A little girl asked her mother:
“Mom, how is it possible that you told me that people were
created by God, and Dad said people evolved from
monkeys?”
Her mother answered, “Well, dear, it’s very simple: I told
you about my side of the family, and your father told you
about his.”
I share this joke with you, because two weeks ago, a similar thing
happened to me. Henry (my 5 year old) came home from school,
excited to tell me and my husband how he learned about the first
people, Adam and Eve. But he asked, “Is the story true? I
thought that we came from apes.”
John passed it off saying, “This one’s all yours rabbi.”
Instead of sharing this joke, I talked to my son about the
importance of science in helping us to understand God’s world,
how we learn about God by learning about God’s creations. I told
him that science can’t answer every question. It can give
theories about how we evolved from apes, but it can’t tell us why
we evolved, why people matter. Adam and Eve, I explained, is a
story that is true in that it teaches us true lessons that are still
important today. For example, that it’s not good for people to
live their lives all alone, that we can help one another, that we’re
responsible for taking care of the animals and planet. Henry
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accepted this, or at least didn’t want to hear me talk about it
anymore, so he said he understood.
I share this with you because today I want to talk about the
stories we tell about ourselves, and how they teach the listener
about who we think we are.
According to Lisa Hoehn, founder of Profile Polish, a service that
makes your on-line image as polished as possible, the stories we
tell give a bigger impression of who we are than any resume ever
could. In an interview for the podcast “Note to Self” she explains
how in our on-line profiles we should show and not tell. She
says, “Make your creative writing teachers proud. Instead of
saying ‘I love my phone but it exhausts me,’ try ‘I make a
conscious effort to leave my phone in my pocket as I'm walking
down the street.’ Same point, but the reader gets to draw the
conclusion for him-or-herself. This is where you should invest the
majority of your writing energy.”
So, instead of saying I believe in both science and Torah, I share
this story with you.
This Yom Kippur, I want to talk about, not just my stories, but
our stories, the stories we tell as Jews, and what that says
about who we are. Now each of the stories we tell speak
volumes about who we are and our values, but tonight I want to
focus on three: the Creation story, the Exodus, and Sinai.
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Story #1: Creation “The earth was unformed and void, with
darkness over the surface of the deep (Genesis 1:2)” – this is
how it all begins. We watch as God takes chaos and makes
order, as God brings lightness where there is darkness, we see
how God’s words create reality, and then we are told “God
created man in His image, in the image of God He created man,
male and female He created them.”
This story is our framework for how we see the world. We are
infinitely important – the pinnacle of creation - we are created in
the very image of God! From this we are taught of our ultimate
worth as human beings, and our incredible creative powers.
According to the Jerusalem Talmud, Nedarim 30b, perhaps the
most important verse in Torah comes at the end of our creation
story:
Rabbi Akiva (second century CE) taught: "Love your
neighbor as yourself." (Leviticus, 19) This is the most
important rule in the Torah. Ben Azzai says: "This is the
book of chronologies of Adam" (Genesis, 5).
Why Ben Azzai believe that the chronologies, the list of off-spring,
was the most important verse? because it teaches that each of us
came from the same ancestor, that means no ethnicity or race is
inherently more worthy than another, and it also means we are
all offspring of a being who was created in the Divine Image;
each of us is made in the image of God! Therefore, when we are
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kind to one another, we are being kind to God, when we are
cruel, we are being cruel to God, and when we ignore the plight
of the other, we are turning our back on God. We tend to the
needs of others, not in the hope that others will tend to our needs
as implied by “love your neighbor as yourself” , but because it is
the sacred thing to do. Self-interest plays no role here. We create
and fashion and serve as stewards because that is what God
does.
We bring light into dark places, because this is what God does.
We make order where there is chaos, because this is what God
does.
This story gives us meaning, teaches we were not a mere
accident of evolution, and gives all of mankind divinity. This is a
story we tell about ourselves – the very first story we tell about
ourselves.
Story #2: Exodus
Passover is the number one most observed holiday amongst
Jews, even more than Yom Kippur1! This story - the story of our
oppression in Egypt, our movement from slavery to freedom has been seared into our collective memory. Whenever the
Jewish people have experienced persecution, oppression, or
expulsion, we have relived the Exodus. This has embedded in our
1
2013, Pew Report.
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collective memory the experience of being the stranger, of being
oppressed, of being preyed upon by the more powerful.
The Exodus (at the time of the Exodus) took an oppressed people
and shaped them into a peoplehood. It gave the “collection of
slaves that left Egypt a sense of common past and shared
destiny2”. As much as we may disagree with one another, Jews
are family, and this story that we tell about ourselves reinforces
our need to be there for one another.
Within this story of our redemption, we are commanded (Exodus
23:9) “you shall not oppress the stranger, for you were strangers
in the land of Egypt.” This takes our story one step further
towards justice. It commands that we not only seek justice for
ourselves, but that we never do to others what was once done to
us. It is because of the Exodus that we do not merely have
sympathy for the stranger or the oppressed, we have empathy.
We see ourselves as having been outsiders, as an oppressed
minority, as unjustly hated. So we feel a particular obligation
towards other groups when they are outsiders, oppressed, or
unjustly hated. We were once strangers in the land of Egypt.
The story also begins with a verse that is often overlooked.
Exodus 7:1 says:
2
Rabbi Sidney Schwarz, Judaism and Justice, p.19
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‫ י ְִּהיֶה‬,‫ָאחיָך‬
ִּ ‫ֹלהים לְ פַ ְרע ֹּה; וְ ַאהֲ ר ֹּן‬
ִּ ֱ‫ ְראֵ ה נְתַ ִּתיָך א‬,‫מ ֶֹּשה‬-‫א ַוי ֹּאמֶ ר יְהוָה אֶ ל‬
.‫נְבִּ יאֶ ָך‬
“Adonai said to Moses, ‘See, I place you as God before Pharaoh,
and your brother as your prophet.’”
Moses, in his role as liberator, as the one who speaks truth to
power, is acting “as God before Pharaoh”; he is acting in God-like
way. Not trying to replace God, but inherently teaching us that
to be close to God and to be called by God is to be an actor
in history. As the Exodus teaches us, God can make miracles,
but we still must do our part. God can split the sea but first we
must walk in. As author and Fortune 500 CEO Dale Partridge said,
“Don’t ask God to guide your footsteps if you’re not willing to
move your feet.”
Story #3: Sinai
The Exodus was not just an escape from slavery. It was a
journey towards a sacred way of life. At Sinai we were called to
renew the covenant once given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Then - the covenant was made with an individual, now - it is
made with an entire nation. God calls upon us to be “a kingdom
of priests and a holy nation (Exodus 19:6).”
That moment at Sinai, the one that midrash says every single
one of us, every Jew from every generation was present for,
symbolizes our calling to a higher purpose. Sinai gave those
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recently freed slaves, and continues to give each of us, a sacred
purpose. It is here, that our sense of obligation to each other
and the world is reborn. “Sinai is the root of the Jewish
understanding that freedom begins with responsibility3.”
Creation teaches we are all divine, Exodus teaches of God’s
infinite power and warns us not to oppress others, these are
lessons for every nation - Sinai is about us – about Jews, about
what our role is. At Sinai we received the commandments, our
mitzvot, rules to guide our behavior, to teach us what Jewish
values are, what it means to live a Jewish life.
Sinai teaches us our unique role in the world, our purpose, our
raison d’être. We are taught at Sinai, and by remembering Sinai,
that we are not only holy because of who we are, but because of
what we do. We express this even in our accepting of the
covenant, na’aseh v’nishmah “we will do and we will hear.” We
understand that the doing is what fulfils our purpose.
All remaining sacred texts: the Mishnah and Talmud, the codes,
midrash, kabbalah – in each it is our actions that are the focus.
We have a responsibility, a calling. This is reiterated again and
again by our prophets:
“I, Adonai, called you in righteousness, I have taken you by
the hand; and shaped you. I appointed you as a covenanted
3
Ibd, p.38
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people, a light of nations. To open the eyes of the blind, To
release captives from prison and the dungeon, free those
sitting in darkness (Isaiah 42,6-7).”
When we remember Sinai, we are remembering our covenant,
our purpose, and our obligation, as Jews, to the world.
These are three of the stories we Jews tell about ourselves. And I
know that there are some in this room who are thinking, “Rabbi, I
don’t believe that any of those things actually happened!” But for
now, let’s put aside the veracity of the creation story, the Exodus,
and the receiving of Torah on Mt. Sinai. . .
Because the stories we tell about ourselves don’t have to be true
to teach us about who we are, or better, who we aspire to be.
And these stories we tell about who we are as Jews - while the
archeological evidence of the stories may not be solid enough to
convince you, and the details may have changed over time – they
speak to a truth about what it means to be a Jew.
We don’t all have to agree on how Torah was brought into this
world (and we don’t) but we can all agree that the teachings of
the Torah hold sacred moral truths.
Most of us believe in
evolution, but learning we descend from apes does not go far in
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teaching us how to be human. Yet, when we let Torah guide our
behavior, we become not just human, but holy.
As Rabbi Sydney Schwarz teaches, “Judaism is a religion that
values practice more than belief. In Judaism, a good person is
not necessarily someone who believes the right things. A good
person is someone who does the right thing.”
A Jew aspires to see the Divine in all of God’s creatures.
Whether we are talking about another Jew, a Christian, a Muslim,
a Buddhist; a Frenchman, a Kenyan, an Ethiopian; a homosexual,
a heterosexual; a freeman, a prisoner; a republican, a democrat,
libertarian, or a member of the green party. We may not agree
(and we don’t!), but we are our best selves we see that this
person too is a carrier of the Divine.
A Jew feels a sense of kinship with fellow Jews, that we
have a common history and destiny, a common plight. A Jew
experiences categorical oppression and hatred of a people as a
personal affront. Jews do not only feel pity, we feel empathy, for
whether it is “true” or not, we have been there.
A Jew feels called, special, yes! even chosen. We have a
role to play in bringing more tzedek, more justice, to the world.
By our actions, we bring godliness to our world. Where there is
chaos we attempt to create order, where there is darkness we try
to bring light; we are well aware of the power of words to create
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reality, and so we guard our tongues. Our mitzvot remind us how
each of our actions affect others in society, and so we aspire to
make the mundane sacred.
These High Holy Days we are tackling the theme of “who are
you?”
These stories are a part of my identity, how I see the world, what
I see when I look at the Torah. These stories are a part of Beth
Am; our congregation is a model in the movement. We have
been honored with the distinction of being a “Just Congregation”
for the past 3 years, we have brought in more food for the High
Holy Day Food drive than any other congregation in Miami. And
this year we were selected as one of only 10 congregations to
serve as a model for bringing social justice into the world. We
are introducing a social justice speaker series beginning October
20th, our first topic is transgender issues.
We are a light unto the nations.
These stories transcend movement labels. They speak to us and
define us no matter how regularly we attend services, if we keep
kosher or not, if we believe we are descended from apes or from
Adam, and whatever our politics, gender, or sex.
:‫מַמנּושַאמאֶח ַמ רו רַמ ּו ני ֵר ְׁש ַא‬
‫ר‬
ָּ‫ּוח ּוֵ שנ ַאמֶח ַמָּמ מַמ ּוּו ּוש ַאמאֶח ַמירע‬
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Ashreinu Ma Tov Chelkeinu u Ma Nayim Goraleinu, uMa Yafa
Yirushateinu - How happy is our portion, how pleasant is our lot,
how beautiful is our heritage.
May these stories give each of us a sense of connection to all of
God’s creatures, to our fellow Jews, and to a higher purpose in
life.
Kein y’hi ratzon. Be this God’s will.
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