I want to share something this morning that you may find surprising. I have had a harder time writing a Rosh Hashanah sermon than I have had in about as long as I can remember. And I am not alone -- I have discovered that almost every one of my rabbinic colleagues with whom I have spoken during the past few weeks has had a similar experience.
There is not, thank God, one particular world event which demands to be the topic of the day. And it is not a matter of too little to draw upon. It is easy to find things to discuss -- what is challenging is finding something meaningful to say. Two years ago, it was obvious what the topic of everyone's High Holiday sermons would have to be. Three years ago, anything interesting would do. Maybe a sermon about the need to be more committed to Jewish learning and observance. Or maybe a sermon about setting one's priorities in order, or about a worthwhile social justice cause. Last year, we needed to affirm that we were still here and are going to be here.
This year, we are beyond that point, but we do not fully believe it. We are still living against a different backdrop than we were two years and 17 blissful days ago, and though we will return to that setting one day, it is not yet on the visible horizon.
You know what I am talking about. News comes of a major power outage, and everyone's first question is: was this an act of terror? An airplane crashes, dozens of people are killed, and there is relief that it was just an accident. We turn on the radio in the morning and breathe out when we hear a commercial or the baseball scores, knowing that nothing cataclysmic can be happening in the world if we are getting an update on how Route 128 is moving.
We may not be facing an imminent threat, or if we are, we do not know about it. But we are no longer naïve enough to believe that we have nothing to worry about, either.
Having been hit on the economic front not helped. While the economy seems to be a bit more robust, and most of us still have roofs over our heads and food on our tables, some of us are perilously close to losing both of those comforts. We all know too many people who are unemployed or underemployed, having gone from riding the crest of the waves to holding onto the edges of whatever floating object they can grab onto. Our current economic environment and our feelings about our entire social setting can be summed up in the tag line of a radio commercial for a hotel chain that promises premium amenities and services for a bargain price: "It makes the business traveler of today feel like the business traveler of ..............three years ago".
Ah, if we could just hit the reset button and return to the world of just a few short years ago, or simply ignore the experiences that are too much with us now. But human beings do not come equipped with hard drives, allowing us to simply delete the data we no longer desire. We cannot simply hit a button and change our lives.
We are not computers, nor even books. But our lives are stories, potentially great works of literature that we are writing each and every day. A work of literature is defined not by individual paragraphs or pages or even chapters, but by its whole. Early chapters set the stage for later ones, and later chapters ultimately shape earlier ones. Things often make more sense in later chapters than they did in earlier ones. What takes place later on in a story can completely reframe earlier pieces, and whole stories, like whole lives, can be unexpectedly redeemed in the turn of a page.
If Rosh Hashanah is about anything, it is the about God's gift of a chance to re-write our own stories by writing new chapters that enhance, reframe or even modify, previous ones - maybe even to the point of redemption
And if the story we read year after year on this day, the story of the Akedah, the binding of Isaac teaches us anything, it teaches us that we do not have to be victims of the previous chapters of our own stories.
There must have been a reason that our rabbis of blessed memory chose this particular story, almost 1700 years ago, to be read every year on Rosh Hashanah. We learn very little of Isaac's personal struggle. We know almost nothing about him, other than that he marries Rebecca, fathers Jacob and Esau, and is the titular head of what appears to be yet another horrifically dysfunctional Biblical family. Yet despite being traumatized in ways that are just about inconceivable to any of us -- he chose to go on! He was not the same man after the Akedah as he had been before -- how could he be? But as challenging as it must have been, as easy as it would have been to turn inside himself and disconnect from other human beings, to remain an eternal victim, he chose to remain in life. Painful, imperfect, ever challenging life. When he might well have disengaged from life, he chose to engage instead. And because he chose to go on, we are here today.
The contrast between Isaac's behavior and that of some of Abraham's other descendants is striking. Amongst too many of those who call themselves the Palestinians, the prevailing response to despair and dissatisfaction with their situation is suicide bombings --the most radical disengagement. Leaving this world, and taking as many innocent lives as possible with them.
Underlying the glory of martyrdom is a fundamental assumption: that there are circumstances in which it is better to leave this world than to remain in it and try to fix it. If you are not satisfied with the world as it is, go --- as long as you take those whom you see as God's enemies with you.
There are those who say that this is not the Muslim way. There are those who insist that this is the Muslim way. I cannot say. But I can tell you this: it is not the Jewish way.
Yet there is a tension in the Jewish sources, and particularly in the Talmud, as to whether one should engage in or disengage from places and practices that we experience as anathema. One particular passage is found in the Talmudic tractate Avodah Zarah, a discussion of the phrase in Psalm 1: "Ashrei Ha- ish asher lo halach b'atzat r'shaim, v'lo amad b'derech chataim, v'lo yashav b'moshav letzim. - "happy is the one who has not followed the advice of the wicked, nor stood in the path of sinners, nor sat in the seat of the scornful."
Now, the Talmud was written over a period of several hundred years, which overlapped entirely with the Roman occupation of the Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel. A significant number of passages in the Talmud, therefore, refer to Roman practices and institutions, as these were part of the landscape of the time. These practices and institutions were so despised by the rabbis that they became the negative standard against which Jewish behavior was judged, and the examples of how not to live.
This particular passages outlaws attendance at the Roman stadiums. These, the rabbis categorically classified as "moshav letzim", the seat of the scornful so named not for the attendees, but the activity: presentations by sorcerers and enchanters, buffoons and mimics, directly or indirectly mocking the teachings of Torah. Remember, even though they were the dominant force, the Romans in Eretz Yisrael were relatively few in number. It was Jews, not Romans, who filled those amphitheaters, and reveled in the what was presented there.
The most repulsive form of entertainment was the Gladiator Contests. The Romans had transformed the Greek sport of wrestling into a blood sport, wherein the duel was not merely to the submission or concession of the vanquished, but potentially, his death. Often, these included animals, including lions and other dangerous beasts. When the contest took place between two gladiators, at its peak, the victorious gladiator would stand over the defeated one, and look to the crowd for their vote, to determine if the loser had fought valiantly enough to be spared, and return to do battle another day. The crowd would then vote, shouting and signaling their decision: thumbs up, or thumbs down - and so, according to their vote, did the victorious gladiator respond.
The other kinds of foolishness and mockery would have been sufficient for the rabbis to declare the Roman stadiums off-limits to the Jews. The taking of human life for sheer entertainment value left no room for doubt, and our Talmudic passage states exactly what we would expect. However, as the text continues, it reports a different opinion: Rabbi Natan taught that a Jew should go whenever possible, and vote "thumbs up" - and potentially save a life. A Jew should go whenever possible, and vote "thumbs up" - and potentially save a life.
Yes, there are situations from which we rightfully distance ourselves, as the rabbis taught, But Rabbi Natan reminds us that if our involvement can possibly make a difference, then we are commanded to enter the fray - even if we find the milieu repulsive, even if our presence and participation may be misinterpreted, even if our potential influence is limited. We go and we vote - we shout! - and may save a life. We go and we vote - we shout! - and may save a life.
We are in the arena every day, although it is not always obvious to us. We enter the arena every time we pick up a newspaper and read about people being persecuted and oppressed all over the world. We are in it at work, every time something happens about which we might have something to say, but are unsure if it is worth the effort and exposure. We are in it at home, when our spouses or our children are acting in ways we know are self-destructive. We are in the arena every time we confront our own sense of what it means to be a Jew. And we are in it every time we stop to think about who we are and who we are becoming.
We do not always have the luxury of choosing when to enter the arena and when not to enter. Sometimes, it appears around us so quickly that there is no time for processing. I submit, for your consideration, a true story shared by my colleague, Rabbi Shifra Penzias of Seattle, one in which an extraordinary chapter was written in more than one life.
It happened in Nazi-occupied Italy to her great aunt, Sussie. Sussie had escaped Germany by climbing the Alps under cover of night, was on a train in Italy when German soldiers stopped it. After boarding, they began checking everyone's papers, which would indicate a person's religion and country of origin. When Sussie saw the Nazis dragging some individuals away, she burst into tears. She knew that these people were being taken to concentration camps where they would most likely die, and that, being Jewish, she would share their fate.
When the man next to her noticed that she was crying, he asked her why. She explained: 'I am Jewish; I don't have the papers that you do. They are going to take me away.' When he heard what Sussie said, he immediately began cursing and screaming at her. "You stupid oaf." he shouted. "You idiot! I can't stand being with you! The soldiers came up to them and asked what the yelling was about "This is my wife," the man shouted angrily, 'and once again she has forgotten her papers! Damn it! I am so frustrated! She always does this!' The Nazi soldiers laughed and moved on. That man, who placed himself in mortal danger, was never seen by Sussie again. She never even knew his name. But it did not matter: when he found himself unexpectedly called upon to decide her fate, he voted thumbs up, despite what, based on history, the majority of those in Nazi-occupied Europe would have done.
During these days of awe especially, we are reminded that the challenge is not only to discern when to enter the arena and when not to, but upon entering, whether by choice or by circumstance, to keep focused on the purpose of our mission - to vote thumbs up, to choose life - and not be swept away by the currents that fill the arena.
May these days of Teshuvah - these days of return - inspire us to return to the best that is in us, that we may be mindful of the purpose for which our thumbs -- and our whole selves --were created, as we write the next chapters of our life stories.
Amen