HOLY GROUND

HOLY GROUND         

Here’s my sermon given at Temple Beth El of Northern Valley (Closter, NJ) on Rosh Hashanah Morning, 5771/2010

OK.

So you get a job taking care of someone’s sheep.

Every week you take them out in the hills; let them eat; chase away wild predators.

Week after week.  Sometimes you come home at night to sleep. Sometimes you stay out in the hills. 

You eventually marry the boss’ daughter.  Life is quiet and predictable.  Which is a big improvement, because there’s actually a warrant out for your arrest back in your hometown. 

One day you’re just minding your own business and the sheep, when something catches the corner of your eye.  Maybe it’s just a reflection, but it’s just too weird. You turn to take a closer look.  Now it’s got some color – orange, yellow, red.  Doesn’t look quite right out here in the hills.  You move a little closer and something strange is happening to the bush in front of you.  It’s burning, but it’s not burning up.

And then comes the voice.  It tells you to take off your shoes because you are on holy ground.

Holy ground?  You’ve been walking these paths for years and the ground looks just like it always did.  Same dust. Same small rocks.  Same ants.  But you listen and you take off your beat-up sandals ‘cause you realize something has changed.  You can’t see it, but you can feel it.  When your bare feet touch the ground the voice continues. It tells you to go back to your hometown, confront a cruel leader, and make him give up his oppression of the Israelites, your people. 

This Rosh Hashanah morning, I would like us to think through the notion of Holy Ground together.   I would like to propose that in the midst of the discussion about what should or should not be built within a few blocks of Ground Zero, Judaism has something to say to us about what constitutes a holy place, about our own capacity for holiness, and about the way to promote holiness and tikkun olam as we enter a new year.

Can holiness reside in a place or an object?  When Moses stood next to the burning bush, the physical earth was like any other earth.  Holiness resided in the encounter with God.  When God breaks through from the realm of the supernatural into the realm of the natural, our physical world is momentarily transformed.  But did that spot in the desert remain holy once God had departed and Moses headed off to Egypt? As far as we know, Moses did not place a marker of some kind on the spot – expecting that if he came that way again, he would be able to find God there. What he learned was that God could speak to him anywhere – even in a lowly thornbush - if he was ready to listen.

We Jews have very few places we label as holy.  Tradition says there are four holy cities in Israel: Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias and Hebron.  One was the site of the Temple – a place of prayer;  the great mystical rabbis taught in another, famous scholars are buried in the third, and the last is the burial place of the patriarchs.  Unlike certain religions that require pilgrimages to holy places, Judaism respects these holy places but there is no commandment to live in them or even to visit them.

And yet – we human beings know that an intense experience in a place can leave an imprint in the mind, influencing thoughts and emotions. Visiting that place can bring back the event in a way that photos or memories cannot.  There are couples who return on their anniversary to the place where the marriage proposal took place and feel their romance bloom again.  Or adults who like to go back and visit their childhood home and are filled with nostalgia.  Some Holocaust survivors return to stand in the places of suffering and loss  - taking their children with them to pass on the sense of place.

Our human imagination and empathy allow us to feel the holiness that someone else experienced in a place, even long after the event. That is part of the mystery of visiting places where great events happened. Just two years ago, standing on the small hill of rubble at the site where the last fighters of the Warsaw ghetto made their stand at #18 Mila Street in Warsaw, I could feel the echoes of courage and sacrifice. Here in the United States, the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in D.C. return me to the passion of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream Speech” – though I was not there in person that day in 1963.  And anyone standing on the deck of the floating white memorial to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii cannot help but sense the extraordinary events of that tragic day. 

  

When we stand physically in a place that was the site of a blessing or a tragedy or a life-changing event: Our rational side says – it’s just earth like any other.   It is our imagination and our empathy that make it glow again with the energy of that event.

But the holiness is not in the place.  It is in the deeds that occurred there.  And it is  within ourselves - as we choose how to respond to those awe-filled memories.  Holy Ground is not about the ground itself, but about what that memory evokes.

And so we ask the second question: Is there a way to be holy without standing at a Burning Bush?  Do all of us have access to the sacred?  The answer is yes.  There is another dimension to holiness.  Human actions, relationships, and experiences can also be holy.  Like Moses, you have probably had sacred moments in your life – whether you used the word holy “kadosh” or not.

Maybe it was the moment a baby was born in your family; or when you handed the Torah to your child as he became a Bar Mitzvah; or when you were blessed at the Ark on your Bat Mitzvah day.  Perhaps it was under the chuppah on your wedding day  - a Jewish marriage ceremony is actually called kiddushin – because each partner says to the other: you are now kadosh to me – no longer ordinary, but unique.

Or perhaps you experienced the holy when you walked away from a potentially fatal car accident; or you were so moved by nature, or music or art that you felt transported outside of yourself.

Think of it this way – in our ordinary lives we move along the surface of experience. We go to work, school; we have conversations with friends and family; we play some ball, eat some pizza, watch a movie, take out the trash.  Sit in the sanctuary. And then something shifts.  The experience turns deeper in some way – and we feel connected to the world, to our feelings, to our values, or to others more intensely.

Those deep inner connections are a glimpse into the realm of the holy:  God’s realm. Holiness is when the curtain separating us from God is pulled back for a moment, and a reality beyond our normal vision is momentarily revealed.

In the Torah, we are called to be a holy people.  This is not how we dress or eat, but how we act toward others.  When a deed of lovingkindess or caring or honesty or justice enters this world, it also adds to the reservoir of the sacred. We do not need to travel to some physical location to access this kind of holiness – it is a potential inside of us at all times.  Holy ground is not where we are, it is when we are – when we are being our best selves.

Holy ground is a tennis court off to the side of the main courts in Dubai back in February when Venus Williams played a match against Shahar Peer of Israel.  Shahar was there because Venus had refused to attend the tournament if Dubai banned the Israeli, as it had done the year before.  Venus’ stand for justice made that court holy ground.

Holy Ground is a bench in the outdoor sanctuary at Eisner Camp this summer when a homesick ten year old was comforted by a friend who put her arm around her and told her it would be O.K.

Holy ground is the living room of a home in Northern Valley when a husband admitted to his wife that he was a drug addict and agreed to go into rehab.

Holy ground is sitting by the bed of an ill parent in the hospital, dabbing at his lips with a little water-filled sponge while you wait for him to come back to full consciousness.

Holy ground is a golf course when14 year old Zach Nash disqualified himself and surrendered his medal after winning a junior Wisconsin PGA tournament. He discovered he had one too many golf clubs in his bag a couple hours after the tournament. His comment: "I knew right away I couldn't live with myself if I kept this medal.”

Holy ground is when an Israeli stands in front of a bulldozer sent to demolish a Bedouin’s home because the government won’t extend a building permit. And holy ground is when a young Israeli soldier stands at a checkpoint keeping his country safe.

Holy ground is the stone pavement near the Wailing Wall when Women of the Wall read from the Torah and assert their religious rights.

Holy ground is a temple educator’s office when the phone rings with teachers calling in to offer to give up their jobs if the staff is downsized so that the needier teachers among them can keep their positions.

Holy ground is a makeshift hospital in Haiti or Africa or a clinic in the Bronx or Newark or Paterson, when a doctor is giving free medical care to those in need.

Holy ground is a nursing home when a twelve year old becomes a friendly visitor to a lonely resident; or a field when he plays ball with a child with special needs.

Each of us stands on holy ground when our words and actions bring the holy into this world. 

And so my final question – How can we promote holiness and further the work of Tikun Olam: perfecting this world that God placed in our care? 

The holiness of Ground Zero was conferred by the tears shed, the sympathy expressed, the unity experienced by the rest of the nation – most of whom never stood at Ground Zero. Its holiness lives inside survivors who faced death and rebuilt lives that were forever changed. Its holiness is in the courage of rescuers and responders and ordinary folk helping their co-workers or even strangers.

The ground at Ground Zero cries out to us to reject the senseless hatred and radical religious fanaticism that caused the tragedy in the first place.  And we do that best by removing hatred and fanaticism from our own lives.  Ground Zero calls for neighbors to reach out a helping hand to neighbors, as they did on 9-11, without regard for race, religion, age or gender.  The barriers between us melted away for a brief moment on that day – the enemy did what he never imagined: he made all Americans one.  And we must not lose that one-ness, that unity, that great American ideal in which our differences and our diversity become our greatest strength.

The only way to spread religious understanding and brotherhood and religious freedom is to live it here at home.  The fanatics like Al Qaeda hate us because they are afraid of the freedoms we enjoy.  We must therefore protect those freedoms with more zeal than ever.  We are naïve if we think the current controversy is limited to keeping one mosque away from the neighborhood of Ground Zero. It is part of a greater reaction against the presence of American Muslims in our cities and towns. The story of Ground Zero ought to be about what our country stands for – the values that radical fundamentalists rejected: democracy, and tolerance, and diversity.

And that is why we need an Islamic cultural center just a few blocks from Ground Zero.  Because The Muslim community behind 451 Park Place is exactly the kind of Muslim community that is needed in America.  The center will be a kind of Muslim JCC – a gathering place for individuals and families that see no conflict between their religion and their identity as Americans.  Its founders are not newcomers to the neighborhood.  They live out the values of respect, human dignity, interfaith cooperation, lovingkindness in all that they do. And for that, they are as hated by Al Qaeda as we are. 

The great Rabbi Hillel taught – in a place where there is no humanity, act with humanity. We must judge each person, each religious community, by its own values and behaviors.  We Jews know what it was like to be looked down on by others, to have our religion denigrated and despised and called evil.  To have our presence in America blocked, our synagogues opposed.  We therefore have an obligation to see that no one else is treated this way.

Today, on this Rosh Hashanah morning, we read in the Untaneh Tokef prayer how God musters and numbers and counts each of us.  I want to be counted – and I want all of our Jewish people to be counted – among those who stand up and say:  I am offended and outraged when untruths are spoken about any religion, culture, or ethnic group. 

Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust writer and scholar, once wrote:  “A Jew must be sensitive to the pain of all human beings. A Jew cannot remain indifferent to human suffering, whether in other countries or in our own cities and towns. The mission of the Jewish people has never been to make the world more Jewish, but to make it more human.”

Today is the birthday of the world.  The first human beings that God created were not Jews, or Christians, or Buddhists, or Muslims or anything else. According to the midrash, God took a little clay of every color, from every part of the earth, and from that formed the first man.  And God made only one man and woman from whom all others are descended, so that from the beginning no one would be able to say to another – my blood is redder than yours.

So, how shall we celebrate this Rosh Hashanah? How can we make it a truly holy day and the year ahead a holy year?

One way is to recognize that wherever we stand is holy ground when we stand up for what is right.  When we hear someone accusing all Moslems of being violent or hateful, we must speak up, as Jews.  We must be on the side of tolerance and respect. We can also make our position known in person. This Sunday there will be a Religious Freedom interfaith gathering at St. Peter’s Church, a block from Ground Zero from 3-4 pm, followed by a walk to 451 Park Place. 

Another way to make this year sacred is to meet our Muslim neighbors.  In the 50’s and 60’s we Jews reached out to the Christians among whom we lived.  We created interfaith Thanksgivings, and dialogue groups, and had our Christian neighbors over for Chanukah or Passover. We believed, correctly for the most part, that if they knew us personally they would give up their negative stereotypes.  The tables are turned: it’s we who – if we are honest – harbor negative stereotypes of Muslims. Two weeks ago in the middle of Ramadan, Peter and I attended a break-fast at the home of a Turkish family in Cliffside Park.  There was no agenda except to break down the barriers between those of different religions by sharing a meal. We will be returning the favor by inviting them to our Sukkah at the end of this month. It’s time for us all to reach out to the Muslims in our own neighborhoods. I invite those of you who would like to create some event here at the temple to bring Jews and Muslims together to be in touch after the holidays.

Moses put his sandals back on his feet and set out for the Pharoah’s palace.  In the years ahead, he would hear God’s voice in many places – in Egypt, at the Sea of Reeds, on Mount Sinai, and one last time as he stood looking over the Jordan River at the promised land.  But I imagine he never forgot that first encounter, when a voice called out from a burning bush.  My wish for each of you, and for myself, is that we we heed that burning call from God in the New Year – and respond with deeds of lovingkindness, justice, and compassion.  Then, wherever we walk, it will be holy ground.

Amen.