|
| You Are Here:
Rosh Hashanah 5770 - Saturday 19th September (Rabbi Neil Janes)
Posted by Rabbi Neil Janes on 09/21/09
Shanah Tovah. As always, it’s lovely to see you all this morning. The new year of 5770 is finally here and it is very special to be able to celebrate with our community. Welcome to members, friends and families and to visitors to our Synagogue for the first time.
Over the course of our lives I can’t imagine how many new beginnings we might individually have. I was thinking back through memories I have of key moments of beginnings as I wrote this sermon. I can remember distinctly standing at the bus stop waiting for the coach to school, though interestingly I cannot remember my first days at any school. However, my first day at university or at least in halls of residence is very clear, perhaps because I had been greeted in the flat by one or two people as I unpacked and then had to explain to them that I was only staying for two nights because I was Jewish and it was Rosh Hashanah. New job, new relationship, new singlehood, new country, new house, new married life.
Pretty much continuously we have new beginnings in our lives. Each time they occur we experience a sort of loss of the old way, even while we anticipate the new. The known former state may be romantically remembered or gladly escaped, but in knowing it we feel a sense of security that can be comforting no matter how positive the change. But then there is the change, the excitement, the fresh and challenging beginning. As children we used to ‘count the sleeps’ until a birthday or a holiday, but as adults we tend to be a little more restrained in our anticipation.
I wonder, does Rosh Hashanah hold the same excitement and sense of new beginning as other fresh starts? According to Jewish tradition it is the birthday of the world. I don’t, for one moment, consider the world to be actually only 5770 years old but I do find myself drawn to appreciate the significance of marking another year in the history of years. It is, in some ways, totally arbitrary that we measure the year from now, but on the other hand it makes total sense – well if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere that is!
The cycle of seasons is once again visible. The days are getting shorter, the land is beginning to prepare for its slumber before renewed growth of the Spring. If we lived in an agricultural world, like the ancient Israelites, a real anxiety would be present about what the next harvest would produce. Would God look favourably upon the land and our efforts to cultivate it? In fact, we know, from Ancient Near Eastern Cultures some predating the Ancient Israelite religion that there may have been different traditions regarding the new year. Some may have held it in Spring and some at the end of Summer and beginning of Autumn. In Judaism, we retain this view with Nissan (the month in which falls Pesach) being considered to be the first month, whilst Tishri (the month in which falls Rosh Hashanah) contains the first day of the year. Confusing huh!
Actually, some people have suggested that the ancient Babylonian and Canaanite custom of reinstalling the king, a yearly enthronement, filtered into the practices of the ancient Israelites. Of course, not all agree with this. However, the idea of enthroning a king is not altogether strange at this time of year for Jews.
In our liturgy, we have an entire section called ‘Malchuyyot’ – Kingship. Of course the king referred to in our liturgy is God and not the human ruler. However, it is a powerful notion to consider that at this time of year we reacknowledge that we are not the centre of the universe. It is not we who are sovereign over the world and don’t we know it. We only have to look around to see either the damage we have recklessly inflicted on the world or to see how much we are not masters of the natural world.
Rosh Hashanah from this point of view is a renewal of sorts. Effectively we remind ourselves that human beings, no matter their achievements, cannot dominate, control, master, subordinate the world around us. We are not kings and queens of this tiny planet.
Now in the ancient world, in fact for a lot of history, kings had the power to literally decide who lived and who died. The ‘Book of Life’ was not figurative, but real and this image of the monarch is transposed on to God. Once enthroned we pray that the relationship established over time is remembered.
Zichronot. Remembrance is all about our relationships. If Malchuyyot is the reminder of our smallness and that we, try as we might, are not masters of the universe, Zichronot is a call to live in relation. Martin Buber describes how it is only in I-Thou relation with the other that we cause the Eternal Thou to dwell amongst us. When we do not use, categorise or dehumanise our fellow humans (and for Buber not just humans) we bring into relation the Eternal Thou. It is those moments that we pray are remembered. The remembrance of relation. We might enthrone but we are also partners – there may be an imbalance of power but partners nonetheless.
We desire that we are remembered and that our past is remembered. That God, therefore, takes a positive account of us and fulfils God’s side of the covenant. We also sing the melodic prayer ‘Avinu Malkeynu’ – in which we pray that though we seem as if we have no deeds to our credit, we hope that we will be dealt with in love and kindness. Will we deal with one another as charitably?
The human to human relationships may need to be helped to change, just as much as the Divine-human relationship. We look around us and see a world in which war, greed, injustice and oppression are still daily parts of many people’s lives. What will it take to change that?
Shofarot – wake up call, the change to us, the change in God. As the Shofar blasts this Rosh Hashanah let it bestir within us a change. It is, after all, like an alarm call. The Rabbis of old imagined that it even had the power to shift God from a position of strict justice to one of compassion and mercy. We are all in need of mercy and we all need to show it to one another.
That’s the problem you see with all this praying and why the primal non-verbal cry of the Shofar perhaps cuts through our hardened shells. So many words, so much said. How much is actually done. It is really idolatry to pray so much if there is no deed to accompany it. Perhaps even slanderous – we slander ourselves and we slander God. It is hypocrisy at its worst because it is shrouded in holy piety. That is why we need the Shofar.
The Shofar shatters the callousness that we build up within us. It is the symbol of change. It brings us to a point of new beginning, it heralds a fresh start and an opportunity. It opens a chink of light through which we can see something different, something worth occupying our attention. It is only a chink of light that we need, for as we read in our Selichot service:
The Holy One, ever to be praised, says to Israel: Open for me one gate of repentance by as little as the point of a needle, and I will open for you gates wide enough for carriages and coaches to pass through.
This is the new beginning we have been looking for. The new beginning that is realistic about what is wrong, yet hopeful that change is possible and renewal of purpose and of our relationships may be accomplished.
I have found, almost more than anything this year, that this renewal of hope has been one of the hardest things to cling on to. There has been a great deal of turmoil in the world. Only a year ago the economy was beginning the massive descent, the depths of which we still find ourselves in and people are still suffering from. Violence continues to rage in many parts of the world and in the turn of the Gregorian Calendar war once again broke out in Israel and Gaza. A massive health scare reared its head in the form of Swine flu, a reminder that many parts of the world still struggle under the effects of serious failings in health care and from diseases that in the rich West we have been able to either eradicate or manage. The BNP won seats in the European elections. Extremist views of people who are different from ourselves held sway over many more than we would like to see. So the list goes on. We are definitely not kings and queens of this little planet.
The Shofar then is more than just a wake up call to change. To renew. To connect in relation with the world and with people around us. To recognise that we are not kings and queens able to rule in absolutist fashion – no-one is sovereign over all – that role is for God alone. The Shofar is a more than all of that. It is a plaintiff cry of hope. It is the kol demamah dakah – a still small voice - reminding us that there have always been challenges and difficulties. We who are Jews have known that for centuries. Yet the Shofar was always blown.
The Shofar has been a symbol, a reminder, a voice for change. Let it be that in your hearts this morning. Change for goodness: for yourselves, your families, for our community and for our world. Whether you renew your devotion to those you love and repair the relationship with those with whom you have fought. A renewal of participation in living in community here at FPS, through learning, sharing, volunteering. A renewal of the endless pursuit of tikkun ha-olam, of making the world set right beneath the sovereignty of God. Whatever your renewal let the Shofar help you find the strength to accomplish it, to fill your words in this time with meaning.
The Shofar is an eagerly anticipated opportunity, a new beginning, a new leaf in the book of our lives, let us all have the courage and conviction to write in it.
Shanah Tovah to you all.
Parashat Nitzavim-Vayelech - September 12th 2009 (Rabbi Neil Janes)
Posted by Rabbi Neil Janes on 09/14/09
Shabbat Shalom. I’m delighted to welcome friends and family of Emma this morning, especially your grandparents. Emma you have made everyone very proud, reading beautifully and leading us with great presence – and you didn’t even trip on your heels. Amazing!
So, how many of our days follow a similar pattern to this? Wake up, well actually choose to press snooze on the alarm. Another ten minutes won’t do any harm. Finally, after ‘choosing’ to snooze for nearly 30 minutes you drag yourself out of bed. After a shower, what should you wear? Choices, choices – the blue shirt or the white shirt and which aftershave/perfume fits my mood. Downstairs for a bite to eat – cereal, toast or a yoghurt – no time for the fry up and anyway, the body won’t take it. Onwards we go, bleary eyed, it’s still a bit early in the morning really – could have snoozed all day – wait till the day off, then you’ll be up before dawn pacing around wishing you could catch up on some sleep.
How many choices do we get to make before we even step out of the door of our house? A dozen, maybe more. We have so much choice these days, we are quite often literally spoilt for choice. The all-you-can-eat buffet is my favourite example of this and I was reminded of it whilst on holiday this past Summer. I’m sure everyone here has been to one, whether their local Chinese or the Pizza Hut or the nice hotel with the breakfast buffet in the morning.
There’s definitely a strategy to be used at such places. First of all you come in and scout around to check that you know exactly what there is on offer. Then you’re shown to your seat – Michael McIntyre the comic does a wonderful sketch about this business of being shown to your seat half a mile away in the corner of the restaurant. You sit down and then you realise that you need to go to the buffet for food – a great way to burn off the calories. But, having done your research at the buffet already you know exactly what you’re going to have. Something of just about everything. However, there is always something that everybody wants – the freshly made pancakes or the barbequed steak. So you sharpen your elbows and go for it. Slowly and surreptitiously you weave your way to the front leaving a trail of upset tourists in your wake as they realise that in the millisecond that they turned to talk to their partner/child someone’s pushed in front. However, you’re now at the front of the queue and ready to dive in. But would you believe it, they’ve run out – the next batch will be ready in ten minutes. Do you wait or do you go and get something else first and come back to it? They might run out again. The panic has set in. What should you do? Finally achieving your primary objective your plate is now piled high with food. It’s a buffet so you can go up as often as you like, but there’s always the risk they’ll run out and you might go hungry…must keep taking. The massive amount of choice has left you incapable of choosing. You do a good imitation of a battery farmed hen, non-stop eating for an hour until you actually feel a bit sick. Only then you realise you never got what you originally went up for, the steak or pancake – so you roll yourself over to get it and sitting back down just about manage to consume the final morsel of food before the buffet closes.
The buffet must be the greatest example of what choice means to us in the late 20th and 21st Century. It quite literally means that we want the choice of everything laid out before us, because we don’t want to have to choose, because we don’t have to choose.
It’s not blessing and curse, it’s not life and death.
Emma, the portion which you read today is of a different time, a different place. In a sense a different human experience and understanding of the world. Then, the people really believed that God had actually set before them life and death, blessing and curse. They believed in a simple relationship between doing God’s commandments and being rewarded. God set before them the choice. Today, the drama of being, of living, of choices about life, they appear to have all been consumed. The end of our insatiable appetite to be a consumer, a chooser with every choice, is that we have all but destroyed our connections to the heart of life - our being…our responsibility of being alive. We are, invariably, not part of a reality on which our very hearts and souls are dependent.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel sums this sentiment up for me, when he says – the question is not ‘to be or not to be’, but rather how to be. In other words, when your Torah portion refers to blessing and curse, life and death, we do not read it in the literal sense that the ancient authors of the bible read it. Instead our reading should remind us that the choices we make should take us beyond a simple preservation of life – any animal can make the choice to save its own life. To be human is to be endowed with an ability to also make a moral judgement of what is right – that is the responsibility of being.
In fact, that is what Liberal Judaism teaches is ultimately most important. The rituals of Judaism have a role to play in the life of a Jew, but really they are signposts and frameworks for supporting us in leading a life full of the challenge of being human. They may provide a vocabulary for us to communicate with God, as Rabbi Louis Jacobs implies. However, above ritual are our deeds. The choice of life and blessing is the ethical choice. In that sense, every human being, all of us sat here today, whether Jew or non-Jew is faced with exactly the same question – that it occurs within a Jewish sacred text is not important – what is the right way to conduct ourselves? How do we choose life?
In Judaism, in one of our old texts, the Talmud, which was written some 1500 years ago, a debate ensues. The debate begins with the idea that should someone’s life be in endangered by fasting they do not need to fast on Yom Kippur (our most holy day – the Day of Atonement). However, swiftly it turns to a discussion of life and its preservation. Though the rabbis who were involved in the discussion knew that saving a life could push aside any ritual or observance in Judaism, save that of idolatry, adultery and murder, they wanted to prove it was so using words of Torah. And so, they settle on the words found in the Book of Leviticus 18:5 “You shall keep my statutes and laws, which a person shall do, you shall live by them: I am the Eternal God.” “You shall live by them” the Rabbis said “and not die by them.”
In other words, at every opportunity Judaism teaches us that we should value life above all else. Life, our choices should be to choose life as if our being depended on it. Life is not a buffet of all you can eat. You can’t stack it up with all the favourites and go on eating for ever. It doesn’t give you such wide choice of delicacy. Yet, the choices we do have to make, when we really engage with them, are a whole lot more meaningful and a good deal more nourishing. For most of us, we are grateful that our choices are not like some people in the world – we don’t wake up and instead of a buffet have no choice over whether to eat or not because we have no food.
Finally Emma, what you also remind us of and your Torah portion articulates so beautifully for us, is that we do not have to be spectators and we do not need to ask someone else to make the choices for us. Neither our parents, nor our teachers. I know that in your family this responsibility will not come as a shock, because your parents have always been concerned to ensure that you take responsibility. It is not in the heavens, your portion poetically tells us. It is in our mouths and our hearts. The choices of life, the choice of life, is not a responsibility we can give up or pass on to someone else. It is something that becoming Bat Mitzvah is all about. Your actions count.
So Emma, as you become Bat Mitzvah today, these messages from your Torah portion which you so wonderfully articulated for us today are the very fabric of adult life. There is always a temptation to idolise things, consumables (which reminds me, I must take my David Beckham poster down). But Emma, you have reminded us that there are other things of greater importance. So Emma, on this very special day in the presence of this congregation, my wish for you is that you will always have the blessing of choices to make. May you continue to emerge from your chrysalis into the adult world as an independent and thoughtful young woman as you have begun to do today. May you make wise choices for life and blessing and may you always have your family and friends to support you when the options seem to hard to choose between. And may you always be a blessing to them and make them as proud of you as you have done today. May this be God’s will, Keyn Yehi Ratzon and let us say: Amen.
Parashat Ki Tavo - September 5th 2009 (Rabbi Neil Janes)
Posted by Rabbi Neil Janes on 09/06/09
Shabbat Shalom, I’m delighted to welcome all of Jonty’s family and friends to this very special day. In particular, those who have come from as far away as Melbourne and Bologna. Jonty you have done wonderfully today and made everyone very proud – a particular credit to your teacher John – being his first pupil he deserves a special mention. We look forward to many more students of his on the bimah celebrating.
So Jonty, I mistakenly referred to your Davar Torah as a sermon at our rehearsal. Call it a Freudian slip – you know one of those occasions where apparently you have no control over what you say. Freedom to utter what you wish is overpowered by some kind of deep seated process or subconscious idea. It was an excellent Davar Torah and, though I don’t necessarily agree with everything you said, I don’t want to dampen your passion for thought and ideas by levelling a critique on this day when we celebrate a young man embarking on a journey to adulthood. There’s plenty of time for someone to challenge your ideas and for you to be tarnished with the prejudice of adulthood – that we know it all and it’s all been done before. Not, though, on day one. Moreover, Judaism celebrates discourse, debate, dialogue – I enjoyed greatly our conversation in my office talking about the issues and feel we both learnt something together. Secondly, I’m not going to explore every aspect of the philosophy of freewill because, through the prism in which you look, you have some important points to make and, more importantly, satisfactory answers to the question of free-will has eluded scholars, scientists and philosophers for centuries. There is no reason to think we’ll do any better now. And not only that, the sages of old knew the problem when they gave the paradoxical statement in the name of Rabbi Akiva, “Everything is foreseen, but freedom of choice is given.” Which is rabbinic speak for, yes it’s complicated and a little confusing.
Alright, now I’ve laid my cards on the table, what am I going to talk about. Jonty, have you ever had an experience where it seems your fate is sealed and it takes all your efforts to avoid it. Think of the Final Destination films (if you’re into that kind of thing) or for my generation, Marty’s struggle to ensure he’s born in the Back to the Future film.
I remember, one Summer when I was on camp and about your age I had a dream. I dreamt that on the end of my thumb there was a bee. No matter how hard I shook my thumb it wouldn’t fly off. Slowly I watched it prepare to sting me. Then I woke up. Not being one for over interpreting dreams, especially at the tender age of 14 I thought it to be prophetic. Well wouldn’t you? Anyway, with a mother who had conscientiously given me a few bits and pieces for first aid, including insect repellent and insect bite/sting cream, I was prepared for my destination. For the whole day I carried the instect sting cream in my pocket. Anxious that if I was stung, I’d be able to rapidly treat the pain. The day passed, until finally it was time for bed. The cream remained in the pocket of my trousers as they hung on the chair by my bed – tomorrow I wouldn’t forget it. For those psychologists out there – thus is created superstition by the way, after all had I not been carrying the cream I would have been stung. Nevertheless, we were finally persuaded by our madrichim (leaders) to get into bed and just as I did so – I was stung. A bee had flown into the bed and as I lay down…well it’s obvious isn’t it. There was no escape from my fate.
Well actually this is not what I believe. And I think there is a rational explanation for the bee. However, your Davar Torah reminded me of this occasion when I imagined I was not free from some kind of determined future. I’m sure we have all felt like that on occasions. Perhaps the daily grind of life makes us feel there is no future but drudgery. If you have watched the television programme about Benefits claimants you can see the internalisation of the idea that the claimants feel – their fate is to claim for the rest of their lives. Some of us, it seems, are preprogrammed to accept a fatalistic view of the world – no matter what we do X will happen.
At this time of year in the Jewish calendar and with Jonty’s marvellous concluding sentence we are moved to consider what might be a Jewish view. Jonty said, “Because we are human beings given the gift of free will but also carry the weight of the responsibility and accountability that comes with it.
The focus of the High Holy Days is the process of Teshuvah (quite literally, ‘Turning’). Commonly translated as repentance. The classic argument regarding the idea of Teshuvah is that we must have freedom, because otherwise what would be the point in being given choice to observe a certain way of life – and arguably (coming back to your Davar Torah) it would be an unjust God if you were punished for something over which you had no option but to follow. Moreover, what would be the point in repentance if we had no freedom over the choices we made
The ability to engage with Teshuvah (turning) is, I think, one of the greatest gifts of Judaism. What it says, loudly and clearly, is that having made certain choices, having had the freedom to determine our own path, we are not tied to it. Teshuvah is the cry of freedom. We have no fate.
As Martin Buber writes in his book ‘I and Thou’: “The only thing that can become fate for a man is belief in fate; for this suppresses the movement of turning.” p.57
For Buber, turning is an opportunity to tear “to pieces the web of habitual instincts…” The dogma of process (the opposite of Teshuvah – the long travelator with only one end in sight), he argues “allows you in its game only the choice to observe the rules or to retire: but he who is turning overthrows the pieces”.
Jonty, Teshuvah is more than just the call of freedom in Judaism. It is, as you identify, the acceptance of responsibility. Responsibility for our past actions, responsibility for our future actions, responsibility for the world around us. We are accountable and the Hebrew term ‘Cheshbon Hanefesh’ often translated as the examination of our soul – used to describe the introspection at this time – is more literally ‘Calling oneself to account’. You see, at this time of year, it isn’t just a few of us who are accountants, it’s all of us – even ‘my son the Doctor’.
There is a great universal message in this too. We can aspire to consciously embracing our freedom all the time. However, for most of us, we are creatures of habit. There’s a family across the road from where I live that every morning during school term has a huge screaming row about going to school. ‘Come on you’re making me late. Why do you always do this. Get out the house’. The cycle of behaviour is easily slipped into and incredibly hard to get out of. It seems to me the majority of self-help books, diet books, even the work with benefits claimants, is actually to break the cycle and reassert one’s freedom. Sure there are skills to be learnt along the way and it’s not all that simple. Old habits die hard and a permanent state is perhaps only aspirational. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel writes:
“We are free at rare moments. Most of the time we are driven by a process; we submit to the power of inherited character qualities or to the force of external circumstances. Freedom is not a continual state of man…” God in search of man p.411
Jonty, you have reminded us that to be human is to have the opportunity to claim our freedom and the responsibility that goes with it. No choice is made in isolation, except perhaps in the scientist’s lab. Every time we are faced with a choice to do something we have to make a massive effort to break out of the fetters of process and to be free. Once we have made our choice, there are always consequences. They may not be what the author of the biblical text imagined would be inflicted by God, but nonetheless good or bad, there are consequences. Even inaction is a choice.
Thus Heschel continues: “We are free to choose between good and evil; we are not free in having to choose. We are in fact compelled to choose. Thus all freedom is a situation of God’s waiting for man to choose.” God in search of man p. 412
Freedom to choose. We do not have a fate, though I might proffer that we do have a destiny. Just like the potted history of your Torah reading this morning Jonty, which shows that the journey of the Children of Israel was going somewhere, we too are going somewhere. There is a future and a hope, but it is up to us to choose it. Afterall, “All is foreseen, but freedom of choice is given.”
So Jonty, you see all of your discussions with John over this last year and the Davar Torah which you delivered today to accompany your Torah reading, they touch on the deepest questions of what it means to be human and to live a life of meaning and responsibility. They seem particularly apt themes for a Bar Mitzvah boy for us to end with. These ideas, questions and debates are central to becoming an adult and you have begun to grasp them well. So my wish for you, as you continue your journey to Jewish adulthood is that you will always strive to be free, free to make choices independently, wisely and with due consideration for what is right. These choices will not always be easy and so may you always have family and friends around you to support you during uncertainty or when there appear to be no choices. May you be challenged by them and may they challenge you in turn. And may you always make them as proud of you as you have done today. May this be God’s will and let us say: Amen.
|
|
|
|
|
