Tuesday, September 22, 2015

The Yom Kippur Grapevine (Derashah, Yom Kippur 5776)

I ended up re-writing my derashah this morning... I do think this will be better than the previous version.

Live in Israel, even among idolaters
לעולם ידור אדם בא"י אפי' בעיר שרובה עובדי כוכבים, ואל ידור בחו"ל ואפילו בעיר שרובה ישראל, שכל הדר בארץ ישראל דומה כמי שיש לו אלוק, וכל הדר בחוצה לארץ דומה כמי שאין לו אלוק...
Always, one should live in Israel, even in a city which is mostly idolatrous, rather than live outside of Israel even in a city which is mostly Jewish, for one who lives in Israel is as though he has a relationship with Gd, and one who lives outside of Israel is as though he has no relationship with Gd…[1]

I didn’t make it up – this is a gemara!

One thousand years ago, Rabbi Yehudah haLevi explored this assertion that one can only have a relationship with Gd in Israel.[2] He explained that we, the Jewish people, are like a prolific grapevine which is tailored to flourish in a particular soil, and with particular cultivation. The acts of cultivation are taught in the Torah, and the soil is the Land of Israel.

I want to come back to the question of whether one can only connect to Gd in Israel. First, though, I want to focus on another startling part of this passage – that I must move to Israel even if that means living in an עיר שרובה עובדי כוכבים, an idolatrous city!

When I taught this passage in a shiur several weeks ago, one of the participants challenged me. Is an idolatrous city where our grapevine should be cultivated? What about all the ways in which Judaism places such a powerful emphasis on living among good influences, and avoiding bad ones!
·         The Torah demonstrates the dangers of living in idolatrous societies.  Think of Egypt with Avraham and Sarah, the Philistines with Yitzchak and Rivkah, and Shechem with Dinah. Yosef tells his brothers to live in Goshen, not among the Egyptians.
·         The gemara records rabbinic decrees meant to encourage Jews to live away from bad influences,[3] to avoid joint meals and social drinking,[4] and so on.
·         Rambam rules that a Jew who lives among people who are bad influences is required to move![5]

On Rosh HaShanah we spelled out the importance of איחוד הנפשות, of bonding with others in empathy, but did Rav Yerucham Levovitz really envision unity and empathy with idolaters rather than Jews? How can the gemara tell me to go live among idolaters in Israel?!

The risks of community
I believe that Rav Levovitz’s vision of building a community in which people bear each other’s burdens is incomplete; more is necessary, because community based solely on a shared set of actions can become a negative:
·         A community in which people join together to do good things can become a community of peer pressure, in which people do right only because deviating would carry a social price.
·         A community which develops norms of practice can become a community focussed on rules and rote – what Yeshayah[6] called מצות אנשים מלומדה - without spiritual depth.

If community becomes all about doing as the herd does, then we fail the promise of unity.

The goal of Kesuvos: Communities of beautiful grapevines
I believe that talmudic passage about living in Israel means to teach us to cultivate a community of souls who personally connect with Gd as Step One, and who then communally carry forth that Image of Gd into this world,bearing each other’s burdens, as Step Two.

To use the Kuzari’s grapevine metaphor:
·         When our roots are a search for Gd, then we will be nourished not by peer pressure but by personal spiritual desire.  
·         When we are nourished by personal spiritual desire, then our rules and rituals will not be the essence, but the means of bringing forth spreading shoots, lush leaves, fragrant flowers and sweet fruit, the mitzvot and chesed and empathy.
·         And once we unite these grapevines in spiritual communities which develop the empathy and chesed we discussed on Rosh HaShanah, then we will benefit, individually and collectively, from the joint influence of so many human beings growing together and reaching heavenward.

So first we should seek Gd, as Step One – and then we are able to take Step Two, and build spiritual communities.

Outside Israel, we have Yom Kippur
And now I return to that gemara’s specification of living in Israel to be near HaShem. We are not in Israel; how can we seek Gd? Does the gemara believe that all is lost? Would the Kuzari say we are wasting our time?[7] I think not – because even though HaShem is most available in Israel, we can seek HaShem, in a life-changing way, in the experience of Yom Kippur, anywhere.

Through the rest of the year - whether in Israel or elsewhere - the drive of the day-to-day and the reality of our religious doubts make it hard for us to commit to a search for Gd without nagging voices distracting us. “I need to go to work.” “I have a meeting to get to.” “My phone is ringing.” “My emails are piling up.” “If Gd is good, how do you explain tsunamis and earthquakes?” “If Torah cultivates spiritual Jews, what about that rabbi who was arrested?” “I don’t see Gd anywhere!”

But Yom Kippur is our Israel, the place where Gd is found. Yom Kippur is a day when we put aside the busyness and the questions; Yom Kippur is a day of experiential Judaism. We don’t eat. We don’t wash. Husbands and wives are apart. It’s all about focusing on Gd. We recite viduy, privately specifying our mistakes from the past year. It is a personal conversation with Gd. And the Talmud[8] says that this is the time when HaShem is near – קראוהו בהיותו קרוב. It’s not only that Gd is near to hear our repentance; Gd is here for our connection, and our cultivation. This is the fertile soil in which we can cultivate the grapevines of the Jewish people - and even if we currently live in exile.

What that connection looks like
What does that connection look like? What are we looking to cultivate in our hearts?

Shir haShirim, the ultimate love song between Gd and the Jewish people, describes it in beautiful and moving terms:[9]
(ט) מַה־דּוֹדֵךְ מִדּוֹד הַיָּפָה בַּנָּשִׁים מַה־דּוֹדֵךְ מִדּוֹד שֶׁכָּכָה הִשְׁבַּעְתָּנוּ: (י) דּוֹדִי צַח וְאָדוֹם דָּגוּל מֵרְבָבָה: (יא) רֹאשׁוֹ כֶּתֶם פָּז קְוֻצּוֹתָיו תַּלְתַּלִּים שְׁחֹרוֹת כָּעוֹרֵב: (יב) עֵינָיו כְּיוֹנִים עַל־אֲפִיקֵי מָיִם רֹחֲצוֹת בֶּחָלָב יֹשְׁבוֹת עַל־מִלֵּאת: (יג) לְחָיָו כַּעֲרוּגַת הַבֹּשֶׂם מִגְדְּלוֹת מֶרְקָחִים שִׂפְתוֹתָיו שׁוֹשַׁנִּים נֹטְפוֹת מוֹר עֹבֵר: (יד) יָדָיו גְּלִילֵי זָהָב מְמֻלָּאִים בַּתַּרְשִׁישׁ מֵעָיו עֶשֶׁת שֵׁן מְעֻלֶּפֶת סַפִּירִים: (טו) שׁוֹקָיו עַמּוּדֵי שֵׁשׁ מְיֻסָּדִים עַל־אַדְנֵי־פָז מַרְאֵהוּ כַּלְּבָנוֹן בָּחוּר כָּאֲרָזִים: (טז) חִכּוֹ מַמְתַקִּים וְכֻלּוֹ מַחֲמַדִּים זֶה דוֹדִי וְזֶה רֵעִי בְּנוֹת יְרוּשָׁלִָם:
The daughters of Jerusalem ask the heroine of Shir haShirim, the Jewish people: Why is your Beloved different from any other? Why do you seek your Beloved like this?
And the heroine responds,“My beloved is pure white and red, standing out even among ten thousand others. His head is like gold, his coiled hair is black like a raven! His eyes are like doves by streams of water, bathing in milk, set in a gorgeous foundation. His cheeks are like a bed of fragrant flowers, mounds of spices; his lips are like lilies, dripping flowing myrrh. His arms are cylinders of gold, set with gems; his torso is ivory, inlaid with sapphire. His legs are marble pillars, founded upon sockets of gold; his appearance is like the choice cedars of Lebanon. His palate is sweet, he is entirely desirable. This is my Beloved, This is my friend, daughters of Jerusalem!”

And we find a similarly beautiful description of that connection each time we repeat the amidah on Yom Kippur, right before the viduy, in כי אנו עמך, when we declare to Gd:
For we are Your nation,                       and You are our Gd.
For we are Your servants,                    and You are our Master…
For we are Your lot,                             and You are our Destiny.
For we are Your sheep,                        and You are our Shepherd.
For we are Your vineyard,                   and You are our Guardian…
For we are Your beloved,                    and You are our Lover.
For we are Your splendour,                 and You are our Friend.
For we have spoken for You,              and You have spoken for us.

This is what that gemara wants for us – not to live among idolaters, but to find Gd - in Israel and on Yom Kippur! And once we have found Gd, then we can engage in איחוד הנפשות, bringing ourselves together to form spiritual communities.

Yizkor, and beyond
Yizkor is an especially appropriate time to think along these lines:
·         At Yizkor, each Jew recites the Kel Malei and asks Gd to remember as we do. Bereavement could be all about personal loss, and not a religious experience – but Yizkor makes it about Gd. Yizkor is a moment of locating Gd personally, even within grief.
·         But it is also about community We invoke the memory of those who created our Jewish world. Victims of the Shoah. Valiant founders and defenders of the State of Israel. Parents and other relatives. Yizkor is a time of profound community.

And when we put back the Torah after Yizkor, and begin Musaf, let us retain that blend of the two steps. Let us stand as a community of human beings, daven as a community, sing as a community. But let us also retain that Shir haShirim and Yom Kippur focus on the private union with Gd, even outside the Land of Israel, cultivating grapevines that are nourished spiritually, and that flourish communally.

Derrick Coleman
One last note, which might take the level of dialogue somewhat out of the rarefied spiritual atmosphere we associate with Yom Kippur, but which I hope you will find as meaningful as I do:

It can be hard to detach ourselves from the world around us, and experience a union with Gd. We are surrounded by neighbours and friends and relatives here. We get distracted, and pausing to re-focus is challenging. And perhaps we have a history of Yom Kippur davenings which did not reach those heights, telling us cynically that this day won’t be any different.

The other day, I saw a video[10] that really resonated with me on this point. It featured an American football player, Derrick Coleman. Coleman is deaf, and in the commercial, he talked about what it took for him to reach his goal of football success. Speaking over a montage of football scenes, Coleman said this:

They told me it couldn’t be done. That I was a lost cause. Kids were afraid to play with me. I was picked on… and picked last. Coaches didn’t know how to talk to me. They gave up on me, told me I should just quit. But I’ve been deaf since I was three – so I didn’t listen.

For the record, Coleman was not drafted by any NFL team out of college. But then he signed as a free agent after the 2011 season. He became the first deaf NFL offensive player in 2012, and won Super Bowl 48 at the end of the 2013 season. As of the start of the current season, he has two more NFL touchdowns than I do.

Sometimes, all of us need to refuse to listen. Achieving community with Gd is hard – but even if we have yet to achieve it today, or ever, this Yom Kippur isn’t over. Coleman concludes by saying, “Now I’m here, with a lot of fans in the NFL cheering me on. And I can hear them all.” May we merit Coleman’s level of success in our Yom Kippur, and may HaShem hear us all.



[1] Kesuvos 110b
[2] Kuzari 2:21 specifically cites this passage, but look more broadly at 2:8-24
[3] Eruvin 62a re: גזירה שמא ילמוד ממעשיו
[4] Avodah Zarah 59b, for example
[5] Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Deios 6:1
[6] Yeshayah 29:13
[7] Of course, Ramban to Vayyikra 18:25 cites Sifri that mitzvos outside of Israel are really training for mitzvos in Israel
[8] Rosh HaShanah 18a
[9] Shir haShirim 5:9-16
[10] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzQFA2hxyRQ

Sunday, September 20, 2015

Don't Forget Step One (Derashah for Yom Kippur, 5776)

I'm not entirely sure I like this derashah enough to use it. Not for any reason I can pinpoint, except perhaps that it feels educational rather than inspirational. Thoughts?
-
Orthoprax Disillusionment
The following comes from a blog written by a shul rabbi a few years ago:[1]
My first rabbinic position was as an assistant rabbi…. The rabbi [asked me] to daven Mussaf for the shul on the second day of Rosh ha-Shana. I was flattered… I went home, almost running the whole way, to tell my wife the good news… I immediately began practicing. I got tapes of various chazzanim and spent hours each day memorizing the tunes. I recorded myself so that I could hear how I sounded… My wife was enlisted to listen to Mussaf, over and over again. I had a friend in Yeshiva who was something of a Chazzan, and we spent time on the phone going over each tune I intended on using. In the end, I knew the entire Mussaf by heart, no small feat.
Finally, the day came and I would like to think that I acquitted myself well… I was, however, surprised at the comments by the congregation. Everyone I met complimented the davening, but I was startled to discover that although each congregant focused on something different—a particular tune or tefilah—they, almost uniformly, included a variation on, “and we got out so early” or “it was so quick.”
At the time I didn’t know if they were being polite – perhaps they didn’t really enjoy it and that was all they could come up with. Over time, however, I learned that my congregants weren’t sugarcoating their praise or trying to come up with at least one redeeming quality from my Mussaf. Rather, the most important factor for most everyone during the Yomim Noraim, almost uniformly, was to make sure they were home by noon.

The Community we don’t seek
I think there was a flaw in the derashah I gave on Rosh HaShanah, and I don’t mean the fact that it lasted more than 10 minutes, and we didn’t make it home by noon. I believe the vision I presented from Rav Yerucham Levovitz, Rav Chaim of Volozhin and Rav Moshe Cordovero[2] was incomplete, because I left the impression that so long as we create community and bear the burdens of others with them, we have succeeded as Jews.

That sort of community is important – but it is only a partial job description, because that sort of community can easily become corrupted into what that assistant rabbi experienced:
·         A culture of observance can become a culture of rote, of what Yeshayah[3] called מצות אנשים מלומדה, trained practice rather than inspired action, just because these behaviours have been the norm forever.
·         A community in which people join together for mitzvot can become a community of peer pressure, in which people do right only because deviating would carry a social price.
·         A community which refines and hones religious practice can become a community of rules and ritual, without spiritual depth.

Certainly, Jewish communities should not exile people who currently observe by rote, who are influenced by peer pressure, and who follow rules without seeing meaning in them. But when community becomes all about doing as the herd does, then we fail the promise of unity. To my mind, Torah is a set of blueprints vouchsafed to us for the sake of shaping souls who personally connect with Gd as Step One, and who communally carry forth that Image of Gd into this world as Step Two.

Kesuvos says: Gd Before Community
I base this on a controversial passage of gemara.[4]

לעולם ידור אדם בא"י אפי' בעיר שרובה עובדי כוכבים, ואל ידור בחו"ל ואפילו בעיר שרובה ישראל, שכל הדר בארץ ישראל דומה כמי שיש לו אלוק, וכל הדר בחוצה לארץ דומה כמי שאין לו אלוק...
Always, one should live in Israel, even in a city which is mostly idolatrous, rather than live outside of Israel even in a city which is mostly Jewish, for anyone who lives in Israel is as though he has a relationship with Gd, and anyone who lives outside of Israel is as though he has no relationship with Gd…

Let’s leave aside the most controversial part, the assertion that one can have a relationship with Gd only in Israel; that’s a good topic for another time. But look at the second-most-controversial part – that I must move to a place where I can connect with Gd, even if that means living in an עיר שרובה עובדי כוכבים, an idolatrous city!

When I taught this passage in a shiur several weeks ago, one of the participants challenged me. What about all the ways in which Judaism places such a powerful emphasis on living among good influences, and avoiding bad ones!
·         The Torah presents the dangers of living in Egypt with Avraham and Sarah, among the Philistines with Yitzchak and Rivkah, and near Shechem with Dinah. Yosef tells his brothers to live in Goshen, not among the Egyptians.
·         The gemara records rabbinic decrees meant to encourage Jews to live away from bad influences,[5] to avoid joint meals and drinking,[6] and so on.
·         Rambam rules that a Jew who lives among people who are bad influences is required to move![7]
How, then, can the gemara tell me to go live among idolaters, in order to reside in a place where Gd is found?

And so I contend that before the Step Two that is Jewish Community, we need Step One: Personal relationships with Gd. This is how we avoid what that rabbi described, a world of Jews whose worship is rote.

Where do we find Gd?
As Rabbi Korobkin noted on Shabbos Shuvah, different people achieve Step One in different ways. To flesh that out:
·         Some people connect with Gd when hiking in the woods and appreciating our world;
·         Some people connect with Gd when learning Gd’s Torah;
·         Some people connect with Gd when walking where our ancestors walked, in Israel;
·         Some people connect with Gd when listening to music, or meditating and stripping away the noise buzzing around us;
·         Some people connect with Gd by channelling their own Image of Gd and putting it to work in helping other people;
·         Some people connect with Gd when engaged in activism and community leadership;
·         Some people connect with Gd when speaking directly to Gd of their experiences and dreams in davening.

Hopefully, all of us evolve and mature over the course of our lives, and find that even activities which were anti-spiritual in our youth can become meaningful and fulfilling later on. But each of us must be capable of finding something for Step One - and then using it to inform the community we construct in Step Two.
·         Then we can construct a community that remembers its connection with Gd and agrees to become responsible for each member, great and small, under the banner of ערבות, as part of the collective commitment we made to Gd when we crossed the Yarden.[8]
·         Then we can construct a community that testifies eternally to the contours of its covenant with Gd;[9] that will wear tefillin in 2015 matching tefillin unearthed from 2000 years earlier; that will live in far-flung, long-severed communities and yet read a sefer torah that remains eerily isometric; that will value their shared national connection with Gd beyond ties of geography, ethnicity and even ideology.
·         Then we can construct a community that is loyal to its relationship with Gd, and shapes its Torah observance in a way that is true to that relationship.[10]

Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur is a day of both Step One and Step Two.

Yom Kippur is a grand day for Step Two: Community with Others. The Jew dare not be a pious hermit on Yom Kippur. At Kol Nidrei, we rescind communal vows, welcoming even the ex-communicated back among us. We stand before Gd together.

But first, Yom Kippur establishes Step One: Community with Gd. We do not eat, we do not bathe, we do not wear makeup, husbands and wives are apart, it’s all about focusing on Gd. We recite viduy, privately specifying our mistakes from the past year. It is a personal conversation with Gd.

On Yom Kippur we recognize the importance of community – but we assert that there is no Jewish community without Gd at the centre of each individual life, and we create the external circumstances which will make a focus on Gd simpler.

Yizkor, and beyond
Yizkor, especially, blends these two steps:
·         We invoke the memory of those who created our Jewish world. Victims of the Shoah. Valiant founders and defenders of the State of Israel. Parents and other relatives. Yizkor is a time of profound community.
·         But at the same time, people recite their Kel Malei and ask Gd to remember as we do. Bereavement could be all about personal loss, and not a religious experience – but Yizkor makes it about Gd. Yizkor is a moment of locating Gd within grief.

When we put back the Torah after Yizkor, and begin Musaf, let us retain that blend of the two steps. Let us stand as a community of human beings, daven as a community, sing as a community. But let us also retain that Yom Kippur focus on the private union with Gd, even outside the Land of Israel, to ensure that our prayers and songs are not מצות אנשים מלומדה, but are centred on the Inspiration for it all.

Derrick Coleman
One last note, which might take the level of dialogue somewhat out of the rarefied spiritual atmosphere we associate with Yom Kippur, but which I hope you will find as meaningful as I do:

It can be hard to detach ourselves from the world around us, and experience a union with Gd. We are surrounded by neighbours and friends and relatives here. We get distracted, and pausing to re-focus is challenging. And perhaps we have a history of Yom Kippur davenings which did not reach those heights, telling us cynically that this day won’t be any different.

The other day, I saw a video[11] that really resonated with me on this point. It featured an American football player, Derrick Coleman. Coleman is deaf, and in the commercial, he talked about what it took for him to reach his goal of football success. Speaking over a montage of football scenes, Coleman said this:

They told me it couldn’t be done. That I was a lost cause. Kids were afraid to play with me. I was picked on… and picked last. Coaches didn’t know how to talk to me. They gave up on me, told me I should just quit. But I’ve been deaf since I was three – so I didn’t listen.

For the record, Coleman was not drafted by any NFL team out of college. But then he signed as a free agent after the 2011 season. He became the first deaf NFL offensive player in 2012, and won Super Bowl 48 at the end of the 2013 season. As of the start of the current season, he has two more NFL touchdowns than I do.

Sometimes, all of us need to refuse to listen. Achieving community with Gd is hard – but even if we have yet to achieve it today, or ever, this Yom Kippur isn’t over. Coleman concludes by saying, “Now I’m here, with a lot of fans in the NFL cheering me on. And I can hear them all.” May we merit Coleman’s level of success in our Yom Kippur, and may HaShem hear us all.





[1] https://theorthopraxrabbi.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/speed-reading/
[2] Saw this great additional material afterward: Ohel Moshe to Sefer Shemos, pp. 119-130 in the pdf - http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pagefeed/hebrewbooks_org_46192_119.pdf
[3] Yeshayah 29:13
[4] Kesuvos 110b
[5] Eruvin 62a re: גזירה שמא ילמוד ממעשיו
[6] Avodah Zarah 59b, for example
[7] Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Deios 6:1
[8] Sanhedrin 43b
[9] Rav Hai Gaon, cited in Raavad’s Tmim Deim 119
[10] See Rama Choshen Mishpat 25:1, and see Rav Kook’s Beer Eliyahu to Choshen Mishpat 25:7
[11] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzQFA2hxyRQ

Saturday, September 12, 2015

The Voice in the Shofar (Derashah for Rosh HaShanah 5776)

Birthdays: Why am I here?
If today is the birthday of humanity, then we have two obligations: 1) To thank Gd for our existence, as we do in the davening, and 2) To ask ourselves: Why are we here? What is the purpose of the brilliant, inventive, moody, creative, ambitious, bizarre creature that is the human being?

Fortunately, we don’t need to start on this question from scratch – this is a 14-minute derashah, not a shiur. I want to show you three sources, which carry a message of such power that it has changed my life, and which I believe can change our Rosh HaShanah birthday for all of us.

Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin
First, Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, with words that are among the most inspirational I have ever heard.

Rav Chaim Volozhiner was the greatest student of the Vilna Gaon, toward the end of the 18th century. He founded the Volozhin yeshiva, the top yeshiva in Europe, famed for training intellectual geniuses; it is reported that the entrance exam included putting a pin through a gemara and telling the examiner, without looking, what word the pin had pierced on every page. Rav Chaim started the great Brisker dynasty, which produced the brilliant Soloveitchik family.

And Rav Chaim’s son, Rav Yitzchak, wrote the following about his father:[1]

וכה היה דברו אלי תמיד, שזה כל האדם: לא לעצמו נברא, רק להועיל לאחריני ככל אשר ימצא בכחו לעשות.
This is what my father always told me: "This is a person's entire purpose. A person is not created for himself. A person is created only to benefit others, with whatever power is in his possession."[2]

The uber-intellectual declared to his son: You are not here on earth to be a genius. You are not here on earth to ace the pin test. Not to minimize the importance of learning Torah, but to maximize the importance of chesed: You are here on this earth to look at the person beside you and ask yourself, “What can I do to make his life better?”

Rav Yerucham Levovitz
Second, Rav Yerucham Levovitz, expanding on an idea stated by Rav Simcha Zissel Broide, also known as the Sabba miKelm.[3]

Rav Simcha Zissel Broide was a brilliant talmid chacham. My Beit Midrash is learning Eruvin this year, and we have the newest edition of the Meiri on Eruvin, a fairly technical and esoteric text – and it comes with scholarly footnotes from Rav Simcha Zissel Broide.

As far as Rav Levovitz, he was the Mashgiach Ruchani (spiritual leader) of the Mir Yeshiva in the first decades of the 20th century. The Mir Yeshiva is another institution famed for its Torah scholarship, and Rav Levovitz is honoured as one of its greatest leaders.

And this is what Rav Levovitz wrote:
גדול כ"כ ענין של נושא בעול עם חבירו מפני שזה כל התורה כולה, היינו איחוד הנפשות להרגיש זא"ז. וכל לימוד התורה, הלימוד והמעשה, הנה סוף המטרה שיתאחדו הנפשות להיות מרגישים זא"ז שיהיו אחד ממש.
Bearing a burden with others is of such importance because this is the entire Torah: the joining of souls, to feel what each other feels. All of Torah study, all of the learning and all of the deeds - the final goal is that all souls should be joined, to feel each others’ feelings, to truly be one.

Faced with identifying the purpose of the entire Torah, with all of its laws and rituals, Rav Levovitz, leader of one of the major European yeshivot, identified not our personal connection with Gd, and not Torah study, but bearing each other’s burdens with them! Not that he was diminishing the importance of Torah study, or saying that it is sufficieent to just “be a good person”. Just the opposite – it is critical that we practice all of our mitzvot, and that we examine them to gain an understanding of how they will help us to benefit others, and to bring people to greater empathy. Hashem gave us the Torah in order to instill empathy in our hearts and lives.


Rabbi Moshe Cordovero
And third, Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, one of the greatest kabbalists of the past 500 years. He was a leader of the community of kabbalists in Tzfat, and a Rebbe of the Ari z”l. One of his great works is Tomer Devorah, “The Palm Tree of Devorah”, which speaks of the ability of a human being to emulate Gd.

In Tomer Devorah, Rabbi Cordovero wrote that when the Torah says a human being is created in the image of Gd, this means that we hold within our hearts, our minds, our limbs, the capacity to emulate the actions of G-d in our relationships with others.

He wrote, האדם ראוי שיתדמה לקונו, A person is suited to resemble his Creator.” Not that this is something we need to leap for, to struggle to achieve – we are suited for this. And specifically, to resemble our Creator in the way we relate to the human beings around us, the way that Gd reached out to save Yishmael in this morning’s Torah reading – with mercy, with generosity, with empathy, with love.

And he added powerfully, אילו ידומה בגופו ולא בפעולות, if a person were to have the physical capacity to reach out to others, if a person were to have the emotional capacity to love, and a person would not employ it in action, הרי הוא מכזיב הצורה, ויאמרו עליו 'צורה נאה ומעשים כעורים', that person would be making a lie of our form! They would say of such a person, “What a pleasant form, but what ugly deeds!”[4]

Summary
Three voices, three of the greatest minds Judaism has ever known. Not cherry-picked – there are others I could bring. But three voices which unite to answer our birthday question: The brilliant, inventive, moody, creative, ambitious, bizarre creature that is the human being was put here on this planet on this day, in order to help other people. In order to unite with others in empathy and carry their burdens. In order to emulate Gd’s aid for Yishmael with generosity, empathy and love for other human beings.

Of course, a good derashah requires nuance; there must be another side of the coin, and there is. We face two limits to our empathy: Biology, and Knowledge.

Limit 1: Biology
First, biology – The saying goes, “One death is a tragedy, one million deaths is a statistic.” We have trouble relating to too large a circle of human beings.

British anthropologist Robin Dunbar studied the brains of primates and the size of their societies, and came up with a formula that predicted that human beings would only form social networks of up to 150 or so people.[5] Malcom Gladwell made the theory famous in his The Tipping Point, where he marshalled evidence for it.

And it’s not only Dunbar and Gladwell - halachah[6] limits its demands upon our empathy. We have a principle of עניי עירך קודמים, that our tzedakah should go to our families first.[7] Granted, that same talmudic passage includes the warning that those who only help their own will soon find themselves in need of aid from others – still, the rule is that our own do come first.

Another example from halachah: The Torah describes our obligation to help others load and unload their animals, and to restore their lost property. But the Torah says כי תפגע, this is only when you encounter a need. The sages explained that only upon encountering a need up close are we obligated to help; they defined a distance limit of about 150 meters. Halachah is aware that we respond best to what it calls ראייה שהיא פגיעה, to a personal encounter, and it does not obligate us to go looking to help those we don’t know and we don’t see.[8]

So how can Rav Chaim of Volozhin expect me to walk around all day thinking of helping people? How can Rav Yerucham Levovitz expect me to carry the burdens of so many people? How can Rav Moshe Cordovero demand that I emulate the Divine embrace for everyone around me?

To this, I respond with an article published in the New York Times this past summer, by three research psychologists. Darryl Cameron, Michael Inzlicht and William Cunningham wrote a piece called Empathy is Actually a Choice.[9] They said, “While we concede that the exercise of empathy is, in practice, often far too limited in scope, we dispute the idea that this shortcoming is inherent…We believe that empathy is a choice that we make whether to extend ourselves to others. The ‘limits’ to our empathy are merely apparent, and can change, sometimes drastically, depending on what we want to feel.” And they demonstrated, with research studies, that humans are actually designed with the ability to expand the empathetic capacity of our hearts. Dunbar’s Number does not prevent us from expanding our hearts to care about, and extending our arms to carry the burdens of, a world of human beings.

Limit 2: Knowledge
The other hypothetical limit is knowledge.

Here is a powerful blog post I saw back in 2007. The writer is anonymous:
I write to you today as one of the Unseen. It hurts to not be seen. It hurts even more to suffer alone and in silence. I have a mental illness… I hide it well most of the time.
Today I did not hide it. I cried openly in shul… surrounded by some two hundred people during the kiddush luncheon that followed, and still you did not see me. I stumbled out of the social hall, blinded by tears I could not control and sobs that left me unable to breathe, and still no one saw me.
I took refuge in the chapel and sobbed aloud… People came into the chapel for various reasons: to look for a lost tallis, read the newspaper, find a book in the library. Even still, I remained Unseen.
When my sobs exhausted themselves and I found my peace in emotional numbness, I rose to leave the chapel, falling onto a chair in my weakened state. One man remained in the chapel, facing me. He did not even bother to look up. I left the chapel, Unseen.[10]

I don’t believe that people ignored a crying person in shul because they didn’t care, and weren’t moved. Rather, I think it’s because they didn’t know what to do. Perhaps they were afraid to make her uncomfortable by approaching her. So they left the room.

But our ignorance is easy to eliminate – and looking around our minyan, I see so many people who have taken the steps to do that, who have become involved in chesed causes and who have pioneered chesed causes. So we know how to eliminate ignorance: Good parents do research to learn how to take care of their children. Good teachers study how to teach well. Good first responders train in the latest CPR techniques. And good human beings, like us, find out how to help other people.

Summary
This is what we celebrate today: נעשה אדם!
·         The Divine decision to populate His universe with the brilliant, inventive, moody, creative, ambitious, bizarre creature that is the human being.
·         The Divine decision to create a human being who would look to help others beyond Dunbar’s 150, beyond the halachic minimum of ראייה שיש בה פגיעה, as Rav Chaim Volozhin wrote.
·         The Divine decision to create a human being who would overcome ignorance and train herself to bear the burdens of others, as Rav Yerucham Levovitz wrote.
·         The Divine decision to create a human being who would emulate Divine mercy and love and empathy, as Rav Moshe Cordovero wrote.

Shofar
The Talmud[11] teaches that the shofar’s sound replicates different types of crying. These might be our own cries of repentance before our King, but these may also be the cries of other people – even the wicked mother of Sisera, as the gemara teaches.[12] As we fulfill this mitzvah momentarily and hear the moaning tekiah, the groans of the shevarim, the shuddering teruah, let us expand our empathy, our image of Gd, and ask ourselves whose cries we are hearing.

Who do we hear in the shofar? Is it the panhandler at the corner of Bathurst and Steeles? Is it a socially awkward person who is more easily ignored than greeted? Is it someone who lacks a family and is rarely invited for a meal? Who do we hear crying with the shofar? And what will we be moved to do about it?

·         Let us hear the shofar and reach out because Rav Moshe Cordovero says that is a fulfillment of our Image of Gd.
·         Let us hear the shofar and reach out because Rav Yerucham Levovitz says that’s what Judaism is for.
·         Let us hear the shofar and reach out because Rav Chaim of Volozhin says that’s why we were created on that first Rosh HaShanah.

Let us hear the shofar and reach out as Gd did for Yishmael – and האדם ראוי שיתדמה לקונו, we can do it as well.






[1] Introduction to Nefesh haChaim
[2] Another relevant passage – Horeb 120 on seeing in others the condition of our own existence.
[3] Daat Chachmah Umussar III #295 (pg. רעא)
[4] See, too, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Avadim 9:8
[6] Bava Metzia 33a, codified in Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Rotzeiach 13:6 and Shulchan Aruch Choshen Mishpat 272:5
[7] Talmud, Bava Metzia 33a
[8] Indeed, Shulchan Aruch haRav Choshen Mishpat הלכות עוברי דרכים וצער בעלי חיים 6 says explicitly that there is no obligation to help beyond this perimeter, even if one knows of the other party’s need.
[9] Daryl Cameron, Michael Inzlicht, William A. Cunningham, Empathy is Actually a Choice, July 10, 2015
[10] http://wingslikeadove.blogspot.com/2007/02/what-would-i-want-my-congregation-to_10.html
[11] Rosh HaShanah 33b, for example
[12] Ibid.