Mattot: God is With Me, I Shall Not Fear

Mattot 5768 – July 26, 2008

God is With Me, I Shall Not Fear

The subtle and profound truth of Adon Olam is that in the overwhelming complexity and vastness of the universe, where God can feel so far away, there is order.

“Do you like to pray? You davven don’t you?… so, do you like to davven?”

That’s the question my teacher, Rabbi Ed Feinstein, asked me in front of seven other rabbinical students. You might think that in a rabbinical school, such a question would be silly. Rabbis all love prayer, right?! But I looked right back at him and I said, “Sometimes I find prayer meaningful… but often, I struggle with prayer.” Now, you might think the next thing he did was kick me out of class and report me to the administration as a heretic. But he didn’t kick me out. And from the corner of my eye, I think I saw a couple of my classmates nodding empathetically.

I’ll let you in on a little secret. A lot of people find prayer challenging – even rabbis and cantors. Prayer is tough. Now don’t get me wrong – I know the liturgy and I know the melodies. I can davven with the best of ‘em. What I continually struggle with is not the mechanics of prayer, but in finding meaning in the experience. I suspect that many of you feel some of the same challenges with prayer. But here we are… in shul. We sit together on Shabbat mornings for more than 3 hours (or less, for those of you who just walked in) and we’re doing a lot of praying. So, what’s the point of prayer?

Prayer is not simply “talking to God.” If you want to talk to God, you can do that in you own words, all by yourself, and at any time. But, the more interesting question to me is why do we come together here and pray these words, out of this book, written by people a long time ago in a language that most of don’t speak fluently?

This week’s Torah portion, Mattot, starts with a lengthy discussion of the laws of vows. The parsha begins: “If a man makes a vow to the Lord or takes an oath imposing an obligation on himself, he shall not break his pledge; he must carry out all that has crossed his lips.” The Torah means to teach that words are not simply sounds that we emit from our mouths. They have meaning and power. So what is the power of all the words we say in shul?

The great 20^th Century theologian, Dr. Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote: “Prayer must not be dissonant with the rest of living. The mercifulness, gentleness, which pervades us in moments of prayer is but a ruse or a bluff if it is inconsistent with the way we live at other moments. The divorce of liturgy and living, of prayer and practice, is more than a scandal; it is a disaster. A word uttered in prayer is a promise, an earnest, a commitment. If the promise is not kept, we are guilty of violating a promise… What is handicapping prayer is not the antiquity of the Psalms but our own crudity and spiritual immaturity.” How do we wed prayer and practice? Again, prayer is a way of looking at the world. It isn’t just what happens in this room. What we do in shul is the spiritual calisthenics that prepare us for how to live out in the world. Imagine what it would be like to hold on to that sense of reverence and awe you feel when you hear the cantor singing U’netaneh Tokef or Kol Nidre and take it out into the world with you every day.

So let’s consider a prayer that I’m sure nearly all of us know – Adon Olam. (If you want to follow along, you can find Adon Olam on page 6 of Siddur Sim Shalom or 154 in A.S.) Virtually every service I’ve ever been to ends with Adon Olam. It appears in the liturgy for waking up and it is said as part of the bedtime Shma. We set it to all sorts of popular melodies – I’ve heard everything from the William Tell Overture (the Lone Ranger) to Rock Around the Clock. Yet, Adom Olam is one of the most profound and moving liturgical poems ever written. There’s nothing silly about it. In fact, Adom Olam speaks one of the most profound truths of human experience and has themes that are found in many of our prayers.

We don’t know who wrote Adon Olam. Based on its poetic structure and style, we think it comes from 12^th or 13^th century Spain. It appears in Siddurim going back to the 14^th century. I’d like to take a look at Adon Olam for a few minutes and use it as an example from which we can learn how to relate to prayer in general.

The first six verses expound on the transcendent qualities of God and God’s power as Creator:

1 Eternal Lord who reigned,
Before all beings were created
2 When everything was made according to God’s will,
It was then that God was called Melech
3 And when all shall cease to be,
God alone will reign supreme
4 And He was, and He is,
And He shall be, crowned in glory
5 God is One, and there is no second,
To compare to Him or to consort with Him,
6 Without beginning, without end,
Power and dominion is His.

How is God being described here? Who is this God? How do you feel when you read these words? Can you relate to God in this way?

The image painted at the beginning of Adon Olam is of a transcendent God. God who creates and reigns. I believe in this God. I see this God all around me manifested in the wonders of nature and in the mysteries of life. But, I can’t talk to this God. This is the God I have trouble praying to. I believe in God’s transcendent power the way I believe in gravity… but I can’t pray to gravity either. Up to this point the poet of Adon Olam hasn’t described a relationship between God and us. The transcendent God at the beginning of Adon Olam feels very far away.

Sometimes when I think of the vastness of the universe and its Creator, I am filled with fear and I feel very small. In this great eternity, is there a God who knows me?… who understands my pain and my joy?… is there a God who sees the injustice in the world?… is there a God who cares?

And then something remarkable happens in Adon Olam. In the 7^th verse there is a sharp turn…

7 And yet He is my God, and my Living Redeemer,
And my stronghold in troubled times
8 He is my sign and my banner,
The portion of my cup on the day I call.

Despite God’s unfathomable distance and otherness, God is also near to me. God is my Living Redeemer – an active and integral part of my existence.

The last two verses are even more intimate:

9 In God’s hand, I deposit my spirit,
At the time I shall sleep and when I wake.
10 And with my spirit, my body,
God is with me, and I shall not fear.

There are few phrases more succinct and eloquent than the last words of Adon Olam: “God is with me and I shall not fear.” At once it is a statement of humility – a recognition that this chaotic world is not in our control; and it is also an affirmation of faith in the order that is brought by God.

When I can calm the turmoil in my soul. When I can stand before the vastness and confusion of the universe and transform my fear into awe and wonder, then there’s a possibility of hearing something else. Listen again to Adon Olam:

{clap out the rhythm}

A-don O-lam, a-sher ma-lach…

That rhythm that makes Adon Olam so easy to set to all those silly melodies is called iambic meter. It is also the rhythm of our hearts. The subtle and profound truth of Adon Olam is that in the overwhelming complexity and vastness of the universe, where God can feel so far away, there is order. We don’t will our hearts to beat – somehow they just do. God isn’t just out there, but God is also inside us. God is in the rhythm of our hearts and in our breath. And when I think of Adon Olam this way, then I don’t feel so alone anymore. God remains a mystery, but not one to be feared. Instead, I am filled with wonder and gratitude. As long as I can feel the rhythm beating in my chest, I know that God is not as far away as it sometimes feels. “Adonai li” – God is with me; “v’lo irah” – and I shall not fear.

Dr. Heschel taught that “Wonder or radical amazement is the chief characteristic of the religious [person’s] attitude toward history and nature.” And, “The surest way to suppress our ability to understand the meaning of God and the importance of worship is to take things for granted.” Wonder, Heschel taught, is the beginning of living a religious life. Without it, we cannot cultivate a relationship to the Eternal.

When your sitting in shul take your time in prayer. Don’t worry about reading every word. Slow down and take a moment to consider the wisdom in the words in this book. If you have trouble praying, like I do, pick just one prayer to meditate on.

Ribono Shel Olam (Master of the Universe) help us to cultivate in ourselves a sense of awe and gratitude so that we may see the many miracles that were there all along.

Shabbat Shalom

Pinchas: Difficult Choices

Parashat Pinhas – 16 Tamuz 5768 / 19 July 2008

Difficult Choices

A sermon in memory of IDF soldiers Ehud Goldwasser (z”l) and Eldad Regev (z”l).

In this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Pinhas, we read about a narrative wrought with moral ambiguity. Pinhas killed an Israelite man and a Midianite woman because their shameless immorality and flagrant violation of the law in plain sight of Moses and the people. Pinhas, with zeal for God’s law, kills them on the spot. The Torah itself seems to approve of Pinhas’ actions, reporting that his zeal turned back God’s wrath. Following the incident, God makes a pact of peace – a “brit shalom” – with Pinhas. But the post-biblical commentators are less favorable to Pinhas. Event the Masoretes who established the scribal transcription of the Torah may have been expressing their ambivalence when – in recording the phrase “brit shalom” they wrote the word “shalom” with a broken “vav.” As you know, if any other letter of the scroll is incomplete, the entire scroll is invalid. Perhaps they were trying to tell us that justice carried out extra-judicially is fundamentally flawed. The Talmud is equally ambivalent about Pinhas’s vigilantism. Tractate Sanhedrin (82a) states that if Pinhas had asked a rabbinic court if it is permitted to kill Zimri and Kozbi, the court would have told him, “the law may permit it, but we do not enforce that law!” In other words, Pinhas may have been “right” but nonetheless, he acted incorrectly.

Have you ever faced a really difficult decision in your life? Have you ever confronted a question with no clear answer? Sooner or later we all face these difficult choices. The hard decisions in life are rarely choices between good and evil. Discerning between good and evil is often a clear choice. The really difficult choices occur when we try to decide between multiple competing goods… and even more difficult is the choice between multiple bad options.

This week Israel carried out a controversial agreement with the Lebanese Hezbollah terrorist group. You may remember that on 12 July 2006, in a cross-border raid - Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers - Sgt Major Ehud (Udi) Goldwasser (Ehud ben Malka) and 1^st Sergeant Eldad Regev. Their capture – in which 3 other soldiers were killed - sparked the second Lebanon war. 5 more were killed in a failed rescue attempt.

For two years, the Goldwasser and Regev families, as well as the Israeli public at large has been struck with grief and reserved hope – wondering if the two young men were alive. Israeli public officials repeatedly vowed to “bring the boys home” at any cost. This week, Israel paid that price. Israel struck a deal with the head of Hezbollah for the return of Goldwasser and Regev in exchange for 5 Hezbollah terrorists, one of whom, Samir Kuntar (may his name be blotted out), had been convicted of the brutal murder of 3 Israelis including a policeman and his 4 year-old daughter. Along with the 5 terrorists, Israeli repatriated the bodies of about 200 other Lebanese and Palestinian militants captured by Israel. Up until the last minute, the families of Goldwasser and Regev, along with the Israeli public, held out hope that the men would be returned alive. Those hopes were dashed when Hezbollah produced two coffins.

In the aftermath of the exchange, we are left with questions:

Was it correct to exchange dead soldiers for live terrorists?

Will this deal encourage more kidnappings in the future?

Will Kuntar strike again, as he has already vowed?

Should we retrieve the bodies of fallen soldiers at any cost?

If we don’t, are we showing disrespect to them and their families by allowing their bodies to be desecrated?

Is it right for Israel to withhold the return of the bodies of dead captured enemies?

And there are competing interests at work… how do we show respect and care for the families of soldiers missing in action? How can we help them find comfort if their sons are never returned? Should public officials make promises and promote hope when their own military intelligence would indicate against it?

These moral ambiguities will remain, and I doubt this will be the last time we will be asking these questions. It certainly isn’t the last time Israel has made difficult decisions such as this. Over the past several decades, Israel has exchanged thousands of Arab combatants in exchange for a handful of captured Israelis.

What do these contradictions say about us as a people? This week when Israel’s president, Shimon Peres visited the family of Ehud Goldwasser, he was asked by a reporter to respond to the fact that Hezbollah was celebrating by giving Kuntar a hero’s welcome. Peres answered, “I am proud to be part of a people with higher morals” adding “there are people on the other side whose god is the god of terror. This is not our god, these are not our morals.” Shimon Peres’ sentiments are evidenced by the overwhelming response of the Israeli public as they mourn alongside the slain soldiers’ families. I don’t know what the right strategic decision was about making the exchange in the first place, but I do know that our community’s response is the appropriate Jewish response – today we mourn with the families of the fallen and pray that God – the healer of broken hearts – grants them comfort.

But, what comes next? What should Israel do following this terrible event. Perhaps we can glean something from our Torah portion. Immediately following the incident of rebellion and Pinhas’s zelous response, we have an abrupt shift in the narrative. Chapter 26 recounts in great detail a census of the people taken by Moses and Eleazar the priest.

“And it was after the plague was over, the Lord said to Moses and to Eleazar son of Aaron the priest, ‘take up a head-count of the whole Isrealite community…”

How is it that we can have such an abrupt shift in the narrative? We go from the drama and tension of Pinhas to the most mundane of undertakings. Today’s Torah readers will tell you how tedious it is to read out all the tongue-twisting names of the tribal leaders and their descendants. But perhaps the Torah is telling us something about how we should respond to morally difficult situations. Ostensibly, this census is a preparation for the settlement of the land of Israel and the enlistment of soldiers for the defense of the nation. But, the commentators point out that the Torah links this census directly to the preceding tragedy when it states, “ and it was after the rebellion…” Rashi envisions God counting the Israelites after the plague of Baal-Peor as an act of love, “like a shepherd numbering his flock after wolves have attacked it.” (see Humash Etz Hayim). The phrase used for the census may also give us a hint: rather than saying, “count the people of Israel” or some other similar phrase, the Torah says: {quote Hebrew} “lift up the head of the entire community of the children of Israel”. How is Israel lifted back up by taking a census? Perhaps the Torah is telling us that when the tragedy has come to a close, when the period of prescribed mourning is over, it is time to take stock… time to take an inventory, to examine ourselves closely… a time to assess.

Soon the Israeli public and its leaders will need to reassess and learn from the Goldwasser/Regev tragedy. Indeed, Israel has little time to waste. Right now, Israeli leaders are negotiating with Hamas for the release of Sergeant Gilad Shalit, who was captured in Gaza just days before Goldwasser and Regev. Israel has confirmation that Shalit is still alive, but Hamas is demanding a long list of hundreds of prisoners in exchange for Gilad Shalit. We pray that Israel’s leaders will act with wisdom in securing his return home.

Today, our thoughts and prayers are with the families of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev as well as the families of other Israeli MIA. On this sad occasion, the Masorti Movement in Israel has issued the following prayer that I would like to read for you today:

{recite the prayer}

The people of Israel mourns her fallen soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad

Regev;

Father of the orphans and Judge of widows, give strength, we pray to the

mourners in the families of Goldwasser and Regev that in this day of their

sorrow they be comforted from Heaven by You, Master of Comforts.

Your people Israel has fulfilled the great mitzvah of Redemption of

Prisoners at a painful and saddening cost. May it be Your pleasure that

the reward of this mitzvah be that Eldad and Ehud rest in peace.

You who release the imprisoned, strengthen the resolve of those who

govern in our Holy Land that in wisdom and determination they bring

about the release of Gilad Shalit from his dank prison and his wretched

jail.

God in heaven, fulfill speedily in our time the biblical verse: "They that

sow in tears shall reap in joy." And yet another verse: "Then shall each

person sit beneath his vine and his fig tree with none to make him afraid,

for the mouth of the God of Arms has said it. May this be Your pleasure

and let us respond Amen.

May the memories of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev serve as a blessing to us all. I wish you a Shabbat Shalom – a Shabbat of Peace.

An article about Rabbi Simcha Roth's prayer and a Hebrew version of the prayer are available at http://www.uscj.org/Koach/roth-prayer.htm