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September 20, 1956

The Positive Impact of the Negative (1956)

Sukkot
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Extreme Moderation (1956)

The Book of Koheleth we read today is a study in the lack of moderation. It is an inquiry of a restless mind searching passionately for the meaning of life, first proposing solutions which are clearly immoderate, and then rejecting them immoderately. Solomon’s first solution to the problem of how to live is a materialistic one. He will be a man of leisure, drink wine immoderately, assure himself of great publicity, build fabulous homes and gardens, amass a fortune in gold, silver and slaves. It is an intemperate, immoderate, extremely materialistic solution, with no bones made about its plain selfishness. But Solomon rejects this way of life – and the rejection is extreme. No, he says, the whole idea of material possessions and comfort is sheer, absolute nonsense. V’hinei ha’kol hevel u’re’us ruach – it’s just plain vanity, chasing the wind. Next, he is immoderately attracted to the life of the intellectual: ha’chacham einav b’rosho, he says, only the wise man has eyes to see the world as it is, and the educated man is as superior to the poor ignoramus as light is to darkness – k’yisron ha’or al ha’choshech. Again an extremist attitude. But this too he rejects – and with equal vigor and intemperance. Wisdom as a way of life? No, gam zeh hevel, that is as foolish and downright nonsensical as living for eating or for convenience. The wise man and the fool both die, so why bother being wise.But Solomon is a wise man, the wisest of all men ever to have lived. And so he looks for the right way – in Moderation. Ki l’adam she’tov lefanav nassan chochmah v’daas v’simchah – the right kind of man is one who is moderate, who has a little of everything, who sticks to the middle of the road – he has wisdom and knowledge and happiness, he is moderately well read, moderately clever, moderately wealthy, moderately everything. Is not that, the reader feels, the best solution? Isn’t this the point at which Solomon should have put down his pen, wiped his brow and said, “Done with it!…
Sukkot

Synagogue Sermon

On Doing Without (1960)

It is a pity that we Jews of mid-town do not have the opportunity to build an individual Sukkah for each family. We are missing a great educational experience not only for ourselves and our children, but even for our non-observant Jewish friends and our non-Jewish neighbors – the very ones who are most often amused by the sight of apparently civilized modern people leaving their comfortable, secure, and well-appointed apartments in order to repair to open-roofed huts exposed to the first chills of autumn and at the mercy of rain and other natural nuisances. Yet it is specifically for sophisticated, secure, twentieth century, middle class citizens that the message of Sukkot is most relevant.Allow me to explain the relevance of Sukkot for modern men and women by referring to a debate between two eminent authorities in the Talmud. The Torah commands us to build and dwell in the sukkot for seven days because our ancestors dwelt in them in the wilderness of Sinai. Rabbi Akiva maintains sukkot mamash – the words are to be taken literally: our ancestors lived in makeshift huts that had to be dismantled and reassembled very frequently, therefore we too must experience this transience. As the Talmud puts it elsewhere: tzei mi-dirat Keva ve’ shev be’ dirat aray, for the duration of this festival leave your permanent dwelling place and live in this temporary, makeshift hut called a sukkah – just as your ancestors once did. Rabbi Eliezer, however, maintains that the sukkot of our ancestors does not refer to the actual, physical houses in which they lived. Rather, elu ananei ha-kavod, when the Israelites wandered in the desert they were covered by the “cloud of glory”. G-d stretched His Kavod over them like a cloud to guide and protect them from the elements and enemies. It is a symbol of these ananei Ha-kavod that we enter the sukkah with its covering of sekhakh.Generally this talmudic passage is assumed to be a controversy between the two Rabbis. I believe, however, that ther…
Sukkot

Synagogue Sermon

What Happiness Is Not (1964)

Ever since the modern era began and the Founding Fathers of this nation proclaimed man’s natural right to the “pursuit of happiness,” we have been doing just that – pursuing happiness breathlessly, relentlessly, almost fanatically. But happiness has proved to be quite an elusive prize. We have discovered an amazing paradox: the more the pursuit, the less the happiness! We have begun to wonder if, when we finally attain our goal, we will not be too spent and tired to enjoy it. Even more, we have been wondering whether or not it is at all attainable! Therefore, more recently, thoughtful people have undertaken a process of introspection: what is that happiness that we try so hard to get for ourselves? A whole range of answers has been suggested: from housing and full employment and anti-poverty to more use of leisure; from the unspoken but very real motive of status to such charming irrelevancies as, “happiness is a warm puppy.” This week, which is our zeman simhatenu, our season of happiness, let us discuss not what happiness is – that might take too long – but rather what happiness is not. Perhaps that way we will at least be spared blundering on the wrong road in pursuit of a phantom. Let us begin with a halakhah codified by Maimonides in his Mishneh Torah: כשהאדם אוכל ושותה ושמח ברגל לא ימשך ביין ובשחוק וקלות ראש ויאמר שכל מי שיוסיף בזה ירבה במצות שמחה, שהשכרות והשחוק הרבה וקלות ראש אינן שמחה אלא הוללות וסכלות. (רמב”ם, הל׳ יום טוב ו:כ) “When a man eats and drinks and is happy on the festival, let him not over-indulge in wine, and in jesting, and in levity, saying to himself that whoever does this thereby observes more fully the commandment to be happy; for drunkenness and jesting and levity are not at all simhah or happiness; they are merely madness and folly.” These, then, are three things that happiness is not: shikrut, drunkenness; sehok, jesting; and kalut rosh, light-headedness or levity. But perhaps someone may argue: how does Maimonides know all this? Can w…
Sukkot