Parashat Kedoshim Rabbi Larry Bach

Love your neighbor as yourself, You said. And light-blinded we saw that inner and outer worlds are one as You are One.

Judi Neri

I began my annual report a couple of weeks ago, at which our new trustees and officers were elected, by quoting those lines. I joked then that my annual report was sounding like a sermon. Tonight, I get to give that sermon, by way of welcoming our leaders, both new and returning, to service. For this weeks portion, called Kedoshim, is a virtual manual of service for trustees and officers of a synagogue. There is perhaps no greater message in all of Torah than love your neighbor, and that is why it sits at the center. It is the emotional climax of the soaring holiness chapter of Leviticus, which is the third of the Five Books. It (in slightly different form) is the foundation of our ethics, as Hillel taught so long ago. Everything else is, as the great Hillel once said, commentary.

I am continually fascinated to discover how what the poet calls our inner and outer worlds feed each other. The energy we draw from prayer and study, the inner world, sends us out to care for our neighbors.. And the convictions we act upon in those relationships -- the people we visit, the justice we create -- sends me back to this space inspired, energized, and ready to for more. But its more than that. What Im coming to understand more as time passes, is that the work of our inner and outer worlds isnt only complimentary; it is, at a certain level, identical. Our work on behalf of our neighbors is a sort of contemplative practice, inasmuch as it brings us into a relationship with the One. Every time someone says I got more out of making that hospital visit that then person in bed got out of my visiting, that truth is made apparent. And our prayers -- particularly our prayers on behalf of others -- doesnt just feed our connection to the outer world; they are a type of justice work.

Helaine is currently reading The Grapes of Wrath in English class, and so weve been talking Steinbeck, listening to Woody Guthries Tom Joad and Springsteens Ghost of Tom Joad on the way to and from school. I want her to undertand that Steinbeck was teaching that lesson about inner and outer worlds being one, when he has Tom talking to Ma about Preacher Casey:

Says one time he went out in the wilderness to find his own soul, an he foun he didnt have no soul that was hisn. Says he foun he jus got a little piece of a great big soul. Says a wilderness aint no good, cause his little piece of a soul wasnt no good less it was with the rest, an was whole.

Knowing that, Tom is able to stand in the Preachers shoes, and make the ultimate commitment, the ultimate sacrifice, for his neighbor. Selfish concerns are replaced with a recognition of the needs of the other. His awareness of his place as a part of the whole leads him to the commitment for which I pray:

Then it dont matter. Ill be all around in the dark Ill be everywhere. Wherever you can look wherever theres a fight, so hungry people can eat, Ill be there. Wherever theres a cop beatin up a guy, Ill be there. Ill be in the way guys yell when theyre mad. Ill be in the way kids laugh when theyre hungry and they know suppers ready, and when the people are eatin the stuff they raise and livin in the houses they build Ill be there, too.

My hope and my prayer for Tommy and his team of officers and trustees is that they never forget: its all One. The deep sense of connectedness they feel when they brush up against the sacred in prayer and study; the strength and power they feel when they work for the betterment of their synagogue and their community. Its all One.

Would all of our current officers and trustees come forward, please? Rabbi Bellush and I would like to bring you before the Ark for a blessing...