| October 2007
Sinai Update – Week of October 28-November 3, 2007
Sometime we approach prayer as an opportunity to ask for “stuff” – even if to make requests that are critical for our lives – but one Hasidic teaching about this week’s Torah portion offers a different perspective about what prayer can be. After his mother’s death, Abraham sends his messenger on a quest for a wife for his son Isaac. The Torah tells us that Isaac “went out in the field to meditate [lasu’ach] at evening-time. He lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold, there were camels coming” (Genesis 24:63); there was a woman, Rebecca, on the camels whom Isaac would marry. The traditional interpretation reads the word lasu’ach as “to pray,” implying that in the field Isaac prayed for a wife, then looked up and immediately, BINGO!, his prayers were answered.
But the Hasidic teacher, Mordechai Yosef of Ishbitz (1800-1854) saw Rebecca’s arrival not as evidence of God’s divine providence, answering Isaac’s prayers, but as a signal or response from God at a moment when Isaac was in need of a sign, indicating that life could continue beyond his mother’s death. There is an important difference here: God, in this view, does not answer prayers by granting whatever it is we’ve asked for; instead, prayer is defined as our mental and spiritual preparation for the unknown, our act of opening up ourselves to possibilities in our lives we have not yet been ready to consider or accept. If our prayers can lead us to be transformed to see God’s signs, then they will allow us to have a deeper discernment, deeper understanding as we live out our days.
- Rabbi Andy Vogel
Sinai Update – Week of October 21-27, 2007
This week, one of our religious school students asked me: “Rabbi, can I pray for the Red Sox to win the World Series?” As a Jew and a rabbi, and a big, big Red Sox (and, sadly, Indians) fan, I regard this as a major theological question! We could, it seems, view tonight’s game as a test case regarding the efficacy of prayer. But if the Red Sox lose tonight’s first World Series game (God forbid!), does that mean that God didn’t hear our prayers? Or, does it mean that God is rooting for the underdog team, the Rockies? The student’s question raises more critical questions about prayer, namely: What is the point of praying, anyway? What kinds of prayers are “legitimate” in Judaism? Does God answer all our prayers? Does God take sides, sitting in the grandstands at Fenway rooting for His (?) favorite team? And, is the purpose of prayer an attempt to alter God’s divine plans, and, therefore, to change God?
I would suggest that, no, in Judaism prayer is a vehicle by which we can change God, as if prayer were magic. I believe that the purpose of prayer is, instead, to take the opportunity to meet God, to unite our hopes with God's plans. The act of praying, if it is successful, does not change God; it changes us. Prayer does many things: It serves as an expression of our innermost aspirations; it can give us hope; it can help us reflect on who we are; and more. As Rabbi David Wolpe has said, our prayers “are for us, so that we might connect to each other, to ourselves, and to God."
While some might pray that the hometown team win the World Series, beginning tonight, my prayer is one of thanks that we are witnessing another Red Sox milestone in our lifetimes, in the words of the She’hechiyanu: “Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Ruler of the universe, who has given us life, who keeps us alive, and who has brought us to this (Red Sox) season.”
[To read more on this topic from a piece I wrote for the Reform movement websites in 1999, click to
www.faithandvalues.com/tx/00/00/00/00/66/index.html
]
Sinai Update – Week of
Parashat Noach
(Genesis 6:9-1:32)
Reflections on the Torah Portion – Rabbi Andy Vogel
Noah’s task in isolating himself in the ark from humanity’s wickedness is one that requires tremendous spiritual strength.
He finds himself in a society where the norm is evil, violence and lawlessness, according to the Torah’s description.
What kind of response is required when the magnitude of social disorder is so great?
What can a
tzaddik,
a righteous person, do when he or she is witness to the outrageous behavior of those around him or her?
The Hasidic master Rabbi Mordecai Yosef of Ishbitz (1800-1854) suggested that God’s command to Noah that he build the ark is not only a job for physical survival during the flood, but also a spiritual challenge for channeling his deep anger and disgust at his fellow humans.
The Ishbitzer Rebbe suggested that God’s command to build the ark is a metaphor for Noah’s internal fortification against misdirecting his anger at the evil around him.
He taught that Noah had to do the spiritual work internally, “inside the ark,” and become spiritually balanced and complete, so he could channel his energy and work productively once the waters had subsided.
We, too, face the challenge of directing our outrage when we see the misuse of power and resources.
Rather than just lash out in anger, the Ishbitzer asks us to look within and achieve an inner balance first, and then go out from our “ark” into the world. - Rabbi Andy Vogel
High Holiday Sermons 2007
Today is Saturday, it’s also Yom Kippur, Shabbat, and my 6 ½ year old daughter can’t wait for tomorrow. You see, tomorrow is Sunday, and Sunday is … Allowance Day. Now that my daughter has entered into first grade, my wife and I have begun to give her her allowance on a weekly basis. And Sunday, the first day of the week, is allowance day. Each Sunday morning she runs in to us with great excitement and reminds us that “Today’s allowance day!” and that she is due the whopping sum of… one dollar.
Now, it’s true: One dollar doesn’t buy much these days, and she didn’t know that when we first set the amount of her allowance with her! But Rosa is learning quickly what a dollar is worth. We see her stack up her dollar bills, count up the other coins she has collected, in little piles. She is learning math – about quarters, nickels, dimes – about the new U.S. Golden Dollar coin and the value of all the other coins. And now part of our regular weekly conversation includes my daughter telling me the big plans she has for spending her allowance – which toys she’ll buy: Polly Pocket princesses, or Webkinz or clothes for her dolls. Just today she announced she was going to save up her dollars until she has a … twenty dollar bill.
But as much as she dreams of buying toys, my daughter is also learning that her allowance comes with conditions. As a first-grader, already 6½ years old – I can’t believe it! – she has some responsibilities around the house: chores, keeping her room clean, and also, giving tzedakah each week out of the money that we give her every Sunday morning. She is absorbing the idea that getting allowance comes with responsibilities.
Let me explain. When we recite the “Avinu Malkeinu” we say: Avinu malkeinu chaneinu va’aneinu, ki ein banu ma’asim.
Avinu malkeinu, be gracious and answer us for we have little merit.” And then the very next line says (we know it so well): Asei imanu TZEDAKAH va’chesed, – which is translated in our mahzor as “Treat us generously and with kindness,” but it literally means “God, give us our tzedakah.” A few years ago, as I was teaching this line to our 5th graders on a Tuesday afternoon at Hebrew School, sitting right here on the floor, and one of our students asked me a really hard question. She said, “Rabbi, how can God give us tzedakah? We know that we’re supposed to give tzedakah to others, but what kind of tzedakah does God give to us?”
Here, I think, is Judaism’s answer: All that we have – our bank accounts, our investments, our homes, our cars, everything – all comes to us as God’s gift. It has nothing to do with reward or punishment, or being good or evil; everything we have has come to us by accident of birth or circumstances. We may work hard, we may make smart investments, or not, but the Jewish view is that all we have is actually not ours; it all comes from God. As the Psalms teach, “The Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” Judaism teaches that we are not the owners of all this stuff, but that it is only placed in our care, that we are its caretakers, guardians and trustees. And as the stewards of our money, we also have certain obligations and conditions for having it – just like an “allowance,” an allowance that God gives us. In other words, the tzedakah we get from God requires us to give tzedakah in return.
This idea was striking to me when I saw that suddenly my daughter began to have her own cash. Before we started giving her her allowance, she was completely dependent upon us when she saw something she wanted. Now, though, she has started to make her own decisions; she acts like an independent young woman, she acts like one of us – and she’s only 6½! But the sad truth is – for her, and for all of us – that we’re all dependent on an outside source for all our wellbeing. She’s dependent on me, her parent; and I’m dependent on the grand mystery of the workings of the universe – you could call that God. This is perhaps a truth so awful that none of us wants to admit it. We think we’re in control. But the words of the Avinu Malkeinu remind us: Our welfare is not in our hands; we depend on God’s tzedakah.
The way Judaism helps us deal with that awful truth is by pointing us toward building a better society, a society which will only come about through a web of tzedakah-giving. Tzedakah is not charity. Charity comes from the Greek word caritas, meaning “love.” Tzedakah is the obligation to restore economic justice – its root, tzedek literally means “justice.” The fundamental political-economic outlook of our Jewish tradition is that, yes, we’re entitled to live in a capitalist system, but if we do, we also have to make sure that every single person in our society can live a decent life. Tzedakah is working for that decent life for everyone. And I should also say that giving to your synagogue is not considered tzedakah either – although it is tax-deductible according to the IRS. That’s a different mitzvah – the mitzvah of supporting the synagogue. Tzedakah is the mitzvah to create economic equity for everyone. On Yom Kippur, tzedakah plays a starring role. We’re told that “T’shuvah, tefilah u’tzedakah, prayer, repentance and tzedakah, temper the severe decree”, that they change the character of our lives. In the Avinu Malkeinu, we say to God, “give us tzedakah,” as a way of acknowledging that everything we have is on loan to us, that our wages come to us only because God decided to give us our allowance on Sunday morning. And a famous Jewish teaching for Yom Kippur teaches that tzedakah is a holy path towards repentance.
But there’s more. When we get to this morning’s Haftarah, we’ll hear the prophet Isaiah talk about another aspect of tzedakah. He says, in the opening words of this morning’s portion: “You act as if we are eager to learn God’s ways, as if you were a nation that gives tzedakah, but really, you aren’t really giving tzedakah.” On Yom Kippur, we are reminded that the tzedakah we do give isn’t enough. The obligation of tzedakah is a bigger task than dropping coins in a pushke, the tzedakah box – like my daughter does every Friday night before we light Shabbat candles, now with her own allowance money. The blue box may be the icon we most associate with tzedakah, but the most effective tzedakah doesn’t use coins. The most effective tzedakah, we’re told, is that which helps people help themselves. The most effective tzedakah changes the circumstances, and changes the system.
When Isaiah talks about tzedakah, he wants us to remember its purpose. Currently about 13% of the US population falls below the federal poverty line. “While in any given year 12 to 15 percent of the population is poor, over a ten-year period, 40 percent experience poverty in at least one year. Most poor people cycle in and out of poverty; they don't stay poor for long periods.” 37 million Americans are poor. With some regularity, a small sample of those people knock on the Temple’s doors for tzedakah. They come, maybe not every week, but close. I see them, I talk with them, I hear their stories. One man needs our tzedakah because he can’t pay for an immigration lawyer. Another man comes because the shelters are all full. Another man comes with his elderly mother and they can’t afford to pay for basic medicines for her health. Another man lost his job a few months back, and has had really bad luck. These are real people, for whom our current system isn’t working, for one reason or another, and they turn to us for tzedakah. But they need more than coins. They need systemic change.
Isaiah teaches that our tzedakah will be enough tzedakah if it helps create a society where there is true economic tzedek, justice. So, we have some chores to do. For my daughter, those chores include keeping her room clean. But for us, in our relationship with God, we’ve got bigger chores, bigger obligations, in order to get our allowance each week from God. Tasks like:
• working in our society to lessen the gap between rich and poor;
Our chores include *
When Sunday morning rolls around, and allowance day comes, I find myself exceptionally grateful to be able to hand my daughter her single dollar bill. I am grateful for all that we able to have in our household. All we have is lent to us, placed in our care. I think about how lucky we are that I don’t have to go and beg for money, that I am able to live a decent life. I am grateful for my own tzedakah from God, and still I recognize that I need to do more to meet the conditions God has set for me and my allowance.
Avinu Malkeinu, on this Yom Kippur, we ask You to treat us generously and with kindness. May we take seriously our obligations, the conditions under which Your tzedakah comes to us – to reach out to those in need, to eradicate poverty and create a more equal world, where the basic needs of everyone are met. Because we know, God, all we have comes from You, and like a good parent, God, You’ve got some important chores for us to do as soon as tomorrow rolls around.
Sinai Update – Week of October 1-6, 2007
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