Erev Rosh Hashanah 5775/2014: Asking for the big things

            Rabbi Simcha Bunem of Pezitcha, the Chasidic master, tells the story of a King’s son who rebelled against his father.  His father exiled him in return.  Time passed, and the King’s compassion for his son awakened and he sent an official to find his son.  After many long searches, the official found the son in a distant city, living barefoot, in tattered clothing, in miserable quarters.  The official bowed before the King’s son and said to him, “I was sent by your father, My Master the King, to ask you what you need, what you want.”  The King’s son began to cry and said, “If it will be favorable to my father the King, could I please have a pair of solid boots that are clean and shiny?”

            Rabbi Simcha Bunam told the story and then taught:  We are the same way.  In our prayers before Our Parent in Heaven we bring small requests, for sustenance, for prosperity, but we do not cry out for God’s Presence that is in exile, and we do not ask for complete redemption.  Our greatest transgression is that we forget we are each the children of a King.(Iturei Torah volume 7, page 10)

           

            Each of us is the son or daughter of a King, and it is more than reasonable for us to ask for basic help from God, especially at this time when God is so close to us, and to our hearts.  As the holiday begins, we are aware that on Shabbat and holidays that we do not make personal requests.  We take out the personal request prayers from the Amidah on these days, but our tradition teaches that we can and we do make requests from God for the entire Jewish people.  Rabbi Yisrael Reisman teaches us this lesson – when we say ‘Zochrenu Le’chayim melech chafetz ba’chayim” – Remember us for life, King-Ruler who desires life – this is a request for our whole people. 

            On Rosh Hashanah, let’s not forget our own needs, our own wants, our own hopes and dreams, but let’s also look to the world with a wide-angle lens.  Let’s expand our prayers to the width of the world, however grandiose these prayers may sound. 

            Let’s pray that God’s Presence stays close with us beyond these Days of Awe and through the year.  Let’s pray that this year the world evolves and achieves at least the first level of redemption, however we choose to envision that step forward – whether peoples and nations choose dialogue and diplomacy over conflict and destruction or we find ways to reduce or eliminate the spread of infectious disease across the world or reduce hunger and homelessness here and abroad.

            On the day that all our prayers are phrased in the ‘we’, what are our most passionate prayers for our communities, for our families, for our country, for our brothers and sisters in Israel? 

            It is time to dream big.  As we discussed at the beginning of Elul, it is time to imagine a year that is not only new in the sense that it is 5775 now instead of 5774.  It is time to imagine a year that is new in its perspective, different in fundamental ways as a result of our prayers and the efforts that result from them.  Let’s not be limited by the models and modes that are routine.  Over the next 2 days we have an amazing opportunity to re-imagine the most complicated challenges, problems, and dilemmas we face as a people, whether concrete, spiritual, or moral.

            Let’s take up this invitation to Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, and all the upcoming days of awe and reflection in the spirit of Shel Silverstein z”l one of my favorite poets:

            If you are a dreamer, come in,

            If you are a dream, a wisher, a liar,

            A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer…

            If you’re a pretender, come sit by my fire

            For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.

            Come in!

            Come in!

Shana Tovah u’metukah!

Dvar Torah - Re'eh: Children of God

Reeh:  Children of God

5774/2014

Yesterday a child came out to wonder

Caught a dragonfly inside a jar

Fearful when the sky was full of thunder

And tearful at the falling of a star

Then the child moved ten times round the seasons

Skated over ten clear frozen streams

Words like when you're older must appease him

And promises of someday make his dreams

And the seasons they go round and round

And the painted ponies go up and down

We're captive on the carousel of time

We can't return we can only look

Behind from where we came

And go round and round and round

In the circle game

Joni Mitchell’s song has always been meaningful to me.  Like Peter Pan, the song wonders about whether growing up is something to look forward to, something to fear, or simply something that is a reality, a reality that we can choose how we live it.  If our life is like a circle, we have a chance to keep the spirit of youthful wonder alive even as we grow older and distant from our earlier selves.

How do we see ourselves?  In relation to earlier ‘versions’ of ourselves? And in relation to God who transcends us and time itself?

With appreciation to my colleague Rabbi Joel Mosebacher who focused on this in a recent teaching, our parsha begins with a word that asks us to consider our perspective on who we are in relation to God and to each other.

‘R’eh anochi noten lifnaychem berachah u’klalah.’ ‘See, I give to all of you blessing and curse.’ 

Something does not match up here.  R’eh is a command form, speaking to an individual, singular, See, notice.  Then, God says, ‘noten lifnaychem’ I put before you, you all, y’all.  Why does God choose to speak to each individual and then to the whole people in the same sentence?

A child tends to see himself or herself less as an individual and more a part of a family, part of the y’all.  Crossing into adulthood, we want, and often struggle, to define ourselves as independent.

In this one short sentence, we hear from God who appreciates, who respects, these two tendencies inside each of us. 

We all try our best to ‘grow up’, to mature, we are always someone’s child, son or daughter to someone whatever the quality of that relationship may be.

As our parsha reminds us, God thinks of us as God’s children, but not in the sense of helpless innocents who need hand-holding, nothing infantilizing like that. 

Later in this week’s parsha we read, “Banim atem L’Ado-nai Elo-heychem.’

“You are children of Ado-nai Your God.”

The Slonimer Rebbe teaches us that we can decide our perspective on being in relationship to God.  We have the power.  Like a grown-up who makes decisions for herself, for himself, we can decide if we respond to God’s call as servants, checking off the boxes of our obligations to God and to one another.  Lit Shabbat candles, check, gave tzedakah, check.  Did my part, now back to the regularly scheduled program.

Or we can live out being ‘Banim’, being children of God, in a loving relationship.  The Slonimer Rebbe explains that if we act like servants, then we’ll receive that treatment in response.  If we act like loving children, in a mutually fulfilling relationship, then we will receive the same love back.  Not only that, we will store away strength and faith in the good times so that when we face pain, we will have resources to respond and a relationship to ground us. 

This is true for us in relationship to ourselves and to other people as well.  If we treat ourselves as an expendable resource, then our physical selves and emotional selves will eventually crumble.  If we find inside of ourselves sources of wonder, if we find a voice and share it, if we do things that shower the world with holiness, if we reach out unexpectedly to our friends, to family, then we hopefully will receive that same love back.  Stephen Covey, in his 7 Habits of Highly Effective people, spoke about how if we do not see or feel love, we should be loving rather than waiting in darkness for love to find us.

This season of forgiveneness, of teshuvah and repentance, is about choosing how we will approach the New Year, choosing our perspective, however difficult that may be in practice versus the theory. 

Shabbat Shalom.