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So,
are you smarter than a 5th
grader?
Not
when you compare yourself to the 5th
graders in the religious school class who were asked to look at
television commercials and see if they could use them in 20 ways to
communicate ideas about God.
Listen
to what they came up with –
God
is like – Bayer Aspirin - He
works miracles.
God
is like – A Ford - He’s
got a better idea.
God
is like – Coke - He’s
the real thing.
God
is like – Hallmark Cards - He
cares enough to send His very best.
God
is like – Tide - He
gets the stains out/ others leave behind.
God
is like – General Electric - He
brings good things to life.
God
is like – Wal-Mart - He
has everything.
God
is like – Alka Seltzer - Try
Him – you’ll like Him.
God
is like – Scotch Tape - You
can’t see Him, but you know He’s there.
God
is like – Delta - He’s
ready when you are.
God
is like – Allstate - You’re
in good hands with Him.
God
is like – VO-5 Hairspray - He
holds through all kinds of weather.
God
is like – Dial Soap - Aren’t
you glad you have Him? Don’t you wish everyone did?
God
is like – the U.S. Post Office - Neither
rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor ice will keep Him from His appointed
destination.
God
is like – Chevrolet - The
Heartbeat of America.
God
is like – Maxwell House - Good
to the very last drop.
God
is like – Bounty - He
is the quicker-picker-upper…can handle the tough jobs…and
He won’t fall apart on you.
I
hope you enjoyed these comparisons.
They
are intended to make all of us think about God, seriously, especially
tonight.
All
the statements about God I just shared with you are clever and they
sound wonderful – but which are the statements, if any, that
really help us the most if we were to take them seriously?
I
like, “God is like Dial Soap – aren’t you glad you
have Him? Don’t you wish everybody did?”
Of
course, not everyone does have God – and I guess that also is
good for me, because who knows, if everyone did have God, I might be
unemployed.
So
perhaps, these wonderful commercials for God can help you think about
your relationship to God and how that works for you, or doesn’t,
in your lives.
My
thoughts tonight were not only prompted by those commercials but also
by a sermon I recently read.
Rabbi
Benjamin Blech is an orthodox rabbi and one of his sermons was sent
and recommended by another colleague who doesn’t know me at
all.
It
was sent to all of us who subscribe to Ravnet, the Rabbinical
Assembly list serve.
The
main point of that sermon is that in our relationship with God, we
should not be afraid to ask for what we want.
Here’s
how he put it in the sermon –
“I
was a very young boy and I didn’t understand something we
learned about Moses.
The
Torah tells us Moses was “heavy of speech and heavy of tongue;”
he had a speech defect.
Here
was the man destined to be the greatest leader of the Jewish people,
whose stuttering should have made him as unsuitable for his role as
the English monarch in the recent Oscar winning movie, The King’s
Speech.
“Since
God can do anything,” I asked my teacher, why didn’t God
heal Moses?
That
teacher shared with me the answer he personally preferred, and told
me to always keep it in mind, in how I relate to God with my problems
in the future.
Yes,
Moses would have been far better off had he possessed the gift of
eloquence in addition to all of his other virtues.
His
stuttering was a disability and of course God could have easily
removed the stigma.
So
why didn’t He?
Because
Moses never asked.
In
all his humility, Moses didn’t feel worthy of making the
request.
And
God wanted to show us by way of His dealings with the greatest Jew in
history, that the prerequisite for His answering our prayers is for
us to verbalize them.”
Now,
Ladies and Gentlemen, I think most of us know that Moses made other
requests which were not granted.
Moses
pleaded with God to be allowed to enter the land of Israel.
This
request was denied – he was allowed to see the land, which he
also requested, but Moses was not allowed to enter.
Rabbi
Blech though continues – “Never be afraid to ask anything
of God.
If
you’re withholding the request because you think it’s too
much to ask for, that’s an insult to the Almighty, almost as if
you’re implying it’s too hard for Him to accomplish.”
Now
the next line is critically important in this sermon – Rabbi
Blech includes it yet he doesn’t spend any time elaborating
about it – that line is, “If God wants to say no, that’s
up to Him.”
Rabbi
Blech continues with one more important sentence that I will share
with you –
“Your
role is to make clear you believe in His power to accomplish
anything, no matter how difficult.”
Now,
Ladies and Gentlemen, I do believe it’s important to ask God
for help, for assistance, for whatever it is that we need.
I
agree that it’s even critical to ask.
Asking
God for help, turning to God at critical times in our lives, is
extremely important, but maybe not for the reasons we usually
associate with a request.
We
need to turn to God to ask for help, despite our not knowing for
certain whether or not God literally hears our prayer, and responds
in the affirmative or negative.
Rabbi
Blech wants us to remember that God sometimes says no – I’m
amazed that God ever says yes.
I’m
really amazed that it ever feels as if or seems as if, God is really
listening to our prayers, and I pray a lot.
I
don’t know for sure if there is a one-to-one correspondence
ever between my prayer and God’s response, but this I do know
for sure.
I
know that when I pray and turn to God and ask for help, I
acknowledge there is a force in the world beyond my abilities - that
there is a power in the world that is greater than whatever I can
accomplish.
I
admit that there are forces beyond my control, which can make me
change my plans in an instant, like the fear of driving on a Maryland
road in the middle of a blizzard.
I
happened to write the first draft of this sermon on the day after an
earthquake which measured 5.8 on the Richter scale shook all of our
communities.
At
the same time, there was the threat of Hurricane Irene that was
bearing down on communities up and down the Eastern Seaboard.
How
can a person not feel tiny, powerless, helpless, when facing the
reality of such powerful forces in the world?
There
is a paradox, almost a contradiction, in the way we have to try to
understand God.
God’s
presence is so much a part of the world that it is impossible to
truly believe that anything we have accomplished, happens without
some sort of assistance, if not blessing, from God.
We
are warned in the book of Deuteronomy not to say
כֹּחִי
וְעֹצֶם יָדִי,
עָשָׂה
לִי אֶת-הַחַיִל
הַזֶּה
My
strength and the power of my hand has brought me all of this “chayal
– wealth – material.”
On
the other hand, while we should ask God for help, for assistance, and
while we should always be grateful when we receive it, and sometimes
we do – my feeling is that we should never be chutzpatidik –
so self-entitled, to
expect that we will receive it.
In
the deepest, most mysterious levels, I believe we can’t
accomplish anything without God – on the most practical,
achievement-oriented levels, I believe we can’t accomplish
anything if we only
depend upon God.
We
must try to make the most out of every situation we face, even when,
God seems to be nowhere around.
In
the book of Deuteronomy there is a section of law which permits
soldiers whose deaths in war might be considered extremely
unfortunate, to return home before the battles begin.
In
the Etz Chayim Chumash we use here in synagogue, you will find the
following comment on that biblical passage:
"Why
do they not rely on God to prevent tragic death?
Although
God may work miracles, protecting the righteous from harm, we may
never force God's hand by demanding a miracle – putting good
people in danger and expecting God to protect them.
We
cannot ignore our obligations to make the world a safer and more just
place by depending on God to set things right."
Let
me share with you a most amazing insight from Rabbi Yisochar Frand
who teaches this lesson in the name of the Brisker Rav –
Every
attribute, no matter how bad, has its place in the world – even
anger, haughtiness, jealousy, and argumentativeness.
These
are generally bad attributes, but there are times when one needs to
become angry.
There
are times when it is appropriate to stand up for one’s honor.
There is even a time when it is right to start an argument.
There
is another bad attribute called “kefirah – heresy.”
A
person who knows Torah, but rejects God – a “kofer”
– possesses such an attribute.
Where
is the proper place for this attribute of “kefirah?”
The
brisker rav explains, “When your friend needs a favor, that’s
when you should be a kofer.”
In
other words, when someone else has a problem, do not have the
attitude that God will take care of him, God will find him a job, God
will give him the loan.
At
such times, the Brisker Rav says, a person should “not believe”
in God. A person should feel that God will not take care of him.
Rather,
a person must take the responsibility upon himself.
That
is no time for faith. It is a time for rolling up one’s
sleeves.
Yes,
we cannot do what God does, and we do not have God’s power.
But
we are partners in the world along with God.
Asking
for God’s help is very important, and always must be employed,
but it is never the only thing that must be employed, when there are
other options as well.
If
what we want in our lives, calls for more work, then we must do it.
If
what we want in our lives, calls for more caring, then we must share
it.
If
what we want in our lives calls for more love, then we must provide
it.
Even
after all that, God may say no, but sometimes, God fills in the gaps
and brings us to a position that we would never have achieved without
our own efforts as well.
Branch
Rickey is famous for having said, luck is the residue of design. Do
all you can, to get luck in your favor, to give it a chance to
appear.
Martin
Luther King Jr. taught that “faith is taking the first step
even when you can’t see the whole staircase.”
Faith
does not mean that we move ahead in order to secure the answer, yes.
Faith
instead means, taking every single possible step forward, even when
the answer is possibly, probably, likely to be, no.
Faith
is not a tool that necessarily leads to reward.
Rather,
faith is a tool, a bridge that carries all of our human efforts as
close as possible to God.
A
former nun, Joan Chittister, writes the following in a book titled
Scarred by Struggle,
Transformed by Hope:
“Courage,
character, self-reliance and faith are forged in the fire of
affliction.
We
wish it were otherwise.
But
as Harold Kushner wrote in one of his books, it is rarely otherwise.”
I
would like to share with you an example of how character and
self-reliance is forged in the fire of affliction.
I
learned this example this past year and I was incredibly moved by
this testimony.
I
learned it when I watched a DVD entitled Saved
by Deportation –An Unknown Odyssey of Polish Jews.
Some
of you saw this DVD as well when we viewed it for our powerful Yom
Ha-Shoah program last spring.
It
is the story of several Jewish men and women during the years when
they were deported into the Soviet Union after the Nazi invasion and
occupation of Poland.
One
of the Jewish men interviewed in the film is our own Rudy Weiss.
At
one point, Rudy’s friend, Professor Alexander Schenker, who
later became a professor of Polish at Yale University, is interviewed
and he becomes very introspective.
He
was in the midst of speaking about the difficulty of work and of long
hours working in the frigid outdoors while living deep into the
Soviet Union where he had been deported.
He
states, “I don’t even regret the incarceration –
that is, the resettlement, the camp – because I think that –
it’s only then that I became a human being.
Well,
I became a man. I became –
I
was a pampered child and part of a very well-to-do family – and
I don’t think I would have liked to have been my own friend –
the way I was growing up in Poland.
But
the whole Russian experience – made something out of me.”
I
doubt that Prof. Schenker or Rudy would claim that these experiences
which transformed their lives were part of a specific plan created
and designed by God.
But
I do know that this whole Russian experience made something out of
Prof. Schenker that was quite different and really more acceptable to
him than what he was before.
And
when that happened to him, and when something similar happens to us,
we may not discover the God who is outside of us, but I am confident,
we do discover the godliness that exists within each of us.
And
I think that Judaism is the bridge from one to the other.
The
sensitive, spiritually adept person, finds God everywhere, and
throughout life.
Each
stage of life, each experience, has the potential to reveal to us
something more, or something less, about God.
I
conclude with a poem which teaches this lesson about life.
It
was written by a well-known Israeli poet, Rivka Miriam.
Rabbi
Steve Sager, who will be our scholar in residence on the weekend of
November 18 – 20 introduced me to the poem.
It
is an example of the types of texts he will bring as springboards for
discussion in his presentations.
I read to it to you in English translation – I
Spread Out My God’s Names In Front Of Me
by Rivka Miriam
I
spread out my God’s names in front of me
On
the cold floor of my room.
The
name by which I called Him when His spirit breathed in me.
And
the name by which I called Him when I was a girl.
The
name by which I called Him when I was given to a man.
And
the name by which I called Him when again permitted to all.
The
name by which I called Him when my parents were a roof to me.
And
the name when I had no ceiling.
The
name by which I called Him that I might fear Him.
And
the name that I called Him so that I would not be afraid.
The
name by which I called Him so that He would remember me.
And
the name, so that He would not remember.
In
the heat of the day, I will prostrate myself
On
the cold floor of my room.
Throughout
this day, even throughout our lives, we call God by many different
names.
Tonight,
tomorrow, we call God, Rachum V’chanun, merciful and gracious,
patient and long-suffering, searching for God, looking for God,
praying that we have a place with God.
And
so, my dear friends, on this most holy night of the year, we pray to
God, and we ask God, for help and for forgiveness and for acceptance.
Time
will tell, whether the response is yes, or no, or something else
altogether.
But
without a doubt, the time to turn to God, is now.
Amen.
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