Congregation Sukkat Shalom Yom Kippur 5785/2024
Our Torah begins with the story of creation:
“In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth, the earth was chaotic and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water— God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness.[1]”
Even at the beginning of time, light was able to banish darkness and bring order to chaos. Picturing this story in our minds, we might think of the sunrise over Lake Michigan on a cool fall day, the waters a scary dark place until the sun begins to distinguish the surface from the depths. The rays of the light eventually reach our skin, warming us and reassuring us that everything will be OK. Our ability to distinguish light from dark, land from water, danger from safety allows us to live our lives.
As the story of creation continues, so to the triumph of order over chaos. God creates land and water, flora and fauna, and eventually the ultimate anti-hero, human beings. Us.
As God’s final act of creation, human beings possess the unique ability to both create order and chaos, often at the same time. From the moment of creation our midrash teaches that God warned Adam: “See My creations, how beautiful and exemplary they are. Everything I created, I created for you. Make certain that you do not ruin and destroy My world, for if you destroy it, there will be no one to repair it after you.[2]”
If only our ancestors and us had heeded God’s warning. We look around our world today and we see a lot of destruction. A third year of war in Ukraine, another genocidal conflict in Sudan, Israel in a constant and growing state of war from all sides, two devastating hurricanes reminding us that climate change is already in full effect, and an upcoming presidential election with grave consequences.
Why would God create something that God knew could cause so much destruction and chaos? It doesn’t seem rational.
Lately not much seems rational.
This summer I visited Israel for four days, soaking up the beauty of Tel Aviv, the history of Jerusalem, and the complexity of the West Bank, all against the backdrop of war.
On my flight home my head was spinning, and I felt so much sadness. As two Israeli teens sitting next to me recorded their meal on TikTok, a song written by Israeli artist Idan Raichel shortly after October 7 played in my headphones.
Tachzor Tachzor Hayom, Come back, come back today
I so wanted you to come
IO wish that you’ll show up today without advance notice
Ani Migdal Shel Or – I’m a tower of light
Our plane ascended and banked Southwest along the Israeli coast. I looked out my window, but I didn’t see a tower of light. Instead I saw the literal darkness of Gaza, outlined by the light of Israel and Egypt. With tears streaming down my face, I thought about the complexity of my trip, the war,the Israelis, the Palestinians and the hostages.
I can’t rationalize what I saw. I spoke with so many people, Israelis and Palestinians who only want to live in peace and others are so filled with hatred and anger toward the other side. Why, I wondered, does my heart ache so much for this place? Why do I love Israel? A place so complicated and that sometimes brings me pain. So much pain right now that two weeks ago when Aiden asked me to play “that Hebrew song,” and Idan Raichel again sang out “Ani migdal shel or,” I started sobbing and had to turn off the music, much to his bewilderment.
Unsurprisingly, as my flight home continued, I couldn’t sleep. I browsed the in-flight movies and chose the 2023 Oscar winner for best picture Everything Everywhere All At Once. Desperately wanting to escape the present, I pressed play and was drawn into a beautifully and hauntingly chaotic world. The movie teaches us, or perhaps reminds us, that love is not rational.
The protagonist’s daughter falls deeper into darkness because she observes the world only through a lens of rationality. In her darkness she realizes that Human beings are simply organisms that will one day die. If so, why try?
As the daughter begins to slip away, her mom realizes that the only thing that can save her is unconditional love, even when her daughter causes her pain. Love is not rational. Love does not always make sense. Love compels us to remain deeply connected to those we love during both good and bad times.
Love is the ultimate paradox.
God created human beings knowing that we can create both order and chaos because God created us out of love – any attempt to rationalize creation comes up short.
To create order out of chaos human beings have long been on a quest for truth. Both the capital-T-Truths that are hidden in the mysteries of life, what we might call religion and spirituality, and the lowercase-t-truths describing the facts of our world.
Perhaps the most profound change in the past several years (or decades) has been the erosion of trust in each other. When we refer to society as a fabric, trust is the material that binds us all together. The more we lose trust in each other the more our world becomes filled with chaos.
When we think about trust, many American’s refer to Walter Cronkite, anchorman of the CBS evening news in the 60’s and 70’s. In 1972 a national poll revealed that he was the most trusted person in the US, and when he signed off and said, “And that’s the way it is,” for many Americans, that was the way it was. Even though Cronkite did his best not to inject his own views, we know that no reporting is ever free from bias.
In an interview with NPR in 2005 Cronkite reflected on significant times in his career that he was not able to report objectively do to a clear moral imperative. He spoke about his reporting from Europe in 1943 and said “No one attacked our stories because they lacked objectivity. If neutrality is the test of integrity in journalism, then we failed in our duty to accord the Nazis fair and balanced coverage.[3]”
He also spoke about the challenges he faced 30 years later while reporting on school desegregation. It became apparent that one side had a clear moral advantage, but the southern affiliates were pressuring CBS to report objectively and threatened to leave. Giving balanced airtime to white supremacists began to weigh on Cronkite’s conscience, and he started covering them less and less.[4] Walter Cronkite was the most trusted man in America while maintaining his values as both a journalist and human being. No one since Cronkite has garnered nearly that much trust.
Of all the chaos in our world, I hope that we all agree that the Nazis and White Supremacists did not and do not need fair and balanced news coverage. Bigotry and hatred are wrong, full stop.
One reason we no longer trust eah other is because many of us receive mostly editorialized news from so many different sources that offer contradictory views or reports. When a report diverges from our own opinions, we often head to a different website that we know will be more sympathetic to our worldview. This has created a chaotic world in which our opinions and hearts have become so hardened that we don’t trust each other anymore. It’s easier to unfriend someone on social media than to consider how and why they arrived at their conclusion, or to even engage in difficult conversations.
Hard facts exist and so do lies. However, we can view facts from multiple angles and sometimes we might see a truth that others don’t. While we should not lie or distort the facts to fit our own narratives OR to cause harm to others, we should remain open to the fact that someone else’s perspectives might be valid.
Our sages have long taught us that we should consider other valid opinions in deciding how to live our lives. Our Talmud recounts that “For three years the ancient schools of Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel disagreed. They both argued that they had interpreted the law correctly. Ultimately, a Divine Voice emerged and proclaimed: “Eilu v’Eilu – Both [teachings] are the words of the living God. However, the law follows Beit Hillel because Beit Hillel taught both their own opinion AND the opinion of Beit Shammai.[5] We learn that teaching multiple opinions is OK, even when they conflict with our own. Exploring many perspectives strengthens our own positions on issues and we don’t always have to agree.
This past spring, we all witnessed a miracle – the singular great light in the sky disappeared. Thanks to science we knew exactly when the solar eclipse would occur and how to safely view it. While humans have understood the phenomenon of the eclipse for many centuries now, our ancient ancestors feared it was the work of their gods. In 7 B.C.E., a solar eclipse in Greece inspired the poet Archilochus to write: “‘Nothing in the world can surprise me now. For Zeus, the father of the Olympian, has turned mid-day into black night by shielding light from the blossoming sun, and now dark terror hangs over mankind. Anything may happen.’”[6]
In 2024, the great miracle we witnessed wasn’t only that the sun disappeared. The real miracle was that for one moment everyone, Democrat, Republican, Independent and Undecided, left and right, accepted scientific fact and rallied around a sense of appreciation and awe. Archilochus was right – anything may happen.
As we face a consequential election in less than one month, our sense of collective has been shattered. We need to find a way to gather our shattered and fractured light and figure out how to heal the brokenness in our world.
We need to embrace the paradox of love.
According to Jewish Mysticism, when “God created the world, God formed vessels to hold the Divine Light. As the light began to fill the vessels, they were unable to contain this divine light and shattered. Sparks of Divine light were trapped in the shards of these vessels which scattered throughout the planet. The task of humanity is to reunite the scattered sparks of Light and repair our broken world.”[7]
Repairing our world, tikkun olam, is not only about engaging in acts of loving kindness but in gathering this divine light. Some mystics teach that we are the shards of vessels, and that sparks of light are contained within each person who walks this earth. Collecting the light might be as simple as engaging with and listening to those around us. Listening to people with whom we agree and disagree. We must embrace the paradox that accompanies loving strangers, neighbors and ourselves.
Each of us brought light into the sanctuary this morning (even if you are joining us via livestream). When we choose to reveal our light to others and when we open ourselves to receiving light, we bring our world that much closer to wholeness.
Love, in all of its complex and irrational forms is the only thing that can bring healing. Where scientific thought and persuasive arguments fail, love will prevail.
May our new year open our hearts to the light emanating from all of those around us. May the light bring order to the chaos, and may it illuminate our path out of the darkness.
There was evening and there was morning, the dawning of a new day.
[1] Gen 1:1-3
[2] Eccelsiasties Rabbah 7:13
[3] Civil Rights Era Almost Split CBS News Operation, May 30, 2005. Accessed 9/23/2024
https://www.npr.org/2005/05/30/4672765/civil-rights-era-almost-split-cbs-news-operation
[4] Civil Rights Era Almost Split CBS News Operation, May 30, 2005. Accessed 9/23/2024
https://www.npr.org/2005/05/30/4672765/civil-rights-era-almost-split-cbs-news-operation
[6] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-ancient-civilizations-reacted-to-eclipses-180983894/#:~:text=Around%20the%20world%2C%20myths%20and,beast%20and%20bring%20back%20daylight.
[7] https://findingourwayhome.blog/2013/11/16/broken-shards-of-light/
Rabbi Brian Immerman 