If you have never read Victor Frankel’s classic work, “Man’s Search for meaning”, it is hard to imagine a better time to do so. According to a United States Library of Congress poll, that book is one of the ten most influential books among lifetime readers in America today. Frankel writes poignantly and brilliantly about how human beings need to find meaning in order to have a reason to exist and even survive.
Frankel drew upon observations made in a setting that was at once, horrifying and ironically, especially suited for the subject: in the camps of Thereisenstadt and Auschwitz.
There is one statement in that book which is particularly profound, and if you were here at the start of our services last night, you heard me begin with a paraphrase of that statement:
"Everything can be taken away from us but one thing, the last human freedom, to choose one’s own attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way."
Those who did the terrible thing to us that they did have, as we well know, impacted us dramatically. Our lives are not the same as they were eight days ago. And much as we wish we could, we cannot turn back the clock. The result is that much has been taken away from us, and for most of us, it is still unclear exactly what that is and will be. Personally, I fear that it is potentially much deeper than the loss of a sense of invulnerability and of our safety and security. It is clear that if we are not careful, if we do not exercise that last human freedom of which Frankel spoke – this enormous event has the potential of changing us in ways that should make us shudder.
True story: a well-known rabbi, a professor at the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary, would sit during the vidui, the confession of sins that we recite on Yom Kippur, and rather than recite them at the same pace as the rest of the congregation, moving along through the list, he would dwell on them, one word at a time – for so long, that he did not get through the entire list. When a younger colleague asked him about it, he explained that he needed to think about each one, and think hard about how he had committed it during the past year. He feared that if he simply went through the entire list, his self-examination would be too superficial. So he focused on a few different sins each year, very carefully, so that he would not repeat those same sins in the New Year.
We need to do the same thing this year. But we need to do so for a different reason. Other years, we look at the sins we have committed, and think about them, because if we do not, we are likely to commit them again. I submit that this year we must focus on two particular sins, not because we may have committed them in the past, but because of where we are right now. The others sins matter, of course. But these two must be the ones that we especially guard against this year.
The first is the sin of despair. How many of us have had difficulty going about our regular routines, taking care of ourselves this past week? There are those in our congregation who are in real pain, who have had close family members ripped from their lives. We need to reach out to them, to cry with them, to support them. But we cannot give in to despair – not this year. Despair too quickly turns into apathy, apathy into depression, and ultimately, into loss of meaning. Writing after the war, Frankel noted that "once the prisoners were entrenched in the camp routine, they would descend from a denial of their situation into a state of apathy". He recognized this apathy, which led prisoners to fail to get up, wash, or leave the barracks, even under threat of blows or death, as deep depression. He noted that those who were able to hold onto meaning, whether the hope of reuniting with a child who had been put into hiding, or the expectation of finishing a work that had been started before the war, were able to fight off despair, able to find a reason to go on. I know, as I look around this room, that there are those who personally experienced what Frankel described – and those of you for whom that is true know full well what he meant. You are living testimony to the validity of what he wrote.
A few days ago, many of us questioned how we would even go on. Some of us are still there – but more and more of us are realizing that even if we are feeling low, we need not stay there, and that there will, in time, be a light that pierces the cloud that stills surround us.
And this year, we need to avoid the sin of cynicism. Cynicism, not skepticism. Skepticism is healthy and appropriate. But not cynicism. A dictionary definition; “cynicism -an attitude of scornful or jaded negativity”. Part of what we have experienced this past week is the manifestation of some things that we knew, deep down, were possible, but did not even allow ourselves to imagine. And if it happened once, it could happen again. So how can we be positive and forward-looking?
How can we not! We all learned a long time ago as children, playing with blocks that it is much easier to destroy than to build. All it took to destroy what felt like an incalculable amount of effort and energy was a mean older sibling or a large, lumbering pet. So why build in the first place? And why rebuild? For the same reason that we kept on building with our blocks: because the only alternative is to give up altogether, and that is just not acceptable. Do we need to be realistic? Of course. No one is saying, “let’s just write off the whole thing as a one time aberration, and get on with our lives.” We are changed. We will never be the same. And we will need time to absorb it all. But to live our lives as if there is no tomorrow, as if every effort we undertake is ultimately futile, is to abdicate that last freedom of which Frankel spoke – and to hand the terrorists a huge victory.
The Stock Market was down yesterday. To which I say:
So what? Even now, it is still substantially higher than it was just a few years ago. And it does not have to stay where it is right now, either.
Allen Sinai is a member of our congregation, and one of the world’s most respected economists. I asked Allen about his thoughts about the current situation, about what we should do financially. His answer makes a great deal of sense, not just as it regards investing, but about how we make other important decisions in our lives. I am paraphrasing here, and so, take full responsibility for these thoughts, especially if I do not properly represent what you said, Allen. What should we do? The same as we would have done otherwise. We should not make decisions based on this one event. We must try to stay on a normal track, and as much as possible, keep to our routines. That is not to say that our lives are or will be the same. That is not possible. But we need to allow this all to seep in slowly, over time, and not artificially project a new reality that is in fact an illusion. It will take months, years, perhaps even decades to fully assimilate what has happened, if then!
Except, of course, to the degree that we have come away with new resolve and new focus. Which, of course, is exactly why we are here, why we come back on this day year after year – and why we would have been here today in the first place! Because we have the power to transform the world – by transforming ourselves.
I do know that Frankel was Jewish. I do not know how much of a Jewish identity or Jewish education he had, but I do know that one of his most powerful statements is so congruent with the essential message of these Holy Days that it is impossible to imagine that it is not somehow the fruit of his Jewish heritage. It was written decades ago, but rings out to us as if it was written yesterday:
“What matters," says Frankel, "is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one's predicament into a human achievement. When we are no longer able to change a situation-just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer - we are challenged to change ourselves."
So many did just that -- faced with the immediate challenge, they transformed tragedy into triumph, turned predicament into a human achievement! From the mundane – shoe retailers handing out pairs of sneakers to women going by who were either trying to run in high heels or had left their shoes behind in an effort to run faster – to the downright heroic, like the passengers on Flight 93, who apparently rushed the cockpit of the plane, and prevented even greater loss of life and even more destruction. And there were thousands more examples. They did not have time to think about how they were going to respond, what kind of people they were going to be. In the instance that the challenge was before them, they responded, and turned predicament into achievement. And – this is key – we do not have to be in that kind of situation to experience that challenge – it is always before us!!!
Is that not the very message of this day?
There are many things I had wanted to talk about today. Israel, for instance. If we had a second day service, I would have talked about Israel, and now, especially, what we can learn from Israel about what it means to live with terror as an ever-present background reality. ....about the Temple, and our future.....and I would have given a healthy plug for the Capital Campaign, which I hope I just did. Because, right now, if anything, we need to challenge ourselves to commit even more fully to what we value. About our reaching out to a local Muslim group to inquire about a possible dialogue, so that we might begin to move forward along the path that we must now take. I know that here are already Isaiah members who are interested in that. About the obscenities of those who are blaming United States support of Israel for this tragedy, and even worse, the obscenity of the Reverends Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, who declared that this happened in part because God withdrew protection from America because of, among others, “the abortionists and the ACLU”.
Instead, I want to leave you with some powerful images that I encountered this week.
We have all spent the week glued to the radio, the television, and the Internet. One email I received included a link to a website that showed photographs of impromptu memorials around the world – some in unexpected places.
Anyone who is, say, 25 years old or more can surely remember a time when it was unimaginable -- unimaginable – that residents of Moscow would write notes and bring flowers to the U.S. Embassy in sympathy for a terrorist attack on the United States. Yet not only were there pictures like those, but also of a woman lighting candles in a church as an expression of her grief and sympathy!
And even more poignantly were the memorials in the German city of Dresden! I am not old enough to know this from personal memory, but any those who have studied World War II know that in February, 1945, English and American forces fire bombed that city. Now I am not for a moment equating or comparing this with the terrorist attacks of last week. The result, though, was the death of at least 35,000 people, and fifteen square kilometers, or nearly six square miles of the city was reduced to ashes. Yet Dresden was rebuilt, and is again today a thriving metropolis with a strong industrial base.
And this week we find pictures of youngsters lighting memorial candles in Dresden, even as Germany is an ally with the United States and others in our fight.
If only Frankel could have lived to see this .......
How right he was....how right our tradition is.......when we accept the challenge to change, anything is possible!