Shabbat Vayiggash – Shabbat of Nelson Mandela’s passing 12/6/13 First Friday Skit, "Joseph and Nelson" - Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg

Joseph and Nelson

Props:

2 metal chairs

Joseph coat

Cast:

Joseph

Nelson

Brothers

Traders

Prison Guards

DeKlerk

A long, long time ago, according to the Torah, there was a man called Joseph.

(Joseph steps out)

He lived in the land of Canaan, on a bridge of land just north and east of the continent of Africa.

Joseph was one of twelve sons, and his father loved him best of all, giving him a many-colored coat to show it. Joseph’s brothers hated him for it.

One day they took off his coat, threw him into a pit in the wilderness and sold him to slave traders who brought him down to Egypt.

(Brothers take Joseph’s coat off, “throw” him into the pit.

Traders come and take Joseph out of the pit)

His brothers were full of lies. They dipped his many-colored coat into goat’s blood and told their father Jacob that Joseph had been torn by a wild beast.

Meanwhile, Joseph became a slave in Egypt. And things kept getting worse. Through a series of unfortunate events, he was unfairly thrown in the deep dark prison dungeon of Pharaoh, even though Joseph had done nothing wrong.

(Prison guard puts Joseph behind the chair – Joseph kneels)

95 years ago – in 1918, a man named Nelson Mandela was born. He lived in a country called South Africa, at the southern end of the continent of Africa.

(Nelson comes out)

As he reached adulthood, he understood that he lived in a time of great injustice. Even though they were the minority, the white people of South Africa had all of the power, had control over all of the land, and had made native black people into foreigners in their own home. Black people had to carry passports with them, were not allowed to live in white areas or go to white schools. They were restricted in the types of jobs they could have, and they could not vote. This was called apartheid.

Nelson Mandela believed that apartheid was wrong, and he risked his life by speaking out and acting against this racist policy. For his actions, he was unfairly thrown into a prison. He was not allowed to leave the prison for almost thirty years!

(Prison guard brings  Nelson behind chair, Nelson kneels)

Two stories of men in deep dark prisons in Africa – Joseph and Nelson.  Neither of them had done anything wrong to deserve being put in the dungeon. And neither of them gave up hope in the darkness.

Joseph made friends with the other prisoners, who were also there unfairly too. He helped them, he listened to them, and he interpreted their dreams. Joseph had faith that his life had a purpose.

Nelson didn’t give up his struggle, even when he was in prison. He was still the voice and the soul of the dream of his people – to be free, to be treated as equals, to have control over their own nation. From prison, Nelson even negotiated with the white president of South Africa, F.W. DeKlerk, persuading him to lift the apartheid laws.

Joseph eventually was freed from prison.

(Prison guard takes Joseph out from behind the chair)

He interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams, and Pharaoh lifted Joseph up

(Joseph gets up on chair)

to become the 2^nd most powerful man in Egypt – the man in charge of distributing food during the famine.

In this week’s Torah portion, when Joseph’s brothers come down to Egypt for food,

(Brothers stand in front of Joseph)

Joseph saw that his brothers had changed. They no longer lied. They cared about each other and cared about their father Jacob.

And so Joseph forgave them. He reconciled with them.

He told them:

Joseph: “Do not be pained or upset that you sold me here! For it was to save life that God sent me here before you.”

The brothers hug each other, and they shed tears. They learn to live with each other peacefully again.

(Brothers hug)

Nelson too, was freed from prison.

(Prison guard brings Nelson out from behind chair)

And he too was lifted up by his people

(Nelson stands on chair)

to become the first black president of his nation of South Africa. He understood that in order for his nation to heal, there had to be forgiveness and reconciliation.  Nelson said,

Nelson: As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison.

Nelson Mandela died yesterday. But many years before he died, Nelson and his former enemy, F.W. DeKlerk, had become friends.

(Nelson and DeKlerk hug)

Even though both Joseph and Nelson were imprisoned unfairly and treated unjustly, they opened their hearts in forgiveness to those who might have been their enemies.

So, tonight we celebrate two tzaddikim. Two righteous ones. Both who lived in darkness and held on to their dreams. Both who found their way from the deepest pit to the highest height. Both who taught that healing can only come through reconciliation – through forgiveness.

Because Nelson’s funeral won’t take place for another week or so, we will not say kaddish for him tonight. But we can say these words together:

“Zecher tzaddik livracha.”

Which means, “may the memory of the righteous be a blessing.”

We pray that his story and his legacy will continue to bring blessing to the world.

Tomato Rabbi!

When you look at this tomato, what do you see? What questions come to mind?

·        Red, round, shiny, beautiful

·        I wonder if it’s juicy inside and if it has good flavor

·        I think about eating it with a slice of mozzarella and some basil

·        I might wonder whether it is organic or locally grown – whether I need to wash some pesticides off of it before I eat it.

But for me, and probably for many of us, there is a question that I hadn’t really thought to ask about tomatoes before this week.

Who are the people who picked this tomato? And what are their lives like?

This week I met some of those folks. On Monday through Wednesday of this week, I and a group of a dozen rabbis – Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, and Orthodox – went down to Florida with T’ruah – a national rabbinic human rights organization that I have been involved with for many years.

We met migrant farmworkers who spend a good part of the year – from October through February or March – picking tomatoes in central Florida, in the fields surrounding a town called “Immokalee.” These laborers pick nearly all of the tomatoes that Americans consume and purchase out of season at places like Stop and Shop, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, McDonalds, Wendy’s, Subway and Taco Bell.

The first thing to know is that the people who pick the tomatoes have created a powerful organization called the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, or CIW. Even though they come from different places and speak many different languages – Spanish, Creole, and a variety of indigenous languages spoken in various regions of Mexico and Guatemala – they came together, starting in the early 90’s, to share their experiences with each other and to change the conditions in which they are working. Use popular education – drawings, skits, radio. Now the CIW has many allies, including my rabbinic organization, T’ruah.

Up until 2010, when the CIW’s organizing efforts began to transform the industry, workers had no rights or protections and were at the mercy of the particular grower they worked for that day. On Tuesday morning at 5am, our group of rabbis went to one of the many parking lots in Immokalee and watched the workers streaming there to board white and blue school buses that would take them out to the fields.

We also saw the deplorable, ramshackle trailers in which the workers live. They pack 10-12 people into a trailer to be able to afford the rent, which is comparable to what you would pay in NYC for the same amount of space.

We learned from Emilio Faustino, one of the CIW members, that the people who pick our food are mostly day laborers. Some might have a verbal agreement with a particular grower to work for a certain number of days in a week or month. But for the most part, the workers arrive at the parking lot and don’t know for sure if they will find work that day.

What I’m about to describe used to happen everywhere, without any recourse on the part of the laborer. Today, now that the CIW’s Fair Food Agreement is taking hold among growers, these conditions don’t exist everywhere all the time anymore, and when they do arise among growers who have sign the agreement, there is recourse. But there are still many growers who have not signed the agreement, and even those who have are not implementing it consistently yet.

Conditions historically, and still in many places today:

·        They would board the bus, arrive at the field by 6am, and sometimes have to sit on the bus for 2-3 hours to wait for the dew to dry on the tomatoes – they wouldn’t get paid for those hours.

·        Once the picking begins, the workers were, and still are not paid by the hour – they are paid according to the number of 32-lb buckets of tomatoes they pick. Try lifting a 32-lb bucket on your shoulder and running with it some time.

·        To make minimum wage, a worker would have to pick 153 of these buckets in one day, in the hot, humid sun, for 10-14 hours per day, with no shade. $7500 /yr., sub-poverty

·        Wage theft was rampant. The worker runs his or her bucket to a truck where a person in the truck would dump it out and give the empty bucket back with a token inside. The worker would keep track of the tokens and get paid 45 cents per token at the end of the day. But if the dumper doesn’t think the worker filled the bucket to his standards, he would dump the tomatoes out but not give the picker a token, sending him back to pick another bucket more to his standards.

 What I just described used to be the typical experience of tomato worker. However, there is a spectrum of experience, where what I just described is on the more normative end, but it gets worse from there. Because these workers work at the whim of their particular bosses, who were not accountable to any outside standards or authorities for how they treated the workers, the workers were, and still are in some cases, incredibly vulnerable to abuse.

In fact, workers not only risked their jobs, but even their lives if they complained about unhealthy or abusive conditions. They are regularly exposed to pesticides. But it used to be that if someone was actively spraying in a nearby row, a worker would risk getting fired if he stopped picking to move away from the spraying. Beatings were not uncommon, regular sexual abuse and assault of women, and regular verbal abuse. No recourse, no standards, not job security.

Famous case of a 17 year old boy who was beaten  - one of the early CIW actions, organized a march to perpetrator’s house with the bloody shirt as a banner.

Tonight I’m not going to go into detail on the worst of the worst on this spectrum which has in many cases constituted conditions that meet the stringent legal standards for prosecution as modern-day slavery. But just to give you a sense – cases of no escape, locked in at night, debt peonage – not only for illegal immigrants. You may pay for a visa and show up to find there is no job for you. Or, with guest worker program – stuck with the employer who hired you. If conditions are not good, there is nowhere to go.

CIW’s work:

Started with general strikes and hunger strikes in the 90’s, getting the DOJ to investigate and prosecute slavery cases.

More recently, changed tactics – use market pressure. Get corporations who buy from the growers to sign a Fair Food Agreement – will only purchase from growers who pass one penny per pound of tomatoes picked on to the workers and observe a code of conduct – zero tolerance for abuse, wage theft, sexual harassment, slavery

This has been very successful – 11 major corporations (Taco Bell, McD’s, Burger King, Subway, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Chipotle, food service companies @ college campuses) and now 90% of growers. Working now on Publix supermarket (SE) and Wendy’s – last of the 5 top restaurant chains. Very challenging, but it’s working.

Impact: the workers are the ones who have made these changes

Time clock

Minimum wage guarantee, even if raining, or waiting for dew to dry

CIW trains workers and growers on zero tolerance for harassment, wage theft, etc.

3^rd party takes complaints and investigates – Judge Laura Safer Espinoza

But – need everyone on board. Risks of abuse, slavery still exist as long as not all growers are signed on. And, still a risk that growers will pull out if we don’t keep the pressure on. This is about changing a culture.

I left with so many impressions. Here are some:

·        Immigration/illegal immigration – most of these workers were subsistence farmers at home. No longer can sell their produce – now, competing with US prices b/c of NAFTA – can’t compete, so have to become part of the US food production industry and send $ home

·        Ag workers, along with domestic workers and restaurant workers are the most vulnerable

·        History of slavery in South continues, just in a different form – still most marginal/vulnerable population in the country can be enslaved (we see this in case of young runaways lured into prostitution as well)

·        How vast the tomato farms are and how hidden from view for most consumers.

·        These changes impact 100,000 workers – this makes a very big difference in real people’s lives.

·        Empowerment of laborers

Sign letters to Wendy’s asking them to sign on to CIW’s Fair Food program –the letters will be hand-delivered the week of Nov 11-17^th.

You may have seen the photo of me praying with the other tomato rabbis in a supermarket – we won’t be doing that. But we will be going to a Wendy’s to attempt to deliver the letters to the manager, and to hand information out to customers to raise awareness.

This Too Shall Pass - Vayera 2013

Sammy Cohen-Eckstein was due to celebrate his Bar Mitzvah on November 16th.  But last week, when he ran out into the street to retrieve a soccer ball in front of his apartment building on Prospect Park West, he was suddenly hit by a van and died. My dear colleague and friend Rabbi Ellen Lippman, is Sammy’s rabbi, at Kolot Chayeinu in Park Slope, Brooklyn, the synagogue that Jim and I belonged to when we lived there. I never knew Sammy, but the news of this sudden tragic death touched me deeply. It’s been hard to stop thinking about it.

As rabbis and as Jews who decide to cling to a particular community, we open ourselves up to the possibility of these kinds of losses. This could happen to me. It could happen to any of us.  We rabbis fall in love with our congregations – we develop love for our congregants as individuals, and for our communities as a collective.

These past few weeks here at CBSRZ have been hard. Over many weeks I stood at the bedside of a dying man – Howard Kaplan - and then buried him surrounded by a loving circle of family and friends. And while this was happening, we have had and continue to have many other congregants in the hospital and in treatment for serious conditions. Thankfully, many seem to be on the mend, but we have the longest Mi Shebeirach list we’ve ever had during my time here.

On top of this we recently had to say goodbye to some people I’ve grown very fond of. Bea and Lew Case, long time members of CBSRZ who moved up to Newton, MA to live in an assisted living facility close to one of their sons. And we recently celebrated the Bat Mitzvah of their Acadia Barrengos, whose family recently relocated to Vermont. All of these experiences have reminded me on a daily basis of how much I love this congregation and how attached I am to the individual members of this community, and this is such a gift. At the same time, it is a terribly scary thing – to catch these daily, sometimes even hourly glimpses of the possibility of loss.

The word “love” appears for the first time in the Torah in this week’s Parasha, when God instructs Abraham to take his son, his only one, the one whom he loves…and offer him up as a burnt offering on the top of a mountain that God will show him.

We know this terrible story. Our own Michael Roth offered multiple commentaries on it on the 2^nd Day of Rosh Hashana this year. But none provided comfort or peace. Except, at the end of Michael’s confrontational, stark presentation, he offered this. That perhaps this story is really meant to illustrate how fragile life is. It is really meant to illustrate what it means to allow yourself to have a child, or to become attached to another human being. God tells Abraham, and God tells us – to dare to live and to love means to make yourself vulnerable to having it all snatched away.

And so, what do we do?  We learn from Abraham that we can live in the present and give thanks. When we’re faced with our own fears, our own vulnerability or uncertainty, we can’t live in the past, trying to bring back or relive what was. God uproots Abraham from his past by calling him in last week’s parasha – to leave his father’s house and his homeland and to go to the land that God will show him.

And this week, Abraham reminds us how fragile the future is as well. God allows Abraham to get to the brink of sacrificing his own son – his future – and the future of our entire people. We can plan for the future – we must. And we should have hope for the future. But Abraham teaches that we shouldn’t become too attached to a particular image of how the future will be.

Abraham’s knife is stopped from killing his son at the last minute by an angel. Abraham then immediately lifts his eyes, refocuses, notices a ram caught in the bushes, and offers the ram as a sacrifice in place of his son.  When we catch  glimpses of the abyss of loss, we too can refocus, offer up a ram to God and burn it, thanking God for the gifts of life and love that we have right now. We can live in the present and give thanks.

I have another colleague, Rabbi Phyllis Sommer, in Chicago, whose son Sammy just came through a bone marrow transplant to heal him from childhood leukemia. Phyllis posts on a blog almost every day and she is inspiring in how willing she is to share her vulnerability with all of us. She shares her frightened, angry rants when things aren’t going well, she shares her prayers of gratitude when the light of hope is visible.

Above all, she shares her excruciating effort to stay in the present – to not allow herself to get too attached to a possible future outcome of a particular drug or treatment –– to not allow herself to get anxious or give up when they hit a roadblock – to help her son find peace with the rollercoaster of one day finally getting to go home after 90 days in the hospital, to the very next day spiking a fever and having to go back to the hospital – to allow herself to shed tears of hope, as Sammy writes out his birthday wish list and she catches a glimpse of more birthdays to celebrate after this one. To love someone is to ride the rollercoaster with them, day after day.

I want to close with a well-known folktale that seems to have migrated from the realm of Persian Sufis to Jewish lore about King Solomon.

The story goes that King Solomon had a trusted minister named Benaiah ben Yehoyada. But the King thought Benaiah was getting too big for his britches and needed to be humbled. So, one day, Solomon said to him, "Benaiah, there is a certain ring that I want you to bring to me. I wish to wear it for the Sukkot festival, which gives you six months to find it."

"If it exists anywhere on earth, your majesty," replied Benaiah, "I will find it and bring it to you, but what makes the ring so special?"

"It has special powers," answered the king. "If a happy man looks at it, he becomes sad, and if a sad man looks at it, he becomes happy." Solomon knew that no such ring existed in the world, but he wished to give his minister some added humility.

Spring passed and then summer, and still Benaiah had no idea where he could find the ring. On the day before Sukkot, he decided to take a walk in one of the poorest quarters of Jerusalem. He passed by a merchant who had begun to set out the day's wares on a shabby carpet. "Have you by any chance heard of a special ring that makes the happy wearer forget his joy and the broken-hearted wearer forget his sorrows?" asked Benaiah.

He watched the elderly man take a plain gold ring from his carpet and engrave something on it. When Benaiah read the words on the ring, his face broke out in a wide smile.

That night the entire city welcomed in the holiday of Sukkot with great festivity. "Well, my friend," said King Solomon, "have you found what I sent you after?" All the ministers laughed and Solomon himself smiled.

To everyone's surprise, Benaiah held up a small gold ring and declared, "Here it is, your majesty!" As soon as Solomon read the inscription, the smile vanished from his face. The jeweler had written three Hebrew words on the gold band: "Gam zeh ya'avor - This too shall pass."

How very true. In a moment of great difficulty, we can remember “This too shall pass,” and feel comforted. Yet, in our greatest moments of joy, we also know in a deep place, that “this too shall pass.”

All is fleeting, and we are humbled. But this should only propel us to seek more connection, to give more thanks, to give and receive more love.

Yom Kippur AM 2013/5774 “Anchor yourself” Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg

It’s August 21^st and the Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy in Decatur, Georgia  is on lockdown[1]. Police surround the school, and an armed man has made it into the front office. He is filling multiple ammunition clips and loading his guns. In the meantime, Antoinette Tuff, a clerk seated at the front desk, talks to him. She shares some of her story with him – about the challenges she has faced in her life. He shares how he has no reason to live – that he is going to die today – that he hadn’t taken his medication. And she, drawing on a teaching her pastor has been using in church, “anchors herself in the Lord.”

In our Torah portion this morning, Moses teaches, “I have set before you life or death, blessing or curse; choose life, therefore, that you and your descendants may live – by loving the Eternal your God, listening to God’s voice, and holding fast to the One who is your life and the length of your days.”[2]

 “Hold fast to the One who is your life and the length of your days.”

“Anchor yourself to that which is within you and beyond you – the source of life – the source of love,” our Torah teaches.

Afterwards, Antoinette reflected:

“[I realized] it was bigger than me. He was really a hurting young man, and so I just started praying for him. And I just started talking with him and allowing him to know some of my life story and what was going on with me and that it was going to be ok, and then let him know that he could just give himself up [to the police].”[3]

When Michael Brandon Hill first entered the office, he wouldn’t even share his name. But after an hour of talking with Antoinette, he shared that nobody loved him. Her response? “I just explained to him that I loved him,” she said.[4]

She didn’t know this person. He was holding a gun. Her life was in his hands. She was terrified.

“I just explained to him that I loved him,” she said.

Michael had come, intending to shoot up the school and then to die in a shootout with police; instead, Antoinette talked to him while teachers, staff, and 870 children waited in the locked-down building. She persuaded him to lay down his weapons, he eventually surrendered and the school was evacuated; nobody was injured.

She was terrified. And yet, she anchored herself. She held fast – to something bigger than herself. She held fast to life and to love. Love for a stranger with a gun who was ready to take her life. She anchored herself in empathy – she saw herself and her children in this man. She identified with his suffering.

What Antoinette did and said may not have worked in every instance with every person intent on killing. But it worked in this instance. What a powerful example for all of us.

Antoinette Tuff is a spiritual superhero, and her superpower is love.

“Choose life. . . by loving the Lord your God. . . and holding fast to the One who is your life and the length of your days.”

Antoinette internalized this teaching of love that we read this morning and which has been taught throughout the ages by other spiritual superheroes such as Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Just a couple weeks ago our nation marked the 50^th anniversary of Dr. King’s march on Washington.

The principle of non-violence that lay at the heart of his teaching was love.

“Non-violence chooses love instead of hate,” he taught. “Non-violent love gives willingly, knowing that the return might be hostility.” “Non-violent love is unending in its ability to forgive in order to restore community.” “Love restores community and resists injustice.” And, “non-violence recognizes the fact that all life is interrelated.”[5]

On this Yom Kippur the Torah calls upon us to choose life and love for ourselves and for the community in the coming year. In our haftarah, the prophet Isaiah[6] exhorts us to build a world based on love, empathy, and justice.

The prophet complains bitterly that while we sit here in shul fasting and praying for our own redemption, out in the world, we perpetuate oppression, injustice, and violence. Isaiah cries out - “Your fasting leads only to strife and discord, and hitting out with cruel fist!”

“Is not this the fast I look for,” Isaiah challenges us,  “to unlock the shackles of injustice, to undo the fetters of bondage, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every cruel chain? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and to bring the homeless poor into your house?”

God doesn’t care as much about our fasting on this day as much as God cares about what we are doing to build a community free of cruelty, of hunger, of division.

Dr. King called this ideal community, “the Beloved Community.” According to King, in the Beloved Community, “poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood. . .. Love and trust will triumph over fear and hatred.. . .” For King, desegregation and voting rights were not the end goal of nonviolent boycotts and marches and sit-ins - the Beloved Community was the real end goal.[7]

At the heart of this Beloved Community was a specific type of love, called “agape.” King described agape as “understanding, redeeming goodwill for all,” an “overflowing love which is purely spontaneous, unmotivated, groundless and creative.” For King, “Agape does not begin by discriminating between worthy and unworthy people…It begins by loving others for their sakes.” It “makes no distinction between a friend and enemy; it is directed toward both…Agape is love seeking to preserve and create community.” [8]

Antoinette Tuff’s love made no distinction between friend and enemy. She understood in that harrowing hour that she was part of a Beloved Community, and that if she could help this troubled young man feel that he was a part of that community too, she might be able to disarm a would-be mass murderer. In that school office, as Antoinette shared her story of overcoming her own suffering, and as Michael shared with her his despair, a sense of solidarity between them allowed love and trust to triumph over fear and hatred.

Solidarity – a sense that there is no separation between me and you - the understanding that as human beings, we all know the same suffering, the same joy, the same fear. 

Solidarity.

Most of us know the goose bumps of seeing that photo of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marching with Dr. Martin Luther King – of seeing footage of white students sitting with black students at those lunch counters. Those bridges between people are what made things like the Voting Rights Act of 1965 possible. And that solidarity is something that we still need to build today, if we want to continue to bring our world closer to redemption.

We’ve celebrated some victories of solidarity this year. After the Sandy Hook school shootings, all kinds of citizens– from urban to suburban to small town—came together in solidarity to pass strong gun control legislation in Connecticut. Solidarity among Jewish women and their allies in Israel and across the globe calling for women to be allowed to pray out loud as a group, wear tallises at Jerusalem’s Western Wall, and for men and women to be allowed to pray together there – this solidarity is what is leading Israeli government officials to finally make that vision a reality. Solidarity among gay and straight individuals and families is what is leading our country towards a future of marriage equality for all.

Moses spoke out of the Torah this morning, saying, “You stand this day, all of you, before the Lord your God – the heads of your tribes, your elders and officers, every one of you – men, women, children, and the strangers in your camps, from the one who chops your wood to the one who draws your water – to enter into the covenant which the Lord your God makes with you this day.”[9] All of us – from the woodchopper to the head of the tribe – are part of the same community –a community in covenant with God with a vision of becoming a Beloved community.

Unfortunately, even given the victories we’ve experienced here and there, the overall sense in this country that we are all part of one community is deteriorating rapidly. Studies have shown that in the past 30 years, the rate of empathy among American young people –has gone down by 75%![10] Some scholars posit that there is a link between this loss of empathy and the deterioration of social connections. We are more isolated, we don’t participate in groups like bowling leagues, political parties and PTA’s.

This lack of empathy engenders a “mind your own business” ethos, where I am no longer responsible for acknowledging or easing another person’s suffering. Solidarity slips away.

A highly symbolic sign of this came this Spring when the Supreme Court overturned major provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.These provisions required jurisdictions with a history of blocking voting of minorities to get approval before making changes to their voting policies. The decision is probably fair in theory, given that much has changed since 1965, and the list of jurisdictions under this provision is likely no longer up to date. However, this decision presents an enormous challenge to the critical project of enfranchising all Americans.

Today, our country is a place where baseless fear of fraud has become justification for Voter ID laws that make it harder for minorities, the elderly and the poor to access their right to vote in some states.

We are becoming a suspicious society-a “keep to yourself society” rather than a beloved community of solidarity.

We are in many ways a fearful community - a community where a young Black man can’t walk down the street in his own neighborhood without worrying that someone might fear that he is up to no good.

Can you imagine living in a country of solidarity where all adults saw it as their responsibility to know the kids in their neighborhoods for the sake of the kids’ safety?  What if George Zimmerman had reached out to Trayvon Martin to say, “Hi – my name is George – what’s your name?” Rather than to assume that Trayvon was a person to be feared?

Can you imagine living in a country where we all are “anchored in the Lord” like Antoinette – where we know a sense of solidarity with all of our fellow citizens – strangers and friends? A country where agape love flows freely?

As Jews, we believe that it is possible to create that community. Today, the holiest day on our calendar, we are those Israelites, standing on the other side of the Jordan. We stand together, in all of our diversity, as one community – and we are poised to enter that Promised Land where we are instructed to build a Beloved community in covenant with the Divine.

Over the millennia, our Jewish sages and teachers have developed the tools to help us build that community. In our Jewish mystical or kabbalistic tradition, we find our own version of agape love. It is known as “shefa” -  pure Divine love that flows from God into the universe at every moment, infusing all of creation with life. According to our tradition, we can, through spiritual practice, cultivate divine characteristics within ourselves, in order to become conduits for that shefa so that Divine love can flow more easily into our lives and into the world. These characteristics are called middot and include qualities such as patience, equanimity, and compassion. 

Practices such as meditation, prayer, chanting, Torah study, and acts of compassion and generosity, can help us to strengthen those qualities and balance out our tendencies towards fear, anger, and hatred. Fear and anger are real – we all have them inside of us. But we can work with those qualities so that we might experience and share more love. This synagogue is a place where you can engage in those spiritual practices. If you haven’t made prayer or meditation or study a regular practice, I invite you to try it this year.

We also make ourselves into vessels for that divine flow when we act with compassion and generosity. The food we bring to the Shoreline Pantry, the hours you can volunteer to cook and serve at the soup kitchens in Deep River and Chester, the furniture and house wares you can donate to furnish permanent housing for the homeless, the solidarity you show when you participate in our advocacy campaigns, whether on the issue of healthcare or gun violence or racial equality in the justice system. These are all ways that we, as the kabbalists say, “draw down the shefa” –draw down that divine flow of love.  If you want to be a part of these efforts, please let our Social Action Chair Andy Schatz know.

Every year on Yom Kippur we face that choice between life and death – blessing and curse.

 Every year, we are Antoinette, sitting in that school office – facing that would-be shooter and his gun.

This year we can anchor ourselves in love over fear.

This year we can become vessels for Divine blessing.

This year we can build that Beloved community.

---

[1]http://www.ajc.com/videos/news/bookkeeper-talks-about-coming-face-to-face-with/v9ZDr/

[2] Deuteronomy 30:19-20

[3] http://www.ajc.com/videos/news/bookkeeper-talks-about-coming-face-to-face-with/v9ZDr/

[4] Ibid.

[5]http://www.sistersofmercy.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=195&Itemid=202#sthash.tP1lu98n.dpuf

[6] Isaiah 58:1-14

[7] http://www.thekingcenter.org/king-philosophy

[8] Ibid.

[9] Deuteronomy 29:9-12

[10] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-me-care