Hayom harat olam—today is the birthday of the world. Happy Birthday!! What does it mean that we have gathered to celebrate the birthday of the world and the beginning of the New Year? What is so new about it? The pain in my shoulder that was there yesterday still remains. Those with a pain in their hearts from that broken relationship or from the death of a loved one still ache. I, we, still need to go to work, take care of errands, pay the bills and so on. So what’s new?
And isn’t it a little weird that Jews are celebrating the birthday of the world and everyone else in the world is blissfully unaware of this momentous occasion. The peoples of the world are not celebrating its birth. Only Jews. Chutzpah! We are not celebrating the birth of the Jewish people or some date in Jewish history. Rather we Jews gather to celebrate the birthday of the whole world as if it were in our hands.
Why? I’ll get to some answers a little later on. I have another question though. I have been thinking a lot about the talk I gave two years ago about God and the controversy it stirred. Those of you who weren’t here should feel free to ask someone who was what it was all about but suffice it to say, I raised the subject of God, which is always risky among Jews and, as it turns out, particularly risky at The SAJ. In subsequent conversations, I tried to understand what a Judaism without God might look like. Why would people come to synagogue or celebrate the Jewish holidays if God was not at the center of their religious life?
There are as many answers to that question as there are Jews, actually there are more answers than Jews, since needless to say many Jews have more than one answer, sometimes contradicting themselves. For many people, it’s not even an interesting question. The richness of community, the ethical values contained in Judaism, its complex history and connection to the past are reasons enough to come to synagogue and participate in Jewish life and its traditions.
Yet, I felt challenged by the ongoing conversations I had with many of you and with myself to attempt to discover what a contemporary version of Judaism as an evolving religious civilization might contain. Mordecai Kaplan’s definition of Judaism was a response to his sense that Judaism was not speaking to many Jews of his time. Living in the modern world of America, he suggested three important innovations in the way to describe Judaism:
1. Like American society, Kaplan believed in progress through change. Judaism then needed to evolve and through that evolution become ever more true to its highest ideals.
2. Judaism was not just a religion. It was a civilization encompassing art, music, literature ¾ even sports! Hence the notion of a synagogue center, a shul with a pool.
3. Finally, Kaplan rejected the notion of a God who acts in the world. God does not bring hurricanes, nor chooses this person for drowning and that person for saving. God is not a being; God is that force in the universe that makes for salvation/ for goodness. Where is God during Katrina? For Kaplan, God can be seen in the countless acts of loving kindness directed toward its victims.
Kaplan also talked about Jews living in two civilizations—the American and the Jewish. He proposed that the Jewish civilization had much to offer the American civilization just as the American had much to offer the Jewish civilization.
Eighty years since Kaplan first began to set down his ideas to paper, we have come a long way. For us, the challenges and the opportunities are both similar and different. As in Kaplan’s time, many Jews are unengaged or indifferent to their Judaism. For some, Judaism and religion still seem out of step with contemporary notions of the world. Yet, the situation is also very different. Jews in the early 20th century, faced with anti-Semitism and pressures to assimilate, often rejected Judaism and tried to “pass.” Today, few Jews are ashamed of their Judaism, as Jewishness has become widely accepted in America. No one feels the need to change their last name to hide who they are. Jews identify as Jews. The only question is whether it is a significant and active part of their self-identity or not. Today assimilation is not a rejection of Judaism, but rather a reflection of the relative insignificance of Judaism in some people’s lives.
The other difference is that we now live in many civilizations not just two. And it turns out that it was perhaps naïve for Kaplan to think that Judaism could have an impact on America. Despite the fact that it feels that now more than ever Judaism has something to offer American society, the truth is as a minor civilization in the vastness of America, the chances of American civilization overwhelming Jewish civilization are far greater than Judaism having an impact on America, not withstanding Seinfeld and The OC.
What to do? Let me try to re-formulate the answer I gave two years ago in an attempt to re-cast or, dare I say, reconstruct Kaplan’s answers. What is Judaism? It still is an evolving religious civilization. There is an opportunity that can be seized in living in these two civilizations—the American and the Jewish. While America is the dominant civilization, let the Jewish civilization take on a particular role rather than competing with the American civilization—a role to provide guidance on that which gives meaning.
What gives purpose to my life? When I look back in reflection on this year, on all the years of my life, what will give me a sense of a life well lived? When I reflect upon my faults and foibles, what provides me with insights and wisdom to help me grow spiritually? When I face the inevitable challenges and losses of life what will provide me with some comfort? When I feel existentially alone, what will give me the experience or the sense that I am part of the Unity underlying the cosmos?
Perhaps America has something to teach about these things, but the values of America have become obscured. Do we learn about freedom from the Fourth of July? About memory and sacrifice from Memorial Day? About gratitude even from Thanksgiving? Labor Day? Or would Passover, High Holidays even Tu Bishvat be better reminders of freedom, mortality and change, and the environment? As a majority culture, America does not have to fight to preserve its way—it just is. As a minority culture, Judaism can continue, as it always has, to raise the questions, to challenge what is. It needs to maintain the edge of its teachings, but in so doing will provide to American Jews that which is not easy to find—meaning.
This is how I would like to define the term “religious” in Kaplan’s formulation. Religion is that which points us beyond ourselves to the ultimate questions and helps us to frame lives filled with meaning, purpose and inner growth. Let us use the language of inner growth rather than spirituality that already has a negative connotation in some circles. What is God?—perhaps it is the force/the impulse to do good in the world. Or perhaps God becomes the shorthand for those important teachings about who we are as humans and who we are not. A few examples:
· There are no absolutes in this world. Everything passes. Nobody can live happily ever after. All life comes to an end. The notion of God reminds us that we are mortal. In the traditional notion there is only one absolute—God who was before there was a before and who will be here after the end. But more important than there is a God, is for us to remember that we are not. Yet we spend our lives avoiding notions of our mortality and pretend we have control over our existence.
· Second: in the traditional formulation, judgment is the province of God. In a reconstructed formulation, the important idea here is that behaving in a judgmental way is counter productive to leading a meaningful life. Being judgmental is a common human trait and a common fault. Yet, who can know what really lies in a person’s heart? Or what previous circumstances lead them to behave the way they do? This is not to suggest that we do away with courts and a system of justice or any sense of personal responsibility for actions. It does mean in our everyday actions, we should not be so quick to judgment. On Yom Kippur, instead of being judgmental about the people around us, leave judgment to God. I am not smarter, handsomer, richer, nicer or conversely not as smart, attractive etc. My life should not be about rating everyone to see who is above and below me on some cosmic chart. Neither envy nor triumphalism is appropriate dress for Yom Kippur. Rather we wear white, all of us the same, all of us equal in our essential humanity. Thus we are neither all powerful nor all knowing—these are either aspects of god or that which we call God that is that which is not part of our humanity.
· The third and final teaching is perhaps the most challenging yet may be the most important. We all experience our lives as existentially alone. No matter how close we are to another—my experience remains mine alone. I alone can feel the pain of my toothache—no matter how sympathetic or empathic someone else might be towards me. Genesis states: Lo tov heyot ha-adam levado—it is not good for a human to be alone. We seek love, companionship and community. Judaism states we are not alone in the universe. We each of us stand in relationship to the whole universe. God is the name for that which connects the universe. God becomes the way to express that this universe is a universe of connection not separation, that there is an underlying unity despite all the evidence of the randomness and discordant nature of our experience. This is not “intelligent design”—the cosmos is not running on some grand plan. It is not a plan that some day we will be smart enough or build a computer with enough capacity to discern the pattern. It is a belief that we are all connected not just to each other but to the universe.
However, Judaism is more than an important reminder of the limitations of human beings and our rational selves. What are we suppose to do with these teachings?
Religion in general and Judaism specifically is a challenge to us to re-sanctify the world. This world is not just the world of the mind nor of machines. It is not just the rational. Kaplan didn’t anticipate the horrors of the 20th century at its beginnings. Science is not the answer. The rationale aspect of humans will not inevitably triumph over the irrational.
Kedusha—the sacred is the realm beyond “just the facts.” It looks at the world not just as atoms and molecules, but as a world of beauty and feeling. Seeing the sacred has become rarer as moderns were told that there is no mystery in the world—the laws of science can explain everything. Yet even as we understood that disease was not caused by demons, that life as we know it is the product of the principles of evolution, even as Freud let us peer into the inside of our minds, we still need to find the sacred in life. Our bodies are not just bodies. They are reflection of the divine—meaning that our bodies in their difference and sameness remind us that we are fundamentally equal in our humanity and yet we need to celebrate rather than sit in judgment of the differences.
It is as Hillel said when asked by a student where he was going. To do a mitzvah/ commandment. Which one asked the student? To go to the bathhouse. Going to the bathhouse is a mitzvah? Yes, since we are created in the image of God, we need to take care of that image. More than that, we are to take that body and use it to give pleasure to others hence sex is considered kedusha—sacred for the connection it can make between two people.
We need to re-sanctify the world; here I would change Kaplan’s formulation to define Judaism as an evolving religious universe. For we need to feel part of the universe and to understand that the universe is not here to be consumed for our pleasure. We and the cosmos are part of the oneness of all existence. We need to take care of the universe as we would take care of our bodies with concerned attention. Yet as we forget that we are not all powerful, we abuse the planet. As we forget our connection we think that we can cause global warming but have it not affect us.
For many people the sacred is experienced at such powerful moments as the birth of a child or standing before one of the great wonders of nature. Yet all moments have the potential to be sacred. All vistas convey the beauty of creation not just proofs of the laws of physics. Rav Kook said it best: ha-yashan yithadesh, ve-hehadesh yitkadesh—Make the old new and make the new sacred.
This is the gift and challenge Judaism as religion offers us in this modern world. It is not just that we are moving too fast in our hectic lives to slow down and smell the roses. It is to re-experience the realm of the sacred. Judaism and its practices encourage us to do that in the everyday—what is sacred is not just the grand moments of life but the everyday. Judaism suggests the acts of eating, earning a living, speech are opportunities to be aware of the sacred, to make a world that is filled with caring and compassion because we are non-judgmental, because we recognize ourselves in that other person who is annoying us.
Judaism’s genius—and special gift to the world—is to suggest that we don’t need to retreat from the world in order to encounter the sacred. It is lying right before you. And even more important, you don’t need to prepare yourself for an hour to be able to appreciate the sacred. Take a minute before eating to reflect on food, take a minute to express gratitude afterwards. Bring an awareness to what you do at all times.
There is one longer block of time that Judaism does ask us to devote to reflection on the sacred that lies within each of us and the sacredness of the world. It is services and their prayers. Let me suggest that prayer is not about talking to a God way up there in the heavens. Prayer is not about addressing the Divine Being with praise and requests.
Rather we should see prayer and the time set aside for prayer as time devoted to our spiritual work. It is about talking to the sacred within. It is time for reflection a precious gift to our selves amidst our busy lives. The liturgy should remind us:
1. There is something larger than me in the universe—what many of us call God and many of us do not. It is an important perspective that also reminds us that we are not alone.
2. It should be a time to reflect on the spiritual issues in my life. To think about how to improve my ethical qualities (middot), to be more like the person I deeply desire to be. How can I be less angry, more generous; less afraid; more outgoing?
3. It is an opportunity to express gratitude for the blessings in my life—most of all the blessing of life itself. This is in fact a reconstruction of the traditional forms of rabbinic prayer: shevah, bakasha, hoda’ah.
Some will say this is just a reformulation of pupik watching/ watching our navels, obsessively narcissistic. It could be. There is a lot of meism in America and among Jews. But the time looking inward is meant to make us better when we interact outward—with the world around us. I will be speaking specifically about the role of social justice in Judaism at Kol Nidrei so you will hear more about it then. The reason that Hillel, in his famous series of questions, asked first, “If I am only for myself what am I,” is because that is where we need to begin with ourselves—with introspection at all times.
This time of the year we are given the gift of the Jewish
holidays, when we have hours to be with ourselves in the context of community
during High Holiday services. I encourage you to be present, to see the time as
a gift rather than a burden, to take the opportunity to investigate your
interior life, to dream of the way you might shape your life successfully, to
open your heart to that which you cherish, to re-connect—to yourself, to those
you love, to that which is larger than yourself.
To make this connection between our everyday lives and the sacred even clearer, for tomorrow, I have asked three members of the congregation to share with you how Judaism and its values affect their daily lives and particularly their work lives. In a first attempt to reconstruct prayer, we also will try to more explicitly make the connection between lines in the liturgy and this process of reflection leading to inner growth.
Do you remember the question I began with? Why do we celebrate the world’s birthday in this our holiest Jewish season? Because Judaism is about the world, not about itself. Judaism is not about observing the Sabbath, keeping kosher, or attending synagogue on High Holidays. Judaism is about living life—its rituals are meant to help us live that life with a deep awareness of life’s sacred moments—meaning?
Rabbi Levi in the Talmud states: We have control over three organs—mouth, hands and feet, but no control over three organs eyes, ears and nose. We have no real control on what we will see, hear and smell in our lives. We do have control in our response. In our speech, our hands and our feet: In what I say—Do I really need to share this piece of gossip with Joy? Don’t I want to think before I speak to that person who has angered me? In what we do—our hands. What will I do in the next moment? Will I reach out to make contact with a family member or a friend I haven’t spoken to it awhile to better connect? Will I lend a helping hand to someone in need? In our feet—What will I try to accomplish in my life and in what paths will I direct my steps.
Our task is to re-sanctify the world—to take the old and make it new—to take the new and make it sacred. To take the old and to make it new is to take the routine, the places we are stuck or on automatic pilot, to not accept a society that proclaims poverty is just the way it has been and always will be. To wake up to the new day and believe the liturgy when it says—that God renews the work of creation every day. I am a new being today as much as I seem to be the same old Michael as was here yesterday. And to take it all, all of it, all of the complexity of my inner world, all that has already unfolded in my life and all that is waiting to unfold, and to make it sacred—to give it significance by being grateful for what I have, for being forgiving of others who don’t meet my expectations of perfection, for being forgiving of myself, and yet striving to make this world a better more sacred place.
To celebrate the birthday of the world is the most Jewish thing we can do—for our challenge and opportunity is not to be better Jews by being more Jewish, but as Jews, to glory in this new day, in this new moment pregnant with possibilities, and to make the world better, and thereby make our lives better.
Copyright © 2005, The Society for the Advancement of Judaism