NOTICING OUR SOUL
Kol Nidre (evening drash)
Good evening, Shana Tov, a joyful and cleansing Yom Kippur to all of us. On Rosh HaShana I explained that my theme for this year’s high holiday drashot would be to look at five different connections, or relationship, different ways how we can experience holiness, the divine in our lives, and also how these can relate to forgiveness. On Erev Rosh HaShana I spoke about the power of nature.
We explored how the kabbalistic world of Assiyah, physical creation, is a place of beauty, inspiration and acceptance of our faults as we can grow, or evolve through them. On Rosh HaShana morning I shared some ideas about finding God in community and talked about the kabbalistic world of Yetzirah, emotional formation, and how gathering in and with community, connecting with others, with tolerance and learning to be respectful, can be paths of forgiveness. Tonight I want to talk about the third dimension of reality according to Jewish mysticism: Briah, the intellectual realm of creativity, where wisdom is a connection to what is sacred and divine.
It should be no surprise that Judaism teaches that wisdom is a path to a better life here on earth and also a path to our more lofty pursuits. We certainly aren’t known as the people of the book because we are mostly bookies and bookmakers. The origin of this description is actually the Koran, which mentions us as people with a shared monotheistic faith that is based in scripture, written wisdom. It’s actually not very accurate; we are not the people of the book, we are the people of the books, many books, books that have influenced the majority of the world, and also obscure esoteric writings that are read only be an initiated select few. We are the people of the Torah, the prophets, the writings, (aka the Bible), the Mishnah, the Talmud, the Midrash, the Zohar, Sefer Yetzirah, Rashi, Rambam and Ramban, responsum, let alone history books, pre-state chief rabbi of Palestine Rav Kook books, and cookbooks, comic books, scripts, books about books, newspapers, magazines, websites and Zuckerberg’s Facebook. Our books of wisdom would overflow any coffee table, doctor’s waiting room, or even a large city library. Just reading the Talmud, by studying the front and back of one page a day, called Daf Yomi, takes more than 7 years. A Torah scroll that is unrolled is the length of a football field. Come back on Simchat Torah when we not only dance, sing, parade, feast and make l’chaims as we finish and re-start the annual Torah reading cycle, but also unroll an entire Torah scroll from the edge of this bimah, to the stage in the back of the social hall. And it barely fits! A Torah scroll, our most holy and foundational book that has guided and inspired Jews and others for more than 3,000 years, has 304,805 letters, divided into 5 books, and 55 weekly portions. It contains 365 instructions of what not to do, and 248 positive mitzvot of what we should do. And that is just one our books.
And, it’s not just a love of writing and reading books that gives us an association with wisdom and intellectual creativity. It seems to be in our genes to ask questions, formulate hypotheses, research and teach the world. More than 900 people have been awarded Nobel prizes; 20% have been Jews, and yet we are only .2% of the world’s population. There is simply really no way of explaining this other than that we are a chosen people; we have chosen to work hard in every field that we have gone in to or created. The first Jewish recipient, Adolf von Baeyer, was awarded the prize in Chemistry in 1905. In 2018, the most recent Jewish recipient was physics laureate Arthur Ashkin, the oldest person to ever receive a Nobel Prize at 96 years of age. From trying to get our kids into the best preschools, to Moses still teaching our ancestors at the age of 120, we are a life-long nation of teachers, professors, judges, doctors and also family recipes and traditions that have impacted the world with our wisdom. As Walter Sobchak says in the cult-classic film the Big Lebowski: “Three thousand years of beautiful tradition, from Moses to Sandy Koufax...You're damn right I'm living in the freakin’ past!”.
So, what is wisdom? The dictionary teaches us it’s “the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment”. What is Torah? As Wikipedia explains: “the word ‘Torah’ means ‘instruction’, ‘teaching’ or ‘law’, (or the intended direction of an arrow). It can most specifically mean the first five books of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), it can also mean the continued narrative from all 24 books, from the Book of Genesis to the end of Chronicles, and it can even mean the totality of Jewish teaching, culture and practice, whether derived from biblical texts or later rabbinic writings. In rabbinic literature the word Torah denotes both the written five books of Moses, and the Oral Torah, the ‘Torah that is spoken’. According to the Midrash, the Torah was actually created prior to the creation of the world, and was used as the blueprint for creation. Reading, chanting, studying, questioning and debating the Torah publicly is one of, if not the main, bases of Jewish communal life.”
The Midrash states (Eichah Rabbah 2:13): “If a person tells you there is wisdom among the nations of the world, believe them. If a person tells you there is Torah among the nations of the world, don’t believe them.” This is the clear conviction that there is much wisdom among the many nations and religions of the world. Torah, in its literal sense and in the larger sense of Jewish wisdom, is our unique spiritual path. Both wisdom and Torah are ways to greater holiness.
We are a faith that does not believe that God is full knowable. Let’s begin with the realization that this universe is not fully knowable. It is infinite, it has no end, and is somehow always expanding. We can’t even grasp this basic feature of our home. If we can’t fully know the universe, the place that we dwell, how could we claim to understand or know the Creator of such a universe, which by definition must be greater than what is being created? We can sense holiness, we have moments of experiencing the divine presence, but we can’t claim to fully know God and understand the mysterious ways that our world or heaven function. Our life assignment is not to understand God, but to know and understand ourselves. Our lives can have meaning when we make this world better than we found it, and we have to fix our own selves before we can help others and repair the world. “There is a crack in everything” Leonard Cohen wrote and sang, “that’s how the light gets in”. Recognizing and healing from our own breaks and fractures and hurts allows us to improve ourselves, and once we have done that, we can better help others. Every flight attendant teaches us this basic truth: put your own air mask on before assisting others.
We help ourselves and others through knowledge, wisdom, understanding. When we learn more about this infinite universe, we better understand our selves and thus God. Every little piece of information, including self-knowledge, is a part of the jigsaw puzzle and the mystery of life itself. We find our humanity when we help others; we can find ourselves and holiness when we learn and grow. The morals of Judaism are clear: one needs instruction to live a meaningful life, one needs self-knowledge to learn and grow, and one can find holiness when we live and learn with wisdom. God can be encountered through study. The Torah is not in heaven, it’s not across the sea; it’s in our hearts and mouths, it’s in our lives. Inner reflection is a key way that we gain wisdom. Only when we learn from what has happened, can we give ourselves permission to feel forgiven.
Rosh HaShana is the anniversary of the creation of the world, the end of the 6th day of creation, the anniversary of when Adam and Eve managed to break the only rule they were given in paradise. When they ate from the tree of knowledge and their eyes became open to shame and sexuality, they committed the actual sin: blaming someone else: “the snake gave it to me!”, “the woman gave it to me!”. Their mistake was not that they disobeyed, the Zohar teaches that we were to be allowed to eat the fruit if they had only waited until Shabbat, they did truly wrong when they didn’t take responsibility for their own actions. Yom Kippur is the anniversary of when we were forgiven from the mistake of the golden calf. It’s when we learned that to be forgiven by heaven is to have the slate wiped fully clean, as if it had never even happened. And we learn that the antidote to making mistakes, sinning, disconnection from God and the good, is to own them. When we learn from our mistakes, and apologize for them, we are forgiven. Teshuvah, spiritual return, thus is all about learning. When we learn, we grow, become more whole, and can become more holy. It starts with looking back, realizing where we missed the mark, and and learning how we can be who we know we can be, not perfect, but better, growing, learning.
We all know that ignorance of the law is no defense. It’s on us to know what is expected of us. Thankfully, there is a user and instruction manual for life: it’s the Torah, the mitzvot, the wisdom of 3,500 years of Jewish history and teachings. Practically every day of the year is one where we give our bodies what they need, and the soul just goes along for the ride. Yom Kippur is a day that we are to notice and focus on our souls instead of our bodies. We know what our bodies crave; but what feeds our souls? Jewish tradition encourages us to nourish our spirits through self-reflection, meditation, asking questions, communal rituals and study. And there is one form of wisdom that is always available to us even when there are no books or teachers: self-knowledge. When we learn from our lives, we improve them and the world around us. When we admit our mistakes, when we take responsibility, we become wiser and better. This is what can give our lives purpose and meaning. We can find forgiveness in knowledge, the knowledge that we can do better.
I encourage everyone here to make a commitment to deep soul learning on this Yom Kippur and in this coming year. To do a deep dive into feeding our souls, we have the five prayer services of this day, each including a whispered Amidah when we stand one-on-one with the universe and ourselves. This is a day dedicated to spiritual return, prayer, and righteous acts: teshuvah, tefillah, tzedakah. Beyond this day and its many opportunities for study, discussion and learning, every week this community provides compelling ways to add to your wisdom: Torah study discussions every Saturday at 9:30am where we ask “what does this come to teach you?”, drashot and updates about “on this date in Jewish history” every Friday night, Meaningful Judaism adult ed classes and Adult Hebrew on Sunday mornings. These classes are free, open to everyone, and a way to ensure that we are always learning. One more opportunity: how many people in this room have ever been confused by the content and structure of a Shabbat Service? I have an offer that I really hope you’ll take me up on: let’s set a time to grab a cup of coffee and in 45 minutes I will explain the history and purpose of our prayers in a short one-one-one session that can really transform the next Bar/Bat Mitzvah you have to sit through feeling confused. I hope that my point is clear: our community offers regular opportunities for self-reflection and adult education, both of which help us encounter the divine as we become who we are meant to be.
This past summer, almost two dozen of us traveled to Poland on a Jewish heritage trip. We saw many beautiful restored synagogues and the largest Jewish building that we toured was the former yeshiva in Lublin, where the daily study of Talmud was first set up. On the large building, now a hotel, were the Hebrew words: “אֲלַמֶּדְכֶֽם Adonai לְכֽוּ־בָ֖נִים שִׁמְעוּ־לִ֑י יִרְאַ֥ת”. This is a quote from the Psalms, 34:12 “Come my children, listen to me, I will teach you what it is to have awe of God.” How do we learn to have awe of heaven? Through learning from our teachers, our history, our sacred texts, and our lives. Spiritual cleansing can be found in our connections to nature, acceptance can found in our community connections, and forgiveness can be found when we learn and grown. How do we know when have been forgiven? When we take from what we have experienced and read, studied and seen, and we become wiser from it. As Joni Mitchell wrote in her song Woodstock: “And I don’t know who I am, but life is for learning.” And as Rosa Parks said “I believe we are here on the planet Earth to live, grow up and do what we can to make this world a better place for all people to enjoy freedom.”
Gamar Chatima Tovah - may we all be fully sealed for goodness!
We explored how the kabbalistic world of Assiyah, physical creation, is a place of beauty, inspiration and acceptance of our faults as we can grow, or evolve through them. On Rosh HaShana morning I shared some ideas about finding God in community and talked about the kabbalistic world of Yetzirah, emotional formation, and how gathering in and with community, connecting with others, with tolerance and learning to be respectful, can be paths of forgiveness. Tonight I want to talk about the third dimension of reality according to Jewish mysticism: Briah, the intellectual realm of creativity, where wisdom is a connection to what is sacred and divine.
It should be no surprise that Judaism teaches that wisdom is a path to a better life here on earth and also a path to our more lofty pursuits. We certainly aren’t known as the people of the book because we are mostly bookies and bookmakers. The origin of this description is actually the Koran, which mentions us as people with a shared monotheistic faith that is based in scripture, written wisdom. It’s actually not very accurate; we are not the people of the book, we are the people of the books, many books, books that have influenced the majority of the world, and also obscure esoteric writings that are read only be an initiated select few. We are the people of the Torah, the prophets, the writings, (aka the Bible), the Mishnah, the Talmud, the Midrash, the Zohar, Sefer Yetzirah, Rashi, Rambam and Ramban, responsum, let alone history books, pre-state chief rabbi of Palestine Rav Kook books, and cookbooks, comic books, scripts, books about books, newspapers, magazines, websites and Zuckerberg’s Facebook. Our books of wisdom would overflow any coffee table, doctor’s waiting room, or even a large city library. Just reading the Talmud, by studying the front and back of one page a day, called Daf Yomi, takes more than 7 years. A Torah scroll that is unrolled is the length of a football field. Come back on Simchat Torah when we not only dance, sing, parade, feast and make l’chaims as we finish and re-start the annual Torah reading cycle, but also unroll an entire Torah scroll from the edge of this bimah, to the stage in the back of the social hall. And it barely fits! A Torah scroll, our most holy and foundational book that has guided and inspired Jews and others for more than 3,000 years, has 304,805 letters, divided into 5 books, and 55 weekly portions. It contains 365 instructions of what not to do, and 248 positive mitzvot of what we should do. And that is just one our books.
And, it’s not just a love of writing and reading books that gives us an association with wisdom and intellectual creativity. It seems to be in our genes to ask questions, formulate hypotheses, research and teach the world. More than 900 people have been awarded Nobel prizes; 20% have been Jews, and yet we are only .2% of the world’s population. There is simply really no way of explaining this other than that we are a chosen people; we have chosen to work hard in every field that we have gone in to or created. The first Jewish recipient, Adolf von Baeyer, was awarded the prize in Chemistry in 1905. In 2018, the most recent Jewish recipient was physics laureate Arthur Ashkin, the oldest person to ever receive a Nobel Prize at 96 years of age. From trying to get our kids into the best preschools, to Moses still teaching our ancestors at the age of 120, we are a life-long nation of teachers, professors, judges, doctors and also family recipes and traditions that have impacted the world with our wisdom. As Walter Sobchak says in the cult-classic film the Big Lebowski: “Three thousand years of beautiful tradition, from Moses to Sandy Koufax...You're damn right I'm living in the freakin’ past!”.
So, what is wisdom? The dictionary teaches us it’s “the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment”. What is Torah? As Wikipedia explains: “the word ‘Torah’ means ‘instruction’, ‘teaching’ or ‘law’, (or the intended direction of an arrow). It can most specifically mean the first five books of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), it can also mean the continued narrative from all 24 books, from the Book of Genesis to the end of Chronicles, and it can even mean the totality of Jewish teaching, culture and practice, whether derived from biblical texts or later rabbinic writings. In rabbinic literature the word Torah denotes both the written five books of Moses, and the Oral Torah, the ‘Torah that is spoken’. According to the Midrash, the Torah was actually created prior to the creation of the world, and was used as the blueprint for creation. Reading, chanting, studying, questioning and debating the Torah publicly is one of, if not the main, bases of Jewish communal life.”
The Midrash states (Eichah Rabbah 2:13): “If a person tells you there is wisdom among the nations of the world, believe them. If a person tells you there is Torah among the nations of the world, don’t believe them.” This is the clear conviction that there is much wisdom among the many nations and religions of the world. Torah, in its literal sense and in the larger sense of Jewish wisdom, is our unique spiritual path. Both wisdom and Torah are ways to greater holiness.
We are a faith that does not believe that God is full knowable. Let’s begin with the realization that this universe is not fully knowable. It is infinite, it has no end, and is somehow always expanding. We can’t even grasp this basic feature of our home. If we can’t fully know the universe, the place that we dwell, how could we claim to understand or know the Creator of such a universe, which by definition must be greater than what is being created? We can sense holiness, we have moments of experiencing the divine presence, but we can’t claim to fully know God and understand the mysterious ways that our world or heaven function. Our life assignment is not to understand God, but to know and understand ourselves. Our lives can have meaning when we make this world better than we found it, and we have to fix our own selves before we can help others and repair the world. “There is a crack in everything” Leonard Cohen wrote and sang, “that’s how the light gets in”. Recognizing and healing from our own breaks and fractures and hurts allows us to improve ourselves, and once we have done that, we can better help others. Every flight attendant teaches us this basic truth: put your own air mask on before assisting others.
We help ourselves and others through knowledge, wisdom, understanding. When we learn more about this infinite universe, we better understand our selves and thus God. Every little piece of information, including self-knowledge, is a part of the jigsaw puzzle and the mystery of life itself. We find our humanity when we help others; we can find ourselves and holiness when we learn and grow. The morals of Judaism are clear: one needs instruction to live a meaningful life, one needs self-knowledge to learn and grow, and one can find holiness when we live and learn with wisdom. God can be encountered through study. The Torah is not in heaven, it’s not across the sea; it’s in our hearts and mouths, it’s in our lives. Inner reflection is a key way that we gain wisdom. Only when we learn from what has happened, can we give ourselves permission to feel forgiven.
Rosh HaShana is the anniversary of the creation of the world, the end of the 6th day of creation, the anniversary of when Adam and Eve managed to break the only rule they were given in paradise. When they ate from the tree of knowledge and their eyes became open to shame and sexuality, they committed the actual sin: blaming someone else: “the snake gave it to me!”, “the woman gave it to me!”. Their mistake was not that they disobeyed, the Zohar teaches that we were to be allowed to eat the fruit if they had only waited until Shabbat, they did truly wrong when they didn’t take responsibility for their own actions. Yom Kippur is the anniversary of when we were forgiven from the mistake of the golden calf. It’s when we learned that to be forgiven by heaven is to have the slate wiped fully clean, as if it had never even happened. And we learn that the antidote to making mistakes, sinning, disconnection from God and the good, is to own them. When we learn from our mistakes, and apologize for them, we are forgiven. Teshuvah, spiritual return, thus is all about learning. When we learn, we grow, become more whole, and can become more holy. It starts with looking back, realizing where we missed the mark, and and learning how we can be who we know we can be, not perfect, but better, growing, learning.
We all know that ignorance of the law is no defense. It’s on us to know what is expected of us. Thankfully, there is a user and instruction manual for life: it’s the Torah, the mitzvot, the wisdom of 3,500 years of Jewish history and teachings. Practically every day of the year is one where we give our bodies what they need, and the soul just goes along for the ride. Yom Kippur is a day that we are to notice and focus on our souls instead of our bodies. We know what our bodies crave; but what feeds our souls? Jewish tradition encourages us to nourish our spirits through self-reflection, meditation, asking questions, communal rituals and study. And there is one form of wisdom that is always available to us even when there are no books or teachers: self-knowledge. When we learn from our lives, we improve them and the world around us. When we admit our mistakes, when we take responsibility, we become wiser and better. This is what can give our lives purpose and meaning. We can find forgiveness in knowledge, the knowledge that we can do better.
I encourage everyone here to make a commitment to deep soul learning on this Yom Kippur and in this coming year. To do a deep dive into feeding our souls, we have the five prayer services of this day, each including a whispered Amidah when we stand one-on-one with the universe and ourselves. This is a day dedicated to spiritual return, prayer, and righteous acts: teshuvah, tefillah, tzedakah. Beyond this day and its many opportunities for study, discussion and learning, every week this community provides compelling ways to add to your wisdom: Torah study discussions every Saturday at 9:30am where we ask “what does this come to teach you?”, drashot and updates about “on this date in Jewish history” every Friday night, Meaningful Judaism adult ed classes and Adult Hebrew on Sunday mornings. These classes are free, open to everyone, and a way to ensure that we are always learning. One more opportunity: how many people in this room have ever been confused by the content and structure of a Shabbat Service? I have an offer that I really hope you’ll take me up on: let’s set a time to grab a cup of coffee and in 45 minutes I will explain the history and purpose of our prayers in a short one-one-one session that can really transform the next Bar/Bat Mitzvah you have to sit through feeling confused. I hope that my point is clear: our community offers regular opportunities for self-reflection and adult education, both of which help us encounter the divine as we become who we are meant to be.
This past summer, almost two dozen of us traveled to Poland on a Jewish heritage trip. We saw many beautiful restored synagogues and the largest Jewish building that we toured was the former yeshiva in Lublin, where the daily study of Talmud was first set up. On the large building, now a hotel, were the Hebrew words: “אֲלַמֶּדְכֶֽם Adonai לְכֽוּ־בָ֖נִים שִׁמְעוּ־לִ֑י יִרְאַ֥ת”. This is a quote from the Psalms, 34:12 “Come my children, listen to me, I will teach you what it is to have awe of God.” How do we learn to have awe of heaven? Through learning from our teachers, our history, our sacred texts, and our lives. Spiritual cleansing can be found in our connections to nature, acceptance can found in our community connections, and forgiveness can be found when we learn and grown. How do we know when have been forgiven? When we take from what we have experienced and read, studied and seen, and we become wiser from it. As Joni Mitchell wrote in her song Woodstock: “And I don’t know who I am, but life is for learning.” And as Rosa Parks said “I believe we are here on the planet Earth to live, grow up and do what we can to make this world a better place for all people to enjoy freedom.”
Gamar Chatima Tovah - may we all be fully sealed for goodness!
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