Uncertainty & Rosh Hashanah

Rabbi Andrew Vogel Rosh Hashanah Morning Sermon 5779 – “An Uncertain Rosh Hashanah” Temple Sinai I imagine that, on the first day, our ancestor Abraham felt a fair amount of clarity about where he was headed. In this morning’s Rosh Hashanah Torah portion, Abraham hears God’s command to take his son Isaac and to offer him up on a mountain as a sacrifice, and, unwaveringly, Abraham goes to fulfill God’s command. He grabs his son, his servants, the wood and the knife, he climbs on his donkey, and without hesitation…. he’s off! When he sets out with Isaac, at least on that day, Abraham is very certain and very confident about his direction. But he may have been feeling differently three days later. Because the Torah tells us that three days after Abraham and Isaac had left home, they were still wandering in the desert. God had to one of the mountains“ ,”אחת ההרים אשר אמר אליך“ commanded Abraham to bring his son to that I will show you,”1 but after one day, two days, three days, there was no word from God – Abraham still didn’t know what the destination was! By that third day, I imagine Abraham was wondering: “Ok, Where am I going? Where is the place? Will God ever tell me where this journey is headed? And what’s really going to happen when I get there?” To add to the lack of clarity, now, Abraham’s son Isaac was beginning to ask him some pretty hard questions about the future. And this is the interpretation of Rabbi Menachem Mendl of Kotzk: By the third day, Abraham was feeling much less certain, and much more uncertain than when he first had heard God speak to him. And yet, he kept walking, he kept moving forward.2 This year, as Rosh Hashanah begins, many of us are also living with a high degree of uncertainty, a sense of powerlessness, fear and lack of control. Things we never expected could happen here have happened. Each day in the news, we hear about some new unbelievable development, some announcement that is unprecedented, or some outrageous utterance which would have been previously unimaginable. We talk about the “new normal” – but who can get used to what’s going on in the world today, when each day is more uncertain than the next? And, it’s serious: We’re facing major questions about the future of democracy, about the rule of law – will they endure? About whether hate, racism and fascism will be repudiated, or instead, will their acceptance grow? Will ours be a country open to those who seek safe refuge, or will our society turn inward and push others away? Will the world’s institutions, upon which we’ve come to depend in the past three generations, continue to be challenged and torn down? And it’s uncertain how events will unfold in this new Jewish year: the upcoming November election could turn back the tide of the past two years, or it could reinforce the current trends. It’s very hard to see around the bend, to know what’s going to happen. Like Abraham, we might be wondering: Where are we going – as a country, as a people, as a human species!? And it’s hard to live in a state of uncertainty. Aside from national and international issues, our personal lives are also uncertain, perpetually punctuated by the unexpected and, often, a fear of what may lie ahead, as well. Is there a single family or household in our congregation that has 1 Gen. 22:2 2 See Abraham Joshua Heschel, A Passion for Truth, p. 49, citing the Kotzker Rebbe’s teaching that the greatness of Abraham was that his passion for following God’s command did not abate by the third day of his journey. 1 not been touched by a misfortune or tragedy? Is there anyone who hasn’t been taken by surprise, and thrown for a loop, by a sudden loss in their life, leaving us off balance? A man, a member of our congregation, who was facing an uncertain future, who was anxious after undergoing tests for some strange symptoms, recently said to me: “I’m stuck in the middle! On one hand, if I knew that I was OK, I’d breathe easy. On the other hand, if I could only receive a diagnosis, and could know what my course of treatment was, I’d also feel some relief – I’d at least know what to expect! But not knowing, not knowing anything, feeling powerless and in the dark, that’s the hardest part.” We are drawn to knowing, to being certain. It’s a characteristic of our time – we live in the Information Age, according to the sciences; we base our lives on the latest technology, the latest studies, the latest reports. Knowing gives us at least an impression of control. And so not knowing presents us with a difficult spiritual challenge. In a beautiful passage in the Talmud, Jewish tradition addresses this spiritual challenge. ”בְּ רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁ נָה כָּל בָּאֵ י הָ עוֹלָם עוֹבְרִ ין לְפָנָיו כִּבְ נֵי מָ רוֹן“ “Rosh Hashanah is the day,” the Talmud says, “when all the inhabitants of the world pass before God like b’nai Maron.”3 The rabbis of the Talmud are confused about the last phrase: “all the inhabitants of the world pass before God like b’nai maron”? What does that mean? And they provide two interpretations that I want to share with you, two explanations for this term4 that represent two opposite poles – and I think, together they help us understand what it means to be human and to enter an uncertain New Year. The first interpretation is offered by the ancient Babylonian rabbis,5 who understood “b’nai maron” to be a Hebrew translation of the Aramaic “imrana,” meaning “sheep.” They said: on Rosh Hashanah we are just like sheep that pass through a small gate6, and are counted one by one by the shepherd. Each of us is, according to this interpretation, just like a poor sheep, a lamb, powerless as we are led, along with all the other sheep and lambs, through a gateway into the next area or enclosure zone, and it is a gateway through which we cannot see, leading to a destination of which we are largely ignorant. And, though we may want to resist this observation of the Talmud, it is in many ways true. We cannot know, as we enter into this New Year, where we are going, or what awaits us. We may exercise and eat right, but our health is largely out of our hands; it’s dependent upon outside factors, upon the DNA we happened to inherit, upon our environment. Circumstances beyond our control effect our lives, often in profound ways. Timing is everything, and it’s out of our control. If you’ve ever had the experience of biking on a crowded street and narrowly missing a car door that opens in your lane a few seconds before you pass it, just in time so you can get out of the way – you know how the Talmud is right. The hard truth is that so many of us, in so many different situations, are not that fortunate. And here’s what I find to be so true and meaningful in this interpretation: Coming to an awareness of our lack of control over our lives, that we’re in some ways as powerless as sheep 3 Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1:2, Talmud RH 16a. and for ,כמעלות בית מרון :I’m aware that the Talmud offers a third explanation, as well, in the name of Resh Lakish 4 the purposes of this sermon, I’ve chosen to present just these two interpretations. refers to the הכא See Talmud Rosh Hashanah 18a. Steinzaltz’s Hebrew commentary suggests that the word 5 Babylonian rabbis “here”. 6 See Rashi, B. RH 18a 2 passing through a tiny gateway, is not altogether a bad thing. It can bring to us a healthy humility, to a state of awe and wonder, to accept our limitations, to accept our helplessness.7 I believe it is one of the essential lessons of these High Holy Days. In fact, not knowing, and accepting the uncertainty in which we live, is considered by Judaism to be the beginning of attaining wisdom. The Hasidic rabbi Menahum Nahum Twersky, the 18th century author of the book, Me’or Einayim, taught that “once you study Torah [and absorb it,] you realize that you actually know nothing. The culmination of knowledge,” he wrote, “is the awareness that one does not know, that one cannot know, that some truths remain just as hidden as they were in the beginning.”8 The contemporary Jewish teacher Estelle Frankel points out that we can gain freedom from uncertainty, and power over our powerlessness, by just accepting it and sitting with our feelings about it.9 Whether we’re about to go into the hospital, or facing some other serious challenge, or feeling anxiety as the November elections approach, meditating on our lack of control, allowing ourselves to feel it, and accept it and all the emotions that come with that feeling, cultivating our inner lives, and offering up our prayers about our fears and our powerlessness – they are all beautiful, meaningful spiritual strategies that center around gently accepting our uncertainty. (And I recommend investigating those strategies – and I am grateful to the Adult Jewish Learning Committee for developing a new initiative on “Exploring Our Jewish Inner Lives” starting this fall.) * But the Talmud doesn’t stop there.

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