We have a legend in Jewish tradition that I love. It is the legend of the lamedvavniks, the 36 hidden righteous souls among us upon whom the whole world depends. According to the calculations of gematria, the Jewish mystical system of assigning numerical values to Hebrew letters, the letters lamed and vav combined get us to the number 36 hence the term, the lamedvavniks. But where did the number lamed-vav come from in the first place?
The Talmud[1] recounts a verse from the book of Isaiah[2], “Ashrei kol chochei lo” which literally means, “Happy are all who wait for him”, the him being God. And with that verse, the rabbis do what the rabbis do, which is to play with the verse, turning it over and over again looking for just concealed meanings. The word LO ‘for him’ meaning in this case for God is spelled lamed-vav, and the rabbis sense there could be (should be!) a pause, a comma between “Happy are all that wait” and ‘for God.’ And so when we read Isaiah’s verse anew with that sacred, playful pause, the verse flexes and we receive, “Happy are all that wait, [pause], the lamed-vav, the 36. Meaning the ones who wait, the ones who keep the world going, are the 36.
Thirty-six is also double chai, double 18. 18 is chet-yud, whose letters translate to life. 36 then is LIFE doubled. The lamedvavniks create a doubling of life, that is life that is overflowing with blessing.
So you may be thinking, why is the rabbi giving us a mystical math lesson?
Why? Because the lamedvavniks are here. Right now. Maybe even in this room.
The legend of the lamedvavniks extends from a play on a verse from the Book of Isaiah to a vision of a world that imagines that are those among us – some call them angels, some call them messengers, some just call them mensches – who hold up our universe by bringing extraordinary goodness and blessing into it.
There are always 36 in every generation. And here’s the best part. They’re nistarim, they’re hidden – and some teach that they are hidden even to themselves. You might be one of the great lamedvavniks changing this world for the better and you don’t even know it.
I am talking about the lamedvavniks today, not because I am a mystic - because I am not. I am talking today about the lamedvavniks because I believe that stories that stretch our souls and plant hope within our hearts are indeed what hold up our world. Even the simple act of just giving this idea room to run free in our imaginations gives it power. And this idea is just the right type of chutzpah we need to get through the times in which we are living.
Yes – chutzpah! We need some good, holy chutzpah to manage the crises of our age. We need the lamedvavniks within each of us to take the reins. I am talking about moral courage. I am talking about bravery. I am talking about folks who go above and beyond not for ego, but because our world needs it. The courageous lamedvavniks don’t look around on all sides for someone else to step in and fix the mess. No. They step in because it is a mess, and they believe that it is incumbent upon them to do something about it. They step in because it is the right thing to do.
Let’s name some of these angels in our midst. I am thinking about our own Cassie Tzur who consistently holds up signs for Black Lives Matter on the roadways of Rossmoor. I am thinking about Isaiah’s Jackie and Jeff Mann who are fearless and driven advocates for our world, raising awareness about our climate crisis. I am thinking about Greta Frantz and Denise Glicklin who lead our Angel Network to care for our community.
I see a lamedvavnik in Jonathan Ornstein who spoke to our community soon after my return from Poland and the Ukranian border last March. Jonathan is the Executive Director of the JCC in Krakow who led his organization to show up in extraordinary ways for the refugees of Ukraine. He could have just let his organization continue as is, doing what they have always done, but instead he saw the needs of the thousands and thousands of refugees streaming into Poland and he remembered our Jewish history as a homeless people and thought, Who am I not to respond? And you responded, too, with overwhelming donations in goods and funds.
Yes, the lamedvavniks are out in force in so many ways. This has been a devastating year for those of us with a uterus or care about the autonomy of those we love with a uterus. Despite this year’s rollback on reproductive rights, there are so many among us who refuse to throw in the towel and are hard at work trying to make a difference. They’re working in clinics performing abortions. They’re helping make arrangements for women to cross state lines to receive health care. They’re advocating in our state legislature for Proposition 1 to make access to abortion law in our California constitution. Yes, the angels are out there courageously holding up our world even as it feels like it is falling apart.
This year has challenged us again and again. As I think back upon just these last few months, I saw courage in what should be surprising places. I saw courage in each of our children as they walked back into school after the murders in Uvalde, and courage in each of us as parents who had to drop our babies back off at school the next morning while you held back your tears. Or maybe you were like me, and you didn’t hold back the tears at all.
This is not the kind of courage I want to have. We shouldn’t have to live in a world that demands we need to cultivate courage just to send our kids to school after Uvalde or to synagogue after Colleyville. And these days, courage to go just about anywhere - to a concert, a grocery store, a fourth of July parade. Surely, we shouldn’t have to be some sort of lamedvavnik just to wake up and live our lives.
Yet here we. What we really need is the type of courage in our society to say enough – and to mean it. And the type of courage to change.
You know… I have my own theory about the lamedvavniks. Tradition teaches us there are always 36, but I wonder if they need to be the same 36 people at all times… meaning today, I might need the extraordinary chutzpah of the lamedvavnik to help tend to the repair I have to do in the world, but tomorrow, I’ll share that chutzpah with you and you will tend to the repair that is your purpose in this world before you send it on its way to the next lamedvavnik-in-waiting and back again and so on. In that way, the magnificent idea that any of us could be one of these life-changing individuals transforms into the idea that all of us are when we need to be, if only we can summon the courage to act.
Midrash recounts one such story of chutzpah and courage: the story of Nachshon. The Hebrews had just been freed from slavery, but Pharaoh had a change of heart. The Egyptian army was approaching and yet there was nowhere to go. The people were trapped against the sea. And there are times when we can all relate. We feel paralyzed by the decisions before us – maybe it’s our careers or our marriages. We feel stuck, backed into a corner with no options. It’s like Pharaoh’s army is the gun lobby of today and the sea, an ineffective congress. Despair feels like a rational response.
But the story of Nachshon is about seeing options that might never otherwise be considered. Nachshon stepped into the unknown. He walked into the cool waters with only God’s promise that things would get better. He took a risk. With faith in his heart, he trudged forward with the waters rising ever higher around him, up to his chest, up to his throat, higher and higher until the waters covered his mouth and then his nose, and he kept walking forward despite having only one last breath in his lungs. And that is when God took note of Nachshon, and the sea split into two.
Writer Ann Lamott must have been channeling Nachshon when she wrote of the complexity of our days, “Figure out one thing you can do every day to be part of the solution… This is the only way miracles ever happen—left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe. Right foot, left foot, right foot, breathe.” And that simple wisdom will get us through, too.
I love how in the midst of a divine miracle, another miracle was in the making, this one centered on the action of a single individual. What our midrash is teaching us is that it took human action to prompt God to do God’s part and we should not be waiting for miracles from above to change our fate. God is waiting for us to act. Indeed, this is the only way that miracles happen!
We might not be able to control how we got here, but we absolutely have a voice in determining what happens next.
We hear this echoed in Unetaneh Tokef, the prayer we encountered earlier this morning. We read the sobering words about the year that is to come: who will live and who will die, who will be tranquil and who will suffer. We tend to read Unetaneh Tokef like it is prescriptive, but it is not. It sits in our liturgy to warn us, to humble us, to knock on the walls of our hearts. This prayer, Unetaneh Tokef is descriptive. Yes, some of us will live and some of us will die between this year and next. And we will all have moments of tranquility and suffering, but we do not know what the balance will be between the two.
As human beings, we operate with free will, which carries with it consequences for our connected world. Some of us will strive to bring blessing into the world and we will all bear the consequences. Some of us will perpetuate violence and injustice and we will all bear the consequences. And some of us will turn away in apathy or in fear – and we will all bear the consequences. These days of awe catch us at our most vulnerable to urge us to come to terms with the hard truth that life is not fair. But that cannot mean that we give up.
Yes, accidents happen. Tragedies occur. Tectonic plates move. Cancer grows. Bodies give out. And I know it all feels personal when it is our pain, but I am telling you now with love: God has not picked you for pain nor has God exited the picture. There is no moral meaning to disease, and suffering is not punishment. Your loved one did not die to teach us some moral lesson about this universe. No.
So, what do we have then? How do we make any sense of any of it?
After Unetaneh Tokef’s who-will-live and who-will-die, we are confronted with another stunning truth. The text tells us three things temper the harshness of life. They are teshuvah and tefillah and tzedekah. And they are real. After the text tells us its version of life-is-not-fair, it urges us to scream back: Yes, life is hard, but I get to control how I respond. I get to control what happens next.
And that is courage.
Teshuvah is often translated as repentance, but its root is about turning and return. It’s how we move to make ourselves and those around us whole again after brokenness. Teshuvah occurs when we take ownership over our very lives: our mistakes, our musings, our regrets, our redemption – all of it. Teshuvah is about being open to the amazing possibility of transformation.
Tefillah is often translated as prayer, but it is so much more. Tefillah both humbles us and instills within us confidence. Tefillah reminds us that the world existed before me and will exist after me, but while I am here, I have my part to play. It’s how we connect to God and to other human beings. Tefillah is about cultivating connection to that which is bigger than us.
Tzedakah is often translated as charity, but it’s about giving of ourselves, our hearts, our time, our energy, our pockets. At the root of tzedakah is tzedek, justice. How is Unetanah Tokef asking us to respond to life’s challenges? By putting more good into the universe than the reverse. By doing justice.
The ways that we show up, the ways we incorporate teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah, transformation, connection, and justice into our world – that’s courage, that’s bravery, those are the moves of a lamedvavnik. And it’s how we hold up our world.
When we lean into a sacred, purpose-filled life that encourages us to make our way into the mess precisely because it is a mess rather than run away from it, that pushes us to wade into the waters on faith that the seas will part and the world will get better if only we keep moving forward – left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe… if we do all of that, then miracles are bound to happen.
Let us be strengthened by the fundamental religious truth that we are all created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God. Maybe we don’t need to think about ourselves as lamedvavniks, as hidden heroes to rise to the challenges of our day. Maybe all we need to remember is that we are human beings who deserve love and dignity. Each one of us is precious, and each one of us is powerful, and when we begin to treat each other as such, including how we treat ourselves, then this world will indeed be a better place.
This year will ask much of us. There is no doubt. This year will require all our courage. And looking out at all of you, I feel hopeful that we will rise to this challenge.
A few years ago, Rabbis Janet and Sheldon Marder penned this prayer for the times in which we are living. As we begin this new year, let us take their words to heart:
Do not wait for a miracle
Or the sudden transformation of the world.
Bring the day closer, step by step,
with every act of courage, of kindness,
of healing and repair.
Do not be discouraged by the darkness.
Lift up every spark you can
and watch the horizon
for the coming of dawn.
Look closely!
It has already begun.
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