Sermons: High Holy Days

The front hallway was a mess. My elderly mother-in-law, Cis, sat in her wheelchair. Her useless left hand, paralyzed by a stroke, rested limply on her lap.  Cis watched as her son pulled her treasures from the hall closet.  Stacks of neatly folded linen tablecloths landed in a haphazard pile on the floor, next to another pile of small cardboard boxes containing mother-of-pearl cheese knives, crystal finger bowls, stemware etched in delicate patterns, tiny silver spoons for scooping salt from tiny silver salt bowls.  Two moving boxes sat empty in the corner.

Before long, Cis would move to a nursing home.  She needed to sort through all the things she had accumulated over the decades. No longer would she live in a house.  Cis would move into one-half of a room with space only for the essentials. Now she had to decide what those essentials would be. 

A fleeting shadow of grief crossed Cis’s face. The objects in piles on the floor were from her days of hosting fancy dinner parties for her friends. Letting go of her fine dinner party items felt like letting go of the memories associated with them, memories of her friends gathered around her dinner table, laughing, pouring wine into their glasses. That happiness was in the past. What kind of a life would she have now? What kind of a life could she fit into half of a room in a nursing home? 

Cis did not allow herself to dwell on that sentiment. She knew she had no choice.  
 
Most of us have had to open our closets and sort through their contents or climb into the attic to confront the boxes stored there. We have all picked up objects that we forgot that we had:  fondue sets from the 1970’s, winter boots long outgrown, or great aunt Myrtle’s china teacups still wrapped in yellowed newspaper. 

Sometimes we have opened boxes with items of sentimental value, pausing for a moment to savor the memories associated with them.  Ticket stubs from the time we saw a favorite band.  A teddy bear with chewed ears.  A scribbled drawing from a beloved child.  With each object, we may have asked ourselves, do I need to keep this? Or do I let it go? 

Sooner or later, we must all decide what to keep and what to let go.

It is hard to let go. You might even say that we do not have the inclination to do so. Centuries ago, our rabbis taught when a person enters the world, his hands are clenched, as though to say: the whole world is mine, I shall inherit it. (Kohellet Rabbah 5:14)

Our instinct is to grasp, to hold on. This instinct can be even more powerful when it comes to non-material things. Perhaps we find ourselves holding on to a relationship that has soured, or to a painful memory.  Maybe we hold on to a vision of our future “dream life,” or a to hope that cannot come to pass.   

Yet as we grow older, we must loosen our grip. The teaching from our rabbis that began with the statement that we enter this world with closed hands, with the belief that the world is ours to inherit, continues, When a person takes leave of this world, his hands are spread open, as if to say, I have inherited nothing from this world.

We leave this world with open hands, holding on to nothing.  We have no choice in the matter.  Yet until the moment we draw our last breath, we make choices about what to hold on to and what to let go.  In making these choices, we learn what really matters in life. 

How should our life unfold? Our early rabbis never shied away from big questions like this, and they offered one answer.    

In a passage from Pirkei Avot (5:21), the rabbis describe a Jewish lifecycle, presenting what they believed should happen at each age in life. By the age of five, we begin to study the sacred texts of our tradition, and at thirteen, we are obligated to observe the commandments – the age of bar mitzvah. Marriage follows in the later teens, and by the age of twenty, it is time to earn a living. The age of thirty is the “peak of strength,” forty is the age of wisdom; fifty is the age at which one can counsel others about their lives. Sixty is “old age,” seventy is fullness of years (a full life), and eighty is the age of gevurah – strength. 

The rabbis’ use of the word “gevurah” here is a euphemism. Eighty-year-old bodies are not as strong as they once were.   Yet as our bodies age and we become a little slower and a little weaker, we can discover a different kind of strength, a strength that does not depend on muscles or wealth or hiding our emotions behind a stoic mask. We can instead allow ourselves to show our vulnerability. 

We are all vulnerable. To be human is to be subject to harm.  When we are very young, we cannot flourish without the loving care of others. Babies and children need adults to care for them.  Yet as we grow older, we begin to think that we do not need the help of others. We believe that we are strong enough to protect ourselves from harm, to get by on our own.  When we are old, we can let go of this fiction and recognize that we may need others to help us with the challenges of daily life.  There is no shame in this. Quite the opposite.

Whatever our age, we can find strength in recognizing our vulnerability, in showing others who we really are. Whatever our age, we are all ultimately dependent on others.  We need each other. When we open ourselves to that reality, we allow others to open their hands to us. Perhaps we find the courage to open our hands and our hearts to others, even when the outcome is uncertain. 

Vulnerability is at the heart of meaningful human connection.  And meaningful human connection is a source of great strength.  

If we understand this truth, we can make better choices about what to hold on to and what to let go.   

This evening, the shadow of the new moon marks the beginning of a New Year.  A New Year reminds us of the inevitable passage of time. Even if we are still young, we are each growing older. Even if we are strong and healthy, we are all vulnerable.  

The Days of Awe remind us of this fact. Tomorrow we will hear the Unetaneh Tokef, majestic poetry that reminds us that the New Year before us is an open book, and that in the year ahead some will live, and some will die.  

This is the season of chesbon hanefesh, of taking account of our lives.  In this season, we weigh the choices we made in the year that has passed. What have we retained, and what have we released?  Did we live our days with closed hands, holding on? Did we let our hands rest, wide open to the world around us? 

The choices we make about what to hold on to and what to let go will determine how we will grow older.  We decide whether to fill our days with grasping, with regret, with sadness about what we have lost. We decide whether we will let go of the things that we must and open our hands to those around us.  May we have the wisdom to grow older with gentleness and with grace, in this New Year and in the future unfolding before us.