Rabbi Nancy Kasten

The Hebrew Bible is very clear. Plenty and wellbeing do not come from hard work or good fortune, but from the source of all, the Holy One, Creator of all that was and is and will be. Our blessings come from God, and in return, we are asked to be faithful stewards of those blessings, using them to create the kind of society that God would wish to inhabit. 

In his book God in Search of Man, the philosopher and rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel states ”There is no reverence for God without reverence for man (sic). Love of man(sic) is the way to the love of God.” Each of our traditions is clear in its own way: Our love for God is hollow if we do not exhibit it in our daily treatment of our fellow human beings. 

In Biblical times the sabbatical year was observed, not only for purposes of sustainable agriculture, but out of a profound commitment and respect for human life. Every seven years there was a remission of debt, in order to prevent systemic poverty from taking root and destroying communal integrity and wellbeing. The sabbatical year was a reset button, a measure to prevent inequities from building up and compounding one another. It was a tangible way to demonstrate love of human beings, above and beyond the love of material possessions. It was a way for us to make God’s power of redemption manifest in the world on a regular basis, so that we wouldn’t forget that it’s potential is there for us, not just every seven years, but in every single moment of every single day.

In today’s world, we desperately need a reset button. We need to find our version of a sabbatical year. Inequities in housing, education, jobs, transportation, public health, and public safety have formed a Gordian knot in which no one area can be addressed without addressing the others. It will take bold and brave thinking, and a willingness to give up some of what we think is rightfully ours, in order to begin to unravel that knot. And before we can even begin, we have to loosen our own knots; of pain, of disappointment, of distrust and disillusionment, in order to leave behind our obsession with scarcity and open ourselves up to the possibilities of abundance. 

We must reclaim our ancient knowledge that corporations are not people. Only people are people. And each person is created in God’s image, and deserves to be treated that way, all the time. We are not allowed to pay anyone less than they rightfully earn, or withhold medical treatment from them, or close their schools, or deprive them of safe drinking water, or let them freeze to death on the street, or incarcerate them without due process. We are not allowed to say “We’re sorry, but we just can’t figure it out,” even if we don’t yet see a way to figure it out. 

In the story of the Exodus, the last three plagues visited upon the Egyptians before Pharoah releases the Israelites from bondage are the plagues of locusts, darkness, and the slaying of the first born. All of these plagues are actually plagues of darkness. The locusts are said to be so thick that “the land was darkened” (10:15.) The darkness of the plague of darkness is “so thick it can be touched” (10:21.) And the slaying of the first bornoccurs at the darkest time of night, just before the dawn. 

The plagues come as a result of hardened hearts. With the first seven plagues, Pharoah hardens his own heart. And with the last three, God hardens Pharaoh’s heart, as if to make sure he and we get the message: when hearts are hardened and human suffering is not addressed, darkness descends. Wecan only hope to keep that darkness at bay if we work together to keep our hearts tender. We can and must model what openheartedness and an attitude of abundance can do. We can and must search together for rays of light to loosen the Gordian knot that keeps so many in bondage. On this day of prayer we pray for redemption, and we also pray for the humility, the creativity, the strength, the generosity and the courage to be agents of redemption, joining our unique and varied gifts in such a way that systems of oppression become systems of opportunity, and God’s light shines brightly enough to drive out the darkness.