Sermon II Rosh Hashanah Morning
Pakad
Remembering
Entrusting the Memory to the Sacred
And Action
Rabbi Edward S. Boraz, Ph.D.
Michael Steinberg ’61 Rabbi of Dartmouth College Hillel
Dartmouth College Hillel
Upper Valley Jewish Community
5 Occom Ridge
Hanover, New Hampshire, 03755
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Introduction
The Biblical word "‫"פקד‬refers to God “remembrance” – a
recollection that is both sacred and a Divine action to follow.
Remembrance allows us the opportunity to reflect, to consider our past,
our history, as we move through time and space. We live dread living in
a world where we are unable not remember. Thus, we cherish it more
than ever in light of such dreaded diseases as Alzheimer and other forms
of dementia.
Let us therefore begin by giving thanks for this gift. Despite our
growing understanding of the brain, we are at a loss to describe how and
why we think the way we do and just how and why we remember. It
would be an infinite exercise to enumerate how much the quality of our
life depends on this human attribute.
The Torah uses the word ‫ פקד‬to describe God’s remembrance.
There are two stories in the Torah where ‫ – פקד‬Divine Remembrance – is
the critical term of our sacred text. One is today’s Torah reading. The
other is Moses’s first encounter with the Children of Israel in Egypt after
his encounter with God at the burning bush.
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Sacred Encounter of God and Sarah
The Torah portion of this morning began with the following
description:
‫ויהוה פקד את שרה כאשר אמר‬
‫ויעש יהוה לשרה כאשר דבר‬
‫לזקניו‬-‫ותהר ותלד שרה לאברהים בין‬
‫למועד אשר דבר אותו אלהים‬
God remembered Sarah as God had stated
Moreover, God did unto Sarah as God had spoken
Sarah conceived and gave birth unto Abraham
A son unto his old age
According to the sacred time that God had spoken
Linked to the word ‫ פקד‬is “Adonai” – a designated name of God to
signify compassion. Linked to this compassion is the sacred act of
conception and birth of a child who will become a patriarch of our
people. Hence, the birth of a child is the same as a birthday of an entire
world, for infinite possibilities await this new life. The birth of a child
becomes a ‫– מועד‬a sacred time initiated because of a Divine
remembrance of God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah. It was true then
and true in our time.
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Sacred Encounter of God in Egypt
The Children of Israel were slaves for nearly four hundred and
twenty years at the time Moses returned to Egypt to lead them out of
slavery. For centuries, the Children of Israel knew only a life of
servitude. Suddenly, Moses appears and stirs their memory. Upon his
first encounter with the elders and the people, through his brother Aaron,
he says the following:
‫יהוה אלהי אבתיכם נראה אלי אלהי אברהם אלהי יצחק ויעקב לאמר‬
‫ ואמר אעלה אתכם מעני מצרים‬:‫לכם במצרים‬-‫העשוי‬-‫פקד פקדתי אתכם ואת‬
:‫ארץ זבת חלב ודבש‬-‫ אל‬....
God, the God your ancestors appeared unto me
The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob and said
“I surely have remembered you
And that which is being done to you in Egypt
And I will lift you up from the affliction of Egypt to a
Flowing with milk and honey”
(Exodus 3:16)
The Elders and the people who had gathered to hear responded:
‫ויאמן העם וישמעו כי פקד יהוה את בני ישראל‬
‫ענים‬-‫וכי ראה את‬
‫ויקדו וישתחוו‬
The people had faith and they understood
That God remembered the Children of Israel
And because he had seen their affliction
They bowed and they worshipped
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Let us juxtapose the 420 years of servitude with this singular message of
hope that Moses and Aaron speak to the Children of Israel. The people,
despite the generations of oppression, believed. They had faith, for they
remembered their ancestral relationship to God. Moses’s and Aaron’s
message stirred a distant memory that had been passed on from one
generation unto the next, despite the generations of oppression. They
fulfilled the mitzvah of "‫"שמע‬. This is to understand the historic moment
of the Divine.
Their response, when considering the generations of slavery, was
ever the more remarkable. They could have chosen the path of
pragmatism, restraint, and to continue the only life that they knew. They
had faith that God was about to act, and so they bowed and they prayed.
They acted with extraordinary courage and we are here today because of
them.
We are the Inheritors – Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur
Our duty is to make our history ‫ – פקד‬something that is entrusted to
our collective conscious – holy and to act with holiness on those matters
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that are of importance; the defining moments that give our life meaning
and purpose.
Many of you belong to the Upper Valley Jewish Community that
makes Jewish life grounded on Torah so vibrant and alive in this area.
Everyone cares about the greater community – I cannot tell you the
number of times our people arise and help the Grafton County Senior
Center, the Haven, the Listen Center, and other institutions that represent
the sensitivity that lies in the human heart to take care of those less
fortunate than we who are blessed so much. There is the beautiful
Jewish programming and educational opportunities that exist for us to
grow in our humanity and in our divinity. Many of our congregants are
part of the mitzvah each day of ‫ – פקוח נפש‬saving of human life. We are
blessed to be part of this Jewish community and to live here. There is no
better place in my mind to be a Rabbi than at the Roth Center for Jewish
Life.
Allow me to share just a few examples. At Tishe B’av, we had a
beautiful service and minyan when an observant family from Israel
walked in unexpectedly to hear the chanting of Eichah (Lamentations).
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When a person needs to say Kaddish for Yahrzeit, we respond with
fullness of heart. All of this is ‫ פקד‬because we remember our ancestors,
those who taught us how live a Jewish life and we treat human activity
as sacred and act thereon to comfort the hearts and souls of others. Your
goodness is great.
The Sacred Act of Work – of Pakad – and Chemical Weapons
Our country – humanity – in some respects is at such a historic
moment of remembrance. Before going any further, I want to be clear. I
do not know what action is the right one regarding Syria. However, I
want to invoke this mitzvah of ‫ פקד‬to invoke sacred memory and to
awaken our consciousness.
We know how devastating chemical weapons can be, for we too
were murdered in this fashion through the use of zyklon b and the world
failed to speak and to act. I too am part of that failed humanity. Today,
if the reports are true, the Syrian government, under the leadership of
Bashir Assad, used Saran on his own people.
I must speak up and I must remember, for each year I go to
Auschwitz and Belzec bear witness to the devastation of genocide. The
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use of Saran is no different than the Zyklon B employed at Auschwitz.
The human consciousness remembers Auschwitz, Treblinka, Maidanek.
There is a difference between death by bullets and death by poison
gas. We remember the death camps, but we do not recall the thousands
of killing field throughout Europe where men, women, and defenseless
children were murdered by bullets.
We have a sacred obligation to remember and to act, even if at a
minimum to speak loudly and clearly, for this a crime against humanity.
It does not have to be my military strike. Even if only to speak before
the United Nations, to bring Assad to justice before the International
Court at the Hague. Let the evidence come forward, but we must
remember and we must act. To do nothing as a Jew is to deny our own
sacred memory.
Our Mishnah teaches that every creature, human and otherwise,
pass before God in judgment. Everyone is judged, whether it is by God,
history, or the collective conscious of the world. I believe with all my
heart and all my soul that this is a particularly heinous crime against God
and humanity to kill men, women, and children in this way. God will
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ultimately judge – regardless of how we understand “God” and “judge”
– if these events in Syria are true.
In times of confusion, I ask myself one question. If I was brought
before God on judgment day, “and asked to account for a particular
action or inaction”, would I have a good answer?” In this instance, it
would be “Why did you not speak out, even though there was no danger
to you, against what happened to my children in Syria?” If I remained
silent, I would not have a good answer.
If I did not condemn this in the safe comfort of Hanover, New
Hampshire, with all the gifts that I have been given, then who am I to
call myself a religious person, a Jew, one made in the image of and
likeness of God if I remain silent. Therefore, I had no choice but to
speak.
Conclusion
Rosh Hashanah is the time for ‫ – פקד‬to entrust memory to the
sacred upon which our love of humanity and one another may flow. The
mission of the Jewish people is always to strive towards being ‫ממלכת‬
‫ – כוהנים וגוי קדוש‬a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
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May we be like our ancestors Abraham, Sarah, and the newborn
Isaac recognizing that today is our ‫ מועד‬the appointed time to turn once
again to God and to become anew through our ‫ ;תשובה‬to be reborn. May
be we like our ancestors who though enslaved for 420 years, whose only
master they knew was a heartless and cruel Pharaoh, have faith in a
better world, on this the ‫ – הרת היום‬the birthday of the world. Let us have
faith when we hear the Divine word. When we hear the message of God
who lies deep within our hearts, may we ‫ – פקד‬and ‫ – שמע‬remember and
permit our hearts to stir recounting the righteous who preceded us unto
Abraham and Sarah and Isaac. May do now as they did upon hearing the
words of Moses and Aaron, ‫ – ויקד וישתחוו‬bow our heads and worship.
Hineni – We are here – page 278
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