Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thank you for joining me. I'm Rabbi David Lyon from
Congregation Beth Israel in Houston. In the Torah, this week
we open to a new book of Torah. We finish
the Book of Leviticus, the priestly book, and now we
enter the Book of Numbers. So call because the theme
of the book opens with a census accounting of all
(00:22):
the people. But the very first Hebrew word that is
of significance which names the book in Hebrew is b Midbar,
and bah Midbar means in the wilderness. And so this
book does tell the story, sometimes recounting stories of the
passage of the Israelites from the land of Egypt, where
they were deemed from slavery to sign i n ultimately
(00:46):
all the way as they will get to the Promised Land.
This Book of Numbers or in the Wilderness, suggests that
the Jews were a wandering people. There is even a
plant called the wandering Jew. But when we talk about
wandering Jews, sometimes we think that they are lost. The
fact is that they were never lost. They were wandering
(01:09):
with Moses as their leader, God as their guide, intending
to arrive at the very place they were supposed to
be now, it might be said that it would have
been easier if they had the app that we used
today call ways, which was invented by Israelis. By the way,
they would have arrived much sooner and more directly. But
(01:33):
the fact also remains that the Rabbis taught a long
time ago that the reason that the Israelites were sent
on a much longer journey around about way instead of
going directly from point A to point B, was to
give them the time to unpack and wash off, as
it were, their memory of slavery in Egypt that covered
(01:56):
four hundred and thirty years. It took them time time
to become a people that wasn't feeling like slaves, and
a people that was beginning to feel like a people,
a nation under one God covenanted with a gift of
Torah they received at Sinai. That took time. It still
(02:17):
takes us time. Even in a rushed and technological world
in which we live, we still need time to accommodate
changes in our life, whether they are new life cycle moments,
having a new baby in our life, having a new sibling,
having a new spouse, even losing a loved one from
(02:39):
life are all transitions that are not easily accommodated except
over time with a sense of struggle, a sense of purpose,
and a sense of hope for the future. Well, in
these days when many people do say to me, members
of my congregationation or community, or in my role as
(03:02):
CCAAR president, hearing from colleagues around the country that they
too are wandering in certain ways because they're waiting for
some consistency, some sense of security and continuity from one
day to the next. As they watch the news and
listen to podcasts, everything is being thrown up in the air.
People are feeling distracted from the path that they've been
(03:25):
accustomed to and the routine that they knew, So they
feel that they are wandering. But the question can also
be asked to them, and I do ask them, even
if you feel like you're wandering, are you lost? That's
the question that we have to ask ourselves. And I
would like to offer some suggestions today by letting you
(03:48):
know that it isn't uncommon to wander through all the
different experiences that we have in life, from birth to
death and everything in between, from joy and sorrow and
changes we can't always control, but we don't have to
feel lost along the way, because what helps us to
feel not found that has a lot of religious overtones
(04:11):
to it, but to feel less lost is to know
that you have a sense of a moral compass. You
have teachings, lessons, life experiences that have guided you fairly
well through all the different experiences that you've already had,
and you've come out okay, perhaps grown, of course, more mature,
we hope, but not lost and not uncertain about what
(04:36):
you're able to do with the strengths and gifts as
you're discovering God already created within you. Surely you're a
different person at your age than you were at ten,
or eighteen, or even twenty one. We know that the
brain doesn't even completely developed until about the age of
twenty six or twenty seven, and if you're the parent
(04:57):
or grandparent of a young person who is merging towards
that age, you'll notice a difference. There is a seemingly
less amount of self interest, of conceitedness, and an increasing
amount of compassion, empathy, And all of a sudden you
(05:20):
feel one day that you're sitting with a young adult
whose company you enjoy more than ever before. I can
only say it's true because I've experienced it with my
own children and with others as well. And if you
know that they're less than twenty seven years old, you
can also change your expectations about their needs and their
ability to listen, to hear, and to support. So we're
(05:43):
not lost, but we are emerging and becoming every single
day and discovering at all the ages that we reach
that there's something new that we didn't even know we
were capable of understanding or doing. These are God's gifts
to us. These are the elements that make us who
we are today and tomorrow. But rather than just talk
(06:06):
about the platitudes and the hopes and dreams, I want
you to return to the very teachings that have been
your guides and your source of security and continuity. In
many cases, they are the secular teachings that we've all
been raised on from elementary school and beyond, some of
the very lessons we learned in kindergarten, so to speak,
(06:29):
how to be civil, polite, collaborate, work in groups, be polite,
and make our way. They are still foundational rules and
principles that we should live by, and even if we
encounter those who don't live by them as easily as
we do or value them the same way that we do.
It doesn't mean that those rules should change, and doesn't
(06:52):
mean those rules aren't important anymore. We can conduct ourselves
with a sense of integrity and dignity that enables us
to reproach a person with less and listen, aim to understand,
aim to empathize and grow where other people haven't yet.
(07:12):
So those lessons are not to be abandoned, and they
happen to abandon you. They still exist, but in a
world where we clearly see less civility, less integrity. For
the continuity of things that our nation or even we
are families, have relied on, we have to look sometimes
(07:33):
for sources of greater strength and encouragement before those secular
teachings and rules can be relied on again. So when
secular teachings fail us, or when we feel that they're
not as urgent or as reliable anymore, where do we turn. Well,
I'm a rabbi, and for me, I do turn to
(07:56):
Torah teachings to tell mutic messages and life lessons. And
I would urge you to return to your faith texts too,
to discover there what has been such an enduring lesson
for you and your people over centuries, over millennia. Because
while our own nation or other nations in the world
(08:17):
may have hundreds of years of reliable governmental or constitutional instruction,
our own nation is young compared to many others, but
our faith traditions are age old. So where would I
turn In the Torah? There are obviously some familiar teachings
(08:37):
that I would turn to because they're reliable and they
are durable. They become sacred not only because they're written
in the Torah. They're sacred because they have endured over
time and we've inherited them from generations past, because they
serve those generations and should continue to serve ours and
those in the future. So we might say, from Leviticus
(08:59):
chapter nineteen, love your neighbor as yourself. If we can
find peace and love within ourselves, we might be better
able to find it in others. Or the thirty six
times in Torah where it says to welcome the stranger,
because we were one strangers in the land of Egypt.
Maybe the Israelites wandered for forty years in the desert
(09:20):
with Moses, and even though they weren't lost, they never
were allowed to forget from where they came. And so
even we, whether we are Jews or simply Americans, we
all came from somewhere, and that identification is something that
were not permitted to forget because it helps us to
(09:42):
be passionate and empathetic about those who come here mindfully
as really legally we hope, but in any case make
their dreams in a promised land we called and they
continue to call America. And teaching from doudah ronomy that
always stands out in my mind because it simply is
(10:03):
an enduring teaching says in Hebrew lo to ha lahitalm.
It simply means do not be indifferent, and I think
that three word, four word phrase do not remain indifferent,
do not hide yourself. Another way of translating the Hebrew
(10:26):
words helps us to remember that even though our own
life may be good or challenged, or whatever it might be,
we do not exist alone and we can't thrive without
the company of others who stand in community with us,
whether it's where we live, or where we pray, or
where we vote. We are not individuals who can only
(10:49):
be individualists. We are people who have to care enough
about others around us and when we see or feel
hurt or concern in others, it should prompt our heart
and soul to make a difference for them. The only
time that Jewish teaching says that maybe we shouldn't reach
(11:11):
out to help is when there's really nothing we can
possibly do. If there's a need for somebody with expertise
or skills to make a difference, and we can call
on men, But there are so many places before we
reach that extreme where you and I know how to
be compassionate, empathetic, helpful, mindful, and we can make a difference.
(11:36):
It goes back to another teaching which doesn't come from Torah,
but which emerges from Torah, when Elie Weisel said that
the opposite of love is not hate. It's in difference.
Because love we know, we cherish it, and we share it.
Hate we know too. It's a terrible thing. But hate
is a feeling that can be transformed, it can be mitigated. Indifference,
(12:01):
to we Zell and to us is simply being inhuman,
and that's not what these times call for. The times
in which we live are times that we might feel lost,
but we're not. We're still human, we feel still strong,
We're still faithful. We have religious teachings and secular teachings,
(12:21):
and when we distill them down to the very best
of them, then we know that we have something we
can rely on, and we can expect, maybe even demand,
that others might rely on them too, to lift us
up to be at our best, especially when the times
are so challenging. It's easy to be good when everyone
else is good. It's more difficult to be good when
(12:43):
everybody else is rotten. I don't think everybody else is rotten,
but there's no doubt that these are challenging times that
call on us to be at our very best through
secular teachings, which are good, religious teachings which are inturing,
and to know right from wrong, which we learned a
long time. I'm a go I'm Rabbi David Lyon from
Congregation Beth Israel, and he's Houston. To listen again or
(13:06):
to share this message, please do. You can find it
at my podcast called Heart to Heart with Rabbi David
Lyon at Sunny ninety nine dot com on the iHeartRadio app.
As the day's unfold, there's no question that things will
continue to change. They might go forward and come back again.
Or they might go back and forward again. We don't know.
(13:28):
It's the kind of distraction and uncertainty that makes us
feel uneasy. So rather than committing yourself to the idea
that you're lost, please know that you're not. You're on
a journey, You're on a path, and I think if
you return to some of the very essential lessons and
teachings of our past, we can make them part of
our future where others can join us to know that
(13:52):
what we know is right, and what we know is
good still is and will continue to be the foundation
on which we build our families, our community of friends,
our businesses, and the hopes we want for ourselves and
others in the future. I have never found anybody, except
the worst of the worst, who have ever said that
these teachings are not from me and that I will
(14:15):
only do it my way. That's a very rare category
of individual and I don't think that you or I
really do know any person like that in our immediate
family or circle of friends. Certainly we wouldn't invite them
to be a part of that circle. So let's continue
on our journey and wander where we need, but not
(14:35):
with any expectation that we are lost, rather that we
are heading in the direction where we are intended to be.
And let's be sure that when we take the next step,
that it's a good step, and that God may bless
us there, that each subsequent step may also be blessed
and lead us to peace, to goodness, and to hope.
Thank you for joining me. I look forward to being
(14:56):
with you again next time.
Thank you for joining me. I'm Rabbi David Lyon from
Congregation Beth Israel in Houston. In the Torah, this week
we open to a new book of Torah. We finish
the Book of Leviticus, the priestly book, and now we
enter the Book of Numbers. So call because the theme
of the book opens with a census accounting of all
(00:22):
the people. But the very first Hebrew word that is
of significance which names the book in Hebrew is b Midbar,
and bah Midbar means in the wilderness. And so this
book does tell the story, sometimes recounting stories of the
passage of the Israelites from the land of Egypt, where
they were deemed from slavery to sign i n ultimately
(00:46):
all the way as they will get to the Promised Land.
This Book of Numbers or in the Wilderness, suggests that
the Jews were a wandering people. There is even a
plant called the wandering Jew. But when we talk about
wandering Jews, sometimes we think that they are lost. The
fact is that they were never lost. They were wandering
(01:09):
with Moses as their leader, God as their guide, intending
to arrive at the very place they were supposed to
be now, it might be said that it would have
been easier if they had the app that we used
today call ways, which was invented by Israelis. By the way,
they would have arrived much sooner and more directly. But
(01:33):
the fact also remains that the Rabbis taught a long
time ago that the reason that the Israelites were sent
on a much longer journey around about way instead of
going directly from point A to point B, was to
give them the time to unpack and wash off, as
it were, their memory of slavery in Egypt that covered
(01:56):
four hundred and thirty years. It took them time time
to become a people that wasn't feeling like slaves, and
a people that was beginning to feel like a people,
a nation under one God covenanted with a gift of
Torah they received at Sinai. That took time. It still
(02:17):
takes us time. Even in a rushed and technological world
in which we live, we still need time to accommodate
changes in our life, whether they are new life cycle moments,
having a new baby in our life, having a new sibling,
having a new spouse, even losing a loved one from
(02:39):
life are all transitions that are not easily accommodated except
over time with a sense of struggle, a sense of purpose,
and a sense of hope for the future. Well, in
these days when many people do say to me, members
of my congregationation or community, or in my role as
(03:02):
CCAAR president, hearing from colleagues around the country that they
too are wandering in certain ways because they're waiting for
some consistency, some sense of security and continuity from one
day to the next. As they watch the news and
listen to podcasts, everything is being thrown up in the air.
People are feeling distracted from the path that they've been
(03:25):
accustomed to and the routine that they knew, So they
feel that they are wandering. But the question can also
be asked to them, and I do ask them, even
if you feel like you're wandering, are you lost? That's
the question that we have to ask ourselves. And I
would like to offer some suggestions today by letting you
(03:48):
know that it isn't uncommon to wander through all the
different experiences that we have in life, from birth to
death and everything in between, from joy and sorrow and
changes we can't always control, but we don't have to
feel lost along the way, because what helps us to
feel not found that has a lot of religious overtones
(04:11):
to it, but to feel less lost is to know
that you have a sense of a moral compass. You
have teachings, lessons, life experiences that have guided you fairly
well through all the different experiences that you've already had,
and you've come out okay, perhaps grown, of course, more mature,
we hope, but not lost and not uncertain about what
(04:36):
you're able to do with the strengths and gifts as
you're discovering God already created within you. Surely you're a
different person at your age than you were at ten,
or eighteen, or even twenty one. We know that the
brain doesn't even completely developed until about the age of
twenty six or twenty seven, and if you're the parent
(04:57):
or grandparent of a young person who is merging towards
that age, you'll notice a difference. There is a seemingly
less amount of self interest, of conceitedness, and an increasing
amount of compassion, empathy, And all of a sudden you
(05:20):
feel one day that you're sitting with a young adult
whose company you enjoy more than ever before. I can
only say it's true because I've experienced it with my
own children and with others as well. And if you
know that they're less than twenty seven years old, you
can also change your expectations about their needs and their
ability to listen, to hear, and to support. So we're
(05:43):
not lost, but we are emerging and becoming every single
day and discovering at all the ages that we reach
that there's something new that we didn't even know we
were capable of understanding or doing. These are God's gifts
to us. These are the elements that make us who
we are today and tomorrow. But rather than just talk
(06:06):
about the platitudes and the hopes and dreams, I want
you to return to the very teachings that have been
your guides and your source of security and continuity. In
many cases, they are the secular teachings that we've all
been raised on from elementary school and beyond, some of
the very lessons we learned in kindergarten, so to speak,
(06:29):
how to be civil, polite, collaborate, work in groups, be polite,
and make our way. They are still foundational rules and
principles that we should live by, and even if we
encounter those who don't live by them as easily as
we do or value them the same way that we do.
It doesn't mean that those rules should change, and doesn't
(06:52):
mean those rules aren't important anymore. We can conduct ourselves
with a sense of integrity and dignity that enables us
to reproach a person with less and listen, aim to understand,
aim to empathize and grow where other people haven't yet.
(07:12):
So those lessons are not to be abandoned, and they
happen to abandon you. They still exist, but in a
world where we clearly see less civility, less integrity. For
the continuity of things that our nation or even we
are families, have relied on, we have to look sometimes
(07:33):
for sources of greater strength and encouragement before those secular
teachings and rules can be relied on again. So when
secular teachings fail us, or when we feel that they're
not as urgent or as reliable anymore, where do we turn. Well,
I'm a rabbi, and for me, I do turn to
(07:56):
Torah teachings to tell mutic messages and life lessons. And
I would urge you to return to your faith texts too,
to discover there what has been such an enduring lesson
for you and your people over centuries, over millennia. Because
while our own nation or other nations in the world
(08:17):
may have hundreds of years of reliable governmental or constitutional instruction,
our own nation is young compared to many others, but
our faith traditions are age old. So where would I
turn In the Torah? There are obviously some familiar teachings
(08:37):
that I would turn to because they're reliable and they
are durable. They become sacred not only because they're written
in the Torah. They're sacred because they have endured over
time and we've inherited them from generations past, because they
serve those generations and should continue to serve ours and
those in the future. So we might say, from Leviticus
(08:59):
chapter nineteen, love your neighbor as yourself. If we can
find peace and love within ourselves, we might be better
able to find it in others. Or the thirty six
times in Torah where it says to welcome the stranger,
because we were one strangers in the land of Egypt.
Maybe the Israelites wandered for forty years in the desert
(09:20):
with Moses, and even though they weren't lost, they never
were allowed to forget from where they came. And so
even we, whether we are Jews or simply Americans, we
all came from somewhere, and that identification is something that
were not permitted to forget because it helps us to
(09:42):
be passionate and empathetic about those who come here mindfully
as really legally we hope, but in any case make
their dreams in a promised land we called and they
continue to call America. And teaching from doudah ronomy that
always stands out in my mind because it simply is
(10:03):
an enduring teaching says in Hebrew lo to ha lahitalm.
It simply means do not be indifferent, and I think
that three word, four word phrase do not remain indifferent,
do not hide yourself. Another way of translating the Hebrew
(10:26):
words helps us to remember that even though our own
life may be good or challenged, or whatever it might be,
we do not exist alone and we can't thrive without
the company of others who stand in community with us,
whether it's where we live, or where we pray, or
where we vote. We are not individuals who can only
(10:49):
be individualists. We are people who have to care enough
about others around us and when we see or feel
hurt or concern in others, it should prompt our heart
and soul to make a difference for them. The only
time that Jewish teaching says that maybe we shouldn't reach
(11:11):
out to help is when there's really nothing we can
possibly do. If there's a need for somebody with expertise
or skills to make a difference, and we can call
on men, But there are so many places before we
reach that extreme where you and I know how to
be compassionate, empathetic, helpful, mindful, and we can make a difference.
(11:36):
It goes back to another teaching which doesn't come from Torah,
but which emerges from Torah, when Elie Weisel said that
the opposite of love is not hate. It's in difference.
Because love we know, we cherish it, and we share it.
Hate we know too. It's a terrible thing. But hate
is a feeling that can be transformed, it can be mitigated. Indifference,
(12:01):
to we Zell and to us is simply being inhuman,
and that's not what these times call for. The times
in which we live are times that we might feel lost,
but we're not. We're still human, we feel still strong,
We're still faithful. We have religious teachings and secular teachings,
(12:21):
and when we distill them down to the very best
of them, then we know that we have something we
can rely on, and we can expect, maybe even demand,
that others might rely on them too, to lift us
up to be at our best, especially when the times
are so challenging. It's easy to be good when everyone
else is good. It's more difficult to be good when
(12:43):
everybody else is rotten. I don't think everybody else is rotten,
but there's no doubt that these are challenging times that
call on us to be at our very best through
secular teachings, which are good, religious teachings which are inturing,
and to know right from wrong, which we learned a
long time. I'm a go I'm Rabbi David Lyon from
Congregation Beth Israel, and he's Houston. To listen again or
(13:06):
to share this message, please do. You can find it
at my podcast called Heart to Heart with Rabbi David
Lyon at Sunny ninety nine dot com on the iHeartRadio app.
As the day's unfold, there's no question that things will
continue to change. They might go forward and come back again.
Or they might go back and forward again. We don't know.
(13:28):
It's the kind of distraction and uncertainty that makes us
feel uneasy. So rather than committing yourself to the idea
that you're lost, please know that you're not. You're on
a journey, You're on a path, and I think if
you return to some of the very essential lessons and
teachings of our past, we can make them part of
our future where others can join us to know that
(13:52):
what we know is right, and what we know is
good still is and will continue to be the foundation
on which we build our families, our community of friends,
our businesses, and the hopes we want for ourselves and
others in the future. I have never found anybody, except
the worst of the worst, who have ever said that
these teachings are not from me and that I will
(14:15):
only do it my way. That's a very rare category
of individual and I don't think that you or I
really do know any person like that in our immediate
family or circle of friends. Certainly we wouldn't invite them
to be a part of that circle. So let's continue
on our journey and wander where we need, but not
(14:35):
with any expectation that we are lost, rather that we
are heading in the direction where we are intended to be.
And let's be sure that when we take the next step,
that it's a good step, and that God may bless
us there, that each subsequent step may also be blessed
and lead us to peace, to goodness, and to hope.
Thank you for joining me. I look forward to being
(14:56):
with you again next time.
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