Disowned

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Who by Apathy - Rabbi Suzy Stone on Rosh Hashanah 5778

Unetanah Tokef: Who By Apathy?

Head held high, I compose myself, and enter the courtroom. Standing before me is the Judge on High. The shofar sounds. Court is in session.

The books of life and death stand open in front of me. Even the angels, who can do no wrong, tremble in fear, and announce: “Let us declare the power of this day, for it is awesome and full of dread.”  

We sit and we stand, we stand and we sit, waiting for our turn to approach the bench. In the echo chamber of my mind I hear an awe-inducing prayer:

On Rosh HaShanah it is written, On Yom Kippur it is sealed:

Who shall live and who shall die?

Who by water and who by fire?

Who by sword and who by beast?

Who by famine and who by thirst?

Who by earthquake and who by disease?

I stand in front of the defendant's table, and sheepishly ask: “Are there any other options?”

G-d says: “U’teshuva, u’tefillah u’tzedakah ma’avirin et roah ha’g’zerah. Repentance, prayer, and charity have the power to lessen the harsh decree.” And I reply: “Great, I’ll take that one!”

As I leave the courtroom I start to think about how lucky am I. But then, as I am walking home, I can’t help but wonder if I just got “punked” because it sounds like G-d is saying that if I just try a little harder, pray with real kavanah, and give more money to charity that G-d will let me live?

I’m not sure, but this sounds a lot like blackmail. Albeit “divine blackmail,” but still, I am the first to admit that in a post-Enlightenment world it is difficult to believe in a G-d who metes out reward and punishment based on how many good deeds we do (or do not) do.

It does not take a genius to look around and to see that people who do bad things are rewarded with positions of power and wealth, while innocent, good people suffer.

So what does it really mean that repentance, prayer, and charity temper judgment’s severe decree?

In order to understand how radical this prayer really we have to understand that throughout the Ancient Near East, from the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman empires, the concept of fate (and fate alone) ruled the day.

For example, in classical mythology, the Moirai were depicted as three goddesses who would spin the thread of human destiny. They would determine how long you would live, how much suffering you would endure, and exactly when you would die.

These beliefs, made famous by popular Greek tragedies such as Oedipus Rex & Prometheus Unbound, dominated religious doctrine for the first 1,000 years before the Common Era.

Admittedly, even the early rabbis, known as the Taanaim, were not immune to this thinking. As they taught in the Babylonian Talmud (Shabbat 156a): If you are born on a Sunday, you will be either totally good or totally bad, because this was the day when total darkness was separated from the light. If you are born on Monday, you will be short-tempered. If you were born on Tuesday, you will be rich, but promiscuous…and so on and so forth.

However, by the second generation, the majority of Amoraim, including Rav who was the head of the academy in Sura, declared a radical shift in thinking: “Ain Mazal L’Israel: There is no constellation that determines Israel’s fate.”

Our dependence on astrology ended the minute G-d promises Abraham that he will father a great nation. As the story goes, after years and years of infertility, Abraham is ready to give up on having kids. In that moment G-d appears to Abraham in a dream, and says (Genesis 15:5):

יּוֹצֵ֨א אֹת֜וֹ הַח֗וּצָה וַיֹּ֙אמֶר֙ הַבֶּט־נָ֣א הַשָּׁמַ֗יְמָה וּסְפֹר֙ הַכּ֣וֹכָבִ֔ים אִם־תּוּכַ֖ל לִסְפֹּ֣ר אֹתָ֑ם וַיֹּ֣אמֶר ל֔וֹ כֹּ֥ה יִהְיֶ֖ה זַרְעֶֽךָ

He took him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He added, “So shall your offspring be.”

Perplexed, Abraham shoots back and says: “Master of the Universe, I looked at my astrological map, and according to the configuration of my constellations I am not fit to have a son. The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to him: Emerge from your astrology, as the verse states: “And He brought him outside,” as there is no constellation for Israel.”

In other words, this story teaches us that we cannot blame the hardships of our life on fate. I know this may not seem that relative to modern life, but on a more subtle level I think we all slip into this fatalistic thinking now and again. For example, how many of you have ever believed: “bad news comes in threes?” Or how many times in our lives do we simply give up, throw in the proverbial towel, because we are having a bad week, a bad month, or even a bad year?

At some point or another, we have all heard this kind of fatalism from ourselves and from others: “It was just my luck to have lost my job and my boyfriend in the same week!”  Or, “Since I didn’t get into the top-ranked school, I am always going to be seen as a failure.” Or perhaps, a more passive form of fatalism, “I have been having so many health issues this year—what’s one more?” Many of us have had moments in our lives like these, in which we throw our hands up in the air and say: “c’est la vie—such is life.”

But as we stand on the precipice of a New Year, the high holy days are here to remind us that the future is ours to create. As Rabbi David Stern explains, the Unetanah Tokef reminds us of the ugly truth that despite our best efforts and intentions there are natural occurrences that are sealed off from human control.

For example, some of us will be struck by diseases that we have done nothing to deserve. As we witnessed this week, others will swept away by the the maelstrom of hurricanes, floods, and natural disasters that have plagued our nation. These images serve to remind us of an everyday reality: Every second that we take a breath in, someone else in the world expels their last breath. Thus, while science has come a long way in helping us to create and save lives; we have yet to find a way to outmaneuver death.

As the great Jewish “rabbi” Woody Allen once said: “I’m not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

That’s because, in the secular world and in American society, human limitation is perceived as defeat. But in the halls of Jewish wisdom we are taught that our limitations are the greatest source of wisdom that we can have. The Unetanah Tokef reminds us that life is short, and today is the day to turn. To do teshuvah and to return to the best version of ourselves. Perhaps this means calling the friend you ghosted months ago. Or reaching out to an ‘ex’ who may have hurt you and asking them for what you truly need.  Now is the time to pick up the phone and call your mom, or dad, or siblings, or extended family just to say ‘I love you.’  

Therefore, what may feel like an outdated theology, in which we beat our chests and ask G-d to wipe our slate clean, is actually a radical Jewish idea that transforms a life of tragedy sealed by fate into a life of hope instilled with free will.

 

And yet, for many of us sitting here today, the origins and history of this prayer make it no less palatable because it strikes at the heart of our worst fears and frustrations. Over the years, many people have told me that this prayer is the most difficult for them to recite, let alone believe.  For those of us who have faced illness or loss, this prayer affronts our senses, incessantly reminding us our fragility and mortality.

Who wants to praise G-d when He has taken away a loved one, struck us with illness, or simply dangles our future in front of us like a cruel joke? But this is not the G-d I believe in; nor do I believe that this is the true underlying message of this prayer.

Rather, I believe that Unetanah Tokef is read at the apex of Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur in order to remind us of a simple fact: Do not forget to read the fine print!

It is easy to become distracted by the litany of words, the incomprehensible Hebrew, or the haunting melodies of this prayer. However,  if we don’t pay attention, we will miss one of the most subtle; yet important, lines in this prayer:

אֱמֶת כִּי אַתָּה הוּא דַּיָּן וּמוֹכִיחַ וְיוֹדֵעַ וָעֵד וְכוֹתֵב וְחוֹתֵם וְסוֹפֵר וּמוֹנֶה וְתִזְכֹּר כָּל הַנִּשְׁכָּחוֹת וְתִפְתַּח אֶת סֵפֶר הַזִּכְרוֹנוֹת וּמֵאֵלָיו יִקָּרֵא וְחוֹתָם יַד כָּל אָדָם בּוֹ

It is true that you are the one who judges, and reproves, who knows all, and bears witness, who inscribes, and seals, who reckons and enumerates. You remember all that is forgotten. You open the book of records, and from it, all shall be read. In it lies each person's signature.

This means that there cannot be any unauthorized charges on your card. No mistakes on our record because only we can sign on the dotted line. In other words, this prayer is asking us, perhap imploring us, to become active co-authors in the book of our own life.  Therefore, today we have a big choice to make.

We can either seal ourselves for a year of complacency, fear and stagnation, or we can boldly and beautifully sign off on a year of challenge, of courage, and of growth. We can resign ourselves to unhealthy habits and relationships, or we promise to do everything in our power to change our thought patterns and our ways. We can let arrogance and stubbornness control our emotions, or we can humble our egos and we can truly learn from people who we previously disregarded or demeaned. We can succumb to the overwhelming belief that greed, power and lies, rule the day, or we can take a page from the Rabbis and declare: “Ain mazal l’Yisrael.”

In conclusion, I believe that the Unetanah Tokef prayer is less about judgement and more about action. As Rabbi Sharon Brous teaches: “The annual High Holy Day encounter with death is designed to unsettle our routines, break us free from stagnation, and shock our system out of its instinctive selfishness and indulgence. It compels us to ask, ‘If my life ended now, would it have been worthwhile?”

L’shana Tova Tikatevu,

May we be written, and may co-write ourselves, into the Book of Life for a good year.

Boys to Men: The Troubles of Contemporary Masculinity

When I was a boy, I stood with my father in the plaza of the Kotel, the Western Wall, in Jerusalem, for the first time. We walked in, and were confronted by a guy, who looked at my father and said, in heavily accented English, is he bar mitzvah? My dad did some calculations in his head, and said, yes, he’s of age. So the man grabbed me, and strapped tefillin onto me. If you haven’t seen them, they’re leather boxes and straps, filled with parchments from the Torah, that you strap to your arm and your head. It wasn’t my first time. Dad had had me putting them on for about a year already, to practice. But I still remember the rough grip of this man’s hand, and the tickle of the hair on his arms as he put them on me.

I had a bar mitzvah, only a few days later, in Jerusalem, in fact. It was amazing. But if you had to ask me, even so many years later, when I started to grow up, I would tell you it was there, right then, that I started to become a man.

What I think about is how lucky I was to have those hands in my life, how lucky I was to have the years leading up to them. I think about the rabbi who made space for the obnoxious twelve-year-old in his mostly senior citizen classes, the cantor who taught me, word by word, how to understand what I was reading. The love that I saw in both of them for what they were doing. Not love for me as an individual, precisely, but a higher love for what I represented, and for what they saw a sacred duty.

Those men gave of themselves, quite selflessly, for me and for God. And with whatever foibles I have as a person, I am grateful that, as a young man, I was pointed in their direction.

Only a few weeks ago, some people held a night rally not far from here, in Charlottesville. You may have caught it on every single news outlet in the country. They carried a bunch of tiki torches, and there was a barbeque somewhere that was really, really sad as a result. But even those stupid torches couldn’t cover up their menace. “You will not replace us,” they called as they marched. Almost every one of them was male.

I can’t help wondering about how those marchers grew into being men. As much as they would love to get rid of me – you all know that “Jew will not replace us,” was the other chant – I’m not sure that I’m ready to disown them. I have been surprised by how many other men sound like them, many Jewish, many of other ethnicities, as our country keeps descending into this alt-right nightmare of a reddit thread.

There’s a question that I want to ask tonight, which is, what happens when boys grow into men? And, perhaps, what could happen differently? And yes, I’m being gender specific and heteronormative: boys, mostly cis-gendered, into men, mostly straight.

And the reason that I want to ask such a caveman question is because, when looking at the world, what I see is a lot of human beings who are women, queer, trans, standing up. Fighting for a greater good. Putting themselves on the line for what is good and right.

But I see a lot of men standing up for causes and ideas that, honestly, I’m embarrassed by. I’ve got to say it, it feels like an embarrassing time to be a straight man. And I’m not sure that we have anyone to blame but ourselves.

Before I really dig in, I worry that this drash will be hard for a lot of people in the room. Boys, this one’s going to hurt a little, I’m just letting you know. But for all of you, and there are a lot of you, that are queer, women, trans, of fluid genders, or feel that the dominant description of masculinity doesn’t describe you, it might be excruciating. On the one hand, I want to talk about the problems with contemporary masculinity, and maybe you’ll feel that, finally, one of the people those articles are talking about is standing up and saying something. But on the other hand, a whole lot of what I’m going to say will be directed right at the group who’s been the intended audience for most of human history. I can only hope that the truth of what I’m going to say, and the urgency I feel to say it, will act as an amends for not speaking directly towards your spiritual lives.

I know a lot of guys who feel a little bit like society’s out to get them these days. Some feel frustrated, or like there’s nothing they can do right. And most often, most often, they feel like they did the things they were supposed to do, but aren’t getting the things they were promised.

They went to school, where’s that successful, high paying job? I date, where’s the partner that adores me. Why isn’t that woman flattered by my interest in her? And why is it that society always seems to be point to me as the root of its problems?

That last one there, that’s a big one. Why do people keep telling us that we’re a problem? Where are the people telling us that we’re upstanding members of society? That we’re doing the right things? Where’s the respect that a man deserves?

Gentlemen, I think we’ve have fallen into a trap, and that trap is that we think that life owes us those things, because historically, society has been set up to give a lot of them to us.

The things that I’ve described, the right job, plenty of money, the “perfect partner,” the approbation, the approval -  guys, what everybody else has figured out is that those things aren’t promises. Some of us get really lucky, and maybe get a few of those things. But wealth, success, and love are not guarantees that life makes to us. God makes us no deal as to our circumstances. If you don’t believe me, go ask some people who don’t look like us.

But that’s not how we act. The way we act is if we’re entitled to all that stuff. We act like it’s already ours. It’s incredible what we do. We act like conversations belong to us, and talk twice or three times as much as other kinds of people. We act like all the most dominant positions in society belong to us: leader, provider, the innovator, the warrior. Warrior? There’s a woman running for Congress in Kentucky who flew F-18s for the Marines. I spent my twenties studying Talmud!

And more than anything, we feel like women’s bodies belong to us. Like they owe us their attention. Like they owe us access.

If you could only hear the stories that I hear, in my office. The stories that I hear from women about what’s happened to them, even what walking down the street is like – and how many of these stories there are? It would break your heart.

So this is the trap, we feel like we are owed. Not only that, we expect to be first in line when that which is owed is paid – because we’ve always come before others in this world, and we’re used to it! We feel like there are privileges due to our position. And therefore we try to take. Nothing good comes from that.

Those guys, the ones marching in Charlottesville? They’re an extreme version of the problem. They can’t figure out why they haven’t gotten what they’re owed. And since they haven’t gotten it, and it’s clear to them that they deserve it, then it follows that someone is keeping them from it. And then they look at the Jews in this room, and at women, and queer people, and people of color, and immigrants, and say, “You. You must be the ones who have taken it from me.”

And that’s so bankrupt. That’s such a perversion of the way things are.

Our problem isn’t that other people are taking from us. Our problem is that we were used to taking from them, and now that we can’t, we feel empty.

That’s it. That’s what we’ve got to solve. That’s what we’ve got to find, a way to make our lives feel full, and full of value without pushing other people down to do so. That’s what we’re talking about.

So how do you do that? Well, if we’ve been leaning on the lives of others, using other people as a crutch, maybe we need to develop a kind of inner strength that allows us to stand on our own.

What would that kind strength look like? Its definition is that, when one is in 

possession of it, a person can find contentment, satisfaction, a sense of purpose in life, not because of what the world gives you, but in spite of it. One is insulted, but does not insult back. One’s patience is tried, but is maintained. Such a person becomes bigger on the inside than what the world throws at him from without.

There’s only one way I know to achieve that kind of strength, to build that inner skeleton, to strengthen the spiritual anatomy. And that is to change one’s orientation towards the world. If you are facing in the direction of what you are supposed to get out of life, then I ask you turn – like the world teshuvah, turn – in a new direction and ask instead what you have to give to life instead.

It is in giving that a person finds purpose. If you want to be happy, take your mind from what you can get; learn how to give. 

And that turning, that growing – it takes work.

An example.

Gluckel of Hameln lived in the 17^th and 18^th century. I’m sure her name made sense back then. She is famous because of a kind of moral will that she wrote to her children, which survived the ages and came to us.

Amongst other things she was married to a jeweler, and took an active part in his business until she was widowed, at which point she took over the business. That business ultimately spanned four countries.

But after her husband died, she wrote about him, describing him to her children. She says, “So good and true a father one seldom finds, and he loved his wife and children beyond all measure.” It’s clear that she appreciated him. That is how I want them to talk about me when I'm gone.

When she describes what his life was like, what made him so special, she focuses on two things:

The first is that he had an incredible spiritual discipline: “However much my husband toiled, and truly the whole day he ran about upon his business, still he never failed to set aside a fixed time to study his daily portion of the Torah.” “Even among the great rabbis, I knew but few who prayed with his fervour. If he were praying in his room, and some one came to fetch him forth where something could be bought up cheap, neither I nor any servant in my whole house would have the heart to go to him and speak of it.”

And the second is that the expression of his spirituality was the way he treated other people, “All that he had to contend with, and often, from friends and strangers, he bore in patience. When many times, in human weakness, I could no longer contain myself, he laughed away my impatience and said…”I put my trust in God and give small heed to the talk of men.”

All this is to say that here is a person who, relative to other people, thought less about what he could get out of life than what he could give to it. The praying and the studying – especially when they got in the way of business – those are acts of devotion. And the way he answers his wife about why he doesn’t get more annoyed, or more aggressive with other people, was that he trusted in God, which I understand to mean that he treated people not as they treated him, but as God would want him to.

Guys, this isn’t about him being religious. It’s about how he used his religiosity. Look at the way he was devoted to a higher cause! He wasn’t thinking about what he deserved. he was thinking about how he could serve.

His life was filled with a higher love. That’s what gave it purpose. That’s what gave it meaning. And it’s what filled mine up to the brim as well.

Look, I am not exactly a paragon of virtue. My list of character flaws would elicit the kind of low whistle that you give a particularly fascinating wrecked car.

But when I was a young man, rough hands bound me to something higher than myself. Kind eyes showed me, by their example, how I could be kind. And men of devotion pushed me, gently, to devote myself, to try to give as they had given to me. And because of them I learned that the world isn’t just a place where you can get. It is a place where you are meant to give.

Men, is it possible that the life of the spirit is not a weakness, but that our inability to see its necessity in our lives is? Is it possible that everybody else has figured out something that we’ve forgotten – that a person must have a spiritual life, a strong purpose, as sense of devotion, a willingness to sacrifice for something greater than ourselves? Is it not that the men who embody these crazy ideologies have found a twisted replacement for the spirituality that many of us lack?

You need a spiritual life. I’m just going to say it. You need one. It’s what directs and orients you, grounds and propels you. Otherwise you will grow self-oriented, disconnected, and disillusioned, and that is only a step away from selfish, angry, and looking for someone to blame.

Do you feel angry, or lost, or frustrated? Then you have my compassion, for I have felt the same, have been the same kind of angry, have been lost in the same way.

But what I tell you is a life of worth and esteem, of purpose, of connection, never to come through demanding that life give to you. It will only come from figuring out how you can give to it. How you can serve the higher cause. And what that’s going to do is to abolish this fallacy that life is a zero sum game, and that we’ve lost anything. In fact, it’s going show us what we’ve gained by the inclusion of so many kinds of people unlike ourselves.

Change your direction. Learn, with me, to demand to give of ourselves to it. And then you will find the peace you seek.

We have a group here, open to anyone who identifies as a man, called Man’s Attempt at Thoughtfulness. It is in fact a group of men, attempting to be thoughtful. These are the kinds of questions we talk about there. Let me see you there, and we’ll turn together.

Shanah Tovah.

Finding Beauty in an Ugly World - Rabbi Shira Stutman on Rosh Hashanah

There is a certain genre of email that has been hitting my in-box repeatedly over the last year or so. Here’s an example, an email I received in late August:

Hi Rabbi,

I hope you've been well since we last met a few weeks ago.

I've been thinking lots about Charlottesville this week, and the resurgence of white supremacist ideology. Rather than become increasingly dispirited, I want to be able to focus my energy on doing something positive/action-oriented. I was wondering if you/6th & I/anyone you know are doing any organizing in response to recent events. What can I do to make a difference?

Thank you so much in advance,

“Emily”

The secret is that I often don’t know how to respond. These days, with racists marching proudly in our streets, it feels like ugliness is everywhere. A car, which used to be a tool of transport, is now a tool of murder. Domestic terrorists shooting Indian immigrants in Kansas, police caught on tape planting evidence in Baltimore. Airline personnel that physically drag people off planes. One teenager goading another until he kills himself. Anti-semitism from people we know to be enemies and people who are supposed to be our allies. We are mired in it.

For too many of us, this ugliness is not political, it’s personal. Our lives are marked with interactions that leave us with a heavy heart (at best, more often just furious). Whether it’s the daily indignities of city life, like the person on the metro yelling into their phone. Or the friend who betrays you without an ounce of remorse. Or the job that you thought was yours, only to learn from social media that it was offered to someone else. A certain kind of interpersonal nastiness is a resident unwanted guest in many of our lives. And then we too become nasty--because “they” deserve it, no?

One response, from a recent article in The New York Times:

For decades, Wunsiedel, a German town near the Czech border, has struggled with a parade of unwanted visitors. It was the original burial place of one of Adolf Hitler’s deputies, a man named Rudolf Hess. And every year, to residents’ chagrin, neo-Nazis marched to his grave site. The town had staged counter demonstrations to dissuade these pilgrims. In 2011 it had exhumed Hess’s body and even removed his grave stone. But undeterred, the neo-Nazis returned. So in 2014, the town tried a different tactic: humorous subversion.

The campaign, called the Right Against the Right — turned the march into Germany’s “most involuntary walkathon.” For every meter the neo-Nazis marched, local residents and businesses pledged to donate 10 euros...to a program that helps people leave right-wing extremist groups....

They turned the march into a mock sporting event. Someone stenciled onto the street “start,” a halfway mark and a finish line, as if it were a race. Colorful signs with silly slogans festooned the route. “If only the Führer knew!” read one. “Mein Mampf!” (my munch) read another that hung over a table of bananas. A sign at the end of the route thanked the marchers for their contribution to the anti-Nazi cause — €10,000....And someone showered the marchers with rainbow confetti at the finish line.

The approach has spread to several other German towns and one in Sweden.

Responding to ugliness with humor and a successful fundraising strategy to boot. Counter-protesters who pretend they’re hard-of-hearing, so when a racist march passes by, chanting their monstrous chants, the protesters yell, “what? White flour?” And throw flour their way. Or “white flower?” and hand out flowers to the marchers passing by. Or artists in Berlin who turn graffiti of Swastikas into beautiful murals and works of art.

It should go without saying, but at this early juncture of this sermon, I want to be crystal clear about two important points. First of all, Nazism and white supremacy is not funny; it’s serious and dangerous and if left entirely unattended may only get worse. Second, it’s probably not a good idea to make light of white supremacists who march armed with assault rifles, as so many did in Charlottesville. In that instance, I might think twice before I don a wedding dress and a clown nose and yell “wife power!” as these militia members march by.  

But a rabbi can dream, right?

When I was pregnant with our second child, I wanted to name her Hadar. This is one of those Hebrew words that’s difficult to translate. Some say it means “beauty,” but that’s not entirely true because we’re not speaking here of physical or even temporal beauty. “Majesty” or “splendor” are closer to the truth, although it’s splendor and majesty connected not with a flesh-and-blood ruler but instead with God’s presence. “Kol Adonai b’hadar,” we sing on Friday nights at Kabbalat Shabbat services. The voice of Gd is Hadar. It isn’t a superficial beauty of the body but instead about a more profound beauty, of honor and spirit, that can increase as we strive to be more godly in our actions.

I lost the battle with my husband for my daughter’s name (he thought “Ma’ayan” would be easier to pronounce) but not, I hope, for the way that she and her siblings act in the world. Which is to say--with a hefty dose of Hadar. The response to disrespect and disregard in our personal lives is not to up the ante with even more hatred or anger. The response is, whenever humanly possible, to mark life with hadar, in the political arena or in the home. Whether that means practicing safe use of a red clown nose at a protest or dancing in the streets at Simchat Torah, as we will do in just a few weeks, proud and loud about being Jewish, cultivating a life of hadar means refusing to fight hate with hate but instead educating, celebrating, strategizing, turning toward rather than against. Toward acts of tzedek, of justice, of rachamim, of compassion, of chesed, of lovingkindness.

I think. And then some days I think it’s naive at best, actively harmful at worst to believe that if we just responded with a little more majestic beauty the world would right itself. Many of those who sow hatred are playing on a different field that we are; no amount of compassion or Hadar is going to make a difference. They are lost or broken, or feel like they’ve been treated so unfairly that it justifies their actions.

To that statement, two comments: first, for the most part, I refuse to believe that this irrational hatred characterizes most of “them” (whoever the “them” is in your life). When we surprise unkind people with kindness, we can change behavior.  

More to the point, however, it’s not about whether your acts of hadar change them. It’s about whether their acts of ugliness change you. On Rosh Hashanah, we have the opportunity to decide how we want to move forward into the new year. Do you want to be driven by hate and fear? Or by righteousness and integrity? Do you want to spend your time fighting against or fighting for, on defense or offense?

Defense is much easier, because we can do it from our armchairs. We can be indignant anywhere! A life of hadar has to be created--and it’s tough work, and our days are already quite filled. Sometimes the ugliness of it all wears us down. To say nothing of the fact that there’s short-term thrill we may get from being just as horrible to someone else as they are to us. We showed them. But like most things in life, the more difficult action is the better one.

The single greatest excuse that I hear for why people do not seek to make change in their lives is posed as a question. “How do I actually make a difference?” as if until you figure out how to change the entire world, you are absolved of doing anything. In those moments, I return often to a story told by Anne Lamott in her book Bird By Bird:

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.’

The parts are greater than the sum. When we feel mired in loss and ugliness and desperation, and don’t know what to do? Step by step, small actions. Bird by bird.

The ancient rabbis also had trouble defining the word “hadar,” by the way. There’s an especially curious verse in Leviticus (23:40), in which we read about the lulav, three of the four species that we shake on Sukkot, a holiday that begins in just 15 days. The rabbis knew that the fourth species was an etrog, a citrus fruit that looks a lot like a lemon. But the Torah doesn’t refer to the etrog by name and instead calls it “pri etz hadar,” the fruit of the “hadar” tree.

The rabbis then try to understand why the etrog tree is Hadar.

Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi says: Do not read the verse as it is written, hadar, meaning [only] majestic beauty, but rather read it hadir, meaning the sheep pen….Just as in a pen, there are both large and small sheep together, so too, on an etrog tree, when the small ones come into being, the large ones still exist on the tree, which is not the case with other fruit trees.

The word “hadar” describes the etrog tree because that tree grows fruit both large and small; all are necessary. In this room, are people who are going to make tremendous change in the world: write the op-ed that will convince members of Congress to govern in the interests of the people, take over Metro to make sure there are enough trains so people don’t lose themselves to rush-hour ugliness. Those are the big actions, the “large etrogs.” But for the rest of us, we’re going to take it day by day, many small actions, etrog by etrog.

And it’s going to be a slog. The more we practice Hadar, the more we’ll screw up. Ann Patchett writes.

[When I write,] For me it’s like this: I make up a novel in my head….This is the happiest time in the arc of my writing process….I’m figuring things out, and all the while the book makes a breeze around my head like an oversized butterfly whose wings were cut from the rose window in Notre Dame. This book I have not yet written one word of is a thing of indescribable beauty…[it] is the single perfect joy in my life….

When I can’t think of another stall...I reach up and pluck the butterfly from the air….and there, with my own hand, I kill it. It’s not that I want to kill it, but it’s the only way I can get something…[O]nly a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words...

An idea can be perfect, but only in our minds. Real life is more like “running over the butterfly with an SUV,” another Patchett turn of phrase. Hadar is an ideal; the reality is more stilted and filled with disappointment. But someone who only keeps the story in their head, and does not write it down, is not a writer. And someone who keeps their ideas set on a idealized world, without taking the risks, making a few mistakes, and accepting imperfection; someone who puts their ego before their community and doesn’t step into the fray; better a broken butterfly than no real butterfly at all. Take the same energy that you’ve been using to criticize your family, colleagues, allies and put it toward doing the work yourself. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Bird by bird.

When we actualize Hadar in this world, we take something that could be ugly--that is ugly--and, like the swastikas in Berlin, in ways humble and quiet, small and large, we transform it into something beautiful. We take the hard material of a difficult world and do something life-affirming with it. It won’t match up with the ideal--it never does--but we’re creating something new and beautiful and holy nonetheless. When you acknowledge that you’re going to do your best even though you know it won’t be ideal, that’s crafting a world of Hadar. When you turn that swastika into a flower, it’s a certain kind of bravery and beauty and strength--that’s Hadar.  

One more email, this one from early September

:

Dear Rabbi--Hi!

I am the Turkish woman you met at services on Friday night, [who has been to Sixth & I  a few times over the last months and wants to do my part to improve relationships between the Muslim and Jewish communities.] I will try to do as much as I can but as I mentioned I am only one person and officially 'nobody'. What I mean is that I don't belong to any mosque or ngo seriously. I don't have titles nor official training in religion or interfaith relations etc. I came back to Sixth&I to show that there are people...open to communication. So I am not sure what I can offer you more than that and I don't want to disappoint you but I would definitely like to meet with [the other rabbis on staff] and see what [they] think. I will show up at random events at Sixth&I until then :) No worries about the scheduling [because of the holiday], I completely understand.

Have a nice Sunday and holiday season!

G

This is Hadar. Stepping into a place that might not feel comfortable, even if you’re a “nobody.” Because you’re not. Thinking you can’t make a difference is wrong, maybe lazy, maybe dangerous. You’re somebody, and you can make a difference in this world.

While I still believe that the moral arc bends toward justice, this past year has given me--personally and as an American--too many examples of base cruelty triumphing over goodness. Most surprising is that it still feels like a sucker punch every single time. I’m not inured to it. It’s a little bit embarrassing, given that it’s a type of privilege to be surprised at life’s unfairness.

I’m going to own that privilege--the work of hadar is not perfect--because I believe more than anything that meeting ugliness with ugliness would be the worst result of all. We are a community of faith. Our goal in this world is to build an olam chesed--a world of lovingkindness. When we encounter hatred, our job is not to turn the other cheek, but instead to stand and face the wind, to respond in strength but not in viciousness. It’s incredibly difficult, but it’s also perhaps the most important thing we’ll ever do.

When the next hate-filled march comes, which it will, we’ll be there. Maybe some of us in clown suits. Between now and then, though, let’s focus our energy on hadar. Invite friends new and old to a Shabbat dinner. Get to know someone different than you. Get involved in a cause that is close to your heart. Create a majestic world. Etrog by etrog. Bird by bird. Broken butterfly by broken butterfly.

It’s going to be a beautiful 5778, everyone. Because we’re going to create it.

Shana tova.