Rabbi Philip Weintraub
Congregation Agudas Israel
September 14, 2015
RH Day 1: Putting the extraordinary in the ordinary in Prayer
There is an old Israeli joke about a rabbi who arrives in heaven. He is shown to his dwelling and learns what ones does and how one gets around. After a few days of wandering, he finds a tremendous mansion, which seems even more fantastic after seeing his own humble dwellings. After a few more days, he asks around and discovers an Egged bus driver (or Jerusalem taxi driver) is the resident of the most luxurious accommodations. This rabbi gets rather frustrated and takes his concerns to the top. He asks God, what is going on? I spent my life serving you and teaching your people. God responds quite simply. “When you taught, people slept. When he drove, people prayed!”
What does your average day look like? You get up, take care of your daily needs, eat, shower, get moving. You go to work, to school, to the stores, run errands, do laundry. Even retired we find ourselves in third or fourth careers, running, running, running. As Americans, we are busier and more productive than ever, but are we happier? Are we more fulfilled? Do we find satisfaction in our busy, busy lives? Children are rushed to activity after activity in order to be prepared for middle school, high school, college. We live in a world of burned out elementary school children! Too much homework, always on work phones for adults--with some companies even tracking their employees activities outside of work. How much time of your day is spent in prayer or reflection, in gratitude? Do you think you have time for that?
Every single day we are searching for more on our devices. We click through and search for more. We do not sleep because of the glow of the screens. More news. More life. More connection. We live in a world where our single friends can scroll through endless possibilites on phone apps, yet struggle to find a real relationship. So many choices leave them (and us) wondering if the best is yet to come, dismissing what we have! Looking at the facebook posts of friends and colleagues, 95% of what we see is the best, the most beautiful, the most wonderful. We can feel horribly inferior, until we consider what WE post. Do we share (or should we) our tsurris or just our best? Do our facebook friends think we are also living perfect lives?
What would it look like if we just got off the technological treadmill? What if we took a breath and imagined a different type of life?
Guess what you are doing right now?! Today is Monday. You have stepped out of your normal paradigm. You are in a different space, thinking different thoughts. I am not speaking just to pat you on the back, but to ask how you can bring this paradigm into your daily life. Today, the first day of Rosh Hashanah, is about forgiveness and judgement, but it is also about new opportunities. It is about looking at the world differently. We sound the shofar. Psalm 89:16 reminds us:
16 Fortunate is the people that know the blasting of the shofar; O Lord, may they walk in the light of Your countenance.
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טז אַשְׁרֵי הָעָם יֹדְעֵי תְרוּעָה הֹ" בְּאוֹר פָּנֶיךָ יְהַלֵּכוּן:
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Today I encourage you to feel fortunate. Let the blast of the shofar awaken us. Let us walk in the light of the Holy One and discover our blessings. Looking around the world, we know that we are blessed to live here now. We have major problems in this country, income inequality, far too much gun violence, yet right here, right now we are safer here than almost anywhere in the world at ANY time in history. Our ancestors could not have imagined a world where we could have influence, safety, health, success and remain minorities. World history is filled with the idea that for a people to be successful they have to dominate the society around them. Jews have demonstrated that this is simply not the case. We can be a tiny percentage of the world’s population and still accomplish incredible things, still live lives of meaning and dignity.
I invite you to look around this room with a spirit of awe and gratitude. See the people that sit here with you. See the friends that make this all possible. Look at the book in front of you. Within it are three thousand years of yearning. These prayers are the original facebook, the original twitter, the original party line. On the sides of the book we have the commentaries, the dreams, the visions, the poetry, that helps us connect to those dreams, those prayers, those wishes. Security. Peace. Love. Sustenance. Housing. Family. These dreams do not change, whether we live today or a thousand years before or after.
As Jews, we have a deep well, a reservoir of hope, of yearning, of connection. We have traditions that tie us to our roots. We are grafted to our sources of connection, to the Holy One, to God. We create and renew this connection through prayer and thanks. Looking at the liturgy here, the prayers we recite, we see the dreams that have not changed in millenia. Every year there are new fads that try to connect people to that which is missing in their life, to help them find meaning. Some of these fads--yoga and meditation--aren’t fads at all, but ancient wisdom from other traditions. Other diets and workout routines are more temporal. The search for thankfulness and gratitude is found throughout the world, for a very simply reason. We are happier, more fulfilled, more joyful when we give thanks, when we see the good in each other and the world.
As Jews, we have a rubric, a template for giving thanks in so many ways. From the prayers for the first flowers of spring, to those asking for healing, to daily prayers of waking up and going to bed, of pausing during the day to recognize our own humanity. Traditionally we pray both before AND after we eat. On September 22, 2018 I’ll study the 43rd page of Menachot, a tractate of Talmud discussing our ancient sacrifices in the Jerusalem Temple. Yet, on that page is a demand from Rabbi Meir which I am quite familiar with: “
חייב אדם לברך מאה ברכות בכל יום, שנאמר: (דברים י') ועתה ישראל מה ה' אלקיך שואל מעמך. רב חייא בריה דרב אויא בשבתא וביומי טבי טרח וממלי להו באיספרמקי ומגדי.
It was taught: R. Meir used to say, A man is bound to say one hundred blessings daily, (skiP:)as it is written, And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee? On Sabbaths and on Festivals R. Hiyya the son of R. Awia endeavoured to make up this number by the use of spices and delicacies.
What would it look like to say one hundred blessings a day? How would that even work? Traditional Jews have it easy! There are a dozen blessings when one wakes or enters the shul, nineteen thrice a day in the Amidah, three or four around the shema in the morning and at night, and blessings before and after meals--you are done! Shabbat and festivals are more challenging with the Amidah having fewer blessings, yet celebratory meals and Shabbat walks enjoying our beautiful Hudson Valley can easily add enough scents and tastes to add up to the official count. At the same time, I think we can gain much from Rabbi Meir even if we don’t literally count our daily blessings. Some social scientists claim we are most productive if we work twenty minutes take a few minutes break and then return to our focus--like interval training for the mind. What if we used that time for gratitude, to recognize the Creator of the Universe, to recognize the Divinity in ourselves, and in one another. Would we be more focused (and generous) to one another in a meeting if we remembered the holiness within us all, if we saw how interconnected we all are?
ד שְׁמַע, יִשְׂרָאֵל: ה" אֱ-לֹהֵינוּ, ה" אֶחָד.
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4 Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one.
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Echad, one, is translated in many different ways. Echad--alone, singular, unlike anything else. Yet kabbalistically, mystically, one might imagine a different sort of one-ness. What if we saw all the world as God or at least Godly? Would we look at Syrian refugees the same way? How would we treat immigrants to this country? Or even the most disliked group of people on this planet--political candidates! What would the WORLD look like if we acted with more love?
So the big question is if we have the secret to happiness, why don’t we use it?
I shouldn’t need to stand here and tell you that you will be undoubtedly happier if you are nice to people, if you give thanks to God for all that you have, if you appreciate your family, friends and the ones you love? And yet, I must stand here and say exactly that!
I have known my wife for nine years. She knows me very well. In the weeks leading up to the holidays, like many rabbis, I can get a little stressed and cranky. I want everything to be just right. I want you to walk away impressed with your community, closer to God, inspired to live more meaningful lives. And I want you to do that without looking at your apple watches during my sermon. In short, I want everything just right. Yet at this time of year, even while writing about gratitude, I can find myself short-tempered! In focusing on making sure every detail is right for you, I can forget the bigger picture, even the point of my sermons this week. In coming together, I want us to learn how to live even when we are not gathered in these numbers in this room. I want to inspire you to find the holiness that is in each day, whether or not I can get you to come back and spend time with me on a weekly basis! I want you to find the blessings of OUR tradition not just today, but every day.
One way to do this is through our mouths and one is through our calendar.
Through our mouths, Jewish tradition has much to say about what goes in AND what comes out. Some of you know the holiness of kashrut, of choosing to be conscious of every morsel that goes into your mouth, you may have discovered that making that choice supports the gratitude I mentioned previously. However, do not let anyone tell you that what comes out of your mouth is any less important. As the annexation debate rages just a few miles down the road, we must be cognizant of how we speak about our neighbors--both those who look like us and those who do not. As Rabbi Sacks recently wrote:
I used to think that the most important line in the Bible was “Love your neighbour as yourself”. Then I realised that it is easy to love your neighbour because he or she is usually quite like yourself. What is hard is to love the stranger, one whose colour, culture or creed is different from yours. That is why the command, “Love the stranger because you were once strangers”, resonates so often throughout the Bible.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/06/refugee-crisis-jonathan-sacks-humanitarian-generosity
How we speak about others can have beautiful and grave consequences. When I hear that my words and actions have inspired someone to live and teach the blessings of Rosh Hashanah at their holiday meals, I am filled with pride and gratitude. Yet when I am told that my words have hurt the ones I love, I am filled with shame and grief. Words matter. When we think first of what we are to say, when we consider what we eat, what goes in and what goes out, every meal and every conversation is an opportunity for holiness!
The Jewish calendar is ONE more way of finding the holiness every single day--not just today, but every day. From Shabbat to festivals, our calendar conspires to create time for family, for friends, for the sacred. While disconnecting from work on a regular basis may seem crazy, obligating ourselves to time together is life changing. Pausing on a regular basis allows us perspective. It gives us the gift of time. It creates moments to look out over our gorgeous Hudson river, to see the leaves change, to sit by the pool while we still can. Whether we pull out of the fine china or eat Evergreen takeout on paper plates, those family dinners can change the course of our lives. In just a week or two we will celebrate Sukkot and Simchat Torah, building the Sukkah (or letting me bring it to you), we shake fruits and vegetables, reminding ourselves of our roots, reminding ourselves of our land and our dependence on the Holy One. When those holidays are over, I look forward to studying with you some of the sources of Shabbat and thinking with you how we might re-imagine Shabbat practices today. Would we disconnect completely or use technology to connect to far-flung family? Are we still celebrating Shabbat if we use our microwaves to reheat food? We can make observing the Sabbath more about saying yes than saying no?! Friday nights we sing Lecha Dodi, a mystical poem striving to connect us with God. One verse has always moved me. יָמִין וּשְׂמֹאל תִּפְרֽוֹצִי. וְאֶת־יי תַּעֲרִֽיצִי Break out of your confines to the left and right, praise God. Spread the Shabbat to the left and to the right. In today’s world this is true, Muslims and Christians have taken our Sabbath and brought it to the surrounding days. What would the world look like if we could spread the joy, the peace of Shabbat to the rest of the week? How would you look? How would you feel? In the year to come, I pray we can discover this joy, this holiness together!
This is the way we find connection. This is how we solve the yearning in our souls. This is how we find God in every moment in our lives--by looking. As the Kotzker rebbe, Menachem Mendel of Kotzk, said: “Where is God found? In the place where we let God in!” Let God in by finding the holiness, the joy, the meaning in each day.
As we continue our service for the day, let us all remember today and every day my favorite verse from Psalms:
כד זֶה-הַיּוֹם, עָשָׂה ה"; נָגִילָה וְנִשְׂמְחָה בוֹ.
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24 This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.
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Let every day be a day of rejoicing!
