Jews deal with God in kind of a unique way. I'd like to reflect on that by exploring a blessing that one brother recently offered another.
Ordination of Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie
But first I want to take you back several decades. When I was a rabbinical student I worked at Lenox Hill Hospital participating in a pastoral education program. In my small group of six students were clergy students of other faiths. Our group included someone preparing to be a Dominican friar, a Roman Catholic lay leader, a Presbyterian minister and a Franciscan monk.
The pastoral work was fascinating. In addition, it was enormously beneficial to have extended contact with people of other faiths at a similar point in their professional journeys as I was. We talked often about tradition and community and theology. We noted our similarities and our differences.
Here’s one area of difference that I noticed and I want to use it as a basis for my comments this morning.
My Christian colleagues took many classes at their respective seminaries in a subject called systematic theology.
Systematic theology classes, as you might imagine, teach various Christian views on God in a systematic way. These classes were a major part of the curricula at the various Christian seminaries that my colleagues attended.
We, however, took classes in Bible, Talmud, Jewish history – an occasional class in Jewish philosophy – but proportionately we didn’t spend a lot of time learning the systematic theologies of various thinkers.
Again, proportionately, Jews don’t do a lot of systematic theology. When we arrive at God, it’s generally not through systematic contemplation. If I had to generalize I would say that when we arrive at God at all, it’s through our laws, our stories and, not incidentally, it’s through each other.
Through other human beings – family, community, people, humanity - we sometimes come to some understanding of God.
To reflect on how we might arrive at God through one another, I'd like to share a brief vignette about two brothers.
One is a rabbi in Jerusalem – a modern Orthodox rabbi with a doctorate from a major Israeli university who presides over an Orthodox synagogue in Jerusalem known as the Ramban Synagogue. He has been an advocate for respect and dignified treatment for everyone regardless of religion, ideology, gender and sexuality. His name is Benny Lau. His brother, Amichai Lau Lavie, is a remarkably creative Jewish leader who presides over a progressive community that he established in New York called Lab/Shul. Much of what Amichai does in his synagogue and much of his own personal ideology diverges from the Orthodox framework which guides Benny's professional and personal life. Benny is straight; Amichai is gay.
They come from a family that, to say the least, has strong rabbinic connections. Their uncle, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, was Chief Ashkenazi rabbi of Israel from 1993 to 2003. They are both exquisitely talented, transformative Jewish leaders.
Amichai went to rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary and he was recently ordained.
So what do you do when you're an Orthodox rabbi and your non-Orthodox brother is receiving rabbinic ordination at in institution whose ideology and practice differ from your own and you get an invitation?
If you're Rabbi Benny Lau, you fly to New York for the ceremony and you post a blessing to your brother on your own Facebook page with an acknowledgment of what you yourself learned from the way JTS honors its new rabbis, despite the fact that the Conservative way is not your way. You do this because we all have what to learn from each other and because this is something you want to celebrate, not hide. And because you are able to discern the divine spark in your beloved brother that calls both of you to the same goal, notwithstanding your differences.
So here is the blessing that Rabbi Benny Lau offered his brother, Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie:
"A brother's blessing for a different path but with the same goal.
"I pray and believe that you shall be a faithful emissary of the members of your community, now and in the future, and that you will connect them, one to another, and to their Father in Heaven.
"I pray and believe that the image of all the generations that were before you on the path of this great mission will be before your eyes in all of your paths. I pray and believe that you shall continue to be a source of pride and joy to all who surround you. 'For God commands His angels to guard you on all your paths. ' 'The Lord will guard your coming and going, now and forever.'" (Translation by Rabbi David Wolkenfeld)
Rabbi Benny Lau didn't start his blessing with God, he started with his brother.
Roughly1000 years ago, when Maimonides was defining the Jewish community in his hil'chot teshuva, his laws of repentance, he wrote the following:
הפורש מדרכי צבור Haporesh midarchei tzibur - Someone who withdraws from the communal ways and does not fulfill any mitzvot with the community, nor identifies with their pain, nor fasts when the community fasts, but goes in his/her own ways...does not have a share in the World To Come. (Maimonides, Mishnah Torah, Laws of Repentance, 3:11)
Let's leave aside for a moment what it means to have a share in the world to come. Maimonides' definition does not include anything about belief in God. It seems instead to hinge on whether you are connected to the community or not; whether you share the pain or not; whether you share the tradition or not.
So the first question isn't what do you think about God? But rather, will you come to my ordination ceremony? Will we share a Passover seder together? Will you fight alongside me? Will you dance at my wedding? Will you try to pick me up after I have fallen?
And then we can bless each other and we can hazard a guess as to who God is and what God wants.
On a certain level I understand what the phrase "systematic theology" means, but I'm not quite sure, honestly, how theology can be systematic. Not when life is often such a mess. And I'm not sure why we imagine that we can come closer to God by sitting in a classroom than by rolling up our sleeves with one another.
What I know from experience, and I suspect we all do, is that the moments when we show up, when we truly show up for one another, often give us a deeper insight into life’s larger questions than any systematic contemplation.
The summary of the holidays that we read in the Torah this morning refers to מועדי ה׳ אשר תקראו אותם מקראי קדש אלה הם מועדי mo'adei adonai asher tirk'u ota mikra'ei kodesh ele hem mo'aday.
And contextually that probably means, these are the holy days of the year that God laid out for us. But I would suggest that there's an implicit message here.
As though God is saying: You want to find me? Celebrate Shabbat together, celebrate Passover together. Celebrate these times with each other and somehow I'll be there.
And to those times, I would add all the times that we show up for one another.
Rabbi Benny Lau showed up at his brother's ordination. In the blessing that he offered, he expressed an understanding of God that embraces different approaches and ideologies.
This insight emerged not just in the moment but because Rabbi Lau chooses to immerse himself in the life of community and family.
You could say that Rabbi Lau discovers God, and perhaps God reveals layers to Rabbi Lau, because he chooses to engage with his sisters and brothers even when he is forced to reconsider basic assumptions.
So I offer all of us an invitation. Let's not pull away from our community. Let's not pull away from our family. Let's dig in, in fact.
Let's be open to the possibility that time we spend with them will give us more of an understanding of מועדי ה׳ mo'adei adonai – God's time.
And let’s be open to the possibility that the insight that we have into דרכי בני אדם darchei b'nei adam, the ways of human beings, will give us insight into דרכי ה׳ darchei adonai, the ways of God.
None of that will be the least bit systematic. How could it be? Why should it be?
Originally shared at Temple Israel of Great Neck on May 21, 2016
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