Rabbi Marc:  When we are too full of ourselves we can’t take care of each other as we should

By Rabbi Marc Aaron Kline
columnist@kyforward.com

“Khazon Yeshayahu ven Amoz, asher Khazah …”  38 years later, and I still remember the chanting of this piece from Chapter One of the Book of Isaiah’s prophecy. This was the prophetic reading (Haftarah) for my Bar Mitzvah – now 38 years ago – this Shabbat.

I really cannot remember whether I learned it so well to prove that I could (even while being reminded that I was a horrible and intolerable student), or whether I did to avoid being grounded for being the intolerable student. In either case, I made it through – and in doing so, I learned a valuable lesson that I teach to all of my students. No one dies from Bar Mitzvah and many even find added meaning in their lives because of it.

This is a unique Shabbat for reasons other than my own Bar Mitzvah walk down memory lane. It is the last Shabbat before Tisha b’Av (ninth day of the Hebrew calendar month of Av). On 9 Av, both the first and second Temples in Jerusalem crumbled (about  660 years apart). Many intentionally chose this date for perpetrating acts of hate, humiliation and the planned destruction of our people. On 9 Av, the Nazis  announced their “Final Solution,” as the first transports to death camps began.  

There is a long list of pogroms and attacks that have happened on the 9th of Av throughout time. The Crusades, the expulsion of Jews from England, the Inquisition and Germany declared War on Russia and Britain escalating the First World War – all on this day. The sages also teach us that from the hellish fires of hate that mars this date, the phoenix of peace will rise. As we look to the nightmares of the past, it will be on the anniversary of these horrors; on this day the Messiah will manifest.

This Shabbat’s Haftarah  reminds us that we have to live not only for today, but for the future as well. Shabbat is a taste of the world of peace to come. As we are about to walk through a history of tragedy, we have to remember that all too often we mortgage  the future for today’s greed. We have to remember that there can only be a  tomorrow where we plan for its prosperity – for all of our prosperity, not just those with whom we agree.

On this Shabbat, Moses begins his farewell address (the Book of Deuteronomy). He will retell the story of our peoplehood and even recount (albeit with a few changes) the Ten Commandments as given atop Sinai. The text will require us to look backward at the journey of a lifetime  (40 years in the text), to assess where we have been; how we have grown (hopefully we have); and what the successes, failures and challenges have been along the way. We stop and remember, even as we stand at the precipice of the future. The people are standing at the River Jordan, about to cross into the “Promised Land.” On this Shabbat, we look back, as well. We see the horrors and blessings of history.

As we read this week’s Haftarah from Isaiah, the prophet tells us that God is upset with our “fake” righteousness. God sees us doing all of the right rituals, bringing all of the correct sacrifices but living the wrong values. It is as if we are trying to pay God off; appeasing a pagan God. The text ends with a visionary statement giving us the secret to healing the world, “Zion will be restored through justice and righteousness.”

The sages often equate this notion of Zion and Messianism as applying to the whole world, for peaces cannot be real until it is real for all. When we are too full of ourselves, we cannot take care of each other. As we reconcile the devastation that our egos have caused in the past and our passion for a joint future of celebration; when the world’s population is committed to each other; when each of us can sit beneath our vine and fig tree unafraid, then we will know the fullness of life’s blessings and fulfill the prophecies of peace.  

We have a lot to learn from each other, and we must understand that where we only believe we have what to teach and nothing to learn, we condemn the world to suffer in the future, at the hands of our ego today. Isaiah’s vision of restoration; Moses’ admonition to lead a better tomorrow by never forgetting the past; the call of Tisha b’Av to bring healing to the world; these are the gifts we must hold dear this week. These are the things that salvation is made of. These are the obligations we owe each other. Shabbat Shalom.

Rabbi Marc Klein serves the Temple Adath Israel. Ordained in 1995 from Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, he earned a B.A. from Tulane University, a J.D. from the University of Arkansas, and a Masters from Hebrew Union College. He has taught ethics, philosophy, religion and government in high schools, college and graduate schools and regularly runs a diverse adult education program. He has served as chair of the LFCUG Human Rights Commission and is very active in the greater community.

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