It is summer. The longest Shabbat of the year. At Temple Emanuel of the Merrimack Valley, the sun wheel turned again last night, as it does every changing of the season.

That sunwheel is based on the El Adon prayer that we sang earlier. It was commissioned in April 1981 for Birkat Hachama, the blessing of the sun that occurs every 28 years in Judaism. The last Birkat Hachama was April 8, 2009. That’s all about the sun. Temple Emanuel decided that it was so beautiful and so meaningful to spin the sunwheel that they didn’t want to wait 28 years to do it again. So they do it every changing of the seasons and live out El Adon and Ma’ariv Aravim that talks about how G-d makes the seasons alternate.

It fits in a longstanding Jewish tradition of Mizrach, usually hung on the Eastern Wall or Shiviti, designed to focus our prayer. And for me it works. I was thrilled to find this photo of it and can envision mounting it on card stock and having a personal sun wheel.

You might have noticed the intentional elements that are included on this sunwheel. The Hebrew letters of the weekday El Adon in Aleph Bet order. The starry skies or is that water. The gold leaf and the rainbow.

This is Pride Shabbat. Perhaps some of you attended the parade in Aurora last Sunday. I know that the congregation in Aurora actually marched. Perhaps you are attending the big Pride Parade in Chicago tomorrow.

Today I am proudly wearing my rainbow tallit. And my rainbow necklace I bought in Guatemala. A rainbow, is a perfect balance between sun and rain. Keshet in Hebrew, has become a symbol of the LGBTQ community. It represents our diversity. There are two organizations called Keshet. One is the national gay pride Jewish organization headed by Idit Klein (No relation). And the other is Keshet in Chicago which works with people of varying abilities. Our member Ted Frisch is an active participant in their programming. Both organizations represent our vision statement of “Embracing our diversity” and I am proud to support both. Let me underscore this. All are welcome here. We are all children of G-d, created in the image of G-d, b’tzelem elohim. All means all.

One of my favorite parts of my job is working with our B’nai Mitzvah students. And hasn’t Mandy done a lovely job thus far leading the Torah service and Ashrei. Kol hakavod.

Earlier this week, working with another student who has Noah as his portion, we were talking about the covenant that G-d made with Noah to never again destroy the earth through water, by a flood. In the haftarah, that promise is echoed and we are told that G-d will give the Israelites a briti shlomi, My covenant of peace, of friendship. When we talked about what it would be like to be on the ark, the tevah, our student mused that maybe the whole earth is the tevah. It was a new image for me and so right for this week.

I hope that your summer journey might include spending time by water. Cool, clear, bountiful water. Perhaps Lake Michigan, on either side of the lake, or the Fox River or some small pond. Just sitting here, watching waves and the dance of sunlight on the water. Watching the sky and the clouds. Watching the quality of light. Maybe dunking in and out of the cooling, life sustaining water. Just the right amount of water. Not too much so that we have floods. Not too little. Maybe just the right balance to produce a rainbow, a sign of the covenant.

Simon and I hike a lot—he loves the mountains. I love the water. It’s a mixed marriage. Last weekend for Father’s Day, we went hiking at the Morton Arboretum to see the trolls. It was hot. We planned to be out for about an hour. We got lost—that’s a story for another time—but it was like we were wandering in the wilderness, in the desert. We were out too long and we ran out of that essential ingredient. Water.

Have you ever been really, really thirsty? What happens when you are thirsty…you get lightheaded, maybe dizzy, maybe faint, maybe disoriented. You can get leg cramps. You can get chilled. Someone said you might lose your faith in G-d.

They say when you are thirsty, it is already too late. You are already dehydrated. Last week I stood here and told you to drink lots of water. Tomorrow, like last weekend, the heat is back on and after a week with lots of rain, we all want to be outside. So again, remember, drink lots of water.

We are lucky. We have that opportunity. We can drink water. Life sustaining water. Not every one is so lucky.

Now imagine being part of the children of Israel, wandering in the desert. Miriam had just died. Miriam had a unique gift. Finding water. You are thirsty. Really, really thirsty. It is now a life or death issue. Like children everywhere you beg your parent for water.

Think of Moses as that parent. He is your parent and he is supposed to supply water to you. He, however, is frustrated. Really, really frustrated. And mourning. His sister has just died. G-d tells him to raise his staff and speak to the rock.

Instead, he strikes the rock twice and water pours out. Why did he do it that way? We will never know. But I can imagine, without Miriam, he was afraid it wouldn’t work. He wanted to make sure it would work. He went over and above what was needed. He didn’t listen to G-d. Or obey G-d. And for this, the tradition tells us. For not trusting. For not obeying. He was punished. Never to set foot in the Promised Land.

Imagine being a parent and wanting to make sure your child had access to the basic need of water. Imagine that you are afraid by the violence surrounding you every day. That you want to prevent your child from becoming a member of gang, or being killed by a gang. Imagine like Hagar who placed her child under a push and pleaded with G-d to not look on while her child died just because expelled from Abraham’s household, they were now wandering in the desert. Wouldn’t you do everything, anything to help your child?

When I was in Guatemala, as an American Jewish World Service Global Justice Fellow, I learned more about water rights. People need access to water. It is a basic human need. For years, I have been concerned about the bottled water industry. I have been concerned also about the amount of plastic we use to bottle that water. And the waste of that plastic. But the real question becomes access to water. Nestle, Coke, Pepsi. Even recently Starbucks. All buying up water rights. Including watersheds in Michigan, potentially draining the Lake Michigan watershed.

On May 11 we got word that one of the leaders of an AJWS grantee, CCDA had been assassinated. I remain deeply saddened by the assassination of José Can Xol, a human rights defender with our partner organization Comité Campesino del Altiplano (CCDA) in Guatemala. I have spoken about CCDA before. They have a cooperative fair trade kosher coffee plantation. The proceeds from the coffee and the patio container gardens and the honey pay for amongst other things letting girls go to school. It is a travesty that people would think that so threatening that they would assassinate Jose. May his memory be a blessing.

For me, this is personal. Families belong together, and children do not belong in prison. It was true in 2001 when I worked for Refugee Immigration Ministry and visited asylum seekers in the Rockingham Jail and then in for-profit jails that were detaining children with their mothers in Pennsylvania and Batavia, New York. It is truer today.

Violence persists in Guatemala, although I felt safer there then I did in Miami when I returned. My own son-in-law as a young child was airlifted off a football field in 1983. If I had been his parents, desperate parents just like the children of Israel wandering in the desert without water, I would have done anything to help my children survive. I am grateful to his parents for immigrating and risking everything. I am grateful for the work that AJWS does because it bears witness and holds people and the government accountable, reducing poverty and violence.

It brings me hope, in a week that saw lots of angry, angry people. Miriam brings us hope too. While her ability to divine water was curtailed with her death, Miriam’s well continues to travel with the children of Israel, for any of us to access. That is part of why many have added the tradition of Miriam’s cup to their Passover seders. A cup filled with clear, spring water. A cup that can nourish us all with life sustaining water of hope.

Even since the 1970’s when the ritual first appeared, there are many variations. Again that is embracing our diversity. Today we are going to pour fresh, spring water into Miriam’s Cup and each of you are going to be able to drink it. Deeply.

My childhood rabbi, Rabbi Albert M. Lewis, used to teach that each of us has a unique mitzvah to do in our lives. Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz teaches similarly that each of us has a unique gift to offer, that “you will spend your life giving to others. There may be no question that is more existentially and morally pressing for each of us to answer & to align our days with! Because as Rebbe Nachman taught: the day you were born was the day that God determined the world could not exist without you! We are desperately in need of your gift! Bold or humble, global or local, in the home or out of the home – your unique giving, that only you can do, is so desperately needed!”

That is what Frederick Buechner would describe as your unique calling. “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

Then we will add water back into the cup. Water from a second bottle, representing your unique gift. Just like Miriam, your unique gift. There is enough water to go around. There is enough hope to go around. So come up here. Enjoy a cup of this water of Miriam, water to be life-affirming, water to bring us hope. Help us find the water. Help us to bring that water to all the children of G-d, all of us who are created b’tzelem elohim, in the image of G-d.

Lyrics:
Spring up a well, and sing ye unto it
Spring up a well, and sing ye unto it

CHORUS:
Oh the water in the well and the healing in the well
The women and the water and the hope that’s in the well (x2)

When the world was created, there was heaven and dry land
And all the waters gathered, upon hearing God’s command
There was a bit of water, that was left or so they tell,
That was the water that became the water from the well

CHORUS:

It was in Miriam’s honor that the first well came to be,
To celebrate her music, her dance and prophecy,
The people came to Miriam when their spirits rose and fell
She nourished all their visions with the water from the well

CHORUS:

“Spring up a well!” the twelve tribes sang and the rushing waters flowed
High as pillars, into rivers to the oceans they would go
Surrounded by the trees and fruits so rich and bountiful
The Israelites were nourished by the waters from the well

CHORUS:

When Miriam dried, the well dried up, and Moses’ shed his tears
And God said, “Moses, touch this rock and water will appear”
Well Moses raised his staff in anger and upon the rock it fell
And out came springs of water, it was water from the well
CHORUS:

Bridge:
For the memory of the women, for the memory of the well
For the ones who came before us, their stories we must tell
We are searching for the water, where we wander, where we dwell
For Miriam and all of us, who thirst to find the well

Debbie Friedman, z”l

14,700 people. That is the number that the Torah tells us died in the field at Meribah. Today’s portion is amongst the most difficult in all of Torah. Why did those people have to die?

The usual explanation is that they weren’t loyal—to G-d or Moses. Pretty harsh stuff. That they were swayed by Korach. Korach led a rebellion. It was a real challenge to leadership. He and his two sidekicks and all their families were swallowed up, live, by the earth.

But what about the 14,700 people? Sometimes this text is used to tell us that the G-d of the Old Testament is the G-d of vengeance and the G-d of the New Testament is the G-d of Love. This philosophy was a common teaching in Grand Rapids, at 85% Dutch Reform. And it was always used as a jab at Judaism. We hear echoes of that sentiment in popular culture like throughout the musical Les Mis:

JAVERT
Now bring me prisoner 24601
Your time is up
And your parole’s begun
You know what that means.

VALJEAN
Yes, it means I’m free.

JAVERT
No! It means you get
Your yellow ticket-of-leave
You are a thief.

VALJEAN
I stole a loaf of bread.

JAVERT
You robbed a house.

VALJEAN
I broke a window pane.
My sisters child was close to death
And we were starving.

JAVERT
You will starve again
Unless you learn the meaning of the law.

VALJEAN
I know the meaning of those 19 years
A slave of the law.

He stole a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s child…and then spent 19 years in jail. This echoes today as well.

Sometimes this text of Korach is used to tell us that G-d demands loyalty. Be careful with all G-d’s commandments or you are going to be zapped. Sometimes this portion is used to tell us that we should guard our tongue. That we shouldn’t spread gossip.

This is a week that has challenged our assumptions about who can read scripture and who can interpret it. What does the Bible say? Who can teach it? How do we read it?

A few snippets of my week. A woman called the synagogue twice. She is looking for an adult Hebrew class. She wants to learn Hebrew to learn to read the Bible better. She’s not Jewish. She is Christian but hasn’t found a “home church”. She is homeless.

Her desire to learn Hebrew is no different than Governor William Bradford, first governor of Plimouth Plantation, who said, “a longing desire to see, with my owne eyes, something of that most ancient language, and holy tongue, in which the Law and oracles of God were write” (Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, Little, Brown, 1856) and who wrote all the marginalia in his own Bible, in Hebrew. If this interests you, I would be happy to discuss my undergraduate paper on this topic at Kiddush. The Puritans came to this country, in part, for religious freedom. In part so they could read the Bible as individuals and not through the eyes of their clerics.

Or my adult Hebrew class, which has one more week to go. They are now studying the machzor so they are ready for the High Holidays. We did the Torah blessings again and had an important discussion about what it means that G-d chose us to give the Torah. Who is the us? Is the “us” exclusively Jewish?

Or an online discussion with my alumni association about whether the Association of Rabbis and Cantors could sign a statement already signed by 26 Jewish groups about the separation of children from their parents at the border. Two members felt vehemently that the answer to that was no. Do we need consensus, a majority or unanimous motion. I expect that heated conversation to continue after Shabbat.

Judaism has never been about being unanimous. That’s why all the opinions are preserved in the Talmud. That’s why the Talmud is not a code book. That’s why I stand up here week after week explaining that Jewish tradition is a layered tradition and that there is often no one way to do something. That’s why I talk about embracing diversity. That includes the diversity of opinion and observance.

Recently I was asked to give a class in how to read Torah. Not the mechanics of chanting, although that might be good too, but how to find the right page, how to know what’s on the page, so I want to spend a couple of minutes introducing you to this book in front of you.

This is Etz Hayyim, the Conservative Movement Chumash. In it you will find the Five Books of Moses separated by weekly parsha. Following each full parsha, not just the triennial reading, is the haftarah, a selection from the Prophets, the Nevi’im. There is usually a brief introduction to the parsha and an introduction to the haftarah. The page is organized to have the Hebrew, the New JPS translation on the top of the page, some commentary at the bottom and below the line how halacha, Jewish law is derived.

Each of the major movements has its own chumash. They each have a slightly different slant and one of my favorite classes in rabbinical school was to look at each of them—which I still often do weekly—to build my d’var Torah. That’s embracing diversity.

But what if there is a moment where diversity of opinion doesn’t work.

What if the interpretation of Korach is the exact opposite of the traditional commentaries, Jewish or Christian? This is after all Judaism. Here are the words that my chevruta partner, Rabbi Linda Shriner Cahn shared with her congregation last night. She began…

“Before I was a rabbi, I was a parent. The challenge of becoming a parent was to follow in the loving caring ways my parents had modeled for me. It was a model based on caring for others, being part of a community and standing up to be counted when times called for it.”

This reminded me of a lovely story that Naomi Rachel Remen tells in Kitchen Table Wisdom.

She tells a story of hearing a prominent rabbi talk on Yom Kippur talk about forgiveness. He began by taking his infant daughter from his wife’s arms and bringing her onto the bimah. He then began his rather traditional and somewhat boring sermon. The baby girl smiled and everyone’s heart melted. She patted him on the check with her tiny hands. He smiled fondly at her and continued with his customary dignity. She reached for his tie and put in her mouth. She grabbed his nose and the whole congregation chuckled. He said, “Think about it. Is there anything she can do that you would not forgive her? Heads nodded in agreement. She grabbed his glasses. Everyone laughed. He waited for silence and then said, “When does that stop. When does it get hard to forgive. At three? At seven? At sixteen? At forty five? How old does someone have to be before you forget that everyone is a child of God?”

I would add, created b’tzelem elohim, in the image of God, with the divine spark inside. Naomi added that for her, God’s forgiveness was easy to understand but that personal forgiveness was difficult. If we are supposed to be like God and follow in God’s footsteps, isn’t this the message? It is not a lowering of standards. It is being in a family relationship. Isn’t this how we are to treat everyone, taking care of the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the most marginalized among us?

How appropriate to consider this idea, this Father’s Day Weekend.

Back to Linda’s words: “I look around and see pictures of children being torn from their parents arms in this country which provided a new life for my parents after the Shoah. I cannot begin to imagine the pain and disappointment they would feel if they were to witness what we are currently witnessing. Where is the country that took my parents in?

In this week’s Torah portion, the witnesses to Korach’s rebellion stood by and silently watched the rebellion, waiting for God to intervene. Unlike the witnesses to Korach’s rebellion, religious leaders across the political spectrum in the United States have begun to speak up. We know that it is up to us to speak up.

This is a human crisis, not a political one. The soul of our nation is at stake. I invite you to sign petitions and attend demonstrations. Unlike our Torah portion, we cannot wait for the Divine to take sides and decide who is in the right. The decision is ours, and we need to act.

To quote Dr. Shuly Rubin Schwartz “The goal of leadership should be effectiveness – not power for its own sake.”

In this case, effectiveness means taking care of the needs of others. We can find a way if we all work together.”

Linda offers a new teaching. Perhaps the reason those 14,700 people were killed were because they stood silently by.

In the coming weeks you will hear scripture quoted and misquoted. Interpreted and reinterpreted. I hope that I have given you some of the tools to understand the bigger picture. And I hope you will not stand idly by.

14,700 people. How many more?

Whoever put on a tallis when he was young will never forget:
taking it out of the soft velvet bag, opening the folded shawl,
spreading it out, kissing the length of the neckband (embroidered
or trimmed in gold). Then swinging it in a great swoop overhead
like a sky, a wedding canopy, a parachute. And then winding it
around his head as in Hide-and-Seek, wrapping
his whole body in it, close and slow, snuggling into it like the cocoon
of a butterfly, then opening would-be wings to fly.
And why is the tallis striped and not checkered black and white
like a chessboard? Because squares are finite and hopeless.
Stripes come from infinity and to infinity they go
like airport runways where angels land and take off
Whoever has put on a tallis will never forget.
When he comes out of a swimming pool or the sea,
he wraps himself in a large towel, spreads it out again
over his head, and again snuggles into it close and slow,
still shivering a little, and he laughs and blesses.

Yehuda Amichai

Have you ever been on a vacation and wanted to bring back a keepsake, a souvenir, to keep the feeling alive?

This piece of Cadillac Mountain Granite is exactly that. A piece of jewelry that I could put in my pocket to finger and remind me of the feeling of being on top of Mount Cadillac. A place where life was simpler and I felt close to G-d. It has been much loved and is, in fact, cracked. Turns out granite isn’t as hard a rock as people thought.

Souvenir, from the French for remembrance or memory, is a memento, a keepsake or token of remembrance, an object you acquire for the memories associated with it.

That’s what today’s portion is about. A souvenir, something to keep the memory alive. What is that souvenir? What does G-d prescribe? Tying tzitzit on the edges of the Israelites garments, to remind them of the mitzvoth, or of G-d Himself. To remember that they were slaves in the land of Egypt and that G-d brought them out, us out with a strong hand and an outstretched arm.

These are the ties that bind. In fact the word religion, from the Latin religio, means to tie back up into. That’s what we try to do here. To tie ourselves together. To tie ourselves to the one true G-d. To remind ourselves of the experience of being a slave, and the power of the Exodus from Egypt. And the feeling of awe standing at Sinai.

Because this is Judaism, there are a couple of different schemata for how to tie the tzitzit. In one case each of the fringes contains 8 threads and 5 knots, and the word itself, tzitzit is the numerical equivalent of 600, so each strand represents 613, the number of the commandments.

In the other system, between each knot are carefully turned twists, representing the numerical equivalents of Yud (10), Hey (5), Vuv (6) Hey, (10) so representing the Divine.

Or you could ties them so that the long thread is wound around the other three between the five know as 7, 8, 11 and 13 times. 7, 8 and 11 totaling 26, the Yud, Hey, Vuv, Hey and the 13 totaling the word for echad, one.

Either way looking on the tzitzit reminds us of G-d and the commandments. Reminds us to be holy. Ties us, quite literally to the G-d, the commandments, and the community and its accepted standard of behavior.

In the business world there is a phrase, “hitch your wagon to a star.” It means to try to succeed by forming a relationship with someone who is already successful. It is from a 1862 essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson, American Civilization. Now you have to tie yourself to the right star—not a falling star—not one that is about to crash and burn. But by associating with greatness, by tying yourself to their success, you too can be successful.

We want to bind ourselves to a leader, to the right kind of leader, just like hitching your wagon to a star implies. Before we even get to tying tzitzit, we have another example of Moses and G-d’s leadership.

G-d is frustrated. Again. With His people of Israel. They just can’t seem to stop complaining. Kvetching. It doesn’t even matter what they are kvetching about this time. The people doesn’t seem to want to be bound up with this G-d. They don’t want to be hitched to this star. G-d has had enough and threatens to get rid of them. G-d hiself is being dragged down into the much. Moses, once again, in a pattern he has already learned, in words actually taught by G-d, intercedes and reminds G-d of G-d’s essential attributes. Using the words of the 13 Attributes that G-d taught Moses on Mount Sinai, Moses has the audacity to remind G-d that G-d is merciful and compassionate, slow to anger and patient, full of lovingkindness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, even to the third and fourth generation. And G-d seems to suddenly remember, and says, the very words chant on Kol Nidre, Selachti Kidvachera. I have pardoned according to your word. Crisis averted.

G-d forgives. Again and again. The gates of forgiveness are always open. G-d’s love is for all time. And part of the reason for the tzitzit is to remember precisely that.

G-d seems to need to be reminded. G-d Himself wraps Himself in a tallit according to the Psalms. We know this from the Psalms and it is included in the blessing for putting on a tallit: “Bless Adonai, my soul! Adonai my God, how great You are, clothed in majesty and glory, wrapped in light like a robe. You spread out the heavens like a tent.” It is an image I have loved and part of why I decided to wear a tallit back when I was in college. When I wrap myself in my tallit, it is a powerful reminder of G-d’s presence and I am filled with light and the love of G-d.

But sometimes we forget. Or we don’t know. No one ever taught us. The message wasn’t transmitted. There is a chemical imbalance. This has been a hard week. A week that included the suicides of at least two prominent people. People who seemed like they had every thing going for them. People, who it turned out, struggled with their own demons. People who might have not felt or seen or remembered the ties that bind them—to their friends, their family, their community, their G-d. People who may not have been able to access or remember that feeling of being loved. Of not being lonely. And we may never know.

It used to be the popular wisdom, that we shouldn’t talk about such things publicly because it could cause other suicides, copycats. However, the better wisdom is that we need to talk about this very difficult subject.

There is help available…but if you are that person struggling with mental illness or addiction, it can be hard to reach out, hard to access the resources needed. You may not even know you are in that kind of pain, for you it may be normal. Or you have adapted so well and are so good at masking the feeling, it may be normal. If you are reading this, and need help, reach out. Call me. Call a friend. Call the national suicide hotline. 1-800-273-8255. It is not too late. You are worth it.

For the rest of us, it is incumbent upon us to be like Moses, to check in with friends, (even if that friend is G-d, because that is what we learned in last week’s parsha, that G-d is a friend) and make sure they really are OK—even if they appear to be happy, laughing, productive. Even if they seem to have it all.

Right now, what I want you to do is to get up, yes, out of your chairs, and make a circle. I have a ball of yarn here and we are going to bind ourselves together, making a web, with the things we need to have a healthy community, where we are bound one to another.

As we wove our web, the attributes we named were love, respect, honesty, safety, peace, patience, truth, compassion, courage, forgiveness, imagination, generosity, kidness, gratefulness, amongst others. Those are the keys, the 13 attributes that we possess, the tools we will take back into the week with us.

Carl Rogers, the famous psychologist used to say that before he would begin a session with a patient he would sit and say to himself. “I am enough” We have enough.

At the retreat this week, we were given keys to remind us of this very fact. And a beautiful poem by the Israeli poet, Rivka Miriam:

“That place, a bit above the latch
and a little to the left
no has ever touched or will anyone ever touch it
the hidden place on which no one has placed a hand
the place that does not know how to ask.

That place is like the mezuzah on our doors. Another symbol to remind us of our essential truths. We have the tools, we have the keys, we have the threads that bind that remind us. Ask, even if the person sitting before us doesn’t know how to ask.