Momentous Occasions

Posted at 9:00 PM, Tuesday, September 25, 2007

We have had two momentous occasions in our lives in the last week or so. One is that the Jewish High Holy Days came to a dramatic end with Yom Kippur this last Friday night and Saturday. The other is that my parents arrived from America for a 3 1/2 week visit. Yonatan and Nadav have been besides themselves with joy ever since. Of course, I'd been telling them for months that Savta and Zayde were coming. But after a year in Australia, I think they'd pretty well convinced themselves that they were not likely ever to see anyone they actually knew on the same continent as them. Both boys have been talking non-stop since their grandparents arrived, and the grandparents for their part have had their fill of talk about school, Scouts, Australian terms and foods, basic Jewish knowledge, favorite toys, best movies, good friends, and so on and so on. In fact, my parents have temporarily escaped this deluge of information and have fled north to the scenic Barossa Valley for three days of wine tasting at some of Australia's very finest wineries.

In the meantime, I am recovering from that other momentous occasion, which is the rabbinic marathon run known as Yom Kippur. It was a good day for me, which is saying something, since Yom Kippur for rabbis means delivering at least two major sermons, leading eight or more hours of services stretched over 24 hours, and all on an empty stomach. The high point--or perhaps low point, depending on whom you consult--came during the morning Torah service. I stared at the three similarly-sized Torah scrolls in our ark, dressed in their holiday best in very similar white covers. I looked them over carefully and picked the one I believed to be closest to that morning's reading in Deuteronomy. My students assisted in removing the crowns and breastplate that decorate the Torah, along with cover itself. It was only then that I realized I'd removed the wrong Torah. I made this rather embarrassing announcement to the congregation, endured five minutes of laughter and general good humor while we re-dressed this Torah, removed the correct scroll, and got the other five scrolls of various sizes and shapes carefully rebalanced in the ark. And then on with the service.

I delivered the following sermon on Yom Kippur morning. It is an indication of how fearful we South Australians are currently feeling that, when I apologized for the rather grim tone of my remarks, several members reassured me that they were completely accurate and probably necessary. You can judge for yourselves:

Shhhh. Do you hear that sound? You have to stop everything you're doing and thinking about, and then you'll hear it. Do you hear it now? What sound am I talking about? Why, it's the sound of the world coming to an end, of course.

This is the news story we work so hard to avoid thinking about—the idea that our wonderfully familiar world might be disappearing before our very eyes. But it's getting increasingly difficult to duck the headlines. Last Shabbat, The Advertiser screamed “Nightmare on the Land!” while The Australian ran a feature in its magazine about the sudden die-off of honeybees worldwide. Today's news sees the South Australian water minister duelling with the Victorian water minister in an effort to assure a lasting water supply to Adelaide. I've noticed that the Amen that follows the prayer for rain in our services has become even more fervent than the prayer for the sick, as we worry that the land around us might continue to shrivel up.

Travel agents, of course, are capitalising on the end of the world. “Come see the polar bears of the Arctic while they still have a habitat!” “Cruise to Antarctica to see the empire penguins before they die out!” “Ski the Alps while there is still snow!” And so on and so forth. In one particularly scary week back in August, bush fires ravaged Southern Greece and killed dozens of people. The centre of the United States was hit by devastating floods. Queensland was buried under a meter of rain. A category 5 hurricane raked across the Carribean. And to top off the week came a day here in South Australia where the temperature hit 30 degrees (86 degrees F) and hot north winds literally blew away millions of dollars of crops.

Is it scary? Absolutely, which is why I imagine we do the best we can to ignore the news as it comes to us. The weather is beautiful—sunny and warm, so we'll focus on that rather than on the absence of spring rain. The world is slowly and grudgingly starting to discuss the real sacrifices and life changes necessary to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. We'll focus on what we can do, and try not to think so much about what we've already done and cannot now undo.

Unfortunately, and terrifyingly, what we see around us is a world that seems increasingly beyond our control. We want rain, we pray for rain, we even predict rain based on the end of the El Ninio that dominated last year, and then rain doesn't come. Dying crops and parched lawns are to us the local symptom of a worldwide crisis recognised too late.

All religious systems in the world are essentially consumed with one idea: the possibility for us to exercise some level of control over our lives. The concept of control may take different forms. For many Christians and Moslems, true belief means relinquishing control and handing it over to God. They endeavour to believe that all things come from God—the good and the bad. This may seem like a strange way to assert control over their lives, but that's essentially what they are doing.

With rare exceptions in our history, Judaism takes exactly the opposite view. To live a religious Jewish life is to exercise control over every aspect of our lives, from the moment we awaken until we fall asleep, from the moment we are born until we are buried and mourned. Although as we Jews remain somewhat uncertain of what will happen following our deaths, we are quite sure that we have an obligation while alive to do what we can to change our world for the better. It is not an accident that Jews are disproportionately represented as political activists, in the healing professions, in civil rights, and in other areas of life that do good. That is part of our religious mandate. And it is all part of our efforts to control our destinies and do some good while we're at it.

Now we find ourselves in the midst of a historical era in which our ability to shape our destinies is in doubt. We may be able to bring healing to the sick, but we may not be able to heal a sick planet or save the thousands of species at risk of extinction.

Like many of you, I have been thinking about these issues for months. This day, which our prayerbook acclaims as “the day of judgment,” seemed like the appropriate time to discuss them. But I could not contemplate delivering this sermon if I were not to find the possibility for hope for the future. It may not be much, but it is better than nothing: there is still much that we CAN do, and there are many things that we must do.

With this new reality come crucial discussions and debates about scarcity of resources and fairness of distribution. It has been noted that the poorest nations—those least able to help themselves in the face of looming environmental uncertainty—are also the ones likely to be most affected by the effects of global warming. As Jews, and as caring human beings, we need to do some hard thinking about our responsibilities to assist desperately poor people in Bangladesh, in central Africa, and in other areas of the world to come through this challenging time.

As we engage in that process, we should also engage in the process of reevaluating our proper place in the world. What do we have in our lives that we could do without? How will we reduce our own mighty carbon footprint in the world and thus work towards a future where the world around us is a little more trustworthy?

And finally, in what ways can we continue to work together to bring about tikkun olam—a profound healing in the world? How can we pool our resources as a congregation? What about the other groups to which we're attached? What can we share with one another, and what can we give to the world? In what ways can we continue to take charge of our futures so that the time to come will be one of hope rather than of dread?

I have always felt a strong connection to this prayer of Rabbi Jack Riemer's that appears in many prayerbooks. Many of you may well be familiar with it:

We cannot merely pray to you O God to end war; For the world is made in such a way that we must find our own path of peace within ourselves and with our neighbors.

We cannot merely pray to you O God to root out prejudice: for we already have eyes with which to see the good in all people if we would only use them rightly.

We cannot merely pray to you O God to end starvation: For we already have the resources with which to feed the entire world If we would only use them wisely.

We cannot merely pray to you O God to end despair: For we already have the power To clear away slums and to give hope If we would only use our power justly.

We cannot merely pray to you O God to end disease: For we already have great minds with which to search out cures and healings If we would only use them constructively.

Therefore we pray instead for strength, determination, and will power, to do instead of merely to pray; to become instead of merely to wish: so that our World may be safe, And so that our lives may be blessed.

On this Yom Kippur, as we look deep within ourselves, let us look deep beyond ourselves as well. The world needs us: it needs our love, our wisdom, and our passion. We do not know exactly what lies ahead, but we can make an educated guess that all of us will need to work together. At each new year, I offer a prayer for what I hope we might see when the next year rolls around. Of course, I hope that we will be blessed with a new year of abundance. I pray that rain will fall where it is needed, and that it will stay away from places that have too much already. But if that is not possible, I pray that at the very least, the next High Holy Days will see our lives more closely interwoven than ever before. I pray that we will have found new, significant ways to give our gifts to the world, and I pray that we will emerge from the year that is coming with our sense of hope and promise for the future still completely intact. May we and the entire world be written and sealed for a year of joy, of peace, and of life. Amen.