Since the last time I composed a D’var Torah (effectively, sermon) to this community, on June 16, the following seismic events have taken place: in chronological order,
An earthquake struck southeast Afghanistan killing approximately one thousand people;
The Supreme Court limited the ability of states to pass legislation prohibiting people from carrying handguns in public on the same day that the Senate passed its most substantive gun legislation in nearly thirty years;
The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, depriving women of the right to an abortion, a right that for the last fifty years had been understood to be constitutionally protected;
Russia’s unjustified war against Ukraine continued to rage;
51 migrants, searching for a better life in the United States, fleeing gang violence in Mexico and Central America, were found dead, abandoned in extreme heat in a tractor-trailer in rural Texas;
A White House aide testified under oath her understanding that the former President of the United States not only knew in advance that a crowd that stormed the Capitol—leading to the deaths of five and an assault on the peaceful transfer of power and our institutions of governance—was armed with deadly weapons but sought to join them.
All in, essentially, the last week.
As a Rabbi, I don’t like to focus my Divrei Torah (plural of D’var Torah) exclusively on what we might call current events. I think Judaism, being Jewish, speaks not only to the empirical—that which we can observe and verify with our own eyes—but the Transcendent. The Immanent. That Which Imbues All of Life with Holiness, and Mystery, and Cosmic Import.
Of course, this setup suggests “current events” do not have Cosmic Import when, according to Jewish teachings, this could not be, in some sense, further from the truth.
The oft (over?)-used phrase Tikkun Olam, healing or repair of the world, comes from the medieval, mystical Jewish teaching of Tikkun—the idea that our actions here on Earth metaken, heal or repair, God. That each mitzvah, Jewish calling or commandment, we undertake to fulfill, especially when done with the right kavanah, intentionality, has a cosmic healing effect.
It’s true, under this understanding of Jewish tradition, with respect to rituals, like singing Kabbalat Shabbat, the service welcoming in Shabbat, or lighting Shabbat candles, or engaging with kashrut, sacred eating practices; and, by implication, it’s true with respect to moral mitzvot as well, like loving our neighbor, and the stranger, since we, too, were strangers in a strange land, and internalizing the understanding that everyone was created in the Image of the Divine. For the ancients, there was no differentiation between ritual mitzvot and ethical or moral mitzvot; they were all simply mitzvot—pathways incumbent upon us that bought us closer to the Source of All Being.
Which brings us to these past week’s events. Each of these, I believe, calls out to us, in important ways as Jews and as human beings as pathways of holiness. Whether it is about:
Opening up our hearts to the people of parts of the Earth, like Afghanistan, governed by repressive regimes, that are often out of sight, out of mind; or
Remaining engaged and vigilant with the effort to ensure deadly weapons aren’t readily available to all; or
Underscoring the fact that not all religions speak with one voice about abortion—that Jewish voices have, for centuries, asserted that when a mother’s life is in danger, abortion is not only permitted but demanded, and that Jewish tradition has preserved a robust debate about when abortion is permitted in other cases as well—all of which is to suggest that Jewish tradition calls upon us to be solicitous towards a woman’s right to choose; that no single standard should govern women’s autonomous choices; or
Continuing to support efforts to isolate militaristic, repressive regimes like Russia and give harbor to the Ukrainian people; or
Welcoming the “stranger,” to use a Biblical term, regarding those, like us who have been refugees, looking to build a better life for themselves in a new Promised Land; or
Calling out when our leaders are trampling on notions of democracy, basic human decency, and the very foundations of this country when they counsel violence and subversion of our democratic norms, and when they display total disregard for anyone’s interest but their own; and then ensuring they face justice.
Being Jewish—and being human—carries with it weight and responsibility. The singular concept of mitzvah, which pervades Jewish tradition, suggests a degree of being called upon to act—by God, by tradition, by our understandings of that inner voice calling out to us.
In another oft-cited Jewish teaching the call is not to complete the work—as individuals that is almost certainly beyond our grasp—but to be a link in a chain that contributes to it.
Not every D’var Torah will be about world events. Sometimes the seemingly more mundane corners of our lives call out for reflection and examination as well. That, too, is Torah. But when the headlines flare up in this way, when moment-to-moment we have crises that call out for our attention, we’ve got to respond.
