One way, Off-peak from Secaucus

On Wednesday of this week, Cantor Schwartz and I were honored to officiate at the funeral service for Senator Frank Lautenberg, of blessed memory. Given his years of tireless service on behalf of our country, I know I speak for our entire lay and professional leadership in saying that Park Avenue Synagogue is grateful to have played a part in the national effort to pay respects to the Senator. We pray that his memory is for a blessing for generations to come, and that the family finds comfort amongst the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.

It is certainly not every day that the Vice President of the United States speaks from your bimah, or for that matter, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. To have half the Senate, members of the Cabinet, the Governor of New Jersey, Broadway stars, dignitaries from near and from far sitting in these pews was a dizzying experience to say the least. For two days, our building was turned over to about half a dozen security agencies. I want to thank our Executive Director, Beryl Chernov, for his masterful handling of every detail. Given the law enforcement contacts now on Beryl’s speed dial, I know he will be my first call should I ever be pulled over for speeding.

As awe-inspiring as the service here at the synagogue may have been, what you may not know is that the day was just beginning. A police escort drove us through Manhattan. On the other side of the Lincoln Tunnel, the New Jersey Police shut down the turnpike so the procession could get to Secaucus for the New Jersey memorial service at the Lautenberg train station. The State leadership, including the Governor of New Jersey, was present; an honor guard greeted us; taps was played, and the Amtrak Presidential train pulled into the station so that the Senator’s family and staff could accompany his body to Washington, DC, where it would lie in repose in the Senate Chamber Thursday, before a Friday morning burial in Arlington National Cemetery.

As I stood there watching the train leave the station for DC, taking in the pageantry, replaying all the hands I had shaken that day, the honor of eulogizing a sitting United States Senator in my shul, all of a sudden I was seized by the question, “How exactly was I planning on getting back to the city?” The staff and family were en route to DC, the New Jersey contingent was staying on their side of the Hudson and the folk from the funeral chapel were long gone. I was quickly relieved from my panic when I remembered that I was in a train station that the late Senator had chosen to bear his name. I walked over to the ticket machine, punched in the information, and got my ticket: “One way, off-peak, from Secaucus.”

“What a day!” I thought as I sat on the NJ transit to Penn Station, took the E, and then the 5 back home. From meeting the Vice President to having my ticket checked by transit police, all in the same four hours. The polarities were striking. The very highest ranks of government had intervened on the family’s behalf this week – why? Because their rabbi had to be back by Shabbos for the Kastelnik Bar Mitzvah. If that isn’t power, I don’t know what is! And yet there I was shoulder-to-shoulder in a subway in rush hour – no different from anyone else.

“Oh Lord, what is man that you are mindful of him, mortals that you have taken note. You have made him little less than divine, adorning him with glory and majesty.” (Ps. 8:5-6) There is, the psalmist explains, a juxtaposition at the heart of what it is to be human. We are accorded dignity, grandeur and glory, we are but a half-step from the angels; and yet we are all, as it were, “One way, off-peak, from Secaucus.” One and the same tuchus, to rephrase the philosopher Montaigne, sits on the loftiest and most modest of thrones. My day was a particularly acute illustration of the majestic and common sides of the human experience, but it is a juxtaposition that sits at the heart of existence for each and every one of us, every day of the year. We are endowed with the capacity for infinite majesty and infinite humility – all at the same time.

Much ink has been spilt as to what went wrong in this week’s parashah. At first blush, there is nothing particularly offensive about the complaint that Korah and his company lodge against Moses. Two hundred and fifty Israelites, tribal leaders, men of repute – joining against Moses and Aaron. “You have gone too far. The entire community, kulam k’doshim, everyone is holy …Why do you raise yourself up above the Lord’s congregation? (Numbers 16:23) It is a fair point. After all, just a short while ago, Moses himself made a not dissimilar claim, “Would it be that everyone was a prophet.” (Numbers 11:29) What, if anything, was so bad about Korah’s grievance?

Some commentators have suggested that it was the public nature of the entire incident. To confront Moses privately is one thing, but to do so in front of the entire community crossed a line. Others understand that behind Korah’s words sat a bald grab for power, invoking democracy to hide his demagoguery. I am grateful to our soon to be rabbinic intern, Leah Loterman, who directed me to an insight made by the Israeli Philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz, for an intriguing possibility as to the precise nature of Korah’s sin. Leibowitz notes the lexical connection between Korah’s words, kulam k’doshim, “everyone is holy,” and a prior commandment spoken by God to Israel, v’hiyitem k’doshim, “and you shall be holy” or alternatively, an even earlier instruction from God in Leviticus, commanding Israel k’doshim tihiyu, “you shall be holy.” The language is similar but for one small difference, a difference that makes all the difference in the world. Namely, that for Moses and God, holiness is aspirational, “You shall be holy;” for Korah, it was an assertion, “Everyone is holy.” He, his fellow Levites and tribal leaders claimed inherent holiness – a claim antithetical to the biblical ethos. “You shall be holy …” In God’s eyes, nobody ever actually achieves holiness, it is something to work towards, an asymptotic ideal, sought but never reached. For Korah, to claim holiness for himself or for anyone was a spiritual audacity veering into idolatry.

It is altogether significant that the text goes to great lengths to identify Korah and his delegation as anshei shem, people of repute. Again, the sensitive biblical reader knows that any time status is established due to name or lineage, beware! Something bad is about to happen! In the generation of the flood, with the failed mission of last week’s scouts and now with Korah and his company, generations are doomed due to the bluster of anshei shem, people of repute who believe that it is their titles that give them stature. The language of Moses’ rebuke is altogether intentional. “Hear me, Sons of Levi …” In other words, who are you to claim special status? You were born into it, it wasn’t earned! If you had a scintilla of self-awareness, you would comport yourself with due humility. You would understand, as the great Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote, “The rank is but the guinea’s stamp; the man’s the gold for all that.”

Jewish history is full of great personalities, individuals who achieve majesty of rank and of spirit. But in every case, the litmus test for Jewish leadership is an abiding humility. As the Kabbalist Moses Hayyim Luzzatto points out, when Abraham, Moses, Aaron, David and other heroes of our people are conferred titles, each one without fail believes himself to be unworthy. Moses, who speaks to God with an intimacy never repeated since, is also described as the humblest man on earth. Korah’s sin was he believed that the conferment or inheritance of title was, in and of itself, a guarantee of holiness and stature. It was Moses, who came from nowhere, who demurred time and again at the Burning Bush, whose constitution as a leader was tested repeatedly throughout the wilderness, who understood the sheer chutzpah of Korah’s claim.

Our tradition has no problem with men and women of spiritual, political and material grandeur. We are a people who celebrate high achievers and encourage our young towards lives of ambition. But it is a posture that has merit if and only if we remember that we are all equally and ultimately “one way, off-peak from Secaucus.” Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik penned a famous essay on the subject appropriately titled “Majesty and Humility.” As human beings we are created in the image of God, and as such we are capable of aspiring towards Godlike qualities, in science, in medicine, in industry and otherwise. But because we live with an abiding awareness of God, we are also humble, rendered miniscule relative to the scope of God’s creation. As the psalm for this day of Rosh Hodesh proclaims, “Barkhi nafshi et Adonai, Adonai gadalta m’od, My soul will bless the Lord; Adonai, You are very great. (Ps. 104) It is the very claim that we are a part of God’s awesome creation that paradoxically also reminds us how infinitesimal we truly are. We aspire to be Godlike, but we are also aware that we will never actually be holy. To think otherwise was the sin of Korah. As the Hasidic master Noam Elimelech of Lizehnsk explained: Everyone needs two eyes – the first to see the greatness of God, the second to see his or her own lowliness. We need to keep an eye, literally, on both. We are ordinary mortals called on to perform extraordinary deeds as befits creatures created in the divine image.

To believe that we can, at one and the same time, embrace our humanity and be Godlike is nothing less than a thrilling proposition. That with all our aches and pains, our faults and foibles, we can still dream big dreams – hopefully achieving some of them. Our lives can be filled with meaning, each of us stands in a unique covenantal relation with the creator of the universe, all the while knowing that our Creator requires us only to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly before our God. (Micah 6:8) We treat everyone equally, knowing full well it is chance more anything else that determines who becomes prince and who becomes a pauper. Most importantly, in our realization that even those who achieve greatness in this world are no different that anyone else, humanity’s creative potential is unleashed. We all share the same divine spark. Saints and Senators, blue bloods and hoi polloi - we are all “one way, off-peak, from Secaucus.” As to where that train lets us off, well, that is up to each one of us. All you need is faith – just get on board; the sky, or more precisely, Heaven is the limit.