Sermons: High Holy Days

Temple Israel feels so different when it is empty.  You can hear the hands move on the clock in the hallway.  The air smells a little stale.  All is still and silent, like after the last breath leaves the body.

One summer afternoon, I stood in the lobby and watched the electronic bulletin board scroll through the announcements left over from the spring.  The Brotherhood Passover Wine Sale.  The upcoming Yom HaShoah commemoration. Mah Jongg twice a week.  Somehow, these announcements comforted me.  They reminded me of all we did before the virus upended our lives.

The early days of the pandemic passed in a fog of uncertainty and confusion.  Some people wore masks and others did not. Some businesses remained open while others suddenly closed. It was hard to know what to do.

Days passed and some of us developed new routines.  We tuned into Governor Cuomo’s press briefings with devotion.  Some of us made sure to check in with those who live alone, to shop for those who needed it, to sew face masks for the health care workers. 

Others continued to be anxious in the face of so much uncertainty. Some of us opened our eyes every morning and wondered how to get through another day of monotony and isolation and worry.  Some of us struggled to manage how to work from home, or to homeschool, or to reassure our children that everything would be okay. Some of us worried about how we would pay our bills or buy our food.  Some of us worried about our loved ones in the hospital, sick and alone, unable to receive visitors.  Some of us grieved for our loved ones, without recourse to the comfort of traditional funerals and shivas.

Even the smallest things could set us off.   Early one morning I saw an older man in the grocery store.  He was in a hurry to pay for his carton of eggs at the self-check-out register.  He was not familiar with how to work the register, and it kept voiding his transaction.  The man’s face flushed, and he began cursing.  A clerk hurried over to help him.  “This is the third store I’ve been to already this morning, and nobody else had eggs!” he shouted.  

Empty shelves in the stores. Long lines at food pantries.  Refrigerated trucks to hold bodies in New York City because the morgues were overfull.  We saw things we never imagined.

Now life seems a little more normal.  We don’t need refrigerated trucks anymore.   We are used to putting on our face masks.  But this is still hard.  We worry that it may not get better for a long time.   We live in a state of uncertainty, and this anxiety is also a kind of plague.

Our early rabbis taught:  One must bless [God] for the evil in the same way as one blesses for the good (Berachot 9:5).   Our ancestors believed that both good and bad events come from the same source.  They are all part of life, and to be alive is enough. 

We are alive. And perhaps, if we look closely, this time has brought us unexpected gifts.

Some of us celebrated Passover seders and family simchas with people thousands of miles away.   Perhaps we discovered beauty in small places:  In the taste of challah shaped by our own hands.  In the sound of a loved one’s voice.  In the sight of a rabbit emerging tentatively from the bushes to nibble clover in our back yard.

If this past year were like others, would we have noticed these gifts?  Because we moved in unfamiliar terrain, have our senses become sharpened?  Did our slowing down allow us to become more mindful?

While it is challenging, we can extract blessings from difficulty and struggle.  We can gain clearer insight into ourselves, our relationships, and our community. We can use what we learn to change and grow.  We can know what it truly means to be alive.

The poet Rilke wrote:  Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.

This empty synagogue will be full again someday.  When we gather once again, how will we be different?  Will we greet each other with true joy?  Will we relish our conversations, no longer taking small talk for granted?

Or should we just go back to the way we were?  

This pandemic has exposed the ways in which our priorities have been all wrong.  Before, we may have taken human contact for granted.  Not anymore.  Before, we may have taken our health for granted.  Not anymore.  Before, we may have taken our lives for granted.  Not anymore.  

On Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed:  Who shall live and who shall die… This year those words go straight to our hearts.

For this first time in this generation, we have all, collectively, been reminded of the fragility, the uncertainty, the brutality, and the beauty of life.  If we take from this year what we should, we can see ourselves and each other with clearer vision.

If we close our eyes and our hearts to what we have seen and what we have learned, we will miss the mark.  If we resist change, we will miss the mark.  If we fail to understand that the most precious treasure we have in this world is each other, we will miss the mark.

These changes begin before we gather again.  These changes begin now, in our isolation. This time has given us a powerful education, a profound awakening.

I have faith that we will emerge from this crisis with greater insight and with greater strength.  I have faith that we will grow and change in the ways that we must.  I have faith that in this new year we will truly live our precious lives:  grateful for each breath, grateful for each dawn, grateful for the eyes that meet our own.