Rabbi Jonathan Roos, who concluded his Week Six sermon series Friday, opens his chaplaincy last Sunday in the Amphitheater.
Rabbi Jonathan Roos’ sermons this week showed the powerful insights into the text that come from “drashing.”
“The key to this method of interpreting scripture is to put disparate stories, people and ideas together in a mix. The reaction is a precipitate that is distilled in pure form, or becomes a new compound and sometimes is a sticky, smelly mess,” he said.
He preached at the 9:15 a.m. Friday morning worship service in the Amphitheater. His sermon title was “The Solitary Strength and Extra Soul of the Sabbath,” and the scripture readings were Exodus 31: 12-18 and John 6: 14-15.
It is hard to be your true self and to love that self, Roos told the congregation. “As I leave this lake la-la land, I think of Kamala Harris and the public discussion of her Blackness, or Evan Gershkovich, a spy or a Wall Street Journal reporter, and I think about what it takes to get freedom.”
He continued, “We put on a myriad of outer layers by ourselves, or they’re put on us by others, and we have to navigate a world that has opinions about us.”
Roos reiterated that he is not licensed or trained as a preacher of the Gospel. “Jesus was not a rabbi, he was just a teacher. My rabbinic training helps me read deeply in the Gospel, Shakespeare, Exodus or the Talmud.”
One of Roos’ learnings from his time as a New Clergy Fellow at Chautauqua in 2009 is that there is deep misunderstanding between Jews and Christians. Christians, he said, “preach that they are saved through Jesus and Jesus loves us. That is not my understanding of redemption. The differences in our styles of preaching are reflective of our different theologies.”
We tend to emphasize our commonality, that we all believe in the same God and “Jesus was a rabbi, which he wasn’t,” Roos told the congregation.
“Jesus is not my savior. It is a principle of Jewish belief that God will not take human form. I believe God is omnipotent but (taking human form) is not how God operates. In Christianity, that is a fundamental reality,” Roos said.
To have God in human form is attractive. It makes God most immanent, to have skin, bones, a body with odor, who feeds the hungry, walks on water and tells us to clean up our mess.
In Judaism is the shekinah, the divine presence that is more a feeling and not a human form.
Roos said that some people respond to the process of “drashing” to understand the text with anger and believe that is the wrong way to look at the text.
“How does my theology impact your life any more than my choice of socks? I understand and Jesus understood in John 6:14 that the people would try to make him king, and that is not what he wanted for himself,” Roos said.
Jesus knew he could not control the crowd and withdrew. “On one level, he was doing miracles, and I can’t relate to that,” Roos said. “He was showing himself being divine. What I can relate to is that he has to feed the people and manage his staff, but he is under duress and people are making a decision not of his choosing.”
He continued, “Jesus was not physically afraid of the crowd, although it reminds of the crowd in Sodom demanding that Lot hand over the visitors in his house. Jesus needed to find rest, and so it is not surprising that he goes up to the mountain.”
Roos reminded the congregation of Psalm 121:1 — “I lift up my eyes to the mountains; from where will my help come? My help comes from ADONAI, maker of heaven and earth.”
The Sabbath in Jewish tradition has always been a refuge, a “palace in time,” as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said. “It is a way to strengthen ourselves,” Roos said.
In Hasidic tradition, the Sabbath is like Noah’s Ark.
“We make an ark for ourselves on the Sabbath,” Roos said. “During the week we are occupied with making a living, but on the sabbath we have the space to rest, to take our rest in the shade of the divine presence.”
As the world was destroyed, Noah got new vitality because he had space to rest. This is what Jesus was doing — finding space to get rest. “We call this ‘shabbatting’ and we try not to translate it,” Roos said.
In Exodus 31: 17, the scripture reads “On the seventh day God rested, or God got refreshed.” Another way to say it is “God shabatted and got soul.”
Roos said, “In Jewish tradition, we get some extra soul. First we shabbat, rest and then the soul comes and gives us an extra dose of Shabbat. If we don’t rest, that soul withers on the vine, so to speak. It is irresponsible not to take Shabbat, because you don’t want to let the extra soul wither.”
The gift of Shabbat only came after the people were freed from Egypt. “It is only when we are free from the narrow place, as Egypt was called, are we free to receive Shabbat,” Roos said. “When was the last time you were free from the narrow place?”
One reason to take shabbat is that you get more soul, and more soul can tell you who you are. “We have a hard time getting through the veils, but our true self sits under all those veils. If you shabbat, you get soul,” Roos said.
Jesus was not afraid of the crowd, but he needed to recharge his soul. “That extra soul comes in handy,” Roos said. “The next thing Jesus did was walk on water.”
Roos described Jesus as having a one-man ark built for himself. “It is said that, more than Israel kept Shabbat, Shabbat kept the people, the zeitgeist, of Israel. Even if our theologies are different, we know we can ‘drash’ it. Even with a veil, we can reach out. First do shabbatting, take a breath, and think about what Jesus would do.”
Renee Andrews, an election supervisor in Falls Church, Virginia, presided. Arthur Salz, president of the Hebrew Congregation from 2013 to 2015, read the scripture in Hebrew and English. The prelude was “Adagio molto,” from Sonata No. 3, by Alexandre Guilmant, played by Owen Reyda, 2024 organ scholar, on the Massey Memorial Organ. The Motet Choir sang “O God of love, O king of peace,” by Alistair Coleman, a capella under the direction of Joshua Stafford, director of sacred music and the Jared Jacobsen Chair for the Organist. Stafford played “Toccata,” from Symphony No. 5, by Charles-Marie Widor, for the postlude on the Massey Organ. Support for this week’s services and chaplaincy was provided by the Harold F. Reed, Sr. Chaplaincy.
