Happy Torah!

This evening we celebrate the holiday of Simchat Torah, which can be translated as rejoicing in the Law, or simply Happy Torah!  According to the Union for Reform Judaism's Simchat Torah page, the holiday

celebrates the completion of the annual reading of the Torah. Simchat Torah is a joyous festival, in which we affirm our view of the Torah as a tree of life and demonstrate a living example of never-ending, lifelong study. Torah scrolls are taken from the ark and carried or danced around the synagogue seven times. During the Torah service, the concluding section of Deuteronomy is read, and immediately following, the opening section of Genesis, or B'reishit as it is called in Hebrew, is read.

In honor of Simchat Torah, here is a music video featuring words and music by Abie Rotenberg, telling the story of a Torah scroll from Kiev:





Does it put you in mind of our own Torah scrolls, and our little wooden shul in Leonia? Rotenberg's song begins with the writing of the Torah by a sofer, a Torah scribe, and to get a sense of how that's done, here is a video called Writing Sefer Torah Ashkenzai כתיבת ספר תורה that shows the writing of "one line from the Torah scroll, Balaq, Bamidbar. The speed is x2, to demostrate how much time it takes and to show the process of writing and making the taggin ( the 'crowns' on certain letters)."





The sofer also explains that "The material I'm writing on is parchment (aka vellum or klaf in Hebrew). I use a quill pen made of turkey feather and special homemade ink."  And while we're on the subject, let's take a look at how they celebrate Simchat Torah in Israel with some amatuer video footage recorded in 2009 in Tel Aviv:





Our own celebration tonight will be limited to the sanctuary and temple grounds, but it will most certainly be just as joyous. Come join us for a Happy Torah and Chag Sameach!

Shalom Sukkot

As the week-long Festival of Sukkot comes to a close, here is Noam's Etrog Farm, a short documentary, courtesy of Shalom Sesame, about a boy in Israel who visits an etrog farm and helps his family build their sukkah to prepare for the holiday:




And also from our friends from Shalom Sesame, Kids Talk About Sukkot, featuring real children from Israel describing the symbols and traditions of the holiday using their own words (in English).





And as the last two children relate, at the end of Sukkot comes Simchat Torah, a holiday we will be celebrating tomorrow evening at Congregation Adas Emuno, at 7 PM, which will include the consecration of our new Religious School students. We hope to see you there!

Beth Ziff's Yom Kippur Appeal

Good morning, good yuntif, good to see you.

It has been about a year since we've all been together. You look good. Haven't

aged a bit.

We have reached that point in the service where the squirming, coughing,

sleeping, whispering, and some listening begins—yes, the appeal.

When Virginia Gitter reached out to me to let me know the board had asked that I

deliver the appeal, I was honored and then thought about the fact that this was

the first time I have not been a part of the board in many, many years and so

naturally, just when you think you are out, they pull you back in...

I have been dreing my kop thinking about what to say, how to make this

meaningful, interesting, and actionable.

The Rabbi planted wonderful seeds about our community, our need to survive, and

about living, praying and giving—reigniting the flame within.

So let's explore for a moment. If you will, take a deep breath in and let it out. Again.

In this momentary pause let your head fill with thoughts about this place.

Who did you come here with? Family? Friends? Alone? Why did you come here today?

What does it mean to you?

The people? The warm welcome you receive? The small, intimate space?

We joined Adas Emuno in the mid 90s when our children were in elementary school.

The feeling we had was one of being welcomed and accepted. Everyone hung loose. It

was okay to have squirmy kids in temple. And, we were invited to get involved right

away.

When did you join? What was your first encounter like? Who did you meet?

We met lifelong friends because of Adas Emuno. We were not the go-to-temple-every-week kind of people and yet we were drawn in to this place.

Even though the kids balked about waking up for Religious School, they learned

Hebrew, learned about who we are as Reform Jews, learned about our traditions. They

came home with interesting projects, we won't go into detail about the wooden menorah

that caught on fire...

What is your experience with our Religious School? If you have never seen it, check us

out on a Sunday when over 70 kids are filling our classrooms from Kindergarten through

Confirmation. It is a whirlwind of activity and it is our future.

In the 2000s our children were bar mitzvahed. When did your children become

b'nai mitzvah? Have you ever been to a bar or bat mitzvah here? It is like no other. In 

this community our kids lead services. They fully engage with the clergy and the

congregation. Each one is awesome and special.

September 12, 2001. This community came together to grieve, pray, support one

another. People from all over the neighborhood showed up. We talked, we shared, we

cried, we hugged.

Over the past 17 years, our family has had moments of involvement and we have been

MIA. We have participated and we have not. We have experienced many clergy

members. Full time, part time, students, fully ordained and invested. The one constant

has been our community. The people. The buildings. The traditions. Knowing that the

temple is always there, if we choose to come or not.

How long have you been connected to Adas Emuno? What is the draw that brings you

here and back again?

Something brought you to this place. This place that is always and hopefully will always

be there for you. In good times and bad, for simchas and for mourning. For education

and action, for respite and for healing. For belonging and support.

Many things have changed over the past 140 plus years. Many things have remained

the same. That's the beauty of our congregation. You take what you want and get

what you need.

As you think about the coming year, reignite your connection to Adas Emuno. Living,

praying, giving. How you live and pray is very personal. How you give affects the entire

community.

With your contributions we survive. With your contributions we maintain our home,

school, and sanctuary. With your contributions we inch toward 150 years... our

sesquicentenial?

What is the catalyst that will make you say, this year I am going to give to Adas Emuno?

Give because you feel a connection
Give because you come to services regularly
Give because you do not
Give because you have children in the religious school
Give because your children were bar or bat mitzvahed here
Give because you want to
Give because you feel a little guilty not giving
Give because you only come to temple on the holidays
Give because you connect with the clergy
Give because you can
Give because it's a tax deduction
Give because we asked
Give because you belong to this community
GIve because it is the right thing to do
Give because we need to survive
Give because you never have done so before
Give because you always do so
Give more than last year
Give because you want this place, this wonderful, intimate, spiritual place to be here
whenever you need it.

Thank you for giving. Thank you for supporting the commitment to keep our

Congregation alive and thriving.

Gimme Sukkah

This is just a reminder that the weeklong Festival of Sukkot is still going strong. If you missed the celebration this past Sunday evening, or even if you didn't, join us tomorrow night for Shabbat in the sanctuary and another visit to our congregational sukkah.

And in the spirit of the holiday, straight from YouTube, here are The Fountainheads from the Ein Prat Academy in Israel singing a parody of "Marry You" by Bruno Mars, "Livin' in a Booth":





According to the write-up, "no Etrogim were harmed in the filming of this video. (Lemons are a different story)"

And here are their credits:

Vocals: Yoav Hoze, Shani Lachmish, Ahava Katzin, Orri Dror, and Amit Ben Atar. Choreography by Tamar Erel.

Music arrangement, performance, and mixing by Amit Ben Atar. Recorded at Bit Studios by Amit Ben Atar.

Directed and Filmed by Ben R. Producer: Yair Talmon

And here are the lyrics by Ben R.:

It's a beautiful night
We're looking for something fun to do
Hey baby
I think I wanna build a booth

Is it the stars in the sky?
Or is it these dancing Jews?
Well who cares, baby
I think we're livin' in a booth

Well, in my tabernacle
I got everything we need
For the show
With my Etro-oog
So, come on now

Who cares if it rains
Gotta whole lotta chains
Don't you know
This Schach doesn't go
It stays on, yo

Don't say no no no no no
Say lu lav lav lav lav lav
And we'll go go go go go
If you're shakin', like I'm shakin'

Cause it's a beautiful night
We're looking for something fun to do
Hey baby
I think I wanna build a booth

Is it the stars in the sky
Or is it these dancing Jews?
Who cares, baby
I think we're livin' in a booth

Campin out here
There's nothing to fear
We'll go far
Under the stars
It's all right girl.

If we wake up and the
Sukkah breaks up, that's cool
No, I won't blame you
Let's just run yo

Don't say no no no no no
Say lu lav lav lav lav lav
And we'll go go go go
If you're shakin, like I'm shakin'

U'shavtem mayim besasson (draw water with joy)
Mimaynei hayshua (from the wellsprings of salvation)
Waters overflow
From the fountains of salvation

Oooh....

Just dwell in booths
Say it right now baby,
Say it right now baby

Just dwell in booths
Say it right now baby,
Say it right now!

And in case you were looking for something more gangsta (no reference to Arnold Rothstein, Bugsy Siegel, or Meyer Lanksy intended), here is Eprhyme doing a remix of "Gimme Shelter" as a Sukkot Song:





So, chag sameach, have a happy Sukkot for the remainder of the week, and join us tomorrow night for our Sukkot Shabbat!

History and Freedom

You may recall from two previous posts, Hannah Arendt, Jewish Philosopher, and Hannah Arendt and Charlie Chaplin, that I occasionally serve as a guest blogger for the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College.  And this past August, when we went over potential dates for my next installment, one of the possibilities was September 17, and that leapt out at me because it was Rosh Hashanah.  And as it turns out, I found a perfect quote for the occasion, so I wrote it up ahead of time, and it was posted on their blog on Rosh Hashanah morning. You can see it in its original context, with the same title as here:  History and Freedom, but I'm also happy to share it with you here on our congregational blog.  And I want to say thank you to Bridget Hollenback, the Hannah Arendt Center's Director of Outreach and Social Media, who provided the images for my post on their blog, which I've taken the liberty of including here as well.  So, without further ado, here is my Hannah Arendt Quote for Rosh Hashanah: 

The history of humanity is not a hotel where someone can rent a room whenever it suits him; nor is it a vehicle which we board or get out of at random.  Our past will be for us a burden beneath which we can only collapse for as long as we refuse to understand the present and fight for a better future.  Only then—but from that moment on—will the burden become a blessing, that is, a weapon in the battle for freedom.

 -Hannah Arendt, "Moses or Washington" (March 27, 1942) 

This eloquent quote from Hannah Arendt moves through a series of metaphors for historical consciousness. The first two, history is a hotel, and history is a vehicle, are rejected as misleading.  Hotels and vehicles are both transitional spaces, areas inhabited on a temporary basis, not permanent dwellings.  History is not a place we visit for a short period of time, or a place we merely use to get from point A to point B. Arendt further implies that history is not a commodity to be bought and sold, used and disposed of according to our mood.  But this is less a statement of fact than an admonition, in response to the fact that it is indeed possible for individuals to reject and deny their past, to ignore and abandon their history.  It is a commonplace to say that we cannot choose our parents, and the history of humanity that Arendt is concerned with is, after all, an extension of our personal and family histories.

   

 As an admonition, Arendt's remarks may seem to be a simple restatement of George Santayana's famous 1905 quote, "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."  And clearly, she shares in this sentiment about the importance of collective memory and the need to learn from the errors of previous eras. But she goes beyond this simple formulation by invoking the metaphor of history as a burden. History has gravity, history has weight, and the longer the historical memory, the heavier the baggage that accompanies it. Historical mass accumulates over time, and also through innovations in communications.  In oral cultures, where writing is absent, history as we understand it does not exist; instead there is myth and legend, preserved through oral tradition by way of continued repetition via oral performance.  Given the limitations of human memory, details about the past are forgotten within a generation or two, and the main function of myth and legend is to reflect and explain present circumstances.  This collective amnesia allows for a great deal of cultural flexibility and social homeostasis, a freedom from the burden of history that literate cultures take up.  The written word first makes possible chronological recordkeeping, and later historical narrative framed as an ongoing progression of events; this linear conception of time replaces the cyclical past of oral tradition, and what Mircea Eliade referred to as the myth of eternal return.  And so we hear the complaint of school children in generation after generation, that history is so much harder now than it was for their parents, because now there is so much more of it than ever before. 

 History is a burden, one that becomes too much to bear if all we are doing is living in the past, in rigid adherence to a fixed and unchanging tradition.  But Arendt adds the complementary metaphor of history as a blessing.  The burden can become a blessing if we use the past to understand the present, to serve the present, not to overwhelm or command the present.  The past can inform the present, history helps us to see why things are the way they are, why we do the things we do; being mindful of the past is a means to help fulfill Arendt’s goal ofthinking what we are doing.  But it is not enough simply to live in the present, and for the present.  We also have to look towards the future, to work for progress in the moral, ethical, and social sense, to enlarge the scope of human freedom.  And in light of this goal, Arendt invokes her fifth and final metaphor for history:  history is a weapon.  It is a weapon not to destroy or dominate others, or at least that is not what Arendt intends it to be, but rather a sword of liberty, an instrument to be used in the fight against oppression.

   

This quote reflects Arendt's overriding concern with human freedom.  The battle for freedom that she refers to is a collective struggle, not an individual quest.  It can only be achieved by political cooperation and unity, not by solitary escape from tyranny.  The commonly used phrase in western cultures, individual freedom, while not without value, all too easily eclipses the necessity of freedom as a shared responsibility, and in excess becomes oxymoronic.  As the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., so eloquently put it, "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" and "no one is free while others are oppressed."  Freedom for all, shared freedom, requires a sense of affiliation, kinship, connection, which in turn requires a sense of continuity over time. Just as individual memory is intimately related to individual identity, our collective memory is the key to group identity.  History is the foundation of community. 

Historical consciousness, which is derived from literacy, did not become widespread until after the diffusion of typography.  In addition to making written history widely available, print media such as calendars and periodicals made individuals aware of their place in history as never before, down to the basic knowledge of the year, month, and date that we all take for granted, not to mention awareness of our date of birth and age.  And as the great historian of printing, Elizabeth Eisenstein explains, more than any other factor, it was the printing revolution that gave rise to modernity.  The irony is that as printing made the past more accessible, it also made it seem less valuable, resulting in modernity's ahistorical tendencies.  Focus shifted from venerating tradition to revering progress, from looking back to origins to looking forward for originality.  This is exemplified by the fact that printing gave us two new literary forms, the news, and the novel. 

And so we get Henry Ford saying, "history is bunk," and dystopian novels like Brave New World and 1984 portraying future societies where history is either deleted or subject to constant revision.  Without a sense of the past, sensitivity to the future is undermined, and with the advent of instantaneous electronic communications beginning with telegraphy in the 19th century, more and more emphasis has been placed on the now, the present tense, leading us to lose touch with both the past and the future.  Conceptions of the past have also been affected by the rise of image culture, beginning with photography in the 19th century, so that a coherent sense of linear history came to be replaced by a discontinuous, and therefore incoherent collection of snapshots evoking nostalgia, as Susan Sontag observed in On Photography.  What Arendt makes clear is that contemporary present-minded ahistoricism risks more than Santayana's Sisyphean purgatory, but a true hell of oppression and slavery. 

So far, I have stressed a universal interpretation of this quote, and ignored its particular context.  Arendt's admonition originates in a column she wrote for a Jewish newspaper, Aufbau, published in New York for German-speaking Jews, as part of a critique of the Reform movement in Judaism.  The movement originated in 19th century Germany, as a response to the Enlightenment, and the Emancipation initiated by Napoleon, wherein Jews were released from ghetto confinement and given a measure of equal rights and citizenship.

To accommodate their newly established status, the Reform movement sought to recast Judaism in the image of Protestantism, as just another religious sect.  Apart from a liberalizing and modernizing of worship and religious requirements, this meant abandoning Jewish identity as a people, as a nation in exile, so as to give full political allegiance to the new nation-states of the west, and embrace a new national identity as citizens of Germany, or France, or England, or the United States.  Consequently, the Reform movement rejected Zionism and made loyalty to the nation of one's birth a religious duty.  Jewish identity and tradition were thereby reduced, compartmentalized as only a form of religious belief and practice, their political significance abandoned. 

 Arendt's criticism is consonant with Jewish tradition, as the Torah repeatedly asks the Jewish people to remember, to remember the Exodus, to remember the revelation at Mount Sinai, toremember God's laws and commandments, to remember God's commitment to social justice.  Rather than make an argument for a return to Orthodoxy, however, Arendt's concern is characteristically philosophical.  Immediately before concluding her column with the passage quoted above, Arendt makes a more specific appeal regarding models of political leadership and moral guidance: 

As long as the Passover story does not teach the difference between freedom and slavery, as long as the Moses legend does not call to mind the eternal rebellion of the heart and mind against slavery, the "oldest document of human history" will remain dead and mute to no one more than the very people who once wrote it.  And while all of Christian humanity has appropriated our history for itself, reclaiming our heroes as humanity's heroes, there is paradoxically a growing number of those who believe they must replace Moses and David with Washington or Napoleon.  Ultimately, this attempt to forget our own past and to find youth again at the expense of strangers will fail—simply because Washington's and Napoleon's heroes were named Moses and David. 

Written in the dark times that followed Hitler's rise to power, the outbreak of the Second World War, and the establishment of Eichmann's concentration camps, Arendt's words are all the more poignant and powerful in their call for taking pride in the Jewish tradition of fighting for freedom and justice, and for an awareness that the cause of liberty and human rights have their roots in that most ancient of documents. 

Arendt's criticisms of the excesses of Reform Judaism were widely shared, and the movement itself changed dramatically in response to the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel.  Reform Judaism reversed its stance on Zionism, and remains a staunch supporter of the Jewish state, albeit with a willingness to engage in criticism of Israeli government policies and decisions.  At the same time, Reform religious observance, while still distinct from that of the Orthodox and Conservative branches, has gradually restored many elements of traditional worship over the years.  And the celebration of Jewish culture and identity has become normalized during the past half century. 

For example, witness Aly Raisman's gold medal-winning gymnastic routine at the recently completed London Olympics, performed to the tune of Hava Nagila; Keith Stern, the rabbi at the Reform synagogue that Aly attends, explained that " it indicates Aly’s Jewish life is so integrated into her entire soul, that I don’t think she was looking to make a statement as a Jew, I think it was so natural to her that it's more like, why wouldn’t she use the Hora? It shows again her confidence and tradition in a really fundamental way."

   

Raisman's musical selection made an important statement as well, in light of the International Olympics Committee's decision not to have a moment of silence during the opening ceremonies to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the death of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in a terrorist attack.  I think that Arendt would be nodding in approval at the way in which the teenage captain of the United States women's gymnastics team, in her own way, followed the example of Moses and David. 

Arendt's passage about history and freedom is a fitting one, I believe, for a Quote of the Weekpost scheduled to appear on the same day as Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which is also said to be the birthday of the world.  The calendar year now turns to 5773, and 5,773 years is roughly the age of history itself, of recorded history, of written records, which originate in Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization.  And while Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are referred to as the High Holy Days, and are popularly thought to be the most important in Jewish tradition, in truth it is the Passover that is the oldest, and most significant, of our holidays, lending further support to Arendt's argument.  But even more important than Passover is the weekly observance of the Sabbath day, which is mandated by the Fourth Commandment.  And in the new Sabbath liturgy recently adopted by the American Reform movement, there is a prayer adapted from a passage in the book Exodus and Revolution by political philosopher Michael Walzer, that is worth sharing in this context:

Standing on the parted shores of history

We still believe what we were taught

Before ever we stood at Sinai’s foot;

That wherever we go, it is eternally Egypt

That there is a better place, a promised land;

That the winding way to that promise

Passes through the wilderness.

That there is no way to get from here to there

Except by joining hands, marching together.

The message of this prayer is that only by working together can we transform the burden of history into a blessing, only by working together can we wield the shared history of humanity in the service of human freedom and social justice.  This is what Arendt wanted us to understand, to commit to memory, and to learn by heart.

Seasons of Love

To follow up on Rabbi Schwartz's Yom Kippur Sermon for 5773 posted yesterday, here is the music video for "Seasons of Love," written by the Jewish composer and playwright Jonathan Larson, from the hit musical Rent:

And here are the lyrics:

ALL
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes,
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Moments so dear.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights
In cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.

In five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure
A year in the life?

How about love?
How about love?
How about love? Measure in love

Seasons of love. Seasons of love

JOANNE
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes!
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Journeys to plan.

Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure the life
Of a woman or a man?

COLLINS
In truths that she learned,
Or in times that he cried.
In bridges he burned,
Or the way that she died.

ALL
It's time now to sing out,
Tho' the story never ends
Let's celebrate
Remember a year in the life of friends
Remember the love!
Remember the love!
Seasons of love!

JOANNE(while ALL sing)
Oh you got to got to
Remember the love!
You know that love is a gift from up above
Share love, give love spread love
Measure measure your life in love.

 And here's the full version featuring the original Broadway cast:



Jonathan Larson received three Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Rent, all posthumous. Originally from White Plains, New York, and a graduate of Adelphi University in Garden City, Larson based Rent on his experience living together with several roommates in an unheated loft in lower Manhattan.  

Larson passed away from a heart ailment in 1996, the day before the show opened off-Broadway, and two weeks shy of his 36th birthday.  Rent went on to become the ninth longest running show in the history of Broadway, and was made into a feature film in 2005.

The Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation was set up by his family friends in his memory, and the Jonathan Larson Grants are now administered by the American Theatre Wing to provide financial support for individual creative theatre artists.

How do you measure the life of a woman or man? Indeed, is there a better answer than, in love?

Rabbi Schwartz's Sermon for Yom Kippur 5773

SEASONS OF LOVE

YOM KIPPUR, 5773

RABBI BARRY L. SCHWARTZ

Surely you remember the Broadway musical Rent, and that marvelous song, “Seasons of Love”?

Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes,
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Moments so dear.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?

So asked Jonathan Larson, the young, Jewish playwright and composer of Rent, who tragically passed away of a heart ailment on the eve of the show’s Broadway debut.

How do we measure a year? A perfectly appropriate question on these, the High Holy Days.

When we gather in this place, at this time, at the ancient turning of the Jewish year, at the holy hour which culminates the ten days of soul searching and introspection, we are inescapably confronted with the passage of time, and the consequences of our acts.

We have started counting a new Jewish year. Five thousand seven hundred and seventy three years, since the Creation of the world… give or take a few billion.

But more importantly, how do we judge the year gone by?

The New Year is a time of counting, but even more it is a time of accounting.

No sooner do we mark the New Year on Rosh Hashanah then we are told to spend the next ten days dwelling on the previous one.

How, then, do we measure a year?

Larson continues,

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights
In cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.

In five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure
A year in the life?

And then he concludes,

How about love?
Measure in love.
Seasons of love.

What a challenge!

To measure in love. To judge the year gone by our triumphs and failures… of love.

There are a myriad of ways to “number our days,” in the phrase of the Psalmist, but what of the measure of love?

By the standard of professional accomplishment, I may have had an exceptional year, a mediocre year, a sub-par year… But what about love?

By the standard of economic gain, I may have had an exceptional year, a mediocre year, a sub-par year… But what about love?

By so many standards of stature and affluence, I may have scaled the heights, or experienced the depths… But what about love?

The Hebrew word for love, ahavah, like the English, conveys multiple meanings depending on the context.

What do we really mean by love?

Consider the help of the Classical Greek, which employs three terms:

Eros—romantic love.
Philos—fraternal love.
Agape—spiritual love.

The Torah implies this range of relationships:

Genesis teaches us about eros, the romantic love between husband and wife, or the lack thereof. From Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, to Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob, Leah and Rachel.

So too, these sacred stories portray the depths of philos, the fraternal love, or the lack thereof, between siblings. Cain and Abel. Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers.

The great commandments of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy speak of agape, spiritual love:

Love your neighbor as yourself. 

Love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. 

Love the Lord your God, with all you heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.

The Torah ideal, like the Broadway song, is that love is the measure of our relationships.

And while that may start with our spouse or children, and goes on to our parents, siblings, and extended family, its radiates out to our friends, neighbors, colleagues, employees… And even to the one we do not know or do not like.

I am always struck by the response Martin Luther King, Jr, gave when asked how he felt about an arch segregationist senator who opposed his every move:

I do not like Senator Eastland from Mississippi, but I must learn to love him.

And so on this Yom Kippur, when we turn and take a reckoning of our triumphs and failures of love over the past year, what is the accounting?

Do we emerge a loving spouse?

A loving parent? Brother? Sister? Son? Daughter?

Do we emerge as a loving friend, colleague, boss?

Part of our nature pulls in that direction. But part does not:

Was our incessant egotism checked by abundant altruism? 

Was our recurrent selfishness balanced by regular selflessness? 

Was our angry demand for justice eased by a desire for compassion? 

Was our impulse to dominate tempered by a willingness to cooperate? 

Was our stiff necked stubbornness relaxed by a readiness to compromise? 

Was our proclivity toward indifference mitigated by a yearning for reconciliation?

When we extend the embrace of love beyond our home, to our community, and even our workplace, what is the accounting?

Did I treat my colleague as I would treat myself? 

Did I accord the basic level of respect and dignity to my nemesis even in my hour of frustration or vexation? 

Did I rise to the challenge of loving the needy? The vulnerable? The marginalized? The distressed? The stranger I do not know?

The Torah commands this love of the stranger thirty-six times, because “you know the heart of the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

Empathy born of history.

What has happened to our collective memory? Did I (do we) measure up?

I don’t know about you, but I'm concerned. If I weigh the triumphs of love, with the failures of love, I'm not so happy with the balance.

The shortcomings hurt. The disappointments hurt. The lost opportunities hurt.

They hurt us, and they hurt our loved ones.

And the closer these loved ones are to us, the more it hurts.

Why is it that we make the greatest mistakes with the people we care about the most?

But the Jewish New Year comes to say: We can begin again.

Keep a vision of the good before you, and begin again.

Profess what you did right, confess what you did wrong, and begin again.

Own up to your mistakes and begin again.

Embrace repentance and reconciliation and begin again.

Start tipping those scales in the right direction, right now.

Because your life depends on it, and because the world, which is the sum of all those individual scales, depends on it.

Every week we talk about love when we recite the second prayer after the Barechu, the prayer that comes just before the Shema.

The striking expression that begins the prayer is Ahavat Olam, unending love, or perhaps, unconditional love.

Ahavat olam… ahavtah: “You have loved us eternally.”

Such love, our tradition teaches, characterizes God’s relationship to us.

And we are taught, imitatio Dei, to imitate God.

Such love, our tradition urges, should characterize our relationship with others.

Love that is unceasingly. Unrequited. Unconditional.

The Torah puts forth the radical notion that as God loves us flaws and all, that is the way we should guide our lives.

Rabbi Rami Shapiro has written a beautiful prayer based on the traditional Ahavat Olam of the Siddur. As I read it now, think about how you might be more open to both receiving, and giving, of unconditional love.

We are loved by an unending love.
We are embraced by arms that find us
Even when we are hidden from ourselves. 

We are touched by fingers that soothe us
Even when we are too proud for soothing.
We are counseled by voices that guide us
Even when we are too embittered to hear.
We are loved by an unending love. 

We are supported by hands that uplift us
Even in the midst of a fall.
We are urged on by eyes that meet us
Even when we are too week for meeting.
We are loved by an unending love. 

Embraced, touched, soothed, and counseled
Ours are the arms, the fingers, the voices;
Ours are the hands, the eyes, the smiles,
We are loved by an unending love.

Now I would love to conclude on this pure and poetic note, but I need to add one other point: Love, even unconditional love, is complicated.

As I was completing this sermon, [now here comes my confession], I was watching the speeches at the Republican National Convention. Lo and behold, wouldn’t you know, that Ann Romney starts off talking about love.

This is what she said:

I want to talk to you tonight about that one great thing that unites us, that one great thing that brings us our greatest joy when times are good and the greatest solace in our dark hours. Tonight I want to talk about love.

She goes on to talk about the importance of unconditional love, and who could disagree with that?

Well our governor, Chris Christie, for one, who followed her speech with his. Christie stands up and says,

And the greatest lesson that my mom ever taught me was this one: She told me there would be a time in your life when you have to choose between being loved and being respected.

Christie goes on to say that love without respect is fleeting and that people in general, and leaders in particular, should stop wanting to always be loved and start making the hard choices they constantly avoid.

So who is right?

Well, I think Anne is right that unconditional love is the greatest thing.

But I think that the governor is making the case for what we often call tough love.

Are the two in conflict? I think not. Unconditional love is not necessarily uncritical love.

As parents, for example, don’t we often criticize and even punish our children for their own good, to help them grow up in the right way? It’s not that we don’t love them.

You children out there, let me repeat that: It’s not that we don’t love you.

This is precisely what the prophets of the Bible said repeatedly about God’s relationship to Israel.

Listen to the famous words of Isaiah (54:7-8):

For a little while I forsook you,
But with vast love I will bring you back.
In slight anger, for a moment,
I hid My face from you,
But with kindness everlasting
I will take you back in love.

So now, at this holy time, I conclude by asking:

Can we create a new season of love?

Can we turn to our loved ones and say:

Even though I see your flaws… I love you. 

Even though I know your secrets… I love you. 

Even though you may have ignored me… I love you. 

Even though you may have disappointed me, slighted me, rejected me, hurt me… I love you. 

Even though you are not the easiest partner… I love you. 

Even though you are not the most understanding parent… I love you. 

Even though you are not the most respectful child… I love you. 

And I… I am a flawed partner, I am a faulty parent, I am an imperfect child, sibling, friend, or fellow… But I ask you to love me the same.

Paul wrote famously:

Love is patient; love is kind. It is not jealous nor boastful nor proud; never selfish nor quick to take offense. Love keeps no score of wrongs, does not gloat over another’s sins, but delights in the truth. Love never gives up; there is no limit to its faith, its hope, its endurance.

Which brings me back to a song:

Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year? 

How about love?

[see our next post for more on Jonathan Larson and Rent, and to listen to "Seasons of Love"]