Morning Minyan with Rabbi Lizzi — Re'eh, Poverty, and Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Read or listen to the teaching by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks referenced in this episode here:

https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/reeh/making-poverty-history/

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Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

Transcript

Transcript

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann  0:00  
Let's begin with music this morning. Take a few deep belly breaths and relax the shoulders. Find a smile between your cheeks, between all your cheeks, the cheeks on your face and all your cheeks. Find a smile in your shoulders, a smile emanating from your belly button, from your knees. What does it look and feel like to hold joy in all the different parts of our bodies, even though it's first thing in the morning? Difference between joy and happiness. Happiness is like, ha, ha, but joy is something much more subtle, and you can just sort of tap into it without even needing to smile that big, but just call it in.

Unknown Speaker  0:58  
Oh, there I hear why. That's sounding funny. I

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann  1:00  
had a pic in there already. We offer gratitude for having woken up This morning.

Unknown Speaker  1:21  
Ruach,

Unknown Speaker  2:15  
behe

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann  2:24  
Be a you know what, minion folks, I just had an idea, and my idea is, and I'm sorry for anyone who's not in town, but I would love to have you over this Friday night for Shabbat dinner. If you want to come. We're not having services. We, you know, we, we're kind of, we're dark this weekend because of Memorial Day or Labor Day and, and I don't think I've got anybody coming over, and so I want to put the invitation out there. We can talk details after we turn off the after we turn off the recording, for anybody who's hearing this on the recording later. And I hope it's not hundreds of you who show up at my house, but, but you're invited to you're part of the minion community. All right. Okay, well, we'll talk later about details, but yeah, potluck would be great. I can't cook for However, I also, you know, I've got a lot of skills, but like cooking, you know, I'm a better Rabbi than a rabbit son. Okay, so moving on, moving on from that brainstorm that came kind of out of nowhere. Y'all, I don't know why I'm feeling so giddy this morning. Are you or is it just me? Is anyone else feeling strangely, like I don't know more in tune this morning, or for absolutely no reason, like a little bit joyful. It was Heather Cox Richardson's letter this morning. Really, okay, so I didn't read it. What did you draw from it? Susanna,

Unknown Speaker  4:27  
hope, joy,

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann  4:32  
like we maybe post, post, if there's a link or something to her newsletter. I don't know if other people know about it. She's a historian who is a historian of democracy and this country, and she writes a daily newsletter. And for a long time it was quite well, it was quite dire, and now all of a sudden, it is sounding and feeling more hopeful. Anyway, thank you, Susanna, I'll have to go read it. Yeah, and here's Dan Merle saying, I'm feeling exceptional. Really joyful. Okay, it's not just me. Is there something going on in the solar system? I was walking in the city this morning Happy for No Reason, just one of those days, my daughter's puppy. Okay, your grand pup sitting. Great Love. All right, so who knows? Maybe it's, uh, it's in the air. I'll let you all, I'll let you all figure out the heather Cox Richardson, she's on substack Ellen. I want to, I want to play this one. This is going to tie into the Torah learning I want to do later. This important verse from Leviticus. Of course, we're in the book of Deuteronomy, but this is at the beginning of every sea door for a reason, to help us orient our joy, or whatever it is that we're feeling. The Dalai Lama says, you know, if you're not happy, go help someone. If you're feeling happy, help someone. If you're feeling like you have abundance, Go share it. If you're not also, Go share it. Sort of the all purpose. All Purpose, remedy for a connected, meaningful life. And so we begin, almost every siddur has this at the beginning, this verse from Leviticus, Behold, I accept upon myself the creator's commandment, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Unknown Speaker  6:21  
Arraignment. A

Unknown Speaker  6:32  
rainy

Unknown Speaker  6:39  
mere,

Unknown Speaker  6:49  
then, Horae.

Unknown Speaker  7:13  
Now we'll do it in a Major Key

Unknown Speaker  7:17  
reignit and

Speaker 1  7:33  
a lie, oh, ah, now we're gonna move into su Keith Schnabel, I'm gonna take us to where is it not that one Thinking about Martin every time we do this 1o,

Unknown Speaker  8:03  
z

Speaker 2  8:10  
bezim, Baye, Lili, Shua, ozim, raghia,

Unknown Speaker  8:33  
vahi,

Unknown Speaker  9:00  
shoe.

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann  9:10  
I'm invite people to stand if you're able, or just sit up a little straighter and bend at the waist as we go into baru, breathing in a little more deeply, standing up into mountain pose, feeling regal.

Speaker 3  9:29  
Who at Adonai flora?

Speaker 1  9:50  
Have a.

Speaker 1  10:00  
Move to vadehyum to meet my savory sheet. You light up the world and the heavens with kindness. Each day you renew them and make them good, these works of creation,

Unknown Speaker  10:13  
or

Unknown Speaker  10:16  
tionis care,

Speaker 2  10:34  
Be nice. Is

Unknown Speaker  10:56  
a me, Oh,

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann  11:25  
all right, so this is going to be a we're going to try the one that I introduced us to last week. I think it was last week when our theme was love on tuba. Ave. So this, this is a call response, but I think because of the delay on Zoom, I'll just do the response, but you can join me from your end. Stay muted. This is the Elana Arian Noah Aronson tune. Just focuses on those first few words and then says how deeply you have loved us, how deeply you have loved us. Adonai lo Hano, so I don't know if it's easier to feel that on a day when, for whatever reason, Mercury is moving in the right direction, and we're feeling a little more joyful, and we can tap into that feeling of how deeply you have loved us, certainly harder on days we're not feeling that, but just take a moment to breathe in the knowing that you are being breathed by NO by NO effort of your own, you are being breathed and That that is God loving you with every breath. So like a like the deepest kiss, like the deepest divine kiss, literally every breath in

Speaker 3  13:00  
ahava, Rabbi, up there.

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann  13:08  
That's gonna be a way to go out. That's gonna be awful. It's gonna be awful for all of us. We're not gonna do that. We'll do it. We'll do it. Oh, let's see. Oh, what if I move it up here and we go

Speaker 3  13:22  
down? Ahava, it's

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann  13:42  
easier. For me not to do the response. You can just do it on Your own end.

Unknown Speaker  13:52  
Ah,

Unknown Speaker  14:02  
Ah

Unknown Speaker  14:11  
Adonai, Eloheinu,

Unknown Speaker  14:28  
ah Adonai, how

Unknown Speaker  14:40  
deeply you have loved us,

Unknown Speaker  14:48  
how deeply you have loved us,

Unknown Speaker  14:53  
how deeply you

Unknown Speaker  14:57  
have loved us. Know, how do you believe you have loved us? How do you believe you have loved us? How do you believe you have loved

Unknown Speaker  15:22  
us? Ah, no, aha, ta, no, have ta no Adonai,

Unknown Speaker  15:50  
gathering the four corners of our seat, seat in

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann  15:54  
holding with love, with immense love, all parts of ourself, all parts of our family, our Jewish family, our human family, our created world, just holding with so much love, all the brokenness into one handful to one loving handful.

Speaker 1  16:19  
Adonai Israel, the Israel Adonai.

Unknown Speaker  16:37  
Hello, he knew I usually do this as

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann  16:52  
a chant. Oh, we'll do this as the chant, just focusing on that first line they have tight ajafta. I'll move the screen here so you can read the rest of the words, if you want, as I'm chanting, we can just focus on this first line, and you will love with your whole heart, with all your soul, with all your might, with all Your everything you

Unknown Speaker  17:28  
the home

Unknown Speaker  18:00  
home,

Speaker 1  18:06  
and you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. Let these words which I am speaking to you today be on your heart. Repeat them to your children. Speak of them when you are in your home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you rise up.

Speaker 1  18:36  
Bind them as a sign upon your hand and let them be symbols between your eyes. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Carry this love with you wherever you go and bring it back into your home. Practice it

Unknown Speaker  18:57  
via halftime.

Speaker 1  19:13  
Now ask for anyone who you're thinking of who needs a prayer for healing. This seems like a pretty good one, sending them love, sending them care. Go ahead and thread the names in the chat, or just say out loud, it's okay if you interrupt me.

Speaker 1  19:37  
Praying for everyone in this room, in this Minion room, for your physical bodies and for your spirit, you should be strong and supple, that you should be persistent and patient, that everyone in your homes. You're worried about everyone in your lives who you are worried about should know that they are loved.

Unknown Speaker  20:21  
Adonai,

Unknown Speaker  20:40  
after

Speaker 1  20:59  
sending a rifu Wash, layman, complete healing of body and spirit to everyone in your world.

Speaker 1  21:14  
I mean, I'm just looking up this long list of all of your names here. Now that I have a free hand,

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann  21:24  
parents, friends, children, siblings,

I'm sure people saw in the news yesterday that one of the one of the hostages was rescued from a tunnel, and that is a great source of joy, and also a reminder that there are over 100 still left in there, praying for them to be to have leaders who make it possible for them to be released without violence, and for them all to come home, and for everyone in Israel and Palestine to feel that they are loved with all of somebody's heart and soul and might, including their leaders. Okay, so I wanted to, I wanted to go right over here to do a little bit of learning. And at first I was just gonna read from this, read from this week's Torah portion. Well, read from this week's Torah portion right over here, which is, which is relevant. And I do want to point out the words that I wanted to look at here. They're very, very important words, because they're they're confusing. The text says there shall be no needy among you, since I don't know your God will bless you in the land that God is giving you as a hereditary portion only if you only heed God and take care to keep all of his instruction that I enjoy you today. So okay, so far, so far, I feel like nothing new here. Theologically, we've been looking at this for the past couple of weeks in the book of Deuteronomy. If you keep my instruction, if you do these mitzvot, then I will give you rain in your season, then I will bless you and make you abundant and fertile, and you'll be, you know, you'll have children and build houses and have enough to eat. So the first part isn't new, right? For God has will bless you as promised, to extend loans. You will extend loans to many nations, but require none yourself. You will dominate many nations, but none will dominate you. Verse seven, If, however, there is a needy person among you, one of your kin, in any of your settlements, in the land your God has given you, do not harden your heart against your needy kin. Rather, you must open your hand and lend whatever is sufficient to meet the need. Now we have a lot of questions we could ask about this. What do you mean whatever is sufficient? If they ask some something totally unreasonable, am I on the hook to lend whatever is sufficient? If that's what they say, is sufficient? Um, but the answer is actually yes, like, depending on the need of the asker, depending on the need of the needy, we are on the hook for different things as the giver. Okay, you must open your hand and lend whatever is sufficient. And then finally, beware lest you harbor the thought, oh, in the Shmita year, the year of remission is approaching, so maybe I won't give anything, because then in the seventh year, debts are forgiven, so maybe I won't give no wrong. You must so that you will give nothing to your needy kin, and that person will cry out to God, and you will incur guilt, give readily and have no regrets when you do for in return, your God will bless you in all of your efforts and all your undertakings. And now ready big shift, for there will never cease to be needy in your land, which is why I command you, open your hand to the poor and. Be in your land. Okay, can anyone take me on the journey of the short beginning, middle and end that we just saw here in O, from verse four to verse 11 and seven short verses,

Speaker 4  25:13  
we went from there won't be any needy maybe, if there is a needy person to there will always be a needy person, yeah, that's right, or 180

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann  25:25  
Yes, like, a complete 180 Exactly. It's sort of like we went from idealism to compromise to total pragmatism, you know, to like, like, this is what would be amazing, if this could be true. But the truth is, there probably is, let's be honest, there probably is going to be needy. And then finally, by verse 11, there will never cease to be needy. Like, let's just be real, as hard as we try to follow these instructions, which, by the way, I mean, like, the whole Torah leading up to this point is a, you know, it's like a laundry list of different kinds of what, what we might now call like government regulations, things that we as a society are on the hook to do, to provide, for making sure that workers are paid on time and have what they need to eat, and that nobody goes hungry, and that everybody has a place to, you know, to sleep and eat, And so everybody has their basic minimum requirements, but even then, there will never cease to be needy in your land. So these verses are very important and undergird the Jewish ethos, not just that everyone should give tzedakah, but that even people on the receiving end of tzedakah need to give tzedakah, because all of us are on the hook to take care of each other anyway. Oh my goodness, it's 831 so I want to do two things. I do want to introduce those of you who haven't met Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, may his memory be a blessing to his take this week. But I also want to first say Kaddish, because I know there might be people here who need to leave. So we're gonna, we're gonna say Kadish yetome, and then I'm gonna come back to this, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna leave the recording on, because actually, rather than reading this together, I wanted to listen to Rabbi Sacks. I want to say, this morning, I'm thinking about Anne B Schnabel, May her memory be a blessing. She's Jodi Schnabel's mom, who just died over the weekend. On Shabbat, we did her funeral on Monday. Jody has a Shiva tonight for anybody who's in the city who knows her and want to pay respects. Is there anybody else who we are remembering this morning. Sylvia herring, Mark nirlov, Nathan Pollock, hey. Jim Elaine. Helene, yeah. Miriam Negan, Halle Ricky, is it your mom's yard site?

Speaker 5  28:00  
So the English calendar, 26th

Unknown Speaker  28:07  
Okay, 28th

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann  28:14  
anyone else is there anybody who would like to lead us in Kaddish this morning, who would find meaning and leading our lead. It's Jim Ali, all right, Jim

Speaker 6  28:26  
yukadal, the yidka Dash may Rabbi Amen Devra hutay family, Rabbi

Speaker 6  28:59  
Shlomo Deena the Haim. Elena shalam bin Rama. We are se Shalom. Elena velko, Israel, tevaur, amen, amen. Amen.

Speaker 1  29:18  
He is henam Libra, Cha May their memories be blessings, and especially Jim,

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann  29:25  
I know you're in the period of shloshi right now and just sending you a lot of love and glad you're here with us. And Miriam green too. I don't know if she's here, but she also lost her mom in this past month. Minion, regular, okay, and now shifting back so usually for for people who enjoy Torah, I highly recommend you know the the office of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, even after he stopped being the chief rabbi of. Uh, Great Britain, they continued to collect and kind of package and send out his teachings. And so I listened to his I listened to him teach me Torah every week, which I just, I want to recommend to anyone. He's so smart, and he's got, like, dozens of divrei Torah on every parsha. So this is the one they sent out for this particular week, and it happens to be a live lecture he actually gave. It's, it's 10 minutes. What I did was I put it on 1.25 speed. So this will probably be about seven and a half, eight minutes. And I'm just, I'm gonna, I'm going to share this with us, and if you want to, I'm going to, I'll drop this into the chat the the website, so that, if you want to read along, you can

Speaker 7  30:48  
Parshat Ray, I want you to listen to some stories and ask yourself, what is going on in these stories? What are they trying to tell us? Here we are three rabbis. Number one rabbi Abba, used to bind money in his scarf, sling it on his back and place it at the disposal of the poor. It would sort of creep up on him from the back and take what they needed from his bag number two, ma upper had a poor man in his neighborhood into whose door used to throw four coins every day. Once the poor man said, I really want to see who actually gives me all this money. That day, mahukba happened to be studying late in the Beit Midrash, and his wife was coming home with him, and the poor man saw them moving towards the door, just ready to put some money by the door, as marukpa always used to do, and they fled from him, and they hid. And the Gemara asked, Why did they do this? Because it is taught rather throw yourself into a fiery furnace than publicly put anyone to shame, and publicly shame somebody by having to receive Siddhartha. And finally, we have a Rabbi Yonah who saw a man of good family who'd lost his money. He was once quite well off. He'd lost all his money, and he was ashamed to accept charity. And Rabbi Yonah went to him and said, I heard that an inheritance has come your way. Maybe the lawyers haven't told you this, but I happen to know you're about to inherit a great deal of money. So here's an article of some value. Sell it and use the proceeds, and when your inheritance comes in, then you can give me back the money. So the poor man accepted the gift, and Rabbi Yonah, said, Now you don't have to repay me. It's yours. Because he knew the man wouldn't accept it as a gift, so he gave it to him as a loan, and then told him it was a gift. What is happening here in all these stories? What is happening is we are learning hiltzakar, the laws of zakah, which are based on this week's Parasha, which says, If there's anyone poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns that the Lord your God is giving you, don't be hard hearted or tight fisted towards them. Rather be open handed and freely lend them whatever they need. Give generously to them. Do so without a grudging hard because then God will bless you. In all you do, there will always be poor people in the land. Therefore, I command you to be open handed towards your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land. So what we have here is the biblical source of hilchot, siddhakar. And what makes Siddhartha unique, I think, is a number of things, but first and foremost is the very concept itself, tzedakah, normally, that's translated in English as charity. However, tzedakah does not mean charity, because there is a halacha kofin al sidakar that if somebody is judged not to give enough money to tzedakah, a Beit Din may force him to give. Charity is always voluntary, but tzedakah is compulsory and can be enforced in a Jewish court of law according to halacha. And that means that Siddhartha has no English word that quite corresponds to it. The nearest we have in English is the phrase social justice. The first thing is tzedakah is obligatory and not just voluntary like charity. But the second is, what is implicit in all the stories that I gave you. Wait, I just wanted,

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann  34:04  
Did you guys catch that? He just said, social justice is obligatory. This is like a mom ish, Orthodox rabbi. It's just, it's, it's very unique, and that might have passed people by. Okay, moving on. Also, all those pictures of Rabbi's, those were Rabbi's 2000 years ago. So those were all great pictures, but, you know, probably approximations, but fun that he put those up. Okay, onward, which

Speaker 7  34:26  
is the psychology of poverty. Poverty doesn't just mean that materially we were unable to support ourselves. It also means psychologically, we lose a basic element of human dignity, and therefore the Halacha concern not only how much to give, but how to give. Always given a such a way that doesn't humiliate anyone. So Rabbi Abba used to carry his throw his Sudoku money in a bag behind his back, so that he would never see who he was giving to, and the recipient knew that he couldn't see who he was giving to. Malukbar used. Secretly to put these coins in the poor man's doorway so that the poor man didn't know who he was receiving from. And Rabbi Yonah gave this money to the man as a loan, and then said, No, you keep it. You don't need to repay me again, because he knew that the person was too embarrassed to accept saddaqar, and therefore he gave it to him under this ruse of it being alone, and that idea that poverty humiliates is fundamental to Judaism. If you think about big katamazon, it's their invention. Venal touch, Keith Schnabel, Mika, lame Olamide, Rabbi, shalom. Don't make us dependent on the gifts or loans of other people, but only on your full, open and generous hand, so that we may neither suffer shame nor humiliation forever. So there is this insistence that we give in such a way that doesn't humiliate anyone, and that is the reason behind two remarkable laws. Here it is. Look at this. I feel Ani, Hamid, Perone, even a poor person who can only live on the basis of tadaka has to give sadaq. Now go figure. You know, should I give money to a to give to B? I could give to B directly. Why do I need to give a poor person enough money so that he can give to Dakar. In economic terms, it makes no sense at all. But in psychological terms, it makes a great deal of sense, because if I only receive and I don't give, I feel humiliated. Being able to give is an essential part of human dignity, and therefore we have to give enough to a poor person so that he too can give. Number two, the famous hawaka codified by the Rambam that the highest degree of charity is to give somebody a gift or a loan or accept Him into a business partnership or find him a job so that he can dispense with other people's aid. Now you go figure to give somebody a loan to start a business that's not costing me anything. I'll get the money back. Whereas if I give lots of money to I'm hurting, I've given away a lot. So how come this is the highest form of charity? Answer, because you give somebody a job, help them start a business they may no longer need to depend on. And that shows that the essence of dark car is not only for helping somebody physically materially, but helping somebody psychologically as well. What the Rambam is doing here in the 12th century was recently rediscovered by somebody called Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh, who, as you know, developed the Grameen Bank to provide poor people with micro loans, small loans, to help them start their own businesses, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize. What Muhammad Yunus was doing was already what the Rambam told us eight centuries earlier. The way to create a world without poverty is to help people start their own business or find them a job. And this remains, still the most powerful, powerful form there is. What is remarkable about Judaism is Judaism refused to romanticize poverty. Many other religions said, Oh, it's blessed to be poor, but Judaism said, No, it is nothing of the kind. Poverty is a humiliation. Poverty crushes the spirit. Poverty is not a blessed state, but a curse. Poverty is something that we have to try to eliminate, if at all possible, because said the Rambam, don't pretend that your mind can be full of noble spiritual thoughts when you don't have enough food to eat and you don't have a roof over your head. So first eliminate poverty and only then worry about people's spirituality, which is why I believe that all of us have to come together as religious leaders to argue against poverty and to fight it together, because that is the great human challenge, friends. I still believe that Jewish teachings on poverty remain the most powerful of any great tradition anywhere in the world, and as we've seen in microloans, in debt relief and so on, still they are influencing relief efforts on behalf of the international community. Let us by these Jewish teachings, Make Poverty History, Shabbat shalom.

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann  39:13  
Shabbat shalom. I.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai