Home Home / The Kings' War (1956)

Outline

October 13, 1956

The Kings' War (1956)

Lech Lecha
View The Text

This content is currently available in its original PDF format. As we expand the library, we plan to add a text version as well.

RELATED CONTENT

Synagogue Sermon

Chaos and Confidence (1959)

The land of Babylonia, what is today Iraq, from the Third to the Tenth or Eleventh Century of the Common Era, was the cradle of the great Oral Law of our people. During that time and in that particular place flourished the great Babylonian academies of Sura and Pumpedita, in which the Talmud was expounded and committed to writing, and in which the great Geonim, chiefs of the Yeshivot or academies, flourished and wrote. During this great and creative era of Jewish life, it was the custom to deliver lectures in Jewish law and thought on many specified occasions. Thus, on Sabbaths and holidays, lectures were delivered to the general public. During the weekdays, more profound and technical lectures were delivered to the scholars and students who gathered in the academies. But there was one lecture which was most outstanding of all those that were delivered during the year. This special occasion was distinguished by the fact that the Resh Galuta, Exilarch, the man who was the political chief of Babylonian Jewry, a sort of King of the Jews in exile, would himself, personally, deliver the lecture in front of the assembled people and in the presence of the Geonim and all the distinguished officials of Babylonian Jewry. This occasion, so prominent because of the personal participation of the Resh Galuta, was called the Rigla di-Resh Galuta, the Holiday of the Exilarch. And the Sabbath so chosen for this distinction of the special public lecture was Shabbat Lekh Lekha.Why was it this particular Saturday, on which this particular portion was read, that was chosen as the Rigla di-Resh Galuta? The answer comes from an ancient and revered book in the Jewish tradition which gives us a profound insight into the Jewish conception of history. In the “Tana di-bei Eliyahu” we are told that the six thousand years of human history, are divided into three cycles of two thousand years each. The first is called Tohu, Chaos, because during these two thousand years the spirit has not yet cry…
Lech Lecha

Synagogue Sermon

Godless Goodness (1965)

I address myself this morning to a problem that really requires much more than one sermon for adequate treatment, but which should be dealt with in at least one sermon. It is a theme about which the pulpit must not remain silent. The problem is often expressed in the form of this question: can I not be good without religion? Is it not possible to be decent without accepting all the minutiae of religion? Is not a good heart sufficient without observance of all the ritual?That question has recently been answered, in a sophisticated fashion, by a number of theologians who have declared – borrowing a phrase from Nietzsche, the spiritual father of Nazism – that “God is dead.” This means that God has no relations with our world, He is unconcerned with man, and that therefore He is irrelevant and meaningless. Hence, they conclude, we must construct a morality in human terms, without reference to traditional religion; we must devise a secular ethic and propound a Godless goodness.How shall we respond, we who are believing and observing Jews, we who deny that – Heaven forbid! – “God is dead,” but who insist, instead, on affirming undying faith in the Torah’s Elokim hayyim, the living God of the Bible?First, we cannot deny that there are good people who do not believe in God. We have all met such people in our own personal experience. However, Judaism maintains that such goodness cannot last forever. The moral instincts that prevail today are but the residue of a religious reservoir which is rapidly drying up. We are living off the ethical interest from the quickly dwindling religious capital of two generations ago. For ethical living is the branch of a tree of life, of which the roots are religion. When you cut off the root, the branch does not wither immediately, but eventually it must die. So, ethics is a natural consequence of religion. Reject religion, and within a few generations ethical living and moral instincts must die as well. Second, secular ethics, Godless goodn…
Lech Lecha

Synagogue Sermon

The Shield of Abraham (1967)

In the very first revelation to Abraham, God promises the patriarch: “And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and be thou a blessing.” The Talmud (Pes. 117b) identified the four elements in this verse in a most unusual yet familiar way. The benediction, they said, refers to the Shemoneh Esreh prayer, and the promise was that henceforth and for all time the Name of God was to be linked with Abraham, with his son, and with his grandson. So the Rabbis said: ve’e’eskha le’goy gadol, zehu she’omrim Elokei Avraham, “And I will make of thee a great nation” refers to the expression, “The God of Abraham.” Va-avarekhekha, zehu she’omrim Elokei Yitzhak. “And I will make thee” refers to the expression, “The God of Isaac.” And va-agadlah shemekha, “I will make thy name great,” refers to the expression Elokei Yaakov, “The God of Jacob.” Thus it is that in the very beginning of our Shemoneh Esreh we bless God Who is Elokei Avraham, Elokei Yitzhak, and Elokei Yaakov – God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.However, there is yet a fourth element in that promise, the final one, namely: ve’heyeh berakhah, “And be thou a blessing.” What does this mean? To this the Talmud gave the following answer: Veyakhol yihu hotmin be’khulan, one might think that because the Name of God is linked to all three patriarchs, that therefore the climax of the blessing, its hatimah or seal, would similarly include all three patriarchs. Therefore God says to Abraham, ve’heyeh berakhah, “Be thou a blessing,” to indicate that bekha hotmin, the seal or climax of the blessing would mention only the name of Abraham and not the name of his son Isaac or his grandson Jacob. Thus it is that the seal of the first blessing of the nineteen of the Shemoneh Esreh is: magen Avraham, “Blessed art Thou, O Lord, Shield of Abraham.”What a strange remark! We can understand Abraham’s joy at knowing that his child and grandchild would, like him, be bound up with the divine Name. W…
Lech Lecha