PARSHAT NITZAVIM – VAYELECH

(5770)

 

READING THE TORAH

“When all Israel has come to appear before the Lord your God in the place which he shall choose, you shall read this Torah before all Israel in their hearing.”  (Deuteronomy 31:11)

            This portion contains the fundamental law requiring the public reading of the Torah.  Once every seven years at the festival of Sukkot, as the entire community gathered in Jerusalem, there was to be a public reading of the Torah.  It was to be read in a way that men, women, and children could all hear (and this was before microphones.)  Eventually the practice developed to read a portion of the Torah every Shabbat morning and afternoon, on festivals, new moons and fast days, and each Monday and Thursday morning.

            Eventually the practice developed for a public reading of all five books of Moses on Shabbat.  In Babylonia the Torah was read in its entirety over the course of a year; in Palestine it was read over three years.  Over the years the entire Jewish world followed the Babylonian practice, with a portion read each Shabbat covering the whole Torah in a year.  This was the practice in our synagogue until one year ago. 

            In recent years the majority of Conservative synagogues returned to the Palestinian practice of reading the Torah over a three year period.  The reasoning behind that decision is that it made the reading shorter and easier for lay people to follow.   Shorter readings made it easier to find Torah readers.  And perhaps most important, with less time actually reading through the Hebrew text, more time could be spent learning what the Torah has to say.  Every one of our neighboring Conservative synagogues made this change to a triennial reading; we were the last traditional hold out.  Then last year we chose to do something unique.

            For the past year each Shabbat morning our members have been given a choice.   In the main sanctuary, we offer fifteen to twenty minutes of Torah learning followed by the public reading of one third of the portion.  In the chapel we offer a full traditional reading.  Some have complained that we are dividing the congregation, but most of our members seem pleased with the fact that they can select which room to go into.  We join back together for the haftarah, the sermon, and musaf. 

            For me as a rabbi, this fulfills an important goal.  Although on a personal level I prefer a full reading, I am not convinced that listening to a long Torah reading is the best way to reach most American Jews.  Jews need to open the text in English translation, study together, and wrestle with the actually words.  Not just Torah reading but Torah learning is now at the heart of our Shabbat morning services.  Certainly we have always provided adult education Torah learning classes.  But they reach far less people than our weekly learning sessions in the middle of services. 

            This brings me to the heart of the message of this week’s Torah reading.  The Torah is not simply a scroll kept in the ark, respected but unknown.  I know that Jews rise when the Torah is carried through the sanctuary, they bend over and kiss it, and they want the highest respect for these sacred scrolls.  But the key issue is for Jews to struggle with what is actually written in the Torah.  For the word “Torah” means teaching.  At the heart of the Torah is the most profound question a Jew can ask – what is God’s teaching?  What does God want us to do under the covenant?   To be a Jew is to learn Torah.

            I am searching for opportunities to teach Torah to our congregation.  This will involve a variety of different classes in various venues at various times.  But at the center of Torah learning in our new building will be the continuation of offering two choices each Shabbat morning.  May we Jews continue to be a people who wrestle with Torah, not just on Shabbat but throughout the week.

           

 

 

PARSHAT NITZAVIM – VAYELECH

 (5769)

 

READING THE TORAH

 

“And Moses instructed them as follows: Every seventh year, the year set for remission, at the Feast of Booths, when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God in the place that He will choose, you shall read this teaching aloud in the presence of all Israel.”

                                                                                    (Deuteronomy 31:10 – 11)

 

            We are nearing the end of Deuteronomy.  In one of the final laws of the Torah, Moses set down the procedure for a public reading of the Torah.  Once every seven years, on the festival of Sukkot when the entire people Israel was gathered in Jerusalem, there was to be a public gathering to read the Torah.  This public ritual was called hekhal.  It was the Torah’s belief belief that the drama of such a public reading every seven years was enough to keep the Torah alive forever.

            It was soon clear that once every seven years was not enough.  When synagogues began to grow, the custom started of reading a portion of the Torah every Shabbat.  Ezra ruled that the Torah should also be read on the market days of Monday and Thursday, as well as Shabbat afternoon.  That way no person should go three days without reading Torah.

            How much of the Torah is read?  Two different traditions developed in Rabbinic times.  In Babylonia, the custom was to read the entire Torah over the course of one year (an annual reading.)  In Palestine (modern Israel), the custom was to read the entire Torah over three years (a triennial reading.)  But the key idea was the public reading of the Torah.  Eventually, the entire Jewish world starting following the Babylonian custom of an annual Torah reading, which is the traditional Jewish practice in our own day.

            There was also a concern that Jews understand what was being read.  The Talmud teaches that every person should read the Hebrew text twice and a translation once.  (Berachot 8a.  The Talmud is referring to the Aramaic translation Onkeles, which most Jews understood in Talmudic times.)   It is unclear from the Talmudic passage whether this reading was done privately or publicly.  I am not a scholar of the history of Jewish practice, but there seems to be some tradition of a public translator accompanying the public reading, translating and explaining to the people.

            This brings me to today.   Should the emphasis be on the public ritual of reading the Torah, even when the vast majority of Jews are unable to follow the reading?   Or should the emphasis be on the translation, explanation, and interpretation?   Most Conservative synagogues have abandoned the traditional practice of a full annual reading, preferring to return to the custom in ancient Palestine of reading the Torah over three years.  They follow a modified triennial reading.    They prefer to put the time and effort into Torah learning rather than the formalities of Torah reading.

            Until now, our synagogue was the only Conservative synagogue in south Florida that has followed the traditional pattern of a full reading of the Torah.   Many of our members loved it, feeling that maintaining this tradition made us unique.  Others of our members disliked it, saying that time should be spent learning rather than reading.   After much debate, our synagogue has chosen to change our ritual, follow the lead of other Conservative synagogues, and go to a shortened Torah reading.  The hope is that more time will be spent actually learning Torah, of critical importance for American Jews.

            I was truly ambivalent about the decision.  On one hand, I was proud of the fact that we maintained a full reading.  On the other hand, I felt that most of the Jews who attend our services were not following the reading, and that more time ought to be spent teaching Torah.  That is why, after much soul-searching, I supported this change.

            When it comes to a decision of synagogue ritual such as this one, there is no right way or wrong way.  Is the public ritual more important?  Or is the learning more important?   One could easily say, quoting the Talmud again, elu v’elu divrei Elohim Chayim – “These and these are the words of the Living God” (Eruvim 13b).  My hope is that as more Jews understand the Torah and learn how to apply it to their lives, they will find greater meaning and holiness in the traditions of our people.         

 

 

PARSHAT NITZAVIM-VAYELECH

 (5767)

 

CAN PEOPLE CHANGE?

 

“I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse.  Choose life – if you and your offspring would live.”

                                                                                    (Deuteronomy 30:19)

 

            I love the Broadway musical version of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables.   The score is one of the first albums I downloaded onto my new ipod, a toy I bought myself this summer.  There is one line that jumps out at me as we approach the Jewish High Holidays.  Inspector Javert of the Paris police has spent a lifetime pursuing Jean Valjean, who had gone to prison for breaking into a home to steal a loaf of bread.  Valjean had transformed himself, becoming a factory owner and the mayor the town.  But to Javert none of that mattered.  In a powerful duet, he sings, “Men like you can never change!”

            Can people change?  This question is at the heart of the High Holidays.  We Jews spend the holiday season worrying about so many things that are relatively minor.  We worry about family and food, tickets and honors, where will we sit at services and how will we dress.  Rabbis, myself included, have one major worry.  Will I come up with High Holiday sermons that are enjoyable and inspiring, worthy for the biggest crowd of the year?  Cantors have one major worry.  What music will I include in this year’s service to uplift the congregation, and will my voice hold out to sing it?  All of these questions ignore the one question that is at the heart of the holy days.  Can people change?

            The theme of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur is transformation – human beings who have been walking down one path can switch direction and find another.  We can change our ways.  The Hebrew word is teshuva – literally return, we can return to the correct path.   The term for the period from the beginning of Rosh Hashana until the end of Yom Kippur is the Ten Days of Teshuva.   From a Jewish perspective Javert was wrong; people can change.  The tragedy of Les Miserables was that Javert never understood that Valjean had become a new man.

            The question whether people can change has vexed thinkers throughout history.  In the Middle Ages theologians grappled with the question whether free will can be reconciled with God’s omniscience.  If God knows everything then God knows what are future behavior will be.  And if God knows our future behavior, then we are not free to change.  Medieval thinkers did various mental gymnastics to find a way out of this quandary.   For example, they taught that God is outside of time and therefore sees the future as well as the past.  But we humans live within time and therefore we have free will.  I will leave it to readers to untangle that one.

            Moderns are less concerned with God’s knowledge, mostly because God has stepped back in our consciousness.  We see a world that is more mechanical than our ancestors.  If we are humans are machines who are programmed by our genes, how can we say that humans can change?  From this perspective, the strands of DNA that are the heart of our genetic make-up determine our behavior.  And even if we acknowledge some free will, we are certainly the products of environment, our upbringing, and numerous forces beyond our control. 

Add to this the Freudian view that it is unconscious drives that ultimately determines who we are and what we do.  The whole modern outlook seems to point towards the conclusion that we humans cannot change.  Or to quote the biggest song in another hit Broadway musical with a French name La Cage aux Folles, “I am what I am.”   We are who we are; we are powerless before the forces that created us.  And in some ultimate way we cannot change.

If humans are unchangeable, then we really do not need the Jewish High Holidays.  For there is only one question that a Jew who attends High Holiday services ought to ask – “how am I going to be a different person when this holiday season is over than I am now?”  God gave us humans the ability to transform ourselves.  How we do so is the only truly important question that should concern us during this season.

 

 

PARSHAT NITZAVIM – VAYELECH

 (5766)

 

WHAT IS LIFE?

 

“I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse.  Therefore choose life, if you and your offspring would live.”

                                                                                    (Deuteronomy 30:19)

 

            We can never know beyond a doubt that God exists.  But we can know beyond a doubt that life exists.  And our tradition at its most profound identifies God with life.  That is why we repeat over and over in the Amida prayers during the High Holidays, “Remember us for life, O Sovereign Who delights in life.  Inscribe us in the Book of Life, for Your sake, O God of life.”

            What is life?  Life is a force at work in the universe, which certainly can be seen and measured on our tiny planet in our corner of the solar system.  Life is a force, which goes from simplicity to complexity, and from chaos to order.  Life is a force, which even scientists have difficulty describing without reverting to the theologically charged term miracle.  Let us look at a quick overview of this force we call life.

            In the beginning the universe was so hot only quarks and leptons could exist.  But the universe was expanding, and with expansion came cooling.  Eventually it was cool enough that the fundamental particles could join together to form atoms.  At first there were only the simplest of atoms – hydrogen, one proton surrounded by one electron.  Hydrogen atoms clumped together to form stars, and eventually gravity caused these clumps of atoms to contract and heat to build up, until the process of nuclear fusion began.  Two hydrogen atoms fused into helium, setting off gigantic amounts of energy.  (This is how hydrogen bombs work.)  Eventually bigger and more complex atoms fused together, including the atom, which is the backbone of all life as we know it – carbon.  The stars exploded, sending carbon and other elements out into the universe.

            So it continued through generations of stars, forming more and more complex atoms.  We are literally made of stardust.  Eventually, in one unlikely planet in one tiny corner of a galaxy, around one rather mediocre star, molecules came together that were just right for the emergence of life.  This planet was covered with water, a unique chemical just right to allow molecules to dissolve, form a solution, and eventually create organic chemicals.  Somehow in this water long chains of carbon formed.  Eventually there developed molecules able to reproduce themselves and also metabolize energy.  Did RNA, DNA, or proteins come first?  Scientists do not know.  But somehow, the most primitive form of life had begun.

            Charles Darwin saw natural selection as the engine which ran life.  Some see Darwin’s theory as a challenge to God.  I see it as a tool used by God in the evolution of life.  Life grew more and more complex, with only those forms of life best adapted to the environment surviving.  First there were one celled creatures, then plants able to capture the energy from the sun, releasing oxygen into the atmosphere.  Oxygen was poison to most life.  But creatures developed able to metabolize oxygen for energy, eating lower forms of life for food.  Animals and plants evolved in an interlocking, biotic community.  But the miracle was not over.

            A form of animal developed with a complicated network of nerve cells, growing more and more complex.  The first brain had developed.  With the development of the brain, consciousness entered the world.  Even today scientists cannot explain consciousness; theologians see it as a part of divinity attached to living cells.  Consciousness became more complex through lower and then higher animals, eventually leading to a unique kind of animal.  For the first time, an animal existed with the ability to choose life, to live in a way that enhances the flow of life or live in a way which goes against the flow of life.  Humanity has a choice to act in accordance with life or act in accordance with death.

            So this week, on the last Sabbath before Rosh Hashana, we read the words “Therefore choose life.”  Each of us can work against God’s purpose and be a force for death in the world.  Or each of us can work with God’s purpose and be a force for life in this world.  The choice is up to us.

 

 

PARSHAT NITZAVIM-VAYELECH

(5764)

 

CAN WE CHANGE?

 

AI call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life, that you may live, you and your seed.@

(Deuteronomy 30:19)

 

I watched one of my all time favorite movies the other day - Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray.  Many synagogues show this movie the evening of Selichot, the late Saturday night prayer service where we ask for forgiveness and prepare for the Jewish High Holidays.  The movie is a comedy, but the theme is extremely serious.  It contains wonderful discussion material to set the mood for a pre-High Holiday service.

In the movie, Bill Murray plays a newscaster who travels to Punxsutawney, PA for the February 2 Groundhog Day celebration.  The whole town gathers to watch the groundhog check to see his shadow, thus guaranteeing six more weeks of winter.  By a fluke, Murray keeps waking up over and over again on the same day, being forced to relive the same events over and over.  He makes countless mistakes until he finally learns to live the day right.  Only then is he privileged to see the next day.

The fantasy rings true.  What if we were given an opportunity to live our lives over and over again until we finally get it right?  Would we eventually learn to make the right choices?  Would we learn to love the people in our lives who need and deserve our love?  Would we learn to develop the raw talents God gave us to develop?  Would we learn to be a bit more patient, a bit kinder, a bit less judgmental?   If give enough chances, could we learn to live our lives the way they ought to be lived?

In the real world, we do not wake up over and over on the same day.  The days slip by one after another, whether we live properly or not.  And yet, we are constantly given opportunities to look at our lives and ask, are we living correctly?  Are we making the right choices?  We are allowed to make constant adjustments in our lives.  We always have the ability to change.

The High Holidays come each and every year.  The theme of the High Holidays is to awaken again prepared to do better this coming year.  It is a time of serious soul searching.  How can we be different people than we were?  How can we change for the better?

Often people tell me, ARabbi, it is too late for me.  I already have spent too much time going down the wrong path.  My life is hopeless.  I can never change.@  Certainly, we must live with the consequences of past actions.  But that does not mean that we are unchangeable.  History is filled with stories of people who redirected their life paths in their forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, even eighties.  I remember a letter to one of the advice columnist sisters, Dear Abby or Ann Landers; I do not remember which one.  The letter said, AHow can I go to medical school?  I will be in my fifties when I finish in five years.@    The columnist answered, AAnd how old will you be in five years if you do not go to medical school.@  Of course, the theme is that, it is never to late to pursue the path we were meant to pursue.

The theme of this week=s reading and the theme of the holidays is, there are always choices.  It is never too late.  We can choose to go down a different path than we have in the past.  God sets before us life and death, the blessing and the curse, the correct path and the wrong path.  Therefore choose life.  And if you make the wrong choice today, there is always tomorrow.  There is always next year.  The High Holidays will come again.