I’m pleased to share two of my sermons from the High Holidays:
The sermon I delivered on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, “Happy Families Forgive,” was posted on The Wisdom Daily website in their High Holiday sermon series, featuring sermons by alumni of Clal’s clergy training programs.
My Yom Kippur morning sermon, “Don’t Detach From Community,” which will soon be posted at my congregation’s website, is shared below. As I prepare a Yizkor sermon for Shemini Atzeret and look forward to celebrating Simhat Torah, I continue to reflect on how much the feeling of belonging and the joy of being together animate my work at Congregation Beth Tikvah.
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Don’t Detach From Community
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we humans can really hold onto anger, grievances and grudges—allowing them to fester in our hearts and souls, preventing us from mending rifts in our relationships with one another.
Sometimes causing us to distance or even separate ourselves completely from the community.
I’ve also been thinking about unforgivable acts—sins for which there ought to be no mercy shown to the sinner—and wondering whether we humans can overcome our righteous fury that keeps us from expressing compassion for those who may commit unforgivable acts.
In an extreme case, such as a terrorist attack, our righteous fury and absence of mercy is often starkly revealed.
I’d like to share an example of an international terrorist attack that took place almost 36 years ago. It has stayed with me, partly because I had a personal connection to the event and partly because what happened 20 years later became a powerful lesson about being in community and upholding community values.
On the 21st of December in 1988, PanAm Flight 103 exploded while the airplane was in flight over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. It was destroyed by a bomb, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew members onboard in what became known as the Lockerbie bombing, since large sections of the airplane crashed in a residential street in Lockerbie, killing 11 people.
With a total of 270 fatalities it was, at that time, one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in the history of the United Kingdom.
My cousin Lisa, who was like a sister to me when we were young, was a visual arts student at Syracuse University. She’d planned to be studying in London that semester but, for a variety of reasons, she had decided not to study abroad. She lost many classmates, who were returning home on PanAm Flight 103, in the Lockerbie bombing.
Fast forward to 1999.
After years of negotiations and United Nations sanctions, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi handed over two men for trial in the Scottish Court.
Two years later, in 2001, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer, was jailed for life after being found guilty of 270 counts of murder in connection with the bombing.
Two years later, in 2003, Gaddafi finally accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and paid compensation to the families of the victims, although he maintained that he had never given the order for the attack, saying that Libya “had to accept responsibility” due to al-Megrahi’s status as a government employee.
PanAm Flight 103 originated in Frankfurt, but many believe the bomb was planted at London’s Heathrow Airport, by a sleeper cell belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, whose General Command had been operating in West Germany in the months before the attack.
The Syracuse students returning home boarded the flight in Heathrow.
Fast forward ten years from the trial, more than twenty from the attack, to July 2009.
Al-Megrahi, the only participant in the bombing who was ever convicted and imprisoned, and who had recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer, applied for a compassionate release, so that he might spend his final weeks among family & friends.
In August, he was released from prison and allowed to return to Libya to die at home.
There were two striking features of al-Megrahi’s release by the Scottish Government.
First, while most families of victims of the attacks decried his release, there was one woman, a lone voice, a mother who had lost her son, Syracuse student Sandy Phillips, in the attack.
Caroline Stevenson appeared on CNN saying the following:
Whether he’s in jail or whether he’s with his family, it doesn’t impact me. He should be able to be with his family & die in peace. And I hope he has found some peace. I am not disturbed by it. I feel like if he is dying of prostate cancer, I don’t have any problems at all with him being able to be with his family as he dies.
Despite her suffering the unimaginable pain of losing a child, in a senseless, violent attack, despite her son having been shown no compassion by the convicted bomber, she was willing to allow him the comfort of dying with his family.
Despite the US government’s strong opposition to al-Meh-grahi’s release, Caroline Stevenson publicly supported the decision of the Scottish Government, saying: “I strongly believe in the Scottish Judicial system…the people of Scotland have been very good to me & my family.”
The second person in this case who caught my attention was Mr. Kenny MacAskill, then Scotland’s Cabinet Secretary for Justice. After hearing an excerpt of Mr. MacAskill’s speech on YouTube, in which he invoked the words of the ancient rabbis in his charming Scottish accent, I downloaded the entire speech to read.
If you listen closely, you can almost imagine he is speaking of God and the Jewish people:
Just as our ancestors did, modern judges struggle with the contradiction between justice and mercy. We beg God to be more merciful and compassionate than just, to simply forgive our sins, though we are undeserving.
This same principle is at the heart of al-Megrahi’s request of the Scottish courts. In Scotland, we are a people who pride ourselves on our humanity. It is viewed as a defining characteristic of the Scottish people. The perpertration of an atrocity and outrage cannot and should not be a basis for losing sight of who we are, the values we seek to uphold & the faith & beliefs by which we seek to live.
Our justice system demands that judgment be imposed but compassion be available. Our beliefs dictate that justice be served, but mercy shown. Compassion and mercy are about upholding the beliefs that we seek to live by, remaining true to our values as a people.
For these reasons and these reasons alone, it is my decision that Mr. al-Megrahi, convicted in 2001 for the Lockerbie bombing, now terminally ill with prostate cancer, be released on compassionate grounds and allowed to return to Libya to die.
Punishment is often motivated by vengeance. Fear of punishment plays a prominent role
in both biblical tradition and the liturgical tradition of the High Holy Days.
We believe that we will be forgiven—that God wants us to live—yet we describe our experience of being judged as terrifying.
In the quintessential prayer of the season, Unetaneh Tokef, we imagine the dismay of the angels in heaven, who know even they are not without fault. We say that God opens the book and “the record speaks for itself, for each of us has signed it with deeds.”
Unetaneh Tokef was written in Germany about 1,000 yrs ago, by a pious rabbi, Amnon of Mainz, whose own piety could not save his life. Here’s his story:
Rabbi Amnon was an advisor to the Bishop of Mainz. Several days before Rosh Hashanah, the Bishop demanded he convert to Christianity. To stall, Rabbi Amnon asked for three days to think about it, and spent the next three days torturing himself, utterly distraught, because he’d given the impression that he’d consider betraying God and converting.
After three days in isolation, fasting and praying for forgiveness for his sin, when he did not return, the Bishop sent for him and demanded his answer.
Rabbi Amnon asked that his tongue be cut out as punishment for saying he would consider conversion. The Bishop—furious—ordered instead that Rabbi Amnon’s feet be amputated, as punishment for not coming when he said he would.
They cut off his feet and asked again for his conversion. Rabbi Amnon refused.
They cut off his hands and asked again for his conversion. Rabbi Amnon refused.
Then the Bishop ordered Rabbi Amnon be carried back to his home to die. But he did not die. He lived until Rosh Hashanah.
Rabbi Amnon asked to be carried before the Holy Ark, to sanctify God’s name in the Kedushah prayer. He led the Kedushah, recited Unetaneh Tokef and died.
What an awful story! Why tell the story of Rabbi Amnon on Yom Kippur?! Moreover, why recite his prayer, Unetaneh Tokef, every year, in every synagogue?
Why recite the Martyrology, the litany of martyrs’ deaths throughout history, on Yom Kippur?
Perhaps, because on Yom Kippur, when we simulate our own deaths by fasting and pray that our own lives continue, and pray for God’s merciful judgment, we choose to be reminded that those who did not find mercy from other people at the end of their lives received God’s mercy on their souls when they died.
We beg for God’s mercy on our souls, saying: “the Book is opened, our names already inscribed, but judgment not yet sealed.
Yom Kippur is truly a terrifying day. We spend the last hour of the day, Neilah, imagining the gates are about to crash closed, barring us from the world of living.
Yet, Yom Kippur is curiously uplifting as well. Unconcerned about daily necessities—food, drink, bathing, other creature comforts—we can focus on our life’s purpose during our limited time here on earth.
What will we accomplish in that time? How will we leave the world, when we leave it? Better, than when we arrived in it?
One rabbi, Akavia ben Mehalalel, quoted in the Mishnah in Pirke Avot (3:1), paints a grim view of life, but suggests a way to stay focused: “Reflect on three things and you will not sin. Know where you came from…a putrid drop. Know where you are going…a place of dust and worms, and maggots. And know in whose presence—the Holy One Blessed be God—you’ll have to make a future accounting.”
Incidentally, Akavia ben Mehalalel was labeled in the Mishnah as a rebellious scholar and was eventually excommunicated by his colleagues. Still, his prescription for humble living could guard against many sins. Maybe we should include his words in the liturgy as a caution against excesses.
Akavia ben Mehalalel, who lived out the remainder of his days in obscurity, was a contemporary of a pretty famous rabbi and scholar, Hillel. Let’s take a moment to remember Hillel, who I’ll be thinking of this afternoon when we read the Holiness Code (Leviticus 19:1-18) from the Torah.
The Torah reading begins with the words “Be holy, for I, Adonai your God, am holy” and ends with “Love your neighbor as yourself, I am Adonai.”
Hillel is probably most famous for quoting this verse, “Love your neighbor,” to a potential convert who asked that Hillel teach him the Torah while standing on one foot. Only, like so many quotations attributed to Mark Twain, Hillel didn’t quote this verse.
According to the story in the Talmud (Shabbat 31a), what Hillel actually said was: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. This is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary. Go and learn.”
Today, I’m feeling partial to a lesser-known saying of Hillel, found in Pirke Avot (2:4). “Hillel said: Do not separate yourself from the community, do not trust in yourself until the day of your death, and do not judge your fellow man until you have reached his place.”
All three parts of this teaching are worthy of an entire sermon. Since we’ve already discussed parts two and three during the month of Elul, and on Rosh Hashanah and Shabbat Shuvah, I want to emphasize part one of Hillel’s teaching: “Do not separate yourself from the community.”
Roughly ten centuries later Maimonides explains the meaning of the phrase “separating oneself from the community” in his legal code, Mishneh Torah, in the section, Laws of Repentance, by stating that a person who separates himself from the community may be placed in the category of an apostate with regard to the entire Torah even though he has not transgressed any sins.
According to Maimonides, “a person who separates himself from the congregation of Israel, and does not fulfill mitzvot together with them, and does not take part in their hardships or join in their communal fasts, but rather goes on his own individual path…does not have a portion in the world to come.”
This is a powerful statement. One who detaches from the community in this way, also withdraws from God.
Now let’s consider our values at Congregation Beth Tikvah.
We are a synagogue community that values each person’s individuality and celebrates acceptance, diversity and inclusion in our community.
We are a caring and compassionate community, showing up for one another, a warm heimish community, greeting and welcoming visitors and new members.
We strive to be partners with God in tikkun olam, repairing the world, creating a more environmentally and socially-just community in our neighborhoods, in south Jersey, and in our small corner of the planet.
In the words of Mr. MacAskill, Scotland’s Cabinet Secretary for Justice, “…we are a people who pride ourselves on our humanity…it is a defining characteristic” of the people of Congregation Beth Tikvah.
He goes on to say that nothing ought to divert our commitment “to the values we seek to uphold and to the faith and beliefs by which we seek to live.”
I, too, believe nothing ought to divert our commitment to our values.
Caroline Stevenson, Kenny MacAskill, Rabbi Amnon of Mainz, Hillel, Maimonides, all agree that compassion & forgiveness must be greater than anger, that upholding our commitment to our values, that being in relationship with each other and being together in community is better than being disconnected, separated from one another and from God.
This is my prayer for us today on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year, the day we come together, individuals seeking atonement, a community demonstrating our commitment to our values, faith and beliefs by which we seek to live:
May each of us find our own way to stay connected and not detach from community, and may we all be inscribed for life and sealed for a good year, a year of peace.