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What do we value? - YK am talk 5778 - page 1 of 14

What do we value?

Good morning, gut yuntif, and Shabbat shalom. It’s my privilege to join

with you all today on this journey of introspection, this opportunity to stand

together in the comfort of our community, while we take the deepest of looks

at ourselves. Yom Kippur is the most individually-focused of Jewish holidays;

this time designated for such intense individual work is unusual in a tradition

in which we pretty much don’t do anything important by ourselves. As we

each take the time today to examine who we’ve been, who we are, and who

we’re hoping to be in the coming year, I’d also like to take this time for some

communal self-reflection, to explore the question of how we define ourselves

as Jews, in this time and place. Hopefully, a better understanding of what we

share, of what brings us together, will help us to better understand

ourselves.

So, how do we understand ourselves, as Jews? Many religious groups

define themselves by their set of core beliefs, which are usually a shared

philosophy about the Divine, and/or a belief in their tradition’s sacred texts.

There’s really only one absolute Jewish belief about the Divine (I’ll talk more

about that later on), and since it isn’t that you have to believe in God in

order to live a Jewish life, it’s not quite as universally defining a characteristic

as it is for many other religions. Also, we contemporary, non-Orthodox Jews

have a somewhat unique relationship to our sacred texts - we don’t take

those texts literally. For us, the Torah and the Tanakh - the stories of our

people - are our narrative foundation, but having been written in such a


different time and place, they don’t define how we live today. Those texts’

commandments (mitzvot in Hebrew) can be difficult if not impossible to

apply to our lives; some are vague and open-ended, some contradictory,

some completely irrelevant, and some feel so extreme, so wrong, that it

seems like pushing our buttons about important issues in our lives can’t not

be be their primary function. When you add all of that up, we can’t really say

that our core beliefs are embodied by any one particular text or set of texts.

There’s no such thing as a Jewish catechism.

For many contemporary Jews, the answer to the question of self-

definition is that we are defined by our values - which is why the question on

our website that was the prompt for this talk was “Which Jewish values are

important to you?” The online Oxford English dictionary defines ‘values’ as

“principles or standards of behavior; one's judgement of what is important in

life.” In practice, values are the intangible ideals that groups consider to

objectively define them, on which they base who they are and what they do.

Curating a list of values is particularly important to a group like us, for whom

the list of the principles that we hold to be important in is not definitively

collated anywhere. Asking what our most important values are is a process

that every Jew, and every group of Jews, should go through periodically,

because that definitive list doesn’t exist. For those of us living Jewish lives,

we probably feel like we know who we are and what’s important to us - but

we might find that articulating those values is something of a challenge.

Which is, of course, why I asked you this question.


So, what are the values that define us, and how do we identify them?

And, what do we do with them, how do they manifest in our lives? One of the

values that I most strongly identify with - something that I think most of you

share with me - is the importance in our tradition of asking questions, of not

accepting simple explanations for, or seemingly straightforward narratives

about, anything. As I’ve spoken about many times, the beginning of our most

sacred text, the Torah, embodies this value, by starting off with two

different, seemingly contradictory versions of the story of creation. It’s

difficult to read one story in which man is created after all other living things,

and then another in which man is created before them, and not ask

questions like ‘Is one of these stories the correct one? and Why are both

stories in the text?’ Not only are the narratives throughout the Tanakh often

confusing - I challenge you to accurately stage-direct when and where Moses

goes during the encounter at Mt. Sinai, for example - but some of our most

fundamental instructions are rather vague. Not working on the Sabbath, for

example, sounds pretty straightforward - until you need to know whether or

not something like lighting a match counts as work. Rarely are our sacred

texts clear in meaning or easy to follow; their fundamental nature seems to

encourage us to ask questions about them - which programs us to ask

questions about nearly everything in our lives. I find this to be one of the

Torah’s most fundamental teachings - that we should ask questions about

everything.


One of the most commonly cited Jewish values is the emphasis on life,

on what we do while living in this world, instead of focusing on what might

happen to us after we die. In the Torah, this is a commandment, found in

Deuteronomy 30:19, when God says to the Israelites “I have put before you

life and death, blessing and curse — therefore, choose life!” One of our

members cited that verse as the Jewish value that they find most resonant in

their life, at a moment when they’re wrestling with health issues. I believe

that this value is so fundamental to who we are as a people that it’s

embedded in our personalities. Jews often have a tendency to focus on,

demand, and argue about the best of everything; I think that this is at least

partly based on our recognition that we can only definitively know what we

experience in this world - which makes us not want to waste our limited time

here with anything mediocre (like bad pizza). We actually see it as our

responsibility to notice and experience the wonderful things that we

encounter in the world around us. As one of our members wrote on our

website, “God works hard to ensure our planet and our heavens are in order

for others to see, animals to live, bees to make honey, etc. Taking a moment

from our busy lives helps us appreciate what we have.” I imagine that some

of you are very familiar with the “choose life” Torah verse, while others

might not know it as well. However, I’m guessing that many more of you can

easily summon in your mind the song lyric “To Life,” as sung by Tevya; that

many more of you are currently wearing, or at some point have worn, a “חי”

(chai) charm as jewelry - חי being the two-letter word for life; or that at some


point in your life you’ve said the phrase ‘לחיים’ (l’chayyim) - meaning ‘to life’

- as a toast over a drink. The value of life is so important in Judaism, that it

manifests in countless moments in our day-to-day lives.

Life is actually so important in Judaism, that the Talmud tells us that

nearly all of the Torah’s mitzvot can be transgressed, if a life would be put at

risk by observing them. To phrase this in modern parlance, imagine that

someone pointed a gun at your head, and said “Break this rule, or I shoot.”

Well, according to tractate Sanhedrin 74a, you can break 610 of the Torah’s

613 commandments under these circumstances. As someone who wrote on

our website said, “Life comes before anything else. When the subject of us

offering our thoughts first came up, I did not have to think twice. What could

be more important?” The three of the 613 mitzvot that you can’t break are

prohibitions: the prohibition against premeditated murder, against sexual

immorality (primarily rape), and against idolatry. These three unbreakable

prohibitions express some of our most deeply held values. Murder and rape

are both understood to be ways of physically imposing your will,

permanently, on another person; we understand the idea of saying that your

life is more valuable than someone else’s to be God’s decision - not ours. The

prohibition against idolatry expresses the one core Jewish belief about God

that I alluded to earlier: whatever you treat as Divine - whatever you pray to,

express ultimate gratitude to, or ask for Divine assistance from - whatever

that is for you, it cannot be tangible, and it cannot be another tradition’s

deity. You don’t have to have an active relationship with the Divine in order


to live a Jewish life; but if you do, that relationship can’t be with something

physical, and it can’t be with a different ‘god.’ To Jews, God can’t be

contained in any particular place, thing, body, or idea. That’s our most

fundamental theological value.

The value that is probably most frequently expressed in prayer and in

everyday speech is the value of shalom - wholeness and peace. Not only is

shalom one of the most commonly repeated words in Jewish prayers, and

used in the name of several of our most important prayers - it’s also the

word we use to say hello and goodbye, and it's part of the way that we say

“How are you?” in modern Hebrew (Israelis literally ask ‘How’s your shalom?’

when they greet each other). Shalom isn’t the peace of quiet and stillness,

but rather the peace of feeling whole or complete. We learn this from the

root of the word - the letters shin, lamed, and mem - which literally means

‘complete.’ Praying for and working towards wholeness - as opposed to

brokenness - is a significant part of our lives, and a very highly held Jewish

value. Repairing what’s broken in the world also has another name, which

most of the folks who answered this question on our website talked about -

Tikkun Olam.

Although it has had other meanings in the past, for many

contemporary non-Orthodox Jews, Tikkun Olam has come to mean the

responsibility to care for and to help others. One of the most popular

encapsulations of this idea comes from Pirke Avot 1:14, when Rabbi Hillel

says “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If am only for myself, who


am I? And if not now, when?” The second part of that quotation, in particular,

so clearly resonates with most of the folks who wrote on our website, that

most of their responses sound like deliberate variations on the same theme.

I’ve selected a few of them to share with you, highlighting how meaningful

this value is to so many of us.

One person wrote “The most important Jewish value to me is the

Jewish commitment to making the world a better place, including through

acts of charity and acts in support of social justice and in ways both small

and large… Most significant to me is that we as Jews don’t do these things

because of the promise of some reward, whether in this life or the next; we

do these things just because doing them is the right thing to do.” Another

shared an idea of the preeminent Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, who said

that what we need in the world is ‘A cohesion of mutual responsibility and

mutual influence. We are not required to blur the boundaries among the

factions, circles, and parties, but, rather to share the test of mutual

responsibility.’ The person went on to say, “In other words, being a

mentsch.” Someone else described one of their most important Jewish values

as being “Doing the right thing in your personal and professional life.” A

physician, this person said “Every day I meet new people, and try in my brief

moments to get to know them not just as a patient but to know them as a

person. I try to make them feel as comfortable as possible in a scary time.”

Someone who converted to Judaism said “Many years ago, I came to the

conclusion that the meaning of life comes from being here for each other.


This has always been important to me… When I came to Judaism, these

beliefs seemed to fit into the concept of tikun olam, because a big part of

repairing the world is making it better for humans, and all living things, who

inhabit it.” Another writer says, “The Jewish values I cherish most include

Tikkum Olam, as well as the importance of family and education.” This

person writes that when gathered together with their family for holiday

meals both growing up, and as an adult with their own family, “We would

speak of ways that we hoped to see the world heal, and overcome

persecution, inequity and suffering…. I learned growing up that it is our duty

as Jews (as a culture and a people who have suffered throughout history) to

stand up to injustice and suffering and to speak out and try to work towards

change. I have made this an important part of my own Jewish identity. I

believe we are at a time in our history when we each can make a difference

by practicing in our own ways the values of Tikkum Olam.”

To me, Tikkun Olam ultimately comes down to helping other people

who need help, particularly those who are are underprivileged,

disenfranchised, or simply not in a position to be able to help themselves. I

think of this as the ultimate Jewish moral value, coming from the most

frequently repeated moral instruction in all of the Hebrew Bible. No less than

36 times throughout the Torah, we are told to not oppress or mistreat the גר

(ger) - the stranger or alien. The New Oxford American Dictionary’s definition

of stranger is ‘a person entirely unaccustomed to a feeling, experience, or

situation.’ My own definition is someone who lives in a place that is not


where they come from, nor where they feel at home, nor where they are

treated like an equal. You might be interested in knowing that there’s

disagreement in the Talmud as to how often this commandment appears; in

Bava Metzia 59b, Rabbi Eliezer says that he’s unsure whether it’s said 36

times or 46 times. Repeating a word or idea is how the Torah - which doesn’t

use punctuation - conveys importance, so no matter how frequently this

commandment is given, it’s clearly important.

Often, this commandment is accompanied by the explanatory phrase

“Because you were strangers in the land of Egypt (Mitzrayim in Hebrew).”

This second phrase clarifies for me how we’re supposed to understand the

first one, and also how we should put it into practice. The Torah does not

provide a great deal of detail about our ancestors’ lives when they were

living in Egypt for over 400 years, but what is certain is that they lived in

bondage - they were not free to live their lives in the manner of their own

choosing. They were not treated as equals by the other people who lived

where they lived, and they were not able to determine the course of their

daily existence on their own. By the time the Pharaoh of the Moses story

came to power (if not earlier), they were full-blown slaves, doing the physical

labor that was forced upon them by their Egyptian masters. The memory of

what escaping from that kind of bondage may have felt like is rekindled

annually at Passover. The real challenge of that holiday is to maintain that

memory throughout the rest of the year, to go about our lives while

remembering that experience, and to do everything we can both so that we


do not return to living under those circumstances, and also so that no one

else has to live that way. This is not just about Passover, of course - that our

ancestors were strangers who became enslaved in the land of Mitzrayim is

our people’s foundational story. It is therefore our responsibility to fight for

anyone who is not free. In terms of how we interact with and treat others,

this is our most fundamental value. It is the lesson of the story of who we are

as a people.

While the High Holidays are technically about individual self-

assessment and behavioral adjustment, the changes that we seek to enact in

ourselves for the coming year - both as individuals, and as a community -

need to be based on and embody this most basic Jewish value. As the

inheritors of this story of disenfranchisement and bondage - as the people

who are repeatedly told to not mistreat the stranger - it is our communal

responsibility to fight against, and to not be passive about, allowing other

groups of people to experience the same fate as our ancestors. When we

observe other groups living a life in which they are not treated fairly, or as

equals, or are not empowered to live a life of self-determination, we as a

people cannot allow that to stand.

The same principle, of course, applies to the lives of our own people.

As one of our web site respondents wrote, “The history of Judaism is filled

with prejudicial behavior against us. I never hold a grudge - I just never

forget.” At this moment, when anti-Semitism is on the rise in the world

around us, when Nazi slogans associated with the extermination of our


people are being chanted in public by organized groups, we must stand up

and fight for our own enfranchisement. We must speak out, we must educate

others, we must come together and work together as a unified Jewish

community, and we must be willing to represent Judaism and the Jewish

people with pride, dignity, and strength. We must work together to eradicate

the forces of anti-Semitism, the forces that would seek to return us to

bondage. To paraphrase Rabbi Hillel, if we are not for ourselves, who will be

for us?

However, we cannot forget the next part of Rabbi Hillel’s statement -

to paraphrase him again, if we are only for ourselves, what are we? Both

parts of the phrase apply to us, because Jews have a unique, in-between

identity when it comes to sociological status in North America. We are an

ethnic minority, one that is sometimes targeted both overtly and subtly by

bigots and white supremacists, but many if not most of us live a life of

relative comfort, equivalency, and enfranchisement, if not power. In our

society, assimilated Jews are not automatically identified as being different,

as being גרים (gerim, strangers). The color of our skin, and the clothing that

most of us wear, does not indicate to others that we belong to a particular

minority group. In North America, most non-Orthodox Jews look fairly similar

to everyone else.

This dual identity can be a great blessing. All of us who live with power,

responsibility, and equivalency, all of us who’ve been fortunate enough to

encounter little if any impactful anti-Semitism in our lives, have much to be


thankful for. Seventy years after one-third of our population was

exterminated, we need to remember that our people were being

systematically hunted not that long ago - we need to make sure that we

never forget the lessons of the Shoah, and become too complacent in our

lives of comfort. We must remain vigilant in the battle against anti-Semitism.

At the same time, because we know what it means to be a minority, because

our people have experienced both explicit and implicit prejudice for

millennia, we must also be vigilant in the battle against prejudice, cruelty,

and hatred towards others. Although most of us are generally treated as

equals, living with civility and respect, we cannot ignore the fact that some

members or our community, and many members of many other minority

communities in our country, are not treated that way. It is incumbent upon

us to use our unique status to help those others, while also watching out for

ourselves.

How can we accomplish this? We have to be committed to doing, to

action. As one of our members wrote, “Praying doesn’t always provide a

solution. In order for a solution to be found, we have to act, and not sit idly

by waiting. I was taught in my teenage years that G-d helps those that help

themselves… If you want something for yourself, your children, or your

community, you can’t just wish it to happen or occur. You really have to go

do what is needed to make it happen.” I believe that what we need to do is

to reach out to each other, to connect with other communities, both with

groups that are empowered and those that aren't. We must offer each other


open arms, willing voices, and helping hands. We must take public steps like

putting up the sign in front of the synagogue that we announced in this past

week’s Enews - which says, in three different languages, “No matter where

you are from, we’re glad you’re our neighbor.” We must participate, as much

as we can, in public efforts to strengthen our ties with each other, like the

new Historic Area Religions Together group - HART, for short - that I’ve

spoken about recently. We must offer to talk about our religious traditions

and to listen to others do the same, both as individuals and as a community,

and we must offer to assist those who need assistance. We may not agree

with each other, but we must make progress in hearing and knowing each

other, in being neighborly with each other, so that we will not be afraid of

each other. Then, when any of us need help, we will be willing, ready, and

more able to help the other because they will not be strangers to us. This

may be the ultimate reason for that oft-repeated commandment; for many of

us, it’s human nature to find it more difficult to help the stranger, to help

those you don't know. We must always be kind to and help the stranger, but

if fewer and fewer of us become strangers to each other, we're even more

likely to be there for each other.

May 5778 be a year in which we better embody the most impactful

Jewish values. May we ask meaningful questions about our world, our selves,

and our neighbors; may we experience and celebrate the very best of this

world, and may we respect, protect, and preserve the glory of life, the

bounty of God’s creation. May may we pursue and experience wholeness and


peace; and may we be welcoming to each other, and stand up for our rights

and freedoms, and the rights and freedoms of our neighbors. May this be a

year in which we can truly be there for each other, both for those we know,

those we don't know, and for those we don’t yet know. Ken yehi ratzon - may

this be God’s will. And let us all say together, Amen.

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