The Return of Chesed - Rosh HaShanah Morning 5772

The Return of Chesed

Rosh HaShanah Morning 5772

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Rabbi Andy Koren

Temple Emanuel, Greensboro, NC

Chassidic Jews appear in many stories.  Here’s one that you may not have heard before.  A group of Chassidic Jews go to the circus.  Turns out, the Chassidic circus is in town.  All of the animals are kosher, the trapeze artists (the Flying Feldmans) all wear modest dress, you get the picture.  Even the clowns are Chassidim.

As is the case with all circuses, there is the part where a VW buggy drives into the big tent.  The doors to this amazingly small car open.  And out comes one Chassidic clown.  He looks around.  The Chassidic spectators start clapping and laughing as he walks back to the car and not one, not two, but seventeen other Chassidim come out of the tiny Volkswagen.

After the show, the Chassidic spectators wait near the clown tent.  They just have to meet one the Chassidic clowns from the VW act.  They have to know how they did it.

Sure enough, the main clown steps out and the Chassidim are waiting there for him.

“Brother, that was the greatest show we have ever seen.  And your part was by far the most spectacular.”

“Thank you so much,” said the Chassidic clown.  “What can I do for you?”

“We’ve got to know,” one of the spectators started, “how did you do it?  How did you do that trick where all of other Chassidim come out of that small car?”

“Well, I’ll tell,” you said the clown.  “We researched with other circuses.  They actually have a trap door underneath car and another in the ground.  But we figured that we couldn’t do that.  It just wouldn’t be honest.”

“You mean to tell us that your act wasn’t a trick?”

“Not at all.  There were 18 of us in that car.”

The Chassidim shook their heads in disbelief as the clown continued.  “Just prior to entering the big top, we pack up that car.  I go in first.  Then Shlomo, Sammy, and Dovid.  And so on and so forth.”

“There must be a secret to how you make this work.  You make it sound so easy,” one of the Chassidic spectators said. 

“Well it could be difficult, if we wanted to make it that way.  But, we don’t.  In fact, as each new Chassid comes into the car, we squish together to make more room.  And here’s our secret: For each new person who enters, we have to be a little closer to one another, and much kinder.  Indeed, we have to love each other just a little more.”

Throughout our tradition, this idea of being a little closer, being kinder, and loving each other is highlighted and commanded.

One of the first examples we have is of Abraham.  Sodom and Gomorrah are condemned cities; yet, Abraham appeals to God on their behalf, asking God to spare these mega-cities should there be only 10 righteous people – a simple minyan – living there.

Our tradition connects major characters with their highest attributes.  Judaism connects Abraham with the quality of chesed – loving kindness and compassion.    Abraham exhibits chesed to others.  However, it is Abraham who must rely on God's chesed – God’s kindness and compassion – in this morning’s Torah reading.  God tests Abraham by instructing him to sacrifice his son Isaac.  And Abraham tests God: will I have to go through with this?  Isaac is spared because God shows compassion.

But it is not just Abraham.  We build a Golden Calf and God is ready to wipe us out.  Moses appeals to God for forgiveness.  “God, You are Notzeir Chesed La-Alafim – You, show compassion and mercy to thousands.”  We sing that passage during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur as we confess our wrongdoings, hoping that God will forgive us now just as we received forgiveness in the Golden Calf story.

Perhaps you noticed as you walked into Temple this morning that our cornerstone is engraved with the words of the Prophet Micah: do justice, love chesed, and walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8).  Chesed is so central to who we are as a Temple that we carved it in stone and placed it as our foundation.

These are just a few of the 248 times that chesed appears in one form or another in the Torah.  That number may seem random, but it is well-known in Jewish tradition.  Of the 613 commandments, 248 are positive commandments, that is to say, the “Thou-Shalts,” the things we are commanded to do.  The Torah is telling us that behind all of our actions there should be kindness.  Moreover, in pre-modern times Rabbis learned from their doctors that there are 248 organs and other parts of the human body.  Whether this medical tidbit is true or not, chesed is something that we should feel in our guts.  It should come from our kishkes, as well as from our hands and our thoughts.  It should be all encompassing.

But it’s not.  Not these days, at least.  Not in the large measures we would expect.  What we are treated to each and every hour in a non-stop 24/7 cycle is political punditry.  Instead of squeezing a little closer, being a little kinder, loving more, we push others away, sharpen our knives, and go for the jugular.  No one is given the benefit of the doubt.  It’s always election time.  Mean-spiritedness is the order of the day.  We feed on conflict; we thrive on criticism.  What is missing? Chesed.

Take the issue of immigration, for example.  Our country has a rich history of immigration.  Many will claim that the US is a country of immigrants; all of us, except for Native Americans, at some point came from elsewhere.  You would think we, of all nations, would be the most understanding and that Americans would have chesed on this issue.

Jewish tradition has a very strong position on how immigrants should be treated.  More than any other commandment in the Torah, 39 times, we are told to treat the stranger, the outsider, the immigrant well.  God implores us to “love the stranger.” (Deuteronomy 10:19)  Why?  Because left to our own devices, we would exploit outsiders; we would deny them the protections that we take for granted.  We should know better; we were once strangers in the land of Egypt and in many other places since.  Perhaps for this reason, Israel’s immigration laws are among the most liberal and accepting in the world.

The American immigration system has been broken for so long.  Today, there are well over 11 million undocumented immigrants in our country.  Immigration laws are in desperate need of comprehensive reform.  Yet, while this is happening, kids are getting caught in the middle.

This year alone, over 65,000 undocumented students will graduate from American high schools.  They came to the United States as young children with their parents. They want to go on and study for higher degrees.  They want to serve in the military of the only country they have known.  Yet, when they declare that they want to do this, they are asked for their papers.  Without papers, they face deportation.  Why are they being forced to pay the price for a broken system?

Imagine a kid whose parents came here when she was only 4.  She is now 19 and wanting to do what her peers are doing.  She is told that this is impossible.  I met this young woman; I heard the urgency in her voice.  Last week, I was on a call with a young man named Moises.  Here’s how he explained it: "My best friend was going to go off to college to be somebody, and I was going to stay here and be nobody."

These kids go to school with our kids.  They have known no other home but America.  Many now face detention and then deportation. It is a country that lacks chesed which would send kids to a place they didn't grow up, where they have no ties, no family, nothing.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in Washington worked on changing this.  They wrote a piece of legislation called the DREAM Act which would offer a path to citizenship for kids in this unjust predicament, provided that they are upstanding individuals of high moral character.  Teens from our Temple have lobbied in DC during the L’Taken Social Justice Seminar for the passage of the DREAM Act.  Frankly, the DREAM Act should already be the law of the US.  It passed the US House and had bi-partisan support in the Senate.  Late last year, though, it met its fate due to a Senate filibuster.

Just two weeks ago, on a Friday night, our Temple was one of the first congregations nationwide of any religion or denomination to host a DREAM Act Sabbath. Two undocumented students spoke from this pulpit, asking for our support, our understanding, our chesed.   For them and so many others, this has to change.  Meanness, conflict, and criticism need to give way to compassion and chesed.

There is another issue, specifically in North Carolina, which will be a test of who we truly are and our measure of chesed.  We all remember gathering here in unity on the tenth anniversary of September 11^th.  Just one day later, on September 12th, the North Carolina House voted to amend our state’s constitution defining marriage as only applying to heterosexuals.  And a day after that, the NC Senate followed suit.  The upcoming ballot will feature what will be termed a Defense of Marriage Amendment.

We need to remember the following: there is already a law in North Carolina passed in the early 90s which defines marriage in the way that this amendment proposes.  Taking this additional step to include language in our state Constitution which is discriminatory in this degree can only be seen as the opposite of chesed.  These days when the world is in such turmoil, is this issue what we want our elected officials working on?

Matters of sexual preference should be between individuals and their religious community's interpretation of Scripture, morals, and ethics.  The same should be said about marriage.  What do politicians really mean when they say that they are defending marriage?  You would think that the best way to do this would be to make sure that there are jobs, good education, and equal protection under the law.  Codifying one religious interpretation over others will not protect my marriage or anyone else's.  What it will do is restrict some loving couples from inheritances, powers of attorney, or visitations at critical moments in their lives.  What is will do is codify discrimination in our state’s constitution.

As Jews we know only all too well the devastating consequences when discriminatory laws are written into the judicial framework of a state or a country.  In Germany in 1935, the Nuremberg laws represented the beginning of the end of European Jewry by codifying anti Semitism and a denial of equal civil rights into government law.  We here in the South also know well the effect of the Jim Crow laws when they did likewise.  As a state, do we really wish to return to these days? I hope not and I hope that when the time comes, you will vote to reject this most heinous piece of legislation.

As 5772 begins, we need to be at the forefront of returning chesed to the world around us.  We need to remember that chesed is not just needed on the airwaves or in the halls of government.  Chesed is also so important for those we spend the most time with.  Kids will tell us that chesed is needed at school and online.  A recent study of teens and young adults in their 20s noted that 56% have been the target of online bullying or harassment, a number which has been on the rise for a while.  We need more chesed in our virtual worlds.  But, we also need it in the workplace.  And, we need more chesed at home.

Last night, Rabbi Guttman spoke about the Mezuzah and how it is set at an angle to demonstrate compromise.  A Mezuzah can also teach us about our relationships and how chesed fits into them.  The scroll that we place into the Mezuzah begins with the words of the Shema and then continues with the V’ahavta prayer.  Shema means “listen.”  V’ahavta means “you shall love.”  If you want to love, you first have to listen.

Listening first is so different than how we might regularly operate.  Often, when someone is talking, we might cut them off or just wait for them to finish and so that we can say what we were planning to say anyway.  Or, how often have we walked in the room, seen or heard something, and then just reacted?  No questions, just a response.  I know I have done this far too often.

Shema – listen, really listen.  Don’t react.  Actively listen.  Listen to what your friends, your co-workers, your staff, your boss has to say.  Listen to what your kids, your spouse, your parents (if they are still with us) have to say.  Listen carefully.  Listen with everything you have.  That is the way to bring more chesed to our relationships.  That is the way to model it for kids or grandkids.  Listen first.  Shema.  Do not assume the worst. Then V’ahavta – love, understanding, kindness – should follow.

The world around us needs more chesed.  So do our closest relationships.  We could stop there.  But we should not.  Because the High Holidays ask that we not forget about ourselves.  This is the time of the year when we need to dig deep inside.  There is that internal voice which is always critiquing everything I do.  I hear it on the golf course. I hear it when I am not in the gym. I hear it in the boardroom, the classroom, the kitchen, and the bedroom.  Enough.  The shofar should be our signal to be closer, kinder, and more loving of ourselves.  This may be our hardest task.  In those quiet moments, when we are alone with our thoughts and prayers, we need to be asking: how is it that I can I have more chesed for myself?  During these days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I, like you, review my shortcomings.  Yes, I have messed up royally, missed the mark.  Having done this, is the answer to be racked with guilt?  No.  I turn to God for forgiveness, like we all should, like our ancestors did on so many occasions throughout our history, going all the way back to the Golden Calf.  God, the source of chesed, will forgive me for not being the person I was meant to be.   I have to try my best.  But I also need to let go of my guilt in order to begin to reconstruct my life and repair my soul.

On Rosh Hashanah we bless each other with the words L’Shanah Tovah.  The word Shanah means “year,” but it is also similar to the Hebrew word “shinui” which means change.  For ourselves, our families and friends, and our society as a whole, 5772 should be a year of change.  Let’s do what we can to replace harshness with helpfulness, nay-saying with hand-shaking, and phobias with friendships.  Let this be the year when bullying gives way to brotherhood and when criticism gives way to kindness, to chesed.

Let’s move over a little, let’s get a little closer to one another, be much kinder, and love each other just a little more.  Let’s do our part to return chesed to all of the places it is needed.

L’shanah tovah – may this year be filled with blessing and sweetness for us, our families, and our world.  AMEN