Congregation Jewish Community North - Spring, Texas - The Maharal (Sermon

Rabbis must always walk a fine line. What they say and what they preach may be popular to one group while the very same words may alienate another group. When the truth (as the rabbi sees it) comes into conflict with the interests of those in power, the rabbi must decide whether it is better to speak out and risk his or her job or take the easy way and remain silent about something that flies in the face of Jewish law and morality.

Four hundred years ago, during the High Holy Day season, Rabbi Judah Loew preached a sermon from the pulpit of the Altneuschul in Prague. He delivered the same kind of message that I have delivered to you during this High Holy Day season. He preached that within each of us is the precious gift of a soul planted in us by God; that God protects and loves us if we seek to do God's work on this earth. But also that God does not ignore those who burden the poor with taxation and allow the rich to prosper. Any who behave unfairly to others distance themselves from God and lose the dignity of their souls.

Now, the reason Rabbi Loew was asked to preach that year in Prague was that the Chief Rabbi had just died and the leaders of the community had to choose a new Chief Rabbi. It should have been obvious that Rabbi Loew was the best choice. He was not only a great scholar, coming from a family of scholars, but he was a practical leader, too. He had been the Chief Rabbi of Moravia for some years past and had done wonders for the Jews there. For one, he drafted for them a code of ethics for self-governance, a kind of constitution and guarantee of Jewish rights. And his idea soon spread with many other Jewish communities issuing similar constitutions. He left Moravia in 1588 to return to Prague where most of his family resided. And since coming to Prague he restructured the Jewish burial society, founded a Mishnah study circle, and preached and taught as head of the Klaus academy. Pretty soon, the common folk of Prague showed a preference for Rabbi Loew's wisdom and sought his opinion rather than going to Prague's Chief Rabbi.

But after this particular High Holy Day sermon, the small circle of rich and powerful men who made up the community council, assembled to vote on the new Chief Rabbi of Prague and they passed over Rabbi Loew and gave the job to his brother-in-law, Rabbi Isaac Hayot. As far as these leaders of the community were concerned -- what business was it of the rabbi to instruct them on who to tax?

The rabbi they rejected, Judah Loew, was born in Posen, Poland, around 1512. His family came to Poland from Germany among many Jews who were escaping persecution, preferring the tolerance of the Polish rulers. There were four brothers in the Loew family and Judah was the youngest. All the brothers studied Talmud from a very early age. This was the curriculum back then, to study Talmud and nothing but Talmud and commentaries on Talmud. And there were endless commentaries on nearly every word of the Talmud, some by major thinkers, but most given by minor minds. Nonetheless, the style was for students and teachers to debate and quote even the least important comments. This form of learning was called pilpul, the Hebrew word for "pepper," a spice made of tiny black and white particles. The students considered most promising and brilliant were those who could quote the most commentaries, twisting and turning the text back and forth. Judah became a master of pilpul, but he hated it and when he led his own yeshivah he revolted against pilpul by establishing a new and more modern style of Jewish education -- fitting the curriculum to the age of the student, teaching Torah and Mishnah before teaching Talmud and the Codes of Talmudic Law.

He himself stepped outside of Jewish learning, studying many subjects, and becoming a celebrated mathematician. In fact, he developed a deep respect for all of the new sciences. He was impressed when word reached him that a whole New World had been discovered West of the great sea. He expressed the hope that soon the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel might be found, perhaps there in that New World, or in some other New World waiting to be discovered.

Rabbi Loew was also acquainted with the theories put forward by Copernicus who claimed that the earth revolved around the sun. Personally, he disagreed with Copernicus since the ancient Jewish sages listed the sun as one of the seven planets above the earth. Still, he kept one ear open to new ideas and, when one of his students landed a job with the well-known Prague astronomer, Tycho Brahe, Judah became a good friend of Brahe's, and the two of them probably had lively discussions on how the universe was constructed.

It was altogether proper and in keeping for Loew to follow the development of natural science since he believed that God created an orderly world for us, a world where one thing always happened because of another thing, a world of cause and effect. But Loew also believed that God had created a second, a "discrete," upper world -- a heavenly realm where laws also existed but different kinds of laws than those below. So, miracles were easy for him to explain. A miracle occurred whenever the upper world intruded itself into our lower world. Both worlds continued to behave according to God's laws, but to us every intrusion seemed inexplicable, seemed like a miracle. The greatest example, of course, was the giving of the Torah to Moses at Mount Sinai. From the beginning, this was part of God's plan in the upper world, it only seemed a miracle from our point of view in the world of our nature; and so too with the burning bush, the parting of the Red Sea and the sun standing still for Joshua, and with every miracle reported by the Bible.

This was Loew's new understanding of religion and science. But there was more. Christians in the time of Rabbi Loew claimed that the exile of the Jews -- the fact that the Jews were no longer in their own land but scattered among the nations of the world -- was proof that God had finally rejected the Chosen people and chosen a new people, in effect that Christians were the "New Jews." But Rabbi Loew insisted that God was not capricious. Once God makes a decision it is a decree for all time. God's choice of the Jews was bechirat k'lalit, a "definitive choosing" of Israel and the way in which God ensured it was through a d'vekut k'lalit, a "definitive comingling" of the spirits of Israel and God. All nations understand the physical forces of the world, he said, but Jews through their laws and their practice also understand the inner soul of the world. The Jewish people were dispersed throughout the world so that the other nations could study our way of clinging to God. In effect, he said, the Jews were sent out of their land to be "a light to the nations."

On the other hand, Rabbi Loew also taught that the Exile, the Diaspora, was a deviation from God's natural order. In the natural course of things, he said, every nation has its own particular land. In the natural course of things, he said, no nation should be subjugated to another nation since it is the right of every nation to be free. By not being in its own land, he said, the Jewish people is a disruption to the natural course of history. But in the end God does not allow disruptions to the natural order. Therefore the Jews can be assured with perfect faith that God will call them back to their own land at the proper moment, when it is time for the messianic era to begin.

In the meantime, we Jews should not be tempted to "force God" to redeem us too soon. We should not attempt to disturb the natural order on our own. We must pray for the coming of the messiah but not "too much," not even in a generation of religious persecution. And it is likewise forbidden for us to try to calculate the time of the redemption. We will be redeemed, Rabbi Loew said, in due time.

In another writing, Rabbi Loew pointed to the teaching of the sages that "when the Jewish people went into exile, the Shechinah, God's Presence, went with them." This means, he said, that God understands that we need God's Presence even more in exile than in our own land. Our job, he taught, is to continue being Jews, to survive for God's sake, by praying and acting as Jews, by not being seduced to join the other nations of the world.

When Judah Loew was rejected from the post of Chief Rabbi of Prague, he accepted a much less prestigious position in his home town of Posen. But Jews travelled from Prague and from Moravia to seek out his advice, to study Mishnah with him, to hear him preach on the aggadah (the legends and lore of our people), and to discuss his philosophy.

Now, in those days, many Jews were guilty of slander. Petty jealousies and arguments would lead one family to accuse another, saying that the other family included illegitimate descendants. This slander often caused great grief because it interrupted the work of matchmaking. No one wanted to marry into a family whose legitimacy was in question, whether the accusations could be proved or not. It was a thorny problem and when I try to find something today to compare it to, I think of email and the internet. Things can be said in email and on the web that can undermine the integrity of other folk without the slightest offer of proof and these calumnies can spread like wildfire, just as the taint of illegitimacy spread in Rabbi Loew's time.

Before he left Prague, Rabbi Loew chose the High Holy Days of 1584 to preach against slander, calling for it to cease immediately. He described this event:

This we did here in Prague on the Sabbath of Repentance in the year 1584. We issued a mighty edict of ex-communication in the presence of ten Torah scrolls which were held by the wise men of Prague, each scroll in his hand, against the spread of any slander against the departed and against calling anyone in Israel by the slurring epithet of nadler, "illegitimate."

After serving as Chief Rabbi in Posen for a while, Judah Loew returned to Prague, again to be with his family. Around this time, his brother-in-law retired, and Rabbi Loew was finally honored by being chosen Chief Rabbi of Prague, a position he kept for the rest of his life, bringing honor to himself through many years of service and honor to Prague through his great reputation and his enormous outpouring of written work.

This year, we celebrate the 400th anniversary of the death of Rabbi Judah Loew, who is known to scholars as the Maharal, standing for Moeinu HaRav Loew, "Our Teacher, the Rabbi Loew." He was so beloved to the people of Prague that a life-size statue of Rabbi Loew stands in modern Prague to this day. He was so popular a figure that legends began to surround his life; and it is ironic that he is perhaps best known today for the legendary story of how he brought to life a golem, a giant made of clay, to protect the Jews of Prague from attack. This golem story is actually doubly ironic because, first, it did not appear until nearly 200 years after Rabbi Loew died; and, second, in the time of Rabbi Loew there was no need to protect the Jews from the people of Prague. He himself was so thoroughly loved and accepted that he once had a private audience with the Emperor Rudolph II. No one knows what they discussed, but many guess that it was alchemy and Kabbalah, two subjects which deeply interested the Emperor.

It is with great pleasure that we look back 400 years to when Rabbi Loew was concerned with many of the same issues that concern us today. His spirit is with us still. In fact, in our time he is claimed by many as a model of Jewish leadership. He is admired by modern Jewish educators, he was a source of inspiration for the modern sage Rav Kook (the first Chief Rabbi of Israel), he is claimed by the modern Orthodox as an early exemplar of Orthodoxy, just as modern Chasidim claim he was an inspiration to the Baal Shem Tov, and many early leaders of the Reform movement also claimed Rabbi Loew as an early Reformer.

I will claim him, too. As far as I can tell, he was very much like what I try to be. He was a writer with novel ideals who could preach a good sermon and sometimes a great sermon. He cared deeply about his people and his community. He was an inspiration to all who encountered him, both the important folk and the simplest folk that he met -- all were the same to him, all precious, all the creations of a good God, all equal in their souls. Today, as we recall the great blessing God gave us by forming the soul and spirit of Rabbi Judah Loew, let us all say: Amen.