Congregation Emanu-El of Westchester: Sermon Archives

EREV ROSH HASHANAH - 2002

Verses from the High Holyday Prayer Book

"On Rosh Hashanah it is written
on Yom Kippur it is sealed
Who shall live and who shall die
Who shall see ripe age and who shall not
Who shall be secure and who shall be driven
Who shall be tranquil and who shall be troubled
On Rosh Hashanah it is written
On Yom Kippur it is sealed

The moon peered from behind the wall of the old city of Jerusalem contemplating whether it was safe to rise from its hiding place. The streets where Solomon and David once walked were silent; too silent. No one wished to venture out when I was in Israel in mid March. Suddenly a sound pierced the night and ambulances, army jeeps, police careened around the corner. One block from where I stood, in a quiet residential area of Jerusalem, a terrorist explosion had destroyed the Moment Cafe and killed 11 Israelis.

On Rosh Hashanah it is written
On Yom Kippur it is sealed
Who shall live and who shall die

This was the refrain as I stood in Jerusalem --- one block removed from the site of death -Jerusalem, where September 11th can occur any day. And at that moment I grasped the fears that have obsessed Americans over the past year.

Since September 11 the world of the American and the world of the Jew has been enveloped by uncertainty. As Americans our faith in the safety of living in this country has been shaken and many have asked, still ask, where next? What next? As Jews, whether in Israel, or reading the news from afar we wonder about the dream of Zion --- will it survive.

On Rosh Hashanah it is written
On Yom Kippur it is sealed
Who shall live and who shall die

How has our world changed since September 11th? I am not certain it has - Terror in one form or another has always stalked us, but certainly, we feel less secure. Not only because of September 11th. How will we be affected by a faltering economy? Is anti-Semitism on the increase? Will those who govern embroil us in a perhaps ill-founded war.

And within our personal psyche many of us are troubled.

Loss of a loved one, a doctor's word tormenting our sleep in the quiet hours of early morning, families severed. Uncertainty takes many forms. Terror stalks. Where will we find safety in the year that lies ahead?

On Rosh Hashanah it is written
On Yom Kippur it is sealed
Who shall be secure and who shall be driven
Who shall be tranquil and who shall be troubled

And the true existential anguish is that neither you nor I know what is written and what will be sealed. That is the human condition. With all of our desire for control of tomorrow, we can not know how the days, the months, the years will unfold. We can not know --- and that is terrifying. But life does not offer guarantees.

Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav taught that the world is a very narrow bridge on which there is no stability. A suspension bridge swinging between where we are now and where we will be. Each new place, new change creates fear but we cross over in spite of our fear; for if we relinquish hope to despair then we deprive life of all meaning.

I do not like the ocean. I prefer a quiet lake in the Adirondack Mts. but I have friends who prefer the ocean and this summer I found myself standing in the rough waters of the Mediterranean. The waves rushed in. To confront their fury I dug my toes into the sandy bottom --- intent on holding fast against the breaking waves. But slowly, steadily the waves approached, receded, approached, receded and the sand gradually slipped away from beneath my feet. Eventually I lost my balance and scrambled back to momentary safety on the edge of the sea. Then, once again I dug in, only to fall a second time. "Dive into the waves, Dan," my friend called "Dive. It's calm once you swim beyond the waves." But I resisted.

Secretly I warned the waves to cease but of course they did not --- so, finally I dove, battled the waves and emerged into calmer seas.

There are many times in the course of a lifetime when our footing seems to slip from under. But if we do nothing, if we permit the waves to continue to batter us, if we remain paralyzed then we destroy the human spirit and extinguish first hope, then life. Our environment changes and if we do not evolve with that environment we will not survive - physically, emotionally.

Most of us fear change. This thought is beautifully expressed in a poem by Robert Frost entitled Reluctance.

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.
The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
And the feet question "Whither?"
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

How difficult it is to bow and accept the end of a love or a season. How difficult it is to see the landscape of lower Manhattan or the landscape of our lives crumble. But, until we accept the inevitability of change, and prod ourselves to adapt to that change, we can not move forward.

In his novel The Fall of the Year Frank Howard Mosher relates a conversation between the narrator, a young man also named Frank who had always assumed he would be a priest and his religious mentor, Father George. Father George, once a whiskey runner, and Frank share a love of baseball.

The episode begins

"Tell me a story," I said. "About your whiskey-running days." Father George laughed. "You've always loved stories, haven't you, son. Hearing them, reading them, writing them. Maybe that's what you ought to do for a living. Write."

Frank protests that he was destined to be a priest.
Father George smiled. "When it comes to your profession, son, you were looking for a fast ball down the middle. Something straightforward. But God tripped you up and threw you a curve on the outside corner instead."
"So what should I do?"
"What I taught you to do a long time ago. Go with the pitch."
To go with the pitch; to make the most of what life gives us, perhaps that is the secret permitting us to cross the narrow bridge of uncertainty and eventually find safety.

Several months ago I visited a tiny village in Eastern Turkey on the border with Iran. The village is called Haran and is constructed of beehive shaped mud homes. I stood in a courtyard where women kneeled on the dusty ground and molded cakes of dung to be used in outdoor ovens. A donkey cart creaked along the dirt road, pausing to permit a shepherd to pass with his flock of sheep. A primitive pastoral village. But Haran was not any village. No not any village for, according to the book of Genesis, Haran was the home of Abraham.

I closed my eyes and then, as if in a whisper I heard words ---- words that I knew from the Bible. A whisper, like the wind blowing through the tamarisk tree. "Abram, Lech Lecha. Abram get thee out of this village. Leave your father's house and go to the land that I will show you." Suddenly the words roared. "Lech Lecha. Go Abram. You can no longer remain in this place. Go to a land that I will show thee."

The thunder of God's voice increased, although the sky was a deep blue and the sounds reverberated in Abraham's head. "But, God, God," Abram pleaded falling to his feet. "God, I don't want to move on. No God, No." But Abram was powerless in the face of God.

"So" according to Genesis, "Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him --- and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran --- and they went to the land of Canaan."

How has the Jew survived in the midst of constant travail. How? Because, since the time of Abram, Jews have ventured forth whether from Haran, the Crusades, the Inquisition, Pogroms, September 11th, economic problems, personal duress. Since the time of Abram we have understood that life is never certain. At one time God has commanded that we move forward --- at another time it is an inner voice challenging us to overcome fear and inertia and seek a new land. We are never sure when our journey may lead --- we may be hesitant to confront the future but, too often we do not have a choice. Stasis is paralysis. Stasis is death.

The Israeli political theorist Yaron Ezrahi wrote: "Every time I walk in Jerusalem I know that a car may blow up next to me. But I still go out, because life without affirmation is no life at all."

Life without affirmation is no life at all. I hope, I pray that if September 11th did change our life we may cull from the ruins a spark that increases the wonder of our existence. Yes, life has been uncertain, in so many ways, --- and always will be - but life is sacred --- and the only antidote to death, to loss, to insecurity is to live even more fully --- to accept the risks.

For on Rosh Hashanah it is written:
On Yom Kippur it is sealed
Who shall see ripe age and who shall not
Who shall live and who shall die
Who shall be secure and who shall be driven
Who shall be tranquil and who shall be troubled.

As we enter a New Year we pray for life, for ripe age, for security and for tranquility.