High Holy Day Sermons

• Rosh Hashanah:Ayeka, Where are you?

• Kol Nidre- Am I My Brother’s Keeper?

• Yom Kippur-Can Peace and Truth Live Together? The Challenge of Yonah ben Amittai

TISHA B’AV 5780, Night of Brokenness

Rabbi Barbara Penzner and Cantor Louise Treitman lead us in song, prayer, learning, and meditation to face the brokenness in our lives today. Members of HBT ...

This Tisha B’Av I feel the brokenness deeply, as I’ve never felt it before. We fear that the walls of our temples are crumbling. Not only our synagogues and holy spaces that sit empty, reminding us of our isolation from one another and from the loving embrace of community. But also the walls of those institutions that we hold dear, and believed would never crumble: the democratic institutions that we relied on to protect and to defend us; the commitment that we thought was shared across our nation to take care of each other; comfort that we count on to hold one another in times of sorrow and to come together as a community in times joy; the sense that everything is alright.

The Coronavirus has laid bare the bitter truth that everything is not alright. In fact, it has not been alright for many people before this pandemic arrived. We witness daily the terrorism of interminable poverty; of racism, of unjust systems of justice, and of those we count on to defend and protect us who are instead brutalizing and killing; the hatred that rips people from their countries or corrals them into detention centers and concentration camps; the disintegration of our planet that makes some areas of this world unsustainable for human life. Like the end of Jerusalem and its holy temple, it feels as if the walls are crumbling and the world is burning. And so tonight, we enter into our own broken hearts, and grieve, for the destruction past and present; for us, for our loved ones, for the strangers, we do not know, for humanity.

Why do we designate one day a year for remembering past suffering? Because we must remember. Because we have not yet succeeded in ending the suffering. Because the world is burning. And because remembering something that happened so long ago gives us hope. Because we have survived to tell the stories. Because we must tell the stories. Year after year, we remember and we hope and we stand up and we act to bring healing to our world.

Video and Chat Recording (Password is: &5bFTQ@u) from Tisha B'Av: A Night Of Brokenness

We need Torah. We need Torah now more than ever.

Shavuot could not come soon enough. It’s been seven weeks since Pesach, eleven weeks since our sheltering at home began. At Pesach, we spoke of liberation. But liberation for anyone requires law for all. On Shavuot, we willingly accept the yoke of Torah, saying Na’aseh venishma—we will do it and we will understand it. Torah is a gift: to guide us to stand firm against the worst human instincts, the yetzer hara, the human inclination toward selfishness and desire at the expense of others. It is taught that God gave the Torah because God needs us to be God’s hands in the world.

While we have each experienced the stresses to adjust to everything that is new, it has been challenging to find a way to protest and to defend the rights of others. But this week, one name cries out, demanding that we raise our voices. George Floyd. George Floyd is the latest symbol of the unending injustice and brutality of our world, injustice that even a pandemic cannot stop. Add his name to the shameful list of unarmed African Americans who have died at the hands of a society riddled with racial bias and hatred: Ahmaud Arbery, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Walter Scott, Sandra Bland, Amadou Diallo, Emmett Till… Say their names (Janelle Monae gives voice to the outrage that should embolden us all, as members of this unjust society.)

In Torah, names are sacred. Each name tells a story: Cain and Abel, Abraham, Dinah, Miriam, Nachshon, Bezalel, Moses. It is up to us, who have received Torah, the time-tested words that impel us toward goodness and toward creating a society infused with divine ideals, to tell their stories and to live their words. It is up to us to speak and to act, not out of hatred and not to perpetuate violence, but to use Torah to stand firm against the yetzer hara within each of us and all of us.

When violence flourishes,

we need Torah:

You shall not stand idly by the blood of another. (Lev. 19:16)

When people are starving because of a global pandemic; when they risk their health and the lives of those they love just to stand in line for a food pantry,

we need Torah:

Cursed be one who subverts the right of the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. (Deut.27:19)

When corruption rages among government officials, opening gateways for the wealthiest to profit while the poorest have nothing,

we need Torah:

You shall not falsify measures of length, weight , or capacity. You shall have an honest balance and honest weights. (Lev. 19:35-36)

You must have completely honest weight and completely honest measures. (Deut.25:13)

When crowds of people flagrantly disregard public health measures for their own enjoyment, regardless of the impact on others,

we need Torah:

In cases of a contagious affliction, be most careful to de exactly as the Levitical priests instruct you. (Duet. 24:8)

When government officials show no concern for the deaths of the most vulnerable, we need Torah:

You shall rise before the aged and show deference to the old. (Lev. 19:3

When people attack others for keeping social distance or wearing masks,

we need Torah:

You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Lev. 19:18)

You shall not hate another in your heart. (Lev. 19:17)

Tonight, we pause to celebrate Torah on the holiday of Shavuot. Let us all take time to learn, to understand, and to teach the lessons of Torah, to create a world of common concern and mutual support, a world of equity, governed by truth and by justice dispensed fairly for all. We can’t wait for a miracle from God. God is depending on us.

Let’s rise up and do everything we can to bring love and joy into this world.

Chag same’ach.

ON WASHING, WOMEN, AND WEATHERING THE STORM

I’m not kidding. These verses come right from this week’s Torah portion:

The LORD spoke to Moses, saying:

Make a basin of copper and a stand of copper for washing; and place it between the Tent of Meeting and the altar. Put water in it, and let Aaron and his sons wash their hands and feet [in water drawn] from it. When they enter the Tent of Meeting they shall wash with water, that they may not die; or when they approach the altar to serve, to turn into smoke an offering by fire to the LORD, they shall wash their hands and feet, that they may not die. It shall be a law for all time for them—for him and his offspring—throughout the ages.  (Exodus 30:17-21)

Still smiling from the jest and farce of Purim, these words struck me as a bit comical. Our ancient text described rigorous and routine washing as devotedly as the CDC website. How wise our ancestors were! How little has changed since then!

But today, those words are not so funny. Purim seems like a dream I dreamt when I was young and carefree. The main connection between Purim and today is the phrase that characterizes Purim’s raucous levity: venahafoch hu (the opposite happened); literally, “it was turned upside down.” (Esther 9:1) The evil that descended on the Jewish people failed to happen. Mordecai’s star rose as Haman’s fell.

By week’s end, our world has been turned upside down. As a community, we swiftly shifted from taking simple precautionary measures that allowed us to eat and drink and be merry on Purim, to sheltering in our homes, distant from one another just as Shabbat is descending. It feels topsy-turvy.

Today I discovered a different meaning in these Torah verses about the sacred basin. When the priests wash, there is no soap, and no 20-second ditty to sing. When the priests wash, it is not their bodies but their souls that are being cleansed. They are preparing for the unique service for which they have been brought up, trained, and anointed, service to the divine and to the Jewish people.

What made this copper basin so special that it is placed in the Mishkan, the holy tabernacle? Later in Exodus, the Torah tells us that the basins were crafted from copper mirrors donated by the Israelite women. Not only was this gift as an act of selflessness, but the mirrors reflected a deeper devotion.

In the Midrash, (rabbinic fan fiction on Torah) we learn that back in Egypt, Pharaoh not only imposed back-breaking labor on the men. He went the extra mile to exhaust the men and separate them from their wives. Rather than murder babies, why not simply prevent them from being conceived?

When Pharaoh’s actions demoralized the Israelite men, it was the women’s initiative that ensured their survival as a nation. The Midrash describes how the women went to draw water from the Nile, filling their jugs with fish to cook for their husbands. Then they took the meal to the men in the fields. After the meal, the women pulled out their copper mirrors, exposing their beauty, and aroused the men to do what Pharaoh had hoped would no longer be possible.

In other words, the priests who washed themselves in sacred preparation for service were reminded of their mothers and grandmothers, who reignited love among the Israelites and renewed their will to live. It was that will to live that enabled the people to follow God and Moses out of the bondage of Egypt.

This is part of our task today. Yes, we are afraid. Yes, we feel beaten down. Yes, we have reached a new level of overwhelm. Yes, we are facing unprecedented disruption in our lives. And if we want to turn this around we must begin now, before the virus takes hold, and before we contain or mitigate or overcome it. Though we are all more isolated, we will find strength and comfort and inspiration when we reach out to others in joyful and loving ways. We must find our own mirrors to reignite love and to renew our will to live, and share that with others who are dispirited and downhearted.

And, in the end, venahafoch hu—the wheel of fortune will inevitable turn again. We pray that what we most fear will fail to materialize. And, like our heroes in Shushan, we pray that we too may once again enjoy “light and gladness, happiness and honor.” (Esther 8:16)