Here are my Yom Kippur Sermons for 5770 (September 2009), delivered from the pulpit of Temple Beit Torah in Colorao Springs. Enjoy!
All Vows
Don Levy
Yom Kippur Evening 5770
I know what you’re thinking. I can see it in your faces. What is the rabbi going to spring on us this time??! What kind of music is he going to play for us tonight, on this most serious of nights in the Jewish calendar??! Well, I know some of you will be relieved to hear this: no recorded music tonight to make a point in my sermon. (Crossing my fingers behind my back.) Ah, you know this gesture! I just made a promise, and my crossing my fingers behind my back says, well, maybe I’ll fulfill this promise…but don’t count on it.
Friends, this is really what the Kol Nidrei prayer is all about…but in truth, that’s not such a bad thing.
The service this evening is often referred to as ‘The Kol Nidrei Service’ after the eponymous prayer that is unique to this service. Kol Nidrei. All vows. Its origins are obscure.
Some say that the prayer was composed during the time of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Those accepting baptism were allowed to stay. During those dark days some Jews, in order to avoid going into exile were baptism in the Catholic Church. They made vows under duress and later were afraid that they sinned by not standing by them. The Kol Nidrei prayer was, according to this view, a plea for forgiveness for entering into such vows.
But that’s not what the prayer talks about at all – at least, not in the form in which it survives to this day. Because the version of the prayer that we read tonight says:
Let all vows and oaths, all the promises we make and the obligations we incur to You, O God, between this Yom Kippur and the next, be null and void should we, after honest effort, find ourselves unable to fulfill them. Then may we be absolved of them.
First of all, it is prospective as opposed to retrospective. It refers to oaths we may enter into in the coming year. Second it asks that they be null and void if, after honest effort, we’re unable to fulfill them. It is therefore clearly not talking about oaths and promises made under duress. Perhaps the text has been altered from the original, to what we read today. If so, how are we supposed to apply the message of this prayer, which seems to speak so deeply to our hearts?
Look, I know that it is not the words of the prayer that speak so deeply to all Jews. As I mentioned on Rosh Hashanah, music places a big part in the ways that the liturgy touches us on these High Holy Days generally and with the Kol Nidrei prayer in particular. I think it is as much the much the melody to which the prayer is set, that makes it so touching and important. Let’s thank Max Bruch.
But back to the text of Kol Nidrei. The prayer assumes that we are willing to enter into vows and promises; if we did not, then why would we be worried about not fulfilling them?
Actually, I think that is the very crux of the matter. We are buffeted by the winds of modern living, one of whose main features is impermanence. All of the things that were once taken for granted to be for life, are temporary in the experience of so many here.
Sometimes that’s a good thing. There was a time when one’s economic-social station in life very much determined the entire outcome of one’s life. Dinesh D’Souza, a leading author and thinker who immigrated to the US from India as a young man, speaks of this as being the reality in the land of his birth. He tells how, had he remained in India, the difference between his life there and the life he has found in the US would not be a matter of material standard. Rather, he would probably have lived his entire life in the small village of his birth, he would have married a Hindu of his own caste, he would have become an engineer because that’s the profession of his father and his uncles. His entire life would have been circumscribed by the circumstances of his birth. But he came to America where there is so much more mobility. He therefore had the opportunity to become a Christian, to marry outside his economic class, to obtain a PhD, and to be a nationally recognized figure.
So we in America enjoy a many-faceted mobility that is not enjoyed in many more traditional societies; this is a positive form of impermanence.
But other forms of permanence that were important stabilizing factors in the lives of past generations have unfortunately become so conditional that we can no longer take them for granted. For example, job security: few of us feel any measure of it now. For so many Americans, it disappeared in the aftermath of the bursting of the tech bubble of the 1990’s and in the meltdown of 2008. And many of the experts tell us that this lost sense of occupational security will never come back even when – halvai! – the economy finally recovers from the present malaise. Job security, for most of us, will be but a distant memory. And the resulting insecurity is corrosive to communities – for example, this religious community – because we flit around the country in search of good employment and thus do not make the strong ties to our neighbors and co-religionists that we once did.
Another form of permanence that can no longer be taken for granted is the lifespan of marriage. There was a time when failed marriages were very rare, very exceptional. Today they are a fact of life for so many of us. In excess of half of all first marriages do not endure. Since first marriages produce the most children, that means that more than half of all children in our country today are not being raised in a home with both their natural parents.
Please don’t hear this as an indictment of anybody in this room or beyond whose marriage has failed at any time in the past. My point is not that anybody should feel guilty for their failed marriages. I’m not trying to indict anybody through their pain. I’m also not trying to say that men and women should remain in marriages that are abusive or otherwise corrosive to the principals’ well-being. I’m only trying to make a point at the societal level that, if we’re honest we’ll all admit is true. That is: widespread breakups of marriages with children is disruptive to those children’s sense of stability and permanence. And that’s not a good thing.
I could go on, but I think these three examples will suffice. Sometimes for the good, but more often not for the good, in our lives today we feel a great sense of impermanence. And that can only make us gun-shy about entering into promises and vows. To be commitment-phobes.
Going back to the marriage issue. A symptom of the reality of so many failed marriages, is that many adults in their thirties and even forties are afraid to get married lest their marriage fail. And when they do marry, many are afraid to have children. A child-less marriage makes for an easier exit if that eventuality comes to pass.
Some of you in this room, whose grown children refuse to produce children of their own, jokingly refer to your children’s dogs or other pets as your ‘grandchildren.’ Look, I love dogs as much as the next guy – and cats also! I draw the line, by the way at rodents – but that’s just me! You may love your hamster or ferret, but please don’t bring it to me to pet it. But ask me about Marvin, the darling, delightful, devilish dachshund who was my four-legged companion for years – and you’ll know that I’m a dog-lover. And you also know that I’m not averse to a little humor. But behind the humorous references to our children’s pets as your ‘grandchildren’ there is often a bitter edge, to which we need to admit. I think it’s a clear symptom of how the impermanence in our lives has us being overly careful.
I think an obvious lesson from the Kol Nidrei prayer would be to take chances despite the impermanence of postmodern life. The prayer attempts to insert a conditionality into any prospective vows or promises that we might make in the coming year. No, we shouldn’t make promises as if we’ve got our fingers crossed behind our backs – as if we’ve no intention of fulfilling them. We should only promise or vow in the utmost of seriousness, with the full intention that what we’ve promised, we shall do. And we should stick to our promises, even when doing so might cause ourselves some hardship. We should all purpose to have a reputation as someone who gives his word and, come what may, stands by it.
On the other hand, we should not feel so bound to our promises that as a result we are afraid to enter into them at all for fear of what circumstances might come up. We should not allow the fear of the consequences of entering into vows, to cripple our ability to make ourselves a satisfying life. We should recognize and accept that there is always some risk in life. Of course we can – and should – shy away from those decisions that are clearly risky, but we should not see excessive risk in every potential decision.
I am therefore proposing the following. Our Tradition embraces this obscure – yet deeply-felt – prayer on this, the most powerful of religious occasions. Let’s use the Kol Nidrei prayer as a leitmotif. Let’s take from it the lesson that, even as we make vows and promises only with the utmost of seriousness and intention of carrying them out, we shouldn’t let the fear of the unknown keep us from making such vows and promises. We should be willing to make the most important commitments in life: friendships, marriage, children, career or calling. Without all the above, life loses its sacredness. Don’t be a commitment-phobe just because of the fear of the unknown. Sometimes you just can’t live up to your commitments, and when that happens forgiveness is possible. But to be afraid of such commitments is to sentence oneself to a much poorer, less-happy life. G’mar hatima tova.
GPS and Life
Don Levy
Yom Kippur Morning 5770
As many of you know, I recently completed a cross-country road trip. It was the first Great American Road Trip I’ve taken in a number of years, in part because I was in Europe for several years. So when the opportunity arose to engage in this very American tradition, I started the pre-trip checklist in order to be ready.
Of course, to prepare for a Road Trip, it is necessary to make sure the car is in tip-top shape. One takes the vehicle to the service center, gets all needed servicing done, has the mechanic run the diagnostics, and has all sorts to things that could break during the trip, checked. Hoses. Belts. Top off fluids. Make sure tires are in good shape, are properly inflated and that they’re holding their pressure. Make sure insurance and registration are up-to-date and that the correct documents are handy in the glove compartment. Make sure all the glass is clean.
In past ages, one would make sure to possess current maps or atlases. Of course, in this GPS age one would make sure that one’s GPS unit is working well and that its maps are up-to-date.
I was a fairly early adopter where GPS is concerned. I had an excuse. We were living in Germany where, you may know, traffic on the Autobahns moves at a faster speed than traffic on our Interstate Highways. The signage is also not as clear, in addition to being in another language. Because of this, it is less safe to take one’s eyes off the road to look at a map. And Clara, my lovely wife, mother of my children and dear life companion, can’t make heads of tails of a map. At the same time, she prefers that I drive – except when I start yawning. So the solution is, of course, GPS.
I’m sure that many women use GPS well and successfully. However, it was clearly invented and developed for road navigation with men in mind. First, with it one never has to stop and ask for directions. Second, it’s a gadget to play with when the driving gets boring – at least, when one isn’t zooming down a German Autobahn – and guys love gadgets. Finally, it’s something one can ignore if it gets a little ‘naggy,’ without fear of repercussions.
Well, okay – there are certain repercussions. With that first GPS that I bought in Germany, if I missed a turn the standard female voice would declare: “Off route. Recalculating.” This, in a slightly admonishing tone. Since I like being lectured to by a woman as much as the next man, I switched to a male voice. He would tell me: “Hey, missed your turn! Stand by for recalc.” That wouldn’t do either; I went on line and began hunting for a better voice. I was intrigued by one labeled as ‘Brooklynese.’ I downloaded that voice, and the first time I didn’t turn when instructed, I heard: “Hey! You missed your frickin’ turn! Yeroutaheah!!!” I went back to the original, finger-wagging female voice.
(By the way, my mother is Brooklynese, from Flatbush. I told her about my experience with that voice, trying my best to imitate what it sounded like. After pondering it for a moment, she said: “That doesn’t sound like Brooklyn…it sounds Italian.”)
One function of that early GPS that made he transition from old-fashioned maps easy, was that its display was somewhat reminiscent of a paper map. It was smaller and less detailed than a map, but whenever I was on a highway that I would remain on for some time, the scale of the display was such that I could see all the major towns and cities that I would pass on the way. That way, I could plan upcoming stops just as when navigating with a paper map.
Last winter that GPS died. I replaced it, as one does with personal electronics. After all, they’re cheaper to replace than to fix. The user-friendliness of inexpensive GPS units has much improved from my first one to this one. It’s no longer necessary to download the part of the map you’ll need from the DVD on your computer to the device’s memory card. Instead, the device has a hard drive with the entire continent pre-installed. And instead of needing a stylus to program it, one can use its touch-screen with one’s finger. So I purchased the latest map update and installed it in my car, hoping for the best.
My new GPS is much more polite than the old one. It offers no admonishing comments when I miss a turn; instead it just recalculates and displays the distance to the next turn. I like that.
Functionally, the newer GPS does not imitate the function of a traditional map. Instead, there is what’s called a ‘cockpit view.’ A one-point perspective that shows the road immediately ahead, perhaps a few hundred yards. One can see approaching curves in the road, an exit when it’s close, or the next couple of cross streets when in town.
After the novelty of the new display wore off, I missed having one that approximated a traditional map. Fortunately, by running through the device’s menus, I found that I could toggle between ‘cockpit view’ and ‘two dimensional view.’ So I activated the latter. But I found that it showed me the same few hundred yards, just flat like a map.
The new GPS’ display eliminates the immediate visual reference to upcoming towns and cities. This means I have to have far more faith when using the device. I have to accept the route the device shows me or risk going off into un-displayed territory. This fosters a far different mindset when driving and using this navigation tool. A mindset of not planning ahead but just taking what comes, as it comes.
When one is in familiar territory, one can override the device. For example, approaching Nashville on I-40, the GPS told me to turn north on I-65 north, presumably to head toward Evansville, Indiana. Now I didn’t want to go through Evansville; I’d gone that way on the eastbound trip. I knew that would put my on a stretch of I-64 with some 50 miles of construction delays. So instead I ignored the turn and continued west on I-40 toward Memphis. Who knew – maybe on reaching Memphis we’d want to stop and visit Graceland?
But if I wasn’t an ‘old hat’ in transcontinental car travel, I wouldn’t have known that ignoring the called-for turn in Nashville. Perhaps I would more likely have followed instructions and gone the way the GPS voice told me to.
So what does this have to do with anything, let alone Yom Kippur? What’s the connection between my recent experience with GPS and the lessons we are to learn from Yom Kippur? Let’s review what this day is all about:
On Yom Kippur we have an opportunity to stop the world, to stand back as if observing our lives from a distance. On Rosh Hashanah the prayer book told us to take stock of our lives. To right wrongs. To make amends. But also, to look at where we’re going and decide if it’s the course we want to be on. Are we happy with our end-game? If not, it’s an opportunity to a mid-course correction. Ideally, we have been contemplating our mid-course corrections during the past week and now, on Yom Kippur we are ready to decide. To make up our minds as to what course to steer in the coming year. If we’ve truly been doing this all-important exercise, then we’ve already strategized at length as to how we’re going to make it happen.
You know the passage in the Rosh Hashanah prayer book that tells us ‘On Rosh Hashanah it is written; on Yom Kippur, it is sealed?’ What kind of year each of us will have? Who will be poor, who will be rich? Who will be at peace, and who will be driven? Who will live, who will die? We were talking about that passage the other day, at my adult class on Wednesday evening.
How are we to understand this passage? Does it mean that G-d is the Great Puppet Master, pulling the strings that determine what sort of outcome each of us will have in the year to come? Well, you may believe that, but the Jewish Tradition has never held that that’s the way things work. We believe in free will. With the passage of time and events, that free will narrows. Decisions we made yesterday often restrict the decisions open to us tomorrow. In that way, life is like a giant flow chart. We can retrace steps and experience new beginnings, but with the passage of time options close. In that way, time is an adversary without pity.
So we have free will, at least within limits. And the way I read the passage from the mahzor is that, as we take stock in the days following Rosh Hashanah, we write the story of our lives for the next year. But the degree to which we plan to live out that story, and the degree to which we make up our minds to make it happen, that’s the process of ‘sealing’ the result. If we’re wishy-washy, making pie-in-the-sky resolutions without planning how to carry them out, and without stiffening up that old backbone to make it happen, then we will likely reach next Rosh Hashanah wondering what happened to the year, wondering why nothing happened the way we wanted it to.
Know how most radar-guided missiles work? The targeting radar aims the missile toward the chosen target. Then, in mid-course, the radar within the nose cone of the missile takes over, localizing the target and correcting the missile’s course as necessary to make sure it hits. If the missile kept flying toward the original target position, that would not account for any target movement. Every shot would be a miss, unless the target cooperated by remaining stationary. And even then, if winds aloft pushed the missile off course it might miss even so.
Our lives are like that, too. We might have very specific goals and may make painstaking preparations for reaching those goals. But if we’re not sensitive to the winds aloft, if we’re not watching for target movement, then we’ll most likely miss our mark. So we stop now and then to see how things are coming along. To see if we need to make a mid-course correction. Otherwise, we’re in danger of flying out of control.
Everybody uses GPS nowadays. Everybody. Okay, not every body! But most of us. It’s a simple-to-use and inexpensive tool that will calculate the route to our destination. Hopping into my car here in Colorado Springs to begin my recent trip, I was able to program in a destination half a continent away. Then all I had to do was follow the visual and spoken directions. At all times I knew how many more hours of travel, at the posted speed limits, would get me there. If I took a wrong turn, the GPS wouldn’t get upset at me. It would simply guide me to the fastest way to get back on route. If I deliberately changed the route, after a while it would realize I wasn’t turning back and would calculate a new route.
Even better, when the crew was starting to get hungry or to whine for a restroom break, a couple of touches of the screen would give me a list of restaurants ahead on my route, and how far to each one. Or gas stations. One doesn’t have to plan many aspects of one’s trip any more. The GPS will help you find anything you need. As long as the maps are up-to-date. It’s truly a wonderful tool. And here’s the bad news.
There’s no reliable GPS-like device to help us keep our lives on course. We plan and plot and, if we’re determined enough we plow ahead. But what if something unnoticed knocks us off course? We don’t have that synthesized feminine voice to say, “Off route. Recalculating.” No, we don’t have GPS for our lives. But we do have Shabbat.
Shabbat, remember Shabbat? The weekly Sabbath. The time when our Tradition prescribes a cessation of work. Not necessarily of exertion. But of creative activity.
A reading in the old Gate of Prayer likens this cessation of creativity on Shabbat to an artist occasionally stopping his work to stand back and gaze at his canvas, and decide where he’s going to go with his next brush strokes. It’s a lovely analogy; our lives as works of art, with us as the artist. The artist has to pause now and then to contemplate his work. So too do we need to pause and contemplate the unfolding work of our lives.
We’re doing that in a big way today, but it isn’t enough. It isn’t enough to keep us on course until a year from now. That’s why we need our weekly Shabbat to help us to center, to help us make the small course corrections that will prevent us from missing the mark entirely when we re-convene next year.
We don’t work very hard at Shabbat, because we don’t understand it. We think of Shabbat rest only in terms of the traditional way of shunning the automobile, the electric light, ripping toilet paper. We reject the Shabbat of our more traditional cousins, while failing to embrace the spirit of a Shabbat that, while looking quite different from Shabbat with the Chabadniks, can be just as restful. I’m not here to throw barbs at you on this point, my good people. You should know that I struggle with it as much as you do.
My colleague at Temple Shalom, Rabbi Glazer has a different, but equally helpful way of putting it. He refers to Shabbat as a ‘Sane Asylum.’ As you know, an insane asylum, a concept that is very much out of favor today, is a place where those who our entirely out of touch with reality can be sent, where they won’t pose a threat to themselves or the rest of us. Although many insane asylums were like human warehouses, that was now the intent of the concept; it was meant as a benevolent institution.
Shabbat, if we succeed in curtaining it off from the rest of our week, if we succeed in protecting it from the busy-ness that rules our lives all week, can protect our sanity by giving us a much-needed rest from obligations, from rushing around, from being on the proverbial treadmill of life. Rabbi Glazer tells us that it can be our, sane asylum, the thing standing guard over our harried souls, helping us to stay sane.
My metaphor is Shabbat as a GPS to gently keep our lives on course from on Rosh Hashanah to the next.
Either way, it is an institution that is there to help us in life.
And I’m not talking about temple attendance specifically, although coming to temple on Shabbat can only help us in our efforts to make it special and sacred. Because after all, many of us do come to temple on Friday night, but don’t then go to make a Shabbat that is in any way peaceful. We use it for shopping and for rushing the kids around to sports and activities.
We tend to embrace all kinds of technology that can make our lives easier. We revel in our voice mail, our e-mail, our iPhones, our netbooks, and yes, our GPS devices. We who are not technophobes find that all the above help us to manage our busy lives. GPS keeps us on track during a trip, makes it easy to find an address, helps us to save time.
Yet we by-and-large forsake a non-technological, but still effective tool for keeping our lives on track. The weekly Shabbat, approached in the spirit of an opportunity to rest our weary minds from the need to be creative and always be in problem-solving mode, can do more than any other tool, electronic or otherwise. Yet every Jew I know of, who has made a commitment to take each Shabbat and do something to carve out of it an island in time, has not regretted the decision of the effort. I have never heard someone who made a stronger effort to keep Shabbat, later complain that they felt too restricted. The truth is that it’s liberating.
I challenge you to make this effort. Save the shopping for Sunday or, better still, take care of it during the week. Come to temple on Friday, yes. Then plan for activities with those most important to you, that will enhance your sense of having stopped the madness of the work-week. Let Shabbat be your weekly mid-course guidance to help keep you on track for the kind of year you imagined on Rosh Hashanah and commit yourself to today.