What is the most commonly violated teaching in the entire Torah? I think one could make a very good case for the last of the Ten Commandments, as found in this week’s portion, Yitro: “You shall not covet” (I write this in the immediate aftermath of three hours’ worth of Super Bowl ads, for which corporations spend millions of dollars precisely in order to induce us to covet—and purchase—their products).

Why is this so injunction so difficult? With very few exceptions, the Torah offers guidelines for our behavior. Thus the commandments which precede this one address, among other things: keeping Shabbat, respecting one’s parents, and avoiding idolatry, theft, murder, false witness, and adultery. Then, suddenly, we get that rare exception in which our tradition seems to legislate against thoughts and feelings. How is this even possible? Do we really control the storms of emotion and desire that flood our hearts and minds? Shouldn’t it be our actions—rather than our thoughts—that finally matter? What harm are covetous feelings if we do not act upon them?

One answer to this puzzle begins with the recognition that in our Jewish tradition, we do not actually use the Christian term “Ten Commandments”; we refer to them as Aseret Ha-Dibrot, the Ten Utterances. With this in mind, the tenth utterance may not be a commandment at all. Instead of translating “Lo Tachmod” as the imperative “You shall not covet,” we might instead read it as a statement: “You will not covet.” In other words, as my colleague, Rabbi Mark Glickman puts it, if you sincerely observe the first nine teachings--honor your parents, celebrate Shabbat, show fidelity to your spouse, take only what is yours, and all of the others—then you won’t be so tempted to want what you do not have. In the words of Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz (born in Prague around 1565): “ If your heart be filled to overflowing with the love of God, it is impossible that it would covet anything from among all the beautiful things of this world, for then there is no place in the heart that would desire or covet anything at all. It is like a full cup, unable to receive any more.”

There is much wisdom here. How do we deal with our culture’s incessant calls to covetousness, to craving all manner of consumer goods and services? By learning to truly value what we already have, savoring the blessings in our lives rather than obsessing about what we lack. As Pirkei Avot teaches: “Who is happy? One who rejoices in his or her portion?”

Or, to quote a more contemporary source, in the words of Sheryl Crow: “It’s not having what you want; it’s wanting what you’ve got.”

“Singing together helps people through very difficult times.”

Last week, I heard these words on an NPR podcast called “Singing the Revolution.” They came from Stuart Stotts, author of We Shall Overcome: A Song that Changed the World. Mr. Stotts argues that the civil rights movement might not have succeeded without the benefit of music, which fed the activists’ hearts and souls. Bernice Johnson Reagon-- daughter of a Baptist minister and founder of the a cappella group “Sweet Honey in the Rock”—agrees. She says that for the African-American demonstrators who risked their lives facing down brutal white supremacists, singing the songs of the black church conferred upon the people a collective conjured strength. The music created a kind of protective barrier between the demonstrators and the police, allowing the marchers to move beyond their fear. As Ms. Reagon describes it: “Those songs do something to the material that you’re made of. The singing connects you with a force in the universe that makes you different. You become part of a community. And then they can’t get to you.”

This week’s Torah portion, Beshallach, suggests that much the same dynamic worked for our ancestors at the shores of the Red Sea. While the text seems to point to the people singing the famous “Song at the Sea” only after they successfully passed through the waters, some of our most important commentators argue otherwise. Both Ramban and Seforno insist that the people actually sang while in the middle of the crossing, with the Egyptian army in hot pursuit. In other words, as Aviva Zornberg notes, the anxiety of the moment is the engine that drives the song: “The meeting of terror and joy, destruction and birth, takes the people beyond the normal places of speech.”

While we, thankfully, may never find ourselves pursued by either a vast army or racists bent on our destruction, we all face moments when it feels impossible to move forward, when we are paralyzed by fear. During those times, both Torah and history teach us that we may find faith and courage in music, especially when it is sung and celebrated in the company of good companions. When we know that we are not alone, when we share the blessing of song, we embolden ourselves and gird our faith to go on. This Shabbat is also known as Shabbat Shira—the Sabbath of Song. May we find the songs—and the fellow singers—that we need to face life’s challenges with courage.

In this week’s Torah portion, Bo, the pitched battle between Moses (representing God) and Pharaoh intensifies. Repeatedly, Moses demands, “Let my people go!” Repeatedly, Pharaoh refuses, his hardened heart exacting a terrible toll on his entire nation as the plagues ravage Egypt.

Then, just before the eighth plague (locusts), Pharaoh tries to strike a deal: the Israelite men can leave but the women and children must stay. Moses emphatically rejects the offer: “We will go, our young and our old, our sons and our daughters.”

Commenting in his lovely book, The Bedside Torah, Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson notes: “Pharaoh was speaking the normal language of politics, in which opposing camps compromise in order to reach agreement. The distinction between a good politician and a great one is the ability to know when a compromise is inappropriate. Moses was a great politician. He knew that the one area in which he could never compromise was his insistence on including all the people.”

This is an important lesson. Life without compromise is impossible. We rarely get everything that we want or think that we deserve. As the local church sign warned: “Husbands: If you’re always right, you’ll soon be left.” We make concessions all the time, in order to live with others: spouses, children, friends—and even enemies. Yet there are also times when we must stand on principle, when compromise would come at the cost of our integrity. Moses knows this. He musters the faith and courage to take a stand rather than striking a deal.

As Ecclesiastes teaches: to everything, there is a time.

A time to compromise and a time to stand our ground.

The challenge, of course, is to discern the proper time for each.

Liberation takes time.

In this week’s Torah portion, Va-era, God makes a four-fold promise to liberate the Jewish people: “I am the Eternal One, and I will free you from the burdens of the Egyptians. I will deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and great portents. And I will take you to be my people; I will be your God.”

Why this seeming repetition: “free you. . . deliver you. . . redeem you. . . take you”?

Some of the classical commentators, such as Ovadiah Sforno (Italian, 1475-1550) argue that this is a kind of poetic literary device, to emphasize God’s saving power. Most, however, see significance in the details of the sequence (which provides the biblical basis for the four cups of wine or juice that we consume at the Pesach seder). Nachmanides (1194-1270) describes each aspect of the promise as a separate but essential step toward full deliverance. Liberation begins with the cessation of external oppression. Next, one must shed the “slave mentality” that can linger long after physical emancipation. The third stage of the journey to true freedom—corresponding to “I will redeem you”—entails learning new values and responses. Finally, the ultimate liberation comes with living out these values and making them our own.

When we strive to liberate ourselves (often asking God’s help) from the narrow spaces and circumstances that confine us, we, too, make the journey in stages. Sometimes getting out of a bad place is only the beginning; it can take a very long time to escape the spiritual, material, and psychological toll that our “Egypts” exact from us. Re-setting our attitudes and priorities is the work of a lifetime. But portion Va-era reassures us that we can, indeed, break through to true freedom if we nurture the faith and patience to proceed stage by stage.

Change is hard.

This week’s Torah portion, Shemot—which opens the book of Exodus—is a case study in the challenge of change. Moses and Aaron set out, with high hopes, to liberate the Israelites from Egyptian bondage. They confront Pharaoh with their insistent demand: “Let my people go!” Alas, Pharaoh’s response only makes things worse for the beleaguered Israelites. He deems them shirkers and doubles their already-crushing workload. The people take their anger and suffering out on their erstwhile liberators, saying to Moses and Aaron: “May God look upon you and punish you for making us loathsome to Pharaoh and his courtiers.” Moses, in turn, directs his frustration toward the God who sent him on this thankless mission: “Eternal One, why did you bring harm upon this people? Why did you send me?”

How does the promise of deliverance so quickly devolve into a toxic cycle of name-calling and recrimination? Perhaps, as Rabbi Harold Kushner suggests, Moses’ bitter disappointment stems from unrealistic expectations of swift success. Since he, himself, is unprepared for the prolonged struggle that ensues, Moses fails to prepare the people that he is called to lead.

This encounter conveys a hard truth: when we seek positive change, things often get worse before they get better. As Rabbi Nachman of Breslov teaches, “All ascent requires descent.” What appears to be the nadir of our bondage is, in fact, the beginning of our redemption—but it is much easier to see this with the benefit of hindsight. So, too, in our own lives: genuine transformation is neither quick nor easy. We often experience dramatic downturns just before the dawning of a new and better reality.

In these situations, we need patience. It helps if we have friends and family who can coach and encourage us through the darkness that frequently accompanies the beginning of the transformation process. Realistic expectations help, too. We should expect to struggle—even as we nurture the optimism and faith that will bring us out the other end as better, freer, and wiser people.

The roads out of each of our “Egypts”—the narrow places that confine us in our own lives—pass through some deep, dark valleys.

There are no shortcuts to the Promised Land.

A coffin in Egypt.

This ominous phrase ends the week’s Torah portion, Va-yechi, and with it the stories of Genesis. Thus the Torah’s longest book, which opens with the creation of the world, concludes with Joseph’s death and embalming in a foreign land. Just before he passes away, Joseph makes his progeny swear an oath to carry his bones out of Egypt at the time of their future redemption. Thus, as Rabbi Harold Kushner notes, the scene foreshadows events soon to come in Exodus: enslavement, the murder of the Hebrew babies, and the birth of Moses, who will be rescued after floating in a coffin-like basket on the Nile.

Many years later, on the eve of the first Passover (and tenth plague), Moses himself returns to the Nile where he floated as a baby and gathers up Joseph’s bones from the river. Midrash teaches that he is able to find and raise those bones only after speaking with a legendary ancient woman, Serach bat Asher, the sole survivor of Joseph’s generation. She is a sage and storyteller whose wisdom enables Moses and the Israelites to honor their ancestors’ vow before setting out for the Promised Land.

Bones and stories bind the generations. Joseph’s coffin becomes Moses’s ark of salvation. Genesis and its tales of origins pave the way for both our enslavement and our subsequent emancipation. We carry our ancestors—and their stories—with us, wherever we go. In the words of William Faulkner: “The past is never dead. It isn’t even past.”

Faulkner’s words can be read fatalistically—but we Jews do not take them this way. Yes, our past constantly informs our present and our future, but it need not determine them. Our tradition emphasizes the transformative power of the past, with its bones and stories. A coffin can become a vessel of rescue and deliverance. A time of darkness can inspire us to be creators of light.

And so we move: from Genesis to Exodus, from origins to liberation.

When my children were little, and learning to ski, at the end of a day on the mountain, I would often ask: “How did you do?” Sometimes, with great pride, they would say: “I didn’t fall even once!”

To which I would usually respond: “Then you’re probably not learning enough.”

In order to grow, we have to experience failure. While we rarely go out and actively seek tough challenges, hardships, and shortcomings, all of these things inevitably find us. If we face them honestly and directly, we can use them as opportunities to become better people. Thus the Talmud teaches that a person who sins and truly repents stands in a higher place than a totally righteous person. Our failures can make us better if we are willing to learn from them.

In this week’s Torah portion, Va-yigash, Judah shows that he is prepared to sacrifice his own life for his younger brother Benjamin. Thus the man who earlier sealed the deal to sell another brother, Joseph, into slavery comes to embody the possibility of teshuvah—of real and enduring transformation. The word “Jew” (yehudi) is derived from “Judah” (yehudah). This is highly significant. As Cantor Kay Greenwald notes: “We are yehudim, the spiritual descendants of Judah. Inside each of us is the ability to turn our lives around for the better. Each of us has the power to learn and grow from our mistakes and our life experiences. Each of us has the power to forgive and to be forgiven.”

In other words, we Jews are, by name and character, a people who, rather than being defined by our failures, see them as opportunities for growth.

Now, if only we can get some snow so that we can start working at falling. . .

Anne Lamott opens her book Bird by Bird with an episode from her childhood that profoundly shaped her decision to become a writer and continues to influence the way that she works. She recalls: "Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird."

As this story illustrates, when we face difficult tasks, our greatest challenge is often just getting started. Anxiety and expectation can paralyze us. In these situations, the key to success is taking action—any action, even if it seems futile or off the mark. One can always correct mistakes later. The courage to act generates its own momentum, and once we begin to move forward, our confidence and our competence tend to expand by leaps and bounds. Progress is incremental, but once we start, it is also real. Bird by bird. Or, as another teaching puts it, the greatest journey begins with a single step.

I believe that this lesson lies at the heart of the Chanukah story. What is the real miracle here? The fact that a day’s worth of oil lasted for an additional week is relatively small time. Measured against, say, the plagues, or the parting of the Red Sea, slow burning fuel is really no big deal. The remarkable part of the story is the faith of the Maccabees. Given that small cruse of oil, they might very well have thought to themselves: “Since it will go out in a day, why bother to light it at all?”

Instead, they determined to kindle that lamp, to move forward with the hope and faith that, with God’s help, they would find a way to continue that journey on the morrow.

This week, as we celebrate Chanukah, recall the times that you have moved forward in your life, despite your anxiety, taking that single step that began a significant real or metaphorical journey. Let that memory sustain you through your current challenges, knowing that if you take them “bird by bird” you can, indeed, succeed.

Sometimes it takes adversity to spur growth. At the beginning of this week’s Torah portion, Va-yeshev, we meet our forefather Joseph. As a youth, he seems to have it all: striking good looks, his father Jacob’s favor, sartorial splendor in his many-colored coat, and the ability to prophesy through dreams and their interpretation. Yet young Joseph’s life takes some very difficult turns as a result of his one nearly fatal flaw of narcissism. At seventeen, Joseph lacks the slightest hint of empathy or even awareness of others’ feelings. He flaunts his status as favorite over his brothers, recounting to them his dreams of personal glory that can only serve to inflame their jealousy. As a result, those same brothers sell Joseph into slavery in Egypt, then tell their father that he is dead.

Things go from bad to worse. After he resists the advances of his master’s wife, Joseph winds up in prison, where he languishes, lost and forgotten. The youth who seemed destined for greatness has hit rock bottom. But it is in precisely this place of darkness and despair that Joseph becomes worthy of his birthright and his visions of leadership. When he encounters two fellow prisoners, Pharaoh’s former baker and cupbearer, Joseph notices that they are distraught before either one utters a word. With great compassion, he asks them: “Why do you appear downcast today?” The vicissitudes of life have enabled Joseph to mature from a profoundly gifted but rather callous lad into a genuine mentsch.

So, too, in our own lives. While we certainly do not seek out struggle, suffering, and loss, these things inevitably find us. Our challenge is to transform our difficult times and events into pathways of growth and compassion. Out of our darkest experiences, previously hidden strengths can emerge—if we nurture them and move forward with hope and faith. Or, as the psalmist puts it, in beautifully poetic imagery: “The stone that the builder rejected can become the chief cornerstone.”

This week, consider: how can you grow through adversity?

Two steps forward, one step back. More often than not, this is the way we make progress in this life. True change for the better is rarely linear. We make resolutions, succeed and fail, succeed and fail—and with luck and hope and a great deal of effort, in the end, we succeed a little more than we fail. If we expect to turn on a dime, we will inevitably be disappointed. But when we recognize that progress is incremental—when we learn to be patient with ourselves and with others—we can slowly transform our lives and our communities.

By way of example, consider this week’s portion, Va-yishlach, in which our forefather Jacob receives a new name. After an all night wrestling match with a mysterious divine being, Jacob tells his opponent: “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” The vanquished angel responds with a strange and wonderful blessing: “Your name shall no longer be Jacob but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed.”

It’s a classic Hollywood ending—almost. Jacob, who has previously received his blessings through conniving and deceit, earns this one the hard way. And he whose name means “heel” becomes the Godwrestler , a spiritual role model for all who follow. What a story of redemption—surely everyone should live happily ever after.

But there’s just one problem: after being promised, “you shall no longer be Jacob”—just a few lines later, and on and off through the rest of his life, the Torah calls him. . . JACOB.

Why is this? How can it be that the blessing, won from the angel, is only partially fulfilled? It’s puzzling—and it’s also deeply human. For in truth, this is the way create change in our own lives. In Judaism, there is no real counterpart to what Christians call “being born again” in which one undergoes a sudden, complete and enduring transformation, like Paul on the road to Damascus. For us, this does not ring true. Jewish tradition affirms the possibility of teshuvah but recognizes that this sort of conversion is incremental and includes lots of falling back into our old ways. Sometimes we are Israel, our new and improved selves. And sometimes, even many years after beginning the process of transformation, we go back to being Jacob, the old self that we had hoped to leave behind.

And so we bear our two names—bayt ya’akov, the house of Jacob, AND b’nai yisrael, the children of Israel. We are earthly connivers and wrestlers with the divine, fallen and angelic, striving for holiness and sometimes settling for a great deal less.

We are now two months past Yom Kippur. This week, reflect on some of the resolutions you made for this new year, 5772. Where have you succeeded? Where have you failed? Don’t let the failures cause you to give up—remember, progress is slow, but it is also real!

Last week, at a family education session for our Jewish Journeys program, I taught a lesson on tefillin. As I walked around the group with the pair of batim—the boxes that are wrapped upon the arm and the head—I noted that the bayit (box) worn upon the head is made up of four separate compartments, each containing a passage from the Torah. The bayit for the arm-tefillin, by contrast, is comprised of just one large compartment, which contains the same four biblical passages all written on a single strip of parchment.

After making this observation, I then asked the parents and students why they thought the tefillin were configured this way. This is one of those classic Jewish questions—the open-ended kind, with an almost infinite array of “right” answers—and the participants offered some terrific responses. My favorite came from one of our students, Gage Pendleton, who was attending with his grandparents, Freddie Fisherman and Terry McKay. Gage proposed that the four compartments on the tefillin for the head correspond to the four senses associated with the head (sight, smell, hearing, taste) while the one compartment worn on the arm corresponds to its associated sense of touch. I love this midrashic explanation, which points to our senses as pathways to perceiving the presence of God and/or holiness in the world and in our lives.

That sacred Presence is also at the heart of this week’s Torah portion, Va-yetze. On the run from his aggrieved brother Esau, Jacob falls asleep in the desert and dreams of a ladder connecting heaven and earth. When he awakens, he utters one of the Torah’s most memorable lines: “God was in this place, and I did not know it.”

There is a paradox here. Jewish tradition teaches that God is everywhere, all the time. And yet, we are so often oblivious to the Divine Presence. If, as Rabbi Menachem Nahum of Chernobyl teaches, the presence of the Creator is within each created thing, then why don’t we know it? We have this nagging suspicion that God is ubiquitous; we just can't seem to find God.

Perhaps God hides in plain sight. The problem is that we, like Jacob, are so often asleep—even during our waking hours. Our eyes and ears and nose and mouth and hands become so pre-occupied with trivial matters that we forget to notice the holiness that is all around us. God is in our various and sundry places, all of them, yet we, so often, do not know it.

Our challenge, then, is to awaken our senses. Thus the four compartments of the tefillin on our heads and the one on our arms, which remind us that our first and foremost religious obligation is to pay close attention. When our senses become portals to holiness, we can experience the Divine in all things. Thus do we become the heirs of our forefather, Jacob, finding that God was there all along, even when we did not know it.

My son, Jonah, recently asked me: “Do you know any bad guys?” Like many boys his age, he is intrigued by the super hero stars of comic books, movies, and TV: Spiderman, Batman, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, and the rest of the pantheon. And as anyone who has ever shared an interest in this genre knows, for every Super Hero there is also a villain—a really evil Bad Guy.

Since I have yet to encounter the Joker, Lex Luther, Doctor Octopus, Rita Repulsa, or any of their ilk, I can honestly respond that my experience with Bad Guys is, thankfully, quite limited. As a boy, I liked the Justice League just as much as Jonah now does, and I still enjoy the guilty pleasures of a clear cut, black and white, good vs. evil story like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. But as Jonah gets older, I want to offer him a more nuanced approach to morality. These days, I tell him that while I have met a very few truly Bad Guys (and Gals) in my fifty years, I believe that far more often, the problem is that basically decent people sometimes do bad things. As adults, our lives are not populated by either Super Heroes or Arch Villains; they are, instead, filled with ordinary men and women who are a mix of good and bad—just like ourselves.

This week’s parashah, Toldot, tells the story of Jacob and Esau. As twins, they begin as bitter rivals even before they are born, struggling for pre-eminence in Rebecca’s womb. Over the course of Jewish history, our sages come to equate Esau with pure evil; he becomes the archetypical anti-Semite, a symbol of the oppressive Roman empire and later medieval persecutors of Jews. But this is an anachronism. I find the biblical character of Esau to be rather sympathetic. He may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but he is not a typical villain, nor is his brother Jacob—our conniving and devious forefather—a typical hero. As Rabbi Harold Kushner notes: “The twins are complementary, each representing one-half of a complete personality, each having qualities the other lacks and lacking qualities the other possesses. . . When the Torah describes them as struggling within Rebecca’s womb and continues to portray them as rivals growing up, it may be telling us that these two sides of many people are struggling within each individual for dominance.”

In other words, life—and morality—is complicated. We all contain both Jacob and Esau, even as each of them contains the other. We are capable of both heroic acts and callous cruelty. Our challenge is to rein in our evil instincts and inclinations, to act on the basis of what Abraham Lincoln aptly called “our better angels.”

Or, as I might say to Jonah: “I’ve met both Bad Guys and potential Super Heroes—in my own mirror.” The challenge is to incline toward the Super Heroes.

One of the most poignant moments in “Fiddler on the Roof” comes when Tevye turns to Golde, his wife of twenty-five years, and asks: “Do you love me?” To which she responds, “Do I what?” and suggests he must be suffering from indigestion. But Tevye is persistent. Reflecting on his own arranged marriage and the more modern ways of his daughters, he asks again—and in the end, Golde concedes: “For twenty-five years I’ve lived with him, fought with him, starved with him. Twenty-five years my bed is his. . . if that’s not love, what is?”

These matters—arranged marriage and love—are at the center of this week’s parashah, Chaye Sarah. After Abraham’s servant Eliezer chooses Rebecca to be Isaac’s bride, the two settle down together. Genesis 24:67 teaches: “Isaac brought her into the tent of Sarah, his mother, and he took Rebecca and she became his wife and he loved her.” This is the first time Torah mentions love, and as Rabbi Harold Kushner notes, the order of the verse is significant. He writes: “Isaac comes to love Rebecca after he marries her. Their love is the result, not the prerequisite, of their relationship.”

This is an important lesson for us. We live in a time of high-profile but short-lived celebrity nuptials. Our culture romanticizes love at first sight, the notion of instant soul mates living happily ever after. We place so much emphasis on the lavish pomp of weddings—and so little on what really counts, which is the hard daily work of building a marriage (or life partnership). If, to quote Sinatra (or, actually, his Jewish songwriter, Sammy Cahn), love and marriage really do go together like a horse and carriage, our problem is that we tend to put the cart (love) before the horse (the partnership)—while at the same time, denying loving same-sex partners the opportunity to share the ride. In any lifelong union—gay or straight—deep and enduring love is what is earned after the hormonal flush of infatuation ends. As with Isaac and Rebecca—and Tevye and Golde—it is achieved through the countless mundane shared acts and moments accrued over time when two people make a commitment to grow with and support one another.

I’ll end with an excerpt from Jane Hirshfield’s poem, “For What Binds Us”:

And see how the flesh grows back

across a wound, with a great vehemence,

more strong

than the simple, untested surface before.

There’s a name for it on horses,

when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh,

as all flesh

is proud of its wounds, wears them

as honors given out after battle,

small triumphs pinned to the chest—

And when two people have loved each other

see how it is like a scar between their bodies,

stronger, darker, and proud;

how the black cord makes of them a single fabric

that nothing can tear or mend.

This week we read the story of Noah and the deluge. This is one of the Torah’s best-known tales. It is the subject of countless children’s books and songs, and with its colorful rainbow and menagerie of animals, it is a favorite of illustrators as well. I will admit I have always found this a bit odd, since it is also one of our tradition’s most troubling stories—in which God, to be blunt, commits genocide. The destruction of every living thing on earth is pretty much the opposite of cute.

One would think that after many months in tight closed quarters with a bunch of animals, Noah and his family would be eager to leave the ark as soon as the flood waters recede. But according to the Midrash, this is not the case. God must actually command Noah to leave, insisting: “Go out—leave the ark—you and your wife and your sons and your sons’ wives with you.” Noah is inclined to tarry in this big, smelly sealed wooden box; he only departs after God insists.

Why this reluctance? Some of the commentators suggest that Noah is afraid his descendants will again defile God’s newly-created world and bring another flood upon themselves. In other words, Noah is paralyzed by his fear of what the future may bring. Others propose that Noah has simply become accustomed to his admittedly unpleasant and yet comfortably familiar surroundings. For him, the terror of the unknown—the re-established world outside the ark—is more powerful than the desire to escape his difficult current situation.

So often we, too, find ourselves in these circumstances. Change is frightening. We choose the devil we ” know rather than setting off into the wilderness that we don’t.

But sometimes we simply must go forward. God—or fate, or circumstances, or life—knocks on the portal, as it were, and tells us that we have to come out, move ahead, and face the unknown. This is the way we grow. A new world cannot be born until Noah emerges, despite his fear. So, too, for us. Interestingly, the Hebrew word for the ark—“tevah”—also means a casket. To remain in that closed, familiar world is, essentially, to choose stagnancy and death over life.

In this season of new beginnings, may we find the strength, faith, and courage to leave our “arks.

RH Morning 5772: The Head, the Hand, and the Heart

Over the course of my lifetime, I have attended a lot of graduations. As a student myself, then as a brother, a rabbi, a friend and a parent, I have listened to countless commencement addresses offered by a host of local dignitaries. Yet truth be told, with one exception, I can not remember a single significant detail from any of them. All of these speeches have been forgettable, including a couple that I only vaguely recall delivering myself. Graduation talks tend to offer tedious, clichéd formalities that only serve to delay the main event.

But oh, that one exception! I have contemplated it often since I first heard it almost fifteen years ago, and I continue to glean new insights every time I return to its wisdom.

Neither the school nor the speaker was famous. The speech got no coverage on CNN or NPR, or for that matter, Boise’s News Channel Seven. Although certainly deserving, it is not included in any anthologies of “Best Commencement Addresses of 1997.” Mine was the only Jewish family present for the event, and yet the words that defined it might have been drawn straight out of Jewish tradition—even though their author was Basque. The speaker was Miss Patti, the occasion: my daughter Tanya’s kindergarten graduation from Montessori House for Children. And her talk was entitled, “The Head, The Heart, and the Hand.”

With simple eloquence that masterfully moved both the six year olds and their proud parents, siblings, and grandparents, Miss Patti challenged us all to live well-balanced lives. She drew on Maria Montessori’s philosophy of education, with its holistic blend of intellect, emotion, and action.

“Use your heads,” she urged. Reflect on your past experience, plan for the future, develop self-awareness. Think about your choices and their consequences. This is the way we change and grow.

“Cherish your hearts,” she added. Cultivate kindness and compassion. Nurture your spirit. Acknowledge your full range of feelings and emotions. This is how we open ourselves to one another, and to the countless gifts the world offers every day, if we are receptive to its love and generous in returning it.

“And put your hands to work,” she concluded. Translate your thoughts and feelings and words into positive actions. Make a difference. Be quick to help others. Repair what is broken. Fix what is unfair. Create beauty.

That is why we are here and how we should live: by head and heart and hand.

I recall this speech every year when we chant Unetaneh Tokef, the prayer that is, perhaps, most emblematic of these Days of Awe. Little did Miss Patti know that her advice to her young charges and their families would always carry, for me, echoes of the most shattering, death-haunted poetry of the High Holy Day liturgy.

We’ve heard the terrifying and transformative words of Unetaneh Tokef earlier this morning. Were you paying attention? Their thunderous, raw language sounds a most disturbing wake up call:

Let us proclaim the sacred power of this day, for it is full of awe and dread. . .

You are Judge and Arbiter—You open the Book of Life and we pass like sheep beneath Your staff. . . as You consider and calculate, record and recount our every deed. . . and in so doing, decree the fate of every living thing:

Who shall live and who shall die. . .

Who by fire and who by water. . .

Who by hunger and who by thirst. . .

Who by strangling and who by stoning,. . .

Who will be tranquil and who will be troubled. . .

This chilling litany marks the chasm between Divine power and human frailty. It is, of course, metaphorical. God is not really a shepherd, we are not sheep, and the Book of Life is, as we would say, a virtual one. But the imagery relentlessly drives home the poet’s point: our lives are utterly fragile, and our fates are largely determined by forces infinitely greater than our selves.

And then comes the kicker, the phrase upon which the entire poem pivots:

“U-teshuvah, u-tefillah, u-tzedakah ma’avirin et ro-ah ha-g’zerah”

Repentance, prayer and charity temper the severity of the decree.

What does this line mean? What does it come to teach us?

One could take it as a promise of Divine reward for good behavior. According to this interpretation, sincere repentance, heartfelt prayer, and generous giving essentially buy us life, health, and prosperity. In other words, if we are virtuous enough, God will judge us favorably, enabling us to avert the decree for another year.

But such a reading does not hold.

To begin with, it is obvious that no one escapes the final judgment. No matter how radically we repent, how truly we pray, and how munificently we give, we will all perish. Pain and sorrow afflict every one of us; the only question is not “if” but how and when. The decree is irrevocable, issued, signed, and sealed at birth. And, alas, it is often anything but fair. Over the course of this new year, 5772, some of us will fall sick, many will endure difficult losses, and a few of us will die. That is not divine punishment; it is the way of flesh and blood.

To put it in the bluntest of terms: almost nothing we do, for good or for evil, will change the decree. There is no simple correlation between morality and mortality. To insist that doing mitzvot will assure long life and abundance—or that sinning will bring distress and death—is to deceive oneself. As the poet Mary Oliver puts it:

Above the modest house and the palace—the same darkness.

Above the evil man and the just, the same stars.

Above the child who will recover and the child who will

not recover, the same energies roll forward,

from one tragedy to the next and from one foolishness to the next.

Even worse, the illusory calculus of divine reward and punishment insinuates that those who suffer are themselves to blame for their unfortunate fate. The notion that God dishes out blessing and retribution according to our merits is therefore shortsighted at best, and, at worst, insulting. Our destinies are much more complicated, mysterious, and paradoxical than can be expressed in such falsely pious formulas. By any reasonable human reckoning, life is not fair—and while, repentance, prayer and charity are certainly virtues, they do not alter that fundamental reality.

Of course we are not the first generation to recognize this inequity. Life’s unfairness is not exactly breaking news. Our Talmudic sages lived in times and places steeped in much more death and disaster than our own. Women routinely died in childbirth. Many children never reached adulthood. Plague and pestilence decimated communities. Rabbis were tortured and killed for the crime of teaching Torah. And so our Sages struggled, at least as much as we do, to make sense of a world in which inexplicable afflictions strike down virtuous women, men, and children, while the depraved and merciless escaped unscathed.

The history of the Unetaneh Tokef prayer reflects the Rabbis’ wrestling with this age-old quandary. Five hundred years before Amnon of Mayence is said to have composed the words that we recited this morning, the Jerusalem Talmud offered an earlier version teaching that “repentance, prayer, and charity m’vatlin—abrogate or tear up—the decree.” But this first draft did not make the cut. Our revision shifts the verb from m’vatlin to ma’avirin—from abrogate to mitigate. This modification changes everything. With it, the Rabbis reject the illusion that doing good ensures a long and happy life. They concede: the decree stands, regardless of the merit of our deeds.

And yet. . . our deeds matter. While our choices cannot shield us from sorrow, they can temper our suffering and ease our passage. Repentance, prayer and charity won’t cure a disease or restore a loved one but they may attract people who console us in our grief, and thereby restore a sense of community, meaning, and peace. Nothing can stave away sadness and loss—but we can all find purpose and possibility in the portion that, for better and for worse, is ours. In the end, we cannot change the decree. But we retain the power to choose life and blessing in the days allotted us.

In other words, Unetaneh Tokef reminds us, oftentimes we do not create our circumstances. But we decide how to respond to them—and the choices that we make define who we are and what we will become.

Who shall live and who shall die? Each and every one of us. The challenge is to make the most of the unknown parcel of precious time we are allotted, to live each fleeting hour with awareness, intention, and integrity. For in truth, some people are as good as gone even as they go through the motions of walking this earth, while others remain vitally alive even while confined to their deathbeds. The wisdom of Unetaneh Tokef cannot rescue us from illness or death, but it can teach us to number our days, and live well—lest we die spiritually while we are still here.

Which brings me back to Miss Patti and her sage advice to the young graduates of Montessori House for Children. Although she did not know it, her categories of head, heart, and hand correspond beautifully to teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah, the three activities that ease the decree’s severity.

Teshuvah is all about the head. It is the way of self-awareness, the radical notion that by focusing mind and will, we can improve ourselves, rise above our faults, and amend our failings. In the words of Rabbi Sharon Brous, teshuvah is the promise that: “You don’t have to be a static, stagnant being, dwelling in the mistakes of years past. You can affirm that life is dynamic and people change.” The process begins with a serious spiritual accounting, in which we weigh the consequences of our choices, good and bad. From there, we ask forgiveness from those we have hurt and grant it to those who have hurt us. And then comes hardest part of all: mustering and maintaining the mental discipline to stay on course from this new year to the next. It is difficult and demanding work, but the reward is great—for if we wish to be truly alive until we die, we must use our heads, to make teshuvah, to live the carefully and constantly examined life, to apply God’s gift of conscience and mind, to question, reflect, hope, and grow.

Tefillah is the language of the heart. It is the path of compassion and kindness, the power of emotion that gives the spirit wings. The truest prayer is our awe-filled silence when the world’s beauty takes our breath away. Tefillah is all that makes us sing and soar: candles, music, meditation, art, nature, relationship. It is about living and embracing mystery, about moving forward on faith when we are weary and cannot otherwise discern the way. Whenever we truly open our hearts, what they utter is a kind of prayer. Tefillah is the love that conquers loneliness; it is the heart’s miraculous capacity to both give and receive the comfort of community as we reach toward God and one another. This, too, is difficult work, and risky, for whenever we extend our hearts, we risk having them broken. But again, the reward is great—for if we wish to be truly alive until we die, we must, indeed, dare to open our hearts, to raise up our tefillah, our prayer, to receive and bless the countless gifts the world extends every day, and lovingly offer ourselves in return.

Tzedakah is the work of the hand. It is ethics in action, the way of renewal and repair. While much in life is inequitable and out of our control, tzedakah reminds us that our hands can make the world a little fairer. For Jews, this is not an option but an obligation. We must share our resources and give of ourselves. Tzedakah means standing hand in hand with our fellow citizens, living lightly on the earth, caring for the environment, fighting oppression, and recognizing that we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. Tzedakah is how we embody our Jewish values in the marketplace of daily life. Let us put our hands to healing, here in our local community, our state and nation, and in Israel, our Jewish homeland. As Talmud teaches, we need not complete the work, but neither are we free to desist from it—for if we wish to be truly alive until we die, we must use our hands, to perform the sacred labor of tzedakah, to fix what is broken and sow seeds of justice and liberation.

On this first morning of the New Year, let us, then, affirm our holy calling, according to both Miss Patti and Rabbi Amnon of Mayence: teshuvah, tefillah and tzedakah, the head, the heart, and the hand. For knowing that we will all die, our challenge is to live fully, here and now, embracing intellect, emotion, and action.

I conclude with the final paragraph of Ian Frazier’s wonderful memoir, Family. As the book draws to a close, he is sitting at his mother’s deathbed. Feeling the weight of her mortality—and his own—he recognizes in that sad and sacred moment what we live for. He writes:

Sooner or later I would die—I understood that now, clearly, the way you suddenly become aware of the sky and the diving board after the person in front of you has jumped—and my kids perhaps would see me off as I had seen my parents off, or perhaps not. And soon all the people who had accompanied me through life would be gone, too, and then even the people who had known us, and no one would remain on earth who had ever seen us, and those descended from us perhaps would know stories about us, perhaps once in a while they would pass by buildings where we had lived and they would mention that we had lived there. And then the stories would fade, and our graves would go untended, and the graves of those who had tended ours would go untended, and no one would guess what it had been like to wake before dawn in our breath-warmed bedrooms as the radiators clanked and our wives and husbands and children slept. And we would move from the nearer regions of the dead who are remembered into the farther regions of the forgotten, and on past those, into a space as white and big as the sky replicated forever. And all that would remain would be the love bravely expressed, and the moment when you danced and your heart danced with you.

Ken y’hi ratzon.

But this time, the rabbi was not alone. For on that eve of Rosh Hashanah, the sacred day when the world labored to be born anew, she found her entire congregation waiting there for her—young and old, long-time friends and newcomers, women and children and men. She laughed and cried and smiled as they embraced her and she embraced them back. Then, she pointed at the door, held up the glittering keys, and. . .

saw a crowd of congregants, the usual ones—Harry Cohen, Rose Cohen, Irving Miller, Stanley Tedesco, Christine (Tina) Williams—you know them, too. The rabbi gave a key to the first three people and told them to bring them back when they completed their investigation. They returned shortly with nothing except puzzled looks on their faces. Many more people claimed a key; and although most came back empty-handed, a few found something. One person, who emerged from the copper room had a hammer and thumbtacks and a sheaf of pamphlets. A second person emerged from the room of water with a load of law books, and a third came out of the “wilderness” room with a dusty, crumbling map.

The rabbi also saw at the edge of the crowd someone who looked like Elijah, and he had an agitated look on his face as if he were arguing with someone—probably God, with whom he had many contentious moments until the usually benign seer quit being a prophet.

After awhile, with so many people going in and out of the three rooms, the doors were left ajar, and no keys were needed. In and out, room to room. Finally, as the rabbi was observing all these comings out and goings in, she realized that the last person to enter the room of fire was taking a long time. The man was of undistinguishable age and looked steadfast. With the door now mostly open, she could see that the room was almost empty, except for a fireplace with raging flames. There was also a bookshelf with two books, one small and the other larger. Suddenly possessed with acute vision, she saw the man take the first book off the shelf and open it. Inside was only one short message: You don’t know how much time you have left, so get to work. The other larger book had burnt edges and smelled of smoke. In it was an old photograph of a very handsome man, probably in his early thirties, and underneath was a handwritten caption in Russian and English: Dadja Loveh, Uncle Louie, taken in 1899. On the next page was a little story:

Uncle Louie was a revolutionary and used to get arrested from time to time. When he went to jail he used to take his little printing press with him. He made his pamphlets and dropped them out of the back window to his young nephew, who used to (with his mother) wheel a baby carriage from telegraph pole to telegraph pole and have someone nail up a sheet of paper, which always ended with--comes the Revolution.”

After reading the two books, the man gathered them up and left the fire room with a look of resolve.

The rabbi moved closer to the door of the water room as another congregant entered. He, too, was surprised to find an almost bare room with a small book shelf and two books. He opened the first book and found a short, somewhat enigmatic statement: chose life without the threat of death if you don’t. The second book had a picture of a wiry man with a khaki long sleeved shirt and khaki pants holding up a string of about sixty trout. The caption read: Nephew of Uncle Louie, Sam the Wise. On the facing page was the following parable:

According to Maimonides, one of the highest forms of Tzdakah, charity, is the anonymous gift. Sam took his youngest son Lazar to a father-son dinner, once. After the meal and some boring entertainment, the master of ceremonies (another Sam), got up.

"I'll make no bones," he began, "we want to raise money to buy bats and gloves for boys not as fortunate as our wonderful sons." He threw out a figure. Someone called out, "I'll give you five." Another person said, "ten." "Sounds like an auction," Sam said as he got up to "go to the bathroom."

When he came back after about ten minutes, the master of ceremonies stopped his patter. "Ladies and gentleman...actually there are no ladies at a father-son affair, and not all of you are gentlemen, either." A few people laughed. "But there is one gentleman here who just doubled the amount we've raised so far. There'll be plenty of baseball played this summer."

"So who is it?" somebody yelled.

"I'll tell you who it is." The master solicitor paused. "It's...Mister A. Nony Moose."

The seeker in the water room chuckled a little, but he also noticed a sheaf of envelopes tucked into the back of the book. Each contained a solicitation letter from organizations like cancer hospitals or the natural resource council. When he left, he had a look of determination. Actually, he looked a little like Mr. A. Nony Moose.

The rabbi was pleased, but she also noticed a teenager shrinking behind the dwindling crowd. This young person finally gathered the courage to enter the “gold” room. This room had the usual shelf with two books, but the walls were papered with maps. The teenager opened the first small book and saw no picture, only a brief inscription: You are here; where are you going? On the next page was a small map with an X and the repeated statement: You are here, followed by some dotted lines and an arrow that was pointed upwards toward Sinai. The precocious teenager rushed from the “gold” room, the room of exile, to begin the journey from here to there.

By now, no one was left, or so the rabbi thought. But from the back materialized a man whom everyone called Uncle Lazar. He approached the rabbi, gave her a kiss on the cheek (as happens with female rabbis) and then a letter. “Kain Y’Hi Ratzon,” he said and left.

This time the rabbi was truly alone. She opened the letter and found a sheet that said simply:

Dealing with Crises or Life in General

1. Achieve a sense of awe everyday. Look for a baby’s smile or a double rainbow or turning leaves on a mountain. Listen to Dylan or Beethoven or even the sound of silence.

2. Do something for someone else because so many people do something for you. A “pat on the back” is a good start.

3. Learn something new everyday. Don’t wait to be taught; ask questions.

4. Create at least one parable a day. A parable is the mirror of our life.

The rabbi folded the letter and also put the three keys into it. I have become the keeper of the keys, she thought--the keys to the sovereignty of learning, faith and deeds of loving kindness.

Dan Ronfeld

So the rabbi, having been given the keys, offers them to the congregation, saying, “Our community has always acted at its highest when we act as a family and whatever decision we make today we will do as a family. Opening this door, we reach a place of milk and honey. A land not given to the troubles of this life. So please, offer up your thoughts.”

The first up was a logical one, the Patriarch of the Congregation. A.K. Markowitz. He spoke up and said, “My father and my mother came to this community wanting the independence the open minded West offered. They were shackled by the constraints of the Lower East. Before that, my grandparents got on boats, barely in their teens with nothing but memories of families they would never see again. Since Abraham we’ve taken up and moved forward. Now with the chance to go into Gan Eden, tell me—what has this world got left for us, that we should stay? I may have an old man’s eyesight, but my vision is clear. Times are bleak. Things are bad. I might not be here too much longer, but the whole of our people isn’t slated to make it into another century. We need to go now while we’re still here to go.”

He was resigned. Soon almost all in one form or another were in agreement. The door, for a variety of reasons, must be opened and the age of wonder let in.

Then from the back there was a noise, all too familiar with the Hebrew School teachers, belonging to Shmoey Abrams- the pisher nightmare of Classroom Gimmel. No shin was safe as he made his way to the rabbi, halting, almost in time, and yelled, “STOP! STOP! Don’t to it.”

The rabbi who was wonderful with children... said “Shmoey, why not?”

“Because the last Harry Potter stunk!”—and they all looked at him… At this point, his parents wished little Shmoey was an orphan. The rabbi, who was also patient, said “Shmoey, I think you are a little off topic”.

“NO,” he looked back ferociously, “when you finish anything it’s bad and when you finish it’s over. Even when you are losing the game, playing is better than stopping. Even when the movie scares you, it’s better than when it’s over. You can’t say it’s over, you can’t call it over. Whatever is there, it can’t matter as much as what is here. How good can another life be, how can it be better than this one? Even when it isn’t great, it’s still really fun.”

The eternal optimism of youth smashed the idol of defeatism. Shmoey’s parents for the first time felt something akin to naches. The game of life isn’t called on account of rain, and if you are alive enough to assess your failures, you are alive enough to keep trying. Jewish history has always been written on the blade of a knife. Apathy is a horrible enemy, but it’s not pogroms. Intermarriage is a tough conversation, but it’s not Kristallnacht. Whatever, the congregation decided, an afterlife might hold, it would have to wait- and this life must be engaged. We may not have any solutions—but they are ours to find, and as long as we exist, we have time to find them.

The rabbi looked at her congregation. The Abrams and the Markowitzes, yes, but also interfaith families, gay families, childless and adoptive families, families made up of individuals not born Jewish. It’s not a shrinking circle, it’s a broadening one. Her job was to embrace that change. Not force it into the mold of an antiquated template, but assess and evaluate the new opportunities that a 21st Century Judaism offers. One with Chinese 5 spice in the Chicken soup. A seder table with a new illustration on our struggle for freedom.

So she took the keys, put them in a box, and wrapped it up, to be stored in the attic of the temple under a large forgotten crate marked “Golem.” One day, she told herself, she would have to open that and see whatever could be inside...

**********

Becky Groves

But this time, the rabbi was not alone. For on that eve of Rosh Hashanah, the sacred day when the world labored to be born anew, she found her entire congregation waiting there for her—young and old, long-time friends and newcomers, women and children and men. She laughed and cried and smiled as they embraced her and she embraced them back. Then, she pointed at the door, held up the glittering keys, and said, “ You will remember not long ago we celebrated Shabbat and I spoke to you of the Torah portion, Ki Tavo, which means “when you enter”. I stand before you today as we are about to enter a new beginning. This door holds behind it the promise of what will be, but I cannot open it alone, I need your help.

Before the Rabbi had finished speaking a young man from the congregation jumped up. He burned with a desire to right the injustices of the world. His whole body was ablaze as he snatched the copper key from the Rabbi's hand, confident that his passion was all that was needed to unlock the great door.

Next, an older congregant rooted in tradition came forward. He was sure that the steady flow that had always led him on his way was the only true way. The cool, calmness of knowing that the current was the same today as it had been yesterday and would be the same tomorrow guided him forward as he deliberately reached for the silver key.

After some time passed and no one else came forward the Rabbi walked to the back of the room and handed the remaining key to a quiet woman who looked confused and unsure as she hesitantly took the gold key in her hand.

Each one tried their key in the lock. The copper key in the copper lock, the silver key in the silver lock, and the gold key in the gold lock, but the door would not open.

Then they tried them together, each one putting their key in the locks simultaneously, but the door still would not open.

Just when the congregation was losing hope, a small child stepped forward and the face of Elijah was in the face of the child as she spoke to the three holding the keys.

“Why don't you switch keys” she suggested, “Embrace what the other has to offer. It is only when you accept the other that the door will be opened to you.”

The quiet woman timidly reached for the copper key and her confusion became conviction.The young man grabbed the silver key and his fiery passion cooled to a calm contentment.

The older man smugly scooped up the gold key, confident in his beliefs, only to find that he was filled with the blessing of doubts.

These three then joined hands and each with the key of the other firmly in their grasp they went to door and inserted the keys into the locks.

It was only then that the door swung open and they heard these words:

“All Jews are responsible, one for the other. Ki Tavo, when you enter, you enter as one.”

**********

Jack Bonawitz

But this time, the rabbi was not alone. For on that eve of Rosh Hashanah, the sacred day when the world labored to be born anew, she found her entire congregation waiting there for her—young and old, long-time friends and newcomers, women and children and men. She laughed and cried and smiled as they embraced her and she embraced them back. Then, she pointed at the door, held up the glittering keys, and paused. She could see that they were waiting for her to open the three locks and reveal so much to them. The rabbi imagined that her congregants saw her as the Israelites saw Moses.

What happened next surprised everyone, the rabbi included, for she took each of the keys as one would take a Frisbee and sailed it with all her might as far as she could. She saw each of the keys sail through the air, almost in slow motion, and each one landed in a deep pool of muddy water where it quickly sank out of sight.

When the last of the keys was gone, she was as astonished as anyone in the congregation. She hadn’t planned to throw them away; it just seemed to happen. Had someone asked her what she was going to do or why she was going to do it, she wouldn’t have known what to say. Her actions were more like instinctive reactions to danger—like swatting at a wasp flying into one’s face.

And when her gaze turned back to her congregation, she saw a range of emotions: some were confused at what she had done; some were disappointed at the loss of the keys; and some were openly angry at her actions.

Now, at this point you’re probably wondering how this is all going to work out since the Erev Rosh HaShonah service was supposed to begin in just a few short hours. So I will tell you—I don’t know.

An old Litvak, known for his keen mind and vivid imagination, said that the congregation met within the hour to decide the rabbi’s future. The president, a hard-nosed businessman known more for thin budgets and short meetings, had wanted to fire the rabbi on the spot. The rest of the Board decided that a congregational meeting would be the best forum for uncovering the truth. No email or phone tree was necessary—everyone even remotely connected to the congregation wanted to be there to see what would happen.

The congregation’s sanctuary, which would normally seat one hundred, was packed for the meeting. In fact, many noticed with some irony that more people were there than ever attended High Holy Days services.

Promptly at the set time, nothing happened. Finally, almost twenty minutes later, the president arrived with a cup of coffee in one hand and a sheaf of papers in the other. He quickly called the meeting to order, and turned it over to his son, a young man whose sole accomplishment was being the only child of a wealthy man. The son strode to the reading stand, looked around the sanctuary at the congregation, cleared his throat, and began: “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said somewhat pompously, “allow me to set forth the facts in this case. Our rabbi had in her possession today three keys which would have allowed the members of this congregation to become what we all aspire to—pious Jews.” At this point, the Litvak said, more than a few knowing looks were exchanged since the young man rarely attended services, and he once asked at Passover when they would sing his favorite song, Kol Nidre. The congregation, however, seemed willing to allow him to make a point or to find one, but they were already beginning to look at their watches. He continued, “Given the power to guide this congregation, our rabbi knowingly, willingly, and”—he searched here for another adverb—“uh, haphazardly discarded three keys to the doors of…of…”—by now everyone could see that he was as prepared as Noah’s neighbors.

The president, seated on the bimah, quietly said, “Hymie, sit down.”

“I’m not done,” the young man said stridently.

“Sit, Hymie,” his father said, “sit.” And with that the father strode to the reading stand while the young man slipped quietly into a pew next to his mother who patted his hand and offered him a Lifesaver.

“Now,” said the older man, “I just want to ask you, Rabbi, why did you throw those keys away?”

Not since her bat mitzvah had the rabbi been so anxious. As she stood to walk to the shtender, she felt light-headed, the way she had felt hours earlier when she threw the keys into the pool. She wondered to herself if she was having an out-of-body experience because she was moving without thinking, looking without seeing.

Grasping the sides of the shtender, she looked out at the congregation, smiled as best she could, and said, “Friends, I apologize if I have hurt you or confused you.” She paused to let this sink in, then she continued. “I could ask you to trust me to do what is right, but I feel like you deserve more of an explanation.” As she looked around the sanctuary, she saw heads nodding, but few smiles.

“Over the past months, I’ve had a series of—well, I don’t know what to call them exactly. In some ways they were dreams, but they weren’t exactly dreams. If I studied kabbalah, I’d say they were mystical experiences. Whatever they were, they were very odd and very powerful. Just as Dante had Vergil to guide him, I had Elijah to guide me.” As these words came from her mouth, she saw looks of confusion on some faces and amusement on others. Sensing their concern, she went on: “I know this isn’t the explanation you expected, but allow me to continue.” She paused, gathered her thoughts, and continued. “In those dreams, when Elijah appeared to me, he showed me a door with three locks on it. Behind the door was Torah and transformation. If I passed three tests, I would get the keys to those locks. The first test was fire, the second water, and the third wilderness. But when I passed all three tests, Elijah said he couldn’t go any further, and he just disappeared. He gave me those three keys you saw, and—poof!—he was gone.” As she said this, she realized how preposterous the whole story sounded. Had someone told her the story, she thought, she would have wondered at his sanity.

Based on the looks on their faces, however, the congregation seemed to believe this story. It was as odd a story as they’d ever heard, but she was, after all, their rabbi, and she had never misled them before.

At this moment, though, she realized that the most important part of the story had yet to be told—why had she thrown away the keys? “So,” the rabbi said, “you’re wondering why—if those keys were so hard to get and so valuable—why did I throw them away? If I could give you that great gift, why didn’t I?” A room full of heads nodded, almost in unison. The rabbi continued, “Well, I’ll tell you. Judaism.” She paused for that to sink in. “Yes, Judaism is about doing, not receiving, not believing. Doing. Think about that. What are some of the important principles of Judaism? Torah (lifelong learning), Avodah (spiritual growth), G’milut Chasadim (acts of loving kindness), Kehilah (community-building) Tsedakah (justice). Each of those principles requires that we do something, not just talk about it or profess to believe in it. We have to do.” She paused, as much to catch her breath as to let this lesson sink in.

After a moment, she continued, “Those keys that some of you were so upset at losing? Well, you did nothing to earn those keys, you never had them in your possession, and you don’t even know what you would have received if I had given them to you. In a way, you’re like Jonah. He tried to avoid his responsibility to do something, then, when he did something, he didn’t understand what he’d done. And we don’t know if he ever—as they say today—got it.”

Feeling more confident, the rabbi paused for a moment then went on, “May I ask you some questions? Do you want your children and grandchildren to be b’nai mitzvah?” Virtually every head nodded. “Good. Do you want your children to be married under a chuppa?” Again, nods all around. “Good. Do you want to be buried in a Jewish cemetery?” Again, nods. “Very good. Now, would you like to see the world be a better place?” There was widespread murmuring in assent. “I thought so,” said the rabbi. “So what will it take to get those things? Magic keys? Or you—each and every one of you—doing what you can to shape the world as it should be.”

Looking at her watch, the rabbi said, “Now, we can begin our Erev Rosh HaShonah prayers, or we can put our faith in magic keys. We can begin transforming ourselves and our world, or we can cross our fingers and hope.”

The old Litvak said that no one even thought about going out to that pond. As a matter of fact, he claimed that the new sanctuary, which was constructed during Hymie’s first term as president, was built where the muddy pond had been.

The communal confession of sin, known in Hebrew as the vidui, is at the heart of the Yom Kippur liturgy. Ashamnu takes us through a litany of sins via an acrostic poem that follows the Hebrew alphabet (thus giving us, in the English equivalent, awkward terms like Xenophobia). Then, for the longer Al Chayt prayer, we confess transgressions linked to parts of our bodies: speaking maliciously, being stiff-necked, running (literally “lifting our feet”) to do evil.
As we declare these faults and failings, it is customary to tap our chests with our fists. The most common explanation for this custom is to view it as a sign of self-affliction. On Yom Kippur, Torah teaches, “ V’eeneetem et nafshotaychem—You shall afflict your souls.” Thus, as we recite our sins, we beat our breasts as a kind of self-imposed punishment for our misdeeds.
But I have never much liked this interpretation, because beating ourselves up over our past sins does not seem like a good way to stop committing them in the future. I have always thought of Yom Kippur as a time for acknowledging mistakes, changing course, and making amends in a more constructive manner.
I prefer Rabbi Lawrence Kushner’s neo-hasidic understanding of this tradition. Rabbi Kushner describes the process of confession and teshuvah as “sweetening the evil in ourselves.” He writes, “We go down into ourselves with a flashlight looking for the evil we have intended or done—not to excise it as some alien growth but rather to discover the holy spark within it. We begin not by rejecting the evil but by acknowledging it as something we meant to do. If we can recognize the holy sparks within our sins, and we can have a clear vision of the world and of those around us, we can raise these sparks and redeem them.” Rabbi Kushner therefore sees the act of tapping our chests as a kind of hug. We are not beating our breasts at all; we are, instead, embracing ourselves, reclaiming the same energy that drives our transgressions as a force for the good. With our confession of sins, we re-focus the intention behind them towards the sacred task of repairing ourselves and our world.

As the Days of Awe approach, think of just one behavior of the past year that you would like to change. Then consider: what is the holy spark that underlies this failure? Think about ways to put the same energy that lead you into transgression toward a good and sacred purpose.

And for a nice musical rendition of Ashamnu, with words and transliteration included, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TOC0kuZ6D8

The prayer which, more than any other, evokes the tenor—and terror—of these High Holy Days is the medieval poem known as U’netaneh Tokef. Traditionally attributed to Rabbi Amnon of Mayence, it proclaims the awesome power of this season, in which God, as Judge and Arbiter, opens the book of our days and decrees our destinies: “Who shall live and who shall die, who by fire and who by water, who by strangling and who by stoning. . . who shall be secure, and who shall be driven. . .” The language moves us by its ferocity; this is our tradition’s version of fire and brimstone.

And then comes the kicker: “U-teshuvah, u’tefillah, u’tzedakah ma-avirin et ro-ah ha-g’zerah—But repentance, prayer and charity temper the severity of the decree.”

What does this mean? Surely Rabbi Amnon, a pious sage who died a martyr, knew that none of these things change the reality of the decree one iota. We will all suffer, and we will all die, no matter how much we repent, pray, and give tzedakah. Indeed, some who do these things in abundance will suffer greatly and die young, while others who are unrepentant, misanthropic, and wouldn’t set foot in a synagogue may nonetheless live long lives in relative comfort.

But as Rabbi Lawrence Kushner notes, while the choices that we make cannot change the decree of death and suffering, they can lessen their sting. As he puts it, “Repentance, prayer and donating do not change the facts of life – our disbursement of blessings and curses will continue to bear little relation to our moral virtue, whether or not we pray, repent, or donate. But a heart habitually opened by repentance, prayer, and donating will cross through life’s inescapable misfortunes somewhat more gently. Our road will still be bumpy, but we’ll have better shock absorbers.”

These Days of Awe remind us how fragile we are, how much of life will always be out of our control. Yet even in the worst of circumstances, we retain the power to choose how we react to our lot. May this season help us to better respond to adversity with reflection, spiritual strength, and giving hearts.

For a powerful contemporary Israeli musical setting of this classic piece, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-0o72al-As
 
Questions to consider:
1. This fall, we will examine this prayer in more detail during our Yom Kippur study session. For now, reflect on the relationship between our circumstances and the choices that we make.
2. What do you make of the metaphor of God as Judge and Arbiter? Does this fit with your ideas/experiences of the Divine? What message might it impart in this season?
3. After noting that God opens the book of our days and decrees our fate, the text also says that this book “bears the signature of every human being.”
Given that this is a signature, we, not God, are doing the writing. What does this imply?

When we stand before the open ark and recite Avinu Malkeinu on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we may experience high drama. This is one of the most ancient prayers of the high holy day liturgy. A talmudic legend attributes the refrain—Our Source, Our Sovereign. . . have mercy on us—to Rabbi Akiba, who offered it as a plea for rain in time of drought (Taanit 25b). Over the years, many verses have accumulated; the exact number and wording differs according to the rite and locale (German Ashkenazi, Polish, Italian, Sephardi, etc.)

Why has Avinu Malkeinu become such an important part of the Days of Awe, and what does it suggest about our relationship with the Divine? While the first word, Avinu, is often translated as “our Father,” the root, av can also mean source or foundation (as in avot melachah, the sources of what defines “work” on Shabbat). This meaning is implicit in the very nature of the term av, which is literally the first word in the Hebrew language (the first letter, aleph, followed by the second, bet). So when we refer to God as Avinu, we recognize the Holy One as our founder, our source, the stuff from which all of life is, as it were, made. By contrast, when we call God Malkeinu, our Sovereign, we point to a transcendent, awe-inspiring Other, beyond ourselves. When we recite Avinu Malkeinu, then, we paradoxically praise the Divine who is both within and beyond us, an intimate loving source of parental comfort and nurture, and a commanding external call to ethics and observance.

Each of us experiences the sacred differently. For some, holiness comes primarily through intimacy, through the still, small voice that whispers within us, and the ties that bind us to the people, creatures, and places that we love. Others find holiness in moments of fear and trembling, when we feel our cosmic insignificance against the backdrop of the vastness of God’s universe. Avinu Malkeinu affirms both of approaches to the divine. God is both wholly Other—and entirely present within us. During these Days of Awe, may we each find the Divine Presence when and where we need Her.

As we begin the new month of Elul, and with it our preparations for the fall holy days, think about where and when you most experience God/holiness. Then consider: how might that experience of the sacred inspire you to make teshuvah, to become a better person in the coming year?

To hear a contemporary jam-band rendition of Avinu Malkeinu by Phish, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP0UF_r3dkY&feature=related
and skip to around the 4:00 minute mark.