Olive Branch Interfaith Peace Partnership

A Sermon on Power Preached by Rabbi to be and Community Organizer Sara Luria based in Genesis 21

Recognizing our Power for Good

Strength is power.

Grace is power.

Precision is power.

Or at least that’s Acura’s definition of power when they are advertising their latest line of cars.

Hmm. Let’s test their theory. Who do we think of as powerful today?

Our minds may turn to political leaders, millionaires, or the military. Grace, maybe, precision, probably, strength, definitely.

And who do we think of as powerful people in Jewish history? King David, the political leader, the Maccabees or maybe the Israeli Defense Forces. Grace, not so much, precision, possibly, strength defined militarily, definitely.

What can Sarah, Abraham and Hagar teach us about power? In Genesis 16, a few chapters before the one we read today, Sarah, our matriarch, feels powerless to bear a child. Adonai atarani, God is restraining me, she says, restraining her from having a child. Sarah, in the well-known story, suggests that Hagar, her maidservant, lay with Abraham and bear a child for her. Sarah is clear that she wants to become more powerful since power for women of the bible came from bearing children. She says in a Hebrew play on words, oolai, eebane memena. Maybe I will have a son through her or otherwise translated, maybe I will be built up through her. Sarah needs to focus on building herself up.

When Hagar does have the child, just as Sarah asked her to, Sarah feels she has been lowered in the eyes of Hagar by her barren status and thus her power has been depleted. She becomes furious. When she asks Abraham to intercede, he does not use his power to improve the situation, instead, he hands over his power to Sarah to handle Hagar how she would like and Sarah, in her rage, deals harshly with Hagar.

So what can we say about power in Genesis 16? Sarah has some power but does not use it for good. Abraham, though powerful through his status as the head of the household, not to mention, his direct connection to God, barely seems to be an actor in this story -- he gives away his power.

The power dynamics are no less complicated in Genesis 21, our parsha for today about the birth of Isaac. When Sarah sees Hagar’s son playing with Isaac, she orders Abraham to cast out Hagar and Abraham, the text tells us, is distressed. He takes no action, he has the power to do the right thing in the situation but he is paralyzed. God intervenes and tells Abraham what to do.

In the middle of the chapter, Hagar sits across from her son in the wilderness, crying because he is near death. Hagar behaves much like Abraham did a few verses earlier, she is distressed but takes no action. God again intercedes hearing the cry of Hagar’s son and sends an angel to save them. God seems to be the only one in this story who uses power for good.

BREAK

When a child is young, parents often intercede to help the child solve conflict or resolve a distressing situation. Maybe, when our people Israel, our nation was young, avinu malkeinu, our father, our king, directly interceded to help us along the right path, to show us how to use power for good.

Now perhaps, God’s role in our lives has changed from what it was when Abraham and Sarah walked the earth. This is not to say that God is absent from our lives, rather to emphasize the importance of our power. God was our example in Genesis and now all of us as individuals and as a Jewish community must learn to realize our power and use it for good.

If we maintain that power is mostly defined militarily, which is where I started, it is hard to imagine power being used for holy ends. I was at a congregant’s house for dinner last night and he asked me what I was going to speak about today and I said, power. His response was, oh, the abuse of power? We think of the old adage power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. SLOW DOWN Yet, how can we as Jews possibly accept that definition of power when we think of God as all powerful?? I propose a redefinition. Power is the ability to act. It’s amoral – neither good nor bad, simply the ability to act. It’s what we do with it that gives it its character in the world.

Sarah deals harshly with Hagar when Hagar becomes pregnant with Abraham’s seed. Sarah’s feeling of powerlessness, her inability to act, manifests itself through frustration and anger. How many times have we become frustrated or angry because we feel powerless? A few years ago, during a meeting with my supervisor at the time, I proposed a change in the youth education program at the organization where I was working. He was furious at me for the proposal, saying I was young, inexperienced, didn’t understand how the organization worked, and on and on. I took it personally at the time, but I realize now, being much older and more experienced of course, that my proposal felt to my supervisor like I was trying to take away his power.

Fear of losing power is so scary because it seems like there isn’t enough power for both you and I to have it. But if it’s simply the ability to act, it’s not a zero-sum game. So if I have power that does not have to mean that you can’t have power. God made Isaac into a great nation but didn’t God also make of Ishmael a great nation? Does that somehow diminish Isaac’s nation? Of course not!

I backed down from asking for a change in the youth program where I worked because I knew that I just didn’t have the power at the time to make the change. I learned from that experience that change wouldn’t come from standing on principal alone. In a dialogue between the militarily strong Athenians and the small nation of Melos, the Athenians gave the Melians 2 choices, willfully join the Athenian empire or Athens would declare war. The Melians chose war, they wanted to remain a free people. They believed they would survive because they had justice on their side. The Athenians asserted: “The standard of justice depends on the quality of power to compel it.” “The standard of justice depends on the quality of power to compel it.” The small nation of Melos did not have the power to compel justice and was thus conquered by the Athenians.

Abraham might have believed that Sarah was unjust in her jealously and casting out of Hagar. After all, Ishmael was his son! But Abraham did not use his power to compel justice.

Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, a 20^th century theologian, frames this concept in Jewish language: To be holy, he says, means for power and goodness to exist in perfect harmony. Power and goodness in balance.

A community organizer by the name of Ernesto Cortes was once asked to speak at a synagogue dinner. He gave the attendees what he thought would be a compliment, at one point in his speech saying that Jews were a powerful, influential people in the United States today. There was a palpable gasp in the audience. A congregant came over to Ernie after the speech and said, “the Jewish people have a history of being powerless at the hands of pharaohs, kings and nations that would destroy us. How can you say Jews are powerful??”

Rabbi Irving Greenberg delves into this issue in his book, the Ethics of Jewish power stating -----The Jewish people made a decision six decades ago with the establishment of Israel that there is no moral alternative to assuming power. It takes power to establish a just society. By contrast, powerlessness can cause great evils. Our historic task then is to create, all together, an ethic of Jewish power that works in the real world of power which we now inhabit.

Thus I ask you to reflect on your power, as a Jew, as an individual and as a community. Am I powerful in my own life? Do I give up my power as Abraham did in our story? Am I frustrated with feeling powerless as Sarah was? How can I use my power for good this year as one who is created in the image of an all-powerful God?

As Jews, we imagine, as our prophets did many centuries ago, the world as it could be, as it should be. And in the world as it is, we use our power to bring us closer to wholeness.

Stanley Chyet writes in Mishkan T’filah

We oughtn’t pray for what we’ve never known,

And humanity has never known:

Unbroken peace,

Unmixed blessing.

No.

Better to pray for pity,

For indignation,

Discontent,

The will to see and touch,

The power to do good and make new.

There is no question that this feels like a time of vulnerability, our banks are on the brink of failure, our investments are diminishing and our government is arguing over how to best protect us. As we enter this new year, perhaps feeling off balance and uncertain, may our own power steady us and may we build ourselves up by embracing and embodying our power toward good and holy ends.

Shana tova!