Yom Kippur Morning 5787
The Gift of Shalom
September 21, 2027
Rabbi Alan Cook
Sinai Temple, Champaign, Illinois
Recently, I received an email from Bill Gingold. A friend and neighbor of his, a devoted Christian, had some questions about Jewish theology that Bill didn’t feel equipped to answer. Would I mind meeting with this friend to help him sort through his ideas?
I agreed and we arranged a time to talk. What was on Chris’ mind was the question of shalom. Did I believe that Judaism teaches that it is possible for us to achieve true shalomin our lifetime?
Now, of course, much of the answer to that question hinges upon how we choose to define shalom. Often, we translate the word as “peace,” a cessation from war and conflict. And some may rightfully be skeptical as to whether humanity will ultimately relinquish its thirst for power and dominance in order to achieve that level of shalom.
But the notion of shalom goes deeper than peace. The root shin, lamed, mem relates to ideas of fullness and wholeness. The prayerbook series used by our Egalitarian Traditional Minyan has been titled Lev Shalem, “a complete heart.” In the Mi Shebeirach, we pray for refuah sh’leimah, “a complete healing.” When I offer the priestly benediction to B’nai Mitzvah students, which concludes with the phrase, v’yasem l’cha shalom, I pray that God will bless them with the greatest blessing of all, the blessings of wholeness, and comfort, and peace.
In some ways, perhaps the question of translation is less important than we might think. Can one ultimately be whole, in a state of comfort, if they are not at peace? Can any of us truly feel shalom when wars are raging in our world, including those being fought in our name?
For more than an hour, Chris and I unpacked our personal beliefs about shalom, as well as those that we have been taught by our respective faiths. Toward the end, I suggested a metaphor: shalom is a gift. It’s been provided for us. Maybe it got buried behind the other presents, ignored in favor of bigger, flashier gifts with shinier wrapping paper. But now it’s time for us to dust off the box and unwrap this gift we’ve been given.
I know this may sound Pollyanna-ish[1]. It is increasingly difficult to envision a world of shalom when bellicose politicians seem constantly to be inventing new ways to incite conflict. But I do believe that we have been given the tools for shalom— within our world; between ourselves and our neighbors; and within ourselves. We need only to insert the batteries and understand the instructions.
The early crafters of Reform Jewish liturgy decided that an alternative Torah reading was required for this morning of Yom Kippur. They discarded the traditional text from Leviticus, which focuses on the priestly responsibilities and includes instructions for selecting a “scapegoat” to which the community would symbolically transfer their sins before sending the creature off into the wilderness. Instead, the liturgists chose the passage from Parashat Nitzavim in the latter chapters of the book of Deuteronomy. Moses, making his valedictory address to the Israelite community, empowers each individual to accept responsibility for, and control over, their connection to the teachings and traditions of their heritage. “Lo bashamayim hi,” the Torah emphatically proclaims, “It is not in the heavens, that you should say, ‘Who among us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who among us can cross to the other side of the sea and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?’”[2]
Certainly, a key factor in the Reform machzor favoring Deuteronomy over Leviticus is that references to the sacrificial cult don’t necessarily resonate with contemporary audiences. But I think there’s a significant theological issue at play, as well. The contrast between the two Torah passages is striking. In Leviticus, responsibility for the community’s sins is symbolically placed upon the scapegoat. In Deuteronomy, Moses offers a radically different image: what we need to guide us toward a life of holiness is not impossibly distant. It is already close to us—in our mouths and in our hearts.
And this raises an important question for Yom Kippur: What if shalom is also closer than we might imagine? What if the responsibility for moving toward it does not rest solely with governments, politicians, religious leaders, or diplomats? What if some portion of that responsibility belongs to us?
Shalom within our world means more than just the cessation of war and conflict, though that is certainly something to which I believe we should aspire. To me, shalom means recognizing the right of all people to be shalem – to be whole. It means the freedom to live with dignity and security. It means being able to worship openly, to determine one’s own future, to have one’s basic needs met, and to exercise agency over one’s own life. It means not merely tolerating one another’s presence, but working to create a world in which people can flourish.
When I was growing up, these were the sorts of issues and domestic policies that I was taught were consistent with Jewish values. As I’ve spent my adult life reading and thinking about how Judaism instructs us to respond to the needs of society, I have increasingly become convinced that advocacy on these matters is consistent with the prophetic tradition and our vision of tikkun olam. Others may draw different conclusions from our texts and teachings. That is part of the richness—and the challenge—of Jewish tradition. But disagreement does not absolve us of the responsibility to engage seriously with our tradition, and with the consequences of the values we claim to hold.
What’s not OK, in my opinion, is failure to engage at all in the effort to bring shalom to our world. If we have the batteries that can power the path toward shalom, and we withhold them, then we have failed in our responsibility to our fellow human beings. I don’t believe that the quest for shalom is a zero-sum game. In a world of true equity and shalom, one group’s dreams and aspirations need not be denied or diminished in order for another’s to flourish.
In my conversation with Chris, I found myself thinking about one of the differences between Christian and Jewish approaches to the question of how we bring shalom into our world. Christianity offers followers a central figure whose life and teachings are meant to provide a model for how they are called to live. While Judaism certainly has teachers and prophets who leave us with importance guidance, our tradition places an enormous responsibility upon each of us to wrestle individually with Torah, to interpret it, and ultimately to decide what we are going to do with it. Judaism does not permit us to outsource the work.
The Book of Kings tells the story of the prophet Elijah. Dejected and downhearted—being a prophet was thankless work—Elijah flees into the wilderness. Having walked for forty days and forty nights, he seeks shelter in a cave, where God appears to ask him, “Mah l’cha po, Eliyahu? Why are you here, Elijah?”[3]
The question God poses to Elijah is also tacitly posed to us each day: why are we here? For Elijah, it’s a question of physical location; why has he chosen to hide in a remote cave when he has work to do. But for each of us, the question is more existential: what is our purpose in this world, and how will we act to contribute to shalom?
God does not ask Elijah why the world is so broken. God asks, “Why are you here?” In that moment, shalom goes from being a global concern to a personal one. The question is not about what particular politicians should do or what laws or public policies should be enacted or enforced. Rather, we are asked to examine:
What am I doing? What is my responsibility?
Why are you here?
Not “why are you here on earth” in some abstract sense, but:
Why are you here in this congregation?
Why are you here on Yom Kippur?
Why are you here in this particular moment in Jewish history?
What have you been given?
And what are you going to do with it?
To return to today’s Torah portion , once Moses reminds the people that Torah is “not in the heavens,” and that they do not need an intermediary to access its teachings, he elaborates. The mitzvot, he states, are close to each of us, “in [our] hands and our mouths, that [we] may do them.”[4]
If these are the places where Torah resides, then, by extension, this is where we can find shalom.
Shalom is in our mouths—in the words we speak to one another, even to those with whom we disagree. Shalom in our speech requires us to be measured in our language, to avoid name-calling and slander. It asks us to strive to ensure that what we say is factual, and to avoid repeating hearsay and gossip. Shalom in our speech encourages us to model the middah- the Jewish value- of dan l’chaf z’chut, giving others the benefit of the doubt. This is not to say that we hold our tongues in the face of mistreatment or abuse, but that, where possible, we strive toward conversation and dialogue that builds bridges of understanding and cooperation.
Shalom is in our hearts—in the relationships we build, in the empathy that we feel toward others. As we recognize that our neighbors; the strangers on the street; the people halfway around the world whom we’ve never met, living in cities we can’t spell, let alone locate on a map all have the same dreams and aspirations, all are on a quest to achieve their own idea of what shalom may be, perhaps we can begin to imagine pathways toward this reality. We need not agree fully with the actions or beliefs of an individual in order to understand their desire for basic resources, for warmth and shelter, for dignity, and for shalom. We’re all in this world together, and the more we open our hearts to that reality, the closer we can get to shalom.
Shalom is in our hands—in the actions we take when we roll up our sleeves and work in partnership with God to bring about tikkun olam, the perfection of the world according to God’s original intent.
Shalom is not going to be brought about merely through feel-good moments. We could herd everyone into a giant arena to sing kumbaya at an “Up With People” concert, but the impact would be fleeting. While such moments can be significant insofar as they show us that being together in diverse community is beautiful and important, it takes ongoing and arduous effort to achieve lasting shalom. In this New Year, how will you do your part to bring it closer to reality? What will you say? What will you feel? What will you do?
The late Rabbi Harold Schulweis told the following story:
A Hasidic master once asked his students, “What is the most important moment in all of Jewish history?” And the students answered readily.
One student offered, “The moment God gave us Torah on Mount Sinai!”
A second countered, “The day the Holy Temple was erected [in Jerusalem]!”
Another member of the class proclaimed, “When the great sage Maimonides sat down to write the Code of Jewish Law!”
“No, my children,” responded the rebbe. “The greatest moment in Jewish history is now. This moment. All of the other moments that you mentioned are great. But they mean nothing if they have no place in this moment. This moment, right now, is the greatest moment in Jewish history.”[5]
I don’t think that Rabbi Schulweis offered this story to suggest that this moment is necessarily more important than Sinai. We have no guarantee that this moment will be remembered by anyone a thousand years from now. Certainly, in addition to the moments of simcha that many of us hopefully have been blessed to enjoy in our lifetimes, this moment is presenting the Jewish community worldwide with significant angst and tsuris that we would likely prefer not to see reverberating throughout time. But the various moments in history recounted by the students in the story only have meaning because we, today, have decided that they do. We are the ones who have decided to maintain continuity to those key moments in our Jewish past. In a similar manner, we are empowered by the knowledge we have gleaned from all the generations who came before to work toward achieving some semblance of shalom in our generation.
There’s nothing that we can do that will instantaneously end war, or curb antisemitism, or eradicate socio-economic inequities, or repair the deep fissures of division that exist in our society. But that does not mean that we are absolved of the responsibility to make our efforts, one small step at a time, to contribute to solutions.
Perhaps shalom is truly a gift. But the best gifts are not those that are admired from afar. Ideally, gifts are accepted so that we can enjoy them and put them to good use.
So let us be grateful that we’ve been given the possibility of shalom, and strive to appreciate and utilize this gift in the coming year.
The batteries are in our hands.
[1] Derived from a character created by author Eleanor H. Porter and later the subject of several films. Pollyanna maintains an always-cheerful disposition and finds something to be glad about in ever situation.
[2] Deuteronomy 30:12-14
[3] I Kings 19:9
[4] Deuteronomy 30:14
[5] As told by Rabbi Ed Feinstein in his eulogy for Rabbi Harold Schulweis
