Sukkot 5769

Shabbat Chol Ha-Moed Sukkot 5769 - October 18, 2008

Life is Like a Sukkah

The wisdom of our tradition is to recognize and elevate the journey and not the arrival.

Sukkot always comes too fast. When Yom Kippur ends, I always lull myself into a false sense of relief thinking that I have time to build my sukkah. And every year, I’m stunned to discover how little time there is to get everything ready. And, inevitably, every year, the whole process is more complicated than I had anticipated. This year probably takes the prize for stressful sukkkot preparation. My family and I, who just moved here a few months ago, moved into our new house just before YK. Our movers were quite good and brought all of our things from Los Angeles… except for one important item. They left our sukkah frame back in California. Melanie and I really love sukkot… so there was just no way that we weren’t going to have a sukkah this year. I went out to Home Depot and other stories - not once, but several times - to get parts for the sukkah. With the help of some friends, I managed to get the sukkah up just a few hours before the holiday. Nonetheless, every year, I find myself wishing that our ancestors would have had the foresight to push Sukkot back a few weeks, to give us the proper time to prepare.

But, after spending a few days now in my hastily built sukkah and in the sukkot of friends, I have come to some peace with the sukkot rush. Perhaps our forebearers were wise in putting sukkot so close to YK. Perhaps there is a lesson in this hasty transition. Yom Kippur – if done right – should be a deeply moving and inspiring experience. We do some intense spiritual work between RH and YK. And the question is, how do we wake up on the day after YK? How do we make the transition back into normal life? Are we supposed to return back to life as it had been before? Perhaps Sukkot is the answer to these questions.

YK bids us to transform our lives. But change is difficult and the task can be daunting, even paralyzing. There is so much work to do… where do we start? And the task is so monumental. Sukkot teaches us a number of lessons about how to face the task and how to do it with joy and not dread.

Interestingly, sukkot is like no other celebration in the Jewish year. We have three major festivals – the shalosh regalim – Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot. And on each of these we are told that we are supposed to celebrate: “v’samachta v’hagecha” - you shall be happy and you shall celebrate. But, it is only on Sukkot that we have an explicit commandment to be joyful – we call it “zman simchateinu” the season of our joy. Why? What is the reason for such joy on sukkot? Afterall, it isn’t easy to be joyful when you’re sitting outside in the cold trying to eat your food off of paper plates while shooing away the bugs. The reason to be happy on the other two pilgrimage festivals is clear: Passover celebrates our liberation from slavery in Egypt. We escaped slavery and abuse – it is clear why we should be happy. And, Shavuot marks the most monumental event in Jewish history – the day on which we received the Torah on Mount Sinai. Clearly, we should be joyous on Shavuot. But sukkot celebrates something much more difficult to define. Beyond its historical and agricultural connections, sukkot is supposed to serve as a reminder of our 40 year journey through the wilderness. In our long passage from Egypt to the land of Israel, we lived in temporary shelters. But what is there to celebrate about the wandering in the desert. Recall, that the 40 years weren’t such a great time. Indeed, the fact that it took 40 years was itself a punishment. During that time, we repeatedly rebelled, we faced enemies in battle, we experienced hunger and thirst, we sinned and were punished by God. And for this we are supposed to celebrate? And, How do you celebrate a journey? It isn’t a discrete event like receiving the Torah. And why is the journey so important anyway? We have Pesach for the event of liberation, Shavuot for the receiving of the Torah… It is interesting to note that we don’t have a holiday to commemorate our entering into the land of Israel. We don’t have a holiday that marks the crossing of the Jordan River into the land promised to our ancestors… but we do have a holiday to commemorate the long difficult trek through the Sinai desert. Perhaps herein lays the wisdom of sukkot. Perhaps the journey is more important than arriving. Next week we will read the last parsha of the chumash – it is interesting that the story ends before our arrival in the land of Israel. Maybe we are supposed to see ourselves as perpetually on the journey.

We wake up on the day after Yom Kippur with an enormous task ahead of us – to live life better than we did the year before. And we have a choice, we can despair at the futility of our endless strivings for achievement, the way Kohelet sometimes does – believing that everything is hevel – vanity and futility; or we can embrace the sacred uncertainty of the Sukkah. The sukkah has many symbolic and historical meanings, but perhaps it is also a complex metaphor for how to live our lives. Consider a few of the sukkah’s metaphors:

· Like the Sukkah, life is temporary

· Like the Sukkah, life is partially limited by the materials we have at hand and the effort we put into building it.

· Like the Sukkah, there is never enough time or resources to make it just the way you imagined it would be.

· Like the Sukkah, life is better when we share it with others.

· Like the sukkah, life has it’s aspects of stability and strength but it can also be shaky and subject to occasional collapses.

· Like the sukkah, our life is not perfect; it is always in the process of improving. Every year we have a chance to add new things, get rid of some old things, and change what needs to be changed.

· Like the Sukkah, the life we build shelters us from the vicissitudes of the world but it is also porous enough to allow us to experience our surroundings.

· Like the sukkah, our life changes from year-to-year but parts of it follow us wherever we go.

· Like the sukkah, life brings with it the unexpected nuisances, but embracing joy and camaraderie makes it all worthwhile.

The wisdom of our tradition is to recognize and elevate the journey and not the arrival. Kohelet is right about one thing – the destination of life is certain. We all know how this life ends and we all know that none of us gets out of here alive. But Kohelet’s mistake is his despair – his conclusion that because we all await the same fate, then nothing we do really matters. But the wisdom and power of the sukkah is the recognition that the greatest gift we have is the present moment. The great gift of life is the possibility of creating something meaningful right now. And, that if we don’t live our lives with joy, then we risk being miserable.

So in the next few days, when you’re sitting in the sukkah, be sure to look up at the sky, feel the warmth of the sun and the cool of the wind, welcome guests in – whether they were invited or not… and most of all enjoy the journey.

Shabbat Shalom and Hag Samaech – a very joyful and happy holiday.

Shabbat Shuvah 5769 - Prophets vs. Teachers

Prophets vs. Teachers

Real life changes happen through a long and difficult process of acquiring wisdom

I must begin by saying that I think we had a terrific Rosh Hashanah together. I hope you enjoyed the services as much as I did. I also want to express my deep gratitude to all of you for your good wishes and encouraging words. This was a very big week for me. It was my first time leading HHD services and the first time I’ve given a HHD sermon to such a large congregation. And, as you know, when it rains it pours… just yesterday morning our movers delivered all our furniture and stuff to our new house. We also had a contractor come out to give us a quote on work we want to do on the house. We also discovered some little problems here and there and I’ve had my first introduction to the headaches of home ownership. When I sat down to write this sermon yesterday, I was feeling quite exhausted until I read the opening words of this weeks parsha:

Va’Yelech moshe v’yedaber et ha devarim ha’eleh el kol yisrael

Moses went out and spoke these words to all of Israel. He said to them, “I am 120 years old today and I can no longer come and go, for HaShem has said to me, ‘you shall not cross the Jordon’…” the Parsha then goes on to describe Moshe’s preparations to give the most stirring and elaborate sermon of his life, which comprises all of next week’s parsha – “haazinu.” So, I figured, if Moses could deliver one last sermon at age 120, after having lead this rebellious people for 40 years through the desert, I can give one more sermon.

The Shabbat between RH and YK is called Shabbat Teshuvah or sometimes Shabbat Shuvah after the first words of the Haftarah: “Shuvah yisrael ad Hashem Elokeicha, ki chashalta ba’avonecha” “Return, O Israel, to the Lord, your God, for you have stumbled over your iniquity.” The prophet Hoshea, like every prophet, exhorts the Jewish people to repent and return to the service of God. Hosea prophesied in the mid-8^th C BCE, prior to the destruction of the northern kingdom, during a time when the conventional mode of repentance was the sacrificial system operated by the priests. But rather than calling on the people to repent through the sacrifices, Hosea asks for something that is arguably more powerful. In the second verse of our Haftarah (14:3) Hosea tells the people, “K’chu imachem devarim” “Take words with you and Return to the Lord. Say to him, ‘Forgive all guilt and Accept what is good; Instead of bulls, we will pay the offering of our lips.” Hoshea argues that sincere words of contrition and regret are more powerful than animal sacrifices. For this, Hoshea promises that God will take us back with mercy and love. This is the sage advice he gives the people, “Whoever is wise will understand these words, he who is prudent will know them. For the paths of the Lord are straight (just) – the righteous can walk on them, but sinners will stumble on them.”

However, as in the case of virtually all the prophets, the people do not listen and they suffer the consequences. Truthfully, being a prophet is a thankless and aggravating job. Most of the Hebrew Prophets accepted their missions reluctantly and they lived miserable lives. Most of them were persecuted by the authorities of their day, they were reviled by the population, and no one listed to them. Do you know which prophet was the most successful in changing the behavior of people? Those of you who were here for Dovid Silber’s talk know. The most successful prophet was the most reluctant one of all: Jonah (who’s book we read on Yom Kippur). With little effort on his part, Jonah turns a bunch of pagan sailors into followers of God and with just a few words he convinces the entire metropolis of Ninveh to repent and abandon their evil ways.

Even our greatest prophet, Moshe, was repeatedly disappointed by the Israelites’ backsliding and rebellion. Of course, Moshe is considered our greatest prophet of all times. Maimonides includes this idea in his 13 articles of faith. In the Yigdal, based on the 13 articles, we sing “Lo kam b’yisrael k’moshe oed” – “no prophet has ever arisen like Moses.” Interestingly, we don’t call Moses – Moshe Nevi’einu – Moshe our prophet. How do we refer to Moses in our tradition?: Moshe Rabbeinu – Moses our Teacher. Rabbi David Wolpe argues that given the choice between the Navi (Prophet) and the Chacham (Sage or Teacher), we are better off choosing the chacham. Prophesy is important, inspiration is important, but there’s a reason why the prophets were so miserable. The great pioneer of the Conservative Movement, Rabbi Solomon Schechter, pointed out that prophetic Judaism can’t work. It’s too pure, too ideal. Except maybe for Jonah, none of the prophets succeed entirely because what they demand from the people is pure perfection… and their mode of persuasion is inspiration and charisma. Inspiration is powerful… we all know inspiring people – when you hear them speak, in that moment you just want to get up and change your life. Their moving words might blow you away and make you think differently. But, we also know that inspiration is ephemeral and fleeting.

At this time of year, many of us are thinking about ways in which we want to change. Perhaps we’re making Rosh HaShanah resolutions. But all the research done demonstrates that the vast majority of New Year’s resolutions are abandoned in a matter of weeks. Prophetic inspiration works the same way. You can not sustain real change in your life through inspiration. On the other hand, wisdom has the power to change us. Rather than dissipating and fading like inspiration does, wisdom becomes part of us and has the potential to grow. What is wisdom? {maybe take a few answers} – Wisdom is practical knowledge about how to live in the world. Wisdom is knowledge gained through experience or study. Wisdom is knowledge that has been tested and vetted, perhaps over generations. Think about the pieces of wisdom your parents or grandparents passed down to you.

In the post biblical period, our Rabbis abandoned the prophetic mode and instead held up a very different archetype of the ideal Jew. What do you think is the archetype they chose? {perhaps take an answer or two} – that’s right, the ideal Jew according to the rabbis was someone who studies and prays (– i.e. a rabbi).

To our rabbis, what makes Moses our greatest prophet is that he was, in the final analysis, Moshe Rabbeinu – our greatest teacher. After a lifetime of prophecy – a lifetime of trying to change the people’s rebellious tendency – we read some of God’s final words to Moshe in this parsha. God tells Moshe, “Behold, you will soon lie with your ancestors, but this people will rise up and stray after foreign gods…” When I read these words, the first thing I thought was: how disappointing this must have been for Moshe… after a lifetime of prophecy and inspiration. The Torah doesn’t record what his reaction was or how he felt, but it does tell us what he did. It was to teach the wisdom of our tradition. Among Moshe’s final acts was to write the Torah down and place it in the Ark of the Covenant. He gathers the people and essentially tells them, “look, I know you’re going to be rebellious, but I’m leaving you with this Torah. I want you to read it publicly so that it will be an on-going guide for you when you stray.”

A stirring speaker can change our way of thinking, can introduce new ideas, or point out the error of our ways, but real life changes happen through a long and difficult process of acquiring wisdom. Perhaps you found RH as inspiring as I did. Perhaps you were inspired by the music, the prayers, the powerful experience of community, the grandeur and pageantry, or the sermons you heard. If you were, then we did our job. But now the real work starts. This is indeed the time for resolutions, but you can’t make a resolution to be inspired. However, you can make a resolution to seek out wisdom and to learn. You can make a resolution to study; you can make a resolution to take classes; you can make a resolution to read every day. In other words, you can find ways to deepen your knowledge and understanding of our tradition. The Torah and our other sacred texts are the Jewish people’s collective wisdom written down in books.

I want you to make a resolution right here – to find some way, a class, a book, a lecture – to deepen your Jewish knowledge. The HEA offers a number of opportunities for learning. This fall, we will begin a series of Adult Education courses as well as occasional lectures, films, and workshops. There are also countless opportunities in the broader community to learn. In the year ahead, I hope you will have many moments of inspiration – inspiration is powerful and indispensable – but I also encourage you to seek out learning in order to deepen and grow your own wisdom.

Rosh Hashanah Sermon 5769: "Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die"

Rosh Hashanah 5769

“Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die”

{sing} “b’Rosh Hashanah yikatevun, u’b’yom ztom kippur yihateimun”

Isn’t that a wonderful melody? It’s really very stirring? For me it triggers memories of sitting in shul with my parents and grandparents on the High Holy Days listening to the hazzan intone, in a beautiful tenor, the familiar words of the Makhzor.

Rabbi Harold Schulweis has a saying: “the nicer the melody, the more suspect the theology.” That is certainly true of the High Holy Day liturgy. When we take the time to really examine the prayers we say on RH and YK, we discover that they are quite provocative.

When I was a kid I was taught that RH was a happy holiday – apples and honey, birthday of the world – and that YK was about “atoning for our sins” (as though as a child I understood what that meant). The truth of the matter is that the theology of RH and YK goes far deeper than any of that.

In crafting the celebration of the High Holy Days, our sages put forward a decidedly Jewish theology of kingship. The theme of God’s kingship is found throughout our Makhzor. (Here’s a little game you can play if you get bored during services: count all the times the word Melech – king – appears in the book) And there is one prayer in particular that I think encapsulates the theology of Rosh Hashanah – the U’netane Tokef.

I have long struggled with U’netane Tokef. And, I’m not alone. Taken at face value, it is a deeply challenging prayer. What I would like to offer you this morning is perhaps a new way to think about the prayer and a new lens through which to look at the High Holy Day experience as a whole. If you’d like to follow along, I invite you to open your makhzorim to page 147.

Despite the legend told about its origins, we don’t know who wrote this poem. It was probably composed in the 10^th or 11^th century. It is appears in the makhzor just before the musaf kedushah. The Kedusha, which is part of every amidah, is about holiness; and the u’netane tokef functions here as an introductory mediation on God’s holiness and kingship. Now, in the kingship theology of the High Holy Day liturgy, “kedusha” is that aspect of God that is unknowable, distant, all-powerful… this is, God as frightening other. This is what the theologian Rudolf Otto called the “numinous”, the mystery of being before which we feel a sense of awe and our own “creatureliness.” This is the feeling you are meant to have standing in a great European cathedral whose towering columns and vaulted ceilings make you feel like a little ant on the floor.

The prayer starts: “unetaneh tokef…” Let us ascribe great power to this day, for it is awesome and frightening. On this day, Your Kingship [God] is uplifted and your throne is established with kindness. “v’teshev alav be’emet.” “You sit upon it in truth…” And what is this truth? Look at the next sentence: “emet ki ata hu dayan…” “The truth is that you are the Judge.” God is the king who sits in judgment. And now the prayer picks up on a midrash – a rabbinic parable – that imagines that when we die, we ascend to the heavenly court. When we arrive at the door of the court, we are presented with the book of our life in which is recorded all our deeds; and our sages imagined that this book reads itself out loud to us (like a book on tape… “this is your life, presented by Audible.com”… maybe I can get James Earl Jones to narrate mine).

When we’ve heard the story of our life, we are given one chance to review the book and make any corrections we want. But once we’ve agreed to the record, we must sign and seal the book. Then the doors of the court swing open and we stand before the Judge of the universe.

“u’b’shofar gadol” “And the great shofar is sounded and a still small voice is heard, and the angels are terrified and they are seized with trembling; and they declare, ‘behold, the Day of Judgment.’ Imagine. Even the angels – angels, who are free from temptation and sin – are terrified… how much the more so we are supposed to be afraid!

And then, the text goes on to describe how each of us passes before God – like sheep before the shepherd – to be judged. You’ve probably seen this in old western movies. This is the great round up when they bring all the sheep or cows into the corral and pass them through a narrow chute – just wide enough for one little cow. And the rancher sits on top with a clipboard and decides – who’s going back out to eat grass for another year… and who’s going to be sold to burger king. That more or less the image, right?

But, by making this part of the Rosh HaShanah liturgy, our sages did something very interesting. The drama that we are playing out on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is a rehearsal for the day of our death. Think about that for a moment. What do we do on Yom Kippur? – we fast (which for Jews is like death). We wear simple white clothes reminiscent of a burial shroud. We don’t wear shoes – like a corpse. So, Yom Kippur is a rehearsal for death and RH is the penultimate review of your life. There’s a profound wisdom in this. Those of us in this room that have been faced with death understand this wisdom. If you’ve ever sat at the bedside of a loved one, you understand this wisdom. If you’ve ever survived a life-threatening illness, you understand this wisdom. If you have a child, you know how fragile life is… you understand this wisdom. The philosopher Franz Rosenzweig once said that “on Yom Kippur a Jew gets to see his life through the eyes of eternity”… and through the eyes of eternity you get to ask yourself, what really matters to you? Death is the ultimate confrontation with the meaning of our lives. But, we don’t have to wait until the end of our lives – Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur give us the opportunity to rehearse our mortality once a year.

And here is where we all join in {singing} “B’rosh Hashanah yikateivun, u’b’yom tzom kippur yehatemun.” “On Rosh Hashanah the decree is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed. How many shall pass away, and how many will be created – who will live and who will die, who will come to a timely end, and who to an untimely end; who will perish by water, and who by fire; who by sword, and who by beast; who by hunger and who by thirst; who by earthquake and who by plague; who by strangling and who by stoning; who will have rest and who will wander about (“mi yanuach, u’mi yanu’ah); who will have serenity, and who will be confused; who will be tranquil and who will be tormented; who will be poor and who will be wealthy; who will be brought down low, and who will be uplifted.” And then the congregation joins together in declaring: “U’Teshuvah, u’teffilah, u’tzedakah, ma’avirin et ro’ah ha’gzeirah.” Our makzor translates this line as “But repentance, prayer, and righteousness avert the severe decree.”

I don’t know about you, but, taken at face value, I find this to be a profoundly disturbing theology. Nonetheless, I think there’s a part of us, that deep down really wants to believe this. We want to believe that God is standing over us in judgment, deciding every year who shall live and who shall die. Somehow we find it comforting to see ourselves as the little sheep passing under the rod. But, I have a problem with this view of God because it doesn’t match my experience and I suspect it doesn’t match yours either.

The implication is that God decides our suffering. If that’s true, then we’re in a terrible bind, because it gives us one of two options: The first alternative is that our suffering is part of God’s mystery, which we are incapable of understanding. This is the theology of the book of Job… it is the answer that Isaiah gives the people when he says, “Ki lo makhsevotai makhshevoteichem, ve’lo darcheichem d’rachai” “[God’s] thoughts are not like your thoughts; [God’s] ways are not like your ways.” (Is. 55:8) – you just don’t get it. But, this is a theology I can’t accept. It places the universe in a big black box that I can never make sense of. Good people sometimes suffer and evil people sometimes prosper, and it makes no sense. If that’s so, then the universe has no morality and I might as well go to the movies today rather than be here in shul.

OR, the other theological option is that God is perfectly good and just; rather if a person suffers, they must have deserved it. And, I can’t believe that either. We all know good, wonderful, kind people who suffer… and we can’t say to them, “you deserved it.” Yet, I think there’s a part of us that really wants to believe that.

Many of you know that during rabbinical school, I trained as a chaplain. During my time at UCLA Medical Center, there was a 16 year-old Jewish girl in the hospital with a tumor deep in her brain. For months, her doctors tried to shrink the tumor, but it just kept growing. Over the course of the last few weeks of her life, I visited the family regularly. And, every time I would visit, I got a similar response from the girl’s mother: “Thanks for coming, Rabbi. We appreciate your visit, but, you know, we’re not religious. We don’t go to shul. In fact, I don’t believe in God.” One morning, I received a page: the girl had died. When I got to the room the mother turned and lashed out at me, “How! How, Rabbi, could God do this to me?!? Why did God take my baby! We’re good people, we try to help others, we try to do the right thing… what did I do to deserve this!” Can you understand this poor mother’s pain? I can’t imagine anything more painful. What do you say to her? Do you tell her, “well, you see, it’s all part of God’s mystery… we can’t understand… God’s ways are not like our ways…” Or, are you going to tell her she deserved it? “Well, you must have done something wrong…” But, now let’s reflect a moment and consider what she’s saying:

She is suffering because the God she doesn’t believe in is punishing her. First, she suffers because she believes God took her baby, and now her suffering is multiplied because she can’t figure out what she did to deserve it.

NO! I can’t believe that theology. I don’t believe that God is an old man in the sky who decides our suffering. So, I’m left with a choice: I can be dismissive and say, “Unetane Tokef was written in the Middle Ages… that was just the primitive religion of my ancestors, but I don’t believe it.” But then why should I say the words in this book, if I don’t believe them! And, besides, do I think my ancestors were a bunch of morons?!? They didn’t understand suffering? They, who didn’t know about germs and antibiotics? They who lived through pogroms? – they didn’t know suffering? Of course, they understood. So, rather than not saying the prayers, I have to find some way of interpreting them that is meaningful to me.

Last year I was in a real crisis over this, until I studied U.T. with my teacher, Rabbi Ed Feinstein. Several decades ago there was a scholar named Daniel Goldschmidt who gathered up all the various medieval manuscripts of the makhzor he could find and he compared them. Goldschmidt found something very interesting in early manuscripts of “unetane tokef”: Many of the medieval versions read, “u’teshuvah, u’tefillah, u’tzedakah me’vatlin et ha’gzeirah.” “Repentance, prayer, and tzedakah annul the decree.” Now that’s the conventional understanding that we still have of the prayer – that’s the translation in our book. God sits in judgment and I have three ways of appealing the sentence between RH and YK… but that’s not the text we have. Our text doesn’t say, “… mevatlin et ha’gzeira.” Look again closely: Our version says “u’teshuvah, u’tefillah, u’tzedakah, ma’avirin et ro’a ha’gzeira.” What’s the difference? The verb is different… and The subject is the “ro’ah” – the severity, the pain. That is to say, there’s nothing I can do to annul the decree… but I can do something to mitigate the severity. There’s something I can do to withstand the pain and the suffering.

Now we have to ask, “so, what’s the decree?” If the decree can’t be changed, how do I understand the beginning of the prayer about God as judge? I want to suggest to you a different way of understanding the Unetane Tokef. Look again at the beginning: “On Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed… who will live and who will die…” I think we read these words secretly believing that it’s talking about someone else. (“That’s not talking about me… that’s some other poor shlamazel who’s going to get it this year”)

Last Rosh HaShanah I was sitting in shul and I started reading the Makhzor (if you read the newspaper, the congregants get upset)… And I started reading the words of Unetane Tokef: “who will live and who will die?” The answer to that question is: ME! I’m going to live and someday I’m going to die. The difficult but enduring truth – the decree that’s been written and sealed from the very start – is the simplest and most difficult truth of life… that it’s not forever. “Who in his time and who before his time?” ME! Everyone dies when it’s his or her time; and for anyone who has anything meaningful in life, it’s always too early. That’s why people cry at funerals… no matter how old the person is who died.

“Who by water and who by fire?” Again, it’s talking about me. There are times in life when I’m drowning – like right before the High Holy Days. “Who by fire?” Again, me! Sometimes I’m consumed by my own passions and I burn up. “Sword and beast?” Me! There are times when I’m filled with violent rage. There are times when my inner beast threatens to overtake my better self – that part of us that is divine. “Who by hunger and who by thirst.” Definitely me… I eat too much – sometimes out of boredom or nervousness. I eat when I’m sad; I eat when I’m angry. “Who will wander and who will rest?” There are nights when I lie in bed awake and my mind wanders to scary places of worry and anxiety… and sometimes my head hits the pillow and I sleep like a baby. “Who will have peace and who will be tormented…?” Again, what I realized reading U.T. this way is that each of these is talking about me…. But it isn’t personal… it isn’t just about me. It’s about YOU too.

The truth of the decree – the terrifying truth of this day – is that these all describe what it means to be a human being. Unetane Tokef means to tell us that for all our pretensions of power and control, the truth is that we control very little. In the scope of the universe, our power is limited. That’s the terrifying truth that the prayer is talking about

But we don’t stop there… if we did, we would be fatalists. Instead, the prayer gives us an answer to the limits of human power because it tells us that God gives us three things we can do to mitigate the human condition.

“U-teshuvah, u’tefillah, u’tzedakah ma’avrin et ro’ah ha-gzeirah”

The first thing we can do is Teshuvah. What is teshuvah? It means repentance, but it really comes from the word meaning “to respond.” Teshuvah means we can respond. It is our ability to respond to our own shortcomings and it is also the ability to respond to the inevitable challenges of life. Victor Frankl was a Jewish psychiatrist from Vienna who was imprisoned in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, then Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. He lost his entire family in Auschwitz. While he was in the camps, Frankl treated his fellow prisoners for depression and tried to prevent Jewish suicides. After the war, he wrote a book called Man’s Search for Meaning and started a whole school of psychotherapy based on what he had learned from doing psychoanalysis in the camps.

In his book he observed that even if we human beings don’t have much control over the conditions of our lives, we do have the power to interpret those conditions and we have the power to respond. We have the power to make the time we have (even the most horrific moments) meaningful and purposeful. We have the power to be God’s partners in alleviating suffering. We have the power to pursue goodness. When I was confronted by that mother in the hospital, she wanted me to give her an answer – to act as God’s spokesman. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t explain why her child died any better than the doctors could. But, I could respond. So I did: I gave her a hug and I let her weep on my shoulder. We can’t always change the conditions of our existence, but we have the power to respond. We have the power to bring a little more kindness and compassion into this world.

Tefillah - prayer. Prayer is how we come together as a community to express our hopes and our joys; our sadness and our pain. Synagogue must be a place where we can bring our whole selves. The shul should be a place where we are free to laugh and where it is safe to cry. If you can’t come to shul and cry, we’ve failed. Prayer is an expression – in poetry, song, and symbols – of what it means to be a human being. Prayer is how we reach out to God and reach in to find that part of us that is created in the Divine image. Prayer is the spiritual work we do that prepares us to confront a world that isn’t perfect. It teaches us to live life with a posture of humility, with a sense of wonder and gratitude, and it teaches us to live in relationship to our Creator with a feeling of reverence. We don’t have too many places in our culture that teach reverence. The synagogue is a place of reverence. Tefillah means that we can bring a little more gentleness and humility into this world.

And, finally, Tzedkah. Tzedkah is from the word Tzedek – justice. Tzedakah means that we have the power to narrow the range of chaos in the world. We might be drawn the fatalism and cynicism that says the world can’t be better. It’s true that we can’t change the decree - life and death are part of the same process, joy and suffering are part of the process… but what it means to be created in the image of God is to have a mind and a soul to understand that there is a better way to live. We have the power to bend the moral arch of the universe a little further toward justice. Tzedakah means that in a world with so much suffering, each of us has the power to bring a little more Godliness to this world.

Our tradition takes the image of a king – powerful and distant – and turns Him into a Judge and a Shepherd. The gift of life comes with certain conditions – some of which we cannot change – but it also comes with choices. Every Rosh HaShanah we are faced with the limits of what it means to be human. Every Rosh HaShanah it is written, and every Yom Kippur it is sealed for another year, but we have the power to do teshuvah – to respond with kindness and compassion. We have the power of tefillah – to draw together as a community to share in the human experience. And we have the power to do tzedakah – to pursue justice and bring a little more Godliness into the world. And, we have a way of giving more meaning and purpose to our lives.

I wish you a sweet year; a year of joy; a year of meaning and purpose. May we all be inscribed in the book of life. L’Shanah Tovah