Rabbi

After Pittsburgh

I was completely overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support from the greater Concord, NH community. Nearly 250 people attended services Friday night, November 2 – about one-half Temple Beth Jacob members and one-half supporters from the greater community. We typically have 25-35 people at services on a Friday night.

The next morning, another 50 people were at services, again and one-half TBJ members and one-half supporters from the greater community. Most Shabbat mornings I struggle to get a minyan, unless a young person is become bar/bat mitzvah.

Add to all of this, the wonderful peacekeepers from the Kent Street Coalition — eleven that Friday night and another two Saturday morning. Their presence brought calm, peace of mind, and a sense of safety to our members.

What follows is my sermon — delivered both Friday night and Saturday morning (with minor adjustments).

Chaye Sarah 2018

Our portion this week, perhaps misnamed Chaye Sarah, meaning the life of Sarah, opens with the story of her death. The text is fairly matter of fact – Sarah was 127 years old when she died at Kiriat-Arba. While Torah gives no “reason” for her death – and at the age of 127 must there be a reason other than old age? – the midrash, the rabbinic interpretations of the Biblical text, does. According to the ancient Rabbis, Sarah dies of a broken heart. Her heart broke, they say, in last week’s portion when she realizes that her husband Abraham has taken their beloved son, Isaac, the son she bore in her 90s, to the top of Mount Moriah where he is ready to offer up Isaac as a sacrifice. We know that an angel of God stops Abraham. Did Sarah know?

Like Sarah, our hearts are broken. And like Sarah, some part of us died this past week, too. The pain is so very great because eleven of our brothers and sisters were senselessly murder for no reason other than the fact that they were Jews. And as Jews, we know any act of hatred against one of us is truly directed at all of us. The shooters words confirm that. They are all too reminiscent of the chants we heard last year in Charlottesville or the message left by the vandals at Union Temple in Brooklyn just last night.

As I said in our healing service in this very sanctuary last Sunday morning and at the community vigil later that night, the Jewish community in the United States is very small. And like all Americans, we move around a lot. We are so deeply intertwined. We just heard from one member about her connections to the Pittsburgh Jewish community and some of the dead and injured. Another member shared with me that the parents of best man at her wedding were sitting in the Tree of Life sanctuary last Saturday morning. They escaped with only emotional scars.

Another congregant went to medical school in Pittsburgh. He remains intensely close to professors and families who essentially adopted him during his years there. They all suffered losses last Shabbat.

For our dear friends at Temple Adath Yeshurun, in Manchester, the tragedy hits even closer. The brother-in-law and sister-in-law of Joyce Feinberg, one of the victims, are members of TAY. So are cousins of the killed brothers, Cecil and David Rosenthal.

And many of you may remember that during the summer of 2017, while on my sabbatical, I attended a spiritual writing retreat at Kenyon college. My teacher, with whom I became very close, is married to the rabbi who leads the New Light Congregation that meets in the Tree of Life synagogue. A published author and eloquent writer, her Facebook post on Sunday simply said, “Our family is physically fine. Three of our congregants are dead. I have nothing more to say.”

Judaism teaches that in every generation there arises an Amalek, the eternal enemy of the Jewish people, who seeks to wipe us out. We can point to biblical Amaleks, medieval Amaleks, and modern Amaleks, all who sought our destruction in vast numbers or one at a time.

And yet, we can also point to words of hope in our Passover Haggadah, words which begin: v’hi she-amdah l’avoteinu v’lanu, “And this (promise) has stood for our ancestors as for us, for not only has one individual stood to wipe us out, but rather in every generation many have stood to destroy us, but the Holy One, Blessed be God, has saved us from their hands.”

The truth of anti-Semitism and the rise of Amaleks are indisputable. Furthermore, they are largely out of our control. But what is in our control is how we respond. Not just we, the Jews, but how all of us respond.

And the responses have been filled with remembering and honoring the victims, praying for the physically and emotionally injured, and expressing hope and love.

While our Torah portion begins with the death of Sarah, Abraham mourns and grieves, and then ensures that his wife is buried with dignity and care. And when his mourning times ends, he moves on with living. One of his first tasks is to send his servant, Eliezer, out to find Isaac a wife. Eliezer meets Rebecca at a well. She is kind and caring, bringing Eliezer and his many camels the water they need after their long journey. She is worthy to be Isaac’s wife, and she chooses, of her own free will, to return with Eliezer and marry Isaac. That story ends with the words, vayinacheim yitzchak acharei imo, “Thus Isaac took comfort after [the death] of his mother.”

Like Isaac, we need comfort. And we – the Jews of Concord and the Jews of America – have found more Rebeccas than we can count. Here is one story. On Shabbat afternoon, just hours after the shooting, Rabbi Daniel Wasserman of Shaare Torah, an Orthodox shul a few blocks away from Tree of Life Synagogue, stood in front of his building. A student who said his name was Ahmed approached him. Ahmed held a large serving bowl of hot soup in his hands and he handed the rabbi a note with the following text:

“I am a student at Carnegie Mellon University. I have lived in Squirrel Hill for almost four years now and am very grateful for the hospitality and how good everyone has been to me here. I tried to make something for you. I am sorry for your loss and wanted to give my condolences to your community. Please accept this, I didn’t put any dairy or eggs or anything not kosher in with the lentils. My thoughts and prayers go out to the bereaved. Love, Ahmed.” The rabbi thanked him and gave him a hug.

At my former synagogue in San Francisco, the membership of the local Mennonite Church is standing vigil tonight showing their love, protection and solidarity with the Jewish community – much like the multi-faith members of the Kent Street Coalition are doing for us tonight.

A friend of mine, an Episcopal priest in Virginia, wrote these words for her Jewish friends around the world: “I lit candles and kept silence. I gave thanks for lives that mattered – lessons taught, stories told, hands that healed and helped and hoped. I gave thanks for the threads that bind us together, Children of God. I watched candles flicker in the darkness and I accepted responsibility for hanging on to hope. I mourned from the deepest part of my heart for my beloved friends for whom this was so close, so personal. I send my love. I will tend those flames.”

These flowers were left at our door on Saturday, with an unsigned note reading: “I am so very sorry. All of us deserve peace, hope, and a safe place to live and love; ours and our God, Jahweh, Buddha, The One. America is better than this. Love to all.”

Look at these hand-written messages of love and hope from the clergy and parishioners of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church here in Concord. And here’s a card from a member of The First United Church of Christ in Hopkinton. She comes here once a year with confirmation students.

She writes, “I share your broken hearts (and anger and fright) over the slaughter of worshippers in Pittsburgh Saturday. I stand with you and mourn.”

Another friend was at a concert at the Audi Sunday in Concord. She told me that, “The Symphony NH gave an all-John Williams Concert. When it came time for the Schindler’s List selection, the Conductor asked for a moment of silence. It was a very long moment and you would have thought the Audi to be empty as there wasn’t even a cough.”

Colleen, our Office Administrator, and I have taken phone calls and played voice messages offering love, hope, support, and comfort. Police officers are stopping by to see how we are. And they are circling the neighborhood much more often than they did in the past.

And Wednesday afternoon, as I stood outside of my daughter’s pre-school awaiting the Halloween parade, my cell phone rang. It showed “Unknown Name,” which I usually ignore. But something urged me to answer this call. “Hello,” I said. And the response was, “Is this Rabbi Nafshi of Temple Beth Jacob.” “Yes, I said.” She continued, “This is Maggie Hassen. I’m calling to see how you and your community are doing.” The Senator and I spoke for about 15 minutes. Her concern and care were so real, so palpable.

Similarly, we welcome Congresswoman Kuster into our sanctuary tonight. Thank you for your presence, and for the beautiful note of concern you sent to me this week.

“The Jew lives with hope,” I am fond of saying. And how can we not? We look at Rebecca. She enters Isaac’s life at a time when he so desperately needs her. His father has traumatized him and his mother is dead. His brother Ishmael has long been ousted from the family. He is so utterly alone. Rebecca represents the link to the future. She will give birth to the twins Jacob and Esau, and Jacob will become the father of the 12 tribes of Israel.

The congregants at Tree of Life Synagogue were celebrating a birth, too, of a little boy who was to enter the covenant and be given his Hebrew name. We thank God that he is alive, with a full life before him.

Jewish poet Zev Steinberg wrote these words for this little boy:

Little boy, what’s your name – do you have one?

Sweet baby, just eight days, what should we call you?

Is your name Shalom? We long for peace in this troubled world. I hope you are Shalom.
Is your name Nachum? Oh, how we need to be comforted in our grief. I hope you are Nachum.

Is your name Raphael? Our broken hearts and bleeding souls need healing. I hope you are Raphael.

Is your name Moshe? Our unbearable anguish and rage demands justice. I hope you are Moshe.

Is your name Ariel? We need the ferocious strength of lions to protect our people. I hope you are Ariel.

Is your name Barak? We need courageous warriors to vanquish our enemies. I hope you are Barak.

The blood on Shabbat morning was supposed to be covenantal not sacrilegious, sacramental not sacrificial, sacred not unholy. The tears were supposed to be of boundless joy not bottomless sorrow. The cries were supposed to be “mazel tov” not the Mourner’s Kaddish.

Is your name Simcha? We need an end to sadness by bringing joy into our world. I hope you are Simcha.

Is your name Yaron? We need an end to mourning by bringing song into our lives. I hope you are Yaron.

Is your name Matan? We need the gift of children who will bring a better tomorrow. I hope you are Matan.

So little boy, what’s your name? Take them all if you will. Take a thousand names.
Be Peace and Comfort and Healing. Be Justice and Strength and Courage. Be Joy and Song and a Gift to the world. Be every good name and every good thing.
And, sweet baby, take one more name if you will – because I hope you will be blessed with a long, blissful, beautiful, and meaningful life…

I hope you are Chaim.

Life, peace, comfort, healing, justice, strength, courage, joy, song, and gift – we celebrate each and every one of them this Shabbat. And we pray that our world, speedily and soon, will know them as well. Shabbat shalom.

In The Story of Noah: A Modern Midrash, authors Barak Gale and Mark Jacobs, of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, give us a twist on the Biblical story. In their version, Noah had nearly all living things aboard the ark and was ready for the flood. The lower decks were dark and damp and supported life from the many caves in the land, as well as the plants and creatures found in the world’s great rainforests.

The upper decks supported life from the grasslands, the wetlands, and the forests. Noah understood the importance of the grasses for domestic animals as well as for the wildlife. And he knew the birds nourished themselves in the wetlands, and the importance of forests as shelter for many creatures. Noah greatly admired the ancient redwood trees and the gnarled oaks and olive trees.

Noah thought he had done pretty well in gathering male and female birds, cattle, wild creatures, and the creeping things of the earth. Yet surely the Creator did not require every creeping thing of its kind to be saved. Noah was exhausted and exasperated. He turned to God and said, “Enough already! My body aches, my hands are blistered, my knees are bloody – all from building this gigantic ark and searching for all the creatures that reside in every damp corner and atop every high place on earth.

Please, God, can’t we leave the schmutz out the ark?

And God, striving to remain patient with God’s dutiful servant, replied, “There is no schmutz in my creation, Noah.”

This modern midrash is meant to remind us of the importance of every part of God’s creation. In looking at the creation story itself, along with texts of Psalms and Job,[1] we see that God takes care of, and takes pleasure in, the variety of life that makes up creation.

Our ancient Rabbis taught: Even those things that you may regard as completely superfluous to creation – such as fleas, gnats and flies – even they were included in creation; and God’s purpose is carried through everything – even through a snake, a scorpion, a gnat, a frog.”[2]

As hard as it may be for humans to believe, every species has its own inherent value, a value beyond its usefulness to people. Thus, Judaism requires, at a minimum, that we treat all other creatures – both animal and vegetation – with basic kindness. We read in Genesis, “The Eternal God took the man and placed him in the Garden of Eden, l’vadah ul’shamrah, to till it and tend it” [3] – that is, to take care of it.

Tonight begins Rosh Hashanah, the day we celebrate by saying hayom harat olam – this is the day on which the earth was born. It is the ideal time for us to consider the magnitude of that birth and all of its creation, and our relationship to it.

Let’s begin with an admission: As far as species go, Judaism is human-centric. We are the only ones of God’s creation who were created b’tzelem elohim, in God’s image. We are to take care of the rest of creation, not the other way around. And yet, we see nature imagery for God in the Hebrew Bible. In Exodus, God says to the Israelites, “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Me.”[4] In the Psalms, we read, “O Eternal, my crag, my fortress, … my God, my rock in whom I seek refuge… .”[5] If we are created in God’s image, and God can be seen as an eagle or a rock, are we not therefore, too, part eagle and part rock? Maybe that is a bit of a stretch – but it begs us to acknowledge that we are all a part of one creation and are all interconnected.

While the Torah is human-centered regarding species, it remains God-centered in its essence. And one basic teaching of the creation story is that we may be the caretakers of the earth, but God remains the absolute owner.

We read, again in the Psalms, “The earth is the Eternal’s and all that it holds, the world and its inhabitants.[6] We do not have unrestricted freedom to misuse God’s creation, as it does not belong to us. One particular verse in Torah has led to the Jewish law bal tashchit – the prohibition against wasting or destroying – any part of creation. It reads:

“When in your war against a city you have to besiege it a long time in order to capture it, you must not destroy its trees, wielding the ax against them. You may eat of them, but you must not cut them down. Are trees of the field human to withdraw before you into the besieged city?”[7]

About this text, Rabbi Lawrence Troster writes, “When we consume in a wasteful manner, we damage creation and violate our mandate to use creation only for our legitimate benefit. Modesty in consumption is a value that Jews have held for centuries. We are obligated when we have a simchah, a celebration, to consider whether we need to have elaborate meals and wasteful decorations. We are obligated to consider our energy use and the sources from which it comes.”[8]

A popular medieval work on piety asserts that a righteous person grieves when even a single mustard seed is wasted.[9]

One extreme consequence of wasting or destroying is the extinction of a species. Again, Torah is our teacher. In Deuteronomy, we read: “If along the road, you chance upon a bird’s nest, in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs and the mother sitting over [them], do not take the mother with her young. Let the mother go, and take only the young.”[10] And in Leviticus, we see: You shall not kill [the mother] and its young both in one day.”[11] 

The Biblical commentator Nachmanides wrote about these verses: “The reason for both is [twofold. First,] that we should not have a cruel heart and not be kind. [Second], Scripture does not permit us to destroy a species altogether…. The person who kills the mother and the young in one day or takes them when they are free to fly, [is regarded] as if they have destroyed that species.”

The flip side of destroying a species is ensuring its longevity. A wonderful story about the first century sage Honi the Circle Maker (yes, that was his full name), demonstrates this obligation.

Honi was walking along a road when he saw a man planting a carob tree. Honi asked, “How long will it take for this tree to bear fruit?” “Seventy years,” the man replied. Honi then asked, “Are you so healthy that you expect to live that length of time and eat its fruit?” The man answered, “I found a fruitful world because my ancestors planted it for me. Likewise, I am planting for my children.”[12] Our tradition values this concept so much that the Rabbis teach that if you are planting a tree and the messiah comes, finish planting the tree before going to greet him – or her.[13]

Bal tashchit, not wasting, is only one prohibition we find in Jewish law. We are also barred from tza’ar ba’alei chayim, cruelty toward animals. Josephus, the first century Roman-Jewish historian wrote:

“Herod got together many wild beasts and many lions, and other beasts of uncommon strength or that were rarely seen. They were trained either to fight one with another, or with men who were condemned to death. Foreigners were delighted at the vast expenses of the shows, and at the great danger of the spectacles, but to the Jews it was a palpable breaking up of those customs [of kindness to animals] for which they had so great a veneration.”[14]

Josephus’ description of the Jews goes back to Biblical times.

As we look through the Bible, it’s clear that the people who are kind to animals are heroes, while those who would kill animals for sport are not. In one midrash, God says: King David was tested through tending sheep, and found to be a good shepherd. He would restrain the larger sheep for the sake of the small ones. First, he would let the small ones graze on the soft grass, and then let the old sheep graze on the grass that was more difficult to chew, leaving the tough grass for the young bucks. He led them to the wilderness, in order to distance them from theft. Therefore, God told him, “You have proven yourself to be faithful with sheep. Now go and shepherd My flock [Israel].”…

So too, God chose Moses through [his treatment] of sheep. Our Sages said: When Moses was herding the flocks of Jethro in the wilderness, one of them ran away. He pursued it until he found a rocky ledge. After discovering the ledge, he came upon a stream of water beside which the lost sheep stood drinking. He said, “I didn’t know that you ran away because of thirst. You must be tired.” So he carried it back on his shoulders. God declared, “You have shown compassion in tending the flock belonging to mortal man. Thus shall you tend My flock [Israel].” [15]

Similarly, we are told, Rebecca was the right woman to be the wife of Isaac because of her kindness to animals. When Abraham’s servant asked for water for himself, she volunteered to water his many camels as well, thereby proving herself worthy.[16]

On the other hand, those who cause pain to animals – even sages – are punished. In the Talmud, we read the story of the great Rabbi Judah HaNasi, the author of the Mishnah, who suffered years of kidney stones because he was insensitive to the fear of a calf being led to slaughter; he was relieved of his medical condition years later only after he showed kindness to animals.[17]

Our obligation to care for the rest of creation takes on other forms. The Talmud includes laws regarding pollution. The Rabbis stopped the use of olive wood and grape vines on the Temple altar because they burned with a great deal of smoke and caused air pollution.

Torah also requires that we have open spaces around the cites.”[18] The Talmud adds that the outer area must be used as a park. Residents may plant trees, but may not construct anything; it is to remain an open land.[19] Nor may the open space be made into a field, as that would destroy its beauty.

For 3,500 years, Judaism has been concerned with the entirety of creation. At the start of my sermon, I asserted the interconnected­ness of creation. On that very topic, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of British Mandate Palestine, wrote:

“Everything is full of riches and greatness, everything aspires to ascend, to be purified and elevated. Everything recites a song, offers praise, magnifies, exalts; everything builds, serves, perfects, elevates, aspires to unite and to be integrated. When we contemplate the physical creation as a whole, we realize that it is all one organism, that the parts are linked in varying gradations to each other. We see this in every … living being.”

One of our traditional morning prayers begins with the words, Nishmat kol chai, t’vareich et shimcha adonai eloheinu, v’ru-ach kol basar t’fa-eir utromeim zichr’cha malkeinu tamid, “The soul of every living being shall bless Your Name, Adonai our God, the spirit of all flesh shall always glorify and exalt Your remembrance, our Sovereign.”

The modern poet, Marge Piercy, has written this contemporary version of Nishmat Kol Chai, celebrating humans’ relationship with the soul of every living being and the spirit of all flesh.

When the night slides under with the last dimming star

and the red sky lightens between the trees,

and the heron glides tipping heavy wings in the river,

when crows stir and cry out their harsh joy,

and swift creatures of the night run toward their burrows,

and the deer raises her head and sniffs the freshening air,

and the shadows grow more distinct and then shorten,

then we rise into the day still clean as new snow.

The cat washes its paw and greets the day with gratitude.

Leviathan salutes breaching with a column of steam.

The hawk turning in the sky cries out a prayer like a knife.

We must wonder at the sky now thin as a speckled eggshell

that now piles up its boulders of storm to crash down,

that now hangs a furry grey belly into the street.

Every day we find a new sky and new earth

which we are trusted with like a perfect toy.

We are given us the salty river of our blood

winding through us, to remember the sea and our

kindred under the waves, the hot pulsing that knocks

in our throats to consider our cousins in the grass

and the trees, all bright scattered rivulets of life.

We are given the wind within us, the breath

to shape into words that steal time, that touch

like hands and pierce like knives, that waken

truth and deceit, sorrow and pity and joy,

that waste precious air in complaints, in lies,

in floating traps for power on the dirty air.

Yet holy breath still stretches our lungs to sing.

We are given the body, that momentary kibbutz

of elements that have belonged to frog and polar

bear, corn and oak trees, volcano and glacier.

We are lent for a time these minerals in water

and a morning everyday, a morning to wake up,

rejoice and praise life in our spines, our throats,

our knees, our genitals, our brains, our tongues.

…

We stand in the midst of the burning world

primed to burn with love and justice and compassion,

to turn inward and find holy fire at the core,

to turn outward and see the world that is all

of flesh with us, to see under the trash, through

the smog, the furry bee in the apple blossom,

the trout leaping, the candles our ancestors lit for us.

Fill us as the tide rustles into the reeds in the marsh.

Fill us as the rushing water overflows the pitcher.

Fill us as light fills a room with its dancing.

Let silence still us so you may show us Your shining

and we can, out of that stillness, rise and praise.

As we celebrate the earth’s creation and contemplate our relationship to all other beings, let us remember our human responsibility, asserted in this midrash: “When God created the first human beings, God led them around the Garden of Eden and said: ‘Look at my works! See how beautiful they are­ – how excellent! For your sake I created them all. See to it that you do not spoil and destroy My world; for if you do, there will be no one else to repair it.’”[20] Shanah tovah.

[1]Psalm 104, 148, and Job 38-41

[2]Genesis Rabbah 10:7

[3]Genesis 2:15

[4]Exodus 19:4

[5]Psalm 18:3

[6]Psalm 24:1

[7]Deuteronomy 20:19

[8]Ten Teachings on Judaism and the Environment, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-lawrence-troster/10-teachings-on-judaism-a_b_844973.html

[9]Sefer Hasidim

[10]Deuteronomy 22:6-7

[11]Leviticus 22:28

[12]Avot d’Rebbe Natan 31b

[13]Avot d’Rebbe Natan 31b

[14]Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews

[15]Shemot Rabba 2:2

[16]Genesis 24

[17]Baba Metzia 85a

[18]Numbers 35:2-3

[19]Aruchin 33b

[20]Midrash Kohelet Rabbah, 1 on Ecclesiastes 7:13

An older member of a congregation suffered the death of his wife of close to 60 years. As he and his family observed shiva, the seven-day period of mourning, a teenager entered the man’s house. She came over to the man and his children and grandchildren, offered her hand in condolence, and in a soft voice said, “I am so sorry.” Retreating to the back of the room, she prayed during the minyan service and then quietly slipped out.

After the service, the granddaughter of the deceased turned to her grandfather and asked, “Who was that? I don’t recognize her.” The old man shrugged his shoulders and said, “One of the kids from the Temple, I think.” During the entire period of mourning, the image of the teenage girl offering her hand in condolence brought a smile to the old man’s face. Through her presence, the teenager acknowledged the elderly man’s loss and pain. Here she was – one human being seeing the spark of the Holy in a complete stranger.

Stranger. Hearing the word often leads us to conjure up in our minds an image of someone exotic, someone unlike us, someone foreign, someone coming to our synagogue or town or state or nation for nefarious reasons, someone to fear or hate or distrust, or someone who should just go back home. Rarely do we think of someone who contains the spark of the Holy.

And yet, “the stranger” is the category of individuals mentioned in the Torah for special treatment more than any others. We read: There shall be one law for the citizen and the stranger who dwells among you.[1] You shall not wrong or oppress a stranger.[2] You shall not pick your vineyard bare or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger.[3] The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself.[4] Hear out your fellow, and decide justly between any person and a fellow Israelite or a stranger.[5] You must befriend the stranger.[6] Every third year bring out the full tithe of your yield and share it with the … stranger.[7] You shall not subvert the rights of the stranger.[8] These are just some of the examples.

The stranger in the Torah, called the ger, encompasses many different people. First, the ger refers the Israelites from the time when they were enslaved – strangers as it were – in Egypt. I’ll return to this reference to the ger a few moments.

The ger also refers to the one who resides with the Israelites without becoming an Israelite – specifically called the ger toshav. This ger is very much like our many non-Jewish family members who are a part of the Temple Beth Jacob community.

A third ger in Torah is the person who officially joins the Israelite nation – today this is someone who converts to Judaism. As we are forbidden to make distinctions between born Jews and converts, this category of ger is best left for Biblical times.

A fourth and final ger in the Torah is a person from outside the Israelite community who does not join with the Israelite people, either through conversion or residence – someone like Moses’ father-in-law, a Midianite priest. Today, this would be a person from another nation or religion. Some of these people join with us when we host a Shabbat learning service at which many from Concord’s different faith communities attend. Others are here with us this morning, as guests of our members or simply friends of TBJ.

The commandments related to how we treat the stranger are the most often cited in Torah. They appear thirty-six times, double chai, or double eighteen. Some even say the number is forty-six, not thirty-six.

I’ll stick with double chai, as eighteen is the number that represents the Hebrew word for life – and thus we might say, bestowing kindness on the stranger – the person who is different – is one of the most life affirming actions we can undertake. It enhances two lives, which is why the commandment appears thirty-six, and not simply eighteen times – the life of the stranger and the life of the person who acts with kindness toward the stranger.

Emily Dickenson, in a few short words, reminds us that this life-affirming act in how we treat the stranger reverberates into how we relate to the Divine. She writes:

These Strangers, in a foreign World,
Protection asked of me –
Befriend them, lest Yourself in Heaven
Be found a Refugee –

That the Torah contains more laws dealing with the protection of the stranger than with any other subject, including honoring God or observing Shabbat is of tremendous significance. Obviously, for the biblical legislator, concern for the stranger was considered a religious value of supreme importance.

Very often, when we read Torah laws about the treatment of the stranger, we are told, “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”[9]

Many of the commandments add the words, “for you know the feelings of a stranger.”[10] It is the experience of the Israelite as a ger that heightens our sensitivity to the plight of other gerim.

I once read a story about a Jewish middle school student living in a very white community. She wrote, “When I was about twelve years old, an African-American family moved onto our street. This was highly unusual for our town in the early 1970s, as my town was lily white. My high school graduating class of 400 included only three Asians, two Latinos, two African-Americans – and about a half-dozen Jews.

“After the family moved in, my father took me by the hand and walked me across the street to welcome them. ‘We always treat someone new to the community with kindness. And we make sure that anyone who might feel different is warmly welcomed.’ He continued, ‘The Jew knows what it’s like to be excluded and treated with cruelty. We can never let that happen to anyone else.’”

About the Torah passages concerning the stranger, Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch, a 19^th-century German rabbi, wrote:

Whenever … the Torah lays down the law concerning the rights of persons, … the “stranger in the land” is placed under special protection. … The degree of justice in a land is measured, not so much by the rights accorded to the native-born inhabitants … or people who have … representatives or connections that look after their interests, but by what justice is meted out to the completely unprotected “stranger.”

The absolute equality in the eyes of the law between the native and the foreigner forms the very basic foundation of Jewish jurisdiction.[11]

Why does the Torah go to such great extremes in commanding – demanding – that we treat the stranger with kindness? Because Torah recognizes the unique hardships faced by people perceived to be different. They are often subject to ridicule, to racism, to xenophobia, and to unequal treatment under the law.

Consider these stories about the treatment of the Jews who lived in Morocco during the last two centuries. Treated as strangers, these Jews were descendants of children of Israel who settled in the area that would become Morocco as early as the fifth century bce.

At that time, Morocco had a mixed history vis-à-vis its Jews. As we moved into modernity, Morocco was considered to be the Arab country that was the kindest to its Jewish residents. And yet these stories are representative of that supposed “kindness.”

This is the first story:

Before the 20^th century, the legal and social status of the Jews in
Morocco was based on the interpretations of the Qur’an and the pact of Umar.

In addition to paying a per capita yearly tax levied on non-Muslims and coping with other restrictions, the Moroccan-Jews … were obliged to wear black clothing and a hair-style different from that of a Muslim, in order to be distinguishable in public. Jews could neither ride horses nor bear arms; they were prevented from learning classical Arabic or erecting new synagogues; they were not allowed to bathe in the Muslim bathhouse nor build houses higher than those of Muslims. Their evidence could not be accepted in Muslim courts. … Economic and political instability, popular rebellions, the death of a sultan, or even the rumor of such a death, rendered the Jews more vulnerable than the Muslims. Muslims often expressed their feelings toward Jews in this epigraph: “The Jew contaminates the sea.”[12]

The 20^th century was no better for the Jews of Morocco, and in fact, after 1948 and the establishment of the state of Israel, one might argue that it was worse. Author Lyn Julius tells the following story about one family:

My relatives were subjected to repeated episodes of intimidation and violence living as Jews during the upheavals of Morocco in the 1950s. They were expected to show deference to Muslims in public. … My grandfather, who had worked his whole life to build a furniture factory in Casablanca, first had his business seized and assets frozen.  The family was large – a lot of kids – and they began to struggle with hunger and fear for their future.  Eventually, the al-Fatah movement targeted my grandfather to be killed, and a Muslim friend of his gave him the warning.  My family had to flee in the middle of the night, leaving behind their home, traumatized and in panic, smuggling themselves aboard a boat that carried them to a refugee camp in southern France.[13]

The Jews of Morocco are only one example of a people deemed to be the “stranger,” despite their nearly 3,000 year history of residing in that land.

My friend and colleague Rabbi Leah Doberne-Schor astutely observes, that in addition to treating the stranger with chesed, kindness and rachamim, compassion, Torah teaches v’ahavta l’rei-echa k’mocha, “love your neighbor as yourself.”

And she asks, “Why [do we] teach both – to love your neigh­bor and to love the [stranger]? Because it’s relatively easy for us to empathize with people who seem, at least on the outside, to be like us. On the other hand, it can take far more effort on our part to understand people who appear to be different from us.”

She continues, “Despite these so-called differences, there is, in truth, no difference in our common humanity. As a Jewish person, this teaches me that we manifest God’s love when we treat neighbor and [stranger] alike in our love. Indeed, we turn the stranger – the outsider – into our neighbor by demonstrating kindness, compassion, acceptance, and justice.”

The Arab-American poet Naomi Shihab Nye teaches that turning the stranger into a friend can be a simple act. She reflects on this in her poem Red Brocade:

The Arabs used to say,
When a stranger appears at your door,
feed him for three days
before asking who he is,
where he’s come from,
where he’s headed.
That way, he’ll have strength
enough to answer.
Or, by then you’ll be
such good friends
you don’t care.

Let’s go back to that.
Rice? Pine nuts?
Here, take the red brocade pillow.
My child will serve water
to your horse.

No, I was not busy when you came!
I was not preparing to be busy.
That’s the armor everyone puts on
to pretend they had a purpose
in the world.

I refuse to be claimed.
Your plate is waiting.
We will snip fresh mint
into your tea.

We can do it. We can put fresh mint into a stranger’s tea. We can graciously welcome unknown visitors who pay a shiva call. We can and we must. When we don’t act with kindness, we remain eternally other.

The writer George Saunders recently told this story:

In seventh grade, a new kid joined our class. … Ellen was small and shy. She wore blue cat’s-eye glasses that, at the time, only old ladies wore. When nervous, which was pretty much always, she [took] a strand of hair into her mouth and [chewed] on it.

She came to our school and was mostly ignored, occasionally teased (“Your hair taste good?” – that sort of thing).  I could see it hurt.  I still remember how she’d look after such an insult: eyes cast down, a little gut-kicked, … trying to disappear. Sometimes I’d see her hanging around alone in her front yard, as if afraid to leave it. And then – they moved. That was it. No tragedy, no big final hazing. One day she was there, next day she wasn’t. End of story.

Now, why forty-two years later, am I still thinking about [Ellen]? Because what I regret most in life are my failures of kindness.

Sometimes, it is easier to be kind and compassionate toward the foreign “stranger” – the person escaping social, economic, religious, or political hardship in a distant place – than it is toward the local “stranger” – such as our neighbors down the street, or the homeless man living under the bridge. Certainly, the history of the Moroccan Jews and George Saunders’ memory brings this point home.

We have all been strangers to one extent or another, within our families, within our congregations, and within our communities – because of our race, our age, our disability, our sexuality, our gender identity, our religion, our political outlook, or some other life-affirming aspect of our being. Our national experience as oppressed strangers in Egypt compels us to make sure that today’s strangers are not similarly mistreated. So as we begin the new year of 5779, let us recommit ourselves to treating every stranger with kindness, for no other reason than our shared humanity.

Shanah tovah.

[1]Exodus 12:49

[2]Exodus 22:20

[3]Leviticus 19:10

[4]Leviticus 19:34

[5]Deuteronomy 1:16

[6]Deuteronomy 10:19

[7]Deuteronomy 14:28

[8]Deuteronomy 24:17

[9]Exodus 22:20

[10]Exodus 23:9

[11]Commentary on Shemot 1:14

[12]The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in Modern Times, Reeva S. Simon, Michael M. Laskier, Sara Reguer (Columbia University Press, 2003), p.480

[13]Uprooted: How 3000 Years of Jewish Civilization in the Arab World Vanished Overnight (Vallentine Mitchell & Co Ltd, 2018)

There is always something special about this time of year. For some, it’s the cooler nights and smell of burning leaves, for others it’s picking apples and making pie, or the start of a new school year.  There are a lot of changes with the coming Fall.

As Jews, we take the time over the next ten days, to pause and reflect on the past 12 months and the year approaching. In many ways it’s like a self-meditative recalibration in the aftermath of so much activity. We each lead busy lives and it’s sometimes hard to find those minutes in the day to reflect, to pause, to just be still.

Between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur I take stock in everything I accomplished this past year and where I came up short…which relationships I was able to forge while simultaneously trying to understanding those relationships I could have made better, because of my lack of attention.

People come in and out of our lives each year. Friendships grow closer or wane depending on various events and circumstances. There may be new celebrations of life, the passing of a loved one, or the untimely move of a close friend. It’s truly remarkable when you pause and think back to all the new people you made relationships with this past year and at the same time how you continued to build on your existing ones.

But even more special is when one of these relationships shines in your life unexpectedly. There is a profound beauty in the simplicity of their connection to you.  Something gets triggered that bridges their world with yours in a way that is compatible and exponential in it’s ability to add to your life.  As a physicist, I know that when two waves superimpose in constructive interference the resulting wave has a higher amplitude than the previous wave. Meaningful relationships are very much like these waves and can grow to include a community – very much like the one we find ourselves in today at TBJ.

Early in my business career, I joined a small software start-up company in Burlington, MA.  I was nervous as I knew nothing about business or how software was commercially engineered.  I was given the job of “software evangelist” because they felt I was passionate enough to help be the technical sales nerd.  Everyone around me was considerably older. I was clearly the “new kid” and I was green.

One week into my new job I walked around the office and decided to go see the engineers and product team.  As I made my way around the building I noticed a tall guy who looked familiar. To my surprise, it was a Bates College classmate who graduated one year ahead of me! Peter Goodrich and I spent hours together in physics and math classes and he was someone that I could turn to when I didn’t understand how to solve a complicated physics problem. Our Tuesday nights often consisted of him helping me understand the intricacies of quantum mechanics – the nature of the smallest of energy levels of atoms and subatomic particles.

Peter and I would often meet for dinner in the cafeteria, talk about physics, and discuss the flight patterns and aerodynamics of nature’s creatures…including his passion for dragonflies… expert fliers that can move straight up and down and hover like helicopters. We would then walk to the Science center and spend the next 6 hours solving all the problems of the universe.  Hours later, our all class room white boards would be covered with Greek letters and mathematical expressions that invariably led to an answer where x = -1, 0, and 1 which correlated to some physical description of the universe.

Peter was a great friend, mentor, and calming influence when trying to work through endless problem sets. Peter also had significant dyslexia – a challenge in physics since writing out the mathematical derivations required absolute precision. In an unexpected complementary twist, Peter would guide me through advanced physics while I returned the favor by helping him be his scribe for his thesis.  It became a relationship built on two waves with a larger amplitude…and now Peter happened to be working at my first tech job!

Peter once again taught me. This time the intricacies of software engineering and product management. He had a talent to not only be deeply technical but take the time to listen to customers and communicate how best to deploy our solutions.  I would jokingly tell him his head was like a dragonfly covered in eyes that could see every angle except right behind him. I used to like to sneak up on him and scare from behind. He just knew how to see what people needed. We spent months together traveling to various customer meetings deepening our friendship.

After a year of working together, I received a phone call from someone I met at a tech event. He asked if I had an interest to join a small, unknown startup company in NH looking to change the way customers received service online. It was the time of ecommerce – if you bought something online then you should be able to return something online as well – or so he thought. I discussed this new job opportunity with Peter and he agreed it was worth pursuing.

In three years, our fledgling company went from a handful of people to over 950 employees. I would travel non-stop logging over 150,000 airline miles in one year and in an ironic twist found myself on an airplane heading to California with none other than Peter.  Once again our waves met…and this time with big hugs and a 6 hour conversation as we flew across the US.  It turned out that both of us would fly out to Los Angeles quite frequently for various meetings for our respective companies. It was meant to be.  We surprisingly both married our college sweethearts and started thinking about when our first children might show up!

By 2001, the tech industry had changed. The bubble had burst and employees shuffled from .com based companies to explore more solid ground.  I too was part of this change while Peter remained at the same company.

And then 17 years ago to this day the world stopped and watched the World Trade Center Towers fall. Three days later I received an email from a former colleague and friend asking me to call him.  It turned out that Peter was on United Flight 175 – the second hijacked airplane to hit the south tower at 9:03 AM. The very plane we would travel on together to Los Angeles just months before. It didn’t seem real or possible. Nothing did at that time.

A few months later, our college published its quarterly update with a tribute to Peter.  His warm smile and caring eyes shined back from the accompanying photo.  It was at that point that I realized I had lost a friend – someone who I did not see regularly as a “close friend”  but someone that was just simply always there in my life and there to lend a hand. Someone who was a mentor, a sounding board, a comedian. And now… he was gone. I wept.

Less than a decade later, I started a new tech business focused on helping coordinate the massive amount of information when constructing some of the largest buildings, bridges, roads, tunnels, in the world.  Our software was used to manage over 4M building projects around the globe and in an interesting turn of events I found myself standing in the hole of the World Trade Center complex on top of the very footings where millions of pounds of steel would soon be sitting.

I would often think of Peter, whisper his name in a prayer. We’re going to rebuild this even better.  Months would pass and in the Spring of 2012 the Freedom Tower became the tallest building in New York City at 1,776 feet, a deliberate and perfect height. I went to check on the project and meet with our customers and then just three years later in 2015 it was complete…and I was off to build a new company.

This past spring, I found myself back in New York City with a little spare time. I decided to take a walk to visit the 9/11 Memorial – a new addition that I had not seen. As I walked along the Memorial Plaza I gazed at the countless names of men, women, and children killed in the attacks inscribed in the bronze plates surrounding the twin memorial pools. I searched for Peter’s stencil-cut name and held out my hand to press it against my skin – something that I could take back with me as I made the two-block walk back to my hotel.

By the time I made it back to my hotel Peter’s name had faded in my hand.  I was hungry and decided to sit outside on the terrace looking out over the World Trade Center.  As I sat down, something grabbed my attention. I glanced across to the chair across from me where resting on the top was a dragonfly. I smiled. I thought to myself, “My friend Peter has returned to say hello.”

What was the probability that a dragonfly in the concrete universe of New York City would happen to pick this very spot.

And then I realized — they were about the same odds as what Max Born, a particle physicist, would describe –  that the probability of obtaining any possible measurement outcome is equal to the square of the corresponding wave amplitude.

Perhaps our waves of energy were meant to cross paths again.

Our circle of relationships may change each year but their impact is never forgotten. If we seek friendship or love ,then we must make ourselves available to seek friendship and love back. Are we prepared to love? And, our time, however limited it may be in the course of a day or a year, is the greatest gift we can give someone. Are we available to provide time?

With this season of self-reflection, let’s take stock of how we wish to be truly present in the lives we connect with each day. Let’s find a way to extend a hand to those we don’t know and explore the opportunity to find new waves with new friends- like my friend Peter.

Rabbi Robin’s D’var torah on the first day of Rosh Hashanah reminded us about how the Jewish sages warned us about how we speak of strangers as noted 36 times as commandments in the Torah. More than any other commandment. The Rabbi mentioned how there were four different interpretations in the Torah regarding strangers. I might offer a fifth. The stranger inside…which manifests when we unconsciously disconnect from our present reality and the people around us. We also become prisoners in repetitive thoughts and preconceived perspectives of those we barely know. Perhaps this is the underlying commonality among the other four interpretations throughout the Torah.

Freedom of worship, religion, and speech – these are core Jewish values. As Jews we all know what it’s like to be treated as a stranger and it’s why we are extra sensitive when it comes to tolerance and being respectful to others.

The Dali Lama wrote, “Genuine friendships depends on genuine affection and taking a sense of responsibility for each other.”

If we can have shared concern for each other, we can transcend our differences and enhance our relationships each day.

And maybe, just maybe, a dragonfly stops by to remind us of the meaning of friendship.

L’shana Tovah

Kol Nidrei 5779

Al cheit shechatanu l’fanecha … for the sins we have committed …

for raising my voice in anger at my children.

for not being home enough to support my spouse.

for not being as patient of a father as I would like to be.

for not being as patient of a husband as I would like to be.

for neglecting relationships.

for not being generous with my children.

for selfishly venting my anger on my spouse.

for taking my anger out on my mother.

for losing patience with my struggling child.

for thinking ill of my sister.

for speaking ill of my sister.

for not honoring my husband.

These are some of the actions for which we, the TBJ community, asked God for for­giveness last year. Cantor Shira and I read these from the for­give­ness cards that you dropped into the Healing Bucket that we place in the vestibule between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

We read very similar comments the year before, and the year before that. And we will read many of these same words tomorrow.

Why is it so hard to be kind to our intimates?

We are Jews, so let’s start by looking at our Biblical ancestors.

We’ll, there’s Abraham. He made his wife Sarah pretend to be his sister when they went to Egypt. He threw out of his house his son Ishmael along with Hagar, Ishmael’s mother. He was ready to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Moriah until an angel of God stopped him.

Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, tricked his brother out of his birthright. He then deceived their father in order to obtain the blessing of the first-born. And who helped him deceive his father? His mother, Rebecca.

Miriam speaks badly about her brother, Moses. Why? According to the midrash, it’s because Moses had stopped having intimate relations with his wife, Tzipporah.

And let’s not forget that Cain killed his bother Abel; Noah’s sons ridicule their father when he gets drunk and naked; and Joseph’s brothers sell him into slavery to a passing caravan of Ishmaelite merchants.

So let me ask my question again: Why is it so hard to be kind to our intimates? In their book On Kindness, authors Adam Phillips and Barbara Taylor write:

“The pleasure of kindness is that it connects us with others; but the terror of kindness is that it makes us too immediately aware of our own and other people’s vulnerabilities (vulnerabilities that we … call failings when we are … most frightened). Vulnerability – parti­cularly the vulnerability we call desire – is our shared biological inheri­tance. Kindness, in other words, opens us up to the world of others in ways that we both long for and dread.”

That vulnerability in ourselves often causes us to hold back our acts of kindness. As the author Brene Brown says, “Vulnerability is the first thing I look for in you and the last thing I’m willing to show you. In you, it’s courage and daring. In me, it’s weakness.”

One way we defend against our own vulnerabilities is by being critical. Criticism is an ego defense. We don’t criticize others because we disagree with their behavior or attitude. We criticize others because we feel devalued by their behavior or attitude.

So, we want to be kind to our intimates, but it scares us to do so. And yet, in our hearts, in our guts, in our kishkes, we know we must. The late cosmologist Carl Sagan offers this simple, yet oh-so-difficult, suggestion: “[Remember that] none of us comes fully equipped. Let us temper our criticism with kindness.”

I recently came across an article about decades of research on how spouses and partners relate to each other.

Social scientists found that the number one predictor of a satisfying and stable marriage or partnership is treating each other with kindness. The same can be said for our relationships with our other intimates – our parents, our children, our siblings, and our friends.

Years ago, a congregant told me about her relationship with her mother. Her mother had been married several times and mostly saw her daughter as a burden. She travelled for long periods of time, leaving her child to be cared for by grandparents, with whom the girl became very close. When the mother would return home, she treated her daughter cruelly – her self-centered­ness resulted in a terrible jealousy concerning the girl’s closeness to her grandmother. The daughter eventually walked away from any relationship with her mother. And then many years later, the daughter received a late night phone call from Logan Airport. Her mother had flown in on an international flight – the daughter hadn’t even known that her mother was living overseas – to move back to the States. The mother was elderly and frail and in need of care. The only living relative was her daughter. The grown woman gritted her teeth, thought about kibud av v’eim – the commandment to honor one’s parents – and drove to Boston to get her mother. She put her in a nursing home locally and rarely visited. When her mother died, she asked me to say a few prayers at the house, as she couldn’t bring herself to hold a funeral service.

I tell you this story because we see in it an extreme version of what parental unkindness can lead to. The poet Cathy Song offers these painful words as a reminder in her work, The Kindness of Others:

Those who have never known kindness

drag into the privacy of their smallness

the baskets of fruit

appearing year after year on their porches,

to be picked apart

in the hushed posture of thieves.

They peel skin, probe flesh

the color of honey

as if the seeds will yield something

other than a glimmer of sweet air

rising from the roots of trees

and licorice-laced, half-opened leaves.

Those of the small flame,

who feed off envy and grow old quickly,

live out their lives

hungry,

glaring at themselves across the table,

wife of the cruel mouth,

husband of the thin broth

trickling like spittle.

Returning to my story of daughter abandoned by her mother, thank heavens, she did not repeat her mother’s behavior and has a very close and loving relationship with her own children.

Because sometimes, that is what unkindness from an intimate can give us: The will to behave just the opposite.

When we are kind to those with whom we are close, we are willing to celebrate their successes without feeling jealous or that their successes somehow diminish our own successes – or even our very existence. Of course, this requires treating our own self with kindness – and that is the topic of my sermon tomorrow morning.

But to celebrate others, we must drop the competition or the thinking that there’s a limited amount of success to go around. Even Darwin, famous for his theory of the survival of the fittest, didn’t believe that humans were self-centered and competitive. While he concluded through the study of biological evolution that certain species would survive, he actually believed that human beings are profoundly caring and kind, instinctively. Behaving the opposite, he taught, is what is learned.[1]

Psychologists John Gottman and Robert Levenson began studying married couples in the mid-1980s, tying to figure out what makes some relationships succeed and others not. They watched newlyweds interact for a set period of time, recording what they saw, and followed up six years later to see whether the couples were still together, and if so, whether they were still happy.

In the follow up, they divided the couples into two categories: masters and disasters. Masters were still happily married. Disasters were either divorced or chronically unhappily married.

Gottman continued the study of the couples by himself. He wanted to discover how the masters created an atmosphere of love and intimacy, while the disasters destroyed it. He created a lab that looked like a lovely bed and breakfast. He invited 130 couples to spend a day at his “lab,” and then he watched how they interacted with each other as they cooked, ate, cleaned up, went for walks, enjoyed music, and chatted. His critical discovery was this: When one spouse called out for a connection – perhaps it was to see an unusual bird that that bird-loving spouse noticed – the other spouse of the master couple responded with enthusiasm.

Psychologist Shelly Gable describes four possible ways one spouse can respond to the other who shares news. She calls them: passively destructive, actively destructive, passively constructive, and act­ively constructive. Using the bird-watching example, a passively destructive response would include ignoring the partner’s news and imposing one’s own, such as: “Hey, I just noticed they are serving salmon for dinner. That’s my favorite!”

A passively constructive response would acknowledge the spouse’s statement, but essentially ignore it, by saying something like, “that’s nice.”

An actively destructive response would diminish the statement with something like, “Those birds are a dime a dozen. I’ve seen hundreds of them today.”

With an actively constructive response, the other partner purposefully engages, saying something like, “That’s great that you saw such an unusual bird. Have you ever seen it before? And what made you look up in that direction?”

Both Gottman and Gable concluded that these kinds of interactions have substantial effects on the health of any marital or partner relationship. Gottman, in particular, noted that the couples who were still happily together six years after his initial study of them responded in an actively constructive way nearly 90% of the time, while those who divorced or were unhappily still together responded that way only 33% of the time.

When I read about these psychologists and their studies, I imme­diately remembered a conversation I had had recently. Through Cantor Shira, I met a woman who works with horses profes­sionally, and plays with horses in her spare time. Horses are her passion.

She had recently spent three days at a major annual horse event. Hundreds of horse people come together each year to learn, share ideas, shop, sell things, and do every possible other thing you might do when you are around other horse people. When she returned home, she was eager to share her experience with her boyfriend, a decidedly non-horse person. She hesitantly started talking about her time at the event when her boyfriend cut her off saying,

“You just spent three days with other horse people, talking non-stop about horse things. You don’t need to talk to me about it, too.”

She was crushed. She asked me if all non-horse loving partners responded this way. “I’m so sorry he rejected you,” I said. “I hope I am more supportive than that with Shira, but you’d have to ask her.”

While Gottman, Levenson, and Gable studied partners, their observations can be extended to other intimate relationships. A college freshman was out with her mother during spring break of her first year at school. Her mother asked her to share what classes she was taking and what she was learning. As the college student answered, her mother cut her off. The daughter asked her mother whey she interrupted her. Her mother responded, “You bore me,” a clearly actively destructive response – and one not all that different from how the mother had spoken to her daughter her entire life.

When the mother first asked the question, the daughter was stunned, thinking her mother had developed a genuine interest in her daughter. She soon realized that wasn’t the case and shut down. To this day, the daughter, who is nearly 60, has never shared anything of meaning or substance with her mother.

Research shows that people who criticize their intimates – partners, parents, children, siblings, or close friends – are unable to see the positive things their intimates do and say 50% of the time, and see negativity when it’s not there. They are irrevocably damaging the relationship by devaluing the people they theoretically love most.

Kindness has the opposite effect. Kindness makes others feel loved, cared for, valued, and safe. Even when we are tired, stressed, focused on our work, or otherwise engaged, responding with kindness will go an infinite distance. Let’s pledge to turn off the TV, shut down the computer or Ipad, or close the book in order to turn our focus to those people whom we so dearly love.

At the beginning of this sermon, I mentioned some of our Biblical ancestors for whom kindness to intimates is a challenge. Not everyone in the Tanakh behaves in such a way. We have many examples of the opposite.

When Joseph, whose identity is unknown to his brothers, demands that Benjamin remain with him in Egypt because Benjamin “stole” a goblet, their brother Judah steps in and says, “Take me instead. If you take the boy, our father will surely die.”

After Naomi’s husband and two sons die, her daughter-in-law, Ruth, returns to Canaan with her. Ruth works for her deceased husband’s cousin, Boaz, who marries her in fulfillment of the Leverite marriage requirement, which as a cousin, is not incumbent upon him.

Best friends, Jonathan and David pledge themselves to each other in love. King Saul, Jonathan’s father, is paranoid about David’s royal intentions and orders that David be killed. Jonathan warns him multiple times when to flee, even as he risks his own life.

Taking action to show kindness can be the easy part. The harder part is changing our attitude. We get angry when our spouse forgets to run the errand we had asked about. We lose our temper when our child seems to slow us down – on the day we have an important meeting. We lose our cool with our aging parent who is losing his independence.

Rather than react – externally or internally – with hostility, stop to think about the other’s intention. Our spouse may have had a good reason to not stop at the dry cleaners – or maybe he just forgot. But he probably didn’t do it to make more work for us. Our child isn’t moving slowly so we can be late for a meeting. She may simply be in her own childhood world, taking time to savor what we take for granted. And our aging parent hasn’t lost his indepen­dence to annoy us. In fact, he’s probably more upset about it than we are. Let’s try to stop seeing negativity. Let’s let the spirit of generosity and kindness be the norm.

In first part of The Kindness of Others, Cathy Song reminds us:

The kindness of others

is all they ever wanted,

the laughter of neighbors

prospering in the blue light of summer.

Those of the small sputtering flame

and the sudden white sprung hair,

who feed off envy and grow old quickly,

desire largesse.

The role of poor relation

evokes a lack

they are not apt to admit,

or unbearable pity.

They prefer to penetrate the giver’s

effortless knack of giving

they perceive as vitality,

a pulsating entity

that rewards the kindness of others

tenfold.

This they have witnessed.

This they have tabulated relentlessly.

The generosity of others

whose spirits, like their long-legged

children blossoming into a progeny

of orchards and fields, flourish.

Shanah tovah. May this be a year of kindness toward our intimates.

[1]DiSalvo, Scientific American, 2017

Five-time Oscar-nominated actress Amy Adams stars in a new HBO series that began this fall. It is entitled Sharp Objects. She plays Camille Preaker, a journalist with a dark past, whose life is filled with unresolved family trauma. About her character and her own life, Adams said recently, “I don’t have the same darkness and depth of internal anger, but that sort of sadness that drives you to be unkind to yourself? I think I have that.”[1]

Let’s unpack her words for a moment. The character she portrays, Camille Preaker, has a dark past, unresolved family trauma, and a depth of internal anger. I don’t think we need advanced degrees in psychology to understand how such a person could develop a tendency toward self-unkindness. But what about the actress, Amy Adams, not the character she portrays? She has a “sort of sadness” that drives her to be unkind to herself. “A sort of sadness?” If that is all it takes to develop that tendency toward self-unkindness, there is a good chance that we are all in that boat.

For those of you who did not hear all of my three previous sermons this High Holy Day season, I am focusing on kindness. I started broadly, with kindness to the environment. Then, I spoke on kindness to strangers. Last night was on kindness to intimates.

As I moved from the broad to the narrow, it makes sense that I would end with a sermon on kindness to oneself. And let me say, this has been the hardest one for me to write. Why? Because it hits so close to home. Amy Adams is right. No one is immune from treating oneself unkindly.

Do a Google search on unkindness toward oneself and you’ll get all kinds of hits: Silencing Your Inner Critic: You Don’t Need to Torture Yourself to Grow, The Self Kindness Project, and The Cost of Self Unkindness are just some of the articles I found.

They all have the same theme. If written in the first person, it’s, “I hated myself my whole life. I was miserable. And here the steps I took to turn my life around.” If written objectively, it’s, “You don’t have to hate yourself. You don’t have to be miserable. And here the steps you can take to turn your life around.”

Sounds easy, right? But it’s so hard.

And yet, if we are going end the cycle of self-unkindness, if we are going to break away from old habits that hurt so much, if we are going to accept that we have suffered pains and losses that have led us to treat ourselves to harshly, then we have to confront our past, grab onto its proverbial bull horns, and shout at it, “you will no longer control me and how I see myself.”

The German writer Hermann Hesse, can guide us with this. He wrote, “You know quite well, deep within you, that there is only a single magic, a single power, a single salvation … and that is called loving. Well, then, love your suffering. Do not resist it; do not flee from it. It is your aversion that hurts, nothing else.”[2]

In Judaism, two concepts, two mitzvot, form the core of how Jews must behave in relation to others. The first is chesed, meaning with “love.” The second is rachamim, meaning with “compassion.” From these two, we get the idea of gimilut chasadim, meaning “acts of loving-kindness.” One of the prayers from our morning liturgy, Eilu D’varim, identifies the ten mitzvot for which there is no reward in this world for performing. One is gimilut chasadim.

If loving kindness is so important for us as Jews, and we know it’s how we must relate to others, then why can’t we turn it inward and treat ourselves with that same loving kindness?

Rabbi Yechezkel ben Yehuda Landau,[3] in writing about sin, concluded that God forgives everything. Think about that. No matter what we do wrong, no matter how far we have strayed from the right path, God is willing to forgive us.

And yet, even when we have done nothing wrong, we still beat ourselves up, simply for being.

We remember the voices of parents, grandparents, teachers, rabbis, and others who told us we were not good enough, we were a disappointment, and we’d never get it right.

Last year, on our Yom Kippur forgiveness cards, members of this community sought forgiveness from God for:

being so closed off I don’t even know what I am feeling.

feeling unworthy and undeserving.

not taking responsibility for myself.

not believing I was strong enough.

struggling with forgiving myself.

S’licha is the Hebrew word meaning “forgive­ness.” The author David Blumenthal reminds us, “It is an act of the heart.”[4]

I don’t know about you, but a lot of stuff sits in my head. I might get it up here [point to head], but there seems to be a roadblock to bringing it down here [point to heart]. I have been trying to figure out how we can clear up that roadblock.

The author Kristin Neff, in her book Self Compassion, writes, “Whenever I notice something about myself I don’t like or whenever something goes wrong in my life, I silently repeat the following phrases:

This is a moment of suffering.

Suffering is a part of life.

May I be kind to myself in this moment.

May I give myself the compassion I need.[5]

And whenever she feels inadequate, she repeats these words:

May I be safe.

May I be peaceful.

May I be kind to myself.

May I accept myself as I am.[6]

Let’s hear these again:

This is a moment of suffering.

Suffering is a part of life.

May I be kind to myself in this moment.

May I give myself the compassion I need.

May I be safe.

May I be peaceful.

May I be kind to myself.

May I accept myself as I am.

Can you say these words or something similar to yourself? I know it seems hard. But what other choice do we have?

There’s a website called Brave Girls Club. You can subscribe to their Daily Email Truths, many of which begin with the words: “Dear Tender-Hearted Soul.” This work of self-kindness requires all of our heart and all of our soul. We have a phrase for that in Hebrew: b’chol l’vav’cha uv’chol nafsh’cha. These words may sound familiar.

That’s because they are from the V’ahavta, the paragraph we chant after the Sh’ma. The V’ahavta is about love – yes, love of God with all your heart and all your soul – but how can we love God if we cannot love ourselves?

A character named Hernando in the Netflix show called Sense8 reminds us: “In the end, we will all be judged by the courage of our hearts.”

Kindness to ourselves requires that courage within our hearts, usually accompanied by deep change, starting with how we think. The writer Tak, who maintains the website The Intuitive Elephant teaches us: “If we can change our thoughts, we can change what we say. If we can change our words we use, we can change what we do. If we can change our actions, we can change how we live. So by changing our thoughts, we can change our lives.”

In a Cherokee tale, a grandfather is talking with his grandson. The older man tells the younger that there are two wolves inside each of us, which are always at battle. One is a good wolf. It represents things like self-kindness, self-compassion, and self-love. The other is a bad wolf, which represents things like self-criticism and self-hate. The grandson stops and thinks about it for a second; then he looks up at his grandfather and says, “Grandfather, which one wins?” The grandfather replies, “The one you feed.”

We can start any time to change. The longer we wait, however, the more we punish ourselves. And as we begin this process, we must always remember that it is exactly that: a process. It won’t happen overnight, in a week, or even a month. We have spent a lifetime feeding the bad wolf. It’s hungry. When we stop feeding it, it is not likely to walk away quietly. It will continue to run toward us, expecting food. Resisting will take a lot of effort. We will have moments of success and moments when we back track.

Be kind to yourself when you hit a snag and say things about yourself that are unkind. Think about the voice of your GPS. It remains calm, even when you miss your exit or make a wrong turn. It never reprimands you. I often expect mine to call me an Idiot. She never does. She simply recalculates the route. Imagine if we could do that for ourselves.

The negativity comes up, we “know” better, we try to put the thoughts out of our mind, but we can’t. What if instead, when the negativity comes up, we take a deep breath and say to ourselves, “just recalculate, just recalculate.”

I know that this won’t work for everyone. So find something that will work for you. The author Banu Sekendur suggests that you find three things to do to be kind to yourself. She gives the examples of “I will say ‘I love you’ to myself ten times a day” or “Everyday I will look at myself in the mirror and identify what I like about myself before I leave the house.” Whatever it is, make sure it reflects you. If you find it’s not working, don’t abandon the effort and start feeding the bad wolf again. Just recalculate. Find something that does work.

And remember this: The same boiling water that softens the potato hardens the egg. Life is about what you’re made of, not the circumstances. You are strong. You would not have made it this far in your life, flaws and all, if you were not.

There’s another truth to remember. No one is judging you, except you. No one is obsessed with what is wrong with you other than you.

Brianna Wiest reminds us, “Every time you’re convinced the world is plotting against you, when it seems like every last person you know has the same, recurring thought that’s humiliating and awful toward you, remember that people are predominantly … concerned about themselves … [just] like you are, [at this very moment].

Also remember that you don’t have to do this alone. If you need a therapist, find a therapist. I maintain a list of professionals who can offer help – professionals recommended by therapists and clients in our community. If no one on my list can help you, I’ll reach out and see if I can find other referrals.

Also, if you need medication – anti-depressants, anti-anxiety drugs, or something else – don’t be reluctant to find a psychiatrist or other doctor who can prescribe it for you. Using a therapist or taking medication is not a sign of weakness. It’s a sign of being strong to get the help you need. Letting your pride or ego or fear of vulnerability keep you from getting the help – that’s the weakness.

Here is a final something to keep in mind: It is not selfish to focus on yourself and be kind to yourself, not matter what the voices in your head say. You might hear your judgmental or narcissistic parent telling you that it’s not about you – that it’s about them – and how dare you focus on you. You know what? That voice is wrong. It is about you, at least at the outset. You can’t focus on others until you help yourself. Flight attendants remind us of that every time we hear the safety instructions about the oxygen masks.

We are in the season of t’shuvah, turning or changing ourselves to become the people we want to be or we know we can be. We will never be perfect. We can’t be. We are human. Flaws will remain.

But we still can make changes.

T’shuvah involves many steps. The final stage of t’shuvah is accepting who we are and realizing that our flaws make us unique. Our challenge in life is not to hide who we are, hide our inner voice, or live like other people, but to become more like ourselves.

The great Chasidic master, the Ba’al Shem Tov taught, “Compare yourself not with anyone else, lest you spoil God’s curriculum.”

One of my favorite Chasidic stories involves Rav Zusya. He was old and dying. His disciples came to visit him and found him crying. “Zusya, what’s the matter? Are you in pain?” they asked.

“No, I’m not in pain.” He then told them about a vision he had: “I learned the question that God will one day ask me about my life.”

His followers were puzzled. “Zusya, you are pious. You are scholarly and humble. You have raised many disciples and have taken care of us. What question about your life could be so terrifying that you would be frightened to answer it?”

Zusya replied, “I have learned that God will not ask me, ‘Zusya, why weren’t you more like Moses, leading your people out of slavery?’ And I learned that God will not ask me, ‘Zusya, why weren’t you more like Joshua, leading your people into the Promised Land?’”

“Then what will God ask you?” his students cried out. Zusya sighed and said, “God will say to me, ‘Zusya, why weren’t you more like Zusya?’”

No matter what we think of ourselves, no matter what we see when we look in the mirror, we are all children of God with so much to offer. The poet Marianne Williamson teaches us this in her affirming poem, Our Deepest Fear.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness

that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves

who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small

does not serve the world.

There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking

so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine,

as children do.

We were born to make manifest

the glory of God that is within us.

It’s not just in some of us;

it’s in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,

we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we’re liberated from our own fear,

our presence automatically liberates others.

Life is process. Making changes in our lives is a process. Our souls are not the cold perfection of diamond, but the tumultuous organic stuff of creation. We struggle, forgive, take risks, succeed, fail, look in the mirror, turn away from the mirror, mourn who we were, and celebrate who we have become. As we let go of internal the voice that is cruel and punishing and unkind, we can weave the uncertainties of life, the shadows, the flaws, and the imperfections into the quilt of being – a beautiful quilt because it is a real quilt; a work of art, which says hineini, I am here and I deserve to be.

Shanah tovah.

[1]Interviewed in the Independent, July 2, 2018

[2]Wer lieben kann, ist glücklich. Über die Liebe

[3]18^th century Poland

[4]Repentance and Forgiveness,” David R. Blumenthal, Cross Currents.

[5]Page 119

[6]Page 202