This was my Yom Kippur morning sermon for 5783 (2022). As with other Yom Kippur morning words of mine, I was speaking right after the Haftarah, which is mostly from Isaiah 58, and the final words here are from there.
When we all stood at the foot of Mt. Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments, this is how it went down according to Rabbi Yochanan, quoted in a midrash from the seventh century:
A messenger would bring out each of the ten utterances from the Blessed Holy One, and go around to every single person of Israel and say: Do you accept upon yourself this utterance? It’s got these and these laws; it’s got these and these consequences; it’s got these and these provisos so we steer clear of gray areas; and these are major aspects and these are more minor; and these and these are how fulfilling the utterance will be rewarding for you. Do you accept this utterance upon yourself? And the person of Israel would say: Yes. Then the messenger would say: And do you accept the authority of the Blessed Holy One? And the person would say: Yes and yes! And immediately the messenger would give them a kiss.
And so on, ten times, for every one of the Ten Commandments and for every soul that was assembled there at Mt. Sinai.
Wait a minute, you are saying, that is not how I learned it. What happened to the booming voice of the Divine from a thick cloud on top of a blazing, quaking mountain? Rabbi Yochanan, where are you getting this?
The way I understand this midrash and usually tell it, it’s not just a one-way presentation, but a conversation that took place in a kind of time warp, with each person at the bottom of the mountain taking as long as they needed to get the understanding they required, and to have all their questions and objections and hypotheticals answered — until every single person was ready to say: Yes and yes!
There is a basic idea here, which is that even God has to be able to say: I have the consent of the governed. According to Rabbi Yochanan, a majority isn’t enough, and representatives aren’t even enough. The Torah was only valid because it was accepted by every single one of the governed, all the recently freed slaves standing now at Mt. Sinai.
Now of course who is going to say no to God or God’s messenger in such a scenario. Is this really what the rabbis imagined could have happened when the Torah was given — probably not. But the point is: in the 7th century C.E., when Eretz Yisrael had been ruled by the Christian emperors in Constantinople as it had been for centuries, and then by Muslim caliphs, our Sages had an idea of the voice of the people as integral to the Torah. Everyone gets to talk to the Divine representative. No authority is assumed until every person of Israel says not just okay, fine but Yes, yes! We didn’t get away from Pharaoh for anything less. And anytime we study any Torah or do any mitzvah rooted in the Torah, that’s part of the vibe: consent of the governed, to the words of the One Who liberates.
Fast forward a few hundred years after this midrash. It’s deep in the Middle Ages, which we know as a time when Jews were under the thumb of the authorities everywhere, oppressed daily and subject to expulsion on a whim or to violence. And yet, everywhere from Barcelona to Livorno, from Algiers to Speyer, under Muslim rule or Christian, each Jewish community was generally self-governing. Not just in the house of prayer or the house of study — but setting rules for trades and taxes for education, and even meeting as a community to debate how much to collect from everyone to ransom someone kidnapped by bandits or imprisoned by the outside authorities. This self-governing community was known as the Kehillah or the Kahal, two forms of the same word. Rabbis were sometimes regarded as authorities in the Kehillah about certain things, and sometimes rabbis were already like now, people hired for a position and subject to terms and understandings set by the community.
And questions of majority rule vs. consensus, and the rights of individuals, came up frequently in the medieval Kehillot. There was a notion called ikuv tefillah or the delay of services — if someone felt they were being denied their day before a Beit Din, a court of Jewish law, they could literally interrupt the service under certain circumstances defined in halacha, in Jewish law itself. (Which we can talk about, but of course not right this second!)
I have often wondered how our ancestors made it through so many centuries of unjust and oppressive rule, with centuries of that behind them and no end in sight. I think it was because of many things just like these two examples. In so much of their religious and communal life, they had the spirit of freedom and of governing themselves.
I would not call their experience “democratic”, and it was rule by men only, for sure. Yet there were ingredients of what we could call republicanism, all through their experience. From their morning and evening prayers singing Mi Chamocha, the song of crossing the Sea into freedom; from their whole approach to the Torah, not just given by God but accepted by the people; and from their ways of making communal decisions – from all of this our ancestors became stewards of the ideas and experiences that were the foundations of our own own democratic republic, in America and other places. The ideas and practices needed for a republic were in our safekeeping as Jews. Not ours alone — but what I mean is that it wasn’t just those reading the Greek history of Athens or generating Enlightenment philosophy who supplied the materials for the democratic transformation. We were keepers of the Exodus story and all the habits of refusing to accept Pharaohs in our lives. Even when it was hardest for us, living under tyrant after tyrant.
Why I am telling you this midrash and this history lesson now, on the morning of Yom Kippur? It’s because of the Haftarah we just heard, the incredible words of Isaiah, the prophet Yeshayahu. Which would have been buried in the Bible had not our Sages decided that we had to read these chapters today.
The prophet says that religious life is not confined to inside the synagogue, or to our individual acts of fasting:
הֵ֣ן לְרִ֤יב וּמַצָּה֙ תָּצ֔וּמוּ וּלְהַכּ֖וֹת בְּאֶגְרֹ֣ף רֶ֑שַׁע
Yet for arguing and contention you are fasting, and to strike with a wicked fist
לֹֽא־תָצ֣וּמוּ כַיּ֔וֹם לְהַשְׁמִ֥יעַ בַּמָּר֖וֹם קֽוֹלְכֶֽם׃
Do not fast that way today, if you want your voice heard on high.
And then the prophet points us outward, toward the marketplace and toward the people in our cities whose needs we are responsible for. And Yeshayahu points us inward, at the anger within us and between us. That last bit more than resonates for me at this moment in history. Most years I think about what it means for us Jews to have the power and resources and freedom to figure out how to care for everyone who has needs in our society. I really wanted to talk about something specific today, like our work for affordable housing. But it didn’t seem big enough. This year, I am thinking nonstop about Yeshayahu’s “arguing and contention”, the pointed finger as he calls it; and the prophet’s words about untying the yokes and setting free the fettered. He’s talking about being responsible for the system itself, the system of freedom in all its layers.
We can’t fast this year and say it is focusing us unless we are concentrating on all of that. We can’t fast with our eyes closed to the crisis of faith we have in our own republic.
It is on us, members of the Jewish community, to preserve and strengthen our republic here in the United States. Aleinu – it is on us who come here, who identify with the Jewish legacy on this day of fasting. And that’s why I wanted to tell you just how long our history is, with the pieces that built the still-unfinished republic in our hands. It didn’t begin with our arrival or the arrival of our ancestors from other lands less free. It didn’t begin during the Enlightenment or with the Mayflower.
The building blocks of the republic have been in our hands since we left Egypt. Since we received the Torah at Mt. Sinai, and made the first national covenant in history. Since the early centuries when we lived under terrible rulers but knew ourselves as free souls. And since the Middle Ages, when our communities governed themselves and wrestled with versions of the same questions we do today.
We have brought stories, and social muscle memory, and principles. We kept them for centuries, so we could use them here. We have a role, possibly a unique role, in preserving this republic in this coming year of 5783 and for at least the new few years.
So today I am asking first that we bring all of that to mind, and that we make a leap of faith in this republic, the United States of America. Because that faith is being challenged, inside us and around us.
First there is deep doubt on the left and deep doubt on the right.
One of the left’s deepest doubts is whether we can ever get out from the original racism and sexism and other supremacies that came with our founding and other crucial eras.
One of the right’s deepest doubts is whether those who aspire to implement big ideas can hold their power with humility, and not dictate how everyone has to live and even think.
Whichever doubt you hold, you have analogies from history to invoke, and we are afraid of history repeating itself: Jim Crow, Weimar Germany, Soviet Russia.
And we have this other challenge of ethical philosophy, which is that the clearer your vision for society, the harder it is to leave it up to discussion or democratic compromise. Probably because of those deep doubts about what others are bringing as their hidden or not-so-hidden agendas. Democracy itself can seem under the circumstances like betting our core beliefs against big odds, against opponents who don’t agree to respect the same rules.
You may think only some of these doubts are justified and the others are not. But there are serious versions of all of them, and those we have to listen to, and take seriously — all of us.
We’ve had a bad run lately, so part of the answer for this moment has to be a leap of faith. I see it like Reb Simcha Bunem of Pzhizhka’s two notes in his two side pockets: On one note, keep your deepest doubts and worst-case scenarios. Don’t deny what’s on this slip.
In the other pocket, keep an inventory of the building blocks we have been carrying as American Jews, the ones I’ve mentioned and more. This note should say: v’higiyanu lazman ha-zeh, this history has brought me to this moment, for me to use these muscles and bonds and blocks that have been passed on to me, by all my ancestors who prayed and longed to be free. This note should have the name of any person who somehow seems to understand your doubt about democracy as well as the other doubts.
As hard as it is to carry this other note in the other pocket — that’s the leap of faith we need. Not to discard the first note. Not to dismiss our own fears. Just to say, to yourself and to the person with the same doubts or the opposite ones – I have this another note. I am not dismissing what we fear and what you’re right about. But I am right now taking this leap of faith. And I hope you will take it with me, and because of me.
Why take it? Well, take it because the alternative is self-fulfilling prophecy. Take it because freedom means that history has not been decided – the historical analogies are here to learn from, but they are not automatically our destiny. Take it for those in Ukraine or anywhere now or in history who would gladly trade their political difficulties for ours. Take it because someone else’s life right here depends on it, those the prophet names – who are hungry, who need of adequate shelter, who are fettered by unfair laws.
And carry yourself with that faith. Make it visible. Not to look like a fool, but to look like a person of responsibility.
Part of that responsibility is to carry your faith in American freedom and democracy with integrity, in mind and action. That’s one of the things I spoke about on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, and let me say a bit more. I have argued often that one of the most important things we do as citizens is to articulate our own political philosophy – what we believe and why. That transparency is important and helpful, which is why I try to publish about my own – it helps us get a look at our principles and talk about them, sharpen them.
As Jews we naturally sit inside and on the edge of any political group we are part of. Our story is longer than that of the country or the two main parties. So as I have said before, whether you think of yourself as some version of liberal or conservative, or some mix, be the most responsible Jewish version of that you can be.
If you think of yourself as liberal, your bedrock is probably equality – rooted in the liberation from Egypt, and in the equal voice of every Jew to accept the Torah at Mt. Sinai.
You believe in our responsibility to make sure no one is an outsider, because of income or skin color or any other reason. Because we know what it is like to be an outsider.
As a liberal, you believe in requiring us to share our resources to help those with less, as a way of practicing the Jewish duty of tzedakah and bringing its wisdom out farther into our world.
To be a better Jewish liberal today requires thinking deeply about these beliefs, and what it takes to make them work in our society. And I think a Jewish liberal would play a crucial role in sharpening American liberalism:
By insisting to other liberals that tzedakah and social aid requires community. When people who receive public assistance have to go to special offices in unpleasant buildings, the effect is to segregate and stigmatize, not to build relationships of partnership and dignity.
A Jewish liberal has to remind other liberals that religion is not a small-minded way of building walls around ourselves, but a profound way of enlarging our vision toward God’s own perspective. When a liberal leader belittles or mocks religious people per se, that has to be called out.
A Jewish liberal reminds other liberals that a society of individuals with choice about everything, set loose from all authority and tradition, is in danger of doubting all moral compass, and viewing other people as instruments of our own happiness.
If you think of yourself as conservative, your bedrock is probably the idea of freedom – which is where the Jewish people began as we left Egypt and as we stood at Mt. Sinai.
If you believe in local community and small group initiative, that’s because of our legacy of the Kehillah over the centuries. For many families of American Jews, especially those who came over from the czar’s empire a hundred years ago or more, the story has been about relying on family and friends and other Jews for solidarity, for capital to start a small business, the sacrifice of a parent to get the next generation to college.
It goes almost without saying that if you are conservative, you value tradition and religion.
To be a better Jewish conservative requires thinking deeply about the substance of these beliefs, and what it takes to make them work in our society. And I think a Jewish conservative has a crucial role to play in sharpening American conservatism:
By calling it out when conservative leaders are agents of hate or discrimination,– because we know what it’s like to be targeted that way.
A Jewish conservative would be a watchdog, making sure that conservatives value traditions beyond Christianity for their insights and the social cohesion they create, and protesting when Christianity becomes the basis for our laws.
A Jewish conservative would be there to say that small, charitable communities do not exist automatically. Not all groups today have the resources and social networks that Jews brought to this country to take care of each other. If we want to rely on these things, we have to help people create and build them.
Both Jewish liberals and Jewish conservatives have to supply a good answer to the call of this morning Haftarah. What Yeshayahu said is a given for us: we all are responsible that no one go without food, or decent housing, or freedom. So what groups in our society have what roles in making that real? Government and voluntary, local and national – who should do what? What’s the best liberal answer, the best conservative one?
I have no doubt that there is a place for both a perfected liberalism and a perfected conservatism in a perfected America. It is our job to perfect them in ourselves, and in the groups we are part of. Any leader who needs perfecting or rejecting, in our group, we have to try. Any time one of us holds our nose, we have to be transparent and take responsibility openly and honestly — and not pretend we aren’t holding or nose, and not pretend a leader we vote for has more integrity than it’s clear that they do.
And whichever of these paths we take on with as much integrity as we can – some of us have to work on the center also. I don’t actually think you can be in the center, the bridge-building place, unless you are also committed to a particular vision. I could be wrong. I have come to you from time to time with this request, and occasionally we have done it and done it well, but not as much as I’ve asked. I have a message I’m waiting to answer from Braver Angels, an organization that helps people argue better and build bonds across our deepest doubts. If you have any interest let me know.
And I have signed us up with the Jewish Partnership for Democracy, a bipartisan initiative led by my amazing friend Aaron Dorfman, and prominent national Jewish Democrats and Republicans, to bring people together to understand the nuts and bolts of how elections run locally, and to figure out how we can help make them run well. So stay tuned for a program or two coming up.
Do not deny your doubts and your grounded fears. But do not stop there. We have a legacy, from the Exodus to Mt. Sinai through our centuries. We do not come to the table empty-handed. Everything is riding on how we are citizens the next year and the next few years — we as American Jews. Everything is riding on your leap of faith, and the actions that back it up. Everything is riding on it.
Not easy, and I wish I knew how to urge the way our Haftarah did, with just the right challenge and just the right inspiration. So I will give the last words to the prophet Yeshayahu, who assured us that if we channel our fasting outward, we will not only feed more people, but repair broken fences, and shine in Divine light. As he said it:
If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger, and malicious talk,
and if you spend yourselves for the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
Then you can seek the favor of Adonai,
and I will set you astride the heights of the earth
And let you enjoy the heritage of your ancestor Yaacov
Ki pi Adonai dibber – For the very mouth of Adonai has spoken it.
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