Sermon: Time for a Leap of Action

Written by Rabbi Josh Levy — 28 October 2023

“A Jew is asked to take a leap of action rather than a leap of thought… [we are] asked to surpass our own needs, to do more than we understand in order to understand more than we do.”

In the study passage that Rolfe read for us this morning (see below), Abraham Joshua Heschel reminds us that the fundamental ask of Jewish life is one of behaviour. That we begin with the fundamental question, how ought we to be, and what should we do.

As Jews, we don’t start with theory – it is important, but it is not our beginning point.

And as Jews we start with us – the Jewish ask is not one that we make of someone else, not a request made of the person sitting next to us. It is for each of us to respond.

Our starting point is that we – each of us – are asked to behave in a particular way.
Fundamental to the Jewish ‘leap’ is that we have responsibility for our own behaviour and the contribution that we make to community and the world.

And this is not only our ritual behaviour.
For Heschel, ritual action is not enough. And nor is ‘Jewish action’ action without intent, without meaning. For him, indeed for Judaism, deed and heart are inextricably linked.
To act as Jews is fundamentally about our connection with the world, our connection with each other and, however we might understand this, our connection with God.

So, the Jewish leap of action that Heschel describes is also an internal leap – a leap of connection and orientation – a commitment to a Jewish way of being, to a religious orientation in our lives.

It’s a great study passage.

But why this week?

Our Torah portion, Lech L’cha begins with the defining ‘leap of action’ in our tradition. Abraham’s willingness to leave that which he know, his family, his homeland, at God’s command, an act which will create a new people, Israel.

Justin spoke beautifully and generously last evening about the parallels with another ‘leap of action’ that this Shabbat marks – the one that I am taking. One that will also take me into a new relationship with this, my Jewish home.

So, this study passage feels deeply appropriate for this Shabbat of leaps of action.

And – as I hope you have come to expect of us – there is a little more to it than that.

Because, as I make a leap, so does this community. There is a midrash – quite a difficult one – that tells us that when Abraham was asked to leave his family behind, to go on his journey, God told him to dismiss all thoughts about the family he was leaving behind. And this is very much not where I am.

Rather, I am acutely aware that the leap of action I have chosen to take also means a leap for this community, for everyone in this room. Too. It is a leap for this institution. It is a leap for a religious idea, the idea of Alyth, to which I have dedicated the last 15 years. And it is a leap for people about whom I care deeply.

So, Heschel would say, I think – this is a ‘leap of action’ time. As Jews we are asked to be, to act, to behave a certain way. It is a moment that asks that we act Jewishly, orient ourselves Jewishly, in response to this moment.

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So, what does this moment ask of us, Jewishly?

I’d like to highlight three Jewish leaps – of action, of orientation. Leaps that I think are required of all of us, as we as a community go through this transition.

The first is a leap of appreciation.

We spoke a great deal in the early stages of the pandemic about the Jewish value of Hakarat hatov – of recognition of the good, of seeing the beauty in what we have, of appreciation.

This is a fundamental Jewish act, built into our daily lives: a daily ‘response to the wonder’, as Heschel would put it. Acknowledging, being grateful for, the good in the everyday. Seeing and being present to the things we do not normally appreciate.
In ‘modim’ that we read a moment ago in the Amidah – al nissecha sheb’chol yom immanu – for Your miracles that are with us daily. As Arthur Green has written, we thank God mostly for the greatest gift of all “our ability to see the miraculous within the everyday”.

And yet, we often find it hard to see the miraculous in this, the miracle that this place is.

Sometimes we find it hard to acknowledge how special this place is, this thing that we do together. We take so much for granted: hundreds of people coming together as community in a weekly act of Jewish connection; 50, 60 young people starting their adult Jewish lives with us each year; being welcomed into shul by volunteers on security and in the foyer; we take for granted a choir that rehearses and sings our music with love and meaning; dedicated partners in leading our services; wardens who give of their time to help us to know what to do; we take for granted a professional team who are here day in day out, dedicating themselves to a diverse community; and we take for granted clergy who teach and preach with thought and care and effort and never give a sermon they haven’t thought deeply about, or a shiur that isn’t well planned; we take for granted a community of people who care about us, who accompany us on our life journeys; we take for granted that our children have a place to come back to which is home, and safe, whatever they have been through in the outside world. We take all this and more for granted, we fail to see the miraculous in this every day. And really, we should not.

I have been overwhelmed by the expressions of love and gratitude I have received over the last months, articulations of times in which my life has entwined with those of others in deep and meaningful ways.
But it is not just gratitude for me. It is gratitude for this thing that we do – for joyful prayer, rich learning, caring community. And it is gratitude for this place – as a centre of gathering, of safety, of love.

And the question I am left with is this. Why don’t we talk about this all the time? Why do we choose to leave all this unsaid? To focus on that which we do not have or that which we think we see elsewhere?

The Jewish ask of this moment is hakarat hatov – a commitment to appreciation and more, to the expression of appreciation and gratitude in our lives.

We will be better for it, I promise you, and we will also be better able to face the future together for it if we choose to make that leap.

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The second Jewish leap this moment requires is a leap of judgement.

Those of us who studied together this morning, studied the Jewish principle of ‘dan l’chaf zechut’ –literally to judge on the scale of merit – more idiomatically, to give people the benefit of the doubt.

It is one of those challenging features of human nature that we naturally tend to judge ourselves kindly and the other rather less so. To look to understand our own context, our own reasons, our own motivations when we act in ways we do not like. But in others to see only the action; in others to suspect, to assume the worst.

Human nature this might be, but it is not the orientation that our tradition asks of us.

The leap of action that our tradition asks as Jews is that we commit to working to think the best of each other. That, in the framing of the nineteenth century German rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, we should be an advocate for those around us, that we should have within us an internal lawyer for the defence for those we encounter in the world, in the same way that each of us might do for ourselves.

The Baal Shem Tov understood this as an act of love. “From the Mitzvah to love your neighbour as yourself” he wrote, “We learn the virtue of Dan L’Chaf Zechut. Since you always find excuses for your own misdeeds, make excuses also for your fellow”.

This is especially important in community. And especially at times of decision making and of change.

In my 15 years here, I have disagreed often with lay partners and colleagues and congregants, as we have faced difficult decisions of leadership.

I have never once in that time been given cause to doubt the love, the commitment, or the motivation they have brought.

As we face complexity in our communal life, our Jewish task is to commit to seeing that. To bringing that knowledge of each other’s decency into the interactions that we have with one another.

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And a final leap of action, leap of orientation, that I think Judaism asks of us at this moment is a leap of concern: to care about the needs of others.

Our recurring theme during the period of Covid was the idea of Areivut – our mutual responsibility. ‘Kol Yisrael Aravim zeh ba’zeh’.

In the context of pandemic, this meant holding a deep concern for the physical well being of on another. But we are also responsible for each other’s spiritual well-being as well.

Areivut asks that we care about each other’s Jewish lives as much as our own.

Times of change in communal life are often times when we are asked to focus on our own needs, our own wants, our own desires. Important as this is, a Jewish orientation also asks that we recognise that other people may have different desires, different needs that also need to be met.

This is the reality, the price that we pay, for living in community: that we live with those who are different to us. It is especially true of one as large and diverse as this, yet with limited resources. For everything we choose to do, every request we choose to meet, there is something else we cannot do, another question we cannot answer.

So, areivut requires of us that we commit to seeing, and responding to the needs of others, even where, inevitably, that will mean that our own needs won’t always be met.

One of the reasons this has always felt like home is that the g’dolim of this community really understood this. Those who we were privileged to know, on whose shoulders we all stand, they understood that Alyth was more than the needs of a core group of people, that Alyth has a responsibility beyond itself: a responsibility for the Jewish and communal needs of members and friends and potential members alike; that those needs evolve and change, and that only by recognising and responding to that can this extraordinary place continue to thrive and survive.

As one of those patriarchs said to me very early in my time here, in his way, just when I most needed to hear it: “I may not like what you are doing, but I understand why you are doing it, and I will be here to support it”.
That, for what it is worth, is also my commitment to Alyth as it continues to evolve and develop and change as it must. I may not like what you are doing, but I understand why you are doing it, and I will be here to support it.

Including that last bit.
Because areivut is also a demand of presence – that we, each of us, recommit to the collective exercise of Jewish life in its varying forms. And in particular to being here, to coming in, to adding our voice. As I said last night, the most important variable in any service is not who is leading it, nor the repertoire, or the musical accompaniment. The most important variable in any service is the people who are in the room, and therefore also the people who have chosen not to be in the room. That is a responsibility that falls on all of us.

One final thought about Areivut.
For us, as Progressive Jews, our sense of mutual responsibility stretches beyond the doors of our community, indeed beyond the Jewish community. I fear this may well be tested over the coming months.

Areivut asks that we commit to being a space that continues to care about what happens outside our doors; a place that continues to care about and speak about what is happening to non-Jews in the world; that we commit to being a space that welcomes others, in which security is seen as the first line of welcome; a space that commits to interfaith work, to social action, to welcoming those who come anew into our synagogue, welcoming those on new Jewish journeys. That is our responsibility too, and one that we must commit ourselves to, in the leap of action this moment requires.

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And here is the rub.
We may not want to do any of those things. That might not be where we are.
At a moment of change and loss, one exacerbated by our broader sense of anxiety, of being unsettled, these commitments – to appreciation, to judging one another favourably, to mutual responsibility – these may not feel like what we want to do at all.

The insight of Heschel is that, Jewishly, that cannot matter, that doesn’t negate that which we are asked.
“A Jew is asked to take a leap of action rather than a leap of thought”. A leap of behaviour rather than a leap of our feelings. “[We are] asked to surpass our own needs”, to surpass our own emotions, irritations, anxieties. And still to behave as Judaism asks of us.

Heschel’s insight is that this might not feel easy, but we are asked to “do more than we understand in order to understand more than we do.”

Our commitment to Behaving Jewishly is not context dependent. It doesn’t hang on our desire or what we feel like. It doesn’t matter whether we want to be there. There is no exemption just for us.
That is not what the ‘leap of action’ asks of us.

So, on this morning of leaps – by Abraham, by me, and the one we are all being asked to take together – may we commit ourselves to this leap of action:
one in which our of being, our Jewish lives are infused with appreciation; in which we promise to judge one another with warmth and generosity and decency; and one in which we commit to seeing and caring for one another and each other’s Jewish lives in the weeks and months and years ahead.

 

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Abraham Joshua Heschel
God in Search of Man, p283

A Jew is asked to take a leap of action rather than a leap of thought. He is asked to surpass his needs, to do more than he understands in order to understand more than he does.
In carrying out the word of the Torah he is ushered into the presence of spiritual meaning…

The sense of the ineffable, the participation in Torah and Israel, the leap of action – they all lead to the same goal.
Callousness to the mystery of existence, detachment from Torah and Israel, cruelty and profanity of living, alienate the Jew from God. Response to the wonder, participation in Torah and Israel, discipline in daily life, bring us close to Him.

What commitments must precede the experience of such meaning? What convictions must persist to make such insights possible?
Our way of living must be compatible with our essence as created in the likeness of God. We must beware lest our likeness be distorted and even forfeited. In our way of living we must remain true not only to our sense of power and beauty but also to our sense of the grandeur and mystery of existence.