Sermons

Yom Kippur – September 28, 2009

In sharing events that occurred during my years at Congregation Emanu-El of Westchester the following episode may seem minor – unless you happen to be a Rabbi … a Rabbi with a sense of whimsy. It occurred on a day of powerful storms in Westchester County. The heavens trembled. Lightning flashed. This backdrop is crucial.

I had wandered into the sanctuary and on my pulpit – right about here, I saw a deep blue object. I conjectured that a particle of sky had fallen from above. Closer inspection revealed a phone. Not just an ordinary phone. No. it seemed to emit a mystical aura and I knew, I just knew that after years serving faithfully as a Rabbi my prayers had been answered. The phone had been placed there by an emissary from above and I would be granted a private conversation with God. From God's pulpit to mine.

Finally, the one on one I always sought. The setting and climate conditions were favorable. After all, when Moses ascended Mt. Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments hadn't there been the sound of thunder and the flash of lightening? The exact same acoustic and visual effects of the day under discussion. Now, someone may say, as was said many years ago in a vice presidential debate, "Dan, you're no Moses," but at that moment all semblance of humility had departed. I was so excited by the possibility of a conversation with God, that, I admit, I might have stretched the world of make believe.

Unfortunately, a closer inspection of the phone revealed only a blue plastic phone, the kind you buy at any Toys R Us. A flimsy cord, extended from the phone and made its way in front of the ark, across the pulpit to the Cantor's pulpit where a similar blue plastic phone stood. This was not a hot line to God – only to the Cantor which, all things considered, is not bad. Not bad at all. Maybe we could sing to one another! Then I remembered. The phones were props for the next Sunday's Religious School Purim Play. Once more my one on one with God had been postponed.

I was embarrassed. Why? Because I had expected the word of God to come from a blue plastic phone? Not at all. God is everywhere, even in a plastic phone. But the conceit that I could speak directly with God – well, that is the height of chutzpah. To speak with God? To speak with God when we have sufficient problems communicating with one another.

And with this revelation I realized an "Ah Hah" moment. For a Rabbi an Ah Hah moment is defined as that instant when he, or she stumbles on a sermon topic. And, what more fitting sermon topic than the importance of communication in today's world, on every level, from nations to individuals.

So that plastic phone led me to musings on communication --- ideas, I hope, that I will communicate to you today.

What is communication? Shema, Yisrael. Hear O Israel. To hear. To listen. Have you ever found yourself drifting in a conversation? Not listening. I remember the day when my dinner partner was speaking to me, with great intensity, about the New York Giants. For that is the only way to speak about the New York Giants. And while he spoke I was contemplating a course I was preparing on the Book of Job and why the innocent suffer. Suddenly my partner asked my opinion.

"About what?" I asked.

"About the Giants of course. Weren't you listening?"

Trying to recover after my obvious fumble I asked "Are they suffering?"

Well, on this occasion failing to hear was not serious – aside from the sin of neglect. But there are times when it is important to hear --- to really listen when a child is troubled. When one we love needs our complete attention. When an acquaintance wants to know you are there. When those in need cry out, and there are so many in need. So many. You may not have the answers. But to be there for those who feel alone, bereft, cut off from their world, that may be sufficient. To simply be there. But often we are in our self-absorbed world – or too busy.

The author Adam Gopnick, in a delightful essay, he wrote of his 3 ½ year old daughter Olivia's imaginary friend Charlie Ravioli. Olivia holds her toy cell phone up to her ear and talks into it "`Ravioli? It's Olivia – It's Olivia. Come and Play?" Her voice falls. "Okay. Call me. Bye.'" Then she snaps the phone shut, and sadness envelopes the child. Her father asks why? Olivia shakes her head and explains "I always get his machine." Gopnick speculates, "What kind of an imaginary friend is that? I mean why have a friend you create, only to find they are not there."

Little Olivia's frustration reaches a peak one day when she calls Charlie Ravioli and reaches --- his assistant! Who would ever create an imaginary friend, who is never there, with an imaginary assistant? Only a 3 ½ year old child who in many ways reflects the adult setting. Those of us searching. For one who may not be there.

For Gopnick, Olivia's unreal world is not really unreal. He writes, "My wife recalls a moment last fall when she got a telephone message from a friend asking her to check her e-mail apropos a phone call she needed to make vis-à-vis a fax they had both received asking for more information about a bed they were thinking of buying from Ireland online and having sent to America by Federal Express – a grand slam of incomplete communication." At this point I must confess. I am called a Luddite. I don't understand or embrace technology. Friends ask what I intend to do when I retire. Write a masterpiece? Travel around the world? Become a famous photographer? No, when I retire I want to learn to type, which may take a lifetime – but if I am successful then, at least, I can reply to my e-mail --- that rather impersonal form of communication where the visual is absent, and you can't hear the person, gauge the nuances or see the gestures which brings flavor to life.

But I will surrender to e-mail. That is my confession on Yom Kippur. So we don't communicate. Or we communicate from a distance. For instance there is the mother who calls her children to dinner, each child in their separate bedroom upstairs, by e-mailing them.

And then there is the cell phone. That omniscient, omnipresent cell phone that emerges at any moment to destroy the pauses, the silence that underscore life. And today, when, as a part of our service we read the words "We bow our head," I wonder if occasionally we bow the head in prayer or to pick up a text message.

An article in the Jerusalem Post related a news item of a woman in Jerusalem who was driving erratically and weaving from side to side. When stopped by the police she explained she was speaking on two cell phones, one in each hand, and steering with her elbows. Certainly an acceptable defense.

On a Sunday in the middle of August, driving home from Brant Lake, I listened to a broadcast of the final movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, the triumphant Ode to Joy, the words of the German poet Friederich Von Schiller. "Freude, schoner, gotterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium." Joy, joy, daughter of Elysium. My favorite symphony.

When the final note of the 9th resonates I am always moved and pause to meditate on the power of the symphony. But not on that beautiful Sunday. Immediately after the conclusion the announcer, in a gravelly voice, interrupted with a comment: "Listening public, you have just heard one of the most popular themes drawing people to their cellphones. More individuals program the 9th Symphony as their ringtone than any other piece of classical music."

Beethoven had been downsized to a cell phone ring. And I thought: how easily we interrupt the flowing symphony of our days by the distractions that threaten to take over.

A second reflection on communication. Usually we speak with words --- but it is not always that way – or cannot be. Over the summer I was asked to officiate at the wedding of a deaf couple, the son of friends at Brant Lake. I had never ventured into that world and faced the moment with great anticipation but also deep trepidation. How could I communicate with people who could not speak, or hear --- at least not words.

The service was to be signed and as the bride came down the aisle she signed to the groom's father who was walking besides her: "Jim, is there music playing?" Of course there was. But she couldn't hear. What a poignant moment for those of us who too often take the music of life for granted --- and in so doing, fail to hear the wonderful melody of the gifts we possess --- the beautiful sounds of those we love, of the world around us. At the wedding ceremony the sound of waves lapped the shore, and I spoke, about birch trees standing tall by the lake. The interpreter signed with vivid images --- readily understood by all of us watching. The sweetness of the ceremony was intensified for me, for the guests, because there were sounds and pictures.

Then it was time for the vows. I asked, "Robert, do you take Suzanne to be your wife? Suzanne – do you take Robert to be your husband?"

And, straining, sounds emerged from the couple. Not sounds I could understand but a much more meaningful expression - the language of love, visible in a joy surging up from their depths. They were not speaking to the world or to the congregation. They were speaking to one another. They could not hear but they heard and expressed the mystical language of friendship, of compassion, of love. Where is love found? Not necessarily in the words we say. It is the still small voice imprinted on the heart, revealed in a smile, a tear, the touch of a hand.

At that wedding of the deaf I heard so much --- from people who could not hear.

Finally a bittersweet moment --- and a question. How do we communicate when we are separated? The inevitable partings that mark our lives. How do we communicate when it is necessary to let go? A child leaves for college? Friends go their separate ways? A chance acquaintance disappears – before we ever really knew him. Knew her. Death severs a deep bond. There are many ways of leaving. Many ways of letting go. And what is left? Possibly I can answer through the story of a friendship between a Rabbi and a Nun. The Nun's name was Sister Mary Campion, in my early years a frequent guest at our High Holy Day services. You have heard me speak of her. Sister Campion plays a beloved role in my life for it was she who first invited me to teach at School of the Holy child where I have taught for approximately four decades.

One day the Sister visited me at the Temple. I was about to depart on a Sabbatical. Sister Campion initiated the conversation.

"Rabbi, I am advanced in years. Soon a day will come when I will not be here. When that time comes would you deliver a eulogy at my funeral?"

I responded with an attempt at levity "Sister, I would be honored, but I don't need any honors for years to come."

Then I left on my Sabbatical and a hike on the Milford Trek in New Zealand. Near the end of the trek we encountered a fierce storm.

Late in the day the storm tired and sunlight illuminated the surrounding mountains. Leaving the lodge I heard the voice of the guide. "Dan, come here. This might interest you since I understand you are a clergyman. Look at that mountain peak. We call it the Sleeping Nun. Can you see?" A stark rock outcropping with the profile of a face, dominated the scene. He continued, "And swooping down, just behind the head is a tract of snow. The bare rock, that's the nun's face, the snow resembles her veil. Yes?" I nodded. Indeed, over the centuries the force of nature had chiseled the face of a reclining nun. There for all time. Indelible. Towering above the valley on the Milford Trek.

"Now watch," the guide continued. "Watch as the sun sets."

Slowly the sun began to descend. The nun, immortalized in rock, turned to light pink, to a red hue, then purple-black and as the sun disappeared, the nun was absorbed by the darkness of night.

The guide spoke, his voice respectful, even reverential. "She is asleep.

The sleeping nun. Good night, Sister. Good night."

The following morning we set off on the final stretch of the Milford Trek. The swollen streams had returned to their proper level and in early afternoon the cathedral of evergreens blocking out the light opened onto the wide expanse of Milford Sound. Boarding small ferries we crossed over, but as everyone left the boat, a middle age man wearing a yellow slicker, a face like parchment hardened by the seasons, hair windblown, inquired. "Is there a Daniel Wolk?" I stepped forward. Carrying a slightly watermarked sheet of paper in his hand the New Zealander introduced himself as manager of the lodge on Milford Sound.

"Sir, this fax came today. I believe it is for you."

Unfamiliar handwriting filled one side of the shiny thin sheet. It was from Sister Campion's nephew.

January 21, 1995
Dan,

Last night Sister Mary Campion died, peacefully and comfortably in her sleep. The letter, notifying me of Sister Campion's death has faded, the ink absorbed by the fax paper. But the image remains clear, a majestic mountain on the South Island of New Zealand, a Sleeping Nun and a friend whose spirit never slept. When I hold that sheet of paper I am amazed at the power of memory. She has not left.

Sister Mary Campion had died, in her sleep, at the same time as I stood at the foot of the mountain known as the Sleeping Nun. Since I could not be with her she had come to me and I knew we would always communicate, not through the power of words but through the power of memory. For memories never die. Hear O Israel, The Lord our God, The Lord is One. Hear. Listen. And if, as I believe, the Lord our God resides in each of us for we are indeed made in the image of God then may we forever hear one another. May we listen. To words. If they exist. And if they do not then to the unspoken melodies emerging from the heart and finally, finally, when the inevitable occurs we bring back our loved ones through the warmth of memories. And so we become one, we communicate, with those who seem absent yet are very near. As, together, we proceed into a new day.