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Rabbi's Message
October 2004
WINDOWS OF FAITH
There is a church down the street from our schul that has no windows.
Every time I pass that church I look at it and wonder. Why would anyone
want to close the world out to pray? Certainly we live in a world filled
with bloodshed and plunder where right is often displaced by greed and
blood lust. However, that is the world that we live in, and the world
that we must try to change. Of what use is our religion if we but use
it as an excuse to escape from the real world where sadness and grief
exist? The possibility of creating happiness and love also exist there.
Of what use is hope when one separates himself from the origin of hope,
and that must be this world.
In the beginning of the 21st Century, this is not the best of all possible worlds, but it is the best world that we have. It is the only world that we have. At least as Jews, but I believe as all human beings, we have the mandate to work to change this world. “Ours is not the obligation to complete that change, but we are not dismissed from working to bring about that change.”
We cannot close windows to the outside and proclaim that all is good. We cannot work with the philosophy that only those who choose to live in a modern windowless ark will be saved. Noah’s ark separated him and his family from the evil people of the earth. Today’s windowless arks are constructions made by people who do not care about the fortunes of most people on this earth. They live to save themselves in the world to come and care nary a whit about their neighbors. They live in an inside out ark and refuse to hear the screams of the oppressed and the hated.
How different are our rites. About this time of year, every year, Succoth happens and we build temporary shelters that separate us from the world, but do not keep us safe from the dangers of the world. The Succah is the most temporary of buildings. A strong wind could come and blow it down. People inside will not be safer from the elements. Rain will make them wet. Strong sunlight will burn them. Yet because of that, they also will have the opportunity to smell the flowers and see the sky. They will share blessings of God’s creation with every breath, and where they hear or note the pain of others, they can work to alleviate that pain.
Our religion, and every religion, to be based upon holy traditions must be transparent. Our rules of good conduct must apply to all people. Our sensitivity to grief and hurt must apply wherever anyone suffers. We must note that God cannot be found in sacrifice or in prayer if that sacrifice and prayer do not accompany good acts, acts of kindness, acts of justice.
Even on the holiday preceding Succoth, Yom Kippur, we recognize that good acts are more important than faith. We cannot look to God unless we look to man first. We cannot expect God to forgive us until we have corrected the wrongs that we have done to people. We cannot expect the Messiah to come until we have first fixed up this world.
We must join with every faith recognizing that religion begins in the way that we act to other people. And we must act proactively to other people. We need not wait for their cries of desperation. We must seek out that which might cause them pain. We have to destroy conditions that make ghettos. We need work for better schools before our taxes are siphoned into the building of prisons. We must create laws that are colorblind; we must establish laws that treat all people in the same manner.
It is not enough to define religion by only revelation. False revelation allows beheadings and war. False revelation allows genocide and forced conversion. False revelation allows any man or woman in the name of God to seek the destruction of entire cultures and societies.
Revelation that is not open to all is open to no one. Revelation that is not shared by all is false. Revelation for the Jew and for the majority of faiths in this world is based upon the principle that what is hateful to oneself, one will not do to another. It is in the understanding of that concept that we can find God. It is in practices that do not uphold that standard that barbarian culture thrives.
Revelation begins with open windows and ends when someone shuts those windows. A church or a synagogue or an ashram or a mosque without windows is a place where God cannot be found, a place where God never dwelled.
If you want to find God, open your windows, or live in a Succah for a week or so. We believe that wherever we can hear the cry of the suffering we can alleviate that suffering and bring a certain happiness and divinity into the world.
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Rabbi Aaron Kriegel |
Cantor Marsha Schreier |
President Marc Wurgaft |
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© 2004 Congregation Beth Ahm of West Essex |
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