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November 3, 1951

How Local is a Local Election: A Non-Political Sermon (1951)

Noach
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A Big Protest Against Small Sins - editor's title (1952)

Some time ago, when we were about ten or twenty years younger, there was a whole series of words classified as “unmentionable,” words which should not and could not be mentioned in polite society. By today, the number of such words has been severely reduced. In fact, the more such words that appear in a book, the more chance does the book have of becoming a best seller. Inhibitions have been scrapped, and the unmentionables are no longer unmentionable. However, one particular word, previously used in the very best of societies, has in our day become the foremost of the “unmentionables.” And that is – sin. No one seems inclined to ever mention that word, least of all preachers and teachers of religion. It sounds hopelessly antiquated and old-fashioned. All the more the challenge therefore, my friends, to speak to you this morning about sin. No, not about the big sins and the major crimes of the day – those I leave, in this election season, to the tireless political orators of all shades who have been recounting all the big sins since 40 or 50 years ago. I propose, rather, to talk about the small sins, those minor infractions of decency that generally go by unnoticed. I want to discuss with you those small sins which can, ultimately, produce effects and consequences more evil than the biggest of sins; I want to treat of those small and insignificant sins which, when added to each other and taken together, outweigh in rascality and horrible results, the greatest of major crimes. This week’s Bible Reading, according to our Rabbis, conveys to us this very idea of the disproportionate danger of small sins. The dor ha’mabul, the generation of the flood, was an extremely evil one. And our Sages point out that though they committed the three major crimes known to mankind – incest, idolatry and murder – G-d did not bring the flood upon them. G-d waited patiently. And it was only when they committed robbery that G-d brought upon them the Great Deluge. Now, robbery can be tran…
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A Credo for the Pulpit (1954)

I believe that the first in this season’s series of Late Services is the appropriate time for a talk on “A Credo for the Pulpit,” a general outline of the aims of the Jewish pulpit in general, and this pulpit in particular. So often is the pulpit exploited for book-reviews, political orations, sociological observations, psychiatric advice and personal opinions, that a public airing of its functions, responsibilities and aims should be healthy for both Rabbi and Congregation.The pulpit, to my mind, must fulfill three basic functions: to teach, to preach, and to reach. These three do more than rhyme; they establish an inner rhythm, by which Rabbi and Congregation harmoniously rise to the service of G-d. The main function of the Rabbi has always been to teach. The pulpit was always geared more to the lecture than to the sermon. The principal object was to teach, to inform, to let the people enjoy the pulpit as an educational tool to open up for them new vistas, new understanding, new horizons that they never realized existed in Judaism.Study, in Judaism, is regarded as a form of Service or Worship. “Talmud Torah” was not only a way leading to the observance of G-d’s mitzvos, but in itself a mitzvoh of major importance. For generations after the destruction of the Temple and the beginning of exile, Jews studied, assiduously, the Laws of Temple Sacrifice and laws applicable only in time of national independence – because the study of Torah is in and of itself a sacred deed, whether practical at the moment or not. The word “mishnah,” indicating the great body of Oral Law, our Sages pointed out, spells “neshamah,” or “soul,” when its letters are rearranged. For study is itself a spiritual achievement of no mean proportions.Historically, that was the primary function of the drashah, the sermon. It followed the reading of the Torah and explained it. The Rabbi rose to his highest function when he was not only a shepherd guiding his flock, but a teacher instructing his studen…
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The Ethics of Protest (1968)

The Biblical story of Noah and the flood is one which strikes a peculiar kind of sympathetic resonance in us moderns. There were times in living memory when this tale seemed like a quaint echo of primitive history. Unfortunately, it now has become full of contemporary relevance. We who live under the perpetual threat of the mushroom cloud of atomic annihilation experience a shocking recognition of the story of the flood. That primordial flood, which left traces in the literature and tradition of almost every ancient people, was understood by the Torah in essentially moral categories. The cataclysm which swept away civilization was one which was brought on by corruption and immorality. Only Noah, who was a non-conformist in his generation, escaped the terrible, universal catastrophe. When the Torah records the episode of the deluge, it is not because it wants to teach us ancient history; the Torah is not a history text. It does want us to learn something about ethics and right conduct from it. And the Torah does not teach explicitly and didactically; rather, the landscape of the Torah is strewn with hints which we, with whatever wisdom the Lord has given us, must interpret and understand in order to derive moral significance and instruction from it.It is therefore appropriate for us, a generation threatened by our own particular form of atomic deluge, to investigate the story told to us by the Sidra a bit more deeply and analytically.The Torah tells us that the flood was the consequence of widespread corruption, particularly the evil called ḥamas, which we usually translate as “violence.” The Jewish tradition defines ḥamas as, especially, gezzel – stealing or robbery. This was a generation which did not respect private property, one in which people were uninhibited in over-reaching themselves and stealing the fruit of the labor of others.However, there was something that troubled the Rabbis about the whole episode of the flood. Granted, they ask, that the criminals …
Noach