Sermons

For a moment, I want you to imagine yourself living in the area that is now Poland in the late 17th, early 18th centuries. The terror of the Cossack and Tartar massacres of 1648–49 that destroyed entire Jewish communities still reverberated throughout the lands. The grand disappointment of the false Jewish messiah, Shabbtai Tzvi, had left many faithful Jews heartbroken and disillusioned, as well as penniless, having sold their worldly goods believing him to be the true messiah.
The infrastructure of the Jewish community had been corrupted, as the Polish princes routinely sold the position of town rabbi to unworthy characters, making a mockery of the position. A schism had formed between those who could afford Talmudic scholarship and those who, in their struggle to survive, had neither the time nor the head for books and study.

Especially demoralizing was the standard fare of popular sermons. So obsessed were some rabbis with their themes of guilt, punishment, and despair, they would castigate their congregants over matters for which they were neither obligated, nor could reasonably be expected to achieve.
If you live with something long enough, you begin to believe it’s your destiny. Such was the case with misery: Polish Jews had begun to see depression as a mark of piety and a Jewish duty. To fight it was not just futile, but outright heresy, for any trace of joyousness was suspect as sin. 
Into that world, in 1700, was born Israel ben Eliezer, known as the Baal Shem Tov, the “Master of a Good Name.” His pious parents were old, and he was orphaned at a young age. He was not known for his scholastic brilliance, but was a deeply spiritual and sensitive child who spent much time alone in nature. And living in a period of crisis for Eastern European Jewry, he revitalized Jewish spiritual life by emphasizing the importance of joy, prayer, and a direct, emotional connection to God; he was a was a Jewish mystic and spiritual healer.

His messages rapidly found an audience. He earned his living as a traveling preacher standing on a crate in a town square, extolling the virtues of the simple Jew, describing God’s interminable love for each and every person, and relating tales of simple folk through easy-to-remember Talmudic stories that lifted the peoples’ spirits and breathe joy into their souls. 

Disciples were drawn to his charisma, storytelling, and ecstatic personality. Though he focused on the spiritual needs of ordinary people, he attracted a circle of scholars who became instrumental in spreading his teachings after his death. He is considered to be the found of the Hassidic Jewish movement.
At the core of all the Baal Shem Tov taught and was, was joy.

These days, many of us find it difficult to feel joy. We feel overwhelmed by the world around us, by leaders here and abroad, by Nazis walking through the streets of our town, by other forms of antisemitism rearing its ugly head, by weather systems and climates bringing us too many 100+ degree days and droughts, and on and on and on. 

Yet, our tradition is replete with the idea of joy. Long before the Baal Shem Tov lived through his own miserable world, joy has been a part of the Jewish world. We have two Hebrew words that mean joy – simcha and oneg. Many of us use simcha to describe a joyful event, like a wedding or a B’Mitzvah. But it’s more than that. Have you ever considered the meaning of the holiday called Simchat Torah? It means Joy in Torah or Joy with Torah.

If you’ve never been to a Simchat Torah service here at TBJ, you’re missing out. We unroll the entire Torah scroll and everyone present over B’Mitzvah age helps to hold it up. I take the kids on a journey through the Torah, pointing out text that looks different from the rest and important passages. And this unrolling of the scroll happens after lengthy dancing around the sanctuary with our Torah scrolls. One tradition is to eat candy apples. Another is to enjoy adult beverages. Whatever you prefer, we are told to eat and drink with joy.

Oneg is used to describe that time after Friday night services when we come together to share wine (or juice) and challah, eat sweets, and catch up with friends or meet and greet new people. There is no purpose to that gathering other than to be joyous and offer that joy to others.

What simcha and oneg have in common, and is a really important aspect of joy, is explained by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks: 

“Joy does not involve … a judgment about life as a whole. Joy lives in the moment. It asks no questions about tomorrow. It celebrates the power of now. … 
Joy … celebrates the mere fact of being here, now, existing when we might not have existed, inhaling to the fully this day, this hour, this … moment that was not before and will not be again. Joy embraces the contingency of life. It knows that yesterday has gone and tomorrow is unknown. It does not ask what was or will be. It makes no calculations. It is a state of radical thankfulness for the gift of being.”

As I said a moment ago, Judaism is filled with the idea of joy. Some of the absolute most joyous moments I have ever witnessed is worship at Reform Jewish summer camps. These kids sing on top of their lungs. They stand through most of the service so that at any moment, they can break into dance. When reciting Birkat Hamazon, the blessing after meals, they pound on tables – all of this in joy.

These are not super-religious kids from super-religious homes or only the children of rabbis and cantors. These are ordinary kids who join with other ordinary kids, albeit all Jewish, to live in the moments, moments that bring them joy. For many of these kids from small towns, it’s about being with other Jewish kids and being openly Jewish. It’s not having to explain yourself. It’s not being embarrassed about liking services.

Sometimes kids bring that joy back to their synagogues. They elevate prayer for other kids. They have a real impact on adults, too. Ever wonder why in Reform services we sing a mixture of traditional melodies and modern melodies? Nearly sixty years ago, kids at Reform Jewish camps learned modern prayer melodies and realized that prayer at home could be joyful, too. They insisted that worship change and gave us the services we’ve been accustomed to for more than a half century.

Have you ever been at a service in this sanctuary when Cantor Shira begins singing Debbie Friedman’s Miriam’s Song? By the end of the song, there is very often a circle of congregants dancing and dancing, disappointed when the song ends. This is joy. To be in the moment. To let go, even for just a few minutes, of all that weighs us down.

Joy, as we know, is not reserved for worship and lifecycles. 

Recently, on the National Public Radio podcast Code Switch, BA Parker and Leah Donnella engaged in a conversation about joy. Leah opened with these words: “A few months ago, I noticed more and more of the people I follow on social media using the phrase ‘joy is resistance’ or ‘joy as an act of resistance.’” 

These posts were not of extraordinary moments. Rather, they showed a normal array of experiences, such as eating dinner with friends, looking at flowers, or getting a new manicure.”

Parker responded, “It’s not just your circles. ‘Joy is resistance’ has actually become a pretty popular slogan. I’ve been seeing it everywhere. It’s on T-shirts. It’s on mugs. It’s all over TikTok. The idea is that we are allowed to cultivate joy. In fact, we need to.”

Leah posed this question: When is joy actually acting as a form of resistance? And she offers the words of author Adrienne Maree Brown, “Being able to actually feel the pleasures of being alive in a day and having agency over what we’re doing is actually a path of our liberation and a sign of our liberation. In addition, joy is not an isolated thing - like, it’s a very important element in a larger emotional ecosystem.”

Leah then quotes poet and activist Audre Lorde who said, “The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers.”
Their conversation was very long and thought provoking. I believe what Audre Lorde said is so true for us in the Jewish community. Joy is something we mostly experience in community. 

Let’s return to the Baal Shem Tov. Here are a few of his lessons on joy.

1.  Joy is a device to repair the world. The Baal Shem Tov taught that when we see what is broken, we search for the key to heal it. And the twist of that key is the joy within our hearts that let’s us find the beauty within the ugliness and the spark of light behind the darkness, and then let’s us celebrate it. And as we know, acts of healing the world, tikkun olam, are far more effective when done with others than when done alone.

2. Don’t get carried away with excessive details in everything you do. This is your negative impulse working against you. It intends to agonize you by insisting you haven’t done enough. Know that God examines all hearts and innards, and knows that you are doing your best as possible. Let others know that the same is true for them and for us as a community. This can lighten the load and bring joy.

3. Remember that love can bring joy. The Baal Shem Tov was fond of telling this story about a king. The king would direct his officers to come at their appointed time to speak his praises, each according to his position and importance.

But this was only when the king was in a favorable mood. When the king was upset and angered, then all were afraid to provide him any praise whatsoever. That was why, due to the concern that the king might not have been in the best of moods, they were as brief as possible at all times, and made a hasty exit.

Yet when the king’s precious child entered, the child had no such concerns. For even if the king was in a state of anger, the very sight of his precious child brought him joy. The anger dissipated, and never returned, all the time his child stood before him. The child, therefore, had no worries, and entered at any time and exuded praise without end, for the child knew that this brought the king, the father, joy and delight.

The Baal Shem Tov taught: This the power of love and joy: When they prevail, they cause anger and fury to ascend upward toward their root. Anger and fury are healed and mollified through love and joy.

4. In every word you speak, subdue, distinguish, and sweeten. One of the Baal Shem Tov’s disciples explains it like this: Let go of finding fault with other people, and instead be compassionate and seek the positive. If you see something negative in another person, realize is for your own good. The fact that you noticed it demonstrates that there is some trace of it in you and connects you with someone you otherwise might have dismissed. This healing is as sweet as honey, awakening compassion for the world and for every person. In response, be joyful, and work on changing yourself.

The Baal Shem Tov challenges us in ways that may seem counter-intuitive or just simply hard. Add, too, that his goal was for us to serve God in joy, to live in balance with one another, and to connect with God. I think he still has much to teach us even if our goals are different.

Earlier in my sermon, I quoted Rabbi Jonathan Sacks about joy. As you may remember, he emphasized living in the moment, in community. I close my sermon with the rest of his quote, which I invite us all to consider as we resist falling into despair:

Even in an age too fraught for happiness, there can still be joy… Happiness is something I can feel on my own. But joy … is essentially shared. … Unlike happiness, simcha only exists in virtue of being shared. It is a form of social emotion. … Joy is a Jewish wedding. It is dancing in the presence of the Divine. There is nothing in it of pride or self-satisfaction. … For a moment, the “I” is silent, and we become part of the celebrating “We,” our voice merging with others in the song creation sings to its Creator … and we to God for “keeping us alive, sustaining us and bringing us to this day.”… Unlike happiness, joy is not conditional on things going well. … Like music, it gives expression to the inexpressible. It says, yes, life is sometimes unfair and the world unjust, but the very brevity of life makes each moment precious. It says: stop thinking of tomorrow. Celebrate, sing, join the dance however undignified it makes you look. Joy bathes life with light. It liberates the soul from the prison of the self.
 

Shanah tovah. May 5786 bring you joy.