My Speech on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of my Bar Mitzvah

Shabbat Shalom!

This Haftorah, taken from Zechariah, is obviously the Shabbat Hanukah Haftorah but it is chanted once again, approx. 6 months from now, with Parshat  B’ha-alot-kha. 
In many ways this Haftorah is the perfect one to read here at Kol Rinah.  Why?  The hint is in the very first word of the Haftorah, Roni, which is a variation on the word Rinah, as in Kol Rinah.  The prophet Zechariah, being a true prophet could look into the future on Kol Rinah, but he, of course called “The Clayton Shul”

This Haftorah has some mysterious paragraphs stumping even the most scholarly interpreters. 
But it also has a famous section towards the end:  Tze Davar Adonau El Zerubbbabel Le’emor:  Lo Vechail, Ve Lo Vechoach, Ki Im Berochi, Amar Adonai Zevaot.
This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel:  Not by might, not by power, but by My spirit – Said the Lord of Hosts. 

Just a word of whom we are talking and of when.  Zerubbabel was the grandson of a Judean King and led the first group of Jews, numbering 42,360, who returned from the Babylonian Captivity in the first year of Cyrus, King of Persia (Source: Ezra). When he returned, he started the long process of rebuilding the Temple.

The sway of this statement, Not by Might, Not by Power, but by My Spirit, lies in the notion that worldly leaders stand little chance against the divine spirit. 

When I read this on that sunny Christmas Day in 1965 – it didn’t mean much.  Frankly I was too young and uneducated to read anything in to this. 
As an adult, the first impression, is like “yeah Right”, that cannot be:  Look how many massacres are committed in the name of this or that God, may it be our God, as when Yitzhak Rabin was killed, Allah during the Paris and San Bernardino attacks, or the Christian God in the church shooting in South Carolina recently.  So, referring the “My Spirit said the Lord” - as an alternative to violence - may ring hollow to many people. 

The second reaction – which is more common the more often we hear about mass shootings (regardless of their motivations) is that people hear officials say:  “Our thoughts and prayers are with victims and their families”.  More and more people react to those statements as empty words with absolutely no consequences.   Next week, after the next set of dead schoolchildren or church goers, are we supposed to again say:  “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families”??
What about the week after that, and the one after that?

Many of you remember the Adult Education Committee’s Scholar-in-Residence program last Valentine’s Day Weekend.  Rabbi Brad Artson mesmerized us with inspiring speeches that - I hope - still remain in our hearts.  Besides being the VP of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University in LA, he is also a regular “church-goer”. 

When he goes to Shul on Shabbat, he attends a Synagogue in West Los Angeles that I have talked about many times before, called IKAR.  Their founding Rabbi, Sharon Brous wrote in her weekly emails recently, after San Bernardino,

QUOTE: 

“we stand with you in sorrow, grieving for the souls of the victims and praying for
          healing for those wounded.

At the same time, we are aware of the gross insufficiency of the now ubiquitous expressions of grief, calls for prayer and sterile condemnations. Prayer devoid of moral action is idolatry. Our failure, as a society, to take action to address the scourge of gun violence is a desecration of all that we hold holy.” 

END QUOTE

I know many of you feel the same way: When you have heard the tired “thoughts and prayers” enough times and seen no action, it is easy to lose hope. 

Rabbi Brous continues:  QUOTE:

“Our community will fight.  Our weapons are love and justice. Our fuel is the belief that all human beings are created in God’s image and deserve to live with dignity, in peace”.  END QUOTE

Reading the quote from Zechariah, “Not by might, not by power, but by My spirit – Said the Lord of Hosts” in a new light, stating that fighting for human dignity honors the notion that all beings are created in God’s image, allows us to accept the prophet’s words anew.  But it has to be accompanied with action; the status quo has to change.  Otherwise these words are empty and meaningless.  And one action you can take is to visit everytown.org and Share Your Voice, just as Kol Rinah’s tag line says:  Share Your Voice and that is something we all can do. 

An additional plug. 
The best kept secret at Kol Rinah.  Last night I attended, with 27 other people, the Friday Night Music Services – thanks to the Rabbi, Karen and Ben. If people knew about it, the parking lot would look like Yom Kippur. 

Richard Gavatin, speech given at the 50^th Anniversary of his Bar Mitzvah, December 12, 2015