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26 Old Mill Road, Great Neck, NY 11023 (516) 487-6100 Shabbat Announcements Shmini Atzeret/Simchat Torah 5779
myth and more recently in science, as next-to-nothing. In King Moses’ death on the far side of the Jordan is a consolation for all
Lear, Shakespeare has Gloucester say, “As flies to wanton boys are of us. None of us should feel guilty or frustrated or angry or
we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.” We are the easily defeated that there are things we hoped to achieve but did not.
discarded playthings of the gods, powerless in the face of forces That is what it is to be human.
beyond our control. As I pointed out in an earlier essay, some
contemporary scientists have produced secular equivalents of this Nor should we be haunted by our mistakes. That, I believe, is why
view. They say: there is nothing qualitatively to distinguish between the Torah tells us that Moses sinned. Did it really have to include
Homo sapiens and other animals. There is no soul. There is no self. the episode of the water, the stick, the rock and Moses’ anger? It
There is no freewill. Voltaire spoke of humans as “insects devouring happened, but did the Torah have to tell us it happened? It passes
one another on a little atom of mud.” Stephen Hawking said that over thirty-eight of the forty years in the wilderness in silence. It
“the human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate size planet, does not report every incident, only those that have a lesson for
orbiting round a very average star in the outer suburb of one posterity. Why not, then, pass over this too in silence, sparing
among a billion galaxies.” Philosopher John Gray wrote that “human Moses’ good name? What other religious literature has ever been
life has no more meaning than that of slime mould.” In Homo Deus, so candid about the failings of even the greatest of its heroes?
Yuval Harari states that, “Looking back, humanity will turn out to be
just a ripple within the cosmic data flow.” Because that is what it is to be human. Even the greatest human
beings made mistakes, failed as often as they succeeded, and had
Judaism is humanity’s protest against both ideas. We are not gods. moments of black despair. What made them great was not that
And we are not chemical scum. We are dust of the earth, but there they were perfect but that they kept going. They learned from
is within us the breath of God. What is essential is never to blur the every error, refused to give up hope, and eventually acquired the
boundary between Heaven and Earth. The Torah speaks only great gift that only failure can grant, namely humility. They
obliquely about this. It tells us that there was a time, prior to the understood that life is about falling a hundred times and getting up
Flood, when “the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were again. It is about never losing your ideals even when you know
lovely, and they married whomever they chose” (Gen. 6:2). It also how hard it is to change the world. It’s about getting up every
tells us that, after the Flood, humans gathered in a plain in Shinar morning and walking one more day toward the Promised Land even
and said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower that though you know you may never get there, but knowing also that
reaches heaven, and make a name for ourselves” (Gen. 11:4). you helped others get there. Maimonides writes in his law code
Regardless of what these stories mean, what they speak of is a that, “Every human being can become righteous like Moses our
blurring of the line between Heaven and Earth – “sons of God” teacher or wicked like Jeroboam.” That is an astonishing sentence.
behaving like humans and humans aspiring to live among the gods. There only ever was one Moses. The Torah says so. Yet what
When God is God, humans can be human. First, separate, then Maimonides is saying is clear. Prophetically, there was only one
relate. That is the Jewish way. For us as Jews, humanity at its Moses. But morally, the choice lies before us every time we make a
highest is still human. We are mortal. We are creatures of flesh and decision that will affect the lives of others. That Moses was mortal,
blood. We are born, we grow, we learn, we mature, we make our that the greatest leader who ever lived did not see his mission
way in the world. If we are lucky we find love. If we are blessed, we completed, that even he was capable of making a mistake, is the
have children. But we also age. The body grows old even if the most profound gift God could give each of us.
spirit stays young. We know that this gift of life does not last
forever because in this physical universe, nothing lasts forever, not Hence the three great life changing ideas with which the Torah
even planets or stars. For each of us, therefore, there is a river we ends. We are mortal; therefore make every day count. We are
will not cross, a promised land we will not enter and a destination fallible; therefore learn to grow from each mistake. We will not
we will not reach. Even the greatest life is an unfinished symphony. complete the journey; therefore inspire others to continue what we
began.
Great Neck Yoetzet Halacha Lisa Septimus
Welcomes your questions about mikvah,
observance of taharat mishpacha (halacha relating
to married life) and women’s health, as it connects
to Jewish law. Reach out to her at:
Phone: 516.415.1111 Join Women’s Tefila on
Email: greatneckyoetzet@gmail.com.
All conversations and emails are kept confidential.
Simchat Torah
Great Neck Synagogue Tuesday, Oct. 2nd at 8:45 am
26 Old Mill Road, Great Neck , NY 11023
516-487-6100 Beit Midrash

Rabbi Dale Polakoff, Rabbi
Rabbi Ian Lichter, Assistant Rabbi
Dr. Ephraim Wolf, z”l, Rabbi Emeritus Hakafot,
Yitzy Spinner, Cantor
Eleazer Schulman, z”l, Cantor Emeritus Torah Reading, Great Ruach
Rabbi Sholom Jensen, Youth Director
Zehava & Dr. Michael Atlas, Youth Directors
Mark Twersky, Executive Director
Dr. James Frisch, Assistant Director Kiddush following Davening
Erran Kagan, President
Harold Domnitch, Chairman of the Board
Lisa Septimus, Yoetzet Halacha 516-415-1111