We are shocked and outraged at this morning's horrific acts of terrorism. We at the Ziegler School pray that God protect those yet unaccounted for, the families of the victims whose lives will be impacted beyond repair, and all the people of our nation whose understanding of the world has forever changed. We pray for the murdered, and for surviving victims of terror.
The search for meaning in the face of tragedy is as complex as the events themselves, and going about life as we knew it yesterday may seem difficult and unnatural. As tempting as it may be to react to terror by abandoning the pursuit of Torah for more direct action, to allow the perpetrators to define our core is to give them the ultimate victory. Ultimately, it is our love of Torah that grounds us in the pursuit of justice and peace.
There is a story, told by Rabbi Akiva of the Talmud, about a fox, who was once walking alongside a river, and he saw fish going in swarms from one place to another. He said to the fish: "From what are you fleeing?" The fish replied: "From the nest cast for us by humans." The Fox said to them: "Would you like to come up on dry land so that you and I can live together in the way that my ancestors lived with your ancestors?" The fish replied: "Are you really the one they call the cleverest of animals? You are not clever, but foolish! If we are afraid in the element in which we live, how much more so in the element in which we would die! So it is with us, says the Talmud. If such is our condition when we sit and study the Torah, of which it is written, For that is your life and the length of your days, if we neglect it, how worse off shall we be!
And, so we send you this week's Torah message with the fervent prayer that each of us will muster the strength and resolve to continue living not out of fear, but out of the renewed commitment to democratic and religious freedom. We pray that despite the human acts of terror, each of us can transmit God's love and sheltering presence in the healing we bring to one another throughout this ordeal.
On this day, God calls to you. Some look to religion to transmit a sense of the majesty of the past. Traditions, because they come to us from a purer time, embody fragile vessels carrying remnants of a lost insight.
Such a view of Judaism correctly perceives the treasures of our ancestors' seeking and recording their relationship with God. But it errs in transforming the record of that search into a type of fossil, a brittle relic which can only be passed from hand to hand, without any direct contribution from the viewer.
Such an idolization of the past removes God from the theater of our own lives, and threatens to trivialize the worth of our own continuing journeys, to ignore the harvest of our own insight and response. The Torah itself rejects this excessive veneration of the past.
In clear terms, Moses tells the Jewish People, "You stand this day, all of you, before the Lord your God . . . to enter into the covenant of the Lord your God, which the Lord your God is concluding with you this day . . . that He may establish you this day as His people and be your God."
Three times, Moses stresses the phrase, "this day," emphasizing the contemporaneity of God's outreach to the Jewish People. Rashi notices this repetition, and comments that the chorus of "this day" indicates that, "just as this day enlightens, so will God enlighten [the Jewish People] in the future."
God's relationship to humanity is a permanent expression of love, an ongoing fact no less than gravity or sunrise. It undergirds the laws of nature, unifies human enterprise and the rhythms of nature. To center one's faith in the past is to imprison God within a book or a set of books. Such a faith makes idolatrous even the most sacred of inheritances. To center one's faith in the living Source of life, the God of creation and of Revelation, however, is to liberate one's spirit to the continuous abundance of God's 'chesed' (love, grace).
Jewish tradition is sacred because it reflects our ancestors' intimacy with God and because it cultivates in ourselves a responsiveness and an eagerness for that same intimacy; which means that, important as it may be, Jewish tradition is a means to a higher end -- which is a love relationship with God.
For Jews, such a relationship may only be attainable through the practice of ritual acts and good deeds, through ongoing learning and through prayer. But the Torah's emphasis of "this day" addressing "all of you" reminds us that, essential though they may be, the goal is not 'mitzvot.' The goal is God.
Mitzvot are our special pathway leading to the splendor of the Holy One. As with our ancestors, the Sovereign of the Universe beckons to each one of us. Come, My beloved, come away. Today, this day, God calls to you, and to your neighbor, and to me. Today, even now, the Holy One of Israel awaits your response.
Amen.