Clergy Posts

Picture a tombstone. In large letters is the name “John D. Doe.” The inscription reads: “The follwing people still owe me an apology.” Then there are four columns of names.

That was a man who knew how to hold a grudge. We laugh because this cartoon mocks something we’ve all had to deal with from both sides: grudges.

But in the real world, grudges are not funny. Certainly the Torah is not amused. Leviticus 19:18 states: Lo tikom v’lo titor et b’nei amekha; v’ahavta l’rei·akha kmokha. Ani Adonai. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your countryman. Love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

The Sifra, the earliest midrash on Leviticus, explains the difference between vengeance and bearing a grudge. “If A. says to B. ‘Lend me your sickle’, and he refuses, and on the next day B. says to A. ‘Lend me your hatchet’, and he replies, ‘I will not lend it to you, just as you refused to lend me your sickle.’ [That is vengeance] If A. says to B. ‘Lend me your sickle,’ and he refuses, and on the next day B. says to A. ‘Lend me your hatchet,’ and he replies ‘Here it is; I am not like you, who would not lend me your sickle,’ [that is bearing a grudge].

People haven’t changed, have they? Our Rabbis understood how grudges lead to sharp words, conflict, estrangement and misery—and sometimes to revenge.

Grudges satisfy something low in our natures. They let us feel superior to the other; to claim the moral high ground. “I am not like you.” Grudges often start with real injuries. Some one harms us or hurts our feelings. That’s genuine. The question is, is holding a grudge really the best response?

The language we use hints at the problem. We carry a grudge. We bear a grudge. We hold a grudge. It’s part of our baggage. Sometimes we even nurse a grudge. We sustain it and keep it going.

But what do we really gain? All the literature on grudges agrees. The person who carries the grudge hurts himself much more than the object of the grudge.

In my early years as a Rabbi, I officiated at a wedding. The bride told me that her parents had gone through a bitter divorce when she was a child. Many years later, though both had remarried, the mother was still filled with rage at her ex. The bride came to me for advice, because she wanted her father and mother to walk her down the aisle, in the traditional Jewish way.

In such cases, I strive for shalom. Here are your options: if your mother won’t be close to your father, you can have one parent walk you half-way down, and the other the rest of the way, or each parent with their new spouses walk you half-way, or one parent walk you in, and then you go back and the other walks you in, or any other reasonable compromise.

The mother rejected all alternatives, plus she didn’t want the father to walk with the bride by himself. Her position was, “I won’t be in the same room with that man.” Finally, the bride said to her, “I really want you to be there. Please choose one of the arrangements, or don’t come.” The mother chose not to be at the wedding.

Now whom exactly did the mother hurt? Her daughter of course, but by that point the bride was also relieved. She wouldn’t have to worry about a screaming match breaking out at her wedding. The mother hurt herself the most, missing her only daughter’s wedding.

This leads me to three useful images about the toxic effects of holding a grudge.

Rabbi Abraham Twerski, is a psychiatrist who works with addicts. One patient told him, “Carrying resentments is like letting someone whom you don’t like live inside your head rent-free.’”[1]

The second, source unknown, is, “Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

The third comes from our great sage Rabbi Harold Kushner. “I knew a woman who had been mistreated by her husband and who, ten years after her divorce, could still not surrender her rage. I counseled, ‘For ten years you have been walking around with a hot poker in your hand, ready to throw it at your ex-husband. But you’ve never had the chance. All you’ve done is burn your hand.’

Obviously, some injuries are very great, and don’t yield easily to remedy, but most of our grudges are about small slights and grievances, injured pride and insults, the bumps and scrapes of human interaction. And yet we grant residency in our head, drink the poison, and grasp the red-hot poker just the same.

I started thinking about this subject when I heard reports that at congregational meetings about the financial situation, and also from annual campaign calls, some people said things like, “I haven’t given in ten years, or I don’t come anymore, because so-and-so did such-and-such a thing.” Sometimes I was the so-and-so. And there’s no statute of limitations on grudges. I’ve run into people who are still angry about something that happened thirty years ago.

On the one hand, I’m grateful that these people keep up their membership. That shows real loyalty. On the other hand, it makes me feel sad. These grudges are standing between someone and a greater sense of community, or between them and a deeper spiritual life. Usually, we don’t even know that the person has this grievance, and when we become aware, we do try to do something about it. If I have hurt or offended you through omission or commission, please give me a chance to make it right. Just let me know. I will come to you and we will talk it out. It won’t be the first time I’ve done this.

I’ve also met people who harbor a grudge against Judaism in general because of some long-ago incident—somewhere else. So I am also ready to apologize on behalf of Judaism for hurt done to you by your Rabbi or your Hebrew school teacher or whomever. Why allow one person to ruin your Jewish life? Let it go.

The Torah bundles good advice with the grudge prohibition. Right before it, we are told, You shall not hate your kinsfolk in your heart.  Reprove your kinsman but bear no guilt because of him. If someone hurts you or your feelings, go talk to them.

There is an art to this. Our rabbis tell us that we must speak them in private, without publicly embarrassing them. And we must not do it in anger. Screaming and hurling curses is both bad and ineffective reproof. The best method is tio use “I” statements. “I was really hurt that you didn’t call when I was in the hospital.” Not, “You are an inconsiderate jerk!”

Most of the time, such a conversation will lead to an apology. And then, you are supposed to forgive. What if they don’t apologize, or they deny their guilt? They still owe you an apology, but nevertheless for your own good you should let go of the grudge.

If for no other reason, do it for your health. A significant body of research indicates, in the words of one researcher, Professor Kathleen Lawler, that “People who have been able to forgive show clear health benefits. Whether we’re looking at heart rate and blood pressure or whether we’re looking at the number of medicines someone is on, their quality of sleep or the number of physical symptoms they report. Almost every way I’ve thought to measure it, people who have been able to think forgivingly show health benefits.”[2]

Emuna Braverman, who writes for Aish.com, gives some good advice for purging the grudge poison from our system. She wrote specifically about marriages, but her ideas work for other relationships, too.

1. Always be the first to apologize. Don’t brood, don’t be resentful, don’t be a martyr — and don’t worry about who is right. Just say “I’m sorry” (the author of Love Story has a lot of unhappy marriages to answer for).

This advice highlights the role that our egos play in holding grudges.

1. “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” Most things are not even worth noticing, let alone fighting over. Keep your eyes on the big picture, on the end goal. There will be some issues that require further “conversation” but choose your battles carefully.

A good way to address this is to ask a trusted friend to look at your issue with the other person. They are likely to say that you are blowing it out of proportion.

1. Focus on the credit in the bank. All the acts of kindness and caring from your spouse [or friend] over the … years are not wiped out by one (or two) acts of thoughtlessness. In comparison, these blips on the radar screen are not worth of our notice.

This is such an important point. Anger narrows our vision so that we can only see the thing that provoked us. Zooming back to the big picture gives us the perspective we need to calm down and let our anger go, instead of yielding to it.

1. Accept your spouse’s (or friend’s) limitations. As you hope he or she will accept yours. We often spend a lot of time focused on what’s missing in others and not enough time on the deficiencies we can do something about — our own.

This reminds me of one of my favorite jokes. A woman comes into the kosher butcher and says, “I want a very fresh chicken.” The butcher says, “I have just the thing,” and hands her a chicken. She lifts up one wing and sniffs under it, lifts up the other, and gives a sniff, and then lifts up the tail and does the same. “That is not a fresh chicken! I want a really fresh chicken!” So he takes out another chicken, and she does the same thing: sniffs under each wing and the backside, too. After the third chicken fails , the butcher looks at her and asks, “Madam, could you pass this test?”

Every time you find yourself getting angry with someone for some offense, and want to hold on to that anger, stop and ask, “Could I pass this test?” We are all flawed human beings, so let’s be patient with each other’s failings.

1. Be introspective and judge favorably. Many of our grudges result from oversensitivity. They’re not ignoring us; they’re preoccupied with their own concerns.

This is one of the great rules for life, based on Pirkei Avot: Hevei dan et kol ha-adam l’khaf z’khut—Judge everyone favorably.”[3]

One of Nahman of Bratzlav’s most famous teachings is called “Azamra!”[4] As summarized on the Breslov web site, “The gist of the lesson is that one must look favorably at everybody, including — perhaps especially — himself. Finding good in ourselves and in others makes ‘music;’ it brings one to joy and happiness, dispelling depression and lethargy. Then one can sing and praise God and pray to Him.”[5]

1. Don’t take it personally. Most people’s behavior is a reflection of who they are and consistent with that. If you experience someone as cold, that’s probably how they seem to everyone they meet. It’s not about you, so you can let it go.

Once again we see the role our egos play in anger and forming grudges. Amazingly enough, it’s not always about you.

There is so much wisdom here, including her conclusion, “Bearing a grudge destroys all relationships and ultimately the bearer himself. It is not only a mitzvah but it is in our self-interest to let it go and move on. Let’s pray that the Almighty gives us the strength and perspective to do so.”

The Yom Kippur liturgy gives us tools to get us on our way, to help us let go of the red-hot poker. One is from the very beginning of the Kol Nidre service, “I hereby forgive all who have hurt me, all who have done me wrong, whether deliberately or by accident, whether by word or by deed. May no one be punished on my account.” This pledge stands as a gatekeeper at the entrance to the Day of Atonement, asking us to forgive, which includes letting go of our grudges.

Perhaps this is related to what the Talmud says, “One who overcomes his natural tendencies to hold a grudge and instead forgives; all his sins are in turn forgiven!”[6]

Our Rabbis acknowledged that it is natural to hold a grudge and nurse a grievance—but in order to do teshuvah you must overcome natural tendencies. When we do so, we reach a higher plane. We are worthy of forgiveness.

So it’s no surprise that both major confessions address holding grudges. In the Ashamnu, the word ni·atznu, “we have been scornful,” is understood to mean, “We have born grudges and fostered hatred in our heart.”[7]

In the Al Het, “Al het she-hatanu l’fanekha b’sinat hinam,” “For the sin we sinned against You with causeless hatred,” includes bearing grudges.

I propose a project for us all. Let’s look into our hearts and search out the poison we’re carrying. What slights and offenses are we clutching to ourselves? Dr. Brenda Shoshanna, in her book The Anger Diet, presents a method: “Make a list of people you hold grudges against. Write down what each person did to you and how long you’ve held the grudges. Then write down one thing you liked about each person you have a grudge against. Go over the reasons you developed the grudges and write down one time you behaved that way and what your reason was. Ask yourself what you need to let go of the grudge. Let go of one grudge a day.”

And if that grudge has hurt a relationship, seek out the person and try for reconciliation. In my experience, when two people finally talk to each other—with I statements—the grudge holder and the grudge target both feel a great sense of relief. It’s good to evict the negative avatar from our heads, to neutralize the poison, to release the hot poker.

My friend Rabbi Jack Riemer tells about a friend of his whom he admired for his even temper. He never reacted to pressure, or criticism. At contentious meetings, he never raised his voice and kept things calm. “He may fight—but the day the fight is over—it’s over.” So Rabbi Riemer asked him, how do you do it? And the man told him his story:

I wasn’t always like that. But I had an experience some years ago, which taught me a lesson. And ever since that incident, I have been able to keep my cool, and control my temper.

Rabbi Riemer tells that many years ago, this man was cheated by a business partner, and he was justifiably angry.

My friend lived in New Jersey, and worked in New York. And so every day, five days a week, for many years, he drove to and from work on the New Jersey Turnpike. And every time he did, he had to pass exit 9, the New Brunswick exit, which was the exit where the man who had cheated him lived. Every time he passed that exit, he would think of this man, and of what this man had done to him, and he would explode with anger. He would let out a string of profanity. He would say: I hope that that no good so-and-so gets what he deserves for what he did to me. And he would rant and rave until his face got red. And he would slam his fist into the driver’s wheel…

It got to the point where his wife began to worry about his health, because she could see how agitated he was. She could see his nostrils flare with anger. And so she worried about his blood pressure. She was afraid that he was going to have a heart attack or a stroke right there on the Turnpike. But there was nothing she could do about it, nothing that would stop him from ranting and raving every time he passed exit 9 on the New Jersey Turnpike, and thought about the man who had done him so much harm.

And then, one day, my friend happened to meet somebody who knew this man who had done him wrong. And so he asked him: Do you remember so-and-so? Do you happen to know whatever became of him? Do you know what that no good so-and-so is doing now? And the man said: Sure I remember him. He died about fifteen years ago.

Rabbi Riemer’s friend learned at that moment that holding grudges is futile and self-punishing; that we need a statute of limitations for rage. And we can learn from him to look closely at what we are carrying around, and seek to lighten our grudge burden in the coming year. Let it go, let it go, let it go. Seek reconciliation and forgiveness, and you will lift your spirits and improve your health—physical, emotional, and spiritual.

So my prayer for us all is: may we in the coming days and months be able to evict an offender from our brains, purge the poison from our souls, and let go of the red hot grudge poker, And by doing so, may we find peace, reconciliation, serenity, and joy. Amen.

¹Joseph Telushkin, Code of Jewish Ethics Volume 2: Love your Neighbor as Yourself.

²As quoted in www.salon.com/env/feature/2009/08/17/vick.

³Avot 1:8

⁴Likutey Moharan I, 282

⁵http://www.breslov.org/land/land_56.pdf

⁶Rosh Hashana, 17a

⁷From Rabbi Hayyim Yosef David Azulai’s elaboration of the Ashamnu.

The Empire’s legions methodically secured the country against the rebellion—grim, implacable, confident. Inside the walls of the capital, five separate factions battled. Rebel elements overthrew the traditional leadership of the city, pillaging and killing. Then they turned against each other, Balkanizing the city. As the conqueror’s noose tightened around the city walls, those who tried to flee were killed by their countrymen. Hunger mounted, because rival factions had burned stores of grain in the course of their battles. As the siege worsened, rebels tortured the wealthy to reveal their hidden food supplies. The conquerors understood that the battling factions were doing their work for them, so they took their time, pacifying the rest of the country. Finally, starving, divided Jerusalem fell, the Temple was destroyed, and 2000 years of Exile began.

That’s a part of our history we seldom tell: that the Jewish people were divided over whether to revolt, and that ideological conflicts and factional hatred left them weakened and fractured.

The Rabbis drew a sharp lesson from the self-destructive factionalism that doomed the Second Commonwealth. We learn from Yoma 9b: “Why was the First Temple destroyed? Because of three evil things that prevailed there: idolatry, immorality, and bloodshed…. But, why was the Second Temple destroyed, seeing that in its time the people were engaged in the study of Torah, the practice of mitzvot and acts of benevolence? Because during the time it stood sinat hinam— causeless hatred prevailed. This teaches that sinat hinam is equal in gravity to the three sins of idolatry, immorality, and bloodshed together.”

Sinat hinam can refer to many human failings. In the case of the fall of Jerusalem, it was uncompromising factionalism and internal conflict—each group convinced that it alone held the truth, and that the others were traitors. That doomed the Jewish people to destruction. This frightens me as I look out at a landscape of division and rancor within the Jewish people. Differences of opinion over Israel and Middle East politics are not the threat. It is the lack of civil discourse. It is the demonizing of the other.

I can’t tell you how many people have said to me, “I have some friends that I just can’t talk with about Israel. If I express criticism about something Israel did, they tell me I’m a self-hating Jew.” Or they say, “If I back some military action by Israel, someone will attack me, ‘How can you support Israel’s disproportionate attack?’” In Israel, too, the temperature is very high, and factionalism abounds.

I recently heard Rabbi Donniel Hartman of the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem speak on this topic. I hope that everyone will take to heart something that he said, “I assume, because I live in Israel, that love and loyalty are not the same as agreeing. You do a great disservice to Israel (or any relationship) to assume that love equals agreement.…You probably can’t be a lover of Israel and not disagree. If you always agree with someone, you’re probably not really in a relationship with them!”

He also reminded us that whenever you say anything about a particular policy or action by Israel, whether criticism or support, you are disagreeing with half of Israeli society.

The danger of being quick to attack someone as anti-Israel, of assuming that only those who agree with you really love Israel, that unless everyone agrees with you Israel is doomed, is that you force people out of engagement. Let’s take the hot issue of settlements. If I say to someone who supports a settlement freeze, “You don’t really love Israel, you’re a self-hating Jew,” or if I say to someone who opposes a settlement freeze, “You don’t really love Israel, you’re an enemy of peace,” what have I accomplished? I’ve closed off discussion of a complicated and fraught issue, and I’ve essentially banished that person from the discussion. To attack someone’s character, or loyalty, rather than engage with their ideas, is an ad hominem argument. If you look up that term, you will find that it is a logical fallacy!

But what if I say, “We both love Israel. Let’s try to understand where we differ, even if we don’t end up resolving the issue. And then let’s talk about other issues facing Israel. Maybe we can find common ground.”

Israel faces many challenges, both internal and external. Israel is ringed by enemies, funded by a triumphalist Iran that is reaching for the nuclear button. Our hopes for peace have been dashed repeatedly, most recently by the violent and self-defeating response of the Palestinians to Israel’s painful withdrawal from Gaza. There is an international campaign to delegitimize Israel. Israel’s governance has become increasingly dysfunctional, to the point that basic needs, like education and water provision, are failing. Every year brings a new story of political corruption. None of these problems can be addressed through flame wars. Vitriol and name-calling are inimical to dialogue and problem-solving.

I have learned a useful way to look at some of the differences among us. This comes from work that Eryn Kalish has done within synagogue communities on fostering civil dialogue about Israel. She discerns three subcultures in tension: Guardians, Modernists, and Prophets. Guardians’ main concern is the safety and security of the Jewish people and Israel. Modernists are rational and pragmatic, caring about Israel and its role in the world, as well as its importance to the Jewish people. For example, I believe that a Modernist would favor a two-state solution not because of humanitarian concerns, but out of demographic concerns and the implications for Israel’s identity as a Jewish state. Prophets focus on resistance to injustice and on inclusiveness. All three groups love Israel, but look at its challenges in very different ways.

She also points out some inherent weaknesses in each position. Guardians can over-do concerns for their own group, and be seen by the prophets as lacking empathy for “the other.” Modernists can disrespect the religious impulse that motivates many in their connection to Israel, alienating the guardians, and seem too “realpolitik” oriented to the prophets. Prophets can yield to moral equivalence arguments, missing important differences between Israel and its adversaries, alienating both guardians and modernists, who see them as naïve and self-negating.

It’s important to realize that many of us carry around in our heads more than one of these views in tension. Also, all of these are positions of those who love and support Israel. There are clear boundaries for legitimate discussion. There are some Jews who call Israel an apartheid state or colonialist, who support boycotts and divestment. This is another way of saying that Israel is illegitimate and should not exist. And on the right, the small minority of religious nationalists in Israel who say things like “the state does not exist for me,” putting their understanding of God’s law above that of the government, have also crossed the line. As Hartman puts it, they have left the room.

Within the circle of those who love Israel, Kalish says, we are challenged “to listen to all of the views, make moral distinctions about what aspects of each view will serve life, to critique each view appropriately while maintaining respect for the people who hold that view.”

Each view holds a part of the truth. Israel’s security is at risk in a dangerous world. Israel is a country that behaves in the world like other countries and has to make pragmatic political decisions. Yes, we do have idealistic, prophetic expectations and dreams for Israel We do hold it to a high standard.

One more word about dialogue: it has to be face-to-face, and definitely not by e-mail. E-mail is the enemy of serious dialogue. It magnifies disagreements and raises the temperature. So if I say something today that you don’t like, don’t send me an angry e-mail. I will delete it. But if you call me, and say, “I really disagree with something you said, can we talk about it—I will be happy to do so.”

There is too much at stake for dialogue not to happen. Daniel Gordis, in his important new book Saving Israel, reminds us that Israel represents far more than the elemental raison d’etre of providing a safe haven for Jews. He found an amazing quote from Jean Jacques Rousseau in 1762: “I shall never believe I have heard the arguments of the Jews until they have a free state. Only then will we know what they have to say.”[1]

Having a Jewish state means that Jewish ideas and ideals are tested in unique ways that can’t happen in Diaspora. Gordis cites a moving example: In 2004, two bombs in the Gaza strip destroyed two military vehicles. Munitions in the vehicles blew up, scattering bits of flesh. Gordis writes:

…Israel was thrust into an agonizing debate. How could Israeli commanders reasonably endanger more troops by having them go … and, on their hands and knees, sift through the sand and the rocks seeking something to bring home so that the parents of the dead soldiers would have something to bury? On the one hand, the desire to have a burial was deep, and thoroughly understandable. Giving those soldiers some form of a burial reflected a deeply held Jewish value.…Given this pervasive Jewish attitude to burial, how could Israel choose not to do everything conceivable or possible to bring something back? But that value conflicted with another Jewish value, the desire to protect life at all cost, and to reduce risk to human life to an absolute minimum. What should Israel do here? Send more soldiers in, only to have them risk their lives with Palestinian snipers still in the area? Or tell the parents that sadly, nothing could be done?[2]

Ultimately, soldiers were sent in to recover pieces of the bodies, and no one else was hurt. This discussion, which was carried out not only by officials but also in the media, could only happen in a Jewish state. As Gordis says, this is “the great triumph of Jewish statehood: Jews, making Jewish decisions, with reference to the complexity and even internal contradictions in the Jewish people.”

He writes that this agonizing decision, involving Jewish law and values, military strategy, and human suffering, “offered us a glimpse of what the Jewish return to history could mean.”[3]

I love telling stories about the refined sensitivities of the Mussar teachers, but let’s be honest. It is relatively easy to live at a high level in a yeshiva or even in the shtetl market compared with the complexities of running a country, especially a country at war. That’s why these discussions are so vital.

There’s something else in the balance when we consider Israel’s security, identity, and values: it has become central to world Jewry. Gordis challenges us to consider the impact if Israel, God forbid, were to be destroyed. He suggests that

It is highly likely that the American Judaism that remained a generation or two after that loss would be but a faint reflection of what American Jews have created and now enjoy…At stake in Israel’s survival, then, is the Jewish belief in the possibility of the future…Could the Jewish people survive without the anchor that Israel represents? There’s almost no chance.[4]

This blunt statement challenged me. I didn’t want to accept it. But as I thought about it, I realized that the thought of losing Israel was just devastating. It is true that many of us have had our Jewish commitments strengthened by the experience of being in a Jewish country. It’s true that Israel’s victories strengthened the identity and pride of Jews the world over. The loss of Israel would be a terrible blow, not to mention the fact that so many of us have family and friends there. The stakes are high, and none of Israel’s problems will be addressed by venomous contests over who loves Israel more or who is more loyal.

I began with the chastening reminder that the last Jewish commonwealth ended because of sinat hinam, causeless hatred and bitter factionalism.  Rabbi Yitzchak Blau of Yeshivat Hamivtar points out that the Talmud also says, “The [First Temple era’s] sin was revealed and the end of their exile was also revealed. The [Second Temple era’s] sin was not revealed and the end of their exile was also not revealed.”

What was hidden about sinat hinam? He quotes Talmud commentator Ben Yehoyada, “who suggests that people were up front about their enmity but did not treat it as a serious crime. What was hidden was the understanding of sinat hinam as a major transgression. People understand that murder and adultery are seriously wrong but often make light of a little communal discord.”

Communal discord isn’t trivial. It doomed the Jewish people two thousand years ago, and has plagued many communities and congregations since. Joking about two Jews, three opinions doesn’t help us.

Rabbi Blau then shares a penetrating insight from R. Moshe Feinstein. “The hatred was clear to all but not the groundless quality of that hatred. Both sides of a conflict tend to think their dislike of the other to be fully justified. No one repents from sinat hinam because no one thinks that their sinah is truly hinam.”[5]

We justify our position and we demonize the other. We are the true patriots and the others are naïve, or parochial, or cold-blooded, or fanatical, whatever we have to say to justify our own righteousness and ignore their piece of the picture. There is an unbearable irony about this. Israel was supposed to be, and was for a time, a unifying force for the Jewish people. It was easy after the Six-Day war. We stood as one, because the near-death experience made it clear how precious Israel was to us. Israel is still at risk, and facing many problems and issues. We can only address them if Jews in Israel and here learn how to talk to one another.

In his poem ‘The Jews’, the poet Yehuda Amichai addresses a beautiful woman whose grandfather performed Amichai’s circumcision long before she was born: “You don’t know me and I don’t know you but we are the Jewish People, your dead grandfather and I the circumcised and you the beautiful granddaughter with golden hair: We are the Jewish People.”

We are the Jewish people, American and Israeli, religious and secular, left and right, Guardians, Modernists and Prophets. We have been given a great gift and a great responsibility. We dare not shirk it. We dare not let angry rhetoric obscure our common love for Israel. We all know the motto “Masada shall not fall again.” We must place alongside it, “Sinat hinam shall not destroy us again.”

There is an often-told story about Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, who was the Chief Rabbi of Mandatory Palestine. As Rabbi Simha Kling tells it :

Once, …of Rabbi Kook’s pious followers asked him how he could befriend the irreligious [halutzim, the] pioneers. “The Torah tells us to love your neighbors as yourselves,” the man continued. “I interpret the word kamokha, ‘as yourself,’ to mean one who is like you — pious, and scholarly. But if he scorns religion and does not practice it, you are not obligated to love him.” Rabbi Kook replied: “I cannot accept your interpretation to love my neighbor only if he is like me. The true meaning is; ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’. But if I love someone who is not like myself, then my love is ahavat hinam, a love without reservation, without cause. The Temple, we are told was destroyed because of sinat hinam, causeless hatred. Due to sinat hinam we were exiled. However, with ahavat hinam we may be worthy of redemption. For this reason we should love the halutzim, and all the people, even though they do not share our views. Only when we come to love our neighbor without reservation, shall we bring about the redemption of Israel and all mankind.”[6]

During these Days of Repentance, let us search our hearts for reservoirs of ahavat hinam. Let us look for common ground with our fellow Jews and lovers of Israel, even when we differ in ideology or outlook. And let us talk about our differences with civility and mutual respect. There is too much at stake — there are real threats to the Israel we love.

The oldest inscription in Jerusalem is the one found at Hezekiah’s tunnel south of the Temple Mount. It is now in the Museum of the Ancient Orient in Istanbul. It dates back to the seventh century BCE.

And this is the way that the tunnel was cut through: Each man toward his fellow, and while there were still three cubits to be cut through, there was heard the sound of a man calling to his fellow, and there was an overlap in the rock on the right and on the left. And when the tunnel was driven through, the quarrymen hewed the rock, each man toward his fellow, axe against axe, and the water flowed from the spring toward the reservoir …[7]

We who love Israel must cut through the rock from our separate tunnels, because Israel needs us, all of us. We must carve our way through angry rhetoric and ideological posturing to true dialogue. We must call out to each other with words of reason and concern, seeking common ground. May this be a year of peace and blessing for the State of Israel and all Jews everywhere, and may each of us contribute to that peace through our words and deeds. Amen.

¹Saving Israel, p. 44, quoting Emile.

²Ibid., p. 46.

³Ibid., p. 47.

⁴Ibid., p. 30.

⁵http://www.yhol.org.il/features/aggadot/aggadot15.htm

⁶The People and Its Land, By Simha Kling, p.89.

⁷Thank you to Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin for this text.

Let me show you something. (Hold up round challah.) We all know that we bake round challahs for the High Holy Days, but why? It symbolizes the circle of the year. We have come around again to the first of Tishrei. But think about it: is that what we want—to have come full circle unchanged? And even if we wanted stasis, is it possible? We are not the same people we were last year. We’ve known joy and sorrow, we’ve learned some things and forgotten others. That is the way of the world.

The Days of Awe teach us that there’s a moral component to the cycle. It’s our job to turn the circle into a spiral: we may come back to the same date on the time axis, but we strive to rise higher as Jews and human beings on the moral axis. And look at this challah. It is actually not a circle but a spiral, embodying this idea.

The Days of Awe are not isolated in this goal. They are of a piece with Judaism as a whole, because the symbols, practices and laws serve throughout the year to bring us, as the High Holy Day kaddish says, l’eila l’eila, higher and higher.

We’re not used to thinking of the mitzvot and customs this way. We take them for granted. They just are. So I’d like to explore how Judaism is a system for personal and spiritual growth. I found a useful text about this when we read Parshat B’ha·a lot’kha last June, so I ask forgiveness from those of you who were present then as I develop those ideas further.

The Torah text doesn’t seem that promising. It’s part of the description of the Israelites’ wanderings through the wilderness, guided by God’s presence in the form of the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. The Torah says, And whenever the cloud lifted from the Tent, the Israelites would set out accordingly; and at the spot where the cloud settled, there the Israelites would make camp. At a command of the LORD the Israelites broke camp, and at a command of the LORD they made camp: they remained encamped as long as the cloud stayed over the Tabernacle. When the cloud lingered over the Tabernacle many days, the Israelites observed the LORD’s mandate and did not journey on. (Num 9:19)

At first glance, this seems to be little more than a travelogue, but look closer. We know that God was the Israelites’ GPS through the wilderness, but the great commentator Nachmanides helps us see how frustrating this must have been. They never knew how long they would stay. Sometimes the chosen site was uncomfortable. Packing and unpacking the whole people on an uncertain schedule was arduous. Yet they were compelled to follow the cloud “Whether it was two days or a month or a year and they journeyed at night.”

Anyone who’s ever been stuck in an airport listening to contradictory announcements about their flight’s departure can relate to the Israelites’ frustration at their start and stop wanderings. So Nachmanides wants us to know that God was not being arbitrary. God had reasons.

Rabbi Yaakov Baifus in his fine book Yalkut Lekah Tov makes this clearer. He quotes from the great Mussar teacher Rabbi Eliahu Dessler. He teaches that God’s strange behavior, though it seems to be mistreating the Israelites

…was for the sake of education in accepting the yoke of the Torah. We’ve long known that one who thinks to dwell in quiet and contentment and all comfort, and then serve God—makes a great mistake. Receiving the Torah is achieved by becoming accustomed to carrying a heavy burden under difficult conditions.[1]

God’s plan was to transition them to a different kind of authority from what they’d known as slaves, that of Torah and mitzvot, of Divine commandments. When you are motivated by an external force, you don’t need discipline. But once the Torah is given to Israel, and they are told that they must learn it and follow it, they must find the inner resources to “walk in God’s ways.”

One of my favorite sayings is “the Torah was only given in order to purify the heart.” But the Torah isn’t magic—it’s a method. In their book Judaism: The Way of Sanctification, Rabbis Samuel Dresner and Byron Sherwin compare it to the Olympics. We admire the athletes’ remarkable displays of skill at the upper end of human accomplishment, and we know that they are achieved

through a rigid schedule of training, a training which almost imperceptibly tunes muscles, heightens coordination and lengthens endurance, until one’s latent physical powers are nurtured to their fullest. Such is the nature of discipline… [The same is true for the musician.] No artist performs without exacting and exhausting practice…Skill—be it physical, artistic or intellectual—requires discipline.

And they conclude:

What is so easily understood in regard to physical, musical or intellectual skill is, unfortunately, rarely applied to a far more important part of life—morality. What preparation, practice or discipline is provided for moral living? Any unprepared sloppiness goes. It is here that Judaism has something crucial to say. It has long understood that the human condition requires, above all, moral training. It urges upon us a rigid schedule of discipline through the mitzvot, from birth to death and across every day of the year, in the knowledge that man’s spiritual potential must be treated like his physical and aesthetic potential…So it sets down a strict regimen for each Jew, matching physical acts with spiritual concerns, until the spirit in man grows strong and prevails.[2]

In other words, the Torah is like Mr. Miyagi. Stay with me here. As you no doubt remember from the movie The Karate Kid, Daniel wants Mr. Miyagi to teach him to fight. He is frustrated when Miyagi begins his training by having him perform monotonous labors such as waxing cars, sanding a wood floor, and painting a fence. Each chore is accompanied with a specific movement, such as clockwise/counter-clockwise hand motions, “Wax on, wax off.” Eventually, Daniel becomes upset, believing that he has learned nothing of karate, whereupon Mr. Miyagi reveals that Daniel has actually been learning defensive blocks. The repetitive chores have built muscle memory. Mitzvot work to give us spiritual and ethical “muscle memory.” In addition, Daniel was learning discipline, and the mitzvot teach us that as well.

There was an article in the New York Times last year about research on the relationship between religion and self-control. One of the researchers, Dr. Michael McCullough, told the reporter, “Brain-scan studies have shown that when people pray or meditate, there’s a lot of activity in two parts of the brain that are important for self-regulation and control of attention and emotion. The rituals that religions have been encouraging for thousands of years seem to be a kind of anaerobic workout for self-control.”

Some of this discipline works just by learning to be constant in performance. But it is also the case that ritual and ethical commandments are connected; they can reinforce each other.  A few examples:

Shabbat teaches us that there is more to life than work, that we are more than our jobs, and gives us time for rest, thought, meditation and prayer. It connects us with others, both through communal worship, and the ingrained practice of hospitality at Shabbat meals. There are people here who could tell you how observing Shabbat has transformed and enriched their lives. In this valley of heroic overwork, they have found peace, regeneration, and connection.

Regular worship gives us quiet time within our daily routine of bustle and work. It focuses our attention outside of ourselves, and no matter our theological certainty or confusion, it brings God’s name to our lips.

The Purim mitzvot of Mishloah Manot, giving food to friends and acquaintances, and Mattanot La-evyonim, gifts to the poor, train us to share our joy, and teach that there should never be celebration without giving. These deeds train us to maintain relationships and strengthen community.

The mitzvah of tzedakah has us open our hands, which have a natural tendency to clench shut around our money. It guides us to view our wealth as a responsibility, and to live a generous life. It helps us form habits of the heart.

When performed mindfully, every mitzvah has its meaning and its role in refining our hearts and elevating our souls.

I know that Rabbi Baifuss’s challenging statement that “Receiving the Torah is given by becoming accustomed to carry a heavy burden under difficult conditions,” is not a great sales pitch, but it gets at an essential truth. Unless you are prepared to do a mitzvah even when it is burdensome and inopportune—you haven’t really accepted the obligation of the commandment.  Just as the athlete knows that she must train, even when not in the mood, the practicing Jew follows the mitzvot, even when it is with a sigh.

And when we follow the regimen, we reach higher levels. This should come as no surprise. When I trained for a hundred mile bicycle ride, I had to ride and ride and ride so that on that day I could know the exhilaration of exceeding myself. If you are a musician, you play and play and play, so that you can reach that moment of flow when you and the music are one. Likewise, you work and you work and you work on your mitzvot, and then one day God’s presence enters your life with holiness and joy. This can happen with ritual and with ethical commandments.

We know the Israelites —I’m sure that they complained whenever God commanded them to move or stop, but they did it anyway—and thus they learned how to be a holy people. So too for us, the sacred discipline of spiritual growth can chafe, but ultimately, the rewards are great, and really, there are no shortcuts. In this way, Judaism is of a piece with everything we know about life.

You may have heard about Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers. It’s an investigation of success. He tells about research that indicates that the difference between someone who is good and someone who is great is 10,000 hours of practice. I joke that it’s simple to get your child to say “please” and “Thank you.” All you have to do was remind them 10,000 times. It turns out that I was on to something.

Gladwell cites research by Anders Ericsson, who studied successful violinists at the Berlin Academy of Music. Ericsson asked the students how much time they spent practicing and found that the violinists that performed better spent more time practicing. Gladwell writes:

The curious thing about Ericsson’s study is that he and his colleagues couldn’t find any “naturals” — musicians who could float effortlessly to the top while practicing a fraction of the time that their peers did. Nor could they find “grinds”, people who worked harder than everyone else and yet just didn’t have what it takes to break into the top ranks. Their research suggested that once you have enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That’s it.

This goes against the grain of some of the popular culture’s slogans, like, if you want it enough, you can do or be anything. But we know that it makes sense. So why should we be surprised to find that this applies to spirituality and goodness? It takes years of repeating the prayers to reach higher levels of intensity, intention, and expression. You have to perform tzedakah and good deeds many times until it is natural for you open your hand, greet someone with a smile, and reach into your pocket when asked to give. The goal is not for it to be second nature, but nature—your self transformed.

It’s what Dov Baer of Mazrich, the great Hassidic sage, meant when he told his students, “It’s not enough to say Torah; you must be Torah.” And you can only be Torah, just as you can only be the music or be the game, or be the paintbrush, if you make it your daily occupation.

Joseph Telushkin gives two wonderful examples of the transformative power of mitzvot in his newest book, the second volume of his A Code of Jewish Ethics. Both are from family members.

The first is his mother, Helen Telushkin. He writes that she “would always give generously to beggars who said, ‘I’m hungry.’ She told me that when she was very hungry, such as on Yom Kippur, she found the pangs so hard to bear that it was impossible for her to ignore the pleas of anyone who claimed to need food.”[3]

What a wonderful example of how rituals teach ethics! The memory of our voluntary hunger on Yom Kippur can be, and should be a prod to compassion for those who are forced to starve.

The second story is about his daughter, who though young, evidently had enough experience of tzedakah to do it in the right spirit.

The neighborhood in New York City where my family lives is filled with so many beggars that people often ignore them or put some money in their palms and immediately walk away. Such was the case one day when my wife, Dvorah, was walking with our daughter Naomi, then seven. Dvorah had put a coin in a beggar’s hand, but after they had walked a few steps, Naomi said to her: “You didn’t do a proper mitzvah.”

“What should I have done?” Dvorah asked.

Naomi was prepared with the lesson she had learned at her Jewish day school: “You didn’t look the person in the face and say, ‘God bless you.’ Because when you give tzedakah, you have to give with a full heart.”

My wife immediately returned and gave the beggar a dollar, looked him in the eye, and said, “God bless you!” Later, she told me, “When I looked him in the eye, I saw a human being, not a beggar.”

Because that little girl had taken the Torah into her heart, she opened her mother’s heart, too. She wanted to do the mitzvah in the most mindful way, not just with a begrudged coin, but a kind word and human connection.

The way of mitzvah started with our ancestors’ journeys through the wilderness. There we began to learn to follow God’s ways, to accept God’s discipline, and to incorporate Torah into our daily lives — to train us in holiness and refine our hearts and souls. And we’re still learning, because it takes practice.

For everyone here who has wished for more spirituality, more depth, more meaning in your lives, who has ever envied someone’s observance and generosity of spirit, here is the path. Rabbi Schonbrun and I are always thrilled to help anyone who wants to grow in this way. So I pray for all of us:

May our words and deeds over these High Holy Day purify our hearts.

May the honey sweeten our temper.

May the shofar open our ears to cries of human suffering

May tashlikh help us to cast away bad habits and attitudes.

May opening our cupboard for the food drive open our hearts.

May the hunger of our fast expand our empathy.

May we know the joy and uplift of Shabbat rest and peace.

And may we find ways every day in this New Year to train ourselves to be Torah, and so bring blessing to ourselves and to the world. Amen.

¹ Rabbi Yaakov Baifuss, Yalkut Lekah Tov.

² Judaism: The Way of Sanctification, Rabbis Samuel Dresner and Byron Sherwin.

³ A Code of Jewish Ethics, Volume 2: Love Your Neighbor as Yourself, p. 234.

As I was arriving earlier this evening, I met a woman who had some differences of opinion with me long ago and never seems to have gotten over it. In an effort to make peace I greeted her cheerfully and said, “I wish for you in the New Year what you wish for me.” Her face flushed with anger and she said, “That is a terrible thing for you to say.”
Thus, forewarned, may I say to you: I wish for you what you wish for yourselves and leave me out of it. And what do I wish for you? Someone summed it up in one word:  “Enough”
You all know it better in the Hebrew: Dayenu. It would be enough. We are the Dayenu people.

I wish you sunshine in the coming year, even when black clouds threaten, not so much sunshine that when people all over the world watch the New Year’s Day Rose Parade, millions decide to move here; not so much that the thermometer shoots above a hundred just when your air conditioner breaks down, but just enough to make even the grayest day brighter,

I wish you enough rain, so that you appreciate the sun even more, and the crops and your flowers grow, and the air is washed clean; not enough to flood, but just enough so that the dry reservoirs fill up and the sky after the rain is a glorious blue.

I wish you enough money to satisfy your needs, if not all your wants, enough to be able to give some of it away, in charity, to health research, to Israel and other worthy causes.

I wish you enough money for presents for those you love, but not so much that you spoil your children and grandchildren rotten and makes the I.R.S. look hungrily at your tax return.

I wish you enough loss to appreciate all you possess, to be grateful for what you have left.

I wish you enough pain so that even the smallest of joys in life seem much bigger.

I wish you enough time to do some, if not all, of those wonderful things you did not get to do last year, those ambitious plans that fell through, those visits with people you love you never found time to keep.

I wish you enough kisses from little children, and aging parents, and the sweetheart of your youth to make you forget those moments you feel alone in the world.

I wish you enough happiness to outweigh the bad news of the day and open your eyes to the sheer blessing of being alive and drawing one more breath.

I wish you enough belief in our Creator, the Judge before whom we shall present ourselves in these Yamim Noraim, these Days of Awe, to spread out your record for His and your own judgment and enable Him to inscribe you positively in the Sefer Hachaim, the Book of Life.

I wish you enough hellos to those you love, to get you through the final goodbyes we must all take of one another.

No matter what that lady said, I wish you what I wish myself: to be able to look at my life, even in these troubled times, and say “Dayeinu.” Shanah tova u’m’tukah!

Our minds are always busy, and sometimes a song will just show up. Through recent times of conflict, natural disaster, economic turmoil, human suffering and personal loss, one song kept rising from memory into consciousness. If you know it, sing along:

Kol ha-olam kulo gesher tzar m’od v’ha-ikkar lo l’faheid k’lal.
“The whole world is a narrow bridge, and the essential thing is not to fear at all.”

These uplifting words come from the great Hassidic Rebbe, Nahman of Bratzlav. One fascinating fact: this song became popular at a moment of great danger to Israel: the Yom Kippur War. Moshe Kohn was told by two acquaintances who were in the Tank Corps attack across the Suez Canal led by Ariel Sharon:

When Sharon began his advance toward the bridgehead on the canal, the Bratslaver song was suddenly broadcast from his command over the radios and intercoms of all the attacking tanks. This electrified their crews, who soon joined in the singing themselves as they headed for battle, until the song turned into a Tank Corps chorus and the atmosphere became one of riding to a celebration rather than to possible death or maiming. It was soon after that the song became number one on the unofficial hit parade, with people humming it to themselves everywhere. For at least a couple of years after that, no bar or bat mitzvah or wedding celebration was complete without it.¹

So Rabbi Nahman’s “very narrow bridge” was also an actual pontoon bridge over the Suez Canal at the turning point of Israel’s war for survival!

And yet, there’s something strange about these lyrics. Never fear? Is that even possible? Isn’t a little bit of fear often a healthy thing? It can make you properly careful when you have to do something dangerous like…crossing a narrow bridge.

So I did a little research, and I discovered that Rav Nahman actually said something different. In his great work, Likutei Moharan (II:48), he writes, k’she-adam tzarikh la-avor gesher tzar m·od, ha-k’lal v’ha-ikkar shelo yit-paheid k’lal. As the official Breslov translation puts it, “When a person must cross an exceedingly narrow bridge, the general principle and the essential thing is not to frighten yourself at all.”

Not to frighten yourself—the narrow bridge is daunting, fraught with risk and danger. A little care is good, but you’ll never get across if you surrender to fears of your own making. At such a moment, caution is wisdom, but fear is a choice. Rav Nahman would have approved of FDR’s words, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

Rav Nahman concludes this passage, which was written to encourage his followers not to despair in their spiritual progress, “You should understand the power of encouraging yourself, and never yield to despair, God forbid, no matter what happens. The main thing is always to be happy, to gladden yourself in any way possible.”

This teaching is even more remarkable in light of Rav Nahman’s life. His biographer, Arthur Green, writes, “[His] life was one of constant struggle, or constant rise and fall in relationship to God, a life alternating between periods of bleak depression leading him to the brink of despair, and redoubled efforts to try once more to come close to God.”²

So we can’t dismiss Rav Nahman’s words as the prattling of a naïve Pollyanna. He knew well that narrow bridge and its terrors; he knew despair and depression, and yet he taught his followers to hope and to sing.

My mental image is of a steep-walled, deep ravine over rocky, foaming rapids. The bridge is right out of an Indiana Jones movie, built of frayed ropes and loose planks, swaying in the wind. I would never cross such a thing in a million years, except I have to cross it every day—and so do you.

Rabbi David Wolpe writes, “The world is a bridge on which we pass from one thing to another. There is no stability. Each new place, new change, creates fear. Rabbi Nahman did not compare the world to a field on which we might rest, but to a bridge, the symbol of passage, of journeying. And the secret is not to find a safe place, but to navigate the narrow crossing and remain unafraid.”³

We like to pretend that life is stable and secure. We don’t want to feel vulnerable. When illness, death, financial loss, and other heartaches barge into our lives, we are forced to acknowledge that is always true: that we are not in control, that our life path is unpredictable, uncertain and precarious.

And just in case you are lucky enough to make it through a year with your illusions of stability intact, here come the High Holy Days! They are designed to direct our gaze to the reality of the narrow bridge. Tomorrow we will read the heartache of Hannah’s barrenness. On the second day we read of the binding of Isaac. Could there be a narrower bridge than that three-day journey to the dreaded altar?

On both days, the Untaneh Tokef portrays all of humanity passing before God for judgment one-by-one like sheep before a shepherd—as if across a narrow bridge. On either side of that span are dire fates. Who shall live and who shall die, who shall perish by fire and who by water, who by sword and who by beast, who by hunger and who by thirst, who by earthquake and who by plague, who shall be poor and who shall be rich. That last one we feel with special poignancy in these recessionary times.

Yom Kippur confronts us even more starkly with our vulnerability. Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman writes, “We begin by wearing this white kittel Yom Kippur night. It is as if you are preparing your body for death. The rest of Yom Kippur day, you are like you’re dead—you don’t eat, you don’t drink, you don’t engage in sex.” We further detach ourselves from the material world by not wearing leather or jewelry, signs of luxury.

Then, after shaking our complacency with repeated confessions and another dose of the Untaneh Tokef, the afternoon brings us to the Avodah Service and the Jonah story. In both cases, someone is in a life-threatening, constricted space.

The High Priest, after elaborate precautions, enters the Holy of Holies. One wrong move and he’ll be struck down. He carries on his shoulders not only his own fate, but also the atonement of the nation. When he emerges, it is a moment of cathartic joy, because so much was at stake. But we can be sure that going in, he felt himself to be on a narrow bridge.

Jonah tries to flee the path of prophecy, to no avail. He ends up in the claustrophobic constriction of the great fish’s belly. There he prays, “In my trouble I called to the Lord, and God answered me; from the belly of Sheol I cried out, and You heard my voice.” The Hebrew word for trouble is tzarah, which is related to tzar, narrow. Sheol is the underworld, often viewed as a dark pit. Jonah is in the most confining of narrow places, and we are there with him.

If we pay attention to all these words and rituals, we will surely feel these are Yamim Nora·im, Days of Awe and fear. The shofar sounds its wake-up alarm, and the obscuring mists of complacency and denial pull back and reveal that we are indeed on that narrow bridge.

The Mahzor does all this not to scare us or depress us, but to motivate us. The liturgy balances judgment with mercy, divine power with God’s love. Rav Nahman urged his followers: don’t yield to fear; don’t frighten yourself. If every morning we woke up and made a mental list of all the things that could go wrong that day, all the possible dangers, we’d never get out of bed, let alone drive! So after giving us such a list, the Untaneh Tokef, in a soaring, triumphant melody, proclaims, “u-teshuvah, u-tefillah, u-tzedakah, maavirin et ro·a ha-g’zeirah.” Repentance, prayer, and righteous giving can annul the severity of the decree. Not annul the decree, but its severity. Nothing can turn that narrow bridge into the Bay Bridge…perhaps that wasn’t the best example! But there are things we can do to moderate our fears, to find the right kind of open-eyed courage, to direct our life on the right path.

Teshuvah affirms that we can change for the better, and become closer to others and to God. We are not prisoners of our nature; we are not doomed by our past. Prayer means God is near to us and we have spiritual resources to sustain us. Remember that Rav Nahman’s teaching was originally to encourage people in their struggle for spiritual growth. And tzedakah is precisely the way to widen our narrow path to include others in our journey.

We also learn from another menacing road. Gam ki eileikh b’gei tzalmavet, lo ira ra, ki Atah imadi—”Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.”

What a powerful image: the valley of the shadow of death. And where is this fearsome valley? Everywhere—because death is with us always. As T. S. Eliot wrote, “Between the idea/ And the reality/ Between the motion/ And the act/ Falls the Shadow.” And yet the Psalmist does not fear, because God is with him. God will not be a cosmic Superman to rescue us from death, but God joins us on our journey. Rabbi Harold Kushner, in his wonderful book on the twenty-third Psalm, calls our attention to the exact words of the verse: “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” Every life knows dark moments of loss and despair. But we can pass through those shadowed vales to a brighter place. We can and we do. One of the inspiring and heartening aspects of my work is sharing people’s journeys through dark times, and marveling at their resilience and capacity for healing and renewal.
Kushner also writes about God’s role on our journey,

Note that the Psalmist does not say that he will fear no evil because there is no such thing as evil, because everything is part of God’s plan and ultimately works out for the best. Nor does he say that he will fear no evil because he is a good person and evil befalls only people who deserve it. He says that there is evil in the world and that he is as vulnerable to it as anyone else, but that doesn’t frighten him because God is real and God is on his side.
God’s promise was never that life would be fair, that if you were a good person, illness and injury would spare you and would happen only to people who deserved it. A teacher of mine used to warn us that expecting the world to treat you fairly because you were a good person was like expecting the bull not to charge you because you were a vegetarian. God’s promise was that when we had to face the pain and unfairness of the world as we inevitably would, we would not have to face it alone, for He would be with us.

Our High Holy Day liturgy speaks this message through countless expressions of God’s love, mercy and forgiveness. One example is from Psalm 27, Though my father and my mother forsake me, the Lord will gather me in, and care for me. These words are like honey sweetening our fears. We are not alone; God will take us in. And we who strive to be like God  will also aspire to sustain one another.

Tonight I’ve tried to give you a guidebook for the journey of these Ten days of Repentance. It is a passage through the valley of the shadow of death, yet illuminated by the constant promise of life. It is a narrow bridge, but we are given the tools of self-awareness, God consciousness, and community support to conquer our fears. It is an exquisite and life-giving balance of judgment and mercy.

On the one hand, our liturgy is realistic in reminding us that life is full of sorrow and loss. As David Wolpe writes about the Untaneh Tokef, “It tells us that we do not have forever. Loss is not an incidental accompaniment to life; it is life’s recurrent, urgent motif. Live with your eye on eternity and your foot fixed on the shifting sand, and forget neither one.”⁴

Judaism would be a cruel and infantile religion if it asked us to deny the impermanence, contingency, and risk of life. Rather it asks us to look clearly at life, and then it gives us the healing message that despite the suffering that everyone experiences, we can also know joy, holiness, and love.

If we yield to fear, we will miss those possibilities. And then there is this great paradox. If someone takes your hand, the bridge widens. When we hold out our hand to another, somehow there is room for us to stride side by side. Even that daunting prayer B’rosh Hashanah, with its list of dangers, is mitigated by our singing it—singing it!—as a community, and then our voices join with hope and even joy with u-teshuvah, u-tefillah, u-tzedakah. A kind word, a helping deed, an open hand—even asking “How are you?” and really meaning it, and taking time to hear the answer—these are all ways to dissipate fear and blunt the blade of suffering.

So look around the room. Look for familiar faces; look for unfamiliar faces. Everyone here is on our own narrow bridge. We each have our fears, our challenges, our backpack full of disappointments and hopes. And every one of us can benefit from a kind word and a helping hand, affirming that we won’t have to cross that fearful chasm alone. We each know our pain and our fears, so we know how much good an offered hand can do—how can we not reach out?

Toward the end of his wonderful book, Making Loss Matter, Rabbi David Wolpe tells a story:

One year on Yom Kippur, a woman in my congregation who had been quite sick could not attend services. Linda had been in and out of the hospital for weeks, and her prognosis was uncertain at best. It was the first time since she was an infant that she had not been in synagogue on Yom Kippur. She told me afterward that the words of the prayer kept ringing in her head. What would be her fate this year? Who will live, and who will die? Was the prayer speaking to her? Would she be here next year to return to the synagogue?

We talked for a long time. Finally I said to her, “Linda, I know you are afraid. What are you going to do with your fear?” “Well, Rabbi,” she answered, “I am going to live with the fear, and I am going to really live in spite of it.”⁵

May these Days of Awe give us the tools to master our fears and to heal from our losses and pain. May we find hope and joy from God. May we be God’s agents in giving support and encouragement to one another. May we find strength, and strengthen each other, to really live in spite of all we know of the world’s dangers.

Kol ha-olam kulo gesher tzar m’od v’ha-ikkar lo l’hitpaheid k’lal. Shanah Tovah.

¹ By Philologos, The Forward, February 21, 2003
²Tormented Master, p. 40.
³Making Loss Matter, p. 30.
⁴Making Loss Matter, p. 197
⁵Making Loss Matter, p. 197

There are days when I look at the world and I suddenly become very tired. Day in and day out, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week we are barraged with news of genocide, hunger, homelessness, violence, the spread of preventable diseases, and the extreme poverty that grips so much of our world. Sometimes I simply want to go to sleep, in the hope that all of this is just some type of a bad dream. And then I remember our ancestor Abraham, and a Midrash that was brought to my attention by Rabbi Sharon Braus.

The Midrash, in Genesis Rabbah, tells about why Abraham decided to leave his homeland, and all that he knew in search of a land that God would show him. Rabbi Isaac compares Abraham to a man who went travelling from place to place and stopped when he saw a building in flames. Upon seeing the burning building, the man calls out: Is it possible that this building lacks someone to look after it. Where is the Manhig, the owner of this building that is on fire?! Just then, the owner of the building looks out and responds: “I am the Ba’al Habirah, the owner of this building.” Rabbi Isaac says that similarly, Abraham looked at the world, saw that it was on fire, he saw the evil in the world and cried out to God: Is it conceivable that the world is without a guide?’ And the Holy One, Blessed be God, looked out at Abraham and replied: “I am the Ba’al Haolam, The Owner of the Universe.”  To which the commentary adds: 
My strength lies with you and with the House of your father, so Go- and in the words of the Psalmist (45) “forget your people and your father’s house, and let the King be aroused by your beauty…

In other words, Abraham saw that the whole world was burning and left his home because God needed his help to put out the flames. The midrash imagines that Abraham started his journey by responding to God’s call, taking God’s hand, and beginning the long journey of repairing the world.

On days when the fires seem to be raging everywhere in our world Abraham is not the only one that I think of. I also think about Isaiah. In the text from the Shacharit Haftarah that is read on Yom Kippur, Isaiah urges that our fast not be in vain.

Is such the fast I desire, a day for man to starve their bodies?
Is it bowing the head like a bulrush and lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Do you call that a fast? A day when the Lord is favorable?!
No, this is the fast I desire.  To unlock the fetters of wickedness, And untie the cords of the yoke
To let the oppressed go free; To break off every yoke
To share your bread with the hungry, And take the wretched poor into your home; When you see the naked, to cloth him, And not to ignore your own kin.
Then shall your light burst through like the dawn and your healing spring up quickly….
Then when you call, the Lord will answer; When you cry God will say: Hineni, Here I am.  Isaiah 58:5-9

Yom Kippur is about getting in touch with God. And Isaiah reminds us that getting in touch with God, by definition, requires that we reach out to our fellow human being- regardless of who they are, how much money they have, or what they believe, to ensure that all of God’s creatures are treated with justice, equality, and human dignity. In the words of Rabbi Jill Jacobs,
Jewish text insists on the dignity of human life. Human beings, according to the Torah, are not only created in the divine image, but also represent manifestations of the divine presence….an injury to a human being is an injury to God….When the Rabbis speak about tzedakah… they use phrases such as “your brother” as a reminder that those in need…must be treated as family members rather than as people who are wholly other (There Shall Be No Needy, 214).

In Judaism there is no such thing as “those people.” Those homeless people, those poor people, those people coping with illness, those illegal immigrants, those starving people in Africa. No, for Jews that category does not exist. They are us, and we are them because we are all God’s creatures.

And as God’s creatures, we are obligated to help one another. Picking up where Isaiah left off, the Talmud makes this quite clear.
Rab and R. Hanina, R. Johanan and R. Habiba taught: Whoever can     forbid his household from committing a sin but does not, is     punished. If he can forbid his fellow citizens from committing a sin     but does not, he is punished for their sins. If he can forbid the whole     world from committing a sin, but does not, he is punished for the sins     of the world (Shabbat 54b).

On Rosh Hashanah we remember that we are responsible for ourselves. On Yom Kippur we remember that we are also responsible for one another. So how do we help put out the fires of the world? How do we help ensure that our fast is not in vain?

There is no shortage of causes; the world needs plenty of tikkun, plenty of fixing. The question is where to begin. Rabbi Harold Schulweis teaches that the most important question that we must ask ourselves is this: “For what can I have a great deal of moral compassion?”  Danny Siegel, one of the leading modern teachers of how to engage in acts of tzedakah, puts it another way and writes that each of us should begin by asking ourselves six questions:
1.    What am I really good at?
2.    What do I really like to do?
3.    What bothers me so much about what is wrong with the world that I get really angry and want to do something about it?
4.    What can I do right now, today, in the next week?
5.    Whom do I know?
6.    Why not?  (Bar & Bat Mizvah Mitzvah Book, 72, 73)

After Yom Kippur, when this sermon is posted, the questions will be there. Cut them out, put them on your refrigerator and take some time to think about it. Talk it over with your family, with your friends, and then make a plan. As I have quoted many times before: Ruth Messinger, the Executive Director of the American Jewish World service likes to remind her audiences that we cannot “retreat to the convenience of being overwhelmed.” We have to start somewhere. Let these questions be a beginning.

In addition to the work that each one of us can do as individuals we cannot forget the power of what we might do together. We, as a congregation, are no stranger to the pursuit of Social Justice. Over the years we have held blood drives, Mitzvah days, and hosted a very successful homeless shelter that has helped many men in our community.  Hopefully, prior to Yom Kippur most of us participated in Project Isaiah- a program designed to feed the hungry in our community through Second Harvest Food Bank. Hopefully we will exceed last year’s collection of 3000 pounds of food and increase our impact through the collection of new socks, underwear, sheets and towels needed for school-aged children whose families can’t afford to buy these basic necessities.  We are blessed in our community to have dedicated volunteers who have run our Social Action committee for many years, who have made a huge difference in our shul and I the community, and who have inspired many more to get involved.

I also know that many of you participate in other non-synagogue-related community service projects with family and friends. I have heard about these types of projects from a number of people throughout the years. Here are a few examples:  I know of a number of Beth David members who have grown their hair over the years long enough so that it could be cut and donated to be made into wigs for cancer patients. I know of another member who spent three weeks this past summer volunteering in Thailand, building walls for villages, troughs to keep buildings from flooding, and working to keep animals out of schools so children could get an education. One member partnered with some friends and spent this past year raising over fifty thousand dollars from their friends and family members to then distribute to causes such as Darfur, Ethiopian immigrants in Israel, and helping to support kids in an orphanage.

But here’s the interesting thing. All of the members who I have just mentioned were under the age of 18!  I know that many members over the age of 18 do as individuals engage in this type of work. But the challenge is that we, like many other synagogues, spend so much energy encouraging Bnei Mitzvah students and High School students to pursue “Mitzvah projects,” but somehow as adults we get too busy to volunteer. We get too busy to make some serious time in our lives to serve the community. We get older. We get jaded. We get discouraged and we sometimes throw up our hands. Many of us give money. Many of us give time, food, and clothes….but none of us give enough because it is never enough. And yet, if we, as the adults of Congregation Beth David are teaching our children that to be a Jewish adult is to be a responsible adult who takes care of our world, then we must ourselves live up to this charge and figure out a way to do more. I am no exception to this critique. I don’t feel like I do nearly enough of this type of work, which is part of what brought me to speak about this with you today.

I will give you one specific example of ways that we might do more of this work at Congregation Beth David.  For years we have had a number of dedicated volunteers who have taken the lead with our Social Action committee. After many years of tremendous service and countless hours of work, they are understandably tired and they deserve to be given the chance to pass the torch to the next group of leaders. But as of this moment, we have no one to replace them. Perhaps not everyone knows that we have this need- but we do. And if you are willing to help chair or serve on the Social Action Committee, I am asking you to please e-mail me or call me after Yom Kippur. We have a proud history of pursuing justice and tikkun olam in this congregation. We are constantly looking for new outlets to do this type of work, some of which you will be hearing more about throughout the year.  But we need more community leaders, more volunteers, more hands to put out the fires of the world and I am asking for your help to ensure that as a community we can continue to do this critical work.

It is important to point out that this work involves extending our Jewish values into the greater world. Over the years I have come to realize that some people get nervous when the sphere of religion enters the sphere of the “rest of the world.” They often think that Judaism is about coming to synagogue, keeping kosher, celebrating the holidays, being a generally good person and not about working on issues of homelessness, hunger, health care, poverty, immigration, workers rights, environmental issues- just to name a few. But Judaism is clearly about all of these things, unequivocally about both ritual and social issues, and it has always been that way. This is not to say that Judaism should be the only voice helping to solve these issues, or even that Judaism has any one opinion, or one solution to any one of these issues. As the old saying goes, where there are two Jews, there are three opinions. But, as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once said when explaining his own involvement in Social Justice issues, while “we affirm the principle of separation of church and state. We reject the separation of religion and the human situation (Heschel, “What We Might Do Together”, Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity, 298).”
Or, as Martin Buber critiqued:
…religion is for (Modern man) only one aspect of his life rather than its totality. The men of the Bible were sinners like us, but they did not commit the arch sin of professing God in the synagogue and denying him in the sphere of economics, politics, and the ‘self-assertion’ of the group (Friedman, Martin Buber: The Life of Dialogue).

In other words, we simply cannot separate the work of Torah from any part of our daily life, and this type of Tikkun Olam work in which we seek to repair the world, is no exception.

There is a story, based on a Midrash, a rabbinic parable, in Leviticus Rabbah as told by Rabbi Ed Feinstein which beautifully illustrates much of what I have shared with you today. It is one of my favorites, and some of you may have heard it, but it bears repeating.

Once there was a kingdom that everyone called Paradise. It was called Paradise not because it was any more beautiful or any richer than any other place but because of the way the people who lived there cared for one another. In this kingdom, if a friend needed something from a friend, someone always stepped forward to help—without even being asked! If a neighbor needed some¬thing from a neighbor, someone would respond cheerfully and graciously without ever asking for anything in return. If a stranger needed something, people came forward to help with hospitality, generosity, and kindness.

All this was because of the wise king. The king knew that his subjects would treat one another the way he treated them. So he was always careful and attentive and helpful. If he couldn’t help someone, he would at least listen and express his concern.

At last the king grew old, and he appointed his son, the prince, to rule in his place when the time came. Soon the king died, and the prince assumed the throne. But the prince was not wise like his father, nor kind, and he did not treat people the way his father did.

The royal ministers approached the prince and cleaned, “Your Majesty, we have a terrible problem. There is a famine in a certain corner of the land, and the people there are starving. We must do something!”

“They are starving?” said the prince impatiently.
“Yes, starving! They have no food to feed their children!”
“But I have plenty of food,” responded the prince, biting into a big apple from the bowl of fruit before him. “If they are starving, I’m sorry. But it’s not my problem!”

“Perhaps Your Majesty didn’t understand. People are suffering, and they haven’t any food. They’ll die if we do nothing.”

“Well I’m sorry, but it’s just not my problem!”
The ministers shook their heads in disbelief and slowly walked away.

Just then another group of royal messengers approached the throne.

“Your Majesty, we have a terrible situation. A river has become poisoned, and the people who live along its banks have no water to drink! We must help them!”

“No water?” asked the prince even more impatiently as he poured himself a large glass of water.

“Yes, Your Majesty, there is no water! People are dying of thirst!” “But I have plenty of water!” responded the prince, holding up his glass. “I’m sorry, but it’s not my problem!”
No one in the royal court seemed able to move the prince. Every problem that was presented to him met with the same bothered look and the same response: “I’m sorry, but that’s not my problem!”

Before long everyone in the kingdom was acting like the prince. When a friend needed help from a friend or a neighbor needed a hand from a neighbor, the one who was beseeched would look bothered and respond: “You need help? Well I’m sorry, but that’s not my problem!” And since they refused to help one another, they certainly refused to help strangers.

Soon the kingdom had changed completely. It was no longer Paradise. It was a wilderness, a wasteland. Soon no one remem¬bered the way things had been. No one remembered the Paradise that the kingdom once was. No one but Fisherman. Fisherman remembered the old king and the way things used to be. It hurt him that everyone had become as selfish as the young prince. If only he could remind the people and teach them. But what was one old fisherman to do?
Then one day he thought of a solution. He gathered all his money and bought tools and paint and materials. He set to work fixing up his old fishing boat. He would turn it into a yacht, the most beautiful yacht in the harbor. Fisherman worked hard. Each day, people came by and admired his boat. “Hey, Fisherman,” they’d say, “when you’re done, will you take us for a ride on your yacht?”

“Sure!” he said. “Everyone will be invited!”

It took him a year to finish his work. When the yacht was ready, Fisherman made a huge sign and posted it for all to see. He invited everyone to come for a ride on the lake to celebrate the yacht’s first voyage.

Everyone came that Sunday morning, even the prince! It was a splendid, clear day. The sun shone warmly, and the lake was calm. Fisherman guided his yacht out onto the lake. When he reached the middle, far from the shore, he dropped anchor and invited everyone to enjoy themselves. His guests brought out their picnic baskets and fishing poles, and everyone had a wonderful day on the lake. Late in the afternoon the wind picked up, and waves rocked the boat.

“Fisherman, can we head home now?” his guests asked.

“Sure,” said Fisherman. “There’s just one thing I need to do.” He opened his toolbox and brought out a large hand drill. He walked to the exact center of the boat, positioned the drill on the hull, and began to drill.

“Say Fisherman,” people asked, “what are you doing?

“I’m drilling a hole.”

“But why are you drilling a hole?”

“Why? Because it’s a nice day for drilling holes!” he responded nonchalantly.

“But, Fisherman, if you drill a hole in the boat, water will rush in, the boat will sink, and we’ll all drown!” they said.

As he continued drilling, the passengers began to cry and beg: “Fisherman, please! Please, stop! You must stop!”

“None. It’s my boat. It’s my drill. And I’m going to drill this hole.”

Someone remembered that the prince was on board. “Get the prince!” he shouted. “Someone get the prince! He’ll save us!”

The prince swaggered over. No lowly fisherman was going to ruin his afternoon. He stood over Fisherman in his royal robes, and a hush came over the frightened crowd.
“Fisherman, what are you doing?” he asked in his deepest, most commanding voice.

“I’m drilling a hole,” responded Fisherman, moving the drill around and around.

“Why are you doing this?” asked the prince in his deep, princely tone.

“Because I feel like it,” responded Fisherman without even looking up at the prince.

“Fisherman, if you make a hole in the boat, the boat will sink, and we will all drown,” the prince reasoned aloud.

“Uh-huh,” acknowledged Fisherman.

Small beads of sweat appeared on the brow of the prince, and his voice lost its commanding tone and took on that of a sincere¬ly worried man. “Fisherman,” he said, “I command you to stop!”

Fisherman ignored him and kept drilling. The prince was quickly losing his composure. Gone were the royal tone and all the royal trappings. Instead, he was just another frightened man. “But Fisherman, what gives you the right to do this?”

Fisherman explained slowly: “It’s my boat. It’s my drill. And I’m going to make a hole. Now, please, move aside. You’re blocking my light!” And he continued to drill.

The prince began crying and pleading, like everyone else. “Please, Fisherman, please,” he begged. “I don’t want to drown. I don’t want to get eaten by fish. Please, Fisherman! Please!”
When the prince began to cry, Fisherman at last stopped drilling. Yet again a hush came over the crowd. Fisherman looked up at the prince. “You don’t want the boat to sink? You don’t want to drown?” Fisherman echoed the prince’s pleas. Then Fisherman slowly repeated the terrible words that had ruined the kingdom: “Well, I’m sorry, but it’s not my problem!”

The prince cried desperately, “What do you mean it’s not your problem? Anyone can see that if I have a problem, you have a problem. And if you have a problem, I have a problem. If anyone has a problem, then everyone has a problem—because we’re all on the same boat!”

He stopped. Like a man who had just figured out a great riddle, he repeated the words slowly: “If I have a problem, you have a problem. And if you have a problem, I have a problem. If anyone has a problem, then everyone has a problem—because we’re all in the same boat! Anyone can see that!”

“Yes,” said Fisherman, “anyone can see that!”

“Yes,” said everyone on the boat, “anyone can see that!”
Fisherman smiled. “Now we can go home!” He pulled the drill up out of the hull, turned the boat around, and sailed safely back to the harbor.

The people who got off that boat were changed. Never, ever again would friend turn to friend or neighbor turn to neighbor or anyone turn to a stranger and say those terrible words. Instead, whenever a friend needed help from a friend or a neighbor need¬ed a hand from a neighbor or a stranger needed some kindness, and whenever anyone came before the prince, he or she would hear, “Please, let me help you. Because if you have a problem, I have a problem. And if I have a problem, you have a problem. If anyone has a problem, then everyone has a problem. You see, we’re all in the same boat.

Once again, the kingdom was paradise.

Yom Kippur reminds us that we are all in the same boat. Jonah, who we will read about at Mincha, tried to run away from his responsibility to help repair God’s world. He imagined that he could get into his own, individual boat, and run away. And as a result, he, along with everyone else in the boat almost drowned—because there is no such thing as an individual boat.

Ba’al Haolam, O God who created a world that is on fire. On this Yom Kippur let us remember that we, like Abraham, have been put on this earth to help put out the flames that surround us as we walk along the journeys of our life. Echoing Isaiah let us remember that while our stomachs are empty, our fast must not be empty.  May each of us, as individuals, find our passion for improving the world and pursue it tirelessly. May we, as a community, build upon our holy work at Beth David as we continue to pursue the work of Tikkun Ha Olam, Healing our world. On this Yom Kippur, as we honor the memory of those who are no longer with us let us remember that ultimately, as the Yizkor itself tells us, we honor their memory by engaging in daily acts of tzedakah. Only then will our world truly be paradise- because we will have come to remember that we are all in the same boat.

There is an old Yiddish Expression- Mann traoch, Gott Lauch- “Man plans, and God laughs.” In her book, titled after this expression, Rabbi Sherre Hirsch elaborates:
I remember my first plan. It was the Cinderella plan. I was going to become a beautiful princess. Then one day my fair and handsome prince would save me from my regular existence. We would fall in love with one magical kiss and live happily ever after. At the time, the details were foggy, but the plan was in place. As I matured, the elements of the fantasy disappeared, but the dream remained. One day I would fall in love with a wonderful man, get married, have 2.5 children, a house, a dog, and live happily ever after.
I never thought about what would happen if the plan did not go as planned (Hirsch, We Plan, God Laughs, xvi-xvii).
For many people this year it seems as if God is having one Huge laugh. By now it is abundantly clear that we are living in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Nobody is quite sure if things are turning around, but everyone is fairly confident that things have been pretty disastrous this year. This year the words of the Unetaneh Tokef prayer ring loud and clear:
Mi Y’chiyeh, Umu Yamut- Who shall live and who shall die….
Mi Yishalev, Umi Yityaser, Who shall be at peace, and who shall be tormented?
Mi Ya’ani, U’mi Yashir, Who shall be poor and who shall be rich?
Mi Yushpal, Umi Yarum, who shall be humbled and who shall be exalted?
Many people are standing in a very different place on this Rosh Hashanah than they were last Rosh Hashanah. Since December 2007, our country has lost 7 million jobs, and there are currently 14.5 million people out of work.  In the Bay Area, the unemployment rate rose to 9.4% as of July 2009 with 89,100 people unemployed and looking for work throughout the Bay Area.  And many of those affected are sitting right in this room. I should point out that on a practical level, there are resources in the organized Jewish community- some of which are in a handout at your seats that attempt to offer help to those in need. And certainly, to the extent that we can, your Beth David community has, and will continue, to look for ways to support those affected by this crisis. But this morning, without in any way minimizing the pain, hardship, and distress that is real and exists because of this economic situation, I want us to think about an important question: If we plan, and God laughs- how might we plan differently? How might we learn to adjust our expectations?

Maybe the problem is that we make too many plans in the first place. This summer I saw the movie “UP”- a wonderful animated film that is presented as a fun kids’ movie, but actually has a very adult message. In the first ten minutes we are shown a flashback of Carl Fredrickson’s life. We see how he meets his wife Elie, a fellow adventurer, and how they spend their life together continually making plans to go on one adventure after another, ultimately dreaming of adventuring together to South America to see the great Paradise Falls. They make a scrap book together to be filled with their future adventures- but slowly we see their dreams slipping away. As Carl and Elie grow older, she gets ill and eventually dies, leaving Carl all alone in their home with nothing but memories and an adventure book presumably filled with blank pages. Eventually, as a way to honor Elie’s memory, Carl goes on an adventure of his own to discover Paradise Falls. At the end of his adventure, Carl goes back to fill in the blank pages of the memory book that Elie had created for him only to discover that the pages were already full. They were not left blank for future adventures, but were instead filled with the daily events of their long life together. As he returns home, Carl comes to realize that with Elie he was totally preoccupied with making plans for the future, and on his adventure he was consumed with looking back at his past with Ellie. But what he had missed all along was that the most important moments, the places where success and meaning are to be found- lie not in the future, nor in the past- rather they are right here and right now.

There is a Jewish variant of this lesson, taught to me by Rabbi Ed Feinstein. He tells a story in which a Hassidic master asked his disciples: “What is the most significant moment in all Jewish history? In all the experience of the Jewish people, what stands out as paramount? The students answered: “The crossing of the Red Sea, the giving of the Torah on Sinai, the conquest of Jerusalem.” “No.” taught the master. “The most important moment in all Jewish history is right now (World Of High Holidays, Vol. 3, 60).”

Hayom- Today.  This word is repeated throughout the liturgy of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Hayom Harat Olam- Today the World was created. Hayom T’amtzeynu- Today God strengthens us. Hayom T’varcheynu- Today God blesses us. As Jews we honor the past, and look towards the future, but ultimately today is the most important moment. We all love to make plans. I am sure that every one of us in this room has had plans that have at some point been turned upside down. God may be the only One who knows who shall live and who shall die, who shall be poor and who shall be rich, but we know what we have in our lives right now, and the central message of the Unetnaeh Tokef prayer is that we must learn to live in the moment that we have.

But living in the moment can be extremely hard. In a wonderful DVD published by the Ziegler Rabbinical School, there is a roundtable discussion between Rabbis Ed Feinstein, David Wolpe, and Brad Artson discussing the challenges of living in the moment. Rabbi Feinstein remarks that we must all learn how to be more like the GPS systems in our car because they can recalibrate and adjust quite easily. In other words, as we map out our course in life, we must remember that life is not always about following a set map. Our plans, our dreams, our hopes, our aspirations change all of the time. What is important in life is to learn to be aware of where we are, right now, Hayom, and adjust accordingly. Rabbi Artson takes this another step, suggesting that we should stop worrying about the map in the first place. Being a Type A personality myself, I am not sure that I could let go of the map entirely- but learning to plan a bit less, adapt a bit more, and focus on the here and now- that is something that each of us could do. We need to spend more time living and less time planning. Because if we hold onto our plans and our map too tightly, we may miss understanding just exactly where we are. Like Carl, in the movie “Up” we may fail to see that the most important moments in our life are often the ones that are happening right now.

How we decide to hold onto our map depends on how exactly we measure our success in life. Do we measure success by how well our plan goes, or by how well we were able to adapt and appreciate the blessings of our daily lives? In Pirkei Avot, the Ethical teachings of our sages, Ben Zoma taught: Who is rich? One who is happy with his or her portion (Avot 4:1). Times like this can make that teaching very difficult to swallow. But part of our challenge in this world is to discover the beauty and holiness in our daily existence and to remind ourselves of the people that matter most to us in this world and the values and beliefs that lie deep within our souls.

In order to do this, in order to truly live and value each day, we have to plan less and prioritize more.  In a wonderful book written by Ron Wolfson, entitled, The Seven Questions You Are Asked In Heaven, Wolfson writes that the fifth question we will be asked in heaven will center around what mattered to us in life. He explains:
A Priority is what matters most….What matters to you?
If you want a clue, think about how you spend your time each day, each week. How much of your time is allocated to work? How much time for your family? How much time for volunteering? How much time for play? How much time for sleep? How much time for eating? How much time for watching television, surfing the Internet, answering your e-mails?
Are the things you spend the most time on the things that matter most?…
Understanding what matters to you will lead you to a life that matters (Wolfson, The Seven Questions You Are Asked In Heaven, 87).

Our lives will not go according to plan. So maybe we should stop worrying so much about how our plan is going. Maybe we should focus on asking ourselves what are the most important values in our lives, and be brave enough to see if we are actually living out those values. Maybe, over the next few days, we should spend some time looking at our calendars and seeing how we spent this past year. Did we use our time wisely? Did we spend time on what really matters to us in life?  This type of cheshbon hanefesh, soul searching that lies at the center of this High Holiday experience, requires that we pay close attention to how we are living our lives. Something that is difficult to be sure, but that is necessary to live a meaningful and rich existence.  This type of examination requires us to use our heart, as well as our soul which is why in Hebrew, when we tell someone to pay attention we say: Sim Lev, loosely translated as- “use your heart.”

Plans, goals, and directions are all important and useful- but if we don’t pay attention to the here and now, they can often get in our way. Like Carl’s search for Paradise Falls, many of us spend our lives looking for Paradise. We often spend time planning and figuring out how we might finally get ourselves to a better place, a paradise where everything is perfect, where we have no worries and no problems. We tell ourselves that if we follow our plans we will surely get there. But what we often miss is that paradise can be found right beneath our noses. If only we would only shift our perspective a bit.
There is a story in Feinstein’s “Capturing The Moon,” that explains this quite well:

There once was a man who had given up on life. He found no joy in his work, his family, or his community. And so he prayed to God to let him leave this world. “Show me the way to   Paradise!” he implored.

God asked him, “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

The man replied, “I am sure with all my heart.”

“Very well,” replied God, who showed him the way to Paradise.

As it turned out, Paradise wasn’t far away—just a few days’ journey from his village. So late one afternoon he set out on his way. He walked until nightfall and then decided to rest beneath a leafy tree. Just before he fell asleep, it occurred to him that in the morning he might become confused and forget which was the way to Paradise and which was the way back to the village. So he left his shoes by the roadside, with the tips pointing toward Paradise so that in the morning all he’d have to do was jump into his shoes and continue on his way.

But sometimes unexpected things happen. Shoes get turned around. Was it an imp? Was it an angel? Was it just a squirrel? Who knows? But somehow the man’s shoes got turned around. In the morning he rose feeling rested from his sleep, ate from the fruit of the tree, and prepared to set off on his journey. He went to the roadway, stepped into his shoes, and began walking— unaware that he was in fact returning home.
By noon he could see a village on the next hillside, and his heart leapt. “I’ve arrived in Paradise!” he thought. He ran down into the valley and up the hill, not stopping until he had arrived at the gates of the village.
“What a beautiful place is Paradise!” he thought. “My village was always so crowded, so noisy. This is different, so filled with life and joy!” He sat down on a bench in the square and witnessed the life of the village. He heard the songs the children sang at school and the sounds of the adults at work. He felt the vitality, the energy, and the love that filled the village. He sat in the square all day. In the evening he heard the joyful sounds of families reunited at home and smelled the meals that were being enjoyed by each family. And he began to feel hungry.

He thought, “Since Paradise looks so much like my village, I wonder if there is a street in Paradise like my street.” And so he went to look. Just where he thought it might be, there’s where he found it.

Then he thought, “I wonder if there is a house in Paradise like my house.” And just where he thought it might be, there it was! Just as he was wondering at this marvelous coincidence, a woman came to the door—a woman who bore a striking resemblance to his wife. The woman called his name and asked him to come in for dinner.

His heart leapt. “They know me in Paradise! There is a place set for me here in Paradise!”

“I don’t know what’s in Paradise,” the woman responded, “but your soup is getting cold at home. Come inside!”

He entered the house. This house in Paradise was nothing like his house in the village. That house was always crowded, clut¬tered, filled with commotion. This place was cozy and homey and filled with life. He sat at the table and ate the best meal he’d ever had. He complimented the woman on her heavenly soup. Afterward he went up to his bedroom and entered the deepest, most restful sleep he’d ever known.In the morning the woman who looked like his wife handed him his tools and sent him to work. At first the man was incredu¬lous. Who ever heard of working in Paradise? But then it occurred to him that even in Paradise there were tasks to be done. And he found that this work was different from the work he’d clone before. Not dull or tedious, it filled him with a sense of purpose. And that night he returned to the same warm and loving home, the same kind woman, and more of her wonderful soup.

Do you know that in all the years that followed, no one could convince the man that he hadn’t made it to Paradise! Every one of his days from then on was filled with more wonder, more purpose, more joy, and more life than the day before.

Rabbi Feinstein concludes his story with the words from Pslam 92, the Psalm for Shabbat which we recited this morning:

It is good to give thanks to the Lord, To Praise Your Name O Most High.
To tell of your love each morning, and your faithfulness each night.

He concludes: “Like the man in the story, the Psalmist opened his eyes to a different way of seeing the world. The facts of his life remained the same. Only his attitude changed. And suddenly life was very different (Capturing The Moon, 17-19).”

Instead of planning for paradise and nervously waiting for God to laugh, we need only to shift our perspective and realize that often times, Paradise is staring us right in the face. Right here, Right now, Hayom- every moment of every day has the potential to be paradise- but only if each of us has the courage to make it so.
Shabbat Shalom and L’Shanah Tova Tikateivu- May we all be inscribed for a good, healthy, and meaningful year.

In his book, To Heal a Fractured World, Sir. Rabbi Jonathan Sachs, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth tells a story of the Second Lubavitcher Rebbe, the “Mitteler Rebbe,” who was so intent on his studies that he failed to hear the cry of his baby son.  His father, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, heard the crying and went down and took the baby in his arms until he went back to sleep.  Then he went in to his son, still intent on his books, and said, “My son, I do not know what you are studying, but it is not the study of Torah if it makes you deaf to the cry of a child.” (As told to me by Rabbi Jennifer Feldman)

The “Mitteler Rebbe” got it backwards. First he was to attend to his crying child and then to the study of Torah. He had his priorities backwards and because of this, he missed point entirely. Rosh Hashanah is all about learning how to get our priorities straight; discovering what demands our attention first and foremost and what can wait. We often think about Rosh Hashanah as a holiday of reflection leading to improving our relationships with others. A holiday in which teshuva is defined in terms of repentance and forgiveness. But on Rosh Hashanah we also say: Hayom Harat Olam, Today is the birthday of the world. Today is the day when we celebrate God’s creation. And what was God’s creation all about? Bringing order to the world.
Rabbi Pressman has often pointed out that if we look back at the creation narrative in Genesis we see that Creation Story is all about making order out of chaos. The second verse in the Torah tells us that the earth was Tohu Va Vohu, literally a land of “desert waste” and goes onto explain the way in which God ordered and organized the world out of that Chaos. In that sense Rosh Hashanah celebrates the creation of order out of chaos and reminds us that as we attempt to create our own lives anew, one of our primary responsibilities is striving to ensure that our priorities are in order. Are we living our lives in accordance with our values and our beliefs? How have our priorities changed over the past year and how have they stayed the same? This is how we recognize our purpose in life. This is how we understand the meaning of our own creation. These are the types of questions that Rosh Hashanah invites us to explore.

But we cannot answer these types of questions unless we first have an understanding of ourselves, and of where we are in our lives.

Abraham Joshua Heschel told the following story:

There was a school boy who was forgetful. He was always losing things. So he worked out a system. Before he went to sleep at night he made out a list of all the things he would need the next day. He wrote: My suit is on the chair. My hat is in the closet. My books are on the desk. My shoes are under the chair. And I am in the bed.
He woke up the next morning and started to collect his things. They were all in the right places. The suit was on the chair. The books were on the desk. The shoes were under the chair. Then he came to the last Item on his list. He went to look for himself in the bed but the search was in vain. He wasn’t there.
Where am I?” he asked. (Rabbi Jack Riemer, World of the High Holidays)

Where are you? Where am I?  This is also a question about creation- and in fact, it is the first question that is asked in the Torah. After the creation of the world, when God is looking for Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, God calls out to Adam: “Ayeka?” Where are you?  Where are you? That is the first question of the creation story. We engage in teshuvah, to literally turn inwards as we attempt to first get a glimpse of our true selves, and then turn outwards to get a glimpse at how we are living our lives.

To put it slightly differently, Rosh Hashanah is about managing our lives. According to Steven Covey’s book,  The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, effective management means “putting first things first-” and that takes discipline. Covey further explains that:
Discipline derives from disciple- disciple to a philosophy, disciple to a set of principles, a set of values, disciple to an overriding purpose (Covey, 148)….
In other words discipline requires that we understand our purpose in life, who we are, what we believe, what we value. Only then can we manage our lives.
Understanding who we are is no small task, especially in this day and age. Rabbi Hayim Herring writes that the twenty first century has brought with it a renewed sense of urgency over questions of meaning in our lives. It is these types of questions that we must grapple with as we seek to understand who we are and who we would like to become- questions such as:
•    If I life in an age when I can get whatever I want, how do I decide what is ultimately important?
•    If I can choose to be a part of any community, which one is more desirable for me to join?
•    If I live in a world that is always “on,” how can I ensure that I do not lose my soul?
•    If I live in a world where I can keep taking, do I have a responsibility to give something back?
And for those who may not have grappled with these questions before, I imagine the political, economic, and global crises of the past year have pushed us all to reconsider and reevaluate many areas of our lives.
Individuals and organizations have had to make painful yet important decisions about their priorities. People ask themselves: Can we afford to go out to dinner? Can we afford to go on vacation? Can we afford sending our children to a particular college? Can we afford to give the same amount of tzedakah? These are all questions centered around our values and our priorities. The budget conversations that we had here at Beth David were also all about priorities. And the California budget crisis has been a reminder that when times are difficult and resources are scarce- priorities must be evaluated and re evaluated.
Questions about priorities are not new to Judaism, they were not created in the twenty first century, nor were they meant to exist solely in times of economic crisis. These types of questions have been around for thousands of years. They are the questions of Rosh Hashanah— the questions necessary to celebrate the creation of the world, and explore the creation of ourselves.
And the answers to these questions are meant to stay with us throughout the year.

Rabbi Menahem Mendle of Kotzk once put this question to his students: What was the hardest part of the Akedah for Abraham? Was it the initial call, the long walk to Moriah, or the binding? His answer: the hardest part was coming down the mountain.

Rabbi David Wolpe comment: the hardest part of the High Holiday experience comes: …two months later, when we are supposed to live by the promises we made. And reminds us that: We should treasure the summit of inspiration, but not live by it. Here below, once we have come down the mountain, our task awaits ( Rabbi David Wolpe, Elkins, RH Readings).

On Rosh Hashanah we must ask ourselves whether or not we are living out our deepest held convictions and values. We must explore whether or not our priorities are in the proper order. That is how we celebrate the creation of God’s world, and get in touch with the parts of ourselves that are made betzelem elohim, in God’s image. And then, once Rosh Hashanah is over and we have come down the mountain, we must continually work to ensure that we are living up to our self discovery, always remembering that the work of creating our own selves is a life-long endeavor.