G’mar Chatimah Tovah.
Ok, so WHAT is my fourth, and final, sermon in the series going to be about? What else is left, right? If the theme is Just Be, to Exist, to Be Present, and if the image I was using was Past, Present, and Future, in the form of the three Hebrew words Hayah, Hoveh, and Yihyeh, all variant forms of the root Lihyot, To Be, what remains for this morning? Soooo, bear with me for a second; this next sentence I’m about to say is probably not one you’d expect to hear from a rabbi in a Yom Kippur sermon: Are you familiar with Easter Eggs? I actually don’t mean those colorful, painted things that children search for on the (very Christian) holiday of Easter, in a ceremony and ritual that I still, for the life of me, CANNOT figure out, and have NO idea how it connects to the resurrection of Jesus. No, that’s NOT what I’m talking about. The term “Easter Egg” ALSO refers to something else.
In addition to your regular, Webster’s-type dictionary, one can also search online for what’s known as an “Urban Dictionary,” where all kinds of words and expressions get repurposed in some way that may have NOTHING (or very little) to do with the original meaning. In the “Urban Dictionary,” an Easter Egg is “a hidden item placed in a movie, television show, or otherwise visual media for close watchers.” So it can be ANYTHING really, that only insiders or devout fans spot, that most people might never see, but if you’re “in the know” or search YouTube or elsewhere to read about them, you can identify Easter Eggs in video games, films, shows, and sometimes in other arenas as well. Apparently, the Urban Dictionary version originated in the 1975 cult-classic movie, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Who knew?
I mention this pop culture concept, because I actually think the Tanach is FILLED with these hidden symbols, indications, winks, and allusions, but you have to know WHAT you’re looking for and WHERE to look, in order to find them. And I am also fully aware of the ridiculous sound-bite that YOU might take from this sermon, which is that Rabbi Gerber told us the Bible is full of Easter Eggs. ANYWAY, the point is, one such very, VERY powerful hidden image is part of the theme for my fourth sermon. To fully illustrate this point, I’m actually going to make extra use of our zoom-predicament, and have our wonderful tech support, Kevin, put up something for us on the screen. This is great, because if it were a “regular” year, and I held up a piece of paper on the bimah, probably more than 75% of the people present would have ZERO chance of seeing what I was showing you. So, we lean into zoom.
My first sermon was about Hayah, the word “Was” in Hebrew. You see how it’s spelled? Hey-Yud-Hey. Then, my second sermon was about the Present, the word Hoveh in Hebrew, which is spelled like this. And the reason I did it in these colors is so you can see that this word retains the first and last letters of the previous word, with just the middle Yud switching to a Vav. Then, my third sermon added “Will Be,” Yihyeh. And even though it sounds different, you see that it actually maintains the entire word for “Was,” Hayah, but adds a Yud at the beginning. Now don’t go to the fourth slide yet, Kevin; hang on. The hidden symbol comes when you overlap the three terms. If you lay them on top of one another, where they all keep the two letters Hey, and you add the Yud of “Will Be” and the “Vav” of “Present,” you get (Fourth slide): God.
Of course, we all SAY “Adonai” when we see these four letters, because our Tradition has taught us that we no longer know how to pronounce this word. It was only ever pronounced by ONE person (the High Priest), on ONE day (Yom Kippur), in ONE location (The Holy of Holies, the inner sanctum of the Ancient Temple in Jerusalem). One thing is for certain, it is NOT pronounced “Adonai”; you can clearly tell that’s a complete place-holder. In some scholarly circles, the name is written as I put it on that fourth slide, when they want to refer to the God of Israel, YHWH, or they say “Yahwe.” My point here isn’t so much about the pronunciation, but rather the concept of God as existing NOT only in the past, NOT only in the present, and NOT only in the future; but symbolically, metaphorically, conceptually, and as we now see in our hidden word, even embedded in the words of the Hebrew language; God permeates it all.
On the one hand, I kind of assumed everyone KNEW this, for some reason. It’s right there, in plain sight. We sing about it all the time. Are you familiar with Adon Olam? A prayer we use to conclude services EVERY Saturday morning? We sing “V’Acharei Kichlot Ha-Kol; Levado Yimloch Norah… v’Hoo Hayah, v’Hoo Hoveh, v’Hoo Yihyeh b’Tifarah.” But that’s the whole point of Easter Eggs, isn’t it? They’re not hard to SEE, to physically observe, but you have to know WHAT you are looking for, WHERE to look for it, and you have to WANT to find it to begin with. If God holds no meaning or interest to you, this insight may be totally pointless and uninteresting. Big news, everybody: The rabbi just told us God is in the Bible! Wow!!! And I couldn’t possibly MAKE someone find this fascinating or mystical; if it isn’t, it just isn’t. All I can do is tell you why something is meaningful to ME. I say the same thing about belief in God and the ludicrous notion that someone can or cannot prove to you the Existence of God. It doesn’t work like that. It’s like love, right? Or fear? If someone’s in love or feels afraid, you can’t just talk them out of it. Faith is deeply, deeply personal.
So the reason why I think this is interesting, is because God is hidden in so many places, often in plain sight. There are endless rabbinic stories about this, like when the Chasidic master, Menachem Mendel of Kotsk asked his students, “Where is God?” Some pointed up, others said “everywhere,” yet others said inside us. And the Kotzker Rebbe answered them, “God is wherever you let God in.” Any place can be TOTALLY absent of God. Even if someone waves a Bible around, standing in front of a holy place, there can be absolutely NO Divinity in that scenario, if God’s teachings are missing, and there is only corruption, misuse, hate, fear, and malicious intent.
And, of course, the reverse is true: If a person or an exchange or an idea is filled with the holiness of compassion, equality, kindness, and love, it does NOT matter what the outer packaging looks like; God is there. There are yet more heaps and heaps of rabbinic stories highlighting THIS idea: Like when a beggar at the back of the synagogue whispers a one-word prayer or plays a note on a beat-up old flute, and it opens the gates of heaven. A small child sings with all her might Alef, Bet, just the Hebrew alphabet, for that’s all she knows, but it’s SO heartfelt that the angels hear THAT prayer over any other.
I love when this maxim of humility sneaks its way into Hollywood and pop culture; again, kind of like Easter Eggs. In the movie, “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” from 1989, starring Harrison Ford and Sean Connery, the climax of the movie takes place in a hidden cave that no one had accessed for centuries. Eternal Life is ONE SIP away for our heroes, but the bad guys have blackmailed them into bringing them along into the cave as well. There is a fountain of water before them, but the water is just… water. Anyone who wants to drink has to pick their vessel… their cup (point to curtain), but there are HUNDREDS to choose from. The bad guy, a Nazi even, selects the most beautiful cup he can find, covered in gold and jewels, and definitely fit for a king (well, a mortal king or some sort of business tycoon perhaps). Needless to say, that was NOT the Holy Grail they were looking for. Harrison Ford steps forward - and I’m sorry to ruin the end for you, but you’ve had 31 years to watch this movie, so… - he steps forward and finds, hidden behind other cups, a beat up, old, simple, wooden cup. Lo and behold, he found the Grail.
Here’s my question though: Was it an objective choice? Was that THE right cup, such that anyone, even the Nazi, could have selected it and he too would have been rewarded? Or perhaps the intention, the reason why each man was there, in that cave, was actually essential too. Do you see my point? If the Cantor at the front of the synagogue started belting out the Alef, Bet, like the little girl, I doubt it would have impressed even a single angel. It isn’t the action itself; it’s the intention, the meaning, the purpose. God exists WHEREVER you let God in.
I hope, therefore, that you don’t just see my point about the Alef, Bet, the beat-up flute, or about Indiana Jones and his schlocky little toy cup. This is a moment, right here, right now. It is tempting to say, I’m no High Priest, I’m not in the Holy of Holies, but rather on my living room couch. But today IS Yom Kippur, and this is a pivotal moment; for me, for Rabbi Miller, for you. Yes, I’m talking to… YOU. We’ve already spoken about how our history grounds us, gives us the foundation upon which to build and grow. How much more rooted in our Jewish Tradition can you get, than sitting here singing ancient tunes, talking about Biblical characters, being in synagogue - virtually or in-person - with hundreds of others, the way we have done for centuries, if not millenia?
We then talked about being Present, about not putting off, and putting off, and putting off what we so desperately do NOT want to deal with RIGHT NOW. In my second day sermon, I tried to convey how we miscommunicate and talk past one another, and how even a small tweak, a willingness to be vulnerable and say “I don’t understand. Tell me your story, and let me tell you mine,” could change EVERYTHING. Last night, we added the importance of the future, BUT not letting ourselves get misled by the visions of what is to come, or dreams of tomorrow, but understanding that those prophecies are meant to wake you up to changes needed HERE!! Because if you wait until those prophecies are unfolding, you may definitely have waited too long. The correct cup will be gone, and we’ll all be stuck drinking contaminated, non-potable water.
The Easter Egg of this sermon is hiding in plain sight as well. If you - and I - can take in these messages of combining, overlaying Past, Present, and Future, not only can we find God hiding inside our actions, our behaviors, and our relationships, but we may find perhaps an even MORE coveted Easter Egg… ourselves. Because again, I’ve hidden my main message to you in plain sight; Just Be. When I’m done speaking, when we go back into our services, I encourage each and every one of us to do a mental and physical check: Am I here? Am I present to my tradition, the people around me, and to myself? Because the answer is sometimes, terrifyingly, “no.” And that’s where we have to have TONS of compassion for ourselves and say “it’s ok.” It’s hard to be Fully Present. I’ve got to take care of kids, I have to worry about a pandemic, I have to figure out how to stick my mail-in ballot inside a “secrecy envelope” (that’s not a joke; please look that up if you don’t know what I’m talking about! You literally need a “secrecy envelope” for your ballot in November!).
It is very, very hard to be fully present ALL. THE. TIME. Heck, why do you think the High Priest only went into that Holy of Holies ONE time a year, and only used God’s holiest, most powerful name for ONE prayer a year??? You think you can just throw YAHWE into your everyday interactions??? “Mmm, this halibut was good enough for YAHWE!” The High Priest in the Ancient Temple in Jerusalem needed a full year to gear up for this moment of TOTAL presence; I think you and I can be excused for not living every moment in total mindfulness. Interesting also, by the way, that just as the three Hebrew words need to be overlaid perfectly to see God’s true name, the specific priest, on the correct holiday, in the exact location of the inner sanctum had to converge, and THEN the holiest Name of God would become immensely powerful.
WE can get there too. But we have to challenge ourselves a bit. I’ve been telling you about this new Ark curtain throughout the holiday, and the theme of hiddenness and discovery is VERY present here as well. The central image is Joseph’s Coat of Many Colors, but I don’t think it takes the observer long to see it’s a layered image. The outline is a coat, but then a tree is hiding within it, and a cup is hidden inside that, a bird lurks deeper still, and various other veiled symbols are embedded even further. And just as God, YHWH, is constantly hiding inside these layered Hebrew words, God is camouflaged in the curtain as well. If you look closely at the sun, or at the bases of each branch of the tree, you can see the letter Shin, which represents God, just as it does on the tefillin or the mezuzah.
On the Amud, this table I’m standing at right now, the main image is a series of branches, meant as an extension of the tree on the Ark curtain. But there are seven branches, with a little bud at the end of each, that all look an awful lot like flames. This is a nod to our sanctuary sculpture, the very 1960s, sort of Tim Burton-esque tree that is also a menorah. The table ALSO depicts a combination of tree and menorah. It is the Tree of Life, made of wood, much like Indiana Jones’ Holy Grail. I’ve written up a description of all the imagery in these two, new ritual objects, but I also hope you’ll find your own meaning, and maybe things I haven’t seen yet, perhaps even symbols Siona Benjamin, the artist, didn’t intend.
But when you look at the curtain and the table cover, remember that not only is God hidden, often in plain sight, and the only way to find God is to WANT to seek, WANT to discover, and WANT to engage. Though I also hope you’ll remember that we ourselves are often hidden. The rabbis connect the name Yom Kippur to another holiday, saying the name is actually “Yom Ke-Purim,” and when we realize how hidden we all feel, how we wear masks (both the virus ones and others to cover up scarier things inside ourselves), the connection makes sense. It isn’t just about searching for God, but about searching for ourselves as well. Be Present, be in THIS moment, right now, and use it wisely.
G’mar Chatimah Tovah - May you not only be sealed in the Book of Life… but may you seal YOURSELF in your own Book of Life as well.
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