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By Rabbi Carl M. Perkins

“What Do We Wish For?”
Yom Kippur 2008
October 10, 2008

Is God a Democrat or a Republican? That is the title of the cover story of the most recent issue of the World Jewish Digest. Needless to say, the editor of the journal invited two authors to respond to the question. Guess what? Each came up with a different answer to the question. Incidentally, both respondents wrote that, of course, the question couldn’t be answered literally– but then they both proceeded to argue their respective positions aggressively.

Am I going to answer this question this morning? Two Sundays ago, a group of 33 ministers defied a 54-year ban prohibiting partisan political endorsements from the pulpit. They invited other religious leaders to join them. My response is, “Thanks, but no thanks.” There’s nothing to be gained by entering into that fray.

But raising the question reminds us that, as much as the High Holidays encourage us to focus on ourselves as individuals, they also implore us to look beyond ourselves at the society in which we live and at the world as a whole. We Jews have never believed that we should pursue spiritual lives by removing ourselves from the world. A fully spiritualized Jewish existence is one in which we are deeply engaged in the world, trying to refine and perfect it. And, of course, politics is one of the means by which we can achieve those ends.

But what do we mean by a better world? How is it different from the world as we know it? And how should we go about trying to get from here to there?

I would like to examine with you three small passages from the high holiday liturgy that seek to describe the world not as it is, but as we would like it to be. These three paragraphs are always found together in each and every Amidah that we recite on the high holidays. They each begin with the Hebrew word, “U’v’chen,” meaning, “And so,” or “And then.” We will next encounter them chanted out loud on pages 546/547 so I encourage you to take a look at them there as I review them.

U’v’chen Ten Pachd’chah
What is it that prevents the world from being a harmonious place? What is the fundamental source of conflict in the world? Is it the scarcity of natural resources? Or is it the fact that people in some parts of the world are just different from people in other parts?

Neither. The classical Jewish view is that people are by nature parochial. People tend to believe that God is on their side—not on the side of the people on the other side of the border. The assertion of the first of these u’v’chen paragraphs is that the world would be a better place if it were, to quote Thomas Friedman, truly flat. Not economically or politically flat, but, as it were, ethically flat.

Note the multiple occurrences in this paragraph of the Hebrew word kol, meaning “all” or “everything” or “everyone.” (“Let ALL Your creatures sense Your awesome power, let ALL … stand in fear and trembling. Let ALL [hu]mankind pledge … their allegiance.”) We don’t think of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur as universal holidays; after all, only Jews take off for these holidays! And yet, the first of these u’v’chen paragraphs draws our attention far beyond the self, the family, the community, even the nation—all the way to the outer reaches of humanity. Here, we pray that all of us, the entire human race, will one day become agudah achat—loosely translated in our mahzor as “united”. Elsewhere it’s translated “one fellowship.” (The High Holyday Prayer Book, edited by Ben Zion Bokser). I prefer the translation I found in the Soloveitchik Mahzor: we will one day become “a single society.”

This brings to mind that famous mishnah (Sanhedrin 4:5): Why did humanity begin with a single human being? For the sake of peace among human beings, so no person would ever say to anyone else, ‘My father is greater than your father!” In a sense the vision of this paragraph returns us to the early days of humankind.

What would it look like if all humanity became a true agudah achat, a single society? Human beings would recognize that we’re all in this together. National aspirations would be recognized as secondary to global ones. In such a world, global problems—such as climate change, the scarcity of resources, or the current financial crisis—would be addressed globally.

What is the source of this unity? The Fear of God.

Several years ago, a young girl in our congregation interviewed me as part of a school project. After several basic questions she asked me, “What are you afraid of?” Hmm. I told her I’d have to get back to her about that. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik once wrote that people are beset by all types of fear. Some are afraid that they will fail in their careers, others fear losing their wealth; still others are afraid of sickness. [We are] plagued constantly [, he wrote,] by all these lesser fears. Here [in this first u’v’chen paragraph] we pray that the fear of God will supplant all these other fears.” (Yom Kippur Mahzor, p. 359)

When we speak about the entire world unified by the fear of God, it sounds like we are trying to bring back the narrow, primitive thinking and religious coercion that we associate with the Middle Ages! But it isn’t that at all. After all, the text calls for people to come together b’leivav shalem—whole-heartedly—that is, voluntarily. But what then does it mean to acquire fear or awe of God?

When I was a boy scout, I had to memorize what’s called the Scout Law. It lists the qualities of a scout: A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and—and the last of those qualities is, “reverent.”

When we talk about fear of God, we’re really talking about reverence. But what does it mean to be reverent?

A reverent person is moral. Someone who recognizes that values, rather than interests, should determine his or her actions. Not, “what I want,” but “what I should do.”

Now, we tend to distrust that kind of thinking and talking in our society, especially when it is grounded in religious faith. Rightfully so, because then it’s often coupled with sanctimoniousness or intolerance. But when reverence is coupled with humility, with a pluralistic religious outlook and an embracing of all humanity, it can infuse our world with morality and goodness.

Elie Wiesel (who, by the way, is celebrating is 80th birthday this year) tells the story of the day Humanity came before God on God’s heavenly throne and said to Him, “Which do you think is harder, to be a human being or to be God?” “Being God is much harder,” God answered. “I have a whole universe to worry about, planets and galaxies. All you have to worry about is your family and your job.” “True enough,” said the human. “But you have infinite time and infinite power. The hard part is not doing the job but doing it within the limits of human strength and the human life span.” God answered, “You don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s much harder to be God.” Man replied, “I don’t know how You can say that so confidently when You’ve never been human and I’ve never been God. What do You say we change places for just one second, so You can know the feeling of being a human being and I can know what it feels like to be God. Just for one second, that’s all, and then we’ll change back.” God didn’t want to, but the human kept begging and pleading, and finally God relented. They changed places. The human being became God and God became human.

And the story goes on to say that, once the human being sat on the divine throne, he refused to give God back His place, and ever since then humankind has ruled the world and God has been in exile. (Harold Kushner, Who Needs God, pp. 63-64)

Whether or not that fable accurately describes the place of God in the world in which we live, our world is scarred by huge cultural, social, political and religious fault lines that tear us apart; it is a world that is far from reverent and far from united. Clearly, we’re not there yet.

U’v’chen Ten Kavod
The second paragraph, “U’v’chen ten kavod,”—“Grant honor to Your people” focuses on the Jewish people. We’re back in the realm of the parochial. The reason is that we still live in the real world, where we Jews suffer indignity, persecution, calumny. Just the other day, I read that Hamas spokespeople are blaming the so-called “Jewish lobby in the United States” for the financial meltdown. The President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, hardly misses an opportunity to malign Israel. His name came up at the recent vice presidential debate, in which both candidates spoke about their steadfast support for Israel. As they did so, I was somewhat uncomfortable, because deep down inside I felt acutely how dependent we, the Jewish People and the state of Israel, are on this kind of unqualified support.

We hope for a world in which Jews can hold their heads up high and be proud, a world in which the nations of the world respect us and the state of Israel—but we’re not there yet.

U’v’chen tsadikkim yir’u v’yis’machu
That brings us to the third paragraph. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the world were a safe, respectful place for good people? Wouldn’t it be nice if the world were a place where right triumphed over might, a place where the good guys always win? With all this stress on internationalism and nationalism, we might wonder, “What is the place of the individual in this ‘new world order’ that we’re supposed to be praying for?” And the answer is that, whatever we seek must not be at the expense of the individual. To the contrary: in an ideal world, individuals would be free. “May the righteous—the tsaddikim—be glad, the upright—ha-yisharim—rejoice and the pious ones—the Hasidim—celebrate.”

That’s not the world we live in. I’m reminded of a wise saying by Mordecai Kaplan, who once said, “Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you’re honest is like expecting the bull not to charge you in the arena since you’re a vegetarian.”

Sixty years ago, just three years after World War II came to an end, forty eight nations came together to affirm that all human beings, wherever they lived, were entitled to basic political, social and economic rights. In Paris, France, these nations, including the United States, ratified the International Declaration of Human Rights. What an extraordinary event so soon after the war’s massive devastation and human rights abuses.

Does the existence of that document mean that the dream of this u’v’chen paragraph has been fulfilled? Hardly.

In much of the world, political freedoms are few. Many of us spent a fair amount of time watching the summer Olympics broadcast from China, the largest totalitarian society that has ever existed on the face of the planet. Widespread repression continues in Darfur, the western province of Sudan. Righteous people in these two societies and in many others around the world are hardly “happy.”

Many under the control of our own nation aren’t treated in accordance with the standards of the International Declaration of Human Rights, either. Article Five of the Declaration unequivocally prohibits torture, and yet we know that our own government has been engaging in torture for some time now. Legally authorized torture. (By the way, a new season of the hit television show 24 is due to begin on November 23rd. If you’ve forgotten what kinds of interrogation techniques qualify as torture or if you’ve forgotten the questionable morality of torture, the upcoming episodes are sure to remind us.)

Also, according to Article 25 of the Declaration, “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care”—yet—as I’m sure we all know—we don’t have universal health care in this country and huge numbers of people are uninsured.

One thing is clear. Notwithstanding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we’re not there yet.

Conclusion
Those are the three passages. They focus on the world, the nation, and the individual, all three of which have their place in the ideal world. Why do these passages all begin with the word, “u’v’chen?”

Last week I read an interpretation that is beautiful and inspiring. The word u’v’chen occurs only twice in the Bible; one of those times is in the book of Esther, in chapter four. Esther has just been told that disaster is about to happen. Mordecai pleads with her to get involved. Finally, she agrees to take action. She tells her servants that they are to fast and pray—just as we’re doing today—and then, and only then—which in Hebrew is expressed by the word “u’v’chen,” at the risk of her own life she will intercede with the king.

That interpretation reminds us that we can do more than fasting and praying. We might think that we can remain in the palace and do nothing. Maybe we can. But Esther sets an example for us: We can and should take action. We can and should get involved. We can and we should intervene to bring us closer to that ideal world.

The first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel, Abraham Isaac Kook, was a prolific writer and mystical thinker. Though strictly traditional, he managed to build bridges across the religious spectrum.

In one of his works, Orot HaKodesh, the Lights of Holiness, he describes different kinds of people. There is, he writes, a person who sings the song of his own life. His is a one-note song. Pleasant enough, but limited.

Then there’s the one who sings the song of his people. He feels grieved in her afflictions and he delights in her hopes. His song has a natural harmony to it, and he sings it with feeling.

Then there’s the one who reaches toward more distant realms and goes beyond the boundary of his people to sing the song of humanity, which has a richness and a complexity far surpassing the other two.

Then there’s the one who links himself with all existence, with all God’s creatures, with the entire universe.

Finally, there is the one who sings his song together with his people’s song, the song of humanity and the song of the universe. In him, the song of the self, the song of his people, the song of humanity and the song of the universe all merge at all times, at every hour. This, he says, is the song of God—who, I can assure you, is neither a Democrat nor a Republican—in all its strength and beauty and greatness.

May all three of our prayers—u’v’chen ten pachd’chah, u’v’chen ten kavod, u’v’chen tsadikkim yir’u v’yismachu—be answered soon, speedily, and in our days.

Amen.