We're Counting (On) You — Rabbi Lizzi Sermon

Today's episode is a Shabbat Replay of our service on May 16th in which Rabbi Lizzi drashed on the Counting of the Omer and the lead-up to Shavuot. Unfortunately, we had some technical problems at the service, but R' Lizzi was kind enough to re-record!

***

For upcoming Shabbat services and programs, check our event calendar, and see our Accessibility & Inclusion page for information about our venues. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook for more updates. To support Mishkan's important work of creating radically inclusive, down-to-earth, inspired Judaism, we invite you to join as a Builder or donate today.

https://www.mishkanchicago.org/support/be-a-builder/

https://www.mishkanchicago.org/support/makeyourgift/

Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

Transcript

Transcript

00:01:34:23 - 00:01:59:09
Unknown
Okay, so if you were reading the English in the book, as we were opening up the Torah, you would have seen the line take a census of the whole Israelite community by the clans, ancestral homes, the names, every male head by head. This is numbers chapter one two. But if you were reading the Hebrew, you would have read actually quite different words.

00:01:59:11 - 00:02:30:04
Unknown
And the Hebrew says ET Roche cola for ale, which literally translates to raise up the head of every one of the community of the children of Israel. And this is generally interpreted as demonstrating that this was no ordinary census collecting numbers, you know, for some functional purpose, like, say, constituting an army. No, this was an exercise in a highly individualized form of community organizing.

00:02:30:05 - 00:02:57:18
Unknown
This was Moses looking into the eyes of each person, knowing their name, knowing their story, giving them a sense of confidence that they matter in this community, one by painstaking one. This is the tradition telling us that no one is expendable, that everyone is made in God's image, unique, important, and that everyone counts. So at Roche, raise up their head so they will walk with their head held high.

00:02:57:20 - 00:03:19:21
Unknown
The way that we do when we feel really seen, this should not be a major surprise to anybody who's familiar with Torah and the Jewish tradition. This idea that the human being is infinitely unique and invaluable and radically equal in the eyes of God. This is a foundational idea. This idea is found in the earliest sentences of the Book of Genesis.

00:03:19:23 - 00:03:50:06
Unknown
We are made in God's very image, and God has no image. And every single one of us therefore reflects God's reality in this world. You know, with our quirky combinations of so many things neurosis, anxiety are weird, stress habits are, diet preferences are. Allergies are abilities. Our disabilities, our impulses, our compassion, our anger, our patients, our impatience. Not to mention, you know, the symmetry or asymmetry of our faces.

00:03:50:08 - 00:04:22:04
Unknown
You know, the color of our skin, the texture of our hair. All of this is a reflection of the divine, the mission. It teaches that there was originally only one human being created, so that no person could claim that their ancestry was more exalted or important than anybody else's. And also to demonstrate that while a king may stamp out coins and they all contain the king's face, God stamps out God's image on a coin, and each one of us comes out differently.

00:04:22:06 - 00:04:52:20
Unknown
Our uniqueness, in other words, demonstrates the infinite greatness of God. So this one really crucial idea, like bounces back to the fore, you know, in the first sentences of the Book of Numbers, and one has to wonder why the entire previous book of the Torah, Leviticus, was obsessed with holiness. You know how the ancient Israelites interacted with the priesthood and the temple and offered sacrifices and made pilgrimage?

00:04:52:22 - 00:05:16:20
Unknown
You know, in the service of being an academic, a holy people. And yet here the text returns us to the counting of individuals so that their uniqueness is lifted up. So in the room on the day that I offered the sermon, I said, why do you think that is? We talked about it a little, and then Ben offered the idea that I'm about to share here.

00:05:16:22 - 00:05:48:03
Unknown
This parsha always coincides with the week right around the holiday of Shavuot, and this is Judaism celebration of the giving of Torah. And that moment definition is a collective experience. And, you know, a story that I was remembering as I was thinking about this was being an impressionable 18 year old on a gap year in Israel. I'm talking about myself, and I spent many weekends with an ultra orthodox family.

00:05:48:05 - 00:06:15:04
Unknown
You know, I had volunteered to do this. I had volunteered to place myself in an environment where they were evangelizing to me, really getting me to be a true believer like them, you know? And it's funny because, you know, in Jews, for Jews in general, we pride ourselves in not being a people to evangelize, except if it's to our own people, you know, as if to say, I know, I know the truth, just follow my way, you know?

00:06:15:05 - 00:06:40:10
Unknown
Such hubris. So in any in any case, in one of these conversations about the veracity of Torah, the grandparents and this family, his name was Gershom. And, you know, he really was, like, out of central casting for an ultra orthodox Jew. White bearded at white hair, bearded black hat, you know, it's down to his knees. Had ten children, many grandchildren.

00:06:40:10 - 00:07:02:13
Unknown
Anyway, so Gershom says to me, look, what's the relationship between Jews as Jews understand it and the way that most religions understand it? And of course, obviously I knew this was a leading line of question. So I said, Gershom, why don't you tell me what the main difference is between the Jewish version of revelation and the way other religions understand revelation?

00:07:02:14 - 00:07:28:06
Unknown
And he said, the major difference is that our revelation was in front of 600,000 witnesses. The giving of the Torah was in front of 600,000 people, double, if you, you know, count all the women and even triple if you count all the children, every other religion, you know, they have a prophet that goes up. God speaks to them on a mountain or something, but nobody else is there to corroborate the experience.

00:07:28:07 - 00:07:57:17
Unknown
At Sinai, all of the Israelites heard and saw the revelation, and this is how we know that it's true. It's not like it was some mass hallucination. You have 600,000 witnesses instead of just one. I thought, it's not it's not a terrible argument. That's interesting. You know, and I remember even at 18 thinking, wait a second. I mean, do we believe that Sinai historically actually happened and happened in the way that the Torah is describing?

00:07:57:17 - 00:08:30:05
Unknown
And if I'm not sure that I believe that, then does that undermine the validity and the meaning of all of the wonderful things that come out of the practice of Judaism? Big thoughts for a budding religious studies major at age 18. But it turns out there's a lot in the Torah that is given meaning whether or not it happened, you know, not by whether or not it happened, but by the meaning that thousands and thousands of years of very wise spiritual ancestors have lovingly extracted from those words.

00:08:30:07 - 00:08:54:10
Unknown
You know, whether or not there were really 600,000 witnesses or we just imagine 600,000 souls, or maybe a million and a half or maybe many more standing at Sinai together, experiencing revelation that that that is where the meaning is, you know, not in whether or not it happened exactly as it said. And we've got witnesses to prove it.

00:08:54:10 - 00:09:36:13
Unknown
But here's an example of meaning that's made of that idea in a, in a very kind of cool and specific way. So toward the end of the list of names and numbers, we are told that 603,550 Israelite men were counted in the census, and the Hasidic master of Levi Yitzchak Berdychiv, likens this number to the number of letters in the Torah, and he says, just as the absence of one letter in the Torah renders a scroll unfit for use, the loss of one person in our community prevents us from fulfilling our divine mission, which is to say that each one of us is a letter in the scroll.

00:09:36:13 - 00:09:56:13
Unknown
And if you are here in this room, if you are listening to these words, you are a descendant of a soul who stood at Sinai, and your eventual presence in relation to this book and the Jewish people is part of our story. And you are a letter in the scroll to. And it has nothing to do with the historical veracity of Sinai.

00:09:56:13 - 00:10:20:15
Unknown
It has to do with how we interpret and read all the numbers in this week's Torah portion, which is, you know, appropriately called numbers. The symbolism of it, the poetry, the collective meaning making we do together generations after generation, you know, as if sitting around a fire riffing off one another's ideas, saying, yes. And this, this is what Torah is, and this is what gives it meaning.

00:10:20:15 - 00:10:39:22
Unknown
And this is what makes each one of us such an essential part of it. I love this teaching that each one of us is a letter in the scroll, because it's a reminder that whatever letter is yours, we need you to be your letter and not someone else's letter, right? And they actually need you to be you, not them.

00:10:40:00 - 00:11:04:17
Unknown
Because if all the letters in the Torah were all laymen, we're all we're all the Torah would not be kosher. The Torah would be invalid. Each one of us, each one of us is a letter in the scroll. And we need to be exactly who we are in order to fulfill our divine mission as a people. Right? So the part of us that takes a kind of self-righteous pleasure in thinking that, you know, we've got it all figured out.

00:11:04:17 - 00:11:31:09
Unknown
And the people who do it differently clearly have it misunderstood. Maybe you do have it figured out for you, and maybe they have it figured out for them. And everyone is their own piece of the puzzle. Their letter in the scroll. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has a beautiful book that's actually called A letter in the scroll. I would recommend this to anybody who's trying to understand what their relationship to Judaism you know, is or could be.

00:11:31:11 - 00:11:59:21
Unknown
He compares this relationship we build with the tradition to going to a library. You know, you're going to the library, you're looking for something to read, and there's so much good stuff out there. Greek mythology, beginners, German auto mechanics for dummies, Tolkien, The Da Vinci Code, the New York Times bestseller list, you name it, you're looking and looking on the shelves, and then all of a sudden this book catches your eye and you stop dead in your tracks, and a chill runs down your spine, and you don't even know if you should reach out to touch it.

00:11:59:23 - 00:12:23:11
Unknown
But you can't. Not because the book has your family's name written on the binding, and you pull it off the shelf and you see that it's written in many languages, and you come to understand that this is the story of all of the generations and people and places that have led to the very last name written on the last page, which is yours.

00:12:23:13 - 00:12:54:23
Unknown
And now you're holding it. It's in your hands. What is all this history, this mythology, this survival mean now to you? This is a question nobody else can answer. And I could I could understand the compulsion to slam the book shut and shove it back on the shelf and pick up Greek mythology or Buddhist meditation or anything else, because the sense of the weight of the inheritance is so intimidating.

00:12:55:01 - 00:13:20:12
Unknown
However, you are your own letter in the scroll. You don't have to live up to anybody's version of this other than what you feel called to. And if you're here in this room, if you're listening to these words you were at Sinai to. And perhaps that's why the Midrash says that when the Israelites all stood at Sinai, you know, it came down to them in different ways that download from the divine.

00:13:20:16 - 00:13:41:04
Unknown
You know, they they heard different voices. They saw from different angles depending on their vantage point. You know, whose shoulders you stood on, what language you spoke, what brought you to that moment, who brought you to that moment? Israelites heard it differently depending on whether it was passed on by their parents or something they adopted later in life.

00:13:41:06 - 00:14:14:00
Unknown
You know, maybe if they joined because they fell in love with somebody. The Midrash says the voice of God went out in 70 languages, which is their way of saying every language in the world. Babies heard God's voice in the sounds of their parents. Young people heard the voice in the voice of their lovers. Each person, regardless of their background or age or ability, received the revelation according to their capacity, and each represented a letter in the scroll, necessary and important, without whom we would be impoverished.

00:14:14:02 - 00:14:35:02
Unknown
On the day I delivered this sermon, we had done two baby names, and when we name babies, we do it communally. We celebrate, you know, even though we know the world is a threatening place. But we bless these babies that they develop a relationship with Torah, their own path of Jewish learning, as well as we bless them with love and a life of good deeds.

00:14:35:02 - 00:15:00:01
Unknown
And we cherish and we celebrate them, that they will have their own relationship with this tradition and people, and they will make their own unique mark in the world. As an individual. That's maybe the most important blessing that each one of us could live into. There's something really important about this as well, which is we don't encourage narcissism.

00:15:00:03 - 00:15:37:15
Unknown
Having your own path, you know, being your own letter in the scroll is not an excuse for self-satisfied, self-absorbed, navel gazing. Right to the contrary, we are not put here to ask, what can I get from this tradition, but rather what can I give? And as much of the giving, as much as the giving of Torah to us was this collective experience, we are never allowed to have our individuality be subsumed or obliterated, because we feel that we have to fit into the group, right?

00:15:37:17 - 00:16:02:13
Unknown
That's kind of one of the challenges of having norms and ways that Judaism is lived out in different communities is that those communities could try to coerce you to be less like yourself and more like them, and that's one of the dangers. I also think that's one of the reasons why, as we go into receiving Torah this holiday of Shavuot, we are reminded in the Book of Numbers.

00:16:02:14 - 00:16:31:07
Unknown
So at Rosh Saul, lift up the head of each and every individual, lest we forget who we are, what animates us as individuals in the context of this larger community, this larger people that matter so much to us. All of this is encapsulated in those opening words of our parsha. It's also encapsulated in the 49 days of the Omer that we've just been counting up until today.

00:16:31:09 - 00:16:35:08
Unknown
So.

00:16:35:10 - 00:17:10:08
Unknown
If you don't know what I'm talking about, that's okay. But I do want to invite you next year to think about doing an Omer practice that lets you go through each one of the seven weeks of the time between Passover and Shabu. Ode to focus on different aspects of the divine kindness and justice and rigidity and discipline and harmony and eternity and humility and groundedness, all of these combinations of things that the divine holds, and that so do we, in different combinations, each one of us.

00:17:10:08 - 00:17:31:19
Unknown
This is kind of what the Omer helps us count and focus on. It's just another way of, you know, getting into this notion that we're a letter in the scroll with our unique mission, and to take it and turn it into something that lives and breathes with inspiration and connection and moral courage, this could be something you do next year.

00:17:31:20 - 00:18:05:23
Unknown
It could be something you decide to, you know, pick up and start now. If not counting the Omer, understanding yourself through the different qualities and characteristics of what makes for a morally inspired person in the Jewish tradition. So here, as we sit at the cusp of revelation, I really want to invite you to try and see and appreciate the way in which you know, the people around us, especially the ones who don't agree with us.

00:18:06:00 - 00:18:29:01
Unknown
Also, letters in the school, teachers for us, helping us become the revelation of the divine that we know we are harnessing the qualities that we know must grow in us with practice so that we can lift up our heads with dignity and courage and kindness in the way that only someone who understands their value and purpose can. So that we can help inspire others to do the same.

00:18:29:03 - 00:18:55:18
Unknown
With all of the way our world threatens and denigrates the dignity, the dignity of human beings, and encourages us to do the same. This notion at Rosh lift up the head, your own head and the head of others. It feels like a really important piece of the work of revelation right now. May we have the ability to stand up and be counted, and do the work of counting others in their fullness and in ours.

00:18:55:19 - 00:18:56:18
Unknown
Shabbat shalom.