Responding to the Moment

<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" LINK="#000000" VLINK="#000000" ALINK="#000000"> <CENTER><TABLE><TR><TD WIDTH=20% VALIGN="TOP"> <A NAME="top"> <P> <B><a href="http://betmish.org/text/rh5758drash.html">Text-Only Version</a></B> <P> <BIG><B><a href="http://betmish.org/index.html">Home</A></B></BIG> <P> <BIG><B><a href="http://betmish.org/whatsnew.html">What's New</A></B></BIG> <P> <BIG><B><a href="http://betmish.org/calendar.html#July8">Coming Events</A></B></BIG> <P> <BIG><B><a href="http://betmish.org/drashot.html">D'rashot</A></B></BIG> <P> <BIG><B><a href="http://betmish.org/do.html">What We Do</A></B></BIG> <P> <BIG><B><a href="http://betmish.org/who.html">Who We Are</A></B></BIG> <P> <BIG><B><a href="http://betmish.org/contact.html">Contact Us</A></B></BIG> <P> <BIG><B><a href="http://betmish.org/faq.html">Frequently Asked Questions</A></B></BIG> <P> <BIG><B><a href="http://betmish.org/archives.html">Archives</A></B></BIG> <P> <BIG><B><a href="http://betmish.org/links.html">Links</A></B></BIG> <P> <BIG><B><a href="http://betmish.org/member.html">Membership</A></B></BIG> <P> <BIG><B><a href="http://betmish.org/credits.html">Credits</A></B></BIG> <P> <BIG><B><a href="http://betmish.org/addbook.html">Guest book</A></B></BIG> </FONT></TD> <TD ALIGN=CENTER VALIGN=TOP WIDTH="80%> <CENTER>    <table border="0" align="center"> <tr> <td align="center"> <a href="http://betmish.org/index.html" target="_top"><IMG border=0 src="http://betmish.org/images/banner2.gif" align=center height="104" width="512" hspace=5 alt="Bet Mishpachah banner"></a> </td> <td align="left"> <font size="-5"><a href="http://betmish.org/child/descriptions/banner.html">Banner<br>Description</a></font> </td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center"> <p><font size="-1"><i>Washington, DC's Egalitarian Synagogue</i><br> <i>Embracing a Diversity of Sexual and Gender Identities</i></font> </p> <p> <b><font face="Arial"><font size="+1">Rabbi Bob Saks<br> </font></font></b><br> <font face="Arial"><font size="-1"><i>Founded in 1975 by Members of the GLBT Community<font color="white" size="-4"> </font></i></font></font></p> </td> <td align="left"> <font size="-4" color="white"> </font> </td> </tr> </table> </center> <h1 align=center>Responding to the Moment</h1> <CENTER>by Barrett Brick <BR>Rosh ha-Shana 5758 <BR>2 Oct 1997</CENTER> <P>Shana tova. -- Today is the birth day of the world. This Rosh ha-Shana, this beginning of the year, we celebrate the beauty of G-d's Creation, and we celebrate our lives as part of this Creation. Last night, as the sun set and the night enveloped us, we celebrated the world's creation. We recalled our tradition that as part of this aspect of Creation, vessels holding G-d's light shattered, scattering their fragments and sparks of G-d's light throughout all of existence. We spoke of our responsibility as partners with G-d in creation to uncover these sparks of light and the shards of the broken vessels, and to repair them.</P> <P> Today, in the light of the new day, this first morning of the year, we focus not just on the creation of the world and the universe in which we live, but more particularly on ourselves as a people -- on our birth as a people, on <I>our</I> birth day as part of G-d's Creation.</P> <P> Our liturgy this morning has used powerfully stirring imagery to help us recall the story of our people's birth, to lead us through the history of our developing understanding of our relationship with G-d, of our partnership with G-d in Creation. We have relived our history through desert . . . through water . . . to the words G-d spoke to us as we encamped in the Wilderness of Sinai, opposite the mountain. We have just read the Torah's description of the drama of the scene: "There were thunder-sounds and lightning, a heavy cloud was on the mountain and an exceedingly strong <I>shofar</I> sound. . . . Mount Sinai smoked all over, since had come down upon it in fire; its smoke went up like the smoke of a furnace, and all of the mountain trembled exceedingly."</P> <P> In recalling these events, our celebration today echoes our celebration of Pesach six months ago, in Nisan, the first of the months. At that time, we rejoiced over our liberation from Egypt, and over our setting out on the road to Sinai, through desert and water, to receive the words of G-d at Sinai. It is appropriate on this first day of the <I>seventh</I> month that our focus returns to these events. Just as Shabbat, the seventh day, is a day of rest, of prayer, and of self-assessment, Tishri, the seventh month, contains its own sense of sabbath -- a day of rest from the ordinary pace of the world, a time for reflecting on our lives, our deeds, and our intentions for the future. And, just as at Pesach we were reminded that each one of us should look upon ourself as having been liberated from Egypt and having stood at Sinai, so, too, at Rosh ha-Shana should we look upon ourselves as having lived our people's history -- through the desert, through the water, to hearing the words at Sinai.</P> <P> As we have experienced in our Torah reading, standing at Sinai was a powerful moment. Yet are moments themselves enough to transform our lives? It is, of course, common -- and, indeed, natural -- to think so. This is especially so when powerful emotions are bound up in that moment, and the moment is shared with countless others. I still remember, for example, exactly where I was and how it felt some 34 years ago to receive the news that President Kennedy had been assassinated, and how this became a significant temporal marker for so many of us. It is not inconceivable that we may have experienced a similar event just weeks ago, in the tragic death of the Princess of Wales. On a more positive note -- perhaps even bordering on the miraculous -- many of us remember where we were last year when DC United won the Major League Soccer Championship, and look forward (perhaps with some Divine intervention) over the coming weeks to a repeat -- with apologies, in the spirit of the holy days, to those New England fans visiting this week!</P> <P> Nevertheless, I think it is fair to say that any powerful moment -- event the moment at Sinai -- in and of itself is not necessarily life-transforming. A moment by itself does not transform a life, much less create a people. Let us make no mistake. The moment is important. The words of Torah unquestionably are important. But what transforms us from an embryonic mass into a people is how we react to the moment -- what we do with the words. What transforms us into a people is our response: "All that Ad-nai has spoken we will do!"</P> <P> Sharing a moment -- no matter how emotional, no matter with how many others -- does not make a people. A moment gives us a memory, but it does not itself transform a life. It is not the desert itself that transforms, but how we react to and what we learn from our journey through the desert. It is not the water itself that transforms us, but the faith of a Nachshon that leads him and us to enter the water and accept its challenge. It is not the words of G-d at Sinai that transform us, or make us a people, but rather our willingness truly to hear the words, and, in the words of a translation of <I>Ahavat Olam</I>, to "weave [the words] into the texture of our lives."</P> <P> As Gay and Lesbian Jews, our lives have our own unique textures. We have experienced desert journeys and watery challenges in additional ways. "The desert, yes, the desert." We have had our own needs to leave places too small for our growing souls, to journey in response to growing visions of ourselves, seeking oases at which to nurture our lives. "The water, yes, the water." We have faced crises in our lives, and found the faith and the strength to lead and support each other through them. "The words, yes, the words." As Gay and Lesbian Jews, we recognize that the words of Torah speak to us, too, as part of <I>k'lal Yisrael</I>. And we recognize that the message of Torah is universal, speaking to all Gay men, Lesbians, Bisexuals, and transgendered persons as well.</P> <P> Our calendars today turn not only to the month of Tishri and the beginning of the new year 5758. In the Gregorian calendar, it is the beginning of October, which has come for many to be known as Gay and Lesbian History Month. As our celebration of Rosh ha-Shana has recalled our history as Jews, it is also an appropriate time to recall our history as Gay men and Lesbians. It is particularly appropriate to do so this year, as we have marked the centennial of the establishment in Berlin in May of 1897 of the world's first known homosexual rights organization, the <I>Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee</I>, the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, one of whose founders was Magnus Hirschfeld, a Gay Jew. This year, both the Goethe-Institut in New York and the Schwules Museum in Berlin mounted exhibits on the theme of 100 Years of the Gay Rights Movement in Germany, documenting and portraying this rich cultural and political history. As Gay and Lesbian Jews in particular, we celebrated this year a quarter century of organized community, marking the 25th anniversary of the founding in London and in Los Angeles of the first Gay Jewish organizations. Today, Gay and Lesbian Jewish communities span the globe, and their members are continuing to contribute to the richness of our Jewish people and of our Gay and Lesbian people. The Nobel Prize winning poet Czcslaw Milosz has written of a "command to participate actively in history," and it is clear that we are fulfilling this command both as Jews and as Lesbians and Gay men.</P> <P> To have a history, to recognize that a history exists, is an essential element of becoming a people and growing as a people. In Isaac Asimov's novel <I>Prelude to Foundation</I>, part of his prodigious classic series, a resident of the rather tradition-bound Mycogen sector of the planet Trantor explains that sector's disdain for religion by saying: "We have no need of it. We have something far better. We have <I>history</I>." But history alone is not enough. Of course, the inhabitants of Mycogen may claim to have no need for religion, but they have one indeed, if by another name, and it is one that withdraws them from their world, keeping them quite insular and repressed. Their response to their journeys and challenges is to turn away from the world, to become slaves to fears and to seek to create a stasis in their history, and to isolate their lives.</P> <P> Not so us, neither as Jews, nor as Lesbians and Gay men. We have our history, we have our words of Torah, and we have learned from our desert journeys and watery challenges to accept our responsibilities as the people that we have become, performing the <I>mitzvot</I>, giving ourself to G-d's service according to the guidance of the Torah -- to love</P> <P>Ad-nai, to walk in the ways and to keep the commandments, laws, and teachings of our G-d,</P> <P>committing ourselves to the path of bringing about a more just and inclusive society, as we hear in the message of Isaiah today.</P> <P> As Ursula LeGuin has written, "Freedom is not a gift given but a choice made." The words are spoken to us as an offer. It is up to us to choose whether to accept them. Informed by our history -- by our journeys and our challenges -- we know how to rise to them, to live the words in our lives, and, as Isaiah exhorts us, not to hide ourselves from our people. For we <I>are</I> the people who walked with Abraham and who laughed with Sarah, who followed with Ruth and Naomi and who triumphed w/David and Jonathan . . . who thrilled to the poetry of Sappho and who were inspired by the vision of Magnus Hirschfeld, who fought at Stonewall . . . and who, one day, will marry in Hawaii! </P> <P> The sound of the shofar, which we will shortly hear again, summons us this morning as a people -- a people aware of our history and of our responsibility to G-d's creation. We are summoned to gather the sparks of G-d's light, to repair the shattered vessels. We renew our souls these days so that we may go forth refreshed and strengthened to continue to work to redeem the world -- as a people, who have come through deserts and waters, who have heard the words of G-d and who have woven them into the textures of our lives.</P> <P> <I>L'shana tova!</I></P> </TD></TR></TABLE></CENTER> <P><HR> <p align="center"><FONT face=Arial><small><small><b>For a description of any of the graphics on this page, click on the D next to the graphic. <BR>For more information, contact our office at <a href="mailto:office@betmishpachah.org?SUBJECT=Request for Information from Web Site">office@betmishpachah.org</a><br> Send comments about this site to <a href="mailto:webweaver@betmishpachah.org?SUBJECT=Comments About Web Site">webweaver@betmishpachah.org</a>.<br> Copyright 1996 - 2008 Bet Mishpachah.</b></small></small></FONT> <CENTER><font face=Arial size="-1" color="#999999"><small><small><P><b>This page last modified on Sunday, May 18, 2003 at 08:00 PM EDT.</b></small></small></font> </CENTER> </body>