CPE - Sermon 1

“ON THAT SIDE OF THE JORDAN”
– MOSES BEGINS AND EXPLAINS TORAH –

A Teaching by Paul Kent Oakley

Central Reform Congregation, St. Louis MO

7:30 PM, August 5, 2011

It is an honor and a pleasure to stand here with you today. Before I unofficially adopted you as my home congregation for my two and one-half months in St. Louis this summer, I first came to know of Central Reform Congregation from articles in the Post-Dispatch when you built this beautiful building.

I came to know a little more when I took a chance and, with no idea what might come of it, invited Rabbi Randy to come preach to my home congregation, a small, lay-led Unitarian Universalist fellowship in Mt. Vernon, Illinois. It was December 2008, and I asked Rabbi Randy to give a spiritual teaching on a theme from Chanukah. He did that for us, and beautifully. He also brought the chanukiah that came back to this congregation after its sojourn in a church here in the Central West End after the last previous synagogue in St. Louis city made its way to the county. He sang the blessings and lighted the candles, drawing us into that culturally significant minor holiday farther than most of us had been before. But in the encounter he also provided something special, a point of connection, for a couple of Jewish participants in our small congregation, people who had entered into interfaith marriages at a time when that was less comfortable than it is today. One of the couples were married in and had found common religious ground in Unitarian and Universalist congregations in a time of fewer options. Rabbi Randy came back the next year as well. And this June he spoke at my internship congregation in Carbondale, Illinois. I greatly appreciate his willingness to make the long trek to Mt. Vernon and Carbondale to give his teachings that encouraged us in interfaith cooperation, social justice, and peace-making.

My first visit to CRC was for Simchat Torah last fall. That evening I think I fell a little bit in love!

My thanks to Rabbi Susan for graciously inviting me to give this teaching here tonight! But I have to say, the first thought that went through my head when she asked me was, what do I have to teach you that you haven’t heard a thousand times before – and better. And then I looked to see what the Torah portion would be for today because I wanted to make a connection there if possible. But Parasha Devarim, the opening chapters of Deuteronomy, is Moses’ final admonition to the people. Oh my! These are words of rebuke. How could I who am not a member of the people use this parsha? So I looked to the haftorah portion. This text is Isaiah chapter one. “Woe to a sinful nation”?! Oh my! These are more words of rebuke! And, let me tell you, Unitarian Universalists don’t handle rebuke all that well. Maybe there would be something I could connect to in Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of the Fathers, in the chapter traditionally read on this Shabbat? And my eyes lighted on this: “…One who stays awake at night, or travels alone on the road, and turns his heart to idleness, has forfeited his life” (Chapter 3 verse 4)? Ouch! I’m a night owl who frequently travels alone and who enjoys leisure – when I can find the time. I felt that my attempt to engage the texts for this Shabbat must surely be doomed!

But then my eye moved on to the sixth verse of the third chapter of the Ethics of the Fathers. In the English translation that I read, altered here only to remove gendered pronouns for G-d, it goes like this:

Rabbi Chalafta the son of Dosa of the village of Chanania would say: Ten who sit together and occupy themselves with Torah, the Divine Presence rests amongst them, as is stated: ‘The Almighty stands in the congregation of G-d’ (Psalms 82:1). And from where do we know that such is also the case with five? From the verse, “G-d established G-d’s band on earth” (Amos 9:6). And three? From the verse, “G-d renders judgement in the midst of the tribunal” (Psalms 82:1). And two? From the verse, “Then the G-d-fearing conversed with one another, and G-d listened and heard” (Malachi 3:16). And from where do we know that such is the case even with a single individual? From the verse, “Every place where I have My name mentioned, I shall come to you and bless you” (Exodus 20:21).

Now, I am enrolled in a summer unit of Clinical Pastoral Education, a chaplaincy training, at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. Through practice and reflection, a group of five of us chaplain interns of different faiths and different ages, with different life experiences, have come together to learn from the patients and staff, our mentors and supervisor, and from each other how we can address the spiritual needs of patients and families who often do not share our faith identity or other demographic factors. Yet we need to be authentic, true to our own faith. We five chaplain interns together with our five mentors are ten who hope to evoke a sense of meaning, a feeling of the Divine Presence, in the patients whom we serve. The five interns support each other, helping each other see the divine in what can be emotionally difficult encounters. How many the times when as chaplain I sit with a couple as they face pain and uncertainty and even death, and my job is to help them grieve or reconnect with some sense of meaning, some sense of the Holy? And some patients have no one. The chaplain sits with them in their room, together seeking to find hope and comfort. Sometimes, hope and comfort are so far away, that the chaplain has to bear the burden of hope and faith alone. Ten. Five. Three. Two. Even one. And the Shekhinah is present. Moving. Breathing… I, I believe I had found a way into this Shabbat.

Then a few weeks ago I sat in the library here at CRC and learned from Rashi, the great eleventh-century rabbi – and winemaker, I’ve been told. Parasha Devarim begins, “These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel on that side of the Jordan in the desert, in the plain opposite the Red Sea, between Paran and Tofel and Lavan and Hazeroth and Di Zahav.” Among the things I learned from Rashi is that no such location exists in normal space. “On that side of the Jordan” tells us that, once again, the important encounter is happening outside the Promised Land. Torah was given at Sinai rather than at Zion. Even earlier, Jacob, as he was returning home from the sojourn with his uncle in Haran, still on “that side of the Jordan,” wrestled through the night with a stranger, giving us that great metaphor for struggling with what is difficult to make sense of. With what it seems impossible to find meaning in. “On that side of the Jordan” is a place of uncertainty, a transitional setting. It is a place of unfulfilled promise and miracles together. And Rashi teaches that the place names represent those significant occasions when the Israelites angered G-d between Egypt and the death of Moses. Di Zahav, for example, refers to the gold of the golden calf episode; Hazeroth, to the rebellion of Korach. The text defines no literal place, but a transitional space, surrounded by the weaknesses and shortcomings of the people.

What an apt metaphor for the hospital. A transitional space surrounded by weaknesses and failings, where patients can be hyper aware of shortcomings, for the need to refocus. The transition varies by patient and family. Sometimes it is a transition from life to death. Or from sickness to health. From diminished capacity to restoration. Or from minor diagnosis to life-changing chronic diagnosis. Some move through the transition so quickly that it is hard to hold onto the memory of their presence. Others grab at our hearts. One patient reminded me of my grandmother. And in the month she moved from unit to unit, I followed her, moved by her paralysis and other complicating problems. Some patients have obvious spiritual needs; others, less obvious ones. Prayer is a common request. But how to pray? If I am Unitarian Univeralist and the patient is a conservative Muslim, for example, how can I provide them what they need?

Which brings me back to Rashi. In Parasha Devarim, Rashi next led me to the fifth verse of the same chapter: “On that side of the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses commenced and explained this Law.” As I read the verse in English I thought it simply a repetition of the first verse without the symbolic made-up place names. But Rashi’s explanation zeroes in on Moses’ “explaining” Torah at this time and in this place. Surely Moses had already explained Torah to the people. But Rashi tells us that Moses “explained” Torah in seventy languages. Seventy languages refers to the languages of the world after G-d confused the languages at Babel. So Rashi is saying that Moses explained Torah in every human language. Every language is the source and carrier of culture, of a unique family of subcultures. The commentaries give explanations of the reason for the seventy languages. But today I would like to interpret Moses’ act of translation in my own way. I think that Rashi’s gloss suggests that Moses taught Torah that was communicated in the language and culture and religious idiom of all people and all times. In addition to teaching the unique Torah of Israel, the Torah of the Jewish people, in Parasha Devarim Moses also taught Torah in twenty-first-century American English and in the religious idiom that I, a Unitarian Universalist, can also receive.

Though there are overlaps, the religious culture through which I approach the divine is certainly different from the culture through which my colleagues approach the divine. I would like to introduce two of my colleagues who are here this evening, and note the diversity of the cultures through which we and our mentors approach the divine:

• Crystal Brown serves as chaplain on the units for women and infants. She is a non-denominational Christian. Her mentor is United Church of Christ.
• Leanne Noland serves as chaplain on the general medicine unit. She is United Methodist. Her mentor is Ethical Society and Buddhist.
• I, of course, am the gay, Unitarian Universalist member of our group; I serve on the neurosurgery and neurology units. My mentor is an interdenominational Christian.

Unable to be with us tonight only because he is on-call at the hospital is:

• Bob Crecelius, a liberal Catholic; he serves on the trauma unit, where his mentor is a non-denominational Christian.

And one of our colleagues is unable to be present because of a happy occasion – today is her grandmother’s 75th birthday:

• Deana Sussman is studying at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles to become a Reform Rabbi; she is serving in oncology; and her mentor is Rabbi Dale Schreiber.

Our supervisor and teacher is Jim Bennett, an ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, a denomination that a year or so ago decided to live its liberal theology more fully by accepting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender clergy.

We five interns and our supervisor spend eight hours of each week together for class, sacred text, sharing a patient encounter for reflection and feedback, and interpersonal group, where we support each other and learn from each other. Each of us interns has an hour in individual session with our supervisor each week, during which he helps us focus on what we are doing and see ourselves and our chaplaincy with greater accuracy. We interns see each other at the beginning and end of every day. And many days we also manage to eat lunch together. Supported in this way, I believe, we see ourselves as facilitators of the divine presence for each other and for our patients and their families in a way that is reminiscent of the way Rabbi Chalafta the son of Dosa of the village of Chanania saw ten or five or three or two or even one as capable of invoking the divine presence.

We work in a transitional space, “on that side of the Jordan,” which is where Torah places several major encounters with the divine. Together with our patients, each of us apprehends Torah in our unique languages. And, where Rashi presents Moses as teaching Torah in the seventy languages of humanity, each day my colleagues and I have to speak and hear in many languages. We take the sense of the divine within our traditions as our grounding. But then we must communicate coherently with patients and families whose cultural language is significantly different from our own. And we hear from them in their many languages, divine messages that we must translate into our own idioms so that we can show that divinity back to them.

We remember Jacob’s dream at Bethel, angels ascending and descending, and G-d tells Jacob that through his descendents all the nations will be blessed. And Rashi tells us that Moses explained Torah in seventy languages, the languages of all the nations. Rashi is teaching that regardless of the perfection of a particular culture’s Torah, despite the perfection of the unique and precious gift of Torah to the Jewish people, the perfection of Torah can also be communicated through other cultures. My religious culture holds as one of its principles the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Torah teaches that G-d created us, through our first parents, in G-d’s own image. Every day those of us serving as chaplains work to preserve for the dying, sick, and injured a sense of their being of inherent worth, made in G-d’s image. I enter the room of a patient who is a prisoner chained to his bed, whose guard sits in the same room, impassive and bored, and I see divinity before me, even though the prisoner and the guard do not sense it. I must help them see that divinity. My task is Moses’ task: to translate into a new language. Indeed, living in a multicultural, interfaith world, it is the necessary task of each of us to translate the divine for others and understand the expression of the divine in the seventy languages of the human family. We can do this in acts of visiting the sick, interfaith cooperation, and social justice. Tikkun olam. Repairing this one precious world. Together.

And now, to close, since we are thinking about Moses as translator, I would like to use the greeting that our Hindu sisters and brothers teach us. Namaṣte! The divine that is in me recognizes and honors the divine that is in you.

Namaṣte! Shalom!