September 16, 2023 /1 Tishrei 5784
Imagine you are an astronaut alone in space. No planets in view, no spacecraft. No distant stars. No source of light. Imagine the latent terror, the quiet of space, the strange sensation of floating, the unspeakable dark between the wealth of stars.
Among my favorite reads of the hot summer of 2023 was Janna Levin’s “Black Hole Survival Guide.” Professor Levin’s guided tour continues:
If you do transit the event horizon of a big black hole, the trip will be undramatic. You should feel no pain. You won’t crash into any surface. Aside from the menacing darkness, the transit across the event horizon should be perfectly comfortable. You would cross the heavy shadow and the nothingness you see inside would look indistinguishable from the nothingness you saw outside.
The definition of an ‘event horizon’ is a boundary beyond which events cannot affect an observer. No difference, in other words, between inside and outside.
Professor Levin takes us deeper:
You would be oblivious to a demarcation of inside or outside. Without light to map the terrain, the disorientation would be thorough and impenetrable. You could fall inside the hole and survive the transition, very briefly unaware of the grim prospects for the future. Nothing is the worst thing you could encounter.
Beware the event horizon. The void is inescapable once crossed.
Hang onto those ominous words please. The void is inescapable once crossed. Beware the event horizon. Void. Inescapable. Beware.
There’s a Biblical parallel to the concept of event horizon, a terse wisdom teaching found twice in the brief book of Ecclesiastes, known in Hebrew as Kohelet. Here’re Kohelet’s words:
מְעֻוָּ֖ת לֹא־יוּכַ֣ל לִתְקֹ֑ן וְחֶסְר֖וֹן לֹא־יוּכַ֥ל לְהִמָּנֽוֹת׃
A twisted thing that cannot be made straight,
A lack that cannot be made good.
And then, a few chapters later:
רְאֵ֖ה אֶת־מַעֲשֵׂ֣ה הָאֱלֹהִ֑ים כִּ֣י מִ֤י יוּכַל֙ לְתַקֵּ֔ן אֵ֖ת אֲשֶׁ֥ר עִוְּתֽוֹ׃
Consider God’s doing! Who can straighten what God has twisted?
Can the many things which are twisted be made straight again? That’s the question hinted at by Kohelet’s author.
Immanuel Kant, the great Enlightenment philosopher, by the way, thought the answer was ‘no.’ “Out of the crooked timber of humanity,” he wrote, “no straight thing was ever made.”
But I ask you: Can it really be that there is no possibility of tikkun?!? Is that what Kohelet really means to say?!? Is that what we – you and I – really believe?!?
A small Hasidic story gets at the dilemma:
פעם אחת בראש חדש אלול עמד הרב הצדיק ר’ לוי יצחק מברדיטשוב בחלון
Once, on Rosh Hodesh Elul, the righteous rabbi, Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev, stood at the window. A non-Jewish cobbler ערל אחד מתקן נעלים passed by and asked him: Don’t you have anything to repair? וכי אין לך לתקן כלום
Immediately that righteous one sat on the ground and cried a great cry saying: Woe to me and woe to my soul אוי לי ואבוי לנפשי; the day of judgment is at hand and I still haven’t repaired myself. עדיין לא תיקנתי את עצמי
Notice that Levi Yitzhak starts out looking out his window. Is he seeking something? And how beautiful that it’s a non-Jewish cobbler who comes by; not a family member, not one of his hasidim or teachers. The question – THE question – comes from outside; outside of Levi Yitzhak’s close quarters and closed circle, and literally out of doors, outside. And what a question! Don’t you have anything to repair? Don’t I? Don’t you? Don’t WE have things to repair?
The question itself more than suggests that repair is possible, that the twisted can again, or still, be made straight. But Levi Yitzhak’s response, leaves us in ambiguous territory. ‘I still haven’t repaired myself.’ Is it too late? Is it no longer possible? Was it ever possible? Or, is it simply time now, right now, to begin?
I’m certainly drawn to that last possibility; it’s never too late to change, to grow, to fix. Right? Lately, however, at least with regard to some major processes and events in our world, I’m not so sure.
A couple of examples:
If you’re of a certain age – which is to say around my age – these words may stir up some nice memories:
Everyone’s feelin’ pretty
It’s hotter than July
Though the world’s full of problems
They couldn’t touch us even if they tried…
If you’re hearing/guessing Stevie Wonder, you’d be correct. ‘Master Blaster – Jammin’’ is the name of the song; it kicked off Mr. Wonder’s first ever platinum album in 1980, and gave that album its name – Hotter than July.
Turns out that in 1980, July was pretty hot, the midpoint of a nation wide heat wave that gripped the country from June to September. Kansas City, as one example among many, recorded 17 straight days of temperatures over 100 degrees; only a hurricane that blew through in August provided any relief. The heat wave finally lifted in the middle of September; ‘Hotter than July’ hit record stores (you do remember record stores, yes?) and radio stations a week later.
Just how hot was this July? Hotter than anything on record read an NPR headline in the first week of August. And by all accounts, 2023 won’t hold that record for very long.
“The next few years will be the coolest of my life if the world continues to emit greenhouse gasses,” opines Sarah Kapnick, chief scientist and climate expert at NOAA
This summer, the earth itself burned: Wildfires – in eastern Canada, in Maui, in western Canada; Atlantic water temperature that exceeded 100 degrees F.; and Phoenix strung together 31 days of daytime temperatures that exceeded 110° F.
Working off of our Kohelet verses, the Midrash serves up a famous and important teaching:
“See the work of God, for who can straighten what God has twisted?” When the Holy One of blessing created Adam the first human, God took him/her and showed Adam haRishon all the trees in the Garden of Eden, saying: ‘See My creations, how beautiful and exemplary they are. Everything I created, I created for you. כָל מַה שֶּׁבָּרָאתִי בִּשְׁבִילְךָ בָּרָאתִי Make certain that you do not ruin and destroy My world, for if you destroy it, there will be no one to mend it after you…” [Kohelet Rabbah 7:13]
Does the Midrash mean to say that once twisted the earth can never again be straightened? Or does it mean to claim that there is no one to repair but we humans? We made the mess; we have to clean it up. There’s no one else to do it. I keep a post it over my desk with exactly ten words on it: If it is to be, it is up to me.
Business consultants make a distinction among problems and challenges between potholes and craters. A pothole gets filled with asphalt and we’re good to go; it’s relatively easy to repair and totally worth the effort. A crater, on the other hand, would require a whole lot of earth and a whole lot of asphalt to fill and fix. It may not be worth doing, and it might not even be possible.
A late Midrash building on our Kohelet verses identifies the crater possibility in a pretty colorful way:
מה שברא הקב“ה מעוות מי יוכל לתקנו?
Who can repair that which God created twisted? asks Midrash Lekah Tov.
For example the camel! כמו הגמל
Let me remind you of the great aphorism of one Sir Alexander Arnold
Constantine Issigonis, who designed the Mini, for the British Motor Corporation in 1959. A camel, he once said, is a horse designed by committee!
Camels, apparently, cannot be repaired, magically re-conceived as horses! Hopefully our planet can; and it’s on us to take it on.
As Rav Nahman teaches:
אם אתה מאמין שיכולין לקלקל, תאמין שיכולין לתקן
If you believe that you are able to destroy, believe too that you are able to repair! If is it to be, it is up to me…
Let’s talk about Israel, shall we?
I opened up Haaretz – Israel’s oldest and most important daily newspaper – the other day, to find the following:
“Dear North American rabbi, while you’re ruminating and toiling writing your New Year sermon (the Drasha), know this: The Israel you referred to in previous years is gravely endangered.”
I was, of course, in the middle of ruminating on and toiling to write my Rosh Hashanah sermon. The Israel mentioned by Alon Pinkas, a distinguished retired Israeli diplomat, is the David who defeats Goliath on the battlefield, the Israel of dancing, farming, fighting kibbutzniks, the Israel that absorbed and integrated wave after wave of Jewish immigrants from all over the world. Ambassador Pinkas’s next sentence: “In fact, to a degree, it no longer exists.” Ouch! But of course, he’s right…And Pinkas continues: “It is a torturous realization, but you cannot avoid it or deliver a sermon without alluding to it – unless you intend to ignore Israel altogether, which I suspect you are not.” Right again. So here goes.
The Israel we know, love, support, care about, is in danger of coming apart at the seams. It has been terrifying to watch from afar, agonizing to keep track of it daily for the better part of this past year. The “it” is the current government’s proposed reform of Israel’s judicial system which has summoned up fear on the part of many Israelis and many lovers of Israel from around the world for the end of Israel’s democracy. Hundreds of thousands of protestors have filled the streets of Israel’s main cities and towns every Saturday night for the last 37 weeks to demand that the government abandon its plan and to defend democracy. It has been a truly stormy and scary time.
The crisis has mobilized Israelis from every walk of life and has awakened to activism many Israelis who now live in North America and Europe. There have been weekly protests in many Canadian, American, British, and European cities, Philadelphia included, for that same stretch of time. More than a few members of our own sacred community have participated in those protests and a good many among us are part of the local organizing team here in Philadelphia. We have hosted local Israelis here at Beth Am Israel for dialogue and conversation and look forward to another round on Sukkot.
Why do I care? And why should you?
Hear my teacher and friend Chancellor Emeritus Arnold Eisen on the topic:
Should the government carry through with announced proposals for “judicial reform,” unjust treatment of Palestinians, and curtailing of civil rights, Jews living hundreds of years from now will shake their heads at the tragedy of a promise abandoned, incredible achievements tossed aside and ideals betrayed. Jews like me will remain attached to Israel but will do so with far less joy and pride. Others, Jewish and Gentile, will quietly or noisily walk away from concern with the state, or join the ranks of its detractors. A great deal is at stake right now. There is still time to avert tragedy. We owe it to ourselves and our history not to go down this road.
I endorse Chancellor Eisen’s call to us to remain engaged; even to engage more deeply. But how? And with whom?
The week before last Hadas Meira spoke at the Kaplan Street protest. She introduced herself as a mother, a high tech worker, and IDF veteran, a product of the Religious Zionist movement, a Likud voter, and a right winger. Video of her talk went viral in Israel. Her unequivocal message was that the government no longer represents her or her religious and zionist values. And her call to us, North American Jews who love and care about Israel and the Jewish people, is to join in protests here, to get involved, to engage even more deeply.
The divisions within and among our people are real and quite worrisome. Rabbi Avi Weiss’s beautiful meditation – copies of which are at or near your seats – speaks powerfully to that concern.
Unity is never uniformity
Uniformity is uni form
Crushing other views
Unity is uni tied, united
Despite differences
Dear dear God
Help us to know that
Am Yisrael is more than
The Nation of Israel
We are Family
And the test of family
Is not how we love
When we agree
But how we love
When we disagree
May we be careful with our words
For while a word is a word
And a deed is a deed
Words we say
Can lead to harmful, fatal deeds
May we not question
The motives of the other –
But instead
Listen to the other
Learn from the other
Sing and dance
The Psalmist’s dream
“Behold how beautiful how sweet
Sisters and brothers
Together.”
I’m inspired by writer Celeste Marcus’s recent words:
Israel was not conceived only as a haven. The Zionist inspiration was to establish a Jewish State that is defensible also morally, respectful and protective of minority cultures, and sensitive to religious and spiritual sensibilities and ways of life. That is the future for which the protestors surge into the streets on Saturday nights. It is the only worthy one.
And my friend Rabbi Ayelet Cohen’s prayer for Israel resonates for me at this moment. I hope it will for you as well.
M’kor ha’Haim – Source of Life; Maker of Miracles:
Bless the State of Israel and all the inhabitants of the land
Protect her with infinite compassion
Spread over her your shelter of peace
Strengthen the hearts and the will of its citizens
Calling out for justice and democracy
May their voices ring out like a shofar throughout the land
A budding redemption
Help them replant what has been uprooted and tend what has been neglected
Sow the seedling promises of refuge and equality blossom and thrive
May their feet not give way, let them not tire nor slumber nor succumb to fear
Grant strength and courage
Nurture a shared future for all who call the land home
Healer of the broken-hearted
Sustain our hope
Help us celebrate what was and is miraculous in Israel’s founding
Help us grieve all that has been lost in the realization of that dream,
May we be strong enough and honest enough to carry the shattered along with
the whole
May our love and our commitment to the vision of the Prophets endure
like honey from the rock
May we be partners with the Divine and with all the inhabitants of the land
in establishing and protecting justice, peace and joy.
It’s an old Jewish tradition to use the letters of a given year to spell out a phrase, a hope, a blessing for that year. For 5784 whose letters are tav, shin, peh, dalet — תשפ“ד = תהא שנת פריחה דמוקרתית
t’heh sh’nat p’rihah demokratik! May this year be one of democratic flowering for us, for all of Israel, for the whole world. AMEN.
