A couple of years ago I announced from this pulpit my belief that there were no coincidences in life. Instead, I suggested that the unique juxtaposition of events in our lives carried a message. I dared to suggest that that message was the hand of God in history and in our lives. A generation ago, such a declaration by a Reconstructionist rabbi might have been the occasion for a little Inquisition… of the liberal variety, to be sure. No such fate befell me. So I press on.
I've been working hard over the past six months to connect some dots. It started with a service mission to a small village in El Salvador that I participated in this past January. The trip was sponsored by the American Jewish World Service, an organization devoted to emergency relief and development efforts in the third world. AJWS is like a Jewish Peace Corps and it is led by Ruth Messinger, former Manhattan Borough president and a guest at Adat Shalom this past year. This particular service mission was designed for 25 rabbinical students from across the denominational spectrum. I was asked to serve as the scholar-in-residence and educational resource person for the group. Then this summer Bob Geldorf staged the Live 8 concerts all around the world, seeking to draw additional attention to the problem of world poverty. The phrase "Make Poverty History" became the anthem of the effort, a noble, if elusive goal. Finally, Hurricane Katrina and Rita, this past month, made America confront the shame that in the backyard of this country's vast wealth, we allow whole communities to live a third world existence.
From these disparate experiences emerged three lessons which I'd like to weave together for you as they relate to the themes of Judaism, Yom Kippur and how we "keep the faith."
My service mission took us to the village of Ciadad Romero. It is a village made up of former refugees from the country's civil war that lasted from 1979-1991 and resulted in the death of 80,000 Salvadorans. In broad strokes, the residents of Ciadad Romero, with whom we lived, were the descendants of generations of campesinos, rural peasant farmers who, for generations, worked the land for the equivalent of a dollar or two per day. They were in the employ of a handful of wealthy landowners who controlled most of the country's property. In the early 1970's, a coalition of union and civilian activist groups began to agitate for more equitable pay and working conditions for the working classes of El Salvador. Facing systematic repression, imprisonment and military sponsored "eliminations", the poor had little reason for hope. Yet into this situation emerged Oscar Romero, a timid and somewhat conservative cleric who was appointed as the archbishop of San Salvador. The ruling class was sure that Romero would be nothing more than the house priest, officiating at communions, weddings and funerals. But within a year of his appointment, Romero became an outspoken critic of the military junta and a symbol to the Catholic campesinos of the country that God and Jesus were on their side. Romero became a spokesman for "liberation theology", a version of Catholicism that made the struggle of the poor and the dignity of every human being a central tenet of Christian faith. His power to galvanize the masses of Salvadorans was enormous. So great, in fact, that the military had him assassinated while he was performing a mass in March of 1980 to rid themselves of the threat that he posed.
The residents of Ciadad Romero spent much of the civil war as refugees in Honduras and Panama. We lived with them and heard stories of how members of their families were hunted down and murdered for their political activism. Some of the stories of torture we heard rivaled the worst stories I have heard about Nazi cruelty to Jews during the Holocaust. Though at first reluctant to tell their stories, after a few days our "mother", Maria, in her mid-40's with three children and no husband, told of her role as a gun runner for one of the peasant groups trying to protect their small parcel of land coveted, and eventually stolen, by the government. When the war ended, the campesinos were invited back into the country but not to the land that had been in their family for generations. Instead, they were given the least fertile land in the country. Farming, being all that they knew, would be hard. Nor is there much prospect for their children to escape the cycle of poverty that has been their lot for generations. Children rarely stay in school past the 6th grade. The distances to the high schools are too far to walk and taking a bus is a luxury few can afford.
Today more than half of the world's population lives on less than $2/day. My friends in Ciadad Romero were among them. It is a number that is hard to get one's brain around, especially in light of the income middle class Americans enjoy. The vast majority of Salvadoran men are in the States illegally, doing our gardening, cleaning our office buildings, hauling our trash. Some of the men send money back home to help their families; others cut their ties with their families, leaving them to fend for themselves as they seek to start again here in the United States.
And yet, despite all of this, I was taken by the dignity of these peasant farmers. They have rebuilt their homes after wars, and hurricanes and floods. Most cook on open fires. The children seemed happy. The adults were gracious and welcoming. Despite their hardships and the bleak prospects for their future, they are not bitter. The martyrdom of Archbishop Romero has sent a strong signal to Salvadorans that God is on their side and that righteousness will ultimately prevail, regardless of how difficult their current circumstances may be. They are people of deep faith.
One scene stands out in my mind. We visited a Jesuit College in San Salvador. During the war, three priests were murdered on this campus by the military junta because of their activity in support of poor Salvadorans. A former dormitory room now serves as a museum to their memory and to the memory of the four American nuns who were raped and murdered in 1980. When we entered the chapel, I was struck by a series of four murals on the wall facing the pulpit. Each was a black and white sketch of a naked man being tortured in four different and hideous positions. The sketches were so stark and shocking that I actually imagined the pain of the individual being tortured.
Later that evening, in my session with the 25 rabbinical students I asked them to think about the things that most concern the middle class Jews that they would serve in the United States. I then asked them to imagine what a rabbinate would be like if every week, they had to look at the four murals we saw that morning.
For many centuries, Jews were an oppressed people. That reality runs as a strong current through Jewish practice and teaching. Today, we are, mostly, a privileged people. It is part of the reason why it has become increasingly difficult for contemporary American Jews to "keep the faith" of our ancestors. We find it next to impossible to relate to the worldview of the sages who shaped our religion.
What is our responsibility for the poverty, destitution and oppression experienced in so many parts of the world or in our very own country? It is a question that ethical people should think about. When you encounter a homeless person on the street, you might think to yourself, "if only that person did not mess up his/her life with drugs or alcohol; if only that person stayed in school; if only that person were motivated to clean up their act and get a job". But when half the world's population lives in poverty, such "blame the victim" rationales are all but ludicrous. The evidence abounds that half the world lives in poverty because their exploitation is a necessary precondition for our affluence. It is not unlike the role slavery played in the economy of the old South and it explains why part of this country took up arms to defend a way of life that they wanted to protect.
The environmental movement has helped us understand that our world's resources-water, forests, oil, minerals and the like-- are not unlimited. The earth's ecosystem simply cannot replenish nor sustain the west's current level of consumption. Global warming and the alarming pace of species going extinct are the early warning signs of a planet in trouble.
What does this have to do with us? Americans make up 5% of the world's population. We are responsible for the use of between 25% to 35% of the world's forests, drinkable water, oil, gas and coal supplies. We produce more than 25% of the world's toxic wastes and carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Our consumption pattern is 18 times what it was a century ago and it continues to accelerate. We just can't get enough stuff! And just in case you want to blow off these statistics as the scare tactics of some ecologically crazed scientist, I recommend a visit to a zoo. The animal kingdom is our early warning signal to what we are doing to our planet. This summer our family enjoyed a visit to the Chicago Zoo. At each exhibit were signs that alerted visitors to the threats to the extinction of that species due to human abuse of natural habitats. Here is a fact that you can toss around at your next cocktail party: There are 1.8 million known species of animals, plants and other life forms on our planet. We are losing about 1,000 of those species per year due to human consumption. Yom Kippur reminds us of our accountability for such facts.
Virtually every spiritual tradition in the history of humankind has focused on materialism as the single biggest obstacle to creating people and societies committed to compassion, generosity and kindness. In our own Yom Kippur liturgy, one of the al chet prayers addresses this very issue. The al chet is the prayer that has us recite a litany of sins for which we may be culpable, beating our breast for every line. One of the sins mentioned is marbit. Our machzor translates it as greed. The word suggests "too much of everything". Interestingly, the word is also the Hebrew for usury, a level of interest charged that is deemed to be excessive. We ask God for forgiveness for wanting and consuming too much of everything.
It is worth considering why it is that on Judaism's holiest day of the year, when our focus is on living lives of integrity, righteousness and compassion, we are commanded to refrain from all consumption-food, water, fuel, electricity. Our sages anticipated our current predicament. Consumerism gets in the way of holy and righteous living. Our purchasing power feeds international corporations that need to find cheap labor and cheap materials to expand their profitability. When you spend time in a place like Ciadad Romero, you witness the true human and ecological cost of what it takes to get a pair of shoes into Nordstroms at Montgomery Mall, available for our purchase.
But our sages also seemed to anticipate more recent research. A recent book written by a former congregant of mine, Barry Schwartz, who is a professor at Swarthmore College, "The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less"-gives evidence that personal happiness declines with increased material acquisition. Parents take note: That new Thunderbird that you are thinking about buying for your 17 year old may not be the best parenting decision you have ever made!
Religion, when it is good and effective, should be that compass that helps us get our own lives and the societies in which we live, back in balance. I relearned this lesson in Ciadad Romero when I saw the sketchings of torture on the back wall of the church. I relearned this lesson when I saw how people could get by with virtually none of the material comforts that we have convinced ourselves are necessary and yet live lives of gratitude, dignity, and humanity of a kind that I rarely find in American society. I even relearned this lesson by negative example--the fact that the Catholic Church has all but crushed the liberation theology movement. Those priests who used the teachings of Jesus and the New Testament to bring courage and hope to the campesinos of Central and South America, have been ordered to clean up their act by the Vatican or they have been pushed out of the church.
Many middle class people don't want their religions to rock the boat. Life is good. We are the "haves". When occasionally the needs of the "have nots" rudely interrupts our lives,--as it recently has with the victims of Hurricane Katrina--we write a check and fancy ourselves as Mother Theresa… Think again!
As part of my attempt to respond to what I witnessed and learned in El Salvador last winter, I got involved in the effort to defeat CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement being advocated by both the Bush Administration and virtually every government in Central America. Had I not spent time with poor villagers in El Salvador, this issue would never have even gotten on my radar screen. Yet every farmer we spoke to in El Salvador told us how this treaty would rob them of their already meager livelihoods, enrich North American corporations and make Central America into one huge sweatshop for middle class consumers without any of the wage, health or safety guarantees that the US labor movement has fought to establish for workers in this country.
On the eve of the Congressional vote on the bill, there was an interfaith press conference on Capitol Hill to offer prophetic witness to the injustice of the proposed legislation. Catholic and Protestant denominations were there in great numbers. I was the sole Jewish representative-proud to represent the AJWS. There were some Jews there, those that worked as individuals on the staffs of a variety of peace and justice organizations. They came up to me after my remarks and thanked me for being there. "It is rare for us to find official Jewish representatives at such interfaith gatherings these days", they told me. A fact, sad but true.
But even more surprising to me was the Salvadoran who approached me and introduced himself as the founder of Romero University in San Salvador. He was shocked to see a rabbi come out publicly to support a cause which was a matter of life and death to his sisters and brothers in El Salvador. You see, he told me, in El Salvador, the Jews are middle class. The struggle of our people for human rights, fair wages, and safe working conditions is seen by the Salvadoran Jewish community as a threat. It put into perspective the fact that the Jewish community of San Salavador refused to host our group of rabbinical students while we were in El Salvador. We were too closely allied with groups that they viewed as radical! What do you think Isaiah would have said to this congregation that viewed the desire of poor farmers for fair wages for a day's work as subversive? Consider: To what extent might that same prophetic rebuke be leveled at us?
Deuteronomy teaches "lo lehitalem," we are forbidden to turn our eyes away from injustice. Indeed, we must seek out and expose injustice, and work to uproot it. That is the meaning of "tzedek, tzedek tirdof", justice, justice shall you pursue. We are not innocent just because we are ignorant of a situation of injustice. In fact, our personal consumer habits and the trade policies of the United States, supported by our elected officials, contribute to enormous suffering and hardship all around the world. What, do you ask, is required for us to "keep the faith"? Showing up today for Yom Kippur is nice, but not sufficient. Certainly not according to Isaiah.
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To be honest, I had a lot of reservation about dedicating my sermon to this topic because the issue is so overwhelming. Yet every time I put this talk away, I was called back to it. I am convinced that we must understand the linkage between the lifestyles that we have chosen as Americans and the poverty and suffering in the world. I also believe, with all my heart, that we must do something about it. As each of you think about what you might take away from this sermon, let me suggest an action plan. It is borrowed directly from our machzor where we are told that to be inscribed for a year of health and life we must do three things: tefillah, teshuva and tzedakah, prayer, repentance and acts of compassionate generosity. Prayer should make us more grateful for what we actually have and realize how much we do have in comparison to the rest of the world. Repentance should move us towards some accountability for how we contribute to economic injustice and environmental degradation in the world. And the acts of compassionate generosity that might lead to some repair of the broken world in which we live should know no bounds. If this sounds familiar, it was my lesson #3: Good religion breeds gratitude, raises consciousness, and changes behavior.
I want to close with a true story that is instructive about what one person can do against massive injustice. John Woolman was a Quaker who lived in the middle of the 18th century in New Jersey. Himself a tailor, he lived among farmers and businessmen whose prosperity was heavily dependent on slave labor. Woolman was convinced that slavery was immoral from the perspective of his faith and in the eyes of God. For 20 years, at great personal cost, Woolman traveled from one Quaker community to the next sharing his strong moral resolve that his co-religionists should renounce the institution of slavery and model that commitment by giving up their own slaves first. As an act of personal morality, he would rather fast than eat a meal prepared by a slave. If he found that in some way he inadvertently benefited from the labor of a slave, he would make it a point to repay the slave for their work.
Woolman was not always well received . Despite his personal humility and self-sacrifice, Woolman was challenging, what had become, a prosperous way of life for the Quakers. There is a self-deprecating Quaker expression, coined at the time that said: "We came to this country to do good, and ended up doing well." (Sounds a bit like another faith community that I know and love). Yet Jon Woolman made a difference. Over time, his message was understood and embraced. Quakers were the first religious community in this country to give up their slaves. In 1783, the Quaker community petitioned Congress to correct the "evils and unrighteous commerce" that resulted from the enslavement of human beings. This was 80 years before the Civil War. In the 19th century, the Quakers were instrumental in the creation of the underground railroad that brought thousands of slaves to freedom.
Woolman's life was a testatment to walking the talk, to "keeping the faith." It demonstrates the effect that religion can have on human suffering, on politics on history when taken seriously, when lived. It is the kind of action that Isaiah holds up in the haftarah that was chanted earlier today, "banishing exploitation, freeing the oppressed, breaking the yoke of servitude." We need more of this kind of living faith in the Jewish community, not only because our tradition requires it, but so that our children don't grow up and label this whole endeavor a sham and ditch it. Ritual practice, prayer and piety without action is hypocrisy. That was Isaiah's message. Prayer, repentance and charitable behavior, sharing our wealth are all well within our grasp. It is what is required to keep the faith. I believe that there is at least one John Woolman in this room today. Maybe there are as many as 36, the minimum number of righteous people a Jewish legend tells us is necessary to keep the world from being destroyed. You can do something about the state of the world.
There is a Buddhist parable that tells of a bird flying over a raging forest fire. The bird is heartbroken as it witnesses hundreds of God's creatures panicked and perishing in the blaze. The bird flies two miles to a lake, fills its beak and flies back to the blaze, dropping the water on the blaze. It does so again and again, 20 times in all before it collapses in exhaustion. The small amount of water, of course, did not extinguish the blaze. So, the parable asks, was the bird stupid? No, says the teaching, it was doing the only thing a compassionate creature of God could do in the face of suffering. It was doing something.
This is the kind of behavior that we are called upon to do, even against overwhelming odds, if we are to "keep the faith". The analogue to this parable in the Jewish tradition is from Pirke Avot: lo alecha hamlacha ligmor, v'lo alecha lehibatel mimenah, "it is not up to you to complete the task, but nor are you free to desist from doing something."
May the new year give us wisdom to be grateful for what we have, the sensitivity to realize the suffering and deprivation that afflicts so much of humanity, and the commitment to take steps to make our world a more caring and compassionate place.