Rabbi Ackerman's Blog
09/21/2009 - Rosh Hashanah First Day Sermon 5770
Rosh Hashana 1 – 5770 – Rabbi David Ackerman – Beth Am Israelאור עולם אוצר חיים אורות מאפל אמר ויהי Earlier this morning we began shaharit with these words: “Everlasting light, storehouse of light, lights from the darkness, let it be.” A fragment from an early medieval poem – the rest is lost to us – these four clauses set the tone for Rosh Hashanah. Light endures forever, it remains in unending supply, it overcomes darkness and it defines Creation itself.
Without using any divine names, and with extraordinary brevity, the author of this fragment has provided a beautiful vision both of God and of the life journey that we call spirituality. For our poet, light serves as the source of all creative energy. His plea is that we take notice.
All too often we modern rational types miss the cue. We allow our commitment to modernity to blind us to the light that fills our world. We ignore it, or worse, we try to squelch it. A brand new poem, written in the aftermath of terrible personal tragedy by a local poet named Kathleen Sheeder Bonnano, testifies to light’s tenacity.
Poem About Light
You can try to strangle light: Use your hands and think You’ve found the throat of it, But you haven’t. You could use a rope or a garrote Or a telephone cord, But the light, amorphous, implacable, Will make a fool of you in the end.
You could make it your mission To shut it out forever, To crouch in the dark, The blinds pulled tight –
Still, in the morning, A gleaming little ray will betray you, poking Its optimistic finger Through a corner of the blind, And then more light, Clever, nervy, impossible, Spilling out from the crevices Warming the shade.
This is the stubborn sun, Choosing to rise, Like it did yesterday, Like it will tomorrow. You have nothing to do with it. The sun makes its own history; Light has its way.
I adore Sheeder Bonnano’s adjectives – light is amorphous, implacable, optimistic, as well as clever, nervy, and impossible. Light has its way.
For me, the eternally tenacious light spoken of by these two poets, emerges most powerfully when shared. In part as a way to introducing myself more fully than my biography accomplishes but more importantly, in order to advance the theme of light, I’d like to share a few life scenes with you, each in its way a life shaping experience of glimpsing the light of divinity with others.
My maternal grandparents, Rose and Phil Cook, lived in Liberty, NY, the heart of the Catskills, for half a century. My mother and her siblings grew up there and my siblings and I spent many summers and school vacations visiting with Bubbe and Zayde at (I kid you not) 456 North Main Street. Among my many memories of those visits, walking to shul with my Bubbeh stands out. My Zayde rarely joined us. A deep believer in the importance of Jewish community, he could be found in the synagogue 5 and 6 days a week. Shabbat was his day off. For my Bubbeh, what unfolded in shul on Shabbat morning mattered most, and whenever feasible, she preferred to walk. In my memory that walk always took place in the chill of winter, sometimes involving trudging through the snow, often under gray and dreary skies. The shul was the light at the end of the journey, and not only because the heat was usually turned up high. My grandmother’s joy in being there and the great joy she brought to other members of the congregation, not to mention my sense of the synagogue as a welcoming haven, all yielded indelible glimpses of God’s light.
אור עולם אוצר חיים אורות מאפל אמר ויהי Eternal light, God’s storehouse of light, lights from the darkness - Let it be.
Much later in my youth I began to follow a certain rock and roll band as it traversed the country on its multiple concert tours each year. If I were to describe those journeys in purely spiritual terms I wouldn’t be telling the truth. I also wouldn’t do justice to my experience. Adolescent adventure and a vague sense of participating in a counter culture were certainly part of the appeal, as of course was the music. But the sense of community that I felt on those road trips lingered long after the shows ended; that sense lingers still as many members of that tribe will no doubt attest. In that band’s own anthem like words: “once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right.” By virtue of my wanderings in those years, I got to see the light in some very strange places indeed.
Light has its way.
I have carried two transformative encounters with the idea of the Jewish people with me into adulthood. The first took place amid the irrigated greenery of a very secular kibbutz at the western edge of the Negev, a spot that literally abuts Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip. The second took place in a dark apartment in central Moscow in a country then known as the Soviet Union.
During my high school years, I spent a month as a volunteer on Kibbutz Magen. Founded in 1948, and affiliated with Shomer Ha’Tzair, by the late 1970’s Magen was a left wing secularist stronghold. It was my first encounter with Peace Now, then in its infancy, and my first experience with serious Jewish commitment that had no connection to religion or religious practice. I got up at 4 each morning and headed to the fields to assemble and disassemble irrigation fittings. We worked until noon or so, ate lunch and then slept most of the afternoon (I was 17 after all!). I met and became friends with people my age and a bit older to whom I felt deeply connected and with whom I had very little in common except for membership in a rather ill defined entity known as the Jewish people. The light from that initial spark still burns brightly for me. Ironically, without that experience I’d never have become a rabbi. The 4 am starts yielded up a full month of desert sunrises, something that I hope never to forget. Though I learned the words more than a few years later, Lea Goldberg’s little poem – Mizmor Laila – accompanies those sunrises in my mind’s eye.
את כל הכוכבים טמן, את חסחר עטף בשחור, מצפון ועד תימן אין קרן אור. All of the stars are hidden, the crescent moon draped in black, from north to south not a ray of light.
וחבקר אלמן נאמן שק אפר על מתניו יחגר, מצפון ועד תימן אין קרן אור. The morning – a faithful widower – a sack of grey wrapped around its waist, from north to south not a ray of light.
חדליקה-נא נר לבן באהל-לבי השחור, מצפון ועד תימן יזרח האור. Kindle a white light in the black tent of my heart, from north to south let the light rise, let is shine.
A few years later I traveled with my dad to the Soviet Union. We visited five cities in two weeks with the express purpose of connecting with as many Jewish activists as possible. Talk about light held in by darkness. One night we attached ourselves to a meeting of many of Moscow’s most prominent refused-niks. We had brought various items – supplies, medicine, books - for many of the activists in that room that evening. That night I might a young man, exactly my age, who had spent his high school years studying Hebrew in underground Jewish schools that moved from apartment to apartment in Moscow in order to stay in business. His rich, beautiful, literary Hebrew frankly put me to shame. Despite having grown up with every advantage that American Jewish life had to offer, I could barely put together two sentences in my conversation that night. Over the years that followed I received many letters – elegant, lengthy, densely written – all of which sent me to the dictionaries. Early in my second year at JTS, I received a letter from my friend with a postmark from Tel Aviv.
מצפון ועד תימן יזרח האור. אורות מאפל. From north to south, let the light rise. Lights from the darkness, indeed.
Since July, I have had the privilege of meeting many of you one on one and I hope that in the coming months I will have that chance with every member of the Beth Am Israel family. Over and over again, those conversations have afforded me many glimpses of the enduring, creative, warm light that illuminates this kehillah kedosha every day. Indeed, the inscription above our aron kodesh really serves as a totally appropriate statement of vision and purpose for our community. And those words have prompted me to do a lot of thinking about light these past few weeks.
Among its two dozen definitions for the word “light,” dictionary.com offers this scientific entry: a. “Also called luminous energy, radiant energy. electromagnetic radiation to which the organs of sight react, ranging in wavelength from about 400 to 700 nm and propagated at a speed of 186,282 mi./sec (299,972 km/sec), considered variously as a wave, corpuscular, or quantum phenomenon. b. a similar form of radiant energy that does not affect the retina, as ultraviolet or infrared rays.”
Not the stuff of poetry to be sure, this technical definition nonetheless hints at qualities of the spirit that I find attractive and intriguing.
Let’s start with our dictionary entry’s opening words – luminous energy, radiant energy. That sounds like a pretty good definition of religious experience to me. Energy that radiates and illuminates represents at least the short term goal of much of what we call religion.
Pushing further, our definition notes that light’s exact nature is, well, inexact. Perhaps a wave, maybe a particle, possibly a quantum phenomenon, light defies easy classification. That too sounds like a description of spirituality. We can’t necessarily define it, but we know if when we see it, or perhaps better, feel it.
And finally, one doesn’t have to see light in a physical way for it to qualify as light. Light can be sensed in other ways and perhaps even experienced in ways not dependent on the senses at all.
The physics definition also gives shape to some of my hopes and dreams for our community. Beth Am Israel has been for so many in this room today a luminous source of radiant energy. Light floods into this space, but it also radiates from this place. The ancient rabbis described the Beit haMikdash in a similar way. The Jerusalem Temple’s windows had narrow interiors and wide, funnel like exteriors for its light came from within emanating outward to the world beyond. That inner light brings meaning to our lives motivating both inwardness and real engagement with the larger world. May Beth Am Israel continue to nurture all of our inner lives even as our involvement here pushes us all to the work of gemilut hasadim and tikkun olam that takes us far beyond these windows and these walls.
The scientific description of light also speaks to a marvelous component of Beth Am’s make up. This shul, for years, has defied easy classification. Are we a wave or are we a particle? More wave than particle, more particle than wave, more quantum phenomenon than either wave or particle? Light not only defies the categories, it exceeds and supersedes them. Judaism, like light, is bigger than our very 20th century categories. It’s true that I grew up within one of those categories and I remain persuaded by and committed to that category’s approach. I also have a lot of love for classifications beyond my direct experience. Beth Am Israel has been and should always be a comfortable home for all of us, whether we like waves, or particles, or quantum phenomena, or (best of all) all of the above.
As to the question of whether light must be seen physically to qualify as light, my non-scientific vote derives from the Baal Shem Tov’s well known claim that miracles happen around us all the time. The only real question is whether or not we choose to see them. Judaism emerged out of the conviction that what one sees, hears, tastes, touches, and smells is not all there is in life. Our ancestors, enslaved in Egypt, knew that freedom existed without any sensory experience of it. Their audacious vision of it brought it into being. And that’s just one example among many. The possibility of a real divine presence in our lives as individuals and as a community is, has always been, and should ever be, the fundamental visionary hope and goal of Jewish life.
All of that and more finds expression in the words inscribed over the aron kodesh, the visual focal point of this sacred space and of the avodat kodesh that happens here. These three words – באורך נראה אור - come from Psalm 36. They are the concluding words of a short passage that I’d like to share with you: “How precious is Your faithful care, O God! Humanity seeks refuge in the shadow of Your wings. They feast on the rich fare of Your house; You let them drink at Your refreshing stream. With you is the fountain of life; by Your light do we see light.”
Whenever we dream together of a better tomorrow, whenever we see beyond self-imposed labels, whenever we seek out and find the humanity within one another both within and beyond these walls, we are basking in the glow of God’s light. כי עמך מקור חיים – With you is the fountain of life – באורך נראה אור – By Your light let us see light.
Daily these words accompany the act of wrapping oneself in a tallit. Every morning we’re called upon to act out our personal search for refuge in the shadow of God’s wings. It’s a beautiful image, a rich metaphor for the life of the spirit and for the real work of community. I would like to invite all of us to rise as we are able at this time. If you are wearing a tallit, I ask you to remove it for a moment so that we can join together in wrapping ourselves in this haven of divine light called Beth Am Israel. If you’re not wearing a tallit, please do not worry. Experience need not rely on the senses to be real! Wrap yourself metaphorically in a tallit of whatever category you choose. As we join in this expression of our hopes and dreams, I’d like to offer a kabbalistic prayer, apparently of Lurianic origins, that concludes with the words before all of our eyes.
May it be Your will, Adonai my God and God of my ancestors, shaper of origins. As You have called Your universe into being this day, and Your unity proclaimed in and by Your universe, and have hung within it worlds above and worlds below, at Your word, so with Your abundant compassion unify my heart, and the heart of all Your folk, the house of Israel, to love and to revere Your name. Enlighten our eyes in the light of Your Torah, for with You is the source of life, in Your light shall we see light.
Shabbat Shalom. Shana Tova.
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03/27/2010 - Time Out From Pesah Cleaning Reading
01/23/2010 - Shavua Tov - A Prayer for Haiti
01/22/2010 - MLK Unity Service - Shabbat Bo
11/24/2009 - Parashat Vayetze & Thanksgiving
10/18/2009 - 30 Tishrei 5770 - Rosh Hodesh Heshvan
10/13/2009 - Rabbi Mordecai Waxman, a Tribute
09/28/2009 - Yom Kippur Sermon 5770
09/27/2009 - Kol Nidre Sermon 5770
09/21/2009 - Rosh Hashanah 2nd Day Sermon 5770
09/21/2009 - Rosh Hashanah First Day Sermon 5770 (Current display)
09/17/2009 - L`shana Tova Tikateivu v`Teihateimu
08/21/2009 - Rosh Hodesh Elul
08/18/2009 - The Torah of Trees
08/14/2009 - Parashat Re`eh
08/05/2009 - Tu B`Av [The 15th of Av]
07/24/2009 - Shabbat Devarim-Hazon
07/17/2009 - Parashat Matot-Masei
07/10/2009 - Parashat Pinchas