It’s reassuring to think that there’s rhyme and reason in the world.
We do the right thing and good things happen. You study and you do you well. You work hard and you make a good living. That’s reassuring.
Of course we know it doesn’t always work that way. It's not news that the world is often a mess. We’ve always struggled with – on the one hand, wanting there to be rhyme and reason and order and on the other hand, realizing that often there is not.
I'd like to reflect on what we need to do when we face the gap between life as it is and life as we expect it to be. How do we respond to this gap?
First I want to share a story about someone who realized in a dramatic way that things don’t work out the way you hope, or even the way you’ve been told they will.
There are two mitzvot in the Torah the reward for which is a long life. If you honor your parents you’re promised a long life. If you take eggs from a nest and before taking them you shoo away the mother bird, perhaps so she doesn’t have to witness the removal of the eggs, you’re promised a long life.
So this person – a rabbi, actually, witnessed the following scene:
A father says to his son, please climb that tree over there and bring me the eggs that are in the nest which is one of the branches.
The son listens to his father. He gets a ladder. He climbs the tree. He sees that a bird is hovering over the eggs in the nest. He shoos the bird away and takes the eggs. On his way down he slips, falling off the ladder and onto the ground. And doesn’t survive.
The rabbi watching the scene knows full well that the boy performed both of the mitzvot the reward for which is long life. He honored his father. He sent away the bird. And look what happened.
The rabbi, whose name was Elisha ben Abuya, had a crisis of faith. Perhaps he felt the dissonance between things as they are supposed to be and things as they are. Perhaps he felt that this tradition was worthless if the Torah’s basic promises were not upheld. Ultimately he turned his back on Jewish tradition. We don’t know what led up to it, but this moment for him was the breaking point.
If you live in the world you see numerous examples of things not quite turning out the way we imagine they should, the way we are taught that they will.
This week we have been focused on the tragic storms and flooding in Texas.
As of yesterday 45 deaths were reported. 100s of thousands have been displaced. Most people aren’t perfect saints or perfect sinners. But let’s assume that the most of the millions of residents of the Houston area are doing their best – going to school, earning a living, maintaining professional and personal relationships as best they can – and then, over a short period of time, they find themselves in this horrible situation.
Thinking – oh my God, I didn’t expect this. Or maybe - I don’t deserve this. Will I be ok? Will my loved ones be ok?
The NY Times showed a map identifying the locations of emergency calls that were made to local hotlines and brief summaries of those calls. “Water getting higher.” “No place to go.” “Don’t know what to do.” “Not sure how much time I have left.”
The gap between life as it should be and life as it is, is often larger than we can handle. What does this mean for the people in Texas? What does it mean for us?
Rosh Hashanah is two weeks away. What better time for us to recognize a very important truth when it comes to our connection to reality.
We stand in the gap. We stand in the gap between life as we think it should be and life as it actually is. Our actions can help bridge the gap.
Regarding Hurricane Harvey, we can reach out. We can send money. We can send goods. UJA has set up a relief fund that I informed the congregation about through email. Our congregation is collecting cleaning supplies, personal hygiene products, first aid supplies, gift cards, non-perishable food, baby products, flashlights, batteries, blankets and toiletries that will be sent to needy families in the Houston area.
We will, in two weeks, be reciting the prayer unetane tokef – on Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed: מי יחיה ומי ימות mi yihyeh umi yamut Who will live and who will die. Who by fire and who by water.
There was a trend, during the late 70’s when I was a teenager, to reinterpret, in metaphorical ways, prayers that were deemed to be too literal and too physical.
I would hear the following kinds of translations of parts of unetane tokef:
Who will be swept up in the fire of passion. Who will be overwhelmed by the flood of indifference. Or whatever.
And I’m all for metaphor, in its proper place.
However, the person who wrote this prayer in the Middle Ages was talking about real fire and real flooding and real swords that wreak havoc. Have we outgrown all of that?
We still suffer from real fires and real floods and real swords. When we "upgrade" to metaphors, it sometimes suggests that we think we’re beyond the vulnerability, that we don’t have to deal with real fire, real water, real swords.
And we do. Despite many of the advances of modern life, we are still, in many ways, quite vulnerable.
Sadly the gap between life as we think it should be and life as it is, is just as real, just as material, as it always was.
We stand in that gap. When we send funds, or collect and send goods. When we reach out in real ways to the people who need our help, whoever and wherever they might be.
We stand in that gap.
Unetaneh tokef is a meditation on the interplay between the stuff that happens and what we can do about it. In that respect, it’s a pretty good roadmap for life. All kinds of things happen that we cannot control.
But our Teshuva/self-reflection, our te’fila/prayer and our tzedaka/acts of righteousness can help bridge the gap.
You don’t think your family deserves a particular crisis that you're facing, but here it is. What are you going to do about it? What are others who care about you, or others who may not even know you but just want to do the right thing, going to do about it?
Things don’t go the way we hope. They don’t go the way we were promised. There isn’t a whole lot of rhyme or reason to much of what we witness and experience first-hand.
The gap between what we believe we deserve and what we get can be considerable.
Let’s have the decency and the courage to stand in the gap for others. Some day, if they haven’t already, others may stand in the gap for us.
Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck on September 2, 2017
We do the right thing and good things happen. You study and you do you well. You work hard and you make a good living. That’s reassuring.
Of course we know it doesn’t always work that way. It's not news that the world is often a mess. We’ve always struggled with – on the one hand, wanting there to be rhyme and reason and order and on the other hand, realizing that often there is not.
I'd like to reflect on what we need to do when we face the gap between life as it is and life as we expect it to be. How do we respond to this gap?
First I want to share a story about someone who realized in a dramatic way that things don’t work out the way you hope, or even the way you’ve been told they will.
There are two mitzvot in the Torah the reward for which is a long life. If you honor your parents you’re promised a long life. If you take eggs from a nest and before taking them you shoo away the mother bird, perhaps so she doesn’t have to witness the removal of the eggs, you’re promised a long life.
So this person – a rabbi, actually, witnessed the following scene:
A father says to his son, please climb that tree over there and bring me the eggs that are in the nest which is one of the branches.
The son listens to his father. He gets a ladder. He climbs the tree. He sees that a bird is hovering over the eggs in the nest. He shoos the bird away and takes the eggs. On his way down he slips, falling off the ladder and onto the ground. And doesn’t survive.
The rabbi watching the scene knows full well that the boy performed both of the mitzvot the reward for which is long life. He honored his father. He sent away the bird. And look what happened.
The rabbi, whose name was Elisha ben Abuya, had a crisis of faith. Perhaps he felt the dissonance between things as they are supposed to be and things as they are. Perhaps he felt that this tradition was worthless if the Torah’s basic promises were not upheld. Ultimately he turned his back on Jewish tradition. We don’t know what led up to it, but this moment for him was the breaking point.
If you live in the world you see numerous examples of things not quite turning out the way we imagine they should, the way we are taught that they will.
This week we have been focused on the tragic storms and flooding in Texas.
As of yesterday 45 deaths were reported. 100s of thousands have been displaced. Most people aren’t perfect saints or perfect sinners. But let’s assume that the most of the millions of residents of the Houston area are doing their best – going to school, earning a living, maintaining professional and personal relationships as best they can – and then, over a short period of time, they find themselves in this horrible situation.
Thinking – oh my God, I didn’t expect this. Or maybe - I don’t deserve this. Will I be ok? Will my loved ones be ok?
The NY Times showed a map identifying the locations of emergency calls that were made to local hotlines and brief summaries of those calls. “Water getting higher.” “No place to go.” “Don’t know what to do.” “Not sure how much time I have left.”
The gap between life as it should be and life as it is, is often larger than we can handle. What does this mean for the people in Texas? What does it mean for us?
Rosh Hashanah is two weeks away. What better time for us to recognize a very important truth when it comes to our connection to reality.
We stand in the gap. We stand in the gap between life as we think it should be and life as it actually is. Our actions can help bridge the gap.
Regarding Hurricane Harvey, we can reach out. We can send money. We can send goods. UJA has set up a relief fund that I informed the congregation about through email. Our congregation is collecting cleaning supplies, personal hygiene products, first aid supplies, gift cards, non-perishable food, baby products, flashlights, batteries, blankets and toiletries that will be sent to needy families in the Houston area.
We will, in two weeks, be reciting the prayer unetane tokef – on Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed: מי יחיה ומי ימות mi yihyeh umi yamut Who will live and who will die. Who by fire and who by water.
There was a trend, during the late 70’s when I was a teenager, to reinterpret, in metaphorical ways, prayers that were deemed to be too literal and too physical.
I would hear the following kinds of translations of parts of unetane tokef:
Who will be swept up in the fire of passion. Who will be overwhelmed by the flood of indifference. Or whatever.
And I’m all for metaphor, in its proper place.
However, the person who wrote this prayer in the Middle Ages was talking about real fire and real flooding and real swords that wreak havoc. Have we outgrown all of that?
We still suffer from real fires and real floods and real swords. When we "upgrade" to metaphors, it sometimes suggests that we think we’re beyond the vulnerability, that we don’t have to deal with real fire, real water, real swords.
And we do. Despite many of the advances of modern life, we are still, in many ways, quite vulnerable.
Sadly the gap between life as we think it should be and life as it is, is just as real, just as material, as it always was.
We stand in that gap. When we send funds, or collect and send goods. When we reach out in real ways to the people who need our help, whoever and wherever they might be.
We stand in that gap.
Unetaneh tokef is a meditation on the interplay between the stuff that happens and what we can do about it. In that respect, it’s a pretty good roadmap for life. All kinds of things happen that we cannot control.
But our Teshuva/self-reflection, our te’fila/prayer and our tzedaka/acts of righteousness can help bridge the gap.
You don’t think your family deserves a particular crisis that you're facing, but here it is. What are you going to do about it? What are others who care about you, or others who may not even know you but just want to do the right thing, going to do about it?
Things don’t go the way we hope. They don’t go the way we were promised. There isn’t a whole lot of rhyme or reason to much of what we witness and experience first-hand.
The gap between what we believe we deserve and what we get can be considerable.
Let’s have the decency and the courage to stand in the gap for others. Some day, if they haven’t already, others may stand in the gap for us.
Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck on September 2, 2017
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