A track meet might seem an unusual place to derive religious insight, but the philosopher William Barrett writes that in his youth, when he would observe distance events at the track, he used to think about the fellows who found themselves way in the back of the pack. He found them utterly ludicrous, lumbering on to the finish line long after the crowd had already spent its cheers for the winner. Later in his life, however, Barrett changed his mind about them. "I find them now more admirable than the victor whom we crown," he writes. "Just think of it: every year among the many hundreds who enter the Boston Marathon, there will be someone who finishes last. My imagination and my heart go out to him. I see him stumbling onward, gasping, never quitting. It will be dark - long after dark, perhaps - when he gets toward the end. The people, the cameras, the judges, will all have gone home. Perhaps it will be too dark for him to see the finish line. He will not know if he has crossed it. Perhaps there is no finish line at all. You already have the situation of a Kafka story. If there is no finish line, there never was a race to begin with. The officials who organized it are invisible and an illusion. Perhaps in the dark he has run altogether off course. Yet he keeps running. There simply cannot be a question of his quitting. An image of the person of faith."
As I prepared for our great fast of Yom Kippur this year, I found myself thinking about Barrett's rather unorthodox image of the person of faith. It's not a very attractive or appealing model, is it? If we're going to use an analogy of a long distance race to think about the religious life, why shouldn't we think of the person of faith as the first place winner? You keep the faith, you get fame and fortune, or at least the esteem of one's fellows. But Barrett presents his faithful runner very differently, describing his runner as being not just last, but also alone, and terribly unsure of the validity of the race altogether.
What kind of model of a person of faith is Barrett presenting us with, anyway? In place of certainty and confidence, Barrett's homo religiosis is uncertain what the goal of the religious life really is. Amidst such uncertainty, absent any apparent rewards material or spiritual, why bother run the race at all?
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Some of us come to these Yom Kippur services with a very strong and resolute faith. But others of us are unsure: what is the arduous physicality of today's fast supposed to achieve? It's got to be about more than just the macho factor, the ability to say "I did it." What do we really get out of it? When we dedicate a great deal of time and effort to a task, most of us are able to articulate why, and what we're hoping to achieve from our efforts. When we labour at our jobs, and we receive a paycheck at the end of the month, there's a reward there that is very concrete that helps give us the motivation to carry on. When we do something for which there is no monetary reward, such as volunteer work, or raising a family, or taking care of a sick relative, or even a hobby, there too we are able to devote a tremendous amount of time and effort to it because it holds a great deal of personal meaning for us. The satisfaction of knowing that you helped someone, or helped the community, or created something beautiful, or raised a child in a good home, can be an amazing reward in and of itself.
My question for us this morning, as we gather on this day of self-affliction, this day which makes us so aware in the very pit of our stomachs of the cost of being Jewish - what are the benefits? What do we think of the notion of reward in Judaism? Do we expect something in exchange for observance of a mitzvah like Yom Kippur, which is so physically arduous, or any mitzvah which is hard or which gets in the way of our lifestyle? As we think about our religious lives the rest of the year, are we supposed to "get something" out of holding on to our Jewish identity? If so, what is that something?
We may be better able to articulate the costs of being Jewish than we are able to express the rewards, and those costs go way beyond giving up food, drink, bathing, leather, perfume, and sex one day a year. The opportunity to shell out large sums of money in synagogue dues and Jewish school tuition and camp fees and UJA pledges. The lingering fear of anti-Semitism. The angst of feeling responsibility for Israel's fate and actions, over which we have no control. The often frustrating experience of having to explain oneself in the midst of a majority Christian society. The anger we sometimes feel at being part of a community whose decisions we disagree with or whose politics offend us. The confusion many of us feel about adhering to a tradition which has strong patriarchal, homophobic, and ethnocentric elements, and whose God is a bit too angry for our level of comfort. The sometimes crushing burden of Jewish guilt. The embarassment associated with our ignorance of Jewish texts and traditions. The difficult of undergoing a sincere process of teshuvah. The yoke of the 613 commandments, including this fast. These, and more, are the costs. What are the benefits?
Ours is not the first generation to question the rewards associated with Jewish observance. In Pirkei Avot, Antigonos of Sokho declares, Al tihyu ka-avadim ha-mishamshin et harav al m'nat l'kabel pras "Do not be as slaves who serve their master in order to receive an allowance. Rather, be as slaves who serve their master on the condition not to receive an allowance. Even so, let the fear of Heaven be upon You" (Avot 1:3). For Antigonos, who lived in the early part of the second century BCE, true piety, yir'at shamayim, is antithetical to the expectation of reward.
Later generations of commentators who read the words of Antigonos split on their meaning. By then, the notion of olam haba had become widespread among our people - many were convinced of the reality of the world to come, in which the righteous would be rewarded with eternal bliss. This seemed appropriate recompense for continued adherence to Judaism in the face of persecution. Different sects emerged in Second Temple Judaism based in part on their response to this very issue of reward. The Sadducees, following Antigonos, claimed that it was unworthy of bnei Yisrael to expect any reward for their deeds or their faith, and they rejected the idea of resurrection. The Pharisees by contrast focused very clearly on resurrection for the righteous in olam haba. For the Pharisees, olam haba was clearly a critical motivator for people living at a time of terrible persecution. In their view, only with the incentive of a very concrete reward at the end would the runner keep running.
The issue of reward for religious observances is not unique to Judaism of course. In the Protestant Reformation, one of the key complaints against the Catholic Church concerned the sale of indulgences, essentially tickets for reduced time in purgatory given out in exchange for monetary contributions. And recently we in the West have become all too aware of the famous 72 virgins promised to martyrs in some interpretations of the Islamic tradition, a notion that seems humourous until we remember its association with so many horrific acts of murder. Buddhism promises enlightenment and nirvana at the end of an arduous path of meditation and self-denial.
What do we think? Are we like Antigonos of Sokho and the Sadducees who came after him, who believed that any talk of reward is a distortion of true faith, and that religion should be observed simply for its own sake? Or are we like the Pharisees, who thought this wasn't enough, who felt compelled to provide some enticing endpoint towards which all of our Jewish labours and sacrifices would lead us?
In our own time, the great Israeli philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz expressed the Antigonos no-reward philosophy most powerfully and provocatively. Leibowitz, who died ten years ago, was a strictly observant Jew with a very unorthodox theology. For him, any motivator for Jewish life other than the simple desire to serve God constitutes idolatry . For example, in the realm of prayer: Leibowitz denies that there will be any beneficial outcome for us from our prayer. His first critique is to note that we can pray for health, security, peace, money, passing an exam, whatever - as many have observed, it won't necessarily come true and our expectation that it would come true turns God into our puppet. As another theologian, Yogi Berra, once remarked when he saw a batter scratch a talismanic cross in the dirt near home plate, "Why don't you just let Him watch the game?"
Leibowitz's second critique is more original and more devastating. He notes that some people pray because simply because they like the experience of davenning, and it feels good, and it brings us all together in community. For Leibowitz, however, this is also illegitimate. The purpose of prayer has nothing to do with meeting the needs of the worshipper, whether material or spiritual. In fact, for Leibowitz, it's precisely the opposite - when we pray, we relinquish our own will in order to serve our Master. We pray, because God commands us to pray, and for no other reason. That divine commandment, for Leibowitz, is given expression in the form of the traditional litury. So he naturally opposes any contemporary modification to the prayer service to fit the needs or tastes of people. Such modifications, in his view, turn davenning into a "hobby" or a pastime, because they imply that prayer is about us and our needs, whereas for Leibowitz it's only about serving God.
Of course, it is hard to get around the notion of reward when we read the Torah, which is chock full of material rewards promised in exchange for our adherence to God's commandments. And the holiday which we are observing today is utterly bound up in the notion that if we practice sincere repentance, God will grant us atonement for our sins. There can certainly be no more important reward than that. So there is much room to argue with Leibowitz's approach. In fact, no approach could be more opposite to the one I and most of my colleagues take in our work in Jewish education and identity building. Few of us promise material rewards in exchange for our observance of the commandments, but we've gotten very good at promising the reward of a meaningful and elevating and beautiful spiritual experience in exchange for your commitment.
Prayer, I tell anyone who will listen, allows for an island of time for us to connect to a unifying force bigger than ourselves. Shabbat observance enriches us, because it provides a structure of ritual to bring individuals and families together around the candle and the wine and the other blessings, and to experience a day of calm and serenity and reflection in the middle of busy lives. The sukkah is a beautiful project for the whole family to engage in, with opportunities for us to involve our kids through building and decorating it, learning about the values of hidur mitzvah and hachnasat orhim, and thinking about the spiritual significance of our homes. Kashrut gives dignity and spiritual import to the daily act of eating. Sitting shiva is a healthy way to receive the support of the community at a time of loss. The Yom Kippur fast provides spiritual cleansing, and allows us to feel a sense of identity with the hungry in our world. Shul attendance, an example which is of course particularly near to my own heart, places one in the context of a caring community of fellow worshippers. To use vocabulary not normally associated with religious life but which I think is still apt, I'm constantly looking for ways, using the language and culture of our time, to "market" Jewish observance as something which will bring "value-added" to my congregants, young and old. My rabbinate is built around that effort, as is that of many of the finest rabbis and teachers of our time. And it's not just on the liberal end of the Jewish spectrum that rewards are spoken of. Many contemporary Orthodox treatises on Niddah, for example, emphasize how wonderful observance of the purity and mikveh laws is for a married couple's physical relationship. The notion put forward is that having times when sexual relations are forbidden makes sex all the more delectable when it's allowed. Talk about reward! So the Orthodox world is no less adept at framing Jewish observance in terms of what it will do for their congregants than is the non-Orthodox world. But in the context of our discussion this morning I ask you, is this legitimate?
There are other ways we have found to reward people for their Jewish commitments. Today, we question them all. I ask this day, is enticing people to shul by honouring them legitimate? This longstanding crossdenominational practice would drive Antigonos and Leibowitz crazy. At my first posting as a rabbi, in Montreal, it seemed as if every Shabbat was a theme Shabbat for honouring a different group in the congregation, the idea being that the theme would bring folks out to services. So we had Sisterhood Shabbat, and Brotherhood Shabbat, and Board of Directors Shabbat, and religious school teachers Shabbat, and Committee Volunteers Shabbat, and it worked - on their Shabbat, when they were being recognized and honoured, people would come out, and their families too, and the pews would be filled. And then we'd see these folks again the next time they were being honoured. The theme of Shabbat itself clearly wasn't enough.
I ask this day, is bringing people in by means of the Bar/Bat Mitzvah legitimate? These occasions are wonderful, I'm planning one myself this year. The kids work hard and when their day comes, the spotlight is on them, they get compliments and presents and a party, and their parents feel a tremendous sense of pride in the accomplishment of their offispring. It works, in that we generally get an amazing amount of Jewish energy out of our kids and families during that year. But of course we have not been as good at conveying to our teens and their parents why they should come back and engage in Jewish religious life when the spotlight is not on them, and the reward is not so clear.
I ask this day, is making Judaism "fun" legitimate? This imperative I know well from my past life as a Hillel director. My favourite example is something called the Chocolate Seder. Every year the students in Chapel Hill would put on a mock seder in which all the symbolic ritual foods were chocolate - chocolate matzah, chocolate egg, bitter chocolate, etc. It was great fun, and it did engage a lot of students who might not have come out to a more traditional seder. Rabbis, camp counsellors, youth group workers, Jewish educators are all under pressure to come up with creative ideas like this to make Judaism appealing and fun. My question is, what does a Judaism based on fun leave people with when they inevitably bump up against parts of the tradition which aren't so much fun, like Yom Kippur for example, with its unrelenting insistence that we take off our masks and tell the truth about ourselves: our sadness, our anger, our selfishness, our feelings of failure, our less than perfect family lives, our pathetically inadequate response to the societal needs so apparent all around us - hunger, and poverty, and addiction, and abuse, and environmental degradation, and on and on. Nothing "fun" about any of that. And none of it got raised at the Chocolate Seder.
Enticements and rewards have been part and parcel of Jewish life and teaching for a long time, so much so that we hardly notice them anymore. You may ask, is there really anything so wrong with it? Is there anything wrong with honouring people for the service they have given to the community? Is there anything wrong with making a Bar/Bat Mitzvah kid feel affirmed on their big day as the centre of attention for family, friends, and community? Is there anything wrong with making Judaism fun and appealing? We know what Leibowitz would say -- it's all idolatry. Don't expect any reward beyond the knowledge that you're doing the will of your Creator. Just keep on running, even if there's no finish line in sight, because it's not about the meaning you derive from ritual or the pleasure you get from observing mitzvot or about the fun you have or the support you feel being part of the community. It's only about one thing -- serving God.
That of course is his view, which does have the virtue of theological consistency. In the end, however, I don't buy it. I find his approach needlessly austere and cold and in that sense, paradoxically, quite un-Jewish. I don't agree that God would call us into covenant solely in order for us to serve; I believe that God gave us the mitzvot at least in part in order to help us. But the Leibowitz critique forces us to articulate, what exactly is that help? What do we consider a legitimate reward for being Jewish?
In an era when being Jewish is a decision, not a condition, what can I tell people that will help them, what can I tell you, that will help you to find Jewish life, Jewish observance, Jewish community, and Jewish faith compelling, and how can I articulate this reward in such a way that doesn't descend into crassness and corruption? What can I tell you that will lead you to deepen the commitment you already have that brought you here today? To pursue your Jewish learning, to do more acts of gemilut hesed, to push yourselves to think more about your faith in God, to attend services more regularly and to volunteer more for the congregation, to visit Israel, to conduct a serious process of teshuvah on this of all days. What can I say that can help move all of us, wherever we're at, to the next level of Jewish commitment? Do you require a reward, and if so do I have the skill to either grant it, or help you gain it yourselves?
I tell you, I don't have too many tricks up my sleeve. I know that I personally find living a serious Jewish life to be tremendously rewarding, and I always have. I'm one of those who always sought it out, despite not having grown up in an observant home. I was drawn to shul attendance, to Jewish learning, and to Israel from an early age. What did I "get out of it"? Nothing easy to pin down, other than a sense that I was developing and learning about an important aspect of who I was. Using Barrett's analogy, I've always felt as if I was born to run this particular race, the Jewish race, and it hasn't mattered to me that the finish line is always elusive -- because it's my race to run.
During an early stage of my adult Jewish journey, a book by the writer Hillel Halkin became particularly important to me. The book is called Letters to an American Jewish Friend: A Zionist's Polemic. (Please ignore the US-centrism of the title; Halkin's argument applies equally to us here north of the border.) The book consists of a fictional correspondence between two friends, one of whom had made aliyah, and the other of whom had remained back in the States. While the focus of the book is Zionism, any discussion of the importance of Israel necessarily leads back to the larger question of the meaning and purpose of Jewish identity. The two friends correspond about the future of Jewish life in the Diaspora, and in the end the American is forced to concede that there isn't much hope, because the Jews have lost the sense of purpose that they once had, they've lost their religious faith in a sacred and unique Jewish mission.
The Israeli friend replies with an extended parable, about an argument among a group of koala bears of all things. I'll summarize it briefly here, because I find it points to a powerful truth about the rewards of Jewish life. It seems that koalas are a unique species of Australian marsupial, threatened with extinction because of the depletion of their eucalyptus tree habitat. To save a remnant of the species, the government of Australia creates a park filled with eucalyptus trees where the koala bears could live. But the park is threatened because the farmers and the shepherds resent it, and the eucalyptus trees are prone to catching fire. Halkin imagines a discussion among a group of the koalas in which they debate what they should do next. One group thinks that there really is no problem, because they're actually not koalas any more. They've sewn up their pouches, pasted on false tails, and claim that they're no different from true bears. Some in this group even take the side of the farmers who want to get rid of the park altogether!
The other koalas dismiss this group as utterly lacking self-respect and self-worth, but they don't know what to do. Should they concentrate their resources on preserving the park, or should they abandon the park and try to live as best they can outside it, finding ways to adapt to new environments as the situation requires?
Amidst the uproar, one koala gets up to speak. He acknowledges that the old mission of beardom which had sustained them for so long was shattered forever. The opening up of long-isolated Australia made them realize that they are not even true bears at all. But he wonders why no other species seems to need a purpose to exist, why no other animals have to justify why they are what they are.
"Isn't the fact that we like being koala bears all the cause that we need?" he say, addressing one koala friend who is particularly downcast. "Listening to you, "one might almost think that being born a koala bear is some sort of punishment. No doubt there are koala bears who feel this way, for how else to explain the behavior of those of us who go about acting like true bears I wouldn't know. Yet what has this to do with you and me, who feel differently? Come, my brother, admit it: nothing delights us more than the pungent taste of a eucalyptus leaf wet with the morning dew, or the ripple of an afternoon breeze through our tree-tops, or the sight of a little koala cub peering impishly out of its mother's pouch…There are no reasons for this, it is simply our animal nature… [Yes] much of what was most traditional and distinctive has been lost. Yet as long as these simple instincts and pleasures of ours remain, you can be sure that we will continue to be koala bears, no matter what form our life assumes….
Yet there is one more thing that I wish to say to you. You are a koala bear; you look like one, you act like one, it is impossible for you to be anything but one. As hard as it is for you to be what you are, it would be even harder to be what you are not. You are condemned to suffer your own nature. You are not, however, condemned to suffer it meaninglessly…"
For Halkin, the antidote to that meaninglessness is to go and live in the park and lend one's hand to making it a safe and thriving place for all koala bears to live. That is his Zionist message, and that message has had great power for me throughout my life, even though I never personally acted on it. But I think that the attempt to derive meaning from our Judaism goes beyond Israel, as central a component of Jewish identity as it is. What I love about this parable is first, its utter rejection of a need to justify our Jewishness; second, its pride in Jewish history and culture and the sumptuous delight it takes in Jewish traditions; and third, its charge to those of us who love and maintain our Judaism to continue the centuries long project of deriving meaning and insight from it.
These are the rewards that sustain me as a Jew, nothing more sophisticated than that. These are the things that bring me to the arduous physical and spiritual exertions of Yom Kippur - not the glory, not the fun, not the promise of life in the world to come (although I'll take it if it comes my way), but rather the simple knowledge that it is who I am, and I could never be anything else, and there is much potential meaning in it for me to uncover.
I'll conclude by returning to Barrett's analogy to the long distance race. As he said, there simply cannot be a question of quitting. I can't promise you glory and honour in exchange for your Jewish commitments. I can't promise that it will always be fun. But my faith is strong that there is a finish line, and that we can derive tremendous meaning and satisfaction and dignity from continuing to run our Jewish race. That is the reward I hold out to you. I hope you'll join me.