Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis Sermons

Yom Kippur 2008 - 5789

by Harold M. Schulweis

You begin Yom HaKippurim not with a prayer. It’s with a statement, a plea for absolution, and with a plea for expiation. You begin, strangely enough, “By the authority of the Heavenly Court, by the authority of this earthly court, with Divine consent, and with the consent of this congregation, we hereby declare it permissible to pray with those who have transgressed.” 

We don’t say this any other time. Who has transgressed? Who are they talking about? And what does it mean, when the Kol Nidre begins and ends with saying, “May these vows which we have made not be considered vows, and these oaths which we have oathed may not be considered, and these promises not be considered promises.” A very strange beginning to a service. 

There are some Jewish scholars who find it very difficult to place this particular prayer, but many suggest that it is traced to 15^th Century Spain and Portugal, and it was a prayer of people who transgressed because when Jews were forced to convert to Catholicism under the edict of Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor, they felt guilty. They had to kneel to the cross. And there were spies from the Inquisition who doubted the authenticity of Jewish conversion. They noticed peculiar, secret gestures; odd silent moments; strange changing of the linens on Shabbas; washing their hands before prayers; naming their children with Hebrew names— like Abraham, Isaac, Baruch; turning their face to the wall before death; avoiding eating bread during the Passover season; and kindling lights in the cellar. The penalty for discovery of one’s secret Jewishness was the auto-da-fé, the “act of faith” which meant the burning of thousands of victims, these anusim, these forced Jews. They were burned at the stake three times, compatible with the symbolism of the Church. Tens of thousands of our people were burned. 

And tens of thousands of these people who remained alive were pariahs. They were neither Christians nor Jews. They were cut off from the church and cut off from the synagogue. And on Kol Nidre, the Eve of Atonement, they would sneak into the synagogue, and in fear and silence seek atonement, forgiveness, acceptance, belonging, for they were estranged from it all. They wanted to know, “Will our brothers take us back again? Will we be received once again? How will our children be received? 

Kol Nidre was a night of unimaginable mystery, shame, anger, fear, humiliation. Who are the transgressors whom we have permitted to pray with us? The Torah was taken from the Ark, there was a processional that embraced all who have come. And we surrounded these people with righteous song of joy and of hope: “Or zarua la tzadik. U l’yishrei leiv simchah … Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright of heart.” All of us are here together: the sinners, those who are converted, those who were forced to convert, those who were not forced to convert. All of them together. According to the Talmud, if you bring the sweet incense to the altar in Jerusalem, it hast to include galbanum, because galbanum is a bitter, foul-smelling aromatic gum. Because all must be present: The foul and the sweet, the bitter and lovely. The synagogue is not for saints. 

So, throughout history, whenever it came to Kol Nidre, this became transformed into a night of ingathering, for homecoming, for all kinds of Jews. For Jews who believe and Jews who won’t believe, and Jews who can’t believe, and Jews who make believe. For Jews who associate with Jews, who only associate with Jews, who don’t associate with Jews. All of them are needed. The wise, the wicked, the simple and those who do not know how to ask. 

But the truth of the matter is, somebody important is missing here. Someone who we need. Someone who hovers around the threshold of the synagogue. And those individuals represent a new kind of typology, a new kind of Jew, a new kind of character ideal, different from what we normally consider to be political Jews, or seculars Jews, or cultural Jews, or religious Jews. Who is this individual? I need him, I must have him, and I want him to understand me. And with your permission, I would like, through you, to address this new kind of Jew, whom I call the “Privatist Jew,” and who walks the corridors of the synagogue. 

This is a Jew neither atheist nor theist, nor Zionist nor anti-Zionist, nor Orthodox nor Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist. Forget all of those categories, because you are dealing with a new kind of sensibility, with a new psychology and a new mindset. The Privatist Jew is not concerned with believing, but he is concerned with belonging. And he is suspicious of belonging, because for him belonging is dangerous. It saps the autonomy, the private pleasures. And community, any kind of community, is dangerous for him. Community must be kept away, because it is the nature of community to rob you of your sovereign individualism, of your autonomy. The Privatist Jew needs to break away from the bloodsucking tentacles of community. 

In the course of my career, as student and as rabbi, I have tried to convince all kinds of Jews — atheist Jews, Jewish communists, agnostic Jews, anti-Zionists — and I have offered theological, intellectual proofs of various kinds about the nature of prayer or of God or “why should you believe. But I found that I am on the wrong track. I will never be successful, because the psychology of the Privatist Jew, who is a new kind of Jew, is based on the principle of “Separate yourself from the community.”

You will try to argue with him, with this individual. You will accuse him, question him: “Listen, do you know the difference, Privatist, between ignorance and apathy?” And he answers, “I don’t know and I don’t care.” Because I am speaking to a new kind of Jew. His discomfort, again, is not with theology, not with proof.  His discomfort is with you. 

Belonging destroys him. Belonging is demanding. If, for example, you join a synagogue you will be taught what you can eat, what you can’t eat, where you can eat, when you can eat; when you marry, how to be married, whom to marry; when you die where to be buried, how to be buried, when to be buried; when to pray, where to pray, what to pray, how to pray. The community will suffocate you like a shroud. Because community is dangerous to the Privatist Jew. 

The philosopher Sartre once wrote, “Hell is other people.” And that’s precisely what the privatist believes. Hell is other people, because community, other people, demand one thing: commitment. Commitment means that I give up a part of my life, a part of my substance, a part of my dreams, a part of my energy for causes and ideals and purposes that you have to do with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might. Commitment is something larger than yourself. Commitment means sacrifice not of a calf or a goat or a bushel of wheat, but sacrifice of your energy, your mind, and part of your soul for something larger. 

Just join a community, any community, and you’ll be bombarded with commitment; with demands of charity, philanthropy, and for Israel, compassion for the poor, for the sick, for the old, for the disenfranchised, for the injured, for the maimed, for the sake of Zion, and the sake for Darfur, and the victims of Katrina. Join community and you will be inundated with demands from your private joys, private pleasures, private monies. You’ll get a new vocabulary: Tzadakah, rachmones, tshuvah, ma’asim tovim, chesed. Community is always making demands for money. Weren’t you here earlier? That’s just the beginning. Wait. 

A solicitor once approached the Privatist Jew for a contribution. And the Privatist Jew said, “Put me down for nothing.” So, the Solicitor asked him, “You mean you wish to be anonymous?” “No,” said the privatist, “I just want to be left alone.” And he means it. He wants to be left alone. Don’t come with your organizations, don’t come with your federations, don’t come with your special causes. Let me alone. 

There’s a wonderful Aesop’s Jewish folk tale about the privatist. You know it: The Salmon and Hen who are together – the Salmon swimming, the Hen walking, and they come across a restaurant that has a sign that says, “Lox and Eggs.” And the Hen says, “Let’s go into the restaurant for a bite.” But the Salmon refuses, pointing to the sign. “Oh, no, my hen. From you they want is a contribution. But from me, they want commitment.” The Salmon is the Privatist Jew. And the restaurant is the community. 

The privatist has a society. Schopenhauer called it “the society of porcupines.” Porcupines freeze in the winter. So they want to get closer together, to huddle together, get warm together. But their sharp quills pierce the flesh of other porcupines, so they have to separate. But when they separate they shiver in the cold, and that’s the dilemma of all privatists and all porcupines: To join close together is painful, and to stay apart is painful. And that is the human condition. The privatist solution is, “Let’s talk together, but by e-mail. We’ll communicate, but at a distance. We’ll be “ ‘virtual friends.’ ” 

The privatist has a difficult time to connect, because he’s a private soul. He like his self. And therefore, he finds it difficult, say the sociologist, to relate to his children, and the wife to relate to the husband and the husband to the wife. And so they say as to family, the family doesn’t eat together, it don’t talk as much together. It doesn’t look into each others’ eyes together. They have their own private computers, television sets, games, entertainment, for private reasons.

The privatist is astute enough to know that it’s not bad to belong, but to belong with caution. And like the Hen, the privatist will make a contribution, send his children to Hebrew School and day school, have a Bar Mitzvah or a Bat Mitzvah … but especially a private Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah. Because if you don’t have a private Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah, you have to have Kiddush. You have to feed the entire congregation, and set out table cloths, and to give out yarmulkes to who…? People who come… why are they there? The Privatist Jew wants everything party. He loves to have private rabbi in order to be “hatched, matched and dispatched.” Must have one. Not a public rabbi. 

The Bar Mitzvah or Bat Mitzvah have private parties, with private guests, private business associates of their same social and economic class. And that’s not what you are. You come from all kinds. I don’t know you financially. Who are you? And so, narcissism is the atheism of the privatist. Because he has separated himself from the community, he upsets and uproots himself from the essence of faith. The privatist’s problem is not that he disbelieves in God — he disbelieves in you. He disbelieves in the community. His problem is not lack of faith, the problem is he doesn’t share our fate. 

So, I’ve argued all kinds of arguments, all my life. I went to school, took classes in Seminary –theological, sociological, and escatolgical arguments. But it’s ridiculous. It will never work. Because the privatist is not interested in “an other.” And therefore, that privatist cannot be convinced by logic, or by proof, passion, compassion, courage, reverence. These are all different. You didn’t get that from philosophy. I didn’t get it from philosophy. I got it out the bowels of my people. I got my values from the poetry of our people, from our respect for learning, from the mysticism of Kaballah and the rationalism of the Talmud, from the terrors of the Inquisition, and the martyrdom of the Holocaust, from the resilience of the State of Israel, from Jewish belief that is born out of the womb of family. 

So I say to my privatist friend, whom I love, whom I need: Judaism Jews need Jews to be Jewish. Judaism cannot and will not flourish by theology alone. In Judaism, believing starts with belonging. 

For we are one family. We are family before we are theology. Look at the Bible: Before there was a revelation at Sinai, we were a family. We have a family album. We are brothers, and we are sisters, and we are sons and daughters. And we speak about “begatting, begatting, begatting” because it is our mishpocha, and you want to know who is part of your mishpocha. Our faith does not depend upon catechism, it does not depend upon dogma. And it doesn’t depend upon doctrine. It depends upon the nurturing of mischpocha. 

I have a Christian friend who hears me speak about the definition of Jews this way. And he says to me, “I don’t understand you. How is possible, Rabbi, that you talk about Jewish atheists and Jewish unbelievers. It’s ridiculous. It’s oxymoronic. It would be like my speaking about Catholics who are atheists, or Jehovah Witnesses who don’t witness. Or Christians who don’t believe in Christ. How can you possibly speak of Jewish unbelievers? And of Jewish atheists?” I answer, “Because that’s my family. They’re members of my mischpocha. And who among my family dare I exclude?” 

The crucial preposition of Judaism is a very important term. It’s the preposition “with” – in Hebrew it’s “im,” from which you get “am,” which means “people.” Everything is “with.” Jewish life is with people, Jewish faith is with people. Jewish salvation is with people. 

Think with me for a moment. Think with me of what we are, what we’re doing together, how we do it, the whole character, the whole theology of a mishpocha. The theology of the minyan — the theology of the nucleus of ten Jews, without whom I cannot move. I can’t pray muted. 

~ Without a minyan I cannot recite the Shma publically, and its accompanying prayers. I need a minyan, I need you. After all, towards whom is the prayer addressed? “Sh’ma, Yisrael” — “Hear, O Israel.”  My people. 

~ Without a minyan, the Kohanim, the priests, cannot recite or have recited the blessing of the priests which we heard a little earlier. Did you think the power of blessing is vested in the priests? Without a minyan, the priest cannot bless. No people’s minyan, no priestly benediction. 

~ Without a minyan you can go to the wedding, and there can be wine and the ring, and the chuppah and the bride and the groom. But without a minyan cannot recite the Sheva Brachoth, the Seven Blessings. 

~ Without a minyan I cannot recite the Kaddish? How preposterous! “It’s my funeral, isn’t it?” No, it’s not YOUR funeral. It’s our funeral. “May God comfort – not you individually – but all of us together with Zion and Jerusalem. 

~ Without a minyan the Bar and Bat Mitzvah cannot recite the biblical or prophetic portion, the Parsha or the Haftorah. He or she can do it at a private party. But if he does it as a Jew, with his people, he needs a minyan, because the Bar or Bat Mitzvah is inducted into the Jewish people. 

~ Without a minyan, you cannot recite the Baruchu, the call to worship, the Kedushah, the prayers of sanctification. In Judaism, holiness is not found in solitariness. Hell is not other people; Hell is the absence of community. 

~ Without a minyan, what’s the synagogue? The synagogue is a building. What makes a synagogue? Sacred objects? What makes a synagogue is not the Ner Tamid, not the Eternal Light, not the Aron Ha-kodesh— not the Ark of Holiness, it’s not the menorah. What makes synagogue space sacred is you. YOU! If I don’t have a minyan, this place would be soulless, spiritless, silent and muted. 

In Judaism, I want to speak to my privatist friend. There is no communion with God unless there is community with my family. God can only be known, loved, understood, embraced with people. You want to reach God? Stretch out your hands! Not this way – up, but this way – out! Because God can only be understood horizontally, not vertically. 

It’s not, “Save me, save my soul. Save me and I will be redeemed!” Because salvation is plural. It’s not just a small, little family: “Just Molly and me, and baby makes three… we’re living in Our Blue Heaven.” (That’s for people my age.) In Judaism, you reach out to God’s children: You have to touch your family. You have to touch people. You have to reach out to the hungry, the destitute, the persecuted, and the enfeebled, and the stranger, the homeless, and the widow, and the orphan. 

When a pair of tefillin falls to the ground, the custom is to quickly pick them up and kiss them. Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, in times of persecution of his people, prayed “Ribono shel olam” — Master of the Universe, the tefillin of your family have fallen on the ground. Pick them up quickly and kiss them.” The community is the tefillin of God. 

Listen to how you pray. You pray constantly with the “nu.” It’s always that same way. “Aveinu, malkeinu, barucheinu, matzilaynu, farnesaynu …” Our Father, Our King … Bless us, save us, sustain us, comfort us. When you do the Al Chet – do you say “Ashamni, bagadni, gazalni” ? You say “Ashamu, bagadnu, gazalnu…” “We have transgressed, we have betrayed, we have stolen.” And when you ask for forgiveness, you don’t ask for YOUR forgiveness, you say “Selach lanu.” Why? Because you are part of a family. You are part of a family. You are not just a narrow, narcissistic egoistic self. 

When you give a toast to somebody, at a simcha, you don’t say “L’chai,” to life. That’s the singular. Always say, “L’chaim” … to lives. For what in the world is a life without other lives? 

My blessing needs your “Amen.” The Talmud explains one who recites the motzi, the blessing over the bread, must not begin eating until “amen” has been completed in the mouths of the respondents. It’s through your “amen,” that I can bless. And I need you for one other reason. This is why I need you desperately. 

This is what this day and evening of return means. I need you so I can discover my self. You can’t pray, in Jewish life, in front of a mirror. It could be a full-length mirror, but you will never discover who you are. Who is in that silvered mirror? My face, my space, my figure, my clothing. Is that me? You can’t pray before a mirror. You must pray before a window. No sanctuary without a window! Because through a window I look at the world. I see reality I human beings: frightened, sick, dying, full of tsurris and simchas. Through the window you and I see the world. Alone, it’s terrific. I don’t need you! If I don’t need you, I don’t need ethics. And I don’t need to talk about a conscience! Who needs to talk about a conscience on the top of a mountain? Or a lovely desert, evacuated, isolated desert? It’s esthetically beautiful, but has nothing to do with your ethical sense. 

I am not a monologue and I am not a soliloquy. Life is a dialogue. And for dialogue, we need community. I need you. Understand that I need you. I need you in my sickness and in my health. I need you in my laughter, I need you in my tears. I need you to comfort me when I’m sick, and to comfort members of my family after I die. I need you to wipe away their tears. I need you at the wedding of my children. How can I laugh alone? How can I dance alone? How can I do the hora alone? 

Have you ever stood outside the circle of dancers feeling distraught, feeling sad, just watching the hora dancers. And then, one of the dancers suddenly reaches out and pulls you into the circle and you dance! And that is the embracing power of the community to break into my lonliness, to break into my sadness, my loneliness and pull me out of my self into the community. I am moved by community, I cannot live — not only as a Jew — I cannot live as a human being without community. 

Why do you cry when your grandchildren recite a blessing over the Sabbath lights or the Festival lights, or recites the Four Questions? Are you crying because, “My God, my grandchild is so smart!” Or don’t you cry for different reasons? Because when my grandchild blesses the candles, I sense a flicker of my own immortality. I know they are a part of the four millennia, that I’m not the end, that my grandchild is not the end. 

“Me” alone understands only a part of man. And “we” alone understands only man as a part. So, my dear Privatist Jew, wherever you are… and you’re most likely not here … so when YOU meet them, speak to them. His problem, remember is not to believe or not to believe.” That was my mistake. His problem is, “to belong or not to belong.” THAT is the question. 

I want to close with a prayer by a great Talmudist, a great mystic, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook. And he says, “Who am I without you?” And he answers, “Bachem ani chai” — In you I live. In your life my life has deeper meaning. In your glory I am glorified. In your affliction, I am cast down. Each of you, each individual soul, is a glowing spark of that touch eternal, kindling the light of life for me. You give meaning to life, to labor, to learning, to prayer, to song and hope. With you, my people, my kinfolk, my mother— source of my life—with you I soar the wide spaces of the world. In your eternity, I have life eternal.” 

So look around you. Look around you, who’s sitting next to you? Who’s praying with you? Don’t you understand that the person who is next is your fuller, larger self. You need that person. I don’t need to hear the Kol Nidre melody. I don’t have to hear the sermon. I can put it all on the iPod, and I eliminate the hassle with parking, but I can’t do it because what I need is your “Amen.” I need your voice. What is missing is you. 

Ladies and gentlemen, we are not porcupines kept apart by our quills. If you are a porcupine near a Privatist Jew, soften your quills. And grow close together. We need human warmth in our lives. We belong to the Jewish world community. Alone, who will greet us with “L’shanah tovah” or “G’mar tov” ? 

You know the Yiddish expression, “Dos pintele yid.” It mean the dot in the Jew, a little spark. It’s a very, very faint spark, hardly can be detected but I want you to know, it can be ignited. The National Jewish Population Study every other year reports the same thing: When it comes to belief in God or attendance at the synagogue Jews are at the bottom of the list. Always. Yet fifty-nine percent of Jews fast on Yom Kippur. Millions of Jews who are absent from the synagogue — those whom I call the “Seventh Day Absentists” — who never think of taking a day off from their busy schedules sit quietly in the synagogue, and sing prayers and they fast. And they fast.

Who is this Privatist Jew? Let Sigmund Freud tell you, for he was one of them. But he understood something about the definition. He said, in a confessional moment, “There is a tug of an invisible cord, a tie to obscure forces and emotions, all the more powerful the less they can be defined in words.” We are drawn together. We belong together, and we are here, are we not? We are here today together, are we not? And we are bound together, are we not? Did I ask of your theology? I asked you for the sentiment, the profound sentiment of belonging to a mishpocha. Jews of all varieties are here. This is a day of return, of coming home. The door is open. Welcome back. 

“G’mar chatimah tova” -- May it be a good seal. For a year of goodness, of conscience, and of community.

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