Yom Kippur, 2006/5767 “If We Are Only for Ourselves, What Good are We?”

This summer has been a difficult one for our people, with a war in Israel. Of course, we grieve for all those who lost lives and suffered in this war, whichever side of the border they were on; a mother is a mother and a child is a child.

[Note: Our Religious School students will be collecting tzedakah money for rebuilding the Galilee and giving donors "Beyahad-Together" pendants from the Israel Center in San Francisco.]

We are understandably focused on the Jewish community. There are many issues that demand our attention in the Jewish world: the peace and security of Israel, fighting anti-Semitism and intolerance, the ingathering of oppressed Jewish communities into Israeli society, the education of our youth and combating assimilation. But we must find a balance between our devotion to the Jewish community, and our concern for humanity. In the classic Alenu prayer, we first thank God for our unique destiny as Jews, but then we look to a universal vision of “tikkun ‘olam,” repairing the world as G-d’s kingdom on earth.

In the words of the great first century Jewish Sage Hillel, “If I’m not for myself-who will be for me? I’m only for myself, who am I? And if not now, when?” Hillel challenges us to balance our concern for the Jewish community with our concern for the wider world.

The most repeated commandment in the Torah-know the heart of the stranger, love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. After our experience of slavery in Egypt, after our victimization in the Holocaust, we could understandably look out for ourselves first and foremost.

But the Torah tells us that our experiences of oppression must lead us to greater compassion, to identifying with and helping the downtrodden of the earth.

Last week’s Sunday New York Times had two stories that caught my attention. One was an editorial about Prudence, a 24-year-old mother of three in the poor African nation of Cameroon. Prudence was the same age as my own second daughter. An inexperienced midwife botched the delivery of her fourth baby. After taking her on a motorcycle to the closest hospital, the family couldn’t scrape together the $100 that it cost for a caesarian section. The family’s life savings totaled $20.

The writer of the article, Nicholas Kristof, helped the family and even donated blood to the women, which helped her to revive a bit and gain strength for the life-saving operation. But the hospital staff saw little value in the life of a poor village woman. Their resources were stretched thin and they didn’t have the proper antibiotics to treat her. The doctor went home for the night and by the next day Prudence had died.

In the same issue of the Times, there was an article in the Business section about a new trend in our own country: spas for dogs. Instead of going to a kennel when their owners are away, dogs can now enjoy hot-tubs, massages, and gourmet meals at their own spas.

We live in a world in which pet dogs in America have a better life than human beings in poor countries. To hear the words of Isaiah, the world has long been full of inequality and injustice. The difference is that now we have media that give us nearly instant reports of what is going on around the planet. And more and more of us who live in free and prosperous societies have the means to make a difference. In the words of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, “in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.”

The Jewish word for charity is “Tsedakah,” which literally means, “righteousness.” Reaching out and helping those in need is not something that we are to do because it gives us a warm feeling in our hearts, which it does, but because it is the just and righteous thing to do, a divine imperative.

The Torah tells us that every human being is created in God’s image, b’tselem Elohim. That includes the poor of the earth, the people who don’t usually make headlines. We can activate our Jewish values by using them to help others. I always have envelopes in our lobby on the holidays and every day, for two Jewish organizations that use Jewish values to help larger society.

The first is Mazon, a Jewish organization that feeds the hungry of every religion and race. One of their first programs was to encourage Jews to give 3% of the money spent on every simchah, every happy occasion, to help feed the hungry.

The other organization is one especially dear to my heart, the American Jewish World Service. AJWS, who you may have heard mentioned on Public Radio, describes its missions as being “an international development organization motivated by Judaism’s imperative to pursue justice. AJWS is dedicated to alleviating poverty, hunger and disease among the people of the developing world regardless of race, religion or nationality.

Through grants to grassroots organizations, volunteer service, advocacy and education, AJWS fosters civil society, sustainable development and human rights for all people, while promoting the values and responsibilities of global citizenship within the Jewish community.”

I have made the commitment to give a monthly donation to AJWS on my credit card, and I encourage you to consider doing so as well. But you can start by taking home an envelope tonight and sending in a donation at the close of the holy day. The Talmud tells us that the real merit of a fast day is in the tsedakah generated.

I wonder if the people at AJWS and Mazon are amazed each fall by the sudden surge of donations from a small community in Northern California. What I suspect is that most people rush out the lobby and don’t take the time to pick up those envelopes, send them home, and mail in a donation. Or visit their websites, which have links on our CBI website, and make a donation by credit card. Let’s amaze these national organizations with the generosity coming from Chico. Let’s surprise those folks in the big cities and show them that Chico is the home of CBI, America’s “number one hearty shul.”*

Besides the daily death toll from poverty and inequality, the world still faces the scourge of genocide, whole groups of people targeted as victims, tortured and killed. The Darfur region of the Sudan in Africa, according to Colin Powell and President Bush, is the site of the world’s latest genocide. The region has been embroiled in a deadly conflict for over three years, and impoverished villagers have become the victims of government-sponsored persecution. Estimates range from 200-400,000 people killed. More than 2 million innocent civilians live in displaced-persons camps in Sudan or in refugee camps in neighboring Chad; and more than 3.5 million men, women, and children rely on international aid for survival. That aid has become increasingly scarce as the area has become the most dangerous place on earth for foreign aid workers. According to Save Darfur.org, “Not since the Rwandan genocide of 1994 has the world seen such a calculated campaign of displacement, starvation, rape, and mass slaughter.”

Fortunately, the Jewish community has internalized the message of the Holocaust: the world must never again stand silently by when genocide ravages another people. We must listen to the voice of conscience and take action. When the Prophet Elijah fled to the wilderness, he found that G-d’s voice was not heard in a powerful whirlwind, an earthquake or a fire.

Rather G-d is to be heard in the kol demama daka, the “still, small voice” within. The U.S. Holocaust museum’s Committee on Conscience tells us that “‘conscience whispers while interest screams aloud.’ In a world where the clamor of interests often prevails, we must amplify the voice of conscience.”

Through organizations like the Committee on Conscience, the American Jewish World Service, and Jewish World Watch (a coalition of over 40 synagogues in the Los Angeles Area), Jews have become leaders in the save-Darfur movement, so much so that Sudanese leadership has called the movement a Zionist plot. I think that we can be proud of that.

But what can we do as individuals, so far away, feeling so small? Tonight we have distributed a handout with two sides. One has a High Holiday prayer for Darfur, which we will read in a moment. The other side has ten things that we can do to help the people in Darfur, one for every of the 10 Days of Teshuvah. Obviously, we can begin those actions now as well. Maybe you can do all 10 of them, and maybe you can do one thing. Think back 65 years, when Jews were the victims of genocide, when we were starved, beaten, tortured and killed. We cannot be apathetic.