Morning Prayer: (adapted from traditional Jewish liturgy)
We gather to praise You, Eternal One, our God, Sovereign of the universe, Maker of light and Creator of darkness, Author of peace and Creator of all things. In Your mercy You give light to the earth and all who live on it, and in Your goodness You renew creation continually, day by day. How manifold are Your works, O God! With wisdom have you made them all; the world is full of Your creations. Your handiwork proclaims Your praise; the sun, the moon, and the stars bear witness to your glory. Praise to You, O God, Creator of lights.
Sermon: Rabbi Rosalind Gold
Good morning. I want to thank you for inviting me to speak this morning, especially as your assigned readings deal in one way or another with one of my favorite topics…..food!
Your reading from the Hebrew Scriptures deals with a stressful time in the life of the Israelites as they traveled through the desert. They are tired, they are scared, they don’t know where they are headed or how long it will take them to get there. And they’re hungry. They come down with a serious case of selective memory, recalling the garlic and leeks and watermelons they ate as enslaved people in Egypt. They yearn to return there, reasoning that at least in Egypt they knew where their next meal was coming from.
I could be wrong, but I have a feeling that they didn’t eat so well in Egypt, that the watermelons were not so plentiful in Goshen. But in the grip of their fear and anxiety as they trekked through the desert, they conjure memories of a life that was easier and more secure, a life where they knew what each day would bring, even if it wasn’t so great.
God hears their worry and fear, and causes the wonderous, mysterious manna to fall from heaven. Each morning they would go out to collect it. On Friday, a double portion would fall, so they would not be forced to violate the Sabbath and work to collect it on Saturday. Manna was pretty amazing stuff.
The Bible tells us that it settled on the ground like dew, and that it was white-ish stuff that tasted like bdellium – whatever that is. According to the midrash, a collection of ancient rabbinic musings on the Biblical text, manna tasted like whatever you wanted it to taste, whatever you needed it to be on any given day. Each weekday’s ration of manna fell right into the Israelites’ hands and, other than on Shabbat, was just enough to suffice for that day – God’s thoughtful gift to the people so that they didn’t have to schlep it along as they wandered through the desert. It also served the goal of training the people to trust in God, to trust that God would feed and nurture them each day; waiting for the manna to fall became an exercise in faith for the Israelites. There is even a messianic quality to manna. The midrash teaches that when the Temple was built in Jerusalem, a small plate of manna was stored there in the Holy Ark and was destroyed when the Temple fell. According to legend, when the Prophet Elijah comes to announce the coming of the messianic times, the vessel that contained the manna will be restored.
Most of today’s readings refer to the story of God giving manna or bread to people who are hungry. John recalls the story of Jesus reminding the people that God fed the people in the desert and continues to nurture us through our faith. The readings remind us that we do not live by bread alone, but rather by everything that comes out of the mouth of The Holy One. Bread is necessary, but it is not everything. Lives that are bereft of the spirit or lives that are numbed by alcohol or drugs or sex or too much food are empty, and only leave us hungering for meaning and fulfillment.
What do we need out of the mouth of God in addition to physical sustenance to live most fully and meaningfully? Rabbi Arthur Waskow, a contemporary progressive rabbi who lives and teaches in the Philadelphia area, suggests that the life God wants us to live contains certain elements, and among them is joy– that we allow ourselves to experience joy as a sacred activity, and create joy for others. Jewish tradition teaches that when we die, we will be called to account for every permitted pleasure we did not partake of in life. We are not meant to be unhappy; we were created in love and sent out to enjoy the blessings we were given and share them with others. Joy is part of a fully religious life and something that God wants us to have.
Next is remembering that we were created in God’s image. If we remember that we are the image of God, that we are God’s hands and arms in the world, that our mouths should speak God’s teachings and that our feet should run to fulfill God’s vision of social justice in the world, then we come closer to a godly life. If we give bread to the hungry, we are recalling the act that, literally, sustained our lives in the wilderness. The rabbis taught ”im ayn kemach, ayn Torah, without bread, there is no Torah.” Without physical nourishment, we very literally cannot muster the strength to strive after our dreams, to participate in the fullness of life’s bounties. Human beings need physical sustenance in order to study and grow to become who God intends them to be – God fed us, we need to be the image of God and feed others. Just as we need spiritual sustenance to most fully connect with God and experience God’s love.
Another value that Rabbi Waskow says is essential to a fully religious life is what we call in Hebrew “Teshuva” – literally “returning.” One of the Hebrew words for sin derives from archery, when the arrow cuts away off it’s intended direction and misses the target. Returning means that when, like the arrow, we have gone astray, veered off the path, we need to turn around and return to the point where we started going wrong, where we missed the target. We return to God, to our values, to our ideals, to the communities that sustain us. Being able to take an honest look at ourselves, at our lives, at the impact our words and actions have had on those around us, is an essential part of a religious approach to life. We pray that one of the ways God will nourish us is by giving us the wisdom to recognize when we have gone wrong, and the humility and strength to get ourselves right with others again.
In the Jewish world, we are entering the final weeks before the High Holy Days, when there is a particular focus on Teshuva and Atonement. In my tradition, God will not forgive us for sins we commit against another human being until we ask for and receive that person’s forgiveness. We are not permitted to avoid facing those we have hurt; God can’t fix it for us. Doing teshuva is hard, hard work; it is sacred work that we are commanded to do. Doing it is part of what we have learned from the mouth of God.
God fed us manna in the wilderness when we were hungry. We needed it during our 40 years of wandering. And, as John taught us, God continues to feed us manna – spiritual manna, food that endures for eternal life. We each see and taste the manna differently, and we each call it by a different name. But it is the same precious gift from God that feeds our souls and blesses our lives, that gives meaning to our days.
Alden Solovey, a contemporary Jewish poet and liturgist, wrote in his most recent book “This Precious Life” these words about the miracle and wonder of manna:
Manna
Manna still flows from heaven,
Riding on beams of light,
Warmth and heat,
Awe and passion,
Wonder and glory,
Feeding this grateful heart.
Manna still flows from heaven,
Summoned with beams of prayer,
Mourning and jubilation,
Praise and thanksgiving,
Hope and yearning,
Praising God’s holy name.
Manna still flows from heaven,
To sustain this land,
To nourish this soul,
To enliven the days
And bless the nights
With the bread of life
From the God of compassion.*
May our days and nights be blessed, may our ears be open to hear the love and wisdom that God speaks to us, and may we feel embraced and nourished by God’s compassion. AMEN
*This Precious Life©Alden Solovy, 2021
Prayer for Peace: Yehudah Amichai (Israeli poet & peace activist)
Don’t stop after beating the swords
into ploughshares, don’t stop! Go on beating
and make musical instruments out of them.
Whoever wants to make war again
will have to turn them into ploughshares first.
Final Song: T’Filat Haderch (The Travelers’ Prayer), Debbie Friedman