Rabbi Marc Berkson — Rosh Hashanah Morning — 2nd day — 5765
EVERYTHING WE NEED TO KNOW ABOUT JUDAISM
WE CAN LEARN FROM ALEINU
Rosh Hashanah Morning — Second Day — 5765
350 years of American Jewish life in this, the 5765th year since God created the world. 350 years of feeling at home, 350 years unlike any others in Jewish history, 350 years in this New World—and three topics or themes still seem to threaten our comfort in this, our American home. Surely, there are far more important issues which need to be addressed during these Yamim Nora’im, issues of seeking and granting forgiveness, issues of war and peace, issues of our involvement with and connection to our brothers and sisters in Israel. Yet those will wait until Yom Kippur—while I take this second day of Rosh Hashanah to help us feel more at home by discussing with you these three discomfiting topics or themes. For we American Jews remain acutely pained by particularism, are agitated by the choreography of kneeling, and are awfully uncomfortable with any discussion of salvation.
Are we not troubled by one who talks comfortably of his or her Christian faith? Do we wish not to be involved in a conversation with one who talks with ease about the role Jesus has played in his or her life? Are we not hesitant of entering into a conversation with one who has been reborn? Particularism is problematic; how much we prefer universalism.
Furthermore, we Jews are simply not comfortable with kneeling. Evangelical Christians lay prostrate. Catholics genuflect. Muslims bow fully five times a day toward Mecca eventually creating a small indentation in their foreheads on the spot where the forehead touches the ground. But we Jews–it seems so deeply distant, so uncomfortably strange. For we Jews do not kneel.
Finally, we are always troubled by talk of salvation. First, our own Jewish knowledge is painfully unaware of the Jewish understanding of the world to come. Furthermore, those who affirm their belief in the message that “salvation comes through faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus alone” leave us, we feel, incapable of being saved.
Thus, this second day of Rosh Hashana, I want to look with you at these same three topics–particularism, kneeling, and salvation–through Jewish eyes. And I will do so using the prayer we recite at each and every service. We say this prayer so often that we tend to take it for granted. Closing each and every Jewish worship service, traditional Jews often daven it at a pace that would—as one of my colleagues noted–violate any conceivable speed limit. Composed of two paragraphs, it has served as our concluding prayer for some 600-700 years. It is, if you have not yet guessed, Aleinu, what we used to call in the old Union Prayer Book, the Adoration.
But the prayer itself long predates its service as conclusion. While the origins of Aleinu are probably pre-Christian, the oldest part of the prayer can definitely be dated back to the third century Babylonian teacher Rab. And its original position in the liturgy was to keynote, if you will, the most dramatic parts of the most dramatic services on the most dramatic days of the Jewish year. For Aleinu’s original position was at the beginning of the Musaf service on Rosh Hashanah and at the beginning of the Avodah service on Yom Kippur. In other words, Aleinu introduced the sounding of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah and the reenactment of the Yom Kippur ritual in the Temple in ancient times. And yes, in spite of other changes we have made in the liturgy, Aleinu can still be found in its original positions in our Mahzors, in Gates of Repentance. We recited it yesterday morning and will shortly recite it again in a more complete form back on pages 139-140, as we acclaim God’s sovereignty with the shofar, and we will recite it on Yom Kippur afternoon on page 409 as we prepare to begin our avodah service. At these times, we do not traditionally speed through Aleinu. Instead, we sing it dramatically and majestically, giving it a sense of triumphant declaration. And yes, at these times, just as the music changes, so does the choreography. The changes take place to remind us that, paraphrasing Robert Fulghum, everything we need to know about Judaism we can learn from Aleinu.
And what is the first thing we can learn from Aleinu? That we, too, are particularistic. Take a look at the most complete version of Aleinu in our mahzors on pages 156-157. Aleinu–it is incumbent upon us, it is our duty, we must—[to] do what? L’shabeach la’adon ha-kol, la-tet gedulah l’yotzer bereishit–to praise the God of all, to ascribe greatness to the Maker of Creation. That part is all fine. But listen now to the rest of that sentence in a more literal translation: for God has not made us as the other nations and has not placed us like the families of the earth; God has not assigned our portion like theirs, nor our lot like the multitudes.
Surely not a prayer; it is, rather, a statement, a proclamation addressed to the world referring to God in the third person. The statement reflects what took place at Sinai–that God made a covenant with Israel. God took us as a “treasured people” and we took the Eternal as our God. No, this was not God’s first covenant. THAT, God had already made through Noah with all humanity. Observe seven basic commandments–(1) do not blaspheme God’s name, (2) do not worship idols, (3) do not murder, (4) do not steal, (5) do not commit sexual sins, (6) do not eat a limb cut from a living animal, and (7) establish courts of justice–and one could know God and be rewarded in the world to come. Kind of like a limited partnership. We got the general partnership, including 606 more commandments to observe–as we were to go out and heal and perfect the world.
Yes, God chose us to refute idolatry and our first task was to make this One and Only God known throughout the world. “v’yadata ha-yom, Know then this day…” we proclaim. Yet, in this most particularistic statement, we make known which God? Do we make known the God who chose us at Sinai, the God of revelation? NO! Do we make know the God of Abraham, the God who promised us the Land? NO! We make known instead the God of creation, “the One who formed creation, the One who spread out the heavens and established the earth,” the One who saved Noah. God bet on us to meet this challenge.
And what is the next thing we can learn from Aleinu? That we, too, “bend the knee and bow in awe.” The words are right there in the middle of that first paragraph, “V’anahnu kor’im u’mistachavim u’modim” Yet think what little drama we ascribe to Aleinu when we say these words. We stand, surely. And we might just bend our knees a tiny bit and offer a slight bow at our waist.
Yet when we come to Aleinu in its original position, introducing the most dramatic parts of the most dramatic services on the most dramatic days of the Jewish year, should not we do something a bit more dramatic than a slight, if you will, square dance move. “Bow to your partner.” “Bow to your corner.”
And, yes, as you know already steeped in Jewish tradition is a far more dramatic move. For when one declares, “V-anahnu korim u’mishtahavim…” one traditionally kneels. But even that is not dramatic enough. For from the kneeling position, one then prostrates oneself before the ark. Our cantor does—and will. So did my predecessor on this bimah.
For as Franz Rosensweig, the German Jewish theologian who rediscovered his Judaism on this very day 84 years ago, wrote:
What distinguishes the Days of Awe from all other festivals is that here and only here does the Jew kneel. Here he does what he refused to do before the king of Persia, what no power on earth can compel him to do, and what he need not do before God on any other day of the year, or in any other situation he may face during his lifetime. And he does not kneel to confess a fault or to pray for forgiveness of sins, acts to which this festival is primarily dedicated. He kneels only on beholding the immediate nearness of God, hence on an occasion which transcends the earthly needs of today.
How more dramatically can we portray God’s sovereignty, how better show God as Melech, as Monarch, as Ruler. All-too-often, we still worship at the altar of the self–and what else is worship of the self but idolatry. We cannot rely only on ourselves. So, truth be told, by kneeling, by falling prostrate, we really are not telling God that God is Ruler (as if God really needs to know); rather, we are reminding ourselves–even if we forget much of the rest of the year–that ultimate power does not rest in our hands, that our lives are in God’s hands.
Imagine, stepping out into these aisles here—or, even more dramatically, at Kenwood–dressed in our finest–finding our own places and kneeling, falling prostrate, truly experiencing awe and humility. The thought of doing so is strange–even for me. Yet listen to these words of a colleague and friend of mine, Rabbi Wayne Dosick:
The first time you kneel and prostrate will be scary; it will feel funny; it will seem to defy the ‘suburban imperative’ that we must be formal and dignified in synagogue. But once you have done it, you will recognize and anticipate its great power.
Over the years, I have invited worshippers in the service I conduct to
join me in so doing. Now, almost everyone–from our young B’nai
Mitzvah to the most elderly in our liberal minyan–kneels. They tell me that it is the High Holy Day ritual they most eagerly await and love, for it brings so much satisfaction, so much spiritual joy.
From the lowest physical point at which we can be, face on the ground, vulnerable and at risk, we can rise to the greatest of spiritual heights, ultimately closer to those we love, closer to God, at-one within ourselves.
And what is the third thing we can learn from Aleinu? That we, too, are concerned with salvation. In fact, that is our covenental task, that is what God chose us for at Sinai. And that is what the entire second paragraph of aleinu is all about. In fact, look how it begins on the bottom of page 156–al ken, therefore. Now we talk directly to God. And our task–letaken olam b’malchut shaddai, to repair/perfect the world under the dominion of God.
So one of my favorites stories—which you have heard time and again, the story of a hassid who went to his rebbe to boast that he had made a beggar pray. The beggar had come for a little food; he was hungry. The hassid sought to save a soul. Thus the hassid insisted of the beggar, “Before you eat, you must pray–not just motzei, but all of minha and all of ma’ariv, all of the afternoon and evening services.”
Angry at his boasting, the rebbe reprimanded the hassid, “You may have meant well but you did not act well. For there are times when you must act as if there were no God in this world.”
“No God in this world?!”
“That’s right,” continued the rebbe, “When one comes to you in need, you must act as if no power in the world, neither God nor human, can help him or her except you, yourself.”
“But what about his soul?” begged the hassid.
“You take care of your soul,” answered the rebbe, “and his body.”
That is salvation. Unlike the first paragraph of Aleinu, this second paragraph has a universalistic tone. Just as we have accepted the sovereignty of God, so, too, shall the time come when false gods will vanish and idols be no more, when all will accept God’s sovereign rule. And how do we fulfill our task of salvation, of saving the world? In Rabbi Michael Goldberg’s words, “Torah becomes instruction in a set of practices that spell out not only what it means to be Jewish, but also what it means to be human. Thus understood, Jewish survival becomes a kind of performance art showing the world what it truly, fully means to live.” And since it is unlikely that we will save the entire world in one generation, it is our task, according to Yosef Abramowitz, to transmit this rebellious spirit from one generation to the next.
We Jews provide the story…and we Jews provide the hope. This world can be saved. Remember, we were strangers, slaves in the land of Egypt. The Eternal, our God, saved us from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. On our way to the Promised Land, Sinai. There, with Torah, the Eternal became our God and we, God’s people. That is our history–our story–our hope. As God redeemed us in the past, we know–with our help–a future redemption awaits. “Let all accept the yoke of Your sovereign rule, that You may reign over them soon and forever.”
We are still God’s people. God has maintained the covenant made at Sinai; there are even those who attribute Aleinu to Joshua, who himself was at Sinai, after he led the Israelites across the Jordan. God has kept the promise God made, that Israel would be God’s treasured people, an eternal people. God never promised any individual eternal life. God did promise the Jewish people eternal life.
God has assured our survival; but God cannot guarantee our success. God wants us to succeed; remember, God put Her own reputation on the line when She chose us to give us Torah out in that wilderness. “After the Holocaust and in light of the pluralism of the postmodern world,” posits Rabbi Irving Greenberg, “Christianity and Islam will have to reject their own claims to supersede Judaism. And we Jews will, more clearly than ever, recognize these religions as outgrowths of the original covenant.”
Everything we need to know about Judaism we can learn from Aleinu. We are particularists; we kneel; we seek salvation, redemption of this world. After 350 years in this our American home, we should be comfortable with all three. Maimonides, the medieval rabbi, physician, and philosopher, wrote in his Mishne Torah:
a time will come when there will be no more hunger nor war, no jealousy and fierce competition. Goodness will be overflowing and all manner of delicacies as common as sand and the primary occupation of the entire world will be only to know God.
On that day, the Eternal shall be the one and only God and the Eternal’s name shall be the only One. And we, we have so very much to do.