Mina's Musings: Yom Kippur 2014
Yom Kippur 2014 - Isaiah 58
Good morning and G’mar Hatimah tovah to each of you.
What an interesting Aseret Y’mei Teshuvah – Ten Days of Repentance. Since the start of Rosh Hashanah quite a bit has taken place in our world. Mahmoud Abbas stood in front of the United Nations General Assembly and for all intents and purposes declared the Israeli Palestinian peace process dead. We learned that our President was in serious need of better protection. Dozens of people died due to a volcano eruption in Japan. More innocent people were murdered and beheaded by ISIS. And our Iraqi allies, helping us in our undeclared war against ISIS, accidentally dropped supplies on their positions instead of bombs. The first – and hopefully – only case of Ebola was diagnosed here in the good old U.S. of A. And last but not least a virulent Egyptian anti-Semite who once said that Zionists and Jews aren’t human so there is no point engaging in dialogue with them, has been nominated for the Sakharov Prize for human rights. Am I missing anything? I sure hope not.
It is enough. It is enough to make one consider becoming a hermit, or at least consider refusing to ever read the newspaper, turn on a television news-channel, check Facebook, Twitter, or email ever again.
And yet, as always our tradition is there to guide us during our most trying times. Somehow whatever Scriptural verses we read each week at synagogue always seem particularly appropriate for that exact moment. The same is true for what we read in this morning’s Haftarah from the prophet Isaiah at the beginning of chapter 58 (58:1):
“Call with a [full] throat, do not spare, like a shofar raise your voice, and relate to My people their transgression.”
This verse from Isaiah is traditionally interpreted as God exhorting the prophet to call aloud to his contemporaries, his fellow Jews who professed to be righteous, but were in fact behaving wickedly. But there is another way to understand this passage. If we believe that God is NOT just the God of Israel, but rather the God of the whole world and universe as we declare repeatedly in our liturgy, then the injunction is to raise our voice to the entire world, to all people, for all the world is God’s. As Jews and Americans, as individuals who believe in herut – freedom and democracy alongside our values of tzedek – justice, rahamim – compassion, hochmah – wisdom, and tikkun olam – repairing the world, Isaiah tells us we are compelled to raise our voices against the injustices, inhumanity, cruelty, and evil in the world.
This is a tall order. Last week, on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, I spoke with you about our tradition of dialogue & debate known as vikuach for God’s sake. I quoted a song in which we are urged to be brave and wise with our words, understanding that what we say impacts not only ourselves but those around us. As the rabbis of the Talmud said: words build worlds as well as destroy them.
I spoke with some of you afterwards, and you said that it is easier said than done. I understand, but it can be done. It can be done individually in conversations with friends and family. It can be done in on-line forums and discussions. It can done with colleagues during lunch breaks and neighbors at the community garage sale. And it can be done in front of the whole world. That is what Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu did this week when he gave an absolutely brilliant, honest, and inspiring speech at the United Nations General Assembly, rebutting every lie that had come out of Mahmoud Abbas’ mouth a few days earlier. While it is probable that none of us are going to be asked to speak to the United Nations, our words, our actions are also important.
Here too our Haftarah shows us the way. Just five verses after my earlier quote, we read:
“Is this not the fast I will choose? To unlock fetters of wickedness, and untie the cords of the yoke to let the oppressed go free; to break off every yoke. It is to share your bread with the hungry, and to take the wretched poor into your home; when you see the naked, to clothe them, and do not ignore your own flesh,” that is, do not hide from your own relatives in need of help.”
Isaiah’s message may be thousands of years old but it is still necessary, maybe even more necessary than ever, for what he is telling us is that the outward signs of religiosity that so many people prize are meaningless if those exhibiting them are actively hurting - or even simply ignoring - their fellow human beings. A person can come to shul and know every word of the traditional nusach or prayer melodies, wear a beautifully ornamented tallit, fast the full 25 hours of Yom Kippur, and all of it is meaningless if, when they leave the confines of this building, they are not going out and serving their fellow human beings. And how must they serve? Through acts of simple kindness such as helping the poor, homeless, hungry, and downtrodden. In addition Isaiah urges to improve the world, freeing the oppressed through acts of tikkun olam which in this day and age means remembering to use our power at the ballot box, not to neglect our civic duties, and perhaps even become politically active or vocal when necessary to improve the world.
On Selihot, about 45 of us gathered here at CBE to watch a documentary called God in the Box. During the course of the documentary we heard people from across the country share their thoughts on God and religion. Many of them shared beautiful ideas. But a number of them said that to them God means trouble, religion is designed to control the masses, that the concept of God and religion are the root of evil in the world. Watching the news and regularly seeing individuals committing evil in the name of their religion, it is easy to come away feeling negatively about religion and God. But, as one who loves God, my fellow human beings, Judaism, and religion in general, my heart and mind protests at the accusation that religion is the root of evil in human beings. The evil impulse exists with or without religion. The only difference is that without religion we simply call evil bad, not helpful, unacceptable, instead of what it is, evil. But religion is about far more than control or God forbid hurting others. Religion - and for me Judaism in particular - has the power to bring out the best in people, and that is Isaiah’s message, the message the rabbis chose for us on our holiest day of the year.
Isaiah calls his people and us to religious action to feed the hungry, free the oppressed. The words of Isaiah in this morning’s Haftarah have served as a clarion call for Jews and Christians for millenia. In the modern world too his words are being heeded. That is why we have a large Kol Nidre food drive each year - and by the way, I am so proud of how much food we gathered this year. In addition to the annual Kol Nidre food drives at hundreds of synagogues around the world, we also have Mazon: The Jewish Response to Hunger which helps people 365 days a year. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has a program called Isaiah 58 - after the section of our Haftarah that I have been quoting - that helps poor elderly Jews in the former Soviet Union. All around the country churches too have Isaiah 58 programs which include everything from foodbanks, soup kitchens, and homeless shelters, to programs devoted to helping those recovering from drug and alcohol addiction, domestic violence, and more. There are a couple right here in our area, one in Winchester and one in Front Royal.
Throughout our Yom Kippur prayers we repeat one prayer again and again, the ashamnu, an alphabetic listing of our sins in Hebrew. Try as they might, the translators of our mahzor found it impossible to translate the Hebrew words in such a way that a literal translation in English would also be alphabetic in English. Because of this they instead made a similar yet slightly unrelated alphabetical listing of sins in English. While the mahzor we use here at CBE says “we are eXtremists” for the letter x, growing up the mahzor I used said we had to repent for being xenophobic, a word meaning that we are exceptionally afraid of the foreign or strange. I never understood why it was there, since I had been taught that Jews were very welcoming of people different from themselves while it was in fact the non-Jews who were xenophobic towards us. I always felt it was an unfair accusation against us to say we were xenophobic. But now that the word isn’t on the list I miss it. For the world is a crazy place, and while my family and I now live in THE most “diverse” area we have ever lived it is actually easier than ever to feel at least a little xenophobic, truly anxious around people who dress differently than us, believe differently than us, and behave differently than us. Is it xenophobic to wonder if the woman in a full burka at the mall hates me because I am Jewish or is it simply common sense? I do not know, but I know I need the word back on the list, for as the world gets scarier I feel the pull of what is perhaps a little “necessary” xenophobia, and I DO NOT LIKE IT.
And so while remaining cautious and watchful, I try my utmost to remain optimistic. I believe that we have far more in common with our fellow human beings of all nationalities and religions than that which separates us. Indeed, perhaps we have far more in common with them than either they or we are comfortable admitting at times. But, that is why there can be Isaiah 58 programs. That is why Muslims Against Hunger sponsor something called the Hunger Van, a mobile soup kitchen, and its founder Zamir Hassan quotes Isaiah 58 when doing work feeding the homeless of New York, New Jersey, and the Greater DC area. On their organization’s homepage it contains three quotes from Muhammed, clearly influenced by Isaiah. They read: "Be good to orphans, the poor, and your neighbors" "The main part of wisdom after religion is love for humans and doing good to every one pious or sinner" "Help the weak among you, help your neighbor; if he seeks your help, feed him if he is hungry." Just as there is an organization called Muslims Against Hunger so too are there Buddhists, Sikhs, Hindus, Seventh-Day-Adventists, and more against Hunger, all working together to bring Isaiah’s vision to life.
If you want to be angry at the damage that can be done when religion is used as a bludgeon, all you have to do is turn on the news. Isaiah addresses this as well, when we read in chapter 5:20-21: “Ah, those who call evil good and good evil; who present darkness as light and light as darkness; who present bitter as sweet and sweet as bitter!” Those who do evil in God’s name are twisting religion in order to have the freedom to do the evil that is ALREADY in their hearts. But - if you want to be inspired and believe the best about human potential, all you have to do is look and see all the good that is being done in the name of God, in the name of religion, in the belief among the VAST majority of believers of all faiths that God’s will for us all is to help one another on our journey through life. It is not surprising that Cornerstones, formerly known as Reston Interfaith, is the one sponsoring this year’s Walk-for-the-Homeless. It is people of a spiritual bent that are often most inclined to reach out to their fellow human beings in need.
And so it is that although on this Yom Kippur morning we have been focusing on ourselves, fasting, afflicting ourselves, confessing, humbling ourselves, criticizing ourselves, Isaiah comes to arouse us: awake, rise, travel out into the world, and turn it to justice, true justice. Your individual soul will not find peace until it is attuned with the soul of the world. Isaiah instructs us that ours is both the work of individual spirituality and justice for all. Ours is the work of removing the yoke of oppression, speaking with a gentle tongue, helping those in need, bringing light into the world. Indeed, tikkun hanefesh, the repair of the soul which we focus on so much during Yom Kippur, is meaningless outside a life devoted to tikkun olam, repair of the world. And what will happen when we do as Isaiah urges? Again the answer is in the Haftarah: “If you perform these good deeds, you will not need fasts, but your light will break through the dawn, and your healing shall quickly sprout.” So may we all merit for our light to break through, here at CBE, in the Northern Virginia community, America, Israel, the Middle East, and the entire world. Amen.