This morning I attended the Immigrant Justice prayer vigil of which I’ve written several times before. It’s been taking place every Friday morning at 7:00 am at a local immigrant detention center to show solidarity with undocumented immigrants as they are in the process of being deported – and to protest the national shame that is our nation’s current immigration policy.

This vigil previously took place at the Broadview detention facility just west of Chicago, but for the past several months undocumented immigrants have been held and processed at the Federal Building on 101 W. Congress Parkway. If you live in or around Chicago, I encourage you to join us.

Though the vigil was originally established by Catholic activists and featured the recitation of the rosary, it has long included attendees of many faiths. Just recently the first Friday of every month has been formally designated to be an interfaith ceremony. Today’s service included Christian, Muslim and Jewish participants – truly an inspiring show of prayerful solidarity.

Some years ago, I wrote and delivered a prayer specifically for this vigil.  JRC member Gonzalo Escobar recently translated it into Spanish and this morning we read a bilingual version of it together. I’ve included it below, along with other powerful prayers that were recited during our ceremony.

Again, if you live in the area, please join us on Friday mornings at 101 W. Congress and help us raise a prayerful voice all the way to Washington…

Prayer for a Vigil at a Detention Center (translated by Gonzalo Escobar):

Espíritu de Todo lo que Vive:

Ayúdanos. Ayúdanos a defender los valores que son tan importantes para lo que somos: seres humanos creados a imagen de Dios. Ayúdanos a encontrar la compasión en nuestros corazones y la justicia en nuestros actos para todos los que buscan la libertad y una mejor vida. Pueda que encontremos la fuerza para proteger y defender la causa del forastero (extranjero) entre nosotros, para asegurar un trato justo para todos los que habitan en nuestra tierra.

Guíanos. Guíanos hacia una ley. Una justicia. Una de las normas de comportamiento humano para con todos. Aléjanos de la ambigüedad que hace honor a la imagen divina en algunos, pero no en otros. Deja que nosotros siempre testifiquemos que la justicia que pretendemos apreciar no es más que una farsa si no defendemos la dignidad humana básica para todos los que moran entre nosotros.

Perdónanos. Perdónanos por la forma inhumana en que con demasiada frecuencia tratamos a los demás. Sabemos, o deberíamos saber, que cuando se trata de crímenes contra la humanidad, algunos de nosotros podríamos ser culpables, pero todos somos responsables. Concédenos el perdón de los delitos de exclusión que siempre cometemos contra los miembros más vulnerables de la sociedad: los no deseados, los desamparados, los no asegurados, los indocumentados.

Danos fuerza. Danos fuerza para encontrar los medios para hacer brillar tu luz en los lugares oscuros de nuestro mundo. Danos la capacidad de descubrir a los que están ocultos a la vista, encerrados y olvidados. No olvidemos jamás que no hay nada oculto y nadie se ha perdido delante de ti. Fortalécenos con el conocimiento de que no hay ni una sola alma humana que sea desechable o reemplazable, que no podemos nunca, por mucho que tratemos, quitarle la humanidad a nadie.

Recuérdanos. Recuérdanos nuestro deber de crear una sociedad justa, aquí y ahora, en nuestros días. Danos la visión del propósito de evitar la complacencia de lo cómodo – y la determinación de saber que no podemos postergar la causa de la justicia y la libertad por un día más. Recuérdanos que ahora es tiempo y el momento de crear tu reino en la tierra.

Que sea tu voluntad. Y para sea que la nuestra.

Y digamos,  Amén.

Intentions:

We pray for those women and men being deported today form all detention centers in the country, especially the ones leaving today from 101 W. Congress.

We pray for families who have experienced the devastation of raids and deportations

For the children who have lost parents;

For the husbands and wives who were left alone to take care of their families;

For all undocumented people who experience fear and live in a state of uncertainty.

We pray that all those connected with the Department of Homeland Security treat our immigrant brothers and sisters with respect. We pray for ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the staff of all detention centers in our country.

We pray for leaders in our country and leaders of all faiths that we may work together with a common wisdom to stop deportations and work toward compassionate immigration policies.

We pray that your spirit of goodness and love be a more powerful witness than the spirit of fear, hatred, and discrimination expressed in anti-immigrant legislation in the country.

A Paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer, modeled after one by Guatemalan theologian Julia Esquivel:

Our Father

Father also for the immigrants, the homeless and all the poor

Hallowed be Your Name

Hallowed more than any hero, idol or saint on earth

Your kingdom come

A Kingdom of justice, peace and equality, without borders, visas or deportees

Your will be done in earth as it is in heaven

When all this will be tolerant of each other and all would welcome the strangers

Give us this day our daily bread

A bread of kindness and mercy, a bread of friendship, humility and generous spirit

And forgive us us our debts as we forgive our debtors

When no longer we would think of ourselves and allow others to be the first in line

And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil

Help us to remain strong in our convictions, help us to clean our minds of evil thoughts

All: For Yours is the kingdom and the glory and the power forever, Amen.

Just saw “The Interrupters” – a new documentary that highlights the work of “CeaseFire,” an organization that works indefatigably to reduce urban violence in Chicago. I’m still sorting through the experience: it’s quite simply one of the most spiritually, politically and ethically powerful films I’ve ever seen.

I won’t say much more except that you need to find out when “The Interrupters” is coming to your town right now. (Chicago residents: it’s currently playing at the Wilmette Theater through Sept. 1.)

In the meantime, click above to see one of the many memorable scenes from the film. This is the force-of-nature-amazing Ameena Matthews – the daughter of a notorious Chicago gang leader and former drug ring enforcer who has found courage and strength in her Muslim faith and now works as a CeaseFire “Interrupter.” Here she leads a neighborhood prayer vigil for a young boy who was killed in the crossfire of gang violence – then confronts friends who are seeking revenge for his death.

Now this is prayer in action…

- Hot off the presses: the Jewish Voice for Peace 2011 Haggadah. One powerful excerpt – a new Passover poem written by Rabbi Rachel Barenblat for her “Velveteen Rabbi’s Haggadah for Pesach“:

Freedom
In remembrance of the 2011 protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Gabon, Bahrain, Libya, and elsewhere.

Liberation comes when people gather
by the tens and by the thousands
demanding that the despot who’s held the reins
step down, and in between the slogans
they dish out lentils cooked over open flame,
and homes open up so the protestors can shower
and members of one faith link hands
to protect members of another faith at prayer.
Liberation comes at a cost: not only
the horses and chariots swept away, but
innocents gunned down by their own army,
panicked children lost in the roiling crowds
activists imprisoned for speaking freely,
and when the world stops watching
they may be beaten—or worse.
It’s upon us to at least pay attention
on mobile phones and computer screens
as real people rise up to say
we have the right to congregate and to speak
we will not be silenced, we are not afraid.

- A “Food and Justice” seder from Uri L’Tzedek;

- “The Labor Seder” by Jews United for Justice;

- American Jewish World Service’s “Slavery, Freedom and Migration;”

- A Haggadah Insert by Jewish Solidarity with Native American People;

- The 2011 Tikkun Magazine Haggadah supplement which, as always, has enough material for 10 seders.

May it be a liberating Pesach for us all!

The following blessing was just sent to me by my friend and colleague Rabbi Laurie Zimmerman, of Reconstructionist congregation Sha’arei Shamayim in Madison, WI. It was said during the Shabbat morning Torah service for all those who participated in the many protests, vigils, or hearings at the Wisconsin State Capitol last week.  Laurie reports that 90% of the congregation and guests came up for the blessing.

Mi sheberach Avoteynu Avraham, Yitzhak, v’Ya’akov
May the One who blessed our forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,

V’Imoteynu Sarah, Rivka, Rachel, v’Leah
And our foremothers Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah,

Bless all of you who have come up to the Torah this morning.

No matter what happens in the next week may you be reminded that even tiny actions can affect others, create ripple effects, and make a difference in our world.

May you take responsibility for what you say, for how you behave, for what you do and for what you do not do.

May you pursue justice, act with integrity, and work hard to create a society where all are cared for, where every person has the resources that he or she needs.

May you remember to take care of yourselves and your families so that your work is sustainable.

And may you heed the words of Pirke Avot: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?  If I am only for myself, what am I?  And if not now, when?”

And let us say, Amen.

Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu celebrated the festival of Tu B’shevat (“The New Year of the Trees”) by leaving a meeting with American peace envoy George Mitchell and promptly embarking upon a tree-planting tour at Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Here is what he had to say:

The message is clear – we are here and will remain here. We are planting and building; this is an inseparable part of the State of Israel.

For those looking for a different way to connect the festival of Tu B’shevat to the current political reality in the State of Israel, I recommend reading this at your seder, written by Rabbi Arik Ascherman of Israel’s Rabbis for Human Rights:

Lift the olive branch and say:

The olive branch, what is the reason for this?

We raise the olive branch as a symbol of responsibility, identification and hope.

We raise this branch in sorrow because each and every year, olive trees, the source of livelihood for Palestinian families, are intentionally chopped down, burned and uprooted.  In attempting to exercise their right to work their lands, farmers repeatedly put themselves in danger. Both the human being and the trees of the field are desecrated, and there is no earthly law or judge (ein din v’ein dayan). Only a few are guilty, but all are responsible (Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel).

On Tu B’shevat, we are taught that the trees cease to drink from the rains of the past year and begin to be nourished from the rains of the current year (Jerusalem Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 56a). However, into the old and the new waters have fallen the tears of the dove of peace whose feet cannot find a resting place (Genesis 8:9) because the earth has become filled with violence (Genesis 6:11). The olive branch has become bitter in her mouth – a symbol of strife.

We raise this branch as a symbol of identification with those Israelis and Palestinians who are doing everything in their power to change this reality and make enemies into friends (Pirke Avot De’Rabbi Natan) by planting, pruning, plowing and harvesting together, despite the voices of hate and incitement from both sides.

May it be Your will that the fruit of the olive, symbol of the World of Yetzirah/Creativity (Pri Eytz Hadar) inspire us to create justice and peace out of the basic materials of the soil, the fruit of the soil, and the human spirit (adamah, pri adamah, ve’ruakh ha’adam) so that by the time evening falls (Genesis 8:11) we will reconnect the olive branch to the root of the soul (Shoresh Nishmato).

May we thus beat our swords into plowshares and  our spears into pruning hooks…so that every person may sit under their vine or fig tree and none shall make them afraid (Micah 4:3-4) and the land shall know tranquility (Judges 3:11, etc.) and all of its inhabitants will rejoice.

If the Torah teaches us that human beings are made in the image of God, which image of God will we proclaim? The God of fear or the God of forgiveness? The God of hatred or the God of compassion? The God of xenophobia or the God of justice? And if our answer is indeed the latter, then we must affirm it. We must bear witness to this image of God in no uncertain terms. History teaches all too well what the God of hatred can do in our world. Those of us who reject this theology must be ready to do so without hesitation – to actively promote the God of compassion.

Click below to read the entire sermon:

Those who come to Torah study will know this phenomenon well: we’re reading our weekly portion, I’ll share a rabbinic insight or two, things will be going along quite nicely…

… and then we’ll read a passage where God behaves really, really badly.

It occurs almost on a weekly basis. Out of nowhere God will act like an abusive parent or a jealous crusher of other gods, or as angrily punishing authority figure. And inevitably, our discussion flies off in a very familiar direction: this is my most sacred of texts? This is the God Jews are being asked to worship? This is the God I’m supposed to teach to my children?

It’s often even more confusing because there are also times in the Torah where God appears as the epitome of tolerance and compassion: the God that liberates the enslaved, who cares for the sick, who shows kindness and loyalty throughout the generations. This God usually prompts far less discussion – except perhaps for the comment that we wish God could always appear this way in the Torah.

To make matters even more confusing, sometimes these two Gods will appear back to back within the very same Torah portion. In Parashat Ki Tisa, for instance, we read the infamous incident of the Golden Calf.  In response to this act of disloyalty, God becomes infuriated and threatens to wipe all of the Israelites. Though Moses eventually gets God to back down, God later sends a plague upon the people as punishment.

A little later on, however, God is appears to have reformed completely. When God passes by Moses on the top of Mt. Sinai, God’s essential divine attributes are described: “compassionate and slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin.”

So which God is the real God? The punishing authority figure or the unconditionally loving parent? The angry warrior who demands that we crush the inhabitants of Canaan or the compassionate exemplar who commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves?

As I grapple with this question, myself, I’ve come to accept that whether we like it or not, both of these “Gods” represent aspects of our tradition. As much as we’d like to, we can’t wish away or surgically excise the nasty God from our sacred texts. On the contrary: if we really intend to be serious about Jewish spiritual life, I believe we need to be prepared to confront the more disturbing theologies in our tradition.

For me that means asking this question openly and unflinchingly: if the Torah teaches us that human beings are made in the image of God, which image of God will we proclaim? The God of fear or the God of forgiveness? The God of hatred or the God compassion? The God of xenophobia or the God of justice? And if our answer is indeed the latter, then we must affirm it. We must bear witness to this image of God in no uncertain terms. History teaches all too well what the God of hatred can do in our world. Those of us who reject this theology must be ready to do so without hesitation – to actively promote the God of compassion.

Of course, this is not only a Jewish problem – it’s a challenge to all people of faith. I’m often struck that Judaism is routinely stereotyped as the religion of the “intolerant Old Testament God” and Christianity as the religion of the “merciful New Testament God.” If truth be told, Christianity has been as responsible as any other faith for bringing religious intolerance into the world. No, this is not the problem of any one religion. It’s a universal challenge. At the end of the day, religion is only as redemptive or destructive as the human beings who practice it.

Last year I taught an Adult Ed series at JRC called “God Talk” – and the central premise of the class was that Jewish tradition does not have a central theological dogma.  Jewish theology has always evolved as Jewish history has evolved. The God concepts of the Bible, for instance, differ that the Rabbinic theologies of the Talmud, which in turn differs from the God of the medieval philosopher Maimonides or the Lurianic kabbalists, or modernist theologians, etc.

Any one of these theologies is important and edifying as far it goes, but in the end, I believe the continuum they represent is much more important.  We can learn a great deal by studying the tensions between these views of God, because I think ultimately these contradictory concepts reflect our own struggles to live up to our highest selves. I guess all this is my fancy way of saying that in the end, I’m not so interested in having a theologian tell me what God is. Like Jacob, I believe that God is meant to be personally wrestled with – not studied in a theology book.

In this regard, I want to share with you a taste of what I consider to be among the most exciting theological work being done today. Interestingly enough, it’s not being created by philosophers or theologians, but actually by scientists and neurologists. Over the past decade or so, physicians have been investigating the ways in which spirituality is rooted in the biology of the brain. By combining the fields of neuroscience and religious studies, they’re helping us to actually understand how the neurological makeup of our brains influences the ways we experience God.

I’ve been particularly fascinated by the research of radiologist Dr. Andrew Newberg, who is the founder of the Center for Spirituality and the Mind at the University of Pennsylvania. I first discovered his work several years ago when I read the book, “Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief.”  This is Dr. Newberg’s basic premise:

Every event that happens to us or any actions that we take can be associated with activity in one or more specific regions of the brain. This includes, necessarily, all religious and spiritual experiences. The evidence further compels us to believe that if God does indeed exist, the only place he can manifest his existence would be in the tangled neural pathways and physiological structures of the brain.

Of course philosophers have held for centuries that our perception of reality is just that: our “perception.” There is no such thing as a “direct,” “objective” experience of reality.  In the field of religious studies, social scientists have been helping us understand the ways we construct our religious realities; today, physical scientists are increasingly weighing in on the God question as well.  As they are finding, the more we learn about how our brains perceive reality, the more we learn about how and why God is revealed to us.

For me, the most amazing findings of this research demonstrate the way God has evolved neurologically over the centuries. In his newest book, “How God Changes Your Brain,” Newberg makes the claim that different experiences of God actually correlate to the development of the human brain. Neurologically speaking, researchers have located the angry, authoritarian God in the limbic system, which houses the oldest and most primitive structures of the brain. This includes the amygdala – the little almond-shaped organ that generates our “fight or flight” response. The benevolent, compassionate God, on the other hand, can be found in our frontal lobes, and particularly in a structure known as the anterior cingulate. These are the parts of the brain most primarily associated with our experience of compassion and empathy. Compared to the ancient limbic system, these structures are the most recently evolved parts of our brain and they appear to be unique to human beings.

This is how Newberg puts it:

Something happened in the brains of our ancestors that gave us the power to tame this authoritarian God. No one knows exactly when or how it happened, but the neural structures that evolved enhanced our ability to cooperate with others. They gave us the ability to construct language and to consciously think in logical and reasonable ways…Without these new neural connections, humans would be limited in their ability to develop an inner moral code or a societal system of ethics.

And so the $64,000 question: does this research teach us how we can keep the more destructive God at bay?  Can we actually train our brains to favor the God of compassion?  Newberg answers this question by quoting a classic Cherokee folktale:

Once upon a time a young Indian boy received a beautiful drum as a gift. When his best friend saw it, he asked if he could play with it, but the boy felt torn. He didn’t want to share his new present, so he angrily told his friend, “No!” His friend ran away, and the boy sat down on a rock by a stream to contemplate his dilemma. He hated the fact that he had hurt his friend’s feelings, but the drum was too precious to share. In his quandary, he went to his grandfather for advice.

The elder listened quietly and then replied. “I often feel as though there are two wolves fighting inside me. One is means and greedy and full of arrogance and pride, but the other is peaceful and generous. All the time they are struggling, and you, my boy, have those same two wolves inside of you.”

“Which one will win” asked the boy.

The elder smiled and said, “The one you feed.”

Newberg suggests that much like the two wolves, there are two Gods competing with one another deep within our brains: the authoritarian, punishing God vs. the compassionate forgiving God. Which one will win? It all depends upon which one we feed.  Indeed, neurological research demonstrates that whenever we let our anger or fear overpower us, we tend to shut down the brain activity in our frontal lobes. When this happens, our “fight or flight” response is generated and it spreads rapidly throughout our brains.

We’ve long known that excessive anger or fear can cause problems like high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. Studies also show that extreme anger can permanently disrupt structures in both our brains that control basic functions like memory storage and cognitive accuracy. In other words, when we indulge our anger, we feed the more ancient, authoritarian God.

When I read this research, I’m reminded of the central divine attributes in Torah known as “erech apayim” – being “slow to anger.” It also brings to my mind the famous dynamic between the Yetzer Hara (“the bad inclination”) and the Yetzer Hatov (“the good inclination.”) The rabbis made sure to point out that the Yetzer Harah was an essential aspect of our humanity. Whether we like it or not, these impulses are a part of us – much like our limbic system is an essential and necessary part of our brain. The point is not to deny or repress our Yetzer Hara, but to channel and master it. As the verse from Pirke Avot teaches: “Mi hu gibor? Mi’she kovesh et yitzro” – “Who is mighty? The one who masters one’s (bad) inclination.”

And how do we feed the God of compassion? At the risk of sounding too Pollyannaish, the answer is really quite simple: we need to consciously exercise our capacity for kindness. Believe it or not, science itself is proving that compassion and empathy can be neurologically contagious. Studies demonstrate conclusively that there is increased activity in the compassion center of the brain whenever we perceive others as being sensitive to our needs. Scientists have also concluded through research that the more positive contact we have with members of other different religions, cultural, and ethnic groups, the less prejudice we tend to harbor in our brains.

Another very effective way to feed the God of compassion is through the practice of meditation and contemplation. Many of you know, I’m sure that back in the 1970’s Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard presented his first findings on what he called “The Relaxation Response,” demonstrating the power of meditation to reduce stress and lower our “fight or flight” response. More recent studies have shown that the meditation can enhance the neural functioning of the brain enough to impact its capacity for empathy, openness to different points of view, and tolerance for those who are different.

I want to say that up until now, I’ve been referring somewhat flippantly to these two different Gods.  I don’t want anyone to think that I’m a theological dualist – that I’m reducing the world essentially a battle between a force of good and a force of evil. What I am suggesting is that what we call God is something we perceive on a continuum – we experience a more ancient, primitive God concept at one end, and a more evolved, exalted form at the other. I would suggest that God isn’t really identified with either one of these poles, but rather in the forward momentum that moves us from one end of the continuum to the other.

And the way we attain this forward motion – the key to living a sacred way of life – is the same as it ever was: by mastering our baser impulses and nurturing our most exalted selves. By refusing to indulge our fear and anger and opting instead to feed our capacity for kindness and compassion. By being actively involved in the care and feeding of God’s growth in ourselves and in our world.  This is how we ultimately make God manifest in the world.

I can’t help but think that this is yet another way might understand the Torah’s concept of Tzelem Elohim – the Divine Image. Perhaps our innate neurological capacity to grow in compassion, to empathize with others, to exercise kindness, to promote fairness and justice for people we might not even know personally – maybe this is all just science’s way of saying that we’re all made in God’s image.

It seems somehow appropriate to be having this discussion on Yom Kippur: the day in which we pray openly and unabashedly for God’s compassion in the coming year.  Perhaps on a very real level, this could mean that we are praying for the strength to grow the capacity for goodness in ourselves. To find the wherewithal to feed our capacity for kindness, to make the time to calm our minds and souls so that we might become vessels for compassion in our own lives. Because then, and only then will our prayers have a chance of coming true.

On this Yom Kippur, may we all find a measure of kindness in our lives. May it make all the difference for us, for those around us, and for our world.

Amen.

I included this reading in our service for Shabbat Shuvah yesterday: an excerpt from a 1999 commencement speech by one of my favorite writers, Anna Quindlen. I believe it’s about as wonderful a Yom Kippur message as you will find.

I’ll be offline until Monday evening. May we all be sealed for health, meaning, peace and life in the coming year…

So here’s what I wanted to tell you today: get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house. Do you think you’d care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast?

Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze over Seaside Heights, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water gap or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a Cheerio with her thumb and first finger.

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure; it is work. Each time you look at your diploma, remember that you are still a student, still learning how to best treasure your connection to others. Pick up the phone. Send an e-mail. Write a letter. Kiss your Mom. Hug your Dad.

Get a life in which you are generous. Look around at the azaleas in the suburban neighborhood where you grew up; look at a full moon hanging silver in a black, black sky on a cold night. And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted.

Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around. Take money you would have spent on beers and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister. All of you want to do well. But if you do not do good, too, then doing well will never be enough.

It is so easy to waste our lives: our days, our hours, our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the color of the azaleas, the sheen of the limestone on Fifth Avenue, the color of our kids’ eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. It is so easy to exist instead of live.

I learned to live many years ago. Something really, really bad happened to me, something that changed my life in ways that, if I had my druthers, it would never have been changed at all. And what I learned from it is what, today, seems to be the hardest lesson of all.

I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get.

I learned to look at all the good in the world and to try to give some of it back because I believed in it completely and utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned.  By telling them this: Consider the lilies of the field.  Look at the fuzz on a baby’s ear. Read in the backyard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy.

And think of life as a terminal illness because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived.

Well, you can learn all those things, out there, if you get a real life, a full life, a professional life, yes, but another life, too, a life of love and laughs and a connection to other human beings. Just keep your eyes and ears open. Here you could learn in the classroom. There the classroom is everywhere. The exam comes at the very end.

The actions of the Jewish State ultimately reflect upon the Jewish people throughout the world. We in the Diaspora Jewish community have long taken pride in the accomplishments of the Jewish State. As with any family, the success of some reflects a warm light on us all. But pride cannot blind us to the capacity for error on the part of the country we hold so dear. We cannot identify with the successes, but refuse to see the failures.

As we approach Yom Kippur, I call on America’s Jews to examine the Goldstone findings, and consider their implications. In the spirit of the season, we must consider the painful truth of Israel’s behavior in Gaza, and understand that we must work, together, to discover the truth — and then urge on all relevant parties in the search for peace.

How do we discover the true meaning of spiritual commitment in our lives? Perhaps the first step is simply taking a closer look at our lives themselves. Maybe, just maybe, the source of our emunah is much closer than we think.  On Rosh Hashanah we say in our liturgy “Hayom Harat Olam” – on this day the world is born.  Your entire life has been leading up to this moment. Take the time to look back. What has led you here to this place tonight? Who are the people who have helped to guide you on your journey? What are the memories and experiences that you continue to hold sacred? And, finally, how will you transform them into faithful action? How will you commit to them honor them in the coming year and the years after that?

Click below for the entire sermon:

Every Friday morning, in the Broadview neighborhood on the west side of Chicago, a group of nuns gathers in front of an Immigration detention center.  It’s an unremarkable brick building – nothing about it would tip you off to its actual purpose. The Broadview center is the last stop for undocumented immigrants. This is where they receive their final processing before they are sent to O’Hare airport to be deported.

Friday is deportation day.  And so every Friday, the Sisters of Mercy come to the facility. They begin to arrive at about 6:45 or so.  As they arrive, they congregate with others on the sidewalk in front of the center. At 7:15 sharp they take out their beads and begin leading the assembled in the rosary. At least once during their vigil, a large barbed wire-topped gate will roll open and a bus will pull away from the center.  As this happens, the Sisters pause in their prayers, look up, and wave with a smile to the passengers inside.

The Sisters of Mercy gather at Broadview every week without fail. It doesn’t matter if the rain is pouring down, if there’s a blizzard, if the wind is whipping in off the lake. Every Friday morning at 7:15, this is where they can be found.

It seems to me they do it for several reasons. They do it because they want to convey to these prisoners, most of whom are being separated from their families, to know that they are not forgotten. They do it to voice their prayerful protest against our nation’s broken and unjust immigration policy. Mainly, though, I think they do it because they don’t believe that they have a choice.

From time to time, I’ll join the Sisters in their prayer vigil – often bringing several JRC members along with me. But I will confess to you: there have been more than a few Friday mornings in which I’ve had every good intention of going, but just couldn’t quite pull myself past the snooze alarm. Yes, it’s true: there have been times in which the prospect of an extra forty minutes in my cozy bed actually trumped driving to the West Side to stand in the freezing rain with the Sisters of Mercy.

Now don’t get scared. My Rosh Hashanah message this year is not that we should all leave at the end of services tonight and join a nunnery.  However, I am interested in what is takes to demonstrate this level of faith. I’d like to explore the unique kind of faithfulness that is modeled by people such as the Sisters of Mercy. I want to examine the meaning – and the challenges – of spiritual commitment. And most importantly, this Rosh Hashanah, I’d like to ask if this level of faith something we might aspire to together.

I’d like to start by taking a closer look at the word “faith” itself. What are we actually talking about when we speak of our faith?  Does it merely refer to our denominational affiliation and nothing more? Is faith about the official tenets of organized religion? Is it only about what we believe – or is faith something else entirely?

I would personally argue that faith has less to do with religious belief than it does with how our beliefs inform our commitment. After all, when we say that someone did something “faithfully” (or “religiously”), we mean that it was done in a regular, dependable manner. If we say that someone is being “faithful” to his/her spouse, we’re talking about the active upholding of a marital commitment.

I would suggest that being religiously faithful is not about signing on to a set of religious beliefs. Religious dogma may differ from tradition to tradition, but true religiosity, it seems to me, is universal. It resides not in faith, but faithfulness. It’s less about what we believe than how we act upon our beliefs. In the end, I think, living lives of faith means making and following through on the most essential commitments in our lives.  It means having the willingness to devote our lives to spiritual values that are greater than ourselves.

Jewish tradition, as you might expect, has a great deal to say about faithfulness. The Hebrew word for faith is “emunah.”  Many scholars, however, have pointed out that a more appropriate translation of this word isn’t “faith” but “trust” or “trustworthiness.”

There are, for instance, numerous Biblical examples in which God is held up as a paragon of emunah – instances in which God demonstrates God’s commitment to us.  It also abounds in our liturgy. In the Modeh Ani, for instance, the traditional prayer that we say every morning as we awake, we end with the words, “rabbah emunatecha” – “how great is your emunah.”  Whenever we say this prayer, we make a daily acknowledgement about God’s faithfulness to us and to the world.  In other words, as we awaken each and every morning, we thankfully affirm the divine rhythm that dependably rouses us to new life.

There are also descriptions in the Torah of human emunah – human faithfulness toward God.  Abraham, in particular, is typically held up as a paragon of faith.  As you may remember, when we first meet Abraham, he demonstrates his emunah by following God’s instructions to leave his family home and head out to parts unknown with nothing but the promise of future blessing.

We often laud Abraham for his unshakable belief in God – and particularly for his recognition that there was only one God in the universe.  However, I would claim it goes even deeper than this. I would say that Abraham’s greatness doesn’t come from passive belief, but from his willingness to transform his faith into action. To put his trust and allegiance in something beyond himself, beyond his family, beyond anything he could see or hear or touch or feel. Something truly transcendent.

It is this very same challenge that is laid before us every Rosh Hashanah.  So as we gather to greet another year together, let’s give ourselves the space, the permission to explore these questions honestly and openly. What is going to get us out of our cozy beds at 6:00 in the morning?  What are the values, what is the purpose to which we are prepared to be faithful no matter what?  What are the commitments that we have no choice but to commit to? And perhaps most important: where will we find the strength to follow through on them?

There are, of course, no simple answers to questions like these – but I’d like to make a few practical suggestions that might help us get started.  One thing that occurs to me is that our faith often seems to be connected to our own life’s journeys in ways we don’t often fully understand.  Think about it for a moment. As you look back over the course of your own lifes, doesn’t it often seem as if it was just one simple experience: an interaction, a meaningful relationship, a chance encounter, that gave you a sudden sense of purpose – maybe without you even realizing it at the time?

Of course many of us don’t have to look too far to discover such moments. Some of these turning points are patently – or even painfully – obvious. Too often, these turning points are the result of crisis or loss.  I’m sure we all know of numerous instances in which individuals were able to find meaning in their own personal tragedy by transforming it into a commitment to a higher purpose.

It’s certainly not something we would wish on ourselves, but I do believe that if there can be any meaning at all in the tragedies that befall us, it is in the way our pain can make us more faithful people – the challenges in our lives can commit us that much more deeply to making a difference in our world and in the lives of those around us.

No, at the end of the day, I don’t believe that our faith is a product of conscious choice. More often than not, I think faithfulness is something that finds its way to us. The sources of our devotion seem to be indelibly wrapped up in the places from which we come, the families to which we are born, the people we are fated to meet, the seemingly random occurrences that befall us along the way.

How do we discover the true meaning of spiritual commitment in our lives? Perhaps the first step is simply taking a closer look at our lives themselves. Maybe, just maybe, the source of our emunah is much closer than we think.  On Rosh Hashanah we say in our liturgy “Hayom Harat Olam” – on this day the world is born.  Your entire life has been leading up to this moment. Take the time to look back. What has led you here to this place tonight? Who are the people who have helped to guide you on your journey? What are the memories and experiences that you continue to hold sacred? And, finally, how will you transform them into faithful action? How will you commit to them honor them in the coming year and the years after that?

Tomorrow is the only time of the year in which we will be asked to proclaim our ultimate faithfulness. At the end of the service will come our acknowledgement of Malchuyot: God’s sovereignty over the Universe. This is the moment in which we are commanded to literally get down upon our knees, and show our faith in a Power that exists far beyond our own. This is the challenge we will present to ourselves: Where do our ultimate loyalties lay? To what higher purpose will we be faithful?

I truly believe you don’t have to live in a nunnery or be an Abraham or a Sarah to aspire to this level of faith. Rosh Hashanah comes every year to remind us that we all carry this potential within ourselves.  We just need to remember the things in life that are truly worthy of our loyalties.  To hold tight to what makes a difference in our lives; to what ultimately matters in our world.

But Rosh Hashanah offers us the reminder – the rest will be up to us. It will be up to us to drag ourselves out of bed when we’d rather just hit the snooze. Or, to go forth into an unknown future when it would be much more comfortable to stay home with everything we already know.

Hayom Harat Olam. Today the world is reborn. Let us greet it with faith and renewed commitment. And may we give one another the strength to remain true to all that is good and right and enduring in our world.

Amen.

If you are interested in making a sacred promise this Yom Kippur, I’m submitting one for your consideration. The Shomer Shalom Jewish Institute for Jewish Nonviolence has developed the following vow (or “intention”) for be recited daily or annually on Yom Kippur. (Frankly, I can’t think of a better supplement to Kol Nidre…)

G’mar Tov – and may we all walk in the path of peace this New Year.

I believe that the practice of Judaism and the practice of all religions is for the sake of peace. Therefore, I, _____________, for the sake of peace and for the purpose of fulfilling “hashomer akhi anokhi” (“I am responsible for safeguarding the life and well-being of my sister and brother”), disavow the use of any form of physical, emotional, verbal, spiritual or economic violence toward myself and others, and hereby  accept upon myself the way of non-violence/shmirat shalom. I do this of my own free will and full realization of the commitment I herewith assume.

As a Shomer/et Shalom I, ___________ offer my diligence, devotion and dedication to the following principles and practices of Shmirat Shalom.

I choose to live by the principle that the study of Torah is intended to cultivate peace.  I will study Torah as a Shomer/et Shalom.

I choose to live by the principle that prayer is intended to cultivate peace. I will practice prayer as a Shomer/et Shalom.

I choose to live by the principle that the Sabbath and Holy Days are intended to cultivate peace. I will practice Shabbat and Holy Days as a Shomer/et Shalom.

I choose to live by the principle that our capacity for love and nonviolence is necessary for peace.  I will practice love and nonviolence for all people as a Shomer/et Shalom. As a Shomer/et Shalom, I am a conscientious objector to war.

I choose to live by the principle that the earth and all that is in it is sacred. I will practice environmental stewardship as a Shomer/et Shalom.

By offering this intention I, _______, accept the privileges and responsibilities of a steward of active nonviolence, a Shomeret Shalom.  May peace prevail upon the earth quickly and in our day.

Amen