Sermon: Rosh Hashanah – “How to Cheat the Harsh Decree”
Metuchen 2011/5772
Rabbi Gerald L. Zelizer

In my role as Rabbi I attend various civic events which invoke “a moment of silence” in the face of a collective tragedy. In the last decade, of course, have been the annual commemorations at the Metuchen train plaza of 9/11. But as I attend these kinds of memorials I thought: “Why a moment of silence?” Why not a “moment of screaming?” This occurred to me as I thought how our tradition regards the sound of the shofar this morning. There is a discussion in the Talmud as to whether the second note “teruah” - which is the actual word used in the Torah “You shall blow the shofar on Rosh Hashanah – “should sound like “y’lalah’” – wailing, or whether the sound should be like “g’nichah” – groaning. Maimonides, explains that “we need both”. Why? “Sheken derech hadoeg, mitchnech tehilah, v’achar kach neyael” because that is the way of somebody who is laden with worry. The person begins with groaning and ends up wailing.” So on the anniversary of 9/11 here in Neve Shalom, indeed we were not silent - we sounded the shofar.

I am reminded of the joke which shows two old Jews, who have been married a long time, sitting in their car. The wife says to the husband “Stop kvetching.” The husband is shown answering “Why do you insist on taking away from me my last pleasure in life?” Of course we are not talking of simply kvetching here. We’re talking of “teruah”, groaning and wailing. And as your rabbi for so many decades, I know more than anyone the groans and the wails in this congregation. There is the muted groan at the death of a parent; the wail at the death of a spouse, and the unbearable shriek when a child is lost. There is the groan when a child deeply disappoints, the wail when physical or mental health has been lost or diminished. And it is not only the old who sound the teruah in this manner. The young join in too. A marriage gone wrong. A parent not there when most needed. A failed career. As a person with my own life experience, I have my own quota of groans and wails! The subject I want to address this morning is: “How do we proceed from the teruah, the groan and the wail, to the Tekiah, the more triumphant and positive sound of the shofar and of life?”

The first strategy is a healthy perspective on what to expect from life. Rabbi Harold Kushner helps us on that one. The Torah reading on both days of RH concerns itself with life of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Ishmael. Today it records their birth and conflict; tomorrow the potential and dramatic sacrifice of Isaac at the Akedah, and the intersession of the Almighty. The Torah begins “Vaadonai Pakad Et Sarah Kaasher Amar” – “the Lord took note of Sarah as He had promised.” Rabbi Kushner notes that “the Lord took note of Sarah is the usual translation.” But the Hebrew verb “pakad” has multiple tanslations. The definition that speaks to us most this morning is a passage from the Talmud “Hamafkid Etzel Havero” – “If you loan something to a friend for that person to watch for you, what is the extent of the friends responsibility if something happens to the object?” So, the Torah, observes Rabbi Kushner, is not telling us that God took note of Sarah in giving her a child, but “pakad” – God loaned a child to Sarah.

So the first strategy is to acknowledge to ourselves that all of life, whether it is a spouse or a child, a parent, a fortune, health, is not an entitlement. It is on loan to us. And then “Vaadonai Pakad Et Sarah, Kaasher Amar” – God loaned to Sarah a precious gift. God said to her, “I have made your soul in such a way that you are capable of connecting with another person, with another soul, husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters, even friends.” And understanding that all of these life blessings are actually on loan, to return the loan – whether a person, health, fortune, youth, - that should not be a surprise, but rather a deep gratitude that we have had the loan so long.

Rabbi Kushner writes: “So when we come to shul on RH and we say to God “Why do you tease us like this, God? Why did you send these beautiful people or things into our lives and then take them away when we need them most?” Kushner points out that God says “I can’t do that. I can’t cure a sick person. Every time someone prays for him, I can’t postpone death indefinitely because someone is loved. I can’t guarantee every young persons career or romantic aspirations. That is what I tried to warn Abraham and Sarah that this precious gift I was giving them was theirs to love as a loan, but not to keep.”

Secondly, in order to proceed from the wailing to the teruah, the exclamation of renewed confidence in life - Blame God for putting you in the situation you find yourself! Rail against the Almighty! I can hear you thinking to yourself “Rabbi, what are you telling us? You are being contradictory and blasphemous at the same time! On the one hand you tell us that the natural way of things is that everything is loaned, and on the other hand, you’re telling us to scream against the Almighty.” That advice contradicts your first point from Rabbi Kushner – Look, in complex situations we can use multiple strategies. Let me tell you a story told of Rabbi Levi Yitzahak of Berdichever, who once asked an illiterate tailor what he did on the High Holy Days, since he could not read the Hebrew prayers. The tailor reluctantly and somewhat embarrassed, replied: “Well, I spoke to God and told Him that the sins for which I am expected to repent are really minor ones. I said to God “Lord of the universe! My sins are small of little consequence. I may have occasionally kept for myself some leftover cloth, or perhaps forgotten to recite some prayer now and then. But you Lord, you have committed really grave sins. You have removed mothers from their children and children from their mothers. So let’s reach an agreement. If you’ll forgive me, I’ll forgive you.” At this the Berditchever rabbi became angry and rebuked the ignorant tailor. “You are not only illiterate, but you are also foolish. You were too lenient with God. You should have first insisted that God bring redemption for everyone.” So let’s rail at God and blame God for the predicament we are in. Let’s express our frustration to the Almighty for giving us a temporary loan, and not a permanent one.

But perhaps the Berditcher Rabbi was too harsh on God. I spend a lot of time at cemeteries. Often I see a sign “perpetual care” – referring of course to the grass on the grave. But perhaps that sign refers to the Almighty – “caring for us in death as God cares for us in life.” For God’s care inherently should not be limited to the upper side of the grass.

My next point is from the formula of the Ontenah Tokef – a prayer from our Mahzor familiar to all of you - it says “ ” – “repentance, prayer and righteousness can lessen the impact of the evil decree. But the original source in the Talmud adds one more component. It says four actions can reverse the evil decree on a person.” Repentance, prayer and righteousness and than it adds “shinui hashem mahmat holi” – “changing the name avoids illness.” Some of you who are older here may recall that practice being taken literally in the synagogues of your youth when someone was sick. A mishiberach was made and a new Hebrew name inserted. A favorite new name given was “Hayim Alter” – “an old life” - so that the person would live up to his healthy name. And the belief was that if the name was changed you could avoid the worst of the decree.

Of course, the infamous regularly change their names to avoid the severe human decree. I read that the family of Bin Laden has requested the government in Saudi Arabia to change their name. And that distant family relatives of Adolph Hitler all over Germany and even in Long Island are named Heiler. And that the children’s in law of Bernie Maddoff have legally changed their names. But let’s not confine the example to the infamous. Changing your name can avoid the severity of the decree. The book of Ecclesiastes says that every person has three names “one bestowed by his father and mother; one others call him; and one that he acquires himself.” So acquire a new name! Of course I am not speaking literally, but I am saying in the midst of your travails do not allow those travails to bury you, either literally or figuratively. Don’t be that person who carries your name! You know the Scientist Steven Hawkins? He has been affected with Lou Gerrig’s disease for over twenty years and writes that he refuses to let even that disease make him morose. During those years he has given birth to children, which he calls his greatest delight, and continued his path breaking work of the physical universe. Steven Hawkins has metaphorically changed his name!

Let me tell you of one in this congregation who changed her name. A woman I knew many years ago whose husband was a philanderer with younger women, in spite of this woman being a devoted wife, and a attentive mother for their children. She came to consult with me. “Why has life been so unfair; I gave him my best.” I told her: “Don’t ask that question. Ask how you can make the best of a rotten situation. Change your name!” She did. She studied for a profession; which she secured; she got involved in both physical exercise and synagogue service attendance; she met another second man loving and loyal. She had changed her name. She thrived: her original husband ran though one younger woman after another, until his money ran out. She had changed her name.

Another piece of advice I have is to adjust our expectations. One who is rocked in life can recover, although not to the high place where we started. Of course this is true with physical illness, but also with psychological battering. Some of you know the wonderful actress Angela Lansbury. Angela Lansbury withdrew from the theater in 2000 to take care of her ailing husband Peter Shaw. Mr. Shaw was Ms. Lansbury’s manager. After a 53 year marriage and career that they made together he died in 2003. Angela Lansbury asked herself “How could she now make it alone?” But then late in her life she jumped back into Broadway. She wrote “In the Good Old Days,” she said “Peter would always be at the box office milling around with the people in the lobby. He was my ears. Now I come home after a show and nobody is here to say “What about the audience tonight? Did you see so and so?” I have suffered by myself, watched television or not, and go to bed. That’s my life. It sounds rather dreary.” But it’s her next statement that is helpful. “The work, monumental and consuming and pleasurable as it is has done nothing to my grieving. Not even a distraction, really, except while I’m doing it.” So as we experience life’s wails we should not expect matters to return as they were. Realistically we can look forward to the “except” to be relieved for the moment we do it.

Another suggestion I have is to invite into these moments the presence of someone in our life who we respect and admire for their courage and vision at such a similar moment. This may be a person who is with us or one who is gone. For me, at moments of challenge, it is my own father who courageously and creatively managed total blindness and functional deafness simultaneously in his later life. It may be your parent, or a valued friend or spouse.

One last advice from my own experience with physical pain over these last months, as I experienced my own initial “Genihah,” “Groaning,” and sometimes even “Yelalah,” “Wailing.” I discovered that even through pain was surely present with me, there was a significant difference in the psychic positioning of the pain. When I thought only about myself, inwardly, the pain was me, every minute of my waking hours. But when I turned outward in my service to you, through communication, discussing, visiting, thinking about you. My pain was still part of me, but not all of me. My pain had metamorphisized from being me to being with me. So in your own wailing at life, manage to turn outward and not just inward. You will feel the analgesic results.

I began my words with the contrast between a “moment of silence and a moment of screaming” at the pains of life. Let me conclude with something in between silence and screaming. It is a wonderful story about Beethoven – as a neighbor, not a composer. The husband of a woman who lived in Beethoven’s building died. Beethoven invited the widow to his apartment for tea and consolation. He sat down at his piano and said: “Now we will talk in tones.” Later, she told others that Beethoven had played for her for perhaps half an hour. No words were exchanged and none were required. “Everything was revealed,” she said, “all my questions were answered.” And she was comforted. I am not Beethoven but I am your rabbi. I hope that not just my words but my chords, my tone and life experience have comforted. My advice and the advice of the Talmud for a “shinui hashem” change of your name this year in order to cheat the harsh decree.