Sermon Archives

Three Confessions 

Since this is the season of teshuva, I come here today with some confessions.  

One: for the past few months I’ve been doing a little light stalking.  If you are one of the women in this community who expressed to me, even a passing interest in learning to layn, I have been, as the youths would say, blowing up your phone. And your email, and your Whatsapp. And maybe - once or twice - even showing up at your house. I have been really weird and annoying.  Because if you’re not already a layner, I really, really want to help you become one. And by the way,  if you haven’t started yet - there is still plenty of time for you to learn one of the aliyot that will allow you to layn here on Simchat Torah. This offer doesn’t just apply to women. I also believe in a robust culture of Torah reading for men. 

Two: When I first started this internship - roughly two years ago -  I did not know how to layn. So, when I started here, I also started taking lessons. And now, while I’m not an expert, I’m finally comfortable enough to teach the basics. And I love it.  If this is something you want - especially if you are out there thinking - oh, it’s too late for me to learn this, I’ll never get it now - I would be so happy to help you. Even if you never want to layn for anyone other than  yourself.  Because learning to layn is not only a kind of community service - but because layning has transformed my relationship with the Torah, with being in shul, and with tefillah.  

As this week’s parsha reminds us, the Torah is not only a book, it is a shira, a song. And the tame’ei hamikre, the cantillation notes, are the music.  When I layn, I am not just singing that song, I am a part of that song.  Knowing the notes can help you understand the meaning of the words, or draw your attention to a detail you might have overlooked.  But for me, it is actually the physical experience of layning that is so magical - feeling its rhythms take shape, the way the notes have their own momentum, pushing me along through the text as I chant. I love carrying the Torah in shul. But when I layn, the Torah carries me.    

Layning is a demonstration of Moshe’s assertion in this week’s parsha, that the song that is the Torah is “not in heaven, neither” is it, “beyond the sea,” but that it is “very close, in your mouth and in your heart to do.”  And yet this beautiful statement is also a sad one.  Because God’s instructions to Moshe, to teach us this song, comes in the context of preparing for a time of grief, and fear – for Moshe’s death, and for a time of war. In this week’s double parsha, God says: 

 ואנכי הסתר אסתיר פני…

I will surely hide my face…

ועתה כתבו לכם את־השירה הזאת ולמדה את־בני־ישראל 

 Therefore, write down this shira and teach it to the people of Israel…

 .שימה בפיהם

Put it in their mouths…

We are to keep this song very close, because, it seems, sometimes, God will be far away from us - or at least, it will really feel that way.  I cannot imagine what this time must have been like for Bnei Israel:  the joy and anticipation of coming home, at long last. And the fear and unimaginable grief that would accompany it. I suppose then it makes sense why Hashem wants us to sing these words, not merely say them.  Because in the Torah, songs convey what words cannot.  

There’s actually not so much singing in the Chumash.  In Sefer Bereshit,  there is only one mention of singing.  When Lavan catches up to Yaakov’s camp, who are fleeing from him in the night, he says: “Why did you sneak away from me? I would have sent you away with songs and with timbrels and lyres” (I’m so sure, Lavan). 

After this, no one sings for hundreds and hundreds of years, not until Moshe and Miriam lead the people in the Song of the Sea. About 40 years later, in Sefer Bamidbar, the people sing once more - just after Miriam dies. There is a well that has dried up. Bnei Israel sing to it, and the water returns ( Num 21:17).  Songs, in the Torah, are for moments of transition and change.  Lavan’s promised songs are songs of farewell, but also of freedom for Yaakov and his family. The Song of the Sea marks the end of our slavery, and the beginning of a new chapter that is both terrifying and transcendent. Miriam’s death marks the beginning of the end of Bnei Israel’s time in the Midbar and prepares the people for the deaths of Aharon and Moshe.  When Miriam was alive, our sages say, Bnei Israel miraculously had water in the desert, because of her zechut, her merit.  

After Miriam dies, the miracles of the Midbar seem to dry up, and Bnei Israel must become singers, Miriam-ing themselves, in order to survive.    

Perhaps, in an age of Hester Panaim, where God’s face is surely hidden from us, singing the song of Torah, can revive for us, the zechut of our ancestors. Perhaps our singing can help usher in an age of miracles. I’m ready. What the Torah, what Hashem offers Bnei Israel when he sees them greatly in need of chazaq v’ematz, of strength and courage, is a song.  It’s one of the many reasons I look forward to singing with many of you at Selichot tonight.  Because singing together reminds us we are not alone. And singing words of Torah remind us why we are not alone.  

Each time we sing the shira of Hashem’s Torah, we have the chance to literally embody Torah in the world.  Layning reminds us that, in all of our deeds, we are merely instruments.   It is a model of taking the Torah out of the heavens, that is, the realm of the intellect, and mixing it with our voices, our breath, our own neshamot. Each time those words leave our mouths the Torah is just a little bit more present in a world where it is so needed. And so - If you haven’t signed up to layn on Simchat Torah, or if you signed up to learn the layning but you  have dropped out - consider finding me after shul today and telling me that you are in.  And if this is not your year, or even if it will never be your year to layn,  know that even just being present and witnessing the Torah being read, especially if it is being read for some of us by the first time,  expands the kedusha of that moment. You are a part of that process. 

Confession Number Three:  I haven’t been doing all this only because I love layning. This is a self-interested project. Because as we stand together on the precipice of this High Holiday season, I don’t know how to enter the land of the Yamim Noraim. I am afraid.  I keep thinking about  how little I knew about what the upcoming year would hold when I davened here on Rosh Hashanah last year.  How am I supposed to preside over, or even participate in, a joyful Simchat Torah reading?  I need a lot Chazaq v’Ematz to sing this year. Helping new layners sing the shira of the Torah - even if they don’t layn it here, this time - gives me so much of that chizuk, that I need. Thank you.  

This project is my answer to the part of me that thinks the only words that are appropriate for this Simchat Torah are those of the Mourner’s Kaddish.  

But perhaps these two impulses, to sing and to grieve, aren’t actually so contradictory.  The Aruch HaShulchan, a 19th century halachic commentary, writes (OH:55)  this about Kaddish:

הקדיש הוא שבח גדול ונורא שתקנו אנשי כנסת הגדולה אחרי חורבן בית ראשון. והיא תפילה על חילול שמו יתברך מחורבן בית המקדש, וחורבן ארץ הקודש, ופיזור ישראל בארבע כנפות הארץ.

The Kaddish is a great and awesome praise that the Men of the Great Assembly fixed after the destruction of the First Temple. It is a tefillah about the desecration of God’s blessed name that resulted from the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash, the destruction of the Holy Land, and the dispersion of Israel to the four corners of the earth.

ואנו מתפללים שיתגדל ויתקדש שמו יתברך

Therefore, we pray that Gods name will be magnified and will be sanctified and will be blessed.

 כמו שאמר הנביא: "והתגדלתי והתקדשתי, ונודעתי לעיני גוים רבים, וידעו כי אני ה'

As the Prophet (Yehezkel 38:23) says: “I will manifest My greatness and My holiness, and make Myself known in the sight of many  nations. And they shall know that I am GOD.” 

What the Aruch haShulchan is saying is that The Mourner’s Kaddish does not praise God for the tragedies we experience.  Rather, when we experience times like these, times of war, and isolation, of rage and of fear  - the words of the kaddish are a demand that God should reveal God’s self to the world.  When God hides God’s face from us, we say, absolutely not.  Reverse the process, and reveal to us, to the whole world your justice, your mercy, your blessings, and your glory.  אל־תסתר פניך  ממני

Do not hide your face from me!   Yitgadal v’yitkadash, right now. But that demand makes demands on us too: to become a part of that blessing.  Hidden in the words of the Kaddish, and in the songs of Selichot, in the shira of the Torah, and in our everyday tefillot, this question appears: How will God’s Name be magnified and sanctified through you this year?  

When we gather to daven, to hear words of Torah, to speak them, and to sing them, we are enlarging God’s presence among us. We can do this in so many ways.  Because the Yamim Noraim are not only a time of judgement. They are a time rich in opportunities to bring more holiness into our lives, to expand God’s presence in the world. Every time we say Kaddish, we assert, and demand, something communally - that the world’s sanctity will  increase. And then, individually, we must help make it true.  Perhaps this is why Kaddish is a prayer that contains a call and a response. Because the mission it implies requires your participation.  The leader makes the demand: Yitgadal, veyitkadash shemay rabah. God’s name will be magnified and sanctified. And the community follows with demands of its own: Yhey shlama raba mevorach, ulolam ulamay almaya.  God’s name will be blessed, forever, and ever, and ever.   May the blessing be revealed, may we merit to reveal it –this year. This Yamim Noraim. This Shabbos. This very hour, right now.
 

Shabbat Shalom.