Getting it Right is Never Wrong

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome I'm Rabbi David Lyon from Congregation Both Israel in Houston.
The Jewish world, according to the Jewish calendar, is preparing
for the ten days of repentance. It begins on the
first day of the Hebrew month of Tichre, and ten
days later we come to Yom Kipur, the day of
Atonement or the day of cleansing. In these ten days,

(00:25):
faithfully observed by those who participate in many do we
focus on not only ourselves and the community, but also
and then our relationship with God. And so many scholars, liturgists,
theologians have commented to help us understand what this ten

(00:48):
day period, which is also comes after a full period
of preparation to get ready for such an intense time
to understand all that it can mean to us. Martin
Boeber of the twentieth century wrote, we shall accomplish nothing
at all if we divide our world and our life

(01:11):
into two domains, one in which God's command is paramount,
the other governed by the laws of economics, politics, and
the simple self assertion of the group. Stopping one's ears
so as not to hear the voice from above is
breaking the connection between existence and the meaning of existence.

(01:34):
In those few words, Martin Boeober says so much, and
in the short time that we share right now, there
isn't enough time to unpack it completely. But Boober was
the man who wrote I Am Thou. He came to
teach us that when we are in relationship in communication

(01:55):
with another person, if it's just a matter of using
that relationship for a particular outcome, or to judge what
that outcome is, then it's an eye it relationship. But
I Thou means that we have come to understand deeply
what the other needs from us, and by providing what

(02:16):
the other needs, we don't even lose something of ourselves. Rather,
there is a mutual sense of connection, and within the
eye Thou, Boober claims, we find the eternal Thou, that is,
God is always present, but sometimes we are absence. But
between human beings who listen, who learn, who engage and

(02:40):
share mutually, then God's presence can be felt, and we
walk away from each other nourished and more spiritually fulfilled.
And he applies it then, not only to the intimate
relationship and communication between people, but listen to the way
he puts it, we shall accomplish nothing at all. If

(03:02):
we divide our world in our life into two domains.
If we only forget that God's command is paramount while
we pay attention to economics, politics, and the simple self
assertion of the group, then we lose something. The eye Thou,
the meaningful religious spiritual relationship that nourishes us and propels

(03:26):
us on a sacred path to do better than we've done,
demands that we pay attention to God's commandment, which is paramount,
and also to the daily routine of economics and politics
and the assertion that we come with from the group

(03:47):
where we spend our time. But to separate them, as
he puts it, stopping one's ears so as not to
hear the voice from above while we're also committed to
everything on the earth in our daily practice of work
and play. In economics means breaking the connection between existence
and the meaning of existence, because He doesn't deny us

(04:11):
what we do or why we do it. Economics and
politics and group work is all important. We are social animals,
we are communal people. We want to help our communities
thrive and our people grow in the future. But if
we do it only for the sake of ourselves, or

(04:32):
only for the sake of what we can gain from
it without understanding the larger purpose that we are one
human being and a company of others, or we are
one group in the company of other groups, and we
are one human people in God's company. If we forget that,
then we've forgotten it all, because there's so much more

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to gain. If we also appreciate that God's commandments our paramount.
Looking up or around us, or at least beyond the self,
helps us to enter the relationship that Boober made so famous.
The eye Thou relationship means that the eternal Thou, God's

(05:15):
eternal presence can be touched and felt and experienced by us,
And then when we return to the daily work that
we do, it's filled with greater meaning, and what we
aim to accomplish reflects a straight path of life, not
evil for the sake of evil, and not even good

(05:36):
for the sake of good, but for something larger than ourselves,
which we attribute to being mindful of a commanding voice,
however we might imagine God in our separate and respective
faith traditions, being aware of something larger than ourselves elevates
all that we do. To be sure that we do

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it for the right reason and for the right outcome. Further,
we learn that every human being has merits and faults.
The righteous person has more merits than falts, the wicked
one more false than merits. But my Monodies from the

(06:16):
twelfth century taught the average person is more or less
evenly balanced between the two. A community, too, is judged
in the same manner. If the merits of its citizens
outweigh their faults, it is called righteous, If their false
outweigh their merits, it is called wicked. My monodies are rationalists,

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an Aristotelian thinker, and Jewish thought about the average person
more or less evenly balanced. We're not looking for perfectly
right or perfectly wrong people. But there are those who
are out of balance, and if their faults are greater
than they may be wicked, as the translation suggests, And

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if their merits are greater than, they're more righteous. But
it isn't only about the individual whose concern is ours,
especially during the high holy days in the Jewish calendar.
It's also what a community is and a community does.
And if by some standard measure of humanity, we can

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decide whether a person or a group is acting in
a wicked way. Perhaps we will understand them better, and
they might come to understand themselves better too. But if
we are contributing to what we consider to be universal
values of hope, human dignity, humanity, life, and peace, somewhere

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in there such individuals and such groups should come to
identify the reason for what they do. Does it serve
oneself the group? Does it serve God? These are the questions,
These are the ways we ultimately measure whether or on
the right path or not. And a Hasidic teaching from

(08:04):
the eighteenth and nineteenth century goes on to help us
understand that the rabbis taught our great transgression is not
that we commit sins. Temptation is strong and our strength
is slight. No, the rabbi teaches, our transgression is that
at every instant we can turn to God and we

(08:27):
do not turn. The Rabbis are reflecting something very important
and incredibly simple in Judaism, but at the same time complex.
In Judaism. The rabbi says that it's okay that we
commit sin. It's not that we're permitted to but we're

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human beings. We're bound to make mistakes, and not every
sin is the worst one of all. We make mistakes
in judgment, we stumble, and we fall all in the
work that we do, we don't get it right. But
a transgression is not a reason to be condemned. Temptation
is strong, the Rabbi rites, and our strength is light.

(09:11):
We recognize the nature of a human being, and we're
not set out to condemn that human being to some
kind of hell on earth or hell after this life
that that person can never be saved from. Know, the
Rabbi says. Our transgression is that at every instant we

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can turn to God, and we do not turn. Therein
lies that opportunity. It's right in front of us. That repentance, renewal,
coming clean is constantly and always available to us. It
doesn't wait for Yom Kipur, it doesn't wait for other
days of cleansing, including the Sabbath. It's constantly available to us.

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And the only problem is, perhaps the greatest sin that
we commit, is that when we have that opportunity that's
so available to us, we do not turn. We do
not return to God. We continue to go the path
that we've chosen. But our life is about being human,
and ultimately, at the end of our life's journey, God

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willing it should be long. We have found ways to
do better than we've done, and to grow as human
beings by accepting personal responsibility and being personally held accountable
for the deeds that we do. I cannot ask someone
else to save me. I can ask someone else to
satisfy my debts to society. All of it is on me.

(10:44):
But if I turn to my own faith tradition, I
find in the entire book of Torah and beyond it
many midsvote, many commandments, good deeds that God commands our
people to do and strive to achieve, not all at once,
but over the course of a lifetime. So a child

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may do a little and learned right from wrong in
simple ways, but ultimately adults and senior adults find perspective
in the world and discover that even when we thought
we were perfectly right, we might have been perfectly wrong.
And to be able to grow and change and accept
our foibles, and also to know that life is hard,

(11:27):
we begin to look for ways to overcome our challenges
and struggles, and ways to make life a little easier
and more comfortable too. It isn't only through economic prosperity.
It's about appreciating what we have, what we've been given,
and how to use it for the best for ourselves
and for others who are touched by our life. But

(11:49):
also to be mindfully aware of God's presence in our
life helps us to understand what Boober originally taught, which
was that by being mindful of meaning of existence, it
isn't only to meet all of our own needs, but
rather to be part of a continuum in history where

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God's will, God's teachings, righteousness and holiness are something that
the human spirit and the human experience can achieve, not
to be God, but to be humanly holy. And if
we keep in mind, if we keep in front of
us that ambition for ourselves, it doesn't deny as the

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daily work that we need to accomplish, but it puts
it into perspective to be sure that our economic, our political,
and our group work makes a positive difference for the world,
a world that we all want to share. As God
created it, God gave us dominion over it, but didn't
say that we could do just anything with it. We

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had to do something to make it sacred, to make
it holy, that is, to elevate it for a very
special purpose. I'm Rabbi David Lyon from Congregation Beth Israel
in Houston. To listen again or to share this message,
please find it at my podcast called Heart to Heart
with Rabbi David Lyon. You can find it at Sunny

(13:14):
ninety nine dot com, are on the iHeartRadio app. And
so I think as the high holy days come and
you might encounter Jewish family or Jewish friends, it is
appropriate to say shahnato vap, Happy New Year to you,
and to know that that person is entering a ten
day of repentance where even I hope that they will

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participate in understanding that our humanity is challenged and we
are challenged to accomplish all that we can as human beings.
But the teachings and the lessons and the roadmap, the
user's manual, so to speak, is right in front of us.
It's in my sacred teachings, it's in your sacred teachings,
and they are sources for us to glean from so

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that we can elevate all that we do, to take
all of the daily work and tasks and aspirations we
have and do them, not only to meet our needs
and our families, but many others, and to know ultimately
it couldn't hurt to know that we please God as
God commanded us to be created in God's image and

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to accomplish all that we can during our time on earth,
even as we stumble, to know that we have these
annual daily and moments to repair and get back on
our feet again to do all that we can. And
so as this season unfolds and we all appreciate the
opportunity for renewal and repentance, may it be for good,

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maybe for blessings of life and greater peace in our
hearts and our homes. Thank you for joining me. I
look forward to being with you again next time.