Shanah Tovah! - Happy New Year!
For anyone who wasn't able to join us at Ohev Shalom for the High Holidays, but was curious to hear what was covered in the sermons, I'm posting them here on my blog. Below you will find my sermon from Kol Nidrei, the evening service at the start of Yom Kippur. In the right-hand column of this blog, you can see a list of previous posts; there you'll find all my High Holiday sermons.
And, if you feel like it, please post your comments/thoughts/reactions here, or send me an e-mail at rabbi@ohev.net. Thanks so much, and have a Happy, Healthy, and Sweet New Year!
Kol Nidrei Sermon 5775:
It’s late at night. The
middle of the night, in fact. Right now, I am not a rabbi, I am a security
guard at a museum, working the graveyard shift. There is one other guard as
well, and after the two of us have finished our rounds, we retire to two
separate guard posts, just a few rooms away from one another. It is quiet. The
only sound that can be heard is the backup battery in the emergency exit sign,
the soft hum of the security monitors, and faintly, in the distance, a radio program
the other guard is listening to, “This American Life,” perhaps.
Then, suddenly…
[The congregation hears a disembodied voice over the loudspeaker. Each "Jeremy" in quotes below is another instance of the other voice, not me, speaking my name.]
“Jeremy.”
A voice. Out of
nowhere. Says my name. (My first name is Jeremy, by the way. I know many of you
thought it was ‘rabbi’….) Obviously, it must be the other guard… although it
didn’t really sound like him. But I get up, walk two rooms over, and ask him
what’s up. “I didn’t call you,” he says. “Go back to your post.” Confused, I
return. I check my iPhone, nothing there. The radio is off. I go back to
watching the monitors, when, again, I hear it:
“Jeremy.”
Clearly, my colleague
is playing a prank, so I walk back again, feeling slightly annoyed. “Here I am,
buddy. What’s going on?” He assures me it isn’t him. We argue for a few minutes,
and I return to my desk… though walking a bit slower this time, and starting to
feel a chill up my spine. As I sit back in my chair, I hear it yet again:
“Jeremy.”
I burst out of my chair
this time, insistent that it’s him… partly because I have no other explanation,
and partly because I’m starting to feel frightened about what else might
be going on. So I run back to the other guard a THIRD time. “Here I am, ok?
Quit playing around!!” Again, we argue. And in the end, my exasperated
colleague says, “Hey, if you hear it again, why don’t you just try answering
the voice directly, huh? See what it says, and quit buggin’ me.” He chuckles to
himself, and this time I walk back VERY slowly, and very bewildered. I ease my
way back into my chair. It creaks. I can feel myself starting to sweat now. I’m
nervous. I brace myself for the sound I do NOT want to hear, but sure enough:
“Jeremy… Jeremy.”
With great trepidation
and foreboding, I respond, “Here I am – Hineini.”
This, with a few modern
upgrades, is the story of the great prophet, Samuel. It was he who anointed the
first king of Israel, Saul, and who eventually, at God’s command, also took the
throne away from him. He then anointed David to take his place, and a
descendant of David’s remained on the throne throughout the period of Ancient
Israel. To this day, the line of David is still considered the royal bloodline
of Israel. And it was Samuel who first declared David king.
When Samuel first heard
God call to him, in the scene I described for you, he was just a boy. But I
shared with you this little theatrical piece because I wanted each of us, every
person in this room tonight, to imagine what it might have felt like for Samuel
to hear that call. To picture instead a modern setting, with modern characters,
and actually hear a disembodied voice speaking out of nowhere, and wonder,
perhaps, for just a second: If this were you, could you respond to God with
“Hineini”?
In today’s society, we
often talk about not feeling the efficacy of prayer, that prayer actually
“works.” I also hear people ask “Why don’t we hear God’s voice anymore? Why
don’t we see miracles, and signs of God’s existence” But honestly, I think if
we DID hear God’s voice speaking to us, calling us actually BY NAME, we would
be terrified. What would it imply? What would come next, and is there any way
that we could decline whatever God was coming to say???
I have always thought
about this in regards to the prophet Jeremiah, who was ill-fated with the task
of chastising and yelling at the people for their wrong-doings, and everyone
hated him for it. His was a miserable existence. So why didn’t he just stop?
Well, chapter 20, verse 9, is, in my opinion, one of the most chilling verses
in the entire Bible, when Jeremiah cries out: “I thought, ‘I will not mention
God, no more will I speak in God’s Name’ – but it was like a raging fire in my
heart, shut up in my bones; I could not hold it in, I was helpless.” He had no
choice. He was doomed to live this life, and say things to people that they
absolutely, positively did NOT want to hear. And he, AND they, suffered for it.
What if God showed up
one day and gave you a task, wanted you to rebuke the Pharaoh of the day, maybe
Bashar al-Assad or Vladimir Putin? Or even just told you to turn to your
family, your friends, and your neighbors, and start preaching to them about
doomsday and the sinful lives they are all leading. How terrifying to even
imagine, just for a moment, having to give up our jobs and our everyday lives
and do such a thing.
But there ARE people
who do this. And I am not talking about people who’ve had mental breakdowns or
who have psychological problems. I’m also not only referring to ancient
examples, like Samuel, or the other three Biblical figures who also heard God urgently call to them in the same way
Samuel heard it, by doubling their name, “Abraham, Abraham; Jacob, Jacob;
Moses, Moses,” and who ALL responded: “Hineini – Here I am.” I am NOT talking
about them alone. Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, all of them felt
it as well; the fire SHUT UP in their bones, that demanded they speak up
against injustice, even at personal risk and ultimately, sacrifice.
And yes, many of the
most famous examples set out with religious agendas, speaking of God and
Biblical morals, but you don’t need that. Let us, for a moment, take that out
of the picture. Let’s remove God briefly, yes, even here on Kol Nidrei night,
IN synagogue, ON the holiest day of the year. Let’s take God OUT of the
picture. Look, I want to be totally honest with you. Many people in this room
do not believe in God, or you aren’t sure what you believe. And believe it or
not – literally – that is OK! So forget God, I’m serious.
We can still feel that
fire in our bones, in our souls (if there is such a thing as the soul). Don’t
be distracted by the question of whether there’s a God or not, focus on whether
you can believe in a cause, ANY cause, with the kind of passion that sometimes,
but not always, comes from religious belief. Do you need God, to care about
children dying because of terrible gun laws? Do you need God, to know that Ebola
is a horrible virus that must be stopped? And do you need God, to dump a bucket
of ice water on your head and donate to an incredibly worthy cause, that will
fight an otherwise incurable, terminal disease?
On Rosh Hashanah, we
talked about “Hineini” being directional, relational; it’s always said TO
someone else. But that ‘someone’ doesn’t have to be God! We talked about saying
“Hineini” to ourselves, but we can also say “Hineini” to the very notion of
being called, of feeling passionate and committed to something you believe in.
The real enemy here is apathy, cynicism, and jaded indifference. When we’re
sitting in that guard booth at the museum and we hear someone call our name,
it’s definitely easier to imagine it’s candid camera, or a prank, or ANYTHING
other than a voice calling us to devote ourselves to something, to make the
most of our lives, and to be a force for GOOD in the world… because it’s scary
to care.
But what if there IS a
voice calling to you? What if that voice is inside you – conscience, morality,
whatever – but it is CALLING you… and you are just too scared, too worried
about what it’ll demand of you, too concerned about what you’ll have to give
up, to listen.
Please, listen.
What IS the message of
Kol Nidrei? The lights feel dimmer, small candles line the back wall, the
haunting melody of Kol Nidrei has been sung, and we’re all bracing ourselves to
feel the impact of the fast, which hasn’t yet set in, since we recently ate…
but we know it’s coming. We have set the stage; we have created the mood, the
atmosphere. But now YOU have to choose to HEAR the lesson of the day.
I believe, that message
is to believe in something, to care, to want to make yourself a little bit better, and thus to make the world a little
bit better. In Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins’ book, Moments of Transcendence:
Inspirational readings for Yom Kippur, he quotes Eugene O’Neill as saying,
“Each of us is capable of an unimagined greatness. Each of us is a treasure
house of vital potential. Yet apprehensive love and inhibited talent pervade
the expression of our being. Past failure and present fear restrict the range
of our feelings and the purview of our thinking. While these days of meditation
awaken us to the truth of what we are, they must also quicken within us the
reality of what we can be.”
“Past failure,”
“present fear,” these things are also the enemy, along with the apathy and
cynicism I mentioned before. We don’t believe we can change, and it’s SCARY to
imagine change. But the message, the TRUTH, of Yom Kippur is that we DO have
that ‘unimagined greatness’ in us… if we’re willing to hear it calling out to
us, begging us for a “Hineini.”
Even the great prophet
Samuel, after whom TWO books of the Bible are named, even he needed to hear
God’s voice FOUR times, just as our museum guard did, before he could accept
that it was, in fact, God! All the great leaders, in the world, in our
communities, and our own personal heroes; they have ALL had moments of doubt
and self-criticism. They’ve wavered from their path and wondered if it’s all
worth it. It’s ok to be unsure. It is hard to get ourselves to a place of being
ready to say “Hineini.” But tonight is a good place to start.
Use the opportunity of
this evening, and perhaps also of the entire day tomorrow, into the last
service at dusk, Neilah, when the curtain in front of the Ark will be opened,
and you are invited to come up and stand before it to offer a personal prayer.
Use this time to think about, consider – meditate perhaps – on the word
“Hineini.” How are you here, and how are you NOT here?
You don’t need God to
get something out of Yom Kippur, but you DO need YOU! Bring yourself fully to
this experience, to the fasting, the praying, the beating our chests, and yes,
to standing in front of an open Ark at Neilah time, and it WILL lead you to new
“Hineini” experiences beyond this holiday, beyond the synagogue, and beyond
Judaism. You will open yourself up to new opportunities in life, and to greater
harmony with yourself and others.
So don’t wait, and make
that voice call to you FOUR times before you respond. Listen to it today,
Divine or not, and begin this new year with a resounding “Hineini!”
Shanah Tovah!
(…and G’mar Chatimah
Tovah – may we all inscribe OURSELVES in the Book of Life before the gates
close.)
offer. "Sell your allegiance to God, abandon your traditions and restrictions, and you'll become wealthy." Or we can even look at our own lives. Are we sometimes tempted to abandon morals or overlook the wrongdoings of others, for personal gain or just to avoid making waves? In your life, has someone come to you with this kind of offer? Inviting you to share the riches, and perhaps only later do you realize they were actually asking for your silence/agreement/vote/endorsement/acquiescence - your soul - in return? Halloween can serve as a reminder that sometimes things that appear scary are really harmless, while other things (or deals) seem innocent and simple at first, but are actually frightening and damaging under the surface. The trick is to learn from Abram and determine when someone is really wearing a mask. Or perhaps it's the ones NOT wearing masks you truly have to watch out for...
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