Rabbi Schwartz's Sermon for Kol Nidre 5779

FIFTY YEARS LATER

EREV YOM KIPPUR 5779

RABBI BARRY L. SCHWARTZ

On New Year’s Eve, 1968, snow fell on the revelers in Times Square. The New York Times headline ran “World Bids Adieu to a Violent Year.” Americans were hopeful that the Vietnam War would wind down; that the protests would diminish, and that America’s angry ghettos would pacify.

In the Big Apple a threatened subway strike was averted, and the 20 cent fare maintained. Two hit movies, The Sound of Music and Thoroughly Modern Millie both starred Julie Andrews. Hello Dolly and Fiddler on the Roof were tops on Broadway. 1967 had been difficult, but there was cause for optimism. Little did anyone know that the whirlwind of 1968 was about to be unleashed.

When the Viet Cong launched the Tet offensive in late January, Walter Cronkite was caught saying: “What the ---- (expletive deleted) is going on? I thought we were winning this war?”

Then came the month of March. On the 12th , Eugene McCarthy came out of nowhere to finish a close second to Lyndon Johnson in the New Hampshire primary. Days later Bobby Kennedy shocked the political landscape by entering the race. The shock only grew when Sunday evening, March 31st, President Johnson concluded a speech about the war with the words: “I shall not seek, and will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”

Earlier that very same day, just a few miles away, Martin Luther King, Jr. had given the Sunday morning sermon to a packed house at the National Cathedral. “One day we will have to stand before the God of history, and we will talk of things we’ve done,” he said. “It seems to me I can hear the God of history saying… But I was hungry and ye fed me not. I was naked and ye clothed me not.”

Four days later, Martin Luther King Jr. lay dead in Memphis. Riots erupted in 110 cities throughout the land. 39 people died. 2500 were injured.

Exactly two months later, Robert Kennedy was shot.

By year’s end, 6332 American soldiers had been killed in action.

On this 50th anniversary of the year that was 1968, I ask us to pause. Not simply because you know me to be a student of history who likes to commemorate milestone anniversaries. Not simply because fifty years is a half century, and gives us meaningful perspective.

I ask us to pause at the beginning of this Jewish New Year, as Jewish Americans, because the tumultuous year of 1968 raises questions about tumultuous America today for all her citizens.

Questions that continue to challenge and haunt us ethically and spiritually. Indeed, the legacy of America a half century ago, the legacy of the 60’s in general and 1968 in particular, is so provocative and complex that I realized in composing my thoughts that I would need to do so in two parts. I share Part One this evening and Part Two tomorrow morning.

The year 1968 became a potent symbol for the decade as a whole. Jonathan Darman wrote an article about it, under the title of, "The Year That Made Us Who We Are". He argues that three critical questions emerge from that period that remain front and center in our national consciousness (or should be):

1. If Vietnam taught us to be a humble superpower, why are we still bogged down in wars?

2. If the civil rights movement truly transformed America, why is racism still so potent and why are our cities still so segregated?

3. If the feminist movement liberated women, why do women still struggle, especially in the workplace?

These questions are vital to a truly meaningful debate about America. Darman contends that, whatever the excesses of the decade may have been, the 60’s were “an era when a generation held sustained arguments over the things that have always mattered most.” How we need to elevate our national discourse to talk about the things that matter most. How we need, in 2018, to be having “a sustained argument” over the questions that have not gone away:

1. How should America project its power to the world?

2. How should America overcome its racial and ethnic divisions?

3. How should America address its economic and gender inequality?

In the space of this first sermon I can do little more than raise these most basic questions and begin a response by defining a direction, an orientation of the national soul, as it were, to what I believe matters most. This direction is suggested to me as an American, by our history, and as a Jew, by our heritage. An interweaving, if you will, of the best impulses of our national experience, with the highest teachings of our religious tradition.

After the Second World War our country sensed that only by lending a hand to rebuild a damaged world could the seeds of peace be sown. The Marshall Plan, the United Nations, the Peace Corps were these seeds. Then, and now, threats to peace were real. The Cold War tragically bequeathed us Vietnam. The War on Terrorism tragically bequeathed us Afghanistan and Iraq. The true cost of these wars is still being reckoned.

After the Second World War our country also sensed that by giving equal educational, political and economic opportunity to all its citizens could the seeds of social harmony be sown. The GI Bill (which gave my father his education), the expansion of the public university system, the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act, Head Start, and Title Nine were these seeds. These seeds promised us a glimpse of a Great Society. The torch had been passed to a new generation willing to dream a great dream.

Can we, as one nation, dream those dreams again? Can we nurture the seeds whose tender shoots seem stunted and withered? Can we recover from the shattering events of a generation ago, and an election ago, to pursue the Great Society?

I imagine that if King, who would be turning 90 this year like my father, could be with us, he would be saying:

In my time there was a war going on, and in your time there are wars going on. Stand up for justice!

In my time there was poverty amid plenty, and in your time there is rising sea of economic inequality. Stand up for justice!

In my time there was de jure segregation throughout the land, and in your time there is de facto segregation throughout the land. Stand up for justice!

Can we dream of an America where #black lives matter is self-evident?

Where #me too is a relic?

Where #march for our lives is behind us?

Can we dream of an America not of high walls, but open doors?

Not of zero tolerance but maximum compassion?

Not of perks for the rich but prosperity for the poor?

Not of corporate deregulation but environmental protection?

Can we dream of an America where we can have an extended, civil discourse on the issues that matter most?

Can we dream of an America that we are proud to bequeath to our children?

More, as promised, tomorrow... I’m just getting started! For now, I conclude with a final image from 1968. It should come as no surprise to those of you who know me as a space buff. As the tumultuous and nation-searing year of 1968 drew to a close… in the predawn darkness of December 21, three men boarded a spacecraft atop a giant Saturn V rocket at Cape Canaveral. At 10:41 Eastern Standard Time, Apollo 8 broke free from Earth’s orbit. Humanity had slipped the bonds of Earth for the first time.

Early on the morning of the 24th Apollo 8 entered the moon’s gravitational field. Soon after, Jim Lovell maneuvered the spacecraft into lunar orbit, and a first look at the cratered lunar surface 70 miles below. Lovell remembers, “As we kept going, suddenly on the lunar horizon, coming up, was Earth. The moon is nothing but shades of gray and darkness. But the earth-you could see the deep blue of the seas, the whites of the clouds, the salmon pink and brown of the land masses.”

On Christmas Eve, Jim Lovell, Frank Borman and Bill Anders radioed a message to Earth, with a billion people listening in. This was their message:

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good.

Borman ended with verse 10:

And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering of the waters he called seas; and God saw that it was good.

When Apollo 8 returned safely to Earth, thousands of people sent the three astronauts the same message. “Thank you for saving 1968.” Jim Lovell still looks up at the moon and remembers the moment. “When you see Earth from the moon,” he says, “you realize how fragile it is and just how limited the resources are. We’re all astronauts on this spaceship Earth… we have to work together.”


My friends; it is Yom Kippur. A new year is upon us. A new day is dawning. God sees the light. And so do we. And it is good.

Faith Leaders on Martin Luther King Jr.'s Religious Legacy

This past April 4th marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the religious legacy of the civil rights leader was the subject of an article published on April 2nd in the Deseret News, which identifies itself as, "first news organization and the longest continuously-operating business in the state of Utah," and is owned by the Mormon Church. What does this have to do with Congregation Adas Emuno of Bergen County, New Jersey, you may ask? The answer is clear enough: Rabbi Barry L. Schwartz, our spiritual leader.

The article, entitled, Faith leaders Reflect on Martin Luther King Jr.'s Religious Legacy, and written by Kelsey Dallas, begins with the pastor of a Baptist Church in Salt Lake City:

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is a silent participant in every meeting held in Calvary Baptist Church's conference room. He stares down at those gathered from three of the room's four walls.

The Rev. France Davis, Calvary's longtime pastor, chose this repetitive decor, in part, to honor the Rev. King's role in his life. His ministry career, which spans more than four decades, grew out of his experiences fighting for a better world alongside the Rev. King.

"That's what I've been doing all my life: trying to change laws, to make sure all people are treated equally," the Rev. Davis said.

But the portraits and pictures of the pastor and civil rights leader in the conference room don't just acknowledge the past. They remind church members to dream big dreams for the future, presenting the Rev. King as a symbol of what's possible when faith is put into action.

"He's an example of how to bring about positive change," the Rev. Davis said.

It's not just religious Americans who see the Rev. King this way. Fifty years after his assassination on April 4, 1968, he's hailed as an American hero, held up as someone whom all political activists should emulate.

The Rev. King's broad appeal sometimes troubles the faith leaders who knew him and continue to draw inspiration from him. They see his quotes used to support secular political goals or hear his voice during a truck commercial and worry Americans are forgetting the deep faith that anchored his activism.

This is where Rabbi Schwartz is first mentioned:

"It's legitimate to quote him in the most general of ways, but I don't think we should forget that he was an example of religious faith at its best," said Rabbi Barry Schwartz, author of Path of Prophets: The Ethics-Driven Life, which was published on March 1.

A nice plug for our rabbi's new book!

✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡

The article now returns to Reverend Davis:

The Rev. King brought the Bible alive for participants in the civil rights movement, never ceasing to be a pastor even as he took on other roles, the Rev. Davis said.

"He was trying to get people to put feet to their beliefs, to make their beliefs practical in terms of the way they went about their daily lives," he said.

The Rev. Davis first heard about the Rev. King's work when he was 15 or 16. He knew Christians were called to serve their neighbors, but his energy was lacking.

"I understood that to be the need, but I didn't feel empowered to do it," said the Rev. Davis, who grew up in rural Georgia.

The Rev. King's impassioned speeches brought about a change of heart. The Rev. Davis began to see his belief in God as a reason to take action, not just to pray and sit in church on Sunday.

"They were inspirational in every way. They caused those who heard them, me included, to want to act," the Rev. Davis said.

At this point, the article moves into a new topic, the social gospel, which parallels our own emphasis on social justice and tikkun olam:

The Rev. King wasn't preaching something new. He was continuing the work of others who'd emphasized the social gospel, or the belief that people of faith should try to build a more just society, not just save people's souls, said Clayborne Carson, founding director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University.

"The social gospel really had its roots in the United States … in the late 19th and early 20th century," he said.

Members of the early social gospel movement sought to protect workers during the rapid industrialization of the U.S. They fought for better working conditions and fair pay, turning to the Bible for spiritual nourishment and the motivation to act.

The Rev. King carried the spirit of this activism into the civil rights movement, presenting the fight for racial equality as a deeply spiritual pursuit. He faced pushback for this approach, including from within the National Baptist Convention, which his grandfather helped found, Carson said.

"The elected leader of the National Baptist Convention opposed King and felt that the role of the pastor is to try to achieve salvation for members of the congregation and that the church shouldn't really be focused on social issues," he said.

And now, the article brings Rabbi Schwartz back into the conversation, and Congregation Adas Emuno with him:

However, many others, including Jews and other non-Christians, were receptive to his message. The Rev. King energized old teachings, inspiring believers like the Rev. Davis to live out their faith in new ways.

For some Jewish leaders, this meant proclaiming God's calls for justice all the way to jail, said Rabbi Schwartz, who leads Congregation Adas Emuno in Leonia, New Jersey. His own rabbi was one of 16 arrested in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1964 after joining the Rev. King there to rally for racial equality.

"There was a history of activism" in many religious traditions, he said. "But King was the singular figure who could galvanize their social-justice work."

And speaking of the relationship of rabbis to Dr. King, it is not surprising to see the name of Heschel come up:

The Rev. King drew on the Old and New Testaments in his sermons and public addresses, which helped him unite Jews and Christians, said Susannah Heschel, a professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College.

"If you look at his major speeches, he quotes (the prophet) Amos more often than Jesus," she said.

He learned this approach in the black churches of his childhood, she added. African-Americans took comfort in and felt empowered by the Old Testament stories of prophets seeking justice and the Israelites escaping slavery in Egypt.

Heschel's father, Rabbi Abraham Heschel, also influenced the Rev. King's biblical engagement. The Rev. King carried a copy of Rabbi Heschel's book, The Prophets, in his pocket during marches, and it gave him strength to bring a prophetic voice to racial conflict.

"The prophets remind us of the moral state of a people: Few are guilty, but all are responsible," Rabbi Heschel wrote. "To a person endowed with prophetic sight, everyone else appears blind."

 ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡  ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡

The article now returns to Reverend Davis and a Christian emphasis:

The Rev. King wed the prophets' radical acts of service with Jesus Christ's teachings in the New Testament, the Rev. Davis said.

"His message was clearly one about love based on New Testament theology and teachings, but his examples of showing love were from the Old Testament," he said. "He was masterful in weaving the two."

But this mastery often goes unnoticed in contemporary celebrations of the Rev. King, the Rev. Davis added. People are content to applaud his charisma, rather than understand the theological and historical claims anchoring his speeches.

"We gravitate toward the rhythm and the sound as opposed to the message being communicated," he said.

For example, most Americans are familiar with the Rev. King's dreams in his "I have a dream" speech from the March on Washington. He dreams that his children will be judged for their characters, not the color of their skin. He dreams that white children and black children will one day be able to join hands in Alabama.

Fewer people can recall earlier parts of the speech, when the Rev. King recounted unfulfilled promises made to black Americans when the country was founded and assured his followers that "unearned suffering is redemptive."

"With 'I have a dream,' everybody knows the last part of that speech, but earlier is where the meat is," the Rev. Davis said.

And now back to Rabbi Schwartz one more time:

To truly understand the Rev. King's revolutionary work, you have to grasp how central the Bible was to his activism, Rabbi Schwartz said.

"He was motivated by general ideas of justice, but, at the same time, he was coming from a Judeo-Christian perspective," he said.

Rabbi Schwartz is followed by a testimony from Susannah Heschel:

Heschel was active in the Jewish community throughout her childhood, attending Hebrew school classes and learning to interpret the Bible. Like the Rev. Davis, she knew what she was supposed to be doing, but she wasn't particularly excited to be doing it.

“I didn’t like Hebrew school. I found the way the Bible was taught to us to be very dull," she said.

The Rev. King's friendship with her father changed everything. He brought the words of the biblical prophets alive, showing Heschel the value of learning them.

“King changed my life and gave me a love of the Hebrew Bible and a love of the prophets," she said, crediting the Rev. King with inspiring her to become a professor of religion.

And the article gives Reverend Davis the last word:

The Rev. Davis offered similar praise, explaining that he's modeled his ministry after the Rev. King's work. Each week in his sermon at Calvary Baptist, he urges his congregation to go out into the world and improve it. He preaches on the importance of serving others and tries to lead by example, promoting policies like fair housing and Medicaid expansion.

"I'm one of his disciples in that sense," he said.

When the Rev. Davis learned of the Rev. King's assassination, he knew there were plenty of people like himself to continue proclaiming the Rev. King's prophetic message. However, he worried about the loss of a man who encapsulated the entire struggle for civil rights. The movement would persist in pieces, rather than a unified whole.

"I was concerned that it was piecemeal—one person talking about this and one person talking about that," the Rev. Davis said.

Reflecting on the state of faith-based activism today, the Rev. Davis said he's come to appreciate this piecemeal approach. He likes that some houses of worship specialize in feeding the hungry while others expertly lobby legislators for fairer policies.

The Rev. King's legacy is alive in many places at once, he said.

"When (this activism) was done by one person, it was localized to a particular area. … With a number of different people, it can be in several places," he said.

The Rev. Davis wants visitors to know that Calvary Baptist is one of those places, so he put a small model of the Rev. King's Washington, D.C., memorial on the church's reception desk. Arms crossed, the miniature Rev. King stares sternly out at new arrivals from under a large green plant.

"With Dr. King, you knew you were in the presence of greatness," the Rev. Davis said.

It is certainly an honor to have our rabbi, and our congregation, included in an interfaith article on so important a topic, published all the way out in Salt Lake City, Utah!

Jew Vs. Jedi

On January 12th, Adas Emuno president Lance Strate's op ed for the Jewish Standard, Jew vs. Jedi: “May the Schwartz Be With You”, made its way into print, and here it is now on our congregational blog:

The Last Jedi is one of the best, if not the best, of the Star Wars cinematic series that first exploded onto theater screens in 1977. The film franchise, originated by George Lucas, was sold to the Walt Disney Company in 2012, and revitalized in 2015 by the first installment in the new trilogy, The Force Awakens, directed by J.J. Abrams.

Although it was a huge commercial success and generally well received, many fans were unhappy with the shift to a more progressive outlook in The Force Awakens, and expressed dissatisfaction with the casting, which deviated from the previous films, which were all but monopolized by white males. In this new trilogy, the lead heroic role of Rey is given to a young woman, while another main character is played by a young African-American man. Even when the sentiments expressed were not overtly racist and sexist, those undercurrents were apparent, especially given that the plot of The Force Awakens was quite consistent with the original Star Wars film.

Star Wars The Force Awakens cast Harrison Ford; Daisy Ridley; Bob Iger; J.J. Abrams; John Boyega; Lupita Nyong'o; Oscar Isaac

The Last Jedi, directed by Rian Johnson, extended the new sensibility by highlighting female leadership, including the late Carrie Fisher as the leader of the resistance and Laura Dern as a self-sacrificing admiral of their decimated fleet, while introducing a significant new character played by Kelly Marie Tran, the child of Vietnamese immigrants. Consistent with this move toward greater diversity in casting, the film also emphasized the progressive theme of breaking with the past.

Given the reactionary mentality of most disgruntled Star Wars fanatics, I was disturbed to read Liel Liebovitz’s December 18 piece in Tablet magazine, called “Reform Jediism.” Liebovitz explains his reaction to the film:

I felt a torrent of anger I haven’t known since gazing at the calamity that was Jar-Jar Binks. That’s because the movie, while otherwise engaging and enjoyable, introduced a radical new take on the Jedi religion. Call it Reform Jediism.

Anger is consistent with right-wing screeds against any form of liberal politics, but in this instance the target was Reform Judaism. As he puts it,

for American Jewish audiences… The Last Jedi can feel almost like a documentary, a sordid story about a small community eager to trade in the old and onerous traditions for the glittery and airy creed of universalist kumbaya that, like so much sound and fury, signifies nothing.

As a Reform Jew, I am deeply offended by Liebovitz’s disdain for those of us who practice a form of Judaism different from his own. And I have to wonder what it is about us that makes him so afraid. In the words of the Jedi master Yoda, who presumably represents Liebovitz’s idea of Orthodox Jediism, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Don’t we know this to be true? Isn’t our world big enough for different forms of Jewish worship, different modes of Jewish identity? Does he really want to open up an irrevocable schism in the Jewish population?

Responses from readers both sympathetic to his general outlook and supportive of the Reform movement have taken Liebovitz to task for misinterpreting the meaning of The Last Jedi, ignoring important details in the film or just getting them wrong, forcing facts to fit his views instead of vice versa. For my part, I find the entire conversation absurd. Its original sin is Liebovitz’s equating Jew and Jedi.

The Star Wars universe was created by George Lucas, who was raised a Methodist. The film’s underlying Christian sensibility is apparent in its emphasis on a savior figure. In the original trilogy, the messianic character is Luke (evoking the Gospels) Skywalker (paralleling walking on water). In the prequels, Anakin Skywalker is born via immaculate conception on the part of the Force and identified as the “chosen one” of prophecy, before falling from grace and becoming the equivalent of the Christian Satan, Darth Vader.

The Jedi are referred to as an “order” rather than a religion. Judaism does not have any orders, but there are many within the Catholic tradition (e.g., Jesuits, Dominicans), as well in as other forms of Christianity including the Methodists, and also within Buddhism, a major influence as well on Lucas and his creation. The Jedi Order is monastic. Worldly attachments—notably marriage—are forbidden; that’s a rule also associated with Christianity and Buddhism.

A fully trained Jedi is referred to as a knight, and Jedi knights are all but invincible warriors, in some ways modeled after Japanese samurai, but also after holy paladins, not unlike the Arthurian knights of the roundtable in search of the Holy Grail of Christian legend. Jedi also are much like priests, Christian or Shaolin, with a direct connection to the godlike Force, one that ordinary people lack. They are nothing like the great rabbis of Jewish tradition, learned sages who study and interpret our sacred texts.

The Christian sensibility of Star Wars is especially apparent in its valuation of redemption and forgiveness. At the end of the original trilogy, Luke is able to convince his father, Darth Vader, to turn on his master, the evil emperor. Luke insists that there still is good in Vader, and this final act allows Vader to die in a state of grace, and to appear in ghostly form alongside the good Jedi who have also left the earthly plane. But the fact remains that Vader was guilty of untold atrocities, including destroying an entire planet in the first Star Wars film.

In The Force Awakens, Kylo Ren is introduced as essentially worshipping Darth Vader as well as following the evil Supreme Leader of the First Order, and engages in acts of patricide and mass murder. In The Last Jedi, Rey tries to turn Ren away from the dark side, just as Luke did with Vader, saying that it’s not to late for him. The idea that you can be forgiven for all of your sins as long as you repent in the end has its origins in Christian theology, whereas in our tradition, as expounded by Maimonides, some sins are so heinous that no forgiveness or redemption is possible.

I don’t mean to imply that Star Wars is based only on Christian elements. Lucas weaved together a variety of influences, including Buddhism, Japanese samurai films, westerns, World War Two movies, old movie serials such as Flash Gordon, and Joseph Campbell’s notion of the hero’s journey (itself more consistent with Christianity than Judaism). What I want to emphasize is that Star Wars does not reflect Jewish sensibilities, and does not make for a good analogy with contemporary Jewish life.

We still can appreciate and enjoy the movies, which above all are entertaining. But we also ought to be aware of Lucas’s failings as a storyteller. His movies have been criticized for portraying democratic institutions as weak and ineffectual, supported only by the elitist Jedi. Only a few people exhibit the force sensitivity needed to become a Jedi, and that trait is inherited rather than acquired through hard work or ethical conduct.

Lucas drew on many stylistic elements from the World War II era, some in disturbing fashion. For example, the final scene of the first Star Wars movie is based on a scene from the Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will. Worse, in the prequel trilogy, Lucas drew on offensive ethnic stereotypes, trying to displace them onto alien beings. The character of Jar Jar Binks, whom Liebovitz and many other fans criticized for being too silly, was based on African-American Stepin Fetchit stereotypes, with a Jamaican/Rastafarian speech pattern. The leaders of the evil Trade Federation were based on East Asian “yellow peril” stereotypes. And the greedy slave owner Watto is hook-nosed and speaks with a Yiddish accent.

Liebovitz is wrong in thinking that the earlier Star Wars movies emphasized tradition. No, they were exercises in nostalgia, romanticized images of the past. And they are profoundly ahistorical, set “a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.” The fairytale-like formula stands in stark contrast to the Jewish invention of historical narrative. The events that occur in the Star Wars universe have no connection to our world. How long ago did they happen? What is the connection between their time and ours? Are we the descendants of the human characters in these stories? Are they even human? For this reason, as well as the fact that there is no rationale given for the “futuristic” science and technology, purists argue that these stories are fantasy rather than science fiction.

As Jews, we believe in progress toward a better future as well as continuity with the past. The Star Wars universe is as disconnected from our tradition as it is from human history. We can enjoy the films as entertainment, certainly, and I would suggest that also we ought to applaud the more progressive approach associated with Abrams, Johnson, and Disney. As for a Jewish take on the franchise, I can think of none better than the 1987 Mel Brooks movie Spaceballs, which teaches us to live and let live and not take ourselves so seriously.

And so I say to Liebovitz and others like him, “May the Schwartz be with you!”

 From the pages of Kadima, the newsletter of Congregation Adas Emuno:

A Message From Our President

Dr. Lance Strate

We Were Nomads

Passover is coming, and with it comes our annual celebration of the exodus from Egypt. We tend to think of it as a liberation from slavery, the first step on a journey to the promised land, with a very significant stopover at Mount Sinai. But we also tend to discount the journey itself, the forty years of wandering in the desert. We may think of it as a punishment for losing faith. Or we may even joke about it, saying that we got lost in the desert because the men refused to ask for directions.

We tend to think of wandering in negative terms, often as "wandering aimlessly," losing our way, being rootless or fickle. Maybe that's because, in the modern world, we tend to be so very goal driven, so fixated on getting from point A to point B, on making progress, proceeding towards a predetermined end.

We lose sight of the fact that wandering can also mean meandering, taking our time for the pure pleasure of it. It can also mean exploring, delighting in the joy of discovery. And it can also mean roaming, traveling from place to place in a deliberate fashion. This last form of wandering is characteristic of the nomadic way of life, the way of life that we associate with the origins of our people, and our faith.

The story of the Jewish people begins with Abraham in the city of Ur, who is commanded by God to leave the city and journey to the land of Canaan to become a nomad. He becomes a shepherd, roaming the land in search of green pastures and the water that sustains them. In other words, Abraham cannot become holy by remaining in the city. He is sanctified through an exodus of his own, and later witnesses how two other cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, have become the sites of sin and corruption, and are destroyed by God.

When periodic drought strikes the land, Jacob and his sons travel down to Egypt, and as we tell the story, they went down to Egypt to sojourn and not to settle. In other words, as nomads, that move was meant to be temporary. But their descendants are enslaved and forced to build cities for Pharaoh, specifically the cities of Pithom and Rameses, according to the Torah.

The exodus then was an escape from Egyptian cities and slave settlements, and a return to nomadic life. And as nomads, the Israelites would not have been wandering aimlessly in the desert, but rather following a circuit in conjunction with the changing seasons. Not a straight line from departure to destination, but making the rounds repeatedly, in harmony with their environment. It is during this period that the words of the Ma Tovu are uttered, classically rendered as, "How goodly are thy tents."

And the story of the return to the promised land begins with Joshua bringing down the walls of the city of Jericho. Jerusalem itself was not built by the Israelites, but rather conquered by King David to serve as the capital of his kingdom, and the site of the Temple built by Solomon. And without discounting the singular importance of Jerusalem, I want to suggest that we recall the lessons we learned from our experience as nomads:

As nomads, we learned that God, or if you prefer, the holy, the divine, or the spiritual dimension of existence, is not confined to any one place. There are no geographical limits to the encounter with the sacred. Transcendence can happen anywhere.

As nomads, we learned that the shortest distance between two points is not necessarily a straight line. That travelling in circles is not a bad thing. That the real world has curves, just as we later discovered that the planet is round, just as Albert Einstein later discovered that all of space is curved.

As nomads, we learned that lines and boundaries are creations of frail and fallible human minds, not commandments from God. That walls are meant to be torn down, to be shattered by the rippling resonances of sound waves. That houses and buildings, settlements and cities, and even nations, are not as permanent as they may seem. That what really matters are people, family, community, and beyond, to teach our children diligently, to honor our parents, to love our neighbors, and to love the stranger, for we too once were strangers.

As nomads, we learned that any given place is not all that important, that it is temporary, transitory. That our religion is not so much about space, but rather about time. We can pray anywhere, we can observe Shabbat, the festivals, and the High Holy Days anywhere, what matters is that we observe them according to the calendar, not the map. We learned that to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose.

As nomads, we learned that flexibility is better than fixity and rigidity. That being a seeker and a searcher is better than becoming too settled in our opinions.

As nomads, we learned to live in harmony with our world, and not be overly proud of our own inventions and constructions.

As nomads, we learned to be cautious about our circumstances, not to take things for granted, to know that situations can change suddenly, precipitously, catastrophically. To always keep one bag packed.

As nomads, we learned what it means to be free, what it means to be a people, and what it means to have faith.

This is the legacy we share, together, as a congregation. Wishing you a very wanderful Passover holiday!

Homo Moralis

We recently posted Rabbi Schwartz's Sermon for Kol Nidre 5778, which was entitled "Homo Moralis" and included a discussion of two books by Israeli history professor Yuval Noah Harari, and we are pleased to share with you that he followed this up with a book review in Tikkun, also entitled "Homo Moralis" and subtitled "A Review of Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow" dated October 11th.

Based as it is on his sermon, there is much in one that bears repeating in the other. And so, here now is the review:

A child asked his mother, “Where do people come from?”

“Well,” the mother said, “Adam and Eve were the first parents on earth. They had babies who became grownups. Then those grownups had babies who eventually became grownups, and so on and so forth, until today.”

Later, the child decided to ask his father the same question. The father had a different explanation. “Long ago, there were no people on earth-just monkeys. Slowly the monkeys developed and changed into people. We call this process ‘evolution.’”

The children ran back to his mother and tearfully blurted, “You lied to me! You said people came from Adam and Eve, but Dad just old me that people came from monkeys!”

“I did not lie,” the mother replied calmly. “Your father was talking about his side of the family.”

Where do we come from? And where are we going? Those are two really big questions.. And the buzz these days is about a pair of books written to answer these questions that have become global bestsellers.

Yuval Noah Harari is a 40 something year old professor of history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem… and now an international celebrity. His first book is called Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. His new book is called Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. Both are on the short list of many a world leader, from Bill Gates to Barak Obama. You need a good block of time to read and digest these formidable tomes. But the writing is surprisingly accessible and the discussion provocative. The author pulls no punches and tells you where he stands. Soon enough you will discern that Yuval Harari is a secular Jew and a skeptical academic. He is a student of Spinoza, a devotee of Darwin, and an acolyte of Einstein. Harari has little use for the Bible in particular and religion in general.

א א א א א א א א א א א א א א   א א א א א א 

Harari’s provocative thesis about the future is embodied in the title of his second work: Homo Deus. To explain: The first humans on the evolutionary tree were homo habilis, “handy man” if you will, who mastered primitive tool making. They were followed by homo erectus, “upright man”, who not only walked solidly on two feet, but mastered fire. A long time later we finally arrived: homo sapien, “wise man” (or is it “wise guy”), who mastered language and writing and computer science. It is Harari’s belief that we will soon become homo deus, “god-man”; super-human, god-like creatures, part carbon, part silicon; part man, part machine; an indistinguishable blend of human and robot. This revolutionary-evolutionary great leap forward will ironically lead to the extinction of the human race as we now know it. As Harari says in his attention grabbing quote at the top of his website: “History began when humans invented gods, and will end when humans become gods.”

What does Harari mean when he says we will become gods? He explains that “The upgrading of humans into gods may follow any of three paths: biological engineering, cyborg engineering and the engineering of non-organic beings.” The first will involve the intentional rewriting of our genetic code and the altering of our biochemical composition. The second will involve the intentional merging of our organic body with non-organic devices such as bionic hands, artificial eyes, and nano-robots infused into our bloodstream. The third will involve the supplementing and eventual replacement of our neural network, meaning our brain, with artificial intelligence.

The reason we will want to do all this, according to Harari, is that it will be the final fulfillment of humanity’s three deepest desires: immortality, bliss and omnipotence. We want to live forever, we want to be happy forever, and we want to be all powerful. Harari points out that that the march toward this holy trinity is unstoppable. The desire is unquenchable. The progress is inexorable. The technology is inevitable. After all, Harari grandly notes, over the past century humankind has managed to do the impossible: turn the uncontrollable forces of nature-namely famine, plague and war, the big three scourges of human history, into manageable challenges. Today more people die from eating too much then from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases, and more people commit suicide than are killed by war or crime.

Harari cheerfully cautions against calling this future world populated by homo deus dystopian. He emphasizes how homo deus will alleviate human suffering, enable us to survive on Earth, and embolden us to populate the planets. But in the process Harari does admit that freedom and equality, humanism, liberalism, rationalism- all the isms we cherish, will collapse and disappear. He further concedes that the rate of change is accelerating so quickly that we have no idea how society will truly function by the end of the century. Homo deus will be more different from homo sapien than we were from homo erectus. In the pursuit of health, happiness and power we will upend every assumption about human life that you can possibly make.

Harari has a sub-chapter heading “Can Someone Please Hit the Brakes?” Then he proceeds to say, um, no we can’t. Firstly, nobody knows where the brakes are. And secondly, our economy and society will crash if we try. It’s that first contention, I would offer, that reveals his not-so-hidden bias, or moral blind-spot; the malady of many a great thinker. Harari is heir to a great religious tradition even if he downplays it to a point just short of denial. Why do I say this about someone of such astute intellect and passion? Not because Harari doesn’t believe in God. He’s entitled, and anyway, Judaism is a big-tent religion that has room for believers and non-believers alike. Not because he is, evidently, a non-practicing Jew. He’s entitled, and anyway, Judaism is a big tent ethnicity that has room for secular Jews, cultural Jews, and Jews who, like Harari, embrace Eastern meditation. And not because Harari agrees with Marx that religion is an opiate for the masses, and the faithful simply deluded followers of now discredited myths.

Harari’s blind-spot is that he chooses to ignore the great ethical revolution of ancient Israel, known as Prophetic Judaism, which changed the course of Western Civilization. The Prophets who gave to the world a moral imperative that is as essential today as it was two millennia ago; who gave us the Golden Rule that we should do unto others as we would others do unto us; who gave us the Great Commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves; who gave us the Ten Commandments that forbid murder and theft; who gave us the charge to love the stranger, the widow, the orphan…those most vulnerable in our society; those without a voice; who gave us the demand “to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly”.

We do well to ponder anew that old and famous distinction between Athens and Jerusalem. The Greeks gave us reason and science, the Hebrews gave us compassion and ethics. Leo Strauss opined that “Western man became what he is, and is what he is, through the coming together of biblical faith and Greek thought”. Matthew Arnold wrote that “Hebraism and Hellenism are the two essential philosophies of life between which civilized man must choose.” 

Solomon Freehof clarified that, “The Greek is interested in nature’s law; the Hebrew in nature’s lawgiver. The Greek is interested in peace of heart; the Hebrew in progress of character. The Greek said: Seek harmony and your will find serenity; the Hebrews said: Seek holiness and you will find nobility.”

As we hurtle toward the future we need Athens and we need Jerusalem. We need the Greek sensibility that the unexamined life is not worth living, and we need the Hebraic sensibility that the immoral life is not worth living. We cannot fear the advance of science, and anyway Harari is right that it will speed ahead whether we like it or not. But neither should we abandon the insights of religion that will tap the brakes, and slow us down just enough to temper knowledge with wisdom. It’s a touch ironic that the brave new world depicted by Harari was in a way anticipated by the opening myth of Genesis. Adam and Eve want to eat not just from the Tree of Knowledge but also from the Tree of Life; they want to be omniscient and immortal. That is why God says in Gen.3:22, “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and bad, what if he should stretch our his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever!”

But remember that the full name of the second tree is The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad. Humankind is unique in its moral discernment. That is why it God can pose the question to Adam and Eve, “What is this you have done?” (Gen. 3:13). And that is why the question is repeated to Cain (Gen.4:10), after he is explicitly warned, “Sin crouches at the door; its urge is toward you, yet you can be its master.” (Gen.4:7)

It makes no sense to judge ourselves if we don’t know right from wrong or to warn ourselves if we can’t control our actions, or to even question ourselves if we can’t take responsibility for those actions. When Cain asks, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” the answer is yes! “Your brother’s blood cries out to me!” (Gen.4:9-10). If we are going to reprogram our brains the software package better contain an ethical decision making file, or we will not become homo deus, but homo roboticus, mere robotic drones in human look-alike costume.

Read Harari. Take all the time you need; it’s worth it. You will feel challenged and exalted…but by the end of the second work, you will also be depressed. But remember that if we are truly homo sapien/wise the next stage of human evolution will not be homo deus, but homo moralis, moral man. And perhaps our brave new world will be not a nightmare, but a dream. Or as the poet Judy Chicago penned it, “And then everywhere will be called Eden once again.”

Rabbi Schwartz's Sermon for Kol Nidre 5778

HOMO MORALIS

EREV YOM KIPPUR 5778

RABBI BARRY L. SCHWARTZ

A child asked his mother, “Where do people come from?”

“Well,” the mother said, “Adam and Eve were the first parents on earth. They had babies who became grownups. Then those grownups had babies who eventually became grownups, and so on and so forth, until today.”

Later, the child decided to ask his father the same question. The father had a different explanation. “Long ago, there were no people on earth⏤just monkeys. Slowly the monkeys developed and changed into people. We call this process ‘evolution.’”

The children ran back to his mother and tearfully blurted, “You lied to me! You said people came from Adam and Eve, but Dad just told me that people came from monkeys!”

“I did not lie,” the mother replied calmly. “Your father was talking about his side of the family.”

Where do we come from?

And where are we going?

Those are two really big questions.

And the buzz these days is about a pair of books written to answer these questions… that have become global bestsellers.
Yuval Noah Harari is a 40 something year old professor of history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem… and now an international celebrity. His first book is called Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. His new book is called Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. Both are on the short list of many a world leader, from Bill Gates to Barak Obama. I decided to tackle them this summer. You need a good block of time. But the writing is surprisingly accessible and the discussion provocative. The author pulls no punches and tells you where he stands. For me this was at once delighting and disconcerting.

⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪⧪

You see, Yuval Harari is a secular Jew and a skeptical academic. He is a student of Spinoza, a devotee of Darwin, and an acolyte of Einstein. Harari has little use for the Bible in particular and religion in general. He would certainly side with the father in my opening story.

Harari’s provocative thesis about the future is embodied in the title of his second work: Homo Deus. To explain: The first humans on the evolutionary tree were homo habilis, handy man if you will, who mastered primitive tool making. They were followed by homo erectus, upright man, who not only walked solidly on two feet, but mastered fire. A long time later we finally arrived: homo sapien, wise man (or is it wise guy), who mastered language and writing and computer science.

It is Harari’s belief that we will soon become homo deus, god-man; super-human, god-like creatures, part carbon, part silicon; part man, part machine; an indistinguishable blend of human and robot.

This revolutionary, evolutionary great leap forward will ironically lead to the extinction of the human race as we now know it. As Harari says in his attention grabbing quote at the top of his website: “History began when humans invented gods, and will end when humans become gods.”

What does Harari mean when he says we will become gods? He explains that, “The upgrading of humans into gods may follow any of three paths: biological engineering, cyborg engineering and the engineering of non-organic beings.”

The first will involve the intentional rewriting of our genetic code and the altering of our biochemical composition.

The second will involve the intentional merging of our organic body with non-organic devices such as bionic hands, artificial eyes, and nano-robots infused into our bloodstream.

The third will involve the supplementing and eventual replacement of our neural network, meaning our brain, with artificial intelligence.

The reason we will want to do all this, according to Harari, is that it will be the final fulfillment of humanity’s three deepest desires: immortality, bliss and omnipotence. We want to live forever, we want to be happy forever, and we want to be all powerful.

Harari points out that that the march toward this holy trinity is unstoppable. The desire is unquenchable. The progress is inexorable. And the technology is inevitable.

After all, Harari grandly notes, over the past century humankind has managed to do the impossible: turn the uncontrollable forces of nature⏤namely famine, plague and war, the big three scourges of human history, into manageable challenges. Today more people die from eating too much then from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by war or crime.

Harari cheerfully cautions against calling this future world populated by homo deus dystopian. He emphasizes how homo deus will alleviate human suffering, enable us to survive on Earth, and embolden us to populate the planets. But in the process Harari does admit that freedom and equality, humanism, liberalism, rationalism⏤all the isms we cherish⏤will collapse and disappear. He further concedes that the rate of change is accelerating so quickly that we have no idea how society will truly function by the end of the century. Homo deus will be more different from homo sapiens than we were from homo erectus. In the pursuit of health, happiness and power we will upend every assumption about human life that you can possibly make.

Harari has a sub-chapter heading, “Can Someone Please Hit the Brakes?” Then he proceeds to say, um, no we can’t. Firstly, nobody knows where the brakes are. And secondly, our economy and society will crash if we try.

Well, I can hit the brakes. With my remaining five minutes. So here goes.

Yuval Noah Harari is heir to a great religious tradition. I feel badly that he scorns his birthright.

Not because he doesn’t believe in God. He’s entitled, and anyway, Judaism is a big-tent religion that has room for believers and non-believers alike.

Not because he is, evidently, a non-practicing Jew. He’s entitled, and anyway, Judaism is a big tent ethnicity that has room for secular Jews, cultural Jews, and even Jews who, like Harari, embrace Eastern meditation, call them Bu-Jews (or is it Jew-bus).

And not because he agrees with Marx that religion is an opiate for the masses, and its adherents deluded followers of now discredited myths.

No, what makes me sad is that Harari ignores the great ethical revolution of ancient Israel, known as Prophetic Judaism, which changed the course of Western Civilization.

The Prophets gave to the world a moral imperative that is as essential today as it was two millennia ago… and maybe even more so.

They gave us the Golden Rule that we should do unto others as we would others do unto us.

They gave us the Great Commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves.

They gave us the Ten Commandments that forbid murder and theft.

They gave us the charge to love the stranger, the widow, the orphan… those most vulnerable in our society, those without a voice.

They gave us the demand “to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly”.

While the Greeks gave us reason and science, the Hebrews gave us compassion and ethics.

Leo Strauss said that “Western man became what he is, and is what he is, through the coming together of Greek thought and biblical faith” [emphasis and order mine].

Matthew Arnold wrote that “Hebraism and Hellenism are the two essential philosophies of life between which civilized man must choose.”

Solomon Freehof clarified that, “The Greek is interested in nature’s law; the Hebrew in nature’s lawgiver. The Greek is interested in peace of heart; the Hebrew in progress of character. The Greek said: Seek harmony and your will find serenity; the Hebrews said: Seek holiness and you will find nobility.”

As we hurtle toward the future we need Athens and we need Jerusalem.

We need the Greek sensibility that the unexamined life is not worth living, and we need the Hebraic sensibility that the immoral life is not worth living.

We cannot fear the advance of science, and anyway Harari is right that it will speed ahead whether we like it or not.

But neither should we abandon the insights of religion that will tap the brakes, and slow us down just enough to temper knowledge with wisdom.

It’s a touch ironic that the brave new world depicted by Harari was in a way anticipated by the opening myth of Genesis. Adam and Eve want to eat not just from the Tree of Knowledge but also from the Tree of Life; they want to be omniscient and immortal. That is why God says in Gen.3:22, “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and bad, what if he should stretch our his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever!”

But remember that the full name of the second tree is The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad. Humankind is unique in its moral discernment. That is why God can pose the question to Adam and Eve, “What is this you have done?” (Gen. 3:13). And that is why the question is repeated to Cain (Gen.4:10), after he is explicitly warned, “Sin crouches at the door; its urge is toward you, yet you can be its master.” (Gen.4:7)

It makes no sense to judge ourselves if we don’t know right from wrong.

It makes no sense to warn ourselves if we can’t control our actions.

If makes no sense to even question ourselves if we can’t take responsibility for those actions.

When Cain asks, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” the answer is yes! “Your brother’s blood cries out to me!” (Gen.4:9-10).

If we are going to reprogram our brains the software package better contain an ethical decision making file, or we will not become homo deus, but homo roboticus, mere robotic drones in human look-alike costume.

The clock is ticking… but my time is up. This leaves me only a minute for a shameless promotion. After you read Homo Deus you need to read one volume on the prophetic revolution of Ancient Israel that I have posited as the ethical antidote to unbridled technology.

Have no fear… that book has now been written, and will appear this spring. It is called, Path of the Prophets: The Ethics Driven Life. It is five years to a lifetime in the making. It is written by yours truly. I will even give you a good discount on the work, and sign it for free.

You see, if we are truly wise the next stage of human evolution will not be homo deus, but homo moralis, moral man.

And our brave new world will be not a nightmare, but a dream. In the words of the poet:

And then all that has divided us will merge
And then compassion will be wedded to power
And then softness will come to a world that is harsh and unkind
And then both men and women will be gentle
And then both women and men will be strong
And then no person will be subject to another's will
And then all will be rich and free and varied
And then the greed of some will give way to the needs of many
And then all will share equally in the Earth's abundance
And then all will care for the sick and the weak and the old
And then all will nourish the young
And then all will cherish life's creatures
And then everywhere will be called Eden once again. (Judy Chicago, 1979)