Friday, October 3, 2014

Kol Nidre - God is What We Need

Once, there were these two brothers.  They were the kind of brothers that, when it suited them, they got along pretty well.  They were two peas in a pod, but usually in troublesome ways.  They weren’t evil, by any stretch, they were like Dennis the Menace, but in stereo.  Jesse and Brian were their names, Jesse the older brother would of course pick on Brian, and they fought too.  But most often, they were scheming and creating trouble for school teachers, Shabbat school teachers, their neighbors, coaches and especially their mother.  Jesse and Brian were known throughout their whole circle, their whole community as the mischievous and trouble-making boys.  It had evolved way past the point of embarrassment for their mother, Barbara, often throwing up her hands, and now to the realization that something needed to change.  Barbara, a school administrator, knew something needed to change because her boys were not understanding consequences, they needed to learn that while pranks and their shenanigans were fun, bringing laughter to many, they often embarrassed or even insulted others. 

Barbara had tried the local school counselor, she had worked with the boys’ coaches and even her local rabbi.  One day, when Jesse and Brian were about eleven and nine, her Rabbi suggested his colleague in the next suburb down the highway.  He said, you know Rabbi Ana down the road is really fabulous with youth.  She has a real knack for speaking to their reality, getting through to them both when fun and when serious.  Barbara thanked her Rabbi for the suggestion, made the call to Rabbi Ana and had an appointment for the boys the following week.  The truth was, this next suburb was only about a mile from their home and Rabbi Ana’s synagogue even closer.  Jesse and Brian’s mother told them they were going to meet with a famous rabbi, one who would help their family, the whole community, show the boys what matters most.  Barbara told them she had finally had enough and it was time for a change…that something must be done.  She put them in the car, drove them to the synagogue, to Rabbi Ana’s office.  Rabbi Ana chatted with Barbara for a few minutes and they agreed that Brian, the younger boy would meet with her first.  She invited Brian into her office and asked him to sit in a chair, in the middle of the room.  The Rabbi pulled up a chair and sat right in front of Brian.  It was silent for a moment, but it seemed like an eternity to Brian, who remember is only nine years old.  Finally, Rabbi Ana asked Brian in a quiet voice, “Where’s God?”  Brian stared back in silence.  Rabbi Ana asked again a bit more stern and without the contraction, “Where IS God?”  Still, Brian sat in silence and Rabbi Ana, growing impatient, straightened up in her chair and asked in a stern and authoritative voice, “Where IS GOD?” 

Brian sat for a split second, then jumped up and bolted for the door.  He glanced at his brother in the Rabbi’s waiting area as he ran out of the office area, out of the synagogue and down the street, one right turn onto Middlebelt Road and he kept running until he reached his own neighborhood.  Finally, his running slowed to a quick walk as he was panting and ran up to his room and into the closet, shutting the folding doors on himself.  When Jesse, his brother, arrived home a short time later, he began looking for Brian and knew just where to look.  He went right to his brother’s closet, slid the door open and crawled inside.  “What happened!  What did that Rabbi say?  What did she do?”  “Brian, Brian, what happened!”  He responded in quick bursts of words as he was still panting.  “Jesse…we’re in…B-I-G…trouble.” 

“God’s missing…and they think we took him!”

Pretty clear that Rabbi Ana was just beginning the conversation, attempting to lay the groundwork for a sense of conscience, for a sense of accountability.  Yet, for Brian, it was all about God missing.  For many of us, there are times, times during the year when we feel that God is missing too in our lives and in our world. 

This anecdote and a few others I am about to share explore many different views.  I hope that you find yourself somewhere in these words, in these stories resonating if not with something you hold on to, something you believe, then something that is opposite, or perhaps sheds light on a feeling, an experience or a perspective you know.

Rabbi Ed Feinstein tells a story about a woman, Leah, who came into his office, having made an appointment weeks earlier, and her opening volley is, “Rabbi, you know I don’t believe in God.”  And then she continues the litany of everything wrong and challenging in her world.  She shares, “You know that not only have I been divorced, but my second husband died only a year after we were married.  My son won’t talk to me, he feels I tried to replace his father.  My step-children won’t speak to me thinking I’m a black widow.  That is just my family, the job isn’t much better.  I’m a glorified project manager whose expected to manage other project managers.  No one gives me any respect there either.  And now, although its not terminal, I have chronic migraine problems…its quite debilitating when they come.”  She paused to catch her breath as the Rabbi listened and then with a deep sigh saying, “Rabbi…why is God doing this to me?” 

A few years ago, I was standing on the deck at Edgewood, having just celebrated Havdalah with a Bar Mitzvah family.  A non-Jewish grandmother comes up to me as we are both appreciating the view of the West Shore and she says, “I don’t understand how anyone can NOT believe in God when we look at something like this.”  As the light continued to fade over the Crystal Range I responded, “You know, I am not sure if it is that they don’t believe in God, it is simply they don't believe in the God they think you mean, when you say God.”

We all have different concepts.  The one that Brian and Jesse stole, the one that Leah doesn’t believe in and then again the one that she does.  The Creator of the Universe or the Source of Life.  The Maker of Heaven and Earth or the Divine Judge, Counsel and Arbiter carrying out divine punishment.  For some of us, God is Nature - the vast model of creation around us all the time and for others something that is solely human created, just an idea.  However, at this time of year, whether its divine forgiveness or human that we are seeking, whether it is the sense of community or a sense of quietude we yearn for, whether traditional believer or atheist, God is what we need God to be. 

On Yom Kippur, during the Yamim Noraim - these Days of Awe - we are confronted with a very clear illustration of God.  It has been shared before, that timeless image of the Book of Life and God inscribing names.  Paint for yourself that picture, a God acting in our world by sitting in a cabin far off into the wilderness, snow flakes falling outside, and God opening this giant book of life, handling a human sized quill, dipping it in a sink sized inkwell and recording our deeds.

The Israeli writer, Etgar Keret recently wrote, “Yom Kippur was always my favorite holiday… Maybe it’s because Yom Kippur is the only holiday I know that, because of its very nature, recognizes human weakness.  …on Yom Kippur we’re not a heroic dynasty or a people, but a collection of individuals who look in the mirror, are ashamed of what demands shame, and ask forgiveness for what can be forgiven.” 
 
When we confront this, on this day, the day that brought us here, we are staring in the mirror, yes at our ourselves, but also at our concept of this judging and punishing divinity.  The images conjured up by the liturgy alone present this image of that God in the cabin, with the giant book and quill.  Look just at that central, and problematic for many, piece of our liturgy:  Unetaneh Tokef.  B’Rosh Hashanah Yikateivun, Uv’Yom Tzom Kippur Yichateimun - On Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed, how many shall pass on and how many shall come to be, who shall live and who shall die.  You know the language, enough to create nightmares for young ears, to bring tears to those with recent losses and to stir those to whom life has been, well, kind.  It is this depiction of God that serves as the umbrella image, the image of the God that Jesse and Brian took and the one that, while Leah doesn’t believe in God, the God that is causing so much distress in her life.  The title of this piece of liturgy, Unetaneh Tokef, gives us an important perspective on not only this piece, but the theology it is espouses.  Those opening lines, Let us cede power.  And to what are we ceding that power?  Well, as difficult as this God view is, and as troubling as the God as, author of the Book of Life may be, the middle part of this prayer expresses truth.   “Imagine the text…without the first and last lines.  The entire passage is a list of questions.  And the questions are not rhetorical.  No believer and no atheist, no scientist and no magician knows the answers.  Any of those things might happen.  In fact, they will happen,” wrote Helen Plotkin.  But we do have the first and last lines.  So is this the God we need?  Is this the God that is missing?  Is this to whom, or to what we direct our repentance, prayer and charity in order to temper the severity of the decree? 

If this is really the Divine, the one that Jesse and Brian took, or the one that Leah doesn’t believe in yet is causing so much distress in her life, what does that mean for us?  It means we must question our role in the plot of our own lives.  And no, this is not about free will versus determinism, but rather how we handle the arbitrary nature of some things in our lives, and what its mean for how we understand God.  To what must we cede power and what remains for us to control are the questions we must answer at this season.  While many are yearning for the clear-cut answer about a divinity that judges, punishes and rewards, it turns out that the lofty liturgy of the Unetaneh Tokef, and all of the Yamim Noraim, aren’t so clear-cut.  To understand God and our relationship with divinity, at this season, and throughout the year, we must dig into the treasure trove of Judaism.

In the Talmud lives a troubling, yet enlightening, story.  It reminds us of the great mitzvah, commandment, that children ought to always remember - Honor your father and mother, thus you will live long and endure.  You see, it is one of the rare cases when a command comes, written with, its reward - long life.  A father and his son, the story goes, are walking along.  As they stroll, the father notices a nest, with a bird and eggs, in a nearby tree.  The father, recognizing a great teachable moment, says to his boy,  you see that nest, go up that ladder and retrieve those eggs.  Remember, he reminds his son, it says in Torah that you must shoo away the mother bird first, thus you will live long and endure.  Another mitzvah with the reward written in Torah.  So the boy, seizing the opportunity to fulfill both of these commandments, grabs the ladder, climbs up, shoos away the mother bird, collects the eggs and starts making his way down the ladder.  As he is halfway down, the ladder breaks and the boy falls and dies.  The rabbis, after telling the story, debate how this could have happened.  They wonder how could he not receive the reward of both commandments.  One rabbi says he was thinking idolatrous thoughts, and another responds, that wouldn’t have supplanted the reward of the commandments.  Another pipes in and says, well he was thinking about sinful deeds, and to that the same response.  As the debate continues, finally, Rabbi Eliezer says, סולם רעוע הוא - the ladder was rickety.  Rabbi Eliezer teaches us that God does not work in these ways, at least not directly.  We must take responsibility for our lives and not rely on miracles, or anything to change, unless we do it ourselves.  In other words, so what if you are about to do a great deed, a life-changing mitzvah, if you don’t look out for yourself, you could be in danger.  This God, or this belief about God that our rabbis describe urges us to take responsibility.  It charges us to be the master of our lives and our world.  It might be that God cares for our souls and nurtures the spirituality within, but ultimately we must care for our bodies and our world.

In one of the great moments in Torah, the Burning Bush, God and Moses are chatting.  Well, it probably wasn’t so informal.  And, as we know, Moses was quite taken a back when he saw that sight and heard the voice.  Moses, needing some understanding of why this bush is speaking and what this voice is, asks, “When I come to the Israelites and say to them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?”  God responds, “אהיה אשר אהיה - I will be what I will be.” 

So, think this through with me for a moment.  I come to your town and say:  Pack your things and we’ll get out of here, to have a better life.  You, rightfully, respond:  Well, who are you?  Who sent you?  I respond:  I will be what I will be, sent me????

Yet, when we think about that depiction of God from our liturgy of this season, and throughout the year this works; when we think about the God not acting in our world, leaving our well-being, at least physically, mostly in our control, and when we consider the ebb and flow of our evolving views - this is the perfect name for God.  God is what we need God to be.  If we are non-believers, in a space of atheism, God is non-existent, something others relate to.  When we need a sense of comfort, a blanket over our shoulders for warmth and a sense of protection, God is the source of compassion in others.  At times of injustice, when we feel the need to respond to suffering, God is our conscience, the inspiration to rise up and make a change.  When we look out at our beautiful surroundings, especially here in Tahoe, and recognize the vastness, the majesty of nature - all those things not created by us humans - and discover awe, God is nature.  God will be what God will be. 

CONCLUSION:  Understanding that God, whichever description, is what we need makes us human.  In other words, our humanity is that we grab hold of the part of the Divine that we need…now.  Our great story of Creation, as my mother taught me, isn’t so much about how the world was created, rather why, for what set of purposes.  In that story we learn, as God is setting out to create us, “And in God’s image, God created them, in the image of God did God create them.”  We grab hold of the judging, arbitrating, punishing and rewarding part of ourselves, of God, when we need to understand the world in such a way.  We ensure the ladders we use are stable, safe and free from defect when we yearn for a bit more control, when we realize that God may not actually intervene in our world, rather it is up to us to make a difference, to act out all that is possible, after all, in that divine image, we are created…each and every one of us.  So, ultimately, it is the enigmatic phrase, the self-descriptor God uses when he introduces himself to Moses, אהיה אשר אהיה - I will be what I will be.  God is that ever evolving presence of a shepherd caring for us, God’s flock, when we need that comfort, God is the distant, transcendent source of nature, or nature itself, when we are steeped in moments of needing proof, the hard science, and God is that ability within each of us to question, to wrestle, to not believe and to change, evolving ourselves, always.  Just as our lives, who we are as people are dynamic, ever changing, so is God.  Aaron Zeitlin wrote a poem called, “If you look at the stars.” 

Praise me, says God, and I will know that you love me.
Curse me, says God, and I will know that you love me.
Praise me or curse me
And I will know that you love me.

Sing out my graces, says God,
Raise your fist against me and revile, says God.
Sing out graces or revile
Reviling is also a kind of praise,
says God.

But if you sit fenced off in your apathy,
says God,
If you sit entrenched in:  “I don’t give a hang,” says God,
If you look at the stars and yawn,
If you see suffering and don't’ cry out,
If you don’t praise and you don’t revile,
Then I created you in vain, says God. 

As we embark on this day long journey of wrestling with what it all means to and for us, as we embrace the reality of our existence - one that does not have total control, may we all discover the God we need.  The God we need waiting for us with open arms when we yearn for a hug and comfort, with more questions when we yearn to learn and a discerning heart when life stirs us to compassion.

May we discover the God we need as we search ourselves at this season, and throughout the year. 

G’mar Chatimah Tovah - May our Future Bring Goodness

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