Erev Yom Kippur 5776-2015 – Healing Relationships

Tonight, I’d like to speak about relationships and specifically about healing relationships. How do we go about healing our relationships with the divine, with other people, and with our highest selves, that part of us that expects the most and best of us? Let’s begin with a story.

The Whistle

It was late Yom Kippur afternoon, during the Ne’ilah service, the concluding service for the day. The synagogue was filled to capacity. Everyone in the village was there, praying intently. The Baal Shem Tov stood in the front of the sanctuary before the Holy Ark with all of his attention drawn toward heaven. The members of the community believed deeply in their hearts that even if their own prayers would fall short, the intensity and devotion of the great Baal Shem Tov’s prayers would make up for their own and the whole community would be blessed. “Su Shearim!” The people shouted. “Open your gates!”

At that moment a young shepherd, an orphan, was walking by the synagogue. He had just taken the sheep from the field and put them in the pen. Now, he was walking home. His family had not been particularly religious and he was not particularly knowledgeable about Judaism, yet the boy knew that this was the holiest of days. Others had told him. He wanted to experience it all. But every year, he had to work. The sheep needed tending. One could not pray and sing praises instead of caring for them! So while others went to the synagogue, Nachum, the shepherd tended to the flock.

This day, he had finished his work before sundown and decided to come to the synagogue. He had not been to a service before. He had not even been home to change from his work clothes. The sheep might not have noticed the smell, but those in the synagogue did. As he entered their midst, eyes turned from the Holy Ark, from the Baal Shem Tov, from the pages of the Machzorim and glared at the boy who came to the holiest of services dirty and smelly.

“Su Shearim!” The Baal Shem Tov chanted, but fewer and fewer voices were joining him as more and more attention was paid to the boy and more and more people were distracted as he wandered up the aisle and SAT on the top step of the bimah looking, not at the Ark, but at the Baal Shem Tov, then out at them! Mortified rumblings were growing louder.

Then suddenly, the boy took out a wooden whistle and sounded a few notes ending with a piercing shrill! The uproar grew! The Baal Shem Tov turned his head to look at the boy as two men rushed to grab his arms to carry him bodily away. “Stop!” the rabbi cried. “Stop!” “Dear friends, you have not turned, have not performed teshuvah, yet. You are too focused on your own purposes and your own ways. We have shouted our prayers with great intention to open the gates, but this boy, not aware of what we say or do, sounded a note that woke us from our slumber, opened the gates, and went straight to heaven, taking our prayers and our hopes along with his own.”

At the end of the service, the Baal Shem Tov invited the young man to join him at his table for the Break the Fast meal, an honored guest at his right hand.

[How much more focusing of our prayers on a day when we are bid to consider our mortality and to reach forth in earnestness was it to hear the words, “Call 911,” said in earnestness and to begin our service with an emotional Mishebeirach prayer?]

Imperfection

While the story of the shepherd and the whistle is about the worthiness of prayers and importance of intention and earnestness, it also reminds us of the fact that our tradition believes that God does not expect us to be perfect, to know our prayers and be able to recite them well, for our prayers to be received. The prayer that reaches God is the one offered with intentionality and fervency, not necessarily the one that is worded perfectly. Neither are we expected to be perfect in order to make an offering.

One need not look very hard at our tradition to see that even our tradition’s heroes are not perfect characters. We remember the story of Moses telling God that he has a problem speaking and we think of how that affected Moses’ ability to communicate with Pharaoh. But we forget that it did not get in the way of Moses’ communication with God. Moses doubts himself. “Why choose me? Someone who is not perfect?” we can imagine him saying. But God did choose him, imperfections and all.

And let us examine our Patriarchs and Matriarchs. How about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? None of them were exceptional parents. Abraham nearly sacrifices one son and abandons the other into the wilderness. Isaac is devoted only to Esau and blind to the needs of his other son, Jacob. Jacob favors Joseph so greatly that his siblings become extraordinarily jealous and hateful.

And the matriarchs? Sarah? How did she treat Hagar and Ishmael? She wanted them to be cast away.

Rebecca? How did she treat Esau, her eldest?

Leah? How did she treat her sister, Rachel, whom she knew wanted to marry Jacob?

Rachel? How did she treat her father, leaving his home have stolen his prized possessions, the family idols?

And shall we add in the pride-filled Joseph?

King David? The list is too long. Let’s just start with Uriah the Hittite and Bathsheba.

We are spiritually descended from people who were imperfect. They harbored anger, frustration, jealousy, pride, zealotry. They playing favorites… Yet our tradition tells us that they had relationships with the divine. We are shown that we, who succumb to many of the same sins, also can have a relationship with the divine in spite of our imperfections.

However, when life challenges us, we still doubt. We ask ourselves questions much like Moses did before the burning bush.

Questioning

Why me? What can I do? What more can I do?

Should I expect more of myself than I have become accustomed to accept?

Having transgressed, having sinned, having failed time and again…

Can I do it? Am I going to be able to meet the challenges that lie ahead for me?

If I stretch myself out,

If I yearn to reach out, to speak out,

If I step forward to try,

If I go before Pharaoh, me, not some mighty ruler with a great army, a mere mortal,

If I go back to the place and people from where and whom I have fled in fear,

If I am only myself as I always am, flawed and fragile, will I be good enough?

And often in Hillel’s words:

If I am not for myself, who will be for me?

If I am for myself, what does that mean for me?

If not now, at this moment, at this opportunity, when?

We especially ask these questions at this time of year as we look back on decisions that we have made and consider decisions we have yet to make.

Tonight, we are reminded of the generations of Jews who faced some of the hardest of challenges, many of whom were forced to make decisions that they did not wish to make, to say, “Yes,” when they very much meant, “No.”

Our Relationship with God and Ourselves

The Kol Nidrei prayer is about healing our relationship with God when we have said or done something to upset God, but we can see the prayer as it relates to how we act toward the world and ourselves as well.

Some of us have an easier time engaging in spiritual dialogue than others. The dialogue of prayer is traditionally one of relationship between an individual and God, but it can be an internal dialogue between ourselves as we are and the selves we wish to be, our higher selves. Again, much of our dialogue today involves questions and answers.

Have we sincerely made promises that we have failed to keep? Even though we tried our best? Or did we fail to give a good effort?

Have we relapsed into behaviors that we vowed to change?

Have we been too willing to abandon our convictions to make our lives easier?

Have we kept up traditions that we have promised to keep?

Have we sought out ways to make or keep Jewish traditions and practices a part of our lives?

Have we given real thought about how we live our lives and the ways in which what we do affects others?

Do we make time for things that keep us healthy? Emotionally? Physically?

Are we treating our body well?

Do we hold ourselves to high enough standards? Too high standards?

How have we done at meeting our goals?

Are we willing to commit ourselves to do better?

Will we be able to walk through the doors of the sanctuary next year feeling good about our efforts?

Healing the relationship between ourselves and God or between our actual selves and our higher selves, that part of us that expects better of us, involves admitting fault, turning, changing our direction, and seeking forgiveness. We cannot move forward in the best way carrying the baggage of disdain. Seeking forgiveness from God or from ourselves is a good beginning step. Repentance, atonement, in this regard would involve us meeting or at least sincerely trying to meet our newly elevated goals.

Our Relationships with Other People

While we are reminded that Yom Kippur does not atone for transgressions made between people, it is a time when we focus on healing our relationships with people. Those relationships impact not only our relationship with God, according to the tradition, but they certainly impact how others view us and how we view ourselves.

That said, another story.

The rabbi was an obsessed golfer, but average at best. In his regular foursomes, he rarely finished better than the third best and most of the time took more than a few more strokes than the others. Just once, he wanted to beat them. Just once, perhaps the ball would bounce just right and he’d hit a hole-in-one like they all had.

So it happened, one Yom Kippur day that the weather was just right, the sun shining bright, the wind all but absent. It was a glorious day for golf. The rabbi retreated to his office letting people know that he wished to sleep and not be disturbed until the next service time came around. But he couldn’t sit in his office on such a glorious day. He could leave. He could sneak out. Who would disturb the rabbi on Yom Kippur? They wouldn’t know. Then he snuck out of his office and went to play nine holes at the public course. Just nine holes. He didn’t have much time, but there would be hardly anyone else on the course with the Jewish members of the community having a holiday.

He’d never birdied a hole before. Even par was a goal rarely matched. So when through the first eight holes he had four birdies and four pars, the rabbi was ecstatic!

“Just wait until the people hear about this round!” he thought proudly to himself.

Then on the par 3 ninth hole, he hit his tee-shot badly. It was heading right toward the big tree behind the green. “Oh no!” the rabbi exclaimed. Just then the ball rebounded off of the giant oak tree, flew over the sand trap next to the green, bounded onto the green, bounced twice, hit the flagpole and fell straight into the cup. The rabbi shouted in joy, “A hole-in-one! A hole-in-one! Amazing!”

Somewhere up in heaven, the angels with God asked, “O Eternal one, surely you cannot reward a rabbi for leaving the synagogue and going to play golf on the holiest day of the year!”

It is said that God simply replied, “Whom can he tell?”

The joke is a meaningful one. We are reminded that sometimes what we desire most is not the accomplishment, but being able to share it and to interact with others about it. Yes, the rabbi might feel a sense of pride in himself for having done what he did, though he might later feel more guilty about it than prideful, but not being able to share it with people with whom he deeply wished to do so would be agonizing.

The rabbi in the joke obviously has the wrong priorities. Yom Kippur is a day focused on ourselves in relationship, not merely on ourselves alone.

On Yom Kippur, just as we say that God does in relation to us, we need to consider what we’ve said and done and to look at our year’s ledger. When we find red marks, things that we would consider deficits, something we owe someone else, we should seek to remedy them.

While in the service for children, we tend to stress telling others that we’re sorry, the concept in the adult service is about reaching out and seeking forgiveness with contrition. On this day, God’s gates of repentance may be open, but human beings’ gates of accepting forgiveness require our effort to open. And once we do that, once we are able to reach out to offer forgiveness, we are required to do more than that, to atone, to make amends, to try to repair the damage.

The Day of Atonement isn’t about arguing, however. It isn’t the time to debate whether or not your apology is sincere enough or your attempts to make amends good enough. Today is a time for you to turn, to change your ways. Slichah and Teshuva are about turning instead of banging heads. To use the terminology of the day, the goal is at-one-ment, making whole. And that is done between persons by healing and embracing relationships, not by winning any argument.

While the focus for most of today is on the sinner, this day reminds us of our opportunities to offer forgiveness, to accept repentance, and atonement. There is a mutuality to this process.

We cannot go through life, as Martin Buber might have put it, seeing everyone as an “it”, something to be utilized or put to a purpose, with ourselves as calculating observers of the relationship. We must understand that the other person is a “thou”, someone like we are, and we are involved. The ways we respond to others impacts us in many ways. The simplest question in this regard is “How do we want to be treated by others when we seek forgiveness?”

I have little doubt that we would want our partner in this relationship to reach out to us, accept our apology, be swift to offer forgiveness and embrace our change rather than avoid us or push us away.

It is our obligation both to try to atone and to accept a reasonable remedy by others. After all, just as we want God to be merciful and compassionate unto us, and would like other people to act that way towards us, so we must act that way toward other people.

Adonai, Adonai, El rachum v’chanun, erekh apaim v’rav chesed v’emet. Notseir chesed la-a-laphim, nosei avon va-fesha v’hata’ah v’nakei.

Adonai, Adonai, merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and truth, showing kindness to multitudes, and forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, while granting pardon.

As we ask that of God in relation to us, so we must ask that of ourselves in relation to others.

Bearing grudges and withholding forgiveness and love is what we loathe in others; let us not be guilty of those behaviors ourselves. In the coming year, may we strive to heal all of our relationships. Let us be slow to anger and swift to forgive, abounding in kindness and mercy toward one another. If we do so, we will live much happier lives and our world will be a much better place.

L’shanah Tovah tikateivu v’teichateimu.

May we all be inscribed and sealed in the book of life for a good new year.

It is Not Across the Sea – Yom Kippur Morning 5772-2011

Your soul and my soul,

How often do you sit

with someone you love

in the next room

in the next chair

and what is it

that prevents your soul

from leaping up

leaping up to say

Your soul and my soul,

aren’t they one?

aren’t we one?

that’s how I feel.

What is it that prevents you?

Instead you sit

in your own room

in your own chair

filled with longing and loneliness

and the moment passes.

From A Spiritual Life, by Merle Feld (SUNY Press) 1999, pg. 97.

Loneliness. I came across this quote by John Corry, which I think is all too true. He said that:

Loneliness seems to have become the great American disease.

I think that it is indeed. It is far too easy for us to isolate ourselves these days though we can pretend that having a thousand friends on Facebook is the equivalent of having them where we live in our daily lives. Where once we at least had to go to the local video rental place to rent a movie, already a step removed from actually attending a movie, and where we might actually run into people whom we know in the process, now we can visit sites such as Netflix through our televisions and with a simple press of a button have many more movies than were once available at any movie rental store streamed live to our television sets without ever having to leave the couch. And because many families have multiple television sets, we need not necessarily bother to agree on which movie to choose. The disagreeing party could just go into a different room and watch a different movie. Same house, separate lives.

Where once conversations were had in person or at least over the phone, now young adults simply send text messages, interacting with each other speedily for certain, but in a medium that is less personal than the now seemingly lost form of communication known as the letter. The bigger problem, and what I would like to talk about today, is that this search for ease, for things to come to us without effort and without sacrifice of any kind on our part, is rampant, not only in our use of technology, but in our personal interactions as well.

Longing for connection, it is too easy to take the easy way out. While the easy way may be to text instead of call, it can also be to sit and wait for the other to act as well. I know that I too often ask others to contact me, to email me first. Yes, I am busy and yes it is far easier to respond to an email than to remember an email address. However, being passive, not acting, may mean that I miss out on interaction with someone with whom I would love to interact, because they do not take their time to contact me. Ultimately, while we may keep this discussion at an abstract level, talking about reaching out or waiting to be reached by another, the issue is really one that is much simpler.

It is a matter of giving and receiving and our society has become one in which we expect everything to be given to us. Not only do we expect more for less expense of time, money, or effort, we may even expect that others will provide it for us entirely. We like to receive, but giving? What may not be readily apparent is that we may well like giving even more!

Which actually feels better to us? Which is more satisfying?

I think that the answer to this question is directly related to the loneliness that we feel in our lives and I am going to show you how.

Rabbi Jeff Goldwasser asked the following question in a sermon he shared with me and with other colleagues about giving:

Think about the best gift you ever got—the one you had to wait a long time to get. The one that you had really craved, and then you got it. What was it for you?

Take a moment and remember.

When I was a child, I’m sure it was some sort of action figure, perhaps a Star Wars figurine. I remember being very excited to receive an X-wing fighter and a Tie fighter from the Star Wars set for my birthday. My best friend had the Millennium Falcon and I really wanted the X-wing and Tie fighter so that we could re-enact the battle scenes from the movie. Yes, it is collectable, but a bit more than well used. A year or two later, I had moved beyond that stuff and it went into storage.

I remember, in 1984, a bit older, having a Members Only jacket and some awful pants with zippers all over them because I wanted to be cool like Michael Jackson. Have you ever seen those clothes? They had fake zippers. Fake. They were not cargo pants with useful pockets. Fake zippers. I can’t even imagine wearing those clothes today and no, not just because they would be way too small on me! Even at the time, I probably only wore them a handful of times. Why did I even want them?

A couple of years ago, I was excited to receive the Get Smart DVD set as a present from my wife, something that I had wanted for a long time. Growing up, I loved that show. One weekend soon after I got the set, I watched the first couple of DVDs full of shows, not all of them. Since then, the DVDs have pretty much been sitting on a shelf. Someday, I will have time to watch them.

Most of us can probably relate to this. There are things that we want so badly that our hearts ache. We crave them. We go out of our way to get them. And then, we lose interest or perhaps realize that we should not have wanted what we desired in the first place. Receiving something we wanted often does not feel as good as we thought that it would feel. Sometimes, as Rabbi Goldwasser notes, it may actually make us feel badly when we realize how foolish our desire had been.

Is it the same with giving? How do we feel when we give to another something that they have wanted or needed? I can tell you that as a Rabbi, I have the opportunity to offer prayers and blessings and that while it certainly feels good to receive them from others, there is nothing like seeing the impact that a little bit of caring, a few words, a hug, holding a hand, can have on someone in need of such a gift.

But I agree with my friend, Rabbi Goldwasser, who talked about giving his daughter the brand new American Girl doll she had been talking about for weeks.

He noted that, “for a parent, it’s a great feeling. It’s almost intoxicating.” Even going back to when I was little, I remember gifts and remember how I felt.

Giving really can feel better than receiving. The experience is deeper, longer, and much more satisfying. Receiving just reminds us how banal most of our desires really are. Giving lifts us up and opens our hearts. It makes us feel connected to others and connected to the best that is within us.

Waiting and hoping that the other will give and that we will receive is a problem, my friends. Not only will our receiving be less fulfilling than our giving, but we have to wait. Why wait for something upon which you may improve with a little effort?

Not only does the joy of giving most often supersede the joy of receiving, but through giving gifts, we are more likely to receive them as well. Show that you care about others and most of the time they will show they care about you. Offer love and you are more likely to receive love. It is too easy for someone who is aching for love and affection from the one she or he seeks it from to say, “If he loved me”, “If she loved me,” “she would reach out to me,” “he would give of himself to me,” “she or he would come to be with me.” So we wait to receive.

Your soul and my soul,

How often do you sit

with someone you love

in the next room

in the next chair

and what is it

that prevents your soul

from leaping up

leaping up to say

Your soul and my soul,

aren’t they one?

aren’t we one?

that’s how I feel.

What is it that prevents you?

Instead you sit

in your own room

in your own chair

filled with longing and loneliness

and the moment passes.

If we give instead of waiting to first receive, life will be better.

This Merle Feld poem was included among the texts that I studied as part of the Institute of Jewish Spirituality’s rabbinical cohort. It was not offered as advice for building relationships, nor as an argument for why we should give, though I think that it can make us think about both. It was instead offered as a way to help us think about our connection to the divine.

Many of us would like to feel a stronger connection to God, to the Jewish community, to the Jewish tradition. We, to use the symbolism of the prayer, sit in our own room, in our own chair, filled with longing and loneliness. We could, if we wished, reach out, give of ourselves, and perhaps would then receive.

Our Tradition tells us that God is waiting. In fact, we read it every year in the Yom Kippur liturgy.

On this Yom Kippur day, we read:

This is Your Glory: You are slow to anger, ready to forgive…Until the last day, You wait for them, welcoming them as soon as they turn to you.

Tradition tells us that on this day especially, we have an opportunity, that God is waiting. It would certainly be wonderful if God reached out and said “Hi,” first. Maybe, even gave us a big hug. It would probably be a bit startling. But we don’t need to take this analogy literally. The simple fact is that you get out of your spiritual life in proportion to what you invest of yourself in it. If we turn, God will turn. We reach out, God will reach out. That is what our text is saying.

If you want to feel that spiritual connection, seek it, don’t wait for it. If you want to feel a part of the community, seek that connection. If you want to connect to the divine, to reach out to God, do it. Don’t wait. Don’t just sit there in your chair letting loneliness engulf you.

Sometimes we wish for connection but we feel that a barrier exists. Perhaps our feelings were hurt in the past when we reached out, our giving was not received as we would have liked. Perhaps, we have felt that we were even pushed away, rejected. Perhaps, we felt misunderstood when we approached and the response was not what we wanted. There are many more things that could follow the word “perhaps” all of which could be our justification for why we do not now try to connect, try to give, try to care, try to love. Many reasons. But the result is that longing and loneliness are with us.

Whether we are talking about personal relationships, about our spiritual journey and connections to our religious Traditions, or about our own happiness, waiting to receive is not as much fun as receiving and receiving is not as good as giving.

This lesson is not a new one. In fact, is based upon two very ancient Jewish directives, “love your neighbor as yourself” and “do not do unto others as you would have them not do unto you.” We should give to others because we want others to give to us, not to wait to receive. To use the words of Hillel, “All the rest is commentary. Go and learn.”

But there are no words better than those in today’s Torah portion:

“It is not across the sea.”

We can reach it. We can do it. We can combat the loneliness in our lives by reaching out our hands, our voice, our prayers, our souls—and giving of ourselves.

Shanah Tovah.

May you be sealed in the Book of Life for a happy and healthy year.