Words are Wind?

Southport Reform Community 

Kol Nidré Sermon 

Words are Wind? 

“I’ll begin from the moment I got you, the moment I saw you lying on the table among my other birthday presents... on Friday, June 12, I was awake at six o ‘clock, which isn’t surprising, since it was my birthday. But I’m, not allowed to get up at that hour, so I had to control my curiosity, until quarter to seven... A little after seven I went to Daddy and Mama and then to the living room to open my presents, and you were the first thing I saw, maybe one of my nicest presents...’ 

When she started scribbling her thoughts in her checkered blue-and-red diary, on that fateful 12th of June, 1942, did she know her words were eternal? That they would change the world – both hers and ours? 

Words bind our fate and shape worlds, as my fellow Dutchwoman and co-religionist Anne Frank would intuit. Words, words, words. Yom Kippur is heavy with them. Prayers that are given wings through our sacred intentions. Words that indict us and defend us. Words that praise and words that ring with the empty chime of our mortality. Ancient words from the Torah, Prophets and Sages and contemporary words from our Progressive rabbis. Words that speak of vows, of repentance, of prayer and charity. Words that condemn our abuse of words: of slander, of lying, of judgment. Words that ring true and words that ring hollow. Words that move us and words that leave us cold. 

Between now and Ne’ilah, many words will be spoken, too many perhaps. Even, or especially on Yom Kippur, there is a danger that words become wind. The machzor brims with them. It is a document that shows our struggle with God and ourselves, that maps our gratitude and exposes our weakness. It disseminates the mayor themes of our tradition, provides us with the roadmap into life’s most profound questions. It is a distillation of our Jewish tradition’s wisdom and theology, a rallying cry to justice and a whisper to bring the heart to contrition. The machzor is a beautiful document to be sure, but in many ways it is not ours. We might struggle with finding God on those pages that are so God-heavy, we might not recognise ourselves in the ‘Al Chets’, we might not be moved by the imagery of ‘Ki Anu Amecha’ and do we really need to ponder the want of our actions in ‘Avinu Malkeinu’? Even the Kol Nidré, the convergence point of many a Jewish community, may be rendered meaningless in our experience. What vows have we broken? What obligations have we forsaken? For what must we atone? 

As important as breaking down our ego is during these Days of Awe, it is equally important to build up our values, our intentions, our promises. From this Kol Nidré to the next. 

If Kol Nidré is about annulling and excusing the vows we’ve made between God and ourselves, from this past year to this present moment, then can we perhaps do the reverse? Can we bequeath a heritage of words that is lasting, positive and compelling in our lives? We know that Anne Frank did even in the darkest and direst of circumstances. Her diary encouraged her to see pinpoints of light in the midnight of the century. I can only stand in awe of what her spirit accomplished but it does prove the power of words. 

Words matter, for better and worse. Then how can we make our words count? In a way, Anne Frank’s diary is a complex and beautiful example of an ‘ethical will’. The ethical will is one of those wonderful concepts that the Torah bequeathed on humankind (together with monotheism and the weekend!) and that made its way in both the Jewish and Christian tradition. There are two important ethical wills mentioned in Torah: Jacob’s blessing of his children in Genesis chapter 49 and Moses’ song in Deuteronomy chapter 32 (yes, you can go home and read these and be inspired). 

Speaking words of wisdom and blessing to one’s progeny does seem very Biblical indeed. Not many of us may be granted that dignity, calm and lucidity when at death’s door. Hence, during the Middle Ages, rabbis developed the ethical will as a written document that could be written when the individual was still of sound body and mind. An ethical will grants us an opportunity to impart our values both to ourselves and to the next generation. It is a valiant storming of the gates of Eternity, to make sure that we are indeed inscribed in the Book of Life. I would invite you, then, to complement the fleeting words of the Kol Nidré and words of urgent morality from the machzor with writing your own ethical will – you can glean inspiration and tips from the website ethicalwill.com. 

For those of you who do not write on Shabbat and Yom Tov; this is a project that can be done right up till Hoshanah Rabbah, when the Gates of Repentance really close for the year. For those Progressive Jews who do choose to write on holy days, I invite you to consider taking up pen and paper when you come home tonight after services. You might even use the machzor as a source of inspiration. Consider the question you would like to ask yourself. If the machzor represents a meeting between God and the individual, then maybe you can see yourself from the God’s eye perspective. See yourself with both chesed and din, loving-kindness and judgment. What things did you get right this year and what things did you get wrong? Who is this person you are trying to become? Who are the people you want to honour, love and cherish in your lives? What are the timeless values you want to impart on family and friends? And how do you wish to be remembered? Write these words with tenderness – they can truly be a gift. 

It seems indeed that the ethical will can be an excellent metaphor and tool for the transformative experience of Yom Kippur. We can seal ourselves in the Book of Life; not out of presumption and arrogance but out of contrition and quiet dignity. 

This moral profundity is reflected in the first written ethical will known to us, from Eleazar, the son of the famous 11th century Ashkenazi rabbi Isaac of Worms. In this document, Eleazar writes advice fitting for this time of year: 

 “Think not of evil, for evil thinking leads to evil doing.... Purify your body, the dwelling-place of your soul.... Give of all your food a portion to God. Let God’s portion be the best, and give it to the poor.” 

Another scholar, Asher, the son of Yechiel, writes in the 14th century, leaving us with another appropriate set of values: “Do not obey the Law for reward, nor avoid sin from fear of punishment, but serve God from love.” 

I would like to close with the wisdom of our beloved Anne Frank - even the young can share transformative and prophetic insights. Allow me to read some snippets of the ‘ethical will’ she left the world, through the words of her diary. Consider these words alongside with the themes of the machzor:

“The final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.” Pair this with “Hachayim v’hamavet natati lefanecha, hab’racha v’hak’lalah, uv’acharta bachayim - I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse... choose life!” (Deut. 30:19) 

Or, “No one has ever become poor by giving”, which can be read in conjunction with, “al chet shechatanu lefanecha b’neshech uv’marbit – for the sin we have committed before You by financial greed.’ (Liturgy) 

Or, “I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart” with “Elohai, neshamah shenatata bi, tehorah hi – my God, the soul You have given me is pure.” (Liturgy) 

And finally, “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world” with “Limdu heitiv, darshu mishpat – learn to do good, seek justice” (Isaiah 1:17). 

The key word here is limdu, the imperative to learn. We are our own books, the stories of our own lives. It is never too late to write them, to be inscribed for goodness and eternity, in the reflections we share and the love we transmit, from one day to the next, from Rosh haShanah when we are written to Yom Kippur when we are sealed. The gates and the pages of our ethical wills are open. 

Give yourself and your loved ones this gift. G’mar chatimah tovah!

Heroes and Villains

Yom Kippur Sermon 

Southport Reform Synagogue 

The Heroes and Villains Among Us: Abraham and Jonah 

One of the great unexpected delights of rabbinical school was discovering that so many of my fellow students are science fiction and fantasy nerds. Star Trek, Star Wars (but never both at once!), Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings – all these modern-day sagas were loved, cherished and dissected by us students. I guess it makes sense: these narratives are so archetypical and we rabbis love a good story and a good book. 

One fantasy, however, that many of us have been particularly engrossed with is the ‘Game of Thrones’ book series by George R.R. Martin, also a successful television series by the American network HBO. In most fantasy and sci-fi, there is not so much space for moral ambiguity or psychological depth. Not so in ‘Game of Thrones’ – set in a brutal Medieval world, even the most noble of characters know their darker sphere and even the greatest of villains have some redeeming qualities. Its realism makes the saga truly compelling. It is the same realism that Tanakh displays. 

Heroes and villains may not be so different; and that applies too to our inner heroes and villains. 

A meaningful example of such a hero-villain continuum is found in two of our High Holy Day protagonists: Abraham and Jonah. Abraham is often cast as the heroic man of faith who argues with God for the redemption of Sodom and Gomorrah. Jonah, however, is seen as the reluctant and petty prophet who has no desire to bring his redemptive message to the people of Nineveh. There are many parallels between the two stories and I think they are deliberate. We can see the Jonah story as a ‘Midrash’ on the Abraham story. The Jonah narrative is, if you will, a sequel that subverts many of the messages of the Abraham narrative in order to bring to light more meaning. 

This idea is not entirely my own. The technique of reading different Biblical texts as midrashic commentaries of each other, as sequels that subvert or affirm each other, was developed by the Biblical scholar Judy Klitsner in her book ‘Subversive Sequels in the Bible - How Biblical Stories Mine and Undermine Each Other’. The idea behind reading Biblical texts this way is called intertextuality – that a story can be multilayered, nuanced and possess different possible readings. It is both bold creativity and deep respect, trusting that the Biblical stories can teach us something both new and profound. 

Let us start with Abraham. 

The first narrative is that of Abraham, spanning the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, chapter 18, versus 16 to 33. Abraham bids farewell to the three mysterious men who announce that he and his wife will still bear progeny. Abraham sees them off in the direction of Sodom. Meanwhile, God says to Himself: ‘shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?’ (Gen. 18:17) God decides to confide in the patriarch, saying about Sodom and Gomorrah, ‘za’akat S’dom v’Amorah ki rabah v’chatatam ki kav’dah me’od’, ‘the outcry of [against] Sodom and Gomorrah is very great and their sin is very heavy’ (Gen. 18:20). God decides that the cities should be destroyed. Abraham’s response is startling: rather than acquiescing to God’s plan, Abraham challenges his God, saying, ‘ha’af tis’peh tzadik im rasha? ’, ‘will you even sweep away the righteous with the wicked’? (Gen. 18:23, translation mine) only to continue with, ‘hashofet kol ha’aretz lo ya’aseh mishpat?’, ‘shall not the Judge of all the earth do justice?’ (Gen. 18:25). He then famously proceeds to bargain with God over the lives of the few righteous in Sodom. However, God does not relent and overturns the cities. 

Abraham’s heroic act of moral bravery stands in contrast with Abraham’s other moral weaknesses such as the Binding of Isaac, where he fails to challenge God in order to spare his beloved son’s life. 

Jonah, in the Book of Jonah, makes the inverse journey. Abraham represents the hero archetype, and Jonah is our villain. We feel empathy with Abraham; he champions the cause of the oppressed and makes peace. Jonah, on the other hand, is less easy to empathise with. Jonah flees from before the Eternal when charged with his prophetic mission to ‘call on Nineveh’ (Jonah 1:2). Not only does Jonah flee far, far away in the opposite direction, to Tarshish (Spain), but he also relishes in God’s ‘condemnation’ of Nineveh. Jonah is a weak character. He goes down to sleep on the ship to Tarshish in the middle of a storm (Jonah 1:5), shows little concern for the plight of the (non-Israelite) sailors on the ship (Jonah 1:6), is displeased at Nineveh’s repentance (Jonah 4:1) and wallows in self-pity as his beloved kikayon, (bottle gourd plant ) perishes. 

Finally, the book ends with a happy end for Nineveh but rather unhappily for our anti-hero. Jonah does not get what he wants. He is left to brood on his own moral failings. How are these two incredible stories linked? Jonah is the ‘subversive sequel’ to the Abraham saga. The Jonah narrative ‘flips’ a number of key elements in the Abraham story to teach us something about both God and humankind. Both Abraham and Jonah start off seemingly solitary and enjoy an intimate relationship with God. Both are travellers. But while Abraham travels towards God (Gen. 12:1), Jonah flees from God (Jonah 1:2). If anything, Abraham travels across land - arduous and slow - while Jonah travels by sea - efficient and fast. Perhaps the message is that it is difficult to march towards goodness but easy to sail away from it. 

Jonah is almost a polar opposite of Abraham. Whereas Abraham is praised by non-Abrahamites, such as Melchizedek (Gen. 14:19), Jonah eschews relationships with non-Israelites, as he goes down to hide in the ‘belly’ of the ship. The character differences become most apparent in the moment of confrontation with God. Abraham lays the groundwork for the later prophetic traditon: that of the prophet interceding on behalf of the accused by ‘standing in the breach’, even for those outside of the Israelite covenant. Jonah, however, fails miserably in this regard. Even Elie Wiesel doubts whether he deserves to be called a ‘prophet’ since he does not seek to ‘save men but to punish them’! 

Not only can we examine our prophet but also the people they enter into prophetic relationship with. While innocent ‘Gentiles’ (for lack of a better term) fail to avert the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, it is on account of innocent ‘Gentiles’ that both Jonah and Nineveh are spared. Gentiles play another unique role in the book of Jonah: as the ‘innocent’ sailors who try to deal with their misfortune ethically and honestly. They are reluctant to throw Jonah overboard and embrace ‘ethical monotheism’ (Jonah 2:13 and 14). The sailors show the kind of ‘Abrahamic’ moral courage that Jonah is lacking! The other Gentiles featured in the story are the inhabitants of Nineveh themselves who repent quickly and successfully. Nineveh succeeds where Sodom fails. Finally, God, too, undergoes significant subversion. In the Jonah account, He is far more compassionate. Wrath is amended with mercy and the God of Jonah is a far more forgiving and universalist God than the God in the Abraham narrative. It is as though God Himself has undergone radical change. ‘V’ani lo achus al Nineveh, ha ir hagedolah?’, He says (Jonah 4:11), ‘should I not care for Nineveh, the great city?’. 

Whereas Abraham unsuccessfully appealed to God’s justice, Jonah unsuccessfully tried to block God’s mercy. If we see the Jonah story as a sequel of the Abraham story, then perhaps God wanted Jonah to do what Abraham did: resist His judgement. Not only does God care about repentance; He cares for humanity as a whole. It is God’s Self Who provides the ultimate prophetic message of universal Divine Love when the prophet fails. 

We must, in a way embrace both the villain and hero within us; to grow in self-awareness and self-improvement.

If both God and His prophets can grow and cultivate compassion, then so can we. It is with good cause, then, that we travel through Yom Kippur with Abraham and Jonah by our sides. They are both conflicted characters, who do both good and ill. They are real; of flesh-and-blood and three-dimensional. No wonder us sci-fi and fantasy geeks find our Tanakh so compelling. The best stories don’t only keep us riveted but they help us change and become better versions of ourselves and help us to see the best both in our fellow man and in God. 

What better plot is there for the High Holy Days? 

G’mar chatimah tovah!

The Numbers Game

Southport Reform Synagogue

Esther Hugenholtz 

The Numbers Game 

This is a sermon that shouldn’t be delivered again. This won’t be original nor will it be my best. It won’t be clever, complex or sophisticated. It won’t include intelligent commentary on the Torah or bring insightful citations from the Talmud. But it will be real. 

I wrote a sermon on a similar theme last year. the economy. Almost five years ago, in 2008, I started my rabbinical studies in the United States. My husband and I had plans to emigrate to America from the Netherlands. I moved to Los Angeles and hoped that he’d catch up soon and find a job in his field. 

‘Man plans and God laughs’, the Yiddish saying goes. The economy collapsed, my husband lost his job back home and couldn’t find one in the USA. We were forced to maintain a long-distance marriage for the two years that we struggled to keep me in school despite dwindling funds and stalling opportunities. Eventually, we had to face the music and pull out of rabbinical school and return to Europe. 

I left a country that had been reduced to shambles, going from bad to worse: middle class Jewish ‘doctor-lawyer’ families found themselves unemployed and cutting into their pensions in order to pay their kids’ school fees, Jewish charities found themselves struggling and synagogues merged, closed down and couldn’t employ new rabbis, leaving many colleagues in dire straits. And this was within a privileged section of solidly middle class American society. 

Far more chilling were reports of sprawling tent cities populated by the working poor, grating stories of foreclosed homes, of the sick and elderly not getting the healthcare and help they needed and unemployment rates numbering in the millions, reaching double digit percentages. I dare not think of the consequences of this crisis for the millions and millions who are truly vulnerable, to whom the crisis makes the difference between malnutrition and actual starvation, between indentured servitude and outright slavery, between ethnic tension and full-blown war. With the euro teetering and countries like Greece brought to the brink of both bankruptcy and fascism. 

Man plans, it seems, but I don’t think God is laughing. 

My husband and I got very lucky. We returned to Europe and I transferred to Leo Baeck College in London where I was warmly received. We were forced to remain long-distance for two more years, as I studied in London and he managed to rebuild his career. Things aren’t easy or secure but we are OK. We have a lot to be thankful for. 

And yet, when I look beyond my immediate concerns, I’m angry. Furious. 

A few months ago, I read a shocking statistic. A twenty-one with twelve zeros. 21 trillion US dollars. Or 13 trillion pounds sterling. This is the amount that the super-rich have hidden in secret bank accounts, according to a report by Tax Justice Network . 

I saw the number spread across my computer screen as this article made a brief cameo appearance in the news. And then it disappeared almost without a trace. Where was the moral outcry, the righteous indignation? 

Let me read you some snippets of the report. Rarely did I find a financial report such riveting reading: 

“At least $21 trillion of unreported private financial wealth was owned by wealthy individuals via tax havens at the end of 2010. This sum is equivalent to the size of the United States and Japanese economies combined. There may be as much as $32 trillion of hidden financial assets held offshore by high net worth individuals according to our report... We consider these numbers to be conservative. This is only financial wealth and excludes a welter of real estate, yachts and other non financial assets owned via offshore structures.” 

As if this isn’t enough, I quote: 

“This hidden offshore sector is large enough to make a significant difference to all of our conventional measures of inequality... For most countries, global financial inequality is not only much greater than we suspected, but it has been growing much faster. It turns out that this offshore sector—which specializes in tax dodging is basically designed and operated... by the world’s largest private banks, law firms and accounting firms headquartered in First World capitals like London, New York and Geneva. Our detailed analysis of these banks shows that the leaders are the very same ones that have figured so prominently in government bailouts...” 

I know I’m on thin ice here. Sermonising on the moral corruption of a tiny, ultra-rich minority? It seems to be dangerously close to declaring a partisan position or stirring up class war, although I must emphasise that the Tax Justice Network is an initiative support by civil society groups which emerged from the British Houses of Parliament - hardly revolutionary. However, not speaking out for fear of giving an overly-political sermon holds even greater moral peril. If ethical monotheism cannot have a fire-and-brimstone moment to condemn grave social injustice, then what can? As Progressive Jews who echo the ethics of our Prophetic tradition, we can wonder what Hosea, Amos and Isaiah would have said. 

We can only imagine what those financial resources could do. Feed, clothe, educate and protect the entire world’s population multiple times over. Be invested in fundamental research in curing debilitating diseases and solving environmental crises. There is a messianic ring to this absurd number, to quote Jeremiah, ‘a future and a hope’. 

Apart from the obvious moral indictment, there is a deeper layer, most relevant for this solemn season. The fundamental inequality in our world doesn't only provide us with a moral crisis but also a spiritual and theological challenge. Every day, executive decision made by very powerful and influential human beings hangs the lives of other human beings in the balance. The owners of the 21 trillion inscribe the rest of us in the Book of Life and Death. This is blasphemy and idolatry, a violation of both the meaning of God and the image of Man. 

Let’s take a look at one of the most central prayers of our High Holy Day liturgy, the Unetaneh Tokef: 

“For all who pass away and all who are born, for all who live and all who die, for those who complete their normal span and those who do not – who perish by fire or water, by the violence of man or the beast, by hunger or thirst, by disaster, plague or execution, for those who rest and those who wander, for the secure and the tormented, for those who become poor and those who become rich, for the failures and the famous.”  

The Unetaneh Tokef is God’s numbers game, His economic report. It is a powerful yet grim text that cuts to the core of life’s most harrowing existential question: who lives and who dies and by what criteria is this determined? It is a question that is both universal and unanswerable. It is a question that, even in the best of circumstances, none of us can avoid. 

The Unetaneh Tokef could be dismissed morally reprehensible. A moral atheist may conclude that this is not the God he or she wants to believe in. Can we and must we believe in a God Who micromanages our existence? A God Who toys with the lives of people? We can reinterpret the metaphor because the alternative is far more disturbing. It is saying that it is OK for human beings themselves to have this divine power. Instead of God casting the dice, we do. God, then, is not the dictator Who controls our every move and condemning or redeeming us as He chooses. 

The Unetanek Tokef, rather, by giving God sovereignty over our lives, even in ways that modern sensibilities deem both unrealistic and disturbing, makes God the placeholder of humanity’s dignity and the guarantor of the inalienable worth of each human being. It is a rallying cry for social justice and a reminder that both the Reality of God and the Idea of God reign supreme: not the power, greed or money of Man. If we take God seriously, then we should take human beings seriously. This is, to paraphrase Abraham Joshua Heschel, the duty of the religious person. 

The most important number in the numbers game then, is not the 21 trillion, or the mere 100,000 people holding 9.8 trillion of that wealth (0.001 % of the world population, yes, I did the math). The most important number is one. One. For the One God Who gives us the moral impetus to condemn cruelty and injustice in His Name and in Whose image each one of us is created, making not high the wealthy or low the poor. One. Because every person matters. One, because no human life can ever be expressed in economic terms. This is the economy that matters. 

It is not up to us to inscribe or deny each other in the Book of Life. It is up to us to create a world where each of us may be written in the Book of Life and none of us will be denied. I pray, bemeirah beyameinu, speedily and in our days, that I do not need to give this sermon again next year. 

Shana tovah.