Shabbat Shuvah
Sermon, September 21, 2001
A Basic Jewish Vocabulary for 5762
I doubt that many of us are aware of how many Hebrew words have become a standard part of the English language. Some are well-known and well-used - amen, alphabet, hallelujah, Messiah, kosher. But some you may not have heard about before.
For example, a few Hebrew names of creatures have crept into English. A giant but clumsy animal is called a "behemoth" from the Hebrew "beheimot" - which means "cattle." We get our word "camel" from the Hebrew "gamal". A cute, chubby baby or child is a "cherub" from the Hebrew "c'ruv" - a small winged, angel described in our Bible. As for Taurus the bull, the Hebrew word for bull is "shor", which became "tor" in Aramaic. Then the Greeks adopted the word, and it became "taurus".
Other words that may be new to you - "ebony," the wood that is noted for its black color, comes from the Hebrew even which means "rock." In ancient times the wood was known for its hardness. The word "gauze", the kind we wrap around wounds, comes from the Hebrew place named "Gaza", which was famous for the cotton fabrics manufactured there in antiquity. And the Hebrew word yayin evolved into its English equivalent "wine."
My favorite, though, is from the Aramaic, the Hebrew sister language, which our people spoke for many hundreds of years in Babylonia. According to the Bible, God created the world with words. God just spoke and the world became reality. The Aramaic phrase for "I create as I speak" is avara k'davara. Sound familiar? Avara k'davara - avara k'davara. What is the magician's favorite magic word? Abra kadabra - avara k'davara.
Not only are words the instrument of creation, but our words define us and shape us; those words we choose to use most have a profound influence on our lives and our actions. The more we use a word, the more meaning it has for us and the deeper that meaning becomes. To live our lives more Jewishly, we need to know the language, the jargon, the words, which can enhance and enrich our souls. With due respect to David Letterman, I've selected the top ten Jewish words we should incorporate into our vocabularies this New Year. I'm indebted to my colleague Rabbi Cory Weiss, who provided the inspiration and much of the substance of this message.
If you'll understand these ten words and live with them, I promise that your lives will be more meaningful and purposeful in the New Year. Make these ten words a part of your soul, and your life will be forever changed for the better. Sound enticing? Let's go.
Word number ten on my top ten list is simcha, which means joy. We refer to all our special celebrations as simchas - a bris, a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, confirmation, wedding. The Psalmist teaches us to serve Adonai with gladness, to fulfill God's commandments with joy in our hearts.
If there is one thing Judaism disapproves of, it is asceticism. Judaism is not about deprivation or burden; it is about finding happiness and fulfillment in living a life of holiness and godliness. It was our own Book of Ecclesiastes, which instructed us to eat, drink and be merry.
The great leader of 19th century German Orthodoxy, Samson Raphael Hirsch, surprised his disciples one day when he insisted on traveling to Switzerland. "When I stand shortly before the Almighty," he explained, " I will be held answerable to many questions. But what will I say when - and I am sure to be asked - Shimshon, did you see My Alps?" See the Alps in 5762 or whatever it is that you cannot bear to miss, and see them with the knowledge that happiness is a fundamental Jewish value.
Word number nine - bracha, blessing. We need to give God more thanks for what we have. The old Yiddish saying goes: "When a Jew breaks one leg, he thanks God he did not break both. When he breaks both, he thanks God he did not break his neck."
The simplest blessing we say is only two words long - Baruch ha-Shem, thank God. I don't know that we say it enough. I don't. We get so caught up in our busy lives that we rarely stop to give thanks. We have enough food, we have warm clothing in the winter and air conditioning in the summer, we have a roof over our heads, we're part of a loving and caring congregation. A rabbi once said a blessing is like a pair of eye glasses; it helps us to see God more clearly.
Say a motsi before you eat, and you're eating a Jewish meal. When you do something new or really special, say the shehehcheyanu.
With each blessing uttered we extend the boundaries of the sacred and express our love of life in Jewish terms. The blessing can be whispered; no one else even needs to hear, no one but God. And if you don't know any other bracha, remember Baruch ha'shem, thank God. We can use it any time, any where, for any occasion.
Number eight on my top ten list is tsedakah, often mistranslated as "charity." The word charity comes from the Latin, caratas, which means "love." Charity is done out of the goodness of our hearts. If we love the poor we give them charity; if we don't, we don't give.
The Hebrew word tsedakah means righteousness or justice. God commands us to take care of the poor, the hungry, the homeless, not out of love or caring - though that is a plus - but because we must help to create a just society in which no one is treated unfairly.
I'm proud of what our congregation does in this area. We'll bring enough food on Yom Kippur morning to stock the shelves of the Community Action Project for a week. We are one of the original MAZON congregations and have led the way toward Tulsa's Jewish community being a total MAZON community. Our Bar and Bat Mitzvah students are sharing their simcha in a variety of creative ways. Every Monday a group of wonderful women, under the auspices of Sisterhood, makes pillows and bags for mastectomy patients for the American Cancer Society. We have adopted Marshall School and we collect used eyeglasses, hearing aids and cell phones, and our cloak room is always filled with one thing or another that we are contributing.
Can we do more and should we do more? Of course, we understand that tsedakah can make a difference for our community and for us. It defines whether we are givers or takers in life.
Words seven and six go together - lilmod and l'lamed, to learn and to teach. Hebrew is such a beautiful language. In English the words learn and teach are not related. In Hebrew they are linked by the same three-letter root - lamed, mem, dalet. You know other words with this root - talmid is a student, a melamed is a teacher, and our greatest text is called a Talmud. Same root - lamed, mem, dalet.
In Maimonides' Mishnah Torah we find this rule about study. "Every Jew is required to study Torah, whether poor or rich, healthy or ailing, young or old and feeble. Even a man so poor that he is maintained by charity or goes begging from door to door, as also a man with a wife and children to support, is under the obligation to set aside a definite period during the day and night for the study of the Torah . . . Until what period in life is one obligated to study Torah? Until the day of one's death."
None of us is as Jewishly educated as we could be, but it is never too late to start. Rabbi Akiba began to study Torah when he was 40 years old. Standing by the mouth of a well, he asked: "Who cut a hole in this rock?" They told him the water that kept falling on it every day.
Akiba immediately began to reason in the following manner. If something so soft can cut something so hard, then certainly words of Torah, which are as hard as iron, can engrave themselves on my heart, which is only flesh and blood.
He and his son then went to a teacher of little children. He said: "My teacher, teach me Torah." Rabbi Akiba held one end of the slate and his son the other. The teacher wrote alef bet for him and he learned it. The Book of Leviticus, and he learned it. He kept studying and studying until he learned the entire Torah.
Rabbi Akiba began to study Torah at age 40, and 13 years later he was teaching Torah to crowds of people. Our obligation to study leads to our obligation to teach. The great Chassidic master Menachem Mendel of Kotsk teaches us: "If you truly wish your children to study Torah, study it yourself in their presence. They will follow your example."
Many of you send children or grandchildren to Religious School, Hebrew School and Midrasha. Well, the best support you could provide for their studies is by beginning on Monday night, October 15, to study yourself in our community's Institute of Adult Jewish Studies. Give your children and grandchildren the example of your commitment to deepen your own Jewish knowledge. All classes this year will be held here at the Temple. There are 16 courses to choose from, eight at 7:15PM, and eight at 8:15PM. Make Monday night your night to formally enlarge your Jewish knowledge. Make a commitment for 5762 to learn more about your Judaism and to learn it well enough to teach it to others. That is the greatest test of our learning, the ability to pass it on to the next generation.
Word number five is Shabbat. The Talmud describes Shabbat as a taste, a forschpice of the world to come. Shabbat is the Jewish People's greatest gift to the world. The ancient Greeks and Romans laughed at our ancestors because they took a day off to rest. Look what happened to them; they are gone and we are still here.
Shabbat is an opportunity for "time out" from the pressures of the workweek. It allows us to make time for those people and experiences, which matter most to us. To give this day a sense of kiddusha, of holiness, we refocus our activities, we change our pace, we reflect on the week passed and look forward to the week ahead.
In our society, where the pace of life is hectic and the moral ground shifts so rapidly, Shabbat can anchor us weekly in ceremonies and values sanctified by centuries of Jewish life. What greater support can our Judaism offer us for how to live our lives? What greater link could there be to our past? As the great Zionist leader, Ahad Ha-am, once said: "More than Israel has kept the Sabbath, has the Sabbath kept Israel?"
Make Shabbat a part of your life, friends. Just start calling Saturday Shabbat and see what happens. It is a magical and spiritual island of time we can enjoy each week.
Number four is kiddusha, holiness. You probably recognize the root koof-dalet-shin. The prayer over wine, recognizing the holiness of Shabbat or a festival is the Kiddush. The name of the prayer mourners recite which sanctifies God's name is the Kaddish. The holy society that prepares for the burial of the dead is called a chevrah kaddisha.
The word kiddusha also means separateness, that which is set apart because it is special. Kiddushin is the name of the Jewish wedding ceremony. Bride and groom are set apart for each other. We Jews should not lead ordinary lives. Leading a holy life is about leading an extraordinary life. To achieve this we don't have to become tightrope walkers or rock stars or all-stars. We don't have to negotiate peace treaties or talk people off of ledges. All we have to do is rise above the
mundane. That is why we observe Shabbat, that is why we go out of our way to be honest, fair and ethical, that is why we do not act like everyone else in the world - we are different, we are unique. The day we are like everyone around us is the day we Jews will disappear forever. Be proud of who you are, stand out and be extraordinary.
Word three is kehilah. It is word we don't hear much and it means "congregation." Literally, kehilah means "gathering." Even intuitively we all know that it has to mean more than coming together to worship two or three times a year. It has to mean that we care about each other's welfare. It has to mean that we are willing to comfort each other when we sorrow and also that we celebrate our joyous moments together. It has to mean that we make a commitment together to keep Judaism alive for our children and their children. It means we make Temple Israel our gathering place.
Elie Wiesel wrote: "What does it mean to be a congregation? It means to care about each other. Pray? We can pray at home. We come together as a congregation in order to share in each other's lives and in order to share in the life of the Jewish People - past, present and future." The people we honor tonight have been members of this kehilah for two to three decades. That is a long time; it is a substantial segment of your lives. You have been supporting this kehilah with your presents and presence for a quarter of a century.
You know the old story that comes from the Midrash to Leviticus. Some people were sitting in a boat when one of them took a drill and began to bore a hole under his seat. The other passengers protested to him: "What are you doing?" He said, "What has that got to do with you? Am I not boring the hole under my own seat?" They retorted: "Of course, but the water will come in and drown us all."
Every one of us is crucial to the life of Temple Israel. Every one of us has something vital to add to our kehilah, and any one of us can also detract from the energy and spirit and potential of our community by failing to take part, by not sharing of themselves with the rest of the kehilah. Only you know if you are doing your part.
Make this New Year's resolution at the beginning of 5762 to spend more time with your community, to lend your talent to this sacred place, to make an impact on our Jewish future. Then we can be what we are supposed to be: a kehilah kedosha - a holy congregation.
Words two and one go together and include all the others. (May I have a drum roll? Ladies and gentleman, Paul Schaffer and the Band.) The words are "brit" and "Torah." Brit means covenant, the contract we made with God at Mount Sinai. The Torah defines the terms of that contract. A rabbi named Ben Bagbag said in Pirke Avot: "Turn it over and over again, for all things are in it." Torah is our guidepost, our rulebook, our inspiration. In it we learn from our earliest ancestors' mistakes and learn to imitate their greatness. Torah tells us what God wants from us and what we Jews have been promising God ever since our people stood together at the foot of Mount Sinai. We should not enter into a contract without knowing the terms of the deal; they are right here in these scrolls - to live holy lives, to repair an imperfect world, to create a just society. Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf puts it so beautifully.
"I try to walk the road of Judaism. Embedded in that road there are many jewels. One is marked 'Sabbath', and one 'civil rights', one 'keeping kosher' and one 'honor your parents,' one 'study of Torah' and one 'you shall be holy.' There are at least 613 of them and they have different shapes and sizes and weights. Some are light and easy for me to pick up, and I pick them up. Some are too deeply embedded for me, so far at least, though I get a little stronger by trying to extricate the jewels as I walk the street. Some, perhaps, I will never be able to pick up. I believe that God expects me to keep on walking Judaism Street and to carry away whatever I can of its commandments. I do not believe that God expects me to lift what I cannot, nor may I condemn my fellow Jew who may not be able to pick up even as much as I can."
So this brings us back to word ten - simcha, joy. Walk Judaism Street with joy in 5762. Pick up the jewels you are able to, try to lift some that seem too big to lift and, whatever you do, don't ignore those beautiful gems as you continue on your Jewish journey.
Simcha - joy
Bracha - blessing
Tsedakah - righteousness, justice
Lilmod - to study; L'lamed - to teach
Shabbat - the queen of days
Kiddusha - holiness
Kehilah - congregation
Brit - covenant
Torah - our greatest teaching
Make the words of our heritage be as sweet on your lips as the apples dipped in honey. May we become fluent in them, and may living with them as part of our life each day bring us great joy. And let us say "amen."
Again, I want to acknowledge my dependence
on the work of Rabbi Cory Weiss for much of this message.
Handout Page:
A Basic Jewish Vocabulary for 5762
10. Simcah - joy "Serve God with gladness"
9. Bracha - blessing Baruch ha-Shem - thank God
8. Tsedakah -- (not "charity" done out of the goodness of our hearts)
righteousness/justice
Defines whether we are givers or takers in life
7. Lilmod - to learn
6. L'lamed - to teach
talmid - student melamed - teacher Talmud
Institute of Adult Jewish Studies begins October 15
5. Shabbat - a taste of the world-to-come
Jewish People's greatest gift to the world
"More than Israel has kept the Sabbath, has the Sabbath kept Israel."
4. Kiddusha - holiness/separateness
Kiddush Kaddish Chevra Kaddisha Kiddushin
We Jews are different, unique. Be extraordinary!
3. Kehilah - gathering/congregation
Kehillah Kedosha - a holy congregation
2. Brit - covenant/contract
1. Torah - "Turn it over and over again, for all things are in it."
Guidepost; rule book, inspiration to lead holy and moral lives,
repair an imperfect world and create a just society.
