Rabbis' Sermon Archives

Rabbi Moskowitz
Yom Kippur 5767

BUILDING GOD’S SHELTER
YOM KIPPUR 5767

The past ten days have provided us with an opportunity to renew ourselves through intensive self-examination, celebration of the birth of a new year, and teshuva, a return to a sacred path. It is a time of spiritual revival and ethical realignment. By the end of this day we may feel exhausted, perhaps proud of our endurance in religious ritual, and ready not only to eat again but also to return to some routine of normalcy. Yet our calendar refuses to release us to the familiar quite so easily. The Days of Awe do not end here on this day. The spiritual momentum of this season of renewal propels us onward to its fulfillment a few days hence…on the holiday of Succot.

The signs of creation themselves signify that it is Succot which is the completion of this season of rebirth. The new moon that appeared on Rosh Hashanah reaches its fullness on Succot. The yearly cycle of the sun, which guides creation’s agricultural rhythms, also reaches its fulfillment then. Succot is harvest time, a time of gathering in what we have planted: the crops that we sowed in spring and the prayers and acts of repentance that we performed during the High Holy Days.

Our Yom Kippur service and its customs also serve to turn us toward Succot as our destination for this season. By sunset, we will have spent twenty-four hours fasting. We will have devoted hours to reciting prayers of self-examination and repentance. To counter any feelings of self-righteousness that we might experience at such a time, our tradition has us read the book of Jonah, a story about a prophet more concerned with his own narrow sense of justice than with God’s sweeping bestowal of compassionate redemption.  

And to remind us to make good use of what we have learned during this time of reflection and recommitment, tradition teaches us to begin building our succah immediately upon returning home from our concluding service. This act of construction embodies a shift from the inward rebuilding that we engage in during Yom Kippur to the outward rebuilding of the world that is our responsibility.

We do indeed construct booths made from materials such as wood, canvas, nails, metal, rope, plastic, and palm branches. But these dwellings provide only limited shelter if they are not reinforced with the materials that we have harvested during these Days of Awe: an awareness of God’s presence in all of creation; a recognition that all of creation depends on each one of us as much as we depend on all of creation; an overwhelming sense of compassion for each person who stands before us; and a profound understanding that a fulfilling life is one lived in service of the sacred...through our service to one another. It is the building of this succah, this shelter constructed of sacred service, that fulfills our Days of Awe.  

This shelter of sacred service is as much one that we build as is the succah we construct in our back yards. Deed by deed, we fashion a dwelling within which those traveling along the way may find respite, comfort, and hope.  

Here at Temple Israel we are engaged in building such a shelter of sacred service through our Caring Community Committee. The Caring Community is dedicated to the discovery and provision of spiritual insights and practical responses to both the realities of our human vulnerability and the celebrations of human existence. Ongoing activities include organizing meals of condolence for those who have just experienced the death of a loved one, sending cards made by our Torah Center students to those who are subject to the isolation of an illness as well as to those who have experienced the joy of a birth, and arranging referrals to a variety of emergency services for those in need. Last year the Caring Community co-sponsored with Joys of Jewish Learning classes on: Visiting the Ill; the use of Advance Medical Directives; Hospice Care; and Jewish Ways of Death and Mourning.  

This year the Caring Community is expanding the opportunities for each of us to deepen our spiritual and practical knowledge about bringing healing into the world. The more that we learn about the wisdom our tradition has to offer regarding healing, the more expansive will be the shelter of sacred service that we are building. Here is a preview of what we can each choose to learn more about this year:

The death of a loved one, however much we may rationally accept its inevitability, we experience as a terrible rending. A piece of our world is gone. Judaism does not seek to deny this experience but to frame it ritually in such a way so that the mourner may move through loss and emerge with a renewed embrace of life. An essential element in this process is the role of family and friends, who accompany the mourner on his or her journey through the various stages of mourning. Jewish tradition is rich with insight about how to be of service during the first day, week, and month of mourning and during the months to follow. This fall the Caring Community will conduct a training session on how to lead a shiva minyan service. This will include not only how to lead the prayers but also how to shape an environment that encourages both memory of the past and hope for the future.  

A second class will focus on how to help during the first week of mourning: what kind of practical assistance to offer; what resources for professional referral are available; and how to encourage spiritual renewal.

By taking one or both of these classes, you can become more knowledgeable about how to lift the weight of loss from the shoulders of a member of our community. You become for someone an escort back into life. 

It is not only the death of a loved one that can fracture our world. Illness and injury can induce a profound sense of isolation…physical, emotional and spiritual. When faced with someone who is ill, our tradition teaches us that an essential element of recovery is the restoration of a connection to the presence of others. Amidst the suffering of body and soul, the Psalmist in Psalm 25 cries out: “Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted.” Here the isolated and agonized soul may be calling out in pain to God, but Jewish tradition teaches that it is we who must respond.

The early Hasidic rabbi, Rabbi Moshe Leib of Sassov, taught: “If a person comes to you and asks for help, you should not put him off with pious words such as, ‘Have faith and take your troubles to God.’ You should act as if there were no God at all, as if there was only one person in the world who could help this person – you.”  

This year’s class on bikur cholim, visiting the sick, is designed to help each of us become that person. The essence of this mitzvah is to become an empathetic presence before another. To do this involves not merely observing another’s pain and discomfort but partaking of it. The miracle is that when we do so, both the visitor and the one being visited feel alleviated.

In the Talmud the story is told of Rabbi Yochanan who goes to visit one of his students, Rabbi Elazar, who is ill. Rabbi Yochanan walks into Rabbi Elazar’s room. It is heavy with darkness, and Rabbi Elazar is weeping. Rabbi Yochanan immediately begins to impose upon Rabbi Elazar his own assumptions about what must troubling him and his own answers about how to overcome his suffering. Rabbi Yochanan says to Rabbi Elazar: “Why are you crying? If it’s because you did not learn as much Torah as you had hoped, remember that it’s not the amount but the attitude we bring to our studies. If it’s because you’re not wealthy, remember it’s the rare individual who can acquire both wealth and knowledge. If it’s because you’ve never had children, look at me…I’ve lost ten children.” Rabbi Elazar looks up at Rabbi Yochanan and says: “I am weeping because some day you will lie dying.” Suddenly, Rabbi Yochanan is struck by the humanity, with all its vulnerabilities, that he shares with Rabbi Elazar. And he says; “Yes. That is a cause for weeping.” And they both begin to cry. The story ends with a marvelous ambiguity. It says: “He said to him, ‘Give me your hand.’ He gave him his hand, and he revived him.” It is unclear who said “Give me your hand” and who revived whom. Thus, we may understand that once each had become vulnerable to the other, they were able to raise up one another.     

The mitzvah of bikur cholim is not primarily about doing something for someone else. It involves the transformation, the renewal of all those involved. To the extent that we learn a little more about this particular sacred service, we can create an ever more loving, caring and connected community.

The final opportunity I want to preview for you takes us back full circle...to the acknowledgment of life’s impermanence. Our attendance at the reality of death is shaped within the Jewish tradition not to convince us of the vanity of life. Just the opposite. It is to revive within us a sense of wonder and amazement toward life.     

According to Jewish tradition, there is no higher act of loving kindness than to prepare a body for burial. This sacred act, known as taharah is performed by a chevra kadisha, a holy fellowship, whose members have been trained in the ritual of washing, sanctifying, and dressing the body of one who has died. The importance of taharah is grounded in Judaism’s understanding of the immutable nature of kedusha, of sanctity. In Judaism, the body is a holy receptacle in which resides a divine soul, and this holy vessel retains its essential holiness even when the physical structure is damaged or destroyed. Jewish tradition compares the human being to a living Torah scroll. Just as a Torah scroll remains holy after it can no longer be used for its intended purpose, the human body remains holy even after death. Both are to be carried to their final resting places with great care and respect.

This year our Caring Community Committee, with the assistance of Mount Sinai Cemetery, will offer an opportunity for us to learn the practical and spiritual aspects of this most sacred service for another. Those who participate in taharah as members of a chevra kadisha say that it is one of the most spiritual experiences they have ever had. Serving one who is not able to express thanks, chevra kadisha members become aware of a profound Presence…one that is voiceless, that extends beyond the realm of the physical, and that provides reassurance that what is holy survives death.

In Psalm 27, the Psalmist surveys all those challenges in life that might cause fear and despair. He then emerges from this inventory reinvigorated with confidence and hope, for there is divine sanctuary from these challenges. The Psalmist calls out:

One thing do I ask of Adonai,
only that do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of Adonai,
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of Adonai,
to be a seeker within God’s sanctuary.

This house of Adonai within which we might dwell and where we might gaze upon the beauty of Adonai is not one of mortar and stone. It is one that we build through our acts of sacred service toward one another. That is our succat shalom, our succah of peace. That is our everlasting sanctuary.  

Let us take time during this year to learn more about enhancing ours as a caring community. It is within our hands to build God’s shelter…and there may we dwell all the days of our lives.