Congregation KTI

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach!

Yesterday, I completed my annual tradition of shaking lulav and etrog with all of the students in our Early Childhood Program one-by-one. That, and a brief explanation of the distinctive rituals of Sukkot to each class, took about 90 minutes.

I once again found myself struggling to explain, especially to a child, this strange ritual. Why, of all things, would we gather these four plants and wave them around?

We’re not the first to struggle with these questions. Classical rabbinic literature abounds with symbolic explanations, which itself suggests an attempt to pile multiple meanings onto a ritual whose original meaning may have become forgotten or obscure over time.

Yesterday in our Parasha Perspectives class, we encountered one such teaching attributed to Rabbi Akiva, who suggests that each of the four plants represents a different aspect of God.

The etrog (known as the “hadar,” or beautiful and majestic fruit) represents God’s majesty or beauty, as in the verse from Psalms: “You are clothed in glory and majesty” (104:1).

The palm branch represents God’s righteousness, as in the verse: “The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree” (Psalm 92:13).

The myrtle branches represent God’s presence among the righteous, as in a vision of the prophet Zecharia, which depicts God standing among the myrtles.

And finally, the willows of the brook (arvei nachal) represent God’s dominion in the skies and over rain, as in the verse “Extol the One who rides upon the skies (aravot)” (Psalm 68:5).

Majesty, righteousness, presence, and dominion: these are different aspects of how we can feel God relating to us.

Sometimes, we encounter God in the beauty of the world around us. Sometimes, we encounter God in the proper ordering of the universe (and get angry at God when that does not seem to be in evidence). Sometimes, we simply feel that God is with us in whatever is happening. And sometimes, we feel at the mercy of something much more powerful than we are (especially with regard to the power of nature as exemplified by the anxiety about rainfall that is at the basis of Sukkot).

Yet, on Sukkot, we hold them together. It’s all the same God in all of these moments.

May this coming holiday of Sukkot enable us to encounter each of these aspects of God, and more.

Thank you everyone for a really wonderful Yom Kippur. I invite you to read my sermons if you missed them (links in the comments.) May we all be inscribed and sealed in the book of life!

Shabbat Shalom!

Our Torah portion, Ha’azinu, consists mostly of Moses’ poetic account of God’s relationship with the people.

Describing how God led the people Israel through the desert, Moses declares:

“Like an eagle who rouses its nestlings,
Gliding down to its young,
So did [God] spread wings and take them,
Bear them along on pinions” (Deuteronomy 32:11).

The image is of an eagle training its young to fly, helping them get the hang of it and swooping in to catch them when they tire.

The commentator Rashi explores another aspect of this metaphor. He explains that the eagle will have compassion for its children and therefore will not enter the nest suddenly, in a manner that will startle and frighten them.

Rather, the eagle will fly around the nearby branches and trees, causing a commotion to more gently wake the baby birds, so that they will be ready to receive the eagle.

Perhaps this considerate eagle is also a metaphor for this season of the year.

We begin with Tisha B’Av, the moment of destructive estrangement from God.

We move on to Elul, days of reconnection with our Beloved.

Rosh Hashanah marks time and gives us a sense of renewal and possibility.

We next have the days of Teshuvah, where we make amends and improve our ways as best we can.

And then, we reach Yom Kippur, the day of sealing, closing, covering-over, atoning.

Rather than having this overwhelming day descend on us with no warning, we have weeks and days of preparation leading up to it. We prepare ourselves for the overwhelming holiness of the day.

And then, we encounter the presence of the Divine, hovering over us like a mother bird, guiding us, catching us when we fall, and giving us another chance to get it right.

Shabbat Shalom and Shana tova!

Tonight, the sun will set on 5786 and together we will begin this new year with days of repentance and renewal.

It’s easy to think about these holidays in terms of reward and punishment: we have done wrong, we admit error and make amends. Then, we are forgiven, lest we experience the terrible punishments waiting for us otherwise.

I want to suggest a different way of thinking about these days.

Our task this season is to realign ourselves with who we truly are and who we are meant to become. We do this not out of fear of punishment, but out of love of life, other people, and God.

This is an enormous task. No one will ever truly finish it. But each year, we try.

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, a twentieth-century mystic, writes in his work Lights of Repentance: “Even though a person may see no way to repair his past; even though the path ahead may be full of obstacles; still, the will to be good: that is the breeze of the Garden of Eden that blows through the human soul.”

I’m struck by Rav Kook’s allusion to the Garden of Eden.

Recall that Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden fruit. They then hid in response to hearing the sound of the breeze in the garden that signified God’s presence. God then asks, “Where are you?” The pair emerge from hiding and begin to deal with the consequences of their actions.

Rav Kook suggests that the same Divine breeze from the primordial garden blows through each of us: the instinct to hide from the actions we are least proud of, but also the constant invitation from God to return to a better way.

No matter how far we have gone, we can always come back. The path may not be smooth. Our will to travel it may be weak. But the possibility of teshuva remains.

As we’ll say tomorrow: “You wait for us to return to You, even until our final day.”

This year, let’s try to feel that breeze of Eden.

From all of us at KTI, best wishes for a sweet new year. See you in shul!

Shabbat Shalom!

At the end of Moses’ life, we read in our Torah portions Nitzavim and Va-yeilekh, Moses stands before the people and urges them to choose life. He calls heaven and earth to witness this moment.

Rashi asks: Why heaven and earth?

Consider the heavens and the earth, Rashi explains. Have they ever changed their ways? The sun still rises in the east and sets in the west. Seeds planted in the earth grow in predictable ways. Creation remains faithful to the order God has given it.

And then, implicitly, Moses turns to us.

Because we are not always so faithful.

We resolve to change and then slip back into old patterns. We know who we want to be, and yet, somehow, we become distracted, discouraged, or simply forget.

The heavens and the earth offer us another possibility: they are not themselves moral agents, yet they do what is theirs to do with consistency, without the incentive of punishment or reward.

The natural world reminds us that holiness is not always found in dramatic moments. Nor does it require the enticement of positive or negative consequences.

Rather, holiness can be achieved through faithfulness, in doing the same good thing again and again, in returning again to what we know is right, in living out what we say we value more fully.

That may be one of the deepest challenges of these approaching High Holidays. It is fairly easy to stand in synagogue and say, This year will be different. The harder question comes afterward: Will we actually live differently?

The shofar will sound. The prayers will end. We will return to our regular lives. And then, each day, we will have another opportunity to choose.

Perhaps that is why Moses points us toward heaven and earth. They teach us that faithfulness is not about one great moment of transformation or willpower. Faithfulness is about returning, again and again, to the person we have said we want to become, one day and one choice at a time.

This year, may we have the faithfulness to choose life—today, tomorrow, the day after, and the day after.

Shabbat shalom!

There have been a few times (thankfully, not more) that I have been present with people who were very close to the end of their lives.

At those times, I have had the privilege of saying the traditional deathbed confession, or vidui, which is conceptually similar to the confessionals we will recite repeatedly on Yom Kippur.

The traditional deathbed vidui includes the idea that death can complete the process of atonement for our sins.

Some people have been troubled by this language, especially by the implication that death is a deserved punishment for something the dying person had done during their life.

I understand this practice differently, in light of a teaching connected to this week's Torah portion, Ki Tavo.

Much of the portion consists of a series of blessings and curses connected to the people's obedience or disobedience to the laws of the Torah.

Among the blessings is this beautiful verse: "Blessed shall you be in your comings and blessed shall you be in your goings" (Deuteronomy 28:6).

On the surface, Moses is blessing us when we leave home and when we return—that everywhere we go we should be blessed.

But Rashi, drawing on the Talmud, hears something much more profound in these words. He understands "comings" and "goings" as referring to our arrival in and departure from this world: "Your going out from the world should be without sin, just as your coming into the world was without sin."

We enter the world innocent of sin. Ideally, we should leave it having done what we can to make peace—with other people, with ourselves, and with God.

That means resolving the conflicts we can resolve, asking for forgiveness when we have caused hurt, offering forgiveness when we have been hurt, expressing the gratitude and love that need to be expressed, and coming to some sense of wholeness with the life we have lived.

And if, despite our best efforts, something remains unresolved, our tradition teaches that death itself can complete the process of atonement.

Seen this way, the deathbed vidui is not primarily about punishment. It is about the possibility of completing the work of a lifetime. It is about trying our best to live well with whatever time we have, so that when our time comes to leave this world, we can do so with as little unfinished business as possible.

There is a particular kind of clarity that can come at the end of life. The things that once seemed so important can fall away, and what really matters becomes clear: the people we love, the relationships we have nurtured or neglected, the apologies we have offered or withheld, and the ways we have used the precious time we were given.

The gift of this season of Elul is that we don't have to wait until the end of our lives to gain that clarity.

As we approach the Days of Repentance, the vidui of Yom Kippur gives us an opportunity to practice this kind of reflection now, while there is still time to repair what needs repairing, say what needs saying, and change what needs changing.

May we enter this new year with something of that deathbed clarity: not with fear of the end, but with a deeper appreciation for the time we have been given and a renewed commitment to use it well.