Rosh Hashanah Sermon - Tomorrow's Troubles and What We Should Do Today

How we all doing? So strange, I know. But I feel a deep sense of privilege to be here with those of you who are in this room. Thank you. And equally, I’m so touched to know there are hundreds of members – and guests and wanderers - taking this opportunity to join us on-line. Hello, thank you. I hope in these storm-tossed times, these services have been a moment of healing and beauty and inspiration for you. So what are we supposed to do? For Rosh Hashanah, for life? That’s been the big question; for the parents of tiny babies who’ve been trying to work out how to arrange Brit Milah, to the wedding couples working out whether to postpone or reconfigure, to our oldest members – working out whether it’s safe to leave the house. Here’s what I’m hoping for, aiming for, in these sermons, and my Jewish engagement, in this year to come. I am looking to share insights from our remarkable tradition – a tradition that has seen plagues and pandemics worse than this, come and go. I’m looking for the insights that can help us reconfigure our lives right now, and into our future. I’m looking for the insights that can help us live better and be stronger in the face of all this. I’m going to start, today, with the most famous triplet of our Rosh Hashanah liturgy Teshuva, tefilah and tzedakah usually translated as penitence, prayer and charity. First the bad news, these things won’t save you. You can do a ton of all kinds of good stuff and still suffer horribly, and that’s sad and frustrating, And I’m sorry. But that line in the Unataneh Tokef that seems to suggest we can change our decrees by doing these things, just doesn’t say that. The decree, the prayer says, is going to be the decree. Who shall live, who shall die? Not in my hands, not in yours either. Mi baEish, mi beMagefah Who by forest fire, who by viral plague, Mi Yanua uMi Yanuach who in distress, and who in rest. Those decrees will be what they will be. Maavirin Et Roah HaGezeirah just doesn’t mean annul the evil decree, that would be a different Hebrew phrase. Rather the Hebrew means take away the pain of the decree. It’s worth doing good things not to change what is happening to us, but to change how we respond to our circumstances, regardless of what we face. I’m aware, this idea might not sound so cheery in a pandemic, But bear with me. It gets better. The Talmud teaches “al tatzar tzarat machar - Don’t suffer from tomorrow’s suffering [today].” It’s so easy to obsess over with tomorrow’s trouble. What if this, what if that? “Ki lo taedah ma yalid yom – you don’t know what tomorrow brings.” There’s a kind of evil we bring into our own lives by an over-preoccupation in ‘what if?’ And in so many ways it’s a fools’ errand to disappear into the concern about decrees we cannot know and cannot alter. It’s not worth worrying greatly about dyes that are cast. Al tatzar tzarat machar - Don’t suffer from tomorrow’s trouble [today]. Those decrees, who by fire and who by virus, I mean stay safe, wash your hands, eat your greens, but don’t get consumed worried about futures that we cannot control and cannot know. Instead why not try this, why not worry about Teshuvah, Tefilah and Tzedakah? Maybe these are the things that can expand our consciousness, our sense of possibility and allow to find a sweetness, even if the decrees are not what everything we wish them to be. For none of us is getting the decrees we wish for this year. Maybe rather than relentlessly updating our news feeds to learn just how the R-number has ebbed or flowed, we would be better of considering Teshuvah; our relationships with our fellows, and our creator. Maybe we would be better off apologising for our errors and striving to transform our behaviour so we engage in the world with the best of ourselves? Improving our relationships with our fellows and our creator is how to find a sweetness in our encounters with the others who populate our existence; our lovers, our family, our friends, colleagues, strangers and even before God. This isn’t a good thing to do because of some kind existential deal-making in the hope of a change in decree, but because improving our relationships with our fellows and our creator is how we face what comes with dignity and decency. Maybe we should spend more time worrying about Teshuvah today than worrying about the worry of tomorrow. Maybe rather than getting swallowed into an ennui driven by yet another day of miserable news, we would be better off considering Tefilah; our ability to pray. The Hebrew word has the same root as the word Peleh ¬– wonder. To pray is to stand in wonder at the world. In that slightly old-fashioned, but lovely phrase, to pray is called to, “count our blessings.” My, this food that sustains me, this breath that moves in and out of me unbidden, this ability to wake another day – how exquisite, how precious, how grateful I should be. And how often do I stop to express this gratitude for what I have already? The rabbis say a person should make 100 blessings a day. Or maybe it would be enough to pause one day a week from the seeking, to express wonderment in prayer. Or maybe even that is too frequently, in which case let this be the day to allow our gratitude and amazement that we are here at all to move us to prayer. And if the language of the prayers of this book feels alienating, don’t be distracted, these prayers are really just a framework for our ability to share the prayers of our heart. And the prayer of the heart can be shared in any language – the prayer of the heart just needs to contain an expression of gratitude and an awareness of a grace visited on us. How would that kind of prayer change us? Would it change our decrees? Who knows, I suspect not, but it would, I am sure, transform us into more gracious and happier and sweeter human beings, regardless of the decrees we face. Maybe we should spend more time worrying about Tefilah today than worrying about the worry of tomorrow. Maybe rather than be beaten down by this gnawing sense that everything going to hell in a handcart – and goodness it’s easy to feel everything is going to hell in a handcart – we would be better of performing acts of Tzedakah; doing things to make this world a more just place. There are as many ways to do Tzedakah as there are experiences of injustice in the world. Giving money is good, so is capacity building, simple acts of kindness, political organising, reducing/reusing/recycling. We speak on Rosh Hashanah of a Heshbon HaNefesh – an account of the soul – the image is a weighing scale. The call to pursue justice – Tzedek, Tzedek Tirdof - asks us to do enough to balance out our gifts with our contribution to the rectification of the injustices of the world. The best way, for what it’s worth, to feel less weighed down by our own sorrows, is to do something for someone else. The best way to feel less bowed down by the mess we are all in, is to be engaged in mending and lifting and healing and forging a brighter future. Making other people’s life better is a wonderful way to feel less aggrieved by the evils of our own decrees. And any of us can do it. I know many of you do it all the time – you tend to be happiest members of this community I know. Maybe we should spend more time worrying about Tzedakah today than worrying about the worry of tomorrow. The delight we take in our lives needn’t be contingent on the decrees we face. The quality of our existence needn’t be determined by the regulations that govern life in a time of coronavirus. Our worth as human beings isn’t a factor of how much we have or who we can and can’t sit next to. That’s not to say that this time is easy. It’s not. It’s a miserable time and a lonely time and I hate all of that. But we can still find joy and still find power and still prove worthy of the gifts of our lives through acts of Teshuvah, Tefilah and Tzedakah. And in that, this year is no different from all those years that have gone before when we’ve stood as Jews, on this sacred day, to work on ourselves, using the insights and the gifts of our tradition to be worthy of the year we seek. It’s not supposed to be easy, it’s never been supposed to be easy. But it is holy, and it is of tremendous value. Our very lives are on the line. Shabbat Shalom Shannah Tovah