Throughout
history, in every time and place of Jewish life, rabbis have given voice to
ideas through written letters to express and record matters of belief,
practice, ethical and communal concern.
Sometimes these letters were written to individuals, who asked a
specific question of the rabbi, and sometimes these letters were written to
entire communities commenting or reflecting on the needs of the day. Each Iggeret,
each one of these rabbinic letters, is unique in style and subject matter based
on the rabbi who gave it voice. These
letters were written out of a sense of leadership, of love and of
responsibility to the Jewish communities to whom they were written.
There are many rabbis whose letters we still
read and study today, and Maimonides is probably best known for the many
letters he wrote to various Jewish communities seeking wisdom and
blessing. His letters were not meant to
be instructive in the way of “musts” - you must believe or do what I say, but
rather they were guides , they were letters filled with mussar and Torah - with
instruction and teachings, to provide a sense of comfort and to help the
individual and community make decisions and find meaning and morality for
themselves in the world in which they were living.
I
share with you the concept of the Iggeret, the rabbinic letter, because the
written word sometimes has power that spoken words do not. And, with the start
of a new decade, 5780, I wish to try a new tradition, that of writing an
iggeret , a letter to you, with the start of each new year, to reflect and
comment on the world in which are living.
While I don’t see myself in the same light as the great rabbis whose
letters we study today, I do believe that as a rabbi I have knowledge of Torah
and our tradition, that help give voice to ideas and thoughts for us to
consider as we, individually and as a community, try to navigate this world in
which we are living and to make it just a little bit better than how we found
it. So, with this long-standing
tradition, on this holy night of Kol Nidrei, I offer my Iggeret, my rabbinic
letter to you.
Dear UH family,
As we enter this new decade of 5780, I am
excited by the possibilities that lie ahead for each of us as individuals and
for all of us as a community. There are
the possibilities of learning, of growing, of making our world a better
place. And yet, I am troubled that we
have allowed ourselves to forget some of the most fundamental teachings of the
Torah and our tradition. Which in turn have caused us to distance ourselves
from one another and have allowed our larger Jewish community to begin to fray
at its seems . We have lost the ability to talk with one another, to disagree with one
another, and to respect and honor our individuality. We have allowed the disagreements of our day
to separate our Jewish community into an “us” vs “them.” We have forgotten the very real difference
between “I dislike your ideas” and “I dislike you.”
We
come from a great tradition of honorable discourse - loud, exuberant,
passionate, respectful discourse. The
Talmud records the entirety of these arguments, and while the decision or the
halachah often goes to the majority opinion, we still record, respect, and
study the minority opinion recognizing that in it there is a kernel of truth from
which we should be learning. Our rabbis
had raucous debates, and sometimes even they got out of hand, forgetting
themselves, and causing harm to the larger Jewish community.
The
Talmud records the following debate about the kashrut (the kosher status) of an
oven. Rabbi Eliezer and the Sages, led by Rabbi Joshua, argue
over a new type of oven and whether it could become ritually unclean. Each rabbi, in his argument, summons heaven
to declare if he is right. One says, “If I am right, let the carob tree move” -
and it moves; another says, “if I’m
right, let the stream flow backwards” - and it does; and still another says, “If I’m right let the
walls of the House of Study fall in” - and they fall in. Rabbi Eliezer then summons a Heavenly Voice,
“If I’m right, let the heavenly voice speak,” and it does. However, Rabbi
Joshua rejects the Heavenly Voice using a line that we read tomorrow morning in
our Torah portion, Nitzavim, “it is not in Heaven that someone else should go
up and receive it.” He says, “since Torah has been given to us, it is up to us
here on earth to decide the law, not the Heavenly voice.” The Sages then
overrule Rabbi Eliezer with a majority vote.
( Bava Metzia 59b)
I think we all understand the concept of
majority rules, however, when we continue reading this story in the Talmud, we
come to learn that this great rabbi, Rabbi Eliezer was ostracized because he
disagreed with the majority. The powers
that be were worried that his dissenting voice would lead others to believe the
same and disagree with them; so, they pushed him away from the community by
delegitimizing his arguments, by dishonoring him.
This story may be old, but the rabbis
point to it as being one of the reasons for the destruction of the 2nd
Temple. There was such disagreement and
utter disregard for the other person, that sinat
chinam , baseless hatred prevailed.
The 2nd Temple wasn’t destroyed because our ancestors forgot their
relationship with God, it was destroyed because they forgot their relationship
with each other. It was more important
for them to be right, than for them to be considerate of and to honor each
other.
Sound familiar? How often do we find ourselves in difficult
and controversial conversations where we are called out and mocked for our
ideas or we fear speaking up because of the potential of being ostracized or
mocked for our beliefs?
I’m afraid that today we find ourselves
in a moment of history repeating itself.
Once again, we are so caught up in the premise that one side, our side,
holds the only "truth", or the only "morally" correct
option, that we condemn and call out any opinion or idea which is in opposition
to ours, and we ostracize those who differ from us. In so doing, we have created echo chambers
for ourselves and only hear the opinions and arguments we want to hear. This loss of dignified discourse has
destroyed the ability for differing perspectives to coexist and it hinders the
free exchange of ideas. This is not
Jewish. To be a Jew means to struggle and wrestle with ideas. It means being able to hold on to the tension
that comes when we wrestle and struggle with what sometimes feels like
competing ideas. But Judaism allows us
to hold onto both and find some sense of truth.
In this new year, my friends, we must change
the tenor and the tone of discourse and disagreement in our community. Not just our Jewish community but in the
larger American society. Our tradition
teaches that we, we are to be a light unto the nations, an example of how to
behave - of how to make this world just a little bit better. If things are going to change, we must lead
the way in changing the tone and the attitude of our discourse, to raise people
up, to honor them, instead of knocking them down, and ostracizing them because
they see the world differently than we do.
How do we do this?
With Kavod - with respect, with honor,
with dignity.
From
the very beginning, the Torah teaches, “And God said, “Let us make human beings in our image and
likeness, (Genesis 1:26)” indicating that we humans are created b’tzelem elohim, in the image of
God. What would it mean to listen to
someone, to truly listen to someone, and to hear their words as the words of
God? Would you converse with them
differently? Argue with them a little
more respectfully? Think twice before
calling them out as opposed to calling out their ideas?
We come from a long tradition of arguing
with God. Abraham argued with God, Moses
argued with God, and even Job argued with God.
And guess what, God didn’t treat them with disdain or say, “how dare you
argue with me?” and dismiss them altogether.
Rather, God listened. In some
instances, the argument didn’t change the outcome, as Sodom and Gomorrah were
still destroyed. And yet in other
instances, the outcome was changed, as Moses argued against God destroying the
Israelites after the sin of the Golden Calf, and God listened - we are still
here today with an incredible history.
The Hebrew word kavod has the same root as the word kabaid, meaning heavy or weighty. The honor that we owe one another
is a serious, weighty matter. Each of
us, each human being is created in the Divine image. Therefore, each of us is
deserving of being treated with dignity, honor and respect, regardless of the
ideas and beliefs that we hold to be true and correct.[1]
We have work to do, and it isn’t going to
be easy. It’s going to take thought and
take practice. What do I mean? We will have to pause and think before
responding, especially on social media.
We are too quick to leap into controversy and perhaps what we need to do
is to create a communal ethic as suggested by Dr. Yehuda Kurzer, one which
calls on us not to respond swiftly to things with which we disagree, but to
slow down, to think about what we are going to say, to respond to the
idea and not the person[2].
You
may be thinking to yourself, “whatever, this isn’t going to change anything. I
am but one person, and there are others who need to change before me.” You are right, there are others who need to
change; however, we can’t change someone else, we can only change
ourselves. If each one of us in this
room, were to think before we speak and react, to honor the other person and
recognize that our disagreement is with their ideas and not them as people,
imagine what that could do. If we could,
in our own arguments, let go of the negativity and insist that others do, as
well, wow, what a world we could live in!
A world that lifts up people and ideas, a world where we argue and
disagree about ideas respectfully, a world that is made better because there
are multiple points of truth and right.
Tonight,
we continue the heavy work of teshuvah.
We stand together as a community to confess our individual and communal
sins.
Al
chet shechatanu lefanecha, the sin we have committed against You, God, and
ourselves by not seeing the Divine in each person.
V’
Al chet shechatanu l’fanecha, and the sin we have committed against You, God,
and the harm we have caused ourselves and others by calling people out with
disdain when we don’t agree with them instead of calling out their ideas.
For
these, we ask you God for our forgiveness.
In
this new year, may we find the strength and courage to be the change our world
sorely needs. May we be beacons of
change bringing light, our light, into this darkened world through our right
actions. May we use our ears to hear, our eyes to see, our hearts to love and
our mouths to speak words of respect and give honor to all in our community,
even when we disagree.
I
close this letter with words from our sages:
This is what God said to Israel: My children what do I
seek from you? I seek no more than that you love one another, and honor one
another, and that you have awe for one another.[3]
I wish each of
you a tzom kal, an easy fast and a g'mar chatimah tovah, that tomorrow, as Yom
Kippur comes to an end, you are sealed for good in the book of life.
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