Rosh Hashanah Day 2 - October 1, 2019 - 2nd of Tishrei 5780
Jews Step Out of Line©
Rabbi David Baum, Congregation Shaarei Kodesh
It is the season of repentance, but first, you have to confess, so here it is - my public confession. This summer, I was with our sons in the deep south, and you can’t get any more southern than this, in a Walmart parking lot. I looked around the parking lot and I noticed some cars with Confederate flags bumper stickers, and I became concerned. I took my sons aside and said, “We are going to take off our kippot, and when we are inside, don’t call me Abba, call me Dad.”
My sons asked, but, ‘Abba’, I mean, Dad, why? It was at that moment that I choked up - I had nothing to say. What do I tell my children? Why shouldn’t we wear a kippah out in the open anywhere we want, this is America after all! As I thought more about it, I realized I was asking myself the wrong questions - I kept on asking, why not, in the negative, and what I should have been asking myself is, why should we be Jewish? Why does the world need us?
I’m not here to give a sermon on anti-Semitism, rather, I want to give a sermon about why we should be even more Jewish this year in the face of anti-Semitism;
Why be Jewish and why does the world need the Jews share a common answer that might surprise you: Because Jews step out of line.
I’m sure by now you have all seen the video of Alex Borstein, the actress on the hit show, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, from last week’s Emmy Awards. After winning for the second straight year, Borstein movingly dedicated her victory to her Holocaust survivor grandmother, who defied the Nazis to stay alive.
She said, “My grandmother turned to a guard … She was in line to be shot into a pit. And she said, ‘What happens if I step out of line?’ And he said, ‘I don’t have the heart to shoot you, but somebody will,’ and she stepped out of line. For that, I am here, and my children are here. So step out of line, ladies. Step out of line!”
It was a message to women in the workforce, like the fictional Mrs. Maisel, but it is also our people’s raison d’etre - Jews have always stepped out of line, and rather than bring us death, it has kept us alive, and helped the world.
As Jews, we have always gone against the grain, we have always been counter-cultural, it’s in our very language. While most languages go from left to right, we read the aleph-bet from right to left. It’s part of our DNA and I believe the world needs us to teach humanity these valuable lessons.
We can learn this lesson from two famous Abrahams, our father Abraham who we read about during these high holidays, and another Abraham, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.
Today’s Torah portion presents us with the first radical, counter-cultural Jew: Avraham Avinu, who we consider the first monotheist. We don’t know much about Abraham until God calls out to him to leave his homeland and his parent's house, but the Midrash fills in the details. According to the Midrash, Abraham’s first act of rebellion came when he was just thirteen years old. After his father leaves him in charge of his idol store, young Abraham smashes all of the idols and places a bat in the hand of the largest idol in the store. His father comes back and is furious; he wants answers.
Avram says, “Oh, father, it was terrible, the small idols got hungry and started fighting for food. Then, the large idol got angry and broke the smaller ones into little pieces. It was frightening. I don’t want to talk about it.”
His father Terah says, “Wait a second, Idols don’t get hungry. They don’t get angry. They don’t speak. They’re just…they’re just clay idols.” “So,” Abraham asks with a smile, “why do you worship them?”
In a time when people rarely traveled for more than five miles from their birthplaces in their lifetimes, Abraham answers a call from God, Lech Lecha M'Artzecha - “Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”
We consider Abraham the first Jew, but really, he is identified as an Ivri, or as we call it, a Hebrew. Ivri is a Hebrew word that means ‘cross over to the other side’. It is because of where Abraham came from - from the other side of the tracks as we would call it; he crossed two great rivers, from Mesopotamia, Iraq, to the land of Canaan, Israel.
As we think of Avraham, we think of all the tests he was put through in his life. The rabbis nicknamed Abraham, Ish Emunah, the man of faith. Time after time, Abraham was tested, whether it was at Sodom and Gemorah or at the binding of Isaac, but perhaps his greatest test was his first, when God called out to him to leave the only land and family he knew, for a land that God will show him.
I like to call these Lech Lecha moments - the moments when we look inward to do the right thing, though it may not be the popular thing.
What did Abraham see when God tells him, Lech Lecha? There is a midrash that describes what Abraham sees during this revelation. The Midrash says that Abraham was like a man traveling and suddenly he sees a palace in flames.
He wonders allowed, "Is it possible that this palace has no one who looks after it?" Then a voice comes, down, the owner of the building who is not seen, but is surely present. With a booming voice the man hears: “I am the owner of the palace."
Similarly, because Abraham our father wondered, "Is it possible that this world has no one who looks after it?" the Blessed Holy One looked at him and said, "I am the owner of the world.”
This story reveals Abraham’s fear - he is scared when he sees the castle on fire, he thinks is this the way the world really is? It would have been so easy to look away; to avert his eyes and look at nice things in the world, more convenient things, and yet, he stares at it, he internalizes it, and he takes steps to help build a new world.
According to this Midrash, the founding father of the Jewish people is a man who will not avert his eyes from the reality of human suffering. In Genesis 18:19, we read why God chose Abraham: “For I have singled him out that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is just and right" (Gen. 18:19).
There is another famous Jew named Abraham who crossed over - Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. When we look back at the Civil Rights Era, Jews of all movement beam with pride as we talk about our people’s involvement. We proudly show the picture of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, arm in arm. But getting to that point of crossing that bridge took bold and courageous steps.
Rabbi Heschel was born in Warsaw in 1907, his parents both descended from Hassdic rebbes, nobility in the Jewish world. He cherished his heritage. His daughter Susannah tells of times when her father would pick up fragile Hassidic books from his shelf, and read them to her. He would tell stories of awe of his great-grandfathers who had written the books. He said to her, “this is your inheritance.” He didn’t feel a burden from his heritage, but gratitude, humility, and reverence for his ancestors because he said they showed great compassion and understanding for other people.”
Rabbi Heschel was plucked from the fires of the Holocaust, escaping Poland just six weeks before the Nazi invasion, most of his family perishing in the Europe. He knew what it felt like to be an outsider. In the United States, he had every reason to only work on Jewish causes. He became a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary, becoming a thought leader in the Jewish world, but that was not enough for him.
On June 16, 1963, Rabbi Heschel sent a telegram to President John F. Kennedy before he was set to meet him at the White House:
“I PROPOSE THAT YOU MR. PRESIDENT DECLARE STATE OF MORAL EMERGENCY. A MARSHALL PLAN FOR AID TO NEGROES IS BECOMING A NECESSITY. THE HOUR CALLS FOR HIGH MORAL GRANDEUR AND SPIRITUAL AUDACITY.”
Heschel saw that Black people in our country had been the ultimate outsiders, strangers in their own country.
In the book Shared Dreams: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Jewish Community, Rabbi Marc Schneier writes, “But what incentive was there for Jews to dedicate themselves to the black cause? With educational demands, economic and social constraints and concern for the often-troubled, often endangered State of Israel calling them, why should Jews extend themselves and even risk their lives for black social justice? Yet, in the United States where Jews were just two percent of the entire population, half to two-thirds of the whites who participated in the civil rights movement were Jews.”
As Jews, we know this feeling all too well, but not everyone agreed with Rabbi Heschel, and many Jews actually opposed getting involved. The argument was, don’t step out of line, stay in your lane.
Rabbi Marvin Schick, leader of Agudath Israel of America, an umbrella organization of Ultra-Orthodoxy, said the following in 1964: “I do not advocate the active participation of the several major orthodox organizations in the civil rights movement. With unfinished business to permit the luxury of involvement in problems outside the periphery of Jewish life.”
An influential conservative movement rabbi, Arthur Hertzberg, wrote at the time, “The Negro is today fighting for his rights, and Jews, along with all other men of good will, must certainly stand beside him. But Jews are today also continuing to work at preserving and trying to define the meaning of their particular survival and identity, in the light of their own tradition and historic experience. Since this is a parochial concern of their own, they must stand here alone.”
But Heschel disagreed - not only did he step out of line, but he marched with his friend, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
In his essay, “No Religion is An Island”, Heschel wrote, “For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was both protest and prayer. Legs are not lips, and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs. Even without words, our march was worship.” This is where the famous phrase came from: I felt like my legs were praying.
He famously said, “A Jew is asked to take a leap of action rather than a leap of thought.”
They stepped out of line for their shared belief in the concept of B’etzelem Elohim, that every life is created in the image of God, and every act of injustice mars and defaces the image of God in man.
One of our congregants went on a civil rights journey through our Federation to Atlanta, Montgomery, Selma and Birmingham. She wrote the following about her trip: “It had a profound impact on me. To be in the birthplace of the Civil Rights movement, to see how far its come and to leave knowing how much work is left to do is an experience I will never forget. This trip allowed us to meet and hear from those who were beaten on Bloody Sunday and Turnback Tuesday and hear from those who had deep and personal relationships with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and how those experiences shaped their world view and the work they are doing today, is living history….To drive through Selma today and see such poverty with almost every other building boarded up and abandoned is an experience that doesn't leave you. There is so much work that we need to do, individually and collectively to ensure that all lives are valued equally.”
I am proud to announce that our congregation will be taking a Civil Rights journey of our own this spring with an organization called Etgar 36. Join us as we step out of line together.
Bari Weiss, a writer for the New York Times, recently published a book, How to Fight Anti-Semitism. She writes, “A wise teacher once suggested to me that all of Jewish history - first set forth in the book of Exodus and then hammered home again after Hitler’s genocide - teaches two lessons to the Jewish people. The first lesson is to be survive. The second lesson is to never allow others to become slaves, because we know the bitterness fo slavery, ancient and modern. It’s a variation of the most famous phrase attributed to the first century sage Rabbi Hillel: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?”
We are a people that are both deeply particularistic, in other words, we are intensely invested in our survival, but we are also universal, we survive for a purpose, to be a light to others, an Or LaGoyim. The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) helped my parents and their families, Jewish refugees from Europe, settle in America, but their mission has changed. They say, “We Used to Take Refugees Because They Were Jewish. Now We Take Them Because We're Jewish.”
The state of Israel is surrounded by enemies on all fronts, rockets from Gaza in the South, rockets from Hizbollah in the north, and now Iran has bases in Syria waiting for a fight. But it doesn’t stop Israel from being the first country that sets up field hospitals after natural disasters around the world. It’s almost expected, to hear that Israel was the first country on the ground in the Bahamas after it was devastated by Hurricane Dorian, but by doing this, Israel proudly steps out of line.
Stepping out of line doesn’t have to be as bold as marching for civil rights or setting up field hospitals. All of us can step out line for others not because they are Jewish, but because we are Jews.
Sports fields are known for their lines - if you step out of line, you are out of bounds, but sometimes, stepping out of line in sports is actually a good thing.
The Israeli women’s lacrosse team recently competed in the World Championship in Canada. In the playoffs against Kenya’s national team, Israel won handily, 13-4. But instead of rejoicing in their victory, the Israeli players left the game disturbed. They realized after the fact that they’d enjoyed an unfair advantage: while the Israeli players wore state of the art sports shoes with cleats, their Kenyan opponents wore plain old gym shoes. Without proper cleats, the Kenyan players found themselves sliding in the muddy parts of the field and they were concerned about the long-lasting damage the players might have. After the game, three of the young Israeli players called their parents asking if they could help pay for new shoes for the Kenyan players.
That night, one of the father’s of the athletes called the team’s coaches, committee members and some other parents, and soon the parents of the Israeli players were all pitching in to buy new shoes for the Kenyan team. They asked the Kenyan coach for a list of each player’s shoe size and asked them to keep the gesture secret overnight.
It wasn’t easy to find so many specialty shoes at such short notice. The Israeli team turned to a specialty store which stayed open much of the night in order to source the shoes and fill the order quickly. By the following morning, the Israelis had bought shoes for each member of the Kenyan team. The next day, the Israeli team surprised their Kenyan friends on the field; each team member gave a bag containing a brand new pair of shoes to their Kenyan counterparts. It was an emotional moment, with the Israeli and Kenyan players hugging and crying together.
The bond they formed was lasting. Lielle Assayag, Israel’s goalie, said, “This is what I’ll remember in 20 years: my friends. My old ones and my new ones.”
The athletes didn’t seek publicly about the incident, but the Kenyan Lacrosse team posted a video on Twitter of the Israeli women delivering the new shoes to the Kenyan team on the field the day after they played, and their story went viral.
The day after getting the footwear, Kenya defeated Belgium 16-9 for their second win of the tournament.
Standing in line means winning at all costs, taking every advantage to overcome your opponent - but the Israeli Lacrosse team stepped out of line, because that is what Jews do for others.
Did the Israeli Lacrosse team save the world? No, but did it make a world of difference for those who needed help, yes.
Teshuvah, repentance, is a beautiful thing, arguably one of the greatest lessons we can teach the world. Teshuvah means that we return, we return to the places of our biggest regrets, and make things right. God willing, I will be returning to a Walmart parking lot in the Deep South this spring with our congregants, but this time, I won’t take my kippah off, but wear it proudly, I will say, call me Abba, call me Rabbi, call me a Jew who steps out of line, because stepping out of line is what we have done, it is what we do, and it is what we will do in the future, not just for us, but for the world.
May we all step out of line this year, for ourselves, for each other, for our communities, for the world, and most importantly, for God.
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