High Holidays

Kol Nidre & Yom Kippur 2023

Kol Nidre Remarks by Joel Dworkin

On February 29th, 2008, I arrived home to surprise my mom for her 50th birthday. I showered at my aunt and uncle’s house, got dressed, and drove over to the party with my cousin’s boyfriend. He asked me how I was doing and, for the first time in my adult life, I answered honestly; I was awful, addicted to heroin, stealing to keep up my habit, and hadn’t been to class since the first day that semester. We arrived and he asked me, in some shock, if there was anything he could do. I said “Nope” and went in. Teshuva from suffering has a short half-life. In my experience, it lasted just until I felt some relief and then the desire for change, for making things right, was gone. It is the process by which we unburden ourselves, because moving from the 7th layer of hell to the 5th means we’re still in hell, but at least it feels better. I told my parents the next day (there was no reason to ruin the party), and went to rehab a week later.

The process of recovery from substance use disorder follows a path through teshuva. It usually starts with teshuva from suffering, knowing that I could no longer live the way I was living but without the ability to to give it up. When I arrived at a treatment facility, went through detox, and started to get my wits about me, I agreed that I needed to change and started working with the counselors there to get well. After a month, I agreed to continue my care at a facility in Washington state for an additional five months. I ended up staying almost a full year between treatment and sober living and moving to Port Townsend, WA, the town where I got clean, for a further three years. This was teshuva from fear. I was making strides to change my life, to get better, to make amends to the people I had harmed, but I was doing it because the process promised to free me from the bonds of addiction. I was doing good so that I wouldn’t be bad. I was running from the suffering still fresh in my memory.

I left Port Townsend in January of 2012 after working at Ramah in the Rockies the previous summer. It wasn’t the first time I’d left my adopted home for a long stretch, but it was the first time I knew I wasn’t going back. The director had offered me a job knowing that I was in recovery. He offered it specifically because I was in recovery. That, and he needed a wilderness survival and navigation specialist with only two weeks to go before the summer started. I began to build relationships with people that weren’t based on a shared suffering, but a mutual interest in building something, in growing the camp and exploring Judaism. When I shared my story with them, they reciprocated with their own experiences dealing with mental health challenges. No one else was in recovery, and yet I felt more of a sense of community than I ever had before. For the first time, I engaged others on the basis of what I had to offer them and not what I would receive. I shared my story with other staff and eventually our campers. I met some of my closest friends there. I met my wife and built a life I could never have imagined.

The beginning of my story may make teshuva from suffering and fear sound bad and teshuva from love good, but that is an oversimplification. The first two are necessary; they are just limiting. Teshuvah from suffering is limited to the alleviation of suffering. Teshuvah from fear is limited to no longer being fearful. Teshuvah from love begins from a place of hope, and has the potential to expand infinitely. I could not start from a place of hope without self love, and at the time I had none. We all start from wherever we are and move forward at our own pace: through suffering, through fear, through love, eventually learning to love ourselves. Cut yourself a break this year. Whether or not you believe it, you deserve it. G’mar tov.

Yom Kippur Kol Nidre 5784 2023 Sermon:

Teshuvah from Love

Part 1:

We’re at the beginning of a journey together right now, a twenty-five hour spiritual process that is both collective and individual, where we will return the same core prayers five times. So it’s probably good to ask: What is this journey we’re on? Why are we here? Where are we going?

Above all, Yom Kippur is a process of opening our hearts. Of softening. Of gently relaxing our own resistance to the truth, of lowering the barriers between ourselves and each other. The liturgy says: bend our stiff necks so we are able to turn; remove the thickening that is around our hearts that gets in the way of being able to feel, to yearn, to empathize, to connect. To treat ourselves with compassion, moving from our own proverbial thrones of judgment, kiseh ha’din, to the throne of mercy, kiseh ha’rachamim. And in this move, we see that it is possible for us to grow.

“Softening,” however, is not always seen as an admirable trait. Softening is equivalent to being weak and vulnerable, letting yourself be trampled on. And our culture has taught us that personal growth and collective change require discipline that feels like the opposite of softening: a harsh inner critic that won’t let you slack off for a moment and an imperviousness to setbacks.

But when I talk about softening, I am talking about malleability, of creating the internal conditions that allow us to be open, receptive, and flexible. Often, for me, there is a physical shift from tight, clenched muscles to a body that is a little more relaxed and open. It is a shift from a coldness and cynicism toward oneself and others to warmth and tenderness. A letting go of one’s ego and carefully crafted public image, and an embrace of our humanity. A curiosity about what we might find there. Rather than being akin to weakness or surrender, this practice of softening is a practice of incredible courage and strength. It is what our tradition calls “teshuvah from love,” rather than teshuvah from suffering or fear.

When Kristin Neff was a young girl, her father left his family and moved to Hawaii to become a hippie. When she was about six, they went to visit him in Maui, and he said to her, "Please don't call me Dad, call me Brother Dionysus. Because we are all God's children."

That feeling of being rejected by her dad led to all kinds of insecurities in her relationships later on, particularly with romantic partners. She ended up marrying the first man that was the slightest bit kind to her, even though she wasn’t particularly attracted to him. But when she entered graduate school, she worked as the research assistant to a man, and found out that there was a tremendous amount of passion between them, realizing, “Oh, this is what it’s supposed to feel like.”

The two of them began an affair, and Kristin began to lead a double life - on the one hand, feeling a part of herself come alive that had never truly lived before, and on the other hand, feeling a crushing sense of shame about what she was doing to her husband. To make matters even worse, her doctorate was in moral development. Who had she become?

After the affair ended and her marriage fell apart, she was at the lowest point of her life, unable to move forward. She stumbled into a meditation group one day, and they were talking about self-compassion. And she remembers thinking at the time , “Wait a second, you’re allowed to be kind and supportive to yourself even if you’ve done something wrong?” It seemed like a completely absurd idea. But the self-recrimination, the blame and shame were not working, so perhaps there could be a different way.

She decided to try it. When she applied self-compassion, it sounded something like this: “Kristin, I know you feel horrible about what you did. Everyone makes mistakes. You did your best at the time. You wanted this new experience of love that you had never had before. That is so human.”

It was awkward, and clumsy at first. But what surprised Kristin was realizing that having compassion for herself was not the same as letting herself off the hook for what she had done. It wasn’t as though she felt afterwards, ‘Okay, well, fine, then I’ll just cheat on whomever.’ Rather than causing her to dismiss her behavior, treating herself with compassion actually allowed her to take more responsibility for what she had done than continuing to punish herself. But why?

What Kristin Neff found was that with the addition of compassion, of softening and warmth toward herself, she could finally turn toward what she had done and look at it clearly. Before this, the shame that she felt was so painful that she couldn’t even look at or process her actions. There was a kind of cold, brick wall between her ego and her heart. But the more she could genuinely acknowledge, “Of course you’re feeling pain - this is so human. This is what it feels like to make a mistake,” the overwhelming shame lessened. The guilt and regret for her actions were still there, but now she could turn toward herself and learn real lessons from this experience.

This work on self-compassion became the core of Neff’s research, and she found that “people who are more self-compassionate take more responsibility for their mistakes and are more likely to apologize than those who beat themselves up.” It wasn’t that self-criticism never worked to motivate behavior. It does - but only in the short term. Beating ourselves up for our mistakes and shortcomings “works” in the way that corporal punishment “works” with children. They can get us short-term compliance, perhaps, but they cause a tremendous amount of long-term harm.

We are about to chant the 13 attributes of compassion together, these divine attributes that are present in all of us and in all people: rachamim, mercy, chen, grace, chesed, loving connection. And when we call out the words of this prayer, Adonai, adonai, el rachum v’chanun, we’re inviting each of these aspects to awaken. So before we chant it together, I want to invite you to make your hand into a fist, and clench it as tightly as you can.

Hold that fist. Notice the feeling of tension, not just in your hand, but see where else it appears in your body.

Keep holding. When you let go, just let your hand slowly unfurl of its own accord, in its own time.

See how slowly this happens.

After a lifetime of hardening and clenching, it can take quite a while to return to a state like the one we’re born into, a state of softness and openness. But this is our true nature.

As we join together in chanting the 13 attributes, three times, keep coming back to that feeling of openness in the palm of your hand. Can you extend that softness to the rest of your body too? Where in your own life have you been using a fist, when an open palm might be what’s needed? 13 Attributes p. 226

Part 2:

In masechet Yoma of the Babylonian Talmud, the rabbis talk about three different kinds of teshuvah. Three situations or forces that motivate personal (and perhaps collective) transformation: Teshuvah from suffering, teshuvah from fear, and teshuvah from love.

The first is teshuvah al yedei yisurin - transformation that comes about after experiencing suffering. The Talmud says that this kind of transformation is available to everyone - why? Because everyone wants to change their ways when they’re suffering. When you’ve hit rock bottom, when nothing can get any worse, when you’ve realized that your life has become completely unmanageable, that’s when you know: Something’s gotta change. I can’t go on like this. It can initiate change, but that change is often short-lived.

The next level is teshuvah m’yirah - transformation that comes from fear. But fear of what? The rabbis don’t say explicitly. Perhaps this is fear of God, or some higher secular or moral authority - you realize that your actions are known to others, and you can’t hide anymore what you’ve done. Or perhaps fear of punishment - that there will be some kind of consequences in store that you don’t want to experience. Maybe fear of shame, or fear of the future, or fear of the loss of one’s reputation. What the rabbis do say is that when fear motivates you to change your actions, you have the possibility of creating a new path forward for yourself, but that sin from your past will always be there. There is still a sense of being encumbered by the past.

The highest aspirational level of teshuvah, however, is teshuvah m’ahavah - transformation that comes from love. But again, love of what? The classic answer is “love of God.” Perhaps this means a deep knowing that we are loved by God, a secure sense in ourselves that below the layers of shame and regret, there is some deep, core part of us that is essentially pure, and beautiful, and holy, and beloved. Maybe this is transformation that is motivated by a love for ourselves and a love for others, a sense of our own infinite potential, and a sense of enthusiasm and possibility for our lives. The rabbis tell us that when a person does teshuvah motivated by love, not only is their future path forward made clear through forgiveness, but their past has been wiped clean as well. And what’s more, they say that when a person does teshuvah out of love, even the bad things they did in full awareness of their actions become full of merit.

So to share a little about these kinds of teshuvah from his own experience, I want to invite Joel forward.

Joel: On February 29th, 2008, I arrived home to surprise my mom for her 50th birthday. I showered at my aunt and uncle’s house, got dressed, and drove over to the party with my cousin’s boyfriend. He asked me how I was doing and, for the first time in my adult life, I answered honestly; I was awful, addicted to heroin, stealing to keep up my habit, and hadn’t been to class since the first day that semester. We arrived and he asked me, in some shock, if there was anything he could do. I said “Nope” and went in. Teshuva from suffering has a short half-life. In my experience, it lasted just until I felt some relief and then the desire for change, for making things right, was gone. It is the process by which we unburden ourselves, because moving from the 7th layer of hell to the 5th means we’re still in hell, but at least it feels better. I told my parents the next day (there was no reason to ruin the party), and went to rehab a week later.

Lauren: In Shema Koleinu, we call out: Hear our voice, God. Don’t cast us away. Don’t abandon us. We do this collectively, outloud, as a community, as if to say: There is no one here that is beyond hope or help. We will not allow anyone to be left behind.

Part 3:

How can a posture of softening create the kind of conditions necessary not just for individual transformation, but for society as a whole?

For the past nine months, Israeli society has been convulsing with demonstrations on judicial reform, sharply divided, with a fear that this could be the breaking point. Ardent Zionists who never in their lives thought they were the protesting type and certainly never thought they’d find themselves protesting the Israeli government have been drawn out into the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem week after week.

One of these protestors is Donniel Hartman. Among his responsibilities as president of the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem is overseeing the institute’s network of schools and principals and teachers that are committed to implementing a liberal Jewish curriculum in Israel, and earlier this year when the protests were just beginning, he was at a gathering with these leaders where his agenda was to ask: how do we move forward as a society in this time?

The group of principals from across the country was divided 50-50 politically. One of them even said “I’m a Bibist” - meaning, my ideology is “Bibi.” There were many like this, and many were opposed to the reforms. Now, Donniel Hartman is not neutral on this question. He’s deeply concerned about where the Israeli administration seems to be taking the country, and he tried to paint a picture for these educational leaders about liberal Judaism, about human rights, about religious pluralism, about shared values. He could tell in the crowd that he had half of the group with him from the get-go. These were the people who had been in the streets demonstrating for weeks - they took no convincing. But the other half, maybe by the end of a weekend of arguments, he got another 30 or 40% of them bought into the vision of Israeli society he was selling. But still, at the end of the weekend, somebody came up to him and said,

you know, Donniel, I agree with 90% of what you say. I just don’t believe you. I just don’t trust you. No movement, no change was possible.

Fast forward to July, the same group of principals gathered once again, and Donniel addressed the group again, about the same issues and concerns. But this time, he had 90% of the room with him after his first speech.

One of the principals, who had been at both gatherings, said to him afterwards, “Why didn’t you say this last time?”

Donniel said, “I did. It was almost identical.”

But do you know what changed?

He did.

The first time, he was full of anger. And of course he was - anger at the administration, anger at his fellow Jews, fear of what these reforms would mean for Israel’s future. Fully righteous, justified anger. But unbeknownst to him, when he spoke from that place of anger originally, he was heard differently. There was not the same level of receptivity. His hardness and anger generated a reciprocal hardness in his audience, tit for tat.

After months of conversations, he developed the skills to be able to hold onto his own principles and commitments while still embracing those that he vehemently disagreed with. This required an inner posture of softening. Here’s what he said:

“When you get rid of the anger, you speak differently and other people feel that you really see them. And by the way, those who were on the other side were also very angry. So when angry meets angry, we know what happens. I don’t believe you. So first, changing the fear is critical.

And second, [we have to shift to the stage of] exciting and engaging people with positive visions of our Israel. Now, will people come out to demonstrate when it’s only positive and not fearful? That will be the great test…The reform demonstration is a hundred-yard dash. The liberal Jewish democratic agenda is a 5K, 10K, a marathon. How we are able to shift to those multiple levels is going to be critical not only for the demonstration, but..for the future of our country.”

The Talmud, in Masechet Taanit says: One should always be soft like the reed, not hard like the cedar. What does this mean?

Rabbi Yoḥanan elaborates: There was once a prophet, Ahijah the Shilonite, who cursed the Jewish people by comparing them to a reed: “The Lord will strike down Israel just like a reed is shaken in the water.”

But although this seems to be a curse, it is actually a blessing: A reed stands in water, and its shoots replenish themselves when cut. The roots are numerous, and even if all the winds in the world were to come and blow against the reed, they wouldn’t be able to move it from its place. Rather, it sways in the wind until they subside - and the reed remains standing. The same applies to the Jewish people. We have endured attacks on us from external and internal forces ultimately not by growing a hard external shell and gritting our teeth and bracing through whatever comes, but through our ability to move in the wind, to grow strong root systems, through an ability to change and be renewed when cut down. This is why the reed merited to be made into a quill with which to write a Torah scroll: to teach us that this is where our collective wisdom comes from.

We turn to our Vidui, the beginning of our confessions, bringing this courageous spirit of truth-telling and compassion with us, holding both attributes together. We offer statements that are true, confessions from our own lives, from our households, from the entire Jewish people, and from all humanity. We do so with love for ourselves and love for one another, and the conviction that we are all capable of growth. And we tap our hearts with an open palm, inviting our souls to gently awaken. Awaken.

Avinu Malkeinu, Mekor HaChayim:

Source of life, who guides our steps: Help us have compassion on ourselves, and on each other. Help us to loosen the grip of our ego and embrace our humanity. Guide us in teshuvah from love, and help us reconnect to our purpose here on earth. Help us act with both tzedakah, righteousness, and chesed, love - and save us.

2023 High Holiday Sermons

Erev Rosh Hashanah 5784: Closure

Lyra Belacqua is a scrappy, adventurous girl who lives cooped up inside the halls of a university, running around and making mischief with the other faculty brats. She longs to be free to explore beyond the university’s cloisters, and one day, while hiding in a closet during a meeting of the university’s scholars, she finally gets her chance. She overhears whispers of a phenomenon called Dust that has all the scholars on edge. This “Dust,” with a capital-D, seems to settle on people when they begin to emerge into adulthood - could this be the source of all evil and sin? Or the source of life itself? Lyra sets out on a journey to try and unravel this mystery.

Along the way, Lyra and her friend Will acquire a tool for their journey: a knife that can not only cut through any material, but can also cut doorways between worlds.

They discover that all kinds of doorways have been opened up between their worlds and into worlds that they never knew existed - worlds like their own, and worlds vastly different. Some of the worlds they explore together are terrifying, with demons called specters that seem to haunt adults and drain them of all vitality and joy. Some of them are delightful and utopian, bringing them freedom from all of the burdens they were forced to carry. Will and Lyra learn how to move between these worlds with ease, and in the chutzpah that only twelve-year olds can muster, they believe that with their power to open doorways between worlds, they have the ability to free everyone from all limitations - even from the finality of death.

They reach a new world, but something is not right. The trees in this world are dying, and the life force which animates all living beings is slowly draining away from this world, and from all worlds. They discover, to their horror, that every time they have opened up a doorway into a new world using the subtle knife, it not only accelerated the loss of Dust - life and vitality - from the universe, but it created a new specter bringing even more death and destruction.

As the impact of this knowledge begins to sink in, it becomes clear to Will and Lyra what they must do. They must retrace all of their steps, back to every doorway that has been opened by them or by others, and close every single door between the worlds. They learn to feel the air for that subtle opening and gather together the fabric of the universe, gently pinching closed that which has been left open. Only after closing these doorways will the world return to its equilibrium, and life will be sustained.

I thought back to this story from Philip Pullman’s trilogy The Golden Compass recently, in reflecting on how difficult it is to close one chapter before beginning another. I tend to resist endings and closure instinctively. New beginnings - these are great! I have stacks of partially finished books on my dining room table and my nightstand, always running out of bookmarks because they’re always left somewhere in the middle of a chapter. When I exit a room, I leave behind so many open cabinets and drawers in my wake. I was never good at putting away my toys as a kid. And on any given workday, I’d much rather spend my time chasing after a new, exciting relationship or opportunity than bringing a longstanding project to a close.

I won’t quite say that this resistance to endings is a universal phenomenon; I think there are others besides me who are much more graceful about finishing what they’ve begun before starting something new. But I do see it reflected in Jewish rituals and how they help us mark endings gently, knowing how hard endings are for many of us.

We say “le’hitraot,” see you soon, instead of goodbye, preferring to keep the door open a crack rather than admit the possibility that perhaps we won’t see this person again. And when we finish learning a text, a chapter of Talmud or a section of bible, there is a custom to recite a passage known as “Hadran Alecha” - “We will return to you.” It goes like this, speaking directly to the book we’ve learned:

We will return to you,

and you will return to us;

our mind is on you,

and your mind is on us;

we will not forget you, and you will not forget us – not in this moment, and not in the time to come.

It is an intention and a promise: we will never leave anyone, or anything, behind. No end is final. There is always the chance of return. We cannot bear it otherwise.

I realized my own resistance to endings in a more profound way recently - I had been putting off going to the mikveh after Rafi was born. There were many surface-level reasons why: my body wasn’t ready, the timing wasn’t convenient, etc etc. But as the months passed and he grew, I realized that it wasn’t just the convenience factor - there was something in me that resisted admitting that this stage of the journey - of being pregnant with him, giving birth to him, and sustaining him for almost nine months - was closing. My body had done its job. And he was no longer a newborn. He would never be that small again. So before I rushed into the next thing and embraced what the future was bringing, I needed to mark this ending. I needed to close this chapter of my life. And without a ritual to mark the ending, I couldn’t adequately honor what this stage of life was. I would continue to live in the fantasy that life has infinite possibilities and openings, doorways between all worlds that could remain wide open, forever.

The reality of closure is that not all choices are equally possible at all times. Some pathways and gates are forever closed. But right now, we are entering into a time that is full of possibility. For the next 10 days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, the gates between all the worlds are flung open, granting us access to vast possibility to transform, to heal relationships, to dream big about our lives and what lies in store for us, to open in a way that isn’t always possible.

But in order to embrace the possibilities ahead of us, we have to begin by ending. By marking the closure of the year 5783, with all of its joys and all of its sorrows, and honoring what was.

So I want to invite you, just for a moment, to close your eyes. Take a breath.

What is one blessing from this past year that you want to express gratitude for?

What is one struggle from this past year that you want to honor?

What is one thing you are ready to bring to an end?

What is one new thing you are ready to step into?

When you’re ready, you can open your eyes.

Together, on the cusp of a new year, we’ll take our fingertips and press closed the doorways to the past for the sake of embracing new life, new possibility, and for the sake of restoring equilibrium to an off-kilter world.

Rosh Hashana Day 1 5784 2023: The Freedom of Constraint

I am fairly susceptible to the targeted marketing of ads on Instagram. I got my 9-month old, Rafi, a silicone teether a few months ago which was a worthwhile purchase, but I’ve also bought expensive to-do lists that were basically glorified index cards that promised to cure my distraction and increase productivity.

So I had to exercise caution when my phone showed me an ad recently for an app. It depicted an imaginary text conversation where a person is reaching out to her friend, clearly in panic mode: “Should I do the laundry first, or load the dishwasher?” And then another text comes in while she’s typing, saying “It’s time to schedule your dentist appointment!” And then another alert: Water the plants!” Crushed by the weight of a thousand small choices and tasks, the texter cries out for help, and the AI productivity software swoops in to save the day, promising a schedule, promising freedom from the endless fatigue of decision making. [I will tell you now, I have exercised restraint and not purchased the app. So far].

At any rate, I felt seen by this particular targeted ad. “What is the best thing I could possibly be doing with my time right now?” is a question I find myself asking constantly. The pressure to choose from a seemingly endless list of good, important things weighs on me from the moment I get out of bed until the moment my head hits the pillow at night.

Except: there are two respites throughout the day from this tyranny of choice: the time I spend with Rafi in the morning and the hour before he goes to bed. From the moment that I switch on his lamp in the morning and see his snot-covered face looking up at me from the crib until he leaves for daycare, I’m not wondering “what’s the most important thing I could be doing right now?” because the next right thing is always clear in front of me. Feed. Diaper. Go on a walk. Watch him play on his mat. Step onto the porch to watch the rain. When I was on maternity leave, the mental weight of decision making was essentially eliminated from my life. And I have to say, I didn’t miss it one bit.

Rosh Hashanah is known as the day that we crown God king - HaMelekh, hayoshev al kise ram v’nisa. The king, who sits on his exalted and lofty throne. This is softened somewhat in our machzor with a change from “king” to “sovereign,” but the image of crowning God ruler is found almost constantly within our liturgy today and tomorrow.

This is a metaphor that I would say most of us find challenging to connect with, at best. We have zero interest in having a king over our lives - even the most benevolent, loving monarch. We see societies across the globe that are ruled by leaders consolidating power and using it to trample individual freedoms and rights, and we want no part of it, neither in our governments nor in our spiritual lives. This metaphor of God as king seems to have no room in it for love, no room for tenderness, no room for spaciousness or freedom or softening - all the qualities that in my own experience are directly linked to an experience of the Divine.

However, I was surprised to discover that in becoming a parent, I am completely happy to have my days ruled by service to a tiny, yogurt-throwing sovereign whose needs are constant and specific. The king demands six bottles a day and five pacifiers placed at arm’s reach in his crib during naptimes. He will be soothed on long car rides with a specific toy that we’ve named “Joe Fox” after Tom Hanks’ character in You’ve Got Mail, or if that’s not available, then a crinkly plastic water bottle.

There is a sense of duty and obligation that I now feel, and I must confess, I never felt quite this intensely for mitzvot bein adam l’makom - obligations between me and God. I have long preferred to translate the word “mitzvah” more in line with the Aramaic root tzadee, vav, hey meaning “connection” or “tie” - as in, actions that link us in relationship with God and with others, rather that duties we are obligated to out of fealty to a higher power. This move to horizontal and voluntary relationship as the place where we experience the Divine connection is in line with many of the 20th century’s greatest Jewish philosophers - Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, Emmanuel Levinas.

But now, my mitzvot bein ima l’tinok, between a mother and child, are quite clear. There is no choice, no escape from these duties, no shirking these responsibilities. And in this boundedness, I feel a paradoxical sense of freedom that courses with love.

The scholar Mara Benjamin elaborates on this idea in her book The Obligated Self. She critiques the 20th century (male) philosophers who wanted to universalize our sense of obligation to any and all encounters with another person - that all people would lay equal claim on us, no matter who they were or where they lived or how they were or weren’t related to us. Benjamin offers a counterpoint: What if we were to take the experience of parents caring for young children as our starting point for understanding what the rabbis were trying to say when they spoke about a sense of obligation toward God? If this is our starting point,

then God is not an overlord but a vulnerable, dependent being who needs virtually constant attention. This concept inverts the biblical metaphor… in which God is parent, not infant, and the rabbinic sources that speak of God as king and as father, not as subject or son. But since these are metaphors, one in which God is imagined as a baby invites us to name the condition of being obligated to God as being compelled and beguiled, shackled and infatuated, all at once. The care for an infant perfectly captures the pairing of command and love and the heart of rabbinic thought. If God is not only loving parent but demanding baby, we may find within ourselves the resolve to meet the demand.

This inversion of the traditional metaphor is so intriguing to me - not just because it feels so alive in my experience navigating the world of new parenthood, but because of what has the potential to offer all of us who long for a sense of clarity around our individual purpose on this planet.

In a world of seemingly endless choice, how do we gain a sense of fulfillment and purpose? Perhaps it isn’t through the illusion that we are universally obligated to care about EVERYONE and EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE ALL THE TIME, but that we are particularly bound to THESE PEOPLE - the people and communities we choose to obligate ourselves to, a smaller world with a little less choice and a little more freedom. By giving up the illusion that we can do it all in any given moment or day or week, we embrace our finitude, and we learn to devote ourselves more wholeheartedly to fewer things.

Here’s how the journalist Oliver Burkeman expressed this phenomenon in a recent interview. He said:

I’m always really fascinated by those moments in people’s lives…where somebody close to you is going through some sort of immediate, serious crisis. There’s nothing good about what’s happening, if you could have chosen for it to not be happening it wouldn't be happening. And then in the middle of this emergency, it’s just obvious that your job is to - I don’t know - do their drycleaning. It might not be [through] being a shoulder to cry on; it depends - maybe your job is very mundane, to make your contribution to someone weathering this crisis.

And that sense of knowing that you’re in exactly the right place. That there is no question. I have a good reputation among my friends of being good in a crisis, which feels very flattering until you think about it. What it really means is that you’re just incredibly ambivalent and indecisive at all other times, right? It’s when you have a choice about what you should be doing that there is this great sense of second guessing and fretting and being indecisive. And yet, I think we all have these experiences when there isn't really a choice, when choice is taken away, when it’s incredibly obvious what you should be doing to help in that moment. [And these moments] are in some sense deeply fulfilling, even though they’re not happy.

I think there are some key elements that Burkeman points out here that we want to expand upon when we talk about what a fulfilling, purposeful life looks like.

Somebody close to you: We need to exist within circles of community. Some of us may know exactly who we’d drop everything for to go do their drycleaning or deliver a meal. Others of us may feel that this is the core issue - who ARE my people? I feel, like so many others in this country, so alone much of the time. Think right now: Are there five people (family? Neighbors? Friends? Members of this congregation?) who you would drop what you were doing to go and care for them if they needed help?

It’s just obvious: Sometimes, it really is obvious that we have a duty in a particular moment - like when someone literally calls you up on the phone and asks “can you help me?” or when you are the sole caregiver for an aging family member or a small child. No one else is more obligated than you are at that moment. But the rest of the time, maybe it’s not so clear or obvious that WE are the ones who are needed, even when it should be. So how do we make what “should” be obvious actually obvious? One practice that I am working on doing in my day to day life comes from a Buddhist teacher: “When you notice an impulse to do something compassionate arising, act on it immediately.” Don’t wait, if possible. Try not to put it on a list to do later, but rather do it right now. Make the donation to the charity. Call the person who you just remembered is recovering from surgery or missing their recently-passed mother. In time, you will become even more mindful and aware of those compassionate thoughts that are arising in us all the time, and you will align your actions more and more with your intentions so that being a more compassionate person isn’t a choice you have to make - it’s just your habitual response to suffering.

Make your contribution: Choose to do the smallest, concrete act that is within your power and skill set to do, rather than wishing you could act in a more grandiose, heroic way. If you can volunteer your time and visit with someone or cook a meal, fantastic. If you order takeout on DoorDash, beautiful. If you can write a card or make a phone call, wonderful. If all you can manage in the moment is to send a text, send a compassionate text. In Leonard Cohen’s words: Forget your perfect offering. Do the thing that you can do well, rather than the platonic “best thing” that someone else might be able to give.

You might be here this morning because, like me, there are some persistent questions tugging at you that won’t let up:

What should I be doing with my life?

What’s my purpose?

Why am I here?

How am I supposed to navigate this world with its seemingly infinite mundane choices?

I want to offer up the possibility that a more purposeful life is one where we are more bound up with others, not less. And, I know it is possible to choose loving obligation to others outside of our own nuclear families, and beyond the clarity that comes in moments of crisis - but it requires a process of discernment, havchanah in Hebrew - a spiritual muscle that we all have the power to develop.

There are so many people here this morning whose journey toward a deeper sense of purpose and meaning began by responding to a persistent sense of “should” - for example, “I really should be bringing my kid to shul in the year leading up to his bar mitzvah,” even though it’s terribly inconvenient and we aren’t really a regular shul-going family and he’d rather be playing video games. But okay, we’ll go once, and see. And wow - we found that we actually love having this time together once a week, just the two of us, no screens between us, to sit in this quiet, meditative space and be with other people and just take a breath.” A move from obligation to habit to deep, fulfilling desire.

If you find yourself at a bit of a crossroads asking yourself where and how to spend your time and resources, we have a tool to help in that process.

On Monday, you’ll receive a spiritual pledge form in your email, and we’re asking you to take some time before Yom Kippur to fill it out. But this isn’t your typical marketing survey that you can dash off while you watch Netflix. This will actually take you a bit of time, and I want to encourage you to do this as part of a practice of cheshbon nefesh, soul-searching, to help you get some clarity on where to devote your energy in this year to come.

As you’re going through the pledge, listen for the opportunities that seem to tug at you a little bit more strongly. Maybe just commit to one thing, letting go of choices and embracing the feeling of being called, commanded, committed.

May this year be a year of answering the call of the still, small voice, the call of hamelekh, the call of presence, the call to be more bound up with one another and with the world.

Rosh Hashanah 5784, Day 2: The Human Capacity to Choose: Bechirah Points

Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler, 20th century:

Everyone has free choice - at the point where truth meets falsehood. In other words, choice takes place at that point where the truth as the person sees it confronts the illusion produced in him by the power of falsehood. But the majority of a person’s actions are undertaken without any clash between truth and falsehood taking place. Many of a person’s actions may happen to coincide with what is objectively right because he has been brought up that way and it does not occur to him to do otherwise, and many bad and false decisions may be taken simply because the person does not realize that they are bad. In such cases no valid Bechira, or choice, has been made.”

Q: R’ Dessler claims that we do have free will, as human beings, but it’s incredibly limited in scope, and only exists when we realize there is a choice to be made between truth and illusion. Do you agree?

Viktor Frankel, 20th century:

Between stimulus and response, there is a space.

In that space is our power to choose our response.

In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

“Autobiography in Five Short Chapters,” Portia Nelson, 1993

Act I

I walk, down the street,

there is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I fall in... I am helpless... It isn't my fault...

It takes forever to find a way out.

Act II

I walk, down the street,

there is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I pretend that I don't see it. I fall in again.

I can't believe I am in the same place,

but it isn't my fault.

It still takes a long time to get out.

Act III

I walk, down the street,

there is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I see it is there. I still fall. It's a habit.

My eyes are open. I know where I am.

It is my fault. I get out immediately.

Act IV

I walk, down the street,

there is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I walk around it.

Act V

I walk down another street.

Q: What are the stages of teshuvah, in this poem? In what ways do you identify with the narrator of the poem above? What kinds of choices are possible at different moments in the poem?

Instructions for Text Study:

Read through the entire story of the Akedah (Binding of Isaac) on p. 103-105 of your machzor, as if you are reading it for the very first time. Get curious. Then discuss with your chevruta/study partner:

Do you see moments where there might be space between stimulus and response, enough space to see that there might be a choice that is possible?

Bechirah/Choice Points: The Three-Step Process of Tikkun MIddot

STEP ONE: HITLAMDUT, “SELF LEARNING”

Creating space between stimuli and response:

cultivating curious, nonjudgmental attention

to our experience, moment by moment

Recognize what is arising in the moment.

Allow it to be without judging, resisting, denying, avoiding.

STEP TWO: BECHIRAH (“CHOICE”) OR AWARENESS POINTS

Becoming aware of choices

for responding from freedom, rather than reacting from habit/ Becoming aware of internal resistance

to make the wholesome/wise/sacred choice.

Investigate what is arising in the mind, emotions, and body which represents resistance to accessing the middah (character trait) and making a wholesome/sacred choice. Apply Nurture – self-compassion – to allow it to move through.

STEP THREE: TESHUVAH, RETURNING TO YOUR MIDDAH (CHARACTER TRAIT)

Examples of Middot:

Attentive Listening / Sh’miat HaOzen

Compassion / Rachamim

Courage / Ometz Lev

Discernment / Havchanah

Equanimity / Menuchat HaNefesh

Forgiveness / Slichah

Generosity / Nedivut

Gratitude / Hakarat HaTov, Hoda’ah

Humility / Anavah

Honor / Kavod

Joy / Simchah

Loving Connection / Chesed

Patience / Savlanut

Presence / Hineini

Righteousness / Tzedek

Trust / Bitachon