STAND STILL OR GET MOVING?

Rosh Hashanah is almost here. This Shabbat is the last Shabbat of the old year, 5771. The parashah we read is a double, Nitzavim Vayelekh, and the name of these two parshiyot contrast with each other beautifully. Nitzavim is a term that implies standing or fixed in some spot while Vayelekh is a verb meaning movement or walking. The fact that this double parashah is read just before Rosh Hashanah is eerie, for the two names essentially pose a question to us all. In the New Year, are we going to stand still or move, are we going to change or are we going to remain the same?

That question is easy to ask but difficult to answer. This is a time of year when Jewish educators and rabbis piously talk forgiveness, repentance, in short, about positive and courageous change in one’s life. Some people flippantly say that they are going to change but have no intention to do so. Others cynically say that they won’t change because after all, people don’t change. But after all the greeting cards are sent, the prayers recited, and the apples dipped, the most basic function of the New Year may remain unfulfilled: honest and enduring change.

Judaism is a tradition that believes deeply in the power of the human spirit. If we are our choices, and we choose every second of our lives, then the grandeur of our spirit moves us to make good choices with every breath we take. Do we resist those good choices? Quite often we do. Change might mean sacrificing some ego, giving up some long-cherished anger, or even losing face. But asking for forgiveness from one person whom you may have hurt in some past exchange, is worth at least two days of praying in a five-and-a-half hour service. Actually it’s worth a lot more than that.

There ought to be a holiday devoted to eating brisket. We can all get together and celebrate and that would be just lovely. But if that’s what Rosh Hashanah has become in your life, then you’re not doing Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah is the stuff that real-life drama is made of: facing our failures, confessing our shortcomings, and making amends. So what’s it going to be: Nitzavim or Vayelekh? Whether you remain the same or make the gutsy changes that life demands of us, is up to you.

L’shanah Tovah Tikateivu—May we all be inscribed into the Book of Life with abundant blessings, blessings that we may enjoy ourselves and blessings that we may be privileged to confer on others.

THE ANNOYANCE BLESSING

Let’s play a game. I want you to think of something that is really annoying. A few examples are in order. Washing dishes. If only we could eat and get out of clean-up, dinner would be much more pleasurable. Traffic jams. You’ve been stuck for over 45 minutes due to someone else’s carelessness. Finally, taxes. You earned every cent you have—why does the government have to take it away, and take so much!

You probably have your own favorite annoyances. Hang on to them because now we’re going to play the next part of this game. Put a positive spin on each situation that drives you crazy. You may have to wash dishes, but that means you had a meal, and not everyone in this world enjoys such a fundamental need. You may be stuck in traffic, but that implies you actually own, or at least lease, a car. It may mean that you have places to go to. It can also indicate that if you’re late, someone is going to care. Owning property, having a purpose, and being accountable to people, these are all aspects of a full life. And finally taxes—perhaps the most annoying fact of life. If you owe taxes, that means you’re making money. In this economy, don’t bemoan that situation.

So often, our annoyances expose a short-sightedness that we need to   address. The blessings in our lives are abundant, but due to our impatience, or values that may be temporarily askew, we indulge ourselves in our own irascibility which if not irritating to others, certainly diminishes ourselves. By becoming petty, we become small. That’s a shame because every second we live is precious.

So goes one of the curses in today’s parashah, Ki Tavo, which includes the Tokhekha or a list of maladies that will befall the Jewish people should they abandon the ways of God.

In the morning you shall say “If only it were evening!”
and in the evening you shall say, “If only it were morning!”—

because of what your heart shall dread and your eyes shall see.

(Deuteronomy 28:67)

In other words, wherever you are, you will wish you were somewhere else. Your heart and your eyes will be making you crazy. How’s that for a curse!


As soon as we become annoyed, we ought to stop and thank God, because somewhere in the annoyance is a blessing, and in acknowledging the blessing we strengthen ourselves and our humanity.

The Tokhekha always depicts God as punishing humanity for its sins. That’s a classic idea but one that has never resonated with me. I don’t believe in a punishing God and frankly, question why God would even bother. People are so adept at punishing themselves without God’s help. Let’s strive to not be counted among that group.

TEN YEARS AFTER 9/11--THE HOUSE IN YOUR HEAD

It’s difficult to believe that ten years have passed since 9/11. I remember that day. Clear skies, balmy temperature—the weather was all wrong. If ever there was a day in need of God’s metaphoric disapproval or wrath—a thunderstorm or hurricane—it was that day.
Ten years ago, we were dealing with questions about whether one can have a funeral without a body. When should we give up on the miracle of finding our loved one alive? When should we give up on finding our loved one dead? When should we give up? That was the real question; it was a question about hope.


We all go through periods of hopelessness. At those times, if we have clarity of mind, we will seek help. We seek help from a spouse, friends, therapists, or clergy. We may take medication. We explore our faith traditions with greater seriousness. We pray and hope that God will answer us.


There is a prayer, a line in Psalm 27 which I love because it is so outrageous.  "May I dwell in the House of the Lord all the days of my life…"  (Psalm 27: 4).


What a request. I’m clergy and even I don’t want to live in the House of the Lord all the days of my life. Sometimes I want to travel, or go shopping, or get a haircut—none of which takes place in the House of the Lord. But the psalmist cannot possibly be asking to live in the House of the Lord for that duration. What the psalmist is really asking is to live a life of peace, of being an instrument of God’s goodness in a world so often lacking in that presence.


In our post 9/11 world, it is easy to live life with a lingering sense of anger and bitterness, with sweeping generalizations about Moslems, with a sense of cynicism, that is the very rejection of hope itself. We can live like that and many do, but imagine yourself with that type of attitude walking around in the House of the Lord—a space of peace, and hope, and love, and inspiration to further the goodness of God on earth. It’s incongruous.


The synagogue or temple or church that you attend is very important, but the house of worship that you carry in your head is more important. The God we believe in is the One who urges us to fill this world with solutions not problems, hope not despair, dialogue not destruction, love not death.


Of the 3,000 or so lives lost on 9/11, the greater tragedy would be the silencing of the living, for when the living are silent, they are as good as dead—bodies that are absent from the world. It was bad enough that people had to mourn without their loved one’s body to bury. Let’s make sure that our bodies—our hearts and minds—are used in the next decade to spread the world with abundant and generous acts of kindness and love because that’s what people who live in the House of the Lord all the days of their lives, do.

JERUSALEM—IT’S OURS

What’s your favorite city?  New York?  Las Vegas?  Paris?  Within our collective consciousness, Jews have a favorite city:  Jerusalem.  It’s not the Big Apple.  It’s not Sin City.  It’s not gay Paris.  It is the Holy City and it belongs to the Jewish people.

As I write or say these words, I catch myself.  How selfish can I possibly be!  By virtue of what do I claim Jerusalem ours to the exclusion of others who may lay claim to it?  And, above all, why should Jerusalem matter to me anymore?  Good questions.  Here are a few good answers.

We ought to recognize the arrogance of those who would have us forget Jerusalem.  New York is an international phenomenon, but no one tells New Yorkers to forget New York.  Paris is also an international phenomenon, to be sure, but no one tells Parisians to forget Paris.  Yet somehow, Jerusalem, an international phenomenon no less than New York or Paris, must be politically shared.  Why?  Is the world afraid of Israelis making Jerusalem off limits to the international community?  That would be bizarre.  Jerusalem, the Holy City, the city whose name translated actually means the City of Peace, is open to everyone, Jews, Christians and Moselms.  It is not open to terrorists, as I hope no city would be.  On the other hand, try, if you will, entry to Mecca, the holiest city in Islam and birthplace of Mohammad.  You will find that the entire city is reserved only for the faithful and that, by Islamic definition, would be Moslems.

The world does not owe Jews anything more than the simple respect accorded anyone or any nation ready to contribute to civilization.  Jerusalem is part—and a very large part of Jewish history.  Denying our historical connection to Jerusalem is an attempt to weaken us as a people and a nation, for a nation must have a collective memory, and those memories include Jerusalem as the center of our religious life, the capital of a former Jewish commonwealth, a place of intense literary creation sacred to so many, namely the Bible, and it is Jerusalem’s destruction that we have mourned for centuries.  Those who claim that none of this matters can do so, for Jewish continuity is not their concern.

But more than Jewish history, Jerusalem is the Jewish present as well.  It is a symbol of Jewish renewal and rebirth, of Jewish guts, both in the sense of our spiritual lives and the blood we have shed in our efforts to make the Jewish past the Jewish present.  The Moslems have Mecca and Medina.  The Christians have Bethlehem and Rome.  The Jews make no claims to any city in the world, other than Jerusalem.  The world that finds this so outrageous is acting unfairly to the Jewish people.

In our Torah portion this week, Shoftim, Moshe teaches us that should a legal case be so complicated that we need a greater authority to resolve it, we should go to the judges who reside in “that place that the Lord chose” (Deuteronomy 17:10).  As later history would clarify, that place would be Jerusalem, but I love the way Jerusalem is anonymous in the Torah portion.  Why?  Because for Jews, there is no other place.  That silent understanding of what Jerusalem means to us is in part what keeps us together as a people.  Jerusalem is welcome to all people of peace.  But remember, Jerusalem is the Jewish people’s.  We should say it unself-consciously, and with the humility such a responsibility entails.