Yom Kippur

    Good Yontif. We gather here once a year to fast and pray and beat our chests and stand as a community to cleanse our souls. We stand as our ancestors stood at Sinai, and as they stood before Moses throughout much of the rest of the Torah and their wandering through the wilderness. The words I read from the Torah today, “Atem Nitzavim Hayom Kulchem” translate to, “You are all standing here today,” and then Moses goes on to explain to all the people of Israel how they are equal in access and in responsibility. The Torah belongs to all of them, to cherish and to guide their lives, and for them to care for and obey. All stood together to receive it, and now they all stand together to embrace it as they are about to enter the Promised Land.

    The word “nitzavim,” however is not the usual Hebrew word for standing. The common word is Omed or you may recognize the variation Amidah, as we sometimes call the core set of blessings we stand through. So why “nitzavim” here? Rabbi Nelly Altenburger suggests that where Omed has the connotation of standing casually, implied to move at any moment, nitzavim means to stand firm or to be stuck in one spot. Standing firm could be a good thing. It is important to stand by one’s principles. But to be stuck in one spot is another thing entirely. Sometimes we get rooted to a spot, and stick firm to it simply because change is scary. If we are nitzavim, are we ready to do teshuvah, to return? Returning requires movement, and a swallowing of the pride and fear that has led us astray in the first place. But the root for teshuvah, “shuv,” returning, appears in the Parashat Nitzavim 7 times, which allows us to have hope that even when we feel rooted, we are able to make necessary changes. After all, trees are rooted, and they are able to bend and sway in the wind. To withstand this world, that’s what it takes.

    Altenburger then offers three obstacles or excuses that often stand in the way of doing teshuvah to those that are nitzavim: “This is who I am”, “I was raised this way,” and “Change is too much work.” Our great rabbi of the 12 century, Maimonides, tells us that certain personality traits are innate, while others are learned. He also hints at the idea the the Musar teachers I spoke about on Rosh HaShanah took a bit further: that every disposition has an equal and opposite disposition, and none of us are very good at holding moderate or balanced traits. He does suggest, however, that we can temper these traits through careful self-reflection and hard work. In his own way, Maimonides taught the path to the Middle Way, as the Buddha would call it. That it is possible to train one’s body to only desire what it truly needs, to study and meditate and look inward to find true meaning and spiritual sustenance, and in doing so we can find the equilibrium in our temperaments in order to ease the difficulties of change. Though this in itself requires change, and is difficult, it is the most important first step to learning to avoid other missteps that will cause real harm to ourselves or others. As will all things we confess to on Yom Kippur, these truths can apply on a personal scale, a communal scale, and a worldwide scale.

This year, the U.S. has accepted the lowest number of refugees than it has in 40 years. According to the UN, there are more than 65 million refugees in the world, fleeing from war, famine, drought, other natural disasters, and genocide. Historically, the U.S. has had the highest rates of refugee resettlement in the world, and I know many of us in this room would not be here if our parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents were not granted asylum here when fleeing from the pogroms or the Holocaust or any other number of events in history that created Jewish refugees. Now, as the cap is cut by more than half, it remains to be seen if we can wear that badge of honor this year.

    There may be many reasons not to accept refugees, reflecting Altenburger’s boulders to change

“This is who I am” - this first boulder does not have to be true, but it’s certainly not untrue. Accepting refugees has been a part of who America was at times in history, and turning them away to almost certain death has also been who America was at times. This was who America was when the Asiatic Barred Zone Act prohibited any and all immigration from the entire Asian continent, including the Middle East, India, and many of the Pacific Islands. This was who America was when it turned back the St. Louis. But it's not who America was when it let in my great-grandparents fleeing from the czar and it’s not who it was even last year, when it allowed nearly four times as many refugees as the next leading countries.  

“This is how I was raised” - this is very similar to the first boulder. The founding of this nation was very much built on exclusionary practices, limiting or controlling the immigrations and settlements of certain populations, only allowing rights to certain types of people. But again, this has not always been who we are and it doesn’t have to be who we are in the future. The founders were also seeking religious and financial freedom, and established a set of law that allowed itself to be amended to the changing times in which we live. That is what has enabled us to be the light of peace to so many refugees in recent years. These limitations may be reflective of certain points of our history, but they don’t have to be the embodiment of American values.

“Change is hard”  - any and all change is hard. The more diverse America becomes, the more new customs people have to adapt to. The more crowded our cities get, the more certain other populations see displacement. Resettlement of populations is expensive and complicated and takes a lot of work from a lot of people, including but not limited to those seeking new lives. But this is all also true of young white middle class professionals moving into Flatbush and Oakland and Anacostia. People move. Populations integrate. This has been true since the first homo sapiens and the neanderthals interacted and has continued to be true through every epoch in history, though the ease of and reasons for migration of course have been varied greatly in each period and for each population.

And of course, none of these standard obstacles to change actually address the main reason for limiting refugees and immigrants: fear. Whether caused by xenophobia or serious concerns for security, there is a lot of fear around letting in masses of new people. But the reality is that refugees are the most vetted people in the country. Obviously more so than those born and raised here, and often more so than than even other immigrants or visitors. They are thoroughly screened before being resettled into new places and only allowed in if they can be determined to pose no danger. Though fear is legitimate feeling and cannot simply be brushed off, the reality is, refugees are really not a threat to us. Barring them is a threat to our values. This is why organizations like HIAS exist. HIAS used to be known as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and had been known for a tagline, “We used to help refugees because they were Jews. Now we do it because we are Jews.” Since they now work with so many immigrants and refugees who are not “Hebrews”, they exclusively go by their acronym these days. Their current mission statement is “Guided by Jewish values and experience, HIAS is working to address the global refugee crisis.  We protect refugees and displaced persons throughout the world, helping them to build new lives in safety and with dignity. Why? Because as long as there are still places where it is a crime to be who you are, we have a mandate to be who we are.” They help provide information for people and communities who are unsure of where to stand on the refugee crises and they offer material aid to the refugees seeking asylum through resettlement help here in this country, legal assistance and care for those awaiting admittance into the country from international refugee camps, and they provide tools for advocacy and policy changes to help keep the U.S. refugee-friendly.

We as American Jews who know what it is to be kicked out of nearly every country and who have found safe haven in the U.S. can be among the nitzavim - standing firm in our values for equality, for welcoming the stranger, for seeing their inherent value in every human life. We can also be fomed - on our feet ready to move for practical changes that allow for us to better live out our Jewish values.

This Yom Kippur, as we cleanse our souls, forgive those who trespass against us and hope they do the same for us, let us open our doors and our hearts further to others. May this be a year of health and safety, freedom and dignity to all people, in our community, in our country, in our world. Amen and g’mar chatimah tovah.

Erev Yom Kippur

    Shana Tova! It is a new year, a time for introspection and fresh starts, and a time to rethink and renew our vows to make the world better. How will we brighten up the lives around us this year? How will we make our community strong, our world safer? How will we live up to our best expectations for ourselves, how will we be our truest selves?

    I’ve been thinking a lot this year, throughout the month of Elul and the on-ramp time to our season of Teshuvah, about the root of the word - to return. I think I care a lot about naming that true meaning of the word because it’s an important key to understanding the way Judaism speaks of sins and repentance. So I keep that in mind and I try to speak from that perspective of missteps and returning to center when I talk about sins and repentance, atoning and forgiving, at this time every year. But this year especially, the need for return to oneself felt very strong for me. It felt like a long year, to me at least. A lot of highs and lows, joys and sorrows, peace of mind and complex feelings of all sorts, and all this on a personal scale as well as on a national or even global scale. What would it take to return to the self? What self do we each need to return to?

    I am sure that for every person, there is a different time, a different self, a different place and mindset to which they would like to return, in which they felt they were most at home and in balance. But I suspect for most people, that time is somewhere in childhood. That’s not to say that when we speak of teshuvah, everyone is actively thinking about their childhoods and seeking to return to that sort of innocence as they absolve their sins. But it is to say that there is something eternally comforting about nostalgia and returning to the things that soothed us in our earliest memories. When the news cycle is full of bad news and everything looks bleak and full of heartbreak, there is nothing like a fairy tale and an escape into juvenility to help us recover the courage and faith to face the adult world.

I believe this to be why there have been so many attempts to recreate beloved childhood tales as live-action films for adults to view and relive their youth in a slightly updated way. It seems Disney plans to remake all of their classic cartoon musicals into live-action films, and now there’s even a gritty remake of the Nutcracker on the horizon, a story retold in ballet form almost every winter in almost every ballet company. Because these repetitions are comforting. They bring back memories of comfort, of a time when the world felt smaller and the soothing of a good story felt more immediate and complete.

    Recently, a favorite author from my adolescence announced that one of her books is being made into a movie for the first time. The author, Francesca Lia Block, adapted the screenplay herself and has been working for a long time to put together the perfect team to make her imagination come to life on the big screen. She now has that team, and production is set to begin. In response to this news, I’ve been rereading the series, “Dangerous Angels”. One of my favorite characters in the books is a young girl named Witch Baby who goes around asking the adults in her life, “What time are we upon, and where do I belong?” But they don’t seem to understand her question. She is the only character who seems to see the trauma in the world and need the sort of comforting that I as a child found from reading this book, but since the others don’t see the pain and don’t need that kind of comfort, they have trouble figuring out how to give it to her. So she has several adventures throughout the series where she tries to go out and find answers of her own, but as Dorothy says best in the Wizard of Oz, there’s no place like home, and Witch Baby eventually comes back to allow her family to comfort her in the way they do know how. At one point, she narrates that her heart feels like “a teacup covered with hairline cracks,” and describes sound it might make inside her if it shattered and jostled around in her chest. I found this imagery beautiful as a young girl, and every time I revisit this series I find that the writing transports me back to the time in my life when I read it for the first time. It reminds me of my earliest heartaches, the first time I overcame an emotional hardship, and the beginnings of building adult resiliency. It’s mostly subconscious, but rereading these books refreshes memories far beyond just the stories themselves, and they return me to a center I’m often not even fully aware of coming away from.

    When we make teshuvah, when we attempt to return to center, we are coming from some sort of brokenness, like Witch Baby’s. A loss of innocence, a place of hurt, a disillusionment. The rabbis taught that state of brokenness was a sign of real living, and that the teshuvah of a broken heart is the greatest gift to God. The Psalmist tells us, “The true sacrifices to God are a broken spirit, a broken and crushed heart.” The Prophet Micah tells us, “Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy; Though I am fallen, I shall arise; Though I sit in darkness, the LORD is a light unto me,” and the midrash on this expands, “If I hadn't fallen - I would not have gotten up. If I hadn't sit in the dark - I would not have light.” The brokenness and the darkness that we learn to see in the adult world is what allows for adult resiliency, for love, for learning how to fix the cracks in the world. Without those first moments of disenchantment, we would be unable to do the Tikkun Olam that we are commanded to. But getting from the point of hurt to the point of using that pain for good takes recentering, it takes remembering who we are and where we come from and it takes returning to that home and self.  

    The haftarah for the traditional second day of Rosh HaShanah contains what I find to be among the most haunting lines in all of the Tanakh: “Thus said the LORD: A cry is heard in Ramah— Wailing, bitter weeping— Rachel weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted For her children, who are gone.” The only matriarch not buried at Machpelah with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah, Rachel is the mother that calls us all home to her. In the haftarah she is wailing for the exiled Children of Israel, but perhaps she is also the maternal voice that whispers comfort to all of us when we reread or rewatch or relisten to the stories of our youth. She is calling us, who seem to have gone astray, back to our centers. She wants us to remember who we are, and where we belong. In some grand cosmic sense, that’s different for each person, but in a basic spiritual sense, right now, where we belong is here in shul on the High Holy Days, listening to the same tunes that our families have chanted this time every year for longer than any one of us can remember. If nothing else this High Holy Day season, I hope these memories of prayer soothe your soul and usher you into a new year of strength and surety.

    I believe strongly in the evocative power of childhood, of the need to return to a home with maternal comforts, to acknowledge the heartaches of adulthood but with nostalgia of youth. I see the power in these visits down Memory Lane, and although there may be those who can get stuck, trapped by the strength of that power, I find it also gives a great energy for those seeking to return to their proverbial center, in order to move forward in life toward an honest expression of the self. This Rosh HaShanah, may we find ways to return to that center, that comfort, that youthful starting place, in order to remember how to build strength, character, and goodness throughout the oncoming year.

Shabbat Shuvah, Parashat Vayelech, and Hurrican Florence

                Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Vayelech. Moses says to the people of Israel, “Be Strong and Resolute,” and then he says to Joshua in front of the rest of the people, “Be Strong and Resolute.” God later speaks directly to Joshua, something that doesn’t happen often the way it does with Moses, and also tells Joshua to be strong and resolute. The winds of change are blowing, there are hard times ahead, and though God will be with them, the people of Israel are going to have to face the future for themselves and Joshua will be responsible for their welfare. God can be a source of strength, but ultimately, it is up to the people to be prepared and it is up to Joshua to ensure that the people have what they need to be prepared.

            Responding to the news about Hurricane Florence, many people prepared for the worst. Some areas evacuated, while others simply made sure to stock up on water and charge all their devices and external batteries. Officials in areas predicted to be affected have all declared a state of emergency. School events preemptively cancelled. FEMA worked closed with the officials in each state to ensure that relief will be distributed efficiently to those in need after the storm. Meanwhile, news reports tell of those in shelters praying together, while undoubtedly many others at home praying on their own or in their communities for safety through the storm. Now it looks like the storm will mostly miss us, and the worst of it remains to be seen for the Carolina Coast, but we can be sure that everyone will have been safer for the warnings and precautions.   

            It was important for individuals to do what they could to prepare. It was important for state officials and FEMA to be supportive and take initiative to inform folks what they should do to prepare. Even if God were to respond to the prayers of all and no one were endangered in the course of this storm, we see in this week’s parasha that God entrusts the leaders of the people to take care of their immediate needs and expects the people to take some self-responsibility as well. Only when everyone does their due diligence, from the Highest on High, to the mortal chiefs, to the individuals facing the brunt of the matter, can people and communities be safe.

            Now, the Haftarah for this week contains verses from three different prophets and connects more with the themes of this being Shabbat Shuvah than with particular lines from the Torah portion. One line specifically mentions our sins being hurled into the depths of the sea, clearly something medieval Jews drew upon as they created the Tashlich ritual. But it also made me think of how often after a disaster, natural or human created, people come together. They set aside their differences, their sinful arrogance and baseless hatred and selfishness, and people donate and volunteer in droves. Our sins hurled out into the sea, carried away in the winds, and cleansed souls ready to all do their part to return communities to their pre-disaster states. Teshuvah in its truest sense.

            May this first Shabbat of 5779 be a time where all take stock of their own responsibilities to take care of their needs and the needs of their communities, that we may all stay safe and healthy through this hurricane season and beyond. Amen and Shabbat Shalom.