Yom Kippur -Kol Nidrei 2007
Rabbi Tziona Szajman
The Hebrew and Yiddish writer, and Zionist leader, Shmaryahu Levin, tells the
story in his autobiography of a transformative incident that took place early in his
life. It was before the high holidays and the shammash of the community was
trying in vain to teach him to blow the shofar. Young Shmaryahu practiced
diligently but with frustratingly little success. Day after day he practiced and got
only squeaks and hornks and wumps…Then one day as he was practicing, a non
Jewish farmer came to his fathers house on business. The farmer asked little
Sharyahu what he was doing and Shmaryahu explained about the Shofar, the rams
horn blown on High Holidays to awaken Jews to the new year. The farmer
picked up the shofar, put it to his lips and blew a powerful blast. The rams horn
sang out loudly and clearly. As you can imagine, Sharyahu was a little heart
broken. He ran to his teacher and asked WHY. I, a Jew practice and pray and
practice and nothing, and this other man just picks it up and gets a mighty sound?
His teacher put his arm around him in comfort and said: “My son, the trick is not
to blow the Shofar, the trick is to listen to it”.(Greenberg, Simon, Hidden Hungers)
On Rosh Hashanah, we listened to Art Siegel’s beautiful sounding of the
shofar. Each day he began with a prayer: Baruch atah adonai eloheinu melech
haolam asher kidshanu bemitzvotav vetzivanu lishmoah kol shofar. Praised are
you God who commands us to hear the shofar. Why would the one sounding the
shofar recite a prayer for the hearing of the shofar??? Because as Sharyahu
learned it is the listening which is important.
On each day of Rosh Hashanah we sound 100 blast of the shofar to awaken us, to
tell us Rosh Hashanah has arrived, take stock of our lives, right wrongs, ask God
forgiveness. But on Yom Kippur, the shofar is silent, we don’t hear it until the
very final service as the high holidays end, the gates close… The shofar is
sounded, the call is heard, and then silence, silence so we can hear that which the
normal everyday noise of our lives overpowers. Silence to listen to the needs of
our loved ones, the needs of our community, the needs of our souls, our own
hearts to be whole.
Oldest and probably most widely known prayer in Jewish liturgy is the prayer with
which we open and close the day: Shema: Listen. Listen Israel, we are Jews, This
is our God. Shema, listen: a reminder the central importance of listening.
How many times in our lives have we been angry with a friend, a loved one
because we felt they weren’t listening to us? And how many times have been able
to give comfort to those is pain simply by listening, by helping them feel heard.
The first thing I learned as a Hebrew school principal in Detroit was that when a
child came to me with a scratch, a bruise, or a hangnail, what they wanted most
from me was listen, and to feel heard. A child would come to me, hold out the
injured limb and I would ask for their story… once told I would nod in sympathy
and ask what we could do to help? Band-Aid, ice, water… the experience was
usually on a few minutes in length and the child would relax that they had been
heard and return to class. People need to be heard and we can do so much for
them just by listening, listening with our whole bodies. After all God gave us two
ears and one mouth… listening should be twice the job as speaking.
A friend of mine was in a rather serious car accident last year. She is a fellow
rabbi who had been burning the candle at both ends, working 60 to 80 hours a
week, going to school part time, and dealing with an incredible legal mess in her
immigrant status. She spent weeks after her car accident lying on the floor of her
apartment, dependant on friends and coworkers bringing her food and help. One
thing she said stays with me: I refused to slow down so my body arranged to fall
apart and make me slow down. I often find the same, if I don’t listen to my body,
if I skip my day off, don’t sleep, or distress at the gym… my body takes the time
off anyway in the form of a cold or flu or worse…
Our souls are the same way; they need to be listened to, paid attention to. Our
souls can be starved from inattention and atrophied from lack of exercise. The
next 25 hours of our lives are dedicated to listening. We have no distractions, no
work, no food, and few external responsibilities. This time is for us to let go of
worldly noise and truly listen to ourselves, our souls. Are we living a fulfilling
life? A good life? What do we need more of in our lives? Less of? How will
work to make our lives whole in this coming year and bring ourselves closer in our
relationship with God. Our prayers guide us in these questions but much of the
work happens as our minds float away from prayer, delving into our pasts, our
futures, our hopes and our dreams. We use this time in synagogue as our
individual needs require, to meditate, to think, to listen.
Gmar Hatimah Tova.
May our prayers and meditations seal for us a good year: a year of wholeness,
happiness, and health.
Yom Kippur Torah Service Sermon 2007
The Mitzvah of Loving Oneself
Rabbi Tziona Szajman
Rabbi Akiba, great Talmudic teacher, once defined the core principle of
Judaism as: “Love your neighbor as yourself”. A Jewish proverb takes this
a step further: “If you always assume that the person sitting next to you is
the messiah, waiting for some simple human kindness, then you will soon
come to weigh you words and watch your hands. And if he so chooses not
to reveal himself in your time, it will not matter.” (Siegel, Danny, And God
Braided Eve’s Hair) Human kindness is at the core of a meaningful life
and should be our highest goal. Yet, loving our fellow human being can
sometimes be the most challenging of mitzvoth. What are the obstacles in
our way? The greatest obstacle in loving one’s neighbor is the inability to
love one’s self.
“We never reach the city of brotherly love by traveling the highway of self
contempt.” (Greenberg, Simon, Hidden Hungers) At this time of
atonement and forgiveness, it is important to remember to forgive oneself.
In the Talmud, the situation is described of two people lost in the desert:
Person A has just enough water to get himself safely to civilization.
Person B has none. If they share they will both die. The rabbis disagree
about what should be done, interestingly Rabbi Akiva says that person A
must drink the water himself and not share. This is always shocking to me.
Wouldn’t the noble thing be to share the water and hope for a miracle or at
the very least give all the water to the second person? And why is Rabbi
Akiva who said to “Love your neighbor as yourself”, asking us to keep all
the life saving water to ourselves? Deeper understanding, you must love
yourself in order to love your neighbor. Love yourself, cherish your life. It
is OK to put yourself first sometimes.
What is the line between self love and selfishness?
Rabbi Hillel said: If I am not for myself who will be for me? If I am only for
myself what am I? There is a place for self love. How do we keep from
stepping over the line to mere selfishness?
Rabbi Simcha Bunam used to say, "Every person should have two
pockets. In one, [there should be a note that says] bishvili nivra ha'olam,
'for my sake was the world created.' In the second, [there should be a note
that says] anokhi afar va'efer, 'I am dust and ashes.'"
In some versions of the story, as if the listener can't figure it out for him- or
herself, Simcha Bunam is alleged to continue, "When one is feeling down,
he should take out the note that says 'for my sake was the world created.'
And when one is feeling smug, he should take out the note that says 'I am
dust and ashes.'"
Self love tells us that the earth was created just for us. We are beautiful.
The knowledge that we were created of dust, and to dust we will return,
keeps self importance, selfishness as bay. If I am only for myself what am
I. If I am not for myself who will be for me?
Eric Fromm, psychologist and writer explains the difference between self
love and selfishness in his study “The Art of Living”. According to Dr.
Fromm selfishness and self love are opposites. The selfish person is
interested exclusively in himself, seems bent on taking pleasure and
incapable of giving any, who judges all people and all things by their
usefulness to him. This person says Dr Fromm actually loves himself very
little. He is incapable of loving and actually hates himself. He seems to be
caring too much for himself but he is only masking his underlying failure to
care for his real self. The selfish person who can not love others can not
love himself either.
I once took a class in meditation for rabbis. I was not top in my class. I
had a very difficult time staying still for 15 minutes, and struggled with the
usefulness of meditation in a world so full of wrongs that needed to be
righted. Why concentrate on my self, breathing, sitting, breathing some
more… when there was work to be done to make the world a better place.
I will never forget the words of my teacher Rabbi Alan Lew: Meditation
brings us to a state of awareness of ourselves and that in itself brings
awareness and sensitivity of others. In other words, Love your self so you
can love your neighbor. According to Alan, if everyone took to a little more
mediation the world would start to rebalance itself. We are able to love
others when we truly love ourselves.
This afternoon we will read the story of Jonah and the whale. Jonah is
called to God and he runs away. We are supposed to laugh at the
absurdity of his running. He runs to ship to cross the ocean away from
God and when the ship is in stormy trouble and each sailor prays to his
God: Jonah tells them that his God is the God of the ocean and the land, of
sky and earth… if so… how did he think he was going to run away from
God? Dramatic irony and a lesson… you can’t run away from God. And
you can’t run away from your self. Wherever you go, there you are. We
must embrace who we are, forgive our pasts and move forward with our
futures.
Today, the day of atonement, we ask God to forgive us our sins. We take
this opportunity to right wrongs done to friends and loved ones and with
these in hand, we must learn to forgive ourselves. We are not the person
we used to be. If we can let go of our mistakes, we can grow to be the
person we want to be.
The ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, said that a man cannot step
into the stream of water twice because by the time he steps into the stream
a second time, both the man and the stream have changed. On Rosh
Hashanah we sought out that stream of water and symbolically let go of
past mistakes with Tashlich. We change and grow and the high holidays
give us the points to mark this change, to forgive ourselves.
This sermon began with Rabbi Akiba and his invocation to love ourselves,
to love our neighbors as ourselves. Seemingly at odds with this is the story
of Rabbi Akiva’s death. We will read in our martyrology service shortly
that Rabbi Akiba is ordered by the Romans to stop teaching Torah. Rabbi
Akiba refuses to stop. He continues to teach and to live by Torah and is
burned alive wrapped in a scroll of Torah parchment. Rabbi Akiba who
taught us to love and cherish our lives, at the critical moment forfeits his
own? Why?? When a person loves their life, cherishes it, they connect
themselves to something greater than life itself, they are unwilling to live
only in trivialities, and dedicate it to the best they know and the highest
they are capable of attaining. (Greenberg, Simon, Hidden Hungers) For
Rabbi Akiva, the teaching of Torah was part of his innermost soul, part of
his being. He was being true to himself, his values, his life when he
refused to surrender that art of himself.
Loving oneself is beyond mere subsistence or existence; it is a passionate
relationship with one’s own spirit.
Yom Kippur Yizkor Sermon 2007
Rabbi Tziona Szajman
The Talmud tells many stories of R.Yohanan and Resh Lakish, their scholarship
and their great love of each other. They were friends, study partners, havruta.
R.Yohanah was the head of the Yeshiva and Resh Lakish his second.
When Resh Lakish died R. Yohanan grieved very much for him.
The rabbis of the study hall searched for a man who would be able to soothe him,
and decided that R. Elazar b. Pdath, whose opinions were original, would be fit for
this task.
R. Elazar went to R. Yohanan's and sat before him, and when R. Yohanan said
anything, he used to say: Yes, there is a Braitha which supports you.
Finally R. Yohanan shouted: You wish to replace bar Lakish? In his day, when I
said anything at all, he raised twenty-four objections, and I had to make them good
with twenty-four answers.
We argued, but the law was clarified. You, however, say to everything: Yes, there
is a Braitha which supports you. Am I not aware that what I am saying has a solid
foundation?
Finally, R. Yohanan tore his garments, wept, and cried: "Where are you, Resh
Lakish? Where are you?" And he continued crying.
Our loved ones are irreplaceable. Those who have passed each fulfilled us in a
unique way that cannot be matched. There were times of argument, times of pain,
times of joy… and now there is an empty space where they used to sit by us.
Every holiday is a reminder that they are no longer here and we honor their
memories with Yizkor, a service of remembrance. When we say the Yizkor
prayer, Yizkor Elohim nishmat… May God remember the soul of my beloved...
we continue with “I pledge to perform acts of gemilut chasadim, acts of charity
and goodness, in their memory”. Each act of kindness and giving gives honor to
our loved ones and commemorates their memory.
Our tradition gives us a single prayer to recite daily, then yearly for their memory:
the kaddish. It is an odd prayer, never mentioning death, but rather a poem
extolling and praising God. Kaddish, from the word Kadosh, holy, sanctifies
God’s name.
Yet, the kaddish holds tremendous power over us.
It is recited every morning and evening by bereaved Jews in every land, by the
learned, the unlettered, young, old, rich, and poor.
The obligation to recite kaddish motivates us to keep a daily minyan in our
community. Jews will always come to help someone in mourning achieve a
minyan so he can say kaddish.
Jews who know few other prayers, know the kaddish. Jews who keep few other
traditions, will recite the kaddish for 11 months after the death of a parent, and
every succeeding year on the Yartzeit, the anniversary of the death. In our
machzor, our Shabbat and daily prayer books: the kaddish is the only full prayer
also printed in transliteration. (Greenberg, Simon, Hidden Hungers)
The kaddish dates back to the 2nd century when it was said at the conclusion of
text study or a sermonic teaching. It later came to be used in the seven days of
mourning following a teacher’s death, then evolved to be said for parents, and
immediate family.
In the middle ages, a folk believe grew that saying kaddish could release the dead
from suffering, from purgatory. This belief survived despite the opposition of the
rabbis and was responsible for the development of paying someone to say kaddish
for a loved one. Traditionally, Jews say the kaddish for ourselves, to feel closer to
our loved ones who have passed, to publicly honor their memory.
Most of us feel as Henrietta Szold so beautifully explained, that kaddish is an
expression of identification, a means of linking herself with her family and with
her people, past and future.
Henrietta Szold had seven sisters and no brothers. When her mother died, a friend
of the family offered to say kaddish for her. Henrietta graciously refused, saying:
“The kaddish means to me that the survivor publicly and markedly manifests his
wish and intention to assume the relation to the Jewish community which his
parent had, so that the chain of tradition remains unbroken from generation to
generation, each adding its own link. You can do that for the generations of your
family, I must do that for the generations of my family.”
(Greenberg, Simon, Hidden Hungers)
We recite an age old prayer, kaddish, to honor our loved ones and to add ourselves
to the chain of tradition, belief and holiness.
We recite kaddish to sanctify and glorify God’s name at the time of our innermost
pain… not because God needs to hear this praise but because we do.
In every situation in which there is grief there is some dynamic of guilt..
Psychologists tell of the seven stages of grief: Shock or Disbelief, Denial,
Bargaining, Guilt, Anger, Depression, Acceptance and Hope. Guilt, even when
we lose a distant relative we think to ourselves: Did I call recently? Did I call
enough? With closer relatives there are always things we wished we could undo,
or do better. No human relationship is so perfect that the survivor cannot berate
himself for things done and said and things left undone and unsaid. We, the
mourners need peace from our accusing consciousnesses.
The kaddish assures us that in God’s perfection, God makes allowances for his
creations imperfections.
The kaddish assures us that there is a plan and a purpose to life beyond times of
sorrow, that there will be hope and joy again.
The kaddish calls our energy to action. We have a concrete job to do to honor our
loved ones.
Finally, the kaddish requires a quorum of ten. A minyan lets the mourner know
that he is not alone, that others also mourn, that others are there to support, to care.
We are here together as a community to mourn those we have loved and lost.
Many of their names are listed in our yizkor book. We remember them. We
honor their lives. We join a chain of tradition and link ourselves to them and to
the future.
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