Community Blog

Gut Yontif! We embark on our ten day journey through the soul tonight. Some of us may have been preparing for this journey since Selichot last weekend, or throughout the previous month of Elul, and some may just be along for the ride. But whether you’ve done deep soul work or whether it was just hard enough to get yourself out here tonight, we are on this journey together, and each of us has our expectations for the outcomes of these ten days. What we will do to immerse in the season, how we will make teshuvah, what it will feel like at the end of Yom Kippur, how will the next year be better than the last. These moments of transition in time, the turning point in the cycles of the year and our individual lives are filled with anxiety and excitement. Most of all, whether we realize it or not, I think they are filled with hope. 

Throughout this Elul I've been sitting with a simple phrase that was said to me recently and resonated deeply with me. Hope is a choice. Sometimes situations seem hopeless, but we choose to hope anyway. We hope that even when we feel like giving up, things will turn out okay, and we hope that especially when we put in the effort, all our goals and dreams come to fruition. If we choose to nurture those sparks of hope, to tend to them by putting in the work to make our dreams come true, we are far more likely to be rewarded for our efforts, and even when things still don’t work out as we hoped, at least we will know we did everything we could to make it happen. 

So take a moment now, as we immerse ourselves in the spirit of teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah, to think about what it is you are hoping for in 5783. I am hoping for a year of more equitable rights for our citizenry, progress on the social tide and a farewell to old-fashioned values that harm people I love. I am also hoping for more patience, understanding, and personal strength. Sometimes, I find myself feeling daunted by the enormity of the world’s problems and I want to burn it all down or I want to learn how to turn a blind eye to it myself. This slow work of actually making progress where progress is available is so painstaking and heavy. But it is also important and worth it. And since I know I can’t really turn it away, I choose to hope for movement on the issues I care about, and I choose to nurture that hope by committing myself to advocacy and fierce love. 

The Talmud relates a story about two rabbis, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and his son, Rabbi Elazar. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai spoke critically of the Roman government, which was reported to the authorities. The Roman emperor sentenced Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his son, Rabbi Elazar, to death so they hid in a cave where they studied Torah day and night while being nourished by a carob tree and spring of water which had miraculously appeared in the cave. After living twelve years alone in the cave, the emperor died and the death sentence was lifted. Elijah the prophet came to the cave and told Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and Rabbi Elazar that it was safe to leave the cave. They emerged from the cave, and saw people who were plowing and sowing. They were upset that the people were not more invested in the study of Torah. The Talmud then tells us that Rabbi Shimon and his son Rabbi Elazar burned up the farm with their EYES. So you see, the original Jewish Laser Beams weren’t in space, they were shot from the eyeballs and souls of angry rabbis who felt betrayed that their people weren’t committed to Jewish life and community. A Divine Voice emerged and said to them: “Did you emerge from the cave in order to destroy My world? Return to your cave!” They again went and sat there for twelve months, as that is the length of time that the wicked in Gehenna are judged before moving on to Olam HaBa. Surely their sin was atoned in that time. A Divine Voice emerged again and said to them: “Emerge from your cave.” They emerged. This time, everywhere that Rabbi Elazar would strike with his eye-lasers, Rabbi Shimon would heal. Rabbi Shimon said to Rabbi Elazar: “My son, you and I suffice for the entire world, as the two of us are engaged in the proper study of Torah.” 

Rabbi Elazar’s actions may have been over the top, but we see that he was still not ready to choose hope or to choose to put in the effort to nurture his hopes. He had certain expectations of how the world should be and when they didn’t match reality, he lashed out. He despaired of his community and gave up on them, feeling that they had already given up on him. His father, though similarly angry the first time they emerged from the cave, took the time in the cave to reflect and prepare for the world as it is, so that when they emerged again, he had chosen hope, and he had chosen to nurture his hopes, to heal wounds in the world. It seems a better use of that healing power may have been to assuage his son’s despair and stop Rabbi Elazar’s strikes from the source, but I guess we all find ways to help where we can. 

Since I started ruminating on the statement “Hope is a choice,” I’ve started noticing the word “hope” is everywhere, and it’s a theme on many people’s minds this year. It’s been an incredibly hard two years, and although the pandemic has still not really ended, and so much in society has broken down further in Covid’s wake, there seems to be an attitude around those issues of picking ourselves up and getting ready to make changes in the world as it is, rather than mourning the world as it was or that we thought it would be. So now I’m noticing that “hope” seems very current in podcast titles, headlines, and on other people’s social media posts. In an episode of OnBeing with Krista Tippett where she was uncharacteristically quiet, her two guests Ai-jen Poo and Tarana Burke discussed “The Future of Hope.” They kept coming back to the idea that work plus hope plus grace equals miracles. I don’t know that I’m super comfortable with the term miracle, but I agree with the concept. We must choose to keep up our hopes in order to keep working for the better future we want, but we must also put in the work to keep our hopes alive and the change happening. And while we work and hope and hope to work and work to hope, we must also allow grace for others who are in different places on their own journeys, without letting their dissent or criticisms drag down the movement as a whole. When all these things come together, we eventually get to results, and we get to Tikkun Olam. 

One way to manifest hope is to bolster your local community spaces. The synagogue can be a special place to gather, communal prayer can be a balm for the soul, and a spiritual community can be like an extended family. But that only happens when all its members stay involved. It can’t be counted on to be here when you need that comfort and solace unless its members can be counted on to be here when they need it - and even when they think they don’t. Together we can build a vibrant kehillah kedosha (a holy community), and inspire one another to keep choosing hope. 

Yehuda Amichai wrote beautiful Hebrew poetry, some of the first to be written in modern/colloquial Hebrew in the 20th century. I came across one of his poems recently via another rabbi on a zoom brainstorming session for high holy day sermons. It’s called a “Poem without an End”:

Inside the brand-new museum

there’s an old synagogue.

Inside the synagogue

is me.

Inside me

my heart.

Inside my heart

a museum.

Inside the museum

a synagogue,

inside it

me,

inside me

my heart,

inside my heart

a museum

    We want to preserve our memories of our Jewish histories like a museum inside our hearts, but a synagogue should not be a museum. In order to create more memories for the next generation to cherish in the museum of their heart, in order for us to become a part of Jewish history, the synagogue must be alive and active. Its heart must beat with hope, and our hearts must be in it for that to be true. The return investment in hope, grace, and a vibrant community cannot be understated. 

    May 5783 be a year where we all choose hope. Even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard. May we choose hope, may we find grace, may we do the work, and may we be blessed with comfort, justice, and peace. Amen and Shana Tova.