Tag: Heaven

judaism · sermon

We’re clearing a path by gentle steps

levtaylor

It’s a pleasure to be back here.

About ten years ago, I used to sit over there on a Shabbat morning. Rabbi Nathan was still a student, taking over from Rabbi Janet, and I was applying to Leo Baeck College. This community was then, and still is, such a wonderful home for all kinds of Jewish characters.

I’ve just moved back to south London after a long time away, although I’ve been commuting to my synagogue in Kingston from Essex for nearly two years. 

This fortnight, I have finally found myself living and working in the same area. The best bit? I can do something I haven’t been able to do for a while in my daily life: walking.

I love walking. I love the meditative rhythm of getting between places; seeing what the landscape, the nature, and the people are doing along the way.

I love a good hiking holiday. Wandering with my husband and friends through the hills. 

In the mountains, anywhere you may walk in this country, you’ll find paths that have been paved. Not by bulldozers and concrete but by the gradual gentle treading of a route over thousands of years. 

Rocks are smoothed over; ledges and grooves formed into the hillside like staircases; rubble cleared and large boulders pushed aside. These pathways are a reminder that people have trampled the same routes for generations, each traveller beating out a physical memory into the mountain, following on from those before, and leaving a trail for others to follow.

This is, I think, what we do with Judaism. In every generation, we are taking our own path up the mountain of religious truth. We are trampling our way up towards the Heavens. We follow a path that others have made, and, through our footsteps, make sure the way is clear for others to follow.

The Hebrew word “halachah” is often mistranslated as “Jewish law,” but its literal meaning is “the path.” Similarly, “minhag” gets translated as “customs” but its literal meaning is “the way we go.” That is what Judaism is: in every community, a way of walking the path to God.

This week is Shabbat Nachamu: the Sabbath of Comfort. In our liturgical calendar, we begin the six weeks of consolation, taking us to the High Holy Days. Each week, we read words from the prophets that offer us solace.

This week’s haftarah comes from the Prophet Isaiah and begins with the words “nachamu nachamu ami”: comfort, take comfort, my people, hence the name of our Shabbat.

Isaiah declares to the Israelites: “clear a way in the desert for the Eternal One; raze a highway for God! Let the rugged ground become level and the ridges become a plain!”

This is, of course, not literal. The Jewish religion is incompatible with the brute force of bulldozers and never seeks to subjugate land. Our Torah’s ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace.

Isaiah is speaking metaphorically. The valleys and mountains he wants to flatten are spiritual. 

Isaiah is writing to the exiled Israelites in Babylon, promising them that there is still hope. These refugees are held in captivity and have no idea if they will ever return. 

To them, God feels miles away. Without their home or their people, they don’t know how to communicate with their Creator. 

Keep walking, says Isaiah. Tread down that path with your feet. Wherever you are, you are on your journey to God.

Remember that this way has been trodden many times before.

For forty years, the Hebrews wandered in the wilderness. There, their feet really were stepping literally. But something deeper was happening too: their souls were on the voyage to freedom. They were learning to live without certainty and material comfort in harsh conditions. They had to walk the path of faith, putting their trust in God.

At our point in the Torah story, Moses knows that his physical journey is coming to an end. He tells them, with some heartbreak: “I must die in this land, I cannot cross over the Jordan.” After a lifetime of roaming, Moses has to finally hang up his sandals.

But he knows the spiritual journey is far from through. He is passing that on to the next generation. 

He tells them: stay on that sacred path to God. Don’t deviate from it by turning away to worship idols. Keep on that search for the divine. Walk on the way I have shown you.

Today, coming back to the South London Liberal Synagogue, I feel myself treading again on an old path. These are the steps I walked on my journey to becoming a rabbi, and I feel a wistful nostalgia to come back to this part of the mountain. 

I feel conscious, too, of those who trod down the path into this synagogue for me, especially the wonderful members of this synagogue, now departed, who made me feel so at home here. 

And I think to those who first saw a path for a Liberal Synagogue in Streatham. They had walked the path of Judaism inherited from their ancestors. They could see that some more conservative Jews were carrying on walking ahead, but no longer ascending the mountain. They were stuck on a path to nowhere, and heading towards a ravine. So those Liberal Jews had to beat out a new path and clear away rubble others dared not touch.

They made the way for a Judaism, our Judaism, that would be inclusive, justice-oriented and spiritually meaningful. Over the last century, the way they foresaw has been walked on more, made deeper grooves, and come further. 

Over the last few years, we have found that many of those brave first pathways are now converging with routes that others have trodden. Liberal and Reform paths are coming together. The traditional and the radical are finding they can walk the same way. 

What a joy to walk on the same road after waving at each other for years! Together, we are going to walk a deeper and wider path. 

The challenge for those of us who hold onto the vision of the earliest Liberal Jews will be to make sure the way is always progressing up the mountain. 

If ever the tracks that everyone else is going down look too narrow, or like they are heading somewhere stagnant, we must have the confidence to point towards the Heavens. 

We, today, must continue to walk the path that others have paved. And we must look ahead, so that there will be a clear route for others to follow behind.

“Every valley shall be raised up; every mountain and hill made low. And the glory of the Eternal One will be revealed.”

Walk together. Keep on hiking. Let us climb towards our God.

Shabbat shalom.

judaism · theology

Why Jews do not believe in Hell

levtaylor

When I was a teenager, I went on some kind of away day with other Progressive Jewish youth.

The rabbi – I can’t remember who – told a story. 

A woman dies and enters the afterlife. There, the angels greet her and offer her a tour of the two possible residencies: Heaven and Hell. 

First, she enters Hell. It is just one long table, filled with delicious foods. The only problem is that they all have splinted arms. Their limbs are fixed in such positions that they could not possibly feed themselves. They struggle, thrusting their hands against the table and the bowl. Even if they successfully get some food, they cannot retract their arms back to their mouths. They are eternally starving, crying out in anguish. That was Hell.

Next, she enters Heaven. Well, it’s exactly the same place! There is a long table, filled with delicious foods, and all the people sitting at it have splinted arms. But here, there is banqueting and merriment; everyone is eating and singing and chatting. The difference is simply that, while in Hell, people only tried to feed themselves, here in Heaven they feed each other. 

She ran back to Hell to share this solution with the poor souls trapped there. She whispered in the ear of one starving man, “You do not have to go hungry. Use your spoon to feed your neighbor, and he will surely return the favour and feed you.”

“‘You expect me to feed the detestable man sitting across the table?’ said the man angrily. ‘I would rather starve than give him the pleasure of eating!’

The difference between Heaven and Hell isn’t the setting, but how people treat each other.

At the conclusion of this story, one of the other teenagers – I can’t remember who, but I promise it wasn’t me – put his hand up and said: “But I thought Jews don’t believe in Hell?”

The rabbi shrugged and said: “True. It’s just a story.”

Years later, though, the story, and the resultant question, have stuck with me. 

Was it just a story? Do Jews really have no concept of Hell?

The truth is complicated. 

Among most Jews, you will find very little assent to the idea of punishment in the afterlife.

In part, that is simply because most of Judaism does not have a clear systematic theology. There is no Jewish version of the catechism, affirming a set of views about the nature of God, the point of this life, and the outcomes in the next. 

Rather, Judaism holds multiple and conflicting ideas. On almost every issue, you can find rabbinic voices in tension, holding opposite views that are part of the Truth of a greater whole. We don’t mandate ideas, we entertain them.

So, a better question would be: does Judaism entertain the idea of Hell?

And the answer is still: it’s complicated. 

Yes, it does. The story that rabbi told of the people with the splinted arms comes from the Lithuanian-Jewish musar tradition. It is attributed to Rabbi Haim of Romshishok.

The idea of pious Jews going on tours of Heaven and Hell has a long history. In the Palestinian Talmud, a pious Jew sees, to his horror, his devoted and charitable friend die but go unmourned. On the same day, a tax collector, a collaborator with the Roman Empire, dies and the entire city stops to attend his funeral. 

To comfort the pious man, God grants him a dream-vision of what happened to each of them in the afterlife. His righteous friend enjoys a life of happiness and plenty in Heaven, surrounded by gardens and orchards. The tax collector, on the other hand, sits by waters, desperately thirsty, with his tongue stretched out, but unable to drink. Where one gave in this life, he received in the next. Where the other took in this life, he was famished in the next. 

This is a revenge fantasy. The story comes from oppressed people coming to terms with the success of their conquerors and the humiliation of the good in their generation.

The fantasy is powerful, and the motifs repeat throughout Jewish history. In almost every generation, you can find people pondering about how bad people will be punished and good people will be rewarded when this life is over.

But, with equal frequency, you can find Jewish scepticism about this view of the world. The Babylonian rabbis warn us not to speculate on what lies in the hereafter, for God alone knows such secrets. Our greatest philosophers like Rambam and Gersonides strenuously deny any concept of post-mortem torture. 

These debates have persisted even into the modern era. During the Enlightenment, there were those who claimed that a rational religion could have no place for the primitive nonsense of Hell. Equally, there were those who said belief in divine retribution was the hallmark of a civilised belief system.

So where did the idea come from, asserted so confidently by that teenager on a day trip, that Jews have no concept of Hell?

The truth is it is very recent.

In surveys of attitudes, Jewish belief in Hell plummeted after the Second World War.

In all the revenge fantasies and horror stories that people could concoct about Hell, not one of them sounded as bad as Auschwitz. 

There is no conceivable God who is cruel enough to do what the Nazis did. No such God would be worthy of worship.

We have no need to fantasise about freezing cold places filled with trapped souls, or raging furnaces. We need not imagine a world after this one where people are starved and tortured and brutalised. We know that world has already existed here on earth.

Isn’t Hell already here still? Doesn’t it still exist right here in this world for all those mothers putting their toddlers in dinghies hoping the sea will take them away from the war? Don’t those horrors already exist in for people working in Congolese gold mines or Bangladeshi sweat shops? 

Hell is already here. It is war and occupation and famine and drought and slavery and trafficking. There is no need for nightmares of brimstone when people are living these things every day.

That was the point of the story that rabbi was telling us. 

The difference between Heaven and Hell isn’t the setting, but how people treat each other.

We already live in a world of plenty. We have the flowing streams and gardens and orchards our sages imagine. But, like the inhabitants of Hell, we are pumping sewage into the streams, turning the gardens into car parks, and logging the orchards for things we do not need. 

We are sat before a fine banquet where there is enough for everyone, but half the population are not eating while a tiny minority are engorged with more than they need. We are living the vision laid out in the parable.

Yes, this world is a Hell, but it could be a Heaven too. 

The difference between Heaven and Hell isn’t the setting, but how people treat each other.

Look at all that we have. Look at the support we can give each other. We may have splinted arms but all we need do is outstretch them. 

We have the capacity to annihilate all hunger, poverty, and war. We really could end all prejudice and oppression. This planet could be a paradise!

And, if we know that we can make this world a Heaven, why would we wait until we die? 

Shabbat shalom.

high holy days · sermon

A life without regrets

levtaylor

If today were your last day, what would you make of the time you have had? Would you be satisfied that you’d lived your life right? Would you feel like you had left much undone or unresolved?

If today was your last day, would you feel confident in your end? Would you know for certain what had made your life worthwhile?

These are the uncomfortable questions Yom Kippur pushes us to consider. And they are indeed uncomfortable questions. Without even mentioning God, morality, or religion, I know that some will feel affronted by the line of questioning. I know that if I were the one being asked, I would feel affronted. I would be raising objections to the questions. 

But everything about the rituals of Yom Kippur forces us into that way of thinking. 

We dress in the clothes in which we will be buried. A kittle, or cassock, for Ashkenazim. A simple tallit for Sephardim. No jewellery, no perfumes, no fancy shoes. We are dressed not too differently from how we expect to leave this world.

We pray.  We pray that we will be allowed to live. We recount the many ways in which we might die: by fire, water, beast, sickness, ordeal. We recite vidui: the final words we expect to say on our deathbed.

We fast, afflict, and deprive ourselves. All of this is supposed to make us reckon with our mortality. It is a death rehearsal. Yom Kippur asks us whether or not we are ready for death.

Today is Shabbat Shuva, the Shabbat midway between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. While some of our readings are special to the occasion, the Torah continues where we last left it before the High Holy Days, with Moses proclaiming his last speeches of Deuteronomy. 

At this stage, Moses knows that he will die, and he contemplates his coming end. His life is over, and so is his mission. He will not reach the Promised Land to which he has travelled, and he must handover power. God tells Moses: “The time is coming close for you to die. You will soon lie down with your ancestors.”

God offers Moses no reassurance that he has succeeded in his life’s task. Quite the opposite, God tells Moses that the people will now chase after false gods, neglect the holy laws, and forget their covenant with God.

After all that. Plagues and miracles in Egypt. Signs and wonders and an outstretched hand to deliver them. They had seen the sea part and bread fall from the sky. They had received the commandments from a thunderous mountain. Now, God tells Moses, they will forget it all and ignore what they learned.

Moses must have wondered in that moment if his life had been worth living at all. His projects may not be continued. His beliefs might not be upheld. Everything he did may have been for nought. 

Yet, somehow, Moses seems to have achieved a kind of calm. He no longer protests against his Creator. He does not challenge the decree. He hands over to Joshua and lets him take the reins.

Perhaps, by this stage, Moses has learned that what matters in life isn’t whether your work succeeds, but whether you perform it with integrity. What matters isn’t whether you find out all the answers, but that you seek to learn. And what matters isn’t whether you perfect the world, but that you treat the world as if it can be improved. In short, what matters is that you do your best.

In the Babylonian Talmud, Rava tells us that, upon dying, Heaven will ask of us six questions:

  • Did you have integrity in your work?
  • Did you make time to study Torah?
  • Did you care for your family?
  • Did you try to make the world better?
  • Did you welcome new ideas?
  • And did you have reverence for your Maker?

Our task on earth is not to be wealthy or famous or powerful. It is to be honest, studious, caring, supportive, optimistic, inquisitive and loving. It doesn’t matter so much what we do with life, but how we do it.

Heaven doesn’t ask what our job was. It asks if we did it faithfully. Did we conduct our working lives in ways that we could be proud to give account of ourselves before God? Did we act as if how we treated others in business mattered for the sake of our own souls?

Heaven doesn’t ask if you can recite the whole of the Mishnah by heart. It doesn’t ask whether you mastered some sacred texts. It doesn’t even ask if you learnt your aleph-bet. Did you try? Did you take an interest in your traditions and heritage? Did you actually look to the past to see if it had any bearing on your own life?

Heaven doesn’t expect you to have had only one marriage of the right kind. It asks whether you actually looked after people. Did you care for those around you? According to palliative nurses, the most common regret among the dying is that they did not spend enough time with those they loved. At the end of life, God also challenges you with the same question. 

Heaven does not ask if you brought about salvation of all humanity. It asks tzafita lishua? Were you on the look out for redemption? Did you search for chances to make the world better? Did you hold onto hope that the world could be changed?

And Heaven does not ask if you arrived at the right answers. It asks whether you asked wise questions. Were you curious? Were you inquisitive? Were you interested in what others have to say?

Above all else, the question we are asked is whether we had yirat Hashem, awe of God. Without this, all the other questions are irrelevant. The Talmud compares someone without reverence for Heaven to someone who only has the keys to the door inside the house, but can’t actually get into the house.

Ultimately, what matters is that we treat our lives like they have meaning. You have to actually care about how you live, and believe that it really matters.

When Moses reaches the end of life, he doesn’t wonder whether it was worth it. He is faced with the far more fundamental question of whether he really lived right. 

Integrity. Curiosity. Kindness. Justice. Effort. Love.

These are the things that really matter in the end. We will get to the end and our only regrets will be the attitude we took towards life itself. 

Yom Kippur is, indeed, a preparation for death. But above all else it is a calling to live. It demands of us that we look at our lives and resolve to conduct them better, with fewer regrets.

Shabbat Shalom