The Rabbi's Tale--Response by Gayle Speizer

While all the congregation held hands, (including holding the rabbi's left hand), in apprehensive, but excited expectation, the rabbi took each of the keys and opened all of the locks with her right hand.

The huge door swung open and the group was instantly engulfed among hundreds, if not thousands, of ancient Israelites in the midst of the Red Sea, scurrying along a dry path between the walls of WATER to the other side. While they were being swept along by the throng, they did not notice that their clothing had changed from modern-day apparel to the clothing of the ancient Israelites who were fleeing from Pharoah's army.

By the time those who had entered the door by way of the copper, silver and gold keys, had arrived on the opposite shore of the Red Sea, their memories had also been erased. Their hearts filled with joy as Miriam sang praises to Jehovah for bringing the multitude safely across.

As darkness fell, they were led by a pillar of FIRE through the WILDERNESS, where eventually they would encounter the Ten Commandments and all the rest of the Torah.

The Rabbi's Tale--Responses by Dan Ronfeld, Rebecca Groves and Jack Bonawitz

Dan Ronfeld

So the rabbi, having been given the keys, offers them to the congregation, saying, “Our community has always acted at its highest when we act as a family and whatever decision we make today we will do as a family. Opening this door, we reach a place of milk and honey. A land not given to the troubles of this life. So please, offer up your thoughts.”

The first up was a logical one, the Patriarch of the Congregation. A.K. Markowitz. He spoke up and said, “My father and my mother came to this community wanting the independence the open minded West offered. They were shackled by the constraints of the Lower East. Before that, my grandparents got on boats, barely in their teens with nothing but memories of families they would never see again. Since Abraham we’ve taken up and moved forward. Now with the chance to go into Gan Eden, tell me—what has this world got left for us, that we should stay? I may have an old man’s eyesight, but my vision is clear. Times are bleak. Things are bad. I might not be here too much longer, but the whole of our people isn’t slated to make it into another century. We need to go now while we’re still here to go.”

He was resigned. Soon almost all in one form or another were in agreement. The door, for a variety of reasons, must be opened and the age of wonder let in.

Then from the back there was a noise, all too familiar with the Hebrew School teachers, belonging to Shmoey Abrams- the pisher nightmare of Classroom Gimmel. No shin was safe as he made his way to the rabbi, halting, almost in time, and yelled, “STOP! STOP! Don’t to it.”

The rabbi who was wonderful with children... said “Shmoey, why not?”

“Because the last Harry Potter stunk!”—and they all looked at him… At this point, his parents wished little Shmoey was an orphan. The rabbi, who was also patient, said “Shmoey, I think you are a little off topic”.

“NO,” he looked back ferociously, “when you finish anything it’s bad and when you finish it’s over. Even when you are losing the game, playing is better than stopping. Even when the movie scares you, it’s better than when it’s over. You can’t say it’s over, you can’t call it over. Whatever is there, it can’t matter as much as what is here. How good can another life be, how can it be better than this one? Even when it isn’t great, it’s still really fun.”

The eternal optimism of youth smashed the idol of defeatism. Shmoey’s parents for the first time felt something akin to naches. The game of life isn’t called on account of rain, and if you are alive enough to assess your failures, you are alive enough to keep trying. Jewish history has always been written on the blade of a knife. Apathy is a horrible enemy, but it’s not pogroms. Intermarriage is a tough conversation, but it’s not Kristallnacht. Whatever, the congregation decided, an afterlife might hold, it would have to wait- and this life must be engaged. We may not have any solutions—but they are ours to find, and as long as we exist, we have time to find them.

The rabbi looked at her congregation. The Abrams and the Markowitzes, yes, but also interfaith families, gay families, childless and adoptive families, families made up of individuals not born Jewish. It’s not a shrinking circle, it’s a broadening one. Her job was to embrace that change. Not force it into the mold of an antiquated template, but assess and evaluate the new opportunities that a 21st Century Judaism offers. One with Chinese 5 spice in the Chicken soup. A seder table with a new illustration on our struggle for freedom.

So she took the keys, put them in a box, and wrapped it up, to be stored in the attic of the temple under a large forgotten crate marked “Golem.” One day, she told herself, she would have to open that and see whatever could be inside...

**********

Becky Groves

But this time, the rabbi was not alone. For on that eve of Rosh Hashanah, the sacred day when the world labored to be born anew, she found her entire congregation waiting there for her—young and old, long-time friends and newcomers, women and children and men. She laughed and cried and smiled as they embraced her and she embraced them back. Then, she pointed at the door, held up the glittering keys, and said, “ You will remember not long ago we celebrated Shabbat and I spoke to you of the Torah portion, Ki Tavo, which means “when you enter”. I stand before you today as we are about to enter a new beginning. This door holds behind it the promise of what will be, but I cannot open it alone, I need your help.

Before the Rabbi had finished speaking a young man from the congregation jumped up. He burned with a desire to right the injustices of the world. His whole body was ablaze as he snatched the copper key from the Rabbi's hand, confident that his passion was all that was needed to unlock the great door.

Next, an older congregant rooted in tradition came forward. He was sure that the steady flow that had always led him on his way was the only true way. The cool, calmness of knowing that the current was the same today as it had been yesterday and would be the same tomorrow guided him forward as he deliberately reached for the silver key.

After some time passed and no one else came forward the Rabbi walked to the back of the room and handed the remaining key to a quiet woman who looked confused and unsure as she hesitantly took the gold key in her hand.

Each one tried their key in the lock. The copper key in the copper lock, the silver key in the silver lock, and the gold key in the gold lock, but the door would not open.

Then they tried them together, each one putting their key in the locks simultaneously, but the door still would not open.

Just when the congregation was losing hope, a small child stepped forward and the face of Elijah was in the face of the child as she spoke to the three holding the keys.

“Why don't you switch keys” she suggested, “Embrace what the other has to offer. It is only when you accept the other that the door will be opened to you.”

The quiet woman timidly reached for the copper key and her confusion became conviction.The young man grabbed the silver key and his fiery passion cooled to a calm contentment.

The older man smugly scooped up the gold key, confident in his beliefs, only to find that he was filled with the blessing of doubts.

These three then joined hands and each with the key of the other firmly in their grasp they went to door and inserted the keys into the locks.

It was only then that the door swung open and they heard these words:

“All Jews are responsible, one for the other. Ki Tavo, when you enter, you enter as one.”

**********

Jack Bonawitz

But this time, the rabbi was not alone. For on that eve of Rosh Hashanah, the sacred day when the world labored to be born anew, she found her entire congregation waiting there for her—young and old, long-time friends and newcomers, women and children and men. She laughed and cried and smiled as they embraced her and she embraced them back. Then, she pointed at the door, held up the glittering keys, and paused. She could see that they were waiting for her to open the three locks and reveal so much to them. The rabbi imagined that her congregants saw her as the Israelites saw Moses.

What happened next surprised everyone, the rabbi included, for she took each of the keys as one would take a Frisbee and sailed it with all her might as far as she could. She saw each of the keys sail through the air, almost in slow motion, and each one landed in a deep pool of muddy water where it quickly sank out of sight.

When the last of the keys was gone, she was as astonished as anyone in the congregation. She hadn’t planned to throw them away; it just seemed to happen. Had someone asked her what she was going to do or why she was going to do it, she wouldn’t have known what to say. Her actions were more like instinctive reactions to danger—like swatting at a wasp flying into one’s face.

And when her gaze turned back to her congregation, she saw a range of emotions: some were confused at what she had done; some were disappointed at the loss of the keys; and some were openly angry at her actions.

Now, at this point you’re probably wondering how this is all going to work out since the Erev Rosh HaShonah service was supposed to begin in just a few short hours. So I will tell you—I don’t know.

An old Litvak, known for his keen mind and vivid imagination, said that the congregation met within the hour to decide the rabbi’s future. The president, a hard-nosed businessman known more for thin budgets and short meetings, had wanted to fire the rabbi on the spot. The rest of the Board decided that a congregational meeting would be the best forum for uncovering the truth. No email or phone tree was necessary—everyone even remotely connected to the congregation wanted to be there to see what would happen.

The congregation’s sanctuary, which would normally seat one hundred, was packed for the meeting. In fact, many noticed with some irony that more people were there than ever attended High Holy Days services.

Promptly at the set time, nothing happened. Finally, almost twenty minutes later, the president arrived with a cup of coffee in one hand and a sheaf of papers in the other. He quickly called the meeting to order, and turned it over to his son, a young man whose sole accomplishment was being the only child of a wealthy man. The son strode to the reading stand, looked around the sanctuary at the congregation, cleared his throat, and began: “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said somewhat pompously, “allow me to set forth the facts in this case. Our rabbi had in her possession today three keys which would have allowed the members of this congregation to become what we all aspire to—pious Jews.” At this point, the Litvak said, more than a few knowing looks were exchanged since the young man rarely attended services, and he once asked at Passover when they would sing his favorite song, Kol Nidre. The congregation, however, seemed willing to allow him to make a point or to find one, but they were already beginning to look at their watches. He continued, “Given the power to guide this congregation, our rabbi knowingly, willingly, and”—he searched here for another adverb—“uh, haphazardly discarded three keys to the doors of…of…”—by now everyone could see that he was as prepared as Noah’s neighbors.

The president, seated on the bimah, quietly said, “Hymie, sit down.”

“I’m not done,” the young man said stridently.

“Sit, Hymie,” his father said, “sit.” And with that the father strode to the reading stand while the young man slipped quietly into a pew next to his mother who patted his hand and offered him a Lifesaver.

“Now,” said the older man, “I just want to ask you, Rabbi, why did you throw those keys away?”

Not since her bat mitzvah had the rabbi been so anxious. As she stood to walk to the shtender, she felt light-headed, the way she had felt hours earlier when she threw the keys into the pool. She wondered to herself if she was having an out-of-body experience because she was moving without thinking, looking without seeing.

Grasping the sides of the shtender, she looked out at the congregation, smiled as best she could, and said, “Friends, I apologize if I have hurt you or confused you.” She paused to let this sink in, then she continued. “I could ask you to trust me to do what is right, but I feel like you deserve more of an explanation.” As she looked around the sanctuary, she saw heads nodding, but few smiles.

“Over the past months, I’ve had a series of—well, I don’t know what to call them exactly. In some ways they were dreams, but they weren’t exactly dreams. If I studied kabbalah, I’d say they were mystical experiences. Whatever they were, they were very odd and very powerful. Just as Dante had Vergil to guide him, I had Elijah to guide me.” As these words came from her mouth, she saw looks of confusion on some faces and amusement on others. Sensing their concern, she went on: “I know this isn’t the explanation you expected, but allow me to continue.” She paused, gathered her thoughts, and continued. “In those dreams, when Elijah appeared to me, he showed me a door with three locks on it. Behind the door was Torah and transformation. If I passed three tests, I would get the keys to those locks. The first test was fire, the second water, and the third wilderness. But when I passed all three tests, Elijah said he couldn’t go any further, and he just disappeared. He gave me those three keys you saw, and—poof!—he was gone.” As she said this, she realized how preposterous the whole story sounded. Had someone told her the story, she thought, she would have wondered at his sanity.

Based on the looks on their faces, however, the congregation seemed to believe this story. It was as odd a story as they’d ever heard, but she was, after all, their rabbi, and she had never misled them before.

At this moment, though, she realized that the most important part of the story had yet to be told—why had she thrown away the keys? “So,” the rabbi said, “you’re wondering why—if those keys were so hard to get and so valuable—why did I throw them away? If I could give you that great gift, why didn’t I?” A room full of heads nodded, almost in unison. The rabbi continued, “Well, I’ll tell you. Judaism.” She paused for that to sink in. “Yes, Judaism is about doing, not receiving, not believing. Doing. Think about that. What are some of the important principles of Judaism? Torah (lifelong learning), Avodah (spiritual growth), G’milut Chasadim (acts of loving kindness), Kehilah (community-building) Tsedakah (justice). Each of those principles requires that we do something, not just talk about it or profess to believe in it. We have to do.” She paused, as much to catch her breath as to let this lesson sink in.

After a moment, she continued, “Those keys that some of you were so upset at losing? Well, you did nothing to earn those keys, you never had them in your possession, and you don’t even know what you would have received if I had given them to you. In a way, you’re like Jonah. He tried to avoid his responsibility to do something, then, when he did something, he didn’t understand what he’d done. And we don’t know if he ever—as they say today—got it.”

Feeling more confident, the rabbi paused for a moment then went on, “May I ask you some questions? Do you want your children and grandchildren to be b’nai mitzvah?” Virtually every head nodded. “Good. Do you want your children to be married under a chuppa?” Again, nods all around. “Good. Do you want to be buried in a Jewish cemetery?” Again, nods. “Very good. Now, would you like to see the world be a better place?” There was widespread murmuring in assent. “I thought so,” said the rabbi. “So what will it take to get those things? Magic keys? Or you—each and every one of you—doing what you can to shape the world as it should be.”

Looking at her watch, the rabbi said, “Now, we can begin our Erev Rosh HaShonah prayers, or we can put our faith in magic keys. We can begin transforming ourselves and our world, or we can cross our fingers and hope.”

The old Litvak said that no one even thought about going out to that pond. As a matter of fact, he claimed that the new sanctuary, which was constructed during Hymie’s first term as president, was built where the muddy pond had been.

The Rabbi's Tale

The Rabbi’s Tale—a Parable of Transformation (Rosh Hashanah Eve 5772)

“Our Rabbis teach: There are three paths to Torah—fire, water, and wilderness.”
-Midrash Bamidbar Rabbah

Once upon a time there was a rabbi who loved her community dearly. She had spent most of her adult life there, preaching and teaching, learning and listening, raising her own family and reaching out to those of her congregants. And they returned her love in abundance, treating her with deep respect and unassuming kindness. The rabbi and the congregation had grown up together, mourning losses and celebrating simchas, both personal and communal, sharing and supporting one another through halcyon days and hard times and everything in between. The rabbi was profoundly grateful for the opportunity to serve this small and haimish congregation, and she had come to see her life with them as richly blessed. Now that she was well into middle age, it occurred to her that she would probably serve out her career, retire, and even die there—and somewhat to her surprise, she was at peace with this thought. She recalled the Talmud’s query: “Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their portion.” As she played that teaching over in her head and in her heart, she realized how lucky she was, for her portion brought her a wealth of joy. She smiled and thought to herself, “I am content.”

Still, she had lived long enough to know that this happiness would not last if either she or the community eased off and rested on their laurels. For alongside her enduring gratitude, the rabbi also sensed that her congregation and, indeed, the entire American Jewish community was on the verge of a significant crisis. Like most of her colleagues, she read the Jewish population studies, so she was well aware of their predictions of Reform and Conservative Judaism’s precipitous decline and possible demise through intermarriage, low birthrates, assimilation and apathy. She had never taken these grim reports too seriously, but recently, trends and events in her own congregation made them harder to ignore.

Each fall, for instance, the rabbi noticed more and more empty seats on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur as significant numbers of congregants now opted to go to work and send their children to school rather than taking the days off. This shocked the rabbi, for even though she had grown up in the south among shrimp-loving, Sabbath-working classical Reform Jews, even those otherwise not so pious congregants would never have considered skipping out on the High Holy Days. Apparently the old motivators of guilt and obligation no longer held sway, as more and more Jews opted to stay away from shul even on Kol Nidre.

There were other troubling signs. The religious school was slowly but steadily shrinking. Clearly this was a nationwide problem, as the newly-appointed president-elect of the Union for Reform Judaism was a rabbi best known for his iconoclastic sermon, “The End of Religious School As We Know It.” Like many of her peers, the rabbi was struck by how the American Jewish community could be the wealthiest and best-educated in her people’s long history—and at the same time, the most Jewishly uninformed. She wrestled with how to educate the parents along with their children, rather than continuing the Sunday morning drop-off method that had proven to be such a failure.

The congregation’s budget was tight even in good times—and financially-speaking, these were not good times. And the core of synagogue regulars—a remarkable, devoted crew, to be certain—was growing older. When the rabbi’s own children were young, they accompanied her to synagogue every Friday night, where they happily hung out with their Jewish friends. Now, the community in the pews was getting grayer by the week, so that on the rare occasions when young families would show up with their toddlers and school-age children, they usually found no peers to play with and left with little incentive to return.

Over the past few years, the rabbi had come to see the classic model of synagogue membership as archaic, particularly for people under forty. She once asked the middle-aged members of her board—which is to say, some of her most active and engaged congregants—how many of their children had joined a congregation. Not one person raised a hand. Their sons and daughters—almost all of whom the rabbi had herself Bar and Bat-Mitzvahed—were proud Jews but did not choose to affiliate with synagogues. Instead, they practiced their Judaism a la carte—an activity here, a gathering there—rather than formally and financially committing to a congregation. It seemed to the rabbi that with membership, synagogues were still trying vainly to sell albums in an i-tunes world.

The rabbi was aware of all of these trials, and more: engaging teens and twenty-somethings, supporting the community’s ailing elders, and developing new leadership instead of burning out once-ardent volunteers—all while struggling to stay afloat in the depths of the worst economy since the Great Depression. She found these challenges daunting, and in her darker hours, she worried.

But she did not despair.

Remember, she was, as our story began, happy—in large part because she was, by nature, an intensely hopeful person. She was no Pollyanna; she saw the host of difficulties that lay ahead, for the American Jewish community in general, and her small shul in particular. Yet she also recognized, with strong faith and clarity, her people’s unheralded strengths: a thriving pre-school, the idealistic Jewish pride of the youth, the resilience of her peers, and the hard-earned wisdom of the community’s matriarchs and patriarchs. Her children were fourth-generation American liberal Jews; she refused to believe the naysayers who insisted that they and liberal Judaism had no future.
 

The rabbi had once heard that the Chinese pictogram for “crisis” also means “opportunity.” She liked this convergence; it reminded her that the Hebrew word for “crisis, ” mashber, was even more hopeful, for it means “childbirth chair.” Perhaps that is why the rabbi’s natural reflex was to see tough times as birth pains. Called by her faith to this labor of love, she yearned to lead her community in a fashion worthy of its sacred mission, to help them do their part in delivering the new Jewish world waiting to be born. The rabbi often wondered whether she was up to the task. And so, now mid-way through the journey of her life, she prayed each night that God might somehow show her the way.

**********

And it came to pass at the new moon, on the eve of the month of Tammuz, in the season of the summer solstice, that the rabbi dreamed a dream.

She found herself in an expansive, plain white room, with no windows or furniture or features of any kind, save for one imposing black door barred by three locks made of copper, silver, and gold. She waited there, silent and alone, for what felt like an eternity though it may have been only an instant. Then, from out of nowhere, a messenger arrived in a tattered brown tunic, sporting a long grey beard, and a heavy cedar staff. He smiled sternly at the rabbi, then took her hand and introduced himself as Eliyahu Ha-Navi, Elijah the Prophet.

She met his gaze, bowed low, and said, “Hineni—Here I am. O Messenger from on High, has the Holy One of Blessing heard and hearkened to my prayers? My people and I are your humble servants. Tell me, now, what would you have us do?”

“There are,” replied Elijah, “three roads to Torah. Listen, learn, and live these three paths and you will receive a key for each, in due time. The first approach to Torah and transformation, for yourself and your community, is to travel the trail of fire. Go now, my child, for from this new moon until the next, you must follow the fiery way.”

The rabbi woke flushed and feverish, with the fearful knowledge that her journey had begun. For the entire month of Tammuz, as the moon waxed, then waned, her world was afire. Her nightly dreams were marked by blazing visions and visitations. She beheld burning angels, wheels of fire, brilliant lights and luminaries. And she met the fiery Jewish radicals whose passion for justice and truth had changed the world. Every night they came to her: Abraham the idol-smasher, Deborah the warrior, the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel, whose scorching words foretold the fall of kings and empires.

She also met more recent Jewish revolutionaries: Marx and Freud and Einstein, Emma Goldman and Betty Friedan. Ancient and modern, pious and heretical, they came and preached the power of fire, the capacity of blazing words and deeds to alter the course of history.

By day, the rabbi meditated on the meaning of her dreams. She considered the small but significant changes her own community had achieved by way of fire, through change born of passionate activism. She recalled with great appreciation the courage of both the founders of liberal Judaism and the foremothers of Western feminism, without either of whom she would not have had the opportunity to become a rabbi. And having seized that opportunity, she proudly counted the transformations that Jewish feminism had brought over the decades of her rabbinate: the opening of leadership to the long-neglected female fifty percent of the Jewish people, the creation of new liturgies and lifecycle events, and healthier models for both women and men to balance family and career. All around her, the rabbi realized, were the products of progress, born of fire: the movement toward full inclusion for gay and lesbian Jews, the hundreds of thousands of Jewish blogs and websites and other technological tools, and, perhaps most revolutionary and miraculous of all, the creation and success of the young Jewish nation that had risen like a phoenix in the land of Israel after two thousand years of exile.

As Tammuz drew to an end, the rabbi pondered all of these things and thanked both God and her nightly guides for showing her the blessings of the path of fire.

**********

And it came to pass at the next new moon, on the eve of the month of Av, in the season of tears, that the rabbi dreamed another dream.

She stood, again, in the same large room, but now the once-white walls were replaced by ramparts of raging flames. Then Elijah appeared from out of the blaze and handed her a burnished copper key. “You have done well,” he said, “traveling the road of fire. The second approach to Torah and transformation takes up the trail of water. Go now, my child, for from this full moon until the next, you must follow the way of water.”

The rabbi woke up bathed in a pool of cold sweat.

For the entire month of Av, as the moon waxed, then waned, her world was awash in water. Rivers and rainstorms, cisterns and seashores drenched her dreams. Again, visitations filled her nights, but this time her teachers were cautious traditionalists and steadfast conservators, Jewish models of patience and perseverance. One by one, they came to her: Isaac, the child of Abraham and Sarah’s old age, whose lifework was to maintain the wells that his father had dug; Aaron and his descendants, the priests commanded to preserve the detailed rituals of service and sacrifice; generations of Jewish exiles determined to keep the faith by the rivers of Babylon. There was Akiba and his wife, Rachel, inspired to learn Torah late in life after watching tiny drops of water wear away the hardest stone. The rabbi met Rashi, tending his vineyard and teaching his students along the banks of the River Seine, and Abraham Joshua Heschel, scion of Hasidic dynasties, who was born in the Old World but, in 1938, on the eve of destruction, found refuge in the New, where he would become the poet and preacher, teacher and translator of that which had been lost.

By the light of day, the rabbi again reflected on the significance of these dreams. She pondered the way of water, considered the power of incremental change and the importance of preserving ancient traditions. She remembered the wisdom of one of her professors, who taught her that when people struggle to pray the words of the siddur, rabbis should not be too eager to modify the service. Sometimes, the professor said, the goal is to teach and transform the worshippers, to help them find meaning in the traditional prayers by uncovering their buried beauty. In this same spirit, by way of water, the rabbi noted that her generation’s Reform Judaism was reclaiming traditional practices that her parents and grandparents had sloughed away. As the world moved ever faster in a vortex of almost constant flux, the rabbi was deeply grateful for the comforting constancy of tradition. While she acknowledged the value of the new technological tools for information gathering and communication, she still drafted her sermons on yellow legal pads, penned letters to her children, and loved the heft of a real book in her hands. And so, as Av drew to an end, the rabbi thanked God and her dream-teachers for guiding her along the path of water, with its abundant blessings and consolations.

**********

And it came to pass at the next new moon, on the eve of the month of Elul, in the season of preparing for the Days of Awe, that the rabbi dreamed again of that large room, whose walls were now sea-green standing waves. Then Elijah stepped out of the water and handed her a shimmering silver key. “Again, you have done well,” he said, “upon the road of water. The third—and final— approach to Torah and transformation is the trail of wilderness. Go now, my child, for from this full moon until the next, you must follow the way of water.”

Then the rabbi awoke, dazed and confused, unmoored in space and time.

For all of Av, the final month of the Jewish year, as the moon waxed, then waned, her world was wilderness. Nights brought visions of high mountains and far horizons, sweltering deserts, dense jungle, tree-less steppes and arctic ice fields, the world’s last vast and wild places, still mostly free of human habitation. And with the wilderness came a new gathering of visitors, storytellers and teachers. Each meditated on living with uncertainty, on opening heart and mind to mirror the uncluttered expanse of land and sky. They entered her dreams over roundabout roads, reminding her to focus on the journey rather than the destination. She met Moses and Miriam, camped in the Sinai, and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the mystic author of the Zohar, hunkered down for thirteen years in his cave on the slopes of Mount Meron. Generations of Jewish wanderers passed by, expelled from one kingdom to the next. There were traders and merchants and refugees and a contemporary Jewish trickster from Hibbing, Minnesota who kept asking her, “How does it feel to be on your own, with no direction home?”

During the daylight hours, as she prepared for the arrival of Rosh Hashanah, the rabbi considered the way of wilderness. She recalled the many times she had struggled to muster the courage to leave all that was familiar for the promise of the unknown. How often her faith had wavered, how frequently her fears and insecurities had left her clinging to illusory comforts.

Yet she also remembered occasions when she had somehow overcome those fears and stepped forward, to find the unaccustomed ground firm beneath her feet. And what a joy it was to discover that her community was determined to share the journey with her! Over the years, she had led them into some pretty murky terrain, and to their enormous credit, they had followed, by her side. And so, as the month of Elul and the fading year drew to an end, the rabbi again thanked God, her guides, and her beloved community for walking her down the path of wilderness, bestowing so many blessings along the way.

**********
And it came to pass at the new moon, on the eve of the month of Tishrei, the night before Rosh Hashanah, that the rabbi dreamed of walking alone through a seemingly endless tract of desolate terrain. She was weary, nearly despairing of ever finding the path when Elijah stepped out from behind a gnarled carob tree. Handing her a key of gleaming gold, he said, “Behold, you have successfully navigated all three roads to Torah and transformation—fire, water, and now wilderness. Well done, my child. Three keys now are yours; they hold the power to unlock the final door, which still awaits you. What lies beyond that portal, even I do not know, for it is barred to me. But if you wish, you may choose to enter.”

With that, Elijah struck the ground with his staff and the rabbi was immediately transported back to the large white room where it all began. It was again featureless and unadorned, save for the fortress-like door with its three locks of copper, silver, and gold.

But this time, the rabbi was not alone. For on that eve of Rosh Hashanah, the sacred day when the world labored to be born anew, she found her entire congregation waiting there for her—young and old, long-time friends and newcomers, women and children and men. She laughed and cried and smiled as they embraced her and she embraced them back. Then, she pointed at the door, held up the glittering keys, and. . .

Ashamnu: Confessing (and embracing) our failings

The communal confession of sin, known in Hebrew as the vidui, is at the heart of the Yom Kippur liturgy. Ashamnu takes us through a litany of sins via an acrostic poem that follows the Hebrew alphabet (thus giving us, in the English equivalent, awkward terms like Xenophobia). Then, for the longer Al Chayt prayer, we confess transgressions linked to parts of our bodies: speaking maliciously, being stiff-necked, running (literally “lifting our feet”) to do evil.
As we declare these faults and failings, it is customary to tap our chests with our fists. The most common explanation for this custom is to view it as a sign of self-affliction. On Yom Kippur, Torah teaches, “ V’eeneetem et nafshotaychem—You shall afflict your souls.” Thus, as we recite our sins, we beat our breasts as a kind of self-imposed punishment for our misdeeds.
But I have never much liked this interpretation, because beating ourselves up over our past sins does not seem like a good way to stop committing them in the future. I have always thought of Yom Kippur as a time for acknowledging mistakes, changing course, and making amends in a more constructive manner.
I prefer Rabbi Lawrence Kushner’s neo-hasidic understanding of this tradition. Rabbi Kushner describes the process of confession and teshuvah as “sweetening the evil in ourselves.” He writes, “We go down into ourselves with a flashlight looking for the evil we have intended or done—not to excise it as some alien growth but rather to discover the holy spark within it. We begin not by rejecting the evil but by acknowledging it as something we meant to do. If we can recognize the holy sparks within our sins, and we can have a clear vision of the world and of those around us, we can raise these sparks and redeem them.” Rabbi Kushner therefore sees the act of tapping our chests as a kind of hug. We are not beating our breasts at all; we are, instead, embracing ourselves, reclaiming the same energy that drives our transgressions as a force for the good. With our confession of sins, we re-focus the intention behind them towards the sacred task of repairing ourselves and our world.

As the Days of Awe approach, think of just one behavior of the past year that you would like to change. Then consider: what is the holy spark that underlies this failure? Think about ways to put the same energy that lead you into transgression toward a good and sacred purpose.

And for a nice musical rendition of Ashamnu, with words and transliteration included, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TOC0kuZ6D8

Who by fire and who by water

The prayer which, more than any other, evokes the tenor—and terror—of these High Holy Days is the medieval poem known as U’netaneh Tokef. Traditionally attributed to Rabbi Amnon of Mayence, it proclaims the awesome power of this season, in which God, as Judge and Arbiter, opens the book of our days and decrees our destinies: “Who shall live and who shall die, who by fire and who by water, who by strangling and who by stoning. . . who shall be secure, and who shall be driven. . .” The language moves us by its ferocity; this is our tradition’s version of fire and brimstone.

And then comes the kicker: “U-teshuvah, u’tefillah, u’tzedakah ma-avirin et ro-ah ha-g’zerah—But repentance, prayer and charity temper the severity of the decree.”

What does this mean? Surely Rabbi Amnon, a pious sage who died a martyr, knew that none of these things change the reality of the decree one iota. We will all suffer, and we will all die, no matter how much we repent, pray, and give tzedakah. Indeed, some who do these things in abundance will suffer greatly and die young, while others who are unrepentant, misanthropic, and wouldn’t set foot in a synagogue may nonetheless live long lives in relative comfort.

But as Rabbi Lawrence Kushner notes, while the choices that we make cannot change the decree of death and suffering, they can lessen their sting. As he puts it, “Repentance, prayer and donating do not change the facts of life – our disbursement of blessings and curses will continue to bear little relation to our moral virtue, whether or not we pray, repent, or donate. But a heart habitually opened by repentance, prayer, and donating will cross through life’s inescapable misfortunes somewhat more gently. Our road will still be bumpy, but we’ll have better shock absorbers.”

These Days of Awe remind us how fragile we are, how much of life will always be out of our control. Yet even in the worst of circumstances, we retain the power to choose how we react to our lot. May this season help us to better respond to adversity with reflection, spiritual strength, and giving hearts.

For a powerful contemporary Israeli musical setting of this classic piece, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-0o72al-As
 
Questions to consider:
1. This fall, we will examine this prayer in more detail during our Yom Kippur study session. For now, reflect on the relationship between our circumstances and the choices that we make.
2. What do you make of the metaphor of God as Judge and Arbiter? Does this fit with your ideas/experiences of the Divine? What message might it impart in this season?
3. After noting that God opens the book of our days and decrees our fate, the text also says that this book “bears the signature of every human being.”
Given that this is a signature, we, not God, are doing the writing. What does this imply?

When we stand before the open ark and recite Avinu Malkeinu on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we may experience high drama. This is one of the most ancient prayers of the high holy day liturgy. A talmudic legend attributes the refrain—Our Source, Our Sovereign. . . have mercy on us—to Rabbi Akiba, who offered it as a plea for rain in time of drought (Taanit 25b). Over the years, many verses have accumulated; the exact number and wording differs according to the rite and locale (German Ashkenazi, Polish, Italian, Sephardi, etc.)

Why has Avinu Malkeinu become such an important part of the Days of Awe, and what does it suggest about our relationship with the Divine? While the first word, Avinu, is often translated as “our Father,” the root, av can also mean source or foundation (as in avot melachah, the sources of what defines “work” on Shabbat). This meaning is implicit in the very nature of the term av, which is literally the first word in the Hebrew language (the first letter, aleph, followed by the second, bet). So when we refer to God as Avinu, we recognize the Holy One as our founder, our source, the stuff from which all of life is, as it were, made. By contrast, when we call God Malkeinu, our Sovereign, we point to a transcendent, awe-inspiring Other, beyond ourselves. When we recite Avinu Malkeinu, then, we paradoxically praise the Divine who is both within and beyond us, an intimate loving source of parental comfort and nurture, and a commanding external call to ethics and observance.

Each of us experiences the sacred differently. For some, holiness comes primarily through intimacy, through the still, small voice that whispers within us, and the ties that bind us to the people, creatures, and places that we love. Others find holiness in moments of fear and trembling, when we feel our cosmic insignificance against the backdrop of the vastness of God’s universe. Avinu Malkeinu affirms both of approaches to the divine. God is both wholly Other—and entirely present within us. During these Days of Awe, may we each find the Divine Presence when and where we need Her.

As we begin the new month of Elul, and with it our preparations for the fall holy days, think about where and when you most experience God/holiness. Then consider: how might that experience of the sacred inspire you to make teshuvah, to become a better person in the coming year?

To hear a contemporary jam-band rendition of Avinu Malkeinu by Phish, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP0UF_r3dkY&feature=related
and skip to around the 4:00 minute mark.

Preparing for the Days of Awe (part 1)

Who Wrote the Book of Life?

There are quite a few significant prayers and piyyutim (liturgical poems) created in their entirety for the Days of Awe. Future columns in this series will focus on several of these: Avinu Malkeinu, Unetaneh Tokef ("who shall live and who shall die”), the Yom Kippur confession of sin, Rosh Hashanah shofar service, and Kol Nidre.

Yet most of the High Holy Day liturgy is comprised of the same prayers that we recite regularly, on Shabbat and weekdays. What, then, makes these familiar liturgical pieces unique for the season? Two things: a) special musical settings; b) short insertions and substitutions emphasizing God's sovereignty, a theme of these Days of Awe. Dan Stern will offer a guest column here about the former; I would like to share a few thoughts on the latter.

The best known of these High Holy Day additions is inserted into Avot and Imahot, the opening of the Amidah, which recognizes God as the sustainer and support of our patriarchs and matriarchs. During this season, we interrupt our flowing words of praise with a plea: "Zochreinu l'chayyim, melech chafetz ba-chayyim, v'chotveinu b'sefer ha-chayyim l'ma-anchah Elohim chayyim--Remember us for life, O Sovereign who delights in life, and inscribe us in your Book of Life, for Your sake, O God of life." [for a great musical setting of Zochreinu, look here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I3G1UkQnEI&feature=youtube_gdata_player
What are the origins of this passage, and what might it teach us?

The theme is derived from a statement in the Talmud suggesting that between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, God judges each of us, writing the righteous into the Book of Life, and the wicked into a corresponding Book of Death. Our version of the teaching here emphasizes God's--and our--strong yearning and predilection for life: we pray to a "God of life" who "delights in life" and in so doing, offer our own affirmation of life's essential blessing.

Still, the image is challenging, even as a metaphor (surely there are no real, literal books here). Experience teaches that there is little--or no--connection between our morality and our mortality. In the coming year, many good people will die and bad people will not only live but prosper. What, then, does this image of the books offer us?

I find that this metaphor calls us to a spiritual accounting, to acknowledge and take responsibility for our choices. As Gates of Repentance puts it: "Every word, every act inscribes itself in the book of life. Freely we choose, and what we have chosen to become stands in judgment over what we may yet hope to be." Or, in the words of the great medieval Jewish philosopher, Bachya ibn Pakuda, "Days are scrolls: write on them what you want to be remembered."

As we approach our most sacred season, may we use our days to bring healing, increase blessing, seek forgiveness, work for justice, and deepen our Jewish connections within ourselves and with our community.

Questions to consider:

1. What have you done this year to write yourself into the Book of Life? What deeds and choices are you most proud of?

2. What choices did you make that were not life-affirming, for you and/or for others? How can you change course in these matters over the coming weeks?

3. How, during the frenetic pace of our daily lives, can we step back and reflect on the notion that our days are scrolls and what we write in them--at every moment and with every act--is of utmost significance?