Rosh Hashana, Day 2 2 Tishrei 5768 / September 14, 2007

Shortly before Passover, I received the notice. I was summoned to jury duty. But I was to report on the 7^th day of Passover. No could do. So I requested a postponement until July. And several months later the second notice came: I was to be on standby duty the week of July 9^th. On Sunday night I called; they didn’t get to my number. Good. But Monday night I was not so lucky: I was to report the next morning.

And so off I went to court house and sat myself down and waited. I saw the video, which many of you have seen, and then opened up one of the many magazines I had brought to keep me occupied while waiting. Lo and behold I was in the very first group taken to an empanelling room. No reading here as first the attorney for the plaintiff and then the two defense attorneys made their presentations and began the jury selection process. By the lunch break, they had selected 4 and there were well over a dozen of us left. Our numbers seemed to diminish quickly as one after another potential juror spoke privately with the attorneys over potential conflicts—it was a malpractice case involving a couple of surgeons and a radiologist at North Shore Manhasset. My turn came and I was sure that telling them that I had been a patient in the hospital, that my father-in-law was a doctor and that I was a rabbi guaranteed that I would be sent back to the auditorium where the pool of potential jurors waited. Wrong. I was seated in seat #5. I went through a series of questions, including what I read for pleasure, and continued to sit there for 45 minutes to an hour as one after another of the remaining people were eliminated. At a little after three I was literally the only one left in the jury room as the attorneys left the room for yet another private caucus. I was sure they would say “Okay, come back next week for the trial” and that would be that. But instead when the attorneys returned they dismissed me and one of them wished me “Zei gezunt.” So after waiting for a few more minutes, I received the official paperwork, saying I had done my duty and that I would not be summoned for another 6 years.

Later I spoke with a friend who is an attorney, trying to understand what happened. How did I go from being acceptable to rejected? And why was I initially acceptable? We concluded that both sides probably thought I would be sympathetic to their side. As to why I was rejected, I guess I shall never know. Maybe it was something as simple as a decision to come back fresh in the morning and find the remaining two jurors and two alternates with a new set of candidates.

All of us at one point or another go through a process of evaluation; sometimes as public as the jury selection process; sometimes privately as we interview for jobs or seek a relationship. Sometimes the parameters of acceptance or rejection are clear; sometimes they are obscure and we wonder on what basis were we judged. I know that some years ago, I probably didn’t get a pulpit because of what I wasn’t: I wasn’t the young rabbi with 3.2 cute and charming children; he was the one who got the job.

So life is filled with these interviews, formal and informal. At the end of our days on this earth, the Talmud (Shabbat 31 a/b) teaches us that we will have a final interview. We will be asked a series of questions.

Nasata v’tanatah B’emunah, did you deal faithfully in business?

Did you set aside time for the study of Torah

Did you engage in reproduction

Did you hope/expect redemption

Pilpaltah B’chochmah

Did you learn one thing from another thing?

Ultimately the text declares that the fear of God is primary; but these ultimate questions are really questions that we need to consider not only at the end of our days in this world; but now. In the world of Star Trek there is a Klingon Day of Honor and part of it is devoted to reflecting on one’s deeds in the year past. I would suggest that these High Holy Days are our counterpart: they are days on which to reflect on our deeds in the year past and so we can re-orient ourselves for the year ahead.

What does it mean to be faithful in business? In a simple society it means to have honest weights and measures. The Torah spoke of that long ago. It means to give full value for what you sell. But in our age what does it mean, especially for the majority of us who are not running our own businesses; we’re not concealing the rotten tomatoes in the cartoon under the perky ones; we’re not passing off a jalopy as a re-conditioned beauty. What does it mean for us to deal faithfully in business; how can we lead ethical lives in the marketplace? Did we give a full measure of ourselves to our employers? Were we fair to our employees and clients? Did we spy on them? As customers, we can ask ourselves; did we consciously buy counterfeit merchandise? Did we cheat merchants of their time when comparison shopping? Did we use purloined software? Did we knowingly buy products that were made overseas in sweat shops? These are just some of the questions that arise in our complex society. Were we indeed faithful in business?

Did you set aside time for Torah study? Hillel, one of the great sages of 2,000 years ago, taught: “V’al Tomar Lichsheh-efneh ehshneh, shemah Lo Tifaneh, Do not say, ‘When I have leisure, I will study,’ for you may never have leisure.” If we don’t plan for it in our over-programmed lives, then we shall never find the time to study. Recently I came across a survey of Americans on their knowledge of the Bible. Less than half knew what the name of the first book of the Bible was. I trust the results here would be better: hint, in Hebrew it is called Bereshit (in the beginning). There are many in the Orthodox world who participate in Daf Yomi, the daily study of a page—actually 2 sides—of Talmud. If you stay with the program it takes nearly 7 ½ years to complete the cycle. I’m impressed by all those who can commit themselves to this amount of study day in and day out. We need not be so ambitious, but nor should we shirk our own obligation to study. The United Synagogue promotes Perek Yomi, the daily study of a chapter of the Hebrew Bible, which begins anew with Simchat Torah: this cycle, which is supplemented by materials available on the web, including some thought-provoking questions, takes 2+ years. Add to that the on-line courses, including one in association with the Conservative yeshiva in Jerusalem, the Meah courses in our area, the adult education institute of the South Shore and our own offerings—I hope you took the brochure yesterday and will return it promptly, duly filled-in—offer you multiple possibilities for continuing your Jewish education. As Hillel observed: “D’lah Moseef, Y’suf one who does not add to one’s knowledge, diminishes it.” And as he commented in another context: “Zil G’mor, go and learn.”

Asaktah B’piryah v’rivyah, did you engage in reproduction? Of all the questions, I personally find the third one the most painful and troubling. I shall leave behind no children; I will have not fulfilled the very first commandment of the Torah. The wherefores and whys are between me and the Kadosh Baruch Hu, between me and God.

And yet, I wonder if those of us who didn’t have the privilege of raising our own children can we respond positively in some measure to this question? Can we understand this question to be more than a question of biology?

There is more than one rabbinic statement that asserts that one’s true parent is one who has taught him/her Torah. Perhaps I can find a response within that tradition. Over the summer, I met two people who grew up at Temple Israel of Great Neck. One celebrated his Bar Mitzvah over half a century ago; the other, barely more than a decade ago. Both were influenced to go into Jewish communal life because of their contacts with my father. Perhaps years hence, I can have the same nachas, knowing that someone gave her/his life to the Jewish community because of me. In Pirke Avot it is stated that Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, the figure who rebuilt Judaism after the destruction of the second Temple, had 5 disciples; and 2 of them are but blips, about whom we know very little. This great rabbi surely had many students, but the Tradition remembered but a handful. That is all we need to do, leave behind a small number who follow in our stead, who are influenced by us: be it biological children or mentees. Will we leave an ethical and moral legacy?

Did we hope for redemption? Have we despaired of this world; is the next world so much more attractive? Fortunately, Judaism has not created a category similar to Islam’s Shahid; those martyrs who kill others, as well as themselves in the name of the faith, hoping to inherit eternal bliss. Have we let our dreams go sour?

Zionism is a dream that has clearly soured for some—witness Avraham Burg, son of Joseph Burg, one of the pivotal figures of Religious Zionism in Israel. The younger Burg was a candidate for the head of the Labor Party in Israel; and the head of the Jewish Agency. And now he proudly waves his French passport, courtesy of his wife and denigrates the Zionist enterprise. Is Zionism now anything but a code-word for support of Israel or its in negative form, to wit, anti-Zionism, nothing more than a politically correct way of being anti-Semitic? Here I think of the resolutions in Church organizations and in Great Britain which promote boycotts of Israel, its products, and its people.

Perhaps Burg is right. Herzl’s quest for normality has been fulfilled. This is not the Israel that we dreamed of when we were younger. There is too much corruption in the political arena; the ultra-Orthodox are throwing around their weight; too many younger Israelis have no sense of Yiddishkeit---they may speak fluent Hebrew, but know little of Judaism. There is too much economic inequality. And the worst of it is that 60 years later—yes, this spring Israel will mark its sixtieth birthday--, Israel remains insecure. It is easy to despair.

And here in the United States, have our dreams also gone sour? Too much assimilation; too much careless abandonment of Judaism and of Jewish life. Have we allowed our identities to dissolve in the Great Melting Pot?

And so, despite the realities of today, do we despair of a better future; of a secure and prosperous Israel; of a Diaspora Jewry that is not on life-support or ultra-Orthodox? Do we retain a vision of hope?

And finally, the most abstruse of the questions, pilpatah b’chachmah. Probably a question designed by a rabbi for another member of the club: did you infer something new from your wisdom. But we can broaden the question. The Hebrew word for pepper is Pilpel, close to the word Pilpatah. So perhaps we should read this question as something along the lines of “have you spiced up your life?” Now that sounds like a mandate either to jazz up your sex life or to engage in some marginally legal activity. Rather, my colleague Rabbi Max Roth has suggested “Was your study, the knowledge you acquired in life mundane, pedestrian, self-serving, etc. or was it infused with the pungent aroma of study/learning L’shem Shamayim, for the sake of Heaven, for nurturing a more evolved self? Was your learning for the benefit of God’s greater world?” Or perhaps, we can understand the question as suggested by a second colleague, Rabbi Joyce Newmark, who emphasized the second half, the issue of wisdom. Were we wise in life or did we allow ourselves to be taken as fools? Did we get suckered by Nigerian e-mail scams; did we believe politicians when they promised the sun and the moon without cost; did we believe that love never means having to say you’re sorry; did we believe that there is always a tomorrow in which to make up for now; did we fail to act wisely with regard to ourselves? Did we act with wisdom when it came to our health, to our family, to our own lives? Were we sagacious in life?

The liturgy speaks of Rosh HaShanah as the day of remembrance, as Yom HaZikaron. Will we walk out of shule today with the remembrance of these ultimate questions? Will we prepare ourselves honestly and adequately for our final interviews, at the end of our 120 years? The choice is ours. May we use the time granted to us wisely.

Shannah tovah umetukah.