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A Yom Kippur Sermon

by Rabbi Joel Finkelstein

Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev was one of the greatest of Chassidic rebbes. He always gave the Jewish people the benefit of the doubt. For instance, if he saw a man hitching his donkey during his morning prayers, he would turn to G-d and say, “G-d, look how beautiful it is that he finds time to daven to you even while he hitches his donkey.” 

When Reb Levi Yitzchak would hear preachers on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur admonishing the people, he would become irate. Why were the preachers announcing the sins of the people before G-d? The Rabbi’s role is to find the merits of the congregation and plead their case to G-d, not to tell G-d how bad they are! 

I’ve been here for over a year now, and for me to stand here and preach to you and tell you the way it should be would be a real act of hubris, and, as Reb Levi Yitzchak said, it wouldn’t be doing my job. In my time here, I have seen good people, people who care about family and community. In great contrast to the Northeast, I’ve seen people who are makdim shalom le’chol adam, people who are always first to say hello to a stranger, who exude a warmth and a friendliness to all people. I’ve seen parents and grandparents very dedicated to their children. I’ve seen great devotion to spouses, to parents, to the elderly. People who devote their lives to the care of their elderly parents. I’ve seen people who live for the community or the shul. Who give almost all their time to community or shul matters. 

But what is the point of my telling you that you are good? Am I just here to flatter people? How is this going to help us be better this year? We all know that we do many good things, and most of us will readily volunteer to others information about what makes us good. But I have come to ask another question. Do we see a connection between our goodness and our godliness? How many people here consider themselves religious? Do we take the goodness which is ours and see it as a response to G-d? 

Yom Kippur is the day on which we stand before G-d. The High Priest gets closer on this day to the holy of holies than he ever does. He is our representative, his entry is representative of our entry into close and intimate proximity with G-d. But just as Mother’s Day is not meant to be the only day for mom, so clearly this kind of intimacy with G-d must not be meant only for today. It is not meant to be this once a year encounter with G-d. Clearly, this is a yearlong quest. 

How can we be “lifnei Hashem,” in front of G-d, during the year? To be in front of G-d in shul is not a big challenge. (though some have trouble with this too). To be in front of G-d when a man is wearing a talis is easy. To be in front of G-d on Yom Kippur is easy. But to be in front of G-d even when at work, even when at home, this is a challenge. As Maimonides writes in the Moreh Nebuchim III, 52, and is codified in the code of Jewish law, our activities are not the same if we are conducting them in front of a great king or in front of his family. 

But you might ask, look, rabbi, I am a good person, because it’s what I believe is the right thing to be, what difference does it make whether I do my good deeds out of a sense of living with and before G-d or just because I feel like it from the bottom of my heart. As a matter of fact, you may ask, what do I need religion for, don’t I get even more credit for being self-motivated? For doing all that I do just ‘cause I decided to do so? 

Most people are good people, what does being good before G-d add to anything?

1) Being good before G-d adds an element of objectivity to it. The definition of goodness is set on high, not by my subjective needs that day. For instance, mercy killing is an example of a subjective definition of murder. Recently in the political arena, we have seen subjective definitions of morality and fidelity. A person guided by Torah teachings and living before G-d will have to subdue his or her will to the will of G-d. I may not come to the same conclusions as the Torah does. Being good and being godly are not necessarily the same. My definitions of goodness may come in conflict with G-d’s sense of goodness, or he may expose me to and educate me about ways of being good which I never imagined.

2) There is a second difference between being good and being good before G-d. When I am good on my own then I am alone. There is no sense of community, of support for this type of behavior. When I do good before G-d, then I join others who follow the Torah, I am part of a community, a support system for people who do the right thing. I get support, encouragement and affirmation from others for what I do.

3) The third difference between goodness and godliness is that the good feeling that ensues when I do something right is distinct from the good feeling of doing something right before G-d. The feeling that I have made my conscience feel better is different from the feeling that G-d is happy with me. That I am responding to G-d’s call to be good and kind. Living in response to G-d is much different than living in a moral vacuum. It means waking up in the morning and feeling that G-d cares and has specific ideas for how I should spend my day. I am not wandering aimlessly on a winding dead end, but I am going somewhere. 

We hear so much whining in the Jewish community. Jews don’t observe enough, they don’t know enough, they don’t affiliate enough, we hear about every negativity under the sun. Today, let’s turn to G-d and say, mi ke-amecha yisrael, look how many people come for YK. Look how devoted so many are to their shuls. Look at all the hardship so many endured and endure to remain in the land of Israel. Look at all the goodness which people do daily. The rabbis in the Talmud tell us that even the sinners of Israel are filled with mitzvot like pomegranates. We turn to G-d and say, look at all the pomegranate seeds, look at all the seeds of Jewish philanthropy, look at all the good Jewish mothers and devoted children. 

But to ourselves we say yes, we’re good people, at least we try to be. But do we see our goodness as connected to our godliness? If we would all view our goodness as godliness, as religiosity personified, we would all consider ourselves religious, no one would be able to say, well, I’m not religious and therefore I don’t do such and such. Every Jew could say, I’m a religious Jew, just that I don’t do certain practices. The labeling of religious and non-religious simply on the basis of Shabbat and kashrus presumes that Judaism boils down to Shabbat and kashrus. Yes, these are fundamentals, yes these have defined Jewish observance for centuries, but they are not the be all and end all of religiosity. Every good person has the right to view themselves as intensely religious by virtue of the many good deeds and mitzvot they do. 

Once a person realizes how religious they are, then the question beckons, well, you do this, what about that? What about Shabbat? What about Kosher? But if one begins by saying, I don’t keep kosher, so I’m not religious, then all is lost from the start. Every mitzvah is a mitzvah, and one sin doesn’t cancel out a mitzvah. 

Maimonides was once writing to the unfortunate Jews of Yemen who were forced to live ostensibly Moslem lives. Some felt like giving up on their Jewish practices because after all, if they were going to the mosque 5 times a day, what kind of Jews could they be? So Maimonides wrote them a letter and said “One who passes through this persecution should behave as follows...He shouldn't say, ‘What I have violated is greater than what I am careful about – rather he should be careful about whatever he can. And you should know, that a man should know a major principle of the faith.’” We turn to the Jews of America and say, you may have forgotten what certain practices were all about, but you can still come to minyan on Wed. night, you can still come to a class at our Akiva Institute, you can still show up occasionally at the minyan at 6:30 in the morning, you can still put on the tefilin when you have a chance, you can still go to a Kosher restaurant one night even though you generally don’t. 

But one might argue that it is hypocritical. That if you don’t do it all then you shouldn’t do any.

Enough pessimism, judge us for a good year.