Thank you for inviting me here to St Stephen’s and thank you to my friend and colleague Reverend Willie. Although we only met a few years ago, it feels as if we have known each other for many more. St Stephens is so lucky to have such a kind, thoughtful, committed spiritual leader whose reputation in this community is one that exemplifies wisdom and respect and social justice for all. Our lives continue to crisscross as we both are committed to bringing healing to the world through our multifaith work and our social justice efforts. I am proud to call her my colleague and friend. Thank you, Willie!
While thinking about this morning, I asked myself why would a rabbi be asked to speak at an Episcopal church service on a Sunday morning unless, of course, the rabbi is friends with the Reverend and what could I share with you that could possibly inspire you on your spiritual journey, for all of us are, aren’t we? Reverend Willie asked me to focus my talk today on a particular passage in Exodus, 24:12-18. To give it context, though, we need to review where we are in this post liberation story. The Israelites just last week stood at the foot of Mt Sinai and experienced the dramatic revelation from God in which the people received the 10 commandments. It was a not-from-this-world-spiritual experience in which their senses were on overload, so much so that they could actually hear the lightening and see the thunder! There were shofar blasts and thick smoke creating darkness in the middle of the day, a true Charleton Heston moment! It must’ve been overwhelming for them to be and feel the presence of God. Their lives were forever transformed by the power and magnitude of that Divine encounter. And then, just as this uber dramatic episode comes to an abrupt end, we begin this week’s portion with “V’eleh hamishpatim asher tasim lif’nehem, And, these are the rules that you shall set before them. The very first letter in the text after the drama of Mt Sinai, is the letter, vav, which could easily be overlooked as insignificant but according to the rabbis, no letter or word is superfluous. This little ol’ letter, vav, means “and” 2 and when used in this context serves as a bridge between the highs I just described of Revelation to the mundane litany of almost 50 mishpatim, or laws in this chapter alone, laws that include how to treat a slave, consequences for physically striking another, kidnapping, insulting your parents, speaking false rumors about people, personal injury, property damage, returning lost objects, and how to deal with petty feuds and accidental deaths. None of these laws enumerated in this portion, by the way, are particular to the Jewish people’s relationship with their God, but rather offer universal, moral direction on how to create an ethical and civil society. These are the laws that teach us how to interact with one another and to live together in peace and harmony. That “vav”, the “and” connector, hints to us that these two domains of the sublime and mundane are not actually separate but are intertwined and connected to one other.
Our task is to elevate and bring our holy experiences into the nitty gritty moments of our daily lives. It reminds me of an experience I had a few years ago, I decided to go out of my comfort zone and do something I had never done before. I wanted to check out the practice of mindfulness meditation. I didn’t just decide to engage in a casual mindfulness meditation class, but instead I dove headfirst into a 7-day silent meditation retreat out in California, no less. I didn’t know a soul and I had never had any training, per se, in meditation. We were allowed no phones, no computers, no talking…nada! It took me a few days to get used to not verbally communicating with anyone or checking my emails and social media. But once I settled into the rhythm of it, my heart opened to the intensity of innovative prayer; it gave me the space to allow my soul to settle down and to just be; it gave me the license to be fully present and to feel abounding gratitude; and it allowed me to experience spiritual highs unlike I had ever experienced before. I remember one such moment toward the end of our week when out of the blue and without notice, tears began pouring down my face. I felt an overwhelming connection to God and my Divine purpose and the intensity of gratitude and clarity of that moment. I understood my place in the world and I saw clearly my path forward. I, like the Israelites at SInai, felt all of my senses on fire. I was connected to me. I was connected to my journey and I 3 was connected to God. It was a singular spiritual experience that I never had before, nor have I since then. I felt my life forever changed. And then, what happened?? I went home! There was a whole week of emails to catch up on, people to reconnect with, laundry and grocery shopping to do and work to return to. It was amazing how quickly my spiritual high and moment of clarity faded and life, well…. it just went back to normal! I believe that is what this portion of Exodus is coming to teach us.
Our connection to God and our spiritual highs are not only about silent retreats, Sunday church services, meditations and mountain top experiences but about bringing those big, sometimes over-the-top-experiences and those spiritual connections we experience along the way into the real world in which we live. We know intuitively that we can’t live in spiritual highs for very long. Spiritual epiphanies and moments of enlightenment are short-lived and are hard to achieve. They are few and far between. As Professor Arnold Eisen submits, “we may not have a vision of God like the one described at Sinai and so he says, ‘You cannot know God in this way, but you can know what God wants of you. Sinai was a one-time experience, an encounter that must not serve as a paradigm for intimacy with the Divine. Moving forward, the people are implicitly told that their relationship with God is developed and deepened as much through ritual behavior and prayer, as it is through the pursuit of justice between human beings.’” It is when we act as God’s partner here on earth, by doing God’s will and creating a world that God envisioned, that we can nurture our relationship and come to know God. It is as the rabbis articulate, the place “where heaven and earth kiss.” This idea is further emphasized in a mysterious episode, right after all the details and the laws are set out, in which God calls Moses: “Aleh Elai he-hara v’heyeh sham, Come up to the mountain and be there…and I will give you the tablets of stone, the Torah and commandments which I have written that you might teach them” (Exodus 24:12). Menachem Mendel of Kotsk raised a question: If Moses went up to the mountain, of course he would be there, so why does Torah say, “Come up and be there”? 4 It is mentioned to remind us what we already learned at Mt Sinai, that whatever we do, in the sublime and in the mundane dimensions of our lives, we need to be there. We need to bring our whole self into our experiences. We need to listen attentively and pay attention. We need to be physically close enough so that we can look into the eyes of another, as we peer into the window of their soul. How often do we spend “time” with our friends and loved ones but aren’t really there with them because we’re either distracted with an upcoming activity or we’re preoccupied with our social media and texting? If we can be intentional by being there by slowing down enough to be present for one another and by mindfully appreciating the significance of the passing moment; if we can be there by going out in nature to see the abundant blessings of the world; and if we can “be there” to fight injustice, then we have the potential to bring the holiness into our every day and bring heaven down to earth, just by being “there.”
In further illuminating how we can nurture our relationship with God in the everyday of our lives, the Talmud teaches that when one builds a synagogue or a house of study, the structure should have windows (BT Berachot 34b). In fact, no synagogue can be built without windows to the outside. One commentator explains that the windows remind us to take our prayers and our heightened spiritual experiences from within our retreats and sanctuaries out to the streets, to the marketplace, to the workplace, to our homes and to the strangers we encounter along the way. Choosing to bury our heads in our Bibles and prayer books, wearing a veil of piety, is not what God had intended for us. Sure, it is easy to pretend we are blind to the ills of our community and make excuses as to why we cannot “be there” for our neighbors and the strangers. To be in relation with God means we must protest against injustice, we must offer compassion and love, and we must treat everyone with dignity and honor. Our Divine responsibility is to transform our prayers and our peak experiences into holy action. Our windows and the Exodus narrative remind us that we cannot remain on the mountain top but instead must move into the enterprise of building a just and loving society, not within these 4 walls, but just beyond those windows, the place where heaven and earth kiss.