I want to begin today by sharing with you something that I read in an article in New York magazine.  This article discusses, "New Age Jews"--people who practice a Judaism that unabashedly tries to attract Jews and non-Jews alike to the more spiritual side of Judaism.  Examples of this type of Judaism, according to this article, are Rabbi Shmueley Boteach--the Lubavitch Rabbi who has appeared on the Howard Stern morning show, and who brought Michael Jackson to the Carlebach schul.  Other examples are the recently opened Makor center on the West Side, and the more famous Kabbalah Center institution.  This international chain of Kabbalah Centers has 39 branches across the world, and is well known for its famous students, Roseanne and Madonna.  Some of the titles of classes at the Kabbalah center are "Millenium Mania," Weekly Energy Boost," and "Living the Light."

And, this New Age Judaism phenomenon is especially noteworthy precisely because these teachers of New Age Judaism are enormously successful at attracting students.  For example, Shmuley Boteach's book, Kosher sex has already sold over 200,000 copies!  Which is exactly why I want to discuss this phenomenon with everyone today.  All around us, we see people attracted to New Age "spirituality", and everyone is claiming that this is the central teaching of Judaism.  So it behooves all of us, who take our Judaism seriously to look closely at this new movement and to understand what exactly it has to offer us.
 Now there are some people in the Orthodox Jewish community who completely dismiss Shmuley Boteach.  However, when I look at Shmuley Boteach, there is a side of him that I find really attractive and engaging.  He is using creative and exciting educational methods in his quest to spread the message of Judaism.  And this is something I admire, because to a certain, much lesser extent, we do the same thing here.  We use alternative approaches to try and attract people to our religion who are turned off by the usual methods.  For example, under Rabbi Weiss' leadership, we  have developed an alternative Bar Mitzvah ceremony especially designed to be helpful to families that are less affiliated.  And to take another recent example, most schuls celebrate Purim by telling the story of Purim and celebrating inside the schul, we on the other hand, in order to bring out the message of Purim to the larger Jewish community decided to reenact the story of Purim, by riding a Horse down Riverdale Avenue.

So there is a side of Shmuely Boteach that I can identify with, but there is at the same time a side to him that I find very foreign.  And I want to explore that with you.

No matter what we do in this schul, (and we do a lot), it has a foundation.  We are standing on the solid ground of our entire tradition.  And based upon this foundation, we try to attract as many people as possible to our religion.  Yet, with Shmuly Boteach the feeling I get is that he is without this foundation.  He is floating in the air without a rudder.
 Allow me to flesh out my position, by sharing with you a teshuvah that might appear to be esoteric and irrelevant.  However, I maintain, that when the ramifications of this teshuvah are properly understood, their meaning is axiomatic to our faith, and extremely relevant.

There is a teshuvah, a responsum authored by Maimonides.  Maimonides, who lived in the 12th c., was asked the following question. There was a town in which the custom had always been for the congregation to stand when the Aseret Ha-Dibrot, the Ten Commandments, were read in schul.  Then a rabbi cam to town and he instructed the people to sit while the Ten Commandments were read.  So Maimonides was asked to rule on this matter.  And Maimonides concurred with the rabbi that it was not permitted to stand when the Ten Commandments were read.  And the reason was because then people would falsely assume that this portion of the torah was more important than other portions of the Torah--and people might even suggest that only the Ten Commandments were divine, and all the rest was written by Mosheh.  Consequently Maimonides ruled that one must sit during the reading of the Ten Commandments.

But come on, who really sits during the reading of the Aseret Ha-Dibrot!  I've been in many different schuls during this reading and I have yet to see any congregation that actually sits.  So I figured like everything else in Judaism this must be a rabbinic dispute, and so I searched high and low for a rabbi who argued with this ruling of Maimonides.  And for more than 750 years, there was to the best of my knowledge not one rabbi who published his disagreement with Maimonides on this matter.
 Nevertheless, despite Maimonides, the custom was established for people to stand, and this custom was given support only recently by the great Rabbi of blessed memory, Rabbi Mosheh Feinstein.  Rabbi Feinstein said you are permitted to stand for the Aseret Ha-Dibrot.  He explained himself as follows.  Surely Maimonides is wrong.  Because Maimonides thought people would think that the Aseret Ha-Dibrot is more important than the rest of the Torah, but to day we know that people won't make that mistake.  And the reason is because people today don't only stand for the Aseret Ha-Dibrot…they also stand for Az Yashir, the song which we read today--and that, unlike the aseret ha-dibrot, has never been taken to be the more important than the rest of the Torah.

So R. Moshe Feinstein rules that we are allowed to stand for the Aseret Ha-Dibrot, because we already are standing for Az Yashir.  But that of course, is a very difficult answer, since the obvious question is: Who says we we should be standing for Az Yashir in the first place?

And that is why I would like to suggest a support for the custom of people to stand during these two passages of the Torah.  The reason why I think the custom is to stand is because these two passages of the Torah represent the essence of Judaism…Each passage represents one of the two vital elements of our religion.  Let me explain.

The Aseret Ha-Dibrot is fundamentally a legalistic formulation--It represents the intellectual and rational approach to God.  And as such it represents Jewish theology and Jewish morality.

Lets look closely at the Aseret Ha-Dibrot.  We have within it the commandments, lo taaaseh lekhah pesel ve-kol temunah; and lo tisah et shem hashem elokekhah be-shav--don't make for yourself an image of God and don't take God's name in vain.  These commandments are placing limits on how can we express our thoughts about God.  Don't dare to try and artistically depict God!  The Torah prohibits it.  In fact many commentators understand the prohibition against taking God's name to mean that one is not even permitted to directly discuss God.  The Torah prohibits us to even mention God's name.  In short, the Aseret Ha-Dibrot is the Torah's attempt to curtail us from thinking freely and creatively about God.

Instead, what we are obligated to do is follow the strict laws of the Torah.  The other major part of the Aseret Ha-Dibrot, with the exception of Shabbat, is basically an expression of religious morality.  It basically forbids aggression against one's neighbor and commands us to respect the traditional roles of society.

So the Torah commands with the Aseret Ha-Dibrot to follow the laws and mores of society.  Don't break out creatively.  Don't experiment with society; and especially don't experiment with God.  Live your life by the rule of law within the strict boundaries of society.

Az Yashir, on the other hand is an entirely different approach to God and to the world.  Az Yashir is poetry…beauty…mysticism.  The Shirat Ha-Yam, the song the Jews sang after crossing the sea that God miraculously split, is an expression of Benei Yisrael's deep, deep faith in God.  It’s the verbal result of the people's first hand encounter with God's miracles.  This is what the Jewish people say, "Zeh Keli ve-Anvehu," This is my God and I will glorify Him.

And since Az Yashir represents a deep poetic, expression of love, like all love it can just barely be contained by the rules of society.  The Jewish people shout out, azi ve-zimrat yah, my strength and song is God.   The contrast is extraordinary.  The Aseret Ha-Dibrot teaches: don't directly discuss God.  Az Yashir declares, Hashem ish milchamah, hashem shemo, God is a man of war, His name is Hashem.  The Ten Commandments say, don't physically depict God.  Az Yashir retorts, Yeminkhah hashem ne-edari ba-Koach, Ye-Minkhah hashem tirats o-yev, Your Right hand is awesome in power, your right hand, O God, crushes the foe.

So the Ten Commandments represents the strict legal and theological definitions of Judaism.  Az Yashir, on the other hand represents the Jew as an artist, the Jew who's love of God can not be contained, the Jew who throws strict legalisms and theology to the wind and pours out his deep love of God.

And that is why, I believe, the Jewish people as a whole, in opposition to Maimonides, instinctively realized that the proper thing to do was to stand for these two readings of the Torah.  Because the Jewish people realized that these two paragraphs represent the essence of what it means to be a good Jew--to have a fundamental commitment to God's law and theology and also to proudly and creatively express one's yearning and loving appreciation to God.

And this brings us back to New Age Jews and New Age Judaism.  People should absolutely be encouraged to seek out God, and even to describe God, in new and creative ways.  Our religion is not stagnant--and what was appealing and helpful to the Jews of yesteryear, might simply not work for us today.  And we should all acknowledge that the movement within Judaism of finding new ways of connecting to God is a positive development that should grow and flourish.  It is in fact, not New Age, it is actually a descendanat of the Az Yashir element of the Torah.

However, at the same time, let us all remember the Ten Commandments, and what they teach us.  Namely that Judaism does place limits on theological creativity, that there are limits to law and morality, and that we do not live only through expressions of creativity, but also through the rule of law.

So getting back to Shmuly Boteach…He is creative, attractive, and passionate.  But the mistake that he is making is very disturbing--and what's disturbing is unfortunately threatening all the good.  Our Torah is based on the two pillars of the Aseret Ha-Dibrot and the Az Yashir…Unfortunately, Shmuley Boteach is only singing the Az Yashir.