My sermon from Shabbat Bereshit 5784. Citations didn’t copy over. Here is the version with citations.

This week has been one of profound questions, how could this happen? What happened? Why now? When will the hostages be freed? Why?

Many of you know that one of the things that I love most about Judaism is that we are more a religion of questions than answers. And, like many of you this week I have a list of questions of my own. Why are innocent people being held captive? When will they be released? What next? How can people that I know espouse anti-Israel rhetoric and then like my social media posts? When will my red alert app stop going off? How do I get through services tonight without crying? When will I be able to sleep through the night again? 

In time, I think all of our questions may very well get answered by time, by God-willing, a return of the hostages and an end of terrorism, by government inquiries, by prayer and community gathering, please God by peace, and undoubtedly, there will be new questions.

Our tradition knows questions. The 4 questions of Passover that are really one question with four answers, much of the Talmud is an intergenerational text of answers to questions that sometimes we spend hours to answer. There are also several moments in the Bible where our leaders ask really hard questions, Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. 

In the beginning of the book of Deuteronomy, Moses asks, 

“אֵיכָ֥ה אֶשָּׂ֖א לְבַדִּ֑ טׇרְחֲכֶ֥ם וּמַֽשַּׂאֲכֶ֖ם וְרִֽיבְכֶֽם׃

How can I bear unaided the trouble of you [this people], and the burden, and the bickering!”

Isaiah, also at the beginning of the book asks about the city of Jerusalem:

אֵיכָה֙ הָיְתָ֣ה לְזוֹנָ֔ה קִרְיָ֖ה נֶאֱמָנָ֑ה מְלֵֽאֲתִ֣י מִשְׁפָּ֗ט צֶ֛דֶק יָלִ֥ין בָּ֖הּ וְעַתָּ֥ה מְרַצְּחִֽים׃

Alas, she has become a harlot, The faithful city That was filled with justice,

Where righteousness dwelt—But now murderers.

And the prophet Jeremiah, our tradition teaches, wrote the book of Lamentations. He asks:

אֵיכָ֣ה ׀ יָשְׁבָ֣ה בָדָ֗ד הָעִיר֙ רַבָּ֣תִי עָ֔ם הָיְתָ֖ה כְּאַלְמָנָ֑ה… 

Alas! Lonely sits the city Once great with people! She that was great among nations Is become like a widow…”

Though sometimes this word “eicha” is translated as alas, it is really a question word. How, why, what will be? We are living in a moment, too, where too we ask eicha?

But there’s another eicha. The Hebrew word eicha is spelled alef, chaf, yud, hey. This spelling of the words of Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, is also the same as the spelling, at that moment when the first human being takes a bite of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. God calls to this first being and says ayekha – alef, chaf, yud, hey, humans where are you? Rav Joseph Soloveitchik suggests that this Genesis ayekha is the answer to Jeremiah’s question. “That is what the Midrash is saying. Jeremy asks, Eicha, how can it be? And God answers- A’Yeka, [and this is my own spin because Bnei Yisrael humanity sins, and Rav Soloveitchik continues] they have separated from Me, and instead of closeness, there is distance between us.”

It is beyond our comprehension the answers to these questions in this terrible moment. So we ask eicha, how can there be so much terror, so much sadness? The answer is in how we respond to ayekha – where are you? How are you standing strong to support Israel? How are you standing up to evil, antisemitism, and the anti-Israel rhetoric?  How are you contributing to the Jewish future that will shine brightly after this war? 

And so a reminder of someone who answered the call, where are you? with fierceness and maybe with its own question, why not? This week we mark the yahrzeit of Rabbiner Regina Jonas. Rabbi Jonas was the first woman to be ordained a rabbi in the 20th century. She was born in Berlin in 1902 and studied at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, a liberal, nondenominational seminary. Pursuing her dream as obstacles found her again and again, Rabbi Jonas eventually was ordained a rabbi in 1935. Rabbiner Jonas died at Auschwitz and she was nearly forgotten by history until her papers were discovered after the fall of the Berlin wall. Rabbi Jonas understood the power of humanity, even as she saw the very worst of it. About her calling to the rabbinate though, Rabbiner Jonas teaches us:

… if I must say what drove me…to become a rabbi, two elements come to mind: My belief in the godly calling and my love for people. God has placed abilities and callings in our hearts, without regard to gender. Thus each of us has the duty, whether man or woman, to realize those gifts God has given. If you look at things this way, one takes woman and man for what they are: human beings.

Ayekah – where are you? How are you coping? How are you helping yourself? How are you helping Israel? This Shabbat there are so many questions, the answers will come in how each of us chooses to show up for one another, for Israel, for the Jewish people, and for God.

Amen.