rabbi ari lev: Soft River Your Way to Freedom
Yom Kippur 5778
September 30, 2017
Just moments ago, we read from the book of Leviticus detailing the ritual offerings made on Yom Kippur and the journey the high priests take once a year into the Holy of Holies. On the surface, the heart of the book of Leviticus is procedural descriptions for temple sacrifices. And for this reason, it is often unappreciated in contemporary liberal circles. However what appears to be a story about blood and guts (quite literally!), is in fact a story about our longing for connection.
The Hebrew word Korban קורבן, often translated as sacrifice or offering, in fact comes from the root קרב (kuf resh bet), and the verb לקרב (L'Karev) - meaning to bring near. While it might appear that the chapters of Leviticus are an interruption in the flow of biblical narrative, we are called to look closer at the priestly traditions because within them is revealed a value system that knows we humans crave closeness. We crave connection and community. We crave intimacy, in its many forms - even as we are scared, hurt and healing from it.
The book of Leviticus is the story of our human imperfection, our capacity to forgive and the closeness, the intimacy that comes from real teshuva - transformative healing. When God instructed Moses to cry out unto Pharoah, "Let my people go..." God specified, "...that they may be of service." Our freedom is not a means to an end. It is a call to come closer to each other, to our fragility and our longings, and to know that holiness lies in the space between us, if we only have the courage to take a step in.
Rabbi Michael Latz writes:
"So entangled is our liberation and our quest for holiness, that the stories are never, in fact, separated: We read the Haggadah, the Passover story, in the midst of reading the book of Leviticus. These moments, these holy pursuits, collapse into one another and erupt into Judaism's purpose: To cry out for a life of liberation and holiness; that to be a free people is to reach for heaven and earth in the same instant and try with all our strength and all our compassion and all our spiritual resolve to bring them together in one unified and holy embrace."
There is a famous story of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai who was walking with his disciple Rabbi Yehoshua near Jerusalem after the destruction of the Temple. Rabbi Joshua looked at the Temple ruins and said: “Alas for us! The place which atoned for the sins of the people Israel through the ritual of animal sacrifice lies in ruins!” Then Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai spoke to him these words of comfort: “Be not grieved, my son. There is another way now of gaining atonement even though the Temple is destroyed. We must now gain atonement through gemilut hasadim, acts of lovingkindness, for the Prophet Hosea said: For I desire hesed, not sacrifice (Hosea 6:6) (Avot d’Rabbi Natan 11a).
In the face of the destruction of our times, how do we reach for holiness and for each other? What really is this hesed we are called to offer?
We most often translate Hesed as loving- kindness. But it is so much more than that. Hesed is associated with compassion, generosity and loyalty. Hesed is associated with the element of water. It is flexibility and flow. Hesed builds bridges. It is connective tissue. Hesed is that ultimately connecting force in the universe. And every time we recite the traditional words of the Amidah, we call upon Hasdei Avot, the hesed of our ancestors, through which our own redemption is possible.
Quite literally, hesed is the person who brought you food when you were sick or after your baby was born. Hesed is the friend who called daily when you were struggling with depression or addiction.
But with great respect to Rabbi Yochanon Ben Zakkai and the Prophet Hosea, Hesed alone will not get us free.
For the mystics, each quality lives in radical and essential tension with it spiritual opposite. In this case, Hesed is paired with Gevurah. Gevurah is most often translated as power or strength. I first encountered this word in the second paragraph of the Amidah: “Atah gibor l’olam, Adonai...You are eternally powerful, Holy One, animating all life, great saving force.” I remember learning this paragraph in Hebrew School. We called this blessing by its shorthand name, Gevurot. I remember learning that it is about God’s great power and being turned off. But truly gevurah is also a symbol cluster. It is associated with the element of rocks and earth. Gevurah is strategy and subversion. Gevurah is about discipline and boundaries; foundations and stability. It is the force of distinctions and the source of critical thinking. It is that which makes separation possible. Gevurah is that which motivates me to start and end a meeting on time. It is a morning exercise routine. It is saying ‘no’ even when it feels hard to disappoint people.
Gevurah motivates us to build powerful movements for collective liberation. It is precisely these critical thinking skills that allowed me to question massive systems of oppression, to imagine a life outside of the gender binary, to stand in solidarity with indigenous sovereignty. It is precisely our capacity for gevurah that gives us the courage and clarity to question authority.
Both Hesed and Gevurah are essential to our liberation.
I first learned about the balance between Hesed and Gevurah studying in rabbinical school. So much of the culture around Jewish learning is defined by the back and forth, artful battle of ideas whereby to really honor an idea is to challenge and critique it. This endless culture of debate is life-giving in the consensual world of paired hevruta learning. Yet, when taken out of context, it can tear at the fabric of relationships. What I am only now realizing is that Hevruta learning requires a balance of Hesed and Gevurah. Rigorous questions punctuated by reflective listening. The freedom to leave challenging disagreements unresolved; to let difference stand in all its uncomfortable glory, without blame or guilt.
It is has been my experience, that we on the left have spent so much time critiquing injustice, that we have forgotten the value of giving each other the benefit of the doubt. Out of habit and fear, we approach each other with the same rigor of critique that we offer the world. While many amazing things are true about the left, I have never heard anyone say, lefties are just so kind.
Earlier this year, Francis Lee, a queer and trans person of color, published an article that went viral, entitled: “Excommunicate me from the church of social justice: an activist’s plea for change.” Lee begins: “I believe in justice. I believe in liberation. I believe it is our duty to obliterate racism, patriarchy, transphobia, ableism, imperialism, and the like. But I worry that this current culture of activism actually restrains us, and is slowing down liberation movements…”
Lee continues: “Activists are some of the judgiest people I've ever met, myself included. We work hard to expose injustice and oppression in the world. But among us, grace and forgiveness are hard to come by.” End quote.
Not just among us, but within us.
After college I spent a few years living in San Francisco. It was a time of personal transformation and political awakening. I came out as transgender. I changed my name and my pronouns. I spent the summer of 2006 in Israel/Palestine learning about the occupation. When I returned, I was depleted and overwhelmed. In many ways, I was in the midst of another temple crash. So I found myself a therapist. I described to him some of my anxiety and excruciating indecision. And when I finished talking, he very calmly and directly asked, “Do you have compassion for yourself?”
I paused and thought about it. And the only thing I could think to respond was, “What do you mean?” But I may as well have said, “What’s compassion?” Don’t get me wrong. I had heard the word before. But I didn’t truly understand what it meant to feel it. And so, Richard said, “Well do you have compassion for other people?” And I once again fell silent. I honestly didn’t know.
Well, Richard explained, in his classic buddhist way - the best way to cultivate compassion for yourself, is to cultivate compassion for other people. And the best way to cultivate compassion for other people, is to cultivate compassion for yourself.
One of the famous images associated with Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, is the image of three books open before the Holy Blessed One. The first book for the fully righteous. They are sealed for life immediately. And the second book for the truly evil. They are sealed for death. And the third book, for those us whose actions hang in the balance - quite literally the in-betweeners. Which is most of us.
With these books open, we are raw and revealed in the presence of Our Source, The one who knows all our secrets, who we imagine to be El Rachum v’Chanun - The Merciful and Compassionate One and Baruch Dayan HaEmet, the One True Judge. Even more so, we are raw and revealed in the presence of our own capacity for judgement and compassion.
In Jewish tradition, after a person has died, the dead body is cared for by a dedicated team of people who ritually wash the body and prepare it for burial. For two years I served on the Boston Community Hevra Kadisha, the team of people who perform this mitzvah. This process, known as Tahara, is described as Hesed Shel Emet - True Kindness. Perhaps it is in the gentle touch of warm water to a cold body, caressing the place where bandaid glue is stuck to fragile skin; perhaps it is the unending flow of water that purifies the body. Perhaps it is in the honor of being the last people to see a body before laying them in the earth to compost. Perhaps it is because this person can never repay the generosity.
There are several guiding principles involved in this purification ritual.e. The ritual of tahara begins and ends with the attendants asking forgiveness of the deceased person (meyt in Hebrew) for any indignity that we might inadvertently cause. We declare that all that is about to happen, or that has happened, is for the sake of their honor. A main consideration during tahara is not to turn our backs to the meyt, as well as not pass anything over their body, as we move around the room to prepare them for burial. All of these practices remind us that death has not diminished their essential value as a human being, as one created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of Gd.
Rabbi Salem pierce ask: “What if we always attempted to engage each other with an intention of dignity for the sake of honor? What if we strove never to turn our backs on each other? What if we tried never to pass each other over? What if we committed to remaining present with each other?”
In other words, What if we treated each other in our lives with the same kind tenderness with which we care for a dead body?
Can we soften our clenched fist in confession and authentically say to ourselves, “Of course I made that mistake - of course. Of course that hurts.”
In the words of Nayyirah Waheed:
you do not have to be a fire for every mountain blocking you.
you could be a water
And soft river your way to freedom too.
In the spring, we will count the days between Passover and Shavuot in a period of time called the Omer. The mystics have a practice of attributing a divine quality to every week, and every day within that week. And then exploring the mashups it creates. For example, the first week is Hesed. And the second day of the first week, is Gevurah sh’be’Hesed - the boundaries that make it safe for love to flow. And then if flips. In the second week, we find ourselves in Hesed sh’be’gevurah - in the ways that discipline is an expression to kindness. As you can imagine it gets endlessly nuanced. But the practice itself is a call to greater self-awareness. Because these emotional instincts are so deeply woven into our own conditioning. And it is only through awareness that we have options and agency in our response. The practice also makes clear that there is no value judgement between these qualities. One is not better, more righteous than the other. We need them both. We have the innate capacity for both. And our liberation depends on our ability to draw upon both of these divine emanations skillfully.
This Yom Kippur,
May we see ourselves with both compassion and clarity, so we can realize our own longings.
And may we offer ourselves.
Hesed Shel Emet, true kindness,
for the ways we have missed the mark,
and Gevurah,
for the courage to transform.
September 30, 2017
Just moments ago, we read from the book of Leviticus detailing the ritual offerings made on Yom Kippur and the journey the high priests take once a year into the Holy of Holies. On the surface, the heart of the book of Leviticus is procedural descriptions for temple sacrifices. And for this reason, it is often unappreciated in contemporary liberal circles. However what appears to be a story about blood and guts (quite literally!), is in fact a story about our longing for connection.
The Hebrew word Korban קורבן, often translated as sacrifice or offering, in fact comes from the root קרב (kuf resh bet), and the verb לקרב (L'Karev) - meaning to bring near. While it might appear that the chapters of Leviticus are an interruption in the flow of biblical narrative, we are called to look closer at the priestly traditions because within them is revealed a value system that knows we humans crave closeness. We crave connection and community. We crave intimacy, in its many forms - even as we are scared, hurt and healing from it.
The book of Leviticus is the story of our human imperfection, our capacity to forgive and the closeness, the intimacy that comes from real teshuva - transformative healing. When God instructed Moses to cry out unto Pharoah, "Let my people go..." God specified, "...that they may be of service." Our freedom is not a means to an end. It is a call to come closer to each other, to our fragility and our longings, and to know that holiness lies in the space between us, if we only have the courage to take a step in.
Rabbi Michael Latz writes:
"So entangled is our liberation and our quest for holiness, that the stories are never, in fact, separated: We read the Haggadah, the Passover story, in the midst of reading the book of Leviticus. These moments, these holy pursuits, collapse into one another and erupt into Judaism's purpose: To cry out for a life of liberation and holiness; that to be a free people is to reach for heaven and earth in the same instant and try with all our strength and all our compassion and all our spiritual resolve to bring them together in one unified and holy embrace."
There is a famous story of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai who was walking with his disciple Rabbi Yehoshua near Jerusalem after the destruction of the Temple. Rabbi Joshua looked at the Temple ruins and said: “Alas for us! The place which atoned for the sins of the people Israel through the ritual of animal sacrifice lies in ruins!” Then Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai spoke to him these words of comfort: “Be not grieved, my son. There is another way now of gaining atonement even though the Temple is destroyed. We must now gain atonement through gemilut hasadim, acts of lovingkindness, for the Prophet Hosea said: For I desire hesed, not sacrifice (Hosea 6:6) (Avot d’Rabbi Natan 11a).
In the face of the destruction of our times, how do we reach for holiness and for each other? What really is this hesed we are called to offer?
We most often translate Hesed as loving- kindness. But it is so much more than that. Hesed is associated with compassion, generosity and loyalty. Hesed is associated with the element of water. It is flexibility and flow. Hesed builds bridges. It is connective tissue. Hesed is that ultimately connecting force in the universe. And every time we recite the traditional words of the Amidah, we call upon Hasdei Avot, the hesed of our ancestors, through which our own redemption is possible.
Quite literally, hesed is the person who brought you food when you were sick or after your baby was born. Hesed is the friend who called daily when you were struggling with depression or addiction.
But with great respect to Rabbi Yochanon Ben Zakkai and the Prophet Hosea, Hesed alone will not get us free.
For the mystics, each quality lives in radical and essential tension with it spiritual opposite. In this case, Hesed is paired with Gevurah. Gevurah is most often translated as power or strength. I first encountered this word in the second paragraph of the Amidah: “Atah gibor l’olam, Adonai...You are eternally powerful, Holy One, animating all life, great saving force.” I remember learning this paragraph in Hebrew School. We called this blessing by its shorthand name, Gevurot. I remember learning that it is about God’s great power and being turned off. But truly gevurah is also a symbol cluster. It is associated with the element of rocks and earth. Gevurah is strategy and subversion. Gevurah is about discipline and boundaries; foundations and stability. It is the force of distinctions and the source of critical thinking. It is that which makes separation possible. Gevurah is that which motivates me to start and end a meeting on time. It is a morning exercise routine. It is saying ‘no’ even when it feels hard to disappoint people.
Gevurah motivates us to build powerful movements for collective liberation. It is precisely these critical thinking skills that allowed me to question massive systems of oppression, to imagine a life outside of the gender binary, to stand in solidarity with indigenous sovereignty. It is precisely our capacity for gevurah that gives us the courage and clarity to question authority.
Both Hesed and Gevurah are essential to our liberation.
I first learned about the balance between Hesed and Gevurah studying in rabbinical school. So much of the culture around Jewish learning is defined by the back and forth, artful battle of ideas whereby to really honor an idea is to challenge and critique it. This endless culture of debate is life-giving in the consensual world of paired hevruta learning. Yet, when taken out of context, it can tear at the fabric of relationships. What I am only now realizing is that Hevruta learning requires a balance of Hesed and Gevurah. Rigorous questions punctuated by reflective listening. The freedom to leave challenging disagreements unresolved; to let difference stand in all its uncomfortable glory, without blame or guilt.
It is has been my experience, that we on the left have spent so much time critiquing injustice, that we have forgotten the value of giving each other the benefit of the doubt. Out of habit and fear, we approach each other with the same rigor of critique that we offer the world. While many amazing things are true about the left, I have never heard anyone say, lefties are just so kind.
Earlier this year, Francis Lee, a queer and trans person of color, published an article that went viral, entitled: “Excommunicate me from the church of social justice: an activist’s plea for change.” Lee begins: “I believe in justice. I believe in liberation. I believe it is our duty to obliterate racism, patriarchy, transphobia, ableism, imperialism, and the like. But I worry that this current culture of activism actually restrains us, and is slowing down liberation movements…”
Lee continues: “Activists are some of the judgiest people I've ever met, myself included. We work hard to expose injustice and oppression in the world. But among us, grace and forgiveness are hard to come by.” End quote.
Not just among us, but within us.
After college I spent a few years living in San Francisco. It was a time of personal transformation and political awakening. I came out as transgender. I changed my name and my pronouns. I spent the summer of 2006 in Israel/Palestine learning about the occupation. When I returned, I was depleted and overwhelmed. In many ways, I was in the midst of another temple crash. So I found myself a therapist. I described to him some of my anxiety and excruciating indecision. And when I finished talking, he very calmly and directly asked, “Do you have compassion for yourself?”
I paused and thought about it. And the only thing I could think to respond was, “What do you mean?” But I may as well have said, “What’s compassion?” Don’t get me wrong. I had heard the word before. But I didn’t truly understand what it meant to feel it. And so, Richard said, “Well do you have compassion for other people?” And I once again fell silent. I honestly didn’t know.
Well, Richard explained, in his classic buddhist way - the best way to cultivate compassion for yourself, is to cultivate compassion for other people. And the best way to cultivate compassion for other people, is to cultivate compassion for yourself.
One of the famous images associated with Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, is the image of three books open before the Holy Blessed One. The first book for the fully righteous. They are sealed for life immediately. And the second book for the truly evil. They are sealed for death. And the third book, for those us whose actions hang in the balance - quite literally the in-betweeners. Which is most of us.
With these books open, we are raw and revealed in the presence of Our Source, The one who knows all our secrets, who we imagine to be El Rachum v’Chanun - The Merciful and Compassionate One and Baruch Dayan HaEmet, the One True Judge. Even more so, we are raw and revealed in the presence of our own capacity for judgement and compassion.
In Jewish tradition, after a person has died, the dead body is cared for by a dedicated team of people who ritually wash the body and prepare it for burial. For two years I served on the Boston Community Hevra Kadisha, the team of people who perform this mitzvah. This process, known as Tahara, is described as Hesed Shel Emet - True Kindness. Perhaps it is in the gentle touch of warm water to a cold body, caressing the place where bandaid glue is stuck to fragile skin; perhaps it is the unending flow of water that purifies the body. Perhaps it is in the honor of being the last people to see a body before laying them in the earth to compost. Perhaps it is because this person can never repay the generosity.
There are several guiding principles involved in this purification ritual.e. The ritual of tahara begins and ends with the attendants asking forgiveness of the deceased person (meyt in Hebrew) for any indignity that we might inadvertently cause. We declare that all that is about to happen, or that has happened, is for the sake of their honor. A main consideration during tahara is not to turn our backs to the meyt, as well as not pass anything over their body, as we move around the room to prepare them for burial. All of these practices remind us that death has not diminished their essential value as a human being, as one created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of Gd.
Rabbi Salem pierce ask: “What if we always attempted to engage each other with an intention of dignity for the sake of honor? What if we strove never to turn our backs on each other? What if we tried never to pass each other over? What if we committed to remaining present with each other?”
In other words, What if we treated each other in our lives with the same kind tenderness with which we care for a dead body?
Can we soften our clenched fist in confession and authentically say to ourselves, “Of course I made that mistake - of course. Of course that hurts.”
In the words of Nayyirah Waheed:
you do not have to be a fire for every mountain blocking you.
you could be a water
And soft river your way to freedom too.
In the spring, we will count the days between Passover and Shavuot in a period of time called the Omer. The mystics have a practice of attributing a divine quality to every week, and every day within that week. And then exploring the mashups it creates. For example, the first week is Hesed. And the second day of the first week, is Gevurah sh’be’Hesed - the boundaries that make it safe for love to flow. And then if flips. In the second week, we find ourselves in Hesed sh’be’gevurah - in the ways that discipline is an expression to kindness. As you can imagine it gets endlessly nuanced. But the practice itself is a call to greater self-awareness. Because these emotional instincts are so deeply woven into our own conditioning. And it is only through awareness that we have options and agency in our response. The practice also makes clear that there is no value judgement between these qualities. One is not better, more righteous than the other. We need them both. We have the innate capacity for both. And our liberation depends on our ability to draw upon both of these divine emanations skillfully.
This Yom Kippur,
May we see ourselves with both compassion and clarity, so we can realize our own longings.
And may we offer ourselves.
Hesed Shel Emet, true kindness,
for the ways we have missed the mark,
and Gevurah,
for the courage to transform.