Sermons 5787
ROSH HASHANAH EVENING 5787
THE WORLD WAS CREATED FOR THE SAKE OF ADAM? OR ISRAEL? Who are you going to vote for?
Rachel[i] came into the synagogue library out of the autumn cold.
“Hi Daniel! Sorry I am late. I got held up. It was another one of those phone calls, asking if I will vote for their candidate, let me tell you about their policies, and you know…. Blah, blah blah…as if I had all the time in the world. As if didn’t have other things to think about in life.”
Daniel[ii] smiled.
“Yeah, It’s hard to avoid politics with the election season in the air. The mailings. The texts. The solicitations. The phone calls. The pundits on television. All telling you how you should vote.”
Rachel removed her coat, hat and gloves, and eased herself into a seat at the table.
Before them was a large book. They knew it was old-fashioned of them. Most people now, study Talmud using texts online. Sefaria is a great resource, and you could look up commentaries, easily – with just a click-of-the-mouse. But the two of them loved the old-fashioned tomes of Shas, with the black letters embossed on cream paper – the script articulating the dialogue between the sages of multi-generations, the commentaries across the centuries. They loved becoming part of the historical back-and-forth.
Rachel and Daniel sat side-by-side, with the text between them. Their years of chevruta, studying Talmud together, gifted them an ease when struggling with the text and when grappling with life.
Often, seemingly randomly, the text had something to say or reflect on their modern lives. It came out of nowhere — always a surprise!
They were gazing at a passage in Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin.
Daniel read aloud the words in front of them:
“When a person stamps a coin, with a seal, they are like each other. But, when the Holy One stamped all people, with the seal of the first Adam, not one of their likenesses was like each other. While the whole of humankind descends from this one person, Adam – the world is created for each human, individually.”[iii]
“So, this world is created for the sake of each one of us!” exclaimed Rachel. “For Jew and Christian. For Moslem and Sikh. For black skin, white skin and coffee skin. We are all one, a replica of Adam. The world was created for all of us – for society – for the sake of humanity!”
“Whoa! …Hold the rant!” Daniel’s thoughtful eyes looked at her.
He began: “Rachel, didn’t we learn at last week’s lecture on Tractate Gerim, that the world was created for the sake of Israel? The example given was that after a potential convert immerses in the mikveh, we are supposed to say to the new Jew: “Mazal Tov! You have chosen the Holy One who created this world – and this world was created for the sake of Israel. Israel are the children of God. Israel is the beloved of God. By being Jewish, you are now chosen.”[iv]
Rachel retorted: “Jewish self-centeredness! It’s about me! me! me! Jews come first! Others are second-best! Daniel, I believe in welcoming the convert. But to say to someone who is newly Jewish, that only now they are “chosen,” well, it’s so … so insular, so chutzpadik!
“And if we don’t put the Jews first in this world – who will?” countered Daniel.
The Talmud before them began to shimmer and glimmer.
The two of them blinked.
Two bearded men emerged. Their clothing – strange and ancient.
Were they seeing things? They looked at each other with astonishment. If this was not real, then it was some sort of shared hallucination.
One of the men began: “So, Akiva, you think that: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ is the greatest principal of the Torah. Yet I think there is a greater principle found in Genesis. In the Torah it is written: ‘This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created humankind, the Holy One made everybody in the likeness of God.’”[v]
Akiva looked puzzled: “And why is this a greater principle, Ben Azzai?”
“Think about it. When it says “Love your neighbor” – it is not clear what the word neighbor means. Perhaps it means everybody. Or just the people next door. Perhaps it means only to love your Jewish neighbor. It is not specific or clear.
On the other hand, we know that Adam – well Adam is everybody’s parent – Israelite, stranger, foreigner. Each person is created in the Divine image. It is clear it means every person.
Akiva, my friend: Imagine we were voting in the Greek elections as they did centuries ago. If we advocated and voted just for Jewish interests, and not for the greater society, isn’t that a disgrace to the Holy One whose likeness every human being resembles?”
“Are we seeing things” mumbled Daniel?[vi] “Is that really Rabbi Akiva and Ben Azzai jumping off, off… the pages of… our Talmud?”
“Ssh!” hushed Rachel. “Let’s listen and learn… those old rabbis, they’re having our exact conversation.”
Rabbi Akiva looked around. Something seemed to have distracted him for a brief minute. But seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he returned to his discussion with Ben Azzai.
“Ben Azzai, you speak of human dignity. But doesn’t our Torah say: ’You [Jews] shall be holy, for I, Adonai your God, am holy.’”[vii] God gave us the commandments specifically to make the Jewish people holy. Our ways are worth preserving and guarding. By guarding, I mean: Jewish interests should always come first.”
Ben Azzai gave him a dubious look.
“I disagree. Akiva, read a few verses further down in the Torah there it says the exact opposite: “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love that stranger as yourself.”[viii]
“Yes, yes,” Akiva nods. “Granted. We are to have empathy for the stranger: ‘For we too were strangers in the land of Egypt…. But surely compassion is a duty to protect the vulnerable, not to prioritize them.”
Ben Azzai looked chagrined.
“Am I understanding you correctly, Akiva? Jews first. Empathy for other people second? When we care for others, we should do it only if it aligns with our Jewish priorities?”
“You’ve got it right” said Rabbi Akiva. “The Torah teaches us: “You are a holy people, for God has chosen you.”[ix] A covenant has boundaries, practices, obligations. If we only look at the world through a humane stance, then what becomes of the distinct mission of Israel?”
Ben Azzai countered: “This is not sitting well with me – Jews are part of this greater humanity with real human concerns. The Torah says, that Abraham was chosen so that all the families of the earth would be blessed through him, not just the Jews.[x] Surely, being Jewish should not wall us off from other people? God created the world for Adam, and we must continue creating our world for Adam’s sake.”
Akiva counterargued. “Yet let not our love of humanity, override our Jewish identity. Granted, we, as Jews, are commanded to advocate for the poor, the hungry, the immigrant, and the vulnerable. But our love of all people, should not best our care of Jews.
Ben Azzai rubbed his beard and looked thoughtful.
“I think my friend Akiva, we differ less than it first appears. We both believe that the world is created for the sake of humanity. We both believe that the world was created for the sake of Israel. That is Torah. However, our approaches are different. You begin with the Jewish covenant and its concrete possibilities.”
Akiva butted in, and finished Ben Azzai’s sentence. “… and you begin with humanity’s common origin and divine likeness.”
At that moment in the conversation, the door swung open. Rachel and Daniel turned to look at the entrance when they felt the chilly air brush their backs. Their faces turned white as a ghost… were they now seeing a second apparition? Wasn’t he… dead? How could he be standing there?
Rachel exclaimed: “He looks just like the picture of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks on his book cover! He must have a doppelganger in the world of the living!”
Daniel laughed. “Why are you surprised that Rabbi Sacks is here? Weren’t we just discussing whether we should prioritize Jewish concerns or societies needs? Why wouldn’t a scholar who focused on this very idea, show up in our library right now?”
“Children,” said the very twentieth century-looking orthodox rabbi in a clipped British accent, as he removed his own book from the shelf.
“Didn’t I write in my book right here that: ‘Judaism is both particularist and universalist. Abraham lived apart from his neighbours, but he fought for them, prayed for them, and engaged with them. Moses and the prophets saw Judaism as unique, and, as having a message for all humankind. The split between particularism and universalism, the dissociation of sensibilities in the mind of the modern Jew, is nothing less than a breakdown of traditional identity at the very time that the Jewish future, and the world, need Jews to be both.’”[xi]
“In other words,” said Daniel, “This is true, and that is true. I think what Rabbi Sacks is arguing, is that it is essentially Jewish to care about Jewish interests AND the interests of society at large. We should hold both values as equally important in our thinking.”
“Hmm. Let not our Jewish selves get in the way of the good of common humanity,” — Rachel thought-out-loud.
“And let not our common humanity negate our Jewish identities,” responded Daniel.
Daniel closed the Talmud shut.
When they looked up from their studies, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks was gone. Rabbi Akiva and Ben Azzai had dissipated from where they once stood in the shul library.
“Good study” Daniel said to Rachel. “By the way, Rachel, what issues are on your mind this election?”
“Jewish issues. Society Issues.”
“Me too.” said Daniel.
“Who are you going to vote for this election?”
Sarah smiled.
“That’s between me and my God.”
Daniel grinned.
They put on their hats, coats and gloves and moved towards the door.
Then they said as always – “Next week, same time, same place, more Talmud…”
****
[Chevruta 4 minutes]
Share our own personal answers with a person besides you:
When you vote, do you think of yourself as a Jew first, an American first—or both at once?
What does that mean for the way you decide how to vote?
[i] Rachel in the bible embraced other gods, pilfering Laban’s idols. This might suggest she had a belief in the efficacy of these gods (perhaps for fetility and blessing since we know she struggled with these issues) – making her a matriarch with universalistic tendencies. See Genesis 31:19.
[ii] The biblical Daniel was among the biblical exiles captured in Jerusalem and taken to Babylonia. Daniel is placed into a universalist context, trained to be courtiers and given a Babylonian name (Daniel – Belteshazzar). However, Daniel stubbornly sticks to his Israelite identity, refusing non-Kosher food (Daniel 1:8-10), continues to pray to God despite a ban on doing so (Daniel 6) and being loyal to God over the King. Through his actions he displays particularistic tendencies.
[iii] Baraita in Sanhedrin 38a, JT Sanhedrin, Chapter 4:9
[iv] Tractate Gerim 1:5. Sefaria writes: “Tractate Gerim (“Converts”) is one of seven small tractates that addresses topics for which there is no specific tractate in the Jerusalem or Babylonian Talmuds. These tractates are written in the terse style of the Mishnah and are likely from the time period of the Mishnah or early Talmud, but their dating and places of composition are subject to debate. The first two chapters of Gerim discuss the process of conversion to Judaism, and the status of the convert. The third chapter addresses the treatment of a resident convert, a gentile who accepts some of Judaism’s tenets. The last chapter consists of praise for converts. Composed: Talmudic Israel/Babylon (c.100 BCE – c.900 CE)
[v] Leviticus 19:18, Genesis 5:1 as quoted in Sifra 2:16:11
[vi] Daniel was an interpreter of visions.
[vii] Leviticus 19:2
[viii] Leviticus 19:34
[ix] Deuteronomy 7:6
[x] Genesis 12:13
[xi] Jonathan Sacks Future Tense, NY: Schocken Books, 2009, p. 118
SHACHARIT ROSH HASHANAH 5786
THE WORLD WAS CREATED FOR THE SAKE OF FAITH: Keeping the Faith
Nachman of Bratslav taught many times, “Creation was mainly for the sake of faith.”[i]
I imagine Jacob standing before his children at the end of his life, there in Egypt, far from the land of Canaan.
He had lived a long life. He had known love and loss, blessing and exile, moments of divine presence and moments when God seemed painfully distant.
Death was approaching.[ii]
And so, Jacob called his sons and his daughter Dinato gather close.
The Torah tells us that Jacob said: “Gather yourselves together that I may tell you what is to befall you in days to come.”[iii]
But perhaps before he could tell them what would happen to them, Jacob needed to tell them who they were.
He looked at his children and wondered:
Will you remember?
Will you remember the God of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and Rebecca?
Will you remember the covenant?
Will you remember the faith that carried our family from one generation to the next?
Will you remember the faith that sustains the world we live in?
And perhaps Jacob wondered something else:
What kind of example did I set for you?
Jacob thought: “My faith did not always come easily. I was named Yisrael—the one who wrestles with God—after struggling through the night on the banks of the Jabbok.[iv] I have grappled with the Holy One. I have struggled to understand, struggled to trust, struggled even to sense God’s presence. There were moments God seemed unmistakably near: angels ascending and descending a ladder between heaven and earth.[v] And there were other moments when God seemed hidden, beyond reach. But perhaps that, too, is part of faith.”
And so, Jacob began not with prophecy, but with memory.
“Before I tell you what will befall you in days to come[vi], let me remind you of where we began. Let me remind you of faith.”
***
“For your great-grandfather Abraham, faith was not simply something he possessed. Faith was something he lived, something tested repeatedly. It was this faith that shielded him from succumbing to his trials.[vii]
Ten times, Abraham was tested. [viii]
His faith was tested when he smashed the idols sold at his father Terach’s shop. After which his father brought him before King Nimrod, who demanded that Abraham abandon his belief in the One God. Abraham refused. And Nimrod cast him into a fiery furnace, yet Abraham emerged unharmed.[ix]
His faith was tested when God called: Lech lecha—Go forth. [x] Leave your land. Leave your birthplace. Leave your father’s house. Go to the place that I will show you. Faith meant walking before knowing where the road would lead.
Then came famine in the very land God had promised him, forcing Abraham to descend to Egypt.[xi]
There, his faith in God’s protection was tested again, when Sarah was taken into Pharaoh’s household to become Pharaoh’s wife.[xii]
His faith was tested when Lot, his nephew, was taken captive, and Abraham went to war against kings to rescue him.[xiii]
His faith was tested by the agonizing contradiction between God’s promise of countless descendants, and his own childlessness; and by the seemingly impossible revelation, that those descendants would themselves experience exile, in Egypt, the very place where we now live.[xiv]
His faith was tested when God commanded him to circumcise himself and his household as a sign of the covenant.[xv]
His faith was tested yet again when Avimelech took Sarah into his household with the intention of marrying her.[xvi]
And his faith as a father was tested when God told him to listen to Sarah and send Hagar and Ishmael away.[xvii]
And then came the test that towers above all the others. God said to Abraham: “Take your son, your only son, the one whom you love, Isaac…”[xviii] And Abraham walked towards Moriah. Towards the altar. Towards the unimaginable.
Through each, and every test, Abraham remained steadfast to the One God. That was Abraham’s faith. Not a faith untouched by suffering. Not a faith free from questions. But a faith that kept walking.”
***
And then Jacob paused.
“You must also remember Sarah[xix], your great-grandmother. Her faith was tested no less than Abraham.
She knew the pain of being barren and without a child.
She left her birthplace and her father’s home for an unknown land.
She was asked to protect Abraham by concealing the truth about their relationship in Egypt, and, again in Gerar, where she was taken into the homes of foreign kings.
She watched her Egyptian maidservant Hagar bear Abraham a child.
She endured Hagar’s contempt and Abraham’s painful words, ‘Do with her as you see fit’[xx] so she would be the cause of Hagar and Ishmael’s exile.
She heard the astonishing, laughable news that she would bear a child in her old age.
She waited through the long years when Abraham traveled and fought.
And finally, she faced the unthinkable: her son Isaac was taken from her and brought towards an altar.[xxi]
She too had ten trials. Ten moments when faith might have shattered.
Yet Sarah’s faith was different from Abraham’s. She understood that each of these things were for greater good. Sarah’s spirituality was a spirituality of seeing. She possessed prophetic insight that surpassed even Abraham’s.
When Sarah saw what needed to be seen, God told Abraham: “Whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her.”[xxii]
Listen to her.
Those words are extraordinary. The covenant would continue not simply because Abraham believed firmly, but… because Sarah saw.
Sometimes faith means seeing what others cannot yet see.
Sometimes faith means speaking what others are afraid to say.
And sometimes faith means trusting the wisdom that God has placed within us.”
***
Jacob continued:
“Some of you remember my father, Isaac. My father inherited the faith of his parents Abraham and Sarah, but he carried it differently.
Abraham had steady faith and yet argued with God.
Sarah had faith that was deeply spiritual and insightful.
But Isaac’s faith was quieter. His was the faith of letting go and letting God.
He possessed a deep inner certainty that somehow, even when he could not understand the path, he knew that God’s purposes were ultimately for good.
That is why on that climatic day, my father Isaac walked willingly with his father towards Moriah. He knew what was about to occur. Our Torah says: And the two of them walked on together.’[xxiii]
Twice the Torah says it.
Father and son.
Abraham and Isaac.
Walking together.
Isaac knew that he was the one being brought toward the altar, and still he walked. His faith was a radical trust with his very life. His belief in God ran as deep as the wells he re-dug—the same wells his father had dug before him.[xxiv] Again, and again, Isaac uncovered what had been buried. He did not have to create something entirely new. He dug deeply enough to uncover what was already there.
That, trust, that too, is faith.”
***
“And my mother Rebecca?
After Sarah died, Rebecca became Isaac’s wife, she became a source of comfort to him.[xxv]
Rebecca had Sarah’s insight but she, lived a faith of action.
When Eliezer came seeking a wife for Isaac, Rebecca had to decide. She would leave the home she knew and travel toward a man she had never met, trusting that the journey before her was part of God’s unfolding plan.[xxvi]
Rebecca saw what needed to be seen. She understood what was at stake.
And when the time came for the covenant to continue through to the next generation, she acted with wisdom and courage to ensure that I, not Esau, would receive Isaac’s blessing.[xxvii]
My mother taught us that faith is not always passive.
Sometimes faith means leaving.
Sometimes it means acting.
Sometimes it means trusting the voice within us that tells us — this is the path I must take.”
***
Jacob looked at his children.
Perhaps he looked beyond them,—to the grandchildren yet unborn, to the generations who would one day carry their names, into places they could not imagine.
On his deathbed, Jacob finally understood an essential truth.
Their family was not united by one kind of faith.
Abraham had the faith to walk.
Sarah had the faith to see.
Isaac had the faith to trust.
Rebecca had the faith to act.
And Jacob?
Jacob had the faith to wrestle.
To question. To struggle. To encounter God sometimes clearly and sometimes through the darkness.
And each of their faiths – impacted the way each of them interacted in this world.
***
The point of Jacob’s story is our story. Because Jewish faith has never required that we all believe the same way.
There is faith that walks. Faith that sees. Faith that trusts. Faith that acts.Faith that wrestles.Faith that asks questions and faith that waits for answers.Faith that feels God’s presence—and faith that keeps searching when God feels absent.
Generation after generation, we continue with our own unique expressions of faith, and we are motivated to sustain this world we live in, by the impetus of our own brand of faith.
***
Jacob looked at his children, with love, and proclaimed:[xxviii]:“The Holy One created this world for the sake of faith, and you my children are conduits – to that legacy of faith. Grasp our tradition, figure out what it means to you.
Know and understand that your precious faith is your motivation for how you will partner with the Holy One. Your faith should be your inspiration to impact this fragile, unfinished, beautiful world.”
***
[Chevruta 4 minutes]
Share our own personal answers with a person besides you:
What is your faith?
How does your faith impact this world?
[i] Sichot HaRan 222: “The Rebbe said many times that Creation was mainly for the sake of faith.”
[ii] Genesis 48:21
[iii] Genesis 49:1.
[iv] Genesis 32:25–29.
[v] Genesis 28:12–15.
[vi] Genesis 49:1.
[vii] “Magen Avraham” in the Avot v’Imahot of the Amidah.
[viii] Bartenura on Pirkei Avot 5:3. See also the collection of sources at Sefaria Voices.
[ix] Bereshit Rabbah 38:13.
[x] Genesis 12:1.
[xi] Genesis 12:10.
[xii] Genesis 12:15.
[xiii] Genesis 14:1–2.
[xiv] Genesis 15:3; see also Genesis 15:13–14.
[xv] Genesis 17:11.
[xvi] Genesis 20:2.
[xvii] Genesis 21:10.
[xviii] Genesis 22:2
[xix] “Paked Sarah” in the Avot V’Imahot of the Amidah
[xx] Genesis 21:12
[xxi] The sequence of Sarah’s ten trials is drawn from Naamah Eldar, “Sarah’s Trials,” in Dirshuni: Contemporary Women’s Midrash, ed. Tamar Biala (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2022), 29–31.
[xxii] Genesis 21:12
[xxiii] Genesis 22:6, 8
[xxiv] Genesis 26:18
[xxv] Genesis 24:67
[xxvi] Genesis 24
[xxvii] Genesis 27
Rabbi Linda Joseph 