Love is A Radical Act

Today’s episode is a Shabbat Replay of our service on April 19th when Rabbi Steven drashed on the power and danger of anger. We can get pretty uncomfortable with this emotion these days, with good reason, and it can be awkward how present righteous anger is in the haggadah. How can we harness this potent feeling in a healthy way in pursuit of justice?

This Sunday, April 27th, at 10:00 am, Mishkan is thrilled to once again join our friends at Lawndale Christian Community Church for an interfaith service. Lawndale once held a thriving Jewish community, but racism, predatory contract lending, and white flight left the neighborhood under-resourced and highly segregated. We are honored to participate in the ribbon cutting ceremony for the Dr. Dennis Deer Community Justice Center, a new facility providing holistic justice through legal services, career support, and housing for clients of the Lawndale Christian Legal Center.

https://www.mishkanchicago.org/event/interfaith-service-and-celebration-with-lawndale-christian-legal-center/

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

Transcript

Transcript

This sermon was delivered at our service on April 19th. You can listen to this drash on Contact Chai podcast or watch on our YouTube channel.
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There is a text that comes near the end of the seder, after we have told the miraculous story of the Exodus and eaten dinner and found the afikomen, when we crack a window or throw open the front door and yell: “Shfoch chamatcha el ha–goyim, pour out your wrath upon the nations that do not know you, upon the kingdoms that do not invoke your name! They have devoured Jacob and desolated our home. Pour out your fury upon them, may your anger blaze and consume them. Pursue them in rage, blot them out from under the heavens.” Admittedly, I have been to more than one seder that omits this text. It’s not a comfortable one. It pushes against the universal appeal of Passover, of a story that has inspired diverse communities on their own journeys toward liberation. It certainly doesn’t feel great when we have friends and family at the table who are not Jewish. And it introduces anger into an otherwise celebratory evening.

Anger can be uncomfortable, especially when expressed carelessly or left unresolved. But anger is also a signpost; it points to a perceived injustice, whether against us or against the people and places we care about. When I was doing a rotation as a student chaplain, my supervisor described anger as a life force: the demand to be treated with dignity, the willingness to point out a problem, and the motivation to seek change.

As we read about the arc of redemption experienced by the ancient Israelites, moving from degradation to freedom over the course of the seder – one begins to have the nagging suspicion that this journey is not over. In so many ways, we are not living in the world that we want to live in. The haggadah ends with the exclamation b’shanah ha’ba’ah bYerushalayim, next year in Jerusalem to remind us that (literally and metaphorically) we have not yet reached the promised land — whatever that promise might look like for you. And so when we turn to shfoch chamatcha and open the door for Elijah (and at my seder, Miriam as well), prophets who are destined to be harbingers of a redeemed world… how could we not feel anger? And how could we not demand justice, for all the wrongs we find around us? I recently picked up a haggadah that noted, just under this text: “The crimes of humanity that we continue to see… cry out for just retribution beyond our limited capacity.”

In his book Exodus and Revolution, Michael Walzer writes, “Wherever you live, it is probably Egypt.” Not the literal place, but what our tradition means by mitzrayim – narrow straits, that limit or constrain us. Sometimes they are of our own making. But often, the obstacles placed between us and the world we hope to live in are put there by forces outside of our control. And right now, we are clearly stuck in this kind of Egypt. As I was reading through the haggadah, I was struck by the parallels between this book and the story of our time. Like many of our sacred texts, the haggadah was compiled over many centuries – reflecting the sentiments of authors writing at different points in history, but deeply resonant with countless other moments.

Shfoch chamatcha was most likely written during the Crusades. This was a period of incredible loss and uncertainty, as Christian religious militants carved their way across Europe on their way to conquer the Holy Land, slaughtering Jews they encountered on the way. There are no reliable records of how many people died, but elegies and memory books from the time tell us that very few communities were unaffected by this pain. Some of the pogroms were so devastating, word of them reached Jews living in the land of Israel – a terrible prelude to the devastation they would experience at the hands of the crusaders. As I read shfoch chamatcha this year, I thought about all of the pain we are holding right now – both that which is proximate to us and that which only reaches us through the news or social media. And thinking about Israelis and Palestinians, trans folks, undocumented immigrants and students on visas, children suffering from preventable diseases, the unhoused and the disenfranchised and all who rely on a rapidly deteriorating welfare system – we don’t need to look far, to find a person or a place that rends our heart in two. Wherever you live, it is probably Egypt.

The instinct to express anger at those who threaten us and people we care about makes sense. Channeling that anger into a ritual to avoid imitating the violence of our oppressors, or maintaining the very patterns we are trying to break, makes it an act of rabbinic genius. And for those of us who see peace and co-existence as necessary preconditions for a better future, this ritual stands as a challenge: sometimes it's ok to express anger at oppressors and tyrants and bullies, even in a religious service. It’s validating, it's cathartic, and it helps us channel it away from the destructive expressions of anger that can come from sublimating it or pretending that oppression doesn't make us mad. It does, it should, so once a year we open the door and say so.

I’ve always had a large number of non-Jews at my seder table. And so each year, I debate about how much to edit the haggadah – to make sure that it is accessible, that it feels relevant to someone who may not have the same ancestral connection (whether by birth or by choice) to this tale. But this year, the story spoke to each of us in ways that required no translation. To know the dangers of authoritarianism, to see how systems that privilege the few at the expense of the many hinder progress and degrade the human spirit – we only need to look out the window. And so we flung open the front door, and we yelled: shfoch chamatcha, may the machinery of injustice be torn to the ground. But just as we vented our frustration, we also clung to the hope and the vision of the holiday. And so cut to eighteen gay men between the ages of 29 and 42, singing “When You Believe” at the top of their lungs (with harmony, of course) – because I think in this moment, alongside our anger, we need something else to hold on to. As Harvey Milk once said, “you have to give them hope… hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come.”

So how do we cultivate hope, which (as the song goes) is so frail but also hard to kill?

There are five holidays (the pilgrimage holidays of Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot, along with Tisha b’Av and Purim) on which we read a megillah, a scroll from the collection of writings found at the end of the Hebrew Bible. The connection between the chosen megillah and its holiday are sometimes obvious – take Esther, which tells the story of Purim, or Eicha, chronicling the destruction of the Temple and recited on Tisha b’Av. Some are thematic: like reading Ruth, a story about conversion, on Shavuot, a holiday about receiving Torah. But the choice of others is less apparent. On Passover we read the Song of Songs, a long-form poem that gives us some of our most cherished passages from the Tanakh – for example ani l’dodi v’dodi li, I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine, often used during weddings.

But Song of Songs is a decidedly sexy book. Take the opening verse: Yishakeini mi-n’shikot pihu ki tovim dodekha mi-yayin, oh give me the kisses of your mouth because your love is more delightful than wine. (And that’s a relatively mild example, ask me later about how the author uses the metaphor of opening locked doors). Song of Songs was controversial even when it was written, and there was a debate about its inclusion in the biblical canon. For Jews it made the cut, and even more improbably it became the book we read on Passover. But to all of its naysayers who felt that it was too erotic, too profane, the great sage Rabbi Akiva responded, “God forbid anyone have doubts about this sacred text. The whole world was not as worthy as the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel; for all of scripture is holy, but the Song of Songs is the holy of holies.”

Our inherited tradition (and the prevailing opinion of many rabbis) understands Song of Songs as a metaphor for the covenantal relationship between God and Israel. The eroticism of the poetry points to the intimacy of this relationship, one that promised to be different from any that our ancestors had experienced before – not like the distant and despotic rule of pharaoh, or the imbalance of power between the slavemaster and the slave, or the willful ignorance of free Egyptians living next door to Israelites in shackles. No, the relationship between God and God’s chosen people would be one of mutuality and respect, of care and compassion, of an obligation to do right by each other – that is, love. Song of Songs is a metaphor, a celebration of divine love translated into language we might understand.

But what if this isn’t about the divine-human relationship? What is Song of Songs is, in fact, an erotic love poem – and what is that is just as sacred? Rabbi Jonathan Sacks once wrote, “The fact that it is written as the story of two young and human lovers is also fundamental, for it tells us that to separate human and divine love is to allocate one to the body, the other to the soul, is a false distinction. Love is the energy God has planted in the human heart, redeeming us from narcissism and solipsism, making the human or Divine Other no less real to me than I am to myself.” If all people are created in the divine image, love is what allows us to see that spark in each other. It is what ignites the touch of lovers. It is what warms the embrace of friends. It is what moves the hand of the stranger to reach out and offer help.

Many years ago I had the privilege to learn from Dr. Angela Davis, as she participated in a debate on the merits (and vices) of radicalism. To this end, she taught that the most radical act we can do as humans is to love. Davis pointed to the origin of the word, radical, which comes from the Latin radix, meaning root. Love, she said, gets to the root of all things. It cuts through the mess of power and privilege, difference and distinction to show us the person in front of us. It pushes through the tangle of ego and embarrassment, utilitarian questions of usefulness and uselessness to show us ourselves. But perhaps most importantly, it shows us the string that binds us all together.

Sitting down for the seder, reading the tale of the ancient Israelites’ enslavement, it would be easy to use our pain as justification to turn away from the world and cut our connection with people outside of our community. The Passover story could be one of retribution and revenge. And in some ways it is, as the plagues descend on Egypt to exact punishment for centuries of slavery, the death of the first born mirroring Pharaoh's decree to kill all the Hebrew boys. But we don’t delight in this destruction, in fact we spill a little bit of our wine for each plague to diminish our joy – recognizing that the liberation of our people came at a terrible cost, whether they were a perpetrator of injustice, a willing bystander, or innocent of any wrongdoing. Yes, we pause to feel anger at the scar of degradation and discrimination inflicted across the history of our people. Yet our retelling recognizes that we cannot build a better world from anger. Anger simply points to the gap between the world as it is and the world as it could be. But to get there, to bridge that divide, it will take love.

And love is no small act. It is no simple platitude or nice feeling. Love is radical. And it demands action. Love calls us to see the divine spark in other people – the ones we like and the ones we don’t like, the ones who are part of our tribe and the ones who are a stranger to us. Our memory of pain does not ask us to turn inward, but commands us to outward. “You know the soul of the stranger,” the Torah reminds us, “because you yourselves were strangers.” And knowing their soul, understanding that there is a divine fragment embedded within each of them, immutable and inviolable – well, then we must treat them as we would treat any sacred thing: as something, as someone of dignity and worth… a reflection of God, the creator of all things. Not conceptually, but actually. Like the covenantal relationship between God and the Israelites, this human-to-human connection is one of profound obligation: to protect and to advocate and to care for each other.

This is the kind of love which will get us closer to a better tomorrow.

So this is my question for all of you: as we move from the story of redemption in the past to the hope for redemption in this moment, how can you love a bit more deeply and a bit more boldly and a bit more expansively? In a time when it is so tempting to react in anger, how can you act on love instead?

We each have a corner of the world we can change. It may not be much, but it is something. And it matters. So from my little corner, to this room and all of you in it, let me say this: here, you are loved. And that love motivates us to show up for one another, pray for one another, care for one another – even if we don’t always necessarily like one another. Israelis and your friends and your families are loved here and so we pray for you and show up, however we can, even when we don’t always agree with each other. Palestinians and your friends and your families are loved here, and so we pray for you and show up in the ways that we can, even as we have some pretty deep disagreements as well. Trans and nonbinary folks, and especially our trans, nonbinary, and queer children are absolutely loved and cherished here, and we will protect you and stand up for you no matter what. Undocumented immigrants, and green card holders, and naturalized citizens are loved and are safe here, and we will do what we can to defend you. Because that’s what love means. It is not just lip service – but a promise, the kind that can split the sea, so we can cross safely to the other side. It is a love that moves me, moves us to show up for you: however we can, learning as we go, getting better every time, to help build the world we know is possible.