Rabbi's Message

Rabbi Elyse Wechterman
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November 2005
Yom Kippur Sermon

This month’s column is a reprint of the sermon I delivered on Yom Kippur

Today’s Haftarah – the passages from Isaiah that we just read – contains an important reminder – maybe more important this year than in others. Isaiah shows us clearly and starkly that the distinction between the religious and spiritual world and the secular or mundane world – or in contemporary parlance – between religion and politics – is not an authentic distinction in the eyes of the Jewish tradition. In fact, Isaiah tells us that to engage in spiritual practice, in the religious life of the people and not pay attention to the world outside the synagogue is to render meaningless much of what religion and spirituality are all about.

“Is this the fast that I delight in? ……Is not the fast that I desire the unlocking of chains of wickedness, the loosening of exploitation,” Isaiah has God saying. Isaiah – in the 7th century BCE castigated the people of ancient Israel for sitting in synagogue and fasting while the poor and the destitute suffered in the street. He harangued the people for beating their breast in repentance while others went unclothed, un-housed and unnoticed.

Isaiah’s call to look at the world around us and speak to the needs of the suffering and the downtrodden with religious and spiritual language is a call we sorely need to hear today.

Historically, Jews in America have been loath to speak in explicitly religious terms in the public sphere. In fact, we are often – rightly so – on the forefront of efforts to shore up the wall that separates church and state. But I fear that in doing so, we may have used our legitimate fear of state sponsored religion and intolerance as an inappropriate excuse to refrain from offering our truly held values and deepest beliefs in the proverbial marketplace of ideas. And that is a loss both for ourselves and for this country.

What I mean is this: that we – both as a Jewish community and as part of the larger American world – do and will suffer when policies contrary to our values and harmful to this nation are given religious credence and we are not there to respond.

(Rachel Gartner) There is a very powerful minority in this country using the public sphere as an arena in which to put forth a very narrow and particular worldview. Though a statistically small group, this minority is using their religious voice as well as their carefully nurtured connections to power to shape the nature of public discourse and determine this country’s public policies in a way that is antithetical to everything we believe in and everything we have learned to love about and benefit from America.

I am not only talking here about the campaign to teach intelligent design in public school classrooms or to enact laws that codify discrimination based on sexual orientation or to impose a particular view of the world that deems abortion immoral in any circumstance or the effort to divert scarce resources from our public welfare and education systems into private and faith-based institutions.

These issues – important and I might say even urgent to confront – are simply the tip of the iceberg of the effort to radically shift this county’s attitudes and policies toward a selfish, narrow-minded, theologically-based vision of human society.
As my colleague and friend Rabbi Rachel Gartner points out: By using a religious voice to do this and to attempt to depict their religion as THE RELIGION; their theology as THE THEOLOGY and their vales as THE VALUES they have successfully labeled all other perspectives anti-religious, anti-God, amoral and out of bounds. This is not only insulting to those of us who hold very deep religious views, it is also a violation of the principle of religious pluralism and tolerance that has enabled Jews to prosper and flourish here more than at any other time and in any other place in the world.

We can’t afford to cede them this language.

Rather, it is time for us to resurrect Isaiah’s voice not just as a call to justice, but as a call to each and every one of us to follow his lead. We need to engage in the political process, to articulate our views and to speak clearly and proudly for the values that we know are the right ones for this country at this time. Rather than abandon religion as a potential force in shaping public discourse, Isaiah calls us to embrace it fully and present a powerful, compelling alternative to the way it is being used by others to set the public agenda. (Rachel Gartner)

I believe that those of us who identify as Reconstructionist Jews should feel no conflict in this endeavor and can recognize our own spiritual heritage in this call. Our spiritual founder Mordechai Kaplan saw clearly that American Jews live in two civilizations. As such, we embrace the fact that our Judaism has been influenced by some of the greatest achievements of America: equality and inclusivity are values we got from America and we are better off for it.

Kaplan foresaw – and we need to make real – the potential impact that our Jewish values can have on the future of this country.

The fact is, we have something to say to the issues of the day.

A central tenant of Judaism holds that kol yisrael aravim ze le ze –all Israel is responsible for one another. Collective responsibility is a core teaching of Judaism in its texts and in its lived experience. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said “In a free society all are involved in what some are doing. Some are guilty, all are responsible.”

How contrary, how different, how radical this notion seems in a time when finger pointing and blame are common currency whether we are talking about welfare for society’s least able members or the governmental response to the calamity of Hurrican Katrina.

Judaism also maintains a tradition of valuing dialogue. The Talmud records all sides of an argument, even those that are not found to stand up as the final rule. Why? Because Eleh v’eleh divrei Elohim Hayim These and these are the words of the Living God, says the text. We as Jews approach dialogue and conversation with others with respect and humility – conscious that we may not know every side to an argument or have all the information needed to make a decision. We seek a dialogue based on mutual recognition of each other’s humanity – and therefore – Godliness. This too is radically different then the quality of public debate where our leaders claim, “You are either with us or against us!”

Judaism has these and many other values to contribute to public debate. Tsimsum restraint, recognizing the need to create a space for others to succeed; gimilut hasidim – responding to human suffering; ba’al tashkit – avoiding waste and preserving our environment; betzelem elohim – recognizing that every human being is created in the divine image.

If we are going to talk about moral values in this country – and I think we should – then these are the terms and concepts we need to be talking about and teaching to others. Because then, it will become obvious that providing a safety net and helping hand to those at the bottom of our country’s economy is as much or more a moral value then a stance on gay marriage. It will be apparent that shoring up our nation’s infrastructure, levees and flood plains is as much if not more a moral value then fighting terrorism on foreign soil. It will be a given that educating all our children in all our cities and providing safe, welcoming and well-funded schools is as much if not more a moral value than teaching children to pray in those schools.

Most of all, I hope and believe that if we follow Isaiah’s example, speaking truth to power, we will undoubtedly find partners in this endeavor and as political commentator and linguist George Lakoff claims, show people that these values are also the core values that the majority of Americans also share.

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