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!
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