Time to Change

The Holy Days come upon us slowly but once they arrive they pounce with incredible intensity.  We begin with Selichot, segue to Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot with the etrog and lulav, Simchat Torah, Shmini Atzeret, all within three short weeks!  We sing and weep, we hope and pray, we dance and reflect upon what once was.  Just writing all that is exhausting!

 

Why do we have this maelstrom of dynamic sacred days in quick succession?  Because we are urged to think, reflect deeply and insistently on the meaning of our lives.  The Holy Days with their variant emphases move us to think differently about our priorities, the places we visit, our friends and relatives, the self-improvements and the ways (the positive or negative) in which we influence others and impact the world.  

 

Then comes Heshvan, the next Hebrew month.  It is often called mar-Heshvan, or the bitter Heshvan because after the onslaught of all the holidays we now have none.  Not a one.  So why is it called mar, bitter?  Because it is life as usual - up early, off to work, time to eat, make dinner, sleep and repeat.

 

Now that life returns to its familiar rhythms, what has changed?  Have we moved from where we stood last year?  Of course, we are older but are there things that we can point to that have made us better people?  Have we been truer friends?  Engaged in less gossip?  Done more tzedaka work?  Learned more Torah?  Stopped “using”?  Observed more mitzvot?  Davenned more frequently to become a more humble and thankful person?

 

When Abraham passed from this world he was eulogized, “Woe to the ship that has lost its captain.”  (Baba Batra 91b)

 

The loss of the holidays can easily move us back into old habits.  That is the essence of this Talmudic statement.  Once the opportunity to be change has passed, do we revert to old patterns of behavior or learn new ones?  Does the ship revert back to its old familiar course?  The easiest, simplest path is regression.  Change is hard.  The harder path is the one that involves personal evolution and development.  The lessons learned from our parents are still with us, if we mindfully and willingly take them into our selves.  Or, as the Talmud articulates, Abraham has died but his teachings are immortal if we follow his direction.

 

A certain bishop was scheduled to speak at a Town Hall in Philadelphia. He set out to walk but quickly became disoriented and lost.  So he asked a little boy how to find the Town Hall.  The boy asked, “What are you going to do there?  “I am going to give a lecture,” he answered.  “About what?”  “About how to get to Heaven.  Do you want to come?’  “Are you kidding?” said the boy.  “You don’t even know how to get to the Town Hall!”

 

This is the meaning of Heshvan.  We received directions and were asked to consider the consequences of our present life’s course; the object being to become a better person.  What happens now?  Will this New Year, this new beginning be bitter because we fall back into old ways because the directionals have ended?  Or have we accepted the truths of the fragility of life, the infinite value of time and our unique place in the universe to bring about real change?  

 

Surprise yourself by charting the course plotted by your forbearers.  They believed in it.  Why not you?

The Pandemic and Change

Rosh Hashanah is the birth date of the world; Pesach is the birth date of our freedom and Tu B’Shvat of the new year for nature.  Three separate celebrations of renewal.  On all other holy days, we recite Hallel, psalms of praise, but not on Rosh Hashanah. Rabbi Abbahu raises this question in the Talmud.  “Why do we not recite these uplifting Psalms on the New Year?”  He was answered, “How can we recite Hallel when the world stands at the precipice of judgment, at the fulcrum between life and death?”

 

Perhaps more than ever we recognize the truth of this observation.  The entire world seems to be holding its breath as we navigate our second year of a pandemic that has grown more insidious.  We wonder if it safe to venture out, even fully masked.  We think more than twice about going into public places where any person could be a carrier of the virus.

 

Rabbi Gerson Cohen interpreted the words, Hayom Harat Olam (this is the birthday of the world) as “This moment is pregnant with eternity" because harat can also mean pregnant.  There is no such thing as an experience that does not have hidden within precious life-changing opportunities.

 

What is thought to be bad or even punitive may in fact be an invitation to unparalleled growth, a challenge to learn and change.  What is the purpose of life, if not to become more sage-like from our life’s experiences?  We can take these months as a cruel penalty, a mindless time of stultifying boredom and oppression, leading to depression, or we can seize this time as an opportunity to do the things we would never consider doing because we are too busy keeping busy.

 

So let me ask you to consider a few options:

When was the last time you wrote a letter?  A real letter?

I know you always wanted to know more about your parents/grandparents when they were young.  Have you contemplated journaling your life experiences for your children and grandchildren?  Before this pandemic you never had enough time to do the things you wanted to do, learn what you desired to know.  Can you recall those moments of frustration when work, chores and shopping interfered with your deep desire to try something new?  This is your chance to take a course online, learn to play an instrument, perfect your linguistic fluency, become a chef cooking culinary masterpieces, design furniture or clothes, sell online, connect with old friends…...  

 

Remember when you were little everyone asked, “So, Sally what do you want to be when you grow up?”  Now is when we should be asking that question of ourselves.  We are still growing (“Growth or death” says the Talmud - our choice) so what is it that you want to be when you grow up?  The question is far more meaningful now than it was way back then.

 

Rosh Hashanah is a time when the world and everything/everyone in it is pregnant, ready to give birth to a new self.

 

Personally, I look back upon this year as a time of determined change and growth.  It has been challenging and not without its dark moments but I as I walk toward the late Fall of my life, I realize that I, like you, will never be the same.  Much has been learned this past year and there is much more yet to be learned.  Much have I lost; more have I gained.  Far too often in our life we are dragged unwillingly toward a destination, hopeful for a positive outcome and transformation.  But it needs to be embraced.  Find your place of growth and embrace it.

 

Soon we will face God on the Holy Days.  We will be giving thanks to the Holy One for another year.  Time, which is our most precious possession, is the gift we celebrate.  But it is a somber gift as we ponder, “What shall I do with this gift?  How will I spend it?  Will my actions in the coming days and months make me a worthy recipient?”

 

Make it count.

Look Inside

 A tale: Rabbi Joshua ben Hannaniah was an extraordinary man. Brilliant and compassionate the rabbi was respected by the Jewish and secular authorities. Even the emperor Trajan entertained him often to feel the awesome presence and learning Rabbi Joshua radiated.

Once while visiting the palace, one of Trajan's daughters saw him walking in the hall and burst out laughing. "You are the famous Rabbi Joshua?" she chortled.  "You are the ugliest man I have ever seen.  And my father talks about you so much??!!"

Joshua thought. "Your father has a wine cellar doesn't he?"

The princess nodded.

"Tell me. In what kind of containers does the emperor place wines in?"

"Clay pots, of course. Just like everybody else."

"You mean, that a man of such wealth and power puts his wine in ordinary clay vessels just like everybody else? That doesn't seem right.  Men of distinction should use better things to store their wine."

The princess left Rabbi Joshua to see for herself if her fathers wine cellar was really so ordinary. When she discovered that it was she commanded that the servants take all the clay pots and smash them. In their place would be magnificent silver bottles fit for a king.

A week later Trajan was furious. Who had placed all of his wines in silver urns where they quickly soured and turned into vinegar?

"Why did you trick me?" demanded the princess of Rabbi Joshua.

"Now you understand," said the old man, "that just as wine is best kept in plain clay jugs so wisdom is also granted to those who can hold it.  No matter what they look like."

“And he {Moshe rabbenu} put the Tablets into the Ark…” (Exodus 40:20).

One ancient source tells that Moses also placed something else into the ark besides the whole set of tablets.

 

Remember, sometime before Moses came down from the summit with the word of the Holy One etched into stone. Beams of light emanating from his face, Moses returned to his people with the precious gift.  Then, he looked and saw Israel dancing around in golden calf. Furious, Moses threw the law smashing the tablets at the wicked sight. Scattering the people, the tablets flew into one thousand different directions. Moses then tediously gathered up the shards of the broken covenant.

 

Those fragments, now reduced to bits of dust and barely decipherable letters were placed in Ark to be later joined by the new set of Tablets.  In this passage the Talmud explains the rationale for Moses putting the old broken pieces of the Covenant beside the new one in the Holy Ark.  

 

There are many broken people among us, sad and pitiful, individuals unjustly swept away by events or those not strong enough to cope with their lot. There were others whose features are not perfect and still others malformed or maladjusted because of faith or circumstance. But the one cruelty the Talmud highlights is that of the plight of the aged. They, who have lived in security all their life, are pushed away to make room for the next generation. The elderly are seen as non-contributors to society and need to be secreted somewhere to avoid getting in the way. This is not the way of Torah. Just as the broken pieces of the original Commandments were kept in the Aoly Ark, those who are broken by time I just as precious and worthy of veneration.

 

We are deceived by looks. We are taken in by perfect smiles and shapely bodies. What good is it if their beauty only masks a warped and skewed sense of moral values?

 

Rabbi Meir once commented, “Do not look at the bottle but what lies within. They were new bottles filled with old wine and all the bottles that cannot even hold new wine.”  (Avot 4:27)

 

There was an old woman in another community who never accepted a ride from anyone. She lived far from the shore but insisted on coming to shul often and would make the journey of several miles each week. Wishing her a “Good Shabbos” was difficult because her hands were sick and crusty. They looked and felt as if they’ve been gnarled by the cold New England winters.

 

Frieda’s frame was bent, making her appear shorter than she actually was.  Often, I would see her walking down Main Street on her way to some unknown destination. I was called late one night when Freda died. That is when I found out.

 

Frieda had no parents or children. There were no close relatives living nearby and none that would be attending the funeral. And yet, call after call came in telling me how Frieda had brought them food when they were hungry, how she would watch their children when they needed to go out and had no babysitter, how she would volunteer to be a candy striper at the hospital and then do something unheard of; Frieda would call the newly released patient at home and offer to help out until they fully recovered.

 

As her casket was lowered into the ground, I realized this world had lost a tzaddik, one of the holy thirty-six.  That is when I remembered the tales of Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Joshua ben Hannaniah, “good wine in less than perfect containers.”

 

Hope

The seeds are always there.

 

Waiting to germinate and rise.

 

That is the underlying message of the biblical creation story.  When Adam and Eve consumed the fruits forbidden to them their “eyes are opened” to all possibilities.  Not only do they see everything, but they become generators of anything that can be imagined, hope, despair, war, love, atrocity, life and death.  Those seeds are planted inside of us waiting for the right mixture of forgiveness or outrage to sprout.

 

Collectively we are aghast at the level of hostility in our community, the United States, Israel and the world.  Charlottesville was not that long ago.  The storming of our nation’s Capital still seems like a nightmare.  Disproportionate gun violence has shocked us as a nation and our alarm is only surpassed by the pandemic that has left us bewildered and anxious.  We are all deeply concerned about Israel’s wellbeing and survival against the massive missile assault and the worldwide protests calling Israel the aggressor for defending itself against the terrorists that seek its destruction.  Again.  It is easy to give in to a sense of hopelessness.

 

"Know yourself that each and every thing in the world has a heart, and also the world in its entirety has a heart. And the toenail on the foot of the heart of the world is more heartful than the heart of any other heart."  So wrote Rebbe Nachman three centuries ago.  His words are essentially the Jewish anthem.  Believe in hope.  Believe in the possibility of renewal and redemption, of change and teshuvah.  What more proof do we need of the ideal of hope to infuse us with optimism than when we sing HaTikvah (meaning The Hope), the lyrics which we sing with enthusiasm recalling that Israel rose out of the ashes of the crematoria of Europe?

 

In the aftermath of eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil each person has the freedom to choose which path they will take.  We have both urges inside us: one wanting to help only ourselves at the expense of others and the other yearning to fix a broken world.  Every day we make a choice, hope or despair.  No one foists upon us how we act or what we believe.  It is always our decision.  Those are the seeds that we choose to cultivate.

 

At a time when the Romans were ruthlessly destroying Jews in an effort to wipe out Judaism in the second century, Rabbi Akiva continually advocated for hope when most around him were in dark despair.  Akiva forcefully preached that redemption is almost here.  They replied to him, "Akiva, grass will grow out of your jaw and the messiah will not yet have come!"  

 

Rabbi Akiva was doing holy work.  He was keeping the flame of hope alive.  He refused to give in to the negative, worst impulses or defeat and worthlessness.  We learn from the pages of Jewish history.  What kept us alive through the pogroms, expulsions, auto de fes and crusades was a belief in something infinitely greater and stronger than hatred, hope.

 

We face the same polarizing issues today.  It is “Jewish” to nourish the seeds of hope.  It is inauthentic and un-Jewish to turn to darkness.

 

Emily Dickinson wrote,

Hope is the thing with feathers –

That perches in the soul –

And sings the tune without the words –

And never stops – at all.

 

Let your soul rise.  Do not give in.  Do not give up.  Sing the song of hope.  Water the seeds of hope.  Let them sprout and blossom.  This is why you were created.

Soul

Sam Goldwyn (of MGM fame) once declared in negotiations, “Count me out.”  Known for his witticisms, Goldwyn spoke openly and frankly.

Every day we are presented with myriad choices to include or exclude.  Read a book, call a friend, develop a new business plan, come to services, rotate the tires, invest in a commodity….. Of course one of the choices is to demur and sit back with the TV changer in hand, ignoring opportunities as they present themselves.

You possess a soul, something deep within that yearns to be heard.  The soul, precious and unique to you, was a gift from the Holy One when you were born.  A midrash observes that when a baby is born into this world it shrieks because it knows that death will eventually come to claim it.  And in the interim many events will occur that will obscure the message that the soul carries.  The baby cries knowing that it will long for its Maker and be torn by the many temptations that exist in this world, olam ha-sheker (a world of deception), as it is called in Kabbalah.

For those who have travelled to Israel you have likely experienced that indescribable joy as the soul exults being proximate to God.  At times in your life you may have felt wholeness, a sense of purpose and wellbeing that lifted you to a place that can only be called revelatory.  You were touched by God.  Or rather, your soul was momentarily freed from its capsule and light streamed through your body and mind and grew so close to Your Maker that it is as if your were made of light.

It is said that we have an extra soul on Shabbat.  It infuses us with greater joy and closeness to God that is gifted once each week.  That may be true.  It may also be true that when we take the time to mark Shabbat as a special day that exists outside of the normal boundaries of work and play we are fused with our soul in way that heightens our lives.  Our soul is liberated from the boundaries of insignificant goings and comings.  

It does not take heroic efforts to view the world through a different lens but it does require a shift in attitude.

Question: What is the thing you are most proud of in your life?  Is that how you want to be remembered?

I suspect that we all get caught up in the “needs” of the moment – the oil change, the broker consultation, production schedule, meeting a potential buyer, etc..  This is how we survive in olam sheker but it is not how we thrive or what makes our soul sing.  In olam emet (the opposite of olam sheker, the world of truth) we freely love one another, we look past imperfections, we pray so that through the words of the siddur we rise above our physical yearnings and aspire to something ineffable, truly great.  

We read Torah to better understand not just the black and white words of the text but the inner meaning, God’s message for us, just at this specific point in our lives.  These soulful moments that we allow to happen on Shabbat and holy days enrich our lives exponentially.

…but it comes at a price.  The cost of such exhilaration is the willingness to give up what we have worked so hard to achieve the other 5 or 6 days of the week.  That is why people prepare for Shabbat.  They cook beforehand, buy special treats, light candles, bring challah to the table, fill wine cups and bless it all and everyone must be present as this is a sacred moment.   To be with one another in quiet conversation or song allows us to divest ourselves of the trivialities of the mundane and enter the universe of the holy.

I invite you to visit with your ancestors.  You are herby invited to join with them as they maintained a steady stream of conscious dialogue with God through their sacred soul.  Bring heaven a little closer.  Even if you do not know the right Hebrew words, it can all be said in your language with your heart behind each utterance.

Place candles in the holders, light them, wave your hands over them, ask God’s blessing.  Then bit by bit add the pieces that will ultimately transport you to places that your soul recognizes as home.

The End

One of my teachers in London used to tell the story of a man who jumped into the Mersey River in order to drown himself.  As he jumped into the waters he shouted, “Don’t try to save me!”

A second man came along, plopped into the river screaming, “Nobody try to save me!”

Along came a third man and stood by the water as bystanders watched the unfolding scene.  They yelled at him, “Don’t do it!”

He turned to them and replied, “I am not. I just want to know where they work.”

 

We all attempt to avoid pain; some by jumping into dark waters and others by watching and learning from their experience.   Yet pain is a great teacher, if we choose to view it that way.  It imparts lessons that we would otherwise never learn because we get stuck in the old ways we are used to doing things.

 

Pesach is one of those attempts at learning from past pain.  We experienced slavery and replay that event each year on the anniversary of our liberation.  Yes, we observe the festival to appreciate God’s saving power and His endless patience.  Yes, we go through the rituals yearly as our ancestors did for centuries, millennia, in order to spiritually connect with them.  And, yes, we observe the holy days as a reminder that our task is to bring justice to the world, especially to the needy and persecuted.

 

But Pesach is also about learning the lessons that only pain can teach.  We may choose to avoid those lessons but sooner or later they will catch up with us.  We can run and hide but not forever, from ourselves, or God.  That is why we read Jonah’s story each year on Yom Kippur; in order to be reminded that it is time to stop running from ourselves.

 

We have been through a long dark year of suffering.  The separation, fear of an invisible enemy, the ever-changing rules of distancing, masking and protective measures have left us drained.  We are nearing the edge of the long tunnel and light is beginning to appear.  The question that Pesach asks is the same one we ought to be asking ourselves now. What have we learned from this pandemic?  How have we changed?  Have the conflicts we have witnessed in the world hardened our hearts, like Pharaoh’s when confronted by a threat?  Ask yourself: Have you lost friends, become bitter toward people unlike yourself, paranoid that unknown powerful actors are threatening your existence or controlling your life?  Or has the danger made us more mindful of the need for love, forgiveness and understanding?

 

We are all changed because of the pandemic.  The most important question is how we have changed.  Are we better, more compassionate people?

 

Ever evolving, we readjust our understanding of the world and ourselves all the time.  Thank God for the corona virus.  I am not dismissing or minimizing the pain and deaths so many people throughout the world have endured.  Their pain was real and for many will never entirely disappear.  There are so many broken hearts among us.  Still, I write thank God for what was.  Why?  This painful year has given us an opportunity to rethink and realign our beliefs and practices.  It has pushed us to the limits of what we thought we could not endure and have emerged on the other side of this with a greater sense of what is possible.

 

Robert Fulgham wrote, “…no matter how old you are – when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.”  I see the little children in the school in a long line holding hands daily and it brightens my heart.  A long period of separation is coming to an end and we can now appreciate the simple joys of life in being together again.

 

I pray that we will take time to pause and reflect on what we have, or could have, learned.  God inheres in every moment, in what we perceive as joyful and painful.  What is the take-away lesson we bring with us into our new future?

 

“Tears may linger for a night;

joy comes with the dawn.”  -Psalm 30

 

It is dawn with all its portent for new beginnings.

 

 

And Another Perspective on Pesach

G.K. Chesterton observed that when people lose their faith in God they will not believe in nothing, they will believe in everything.

 

We change.  The world changes.  Stock prices rise and plummet.  Fashions  come in a go out of style.  Attitudes seem to shift with the breeze.  I remember my father’s advice to me when I was young to keep track of my old ties.  “Sooner or later,” he told me, “they all come back into style!”  He was right. I wish I kept those old skinny ties.

 

The changes in human relationships I know less fickle and styles of neckties. We marry and our spouse, we discover later, is not the person we thought they were. Or they've changed their personality through time. Constancy is not a virtue of humanity. We are not static beings. Many people claim as a reason for forming a relationship that they need someone to depend upon.  That is parasitism, not love.  And sooner or later the illusion be will be seen for what it is, an illusion as their real self emerges.  When expectations have been shattered do we treat to the island of solitude, divorce or personal change?

Others invest heavily in business ventures to escape the necessity of change. Money does not change the way people do. Sure, we have to deal with inflation, recessions and depressions but cash always has value. Still others turn toward vanity – a nice way of saying narcissism. We smooth away our wrinkles with new formulas, attend spas, take mud baths, get face lifts, botox, hair weaves and transplants.  There are two problems with investments in our self: we cannot win the war against time. Ultimately we lose that game. Secondly, we would lose even if we win. As George Bernard Shaw put it, “There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your hearts desire. The other is to get it.” When all we ever wanted is ours, what comes next?

 

Something must and will replace a nonexistent and in active faith in God. There is a supermarket quality to the immeasurable face and pseudo-faiths available for public consumption - prophets, soothsayers, messiahs, imams, swamis, gurus, mahatma's, marahishis and other gods. They offer ecstasy and happiness and salvation from the vicissitudes of change. With a joy of these sects one can effectively block off the world by stepping out of it. In short, people will always need to believe in something, if not God.

Pesach is traditionally thought of as a family time. Relatives, whom we do not pay very close attention to throughout the year, are invited to sit at our tables. We celebrate Passover as a joyous reunion of loved ones. We try hard to make the Seder meaningful by being informed, involved and innovative.  But there is more. Passover describes the transition of liberation of enslaved people to that of an indentured people. Free from Pharaoh we come under the dominion of God.  Enslavement or liberation?

Had we been freed from bondage, as the Dayyenu song goes but would not have a covenantal relationship with haKadosh Baruch Hu, we will have lived and died.  That is all.  The transitory elements of life will have occupied the main areas of our existence. Too much time spent on acquiring wealth of possessions, too much energy to go to wardrobes or jobs, too much free time as the curtain rushes to close. Meaning and constancy comes from only one source. All other things will change from generation to generation. Only God is eternal.  If we are to understand a single message from the Pesach liturgy it should be this: liberation came to forefathers, why not us to? Among your guest list for this Passover make sure to include an invitation to the Holy One this year.