September 7, 2009 - Pay To Pray: Kee Tavo

Few topics fire me up at this time of year like the debate over whether or not to give away free tickets for High Holy services. The “Reform Judaism Magazine” has an all too short debate on the very last page of this fall’s issue. You have received yours in the mail or will be getting it soon.

There may be a few folks here tonight who remember the controversy that this issue caused here at B’nai Chaim. Altruistically, we all would have loved to be in the position of putting our best out there and liberally inviting everyone and anyone who might need or want a place to worship during the Days of Awe. But, we found ourselves living in the real world with real world concerns and real world expenses like electric and heating bills and a mortgage that must be paid. And unfortunately, we have limited resources and limited space. Where congregations with deeper pockets and endowments---what a concept!---endowments-- might be able to offer their services for nothing, it wasn’t something we at B’nai Chaim felt we were capable of handling.

Then too, there was a sense of humiliation and resentment that some of us felt…humiliation in that we were unable to offer, on a come one, come all, basis what other congregations could. But, also, there was resentment because we have been responsible for supporting this congregation throughout the entire year, paying those electric, heating and mortgage bills…and why should we feel obligated to those who might only use us on a twice a year basis and then walk away, contributing nothing to sustaining all that we attempt to do here?

While offering free tickets might give folks the opportunity to “look at us” and make a decision about whether or not to join, we decided, based on sound financial reasoning, that this wasn’t anything we could afford to do and, more than, this, we shouldn’t feel guilty for asking that people pay for services that they were utilizing, knowing that that payment would help to carry on the rest of the year’s programming.

Our parashat hashavuah points us in the right direction. In Kee Tavo, Moses tells the people that when they have established themselves in the land, they are to bring an offering of first fruits. The pashator simple, literal, understanding of this injunction is that religion isn’t free. The institution--- whether it is the priesthood and the sacrificial cult or this Temple and its teaching instruments like religious education--- needs support. It will not exist and cannot operate purely on good will. Where Moses institutionalizes sustaining sacrifices, we today must teach non affiliated Jews the obligations and responsibilities of belonging. This is no easy feat, especially in an economy such as the one we’re now experiencing, but it is a critical aspect of Jewish life.

Moses ties this sense of commitment to the special relationship that the people have with God. It isn’t that they themselves are so special. Their origins are lowly, indeed. Moses reminds them that they, in fact, come from a line of hobos and wanderers. Moses tells them to reiterate this: ‘Your father was a fugitive Aramean,’ and he instructs them to say these very words when they present their sacrifices before the priest. What he means is that it isn’t they who are important and they shouldn’t puff themselves up thinking that they are. It is, however, the covenant they have with God which has gainsaid their taking the Promised Land. It is the fact that God has selected them that imparts to them their status: “And the Lord has affirmed this day that you are, as God promised you, God’s treasured people which shall observe all God’s commandments, and that God will set you, in fame and renown and glory, high above all the nations that God has made; and that you shall be, as God promised, a holy people to the Lord your God. (Deut 26: 18-19)

We all know that being selected and joining ourselves to this holy community isn’t like winning the lottery. God hasn’t got a roulette wheel with all the nations of the world as potential, lucky winners. The selection which Israel represents involves responsibilities to uphold certain standards and do certain things. Later in the portion, Moses outlines some more of those duties. They come in the form of curses. Listen to these conditions, these laws:

• Cursed be the man who makes a sculptured or molten image, abhorred by the Lord, a craftsman’s handiwork, and sets it up in secret (in other words, make and worship no idols)

• Cursed be he who insults his father or mother (in other words, treat the folks with respect for their having brought you into this world)

• Cursed be he who moves his neighbor’s landmark (respect property rights and boundaries)
• Cursed be he who misdirects a blind person on his way (play fair with the disadvantaged)
• Cursed be he who subverts the rights of the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow

More of these injunctions follow, some of which involve sexual boundaries. Others deal with bribes and secretive murder. Moses makes it clear that there can be no covenant, no special status, unless the people hold up their end of the bargain. And part of that bargain is the sustaining acts of freely giving of their possessions.

This portion also points out that the nation of Israel has come a long way since God made one sided promises to Abraham. The Israelites are now more fully finding out what their end of the bargain, their side of this pact with the Almighty, is going to obligate them to. Here finally are the moral as well as the fiscal costs of becoming an am segula, a people special to God.

The peculiar thing about this passage is that Moses does not list all the commandments here. He lays out only a small number…as though they were representative examples. What he will then do is go into excruciating detail about what the punishments will be for breaking God’s laws, and the description is pretty graphic

But even more significant is the fact that these obligations and laws have bound this people together to this day. The notion that one must give to get, one must support to receive support is as true today as it was centuries ago.

No rabbi feels entirely comfortable having to speak a sermon like this. We would prefer to emphasize the benefits of living according to God’s laws and being in holy association with that which sanctifies life and our roles in it. However, it is gratifying to realize that, tucked into the folds of the blessings and the curses we read this week, is the realistic and pragmatic notion that we must support religious institutions and do so with a willing heart if we are to count ourselves active, righteous parts of this people…a people which, to this very moment, considers itself in covenant with the God of Israel.