Grief, Resilience, and Hope: One Year after October 7th - Kol Nidre 2024/5785

On Kol Nidre, we are asked to consider our mortality. To look into the open ark with all of the scrolls removed as if it were our coffin, waiting for us. We ritualize ways to make us understand this life will not go on forever and that death is our end – we stop eating and drinking, we wear white, we confess. And yet in a year like we have had, maybe we don’t need to work so hard for death has been our steady companion since October 7^th.

One year. It has been one year. Our tradition teaches us that after that shanah, that first year, we are meant to shift ourselves out of formal mourning, but this grief, maybe like all grief really, traumatic grief certainly, this grief clings.

 

Grief is sometimes described as waves in an ocean. Sometimes, grief is described as a rollercoaster. But maybe it’s more like this: Grief is like living in a house under renovation. You live there, trying to move through the motions of everyday life, but someone has turned off the electricity and removed the sink, and everything is destruction and re-construction, and hammering and dust. Some days, the walls are down. Some days, the whole house is gutted. We’re just trying to make our home a home again, but it seems all we can do is pray that the foundation beneath us is sturdy.

 

This year has been a year of grief and dust and dislocation.

 

From the Book of Jeremiah: 

A cry is heard…
Wailing, bitter weeping—
Rachel weeping for her children.
She refuses to be comforted
For her children, who are gone.[1]

 

This has been a year for weeping. We are like Rachel imeinu. There is no comfort in losses like these, in the carnage and the brutality. In the decisions, too, made to ensure our safety that brings ruin to others. When the Temple was destroyed two thousand years ago and life as we knew it ended, Rabbi Elazar said that while the gates of prayer were now locked, the gates of tears were wide open.[2] And the tears, they have been flowing. They have flowed since October 7^th when we first began to hear the terrible news from Israel. Kibbutzim overrun. Kidnappings. The massacre at Nova. Rape as a weapon of war.

 

We were/are one with the psalmist who cried:

Min hametzar karati yah[3] - From the narrow place I called to God.

 

The metzar, the narrowness is so constricting we can barely breathe. There is no air when entire families have been wiped out, murdered together. Like the Kedem-Siman Tov family: Tamar and Johnny and their children, twins Shachar and Arbel, age 5, and Omer, age 2. Like the Kotz family: Livnat and Aviv, and their children, Rotem, age 19, Yonatan, age 17, and Yiftach, age 15. Like the Kapshetar family: Evgeny and Dinah, and their children, Aline, age 8, and Eitan, age 4. Eitan was on the verge of turning 5. His birthday was October 8th; a party had been planned.

 

Min hametzar karati yah - From the narrow place I screamed God’s name. God, how do we go on knowing an entire family was kidnapped? Shiri and Yarden Bibas and their children, Ariel, then age 4 and K’fir, then 9 months. I wake up at night dreaming of red hair wondering where they are, if they’re with their ima, if they’re even alive. What is more the epitome of metzar than the tunnels in which they may be crouching this very moment?

 

Min hametzar karati yah, From the narrow place, I reached out to God. And how does God answer me? Anani bamerchav Yah – The Eternal answers me with God-filled expanse – with openness. But how do we get to that sense of openness, God? How do we climb out of this constriction? Our text taps us on the shoulder: The gates of tears are open, the gates of tears are open.

 

It turns out we can’t rush a grief like this. We can’t look at a calendar and declare we’re done. The metzar will one day open into expansiveness and for that, I am grateful, but for now, I know, I must contend with this constriction – we all must - and sit with our grief, accept it, not fight it, and cry.

 

Thousands of years ago, there was a case that came before the rabbis[4]. The case was to determine the status of someone born with two heads. While the rabbis debated whether that someone should wear one pair of tefillin or two and how many shares he should inherit, the core of the case was: was one person standing before them or two people? Millenia later in the 1950s, Rabbi Soloveitchik considered this case.[5] He posited – hypothetically, of course - that if boiling water was poured on one of the heads, and the other head screamed in pain, then the two-headed person was a single being; if not, “then they are two individuals enfolded in one body.” This case, he argued, was foundational for how we should consider the status of the Jewish people who are spread out across our world. Are we one people or are we many? This painful year feels like we are living out this ancient case. The boiling water has been poured on one head, the one residing in the land of Israel yet here we are on the other side of the sea screaming out as well. This is the essence of Jewish peoplehood. Across the globe, we revel in each other’s joy, but we also viscerally feel each other’s pain.

 

Our shared peoplehood and that pain are what brought me back to our homeland twice since October 7^th. I remember walking through Kibbutz K’far Azza on a rabbinic mission. I felt like I was living out the ancient Talmudic story of the rabbis who walked the ruins of the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem. Here in K’far Azza, I was walking through a holy place, too – a place where couples once embraced, where friends toasted one another over a glass of wine at night, where children played and grew. We walked past walls filled with bullet holes and saw scorch marks where grenades thrown into homes had exploded. Someone from the kibbutz had laid markers in front of many of the ruins of homes to indicate who had died there. We walked by house after house, sign after sign. Netta Epstein was brutally murdered in this house. Ofir Shoshani was brutally murdered in that house. Sivan Elkabets and Naor Hasidim were brutally murdered together here. Meanwhile, sounds of war echoed in the distance, explosions, gun fire. Smoke was in the air. We could see the buildings of Gaza just a few kilometers away, clear as day and so close. 

 

So much was shattered on October 7^th. We not only had to contend with the horrors of that day, but also with our shattered faith that the Israeli military and government would always protect Israelis in their most desperate hour. We were not as strong and together as we thought. How do we shake the truth that terrorists on tractors were able to bring Israel with its mighty military to its knees, leaving Israelis to fend for themselves for awful hours upon awful hours upon awful hours?

 

Our faith in many of our neighbors around us was also shattered. While the Jewish people received maybe a few days of sympathy (and not even that in some corners), the blame quickly shifted, and for some -too many- the crimes of October 7th became justified as legitimate revolution.

 

We felt abandoned by many in the interfaith community who either failed to show up or who had already made up their minds on the Zionist enterprise. Meanwhile in progressive justice spaces, there has been explicit erasure of Jewish pain in favor of Palestinian pain and usually a requirement to check one’s Zionism at the door. Even in spaces like the #metoo movement where one would expect outrage or at least feigned concern, there was none to be had. It’s #metoo unless you are Israeli.

 

It took far too long for UN Women, the official arm of the United Nations that focuses on women and who have spoken out against gender-based violence in other nations to acknowledge what happened to the women in Israel. They seemingly decided to avert their eyes when Na’ama Levy who still is being held as a hostage today was led away in blood-stained pants. They completely ignored Shani Louk’s naked, broken body being paraded around Gaza City in the back of a pick-up truck. And the UN wonders why we do not trust them.

 

Since October 7^th, some of us have lost dear friends due to silence or overt anti-Israel sentiment. And some of us have lost family over the same.

 

Witnessing the rifts between family members, most often between parents and adult children has weighed heavily on my soul this year. Some of these young Jews have told us, and rightly so, that they learned to stand up against injustice in beloved Jewish community and some even right here from their clergy and teachers. And so, that is what they are doing when they join a college encampment or even a JVP protest. They see what we all see, the deaths of innocents at the hands of the IDF.

 

I want all of us to be able to look beyond our community and empathize with pain that is not our own. However, when we emphasize others’ pain in such a way that our own pain no longer matters or worse, is diminished, something has gone deeply awry. When we become ashamed of Jewish pain, ashamed of Jewish pride, ashamed of Jewish power, we need to engage in serious self-reflection. When our supposed allies want to delegitimize Israel as a state, and engage in proximate or outright antisemitic behavior, it is high time to find new friends. To look out for oneself, to care for one’s people is not selfish; it is not an act of egocentrism. It is an act of deep love. Do not internalize what the world tries to tell us: that we must be smaller, quieter, take up less room and that while the suffering of other marginalized groups must never be tolerated, Jewish suffering alone is the exception.

 

And conversely, those of us only concerned with Jewish suffering need to widen our eyes. As Jon Polin, Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s father said, “There is a surplus of agony on all sides of the tragic conflict in the Middle East. In a competition of pain, there are no winners.”[6] For us not to be deeply disturbed by the death of innocents caught in this conflict, even if they are strategically used as human shields by Hamas, means our own pain has blinded us. For us not to mourn the death of a Palestinian child, any child, means we need to pound on our chests a little harder this year.  

 

Tomorrow night at the end of Neilah, we will sound the shofar one more time. Our tradition provides us with many teachings for the basis of the shofar blasts. Most hear in the shofar sounds of wailing. One tradition links the sounds of the shofar with the sobs of Sisera’s mother. In the Book of Judges, Sisera commands the Canaanite army and was cut down in his battle against our people. Our sacred text fascinatingly switches perspective during the telling of the story of that battle placing us directly inside the home of our enemy’s mother. We watch as she stares out the window, wondering why her son tarries.[7] When she realizes that he is never coming home again, she breaks out in sobs.[8]

 

The shofar then is not the sound specifically of Jewish wailing, but human wailing. That the rabbis decided to make our enemy’s mother’s tears a foundational text behind the sobs of the shofar teaches us so much. The grief of a mother, a parent for their child transcends. If we can take in the mother’s tears for the leader of an enemy army, how much more so must we open our ears to hear the cries of mothers of innocent children killed in the vicious cycle of this war. I know that there are those among us who will say that there is only so much room in our already broken hearts, and I understand, but we must try. In this war against our people when they have already taken so much from us, body and soul, let them not take our hearts as well.

 

When the Egyptians in their pursuit of us were drowning between the parted seas as the waters crashed back over them, the angels rejoiced, but God admonished them, crying: These are my children, too.[9] God still turned the sea against our oppressors to save us, but there was no joy at the destruction of life. 

 

These are difficult days with difficult decisions and no easy answers. But here is what we can be clear about: Our people are not a people who crave death, nor do we celebrate it. In our mission to uproot evil, we must strive to save the innocent. And here is what we know: When our people are threatened, they must be defended. When our people are kidnapped, they must be brought home. And here is what we believe: Where today there is only mourning and wailing and sobbing and grief, one day, happiness will return. I have faith that in generations to come, the Jewish people will still be living in the land, and we will be thriving. And here is what we pray: one day, please God, let there be peace.

 

Zionism is the movement for Jewish self-determination in our indigenous homeland. I am a Zionist. We are a Zionist congregation. And you can be a Zionist and believe in the right to Palestinian self-determination, too. I still hope and expect one day there will be a secure Palestine side by side with a secure Israel, but after the heinous acts of October 7^th, the path forward toward that goal has never seemed more uncertain and distant than in this moment.

 

For anyone who believes that the path to get to Palestine is through armed attacks from a place that Israel had already disengaged from in 2005 with terrorists gleefully filming themselves killing us, kidnapping us, torturing us, raping us needs to do a serious check on their soul. 

 

This, of course, is part of our enemy’s strategy. Hamas knew in perpetuating this horror, Israel would be forced to strike back. They also knew that they had ensured that there would be no way for Israel to engage without killing innocent Palestinians and every Palestinian killed would be a win for Hamas on the world stage. For why else would almost every mosque, school, and hospital house terrorists, weapons, and entrances to tunnels to hide our hostages? And they knew that this war would likely incite a larger war with Hezbollah and Iran and other Arab nation-states creating more dead civilians, each and every one of them an incredulous win against Israel, for they figured if they could not complete the job on the ground with guns and knives, and tractors and hang-gliders, then they’d let the rest of the world destroy Israel for them.

 

And with that truth, we are back sitting with our overflowing grief in the metzar, the most narrow, dark, and despairing place in the entire universe. Min hametzar karati Yah…

 

Over 80 years ago, a Jew was sitting in his grief in an underground tunnel in Cologne, Germany with other hidden Jews during the Shoah. A version of these words was found written on a wall in that tunnel:[10]

 

I believe in the sun even when it is not shining. And I believe in love, even when there’s no one there. And I believe in God, even when he is silent... But sometimes in this suffering and hopeless despair, my heart cries for shelter... But a voice rises within me, saying hold on… I’ll give you strength, I’ll give you hope… May there someday be sunshine. May there someday be happiness. May there someday be love. May there someday be peace….

 

As the Jew whose name is lost to us now sat in his suffering, a voice, maybe the still, small voice whispered in his ear that one day the sun would shine again. 

 

We are not okay, and we are not going to be okay for a long time. But the still, small voice of God whispers in our ears, too, telling us we are resilient, and we have centuries, millennia of ancestral strength behind us. 

 

On days when you do not feel hope or strength, and faith feels so far away, know I will hold you up or the person next to you will or the one behind you. And on days when I can barely stand, I need you to hold me up, too. We can do that for one another for that is peoplehood, that is community, and that is how we are going to get through this grief.

 

When Mia Schem returned home in the November hostage deal after being kidnapped from Nova, she affirmed, “we will dance again.” And I hear in her words a commandment echoing with all the force of God and Sinai behind her. It is a mitzvah to have hope. Od lo avda tikvateinu.[11]

 

Soon, may the days be upon us when all the hostages will have returned home to their waiting families. Soon, may the days be upon us when the rockets will have stopped falling from the skies, and peace will become a real possibility. Soon, we pray, may the days be upon us when we will dance with joy again. 

 

Am Yisrael chai.

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[1] Jeremiah 31:15

[2] Berachot 32b

[3] Psalm 118:5

[4] Menachot 37a

[5] Rav Soloveitchik, Kol Dodi Dofek

 

[6] Remarks delivered at DNC 2024

[7] Judges 5:28

[8] Rosh HaShanah 33b

[9] Megillah 10b and Sanhedrin 39b

[10] https://humanistseminarian.com/2021/04/04/i-believe-in-the-sun-part-v-the-source/ and “Inscription of Hope” by Z. Randall Stroope based on words found from an inscription on a cellar wall in Cologne, Germany

[11] From HaTikvah

The Tohu Vavohu of this Current Moment - Rosh Hashanah 2024

If there is anything I am certain of, it is the great uncertainty of this moment in time. This year has shaken us; it has shaken me. We are holding so much right now: an age-defying election on the horizon, our hearts torn asunder after October 7^th, the effective start of a regional war in and around our homeland, all of it on top of whatever it is we may be holding in our own hearts.

As our people have done for centuries in times like these, let us turn to our texts and traditions for guidance. 

This morning, we heard the opening words of our sacred story: Breisheet bara Elohim et hashamayim v’et haaretz, When God created the heavens and the earth, v’ha’aretz haita tohu vavohu[1] the earth was amorphous and formless or was it wild and waste… or chaos. This tongue twister from our text, tohu vavohu translates in so many ways. Maybe it is best left as is… untranslatable; it’s just tohu vavohu.

 

When I think about this moment in the story of our nation, which is where I want to focus us this morning, it feels like we’ve been transported back in time to the opening lines of Genesis. Or no, it’s more like we never really left the very beginning. We are all still stuck at verse 2 and impatiently waiting for the verses that follow, for the creation of light and life and Eden.

 

For what can be more tohu vavohu than a time like this… a time when profound political polarization has become the status quo and conspiracy theories are debated like truth, a time when there have been not just one, but two active assassination attempts on a presidential candidate, a time when terrorism is seemingly celebrated in American streets and universities?

 

November 5^th looms large in our sights, and so does that tenuous time between Election Day and Inauguration Day. As your rabbi, I have asked myself: what could I possibly have to say to you about the upcoming election that you don’t already know or can’t learn better from social scientists and opinion makers? How can I be sure to not add to what some are experiencing as trauma by addressing this election at all? 

 

I certainly have no radical solutions or even unradical ones, but what I believe I can humbly offer in this moment, almost one month to the day of an election that could very well change our lives is an acknowledgement of the anxiety that may be residing in your heart. What I can offer in this moment of moral morass is the reminder that Judaism is transcendent and purposeful, and grounds us in moral meaning making. What I would like to offer is hope.

 

So, let’s talk about our anxiety. What is at stake? What truths do we need to tell? For some of us, our hearts are breaking, or they are already broken, smashed to bits on the floor. For others, we have become discouraged, detached, and disassociated. It’s all tohu vavahu. 

 

The truth is that the norms of our society are in flux. The rhetoric of disastrous and mean-spirited language has become so normalized that we no longer flinch. Institutions that were built to be independent have become politicized like our supreme court whose ruling on presidential immunity has raised fears about the limits of presidential power and the future of our democracy. How we think of our bodies, specifically women’s bodies has drastically changed with the real threat of a national ban on abortion looming. Meanwhile, just being a Jew in the United States is not as safe as it used to be. For so long, it was the neo-Nazis and white supremacists we feared, but now it is also the far left in real positions of power and influence, and sometimes it’s even the college roommates of our children and grandchildren.

 

This moment requires us to get grounded in moral clarity. And that’s where this place, this community, the beauty of our long tradition comes in. Judaism offers us a moral frame that transcends party and politics. It helps us recognize the mess of tohu vavohu around us and gives us the moral courage to say when enough is enough, and that it is time to change our ways.

 

The early, eternal words of Genesis continue: the earth was tohu vavohu and then there was choshech al p’nai t’hom, there was darkness over the face of the deep v’ruach Elohim m’rachefet al pnai hamayim[2] and the spirit of God sweeping over the water.

 

In the Talmud, there is much discussion about this very moment of creation. What exactly does it mean that darkness lay over the deep and that God’s spirit swept over the water? What darkness, what deep, what water? Maybe it is descriptive. It describes how frightening it is to live in a world where there is a choshech, a darkness that lingers, and a deep, an abyss that threatens to swallow us whole. So many of us have encountered the despair of these days. But then there is also the mayim, the water like a mikvah that cleanses, and God nearby. In the Talmud, Ben Zoma suggests the distance between the upper and lower realms was just three finger lengths apart, and that is where God hovered. He likens it to the distance a dove might hover over her young.[3]

 

What can this teach us? God, imeinu, our mother, came close to the chaos, the messy building blocks of creation… for creation had not yet begun. This was it, this was the moment. God did not create out of nothing as we’ve sometimes been taught. No, creation sprang forth from the chaos, from the amorphous, formless tohu vavohu. And God made a decision, and spoke: Vayomer Elohim y’hi or vay’hi or[4] and God said let there be light – and there was light. And God saw that it was good.

 

For us mere mortals today, living out in the divine image, is it possible that we could do the same? Can we cultivate enough courage within us and collectively to come close to the chaos we are living through and create something new from this mess? Can we make us ourselves believe that our words are powerful enough to speak light into being? Like God, can we carve some goodness out of all of this pain and division and fear?

 

God could have turned away from all of the darkness (and we understand that instinct to turn and hide and run away, don’t we?), but instead the Holy One took the time to pull each strand of light away from the darkness as if rescuing it from being consumed. From the formless, wild, chaotic tohu vavohu, God birthed something new and good. 

 

As Jews, this is how we tell the story of the beginning of our world. Darkness does not consume; instead, it’s our very beginning, our breisheet. What charge then rests in our hands as receivers of this holy teaching? We are charged to be seekers of the light, to peel light away from darkness, and to find the tov, the good.

 

For some of us, these last few years have challenged the notion that with every generation the world gets better, and that history is an inevitable march towards progress. The truth is that we who have been brought up to believe that the moral arc of the universe is long, but always bends towards justice are just not that sure anymore. We so took this notion for granted that our hands slipped off the wheel. We won Roe, but now women are dying from preventable deaths – dying! In just the last month, Amber Thurman and Candi Miller died after not being able to obtain legal abortion care in Georgia. We thought the U.S.-Israel bond would always be secure, but now there are members of Congress trying to tear that relationship apart. And for all of us as Jews in America who thought we had settled safely into society, this last year has come to shock us as Jew-hatred has risen across our nation.

 

Our meta-narrative in Torah is all about holding onto hope; there is a promised land. But we need to remember: redemption doesn’t just happen to us. We need to believe and act on the fundamental truth that it is just as much up to us as it is up to the Eternal to keep the moral arc of the universe bending towards justice. 

 

In slavery, it was our voices that began our liberation, our calling out to God that lifted up our plight up to the heavens. It took Moses turning and noticing and leaning into leadership. It was each step we took to cross the parted seas. We could have stayed in place – it is so easy to stay in place, stay in bed, close our eyes - but instead we trudged on knowing that we have a sacred part to play in the unfolding of our story.

 

We must take these eternal lessons we have learned from Torah and do with them as we have always been taught, which is to apply them to our everyday lives, including the story we are living right here and now in the United States. We must, like our people have done before us, learn to articulate our pain and call out the injustice we see. We must vow to keep moving forward despite the despair of this moment and the tohu vavohu holding us back.

 

I am your rabbi. I want you to have faith. But I don’t want you to only have faith. I need you to act.

 

In this time of tohu vavohu, when nothing seems certain, this is precisely the time for us to come close to the chaos, to hover with God, and with chesed to separate the light from the darkness. To see the world through Jewish eyes means partnering with God in the creation of a world of chesed, a world built on light and love and care.

 

We have built greatness before. In the Torah, Bezalel was chosen to build the Mishkan, our holy space, but first he needed the community's approval. Based on this, we are taught: A ruler is not to be appointed unless the community is first consulted.[5] This is when we are being consulted – right now.

 

Our texts guide us to engage. They demand: Do not be indifferent.[6] They implore: Do not stand idly by.[7] They scream: Do not hate your neighbor in your heart.[8]

 

In our country’s most divided moment, after years of civil war, Abraham Lincoln offered this in his second presidential Inaugural Address: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right – as God gives us to see the right – let us strive on to finish the work we are in: to bind up the nation’s wounds,… to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” The president could have used the opportunity to call out his enemies, to diminish the confederacy, but instead he focused on healing and peace. In this most fractured moment, we too require a leader who will rally us towards healing and peace.

 

While we all would like to be assured that there will be a peaceful transition of power no matter what the results of November 5^th are, our recent history should give us pause. America has always been an argument of ideas, and it will always be, but we need to ensure that it remains an argument of ideas, not an argument that allows for and sanctions violence. The specter of January 6^th must never happen again. As Lincoln spoke, our nation’s wounds must be bound. To help ensure our democracy stays intact, we must demand that our leaders keep the peace as power is transferred no matter how this election ends.

 

To what else can we commit to help tame the wild tohu vavohu of this moment?

 

Part of the work is about being watchful for tactics of authoritarianism in our midst. We must be wary of and disrupt the deliberate spread of disinformation and condemn the scapegoating of vulnerable communities. 

 

Millenia ago, Hillel wisely taught: We should not separate ourselves from our community.[9] As proud Jews, we must raise our voices in the public sphere against antisemitism. And we must stand up against anti-Zionism, and for our brothers and sisters who need our support in the land of Israel. Every candidate, every party deserves our attention on these critical concerns to our community.

 

For those of us looking for a non-partisan way to ensure fair, safe, and accessible elections, choose to become a poll worker or poll watcher. 

 

And it goes without saying, I hope, that of course, every single one of us votes. It is incumbent upon each of us as Jews and as American citizens to participate in our democratic system. Political participation has long been embedded in who we are. There is no other acceptable option.

 

And finally, we must pray. In Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Hanina taught that each of us is to pray for the shalom, for the peace and welfare of our government. Rabbi Hanina further adds: for were it not for the fear it inspires, everyone would swallow their neighbor alive.[10] We need good, functioning government to help us live ethical lives. Prayer is necessary for it is our reminder we need to align our thoughts with our actions and our actions with our thoughts. It reminds us that our values have long guided us l’dor vador, from generation to generation, and that we are connected to that which is larger than any one of us.

 

We who are still stuck at Verse 2 in Genesis must consciously unstick ourselves in order to progress our story. Tohu vavohu and the darkness over the deep threaten us in every generation, but we must keep reading to bring ourselves to the next, needed verses and chapters in our story. For our Torah laid it all out for us so long ago, like a blueprint for our faith, reminding us light is coming, and we get to bring it on, and it will be good. As the psalmist sang, Baerev yalin b’chi v’laboker rina.[11] Weeping may endure for the night, but joy… joy comes in the morning.

 

God, maker of heaven and earth, who comes close to the chaos and creates anew… God, who like a dove, glides over the water, glide over us and come close to us now. We who are tired from the ugliness of election cycles scarred in searing words of toxicity and pain pray: help us speak decently, live decently, love courageously. Guide us for we are a people of faith; Lead us for we are a people of action. Remind us that though we have trudged through mud and muck before, we will get to the other side. Makor hachayim, Source of Life who separates light from darkness, bless us as we pick up the pen to write ourselves out of verse 2 and into a needed and new beginning, our new breisheet.

 

Ken yhi ratson. May this be God’s will. Amen.

 

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[1] Genesis 1:1-2

[2] Genesis 1:2

[3] Chagiga 15a:3

[4] Genesis 1:3

[5] Brachot 55a

[6] Deuteronomy 22:3

[7] Leviticus 19:16

[8] Leviticus 19:17

[9] Pirkei Avot 2:4

[10] Pirkei Avot 3:2

[11] Psalm 30:5

Kol Nidre 2023/5784 - We are Enough

G’mar tov. Shanah tovah.

 

At this time of year, the turning of the seasons, the turning of our hearts, there is an image in the Book of Exodus that I try to keep close in mind. It is the moment when Moses is high up on a mountain, his arms outstretched in both directions, each one of tired hands being held up by someone on either side while a battle rages below.

 

What is it about this image that moves me so? 

 

This moment follows on the heels of our people’s march to freedom from slavery in Egypt. It should be a time for celebration, but instead the Amalekites spy us, suspicious, and war breaks out almost immediately. Our people, newly freed, engage in a battle for their lives. And then this curious line emerges, almost floats up from the Torah scroll: “v’hayah ca’asher yarim Moshe yado v’gavar Yisrael - And it was that whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed - v’ca’asher yaniach yado v’gavar Amalek - but whenever he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed.[i]”

 

It seems that Israel’s victory or defeat was directly connected to Moses’ ability to hold his arms aloft with the staff of God in his hand. What an immense amount of pressure that must have been on our new leader.

 

When Moses’ hands grew heavy, his brother, Aaron and his nephew, Hur, Miriam’s son[ii] appeared at his side with a stone to place under him so that he could sit and rest his legs, and then they each grabbed an arm and held it high until the sun set and the battle was won. Throughout it all, we hear no objection from Moses, a signal that he knows he cannot do this alone. 

 

It is this image that captures my heart so on a night like this, on Kol Nidre: the image of vulnerability as strength. Moses was strong enough to accept help from others and together, they saved their people.

 

This image speaks to so many because Moses feels so relatable up on the mountain in that moment for we have all had our experiences when we have strained to keep holding our arms aloft. The stakes are different for sure but when we’re exhausted spiritually, mentally, physically, when the tired is all over us from head to toe, mustering the strength to keep going while the battle rages below can be elusive, if not entirely absent. The world needs us. Our kids need us. Our parents need us. The work is calling. So is the homework to be checked. And the dishes in the sink. And don’t forget the state of our world and the issues that keep us up at night. There is so much to do… and yet the shoulders slouch. The arms feel impossibly heavy. Surely, no one can do this on their own... And when a hand finally comes to help hold up our own in the toughest of times, it can feel like the hand of God.
 
Can we admit when we are like Moses on that mountain and need help? Are we brave enough to say I can’t possibly keep my hands up any longer? 
 
I’ll be honest. When it comes to certain aspects of my life and my work, I admit that I lean more towards perfectionist than not. My work ethic likely stems from my upbringing as the child of two parents neither of whom graduated from high school, but who lovingly did everything possible to make sure that I could and so much more. So, I swung that pendulum as forcefully as I could in the opposite direction, determined to do it all. I didn’t want to be dependent on anyone. I wanted to have all my options open. I piled degree upon degree – and oh so much debt. I felt an obligation to strive and to reach. For them. For me. My arms were outstretched. Being vulnerable to the world though was something I did not want to be. I had seen vulnerability play out poorly around me. Asking for help always felt like a last option.
 
And that ultimately never goes well, does it? When things fell apart because in life something always does, the fall was much steeper, and the crash much more destructive than it needed to be because I naively tried to steel myself against any failure. The relationship that crumbled, the interview that didn’t pan out, the “constructive” feedback. All of it threw me more than it should have. But, eventually, over time, with lots of failures to learn to bounce back from, a partner who knows me better than I know myself sometimes and who holds my arms up when they falter despite my doubt, and some therapy, too, I was able to better understand my compulsive need to act and achieve and began to learn to let it go. It’s a practice I consciously continue to work on. The practice of telling myself: I am enough.
 
From the school of Brene Brown: “Perfectionism is not about healthy achievement and growth. Perfectionism is the belief that if we live perfect, look perfect, and act perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of blame, judgment, and shame. It’s a shield. Perfectionism is a twenty-ton shield that we lug around thinking it will protect us when, in fact, it’s the thing that’s really preventing us from taking flight. Perfectionism is not self-improvement. Perfection is, at its core, about trying to earn approval and acceptance. Most perfectionists were raised being praised for achievement and performance (grades, manners, rule-following, people-pleasing, appearance, sports). Somewhere along the way, we adopt this dangerous and debilitating belief system: I am what I accomplish and how well I accomplish it. Please. Perform. Perfect. Healthy striving is self-focused—How can I improve? Perfectionism is other-focused—What will they think?”[iii]
 
To steal another phrase from Brene Brown, I am now “a recovering perfectionist and an aspiring good-enoughist.[iv]” And I know that I am not alone. So many of us feel like we need to keep our arms up unaided for way too long. The blockbuster of the summer hit on this same trope, especially for women. Even stereotypical Barbie struggled to figure out the human condition; even she, when exposed to humanity, did not feel pretty enough, accomplished enough, good enough. What a world we live in.
 
We shouldn’t need courage just to love ourselves as the imperfect selves that we are, but that, as we know, is the real world. We need to be brave enough to let go of who others think we should be and who we think we should be. I thought I needed to go on a never-ending quest to prove to someone (Who? Myself? I don’t know.) that I had made it whatever “made it” means, and that I needed continually to prove that I deserved to be wherever I was: at the table, in the classroom, on the bima. The truth I now know is that we can both be growing, changing, making mistakes and learning, and be enough without contradiction. What I know for sure is that we cannot do it alone. We must be like Moses and accept help when our arms are ready to drop, and we must be like Aaron and Hur ready to step in and support. 
 
The heartbreak of living – it can chip away at our self-worth. The loss of love. The job rejection. The cherished friendship that has fallen apart. Depression. Trauma. Illness. Death. Despair at the what the world around us has become. We can feel broken by it all. But heartbreak also has the potential to grow us in astonishing and messy, but beautiful ways.
 
The psalmist sang: Karov Adonai l’nishb’rei lev - God is close to the broken-hearted[v].... But our society seems to scream back: There is no room for your brokenness. While society may not leave room for heartbreak, let us be assured that Judaism does. That is why we are all here after all. Look on all sides of you. No, really. Look. Some of us may look put together, but most of us are struggling in our own ways. There is brokenness in this room. And we do not want you to hide it. If there is any place where you do not need to hide it, it is here. 
 
For this is God’s house and God knows us… Isaiah, the prophet taught us that these were God’s words: “Can a woman forget her baby?... I could never forget you. See, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands.”[vi] That’s chen in Jewish tradition – that’s grace. We may think of grace as a Christian concept and value, but its origin is ours. We have sung of it repeatedly over these holy days: Adonai, Adonai, El Rachum v’chanun… Chanun… Chen… We are calling out to the God of grace. Chen is unmerited, unconditional love that is ours. What God feels towards us is what I felt looking into each of my children’s eyes the very moment after they were born. They had done nothing in the world except breathe, and yet I couldn’t love them more. They were and are and will always be enough. As we are in God’s eyes. 
 
In our call to God, in Avinu Malkeinu, we sing “ki ain banu ma’asim” – we sing “For we have no deeds.” What that means is that we know that we are showing up here tonight in front of Avinu, our loving parent, Malkeinu, our guiding Sovereign with absolutely nothing but our brokenness and our hearts splayed open. And God loves us anyway because we are enough.
 
Do you believe it?
 
Enoughness is a hard concept. Perfection, sure, we can all agree that the idea of perfection deserves no place here. But satisfied, warm, I-am-loved enoughness – too many of us struggle just to accept that. So many of you have sat on the couch in my office with your own version of I-am-broken. And in those moments, I want you to lean into the gorgeous midrash that teaches that we have two pockets each with a note inside. When you say you are broken, I want you to reach into the pocket, the one right there and pull out the note that was written for you in this moment. Bishvili nivra ha’olam, “For me, the world was created.[vii]” Because it was. Yeah, you’re broken and just like the other note says, you are but dust and ashes and it’s all true for all of us. We will fade from this world, yes, but it is also true, as Rebbe Nachman teaches, “The day you were born was the day God decided the world could not exist without you.[viii]” We are all broken and necessary and beautiful and whole – the world was created for us.
 
Perhaps the image of broken yet whole is most effectively played out in our beloved story of Jacob when he wrestled with an angel. He wrestled all night long until the angel cried, Let me go. Jacob responded, I will not let you go until you have given me a blessing. And that should be our mantra for this life. Struggles and moments of wrestling are inevitable, but it is what we do next with that struggle that matters. Are we able to learn from the struggle? Will we demand blessing from even from the darkest moments of our life? It can be terrifying because yes, sometimes those blessings come to us couched in pain. Vayizrach lo ha’shemesh… v’hu tzolea al y’reicho,[ix] the sun rose upon Jacob as he limped away, his hip wrenched from its socket. The text tells us this to say, yes, struggles can scar us, but they don’t have to define us – what does define us is the next step we take.
 
Maybe you have heard of Kintsugi. Kintsugi is the Japanese art of mending a broken ceramic bowl with gold. If you participated our Women’s Retreat held in our parking lot due to Covid a few years ago, I am sure you remember breaking your beautiful bowl and putting it all back together with golden glue – and it was still beautiful, maybe even more so, after it was lovingly and painstakingly placed back together by your careful hands. The idea was never to hide the cracks, and we do not need to hide ours either. When we paint the cracks in the bowl with gold, we gift ourselves the opportunity to come to the astonishing realization that the bowl is still a bowl even though there was a moment when all we saw were its pieces.
 
Our life is made up of difficult moments, hips wrenched out of sockets, bowls shattered into pieces, hearts broken open, but over time, we along with the loves of our lives in the form of friends and family and faith glue ourselves back together and we understand that we are still us no matter what has happened to us. And sometimes some of the cracks stay and it's okay for there is a crack in everything.[x]
 
Yom Kippur is a full body experience from sound to touch meant to send light through the cracks of our souls. The sounding of the shofar is one way we are meant to remember that brokenness and wholeness go hand in hand. The shofar is just as much the sounds of wailing and heartbreak as it is the sounds of hope and strength. Tekiah is that whole note. Shevarim lets out three wails. Truah is broken with its nine staccato notes. And on Kol Nidre, this night, we have no shofar at all. Now is the time for the quiet we need to begin to heal, and glue, and glean blessing. Yom Kippur ends at Ne’ilah with a long drawn out tekiah gedolah. We return after all that unraveling and breaking to realize that in the end, we are still in one piece. The shofar calls over these ten days of awe lay out a spiritual journey for us – a journey of tears and change and ultimately of self-acceptance.
 
To be open to what these days are all about, we must wake up our hearts, allow them to break with sacred truth as we do with Vidui, our confession. And as you may have noticed, every year, I insist on adding in towards the end of Ne’ilah our final service of these holy days what can be called a positive vidui. After the necessary ashamnu-we were guilty, bagadu-we betrayed, gazalnu-we stole… we also make space for ahavnu-we loved, bechinu-we wept, gamalnu-we were kind. We can make mistakes, and still be mensches. We can be broken and still be whole. We are always growing and we are always enough. 
 
Our people have walked some of the most difficult journeys in existence. And our Judaism has shaped us to transform our trauma into healing. Our remembrance of our enslavement becomes the basis for our empathy. Our displacement throughout the centuries becomes our moral imperative to help the refugee. Our destruction during the Shoah leads us to the declaration and promise of Never Again, both for the Jewish people and for all peoples.
 
And it is true, too, with our own darkness and trauma and insecurity and strife. Like Jacob, when dawn breaks, what blessing will we take with us to help us walk into our next day?
 
Every two years, I have been blessed to bring our Temple Isaiah 11^th and 12^th graders on a civil rights tour of Alabama and Georgia. I am excited about our next trip this coming January and also excited about an adult version of this trip heading down to the south in December of 2024. On our last trip, we were privileged to have a guide with us named Scott Fried.[xi] On the very last morning of our trip, Scott shared his story with us, how he contracted HIV in 1987 and how everyday he has worked to affirm his own value in the world. Scott is a renowned HIV/AIDS activist as well as community educator. Through his work with teens, young adults, and beyond, he teaches the sacred message that we must use whatever time we have been gifted on this earth for radical love and compassion, including most importantly towards ourselves. Scott ends every gathering or lecture or trip he leads with these words, which he asked us that morning to repeat after him line by line. And I will now ask you to do the same. 

 
I value my life.

 

I value my mistakes.

 

And even though I make mistakes, 

 

I am enough.

 

To you, my dear congregation… and to me for every sermon we deliver we are also delivering to ourselves… I hope you know that the world was created for you. And that you will accept help when your arms are heavy. And that you will wrestle blessing from your struggle. And that you will admire the gold holding you so beautifully together. You made mistakes…. I made mistakes… and Baruch HaShem, may we know that God loves us anyway and that we are and will always be enough.

 

G’mar tov. Shanah tovah.

 

 

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[i] Exodus 17:11-12 and surrounding story

[ii] The relationship of Hur to Miriam is up for debate with some texts connecting him to her as her son and others as her husband.

[iii] Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection

[iv] Ibid

[v] Psalm 34:18

[vi] Isaiah 49:15-16,18

[vii] Rabbi Simcha Bunam of Peschischa

[viii] Rebbe Nachman of Breslov

[ix] Genesis 32:32 and surrounding story

[x] Inspired by Leonard Cohen’s Anthem

[xi] https://scottfried.com