Olam
Chesed Yibaneh / We will build this world from love. (Ps.
89:3)
Ten
days ago we recited "HaYom Harat Olam - Today the World is Born,"
and now ten days have passed. The world has been born again. Is
it better than it was before? A harder question: What did you do
during these past 10 days to make it better? Our obligation might
not be to complete the task, but we are certainly not free from
it.
It
matters very little what you believe. No one is a "bad Jew" or a
"bad person" for believing one way or another. But there remains
such a thing as "sin." Sin is when we fail to act when it is
necessary. And we have all sinned this year. Me, you, civil and
religious leaders - we have not done enough when oil pipes burst
and floods raged and fires burned, when earthquakes and
unemployment have struck, when hatred has been spoken against
another group, be the target Muslim or Israeli.
On a
day like today, an evening like this, surrounded by our community,
new- old- and potential friends of every generation, in a world
pervaded by so much uncertainty, choosing one topic to share is
near impossible. How can I only focus on one thing when so much
calls from every direction? While sharing with a friend my
difficulty in choosing a theme for my remarks tonight, he reminded
me that on Yom Kippur many of us are searching for how we fit into
the whole, what it all means, why we are necessary as a community
and as individuals. That friend, Dan Schifrin, suggested, perhaps
unknowingly, that I talk tonight about what I think about
God.
Not a
light topic, but it'll do.
________________________
You and
I likely agree about the needs of the world. You and I agree that
we are only equipped to respond to bits and pieces of the
incompleteness of the universe. We likely even agree that one of
the primary purposes we serve as an organized Jewish community is
to be more helpful than we can be as individuals. But when I
confess to you that everything I do in our community and beyond, I
do because of God, I imagine some of you might pause for a moment.
Perhaps we'd then have a complicated conversation. My goal is to
begin my part of our conversation tonight.
As has
been shared a few times by my dear friend Josh Kornbluth, what I
mean by God can be surprising for some. Most of the time, when I
speak with someone who says they don't believe in God, I have more
in common with them than someone who unflinchingly declares their
faith.
And so
I should say a bit, in the Maimonidean style of negative assertion,
what my God isn't.
My God
is not a Being, is not a Thing, and is not discernable. My God is
not literally the Judge or Womblike King of the Machzor, is not
vengeful or punishing. My God doesn't send cancer or hurricanes.
My God does not send - and never has sent - people to kill or hurt
others. These are some of the things my God is not.
Another
important starting point: "God" is just a word. Elohim, Eternal
One, Adonai, Source of Life, Oseh Shalom, Avinu Malkeinu, Dayan
Ha'Emet, Blessed One, Shechina, these faces, these "Masks
(Campbell)" are only pointers to the holy. We do not believe that
these Sacred Names are capable of containing the Infinite. And
this is the problem, as Arthur Green puts it so exquisitely in his
new book Radical Judaism: " [Spiritual people describe all of Being
using words like 'God'] because we see ourselves as living in
relationship to the underlying One. (p.19)" When overwhelmed by
almost any association in almost any moment, a soulful person
struggles for any word to express what is happening deep inside, to
communicate what it is to be right now. But no word works - it is
like trying to translate crying or attempting to explain pain. Or
like trying to speak of God.
If the choice is silence or the limits of language, we should
remember that "Shtika keHoda'a Damei / Silence indicates
acquiescence", and that Dr. King taught us all that silence can
actually serve as betrayal when the need to speak is felt and
ignored. There are, however, also times that speaking means
nothing, as John Cage famously said "I have nothing to say and I am
saying it and that is poetry as I need it (Lecture on Nothing,
1949)."
And so
we have no choice but to plunge into words. We must pledge to do
our best to remember that they're only words. We must also
remember that we might not know for certain what they mean, but
they should aim (Dewey) to mean something.
________________________
Solomon
Schechter, the founder of American Conservative/Masorti Judaism,
hinted at the importance of not confusing belief with surety:
"[Judaism] refused a hearing to no theory for fear that it should
contain some germ of truth, but on the same ground, it accepted
none to the exclusion of the others. (Parzen, 41)" When I can
define God in clear terms, it is not God. I worship an idol when I
claim my sense of God is THE definition. Worse than that, idolatry
and terrorism are related fundamentalisms, where being sure I'm
right is the surest indication that I'm wrong and the best way of
predicting that someone is going to get hurt. As Irwin Kula has
taught, "When I believe I have more God than you, I get a gun.
(Yearnings)"
One
additional and crucial caveat before sharing, in humble yet
assertive terms, what I believe God is. My goal tonight is not to
provide a systemic theology. God is not an object of cognition
(Heschel in Petuchowsky), not an idea to prove. I offer only what
I believe to be a healthy reframing of real experience, a way of
"seeing" the world and every inhabitant as full of latent
potential. I'm not interested in intellectual gymnastics; I'm
aching to share an experience of the Divine with my sacred
community.
________________________
A
personal vignette:
When I
was applying to Rabbinical School at JTS, I remember a few things
very vividly. The table for the interview itself had a glass top,
just to make my nervous fidgeting a bit more obvious. The room was
plush green velvet from floor to ceiling. And the people at that
table were the gatekeepers, guarding a doorway through which I
really wanted to enter. It began well. But, about 20 minutes in,
one rabbi on the committee looked at me and
said:
"Mr.
Creditor, I've been reading the statement of your theology. You
don't seem to have one. Can I ask you to talk about
that?"
I
responded by saying, "Actually, I'm currently taking a theology
class with Rabbi Neil Gillman, and it's all a bit up in the
air."
It's
not all up in the air for me anymore. At least, not for now. In
fact, it's not up in the air at all. My previous belief system in
which my God in the Heavens watched me, commanded me, and
intervened in the world has encountered a real world of universal
vulnerability, where things are not black and white, where
injustice happens, sometimes in the name of God. My theology has
been influenced by personal loss, by being with others as they die,
with others as they lose a loved one. My theology has been
informed by the births of babies, three of whom have taught me more
about God in a glance than every book I'll ever read. My theology
has been informed by painful headlines, some personally
experienced. My theology has been informed by communal work and
activism. For me, God is not "up there" more than God is "in
here." And I've learned over and over again that my approach to
God is but one of many true paths to the Ultimate.
This
is what I believe: God is the collective potential of the human
imagination. I believe that God is the collective potential of the
human imagination.
Here's
what that means:
�
When the person davening Hineni concludes with "Baruch Atah
Shomei'a Tefilah / Blessed Are You Who Hears Prayer" my soul stirs
because it reminds me that something within me aches to be
heard.
�
When a person dies, there is no defensible reason. We all feel the
pain of the loss, because a part of God has died. A fragment of
potential has been lost to us all.
�
When I ask God to accept my loved one into a sacred embrace, I am
crying out to my community to remember and cherish that person, to
demand eternally that every life matter.
�
When we encounter those willing to hurt others in pursuit of what
they believe Justice to be, and we challenge their use of noble
words like "justice" or "tradition" to describe their actions, that
is God.
�
When I say I love you, I mean that I am not alone and that I am
here so that you need not be either. That, for me, is
God.
And if
this is a possible definition of the Infinite One, who has just as
infinite a number of names, and who is accessible through just as
infinite a number of possible true paths, then God is in desperate
need of you, of your unique contribution. As Emmanuel Levinas
taught, "the totality of the true is only possible through the
contributions of many." We cannot, as a world, achieve the Peace
we seek if any gift is missing. No one has no gift to give, and
every person is precious.
Sometimes
life makes us forget how powerful we are, but we are powerful.
Some of us are suddenly thrust into the role of being the "rock" in
our families, but we are that powerful. Some of us become public
leaders without intending, but we are that powerful. We remember
our power during the irrevocable moments in our lives.
What is
it that happens when the words we hear tear us, break us open, and
propel us deeper than we meant to go? Why is it that a familiar
scent can instantly send us back in time? Why is it that, when we
stand on a sunny, scary day with Muslims and Christians and
believers and atheists, we sense urgency so much stronger? To
ignore our power, to allow ourselves to feel hopeless is a
wrongness (Rav Nachman). That is the sin of denying our capacity
to act.
And the
way back from sin is an open, willing heart, ready to do the
necessary work to let the needs of the world mix with the
particular ingredients of your soul. The only failure is not
naming this expectation, this sublime burden, and in communal
leadership not challenging every person to see themselves as
seekers of the sacred. The Teshuva we are called to do includes
the broken-ness we'd rather escape and avoid. But the challenge, I
believe, is clear.
We seek
the sacred, and that's why we have work to do. God is not more,
nor less, present in our shul than in a mosque, or a church, our
homes or on the street. But we are somehow different, somehow more
intense here at shul. We join here, as a Jewish community, to
strengthen our resolve to stand in awe of all the world has to
offer, to bow in awe of the Divine Potential we together are, to
rise in purposeful response. We sing and cry from the blessed
weight of it all. And then we get back to work. Six days a week
won't do it - we need that Seventh Day to recharge, because the
needs won't go anywhere without us.
As
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, a modern prophet who marched with Dr.
King, taught, we are called to take a "Leap of
Action," which demands of us that we see past our own needs
and do more than we understand in order to understand more than we
currently do. Heschel wrote: "Through the ecstasy of deeds [we
learn] to be certain of the presence of God. (Petuchowski, 392)"
So powerful to read this religious leader remind the world, time
after time, that the uncertainty of faith is no excuse for
inaction.
There
is much missing our world. And so much of what is missing is
present right here, right now, in this room, in our shul. While I
might fumble while trying to articulate what it is that inspires my
life and moves me so much about our precious community, I know that
it is the experience of caring and being cared for unconditionally
that makes us who we are. It is not an event that triggers our
Chesed, our Overflowing Love; it is the ongoing and evolving
reality we are and commit to being and becoming, here and
everywhere. That is precisely why we ache when we read headlines -
because the world does not need to suffer in the many ways it
does. It is as Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote:
"Tears,
idle tears, I know not what they mean.
Tears
from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in
the heart and gather in the eyes."
When
during the Amidah we recite "Meimit uMechayeh / God who takes and
gives life" I find myself both emotionally tense and strangely
committed to the traditional formula. Why? Because the words make
me feel. They make me angry. They make me cry. They hint at
hope. They remind me to look at others and feel with them. I need
not be alone when tradition calls me to connect to community. And
community creates and practices together. And because of this I am
and we each are less alone.
________________________
We are
called to do something about the things that happen that make us
cry. It doesn't matter if you believe in a personal God who
participates in the events of the world or an Unmoved Mover who
doesn't get involved, or if you believe that the world birthed
itself, or if you aren't sure - what matters is what you do. For
me, God is only real when we act to better the world.
Other
theologies believe God explicitly commanded us to better the
world. Atheists believe the world needs betterment. We're all on
the same page - and we are truly blessed to have a rich language, a
holy community, a sacred tradition that guides our actions and does
not mandate our thinking. Our is a hopeful, non-fundamentalist,
honest, engaged, traditional Jewish community, one which has so
much to learn from and offer to our larger community and the
world.
Hope is
not impossible. It is ever-present though sometimes hidden. And
Hope is urgently needed, which in my theology means that it is a
Mitzvah, a command.
So I
ask you to decide tonight one thing you are going to do this year
to build up hope in the world. Support our community's commitment
to our members in times of need, to the Jewish People, and to
world. Daven so that your soul can be nourished as you work in the
world. Celebrate Shabbat so that you can unplug, recharge, and
reconnect one day a week. Think deeply about the food you eat, the
car you drive, the way you spend money, and the relationships you
keep. These are not isolated observances. They are the Jewish way
of giving voice to our most treasured memories and our deepest
aspirations (Held, Cosgrove, 20), and through them we will be
strong enough to change everything, piece by piece.
I call
this process God.
Roughly
three hundred members of the Berkeley community sat together this
past Shabbat, 9/11, and affirmed our entire community, the America
we believe in - one that cherishes and protects every believer and
non-believer. Many CNS members were there, which filled my heart.
During these past three weeks, 50 Jewish women came to embrace
Torah and have their photos taken in our shul, to demonstrate
solidarity with Women of the Wall and the Masorti Movement's
efforts to achieve a more just and inclusive Judaism in Israel. We
serve monthly shifts at the Dorothy Day Men's Shelter, we speak
about Domestic Violence, we have generated shared shul
conversations on human trafficking, hunger, education, the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and interfaith dialogue. We are a
national leader in Jewish campaign for full GLBT inclusion. We are
trying. And it takes your gifts, financial and spiritual, to do
what we do. And we need to keep doing it. The aches in the world
are not going away on their own.
Listen
to these words from a gifted musical soul named Matthew Paul
Miller, better known as Matisyahu. It is an anthem worth singing,
laced with words that hint at our deepest fears, prayers, and
dreams.
Sometimes
I lay under the moon. I thank God I'm
breathing.
Then I
pray don't take me soon 'cause I am here for a
reason.
Sometimes
in my tears I drown, but I never let it get me
down.
So when
negativity surrounds, I know someday it'll all turn around
because...
All my
life I been waiting for, I've been praying for, for the people to
say
that we
don't want to fight no more, there'll be no more
wars
and our
children will play... one day.
We are
a shul that knows how to sing, sometimes silently, and we are here
for a reason. We will continue to speak, to act, to organize. And
as we do we'll remember what the modern prophetess Ruth Messinger
has taught, that what makes activism and relief efforts truly
heroic is that we know the whole time that we can never truly
answer the need. But we are not resigned. We are not free from
our obligation to get started. Most importantly, we do not choose
to be.
We have
work to do, and that is all we need know.
- May we
never hurt another in the name of the truths we
cherish.
- May we
generate more hope than the world expects.
- May we
remember that every person around us carries a divine
spark.
- May our
sacred community be a strong, legacy for later generations, thanks
to the work we do today and tomorrow.
- May
this be a year of health, safety, and peace for us, and for the
world around us.
Amen.
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