Sermon by Rabbi Denise L. Eger, October 3, 2005

Love’s Got Everything to do with It
Shana Tovah
In recent weeks we have seen the destructive power of nature, the ineffective response of government at every level and the amazing compassion of human beings to reach out to one another. The pure power unleashed by Hurricane Katrina and secondarily by Hurricane Rita was startling—entire cities along the Gulf Coast are gone. Water everywhere in Southern Louisiana. It’s hard for us to imagine a city complety leveled. Many said Biloxi, Mississippi looked like Hiroshima after the dropping of the atomic bomb. These hurricanes have peeled away the ugly veil of deep poverty in our country. They have revealed a lack of caring about society’s most vulnerable and that is shameful. It calls upon each of us at this New Year to demand better of our nation and ourselves.

Tonight I choose not to focus on the power of the destruction or the lackadaisical and confused efforts to evacuate the city of New Orleans and the mishandling of every aspect of subsequent evacuation and rescue of people once the flooding began there. Or the second flooding when levees broke again from Hurricane Rita. There have been articles and stories on the incompetence and lack of planning at every level.
But instead as this New Year begins I choose to focus on the compassion and outpouring of love and caring demonstrated by people all across our country and indeed across the world. If love has the power to heal—then indeed we will heal as a country from this gravest of disasters. If love has been stirred in our hearts—then we will not and cannot ignore the poorest among us.
We have seen in these weeks not only an outpouring of tzedakah to care for the now thousands of homeless, but we have seen communities rise together to comfort those who had to flee as well as those who mourn. We have seen individuals open their homes to strangers; communities provide food, shelter and clothing. Students have been able to continue with their studies as universities across the country have opened the halls of academe. And all across our nation we have seen love in action. We have seen the power of God. We have seen the power of God in the caring arms of rescue workers and Red Cross volunteers. We have seen and felt the power of God at work through your hands.
I know many of you have made individual donation to some of the amazing organizations doing relief work including Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger headed by our temple member Dr. Eric Schockman. Mazon has done amazing work—more than just distributing money—but helping coordinate responses in the early days of the Katrina Disaster. I know many of you helped to bring clothing and food to our joint relief efforts with Metropolitan Community Church which filled more than 5 tracator trailer trucks with relief supplies that were delivered to Baton Rouge through the church and synagogue interfaith network there and also in Southern Mississippi. And our own Tzedakah Fund at Kol Ami—made up of the spare change you put into your tzedakah cans (like these) all year was able to make an initial distribution of $1000 on behalf of our temple in the first week of response. Additional monies from the Rabbi’s Discretionary fund in the name of the congregation also was sent to Mazon and a second distribution from the Tzedakah fund has been sent as well to Habit to Humanity that will be helping to rebuild homes. My friends—these kinds of responses—to crisis, to suffering, to pain, --this is the power of God on display. God is working through us. For it is the power of love and caring.
Here is another story of the power of Gods’ love.
Every day the woman would open her front door
and exclaim, “Barukh hashem. Praised be God.”
Her next-door neighbor was a man who was an avowed
atheist. When he heard the woman praise God,
he would yell at her, “There is no God.”
This went on for days and weeks. “Barukh hashem”
would be followed by
“There is no God.”
As time went on, this poor woman ran out of money and
food. One day, she opened her front door and saw on the
doorstep a bag bulging with groceries. She bent down
and picked up the heavy bag. Then she looked up to the
heavens and exclaimed, “Barukh hashem. Praised be
God.”
The atheist yelled at her. “There is no God. I bought
you those groceries.”
The woman retorted, “Barukh hashem. Praised be God. God even made a devil like you buy me the groceries.”
The Jewish perspective teaches us that the kindnesses we display, the generosity we show, the caring we demonstrate, that when we move beyond ourselves—we embody the Divine attribute of Love. When we do a Mitzvah—our commandment to care, to be responsible shows not just obedience, but love.
Tina Turner’s question—What’s love got to do with it? Comes to mind. What’s love got to do with it? The answer different than the song -- is Love has got everything to do with it. God’s love got everything to do with it. In our sanctuary on La Brea the word Love-Ahava-is one of the ten words—the ten values inscribed on the walls of sanctuary. Love alongside, blessing and holiness, joy and compassion are attributes of God.
These High Holy Days are about the power of love; the power of God’s love for us and God’s care for us—and for all humanity. We reflect that love in how we act in the world. How we live. How we love. How we reach out in concern and care for one another. And the love that we show to one another helps us to find God in the process.
A Chassidic Tale relates to us the following:
A merchant once came to Rabbi Meir Shalom, A son of Rabbi Yoshua Asher, and he complained bitterly of another merchant who had opened his shop right next door to him. “You seem to think, “ said the tzaddik, “That it is your shop that supports you, and you are setting your heart upon it instead of on God, who is your support. But perhaps you do not know where God lives? It is written in the Torah: “Love your neighbor as yourself: I am Adonai. This means:” You shall want for your neighbor what he needs just as you do for yourself. And therein you will find God. (Buber, Late Masters, p. 235) By acting selflessly the merchant will invite God closer to his heart, home and life. By the power of caring –God is made real in not only his neighbors’ life but his own.
On Rosh Hashanah we are reminded it is not only in the giving of something but the giving and caring for others that we find the Divine; that we are able to find God in our hearts and theirs.
This New Year calls us to task. It calls upon us to ask of ourselves, “What are the ways I show caring not just to those I love but to others? Do you complain and moan when something doesn’t go your way? Do you whine when you feel wronged? Do you hold on to a grudge and let it eat away at your soul only to explode later on? Are you so caught up in getting ahead—that you won’t pause to reach out to others? This New Year calls out to us to examine how indeed we express God’s love to others. How do we embody the divine attribute of Love?
There was a time in our community –in the darkest days of AIDS when our lovers died within weeks or months of diagnosis—that our community, this community showed God’s love in force. We fed and cared for our dying mates, our friends. We cooked meals, and changed linens. We held hands and were buddies. We walked dogs and ran errands. We extended our arms in an embrace of love that was selfless and devoted.
In truth some of us still do these things. We volunteer our time and efforts on behalf of others. Whether at Project Angel Food, or Project Chicken Soup. We at Kol Ami volunteer and pack food monthly for SOVA- the Kosher food pantry and the next opportunity to participate in showing God’s love is Sunday Oct. 9. Many of us continue with these acts of chesed—lovingkindness.
But, in truth, we also have a bit of burnout. Our compassion meters run low. We gear up for a great crisis—like Katrina or the tsunami and we give for a while and then we say now its my turn—I’ve done for others—now its me first. We get tired trying and overwhelmed at the extent of the need. While others of us couldn’t be bothered to care.
But showing God’s love knows no time limit. Showing God’s love is not just in the grand moments but in the small acts of caring and concern. Each week, each time we pray we say a prayer for healing for our friends and members who are ill, but how many of us show God’s love by sending a card or a note to a fellow temple member who is on that list?
Do we show God’s love and concern for others by welcoming a new person to our neighborhood? When we see the moving truck do we say welcome and introduce ourselves? When we see the depths of poverty in our own midst do we close our eyes and shy away or demand better solutions from our electeds and from ourselves?
Do we show love and concern for others when we second guess or play armchair quarterback dissecting every move of colleagues or co-workers? Or we berate and criticize every word, every action, and every motive of friends with suspicion. We would rather tear one another apart at first instinct and rather than see the world with a good eye—we are quick to judge.
Leah Golomb writes this true story: Her son one of a set of triplets was playing with his brothers in their room a few days before the Jewish holiday of Lag B’Omer—between Passover and Shavuot. The triplets were almost eight years old at the time and they had made bows and arrows out of twigs for the holiday and she had decided to let them play with them a few minutes before getting them to bed. Traditionally, Jews everywhere celebrate Lag B'Omer with picnics in the woods. On these outings it is customary for the kids to carry bows and arrows and pretend they're Bar Kochba's soldiers, waging mock battles against Israel's enemies.
One of the boys was showing his brothers how to shoot the bow in a safe manner, with the bow pointing down. As he was about to demonstrate this, one of the other boys banged into him, lifting his harm up and causing him to shoot the arrow. The arrow flew across the room at the very moment that the third boy Elishama, happened to turn around to face his brothers. The arrow struck him in the eye.
Filled with horror at this freak accident, she rushed Elishama to the hospital. He was immediately sent into emergency surgery to try to save his eye. But when the operation was over and the surgeon emerged –he came to tell the parents the news. It was not good. Elishama’s vision in his left eye was destroyed.
The next day, as Elishama was recovering from surgery, he asked his mother, from his hospital bed, “Mama, What am I going to do now?”
She had been thinking carefully about what she could tell him and how to comfort him.
His mother took his hand and said to him very gently, “God created everyone with two eyes—one to see the world with a good eye, and one to see the world with a bad eye. Right now God has given you the privilege to be able to see the world with only a good eye.”
Elishama considered this for a moment. Then he said, “Boy I’m sure glad the
arrow didn’t hit my other eye.”
Like Elishama we can see the world with our good eye or our bad eye. We can blame and push people away. Or we can see the world with a good eye—bringing hope to our days and God’s love into the world.
At the beginning of these High Holy Days we have the opportunity to change our lives. We have the chance to change the way we act, the way we relate to others, and to restore caring as the modus operandi of our being. We can break old habits- and where our urban lives reinforce solitary endeavors, we can push back and invite God’s love to help us create communities of support and concern. We can break the bonds of our isolationism, and learn to be engaged with our neighbors and friends—learn to care and perhaps value going out of our way. We can deepen our compassion meters by doling out God’s love.
During Rosh Hashanah we are supposed to deeply examine our behavior in the past year. Throughout these Ten Days of Awe, we Jews are to look inside at our hopes and dreams, our disappointments and grief, our sins and errors and the way we handle them in the world. The High Holy Days has a message that we can become the person we truly want to be. But those changes must come out of a basis of love and of caring for ourselves and for others and God.
A young rabbi complained to the Rabbi of Rizhin: “During the hours when I devote myself to my studies and prayer I feel life and light, but the moment I stop studying it is all gone. What shall I do?”
The Rabbi of Rizhin replied: “It is the same as when a person walks through the woods on a dark night, and for a time another person joins her, lantern in hand, but at the crossroads they part, and the first must grope her way on alone in the dark again. But if a person carries her own light with them, she need not be afraid of any darkness.
In these difficult days each of us needs safe place in this world where terrorist’s no longer threaten, storms cannot swirl, where war is no longer waged—each of us need a place of peace and comfort and light and a place where we feel and share God’s love.
The High Holy Days are here to help us carry our own light with us; The light of God’s love. Tonight we begin the process of building inside of ourselves the fiery flame of faith and love. And through out our worship together during this holy day season—we are to bring out that inner light and learn to share with others. We will be fueled for a year of caring and bringing hope to our family and friends. Our prayers, our repentance and our tzedakah and yes, our attitude kindles the light and flame that we implant inside our souls here tonight.
Throughout these High Holy Days—we will have a chance to write our story—in the Book of Life- to inscribe our hopes, our dreams, and our visions for ourselves and the world for the New Year. We can approach that task with fear and dread, pessimism and contempt—seeing it through our bad eye—or with hope in our hearts and light in our souls—seeing it through our good eye. The difference is faith. Faith in God and in yourself.
Rabbi Nachman once said to Rabbi Nathan of Nemerov “You have faith but you have no faith in yourself” The main lesson here is that you must have faith in yourself. You must believe that you are precious in God’s eyes. The fact that every single individual is important to God is a measure of God’s goodness and God’s love. (Sichot HaRan 140 as quoted p. 170, in The Light Beyond by Areyeh Kaplan.)
So write your story in the Book of Life this Rosh Hashanah. Write it as a story of caring and love for yourself and for others. Write it as a story of renewal and hope. Write your story in the book of life. Then will you be inscribed for a year of goodness, and blessing, a year of caring, a year of hope and a year of feeling God’s love and giving out God’s love to others.
Shana Tovah u’metukah.