Today is the first time in 598 years that the Catholic Church has been without a Pope for any reason other than death. The last Pope to step down while still alive was Pope Gregory XII in 1415 – until Benedict XVI said his final farewell this week before a crowd of 100,000 of the faithful applauding, cheering, waving banners of support in St. Peter’s Square.

It is such a momentous event in world history that I felt compelled to talk about it tonight. Besides, I was thrilled to discover that the pope and I have something in common – we share an identical professional trajectory – as of today the former Pope Benedict XVI will officially be known as “Pope Emeritus.” A title so cool I kind of want it for myself. “Pope Emeritus” – “Rabbi Emeritus” – they both have a real ring about them don’t you think?

Of course unlike at KI where my successor has already been determined without the pomp and mystery of a secret conclave of 115 kippah-wearing Cardinals. The Catholic Cardinals will gather next week, pushing the original March 15th deadline as early as possible to begin the process of electing the new Pope. And of course unlike at KI where our lay congregation and Board of Trustees choose their rabbinic spiritual leader, the Cardinals will meet and select from among themselves which of them will, overnight, be declared the infallible, the Bishop of Rome, instant descendent of the original disciple St. Peter, and apostolic leader of a Billion plus Catholics throughout the world.

The Cardinals supposedly vote by secret ballot – it took only two days to elect Benedict eight years ago, and three days to choose his predecessor, John Paul II. So, I suspect the field of real candidates has considerably narrowed to just a few before the gathering even takes place.

But since we are talking about the Papacy here in the synagogue tonight, as you might expect one of the questions I have been asked numerous times over the past couple of weeks, is this: “Was Pope Benedict good or bad for the Jews?”

Well, at the beginning of the 20th century Pope Pius X was asked by Theodore Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism to support the Jewish return to Israel. Instead, the pope proclaimed he would rather have the Turks controlling Palestine than the Jews because the Jews still have not accepted Jesus.

Pope Pious XII has been often castigated for his lack of standing up to the Hitler and the Nazis during the Holocaust and of ignoring the pleas of the persecuted Jewish community of Europe when his stature and power could have possibly saved untold numbers of human lives.

So when all is said and done, Pope Benedict in his brief eight years has done as much and in some cases more than almost any other Pope in history to bridge the gap between Jews and Catholics, heal the wounds of centuries and stand up in support of the Jewish community.

Benedict made a sweeping condemnation of anti-Semitism in all its forms, and a sweeping exoneration of the Jewish people for the death of Jesus (whew! – that one had me worried). He visited Auschwitz and Yad Vashem in Israel, prayed at the Western Wall, placing his own secret note in its ancient crevices. He did his best to build bridges with the Jewish community that he called “our loving brothers and sisters,” and made this a priority of his papacy, visiting synagogues in many countries, hosting interfaith gatherings and special, public meetings with delegations of Jewish lay leaders and rabbis.

A few years ago I was part of an interfaith group from Los Angeles co-sponsored by the Southern California Board of Rabbis (of which I was President) and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles who made a pilgrimage to Rome and Jerusalem, meeting with the Pope in the Vatican as well as other top leadership of the Catholic Church. Benedict condemned holocaust denial around the world – having been forced as a child to join the Hitler Youth, he knew all too well from personal experience the reality of Hitler’s devastating role in European and Jewish history.

And in his final address to the faithful of the Catholic Church, he spoke these words which grabbed my attention and my theological interest. In assuring Catholics from around the world that even though he would no longer be pope (well, he will be “Pope Emeritus” of course), he would forever see himself as a servant of the people and God, he used this phrase that I suspect had a particularly powerful resonance in the Catholic world: he said, “I’m not coming down from the cross.” “I’m not coming down from the cross.”

What a dramatic image. Actually, what a painful, almost martyred image. After all, the cross in Catholic churches is where the bloodied body of Jesus hangs in all its pain and suffering. It hangs as a dramatic image, a lesson for all to see, of the theological conviction that original sin came into the world through the disobedience of Adam and Eve and passed to all human beings. It is fundamentally because of Jesus’ atoning death on the cross that we have the opportunity to have our sins forgiven.

So when Benedict proclaimed to the world, “I am not coming down from the cross,” he was evoking this image of God becoming human in the body of Jesus and then becoming a human sacrifice through his death on the cross to atone for the sins of all humanity.

Not very Jewish, really. It reminded me of the conversations I have week after week with every bar and bat mitzvah child in our congregation, including Riley. “What does it mean to be an adult?” I ask. And our conversation inevitably centers around the fundamental principle of personal responsibility for who we are, what we say and what we do, how we act toward others and the choices we make in our everyday lives. To be a Jewish adult, is to take responsibility for the consequences of the choices we make and to know that what we say matters, what we do matters and ultimately who we are matters. It is to recognize that the Torah teaches we are to be an “ohr lagoyim,” a light to the world by how we act and who we are.

As we witness this remarkable historic moment in the life of the Catholic Church where a new Pope will be chosen, the newest “High Priest” of the Catholic world, it reminds us that we the Jewish people haven’t had priests for over 2,000 years. We have rabbis, we have teachers, and once the Temple was destroyed in Jerusalem and the Biblical priesthood was no more, we embraced the teaching of the Torah that taught us we are to be a “kingdom of Priests and a holy people.” Each of us is to be a priest in our own lives – in our own families, in our own communities.

It is up to you and me not to turn to another for absolution from sin, but to accept the fallibility of being human, to wrestle with our good and evil inclinations, to accept that we make mistakes and every year to do what is in our own power to grow our souls to become the best versions of ourselves that we can be.

In the Torah portion of this Shabbat, Moses turns to God and begs God to show Moses God’s essence. God’s famous reply is, “You cannot see my face, but I will cause all my goodness to pass before you.” Having that vision is our challenge – to see the presence of God hidden in the everyday miracles of our lives. To share that vision with each other, to pass it down to our children, is what being part of a sacred community is ultimately all about.

Q – “What does a caterpillar do for New Year’s?
A – Turns over a new leaf.
or
What’s the definition of a New Year’s Resolution? Something that goes in one Year and out the other!

It was comedian Joey Adams who famously said, “May all your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolutions”

Then there was the guy who decided to make only resolutions this year he could keep. He resolved to gain weight, to stop exercising, to read less and watch more TV, to procrastinate more, to quit giving money and time to charity, to keep smoking, and to never make New Year's resolutions again.

Most estimates are that about 40% of
Americans make New Year’s Resolutions. What are the most popular resolutions that people make each year? It depends on who you ask. For example, according to the US Government web site, the top 13 New Year’s resolutions across America are:

1. Drink Less Alcohol
2. Eat healthy food
3. Get a better education
4. Get a better job
5. Get fit
6. Lose weight
7. Manage debt
8. Manage stress
9. Quite smoking
10. Reduce, reuse and recycle
11. Save money
12. Take a trip
13. Volunteer to help others

Unfortunately, the sad reality is that only about 8% of people actually achieve their resolutions. What is the secret of those who do?

1. They set small, achievable goals throughout the year rather than a singular overwhelming goal.
2. Their goals are specific – not “I’m going to lose some weight,” but “I’m going to stop eating potato chips and ice cream for a month.” Not “I’m going to get more fit this year,” but “I’m going to attend a spin class or go to pilates once a week.”
3. They chart their goals each week to hold themselves accountable. If you can’t measure it, forget it. Another way to increase your accountability is to share your goals with friends. Facebook is perfect for this.
4. Attitude is everything so believe in yourself.

How about the New Year’s resolutions that you wish others would make? For example, here are the top resolutions that parents wish their kids would make for the New Year:

1. Clean up their rooms more often
2. Be more engaged in school
3. Have healthier eating habits
4. Get more physical activity
5. Play fewer video games
6. Minding manners more
7. Better hygiene
8. Texting less and reading more
9. Being a better friend

On the other hand, here are the top ten New Years resolutions published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology:

1. Lose weight
2. Get organized
3. Spend less, save more
4. Enjoy life
5. Get fit
6. Learn something new
7. Quit smoking
8. Help Others
9. Fall in love
10. Spend time with family

Then there is Gary Ryan Blair – he is the inspiration behind something called, “New Year’s Resolution Week.” This annual event was founded on the premise that a single resolution can positively and profoundly create lasting change in your life and help make the world a better place.

According to Gary’s extensive survey of over 300,000 responses worldwide, these are the top ten New Year’s resolutions that people actually made this year:

1. Lose weight and get in better shape
2. Stick to a budget
3. Debt reduction
4. Enjoy more quality time with family and friends
5. Find my soul mate
6. Quite smoking
7. Find a better job
8. Learn something new
9. Volunteer to help others
10. Get organized.

Or you could be like the late Erma Bombeck whose memorable resolutions over the years included:

1. I will go to no doctor whose office plants have died.
2. I will never loan my car to anyone I have given birth to.

So what are your New Year’s resolutions and how do you intend to keep them? Mine are 1) to spend 200 hours this year studying Spanish with the Rosetta Stone; and 2) to write three new songs. What are yours?

For the Jewish people, Hanukah is our story of the first recorded struggle for religious freedom. When Syrian emperor Antiochus unified his kingdom in 167 B.C.E. and in the process forbade circumcision, demanded Jews abandon Torah, publicly practice paganism and bow down to an idol of Zeus (and an image of Antiochus himself), the Jews of the time were faced with an existential crisis. Do we let go of the particularistic rituals, customs, and religious traditions of our past and embrace the contemporary spiritual traditions of the majority culture, or cling to the traditions that set us apart? Do we stubbornly cling to the way of life that has been a centuries-old source of resentment, anger and persecution from the many civilizations in which we have lived or finally admit that we seem to be out of step with the majority of the world and choose to assimilate into a majority culture that is forever bent on encouraging Judaism to finally disappear from the stage of history?

In 167 BCE the gauntlet was thrown down by a local priest named Mattathias in the small town of Modiin (which still exists today just outside of Jerusalem), when he refused an order to worship a sacrifice, slayed both a Jew who joined in the pagan worship and the king’s agent, and fled to the hills to launch a guerrilla rebellion that was continued after his death by his son, Judah Maccabee.

After two years, the rebels succeeded in reconquering Jerusalem. On the third anniversary of the Temple’s desecration it was rededicated in an eight day celebration.
According to the Talmud it was at this time that a single undefiled flask of olive oil was found for lighting the Temple candelabrum (menorah). Miraculously, the oil, sufficient for only one day, burnt for eight.

Of course, the real history story is much more convoluted:

The Maccabbean revolt wasn’t strictly a revolt only against Antiochus: Antiochus' decrees against Jewish practice were actually imposed at the behest of a group of Jews who very much wanted to be part of the Greek civilization. These Jews resented that Jewish law was the law of the land, endorsed, until then, by the empire. In fact, this clash was less a war of liberation from the Greeks than it was an actual civil war among Jews as well.

While Judah Maccabee fought against the Jewish high priest Jason, who readily introduced pagan worship to the Temple, he was also at odds with the faithful who preferred to die than to fight on the Sabbath. Having won the victory for Jewish tradition against the competing Greek civilization, he then proceeded to institute a new holiday, Hanukah, and set a precedent for Jewish adaptation and evolution that would have made Mordecai Kaplan proud.

He declared a principle called “pikuah nefesh” – the “saving of life” as more sacred than laws of Jewish ritual observance. He introduced the idea that to save life one must even violate the Shabbat. And so it was that the Maccabee zealots once again took up arms and fought even on Shabbat. They saved their own lives and rescued Jewish civilization from destruction at the hands of Antiochus and his Greek army at the same time.

Unfortunately, the Maccabees proved as flawed as any other dynasty. Through misuse of power and infighting they ultimately paved the way for Roman rule and a halt to Jewish independence that lasted 1900 years.

Originally both a religious and military celebration, the military victory was all-but ignored by the rabbis of the Mishna and Talmud, for whom the most important part was the miracle of the Temple’s rededication. Especially when living in the diaspora where celebrating a military victory of the few against the many might easily be misconstrued as treason. So instead of celebrating the military might and victory of the Maccabbees, the miracle of the little cruze of oil that lasted 8 days became the major theme of Hanukah throughout all the years of diaspora living.

It wasn’t until nearly a hundred years ago that Hanukah evolved to serve two very different and dramatic ideas for defining Jewish identity in a non-Jewish world.

In Russia, Zionist nationalists once again retold the story of Hanukah to emphasize the victories of the Maccabees, as military heroes who made Jewish history by taking up arms and taking Jewish history into their own hands. This version can be heard most explicitly in a Zionist song which secularized a Biblical hymn: "Mi yimalel -- Who can retell the heroic deeds of Israel?"

Having decided to fight to liberate Israel for the first time in centuries, the Zionists gave the Maccabees mythic significance as the original Jewish superheroes, if not faster than a speeding bullet, at least able to uproot 50-foot trees on horseback.

In America, Henrietta Szold and others fighting to revitalize American Judaism seized upon Hanukah – with its congruence to the increasingly important American Christmas holiday – to symbolize the American ideal of religious freedom and the Jewish necessity of minority religious pluralism.

Hanukah then became alternately:
a celebration of God’s salvation
a celebration of protecting Jewish uniqueness
a celebration of Jews fighting for themselves and their religion
a celebration of our difference
a celebration of Jewish power
a time for giving gifts
a season of light in the darkest time of the year

So why does Hanukah matter today? Well, who are we, this tiny people who represent less than .02% of the world’s population that we should stir up such passionate emotions and antipathy? What is it that we represent to the non-Jewish world that seems to so offend the sensibilities of others that in every generation an attempt is made to wipe us from the face of the earth? What other country but that called “The Jewish State” evokes heads of state who are willing to publicly declare their desire to literally eliminate the Jewish people from the planet? Why do we insist on surviving year after year as a unique and separate people when some core element of who we are or what we represent seems to evoke more hatred and violence than any other people on earth?

As I contemplate the holiday of Hanukah this year, these questions simply won’t go away. “Hanukah” means “dedication.” To what are the Jewish people dedicated? I believe it is the very fact of our history as the people who brought the world the idea that the same power that created life itself actually cares how we treat one another that has been the on-going source of antipathy to Judaism by the rest of the world. When we introduced the idea of the “Ten Commandments” and the rest of the ethical mitzvot to the world over 3,000 years ago in the pages of the Torah, we changed the world forever. No longer could the world blindly agree that the only rule that mattered was that whoever had the most power and carried the biggest club got to make the rules. From the moment we declared, “You shall not murder,” and “Justice, justice shall you pursue,” and “You shall treat the stranger in your midst as the home born,” and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” we threw down a challenge to the world which could never again simply be ignored.

Jewish civilization represents a value system that declares to every single individual human being on earth, that what they say matters, and what they do matters, and who they are matters. Such hutzpah in the face of the overwhelming political, social and economic power that every other country, state, war lord and bully represents, has been reason enough to do whatever possible to delegitimize Jewish culture, values and way of life in generation after generation.

The challenge of Hanukah is to stand up against the bigotry and prejudice of the world, to stand up against those who claim that “might makes right,” and to declare year after year after year that we rededicate ourselves once again to the passionate belief that every human being is created in the divine image and therefore every human being matters. That is the real message of Hanukah. That tyrants will always fall. That bigotry will always fail. That every candle we light on the Hanukah menorah is a reminder of the teaching from proverbs, “The soul of the human being is the light of God.” Light the lights this year with pride as we continue to stand for the enduring values that celebrate the fundamental spiritual worth of every human spirit. That is why Hanukah continues to matter.

One of my favorite country song titles of all time, was written by Kenny Chesney – it goes like this: Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to go now. Isn’t that the truth? Believer or agnostic, certain about the existence of the afterlife, the “olam haba” - what Judaism has always called, “The World to Come,” or a skeptic, everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to go now.

In its infinite wisdom, the Bible in the Book of Ecclesiastes reminds us, “The eye is never filled with seeing and the ear is never filled with hearing.” Isn’t that the truth? Young or old, there is always just one more sunrise or one more sunset; one more of life’s milestones to reach – “If only I live to see my child married… if only I can live to see my grandchildren born… if only I can live to see my grandchildren grow up… if only I can celebrate our 50th anniversary… if only, if only, if only…”

In one Talmudic story Rav Ashi, the head of the rabbinical academy is not ready to die. He wants to go on living. And so, when the Angel of Death comes for him, he says; “What’s the rush? Come back tomorrow or better yet, come back the day after tomorrow. I have lots and lots of work that I still need to do. I have to go over my studies so that I can enter the World to Come with my learning in order.”

But of course the Angel of Death says, “Sorry it’s your time. No matter what you have left to do, there will always be something left to do.”

And yet there is a fundamental truth that somehow in the deepest recesses of our souls we know for certain - that it surely isn’t the length of our lives, the number of our days that ultimately determines the value or the meaning of our lives. The psalmist wrote thousands of years ago, “Adonai ma adam veteda-ayhu, ben enosh ve-tehashvayhu? Adam lahevel dama, yamav ketzayl ovayr…” “What are we in the midst of the vast solitudes of the night? We are like a breath; our days are as shadows that pass away.”

But in Jewish tradition it never ends there – with our lives merely thought of as shadows like those pathetic beings scurrying around in the dark of Plato’s cave. Jewish tradition would never stop with nothing but the shadows, our lives no more meaningful than a breath that dissipates in an instant into nothingness. That very same Psalmist can’t help but add these words to his anonymous psalm – “Vatehasrayhu me-aht me-elohim, vekavod vehadar te-atrayhu…” “Yet you have made us but little lower than the angels, and have crowned us with glory and honor.”

Judaism is a spiritual civilization whose fundamental belief about the nature of humanity is that we are here for a reason, that we are not mere breath that fades away, but created in the very image of God, living lives of meaning and purpose. And just what is that purpose? To recall the words from my favorite Spiderman movie of several years ago, “With great power comes great responsibility.” We human beings have great power. And so we human beings have great responsibility.

It is our challenge and our opportunity to use that power to bring more holiness into the world every single day by every word we speak, every life we touch, every act we perform in the service of that spirit. We have all heard the famous Midrash on the creation story of Genesis whereby God walks Adam and Eve around the Garden of Eden and shows them the paradise that God has created for human beings to inhabit and then warns them, “See I have created the bounty and beauty of this world. Take heed that you protect it, that you nurture it, that you guard it with your very lives, for if you ignore your responsibility to this paradise that I have created just for you and destroy this world, there will be no one to come after you to make it right again.”

So this is what has been on this rabbi’s mind this week – not only the upcoming decision that America will make of the direction we will take in the next four years by who we elect as president, not only what impact that choice will have on the next 50 years of American life by the ability of the next President to appoint the next supreme court judges and possibly tip the scales to the direction of taking away a woman’s right to choose and some of the crucial freedoms that we cherished for so long as Americans, but my mind has been occupied this week with issues of life and death itself.

Several of our dear congregants both young and old are teetering on the brink between life and death even as we speak. Some who have been dear to this congregation for many years are now reaching the end of their lives much, much too soon. And some have already reached that hallowed divide as you hear each week when we read the names of our recently departed. They have crossed from life to death and the mystery of what comes next, leaving behind the pain of loss and grief that no words, no matter how thoughtful or wise can ever truly heal.

I have sat with them and their families, over these past few weeks, and I have cried with them – both those who have already lost their loved ones, and those who are approaching death with a grace and dignity that I watch with awe and the deepest respect.

Most of us don’t talk much about death, most don’t even make their own funeral arrangements in advance or purchase a burial plot or tell their spouses, partners and children what their wishes are for after they are gone, for fear that the very bringing up of the subject will somehow cause it to come to pass prematurely. We ignore death’s reality as if that somehow might give us the power to keep it from our own doors. Such it is and such is has always been.

There is even a famous rabbinic Midrash in the Talmud where The Angel of Death appeared to Rav Sheshet in the marketplace, prepared to take his soul. Rav Sheshet said to him: “What do you think I am? A horse that I should die in the street? At least come to my house and take me there!”

A human being deserves dignity, even or perhaps especially, at the time of his or her death. “What am I—a horse that I should die in the street?” he says.

The essayist, Roger Rosenblatt, says that when he learned that his father had collapsed of a heart attack and died on the sidewalk, he was angry. He wrote, “The sidewalk is a rotten place on which to die. Pebbled cement scrapes a twitching face. A man deserves some privacy at the end, and some anesthesia too. I hope that someone at least had the kindness to close his mouth for him when he died.”

Obviously Rav Sheshet would have agreed with Roger Rosenblatt. A human being should not die like a beast does. When I read about the disgusting, cruel practices of much of the agribusiness industry and how cattle, pigs, sheep, lambs and chickens are kept and caged and killed, I’m not so sure that even animals should die like animals either.

But we are not merely animals, we are human beings created b’tzelem elohim, in the image of God, filled with potential goodness and compassion, tenderness and love, caring and the capacity to touch the lives of others so deeply that they are changed forever by what we say or what we do.

Ultimately the question isn’t, “Whether we will die?” but rather “How will we die?” Here again I think the wisdom of the Talmud captures the true depth of the human heart. What we human beings fear most is not really dying, it is dying in pain, dying in fear, dying alone. The story is told in the Talmud of two dear friends, Rabbi Nachman and Rava. In the story it is written that “Rava was seated at the bedside of Rabbi Nachman, and he saw that his teacher was dying. Rabbi Nachman said to him, ‘Please tell the Angel of Death not to torment me.’

What he was asking was “I know I have to die, but please let my death at least not be painful. Let me go quickly and gently.” How many of us have dreamed when we have had the courage to dream of our deaths at all, of simply lying down to sleep one night at the end of our lives and quietly, gently, peacefully drifting off forever?”

That is a request that we can understand, for is this not what all of us would like, that when our time to die comes, it be without pain and suffering?

So this is what Rabbi Nachman asked of Rava. “Do me a favor, and ask the Angel of Death to take me quickly and gently.”

To which Rav replies, quite understandably, “Why are you asking me to do this for you? Are you not an ‘adam chashuv’ a person of status? Don’t you outrank me in the Academy? Why don’t you just ask the Angel of Death yourself?”

To which Rabbi Nachman replies, “There is no status before the Angel of Death.” There is no status before the angel of death. Rich or poor, famous or anonymous, a leader with thousands of students or followers, a life of quiet anonymity – all the money and things in the world or homeless living on the street – all are equal in death. We take nothing with us when we die and leave behind everything and everyone.

You can’t tell the Angel of Death, ‘Treat me with respect for I am rich or important.” or ‘treat me with respect because I am generous,” or ‘treat me with respect because I am a brilliant intellect, or have extraordinary talent.��� At the moment of death, all human beings are utterly equal. There is no one who can claim special status in the eyes of the Angel of Death.

And so it is with grief and loss and mourning. The measure of our loss and grief has no relation to our status in life – grief touches us all equally. Grief locks us in its grip and carries us along on its own unique path, wherever it may go, and however long it holds us, most often for the rest of our lives, regardless of rank or status.

In the Talmud Rava makes a request of Rabbi Nahman as well. He says to him, “Will you do me a favor? Will you please show yourself to me in a dream after you die?” Rava, like his teacher, like you and I and like all the other people in the world, wants to know what it is like after death. So this is what he asks his teacher, “Show yourself to me in a dream after you die.” And Rabbi Nachman agrees to do so, if he can.

Since it’s the Talmud, sure enough, sometime after he dies, Rabbi Nachman appears to Rava in a dream. Rava asks him one of the questions that we would all like to ask if we could. “Did you suffer much pain while you were dying? What does it feel like to go through the experience of death? Does it hurt?”

Rabbi Nachman says; “It did not hurt at all. It was as gentle as removing a hair from a glass of milk.”

Can anything be more gentle and less painful than that, removing a hair from a glass of milk? That is what Rabbi Nachman says he felt when his soul departed from his body.

But the Talmud then teaches us one more powerful lesson about the nature of human beings and what really matters to us when confronting our own death. Rabbi Nahman goes on to say, “Nevertheless, if God were to say to me, ‘you can go back into the world as you were’, I would not want to do so, because THE FEAR of death is so great.”

You see? It actually isn’t death itself that torments the human soul, it is the fear of death that frightens us. It is the fear of going through pain, and delirium, and exhaustion, and degeneration, of being out of control, of losing our dignity, of suffering on the way to death that terrifies us.

And understandably so. That is why, when the Talmud wants to describe the death of Moses, or the death of any of the other righteous, the expression that it uses is: “God took their souls away ‘binishika’ - with a kiss.”

Even though Rabbi Nachman’s death was painless, he would not want to go through it again because the dread of death is so frightening. It is the fear of that dark, unknowable moment when we let go and do not yet know what awaits us after we let go, that makes death so terrifying to us.

So what do we learn in the end from the wisdom of the Talmud and the reality of life itself? 1) That all human beings die, even scholars, even saints. 2) That no one can bribe the Angel of Death: not with money, not with good deeds, not with anything. 3) And perhaps even that we may fear death more than we should. No one can know in advance, but it may be gentler, kinder, and more painless than we fear that it will be. For all we know, the moment of death itself may indeed be like drawing a hair out of a glass.

Remember what the Angel said to Rav Ashi? “You have to come with me now, ready or not, because your term as Head of the Academy is coming to a close, and your successor is waiting to begin his term. And no two kingdoms can overlap by as much as a minute.”

The Angel of Death is reminding us that no one can live forever. If we did, we would prevent the next generation from having its turn. We need to understand that we are not the main actors in the play. We are people who play a role, and then go offstage to make room for the next scene in a cosmic drama that is far bigger than any one of us.

Yes, contrary to all human nature, we are not the center of the universe. We are not the be-all and end-all of life. We are people who live for a while. We are people who have a task to perform, and who do our task well or badly, as the case may be. And then we are people who have to let go, so that someone else can take our places. If we stay on too long, if we clutch on to our lives longer than we should, we make the world stagnant, and we hold back those who are waiting for their turn.

Ultimately the meaning that we discover in life comes as a result of our relationships with others. Alone we suffer not only a physical death, but a death of the spirit. Together we simple, frail, fragile human beings create miracles of the heart. That is why we suffer when loved ones die. That is why the best that any of us can hope for in life is to fulfill the simple but most profound and highest tribute that any of us might achieve in our lives – what Jewish tradition has us recite as a final blessing when loved ones die, and may it be true of all of us as well – zekher tzadik livraha- may the memory of our lives continue in the lives of those we are privileged to touch as a blessing forever.

You may have heard of the conversation between two Israelis – one said, “How are you?” and the other answered, “In one word, ‘Good.” In two words, “Not good.”

I think of that conversation every time I think about the challenge of “Forgiveness” – in one word, “Good” both to forgive and to be forgiven. In two words, “Not good” when you obsess about “If I forgive this person does that mean I am condoning what he or she did to me?”

Forgiving isn’t forgetting. It’s letting go of pain, letting go of the trauma, letting go of what is holding YOU back and allowing yourself to move forward in life. Holding on to anger and resentment is like clutching a hot coal tightly in our hand – the hot coal may be your burning desire for anger, your burning resentment against another person for something that was said or done that hurt your feelings, but think about it – if you are clutching a hot coal in YOUR hand, no matter who put it there, who is the one getting burned? You of course.

So what really is FORGIVENESS in the first place?

It’s an internal process not an external gift. It’s an internal process you give to yourself, not an external gift you give to another. That is such a crucial distinction and runs totally counter to how most people think about the act of forgiveness itself – as if it is something they are giving to another rather than the gift of wellbeing and peace of mind they are giving to themselves.

The gift of forgiveness is the resulting feeling of wellness, wholeness, freedom, and acceptance. In a sense, I believe that each of us has a moral right to let go of past hurts, free ourselves from dragging through the rest of our lives the hurts, insults, digs, pains, sadness, and losses of the past.

When we let go, we are letting go not of the memory of the experiences, but the intense emotions attached to them – anger, fear, bitterness, resentment, brokenness. Releasing the hold that the past has over us in order to be free to determine our present and therefore create our future. It is choosing not to need resentments, hatreds, self-pity, in order to feel justified for our own failings or mistakes.

When we forgive, we no longer fantasize about punishing those who have hurt us, getting even with them, showing them who we really are, evening the score. Recognizing that nothing we do to punish them will heal us, for only we can heal ourselves. In a sense it is simply deciding we have better things to do with our lives, better use of our time and energy than to continue to give them over to anyone else and allow someone who has hurt us in the past to have that much power over our present and our future.

Erik Erikson – talks about “ego integration” – it is the acceptance of what is in life, an experience that accepts the order of life and that what happened is OK just the way it was because it was the prelude to being who we are today. Like Joseph in the Torah, who when finally confronting his brothers after twenty years of a roller coaster life from the pit to prison to the heights of power says, “You may have intended me harm, but God intended me good and if it wasn’t for what you did I would never have risen to be in a position to save all our lives.”

Meaning in life can only be gained by accepting the things over which we have no control and being at peace with them. One of the Keys to Mastering Life is to recognize as the Talmud teaches, aizeh who ashir, hasameah b’helko. Meaning in life comes not from any external source but from ourselves, our own inner struggles with life’s purpose and value and the acceptance that it is what it is and that what it is, is ok. Attitude is everything.

“ONE WHO FOGIVES AN INSULT FOSTERS FRIENDSHIP, BUT ONE WHO DWELLS ON DISPUTES WILL ALIENATE A FRIEND” Proverbs 17:9

As we approach the most sacred time of our Jewish year, we know that forgiveness is one of the greatest spiritual gifts we can give to ourselves this year and any year. And what if it is you who have wronged another? Sins against fellow human beings only can be resolved by asking forgiveness from the ones we hurt. According to the Mishnah: “Sins committed by human beings against God are atoned for by the Day of Atonement. Sins committed by human beings against other human beings cannot be atoned for by the Day of Atonement unless we first ask for our neighbor’s pardon.

If the wronged party withholds a verbal pardon it is a sign that he or she is still harboring a grudge against the wrong-doer. This means the slate cannot be wiped clean, nor can reconciliation between the two parties be properly effected. It also means that the offended party is now guilty of transgressing Biblical Laws like “hating one’s brother in one’s heart” (Leviticus 19:17), and “bearing a grudge or taking revenge.” (Leviticus 19:18).

What if you ask forgiveness and are continually rebuffed? Maimonides says if you ask three times and are still refused then there is nothing else you can do and the sin is transferred to the offended party for his sin in not granting forgiveness.

This year when you come to services over the holy days of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, allow yourself the gift of forgiveness, the blessing of letting go. Listen as you hear the cantor sing and the rabbi read with the congregation these powerful words over and over and over again: V’al kulam elohai selihot, selah lanu, mehal lanu, kaper lanu - “For all these things God of forgiveness, forgive us, pardon us, help us atone”

Amen

You’ve probably all heard the jokes before – “the Reconstructionism version of the Shema should be: shema yisrael, I don’t know elohaynu, I don’t know ehad.” Or perhaps my wife’s favorite line: “Everyone is so confused about Reconstructionism that even the anti-Semites don’t understand it – they burnt a question mark on our lawn.”

So let me start by talking for a moment about what it means to be a “religious Reconstructionist?”

I must have had a thousand conversations with people that began with the words, “I’m not really very religious rabbi…” and then they go on to describe an attitude toward life that to me is exactly what I think being religious is really all about. Most people seem to think that being “religious” refers to observing traditional rituals, attending services, and having a traditional belief about God as a supernatural being who answers prayer and intervenes in the daily life of the world.

That’s not what I mean by “religious” at all. For me, being religious as a modern Reconstructionist Jew refers to an attitude about life, an approach to the world and relationships that validates the highest, noblest, loftiest ideas and ideals of the Jewish people and the process whereby one gives those ideals a voice in one’s everyday life.

As I use the term, people are “religious” not because they observe certain rituals or have a particular belief in God, but if they see the world as filled with the opportunity to discover blessings, love, caring, compassion, justice, and righteousness. In fact, I believe that this understanding of “religious” refers to most people who are members of KI. I see it every day in those who are formally Jewish and those I call “Jews by Association” who are married to or partnered with someone Jewish and are participating in the Jewish community as part of the KI family.

A Reconstructionist understanding of the term religious refers to all those who search for higher meaning in life, who believe that human beings are fundamentally created good, endowed with the ability to choose life and joy, wholeness and peace, as participants in a caring community.

When I see people who recognize that the most important things in life aren’t things at all; when I see parents patiently teaching their children how to distinguish right from wrong, good from bad, caring from neglect, sensitivity from callousness, I see individuals who are exactly my definition of religious, even if they might not use the same term for themselves.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that if the sunset occurred only once every ten years, we would be so awed by it that it would certainly appear to be a miracle, but since it happens every day, we hardly even notice the miracle for what it is. The soul of a religious person is the one with the vision to remain awed by the sunsets, enchanted by the rain, overjoyed by the laughter of an infant – in short, able to see those daily miracles that surround us.

As a Reconstructionist, “Religious” is a broad category that includes the striving to make sense out of the difficult moments of life and the struggle to pass on values that will move the world closer to our collective dreams. Being religious isn’t dependent solely on the rituals, services, ceremonies, holidays, or customs that you celebrate. It is an all-encompassing approach to life, to people, to family, to relationship, and to the future that is available to anyone, and that is part and parcel of the essence of what it means to embrace the challenges of a life-long search for meaning and purpose in life itself.

Rabbi Ira Eisenstein – architect of the Reconstructionist Movement, son-in-law of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, founding president of the RRC, wrote the following in 1982 about what he considered to be the best features of Reconstructionism: intellectual integrity; talking sense to people; openness; lack of ecclesiastical pomposity; respect for the intelligence of the laity; the fact that the rabbi does not have to seem infallible; equality of women; an affirmative attitude towards life; stress on the arts; and the willingness to experiment.

Here is the simplest way I know to capture what makes Reconstructionism and KI as a Reconstructionist congregation special. “Kehillat Israel believes in the equality of men and women, sees God as the power that inspires us to strive for human fulfillment as loving and caring people, and acknowledges both the rational foundation of the Universe and the spirituality inherent in all human life. We believe that Judaism is an evolving religious civilization that reflects peoplehood, community, history, the arts and ethics. Our doors are open to all, gay and straight, same faith or interfaith. We reject the idea that Jews were “chosen” by a divine Being, and instead recognize that every people and every culture has its own unique and valuable contribution to make to the progress of humanity. We discover God in the everyday miracles of our lives, and use that experience of Godliness to help bring meaning into the world.

What makes Reconstructionism special, is also our openness to innovation and change. After all, it was Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, Reconstructionism’s founder who invented Bat Mitzvah in 1922 with his own daughter, Judith. It was the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation (then known as the Federation of Reconstructionist Congregations and Havurot) which was the first movement back in 1968 to adopt the principle of Patrilineal descent whereby a child is considered fully Jewish if either parent is Jewish, whether mother or father, followed by the Reform movement 15 years later in 1983.

It was the Reconstructionist movement through the RRC that first openly accepted gay and lesbian students to study for the rabbinate, and the Reconstructionist movement that has lead the Jewish world by creating “KOLOT – the Center for Jewish Women’s and Gender Studies thirteen years ago, and Ritualwell.org a unique resource of creative Jewish rituals that transcends all movements and streams of Jewish life. The RRC also was the birth place of the Center for Jewish Ethics, and Hiddur: the Center for Judaism and Aging. A child comes home from his first day at school and his mother asks, “What did you learn?” The child responds, “Not enough, they want me to come back tomorrow.” To be a Reconstructionism means to constantly say, “Not enough.” Not enough learning, not enough innovation, not enough wrestling with the fundamental questions of life, not enough God-wrestling, not enough reaching out to those who have in the past felt left out of the Jewish mainstream, denied their own authentic Jewish identity, whether because of who they love or who they are.

All this and more is what makes Reconstructionism special, and KI a special place to belong.

Unfortunately Sara is typical. Sara Kruzan was raised in Riverside by her abusive mother who was also a drug addict. She met her father only three times in her life, since he was in prison. Starting at the age of 9, Sara suffered from severe depression for which she was hospitalized several times.

At the age of 11, she met a 31-year-old man named “G.G.” who molested her and began grooming her to become a prostitute. By the age of 13, she was working as a child prostitute for G.G. and was repeatedly molested by him until she was 16, when she killed him. Even with a California Youth Authority psychiatric evaluation determining that she was amendable to rehabilitation treatment offered in the juvenile system, Sara was tried as an adult and sentenced to prison for the rest of her life.

Sara isn’t alone. There are nearly 300 juveniles in California currently servicing life sentences. Like Sara, nationally, fifty-nine percent of all juveniles sentenced to life without parole are first time offenders. What does it say about us, about our society when we throw away the life of a child? When we declare at age 14, or 15, or 16 that a child is irredeemable, that there is no such possibility as change, as rehabilitation, as growth, or what we in the Jewish community speak of year in and year out at the High Holy Days, as teshuvah, repentance and redemption?

The United States leads the world in the practice of sentencing juveniles to life without parole – because it is virtually banned in every industrialized nation EXCEPT the United States. And we are completely out of step with every standard of international law since we are signatories to numerous human rights treaties that specifically prohibit the sentencing of youth to life in prison. Yet we do it over and over and over again knowing that there is no evidence it acts as a deterrent in any way, and along with the wasted life we have now condemned to live and die in prison, as a society we will spend over $40,000 a year, probably totaling $3 million for each and every youth we throw away.

The reality of just how widespread incarceration is as the tool of choice for resolving social conflicts of all kinds in the United States is frightening and tells us something very disturbing about the nature of our society and the fear that seems to drive us. U.S. Justice Department figures show that a record 7 million people – or one in every 32 American adults – were behind bars, on probation or on parole in 2006, and the number is growing.

There are more people behind bars in the United States of America today than in any other country in the world. Currently, over 2.3 million people. That figure has been growing steadily since 1972 and represents a 600% increase over the past 30 years. And the sentences have become longer and harsher. One out of eleven people in prison today is serving a life sentence. In California the ration is one in 6. In fact California has the highest proportion of life sentences relative to the prison population in the country – 20%.

The United States has 5 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated population. We now imprison more people for drug law violations alone than all of Western Europe, with a much larger population incarcerates for all offenses. Seriously? This is America? Land of the free, home of the brave? More realistically land of the imprisoned and home of the fearful.

The number of individuals serving life-without-parole sentences increased by 22% between 2003 and 2008, nearly four times the rate of growth of the parole-eligible life sentenced population.

This is the legacy of more than three decades of “tough on crime” legislation, determinate sentences and a vastly expanded use of imprisonment to solve social issues. What started out decades ago as a philosophy of rehabilitation so as to help re-enter individuals back into society as contributing members, has devolved completely into a single philosophy of punishment alone. Nothing could be clearer than the first sentence of California’s own penal code section 1170 which states, “The Legislature finds and declares that the purpose of imprisonment for crime is punishment.” Period. And punish we do, often way out of proportion to the offense committed and the sentencing of others involved with the exact same offense.

As Californians, we have the worst racial disparity rate in the nation for sentencing life without parole – black youth are given this sentence at 22 times the rate of white youth for the same crimes. 77% of juveniles sentenced to life are youth of color.

Yes, youth can and do commit terrible crimes. When they do, they should be held accountable and face appropriate punishment. But youth are different from adults; every study shows that youth have a greater capacity for rehabilitation. Young people continue to develop their identity and the direction of their lives into their twenties and beyond.

In fact, recent findings in neuroscience confirm what many parents and teachers have long known: brain maturation is a process that continues through adolescence and into early adulthood, and the issues most relevant to the commission of crimes as juveniles, impulse control, planning, and thinking ahead are skills still in development for at least a decade beyond age 18. According to recent cognitive research those skills don’t fully develop until somewhere between age 25-30. Yet we take children, throw them in prison, and throw their lives away forever.

There is widespread agreement among child development researchers today that young people who commit crimes are more likely to reform their behavior and have a better chance at rehabilitation than adults. Even the Supreme Court agrees—In Roper v. Simmons, in 2005, the Court stated, “From a moral standpoint it would be misguided to equate the failings of a minor with those of an adult, for a greater possibility exists that a minor’s character deficiencies will be reformed.”

No one can know definitively what kind of person a 14, 15, 16, or 17-year-old will become. That is why both common sense and the moral imperatives of our faith demand that as a society we find ways to provide youth with meaningful and periodic reviews of their life sentences to ensure that those who can prove they have reformed are given an opportunity to re-enter society as contributing citizens. Anything less is cruel and unusual punishment, barbaric for the 21st century and morally bankrupt as a social policy.

Even as we sit here tonight, the California legislature is still contemplating SB 9, a bill that came within one vote of passing last year that would allow for first offender youth who have been sentenced to life without parole to have their cases reviewed after serving between 10 and 25 years in prison. It’s a complicated formula, but the idea is right, and the idea is just and it should be passed and a glimmer of hope brought into the lives of these children condemned to prison for life.

As outrageous as it sounds, studies show that when a juvenile and an adult are part of the same crime, contrary to common sense, it is often the juvenile who ends up with the harsher, longer, life-without-parole sentence and not the adult. Also contrary to common sense and common perception, many of these youths did not commit murder, never even held a gun.

One young man I met was literally sleeping in the back seat of a car being driven by a friend who unbeknown to the sleeping youth, took out a gun and shot it out the window at someone on the street. Although the intended victim wasn’t killed, and the shooter himself got a significantly lighter sentence, the boy sleeping in the back turned down a deal, insisting he didn’t do anything wrong, and ended up being sentenced to life in prison anyway. Yes, of course I am a bleeding heart liberal, but still that doesn’t sound like “justice” to me.

SB 9 is an opportunity to examine the millions of tax dollars that are used to house thousands of youth for decades in the name of public safety. What is the financial return for California as we invest millions for housing, food, and services so hundreds of juveniles with life sentences will live in California prisons until they are 70, or 80 ... or until they die? We cut education in California regularly and teachers protest as they should. Have you ever seen a California prison guard picket line, or the media pouring over the annual federal or state or county prison budget demanding cuts?

Patricia Foulkrod is a filmmaker who has taught in juvenile facilities for nearly 15 years. In urging the California legislature to pass SB 9 she wrote in the Huffington Post recently the following:

“People always say, “Well it’s their choice.” Is it really? Given the scientific data regarding child and teenage brain development; their lack of critical thinking; poor living situations; absent, incarcerated, or abusive parents; drugs and alcohol; generations of gangs; a system that leaves many boys of color on the brink of manhood but incapable of reading beyond a third grade level; not knowing what the word "hope" means? I think we are all responsible for our actions, and if we do a crime we have to absolutely face the consequences, but many kids in California have obstacles to climb before they get caught up that most of us never see or experience, and despite all the information we have about these kids, is the best solution we can come up with Life without Parole? I was asked in my class in jail what "hope" means. Hope is passing SB 9.”

Let’s stop throwing away the lives of our youth and elevate the nature of our society at the same time. We Jews were perhaps the first people as a civilization whose prophets stood time and time again declaring “Let justice well up as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.” Perhaps it’s time to listen to our own wisdom.

(Check out www.rebreuben.com , www.becomingjewishbook.com and www.interfaithrabbi.com for more commentaries, articles and books by Rabbi Steven Carr Reuben).

When the teacher asked her class to share with her what they wanted to be when they grow up, she naturally heard the normal panoply of professions called out by the kids – doctor lawyer, teacher, policeman, fireman, everyone in the class that is, except little Tommy who sat quietly in the back of the room saying nothing.

So, being a good teacher she went back to Tommy and asked, “Tommy, what you do you want to be when you grow up?” “Possible,” answered Tommy. “Possible?” the teacher asked. “Yeah, my mom is always saying, “Tommy you’re impossible!” so when I grow up I want to be possible.”

Well, we recently celebrated the secular New Year of 2012, and last week the Chinese New Year of the Dragon, and in just 5 days we have a special Jewish New Year called, TU BESHVAT – THE NEW YEAR OF TREES. And with all that we human beings have done to wreak havoc upon our environment year in and year out, with all the pollution, toxins we constantly pour into the air we breathe and the water we drink, perhaps it’s time for us as a human species to stop and commit ourselves to the possibility of creating a sustainable world not only for us, but for all the generations that will follow us as well.

When you read the wisdom of the ancient Jewish sages, it looks as though even our ancestors thousands of years ago knew better than we the profound nature of our responsibility to the earth and all that dwells upon it. After all, look at how far astray we have wandered from the simple wisdom that our sages taught us over two thousand years ago in the Midrash when the rabbi’s told their version of the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden?

“God led Adam and Eve around the Garden of Eden,” the rabbis taught, “and said, ‘Look at all I have created. See how beautiful it is, how remarkable. Make sure that you don’t spoil or destroy My world—for if you do, there will be no one to repair it after you.’” – (Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:13)

And here we are two thousand years later and what have we done to God’s world? It reminds me that one of the greatest scenes in the Torah is when Jacob is running away in the dead of night, afraid that his brother Esau is going to kill him for stealing his blessings. Exhausted, he lies down in the middle of the wilderness with a rock as a pillow and falls asleep. He dreams of a ladder stretching from earth to heaven with angels going up and down and God standing right next to him, talking to him, promising him that God will watch over and protect him.

The next morning Jacob wakes up and looks around in awe and says to himself, “Wow! God was in this very place all along and I didn’t even realize it.” “God was in this very place all along and I didn’t even realize it.”

I don’t know about you, but that is me in a nutshell too many days of my life. Walking sightless through the everyday miracles that surround my life.

The great rabbinic commentator Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki (whom Jewish tradition called, Rashi) lived in France 800 years ago. Rashi taught that what Jacob really meant was, “If I had known that God was right here, I wouldn’t have gone to sleep in the first place.”

We have all been sleeping for way too long and we somehow missed that God was right here all along – in this very place, in every rain forest, in every ocean, in every flower, in the song of every bird, in this very Earth of ours that is, or was our Garden of Eden.

And as the rabbis taught so long ago – if we destroy it there will be no one coming after us to make it right again.

Humanity’s relationship with energy has always been complicated. I remember vividly that intense scene from the movie, “Quest for Fire” when human beings were shown realizing for the first time the awesome power of fire itself and the power they would have if they could control the fire. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

In fact, one could make a compelling case that all of human history has been marked by the ongoing quest to discover ever-larger quantities of energy in ever more effective ways. Today, energy impacts every aspect of our lives, seen and unseen. It may very well be the linchpin upon which our entire future depends. Our search for energy affects our economy, our foreign policy, the diplomatic alliances we create, the wars we wage.

And yet we Americans are undoubtedly the most energy-illiterate people on the planet. Few of us understand – or up until now, have cared to understand – what really happens when we flick a light switch or turn on the ignition. Most of us have never even thought about how much energy we consume in the course of a day, let alone the larger consequences of our consumption.

Well, when you look into it you find out that only about 10% of the energy used by a regular, incandescent light bulb is actually turned into light. Less than a quarter of the energy used in a conventional stove actually reaches our food and barely 15% of the energy in a gallon of gasoline ever reaches the wheels of our cars. In the world we are creating today, each of us has a responsibility to learn how energy works, where it comes from and how it impacts on our world.

What it is, where it comes from, how much we consume - these things are absent from our radar screens. We have always just expected energy to be there when we need it. It is for us, largely an invisible commodity.

So it comes as no surprise to discover that Americans are also the most extravagant consumers of energy in the history of the world. With less than 5% of the world’s population, America uses 25% of the world’s energy. Yes, of course it’s true that our economy is larger than any other country and requires more energy to sustain it. But it is also true that our lifestyle is twice as energy-intensive as that of any other affluent country – and about ten times the average globally.

What better time to talk about this than on the eve of Tu Beshvat which reminds us each year that in Jewish tradition energy conservation and the sustainability of our planet is a spiritual value. The Torah teaches Bal Tashchit (“do not destroy”) – a mitzvah explicitly forbidding us from wasting the earth’s resources, and specifically fuel. For example, the Talmud teaches we are forbidden to cover an oil lamp because it speeds up fuel consumption and increases waste.

In fact, the rabbis of the Talmud were so conscious of the preciousness of our natural resources, especially trees that they said, “If not for the trees, human life could not exist.” (Midrash Sifre). The great Hassidic Rebbe, Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav taught, “If a person kills a tree before its time, it is as though a soul has been murdered.” I remember how disturbing it was to watch Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” and to witness the horror of the world’s forests shrinking right before my eyes. What would Rabbi Nachman think of us?

Without question the rabbinic conception of Bal Tashchit, the mitzvah of preventing unnecessary destruction of our world, is emerging as perhaps the spiritual imperative of our time. The rabbis of the Talmud were prescient to say the least.

In the 13th century a famous rabbinic text entitled Sefer Hahinuh explained the difference between one who is righteous and one who is wicked with the following example:

“Tzadikim - righteous people of good deeds…do not waste in this world even a mustard seed. They become sorrowful with every wasteful and destructive act that they see, and if they can they use all their strength to save everything possible from destruction. But the rasha’im – the wicked are not thus; they are like demons who rejoice in the destruction of the world, even as they destroy themselves.” –and that was written in the 13th Century!

The Bible proclaims, “Without vision the people perish.” So today we share a vision of a sustainable world that we can create together – the world that we can save together, the world whose destruction we can prevent together – one day at a time, one step at a time, one person at a time, one mitzvah at a time.

At KI we have our own Green Committee composed of congregants who are committed to constantly searching for ways the synagogue and our community as a whole can create a more sustainable institution, and a more sustainable world. From energy audits to the personal commitments we have made to eliminate plastic bottles from our lives, creating a sustainable world is a moral imperative that Judaism has championed literally for thousands of years. How can we do less?

In the Torah God says, “I put before you today good and evil, life and death, blessing and curse, therefore choose life.”

It is really as simple and as powerful as that. Choosing life. We can no longer ignore the crushing reality of the environmental crisis that we by our action and our inaction have created. We have a sacred obligation to recognize our responsibility as stewards of the earth. You all have heard my favorite lesson from the Talmud many times. It is the story of the two men in a rowboat in the middle of the ocean. One takes out a drill and begins drilling a hole in the bottom of the boat. The other man starts screaming at the first – “What are you doing? What are you doing?” To which the man with the drill replies, “What business is it of yours? After all, I’m only drilling under my seat.”

My favorite story from the Talmud for sure. “I’m only drilling under my seat.” Obviously, there is no “my seat.” There is only one small boat, one small planet and we are all in it together. We all sink or survive, together.

Yet the evidence is overwhelming that our climate is changing. Over the past few years regardless of the season we seem to hear over and over again, “Worst______(fill in the blank) in recorded history.” Worst flooding, worst hurricane, worst tornado, worst… everything. And clearly the emissions from our fossil-fuel energy consumption – air and water pollution, poisonous mercury, smog-forming ozone, and carbon dioxide – endanger all of Creation, and threaten to push more and more overstressed species over the brink to extinction.

One of the most powerful teachings in all of Jewish tradition is that there is no such thing as an innocent bystander. The Torah says, lo ta’amod al dam reyeha, “Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbors.”

Our sages taught that “Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor” means that each of us is responsible for the very life of one another. There is no such thing as an “innocent bystander,” because in Jewish life if you are standing by and allowing harm to come to another human being you are not innocent. You are guilty.

Guilty of turning a blind eye to the pain of the world. Guilty of pretending that you are powerless to make a difference. Guilty of forgetting that you are made in the image of God and as such have the moral obligation to act as God’s representative on earth.

Since 1980 we have experienced 19 of the 20 hottest years on record. Global greenhouse gas emissions are projected to increase average temperatures up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit in this century — bringing rising seas, major weather and agricultural disruptions, environmental refugees, migrating diseases, and other dangers which most harm the planet’s poor and vulnerable.

In 1997, a melting Greenland dumped about 22 cubic miles of water into the sea. Today it's melting twice as fast. This means that every single month Greenland is dumping into the ocean an amount of water 54 times greater than the city of Los Angeles uses in an entire year. Not since Noah and the ark has our earth and all its inhabitants been in greater danger.

So here are three ways we have consistently championed at KI and hope everyone will pledge to embrace as well as we move our personal lives and the life of our community toward a sustainable future:

1. Become Food Conscious
Eat less meat. Producing 1 kg of beef causes the same amount of greenhouse emissions as driving 250 kilometers in a car. A pound of wheat can be grown from 60 pounds of water – a pound of meat takes up to 6,000 pounds. With the energy needed to produce a single hamburger you could drive a small car 20 miles. Reducing meat production in the U.S. by just 10% would free enough grain to feed 60 million people.

2. Become Energy Efficient
If every Californian replaced an old air conditioner with an energy efficient one it would be the equivalent of taking 275,000 cars off the road.
Replace incandescent bulbs with Compact Florescent Lights. They cost 75% less to operate and last 10 times longer. If every Californian changed just 5 bulbs to CFLs it would be the equivalent of taking 400,000 cars off the road.

3, Be Waste Conscious
Buy less of everything and keep stuff longer. Remove your name from unwanted catalogs and mailing lists. 100 million trees are cut down each year to create the 4.5 million tons of junk mail in the United States.

Most of you know that Didi and I go to Costa Rica every year on vacation (among other things). Last year as we were driving through lush rain forests, walking along spectacular, pristine beaches and marveling at the stunning natural beauty that surrounded us at every turn, we drove through a tunnel and I saw a rare display of Costa Rican graffiti. And what did it say? OTRO MUNDO ES POSIBLE. OTRO MUNDO ES POSIBLE. “Another world is possible.”

That is the faith that all of us must share – that another world is possible – a sustainable world to leave as our gift to generations yet to come.

Imagine this:
A woman has a difficult pregnancy and sadly during the act of giving birth it’s too much for her and she dies. Following the funeral, the local prosecutor then charges the infant with involuntary manslaughter and moves to bring the child to justice for murdering her mother.

OK sounds ridiculous – and such a thing could never happen. Right? Well, if the law of the land were to become according to the ethical position of the Catholic church that defines full human status from the moment of conception, then even this absurd scenario would be theoretically possible. Just as the far Religious Right and the politicians who support them are attempting to appoint lawyers to represent the interests of a fetus against its mother in court, attempting to charge medical doctors who perform abortions or any procedure that results in the death of a fetus or miscarriage with murder, attempting to charge mothers who take drugs that result in their own miscarriage with murder, and attempting to pass legislation that overturns Roe Vs. Wade denying every woman the right to control her own body even if impregnated through rape or incest – it was the brilliant insight of Maya Schneiderman one of my 10th grade Confirmation students who pointed out that charging a fetus who kills his or her mother with murder follows the exact same logic.

Abortion, protecting the sanctity and dignity of every life, acting on our fundamental Jewish belief that every human being is created in the image of God, all present difficult, challenging, gut-wrenching decisions by real women in the real world who must confront real situations of life and death and live with the consequences for the rest of their lives.

So, what wisdom might Judaism and Jewish tradition bring to this difficult, emotionally charged question?

First, there is no doubt but that Judaism has a supreme concern for the sanctity of human life.

Everyone knows the famous quotation from the Mishnah (Sanhedrin 4:5): “One who saves a life is counted as if he saved the entire world, and one who destroys a life is counted as if he destroyed the entire world.”

This fundamental cherishing of life itself and seeing life as a divine gift from God means that regardless of the reasons or the circumstances, Judaism has never taken the termination of a pregnancy lightly. Even when permitted, and even when required which it sometimes is, it is still a difficult and painful reality representing a diminishing of the divine in the world.

Apart from an overall regard for the sanctity of life, Judaism finds other reasons to be reticent about endorsing abortion:

- killing a fetus breaks the first mitzvah of the Torah – peru v’revu – “Be fruitful and multiply” - to populate the world

- killing a fetus destroys something made in God's image since all human beings, including those still in formation in the womb are considered to be created btzelem elohim.

- killing a fetus is wanton destruction of part of God's creation and the Torah has a prohibition against unnecessary destruction of anything that God creates under the biblical injunction called ba’al tashhit.

- killing a fetus is itself an act of wounding the mother

- according to Jewish law it is wrong to injure oneself

Classical Jewish arguments about abortion are mainly concerned with the distinction between killing someone who is fully a person, and someone who is not yet fully a person.

In fact, abortion is not explicitly referred to in the Hebrew Bible at all- instead the arguments for or against the independent personhood status of a fetus have to drawn from analogies to what is written in the text about other issues like the accidental miscarriage brought about by a fight.

For example, there is an argument regarding not only the priority of the mother's life or personhood over that of a fetus, but traditional rabbinic commentators classified the fetus as a 'rodef', a 'pursuer' who is threatening the life of the mother. The fetus may therefore be killed in such a case in order to prevent the mother being killed.

The great Jewish commentator Moses Maimonides (who of course was also a doctor) in the 12th century in Egypt wrote: “The sages ruled that if a woman is in hard travail it is a mitzvah to remove the embryo either by means of drugs or surgery, because it is regarded as a “rodef,” exactly the same as a “pursuer” who is trying to kill her.”

So what is the status of a fetus in Jewish Tradition?

Simply put, traditional Judaism understood the status of a fetus to be exactly the same as a limb of the mother. Therefore, in Judaism a fetus is not considered to be fully a person until birth – technically until half its head emerges from the womb. Until that time the fetus is called “kereh imo” “like a limb of the mother” and just as if a woman has cancer in her arm or leg which was threatened her life you would naturally expect her to amputate the arm or leg without question to save her life, so too in the case of a fetus and a difficult, dangerous pregnancy that is threatening the life of the mother. Here too, Jewish tradition commands the woman to remove the fetus from her body, even if it literally has to be taken out limb by limb.

That is why in Jewish law there is a clear difference between “feticide” and “homicide” – one is the destruction of a fetus, at best an “emerging human life” but one which clearly does not have full human status, and the other is the taking of a human life with the resultant ethical, moral and legal consequences.

From a Jewish ethical point of view it is clear:

1. A fetus is not a person

2. A fetus is entitled to be treated with dignity, respect and looked upon as a sacred gift from God, as all human life is seen since we are created btzelem elohim - in the image of God.

3. The high status of a fetus is seen in the fact that Jewish law allows for the desecration of Shabbat in order to save the life of a fetus.

Where does all this come from in Jewish tradition?

The status of the fetus in both Jewish and Catholic traditions derive from a particular passage in the Torah – Exodus 21:22: Unfortunately as with some other differences between our religions, the stark differences in our attitudes about abortion and the relative status of a fetus derives from an unfortunate mistranslation of the Torah from its original Hebrew into Greek.

The text of Exodus 21:22 says:

“If men strive together and hurt a woman with child so that a miscarriage results, but no other damage ensues, the one responsible may be fined according to what the husband may exact from him, and he shall pay according to what the judges determine; but if other damage ensues,(or sometimes translated: “If any harm follows”), then he shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound.”

From this Torah passage the rabbis of the Talmud derived the position that a fetus was not considered to have the same status as a full human being, since the consequence of the accidental killing of a fetus as the result of a fight between two men revolved around monetary compensation and wasn’t considered a criminal act as would be if there were harm to the woman herself – then the punishment would be equal to the severity of the injury – eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life.

What happened in the Christian world took a decidedly different turn. In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Torah, the Hebrew for “no harm follow” ( lo yeheyeh ason) was replaced by the Greek for “imperfectly formed.” So when the Torah says, “If a man strikes a pregnant woman and destroys he fetus “yet no harm follow” it was referring in the Hebrew to the no harm coming to the mother. The mistranslation into Greek made it sound like the sentence referred to the fetus becoming imperfectly formed. This created a false distinction between an “unformed” and a “formed” fetus and branded the killing of the “formed” fetus as murder.

This mistranslation then became embodied in the foundations of church law, and the killing of a fetus from the moment of conception became branded as murder by the Catholic Church and fundamentalist Christianity ever since.

That is why the Christian right’s banner of “Right to Life” bestows full human status and rights on any unborn fetus, with the right to legal counsel, and the ultimate potential branding of anyone who causes a miscarriage to be a murderer, whether a doctor or a mother. In fact the official church position is known as the doctrine of “Better two deaths than one murder.”

The contrary position has been taken by Jewish groups, rabbis and Jewish legal scholars for hundreds of years. Even the Orthodox 18th century scholar Rabbi Jacob Emden in responding to both the physical harm and severe emotional harm that might ensue to many women who have difficult or unwanted pregnancies, wrote in a famous legal ruling, YESH LEHAKEL LETZOREKH GADOL – “THERE IS GROUND FOR LENIENCY IN CASES OF GREAT NEED.”

Without question, particularly in the progressive Jewish world, and for sure within Reconstructionist Judaism, that has been the prevailing ethical value and moral and legal position. A woman’s body is hers, and a fetus growing in her body is hers and considered fundamentally as a part of her body to be treated with reverence and respect as all of our bodies are to be treated with respect and reverence, but certainly not having a separate, independent existence from the mother with any legal rights at all, until the time of birth and independent viability itself.

The simple understanding of Jewish tradition and law is seen in the commentary of the most famous biblical commentator from the 11th century in France – Rashi. He wrote regarding the status of a fetus:

“For as long as it did not come into the world, it is not called a living thing and it is permissible to take its life in order to save its mother. Once the head has come forth it may not be harmed for it is considered born, and one life may not be taken to same another.”

Similarly we can understand the status of a fetus vs. a full human being by the traditional laws of gayrut – or conversion to Judaism. According to Jewish law, if a pregnant woman converts to Judaism the child that is born subsequent to the conversion is considered fully Jewish and does not require his or her own conversion. That is a clear demonstration that within Jewish law the fetus is connected to and literally a part of the mother and not a separate being which in this case would then require a separate conversion as well.

I’m sure everyone has heard the famous Jewish line in response to the question, when does a Jewish child reach adulthood and full adult status? When she graduates from law school or medical school. Well, in this case all that is required is to come into the world and be born into an independent existence separate from the mother – in our tradition that is the real “Right to Life” – it’s the right to be called fully human only when the fetus emerges out of the womb and so becomes a child to be cherished, raised up and inspired to make a difference in the world.

“I don’t want to attain immortality through my work. I want to attain immortality by not dying.” –Woody Allen

“The sun is red at sunrise because it passes by the roses of the Garden of Eden, and at sunset because it passes by the Gate of Hell.” –Bava Batra 84a

“Rava said to Rav Nachman, ‘Show yourself to me in a dream after you die.’ He showed himself to Rava. Rava asked him, ‘Was death painful?’ Rav Nahman replied, ‘It was as painless as lifting a hair from a cup of milk’. But were the Holy One, blessed be He, to say to me, ‘You may return to that world where you were before,’ I would not wish to do it, the fear of death is too great.’” –Moed Katan 28a

“Anyone who wants to get a taste of death should put on shoes and sleep in them.” –Yoma 78b

Judaism regards death as an inevitable part of life. Just as we are born, so too we must die. The Talmud teaches, “Without asking you, you were formed, and without asking you, you were born, and without asking you, you live, and without asking you, you will die.” (Avot 4).

No one and nothing lives forever. Yet from time immemorial the human mind has sought to know the unknowable, to understand that which is beyond understanding. So pervasive was this endless search for the answer to what lies beyond the grave, that an injunction was laid down in the academies of learning, forbidding any speculation or study of “that which lies before or after.” By this was meant mystical speculation on the nature of the universe before creation, or descriptions of the untouchable world we enter only upon death.

Yet obviously speculation continued to abound among all peoples – Jews and non-Jews alike – so that over the centuries we have inherited a fascinating assortment of “traditional” Jewish opinions of the nature of life after death.

Tonight I will share with you some of those traditional ideas – that there is perhaps nothing at all, that we join with our ancestors in a shadowy world called Sheol, about resurrection of the body and soul, of Hell and Paradise, immortality, reincarnation and more. Then we can share with each other our own understanding, or perhaps hopes, of what lies ahead for us all.

I. Beyond Death, Perhaps Nothing, Who Knows?

In one of the most well-known contemporary rabbinic statements of comfort, Rabbi Joshua Loth Liebman wrote, “I often feel that death is not the enemy of life, but its friend, for it is the knowledge that our years are limited which makes them so precious.” It is the realization that life is limited, our time on earth is brief, our ability to control our ultimate destiny non-existent that gives urgency to the quality of our lives. It makes each moment precious, each act of will crucial, each opportunity to create something meaningful all-important.

Though the pursuit of immortality has been a dominant theme of world literature for thousands of years, it remains true that there is no absolute proof of life beyond the grave. Great Jewish thinkers have often rejected the very notion of an afterlife as mere “wish fulfillment.”

Sigmund Freud, who invented this notion of the afterlife as “mere illusion,” stated that the whole idea of immortality is a sign of despair and limitation, invented to compensate for the misery of our life on Earth.

In reality, he claimed, death is annihilation, a return to “inorganic lifelessness.” Religion, as “the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity,” includes the belief in an afterlife as a way to satisfy the human need for overcoming the existential problems of the day. Freud saw the idea of immortality as a way of retreating from the challenges of this world into a world of myth and fantasy.

Although there are a number of religious Jewish thinkers who categorically deny the possibility of life after death, more common is the position of those who express skepticism, yet are unwilling to deny the possibility altogether. Such thinkers are known as “agnostics,” from the Greek word meaning “unknown.”

Agnostics maintain that the human mind is incapable of knowing what lies beyond material phenomena and therefore refrain from accepting or rejecting its existence. An example of a great contemporary Orthodox Jewish thinker is British scholar Rabbi Louis Jacobs.

Jacobs wrote, “Religious agnosticism, in some aspects of this whole area, is not only legitimate but altogether desirable. As Maimonides says, we simply can have no idea of what pure, spiritual bliss in the hereafter is like. Agnosticism on the basic issue of whether there is a hereafter would seem narrowness of vision, believing what we do of God. But once the basic affirmation is made, it is almost as narrow to project our poor, early imaginings on the landscape of heaven.”

II. The Bible and Beyond

When we turn to the Bible to see what it might say about life after death, we find precious little at all. Though influenced strongly by the prevailing Babylonian notions about death, the Israelites gave their own shape and form to the discussion. Two basic ideas seem to dominate biblical thinking on life and death:

God is life-affirming and the source of all goodness. There are simply very few speculations in Hebrew scripture about life after death, and little preoccupation with the hereafter. The ultimate purpose is to sanctify life here on Earth.

Death does not represent a total annihilation of the individual, but a transition to a new kind of life where people meet their own ancestors, continuing to live a shadowy kind of existence. This is reflected in the biblical saying that when one dies, one goes to one’s “ancestors,” or is “gathered to his or her kin.”

There is a reality to the biblical notion of death, a directness that recognizes the physical process is undeniable. “Dust you are, and to dust you shall return,” Genesis 3:19. “We must all die; we are like water that is poured out on the ground and cannot be gathered up,” II Sam.14:14.

In the biblical mind, death is final. After death, one is not expected to return to this Earth. In the Book of Job we read, “If a man dies, can he live again?” The biblical answer is no.

Yet the ancient Israelites did not fully accept the notion of a total dissolution; rather they spoke of a place called Sheol, where the dead dwell. Sheol is referred to in the Bible as “the ditch,” “the pit,” “the realm of death,” or “the land of darkness.”

It is clearly a place to which one descends after death, where one meets up once again with relatives who have died before us. In Sheol, the dead live a shadowy existence. They are refayim, shades, who are without strength, freed from the sickness of the flesh, and God can hear their voices. Though dreary, Sheol is not seen as a place of punishment. Every living being, without regard to moral character, goes down to Sheol at the time of death. The concept of Hell developed much later.

We even have the story of King Saul, who desperately sought the advice of the already-dead Prophet Samuel by forcing the Witch of En-Dor to raise him up from the grave: “And the woman said to Saul, ‘I see a divine being coming up from the Earth.’ ‘What does he look like?’ he asked her. ‘It is and old man….And he is wrapped up in a robe.’ Then Saul knew that it was Samuel; and he bowed low in homage with his face to the ground.’ Samuel said to Saul, ‘Why have you disturbed me and brought me up?’”

III. Resurrection?

The first clear idea of resurrection appears in the writings of the Prophet Ezekial, in his vision of the Valley of the Dry Bones. But though the language was personal, the idea was symbolic and communal. Just as the dry bones once again took on life, so too Israel would be redeemed from Exile and revived to life anew after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E.

The Book of Daniel, on the other hand, written around the second century B.C. E., clearly states the belief that “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the Earth will awake, some to eternal life, others to reproaches, to everlasting abhorrence.”

You see, the ancient Israelites borrowed concepts of the afterlife from surrounding cultures, adapting and refining them. For them, death was not the end but rather a transition to that shadowy life of Sheol. Thus, the biblical view of what lies beyond the grave ranges from the netherworld of Sheol to a rudimentary belief in personal resurrection.

With the emergence of rabbinic Judaism, belief in the resurrection of the soul emerged as a kind of cardinal dogma during the Maccabean period, when so many good people were dying for their faith.

The rabbis began to teach that all souls have an immortal quality to them, and that after death there will be rewards and punishments according to how virtuous one has been in this life. By the Middle Ages, concepts of Hell and Paradise were taken for granted in rabbinic literature. It was only the theological details that varied.

It was generally accepted that the righteous would be rewarded and the wicked punished somehow, in the world to come – Olam Haba. The former would go to Paradise – Gan Eden – and the latter to Gehennom. Individual rabbis differed as to the details, however.

Some argued that the righteous and the wicked assumed their places immediately upon death; others maintained that the departed waited until the final resurrection and judgment; others that the soul would remain with the body for a brief period of time – three days, seven days, twelve months – and then ascend. Others declared that the soul returns to a heavenly treasury and waits there until the period of resurrection.

Who enters the Olam Haba? The basic Jewish view is “all Israelites have a share in the world to come,” with just a few exceptions. Some rabbis promised a place in the world to come to those who suffered, to make sense out of their poverty and suffering.

What about non- Jews? Those in inter-faith marriages will be pleased to note that the basic Jewish idea expressed in the Talmud is that “the righteous of all nations have a share in the world to come.”

Jewish Hell – the term Gehennom – came from the name of the valley outside Jerusalem that was the site of heathen cults whose rituals included the burning of children. It became associated with punishment and purgation. Yet in Judaism, even the wicked ultimately end up in Paradise. As Rabbi Akiba taught, “The judgment of the wicked in Gehenna shall endure only 12 months.”

IV. What is Paradise?

Paradise – Gan Eden – is the heavenly abode of the righteous after death. It has been pictured in a wide variety of ways, depending upon the personal inclinations of the rabbi. One sage maintained that three things – Shabbat, sunshine and sexual intercourse – are central to this world, as well as in the world to come, (Ber.57b).

Some teach that, in Paradise, we sit at golden tables, on stools of gold, participate in lavish banquets. But some held the opposite view. Rav, the third-century Babylonian scholar taught, “In the world to come, there is neither eating nor drinking, no procreation of children or business transactions, no envy or hatred or rivalry, but the righteous sit enthroned, their crowns on their heads, and enjoy the luster of the shehinah, (Ber.17a).

What about physical resurrection? Yes, that, too, was considered normative by all. The sages taught, “As a man goes, so he returns. If he died blind or deaf or lame, he lives again blind or deaf or lame.” Another opinion was. “The just in the time to come will rise up in Jerusalem dressed in their clothes.”

Modern Orthodox Jews still embrace the idea of bodily physical resurrection. As Rabbi Maurice Lamm has written, “The belief in a bodily resurrection appears, at first sight, to be incredible to the contemporary mind. But when approached from the God’s-eye view, why is re-birth more miraculous than birth? Surely resurrection is not beyond the capacity of an omnipotent God.”

V. Immortality of the Soul?

Throughout Jewish history, the idea of an immortal, eternal soul has been a central concept. The soul was seen as a guest in the body: “Just as God fills the world but is not seen, so the soul fills the body but is not seen,” (Ber. 10a).

Twelfth-century Moses Maimonides saw the soul as the essence of the human intellect and claimed that it was this rational soul that remains after physical death, returning to the ultimate source of creation: God.

So, too, the great commentator of the 13th century, Gershonides argued that the knowledge individuals acquired in life is indestructible, and the totality of these accumulated ideas represents our only possible immortality.

Baruch Spinoza, in the 17th century, claimed that the more knowledge we have the greater is our participation in eternity. And in the modern era, most non-Orthodox Jews, in rejecting the idea of physical resurrection, have embraced the idea of the soul, or essence of the human spirit, as that which lives on.

Mordecai Kaplan wrote, “The soul is nothing other than the human being as a person or self.”

VI. Reincarnation?

What about reincarnation? Is that a Jewish idea, too? Yes, we have that in Judaism as well, called gilgul nanefesh. Primarily in Jewish mystical literature, the writings of the Zohar and the Kabbalah, we are taught that souls have an independent life, existing before birth and after death.

The soul joins the body at its appointed time, and after staying for a while – according to the job it has to do – it leaves, either to assume its next assignment or to return to the source of its ultimate creation.

The Zohar states, “It is the path taken by man in this world that determines the path of the soul on her departure. If a man is drawn towards the Holy One, and if filled with longing towards him in this world, the soul in departing…is carried upward towards the higher realms by the impetus given her each day in this world.”

Thus it is our actions while we live on Earth which determine how rapidly our souls will rise up the many-runged ladder of the spiritual world to return to God. The pain that people feel in this world may in fact be the consequence of acts committed in a previous incarnation.

Kabbalists even claim that some people act like animals because they carry souls of beasts, barren women carry souls of men, and converts to Judaism carry Jewish souls.

From one incarnation to the next, the soul is cleansed, purified, serving as a vehicle for atonement for past sins, going through stages toward the sparks of holiness that radiate from the divine core of the universe.

VII. How else do we live on?

In the modern Jewish world, immortality takes in other meanings. The lives we lead, the people we touch, the children we bear or raise, the acts we perform which change the world, the words we say, the love we share and place into the world. There is one thing of which we all can be certain - each of us has the opportunity by how we live our lives to live on in what Rabbi Harold Schulweiss calls, “the immortality of influence.”

Jewish thinkers thus see modern immortality in three fundamental ways: as biology, as influence and as deeds.

Perhaps the poet Hugh Robert Orr put it best when he wrote:

They are not dead who live
In hearts they leave behind.
In those whom they have blessed
They live a life again,
And shall live through the years
Eternal life, and grow
Each day more beautiful
As time declares their good,
Forgets the rest, and proves
Their immortality.

Amen