“Excuse me, sir.”
“Is that you again, Moses?”
“I’m afraid it is, sir.”
“What is it this time, Moses. More computer problems?”
“How did you guess?”
“I don’t have to guess, Moses. Remember?”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot. Well, I have a question, sir. You know those ten things you sent me?”
“You mean the Ten Commandments, Moses?”
“That’s it. I was wondering if they were important.”
“What do you mean ‘were important’ Moses? Of course, they are important. Otherwise I wouldn’t have sent them to you.”
“Well, sorry, but I lost them.
“What do you mean ‘you lost them’! Are you trying to tell me you didn’t save them, Moses?”
“No, sir. I forgot.”
“You should always save, Moses.”
“Yeah, I know. You told me that before. I was going to, but I forgot. This computer stuff is just too much for me. Can we just go back to those stone tablets? It was hard on my back taking them out and reading them each day, but at least I never lost them.”
“We’ll do it the new way, Moses.”
“I was afraid you would say that, sir.”
“Moses, what did I tell you to do if you messed up?”
“You told me to hold up this rat and stretch it out toward the computer.”
“It’s a mouse, Moses. Mouse! Mouse! And did you do that?”
“No, I decided to try tech support first. After all, who knows more about this stuff than you? One other thing. Why didn’t you name them frogs instead of mice, because didn’t you tell me the thing they sit on is a pad?”
“Say good night, Moses.”
“Wait a minute, sir. I am stretching out the mouse, and it seems to be working. Yes, a couple of the ten things have come back!”
“Which ones are they, Moses?”
“Let’s see. ‘Thou shalt not steal from any grave an image’ and ‘Thou shalt not cover,’ uh, that must be ‘uncover thy neighbor’s wife.’”
“Turn the computer off, Moses. I’m sending you another set of stone tablets. How does ‘Same Day Air’ sound?” [Jewish Humor List]

Even the great Moses needed help. Camped at Mt. Sinai he spent hour after hour dispensing justice to the people. His father-in-law Yitro comes and says to him:

The thing you are doing is not right; you will surely wear yourself out, and these people as well. For the task is too heavy for you. You cannot do it alone. [Exodus 18:17-18]

No one can, not even Moses. We long for a world in which every single individual may flourish, a world in which our loved ones will be safe. We know that we cannot possibly do it alone. We know we need each other to create such a world. And we know in our hearts that such a world must have a balance of justice to reward and punish, and mercy, to forgive.

We Jews call this combination of justice and mercy “social action” in English and tikkun olam, literally, “repairing the world”, in Hebrew. Our Jewish understanding is that each and every person is an entire world, even an entire universe. Sometimes, some people’s universes overshadow others. There are some who don’t even have enough to live like people. Sometimes people’s lives get broken and they need others to help fix them.

We can be proud that we Jews were the first ones to teach the rest of the world to be concerned with this. As Thomas Cahill wrote in “The Gifts of the Jews”,

This [Jewish] bias toward the underdog is unique not only in ancient law but in the whole history of law. However faint our sense of justice may be, insofar as it operates at all it is still a Jewish sense of justice. [Thomas Cahill, The Gifts of the Jews, Nan A. Talese, Doubleday (New York, 1998, pg. 55, emphasis mine.]

It is not just the poor and the hungry, the one-seventh of the children in the Western world facing starvation, the one in two who goes to bed hungry, who are in need of help. It is all of us. Sometimes we need justice. Sometimes we need mercy. But I have yet to meet anyone who isn’t in need, real need, at some point in their life, usually many points.

We live on the edge of catastrophe so much of the time. Marian and I were at dinner with some friends one night. We looked around the table and realized that every one of us had survived cancer. How many of you have had your lives turned upside down by serous illness, the death of loved ones, or the loss of a job held for decades, a job that supported a family, bought a house, sent the kids to camp, that suddenly disappeared because the company down-sized? How many of your homes have troubled youngsters, really troubled youngsters, who are struggling to become whole with tremendous amounts of professional help, or relationships, marital or otherwise, strained to the breaking point or beyond? How many of you are mired in law suits that drag on forever, or being cheated by others, or crying out for justice when a former “loved one” hides all assets and leaves the rest of the family destitute?

More and more, we are smaller and smaller cogs in larger and larger wheels, social and economic. The company that had to let you go was bought by a larger one. They were forced to consolidate in order to compete with other firms that were using cheaper, third world labor. The cost of relative economic stability for society as a whole is apparently economic insecurity for the individual. Our children and our marriages are subjected to stresses that simply didn’t exist a generation or two ago. The pace is faster. The playing field is bigger. And we are all smaller by comparison.

We look for assistance. As the Psalmist says:

I lift up mine eyes unto the mountains,
From where will my help come?
My help comes from the Eternal,
Maker of heaven and earth… [Psalms 121:1-2]

Ultimately, of course. But more immediately, it seems that even the Almighty needs help. I learned this from the most truly religious Jew I’ve ever known, my grandmother, Anna Fishman, may her memory be for a blessing – and it is.. She died many years ago at the age of, as she put it, “Forty-four. Twice.” She was so righteous and made such a world-class noodle pudding that we referred to her as St Anna of the Kugel. As was often the case when I was younger, she was staying over at our house. I came home from school to find her sitting and reading her newspaper by whatever light shone in through the window, “to save the electric.”

It was one of those awful days: a fatal fire in Queens, a brutal rape in the Bronx, two murders in Harlem, a terrorist bombing in Israel and another in Ireland, world leaders shouting at each other, governments toppling… Sadly she shook her head and muttered, “Az der Aibishter volt du gevoint, voltmin zeinen fenster oichet tzebrochen," which, for those of you who don’t speak Latin means, If God lived on earth, they’d break his windows, too.

Think about what an incredible theological statement that is! Even God is vulnerable! Even God needs help! Who could help? Who could fix God’s windows if they are broken? Who could perhaps prevent the windows from being broken in the first place? Do I need to spell out the obvious?

It’s not only our job, it’s our life and what gives meaning to our life:

A story by Y.L. Peretz entitled, “Beside the Dying,” tells about a man who is lying on his deathbed. He is visited by an angel who is to carry him to heaven as soon as his last breath expires. Sensing the angel’s presence, the fever-stricken man asks, “And what is life like up there in heaven, in paradise? What shall I be doing there?”
The angel answers, “You won’t have to do anything. There is eternal rest there, everlasting joy, and enduring happiness.”

Concerned, the man turns toward the angel. “Is anyone there whom I can help? Can I raise up the dejected, heal the sick, feed the hungry, or give water to parched lips?”
“No,” the angel replies, “no one will need your help there.”

Distraught, the man says, “Where there is no one who needs my soul, my heart, my tear of pity, my word of comfort, or my hand to lift them up, there is nothing for me to do.” And he refuses to go with the angel.

Instead he asks if he could be reassigned. [Neil Kurshan, Raising Your Child To Be A Mensch, (New York: Atheneum, 1987) p. 34.]

We don’t need to be “reassigned.” We’re still here. While we are, even more important than attending services or practicing any other Jewish ritual, is tikkun olam, social action. In our Reform hierarchy of values, it sits unchallenged at the top. As Jewish activist Leonard Fein wrote,

The essence, the specific genius of the Jews, is the proposition that this world is not working the way it was meant to, that it is a broken, fractured world, and that we are implicated in its repair…
...Judaism is a vocation; it is not the services we attend but the services we perform that define us.

Many of you have said to me that you’re not very religious, but you’re wrong. You are. A better term would probably be “observant” because what you almost always mean is that you don’t attend services very often or involve yourself in many other Jewish rituals. It wouldn’t hurt to attend services a bit more often, but even if you don’t I want you to know that:

· When I call you and tell you that I don’t have enough money in my discretionary fund to send one more needy child to camp so their single parent can make a living over the summer without worrying about childcare, or I need real money to make a mortgage payment to help keep someone from losing their home, and you send me a check with no questions asked, you’re being as religious as you can be.
· When you buy extra bags of groceries at the supermarket and bring them here for our food drive, even if you sleep through my sermon, leave the services early, or don’t come in at all, you’re being as religious as you can be.
· When a friend or loved one dies suddenly and you put aside your own grief to help the family through the maelstrom of arrangements that need to be made, you’re being as religious as you can be.
· When you have a chance at work to really stick it to someone to make points with the boss or make a few extra bucks, and you don’t, you’re being as religious as you can be.
· When you’re bone tired after a full day’s work and a nightmare commute and all you want to do is collapse in front of the tube, but you get up and attend that Temple committee meeting anyway, you’re being as religious as you can be.
· When you reach out to someone who is ill with a card or a phone call, you’re being as religious as you can be.
· When you pay a shivah call even if you don’t know the person very well and don’t know what to say at a time like this, you’re being as religious as you can be.
· When you visit someone in the hospital in spite of how uncomfortable all those tubes and wires make you, you’re being as religious as you can be.
· When you give up your golf time to coach your son’s baseball team, or give up your shopping date with friends to take your daughter shopping at the mall for clothes you really think people should be arrested for wearing but that she is positive she can’t possibly live without, you’re being as religious as you can be.
· When you keep your promises to your spouse, whether you made them years ago under the chuppah or just that morning at the breakfast table, you’re being as religious as you can be.
· When you look after your elderly parents even though, after all these years, they still drive you crazy, you’re being as religious as you can be.
· When you worry less about being your child’s friend and more about being their parent and setting a clear set of moral standards, and living by those standards yourself, you’re being as religious as you can be.

I want you to know that when you involve yourselves in tikkun olam, in social action, you are being very good Jews indeed. It is

…Indifference to the problems that confront society [that] is the unforgivable Jewish sin. [Albert Vorspan & David Saperstein, “Tough Choices”, pg. 5]

Do you mind if I give Lucy the last word?

In Charles Schulz’s PEANUTS cartoon, Charlie Brown and Lucy are discussing the meaning of existence.

“Why do you think we’re put here on earth, Charlie Brown?” Lucy asks.

“To make others happy,” answers Charlie Brown.

Lucy is not pleased with this answer. She says, “I don’t think I’m making anyone very happy… Of course, nobody’s making me very happy either...” Lucy then becomes quite indignant and roars, “SOMEBODY’S NOT DOING HIS JOB!!!”

If we’re already doing ours, may we continue. If not, may this be the year we begin.