Today we have a double portion of Torah that we are about to read. It’s like the double portion of manna that fell on Friday—enough to feed us for Shabbat. It’s a gift. But sometimes it is hard to see the gift in the first part of the portion. We’d rather skip to dessert. But this morning we will not and we will deal with some uncomfortable truths.

The first part, Acharei Mot contains a list of sexual sins, or if you prefer sexual improprieties. Some people don’t like to talk about sins. This portion and, in fact, my sermon itself may be triggering for some. If that is the case, take care of yourself. Feel free to get up, walk around, visit the social hall, zone out. (If you are reading this, feel free to stop.)

The second part is called Kedoshim, the Holiness Code. It is exactly the mid part of the Torah and it is addressed to all the Israelites, all of us, not just the priests who are addressed in most of Leviticus.

My question, this morning, why the juxtaposition? Why put this long list of sexual sins right next to this recipe of how to achieve holiness?

(There were a couple of answers. One was that we should strive to be holy in our sexual relationships. The other was that this portion was read to keep the high priest awake the night before Yom Kippur so that he wouldn’t have a seminal emission and thus render himself unready to go into the holy of holies.)

Within Judaism, there is a debate. It’s Judaism, after all. There is always a debate. Traditionally, Jews have read this very explicit material on Yom Kippur afternoon.

Orthodox Judaism continues to read from the Torah what are commonly referred to as the arayot – the forbidden sexual relationships

Reform Judaism often bypasses this sexually explicit portion and gives us texts that highlight reconciliation, ethical behavior and social justice. For Yom Kippur it gives us the second portion—Kedoshim—telling us how to be holy.

Conservative Judaism and our own machzor, our High Holiday prayer book, gives us a choice, an alternative reading – our second portion today.

Being in the center, it is the core of Judaism. It includes the famous line, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

We could spend a lifetime studying that verse. In fact, Hillel taught us that this was the whole of Judaism, the rest is commentary and we should go and study it.

But this preamble that we read this morning is challenging and important so we are going to read it and deal with it. Why was this the reading on the holy and reflective day of Yom Kippur in the first place? Why the debate of whether we should read it or skip it in the first place?

Is it possible that this very Torah portion, which so many rabbis and congregations have struggled with in recent years, demands a rereading in light of so many sexual abuses and allegations that have come to light this past year?

Is there a connection between Acharei Mot/Kedoshim and their pairing and the #MeToo movement?

Yes. And it is important.

Kedoshim, over and over again, exhorts us to the holy. Kadosh. What does kadosh mean? To be set apart. To be special. We know this word in lots of ways. We talk about Kiddush, the prayer over wine that separates the work week from Shabbat, making time holy. We talk about Kaddish, the prayer that separates parts of the service and sanctifies life. We talk about Kedusha, that makes us holy as we reach up on our toes trying to be like angels. And we talk about kiddushin, marriage, which is a relationship that is set apart, one for another and recognizes its inherent holiness.

Our recipe for holiness this morning includes having just weights and measures, a fairness in the courts, not withholding the wages of a laborer overnight, not putting a stumbling block before the blind or cursing the deaf, not standing by while our neighbor bleeds, treating the widow, the orphan and the stranger with care, leaving the corners of our field so that the hungry can find food.

And as I said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

It is about how we live in community. How we live in society. How we live in relationship. To our parents. To our neighbors. To the widow, the orphan and the stranger.

I believe that actually these two portions need to be read together. That we cannot be holy, set apart, special, unless we are holy in our sexual encounters.

When #MeToo first became a movement I was asked whether Weinstein was good for the Jews or bad for the Jews. We often have that lens and my answer, quickly on the fly that night, remains the same. Bad for women, bad for humanity and therefore bad for the Jews.

That night in an impromptu round table discussion, every single woman there had their own #MeToo story. Every. Single. One.

This week we saw the conviction of Bill Cosby. The man many called, “America’s Dad.” The man who gave us a wonderful midrash with his impeccable comedic timing about Noah. This has been a year where we have seen the uncovering of many “sins” in journalism, in entertainment, in business, in politics. And yes, in the religious world. In places where men have historically held the power.

This week I sat in a different synagogue, excited to hear one of my favorite authors. The people sitting in front of me were incredulous that there could be that much sexual harassment in the world. They didn’t know anyone who had experienced sexual abuse so how could it be true. In the moment I didn’t know what to say to them.

Let me be clear.

One in five women and one in 71 men will be raped at some point in their lives.

One in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before they turn 18 years old.

https://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/publications_nsvrc_factsheet_media-packet_statistics-about-sexual-violence_0.pdf

RAINN gives us the American statistics, 1 out of 6 women will experience a rape or attempted rape in their life time.

https://www.rainn.org/statistics/scope-problem

Others are now using the number 1 in 3 women. A third of all women. That includes women who are sexually harassed. A third of all women.

Statistics are hard to track. There is a range of behavior referred to. A cat call is not the same as humiliating jokes or being felt up or being raped. Yet we know that these kind of abuses happen in every socio-economic, educational, ethnic, religious group at the same rates. Yes that includes the Jewish community. Yes. I am one of the one in four.

That is the number I typically use and see most often.

Let me be clear. It is wrong. And all too common. And not the holy behavior that our double Torah portion calls for.

When I first arrived here I explained to the ritual committee that we would be reading the “alternative reading”, and that my sermon on that first Yom Kippur would explain why. I learned that my sermon made people uncomfortable. Maybe my sermon today makes you uncomfortable. The portion itself might.

Usually when congregations opt out of reading Acharei Mot they see it as challenging because the way we typically translate it, thank you King James, may not be accurate. It may appear to be condemning homosexuality. But what if that is not a correct translation? Rabbi David Greenstein, the former Rosh Yeshiva of the Academy for Jewish Religion, teaches, that actually it is a commandment for two men not to lie with a woman at the same time. He views it as a polemic against gang rape.

But even more important than his new, elegant, graceful grammatical argument is his understanding of holiness:

“How do we know whether we have been invited to enter the sphere of holiness or whether we are trespassing and defiling that sphere? Aharei Mot-Kedoshim is very much concerned with this problem. How does Aaron, or any subsequent High Priest, have the guts to enter the sacred sphere? The Torah answers, “B’zot yavo Aharon” /

“Aaron shall enter with this” (Leviticus 16:3). The text continues with a list of animals and sacrificial items. But our mystical tradition read the verse differently. “Zot” / “This”is a reference to the Shechinah, the Divine Presence. …Aaron can enter to meet the

Divine Presence because Aaron carries the Divine Presence with him already. Moreover, the word “zot” is considered an appropriate name for the Shechinah because it connotes indicative awareness. The Divine Presence dwells in our “this-ness” — in who we actually are. We are commanded to enter the sacred sphere when we can carry that conviction with us.

Subsequent tradition added more elements to this ceremony of Yom Kippur. The Mishnah tells us that the Priest would read from a Torah scroll to the people. He would read from this very portion, but he would conclude by saying: “There is more written here than what I have read to you” (Yoma 7:1). There is a double meaning here. One

point is that there is more to the Torah than any one portion or any one verse (or two). But another meaning is that there is more to the Torah than the text as written. How we choose to read a story or a verse makes all the difference in the world.”

He continues with his understanding of “troubling verse”:

Which brings me to Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, the two verses which appear in this week’s portions and that have been read for millennia as the Torah’s condemnation of homosexuality. How should we read these verses as we enter the sacred sphere with “zot,” with our conviction that we carry the Divine Presence with us – straight or queer– as we are? I submit that we may read these verses in a new way, a way that removes them entirely from the topic of homosexuality. The verse in Leviticus (18:22) is comprised of three elements – persons (V’et Zachar), forbidden acts (lo tishkav mishkevei ishah), and a term of condemnation (to’evah hi). Let us examine each element in reverse order…

When we consider the first part of the verse, the part that mentions the persons involved in the forbidden act,we read the phrase “And with a man” / “V’et zachar.” Now, the particle et may indicate the object of an action.

Until now our verse in Leviticus has been read to mean that a male is prohibited to make another man the object of his sex act. But this word can have another meaning. The first place where it is unambiguous that theword et is being used in another way is in the verse, “And Enoch walked with (et) the Almighty…” (Genesis 5:24).

In that verse it is clear that the particle does not signify an object indication. Rather, it means “along with.” Now we may read the verse very differently:

v’et zachar And along with another male lo tishkav you shall not lie

mishkevei ishah in sexual intercourses with a woman to’evah hi it is an abomination.

There is no prohibition of homosexual acts of any kind. Rather, the Torah prohibits two males from joining together to force intercourse upon a woman. This is a to’evah because the introduction of the second man completely transforms the act from a potentially innocent act into a manipulation that degrades the act of intercourse and makes the woman subject to violence and objectification.”

http://www.on1foot.org/sites/default/files/Interpreting%20Leviticus%20-%203%20part%20lesson_0.pdf

When I first studied this with Rabbi Greenstein all I could say was WOW! Yasher koach to Rabbi Greenstein. I wonder how much pain and suffering of those in the LGBTQ community could have avoided if King James had better translators.

Some of our Biblical matriarchs had their own #MeToo moments. In those days, women were viewed as property. A bride was acquired. A husband had to provide. If a husband died than the woman had to marry his brother. We are studying the Book of Ruth which centers on what to do with three women who no longer have husbands to provide for them.

Abraham would have allowed Sarah to be called his sister instead of his wife, making her more attractive or accessible to the ruler of Egypt, not once but twice. Lot was willing to give up his daughters to the townsmen to save his (male) guests. Dinah was raped. Esther was found being ravaged by Haman. The Song of Songs tells us the watchmen that guard the city found her, hit her, bruised her and took away her veil. Boaz tells Ruth to glean in his field because he has told his men not to molest her.

The Talmud makes Jewish law very clear. Ahead of its day. Rape and sexual impropriety including within a marriage is wrong. It violates the holiness code. We could go into the Jewish law in depth but that is a subject for another day. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/how-do-the-rabbis-in-the-talmud-address-rape/

The issue with most of these scenes is one of power and control. It still is.

The Jewish community takes these modern topics of the #MeToo movement very seriously. It has actually been a passion of mine for decades and I have written and spoken extensively on it. Two years ago I took a class through JTS’s continuing education for rabbis on Sexual Ethics for Rabbis. It should be required for all rabbis. This year, shortly after the #MeToo Movement began the Chicago Board of Rabbis and Jewish Children and Family Services sponsored a training session for rabbis which I attended. They are available to come here to facilitate a conversation. We already have policies and procedures in place here at CKI. The Community Crisis Center as part of a grant is hosting a series of conversations at Gail Borden Library on #MeToo. I am speaking on #MeToo and Spirituality later in May.

Telling these stories is important. It gives other women courage. They begin to realize that they are not alone.

Sometimes, however, telling those stories is tough. For some, there is still a sense of shame, a very powerful and destructive emotion. There is still a cost to telling the story. It can be emotional. It can be financial. I wrestled with how to do this very sermon. I found I could no longer be silent.

Sometimes hearing a particular song sung in a particular way can be hurtful. There has been a debate about whether to continue to sing some much beloved Jewish music of a known sexual predator. Sometimes the hurt can come from a poem or a reading or a time of the year. A color. An odor. A temperature. A sound.

At the beginning of this sermon I suggested that if you thought this might be triggering that you should be careful to take care of yourself. If you need resources to handle your own #MeToo moment, as the nation continues to wrestle with these topics, please reach out to me. There are many local resources available.

So here is where we are. We have entered a new world, with new mores that don’t always seem clear. A world where we are not afraid to confront uncomfortable truths. A world where we listen to each other stories with respect and love. A world where we fight for a time where no woman needs to fear her boss, her colleague, her husband. Where the kind of sexual harassment that has been uncovered will no longer be tolerated. By anyone. At anytime. In anyplace.

This week’s Torah portion forces us to confront these realities in ancient times and today. By bringing Acharei-Mot together with Kedoshim we begin to create a world where holiness exists, between one another, even in a #MeToo world. Especially in a #MeToo world.

Hope’ is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—

I’ve heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.

Emily Dickinson

So what is hope? And why talk about it today?

Today we at a moment in between, between Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, and Yom Ha’Atzmaut, Israel Independence Day. So today, we must find hope. This is what Elie Wiesel said in an interview with Reform Judaism:

“We must ask ourselves the painful questions: ‘Have we survivors done our duty?’ ‘Has our warning been properly articulated?’ ‘Has our message been accurately communicated?’ ‘Have we acted as true witnesses?’ It is with fear and trembling that we often reach the conclusion: something went wrong with our testimony; it was not received. Otherwise, things would have been different…. Had anyone told us when we were liberated that we would be compelled in our lifetime to fight anti-Semitism once more… we would have had no strength to lift our eyes from the ruins. If only we could tell the tale, we thought, the world would change. Well, we have told the tale, and the world has remained the same….
And yet, we shall not give up, we shall not give in. It may be too late for the victims and even for the survivors – but not for our children, not for mankind. Yes, in an age tainted by violence, we must teach coming generations of the origins and consequences of violence. In a society of bigotry and indifference, we must tell our contemporaries that whatever the answer, it must grow out of human compassion and reflect man’s relentless quest for justice and memory.”

That’s forward thinking. That’s hope.

Elie Wiesel worked for a time where there would never be a holocaust again—to anyone, at anytime, any place. He, together with the US Holocaust Museum and American Jewish World Service was one of the leaders of the Save Darfur campaign and a massive rally in Washington DC, in 2006.

That’s forward thinking. That’s hope.

American Jewish World Service is at the vanguard of pushing for protections for the Rohinga. As one of their recent travel study tours participants, Carol Weitz “We, as Jews, have a sacred responsibility to the larger world and if we truly strive for a better world, then we cannot turn our backs on others who are denied their human rights.”

That’s forward thinking. That’s hope.

Judaism is a religion of hope. We sing—and we will sing HaTikvah, the hope, later this morning. We pray for a time when the world will be at peace—and yet for more than 2000 years the world has not been at peace. We continue to teach the vision of the prophets where the lion will lie down with the lamb, where everyone will sit under their vine and fig tree and none shall make them afraid.

It is forward thinking. It is hope.

Last night, at this liminal time, I told two stories. I told The Terrible Things, an allegory of the Holocaust, by Eve Bunting. In a forest setting, she retells the quote of Martin Niemoller. First they came for the Jews and I didn’t speak up. This week we learned that Americans don’t know about the Holocaust,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/04/12/two-thirds-of-millennials-dont-know-what-auschwitz-is-according-to-study-of-fading-holocaust-knowledge/?utm_term=.dc77e027814e

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/us/holocaust-education.html

41% of Americans don’t know about Auschwitz. Two-thirds of millennials. Now I did surveying for a living before I was a rabbi, but these numbers were so compelling I felt I had to act. So I told the story and asked. And every single one of the kids who had come as part of their confirmation program at First Congregational Church knew the Niemoller quote. That provides me with hope.

Then I turned to Israel and I read most of the story, The Secret Grove, by Barbara Cohen. It tells the story of a 10 year old boy in Kfar Saba. His father lost an arm in the War of Independence but he is normal boy, going to school and playing soccer, hoping that he won’t be chosen last for the team. He is and he runs away with his ball, down a dirt road and runs into another boy…He’s scared but in a combination of Hebrew, English and little Arabic the two have a conversation. They become friends. They plant some orange seeds. The book doesn’t sugar coat it. At the end the boy, now a grown up, returns to the dirt road and the tree that grew from the seeds. He has now fought Arabs in three wars. He wonders what the boy has done.

Somehow this book gives me hope.

The Hope, HaTikvah is the name of the Israeli National Anthem. What do we know about it?
It was originally written in 1878 by Naphtali Herz Imber from Zolochiv, a city that was nicknamed “The City of Poets. When he immigrated to Palestine in 1882 he read his nine stanza poem to some of the early pioneers. It originally expressed his pride following the establishment of Pitah Tikvah and published in Barkai. It then became the anthem of first Hovevei Zion and then the Zionist movement at the First Zionist Congress in 1897. It wasn’t without controversy. The British Mandate government banned it briefly in 1919 due to Arab anti-zionist protest. And some Orthodox rabbis protested its selection as Israel’s national anthem because it doesn’t mention G-d. Instead, Rav Kook penned a different set of lyrics, Ha-Emunah, the Faith.

Both are forward thinking. They give me hope.

Jews, despite all the odds, have always found a way to hope. In exile. Words like, “If I forget, thee, O Jerusalem.” And “By the waters of Babylon,” gave our people hope. Proclaiming every year, “Next year in Jerusalem,” at the Passover seder, gave our people hope. Welcoming Elijah, the herald of the Messianic era to a seder, Havdalah the birth of a child, gives us hope. Working for Tikkun Olam, the repair of the world, bringing the shards of our world’s brokenness back together, is forward thinking and gives us hope.

In 1925 Edmund Flegg, a French Jew penned an article that appears in our prayerbook.

I am a Jew because the faith of Israel demands no
abdication of my mind.

I am a Jew because the faith of Israel asks every
possible sacrifice of my soul.

I am a Jew because in all places where there are tears
and suffering the Jew weeps.

I am a Jew because in every age when the cry of despair
is heard the Jew hopes.

I am a Jew because the message of Israel is the most
ancient and the most modern.

I am a Jew because Israel’s promise is a universal
promise.

I am a Jew because for Israel the world is not finished;
men will complete it.

I am a Jew because for Israel man is not yet fully
created; men are creating him.

I am a Jew because Israel places man and his unity
above nations and above Israel itself.

I am a Jew because above man, image of the divine
unity, Israel places the unity which is divine.

— Edmond Flegg, “Why I Am a Jew”

It is a reading with forward thinking. It fills me with hope.

Even during the Holocaust, Jews found a way to hope. Even at the gates of Auschwitz, they would sing.

Ani Maamin, ani maamin, ani maamin.
Beviat hamashiach, ani manamin.

I believe with complete faith
In the coming of the Messiah. I believe.

And even though he may tarry, I will wait for him.

While based on Rambam’s 13 Articles of Faith, I am not sure I could have sung that standing there.

Perhaps, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi Emeritus of Great Britain says it best.

“Judaism is a religion of details, but we miss the point if we do not sometimes step back and see the larger picture. To be a Jew is to be an agent of hope in a world serially threatened by despair. Every ritual, every mitzvah, every syllable of the Jewish story, every element of Jewish law, is a protest against escapism, resignation or the blind acceptance of fate. Judaism is a sustained struggle, the greatest ever known, against the world that is, in the name of the world that could be, should be, but is not yet. There is no more challenging vocation. Throughout history, when human beings have sought hope they have found it in the Jewish story. Judaism is the religion, and Israel the home, of hope.”

Jonathan Sacks http://rabbisacks.org/future-tense-how-the-jews-invented-hope-published-in-the-jewish-chronicle/

To underscore what Sacks himself has said, “Judaism is humanity’s faith in the future tense; the Jewish voice is the voice of an inextinguishable hope.”

It is a powerful statement. It also carries with it great responsibility. Hope is not the same as optimism, which is “passive and accepting.” Hope requires us to work together to make things better.”

https://www.jweekly.com/2012/12/07/the-column-judaisms-message-of-radical-hope/

Elie Wiesel ended his interview with the magazine with these words:

So despite your disappointment and bouts of pessimism, you remain hopeful.

Yes. One must wager on the future. I believe it is possible, in spite of everything, to believe in friendship in a world without friendship, and even to believe in God in a world where there has been an eclipse of God’s face. Above all, we must not give in to cynicism. To save the life of a single child, no effort is too much. To make a tired old man smile is to perform an essential task. To defeat injustice and misfortune, if only for one instant, for a single victim, is to invent a new reason to hope.

Just as despair can be given to me only by another human being, hope too can be given to me only by another human being. Mankind must remember too that, like hope, peace is not God’s gift to his creatures. Peace is a very special gift–it is our gift to each other. For the sake of our children and theirs, I pray that we are worthy of that hope, of that redemption, and some measure of peace.

https://reformjudaism.org/jewish-life/arts-culture/literature/god-indifference-and-hope-conversation-elie-wiesel

Come work with me for a better world, a vision of what the world can be. Come find hope.

“Do you love me?
Do I love you. With our daughters getting married and there’s trouble in the town, your upset, your worn out, go inside, go lie down.
Maybe it’s indigestion.
Goldie…I’m asking you a question. Do you love me?
You’re a fool.
I know.
For 25 years I’ve washed your clothes, cooked your meals, cleaned your house, given you children, milked the cows, after twenty five years why talk about love right now.”

Milked the cows is where I drew the line. You know, he had a dairy farm in the UP.
But…love…we don’t talk about it enough. We assume, like Goldie, it’s there. That it will always be there. That’s a mistake.

Love needs to be nurtured. Love comes in different forms. There is the old love, like Tevye and Goldie. Like Isaac and Rebecca which is the first mention of love, ahava in the Bible. It’s comforting. It is comfortable. But maybe it is just too easy to take for granted.

Then there is the love between G-d and the people of Israel. Between G-d and each of us individually. We know G-d loves us because it says so in the second blessing of our service. G-d show love, like a loving parent, by giving us Torah, a set of rules that provides structure and boundaries.

On Shabbat Pesach, if it were an intermediate day and not the last day like today, then we would have read about G-d hiding Moses in the cleft of the rock and all of G-d’s goodness passing before Moses. Moses, hidden, would have heard that essential truth—Adonai, Adonai, el rachum v’chanun, erech apayim, v’rav chesed v’emet. Noseh chesed v’alaphim, noseh avon, v’pesha, v’chatata v’nakeh. The Lord, The Lord G-d is merciful and gracious, patient, and full of lovingkindness and truth. Extending lovingkindness to the thousandth generation…forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin.

That is an Eternal truth. An Eternal love.

But today we talk about another kind of love. Today we read –and hopefully sing—the text the Song of Songs. It’s a pretty racy text. And it was my Bat Mitzvah haftarah. I told my rabbi then, that I wasn’t going to read it in English—as was the custom there—I would read it in Hebrew. Not going to read that text in front of my 13 year old classmates. Especially not those boys. Yuck!

The rabbis included it in the cannon even though it is one of two books in the Bible that never mention G-d. The other book is Esther, where G-d is hidden. (Esther is a word that means hidden as well.)

They saw the text as an allegory of the love of G-d for G-d’s people Israel

That’s nice. And thank G-d Rabbi Akiva felt that way and became the champion for its inclusion. “while all of the sacred writings are holy, the Song of Songs is the holy of holies!” (Mishnah, Yadayim 3:5).

The allegorical nature went on to fuel later commentaries, like the Zohar, the Jewish mystical text and Maimonides who said:

“What is the proper form of the love of God? It is that he should love Adonai with a great, overpowering, fierce love as if he were love-sick for a woman and dwells on this constantly… And it is to this that Solomon refers allegorically when he says: ‘For I am love-sick’ (Song of Songs 2:5) for the whole of Song is a parable on this theme.” (Hilchot Teshuvah, 10:3) “

OK, still nice. But not enough.

Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch, the first rabbi of this congregation, and Simon’s father’s rabbi at Congregation Sinai,

Wrote the original Jewish Encyclopedia article on the Song of Songs. Where he explores the Mishnah and Rambam and points out that the allegorical interpretation passed over to the Christian Church as well. Which is the way it has been until almost the last 100 years.

He also looked at the dating of the text. Was it really Solomon who wrote it? That’s nice but probably not true. Was it later? Probably. We’re Jews after all, so we debate everything, even in scholarly circles. So date estimates range from the 10^th century BCE to the 2^nd century BCE. A careful look at language and syntax as well as surrounding literature puts it most likely at 3^rd century

Again that’s nice. Does that really add anything to our understanding?

Was it a metaphor of a rustic wedding? A week-long festivity celebrating the bride and groom with a complicated, carefully orchestrated sword dance? Or a love poem between Tammuz and Ishtar? Hirsch thinks maybe.

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13916-song-of-songs-the

What if we read it as a dialogue—between young lovers. Then how does it read?

When I first read this in Rabbi Arthur Waskow’s book, Godwrestling, I was blown away. But it works. Many of us recited these words as part of our weddings. It hangs in my bedroom and it encircles my wrist.

Let’s try it. Women you read the first line and then men you read the response.

Remember —don’t stir up love until it please.

In a more modern piece, Waskow asks an unasked, fifth question of Passover…”Why is there charoset on the seder plate? No haggadah actually gives us this answer. We pass it down from generation to generation by word of mouth. You know the story. The charoset is supposed to represent the mortar that the Israelite slaves used to build the pyramids.

But Rabbi Waskow argues that it makes no sense. It is sweet. “If it mimics the mortar of slavery, it must also remind us that slavery may taste sweet, and this is itself a deeper kind of slavery.”

I had to think about that for a while. How can slavery be sweet? But remember how the Israelites kvetched in the desert? They wanted to go back to Egypt—for the cucumbers and the onions as the text will tell us—but really for the certitude. They knew what to expect.

Sometimes, we have a similar issue in this country with prisioners who do their time, get released and then commit a new crime because somehow being in jail is easier. Safer. They want to go back. Three square meals a day, heat, a roof over their heads. Predictability. Safety. Security.

The night before Passover began I attended an important program at Gail Borden Library sponsored by Gail Borden and the Elgin Police Department. Called the If Project, the founder, a tough cop from Seattle, Kim Bogucki, asks the question—maybe this is the real Fifth Question of Passover,

“If there was something someone could have said or done that would have changed the path that led you here, what would it have been?”

As their website states: “We are a collaboration of law enforcement, currently and previously incarcerated adults and community partners focused on intervention, prevention and reduction in incarceration and recidivism. Our work is built upon–and inspired by–people sharing their personal experiences surrounding the issues of incarceration.”

Watching this documentary and learning from this cop, representing the clergy of Elgin was important. It was a perfect way to spend the night before Passover, thinking about incarceration and freedom.

If there was something or someone that could have said or done something that changed the path that led you here, what would it have been?

After lots of mentoring and classes and writing, it almost always comes down to feeling loved. For me, this was a really important, significant, powerful program. http://www.theifproject.com/

If each of us is to see ourselves as having been led out of Egypt, freed from the narrow spaces of Mitzrayim with a strong arm and an outstretched arm, with discipline and love, each of us needs to confront the If Project’s question.

But back to the Song of Songs. Back to the charoset:

Waskow explains that there is a deeper truth to the charoset, transmitted not by word of mouth by taste of mouth, kisses of the mouth, the very text we read this morning, Song of Songs and he contends that the recipe is in the Song itself. The first time I read this, years ago, it was mind-blowing.

So charoset is not the mortar. It is the sweet taste of G-d’s love for each of us. It is the sweet taste of freedom. It is the sweet taste shared between lovers.

It is the hidden recipe for love. Enjoy! Happy Passover.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow’s Charoset Recipe, based on the Song of Songs:

“Verses from the Song:

• “Feed me with apples and with raisin-cakes;
• “Your kisses are sweeter than wine;
• “The scent of your breath is like apricots;
• “Your cheeks are a bed of spices;
• “The fig tree has ripened;
• “Then I went down to the walnut grove.”

So the “recipe” points us toward apples, quinces, raisins, apricots, figs, nuts, wine. Within the framework of the free fruitfulness of the earth, the “recipe” is free-form: no measures, no teaspoons, no amounts. Not even a requirement for apples rather than apricots, cinnamon rather than cloves, figs rather than dates. So there is an enormous breadth for the tastes that appeal to Jews from Spain, Poland, Iraq, India, America.
Nevertheless, I will offer a recipe.

Take a pound of raw shelled almonds, two pounds of organic raisins, and a bottle of red wine. On the side have organic apricots, chopped apples, figs, and dates (no pits), and small bottles of powdered cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

Assemble either an electric blender, or your great-grandmom’s cast-iron hand-wound gefulte-fish chopper brought from the Old Country. If it’s the blender, put it on “chop” rather than “paste” frequency.

Start feeding the almonds and raisins into the blender or mixer, in judicious mixture. (How do you know “judicious”? Whatever doesn’t get the whole thing stuck so it won’t keep grinding.) Whenever you feel like it, pour in some wine to lubricate the action. Stop the action every once in a while to poke around and stir up the ingredients.

Freely choose when to add apricots, apples, figs, and/or dates. Taste every ten minutes or so. If you start feeling giddy, good! — that’s the wine.

Add in the spices. Clove is powerful, sweet and subtly sharp at the same time; a lot will get you just on the edge of dope.

Keep stirring, keep chopping, keep dribbling wine — not till the charoset turns to paste but till there are still nubs of nuts, grains of raisin, suddenly a dollop of apricot spurting on your tongue.

You say this doesn’t seem like a recipe, too free? Ahh — as the Song itself says again and again, “Do not stir up love until it pleases. Do not rouse the lovers till they’re willing.”

Serve at the Pesach Seder, and also in secret on your wedding night. And on every wedding anniversary. And every once in a while, but not too often, on a night when you want to celebrate and embody your love.” https://theshalomcenter.org/node/1265

A seder is a journey. Step by step by step. Told in the Hagaddah, it has morphed through the centuries and resonates even today.

Today’s Torah portion from the Book of Exodus tells us that our children should ask why we are celebrating Passover. The text answers its own question,

This is the origin of the Passover seder. You should tell your children on that day. What the Lord did for you when you went forth from Egypt.

It is about memory. Remembering we were slaves. Remembering that moment we became free. Each of us. Each and every one of us. The whole mixed multitude that went with us. Still later in the chapter, with one law for citizens and one for the resident aliens, the stranger amongst us, because again, we remember what it was like to be a stranger.

And we learn that our children are supposed to ask questions. “What is this?” Today we have Four Questions that our students dutifully learn, “Why is this night different from all other nights.” Everything we do at the seder is different from a regular dinner. It is designed to get our children to ask “Why.”

But the seder and the hagaddah are not carved in stone. In the Cairo Geniza, according to the book, Sacred Trash, there were hagaddot found that had two questions or three. There was one with five questions. So my question today, is what other questions would you ask?

I might ask, why did G-d have to harden Pharaoh’s heart. Wasn’t there another way? I might ask how the Sea of Reeds parted. I might ask where is the rest of Miriam’s song. I might ask when will Elijah come.

Each of us is to see ourselves as though we went forth from Egypt, out of the narrow spaces. How are each of us reborn? What narrow space are you escaping?

As part of Judaism Rocks, our interactive family program, we asked our children what other symbols today would they put on the seder plate. The answers may surprise us. One wanted to put a dog collar on for dogs that don’t have homes. Still another wanted a lego piece for children who don’t have parents. Still another wanted bitter kale for remembering those we have lost.

The single recurring theme this year, was adding a strawberry. Why a strawberry you might ask. Because they bleed. To remind us of gun violence, a modern plague. Six families added something to the seder plate about gun violence. It is what our children are thinking about. They want to be free from the terror of gun violence and school lock down drills. That is powerful stuff. As I have said before, quoting the Talmud, much I have learned from my teachers, even more from my colleagues and the most from my students.

Other things have been added to the seder plate. We have many additions on ours at home. An orange for inclusivity (there are two stories of the orange!). Olives for peace. Coffee beans and tomatoes for fair wages. This year we added strawberries for gun violence and white coconut to continue the conversation about racism.

In our service in which our service is more of a discussion, one congregant argued that by adding to the seder we dilute the story of the Exodus. His own granddaughter argued with him that she is afraid of gun violence in her public school and so it makes sense to her.

I would prefer to see it as enriching the seder, rather than diluting it.

But back to our hagaddah. One of the more energizing portions of the Maggid, the story is the story of the Four Sons (I would prefer the Four Children!). The earliest mention is in Mechilta, an early midrash on Exodus. It is also in the Talmud Yerushalmi. http://learn.conservativeyeshiva.org/introduction-to-rabbinic-midrash-10-lesson-10-the-four-sons-of-the-haggadah/

As a child I would always angle to be the Wise Child. Even then I railed against the Wicked Child, how dare we cast him out! How dare we assume he or she might not want to come back in? Or that a person couldn’t change?

As an adult I appreciate the midrash that each of the children is a part of us at different times in our lives. That helps. Some. I love the Family Participation Hagaddah: A Different Night, for collecting art work of the Four Children all in one place. And I enjoy the song set to the tune of Clementine (which I made everyone sing).

The Four Sons are based on the idea that four times in Torah we are told to tell our children.

• The Wise Child comes from Deuteronomy 6:20-23. “What are the testimonies, the statures and the ordinances which the Lord our G-d has commanded you?”
• The wicked child is found in Exodus 12:26-27, today’s portion: “What is this service to you?” To you and not to him or her. We’ll come back to that in a minute.
• The simple child in Exodus 13:14 says simply, “What is this?” You shall say to him, “With a mighty hand did the L-rd take us out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
• And the one who doesn’t know how to ask, you must take the first step according to Exodus, saying, “And you shall tell your child on that day, saying, “Because of this, the L-rd did [this] for me when I went out of Egypt.”

Chabad does a good job explaining it here:

https://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach_cdo/aid/490677/jewish/What-Is-the-Biblical-Source-for-the-Four-Sons.htm

And here: https://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach_cdo/aid/1486118/jewish/The-Four-Children-Explained.htm

The Chabad Rebbe Menachem Schneerson actually taught that there was a Fifth Child, the one not even present at the seder, who maybe completely unaware of his or her Jewish heritage. We then have an obligation so seek those out. It is part of why there are always guests at our seder table.

So Chabad adds to the seder!

Another explanation can be found here: http://www.tanach.org/special/4sons.htm comparing the midrash, the hagaddah and the Torah.

For modern Israeli poetry, art and song about the Four Children, try this: https://www.theicenter.org/resource/four-sons-haggadah

But none of those explanations answer my puzzle. Why is the answer the same for the Wicked Child and the One Who Doesn’t Know How to Ask? “This is what the Lord did for me…” So how are these different?

I studied this very text with one of my colleagues in New Jersey this week and decided that really it was a question of tone. The Wicked Child emphasizes, almost sneers or mocks his question. So the tone for the Wicked Child emphasizes what G-d would do for me when I left Egypt. For me and not for him or her. Had he or she been there they would not have been redeemed.

Someone in the congregation argued persuasively that it is because there is only one story of the Exodus. It was a good argument. But then I am left with the issue of the Avot prayer. In explaining the repetition of the G-d of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob (and let’s not forget the matriarchs!), since there are no extra words, it is because each had a different experience of the Divine. So each person experiencing the Exodus would have had a different experience.

I have a collection of Hagaddot. Some I bought for the beautiful artwork. Some I bought for the language. Every year I buy a new one. Last year it was Harry Potter. The year before it was one about baseball. This year it was Rabbi Kerry Olitzky’s called the Welcome Seder. There are those about Israel and those about the Holocaust. There are ones aimed for young children and others for women. Rabbi Arthur Waskow compiled the Freedom Seder the year after Martin Luther King was assassinated. We experienced some of that last year in the Black-Jewish seder we hosted here. Tonight, in Israel there will be another Freedom Seder to highlight the plight of asylum seekers facing deportation by the Israeli government. Almost every Jewish organization I know publishes a seder supplement. HIAS about refugees, T’ruah about a women’s place to stand up. The Religious Action Center about gun violence. Bend the Arc about poverty. Mazon about hunger. These enrich our seders.

Each of us, going forth from Egypt, from the narrow spaces, has a different experience. That is what keeps the Hagaddah fresh and new and important from generation to generation. That is why we sing, “B’chol dor vador…in every generation.” That is why Passover is the most celebrated of all the Jewish holidays in America, because it is still very relevant to us today. May your seders sparkle with questions and answers, joyous song, children of all types. And Freedom.