Yesterday I spied a Robin…and today a cardinal. It is still light as I talk to you.

About a month ago we cancelled services because there was too much snow…so the birds are welcome tonight as we reconvene to observe Shabbat Shirah, the Sabbath of Song, as a chance to honor our choir who works so hard to make our services aesthetically beautiful.

I hope they feel well feted and their music—our music lifts our spirits.

Music and words are important. Sometimes music even more so:

Peter, Paul and Mary wrote: Music speaks louder than words.

Music speaks louder than words
It’s the only thing that the whole world listens to.
Music speaks louder than words,
When you sing, people understand.

Sometimes the love that you feel inside
Gets lost between your heart and your mind
And the words don’t really say the things you wanted them to.
But then you feel in someone’s song
What you’d been trying to say all along
And somehow with the magic of music the message comes through.

The longer I live the more I find that people seldom take the time
To really get to know a stranger and make him a friend.
But the power of a simple song can make everybody feel they belong.
Maybe singin’ and playin’ can bring us together again.
Singin’ and playin’ can bring us together again.

We know the Chasidic story about the little boy and his flute, a chalil in Hebrew. He didn’t know how to pray and so took out his flute and blew it on the most holy day of the year, Yom Kippur. Everyone was shocked. The Ba’al Shem Tov, founder of Chasidic Judaism stops his praying. He told the hushed crowd that this little boy’s prayer had propelled the entire congregation’s prayers to the very vault of heaven.

Tomorrow we will be talking still about how to make a holy place so that G-d will dwell among us. Just before beginning this evening, we learned about the tragic shooting in Aurora this afternoon. While all the details are not yet known, I am sure of this. Words fail. As we pray for the victims, including the police officers that were wounded, we work for a time when everyone can sit under their vine and fig tree and none will make them afraid.

A reading before Kaddish:

Words fail, Lord.
Word fail.
And prayers too.
Thoughts and prayers.
Fail.

.As children die in classrooms.
As young people die at concerts or movies.
As old people die in their pews.
As officers race into buildings.

How many people?
How many more?
How many more are enough?
Do You demand this sacrifice?

How many words?
How many prayers?
What are the right words?
What are the right prayers?

Ours is not to finish the task.
Neither are we free to ignore it.

Give us courage.
Give us strength.
Give us courage to act.
Give us strength to speak.

Words of comfort.
Words of peace.
Words that lead to action.

You tell us
To do justly
To love mercy
To walk humbly with You.

Walk with us.
Teach us the right prayers.
Teach us that prayers are not enough.

Teach us to not be afraid.
Teach us to love our neighbor as ourselves

Be with us in our pain and in our grief.
Be with our first responders
With our skilled and compassionate care teams.
Be with us as we struggle.

As we struggle to build a world
Based on Your vision
One of love—of chesed and ahavah.

Then on Saturday:
Today’s portion is about ordination…and call.

Moses was called…to go to Pharaoh and say, “Let my people go.” And then to accompany them, to lead them as they wandered in the wilderness.

And Aaron was called to meet his brother in the wilderness and accompany him. To be his spokesperson when words failed Moses. And then to lead the people when Moses was on top of Mount Sinai.

The answer to both was Hineini…Here am I.

We know that word. From the haunting sounds of the cantor’s prayer on the High Holidays. Hineini. Here am I, trembling and full of awe, humble before you. The messenger of the people.

The word Hineini shows up 178 times in the Hebrew Bible. Eight in Torah alone.

Abraham answered Hineini when asked to take his son, his only son, the one he loves, Isaac and offer him as a sacrifice. Jacob answered Hineini to the divine call twice. Joseph answered his father with Hineini. Moses, as we mentioned at the Burning Bush. Samuel, Eli, David, Isaiah, each find the word.

Each time the word Hineini is used, it is a turning point. A life changing moment. The person responding heard and accepted G-d’s call, a unique and special mission. Prepared and ready to do it. Even if it seems hard. Impossible. Even if you would rather not.

How do we say Hineini with our lives? Because Hineini is not just for those back in the Bible. It is for us today.

We may answer Hineini to a call. Or sometimes we maybe a little less clear, like when your mother (or your father!) calls you to do something and you say, “OK, in a minute, let me finish this round.” Or “I need to finish this article.” Or “I’m too busy. Find someone else.” Maybe you find a way to run away to Tarshish like Jonah.

Or perhaps, it is saying, :OK, Here am I, I am ready to take a stand. Here I am. I am ready. At your service.”

We’ve been talking about gemilut chasadim, acts of love and kindness. Before Shabbat I sent a list of those hidden, anonymous acts this week…

• One class who made Valentine’s Day cards for kids in the hospital
• Someone who set up the Gaga pit and then someone else who put the Gaga pit away
• Someone who helped deliver those cards to Advocate Children’s Hospital and their child life coordinator who made sure I got to the right next place at Advocate Lutheran General
• Someone who visited the sick
• Someone who brought more food to the Martin Luther King food drive
• Someone who waited in the parking lot to make sure everyone’s car was scraped and started safely after the board meeting
• Someone bringing special kosher chocolate to class
• Someone who brought tulips to brighten up the social hall
• Someone who sent a special card to the office and someone else who sent an unexpected donation
• Someone who texted me to make sure I was OK when I didn’t show up at anticipated meeting

These are ways we answer Hineini with our lives.

Yet, when G-d calls out to Adam and Eve, “Where are you? Akeykah, “they do not answer Hineini. And when G-d demands that Jonah go to Ninevah, Jonah doesn’t answer Hineini, he runs away to Tarshish.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel remarked:

“When Adam and Eve hid from His presence, the Lord called: Where art Thou (Genesis 3:9). It is a call that goes out again and again. It is a still small echo of a still small voice, not uttered in words, not conveyed in categories of the mind, but ineffable and mysterious, as ineffable and mysterious as the glory that fills whole world. It is wrapped in silence; concealed and subdued; yet it is as if all things were the frozen echo of the question: Where art thou? (God in Search of Man p. 137)

Where are you may be the most important question in our lives. Not the stopped at a stoplight “Where are I going?” but a more metaphysical question…which can also happen at a stoplight. “Where are you? Where are you going?”

Here I am. I’m right here. Ready to do Your service.

Heschel continued, “In our own lives, the voice of God speaks slowly, a syllable at a time. Reaching the peak of years, dispelling some of our intimate illusions and learning how to spell the meaning of life-experiences backwards, some of us discover how the scattered syllables form a single phrase. Those who know that this life of ours takes place in a world that is not all to be explained in human terms; that every moment is a carefully concealed act of His creation, cannot but ask: is there anything wherein His voice is not suppressed? Is there anything wherein His creation is not concealed?” (God in Search of Man, p. 174)

“Here am I” is about being fully present. Not being distracted by cell phones or social media or the pile of dishes in the sink or any number of things. Right here, right now, in this exact time and place.

Since we are now in Adar, I think of Queen Esther. The action changes in the Book of Esther when Mordecai demands that she go to the king to save her people. She argues and Mordecai says, “For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will come from another place…And who knows whether you have come into your royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14)

Sometimes the messages of how we are called come one syllable at a time, as Heschel suggested. Sometimes, they come from another person, as they did to Esther. Sometimes, they come in the still, silent voice of G-d, as Elijah the prophet describes.

I love this quote of Frederick Buechner, and quote it often: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

How does G-d command us? How does G-d call us? What does G-d demand of us?

“Only to do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with our G-d.” (Micah 6:8)
To love G-d, love our neighbors and love the sojourner.

Then in this portion, G-d confirms that calling with a special ceremony…ordination…which back in the day was a pretty bloody and gorey ceremony with measures of flour and oil, sacrifices of bulls in a precise order, smearing of blood on Aaron’s earlobe. I’m not sure if that was the rabbinic ordination ceremony I would have been so interested.

Yet the very end of our portion, after the mishkan, the tabernacle is built, and after Aaron and his sons are ordained to serve G-d. Then G-d’s presence will dwell among us.

Last week we sang, “V’asu li mikdash, v’shachanti betocham, Build for Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them” (Exodus 25)

I, G-d, will dwell among you. I, G-d, want to have a relationship with you. Even today. Even as I call you by name. If only you would listen to my voice. If only you would answer “Hineini, Here am I.”

This fits with another use of Hineini in the Hebrew Bible. In Isaiah, we are told, there will come a time when if we act ethically and call out to G-d, then G-d will respond, “Hineini, Here am I.” (Isaiah 52:6, 58:6-9, 66:1) http://jewcology.org/2011/11/here-i-am-responding-to-the-call-in-creation/

Let us listen for the syllables and the still, small voice calling us…Hineini., Here am I.
Let us answer Hineini with our lives…Hineini…Here am I.
Let us call out to our fellow who needs to hear us…Hineini, Here am I.
Let us reach out to one another with the actions that need to be taken and say, Hineini…Here am I.
Let us say it to G-d….Hineini, Here am I.

(Based on a reading here: https://www.tbespringfield.org/here-i-am-hineni )

Last week we talked about “chesed” and building the world with love. This week we are going to talk about “ahavah” love.

In this week’s portion we begin to build the mishkan, the traveling tabernacle in the desert, the place where G-d will dwell. Mishkan, dwelling place is an interesting word. We derive Shechinah, the in-dwelling presence of G-d, the feminine aspect of G-d.

We are told that G-d wants us to bring gifts. G-d needs our gifts? Yes! Freewill offerings. Gifts from the heart. This is not the census tax or the membership fee. This is what you want to bring. Whatever the heart directs.

What are the gifts that we bring?

Our gifts of making the place beautiful, our artistry, our sense of beauty, the gift of time, our love of cooking and baking—just ask those who were gathered to bake challah this week. The text specifies to accept gifts of gold and silver and copper, linen in purple, crimson and blue and more. All to build a house so that G-d can dwell among them.

In short, we are to bring our whole selves.

Debbie Friedman, z”l wrote this song:

These are the gifts that we bring
that we may build a holy place.
This is the spirit that we bring
that we may build a holy place.
We will bring all the goodness
that comes from our hearts
And the spirit of God will dwell within…..

These are the colors of our dreams
we bring to make a holy place.
This is the weaving of our lives
we bring to make a holy place.
We will bring all the goodness
that comes from our hearts
And the spirit of love will dwell within…..

These are the prayers that we bring
that we may make a holy place.
These are the visions that we seek
that we may build this holy place.
Let our promise forever be strong,
let our souls rise together in song,
that the spirit of God
and the spirit of love,
Shechinah,
will dwell within.

This week we started a new class for Rosh Hodesh, the beginning of the new month. Based on the book Spiritual Kneading we will gather to bake challah, some to take home and some for Shabbat at CKI and some to deliver to our shut-ins. I had the opportunity to take one of those loaves to one of our members in their new home at an assisted living facility. They were so happy to see me and to have a challah for their first Shabbat in their new home. That was a gift. That was love.

In the case, people asked why there are two challot on Shabbat. It is the tradition because when manna fell in the desert, there was a double portion on Friday so we didn’t have to collect on Shabbat. That manna was a gift. That was love.

The book Love and Knishes is an old Jewish cookbook that both Simon and I grew up with. I think we brought two copies into the marriage. The very first page says, “If the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, then knishes will get there faster…and stay longer.” While the sentiment may seem a bit dated now, the idea that way to anyone’s heart maybe through good cooking is not.

Shabbat at home is supposed to be filled with joy and peace. And that extra spice that is Shabbat. “Caesar asked Rabbi Joshua ben Chananya: Why do Shabbat foods smell so good? Said he to him: We have a special spice, ‘Shabbat’ is its name . . .” (Talmud, Shabbat 119a) Others have said that extra ingredient is love.

Our homes are to be a mikdash me’at, a little sanctuary. And the challah re-enacts the sacrifice that was offered in the Holy Temple for Shabbat. Our homes are to be filled with Shalom Bayit, peace of the house.

But sometimes, they are not. This weekend is dedicated as Shababt L’Amour by Jewish Women International. It is our hope that we use this time to focus on our homes being a little sanctuary, and building our world on love. That is the real gift. That is love.

Next week, on Valentine’s Day, we are helping to sponsor an event at Elgin Community College, Long Red Line—One Billion Rising which ties to an international movement started by Eve Ensler. Come join me at 10:00 at ECC to say that no woman should be beaten, that every person deserves to live in a house filled with shalom bayit and that extra spice of Shabbat. That too would be a gift. And love.

Cantor Julia Cadrain took the verse from our portion this week, to make for G-d a sanctuary so that G-d can dwell among us and combined it with a hymn that may be familiar to many:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W_XxCh2b30

“Ve’asu li mikdash veshachanti betocham,” which means “Build for Me a Sanctuary that I may dwell among them.” (Exod. 25:8) It says “them,” meaning God may dwell among them–the people, rather than it–the Sanctuary. This is the idea that God isn’t contained within any particular physical space, but rather exists in the spaces between people and in the relationships we have with each other. V’asu li mikdash V’shachanti b’tocham Va-anachnu n’varech Yah Me-ata v’ad olam! Lord, prepare me to be a Sanctuary Pure and holy, tried and true With thanksgiving I’ll be a living Sanctuary for You!”

She is correct…the real gift is not the building itself but the people in the building in relationship with each other. People facing each other, looking into each other’s eyes, just as the cherubim in today’s reading. It is about being in relationship with each other. The I-Thou relationship that Martin Buber talked about and that Ron Wolfson discussed in Relational Judaism.

In the haftarah, we learn that “There was shalom/friendship between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made a covenant, a treaty.” Another translation would be that there was peace between them. Without peace, it is hard to have friendship.

At the very end of the haftarah we learn that I will abide among the children of Israel, and I will never forsake My people Israel.”

That is the gift of this very building. The gift of G-d dwelling amongst us. The gift of peace. The gift of friendship. The gift of a challah—and maybe the extra spice of Shabbat.