Yom Kippur 5770 (2009) “What is Our Response-ability?”

Yom Kippur 5770 (2009)

“What is Our Response-ability?” by Rabbi Julie H. Danan

One Yom Kippur, during the morning prayers, the town rabbi became overcome with emotion. He rushed before the ark, bowed low, and cried, “Oh, Lord, before you I am nothing!”

The cantor was taken by this display of emotion. He, too, came up to the ark, bowed to the ground, and sang melodiously, “I am nothing, truly nothing, before Thee.”

Finally, the shammash, the simple man who was caretaker of the synagogue, got into the act. He came out of his little corner in the back of the shul, rushed up to the ark, bowed low and exclaimed, “I, too, am truly nothing.”

At which the rabbi turned to the cantor, rolled his eyes, and said:

“Look who thinks he’s nothing!”

On Yom Kippur, overwhelmed by the solemn messages of the day, we can indeed feel small. Even opening the morning paper, we can feel, if not nothing, certainly very insignificant in our ability to help the many problems facing our world. How can we respond to the issues of the day, without falling into despair?

On Rosh Hashanah, we spoke of remaining dreamers in hard times, and of the consolation of Shabbat as a way to live our dreams now. Now on Yom Kippur, we keep our dreams before us (and encourage you to add yours to the scroll in our lobby), but we also turn to our realities and our responsibilities for the year ahead.

As the summer goes by, Rabbis are known to peruse the press, looking for a topic for their Yom Kippur sermons. Every headline that I read in the New York Times could be the subject of a sermon. Should I focus on global women’s rights, the Mideast situation, or water pollution? What about AIDS, war, the health care crisis? Our electronic media keep us instantly apprised of all the things we have to be concerned about. Rather than give a sermon from the headlines, I would like to address how we respond to the headlines.

And of course, the economy has overshadowed everything lately. As our nation pulls back from the brink of a depression, we are still struggling with the reality of a recession which has affected virtually everyone in varying measure. Here in Chico, many of us are directly impacted by the state budget cuts to social services, schools and universities. Our synagogue, like many, faces reduced income. Beyond our corner of the world, the broader Jewish community has been affected by the recession in ways that may reshape our institutions for decades to come. Worthy organizations are appealing for help, consolidating with other groups, or even closing their doors. Two major examples are Hadassah, the women’s organization which supports leading hospitals in Israel, which lost millions of dollars in the Bernie Madoff scandal, and CAJE, the major Jewish educators’ organization, which closed this year due to financial difficulties.

This is not the first time in history that people have been through economic stress. Since biblical times, humanity has always encountered cycles of plenty and famine, of boom and bust. Our earliest ancestors were thinking of ways to respond to times of need. For example, Joseph, who was in a position of power in ancient Egypt, responded to the challenges of his day by devising a plan to stockpile food from times of plenty in order to rescue people during an anticipated famine.

To quote one of my favorite sayings, from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, “In a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.” Mutual responsibility has always been central to the Jewish ethics. Today, on Yom Kippur, we say the “ashamnu,” and the “al cheit” for a long list of sins, and we say them in the plural. Even if we have not personally done each and every sin, as a community we acknowledge that we are all responsible for one another. To me, the word “responsible” means, “able to offer a response,” a concept that I find at the very heart of Judaism.

Searching for Jewish responses to contemporary challenges, I turned back to the wisdom of our Sages. The Pirke Avot, or The Sayings of the Fathers, as I mentioned earlier, is an ancient book of Rabbinic ethical teachings. It contains one of the best explanations I know of how we to understand our responsibilities for improving our world: “Rabbi Tarfon used to say: ‘The day is short, the task is abundant, the laborers are lazy, the wage is great, the Master of the house is insistent. He used to say “You are not required to complete the task, yet you are not free to desist from it…be aware that the reward of the righteous will be given in the future.’” [Pirke Avot 2:20-21]

Rabbi Tarfon uses the metaphor of a crew of lazy workers repairing a house.
There is a big job, the owner of the house is impatient…Of course, our world is the house, G-d is the Master of the house, and we are the slackers who should be busy fixing things. The answer to our dilemma is that we don’t have to do it all; we can’t do it all by ourselves but we have to do our part, especially by uniting with others in communities, worthwhile organizations, and movements for change. The results and rewards of our efforts may not be readily apparent, but they will come in the future world we are shaping, even generations from now.

Another of my favorite rabbinic texts on our responsibilities comes from a pithy saying in the Babylonian Talmud [Eruvin 65b] where we find, “Rabbi Ila’i said: ‘A person is known by three things: by his cup, his pocket, and his anger, in Hebrew: koso, kiso v’ka’aso. And some say, by his laughter.’” I think that these are all about types of energy and what we do with them, and how they relate to our responsibilities for our world.

A person is known by koso: his cup, that is, if he is a drinker and how much he imbibes. But in a broader sense I think that koso points us to the need for more ethical consumption, to “eco-kashrut” as Reb Zalman would call it. Our kos could extend from our cup to our plate to our closet to our gas tank. Today we understand that everything that we buy, every food, drink or substance that we consume, and everything we throw out makes an impact on our planet and society on many levels. In the wake of the recent scandals in production of kosher meat, several Jewish organizations are focusing on this issue. The Heksher Tzedek is a new kind of kosher seal given for ethical products. Hazon, meaning Vision, is a newer Jewish organization, based in New York, that is devoted to ethical and healthy consumption. Their annual conference takes place the last week in December, in Northern California at Asilomar. Koso, our consumption, can hurt our health and deplete our energy when we make poor choices, but when done rightly can give us vital energy to do mitzvoth.

A person is known by kiso: his or her pocket is next. Gloria Steinem once remarked, “If you look at my check stubs, you’ll see what I stand for.” Think for a moment of your own check book or electronic ledger. What would it say about your values? Tzedakah, the Hebrew word for “charity,” literally means “righteousness,” or “doing the right thing.” Is the current recession causing us despair or causing us to discern what’s important to do with our money? A time of economic famine and increased need is not a time to withdraw or retreat, but to assist as boldly as our means allow, whether with our financial donations, our generous service (as we heard from Kristy this evening), or both if we are able.

For some reason, Americans can discuss almost any intimate subject casually, and yet we feel that bringing up the subject of money is the last taboo. It reminds me of that old joke in which a man is held up by a robber, who shouts, “Your money or your life!” The man pauses a moment, and says, “I’m thinking, I’m thinking.” In Judaism money is just a tangible form of energy, a renewable resource which can do tremendous good in the world and provide for many mitzvoth, good deeds. As Americans, we tend to see things from a consumer mentality: what am I getting for my dollar? As Jews, we should also view our money from a values perspective, which will make us truly grateful when we have the financial resources to help nurture and sustain the things we value and believe in.

Finally: ka’aso—his or her anger. This probably meant that we can know a person by how they express their temper, but I think that it can also mean that we are known by what makes us angry and what we do with that passion. Many items in the daily news can make us furious, from the degradation of the environment to the inequities of health care, the intractable conflict in the Middle East to the abuse of women in many developing nations. So what do we do with our passions and our anger? Do we become passive and feel we are too small to make a difference, or do we use our anger to taunt and delegitimize our enemies, as we so often see in our society these days? Anger is another form of energy. The Talmud is hinting that we will be known by how we direct our anger, whether we channel it into passionate energy for effecting change by joining the groups, writing the letters, making the calls, attending the gatherings, and volunteering for what we believe in. Tomorrow we will hear from our Tikkun Olam committee about ways in which we can take responsibility and make our world better, at home and abroad.

Finally, the end of the Talmudic quotation tells us that a person can be known by his or her laughter. In our context, I think that with all the seriousness of the issues we face…as Jews we always need a sense of humor. Which reminds me of a joke: In a small Russian shtetl, the community council decides to pay a poor Jew one ruble a week to sit at the town’s entrance and be the first person to greet the Messiah when he arrives. The man’s brother comes to see him, and is puzzled why he took such a low paying job. “It’s true,” the poor man responds, “the pay is low. But at least it’s a steady job.”

While waiting for our Messianic dreams to come true, we especially need a sense of humor. We need to refresh ourselves with Shabbat and take strength from our wonderful community. We need to realize that lo alecha hamelachah ligmor, it is not up to us to complete the work but only to energetically do our part, together, as part of a people historically dedicated to Tikkun Olam, to repairing the world as a more godly kingdom right here on earth.

And that is our response-ability.