Rosh HaShanah Morning 5783: This Year is Next Year!

 A version of this sermon was delivered at Temple B'nai Torah - A Reform Congregtion in Wantagh, NY on Rosh HaShanah Morning 5783.

Every year, as these High Holy Days approach, rabbis across the country debate whether or not to touch on topics that might be too divisive.  “Shouldn’t we come up here onto our pulpits and speak words which unite?” many would say.  “Aren’t there enough things that we agree on?  Do you have to focus on those things which divide us?”  Well friends, we take our cues from the Prophets.  From Isaiah who calls us to righteousness.  From Jeremiah who calls us to end corruption in our institutions.  From Ezekiel who saw far into the future.  And so, I know that when the times call for it, it must be done.

Therefore, I begin my remarks this morning with some trepidation, and I ask that if what I am about to say offends you, you at least hear out my argument.  A couple of weeks ago, in Queens, not that far from us, The Chicago Cubs swept the New York Mets at CitiField.  It was so far the only sweep the Mets have suffered this season.

Now, trust me, I don’t bring this up to rub salt on a wound, because let’s face it, not only would that be a not great way to start 5783, but also it was not two weeks later that the Cubs were eliminated from the playoffs while the Mets have secured their spot.  I don’t bring up these three games, whose aggregate score was 15-6, to insult the Mets or their fans.  I don’t mention these three late season games to make myself feel better about a mediocre rebuilding year for my beloved North Siders.  No, I bring it up because of what those three games represented for Cubs fans like me.  

After a season of fewer ups than downs, a season of selling off some of the last pieces that came together in 2016 to finally win the World Series, a season of treading water, those three games in mid-September allowed for us wayward devotees of Wrigley to hold on, for just a little longer, to our most precious of commodities, our hope.  There was no real chance for the Cubs, yet those three games rallied the fans and made it all the easier when the time eventually came to say: “There is always next year.”  

Can you think of a more hopeful statement?

Even though we’ve had a rough go of things of late, experiencing more downs than ups, suffering so many losses one right after the other, even though it may feel like the last two years were an exercise in watching the world around us spin more and more out of control, our tradition teaches us that we are not allowed to give up on hope.  We are not allowed to look at our world and only see the problems before us.  We are not allowed to consider the world as unredeemable, our neighbors as unredeemable, ourselves as unredeemable.  We believe in redemption, calling out to God as the ultimate Redeemer.  We believe in a better future, even when our present is complicated.  We believe in hope.  It has been passed down to us.

As we take our first steps into 5783, let us do so with hope in the future and for the future.  Let us declare that today is next year!

What is it in our tradition that calls us to hopefulness?  The first of our ancestors to use the term was Jacob, who, from his deathbed, blesses his children in turn.  In the midst of his blessing for Dan, Jacob utters the phrase: “liyishuatecha kiviti Adonai, for your redemption, I have hoped, O Adonai.”   In this moment, Jacob is in the middle of blessing his sons and grandsons, setting them up for their future without him, teaching them one final lesson, and seemingly out of nowhere, he utters this call to the Eternal.  Some commentaries  explain this as separate from the blessing, as an aside by Jacob, perhaps due to his faltering health.  Others redouble the prophecy and read in an allusion to Samson.  

Jacob declares his hope at the end of his life, surrounded by the next generations.  Jacob has experienced all of life’s ups and downs.  He is the weaker twin, born second.  His mother manipulates him into coercing his father to giving him his brother’s rightful blessing.  He has to flee his home.  He is conned by his father-in-law.  The love of his life is taken too early from him.  His daughter is sexually assaulted.  His sons conspire to massacre a town and then sell one of their brothers to slavery, only to tell Jacob that Joseph is dead.  He endures so much trauma and hurt, enough that anyone would lose hope.

Yet we also know that God chooses Jacob over Esau.  That in being forced to work so many years, Jacob grows more powerful and wealthy than he could ever imagine.  The son he thought dead later becomes his and his family’s lifesaving provider and has risen to be vice-pharaoh of Egypt.  Along the way, he has seen angels come and go, and he even bested one angel in a wilderness wresting match.  His victory prompts the angel to rename him Yisrael.  

Rather than consider these words of hope in the midst of blessing as merely an aside, what power there is in considering them a part of the blessing to his progeny.  Jacob has lived a life.  And then, at the end, unprompted, Jacob reveals to us how he survived it all.  Hope.  God, I always hoped for your salvation.  It takes more than a blessing from a parent; and Jacob ought to know.  It takes hope.  

We are B’nai Yisrael, descendants of Jacob, blessed with that same hope in our spiritual DNA.  

What blessings of hope will we utter as we make our way into this new year?  What lessons about hope will we teach our children and grandchildren?  

Jacob teaches the generation after him an important lesson about what it takes to make it through this world.  It takes hope.  Jacob’s lesson is passed down through the generations.  Because, while the seed of hope is planted in Jacob’s sons, it is the daughters of Israel who will sow its yield.  

When the people of Israel cross the parted waters and are reborn into freedom and covenant, they honor God’s wonderous act with song.  In famous words, Moses and the people Israel sing a song of salvation and redemption: Who is like, you, O Adonai, among the Gods that are worshipped!?  And then Miriam, the Prophet, takes out her timbrel to lead singing and dancing, followed by all the women taking out their timbrels.  Nowhere earlier in the Torah does it tell us that the women readied their instruments.  Nowhere does the Torah indicate that the women were packing their drums.  We read about the unbaked bread, but no timbrels.  So, the sages, understandably, ask where the women got these “tupim,” these rhythmic instruments in the desert.

Well, sometimes the rabbis answer out of logic.  If the women had them, they must have packed them.  But, why would they?  The Midrash answers that the women packed them, because they were righteous, and because they knew that God would redeem them.  The women’s righteousness is their hopefulness.  Packing for celebration in the shadow of the devastation of Egypt is an act of hope.  The Israelite women have hope, even in the aftermath of enduring a terrible, genocidal regime, they hope in God’s salvation, they believe in it, they expect it.  So, they pack their instruments, always ready to break out into song.  Hopeful at every turn.

Imagine the scene in Egypt as they’re packing to go.  Imagine what their families say to them as they are packing the seemingly useless instruments.  You didn’t have time to raise the dough, but you remembered your drum?!

The drums are only useless if we think we’ll never have occasion to use them.  What timbrels will we pack for the year ahead?  What can we have at the ready so that we are prepared when our hopes come to pass, when we have no choice but to celebrate and dance?

As the inherited hope passed from of Jacob to the generation of the exodus, so too has that hope been come down to us.  Hope is our inheritance!

But is hope enough?  Is hope supposed to pay our grocery bills, our energy bills, our synagogue bills?  Is hope enough to end the difficulties we see all around us?

Of course not, and our tradition understands that alongside hope, more is sometimes needed.

When the people are ready to enter the Promised Land, Moses sends scouts to check it out before they make their way into it.  Is it even possible to conquer?  What’s in there anyway?  When the scouts return, 10 of them tell the people that they will not be able to conquer the land.  There are giants there and they will devour us!  There is no hope to fulfill God’s promise.  They spread this story among the people, causing them to lose hope as well.

But Joshua and Caleb come back and say that it is true that there will be challenges, but that with some hope, and knowing that God is on their side, they will be able to overcome anything laid out before them.  

What does this story teach us about hope?  It teaches us that the place of hope can sometimes be a lonely place.  Joshua and Caleb, the two scouts who come back hopeful, are the minority.  They are outnumbered.  It’s only through God’s intervention that their plan to move forward takes hold.  In spite of overwhelming negativity, they remain hopeful.

But Moses understands, perhaps from this episode, that hope is not enough.  And so at the end of his life, when he passes the mantle of leadership to Joshua, Moses tells the people and tells Joshua exactly what they need.  Chazak v’ematz, Moses tells the people, and then Joshua.  Alongside hope, you need strength and courage.  Alongside hope, you need strength to make it through the difficult times.  Alongside hope you need courage to try and also courage to be ready for when, inevitably, hopes are dashed.

It is for this reason that the Psalms teach us to put these two ideas together.  At the end of Psalm 27, which we have been reading each day of the month leading up to the High Holy Days, in the last verse of that psalm, we read: קַוֵּ֗ה אֶל־יְ֫יָֹ חֲ֭זַק וְיַאֲמֵ֣ץ לִבֶּ֑ךָ וְ֝קַוֵּ֗ה אֶל־יְֹיָֽ Hope in the Eternal, be strong and courageous in your heart, and hope in the Eternal.  As we have been readying ourselves for these High Holy Days, these last words of Psalm 27 reverberate in our ears, leading us to next year.  Hope, strength, courage, and hope.  There is hope for our future, if we are only strong enough to make it there and courageous enough to fight for it.

I want to share one more story about hope, about Tikvah, because I know that when we use that word, we cannot help but think of Israel, whose National Anthem, Hatikvah, announces that we are a people of hope.

Some of you know that I spent about a week in Israel this past summer.  While I was there, I have to tell you, the traffic was…ungodly.  Why?  Everywhere you look, construction and infrastructure projects.  In Tel Aviv, I don’t think there’s a highway that’s not torn up, and major parts of the city are enduring a big dig for a new subway and surface construction for a new light rail.  Imagine if the LIE, Southern State, Northern State, Meadowbrook, and the Wantagh were all under construction at the same time, and also Hempstead turnpike and Jerusalem were too.  It was a mess.  It certainly took strength and courage to drive around!

And then, just a couple of weeks ago, Israel announced and touted a brand new tunnel that is a part of the entrance to Jerusalem, which will hopefully reduce the traffic burden on the holy city.  That tunnel and all that construction in Israel are symbolic of the od lo avda tikvateinu attitude, of the sense that our hope is not lost.  The tunnel represents a sense that the future is bright and busy and peaceful enough that this major highway tunnel was a good investment.  The tunnel and the subway and the light rail represent the hope that Israel is not going anywhere anytime soon.

So, what am I supposed to do about the Cubs?  Well, with all the strength and courage that I can muster, I hope for next year.  There is always next year.  Next year is unformed and void; it hasn’t been created yet.  It is potential awaiting formation, promise awaiting fulfillment.  Next year is a winning season.  Next year is traffic free.  Next year is a chance to do it right.  Next year is opportunity granted.

There’s always next year is a statement of hope.  Next year starts today!  Rosh HaShanah is a celebration of hope, called from mountaintop to mountaintop by blasts of the horn, celebrating the hopeful future that is laid out before us.  It reminds us that where we are going is not yet determined.

Will we bring our timbrels with us?  Will we teach our children the importance of hope, even when life can be difficult?  Will we maintain our hope, even when we are outnumbered, and trust that our hopeful vision is worth the strength and courage we will need to bring it about?

For we certainly know that it will take courage and strength to make the world into what we want it to be.  It will take courage and strength to make ourselves into what we aspire to be.  All of that is sure.  What is also sure is that we cannot and will not accomplish either of these sacred tasks without hope.

Shanah Tovah.

May this year be your next year!

Erev Rosh HaShanah 5783 Holiness: Our Gift and Our Obligation

 A version of this sermon was delivered on Erev Rosh HaShanah 5783 at Temple B'nai Torah - A Reform Congregation in Wantagh, NY.

The Aleppo Codex, written in Tiberias over 1100 years ago, is one of the oldest surviving Hebrew manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible.  It contains the most accurate transcription of the traditions of the Masoretes, whose customs of pronunciation and chanting, inherited from the generations before them, we still use to this day.  The Codex, which looks more like a book than a Torah scroll, traveled to Jerusalem from Tiberias, and then to Egypt.  In Egypt, it was used by none other than Moses Maimonides, The Rambam, one of our people’s greatest scholars and philosophers, whose work we still consult to understand Jewish law and thought.  In his Mishnah Torah, written in the 12th century, he even remarks about this particular volume, referring to it as the Codex he relied upon while formulating his laws.  This is the book he used to look up verses and to cite sources in the Bible.

After Egypt, the Codex made its way to Aleppo, Syria, where it gets its name.  There it was kept by the Jewish community for centuries, until the 1950s, when it was smuggled to Israel.  Sadly, the Jewish community of Aleppo is all but no more, and their glorious synagogue has been destroyed, another casualty of the war.

The Codex now rests at the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem at the Israel Museum, alongside the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were written and hidden almost 1,000 years before.

I have been to the Israel Museum a few times.  It doesn’t always make the list of sites that fit into a cramped itinerary.  It wasn’t until the last time I was there, however, that I saw, or maybe better, noticed the Aleppo Codex in the Shrine of The Book.  

Gazing upon those pages, those words, in deep dark ink, still legible and comprehensible today, still transmitting the same messages and commandments as 1100 years ago.  In many ways, the Codex is a representation of the Jewish people surviving through the generations. 

As a rabbi, standing above its thick glass case, peering into the words of Torah that I know well and remembering all that this book has lived through, was overwhelming and exciting for me.  It was clear, I came to understand, that the Codex was imbued with the holiness of the generations.  A holiness that was present as it was written with devotion and dedication to a divine obligation.  A sought-after holiness that was the impetus for Maimonides to do his work, clarifying our obligations.  A holiness that comes from an object that brings together divine purpose and the human action.  A holiness that has been passed down to us through the inheritance of our tradition.

It’s not often that we feel or experience such a definite sense of holiness.  We may seek it out.  We may try to fill our lives with it.  Yet it often remains elusive, internally and outside of ourselves.  Part of that elusiveness is because holiness is neither easy to define nor easy to understand, even if sometimes it may be easy to experience.  

Holiness surrounds us our entire lives: from the kiddush at a bris or a baby naming to the blessings of kiddushin at a wedding as the rings are exchanged, to the mourners’ kaddish at the gravesite.  Declarations of holiness punctuate the most powerful and important moments of our lives and the lives of those we love.  Yet, holiness is not meant to be a momentary blessing or prayer.  It is an endeavor, an act of emulation, a state of being.

When spouses under a chuppah speak the words of the vow of kiddushin to each other, they are declaring that their partner is set apart and special, different from all others on Earth from now on.  These events of generational and familial connection are indeed holy moments.  A soaring rendition of Avinu Malkeinu, as we heard tonight with thanks to our Cantor and our Choir, moves our souls and becomes for many of us a holy moment.  These Days of Awe, especially, call us to come face to face with the holiness presented to us, outside of ourselves, in order that we commit to the obligations which can lead us to reach the holiness within ourselves.  

Linguists tell us that the root kadosh means separate and set apart, often for special purpose.  As Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz explains it: “To be holy is, in essence, to be distinctly other.”   Yet we also know that holiness is ethereal and ephemeral.  It’s a feeling as much as a designation. It’s an obligation and a gift.  It’s internal and external.  It’s a part of us, yet we seek it.  For something we talk about so often, kedushah could use some clarity.  And so, this year, as a congregation, we will be studying, exploring, and working to understand holiness.  Holiness as a gift from God and holiness as our obligation from God.  And we’ll start at the beginning.

The first declaration of holiness takes us all there.  As Creation concludes, God proclaims it very good, tov me’od.  God has done a lot of separating and declaring purpose over the last six days, as water, earth, and sky are each given their own distinct and separate space and as each is filled with unique creatures.  Once creation is done, God ceases from working on the seventh day.  Then, וַיְבָ֤רֶךְ אֱלֹהִים֙ אֶת־י֣וֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִ֔י God blesses the seventh day וַיְקַדֵּ֖שׁ אֹת֑וֹ and God sanctifies it.   God doesn’t just say it’s holy.  Well, actually God does, because that is how God works, speaking equals creating.  In speaking the holiness of Shabbat, God makes it holy by separating it from the week,  by assigning it special rules and regulations,  by preventing creative work.  God also makes it holy for all time.   We are gifted the holiness of Shabbat from God.  We are commanded to remember and observe Shabbat lekodsho, in order to make it holy.  Shabbat, the holy day, is our gift and our obligation.

On Shabbat and other holy days, we make that holiness literal through the blessing of kiddush.  A few minutes from now, we will hear the special kiddush for Rosh HaShanah.  The kiddush tonight includes the root kadosh four times.  Our English translation masks the repetition by using synonyms.  We bless the sweet wine for a sweet year.  Twice we announce that God has chosen us from all other peoples to sanctify us, to make us holy, through service to God and the mitzvot.  The mitzvot, our obligations themselves, are our inheritance.  Our holiness through their observance is a gift from God.  

When we lit the candles earlier, ushering in the new year, we recited the blessing that reminds us: asher kiddishanu bemitzvotav, that we are made holy through God’s commandments, that which God calls us to do.  When we start to look for it, we see that holiness, kedushah, is the heart of our covenantal project.

We are chosen by God for special purpose.  The holy words we will chant from our Torah when we arrive at Yom Kippur afternoon, from the Torah portion Kedoshim instruct us as such.  In the longest hours of the fast, as we await sunset and see the finish line ahead of us, we make the deliberate choice to announce God’s words to the entire community of the children of Israel: Kedoshim Tihiyu.  You shall be holy!  We are obligated to be holy, God tells us, for I the Eternal your God am holy.   

What could that mean?  How is our holiness related to God’s?  God meets the criteria for holiness.  God is separate and apart.  There is only one God.  We call God the Holy One of Blessing, HaKadosh Baruch Hu.  We’re supposed to mimic that!?  We’re supposed to mimic that.  As our Shabbat rest emulates God’s rest, our holiness mirrors God’s.  According to Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, God possesses consciousness, power, love and freedom.  “Humans are instructed to become more like God.  They become more holy by developing their consciousness, by creating and applying more power for life and good, by deepening their capacity for love and relationship, by exercising free will to choose life and do good.”  

We emulate God when we utilize those gifts we have because we are made b’tzelem Elohim, in the divine image: those gifts of consciousness, power, love, and freedom.  As a holy nation, we are called, as Martin Buber writes, to “not withdraw from the world, but rather radiate a positive influence on it through every aspect of Jewish living.”   Holiness is manifest when our Judaism, our Jewish values, our Jewish commitment to Torah, Worship, and Deeds of Kindness, are felt by the world around us.  

The Midrash teaches that God’s holiness is above us.   A Chassidic teaching reframes the language to understand this midrash as God saying that the holiness that is above is the same as our own.   In this way, the holiness we create here on earth, the generational lessons, the customs, the recognition of and dedication to the special purpose, the accepting of the gift and the fulfillment of our obligations, all of that leads to holiness below and holiness above.  Our actions have a direct effect on the heavens.  It’s not just mimicking the divine, it’s the effect we have on the divine.  Our seeking holiness feeds the divine holiness.  We become partners with the divine in not just creation, but in bringing about God’s holiness.  What a gift we are given, if only we follow through with our obligation!

Holiness is not situational or momentary; it’s ongoing.  Kedoshim tihiyu is in the future tense Rabbi Chayyim Ibn Attar highlights, because: “The implication is that this is a commandment which is an ongoing process.”   We don’t just become holy once or experience it once; we constantly engage with it.  We seek ways to imbue our lives and our surroundings with it.  We are asked to constantly accept the gift and agree to the obligation.

Kedoshim tihiyu is an odd commandment.  On the one hand, we’re commanded to be special and set apart, distinguished.  On the other, we’re asked to do so as a part of our community.  Each of us seeks out holiness based on the communal obligation.  We are each called individually to honor our parents and keep Shabbat.  We are called communally to holiness.  Moses is to speak these words, declaring the people’s holiness, to the entire community of the children of Israel.  This formulation in the Torah stresses that everyone was to hear.  The gift is communal.  The obligations more often individual.

Being in the presence of holy words, as I was at the Israel Museum those few years ago, I sensed a holiness outside of myself.  Together, we will have opportunities over this year to come closer to holy words in a powerful and meaningful way, and I don’t just mean by studying them and hearing them.  By now I’m sure you’ve seen save-the-date information for our Torah Restoration weekend in early December.  We will all, as a community, participate in the writing and the restoration of holy words.  We will welcome our Torah scribe to teach us about the scrolls and the words and about their writing.  Those who choose will have the opportunity to write in a Torah scroll.  

When we gather in December, to write with dark black ink on parchment, with a feather pen, we will emulate our ancestors, who did it just the same way.  We will write and fix the same words that appear in the Aleppo Codex from 1100 years ago and the Dead Sea Scrolls of 2,000 years ago.  We will write and fix the same words handed to Moses on Sinai.  The holiness of the generations will be evident.  We will restore our holy sefer Torah, and we will ensure that the letters are bright and clarion for the next generation.  I encourage everyone to participate in this powerful and meaningful opportunity to come face to face with the holy words.  To ensure that the gift of holy words we have been given is passed down to the next generation.

Holiness is always around us and a part of so much of our tradition. We may take it somewhat for granted.  We’re in a sanctuary, a holy room.  We have a holy ark, holy Torahs.  Clergy are referred to as klei kodesh, vessels of holiness.  There’s no getting away from it!  At the same time, we are also always in pursuit of it, seeking it, looking for ways to fill our hearts and souls and our world with it.  The Kabbalists inspire us in this endeavor: “Be persistent in learning how to sanctify what you do.  In the end, the Blessed Holy One will guide you on the path that wishes to impart holiness to you, so that you become holy”   We seek holiness so God can gift us holiness.

Let us therefore dedicate our year of study to seeking out a deeper understanding of kedushah, of holiness, for ourselves and our community.  And thereby may we instill within each of us and all of us that holiness which is our inheritance and our calling, our obligation and our gift.

Shanah Tovah!