Korah

Golda Meir used to say that we Jews are very upset with Moses. “Moses dragged us for 40 years through the desert to bring us to the one place in the Middle East where there was no oil.”
But Jews have had problems with Moses, well before oil was discovered, and even before entering the Land of Israel. Moses had to face serious challenges and many rebellions from his own people, us. This week’s parasha is named after Korah, who led an aborted revolt against Moses.
Korah rises up against Moses and Aron, challenging their leadership with such a harsh speech that Moses “falls on his face” (Num 16:6), turns to desperation. The confrontation is very hard. It can be solved only via a miracle, a direct action of God. Just like Moses “fell on his face”, so Korah falls with his family and possessions, into a giant crater that opens under his feet.
Korah was not alone. He had a number of followers, among them Dotan and Aviram, names that we find in the account of the rebellion given in Deuteronomy (Num 16:12) - where Korah is not mentioned. Indeed, in some other passages of the Bible (Num 27:3), only Korah is mentioned. These discrepancies led scholars to speculate about several rebellions, all a vivid memory to the Israelites; for some reason they have been collected by the authors of this text, and grouped under the name of Korah. Who became the prototype of the rebellious leader.
What kind of leader was Korah? First of all we know his lineage, something he was clearly very proud of. He was a son of Levi, a levite. He mobilized a considerable number of Israelites claiming that they were discriminated against because “all the community are holy, all of them”. (Num 6:3) While is clear, from Moses’ answer, that the goal of Korah’s faction was to enlarge the privileges of the Levites, Korah has been shrewd enough to present himself as a spokesperson for “the people”. He went around the Israelites, tent by tent, family by family, telling everybody that their frustration was his frustration, that their disaffection for the ruling élite was his disaffection, that their anger was his anger. And he managed to convince a number of people that a change in leadership was needed.
No doubt: Korah has been successful. He won the support of two hundred and fifty chieftains, all an’shei shem, “men of name” (Num 6:2), ambitious people. And even after the clamorous defeat, Moses and Aron are rebuked by “the people”, who were not immediate followers of Korah, but were, let’s say, sympathetic towards his cause.
And there were serious reasons to be upset with Moses. As is quite evident from the speech of Dotan and Aviran, the Israelites were wandering, and feeling lost; they felt they were going to die in the wilderness; the Promised Land, the land flowing with milk and honey, was not in sight.
Korah exploited this hardship; he manipulated those who were feeling excluded by the development of the Israelite society. Look at how he claims that “all the community is holy, all of them” – what a strange speech for somebody so proud of his genealogical descent. As an astute leader, while he speaks with Moses at the presence of his followers, he also nurtures their selfishness – “the Eternal God is in their midst”, while it is clear that God is everywhere, and not necessarily more active inside one faction or another.
The comparison between Korah and Moses is really interesting. Where Korah is a self confident speaker, Moses is stammering. Where Korah pretends to speak in the name of “the people”, Moses strives to lead the people according to God’s will. Korah appears on the stage as a self confident, natural-born leader, while Moses begins his journey as a hesitant young man; through this journey he will become a true servant of the people, able to overcome his own ego. Korah cares for the social affirmation of his own clan, while Moses cares for all the people: he is concerned for the reputation of Aron and together with him prays to God not to be angry.
When the confrontation reaches its climax, with the dramatic dialogue in front of the rebels, Moses exposes Korah’s intentions, goals, and malicious intent. “God has advanced you, o Levites, giving you direct access to the Tabernacle, and now you seek the priesthood too?” (Num 6:9).
As I have said, we know the conclusion of the story. Korah has been cancelled, but the memory remains. We read this story, or at least his name, once a year, as a summary of the more acute internal battles of the Israelites’ history.
What is particularly striking, in this account, is that right before receiving such a hard punishment from God, Korah and his group find themselves isolated. God has commanded the people of Israel to withdrew from Korah, Dotan and Aviram; Moses reports the command, maybe to give them an opportunity to repent and avoid the tragedy. But they keep on. They are confident, they believe they are on the right side, so they separate themselves from the community. What an irony: first they made a slogan of the claims that God is among all the people, then they separate themselves from the rest of the Jews, and such a separation is the beginning of their end.
There’s a poem by Laurie Patton, a contemporary American poet, in which she asks how did they sleep, the night before the confrontation: “Moses, sure of God’s voice, and Korah sure of his own” (1) . Had Korah not been sure about his voice, he would have been able to listen to the voice of God; and the tragedy could have been avoided.
This is a nice poem, but I find it very problematic. I do not like those who claim to hear the “voice of God”. Such a certainty can lead to the most horrendous crimes: too many wars have been fought in the name of God, by people who claim to be able to listen to the voice of Him -it is always He in such a case, isn’t it ?- telling them what to do. And I equally find embarrassing Korah’s claim according to whom “God dwells among us”.
Whether you share my feelings or not, we all belong to the Jewish people. Whether from our own experience, or from meditation about the story of Korah, we –as Jews- are well aware of the dangers of sectarianism, and the abysses of isolation that such an attitude opens under us. And we know that in this spiritual journey called Judaism, we should not hide our disagreements, nor exploit reciprocal hostility; indeed we are supposed not to act as Korah, but to follow the path of Aharon, to be lovers of peace, and pursue peace. And if we cannot get such a higher goal every time, let’s learn at least to co-exist.

Southgate Reform Synagogue, 28th Sivan 5769 (20 June 2009)

(1) see The Torah. A Women's Commentary, New York 2008, p. 913-914

Terumah

Our little son Dov is already one year old. He stands up, sometimes leans on the bookshelf’s lower part; he is beginning to walk, and enjoys it. Most than everything, Dov loves to tricycle. He seats on the saddle, starts running, lifts up his feet, and smiles, as the tricycle brings him in some corner of the house. Dov and I love to play hide-and-seek. I hide myself crouching behind the armchair and call his name out loud; he searches all over the room, slowly on his tricycle, till the moment he discovers me. Our eyes meet, we smile. Then I pretend to run after him while he goes as fast as possible on his tricycle; suddenly he turns right and stops, looking up to Abba, me. Our eyes meet again, we laugh.
To hide, to call out loud; to seek, through several attempts; to discover in unexpected places. Then smiling in an outburst of joy. Isn’t this the same pattern of our relationship with God? We might think that to express our relationship with God through a family repertoire is typical of a middle class, bourgeois Jewry. We might think also that this kind of relationship with the Holiness, that comes in touch with the daily life, through the glance of a child’s eyes, is proper of our Buberian, contemporary, sensitivity. Isn’t this too personal a way to figure out our relationship with God?
Indeed, Parasha Terumah suggests that no, it isn’t. The Children of Israel are commanded to build a Sanctuary, with its tabernacle, to contain the two stone tablets of the Decalogue; with its decoration, furniture and appurtenances, whose intricate simbology stimulated countless exegetical fantasies; and with its borders: roof, curtains, and enclosures. These are meant to separate the tabernacle from the profane space, to delimitate the space where is manifest the presence of God, and where can take place the relation with the Eternal One. Indeed, a great length of this parasha is devoted to explain how the Sanctuary has to be built, while just one verse is devoted to explain the reasons why such a building has to be built. We find them in Exodus 25:8, ועשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתוכם, “Let they make a Sanctuary that I may dwell among them”. As Menahem Mendl of Kotzk famously explains, the text does not say: “in it” – in the Sanctuary itself, but “among them” –among the Children of Israel. Each person must build the Tabernacle in his own heart, then God will dwell among them (1).
Some parts of the Tabernacle are composed: the roof consists of layers of different material, meaning that each of us relates with God in a different way. Some other parts, like for example the golden menorah, are to be made from a single block; which is a powerful exhortation to integrity. The same pure gold overlays the inner and the outer side of the ark; it means that our interior, individual, devotion must be of the same material of our external, social, actions. Such a Tabernacle is an enduring one. It has been carried by the Children of Israel in their hearts during the journey in the wilderness. It came together with us in the Exile, when the Temple of Jerusalem has been destroyed. That Temple that was, as we all know, very different from the portable Sanctuary carried in the desert: each generation builds different places of worship according different needs.
We have notions about the building of the Sanctuary, enough to figure out what the exterior must look like, but this parasha does not say anything about what happened behind these curtains. Not a single word of this parasha explains what took place in the deepest section of the Sanctuary, where God, who is supposed to be everywhere, used to manifest in a particularly intense, and maybe periodical, way. We just know that a building, a place exists; but we do not know what happens inside. This text is totally mute about the modalities of the relationship with God. Menahem Mendl of Kotzk would say that we are commanded to build our inner Sanctuary and we have some instructions about the process; but we are left without words to explain what would happen there.
As the Sanctuary was surrounded by curtains, delimitated by enclosures and roof, our interior Tabernacle is built deeply in our hearts; sometimes is impossible to find the proper words to explain what is going on down there. So we employ images, metaphors, like the one I began with, the relation between father and son. And we are not sure where God exactly is, whether in the protective look of the father, or in the joyous glance of the son, or in the enduring, continuous, unspoken relationship between different generations.

(1)Torah Gems, by A. Y. Greenberg, Yavne, Tel Aviv, 1998, vol. II, pag. 172

Leo Baeck College, 26 February 2009

Hayé Sarah

TALES FROM A DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY

וַתִּשָּׂא רִבְקָה אֶת עֵינֶיהָ וַתֵּרֶא אֶת־יִצְחָק. “And Rebecca lifted her eyes and saw Isaac” (Gen. 24:64).
I wonder what could have happened if Rebecca and Isaac had not liked each other.
The text conveys a sense of inevitableness. Rebecca appears on the scene exactly when Abraham’s servant has finished praying to God for the success of his mission: to find the proper wife for Isaac. And from the very first moment, Rebecca seems to be promised to Isaac. She has all the good qualities: she is gorgeous, attentive, welcoming to guests and strangers. She comes from, let’s say, a well-known family. In order to meet her future husband Rebecca even skips the leave-taking ceremonies that she is supposed to attend. When finally Isaac sees her, and she sees Isaac, Rebecca veils herself in a shrewd seductive move. And two verses later the two are already in the same tent, having (as my American friends say) a lot of fun.
From this story some commentators—Samson Raphael Hirsch, for example—took the opportunity to praise what they call “the Jewish marriage”: the marriage “made in Heaven”. That means: arranged by families, and where the mates’ individual decision plays a very limited role, because love is supposed to come only after the marriage, not before[1]. Rebecca’s family asks for her opinion once things are already settled with Isaac’s family. Nobody even asks Isaac for his opinion. Not surprisingly, he is able to love his wife only “in the tent of his mother Sarah” (Gen. 24:67); only, as Rashi says, when she became like his mother. There are a whole lot of examples of dysfunctional relations in the Book of Genesis.
Given these premises, one cannot but wonder what would have happened if either Rebecca or Isaac had rebelled against their families’ decisions and their love had never bloomed. Given the historical conditions, certainly none of them would have found another nice Jewish boy or girl to marry.
Linda Stern Zisquit, an American poetess who immigrated to Jerusalem in the Nineties, writes:
Had Rebecca not looked up
(…) there would have been no water,
no winding dream,
no tribe or unrelenting
portion of sadness
dispersed on (…) Jerusalem
and I would not have been promised
to gather them home. But Rebecca
saw him, and he loved her[2].
One could say: had Rebecca not lifted her eyes, there would have been no Jewish people at all. But she did, and here we are.
Falling in love, with all the consequences, is something beyond human control. It is like the time of death, or the result of the struggle to establish descendents—all themes our parasha deals with. The servant of Abraham knew it well, when he asked God הַקְרֵה־נָא, “send me a good chance” (Gen 24:12), to surprise us, the readers.
Indeed, the whole concept of Chance, good or bad, is inconceivable for those who believe in Divine Providence. Nehama Leibowitz points out that מִקְרֶה chance, Fate, was the core of Philistines’ religion[3]. The Philistines believed that a person’s destiny was “written in the stars”, that humans were ruled by an impersonal force, Fate, sometimes manipulable through magic, but ultimately indifferent to human will.
This belief goes against the principle of responsibility. “It was Fate”, “I could do nothing” means: “I am not responsible”, “it was not my decision”. Or: “I had to do it”. These are exactly the words we hear from those who remain bound to destructive, dysfunctional relationships, only to please, or to defy, their parents.
Was it just a Philistine thing? The confrontation between beliefs, ours in a personal, caring God and theirs in an impersonal Fate, is not limited just to the time of Israelite struggle with the Philistines. It is a contemporary thing. I am not thinking only of astrology, something I admittedly also indulge in—such a funny parlor-game. I am referring, for example, to the belief in the magical virtues of an impersonal force called the “Free Market” that is supposed to provide social welfare, economic development and even democracy all over the world. And in case the magic doesn’t work, in times like ours, we hear wealthy people saying: “It’s nobody’s fault” “There are no definite personal responsibilities” “It’s the system”. And those who, as a result of this bad conjuncture, are at risk of losing their savings or jobs, can only pray for the appropriate מקְרֶה
This is, let me say, totally un-Jewish. Our tradition commands us not only to look for responsibilities, but also to establish a society where the stranger, the orphan, the widow are not pushed to the margins. True, it also includes unusual stories of dysfunctional families from a long time ago, but it leaves us with the commitment to discover the connections between Ancient Middle Eastern sagas and perennial ethical truths that refer to the whole of humanity.
As each of us has come into the world due to the love of our parents, may we be able to build a society based on din ve-hesed, justice and love.

[1] Samson Raphael Hirsch, Commentary on the Torah, tr. by Isaac Levy, Judaica Press, London 1996, vol. I, p. 412.
[2] Linda Stern Zisquit, “Posit”, now included in: Linda Stern Zisquit, Unopened Letters, Sheep Meadow Press, Riverdale (NY), 1996.
[3] Nehama Leibowitz, New Studies in Bereshit (Genesis), tr. by Aryeh Newman, Eliner Library, Jerusalem, (1986), pp. 239-243.

From http://www.lbc.ac.uk/content/view/821/142/

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To bris or not to bris

Believe it or not, before beginning my journey to the Rabbinate, I did not have many contacts with the Anglo Jewry. So, before relocating here, I read something, and I came across a story that I would like to share with you today.
It is the story of Avrumele, born somewhere in Russia more or less one century ago, and immigrated as a child in the East End, where he grew up and became, you guess, tailor. He married Rivka, she too an East Ender of the same generation. Avrumele, now Abraham, was a trade unionist, and he also was very good at boxing. Somebody said he was in Cable Street that famous day of 1936. Avrumele has had his bar mitzwah –just because his parents wanted him to do, and those days teen agers couldn’t even think to say no to their parents.
Avrumele was a communist: an atheist, even if deeply Jewish. He and Rivka eat kosher - simply because the kosher butchery was close to home. They peppered with yddish expressions their spoken English. But, as I have said, Abraham hold the firm belief that God does not exist, that rabbis, priests, and noblemen started this business of God, only to maintain control over the people.
Now, you can easily imagine Abraham’ troubles when he learnt of Rivka’s pregnancy. Oy gevalt.
Please, don’t misunderstand. Of course Avrumele was happy. He was the happiest Jew, the proudest person in the world. And of course all his family was increasingly happy, and this just increased his gladness. But there was, you know, that problem. What is called a lifecycle ritual, the bris.
Bris is a religious ritual. And for a communist, like Avrumele was, religion is opium for the masses. But on the other hand, how to face the whole family, especially on Rivka’s side; they were so religious, somebody even a regular in the minyan of Fieldgate Street.
Avrumele revealed his thoughts to the comrades: and when somebody was saying that God does not exist, he countered that family, well, does exist. And if it is about avoiding unnecessary pain to a child, you can’t inflict pain to the whole family, breaking the tradition. When somebody was pointing out that it would have been a shame to raise a son like a goy gamur, Abraham/Avrumele answered that God is a lie, and religion is but another face of oppression.
Truth is that he did not know what to do, which decision had to be taken by a good father, by a committed communist, by a good Jew. And the more the delivery approached, the more the internal struggle of Avrumele increased. How to educate a son to be a good communist, one of those who should lead the proletariat to victory? Why mark on the flesh the sign of the covenant with a God that does not exist? To bris or not to bris?
The long, painful conversations of Avrumele about God became famous in the East End. They still are, even now, when most of the London Jewish population lives somewhere else. But Avrumele’s concerns are our own too. They go along the history of the Jewish people. We can easily guess that Avraham too, some centuries before Avrumele, faced similar dilemmas, when the events narrated in our parasha took place. The story begins when God reassure Avraham, who is ninety-years old: Anì El Shadai, I am El Shadai, walk in my ways and be blameless (Gen 17:1).
El Shaddai is usually translated as Almighty, but sounds more like: the God that is Sufficient, the God that is enough. There are of course several theological implications – El Shaddai means that there are no other gods; that no other divinity exists; that no other entity in the Universe is self sufficient. Everything that exists is created by the One and Eternal God, the El Shaddai. And there are, of course, existential implications: being God El Shaddai, the One who is enough, the One who maintains the world, Abraham should not fear: he can trust, he can walk in God’s ways. He can trust God’s Covenant.
But to a Hebrew speaker Sha-Dai means also: the One who says (the first letter, Shin, can be read as such): Dai! Stop! Enough of this! This is the prelude to the Covenant with the Jewish people.
There was already a first covenant between God and the whole mankind: it was stipulated after the Flood. God agreed not to destroy anymore the whole of creation, regardless how badly men could behave. But we humans never stop acting badly. Therefore God decided to establish another covenant: shaDai! I have had enough of this humankind. Walk in My ways, Abraham. And comes the embarrassing precept of circumcision, bris, a problem for our Avrumele, of the East End.
Such a barbaric act, such a tribal custom: a commandment that applies only to a tribe clashes clamorously with the universalistic message of freedom and justice that the same God, the same Tradition, the same story, charged us.
An unbelievably large amount of pages have been written on this topic, on this tension between the highest values like human dignity, duty of compassion and the trivial rules that govern the details of Jewish life. We live this tension each time we are addressed about Israel. Are we loyal to the whole humanity? Or are we more loyal to our tribe? And what happen in case of a war between Israel and, let’s say, Europe?
We know, of course, that these are stupid questions. They sound like when a child is asked: who do you love more, Mummy or Daddy? Of course we love them both. Of course we can’t be loyal to our Country if we are not loyal to Judaism, a set of values which includes a particular connection with Israel.
More: the only way we know to be loyal to our Country is through the loyalty to Judaism, which teaches us to respect the laws of the Country but not to make an idol of the ruling class. The only way we know to love humankind is to profess the faith commanded to Abraham long ago: Walk in My ways, toward yom ha-hu, that very day in which idolatry and oppression will disappear from the Earth.
It is a challenge. Abraham fell on his face when he heard El Shaddai commanding him that tribal rite: centuries after, some decades ago, that commandment caused so many troubles to a Jewish soul in the East End. Whose story, anyway, has a happy ending: Avrumele, the resolute communist, the committed atheist, became father of a daughter.
This way an answer was provided to his question: to bris or not to bris. When he received the news of the birth of his daughter, so the story goes, Avrumele was so happy that he immediately called his best friend and said: I have told you, not only God exists, but is a comrade too.

Shabbat Lech Lecha 5769
Synagogue Ne'eve Shalom, Hull.

silenzi cattolici

Le virtù dei figli di una Chiesa silente

Dopo il 16 ottobre 1943., quando giunse la notizia di ciò che era accaduto nel Ghetto di Roma, anche gli ebrei di Urbino che fino ad allora avevano goduto di una relativa tranquillità, dovettero nascondersi. Alessandrina Coen, con la figlia Ada e il suo bimbo, e la cugina Clara, trovarono rifugio nel convento delle suore di Santa Caterina, nel centro della città. Il Vescovo aveva “aperto i conventi”; non fu chiesto loro di battezzarsi, come accadde altrove. Furono semplicemente accolti. Quando il confessore si recava in convento, la prima ad avvicinarsi alla grata era Ada: riceveva dal sacerdote le notizie dei fratelli alla macchia in Toscana e del marito lontano.
Dopo pochi mesi, il Vescovo stesso comunicò alle suore che la situazione si stava facendo troppo pericolosa; un presidio nazista si era stabilito nelle vicinanze ed era il caso di trovare per gli ospiti una diversa soluzione.
Le suore invece spostarono i loro giacigli dalle celle all’atrio del convento così, se i nazisti avessero cercato di entrare, avrebbero violato la clausura.
La Madre Superiora rispose al Vescovo: “Se si deve morire, moriremo insieme”.
Mia nonna non lo dimenticò mai e tutta la vita rimase legata alle “sorelle”, nel reciproco rispetto della diversa fede.
Spesso la Chiesa ha attribuito “colpe” ai suoi singoli figli (“Deploriamo profondamente gli errori e le colpe di questi figli e figlie della Chiesa”, documento Noi ricordiamo: una riflessione sulla Shoah, L'Osservatore Romano, Città del Vaticano, 16-17 marzo 1998) pretendendo l’integrità del proprio magistero.
Ma è accaduto il contrario: “virtù” dei figli e delle figlie di una Chiesa silente. Non risulta che Pio XII abbia mai detto “Se si deve morire, moriremo insieme”.

Ester Moscati - Dal Bollettino della Comunità Ebraica di Milano - Ottobre 2008

Teshuvah - our Jewish journey

There is a tale, a legend, that it is present in every culture. It is the story of the journey of a hero who is looking for a treasure. There are many versions of this story, but the topic is basically the same. The hero is a common, ordinary man, or woman, who receives a call. He sees a burning bush or hears a voice saying: lekh, lekha, you go!
In his travels the hero meets friends, overcomes obstacles, survives to battles. And the journey ends on the threshold of an unknown world, a mysterious cave, a Promised Land. The hero goes over the threshold, thanks to his ability or fortune, and enters into the new Land, in which a treasure is waiting. But in this land, which has gorgeous landscapes as well as regions of perennial darkness, there are new rules, friends and enemies are confused. The hero reaches the goal -or makes the conquests- the treasure, and then begins on the way back, to the ordinary, common world. And just before returning to family, on the threshold, the hero usually has a moment to rethink: Why did he have to get out of the New World in which he is beginning to learn the rules? Why such a trivial return to everyday life? But something pushes him permanently out: the purpose of the trip was the search for the treasure that, once discovered and conquered, must be shared with humanity.
We find this theme in medieval ballads, in Indian legends, also in several texts from our tradition: it is the history of the journey undertaken by each of us, to discover who we are, and the deepest meaning of our life. Yom Kippur is part of such a journey that we make together with other Jews, the other Jewish Communities, or Congregations. It is the day when the world takes a step back to help us focus on our journey that is Jewish, personal and collective at the same time.
The journey begins, even for us, with a call. Be it the E-mail with the schedule of the functions, the telephone calls from friends or relatives who asks us: so, this year, where are we going for Yom Kippur? Or the shofar on Rosh ha Shana, whose piercing sound reminds us of our common ancestor Abraham, and his calling: lekh lekha, go to yourself.
There is then the solemn evening of the Kol Nidreh, during which we stand facing a celestial court; we take an oath to say only the truth, nothing but the truth. We are confronted with ourselves, without the fear of others’ judgement. We are asked not to pay attention to the needs of the daily life: drink, eat... The world, for this day, is silent.
Awakening in the morning without newspapers and without coffee, for me it is very hard. It is the time when the daily requirements are felt. And then we join the people of Israel, our fellow Jews, our companions in this private and collective journey.
We gather per fare Kippur, to make Yom Kippur. Whoever asks us: where do you go? We answer: to pray. But the Jewish prayer is a curious issue. Prayer in Hebrew is tefillah. It is a reflective form of the verb lehitpallel, to judge, so prayer means also to judge ourselves.
Avraham Heschel explains that prayer is meaningful only if it is subversive, if it is the bulding of an interior Temple, with moments of devotion, times of meditation, in the place of the Pyramids and monuments built by the slaves.
We found a strange treasure, at Sinai, just as we left the Kingdom of the Pyramids and the condition of slavery. There our ancestors learned that God has no forms, neither physical aspect. God has never been seen, so we cannot create images of God. However, we can feel the presence of God in our life, which pushes us forward, towards the world.
Our God is the God of life: any image of God is fixed, is dead. Our God is before us and asks us to follow in His ways. On Yom Kippur as well repentance, teshuvah, forgiveness, are not controlled, or even ordered. God indicates and shows us through example, His particular relation with each of us. God first forgives each of us and invites us to follow the spiritual path of the noble soul, away from meanness and selfishness, a path guided by the Golden Rule: You shall love your neighbor as yourself, i.e. You shall love your neighbor because your neighbor is like you.
Truthfully, this golden rule, that the neighbor is like us, is not such a great discovery. It is already part of our lives, but it happens that we usually misuse it. It becomes a tool for us to win.
For example, to accuse other people of the same failures we feel in ourselves. We are all aware of the unpleasant or even internal evil parts. We would like it to get rid of them. And the more they disgust us, the more we want to throw them away. This way reality assumes the character of that which we deplore, and this increases our bitterness and misbehavior. What we do not accept in ourselves becomes something unbearable in others. It is like the tax evader, who steals from the public, the one who asks for punishment harsher for the thieves, or the one who takes the law into his own hands. And he calls it justice.
These psychological mechanisms are well known. Our ancestors on Yom Kippur practiced the rite of the scapegoat: to load our own failures on something other and send it away, out in the desert. These are the dark lessons that we learn in our collective journey: the regions of perennial darkness, in which we feel lost, and even the distinction between right and wrong blurs. We are like the prince in the Midrash: he left the family home, because of anger, or boredom. Along the way he encounters friends that ask him to return, but he says he has not the power, he is too weak. And his father, the King, sends to him and says: at least, come part of the way back. Begin to make the journey, I will do the rest, I will you meet halfway. Return to me and I will return to you.
Rabbi Kook explains that teshuvah is not a regression. It is a return. When a society is devastated by idolatry, when the structure of power is generally reputed holy, to return to the Golden Rule, that you shall love your neighbor because he is, like you, created in the image of God, is truly a revolutionary commandment, says Rabbi Kook.
This is the inspiration of Sinai, this spiritual treasure of the Jewish people, that we Jews have the task to share with humanity: to overcome dark impulses, idolatrous and oppressive, that are part of each human group, of every human being, of each of us. The Golden Rule pushes us to discover, the treasure our ancestors uncovered centuries ago in their journey. Their journey was the prototype of the journey that we make together each year on Yom Kippur.
I want to share with you one journey, the journey of Elazar ben Durdaya, a man who liked prostitutes. This story is told in Babylonian Talmud, in Avodah Zarah. Elazar one day heard talk about a beautiful courtesan who was, let’s say, not only beautiful, but also very skilled. He collected information about her price, picked up the sum and went on his journey to find the professional.
The Talmud says that Elazar ben Durdaya crossed the proverbial seven seas, the mountains and rivers. At the end of the meeting the prostitutes said to him, You will be remembered only for this trip. You will never be admitted to the olam habaa, the world to come. And Elazar became aware of having committed a serious aveirah, having reduced a person to a thing. He also realized that that money could be spent for more worthy purposes. A different trip could have had a more worthy purpose. Elazar ben Durdaya, desperate and afflicted, sat to the ground. The Talmud says that the mountains were moved for him, and he asked them to pray for him, but the mountains answered: we cannot pray for you, we are praying to stay firm. Elazar then turned to heavens, and asks them to pray for him. But the heavens answered that they have much to do, they must pray so the planets can continue in their orderly courses and the universe remain more or less stable. And then, the Talmud reports, that Elazar ben Durdaya understood his forgiveness, his teshuvah, depended only on him. At this point Elazar ben Durdaya wept and his soul ascended to heaven. He was received by a divine voice saying: In the olam habaa there is place for Rabbi Elazar ben Durdaya
The Talmud comments that there are those who take their all lifetime to enter olam habaa, and there are those, like Elazar ben Durdaya, who earn the olam habaa in a single hour. The name of the person who does teshuva is not only recalled, but also honored with the title of Rabbi, Maestro, because he who does teshuvah is as a pathfinder, a great traveller who has much to teach.
Humanity, we know, has an extraordinary capacity for renewal and rebirth. Each of us has an opportunity to remind ourselves of darkhei Shalom, the roads of peace, that we travelled from Sinai up until today.
It is said: an aveirah is a transgression of one commandment, but cannot cancel out the Torah, which remains the light. May our teshuva, our journey forward, be illuminated by the light of Torah.

Congregation Shir Hadash, Florence, Yom Kippur 5769