A well worth reading piece from the dean of my second favorite Rabbinical School…

Ultra-Orthodox Jews and the Modesty Fight – NYTimes.com.

And now a piece from my rabbi and teacher, David Ellenson president of the Reform Movement’s seminary, addressing the same issue from a recent historical and rabbinical angle.

Op-Ed: Shalit, Israel and rabbinic debate | JTA – Jewish & Israel News.

There is an obligation to redeem the captive long established in Jewish tradition.  And while we welcome home with gladness and relief the man formerly known as Gilad Shalit (for how could he be the same person after 5 years in a dungeon?) we mourn because his freedom comes at a high price indeed.  It is said that The Almighty prays that Mercy should overcome Justice, and today is a day when that prayer is answered in the realm of human beings.

Rabbi Avi Weiss has written a moving and eloquent post which you can read here.   I can’t add much to what he says, other than Welcome home, brother Gilad.

Last year, I mentioned that most “why” questions come from a place of anger.  But not all.  So let me ask you:

Why are you here?

Are you here to listen to Kol Nidre? Does the music speak to some part of you that you can’t fully express in words?  Are you here to make atonement with God in hopes you will be blessed  for a good year?  Are you here because you’d feel guilty or anxious about skipping Temple on Yom Kippur?

Whatever the reason that brings you here, I’m glad you’re here.

The Synagogue fills three particular functions for the Jewish people.  It acts as a Bet Midrash, a house of learning; a Bet Knesset, a house of assembly; and lastly a Bet Tefillah, a house of prayer.

It is this last function that I wish to focus on tonight as we continue exploring the three-fold prescription for well-being given us by the U’netaneh Tokef piyyut.

A piyyut, you may recall, is a poem-prayer, a special composition written for the synagogue.  The piyyut in question tells us that three actions determine our fate, regardless of what judgement we may recieve.  These are “Teshuvah, Tefillah, and Tzedakah”, or “Repentance, Prayer and Charity.”

Tonight, let’s talk Tefillah.

There are different types of prayer.  There are blessings, supplications and petitions.  And whether we are expressing thanks for something or requesting something, in a Jewish context, it addresses or invokes a power greater than ourselves.

Prayer can be automatic, simple, and direct.  In a moment when our basic ‘fight or flight’ response kicks in, amidst the rush of adrenaline, even the most skeptical will offer up a spontaneous ‘help me, Lord!’  As they say, there are no Atheists in foxholes.

Such spontaneous and personal prayer is always encouraged, even when the plane isn’t hitting unexpected turbulence.  Our sages have consistently instructed us to pray on our own to God.  Such individual prayer is good, but it cannot replace nor even compare to communal prayer.  To pray alone as a Jew when there is the opportunity to pray as part of a community of Jews is not a good practice.

I’m sure you know people who say they’re proud to be Jewish, or they believe, but they don’t like synagogue.  I can understand that.  It’s not easy to make a rote liturgy exciting or entertaining.  Many people like hearing Hebrew,  or reading it, but very few of us really understand it;  responsive readings bother rabbis so much that the new prayerbook of our movement has been designed so that they are no longer ‘automatic’.

All sorts of innovations are taking place trying to make prayer more accessible, more entertaining, more relevant to modern life.

Not so long ago,  religious services were a major source of entertainment.  Sermons were sometimes hours long.  People sat for them because they didn’t have Grey’s Anatomy, or South Park, or Netflix.  Or Television at all.  Or radio.   This was your must-see-tv, so to speak.  If you’d like to say a spontaneous prayer of gratitude right now, I understand.

There are changes taking place and they are steps in the right direction, things that will take Jewish worship to the next level.  Innovations like ‘friday night live’ and the kabbalat shabbat services at ‘bnai jeshurun’ in New York City.   New types of congregational models.  And you will see them here, in Spring.

Yet today I am not concerned with changing how we pray; I want to focus on where and with whom we pray and why.

To do that, I need to take you back.  Back to the dawn of our people.  Back to the flood plain of mesopotamia; to the edge of History, to the tents and fields of nomadic shepherds.

Our faith began as Ancestor worship, where we made offerings to our dead, and followed the tradition of worshipping whatever their ‘household god’ was.  The ancient Hebrews were no different from most human cultures and in fact, we were among the first, if not the first to abandon this primitive religion.  Echoes of it remain of course, in that we pray to “Our God, and God of our Fathers”….and invoke the patriarchs and matriarchs all the time.

Such ancestor worship consisted of offerings, sacrifices and the like, to feed and sustain the spirits of the dead and the pagan gods so that they would protect and nurture us from the great beyond.

The religion of the Torah, ancient Judaism, like that practiced in the Temple of Jerusalem consisted, as you know, of all sorts of sacrifices.  Animals, or animal blood, meal offerings, bread, olive oil, spices, incense, fruits and grains, it was a parade of items offered up, often burned up, sent as smoke into the sky, or poured into the ground.

These things were done so that it would rain.  So that the sun would come up.  So that locusts wouldn’t come.  So that we would have a good crop.  So that the enemy armies wouldn’t attack us, or if they did, so we would win the battle.  So that our children wouldn’t get sick, so that our wounds would heal.

This was a quid-pro-quo.   We fed God.  And God, in turn was merciful to us.  And it may sound absurd, but is it any more absurd than us sitting here tonight reading words in a language that we don’t understand, and if we do understand we don’t really believe?  Wouldn’t it make just as much sense to go outside, get a couple of goats, slaughter and burn one and chase another into the woods?

It might if that was the point of prayer. Both the ancient prophets and the classical rabbis understood that the Temple sacrifices were at best a holdover, a relic of earlier understandings of the world and something that comforted people.  Much like the Kol Nidre, I might add.

When the Temple was destroyed, the synagogue became the primary place of Jewish worship.  The rabbis also developed a model where our homes replace the Temple,  but the synagogue and the Jewish home depend on each other.  Neither can survive or accomplish it’s goal without the other.

The synagogue and public prayer, said in company with other Jews replaced the Temple.  The synagogue service is filled with memories of and actual replacements for the Temple.

The Temple service, sacrifices, music and all was called “Avodah” which means “Work” or “Service”.   Our worship is called “Avodah”.   The psalms we read in our religious services were once sung by choirs of Levites as the Priests went about their work.  The Reform movement dispensed with the ‘musaf’ service, but other denominations still have an extra repetition of the “Amidah” prayer, the “Avot, Gevurot” section that ends with “Yihiyu”.  The repetition is called “musaf”…which means “additional”…because on Shabbat and holidays there was an “additional sacrifice” on top of the “everyday” sacrifice.  On Friday night, you may notice I use two challahs to make hamotzi…guess what they represent.  The double barbecue that took place in the Temple.

You see, it isn’t simply that we have replaced The Temple worship and animal sacrifice with Temple or Synagogue worship. It is literally that we have replaced Animal Sacrifices with these specific prayers.  When we stand up, face Jerusalem and start “a na na ing”  and read the “Tefillah” we are substituting that “Tefillah” for what would otherwise be a sacrifice.

So our ‘Tefillah’ this day and every day stands in for the sacrifices that took place in the Temple.  And those sacrifices in a central Temple in Jerusalem replaced the many smaller shrines and high places where sacrifices took place  before we had the Temple.  And this is very, very important.  Because whether or not we understand or would want to return to that kind of religion, the Temple united us.  Part of what made the Temple so special is that it replaced many  holy places with a single location for people to focus on, to rally around, to come together.  When the Temple was destroyed, that was one of if not the greatest loss, our central, uniting place of worship.

The synagogue can not hope to replace the Temple, nor does it try.  But the sum total of all the synagogues, where Jews are gathered this evening (time zones not withstanding) serve to join us in spirit if not in physical reality.

So too, does our prayer replace the purpose of the Animal sacrifices in the Temple.

On a normal weekday, our Tefillah consists of 19 prayers.   These prayers address specific things and are designed so that even if you don’t know what you should be praying for, you have a guide.

The prayers we say as part of our normal Tefilah are brilliantly structured; as though we were granted an audience with God.

It begins and ends with praise and thanksgiving.  On shabbat and holidays we replace the central 13 requests with a special prayer.

But to understand what we are doing here, we need to look at the normal, everyday tefilah.  What those 13 prayers ask for.  What our virtual sacrifice is requesting in return.  You can’t possibly understand why synagogue is important if you’ve never heard the daily tefilah, and chances are, most of you have either never heard it or haven’t heard it in years.  We actually don’t know what we’re missing.   We’re going to fix that right now.

These are the 19 prayers that make up the “Tefillah”, that replace the Sacrifices in the Temple.

“Avot” God is our God and God of our Ancestors.

“Gevurot” God is mighty, beyond all mortal comparison.

“Kedusha” God is holy, unique, ultimate reality.

“Binah” Grant us understanding and wisdom

“Teshuvah” Now understanding, allow us to make Teshuvah

“Selichah” Having made Teshuvah, grant us pardon

“Geulah” Redeem the captive and oppressed

“Refuah” Heal the sick and help the suffering

“Birkat HaShanim” Grant us a good agricultural year

“Galuyot” Restore us to Israel, redeem the Nation of Israel

“Birkat HaDin” Establish Justice everywhere in the world

“Birkat HaMinim” Destroy the enemies of God and Torah

“Tzaddikim” Bless the righteous and sages of our people.

“Yerushalayim” May Jerusalem be rebuilt and bring back the Kingdom of David.

“Birkat David” Bring the messiah, the son of David. A sign of the redemption of the world.

“Tefillah” Accept our prayer

“Avodah” Bring back the Temple service, which ironically, would ostensibly make this entire prayer obsolete.

“Hoda’ah” Thanksgiving, thanking God for all the blessings we have.

“Sim Shalom” Asking for peace for the world.

Now let’s look at just the central 13 prayers.

First they speak to our individual needs;  Each of us needs to understand for ourselves who we are, what Torah wants from us. We ask for wisdom.  This leads to repentance, and we pray, for forgiveness.

Then it moves on to the needs of the community.  We ask for the well being of other people, not just ourselves.  We ask for liberty, for healing, for good crops; a good economy.  Things that our entire country needs.

Then our prayers turn to universal redemption; Jews united from all over the world, universal Justice, the punishment of the wicked, the reward of the righteous and the coming of the messiah, or the messianic age; a world perfected.

So we ask for our basic needs; and then in order, for God to help us perfect ourselves, perfect our community and perfect our world.

Those are the central prayers of the Jewish people, prayers you and I no longer say three times a day.  Or once a day.  Or once a year.   In and of itself, this is a tragic, tragic failure.  But the real problem is that it means we don’t understand the true purpose of prayer, we don’t get what Tefillah is all about.

Because it’s not about you.   It’s about them.  And even if it is about you, and that’s fine, it’s still more so about them.

The Talmud teaches that (Ber.12b) whoever is able to pray for his friends and neighbors and does not is considered a sinner.  The rabbis learned this from the Bible, where the prophet Samuel said “As for me, far be it from me to sin before God by ceasing to pray for you.”

The Talmud also teaches us (B.K. 92a) that whoever prays for somebody else while they are in need of the same thing, that person’s prayer is answered first.

You see, it is in our best interest to be concerned with the well being of other people.  We cannot hope to survive unless we are surrounded by people that are themselves secure.   And our prayer, even today, still stands for the old sacrifices where we hoped to bring rain and blessing and peace for everyone, not just ourselves.

The importance of prayer for community is echoed in the importance given to prayer In community.

A proper prayer or Torah service requires a quorum of ten qualified worshippers.   This serves many purposes, but it helps to think of it as being respectful of God.  And of course, the rabbis point out that only those who can be sincere in prayer should try to pray.  That only those that believe in God and want to have a relationship with God will be moved to pray in the first place.  But this is where I will take issue with the traditional understanding of why we need to pray in community, pray more often and revitalize synagogue worship.

There are many, many people who don’t enjoy synagogue, and I can understand why.  I often encounter people that actually apologize to me for not attending; as though I take it as a personal insult.  For the record, I don’t , though I take it as a personal failure if I can’t motivate the creation and support of innovative or at least engaging worship.

These people say “I just don’t get anything out of it.”

To those people, I say, “So what? It’s not about you. Who says you’re supposed to get anything out of it.”

That usually gets their attention. So I go on.

You don’t need anything from God. Or you don’t feel you need to publicly express your gratitude for whatever blessings you have. Okay.  But maybe your friend does.  Or maybe a complete stranger just buried their spouse, or lost their job, or found out they have cancer. Or they just got promoted, or found out they’re having a baby, or they just moved here to start a new life.   And they need someplace to go. They need to feel connected to their ancestors and their people and their religious tradition and God or their long-dead grandfather.  Whatever it is, they turn to the place that Jews have turned to for thousands of years, the synagogue.  And when they come, they will find an empty, cold building.  A tomb.   No human voices to say “Amen” to their prayers for the dead, to their plea for help from somewhere, anywhere.  Nobody to celebrate with, to share their long awaited joy because you and I “don’t get anything out of it.”

So here we are. We know now that our prayer is a replacement for what used to be the Jewish religion.  That our prayer is  what makes the sun come up and the rains fall, if you want to think about it that way.
Tefillah, as it was meant to be practiced was a way and is a way of strengthening ourselves.  As individuals, by focusing on our spiritual nature so we can better master our baser instincts and animal urges.  As individuals seeking relationship with God and seeking to better act as God’s agent, which I will discuss tomorrow.  And as individuals in community, people focused not only on our own needs but that of others.  It makes us better people to care about other people.

Lastly, I want us to consider the way we live our lives.  Our religious services, religious school and passover seder are the only real way most of us express our Judaism.  And whether or not that is a good thing is irrelevant because it is the fact.  So those three things become even more important in terms of fostering a Jewish identity and Jewish worldview that is either worth passing down or capable of being passed down.   So for us in particular, Tefillah, as we practice it, is even more important.  The sun will, in fact, come up and the rain may or may not fall regardless of whether or not we pray these prayers.  Good and bad things will happen, whether or not we pray.  God may or may not listen or answer.  God does not need or demand our prayers, our sacrifices like our ancestors believed.  But we do.  We as the Jews do.

This is it.  This is what it means to be Jewish.  This is your Judaism.  So own it.  Be part of it.  Commit to it.  Because the world, at least the Jewish world you and I and our children live in, here in Spring, Texas, depends on it.   Tefillah connects you to your fellow Jews here and around the world.  It connects you to your heritage. It gives you and I a chance to interact, so that you might find yourself actually asking questions of your rabbi for the sake of furthering your own understanding of your heritage.  It creates stronger friendships and a stronger congregation.  It increases our ability to respond as a congregation to needs in the larger community.   It keeps that light burning, and not as some archaic symbol of an ancient, oriental faith.

The Jewish people have and continue to hold values, truths and insights that are of inestimable value to us and to everyone.  Our mission is to live those out and share them, to do the work of Tzedakah which I will talk about tomorrow.  But the only way to get there–to that world we envision, is through here.  Through Tefillah, communal prayer and all it represents and reinforces to us.  We can’t get to Tzedakah without Tefillah–especially now, in our generation.  Especially here.  That is the lesson of Tefillah, and that is why we are here.

Last night I introduced the idea that the three paths to reconciliation with God were actually paths to a happier, more meaningful life.  This morning I want to talk about the first of these paths, that of Teshuvah.

Teshuvah means literally, ‘returning’.  One who turns from sin and embraces Torah is someone making Teshuvah.  When we make amends, we engage in the practice of Teshuvah.

If you take a moment to look at your prayerbook, you’ll note that it is named “Gates of Repentance” or “Shaarei Teshuvah”  So clearly, Teshuvah, or Repentance is a big deal this time of year.

What is Teshuvah?

Returning.  Coming Home.  Getting back on track.  Refocusing.  Recommitting.  Rehabilitating your mind.

In the orthodox world, they have a name for someone who becomes observant.  We call such a person a ‘baal teshuvah’ a master of returning.

I do not accept the idea that only orthodox Jews are capable of this returning.  If I did, how could I stand here before you and pray this morning?  It is somewhat more challenging for us, to be sure, because our religion is often described by our own brothers and sisters as “Reform-we don’t do that”.  But that’s a different sermon.  The fact is, to be a Reform Jew is to balance modernity and scientific inquiry with tradition and differentiate between discipline and superstition.

And it is important to teach you that the word Teshuvah has another meaning; it also means “a response”.  Questions have responses; calls have responses.  When someone asks me for a rabbinical answer to a problem, my response is technically called a “Teshuvah.”  And When God calls Avraham, Avraham makes Teshuvah, he responds, he says “here I am”

Our individual Teshuvah is not just about repentance, turning from sin.  It is turning toward something; turning back to respond and responding above all to the challenges of life.  We respond to life’s challenges, we make Teshuvah, with Torah, with Judaism.

We do this so that our lives can be lived with purpose, meaning and joy.  So that we and our friends and family can be as happy as possible.  So that we can leave the world a better place for having lived in it.

To be a Jew,  is to believe you are here to do a job.  And Teshuvah is a critical part of that job.  Teshuvah means you care about whether or not you are doing a good job.  Teshuvah means you take your job seriously.  Teshuvah means you aren’t stealing from your employer.  And I’ll talk more about that on Yom Kippur, when I address the concept of Tzedakah, or Righteousness.

The process of Teshuvah is a life-changing process.  Last year, I spoke about this time of year being an ‘intervention’ of sorts, and you may recall that I referred to Teshuvah as ‘taking a fearless moral inventory’.  And indeed, that is a large part of the process.

We need to be willing to drop our ego, look at ourselves and our failings and accept them.  There’s a reason we do this together, publicly.  This is an example of peer pressure being used for good.

So let’s explore the process of Teshuvah as our tradition explains it, and see how it is a practice that has benefits and value far beyond ten days a year.

And let’s look at Teshuvah first as it happens between human beings.  The object of Teshuvah here is to heal relationships, to strengthen community and to ‘return’ to a state of balance and harmony.  As we read every year, we have to sort out our human relationships before we can stand before God.

How does one achieve Teshuvah?  There are four parts.

Leaving the sin–that is, to stop doing whatever it is that is wrong.  If you are hurting someone’s feelings or lying to them or taking advantage of them, stop.  You can’t repent of a behavior while it continues.

Accepting responsibility; don’t blame the other person for your choices, or circumstances for your actions.  Own the choices and the actions we make and take.  Otherwise how do we have any power to change.  We have to take responsibility.

Voicing your repentance; the sages were quite clear on this; we need to say what it is we have done wrong and that we accept our responsibility for it.  We need to name what it is we are repenting for.  It’s hard to do, but the path of Teshuvah demands we be courageous.

Demonstrating restraint:

Finally, the proof is given when the opportunity to repeat our mistake presents itself and we are able to avoid doing so.  We can only really demonstrate our repentance when we have the chance to do what we have done in the past and we don’t do it.

Yet these four steps we take are meaningless without the other; the person who has been wronged.   And here we find the secret of Teshuvah is not necessarily our regret or repentance but rather our ability to forgive!

The first step in our own Teshuvah is granting forgiveness to others.  Which is often much harder than admitting our own failings.  Nevertheless, we cannot hope to be redeemed ourselves if we are unable or unwilling to forgive someone else.

The Talmud teaches “Whoever is compassionate to their fellow human beings, Heaven is compassionate to them, but whoever is not compassionate to their fellow human beings, Heaven is not compassionate towards them.”

We are also forbidden to seek vengeance or bear a grudge.  What is the difference between vengeance and a grudge?  Let’s say you want to borrow my lawnmower and I say “No, I don’t think so”.  The next day I want to borrow your weedwacker and you say “No, I don’t think so, because you didn’t lend me your lawnmower”.  That’s vengeance.

Same situation, but this time when I ask to borrow your weedwacker, you say “Sure, because I’m not a jerk like you, I let my friends borrow things they need.”  That’s a grudge.

Neither is seen as worthy behavior.  Torah tells us to take the high road every time.  Even though it’s hard.  And beware of praying for harm to befall others in a spirit of vengeance.  “Rejoice not when thy opponent falls or happy when they stumble, for God may take notice of it and turn His anger away from them.”  When you fail to forgive and bear a grudge and take pleasure in other people’s misfortune, you become the bad guy.  And Judaism is never about being the bad guy.

Life is challenging enough without carrying a bag of resentments and bad feelings around.  Teshuvah is a remedy for these things; it allows us to make amends with each other and save our energy for the task at hand.

And in order to be ready and able to serve the greater good, we need to pause every so often and make an accounting.  This is called in Hebrew “Heshbon Nefesh” or ‘spiritual accounting’.  Now, I know we have several CPA’s in the congregation and they might say ‘but ALL accounting is spiritual’.  Still, we’re talking about an emotional and spiritual checkbook that we balance.  We need to see who we owe and who we should be ready to receive.  And remember it’s not supposed to be easy.  Forgiveness is harder than asking for forgiveness much of the time.
So what is forgiveness?  Forgiveness is not forgetting.  Forgiveness is not saying what someone did or did not do is ‘okay.‘   Forgiveness is not excusing someone’s poor behavior, cruelty, thoughtlessness or carelessness.  Forgiveness isn’t about them.  It’s about you.  Forgiveness means you are waiving any claim to personal retribution from that point on.  The matter is closed.  You aren’t seeking further remedy from them.  You don’t expect any more from them.  And you will not persist in prosecuting them for their wrongdoing in private or public.  Forgiveness is saying “the matter is closed”.  The past is past.

Forgiveness isn’t free, mind you.  Nobody expects you to forgive someone who hasn’t apologized, although the saints and holy men and women of our tradition certainly did so.  You get bonus points if you can do so.

We have an obligation to confront those who have hurt us directly.  We have an obligation to apologize and make amends to those we have hurt once we know about it.  And we have an obligation to forgive those who apologize and seek to make amends.
That’s it.  That’s Teshuvah.  And while it seems simple when put that way, I can tell you that not only am I talking about it a long time this morning, but there are volumes and volumes and volumes written on the subject.  So it’s simple in theory only.

The Spiritual benefit of Teshuvah is found in the action of forgiveness; in allowing ourselves to forgive despite our desire for justice we become more like God.  We come closer to God.   So in large part it isn’t our Teshuvah that allows us to approach and be reconciled with God, it is our capacity to Forgive.  As we strengthen our personal attribute of Mercy, we do honor to the True Judge.

And lest we doubt God’s mercy, it is taught that “Though 999 angels press for condemnation and one alone plead for mercy on our behalf, God tips the scales in favor of the one”

When we are able to make Teshuvah as individuals, which we just learned isn’t really possible because it takes two to Teshuvah, we can focus on communal and national Teshuvah.
And to be sure, there is much that our communities and nations need to make Teshuvah over.   But before we can effect change on a civic or wider level, we need to get our own accounts in order.  We need to be able to live the principle of Teshuvah out in our own lives and in our congregation.  Then we can stand as an example to others and lead the way to a better society.
The sins we commit are often called Hitim, the word for “arrows” as in an arrow that has missed its mark. In such a case,the archer must refocus and take more care, pay more attention to what he is doing.  And in the midst of a fight, the archer really has to return, to make Teshuvah, because his work is particularly important when fighting off a threat.

And when we speak of Israel, that is where we find ourselves.  Perhaps Israel is not a focus of yours right now, and I say to you I understand why that might be.  But you and I do not have the luxury of being careless right now.  We as Jews are obligated to remain focused, to take stock of the situation and to pay attention to what our efforts are driving at.   The future of the state of Israel must be of prime concern to each of us because whether you want to believe it or not the fact is that our liberty as Jews and our security as Americans is undeniably linked to the success or failure of the Jewish national state.  I believe that once we have done the work of local Teshuvah, in our homes and families and synagogues, nowhere are we called to return more than to the task of building up, defending and guiding the continued struggle for a nation among the family of nations.

The recent unilateralist campaign undertaken by the Palestinian Authority is  not the problem, although it is unhelpful and provocative.   The problem is that you and I are  disengaged.  We’re on the bench and we need to get in the fight.  And it is a fight for peace, make no mistake, but it is a fight and we aren’t fighting hard enough.

For starters, I expect many of you to take one of the flyers the Houston Rabbinical Association has put together with the assistance of the Houston Federation.  Get yourself more educated about the situation.  And then start paying attention.  Make Teshuvah to the cause of Jewish liberation.  And in doing so, find another layer of meaning and purpose to your being alive at this point in time, in this situation, during this chapter of our peoples’ history.  Sieze it and be part of it.  You are here for a reason.  You are here for many reasons, and Teshuvah is the proof of that.   For Teshuvah has no meaning for people who have no purpose, no role, no ambition, no soul.  And you have all of them because the God that formed you put them there.

There are other areas in which we as a community need to make Teshuvah, but I’m focused on Israel right now, because as Hillel put it, If I am not for my own, who will be?  And now,  we focus on the sound of the Shofar, calling us to Teshuvah, to healing, to wholeness, and to action.

Shana Tova.

During a flood, an old woman was sitting on her porch.  A sheriff’s deputy drove up in a pickup truck and told her she needed to come with him, they were evacuating.

“The Lord will provide,” she responded and waved him off, despite his begging her to reconsider.

A few hours later, the woman had been forced to retreat to her second story bedroom.  Water was rising up the stairs when another deputy, this time in a boat, pulled up alongside her window.  “Get in, ma’am!  It’s just getting worse! You can’t stay here.”

“Blasphemy! The woman replied. “The Lord will provide.  I don’t need your help.”

The deputy tried his best, but to no avail.

The woman soon found herself clinging to the chimney of her house, water swirling all around her.  Then a helicopter swooped down.  Calling out to her with a bullhorn was yet another deputy.  “Grab the ladder, we’re here to save you!”

“Never!” cried the woman.  “I do not need your help! The lord will provide!”
And as the deputy pleaded with her, a wave came and dragged her away.  And she drowned in the flood.

Now, the woman found herself standing before the throne of Judgement, and God’s glory was all around her.  “What was that? Asked the woman.  “How could you let me drown!  I lived my whole life professing faith that ‘the Lord will provide’.

“Lady,” said the divine voice.  “I provided a truck. I provided a boat. I provided a helicopter. What the heck were you waiting  for?”

These are things we associate with the Jewish High Holidays: sounds and tastes and memories; the cry of the Shofar-horn, Apples and Challah dipped in honey; perhaps throwing bread into rivers or ponds or gullies; Wondering why we threw that perfectly good bread away during  the discomfort of fasting on Yom Kippur;  Wondering whether or not the rabbi knows he’s torturing us by saying “in conclusion” twenty minutes before he or she concludes.

In conclusion, then…

There are the familiar prayers and melodies we rencounter this time each year; not least of which is the Kol Nidre on the eve of Yom Kippur.  And there is “Avinu Malkeinu”,  the Anthem of the penitent; as well as the familiar stories of the Torah and prophets we read and study this time each year; Of Isaac on the mountain, Jonah in the fishes belly; Hannah praying for a child.

Then there are the readings, meditations and poems that were added over millenia; transforming what had been a sacrificial rite in the Jerusalem Temple into the pre-eminent worship experience of a Jewish people in exile; the product of generations of refugees, survivors and wanderers.

The Unetaneh Tokef, a prayer-poem written down by a man named Meshullam Ben Kalonymos is one such poem.  It is, arguably, the best known and most representative piece of liturgy we have next to Kol Nidrei.

Even if you do not recognize the Unetaneh Tokef by name, you will recognize its content; and in a few minutes, I trust you will better understand its meaning and its relevance to our lives.

The Unetaneh Tokef describes in detail what happens on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur; and how each of us is given a destiny based on the Judgement we receive.  It is a stark and often grim litany:

We shall ascribe holiness to this day.

For it is awesome and terrible.

Your kingship is exalted upon it.

Your throne is established in mercy.

You are enthroned upon it in truth.

In truth You are the judge,

The exhorter, the all?knowing, the witness,

He who inscribes and seals,

Remembering all that is forgotten.

You open the book of remembrance

Which proclaims itself,

And the seal of each person is there.

The great shofar is sounded,

A still small voice is heard.

The angels are dismayed,

They are seized by fear and trembling

As they proclaim: Behold the Day of Judgment!

For all the hosts of heaven are brought for judgment.

They shall not be guiltless in Your eyes

And all creatures shall parade before You as a troop.

As a shepherd herds his flock,

Causing his sheep to pass beneath his staff,

So do You cause to pass, count, and record,

Visiting the souls of all living,

Decreeing the length of their days,

Inscribing their judgment.

On Rosh Hashanah it is inscribed,

And on Yom Kippur it is sealed.

How many shall pass away and how many shall be born,

Who shall live and who shall die,

Who shall reach the end of his days and who shall not,

Who shall perish by water and who by fire,

Who by sword and who by wild beast,

Who by famine and who by thirst,

Who by earthquake and who by plague,

Who by strangulation and who by stoning,

Who shall have rest and who shall wander,

Who shall be at peace and who shall be pursued,

Who shall be at rest and who shall be tormented,

Who shall be exalted and who shall be brought low,

Who shall become rich and who shall be impoverished.

Now there’s more to the Unetaneh Tokef, but if you’re like me, you kind of get stuck after “Who by water and who by fire, who by strangulation and who by stoning”

Let’s be honest.  Unless you’re really into liturgy and medieval literature, I don’t know how closely you’re paying attention during services.  But when you hear the Unetaneh Tokef, a lot of people have a ‘wait, WHAT?” moment.

Unless you are the well known and respected songwriter, Leonard Cohen, in which case you say to yourself, “Hey, that’s kind of catchy.”  and make a really cool song out of it.

And who by fire?

Who by water?

Who in the sunshine?

Who in the night time?

Who by high ordeal?

Who by common trial?

Who in your merry merry month of May?

Who by very slow decay?

And who shall I say is calling?

And who in her lonely slip?

Who by barbiturate?

Who in these realms of love?

Who by something blunt?

Who by avalanche?

Who by powder?

Who for his greed?

Who for his hunger?

And who shall I say is calling?

And who by brave assent?

Who by accident?

Who in solitude?

Who in this mirror?

Who by his lady’s command?

Who by his own hand?

Who in mortal chains?

Who in power?

And who shall I say is calling?

Indeed, there is a good reason Mr. Cohen  seized upon that particular section of the poem for inspiration.  It is undeniably the most striking.

It speaks to our hearts not just at this moment, on the eve of these holy days but each and every day, when we wonder ‘what if?’

This is a poem of insecure people; vocalizing their fear and expressing the hope, if not belief, that there was someone in control of what seems uncontrollable.

Floods, wildfires, earthquakes, plagues, famines, droughts, wild animals.  What control is there?  Who can control it if not God?
And as frightening and powerful as nature can be, people are far worse.  The violence and cruelty we visit upon each other makes earthquakes and droughts pale in comparison.

The Unetaneh Tokef was written in the shadow of the first Crusade.  The author of the text died a martyr in 1096.  He was not a victim of fire or water or plague, but of his fellow human beings.  He died by his own hand, rather than face capture, humiliation and death by torture.

Did God decree that this happen?   Of course not, and the Unetaneh Tokef itself explains why.  It just gets lost sometimes because the first part of the poem is so dramatic.

Following the list of terrible ways we might end up this coming year, and a list of good outcomes and bad outcomes, like being rich or poor, healthy or sick, we come to the bottom line.

Repentance, prayer and righteousness avert the severe decree.

God might, in fact, if we go with the premise,  decide whether we are going to live or die, be troubled or secure, be happy or miserable.

At the same time we are able to alter what God writes down for us with our own actions in three specific areas.  So our destiny is our destiny only if we choose to make it our destiny.  

I want that to sink in because I don’t think we do a good enough job of explaining that.  As a faith community, people might think that we propose God makes the decisions and micromanages every aspect of all of our lives.

What we’re reading here, today, is that even if that is true, it doesn’t matter because when we engage in these three activities, it alters whatever has been decided.  Within the realm of free-will, we are given control. You and me.

Just like the woman in the story I began with today, we are given choices and opportunities even in the midst of situations beyond our control.  The woman could not control the flood, but she could have recognized the role human beings play in the world and recognized the people in the truck or the boat or the helicopter as what they were; extensions of God acting out of Rigthteousness, answering her prayer.

Now I want to talk to you a little bit about what I’d like to do this year with these High Holiday messages.  I want to take these three principles, Repentance, Prayer, and Righteousness and discuss them each, looking at them for what they are in the context of the High Holidays, but also as a prescription of sorts for better living.  As three sides to a fuller, more meaningful, more powerful life.

You see, the Unetaneh Tokef seems to be about all the ways to die, when in fact it’s quite the contrary.  It’s about how to live.  And more so, it’s about how to live fully aware that you are both mortal and part of something eternal.   Judaism is a religion of life and living.  The purpose is to enable us to live fully and happily!  Really!  That’s really the point.  It is, I promise.  I believe we will find that repentance prayer and righteousness offer paths to fulfillment and joy.  That we’ve been given a wonderful gift that is just waiting to be explored and utilized.

I have a lot of conversations with people about what happens after we die.  Whether they are facing serious illness, an aging parent or or the death of a loved one, these conversations and questions are normal, understandable and important.
Yet recently I had a conversation I don’t often have.  This conversation dealt with the question “What if I live?”   And I find that a far more interesting and important question.     And I think that you will find that the principles of Teshuvah, Tefilah and Tzedakah speak volumes towards answering that question.
At Rosh Hashana we stand at the beginning of  a new year.  A clean slate, if we will wipe it clean.  A chance to redeem ourselves if we wish to be redeemed.  A chance to be forgiven, if we are willing to forgive.  A chance to reconnect with God if we want to have a relationship with God.  A chance to make the world better, if we don’t want to give up on the world.  And I’m not ready or willing to give up yet.

On Rosh Hashanah it is inscribed,

And on Yom Kippur it is sealed.

How many shall pass away and how many shall be born,

Who shall live and who shall die

And how we live, and how we live, let us decide, to bring honor to Your name, O God.

I’ve taken most of the summer off from blogging, but time to get back to it.  There’s much to talk about, and lots going on, but what better way to be awakened than by a cinematic meditation on the center of the world.  Follow the link to view a gorgeous preview.  Then, if you’re like me, you’ll watch it twice more.

Can’t wait for the finished product.  I may camp-out like a Star Wars nerd to be the first to see it.

Jerusalem | Filmed in Imax 3D | An Arcane/Cosmic Picture Film.

Poor Shavu’ot. It’s one of the big three holidays of the Jewish year, or at least it used to be. It’s still considered as it has always been, one of the Shalosh Regalim, “The Three Pilgrimages”. In ancient Israel, anyone physically able was obligated to go to Jerusalem and celebrate. Shavu’ot, the “feast of weeks”, so named because it celebrates a ‘week of weeks” where the barley grows between Passover and this day. Shavu’ot, the holiday that commemorates the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mt. Sinai and the attendant Theophany. Prepare to meet your God, Oh Israel!

Shavu’ot, the holiday that represents the union of Israel and God; the consummation of an ancient betrothal; the Torah given as Ketubah, the Shabbat as sign of the compact. A mystical wedding between our people and The One Who Spoke Creation.

Shavu’ot, where we would bring baskets of the first yield of the spring harvest, and recite the ancient words given to us in Deuteronomy; instructed to us by Moses himself:

“A wandering Aramean was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there, few in number; and he became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous.

And the Egyptians dealt ill with us, and afflicted us, and enslaved us. And we cried unto the LORD, God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our voice, and saw our affliction, and our toil, and our oppression. And the LORD y hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with awesome deeds, and with signs, and with wonders. And He hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And now, behold, I have brought the first of the fruit of the land, which Thou, O LORD, hast given me.”

We have no Temple nor priests, and the old ways are not our ways;
Fitting it is, then, that the traditional practice is to read the Book of Ruth on Shavu’ot, where the most famous convert of all makes her choice to join the people of Israel. Her descendants would become the Judean royal family.

Yet there it is, Shavu’ot; often as lonely as the barren Temple Mount all those years; overlooked, forgotten. It has no great ceremony like Passover; nor visible peculiarities like the four species or little buildings like Sukkot. It’s the middle child of the religious year; following Passover and followed by Sukkot. And then there is the risen importance of Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur; Shavu’ot barely stands a chance.

Shavu’ot is, in our day a holiday celebrated primarily through text and liturgy, and for most of our brethren, it holds as much interest as does ancient religious text and unfamiliar Hebrew liturgy.

There are, of course, special things we do; and obviously, it involves food. Shavu’ot is a holiday of dairy goods. Why dairy? Because dairy is associated with the life-force; and Torah is the Tree of Life; God the Source of Life; communion with those entities the purpose and meaning of human life.

It also seems that Ice Cream and Cheesecake are good consolations for not having Seders to go to or Lulavs to shake.

In the middle ages, the mystics began a practice that remains perhaps the most popular and interesting way of celebrating Shavu’ot; the Tikkun Leil Shavuot. this “preparation” on the eve of the holiday consists of the late-night study (or all-night study for the hardcore) of texts, particularly mystical texts from the Bible such as Ezekiel’s vision of the Chariot or sections of later religious and mystical texts like the Zohar.

This is done in keeping with the idea that before we received Torah at the first Shavu’ot, at Sinai, we had to prepare ourselves. Prepare to meet your God, Oh Israel.

In most communities Reform Jews observe Shavu’ot by celebrating the Confirmation of our youth on this day; when our young men and women publicly demonstrate their choice to stand as Jews in a world where it is all too easy to choose otherwise. Unfortunately, sometimes, as it does this year, Shavu’ot falls late in the year, during Summer recess. This makes it challenging, if not impossible, to do Shavu’ot the honor it deserves or to get as much joy as we could out of this wonderful anniversary.

So maybe even if we can’t have a big anniversary party this year, we can make a lot out of Shavu’ot. It’s not settling at all to choose to have a nice, quiet romantic dinner celebrating our relationships with God and our family. Crack open a bottle of wine and some good cheese. Get some Graeter’s, Ben and Jerry’s, or Eli’s.
Break open a Jewish text and study a little with your family or friends. May I suggest the first chapter of Ezekiel? This is wild, wild, stuff.

http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt1201.htm

Should you need some help wrapping your head around the vision, someone made a very helpful computer animation of the vision; complete with music, a British accent and lots of mispronounced Hebrew words. It’s pretty cheesy, but that’s appropriate. (Dairy joke.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ET7WXK4D_g

Following your study, you can come up with catchy slogans for Shavu’ot, and help in the campaign to get this wonderful, important and meaningful holiday the respect it deserves. I’ll start:

Shavu’ot: the official Jewish Holiday of Wisconsin? The Cheesecake Factory: Here, It’s Always Shavuot?

However you celebrate; Hag HaShevu’ot Sameach! (Happy Feast of Weeks!)

I often teach about the Biblical concept of justice.  In particular I often teach about the idea of “eye for an eye”.  In fancy terms, it’s called a “Lex Talionis”.  It means the punishment must match exactly the crime or injury committed.

If you break my foot, I (or a recognized authority) breaks your foot.  If you burn me, I burn you.  Specifically, if you unlawfully kill a human being, it was a capital offense.  Life for life.

These laws were explained and interpreted by the rabbis in order to set up a system of laws and rules to apply those laws.  While the ‘tit for tat’ method of frontier justice speaks to our baser nature and even seems ‘fair’ in some way, when you really look at how this plays out in a civilized society, it becomes clear that such laws are, must be, really, metaphorical.  The rabbis are clearly correct in determining that the intent of the Torah is that people are compensated for the value of the injury done to them.  That is the only truly ‘fair’ way to restore what is in most ways impossible to restore.

This is taken to the extreme when we consider capital punishment.  Killing a killler does not bring back the person the killer killed.  The murderer’s victim is still dead.  You can’t ever restore what was taken away.  The Jewish view of capital punishment is, as you would imagine, complex.

Now, what in the world could have happened this week that would inspire, or necessitate really, my talking about capital punishment.  Oh, right.  Navy SEALS stormed a compound in Pakistan last Sunday and shot Osama Bin Laden dead.

You will hear all sorts of opinions about this; some will be motivated by political posturing.  Others by a lamentable naivite that refuses to see or admit that there is real evil in the world.  Still others will condemn this action because we should have had a trial for Bin Laden.

There are those, and you will certainly see them on television if you don’t run into them at the office or facebook or the parking lot, that say all killing is wrong and nothing justifies taking a human life.  That’s certainly a noble sentiment; if everyone felt that way, the world would indeed be a better place.

These people may trot out this week’s Torah verse as an example of such ‘backward’ thinking; “eye for an eye makes the whole world blind” said Gandhi.

Killing Bin Laden was not about ‘eye for an eye’.  Bin Laden had the blood of thousands upon thousands on his hands. He was actively leading one of the most dangerous Terrorist networks in the world.  He wasn’t a captured Nazi war criminal.  He was on the field of battle in the way his type defines it, that is to say, ordering the death of women and children while cowering behind a house full of women and children.

Does his death solve anything, or resolve the underlying problems in our world that give rise to Bin Ladens?  Of course not.

My understanding of the  Jewish response to the death of Bin Laden is, as most Jewish responses are, based on multiple ideas; the first that we are trying to build a better world, where universal peace and respect are the order of the day and the second idea that we are very far away from that place.

The Torah teaches us that if a thief is found tunneling into your house at night, that he can be killed without fear of a murder charge.  After all, he’s sneaking in because he fears he will be discovered.  That means he knows he must be prepared to be confronted and it is safe to assume he is armed.  And since it is the nature of thieves to not want to be caught, one can assume he will attack someone who confronts him.

You protect yourself. You protect your family.  You protect your community and your nation.  You do what you need to do.

The rabbis took this idea of self-defense and took it a step further.  They taught “If someone is coming to kill you, get up earlier than he does and kill him first.”

Now, that’s not a nice thought, nor is it ‘spiritual’ or ‘holy’.   It’s practical.  And it’s based on the belief that life is the greatest gift God gives us and we are obligated to protect it.  Even if it means we have to kill someone to do it.

You will notice, however, that it does not go on to say “and then run out into the streets chanting USA USA! We’re number one! We’re number one! Hey, Al Qa’ida– In! Your! Face!

Many of you will be familiar with the scenes of joy and celebration that engulfed certain corners of the world when the Towers came down nearly ten years ago, or the joyous back-slapping and dancing that occurs whenever Israeli soldiers or civilians are lynched.  Or even more recently, the distasteful and undignified way in which those carrying out the execution of Saddam Hussein behaved, making him (making him!) seem the civilized one.

So, Osama Bin Laden is dead, and may his name be blotted out.  We should be happy and proud that we got him and did so in a daring, bold and courageous way.  We should not for a moment deny ourselves a moment of satisfaction.

Neither should we behave as though our college basketball team just won the NCAA tournament.  The dead slain by Bin Laden and his cronies are still dead.  Terror and hatred are still very much alive in this world.  Bin Laden, however, will never plot another  day and whoever takes his place will do so knowing that we see them tunneling in the night, and we have set our alarm clocks very, very early.

It is also appropriate to remark upon the great tragedy that is Bin Laden, a man born to wealth and possessed of passion, charisma and undeniable leadership gifts.  Would that he had been a force and voice not of hatred and death but of peace and conciliation.  He was a product of great evil and the producer of still more.

The shame is that we must be happy at the news of  his death because he was a wicked, evil, hateful, repulsive, cowardly, backward, thuggish, satanic force in the world.  He killed my friends and my friends friends.   I don’t rejoice in his death so much as I rejoice in the fact that it was Navy SEALS that killed him.  That they found him tunneling and got up earlier in the morning than he does.

And because of them, tomorrow, you can sleep a bit later.  God Bless America and Shabbat Shalom.

Mykonos Meets Manhattan at Kellari Taverna | Gilt City New York.