Rosh Hashanah Sermons
Rosh Hashanah Day 1: "Call Me Ishmael"
Rosh Hashanah Day 2: "A Few Good Words"
Rosh Hashanah Day 1 5779 “Call Me Ishmael”
Rabbi Joshua Hammerman
I
often talk about my father, in particular lately of his legacy of being a
mensch. But his greatest gift to me
might have been the Hammerman sense of humor.
With his 40th yahrzeit is coming up in a few months, I
thought I’d attempt to tell what might have been his favorite joke. I’ve never told it before. And it’s about me. So I’ll tell it as if he
were telling it.
One
day, we got a frantic call from Josh’s kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Hamburger, to
come in for a meeting. We come in and
she say, “Cantor and Mrs. Hammerman, we have a problem. Every time when we
pledge allegiance to the flag, I instruct the children to put their hands over
their heart, and little Joshua puts his hand here (on my rear end). I don't know what to do.”
So
we went home and asked him why and he said, “Well, whenever those sisterhood
ladies come up to me, they give me little pinch there and say, “Bless his
little heart.”
Three
things:
1)
It never happened.
2)
That little joke might be seen as problematic on a number of
levels today. It’s possible that if I had done that during the pledge today,
Mrs. Hamburger would have had me arrested, or I could have had the sisterhood
ladies arrested.
3)
But what remains true, then and now, is that we ache to
recapture the precious innocence of childhood.
“Once upon a time, there was a boy. He lived
in a village that no longer exists, in a house that no longer exists, on the
edge of a field that no longer exists, where everything was discovered, and
everything was possible. A stick could
be a sword, a pebble could be a diamond, a tree, a castle. Once upon a time,
there was a boy who lived in a house across the field, from a girl who no
longer exists. They made up a thousand games. She was queen and he was king. In
the autumn light her hair shone like a crown. They collected the world in small
handfuls, and when the sky grew dark, they parted with leaves in their hair.”
This
passage is from Nicole Krauss’s, “This History of Love.”
There’s
been a lot of victims over this very difficult year, many of them children. But the greatest victim may have been childhood
itself.
We
tried everything to save it. Disney brought back “Winnie the Pooh.” Here at Beth El, we enhanced our young
families program. On Purim, I dressed up
as Professor Dumbledore.
But
we were swimming upstream, against a forbidding tide. The world seemed to be conspiring to destroy childhood. Toys ‘R Us closed its doors this year, following
in the footsteps of FAO Schwarz three years ago. That’s our world today – even the world of
toys has found its way onto the danger list.
Today
there are 2.2 billion children in the world.
Nearly two billion of these live in developing countries, the clear
majority in desperate need of healthcare, water, food and education. “Save the
Children” estimates that 1.2 billion children face at least one of the three
greatest threats, poverty, conflict or discrimination against girls. More than 153 million children live in
countries characterized by all three of those.
But here even in the richest country in the world, childhood is under
siege.
That
should matter to us.
A
midrash asks:
“Why
do young children commence the study of Torah with the Book of Leviticus, and
not with the Book of Genesis? Surely it is because young children are
pure, and the korbanot (offerings) are pure; so let the pure come and
engage in the study of the pure.”
“Therefore, when the children study, “God
says, “I consider it as if they are bringing Me the offerings of old. Though the Temple was destroyed, and offerings
are not brought there anymore, were it not for the children learning about the
sacrificial laws, the world would not stand.”
If
not for the innocence of children, the rabbis are telling us, civilization
would be unsustainable.
So
let’s talk about Ishmael, one of the main subjects of today’s Torah
reading. The other is Isaac. Two kids.
Isaac is the key to the future of the Jewish people.
But
what of Ishmael? He’s a prop,
really. Just a plot device to show us
how much Abraham and Sarah wanted a kid, so much that Sarah offered
Abraham her handmaid Hagar so he could have a kid with her – the world’s first
Handmaid’s Tale. But Sarah had second
thoughts, so Hagar was sent away when she was pregnant, then she came back and
Ishmael was born, and then, once he grew to adolescence, Ishmael and Hagar were
sent away again. But at the moment of their
greatest despair, God saved them.
Now
in the version of the story found in the Quran, Ishmael is actually the
favored child. But in our Torah, with
the plot clearly centered around Sarah and Isaac, the question is, why are
Hagar and Ishmael treated with such sympathy by God?
And
not just God. The Torah itself makes it
impossible for us NOT to feel more sympathy for Hagar and Ishmael than for
Sarah and Isaac. For one thing, Hagar shows
emotion as Ishmael is suffering, calling out, “Let me not look upon the
death of the child.”
וַתֵּשֶׁב מִנֶּגֶד, וַתִּשָּׂא אֶת-קֹלָהּ וַתֵּבְךְּ.
“And
she sat over against him, and lifted up her voice, and wept.”
Compare
that with tomorrow’s selection, the Binding of Isaac. No crying here. The Akeda reads like an AP report just come
over the wire, narrated by Sargent Joe Friday.
No emotions – nothing evocative. No tears. Just the facts, Ma’am.
And
then, responding to Hagar’s cries, וַיִּשְׁמַע אֱלֹהִים,
אֶת-קוֹל הַנַּעַר
“God
hears the voice of the boy.”
So
we have two stories, back to back – one is deeply emotive, and the other not in
the least. The Torah is taking us by the hand as if to say, “Yes, Isaac is ultimately
favored, but here, have sympathy for the other one, for Ishmael.
God
hears the boy’s cry. And indeed, the
name Ishmael means “God will hear.”
God
hears the cry of the outsider, the wanderer, the loner, the Other, the child. God
understands that without setting this example that children’s innocence must be
defended, nothing else will matter. Civilization
will be unsustainable.
In
“Moby Dick,” Ishmael’s a minor character, no one cares much about him – we
barely hear his name again in the entire book.
But he is the narrator, and his survival is key. Had Ishmael died, and he survived
miraculously, the whole story would have been left untold. And the Torah seems to be saying that had the
biblical Ishmael been allowed to die in that desert, the rest of the
story would have been rendered meaningless.
For
what is the purpose of this enterprise called humanity, if no one hears the cry
of a child?
And
we have learned this year, that if we can we can give the child a small fighter’s
chance, that child will fight.
And
live. And bear witness to the sins of their parents, while
simultaneously bearing the weight of their hopes. And as we have seen this year, children are
up to this task – because they are so incredibly resilient.
So
how do we save childhood? By hearing the
cry of every Ishmael out there – not just our own, not just those of our tribe. All of them.
I’ve
done a lot of traveling recently. To
Israel, as well as parts of Asia. These
trips gave me a renewed appreciation for the rich cultural diversity of our
world, yet ultimately how similar we all are.
I put together a photo montage of children from around the world and have
shared it with you (click for online album). You cannot look into
the faces of those children without feeling a heightened sense of
responsibility – as well as hope for the future.
What
did I see in these places? I saw love of
neighbor – and a deep respect for ancestors.
I saw a desire for peace and for bread on the table. But most of all, I saw resilience.
I
was stunned by the spirit of the Vietnamese.
We cruised up the Mekong Delta, in a very unswift boat, where I
could imagine the horrors of a generation ago.
But the defoliated forests have now grown back and the people there love
Americans. The grandchildren of the War have moved on – even as Agent Orange
still afflicts many of them. Saigon –
most still call it Saigon – and Hanoi look like any western city, with every
American fast food chain imaginable – McDonald’s, Burger King, and of course, KFC,
which makes sense, since Colonel Sanders is a dead ringer for Ho Chi
Minh.
In my hotel, the bathtub was an American Standard. I knew for sure that this was not “your father’s Vietnam” when I was sitting in the lounge in the Saigon Intercontinental Hotel and the guy at the piano began playing “Sounds of Silence.”
In my hotel, the bathtub was an American Standard. I knew for sure that this was not “your father’s Vietnam” when I was sitting in the lounge in the Saigon Intercontinental Hotel and the guy at the piano began playing “Sounds of Silence.”
I
braced myself for a medley of American songs from the Vietnam era, half
expecting the next one to be “Teach the Children” by Crosby, Stills, Nash and
Young.
“And
you, of tender years,
Can't know the fears that your elders grew by.”
Can't know the fears that your elders grew by.”
The
kids in Vietnam have no idea about their elder’s fears. No longer are
they running naked, screaming from the burning effects of Napalm on their
clothing, like that nine year old girl photographed in June of 1972. They are playing in the parks and riding
carefree on the handlebars of their parents’ motorcycles. Their parents and grandparents have somehow restored
and safeguarded their innocence.
Even
that 9 year old Napalm victim, her pain immortalized in that Pulitzer Prize
winning photo, one of most searing images of the 20th century – has
managed to overcome it. Kim Phúc endured
seventeen surgeries and wasn’t able to move properly for a decade. For a while she was used as a propaganda tool
by the Vietnamese government. But eventually, she married and gained political
asylum in Canada during a refueling stop in Gander, Newfoundland, of all
places. She had come from FAR away. In 1997 she established the first Kim Phúc
Foundation in the U.S., with the aim of providing medical and psychological
assistance to child victims of war.
She
told NPR in 2008, “Forgiveness made me free from hatred. I still have many
scars on my body and severe pain most days but my heart is cleansed. Napalm is
very powerful, but faith, forgiveness, and love are much more powerful. We
would not have war at all if everyone could learn how to live with true love,
hope, and forgiveness. If that little girl in the picture can do it, ask
yourself: Can you?”
She
may call herself Kim Phúc , but I call her Ishmael.
As
our trip continued, we flew over what used to be called the DMZ, but this time in
a passenger jet, not a B52, and when we landed, I just looked around and said,
“I’m in Hanoi!” Back in the day, only Jane
Fonda came here. Jane Fonda and John
McCain (of blessed memory). So we asked
our guide to make an unscheduled stop at the so-called Hanoi Hilton, the prison
where McCain withstood his five and a half years of captivity and torture, which robbed
him of his youth, though never his resolve.
We also saw the spot by the lake where he was captured, and I came away
with a deepened appreciation for this true American hero, the heroism of every
soldier –the unspeakable and avoidable tragedy of that war – and the visionary
inspiration of McCain and John Kerry for paving the road to peace with Vietnam
in the 1990s. And so now Vietnam has
Starbucks and American Standard bathroom fixtures, no Toys ‘R Us but a Lego
store – and who exactly won this war?
And now, fifty years after the infamous
Tet Offensive, we Jews are entering the year, tav shin ayin, tet. The letter Tet equals nine in Hebrew. Tet
is the first letter of the word “Tov.”
Good – and the letter has become synonymous with that word. During the war, the Tet Offensive was
devastating for both sides. But now, in
this year of the transformed Tet, when we look at Vietnam, we can say “Tov! “Good.”
Childhood has been restored here.
In
Cambodia, we visited a school in Phnom Penh called the PSE Center, which was set up by French
citizens back at the time of the city’s liberation from the Khmer Rouge. Around two million people were murdered
during the genocide of the Killing Fields; nearly half the population of the
country, by some estimates. No one
emerged unscarred. Many children were
brainwashed and conscripted. Others were
killed. After Pol Pot left, multitudes
of children were orphaned and destitute,
eating out of piles of garbage. So this
school was created out of those ruins.
And
now, a generation later, it serves thousands of at-risk kids from all over the
country, street children, school dropouts, abused or orphaned kids. While it's been four decades since the
Killing Fields, the parents of these children still face massive post-traumatic
stress, along with physical injuries – not to mention that many are still being
killed by unexploded mines – a third of the victims children. The nightmare will not go away. Yet somehow, the children are pulling
through. Somehow in this beautiful but godforsaken
land, the children smile and the children play.
And in the middle of that school, a
sign quotes the 1924 Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child, one of the
most lasting legacies of the League of Nations.
Yes, it tells us, children have rights: To have food when hungry
and to be nursed when sick; to have shelter and relief in times of stress, to
be taught a trade, to be able to grow both materially and spiritually and to
live without exploitation. That’s all in
there. As the declaration states,
“Humanity is obligated to give every child the best that it has.” And in this little corner of Phnom Penh, that’s
happening.
Yes, as the Midrash tells us, it is
the innocence of children that sustains the world.
And children are resilient, the
world over.
Call
them Ishmael.
And
we must hear their cry.
A
dozen boys and their football coach in Thailand were trapped in a labyrinth of submerged
caverns and crevices. They were
exploring the caves when a sudden storm flooded the entire area, and they were entombed
for nine days before being discovered.
With precision training and expert divers, the rescue was meticulously
planned.
The
boys were hungry. They were dehydrated. It
had been two weeks. But they were in good spirits when they were
found, demonstrating remarkable resilience.
We were in Thailand on the day when
the boys were rescued. There was great
joy – but more relief than celebration.
No ticker tape parades or trips to Disneyland. What did these boys do to celebrate their
survival? How about nine days in a
Buddhist monastery, a tradition in Thailand for those who experience adversity. This step was intended to be a
"spiritual cleansing" for the group, and to fulfill a promise to
remember the diver who had died.
One
of the boy’s grandfathers told the BBC. "It's like they died but now have
been reborn."
Just
like the Midrash: So let the pure come and engage in the study of the pure.
In
purifying themselves, those boys purified us. The Thais were amazed that the world
cared so much about the plight of their kids.
We cared because instinctively we knew that this was a crucial
crossroads for civilization. Childhood
innocence itself was trapped in that cave.
If we could care about these kids, maybe other Ishmaels would also be
heard. We had to save those kids. And when
they were saved, we all felt cleansed.
Despite the contributions of the rescuers, the
boys themselves were the real heroes of this story. And here as well, it is the children themselves who are saving
childhood – and giving us hope.
Call
them Ishmael.
By
all measures, the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in
Parkland Florida should have spent Valentine’s Day at parties or at the mall –
but instead they either spent it sheltered in place – or at the morgue. But in the seven months since that mass shooting
that took seventeen precious lives, the Parkland students have cried out and
organized, lobbied relentlessly, and spoken truth to power in a manner that has
changed everything about the issue of gun violence. Just five weeks after the shooting, there
were 800 “March for our Lives” events that brought out an estimated 800,000
marchers, including a large crowd right here in Stamford, led by Alyssa
Goldberg, one of our own TBE high school students. Our neighbor Paul Simon showed up to play
“Sounds of Silence.” Much better than
the guy at the piano bar in Siagon. But
the teens organized the whole thing.
Call
them Ishmael!
Those
kids in Thailand saved us with their purity of faith, those teens in Parkland
with their purity of action. Some cynics
labeled the Parkland kids snowflakes, as if to say that they were overly
sensitive and coddled. But snowflakes
have a strange habit of turning into snowballs, rolling down the highway. If those amazing kids are snowflakes, then
God grant us an avalanche of them.
You
know, we adults can't even imagine what it’s like to be a child these
days. Think about the horrific
revelations that have come out regarding the Catholic church. A thousand children in Pennsylvania; so many
crimes, so many cover ups. In the Jewish
community as well, new cases have been uncovered. In Chennai India this year, a group of eighteen
men took turns raping an 11-year-old girl.
And it was covered up!
And
we were struck dumb at the news two weeks ago of nine year old, Jamel Myers,
who came out to his classmates in Denver, and then was bullied into submission
until he took his own life. The kids at school told this little child to kill
himself, and he did.
“Call
me Ishmael,” they all cry.
I
saw the film “Eighth Grade” – and I’m someone who spends a lot of time around 8th
graders. And I was stunned by a lot of
it – perhaps most of all by the banality of school shooter drills.
But
those Parkland kids hopped on the bus and just said, “We’re going to do
something about it.” And they have.
Their toughness astounds me. It
comforts me.
And
it is a summons to all of us.
Every day,
on average, seven children and teens die from gun violence (according
to the Brady
Campaign).
What
have we done to stop that bloodshed?
Teen
suicide is soaring; up over 70 percent for the ten-year period ending in 2016,
says the CDC. The more kids rely on
social media over face-to-face contact, the more isolated they feel.
What
have we done to hear the cries of Ishmael?
Kids
live in a world of bullying and domestic abuse, and their world is getting more
inhospitable all the time. They are
hearing adult role models speak in increasingly uncivil terms and that filters
back to the schoolyard. Their world is
spinning out of control.
All
our kids are crying out, “Call me Ishmael!”
This
summer, Americans have been obsessed with the late Fred Rogers. We need a little more Mister Rogers in our
neighborhood. Rogers said, “Knowing that
we can be loved exactly as we are gives us all the best opportunity for growing
into the healthiest of people.”
Rogers
was a Presbyterian minister who believed that all people are created in the
image of God, proclaiming that all children deserved to be loved
unconditionally. Some criticized his
approach, claiming that it’s bad for kids to be showered with too much unearned
love, because they come to feel entitled, and to expect life to reward them for
just showing up, you know, with so-called “participation trophies.” And then these kids become the soft
underbelly of society, unprepared for this brutish, uncaring world.
I’m
not worried about a trophy. They say
ninety percent of life is just showing up, so I’m not worried about rewarding
participation. Come to services on
Shabbat and I’ll give you a trophy! I’m
not worried about a trophy.
I’m worried about atrophy.
Atrophy of the heart.
Atrophy of principle.
Atrophy of compassion.
Atrophy of truth.
Atrophy of love.
Atrophy of our ability to be outraged.
Atrophy of our
ability to hear the cry of Ishmael.
That
cry from the wilderness, that cry of Ishmael, is also the cry of the canary –
the canary in the coal mine – that cave in Thailand was that dark place and
those boys were the canaries.
From
Thailand to Parkland, we hear the words of Jeremiah 31:20, which are echoed in
the prayers of the Rosh Hashanah Musaf service:
הֲבֵן יַקִּיר לִי אֶפְרַיִם, אִם יֶלֶד
שַׁעֲשֻׁעִים
“Is
not Ephraim My dear son, My precious child, whom I remember fondly…? So, My
heart reaches out to him, and I always feel compassion for him, declares
Adonai.”
Our
children deserve love – and they deserve to be left a better world than we
found it. Not a world of not a world of
cynicism, corruption and brutality. Not
a world of prejudice, anti-Semitism racism and hate. Not a world of blood and soil.
If
we let down our children – there will be no one else left to let down.
And one more thing:
We
cannot allow ourselves to be a country where authorities rip children from the
arms of their parents. God heard
Ishmael’s cry, because he was the Other.
And we hear the cry of those who have risked life and limb for
the faint hope of asylum in an America that is failing to live up to her
promise. The Huddled Masses still yearn
to breathe free. The Zero Tolerance policy at the border is a
stain on all that it means to be an American.
They
thought no one would notice.
They
thought no one would care.
But
we heard the cry of Ishmael.
And
it is not just at the border, but in cities and towns across this land where
people who have contributed to their communities for decades are being picked
up like yesterday’s garbage and taken from their children.
I
think of Armando Rojas, the beloved custodian of our sister congregation Bet
Torah in Mt. Kisco, just up the road. Armando
worked there for 20 of his 30 years in this country before being detained by
ICE a few months ago. Despite the congregation’s advocacy efforts on his
behalf, Armando was deported to Mexico without a chance to gather his
belongings or even say goodbye to his wife and young children. He was left at
the border with no money, cell phone, or ID.
It's
happened right here in Stamford. Several
months ago, I stood vigil with other community leaders in front of a house
where authorities were threatening to come and deport a woman who has lived in
this country since 1992. Miriam Martinez,
originally from Guatemala, is married with two children, Alison and
Brianna. Brianna has Juvenile Diabetes
and is entering 8th grade. Miriam was
about to be deported, leaving Brianna in a life-threatening situation. Thanks to a community that came to her aid, a
judge granted her a stay. That
assistance was coordinated in large part by Catalina Horak, Executive Director
of Building 1 Community – who is here today.
And so are Miriam and Brianna and Alison.
Miriam’s next court appearance is next week, and I pray that her stay will be extended indefinitely. But Miriam, if you need me down at your house to protect you, I will be there at a moment’s notice – even on Yom Kippur.
Miriam’s next court appearance is next week, and I pray that her stay will be extended indefinitely. But Miriam, if you need me down at your house to protect you, I will be there at a moment’s notice – even on Yom Kippur.
All
over the world, children are constantly being separated from their parents. Not just here. In lots of places, and it’s
been happening for a long time. But now? Here? In 2018? Thirty-seven hundred children were taken from
their parents at the border.
Systematically. Callously. Underhandedly.
And
we are responsible. The shame is on us.
What
civilized nation does this?
What
nation that values the well-being of a child does this?
What
kind of America IS this?
And
what kind of Jews are we if we stand for this?
Call
them Ishmael!
This
year I looked at the world through the eyes of children. I saw a different story,
a story of hope and resilience and innocence reclaimed. I saw it in their faces.
It
is those kids who give me hope, the kids in Cambodia and Vietnam and Israel and
India, and those teens from Thailand to Parkland, and right here. Ishmael, the child, the Other, the outcast,
is hearing our cry – and Ishmael is taking action. Ishmael is leading the way. Ishmael is saving us.
The
League of Nations’ Declaration of the Rights of the Child did not die with the League
of Nations. The United Nations adopted
it in 1948, then again in 1959 and in 1989, the Convention on the Rights of the Child was approved. One of the signers
of the original 1924 document was none other than Janusz Korczac, the Fred
Rogers of his time, the great advocate for the care of children, who put his
ideas into practice in the Warsaw Ghetto, choosing to accompany his orphans to
a death that he could have escaped.
Janusz Korczak memorial at Yad Vashem
Korczak
wrote, “Children are not the people of tomorrow, but are people of today. They
have a right to be taken seriously, and to be treated with tenderness and
respect. They should be allowed to grow into whoever they were meant to be.
'The unknown person' inside of them is our hope for the future.”
And
so, I am hopeful. We’ve tried our best to
destroy childhood – but those kids have reclaimed it on their own. We Napalmed a little girl in Vietnam and she
has forgiven us. We could not save
Janusz Korczak’s orphans but Miriam Martinez’s children are safe at least for
now.
We’ve
saved them from the caves and we’ve saved them from the cages.
We’ve let so many children down, but God hears
the child’s cry.
And
God will answer that cry again in just a couple of months – because in
November, FAO Schwarz will be reopening its doors in Manhattan.
May
the Schwarz be with us!
Welcome
to our world of toys!
They’re
calling it, “the Return to Wonder.” And
not a moment too soon. I’m ready to jump
on that huge piano, like Tom Hanks in “Big.” Fire up the imagination, turn those pebbles
into diamonds and those trees into castles.
The House at Pooh Corner is open for business again!
And
the parched boy takes a huge gulp of God-given water and rises from his rocky
bed of despair; he looks around the world and proclaims proudly to his weeping
mother Hagar and for all to hear:
“I
am Ishmael!”
And I am loved.”
Amen.
Amen.
Rosh Hashanah Day 2 5779 “A Few Good Words”
Rabbi Joshua Hammerman
When our group
was in Israel this past summer, we heard from people representing a wide
variety of viewpoints, including a Muslim Imam, who welcomed us to his mosque
in Haifa and an Orthodox rabbi in Jerusalem who promotes pluralism. We also had an impromptu encounter with
Prince William at the Kotel. But most
unforgettable of all was the visit at our hotel in Jerusalem, late on Shabbat
afternoon, by a Palestinian peace activist from Ramallah. His name is Issam Sa’ad.
Issam grew up
in Gaza and rarely saw a Jew who wasn’t in a uniform – he was taught to hate
Jews, and he was an excellent learner. But he needed money, so he took his seething
resentment with him to Tel Aviv, where he found a job as a day laborer in an
upscale restaurant near the beach. He
was originally just working in the kitchen, but he wanted to make more money,
so he taught himself to read and write in Hebrew in just a few days and asked
the owner for a chance to wait on tables.
As a joke, the owner let him service a few tables late one night,
figuring he would fall flat on his face and that would be it. But to his surprise, Issam did a great job,
holding his own with his rudimentary Hebrew.
And with his family scrounging for every scrap of food back in Gaza, you
can imagine how his resentment toward Jews only intensified when he got an up-close
look at the bohemian, lifestyle of the upscale Tel Avivians filling his tables.
But now
something was different. He was talking
with them, with the few words of Hebrew that he had learned. And they were talking with him.
Just a few
good words – and that was enough to change everything.
One day, an
older woman sat at one of his tables - and this woman was different. She showed a keen interest in Issam. Her words were gentle and kind - and Jews
weren’t supposed to be kind. This
confused Issam – it went against everything he had been taught about Jews. A few days later she came back and brought him
a piece of cake.
Aha! He got it now. She was trying to poison him! So, he threw the cake into the garbage.
But the woman didn’t
give up. She continued to bring him
food – and then clothing as well - and their friendship started to
blossom.
She really
cared for him. Issam talked about her
tearfully, before our group that day, saying that she hugged him the way a
mother hugs her child. He was young and
consumed by confusion, self-pity and hate, in his late teens or early twenties
- and had never been hugged like that before. He had many siblings and grew up in a house
where he was never hugged at all. And his outlook began to change. If this one Jew could be so kind, might there
be others?
As tensions
between the Israelis and Palestinians escalated, Issam was no longer allowed to
travel from Gaza to the restaurant to work – another casualty of the eternal conflict. A curfew was imposed. One night, there were
reports of rockets fired from Gaza to a target near where the Israeli woman lived,
so he wanted to go out and use the pay phone to see if she was ok. He had memorized her phone number. His family told him he was crazy, that if he
went out after curfew, he might never come back. But he worried about the woman, his new
friend, so he went anyway.
He called her up
and they were overjoyed to hear each other’s voices. It turns out she was as worried about him as
he was about her. But after a few
minutes, Issam was approached by Israeli soldiers who put a bag over his face and
hit him in the head with the end of a rifle.
He was taken to a prison, where he spent the
next couple of days. No charges, blood
on his head, just waiting. Finally, he
was brought into a room and told he was going to plead guilty to one of several
crimes he did not commit, including throwing rocks and attacking soldiers. He refused.
So the
soldiers brought in a senior officer who asked what he was doing out after
curfew. Issam explained the situation
and gave the officer the woman’s name and phone number.
The officer
left the room to verify the story.
A short while
later, the officer returned to Isaam’s holding cell, noticeably upset, and this
time alone. It was just the two of them.
He carried with him a cup of tea for Issam and a wet rag and wiped the
wound on Isaam’s head. Isaam was allowed
to go home.
The woman had
saved him – perhaps at some risk to herself. She could have denied knowing him
and washed her hands of his fate. But
she didn’t.
If you’ve seen
or read Les Miserables - which I have, about a hundred times – then you recall
that key instant when a bishop saves Jean Valjean from prison by giving him two
silver candlesticks that Valjean had stolen from him, but that act of grace
comes with a stipulation:
But remember this, my brother
See in this some higher plan
You must use this precious silver
To become an honest man
This was Isaam
Sa’ad’s Jean Valjean moment.
This human
connection forged between a Palestinian man and an Israeli woman, two former
enemies by accident of birth, took Issam out of the clutches of potential
radicalization and turned him into a warrior for peace. His hatred had just melted away.
And truth be told, just as that woman
in Tel Aviv melted Issam’s heart with kind words, so did Issam melt ours. That Shabbat in Jerusalem was for all of us,
a Jean Valjean moment. We bonded with a man who grew up hating us, long before
he ever met us.
Issam Sa’ad is now Director of the Palestine
Dialogue Center (PDC). For the past
twenty years, he has been coordinating and directing coexistence initiatives
and peace dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis. He’s organized numerous conferences all over
the world, including the US. PDC has
conducted seminars attended by hundreds of Palestinian leaders as well as other
workshops, meetings and discussions. Issam has created safe spaces for dialogue
for hundreds of Israeli and Palestinian children. And as their Wikipedia page states, the PDC
is strongly committed to the principle of dialogue as the method of dealing
with all issues.
You will see
almost no coverage about him in the media.
His presence online is virtually nil.
He collects donations the old-fashioned way, through word of mouth. This man risks his life every day to bring
Israeli and Palestinian children together so that they can learn about how much
they have in common.
So, if someone
asks you if it’s hard to bring peace between Arabs and Jews, tell them it's a
piece of cake.
One piece of
cake did it. That, and a few good words.
A few good
words can change a life. And one transformed
life can change many lives. And many changed lives can change the
world. Issam is living proof of that,
and our group was so fortunate to meet him.
And, but for one kind
Israeli woman who brought him dessert, his life and the lives of many others,
would be very different – and who knows how many of the people that he has
touched might otherwise have been killed – or killed others.
I’ve been speaking
about how this is the Hebrew year Tav Shin Ayin Tet – 5779 – and that
the Hebrew letter Tet stands for “Tov,” which means to be good and
kind. My charge to all of us is that we
dedicate ourselves being extra good this year – that this be a year for a
personal “Tet Offensive.” An offensive
of kindness, and that begins with a good word – a Milah tova.
We need to talk
– and listen – sensitively, constructively, with full awareness of the impact
of our words. We need to be mindful
speakers.
Here’s an easy
test of how mindfully we communicate.
Can you recall the first words you spoke this morning?
I can. And they were: “Do you want to go out?” “Good girl….”
It’s pretty
much the first thing I say every day, to Chloe.
Earlier this
year, scientists at the University of York demonstrated that the way we speak
to our canine friends is important in relationship-building between pet and
owner, similar to the way that 'baby-talk' is to bonding between a baby and an
adult. Even with dogs, words matter.
Speaking of animals,
last June, we lost one of the greatest communicators ever to walk this
earth. Greater than Churchill or Edward
R. Murrow. Greater even than Oprah
Winfrey. I’m speaking of course of Koko,
the gorilla who had a vocabulary of 2,000 words of English, nearly ten times that
of your average 3-year old - and her tenderness showed people how loving a
gorilla can be.
Koko made famous
friends like Fred Rogers and Robin Williams. She used her sign language skills to
communicate with them. But could she
really communicate on a human level? When
Koko watched a sad movie, her eyes watered. When Koko’s friend, a kitten,
was killed by a car, Koko reacted unambiguously. “Bad, sad, bad,” she
signed, shoulders hunched. “Frown, cry, frown.” She really did seem to be
frowning, and she really did seem to be weeping. And the world cried with her.
Ultimately, we
don’t know how much Koko understood. But
there are so many moments when I look at Chloe and say, “she gets me.”
In today’s
Torah reading, describing the binding of Isaac, the animals have no problem
communicating with people. It’s the people
who have the problems. The donkeys
know exactly what they’re doing. The ram
seems to know exactly what his role is in this historic drama. Sort of like those Ibex our group saw at En
Gedi this summer, who crossed the road in front of our bus precisely at the
“Ibex Crossing” sign.
The animals get
it - but the people and God– that’s another story entirely. God tells Abraham to slay his favorite son,
the one he loves, Isaac. God’s so
specific in describing who Abraham is supposed to kill – but then forgets to
add the two most important words to the end of this command: “JUST KIDDING.”
Abraham and
Isaac hardly speak to each other along this journey, when finally, Isaac asks
where the is the lamb for the sacrifice.
Abraham just replies, “God will provide,” deftly avoiding the subject. They never speak again – even as Isaac lies there,
ready to be slain. As for Sarah, Abraham
never tells her a thing. And then, the
next thing we know, she’s dead.
This is a very
tragic story, one where death can be seen as a function of failed
communications.
So how can we
make our words healing words? How
can we speak the language of blessing?
How can we all become more like Koko and Issam Sa’ad?
It was an angel
who stayed Abraham’s hand as he held the knife over Isaac. We need to allow our better angels to
emerge during this year of Tet.
At a time when
America is being torn by toxic talk, we need to be soothed by Lincoln’s words
at his first inauguration: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be
enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not
break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell
when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our
nature.”
As historian
Jon Meacham’s bestselling book, “The Soul of America: The Battle for our Better
Angels,” discusses, America has often faced challenges such as the ones we face
today; but every time the better angels of our nature have come through to
affirm that ours is a society that is kind, compassionate, welcoming, caring
and hopeful. And it begins with the
words that we utter.
Jewish mystics
have reflected on how we can speak healing words, the language of blessing – as
a spiritual practice.
Nachmanides
wrote about the need for gentle speech, about turning conversations into
blessings. And when you think of it, we
have the perfect vehicle for that – the Hebrew word “shalom,” which means hello
and goodbye – and peace. So, when you
are saying farewell to someone, you are also granting them a blessing, wishing
them peace.
We need to recapture
the language of blessing in all that we say.
This past
year, we ran a terrific series of conversations here on Israel, produced by the
Hartman Institute, and no hot button was left un-pushed. We came out of it having heard multiple
narratives, and it brought us all closer, to Israel and to one another. This past year, we also brought Danny Gordis
and Peter Beinart here to have a similar kind of conversation, since their
views are so different regarding Israel.
We provided a safe space and it was a spectacular evening. These are conversations that even many
Israelis can’t have anymore – as was evidenced by Beinart’s recent rude interrogation
at Ben Gurion airport.
Yossi Klein
Halevi, who was part of that Hartman series, his just written an excellent book
designed to promote dialogue, called “Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor.” I’ll be leading a discussion of that book for
the Jewish Historical Society. It’s a
series of letters written to an imaginary neighbor living just over the ridge
from Yossi’s home on French Hill, in Jerusalem. He makes the case for Israel
unapologetically, but in language so sensitive that it invites his neighbor
into dialogue. He’s even has offered a free
copy of his book in Arabic to anyone who wants it. It’s one of the better efforts to promote
dialogue that I have seen in recent years.
His seventh letter
is entitled, appropriately for Rosh Hashanah, “Isaac and Ishmael,” and in it,
Klein Halevi speaks of the multiple narratives of today’s Torah reading, the
climax of which takes place on Mount Moriah.
The chapter discusses what Jews misunderstand about Islam and what
Muslims misunderstand about Jews. For
instance, Muslims need to know that there is no Israeli government plot
to blow up the Al Aksa Mosque. In fact, the
Jewish belief is that at the end of days, the Temple Mount will be a place of
prayer for all peoples, not exclusively Jews. “Ki bayti bet tefilla yikaray
l’chol amim.” says Isaiah, “For My house shall be a house of worship for
all peoples.”
And on the
other hand, Klein Halevi states, Jews need to appreciate the depth of the
Muslim connection to Al Aksa. We
typically scoff, saying, “Well, it’s “only” the third holiest place in Islam –
as if holiness can be quantified. It’s
holy. It’s a big deal.
Peace is about
mutual respect, and that begins with hearing the narrative of the Other. Klein-Halevi goes on to tell his partner in fictitious
dialogue, “We must recognize the ways in which we are, for each other, the
embodiments of our greatest fears... My side needs to stop reinforcing the
Muslim trauma of colonialism, and your side, the Jewish trauma of destruction.”
What he’s
saying holds true for any relationship, as much in a marriage, for instance, as
in political dialogue. We’ve gotta stop
pushing people’s buttons.
He then adds
that the two faiths contain resources to help us live in peace and dignity as
neighbors. He looks at how Jewish sources view Ishmael – and through him, the
Arab and Muslim peoples – as violent and coarse, but also as the recipient of
divine blessings. Meanwhile, while the
Quran considers Jews sinners and ingrates, we are also called a “People of the
Book,” and therefore are deserving of respect.
We can begin a dialogue right there.
Years ago, Klein
Halevi befriended a Sufi sheikh – they were drawn together by the deep curiosity
that they shared about the other’s faith.
The sheikh once quoted to him a powerful verse from the Quran,
“Behold…we have created you out of male and female and made you into nations
and tribes so that you might come to know one another.”
It doesn't say
“to kill one another,” but to KNOW one another. And as for the sibling rivalry between
Abraham’s two sons, the sheikh said this:
“What was Ishmael’s greatness?
What was Isaac’s greatness? That
they accepted God’s will. Don’t focus on
the conflicting details but on the unifying message in the two narratives.”
There are other differences between how Muslims
and Jews understand the Bible. When God
says he’s going to destroy Sodom, the biblical Abraham challenges God in an act
of extreme chutzpah. In the Quran,
Abraham quickly acquiesces to God’s will.
Klein Halevi says that both models are important – the Holy Chutzpah of
the Torah’s Abraham and the Wise Surrender of the Quran’s Ibrahim. Each faith has known both the importance of surrender
to the divine will and rigorous questioning of God’s ways. Each has had great men and women of quiet
faith, as well as scientists and philosophers that have transformed
humanity. Perhaps, he concludes, we can
restore each other to balance. Perhaps
we need both the Muslim prayer mat and the Jewish study hall, the
chutzpah and the surrender.
And indeed, at
the end of the Abraham story, Isaac and Ishmael do come together and reconcile
– as they bury their father in the Cave of Machpelah, Hebron. Their place of
reconciliation has become a place of such strife today.
We
need to hear multiple narratives on many fronts, not just regarding Israel. When I was in Vietnam, I was forced to
confront a narrative about the war that was not so comfortable to hear. I began taking notes for this sermon, in
fact, while in a boat on the Mekong Delta during a brief but intense monsoon-like
burst of rain. In my mind’s eye I
thought of that famous photo of American soldiers wading through these same
muddy waters during the pouring rain, holding their guns over their heads and
wondering where the next ambush would come from. But for the Vietnamese, their greatest fear
was that the defoliated rainforests alongside the river would never grow back.
It’s important
to note that while there are often multiple narratives to hear – in many cases there
is only one truth. That’s why God gave
us reason, to properly evaluate empirical evidence.
At the Hanoi
Hilton they show a video of American POWs supposedly having the time of their
lives. It reminded me of the Nazis’ cinematic
depiction of Terezin as a Czechoslovakian Club Med. We know that John McCain was tortured. The man couldn’t comb his own hair. That propaganda film is bogus. So while we should always be listening for
multiple narratives, we should also never equivocate about truth when we've
found it. Yes, truth IS truth, after
all.
This year,
Philip Roth died, and in his life, he presented narratives that were not always
popular for American Jews, but we needed to hear them. The very same week as Roth’s passing, Michael
Chabon, picked up the Rothian baton and delivered a very controversial speech
at the commencement ceremonies at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles. I don’t have time to quote from it here but
highly recommend that you read it – and I will link
to it in the transcript of this sermon.
We need to
understand why one of the great American Jewish novelists of his generation
feels so alienated from the Judaism of his parents. For he is not alone. We need healing words to reach out to those
who are have felt alienated from the mainstream Jewish community, whether about
Israel, American politics, interfaith marriage, anything. Whoever has felt left out needs to be heard.
Along those
lines, we have been chosen to be one of a dozen congregations nationwide in
this year’s cohort for Interfaith
Inclusion Leadership Initiative, hoping to learn ways we can more
sensitively address the needs of nontraditional families
I’ve
learned, for instance, that even calling an interfaith family “interfaith” may
be insulting. Why should we make
presumptions? Even the term non-Jew is negative
and often a conversation stopper. There
are many degrees of those who may not be Jewish by traditional standards but
see themselves as being within the Jewish orbit. Some are now using the term “Jewish-adjacent.” Interesting.
Krista
Tippett, host of the popular public radio program called “On Being,” has come
up with a list of guidelines as to how civil conversations
can take place on hot button issues. The
Six
Grounding Virtues of the Civil Conversations are:
1)
Words That Matter - use “words
that shimmer” — words with power that convey real truths.
2)
Generous Listening - which is about connection more than
observing. Real listening is powered by curiosity. It involves vulnerability —
a willingness to be surprised, to let go of assumptions and take in ambiguity. It is never in “gotcha” mode. The generous
listener wants to understand the humanity behind the words of the other, and
patiently summons one’s own best self and one’s own most generous words and
questions.
3)
Adventurous Civility - Civility, in our world of change, is about
creating new possibilities for living forward while being different and even
continuing to hold profound disagreement.
4)
Humility - a companion
to curiosity, surprise, and delight. Spiritual humility is not about getting
small. It is about encouraging others to be big. It is not about debasing
oneself, but about approaching everything and everyone with a readiness to be
surprised and delighted.
5)
Patience, which is not
to be mistaken for meekness. It can be the fruit of a full-on reckoning with
reality — a commitment to move through the world as it is, not as we wish it to
be. A spiritual view of time is a long view of time — seasonal and cyclical,
resistant to the illusion of time as a bully, time as a matter of deadlines.
Human transformation takes time — longer than we want it to — but it is what is
necessary for social transformation. A long, patient view of time will
replenish our sense of our capacities and our hope for the world. And…
6)
Hospitality, a bridge to all the great
virtues. You don’t have to love or forgive or feel compassion to extend
hospitality. But it’s more than an invitation. It is the creation of an
inviting, trustworthy space. It creates the intention, the spirit, and the boundaries
for what is possible.
Nine centuries ago, Maimonides provided a roadmap
for dialogue. He spoke of both the content
and tone of proper speech, saying that a Torah scholar should not
shriek while speaking, greet everyone cheerfully and judge everyone in a
favorable light, never shaming a person in public. No interrupting, the Rambam adds. Give the benefit of the doubt, love peace and
pursue it.
Maimonides also was a great advocate
for silence, which he called a safeguard for wisdom, and for not obsessing with
our own needs. He quotes Ecclesiastes in
saying, “The words of the wise are heard in tranquility.” He was a big advocate for honesty. He also said, “It is forbidden to deceive
people,” and he gave the example of someone who invites a colleague over for
dinner at a time when the colleague can’t possibly make it. He disdained hypocrisy, mockery, and
excessive frivolity.
And so, as we enter this year of Tet,
of Tov, of goodness, let our words be healing words. Use only a milah tova, a good and kind
word. We all need to learn how better to
listen and to convey love in our language.
And we need to show, in all that we say and do, that… Hate has no home here.
And it never will.
Rabbi Moshe Cordorvero stated, “You
should never speak ill of any human or any animal, or any creature of God.” We were taught the exact same lesson by Koko
the gorilla. I will try to be more
mindful of my words as I enter this year.
If I call someone a dog, that creature will always have four legs. It might be Chloe.
…Or Chloe’s new brother.
Yes, just a few days ago, we drove to
upstate New York, and there we met a five-week-old back ball of poodle puppy
fur.
A year and a half after Crosby’s
passing, it’s time to fill that void with new life. Chloe didn’t join us in this visit, but I
figured out just the strategy to soften the blow when her new brother comes
home. You see, there’s one thing Chloe
loves almost as much as her family – and that’s hallah. For her, hallah is like a piece of cake. Like the cake that melted the hardened heart
of Issam Sa’ad.
And when we met our new puppy, we
taught him his first good word, a milah tova – his name. Casey.
He’s only got 1,999 words to go to
catch up to Koko the gorilla.
And then I taught him two more kind
words.
“Kelev Tov.” “Good boy.”
And he is truly a good boy.
May this new year bring peace and
healing to everyone, to the House of Israel, to the American people, and to the
world.
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