Adam, Where Are You? | What Has God Entrusted to You?

[00:00:00] How about this phrase, you know, someone ought to dot, dot, dot. [00:00:10] Someone ought to. And this really hits close to home in society. [00:00:18] Someone ought to do something about that. [00:00:21] And sometimes we're right. Someone ought to notice that that young person is struggling. Someone ought to make room for those people so that they know they bel. [00:00:31] Someone ought to take responsibility for that need. Someone ought to step forward and lead. Believe me, I hear all of these things, and I know who the someone is that's being referenced. [00:00:45] Someone ought to give so that something worth building can actually be built. Someone ought to. [00:00:52] But Moses asks. He forces us to ask another question. [00:00:58] Why did I see it? [00:01:01] Why am I the one? Why did it trouble me? Why am I standing here? Why has this particular thing and this particular responsibility come into my line of sight? [00:01:14] Maybe I don't have to solve the whole problem. [00:01:19] He couldn't. He couldn't free Egypt. He doesn't have any of that power. But he could not use what he didn't know as an excuse for refusing what must be done in that moment. There are moments in life when we keep looking this way and that, hoping to find that someone has or will take care of it. And guess what? Newsflash. [00:01:48] You're the someone. [00:01:53] It is the beginning of the Torah cycle, right? It's Parasha, Bereshit. We've already figured that out. If you didn't figure out the themes, there was much about creation in those themes. [00:02:05] I'm sure you were listening to every word. [00:02:08] We rolled the Torah back. We did have a wonderful Simchat Torah. I have to tell you, I don't know. Was it guilt? Was it inspiration? I did a lot more Torah study this week than I usually do because we turned it over. [00:02:23] And I studied Rambam, I studied Ramban, I studied the Rebbe, I studied Yetser. [00:02:32] What is it? Sefer Yetzirah, the mystical text of creation. I studied the Book of John, the mystical New Testament text that talks about creation, talked about, studied Chabad, Rabbi Elie Monk, the Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Rebbe Yeshua, the Messiah. [00:02:56] And you want to know where I. With all of those teachers. You want to know where I finally landed for the main content of my very first message of the 5787 Torah cycle. That was a lot of names. [00:03:12] Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. [00:03:17] I know it's unexpected. [00:03:19] I only quote him every message I think that I ever give. But the truth is, all I have to do is open the book and he speaks to me. And this was by accident because this was on a Thursday afternoon or something. I pulled Jonathan Sacks book off my shelf. Lessons in Leadership. I said I was looking for a particular line that I knew he had said somewhere. Good luck finding one line in a book. But I said, well, I've never read actually the first one. So I read Bereshit. And all of a sudden all of these pieces came together. You have those moments, don't you, where you read something, you hear something in the picture, big pieces. And these are pieces that are connected to us, and they're connected to where I hope we are headed as a community. [00:04:08] And then I had this confirmed. [00:04:13] I saw something flash up on Instagram from Aleph Beta. They were talking about the same thing that I wanted to talk about. I saw Amanda Christian posting Shalom at Home, some study themes. And one of those themes was what I want to talk about. By the way, I want to encourage you if you're not on Shalom at Home, if you're not a part of Shalom at Home, we've done tremendous work there. There is a wonderful community developing. There's things. It's not just stuff about Shalom Makin. There's stuff about God and life. And it's a great way to stay connected. [00:04:44] If you're not in Macon, you can build relationships there. That's important. That's a side note. We are standing at this interesting moment where we begin another year of Torah and we move our way toward the end of the Gregorian year. [00:05:00] And over the next several weeks, there are some important things that I want to share. I believe God has asked me to dig into with you some questions about who we are and who we are becoming and what God is asking from us. And strangely enough, that whole that list of questions begins with a question. [00:05:26] The first question, as a matter of fact, that is recorded in God's conversation with humanity. [00:05:34] Adam has eaten from the tree. He and Eve, Chava, my mom's Hebrew name, hear the sound of God in the garden. And what do they do? [00:05:45] They hide. [00:05:47] Vayikra, Adonai, Elohim, el ha' Adam and God. [00:05:53] The Lord God called to the man Vayomer Lo, he said, speaking to him. [00:06:03] Ayeka, where are you? [00:06:11] Ayika, where are you? It's a strange question. God knows where Adam is. [00:06:17] Adam has not successfully beaten God at a game of hide and seek. [00:06:23] He wasn't that smart. [00:06:25] He has not successfully hidden himself from God behind a tree. [00:06:31] Rashi, medieval commentator, notices the obvious problem. [00:06:39] God is not asking because he lacks information. [00:06:43] He's asking because he's opening a very difficult conversation with Adam. [00:06:49] Where are you? What is that about? [00:06:53] Well, I'll apply it to Adam in a moment, but that question is really important, not just in the garden. It's important today, and it's important to you. [00:07:03] There is an old story about Rabbi Schnur Zalman. [00:07:08] First Lubavitcher Rebbe, he was imprisoned by the Russian government, actually put there by his fellow Jews who didn't like the way he was practicing his Judaism. [00:07:23] But there was a guy with him, apparently one of the officials actually interrogating him. From what I recall of the story, he asked the Rebbe about this verse. He said, why would God ask Adam, where are you? Surely God knew. And the Rabbi Zalman gave him the traditional answer that I just told you about. Rashi. That Rashi, he knows God knows where he is, but he knows Adam's done something wrong. He's approaching him without accusation. He's approaching him to have a conversation and giving Adam a chance. [00:07:58] And that's what Rabbi Zalman said. And the official told him, essentially, I know what Rashi says. I want to know what you say. [00:08:07] So the rabbi asked him a question. [00:08:10] He said, do you believe that the Torah is eternal, that its words speak not only about people who lived thousands of years ago, but to every person and every generation? And the official said, yes, I believe that. And so then Rabbi Zalman told him that God's question to Adam and is a question that God is asking every human being in the world. [00:08:35] Where are you in your world? [00:08:39] You have been given a certain number of years. You have been given a certain amount of time. You have been placed somewhere in God's world and given something to do while you are here. [00:08:53] Ayeka, where are you in your life, in your universe? [00:09:01] We have just come through the high holidays. We've done a great deal of looking back. We've talked about repentance, growth, what needs to change. But now the Torah, the Torah is rolled back. We're beginning again. And suddenly we find that this question right from the beginning is not exactly, what do I need to finish fix? It's a question about what am I doing here? [00:09:25] Where am I? Where are you in the place God has put you? How long have you lived? And what have you done with the years that God has given you? [00:09:37] And as I reflected back on those years, I began to ask myself that question. [00:09:47] Damien, where are you? [00:09:52] Where are you? As the rabbi of this community, where are you? As Kelly's husband, where are you? As the father and friend, where are you? In the places that people have trusted you to lead. [00:10:06] Ayeka, where are you? [00:10:10] It's a moment for me when the study, the moments in study where you read the wor, they become something much more real than a story from the Bible. [00:10:24] It's a wonderful confirmation of that Rabbi's question from above. Do you believe that the Torah is eternal? That the words speak not just about the people in those pages, but about you, his people, that those words are speaking to you? Do you believe that? [00:10:44] And this has been one of those verses speaking to me, and I hope by the end to you, about where we are right now. [00:10:57] And none of the questions that God asked me had anything to do with success. [00:11:02] How successful are you? [00:11:05] There's something much, much deeper, and that question is, are you standing where I asked you to stand? [00:11:16] And that goes way back into creation, to the creation story. Because there's something. All we tend to get out of the first part of Genesis is the fall. [00:11:27] Yeah, the creation's cool. But then there's this whole thing about him eating this thing and the fall. [00:11:32] I want you to understand very clearly and read it again. Before the sin, before any of that, there was responsibility. [00:11:43] There was a responsibility before Adam ate anything, before anyone hides. Before any sin. God gives Adam responsibility. [00:11:56] He takes the human being. He places him in the garden. [00:12:04] So that you can work it and guard it. [00:12:09] That is important. [00:12:11] We think that these punishments that he got because sin entered the story, that that consequence of sin. It's too often that we read this or people think, well, you did something wrong, now you're responsible and you have to bear the consequences. No, he was much more called to responsibility before that. [00:12:35] The Torah puts responsibility before failure. That's part of the dignity of being a human being. God gives you responsibility. [00:12:47] He creates, and then he makes room for us to participate. Adam is not a bystander. He's a builder. [00:12:57] He's supposed to build. [00:13:00] It's the language, this language, le shomra. [00:13:04] It's the language of guardianship. [00:13:07] He's not a bystander. He's a guardian. He's entrusted with something that actually it belongs to another, but it's his to guard. And this is a deeply Jewish way of thinking about human life. We're given things that are ours, but they're not actually really ever ours in the absolute sense. We all know what tragedy can do to something that we thought was ours or a change in circumstances. [00:13:39] Our time is entrusted to us. Our abilities are entrusted to us. [00:13:45] The places we occupy here in our life and the life of others, there's responsibility. And the question then becomes, from that question to you, what are you doing with the responsibility? What are you doing with those placed in your care? [00:14:02] This is much closer to what I hear in the word, Eika, where are you? God is not trying to locate him geographically. He's calling a human being to answer for his place in the world. And this is what makes Adam's answer important. And it's what I love about what Rabbi Sacks writes in this book on leadership. He says, the problem that the Torah identifies at the beginning of the human story is a failure of responsibility. [00:14:38] Look around at your world, my friends. [00:14:46] Adam and Eve eat. God confronts Adam. And Adam says the woman, and by the way, you gave her to me. [00:14:59] So, yeah, I ate. It's kind of a remarkable answer if you think about it. He manages to convict and condemn both his wife and God in the same couple of sentences. Like one sentence, the woman gave it to me. You gave me the woman. [00:15:20] And then he asks, Eve, what is this you've done? Well, the serpent deceived me and I ate. [00:15:26] The devil made me do it. I hate that phrase. [00:15:30] I hate that phrase. [00:15:34] There is a required admission here with no one else implicated, But responsibility just keeps moving away from the person that's being questioned. That is what Rabbi Sacks points out is happening in the chapters of Torah. We're not going to get into it today, but the first murder then occurs. And the question is asked, you know, where's your brother? I don't know. I don't care. What am I supposed to do? [00:16:07] Is he my responsibility? [00:16:12] Before the Torah gives us Abraham and Moses and Sinai and covenants and responsibility, it begins by teaching us right here something about what it means to be a human. You are supposed to be responsible for what you have in this world. [00:16:39] Adam can't own it. And there is. [00:16:41] I mean, can any of us in this room not relate to that? [00:16:47] I know, but. [00:16:50] But she. But he. But, but, but, but big but. [00:17:02] We're so good at explaining ourselves. And sometimes the explanations are true. [00:17:08] Adam isn't lying. That is how it happened. But an explanation. You can tell the truth and still be a miserable failure at admitting the truth. [00:17:23] Where are you? [00:17:26] What belongs to you here? What are you answerable for? And that brought me right back to Hillel. [00:17:33] Pirkei avot, one of Hillel's most famous famous things. Im ein anili mi li. [00:17:42] Lot of lis. What's it mean? [00:17:44] If I am not for myself, who will be for me? [00:17:50] Now, I've often heard that Statement. That's a statement about standing up for yourself, right? [00:17:58] No one should expect people to carry my life for me. There is truth in that. But there are some beautiful things outside of that that dig way deeper into that. Rabbi Yonah says he reads it this way. He says, if I do not rouse myself to the service of God, who will rouse me? [00:18:22] Other people can encourage you. A teacher can awaken something in you for a moment. Someone can challenge you. But the response and the responsibility has to become yours. [00:18:36] You must own it. [00:18:39] And then there's a beautiful text written by that offers a Hasidic teaching. It says, each person has his own, called a tafkeed. Your assignment, your own task. There is something connected to your particular life that another person cannot fulfill in your place. [00:19:07] Now that is very different than saying, you know what? You are just so doggone unique and beautiful. [00:19:15] That's not what it's saying. You are unique and beautiful. [00:19:21] It's not about your self esteem. It's about responsibility. [00:19:26] If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I don't stand where God has placed me and do the things he's asked me, who's going to stand there for me? If I don't answer to the responsibility that belongs to me, who can answer? Hillel goes on, there's two more parts. The second part is also beautiful. If I'm only for me, then what am I? I'm not going to go into that today, but next week I will. I'm deliberately stopping there. Hillel forces us eventually beyond ourselves. Responsibility doesn't end with me. But we can't get to that part until we get to the first part. [00:20:03] Im ein Ani Li Me li. If I am not for myself, who is, is for me, what is mine. [00:20:11] Chosen means responsible. And this is where Israel gives us this beautiful story, this beautiful example from the Torah. Deuteronomy, Moses tells the people, it's not because you were special. [00:20:25] Right? [00:20:26] It's not because you were numerous. That of all the people the Lord desired you and you chose you, for you were the fewest. Why does the Torah need to say that? [00:20:37] Because human beings have a tendency to confuse chosenness with superiority. [00:20:47] If I have been given an important role, then I must be unusually important. [00:20:58] And the Torah just rips that away? [00:21:02] No, that's not it at all. [00:21:06] God chose Israel. And then once chosen, they had something to answer for. [00:21:14] God created covenant and obligation. They're given the Torah, they're called to holiness. They're called to bear witness to God. And all of these Things. [00:21:23] And all of those things have been important for me again this week. Not to make it all about me, but to use just this example, where are you? Why am I the rabbi of this community? [00:21:39] I could give you a resume. [00:21:43] I could tell you how many years I've been doing this. I could tell you about the things I've studied, the experience I have, whatever abilities I've developed, but none of it explains why I'm actually standing here. For whatever reason, God has allowed me to stand here in this, at this moment, with these people, you. [00:22:09] And that means Ayeka is not from the abstract for me. [00:22:18] Damien, why are you the rabbi? Where are you as the rabbi? Are you seeing clearly what the community in front of you needs right now? [00:22:30] Are you guarding what needs to be guarded? Are you willing to lead people toward things that need to be built? Because, listen, someone else can stand up here and teach on this platform, and it happens quite regularly and happens to be done very, very well. There are people in this community gifted in all kinds of ways, but none of that relieves me of the responsibility that is mine. I am the one standing here. [00:22:58] That's the point. [00:23:03] I don't have to believe in any way that I'm the only one who can do it. I can just believe and must embrace that I have been given the responsibility to lead right now. So where are you, Damien? [00:23:20] And that same question reaches me in all of the other places where I stand, which I mentioned. [00:23:29] Why am I Kelly's husband? Why am I the father to my particular children? Why have particular people trusted in me as a friend? And we can explain those things in history and circumstances, but there's another, easier way. And it's simply that I and you have a tafkeed. [00:23:51] You have a task, you have a role. And all of these pieces are. Are part of your responsibility to fulfill it. [00:24:03] And I have to ask Ayika, to us, where are we? [00:24:10] Where are we as a community? Why has God gathered this particular community of people? Why has he given us the opportunities that we have in this room and way outside of this room, we're going to spend some time over the next few weeks in that. Because I can't answer it. [00:24:32] That's the point of a question. [00:24:34] Sometimes you got to dig deep and find the answer. And I can't answer all those things today. But before we can be a we, there has to be an I who is prepared to answer. [00:24:47] If I'm not, for me, who will be. [00:24:50] And this is the best part. And I'm going to close by Switching gears from Genesis to Mosheh. [00:24:57] I know a thing or two about Moses and his leadership. [00:25:04] And this is where Rabbi Sacks jumps. And it's absolutely beautiful. [00:25:10] He tells us the Torah introduces Moses and shows us something before he ever hears God calling him before the bush, before God gives him a mission, before he's Moses our teacher. Moses grew up and went out to his brothers and saw their burdens. [00:25:29] He saw their burdens, placed his eyes and his heart upon their suffering. As Rashi translates that, that's way deeper than just I see you placed his eyes and his heart upon their suffering. [00:25:48] You know, you can see something happening and not have it enter your heart. [00:25:56] You can keep things at a safe distance. Moses sees with his eyes and he lets it enter his heart. And you remember who he is. He's a rich, snobby kid in Pharaoh's house. He's had all this opulence and privilege, and he has a protection that Hebrew slaves don't have. He could have just seen it and left. [00:26:16] Ha probably deserves it. [00:26:20] He didn't need to be involved. [00:26:25] But he goes out to his brothers, he sees and then an Egyptian beating one of the Hebrews. And the next verse says, and this is so good, he turned this way and that. He saw that there was Aish, no man. [00:26:45] He saw that there was Anish, no man. [00:26:49] There were men. [00:26:51] There were men all around. It was a building site in Egypt. It was very, very busy. And people clearly saw and knew what happened because two verses later, one of the Hebrew slaves talks about it. So Rabbi Sacks says this different way of hearing. He looks this way, he looks that way. And there is Ainish. There are plenty of people, but there's no man who will take responsibility. [00:27:26] Saxe introduces the concept that you may not know it by this name. It's what modern psychologists refer to as the diffusion of respons responsibility. When someone gets stabbed on a subway in front of you and you watch it happen, you don't do anything that happened. You remember. [00:27:51] Surely when people witness something, each person then quietly assumes, well, someone else will deal with it. [00:27:59] Surely somebody will do something. Surely somebody with more authority will show up, somebody with more experience, somebody who has more time. Moses looks around and discovers the terrible possibility that someone may never come. [00:28:21] And there's another saying of Hillel that drops right in so beautifully. [00:28:27] In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man. [00:28:37] I would add woman. In the circumstances that are appropriate. Moses sees there is no man, so he became one. [00:28:47] We can debate the action of whether or not he should have beaten the guy to death. That's another conversation. [00:28:58] But the important thing is what the Torah is showing us about Moses. He cannot see responsibility and pretend he didn't see it. This is the beginning of Moses as a leader. [00:29:12] He has not been chosen at the burning bush. Perhaps. Perhaps we could consider it from another perspective. [00:29:21] We're beginning to understand why Moses will be the kind of man who can answer and who can handle all of the stuff that's going to come his way. [00:29:33] God calls. He sees. He allows himself to be affected. And when he realizes that no one is stepping forth, he understands that that does not release him. You know, it calls him. How about this phrase, you know, someone ought to dot, dot, dot. [00:29:56] Someone ought to. And this really hits close to home in society. [00:30:05] Someone ought to do something about that. [00:30:08] And sometimes we're right. Someone ought to notice that that young person is struggling. Someone ought to make room for those people so that they know they belong. Someone ought to take responsibility for that need. Someone ought to step forward and lead. Believe me, I hear all of these things, and I know who the someone is that's being referenced. [00:30:32] Someone ought to give so that something worth building can actually be built. Someone ought to. [00:30:39] But Moses asks. He forces us to ask another question. [00:30:44] Why did I see it? [00:30:48] Why am I the one? Why did it trouble me? Why am I standing here? Why has this particular thing and this particular responsibility come into my line of sight? [00:31:00] Maybe I don't have to solve the whole problem. [00:31:06] He couldn't. He couldn't free Egypt. He doesn't have any of that power. But he could not use what he didn't know as an excuse for refusing what must be done in that God moment. There are moments in life when we keep looking this way and that, hoping to find that someone has or will take care of it. And guess what? Newsflash, you're the someone. [00:31:42] An ish. [00:31:47] There is no man, Isha. There is no woman. And the question from God to Adam suddenly reappears. Where are you? In other words, you are here. God knows you're here. What will you do? This isn't about your greatness. It's about your presence. And here's the thing I want you to take out of here today. I want you to take all of it today. But it's a lot to take away. Ayika to Hineni. [00:32:15] Everyone knows this word in Messianic Judaism or Judaism. Aika. Where are you? To Hineni. [00:32:29] Moses is in Midian. He sees the burning bush. God calls him from the bush. Moshe Moshe. And what does he say? [00:32:38] Hineni, here I am. [00:32:44] God didn't even ask him where he was. [00:32:47] He just called his name, Hineni, here I am. [00:32:58] At the beginning of Genesis, God calls to the human being, Ayika, and he hides. [00:33:06] Adam hides. And when he finally speaks, he explains why the responsibility belongs to someone else. And now God calls to Moses, and Moses answers, here I am. And maybe that. [00:33:22] Maybe that is the greatest spiritual moment that we need to recognize that the Torah is trying to teach us right out of the gate in Bereshit in the beginning. Friends, to move from Ayika, where are you? To Hineni, I am here. [00:33:51] Rabbi Sacks has a line. I found the line that I was looking for. [00:33:56] The responsible life is a life that responds. [00:34:04] That is exactly it. Responsibility begins with a response. God calls, where are you? And the question of human life is whether you will now or eventually learn to say Hineni when he calls. [00:34:20] And sometimes when he doesn't call, because he actually didn't call. Moses, at that beating scene, Moses saw with his eyes and his heart. [00:34:37] And you know what? Within a very few verses of Moses being called, he's going to back up, isn't he? Who am I? I can't even talk. What am I going to do? [00:34:50] I'm a man of poor speech. Brr. [00:34:54] What could I do? God, I'm not a man of words, but Hineni doesn't mean I am completely prepared. [00:35:08] We have talked ad nauseam about the next track. [00:35:14] It does not mean I am completely prepared. It simply means here I am. What do you want to do? [00:35:27] It's so incredible to be a man or a woman who can respond that way. [00:35:35] And I'm not. I'm not on a stage up here performing and presenting as if I am. I'm not. I drop that ball all the time. [00:35:45] But this is what the Torah is calling us to. As we read the first chapters, I am present. I hear what you are asking, a question from God. [00:36:04] Where are you? [00:36:06] Where are you in the place you've been given to stand with what has been entrusted to you? [00:36:15] And when you look this way and that and you discover that no one else is stepping forward, is it possible that that question has reached you because you are the only one who can answer it? [00:36:32] I believe we are entering an important season as a community. There are things, as I said, I want to share. There are things, I believe we. We need to focus and we need to be the someone. And it's not just me. I am not the only someone. [00:36:48] Everyone is someone. [00:36:53] We have responsibilities as a community that God has placed in front of us. But it's not I don't want to we're not talking about a program. The Torah doesn't begin with that. It begins with a human being. And God calls and says, we where are you? [00:37:10] Hillel asks, if I'm not for myself, who's going to do it? Moses looks around and says, anish, there is no man. [00:37:19] I am the man. [00:37:21] And when God calls his name, he gives the answer. It's an answer we'll soon see Abraham give. It's an answer I hope we all can learn to give as a community, but first as individuals. And the answer when he calls is one word. What is it? [00:37:43] Hineni. [00:37:46] Here I am. [00:37:49] May he give us strength. [00:37:52] Shabbat Shalom I'm Darren with Shalom Macon. If you enjoyed this teaching, I want to ask you to take the next step. [00:37:59] Start by making sure you subscribe to our channel. Next, make sure you hit the like button on this video so that others know it's worth their time to watch. [00:38:07] Last, head over to our website to learn more about Shalom Macon, explore other teachings and events, and if you're so inclined, contribute to the work that we're doing to further the kingdom. Thanks for watching and connecting with Shalom Macon.