In every generation, there
are monumental events for which those aware of the events at the time can
remember where we were, what we were doing, and whom we were with.
I remember where I was when
the news broke about Ronald Reagan being shot in 1981. I was with my friend,
Dan, at his house in his basement. We were playing with Star Wars toys.
I remember where I was when I
heard that the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. Just leaving the barbershop.
I can remember with clarity hearing the words repeated over and over again in
the news, “Challenger, go at throttle up.”
I remember September 11, 2001
in vivid detail. I remember feeling like another attack could happen at any
moment, perhaps right where I was, wherever I was at the time. And I can still
hear Rabbi Robert Jacobs, the longtime rabbi of Washington University Hillel,
at 93 years old, standing before the gathered crowd at a vigil that evening, saying
in a defiant voice, “We are at war.”
We remember what we did
during floods, hurricanes, snowfalls and tornados.
We also creatively remember,
with a bit of embellishment as the years go by, our connection to other events.
Some 400,000 people attended Woodstock in 1969. Some of them have no memory of
being there… But many more tell stories about what might have been true. The same
happens with sporting events.
When an event is momentous,
it is not unlikely that people will seek to remember themselves being a part of
it, for good or bad.
Sometimes, we only see
ourselves as spectators, watching what is happening around us, seeing ourselves
as apart from the entertainers, actors, or players. We’re just attendees or
people who were impacted by events.
At other times, we feel like
we’re a part of the events. We see ourselves not as watching a team, but as
being a part of the team. We don’t say, our city’s players won or our
university’s team won. We say, “We won,” even if we have nothing to do with
what the team actually did during the event. To an extent, we realize that, as
a fan, the team only represents the city or university, and not necessarily us
as individuals, even if we’re connected to them, but we often feel like they do
represent us.
Sometimes fans can be more
heavily involved with what happens on the field than the players are. They
players are playing a game. For some fans, it’s their life. When the team wins,
the fans are happy. When they suffer a crushing defeat, the fans feel crushed
themselves. There is a lengthy history of studies of how positive and negative results
of sporting events affect the family dynamics of fans, from spikes in police
reports of abusive behavior to significant increases in births about 40 weeks
later.
This isn’t only the case when
we’re watching sporting events. It can happen when we watch a good movie or TV
show or read a well written book. We enter the world with which we’re
interacting. It can feel like we’re really there and our laughter, our tears,
our sighs of relief, our hopes and fears about events on the screen or in the
pages may be as real as they would be if the events were happening around us in
real life.
For the Jewish tradition,
there isn’t a line between what we read about and what we experience and have
experienced. Our tradition teaches us that when we talk about events in ages
long past, that they happened to us and are happening to us.
Judaism believes in
timelessness. In our prayers for Chanukah, we thank God for the miracles
performed for us “Bayom hahu b’zman hazeh.” Sometimes translated, “At that time,
in this season.” But the words could easily mean, “In those days, in this
time.” Meaning, at all times, then and now.
In our Torah portion for Yom
Kippur, we are told “Atem Nitzavim,” that we are standing before God. It isn’t
that we read about what the Torah tells us happened in ancient times to our
ancestors. The Tradition tells us that we, all of us, our souls, not only those
of our ancestors, were in fact standing at Sinai. On Yom Kippur, we are
reenacting the event, once again coming before God.
In other stories, we seem to
be more like observers. This morning, we read the story of the Binding of
Isaac. We are not Abraham, feeling called to sacrifice his child. We are not
Isaac, going along with his father, questioning but never really challenging. We
are not the angel who stayed Abraham’s hand, though in the sense that we’re
rooting for a character like we do when we’re watching a movie or reading a
book, we’re certainly on the side of the angel, wanting to reach out our hand
to stay the knife.
It is somewhat difficult to
see ourselves in many of the stories in the book of Genesis. I don’t mean that
we can’t identify with aspects of the stories. We certainly can identify with
sibling rivalry, with infertility issues, with fears and hopes. But we are not
those characters.
Where we most closely
identify, perhaps, is in a word, “Hineini.”
The rabbis present Hineini as
if it is a response of enthusiasm. “Bring it on!” “Let’s go!” “I’m ready, able,
and willing!”
But it may also be a term of
inevitability, of acceptance.
When God calls, when the
universe drops something into our lap, we cannot hide, we cannot escape. Hineini
may be a response offered by someone called upon without the choice to respond
other than by acceptance and giving it their best.
It’s the response of the
people of St. Thomas, not even having remotely recovered from the devastation
of Hurricane Irma, hearing that Hurricane Maria was on the way. “Hineini.”
In our Torah portion, divine
beings call out to Abraham twice, once to announce the test and again when the
angel wishes to stay his hand as Abraham was about to proceed. Abraham complies
each time.
The first “Hineini” was
perhaps an “I have to do what???”
The second, asked by Isaac
where the lamb for the sacrifice was, this time, “Hin’ni, B’ni,” was perhaps a “Have
faith.” And the final one, the one after the angel of God calls to stay his
hand, might well have been a “What now???” Abraham did not yet know that he was
being given a reprieve.
In regard to Jacob, in
Genesis 46 that:
2 God spoke to Israel in
a vision at night and said, “Jacob! Jacob!”
“Hineini,” “Here I
am,” he replied.
3 “I am God, the God of
your father,” he said. “Do not be afraid to go down to
Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there. 4 I will go down to
Egypt with you, and I will surely bring you back again. And Joseph’s own
hand will close your eyes.”
And in regard to
Moses, in Exodus 3:
4 When Adonai saw
that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the
bush, “Moses! Moses!”
And Moses said, “Hineini,”
“Here I am.”
5 “Do not come any
closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are
standing is holy ground.” 6 Then he said, “I am
the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of
Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at
God.
7 Adonai said, “I
have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them
crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their
suffering. 8 So I have come
down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up
out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk
and honey.
God calls, Jacob and
Moses respond, “Hineini,” “Here, I am.” It seems to be an acknowledgement that
a task that must be performed is forthcoming. MUST. That seems to be the real
issue. “Hineini” seems to be the response offered by someone who realizes that
though they may be afraid, though the task may be daunting, though he or she
may feel unworthy to even make an attempt, they need to accept the challenge
before them.
We see in the story
of Moses and the Burning Bush, not only a man no doubt awed and frightened by
the flames before him and the voice of God seemingly coming from within them,
but faced with a tremendous task, going to speak to Pharaoh, and not feeling up
to the challenge. “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the
Israelites out of Egypt?”
We also have a story
that we read on Yom Kippur in which the main character, the one to whom God
reaches out, doesn’t respond “Hineini,” “Here, I am,” but instead runs away.
The point of the story of Jonah, beyond the idea that God is willing to forgive
those who seek forgiveness, the people of Ninevah, is that from certain
responsibilities, when God calls upon you, when life drops something difficult
or challenging that you must face into your life, you cannot run away. You
choice is in how you say, “Hineini,” “Here, I am,” or perhaps, “I guess, I’m
ready enough. I need to be.”
There is a prayer
said by the leader, usually the rabbi, on the evening of Rosh Hashanah, called
“Hin’ni.” The Rabbi comes before the open ark near the beginning of the service
and confesses, “Here I am, so poor in deeds, I tremble in fear, overwhelmed and
apprehensive before You, to whom Israel sings praise. Although unworthy, I rise
to pray and seek favor for Your people Israel.”
The
prayer is an acknowledgement that no leader, no rabbi, is good enough, has done
well enough, has accomplished enough, to truly deserve the task of speaking on
behalf of the community. We are all like Moses, trembling before the Burning Bush
and asking, “Who am I to take on this task?” with the certainty, not the doubt,
but the certainty, that we are flawed ourselves and the challenge is a daunting
one.
And so
today again, “Hineini.” Here I am. “Hineinu,” Here we are.
During
the High Holidays, we are not spectators. Our souls are once again wandering
through a wilderness. Before us is a burning bush with a directive to move
forward in the direction that we must go for ourselves, for our families, for
the broader Jewish community, for the Jewish people. But the message isn’t for
the whole community, nor is it just for its leader. It is for each of us
individually.
We each
have our own journeys. We each have our own challenges.
Some of us woke up one
morning and life called upon us to face a challenge, perhaps several of them,
perhaps on several mornings. Some of those challenges may have been relatively
minor. Others may seem impossible for us to meet or as with Abraham’s test, ones
we are loathe to face.
There are times in our lives
when we’re given a choice of whether to move on or to remain, to make a change
or leave things as they are. Sometimes, we have only the choice of how to deal
with new circumstances and challenges.
Today, the great shofar has been
sounded.
We are called to awaken.
We are called to take on our
tasks, to face our challenges, to return ourselves again to paths of
righteousness.
May we be prepared to do the
hard work, to go on the journey that lies ahead.
And may we find the strength
and courage within us to keep going as best we can.
Today, may our response be
“Hineini,” “Here, I am.”
L’shanah Tovah
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