This morning we read from the Torah what may well be the most challenging, the most perplexing, the most difficult section that we could possibly read. In this text a man believes he hears God’s command to sacrifice his son. Not just any man but Avraham Avinu, our Patriarch Avraham, known also as Abraham and Ibrahim, a man claimed as the spiritual father of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam -- the first Hebrew, the first Muslim. His sons, Isaac and Ishmael, become the models of sacrifice of a beloved son and submission to a God’s will that are the theological basis for Christianity and Islam. We read this story, which is so important to the consciousness and conscience of the Western world, today – and what is today: October 4, 2005?

What holiday begins on this day? Wait, it’s a trick question. Well, of course some of you may know that today is the first day of Ramadan. Ramadan Mubarak, a blessed Ramadan is what we should be wishing our Muslim friends for this month in which they will engage in acts of zakah (tzedakah), repentance and prayer, fasting from dawn to dusk until the next new moon. Two weeks ago Rabbis Feshbach, Kahn and I were reminded of this coincidence of Ramadan and the High Holy Days by an unusual source, King Abdullah of Jordan. His “majesty” as we were to call him, hosted a meeting with dozens of rabbis from all over the country, the purpose of which was to inform us of his struggle within Islam (a struggle in which we engage within Judaism as well) to promote a tolerant mainstream vision that among other things would restore the spirit of harmony and mutual benefit that characterized Jewish/Muslim relationships over many centuries in the era of Maimonides.

But the coincidences do not stop with the month of Ramadan and Tishrei sharing a new moon, a phenomenon which will continue for the next two years. Some of you may know that October 4 is the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi, the great Catholic teacher who pleaded in his beloved and much quoted “Simple Prayer,” that “God make me an instrument of Your peace –where there is darkness let me sow light and where there is despair let me sow hope.”

And some of you may know that this past weekend included the Worldwide Protestant/Orthodox Church) Communion Sunday. And some of you may know that these days, October 4-12 are for Hindus – Navarathri (nine nights of spiritual struggle) followed on October 13 by Vijayadashami, the tenth day of spiritual victory. And for Buddhists, Vassa (rainy season of spiritual reflection) ends on October 18 with the full moon day, Pavarana.

What can we make of the confluence and concentration of all these observances around the world? And the overlap of the holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur with Ramadan for the next two years as well. Some religious leaders, and I am proud to have joined them, have created an organization called “Tent of Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah” They have referred to this coincidence as “God’s October Surprise.”

Since for three years most faithful Jews and Muslim will be fasting and praying intensely at the same time (on Yom Kippur during Ramadan) – perhaps we can use this opportunity in a creative way so that they/we will be praying and working together for justice and for peace. Maybe by next year we can find and opportunity to join our fasting and find ways to join in acts tzedakah, repentance, and prayer as well. I would love to work with any of you in finding a creative path to work with Muslim in our area in this way.

But in this year 5766 which we have now entered, may it be a year of blessings for us and all of God’s children and creations, there are sadly both an enormous need for God’s blessings and enormous challenges and opportunities for us to work to repair brokenness and shatteredness in our country and around the world. Usually the traditional job of the preacher on the High Holy Days is to remind the people of their sins and shortcomings, to bring them, that is, all of us, to turn from our previous ways toward repentance. But this year do we need such a reminder?

Many years we enter the Holy Days with excessive pride, too full of ourselves and our achievements, proud of at least our material success, our good grades, our promotions… but not this year. This is the year I believe that we need to take a message from the pocket where we don’t usually need to look -- the one which has the verse saying that God has created us little lower than the angels.

Maybe you remember the image – all of us need to walk around with two verses from psalms in our pockets. When we’re feeling too full of ourselves we take out the verse “You were taken from dust and to the dust you will return.” This year we need the verse about angels. We need to remember the saying of an early Hasidic teacher, Reb Nachman of Bratzlav: “Losing hope is like losing your freedom, like losing your self. “

In fact the Talmud teaches us that every person is able to say and is supposed to say, bishvili nivra ha-olam, “For my sake was the world created.” Each of us must feel our own uniqueness, each of us must develop our unique gifts, each of us must find our own special reason for being created.

All of us have had the experience of shopping for clothes and sometimes when we try it on the salesperson says, “That’s really you.” In the same way we should be able to get up every morning and look in the mirror and say, “That’s really you.” Because in a real sense the world was made for you and you were made for the world.

Reb Nachman whom I quoted a moment ago was a contemporary of the first Lubovitche Rebbe, Hasidic Rebbes at the turn of the 19th century. Without realizing it you probably know more of his sayings than those of any other Hasidic teacher. For example, you may have sung or reflected on these words many times:

Kol Ha’olam Kulo Gesher Tzar M’od -- V’haikkar: Lo l’fached Clal -- Know that a person walks in life in this world on a very narrow bridge. The most important thing is not to be afraid.

Reb Nachman though an enigmatic personality in some ways may qualify as a sort of Jewish St. Francis of Assisi. His teachings are the source of two prayer meditations which are printed in our Temple Shalom white prayer book, Gates of Creation. On the back cover is a prayer for peace based on Reb Nachman’s prayer that asks God to eliminate all forms of hatred, jealousy, and competition between people. And it was he who expressed the desire in a meditation that we include after the tefilah, and which is also found in Gates of Prayer that “it be my custom to go outdoors each day, among the trees and grasses, among all growing things, there to be alone and enter into prayer…”

Another saying of his has also become a widely known folk song in Hebrew: Rebbe Nachman me’bratzlav haya omer lo-l’hityaesh, ki higia et tzarah, rak lismoach yesh.

The song translated: Rabbi Nachman of Bratlav was wont to say – “It is forbidden to despair, never give up, when tzures comes, when the hard time comes, the only thing to do is “be joyful” rak lismoach yesh. Not an easy prescription, is it? But Reb Nachman recognized this. He taught “Finding true joy is the hardest of all spiritual tasks. If the only way to make yourself happy is by doing something silly, do it.” Well maybe at least that’s a prescription we could all follow.

But Reb Nachman really believed it and he lived in a time of great oppression and poverty for the Jews trapped in the pale of settlement at the beginning of the 19th century in Eastern Europe. “Never despair! Never!” He told his followers, “It is forbidden to give up hope. Depression does tremendous damage. Use every ploy you can think of to bring yourself to joy. Losing hope is like losing your freedom, like losing your self.

“When asked how things are, don’t whine and grumble about your hardships. If you answer, “Lousy” then God says, “You call this bad? I’ll show you what bad really is! (There’s a second part of this teaching, but I’ll save it for later.)

With this recognition of the dangers of giving up hope, perhaps we need to ask if we are the generation that is forced to confront the failures of Avraham and his spiritual descendants, that is we Jews, the Christians, and the Muslims, to live up to the words of Genesis Chapter 18: “I have singled him (Avraham) out, that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of Adonai by doing what is just and right.” Do we read the section of the Binding of Isaac, the testing of Avraham, this year, during God’s October surprise, as a test for us?

Says Reb Nachman “Everything in the world – whatever is and whatever happens – is a test, designed to give you freedom of choice. Choose wisely.” There are some choices to be made in this democratic society in which we live. And there is one egregious policy, actually right now being considered in the Senate for approval or rejection, that stands out among others because it both threatens our American values and shatters the values which derive from the teaching of our ancestors, that adam nivra b’tselem elohim, human beings are created in a “Divine image.”

I refer to a policy which permits the use of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, actions which have raised their ugly profile in our name over the past year in Abu Graib, in Guantanamo, and even closer to us in this region, and for which we stand in judgment this very moment as Jews and as Americans. The abolition of torture, like the abolition of slavery is the measure of a free and ethical society. And as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel taught about our situation, in a free society, although only some may be guilty, all are responsible.

Fortunately there are many who agree with this view, perhaps a majority of the US Senate and the leaders of our military. Last month I joined rabbis from the other movements in Judaism in presenting a Rabbinic letter to abolish torture (a letter which all your rabbis Feshbach, Kahn, Serotta, Sperling and Swartz joined over 500 other Rabbis in signing) to Senator John McCain. He is the leader of a bi-partisan group of Senators seeking to eliminate from our laws this violation of Jewish ethics, international norms, and American values.

We offered the Senator our strong support for his work, stressing our view that torture is an extreme violation of human dignity and spirit, a project whose very aim is to “break” a human being by inflicting unbearable humiliation and pain. The humanity of both victims and perpetrators is inevitably shattered by its use.

Senator McCain whom I am certain you know is the survivor of years of torture during the Vietnamese War, welcomed our support and told us that his own opposition is based on three things. First, torture doesn’t work, it is ineffective as a procedure; second, our use of such practices endangers our troops when they are captured; third, it affects our ability to project an image of the values of American democracy and civilization, that most importantly, as he said “it’s about us, about who we want to be as an American people.”

I urge you to join in this campaign today and there is literature available on the tables outside the sanctuary that will enable you to do so.

Although the sages decided some 2000 years ago that we should read the section of the Torah on Rosh Hashanah about the binding of Isaac at the turning of the year, they also concluded that Rosh Hashanah would be observed as the anniversary of all creation – hayom harat olam, the birthing day of the universe. Moreover, they also emphasized in the Midrash several qualities of the creation of humanity. 1)That we all descended from a singular human being (who was both male and female, like God), in order that no one can say I have better yichus than you, my ancestors were greater than yours. 2)that the dust from which Adam was created came from all parts of the earth so no one could say that his country was better than another, and 3) that anyone who destroys a single life, destroys an entire world, a teaching which, by the way, is also taught in a parallel text in the Koran.

There are a number of other teachings within the Jewish tradition, which bear on the issue of torture and inhumane treatment. In Pirke Avot we read “Who is the one who is truly honored (who has kavod)? The one who honors all of God’s creations.” The Israeli Supreme Court took this value from the Mishnah, Kavod Habriot, and defined it as follows: “A free and civilized society is distinguished from a barbaric and oppressive society by the degree to which it treats a human being as a human being.”

There has been much written about the ineffectiveness of torture as a vehicle to gain information, but in addition Jewish law prohibits a court from accepting self-incriminating testimony, a rule most contemporary authorities view as an implicit safeguard against torture by eliminating confessions as admissible evidence. If the accused should say “I am able to speak in my own defense, he is to be heard…against myself, he is to be silenced (Tosefta, Sanhedrin 9:4).

Some have argued that two other Jewish values might permit torture in certain circumstances, the value of Pikuach Nefesh, the ultimate value of the preservation of life and din rodef, the law concerning a pursuer. But the principle of the rodef applies only to someone who poses an imminent and present danger to life. In this circumstance to prevent someone from committing a murder or another grave crime, we may do anything in our power to prevent them, although any such action in self defense must be taken without premeditation, may not hurt innocent bystanders, and must cause minimal possible harm to the rodef himself. These are not the circumstances of US military detainees. (texts cited in brochure produced by Rabbis for Human Rights)

But where do we find the clearest Jewish argument, the most eloquent Jewish text on this subject – from the Supreme Court of Israel in the decision I already quoted. In 1999 the Court ruled that torture and other cruel, degrading, and inhumane means of interrogation are illegal. The judges issued this ruling fully cognizant of the security threats regularly faced by the State. The decision makes clear that foreswearing inhumane means, including those currently being used by the US, “is the destiny of democracy, as not all means are acceptable to it, and not all practices employed by its enemies are open before it. Although a democracy must fight with one hand tied behind its back, in nonetheless has the upper hand. The rule of law and the liberty of an individual constitute important components in its understanding of security. At the end of the day, they strengthen its spirit and this strength allows it to overcome its difficulties.”

There is, of course, another association of the experience of torture which has special resonance for us Jews in this post-Holocaust era and at this season. The Yom Kippur liturgy is shot through with images of martyrdom and with remembrances of the sufferings of our people, not just the Eleh Ezkerah prayer, which we recite on Yom Kippur afternoon, and which describes the torture and murder of ten rabbinic sages.

But we also tell the story of Rabbi Amnon of Mayence, the legendary author of the powerful un’taneh tokef prayer, who had his hands and feet cut off by the local bishop but refused to reject his faith, declaring that it is only God who decides who shall live and who shall die. As Rabbi Eddie Feld has written, “We are a people who can catalogue the forms of human mistreatment. We have been victims of torture and abuse. We know what it means to be accused of all sorts of sins and have no defense. We have preached the dignity of every human being and have been persecuted for it.

And on Yom Kippur after having recited our own suffering, after having said, “These I remember…” we read the Book of Jonah and we are asked to adopt the lesson of compassion: to learn that our own fate is not all that matters, but the fate of the people of Nineveh, the people who would be our enemies.”

I imagine that some of you may be saying right now something like the following: There are so many things wrong with our world, there are so many things in my own life that I need to attend to on the high holy days, why focus on this question, since some if not many of the victims of torture may in fact be our enemies? While this is no doubt true, in addition to reasoning of the Israeli Supreme Court about the values of democracy, I would cite the words of the Rabbis in the Midrash (Breishit Rabbah 24 and Sifra, Kedoshim 2:4): “Rabbi Akiva says “you should not say: because I have been dishonored, let my fellow man be dishonored along with me…R. Tanhuma explained: If you do so, know Whom you are dishonoring – The Holy One made him also in the likeness of God.

What more important test is there for us as Jews and Americans to face in our society today, what is more central as we turn to face the issues of poverty, homelessness, lack of access to health care, threats to our civil liberties and human rights than joining in the campaign to Honor the Image of God: Stop Torture Now? This is a campaign we can win. Again I urge you to pick up the materials outside – to sign the Jewish statement against torture.

With respect to this cause, and everything we fight for in the name of our tradition, remember the admonition of Reb Nachman: “Losing hope is like losing your freedom, like losing your self.”

And he also taught:

“When asked how things are, don’t whine and grumble about your hardships. If you answer, “Lousy” then God says, “You call this bad? I’ll show you what bad really is!

“When asked how things are and, despite hardship or suffering you answer “Good,” then God says, “You call this good? I’ll show you what good really is!”

May God show us the good, as it says in Psalm 27, the Psalm recited during the High Holy Day season, (nir-eh) b’tuv adonai, b’eretz chaim – may we enjoy the Goodness of Adonai in the land of the living – an October surprise year of justice, peace, and blessings,

AMEN – kein y’hi ratzon