Torah sets the framework for who we are

RABBI B. CHARLES HERRING

We began this school year at Temple Kol Ami with a story about a man who found himself awash on the shore of a place he had never seen. After a parade of people descended to the beach from a castle high above on the cliff, they lifted him up, carried him up the hill, and crowned him their king.

One day, wary of what was going on, he turned to a trusted advisor and asked him for the truth. The advisor told him that he was king only for one year, and at the end of the year he would be put to death. "What shall I do?" asked the man, and the advisor instructed him to put aside all the things that make life good throughout his reign and then, just before the end, he should take off and enjoy them.

The story is, of course an allegory. The man on the beach is a child at birth. The time as king is the time of adulthood. The end of the reign is death, and the goods set aside are those accomplishments of life you can reflect on with pride before your life comes to its end.

This sermon is the last High Holiday sermon I get to offer on this pulpit. When I lie quietly, I wonder about the goods I have set aside, and why God selected me over all the other, surely more worthy, candidates to teach and to live Torah.

Allow me, please, to remember now. The beginning was a mother who, when told of her son's career decision, gasped: "You want to be a what?"

It was with this overwhelming family support that I entered rabbinic school. While there, my first student pulpit experience was shared between two Louisiana towns, Morgan City and New Iberia.

I remember Yom Kippur in New Iberia. By nightfall, I was exhausted. I stood before the ark at the end of Ne'ila, and lifted a small, very hard-to-blow shofar to my lips and blew t'kiah g'dola. I don't remember how long it was, because I fainted before the end. After I awoke, they schlepped me off to someone's house for their traditional break-the-fast of pickled okra and bourbon.

At my ordination, the president of the college ordained me by the wrong name, because he had lost his place on the list. I thought to myself, well, at least God knows my name.

With credentials in hand, now was the chance to get off the beach and head to the castle. The castle turned out to have many rooms.

I went off to my first honest-to-God pulpit as an ordained rabbi in Tachikawa, Tokyo, Japan. A lovely tour except for the court martial. I had thoughtlessly refused to march in a parade on Shabbat. And my commanding officer set off to get even.

Time to look for another room in the castle.

Next try, Phoenix.

Time, experience, success and failures brought me to a keen awareness of something that has directed my entire life both on and off the pulpit. And it is this. Torah sets the framework for who we are as Jews by transmitting a system of laws that set us aside as a distinct people.

But in only one of the 613 laws of Torah is a reason offered as to why it should be followed.

It takes the ancient prophets of Israel to explain the awesome importance of what God means. They give vivid examples of worlds that collapse because God's guidelines were ignored, or they share glorious visions of societies living in harmony and peace where they are followed.

From the prophets I learned that only when words become deeds does a Jew become a Jew. And how does a Jew become a Jew? Not by counting his blessing. But by counting his mitzvot, one by one.

The prophets of Israel command and demand that one who calls him or herself a Jew to actively engage in the underlying principle of tikkun olam - the repair of fractures in our life, our community, and in our world.

The key question is always: "Where should I start?" and the key answer is "Wherever you can." History will never fail to extend you an opportunity.

Who can forget the birth of Camp Charles Pearlstein? Its hillside synagogue on a Shabbat evening, ablaze with candlelight, the sky overhead filled with stars, children dressed in white coming up the path singing "ma yafeh hayom, shabbat shalom." Pearlstein was a beginning. And from it grew Camp Swift, a haven for inner-city kids with Jewish teens as counselors and friends. Camp Swift grew into Mitzvah Corp.

Sometimes the attempt to repair fractures can be engaged in only after the deepest of soul searching.

But one example was my experience with Cesar Chavez, a deeply tanned, rough-skinned man, who led the drive for the unionization of the farm workers. I fought on his behalf.

It was difficult for me in those days, because a substantial number of temple members were in the agriculture business, and anything but sympathetic to Chavez.

After my first pro-Chavez sermon, I was called into one of their offices, and asked if I understood the economics of what I was doing, that if I succeeded in "this idiocy," the price of lettuce could go from 25 cents to over a dollar a head.

This he told me while I knew of children killed in the fields, workers with no decent living quarters and pitiful wages. They might as well have been slaves, and this man was concerned with the price of lettuce over the cost of humanness.

In the spring of 1988, events befell that required me to search for yet another room in the castle. I had no idea where it would be, but by the fall of that year, I had become the rabbi of Phoenix's newest congregation, Temple Kol Ami. We rented our first home from a Lutheran church, and with 57 families, we set course on an unparalleled adventure.

In my lifetime, there has been far more joy than anything else, and my family has been the chiefest of that joy. I began this journey with Barbara, who has immeasurably enriched my love of Judaism. Much of what others give me credit for belongs to her alone. Our own children have all married fine men, and have their own wonderful children. Each of them gives a unique strength to the Jewish people.

What a journey. A journey of true friendship, and much love. I pray to God that I have created enough gifts to set aside before I leave, and you go off to find the next candidate lying on the beach at the foot of the castle.

In the Talmud, Tractate Shabbat, page 31a, you will discover a rabbinic discussion concerning the meaning of a verse from the prophet Isaiah, which reads, "and there shall be faith in your times, strength, salvation, wisdom, and knowledge."

Raba suggests that the words are actually the basis for a series of questions about your life that you will be asked by the heavenly tribunal you will stand before immediately after your death:

Did you deal honestly and with integrity? I hope so.

Did you set aside specific times to study? Absolutely so.

Did you procreate? I know so!

Did you engage in holy conversations? You know so.

Did you hope for better worlds? More so.

And finally, did you acquire sufficient knowledge to allow you to understand one thing from another? I think so.

And I pray you think so, too.