My Dear Friends,
Some of you may remember that exactly five years
ago this month, a huge flood devastated parts of Colorado. The flooding
impacted 24 counties, causing nearly $4 billion in damage. As rivers overflowed
their banks, more than 1,800 homes were destroyed. In all, 27 state highways
were shut down, covering some 485 miles. It cost more than $700 million to
repair and rebuild those roads[i]. Today, as we sit here
in this holy place – on this holiest day of the year, our thoughts are also
directed to those who have been impacted by Hurricane Florence in the
Carolinas, and those who are still impacted by Hurricane Maria one year later –
especially in Puerto Rico – which is still reeling from the death and
destruction it caused. When natural disasters like fires, hurricanes and
flooding hit a community, the carnage and devastation can be overwhelming. We
feel powerless and fragile in the face of the awesome power of these events.
Scientists tell us that man-made climate change is releasing more and more CO2 into
the atmosphere - thus exponentially increasing both the likelihood and severity
of future natural disasters. On this 5-year anniversary of the massive Colorado
floods, when rivers overflowed their banks I want to talk about lessons that we
can learn from rivers – and how we can apply them to our own lives.
The first thing we learn from Rivers is the
power and the inevitability of change.
We are like rivers - for like rivers, we
change.
Rivers have currents. Rivers are constantly
changing. The Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, taught that you cannot step into
the same river twice. Rivers flow - they are movement itself. In the
Torah, in Jewish folklore and mysticism, rivers are powerful symbols. We are
told that 4 rivers flowed out from the primordial waters of the Garden of
Eden: the Pishon, the Gichon, the Tigris, and the Euphrates[ii]. On their currents traveled the innocence of humanity
- going further and further away from that garden paradise. Throughout the
Torah we find images of rivers as powerful symbols of change.
When Jacob prepares to meet his brother Esau after
years of anger and mistrust, he must cross the river Yabok. Before
his crossing, he wrestles with a mysterious stranger until daybreak. When he
arises from the encounter, he is a changed man. He crosses that river with a
new name, Yisrael - and a new outlook on life. Rivers are all about change.
Yom Kippur is about change as well. We sit here in
this sanctuary - and we pray that we might find the strength to change - to
better ourselves - to fulfill the role that is set out for us. This is not an
easy thing to do for we must confront the most painful aspect of ourselves -
our limitations. This takes a tremendous amount of effort.
When we look at a river, we can see the stillness
of the water. All appears to be peaceful on the surface. Nonetheless, we know
that beneath that calm there is a vast, intricate ecosystem that manifests
itself in a battle for life and death. So many of us present an unruffled,
smooth facade - while underneath we are a mass of combating urges and impulses.
We struggle with our inadequacies and shortcomings - our desires and
temptations – our secrets and psyches. We are weak, and we easily
succumb. Because of our weakness, we need the cleansing power
of Teshuvah - of repentance.
There is a custom that many Jews practice on Rosh
Ha-Shanah called Tashlikh. This consists of going to a body of
water and throwing out bread crumbs. The crumbs are symbolic of our sins. We
watch as they are carried away by the currents or devoured by fish or birds.
This symbolic act shows that we are ready to change our ways. We cast our sins
upon the water as a sign that we are ready to do Teshuvah - to
turn in repentance.
This morning, we have come to this place, in order
to admit our failures, and promise to begin anew. We do teshuva in
order to cleanse ourselves. The flow of a river can be cleansing. Teshuva is
like a river's current. It can carry our burdens away - if we open ourselves to
the possibility of change.
To be open to change - is to admit that we are
weak-is to confront the fact that we have hurt those whom we love; that we have
become distanced from the paths of wholeness and holiness that are set out for
us. Teshuva means turning back in repentance. On Rosh Hashanah
the shofar called out to us: "Listen," it said.
"Remember who you are." "Remember how far you have
drifted." "Come back. Come back." On this
holy day it is our task to heed it’s call for turning.
When we repent for our sins, our tradition
teaches, we are moving back in synch with the current of our lives. These
currents teach us the true meaning of teshuva - of repentance.
The second lesson is that rivers teach us about
boundaries.
Four rivers flowed out from Eden. They spread out
over the world to form the boundaries of civilization as we know
it. Rivers serve as borders between nations and communities, they also
become focal points of tension. The West bank of the Jordan river symbolizes
statehood for the Palestinians - and security for the Israelis. Similarly, the
shaky peace between Israel and her neighbors by necessity involves a different
understanding of the boundaries of the land of Israel than that found in
Genesis 15:18 where we find:
On that day, God made a covenant with Abram,
saying, 'To your offspring I assign this land, from the river of Egypt to the
great river, the river Euphrates.....'[iii]
When we look closely at rivers, we find that they
also can symbolize the way we perceive ourselves. Just as rivers define
physical and geographical boundaries, they also can teach us about other types
of barriers. So many of us believe that the boundaries and limitations we face
every day are really tests or obstacles that must be overcome,
rather than accepted and assimilated. So much of what we do - so much time and
effort is spent on improving, developing or re-shaping our physical, emotional
and spiritual environments - testing our limitations - that we often lose sight
of who and what we are.
Sue and I have a cousin who supplemented his
income handsomely while he was in graduate school in Manhattan by working as a
tutor for wealthy families who wanted to give their children “an edge” that
would allow them to get into the best nursery schools, so that they will get
into the best private schools, so that they will get into the best colleges,
graduate schools and “make it” in life. Sue’s cousin admitted that a lot of what
he did made him feel uncomfortable. He saw how these parents placed such high
expectations on their children that they were sending a message that failure is
never an option.
My friends, there is nothing wrong with striving
to do our best. But the truth is that our borders and boundaries are as
important as our potential - for they help us to define our goals. We also need
to teach our children — and ourselves — how to fail.
Failure is increasingly becoming taboo. Our
president repeatedly uses the adjective to describe people and institutions –
especially those in the media that he dislikes. The pejorative “loser” is
insidious. It equates failure with weakness; winning becomes our ultimate goal.
Those who come up short are worthy of contempt.
In this light, some flooding and other disasters
can partly be blamed on our fear of failure and our hubris -- our vain
egocentrism as a nation. As we witnessed last year in Houston, and as we have
seen time after time across our nation, our belief in our superiority caused us
to build cities on natural flood plains. We were confident that our engineering
could protect us from the waters. We reasoned that if we built our walls high
enough, strong enough and with enough ingenuity, we would never have to worry
about flooding. We were wrong. We failed and did not allow ourselves to learn
from our failures.
But rivers do not only represent boundaries within
society, they also serve as powerful symbols for the limitations we place upon
ourselves.
We are like rivers: our lives also flow
between the banks of our own, personal boundaries. We move through the events,
expectations, compromises and covenants by and through which we gauge the passage
of time and the fulfillment of our expectations. There are moments when our
banks overflow - when we cannot contain the feelings, emotions, and passions
which course through our veins like a raging torrent.
Along the banks of our own, personal rivers, there
are high points which teach us of the meaning and purpose of our very
existence. When we stand under the Chuppah; when a child
is born; when we hold the Torah for the first time as a Jew by choice; when we
overcome illness or misfortune; when we rejoice with our children or
grandchildren as they become Bar or Bat Mitzvah - these are defining
moments of our lives .... when our banks overflow with joy and happiness.
But there are low points as well -
when, instead of flooding, we experience drought. When a cherished loved one
dies, a marriage fails, illness strikes cruelly and unexpectedly - all too
often we can find ourselves in the midst of a barren, dry river bed - parched
and utterly alone. We gaze up at the heights along the banks - we cannot seem
to find a way to climb up out of the abyss.
For many of us, these times when the banks of our
lives are changing - whether overflowing or drying up - are unnatural. We often
don't know how to deal with them. I cannot tell you how many times when, as a
rabbi, I stand with people at moments of great joy or great crisis and they do
not know what to do. "Rabbi," they say, "I promised myself that
I wouldn't cry at my son's Bar Mitzvah." Or, "Rabbi, I
can't allow myself to break down at my mother's funeral - I don't want to lose
control - I'm afraid that I might never get it back...."
I want to tell these people: “Good! Go ahead and
cry!!! Lose control - that’s what you’re supposed to do.”
All too often we build walls around ourselves to
keep from overflowing or to serve as reservoirs during times of drought. We
create artificial levies, bridges and dams to prevent the floods from
disrupting our daily routines. We strive for ways to control, monitor and
regulate the high and low points in our lives. And yet walls and bridges cannot
really help us. They cannot give us strength during times of spiritual
emptiness - nor can they prevent the torrents of emotion from overwhelming
us. Like floods and hurricanes, like the current drought much
of our state is experiencing today, eventually, these defenses will be breached
- and we can find ourselves at the mercy of events and feelings - and we don't
know what to do because we have not allowed ourselves to experience the power
of allowing our emotions, our feelings, our joy, our fear, our pain.... to
overflow.
My friends, this is dangerous, for part of who and
what we are is based on our ability to appreciate, accept and assimilate our
lives in their totality - the good and the bad; the
highs as well as the lows. The more walls we build, the more we keep our
emotions, our loved ones, our fears, hopes and dreams in check - the less in
touch with our true selves we become - and the more alienated we are from life.
The ancient Egyptians understood the dangers of
building walls. Every year, the Nile river would overflow its banks. Instead of
catastrophe, this yearly flood brought with it prosperity. The Nile was a
sacred river. Its overflow brought new life to the desert soil on its banks.
The people worshiped the Nile because of its rising and
falling - its highs and lows. It became the source of their spiritual and
physical life. They made no separation between the two.
As Jews, we have a vehicle for expressing ourselves
at those moments when our banks overflow and when we are parched with drought.
At times of our greatest joy and sorrow, we express ourselves in Tefillah -
in prayer. The Psalmist said it best perhaps in the 23d
Psalm: "You have anointed my head with oil, my cup runneth
over..." Tefillah - prayer is a central theme
of these Days of Awe. We come together as a community and examine our deeds. We
look deep inside at our successes, our failures - our highs and our lows. We
travel down the banks of the river of the past year.
Milton Steinberg, in his book, Basic
Judaism, called prayer a "bridge to God."[iv] Prayer
becomes a bridge - not for the avoidance of our essential
selves, but towards understanding who we are and
what is truly important. Through prayer, we find the words, the opportunities
and the paths to cross over or submit to the barriers in our lives. Prayer is a
humbling experience. To speak to God means to admit that there are things in
our life that we cannot truly understand. What if God does not hear
us? Or even worse, what if there is no God at all? What
if all our words, our liturgy, our deepest thoughts are emptied out into an
abyss of nothingness?
These are real questions....they cannot be
avoided.
To attempt to stand in the presence of the Divine
is to expose ourselves to the unknown. It's risky. And yet, it is
precisely because of this risk that prayer can be so powerful.
When we pray - we gaze down at and inside of the river of our lives. We step back
and appreciate all that we have. We take stock in ourselves and our world. We
allow our banks to overflow.
But prayer is not only for those times in our
lives when we are overcome with emotion. Prayer can be a powerful, ongoing
affirmation of who we are, and where we want to be. On Yom Kippur our sanctuary
is overflowing – and we love to see everyone hear. But we have services every
week! Join us! To pray on a regular basis is to acknowledge to ourselves and
our God that we appreciate and are thankful for all that life has to offer -
all the time. It prepares us for when we need to pray the
most, it provides us with a reservoir from which we can draw when we have to
find the words, the feelings, the ways and means with which to confront and
contend with our highs and our lows.
The banks of the rivers of our lives are
built on the prayers of our hearts.
The third thing we learn from rivers is that
everything is connected.
We are like rivers - for like rivers, we are
connected to one another. Four rivers flowed from Eden. They all shared a
common source. One of the lessons we learn from flooding is that the actions of
cities and towns at the head of the river affects those communities down below.
As each community downstream builds the walls of their dams and levies higher
and higher, the pressure is increased on the walls of successive communities
until the inevitable occurs – walls collapse, and flooding ensues.
A third message of these High holidays is the
importance of Tseddakah. This is often mistranslated as
"charity" - but it means much more. Tseddakah literally
means righteousness. It means that we have an awareness of how our actions can
impact others - for bad or good. In the Mishnah, tractate Avot, we
read: Mitzvah goreret mitzvah, averah goreret averah -
Acts of loving kindness lead to further acts, transgressions lead to further
transgression[v]. Rivers are systems - nothing is
independent. The water is contained by the banks, the currents flow to the sea,
the plant life and the animals - all are dependent upon one another. Rivers
teach us that everything in life is connected. We are no exception.
This afternoon, we will be reading from the Book
of Jonah. If you will recall, at one point in the story, a huge storm erupts
while the prophet is fleeing from God. All the sailors and passengers pray to
their gods to save the boat which is being mercilessly tossed by the wind and
the waves. Jonah, however, goes down to his bunk and falls asleep. When the
Captain finds him snoring away he confronts him: “How can you sleep? Get up and
pray to your God so that we might be saved![vi]” Jonah’s
selfishness and inability to see the pain of others was part of his undoing. As
I said last night, we need to listen to one another. We need to have compassion
and empathy - to cooperate and understand that everything and everyone is
connected.
All of us are responsible for one another - we are
taught in our sacred texts. My world does not end with my family, my synagogue,
my neighborhood, my country, or even my people. All people are God's
children. Rivers teach us of our interdependence and connectedness.
In the Siddur we are told that On Rosh Ha Shanah
it is written, on Yom Kippur it is sealed. Who shall live and who shall die,
who by flood and who by fire........
But we are told that Teshuvah, Tefillah,
U'Tseddakah maavirim et roa ha gezerah – repentance, prayer, and acts
of righteousness temper God's decree.
On this Yom Kippur, may we learn the lessons of
the rivers. May the currents that pull us in every direction show us the path
to true Teshuvah - turning towards repentance for our sins.
May we learn to live within the changing banks of our lives through Tefillah
- the prayer of our hearts. And may we learn that we are all
interconnected through the process of Tseddakah. Then, truly, our
lives will be for a blessing.
L'Shanah Tovah Teychateymu --- may we
all be sealed for a blessing in the book of life, blessing and peace.
AMEN
[i] https://kdvr.com/2018/09/10/5-year-anniversary-of-colorados-historic-floods/
[ii]Genesis 2:10-14
[iii] Genesis 15:18
[iv] Steinberg,
Milton Basic Judaism Harcourt Brace, p.116
[v] Mishnah,
Avot 4:2
[vi] Jonah 1:6
No comments:
Post a Comment