Today you were privileged to read to us some of the most beautiful and moving utterances of the prophet Jeremish, and I should like to point out to you the lessons that we may derive from them.
Jeremiah speaks in these verses Jeremiah 17.9 about one of the most fundamental of religious ideas, namely faith in God. He points our first the difference between man and God. God is a fountain of living waters; that is to say, he is a constant source of refreshment and life, as necessary to the human soul as water is to the human body. But man's heart on the other hand is deceitful and weak, and no one can fully know it. This is not to say that we can never put our trust in human beings. But it does mean that men are constantly subjected to all kinds of pressures and problems, and however good their intentions may be, their nature does not permit them to be one hundred percent trustworthy. This thought may help you, when, from time to time, people do not live up to your expectations. God alone is the perfect object of trust and faith.
Now, granted all this, what does faith mean? It means reliance on God. It means not fretting over imaginary ills and grievances. It means accepting his decrees, even when we do not like them. This is comparatively easy to achieve when all is well. But the true test of faith is when all goes wrong. Faith is only faith when there is no apparent reason or justification for it.
On the fast of Ab we read a poem which describes how some of the great Jewish sages were cruelly executed supposedly to repay the crime of Joseph's brothers who kidapped him. The question asked there was: This is the Torah, and this is its reward? In other words, here are men who have done everything that religion and morality demanded of them. Yet they are cruelly punished for a deed they did not do. It is said that a heavenly voice went forth saying: This is my decree, you must accept it. It is only in the face of great sorrow and great injustice that we can truly say: I have faith.
Does having faith in God mean leaving it all to him? Is it safe to lie on our backs in the faith that God will not let us down?
No, Judaism believes that a great responsibility is placed into man's hands. As Jeremiah says: He gives to man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds. 17.10 This means two things. First, our lives are shaped by our intentions and our ways of doing things. But this is not enough. Intentions are necessary, but they have to be followed up by deeds. It is wonderful to intend to give charity – but then you have to give it. It is wonderful to want to advance yourself, and achieve something for your fellow man – but then you have to back up the good intentions by deeds that will bring them to fruition.
Your Hebrew name Baruch is a good name for you, because you are indeed full of blessings. You live in a free country, abounding in all kinds of opportunities. Possibilities for a first-rate Jewish and secular education are open to you. You have many abilities. Above all, you have devoted and interested parents. It is now up to you to get the best out of these opportunities, and only your devoted hard work can achieve it. Those things that are beyond your control, you may safely leave in the care of the Almighty. Those things that are within your control, and they are probably more than you think, you must utilize to their full advantage, never forgetting the probity and honesty that religion demands of you. It is appropriate that the name of our synagogue should have occurred in your haftarah, for it has formed part of your life these last several years, and I hope it always will. Come often to synagogue, for it is your spiritual home, continue in every way you know your attachment to your ancestral faith, and it will reward you richly.
And the king commanded, and they hewed out great stones, costly stones, to lay the foundation of the house with hewn stones. I Kings 5.31
The haftara [prophetic reading] you read us today dealt with King Solomon's preparations for building a temple for the worship of God. It forms a fitting supplement to the reading of the Torah, which dealt with the construction of the sanctuary used in the desert. In the verse I just quoted, Scripture tells us the kind of stones which Solomon used. It is not entirely clear how many kinds are enumerated in this verse, but most commentators seem to think that two kinds are involved. The first kind, used for the foundations of the temple, is called large stones such as would naturally be used to build a firm foundation. But these stones are also described by a Hebrew phrase, translated costly stones and on the precise meaning of this phrase the commentators disagree. The phrase normally means precious stones, such as diamonds and sapphires, but that can hardly be meant here, because such stones are not used for building even a temple. So some people think it means "heavy stones." However, the medieval commentator David Kimhi thanks that the natural meaning of "precious" or "scarce" can be saved, explaining that these stones came from a particular famous quarry, the stone of which was known to be especially good for building, and he points out that anything hard to come by may be called "scarce" or "costly." "Everything which is not readily available is costly." How lucky were our forefathers who immersed themselves in the Holy Scriptures! To come by that piece of information today you would have to take a college course in economics, and they would impress its meaning on you by charging you forty dollars a credit for it.
The other kind of stones was called hewn stones. These were much smaller stones which had been shaped and polished by artisans and were used for the upper visible section of the building.
Now all this has an application for you today. You, like Solomon, are building a temple. That temple is yourself, both your physical body and your personality and moral character. It must be a fit place for the indwelling of the holy spirit. The building plans must be the same as Solomon's. For the foundation you need great stones. In your case this means the massive effort you must make in laying a firm foundation for your life. In eight or ten years' time that work will be complete, and how well you have built will affect you and everyone about you for the rest of your life. It includes great amounts of effort, self-sacrifice and willingness to learn new things, and improve your knowledge of old things. The foundations must also be of precious stones. You cannot build without great expenditure of precious time, effort, and above all patience and perseverance. This applies with equal force to your secular studies, which prepare you for the workaday world, and your religious studies which prepare you for the world of the spirit. You must bend all your efforts to achieve a proper balance of knowing what the world is now, which Science and Arts teach us, and knowing what it ought to be which religion teaches us.
After you have achieved this foundation, you have time for the small polished stones. These are what one may call the extra-curricular activities which most parents these days are so anxious to secure for their children, music, dancing, ceramics. Life would indeed be dull without these gracious things. They are the salt and pepper of life. But one cannot live on salt and pepper or, as we are told, even bread alone. Without the great, costly foundations, these hewn stones have nothing on which to support themselves. You have the ability to lay these foundations. I hope especially that you will continue your Hebrew education, which, more than anything else, is the keystone of that temple of your being in which you are the priest. I know that your parents are much interested in this, and you can best repay the loving care which they have showered on you, by growing up in a way that will do them honor. I hope you will continue to attend this Synagogue as you have done for half of your life. It will add quite a few blocks to those foundations. We look to you to use your boundless energy for the good of yourself and your fellow men, and I am sure you will.
The author of this page is:
Alan D. Corré