Ultimate Questions
Rosh HaShanah Day I, 5770
September 19th, 2009
Rabbi Gary S. Creditor
Introduction
In the Flair section of the Times-Dispatch, May 3rd, 2004, Dr. Henry Carl Simmons, author, gerontology bibliographer, educator and aging-center director is quoted in reference to the "big questions in the last third of life": "These are the fundamental questions of life:
Who am I?
What am I going to do?
And with whom am I going to do it?
These questions are really about identity, legacy and intimacy."
We are all bombarded from within and from without by questions: questions about finance and trading in clunkers; questions about healthcare for ourselves, our children, our parents; questions about our jobs - how many in our shul community have been significantly to severely hurt and/or have lost their jobs; global questions about weather and wars, spread of nuclear arms and, for a number of our families, of concern for their sons, our bar mitzvah boys now grown-into-men who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are questions we can answer and those we can't. For some, we just have to ride the waves of time as best we can. For others we have tried to help, as through the job-bank we developed on-line. As Dr. Simmons accurately focused, the existential questions bore into our souls and question our very selves. There is no one here today who has escaped questions. The Unetaneh Tokef in Musaf is laden with such questions: who will live and who will die; who will die untimely and who will die timely (however you define that). Our magnificent tradition presents us with ultimate questions. By asking them and in attempting to answer them, perhaps we can find the shveel hazahav, the golden path to help us, to help our neshamas in the year ahead to live with happiness and sweetness, with goodness and with love, and in peace.
I.
In the Talmudic tractate of Shabbat we read the following:
Did you deal (in business) faithfully [that is, with integrity]?
Did you fix times for learning?
Did you engage in procreation?
Did you hope for salvation?
Did you engage in the dialectics of wisdom?
Did you understand one thing from another?
In the Rabbinic Midrash on Tehillim - Psalms, we find another question:
In the world to come, each person will be asked:
How did you occupy your time?
If the person says, "I fed the hungry," then the angels say to him:
"This is the Gate of Adonay; those who fed the hungry may enter.
If the person says, "I clothed the naked," then the angels say to him:
"This the Gate of Adonay, those who clothe the naked may enter."
And similarly with those who raise orphans, and those who give charity,
and those who engage in deeds of loving-kindness.
In the Palestinian Talmud, the Yerushalmi, there are four more questions:
Did you live in Eretz Yisrael?
Did you eat food in purity?
Did you speak Hebrew?
Did you recite the Shema evening and morning?
And let me add a few more personal ultimate questions:
Do we have enough time for those whom we love?
Do we only worry about ourselves and not of others?
Do we care whether this planet after us will sustain healthful life?
Do we see ourselves as the context of this synagogue community?
Do we see ourselves as the context of the Jewish people?
Do we exemplify - not preach, not teach, but exemplify this
to our children and grandchildren?
In the answers to these questions we can find our way.
II.
Let us look at the questions from Masechet Shabbat.
Did you deal [in business] faithfully [with integrity? What a year for such a question!! How many lives have been ruined, charities undermined by the most disgusting greed and avarice! How many vulnerable human beings have been cast adrift and valuable programs terminated! How much pain and suffering!
Yet on a personal level, this question asks:
Is our "yes" a "yes"?
As customers, are we fair to our merchants?
We are quick to complain when overcharged,
but do we return to the cashier when the error was in our favor?
Do we treat salespeople with respect?
Do we pick up something that we caused to fall?
Dr. Abraham Heschel played with the Hebrew of the phrase and reconstructed it to ask "did you make faith your primary business?" Simply phrased, is religion, is Judaism, is faith just a competing part of the pie-chart of our lives, or is the ground upon which we live? Is being a Jew with the faith of Judaism our core or our periphery? The heavenly halo of life depends on our answer. Faith enables us to rise, to have inner strength, to believe in ourselves because we believe that there is a God believes in us. Faith gives us meaning. Faith gives us purpose.
Did you fix times for learning? This question refers to Jewish learning, of Torah, of the vast sea of our wisdom. I am sure that if I was to count in this sanctuary the number of college degrees, undergraduate, post-graduate and post, post-graduate, and the tuition we paid to get them, it would be a stupendous number. Yet,
What is the level did of our Jewish learning?
How comfortable are we with the Machzor, with Hebrew,
with knowledge about Israel, basic Jewish beliefs, Rabbinic literature?
Life-long Jewish learning and Jewish literacy opens the doors of our tradition to find ultimate answers to ultimate questions.
I invite you to join a dedicated and fabulously glorious group of people who study Talmud every week and Torah every other week. We ask every question; go slowly; do it in English (with reference to the Hebrew); we plumb; we soar; we explore. I invite you to join the Basic Judaism class to know the fundamentals of our faith, that meets weekly, and to learn Hebrew on Sunday mornings. Our Shabbat listserv appends great learning. It costs nothing - or next to nothing - to enrich our minds and nourish our souls from the well-spring of our faith. Our study of Jewish texts and tradition defines us. The questions elevate us.
Did you engage in procreation? Literally it asks "Did you have children?" but there is a deeper question: Did you have the faith in the world, to bring them into this world? Menachem's wife Liz, our daughter-in-law was pregnant on 9/11 and gave birth the following March 31st. At Ariel's naming Menachem asked me to say a few words. I said that having children then, before and now as well, was an act of faith in the existence of the world and an act of obligation to insure its existence. Do we have that faith? I expand this question: Do we make time for our grandchildren? Are we role models to our children and our grandchildren, of morals, of ethics of Judaism? Do they make Shabbat at home, come with us to shul, sit in our sukkah, light the menorah, put on Purim costumes, ask the 4 questions, visit Israel? Do we by our deeds, insure the continuity of Judaism and the Jewish people?
Did you hope for salvation? The origin of this question is connected to the belief in the future coming of the Messiah. It is the foundation of our belief in the eventual salvation of the Jewish people and manifest in our vision of the State of Israel. The framing of this question expects us to have faith that the times will be better, to have faith in ourselves, in our self worth. Judaism inculcates in us to live with hope. On that, a little story.
A poor man, gathering sticks of wood in the forest, packs them in a torn sack, throws the sack over his frail shoulders, then stumbles, the sticks scattering to the earth. Frustrated, the man cries out to God, "This is the last straw! I am poor, my wife is sick, my children are neglected. Send the angel of death and let him take me from this earth!" His prayer is promptly answered, and the angel of death suddenly appears, asking, "Did you call for me?" Startled, the poor man stammers, "Yes, yes, could you help me gather up these sticks?"
Is it any wonder that the national anthem of Israel is HaTikvah - The Hope, written before the State was a reality? Isaiah implores us not to be faint hearted and have faith in our successful destiny, personally and as a people!! On the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto were written the words: Gevalt!! Don't despair. Our faith gives us hope for salvation and redemption. It strengthens us to live through these difficult economic times.
III.
The Midrash on Psalms presents the belief that when we die and go heaven, we will be asked only one question to determine if we are worthy to enter: Have we actively involved ourselves in helping others. Let me ask specific questions:
How many here contribute dollars AND food to the Central Virginia Food Bank?
How many contribute dollars to similar agencies that feed the poor?
How many send back the envelope from Dominion Power to Energy Share?
How many volunteer here when we house and feed the homeless through our
participation in Caritas?
How many give volunteer hours in any helping cause?
The Midrash, reflecting the Rabbinic attitude, says that at heaven's gate we won't be asked about our advanced degrees, our stock portfolios (no matter their current state of depletion), or the number of rooms in our houses. We will be asked:
Did we help people?
Did we, in this time of crisis, reach out to others?
This is the question to discuss at our Yom Tov dinners today!
IV.
The Jerusalem Talmud reflects the centrality of the land of Israel, our momaloshen - mother tongue of Hebrew and the core of faith, Shema Yisrael. These are politically challenging times. I waited to the last moment to write my sermon about Israel for tomorrow. Yet,
Who can articulately present Israel's position, fears, needs?
Who can give to their neighbor, coworker, a thumbnail sketch that cogently argues
for the very existence of the State of Israel?
How many have visited Israel, how many times and for how long?
Who have encouraged their children and grandchildren to spend a year studying in
Israel undergraduate, postgraduate, or at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem as an interlude, as study for its own sake?
How is our Hebrew reading?
How is our Hebrew vocabulary? What are we doing about both?
It is valuable beyond all things precious to hear Menachem sing Ariel, Moshe and
Raya to bed with Shema Yisrael, just as we did with him, Yonina and
Tzeira.
Do we pray before going to bed, giving thanks for the day past, wishing to wake
up in the morning, that we will enjoy another day of life?
Do we talk to God at home? Just to have the conversation and not it times of
crisis.
V.
Following upon my story last night, do we spend real time with our families, dedicate time for our children, rearrange vacation schedules to be with our grandchildren, and not fit it in between appointments?
Do we do our best to make this a better planet for us and the generations to come?
Do we conscientiously recycle our paper, plastics, metal and glassware?
Do we use water-saving devices?
Do we use electricity saving light bulbs?
Do we divert runoff water onto our lawns and not the street to fight pollution?
Lastly, from where I began, what is the core of our being?
Who are we?
What are we doing with our lives?
With whom are we sharing the days of our lives?
There are many questions to ask ourselves. Many are transient, superficial, mundane. They burden us. They cloud our vision. They divert our attention to the more trivial. These are the ultimate questions that are worthy to be asked on Rosh HaShanah and every day, and whose answers set the path for a fulfilling, happy, and good life, all else not withstanding.
Conclusion
Glenn Frankel was editor of the Washington Post Magazine and was the paper's correspondent in South Africa in the mid-1980's. He wrote a book entitled: "Rivonia's Children: Three Families and the Cost of Conscience in White South Africa." The Jerusalem Report reviewed his book in the February 28tyh, 2000 edition. One of the three families he interviewed was Hilda and Rusty Bernstein. Frankel ends (his book) with Hilda Bernstein's thoughtful comment: "The meaning of life is not a fact to be discovered, but a choice that you make about the way you want to live." I saved this article just for that quote. "The meaning of life is not a fact to be discovered, but a choice that you make about the way you want to live."
May we hear the ultimate questions.
May we ponder them these holy days.
May we respond with heart and soul.
May we affirm the meaning of life every day of our lives.
A wise person once wrote: "What we are is God's gift to us;
What we do is our gift to God."
L'Shana Tova, Metukah, Mutzlachat, u'merutze ttekatevu
May we be inscribed for a good, sweet, successful and meaningful year. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.