Rabbi Marc Berkson — Yom Kippur Morning — 5764

OBLIGATED TO GOD
Yom Kippur morning–5764

When we reassemble this afternoon, we will turn to Va-Yikra, to the book of Leviticus, for our Torah reading. Such is true for all congregations around the world. However, while we will turn to the 19th chapter of Leviticus along with all Reform and many Conservative and Reconstructionist congregations, Jews in traditional congregations will be turning instead to the 18th chapter. And, on the surface, it would be difficult to imagine two more dramatically different selections. Leviticus 19 has always held a special position in Jewish tradition. The first chapter of the Torah portion called kedoshim, Leviticus 19, contains lofty passages comparable to the Ten Commandments. Rashi indicates that most of the Torah is dependent upon the chapter. Among its many commandments regarding ethical actions are those requiring us not to insult the deaf or to place a stumbling block before the blind. Its elevated message is powerfully delivered in the words ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself, I am the Eternal.’

The preceding chapter, Leviticus 18, on the other hand, seems so much more mundane and coarse. Concerned only with prohibited sexual relationships, Leviticus 18 enumerates a variety of different couplings with a particular abhorrence of incest and adultery. At least 20 different combinations are graphically condemned in its verses. And I spoke of this chapter last week on Rosh Hashanah morning.

When one compares these two chapters, one can easily understand why the early Reformers replaced Leviticus 18 with 19. On Yom Kippur, our thoughts should be elevated and spiritual, drawn away from the more vulgar and physical. Further, the ethical actions contained within the 19th chapter resonated with the Reform notion of prophetic Judaism, a Judaism imbued with the spirit of the prophets calling upon us to right the injustices of this world, demanding that we do God’s work in this world, motivating us to bring ever closer the Messianic age. While Leviticus 18 offered up a listing of all kinds of explicit sexual behaviors in which we should not engage, Leviticus 19 insisted upon our ethical obligations to others, particularly to the poor and the stranger, as individuals and as a society.

Yet some of that small but very influential group of Jewish neoconservatives now in ascendance might well say that just as we replaced the traditional Torah portion for Yom Kippur afternoon, so did we replace a traditional Jewish theology with a now discredited liberalism. That liberalism, the product of the Enlightenment, was based on the autonomy of the individual with faith in the ultimate goodness of people and the ability of education and culture, with, later, governmental help, to lead to the perfection of humankind.

All conjecture, of course. Still, if one can see beyond some of the very troubling language of Leviticus 18–language regarding male homosexuality, language ignoring father/daughter incest, language whose concern appears to be male honor and genealogical descent–one can understand its basic theme. For through the verses of the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus a clear concern with setting boundaries for appropriate sexual behavior becomes apparent. And in this area, the Jewish neo-conservatives are correct–we have long been too silent regarding appropriate sexual behavior. For Judaism does not countenance a ‘do your own thing’ approach to such behavior; neither is it open to situational ethics.

For, as I noted last week, Judaism has a long tradition which prefers marriage to living alone; procreation to childlessness; Jewish marriage to mixed marriage; lifelong commitment to divorce; and heterosexuality to homosexuality. And far beyond any of these preferences, Judaism insists upon monogamy; adultery is absolutely condemned.

Yes, the Jewish neoconservatives and much of what we call the religious right have concerns that we surely ought to share, concerns that, for far too long, we have ignored. Should we not be concerned with the breakdown of morality; with the breakup of the family; with the loss of civility? Should we not be concerned with breakdown of sexual ethics, the breakdown of business ethics, with the weakening of so many of the traditional institutions of American life?

For in terms of individual behavior, Jewish tradition is profoundly conservative. What else is this day but a call for us to claim responsibility for our actions. We have sinned–and we cannot blame others for those sins. Ultimately, like Jonah, we cannot flee. We cannot say, ‘I was victimized, I was unable to control myself, they made me do it.’ No, today we say, ‘For the sin we committed against You under duress or by choice.’ We take responsibility for our actions and we do teshuvah, we do repentance.

My introduction to the Jewish neoconservatives came almost three decades ago through a seminal article in the first issue of Moment magazine by a then-young rabbi named Harold Schulweis. In that article entitled ‘The New Jewish Right,’ he laid out their agenda and among the items of concern to them then was this very same issue of personal responsibility, of understanding human behavior not through environment but through heredity and will. In addition, Schulweis concluded that the new Jewish conservatives, in contrast to Jewish liberals, appeared to favor private philanthropy over government welfare, and prayer in the public school and federal aid to parochial schools in opposition to the liberal’s traditional insistence on the separation of church and state. They also suggested that certain problems could not be solved, that poverty and suffering would always be with us. Finally, they expressed their concerns that liberal positions would create ‘theological antisemitism’ by associating Jews with atheists, agnostics, and secularists. Almost thirty years have passed. Their agenda has surely not changed–but their position has. They are no longer political outcasts on the American scene and even we must admit, in the words of Rabbi Gene Borowitz (in no way a neoconservative himself) that ‘we and our experts do not seem as competent as we once thought. The ills perpetrated by government programs, from creating dependency in the needy to building immobile bureaucracies, have not infrequently offset or overbalanced their successes.’

And yet. And yet. The haftarah we will read, no, the haftarah that Bob Hirsch will read (and we are delighted to welcome him home!) this afternoon, the story of the fleeing Jonah, will be read in all congregations this day. Jonah wants nothing to do with the Ninevites; he just wants to be left alone. At the end, Jonah is concerned only with the gourd. But God had far larger concerns; God’s concerns were with the idolaters in Nineveh. And Jonah could not hide among his own narrow concerns. For God’s message to Jonah, to the Ninevites, and to us was and is–we are not alone. We have responsibilities to all God’s children. Change is possible.

Yet more. For the words of this morning’s haftarah continue to echo. How can they not? God wants our fast to lead us to unlock the shackles of justice, to let the oppressed go free; to share our bread with the hungry and our homes with the homeless and our clothes with the naked; to satisfy the needs of the afflicted. So I give to MAZON–such is favoring private philanthropy and I want you to do the same. Yet no matter how much I give to MAZON, my responsibilities go beyond the check I will write tonight. For the words of the haftarah demand, no matter how correct the neoconservatives may be regarding personal, individual behavior, an activist position. We must feed, house, clothe, and free. And in terms of communal behavior, Jewish tradition is profoundly liberal. Our lives must be involved with others–Jews and non-Jews–ensuring sufficient shelter, appropriate clothing, enough food and, yes, the hope, nay, ultimately, the reality of freedom.

Conservatism, liberalism. NEITHER! Rather, Judaism. Obedient to God and demanding, in the words of my colleague Arnold Jacob Wolf, ‘a naked, compassionate response to hunger and inequity.’ Neither conservative nor liberal but Jewish and thus obligated to God…

…Obligated to hold property in a trust. For we own nothing. In fact, as you now know, there is no word in Hebrew which literally allows one to say, ‘I own this.’ One may state a relationship one may have with an object–’this belongs to me’ or ‘master of the house’–but one cannot say ‘I own.’ It is a simple theological statement. For God owns everything and all that we have we hold in a trust for God to be shared with all of God’s children. And thus obligated to God…

…Obligated, as God’s tenants, if you will, to till and to tend, to serve and to guard, the bounteous gift of this world. We may not do to the land whatever we want–for it is not ours. The Talmud teaches that, ‘one who chops wood in a private area and causes damage in a public area…or damages another private area, is liable.’ And the ancient rabbis devised similar laws regarding pits, dangerous substances, odors, smoke, damage from cattle, water pollution, even noise. If oil is there, just drill? NO! We must nurture the land for its true owner and share its bounty…for we are obligated to God…

…Obligated to share with others that bounty on behalf of God. Why else, then, the words we read this morning, not the Enlightenment words of a Locke or a Voltaire or a Kant, but the more than 3200-year-old words of the Torah. Yes, they are the words from the 19th chapter of Leviticus, words that tell us that when we reap the harvest of our land, we should not reap the corners of the fields or glean the fallen ears of the crop or strip the vineyard bare–we must leave them for the poor and the stranger, the widow and the orphan. All the food in the corners–apples or oranges or lemons or grapes or sheaves of wheat–all the food that falls down, must be left for the poor and the stranger. We cannot have it. It is not ours. It shall go to those who need it. The heart of the stranger still beats within us. For we were strangers in the land of Egypt. We have been strangers in so many lands, at so many times. Now that we are strangers no more–back home in Israel and here in America–how much the more so are we obligated to God to share with others…

…Obligated to see these others as our brothers and sisters, as God’s children created equally in God’s image. For we are, all of us, descendants of Adam and Eve. And the Talmud makes clear our obligation to feed the hungry gentile, to visit the gentile sick, and to comfort the gentile bereaved, along with the hungry, sick, and bereaved Jew.

So a story to bring all these obligations together. It is one you know–the story of Ruth. A recent widow, she has returned with her mother-in-law to the land of Israel. Poor and not Jewish, she is hungry. Thus do we find her in Boaz’s field gathering that of God’s bounty which Boaz was obligated to share. To show the power of these obligations, Rabbi Daniel Polish wrote the following Midrash, a negative midrash in his words, of a character who comes to Boaz and says, ‘Boaz, who is this Moabite, this Ruth? What right does she have gleaning our fields? Don’t you know she is not an Israelite? She is not one of ours. She comes from south of the border. There are hungry Jews who could use those sheaves. She is taking food out of Jewish mouths. You’ve got to drive her out of here. Get her out of your field. Send her back where she belongs.’ NO–NEVER–for we are obligated by God to treat the stranger as ourselves.

Those 3200 year-old words will tell us yet of other obligations this afternoon–obligations to God not to steal and not to lie; obligations to God to treat the laborer fairly and the accused justly; obligations to God to show deference to the aged and to those who are in danger; obligations to God, yes, even in the marketplace, obligations to ensure a fair and equitable marketplace. For it is justice that we must pursue.

Yet still more. For as Hillel taught, ‘Separate not yourself from the community.’ In Rabbi Daniel Swartz’s words, ‘This was both prescription and description: never act like you are a separate entity, because, in fact, you are not.’ Our obligations to God can only be fulfilled in community. Community, by definition, means law. And thus community, by definition, means a form of government. And we are obligated to community…

…Obligated to pray to God on its behalf. 2500 years ago, the prophet Jeremiah, in his letter to the Jews living in exile in Babylon, conveyed God’s word to ‘seek the peace of the city to which I have exiled you and pray to God in its behalf; for in its prosperity you shall prosper.’ We still pray on behalf of our community. We did so this morning just before we returned to Torah to the ark; we asked God to help us see that the well-being of our nation is in our hands.

The community then, through its government, according to the Talmud, is obligated to enter the marketplace. For example, false advertising was prohibited.

The community then, through its government, is required to establish courts of law.

The community then, through its government, according to the Talmud, is obligated to provide for the poor. By the medieval period, Jewish communities had created extensive social welfare operations to provide everything from clothes for the poor to homes for the aged to dowries for poor girls to soup kitchens for the hungry to inns for the traveler and the stranger.

Can we, should we, make the jump from the insular Jewish communities of the past to the modern democratic state? Absolutely. For just as in the insular Jewish community, so, too, in our democracy. Government is not a ‘them’–government is us, you and me, all of us. And you have heard the lines–’Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.’ ‘Every dollar the government does not take from us will make our lives more abundant, our future more free.’

And perhaps that is the most troubling question in this most troubling year. For a quarter of a century now, American politics has, according to Paul Krugman of The New York Times, been “dominated by a crusade against taxes….A result of the tax-cut crusade is that there is now a fundamental mismatch between the benefits Americans expect to receive from the government and the revenues government collects. This mismatch is already having profound effects at the state and local levels.” One simply need look at how one of the crown jewels of Milwaukee is being destroyed by our current county leadership. The Milwaukee County Park system is literally being starved. And I am tired of hearing of how high our taxes are. American taxes are not only low by international standards; they are low by historic American standards. And our current federal government (and local government as well) seems to have as its chief policy further tax cuts. Concludes Krugman, “The astonishing political success of the antitax crusade has, more or less deliberately, set the United States up for a fiscal crisis….The coming crisis will allow conservatives to move the nation a long way back toward the kind of limited government we had before Franklin Roosevelt. Lack of revenue will make it possible for conservative politicians-in the name of fiscal necessity-to dismantle immensely popular governmental programs that would otherwise have been untouchable.” Even something as simple as our own North Shore library has had to reduce hours; I can no longer go and study and read there on Sundays! We must be honest-these are choices we are making.

One must now wonder, ‘does a national community still exist out there?’ The common assumption for decades, in columnist Jon Margolis’ words, ‘has been that America’s whole is more than the sum of its parts, that there is a national community, which sometimes must assert its values.’ In some way, we here in Milwaukee were, in spite of grumbling and jokes and kvetching, expected to care about and do our part for the people in Montauk and Mobile and Monterey as well as for all the residents of Milwaukee. Now we are told that, freed from all governmental constraints, individuals and entrepreneurs will be able to flourish. Be aware of how troublingly dramatic are the changes being made and being contemplated among our leaders in Washington. Yet it was Rabbi Hanina who said some 2000 years ago, ‘Pray for the welfare of the government, for were it not for the fear thereof, one person would swallow up another alive.’ And there is the Midrashic tale of the boat filled with people. Suddenly, one of the people took a drill from under his seat and began to drill a hole in the bottom of the boat. The others begged him to stop. And he responded, ‘Why are you concerned? I’m only drilling under my own seat.’

To be a Jew means we must feed the hungry and house the homeless; The words come from Isaiah, not from some commission. To be a Jew means we must sound the shofar to proclaim freedom–that we must signal liberty for all who are in exile, for all who are oppressed. To be a Jew means to identify with the poor and the oppressed, to be suspicious not of wealth but of complacency, to be especially sensitive to the widowed and the orphaned, to make sure that every person shares in what truly belongs not to us but to God. Tzedek, tzedek, tirdof–Justice, justice, shall you pursue, we are commanded. To be a Jew means that we know that all people are created equally–are we not all descendants of Adam and Eve (and they were not Jewish). To be a Jew means that we participate in community. One cannot be Jewish in isolation. Torah tells us not to separate ourselves.

And to be a Jew means we must speak up. Not as conservatives, not as liberals, but as Jews. In fact, with deeper consideration, one might even find great similarities between those two chapters of Leviticus. Both talk about achieving holiness through just acts–the first in our personal lives, the second in our communal lives. But we are never alone–and our voices must be heard in this land–now more than ever.

AMEN

Rabbi Marc E. Berkson