YK Sermon: God Friended Me - a talk of kindness and community

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GOD FRIENDED ME  ~  YOM KIPPUR 5780

            There is a television show that I’ve become quite interested in over the past two years. It is called God Friended Me – one of those shows with the feel good at the end of each episode type of vibe with a lesson within.

            In God Friended Me, the main character Miles, receives a Facebook friend suggestion from “God.” Prime Video describes the show as one where: “Questions of faith, existence and science are explored in this humorous, uplifting drama about an outspoken atheist whose life is turned upside down when he is “friended” by God on Facebook. Unwittingly, he becomes an agent of change in the lives and destinies of others around him.” The episodes highlight the best and sometimes, but not often, the worst of human nature. There is a theme of the challenge to live an authentic life with kindness and caring to family, friends and strangers that interests and soothes me …  and brings me back week after week.

            The show speaks to me, because this past spring, God friended me.

Many of you are aware that back in May my husband, daughter and I were in a very serious accident while we were on our way to say our final good-byes to my mother in Rhode Island. We were on I-95N in Connecticut when a truck hit us, causing us to spin out, cross 3 lanes of highway and hit the Jersey Wall head on. We then bounced off and ended up perpendicular across the left two lanes of highway. It is truly a miracle that we are alive.

            So how did God friend me or rather us? First off, we made it across the highway w/o being hit again. Then, as were we sitting there in the aftermath of the crash – the 3 of us in various states of injury and shock – two truckers decided to block off the lanes we were in so no one could hit us (there had been at least one near miss that I’m aware of). Then they got out of their trucks and came over to help us and stayed with us until the EMTs arrived. Truly the kindness of strangers. Even more so because truckers are only paid when they are moving and delivering their cargo on time. These two men lost parnassa, or wages, in order to help my family.

            God also friended us by showering us with kindness – the kindness of family, friends, complete strangers, people we’d only met on FB but never spoken to in person, parents of our children’s friends. A friend called the local Chabad. The Chabad Rebbetzin made us the most amazing Shabbat dinner while my daughter was in ICU and the rest of us, including Alex and Madeline, hung around in the ICU b/c we were afraid to go too far. This Rebbetzin not only made us enough food to last for days but also volunteered her husband, the Chabad Rebbe, to go out and do errands for me. Did I need make-up, she asked, or deodorant? You should consider us your family while you are here in the hospital. Whatever you need, just ask. Wonderful woman.

            We did not get to RI to say our final goodbyes to my mother. We did talk to her on the phone but we don’t really know what she did nor did not hear. The accident took place early Thursday morning – 3:30am. My mother died on Shabbat, around 12:15 am Saturday morning. I was to conduct the funeral but a friend, a rabbi in RI, received permission to officiate at the funeral even though none of us were members at her shul. She provided a caring and loving presence throughout. Another dear friend opened up her home to us after the funeral. And members of Temple Emanuel in Providence, RI were able to support me as I led evening services that first night of shiva and said Kaddish for my mother in the synagogue that we both grew up in.

            The support continued. A friend from Silver Spring drove up to stay with our daughter who was scheduled to have surgery as we went to the funeral. The new rabbi of our synagogue here in Rockville sent us food. Friends and colleagues from all over the world called, texted and face-timed us to see how we were and did we need anything. My rabbinic mentor and friend called me every day whether I needed to talk or not.  A rabbinical colleague I had never met had been away when the news came out about our accident. As soon as she got home she hopped in her car and drove a distance to the hospital in CT to see if we needed anything. She brought Chai for my daughter and she “rabbi’d” the Rabbah – something I dearly needed. The hospital staff went out of their way for us when they realized what we’d been through, that 2 of 3 family members were in their care. Even the man at the rental car agency “friended us” as he upgraded our rental car (at no extra cost) from a mid-size car to an SUV so that we would be safe on our drive home to MD.

            When we got home to MD the kindness continued with food, gifts, visits etc. It was brought home to us in a very real way what it means to be part of a community as people from all the various communities of which we are a part stepped in to care for us. Special thanks to Tikvat Israel Congregation, the Olney Kehila, Milton Gottesman Jewish Day School and so many others for providing all types of sustenance (including food) and my new congregation the Fauquier Jewish Congregation for the prayers and the tree planting in my Mother’s name. 

            After services at the synagogue in Providence I walked around the main sanctuary and read the many memorial plaques on the walls. There in that room were generations of my family - grandparents, great grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. I was surrounded and held by the memories and the souls of all the loved ones who went before me. It wasn’t my time to join them, Thank God, but it was my time to be comforted by their memories and to remember what they taught me about family and community. About living and loving. About caring for myself but also caring for others.

            God friended me and my family that last week in May. And I will never forget it. I will “friend” others in chesed, in kindness, in remembrance of the kindness that I received from friends and strangers alike. I will take my experiences and the teachings I received from my departed loved ones who surrounded me on the walls of the sanctuary, and I will friend others in turn.

              Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel put it this way, “When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.” Kind people, like those wonderful truckers who perhaps also saved our lives on the highway that night. While we were able to express our gratitude to them, we never learned their names in order to thank them properly. The best I will be able to do is hold those two men in my prayers and pay it forward. So that’s what I will do. I will pay forward the kindness shown to my family during our time of need by being there to help others when they need it.

            I’ve always believed that the way God manifests here on earth is through the actions of each and every person. Godliness manifests when we do a kind action, when we make a difference in someone’s life, when we remember that we were once strangers and therefore do our best to help the stranger, the immigrant, the poor, the sick. 

            All the people who supported us during this troubling time were shining examples of God’s influence in our lives. I could have felt totally bereft after the accident and my mother’s death – in truth, for a while I did. One thing that pulled me out was the realization that we are not alone, that God was with us through all the people who appeared for us. In that vein, the change I want to see coming out of this High Holy Day season is that each of us become the change we want to see in the world.     

   

            God Friended me. How are you going to friend someone? We are taught that the idea behind Yizkor is to pay the chesed, the kindness forward. We pledge to do mitzvot and gemilut chesed/acts of loving kindness in the names of those we loved and learned from.  How will you honor the memories and the life lessons of those who came before you?

            As we enter into this new year of 5780, I leave you with this task. Each morning, as you wake up, ask yourself - 

Who can I friend today?

Parshat Tzav: The Eternal Flame Within Us All

Parshat Tzav  

Leviticus 6:1 - 8:36

      A Jew walks into a synagogue and looks around. What can s/he expect to see? An area for prayer that includes an ark that contains at least one Torah; perhaps a table, a bima, in front of the ark as a focus area for the prayer service and the Torah reading; and finally, a light, either attached to the top of the ark in some way or hanging from the ceiling.

      The first two items are self-explanatory. We keep our holy Torahs in a tabernacle, an ark, just as was done in biblical times. The bima, a raised platform with a reading desk, provides a place on which to rest the Torah and from which to conduct the service. Lastly we come to the hanging light, called the Ner Tamid, the Eternal Flame. What is its purpose? It clearly does not give off enough light to be useful in any practical way, for example, it is not strong enough to read by.

      The rationale for the Ner Tamid is found in this week’s parsha, Tzav (Lev 6:6). “A perpetual fire shall be kept burning on the altar, not to go out.” It is mentioned 3 times in this parsha that the fire is not to go out, a repetition that emphasizes the perpetual nature of this particular flame. Imagine the work that it took in biblical times to keep a fire burning 24 hours a day – making an altar, gathering wood, cleaning the ashes, the manpower to tend to it. It took effort to maintain this – a communal effort. This flame transitions into our ner tamid, eternal flame, that is a physical manifestation of what we should already know, that God’s presence is always among and within us, and we just have to be able to “see” it.

      We no longer have a Temple with its menorah and altars and ritual sacrifices. What we do have is community and prayer and places of worship that contain this eternal flame. And for those of us who do not belong to a synagogue or who belong to one that does not have the physical infrastructure to house an eternal flame? We find in Ezekiel (11:16), “I have become to them as a little sanctuary.” One meaning of this verse is that these little sanctuaries are physical structures such as the synagogues that were built in exile to represent the lost Temple.

      I choose to focus on a different meaning, one that is not a physical structure but a spiritual state. We as individuals become the little sanctuaries that carry God’s presence around. There is godliness within all of us, a fact that many of forget on a regular basis. Being human, we need reminders of things spiritual, physical reminders. We circle back to the ner tamid, the eternal flame. Just as our ancestors were able to see the flames and smoke coming from the Temple at all hours, so to can we see the eternal flame when we walk into a synagogue, no matter the day or time. Even today it takes a community willing to raise money and tend to its infrastructure in order to keep that flame burning. Outside the synagogue it takes other types of communities, like minyanim and kehilot, to provide nurturing environments to tend to the flame, the spirituality, the little sanctuaries that burn within each of us. Once our lives revolved around the Temple. 

     Today our spirituality, our souls, live and die together based on the communities that we form and on the caring that we give to one another.

A Shabbat Message - Parashat Vayakhel and the message of Community

This week's Torah portion, Vayakhel (Exodus 35:1-38:20). As all Torah portions it contains several different plot lines. This one talks about the many aspects of building the mishkan (portable tabernacle that housed the 10 Commandment and was carried around in the desert with them), particularly that all the people donated materials to be used in the building itself. It's primary message, and the message of all the portions surrounding this one, is about community. 

To be a community means we do things together, we take care of each other, we contribute. To emulate this, I will soon be sending out an email regarding the start of a new volunteer committee at OK, a Chesed Committee whose goal will be helping out members when they are in need - during an illness, birth of a child, death of a family member etc. 

But, as we know, our obligations towards helping others does not stop at the "borders" of our OK community. We are part of a larger community of Jews, of non-Jews, of those who live in our neighborhoods and in our country. We are reminded quite poignantly of this in this time of presidential politics. Quite a few people are vying to become the president of this great nation. Two things really stick out to me (among many). First, the people running are male and female, Caucasian and Hispanic, Christian and Jewish. This is the most diverse national race that I can recall. Second, no matter how diverse the playing field is, race and ethnicity have become a part of patter. This is unacceptable for a nation founded by immigrants and given the make up and sophistication of people today. 

You will find that I rarely use my rabbinic platform to discuss politics. But the racism that has seeped in to this election cycle is not just a political issue; it is a human rights issue. So please be aware, listen and learn and pay attention to what is being said during this political cycle. And, if you can, try to counteract the hateful words. No effort will be too small. 

Here is a link to a short, pithy article from Jewniverse called "Albert Einstein's Little-Known Civil Rights Activism." As we know, racism has been around for a long time. It's time to eradicate it. 

http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?u=ba13d322ff1efbe114aeb6779&id=c606f4f1d4&e=646f6451e3

Shabbat Shalom and blessings of peace and love to all, 

Rabbah Arlene