Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis Sermons

Godliness and Immortality by Harold M. Schulweis

"Blessed art Thou O Lord our God King of the universe whose strength and might fill the world"

Elohim creates day and night,
light and darkness.
Lion and lamb,
Bacteria and penicillin.
Gives power to the fowl above the earth,
To the great sea monsters below,
To every living creature that creeps on the earth.

And Elohim said,
It is very good.
All existence is good in the eyes of
Elohim, the God of the first chapter of Genesis,
Elohim who spoke to Job
out of the whirlwind.

Who laid the cornerstones of earth?
Who shut up the sea with doors
when it broke forth and issued out of the womb?
Who caused it to rain on a land where no man is?
On the wilderness, wherein there is no man?

Elohim the God of Omnipotence before whom we recognize our own impotence,
"Canst Thou bind the chain of the Pleides or loose the bands of Orion?"
Elohim the God of Omniscience before whom we recognize our ignorance,
"Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?
Can you number the clouds by wisdom?"
Elohim before whom we bow our heads and bend our knees,
the sovereign God whose power and reality we accept. 
 

But Elohim is not the whole of divinity.
Alongside Elohim is Adonai.
This is our affirmation of oneness.
Hear Israel, Adonai our Elohim is One.

Adonai the Lord of all that ought to be.
Adonai revealed in the yearning and behavior of His human creation
for justice,
for fairness,
for peace,
for harmony.
Adonai in the vision of a compassionate society.
Adonai in the transformation of chaos and violence and
the void of the universe,
into order, sanity, and love.

Adonai in the mending of the universe,
the repair of the world,
the binding of bruises,
the gathering of fragmented sparks buried in the husks of the world.
Adonai revealed in the discovery of the self created in the
image of Adonai-Elohim, the Lord God, who breathed into
our nostrils and made us a living soul.

Elohim/Adonai,
Acceptance and transformation,
the reality of what is, the reality of what ought to be
the reality of what is yet to be.

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