Congregation Emanu-El of Westchester: Sermon Archives

Yom Kippur Morning 5768
Rabbi Wendy Pein

Don't answer this, but is there anyone in this audience who is not worried? Worried about Iraq, worried about Israel, worried about the mortgage fallout, worried about Ahmadinejad, Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, Fatah, Abbas, Musharraf, worried about British academic boycotts, the credit crunch, global warming, abortion rights, paying our bills, the national debt, outsourcing, offshoring, Russian growing beligerence, China's growing dominance...... phew its exhausting all that worrying!

Yes there is a long list of things to worry about ..... and if you like to worry don't worry, you're unlikely to run out of things to worry about.

In fact, the good news for those chronic worriers, is there has never really been a period in which there is not a lot to worry about, so rest assured, nothing is going to change that any time soon. The last 100 years was a great time for worriers. We had a global flu outbreak in the early part of the century, the first world war was devastating, the Depression looked to be a high point for worriers, but who could have guessed that it would be topped by the 2nd world war. Then there was communism, Korea, Vietnam, AIDS and of course wars, intifada's, famine, genocide and a touch of terror. For worriers there are lots of fond memories of worries past.

Which is not to say we should not worry. There is a lot of tension in our Jewish community and others in America today. This tension has good reasons and my point is not to minimize their importance. And its not to say we should not act on that worry to divert disaster and make a better world for ourselves, because Judaism certainly is all about "tikun olam" actively working to make a better world.

My point is that the events of the last century were stressful too and the people who lived through those times had to make a great life for themselves amidst the crises of their day. And the challenge remains the same for us today as it will for all future generations - how to guide our lives to a state of contentment and optimism when so many troubling issues surround us.

Judaism answers this question through its philosophy regarding day to day living. It teaches us that we were put here to live well and be happy in spite of inevitable negative events. The Hebrew word for happiness is simchah. Simhah is usually thought to mean exuberant rejoicing such as the outpouring of joy one feels at a baby naming or at a bar mitzvah celebration. But simchah can also mean happiness as a general state of being. It is a state of satisfaction, contentment, a positive attitude, and optimism toward life. It is this simchah that preoccupies Jewish thought.

Judaism is a philosophy based on action guided by the 613 mitzvoth that collectively cultivate a positive attitude toward life, finding joy through our positive interaction with others, and controlling our reaction to the pain and sorrow that life brings us.

Aristotle said it succinctly, Happiness depends upon ourselves. Jewish mystics teach that a happy person is not someone who just has the right set of circumstances. Instead, the happy person is someone who has the right attitude under any circumstance and is able to communicate that attitude to his or her soul, thereby being able to somehow either to heighten a positive experience or lessen a negative one.

The Talmud teaches us that upon death, every person will be asked questions, and how we answer these questions will determine our entrance into the world to come. These questions include:

Were you honest in business?
Did you set aside time for study?
Did you have hope?
Did you enjoy all the permitted pleasures of life? Or, why weren't you happy with those pleasures you did experience?

It seems as if saying "yes" to the last question, did you enjoy life's pleasures, would be the most simple, but many of us find it hard to partake of what the Talmud calls the "permissible pleasures" because we are somehow waiting for things to be better or waiting for prescribed times or events before we can truly enjoy life.

In the Torah, Moses himself is used as an example to warn against this tendency. At the end of his life, Moses pleads to Gd to allow him to enter the Promised Land. Moses begs, he throws himself at the mercy of Gd, "Please God, let me, I pray, cross over and see the good land on the other side of the Jordan ..." (Deut. 3:25)

Despite the many wonderful moments in Moses' life , despite how Moses helped redeem the Israelites from slavery to freedom, how he led them through the desert for 40 years, how he received the 10 commandments directly from Gd, despite all of this, Moses at this point can only see the negative before him, that he will not be able to enter the Promised Land. Gd responds to Moses' plea with frustration, "Rav Lach" , "Enough already." (Deut. 3:26)

It is as if Gd is telling Moses, You have so much, but you can't see it. Open your eyes, look beyond this isolated incident of disappointment. "Rav Lach".....Enough already ... Gd is insisting that we pay attention to what is good .. and that's the wonder of the Torah, as relevant every day as it was back then when Moses was leading the Israelites.

It is Moses again, as we read in the Torah portion each Yom Kippur, who transmits this message from Gd, of how to face life, to the Jewish people. In it we read of how Moses directs the Jewish people to, "Choose life... so that you and your children may live." (Deut. 30:19) Judaism directs us to choose a life of optimism, to choose to appreciate the good today and every day regardless of how imperfect our world may be

I once spoke to a man who had a very difficult childhood. He did not receive much love from his mother and had only a slightly better relationship with his father.

From a young age, he was sent away from home for the entire summer, whether he was ready for it or not. Even when he was an adult, the relationship with his parents never really improved. And yet, he is one of the funniest, warmest, and happiest people I have ever met. When I asked him how he overcame the emotional obstacles in his life, he simply said, "I just never let it get me down. I found love and comfort through my wife and creating the kind of family that I always wanted." By concentrating on the positive, this man created his own happiness. He enjoyed the "permitted pleasures of life", his family, his health, and his profession and this helped him put the painful, problematic parts of his life into perspective.

The Hasidic masters taught that we achieve happiness through our positive interaction with others. Think about this for a moment. If we all truly came to recognize and internalize that we create our own happiness by making other people happy, how might our lives be different?

When we meet someone who makes us uncomfortable, instead of turning away, we might pause and seek out the goodness, the unique special quality in that person ,(Rabbi Nachman of Breslov), for our tradition reminds us, "There is not a person or a thing that does not have its' unique role in the world (Pirke Avot 4:3). Imagine this thought experiment. If we could bring ourselves during every interaction to think - that the way I engage this person - will affect my own happiness, how might our behavior be modified?

During our morning prayers, we recite "these are obligations without measure....". One of these obligations is to rejoice with the bride and groom at a wedding. A strange obligation on the surface, but one infused with a far deeper meaning. Picture, if you will, a Jewish wedding scene. During the dancing of the hora, the bride, groom and close family first begin to dance in a circle together. But the circle eventually expands. More and more people join the circle, and the more people that join, the merrier and happier the party. Through its instruction to rejoice with the bride and groom, we are taught to bring other people into our intimate world and extend the circle of happiness so that our own happiness may be increased.

Now, return, if you will, to the vision of the Jewish wedding and people dancing. As joyous as the music and dancing may be, there are people still standing outside the circle, regardless of the outreaching hands trying to pull them in.

If we are honest with ourselves, truly honest, many of us also choose to remain on the outside of life's experiences and don't participate. Why - what are we waiting for? A better wedding? Or are we just disinclined to exert ourselves, to put ourselves out for the others happiness. But what we fail to realize it is OUR happiness that is being compromised along with that of the bride and groom and every day we continue in many ways to remain outside the circle, arms folded.

How often do we say, "no," to others, "no," to the invitation of hospitality, "no" to the gesture of kindness, "no" to the opportunity of joining in for no significant reason other than it has become a habit to decline, to stand apart. Judaism teaches us to behave otherwise. These are our obligations without measure .... Honor father and mother, perform acts of kindness daily , to attend the house of daily study, to console the mourner, to make peace when there is strife, and to rejoice with bride and groom. In other words, we create our sense of happiness when we participate in this world and create happiness for others.

In addition to participation, perspective is the other key to happiness. Hasidic thought teaches us that perfection does not exist, and that pain and pleasure are both necessary aspects of life. We choose what to focus on. Perfection, as we know is a myth, it is unattainable. And yet some of us still expect it, and this can poison our mind and our soul. Don't we all know someone who continually strives for and craves perfection, and aren't they continually disappointed - disappointed with their spouse, their parents, and their friends. They have an ideal in mind driven by the values of a consumer society, rather than a people society, desiring to purchase perfection instead of accepting and appreciating things and people for what they are. Striving for perfection in all areas of your life is a recipe for misery. Believing that the imperfect spouse, family, job, house and friends are just perfect for you, is the recipe for contentment.

Of course, as we all well know and must acknowledge, there are many of us who face much greater pain than simply dealing with a life of imperfection. When I sit and talk to those who truly suffer from chronic illness or emotional pain, they rarely vocalize their suffering or complaints. Instead, if someone is well enough, they will tell me about their lives, what they did, where they lived, and who they loved. Clearly grief and pain are undeniable facts of human existence, but it does seem that those who choose life and have framed a positive perspective are able to endure the pain more easily.

There is a story of a young student, who walked with crutches, and yet was known to be particularly friendly and optimistic. He won many academic honors and the respect of his classmates.

One day a classmate asked the cause of his deformity. When the young invalid said briefly, "Infantile paralysis", the friend questioned him further. "With a misfortune like that, how can you face the world so confidently?" "Oh," replied the young man on crutches, "the disease never touched my heart."

Moses in his final sermon to the Jewish people sums up our choices about life with these words, "See I set before you this day, life and goodness..." (Deut. 30:15) And this remains true today - life is good if we embrace the wisdom of these words in the Torah

The signs are that the 21st century will not be a carefree one, but rather filled with problems and events that may cause us to continue worrying Yes we face serious and unanswered problems and crisis that may not easily be resolved. For some of us, Israeli politics, world events and personal obstacles are overwhelming and cause us to feel a sense of paralysis about our lives. Needless to say, most of the events around us that worry us, we can't control. All that we can control is how we respond to those events and if we seek out the good in each other, support each other and ignore the flaws in each other, relish the good times, fix what we can fix and let go of what we can't, we will get through it all and, who knows, we may just enjoy the journey in spite of it all.