by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen
For Congregation Agudas Achim, Taunton, MA
I invite you to close your
eyes for a moment and listen to words from the most sacred of all our texts,
from this week’s Torah portion, B’ha’alotecha. And as you listen, I
invite you to imagine that you lived about 3000 years ago in the ancient near
east.
The
Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and say to him, "When you
mount the lamps, let the seven lamps give light at the front of the
lampstand." Aaron did so; he mounted the lamps at the front of the
lampstand, as the Lord had commanded Moses.--Now this is how the lampstand was
made: it was hammered work of gold, hammered from base to petal. According to
the pattern that the Lord had shown Moses, so was the lampstand made.
Can you envision the seven
lamps? Can you envision the lampstand, the hammered work of gold? Can you
imagine the pattern?
So far, we are in the realm
of the imaginable. One more question. Can you imagine how G!d showed Moses that
pattern?
Now we move out of the
readily imaginable into the more difficult to comprehend. What does it mean to
have G!d show a pattern for a lampstand to a human being?
Even thinking about it
requires us to give up some sense of control, some sense of knowing, some sense
of our world knowledge.
Our parasha continues:
The
Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Take the Levites from among the Israelites and
cleanse them. This is what you shall do to them to cleanse them: sprinkle on
them water of purification, and let them go over their whole body with a razor,
and wash their clothes; thus they shall be cleansed.
So far so good, we can
imagine and handle that. Then we get this:
Let
them take a bull of the herd, and with it a meal offering of choice flour with
oil mixed in, and you take a second bull of the herd for a sin offering. You
shall bring the Levites forward before the Tent of Meeting. Assemble the whole
Israelite community, and bring the Levites forward before the Lord. Let the
Israelites lay their hands upon the Levites, and let Aaron designate the
Levites before the Lord as an elevation offering from the Israelites, that they
may perform the service of the Lord.
Do you get it? Do you
resonate with it? Is it meaningful to you?
My bet is that for most of us
these verses are not easily meaningful. A couple of bulls and some flour for a
sin offering to cleanse the Levites, in front of the whole community, who lay
their hands upon them.
Now we are in a totally
different cultural context. How can we possible relate to this?
So, here’s one way to think
of it:
I work as a chaplain at the
Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and I see many people who are extremely ill. As
you may know from friends or family members’ illnesses, in today’s world, if we
get sick, we may go through incredibly difficult treatments, and we may live
many more years in good health, or at some point we may slowly decline and
gradually journey toward the end of our lives.
One of the conversations I
often have with people who are dealing with pain, incapacitation, loss of a
sense of control of their lives, loss of the security of the idea that they
will live for a long time, is about giving their burdens and their dilemmas to
G!d. I have had this conversation with Christians, with Jews, with Muslims, and
with Unitarians, and the conversation with all of them is essentially the same.
What does it mean to give
something to G!d? Think about a time when you have been so overwhelmed that you
just don’t know what to do. The situation is so complex that you cannot
possibly figure out all the ins and outs. The more you think about it, the more
distressed you get and the more complex it seems. And then you stop thinking.
In the language I am using, you give your unanswerable question to G!d. You
step back and let the Divine hold it, you hold the tension of not knowing, and
then, suddenly, an answer may appear, a way forward may open before you.
Perhaps not immediately, but before too long. This is what can happen when we
give something of our lives to G!d.
It is easy to think of this
as giving up. But giving up is different, and it feels different. Giving up is
about a sense of hopelessnesss, giving something to G!d is about trust and
faith in the future.
In the book of Shemot,
Exodus, G!d says, ahyeh ashe ehyeh, I will be what I will be. This is what
we need to hold on to, the idea that G!d will be. Just be. Not be something. Just be. And to let that
sense of just being hold us.
In Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of
our Fathers, Rabban Gamaliel says: Provide yourself with a teacher and remove
yourself from doubt....
Remove ourselves from doubt –
getting rid of doubt means instead to trust, to have faith, to let ourselves be
held.
And in the next mishnah,
Rabban Gamliel’s son Shimon says: All my days have I grown up among the wise
and I have not found anything better for a person than silence. Studying Torah
is not the most important thing, rather fulfilling it.
Our relationship with G!d
involves all three of the things that Shimon ben Gamliel mentions: study, silence,
and doing; both study and silence are forms of prayer.
Shimon ben Gamliel tells us
that silence is important, and to fulfill Torah is more important than to study
it, but it is out of our study that the knowledge we need of how to fulfill
Torah, in its largest sense, arises.
Why is silence so important?
To hold the tension of not
knowing, not knowing what to do or to say, to stand in the breach, demands
silence, silence of our heart as well physical silence, like the water of a
quiet pond at dawn on a windless morning, and it is out of this silence that
the faith that takes the place of doubt can arise. When G!d appeared to the
prophet Elijah on the mountaintop, it was not in the wind, and it was not in
the earthquake, and it was not in the fire that G!d appeared, but afterward, in
the still small voice, kol d’mamma dakah. Out of the silence, quivering
fear and uncertainty can be transformed into security and trust. And out of the
security and trust can come action, fulfilling Torah, which is, as Rabbi
Abraham Joshua Heschel so famously said when he walked beside Rev. Martin
Luther King Jr. at Selma ,
Alabama
The world around us and
within us is replete with complex questions and problems that we as communities
and as individuals need to give to G!d. We swim in a sea of overwhelmingly
intricate issues, but I am here to speak about just one of these.
In April, the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its fifth report on the status
of climate change, including descriptions of widespread observed current – today
– impacts across the globe. In early May, the US Climate Change Research
Program released the Third National Climate Assessment, which provides chilling
details of the current impact of climate change on each region of the US
We humans have an impact on
planet Earth. We cannot help but do so, for we inhabit nearly every nook and
cranny of it. We impact the soil, the water, the air, the lakes, the mountains,
the glaciers, the oceans. And we are feeling the impact of our impact. We worry
if the water we drink is safe. We worry about the air we breathe and the food
we eat. We worry about super storms, about sea level rising, about famine and
drought and wildfires, about all the complex impacts of climate change on our
planet and our lives. We worry about our children’s and our grandchildren’s
future.
Through these two recent
reports and many past reports, our nation’s and our world’s scientists are
telling us that climate change is real and it is happening now. And they are
also telling us that the issue is urgent and that we don’t have much time in
which to act. And if we open our eyes and look around, we see it and we know
that what they are saying is true. Climate change is already happening, and it
is scary. It is, in fact, so scary that it is easier to look the other way and
to go about our lives. We don’t want to think about famine and drought and
flood and wildfires. We don’t want to experience them, see them on TV, think
about them, or consider their impact. We want to go about our lives.
But our lives as individuals
and as a society are dependent on all that is causing the problems. We need
fossil fuels to heat and cool our homes, to travel, to transport food and
clothing, to build plastics, and so much more. As a result, each of us
unwittingly becomes a player in causing the destruction of the planet.
What are we to do?
A bit further on in our
parashah, in Chapter 11, the Israelites start moaning to Moses about the
conditions in the desert:
The
riffraff in their midst felt a gluttonous craving; and then the Israelites wept
and said, "If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish that we used
to eat free in Egypt
Think about it – they
remember eating fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic when they
were slaves in Egypt
We may not feel like slaves
today – we like to think that we are free. But we are, in essence, slaves to
fossil fuels. Is there anyone here who can go a day without needing gasoline to
get somewhere, oil or gas to heat or cool their home, electricity or gas to
cook with, foods that traveled from somewhere – probably far away – transported
by vehicles that use fossil fuels?
What are we to do? Silence
that does not acknowledge the reality – the silence of avoidance or denial – is
not the kind of silence Shimon ben Gamliel spoke of. It is exactly what we
don’t need. But how do we fulfill Torah at a time like this – when scientists
are telling us that we have so little time before runaway climate change
totally disrupts our world?
Can we stop using fossil fuels
suddenly, cold turkey? Scary to think about, isn’t it? And in fact, we
literally could not survive.
We may prefer to say that we
are dependent on fossil fuels, it is a nicer way to talk about it, but in
essence we are enslaved by them. We are at their mercy.
And in the process we are
destroying the sacred Earth that is the Divine creation.
What are we to do?
Have we given our pain and
suffering to G!d? For most of us, the answer is NO. We have instead, eaten
another bowl of ice cream, bought another new shirt, taken another trip, or in
some other way, demanded something from our planet, gotten it, and not looked
back.
What would happen instead, if
the next time we were feeling a bit uncomfortable about something – related to
climate change or not, we stopped and held onto that discomfort, and then
opened up our heart and our mind and said, “G!d, hold me please in this
discomfort. Allow my pain to move through me. I give myself to you. Let me
serve you with my heart and with my soul.”
This is the
kind of silence that Shimon Ben Gamliel was talking about, the kind of service
that is the fulfillment of Torah of which he spoke.
Our Torah text speaks in the
creation story of Adam being placed in the Garden of Eden l’ov’dah
u’lshomrah. This is often translated as “to till and to tend,” or some
other active doing to the Earth. But the root of the word ovdah
is the same as in the word that is used when referring to the temple service,
and it has the meaning “to serve.”
We are to serve the Earth and
to guard it. Doing so is one important way to fulfill Torah.
What does this mean for us?
How does this look, for you? For me? For someone else?
The Talmud teaches us that
[Alexander the Great] asked them [the Jewish sages of the south], “Who is
called a 'wise one'?” They responded to him, “The person who sees the
consequence of their action.” (Babylonian Talmud, Tamid 32a)
This means that we must be
first of all “wise people,” and see the consequences of our actions, and then,
if need be, change our actions. This is what it means to fulfill Torah in
relation to climate change.
Changing our actions alone
can feel both lonely and futile – we are so small in terms of the overwhelming
nature of the problems. Doing something with our family may feel somewhat more
empowering and less alone. And doing something with our community can feel even
more empowering.
In my case, one of the ways I
am trying to fulfill Torah in relation to climate change is in helping to form
and lead the Jewish Climate Action Network. Together with Eli Gerzon, now
working for Better Future Project/350MA, I helped this nascent organization
come into being. Those of us involved in JCAN are members of the Jewish
community who are passionate about the Earth and its inhabitants and the
critical need for action. We are diverse in our backgrounds and in the kinds of
action we believe are important, but we are united by our care and concern for
the world around us.
JCAN is focused on tikkun
tevel – healing of the Earth. JCAN’s objectives focus on five areas, and
include promoting awareness and understanding of environmental problems, in
particular, climate change, supporting political advocacy and action for better
climate and environmental policies, encouraging personal and communal change,
bringing attention to social and economic injustices associated with climate
change, and providing support to those working to preserve the environment.
This sounds wonderful, but
what does it mean for all of us?
As individuals and families,
we can examine our lives and think about how to live in greater harmony with
G!d’s creation, how we can better serve the Earth and G!d though our day-to-day
actions.
As a congregational
community, you can invite in MA Interfaith Power and Light to help you
determine the best ways to make your buildings more energy efficient, saving
money for your congregation even as you reduce your carbon footprint.
You can engage in the study of Torah and money in
order to be able to fulfill Torah by considering the synagogues finances. The Shalom Center
You can be one of the first 10 synagogues to sign
onto the JCAN invitation / challenge to commit to entering into a process of
moving your funds out of fossil fuel industry and into the green energy field.
Yes, you are a small congregation. But that does not mean that you cannot be a
leader in this arena.
You can find ways to engage
in advocacy for the environment. JCAN can provide resources to help your
congregation learn more about how climate change is not an environmental
question, but an existential question about survival. It is a moral question,
not a political question, and we as faith communities have a responsibility to
stand up and speak out for the Earth and for the most vulnerable in our world
who are the most easily impacted and for all of the descendents of all of the
inhabitants of the planet.
You can ask your rabbi to be one of the first 10
rabbis to take the JCAN invitation /
challenge to commit to speaking about climate change during the High Holidays,
and helping to spread the word to others in your congregation and to the larger
community.
What we cannot do alone, we
can do together. And there are many things we can do, there are answers and
there are ways to build a more resilient and vibrant world.
On a more personal level, I
invite you to share with me and with Rabbi Heath your fears, your despair, your
grief, as well as to tell us about the actions you are already taking to
conserve resources or to act, individually, communally or politically. I invite
you to join JCAN and other members of the Jewish community as we explore ways
to act together. And please know that JCAN and its members would like to be a
resource for your community in whatever way might be helpful.
We read in Leviticus 19:16, “You shall not go
about slandering your kin. You shall not stand over the blood of your fellow
man. I am the Lord.” The Rambam, Moses Maimonides, in his code of Jewish law,
teaches us that “by this prohibition [Leviticus 19:16] we are forbidden
to neglect to save a life of a person whom we see in danger of death and
destruction and whom it is in our power to save...” (Book of Commandments,
no. 297)
We are forbidden to neglect
to save the lives of those who are in danger – including from climate change.
We must act and we must do, in order to fulfill Torah.
At the same time, we must
also take care of ourselves so that we can do the work we need to do. And so, I
also invite you to join others from the Jewish community at this year’s third
Metrowest Shabbat Retreat in Nature to be held in Ashland in late August, a
weekend of outdoor tefillah, outdoor eating and sleeping, being and doing
Jewish, and in the process renewing our connection and commitment to the
natural world, giving back to ourselves, taking care of ourselves.
I leave you today with two
quotes from Jewish tradition. The first, an ancient midrash: Shimon bar Yochai
taught that “if you are holding a sapling in your hand, and someone says that
the Messiah has drawn near, first plant the sapling, and then go and greet the
Messiah.” (Avot d’Rebbe Natan 31b)
And from the Israeli poet, Leah
Goldberg
Teach me, O G!d, a blessing, a
prayer
On the mystery of a withered
leaf,
On ripened fruit so fair,
On the freedom to see, to
sense,
To breathe, to know, to hope,
to despair.
Teach my lips a blessing, a
hymn of praise,
As each morning and night
You renew Your days,
Lest my day today be as the
one before;
Lest routine set my ways.
Todah rabbah and Shabbat
shalom.
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