Erev Rosh HaShanah 5782: Olam Chesed Nibaneh

 A version of this sermon was delivered on Erev Rosh HaShanah 5782 at Temple B'nai Torah - A Reform Congregation in Wantagh, NY.

            You may have missed the headlines, but this past May, Europe was in crisis, and on the brink of collapse.  No, I’m not talking about Brexit, or the effects of the COVID pandemic.  I’m not even talking about the voting at the Eurovision song contest this year.  No.  Earlier this May, in a brazen act, a farmer moved a large stone some 7.5 feet, out of the way of his tractor.[1] 

            Now, you might be wondering, what could be so brazen about moving a stone?  Even a large stone?  Aren’t farmers allowed to do that?  Shouldn’t he be allowed to keep his tractor and equipment safe?  Well, this farmer lives in the town of Erquelinnes, Belgium, which shares a border with the French town of Bousignies-sur-Roc.  When this farmer moved that large stone out of his way, what he didn’t realize is that the stone had been placed there deliberately and with purpose.  Not by God, but by a border commission in 1819, tasked with dividing up Europe in the aftermath of Napoleon’s loss at Waterloo four years earlier in 1815.  I imagine some of us are thinking back to High School history courses when we last might have heard these names.  When the Belgian farmer moved that stone, he moved the border 7.5 feet, making Belgium bigger by 7.5 feet and France smaller by 7.5 feet, though I’m sure they measured in meters.  And he did this all by moving a stone out of the way of his tractor. 

            Quite the accomplishment for a small-town farmer: creating an unintentional international incident, that if it couldn’t be resolved amicably, would necessitate the formation of a border commission, the likes of which hasn’t been convened since 1930!  Quite the chain of events unleashed by an innocent desire a man had to properly farm his land. 

            The farmer obviously had no idea what his simple action might lead to.  He had no sense that by just doing his work, going about his day, he might create such a firestorm.  Not all our actions have such earth-changing consequences, but this season of our New Year and these Days of Awe ask us to consider our actions, all of them, big and small, and their ramifications, big and small. 

What do we create when we act?  What might we destroy? 

This is the question that weighs on our souls on these days that bring us to the border between heaven and earth.  We cannot move the border between earth and heaven, but our tradition makes clear that we do have an effect on the heavens.  These hours spent in our houses of worship, pleading before and praising God, remind us all that our actions not only affect those around us in this world, but the heavenly realm as well. 

What we do, will do, and have done will cause us to be written and inscribed in the book of life, we pray.  As we begin these days of repentance, prayer, and charity, we might ask ourselves what these prayers mean and how we are supposed to understand them.  Do we believe that God is sitting up in heaven with a quill pen keeping track of everything we do in a giant ledger or on a long scroll?  Maybe we imagine God crouched over a laptop with an Excel spreadsheet of our deeds, each of us getting a new tab, the sum of our actions automatically updating with each entry.  However we might imagine it adding up, our deeds have a metaphysical effect: our actions affect even God Themself.  They can temper judgment’s severe decree! 

These cause-and-effect beliefs are hard for our modern sensibilities.  When the rabbis of old teach that our deeds affect the heavens, they do so in part to remind us that if our actions can impact God in heaven, imagine the impact they have on earth.  If every one of our actions matters so deeply to God, then we are called to mimic the Divine Concern and consider how every one of them matters to us and to those around us.

What we do matters, every moment of every day.  It is all taken into account by God, and so it should all be taken into account by us.

The ancient rabbis explained that Divine Concern for the effects of our actions.  In Pirke Avot, the collection of teachings from the earliest generations of Rabbis, we read that “Rabbi Eliezer, son of Yaakov, says: One who does a single good deed acquires a single defender. One who does a single sin acquires a single prosecutor.”[2]  Rabbi Eliezer here teaches that our deeds essentially assemble a collection of lawyers to plead your case before God.  The good deeds amass a team of defendants, and the bad deeds amass a team of prosecutors. 

In The Talmud, “Rabbi Joshua ben Levi said: All the commandments which Israel performs in this world will come and testify on their behalf in the world to come.”[3]  Rather than serving as the attorneys, according to Rabbi Joshua ben Levi, our deeds serve as witnesses, testifying on our behalf before the throne of judgment.  Though he doesn’t elaborate, clearly some would testify for the prosecution and some for the defense.

Rabbi Shmuel Eidels, known as the Maharsha, who lived in Poland in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, goes even further in a teaching on this very passage of Talmud.  In his commentary, he teaches that “in each action of a person’s hands is created a spiritual being based on the deed, as it is said, the one who fulfills a commandment gives strength to the host of the heavens,” [4]  Our actions, the Maharsha teaches, create.  It’s not just that the actions call forward the prosecutors and defenders, he says.  It’s not just that the actions themselves take the stand.  No, all of our actions are moments of creation.  Positive actions create a force in the heavens that buttresses the foundations of God’s abode.

The Maharsha goes on to explain that the opposite is true as well.  “And thus…one who commits a sin removes strength from the host of the heavens, and gives strength to the side of impurity, and they are witnesses who testify against him.”[5]

Doing the right thing is heavenly infrastructure.  By following mitzvot, and living up to our moral standards, we strengthen God.  When we miss the mark, when we sin, we chip away at the heavens and strengthen the case against us in the heavenly court.  These High Holy days allow us the opportunity to make up for those times we’ve missed the mark.  We enter the sanctuary of our souls hoping that our prayers, our contrition, and our commitment to deeds of lovingkindness will begin to make up for those times.  But the Talmud and the Maharsha remind us that focusing on this only on these days is not sufficient because our actions every day are moments of creation.  These days are supposed to guide us for the rest of the year.

The Maharsha’s teaching that every one of our actions is a moment of creation means that every action we take allows us the opportunity to mimic the Divine, to participate in the act of creation.  Every action in our lives has the potential to be another Big Bang, another moment of B’reishit bara!  This potential is exciting, as we embark on this new year, because it gives us another chance to build upon that infrastructure.  It gives us another chance to hold ourselves accountable.  It gives us a chance to improve.

God tried out other versions of existence before committing to this one.  The other ones were not good.  In an interesting midrash, Rabbi Judah bar Simon teaches that the world we live in today was not God’s first attempt.[6]  He asks why the Torah, in describing the first day of Creation – on which God speaks light into being, separates light and darkness, and names day and night – why on this first day of existence, does the Torah say, “And there was evening.”?  For Rabbi Judah bar Simon, the “and” is superfluous.  This is to teach us, he says, “…that there was a time-system prior to this.”[7] And the midrash adds a teaching of Rabbi Abbahu, who said that, “This [‘and’] teaches us that God created worlds and destroyed them, saying, ‘This one pleases me; those did not please me.’”[8]

This one, though, as we read in the Torah, is good and, ultimately, very good.[9]  So when God created something that God wasn’t especially proud of, God tried again.  Rabbi Avi Stausberg teaches that the successful creation of the world was only made possible by the creation and destruction of previous attempts.[10]

It took God a few tries to get it right.  Rabbi Natan Zvi Finkel, in his essay “Destruction and Building,” explains God’s repeated attempts at creation by looking at the book of Proverbs, which teaches that the world was created with wisdom.[11]  “…In the destruction of the worlds, there is great wisdom…However this is not really destruction at all, rather it is the way of wisdom: through the different attempts to build worlds and their destructions, the foundation is established upon which the world is based.”[12]  Destruction leads ultimately to wisdom when we are inspired not to make the same mistakes a second time.

If we have the same creative power as God, then, like God, we have the ability to discern wisdom from our mistakes and use it as the foundation of our world.  That’s what these days are about.  Discerning wisdom from our mistakes, from the moments we destroyed, the moments we chipped away at heaven, the moments we moved the border.  Whether God is keeping that ledger or not, these days, reflecting on our deeds, call upon us to take stock of what we created and what we destroyed.  And, these days teach us that even from those moments of destruction, there is the opportunity to create again, with every action of our hands.

Today is the birthday of the world!  Hayom Harat Olam!  These words remind us that among the many meanings of this Rosh Hashanah, today is a celebration of creation and God’s creative power.  We marvel at it and celebrate it.  With a simple speech act, God sends all of existence into being.  We sound the shofar to recall the moment when, out of Tohu vavohu, out of an unformed and void cosmos, God spoke existence into being. 

And, at the same time we marvel at our own divine creative power, at the power we have in our hands.  According to Rabbi Finkel, we are obligated to use it.  “A person is obligated to be similar to God in all God’s attributes, so too is it obligated upon a person to create worlds like God.  As it is taught [in the Talmud]: ‘Be similar to God.  Just as God is merciful and compassionate, so should you be merciful and compassionate.’”[13] 

Because it’s not only wisdom that God uses as a tool of creation.  The Psalms teach us Olam chessed yibaneh, that God created with chesed, lovingkindness.[14] And as God creates with lovingkindness, we are called to mimic that lovingkindness in all that we build and all that we create.  We are called to show love for ourselves, and for others.  In doing so, we forge ahead and build upon a sturdy foundation.  We partner

Tonight, we enter the year 5782 with blasts of the horn and praises of God.  Ahead of us are untold opportunities to change the world, to create with wisdom, compassion, and deeds of lovingkindness.  Let us take up the charge and hear the sound of the Shofar calling us to build a world of chesed.  Let the sounds of the shofar call us to repair, through our actions, the heavenly realm, so that God’s presence may continue to be strongly felt.  For if we participate in the work of creating a world founded on wisdom and built from love, then God’s presence will truly be felt around us and through us.  And then, it will truly be a Shanah Tovah.  A good year.

Ken Yehi Ratzon.

Amen.

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[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/belgian-farmer-moves-belgium-france-border/

[2] Pirke Avot 4:11

[3] BT Avodah Zarah 2a

[4] Maharsha on Avodah Zarah 2a in Chidushei Agadot

[5] Ibid.

[6] Bereishit Rabbah 3:7

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] See Gen. 1

[10] Rabbi Avi Strausberg, Hayom Harat Olam – We are the Creators.  https://www.hadar.org/torah-resource/zokhreinu-lhayyim-memory-and-promise

[11] 3:19

[12] Rabbi Natan Zvi Finkel, as quoted by Strausberg, Rabbi Avi., Hayom Harat Olam – We are the Creators.  https://www.hadar.org/torah-resource/zokhreinu-lhayyim-memory-and-promise

[13] Ibid.

[14] 89:3

Yom Kippur 5781: The Power of Disruption

 A version of this sermon was delivered on Yom Kippur Morning 5781 at Temple B'nai Torah - A Reform Congregation in Wantagh, NY.

As an undergraduate student, I found a work-study job at the main campus library.  Many of the work-study jobs available were based on either checking out books or putting books away.  Having passed AP French, I managed to snag a plum position at the Center for Baudelaire Studies at the French Collections.  My job was to scan, clean up, and catalogue newspaper and magazine clippings from the archives of a French theatre critic, which had recently been donated to the library’s collection.  The French Collections were not easy to get to.  They were in an upper corner of the library, through areas that were seldom traveled, especially by students. 

To get there easiest, I would often take the old elevator.  It was small, slow, and had that gate thing that you had to close yourself for the elevator to operate.  It was a throwback, to be sure.  On the way to that old elevator, I would pass the beautiful wooden card catalog that took up much of the first-floor foyer.  Above the card catalog hung a sign, itself a relic, that stated that the card catalog had not been updated since 1989.  It had been 10 years since anyone had put a new card in those drawers by the time I got there.  It had been 10 years since those beautifully ornate card catalogs had served a purpose.  What used to be integral to the way we learned now sat gathering dust.  Something had come along and disrupted the way books were located in a library.

Of course, I’m talking about computers and database systems that allowed for much faster sorting and searching of books.  As computers became more ubiquitous, the categories of searching for a book – by author, subject, or title – didn’t change, but the method did.  No longer rifling through cards, now just hitting a button to see where in the many floors and stacks of books the one book you were looking for could be located.

We might not feel it now, since we’re 30 plus years into it, but the onset of the computing age disrupted long traditions of how things were done.  No facet of our lives has remained untouched by it.  We all now carry minicomputers in our pockets with the ability to access any information we want, and all of them are more powerful than that first computer installed in 1989.  Some of you are watching me on one right now.  Some of you are on Facebook telling everyone else how great this sermon is!  The disruption that computing brought about has no doubt changed the course of our lives as individuals and as a society.

The personal computing age was a disruption of our own making and our own progress. And as a society, we determined that we liked the new technology and so we embraced it.  But not all disruptions are of our own doing.  Sometimes disruptions are imposed upon us by others.  And sometimes by forces entirely out of human hands.

We’re living through a major disruption right now.  We’re living through a pandemic.  While we are all still working hard just to make it through the day to day, given that we’re six months in, we’re also beginning to wonder what it all means and what lessons we can take from it.  We are seekers of meaning, as humans.  It’s not just about finding out why the pandemic happened; we have a sense of that, thanks to science.  Rather, we seek to make sense of how it has affected us.  Finding silver linings and moments of blessing in the midst of the chaos is important.  To make sense of this, though, requires deeper and longer consideration.  It means reflecting on the broader, longer-lasting results of this disruption.  We know much of what will come after is based on how we choose to respond.

So, how do we respond to such an overwhelming disruption?  If there’s one thing the Jewish people can handle, it’s disruption.  You don’t survive for 4,000 years and not go through ups and downs with the world around you.  The previous disruptions in our people’s history show us that a commitment to values and a sense of flexibility are required.  It’s not about closing the library, it’s about embracing new ways of finding the book we are looking for. 

In the year 66 of the Common Era, the Jews had begun to revolt against the Romans’ imposing rule and high taxes.  The Romans retaliated by looting the Temple in Jerusalem.  By the year 70, Imperial Rome had had it with the Judean rebels.  After four years of skirmishes and political maneuvering, the battalions laid siege to Jerusalem, and ultimately, the Temple was destroyed and the people exiled from their holy city. 

Talk about a disruption.  For the last number of centuries, the Temple in Jerusalem had been God’s abode, the only way that your petition, thanks, apology, or praise reached God.  It went up in the smoke from the altar in a pleasing aroma to the Eternal, overseen by the priests.

The Roman invasion could have been the end.  Jews’ holy sites lay in ruins, their way of life no longer available to them.  Their neighbors gone, either victims of the revolt or having fled.  This could have been the moment that the Jewish people raised the white flag and said to God, “You know what?!  Enough is enough!  This is the second time you’ve kicked us out of your house, and we get the hint!  We’re not coming back!”    

What do you do when the only way to get to God is gone?  How do you respond when the way of life you knew has been taken from you?  Some Jews did leave, to be sure.  There was a group of folks in the Galilee spreading ideas and teachings about salvation though the Son of God.  But one group of Jews said that rather than let the disruption be their end, they would adapt.  If the old technology no longer was available, they would figure out something new. Does God want all those sacrifices, anyway?  The Prophet Isaiah tells us no, doesn’t he? 

Rabban Yohanan Ben Zakkai, a leader of the early rabbis, saw the writing on the wall.  He knew the Romans would crush the rebellion and destroy Jerusalem.  He decided that the survival of God’s people and hewing to the values he held dear was important enough to find a way to adapt Judaism to their world after the disruption.

According to the Talmud[1], Ben Zakkai conspires to have himself smuggled out of Jerusalem.  He first feigns sickness and makes a big ruckus about it, so everyone knows that he has “fallen ill.”  Then, he spreads the rumor that he has died, and he has himself placed in a coffin, which is carried out of the city by two of his colleagues, Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua.  Once out of the city, Ben Zakkai emerges from the coffin and makes a deal with the Roman governor, Vespasian.  The Talmud, not always subtle in its imagery, is making a point with this story about how Judaism will continue to live, and in fact never died to begin with.  The story represents continuity through adaptability.

What deal did Ben Zakkai strike with Vespasian?  Ben Zakkai says: “Give me Yavne and its Sages and do not destroy it, and spare the dynasty of Rabban Gamliel and do not kill them as if they were rebels, and lastly give me doctors to heal Rabbi Tzadok.”[2] 

After the disruption, this is what’s on Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai’s mind.  Spare the sages: let us keep our traditions; spare the dynasty: let us keep our future; give me doctors to heal: my people are hurting and I need to care for them.  In the midst of the disruption, his concern is to make sure everyone is cared for.

Every step, Ben Zakkai is thinking about what can be done to adapt to the new reality and care for those around him.  He knows his actions affect his people.  Save the sages.  Save the dynasty of learning.  Let us go down by the coast and keep to ourselves there, safe and healthy.  Vespasian agrees, and the tradition of Rabbinic Judaism, the Judaism we know, begins in earnest.  Without the adaptation to disruption—and without disruption itself—friends, we would not be here, and neither would the Judaism we know.

The Rabbis may have had no choice but to abandon the Temple physically, but they made a choice not to abandon it spiritually.  This afternoon, we will read the Avodah Service, which tells the tale of the service of the High Priest and recounts what happened in the Temple in Jerusalem on Yom Kippur.  The Rabbis reframe the Temple worship as prayer and study of Torah, and for them, that is how they, and now we, get to God.  The technology changed.  It required an adaptation to the disruption, a new way of searching.  But it didn’t require leaving the library behind. 

Adaptation also didn’t require leaving the disruption behind.  It stayed with them.  This pandemic will stay with us.  It will color the choices we make and the world we will inhabit once we’re allowed back out into the world.

It seems so far away still.  Disruptions are hard to live through. 

Rabban Yohanan Ben Zakkai and his contemporaries were certainly pained to see their glorious city in ruins.  We are pained as we see the numbers increase, as we feel our lives on hold, as we lose jobs, as we wait for a vaccine.  But the rabbis recognized that there was an opportunity before them, to adapt.  They understood that even without the Temple, God was still present in their lives in very real ways.  Even after the pandemic, all that was important to us will remain, but it will be up to us to consider how we approach it.

Will we allow this disruption to foster innovation in our lives?  Will we make space after the disruption to reevaluate the lives we lived before?  Will we allow ourselves the flexibility to incorporate the new technology that emerges?  Will we move toward more engagement since we’ve been so distant from each other?  Will we recognize how much we are all connected to each other in ways that we did not understand before?

COVID is a disruption.  But we will make it through because we do it in a small way every year.  Because Yom Kippur is a disruption too.  It’s a disruption in our year, a disruption to our habits, and it calls upon us to consider what was before and whether we want it to continue after.  As with other disruptions we experience, ultimately today is not about the day itself, but what we choose to do afterwards, mi yom kippurim zeh ad yom kippurim ha’ba: from this Yom Kippur until the next, we heard so beautifully chanted last night in the Kol Nidre.  As much as this day asks us to look back on our deeds, we are also prodded to look forward to the life we hope to live in the aftermath.  We ask ourselves: Will we allow the new technology of teshuvah to guide us today, or will we still be looking through our card catalog of sins?

After we take off our masks for the last time, will we cling to the way we used to do things because it’s comfortable, or will we allow ourselves to embrace the disruption and hear its call to adaptability and flexibility undergirded in values?

There’s no predicting the future.  But this pandemic will end.  And when it does, we will all have a choice as to how we will live.  At the end of our Torah service, we sing words drawn from the end of the book of Lamentations, which chronicles the destruction of the first Temple: “Chadesh yameinu kekedem, renew our days as of old,” we intone as the Ark doors are closed.  We have a couple of ways of thinking about what these words, chadesh yameinu kekedem, mean.  Are we going to endeavor that our post-pandemic lives will simply return to how things were before, kekedem?  Or, are we going to strive to chadesh yameinu, to renew our days and make the most of the disruption that has been thrust upon us?  Will we have the chutzpah and resolve to make something new and powerful?  Or, will we live with our outdated technology knowing that we haven’t been updated since 5780?

The rabbis never really wanted to go back to the Temple anyway, I think.  And we don’t want the Temple back, either.  We also aren’t about to start using the card catalog again.  What are we going to upgrade as we emerge from this pandemic?  Perhaps, if nothing else, we will upgrade our sense of responsibility for each other, and leave behind an outdated winner-take-all individualism.  Perhaps, if nothing else, we will hold onto the realization that what we do affects others.  We are all connected to one another; our very breath affects the person next to us.  Our actions have wide ranging consequences.  And I’m talking about for the good!  Think of how our area, our community, this congregation, came together to implement protective, necessarily restrictive measures, to save each other, to save people we don’t even know, and won’t ever meet.

For now, we are in the midst of disruption.  It’s shaky.  It’s uneven.  It’s constantly changing.  It’s exhausting.  I know.  But it will end.  And when it does, may we all be updated.  May we emerge with a new yearning for true relationship with others and appreciation for the Divine we see as we greet them face to face, not screen to screen, with an embrace.  In the year 5781 and beyond may we all be updated in the book of life for goodness and blessing, for health and togetherness.

G’mar Chatimah Tovah.

 

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[1] Based on Gittin 56b

[2] Ibid.

Kol Nidre 5781: A Strongly Worded Letter to God

 A version of this sermon was delivered at Temple B'nai Torah - A Reform Congregation in Wantagh, NY on Kol Nidre 5781, September 27, 2020.

God, we need to have a talk.

The Torah tells us that this is a day to afflict our souls.  The Torah tells us that this day is supposed to make atonement for us, for our sins, before You, God.  This day is supposed to render us clean, as individuals and as a nation.  We are to deny our bodies and offer ourselves to You.  We cleanse our bodies to cleanse our souls.  But this year, God, I’m not so sure I’m going to feel cleansed, or renewed, or atoned.  Because after this day, this Sabbath of Sabbaths, life continues as it did yesterday, and I gotta tell You, God, life is hard right now, and I know that I’m one of the lucky ones. 

But, when times are tough, where do I turn if not to You?  To whom do we come if not to You? 

I know that we’re supposed to be cautious of how we speak to You,[1] and that even great men and women should be careful about rendering harsh words toward the heavens, but I think You can handle it.  In fact, I know You can.  Abraham argued with You at Sodom, the covenant held.  Jacob wrestled with You in the wilderness, the covenant held.  Jonah petulantly refused to do Your will, the covenant held.

In their footsteps, Eternal our God and God of our Ancestors, I ask: how do You expect us to afflict our souls when they are already so wounded?  How do You expect that we practice self-denial when what we can do is already so limited? 

You want a listing of our sins?  Fine.  We have sinned, over and over again, we’ve got one for every letter of the alphabet!  But when do we call You to account?!  We need some tikkun, God, some healing and repair for our souls which ache with distress, for our spirits, which cry out to be comforted.  We don’t need another day of affliction!

So let’s make a deal: tonight, In the presence of the heavenly court and the earthly court, we’ll forgive You and You forgive us. 

What for?  I’m glad You asked.

Life is hard, and my people and I are tired.  So tired.  Not like in other years.  I know what it takes to make High Holy Days happen.  I know what it means to stay up nights and agonize over words, to craft a meaningful prayer moment, in the hope that they will make a difference.  I have done that before.  This year, there was so much new.  New technology to learn, new interpersonal skills to learn, new habits to learn, new worries keeping me up.  I’m a lifelong learner, God, but hadn’t I already learned how to live my life?

So fine, I learned how to do my job virtually.  But I don’t like it.  It’s not the best way to do this work, God.  The work of teaching Your Torah.  I know You only spoke to Moses face to face, but I’m used to doing it all the time!  I miss seeing people’s faces in front of me.  I miss seeing students in person.  I miss shaking a mourner’s hand and high fiving a bat mitzvah.  I miss handing out lollipops on Shabbat!  I miss blessing people in person!  I miss so much of what was before.  We’ve lost so much of what we knew, and there is no end in sight.  And we don’t know what will come after.

On top of that is all the worry.  And it’s exhausting, too.  Every day, every decision, based on worry for our safety, for that of our families.  Who will be there and where have they been?  How many people will be there?  What’s the viral count in the county right now?  What about the state?  Do I have a mask or sanitizer with me?  Every day, all those questions, over and over.  I know You’re a fan of intentionality, but is this what You had in mind?

And then, God, there’s all the death.  I didn’t open with that because it’s all still so hard to talk about.  So many have died.  So many who did not have to.  Across this country, and across this planet.  I know how busy You’ve been ushering people under Your sheltering wings.  Who shall live and who shall die!?  Who by plague?!  These used to be rhetorical questions, God, remnants of our ancestors and the lives of uncertainty that they lived.  A quaint throwback to a simpler time, before science, before vaccines, when we believed all of it was Your doing. 

So many are grieving their loved ones, their friends, their neighbors because of this virus, because of the violence, because of hunger, because of fires and hurricanes.  So many families in our nation, crushed in mourning.  My people and I are living in a constant state of mourning.  Is that what You hoped for?!  You are supposed to turn our mourning into dancing.  Any time You feel like it!

There’s so much we can’t plan for.  We’re all so anxious because we don’t know what tomorrow will bring.  All we have are questions.  What will we be allowed to do?  How can we plan for things?  What is school going to look like?  Will I have a job?  Every plan needs a contingency.  Every idea needs a backup.  It’s twice the work and twice the worry for every moment of our lives, God.  And it’s exhausting.  It leads to twice the anxiety for a nation that already doesn’t handle mental health well, that thinks there’s something wrong with asking for help.

It feels like there’s twice the potential to make a mistake every moment of every day, and yet, it also feels like we only get half the reward for twice the effort.  Our simchas are joyous but not what we had been looking forward to: weddings without parents, namings without grandparents, b’nai mitzvah without friends.  Our grieving is more pained and without the comfort of community.  Our day to day is so hectic and distracted and uncertain that we don’t know what to feel most of the time.  This cannot be the world You want for us.

Forgive me and my people if we’re just a little tired of bad news.  5779 was difficult, with rising antisemitism, mass shootings, police violence, rising oceans, and a nation more chaotic.  But 5780, You outdid Yourself!  On top of all of that, you took so many from us, and so many who stood for so much that we care about.  You took Kobe and his daughter.  You took John Lewis.  You took Ruth Bader Ginsberg.  You took Rabbi Steinsaltz. You took Carl Reiner.  You took Regis!  My mother still hasn’t gotten over that.

Is there supposed to be some lesson in this, in all this?  My soul aches already, and now I’m supposed to afflict it?  Well, You’ll forgive me if I just don’t have it in me to afflict myself anymore today.  The affliction we’ve been feeling feels like enough to make up for whatever we might have done to deserve it!  But You know what God, tonight, in the spirit of Yom Kippur, we’ll forgive You and You forgive us!

Forgive us if we can’t be fully in it tonight.  Forgive us if the distance between us all is getting to us and if we fail to feel Your presence in the deepest way from our living rooms or our computer rooms.  Forgive us if as nice as this is and as hard as we’ve worked to make it work, if it just doesn’t feel the same for us.  Forgive us.  Pardon us!  Grant us atonement!  We’re doing the best that we can, and this year, 5781, that’s going to have to do!

You know, I’m not the first to come to You in prayer on behalf of my people.  I’m not comparing myself to them, but if their merit may have persuaded You, then perhaps, their merits can count for me and my people.  The rabbis of old who came to You with pleas for help and demands for justice in the world were imperfect like me.  They worked hard to make sense of Your Torah in their times, like we do.  They looked out for their communities in times of trouble like we do.  You listened to them.  Listen to me now with the added benefit of their merit.

What story can we tell You, God, to avert danger away from us?  What prayer from our people’s past can we share so that Your grace and mercy might shine down upon us?  Maybe the Rabbis who invented prayer have the answer!

Some years after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans, there was a drought.[2]  To implore You to send rains, Rabbi Eliezer came before the Holy Ark and proclaimed 24 blessings, yet You did not answer his pleas.  No rains came.

Then came Rabbi Akiva who intoned but two lines of prayer: “אבינו מלכנו אין לנו מלך אלא אתה Avinu Malkeinu, we have no ruler but You!  אבינו מלכנו למענך רחם עלינו Avinu Malkeinu, for Your sake, have mercy on us!”  And then the rains fell.  The drought was abated. 

So, fine.  I’ll give it a shot! Avinu Malkeinu, have mercy on us!  Have mercy on us for the pain that we feel, the distance that we feel, the hurt and the mourning that we feel.  Have mercy on us for the anxiety that keeps us up at night, the stress of what this is doing to us and to our children and parents.  Have mercy on us for the sadness and the division and the violence in our midst!  Avinu Malkeinu, we have no other God but You!  Where should we turn if not toward the East?!

What was it about Rabbi Akiva’s prayer that moved You so?  You told us in a voice from the heavens that it was because Rabbi Akiva was forgiving but Rabbi Eliezer was not.  So it has nothing to do with the prayer at all!?  It has to do with the person’s commitment to forgiveness?!  Are we supposed to forgive so that the rains will come, so that these difficulties will end, so that healing will come to wash away all the affliction?  Who are we supposed to forgive?  Are we supposed to forgive each other?  Are we supposed to forgive ourselves? 

Fine, I forgive myself for the numerous times that I did not live in Your image.  I forgive myself for the times that I did not pay attention to Your will.  I forgive myself for the moments when I did not embody Your spirit of compassion and Justice, Your spirit of consolation and grace.  I forgive myself for the times that I did not love in the way You have commanded us to love, that I did not live in the way You have commanded us to live.  I atone for these and I forgive myself and I forgive my community and my family and my friends, and I commit on this night, this Sabbath of Sabbaths, that I will strive to turn away from those moments of smallness toward moments of goodness and intentionality.  Avinu Malkeinu, I don’t know any other God but You, and I don’t know anything else to say.  Tonight, it’s going to have to be enough!

Maybe it’s not ourselves we’re supposed to forgive, down here in the earthly court.  Maybe we’re supposed to forgive You, up in the heavenly court?  Rabbi Akiva taught us that the greatest commandment is to love our neighbors as ourselves.  Loving our neighbors means forgiving them as we would want them to forgive us.  Does loving You demand the same thing of us?  Ok, fine, God, I forgive You!  Now You forgive us. 

Inscribe us and seal us in the book of Life for good and for blessing.  Forgive us and make this a good year for us.  Forgive us for not acting to spread Your light as we are commanded.  For as much as we are angry at You, we know that it is on us to do Your works here on Earth, to heal the sick, to comfort the bereaved, to teach the next generation, to help the needy, to spread words of peace, to not be daunted by the work ahead of us.  We know it’s on us, God.  But, this year, would it kill You to maybe throw us a little extra help? 

Our souls are afflicted.  We’ve met the requirement.  We’ll forgive you.  Now please, forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement.

Amen.

G’mar Chatimah Tovah.

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[1][1] Cf. Rabbi Elazar Taanit 25a

[2] Based on story in TB Taanit 25b