Erev Yom Kippur
Erev Yom Kippur 2023
Rabbi Cy Stanway
I love playing around with words and expressions. There is always insight to be gleaned by dwelling on a word or a phrase and creating a midrash on the fly. For instance, in Hebrew the word for king is, of course, Melech. The word for clown is lemach. Same letters just the last two are in a different order. So what is the difference between a king and clown? Oftentimes, the difference is hard to see.
Or take the expression ‘Bless you’ said after we sneeze. Why do we need to offer someone a blessing after they sneeze? No one is really sure but scholars suggest a couple of ideas.
The first idea is that the violence of a sneeze expelled the soul and so by saying ‘bless you’ the soul would swim back into the person and they would remain alive.
The second possibility, and much gloomier, comes from the time of Black Death in the 14th Century, a malady that was almost always fatal. The term ‘bless you’ during this time was a generic way of saying ‘see you later’ and served as a benediction to someone who may never see again. Gloomy, but it makes sense.
And speaking of ‘bless you’ – what better greeting to give to each other at the beginning of the year. During this holiday season ‘shanna tova’ – have a good year. But it seems to me that ‘bless you’ would be perfectly appropriate, as well.
We know how the new year can bless us. It can bless us with peace, prosperity, health, healing, and all the things that make life comfortable, meaningful, and fulfilling.
And as we want the year to bless us, we know that blessings don’t just fall from above – they are the culmination of many events coming together that benefit us. So if there must be people behind these events and it is people who, indirectly, are the ones who have blessed us through their empathy, support, creativity, and so on. The question is ‘exactly how do we bless the new year?’ How do we journey through this world with all its tzoris and heartache, frustration and sadness, and still be a blessing?
To look for the affirmation of being a blessing, oddly, we don’t look at a text that is all rainbows and unicorns. Reciting a psalm that speaks joyously of how terrific everything is of limited value. Anyone can sing a happy tune when everything is coming up roses.
Rather, to gain a bit of wisdom, we need to search the text for something when things were terrible. We need to find the saddest guy on planet at the time and that would be the prophet Jeremiah who is said to have written the book of Lamentations. If you don’t know it, it is a short biblical book written, as it says, ‘by the waters of the Babylon’ after the Babylonians kicked the Jews out of the Land of Israel and expelled them to what is now modern day Iraq. This first exile was a crushing blow.
And yet, in the middle of this profound depression and destruction of all that gave Jeremiah his identity as a Jew, he says three words that begin to dispel the darkness. אוּלַ֖י יֵ֥שׁ תִּקְוָֽה׃ – ‘Perhaps there is hope.’ With these three words, Jeremiah is telling us that all is not lost and that his and our Jewish identity is not simply to be found in a building or on a land, but rather from within among our people.
Ulai – “Perhaps” – is the word we need to key in on. It is not really difficult word to understand and it only appears 12 times or so in the entire Tanach, the Bible. We see it when Abraham is negotiating with God about the fate of Sodom and Gommorah. We see it when Jonah tries to escape from God and, asleep below deck and oblivious to everything going on around him, the captain wakes him up and pleads with him to plead with ‘his God’ that ‘perhaps [his God] will find him worthy to stop the storm.’
There are a couple of dozen uses of the term in bible but they all have one thing in common: the possibility of something else in the mind of the speaker. Very simply, אוּלַ֖י – Perhaps – reflects infinite possibilities and does not confine us to a predetermined fate. When Jeremiah says ‘Perhaps there is hope,’ this is not the lament of a beaten man who gives voice to depression. It is the voice of someone who reassures his people that looking only at their present circumstances will confine them to that circumstance. Without the hope, the Tikvah, we are slaves to the present as are our children. אוּלַ֖י is the affirmation of hope because it teaches us that there are infinite possibilities ahead.
But אוּלַ֖י also has a deeper meaning, as well. ‘Perhaps’ reminds us that we are not completely in control of our lives. Though we can prepare, life throws too many curveballs at us and sometimes we get hit. On Yom Kippur, we are confronted with the truth we don’t always want to acknowledge; that we are unsure of whether our name is in the metaphoric Book of Life.
The second part of Jeremiah’s אוּלַ֖י יֵ֥שׁ תִּקְוָֽה׃ is ‘yeish’ – there is. The obvious opposite, of course, is, ‘there isn’t.’ And seeing the world as an ‘is’ or ‘isn’t’ is a choice we make on Yom Kippur. Or, to put it another way, Jeremiah teaches us that our attitude determines our altitude and how we approach our darkest moments is often a choice that determines how soon we can emerge – scathed, yes, but alive and functioning. When Jeremiah utters ‘yesh’ – there is – he is sitting by the waters of Babylon, his home, country, and life in literal shambles, and he still has hope that things will turn out well. A good prophet does that. That’s how they got their books in the bible. The lousy prophets offer no hope – their books never made it.
American society and too many of us individually have lost our sense of ‘yesh’ – there is. It is instead filled with ‘ein’ – there isn’t. Dourness and anger have overtaken us and blanketed us with negativity; negativity toward anyone not like us; negativity toward the climate; and a negativity toward the future. For example: 50% of all Gen Z and Millennials don’t want children because it simply costs too much.[i] Add to that the uncertain political climate, the stripping of rights, the overt hatred people express openly, it is not surprising that young people don’t want to have children. Younger people are accepting, tolerant, inviting and hopeful. But today they don’t see enough ‘yesh’ but plenty of ‘ein.’ Simply put, they generally don’t want to bring children into a world of ‘ein.’
But young people are not the only ones with a sense of ‘ein’ – a sense of missing something, of inadequacy. In 1978, a brand new term entered the secular lexicon: imposter syndrome, that psychological state where which people doubt their skills, talents, or accomplishments and have a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as frauds. Despite external evidence of their competence, those experiencing this phenomenon do not believe they deserve their success or luck. I can’t be sure, but there must be a river of ‘ein’ just out of sight of their vision, yet always present.
It is the weight of pessimism and negativity in the story of the teacher who was holding a glass of water. She wanted her students to give it a description. Everyone expected they’d be asked the “half empty or half full” question. Instead, with a smile on her face, she inquired: “How heavy is this glass of water?”
Answers called out ranged from 8 oz. to 20 oz.
She then said, “The absolute weight doesn’t matter. It depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute, it’s not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I’ll have an ache in my arm. If I hold it for a day, my arm will feel numb and paralyzed. In each case, the weight of the glass doesn’t change, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.” She continued, “The belief there is no hope, is like that glass of water. Think about ‘ein’ for a while and nothing happens. Think about the ‘ein’ a bit longer our arms begin to hurt. And if you think about it all day long, we will feel paralyzed — incapable of doing anything.”
And it is that ‘ein’ that is so corrosive to a shanna tova, a good new year. It is the ‘ein’ that makes our souls yearn for something else.
What do you see when you look into your own soul? Are you looking for ‘yesh’ or ‘ein’? Are we looking at everything everyone says with suspicion and dubious intent? There are times we have to, obviously, but Jeremiah showed us that it doesn’t have to be like that all the time. In the midst of a new exile to Babylon which he ascribed to a form of punishment for the Jewish people by God, he did not say, ‘Ha! You deserved it!’ Rather he tells his Jews, ‘Even the wall of Babylon shall fall[ii] – he is telling them and telling us, there is a future.
Teshuvah, the watchword of this season is often translated as “repentance” but is better understood as “return.” Return to what you might ask? Rav Kook, one of the greatest Jewish mystics of our time teaches that, we suffer from a kind of amnesia, forgetting the essence of our own souls. Everything becomes confused and in doubt. The primary teshuvah, that which lights up the darkness, is when we return to the root of our soul – then we immediately return to God, the soul of souls.[1]
In other words, Yesh is our true nature and teshuvah is finding our way home to yesh, a sense that we are enough, animated with divinity, special, capable of fulfilling our own unique missions in the world.
To embrace the promise of the future, it takes a kind of teshuvah, a turning of ourselves from what we don’t have to what we do. And not just materially, but especially spiritually.
We have now arrived at the third word, and the root of this holy day – tikvah/hope.
In the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago there is a piece of art called “America’s Joyous Future.” The artist took a church bulletin board and turned it into art. It said:
EVENINGS AT 7 IN THE PARISH HALL
Mon. Alcoholics Anonymous
Tues. Abused Spouses
Wed. Eating Disorders
Thur. Say No To Drugs
Fri. Teen Suicide Watch
Sat. Soup Kitchen
Sunday Sermon 9 a.m.
“America’s Joyous Future”
What was the artist saying? The ‘ein’ person sees this as proof that all life is filled with hopeless and intractable problems. The ‘yesh’ person sees exactly the opposite. The ‘ein’ person sees “America’s Joyous Future” as an indictment of churches and synagogues that preach pie in the sky in their worship services while, at the same time, remaining oblivious to the real hurts and needs of people. The ‘yeish’ person sees it as a sign that our congregations are deeply immersed in human suffering, that our doors are wide open to the pathologies of the times. ‘Ulai yeish’ – perhaps there is something that will ultimately emerge for the good.
There is the tikvah, the hope we make, and also hope as a religious impulse: faith. “Faith in what?” Some of you will ask, “A God I don’t believe in?”
I get it. I really do. My “rabbihood” has not isolated me from the same struggles that many of you have expressed to me over the years. And yet ulai, perhaps we are cutting ourselves off from yesh, something important (dare I say essential) abundant and brimming with tikvah/hope?
Could our ancestors have been that wrong, that deluded?
Can we suspend disbelief for a moment and allow ourselves to rest in the arms of the Eternal?
If that is too much for us, can we at least grasp the hands of our ancestors and the 3,000+ years of Jewish experience, singed by tragedy but brimming with hope? Those are our ancestors, and they are here with us tonight. When we rise for the Amida, the 2,000-year-old “standing prayer,” they stand with us. When we sing Avinu Malkeinu, they sing with us. When we recite Kaddish, they cry with us. Their hand is outstretched toward us. Can we not grasp it, at least for a moment?
According to Kabbalah, the beginning of the new is clouded in mystery because on at the beginning of the month the moon is hidden from view.
‘Perhaps there is hope’ is how we Jews ought to respond to the world around us on the cusp of the new year. But it should not be said as a question but as a statement of fact. A statement not of ‘ain’ but of ‘yeish.’ We exist as a people because those who came before us who knew that perhaps there was hope. They were right.
We are their hope. And today, let each of us renew our hope, firmly rooted in the hope of the past and make this a year of ‘yeish.’
[1] Ulai Yesh Tikvah / Perhaps There is Hope – by George Gittleman | The American Rabbi
[i] https://www.newsweek.com/gen-z-millennials-put-off-having-children-same-reason-1794231
[ii] Jewish Publication Society, Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1985), Je 51:44.
