Rosh Hashanah 2014/5775: A Jewish Response to Adversity
I recently
answered an online questionnaire, the type where you answer a series of
questions and based on your answers it tells you, for example, which Harry
Potter character are you. This one is
designed to answer a question appropriate for a rabbi or minister: Which Bible prophet are You? I’d been thinking and writing about prophets
and prophecy, so I thought, why not.
First question, from 8 animal photos, which one is your mascot? I chose a camel. How do you handle stress? I like to travel and see new places. If you knew the world would end in 24 hours,
what would you do? I would spend it with
my family. And now the big reveal, which
Biblical prophet am I? (Thoughts?) I am
Elijah, Eliyahu Ha’Navi. I was satisfied
with that answer. I chose not to click
on the ‘Retake’ button. Not just
satisfied, very satisfied. Allow me to
explain why.
A good friend of
mine has experienced significant health problems the past couple of years. He was, and is, someone who is creative,
whose career was at a positive and meaningful turning point before his health
declined. This friend called me this
past summer and told me a story that continues to ring in my soul months
later.
His wife works in
the busy downtown of a major city. While
she was out and about in the city between meetings, a complete stranger
approached her, got her attention, and told her, “Your husband is going to be
ok.”
When my friend
called me up, my first reaction was that his wife met Eliyahu Hanavi, Elijah,
the angel of God who visits the Jewish people and guides us when we are most
vulnerable, for a boy at a bris, at the end of Shabbat as we face a new week,
at the Passover Seder when we look to God to guard us and our families, the one
who will announce the coming of the Messiah.
Sure enough, the following week, his test
results came back negative, and he received good news about how help for his
condition was available sooner than he expected and from a previously unknown
source.
This is not the
first time I’ve experienced an Elijah moment.
A colleague once told me of how a complete stranger showed up at his
synagogue on Purim when the Megillah reader did not show up for the
occasion. The complete stranger
volunteered to read, chanted the entire Megillah, and then left, never to be
seen there again.
Unfortunately,
the news also trends the other way.
Instead of welcome and surprising good news, the report comes back
inconclusive, or negative, and we find ourselves praying, yearning, for Elijah to come, asking God about why our
lives feel incomplete, unfinished, and unfulfilled. Or we are in the neutral zone – a place of
neither good nor bad, either satisfied at life being uneventful or searching
our souls for the motivation to grow, to reach potential we know we have or the
motivation to believe what we dream is possible.
I want to shine a
light today into a place in our lives, and in the life of the Jewish people,
that is halfway between what is and what could be, often a place of
frustration. Why are our hopes and
dreams unfulfilled? Why do we, and our
loved ones, seem to suffer in an unnecessary and seemingly unfair way? And how does Jewish tradition teach us to
respond to adversity?
When we think
about these questions, whether for us as individuals, or for the us as a
community, one of my first thoughts turns to a good friend, and colleague,
Pastor Roger Spencer. A couple of years
prior to his retirement and in the midst of our 7th year of teaching
together, he experienced a grave health challenges and we’ve been praying for
his healing ever since. Pastor Spencer is
the senior clergy-person in Glen Rock, not only by his over two decades in the
pulpit, also by his generous and thoughtful presence, willingness to muster his
congregation to serve those in need, and for being a teacher and mentor to so
many. He has been a teacher and mentor
to me since I came to Glen Rock. And he mentored
at least 20 vicars, interns, students studying to be pastors themselves.
When Pastor
Spencer took ill, it was during our class about the psalms of the Bible, the
great poems that are part of our collective consciousness, poems like, ‘Yea,
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…’. Or ‘Ado-nai, My God, why have you abandoned
me?’ Poems that confront the questions
we are exploring today.
Every year, his intern would join us to plan
and teach the interfaith class, and I connected particularly with one, David
Drebes, he was a thoughtful thinker and teacher. I told him that once in a while I like to watch
the Sunday morning preachers on TV to get some ideas about public speaking and
preaching. David explained that one popular
preacher Joel Ostein, whom I’ve watched, preaches the ‘prosperity gospel’, that
God is always seeking the good for us.
I’m not sure whether
I can tell God is working for the better for me or not, for the better of us,
for Israel. In my work, I sit with
people in crisis and in mourning. I make eye contact, listen to them, and
reflect with them. The emotional illness
for those who are suffering is most often loneliness, a sense of isolation from
self, family, and community, and the deeper question they ask, and I’m sure we
have asked at times is, ‘Why me?’
The harsh reality
that things do not always get better does not mean that we give up, that we
stop searching for new ways to think about ideas, events, and visions that are
important to us. If that we there case,
if we became so cynical and accepting of an unfortunate reality, if we began to
believe that no new or re-energized potential was available, then we might as
well close down schools and colleges, stop publishing any new books on any
subject already covered, and take away pens and notebooks from poets and
dreamers. And we will not give up. On Rosh Hashanah we widen our vision, open
our hearts, and we take the next steps in our journeys.
As we widen our
vision, let’s look at the big picture for the Jewish people at this moment and
then funnel our thoughts down until we end up again right here, with us, in
this room on Rosh Hashanah.
Israel faced
adversity this summer, again, a painful reminder that the state of war
continues. It’s unfortunate for our
people, for the whole Middle East region, that nearly 70 years after Israel
came into being, it’s existence, while vital and inspiring, is far from
complete and secure. The war that ended
over the summer was tragic not just for the Jewish people but for the world as
a whole. Events of the past summer, and
today, show how unstable and dangerous the entire Middle East continues to be
with the likes of Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS and Syrian leadership
carrying out mass slaughter against their own civilians, against fellow Muslims,
against Christians as well. Why then
does the overwhelming critique still fall on Israel, so small in size and
population compared to the rest of the Arab world? If it took 143 years here for women to
achieve the right to vote. If it took
188 years to pass comprehensive civil rights legislation here, then Israel is
far and away advanced after less than 70 years.
Syria, Iraq, Iran all had a heard start on Israel in the 20th
century to work out the kinks in their young nationhood and yet now, into the 2nd
decade of the 21st century, these states still are basically
ruthless dictatorships much of whose efforts are directed to fighting against
Israel and western democracy and values.
Israel is not perfect, no country is, that’s the burden that all
democratic countries struggle with, but at least Israel recognizes it is still
in a place of striving, still seeking to give form to Herzl’s dream.
And what of
anti-Semitism that has been rising especially in European Union nations? The age of reason, that began in Europe, was
supposed to reveal we are all human beings, as Shakespeare said we are all,
‘fed with the same food…warmed and cooled with the same winter and
summer’. The brutality of the 20th
century, use of technology in both world wars as an agent of evil and
destruction in the hands of power hungry empire seekers, perpetrators of
genocide who themselves were far advanced in education and culture, they undid
that fantasy forever. This summer, and
in recent years, we watched in horror at the fire-bombing of synagogues in and
near Paris, shootings in Toulouse, and other violence both verbal and physical
toward Israel and pro-Israel people, including murders at the Brussels Jewish
museum, and reports that Jews in Europe are wary of going outside publicly
identified as Jews and deeply concerned about the influence of far right
politics. Here in the US, the shootings
at the Jewish Community Center in Overland Park Kansas brought the dangers
closer to home. I don’t believe we are
at a crisis moment in this country as far as anti-Semitism, but I do believe
that we cannot let our guard down and that we must continue to build new
partnerships between Jewish communities and between the Jewish community and
others. Here in Bergen, as an example,
I’ve been working with colleagues and Jewish Community leadership to build a
strong relationship with the growing Korean-American community and to strengthen
the relationship with the African-American community and the NAACP.
And now we come
to us here, from the complexities of persistent international challenges, to
us, right here, looking into the New Year just like Moses looks over into the
Promised Land. The difference for us is
that, God be willing, we will get to continue our journeys. My personal journey here will end this
spring. For me, for us, this is a year
of transition. For 9 years I’ve been
honored to join with you to welcome and celebrate the New Year and continue to
make Jewish life happen day after day.
There is more I hope that we can
accomplish together over the next ten months. Together – together with the generations of
the founders of our community some of whom are here in this room and the rest
are here with us in spirit today.
A great Rabbi, Rabbi Eliezer, spoke exactly
this message some 2,000 years ago, Lo
alecha hamlacha ligmor, ve’lo atah ben choreen le’hi’ba’tel mimenah. It is not up to us to complete the work, but
we are not free to avoid it. However
difficult the scene may be for religion in general, or our type of Judaism, in
particular, I feel moved with the passion of R. Eliezer who spoke his words at
a time that our people were in a much worse position than today. Temple burned and desecrated. Leadership exiled. Widespread suffering. We here are in a much stronger position, with
well over 100 years of community building experience in this country.
I remember at a
family Shabbat dinner a few years ago meeting a gentleman whose wife had been a
long-time teacher at my Seminary, JTS in New York. He introduced me to his family, spoke to me
for a few moments, and then said, “Rabbi, you have an impossible job.” An impossible job - My mind raced to come up
with a clever answer, something confident, reassuring, hopeful. And then I remembered that my work is really our work. He might have been talking to me, but he was
really addressing all of us. And our
work is to continue to build up our community whether Israel is at war or at
peace, whether anti-Semitism is rife or at a barely audible whisper. It is not
impossible.
And…it is not easy. It is
work that gives us something back, that builds us up as much as we give out in
time, energy, and love. Livnot
u’lhibanot as the name of the classic Israel seminar is called, we build, and
we are built, fortified, energized,
connected to and by what we create.
Rosh Hashanah and
Yom Kippur help set the stage for working together, all of us, as equals, in
the New Year that starts today. These
days remove all our acquired titles.
During these days, we are all executive officers, all of us members of
the board. The lawyer who knows about
legal loopholes has no advantage over anyone else in seeking teshuvah. The doctor who knows how to heal the body and
mind cannot offer us a prescription for greater self-awareness or repentance. The teacher is a student. The parent is again the child and hand-made
and molded creation of God. The child,
even before she can talk, is able to sing directly to God.
My friend whose
wife met Elijah the prophet remains hopeful despite his challenges that he will
one day get back to doing the things that are his passions, that he will one
day be able to live and work and be the person that he always strove to be and
continues to strive to be. At any moment
we could meet Elijah, and we might be happy or not happy with the news we hear. Still, the great Elie Wiesel, Holocaust
survivor, writer, and speaker, begs us not to despair of what may come. He asks us to ‘face the human condition – as
Jews’ and to ‘let every experience be a dynamic force’. Whether we confront anti-Israel or
anti-Semitic hatred, or whether we are working to build and grow our Jewish
community, we must confront the difficult and painful questions that may fill
us with despair or fear. At those
moments we call on Elijah the Prophet, Eliyahu Ha’navi, to be our invisible and
steady guide, (all sing) Eliyahu Ha’navi
L’shana tovah
tikatevu.
