There is an old story about a rabbi, a cantor, and a shul president who were all working late one night at the congregation trying to get ready for the HHDs. Unfortunately a robber broke into the shul, rounded up the three men, and brought them to the main sanctuary, where he said, ‘I am sorry to tell you that I cannot let you live now that you’ve seen me, but I want you to know that I am a compassionate man, so I’ll grant each of you one last request.’ The rabbi immediately said “I am here late tonight working on my Kol Nidre sermon, I have just finished it, and it is the greatest sermon I’ve ever written. It is probably about 45-50 minutes long, and my one last wish would be to deliver it before I die.” The robber then turned to the Cantor, who said, “I’ve been working on a new Kol Nidre setting, with choir, and a full orchestra, but my one last wish would be to chant this Kol Nidre a capella, and it won’t be more than 20 or 25 minutes.”
At this point the robber looked at the shul president, who looked back at the robber with tears in his eyes, and said “Please, if you really are compassionate, just shoot me now.”
It is compassion that I want to talk about with you tonight, on Kol Nidre, the beginning of our most sacred day of the year - a day when our tradition asks us to return to our best selves and our highest values, so that we can be better people in the new year that is beginning. And I believe that compassion is one of those values that we need to return to - as individuals, as Jews, and as members of a larger community that exists around us.
What I am worried about today, as I look around, and read the papers, and talk with people, is that our hearts are becoming hardened. That is a biblical phrase - you might recognize it from the Passover story and its description of Pharaoh - Pharaoh is a man with a hardened heart. What that means is that he only cares about himself, his own people, and his own needs and desires. Its the kind of attitude that I feel we see more and more today - we see it in plain people and politicians, in communities, in policies, in our country, in our government. It takes a hard heart to cheer out during a debate of presidential candidates, when a candidate suggests that a person who can’t pay for their own health care just might have to die. It takes a hard heart to create the kind of immigration laws that are becoming legislation around this country, most recently in Alabama. It takes a hard heart when people in Congress, in both parties of Congress, suggest that the US should stop sending aid around the world, aid that has saved lives, put clothes on peoples backs, and food on their tables. And it certainly takes a hard heart to read the headline in the Baltimore Sun a couple of weeks ago that 25% of Baltimore City residents live under the poverty line, to look at it, shake your head, shrug your shoulders, put the paper down and walk away.
But across the country, people are doing exactly that. They might feel bad, they might wish they could do something, they might intend to do something, but in the end, they shrug their shoulders, they harden their heart, and they walk away.
Now I understand the impulse. The economy is in the tank, the stock market can’t seem to get out of its funk, people are out of work, and people get worried, they get worried about their future, they get worried about their families. And the natural inclination is to say, “you know what, I’ve got to take care of myself.” It is time to bottle up the compassion, and put it on the shelf, and let the heart be a little bit harder for a while. Its only natural, only human nature. But you see that is why we need God - or at least the idea of God. Because God reminds us that sometimes we need to strive to be more like God.
So let me tell you for a moment another story, much older than the story about the rabbi, cantor, and shul president. It is a story that you’ve heard many times before, about Moses, and the Israelites, and the sin of the golden calf. Normally we focus on the beginning of the story: Moses up on the mountain, Aaron giving in to the people’s demand and making an idol. The people then worshipping the idol, and Moses coming down from the mountain and angrily breaking the tablets, destroying the idol, and punishing the people.
But there is a poignant ending to that story that we are less familiar with, and that is a tale of reconciliation, and more than anything else, of compassion. Because God calls Moses back up to the top of the mountain. Imagine if you were in Moses’ shoes - how would you feel, trekking up the mountain again, knowing that God was waiting for you there? The people that you were in charge of had sinned terribly, and you had shattered with your own hands the tablets that God gave you. I am sure Moses did not make that journey with a light heart.
But in the end, God called Moses up again to assure him of something, of something that Moses perhaps didn’t feel so sure of, but that he desperately needed to know - in a private moment, just between Moses and God, God assures Moses that God is compassionate.
The language that God uses to give Moses this message is language that you all know. You are familiar with it especially from the liturgy of Yom Kippur. You’ll hear it chanted tonight, and again tomorrow during the Ne’ilah service. These are the words:
ה’ ה’ א–ל רחום וחנון ארך אפים ורב חסד ואמת
“The Lord, the Lord, compassionate, full of grace, slow to anger, greatly kind, and faithful.”
In the Talmud there is a beautiful midrashic imagining of this moment between God and Moses. The Talmud says that God wrapped Godself in a tallit, like one who leads a congregation in prayer. And God said to Moses, whenever the people sin, let them perform before me this order of prayer, and I will forgive them.” And the prayer that God specifies is that phrase - ‘The Lord, the Lord, compassionate, full of grace, slow to anger, greatly kind, and faithful.’ And so on Yom Kippur day, when we come before God as a people to ask for forgiveness, the sages included that phrase in the liturgy, believing that it had a special power to call God’s attention to our desire to be better people. And perhaps to remind God, that one time, many years ago, God promised Moses that God would be compassionate.
But I think there is another reason why the sages included the passage so prominently in the liturgy on the day when they knew most Jews would be in shul. Because the true purpose of the service tonight and tomorrow, the true purpose of Yom Kippur, is not to teach us about God and God’s qualities - instead, it is to teach us about our selves, and our qualities. We hope and pray that God is compassionate - but what truly matters tonight, and tomorrow, and I would argue throughout the rest of the year, is if we are. There is a wonderful phrase in rabbinic literature that is used to describe the Jewish people: “rachamim, b’nai rachamim” - compassionate people, through the generations.
I am convinced that phrase is one of the reasons that so many Jews are drawn into helping professions - medicine, counseling, social work, human services - it is one of the reasons that whenever there is a disaster in the world, Israel is one of the very first countries to respond, every single time. It is one of the reasons why Jews were at the forefront of the Civil Rights movement in the 60s. Its one of the reasons why so many synagogues have caring committees, its one of the reasons why the Associated does so much good for so many people, here and around the world. It is a guiding principle: Rachamim b’nai rachamim - we are called to be, challenged to be, compassionate people, through the generations. And so on a Kol Nidre eve one of the questions we need to ask ourselves is, are we still? Are we still as individuals? Are we still as a Jewish community? Are we still as a greater community? As a city, as a state, as a country? And if we are not, how can we be again?
Some of you are probably familiar with the name Primo Levi. He was an Italian born chemist who joined the anti-Nazi resistance during the Second World War. When he was captured by the Nazis, as a Jew, he was sent to Auschwitz, where he spent a year and a half of his life. When the war ended and he was liberated, he wrote a book about his experiences called If This Is A Man.
In the book he talks about what to him was the most precarious time in the camp. It was when the Germans left, as the Soviets were advancing – this was the winter of 1945. For about 10 days there was no control in the camp, no Nazis, no Russians – only the starving and dead and dying prisoners. There was very little food, and almost no fuel for warmth.
Levi was one of the healthier prisoners – he was at least able to walk and do a few things that needed to be done. And he worked with two other prisoners to fix a window to keep out cold air, and also to repair a stove to bring some warmth into the barracks. When they had completed the work, the other prisoners, many of them too weak to even get out of their bunks, voted to give Levi and the other two workers an extra slice of bread.
Levi describes that moment in the following way – and I quote – “Only a day before a similar event would have been inconceivable. The law of the camp said “eat your own bread, and if you can, eat that of your neighbor,” and it left no room for compassion. That moment meant that the law of the camp was dead. It was the first human gesture that occurred among us. I believe that that moment can be dated as the beginning of the change by which we who had not died slowly changed from prisoners to men again.”
It was the first human gesture - that gesture of compassion - of sharing, of giving, of sacrificing, of understanding. It was that simple gesture of compassion that returned to the prisoners their humanity, and enabled them to once again live with dignity and hope. You see, when our hearts become hard we are all diminished - as individuals, and as a community. But when we are able to find a place for compassion in our hearts, then our humanity becomes what God wants it to be, what God intends that it should be. And we become the people that we hope to be, that we know we can be - may that be the destiny that we all share - Amen.
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