Cantor Lee: Here is Rabbi David's Yom Kippur sermon which I just loved hearing! Thank you Rabbi David!
Rabbi David: The story of creation is an amazing description of the process of creation when G-D created the universe with its billions of stars.
The Biblical narrative doesn’t specify, however, where and how the material to create the stars and the planets originated from. Interestingly, we do know that Light was created before anything else. Since during that first act of creation there was no sun or fire or any physical source of illumination.
Light it turns out was a powerful spiritual instrument used by G-D to create the universe.
In the process of creating, G-D used this special powerful Light to create physical matter such as rocks and minerals, gases swelling around and other physical matters needed to create the trillions of stars and planets in the universe.
When it came to the creation of our planet, Earth, G-D used much more than just physical building blocks. He needed to use his Divine Light in a different matter. Here, a special sacred and distinctive Light was used in order to create life on our planet, making Earth a living planet.
As we know, creating life was an evolutionary process. G-D was careful as he was creating life here. When basic unicellular creatures started moving and multiplying, G-D saw that “it was good,” and continued to create more advanced creatures. And G-D was satisfied.
However he realized that while Earth is beautiful with its vegetation and swirling life, it is also very delicate and vulnerable.
He then decided to create the crown jewel of all creation to take care of Earth. In many ways this creature will resemble himself, “in his image”.
Rabbinical literature hints to G-D’s hesitation with this. So much so that he consulted the angels with the idea.
In the process of creating Adam, G-D used his Divine Light light to physically “fashion” (“Yatzar” in Hebrew) a human shape from Earth’s material. That was done in order to harmonize the new creature he was about to create with our planet Earth.
G-D then used his Divine Light in the most powerful and sacred way to pump life into Adam making him highly intelligent, significantly more than all of the other Earthly creatures, capable of inventing, analyzing and creating. Capable to take care of Planet Earth. This is the soul which dwells in human beings.
We as humans all have that Light of G-D, the life force which dwells within us. It’s in our soul. This Light is the manifestation of divinity in all of us.
Our special Divine Light is G-D’s image in us. This is what brings out in us our positive moralistic human traits.
This task of taking care of Earth could only be done, however, if mankind would work together in peace and harmony, caring for each other first. We were given the capacity for Love and compassion for that reason.
According to Kabbalah, when a person forsakes his humanity, dignity and morality, his soul, his Divine Light is hidden. He becomes a creature in a physical form only with no Divine Light.
When people succumb to evil they are just that, human shapes, bodies walking around. In the biblical narrative there are stories of people losing their special Light, their divine image.
In the story of the flood for example, the whole generation loses their humanity, their Divine Light because of their cruelty. They were bodies walking around without souls.
Having no other choice, G-D brought the flood and destroyed an entire generation and started all over again using Noah as a better human “prototype.”
As ancient history kept unfolding, some humans still lost their Divine Light. In some places cruelty and inhumanity continued. The Bible reflects on this again in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah during Abraham’s time.
At that point, G-D realized that with all their sophistication and intelligence, humans suffer from bad inclinations and are still capable of much cruelty. G-D decided to create yet another special Light to be given to a group of people. As a group they would shine this special Light upon all the nations which would then activate the Divine Light which dwells in each human being.
Together this group would purge the world from evil. It would elevate the desire for peace among nations by bringing hope to a tumultuous world.
This is when the Jewish people get into the picture. In the story of Exodus, an estimated 2.5 million Israelites are running from slavery into freedom. They are walking in an extremely harsh desert environment, exhausted and hungry.
As they gather around Mount Sinai, they go through the most profound experience of hearing extremely loud sounds of shofars, seeing lightning and feeling the earth violently shaking.
That was when G-d implanted in our ancestors the collective special powerful Light. It was implemented into our DNA for the explicit purpose to re-awaken the long forgotten Divine Light which dwells in all human beings, the Light of goodness, morality and decency and bring peace and harmony to a world in turmoil.
We, are called ”the “chosen people”. Prophet Isaiah called us ”Or La-goyim”, Light unto the nations.
But as we all know, being “Or La-goyim” has come with a high price tag. Over the many centuries, shining this Light upon unwilling, hostile and intolerant nations has meant endless cruel persecutions and pogroms inflicted upon our ancestors,.
The October massacre showed us that even after the atrocities of the Holocaust, cruelty among certain people did not disappear. It knows no limits.
As my good friend Kermit the Frog says: “It's not easy being green”..
I am reminded of the musical “Fiddler on the Roof.”In one scene as the Jews are expelled from the town of Anatevka where they had lived for generations, the Rabbi is asked: “Rabbi, when will the messiah come? “When will there finally be peace in the world? The Rabbi answered: ”I don’t know but we will have to keep waiting for him somewhere else.
I too don’t know when our special Divine Light given to us on that day on Mt. Sinai will be a true Light unto the nations. We will just have to keep trusting and believing that what was given to us on that profound day will become a reality.
Hope for a peaceful world is now in our DNA. We are all born with it. We can see it in the writing of many Jewish boys and girls of the Holocaust.
In his famous poem, Pavel, a teenage boy, is looking at butterflies in the ghetto, a symbol of peace and tranquility.
Ava Pakova, a 15 year old girl wrote a song, “The Fear” as she was taken to Auschwitz.
In the last verse she writes: ”Oh G-D, don't take away so many of us. We still have to build a different world, a better and nicer world. We still have so much work to do.
Let’s tell our Creator that the special Light he gave us in order to awaken the Divine Light among the rest of the nations hasn’t been working too well so far, That we are tired, exhausted of the intolerance, evil and senseless wars.
And that we can really use his intervention on humanity’s behalf. Let’s ask him to finally turn a sweet dream of world peace into reality.
There is a famous old Israeli song, “Et ha mangina ha zot yi efshar le hafsik.“ It translates as ”This melody is impossible to stop. We must continue playing it forever”.
May we never stop playing this melody of peace taught to us by our ancestors.
The beautiful melody of our Jewish Divine Light will never fade.
The Israeli anthem says: “Od Lo Avda Tikvatenu” Our hope is still not lost. Allow me to amend our beloved anthem: Our hope will never be lost.
Happy New Year
Rabbi David
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