blogs/rabbi-huberman

God in Our Feelings 

I was speaking with a colleague earlier this week about a remarkable event which took place in his community.

This month, a family whose father lost his job three years ago had its house foreclosed by the bank. 

This family was known to all. The boys played in local little league. The parents were active in the PTA. The mother was the assistant coach of the daughter's soccer team.

That's what made the humiliation of the foreclosure so difficult: that it occurred in plain view of their neighbors and friends.

As they prepared to leave their home of fifteen years, the family emptied its house, placing furniture and other large items in the front yard, awaiting the arrival of a moving truck to put their items in storage.

But then something remarkable happened: their next door neighbor lifted two of the bookcases from the front yard, and carted them to his garage. 

Then a couple from across the street came and hoisted the family's headboards and carried them into their home.  

One by one, neighbors shared the burden, and cleared almost the entire front yard, leaving behind only what the family would need to move into its small apartment.

"Why are you doing this?" asked the bewildered father.

"We feel for you," one of the neighbors said. "Come get your stuff when things turn around for you.  That's what friends are for."

I thought of this amazing story as I read this week's Torah reading, which, on the heels of the last week's receipt of the Ten Commandments, shares with us more than fifty additional laws.

We're told how to settle a case where someone's ox destroys a neighbor's property. Some of them feel a little obscure now.

But some are always relevant. We're commanded not to spread rumors, or to extract interest from someone we lend money to. We're told not to oppress the poor. We're commanded never to strike a loved one.

What interested me the most among the dozens of laws which are described in this week's Torah portion were those affecting the stranger. 

While the Torah officially mentions "thou shalt not kill" twice, it tells us thirty-six times to be kind and considerate towards the stranger.

The Torah tells us that this is a matter of feelings.

It reminds us, "You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt." (Exodus 23:9)  And within that one sentence contains a concept which rests at the core of who we are as Jews.

When African Americans marched for their freedom during the 1960s, many rabbis and Jewish students walked with them. Some were beaten, and in some cases murdered.

For we understand what it is like to be enslaved.

When minorities were oppressed in Darfur, Israel opened its doors to thousands of refugees. 

For we understand what it is like to be oppressed.

When natural disaster struck countries like Japan or Haiti, an Israeli hospital plane arrived to tend to the injured.

For we understand what it is like to suffer national tragedy.

In just a few weeks, we will gather to celebrate the festival of Pesach.  We will open our Haggadot, and recite stories relating to the exodus.  But that can't be all.

For we are told in the Torah that the most important reason we gather at the Passover table, and perhaps the most important outcome of our time of national slavery, is our profound understanding of suffering.

As the Torah tells us this week, we are unique, because perhaps more than anyone over the last three thousand years, our persecution, our oppression, and ultimately our ability to overcome, has attuned us to "the feelings of the stranger."

It is easy for us in the United States to become accustomed to comfort. We have worked hard as a nation of immigrants, and as a result, our standard of living and higher than most other countries. And we as Jews have benefited from living in a country that has treasured religious freedom.

But we are reminded each year: we cannot take our current safety and affluence for granted.

We know what it is to wander from country to country. Let us therefore feel and act on behalf of the homeless.

We know what it is to search in vain for a morsel of food.  Let us therefore feel and act on behalf of the hungry.

We have fled from oppressive nations with only the clothes on our backs. Let us therefore feel and act on behalf of the naked.

So many these days claim that they can't find God. They look at the world around us and ask, "Where is God?"

But the Torah tells us: "God is not in the heavens." 

God is in you and me.

When we perform a mitzvah-when we feel the pain of another human being-we awaken the spark of God which is in each of us. When we listen to the feelings of others - when we treat others they way we want to be treated ourselves - we understand God's vision for this world.

The Torah tells us this week: Na'aseh V'nishmah - "Do first and then you will hear."

Judaism does not demand we believe anything. It commands us to do.  It tells us to feel the pain and stress of others.

When we act, we live God. Belief follows.

In helping their neighbors, the families of that Maryland neighborhood lived Torah. Each could feel the pain of their friends who had lost everything.

Most important, rather than asking "Is there anything we can do?", they went ahead and did.

God is not found in the heavens, nor particularly within prayers we recite from pews. God is in our actions, in our empathy towards others. For we have known oppression, persecution, and isolation. 

It is our national mission to work with God towards Tikun Olam - the repair of this broken world.

Each of us stands on the shoulders of our parents, our grandparents, and our ancestors, who have taught us that God can be found within the quality of our actions.  

Indeed, our collective journey has attuned us to the suffering and the feelings of others.  Because we have been there. 

As the Torah teaches this week, we as Jews "know the feelings of the stranger."

Now let us use that feeling for good.

Shabbat shalom, v'kol tuv (with all goodness),

Rabbi Irwin Huberman