This is the hardest sermon I have ever tried to write.
My fear this morning is that when I say something that’s hard to hear, you might stop listening or close your heart to what I’m trying to say.
So here is my ask of you this morning. Take a deep breath. Let it out. Maybe do it again a few times. And please make a conscious effort to hold certainties lightly and to keep your heart open.
A while ago I went looking for a New Yorker cartoon. I don’t subscribe to the magazine these days – I used to, maybe ten years ago, but they arrived more quickly than I could read them. After a while the stack of un-read issues made me feel like I was falling down on the job of being a well-informed poet! Still, many of the illustrations are available online, so I went hunting. I knew exactly what the cartoon looked like. And I couldn’t find it. No one else could seem to find it, either. Maybe it didn’t exist.
Every year, I try hard to find the right balance in high holiday planning. Some things are the same every year, and they should be! High holiday nusah (the melody-system associated uniquely with this season) and familiar melodies are a spiritual touchstone. They reach us in our hearts. They are a musical carrier-wave that can bring us to our deepest selves. And some things are different every year, and they should be!
The choir is rehearsing high holiday melodies. My teen has begun attending his final summer camp of the season. The roads are lined with blue chicory blooms and frothy Queen Anne’s Lace. I’m about to start eating corn and tomatoes at every meal I can, because there’s nothing like sweet corn in season or a tomato ripe off the vine. And now that we’ve made it through Tisha b’Av, we’re on the spiritual upswing toward Rosh Hashanah! Happy August.
It never fails: we reach this Torah portion, Matot-Masei, in high summer and I go, “Wait, what? Already?” The words in this single verse are like hyperlinks. נֶדֶר, vow. שְׁבֻעָה, oath. כָּל נִדְרֵי וֶאֱסָרֵי וַחֲרָמֵי, וְקוֹנָמֵי וְכִנּוּיֵי, וְקִנּוּסֵי וּשְׁבוּעוֹת… Surprise! It’s a reminder of Kol Nidrei.
In recent weeks, I’ve been paying visits to someone in a skilled nursing facility who has a copy of this very Rosie the Riveter “We Can Do It!” poster propped up in the room. I think it’s an excellent reminder that even when life’s challenges might seem insurmountable (and even when simple physical tasks might feel insurmountable), we can persevere… especially if we focus on what we can do, instead of what we can’t.
This week’s parsha, Korah, begins with a rebellion. The titular Korah gathers 250 of his friends and they “rise up against” Moshe and Aaron, accusing them of “raising themselves above God’s congregation.” In response, Moshe falls on his face: he lowers himself to the ground, a gesture of humility. The rebels rise up against; Moshe does the opposite, bending to the earth.
Last night as I was studying Hebrew with my son, a friend texted me to let me know that Israel had attacked Iran. Many of us expect retaliation over Shabbat. None of us know what is coming, and I don’t have wisdom to offer. All I have is this prayer: may the day come soon when the Iranian people, the Palestinian people, and the Israeli people can all live in safety and peace.
Summer is a quiet time on the Jewish calendar. Now that Shavuot is behind us, the next big thing on the horizon is Tisha b’Av in late August, followed by the seven-week runway to the Days of Awe.
This week’s Torah portion begins with an instruction to take a census for the purpose of knowing how many soldiers could be called-upon to bear arms. There’s a long list of numbers: from this tribe came this many people; from that tribe, that many. In years past, these verses felt dry and kind of irrelevant. This year they’re landing differently against the backdrop of current news.
