R' Yosi Gordon's Shiur for Erev Rosh Hashana

Rosh Hashanna did not come early this year. September came late. It should have arrived about 3 weeks ago. Yes, I know that the summer, again, sped by too quickly. And I know it still feels like August out there, and a bit in here. Winter snows seem so far off, and school has just started. But Rosh Hashanna is here, and it is always on time. It always comes on the first two days of Tishre, this year in 5763, so I guess it is on time, and the leaves are slow in changing, and the summer heat is lingering, and September is, therefore, a bit late. December will also be late this year, since Hanukkah begins in late November. The day after Thanksgiving, in fact. For a whole month, you'll be wishing your Christian friends Merry Christmas, and they'll say Happy Hanukkah, unaware that Hanukkah ended two weeks earlier. And you'll nod and smile politely, acknowledging their respect for our holidays, and you'll note that December just came late this year. It all depends on where you're standing. If you're standing in September, then Rosh Hashanna is early. If you're standing in the Hebrew month of Tishre, then September is late. It's always the first new moon before the first full moon after the autumnal equinox. Always the first new moon before the harvest moon. Always. Our ancestors knew that it was Rosh Hashanna by looking at the moon. Tonight, when you head for home, look up and see: no moon, which is new moon, and know that, in 15 days, the full moon will follow that day which is 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness. And the darkness will increase, as it wraps us up, as we head for Hanukkah.

These have been rather dark years. Last year, when we were together for Rosh Hashanna, we were still shaking from the terrible attack of September 11. Two years ago, Rosh Hashanna occurred as the second Intefada was exploding in Israel. Rabbis throughout the world have been bracing themselves for another surprise, another tragedy, and the rush to write a last-minute sermon again this year.

But this year seems to be a year of "more of the same, but a year older." I don't know about you, but I feel a year older after all that has happened. I feel it very strongly. In once sense, nothing has changed. I still teach my classes and buy my groceries and sing Shabbat songs with my friends here in Eau Claire. I wait longer in airports, and the news is so gloomy, almost numbingly gloomy. Most of all, I don't feel the same.

I didn't know anyone who died on September 11. My cousin Noam is going with Rachel, whose father perished in one of the two towers. One degree of separation. I am separated by one degree from several casualties of Arafat's Intefada. But it's more than that. It's a different way of looking at the world, a different way of experiencing time and our place within time. According to the story of creation, the first thing that God ever made was time. In the beginning… In the beginning… In the beginning of what? In the beginning of everything, of time itself. The first act was the creation of light, to divide the day from the night, and it was evening, and it was morning, one day. And thus there was time. Before that, there was no time. Time measures change, and there was nothing to change, so there was no time. However you look at creation, biblically, scientifically, or, like me, both: you have to start with time. And then, like the waters and the land, like each tree and plant and creature, time was divided, segmented. God created sun and moon and stars. God said: Let there be lights in the dome of the heavens, to separate the day from the night, that they may be for signs—for set-times, for days and years.

And since that time, we have been very busy dividing time, creating m'hitsot, borders, segments, sections, being ever so careful that time does not flow like a river. Rather, we insert sluices, docks and dams into the flow of time. We give each segment a name: September, Friday, evening, 8:00 o'clock, birthday, anniversary, Rosh Hashanna, autumn, 2002, 5763. We do this, not just for convenience and efficiency. Time is always in battle with infinity. We do this in order to preserve our illusion of immortality. It would be too terrible if time really flowed like a river, without breaks, without definition, without names and designations. We need to step out of the flow, to say, "Today is special. Today is the birthday of the world.

But some of the divisions are objective. This Wednesday is September 11, 2002; and this season is the anniversary of an event which stopped time and invaded our lives. I do not believe any divine hand selected the season of the High Holy Days for that event. But years mean something, and it has been a year. An interesting year. A difficult year. A dark year. A year when we explored areas of our lives and our times as we may never have done before.

In some ways, September 11 was about death. In Disneyland, the cleanup crew dresses up like cartoon characters in order to make dirt unreal. We do the same with death in America. Yet that tragic day took the mask from death, and we all knew it, face to face, for a few moments. We all asked about those who leapt to their death, and we wondered about them. What were they thinking? What were they feeling? How did they experience that moment? What did they know? What would they know now? Or even, what do they know now? There is the sense that the ultimate was captured in that act, and with it, a kind of ultimate knowledge, a gnostic redemption. And we, who sit here on this late summer's night, who sit before a new year about to unfold, have none of the certainty that they had plunging to oblivion. They knew, and we are ignorant, blind. They, who were so much like us, who answered the phones in their offices, rode each day to work, wrote checks and watched TV and loved their families. They who were and suddenly were not. What do they know?

Rosh Hashanna is a time to consider our mortality, our finiteness. Like Jonah's gourd, which appeared overnight and perished overnight, we live as transients, unable, and unwilling, to schedule beginnings and endings. 9/11 touches eternity, mystery, and so does Rosh Hashanna. We segment time in order to control it, only to discover that time has lost none of its power, and we are not in control.

It may be that very awareness, of our limits, of our weakness, that brings on the next question: Where was God on September 11? It is, in some ways, an embarrassing question. It is not very sophisticated. Children ask that question. It seems to expose a rather childish dependence on God, a primitive theology. After all, wasn't it human beings who hijacked the planes and flew them into the Trade Center and Pentagon?

I remember a friend from a very white neighborhood telling me about her child's first day in kindergarten. It was one of his first close encounters with children of color, and he came home full of questions. My friend informed her son that, when God wants a little boy or girl with brown skin, that's the way God makes him or her. That seemed to satisfy her son, until later that evening. He had clearly been giving it a lot of thought. He sat his mother down for a serious conversation in which he asked, "If a white mommy and a white daddy have a baby, will it be a white baby?" Yes, it will. "And if a brown mommy and a brown daddy have a baby, will it be a brown baby?" Yes, it will. "So, what does God have to with it?"

And yet, as almost anyone who has ever stood astonished at the birth of a child knows, God has everything to do with babies, even though we can provide all the explanations we want.

Yes, it was human beings who hijacked those planes, but Where was God? is still a good question. We would like a God who steps in when great tragedies are about to happen, who silences bombs, stops bullets, defeats genocide, halts holocausts, and catches airplanes in midair, just before they are about to destroy thousands of innocent and lovely lives. We also want a God who respects our right to choose, who gives us freedom and power, who lets us determine our own deeds, who understands the sanctity of individual autonomy. Burning bushes and splitting seas took us through our infancy as a people. Ever since then, God's involvement is cloaked in uncertainty, behind the curtain, as we say in Hebrew. We see traces, unsigned, in moments of silence, and sense God's presence both in miniature and in the larger picture of things. From day to day, we live by our own deeds, collectively, and we die in the same way. There are those who, speaking from their religious stance, say with certainty, "The tragedy of September 11 was God's will, for reasons we must revere, without understanding." What a profoundly un-Jewish way of looking at the world! We Jews have become experts in the experience of evil, familiar with the eclipse of God throughout our history; and so we can look at last year's catastrophe and say, "God did not do that!" God was there, suffering with those who suffered, grieving with those who grieved. When the Babylonians and the Romans led our ancestors into exile, God went with us, into exile. God, whose love and compassion are infinite, grieves infinitely, boundlessly. God did not make 9/11 happen. God did not plan it and carry it out to teach us lessons.

But that does not mean that there are no godly lessons we can learn from the tragedy.

There is a Mishna, over 2000 years old, that speaks of one who looks down from a hill onto his or her village and sees smoke, and hopes it is not his or her house on fire. That is not a malignant wish. But one must not pray, Dear God, make that not my house. Why? Because it has already happened, and God will not be a crafty magician to trick time and events, to undo what is done. That's not God; that science fiction or fantasy; it's Steven Spielberg or M. Night Shyamalan.

I believe that God is actively involved in our lives. I do not mean that God controls us, or circumvents nature, or tricks and deceives us. I do not mean that God plays with out minds. God rewards and God punishes, but not everything is a reward or a punishment. Those who died in the flames and concussions of September 11 were not sinners. This was not God's plan to punish. God is not an ally of terrorists, and murderers are not God's agents. Evil people make evil decisions, and fire and concrete behave according to the laws of physics. Some day, some messianic day, planes will not collide with human lives, and people will not meet their deaths at the hands of murderers. But that will not be because God changes the laws of physics or because God has purged the evil inclination from our souls. It will be because we, with God's help, have freely chosen to live godly lives, to care for each other, to follow God's commandments, to pursue good and not evil.

It is not only our faith in God that is challenged by last year's tragedy. We are in danger of losing our faith in humankind. I am not sure that is a danger. Humankind has done little to earn my faith, I must admit. I was born in the last year of the Nazi Holocaust; I grew up on the stories, the pictures, the reports; I have friends who survived the camps, and whose families did not; I have read the histories. Humankind, for the most part, was indifferent. Among those who were not indifferent, most were complicit. Others were our murderers. A glorious few were the heroes, the tsaddikim: Those who fought, and those who died with faith and dignity. Those who risked their lives to save Jews, and those who lost their lives trying to save ours. They, sorrowfully, were the exception. I have to say that I learned very little about humankind from the events of September 11. I am not a cynic: I hope for humanity. I am not a fatalist: I pray for humanity. But the core of my values comes from God.

This is why, on Rosh Hashanna, we speak of God as melech, as ruler. The ancient origin of the day was a recoronation of the monarch. This is the day on which we pray for a world under God's command, for tikkun olam b'malchut Shaddai, a repair of the world under the authority of God. We Jews have been around too long to trust ultimate authority to humankind. We are no longer surprised by the cruelty humans can inflict. When we bow or kneel tomorrow morning as we sing alenu, we ask that all may bow in worship, give honor to God's glory, accept the rule of God's sovereignty; that God reign over all, soon, and for all time. God will rule for ever and ever. Adonai yimloch l'olam va-ed.

But, some say, isn't that the problem? Isn't the tragedy of September 11 clear evidence of the ultimate failure of religion? After all, the terrorist were men of faith. They gave their lives for their god, so that America's ungodliness might not conquer the world. Theirs was a vision of heavenly reward, and their leader was a holy man.

Is it just Islam that 9/11 calls into question? Is it not all religions. Christians have their crusades, their inquisitions, their Holocaust. Jews in Israel visit the grave of that Jew who murdered dozens of innocent Muslims worshiping at the Cave of Machpelah in Hevron. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, of blessed memory, was assassinated by a Jew who felt he was commanded by God and Torah to do so.

Much of the danger lurking in all religions can be understood through two Jewish concepts: the prophet and the messiah. They are both dangerous individuals, filled with power and with menace.

Once there was a time, 2500 years ago, when God spoke to us through prophets. Isaiah and Amos, Deborah and Jeremiah, Miriam and Hoshea brought new visions of justice and love to the world. They created the texts which even today shape our morality. But they did not lead armies, did not run governments, did not possess raw power. And then the prophetic age ended. In the year 444 B.C.E., Ezra proclaimed the end of the age of prophecy by introducing us to a book. The Torah was our book, and no one had the final say at to what it must mean. There is no official interpretation, no last word about Torah. It is there for all of us, to read, to explore, to think about, to choose, to question, to innovate, to apply, to accept, to challenge. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, whether the power is called tsar, president, commandant, rabbi, cardinal or imam.

The ancient rabbis could at times be quite droll. I have a favorite story, from the Midrash Avot D'Rabbi Natan, attributed to one of the earliest Rabbis, from the first century C.E. Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai used to say: If you have a sapling in your hand and are told, "Look, the Messiah is here," you should first plant the sapling and then go out to welcome the Messiah. What does this mean? It means that life is very important. Caring for the earth, planting trees, feeding your family, maintaining your daily routine: all of these are rich in the potential for holiness. Do not live for the messiah. Do not sacrifice your daily bread for the promise of instant redemption. Religion, godliness, is about what is normal, real, the substance of our lives. It is not about bringing the messiah with one outrageous, destructive, life-shattering act. To Mohammed Ata and his gang of murderers I would have said, First plant your tree. If someone tells you that you must bring the messiah, put an end to all evil, destroy the infidels, tell them, Fine, but first I have a tree to plant. And a garden to water. And a child to feed. And a poem to read. And a friend to embrace. And a guest to welcome into my home. And a prayer to say. And a letter to write. And fresh hallah in the oven, almost ready to take out, so that I can celebrate the holiday and, with God's help, prepare myself and my community to be just a little better in this new year, in case the messiah really does arrive.

You see, that's what Judaism is really about, and we can see it so clearly in the shadow of last year's tragedy. It is ordinary and holy, normal and infinite, godly and personal. It is not about heaven. It's about Eau Claire, and Ladysmith, and New York, and Jerusalem. It's about us… and God.

Many of us in our Jewish community hear these words and take them quite for granted. But we must be aware that the trends today, at least in the Western religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, are for more authoritarian, fanatical forms of religion. In a postmodern rejection of the hyper-rationalism of the early 20th century, religions are turning to wonder workers, dogma and destructive organizations and ideologies. Madrassas in Muslim lands eschew the study of science and teach radical visions, filled with exclusion and violence. Billy Graham's son Franklin, among other prominent Protestant clergy, call Islam an evil religion, the work of the devil, and millions of Americans agree. And Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, the head of the Shas party in Israel and arguably the most influential Jewish religious leader in the world, last week declared that any Israeli who went to one of the country's civil courts, and not to a rabbinical one, will be infected with leprosy. With leprosy. And no, that was not meant as a metaphor. While the majority of Jews sadly tend to regard religion as a hobby or decoration in their lives, a segment of the deeply committed are making the claim that their way is God's way, and that all other ways are evil. It is our duty, therefore, to deepen our commitment and to stand up for a Judaism which is rational, compassionate, ethical, inclusive and sane.

We Jews do not believe in the devil. It was not the devil who brought down those towers. It was not a "power of evil." It was not an alien, supernatural force. It was the terrible consequence of something much more banal. The philosopher Hannah Arendt discovered that evil is never radical, only extreme. "Thought tries to reach some depth," she wrote, "to go to the roots, and the moment it concerns itself with evil, it is frustrated." Evil has no roots. There is no special power to evil. We all have within ourselves the capacity to do right and the capacity to do wrong. We, created in God's image, with the teachings of Torah, can make informed ethical choices. Evil does not overcome us; we choose. Evil does not control us; we are in charge. 19 ordinary human beings chose to murder thousands last year, and they succeeded, not because of the power of evil, but because they learned how to fly airplanes, and towers are flammable, and life is fragile.

How could they make such a choice? Because they truly believed that the people there were about to kill were not like them. That people are truly different, one from the other. That one race or one religion or one nationality is different, better, superior. Had they believed that the people in the planes and towers were… people… none of this would have happened. That is the most important of all religious truths: that, as God is one, so are we. In the words of the Mishna, why did God create all humans from one person? So that no one could say, "My father is greater than your father." Therefore, whoever destroys even one person is as if he had destroyed the whole world, and whoever saves even one person is as if he had saved the whole world.

Vladimir Putin, when asked how the terrorists could have done that terrible act, responded quite precisely: "We are as dust to them."

From Deuteronomy we can understand: should someone come before you claiming to be a prophet, and produce signs and wonders and true predictions, and tell you that one person is better than another, know that this is a false prophet, and the words are lies. Beware the false prophet, and distrust a messiah. Never forget that your mind, your intelligence, is a gift from God.

I have a final thought about September 11, a rather personal one. The terrible collapse of those towers highlighted my hyphen. Highlighted my hyphen. You see, I walk around with a hyphen. In fact, I live on a hyphen, a hyphen suspended between two words: American and Jew. When the fireworks are exploding over my head on the 4th of July, when the Packers play the Falcons, when I walk into a voting booth, I am so American. When I don my tallit, when I sing z'mirot on Shabbat, when I read the news from Israel, I am so Jewish. And when the towers collapsed, I stood firmly on my hyphen. I am an American, and the terrorists were attacking me, my home, my people. And yet it is impossible for me to look at evil without the lens of Jewish history. We Jews are the world's experts on the subject. We have experienced more evil, in more ways, in more places, from more enemies, in more centuries, than anyone else in the world. And we are so in touch with the evil that has touched us. On the morning of September 11, Bob Edwards announced on public radio that a plane had flown into one of the towers of the World Trade Center in New York. He said it was probably an accidental collision, but I knew better. Instantly, immediately, without a second thought, without a first thought, and without any doubt And when the second plane hit, and when the Pentagon exploded, and when the plane crashed in Pennsylvania, I was not stunned and confused. I recognized the hand of hatred and terror. I knew the minds of those who had committed this outrage. 3 weeks earlier I had just returned from a summer in Israel. Compared to September 11, Israelis, on a per capita basis, have suffered 10 times the loss of life in this second intefada. I heard the interviews of the 9/11 survivors on TV and radio, and I knew what it meant to be a survivor from the dozens of Holocaust survivors who have sat with me in shul. Among Jews one does not answer "What's new" with "There's been an attack," because that's not new.

In a century from now, someone will write the definitive book on whether the horror of 9/11 was good or bad for the Jews, good or bad for Israel. Not now. Not yet. But Jewish eyes see a lot. We are not surprised when we are hated. We are not surprised when we are blamed. We are not surprised when we are killed. We live with no illusions of security. The only security is surviving, and surviving is a mitzvah. Surviving is a mitzvah.

We will survive. As Jews and as Americans, we will survive. It will take enormous strength. It will take devotion. It will take a vision of goodness. We do this from day to day. We do this from year to year. It is the beginning of a new year. We pray to God for a year of shalom, and we stand ready, in the mystery that stretches out before us, to take that God-given shalom and to offer it wherever we go. Not to be deceived by false prophets and false messiahs. Not to be paralyzed by uncertainty and insecurity, nor by cynicism or fatalism, nor by grief and pain.
We are the world's ultimate survivors.
We plant the trees.
We teach our children.
We bake our challahs.
We build our community.
We pray for peace.

L'shana tova.

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