism that celebrated its place within its surrounding culture to become a ‘player’ in Hellenistic society, and not fight as its adversary. And then, along the way, over a thousand years after that original rabbinic revolution, a frightened European Jewish community erected walls of separation and security around itself. Fearful of an oppressive and adversarial anti-Semitic society, the Jewish community enwrapped and insulated itself within a dogma of protective traditionalism, thinking that if “they” wanted us gone, then we would separate ourselves from “them.” So we re-affirmed that we were uniquely, divinely chosen to live in “God’s world”, and not place value in anything from outside that world. Within the walls of Torah there would be no change, no adaptation, and definitely not the attraction of social, secular depravity. Fearful of the folks around them they withdrew into the protection of Torah and its Truth and God’s promise of Eternal Life. That retrenchment became today’s Orthodoxy. It was a survival mechanism, tailored to that time and place and culture. Still today, their protective traditionalism demands a different lifestyle from those of us who perceive Jewish continuity as a cooperative application of faith and culture. They have chosen to be an insular and inflexible community that only looks inward. We have chosen to be an inclusive and progressive community that always looks outward. The truth is that a progressive and interactive outlook has always been the secret of our Jewish success. From the sacrificial, Jerusalem-centered cult that lasted 1000 years, we re-imagined and re-formed ourselves because we had to! Whenever the surrounding culture presented the Jewish community with opportunity, we expanded the horizons of what Torah is able to encompass. It’s the way it’s always been, and it’s that way today. And because we perceive America as a place for personal and Jewish opportunity, we identify with a liberal, progressive expression of Jewish faith and function.
Last July, my Troy/Rochester/Auburn Hills Chabad rabbi wanted to meet and talk, and I was happy to indulge him. Our conversation reminded me of a book published almost 20 years ago called One People, Two Worlds. It’s the collected correspondence between a Reform rabbi, Amiel Hirsch (who happens to be the brother of our Oakland University President, Ora Hirsch Pescovitz) and an Orthodox rabbi, Yosef Reinman. I remember thinking how surprising it was that someone representing Orthodoxy would acknowledge a Reform rabbi as a legitimate Jewish dialogue partner. And then later I read that he found himself in serious trouble for publicly recognizing Rabbi Hirsch as a real rabbi. And in that book One People, Two Worlds Rabbi Amiel Hirsch writes: We humans are fallible. We do not possess divine truth. We…have road maps that point us in the right direction. But even if we make a mistake—that too is okay! What is important is the direction. What is important is the process. What is important is the way. [And] that is what halacha means—to walk, to progress, to move forward… [And] change is the lifeblood of any religion. Change is critical because change is what life is about. People change, societies change, sensibilities change. Judaism’s genius was understanding that change is necessary and good. We took the best of what we found around us and adapted it to our belief system.
As I look back at the long history of our Jewish Heritage, it is the story of a people continuously re-forming Jewish belief and religious behavior. And it is a story that is ours, that has been given into our hands, to celebrate and continue.