Matanah Tovah: The Role of the Gift in Sustaining Community

Matanah Tovah: The Role of the Gift in Sustaining Community
Rosh Hashannah 5768/2007
Rabbi Dov Gartenberg, Temple Beth Shalom

Hayim, the beloved patriarch of the family, slipped into a coma. Everyone feared the worst. The family was called. The son flew in from New York. The daughter arrived from Boston. The aunts, the uncles, all sat despairing, waiting for the end.
Suddenly, a miracle occurred! Hayim opened his eyes. Weakly, he motioned for his son to approach so he could talk to him. Hayim was weak from the illness, so his voice was very faint as he asked,
"I've been ill?"
"Yes, Abba," replied the son with tears choking his voice, "Very ill."
Haim nodded and spoke again. "I had a dream. I was nearing death when I suddenly I smelled the aroma of your Imma’s potato kugel. I LOVE that kugel. As wonderful a cook as my Sarah is, that kugel is her masterpiece." He lied back against the pillows, weakened from the exertion of speaking.

"What a wonderful dream, Abba. But the smell is real. Mama just took the kugel out of the oven to cool."
"A miracle!" cried Hayim as he tried to rise, but weakly fell against the pillow. He turned to his son and said, "I'm still too weak to get up. Go to the kitchen and get for me a piece of your Imma's kugel."

The son obediently rose and left the room to fulfill his father's request. Those gathered around Hayim’s bed heard muffled words in the kitchen, but after a few minutes the son returned to his father’s bedside empty- handed.
Hayim looked at him and said, "Nu? Where is the kugel?"
The son replied, "I'm sorry, Abba. Imma says it’s for the Shivah.


Great joke, but it for the sake of a great line it ignores a really important part of the tradition of the Shivah-those seven days of mourning following the burial of a loved one. Friends and the community sustain the mourners with gifts of food during the Shivah, so that they need not be distracted or burdened during their mourning. Imma does not need to make the kugel. Her friends will make comfort food for her when the time comes. In Jewish tradition, gifts of food are intended to lift the yoke of despair off my shoulders when I am mired in grief.

The important point is that the friends and people in the community must bring the kugel, and the challah, the eggs, the bagels, the traditional foods of the shivah week. These are the gifts, according to Jewish tradition, that open the path of healing for one who is grief-stricken.

There are times in our lives when the presence of community can mean so much to us, when people’s presence saves us from despair and loneliness. We experience the holiness of community at these moments. That explains why the term for community in Hebrew is Kehilah Kedoshah-a holy community. A community becomes holy when it is engaged in the mitzvah of supporting each individual who is part of it during times of need and times of joy. This insight into community is one of the remarkable attributes of Judaism; it is one of the reasons, according to Gidi Grinstein, an Israeli scholar, for the mysterious survival and persistence of the Jewish people. Jews have a talent for creating, sustaining, and transplanting community wherever we find ourselves across this earth. There is a Jewish genius for creating community.

However, in America with all our affluence and comforts, our ability to create holy communities is greatly compromised. We live in a culture in which individualism, freedom, self fulfillment, and personal meaning trumps community. In the age of celebrity, our culture celebrates individual success and fame over communal effort and sacrifice.
The force of the market has taught us to look at things from the perspective of how we benefit. So people join churches and synagogues like they join an athletic club. I was reading the advertisements for the synagogues in the Orange County Jewish Magazine. I could not distinguish their ads from the pr for 24 hour fitness or Gold’s Gym. In fact most people relate to the synagogue as a commodity, the rabbi and cantor, service providers, the school, a way station for the kids. Ultimately such a utilitarian approach to communities vastly cheapens them. The members disappear when the benefits are no longer needed.
We live in the age of the Sovereign Self. The popular culture of America is about feeding, gorging, and stuffing the the individual in the hope that this will make him happy. Yet many of these very same people complain over and over about the lack of community, their loneliness, their deeply felt sense of isolation.
What is the alternative to our culture of self absorption? What makes for real a community? What is the ingredient of holiness in a holy community? What creates an authentically Jewish sense of community? What makes a community spiritually and morally excellent and transforming?

The answer to these questions begins with the simple act of a congregant bringing a kugel to the Shivah house. The preparing of food and bringing it to the shivah house is a gift. Gift giving is so common place that we never think about it. But gift giving is at the heart of what makes a community, indeed at the heart of all loving relationships. The gift is key to understanding Kehilah Kedosha-a holy community. What is the role of a gift in a community?
There are seven attributes to the gift within an authentic community.
Let me tell a story about the power of the gift to build community. A few years ago a congregant at my former congregation, named Mark, was in the middle of his struggle with cancer which ultimately would claim his life. At the time of this story he was shaky, but still strong enough to get about. He called me one day to ask me to visit with him to discuss arrangements for his final days. I mentioned to Mark that I would come over to his house that evening after going to a shivah minyan for another congregant who was mourning his father. Mark did not know the person well, but immediately asked for the address and told me he would be there to help make the minyan. I told him that he need not worry for the congregation’s Hesed Society had recruited enough people to make a minyan. But he said, ”See you there.” And a few minutes later Mark was there to my utter amazement and admiration. His presence was a gift.

Mark did not have an obligation to come to the minyan, but he knew that going to the minyan was a way of being generous, of giving of himself. It didn’t matter that he did not know the mourner that well. It did not matter if there was already a minyan. It did not matter that he was weak and uncomfortable because of his cancer. The situation presented itself and he saw this as the right thing to do.

Mark’s gift teaches us the first thing we should know about gift giving in a community: THERE IS A TIME AND CONTEXT TO GIVE A GIFT. Attending a Shivah is understood as a proper context in which to give a gift of food or of physical presence. Gift giving is made possible by certain situations that occur at intervals in our lives. Although the time of the gift may be unpredictable, once the circumstance arises we know the gift that is called for. Thus living consciously in a community is to know that you are on call to give gifts. So I know where to find my kugel recipe, when I hear news of a new mourner.

A second dimension about gifts is that WE KNOW WHAT IS CALLED FOR IN THE GIFT. Gifting in Judaism is quite straightforward. The gift may be my presence at a minyan, or a simple dish of food for a person in distress, or an invitation to my Shabbas table. The more you are at home in the culture, the clearer the idea of what gift is needed. (This is the challenge of teaching converts-how to know when to gift) Each community has a code, a language of what constitutes the gift. Those codes of giving once learned and understood, whether from childhood or as an adult allow us to fully enter the life of community.

There is third thing we should know about gift as illustrated in this story by Lewis Hyde.

“Imagine a scene. An Englishman in the colony of Massachusetts in the 17th century comes into an Indian lodge, and his hosts, wishing to make their guest feel welcome, ask him to share a pipe of tobacco. Carved from a soft red stone, the pipe itself is a peace offering that has traditionally circulated amongst the local tribes, staying in each lodge for a time but always given away again sooner or later. And so the Indians, as is only polite among their people, give the pipe to their guest when he leaves. The Englishman is tickled pink. What a nice thing to send back to the British Museum! He takes it home and sets it on the mantelpiece.

A time passes and the leaders of a neighboring tribe come to visit the colonist’s home. To his surprise he finds his guests have some expectation in regard to his pipe and his translator finally explains to him that if he wishes to show his goodwill he should offer them a smoke and give them the pipe. In consternation the Englishman invents a phrase to describe these people with such a limited sense of private property: The Indian-giver.

But our Indian giver understood a cardinal property of the gift: WHATEVER WE HAVE GIVEN IS SUPPOSED TO BE GIVEN AWAY AGAIN, NOT KEPT. Or, if it is kept, something of similar value should move on in its stead, the way a billiard ball may stop when it sends another scurrying across the felt, its momentum transferred. There are other forms of property that stand still, that mark a boundary or resist momentum, but the gift keeps going. THE GIFT MUST ALWAYS MOVE.

The kugel I bring to the shivah house is part of the movement of the gift. Although it is consumed, it continues to move when a few weeks later the mourner brings a challah to someone else who is sitting shivah. The spirit of the gift regenerates when we pass on another gift to the next person. This does not have to happen immediately. But the gift must not stay still with us. The movement must not be permanently interrupted. The gift or the value of the gift must always move.

But in order to keep the gift moving, doesn’t it make sense to reciprocate in response to the person who gave me the kugel? Shouldn’t it be both necessary and sufficient to send a thank you note, or maybe even to send a dish in return? But in communities the key is not the response to the donor; it is the direction you pass it on. GIFT GIVING IN AUTHENTIC COMMUNITIES IS CIRCULAR. This is the fourth attribute of the gift in a community.

When a gift moves in a circle in a community I do not give the gift to the person who gave it originally to me. I give a gift to the next person in need. The gift may very well return to me over time, but it will circulate through many people on its way around the circle. “It is as if the gift goes around a corner before it comes back. I have to give blindly and I will feel a sort of blind gratitude myself. When the gift moves in a circle its motion is beyond the control of the person, and so each bearer must be a part of the group and each donation is an act of social faith.” (Hyde) So after my mourning is over I get a call from the Sisterhood asking me to deliver a meal to a young couple with a new baby. A few months later that couple brings a Shabbat candles to someone who is sick in the hospital.

Gifts in communities move in a circular motion. This is hard to grasp because we think of gift giving as acts of reciprocity between two people. Two people in love give gifts back and forth in a way that sustains and regenerates love. But over time if they limit their gift giving to each other, their generosity will decline or they may start keeping score. A Kashmiri folk tale tells of two Brahmin women who tried to dispense with their charitable obligations by simply giving alms back and forth to each other. When they died, they returned to earth as two wells so poisoned that no one could take water from them.

This sad tale illustrates the spiritual bottleneck of clique within a community. A clique within a community extends gifts to their circle of family and friends. A clique in a community is like a partially blocked artery, it reduces the circular flow of gift giving in the wider community To sustain a community we must give gifts not only to our family and friends, but also to those outside our own circles.

Gift giving is a relay, extending the hand to the next one whose hand is open. The secret of community is that we must know to move the gift to the next worthy person. We are ready to give, but we also must be ready to receive. A gift circle will not work if a potential recipient refuses to accept the gifts of others.

Often a Jews tells me,. “I don’t want to trouble people with my loss.” But the community exists to be troubled and bothered. That is part of the unwritten contract of being in a community. You join a shul to be bothered, to be nudged, and to be pushed beyond yourself. You also join a shul to let people show their care for you. Lots of Jews nowadays don’t join shuls because they don’t have time or don’t want to be bothered. Or they don’t have time to receive the care and concern of strangers outside my immediate circle. Those of us who have chosen to join a synagogue have to demonstrate to our non-connected friends the value of being bothered, of being needed and of receptivity to the compassion of others.

The recipient of a gift is also doing a mitzvah. She is causing another person to become worthy of doing a mitzvah. She is unblocking the artery, the lifeblood of a community to flow freely and generously. That explains the custom of not knocking when coming to a Shivah house. You just enter. The mourner makes it easy to receive the gift of your presence.

The fifth attribute of the gift is that EVERY ONE CAN GIVE regardless of whether you are rich or poor. One mark of the genius of the Halachah-Jewish law is its moral concern for preventing the community from fragmenting along economic lines. The rich cannot separate from the poor. We are bound to a greater destiny than class or life circumstances. The giving of the gift must be available to all. The gift of the kugel is the same whether I am rich or poor. My presence at the minyan is not a function of my economic standing.

Our tradition makes a sharp distinction between two types of gifts, gifts of money-tzedaka and gifts of lovingkindness-gemilut hasadim. It says in Talmud Sukkot 49b: “Acts of gemilut hasadim are superior to tzedaka (gifts of money) in three respects. Tzedaka can be accomplished only with money; gemilut hasadim can be accomplished through personal involvement as well as with money. Tzedaka can be given only to the poor; gemilut hasadim can be exchanged between rich and poor. Tzedaka applies only to the living; gemilut hasadim applies to both the living and the dead.

The last line of this teaching reveals the sixth dimension we should know about gifts and community. The circle of giving goes beyond the living to include the dead. GIVING UNITES THE LIVING AND THE DEAD. When we extend gifts to others in our community we carry on the gifts of those who have gone before us. We remember our loved ones by the way they gave. In fact they taught us how to give. The other day Rabbi David and Yetta Kane invited me to their home for Shabbat dinner. The food was delicious and I asked Yetta where she learned to cook. She told the story of how her mother taught her to cook in the displacement camps after the war. She told me how her mother bartered for a goat in exchange for candy and chocolate so they could have milk. The delicious kugel I ate at her house on Shabbat made me think of that goat providing milk in the displacement camp, of Yetta’s courageous and nurturing mother and her gift of the art of cooking to her daughter. We are Jews because of the gifts of our ancestors, both immediate and distant. Avraham and Sarah’s hospitality for the wayfarer; Joseph’s loving burial of his father, Jacob; Moshe’s act of kindness of taking Joseph’s bones out of Egypt; Rabbi Hillel’s gentleness before the man who wanted to learn about Judaism while standing on one foot. Rabbi Meir’s compassion for his wayward colleague, Elisha ben Abuye.

The seventh and last attribute of a gift in a community is that GOD MUST BE BROUGHT INTO THE GIFT CIRCLE.

The gift circle must include God for it to become holy. All giving in a community must flow from a faith in the giving nature of God. God starts the circle and our gifts circle back to God and they keep on moving, flowing, and breathing.

The gifts we give are no other than imitations of God’s gifts to us.

“‘Follow the Lord your God (Deut. 13:5).’ What does this mean? Is it possible for a mortal to follow God’s Presence? The verse means to teach us that we should follow the attributes of the Holy One, praised by He. As He clothes the naked, you should clothe the naked. The Torah teaches that the Holy One visits the sick, you should visit the sick. The Holy One comforts those who mourn; you should comfort those who Mourn. The Holy One buries the dead; you should bury the dead.” Babylonian Talmud Sotah 14a

Let us remember these principles of the Matanah-The Gift. The secret of achieving holy community is:
1. THERE IS A TIME TO GIVE A GIFT
2. WE KNOW WHAT IS CALLED FOR IN THE GIFT.
3. THE GIFT MUST ALWAYS MOVE
4. THE GIFT MUST MOVE IN A CIRCLE.
5. EVERY ONE CAN GIVE
6. GIVING UNITES THE LIVING AND THE DEAD.
7. GOD MUST BE IN THE GIFT CIRCLE.

The ultimate gift that God gave the Jewish people is described in this famous passage from the Talmud. .

“That you may know that I the Lord sanctify you: The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses, I have a precious gift-Matanah Tovah- in My treasure house, called the Sabbath, and desire to give it to Israel; go and inform them. (Talmud Bavli Berachot 10b)

The Torah claims that the eternal cycle of gift giving began with the Sabbath-the Matanah Tovah-the precious gift of God. How does a Jew testify to the giving God in the world? He does not set up missions to the gentiles, he does not preach to millions over the airwaves. He does not blow himself up inside a bus. He has you sit down with him at his Shabbas table. For when we bring guests to our Shabbat table we accept the precious gift God has given us and lovingly share it with those present at our table. And they, our kind guests also, God willing, will share their table with others. In this way God’s precious gift, the Sabbath, is passed on in a circle around the community, moving across the generations, and uniting us with past and future generations of Jews who guard it and give it in love.
It was tradition to for a sage to have his coffin made of his Sabbath table. I once shared this with my wife’s family who are in the furniture business and suggested they ought to sell tables by suggesting to people that it could also serve as a coffin. But kidding aside, this tradition is a recognition that the table which served as a welcoming place for probably thousands of people over a life time is deeply associated with us even after we die. The instrument of our gift giving is buried with us.
This year at Beth Shalom we hope to strengthen the culture of the gift in our congregation with a special emphasis on our theme for the year. Jewish hospitality. Please join us for the various efforts we will make to build a more caring and welcoming community. Attend a Shivah minyan, prepare some food for family with a new arrival, welcome a new member, have people to your table for a Shabbat meal.

Ponder this. The ability to build a community around gift giving is the secret to the longevity of the Jews. We move our gifts from generation by generation. May this new year renew your capacity to give, to receive the gifts of others, and to help fashion within all of us a Holy Community-a Kehilah Kedoshah that is worthy of the holy congregations of the Jewish people that have preceded us.